We moved the boat a few miles west and anchored up off the island of Orduptarboat in the Coco Bandero Cays.
Not like my human need an excuse to drink beer….
But they have a tradition aboard that ‘upon making a new port safely’ the boat must be toasted with a frosty beer.
Our guest Steve looks terribly distressed by the practice.
But never fear, we are not at this anchorage just to drink beer!
Our guide book told us that the fishing here would be good on the surrounding reefs.
Unfortunately the area has been over fished since our guide book was published. With the introduction of outboard motors to the Kuna Indians, they are spreading out to the more isolated cays. There was even a family who had set up a fishing camp on the island in front of us. The reefs were still very pretty, but the fish very shy. We even tried with the fishing rod with no luck.
There is always a bit of ‘house keeping’ to be done. This week it is hair cuts for everyone aboard. With no ‘beauty parlors’ at hand it is ‘do it yourself’ aboard the Spirit of Argo’. Kids do not try this at home.
My design team
How many barbers have this kind of view from the chair?
We also got a visit from our second published author this cruising season. Roy Starkey rowed over to see if we were in fact English. He had found many boats with British registry in the Caribbean to be in fact owned by skippers of other nationalities.
He was a very interesting fellow to have a chat with. A solo sailor who had completed many circumnavigations of the globe. On one of those circumnavigation he seemed to have lost his shorts, because he came over in his underpants? We did not have the heart to enquire why.
But onward and upward. There are lots more islands for Steve to see. The sea has settled down now after those winds and we are going to whisk him north to the Holandes Cays.
Red sky at night promises sailors delight. Hopefully it will be a smooth passage for our move.
VISITORS VIEW
Though the reefs did appear over fished, even to a novice like me, I did get to further practice my snorkeling and was rewarded. Having moved into slightly deeper open water and some drops away from the side of my eye I caught a dark shape that looked like a substantive sized shark. It quickly moved away into deeper water so I was not entirely sure but a short while l had a full clear view of a nurse shark, 7′, swimming nearby. It did not rush off – it was my first time up close with a shark bigger than me. Though they are not dangerous the nurse shark is very dark in colour and broad – it looks the part and I was glad to have Cain in proximity for some reassurance that I was not about to have too close an encounter.
We also had a really clear night overnight and were out on deck watching the celestial show when our attention, almost simultaneously, was diverted to the water around us. Slightly confused at first it almost seemed that I could see the reflection of the stars onto the sea. Then I realized that these small patches of iridescent light around us were growing in number and flashing on and off. We were being treated to a fantastic display.
An intertwined, interconnected, underwater disco light show that we think was provided by the jellyfish. It was a magical moment – stars shining bright against the backdrop of clear skies, small beacon pin pricks in the giganticness of space mirrored in the seas around us by these smallest of creatures illuminating their own salty vastness.
It should also be mentioned that our international sailing author who visited did so not just in his underpants but that those garments had suffered an elastication malfunction so that he gave the appearance of a man combined of two different and incompatible forms. The top half your average older chap in a slightly open buttoned shirt, the bottom half the oldest and thinnest sumo wrestler you could see. Perhaps, given this, what is all the more amazing is that we all sat down and had a nice cup of tea together – though on reflection this may have just been a typically British response to the impending doom that awaited us all if the boat rolled too much and the elastication position prompted a true under carriage crisis!
