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Monday, December 02, 2007
Vivorillos Cays, Honduras
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Still here, still rolling at anchor,
waiting for an opening, which Chris Parker, the weather
guru, says we will have tomorrow as the wind slows and
shifts more northerly and the seas calm down to 3-5 feet
toward Providencia.
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We have a feeling that the “incessant
begging” that Capt. Raines speaks of in his guidebook may
actually be the local fishermen, who boldly paddled up to us
yesterday in little fiberglass cayucos and offered to trade
us fresh shrimp for gasoline. Three or four pounds of
shrimp for about 2-1/2 gallons of gasoline. Not a bad
trade. We took the tank out of the dinghy, passed the guys
a funnel and a hose, and asked that they leave us about half
the tank. You could tell who the captain was by who was
sucking on the siphon and who wasn’t.
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Today they were back – with fresh (like
right out of the water) conch and lobster that they cleaned
off the back of the boat, and traded for cigarettes and
rum. So it was fresh scampi with linguine for dinner. |
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So here’s the haul: Lobsters – 16.
Conch – 4. Shrimp – 4 pounds. Perfect helmet conch shells
– 2. Conversation – half an hour/45 minutes. Cost: 4
packs of Marlboros, 1 bottle of Captain Morgan rum, 1 bottle
of bad tequila, and the gasoline from yesterday.
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Keeping Capt. Raines’ anecdotes in mind, we
boldly said our names and shook hands with each of them,
asking their names as well, while Ole took a few pictures.
We figured if we exchanged names and took pictures, any
scheme of robbing/mugging a visiting cruiser might be harder
to implement. Plus, taking the time to chat with them about
their life and their work and sharing that Ole used to fish
in Alaska helped us build a bit of a bridge. It’s that
karma thing.
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Tonight it was improvised conch ceviche.
Neither Ole nor I have ever dealt with a conch – we’ve
bought fritters (Alabama Jack’s in Key Largo) and conch
chowder (15th street Fisheries in Ft.
Lauderdale), but had no clue about how to dispatch a
monovalve of such weight. So after consulting the trusty
Joy of Cooking and finding the first listing under “the best
way to eat fresh conch” was “raw,” we sliced them thin,
splashed on the lime juice, and added celery, cucumber,
tomatoes, red onion, bell pepper, and a dash of red pepper
flakes – and yummed our way through at least a quart of
salad.
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What incessant begging?
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A big however – we traded away a bit too
much gasoline to spend a whole lot of time in the dinghy.
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We did make a trip to the bird end of the
cay, and walked among nesting boobies, some with young ones
just coming out of their downy stage, and fearless enough to
let us get within 3 feet. We packed our trusty Pentax in a
zip-lock bag, took three pictures, and poof. No batteries.
There we were, in a truly National Geographic moment, caught
with our batteries down. Here are the only pictures we
got. I guess a career as a wildlife photographer is out of
the question.
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The one flaw in the excursion to the cay
was noticing all of the plastic junk piled up on the ocean
side of what we considered a wild reef: water and
soft-drink bottles, flip-flops, six-pack rings, Styrofoam.
More than just a little. Here we are, 30 miles offshore,
with the next land somewhere close to the Leeward Islands,
and there’s all this junk. Yes, we know that it is illegal
to dump plastic of any kind into the ocean. But we are
educated people. When we were in Norway this summer, I
noticed the same thing on the beach at Ole’s house. As a
species, we’re not only fouling our nest, but the nests of
these magnificent birds and reef creatures too.
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I hear that we’re planning to take off
tomorrow morning at a reasonable hour, and Ole’s devised a
short cut to shave about 25 miles (4 hours) off the trip.
We’ll consult Chris the Guru, and see what develops.
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Jan the Webmeister
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