Those of you following the Spot tracker might have seen that we are still in Cienfuegos Bay. We arrived back from Havana with the intention of using the weekend to prepare and then head for the archipelago on the south coast of Cuba where we had much fun mangrove hopping in January 2013.
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| Our neighbour, the Stahlratte, whom we also saw anchored in the San Blas, Panama, last summer. Its claim to fame is that it carries tourists and their motorcycles. |
You should know by now never to trust the plans of sailors. Weather changes and boat hiccups are the normal reasons for fits, starts and delays, but this time - this time it was the gut of the Crew who has wrecked havoc and changed plans.
Only the Crew has been affected, so the culprit was most likely the ice cubes in two lovely mojitos that were served in the bar on Saturday evening when the Captain wisely chose to drink beer. That or questionable deep fried meat (described by the waiter as chicken, but by a patron at a table nearby as 'Cuban dog') caused the Crew to closely examine the inside of Diva for the last four days, particularly the inside of the head.
So, more information than you really wanted, but until everything is 'solid' again, we aren't going anywhere.
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| We could hear his feet tapping on the deck as he darted back and forth looking for fish. |
On a more cheery note, we've been watching a long necked bird use our boat as a fishing platform. A couple of evenings ago, he caught a small fish - small to us, but almost twice the size of his head. The fish wiggled wildly in his beak and was able to escape. Then the fish flopped around on the deck, the long neck bird chased after it on skimpy little legs, and finally stabbed it through the eye and killed it, the fish stuck awkwardly on the end of its beak the way a troublesome bit of meat ends up on a chopstick when you get too annoyed to hold them properly. The bird, however, was more skilled with his tool then some people I know, and with a few well timed jerks of his head swallowed the fish, to our cheers from the cockpit. We were a bit afraid that he'd be too fat to fly, but with a few unsteady hops he took off, probably in search of dessert.
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| But why is he called the "long-necked" bird, you ask? His neck looks so stubby. |
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| But if there is a fish, then the neck stretches out, further and ... |
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| ...further, beyond the angle of the camera - but I promise you, there is a long neck AND he got a fish. |
We're keeping ourselves entertained, drinking lots of water and one of us is eating bland food, reading lots of books and just generally enjoying watching the life on the water around us. Once again, there are worse places to be stuck...
(Awesome bird photo credits to the Captain.)
