BACK IN THE SAINTS

I was up early this morning and the boat was surrounded by a huge school of bait fish. Of course that meant I had a close up view of many seabirds harvesting their breakfasts from the school. It was interesting to watch the different fishing techniques, the pelican's ungainly splash dive, some kind of guillemot that dives deep with tucked in wings, but most impressive to me was the booby who flies fast millimeters from the surface then makes a very shallow dive for a split second, just long enough to snag the target fish, then bursts out and flies off. It is almost as it can fly in water.

However flying above all the harvesters were the pirates of the Caribbean, the Frigate birds. As soon as a bird had a fish in it's beak it would be harassed into dropping it and the Frigate would turn and pick it out of the air.

It just needed the music from Top Gun to be the perfect dogfighting, combat flying morning. However it would have been criminal to disturb the peace and tranquility of this quiet anchorage.

However someone had no qualms about doing so and soon heart rending cries progressed to screams of despair, deprivation, hunger and abandonment. My neighbors in the anchorage have a 6 month old baby on board and it wanted it's breakfast and it wanted it NOW! I had given dad Hinkle a lift into town in my dink in Deshaies and knew that they had conceived the baby on board somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic and while not part of their original cruising plan he was now crew and chief alarm clock.

What do you know? The little blighter woke up another baby on a French boat and for a few moments there was a duet going.

I needed bread so popped round to the main town here to discover people pollution. The ferries from Pointe a Pitre had just disgorged their cargo of pink people wearing holiday clothes. I guess there is at least one cruise ship in.

Still they have not discovered the free wifi at Sole Mio and there are no brown bodies wearing faded clothes from the liveaboard boats so it is fast at the moment.


I hope I can get back into my favourite anchorage but it is a popular spot and I think some boats make it down here from Pointe a Pitre most weekends.
Mind you I don't THINK these guys came quite that far but who knows what the crazy French sailors will try. There were three in that tent on the Hobie last night.

Next stop is Plymouth in Dominica but at the moment the trades have too much South in them for it to be laid. So I will just have to wait here, scrub the bottom, watch the sunsets with a G&T in hand and snorkel my buns off till it goes to East at least.