Octopus, fish and lobster

The eventual squall that were predicted finally arrived and we were ready for it but all we received was about 100 drops in 30 seconds while all the other clouds parted in front us and left us between them watching them empty out over the ocean, bummer. Our daily visitor was a Turtle now and then popping up just a few feet next to the boat to get some fresh air before disappearing again under or around the boat. What beautiful creatures. The wind has been blowing above 25 knots for a while now and since we needed to clean bottom and propeller we moved back to our old spot in the second anchorage. We were surprised to find 2 boats there plus a 4th one arrived later that day. We also found a weird algae bloom which under water looked like a light green cloud of gas and over the day it spread out even more. It did not look appealing to go swim in this but we did clean the bottom. We took the dinghy to the first anchorage where a big mangrove gave way to a channel. We followed it in and were amazed how the mangroves opened up to big lagoon. The booby nests with the white fluffy little birds were abundant here and totally protected from the wind. We trolled a lure along the mangroves and bingo a big mangrove snapper followed it with his lip pierced by the hook and before we knew it we had 3 more good size mangrove snappers wanting to get the same lip piercing, we found us a fine spot for fishing and found a good place for some of the fish in our freezer. After a wonderful fish dinner and another night of the wind howling through the rigging we decided we had enough of this. The rattling of the rigging and the screaming of Maxine our wind generator for almost 3 weeks now, not being able to sleep a night through; started to get to us so we fled this anchorage and dropped the hook in the first anchorage. Wow, what a difference! Protected behind the mangroves the wind dropped down to a pleasant 10 to 15 knots instead of the 20 to 25 knots and instead of a wind chop the water was flat calm, Ahhhhhhhhhh life is good again. The fisherman after two week finally came by again, they were laid up by the wind as well and talking to them I found out that their boat to release them here was overdue since two weeks. We gave them some weather update and they are realizing that they may be stuck here over ester instead of spending it with their family home in Isla Margarita. It's funny though how cruising has changed as these five guys brought a cell phone over to be charged. We boaters are now officially cell phone battery loading stations, CPBLS LOL. They also asked for some onions, flour and onoto (food coloring) which I just so happen to have. I asked them about the lobster and just a couple of hours later we bought 8 nice lobsters for 50 bucks. Sid also helped them fix their spear gun, I had made them a bread gave them ice cold water and found out about their families at home. What a nice bunch of guys, all were in the 29 year range with 1 to 3 kids all between 8 and 19 years old. They also gave us a present: an octopus! What am I going to do with an octopus, never cleaned or cooked one before. They laughed but showed me how to clean the pulpo and then hammered it to a pulp. They told me then to boil it in water for 40 minutes and make salad out of it. I cut some pieces aside and marinated them Hawaiian style with sesame oil and hot peppers, that was tasty but octopus after all is very tough. The rest of it I cooked in the pressure cooker for 20 minutes, cut it in pieces and made a marinade (red wine, vinegar, anchovy past, garlic, hot peppers, bay leave, capers) and marinated it. It actually came out very tasty. The heads of the lobster I baked in the oven first then made stock out of it and it so happened that they fishermen came by and I gave them half of the salad and soup. Can't wait to see them today to return the bowl and to find out how they like my first pulpo salad. For dinner we enjoyed cracking he lobster legs and antennas which were dipped in butter and garlic. This feels like good old time in the Sea of Cortez when we never knew what dinner was until we just came out of the water from snorkeling. Sid can't wipe the shitty grin of his face, life is good. OH Sid just announced that we did have some rain earlier, 30 Drops!!!

Strong Wind

The weather prediction had 30 plus knots of wind for the weekend and since John had a time schedule he decided to leave and sail straight to Curacao to miss the weather. It was great to catch up with him although only for a short time but we made the best out of it. He had up to 25 knots of wind but made it safe to Curacao, secured the boat there and is back in Florida on his tug boat working. We staid alone in this beautiful anchorage and the wind over the next 3 days kept getting stronger and blew 32 knots with gusts up to 37. We were nicely protected by the many reefs which break down the wind chop. Not much for snorkeling during the blows but we did venture ashore to explore the island and found the cruiser shrine, walked along the path which brought us to a window of an opening to the next anchorage ahead of us. The water was ankle deep for about 40 feet, then the shallow shelf dropped to an immediate 30/40 feet and the drastic color change of the water took our breath. Fairly close to the shelf was one of the four other anchored boats; a picture perfect scene. We then hiked back to the dinghy which by the way was tucked under the mangrove trees like in a cave open to both sides of the island. Above the mangrove boobies are taking care of their fluffy white babies. They are so cute especially when curiosity gets them to stand up on their wobbly and skinny legs and look at us with a goofy looking stare. The local fishermen came by offering two good size spotted grouper they revere as Mero and also to ask for some water. We couldn't say no to the nice grouper and also gave them several gallons of fresh water and put an order in for lobster, smaller lobster, the once they showed us were just way too big. Since we have some Bolivares left, one month worth of park fee for the Roques, we thought to support the local fishermen here and stock our freezer up with fish and lobster for rainy days.
The weekend was over, the wind still howling and the future prognoses didn't look much different and since it was too windy to even take the dinghy out Sid hid behind a good book or two while I battled some more mildew and got creative in the galley. Making fresh Yoghurt out of powder milk is easy and for the first time I placed the yoghurt in a cheese cloth and let it drain over night, result a very smooth and wonderful tasting cream cheese that was delicious with a few herbs, seasonings and garlic added, with the home baked Sourdough Rye bread. When the fridge gets empty and the fresh produce is disappearing I get really creative in the galley. With no cheese on board I was thinking about how to cook the cheese tortellini and going through my dry goods cabinet I found a package of blue cheese dressing, not seeing any vinegar in the ingredients I cooked up a Béchamel sauce and added the poweder of the Blue Cheese dressing and it made the most wonderful blue cheese sauce for the pasta. Next time I'll try it with potato Gnocchi.
Next to relaxing we've been watching the boobies playfully flying around Paradise, one especially kept picking up a floating mangrove seed and tossing and twirling it up into the air and trying to catch it at flight. When it would fall into the water he'd go back and pick it up again and kept practicing it over and over. To our dismay the much bigger frigate birds who by the way are thieves and bullies attack the poor boobies as soon as they catch a fish, the frigates then fly above them pick the booby behind the neck and toss them up into the air, trying to get them landing in the water on their backs. They do that over an over again until he Booby either looses it's pray, throws it back up or reaches the safety of the mangroves. I tell you they frigates are so mean.
Bill and Soon on Gaia found a little weather window to leave the Roques and rendezvous with us. We pulled anchor and joined them in the anchorage closest to the reef. To get there we had to maneuver Paradise through two narrow passages which wind around the two anchorages up from the one we were in. From here we could see the waves crashing on the other side of the island. Yet the same island yet again a total different and spectacular view. Together with Gaia we collected shells on the beach, did wonderful snorkeling on some of the abundant reefs, collected sea snails for dinners, burned trash on the beach, exchanged movies (we have so many we turned them into movie monsters as they watched about 3 to 4 per day), went through our book I keep with all the boat carts cruisers hand out and discovered how many they know as well and just had a wonderful time.
The wind finally died down a bit (17-20) for one day then it will be back to 25 plus so Gaia took the opportunity and got underway towards Bonaire. We love it so much here we decided to stay a bit longer and enjoy this Paradise some more with booby watching and snorkeling. The reefs are healthy looking, the fish plentiful, including some lonely turtles and the water is absolutely clear and the visibility amazing. Besides we still are looking for some lobsters. Other thing on the agenda is cleaning boat and hull including stainless steel and if we're lucky enough we should get some rain squalls the next couple days. Paradise is in desperate need of a good cleansing, even though we're in a clean environment you have no idea how much dust and salt gets stuck on everything.

The Remedy to cure Hiccups:
I know you probably think that this is just another one that will not work as I'm sure you've tried sipping water through a napkin or standing on your head while sipping water, holding your breath for several seconds and on and on to find out it does not work. Well, I tell you this one works, ready:

Eat 1 Teaspoon of Peanut Butter

Adios Roques and hallo Aves!!

Cayo de Agua is part of a little archipelago consisting of four islands along with many reefs, beautiful beaches, great snorkeling and excellent fishing. It is a delightful island with tall sand dunes, a palm grove, mangrove trees, lagoons and water holes. Walking along the mile long beach was beautiful and hiking up the dune trail to a lonely palm tree very painful as under the sand lots of burrs were hidden and buried them selves into our feet. Further down the beach we ventured inland this time with our crocks on and did find all the holes dug into the ground where the Amerindians got their fresh water. Still some of the holes bring up fresh water to this day. A bit further along the beach a sand spit connects Cayo Agua with West Cay which has one of the prettiest beaches I've ever seen including a lighthouse. You cant' take your eyes away from the contrast of the white sand and turquoise color of the water. In the afternoon we ventured out to the near by reef to snorkel and as we were getting ready in the dingy we noticed lots of black and blue tails surfacing on top of the reef, same as we saw in Tortuga island. As soon as we were in the water we snorkeled towards that part of the reef and were amazed to encounter about 30 parrot fish, most of them were black with cobalt blue heads but the amazing thing was their size, we have never seen parrot fish so huge 20 to 30 pounds and where is the camera when you need it. We had a great time. Since bad weather was on its way, 25 to 30 knots of wind we departed Los Roques with a bit of disappointment that we were not able to stay longer. The sail was lumpy bumpy to Aves de Barlavento but luckily only 30 miles. The wind blew anywhere from 12 to gusting 20 knots but the waves were what made it so uncomfortable. There is no swell action here just unorganized waves that pop up like wild peaks everywhere and mostly only 5 feet apart. They were up to 8 feet in heights. The waves turned us in any which way and the jib even managed to get wrapped around the stay. Took us a while to get it unfurled, pulled in and the staysail let out. The sky was overcast and we were worried not to be able to see the many reefs to get into the anchorage. But imagine that just as we arrived at the southern tip of the island the sun burned off all the clouds and all the blue colors of the water began to sparkle. When we rounded the corner to the Leeward side the water changed to an incredible cobalt blue and we followed the darker shades to our anchorage which was around 40 to 50 feet and winding its way through many very shallow reefs. We dropped anchor in front of the middle anchorage where high mangroves tower along the island where red footed boobies nest. The view is spectacular seeing the green mangroves, the light turquoise green water around our boat and about 100 yards in front of us just beyond a shallow reef a huge pond of cobalt blue water reaching to the outer reef. Isla de Aves are two separate little island archipelagos, separated by about 10 miles of deep water. The name was given due to the large number of birds that make them their home. The birds live in the dense mangroves on the larger island we are anchored in front. Barlavento has a horseshoe reef protecting the two islands and snorkeling and fishing we heard is excellent here. According to the weather we'll be here for a while.

Leaving the Roques

Its' been over two years since we met Irene und Otto on Ottifant and for the two days in Casqui we spent a lot of time catching up with them and met their friends Ines and Peppi on Captain Morgan, she's from Brazil and he's from Spain so between the six of us we spoke pretty much anything from Spanish, Portuguese, German, Swiss German and English, it was fun. We had a wonderful rack of lamb dinner on Ottifant, met on the beach for cocktails while cooling off in the water on noodles with a floating bar with champagne and beer and went for long walks along the beach. Sid and I had the feeling that we should move from Crasqui on the weekend but since we waited along with Ottifant for the fuel guy to arrive from Caracas we staid. Should have listened to our inner voices as the authorities check the islands around Grand Roque for new arrivals on Weekends and knocked on our boat to tell us to check in the following day. So early the next morning we pulled anchor and hoisted the sails and instead of sailing west to meet John we had to first sail to Grand Roques about 7 miles away. Check in procedure took about two hours as we had to walk to the very end of town to the Port Captain, he told us that we are a vessel in transit and can not stay in the Roques, power boats get one day and sail boats two. I guess they changed the law as the last boat we knew to be here left 3 weeks ago and were able to staid one month. It was a huge disappointment that we shared with a captain of a much bigger boat with 12 guests onboard who just arrived from along trip from Grenada to enjoy the Roques, they were also given one day. There were 3 more places to check in before we had to go back to him again and leave the paperwork with him. Then we rushed through the town to find a store for some fruits and veggies which we did. The produce was a bit on the wilted side but they did have flour and eggs which in PLC I could not find regularly. Then we hit the only Internet here which was very new but the connection very slow, it took me 46 minutes to open 3 of 136 emails. (With that all of you who are sending us forwarding emails and jokes, pleeeease hold them until we have Internet again, only 5 of the 136 emails were not jokes or forwarding things).
With the thought of visiting Grand Roque last I didn't bring my camera, should have listened to my inner voice again. This place is really cute, very clean with narrow paths of sandy ground, just charming. After we got all done we races back to the boat, pulled anchor and hoisted sails again and headed towards the west side of the Roques. We arrived mid afternoon in Cayo de Agua one of the two most SW island in the Roques where John on Tazzady arrived one hour prior to us. Another good reunion and Paradise is stocked up again with lots of fruits and vegetables including more Rum for Sid. Gustav unfortunately couldn't make it but he sent us lots of papayas and limes from his garden and some wonderful German sausages, thank you Gustav. Jim on Three Keys sent along a good bottle of Casique for Sid as well, thank you Jim.
So here we are in Cayo de Agua for one day before we will leave the Roques for the Aves.
Anybody who is thinking to coming to the Roques should have a National Zarpe from the Port Captain from wherever they leave, but you cannot check out of Venezuela from the Roques so you have to go back to check out.

Casqui Island

We were lucky we left Tortuga when we did as the first night the wind was blowing at least 20 all night long while we were safely tucked in behind the reef near the Boca de Sebastopol. It would have made for a very rough crossing.
A small mangrove overgrown island separated us from the reef and as far as the eye could reach there was nothing but waves breaking over the reef with a thundering roar. A wreck of a once big fishing vessel stranded on the treaturous reef added to the atmosphere. Behind the rocky reef shore the reef ebbed out to a flat sandy area with occasional coral heads the water was anywhere from ankle deep to shoulder deep and about 100 to 150 yards wide then it came to a abrupt halt and plummet down to 30 feet of water the color there was incredible as it went from a light turquoise green to a dark emerald green just like that and that color change snakes along the entire reef for miles and miles. The reef then gave way to a deep body of water anywhere from 300 to 500 yards and was interrupted by yet another narrower reef and behind yet another body of deeper water and then bigger mangrove over grown islands. Behind those island lies the flats of the Roques which is claimed to be the best bone fishing capital of the world. The ever changing watercolor keeps you in ah. The exploring of the reef was fun and at times we had to pull the dinghy as it was too shallow. Watching the sunsets while heads of turtles popped occasionally out of the water, some schools of fish gathered under the boat and the far distant roar of the waves made this such a relaxed atmosphere. We spent three days in this bliss and only saw a few small boats blasting past dropping tourists off on some of the little sandy islands on the outer reef for the day, other then that we were all alone.

We also had some repairs to do, in we I meant Sid. We lost our wind instrument on the way here so Sid had to climb up there to get it. Out of all things a long hair was wrapped around the baring and I'm telling you I never, ever climb up to the top of the mast, it's beyond me how my long hair got up there?!!! Sid had a wonderful few from up there and took some awesome photos. Later on when I looked at them I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw a round Jacuzzi on our deck, wait a minute..oh.. blond moment it's the radar!

By the way the Roques is a national park and lies about 70 miles north of Caracas and are the most visited outer islands of Venezuela. From here it's only a short hop to the Aves and from there to Bonaire. It's an unbelievable cruising area of about 15 by 25 miles of protected reef with many little islands to be reached within an easy day sail.

As we headed up the reef we follow the inner reef for about 8 miles and kept an eye out for the many smaller reefs popping up anywhere. Knowing of all the hidden dangers you're at first a bit nervous but then you realize the water is very clear and the sun will reveal every little hidden rock or reef there is and they are easily detected to the changing of color. Sid stood up on the boom to see the hidden reefs better and we coasted along the reef with amazement, it was so beautiful. After the 8 miles the reef gives way to a really large body of water and about 2 miles across is the main island Grand Roques. We turned left and headed towards Crasqui Island the favorite island for Venezuelan boaters. Thought we'd head there before the weekend as it usually fills up with 3 story gin palace of power boats. We had to dodge some occasional shallow areas then followed Long Reef and finally around Isla Augustin to our anchorage in Crasqui with a spectacular beach that keeps going for miles and miles and beyond the beach you can see the hills of Grand Roques. As soon as we came around the corner of Isla Augustin we saw several boats in the anchorage and with closer inspection Sid recognized or thought he recognized a boat we knew from Maremares. As we finally headed into the anchorage it in deed was Ottiphant with Otto and Irene aboard and we had a great reunion.

PS: go to the position report and look at the Roques via Satellite photo: http://www.aprs.net/cgi-bin/winlink.cgi?KG4EZH

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We're out of cheese, fruits, salads, coke, wine, beer and have only 4 carrots, 1 zucchini, 3 onions, 3 potatoes, one cabbage and one dozen of eggs left, freezer is still full of meat, lobster and conch and I guess our can opener will work over time in the next month or so, LOL.
Cayo Herradura is a very busy fishing island, there are about 6 camps and not one day goes by where not at least 4 pangas knock on the boat to either sell fish but mostly to ask if we had hats, sombreros, matches, sodas, epoxy, fan belts, motor oil, eye drops and mostly cigarettes or cigars.
On our walk around the island we were greeted at one of the fishing camps by a friendly older man his name is David, his weathered brown face showed the brightest smile with a few teeth missing. So we talked to him for a while and watched his fellow mates sitting in the sand fixing big fishing nets, while others hauled fresh caught fish to two guys cleaning and salting them. They wanted us to bit a lobster the size of about 8 to 10 pounds, a bit too big for our pot or liking. We like them a bit smaller they are more tender and easier to cook. The jolly old man was very happy talking to us and invited us to come back to his camp at any time. From that day on he knocked on our boat daily to bring his battery operated phone. There is no power on the island and therefore no way to load his phone. We were actually amazed that they had phone option here but my cell phone didn't show any bars. While loading the batteries around 4.30 the phone started ringing and ringing. We gave David a hard time about having too many girlfriends on the mainland. We were happy to fill the batteries for him daily, even when they started bringing a second phone to load and a third. David brought me some onions one day and the last day they took our months worth trash ashore, I would say that was a good trade.

We truly enjoyed our walk around the island, well almost around, the northwestern shore is nothing but sharp rocks the rest is surrounded by beautiful fine white sand. The beach is steep too and on the southeastern end the beach narrows and ebbs out to give away to a long reef which extends southward. Here small waves run over the side from both sides and clash together towards the middle, a fun place to walk through. On the north shore the waves were quite a bit higher and crashed towards the beach with a roaring sound, a very beautiful scene. A red and white striped light house lies on the northwest shore which adds a lot of charm to this horse show shaped island. No matter where we were the view was spectacular and Paradise was surrounded by flat and calm turquoise water. She was anchored in 8 feet of water which is a very pleasant temperature to cool off when there is no breeze blowing. The first few nights the wind was howling and we had even gusts up to 30 knots. During the day the wind would slow to maybe 5 knots and at times completely disappear. We had anything from a northerly to a light westerly and each day was just absolutely beautiful.
While at Los Palanquinos with horror we found a lot of mildew in the V-Berth. All the shopping bags I used going shopping in the dinghy were gray. The humidity had been high and it doesn't help to get an invisible spray of salt air from the waves breaking over the reefs on the other side of the island to keep everything damp and eventually it will mildew. We went through the whole boat and whipped down anything and everything. Even our upholstery showed some mildew and had to be hand washed right away. The water maker was working over time. We have never had a mildew problem before. While here in Herradura I found some more mildew this time in all the cockpit cushion covers so I did some more laundry. Never a dull moment in and on Paradise.

Gustav was going to sail to Tortuga while we were here. His first attempt was while we were still in Caldera. Gustav encountered 40 knots of wind and had to turn back. The second attempt was while we were in Herradura, he made it halve way and lost the steering, luckily he had some wood onboard (he's boat is under construction) and rigged an emergency rudder to get back. It was a bummer as we were excited for his visit, not to mention all the provisions and beer he was going to bring. Poor guy has to drink all that beer by himself now LOL. As soon as we had word that for a second time he had to turn back we pulled anchor and took the good weather opportunity to sail to the Roques.
We left with about 15 knots of wind, which dwindled away over a few hours and left us with 5 to 6 feet rollers on the beam, not a very comfortable ride. Sid was n watch until one in the morning while I tried to sleep in the tossing waves. The wild ride finally started to calm down and Sid was able to sleep most of my 4 hour watch. By 5 am it was a fairly comfortable ride and I laid down for some sleep again and didn't wake up until 7 when I don't know what woke me up first Sid standing over me yelling "I got a fish, I got a fish" or the loud BZZZZZZZZZZZ sound of the over heating reel. In any case my adrenaline was rushing, didn't need any coffee anymore, I jumped up turned the throttle down, brought the jib in while Sid tried to crank in on the fish. At this point he didn't know yet what it was but then a blue marlin jumped a couple of times out of the water while the reel was still sizzling. It took him a while to get the fish along side the boat. Sid finally managed to get hold of his bill and counting the sweat dripping of his forehead I my guess was the fish is about 100 pounds. He managed to get the hook out of his bill and with a good luck wish he sent him back into the deep. Blue marlin is an excellent eating fish you probably are saying right now but we do believe in catch and release in bill fish, especially when one does not fit in both the fridge and freezer. It was fun and Sid finally caught his first marlin. The funny thing was Sid was just in the process to put out the reel, the lure was barley touching the water when the marline hit. He didn't attempt to catch another one but an hour later when we saw some tuna jumping we tried to catch one of those without success. By now we were only 10 miles away from the Roques but you can't see the islands until about 6 miles out. We headed for the lighthouse and about one mile out we could distinguish where the entrance was and followed the darker blue water into the sheltered bay inside the reef. There we had to follow another reef to our anchorage. It's beautiful here and our first visitor was a big school of calamari under the boat. There I said it again calamari, I meant squid. Lucky devils it's a national park here and fishing is not allowed.

Conch mystery: in Caldera one of the fishermen gave Manuela a beautiful queen conch, so how do you get the meat out and not damage the shell? We heard many stories over the years: hang the conch up in the sun and it will slowly come out (pew can't imagine the stink!). The other is to put the conch in the freezer and the other boiling. We were not sure which one we would use and talking about it with Wind Shear someone mentioned that the snail was all muscle so the idea came up giving some muscle relaxant. Sid ground up some Flexeril. Mixed it with a little water and filled the conch up with it. An hour or so later the conch started crawling out and a couple of hours later it was so relaxed Sid just pulled it out of there. So the conch mystery is solved. We definitely did NOT eat the relaxed muscle!

Drinking tip for cruisers:
When to drink your Martini on deck or in the cockpit? When you see white caps appear in your martini glass and vodka waves are sloshing up the martini glass wall like waves crashing onto a beach, it's time to retreat into the cockpit and continue enjoying your martini there!

Cayo Herradura, Isla Tortuga

We were tucked in safely behind the fairly small reef and enjoyed watching waves crash onto the reef with roaring sounds. Around cocktail time we picked up Rob and Debi, Captain Jack stayed on the boat, and went over to the reef sat or stood in waste deep of crystal clear water, watched waves crash onto the reef just feet from us but where we were the water was calm, just beautiful. The tide was on it's way out and on some corals fairly big sea urchins were halve way out of the water and a at some spots parrot fish were rolling on the surface while we sipped on some ice cold cocktails.
The next morning Captain Jack gave the crew off and we ventured over to the mile and mile long beach. It was a bit tricky to get ashore with the occasional shore breakers, but we managed without getting soaked, which was a different story when we went back. We walked a couple of miles along the pristine white sandy beach to an area with a rocky shoreline where the rocks were as flat as a table and canyons were cut out between them. They were only about 4 feet out of the water and it was spectacular when 6 foot waves rolled over them then the water cascading back into the ocean brining the rocks to view again. I could have watched this for hours. I found some good size sea escargots which made a yummy dinner. Sid found foot prints of cats with babies in the sand but never got to see the cats. He also ventured into the shrubs and found some of those bright pink pepper looking berries which grow in a cactus, yummy.
Unfortunately the following day Captain Jack decided it was time to leave for Trinidad and it was sad seeing them hoist anchor and slip out of our view as the sun was getting ready to come up. We truly had the most wonderful time with the Crew on Wind Shear in the last three months. We will miss them and hope their stay in Trinidad is short and sweet so that they can catch up with us again soon.
We pulled anchor a few hours later and motored to Cayo Herradura 3 miles further west and yet another beautiful anchorage. Cayo Herradura is the most favored of the Tortuga anchorages. The island is one mile long of mostly fine white sand. At the north end of the beach is a fishing camp and as we anchored all the pangas left and started laying nets around the island. The water here is of the an incredible turquoise blue color like somebody painted it. The contrast of the light blue water against the white sand and the dark blue ocean water behind it takes your breath away. A nice breeze is blowing keeping us cool. Oh yeah, Pizza tonight, life is good!