Swimming Pool

After we saw the nurse shark Sid notice a huge grouper, belly up and swimming in circles, floating towards us. Sid jumped into the dinghy with the gaff to see how much alive the fish was and when he gaffed him, oh my gosh Sid was yanked back and fourth and up and down. It took him a good fight to get the fish into the dinghy and still there this 13.5 pound adrenalin pumped fish was yanking Sid around. Later he told me that he pulled a muscle on his back, poor guy. All the cruisers swear by pouring alcohol into the gills kills the fish instantly, we never had much luck with that but thought to give it another shot, or two or oh well the whole 8 oz of alcohol went into his gills and it took a long time for him to die. We hauled him up on the bow where Sid then was filleting 2 inch think fillets of the bones. There was so much fish Sid brought a quarter of it to our new neighbors. The scrap we tossed into the water which brought 4 nurse sharks and huge trigger fish around. It was fun watching the nurse sharks circling like they were dancing with each other eating the scraps. About an hour later Gaby was ready to venture into the water (after not having seen a single nurse shark for a while). Barely in the water one swam right under her. We had fun following this 7 foot creature and watching it blow into the sand to find food.
After a wonderful grouper dinner we hung the light into the water and were entertained for many hours. First we had several spotted eagle rays swim under the boat, then a fairly good sized squid (big enough for my frying pan) floated by, a school of cobia amongst many smaller fish, but what topped it all off was 5 good sized Wahoo trying to catch needle fish which also scattered around the bright light. Next time we hang the light out we'll be prepared for the Wahoo, frying pan is already on the stove and garlic is chopped.
The nice thing here is sitting in the shallow clear water the light makes it look as if we in deed are in a swimming pool with the turquoise blue hallow around Paradise.

While Sid did some maintenance on the boat, finding the impeller had lost 5 out of the 6 teeth, and other things to repair, the girls ventured to BBQ island where we 10 years ago had fun potluck on this cute island. In the mean time, a cruiser who is still there since we were there was tried to claim the island and upset the Kunas. So now the island is inhabited by an elderly couple to protect what is theirs and the Kuna Congress created a law that now Kuna's living on islands are allowed to charge 2 dollars per person to walk on the island. We talked to the very friendly elderly couple; they are still upset at the cruiser, who by the way is still hanging around the Swimming pool now trying to claim another island. Not just that he puts 200 feet of chain out in 10 feet of water so that no other cruisers can anchor close to them; a real shame as cruisers like that give us all a bad name. Another thing they were upset about that some cruisers come onto their island and steal coconuts, which is their income(get 35cents per coconut). The friendly couple invited us to come ashore and enjoy their island at any time.

After we thanked them we headed to some other islands and walked around some on another Gaby walked into a thorny leaf of a coconut palm which punctured her just below her eye, she now has a good shiner. Later on we snorkeled out by the reef and since there was a strong about 1.5 knot current I suggested we drift back to the boat towing the dinghy which really was fun we barely had to move our fins to get back.

Gaby hasn't had sauerkraut in years and so I promised to cook some, but every time sauerkraut was on the menu some fishermen came by with some more fish, this time with crabs with the biggest claws, we all were drooling seeing those and sauerkraut was pushed off again. She finally had her sauerkraut 4 days later.

Unfortunately Gaby's vacation is coming to an end and it was time to sail back to Portobello." Audrey Page" we haven't seen in over 2 years showed up just on time for us to noodle behind their boat to meet their grandchildren, Gaby and to catch up.

The motor sail back was bumpy and poor Gaby was feeding the fish again. But that went fast away as we anchored and I had prepared one of her favorite dishes grandma always cooked for us, stewed rabbit, she was smiling from ear to ear.