22nd Feb - Fish and lobster

We had another fast sail yesterday, the Gods of the winds are being unusually good to us because we should have had Northerlies yesterday and that would have meant beating. We actually had NE’ly winds which meant we could sail straight to Cayo Zaza de Fuera. This Cayo  had some uncharted waters around it, or maybe did, but proved easy enough to get into with a Colin in the rigging. Interestingly, Nigel’s book has some references to Geoffrey and Sue Knockolds, which I presume is Bridget’s sister. Does anyone know whether they spent some time cruising in Cuba in the 90’s?

Once at anchor there were noises, as from fishermen and after a lunch Christine and Colin went off in the dinghy and came back with a fooktun of fish. Meanwhile Graham and I partially serviced a couple of winches, one of which, the one on the mast, we could not work out how to remove the shaft from which I suspect I’ve struggled with in the past too. It’s an old Lewmar 42 self tailer if any knowledgeable riggers are reading this maybe they could give us a clue (I suspect, maybe, it needs to be removed from the mast, something I’m reluctant to do). Normally they have white plastic grommety things which, once removed, allow the shaft to be lifted out but these don’t appear to be fitted.

During this some, more fishing boats arrived and we were offered more fish. However,  having more than enough, we declined but were unable to refuse Lobster once offered so, once negotiations were finished, (they were quite good asking for coffee, rum, beer, etc. and, by popular demand the Agricultural Rum disappeared). The 8 lobsters were huge, I’m not convinced that they aren’t more Crayfish like as they are brown without claws, in any event murder on the dancefloor commenced as Colin and I tailed them  on the aft deck.. Colin had previously gutted and filleted all the fish aft too. We had a lovely Lobster and Pan fried fish dinner with what was called potato salad, but owing to the unequal size of potatoes boiled was more like mash salad, in any event it was a delicious meal. The potato salad consisting of potato, onion and olives which Sue kept moaning about not being as tasty as they might be, but seemed to work out fine in any event. We are being hopeless at emptying the freezer as we keep putting fish into it and have at least another meal of fish and lobster in the fridge still.

Today we’re heading to another Cayo Blanco and may well end up at Cienfuegos tomorrow.

Slainte

Jock.