Day 202, Year 5: Getting Together with Cruising Friends
Date: Sunday, May 16, 2010
Weather: Another Beautiful Day; Some Rain Overnight
Location: Ile Fouquet, Salomon Atoll, Chagos
It is 10 o’clock in the evening and the last of our cruising friends just left. We had dinner for eight on Windbird tonight and had a wonderful time. Eight is just about the limit that we can accommodate in our cockpit but a new boat came in late this afternoon and we just had to invite them over. Aries Tor has been over in Peros Banhos and arrived here at Salomon Atoll late afternoon. We knew the captain to be Canadian and the young woman onboard to be American, but that is all we knew. But we also knew that Susan Margaret knew them, so Mark went over to see if we should include them in our beer tasting and dinner festivities. They said absolutely, so Kate (24 years old) and Rob (early 30’s) were invited. What a great group of people and what an interesting evening. John of Susan Margaret provided the home-brewed dark beer that was really quite good. He also brought some of his homemade coconut wine. Mark and Ed provided the fish, everyone brought appetizers, and I made rice with onions, garlic, and mushrooms and green beans stir-fried with fresh basil and cashew nuts. It is not the dinner I originally planned, but it is what evolved. So even without fresh veggies, you can have a gourmet meal out here. Lynne brought date-almond bread that was delicious for dessert. Conversations ranged all over the place. We learned new things about the islands around us from the explorations of Susan Margaret that will spur us into doing more land visiting in the next few days. We found out that Rob is from Toronto and left there three years ago. Kate is from Marin County in California and joined Rob in the Marquises after a year of graduate school at NYU. All of us are headed to Madagascar, so I am sure the conversations in the next couple of weeks will center around our planning for that passage. But it is so reassuring to know that we will be traveling with such a great bunch of people. We also learned a bit of information tonight that we know will be of interest to our daughter-in-law Jo and her parents, Margaret and Phil Hunt. When we first met John of Susan Margaret he talked about the Hare and Hound Pub in the New Forest in England. That happens to be a family favorite of the Hunt’s. Tonight we learned that in fact the Hare and Hound was John’s home as he was growing up as his grandparents were the owners and he lived with them. His grandfather was Charles Percy Reeves, so I am anxious to find out if Jo or her parents ever visited the Hare and Hound while he was the owner.
Our snorkeling morning was not so fantastic as the water was really cloudy, but we always enjoy watching the fish regardless of visibility. It was an extremely low tide, so when we were right above the fish, visibility was good. On the reef directly in front of Windbird we were able to get photographs of the Saddleback Coralgrouper and Brown-marbled Grouper that hang out there. They are beautiful and would make good eating, but no one seems to be able to catch these guys. I think tomorrow will be a land-based day, just watching the wildlife.
I’ll end with a note about our friends Tina and Zbyszek (Robert) of Shirena. I reported a few days ago that Zbyszek had a mild heart attack and was in the Suez Canal University Hospital. He is now out and doing great. Good friends, Fatty Goodlander of Wild Card (US) and Tom of Katanne (British), are currently delivering Shirena to Ashkelon in Israel. Zbyszek and Tina are going to fly to Vienna and he will have the required heart surgery there. I won’t go into all the detail describing the difficulty of getting the boat out of Egypt with crew who didn’t bring it in, but basically even after officials assured them everything would be fine, Zbyszek and Tina still had to accompany the boat out of the country. But by now they should be in Cairo awaiting the flight to Vienna and Fatty and Tom should have arrived in Ashkelon in Israel.
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| 100516 Day 202 Salomon, Chagos–Grouper and Other Fish on Wreck Bommie |
