Last night...
Waz and I set out on our nightly walk a little earlier than usual (prescient?) around 8pm. We usually head for the Fuel Dock, as it is the farthest point from our boat as we can get and walk safely at night.
Just past the marina office is a bridge. As we neared the bridge we heard a huge amount of splashing, and hurried over to see what the commotion was.
Below in the water was a fisherman in his dinghy, literally surrounded by a HUGE swarm of feeding catfish. The first words out of the mouth were 'Phenominal!'...another might be 'Awesome!' in the truest meaning of the word. This was something that even the locals are amazed at, but, it appears, is a common occurrence when the bait fish enter the Bayou basins.
The catfish had literally cut off all escape routes for the tiny Shad bait fish, and were corralling them. We have seen Dolphins and Killer whales do this with their prey, but never before had we seen anything on the magnitude of this! over a stretch of water a couple of hundred feet square, the water erupted/boiled with catfish and jumping shad. It was a 'free-for-all', with the catfish winning, no doubt.
This fella was fishing next to the bridge that spans from the mainland (marina) to the Island (Johnson Island) that is also part of the marina. He had been successfully catching trout earlier, but then the 'wave' of catfish interrupted this and all he could then catch was catfish...of course!
He got really wet from all the splashing:) and was just as enthralled as we were by the whole spectacle.
Waz ran back to the boat to get his camera to record the event to the best of his ability, not having time to work the camera the way it should be for night photography..he took his chances and didnt do too badly. These photos by no means show the magnitude of the event.
We walked on eventually, after having a long discussion with a local, also on the bridge to watch the goings on below. On our return, the water was quiet and you would never have known the slaughter had taken place.
The previous day we had watched in fascination as Terns dove into the water at breakneck speed into a similar daytime mele in our marina basin.
One of our favorite pastimes is watching the many and varied birds feeding.
While out last night, Waz also managed to get a couple of photos of the 'night stalkers' I have so often talked about.
These Herons are perfectly camouflaged at night against the rocks. They are fascinating to watch. Early in the evening they will appear to eat anything that comes their way...tiny Shad and shrimp in particular...but later on, perhaps when their bellies are getting full, they will ignore a shrimp at their feet in favor of a small fish. We cheer them on from the sidelines (being the bridge), but they don't listen...:) We would gladly eat the shrimp landing at our feet:)
As I write, Waz is reading a boating magazine, and just interrupted me to read an advert selling Signal/salute guns for the 21st century...I get the feeling he would like to have a canon on the foredeck:) what a 'guy'!...Hell yeah!:)
Back to the birds...
Well, maybe not. I think I have said almost all there is to say about the birds.
Changes taking place on the boat!
We have had a no-man's-land under the 'breakfast Bar', with a couple of seats that have pulled out and around to literally make it an eating bar, but the problem with this was that they seats were too low for the bar, and you would have been resting your chin on the bar., Impossible!...soooo, after much consideration, we decided to remove the seats and fill the void more responsibly:)
the green thing in the middle between the drawers hides a hole where the seats came out on their swings. We couldn't do much with this space beforehand, but now, as you can see...PANTRY!!!!!!!!!! YAYAAY!
The cameras wedge them in there in case of high seas and sloppy speed boat drivers. Not sure what will happen to all the drawers if we tip bow up...well, we all really know, don't we??:(
Don't look at the rest of the 'mess'...that is being cleaned up in increments. It is very much a matter of where to put everything so it doesn't go flying when we get hit by chop or the wake from a large vessel...some of which could turn us over, apparently, if no care is taken.
With the advent of the bread machine, we had to go and find the ingredients to make fine dough things, whether by finishing a bread cycle, or just making the dough in the machine and cooking in the micro/convection. being a hands-on person, I like the latter, personally!
What have we been doing for the past week??
Apart from bird watching, and taking out seats..?
Waz turned over yesterday morning to give me a big 'squeeze', and popped one of my ribs! lol. Well, no laughing matter really, but it is funny in one respect. I might never get hugs again:)
His right arm was next to my left ribs when he squeezed and POP! I know this was what happened because I had not so long ago broken one on the same side...lets hope it isn't the same rib. I hate to think what an x-ray would show.
They say the second day is worst for the pain...well, not unless you cough or sneeze or reach up or down (etc), so we will see how long this one takes to mend. The last one took about 6 weeks. Par for the course, I would say. Not something we really NEED leaving port for our big adventure.
Oh...riiight! The Big Adventure!
Well, here we are a week later, and we are going out to breakfast with Dean and Katie to yet another farewell meal:) Cant beat those farewell meals, I tell ya!
Roy arrived home from far fields two days ago and when we saw him yesterday, he was alive and kicking...well, almost. He has to fly from the other side of the world...something like 30 hrs travel. He is home for 10 days, then does it all in reverse, until Christmas, he thinks.
We would like to get together with him and Veronica before we leave, which , all going well, is MONDAY! YIKES!!
We have our first 5 nights sorted, and the sixth one also, hopefully. Our travels will take us primarily through Louisiana Swamp!
More on that later...we are off to breakfast...ciao
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