An eventful day with the wildlife in the Pacific...
Quartermoon
Mike Share & Sammy Byron
Wed 28 Jul 2010 22:56
|
Hello!
We are now less than 300 nm to Palmerston and a few
things have been going on to help pass the time. At the moment it's pretty
nice, the water is incredibly blue and the swell has managed to sort itself out
so hopefully we will arrive after 2 more sleeps.
Unfortunately we started today with the wrong
catch..a beautiful Paradise bird. I couldn't believe it...Mike said "I think we
have caught something" and when we both looked further we realised we had hooked
a beautiful sea-bird. I suppose it was only a matter of time. Whenever we have
the lines out we always have lots of interested birds checking out the
lure but they seem pretty switched on and always abort their dives.
Unfortunately this little birdie wasn't so smart ( we think he had a dodgy eye).
Poor little thing.
We slowed the boat down and Mike brought it in so
very carefully. All the time I couldn't watch, poor, poor thing. I was
dreading the moment Mike was going to ask me to help. I really can't deal with
these things (I am a complete wimp and not great with animals). Mike climbed
down the swim ladder and managed to scoop it out the water by cupping its
wings, then held him whilst I tried to extract the hook. I was
useless and couldn't get it out so we had to swap. Arghhhhhh...I have
never held a bird before in my life and I really wasn't keen, however I managed
to convince myself that I had to do it or this sweet thing was going to die
one way or the other. I managed to hold onto it
and it wasn't so bad after all in fact it was really quite cute. Mike managed to
get the hook out using a knife to cut a small hole in the corner of its mouth.
It was very weird, it was as if the bird knew we were trying to help him
and he became quite relaxed with us. Mike held onto him for a wee
while so he could pull itself together then sat him on the bow. He chilled
for a bit then flew off. It flew brilliantly so hopefully little harm done. I
have this horrible feeling I am going to be dreaming about catching this bird
from now on, not a cool sight.
Second catch of the day was another Dorado
(Mahi Mahi). We finally managed to land the 3rd one after closing the hook and
tiring it out. After a struggle we managed to pull it onboard, soo we now
have a fridge full of yummy fish and we can't wait to get
cooking...
Finally - the gecko returns..... We think this
is the gecko that made its home inside our compass whilst in Panama. We haven't
seen him for ages and all of a sudden whilst eating our breakfast he popped out
to say hello and check out the scenery. I guess we will have to try and find a
new home for him before Australia and the gas
man! |