Cayo Largo
Sarah Grace goes to sea
Chris Yerbury and Sophy White
Sat 17 Mar 2007 12:33
|
Cayo Largo, Cuba, 14th
March 2007
Hi all, we are still
anchored in a lagoon having a rest after all the sailing. It is beautiful
here. If you can imagine a strip of sand about five feet high and thirty
miles long and two miles wide: that's Cayo Largo. It is surrounded by
smaller cayes, with turquoise clear channels separating them, and stands of
mangrove. There is the very odd pine tree, which stands up very tall above
the mangrove. Apart from that it's all sea. The mainland is
about forty miles away. It is very quiet, apart from the wind and the
sea. We are a bit tired from being up last night with
thunderstorms. We all ended up jammed in the focsle bed, away from
the chain plates. Even with your eyes shut inside the boat, it still goes
sunbright on your retina when the lightning flashes. The thunder and
the rain were pretty fierce. The depth alarm kept going crazy, maybe
because the water was disturbed.
Chris now has chains
attached to the mast and stays, dangling into the sea. The GPS is in the
oven. This is meant to prevent damage in case of lightning
strike.
We had another good dose of
thunder and lightning this morning during school, which disrupted it a
bit. One does feel rather exposed two feet away from a huge metal post
(the mast) sticking up into the sky, surrounded by flat sea! We are hoping
for a bit more peace and quiet tonight.
Yacht Jem are leaving
tomorrow for Cayo Rosario, and we will peel off to Mexico on Monday. We
feel very sad saying goodbye and will miss all the bad jokes, hospitality
and general entertainment eg. running aground that they
provide .
There is quite a strong
current running north between Cuba and Mexico so we will try and be a bit south
before we cross over. It will be around a two day passage, the first half
hopefully not too rough hiding behind Cuba and the cayes, the second half
actually crossing the Yucatan channel, around three hundred odd
miles.
Yesterday we dinghied out
to another caye and found dozens of enormous iguanas. Chris waved a
banana at one, and the five foot long iguana jacked it's body off the ground,
and turned from a lazy crawling sunbather into a snaking torpedo, running at
Chris with it's mouth open. Chris's danger instinct is still sadly
undeveloped, so he stayed gamely in situ, kneeling, with his hand holding out
the banana towards the charging iguana. It opened it's mouth wider,
and closed it on the entire banana and half of Chris's thumb. 'Ow!!!' he
shouted, finally jumping into the air backwards, 'I thought it would
just take it out of my hand!' Despite the fact that it bit him so
hard that his thumb nail was deeply scored, all the onlooking crew found this
side-splittingly hilarious. No blood was drawn, so I don't think he
has caught any more nasty diseases.
|