Christmas & Coco Banderos
Scott-Free’s blog
Steve & Chris
Thu 27 Dec 2012 19:37
09:30.757N 78:36.985W
Thursday 27th December 2012
Distance run: 5 nmiles
It's been a good Christmas...
The Kuna guy who t-boned our boat in Green Island
turned up on Christmas Eve afternoon to pay us the rest of the repair money he'd
agreed to, and was full of apologies. We were heartened by and respected
his sense of responsibility and honesty, and we parted on good terms. That
left us free to move on, but so close to Christmas Day we decided to stay put
until Boxing Day.
On Christmas Day we spent the morning snorkelling
on the reef in the hope of finding a lobster for starters later, but had no
luck. There is a surprising lack of underwater wildlife, and we wonder if
they have been fished out. In the afternoon we joined Rod & Mary
on Sheer Tenacity for Christmas dinner of steak and salad. We
took a couple of bottles of bubbly with us, together with home-made mince pies,
and although we had dressed smartly for the occasion, the first thing we did was
nip back to S-F for our swimming cossies and go for a dip as it was so
hot! Not quite a traditional Christmas Day activity for those of us from
northern climes. Christmas dinner was excellent, and we ate way too much
which definitely is in keeping with tradition! We also had a drink or two,
which made getting back to S-F interesting, but we had no problem finding her in
the dark as she was sporting her newly-acquired Christmas fairy lights and could
be seen twinkling and flashing for miles! I must be mellowing in my old
age, as we now have a Christmas tree (6 inches high), a bauble (which clearly
states "don't do Christmas"), a rocking Rudolph and Santa card, and now a set of
fairy lights. Oh, and I nearly forgot my Santa Headband and Steve's
Rudolph antlers and flashing red nose!
Rod cooking the steaks on the barbie on
ST.
Scott-Free sporting her new Christmas
fairy lights.
On Boxing Day, not too early, we finally
lifted the anchor and motored a whole 5 nmiles to the Coco Banderos
Cays. This is a group of small, mostly uninhabited sand and palm tree
islands protected by a four-mile long outer reef barrier. We are anchored
just off one of the islands. Because we are now just inside the outer
reef, the sea is not quite as flat, but it has so far been very comfortable and
the surroundings are wonderful. We spent the rest of Boxing Day swimming,
snorkelling and chilling out.
We are anchored just off this
island.
Steve planned to snorkel on the inside of the outer
reef this morning, but the wind picked up and it was a bit rough out there, so
he and Rod went to one of the inner reefs instead. He saw barracuda and
grouper, but didn't get close enough to catch anything. If it calms a bit
this afternoon, he may go out again. Fresh fish for supper sounds quite
attractive right now as we haven't caught anything in a while. The last
bite we had was so big it broke the fishing line, nearly taking the rod with it,
and making off with our best pink lure. It amuses me to think of a huge
fish somewhere sporting pretty pink rubber tassles...