Ospreys of Nonsuch bay

We had very dramatic and changing weather while in Jolly Harbour. At times it was "pure Caribbean" like this ...

 ... and the next moment like this.

 Luckily, the rain showers didn't last for long, and we even got a whole day without the rain to do our laundry.

We were anchored next to "our" channel marker, the last green one before the lagoon entrance. I love watching the bird resting on it. This is the usual setting - tern on one marker and pelican on the other.

They obviously didn't mind us, although we were pretty close, so we've seen a lot of cleaning the feathers, taking naps...

On Saturday we sailed off to Nonsuch bay. On the way, close to entrance to Falmouth Harbour, we saw a photo session - this large sailboat was photographed or filmed from helicopter.

Most of the way we were motoring, the wind was almost all the time on our nose. But it wasn't too strong and the waves were moderate, so it was not too bad. This time the weather forecast got it spot on.

We were fishing on the way, we had our all three lures and hooks in the water, but we only caught three baby tunas (of the Little Tunny family) and we threw them back into the sea, while still alive of course. I believe that it's ok to take "adult" fish that have already in some way fulfilled their role in life, but we are not taking babies. Captain sometimes doesn't agree with me, but on this matter I'm very stubborn and make a lot of fuss to have it my way.

I've seen osprey in Nonsuch bay before. But it wasn't since I was observing one in Deep bay some two weeks ago, that i decided to learn a bit more about them. Thanks to Internet, of course. I learned that ospreys are the most widely spread bird of pray, they are present on all continents except on poles, and while there is a resident population in Caribbean, the Antigua's birds are migrants from North America and don't breed here.

I was very excited to see three birds flying over Nonsuch bay every day, sometimes hoover over Bird island, and I've even seen one plunging into the water to catch a fish. After couple of days I've been able to recognize their voices, they make a high sound like chip chip or longer chi-ip chi-ip, something you would expect to hear from a chicken or a sparrow, not from a big bird of pray. Of course I tried to make some photos of them, but this is all I was able to manage with my camera.

Osprey gaining height on windward side of Bird island.

The photo below was taken in Egypt in El Quesir in 2004, while we were there on scuba diving trip. Ospreys there were not very shy and a couple of them came to rest on these huge "shading umbrellas" on the hotel beach every day. If you're interested in some really good photos of ospreys, the kind I am not likely to ever make myself, check out this site:

http://www.avianweb.com/ospreys.html

While the weather was mostly good, we had quite a lot of wind, clouds and some rain showers. It was the perfect weather for doing the boat projects. Even though our buoy was really close to Bird island, I've only been snorkeling there twice. 

We managed to finnish attaching the rings for gennoa poles to the mast - one of our old ones got bent during the Atlantic passage as one of our gennoa poles broke.

There are still the holes of our old ring above the new one - since the new ones are bigger, on this side there was not enough space to put the new one on the same spot.

 This is not exactly new, we "mend" the broken zipper on our lazy bag with some grommets already some time ago.

We replace the cords, that were holding our bimini, with stainless tubes. The tubes were "sailing" with us all the time since we started our journey, we just never had the "time" to install them :-) We find it a great improvement, the bimini is not just more stable this way, the tubes are perfect for holding yourself while going to the front deck, before people were holding onto the cords, were leaning into spray hood etc, none of which is very stable and safe.

Because of the rain we had lately we put a piece of Sunbrela fabric over our bimini, for additional protection on the sides. We bought the fabric already in Lanzarote, Canary islands, before Atlantic passage, but only have the seems made by a French fellow cruisers in Falmouth Harbour in December 2012, so now we put some grommets on it (the metal rings at the edges that you put the tying rope through - as on the photo above) and we can finally use them.

We also replaced some of the broken snap fasteners (drukerjev) with which the spray hood is attached to the deck.

And we made the protective cover for our Lovro (Lawrance chart plotter) from a stainless steel plate, that we also bought in Lanzarote. The cover will prevent some of the water and sun hitting the back side of the device, where the cables are attached, and also people from leaning onto the cables, which - as we know from our experience, break easily.

Apart from all that, I've been doing some boat cleaning (inside of kitchen cabinets, spaces under the beds, under the sitting benches in saloon, under floorboards, etc..), a never ending story if you want to keep the dirt and mold and mildew under control.

Tomorrow we are sailing to Barbuda (check my friend Dana's beautiful post on Barbuda on http://www.galleywenchtales.com/2013/01/worth-puke.html ), the wether forecast is very good, so we hope to have a great couple of days there. And to catch some "grown up" fish on the way.