When I traveled to the south end of the island to meet Paul, I saw two mongoose, my first and second in all the trips through the islands. Interestingly, during sundowners last night, Dawn and I saw a few scurrying around the beach on Pigeon Island, kinda in our back yard. The French brought the mongoose to the islands to control the snakes. In St. Lucia, one poisonous variety, the Fer de Lance, still remains, but sticks to the high mountains. Apparently, when the mongoose had the snakes tidied up somewhat, they turned to the wondrous birds of the Caribbean, and by eating both the birds and the eggs, pretty much destroyed that bit of uniqueness. They also controlled the Norway Rat, another species that the Europeans brought over. Since the rats ate sugar cane, this was good for the white sugar barons. However, the removal of the snakes and Norway rats allowed a tree rat to flourish, since the mongoose doesn’t climb too fast or too high. Finally, these cute little playing mongoose are a rabies vector on some islands. Anyway, cute little ferret-like nocturnal creatures; and we saw them playing just at dusk, when the sun was finally out of the way.
I finished a major repair of our windlass. While Paul was here, we managed to get some rope and chain stuck in the chain brake, and the extra power it drew, although not enough to throw the breaker, blew out a major wire with some obvious weak spots. An analysis of the feed and control wires showed many weaknesses, so I remanufactured and reinstalled 5 new #4 wires and a brand new waterproof box for the relay. A very pretty job! That adds to the window, jib, bimini, watermaker, lights, and a couple of other major repairs since getting this far north.
Now for some pics:
Here is one of Pigeon Island taken from the yacht club across the Bay. As John’s guest, we often eat lunch there on Sunday. Our boat is anchored there at this time and will remain right where it is for the next week or two!
Here is a group of completely new friends aboard the Canadian vessel Tarantela. The skipper, Al Shortt, took the picture; while the first mate, Michelle O'Neill, is the very pretty girl on the right in the foreground. We had a lovely evening on their boat while they were enjoying a slip in the marina.
Here is another of Michele and Al. Michele is an O’Neill from Lower St. Marys, Fredericton, NB; and sister to Brenda Cummings, with whom Dawn has taught, and upon whom Laurie had a big crush in grade school. We had a lovely chat with Michele about our families and mutual friends.
Lastly, here is a picture of John Fallon and Rasta John Marley on our boat, enjoying a truly wonderful stirfry that Dawn put together accompanied by John Fallon's famous fried rice. We felt good getting a proper meal into Rasta John, as he is a rather skinny bachelor with a subsistence lifestyle.
