There was no wind for our trip from Bahia Herradura to Las Tortugas. This was in contrast to our previous trip north over the Golfo de Nicoya when we had over 30 knot winds. We therefore motored the entire distance. We had four trolling lines out with a hope to give Jess & Ben a glimpse of our fish catching fun but we had no luck there. We did have a brief visit by three dolphins which was good.<\/p>\n

Shortly after arriving we went snorkeling at the nearby rocks as the vast waves of tourists had yet to arrive. Jess bowed out as she had yet to settle her concerns about sharks, etc. I brought my spear gun in the ever present hope of spying lobsters. In the end I opportunisticly caught a couple of small fish which we believed to be edible. The second one I knew to be a grouper and the first would have to wait for identification.<\/p>\n

Back on the boat I used the fish identification guide brought down by Ben (among a number of other goodies) to determine the first fish was a gafftopsail pompano (often called just a Paloma, Palometa or Pamponito) and was deemed to be excellent food value. We had a lot of food planned for the BBQ that evening so it was good the fish were only small. I dispatched each in turn and removed their innards. John wrapped them in foil ready for the evenings grilling.<\/p>\n

Most of the midday and afternoon was spent reading and resting through the heat. In the late afternoon we left John aboard for a brief visit to the beach next to (and separated from) the tourist beach. There was not a lot to see there but it was good to stretch legs and cool our feet.<\/p>\n

I had been having trouble with my ears resulting from a bad wave slap during surfing and aggravated during the morning’s snorkeling. Turned out some of our less palatable 70% (by volume) proof rum from Grenada turned out to be a great solution for driving moisture out of my ear canals and presumably attacking any infection. The relief was near instantaneous. The bottle should be good for several thousand applications more.<\/p>\n

Evening was spent having wind, margaritas, a few beers and BBQ. On the grill went chicken, burgers, sausages, and the caught fish accompanied by salad.<\/p>\n

We rested our bloated bodies watching the movie “Millions” which is a great feel good movie. Desert followed the movie – banana flambee which included more rum. The dilemma with this dish is how long are we prepared to let the rum burn. The Y chromosone is attracted to both the fire and the rum. I guess the risk of the boat burning down comes into it somewhere.<\/p>\n

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