When cruising, you will encounter the world in a way most never imagine. You will come a cross wildlife that rarely sees humans, and wildlife that is so accustomed to human interaction that it will seem unfazed.
This Great Egret came right up to us as we landed our dinghy on the dinghy dock. He appeared to want a handout of some sort and was rather incessant about it. While we did not feed him, we were able to get some amazing views of this majestic bird up close!!
Sandpipers are small birds that feast on creatures that lie just below the sand in the wet/dry portion of a beach. These little birds will run up and down the beach like children who are afraid of incoming waves yet want to be at the waters edge.
As the waves pull back, they make their way down the beach and onto the wet sand. When the wave comes back in, they all scamper up the beach to the dry part. As they run back and forth, they will stick their slender beaks into the sand in search of prey, quietly eating each morsel with each wave.
It really makes you sit back and think when you see such a sight. You may have sailed many a mile to reach this beach, braving storms and being becalmed, but these little birds have been here the whole time, feasting on the bounty of this beach.
It may seem like a small thing to focus on, but this large world of ours is full! Every place you go, you will encounter something or someone who has been there as long as they have lived, and will remain there long after you have moved on. It's like if the whole world is a net, and everyone is a fish. They are snared and stuck in that specific place, always been there and always will be there. Cruisers are those who have managed to escape, and swim through the holes to travel to new parts of the net. We have slipped through the cracks and managed to free ourselves as we move about unnoticed. We are here today, but who knows where we will be tomorrow?
Out in the ocean, one of our favorite creatures to encounter are dolphins. These majestic mammals seem to always have fun as they play around in the water. You will see one jump out of the water, and then two, and then five! It seems like they want to play follow the leader as they bound through the waves.
Then all of a sudden, the dolphins disappear for a few minutes and you might be thinking that the show is over. All of a sudden, the entire pod will jump out of the water at the same time! It almost looks like they were playing a game where they all hold their breath and then surface in synchronized fashion!
While we may be the dominant species on land, killing any creature that opposes us, they are at home on the ocean, and we are merely meek visitors into their realm.
A rather common sight to see while out far from land are small land birds that have been swept out to sea. These small birds had no intention of going out to sea, as they are not suited to survive over water, but by an ill fated gust, they have now found themselves over open waters.
These little birds will descend upon a sailboat as you are the only place for them to land and rest their tired wings. Most of the birds that land aboard are quite grateful to have found you, as you are their only hope in survival, but they will still keep their distance from you. It is nice to offer them some water to drink by setting water in a small bowl and placing it somewhere far from you so the bird can drink and rest in peace.
This tiny little bird was actually very gregarious, he rested for a little while and then sprang to life with a full fury of energy! We had recently been bequeathed with a large gift of flies that had descended upon us earlier and this little bird landed in heaven. He would hop around the cockpit, hunting the flies! There were so many of them that he had an easy time about catching them. What was more humorous to us was that he seemed unfazed by our presence. He would climb all over us, hopping along on his little feet, as he stalked and ate the flies that were swarming around us.
This little stowaway stayed with us for several hours, hunting most of the flies that had plagued us, until we passed by a light house and he took flight for the distance. Most birds will stay onboard until we get very close to land, but this little adventurous fellow was not waiting around for us to make landfall!
I typically think of flies as an insect found at outside gatherings or around garbage cans, but not out at sea! Flies can transform a normal day into a fight against insanity.
These little buzzing nuisances seem to come out of nowhere and for no reason. We will be sailing along, fly free, miles from any shoreline and then all of a sudden, the flies will appear! Almost out of thin air, flies will begin coming out of every part of the boat! We always first notice them in the cockpit, since that is where we are sitting while we cruise. We may find a few flies buzzing around us in the cockpit and think that the flies are really bad. Then when we anchor and go below deck, the number of flies is mind boggling!
Having a parrot onboard denies us the ability to use all those wonderful chemicals that instantly handle the fly problem, and leaves us with only more passive methods of fly control: Fly paper.
We currently have 3 of these ribbons hanging in various parts of the boat where the fly population seems most dense. While the paper becomes riddled with flies in a short matter of time, it doesn't seem to put a dent in the number of flies we have onboard.
Naturally, our first thought in these situations is that they are coming from something we are carrying. This means that we will instantly do all the dishes, in hopes of removing a possible food source for the flies, and I check the composting toilet to make sure it is not a fly factory. After that, we begin searching through our provisions for any foods that may be spoiled and a spawning ground for flies.
As always, none of these places turn up to be a source, and the flies seem to linger for a while. Talking with other cruisers, the going theory is that a mass of flies will get blown off the land and out to sea. When the flies hit the sails, they quickly dive down into the boat to hide from the wind and set up shop in the cabin where the wind is never as fierce as it is outside. This is why we only see a few flies in the cockpit, because they would easily get blow away. In the protection of the cabin however, the flies can live for a long time!
Parrots have very sensitive respiratory systems, meaning that we can't use anything like spray bug killer or citronella candles. Instead, we have to set up fly tape and wait for them to get attached to the trap!
Flies can really drive you crazy though, always buzzing around, and making you feel like you live in an actual trash can! While most of the flies we seem to house don't bite us, they do annoy the heck out of us!
When we leave the pets with our parents as we head offshore towards Bermuda, we will certainly take full advantage of all the toxic fly killers we can find. Until then, the closest thing we have to sanity is a full fly ribbon!
