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San Juan , Puerto Rico, 24 april 2006

6:th letter, Sick in the Bahamas.

The past weeks log will be written from the Captain’s Berth since, I, Dan has been struck by some semi-deadly flu (the kind that only real men can suffer from). In this intimate environment that is Windwalker it is impossible not to get infected, and the rest of the crew has had some running noses and sore throats as well. Why they have not developed the same semi-deadly version that has put me to bed for 7 days remains unknown, one possible reason may be that they are not real men. Who brought the flu is still not known and whether the source of the infection is way to little sleep in the choppy anchorages of Bahamas or spending to much time to close to to many loose girls on spring break also remains unknown.

The same night we anchored at Allan’s Cay Fredrik got a shark on his hook. It was a glorious struggle between man and nature, nature represented as one of the laziest sharks ever - even though it got a bit bothered when Fredrik stabbed it in the head. The shark was about 90 cm long and weighed 50 kilos. Before it was dead and safe on our deck (approx 1 hour) it was a circus of dinghies, search lights, cameras and fishing gear. After that Jonas and Fredrik started to cut up the prey and I went into fever mode again. One nightly fore deck bloodbath, and one fish hook penetrated dingy later, the shark tasted pretty good though.

“What are those big black dots in the water?” Jonas asked over breakfast pointing his finger outside the boat. Rays. Rays big as umbrellas, and off we went with snorkeling gear and underpants, oatmeal porridge still in our mouths. After a couple of minutes I (my body rather) remembered that I actually had fever and I decided to head back. The rays were majestic though.

One hour later the rest of the boys came back and, as from a distance, through the shades of fever I could hear comments like: “This is probably one of the best places on Earth ever, the surroundings are super beautiful, there are rays swimming up to the boat, there are Iguanas on the beach, the water is full of sharks and turtles and…” Here I probably passed out. Luckily I was in the best place of all on earth.

Later when I woke up the rest of the crew went Iguana-watching. I myself restricted myself to Iguana-watchers-watching as the tourists boats loaded tons of people on the beach to feed the lizards. The lizards are threatened by extinction and something from an ecology class from a far past gives me a hunch that feeding those lizards raisins everyday wont make it easier to make them a strong and functional specie in their natural environment again.

I also missed out on the Thunderball-cave. This spot was used for shooting a couple of scenes in the James Bond movie “Thunderball”. From the pictures I realized it actually was a real James Bond cave, full of beautiful fish, and somehow, also full of beautiful women. No Martini bar close though.

When writing the last entry of this log the flu is slowly getting defeated and we are preparing to move on our journey and leave the Bahamas to go to Turks and Caicos. It feels a bit sad to leave the country that has hosted us for this time but we also look forward to new adventures and destinations.

Fair winds,

/Dan

 

Happy shark catchers
Iguanas on Allans Key
Pirates of the caribbean
Agent 007
Leaving Bahamas torwards new Destinations
Enjoing the colors of Bahamas
The Tobynater