3/8 Stowaway

Around Sunset in the middle of the Windward Passage, a large bird began circling the boat. It looks like a Tern to my inexperienced eye, and she looks like she is looking for a place to land. Bruce says this happens often, one of them will circle around sunset looking for a place to rest for the night. Sure enough, after three laps around the boat getting closer and closer, she comes in for a landing on the forward port side of the pilothouse roof (called a dodger earlier, but more like half a pilot house really). There she sits all night long, as we motor over 75 miles around the southwest tip of Haiti and along the southern shore, our stowaway sits in the same spot, rocking and balancing as the boat rock and rolls along at 5-6 knots,  all night long. Around 3 am, as we round Point Tiburon, the western most tip of Haiti, Arlen and Bruce are up on the bow with powerful flashlights watching for lobster trap floats in the water, as our course takes us within one mile of shore, and over the shallow near shore shelf where the depth ranges between 30 and 80 feet, prime lobster trapping territory. In the morning our stowaway is still there so Arlen and I get some photos of her. She is not shy at all, letting us within 4 feet or so to get nice close ups. Then shortly after dawn she takes flight again, off for another day of fishing and flying after a good nights rest and a free ride to new fishing gounds. All she leaves behind is a big mess on the pilothouse roof and deck underneath where she deposited the processed remains of yesterdays catch.