Drama At the Beach... Or... All In A Day's Work.....

We did stay and work a couple of hours at The Monkey Farm yesterday...  kind of waiting around until Vicki returned.  I took a few photos, but mostly just helped get ready for the Sunday open house.  Vicki asked what we were interested in doing...  and what we're capable of doing.  When she found out that Bill can do carpentry, plumbing, electric and about any "general handyman" stuff, she said she'd make a list of things that they want done.  We didn't get into what I can do... probably just as well.  We plan on going back to work this coming Monday.  So...  there'll be a full report later.

I walked down to the field where I saw the Motmot yesterday.  The wind was blowing and I didn't see a thing!  I take that back...  I saw a crested caracara fly over, and heard the grackles and parrots...  but...  no photos.

Headed home...  met Bill coming down the hill with binoculars.  We walked back home together.  

Shortly afterwards, we headed into town.  Our intention was to buy a half gallon of soy milk and walk back home.  Yeah...  right!

As always, we headed to the beach.  It's always interesting to see what's going on there.  This morning there was all kinds of activity!

There's a big gasoline (or diesel) tanker truck parked....

 These beaches don't have marinas with docks...  and gas pumps...  and all that harbors in the USA have.  But we'd never seen boats being fueled before.

 I don't know how many hoses they strung together to reach from the truck out to that boat, but it was fun seeing all the different colors where one left off and another begun.  They had a cable attached to the end of the hose and someone apparently either swam or used a small boat to take the cable out to the moored boats.

 When it was all hooked up and ready to go, the fuel truck started a generator...  and began pumping the fuel out to the fishing boat.  We couldn't see the holding tank this guy was putting it in, but it took quite a while to fill.

 I don't know how many fishing boats were gassed up...  we started watching another scenario going on just up the beach....  (that black spot on the photo is a blemish on my camera lens...  usually I photoshop it away...  missed this one...  Darn!  That sand storm in south Texas was hard on my camera!)

 The big flat-bed fish tank truck is back.  Only this time, they aren't on-loading those huge maui-mauis....  this time they are off-loading huge bags of ice onto a small boat sitting off shore.

 After seeing all those fish come out of this small boat a week or so ago, we now know the actual sequence of work....  That fishing boat (which was being re-fueled) has been out fishing...  they bring in a load of fish in their hold.  Since they can't come close to shore, a smaller boat comes alongside and the guys take the fish from the big boat into the smaller boat....  which comes as close to shore as it can... then the guys carry the fish to the truck that has the tanks.  Today, the guys were carrying out loads of supplies...  and bag after bag of ice.  I have no idea how heavy one of those bags of ice is, but it looks like a back-breaking job to me.  

Finally all those huge bags of ice were loaded...  and the guys all jumped on to head for the bigger boat.  I swear, it reminded me of that college thing where you see how many folks you can cram into a phone booth or a Volkswagon!  I don't know how long the fishing boat will be out to sea, but one of these days we hope to be around when it returns...  wonder how long it will take for us to walk home carrying a 3' fish?

Oh yes..  the drama!

 Must have been the day to take boats out of the water....  as we watched 2 fairly large boats were piloted into fairly shallow water and up onto trailers.  The first guy did fine...  his truck had 4-wheel drive and was able to pull his load right onto the beach and off to town.

 Oops!  This guy doesn't have 4-wheel drive.  His truck just doesn't have enough power to do the job.  He kept getting stuck....

And his crew kept pushing him out.  We figured this would take a while, so we headed on to town.  The last time we looked back, we saw he finally got enough traction and had got the job done.

Ah...  the little dramas of everyday life....

Black Vultures....

I figured they'd fly as soon as I got anywhere near close.  Nope!  They weren't about to budge....

Vultures eat carrion, and I have no idea what dead stuff was close by here.  I do know that the garbage cans are about 20' away....  but they were more interested in this little area.

Well, I hate to close this on such an ugly note...  so...  here's a couple of parrots we saw today...

Actually, they are Orange-fronted Parakeets

About 9" in length.  Noisy...  but oh, so much fun to see.

We did make it to the grocery, but after standing around over a half hour watching all the beach happenings, I didn't think I'd make it up our hill twice in one day...  So, on to the AutoMercado, where we bought more groceries than we needed, as we'd be taking a taxi home.

That's All For Today!