We had some hitchhikers with us on November's crossing of the southern Sea of Cortez. About 25 miles offshore from Mazatlan, two hummingbird-size moths landed in our cockpit. They found spots with good grips for insects (like the binoculars we have hanging from the helm in that pic over there); used their forelegs to shield their eyes from the bright sun; and they kept to themselves. After sunset they quietly disappeared under a crescent moon to pursue their mothly business.
A yellow warbler briefly sought refuge on our stern pulpit until a sudden jump of GB’s fishing rod (accompanied by a sudden jump of GB) scared her off.
Later, at sunset, a brown booby stopped by for a rest. I liked the little guy – especially when he gave up trying to perch on our fragile, expensive masthead instruments and chose our more commodious lower starboard spreader. Boobies have a hard life, always having to dive from heights for fish, only to be harassed into giving them up to a frigate bird. Boobies are generally docile and quiet, so when this fella wanted to rest on our spreader I was happy to oblige. Since we had the dodger off for ventilation, I could watch him from my perch in the cockpit near the radar display. He was adorable. Our steaming light made his big webbed feet glow orange as he preened himself and investigated our Mexican courtesy flag, and gently played with a nearby halyard. I love birdwatching.
Until about 9:00 p.m. when he let go.
Suddenly, in the darkness, I was bathed in the warm afterglow of fresh booby poo. Stripping down to nothing but a PFD and a grimace, I thought how lucky I was — that GB was off watch and unavailable to point and laugh.
That little farker unloaded every 20 minutes. Between the projectile poo and the blowback, no place in the cockpit was safe except for as far aft as one can hide without swimming. As the night wore on GB and I shone lights at him and cursed loudly, but the bastard stood pat. We spent the night debating the relative merits of a BB gun (likely illegal for a gringo to possess in Mexico) and a Wrist Rocket ™ slingshot using uncooked garbanzo beans as ammo (looks like a go, but we’ll have to practice our aim to avoid hitting something more vital and expensive on the boat – or killing the booby which would make one of us almost sad (it only takes one big fat shot of booby poo to start disrespecting the value of animal life)).
[Note: the brown booby in that photo up there is not the perp. I use his photo here for illustrative purposes – and because he's probably guilty of having done something similar to someone else.]
On the upside, bird poo is generally water-soluble and the constant letting-go countered with our constant cleanup gave us all something to do during the night watches. About 0500 the next morning, after 11 hours of a marathon projectile crap-o-rama,the booby lost his balance while asleep and crashed from the spreader to the deck below. Stunned and embarrassed, he glared at me as if it were all my fault, then flew off in a huff.
When we got to our anchorages at Bahia Los Frailes, it took more hours of scrubbing everything from the mast, aft, to get the poor Fox in decent shape once again. Feh. Folks on other boats must have wondered what was up with all the boat brushes and buckets o' salt water. When we see them again at other anchorages - as we undoubtedly will – we'll have to explain ourselves.
We used to sail by tall, guano-covered islets and cliffs and I’d wonder how many generations of how many seabirds it took to paint those rocks solid white. Now I know: it takes one booby just a couple of days.
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