Holidays at Sea

In spite of the fact that I'm kind of "living the dream" these days, holidays to me are family times and, as great as it is sailing half way around the world, I missed being with family over the holidays.  That being said, the Picton Castle team did a great job putting really nice holidays for us while we were at sea.  The captain actually prefers to be at sea for Christmas and I can understand why.  Aside from one week in Reunion in early December, I did not a see any commercialization of Christmas at all this year and I didn't miss it a bit.  I also haven't seen a snowflake and I don't miss them a bit either.  Maybe it is due to the horrible winter we had in Chicago last year or maybe it's old age but I was perfectly happy with a nice warm sunny holiday season.  I confess, I did sing along when I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas came on but I wasn't actually dreaming of a while Christmas.

We had a little 3 foot tall fake Christmas tree that we decorated on Christmas Eve.  Ship's work ended on noon on Christmas even and didn't start back up until the 26th.  We had to stand watches though.

Our young ladies from Sweden and Denmark spent a lot of time in the galley making treats and they also made a lot of Christmas ornaments.  They are a crafty bunch, those Scandinavians,  We had 2 gift exchanges that we were given the option of participating in.  No one was forced to buy any gifts but most people did participate.  On Christmas Eve we had a "White Elephant" gift exchange where everyone secretly puts a silly or funny gift under the tree.  Everyone then was given a random number and we each had the option, when it was our turn, to either select a wrapped gift or we could take a gift that some had already opened and then that person had to pick again.  It was a lot of fun and many gifts got stolen and traded around many times.  I had a plastic champagne bottle of chocolate for a few minutes but it got snatched pretty quickly.  Then, for Christmas morning we also had a Secret Santa gift exchange.  The ship and the captain's wife also give everyone something.  Everyone was in such wonderful spirits and I really believe everyone really enjoyed their holidays, though we all missed our loved ones.

About half of the crew had Santa hats and most wore them for a week or so leading up to Christmas.  As you can see, the weather was atrocious.  It couldn't have been more than 80° with about 10-12 knots of breeze but we survived!

We had to lash the tree to the hatch in case the swell got big, but it didn't.  The big hawser was to keep the gifts from sliding off the hatch.  The cat was was very into Christmas (her first).  She stayed on the hatch by the tree until all of the gifts were distributed.  Our other cat was hiding out the whole time.  This wasn't all of the gifts yet.  People kept bringing things up and we ended up with quite a pile.

Just before the gifts were handed out.  The 2 youngest crew members distributed the gifts.

We also had a very nice dinner on Christmas Eve and Christmas.  All in all it was a wonderful Christmas.  We had a couple of days of cold rainy weather between Christmas and New Years but things cleared up in time for New Years.

We were still at sea on New Year's Eve but we knew we would be arriving in Cape Town some time New Year's Day so the captain said we would have a New Years Party after we got anchored at Cape Town.  Everyone did get up before midnight to count down to the new year.  A couple of the crew had gotten fireworks from the ship as Christmas gifts so we had a little fireworks show at midnight. There were also some more backed goodies.

Happy New Year!

I was on the midnight watch so we stood watch until 04:00 and then went to bed.  When I got up around 09:00 New Year's Day we were in sight of the Cape Peninsula,  Cape Town actually is on a peninsula that has Table Bay on the North and False Bay on the South.  It's rugged and mountainous and makes for a pretty dramatic landfall. Cape Town is well inside Table Bay and has a wonderful harbour.  We had Cape Fur Seals cavorting around as we sailed up the coast.  It's hard to catch a picture unless you are waiting for them but I was driving.  After we anchored we saw a whale come up for a breath but I wasn't ready for that either so I didn't get a picture...sorry.

One of the great things about sailing is that you get a completely different view of landscapes.  The best views of Chicago are from the lake and I suspect that the same it true for just about everywhere.  Here we may be 20 miles away from Cape Peninsula but it's exciting to see the mountains emerging from the haze after being at sea for 3 weeks.

We're getting closer.  I had this one take right before I got on the helm for my hour turn steering.  You can just start top make out the city skyline at the bottom of the mountains.  We're still about 15 miles away.  Most of the clothes I brought will never be clean again... 

This one is zoomed in to show the city under the mountains.  City in the foreground, then Signal Hill with Table Mountain behind it.  It's another view that this picture just doesn't do justice, it is amazingly beautiful.  Cape Town doesn't have any really big sky scrapers to block the view and the highest point of Table Mountain is 1083 meters above sea level.

Because we came in on a holiday, we couldn't get into the harbor and had to anchor out in the bay, which was just fine.  It was a beautiful day and everyone was excited about making landfall and was in the mood for a New Year's party.  The women decided that our party should be a formal occasion so most everyone dressed up and we had a lot of fun.

We had 14 people leave as Cape Town was the end of leg 2 of the voyage.  I tried to get a picture with each of them but I must have missed some.  This is Nathan .  Photo bombing was in full swing all night, as you can see.  That's Elias from Sweden.

Kelly

Elias

Terry (side note: Terry was one of the Elder Statesmen, anyone over 50.  We lost several of them at Cape Town and I am now the 2nd oldest crew member aboard, not including the captain.)

Monica, from Lithuania

Christan, from Denmark

Travis, from Canada

Kurt, from Texas (Elder Statesmen)

Karolina, from Denmark (not sure about the spelling)

Sunset behind Signal Hill on the first of January, 2015.

The View From My World

When I told many of you folks what I was going to be doing this winter, I got the impression that many of you thought climbing in the rigging was going to be a big deal so here are a few pictures I took to try and give you a sense of what it's like.  We don't actually spend that much time in the rigging and I don't take my camara when I'm working so these were taken on a special trip, just for the pictures.

The view from the jib boom.  It was a fairly windy day so we're healed to port with about 6 foot swells.

The view down.  OK, I'm not really at the end of the jib boom, there is about a meter to go but there's nothing to hang onto out there.  You can't really tell but I'm 25-30 feet above the water, depending on where the swell was when I snapped this one.

I took this one from the deck, looking up to the fore royal yard.  Elias is up there furling the royal because of the strength of the wind.

Here is the view down from the royal yard.  The masts are about 100 feet above the deck but the sail is furled and the yard  doesn't go all the way to the top of the mast.  I'm probably about 85 feet up.

This view is a bit misleading because it looks a bit like I'm standing on the t'gallent yard but I'm actually standing on the foot rope, which is the black line running at an angle to the yard about 5 feet below.  The foot ropes are not too hard on the feet, the rat lines are much worse.  I was told that it took about a month to toughen up one's feet but mine still hurt when I climb up.  I still don't wear shoes though, I'm a sailor, damnit!

Here I'm looking aft, toward the main royal yard, which doesn't have it's sail bent on. You can see the black foot rope under the yard.  You can also see a little of the curvature of the horizon in this picture.  From up here the horizon is probably about 25 or 30 miles away.

And here is the view down to midships.  There are people on deck in front of the small white boat near the center of the picture.  That boat is lashed to the top of the galley house so they're about 8 feet above the leve of the deck.

Changes

In the fine print, like most businesses, there is a clause about reserving the right to make changes to the itinerary for various reasons.  They have taken advantage of this right and made several changes to the original list of places we were expecting to visit.  

The first changes we heard about from the captain.  Due to unrest in Madagascar we were not going to be able to stop there as planned and, due to the Agulhas Current we were not going to be able to reach Mozambique.  The Agulhas Current is pretty much just like the Gulf Stream in the Atlantic.  It’s a warm current the flows south between the East Coast of Africa and Madagascar.  It flows at up to about 4 knots and would be against us if we tried to go to Mozambique.  The next changes we actually heard about through a mass email sent out by the home office.  Due to Savannah, GA cancelling their participation in the Tall Ships festival in May we would not be ending the voyage there.  They had been exploring their options and ultimately decided to skip the US completely.  Now we are going to go to Bermuda around the 1 of May and from there we will be sailing to Lunenburg Nova Social, which happens to be the home of Windward Isles Sailing, the company that owns the ship.  The next change was announced by the captain at an all hands meeting a few days ago.  It seems that a lot of potential new trainees are indicating that they are not signing up due to concerns about Ebola in Africa.  The captain doesn’t seem to share the concerns but it’s affecting business so they have decided to take Senegal and Cape Verde off of the itinerary.  We are still planning on going to Namibia; however, they have indicated that if certain wind conditions exist, it may be necessary to forgo Namibia as well.  Evidently there is a strong wind that often blows from the south along the west coast of Africa and if it is blowing the ship will not be able to make the turn east to get into the port.  The new plan is to go straight from St Helena to the Caribbean, either to Grenada or Barbados.  This will give is more time to spend in the Caribbean and they have added Aruba.  Picton Castle has been invited to be the flagship of the tall ships festival in Aruba.  The rest of the Caribbean itinerary has been a bit vague as I guess the captain sort of makes it up as we go.

Some crew have pretty strong feelings about the changes and some may be leaving earlier than they originally had planned.  I don’t have really strong feelings but I am bummed about some of them.  I was really looking forward to seen Madagascar and all of the countries originally scheduled for Africa.  Savannah was a perfect jumping off point for me because my Mom and Dad were going to come and pick me up there, giving them the opportunity to see the ship and me the opportunity to spend some time with them after being away for so long.  I’m happy to go to Bermuda and Lunenburg.  I expect there will be a big to-do when we get in to Lunenburg since the ship has been out for 3 years.  Either way, I’m on board for sailing and gaining sea time, first and foremost, so I’m not letting the changes dampen my spirit at all.  Besides, this will make a bigger window of opportunity to be able to, maybe, meet up with some Lugnuts sailors in the Caribbean!

Passages

I believe I posted the first sunset I saw in Bali.  Here is the last sunset I saw in Bali

All of my sailing experience, before joining the crew of Picton Castle, has been on yachts in the 35 to 40 foot range.  This led me to have some expectations about what life at sea would be like aboard Picton Castle.  I have to say, I am a bit surprised about how much is different than expected. 

Sunset on the Inian Ocean

Watches

Distance racing on Lugnuts we have 2 watches, port and starboard, and we stand 4 hour watches with ‘dog watches’ in the afternoon.  The dog watches are two 2 hour watches, back to back, the purpose of which is to shift the watches so that the midnight watch rotates back and forth between port and starboard.  There are a lot of variations between watch schedules but I like the one we use on Lugnuts.  It can be a bit exhausting though because, at best one can only get about three and half hours of sleep at a time and often you’re lucky if you get that much.  Usually after the Mac race, which takes us about 3 days, I’m usually pretty worn out.  After the 5 day Bermuda race the exhaustion didn’t seem to be as bad.  We all thought that might have been because of having more time to adjust.  On Picton Castle we have 3 watches, with no dog watches.  This means instead of working 4 hours on and 4 hours off, we work 4 hours and then get 8 hours off.  Needless to say, this allows more time to sleep and do more leisure activities.  We’ve been at sea about 8 weeks now.  For the 4 weeks from Bali to Rodrigues I was on the 12-4 watch.  Between Rodrigues and Reunion the rotated the watches so I was on the 4-8 watch for one week.  When we left Reunion the shuffled the watches so we got new watch mates and officers; however, in the shuffle I ended up on 12-4 again.  Since we don’t have dog watches we have to stand the midnight watch every night…it seems I’m doomed to work the night shift whatever I do.  So, while I get more sleep that I would on a 2 watch schedule, I feel like I don’t get enough.  I have to sleep in split shifts or skip meals so I choose to sleep in split shifts.  It works fine but leaves me kind of tired much of the time.  Things will get shuffled again before we leave Cape Town so we’ll see what watch I get then.

Activity

Who is that sitting out on the end of the jib boom?  We had to un-bend the flying jib.  This was great fun, what can I say, I'm a bowman!  Photo credit:  Picton Castle

On the yachts we have pretty limited space to move around and, depending on conditions, moving around much can affect our performance.  If we’re not actually working most of our time is spent sitting on the rail waiting for the next tack or sail change.  This leads to a sailing specific ailment known aboard Lugnuts as “fiberglass ass”.  By the end of the 2013 Mac, when we were becalmed at the finish line for hours, my but was so sore that I refused to sit on the deck anymore and had to sit on a spinnaker bag.  On Picton Castle we have much more room to stretch our legs, which makes the long passages much more comfortable than I was expecting them to be.  We also have maintenance activities that we can participate in when we’re off watch, like rigging work, sail making or helping with carpentry projects.  I have volunteered for all of these and enjoy them all.

Sailing

This fiferail holds about 15% of the lines for main mast.  To the left is the scuttle that leads down to the solon, where my berth is.

I knew the sailing would be a lot different, after all, this is a barque that flies up to 10 square sails and 8 fore and aft sails (sails rigged along the center line of the ship, like a sloop).  We have many more lines to keep track of.  Each square sail has from 8 – 14 lines to control everything and the fore and aft sails have 5 each.  Another big difference is that Picton Castle doesn’t have any winches; mechanical aids to help with sail handling.  That means we used block and tackles or manpower against the weight of sails and rigging and the force of the wind.  Block and Tackle make for much longer lines and hoisting a sail like the upper topsail, which requires us to hoist the upper topsail yard as well, takes at least 5 people hoisting on the halyard.  The yard is steel and probably weighs around a ton and the sail probably weighs 80 lbs.  All of our sails are canvas and our line is manila.  Manila line has to be tended much more than modern lines.  It stretches under strain and shrinks when it gets wet so lines need to be adjusted frequently.  Lines and sails are also always at risk of failure as well.  So far we’ve had one headsail blow out when it was being taken in and one halyard parted when a sail was being set.  The biggest risk factor for both lines and sails is chafe.  Chafe is where lines or sails rub against each other or against spars or other parts of the ship.  We’re on constant lookout for chafe and add padding or bumpers or control lines to avoid chafe; all called chafe gear.

Helming (steering)

Helming on the way into Cape Town.  You can see Table Mountain under the boom.

Helming is one of the highlights of sailing, whether on yachts or on the ship.  On Lugnuts there is a little less than one full turn of the wheel to go from hard over to port, to hard over to starboard.  On Picton Castle it’s 20 turns of the wheel.  That has taken some getting used to; however, my confidence is growing on the helm.  We rotate 1 hour turns on the helm so, with 6 people on watch, one day I get one turn and the next day I get 2 turns.  The helm is on the quarter deck at the stern of the ship so it’s about 15 feet above the water and you’re looking down the length of the ship.  It’s open to the elements and had a great view.  It reacts much like a yacht as far as being pushed one way or another by wind and seas, it just takes more time and effort to respond.  Helming takes a lot of concentration to sail a good line but I just love it.

Sunrise one morning a couple days out from Reunion.  I caught this one on sheer luck.  I woke up to use the head (bathroom) just in time to see the sunrise.

This post was written at sea but we have now docked in Cape Town, which is the ending point of leg 2.  We sailed about 5,700 nautical miles on this leg and we got as far south as 35° 09’ South Latitude.  Of the 3 months allotted to the leg, we spent about 55 days at sea.  We had about 4 days of rain, not including some sprinkles at night between Bali and Rodrigues.

About 14 people are leaving at Cape Town and 6 new people have joined the ship, all but 2 of them have previous experience on tall ships.  As of now we’re scheduled to leave Cape Town on January 20^th but that is subject to change.

Reunion

Approaching Reunion Island from the Northeast

Our passage from Rodrigues to Reunion had pretty light winds most of the way and we had to motor for about 16 hours to keep moving along.  We arrived in Reunion on Saturday, 12/6 on a lovely, sunny day.  Reunion is a roughly circular island with a diameter of about 36 miles.  It is part of France and has been since the late 16th century.  Being part of France allows the island to have first world infrastructure so they have great roads and lots of traffic.  The current population is around 900,000.  There is an active volcano in the Southeast so that area is not very populated.  The larger cities are around the coastal areas with many smaller villages scattered through the interior.  They seem to have some tourism, mostly from France but it's not a particularly easy island to get to.  Most of the tourist area is along the west coast.  The island is volcanic and at one time had a large number of volcanoes that have collapsed over the centuries, leaving a unique and remarkable landscape.  I've tried to get some photos but, once again, the pictures don't come close to the reality.  I have really enjoyed our week here and I'll be leaving tomorrow thinking that I will need to come back one day and finish exploring this amazing place.

From the sea you can get an idea of the mountainous nature of the island.  These raviens and hills are the defining features of the island and this is a very small example of one.  The towns are usually on the high ground with reviens on each side.

At the base of these cliffs is the highway that leads from Le Port to St Denni, which is the capitol.  It's a lovely drive and I imagine the homes on top have a great view.

This is the other end of that 8-10 kilometer long cliff on the East side of Le Port.  There are 2 ports here and we tied up in Port O'est (West).  There are no good natural harbors on the island so all of them are very nice man made ports that are very well protected from storms and high seas.

I went in with some shipmates and we rented 2 cars and drove up to a village in the interior called Cilaos.  As the crow flies the distance from the coast to Cilaos is about 8-10 kilometers but the road up the mountain is 36 kilometers and you can't go more than about 20 due to hairpin turns.  It took us a couple of hours to get there but we stopped a few times and took pictures.  Fortunately they drive on the right side of the road, which is good since I did all the driving.

Here is where we started to climb into the mountains.  The valley is very wide with a flat rocky bottom and there is a very small stream, maybe 10 feet wide, in the center.  We pretty much followed this valley all the way up.  The highest point on the island is a little over 3,000 meters, so a little over 10,000 feet.  That's quite a bit of altitude to cover from sea level at the cost to 3,000 meters in about 10 kilometers.

This should give you a sense of the road.  It was in excellent condition and quite steep.  The red sign you see is actually a bus stop.  Yes, they run busses up and down to all of the towns in the interior.  It costs 1.5 Euros to take the bus from the coast to Cilao.  Just to the right and on the outer edge of the turn you can see 2 posts.  This is a marked hicking trail that descends into the valley.  Reunion has hundreds of kilometers of improved hicking trails all over the island, many with cottages spaced a day's hike apart.  One trail makes a complete circle for over 100 kilometers and takes about 17 days to hike.

This is more than half way up the mountain at another bus stop.  Unfortunately the higher elevations are frequently shrouded in clouds but, if it were clear we would be able to see the sea in the center.

Steep, beautiful country.

This tunnel is about 300 meters long.  You're running along on the nice two lane mountain road and you turn into the tunnel enterence to find that the tunnel is only one lane wide and the inside of the tunnel is unfinished, bare rock.  They did put a wide spot in the middle so cars could get around each other if they meet.  There were a few tunnels like this but this one was the longest.

Near the top is the very French village of Cilaos

This is the view back from that church above.  The mountains are kind of lost in the haze, but they're there.  The village was pretty much closed by the time we arrived so we just walked through and admired how beautiful it is.

I have made a point of stopping and smelling all the new flowers that I see.  I was able to smell these flowers before I got anywhere near the trees.  There were namy of these trees and they were very fragarent, with a sweet scent similar to lilacs.  This bridge crossed a water run off canal, which was empty except that the flowers were falling from the trees like snow and the canal was coated with them.  Below the bridge, beside the canal was a littly grassy park.

There is one more interesting tidbit about Reunion.  There is a great deal of shark activity along the west coast.  Yes, I did say above that the west coast is the tourist area.  The beach that I stayed at had and area that had reef of on two sides and a shark net along the seaward side.  This area was also patrolled by jet-ski.  Swimming was only allowed in that small section.  The rest of the beach was posted as a No Swimming area, due to sharks.

Phosphorescence

There is an organism, in most of the world’s oceans, that, when disturbed, briefly emit a greenish-yellow glow; very similar to fire-flies or lightening bugs.  I don’t know if they are algae, plankton or some more simple organism but they are very small and one really only sees them when they phosphoresce.   The phosphorescent glow only lasts a few seconds; however, when there is a large concentration of these organisms it can be a spectacular sight.  My first experience with this phenomenon was in the Atlantic when Lugnuts did the Newport-Bermuda Race.  There were large quantities of them so that, at night, the wake glowed with thousands of points of light.  It is a beautiful and mesmerizing sight.  I have been quite surprised by the lack of phosphorescence that in the Indian Ocean.  I had assumed that it would be the same everywhere as I had seen in the Atlantic.  In the Indian Ocean most nights we only see the occasional glimmer of phosphorescence.  The most we’ve seen was on the first couple of nights after leaving Bali, which brings me to my story.

One of the really great things about sailing, whether it be on Lake Michigan or in the ocean, is that it puts one in places where there is great potential to see wonderful and amazing sights.  As anyone on the Lugnuts crew can confirm, we have seen the most remarkable sunsets and sunrises, storm clouds, lightning, calms, stars and falling stars, among many other beautiful sights.  We often remark, while in awe of some remarkable sight, that many of these sights can only be seen from the deck of a boat.  I was pretty confident that, during 8 months at sea, I would be seeing some more amazing sights.  Little did I know that one of the most amazing things I’ve ever seen would present itself on my very first night watch at sea.

We left Bali at about 1400 on Sunday, October 26^th.  When we went to sea the crew was divided from 2 shore watches into 3 night watches and I was placed on the 12 to 4 watch.  Leaving port we were “all hands” until around 1800 so my first official watch was from midnight until 0400 on 10/27.  During the night watches, one of the duties we share is forward lookout, where for one hour shifts a crew member stands at the bow and keeps a sharp eye out of any hazards or other traffic.  I had my first turn on lookout from 0200-0300.  The moon was either new or waning very small that night so it was pretty dark and the stars were amazing and there was a moderate amount of phosphorescence in the water.  I was trying to remember to keep looking around for hazards and not just gaze at the stars when I noticed a strange light in the water near the bow.  When I looked for it I thought that it must have been a whitecap that I saw glowing a little but then I realized it was turned in the wrong direction so I started watching more closely nearer to the bow.  I saw another long slash of phosphorescence going at an angle to the wake of the ship but this time I was watching and it turned out that I had a small pod of 5 dolphins swimming in and around the bow wave of the ship.  It was so dark that I would not have been able to seem them at all if not for the phosphorescence but the darkness made the phosphorescence that much brighter to my eye and make the whole scene truly amazing.  The phosphorescence glowed from the nose of each dolphin and all around their bodies and then left a glowing wake behind each one for about another length of its body, so that a 4 foot long dolphin swam in the front half of an 8 foot long torpedo of green light.  The phosphorescence was bright enough that I could clearly see the entire length of each dolphin, in detail, as they swam in and out of the bow wave.  It appeared to me that they were taking turns getting into the best part of the bow wave and then veering off to circle back up from behind the bow and wait until the spot was open again.  I had the privilege of being able to watch them for about 10 minutes before they swam off.  I was absolutely spellbound the entire time and my turn on lookout ended just a few minutes after they left.  They came back (or more showed up) about 10 minutes into the next watch and I was told they stayed and played for about 20 minutes that time.

When I was relieved at lookout I excitedly told my relief about the dolphins.  My relief was Emile, a 21 year old Dane who sailed previously on the Denmark, and he was not impressed at all.  He said, “You’ll see so many dolphins on this trip that you began not to notice.”  I found I had to go find Turi, our watch’s other new trainee, just to find someone to share my excitement with.  Since that first night, I’ve seen dolphins one other time in the daylight and that was very brief.  There have been a couple of times that crewmates have seen whales breathing but I have not seen that yet myself.  I can’t imagine that I will ever find seeing these animals in their natural habitat to be a mundane sight.  I would love to be able to show you pictures, although I doubt pictures would do the sight justice, but there was no way I was going to walk away to get my camera while the dolphins were there.  That day I started my journal entry with the statement, “I will probably repeat this phrase many time here but, I saw the most amazing thing today!” 

Rodrigues

I have a dilemma.  This is a wonderful island and I would love to write an extensive blog post about it but, if I do that, I will be sitting inside at my computer instead of out there enjoying the wonderful place.  That being said, I've decided to write a quick post now and then try to write a better on when I'm on the way to our next stop at Reunion.

Rodrigues is a small volcanic island with a large limestone plain on the west side.  It's roughly an oval about 10 miles long and 4 miles wide.  It has rough mountainous terrain, with some mountains about 1,200 feet high.  The higher elevations are tropical rain forest and the lower elevations are more dry.  The population is about 38,000 spread pretty evenly across the island, with the lower west side being a little less populated.

Approaching Rodrigues from the Southeast

A 70 year old Tortoise and me having a chat.  I sat down about 10 feet away from him and he came over to let me scratch his neck, you know, after he bit my knee to see if I tasted good.

They have ENORMOUS spiders here.  It's hard to get a perspective without something else in the picture but from this guys let tips, front to back he is every bit of 6 inches long.  These are the only spiders I've seen here and there are quite a lot of them.  I asked a women what they were called and she said, "Spiders".

This place is beautiful.  It's clean, the people are friendly, their homes are nice, all with lovely gardens and flowers everywhere.  Most business are only open from 9 AM until 3 PM, then everyone goes home to their families.  I've been staying at a B&B for $35.00 US a night and a good steak dinner costs $10.00 US.  A great, grilled lobster dinner costs $65.00 US for a 1 kilo lobster...it was spectacular!  I will try to post more but now I'm going on a hike before this day gets away from me.