Wednesday January 13th, 2016
Last night we finally made it to the cruiser’s twice weekly Texas ‘holdem’ poker night. This is a fun get together of cruisers from the harbour. You buy chips for $5 and all the money collected goes to the last four players. I did not make it to the final four…but I was not the first out either. I have not played much poker in my life but I have a knowledge of the winning hands and could look somewhat less like a dolt. There of course is some strategy mixed into the luck here. We had about 32 people playing at four tables or so. I managed to increase my chips with some blind luck and good cards early on. The luck and the cards left me and I was extracted quickly in the second round. The dealers play as well and my dealer was Oliver Sinclair from Dejarlo. He was very helpful but to a point. They help you once maybe twice but after that you should know thanks for the help Ollie ?sp.
The Poker is held at St. Francis resort over here on Stocking Island. They have generously provided their activity room for this event. Their bar is open and a lot of folks come over early and have dinner first. It was a great night out and as usual I should have gone before but I am shy.
St Francis and especially Jillian are the centre of another story here in the harbour. On the night of the big blow the osprey nest on top of the monument up on our only hill was blown down. One of the chicks was dead in the morning when found the other was still alive. Human nature usually leads to someone carting off the chick and trying to save it. Jillian is an animal person with a leaning to birds. She has a couple of parrots, two cats and now a baby osprey. Each morning on the cruiser’s net the condition of said chick (short for chicken (apparently the size it is now)) goes out and a request for any spare fish or fish parts cruisers may have. There was a worry that fish dishes would have to be dropped from their menu as this…chicken was eating about a pound a day.
They have created a ‘condo’ as Jillian calls it for the ‘chick’. It is fenced to protect it from the parrots and cats but open elsewhere. Plans are underway on when and how it will be taught to fly. I am part of the catapult group but most others think this harsh. Dropping from an airplane was considered but most of us are old enough to remember WKRP in Cincinnati and the turkey drop. I will keep you up to date on the development of this young predator.
In order to make it easier and safer to get to poker we had to move to the Stocking Island side. This was also a good move because we are about to have another trough move through with the associated winds. We came across and tried to set our anchor near DD but we must have hit one of the few smooth rock bottoms. The anchor just slipped along and seemed to gain speed. We then had to move farther south to find some sand which we eventually did. We have a good hook for the day and the associated weather.