Today we have been at sea on our journey to Guatemala. We have been very busy doing nothing! We have seen no ships at all but watched the sun from first light until 5:00 p.m. do its apparent journey from east to west around the ship.
A highlight of this morning was the blowing onto the deck of a rainforest butterfly. It landed on a nearby sun lounger and took up residence on the underside of a cushion. It stayed there for around 4 hours until the occupier of the sun lounger disturbed it. We were about to photograph it when the occupier of the sun lounger started to walk away. His big feet got close but the butterfly escaped! To think that we are not within sight of land that was no mean feat for a butterfly.
This afternoon a land based bird with beautiful plumage landed on a davit near a lifeboat and spent over 4 hours in the sun resting before we left it to go and get ready for dinner.
To see the bird at its best one needs to enlarge the photograph. We cannot do it here and save it on the blog. As the angle we are shooting at is very difficult we have made the best of it we can without hanging off the ship!!! Having done research we think that it is a White-winged Dove. These birds breed in southwestern US and southern Texas and winters south of the US. Perhaps it was hitching a ride back to breed!
At the time of writing it is now dark so we do not know whether it has left the ship, because as the sun set during dinner at the bow of the ship sea birds were roosting on a protected ledge outside our window on Deck 14. The younger birds were allowed a couple of last flies before sleep!!
It is Guatemala tomorrow.