Honduras, Roatan (Tattoos) 2016-03-22

I no longer have milky white virgin skin.

It was my 30th birthday the other day, and as the date was approaching fast it suddenly dawned on me that I was about to lose my 20's. And I definitely haven't done as many crazy things as I would have liked to do. Sure, I moved to another country on a whim, instantly fell in love and got married to a crazy ginger. Then I took all the money that I'd been saving for my entire adult life and essentially threw it into the ocean by buying a sailboat with little to no experience with, or previous desire to sail. Then I abandoned my new home and sailed off into the unknown, along a ridiculously crazy route that almost nobody else is stupid enough to take. But for some reason it all seems kind of normal now. I wanted to enter my 30's with the same level of craziness that I've managed to uphold during my 20's. There are no nearby planes to jump out of and nothing else accessible that I haven't already done (I greet each day by hugging a monkey. And is swimming with sharks supposed to just be for special occasions? Because those guys are just my friendly neighbours that come round to hang out occasionally). So I decided to get inked.



I always figured I would mark this adventure with a tattoo of some kind. With such a short attention span, nothing has ever struck me as being amazing enough for me to want to have it etched permanently on my body. But this has been a trip of a lifetime and it's one thing that I'll certainly never change my mind about in a hurry. I might not end up a sailor forever, but I have no regrets about sailing off into the sunset. Or straight into the waves, in our case. I've never gotten to the stage of sitting down and thinking about tattoo designs though, so I figured my 30th birthday was as good a time as any.

After doing some research into the local tattoo parlour (Foxy’s Ink), I decided that this was going to happen. Roatan is a tropical paradise in the Caribbean, so instead of ending up with one or two dodgy tattoo artists plucked from a very small pool, really good artists come over here for a working holiday. There’s only one reputable tattoo parlour here and their current guest artist from overseas (Rene) is good at artsy pretty tattoos, so I was in luck. (I should mention that the resident artists are very good as well. Foxy, the owner, has just started out. But she's learning from a revolving door of amazing people and has her own unique style).


Tropical paradise!

I thought a lot about what I wanted, and after a lot of scouring through images, scribbling down ideas and talking with Rene, we were a go. I had hoped to get it over and done with before I turned 30, but my appointment ended up being on my birthday itself. Not a fun birthday. But I was excited nonetheless.

I wanted a boat, which is probably obvious. After travelling over 20,000 nautical miles, mostly upwind, I think I deserve to have a permanent boat on me. Luckily we have one series of photos that our friends Liesbet and Mark took of our boat sailing next to theirs in French Polynesia. We were floating along on calm seas in hardly any wind, so we don't look that impressive. But they are the only photos we have of us sailing – normally there's nobody around to watch us heel over! So Rene took one of Liesbet’s photos and turned it into a silhouette. I was not going to have a random boat tattooed on me forever. It was going to be our Heartbeat.






The basic design I wanted was swirling waves curling over my foot and up my ankle, with our boat in amongst them. Hopefully with a koru kind of design, because New Zealand and my Kiwi husband have definitely set my life on a completely different path. Because of the ridiculous sailing route that we took and the fact that we didn't die, I was hoping my tattoo boat could be sailing upwind as a reminder of how many shitty days we have endured in crappy conditions. But I eventually decided to butt out and just let Rene just do his thing, because the design he came up with was kind of awesome. I've had too many bad haircuts from trying to tell the hairdresser what I wanted instead of just letting them do something sensible. I've definitely learned my lesson. Luckily hair grows back...




Rene made a perfect swirl on my ankle bone, which left us sailing downwind. But he added a heap of swirly waves all around us to make up for this change. There is no doubt that the boat on my ankle is sailing through some crazy waves. Because this is my first tattoo, I was nervous as hell that he wasn't really drawing much onto my foot before the needle came out. He traced on the boat, the words I wanted ("Let's go on an adventure!"), and the perfect circle for my ankle. He added a few outlines of waves but the rest he was going to freehand. I'd seen a lot of his other works so I knew he was talented, but I was still scared!


Ready to go


So may blues!

I shouldn't have been. He produced a pile of different coloured blue ink and got to work. It was really sore at first, then after the first hour it became excruciating. I'm not sure who's stupid idea it was to get my first tattoo on the bone of my foot and ankle, but here we were. I had thought long and hard about it, and had come to the conclusion that I would rather sit through a bit of extra pain than spend the rest of my life with a tattoo in a place other than where I wanted it. I quickly wished I had wanted it somewhere else! After an hour or two I was screaming into the pillow, trying so hard to stay still. My foot kept twitching when he was doing the words, because it kept hitting all the nerves in my foot. I was terrified I was going to involuntarily move and wreck it. Garth was amazing, holding my foot down to stop it moving and just generally being lovely. I'm not sure which part hurt the most because after a while it just became a big blur of pain. But I'm probably going to go with that pretty swirl on my ankle bone. That was never going to be a stroll through the park.





As he moved up my ankle and onto the sails, the pain reduced significantly and it was more like getting laser hair removal. After talking to a lot of tattooed people this is what I had been expecting the whole thing to feel like - very painful but not too bad. I've had lots of laser and for a while I managed to distract myself the same way that I do when I'm having hair removed - by playing games on my phone. But once he'd finished that little section of my ankle where it wasn't just all bone, he went straight back down and continued torturing my foot. Foxy, the owner of the shop, was really sweet and lovely. She cranked the music so I could scream into the bed to my heart's content. Everybody kept trying to distract me, but all I cared about was keeping still.



So after a few hours of torture, I had an explosion of colour on my ankle. Which had swollen up to twice it's size. Rene told me not to walk on it for at least three days, which I tried really hard to do and then failed miserably. How do I not walk when I live a boat? I can't exactly hop from one room to another! It took five days for the swelling to start going down and over a week before the first bit of skin started peeling. I couldn't wear shoes or walk to the showers. The marina bathrooms are down a dirt path, and I was supposed to wash my foot every day without walking or getting dust on it. After care on a boat is really, really hard.


The next day




Still puffed up a few days later

I ended up wearing a sock whenever I could, and half hopping half limping between the facilities and our boat. The hotel lobby (wifi!) and the tiki palapa are even further away than the bathrooms. So I ended up losing a bit of colour exactly where Rene said I would if I didn't keep my foot up. Damn. Luckily we'll be back in civilisation again soon so I can get a touch up like a normal person.



A week and a half later

While I was at it, I got a wedding ring tattooed onto my finger. I'm so sick of not having my wedding ring. It's super dangerous wearing a ring on the boat, even when the boat's not moving. I've seen so many pictures and heard so many stories of people getting gloved by their rings, even just getting in and out of the boat on the dock. So the ring always stays off and the newlywed inside me is sad. Now I have it forever!



Interestingly it didn't hurt at all when Rene was tattooing my finger. Like at all. I could have had a nap. I guess my fingers have more skin on them than my foot!

After a whole day of anticipation and a whole afternoon of pain, the rest of my birthday was lovely. Everybody came out to celebrate with me. Our friend Ellen made me her special ribs which she finished off on the BBQ (one of the best things I've ever eaten), Debbie produced cake and cocktails and after driving me into the tattoo parlour that morning, Fred came all the way back out to Fantasy Island bearing champagne. There were a few thoughtful presents small enough to fit on the boat and I just generally felt really loved. I'm going to miss these people so much when we go!





After spending all afternoon watching me scream and squirm, the next week Garth decided he wanted in on the excitement. He has always wanted a tattoo of a monkey, but has never been able to figure out exactly what it is that he wants. After chatting with Foxy, he decided he may as well get on the bandwagon if she could figure out how to get the image of what he wanted out of his head and onto paper.


Foxy’s original design, which she was nice enough to let us have

She came up with a very cool design to start with, which was amazing. But it wasn't what Garth had been picturing for all these years. It turns out that he just wanted a simple outline of a monkey climbing up his back. To make it more special, the monkey he settled on is a Capuchin, just like his little friends here on Fantasy Island.


Foxy doing her thing



In an attempt to annoy me, Garth decided to get a tattoo that didn't take long and hardly hurt at all. Damn him. Fred was amazing enough to give us another lift into town and then then he even stuck around to take us back. It was late when we got home, so we went out to dinner. That's where I discovered one of my new favourite things - a Corona tipped upside down into a margarita. It starts off as all margarita and ends up as mostly Corona. Awesome.





Garh couldn't wait to show Cheeky the new tattoo and he was pretty interested in it at first, but then he went back to searching Garth's pockets for almonds and eating all of his hair. Typical.


What’s all this then?

Edit: My tattoo a few months later




X xx Monique

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Honduras, Roatan (Sloths) 2016-02-22

Best. Day. Ever. Our friends John and Lisa from S/V Morningstar took the lovely Shelley and I on an excursion to cuddle some sloths. I freaking love sloths. There were lots of them in Panama, and it was really exciting when we went out in the evening to find a random sloth hanging off a tree or creeping along a power line. But they usually only come down from the trees at night, so the only pictures I have are of blurry grey shapes lurking in the darkness. Occasionally they would hide in the electrical box near the La Playita anchorage during the day, because it was much cooler in there. But for the most part we didn't really get to play with them.



It just so happens that there’s a little zoo thing near the anchorage here in Roatan. I don't do zoos. I don't like seeing animals in cages, and I don't support places that cage up animals. But I decided to give in just this once so that we could see the sloths. I don't think they’re native to Honduras, but the climate here is exactly the same as in the neighbouring countries where they're abundunt, such as Panama and Costa Rica.

I was hoping it would be more like a sanctuary than a zoo, but there were still animals in cages. We were the only ones there and it wasn’t a big place (we’d certainly never heard of it). The friendly owners were probably just looking after the animals in their backyard to start with and they figured they may as well charge tourists to see them. There were a few smaller animals in big cages (three racoons and a few of the native watusas that you see everywhere near the marina). There was also a spider monkey in a cage and another one on a long leash, which I hated. But he was on a leash so he could live in a little tree house and still hang out in the trees without running off. I didn't like it, but he seemed pretty happy playing up in the branches. Spider monkeys can be pretty aggressive if they want to be, so I doubt they would last very long running around with the people on the island. The one in the cage was very possessive of the guy showing us around - Mr monkey reached out and grabbed our guides hand, wrapping fingers around his arm and pulling him closer. The guy said that because they play with them every day and are close with them, the spider monkeys don't like anybody else taking away their attention.


John with a spider monkey. They were very different to the spider monkeys we saw in Panama

There were also capuchin monkeys. Lots of them. They were in two huge cages, with a few running wild around the place. I was trying to figure out why they didn't let more monkeys out to play, when the guys working there found us a sloth.



The sloths were just hanging out in the trees, but there was one close to the ground with a little baby clinging to her stomach. It was pretty much the cutest thing I've ever seen in my life. The baby was sooo little and sooo cute! The pair were munching on leaves together and being adorable, when a capuchin monkey came along and peeled one of her hands off the branch. Then it peeled another hand off. They move so slowly and the monkeys are so quick, it was very easy for them to just drop the sloths off the branches. When the guys yelled at it, the monkey tried to pick up the baby. It was being an absolute terror. The guys said that the monkeys loved causing trouble and that they’re always trying to drop the sloths into the water. This one in particular needed to be watched all day because of the little baby. So that's why most of the capuchins were locked up…



Our friendly guide went about finding us a sloth near the ground who wasn't trying to look after a tiny little baby. This was the one he came back with.


Shelley with our new friend

Sloths are just ridiculous! He was so chilled out and relaxed. When the guy picked him up, he pretended his arms were branches so the sloth just gripped onto his hands and was slowly moved onto us. They look so silly hanging in the air! You could tell these guys cared about the animals, which made me feel better about the whole cages situation - they showed us where to put our hands so the little guy would be supported properly, and our slothy friend was handled like a delicate baby.

John with the sloth

He seemed perfectly content to just cling onto us. He looked around every once and a while, and we we were told he was slowly trying to decide which tree he was going climb up onto once we were done. This seemed like a decision that he wasnt going to make easily… there was a lot of pondering going on in his little head. I could just picture him sitting back in an armchair slowly sipping a cup of tea and thinking about his options for the entire afternoon. He made no signs of wanting to move any time soon, and just sat there quietly.





I nearly died when it was my turn. It was like cuddling a koala bear that doesn't stink, isn't going to go to the toilet on you and has no interest in scratching your eyes out. He wrapped his arms around my neck, holding onto my back with his claws. The claws were very long but not at all sharp. I was tempted to just walk off with my cuddly little friend, and I don't think he would have minded. But I think we would have had some concerned caretakers chasing after us!







After we were done cuddling him, John placed him back onto a tree with the help of our young leader. He looked around and very slowly made his way back up into the branches, trying to find the perfect spot to hang from.


Inspecting the branch

We went to check on the baby again before we left, and I nearly died when I saw the other caretaker playing with it. Sloths only produce milk for two weeks and they only carry their babies for a few months. After that they're on their own. This one was still very small, but it was starting to look around as it gets ready to explore on its own.



I'm not sure sure if the monkeys were messing with it or if it was being returned from an exploratory mission, but the guy had it sitting on his chest. It looked so tiny next to a full grown person! It was just this little furry ball clinging to his shirt. I got the impression that they didn't handle it very often and I've never seen two boys fuss over something so carefully before. They agreed to let me hold the baby when I nearly exploded from excitement and cuteness, but I'm not sure they were very confident about it. I was given very specific instructions on how to hold it. The little thing fit right in my hand! I held my hand out to support it and it latched onto me, wrapping both legs around the bottom of my hand. It gripped on tight!




You can just see his tiny little claws clinging onto the bottom of my right hand

The boys weren't happy with that, so they detached it from me and then placed it on my shirt, where it could grip with tiny little claws. I nearly passed out from the cuteness overload.





I didn't get to play for long, because they wanted the bubba back on mum’s tummy. It's still very young and and I don't think they've really let anybody else handle it before. It wanted to go exploring along the branch, but eventually it snuggled into her fur and wrapped itself around her as much as it could. So. Cute.



We got to visit with some birds before we left, which was actually pretty cool. They had Macaws and some green parrots, both of which are native to Honduras. I think he Macaw is actually the national bird. I had no idea how big they were! We got to go in the enclosure and feed them, which was exactly like feeding a normal parrot...If the parrot was the size of a small dog and had the ability to bite off your hand along with the birdseed.





Xxx Monique

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Honduras, Roatan (Monkeys) 2016-02-20

Monkeys. That's what our whole lives revolve around now. Three cheeky, adorable little monkeys.

This little family of capuchins lives on the same island that the marina is on here in Roatan. They're the cutest things ever and Garth is in heaven. Their typical day involves visiting their favourite mangrove trees for breakfast, running around the island near their favourite mangrove trees, fishing for crabs,then making a total nuisence of themselves in the resort lobby. Sometimes they bug the animals in the chicken coop, and occasionally they visit the Tiki Palapa. Then they go to sleep.







Unfortunately, the people at anchor aren't allowed in the hotel lobby. So on two occasions Debbie and Steve have kept them entertained near the Palapa long enough for us to dinghy to shore and play with them. But that's it. Garth has been so frustrated knowing that we’re sharing an island with monkeys and we can't play with them.



But then we brought our boat in and tied up to the dock. Something we never do, but it was necessary in order to get some work done on our deck. We have to take all the sails down, and there isn’t really room to move around them while we’re at anchor! Plus we need both power and power tools to get the job done. So to the dock we went.




Garth has quickly become a ladder

And we happened to get the spot right in front of the monkey’s favourite trees.

For the last month or so, every morning has been the same. We’re woken by a cute little squeaking noise above our heads, and we open our eyes to see little monkey heads looking down at us. We have tried not to encourage them to get on the boat, but they're so damned cute… We usually just carry them off, or yell at them if they're trying to get inside or destroy things.




Early morning view from the dock

At first they wanted to play with everything. They would run round the cockpit, picking random things up and playing with them. Everybody calls the baby ‘Cheeky’ (He’s two years old and very much a terror). Then there’s his mum and possibly his grandmother (for a long time we thought she was his dad… she’s quite shy and hesitant to get too close. But after befriending her, closer inspection revealed that she is indeed a female). Cheeky must be teething. He doesn't have his big pointy teeth yet, and he puts everything he can find In his mouth and gnaws on it. Then he gets bored and drops it wherever he happens to be. Which is usually on a roof or over the water. So once he picks picks something up and wanders off with it, you had better hope that it's either waterproof or not valuable.


"Dad” has all his teeth!


Is Garth’s foot food?

They are one of the main tourist attractions here. Imagine getting off the plane in a foreign country, going straight to your hotel and into the lobby, and the first thing you see are tiny monkeys running around and jumping on all the tables and chairs. Cheeky loves people, and either jumps or climbs onto everybody looking for both new friends to play with and fun things to chew on. The hotel guests love it! They whip out their phones and take pictures of the adorable little critters. And then Cheeky snatches their phones, runs outside onto the roof or up a tree and chews on it until he gets bored. If they're lucky, he eventually gives it up. Maybe when he's a safe distance from the ground. Maybe not.


Cheeky

He knows that pockets and handbags have many exciting things inside them. So while you're coo-ing over the monkey sitting on your shoulder, he reaches down and steals your wallet. People have lost lots of things to their theiving nature, including expensive medications, dive cameras, phones, a rollex, and even a sat phone from inside somebody’s boat. Debbie put a hummingbird feeder up a while ago, and the monkeys swiftly dismantled it and stashed it somewhere. So they're pretty destructive!



He always thinks there might be things hidden down my top

But they're also adorable. We’ve been having a great time playing with them, getting up early every day as soon as the little monkey chatter starts up. Our friend Shelley walks her dog past our boat every morning and she swears they just sit in the trees staring at our boat, waiting for us to get up. They must eventually get impatient and then come over to wake us up!


I think he's still asleep...

At first they were having a great time picking things up and running off with them (although nothing of value!) Water bottles, Tupperware containers... anything in the cockpit that Cheeky can grab and run off with, he does. But after a while they stopped trying to rip our boat apart, and it was as if they just came to see us. In the beginning they would peer in at us through the hatch with their tails wrapped around the side of the boat as if it were a safety net. They didn't want to get too close in case it was dangerous.

Now Cheeky jumps up and down above our hatch, sticking his hands in trying to touch us. As soon as one of us sits up, he jumps on our heads. Then we have to get dressed with a monkey for a hat, trying to keep our heads outside the boat so he doesn’t think that it’s okay to come inside!


Trying to get dressed

Garth usually goes out via the companionway. As soon as Garth disappears from sight, Cheeky runs to the cockpit to wait for him. If Garth takes too long, the silly monkey comes back to the bow and peers in trying to find his giant friend. One day Garth was taking too long and the companionway was all shut up. I closed the bow as I climbed out (to make sure they couldn't get in!) and sat on the dock with some nuts ready to give Cheeky his treat. But Garth was still inside. Uninterested in treats, Cheeky ran back to the bow to see where he was, and started tugging up on the hatch trying to get it to open. He's smart enough to know which way to turn the handles, but not strong enough to actually do it. He just wanted to play with his buddy.



Some mornings he sticks his hands in through our hatch while we’re asleep, trying desperately to touch us. One day when Garth stuck his arm out to hold hands with Cheeky, the poor monkey started tugging on Garths arm in an attempt to get him to come out and play.



So Garth has made some new friends.

It's totally his own fault. These two rough house on the dock, wrestling and tumbling around together. Cheeky grooms him, pulling on his hair and occasionally trying to eat it. Cheeky often hangs upside down by his tail from the branches by our boat and Garth stands underneath him… they play fight in mid air, hairy arms flailing everywhere. They jump up and down together like idiots, and I think Garth could play with this little monkey all day long if I let him.

Usually they just visit in the morning. We feed them a few nuts or some fruit and they eventually get bored and go back to chasing crabs or mangrove nuts. Sometimes they snap the smaller branches and eat all the bugs that crawl out, and when there's seaweed in the water they fish it out and pick off whatever is crawling around in amongst the salty mess. When there's ants on the boat, I call Cheeky over and he immediately snatches them up one by one. They are definitely well fed!


Mangrove nuts (probably not their actual name)


Once he's worn himself out, Cheeky is all Zen

Garth has taken to sometimes sharing his breakfast with the monkeys instead of just handing out a few nuts. He’ll take an apple or banana outside with him and bite off some for himself, then hand a piece over to Cheeky. He peels off the skin of the banana and they gather around it like a couple of mischevious troublemakers. The silly bugger hates getting his hands sticky, so he sits there and eats it with no hands, just leaning forward whenever he wants a bite. With his hands held behind his back and he reminds me of one of those weighted drinking bird toys (the ones that repeatedly go up and down forever). If Garth doens’t pay enough attention, Cheeky will bob down and take a nibble straight from the banana. I hear him protesting from inside the boat, but I’m sure he’s secretly pleased with his naughty friend.



Sharing an apple

There’s not much fresh water on the island – it has to be trucked in from somewhere else. It hasn’t rained much for a while, which is why I think they like visiting our side of the island. It takes a long time for the sun to get above the trees and we’re in the shadows for most of the day (which is not helping our batteries or solar panels). But it’s good for the monkeys. In the morning there’s quite a bit of moisture on the leaves in the trees, which I’m sure is why they come by. But hat doesn’t seem to ever be enough for Cheeky. With no shower onboard, I try to fill up our solar camping shower from shore whenever I can. But when I forget or couldn’t be bothered, we use a 1.25L soda bottle with holes drilled in the lid as our shower. Even with our small tanks, 1L a day for showering isn’t that big of a deal. So the shower bottle lives in the cockpit… You probably see where I’m going with this. We usually bring them a cup of water in the morning, but one day I just grabbed the bottle. Cheeky quickly figured out that the bottle always has water in it, and that all he has to do is tip it up and it comes straight out. I keep finding him sitting in a tree or on the dock with my stolen bottle, drinking out of it like a baby.








There’s a boat just up the dock from us that has been left here for a few months, while the owners are overseas. Cheeky thinks it’s a playground. The dodger sags in the middle and the bimini is attached with bungy cord, so after he terrorizes us in the morning he heads straight to this boat and starts jumping up and down on the bimini like it’s a trampoline. Water collects in the middle of the dodger, so after he wears himself out jumping up and down he climbs down and drinks whatever he can find. Then he tries to jump up and down on the dodger but it doesn’t bounce, so he climbs back up onto the bimini so he can jump around some more. He’s exactly like a small child (or Garth… who often stands around bouncing up and down on the dock in time with Cheeky).


Taking a break from bouncing to scoop up some water

Another one of Cheeky’s favourite toys Is Freds little charcoal BBQ. The little munchkin thinks that Fred has put it there just for him. He even filled it with expensive charcoal with a smokey flavour (imported from the USA) so Cheeky would have little black balls to play with every morning. Freds boat is right in front of ours and he has a house on Roatan, so he doesn't often stay on board. Usually we hear the clang as Cheeky throws back the metal lid, which gives me just enough time to chase him away before he destroys everything. So I usually catch him as he's perched on the back of Freds boat, tasting the charcoal and then smashing it on the rails as he tries to break open the strange nuts. But sometimes we must not be awake early enough and Cheeky finds other things to entertain himself with until he decides to get us up. So occasionally we wake up to the sight of a little black monkey face peering down at us, a trail of charcoaly destruction between the two boats.





The monkeys have recently started coming back to visit later on in the day, well after their breakfast time. They have figured out that we are a constant source of entertainment. This has been problematic while we are fixing things, mostly because we have been leaving things on the dock that they’re not used to seeing. New things. Interesting things. Things small enough for them to play with. Unfortunately, they have developed a taste for alcohol after spending years hanging around the hotel lobby. The packages for the resort here are all inclusive, so people don’t pay much attention to their drinks. They can have as many as they want. So whilst the hotel staff try to pick up forgotten drinks, the monkeys are used to finding plastic cups and beer cans lying around. And they definitely know what to do with them. We accidentally left an empty beer can in the dinghy a while ago, which has become a good monkey alarm. Every time Cheeky goes past he sees the beer can and goes straight for it. He knows it was empty last time, but he’s always hopeful. He goes to drink out of it, finds it empty, and then drops it back into the dinghy. The rattling of the can being dropped always alerts us to their presence. It amazes me how smart they are… whenever they pick up a can they rotate it to get the hole to line up in the right place so they can drink out of it efficiently. If they just tipped it up they would still get the liquid, so they don’t really need to drink out of it like little people. But they still rotate it every time. They learn very quickly and they’re very smart.



Unfortunately, we’re mixing lots of small batches of epoxy to do some repairs on the deck. And we mix our epoxy in plastic cups. We have huge bottles of hardner and resin wich get tipped into smaller portions in plastic shot cups. That way it’s a lot easier to suck the right amount up with syringes and mix them together in normal sized cups (because the plastic flexes, it’s very easy to peel off the hardened epoxy and reuse the cups again later). So while I’m mixing them together and Garth is running around using the mixture, the source cups with epoxy and resin in them are left unguarded on a tarp. Needless to say, I’ve spent a lot of time trying to shoo monkeys away both from the appetizing cups and the wet epoxy smeared on our deck.

Whilst we play with them every day, they’ve been very good about staying out of the boat. A few boats on the dock have found both rats and boa constrictors onboard (the rats haven’t bothered anybody in a while after traps were laid out, but there’s not much you can do about the snakes… they normally just sun themselves on deck anyway). So to prevent any nasty surprises we close the hatches and put the boards in the companionway overnight. We often leave the companionway open during the day though, and Cheeky often sits on the top step looking down at us until we come out to play.



But the other day I was sitting in the saloon and I heard cooing from the bow. It sounded a lot like baby talk. I asked Garth what he was doing, but he didn’t reply. As I got up I heard ‘Hi sweetie! Do you want a cuddle?’ And as I stuck my head round the corner to the sounds of ‘You’re such a sweetie!’ I was met with the sight of my naughty husband cuddled up in bed with a monkey. Cheeky seemed perfectly happy to just sit still and cuddle in the bed, and Garth was quite pleased with himself. I tried to remove the both of them, but Garth can be very persuasive. He’s very good at making me laugh, which usually causes me to abandon whatever discipline I was trying inflict upon him. He looked up at me with a big grin and wide eyes and said ‘Look how cute he is!’ Then Cheeky stuck his tongue out and gave Garth a big hug. My husband is a huge sucker for monkey cuddles, so it took me a very long time to get the two of them out of bed and out of the boat. Garth refuses to behave when Cheeky is around. They’re both as bad as each other.




Xxx Monique

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