Great company and good weather for this trip, with plenty of tarpon to boot, at least from my limited perspective. Lots of good stories, too: there is Franco the Croc, who rises to raw chicken legs from the back deck. There are the two Grand Slams by Les and Mike respectively, featuring 30 and 35 lb. permit. There is the scary incident where one of the fellows slips while disembarking a skiff, with a resultant heavy fall on the concrete deck, that fortunately did not cause major injury. There is the cubera snapper tongue at supper incident, and the Dave C. "It's Okay!" incident. There is the tale from another of the fellows who loses his grip on his rod whilst playing a great tarpon in rough rolling water, whereupon his rod and reel drop into the azure sea. Guide Keko immediately dives in to grab the rod, and lo and behold the tarpon is still attached, and, naturally, landed. And how about Bob boating a hundred pounder the last morning of the trip? We have the stories from 73 year old Charles, who caught his first tarpon as a teenager fishing with his dad back in 1948, and who has taken an African Big Game Grand Slam. There is the semi-friendly banter with a group of illegal Yanks who are fishing from La Reina, and bawdy tales being told by a group of four Brits allegedly here to do some tarpon fishing. Santiago Rum and Cuban Cigars play starring roles after supper most nights... Cuba treated us well on this visit!

Notes to self: La Tortuga now has 110v. as well as 220v. electricity, so no need to bring step-down transformer if one is also bringing a laptop (the boat also got a very nice reno job over the winter). Cuban citizens recently allowed to own computers (!); guide expressed interest in getting i.e. a used laptop... Bring candy/gum/etc. next time... Also: good tip from Tom: bring a bunch of packets of soy sauce as well as salt and pepper ---- verrrry handy at lunch. Each day, you are going to get some kind of rice, tomatoes and meat/fish for lunch; apparently the concept of sandwiches has not made it to La Tortuga. In any event, the aforementioned condiments will be worth their weight in gold daily at lunchtime.