Tuesday, January 26, 1999 – Puerto Aventuras

G’day to you all

Here we are still in Aventuras. We had hoped to be gone by today, but the weather has picked up for the worse again and so it seems we will be moored up here for another day. If all goes well, STARSHIP should head off for Cozumel again tomorrow, do a quick dive, check out of Mexico and weather permitting head for Cuba. Today we had expected to go for a drift dive with a local dive guide. The idea was to drift along a wall and chum up the water for some Bull shark (Carcharhinus leucas) action. Ib and I have come to love these majestic sharks from our days in Queensland and longed to finally get some good video footage of them. Weather conditions sadly made us have to ditch these plans as well. You get that. So on a whole, it was a more relaxing sort of day, dedicated to some house cleaning, shopping and cursing the blasted weather.

I do have something new to share with you. As you know we have had Pius on board since we entered the Panama Canal from the Pacific. As of today he has been officially ordained as the new STARSHIP chef. Over the last weeks he has impressed us so much with his culinary delights that it only made sense to keep him on. I shall get him to put up his own biography shortly but until then I’ll give you something to work with. He is a German chap and stands leans and tall with 40 years on his back. After owning his own restaurant in Germany he traveled around South East Asia for a while and ended up in Surfers Paradise, Australia, where he worked as a chef again. Once his permit expired he headed east and found him self in Costa Rica or Puntarenas to be exact. There he pursued his love for diving and started working freelance as chef and divemaster for the both the Okeanos Aggressor, Undersea Hunter and the Sea Hunter which operate at Cocos. He also ran his own liveaboard in the same area. After hearing about us and a possible opening as chef, he popped over for an informal chat at the pier in Puntarenas and the rest is history really. Naturally Ib and I have been giving him a hard time as DJ has spoilt us rotten until he came on the scene. Not quite having DJ’s stature made it quite hard for him but he has held up with the pressure surprisingly well.

So there you have it. Another crewmember makes it onto the STARSHIP Millennium Voyage. Will you be next…?

Regards