Leaving Antigua, W. I.

Saturday, January 12, 2013

About those geckos...

They're thriving, and they make good shipmates.  The little one -- he's the one that poses for pictures -- is more sociable than the other one.  We think there are two of them; at least, there are two different sizes aboard Play Actor.  We rarely see the larger one, but the smaller one visits every day or two, probably to see if he's gotten big enough to eat one of us yet.  He looks at us the same way we've seen him look at bugs just before he snaps them up.

So far, we haven't had to feed them; they're foraging successfully above deck, and we rarely see ants these days.  Nevertheless, I appreciate all of the suggestions as to what we should feed them.  The day may come. Suggested food has run the gamut from insurance policies (underwritten by companies that don't have a gecko in their ads) to bits of hamburger dangling on a fine thread to mimic an insect.  Somebody suggested chocolate covered insects, but Leslie won't share her chocolate.  Not yet, anyway, although we've both become fond of the little ant-eaters, speaking to them when we see them.  They haven't answered yet; that may earn them the chocolate covered insects.

The little one has a literary bent.  He ran across my keyboard several times when I was finishing Life's a Ditch, but he doesn't weigh enough to depress the keys, so I'm not sure what he wanted to add to the manuscript.  Maybe chocolate covered insects would help him to mature as a writer.  Most writers seem to have a fixation on chocolate and coffee.  I'll start him on coffee the next time he visits; I'm off for a refill.  Thanks for visiting.