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Well tomorrow April 1st my wife and I celebrating our 59 wedding anniversary. Thinking back nobody on both sides of our family gave us more than 2-3 years. We showed them all how it's being done. 4 years into our marriage, we had enough with their interference so we packed up and immigrated from Germany to Canada. It was not always easy but we prevailed. Cheers to us🍾

You have all been there before I am sure. The perfect weekend away planned .......and then God has a cackle Background. For my 60th, my two sons arranged a 2 day fishing trip 4 1/2 hours drive away in country Queensland at Lake Monduran which is a legendary big Barramundi fishing locale. This is what a big Barramundi looks like at Lake Monduran. No....this isn't us. Lake Monduran is a trek to the middle of nowhere and a 34 square mile water monolith filled with woody hiding spots for this brilliant sportsfish. We thought it would be a good idea to tow the boat up. Myself and the two sons (Ben and Tom) have equal shares in the boat and looked forward to taking the boat out in this mythical big fish lake. Still, I know my stuff and decided to hire one of two professional guides on this massive expanse of water. We were to do two sessions with "Jake" ....one on the Friday evening and one on Saturday morning /half day. Ben had it worked out. 4 1/2 hour road trip, leave 8am, lunch at a country pup in the town of Gin Gin (population a couple of 100) 20 minutes out from lake Monduran, check in at 2pm to the three bedroom lake house and meet Jake at 4PM for the evening fish. As a dad, I took it upon myself to take up copious beers, rum, whiskey, tomahawk steaks, sausages, eggs, bread rolls and 4 loose leaves of salad (for dressing). What could go wrong? 90 minutes from our destination, both tyres on our boat trailer blew on the highway. Yep...the other one was much the same. Ben was driving and he safely pulled over off the highway but we were in a pickle. One spare, two tyres down, nearest town (Maryborough) 30 minutes away and not much chance of finding the exact wheels for our trailer at nearing 12:30Pm on a Friday. We put a plan in action. Decouple the boat/trailer on the side of the road and the lads scoot off to Maryborough to do their best. I stayed with the boat. One wheel/was eventually found in Maryborough. Another eventually found in the town of Childers a further 30 minutes away. I had a litre of water and a cigar while I waited. It was around 33 degrees Celsius, humid and on a freeway. We eventually got it sorted 3 1/2 hours later and were back on our way. I had a nice little case of heat stroke and a splitting headache. We rolled into Monduran at near 6PM. I had travelled to Hong Kong quicker the week prior. Jake was waiting for us on the boat ramp and I told the boys to go and fish without me. I needed a beer, a rum a cigar and some down time. They dashed out.....to the wrong boat ramp... but eventually caught up with the ever patient Jake. Jake runs a professional bass boat imported from the USA. More screens that the space shuttle with a livescope set up on the front. I haven't witnessed a livescope in action before but essentially for the non fisherman out there, you find the fish, you cast to the fish and you see everything in glorious real life as you bounce the lure off the fishes head. The fish were timid. Ben landed a nice one and Tom dropped a 1.2 metre Barramundi next to the boat. he didn't quite tie his knot correctly. Devastated to say the least but all was looking promising for the morning session with Jake. The lads arrived back to the house at midnight and fishing was scheduled again for 4:30am. This was Ben's night time catch. One day he will look at his first child like this. We hit the water early. it was going to be a Barramundi slaughter. 8 hours on the water. Travelled maybe 40 km. Livescope was working brilliantly. We were bouncing lures off the head of giant fish. It was hot as Hades but we were pumped. Fish Tally: 0 Jake our guide was devastated but told us that if they were not biting in the am they would be biting late afternoon early evening as the "Barra" needed to feed. He instructed us to take our boat out at 4Pm and fish through to 9pm. The "bite window' was 6Pm to 9PM. he sent through some fishing marks on the other side of the lake where we would no doubt be in Barramundi heaven. We jumped in the boat at and travelled across this mammoth tree filled lake at 4:30Pm and gunned it for 45 minutes before flicking our lures in great anticipation of the "bite window". Nada. Zilch. It was getting dark and so we made a plan to head back in this unfamiliar water moonscape to a place closer to the home. Made sense as there was no moon and becoming darker and darker as the minutes flew by. Our boat light went out. Let me cut this short. it took us near 4 hours to head back at 5 knots as we could only see a few metres ahead us at a time. I couldn't take a photo as it was too dark. It started to rain. Back at the house on midnight, we were mentally and physically knackered. We decided on a relatively early departure and hit the local Gin Gin bakery for a few of their famous meat pies. Ben talked up this bakery over the weekend no end. I don't eat meat pies as a rule but after this weekend from hell I was going to indulge. A good feed and then 4 1/2 hours drive home. Unfortunately we hit traffic coming into Brisbane so 5 1/2 hours. No problem, the pies would make up for it. The bakery was closed. .....it was a great "bonding" weekend

The common practice in gifting a cigar to smoke to a person new to cigars is to give them a cigar like the Montecristo No.4, as this cigar is considered a good introductory cigar. Last weekend, my son George caught up with a friend from his undergraduate university course, Ignacio. Ignacio was born in Argentina, was raised in Australia and has family in France so the afternoon proved to be quite fruitful in regard to the topics discussed. Personally, I was surprised with how much Spanish I knew when we were talking about the historical reputation of Habanos cigars from Cuba. So, did we start with a Montecristo No.4? Of course not! My EOT Sep 2015 Cohiba Siglo IV has been my favourite go-to box in the last month so why not start with that? As Ignacio wasn't familiar with an aged Cohiba cigar he just enjoyed the smoke. Afterwards, my son wanted a Montecristo No.4 so I opened a UEB Mar 2018 box. Thankfully, the three of us has Monte 4s that were 'on'. Ignacio said that he could taste the distinct flavours in his Monte 4. I happened to have some Fernet-Branca in my bar, so we enjoyed all this with some Fernet con Cola (the national drink of Argentina). It was quite an afternoon and I enjoyed passing on some knowledge of our shared hobby.

Fantastic Fundie from last night. ARS MAY 19 Just grateful that I went deep on these beforehand.

Lusi

1998 BCE this afternoon

BHK 54. Masters Sunday, perfect weather in South Florida, house to myself for the afternoon…all the excuses I need to light up something special.

Montecristo No.2 - PMS Abr 2015

Esplendidos MUO ABR 14

ROE JUL 2017 HDC when I got these from Prez for 285 bucks a box [emoji17] Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Hamlet spent a day with our farmers today.

Cohiba Robustos - Circa 2015

Probably 5 or 6 years old. From a singles drawer.

MEG Oct 2015 H.Upmann Petit Coronas...

Siglo VI SOM NOV 16 BSE MAY 23 Courtesy of @raggie

Just received this gorgeous box.

This Churchill from our host went down a treat for the BBQ.

Behike 58

Sir Winnie

Montecristo Double Edmundo (EPO DIC23).

Tough to beat an E2 on a catamaran.

09 Punch DC

Thank you to @Nevrknow! One of my absolute favorites. Looking forward to a great final round today. Cheers all!

Cohiba Maduro 5 Genios I don't smoke a lot of Maduros, but picked these up in Cuba and have been loving them. Post big meal smoke. Sea salt chocolate abounds.

Spot on BBF Have a great weekend all 🥂

Lusi (2017) from our gracious host.

Bolivar Coronas Extra 2005 (cab of 50) A beautiful shiny day in Athens. A dream smoke. So beautifully constructed and balanced. How many of any given harvest of Bolivar boxes aged beyond 10 years? 1%?! That's a shame.

Upmann No. 2 LUB OCT 14

Dippy 2 @ Playa Langosta outside Tamarindo.

Enjoyed this little fella from Pre-Castro. To my surprise, it was still potent for one that’s almost 70 years of age.

Great week for the market. Time to light up the good stuff. Sig V.

Accepted a promotion today, so dug for something special. Thanks again SSanta, you know who you are...

Punch Double Coronas - LOM Jun 2012

Partagás Short (TOU DIC18).

Montecristo Double Edmundo After a fat bowl of ceviche and margaritas @ El Mercadito.

Just a little afternoon delight.

Past few night's smoke.. SLR Regios (2017), HUPC (2016), HDM Seco (2019) & H. Upmann Mag 50 (2018). All from our gracious host.

San Cristóbal de la Habana El Príncipe - LGR Jun 2018

Montecristo Especiales No.2 Morning drive & coffee. Perfect pairing.

Vegas Robaina Unicos Unique. Stewy fruit and molasses. Great stick for a muggy night.

Reyes H&F MKO NOV 03. A flavorful little firecracker!

Finishing up vacation in HCMC with these beauties.

Fundadores OUR FEB 08 Topes EL ROM SEP 16

EML Sep 2014 Por Larrañaga Montecarlos...