Aug 21
We had a pretty quiet day. It was sunny and clear with a nice breeze, a nice change from the rains we recently had. My only productive thing was pumping the water out of the dinghy again. I guess if we're not going to be using it, I should put it back on the davits and pull the plug so it drains.
In the afternoon, we met Dave & Sue and Kevin and Amanda for dominoes. While we were playing, Bob was walking around the property with three guys who were nicely dressed. Eventually, they came into the bar for a cold drink and then they left. Bob was quite excited. The guys were from the electric company, and they finally were making plans to bring more power to the property. Currently the marina is served by 220v 50hz two-phase 100amp service. That's pretty much a standard house connection, and it explains why several times we have blown the main breaker to the property. They are going to upgrade to a three-phase 600amp service, which should take care of the problem. And, they are supposed to start tomorrow. Bob has been requesting this for several years he said, so he is very happy that it will finally happen and he won't have to apologize to boats for not being able to provide enough electricity.
Barb made a new experiment for dinner. She took frozen salmon, wrapped it in foil with canned corn and diced potatoes, and baked it. It came out quite good.
GPS N 12-00.639 W 061-44.360 Nautical miles traveled today 0. Total miles 9539.
Aug 22
This morning we had an unusual bit of excitement. Barb was up near the office exercising with the ladies, and I was below reading news on the computer, with the a/c and the radio on. Over the sounds inside the boat, I heard a man screaming. It was more like a gestalt yelling than a high pitched scream. I look out my window that faces Liward, and saw the guy they have working on their varnish looking the other way at something. I stuck my head out of the companionway to see what was going on, just as another yell was let go. The yells came from one of the guys who works for Bob. Two of them are manually digging a ditch to bury a PVC pipe over by the new dock. The guy who yelled is using a pick axe to dig the initial trench. I thought perhaps he had hit his foot or something, but then he returned to digging like nothing was wrong. Certainly if he had hurt himself enough to warrant that kind of yell, he would be sitting down or still yelling or something, but he appeared fine. About this time, Bob and all the ladies came running from the far end of the property where they had been. When the ladies saw nobody was hurt, they went back to their workout. Bob stayed and spoke to the guy for a bit. About fifteen minutes later, the guy stopped digging, walked around to our dock, ran down the finger pier next to MoonSail and jumped in the water, yelling again. Then he splashed around yelling that he couldn't swim. Bill from Raven was watching him and just stood there and watched. After a few seconds, the guy started swimming back to shore and got out and went back to work. Kinda weird...
A plan was made for Steve to take Lili, Barb, and Roxanne to a small shopping mall in Grand Anse. There is a hotel, several shops, and a couple of restaurants there. Steve is going to drop them off and then pick up Bill and I later and we'll meet them for dinner. About 15:00, just as the ladies were leaving for this trip, a big squall came through. It blew about thirty knots for a short time and poured. The rain lasted about half and hour and then stopped. When the rain stopped, so had the wind. It was now dead calm for a couple of hours. At 17:30, Steve, Bill and I headed to out to meet the ladies. We found them sipping wine at the outdoor bar. They only had a couple of small purchases, and were only on their first glass of wine, but they had enjoyed themselves. We joined them for a couple more drinks before going into the Chinese restaurant for dinner.
The restaurant was very interesting. It is very new, less than six months old. We guessed that everything in the place, except the concrete, was probably shipped here form China as a turnkey package. The people working there were also shipped from China. The owner lady spoke no English, and the waiter spoke pretty good English that he learned in college. They both came here form China six months ago. We speculated if the whole arrangement is somehow sponsored by the government in their efforts to spread influence around the Caribbean. It just didn't seem right that somebody would wake up one morning in China and say "Hey, I think I'll go open a restaurant in Grenada." On a side note, we learned last week that the large hospital project being built in St. Lucia by the Chinese has been changed. The St. Lucian government threw the Chinese out amidst stories of graft and corruption. The Taiwanese government is now going to finish the project. Guess China won't get that UN vote.
Back to dinner, the menu was similar to ones I saw when traveling in the Far East. There were pictures of all the main courses. The choices were not like an American Chinese restaurant, but I suspect more like you would find in China. I basing this too on what I experienced in Japan, Taiwan, and Korea a few years ago. As an example, Ox Cock was one of the dishes. Not sure you would find that on the buffet back home. Also there were numerous dishes with names like Five Smiling Flowers that don't give you a clue as to what they are. The waiter did his best to explain things to us that we couldn't figure out ourselves. We all placed a drink order (they only serve beer and wine) and our dinner orders. At the last minute, I decided to order hot and sour soup. The waiter asked if I wanted regular or Cantonese style. I asked the difference, and he said Cantonese had meat in it. The drinks came out promptly. The funny thing about the drinks was that the beers were barely cool, and the red wine was chilled. Next came the soup. I expected a bowl for myself, but what we got was a huge bowl and little bowls for all to share. The soup was good, but unlike any hot and sour soup any of us had tasted before. Next the entrees started coming out. They came out one at a time instead of all at once, and the rice came out last, so we couldn't really start until it was all there. The table had a large glass lazy Susan in the middle, so we all shared a bit of each others. It was a huge amount of food and we thought we had way too much, but we managed to pretty much eat it all. Everything was good, but even the "safe" things we picked were different than we expected. Funny too was that we were never offered chopsticks. Not that I would have used them, but it didn't occur to us until we were leaving that they didn't offer us a choice.
We all piled into Steve's rented Honda CRV for the ride home. A CRV is supposed to hold four people. Originally we had planned on one couple taking a cab. Then Steve proposed making two trips, since it's only about a ten minute ride. Then we pointed out that we had all been to the Dominican Republic, where eight or ten would be considered normal in a car this size. So we all got in, with the only real crowding being that Barb sat in my lap in the front seat. For the short distance of the trip it really wasn't uncomfortable at all.
GPS N 12-00.639 W 061-44.360 Nautical miles traveled today 0. Total miles 9539.
Aug 23
This morning, Bob mentioned to me that Jonathan, the worker who let out the yell yesterday is no longer working here. Apparently, his outburst yesterday wasn't the first thing that resulted in him being asked not to come back. In the afternoon, we played dominoes with Dave & Sue for several hours. Dinner was one of Barb's Tupperware surprise casseroles. That's when you combine all the leftovers in the fridge with perhaps a new ingredient or two to make something new and non-reproducible. Once again, the outcome was delicious. The timing of this was because we are grocery shopping tomorrow and need the room in the fridge. It rained off and on all day, making me sure glad the boat is closed up and air conditioned.
GPS N 12-00.639 W 061-44.360 Nautical miles traveled today 0. Total miles 9539.
Aug 24
Bert picked us up about 10:30 for our weekly shopping trip. We didn't have any extra errands to run today, so it was simply to the IGA and back. We went a little light on our purchases since we will be on the hard net week and will probably eat out more. We won't want to add extra heat to the boat by cooking when we can't run the a/c.
When we got back to the marina, we found the power company there installing the new power. This entails planting two new poles, and running wires between them and to the large transformer that sits on the ground at the top of the driveway. From the second pole, the wires will go underground to the distribution point to the docks. Bob will have to dig a trench for the conduit for that, but that will have to wait until Monday. Unrelated to the power, a small dump truck brought several loads of dirt and rock in to extend the driveway over to the newest dock on the south side of the marina. A boat came in there yesterday and they have a rental car. We joked that Bob built the road just for them, but I think it was already planned.
Early in the afternoon, Roxanne from Raven gave several people haircuts, including me. Now that I have it short, I have to keep it short else I will go through a funny looking curly period. Roxanne's electric shears didn't like the 50hz power, so I ran an extension cord from the boat to the dock, turned off my shore power and ran my inverter to make good old American power from the batteries. Got the job done just fine.
Around happy hour time, Steve from Liward brought his guitar and a mic up to the bar and entertained us for an hour or so. He sings Buffett as well as a number of other Texas songwriters stuff, like Larry Joe Taylor, Kelly McGuire, Guy Clark, etc. I enjoyed singing along with him to some of the Texas guys songs that I knew but most of the crowd didn't. Bob had been working very hard all day with the power company guys, so I tended bar for him and let him take a break. After Steve had played for an hour, Larita, a crewmember from Fat Cat played and sang a couple of songs. Steve's voice was getting tired since he doesn't do this regularly, so instead of playing more, we turned the karaoke machine on. Bob and a couple other people sang some, and then Bob put the Buffett CD in and handed me the mic behind the bar. I sang the first song on the CD and then realized that Bob took off and nobody was at the karaoke machine. So, I sang the second song on the CD. And then the third. I couldn't reach the machine form behind the bar, so I got Barb's attention to come over and stop the CD after song number four. She didn't know which buttons to push to stop it, and the lighting is poor so if you haven't used the machine before you can't read the buttons. As song number five started, I pictured the machine in my mind and during the instrumental bridge, I told Barb what to push when the song ended. After five songs, my mini-concert was over. The party wrapped up about 21:00.
GPS N 12-00.639 W 061-44.360 Nautical miles traveled today 0. Total miles 9539.
Aug 25
In the morning, we raised the dinghy onto the davits in preparation for being hauled out Monday. I had been simply raising it out of the water with the motor attached just to keep crap from growing on the bottom, but we can't travel with the motor on. So, we put the motor on it stern rail mount, then raised and secured the dingy.
In the afternoon, we played dominoes with Kevin & Amanda. There were a number of locals in the bar, and we noticed they had a couple of large professional video cameras. It turned out that one of the guys was a local calypsonian, and they were filming a music video of one of his songs. They filmed some with him dancing at the water's edge, some while he shot pool, and some with him sitting at the bar. During each shot, they had a portable boom box playing the song, and he was lip synching along to the music. It didn't matter if we made noise, because the sound track would be added to the whole thing later in editing. It was funny to see that this local production was very similar to Hollywood. One actor, two cameramen, and about eight other guys standing around with no particular purpose.
We had our regular Saturday pot luck dinner tonight. The attendance was down a little from the previous couple of weeks. There were twenty-three people there, but we had a good time as usual. As the meal wound down, most people started leaving. It didn't look like there would be much interest in karaoke tonight. By the time Amanda started playing songs, there were less than a dozen people there. Dave and I both sang a few songs, and then we shut it down early.
Another notable thing about today was that it didn't rain all day. Seems like everyday has at least a small shower, but today, nothing.
GPS N 12-00.639 W 061-44.360 Nautical miles traveled today 0. Total miles 9539.
Aug 26
Today is my son's 38th birthday. I hosted the Coconut Telegraph SSB net this morning, and when I started out and stated the date, I also announced his birthday. Late in the afternoon, I finally got a chance to call him on the phone to wish him a happy birthday. He is in Phoenix, so we are three hours earlier so I couldn't call him in the morning.
We played dominoes with Dave & Sue in the afternoon. About 16:00, we were about done with dominoes, and Bob asked if we would mind watching the bar for a little while. We said no problem, and he and a couple of friends took his boat over to the Hog Island BBQ. Since lots of people go there on Sunday afternoons, the bar was very quiet. We found the Direct TV control and started surfing the channels. The Direct TV feed here is the Latin American one, and all Bob ever has it on is the Sci-Fi network, or BBC news. We found out that they do also carry the New York American network affiliates. We'll have to remember that and perhaps enjoy a little regular TV instead of the local channels. By 18:00, Dave & Sue went home, and Barb went to the boat to start thinking about dinner. I stayed by myself watching TV until Bob returned. He was apologetic that he had been gone longer than he planned, but I told him not to worry about it. The guy works seven days a week here, a minimum of twelve hours a day. I didn't mind giving him a little break. I went back to the boat just as Barb was getting dinner on the plates.
GPS N 12-00.639 W 061-44.360 Nautical miles traveled today 0. Total miles 9539.
Aug 27
Today is our haulout day. I had thought about moving from the marina to Prickly Bay yesterday. I figured if we were already in Prickly, we couldn't be late for our 08:00 appointment. But, if we had moved yesterday, we would have had to anchor, in a rolly anchorage, and sleep without a/c. So we decided to just leave early enough this morning to allow plenty of time. It s only five miles from door to door, which should take a little less than an hour, so we left at 06:30 to allow plenty of time. It was dead calm when we left and outside the bay we found conditions much nicer than when we came in originally. We motored along a little over five knots. There must be enough crap growing on the bottom to be slowing us down again. We got to a point about half a mile from the boatyard by 07:30. I put us in neutral and we just sat there. The closer you get to the haulout slip, the narrower the deep water is, so I figured I'd hang out a bit in case we needed to maneuver at all. We listened to the local VHF radio net while we waited. About 07:50, I called the boatyard and was told that there would be guys to take our lines in the haulout slip at 08:00. I started idling that way and at 08:02 we were secure in the slip. They lowered the lift slings and moved us into position to lift us. We hopped off the bow and they started to lift the boat. Once they had the boat up and pulled forward to where they scrape and power wash, I realized I had forgotten to bring the camera with me. I wanted before and after pictures. The foreman said no problem and told one of the workers to go find a ladder. I climbed back aboard and got the camera. We took the ladder away and started scraping while I tried to take a picture. Unfortunately, my camera took this opportunity to finally bite the dust. It has been acting flaky for months, and we have another, but this was bad timing. There are no before pictures as a result.
The hull had a good amount of growth on it, but it all scraped off easily with the big hand scrapers they attacked it with. Then they started power washing. They knew that we wanted to get as much old paint off the hull as possible, so they guy was pretty aggressive with the power wash. Lots of spots on the hull flaked off to the gelcoat, and most of the keel was bare lead when he was done. The more that comes off now, the less has to be sanded off. By 09:30 we were moved to our spot in the yard, blocked, and plugged into electricity. Three guys attacked the bottom with electric sanders. My original desire was to remove all the old paint down to the gelcoat to get rid of this flaking problem. The foreman assured me they would get all the spots that were flaking and leave the rest, thus saving time and money. By the end of the day, they had all the obvious flaky spots sanded and the rest rough sanded. The keel, where it was bare lead had also been cleaned with a special etching chemical used on bare metal. They also had done initial grinding on the two spots where they are repairing some gelcoat damage. One spot of gelcoat damage was from where another boat hit me while I was in my slip in Kemah years ago. The original gouge had allowed water to seep in between the gelcoat and the fiberglass, which has now become a big missing chip. The other damage was on the edge of the transom where we had rubbed against a nail in the dock last year when we broke a dock line in the Bahamas. It's just cosmetic.
While they were working, we worked on projects too. Barb went over to the canvas shop and inquired about restitching our entire enclosure. Several zippers have become detached from the material as the sun takes it's toll on the stitching. We also want to have opaque covers made to snap over the plastic parts when we are not underway. This will provide shade as well as protect the plastic from deteriorating. The guy from the canvas shop came right over to measure and work up and estimate. After lunch we went over to look at the estimate and decide on material for the covers. We agreed on the work to be done, and went back to the boat to remove the whole enclosure. We had a lot of trouble getting several of the zippers undone, as they have not been moved in several years. Some of the pieces we had to leave together and let them get them apart. We carried the whole thing over there and they agreed to have it done by Thursday.
Before starting my projects we decided to have lunch at De Big Fish Restaurant, which is right on the premises. I've had a hankering for a cheeseburger as I haven't had one in a couple of months. We both ordered them, along with a couple of beers. The burgers came and they truly sucked. The meat appeared to mixed with some kind of breading filler, like a meatloaf might be. There was so much filer that the patty didn't stay together when you took a bite. I just squished out the other side of the bun like a thick tuna salad sandwich would. It didn't taste bad, but it wasn't what I had my taste buds set on. The French fries on the other hand were excellent.
My first project to work on was replacing our speed instrument. I went into the Budget Marine store at the yard and saws they had a Raymarine speed instrument in the display case. I told the guy I needed it, and he got concerned. The speed instrument is normally sold as a kit with a new transducer. This one had the transducer hijacked from the box a couple years ago and they had been stuck with it ever since. It also is the previous generation of ST60 displays. The guy was surprised that I was tickled to death about both "problems". I don't need the transducer and only want the display, and being the older generation, the face plate will match my other instruments. The guy worked up a special price, which was still not cheap, and I was happy. The display I am replacing is two generations old, and if course the mounting holes are different. I went through this before when I replaced my wind instrument. The problem is you already have a two-inch hole in the mounting, and you need a three-and-a-half inch hole for the new one. Using a hole saw without a pilot drill is next to impossible. Barb came up with the idea to clamp a piece of wood behind the original hole so that the pilot drill in the larger hole saw could bite into the wood. Brilliant! In hindsight, this was probably what I did a couple of years ago when I replaced the wind instrument, but my feeble mind had forgotten it. With the new hole drilled, I mounted the new instrument. Of course the plugs between the old generation and new generation of instruments are different, so I had to do some wiring modifications, but it all went together. I didn't get the wiring all done before we had to leave and will finish it tomorrow.
We have made a reservation to stay in an apartment for the week so that we don't have to stay on the boat in the yard. The problems with staying on the boat are several. We can't run the air conditioning because it uses seawater to transfer the heat. We can't use the bathroom on the boat because if the holding tank isn't empty when the boat is hauled, it will drip from the output hole unless I close the thru-hull. That particular thru-hull is in a place that I can't open and shut it unless my life and the boats buoyancy depend on it. So, we are staying at the apartment. I had checked out the apartment and left a deposit over a month ago. It wasn't much to look at, but it should do. We decided to carry an overnight bag back and forth each day rather than lug a bunch of stuff there. Barb threw together a bag with a change of clothes and our toiletries, and a bag with rum, Coke, and snacks for dinner. The boatyard is about a quarter mile down the road from the bus stop, so we started to walk there. As we were starting up the driveway to the boat yard, a bus screeched to a stop on the street and blew it's horn to ask if we wanted a bus. We waved that we did, and he backed up and drove down the driveway to pick us up. He had apparently gone off the regular route for somebody and we benefited by not having to walk the quarter mile. The apartment is right on the bus route, so we watched ahead as we headed for town. When we were close I knocked on the roof t indicate we wanted a stop, and we were left off at the bus stop just past the apartment.
The name of this place is the Windward Sands. It is a combination of several apartments and several hotel rooms in one large building. I went to the desk and found the receptionist didn't seem to remember we were coming. This is not a busy place. We were probably their only customers. She apologized and got the key to the apartment. She took us to it and showed us around, then left. As I said the place wasn't much to look at, but it seemed basically clean, and all we really need is a/c, TV, a shower, and ice for drinks. The first problem was the a/c. It was a small window unit built in through a wall. It was probably designed to cool a hundred square foot room and it was trying to cool a eight-hundred square foot apartment. It also had not been turned on before we got there, so the place was hot. We turned the a/c on, and it was very noisy. It was cooling, but was simply undersized, so even overnight, it only made a few degrees difference. Next was the TV. It didn't work at all. When you first turned it on, you got a black and white picture and no sound. After being on about ten minutes, the picture started jumping around to the point that you couldn't see it anymore. The fridge had also not been plugged in until we got there, so it was hot. It cooled down overnight, but that didn't help us with ice. I asked the receptionist for some ice, and was given a bowl of cubes. There was enough for us to make two drinks each, and there was no more to be had. There also was nowhere within walking distance to buy a bag. The receptionist told me the microwave didn't work and they would get us another one tomorrow. She also pointed out that if we wanted hot showers, we had to turn the a/c off before using the electric hot-water-on demand unit, or else we would blow a fuse. Since it was so hot, and I had been hot and sweaty all day, I opted for a cool shower. That was the only good thing about the place. In the bathroom I did notice where recently the wire to the little water heater had caught fire. The paint of the wall was black and there was soot on the ceiling above the spot. Not reassuring. After showering, we sat in the living room with nothing to do. We didn't bring reading material since we expected TV. As we were sitting there, we noticed a couple of lizards scurrying around the walls. Barb really does not like lizards, so this was not good. At 19:00, we decided to go to bed. Perhaps the earlier we go to sleep, the sooner this nightmare will be over. The bed squeaked terribly, so the slightest movement woke up the other person. It was not a real good night of sleep.
GPS N 12-00.639 W 061-44.360 Nautical miles traveled today 0. Total miles 9539.
Aug 28
In the morning we decided not to stay here. I went to the front desk and found Johnny, the owner, paintbrush in hand, just like he had been when I met him the day I checked the place out a month ago. I told him we were not going to stay and told him why. He offered a better apartment, "where everything works" for the same price. By now, we were just not happy with the place, so I told him no thanks and we left. A bus picked us up right at the driveway and we were off to the boatyard.
When we got there, I took a look at the bottom. There were more bubbles in the paint where the original paint is flaking off. This was what we observed in the Chesapeake last year. It seemed the longer we were out of the water the more spots appeared. When the paint guys showed up, I pointed the spots out to the foreman. He said he would take care of it. A bit later, there were guys attacking the spots with the sander again. They sanded all the spots they saw, and then applied two different kinds of barrier paint/primer. The first layer of gelcoat replacement material was also put in place.
There is a Budget Marine store right at the boatyard, but they didn't have everything we need for the projects I want to accomplish. So around mid-day, we took a bus to St. Georges to Island Water World and got everything else on my list. While in town, we went to a nice looking restaurant just down the street from IWW for lunch. Being a glutton for punishment, I ordered a cheeseburger. Guess what. Same mush as they had at the place yesterday. Maybe not quite as mushy, but not pure beef. Maybe you just can't buy a good burger here. Again, the fries were very good though.
I finished the wiring of the new speed instrument. Once it was done, Barb spun the paddlewheel by hand and it registered on the display. Hopefully that will solve that problem. I next tackled replacing both shore power inlet plugs. They both are showing signs of burning on one prong. That's usually due to corrosion making the resistance of the connection too high, generating extra heat under load, and then the heat makes it corrode more and it's a vicious cycle. To get the plugs out, I have to remove a fiberglass box that I have had out before, but I'm concerned about breaking it as it's edges have become brittle over time. I removed the screws that secure the box and then used a razor knife to carefully cut the sealant that had been used behind the edge. To my surprise, I was able to remove it without any damage. I then replaced both plugs, and for one it was a good thing. The plug had been getting so hot that the wire on the backside of the plug was burnt a good inch away from the fixture, and the plastic inside the plug itself was badly burnt. While I had this access box apart, I also replaced our cockpit speakers. The ones I installed nine years ago when I got the boat are discolored and the plastic gratings over the speakers are cracked. Barb spent a good amount of time polishing the stainless steel frame for the cockpit enclosure while all the canvas was off. My last project for the day was to take a wire brush on my electric drill and polish up the propeller and shaft.
We stayed on the boat tonight to see if it's tolerable. Once the sun went down, the temperature itself was bearable. We had a fan in the main saloon to help get fresh air through from the v-berth hatch. There was some breeze, but not a lot, so the fans helped. We also have two cabin fans in the aft cabin for when we go to sleep. At dusk the mosquitoes came out, so we had to load up on the Off and burned a repellant coil in the cockpit. We walked over to De Big Fish for dinner, and this time tried the pizza. It was ok, but I think they start with a frozen pizza or at least crust, and just add toppings. When bedtime came, we refreshed our Off, killed all the mosquitoes we could find inside and went to sleep.
GPS N 12-00.639 W 061-44.360 Nautical miles traveled today 0. Total miles 9539.
Aug 29
It was a hot, buggy night. There was not much breeze, and all we had open were hatched with screens, which isn't all of them. Of course the requisite rain shower came through making us close everything during the night. I got quite a few mosquito bites which kept me scratching, so the sleep was restless.
In the morning, I went to look at the hull before the workers got there. Sure enough, there were new spots that had bubbled up. I took a screwdriver and scratched away paint at twenty or more spots. When the painters got there, I showed the head guy, and he was puzzled but said they'd take care of it. They got the sanders again and ground out the new places. They then re-primed those spots and waited a couple hours and then applied the first coat of bottom paint. The gelcoat guy also sanded the gelcoat repairs and applied a little more filler to them to set overnight.
I also did several more projects today. I pulled the raw water impeller out of the pump to inspect it, and found it missing a vane. I replaced the impeller and then pulled the end caps off the heat exchanger to see if the missing vane was stuck there. It wasn't. It's entirely possible it got stuck in the old heat exchanger that I replaced in Puerto Rico. I put a new engine zinc in the heat exchanger and put it all back together. I installed two new external zincs on the propeller shaft. I bought zincs here for half the price West Marine charges for them in the States. Same brand. When I replaced the shore power plugs, I noticed the cord ends were also burnt some, so I wanted to replace them too. The stores only had one end replacement kit, but they also had one new whole shore power cord. So, I replaced one end and retired one cord. I dropped our anchor to the ground along with all the chain out of the locker. I attached a line to the end of the anchor chain and secured it to the cleat in the anchor locker, so theoretically we can't loose the whole chain overboard. I then repainted the markings I have every fifty feet, and added these cute little plastic things in the links at each fifty feet that I'll still see even after this round of paint wears off. After the paint was dry, I hauled it all back into the locker. I still want to re-engineer the locker and windlass so the windlass is usable, but that may wait until next year. Somewhere along the day Barb did laundry. The boatyard has two nice washers and two dryers. Since there are no dryers at our marina, she got caught up on everything here.
After showers, for dinner we walked down the street about a quarter mile to a restaurant called Bananas. We had heard good things about it. It was tempting to order a burger, since we have been told they use 100% Angus beef. But, I'm not ready for three bad burgers in three days, so I didn't take the chance. I had a seafood dish that had fish, calamari, and shrimp in a white wine sauce, garlic mashed potatoes, and steamed veges. Barb has a chicken pasta Alfredo dish. Both were excellent. The sauce on my seafood was so good that you want an extra piece of bread to soak up the leftover sauce.
News coverage today kept mentioning politicians visiting New Orleans as this is the second anniversary of Katrina. It really pointed out an odd dichotomy to me. Much of the Gulf Coast still looks like the storm hit yesterday. The recovery is going painfully slow, mired down in typical American red tape and bureaucratic bullshit. Ivan devastated Grenada three years ago, and you can hardly see any signs of it today. Granted, there is less to rebuild and fewer people were affected, but there is also dramatically less resources to have done it with, both monetarily and manpower. Yet they just did it. I wonder how much the Gulf Coast could have been rebuilt by now if it had the resources available that have gone into fighting a war.
Tonight before bed, we redoubled our efforts to kill the mosquitoes. We burned another coil, but this time inside the boat. We really slathered on the Off, and I spent half an hour before bed hunting and killing every one I could find inside. We still got some bites by morning, but had a much better night's sleep.
GPS N 12-00.639 W 061-44.360 Nautical miles traveled today 0. Total miles 9539.
Aug 30
When the painter arrived this morning, I pointed out a few more spots that had bubbled under the new paint. They again sanded and redid those spots before putting the second coat on the boat. The spots are getting fewer, but I'm wishing we had stuck with plan A and sanded it all off before starting, even though that would have cost me more. I didn't do much in the way of projects today. Most of what is left on my list are inside projects, so we'll wait and do them when we are back in the marina with our a/c on.
Speaking of our a/c, we are worried about a power issue when we return to the marina. We had one of the best transformers Bob has and had no problem running all our equipment, including both a/c units. When we left the dock, we hoped Liward would get our transformer because they knew it would be temporary and we would get it back when we returned. Unfortunately, Bob also had an unhappy captain on Fat Cat who was waiting for one, so that's where ours went. Late in the morning, I saw Loretta, the crew from Fat Cat walking across the boatyard. I went down to meet her and ask if Bob had said anything about the transformer being temporary. She said he had not. Sounds like a potential problem to me. Since it was lunchtime, we joined Loretta and the owner and two crew guys from a large wooden ketch named Lone Fox for lunch at De Big Fish. I warned them about the burgers. I had chicken quesadillas that were quite good, and a couple others had fajitas which looked very good. Maybe we've found their niche. We discussed the impending storm, which should be here Friday night. It sounds like it won't be much, so we aren't too concerned.
We further refined our mosquito fighting techniques tonight. We did all the same stuff as last night, but this time when I got up during the night to use the bathroom, I refreshed my dose of Off. As a result, I had a pretty good night's sleep and almost no bites in the morning.
GPS N 12-00.639 W 061-44.360 Nautical miles traveled today 0. Total miles 9539.
Aug 31
We are ready to be splashed this morning. But, there are two boats scheduled to be hauled out before they can put us in. From a paint drying point of view, we have been blessed all week with just a few sprinkles during the night. Today will be different. It rained hard in the morning just as the workers were beginning to haul the first boat out. The boat is named Jambalaya and it is a sixty-five foot wooden ketch. That's a big boat for the lift to haul. To put it in perspective, they use two slings to haul us. They used six on this boat. The workers either donned raincoats or just got soaked as they went about hauling and power washing Jambalaya. Eventually, they moved her to the place in the yard where she will be for a month.
In between haulouts, Mike the yard manager and Travelift driver, came and asked if we still wanted to be launched today. I said sure, whenever he was ready. He said he thought perhaps with the storm coming we would prefer to stay in the yard over the weekend and they would strap us down. I said I didn't think the storm would amount to much and would prefer to be in our slip. It had taken a long time to block Jambalaya right, so it was almost 11:00 when they started to haul the next boat, a forty-two foot catamaran. As they started to haul her, we knew it would be after lunch before they got to us, so we walked over to Da Big Fish for lunch. The kitchen doesn't open until noon, so we had a couple of beers while we watched them hauling the cat. The two guys on it were running around taking all sorts of pictures of it as they hauled her. They power washed the cat and then it was lunchtime, when all work ceases. The two guys from the cat walked in the restaurant and sat down next to us. We learned that they had just bought the cat from The Moorings, the big charter company. They had picked it up in St. Maarten a few days ago and brought it down here to store for the rest of the hurricane season. They were two of four owners splitting the boat. They had plans to re-launch her in November and then rotate spending three weeks each on her through the cruising season. These two guys were long time friends and sailors. The other two were not as well known to them and had less sailing experience, so it will be interesting to see how it all works out. You always run the risk of somebody breaking something on the last day of their three weeks, and then it becomes your problem and spoils your vacation plans. I don't think I would want to get in on a deal like that.
After lunch, they blocked the cat and Mike again confirmed I still wanted to be launched today. Even though the sky was very dark in the east as the storm got closer, I said yes. The forecast for the storm is that it's center will pass near us about 02:00 in the morning, but there will be heavy squalls preceding it that may start anytime after dark. I still want to go today, but the sooner the better. They brought the Travelift over and hoisted us off our stands. They slapped some paint on the bottom of the keel where it had been sitting on the blocks, and off we went. As they lowered MoonSail into the water, it occurred to me how it was too bad that you spend all that money to make the bottom look good and then put it in the water where you can't see it. Before we can go back to the marina, we need our dodger on. We told the canvas shop from the start that if they couldn't get the whole enclosure done by today, to do the front three pieces first. But as of noon, they were still working on them. They said they would be ready by 15:00. So, after we launched, we pulled out of the lift slip, and tied up alongside it out of the way. They had one more small boat to take out today that was waiting as we pulled out. The whole time we were being launched, it was raining off and on. While we waited for the dodger, there was considerable close lightning and thunder and several heavy downpours. Seems the storm is early.
At 15:00, Barb and I were both sitting at the canvas shop and they were furiously working on finishing up. They got two pieces done and I carried them to the boat in the rain. I tried to put them on by myself, but the job requires more hands than I had. I went back to the shop and waited with Barb. We had told them which three pieces to do first, in case they didn't get it all done by today, but they didn't listen. Normally at 16:00 the working world stops here. It doesn't matter what the job is or at what stage the project is, quitting time is quitting time. I nervously watched the clock approach 16:00. To their credit, Rodney, the guy who interfaces with the customers most, stayed ten minutes late to finish the piece we needed. We told them we'd be back Monday for the rest and went to the boat. By 16:30, we had the three front pieces that make the dodger together and were backing away from the dock. It was still raining hard, but the wind wasn't blowing much. It took us a little less than an hour to get from Prickly Bay to Clarke's Court Bay. The trip was not nearly as rough as the first time we did it. The cat complained a little, but didn't get sick. As we approached the marina, I called on the VHF to see if Bob or someone else could come take our dock lines. I figured I'd find out who the real friends were if they'd come out in the rain to help you dock. Bob and Bill & Roxanne from Raven were there waiting for us as we backed into the slip.
The talk around the marina this evening is the approaching storm. All the forecasters have said that it will pass over Grenada, but with maximum winds around thirty-five knots. I put two extra dock lines on the boat to hold us off the dock if the wind comes from the south or west, but didn't do anything else to prepare. We went up to the bar, still soaking wet from being out in the rain all afternoon, and had a couple of beers. I asked Bob about a transformer, and he said he had gone out and bought a new one for us, but that he had to attach the plugs to it. I told him we could wait until tomorrow for it. By 19:00, the rain had stopped and there was no wind at all. We went to bed and slept well. Until...
GPS N 12-00.639 W 061-44.360 Nautical miles traveled today 0. Total miles 9539.