More Time Off

Well, we did take a day off to go to the beach but Monday it was back to work. We have been pretty well banned from the boat while the deck is being done since they are sanding and filling and putting primer on and then sanding and filling and putting primer on. They are certainly paying attention to detail which is a good idea and hopefully will result in a better finished product. They actually seem quite good and we were talking to someone who has put their boat up there for 8 years - Tito. Tito says that he has a quite a bit of work done there and he used to be there every moment but after seeing the work they do and how they do it, he now just lets them get on with the job. There is still lots we will be doing but it will be after the deck is finished. In the meantime we have been looking after other things like the dinghy and the anchor and anchor chain - and ourselves.

First the dinghy - since we have been travelling fairly short distances between islands, we have been leaving the dinghy in the water and pulling it behind us. There is a way to get it out of the water using a spare halyard and pulling it up over the side after first taking the motor off and mounting it on the back transom rail. We would then turn the dinghy upside down and put it on the forward part of the deck. We had not been doing that because with Randy and Aleitha in the forward cabin, their hatch would not have had access to the breezes. Besides that, it was a bit of a pain getting the motor off the dinghy, hoisting it over the rear rail and then mounting it.

So - pulling it behind is not a big deal except it slows us down a bit and more importantly algae, barnacles and other unpleasantries attach themselves to the bottom and it looks yucky. So, while we had time, we decided to sand all the paint off the aluminum bottom portion of the dinghy as well as the inside and then repaint it. We will use dinghy antifouling paint on the bottom and marine paint on the inside. This process will take some time but will be worth it.

The other part of the anti-yucky campaign will be to have davits put on the back of the boat that will let us bring the dinghy up, motor and all, and suspend it on the back of the boat. One other really important advantage to this method of transportation and storage is that when we leave here to go south we will be heading into territory where dinghy theft is all too common so we hope this will be a sufficient deterrent to the would be thieves.

Okay. that was an unnessarily long way to tell you about one of the things we have been doing - and I haven't even mentioned the anchor and chain. Short version - we have 3 anchors, a Danforth and the nose part of a CQR (not sure we can get the arm for this but it is too good to throw away) in the front hatch and a CQR on the windlass attached to what was supposed to be 150' of chain. It turns out we only have 120' of rusty chain (I pulled it out and measured it in Nanny Cay) that is not the right size for the windlass (thank you previous owner) and the anchor swivel is in pretty bad shape so we just got 200' of the correct size chain and a new CQR anchor -and that IS the short version of the story.

Now on to good stuff - we needed another break so today we went golfing. We had to rent clubs and it was only a 9 hole course (the only course on the island - bummer!) but it was a neat little course and the price was reasonable. Of course I blame the rental clubs, no golf shoes, unknown course etc etc etc for my score but really it wasn't at all bad. Cheryl was hitting nice shots consistently but I attribute her consistency and my somewhat erratic play on the fact she had a caddie. We had actually started out without one but ended up with one which I will explain.

We got to the course at about 7:50 AM so that we could avoid some of the midday heat. Of course we didn't know the course wasn't open until 8:30 but Charlie - the groundskeeper - supplied us with clubs and balls and away we went. The only thing we were missing was a scorecard, but Charlie said he would send one out to us. We were just approaching #2 green when Albert, a young man of about 20, showed up with our scorecard and pencil. Of course he is also a caddy. We had told Charlie we didn't want a caddy but decided that we would use Albert after all. First of all it wasn't expensive, secondly, the layout of the course was somewhat confusing so we wanted someone who knew where to go and a third reason arose later that we hadn't even thought of.

The course reminded us of home at the end of the summer. The fairways were brown and the greens and tee boxes were green, this being the end of the dry season. As we walked the fairways, we noticed what looked at first like eruptions of dirt of various sizes. On closer examination we found that they were actually cracks in the soil ranging in size from a couple of inches to four or five feet in length. They went down into the soil to a depth of about 12 to 18 inches. Albert told us (AS HE WAS FISHING CHERYL'S BALL OUT OF ONE!!) that these start to appear towards the end of the dry season. I asked him what they did about them and he said they just wait for the wet season because the holes closed right up again. Kind of cool actually. There was a stream and pond on the course, both of which were green, but empty of water. Albert said that the pond filled after an hour of steady rain. We decided it would be nice to come back in a couple of weeks after it has rained for awhile to see what the course is like then.

So, that is the latest in the adventures - not earth-shaking or over-exciting but you know what - these are the things that memories are made of and these memories will be worth remembering .