August 1 - 10

The 1st was Barb's birthday.  Neither one of us make a big deal about birthdays, so she hadn't told anybody.  There were several birthdays of other cruisers within a couple days of hers though, so we managed to include her in a couple of different celebrations.  For her birthday, I took her out to dinner at the Aquarium Restaurant.  We have been here before and it is very good. 

My saga with my toe continued.  I originally went to the doctor last Thursday, and started taking the prescribed medication that evening.  Within twenty-four hours, the pain was pretty much gone, but the toe was still swollen and red.  I took the medicine through Saturday.  Sunday I awoke not feeling well.  I was making frequent trips to the bathroom (you get the picture), I had no appetite, and no energy.  I took a couple of hour nap in the afternoon, but still felt poorly in the evening.  This continued for the better part of four days.  I had almost nothing to eat, kept visiting the bathroom despite taking some over-the-counter meds for that, and had absolutely no energy.  Barb covered my duties in the marina several times to let me lay down on the boat.  By Thursday, I was getting back to normal.  I looked up the medication I had taken online, and there was no mention of side effects like what I had.  In fact, it was touted as being pretty much side effect free and good for people who are sensitive to other drugs.  So I don't know if that was the cause or if I had some other kind of illness.  I don't get sick often, so I really hate it when I do.

We hired a new bartender this week.  Ashley went to Cuba for a month, and will be back August 11th, but we can use two people to cover all the hours and cover the real busy times like Wednesday nights.  The new girls name is Chermella.  She has been a waitress before, but not a bartender or cashier.  So, we have to teach her about the drinks and how to use the cash register.  Since she has been a waitress though, she is more attuned to going out to the tables and soliciting people to drink more instead of waiting for them to come to the bar.  So far she is doing well and the customers like her.

Mom is still pregnant and getting bigger every day.  I thought she was ready to pop a week ago, but as of this writing, she is still waddling around.  She has started to hang around under the bar, way in the center where we would not be able to reach her, so I think it's soon.  Two cruisers donated towels for her to lay on instead of the raw dirt.  Why two you ask?  Because when the first one was donated, Tammy quickly decided it must have been put out for her.  So, a second one was donated.  Of course, if Mom goes way under the bar where I think she will, she probably won't take the towels with her.

Our big news of the week was a visit from Texas friends.  Pam is an old Parrothead friend from Austin.  Duane is her boyfriend whom we hadn't met before.  They left Texas a week ago and spent a week in Tobago before coming to spend a week here.  Since our guest berth is our storage area, we don't really have room for guests on the boat.  There is a business here called Grenada Villas that has several rental properties.  They advertise on the morning VHF net frequently that they give a discount to cruisers or cruiser's guests.  So we had hooked them up and they rented a nice little apartment in Lance Aux Epines overlooking the southern coast.  It was only a few minutes from the boat by car.  We met them there when they got in from the airport and took them to get pizza since they had not had dinner.  They had arranged for a rental car, so they were able to tour around the island on their own with suggestions from us about where to go.  We weren't able to join them, since we couldn't really leave the marina during the day much.  We were able to get together with them several times though.  They came to the marina one evening, and after we closed the bar, we went to the boat, where Barb has prepared lasagna and a salad.  They also came for burger night of course.  We joked that they can't appreciate how important burger night is to the cruisers since they had not experienced island burgers.  One night we went over to their apartment for the sole purpose of drinking a bottle of rum that they would not be able to take home with them.  Since we always want to be helpful, we enjoyed several hours of visiting with them while we consumed cheese and crackers, and of course rum.  On Pam & Duane's final night in town, we went to Choo Light, one of the local Chinese restaurants.  It was good to see them and catch up on common friends back home.

GPS N 12-00.639 W 061-44.360  Nautical miles traveled today 0.  Total miles 9539.