Feb 11
We had an exodus today. The weather has been keeping most boats from moving for a week now. Those of you in the frozen north may wonder how beautiful Caribbean weather can keep boats from moving. As you know, a sailboat needs wind to move without engine power. Unfortunately, there is a fine line between enough wind to sail nicely, and so much wind that the seas get big and uncomfortable. There are those crazy sailors who love big winds and big seas and think it adds to the adventure or the accomplishment. Most of us middle aged (or older) cruisers who have our entire life's possessions on our boats, tend to prefer a gentler ride where neither the boat nor the crew get beat up. So we tend to stay put waiting for the perfect weather window unless we have backed ourselves up against a deadline like when we are meeting guests. Having to make a self-imposed deadline probably accounts for 90% of the "bad" passages cruisers make. Anyway, three boats left today even though the weather still isn't great. One was a motor sailor going southwest, so they will have wind and waves behind them and should do ok. The other two are just moving around to the next couple of bays west of here, so they won't really get out in it. But there were some comments from other boaters here about why are all these people leaving today?
I did the burger night shopping today. Foodland, where we usually get our ground beef, had beef, but it looked different and it cost $2.00/lb more than we have been paying. It looked to be a leaner, finer grind than we have been using. We have two dozen frozen Bubba Burgers leftover from last week, so I bought about five pounds of this new meat to try it out. I was able to get just about everything else I needed at the same store, which is always a treat.
It rained off and on all day today. The rainy season was supposed to be over a couple of months ago, but we still have not had more than a day or two in a row without at least a small shower. Bob has commented that he has never seen the grass on the hill stay green at this time of year. Today it has been overcast all day, and rained more often than not, with some showers quite heavy.
GPS N 12-00.639 W 061-44.360 Nautical miles traveled today 0. Total miles 9539.
Feb 12
The rain continued today. The forecast was for scattered showers, but they appear to be scattered all over. One boat left today, but will be back. Suhaila has a problem with their generator which is going to require removal from the boat. They are going over to the boatyard at St. Davids to have it removed, and then they will be back. Other than that we had a very quiet day. Bob is suffering from a cold, but won't stay home. When he said he would still feel bad whether he was here or at home, I pointed out that I wasn't worried about him feeling better at home, I just didn't want to catch his cold.
GPS N 12-00.639 W 061-44.360 Nautical miles traveled today 0. Total miles 9539.
Feb 13
One of the boats that left the other day was Bliss. They had to go to Prickly Bay to get some rigging work done. The work didn't get entirely completed, so they came back here for the rest of the week since the riggers can't get back to work on them until next Monday. We're glad to have them back to keep the Texas contingent strong. Suhaila, also with TX connections, came back late in the day too.
I went to CK's today because it's burger night and we are low on white wine. I got the wine and also scored on chips and peanuts. CK's is the case-lot store where most things are a little cheaper than the regular grocery stores. They have not had peanuts or chips for a few weeks now, so I have had to buy them individually from the racks in the grocery store. They must have just gotten a new shipment in, because they had peanuts and all the flavors of chips. I loaded up with a couple weeks supply. It's funny the little things that make me happy in this Norman Paperman world.
Tonight is burger night. We had another relatively light turnout of about twenty-five. The new meat made eighteen patties, and I told Barb that I wanted to reserve a couple for her and I to try so we could evaluate the new meat. I cooked the new patties first and they seemed to cook ok, with less flame than the Bubba Burgers. I got to where I had five of the fresh patties left and a party of four came up. I couldn't very well give them two fresh and two frozen, so that left just one fresh patty to save for evaluation by the cook. Barb and Bob will just have to take my word for it. As usual, everybody seemed to enjoy their burgers and complimented us, so I guess the new meat is ok. After everybody else was served, I cooked my burger. It tasted good to me, so I guess hopefully our meat crisis is over if we can continue to get this. I know I'm dreaming that there won't be another meat crisis somewhere down the road. The crowd enjoyed the steel pan music by Smokey and stayed well past when he finished, enjoying visiting.
GPS N 12-00.639 W 061-44.360 Nautical miles traveled today 0. Total miles 9539.
Feb 14
The morning started with a flurry of boat activity. I expected one boat to be coming in early, and just before 08:00, I saw two boats approaching. The first was a catamaran, and the boat I'm expecting is not a cat, so I figured the cat was going to anchor. The second boat hailed us on the radio and it was the one we were expecting. I headed down to the end of the south dock to take their lines. As I was walking down there, I saw that the catamaran was trying to pick up one of our moorings. They are hard to pick up by yourself, because they don't have pennants on them. You have to put your own line through the eye on the top of the ball, which is not easy from a high deck. I hailed the cat on the radio and told them that if they didn't mind standing by for a few minutes, I could come out in my dinghy and help them as soon as I docked the other boat. I got the first boat docked and quickly excused myself. I ran over to my boat, launched the dinghy and met Good To Go at the mooring where I passed their line through the eye and handed it back up to them. We had met David & Laurel on God To Go a couple of weeks ago, when they were anchored near Hog Island. They had been in the bar a couple of times. While they were anchored there, a local speed boat lost control and t-boned their port hull near the front, bending their stainless steel pulpit and putting a hole in the fiberglass, fortunately above the water line. The speed boat was apparently significantly damaged also. The guy gave them his name and a phone number, but in the conversation it was learned that he was unemployed, so they had little hope of getting any restitution for the damages. They had gone to Spice Island Marine the next day and gotten hauled to do the repairs. To everybody's surprise, they got the repairs effected quickly and the guy who hit them sought them out on the last day they were in the yard and paid the entire bill. It's nice to hear a good ending to a story like this.
There has been a mega-yacht anchored out in the middle of the bay for a couple of days. Today, the guests aboard departed. The tender from the yacht brought them to our dock where a small van took the luggage and a nice bus took the ten people. Later in the afternoon, five of the crew members from the yacht came in to use our internet connection. I got talking to one of the guys, who was "old" by yacht crew standards. He wasn't the captain but he was the only crew member who had been on the boat since the owners bought it eight years ago. He explained that it is privately owned and is never chartered. Most mega yachts are chartered when the owners aren't using them, which means most of the time. These owners use the boat quite regularly, and just bring family and friends to share it with. He didn't say where the owner made his money, but he said he had been just a regular guy who now was a billionaire. He said you couldn't get a better mega yacht job, because the owners and their friends never treated the crew like hired help. They spent four years in the South Pacific and just recently brought the boat back here to the Caribbean.
Today is Valentine's Day, and there are a couple of local places doing special dinners. We didn't care to do either of those, but Chuck & Micky from Coram Deo invited us to join them for a nice lunch at the Aquarium restaurant. This is the place we have gone a couple of times with groups in the past. We didn't do any beach activity this time, just had lunch. Bob & Tania from Saretta's Dream also joined us and we had a very pleasant lunch. The company and the food were both great, as was the ambiance.
In the evening, we had a number of people in the bar through happy hour and beyond. We were getting close to closing when a taxi came in and dropped off the folks from Breathless, who have been back in the UK for six weeks. They had already had a long day of travel, so they weren't coming to the bar, but did get a bag of ice to take back to the boat, I'm sure to make some refreshments before retiring.
GPS N 12-00.639 W 061-44.360 Nautical miles traveled today 0. Total miles 9539.
Feb 15
I got an early wake up call this morning at 05:30. And it literally was a call. It took me a minute to wake up because the phone was up in the main saloon, and it didn't quickly register what the sound was. By the time I got there, I had missed the call, but I saw it was from Dave the taxi driver that we frequently use. I called him back to see what was up. He was at our gate to pick someone going to the airport, and the gate was closed. When we close at night, we tell the security guard who is still out and if there is anybody expected early in the morning. We knew that John Pierre, who has been here a couple of months was going home to France this morning, but we had forgotten to tell the security guard. Unfortunately, the security guard does pretty much exactly what he is told and doesn't try to figure out things for himself. So if we didn't tell him a taxi was coming, he isn't going to open the gate. So, I had to come up to tell the guard to go open the gate. It gave me a chance to say goodbye to JP again.
Today is Ashley's day off so either Barb or I have to be around all the time. We got the shopping bus off at 10:00 as usual with a group of about fifteen. We used to do our shopping on Friday also, but now that Ashley is off on Friday, that is harder to do. Bob didn't come in until very late in the afternoon. Overall, the day was very quiet. We had a little crowd in the bar for happy hour, but everybody left early so we were closed up at 19:00 for an early night on the boat. It was just as well, as I have felt all day like I might be catching Bob's cold. We have some Zicam aboard, which has worked for me once before when I thought I was getting sick, so I took some and went to bed by 21:30.
GPS N 12-00.639 W 061-44.360 Nautical miles traveled today 0. Total miles 9539.
Feb 16
I got a good night's sleep for a change and no unexpected wake up calls. We had a slow morning which included a new activity for me. Cow herding. There is a herd of cows that wanders around the property from time to time. The way most cow, goat, or sheep owners control their "herds" is that they will stake out one or two of the leaders of the pack, and the rest will hang around nearby. The herd that passes through here frequently is about eight or nine in number, of various sizes. One of the leaders is a light gray female that has two teenage sized ones that always stay near her. I think the last time we saw the whole herd pass through was Thursday morning. After that we noticed momma and the two teenagers up on the hill grazing but the rest were gone. The next day the three were still in about the same place. It wasn't until this morning, when they were still there, that it occurred to us that perhaps momma's forty foot lead that she drags around behind her had gotten caught on one of the trees. I walked up there with her eyeing me warily and sure enough, her lead was wrapped around a small tree trunk several times. Of course the tension she was putting on the lead was keeping it tightly wrapped over itself so I had to keep pulling her back a few feet as I got each wrap undone. Finally she was free and calmly wandered off to new grass. Later in the day the teenagers came down into the parking area. We try to chase them away from being right in the marina parking area, so that guests don't have to worry about where they walk. When I chased them, they headed for our main gate. So I kept chasing them until they went out the gate. Thinking they would be gone a while, I headed back towards the buildings. Then I heard galloping behind me. Here came the three cows running back in the gate and across the field. I guess the homeowner just outside the gate didn't like them there either and he chased them back.
After Ashley got here, I went to pick up a few things the bar needs from the store. There were four things on my list, and it took visits to three stores to get everything. That makes up for the other day when I got everything in one stop.
Tonight is pot luck night. We didn't expect a lot of people, but had about twenty. There were also quite a few people at the bar who were not participating in the dinner. After dinner, everybody was hanging around, so we broke out the karaoke machine. I knew Bob and I would sing, and I thought I could count on Gary from At Last for a number or two. After I did a few and Gary did a couple, we got Bob up for a couple. Finally we got some new talent involved. There were four crew members from a large sailboat that is anchored out at the bar. They just sent their charter guests off yesterday, so now they can play. When I sang Buffet's Why Don't We Get Drunk and Screw, they changed the last word to Crew. Everybody had a good time, and we didn't close up until about 23:00.
GPS N 12-00.639 W 061-44.360 Nautical miles traveled today 0. Total miles 9539.
Feb 17
We had a pretty quiet day today. We finally got away for an hour to do our weekly grocery shopping. We can't do this on Friday's anymore, because that's now Ashley's day off. We would have done it Saturday, but Bob had things to do at home and didn't come in until late in the afternoon, and by then it was too close to pot luck time to go. So, we went to IGA and got most everything on our list. An advantage of shopping on Sunday is that the store isn't very crowded, and the rest of the mall is closed, so the parking lot is almost empty. The downside is that most restaurants are closed on Sunday, so combing a lunch out with shopping doesn't happen on Sunday.
We had two boats leave this afternoon. Epicurus left southbound for Trinidad. They were apprehensive about the conditions and said if it was too bad they would be back. I asked them to call on the VHF one way or the other so we would be watching for them if they came back. They called an hour or so after leaving and said the conditions were not too bad and they were going on. The other boat that left was Bliss. Bliss has come and gone before, while trying to get some rigging repairs done over in Prickly Bay. They have another appointment tomorrow morning, so they are moving over there this afternoon.
We spent the late afternoon and early evening watching the Daytona 500. I was a little surprised that even though we announced on the morning VHF net that we would have it on, nobody came from outside the marina to watch. But, I would have been watching it anyway, so the bar was open until it was over. We were competing with the regular Sunday barbeque on Hog Island, and this week they have a band, and the weather is nice, so I'm guessing people opted for that. With sixteen laps to go, we got a call on the VHF from Coram Deo, near the end of the dock, that an alarm was going off on Lady Natalie, which is on the t-head of the center dock. I went down there to find nobody aboard and a shrill electronic alarm going off. I got aboard and quickly determined that the alarm was a bilge high-water alarm, and there was no obvious button to silence it. The boat did not appear to sinking, and I suspect the owners are over at Hog Island since their dinghy is gone, so I went back to see the end of the race. As soon as the race was over, I got on the VHF and tried to hail the owners, hoping perhaps they had a handheld with them. I got no response, so I hailed anybody at Hog Island to please answer. I got an answer from Neil on PK3. He was on his boat, but volunteered to go to the beach and find the owners. He did just that and they called me on the radio. I went back to the boat and Ian, the owner stepped me through how to run the bilge pumps and reset the alarm. I could tell the pumps ran, but the alarm did not reset. So, he had to dinghy back around and found that the alarm's float switch was hanging up, so he disconnected the alarm. He thanked us for following up on it, even though it was a false alarm.
GPS N 12-00.639 W 061-44.360 Nautical miles traveled today 0. Total miles 9539.
Feb 18
I hosted the Coconut Telegraph this morning and we had forty-seven boats check in, which was a new record. This thing has really taken off.
My project for the morning is to install speakers on the new TV. The new TV is really not a TV, it is a monitor. So it doesn't have built in speakers. We have been using it with the sound coming through the stereo, which is fine for a big event, or maybe even a movie, but for day-to-day TV, it would be nice to have speakers by the TV. It would be much easier to control the sound since the stereo controls are not behind the bar and don't have a remote. The first step to installing the speakers was finding a place to put them. The perfect place would be just to either side of the TV on a beam there. But, the beam wasn't quite wide enough to hold them. I measured and determined that a simple little shelf could be nailed to the beam. I went out and found a scrap of plywood that was big enough to cut two little shelves from. Then I got the circular saw from the workshop trailer. To have electricity in the workshop trailer, we run a big Honda generator. Unfortunately, the generator was out of gas. I went to the other storage trailer to get gas, and the only gas we had was in a portable tank for an outboard. That would not pour gracefully into the generator, so I had to pour it first to a regular gas can, and then take it to the generator. All these steps later, I was finally able to cut my little shelves. I nailed them to the beam and sat the speakers on them. Barb got some speaker wire from the boat and I hooked them up. No sound. I double checked the monitor's manual to see if I had to do anything to enable the external speakers, but found nothing. Then I started wondering about how the audio signal got from the Direct TV box to the monitor. The old TV was hooked to the Direct TV box with a regular coax that carried the audio and video signal. The new monitor is hooked up with an S-video cable. The key word here is VIDEO. After a little thought, it occurred to me that the audio signal didn't come across on the S-video cable. I needed to hook two more cables between the Direct TV box and the monitor to carry the stereo signal. Fortunately, Bob has a collection of cables and connectors in a box and I found two cables that would work. Once we had an audio signal, we had sound in the speakers. It only took three hours to accomplish my quick, simple little task.
Barb went for a hike this morning with Jeannie from At Last, and Jeannie's mom who has been visiting for several weeks. They went south from the marina along a shoreline path that leads around the southern coast of the main island and overlooks the anchorage between the main island and Hog Island. She got some good pictures of the boats in the anchorage.
In the afternoon, I went and shopped for burger night. I was able to get the same beef that we used last week at Foodland. I had to stop at three stores to get everything. At the IGA, I ran into one of three vet school students whom we had met back when we hosted the hash here in November. He recognized me and asked about burger night. We'll see if he and his buddies show up.
It has been very windy here for several days, keeping boats pinned down again. After a day or two where several left at the end of last week, the wind is high again, and expected to stay up for a few more days.
GPS N 12-00.639 W 061-44.360 Nautical miles traveled today 0. Total miles 9539.
Feb 19
I didn't sleep very well last night because my foot started hurting. It's the same old thing that I had a couple months ago. Feels like gout even though my doctor told me three years ago it wasn't. When I first got up at 06:45, I could barely put any weight on it. After a bunch of Advil, and a little moving around, it got better enough that I could hobble around, but it hurt all day. Fortunately, it was a very quiet day, and I didn't have to run around the docks much with any boats coming or going. We had a large group of kayakers come today, with the normal muddy floors in the bathrooms afterwards. We had a few happy hour people at the bar but closed about 19:00.
GPS N 12-00.639 W 061-44.360 Nautical miles traveled today 0. Total miles 9539.
Feb 20
We had another exodus today. The weather has moderated even further, as well as the crew of the last few of boats that were stored here over the holidays have returned and are ready to resume cruising. We had three more boats leave today, taking us from thirty boats a couple of weeks ago to nineteen today. We had guessed that March and April might be slow before boats start migrating south for hurricane season again in May. Perhaps we were right, or perhaps a dozen boats will show up tomorrow. The boats that left today were Breathless, Coram Deo, and Lady Natalie. Breathless had been here while her owners Mic & Sue went home to England for six weeks. They returned a week ago and are ready to cruise. Coram Deo, with Chuck & Micky aboard, have been here since before Christmas. Chuck & Micky had been back in the US for the holidays, and have been back a couple of weeks, but had several things to fix before resuming cruising. Lady Natalie, with Ian & Natalie aboard, came in for water a week ago and stayed. They are leaving today to anchor around the corner and organize a lunar eclipse party, and will be back tomorrow for one more day at the dock.
After all those boats left, the mid-day was pretty quiet. Tonight is burger night, and Barb spent a couple of hours making the burgers and slicing the onions and tomatoes, and cleaning the lettuce. With so many boats gone from the marina, I expected a small crowd at burger night. There are only eight people besides us in the marina. We always get a few from the anchorage, but a lot of those regulars have moved on also. When happy hour started at 17:00, there were five people in the bar, and three of them were me, Barb, and Ashley. By 18:00, when I start cooking, there was a little more than a dozen, with several having come by car. I started cooking, and I kept noticing cars coming in. When the evening was over, we had sold thirty-one burgers. Those who came by car were mostly non-boaters. Word has spread to the local community and to US and British ex-pats who live on the island. So once again, I was pleasantly surprised by the turnout.
I think I have mentioned the marina cat before. This cat came from nowhere and adopted one of the security guards a few months ago. He fed her, with food mostly donated by us and a few other cruisers, and she stuck to him like glue. Over the past month, she has warmed up to the rest of us, and will allow us to pet her. Well, a few days ago, her security guard quit. So now she shows up each evening crying for food and doesn't find him. We have assumed the roll of feeding her. She is comfortable coming right in the bar amongst people now, tolerates most people petting her, and will even let you pick her up, but just for a few seconds. She is tiny, but is full grown, and in fact recently went through a pregnancy. She was obviously pregnant, and one day showed up skinny again. If her kittens survived, we have no idea where they are. We've never figured out where she goes during the day. While I was cooking the burgers, three of the local stray dogs were hanging about looking for handouts. One, a young dog with huge ears, was standing on the first step of the main entrance to the bar, right next to where I have the grill. Suddenly the cat ran out of the bar stopping on the top step. The dog took off across the parking lot and never came back. The other two dogs moved back a little further from the action knowing she was there. Now if I could just get her to catch mice.
Tonight was a total lunar eclipse. There had been numerous announcements of the event on the VHF over the last few days. Unfortunately, most cruisers turn into pumpkins about 21:00, and the eclipse doesn't start until 21:45. It will be total a little before 23:00, and over a little after midnight. By the time we closed the bar, a little after 22:00, it was a little less than half covered. Back on the boat, I couldn't make it and looked out the window about 22:45 to see it about 80% darkened. I've seen lunar eclipses before, so I went to bed. There was a bonfire and party over on Hog Island for the event that apparently was quite a success.
GPS N 12-00.639 W 061-44.360 Nautical miles traveled today 0. Total miles 9539.