Dec 30
The only interesting thing we did today, was to learn something about one of our neighbors. Yesterday I had noticed a woman and two men walking down the street in front of the marina. What caused me to take notice was that the woman had the tiniest waist I have ever seen. Well, later in the day, I found that these people are on a boat in our marina. Furthermore, the tiny waist is no accident. It is her claim to fame. I can't do justice to explaining this woman, but she does have a website, www.cathiejung.com which explains the whole thing.
GPS N 26-32.806 W 77-03.207 Miles made good this leg 0. Total miles covered 3693.
Dec 31
First thing this morning we hit the grocery store and liquor store. Both will be closed tomorrow and Monday, so we need to stock up. I remembered to take my handheld VHF, so once we got to the liquor store, I could call our favorite taxi driver to come pick us up and take us back to the marina.
At noon, we walked about a mile to the ferry dock. We are taking a ferry over to Hopetown on Elbow Cay to spend the afternoon with our friends Gregg and Michelle, who are going to get married tomorrow. The ferry takes about twenty minutes and costs twenty bucks round-trip. I was amazed to see that many people come over to Marsh Harbor to do their major grocery shopping at the nice grocery stores, and then carry all the stuff back to Hopetown. I figure that from leave-the-grocery to in-the-fridge at home had to be an hour minimum. Not too bad in this weather, but must be interesting for the frozen foods in the summer. And it adds twenty bucks to your shopping bill.
Once onshore at Hopetown, we hailed Gregg on the handheld VHF we brought. Unfortunately, the radio beeped at me as if the batteries were too low to transmit. I put new batteries in it just a few weeks ago and have hardly used it, so I don't understand this, but... Batteries are one of those things that you should bring lots of from the States, because they are expensive here. And we dutifully brought about sixty or more AA batteries with us. Of course, they are back on the boat. So, I went in the first gift shop we found and paid nine bucks for six batteries. In the States, we bought twenty-four for six bucks once. With the radio working, I got a hold of Gregg. They were just dinghying in from their boat and we met at the public dinghy dock. We went to a restaurant just down the street and had lunch. They had to go meet with the man performing the wedding tomorrow, so Barb & I agreed to meet them later.
The town is very cute and quaint looking. It has a look of an old New England village. The harbor is usually full of boats. The whole harbor is a mooring field, and the moorings were placed years ago when most cruisers had thirty-something foot boats. More cruising boats are in the mid-forty foot range now, so things get pretty close sometimes. We stopped in a few shops, walked around a few blocks of the residential area, and then went to the Atlantic side of the island to the beach.
The beach was quite long and not very crowded. We walked the full length of it picking up seaglass as we went. I don't recall if I have explained seaglass before. Seaglass is small pieces of broken glass that have been tossing in the surf so long that the edges are rounded smooth, and the overall finish is satin-like. It is popular for jewelry makers to mount in gold or silver to make necklaces and such. We are just filling a jar with it. On our way back towards where we got on the beach, we found Gregg and Michelle. We sat there with them for another hour or more chatting about our lives and the big change about to happen in theirs. To explain a little further, Michelle still lives in Kentucky with her high school aged kids, a business, house, horses, etc. Gregg has retired and started cruising. How they work out the future will be interesting.
About 18:00, we caught the ferry back to Marsh Harbor. We walked back to the boat and Barb made us a simple dinner. Our dock neighbors were going over to the Jib Room for dinner, but then coming back to the dock to welcome in the new year. About 22:00, they got back, and eight of us went over to Mardi Gras. We could hear the music from the parties at four different restaurants, while we enjoyed chatting with one another and of course sharing some adult beverages. The group was Barb & I, Bob & Debbie from Mardi Gras, Tom & Dianne from Lark Spur, and Ben & Sue from Final Approach. At midnight we watched the ball in Times Square drop, and then enjoyed a small fireworks show launched off the next dock down from the marina. About 01:00 we headed back to the boat.
GPS N 26-32.806 W 77-03.207 Miles made good this leg 0. Total miles covered 3693.
Jan 1
The morning came early today. I didn't feel bad in a hung-over sense, but I sure was tired. I still got up a little after 08:00, because I wanted to hear if anything interesting was announced on the morning radio net. The net was pretty quiet. Seems most people had the good sense to sleep in, unlike me. We spent the entire day just hanging around the boat, since we were tired, and everything is closed anyway.
We did have a short visit from Gregg & Michelle about noon. They got married on their boat at 07:30 this morning, sailed back to Marsh Harbor, and now Gregg was taking Michelle to the airport to catch her flight back to Kentucky.
GPS N 26-32.806 W 77-03.207 Miles made good this leg 0. Total miles covered 3693.
Jan 2
Another lazy day on the boat. Since New Years fell on Sunday, today is the legal holiday and again, everything is closed. They take their holidays seriously here, as even the grocery stores are closed. I did do a boat chore today. The wind generator has been acting like the blades were slightly out of balance. There is no good reason the balance should have changed since I installed it, but it seems to vibrate more now than it did new, and vibration equals noise. So, I took the blade assembly off, and took it up to the lounge in the marina office, where I could suspend it between two chair backs with no influence from the breeze and rebalance it. I made a slight adjustment, brought it back to the boat and reattached it to the generator. Of course, it is dead calm today, so I don't know if I accomplished anything.
Barb has been entertaining herself the last few days by going over the boat with rubbing compound to remove the various scuffs and marks that accumulate when you really use your boat. We may have to actually get ambitious and wax it before we head south. Or not.
GPS N 26-32.806 W 77-03.207 Miles made good this leg 0. Total miles covered 3693.
Jan 3
A weak cold front came through overnight. The wind picked up a bit, and there was about a thirty second shower. By morning, the wind picked up pretty good and blew most of the day. It is supposed to lay down again tonight. It was a pretty day though. Clear and a comfortable high 70's.
Gregg stopped by this morning so that I could show him how to use Skype. He spent about an hour here and made quite a friend with the cat. We related the story of how the cat was originally from Kentucky as Michelle is, so perhaps that has something to do with why he liked him.
We went up to Snappa's for lunch and then went to town to look in the one last store that might have the wire I need to finish my SSB project. We had not been to National Marine before and they were closed all last week for the holidays. They are the local Mercury Outboard dealer and have a large service department out back. They also have a pretty well stocked marine store. It's not a West Marine, but it's close. They didn't have the wire, but we browsed around and did pick up a couple of things. One was a cute little hard plastic float that we can use to make an anchor marking line. An anchor float is tied to the anchor on a line that is about the same length as the depth. That way the float is over the anchor so you and other boats in a tight anchorage can tell where your anchor is. I assembled the float on a line with a hook to attach it to the anchor. I marked the line at five foot increments so I can slide the float to the appropriate place and tie a knot in the line to hold it there. That's today's project.
The wind was blowing hard all day, so I turned on the generator and was happy to see the vibration was reduced as a result of my rebalancing.
GPS N 26-32.806 W 77-03.207 Miles made good this leg 0. Total miles covered 3693.