Jan 1
Bartender Fred has been wanting to have us come to his house for lunch or dinner for a couple of weeks now. Today we are going to have lunch there. He met us at the marina at noon, accompanied by his friend Andrew who has a car. Mike & Lynn were also joining us, so the six of squeezed into Andrew's small SUV for the ride. Fred's house is close to the main city of St. Johns, but not actually in it. About a mile before entering the city, we turned off the main road into a neighborhood of homes. We kept going deeper into the neighborhood, and somewhat uphill to where the streets were no longer paved. Fred explained that the paved streets or dirt streets represent different constituencies, which to Americans would be a local political entity like a precinct. Fred explained that four years ago, before the elections, his constituency got power and water to every home. The other one got concrete streets. He is hoping maybe this coming year, before the next election, concrete will come to his neighborhood too. Fred's house is large by the standards of the neighborhood. It has a nice fenced yard to keep stray animals out, although the gate was often open with the coming and going of children, so at one point in the afternoon, he did go run off a stray dog. We had hoped to meet Fred's wife Violet, but she works as a chef at the St. James Club, and had to leave for work before we got there. She had prepared a nice meal for us before leaving though. We visited over a couple of drinks before enjoying a meal of stewed beef, sautéed shrimp that were huge, peas and rice, and steamed vegetables. It was all quite tasty and we wish we could have thanked Violet personally for her great cooking. During our visit, there was a constant parade of extended family coming and going. Even if I had a scorecard, I'm not sure I could explain all the relationships of all the children we met, from the oldest in their early 20's to the youngest at four months. We had a very pleasant visit though. About 15:00, we walked down the road to Andrew's home and piled in the SUV for the ride back to the marina. Fred has to work this evening, so he went to open the bar and we went to the boat for a while. At 17:00, we joined Fred at the bar for happy hour. He was a little tired, since he had joined us in a couple of cocktails during the afternoon. But, the bar was surprisingly crowded so he was busy.
GPS N 17-00.893 W 061-46.422 Nautical miles traveled today 0. Total miles 10149.
Jan 2
Well, the holidays are finally over. Not that I don't enjoy the holiday season, but getting any work done at the local businesses during the holidays is impossible. Back on Dec 14th, I had taken our inverter/charger to a place in Falmouth Harbor called Marionics for repair. After having it a week, they decided they didn't have the proper means to diagnose it, and they took it to another business in English Harbor called Signal Locker. Well, due to the holidays I assume, I have not heard from Signal Locker. Today I gave them a call. The girl said she would get with the technician, find out the status, and call me back. I didn't hear back today.
The other repair that has been held up due to holidays has been the wind generator. It had been over at the mechanics shop for over a week, attempting to get the hub removed so that I can disassemble the whole thing and put new bearings in it, but I gave up on it and brought it back. Today I ordered a new one and researched the options to get it here. There is the expensive option, and the very expensive option. In the end, the very expensive option (FedEx) was the most seamless in terms of getting it picked up and getting it here, so I went with them. Since Hotwire is only shipping me the main body of a new wind generator, and I'm going to use my old blades and control box, I am saving several hundred dollars on the cost of the unit, so in my mind I justified the $400 shipping with the offset.
Seabbatical is installing one of their two new wind generators today, so I went out to help Mike get it mounted up on the pole where it resides. We got it mounted with no problem and I left him to connect the wiring. Meanwhile, back at the boat, Barb was continuing to making her way through all the stainless steel on deck, cleaning it with the Spotless Stainless we brought back with us.
We went to happy hour and while there, David from New Jersey whom we met last year arrived. He is not a boater, but comes down for several weeks each year. Last year he was here for a month. This year he is booked for two months. He joined us and filled us in on his other travels of the past year, which included Tahiti and New Zealand. After happy hour, we retired to the boat for dinner.
GPS N 17-00.893 W 061-46.422 Nautical miles traveled today 0. Total miles 10149.
Jan 3
One of the things that the survey had revealed was that our high water bilge alarm was not working. Most boats like ours don't have bilge alarms, but I had installed this before we left. I was hoping to find a simple corroded connection, or perhaps a defective float switch and make a simple repair. Of course we all know how this story turns out right? First I looked at the wires from the float switch, where they connected in the bilge to the wires that run up to the panel where the alarm itself is. The connections were quite corroded, so I thought this would be simple. I cut out the old connectors, and while I had the wires bare, I tested the float switch with my meter. The switch was fine, so I put new connectors on the wires, and tested the alarm. Nothing. So much for simple. I now opened up the main electrical panel, where the buzzer and switch for the alarm are, and ran a hot wire to test the buzzer. It worked. This means the fault lies in the wires between the buzzer and the float switch. These two wires don't go too far, but of course they go through a couple tight places and around some tight corners. I traced the wires all the way with my hands and found no other connectors or physical breaks in the wire. But, the obvious solution was to replace the wires. So, I got new wire and used the old wire to fish the new wire from the panel to the bilge. Of course the old wire was wire-tied in bundles with other wires, so I had to cut wire ties, and redo them when I was done. My simple little project ended up taking almost two hours to complete, but we now have an alarm again. Hopefully I never hear it go off.
The other thing I dealt with today was the dinghy leaking water. It is holding air just fine, but it is leaking significant amounts of water on one side where the transom is sealed to the tube. To fix this it needs to come out of the water. So, we adjusted our dock lines so the dinghy could slide behind the boat, took the outboard off, and hoisted the dinghy on the davits. Once the dinghy was up, we pulled the boat back close to the dock so I could get off. I pulled the dinghy while Barb let the davit lines go and we lowered it onto the dock. I scraped the few weeks of growth off the bottom and cleaned the areas I am going to seal more thoroughly. Later, after it had dried, I slathered a bunch of Life Caulk, which is like a silicone sealer made to be in the water, all over the suspect areas. We'll leave the dinghy on the dock overnight to let that cure good.
We went to happy hour as usual and then had dinner aboard.
GPS N 17-00.893 W 061-46.422 Nautical miles traveled today 0. Total miles 10149.
Jan 4
I gave Signal Locker a call today to see if anything was happening. The girl cheerfully told me that the unit was torn apart on the technician's bench. That was the good news. The bad news was that he had called in sick today. I told her I would check back next week.
We reversed the procedure with the dinghy and got it back in the water and the outboard back on it. At first glance it appears the operation was a success as there was no apparent water ingress anymore. I had planned to replace this dinghy last year, but with all the other expenses we have had, I'm glad to see that it basically won't die. It looks pretty ugly, but I figure that deters thieves. As long as it keeps working, we'll keep using it.
I went out to Seabbatical again to help Mike with the install of the second wind generator. To install the first one, he was able to climb up and sit on his outboard hoist and reach the top of the pole himself. The other side doesn't have a place for him to sit high enough, and he is too short to just reach the top of the pole. But, I have probably seven or eight inches on him, so I climbed up on the stern railing and was able to reach the top. Once I was standing on the rail, I put a line around myself and tied it around the pole so I could have both hands free to work. I got the generator up there, and tightened it's mounting bolts, then put the blade assembly on. The only casualty was one Allen wrench that got donated to the sea, but Mike had several of the same size, so it wasn't a terrible loss.
Small outboard motors have safety switches on them that should be attached to a springy plastic lanyard that you hook to your person. The point is that if you fall out of the dinghy, the little plastic key comes out of the safety switch, and the motor shuts off. The lanyard on ours had crumbled a few days ago, so I had gone to Budget Marine and gotten a new one this morning. The little plastic key piece looked a little different than the old one, but close. I put the new key in and the engine started fine when I had come out to Seabbatical. When I was ready to leave, I pulled the starter cord a few times and the motor did not start. After about ten pulls, I smelled gasoline, and thought I had flooded it. I have flooded it once or twice over the years, but it usually starts on the second or third pull. After thinking about it for a minute, I swapped the new plastic key for the old one, and the motor fired on the next pull. Apparently the new key is thinner, and was just on the cusp of being thick enough to hold the button far enough out to make a connection. So, the new key will get thrown away, and the old one put on the new lanyard.
Mike & Lynn came ashore and we all went to Peter's BBQ for lunch. It Friday, so the special is fish & chips, which they do pretty good. After lunch, I walked over to Budget Marine again to settle up my account. I opened an account with them last year, primarily so that the contractors I was using could get stuff for my jobs without me having to front them money. When we got back this year and started working on things, I just charge things to my account and not have dozens of credit card transactions. Since we hopefully are nearly done fixing things, and it has been over a month, I figured I would go ahead and settle up. The total was not as much as I had feared it might be, although it was still substantial. June, the cashier asked me if I was settling up because we were leaving. You could tell from her tone she was disappointed if we were leaving. I told her we would be here a couple more weeks, and assured her I would be in some more before we leave.
Our neighbor, on the t-head of the dock, is a 65' motor yacht. It has been on the hard all year, and just recently launched. The owner is from Ireland, and he had a new washer/dryer, dishwasher, and fridge shipped here from Ireland. The three units were delivered to the dock today and were sitting next to the boat. I was out on the dock and introduced myself to the owner. He was frustrated because he had already found that the fridge, which was destined to be installed up on the flybridge was too large for the space available. We had a nice chat and he advised be to hide in a little while when his helper got there, because he thought it would take three people to get the new units onboard. We were safely gone to happy hour before his helper arrived, so I didn't get involved with that.
GPS N 17-00.893 W 061-46.422 Nautical miles traveled today 0. Total miles 10149.
Jan 5
My big project for today was to install a new light fixture in the aft shower. There is a fluorescent fixture there already, but it is a single bulb unit and it is quite dim. I replaced it with a new two-bulb unit that we brought from the States. Of course the mounting holes were different, requiring some minor drilling, but other than that, it only took a few minutes and was successful.
When we got to happy hour, Fred told us that when he arrived at 15:00 to open the bar, the power was turned off. He called George the owner, and apparently he had been in arrears on the bill. He quickly went and made payment and the power was turned back on. WestPoint wasn't the only establishment affected. The Dogwatch Bar and restaurant was also dark. They apparently were not as quick to respond, as they stayed closed. We're guessing this is also what happened to the Internet Cafe place where we wanted to buy a SIM card for our phone when we first got here. They are still not open.
GPS N 17-00.893 W 061-46.422 Nautical miles traveled today 0. Total miles 10149.
Jan 6
It has been quite windy the past couple of days. Today as a particularly strong gust rocked us, Barb asked me to turn on the instruments to see how hard it was blowing. I flipped the switch, and the instruments came on, but the wind display read zero. Really? Another thing to put on the list.
We had visitors stop by in their dinghy today. The came to us because they saw our Texas flag. Dave & Nancy and their two teenage boys were from Liberty. They were really looking for a boat named Salty Ginger. They said they had lent Salty Ginger (a Canadian boat) a Texas flag because they had guests from Texas coming. We said "They must be the boat flying the Texas flag upside down on B-dock". We all got a good laugh out of that and they went off to correct the flag foul.
I have apparently fixed all the leaks we had on the pressurized side of our water system, as the pump no longer randomly cycles. But, we have noticed that when we are on the aft tank, we are sucking air somewhere. I am hoping it is as simple as a loose clamp, so I started at the manifold and tightened clamps. I found that the clamp at the tank itself was a bit loose. I tightened it and hoped that was that. However, later on, after running the water several times, we still seemed to be getting air in the line, so I guess it wasn't that simple.
We kept doing the rain dance all day today. Each time we would think it has stopped, we would open hatches and ports, only to have another shower come through a little while later making us jump up and close them all again. We have two ports that have leaked a little for years, so I took advantage of the rain by removing the inner trim ring around the two ports so I could observe where they are leaking. There are three choices for leaks in our type of ports. They can leak where the opening part fits against a gasket, they can leak where the whole unit is supposed to be sealed to the deck, or they can leak where the hold down tabs screw into the frame. I found that one seems to be leaking where it seals to the deck, and the other seems to be the hold down tabs. Trying to fix these will require a non-rainy day.
By evening, the rain was pretty constant. It was enough to deter us from going to happy hour since the bar is outside. We had our own happy hour and dinner aboard.
GPS N 17-00.893 W 061-46.422 Nautical miles traveled today 0. Total miles 10149.
Jan 7
I started diagnosing the wind instrument problem this morning. Since the masthead transducer was newly installed last year, I would hope it's not the problem. The most likely place for a bad connection is in a little junction box at the base of the mast. I opened the box and looked at the connections. There was some corrosion, but nothing that looked too bad. Then I found one of the connections was loose. I took it apart and cleaned it and tried to put it back together. That's when I found it had been loose because the terminal block itself was cracked, so that screw couldn't tighten. Of course, I don't have a five-wire terminal block that small, nor does Budget Marine. So, I bought a different type of connector block which doesn't require blade connectors on the ends of the wires. I cut off all the connectors and wired up the new block. We turned the instruments on and we had a wind display. As long as the instruments were on, it occurred to me that we had not checked out the radar yet. So, I went to the helm and switched the chart plotter display to radar, and there was nothing. The odd thing was, there also wasn't any indication of an error. It acted as if the radar transmitter was on, but there were no returns from the clutter of the marina or the hill behind us. One thing checked off the fix-it list, another added.
I attempted to fix the leak on the port that is leaking around the frame by using the same Captain Tolley's stuff that I used on the stanchions. It did seem to take some, so I'll keep doing that and see if I can fix it that easy and not have to remove the whole thing from the deck to reseal it.
I called Signal Locker again today to check on the status of the charger. Again, the nice lady told me it was all apart and the tech had been working on it, but he wasn't there now. I told her I would be in the neighborhood Wednesday and that I would stop by. I think we are possibly suffering from A: Not being in front of them, and B: Not being a mega yacht that they deal with down there all the time.
We had more visitors today. Ed & Linda from Dreamtime stopped by. They are friends of John & Marie on Metalia, and through them they had heard about our Engel freezer. They are contemplating getting one and wanted to chat about it. We had a very pleasant chat with them, not only about refrigeration, but about where we had cruised and who we knew in common. Turned out they knew our old friends Dan & Jaime from Nereia from back when they were all in Venezuela. Small world.
Just as Ed & Linda were getting ready to leave, Jon from Wicked Good walked down the dock. We knew he was getting in a day or two ago but hadn't seen him yet. He is here for four months, of which he will have his boat for a few weeks and be in a villa the rest of the time. He sat and visited with us for awhile and we caught up on what he's been up to since we saw him last season.
GPS N 17-00.893 W 061-46.422 Nautical miles traveled today 0. Total miles 10149.
Jan 8
This morning FedEx delivered the paperwork for the wind generator shipment. In the past when we had stuff shipped, I hired the marina's broker to clear it in and deliver it. But since my experience the other day with getting a package myself, I am going to try and skip the broker. I went to the office and retrieved the paperwork. We will rent a car tomorrow and collect the package.
My project for the day is to try and fix the water tank sucking air. Since the clamp tightening didn't do it, I am going to have to see if I can take apart the pickup tube in the tank itself. This water tank is under the bed in the aft cabin. I slid the mattress off the bed and stood it up against the wall. With the mattress out of the way, access to the tank is easy. I removed the hose from the pickup tube fitting, and then unscrewed the pickup tube. The problem was the same as if you were trying to drink through a cracked straw and once the crack was below the liquid level, you got air. I pulled out the pickup tube and found it to be a stout piece of PVC pipe. So there was no crack in the pipe itself. But, as soon as I pulled it out, I found that where it had been glued to the hose fitting at the top, it was now loose. I got some Super Glue and re-glued it to the fitting. After the glue set, I put it all back together and we have no more air sucking.
On to the next project. Our port side bow navigation light didn't work when we did a light check a few weeks ago. I took my meter up to the bow to test and see if there was voltage there as a first step. I removed the cover from the light to get access to the wires, and all the little LED's just fell out. The whole guts had just corroded away. Guess that answers why it doesn't work. I have a brand new non-LED version of the light aboard, so I installed that. We'll have a mixture for now and bring back new LED ones next year.
Being Tuesday, we went to pizza night at Al Porto with Mike & Lynn, and Jon. Because of the holidays, it's been three weeks since we had pizza there. The place was packed as usual. Angie waited on us, and apologized that we were seated at the table closet to the DJ, but she asked him to turn the music down a bit, so it wasn't too bad. It got louder again after Angie left our table, but Barb turned around and asked him again, and this time it stayed at a reasonable level while we were there. The pizzas were good and even though the food took awhile, we didn't care.
GPS N 17-00.893 W 061-46.422 Nautical miles traveled today 0. Total miles 10149.
Jan 9
Today is going to be a car day. I had reserved a small car for 09:00. I went up and picked it up and Mike and I headed to the airport to retrieve the wind generator. I thought I had learned last time that I could do this without a broker, and that the extra form I had filled out in the past was only needed when you used a broker. We got the to cargo facility, and I went to the Customs desk. I gave the man the FedEx paperwork and my boat clearance papers. He went and got the box, and then asked if I had the other paperwork. I asked what paperwork and he showed me one of the broker forms from somebody else's shipment. I said I thought that was only required if you had a broker. He said I needed this form filled out. I asked for a form and said I'd be glad to fill one out if that's what it took. He said they didn't have the forms there. I asked where to get a form, and he directed me to the brokers office at the end of the facility. Of course, the broker wasn't going to just give me a form. The broker filled out the form and went and got the package. He then brought it to me and said that would be $100EC for the broker service. I really didn't have a choice but to pay the man, but I politely asked him what the rules were about having to use a broker vs. doing it yourself. His answer was that "It is at the discretion of the Customs agent". In other words, it's a scam in my opinion. This evening, I wrote an e-mail to Customs regarding my feelings on this subject. I got the e-mail address from the official Antigua Customs & Immigration website. The e-mail bounced.
We took the wind generator back to the marina and put it aboard MoonSail. We collected the ladies and headed south to English Harbor. Our first stop was at Nelson's Dockyard where Signal Locker is located. There is a charge to enter Nelson's Dockyard, as it is a national park, but when you are there to do business with an establishment, you just tell them that at the gate and they let you in free. At Signal Locker, I found my inverter/charger apart on the workbench, with a guy actually working on it. He was putting it back together. I'm not sure what he had done so far, but what I got out of him was that he was putting it back together to test it. After standing there a few minutes, I told him we were going to go have lunch, and I would come back to see how it was going.
As we were walking back to the parking lot, we came up behind Angie from Al Porto. She was shocked when she saw us because she had just sent us an e-mail a few minutes earlier to apologize for the slow service the night before. We assured her that we had not been upset by the service and walked with her to the parking lot. We drove the quarter mile to Falmouth Harbor and went to The Mad Mongoose for lunch. Junior was there and greeted us warmly. We all had good burgers and a few beers.
After lunch, it was back to Signal Locker. Now there were two guys looking at the inverter/charger, but they didn't seem to be doing anything. They said they had it together, and it still didn't work, but their boos had taken the laptop out to a job in Jolly Harbor and it had the CD with the manual in it. So they couldn't do anymore until he got back. You can't make this crap up. We made sure they understood we were waiting on this to leave the country, and we made sure that IF they figure out what part is bad, that they can actually obtain a new one. They assured us they could.
We left Falmouth and headed towards St. Johns. We stopped at the Mega Store, where we picked up a few things. One was a cable to adapt my iPod jack to RCA jacks so I can use it with the new piece of crap PolyPlaner stereo we bought. The jack intended for a 3.5mm auxiliary jack is not 3.5mm and the cable wobbles around. I already sent this stereo back to PolyPlaner, and they allegedly replaced it. Either they just repacked it in a new box, or all the units have bad jacks. At any rate, with the RCA input I can make it work. We also got new headphones for the computer since the old ones were disintegrating and left bits in your ears every time you used them. Next stop was the big Epicurean where we picked up a few things that the smaller store doesn't have. It was then back to Jolly Harbor.
We went to happy hour, and as soon as Fred brought us our drinks, he had a look on his face and said he had a story to tell us. Turns out that about 03:45 in the morning, his daughter had been up and went to the kitchen, only to find a strange man standing there. She screamed for Fred and he came running. As he approached the man, the man told him to stop or he would shoot him. Fred stopped in his tracks, and the guy went out the kitchen window. This was all in the dark of course, so Fred couldn't really identify the man. The police were there within fifteen minutes and took a report and did some fingerprint dusting. Fred suspects it was a young man from the neighborhood, whose father is a policeman. The police questioned the father, as did Fred, and got different stories about where his son was. The police were not amused that he seemed to be covering for the son, but as of now, there has been no apprehension. Since they apparently surprised the guy just as he had come in, nothing was missing either. Everybody was shaken up though of course.
GPS N 17-00.893 W 061-46.422 Nautical miles traveled today 0. Total miles 10149.
Jan 10
Today I installed the new wind generator. It was not a big deal to install, as it is exactly the same as the old one. I climb out onto the end of the davits, which are over the dock, and Barb handed me up the unit. I stuffed the wire down through the tube and Barb fished it out of the hole at the bottom. I hooked up the wires and put the old blades on the new hub and spun it on. This time, I used some silicon sealant on the hub/shaft as recommended by Hotwire to avoid them seizing like the old one did. It was still pretty windy out, so once we turned it on it immediately started to spin and we checked that it was making power. Another thing that Hotwire sent me was a new control unit for our solar panels. The old one was displaying impossible values for the amount of charge coming from the panels. The power was getting to the batteries, and in reality, I never need controlling since we always use more power than the solar and wind generate. Since it wasn't critical, I had planned on bringing a new controller back next year. But, since Hotwire would be my source, and they were shipping to me anyway, I had them throw one in. I installed that too, and now we have a proper display.
We have been in the water a month as of today, which means our cruising permit needs to be renewed. I walked down to their office where I found four ladies sitting in the small office just waiting for something to do. Why you would ever have more than one person on duty here is beyond me. One of them pleasantly waited on me and I was out of there in a few minutes, good for another month. Hopefully we'll be gone before that.
GPS N 17-00.893 W 061-46.422 Nautical miles traveled today 0. Total miles 10149.
Jan 11
Barb spent a good part of the day polishing the fiberglass in the cockpit. As with last year, she attacks relatively small chunks at a time and keeps the topsides all looking good. She was dismayed to find a small roach on deck when she stared, and it ran under the cover that goes between the companionway and the mast. I immediately went to the supermarket and got a can of BOP, the insecticide of the Caribbean. I sprayed a liberal amount up under the cover to hopefully take care of him before he or any buddies find there way inside. We have been down here too long without any bugs inside to start now.
I messed with the non-functioning radar a bit today. First I tried banging the crap out of it, hoping maybe the antenna inside wasn't spinning around like it should. Nothing changed on the display. I then removed the screws for the cover and opened the scanner a bit. I could see that the antenna was in fact spinning, which takes away my hope for an easy fix of just getting it rotating. I did some internet searching and found that there is a self-test feature on the radar that is not in the user manual. I went through that procedure and it passed all the tests fine. Of course, it still doesn't display any returns. As a last resort, I did a reset of the whole unit to factory settings, which wipes out any stored waypoints and any options you've adjusted. Still nothing. This one will wait until we get to St. Maarten where I can maybe find a tech to look at it. I'm not taking something else to Signal Locker. Hopefully I won't have to replace it, since of course, it is an "obsolete" unit, and to replace it I would need to replace the scanner and the chart plotter/display which all in all would be another several thousand dollars.
We had lunch at Peter's today, and went to happy hour as usual. At happy hour, we met Phil from Mystic Star, who is from Naples, FL. Mike & Lynn are from near there, so he joined us and we had a nice evening.
GPS N 17-00.893 W 061-46.422 Nautical miles traveled today 0. Total miles 10149.
Jan 12
Today started out clear as a bell, without a single cloud in the sky. I foolishly remarked on that fact when I checked in on the Coconut Telegraph. Within a couple of hours, it was cloudy again, and we had a few light showers through the course of the day. We both managed to not do much of anything productive all day. Several neighboring boats left the dock, making us feel all the more that we need to get moving.
We went to happy hour as usual and tonight met Phil's wife and another couple who have arrived to join him on Mystic Star for a couple of weeks. It's interesting to talk with other boaters who have a very different experience than us because they fly in to vacation on their boat for a few weeks as opposed to being full-timers like us. After happy hour, Mike & Lynn joined us for dinner at Peter's, where I had a very nice tenderloin. I have always liked their steaks, but this may have been the best I've had there.
On our way back to the boat, we noticed that Dogwatch is still closed. It's been a week now since their power was turned off. There has been no attempt to remove any of the stuff behind the bar or anything, leading me to believe they expect to reopen, but obviously they are having trouble. While we don't care for Dogwatch personally, since it is a smoky smelling bar, I hate to see any of the businesses here not make it.
GPS N 17-00.893 W 061-46.422 Nautical miles traveled today 0. Total miles 10149.
Jan 13
I thought yesterday was a lazy day, but today topped it. Sort of. I spent a good part of the day writing the logs. It has been a very nice day, with no rain since early this morning. Sunday's are usually pretty quiet around here, with no noisy activity in the yard. Even the fuel dock is usually less busy than other days. Our quiet afternoon was interrupted briefly by the one cigarette boat in Jolly Harbor and his twin, unmuffled, big V-8 engines. The only purpose I can see to this type of boat it to turn money into noise.
Happy news to report today is that Barb found a dead roach on deck, about the size of the one she saw a few days ago. BOP mission accomplished.
We went to The Crow's Nest to watch the Texans vs. New England playoff game this evening. This is the bar that I swore I would never go to again since last years Daytona 500 fiasco. Well, we did see the game, but I was never comfortable there, and the food is still mediocre at best. I don't plan on adding them back into my bar rotation even if they do have the only TV in Jolly Harbor bars.
GPS N 17-00.893 W 061-46.422 Nautical miles traveled today 0. Total miles 10149.
Jan 14
Mid morning, I noticed the stereo was on. I had not turned it on and I'm pretty sure it was off overnight. I tried to turn it off, but the power button did nothing. I has to flip the breaker to it to get it off. After doing that it would power off and on normally. I'm guessing it is reacting to the strange electrical forces that happen when I transmit on the marine SSB radio in the mornings. We have had numerous other odd things react to that, but the old stereo didn't. Have to keep an eye on that.
I helped Mike test his batteries on Seabbatical today. The load tester that I brought back this year got it's first use. The load tests passed, but they still aren't holding the charge they need, so he's on to the next test.
We went to happy hour and were joined by Mike & Lynn. We were also joined by Jim & Connie from Plane to Sea. Mike & Lynn have known them for years, but it is our first time to meet them. Jim repairs damaged airplanes, thus the name of their boat. As he pointed out, while the public usually hears about the plane accidents that will not be getting repaired, there are lots of "fender benders" that happen too. That's where he comes in, buying, repairing, and selling small planes. While at happy hour, we saw an face from last year. Sujaye, the local guy who was here last year was back. When we first got here this trip, we had joked about how many hours would we be here before we saw Sujaye, because last year it seemed he always popped up wherever we were. On our first day back, we asked Fred about him and learned he was in jail in Jamaica. We weren't sure exactly what happened, but we think it involved a boat with an illicit delivery. Well, here he was back in Antigua. He joined us briefly and told a story about his ordeal, in which he didn't know what he was getting into when he left here on the boat. It could all be concocted, but then again, he was released and is back here after only a few months, so maybe it's true.
GPS N 17-00.893 W 061-46.422 Nautical miles traveled today 0. Total miles 10149.
Jan 15
Barb did some fiberglass polishing today while I started doing preliminary work on our taxes. The years we were cruising and just spending our savings were a lot easier to figure out tax-wise. No income - no taxes. Simple. Now we have the rental house and we both worked some this past year as contractors. It's still not real complicated, but not something I want to do in Paradise.
I did make another call today to check on the inverter/charger. The girl said she would check and call me right back. Of course I got no callback, and when I tried to call again a little after 16:00 I got their answering machine. I'm starting to lose my patience about this.
It is pizza Tuesday, so after a quick stop at happy hour, we joined Mike & Lynn, and Jim & Connie at Al Porto. When I sent Angie an e-mail to make our reservation, I had asked for a table not so close to the music this week. So, we were at the other end of the room where we could barely tell there was music, but we had a nice conversation.
GPS N 17-00.893 W 061-46.422 Nautical miles traveled today 0. Total miles 10149.