July 21 - July 31
I'm going to depart from the daily diary style of log that I have always done, and instead just do a ten day update with the highlights of the period. I'm sure some of you are getting tired of reading the same routine over and over. I also have gotten so far behind in my writings that I've forgotten the little details. So, here goes.
We have had two kid boats in the marina for over a week, High Five and Salt & Light each have three kids who are all well behaved and fun to have around. High Five is returning to Canada for six months. Salt & Light will be around the area for the season, just not in the marina the whole time.
Burger night this week was very successful. The shopping was the usual multi-stop trip and we had enough stuff for sixty burgers. We sold out again, and a few local folks who showed up very late didn't get any. We also sold out of draft beer, which we have never done before. We had two full kegs and a partial when the day started, and went through it all. I don't think we have ever gone through two kegs in a day before, even when we hosted the hashes here. Since we were out of draft we sold a lot more bottles of course, and almost ran out of cold bottles. We started the day with four cases of cold Carib in the cooler, and had seven bottles left when we closed.
One night a group of people organized a trip over to Little Dipper for dinner. Little Dipper is a small local place just across the bay. Joan is the lady who runs it and makes a wonderful dinner. Pretty much everybody in the marina was going, so once they left, we closed the bar a little early. We considered joining them for dinner, but we were both so tired from the big burger night the day before that we just decided to go back to the boat and relax.
Our friends Teri & Britt on Sea Otter left the area. They have been here for over a month, which is a long time for them to stay in one place. They went back north to Carriacou from here, and then a few days later south to Tobago. They will make their way back to St. Thomas after hurricane season, where Teri sells her watercolors in a gallery there. You can see her work on her website. While they were here, Teri gave several watercolor lessons and sold many of her paintings.
We had a small pot luck dinner this week. It was a nice crowd, and nobody was interested in karaoke, so we skipped it. The following Sunday was an extremely quiet day. Lots of boats have headed on south to Trinidad or Venezuela in the last couple of days, so the crowd is getting smaller. It was so quiet Sunday that we closed the bar about 18:00. The funny thing about that was that it was still light out, so we forgot to turn on all the outside lights.
I made a trip to the hospital on the 31st. I have for years been bothered by pains in my feet. Before we ever left Texas, I went to my doctor to see if it was gout. He said no, it wasn't, but he didn't offer any better explanation and just told me to take ibuprofen to relieve the pain. So, every month or two, I deal with something hurting. Most of the time, the issue is in my right foot, and the pain will be concentrated in places where I have had previous injuries. My big toe joint is a frequent contributor. The big toe joint is classic gout presentation, but it also was shattered in a skydiving mishap fifteen years ago. Other times, the pain is more up in my foot or ankle, but again, these places had broken bones from either the skydiving accident or another time I broke a bone in my foot. So, I've been assuming the pain was just arthritis due to the previous injuries. Back to the current situation - about a month ago, I jammed my second toe on my left foot into something. I thought I had broken it, because it got black and blue and hurt like hell. But after a few days it was fine. This Monday, the toe started to hurt extremely, and it swelled up and got quite red. I thought perhaps it had been broken a month ago, and somehow I had reinjured it. After four days, it wasn't getting any better, so I thought I'd go to the hospital and get it checked out. There are two choices of hospitals here. There is the government run public hospital, and there is a private hospital. The private hospital costs more, but is arguably better and there is less waiting. Costs more is a relative term, because by US standards, it's still silly cheap. The clinic is strictly a walk-in deal, and I waited about ten minutes before being taken to the exam room. The assistant guy took my vitals, and asked why I was there, and then ushered me into the doctors office. The doctor is a very nice guy, who makes you feel at ease. I popped off my Croc and showed him my toe. He touched it gently and asked if I ever had a problem with gout. I explained my history and he said it looked like gout to him, even though I had never had it attack this toe before. He wanted to do a blood test to get my uric acid level, as high uric acid in the blood is the cause of gout. I went down the hall to the lab where the lab the drew some blood. Fifteen minute later, we had the results and I was back in the doctors office. My uric acid level was normal, which is good, but that doesn't mean it can't still be gout. He prescribed a strong anti-inflammatory vitamin B combo, which I got at the pharmacy in the lobby. All told, my visit took an hour and cost about $50 USD. We'll see how the drugs work.
Mom is getting close to making us parents. For weeks I kept trying to convince myself that maybe she somehow didn't get pregnant when she was in heat, but there is no denying it now. She's getting to the waddling stage. I went back in my logs to see when it was that she was in heat, and I figure it will be sometime next week that she delivers.
GPS N 12-00.639 W 061-44.360 Nautical miles traveled today 0. Total miles 9539.