May 11
We had a quiet Sunday today. This is a three-day weekend here, so things are very quiet. Happy Mother's day to all you mother's out there.
GPS N 12-00.639 W 061-44.360 Nautical miles traveled today 0. Total miles 9539.
May 12
Why is it a three-day holiday you might ask. Today is Whit Monday. Whit Monday is a religious holiday that apparently is only still recognized in some Caribbean countries. Sounds like just another excuse for a day off to me. I guess since everyday is a day off for us now, holidays don't carry the same weight. Monday's are usually pretty quiet around here, and with the holiday it was even quieter.
GPS N 12-00.639 W 061-44.360 Nautical miles traveled today 0. Total miles 9539.
May 13
This morning, the van from the university arrived returning Lou from her surgery. Jenny, the person who runs the spay and neuter program was holding Lou in the front seat wrapped in a towel. When she got out, I took Lou from her and snuggled her for a few minutes before putting her down. I was afraid she might just run off as soon as she was turned loose, but the exact opposite happened. She came in the bar and meowed for food. She hung around for several hours after eating, longer than she usually does. Perhaps she was embarrassed to go back to where ever she goes when she's not here, since she had inch-wide shaved bands around both front legs where they had either taken blood or had the IV during the surgery. Her belly was also shaved of course, another sign to her wild friends that those evil humans had their way with her.
Since Monday had been a holiday, I couldn't shop for burger night until today. Fortunately, the store got the beef order right and the ten pound bag was not frozen. If it had been, getting it defrosted to make the burgers would have been ugly.
GPS N 12-00.639 W 061-44.360 Nautical miles traveled today 0. Total miles 9539.
May 14
Barb spent the morning making the burgers and slicing the condiments up. She usually does this on Tuesdays, but everything is pushed back a day this week because of the holiday. The last two weeks, we have sold fifty burgers and sold out. Everybody got fed, but we had no leftovers. So, this week, we have to up our limit to sixty. Of course, we never have any idea of how many people will show, and we proved that this week when only twenty folks showed up. It's not a problem for the beef and the buns, but the lettuce and tomatoes become salad during the week, because they just won't keep.
After closing the bar, we went back to the boat. There were two guys speaking Spanish on channel 16 on the VHF. For non-boaters, channel 16 is the channel you hail somebody on, and then you switch to another channel for your conversation. Several other boats, including myself, started over-keying their conversation, in hopes of them getting the idea to switch channels. Eventually they did get the idea, but they switched to channel 68. Now in most of the world, channel 68 is perfectly ok for conversations. But, it large anchorages like this, 68 is commonly used for cruisers hailing purposes instead of 16. So now, these guys were annoying the whole cruising fleet instead of just those who monitor 16 and 68. After several minutes, I tried to yell at them between sentences. As one would stop speaking, I'd yell "Use another channel" before the other guy could speak. I did this several times with no results, while Barb looked at an English to Spanish translator on the Internet to figure out how to say it in Spanish. It only took me twice yelling "Ultice otro canal" before they went away. I'd like to take credit for the peace and quiet on the radio after that, but in reality, they were probably just done with their conversation.
GPS N 12-00.639 W 061-44.360 Nautical miles traveled today 0. Total miles 9539.
May 15
We have been trying to catch Mom, the dog, for a couple of weeks now. Last night I offered free beer to anybody who could catch her. This morning as I walked up the dock from the boat, I saw Mom tied to a pole by the electrical equipment building. Augustine, one of our workers had caught her and tied her up. (Fortunately, he didn't know about the beer reward.) I went up to her and gently picked her up. She wasn't to happy about that, but didn't fight once I had her in my arms. I slipped the rope holding her over her head and carried her over to the kennel that the university left. I put her in and closed the kennel. She just curled up in the corner giving me her best make-me-feel-guilty look. I put a bowl of food and a bowl of water in with her, but she made no effort to touch either. I called the number that had been left for us to call when we caught her. I got a voice mail and left a message. After not hearing back from them in an hour, I called the regular small animal clinic and asked if they had another number. They gave me a number for Ian, the guy who drives the van, and I called him. He said he would call me back in an hour. Several hours later, I called Ian back. He said he was waiting to hear from the doctor that they could definitely do the surgery. The problem is that the official program is over for this semester, so now they have to con the regular clinic into doing the surgery. After several more phone calls, it was determined that the surgery could not be done for a couple of weeks due to a lack of anesthesia. So, after spending all day in the kennel (she finally did eat the food), we turned her loose about 17:00. We were afraid that she would run off and not let us near her after this, but she just went to the deck and laid down, pretty much like nothing happened.
GPS N 12-00.639 W 061-44.360 Nautical miles traveled today 0. Total miles 9539.
May 16
Toady is shopping day. There was a normal sized crowd of fifteen or so. The shopping bus was originally organized by a couple of the cruisers who spent last hurricane season here, and a taxi driver named Keith. After people started moving on after hurricane season ended, I asked Keith if he wanted to continue the bus every Friday. He said sure, even though the number of people dwindled as low as five or six some weeks. Keith actually drove for Elvis, who has a number of nice taxis and a couple of larger buses. Eventually, another one of Elvis's drivers took over the Friday run, but we still saw Keith occasionally at the mall or dropping off passengers here. A couple of mornings ago, Keith was dropped off here by somebody in a car. He came in and sat down to tell us why he was here. A few weeks ago, he had an accident because he blacked out at the wheel. Fortunately, he was alone in the van, and nobody was hurt. However, a trip to the doctor to explain the blackout revealed a brain tumor. Apparently, the tumor is operable, and a good outcome may be expected, but to get the surgery, Keith needs to get to Cuba. I think most Americans view of Cuba is the poor, backwards country with nothing but 1950's American cars running around. In reality, Cuba is a modern country with excellent health care available. The US is the only country that pretends Cuba doesn't exist. Keith is hoping to get some help from any cruisers who remember him to help defray the costs of the trip and the surgery. Unfortunately, most of the cruisers who knew him have moved on, but we agreed to spread the word and see what we can do.
A couple of weeks ago, Bob had White Squall taken out of the water and put on the trailer. I moved the boat and trailer to where Bob was going to have a guy clean and paint the bottom, and left the tractor attached to it. We may need the tractor this weekend to take another boat out of the water, but we can't just disconnect it from White Squall. White Squall is really too big for the trailer we put it on, and if we disconnect the hitch, it will tip backwards. To avoid this problem, I put several boards under the back of the trailer. To further complicate things, both tires on the left side of the trailer have gone flat, so I got a bottle jack, jacked it up and put boards under that side of the trailer too. Now, the tractor can be disconnected if necessary.
GPS N 12-00.639 W 061-44.360 Nautical miles traveled today 0. Total miles 9539.
May 17
I got ambitious today and did several things. First, I washed the windows in the bar. We used to have one of our workers do this with the pressure washer, but that is too messy, and it took him two days to do the job. I bought a long handled squeegee and clean all the windows, inside and out, in about an hour.
Speaking of pressure washers, Bob bought a new gasoline powered pressure washer for cleaning the docks. He wanted to be sure he knew how it worked before turning a worker loose with it. It's amazing how much better the docks look after pressure washing.
While I was still feeling ambitious, I launched our dinghy and cleaned the waterline of the boat. Even with good bottom paint, a brown slime collects on the bottom since the boat hasn't moved in almost a year. When a boat moves regularly, the bottom paint sloughs off and the bottom stays clean. But just sitting, the slime collects and looks bad. As I cleaned the edge as far down as I could reach from the dinghy, I found that there are also some barnacles growing. Again, even with good bottom paint, since we aren't moving, this happens. If we had known we were going to sit for a year, I would have waited until this August to paint it.
Mike from Palm Tree Marine has a twenty foot inflatable that he uses for his business. He used our boat ramp to pull it out of the water for the weekend so he could clean and paint the bottom. His wife, Lucy, hooked their Toyota 4WD pickup to their trailer and backed it down the ramp. She could put most guys to shame backing up the trailer. Mike drove the boat onto the trailer just enough to be lined up. Even though it's not a big heavy boat, our ramp is not concrete, so pulling a boat out always comes with the risk of getting stuck in the mud, as we have proven several times now. To avoid this, Mike and Lucy had worked out a plan that he would goose the boat hard, making it slide up on the trailer, and when she felt the trailer surge forward, she was to punch it and keep the momentum going. With a bar full of onlookers, the plan worked perfectly.
Mid-afternoon, Barb and I made a quick run to the grocery store. We did a fair amount of shopping, including scoring some more kitty litter. The store only has the brand of kitty litter we like sporadically, so we stock pile it when we can. We had a nice group for pot luck in the evening. About a dozen folks were there and we had a nice visit. Once again, we did not do karaoke, as Bob and I would have been the only stars.
GPS N 12-00.639 W 061-44.360 Nautical miles traveled today 0. Total miles 9539.
May 18
Today was a typical quiet Sunday. Mike and Lucy spent most of the day here working on painting the bottom of their boat that they pulled out yesterday. A group of folks came in about noon to get a taxi to Grand Anse Beach. They were going to a place called Jenny's Place, where there is a Sunday afternoon buffet and jazz music. We have heard good things about this place, but have never been. As it turned out, Bob went there too, and when the folks came back to the marina about 18:00, they had pictures showing Bob onstage singing. Late in the afternoon we had four folks come in to the bar. One was a local guy, and three were students from the vet school. We have met this group before, and they stayed for several hours.
GPS N 12-00.639 W 061-44.360 Nautical miles traveled today 0. Total miles 9539.
May 19
When I got up this morning I found that Morgan & Kate from Winergie had returned from their trip back to Texas late last night. I knew they would be back soon, but hadn't been sure of the day. We had an interesting call from another marina this morning. Martin's Marina is in the next bay west of us, and they called to see if we had water. Turns out the water to their area and Prickly Bay was turned off while the water company made some repairs. Martin's had a boat there that needed water and didn't want to wait, so they sent them around to get water from us. Two other boats that are old customers came back yesterday. Suhaila and Mariche VII both have been here several times in the past year and now are nearing the end of their cruising seasons. They both will be hauling out for the summer, so they came to the marina to do their prep work before their haulouts. Watching the work they do that goes into preparing the boat to be laid up for several months made me very glad that we stay aboard year-round.
I spent an hour or so walking every inch of the docks looking for any loose boards. I had a cordless screwdriver and a pocketful of screws to secure any I found. In one of those little things that I marvel at when they work out, I just grabbed a handful of screws and put them in my pocket. It turned out to be exactly the number I needed to do the job. While I was doing this, Bob was teaching Calvin, one of the workers here how to use the new pressure washer to continue cleaning the docks.
I went and did the burger night shopping today. When I got to Foodland for the meat, it was not to be found. The lady who coordinates the order for us is off on Monday's, and the guy who allegedly runs the meat department didn't know anything about it. I explained to him that I had gotten the order the last couple of weeks, but he still claimed no knowledge of our every-Monday order. I got everything else and told him I would come back tomorrow when Ms. Ross was there. We have this luxury this week since we probably have enough burgers left over from last week to cover us this week without any more.
Late in the afternoon, I was sitting in the bar with several other folks, watching TV. The TV was fairly loud, but I thought I heard a noise like a dog yelping. I went to the door and found Lucy looking under our storage trailer at Tammy & Mom. I went out to see what was wrong and learned that Lucy had started to move their truck and Mom came out from under it yelping. She had apparently been sleeping under it and been somehow run over. Mom was hiding under the trailer where we couldn't reach her. Her injury was not clearly apparent to us. Tammy was fine and bouncing around generally getting in the way while we tried to coax Mom out where we could check her out. I got under the trailer a little and nudged Mom to where she came out enough where we could inspect her. The mere fact that she was letting us touch her indicated that she either couldn't move or was just very stunned. We pet her and comforted her while gently moving all her legs and feeling her ribs, etc. We didn't think anything appeared to be broken, but she wouldn't get up. After quite a few minutes, with our help, she stood up. We again gently squeezed at her sides to she if she reacted as if internally injured, but she didn't. When we let her go, she slowly walked back under the trailer, holding her left rear foot up as she did. Based on this, we surmised that perhaps her foot itself had been run over. She laid down under the trailer, and Barb got her a bowl of water and put it right by her. Later, when we closed the bar, she was still laying there, drooling noticeably. There's not much we can do but wait at this point and see how she is in the morning.
GPS N 12-00.639 W 061-44.360 Nautical miles traveled today 0. Total miles 9539.
May 20
I awoke before 06:00, and immediately wondered how the dog was doing. I got up and went directly to where she had been when we went to bed, hoping I wouldn't find her still there. Thankfully, she was gone, so I assumed she got over the shock of what had happened. I started looking around for her or Tammy, and didn't find either one of them. Usually at this hour, they are either sleeping on the deck or poking through the burn pile where Augustine would have just dumped garbage. But, I didn't find either of them. I asked Augustine if he had seen them and he said no. An hour or so later, Tammy showed up by herself. This didn't make me feel to confident, and if she knew where Mom was, she wasn't talking. Finally about 08:00, I saw Mom up by the burn pile. I walked that way, and as soon as she saw me coming she retreated into the brush. That is not her normal behavior. Her normal behavior is to wag her tail and slink around just out of my reach and usually just barely lick my outstretched fingers. She obviously was still traumatized, but she seemed to be moving ok. By later in the day, I had seen her several times, but she never came down the hill from the burn pile. She usually spends all day hanging around the office area on the deck, so this is odd, but hopefully it's just a trust issue at this point.
Bob & Sally on Mariche VII left early this morning. Their haulout is at 09:00, so they were underway to Prickly Bay about 08:15. We look forward to seeing them next year as we cruise north.
I have noticed a few birds up in the field above the marina that stand out as different than the common birds we see everyday. There are three of them and they sit on the ground every morning for a couple of hours. They are black and have a large hook shaped beak. I got a picture of one the other day, but then it occurred to me that I had a valuable resource available to me at the moment. Arctic Tern is a boat we know that is anchored over in Hog Island. Hunter and Devi are the couple aboard, and Devi used to work for the US National Park Service and is an ornithologist. They come in to use our internet connection everyday, so when she next stopped by, I pointed out the birds and asked her if she knew what they were. She looked and said they were Anis. There are smooth-billed Anis, and groove-billed Anis, and from the distance we were she couldn't tell which they were, but now I know. I had never heard of an Ani before.
Barb and I took a ride back to Foodland today to see about the beef. I asked for Ms. Ross, whom I have only spoken to on the phone before. She was very pleasant and asked me to wait a minute while she called in back to get the meat. I waited and then I saw her walk to the back of the store. After about fifteen minutes, she returned with no meat. She apologized and explained that there had been three ten-pound bags of burger in the cooler this morning, and now all three were gone. Nobody seemed to have any recollection of where any of them went. She was embarrassed about this and apologized profusely. I explained that this week, it wasn't a big deal, and she assured me that next week it will be here. We'll see.
In the late afternoon, around high tide, Mike & Lucy re-launched their boat. Launching is always less challenging that hauling, because you only have the empty trailer weight to pull out. Lucy backed in while Mike was in the boat. When the stern of the boat started to float, Lucy stopped, and I climbed on the tongue of the trailer to give a shove as Mike powered in reverse. Everything went fine and Mike tied the boat up and they came in for a few beers.
GPS N 12-00.639 W 061-44.360 Nautical miles traveled today 0. Total miles 9539.
