Sep 11
Since I replaced the accumulator tank on the pressure water system the pump has been running erratically. This is probably because the pressure of the new tank is different than the old one, so the switch on the pump needs to be adjusted. I have to remove a drawer in the kitchen to get to the pump, but I have done this so many times I could do it in the dark. I turned the water on and turned the pressure adjustment screw until the pump ran smoothly. That fulfills the "fix one thing a day" rule, so the rest of the morning was spent reading. Around noon, I walked over to Pirate's Hideout to see if Dave & Sue wanted to play dominoes or cards this afternoon. We set a time for 13:30 to meet at the bar.
As I walked back to MoonSail, I noticed the water coming out of the rear a/c was not as much as it should be. This indicates the filter is getting clogged up. I told Barb to remind me to clean it before we went to bed tonight. She suggested doing it now so it is done. I jokingly said I didn't want to touch it since it was running at the moment. With the recent track record of keeping the a/c running, I'm a little gun shy. It did make sense to go ahead and do it now though, so we did. When we do this, I lay on the floor in the aft cabin and remove the strainer jar and screen. Barb then takes them to clean while I make sure there isn't seagrass in the line before the filter itself. If there is I have to blow through the hose to dislodge it. To determine this, I open the valve to see if the water comes in with good force. When I turned the ball valve to open it, the valve stem twisted off in my hand. This is not good. Not only does it mean we can't use the a/c, but water was slowly leaking around the remains of the valve stem. To replace the valve you have to plug the hole in the bottom of the boat. I was not a happy camper at this point. I have to remove the valve before I can go to the store and buy a new one, since I don't know the size. I donned my fins and mask and with the help of a neighbor's pony tank (a tiny SCUBA tank that gives you about a dozen breaths) I went under. The water in the marina is not the best, since there is runoff from the land and the boats all pump sewage overboard, and it is overcast today, so visibility was not great. I located the intake hole and found that the smallest wooden plug in the standard emergency plug kit is too big for a half inch thru-hull. On to plan B. I figured that since it's only a half inch hole, I can take the valve off inside, and plug the hole inside before to much water comes in. After all, that's why boats have bilge pumps right? I undid the hose, removed the filter, and unscrewed the valve from the thru-hull. The fountain of water was about a foot high, but a half-inch hole isn't nearly as scary as I was prepared for. I stuck my finger over the hole while Barb whittled a real cork from a champagne bottle down to size to jam in the hole. We had been saving that cork for just such an emergency. With the water flow stopped, I bothered Steve form Liward for a ride to the parts store since he has a rental car. I needed to get a new ball valve, and a new filter since after we removed the old one we found it had numerous cracks in it. Between both Budget Marine and Island Water World, I got both parts, although I had to get a bronze ball valve instead of Marelon. Marelon is a type of plastic that is supposed to be indestructible and doesn't corrode. Bronze is subject to galvanic deterioration from stray electrical currents and should be bonded to the boat's grounding system. Since all the thru-hulls and valves in MoonSail are Marelon, there is no ground system for the valves. So, while this will be fine for now, I will replace it with a Marelon one in the future. I pulled the cork out of the thru-hull and screwed the new valve on with a minimal amount of water coming in. I then reassembled the rest of the plumbing with the new filter and we were back in business. All in all it wasn't that big of a deal, but it sure was frustrating to break something else. I also have ordered one of each size of Marelon valves so I have spares. That will guarantee that no others break.
Given the timing of this event, we never did have lunch, so Barb made us an early dinner. To help me recover from my frustration, Dave brought over a few brownies that Sue made, and a DVD for us to watch.
GPS N 12-00.639 W 061-44.360 Nautical miles traveled today 0. Total miles 9539.
Sep 12
I woke up this morning with a sore throat and feeling like I hadn't slept all night. I did the morning radio stuff, and then went back to bed. I woke up again a little before noon feeling much better. Not sure what that was about, but glad I wasn't really getting sick. I had a doctors appointment to check the spots where the moles were removed, but I cancelled it. The spots are healing fine, and I don't feel like taking the bus to town. We spent the afternoon trying to stay cool. With the current transformer configuration, we can only run the small a/c unit in the back, and we have a fan trying to blow the cooler air up to the main saloon, but it just doesn't cut it during the afternoon.
Tonight Steve and his local buddies are going to play music at the bar again. They got set up and started about half an hour later than planned, which qualifies them to be a real band. During their second song, the power went out. We had blown the main meter and fuse to the whole marina again. It's hard to know if the band put it over the edge, or if it was coincidence. I helped Bob go to all the docks and unplug all the boats so that he could start the generator. The generator can power the buildings but would overload with the boats plugged in. After a fifteen minute outage, we had power to the bar again, and the music resumed. As they were playing their first song though, the amp cut out. It came back on a few seconds later with no intervention. They tried several times to play, but the amp kept acting up. It appeared the amp doesn't like the power coming from the generator. The power company was there within forty minutes, and replaced the meter and the fuse, so we were back on the real power. The band tried to play again, but the amp still acted up. Bob tried just playing a CD and it still acted weird. Maybe something fried when the power initially blew. So, that was the end of the music for tonight. It was too bad since there was a very large crowd there.
GPS N 12-00.639 W 061-44.360 Nautical miles traveled today 0. Total miles 9539.
Sep 13
We didn't do much of anything today, except play dominoes with Dave & Sue. While we were playing, Bob turned the stereo on. There was no sound coming out of the speaker nearest us, so I yelled over to Bob that it wasn't working. Looking at the display on the amp, it looked like both side were playing. After a little investigation he found one of the wires was off the back of the speaker. He reconnected it and it worked fine then. Perhaps that's all that was wrong last night.
While we were playing we were treated to a show outside. A good sized catamaran owned by a friend of Bob's is being hauled out of the water with a large crane. This marina does not have a real haulout facility. The crane is a mobile one that came just to do this. We watched as the guys put a couple of very ratty looking straps around the hulls and lifted the boat. I was taking pictures in continuous drive mode so if they dropped it I might capture a cool shot of it. To our amazement, the operation came off with no problem. Since the crane can't move while the boat was in the air, it took them four hops to get the boat where they wanted it, but they did it.
GPS N 12-00.639 W 061-44.360 Nautical miles traveled today 0. Total miles 9539.
Sep 14
Today is market and grocery day. Bert picked up Sue, Barb and I at 09:30. Dave stayed behind because he is expecting somebody to come do some work on the boat for him. We hit terrible traffic getting to town because of trucks blocking the road through the Carenage where they were loading the ferry to Carriacou. The alternate route, which would normally be our first choice, was closed due to road construction. We finally got downtown and Bert dropped us at the market. We did the usual prowl through the booths and got several produce items. We met Bert at 11:00 and he took us on to the grocery store. As was the case last week, the bus carrying the rest of the cruisers, and lots of students were shopping too. Everybody shopping on Friday is because they unload their weekly containers on Thursday. We finished shopping and loaded up the car. Even though we pay more using Bert than the folks using the big taxi, coordinating two couples getting done and checked out and home before all your cold stuff is warm is hard enough. Coordinating a dozen would drive me nuts.
We stopped on the way home at the place that was testing my SCUBA tank. It was done, although it was a small production to pick it up. They print a fancy certificate with the results of the test, which I don't think I will ever need, and it wasn't printed yet. So we had to wait while the lady printed it and then I paid her. Ironically, the tank was empty. Wouldn't you think if they were going to overfill it to test it, they could leave it full when they were done?
We had a quiet afternoon, including naps. Since the aft cabin is much cooler than the main cabin, naps were very inviting. We went up to the bar for an hour or so for happy hour and then had a nice dinner.
GPS N 12-00.639 W 061-44.360 Nautical miles traveled today 0. Total miles 9539.
Sep 15
Today I tackled a boat project that has been on the list for a year. It's one that I'm not sure I can accomplish. When we weathered Tropical Storm Alberto in Charleston, SC, in June 2006, we bent a stanchion when the boat was being mashed against the dock for twenty-four hours. The problem was that the fenders were attached to the lifelines, and when they got pinched against the dock and the boat came up, it pulled the life line so tight that the stanchion bent. Frankly I was surprised that the lifelines or the ropes on the fenders didn't give way first. The result wasn't hindering anything from working properly, but it bugged me to look at the bend. I tried to get it fixed a month after it happened, but couldn't find a stainless fabricator that wasn't booked months in advance. I thought about trying to replace it with a new one from Catalina, but they have changed the stanchions a little since then, so a new one wouldn't match. My attempt to fix it will be applying a technique I learned back in the Chesapeake when we bent the rudder. They tried to straighten our rudder using a Spanish windlass. That is basically where you make a loop of rope around the thing you want to move, and another stationary object. You then put a stick between the two sides of the loop and start twisting. As the rope twists it gets shorter and the object with the least resistance moves. I tied a loop round the bent stanchion and the next one and started twisting. When I had it as tight as I could get it, I whacked the heck out of the bent stanchion right where it was bent with my rubber mallet. With about four whacks it was good as new. It may not be as strong as it once was where it had bent, but it looks better. All this took about five minutes. I love it when a fix works, nothing else gets broken in the process, and it turns out much easier than expected.
This evening is the weekly pot luck dinner. We got off to a slow start, but by 18:00 there were about thirty people there and we had plenty of food. The evening karaoke came later and as usual, Dave and I were the main performers. We did have a couple of new participants though. We also had about a dozen new songs that Amanda downloaded for us. Barb had a bad headache after dinner and went to the boat early, but I stayed until almost 23:00. There was a handful that stayed until about 01:00.
GPS N 12-00.639 W 061-44.360 Nautical miles traveled today 0. Total miles 9539.
Sep 16
We have a big day planned today. Twenty-five of us are taking a charted bus to the beach. In addition to those taking the bus, there are at least seven with their own transportation. This includes pretty much everybody from the marina as well as a few from the anchorage. The bus picked us up a little after 13:00 at the marina. We joked with Bob that he could take half a day off since nobody would be there. We went to The Aquarium Restaurant (no relation to the chain by the same name in the States), which is located on Magazine Beach. Magazine Beach is on the northern side of the peninsula that the airport is built on. You can find that on my road map of Grenada link down on the southwest corner of the island.
The bus had to let us off at the entrance since the driveway is a very steep downhill from the road. We walked down joking about what the walk up was going to be like after sunning, drinking, and eating for several hours. At the bottom, we walked through the restaurant to the beach where we claimed all the empty beach chairs. An old local guy woke up from his nap to tell us they were $10EC ($3.70 US) each. After confirming with the bar that he indeed was authorized to charge for the chairs, we gladly paid him and selected our spot in the shade of some large trees. I went to the bar and got us a couple of beers and opened a tab. Unlike places where they don't trust anybody, I have never been asked for a credit card up front to run a tab in Grenada. Most of us got in the water right away with our drinks and just stood chest high, enjoying the clear, cool water. There was some reef and rocks just off the beach, and a number of people had brought their snorkeling equipment and reported that there were lots of little fish, a little moray eel, and lots of sea urchins. We stayed in the sandy bottom areas after that report since nobody wants a sea urchin spine in their foot.
While we were standing in the water, we saw a small powerboat slowly approaching the area. We all commented that we hoped the captain saw the snorkelers that were out there. The boat slowly came closer, weaving through a couple of groups of snorkelers. When it was a couple hundred feet away, we realized it was Bob, the marina owner in his boat, White Squall. He had with him France & Gee, the one couple from the marina who didn't come on the bus. They threw out a stern anchor and brought the bow of the bow close to shore where somebody took a bow anchor and dug it in the beach sand. We had hoped Bob would take advantage of the marina being empty to take an afternoon off, but were thrilled that he not only took the afternoon off, but came and partied with us.
There was a band there named Roots. Steve, from Liward, who has put together the pick-up band at the marina, met these guys last year and liked them. They had played several songs when they invited Steve to join them for a few songs. Hoping this would happen, Steve just happened to have his guitar with him. He sang two Buffett songs and a Larry Joe Taylor song. The rest of the band played along well, especially considering they aren't particularly familiar with Texas singer-songwriter Larry Joe Taylor.
About 16:00 we started drying off and went to the restaurant to eat. Sunday they have a barbeque special menu instead of their regular menu. We sat at three tables of eight or ten each. The waitress brought us menus and in short order was back to take orders. You ordered your entree and sides separately, and everybody had been getting their drinks directly from the bar. It took a little while for the food to start arriving, but when it did, she had everything exactly right. I had grilled tuna, done right for a change (medium rare), and Barb had chicken breast chunks on skewers. I had a baked potato with sour cream and garlic butter for a side, and Barb had grilled tomato halves topped with cheese and seasonings. There were several joys in this. 1.) Tuna. You can get tuna anywhere in the islands, but this was the first thick tuna steak I have had in a while that actually was medium rare and had a noticeable rare center. 2.) Chicken. You can get chicken parts everywhere in the islands. In fact it seems that's all you can get everywhere. But you don't see chicken breasts. We can get them in a frozen bag of twelve at the IGA, but not fresh cut. Elsewhere in the islands we have not even seen the frozen ones. These skewers were big chunks of white breast meat. 3.) Baked potatoes. I don't recall the last time I saw a baked potato on the menu. And with sour cream and garlic butter? OK, it was baked on a grill and the skin was a little burnt, but it was good. Reports from the other folks at the table were equally favorable for the ribs and pork tenderloin. And after we were all done, Natalia form Zig Zag, who was at another table, brought three good sized bites of left over lobster over because she didn't want it to go to waste. It didn't. (For the record, I was the glutton who answered her call first.).
When it was getting close to departure time, we all started paying our bills. One of the things the waitress had not balked at all at, was making separate checks for each couple. She had boat names for everybody. To make things even easier, when you asked for your check, she asked if you had a bar tab too. If you did, she combined them and gave you one check that you easily pay with a credit card. They even took American Express! Given the rush of us all ordering at once, and combining that with the ongoing bar tab, I was impressed that the bill was exactly correct. And, the whole afternoon, of ten beers, and two meals, in a nice place like this, was only $50 US.
A few minutes before 18:00 we started the hike back up the driveway to meet our bus. We were puffing by the time we got there, but the bus showed up a minute or two after we did, and we enjoyed it's air conditioned comfort back to the marina. Someone suggested "can't we just drive around for a couple of hours", since not everybody has air conditioning on their boats. The cost of the bus ride was $10EC each, round trip. This was the same bus that took us to the Friday fish fry in Gouyave a few weeks ago, but a different driver. This guy actually knew what a clutch was for, and didn't stall it once. Back at the marina, we showered to remove the salt residue and relaxed on the boat for the evening.
Our day was bittersweet though because we received news from back in Teas that one of our dear friends lost her battle with cancer today. It reminds me that you never know how much time you have and why we are out here doing this now while we can.
GPS N 12-00.639 W 061-44.360 Nautical miles traveled today 0. Total miles 9539.
Sep 17
I decided to tackle a couple of projects today. Barb did a load of laundry, while I fixed a leak in the hatch over the bed. The hatch over the bed is the one you most don't want to leak. There has been a tiny drip from this hatch for months if we really get a downpour. That one was manageable since it literally would only be a couple of drips if it poured for an hour. But, a couple months ago, the same hatch developed a new leak at one of the handles. The handles go through the window part and are sealed by an o-ring on the outside. I took the handle apart and replaced the o-ring. I also brushed away any dirt on the gasket near where the original leak was. With Barb inside watching, I then blasted the hatch with the hose. I concentrated on the two areas where the leaks had been, and Barb reported no water inside. Success without breaking something else. I should have quit while I was ahead.
The port on the starboard side in the v-berth has also leaked for quite some time. Last year I replaced the gaskets in all the ports, but I think I missed this one. When it rains hard or we take a lot of water over the bow, this port leaks quite a bit, requiring frequent attention to wring out the towel kept under it. It looked to me like the water was coming in where the bolt that holds the latch went into the frame, so I tried to remove it. Unfortunately this was where my luck ran out as I snapped the bolt off. Of course it's not your everyday plain old bolt, but a cap bolt with an allen head. Not only do I not have another bolt like it, but I will need to remove the whole port assembly from the boat to get the remaining piece of the bolt out. I removed interior trim ring and the interior ring that holds the port in. With these out of the way, I could see a small spot of daylight at the edge of the port frame where it had not ever been properly sealed at the factory. That and the old gasket certainly would explain leakage. I pried the port out of the deck, cutting away the sealant as I went. With the port in my hands, I was able to use vice-grips to remove the remaining chunk of the broken bolt. I then headed to town to find a new bolt.
As I need to fill my SCUBA tank at the dive shop across the bay anyway, I decided I would drop it off and take a bus to town. We lowered the dinghy and mounted the motor and off I went. At the dinghy dock I handed my tank to a Rasta guy who carried it over to the fill station. He was talking to me as we walked over, but I have no idea what he said. There is a joke around that if you get your tanks filled here, you may get some second hand smoke of the ganja variety in your tank. Makes for happy diving. I told the guy I would be back in an hour or so and walked up to the main road to catch a bus. You catch the bus at Nimrod's Rum Shop, and there is a bench in front of the shop where you can sit in the shade while you wait. I don't think I've ever waited as long as I did today for a bus. It was probably thirty minutes before one came. But I was entertained while I waited. The guy minding the rum shop and a friend were babysitting. The baby was a cute little girl who might have been a year old, sitting in a stroller. Dad and his friend were smoking a joint and having a loud animated conversation that was about thirty percent curse words, mostly starting with F. They were talking in the local dialect that is English but can be quite hard to understand, especially when it is spoken fast. I was picking up about half the conversation and that's what made the whole scene so amusing. They were having a serious discussion about parenting and how girl children are more respectful to their parents than boys. Maybe it's because the boys grow up to be dope smoking daddies.
The bus that finally picked me up had to make a detour on the outskirts of town due to road construction. This was good for me because the detour took us right past Island Water World and Ace Hardware. I got off and just had to cross the street instead of having to walk several blocks as I would have from the regular route. IWW didn't have anything like the bolt I needed. Ace Hardware didn't have the exact type of bolt, but I found one that I thought would work. I walked a block down the street to a small market and bought something cold to drink while trying to figure out where to get the bus back. I didn't see any of the #2 busses going the other way on Lagoon Road, so I was afraid they might be detouring a different way outbound. I walked a block up the hill to the street the #2 usually uses. After a fair wait, I finally saw one coming. I flagged him down and asked if he was going to Woburn. He said no and drove off. This scene repeated itself three more time over the next ten minutes. I saw a few of the #2 buses turn up a different street about a block from where I was standing, so I walked down there. Then for another ten minutes, none came. An inbound #2 stopped across the street from me and yelled to me asking where I was going. I said Woburn, and he said to get in. I knew he was inbound, but at this point I was convinced that due to the construction, the only sure fire way to get a bus would be to into town to the main bus station where they all start. So I boarded the inbound bus and went to the end of the line. I then got in the crowd waiting to board outbound busses along with a few hundred school kids. There are no big yellow school busses here. The kids all ride the little public busses for a discounted price. One van filled with kids and the conductor seemed to be telling a couple of adults that this one was going to be kids only. I learned while waiting that there are really two #2 routes. There is the #2W which I want, an the #2E which goes further east. When the next van pulled up, kids mobbed it again, but the conductor told me to sit in front. There was already a large woman sitting in the front on the little jump seat in the middle, so it was a little crowded. When we left the station, the route we took went right by IWW, but since we were chock full, I wouldn't have been able to get on there anyway. The detour took us on a road I had never been on before that connects the Lagoon Road with the highway out to our area. Once we got to the fork in the road that goes either to Lower Woburn where I want to go, or Woburn proper, we took the road to Woburn proper. This is a big loop, so it doesn't matter, and again, I had not been on this road, so it was a pleasant tour, especially since I was in front and could actually see what was going by. I should also mention that this driver was not a kamikaze as some are. As were coming down the hill towards Nimrod's, I told the driver that was where I wanted to get off. He gave me a knowing nod as if to say that he knew that the only white guy on the bus was a boater and that's where I would get off.
I walked down the hill to the dive shop and grabbed my tank. A guy came over to me and said something that again, I have no idea what it was. I already knew the price for a fill was $20EC, so I handed him a twenty and he was happy. I loaded the tank in the dinghy and crossed the bay. When I got to the boat, I noticed the companionway was open and the screen was over it, and the a/c wasn't running. Since we have been trying to cool the whole boat with the small unit only, and having limited success, I thought maybe Barb just gave up and opened up to get a breeze. It turned out that the marina power was off again because of another meter meltdown. Bob has the new three-phase power ready to be hooked up by the power company, so he called them and demanded they come hook up the new power instead of replacing the old meter again. They agreed, but it will take a little while to accomplish. Also, while they are doing that, Bob can't run the generator since they need everything off to move wires.
I put the port back together with the new screw and re-bed it to the deck without breaking anything else. We'll have to wait until the sealant sets up to leak test it. As dusk came, the power was still not on. Without the generator, even the dock lights and the street lights up around the buildings aren't on. I decided to take a shower and took our little battery operated lantern with me so I could see in the bathroom. I met Bob on my way back to the boat, and he said the power would be on in a few minutes. It turned out to be at least thirty more minutes, but finally it was on. We turned the a/c back on to cool down the bedroom. Liward is docked next to us and they had a few people over for dinner tonight to celebrate Steve's birthday. About 21:00, Lili called us on the VHF and said to come over and join the party. After they had finished dinner, they had rounded up just about everybody else on the dock to come over for drinks. They had their generator running all afternoon to run their a/c, so it was pleasant inside. Their boat is huge compared to ours. It is a Hans Christian 48, and we had fourteen people sitting down in the main saloon. We ended up staying until 23:00 and had a good time.
GPS N 12-00.639 W 061-44.360 Nautical miles traveled today 0. Total miles 9539.
Sep 18
Today, several people left. Some by air and some by boat. Dave from Pirates Hideout went back to the States for a couple of weeks, Stuart & Natalia went home to Puerto Rico for a couple of months, and Bob's wife Leslie went back to Toronto. They were all on early morning flights. Later in the day, Liward left the marina headed over to St. David's for a haulout at Grenada Marine. This is not the yard we used.
Since we are running on the new power today, I decided to try running the front a/c again. It makes no sense that the change in the marina's input power would influence our problem with popping the GFCI breaker, but none of the rest of the symptoms have made any sense either, so why not try it. It worked! So now while we still can't run everything, we can run the big a/c all day, while the rest of the boat runs off the batteries, and then before bed, we can switch back to the aft a/c and turn on the battery charger and water heater. This is because although our transformer can put out enough power to run everything, I still think the wiring is too small and we would fry it again if we overload it.
In the afternoon we played Dominoes with Sue, and in the evening we watched four episodes of House.
GPS N 12-00.639 W 061-44.360 Nautical miles traveled today 0. Total miles 9539.
Sep 19
Barb & Sue did a girl's shopping day today. Bert the taxi driver took them into St. George's and dropped them off on The Carenage. They had lunch at Nutmeg's and browsed around the many shops in that area for a few hours. Later Bert picked them up and brought them back about 16:00. Other than a loaf of bread and a pair of short, the wallet was not damaged.
While Barb was gone, I was playing with electricity again. I was sitting inside mid-afternoon when the power went off. I knew Bob was planning to change the distribution of the new power, so I figured he was working on it. I walked up to the bar, and sure enough, he and the electricians were working on pulling new wires so that my dock can be split off the rest of the load. But, I quickly learned that he had not shut anything off yet. He wasn't going to actually connect the new wires until tomorrow. So, I went back to the boat and found that the breaker had tripped again. I reset it and turned the a/c back on and it worked fine. While I was outside though, I noticed that the transformer that Liward had been using was sitting at the end of the dock. It is wired properly for a 50 amp plug. I went back up to Bob and asked him if he minded if I swapped transformers. If nothing else, I will have one that is in a case and designed to be outside, and not have to worry about protecting it if it rains hard like I do with the one we have now. Bob said that was fine, so I carried the transformer to the boat. I plugged the new transformer in and started the big a/c unit. It worked! I held my breath and started the small a/c unit. It too worked! Rather than push my luck, I left the battery charger off for now. But having both a/c units running will make things much more comfortable.
In the evening, Steve form Liward drove back over here from St. David's to play music with the same three local guys as last week. Last week we had the power fiasco, but this week it all worked fine. Since Bob's wife has gone back to Toronto, he asked me to tend bar for him. He had been working hard all day and needed to get cleaned up and relax a bit. I managed the bar with help from Ginette on Sol Magique. The place was hopping and we almost ran out of beer. The band played for a little over an hour, and then Bob turned on other music. A good portion of the crowd stayed well into the evening. About 21:30 I left Bob in charge of the few remaining customers and came back to the boat.
GPS N 12-00.639 W 061-44.360 Nautical miles traveled today 0. Total miles 9539.
Sep 20
Today Bob is hooking up the wires he pulled yesterday. This change will allow all three docks to be independent of each other, and balance the new three-phase supply power better. It does mean though that for over an hour we had no power, thus no a/c. Amazing how quickly you can get spoiled and then miss something when it's gone for a short time. When the power back came back on, the boat quickly cooled back down to just under 80.
We played dominoes with Sue, and Kevin & Amanda from Solstice today. While we were up in the bar, Bob was trying to diagnose why the wireless isn't working again. Just like when it got wet in Felix, the router works when you plug in one of the hard wires, but it is not broadcasting wireless. Either the box has just gone bad, or perhaps there is a connection to the new power. A little while later, the Direct TV started acting flaky too. It went out entirely for a while. Bob messed with the box, which is also brand new in the past couple of weeks, and it came back on ok. We'll see if it lasts.
A squall came through while we were playing dominoes. It hasn't rained at all for a week, so the smell of the fresh rain and the cooling effect it had were welcome. We had been meaning to use the hose to test the port I rebedded a couple days ago, and now it would get a real test. Since, I'm not going to get soaked running to the boat to see, I'm keeping my fingers crossed. When we got back there was no evidence of leaking at all.
We spent a quiet evening with homemade Jambalaya for dinner. Since the wireless is unavailable, I actually read some instead of surfing of playing computer games.
GPS N 12-00.639 W 061-44.360 Nautical miles traveled today 0. Total miles 9539.