Whit Monday

May 28, 2007  Monday

Memorial Day in the USA today.  Whit Monday here in Carriacou.  I had to look up what Whit Monday means.  It is a religious holiday, 50 days from Easter; so the date changes each year.  It is a rainy day here.  Little squalls blowing through off and on all day.  A good day to read books or watch DVDs.  Maybe route out a few of our future passages on Maxsea.  Bill discovered this morning that Kick ‘em Jenny is not shown on any of our charts.  So he placed a marker for the volcano on both of our electronic charts and added the exclusions zones, making sure to route us west of Kick ‘em Jenny.  Wish our bimini was finished because we both are ready to move on.  And weather forecasts indicate higher winds for Friday and Saturday.  Oh, well.  As the delivery captain from South Africa said last year about the weather:  it is what it is.

This afternoon between squalls we were sitting in the cockpit cooling off.  I looked up and saw a boat named WATERMARK entering the bay and anchoring near us.  I mentioned it to Bill and he immediately started waving and calling to Cliff, who was on the bow setting the anchor.  Of course, now I remember.  It is Cliff and Deb, a Canadian couple who were at Coral Cove Marina in Trinidad last summer at the same time we were there.  We invited them over for sundowners and had a rather late evening catching up on what each of us has been doing since last September.  It was great running into them again.  We very much enjoy their company and their senses of humor.

This afternoon Sanford and Son came to our neighborhood.  This trawler type boat arrived and anchored right next to us.  There is so much junk piled all over that boat that Bill immediately thought of that old TV sitcom called Sanford and Son (at least we think that was the name of it).  Bill wanted to pull anchor and move away from this thing because their engine or generator was really loud and they ran it for hours.  But we preserved and remained in place. 

May 29, 2007  Tuesday

Turned out to be good that we didn't bother to move.  This afternoon that junky boat started dragging their anchor.  No one was aboard.  Everyone had gone ashore for a wedding.  But someone finally noticed that the boat was headed out to sea unattended, and they came zooming back to catch it.  They then pulled their anchor and moved to another location in the bay.  Goodbye and good riddance!  We did not like having that noisy, stinking, ugly boat next to us.

Today we went ashore to Scraper’s for a hamburger lunch, and ran into Cliff and Deb.  They had walked about looking for fresh vegetables and were then recuperating from their exertions with a cold libation.  Could have saved them the effort of the walk if we had known they were in search of fresh vegetables – there aren’t any on this island.  And there are very few canned vegetables either.  Don’t know what the locals do for vegetables because we haven’t seen any.  We know that if there are any fresh vegetables to be had that you go to the hardware store in Hillsborough.  Strange, but true.  The hardware store sells most of the fresh vegetables on this island, when any are available at all. 

Our hamburger lunch was okay.  We had lowered our expectations because we know how limited everything is here.  So our expectations were met perfectly.   It has been such a long time since we have eaten hamburgers that neither of us can even remember where or when that was.  So, even a mediocre burger was welcome.

This afternoon Petra and Andy from In Stitches delivered the first 2 side screen shade panels for our bimini.  Petra did a good job making these.  She and Andy measured and installed the grommets to fit the latches already on the boat that secure our solid clear foul-weather panels.   So now we have either solid clear panels for sailing in bad weather or if we ever are in cold weather, and we have the screen-type panels for shade and keeping out flies and mosquitos for use in hot weather.  I think we are really going to like having the entire cockpit “screened in.”  And I know we will like having the side and rear shade.

BTW, we also have a solid clear enclosure that zips onto our bimini for use in cold weather.  Supposedly keeps the cockpit nice and snug.  We plan to avoid cold weather as much as possible, but that will really nice to have when and if we finally make it to New Zealand or the Red Sea or the Med.  Assuming that our bimini remains in good shape that long!  Who knows how long it will take us to make it that far.  If we keep up with replacing UV damaged stitching, then the bimini hopefully will last several more years.  It is four years old now but it is still in very good condition.  Our bimini is made from a vinyl rather than from Sunbrella fabric.  It is holding up very well.

Tonight we had sundowners with Jaime and Dan on S/V NEREIA.  Jaime is a very good cook and he served us dolmades and Texas-style hummus (had black beans, garbanzo beans and jalapenos mashed in with the tahini).  Both were delicious.  Jaime and Dan are from Houston.  Well, actually, Jaime originates from Ecuador; but they lived in Houston before setting out to cruise in their 35-ft Baba.  Their boat is gorgeous!  Has a lot of wood that requires a tremendous amount of work to keep looking so beautiful.  And they do keep it looking beautiful.  We met Jaime and Dan at Coral Cove Marina in Trinidad last summer.  Great seeing them again.