The long awaited shaft finally arrived. All told it took 18 days to make it's way from Tampa Bay, Florida to Georgetown, Exuma, Bahamas. In 18 days I could have swum the damned thing here.
Seriously, the import/export mechanism is so screwed up in the country that I suspect it's easier for a 16 year old kid to move a metric ton of cocaine on and off the island than it is to have replacement parts flown in from the U.S.. Should it really take an act of Parliament to release a package from the local customs office? I think not.
Of course, I haven't even mentioned that my 140 dollar part ended up costing 250 by the time I finally got my hands on it thanks to the postage, handling, taxes, stamps and out right bribes that had to be paid.
Oh well, I guess that's the price of being here, but in a country that gets 95 percent of it's GDP from tourism, it certainly doesn't foster any warm and fuzzy feelings for those of us who are actually paying the bills.
Ok, sorry; enough bitching, on with the show.
With the arrival of our part, I was able to repair the wind generator and as of this morning, we are back to generating all of our own power without having to resort to running the Honda generator. Yay!
<Shitty German accent> "Now is the time on Sprokets when we dance!" See dancing weasels below....
In other news, a series of cold fronts have been moving through the area over the last 2 weeks and for 7 of the last 10 days I have been awoken at 2 am to tiny rain drops falling on my head. Shitty death! Hmmm.
For whatever reason, the rain lasts just long enough for me to get out bed, step on and then be bitten by at least 1 weasel sleeping at the foot of our bed, and then run outside and close all of the open hatches.
Once I get the last hatch pushed down, the rain stops, I am wet, and the ferrets are awake and hungry. I'd swear that this is some sort of trick by those goat raping bastards at NOAA, but for an agency that cannot actual predict the weather, I am quite sure there is no feasible way they could ever control the weather and so I am somewhat at a loss to explain this phenomenon.
Life in G'Town continues although volleyball has come to a screeching halt as all of my 2 on 2 buddies have left the harbour to hide from the monstrosity that is Regretta. I started going into volleyball withdrawal, so Amy is allowing me an extra hour a day of computer time to play my AVP King of the Beach volleyball video game. Sweet.
I'm not sure when we will be getting out of here. Amy is in the middle of a big project ghost writing an opinion editorial for a current politician and I am eyeballs deep in some sail repair for a couple of boats that got beat up in the recent high winds.
If we're here during the start of Regretta, we're going to crew for St. Francis George on his 50 foot catamaran in the two racing events they have here, but it's not certain where we'll be, so I guess we'll have to wait and see.
Ok, that wraps it up. Remember, be safe, it's dumb out there ....