A Change in Plans

August 23 -29, 2007

Thursday, August 23, 2007 - Hamburger Beach Anchorage, George Town, Exumas
By Tom

The weasels and I were up by 6 am in time to catch the SSB weather broadcast for the first time in almost a month. Amy joined the crew for breakfast around 8 and afterwards she paddled her kayak into shore to do her yoga thing.

Mila and I played video games while she was gone and Milo laid in the sink with a one day old waffle. Once Amy returned and cleaned up, we spent several hours tying up loose ends in an effort to get the boat ready to return to the open sea.

Once I was finished my chores, I got out my dive gear and went out to a nearby reef to look for lunch. While I was packing my gear, Milo decided he wanted to hunt too and so he secretly stowed himself in my official "dive bucket". Unfortunately for Fatso, I discovered him before we were out on the reef, so he got left behind. See officials photgraphic evidence, side right.

I was out hunting all of thirty minutes before a squall moved through the area and I returned to the big boat. I did manage to find one lobster in the 15 minutes I was actually in the water, so the trip wasn't a total waste.

Back on the boat, we waited out the rain and then around 2:30, we stowed the weasels, launched the dinghy and headed over to Palm Bay Beach Club for a couple of draft beers and some quality TV time underneath their 12 foot, ceiling fans. We were in luck and the World Series of Poker was on one of the channels. We sat in rapt attention for the entire two hour viewing before returning home.

We did a quick clean up and turn around and then headed up to St Francis for Thursday night poker. We had 13 players show up and in the end George (St. Francis) beat out myself and Speedo Ed for the top spot. Amy finished a respectable 5th.

Poker ran long and we didn't get home until 11:15 pm. The weasels self bedded and we followed suit by 11:30. More to follow. End of line.

Friday, August 24, 2007 - Hamburger Beach Anchorage, George Town, Exumas
By Tom

We had a minor accident this morning when I tried to run in to town for gasoline. About half way across the harbour, the dinghy bounced kind of funny off of a wave and I ended up losing my grip on the tiller extension and bashing my hand against the motor mount instead. I heard the sickening celery stalk breaking noise and within minutes my finger turned black and swelled up like a balloon.

I retreated to the big boat and by the time I got back, it was obvious that my finger was broken. Amy helped me splint it and then tape it to it's neighbor, but I'm afraid the damage had been done.

So, instead of leaving this morning, we opted for plan B. Plan B had Amy booking her flight back to the states for later this week. Her immigration visa expires in a couple of days, so she needs to leave the country and come back. She's also taking the opportunity to visit her brother back home and pick up a few supplies for the boat. She flies out Thursday morning on American Eagle and comes back the following Tuesday, so it will be a short trip. Hopefully by the time she returns my finger will healed enough to allow me to help sail the boat and we can get out of dodge.

I don't want to sound like a wuss, but my finger hurt pretty bad after the accident so I spent the majority of the day chewing aspirins and keeping cool on the back steps of the boat in the water while drinking rum drinks. Amy took the dinghy in to get gas and she reported no problems.

I didn't do anything else today except sit around and feel sorry for myself. Man am I lame.

Saturday, August 25, 2007 - Hamburger Beach Anchorage, George Town, Exumas
By Tom

With my bad digit, I was pretty useless again today. It was mega hot and almost windless, so we just hung around the boat and tried to stay cool.

We did finish making our list of things to order from back in the states. Amy is going to pick it all up at my dad's house and bring it back with her. It's a pretty impressive list considering I was just there in May.

One of the big ticket items she is picking up is new fabric so that I can re-cover all of our interior cushions. We studied several internet web sites to pick the right fabric and we ended up agreeing on a tropical themed, off orange color palm tree print.

I predict it will take about 40 hours of work to accomplish this job, which probably translates into several weeks given the number of hours I tend to work in a given day. Just for grins I got two quotes from professional upholsterers and the lowest one was $2300! Uh, no thanks. I mean if thats the going rate, then so be it, but for $2300 I'll give it a go myself. I'm sure my efforts will not be as good as a professional, but for the $2000 difference, I think I can live with my best effort.

Tomorrow we plan on hitting the internet early and getting all of our stuff ordered and ready for shipment first thing Monday morning.

Around 4 pm, I cooked up some ribs on the grill accompanied by potato wedges as a snack before we went up to St. Francis for the $10 buy in, high stakes Saturday night game. We had 12 players and in the end I walked away with the top prize of $70 beating out George (St. Francis) in second place with Speedo Ed in third.

We returned to the boat around 10, ran the weasels and then turned in for the night.

Sunday, August 26, 2007 - Hamburger Beach Anchorage, George Town, Exumas
By Tom

I continue to use my finger as an excuse to not do boat work, but I'm not sure how much longer Amy is going to buy it.

We spent the morning on the computer ordering all the stuff from our lists we made yesterday. It took several hours, but by noon we had everything on the list except a new auto pilot drive belt because it is on back order and will take several weeks to come in.

As an aside, has anyone noticed how much companies are charging for shipping these days? For example, Amazon.com is charging me $42 for two new computer programming books I want and there charging me $12 dollars to ship them UPS Ground (read slower than whale snot). Maybe it just seems high to me because I haven't ordered anything in a couple of years?

Post shopping spree, we loaded into the dinghy and headed across to Palm Bay Beach Club to sit under their ceiling fans yet again and watch TV. We spent the heat of the day watching race cars, CNN, and a soccer on three different tvs at the same time before returning to the boat to swim. The very nice bar tender (Tiny, who goes about 350 lbs, 6 feet - 3 inches) even allowed me to work the remote control! I immediately went into remote control shock (RCS) and proceeded to click through all 72 available channels every 39 seconds.

We returned to the boat by 4 pm and then around 6 pm Amy made us a large salad for dinner. The weasels ate with us and afterwards we lounged about reading books until 9pm and bedtime.

Monday, August 27, 2007 - Hamburger Beach Anchorage, George Town, Exumas
By Tom

I was up early this morning and watched the sun come up around 6:15. By 8 the rest of the crew was awake and I made blue berry waffles for everyone. Milo managed to remove all of the berries from his without touching the actual waffle itself. That's a pretty talented weasel, huh?

After breakfast, I dinghied in to town and dropped of trash as well as picked up 15 gallons of water. Amy took her kayak in to the beach and did her Yoga thing and we met back up on the big boat around noon for swim.

Later, in the afternoon, we tackled the pin mold colonies on the head liner with a diluted vinegar solution and now everything in the boat smells like race track French fries. I love that smell.

Around 5, we gathered up our one load of dirty laundry and took it up to St. Francis to do while we played Monday night poker. We had 15 players show up and by 9 pm I was the last man standing. Amy came in third and together we brought home 55 dollars in prize money. Linda from Lattittude finished second.

Back on the boat we put away our clean clothes and had half of the evening running of the weasels as Milo was already asleep and could not be bothered to participate. To bed by 10

Tuesday, August 28, 2007 - Hamburger Beach Anchorage, George Town, Exumas
By Tom

We slept in this morning as we had run the air conditioner last night and it was nice and cool. No one from Team Dream Catcher was up before 9 am.

Once we got going, Amy went in to the beach to yoga while the weasels and I put new strings on my guitar. Of course, once the string were on, I couldn't really play because of my broken finger, but at least the guitar is ready to go when I'm healed.

On the boat project front, Amy vacuumed the accumulated ferret hair from the various nooks and crannies of the boat while I replaced some sub-standard wiring to one of our cabin fans that a previous owner installed. It turns out the wire this person used was actually speaker wire, so you can see why I had to replace it.

I wanted to make sure it was definatley a previous owner sort of deal and not a factory thing, so I checked the wiring on two other factory installed fans and I felt much better when I discovered that they utilized proper, marine grade wiring. Way to go PDQ! Gold star for you.

In the afternoon I spent a couple of hours going through our accumulated spare pieces and parts collection that I keep in 8 tupperware like, multi-partioned containers. As it turned out, I couldn't remember where half of the stuff was from or why I had kept it, so it went in the trash. The other half got wiped down and cleaned and then re-stowed in it's proper upright seating position.

When I was done, there was 10 pounds of nuts, bolts and miscellany ready to be discarded. Remember, every pound counts here at Team Dream Catcher.

We wound up boat work by 5 and we sat in the cockpit with rum drinks watching the sun go down. Around 7 or so, I fired up the grill and we had flame seared Hogfish steaks with an Amy provided veggie extravaganza.

After dinner and the obligatory dish clean up, we retired to our cabin to read until bed.

Wednesday, August 29, 2007 - Hamburger Beach Anchorage, George Town, Exumas
By Tom

Today passed in a blur of activity making sure everything is ready for Amy to fly out tomorrow. For those of you interested at home, it was also the first day that my finger hasn't hurt so bad that I couldn't think.

Around lunch time, we dinghied over to Palm Bay for two Philly Chicken Cheese Steak sandwiches. As Amy and I lived in Philadelphia for several years, I can tell you that the Palm Bay version of the sandwich wasn't very reminiscent of the original item, but they were good none the less.

By 2 pm we were back on the boat and had Amy's bags packed and ready to go along with all of the proper documentation she needed to get in, out and back into the respective countries she will be traveling through.

For those interested, the total weight of said paper work came in at just over three pounds. That's pretty sad.

We did some swimming off the back of the boat before I cooked a couple of Schoolmaster fillets on the grill with a side of potato wedges. Amy also contributed a side salad that used the rest of our vegetables as I am not too likely to use them in her absence.

At bed time, we buttoned up the boat, turned on the genset and allowed the air conditioner to bring the cabin temperature down from 91 degrees to a much more comfortable 73.

By the way, 73 is in fact the favorite number here aboard Dream Catcher