Pin Mold Civilizations and Vegetable Constructs

June 14 - 20, 2007

Thursday, June 14, 2007 - Volley Ball Beach, George Town, Exumas
By Tom

We moved the boat over to Volleyball beach this morning in the driving rain. We waited 2 hours for the rain to let up, but to no avail. We dropped the hook in 6 feet of water and we had the entire anchorage to ourselves.

Lattittude and Free Spirit left the harbour this morning bound for Long Island. I think it's the first time in 6 years I've seen Kenny's boat move.

It rained all day and there wasn't a breath of wind. We had to run the generator for a couple of hours to prop up our failing batteries. Around 4 we gathered up laundry and went up to St. Francis to do the wash. While the clothes finished their spin cycle, Amy and I played poker.

We had 13 people show up and when the dust settled I ended up on top, taking home the 40 dollar prize. Amy finished in 4th, 1 place out of the money. Actually, I was kind of surprised I won as when we got down to three players, I was short stacked with only 300 dollars while our chip leader had over 2400. I like to think it was superior performance under pressure, but Amy says I'm full of it and it was just dumb luck. Hey, don't hate the player, hate the game.

We returned home around 10 pm after waiting out a torrential rain storm at St. Francis. We were both hungry so we made mini pizzas in the oven before retiring at 11 pm. I need my beauty sleep as tomorrow I fear I must tackle the new battery installation.

Friday, June 15, 2007 - Volley Ball Beach, George Town, Exumas
By Tom

We were up a little later than normal thanks to a particularly late poker night and the ferrets and I didn't eat breakfast until almost 10 am. Even Amy was up in time for that late of a breakfast.

After eating, I went in to town to get our new batteries, but the battery girl sold 2 of the 4 that I needed so I came home empty handed. She says they'll have more on Tuesday, so I guess I'll try again then.

We spent the afternoon working on odd boat jobs. I tackled fixing the riveted hinge on a port side hatch while Amy attacked pin mold colonies with a bleach filled squirt gun. With all of the recent rain, it's more like pin mold cities, but you get the idea. Mila and Milo mostly just hid in the back room as they fear the smell of bleach.

Speaking of rain, it started up again around noon and just kept on going throughout the day. We were going to try and go out for Friday night happy hour, but with the weather as bad as it was, we opted to stay in and read books.

Not much else to report. Stay tuned.

Saturday, June 16, 2007 - Volley Ball Beach, George Town, Exumas
By Tom

The ferrets slept out of their cage last night and as such I got the wet sand paper tongue wake up call promptly at 5:15 this morning. Uggg.

I stumbled to the kitchen and fed the weasels and then got online and surfed the net until 9 or so when Amy joined the land of the living. She made us bacon egg and cheesies for breakfast, so we forgave her for sleeping late.

After breakfast, Amy did dishes and I disassembled our spare fuel injector assembly. It took about 2 hours to strip it down bare, and then I put it in a bath of carb cleaner to soak. If I am able to put it back together correctly, I intend to swap this unit for the one that is currently on the port side engine. It has been acting up a little when the engine comes out of high speed load and goes to neutral. Sometimes it refuses to idle when this happens and its starting to really piss me off.

I cleaned up my engine mess and then joined Amy in a little afternoon reading. Later, Speedo Ed stopped by and suggested an impromptu poker game for this evening starting at 5:30 and we agreed to play. We really need to get a life.

I made shrimp fajitas for dinner before we headed up to poker. We had 8 players and the buy in was 10 bucks with the winner taking it all home. I placed 4th which wasn't very good, but everyone wanted to play a second game and when the dust settled from that game, I was back on top. Whew who! Who's your poker playing daddy?

The second game ran until 11:45 pm and since it was so late, George (St. Francis) cooked us up some pizzas to share. We returned to the boat around 12:45 am which is so late for us we may not wake up tomorrow at all.

Also of note, Charlie (Land Fall) brought our two anchor screws over tonight. Charlie got enough people together that he was able to put together an order of 10 screws shipped via freighter from Florida. We intend to carry ours in case we have to dig in and ride out a hurricane over the summer.

The screws are typically used for setting moorings and although I hope we won't need them, I think they'll definitely be up to the task of holding the boat if the worst should happen. The screws cost 95 dollars in the States, but after shipping and import duty, they end up costing 190 bucks a piece here. Damn it man!

Sunday, June 17, 2007 - Volley Ball Beach, George Town, Exumas
By Tom

We got up this morning and had leftovers for breakfast. My leftovers were ribs and Amy's were some sort of vegetable mush goo that didn't look very appealing. Oh well, to each his own.

Post breakfast, we headed in to town to call back to the states and wish my dad a happy Father's Day. I also got to say hi to my mom and it sounds like everyone is still the same back home. For the record, we tried you too Buddy Fred, but you weren't home.

We returned to the boat and cleaned the ferret room and the bathroom, both of which are not pleasant jobs. Once we had clean ferrets, I tackled the removal and re-installation of the new fuel injector assembly on the port side engine. It took about an hour, but as soon as I hit the ignition, it fired right up. We'll need to run it some to see if it makes a difference.

Around 1 pm I hosed off and then we headed over to Palm Bay Beach Club to watch the Nascar race and have a couple of draft beers. Mmmm beer!

We left half way through the race, mostly because it was boring and the tv station TNT showed more commercials then race cars. They pretty well suck. On the way back to the boat, we swung by the Chat and Chill and found some of the Army dudes playing volleyball so we stopped in and played too.

The games were so so, mostly because the Army guys don't play by any sort of rules, so things get out of hand pretty quickly. Still, it beat sitting on the boat cleaning, so I can't complain too much. Speedo Ed showed up a little later and Amy and I played with him against the Army and it was pretty good until he stepped on me and my foot swelled up to the size of a balloon (inflated, not flaccid).

No longer able to play, we instead got a few rum drinks and floated around in the water cooling off instead. Amy and I returned home by 5:30 pm and I wrapped my bruised foot up and then made shrimp tacos for dinner. A couple of aspirins and a strong 7 and 7 and I was good to go.

During dinner clean up, our raw water wash down at the sink died. While looking at that, our subscription to Sirius Satellite radio expired which shut off the radio. Before anything else could break, we decided to call it a day and we turned in by 8 pm.

For the record, broken stuff sucks.

Monday, June 18, 2007 - Volley Ball Beach, George Town, Exumas
By Tom

Today was a mondo busy work day. It started off with a trip to town to get a new raw water pump. While I was in town, I dropped off the trash, got 18 gallons of water in my 3 - 5 gallon water containers, bought two tomatoes and an avocado, filled up the dinghy with gas and checked for our long lost mail package from the States. By the way, the mail still hasn't shown up Dad. Maybe you should go get your money back?

What's up with getting 18 gallons of water in only 15 gallons of space? If the damn things hold 6 gallons each, why not label them as 6 instead of 5? False advertising sucks.

I must say I was surprised that the pump was available at Top to Bottom, but not surprised when it cost slightly less than the last space shuttle mission.

Back on the boat it took about an hour to get the new pump in and working. With raw water again flowing freely, I next tackled the repair of three of our hatch screens. Time and solar radiation had led to a couple of used up screens, but I had the material on board to effect repairs and with Milo's help, we had them fixed in no time.

We had the tools, we had the talent! It's Miller time! I always loved those commercials.

Once the screens were done, I opened up the sewing machine and finished several different projects. First up, I added Velcro closures to our three fishing whacker covers. They previously had snaps, but the salt and water had turned the snaps to mush and as we all know, its tough to make a positive latch with mush.

Next up, I sewed two new stay cozies for the back stays. They also got the Velcro treatment instead of snaps and I was happy with the way they turned out. Lastly, I made two more poker table covers for St. Francis, bringing our poker table cover total to three.

All the while, Amy was busy inside cleaning and given the choice of sewing or cleaning, I'm glad I got to sew. Around 2 pm, we called it a day and went swimming. While in the water, Amy found the gas cap to our little generator that I kicked over board last night and returned it to the boat. Way to go team!

After we dried off, I made fried grouper sandwiches before we headed up to St. Francis for poker night. We had 14 players with a 5 dollar buy in and the grand finale came down to me and Greg. Greg caved under the pressure and I took all his money and the first place prize of 45 dollars.

Of course our bill for drinks and three loads of laundry came to 41 bucks, so I only went home with a net gain of 4 additional dollars, but tonight was my 20th win of the season and if those poker guys on tv ever come to an anchorage near me, I am so there.

For the record, Amy finished 4th, one position out of the money.

Tuesday, June 19, 2007 - Volley Ball Beach, George Town, Exumas
By Tom

Hello, and welcome to our anniversary. We have been married about a billion years as of today. Or maybe just 8, but we've been dating for like 19 or so and that makes me feel old.

We did absolutely nothing today because I was sick. I didn't stick my head outside of the boat at all today and in truth I rarely left our cabin, so I have no idea what anyone else did.

I can say that Amy and the ferrets visited me several times throughout the day and brought me sodas and small snacks, but that really was the extent of my interaction with the world at large. Sorry, I am lame.

Wednesday, June 20, 2007 - Volley Ball Beach, George Town, Exumas
By Tom

I felt better today, so I actually got out of bed and made it off the boat. We started the day by running in to town and buying four, brand new, 6 volt, T 105 Trojan batteries. Each battery weighs in at about 130 pounds, so getting the batteries from the store to the dinghy to the big boat was quite an effort.

An hour and a half later I got the batteries safely loaded on the big boat and then I returned to town to assist Amy with veggie procurement. Actually, I was only there to carry stuff as I still have trouble identifying all but the most basic of the vegetable constructs. It's that damned brain looking plant always throughs me!

Anyhow, we took our groceries back to the boat and put them away and then went back in to town one more time to hit the liquor store for lots of rum and wine. I also managed to smuggle a case of Kalik out when Amy wasn't looking. The beer, of course, is strictly for the weasels.

One last time we returned to the mother ship and stowed things and then we picked up the anchor and headed back to Volleyball Beach. Once the anchor was down I powered off the entire 12 volt side of the boat and swapped out the batteries. It wasn't an easy job, but two hours later it was done and I had suffered no major injuries.

As we were cleaning up, Kenny and Linda came back in to the harbour on Lattittude. They organized an impromptu poker match between 8 of us and Amy finally came home a winner. You didn't hear it from me, but I think her record is something like 1 for 500,000,000.

We returned to the boat around 8:30 and I made shrimp pitas on the grill with french fries. I think there are only another 40,000 shrimp left in the fridge before we'll be able to start eating something else. To bed by 10.