An Ignorant Amount of Frank

November 9 - 16, 2007

Friday, November 09, 2007 - Volley Ball Beach, George Town, Exumas
By Tom

I was up again with the sun by 5 am. The weasels were particularly anxious to play this morning so we went out into the cockpit and attacked things for an hour. Once they were sufficiently worn out, they came back inside to eat breakfast and I got online. Amy joined us by 8 and we had bacon, egg and cheesies for breakfast.

After breakfast, I went over to Eric's to get his list of stuff he needed and some cash, then Amy and I headed to town in our dinghy followed by Kenny from Lattittude in his. In an odd sort of coincidence, one of Kenny's boat's heads broke about the same time ours did and as such, he too had a replacement flown in by Reggie.

The three of us called a taxi and then headed out. I had heard how bad the roads were damaged in the storm, but when we actually saw them, it was much worse than I had imagined. In several places, whole new roads had to be cut in through people's lawns and in between houses. Of course these new roads are cut really rough through the dirt and lime stone, so it was quite a work out on our poor cabs suspension. In several places there is still over two feet of standing water.

An hour later, we arrived at the airport after covering a whopping 16 miles. Kenny and I had no trouble getting our new heads from Customs, but we looked a little silly being the only two white people around and both of us carrying toilets. Damn these tourists!

We loaded back into the cab and retraced our route through the off road maze and stopped off at Napa for a few minutes to pick up a couple of parts. The taxi dropped us back off at the dinghy dock about two and a half hours after we started. It took a while, but at least we got everything we needed.

We returned to the mother ship and I spent an hour and a half getting the new head installed. The weasels had to be put away in their cage during this process as Mila kept trying to flush Milo down the sewage pipe. The only thing that saved him was the fact that his ass was too large to fit. He needs Jenny Craig in a big way.

By 1 o'clock, we were all cleaned up and our boat was once more a happy home. Nothing ruins crew moral worse than not having a functioning toilet. Remember, here at Team Dream Catcher, we fear sewage.

Later in the afternoon, we joined Eric and Susan for more two on two volleyball action. The games were pretty good, but the mosquitoes showed up half way through and drove everyone crazy. We called it a day after only an hour and quickly returned to the safety of our screened in boats.

For dinner I grilled up a couple of steaks along with potato wedges and some assorted veggies. We were both starving, so there were no leftovers.

Amy turned in at the incredibly late hour of 7pm while I sat in the salon and watched movies until 9. See you tomorrow.

Saturday, November 10, 2007 - Volley Ball Beach, George Town, Exumas
By Tom

Hello, and welcome to Saturday. This morning I went over to Elysia and helped Eric look at the Mako. I basically laid out for him what I thought was wrong and after some testing, he too concurred that the "up" solenoid is broken.

Unfortunately, the replacement part he brought with him from the states is the wrong one, so in the end, he just sort of hot wired the thing so that he could put the engine in the water. For what it's worth, the engine started up pretty easily once it was lowered into position.

After working with Eric, I took the dinghy into town to get a few more supplies and some more water. The ride over and back passed without incident and I hope I'm not jinxing myself when I say that our dinghy outboard issues are now behind us.

At 2 pm, we met up with Eric and Susan to play some more ball. I can't say enough about how great it is to be playing again. While on the beach, we invited Eric and Susan over for a pizza dinner, but post volleyball drinks at the Chat and Chill ran on til 5 pm, so once we got home, it was a mad frenzy to get ourselves and the boat cleaned up and then to make pizza crust.

Dinner wasn't ready until almost 7:30, but the four of us managed to pass the time catching up with each other, telling stories, drinking rum and playing with the weasels. You didn't hear it from me, but I think Susan secretly wants a little weasel of her own. Eric was less impressed with the weasels as Milo spilled his beer while trying to steal my palm frond beer cozy which I had given to Eric with his beer. For the record, Milo was successful in his abduction plans and my cozy now resides next to his bed. See supporting evidence, side right.

Anyhow, the pizza turned out pretty good and there were no leftovers. Dessert was provided by Susan in the form of 4 pack's of Oreo cookies. Mmmm, Oreos.

Our guests left around 10:30 and we turned in shortly after.

Sunday, November 11, 2007 - Volley Ball Beach, George Town, Exumas
By Tom

It was a pretty lazy day. I like to think that was because it was Sunday, but the reality was that we stayed up too late last night and perhaps had a few drinks too many.

I spent almost the entire day online playing video games with guys in Europe. We did manage to get off the boat long enough to play volleyball this morning, but other than that, neither Amy nor I did too much productive today.

About the only thing note worthy from today was that we listened to the Pittsburgh Steelers game and it was a nail biter, but the Steelers pulled it out in the end, so the crew was happy.

For dinner I made bread sticks and then chicken wings with french fries. Other than that, not much to report.

Monday, November 12, 2007 - Volley Ball Beach, George Town, Exumas
By Tom

Time is growing short for Eric and Susan as they have to head back to the world tomorrow. We didn't play ball today as they had to wrap up boat repairs.

After breakfast, I made a trip in to town to continue my grocery resupply as well as to cart another 15 gallons of water back to the big boat. By noon, boat chores were done and I spent a few more hours playing video games online.

After some cleaning, Amy spent the remainder of the daylight hours reading a couple of books, doing some yoga and playing with the weasels.

Around 5, we loaded our laundry into the dinghy and followed Eric and Susan up to St. Francis for Monday poker, which oddly enough, coincided with laundry night. We had ten players show up and the game got underway, but after the first hand, the British couple that has been coming for a couple of weeks showed up and wanted to play, so we stopped the game and added them in. Of course, this entailed setting up a new table, re-dividing the chips and generally resulting in a twenty minute delay.

I wasn't really happy about this as we had already completed a hand in which Susan had won almost $200, but apparently while I am in charge of organizing, collecting, running and dealing, I don't have the power to enforce the rules that we have been playing with for over a year.

Don't get me wrong, I love to play, but it may be time for someone else to take over all the work involved with setting up and riding herd over the game. That way, Amy and I could just be one of those couples that show up, play and then get to go home when they get knocked out of the game. I think that might be a nice change.

Anyhow, poker lasted until around 10 pm and we returned to our boat shortly there after. See you tomorrow.

Tuesday, November 13, 2007 - Volley Ball Beach, George Town, Exumas
By Tom

Last night, George (St. Francis) called the airport for Eric and found out that their flight out at 7 am was cancelled due to the airplane not being able to fly in and land last night after sunset. As I had mentioned last week, the airport here is on a strictly daytime only schedule.

Since they didn't have to fly out at first light, we opted to squeeze in one more round of volleyball together. It was fun to play, but for some reason the games weren't that good. I think maybe we were all tired.

Anyhow, ball was over by 10:30 am and we returned to our boats to get cleaned up. At 11:30 I rendezvoused with Eric and Susan to follow them over to town in my dinghy while they slowly motored the wounded Mako over. Everyone made it over safely and no towing was involved.

We said our goodbyes on the dinghy dock and then "poof", they were gone. Don't stay away too long guys. We miss you down here.

While in town, I went back to the grocery store to get yet more supplies. Less you think we are buying out the entire store, allow me to explain. Amy usually maintains a written list of all the stuff we need on the big boat. Since I usually make the trips to town for water and fuel, I take a small portion of said list with me each time I go. Since we were virtually out of water I knew I would be making at least six trips to town, so I am getting approximately one sixth of the groceries on each trip. Understand?

Today's grocery trip involved things starting with the letters M through S. As an aside, I added a Snickers bar for Tom and Many berries for the weasels while waiting in line.

With the groceries loaded in the dinghy, I got 10 more gallons of water and 10 gallons of fuel and then headed back to the big boat. The harbour was pretty choppy, but the groceries and I made it back without incident. We stowed our purchases and did a general clean up of the boat before Amy took an afternoon nap and I played video games online.

In the afternoon, we loaded our weasels into their travel carrier and took them in to play on the beach. They ran themselves out of energy after about thirty minutes and then we took them home and washed the sand off of them.

For dinner, I lit the grill and we had grill fries, buffalo wings and onion rings. Afterwards, we watched Hotel Rwanda on my lap top and we both thought it was a great movie. You didn't hear it from me, but Amy cried through most of the ending.

To bed by 10 pm.

Wednesday, November 14, 2007 - Hamburger Beach Anchorage, George Town, Exumas
By Tom

The wind pushed around towards the south west over night and this morning we found ourselves precariously close to a floating channel marker so opted to move the big boat back to Hamburger beach.

We had the hook down by 10 am and spent the rest of the morning doing boat chores. For me, this involved going in to town and renewing our big boat's paper work as well as my visa. I'll spare you the details, but suffice it to say that it was no fun.

Around noon I was back on the boat and we went for a swim and then a walk on the beach. An hour later we were back at the big boat and clean, so we decided to take the dinghy over to the Palm Bay Beach Club and see our friend Tiny. She survived the storm ok, but her car was a total write off as it was covered with 4 feet of water.

We hung out in the shade and watched tv and traded storm stories with Tiny for an hour or two and then headed back to the boat when we saw storm clouds moving our way. We made it back with five minutes to spare before the skies opened up. Just what we need here, more rain.

It rained off and on for the rest of the evening, so we just buttoned up the boat and sat inside hiding from the rain drops. For dinner we made tomato basil fettuccine and afterwards we read our books until 8 pm and bed time.

Thursday, November 15, 2007 - Hamburger Beach Anchorage, George Town, Exumas
By Tom

The weasels woke me at first light as I forgot to lock them in their cage last night. I had them fed by 5:30 and while they ate breakfast, I surfed the internet gathering weather information and answering emails.

Amy was up and went kayaking by 6:30 and when she returned she made her and I breakfast before we upped anchor and moved over to town. We anchored next to another catamaran name la Chepa. It's kind of funny, because although they are a different brand of cat, they too have a wind surfer, a kayak, the same wind generator and the same number of solar panels as us. Kind of spooky really.

Anyhow, once the boat was settled, we loaded into the dinghy and headed into town. We stopped at the other grocery store to see if they had a few things on our list that Exuma market didn't have and we were both pleasantly surprised to see that they did. On the way back to the dinghy, Amy stopped in a dress shop and bought a red dress she has had her eye on for the last month. It looked pretty as far as dresses go, but that's about all I can say as my knowledge of these types of things is some what limited.

After an hour or so, we were back on the boat and while Amy put stuff away, I took our water cans and our trash to shore one last time in anticipation leaving tomorrow. If the weather forecast holds true, we'll probably head down to Hog Cay tomorrow and then on to Water Cay and Flamingo Cay the next day, but we'll see.

Back on the boat, we watched the sun go down and then I fired up the grill and made barbecued pizza for dinner, which we ate while listening to the Frank Sinatra channel on our satellite radio. Am I the only one who finds it odd that Frank has his own channel? I mean don't get me wrong, I like Frank , but an all Frank, all the time, 24 by 7 channel?

That's an ignorant amount of Frank.

Anyhow, we cleaned up from dinner, played with the weasels some more and then retired to our cabin with our books by 8:30. See you tomorrow.