Operation Rescue Ollie or the Dinghy Ride of Shame

November 24 - 30, 2007

Saturday, November 24, 2007 - Hamburger Beach Anchorage, George Town, Exumas
By Tom

This morning I tried to start the starboard engine and all I got was this pathetic little clicking noise. Further investigation revealed that the starter wasn't engaging the fly wheel. I removed the starter and swapped in my spare, but the problem didn't go away.

Two hours later, I discovered that while installing my solenoid the other day, I inadvertently loosened the ground wire on the engine casing. When I tightened it back up, the motor came back to life, so basically I spent three and a half hours to tighten one bolt. No wonder I never get anything done out here.

By the time I got cleaned up, it was lunch time so we decided to go for a swim and then have grilled cheese sandwiches. After lunch, we were reading in the cockpit when we got a call on the VHF from Ollie and Pam on Dejarlo. They had arrived! Yeah!

We chatted with Pam for a few minutes as they motored by us and continued over to town for supplies. We made plans to meet up later tonight at St. Francis for poker night. The rest of the afternoon was spent cleaning up on the boat and surfing the net.

Speaking of the internet, I finally used it for something more productive then playing games and called my dad via a VOIP package I put together a while back. For the non-tech savvy among us, this is basically just a way to make phone calls from your computer and is very similar to the program Skype that seems to be popular with many cruisers. We don't us Skype as the creators of that program may be the devil.

Around 5 pm, we loaded into the dinghy and headed up for poker. We had 14 players and when the dust settled Amy just barely lost out to Ollie for the top prize. We hung out for a while after the game catching up with Ollie and Pam and then returned home after a long day by 10 pm. Welcome back guys

Sunday, November 25, 2007 - Volley Ball Beach, George Town, Exumas
By Tom

We upped anchor this morning and motored back down to Volleyball Beach and parked next to Pam and Ollie. Once the boat was safely to bed, we tackled a few cleaning chores inside the main cabin.

After a two hot dog lunch, we dinghied in to Chat and Chill to meet up with Ollie and Ed to play a little 2 on 2 volleyball action. Amy and I teamed up to take all four games today, but Ed and Ollie made the match close. The cruising season has definitely begun now that we are playing ball again.

We played for an hour and a half and then retired to the bench under the palm trees and enjoyed a post workout beer while we watched a vicious game of dominoes. Sometimes I think the domino games are rougher than our volleyball.

Anyhow, we hung out and did some more catching up and then returned to our individual boats for dinner. On board Team Dream Catcher, we had our next to the last lobster served over flat pasta noodles whose name I forget.

We need a break in the weather in a big way as we are now only one lobster away from a "Lobster Emergency". The forecast looks pretty bleak, so we may have to institute a lobster rationing program in the interim.

After dinner, we finished up Dances with Wolves from the other night and then turned in for the evening.

Monday, November 26, 2007 - Volley Ball Beach, George Town, Exumas
By Tom

Rain showers woke me around 4 am. I went up on deck and closed our open hatches. As so often happens down here, the rain stopped as soon as I got the last one closed.

The noise I made walking on deck woke the ferrets who looked at me and played cute so I would unlock their cage. Unable to resist their ferret charms, I unleashed the beasts and they promptly ran up to my cabin and took over my side of the bed.

Relegated to the settee in the salon, I opted to play video games online until the sun came up. In a rare display of breakfast initiative, I made homemade biscuits with sizzled bacon and scrambled eggs for the still sleeping crew.

The smell of food rousted Milo, but the girls slept on, so Lunchbox and I ate together in the cockpit and watched the sun come up over the harbour.

After eating, Milo slipped immediately into his normal post eating food coma and passed out right on my lap. We stayed in the cockpit with me reading a book and Milo snoring until almost 9:30 when Amy and Mila joined the land of the living.

Around 11 am, I ran into town to get some veggies, some water and some gas for the dinghy. It was really wet ride coming back across and I got soaked. Back on the boat, we stowed the groceries and then set to cleaning the head liner.

By 1 pm our chores were done, so I launched my wind surfer and spent the balance of the afternoon tooling about the harbour. I was worn out by 4 pm and returned to the boat in time to get cleaned up and then watch yet another gorgeous sunset over the island.

Dinner was supposed to consist of grilled barbecued ribs, but unfortunately, they caught fire on the grill and before I noticed it, they had turned into fiery, shapeless carbon-ash mush that had to be tossed over board. We instead dined on mini pizzas prepared inside, away from our food eating grill.

To bed by 8.

Tuesday, November 27, 2007 - Volley Ball Beach, George Town, Exumas
By Tom

The wind was blowing a consistent 18 knots this morning, so as soon as it was light enough, I launched my wind surfer. Around 10 am, Ollie from Dejarlo dinghied to shore with his wind surfing gear and after careful assembly he too was ready to take to the seas.

Of course Ollie has never wind surfed before, so there was a somewhat steep learning curve. In one instance, I had to beach my surfer and take Ollie's dinghy to go rescue him before he floated out to sea. In wind surfing circles, this constitutes the walk of shame. Don't worry Ollie, we've all been there.

We played around until almost 1pm and then went back to our boats to get ready for 2pm volleyball. The games were pretty good and everyone is starting to look a little bit better. The rust is almost off.

Ball was over by 3:30 and after a post game beer, Amy and I returned home to clean off the sand. We spent the remainder of the afternoon in the cockpit hiding from the sun and reading our books. Dinner came after yet another beautiful sunset in the form of sauteed Queen Triggerfish and rice.

Post dinner clean-up, I spent some time on the computer downloading the 200 plus pictures Amy has taken during the last several days of wind surfing. She got some pretty good action shots and before anyone asks, yes it really is me on the wind surfer and not a stunt double.

To bed by 7:45. Man are we lame.

Wednesday, November 28, 2007 - Volley Ball Beach, George Town, Exumas
By Tom

Hello, and welcome to Wednesday.

After the morning running of the weasels, I took the dinghy, my wet suit and a spear right around the corner from our big boat for some stealth fishing. I had to go in stealth mode because the American cruising Nazi's swear there isn't suppose to be any spear fishing in the harbour, but after I checked with the Fishing Minister I learned that this too is just some made up rule that the Americans who have been coming here for the last 20 years made up.

Since there are only 15 or 20 boats here, I wasn't too worried about having to deal with any of the afore mentioned Nazis. I did a quick drive by on a couple of coral heads and came up with a medium sized lobster, two conch, and a 3 pound White Margate.

I was back on the big ship after only a twenty minute absence and I had my catch cleaned shortly there after. Actually, I cleaned the lobster and the fish and one of the conch, but I had so much trouble cleaning the conch that I gave the second one his freedom. Is that lame or what?

As odd as it sounds, we had 22 minute old Margate fingers for breakfast. It doesn't get a whole lot fresher than this.

Shortly after breakfast, it was back on the wind surfer for a couple of hours of fun. Around noon I stopped for breakfast and promptly fell asleep in the cockpit. An hour later Amy woke me up to get ready for more volleyball at 2.

The games were even better today and Ollie and Ed were able to split the games 2 - 2 against Amy and I. Afterwards, we had our OPOGAB, or the Obligatory, Post Game Beer under the palm trees before retiring back to our boats for the evening.

Dinner tonight was tomato-basil pasta noodles with fresh grated parmesan cheese and while there was no mete involved it wasn't too bad. Remember, if God didn't want us to eat animals, he wouldn't have filled them with meat.

I only mention this because yesterday I got three separate hate e-mails from PITA people who think I am the devil because I shoot lobsters. Apparently, it's ok to shoot fish, but lobsters have an immortal soul and I am now going to hell. Who knew?

To bed at the astonishingly late hour of 9 pm.

Thursday, November 29, 2007 - Volley Ball Beach, George Town, Exumas
By Tom

Another day in the sun and much like the last several, this one included wind surfing, volleyball and swimming.

In a rare display of motivation, I pulled the outboard off the dinghy in the afternoon and spent another 2 hours trying to effect choke control cable repairs, but once again the engine defeated me. I finally snapped and went to get the 5 pound maul we keep on board for attitude adjustments, but just as I was about to show the outboard my power, Amy intervened on the engines behalf and a temporary stay of execution was granted.

Personally, I am in favor of the death penalty and was more than ready to mete out justice to my insolent dinghy engine, but as we currently have only one oar for said dinghy we would only be able to row in circles and this might prevent us from playing volleyball.

Damn-it man! (said with a heavy Scottish accent so that I sound much cooler than I really am)

Once I cooled down, we put the dinghy motor back on the dinghy and I took it to town to get paper towels and tea bags. While there, I also dropped off a large bag of trash before returning to the big boat to get cleaned up for Thursday night poker.

We had 12 players show up and the final four came down to me, Amy, Anne (British lady who brought Nipples that one time) and Ollie (Dejarlo). Ollie beat out Amy again for the top prize and then we took him outside and beat him up and stole the prize money back, which for those interested is a lot easier than playing for four hours to get it.

No, just kidding. Ollie is way too old to beat up, it'd be like beating up on my great grand daddy. Just kidding again.

And in closing, happy birthday to Pam, Ollie's better half as today is her birthday. During poker, we had a brief pause to present her with a slice of pie with a candle stuck in the middle as we all sang happy birthday.

For the record, she reported that she is just turning 32, but since she has a 40 year old daughter, I am somewhat skeptical.

Friday, November 30, 2007 - Volley Ball Beach, George Town, Exumas
By Tom

This morning Amy went in to the beach to do her yoga thing and I launched my wind surfer. All of this action occurred before 8 am, which is pretty unusual here on board Team Dream Catcher. I tooled around the harbour for an hour and then returned to the big boat and had breakfast with the weasels.

Amy returned shortly after and made her breakfast consisting largely of things not of this world, but alas we have a don't ask, don't tell policy on board when it comes to Amy's food, so I just looked the other way.

Around 10, Speedo Ed, Ollie and myself went out spear fishing. It was pretty rough, but we managed to come away with 4 lobsters and 1 Nassau grouper in about an hours with of time.

In the early afternoon, I took the dinghy in to town to get some water and drop off trash. While there, I scored a bottle of dark rum and a couple of pineapple mixers for happy hour.

Back at the mother ship, we steamed up some lobster legs as a pre-volleyball snack. See said lobster legs, side right. We hung out reading books until 2 and then met up with Ollie and Ed for volleyball.

George and Julie from Sequel returned to the harbour today and George met up with us to play ball and it was good to see them again. The games were pretty good and Amy and I managed to hold off all comer and go undefeated in five attempts. Way to go team!

Post ball, we all sat under the trees and watched the domino players while sipping frosty beverages supplied by our favorite bar tender Arlene. We said our goodbyes and were back on the boat and cleaning up by 5.

We watched the sun go down and then fired up the grill for Tequila Lime chicken breast served over a fresh green salad and accompanied by a bottle of South African white. Quite a feast to be sure.

Right around bed time a rain shower passed by and we buttoned up the hatches, stowed our weasels in their upright seating position and turned in for the night. Good night Georgetown, good night everybody.