On the hard

01/26/09 It’s been one week since our haulout and not all too much got done. Just about one hour before we hauled out the water pump was running but no water was coming out of either faucet so that was the first thing Sid tackled. He had no idea where it was leaking and tried this and that and after a full day of trying to figure out what was wrong he bought a new pump. It worked at first then the galley faucet was only trickling. The second day after many hours he finally found the problem, an air leak. Both faucets are working again and Sid could get to other repairs. I cleaned all kind of things that collected dust that had turned into mildew and did at least 5 loads of laundry, while Sid cleaned the hull, changed some through hulls, changed the pitch on the propeller and we spent some time on shopping in all the boating stores for paint, brushes, hoses and other needed stuff. Monday night we joined the potluck at TTSA which was really fun. A German guy brought his accordion and I had my harmonica with me so we played some old songs together. Tuesday nights it was movie night again. Of course the most we were looking forward to being in Trinidad are the Hashes and so we rented a car to join them again. This time the hash was in Maracas Bay. Jennifer on Heart Jump joined us; she was he virgin for the hash and really had a great time. First the run went along the beach and then up a steep hill to the main road again from there it was a really, really steep up hill and for the ones that had a bad ankle like me we took the road around back to where we started. Then it went into the flat area which was surrounded by nothing but steep hills. We waded up a cold stream, across some rugged ground that was over grown with lots of weird looking weeds then into some really muddy area. It was so muddy that your shoes got stuck over and over, at one spot it was so slick, my one foot went sideways while the other went the opposite and down hill and I was doing a very ungraceful split, ouch. The trail was fun except for the mud that was a bit tough especially since Jen and I were pretty much the last ones and over 150 people had trampled this mud into deeper mud. Jen disappeared in one area up to her knees in that gook, yuck. Of course at the end of the run ice cold beer was waiting again and several Hasher welcomed us back and wanted to let us know that they had been following our Blogg.

The next morning we woke up feeling very, very old. We both had to collect our bones together before we could climb out of bed. At 7.30 I picked Jen and Diane up and we drove to Marqueripe Bay for a swim and mainly for me to collect beach glass for jewelry making. What a disappointment it was to arrive at a barrier before the beach with a guard telling us that the beach was closed. So I took them to the Bamboo Cathedral, which at this time of the year is very lush. We saw many butterflies, at one spot the sun shown through the thick canopy and lit up a beautiful spider web with spider in the center. On our way back to the car we heard howler monkeys and then the trees right next to us started rustling and we heard some different kind of noises. We could not believe our eyes; the whole tree was inhabited by spider monkeys. More rustling in the next three and the next, then bats flew by and black birds with long yellow tails landing in the same trees making the weirdest jungle noises, it was just amazing. After that I took the girls shopping but all we could talk about was our experience with the wild jungle.

At 11 Sid and I drove to TTSA where we the weekly Sunday regatta was held. We were crew on Paul and Karin’s 44” Benneteau. Paul and Karin are friends of Shawn and Debbie and needed crew. There is a race the second week of February in Tobago and we are trying to get boat work done and launched on time to sail over to Tobago to race on their boat for the three days. The race started a bit slow towards the weather mark, not much wind was blowing then half way to the mark it picked up then a shift and we didn’t have to tack we kept getting lifted right to the mark, a first for us, only heard of these stories. We never had a downwind leg as the wind shifted around. We started with doing 1.8 knots and ended doing 8.5.

Sid and I were still sore or sorer (I know that word does not exist) we went to bed really early and I don’t know who moaned and groaned more.

At 7 am I picked Jen and Lauren up and we drove back to the Cathedral to find the monkeys again. I didn’t think we would but they were still there. Of course just when one monkey was showing off the most my camera battery died, but I think Jen took a lot of photos. They were just the cutest things. There was more shopping in the program and we hit pretty much every grocery store that I know of before I had to return the car. Kind of funny because we were racing yesterday we didn’t get the chance to use the car to the fullest, we also could not return the car on Sunday, the office is closed so we were kind of forced to rent the car and for 50 bucks per day we might as well drive the car from the boat to the bathroom/showers and back, kind of silly but with all the aching bones I think it was well deserved.

A few days passed at the morning net on VHF radio a new boat introduced themselves, we jumped up and down when we heard their names Pamela and Tom on Imagine. We met those two up in the Sea of Cortez in 98 before they left for their circumnavigation. The first chance we had we had them for sundowners on the boat and tried to catch up but there is so much to cover I think we will need many more sundowners. It was really great to see them both.

How to get your dog back on the boat in the yard:

Trini a Trinidad rescue dog with owner Beat from Uri, Switzerland