Several days have past since we last checked in. We had hoped to have moved down to Duncantown by now, but the settled weather has yet to arrive, so here we sit.
On Wednesday, I hauled Amy up the mast so that she could run a new line for our stack pack. One of the two lie that hold it up chaffed through the other day when we were running down wind and had the main sail way out. She did well despite being afraid of falling and after twenty minutes of work, I lowered her back to the deck with her mission accomplished. You didn't hear it from me, but afterwords she needed a double gin and tonic to calm her nerves. I needed one too because I hate to see anyone drink alone.
Three days ago (Thursday) I gathered up our laundry and headed in to the Long Island Breeze to wash it. There was some sort of technical malfunction with the single big dryer and it ended up taking me 5 hours to get my clothes clean. Weak, I know, but what are you going to do? Sitting at the bar with a cold beer, my laptop plugged in to real shore power and staring off at a cloudless blue sky horizon sure beats doing clothes by hand. Did I mention the beer was cold?
Friday we went food shopping and re-stocked the boat with provisions. If the weather ever does settle down, we should be ready to go. Later Friday afternoon, we went to shore and hitched a ride out to SouthSide, a small road front bar here we hung out with our Bahamian friend Justin and his brother Dwight. These are the guys I gave my old wind surer to a couple of years ago. They still have it and put it to good use often.
On Saturday I decided to go check out the same rock that I collected so many crustaceans off of not too long ago. The water was absolutely freezing and visibility was less than 10 feet. I made a few dives though and as I was coming up with my first crab, I came nose to nose with a small (4 foot) reef shark. He too was surprised when I appeared out of the gloom, and we both beat a hasty retreat, me to my dinghy and him to where ever evil demon sharks call home I guess.
I decided one crab was enough for today and returned home.
We steamed and processed the crab and then set him in the fridge for later use. In the afternoon we went back in to the Breeze so Amy could call her grandmother. While she computed I sat in the shade with Bob (Navigator). We shared a couple of beers and watched the day roll by with his dog Jack, who oddly enough is a Jack Russel terrier. What are the odds of that?
This morning (Sunday) I had to run the generator as it has been cloudy and windless for the last two days. While it was running Amy cleaned up the inside of the boat some and I used the vacuum to remove the collection of weasel hair that seems to appear nightly as if by some sort of magic. Marley weasel is the only one shedding now, but I'm wondering how much longer can he keep it up before he'll have no hair.
Less you think we were motivated to clean because we're neat freaks or something, we had Bob over for a dinner of crab and shrimp in a white wine sauce served over fresh linguine accompanied by a loaf of home made Italian bread and a nice crisp house white. Dinner was most excellent and there were no leftovers. Well, technically thats not true. There was a leftover loaf of bread (I made three), but Bob took it home for tomorrow as he is by himself for another week and I don't think he cooks.
Tomorrow morning weather dude is supposed to have the details on the next cold front that should move through Monday night or Tuesday morning. Armed with that information, we'll plan where to move to so that we can have some protection from the wind and waves as the wind clocks around from the east to the south, the west and then the north.
More to follow, end of line.