2007.01.26
I ended the last blog with talk about an “idyllic” place well the 25th was not so idyllic !
The cold front that had been promised by the weather guru for so many days finally made its appearance with 25 knot winds and heavy rain and real tropical squalls with torrential rain and likely 35/40 knots of wind. We were glad to be safely on a mooring ball and out of the worst of the weather.
During the worst of the deluge we became creative and decided not to allow all this free, fresh, clean drinking water that we were being given go to waste. Step one was for me to scrub the deck of all the accumulated salt deposit so that it was clean. Step two block the scupper on the starboard side, build a dam at the stern where the water would normally run off, and finally block the fairlead for the aft mooring rope. Step three, open the filling cap for the aft water tank and then wait for a good deluge of rain. This came, and voila, our aft water tank was filling with clean fresh water for free as the aft corner of the deck flooded and drained itself into the tank!!
Why go to all this trouble you may ask….? Well down here water must be paid for at anything from $0.20 to $0.40 per gallon - “Solitaire 1” when empty has three tanks for a total of 96 gallons so obviously for every gallon of rain water that we can collect we have more cash to buy rum punches with …..!!!
The wind blew and the rain fell all day, we were thankful that we had not chosen yesterday to tour the island in our open golf cart ! Catherine baked yet another wonderful two sourdough loaves of bread and believe me they are excellent and delicious, Jacqueline was obviously a very good teacher and Catherine clearly a very receptive student. I cleaned the chart table up – amazing how many odd bits of paper and old business cards etc one can accumulate over the course of a cruise – the table now shuts properly and everything is where it should be – I even found our guide of fishes to be found in these waters, which I knew was on board somewhere but couldn’t find it so now we shall know what sort of fish we have caught when we go fishing.
Otherwise we read – snoozed and ate – a very relaxing although windy and wet day, today whilst still windy it is bright, sunny and warm, so we shall probably go into town to post the reports done to date and for Catherine to insert the pictures.
A bientot !
I finished Sarum…finally…what a wonderful book… just started “The Alchemist” which I should finish in a day or two…
GTG we need to bail all the rain out of the dinghy before we go to shore today.
We heard from Andre and Louise of “Jem” yesterday, they were on their way from Spanish Cay to White Sound on Green Turtle Cay and were caught in the front that came through with gale force wind and rain… given the weather conditions and having missed the high tide water levels to get into the sound they anchored in a neighbouring cay and spent the night there before going into one of the marinas in White Sound.
I ended the last blog with talk about an “idyllic” place well the 25th was not so idyllic !
The cold front that had been promised by the weather guru for so many days finally made its appearance with 25 knot winds and heavy rain and real tropical squalls with torrential rain and likely 35/40 knots of wind. We were glad to be safely on a mooring ball and out of the worst of the weather.
During the worst of the deluge we became creative and decided not to allow all this free, fresh, clean drinking water that we were being given go to waste. Step one was for me to scrub the deck of all the accumulated salt deposit so that it was clean. Step two block the scupper on the starboard side, build a dam at the stern where the water would normally run off, and finally block the fairlead for the aft mooring rope. Step three, open the filling cap for the aft water tank and then wait for a good deluge of rain. This came, and voila, our aft water tank was filling with clean fresh water for free as the aft corner of the deck flooded and drained itself into the tank!!
Why go to all this trouble you may ask….? Well down here water must be paid for at anything from $0.20 to $0.40 per gallon - “Solitaire 1” when empty has three tanks for a total of 96 gallons so obviously for every gallon of rain water that we can collect we have more cash to buy rum punches with …..!!!
The wind blew and the rain fell all day, we were thankful that we had not chosen yesterday to tour the island in our open golf cart ! Catherine baked yet another wonderful two sourdough loaves of bread and believe me they are excellent and delicious, Jacqueline was obviously a very good teacher and Catherine clearly a very receptive student. I cleaned the chart table up – amazing how many odd bits of paper and old business cards etc one can accumulate over the course of a cruise – the table now shuts properly and everything is where it should be – I even found our guide of fishes to be found in these waters, which I knew was on board somewhere but couldn’t find it so now we shall know what sort of fish we have caught when we go fishing.
Otherwise we read – snoozed and ate – a very relaxing although windy and wet day, today whilst still windy it is bright, sunny and warm, so we shall probably go into town to post the reports done to date and for Catherine to insert the pictures.
A bientot !
I finished Sarum…finally…what a wonderful book… just started “The Alchemist” which I should finish in a day or two…
GTG we need to bail all the rain out of the dinghy before we go to shore today.
We heard from Andre and Louise of “Jem” yesterday, they were on their way from Spanish Cay to White Sound on Green Turtle Cay and were caught in the front that came through with gale force wind and rain… given the weather conditions and having missed the high tide water levels to get into the sound they anchored in a neighbouring cay and spent the night there before going into one of the marinas in White Sound.
Took this picture of David this morning just before he shaved off 7 days of facial hair growth....that man has no patience, he was growing a gorgeous beard but I guess he did not wish to look like the old man and the sea!!!
As I post this sitting at the "Wrecking Tree Caf" we just saw Jem negociating their entrance into the channel to White Sound which is on the other side of the island.. hope they had a good landing.
who is that man with the beard?!?!?!
ReplyDeletewho is that man with the beard?!?!?!
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