January 18, 2012

Wednesday, January 18, 2012

There’s a certain way the boat positions itself in the morning and the sun often wakes me up, coming in for the porthole.  It’s a great way to start the day, especially down here.  They don’t get much rain but sometimes winds and sometimes cloudy.  Any way the sky is down here, I call it a great day.  We started by fixing the anchor locker and I learned how to apply fiberglass matt with fiberglass resin.  Since I am a professional cake decorator, I thought it would a fun thing to learn.  I learned.  I also thought I would be pretty good at it.  I wasn’t.  Fred said we have 20 minutes after he mixed it to get the stuff applied before it started hardening.  I fvelt like a surgeon, putting on green plastic gloves, positioning myself, I thought, in a great spot, counted to three and started dipping this fabric into the resin.  Darn stuff is “STICKY”  It’s like working with very loosely weaved cotton and very sticky thick molasses, making sure there are no air bubbles.  After about 15 layers of sections, I felt nearly covered with resin.  It ripped the gloves right off my hands, and by the time I was finished I don’t think I cared because the fumes had me not caring about those darn air bubbles that may be in there.  The stuff dries like rock and I was worried if I didn’t get it off me, I would be pretty “crusty” myself.  Acetone did the trick, about 1/2 can of it that is.  I think the leak is sealed and I immediately make a note to myself.  ’Never offer to learn that again”.  I made my own new rule on helping with resin.  His boat, his repair.  I learned and that’s all I want to do from now on.  Perhaps someday I will need that knowledge but not anytime soon as far as I see it.  Roy and Mary called and we went to the “secret beach” Jeniece told me about but we didn’t find any shells, much less a beach.  It was all rock.  But it was a fun adventure.  I am here to tell you, that limestone is really hard to walk on and this time I didn’t come prepared.  I was prepared for a beach complete with Crocks.  We explored for about a half hour and started back to the dinghy when I spotted come carins.  I wanted to go see them but it was a bit of a hike over the limestone.  The adventuress I am, I was going anyway.  Roy and Mary had just come back from that area and I asked them if they saw them.  They did so I asked, “do you think they are old?” (meaning ancient or newly made) Roy said “Oh...I think they are pretty old”.  I got excited and was determined to take a look.  Then I heard him say “about a few million years old I bet”  I got it.  It was a pretty silly question, they was I asked it, but his answer had me laughing.  As I turned around to continue to my determined destination my right foot twisted sideways in my crock and down I went.  I have been quite aware of the danger of these terrains and have tried to be really careful.  This time I blew it.  There is not a square 1/2 inch of smoothness to these, more like jagged sharp metal protruding from the earth.  I had no idea how bad I was injured but I knew there was no way I could come out of this without a scrape or two at the least.  I went down on all 4’s trying th keep the rest of my body from injury.  My left knee took the fall.  I felt no pain, just grateful nothing was broken.  Looking down, there was hardly any blood but wow, I was sure I saw bone.  It was fat or tissue under my skin but the cut was odd and nasty.  We got to the boat and Mary gave me some bacitracin ointment to put on it and off we went to another beach. Okay, that was my first injury at sea.  I did the right thing and stayed out of the water, where I know there are sharks lurking and was anxiously anticipating the next adventure.  We weaved through coral heads and made it to another beach where I found all the sand dollars.  Fred remembered that this one had blow holes and a cave so that meant another climb and I was certainly not going to miss that.  To make a long story short, we never found the blow holes, (I forgot the map) but we did get some amazing views.  Roy trekked it to the edge and crossed over to another island almost out of site.  I thought I was the adventuress.  Mary stayed back with the dinks on the beach because she didn’t want to climb again.  Good thing.  She noticed their dinghy about half full of water from waves coming in from the back.  She said things were floating in there.  She bailed it out and held it out beyond the waves until we got back.  Bless her heart.  Ours was okay, had water in it but we were beached so Fred just pulled the plug and drained it.  My head spun back to yesterday with our water filled dinghy and beach was good when a boat was flooding.  They don’t sink on a beach like they do in deep water.  (Fred taught me that when he told me about having to beach his sail boat to keep it from sinking once when he was sailing water had gotten in and up to the seats in the salon.  He had to get a new engine but two weeks later he lost the whole boat to Hurricane Bertha)  Such is boating life.

Tonight they had a Rockin’ Ron dance at Chat & Chill here on the beach and we decided to go and say bye to our friends and grab something to eat.  It was lots of fun.  We danced, actually it was our very first dance together.  He’s a really good slow dancer and just swept me off my feet.  I felt like there was no one else there but the two of us dancing.  He has stolen my heart.  We are leaving Georgetown tomorrow for Long Island and beyond.  I keep thinking perhaps I should see a doctor about my knee because after cleaning it up, it is pretty nasty but I am sure they have a doctor in Long Island if necessary.  Injuries happen.  I am fine and having a ball.  Fred said he was thinking about calling me ‘Bloody Mary’ but thought ‘Bloody Patti’ suited me better.  His ear is still bothering him but he continues with the meds.  It’s his choice to leave.  Maybe we can get the sails up.  Hoping for “Fair Winds”.