January 20, 2012

Friday, January 20, 2012

By 7:30 we were up and drinking coffee, planning the day.  Wash was good since I had run out of clothes and when sailing, the washer is quite the luxury item along the way, when one can be found.  I am not allergic to hand washing, in fact that was my plan but...they just don’t dry.  I have complete ruined all my clothes washing on the islands anyway so what’s the difference?  I guess the washers are rusted inside and they have put stains and brown stripes on nearly everything I own.  Good think I shop for clothes at Goodwill!  I wish there was a magic stain remover for boaters. I do see some boating ladies with very nice perfectly ironed clothes on and I am perfectly convinced they don’t do grunt work on the boat.  Even my clothing suffers from battle wounds.  The only thing that will dry the dishes I believe is a chamois.   Yep, I love this adventure!  Not complaining, just comparing what I have taken for granted before and what I am grateful for now, including rusty washing machines.

We dinked it over to the Long Island Breeze Resort.  They have 3 washers there and 3 dryers.  Ya snooze, ya loose.  They were all empty and I squeezed my 4 loads into 3.  They also have free internet upstairs in the restaurant, which we were happy to have.  I had this bright idea to download all my pictures and realized none of them were titled.  I forgot to do that so I only downloaded one set and did some surfing on the net for information as well as catch up on my email and Facebook messages.  Met a lot of boaters there.  The boating community is a completely different community than a regular neighborhood.  You never meet a stranger.  Need something, get on the radio and ask.  Someone has it or knows where to get it.  Boat sinking?  Rescue is there in a flash.  Need info, a ride, is the tide coming in or going out, what’s the weather going to be?  Anyone ever sailed to…….?  Someone has and is so willing to help chart the trip.  Share a taxi?  One guy lost his prop, a group found it that day.  It’s a complete network of teamwork.  Synergy!  We had lunch, went back to the boat to empty the dink of clean clothes and then headed out to the market.  We were going to the beach but Fred is still not caught up on his sleep and his ear is still bothering him.  We stopped by to see Norma and Jay from “Priority”, who were anchored close to us.  We met them on the seas yesterday on the radio.  Took pictures of each others boats and Dee and Pete from “Wind Lass” heard us talking on the radio.  They tried to contact us.  Our radio is not that powerful so “Wind Lass”  did contact “Priority” and asked them to give us a message.  One thing lead to another and we are going to rent a car with “Priority” for two days and split the cost.  I understand this is a very interesting island.  Fred and I decided that Conception Island and Rum Cay will have to wait because of my leg and his ear.  We have no business snorkeling quite yet.  We will be going there on our way home in the spring instead.  “Wind Lass” is on her way in another direction so we missed them by one day here in Long Island.  That’s just how it is when on the water.  Sara and Monty Lewis from “Saranade” hailed us on the radio this morning.  They heard us calling someone else and wanted to say hi.  They are the ones who make the Explorer Chart books that get us through these beautiful islands safely.  We hope to get together before they leave Long Island but if not, I am sure we will meet up with them again on this trip.  It was good to hear from them.

The day went by fast, wash day always seems to be like that.  I really don’t want to say this but...it’s chilly here this evening.  I may need to get out of these shorts and t-shirt and put something warmer on, or, close the hatches and portholes and light a candle.  The sun is setting and the conch horns are blowing.  This is something that happens every night here in the islands.  I got to make one of those.  It’s got to be good for those lungs because they blow for a long time, continuously.  I have discovered that no horn sounds the same and when several horns are blowing at the same time, it’s like music from the heavens, all in harmony.  Sigh...I am so blessed!