I was up early, at 7AM, but decided to wait until 9AM before turning on the dive compressor since the boats around me are all still quiet and the Bauer junior is not very quiet. I can see the heavy north swell breaking on the reef and the anchorage is rather full today, so I assume that most of the boats are going to stay in this protected area rather than venture out into the big seas out there. I don’t have internet here so haven’t been able to check the weather, but the normal trade winds have come back so I think that the weather systems of the past couple of days have passed.
Ken from Rocking B came by with Margaret’s sister to say hello and to check up on me; they had tried to reach me via VHF several times, as had I, but we’d never made contact and they had come by during one of my dives and couldn’t reach me so they were worried that I might have gone down on a dive and not come back up. But fortunately nothing like that had happened. We sat around the cockpit for a while over coffee and now they’ve returned to do open-heart surgery on their watermaker while I fire up the compressor to fill my two tanks for today’s dives.
SUCCESS! I decided to try a sweep at the outer possible extent and tied a number of lines together from the anchor back to my boat’s rudder, since I’d let out about 20 feet of chain after losing my ladder this would put me far enough out. After about a quarter of a circle I saw the ladder, just at the edge of vision, and managed to get both it and all of my search gear back aboard. That ladder is going to be on a leash for the rest of my boat ownership!
In the early afternoon I joined the crew of Rocking B for a visit to the mega yacht complex at YCCS. The dining room and bar/pool area are immaculate and pristine with a nice view of the North Sound – it is a very nice place and the dinner menu was excellent. The prices are not cheap, but certainly commensurate with the surroundings and presentation. I didn’t have much of an appetite and just had a couple of drinks, and when I returned to Zanshin later I didn’t get as much cleaning done before dinner time as I wanted, but life aboard was in order once again after my swim ladder had been repatriated.
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