Today is yet another day in paradise. The weather is wonderful, the tropical trades are fresh and there’s no nasty swell rolling the boat around all the time anymore. I woke up before sunrise after an uninterrupted night’s sleep and managed to get a lot work done in the first couple of hours.
The Customs patrol boat hovered around a nearby boat while they inspected it. I decided to stay belowdecks and out of sight, and hopefully out of mind for the duration. I’ve been inspected several times and it takes a while. Just like auditors, they won’t rest until they’ve found something to either fine you for or complain about. And I know my fire extinguisher won’t pass muster because try as I might, I cannot find an expiry date on them.
Noon
It’s gotten quite windy out there so I won’t be doing my bottom cleaning today. I haven’t heard back from the sailmaker, either. The BVI Spring Regatta is next week and I’ve been invited aboard as crew on one of the boats. I’d like to go, but that will depend upon my sail and finding a berth at Nanny Cay. I’m not too optimistic about Nanny Cay, I know that operation too well.
One of my e-mail addresses has been sold to a spammer; I’ve been getting lots of mails in recent days. All of the are from major retail brands with either surveys or free prizes or some such nonsense. It only takes a millisecond to see that the return address doesn’t match the sender. Oh, and I don’t have accounts at any of the stores that have ostensibly e-mailed me. I wish I could block them, but they are all sufficiently different to prevent me making a simple rule. I suppose that they were engineered that way.
At least the freshwater leak problem has been solved – the starboard side of my bilge is dry and the water pump now only goes on when I actually use water. The next problem is the slow saltwater incursion on the port side. I’m currently stumped regarding where that could be coming form, but I haven’t applied rigorous testing procedures yet.
Afternoon
I started some long-running batch jobs at work and zipped across to Island Waterworld to get fuel. This time it was open and I got my 40L for US$50.
I stopped off at a Chinese store to get some Carib beer and limes (and milk) before returning to Zanshin. The batch job hasn’t finished yet. But it’s still another day in Paradise and things could be far worse.
Late Afternoon
This time around I did much better with transferring my 40L of diesel from the yellow jerry-cans into the tank. I wet the surrounding teak with water and managed to get all of the fuel from the cans into the tank without spilling a drop.
This can be considered a notable success for me and my main tank is now approaching 1/4 full. I’ll add some more diesel in the next days and that will give me sufficient reserves to sail somewhere and fill up on fuel there.
Evening
Before heading ashore I showered and changed into fresh clothes. I had some bread thawing out and wanted to get some cheese and perhaps cold cuts to accompany the bread. Unsurprisingly, I didn’t get past the SMYC and had their beef carpaccio instead.