I'm tempted to say what a busy time we're having. But then I got to thinking, today (Saturday) we had a nice breakfast, got soaked in the dinghy going to Falmouth, chatted with a guy about used dinghies, bought a bag of groceries (Mrs. Bailey is still really sour), ice cream at Sweet T's, a walk to the beach and a swim, then picked up a load of laundry at Sam and Dave's ($25EC for one wash and dry, and I think they ironed Randy's shirts, for those of you following the laundry issues) and a bag of ice. So, a tough day.

Our last few days in Jolly Harbour we got the masts in, the booms and the sails on. Dennis from Kyeta came over and cranked Randy up the mast and we now have a wind generator!!!! It's fab. We like to run below when it's gusty and see how much electricity we're making. I have plans for a hairdryer, a dustbuster, an air conditioner, a Black and Decker tooth flosser, and maybe one of those massaging foot bath things. My birthday's coming up, after all.

Maybe an electric ant zapper would be good. Is there such a thing? More fairly disgusting discoveries: I emptied the locker in the head where we keep the towels when we discovered that the anti-syphon valve, which is intimately connected to the head (aka toilet), had been spraying, um, stuff, all over the towels. For days. We only had to throw out three towels, and the rest went to Sam and Dave's laundry for treatment. The locker was also full of small piles of dead ants. The DIY blood-pressure cuff was also in there in a plastic bag, and wasn't wet, but it was jammed solid with dead ants. The velcro on the cuff was matted with them, and inside the battery compartment it was a dead red ant mosh pit. If anyone has an explanation for this, I'd be interested to hear it. Also, there were some ants in the bed. Not good. They're gone now. Baygone.

My favourite shell beaches around the outer bay at Jolly are still lovely, although my shell collecting has been restricted - space, irritation level, etc - so I'm only bringing home exceptional specimens. I'm branching out into collecting sticks. Randy's over the moon. So I'm wandering along the beach slapping at no-see-ums and looking for something exceptional, and I see a pair of sunglasses wound around with grass and gunk and half buried in sand. For a lark (glasses are always wrecked by sand), I pulled them out, rinsed them off, and thought, hey, they don't look too bad. Back at the boat, we cleaned them up, and barring a few minor scratches, we're happy with our new Serengetis. Whatever they use for anti-scratch coating works some good.

Departed Jolly Harbour on Thursday ready for a nice sail or motor down the coast to Falmouth Harbour, and after about an hour, a huge black squall shows up, things get ominously dark, the wind starts to honk and the water to chop, chop, chop. The capt responds positively to a suggestion that we could pull into Carlisle Bay "for lunch." The squall sort of cleared off and we motored around no problem, nobody barfed, but I was reminded about the stupid part of cruising, ONE of the stupid parts - the weather.

Falmouth Harbour is really pretty empty, the regulars remain in place, and there's just a few big boys at the docks. We anchored in our usual spot, sorted out the boat and poured a drink. Moments later, Pete, the woman on Galatea, anchored just behind us (70' yawl, M class, 1898), is waving her arms and hollering "I HAVE A FIRE."

Randy leaps up and starts moving and giving instructions - we've never got the motor on the dinghy with such speed. I made a ding in the new varnish on the rails with the prop while I was flinging it into the dinghy. This is the only time I will be forgiven for this. I grab the handheld VHF (fully charged! wind generator!) all the fire extinguishers I can lay my hands on, chuck them in the dinghy, untie the painter, and Randy zooms off to the rescue.

Pete had come back to her boat moments before and seen smoke in the engine room and hit it with their dry chemical extinguisher before she hollered for help, and when Randy got there, he went around and disconnected all the batteries and turned off all the master switches. She didn't have a functioning radio - they'd been struck by lightning and were in the process of having the boat rewired, so she used our hand-held and called up more help from the big yachts close by while Randy was below.

(I'm listening to the exchanges on our VHF on 68, and in the middle of it, the inevitable radio bitch comes on and barks "Please change channels." I nearly caught fire myself. Unbelievable.)

In the meantime, after watching Randy zoom off, and not knowing the extent of the danger, I decide to holler to the French catamaran on the other side of us to see if they can help. "She has a fire on her boat!!!" and I pointed to Galatea, "Can you help?" Well of course they leap into action, but not only is their motor not on their dinghy, but they're both stark naked. He makes it over to Galatea about the same time as some lads from Fleurtje (170' schooner), who arrive with extinguishers big enough to calm everyone down. Then the Antigua Barbuda Search and Rescue boat arrived, and a lot of guys stood around on deck chatting for a bit. Turns out that Pete had put out the fire with her first extinguisher, and Randy had killed any chance of any other electrical problems. It was a short in the solar panel wiring and everything seems to be okay. Quite a flurry of excitement for a bit.

Randy said that her cat was lying on the cabin sole as calm as could be during all the action.

And the French couple are still naked all the time.