I'm trying to figure out the least offensive way of saying how hot it is here, without trying to make it sound like I'm looking for sympathy, because I know some of you will shut down the computer in disgust, and crawl under the blankets and weep, and I don't want that.
It's hot, and it's beautiful, but we're hanging on a mooring in Jolly Harbour with no masts, so nothing to which we can attach the awning or the rain catcher, and as a result, the boat is hot as balls, and the only way to get out of the sun is to stay below stationed in front of a fan, sneak into the pool, or go to the grocery store. Hard to get much done in the middle of the day.
We were glad to see that there's not much damage to be seen from Hurricane Omar -- some trees and bushed flattened in the hillsides, but the rest of the mess has been mostly cleaned up. There's still some evidence of where rivers of muck invaded some of the villas, but mostly, everything is green and lush looking.
We had most of a week staying in a nice villa (showers, good bed, laundry, most mod cons although strangely there were no elements in the oven), and spent the days working on the boat in the yard: painting the bottom, cleaning, and killing ants mostly. Ants love our boat. Two boats over, no ants. Can't figure out why.
The three gallons of bottom paint is one of our single biggest expenditures every year, and this year it was an even larger chunk. Randy came back from Budget with his eyes all goggly, so I just said I didn't want to know.
The boat was filthy - teak decks were grimy, the cabin was covered with gray grot, and the interior was dusty, a bit mouldy, and competely disorganized. When you get here and look at how you left the boat, you wonder What Were We Thinking? It's one thing to lower the outboard into the cabin for storage, it's another exercize altogether to lift it out again. The whole process of tearing things apart and cleaning before you put the boat up, then trying to reestablish order and cleaning all the things you cleaned before...it's all a bit discouraging. Add ants, and you find that you're mighty glad that rum is so much cheaper here.
Price check: I went over to Budget Marine to get a replacement head for our deck brush, and nearly plotzed - $60EC, for a thing that's just a scrub brush with a screw hole for a handle. That's about $30 Cdn. Pulleeezzzz. So I scrubbed the decks with a jive scrub brush (dollar store) on my hands and knees and felt so righteous.
Prices for everything seem higher this year, but it could just be us getting acclimatized again. We're a bit sensitive to the fact that our dollar just doesn't have the oomph it had last year, so even if the prices are the same, we're less glib about peeling off bills for boring crap like a new head for the deck brush.
My rowboat is in the water and I just rowed a pile of groceries back to the boat, and the other dinghy is still a ratty, spongy, ugly, soggy piece of misery, but the motor is great. There was a moment, several moments actually, of disgust when the second pull on the starter cord failed to start the engine, and the starter cord refused to recoil. The lovely fella from the Yamaha dealer drove out the next day, and scratched his head a bit, then took the motor out of gear and the cord snapped back into place. We all had a laugh. Ha ha ha ha. He kindly oiled and lubed the engine, and adjusted a slightly sticky choke valve thingy, and went on his merry way. Not broken AND still under warrantee!
The big boat went in the water on Friday, sans masts, and Randy put a coat of varnish on the masts yesterday, and is in the middle of applying the next coat and I note with disgust a fairly heavy rainshower has just begun. I imagine I can hear him cursing all the way from the yard to the boat.... Once he gets through the varnishing, then he'll attack the exciting process of mounting the new wind generator that we've been carting around since last spring. By early next week we'll be pretty much sorted out, and then we can figure out where to go. In the meantime, I expect him along shortly for a cold beer while his pock-marked varnish job dries... There are mighty compensations for these minor frustrations.
It's hot, and it's beautiful, but we're hanging on a mooring in Jolly Harbour with no masts, so nothing to which we can attach the awning or the rain catcher, and as a result, the boat is hot as balls, and the only way to get out of the sun is to stay below stationed in front of a fan, sneak into the pool, or go to the grocery store. Hard to get much done in the middle of the day.
We were glad to see that there's not much damage to be seen from Hurricane Omar -- some trees and bushed flattened in the hillsides, but the rest of the mess has been mostly cleaned up. There's still some evidence of where rivers of muck invaded some of the villas, but mostly, everything is green and lush looking.
We had most of a week staying in a nice villa (showers, good bed, laundry, most mod cons although strangely there were no elements in the oven), and spent the days working on the boat in the yard: painting the bottom, cleaning, and killing ants mostly. Ants love our boat. Two boats over, no ants. Can't figure out why.
The three gallons of bottom paint is one of our single biggest expenditures every year, and this year it was an even larger chunk. Randy came back from Budget with his eyes all goggly, so I just said I didn't want to know.
The boat was filthy - teak decks were grimy, the cabin was covered with gray grot, and the interior was dusty, a bit mouldy, and competely disorganized. When you get here and look at how you left the boat, you wonder What Were We Thinking? It's one thing to lower the outboard into the cabin for storage, it's another exercize altogether to lift it out again. The whole process of tearing things apart and cleaning before you put the boat up, then trying to reestablish order and cleaning all the things you cleaned before...it's all a bit discouraging. Add ants, and you find that you're mighty glad that rum is so much cheaper here.
Price check: I went over to Budget Marine to get a replacement head for our deck brush, and nearly plotzed - $60EC, for a thing that's just a scrub brush with a screw hole for a handle. That's about $30 Cdn. Pulleeezzzz. So I scrubbed the decks with a jive scrub brush (dollar store) on my hands and knees and felt so righteous.
Prices for everything seem higher this year, but it could just be us getting acclimatized again. We're a bit sensitive to the fact that our dollar just doesn't have the oomph it had last year, so even if the prices are the same, we're less glib about peeling off bills for boring crap like a new head for the deck brush.
My rowboat is in the water and I just rowed a pile of groceries back to the boat, and the other dinghy is still a ratty, spongy, ugly, soggy piece of misery, but the motor is great. There was a moment, several moments actually, of disgust when the second pull on the starter cord failed to start the engine, and the starter cord refused to recoil. The lovely fella from the Yamaha dealer drove out the next day, and scratched his head a bit, then took the motor out of gear and the cord snapped back into place. We all had a laugh. Ha ha ha ha. He kindly oiled and lubed the engine, and adjusted a slightly sticky choke valve thingy, and went on his merry way. Not broken AND still under warrantee!
The big boat went in the water on Friday, sans masts, and Randy put a coat of varnish on the masts yesterday, and is in the middle of applying the next coat and I note with disgust a fairly heavy rainshower has just begun. I imagine I can hear him cursing all the way from the yard to the boat.... Once he gets through the varnishing, then he'll attack the exciting process of mounting the new wind generator that we've been carting around since last spring. By early next week we'll be pretty much sorted out, and then we can figure out where to go. In the meantime, I expect him along shortly for a cold beer while his pock-marked varnish job dries... There are mighty compensations for these minor frustrations.
posted by Susan at 10:36 AM
1 Comments:
Finally, a few lines from you guys. So sorry about the heat there. I would be a puddle in a flash, get it. A "flash". I can melt a snow bank with one hotflash. Hey, a thought..... Maybe I am the whole global warming problem. If so, sorry folks. Not a lot of news here Sue.Just missing everyone like crazy. Talk to you later. Heard from Epiphany not long ago. She's a hoot.
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