2007 Day 3
2007-03-08

Well, after my near ramming of somebody's rich brat I managed to decompress a bit (grapes) and waited for the mechanic to show up. He came out in a brand new M00RINGS dingy and wore tan shorts and a blue jean shirt with no sleeves and looked to be appraching 70 years old. He told me his name was Ron (well that would be easy to remember and when I pushed him he told me he had sailed around the world three times and was saving money for new knees and a fourth trip. Cool... well except for the knee part. His were in really bad shape and I cringed every time he had to crawl into the lazarette. Not good.
I helped him poke and prod and we soon came to the conslusion that we needed a new cable which was not going to be available any time soon. His wife/girlfriend apparently ran the M00RINGS base and she came out too to remind him he wasn't supposed to be working on our boat and that the rich folk that charter through their company had two major issues that needed to be addressed immediately. One had a burnt out lightbulb over the nav station and the other had a defective stove burner that they were never going to use but wanted fixed ASAP. She stopped by every ten minutes to remind him of this and he doggedly ignored her every time. Ours was a real problem that needed to be fixed and he was going to try damn it.
After a couple of hours I got most of his life story and sort of got the shift back to where it was before we left. Usable, but not trustworthy. I'd worry about it all week.
When we got the boat put pack together I thanked him and offered him a beer but the dragon lady showed up again to remind him of the lightbulb so he was off. I sure hope he makes that fourth trip and even more, I hope he gets the new knees.
I poured another wine and started on dinner. Chicken Kiev, jasmine rice, grilled veggies and salad. The oven wasn't really big enough to cook for nine people and the stove top only had two burners, but you make do... and so we did. When dinner was done the other crew came over to eat and drank a pretty good chunk of our alcohol. Psst you are supposed to bring your own bottles. Oops... Rookies...
After dinner we all sat in the cockpit and watched the sun set over the islands. Nice...
Sundays plan was to go to the Baths. The Baths are these sort of caves made of moon boulders that are filled with sand and water and it is absolutely beautiful in a not on this earth kind of way. You have to take a ride over the mountain to get there. The ride is as spectacular as the Baths are. There are sheer cliffs that drop a thousand feet and the drive on the left. At least there are guardrails now. My first time there, they only had the cliffs.
Captain of boat number 2 decides he an his Mrs aren't going and we can take his friends there. Well, I've been there six times now and if he wasn't going, I wasn't going to babysit his friends. We took them to shore, showed them what they needed to do and then wandered the beach some and decided to set off on the long walk to the resort next door.
The trail was full of flowers, cacti and of course iguanas. They are everywhere down there. M.E being a city girl at heart jumped every time one would go by. She jumped a lot. The trail ended up on the Atlantic side of the island at a beautiful beach. We checked out the resort itself (VERY expensive) but the keep out signs that were everywhere kind of took the fun out of that. I took a few pictures and we headed back. I guess we were gone maybe two hours.
The folks next door were surprised we were back. Thye yelled but we didn't stop over. I was hot and hungry so we grabbed our shorkle gear and headed to this private island for lunch and a swim. The water was crystal clear and warm, the beer cold and inexpensive. At one point we had the entire beach to ourselves. Two blue fish started circling us and they kept getting closer and closer. Eventually they got close enough that M.E. squeeled and ran out of the water. Oh well... Lunch was a chicken Roti and it was good. The best I had all week. A roti is kind of a burrito made of curried chicken and potatoes wrapped in a dough made from chick peas. Down island you get them made from necks and stuff and have to pick out the bones but all the ones I had here were civilized. I'd forgotten how much I liked them.
After some convincing I finally got M.E. to let us take the dingy across the entire harbor to Leverick Bay. it was a great ride and the resort there has expanded a lot since the last time I was there. We hit Pussars for painkiller mix, had a drink and motored back. The wind had built up and the waves were up so we got a bit wet and I had to slow down so we wouldn't flip, but it was fun. A nice way to kill an afternoon.
We got back just in time to see the folks go by on the ferry from the Baths trip so I dingyed in to pick them up. Of course they were hungry and of course we fed them using up a good chunk of our sandwich material. C'est la vie.
I took a shower and made dinner for nine again. This night it was beef kabobs, baked potatoes, broccoli and salad. They ate it all and just about killed the remainder of our wine supply. In the morning I went ashore and bought some more as well as taking in the trash and buying a new BEYC shirt. It was time to move on.

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