They say time flies when you're having fun. Well that's true but time also flies when you are cruising because it takes longer to accomplish seemingly simple tasks. Two days ago we decided to get the propane tank that ran out during the passage re-filled. We were told to ask at the guard shack at Jolly Harbor Boat Yard and they would direct us. Pam stayed aboard to work on other projects while I soloed the re-fueling project. I loaded the propane tank and a five gallon jerry jug for diesel fuel on to our two wheel cart. I figured I'd be efficient since the fuel dock was at the boat yard. When I asked the guard about getting a propane tank filled he looked perplexed. He then said that I had to talk to "Donny", turned out that the guys name is Danny. The guard pointed across the street and said, "Donny is driving the tractor in dee bock." In the direction that he pointed I knew that there was a storage yard where it looked like they put boats long term. I asked the guard if he could contact "Donny" somehow. He picked up a phone and called someone speaking that West Indian dialect that I do not understand. When he hung up the phone he again pointed across the street and said, "Donny is driving the tractor in dee bock." I kindly said, "OK thank you I will find him." I then proceeded on my quest to find a guy named Donny driving a tractor somewhere in the storage yard. As I walked down the road I saw a guy come out of the storage yard wearing blue coveralls and a hard hat. Was this garb for driving a tractor??? Who knows??? But maybe he knows Donny. When I told him that I was looking for Donny he said, "I'm Donny." I said, "that's great, I understand you are the man that I need to see to get my propane tank filled." He replied, "yes, you give me 70 EC now and I will get it filled and you can pick it up at the guard station at 5:30 pm." Great I think, back to the guard station again. Oh, and trust this guy that I have never met before to take my 70 EC and my tank to re-fill it and return it to the guard shack - yah right. But what choice did I have but to trust him. After all the last time we cruised the Caribbean we left one of our tanks beside a road to get it filled and returned later in the day to find it there filled. So I gave Danny the 70 EC (about $26 US) along with my propane tank and then set off for the fuel dock hoping that I would see our propane tank again. The rest of my day was spent wheeling jerry jugs of diesel fuel back to the boat from the fuel dock. I made four trips that day five gallons at a time. Why didn't we just go to the fuel dock you say. Well we have a Floscan fuel metering system on the boat and I'm still calibrating it so I have to be very precise when I put fuel into the daytank that the engine draws from. So at this point I have decided to pump the fuel directly into the daytank rather than putting it into one of the other tanks and then transferring in into the daytank. In any case the two wheel cart only holds on jug at a time, so it was a very tedious process. Of course before pumping the first jug of fuel into the daytank I decided to check the Racor filter that filters the fuel pumped into that tank and found that it had water in the bottom of the bowl. Before I could transfer the fuel I had to drain the water. As a side note, the water probably came from the aft fuel tank which is the only one that we transferred fuel from during the passage. By the time the four jerry jugs of fuel were pumped into the daytank it was close to 5:00 pm. So I decided to walk over to the guard station a little early just incase Danny was early. He wasn't so I spent about 45 minutes sitting on a rock in the shade near the guard station looking in all directions for Danny to appear. Fortunately Danny arrived with my tank and two others in the back of his SUV. Mission accomplished! Until the next day when I finished the re-fueling by making three more trips and discovered that the propane connection to the re-filled tank now leaked. Perhaps it had been slowly leaking because that tank didn't last our usual six months. In any case I troubleshot the problem down to the new style propane tank connector, the one with the green plastic screw-on fittings. These are a right-hand thread and don't require a wrench to tighten them like the old style left-hand threaded ones that require a wrench. I decided to replace the new style with an old style pigtail hose that I bought at Budget Marine which is at the boat yard. Right now the old style one appears to have resolved the leaking problem. After that experience I plan to pick up another old style pigtail because I think the new one is just a bad design. The old style has two rubber seals that mate rather than the single one that the new style relies on.

On a lighter note, as was our tradition the last time we came to the Caribbean, we connected our TV antenna and turned on our TV to see what we could pick up. A channel search found two channels of which only one actually has anything on it. The have a morning show called "Good Morning Antigua" and it appears during the middle of the day they like the USA Network and today they played the soap "Bold and the Beautiful". Lately night time programming has been all over the place from the Cricket World Cup to the "Jefferson". Oh yes, late this afternoon they had "Sesame Street" on. We have also seen some political programs and what a surprise the government here spends too much money too. Their news programs haven't mentioned much about anything happening elsewhere in the world. In fact, one big report a couple of nights ago was on a big fish caught in one of the villages. They actually sent a reporter and cameraman out to get video and file a report on the big fish. For me, it brought new meaning to the the words - "slow new day." When we get to the two sailing regattas at the end of April it will be interesting to see if the news team reports on them. Also, due to cut backs by the BBC the Caribbean doesn't any longer get support in the world news arena by the BBC.