I thought I might tell you what our “typical” day is, since right now we’re just hanging around Thompson Bay, Long Island. I still don’t sleep in. A late morning for me is 6:30; I’m more likely to be up by 5:30. I start the coffee, when we’re on the hook we make it in a little stovetop percolator. It only makes about three mugs, usually on or the other of us just has one. By 6:30 Bud is up. We tune into the SSB radio to hear the latest weather run-down by Chris Parker. Chris does weather forecasting for the whole Florida, Gulf of Mexico, Bahamas and Caribbean area. At 6:30 is his Bahama net. It usually starts 10 or 15 minutes late, because after his forecast he takes specific requests for information from “subscribing” boats. At 6 AM he does a net for part of the Caribbean, and they usually run over. Anyway, we’re subscribers this year, but so far we’ve only listened and received his email reports, we’ve never asked for information. Usually we get what we need by listening to the general report and listening to other boats.

Today, Bud took Fuzzy ashore after the weather. I still hadn’t eaten breakfast. I ate breakfast and then washed and got dressed. Most days I take a “sponge bath” in the morning. Water is a real issue for us because our other maintenance things ran so over budget that we didn’t install a water maker as we had hoped. We carry about 120 gallons of water in our tanks and have 4 5-gallon jerry jugs that we also fill. This week we’ve used about 30 gallons since Friday morning, so we figure we can go about 2 weeks (with a safety margin) on the water we carry.

Mornings I clean the boat up (make up the berth, so the dishes, pick things up) and Bud usually starts a small project. If the project isn’t so small I get involved in that once the other stuff is done. Today Bud epoxied a setscrew to one of our ventilation cowlings. These cowling are like hoods over two vents in our salon. They can be turned either towards the wind, or away from wind and spray as needed. The setscrew holds them in place, and one of the setscrews had broken off. Bud constructed a housing for the setscrew with Marine Tex and then epoxied that back on the cowling. It’ seems to have worked.

We also deployed the awning again today. There’s quite a bit of wind, but we thought it would still be OK to put it out. It really helps to keep the cockpit cool, which in turn keeps the companionway and the interior cool.

After lunch we decide if we want to go somewhere or do something. Today we decided to come over to Long Island Breeze for the Internet and Bud took the water jugs to Long Island Petroleum for water. 20 gallons of water cost $6.00. Not a bad price for this area. The only problem is there’s nowhere to bring the boat up to fill the tanks, so all the water we need will have to be hauled aboard in jugs. That’s likely to be the case until we go back to the Georgetown area and the Marina at Emerald Bay. Bud took the water and Fuzzy back to the boat to give me a chance to come inside and get the Internet, because I couldn’t get it as I sometimes can down in the breeze-way where Fuzzy is allowed. I took a photo of Bud landing the dinghy here. You can see the deck and the pool, with the dinghy dock beyond.

I need to wind this up so we can finish up at the store and get back to the boat, so I’ll post this now. Later we’ll feed Fuzzy, take him ashore and eat dinner. Most days I salute sunset with the conch horn. After supper I usually read and Bud soon goes to bed. That’s our day.