It's now Sunday morning and boy has it rained. I wandered onto deck early this morning(0530) and sat and watched the Sun rise. Blue(one of our cats) came out and joined me as she watched fishing boats go by, birds flying past and dogs on dinghies on their way to a small island here in the bay to take care of their business. As the dinghies with dogs pass other boats, well if there is a dog on the boat, he has to bark "hello"to his friend and that make other dogs on boats and on shore chime in to all say hello to each other. Blue, meanwhile, just sits and watches and listens and cleans herself. We should have a hairball joining us any time today(yuck).

I watched as clouds built. Nice white fluffy ones over us and on the horizon. By 0800, they were starting to turn a bit darker so we closed up all the open port lights as well as the front of the dodger and just waited for it to start raining. Squalls came through one right after each other dropping lots of water on Curacao. So far, 1.37 inches of rain. It's not approaching noon and its clearing up. I did take the time to washout some of my "dew rags"(neck and head bands to soak up the sweat)and get them hung on the life lines between showers. They've had several more fresh water rinses since then.

With all that rain, Puff(our dinghy) has taken on a good bit of water. I took it's bow line and hooked it to the forestaysail halyard and lifted the bow enough that water poured out of the drain on it's stern taking lots of old sand(still from Madagascar), dirt that blew in from Africa and chips of white paint from the hull. She's much cleaner now and drier since I got her up off the deck.

WIth the rains came erratic winds blowing boats all over the bay into locations they haven't been in before. A catamaran behind us has always had a red steel boat off it's port side. With the winds this morning, they both swung around till the catamaran had the red boat off it's starboard side. Now that the rains have let up, the normal winds are back and everyone is back where they belong.

Since we couldn't run our generator at all, we ran the engine instead so we now have some what charged batteries and lots of hot water in our tank for showers or dishes.

After a wonderful lunch of Spaghetti, I started back in on our Tohatsu out board. It's been giving us some trouble lately when we try and tilt it up and down to get past shallow spots in the water. I'd seen some corrosion on some of the fittings and figured it was time to pull it over the lifelines and lower her onto the deck for a checkup. Tracy pulled up on the block and tackle we use for hoisting her off Puff and I puller her up and over the life lines and then she was lowered onto a pad on deck for inspection. With it standing up, it was easy to work on as I was sitting on one of our fenders. I went at it with a scraper and a sharp pointed awl and a couple of wire brushes. Then on went the WD40 into every crack and crevasse getting it in as many places as I could. I even injected some axle grease in through a couple of grease nipples into harder to reach placed. I worked every joint and connection up and down, back and forth and sprayed and sprayed till everything was moving nicely. While doing this, I found one of the wires that grounds the outboard had snapped off its connection ring. Time for a some electrical repairs. Out came the wire cutters, crimpers and wire strippers as well as an assortment of fitting that just might work. Wire isn't a problem as I have tons of it. It took a few minutes to get all the parts together and the wires crimped and then bolted back on the engine(just glad the bolts came out)and that job was also done. Every joint was now moving smoothly and the wires were now back the way they are supposed to be. Tracy hoisted it back up and I maneuvered it back over the life lines and onto the motor bracket on the stern rail. Another job taken care of.

We just finished our nightly tv watching and Tracy was heading for bed as we did our last running of the engine to keep the batteries topped up. Suddenly I heard this strange sound and of course my worry wart brain went to "something is wrong with the engine" mode. It didn't sound right and suddenly, I could tell it was fireworks and close by. I rushed up the companionway stairs calling for Tracy to come see. They just kept on going off and going off, sprouting fire into the skies on the far side of the yacht club, about 500 yards in front of us. The explosions echoed off the mountains around us so we heard boom after boom after boom. It went on for a good 15 minutes. Someone was spending a TON of money! I checked on line and it's not a holiday so I've no clue as why it was going on but it sure was fun to watch and hear it. Well done!

Yesterday, Monday, was the day everyone headed for the grocery store on the free bus. Had 17 dinghies at the dock and it was a mess. People had to climb over sometimes two different dinghies just to get off their boats as some use painters(line at the bow of the boat)that are only three feet long, keeping them close to the dock but making it hard to get other dinghies in so people can get off. Boneheads!!

The hunt continues for six new 6 volt batteries that we can afford. The stores out here was a fortune to replace what we have so we've been doing a bunch of web surfing to see what we can find. Not sure what we will do but we can get them in Panama a good bit cheaper than here.

Yesterday, as I was about to buy a part for Island Water World, I took out my wallet and NO credit card!! The slot was empty!! OH SH_T! My brain went in to over drive. Where had Iast used it and when. SInce I was at the grocery store, I could get on line and check my current charges. I've got the account set up so if I use the card, I get an email telling me that I used it. My last charge was last week on Wednesday at the fuel dock at the yacht club. I remember Francis handing me the card but I also remember making notes about how much I used and what it cost on a piece of paper. No charges since. Once back at the anchorage with my brain still flipping out(I get that way sometime when things like this happen)I headed over to the fuel dock even though I knew that they didn't open till noon and it was only 1030. We went to the yacht club office and explained my problem and they called Francis. Sure enough, he had my card and would meet me at 1200 and give it back. I returned to Zephyr, much relieved and headed back to the fuel dock just before noon and got my card. Francis told me he'd been calling me on the radio all last Wednesday afternoon and into Thursday but we never heard it. He didn't know the name of our boat so was just calling out my name. He's my hero!! Now I get to be even more paranoid about loosing my card. Gee what fun.

When I returned(today is Tuesday) from my trip to Napa and Budget Marine and Island Water World, Tracy told me that our nudist boat has move elsewhere. No clue where as he had no headsail and still had awnings up but at least he's gone. No class.