It's now Friday the 22nd and we just finished topping up our diesel tanks. While there is a "fuel dock", it looks to shallow and too confined a space to even try and get Zephyr into the dock. Instead, we pulled out our jerry cans and two wheeled dolly and dragged them back and forth. Empty one way and full the other. There's a story behind the cans we use. In the US as is most of the rest of the world, if you've seen one jerry can, you're pretty much seen them all. Not so with Zephyr. We have two of the traditional "yellow" diesel jerry cans and then we have two special cans that we got from our friends on Night Fly(Warren & Maria). We both crossed from the Maldives to the Seychelles in the Indian Ocean at almost the same time(2014 I think). It was a slow crossing with us taking 18 days, what we thought was a new record for slowness but Night Fly took 19 days and ran out of fuel along the way! There was just about no wind for most of the trip and since we were conserving fuel, there was one day we actually went backwards due to the current. As for Night Fly, once they ran out of diesel, they were lucky enough to have a container ship from Shell Oil pass close enough to radio and ask for help. With Maria at the helm and Warren on the lifelines, the men on the ship slowly lowered 220 liters of fuel down to them on lines as poor Night Fly was thrown around right next to the hull of this huge ship. In the end, Night Fly got their fuel, filled their tanks and took off for the Seychelles a day or so behind us. Once in the Seychelles, they offered us two of the blue plastic fuel containers(used to hold fuel oil)and we have used them many times since to keep our tanks full when there isn't a fuel dock available. What sets them apart from "normal" jerry cans is that they can be stacked, one on top of the other for transport on a two wheel dolly.
When we left Panama, we filled no only our fuel tanks(hold about 220 gallons) and our four jerry cans(two blue and two yellow)for an additional 20 gallons. Not knowing what the weather was going to be(wind or no wind), we wanted to make sure we had plenty of fuel should the need arise. If you've been reading our previous posts, you know that we've had just about no wind since we left Panama, about 900 miles ago so we have used a good bit of fuel. Panama was about $2.65 per gallon. Costa Rica was $4.01 and now in El Salvador at $3.10 a gallon. We used the 20 gallons we had in our jerry cans and bought an additional 35 gallons and our tanks are full with one of the jerry cans refilled with 5 new gallons. When you measure how much fuel you have in the tanks using a wooden dowel with ink circles drawn around it at 1 inch intervals it's hard to know exactly how much fuel is needed to top up the tanks. As it ended up, we had five gallons more than our tanks would hold so that jerry can now sits in the forward locker for when we need it.
With the temperature in the high 80s, I was needless to say a sweat soaked mess once we got the project done and everything cleaned up so it was off to the showers for me. I was a mess but now I'm nice and clean and feeling better.
It's now almost 1700 and we are sitting up at the pool relaxing with some other cruisers that have made themselves at home here in Bahia Del Sol. They anchor off the marina or take one of the many mooring balls that have been placed and maintained by Bill who manages the resort and comes out in an boat to escort cruisers in over the sand bar that can block boats from coming into the estuary. It's a nice place to spend a much cooler afternoon now that the Sun has started to set.

It's now Saturday morning and Snowshoe just fell off the boat! As I was sitting down to breakfast, I looked out the port light and saw him walking on the outside of the lifeline nets we have around the boat. He was tottering on top of the teak toerail. Suddenly, he was gone with a noise of lots of scratching nails on what ever he could grab. Tracy went running onto the deck just as he pulled himself back to the rail. He'd grabbed one of our fenders that's covered in fabric on the way down but his rear end was down in the rushing water. Being on an estuary, the water can reach a good 4 knots and he's lucky he caught it since if he would have been quickly swept away in the rushing current. Tracy grabbed him with Blue looking on with big buggy eyes staring at him. I grabbed a bucket for him to be put in as Tracy got to the companionway with a cat dripping with brackish water off his feet. He was not impressed. Tracy put him in the bucket(further humiliating him) and took him into the strewn head for a quick shower as I went forward for a towel. Just to show Tracy how impressed he was, he clawed all across her back just to show her how upset he was. Once washed and in the towel and dried(sort of) we carried him forward to the main salon. While all this was going on, Blue was following us around the cabin staring at Snowshoe with big buggy eyes, not taking her eyes off him for a second. She just knew we'd brought another cat on board and she was not impressed and she wanted him and us to know that. Once I put him down, there was a sniffing fest going on with each cat sniffing each other. Blue then started her growling and hissing and took a left hook at him snatching a wad of his dry hair. We, of course, separated them and sent them to their corners waiting for the next boeing bell to run so they could com out swinging. Blue is up on the top of the back of the settee and Snowshoe has plunked himself in the forward head(where he spends a great deal of his day catching up on his 22 hours a day sleeping) and has gone back to sleep. Blue meanwhile is ever vigilant not about to catch any shut eye. She just knows something is going on and since she owns the boat(just ask her)she going to protect her territory. As to how he got outside the net, well that's anyones guess. There are some gaps up and the bow but the majority of the net comes clear down to the deck. Will he try it again? Sure, this isn't the first time he's done this. He did it while we were in the Philippines and Blue did it while we were in Fiji. The grass is always greener on the far side of the net and being cats, well they need to explore and see what's out there beyond the net. The saga continues. It's going to be an interesting day.