Hey, guess what? It's raining again. I read somewhere that this is supposed to be the "dry" season here in the Seychelles. I'm thinking Mother Nature didn't get the memo again. We are socked in with clouds and looking out from the stern of the boat, it's pretty much "White Out" conditions it's raining so hard north of here. It's been raining for the last couple of hours but didn't really hit it's stride till about 45 minutes ago. Now, it's pouring and what the heck, throw in a few miles per hour of wind and it's delightful. As we sit here, we suddenly see another sailboat about to enter the harbor. Came down from the northwest. No clue yet as to who it is but I'll tell you they aren't dry by any stretch of the imagination. If they are anything like the last cat that came in here, I expect they will drop their hook right beside us. Anyway, back to the post.
Our plan for today, at least the morning, was to put on scuba tanks and clean to bottom of what ever might be growing down there. At 0930, with the generator running and the water maker running, in I went with my trusty side kick on deck ready to hand down scrapers or brushes or what ever I needed to get the job done. I made sure to put on the "stinger suit" I had made back in Mexico to stop jelly fish from getting to me. Not much insulation from the cold water(about 77 degrees)but something beats nothing. I started at the bow and worked back to the stern where most of the "growth" was. Working with a scraper, I popped of numerous barnacles till I got to the stern. For a boat that's been in the water since early February, we had very little in number. Good paint.
Once I got to the stern, I started in on the prop. Not a mess but more growth that we like. First the scraper and then a stiff wire brush. Each blade of the prop getting attention. Once the scraper was done, on to the stiff wire brush. Again, each blade getting a lot of brushes. Then back to the scraper to get off what the brush might have missed and make the surface as smooth as possible. Once it was "clean", I had Tracy hand down an allen wrench to take off the big chunk of zinc that is screwed to the back of the prop. It's lasted a good 6 months also but it was time to replace it since I had my tanks on and it's much easier to do it that way. With that installed, Tracy took the allen wrench back and handed down our pot of Lanocoat. A thick goopy glop of sheep grease. We've used it for years on our prop or any thing else we want to stop or at least slow down the grown of under water life. Once it's on, it's darn near impossible to get off. Perfect for underwater usage. I took off my scuba gear and Tracy hoisted it back on board. I climbed up and headed below to take a shower and rinse off all the salt water off my scuba gear. As Tracy we inspecting it, she found that the regulator for my scuba gear is cracked and a big piece is missing. No idea what happened to it as I had it inspected and fixed when I was in the US last year. Guess it's time for a new one. Once showered and cleaned, we put Puff in the water and headed for shore for lunch. We'd eaten at the Anchor Cafe back on July 4th and knew they had good food and after all the work we did this morning, we needed a break. We found a nice place to pull up on shore and tie to a tree and hike the short distance to the restaurant. While they had Chicken Curry, at over $20 a plate, I actually passed on it for a much cheaper cheese burger. There is a limit as to how much I'll pay for Chicken Curry and they are out of my ball park.
Once done with lunch, it started to sprinkle again but knowing we won't melt, we hiked down the street a bit to a small mini mart to see if they had anything interesting. Nope, not a thing we needed so we hiked back to Puff and headed back to Zephyr with the rain picking up. We'd closed the top hatches but not the port lights so, not wanting any water inside, we needed to get back and get them closed. Of course, as soon as we got back, the rain stopped but as expected, it started back up about 30 minutes later with a nice down pour. It's now stopped again but the day is early and there is plenty of time left for more. The charter catamaran that came in yesterday afternoon decided to stay another day and the boat that was coming in when I first started typing this post is Night Fly with Warren and Maria on board. They had been anchored up at Beau Vallon and came down when the wind and waves had let up. During their trip south along the coast, they came upon a sunken catamaran. They went over to it and Warren dove in to inspect but didn't see anything. He called the Port Captain in Port Victoria to let them know what and where they found the boat. The answer from the Port Captain was that they were going to send some one out to check it out next week. Since it's adrift, I wish them luck finding it or who ever was on board.
So now we are settled in for the rest of the day and wait for our package of parts to come in on Monday. We'll be taking the bus over to get it and stop in at the shop that's repairing the DuoGen. It's going to be a fun day.