Friday 10 January 2020

Wind has come in with a vengeance and, with forward hatch open, is blowing up interior carpet and everything else not nailed down. Should last four or five days then take a hiatus for us to make St. Barts and St. Maarten without repeating the Indian Ocean experience. Highly touted Rocna anchor dragged through heavy mud bottom after being well set. Now have twelve to one scope with enough chain dragging on the bottom that the anchor is probably superfluous. We took the thing around the world and didn't lose the boat, but have had some problems. Considering returning to old reliable CQR. Visions of cabin fever are dancing in our heads due some reticence to leave boat unattended next few days plus neighbor's boat is sailing back and forth on its ground tackle like it wants to either spank us or decamp to somewhere more agreeable.

Notwithstanding we'll probably risk having boat drag to Honduras tomorrow by going ashore for more phone data and perhaps a wee dram with other degenerate cruisers - good crowd anchored here in Jolly Harbour. Already swapped books, now hope to find new movies for our giant 19" flat screen. May upgrade current unit as it is restricted to regions Down Under and in Asia - no free TV. When wifi not prohibitive we can watch Netflix, etc. through Apple TV and anyway having done without broadcast for awhile, wonder if there is anything worth watching. Probably not, but don't tell Jan. She's absolutely opposed to getting that awesome 88" Samsung curved screen. She focuses on some inconvenient, but irrelevant facts such as that because it won't fit below we would have to locate the thing on deck and build a waterproof enclosure. OK sure, sailing vision ahead would be blocked and windage would be horrendous, but gloryosky, anything worthwhile is worth a trivial amount of inconvenience, right! She may be willing to compromise on a locally enabled 21.

Saturday

Euclidean geometry explains why everything doesn't happen at the same place. Time explains why it doesn't happen all at once. Assumed true, these scientific theories allow vast expanses where very little occurs. Quite often on a boat they are proven wrong. This is not one of those occasions. As we meander for the next three days toward my birthday (a misnomer as it's merely an anniversary of that singular, august event) with howling wind and periodic rain, have reflected that we should discontinue vegetating and do something productive. Admittedly everything useful is working at the moment, but some broken systems are not being used. For example, the AC cooling, raw water pump is encrusted with rust and has discontinued operation. Onboard resides a spare for just such an eventuality, so an obvious strategy is presented: procrastinate until it's needed. As one might possibly miss, conscientiousness and judgment were two of the important occupational attributes that now allow us to be where we are, doing what we do and not use them.

Jack & Jan