Once upon a time there was this boy who knew things around might make a difference but failed to listen to their suggestions. One day has he was taking the dingy over to the fuel dock to fill two containers with diesel fuel, he looked at the cap on one of the containers and saw it was broken. It was not the first time he had noticed it and one time even used epoxy to glue it back to gather but that had long ago failed and not been repaired.
“Not a problem,” he said to himself. “I am only going to fill it and then bring it back and empty it into the boat. I can do that.”
The caps removed on both bright yellow containers he filled them up, put the caps back on and went into the office to pay. He then dropped the one with the solid cap into the boat in it’s upright position and the second one he put on the raised area at the front of the boat. As he placed it there he thought to himself, “ That might tip over. I will need to be very careful.”
Getting back into the boat he placed his size 13 feet into the front raised deck nudging the container with the broken top to become unbalanced. It fell into the boat. He reacted quickly and jumped down into the dingy. Perhaps a little too quickly since as he bounced down his glasses flew right off of his face and into the water. The diesel fuel flowing into the boat was forgotten as he reached for his lost glasses, he touched them but could not get his fingers around them. He could still see them and in a valiant effort reached just a little further. With that weight shift, over he went into the sea with his glasses.
Sputtering and spitting out water he looked down but could no longer see his glasses. The diesel fuel was covering the bottom of the dingy and he crawled over the inflated dingy tube and into the boat where he righted the fuel container.
He assessed his current situation. His glasses are 20 feet down at the bottom of the mirky water, diesel fuel covers the bottom of the dingy and he just took an unplanned saltwater bath. Soaking wet he reaches into his pocket to find his billfold and money soggy.
“ Oh Fudge,” he says. Well maybe the language was a little stronger than that.
He pulls the cord on the outboard motor and starts it up and heads back to his boat.
“That was not how I wanted to start my day.”
All in the life of a cruiser. I soaked up the fuel, cleaned the bottom of the dingy with dawn, located my spare glasses, filled Mile High Dreams fuel tank and thought. “I wish I had put a safety strap on my glasses.”
They had been falling off at regular intervals before and the needle nose plier fix hadn’t lasted. I think i mentioned about this boy failing to listen to suggestions.
Now I have left the dock and am anchored outside of the town of St. Louis in Marie Galante, another French state. I will be sailing around by myself for ten days until my next crew arrives on March 6. This is the longest time period I have sailed by myself. Sailing may not be totally correct since I spent a couple of days at anchor before sailing 20 miles to here. I will probably only sail about 40 miles total until I arrive back at the Marina.