21st March

18 20 N
64 56 W

Weather; sunny with a few showers, wind n/a, waves n/a

For the past few days I've put that the wind hasn't been applicable, this is because we are at anchor in the harbor however I thought I'd share with you the fact that the wind has been blowing a hooley with gusts up to around 30 knots. This is mostly evident at night time when the last thing in the world that you want is to find yourself or a boat near to you dragging its anchor, luckily everyone seems to be holding very well despite the wind doing its best to unhinge us. The reason for this sort of explanation is that we were having our early morning coffee when Gerry looked out of one of the portholes and noticed that one of our nearest neighbours was out in his dinghy with his dog and was trying his best to paddle with one oar towards his boat. At this point the wind was howling and gusting to 27 knots and the waves and current were both rough and too much to row in. This neighbor takes his dog ashore each morning for a walk so we guessed that was what he was trying to do except he seemed to be trying to get back to his boat without his outboard running, using just one oar and was moving further away from his boat with each successive gust - he was obviously in trouble. Gerry grabbed a tee shirt and jumped in our dinghy which luckily was in the water and ready to go and headed off towards the struggling neighbor who threw him a line and probably breathed a sigh of relief. Gerry towed him back to his boat, discovering that he had runout of fuel in the dinghy and was trying to get back to his boat for the spare fuel can. Another neighbor had appeared in his cockpit by now and had grabbed a rope to try and help but the man had already been blown past his boat by the time he had got the rope ready. At the rate he was paddling the poor guy would have ended up on the other side of the harbor very quickly as he was being blow backwards three times as quickly as he was going forwards so it was a good job that we were up early and that Gerry had spotted him! The dog didn't seem in the least bit concerned, he was going for his morning walk and was totally unaware that things weren't quite as they should have been! The lesson here is to always check that your fuel on board the dinghy is full before letting the painter line drop.
After a recovery cup of coffee Gerry was back in our dinghy and heading over to Gypsy Palace to help out Dale with whatever today's project was. I decided to stay on our boat and cook up some chicken that I'd defrosted overnight and instructed Gerry to invite Dale and Lorie for chicken stuffed crepes that night. Lorie of course came back asking what she could bring, that was a hard one - what do you have as a side with crepes? I ended up asking her to just bring a dessert of some sort and I'd figure out something to go with the crepes. So after making the chicken filling I came up with an apple slaw as a side dish and set about chopping vegetables for that. I'd had enough of cooking stuff for the moment so I spent the next little while reading and answering emails until that got to be boring. I then had a brain fart and thought I'd use up some stuff from the fridge and create a bit more space therein - a cheesecake came to mind as I had half used stuff which would go together to make one so I set about assembling the said cheesecake then decided that as I had apples and some caramel sauce I could turn the cheese cake into an apple and caramel one and set about doing that, it's now waiting to set firmly before we can see how successful it turns out to be. Meanwhile on Gypsy palace Gerry and Dale had apparently gone shopping as Dale urgently needed a new starting battery as his had died. They had sourced a new one and dinghied across the bay to purchase it then returned to install it. I don't think Gerry bought anything, or at least if he did I've yet to hear about it. These few things took up most of the day which might sound a bit ridiculous but everything on a boat takes about twice as long to achieve than it does on dry land. Gerry returned to our boat in time to help set up the cockpit for dinner and make some ice for our drinks, I'd had an ear ache for most of the day and wanted to lay down after taking a couple of analgesics to see if I could get rid of it by sleeping it off, I was at the point of dropping off to sleep when Gerry yelled out that it was raining - we needed to close the hatches down one of which was right above my head - there went the sleep! As usual the rain stopped as soon as the hatches were closed but I was fully awake now so got up, it was 5 o'clock somewhere (just not here) so we poured a wine and sat quietly drinking until Dale and Lorie arrived for dinner. Lorie had made a fruit pizza for dessert which was quite delicious but probably not the best thing for my sugar levels, not that it stopped me from having a second helping! As usual we discussed the state of the world according to the Corona Virus - whilst we are reasonably safe here and have just about everything we need, we are being affected by the closure of many of the ports along our proposed route and for the time being cannot really go anywhere - all very well except for the visa stuff, I'm not sure how that will pan out if the closures don't end before my visa runs out! We are still making plans and reservations further down the track as we really need to be in Trinidad by the first week in June to miss the hurricane season and also to be able to fly out to Australia as we have tickets but we aren't chiseling that in stone as no one can be certain what is going to happen between now and then. It's a bit of a worry as the insurance doesn't cover boats for this area during hurricane season so we might not even have insurance if we do get stuck here. On the positive side we are all well and have plenty of food and toilet paper - unlike so many places in the western world at present (see our local supermarket wall in the photo)! I hope that you are all keeping well, practicing social distancing and not going stir crazy. Tomorrow we are planning to go to home depot to buy a few essential bits, I can't say I'm looking forward to the up-hill hike from the safari bus stop but hopefully the great little cafeŽ we found up there will be open for a bite to eat as they made great burgers and salads.