Sorry for the long gap. We were not doing anything exciting, waiting for Derek to get back from his Navy stuff. well, I guess if you're friends or family, you might consider Grant getting a haircut exciting. I tried to copy a sample image he downloaded for it:
Derek got back from Port Hueneme and his parents' place yesterday afternoon, to much rejoicing aboard Parallax! Almost the first thing he did was examine the hydraulic cylinder package that had arrived while he was gone -- looks like the hose fittings aren't the right size exactly, but he knows where in Nassau to go for new ones, so that's no problem.
I had just done a laundry ($7 for one load, but I also use the hand-laundry system we brought with us, a turn-of-the-last-century design that looks very much like a plunger and which fits inside a 5-gallon bucket (the washtub). The action is similar to churning butter, and will leave your arms a little sore for a couple of days afterward if you are not currently doing tricep pushdowns in your workouts. Even better, the centrifuge!!! It's sort of like the spin cycle on a washing machine (only a little faster), you pack in clothes leaving no gaps, put a protective cover on at the top, and switch that puppy on... it spins up, soon it's putting serious gees on your clothes and a gush of water is swooshing out the spigot at the bottom. eventually when the water slows to drips, you turn it off, and this cuts your drying time to about an hour on a sunny day. The laundry spinner and the plunger and bucket:
Here's the laundry drying and the ham radio antenna that Nick and Carolyn use to do their daily weather broadcasts:
Last night it started raining abruptly, which is always a clown-car amusement on a boat: you have the hatches open for ventilation and everyone starts running around closing stuff so we don't get soaked. Derek and Grant and I had all gone to bed already, and Grant came out of his room while I was still closing the forward hatch and closed the aft hatch and small side opening ports. I know this doesn't seem impressive, but it was very responsible of him. When the pitter patter of rain begins, you have a matter of ten to twenty seconds to react if you are going to keep important stuff from getting wet; Grant didn't wait for someone else to do it, he jumped right on it!
Meanwhile, Derek was regaling us with the story of his JetBlue flight back to the Bahamas:
"JetBlue, in theirinfinite wisdom, refused to let me check in because I didn't have a return ticket. I showed them my cruising permit and explained, so they
called a supervisor who said OBVIOUSLY I needed a return flight. I
argued, fairly loudly. Finally, they offered to "let" me buy a return
ticket, though of course since it was the last minute it would cost
$1400. Not a good solution.
I tried to get them to call Bahamas immigration. Eventually, they
called customs (not immigration), and US customs (not Bahamian).
Unsurprisingly, US Customs told them the US didn't care WHAT they did.
After lots of supervisor involvement, they decided to call Bahamian
immigration, but couldn't find a phone number. I used my phone to find
a whole bunch and started calling them. Eventually I got through, and
the Bahamian immigration guy agreed to speak with them, though he was
clearly confused by why they were such idiots. He did manage to
convince them to let me board....this whole process took about an hour
and 15 minutes. Nothing like a little stress to start the trip.
The funny part is this. After all the fuss about how they couldn't
possibly be irresponsible enough to let me board without a return
flight, they happily took my word for the fact that the guy on the
other end of the line on my cell phone was from Bahamian customs. He
could have been my friend Joe, for all they knew!!"
Now, JetBlue had sold him a round-trip from Nassau, Bahamas, to Orlando and back to Nassau, weeks ago. Note that the whole time they were running in circles over his non-need for a return ticket, they were tying up one of only three functioning check-in windows, so the line of passengers waiting to check in was getting longer and longer. Did they open another window? Oh, no, no. But that was not all. After showing up three hours ahead of time for his flight, Derek was the last person onto the plane. As he arrived, the gate agent gave him a stern lecture: "Sir, this is an international flight, you have to show up well in advance to avoid making the flight late or missing it! You have delayed all of these people..." etc. Think he lost it right about there, not entirely sure, but there may have been some mention of how early he had in fact arrived, how much of his time had been wasted by the circus act at check-in, and how he had had to solve the problem himself, providing an hour's worth of training to six JetBlue agents and supervisors, for which he would be happy to bill JetBlue...
Before they headed to Bimini and eventually back to their friend's dock for the summer, Robin and Liz arranged a dinner with Nick and our own boat -- there were not many people about that day. I'd say Liz did a great job!
Liz and Nick readying table:
Right after they got back from Hong Kong, Walt and Meryl on S/V Flying Cloud came along to the Thursday Cruiser Lunch in Nassau at the Green Parrot:
And tomorrow is another Cruiser Lunch... our third. That's a lot of weeks of Navy Duty and Waiting For Repaired Stuff. But tomorrow we are also renting a car and will go get the hydraulic fittings (the cylinder fits just fine), the port side transmissions old and new, and we'll UPS some checks to deposit in the States and finish up with another "inaccessible without a car" visit.