Near Mutiny
March 8, 2011
I spent some of yesterday removing Honey Teak™ from the port toe rail. It was hot and there was no wind. I reached the allotted time of two hours boat work per day as ordered by the captain (that would be me) while the Admiral worked feverously to finish a book on her Kindle. She had her back to me during my toils so she could not see that old grumpy was about to pass out from the heat by nature and from the heat gun I was using to melt the finish on the rail. I was motivated, as I will be today, to get all the HT off the rail before we receive guests on the 20th and calculated that a series of two hours work details will get-r-done in time. Looking forward to a sit down and an adult beverage I asked the Admiral to fetch a tot or two and meet me in the shade of the bimini. That’s when I was informed that if I should require said tot or two, I would have to trot my carcass to the store on the other side of this harbor. What says I? Surely (I don’t call her that often) you must be joking. The ship’s adult beverage stores are depleted in the rotten tater department? Tell me it ain’t so, Jo? She confirmed same and told me she gave me a status report earlier in the day. It must have been the sun or perhaps the leftover beta waves from my nap that erased that small, but significant fact. So, there I was with near heat stroke and numb legs from sitting with my legs hanging over that same toe rail for two hours, needing to hop on “Ole Daubin”, my faithful transportation sidekick bicycle, truddle my chunky rear four miles before I could partake of the requested beverage. Wow, what a bummer. It is basically uphill in both directions but at least I could see the Sea of Abaco for some of it. By the time I made it to the store, dehydration was causing me to weave in the left handed, no sidewalk, narrow lane road where Bahamians take some pride in near misses. I think we made contact a time or two between my shorts and their fenders but there were no injuries. Besides that, it would not have hurt anyway since I was having system shutdown. I walked into the store in a rather “lathered up state” and acquired the rotten potato juice. The trip back to the boat was a mere two miles away but it might have been a forced march. I still managed to peddle up the long hill without getting off Daubin. Needless to say, both Daubin and I were glad to reach the marina. The walk down the dock was past the grill/bar and several other boaters noticed that old Bligh needed something cold, preferably water. Not to be had, they offered a barley pop which at least cooled me down to a slow drip. As I put old Daubin in place on the dock, Bear noticed that we should skip the cruisers happy hour and stay on the boat for dinner. Thank goodness. Life in the islands does have its challenges.