The Big Shave
30 July 2007 | Cariacou
Randy
We had a lazy day today. Fred and Cindy had sailed all the way down to Tyrrel Bay yesterday so we were left to our own devices. We stopped in at Hillsborough to clear in, which required an immigration, customs and port captain visit. After that we walked around town a little and stopped by a pizza place for lunch. The pizza was ok but it was hot like Africa in there.
The Cariacou Regatta was taking place next weekend and a fair amount of preparations were underway in town. We checked the regatta headquarters out but apparently it serves as a bar unless a scheduled event is taking place.
Roq has been panting a bit more than normal these days. It is August in the Caribbean. After some discussion we decided that it was finally time for a shave. We wanted to take as much of Roq's coat off as possible without exposing him to sun burn. Roq was not at all pleased with the prospect.
We used a #3 clipper. It took a long time because the clippers would bind up every once in a while and we would have to clean them out. It also takes a while to get the fur directions figured out so that you can get the clippers to bite rather than just laying the hair down. Every time we paused, Roq would make a B line for the cabin. I marveled at the new skills I am developing. Self sufficiency can be odd at times.
Once we finished Roq looked pretty different. The black long hair no longer dominated his coloring; it was more the grey undercoat. The clean cut look made him seem a bit younger while at the same time the grey made him look a little older. After getting over the indignation of it all he seemed to enjoy the low R value of the new insulation, and became notably friskier.
That evening there was much ado on the weather nets about a possible nasty low pressure system coming off of one of the waves in the Atlantic. This was scare #2 of the season. It had not developed as of yet but several models predicted tropical storm development. We enjoyed one more night in Hillsborough Bay as we planned our escape route should things on the weather front get nasty. We noted that we were less than one good days run from Trinidad or Venezuela.