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Larry's LogWe invited John, a singlehander on the boat 2 slips away from us, over for dinner that evening. He had been very nice and helped Diane with some sewing projects and was going home for a while and we wanted to get together before he left the next day. I was also going to check his boat, Sojourn, for him while he was away for the next few weeks. Diane made her famous Penne ala Vodka, which John had never had before, and it was a very nice evening. He offered to show us some favorite anchoring spots on the charts for the BVI and USVI when he got back, as he had spent several months there. Sounds good, we wanted to go there at some point. Wednesday we were still busy; Diane with sewing and me with updating the web site and checking our accounts through the Internet. Last night, John said I could borrow his bicycle and that let me get around easily so I also checked on the progress of the woodworking projects I had dropped off. I'm glad I did as they did have some questions although they had started the work. After finishing with the Internet, I came back and did some odd chores around the boat and we then went to dinner at Joe's Pizza with Mima, Just Desserts and Chris, a singlehander from Romany Life. Romany Life was a Hylas 54 and Chris was a young guy who had just sold his business to go sailing. He had owned a large powerboat before but this was his first sailboat and he had just bought it 6 months ago. He had made it down here OK, but I think he was a bit over confident about sailing. I wish him luck though. The next morning I had several errands to run. I was going to go to TTSA to help Joyce with her Sailmail problem later. Diane went shopping while I used John's bicycle to go to see Mike and Nancy on Footloose, although they weren't there. I wanted to give Mike a diskette with some turtle pictures that I took when we went on the turtle watch. I visited with Mima for a bit and then went over to Second Tri at TTSA. Jack picked me up in the dinghy and we went back to the boat. I tried several things to solve the problem, which manifested itself as the mouse jumping and acting erratically when the modem was transmitting. There were no conflicts in the system and it wasn't the radio. I suggested sending an email back to Don Melcher of HF Radio On Board, where they had bought the equipment. I had also used Don so I felt he would probably have heard about this problem before. They had gotten some help from the Sailmail organization, and had done what was suggested but it hadn't helped. After it stopped raining (again), we went to lunch at the restaurant there. For 20 TT, I had a nice sized cheeseburger and lots of French fries. After it stopped raining (again), I went back to find Footloose and found Mike walking Roxanne, their Yorkshire terrier. We swapped diskettes and we talked for a while. He was helping a friend with their computer so I stayed a bit to help there. We solved one problem but I left before we got everything working again. Oh well. That evening we went to the potluck dinner at CrewsInn. We had invited Mima but Tom's leg was still not very good so they had declined. We also invited Ken and Vesta and they did come. The turnout wasn't as good as the last time we went, but I think that a lot of people had left (gone home for a visit) and many boats were unoccupied. We had very good time though since Ken and Vesta, Paul from Autumn Wind and Don from Suzannah were at our table. Friday I planned to help Tom and Stephanie pick up their new stove. It had supposedly arrived and could be picked up from the warehouse after clearing customs. Since Tom's leg was still red and swollen, they decided to see another doctor. They had gotten a referral from a friend and made an appointment for 9:30 that morning. After picking me up they went to TTSA, got Jack from Second Tri, and went to the doctor's office in Port-of-Spain. The doctor said it had been a bad infection, gave Tom some prescriptions and we then went to fill them. We then went to the Venezuelan Consulate so Jack could pick up his visas and then we went to lunch at the TGI Fridays. We stopped at a hardware store for me but they didn't have what I needed and so we went on to the shipping office. That started the paperwork and the run-around. We finally got to the warehouse only to find out that the person with the key for the location where the stove was (hopefully) had already gone for the weekend, at only 3:10 in the afternoon. We would have to come back on Monday. Tom and Steph took it much better than I (or Diane) would have. We left but on the way back we stopped at another hardware store and I had some success there. We also stopped at a little bakery where we bought some donuts for later. After we dropped Jack off, I asked if we could stop at the woodworking shop where I hoped my projects would be done. The boat yard was open but the shop was closed - tomorrow. They brought me back to my marina and then went home. As I got on the dock, Barbara from Black Cat said the power on the dock was out. Great, no air conditioning. The marina staff said it would be back on within 2 hours - I hope so, it had already been off for 2 hours and it was starting to get very warm below. Diane and I went to the pool and then took showers. We got back to the boat and amazingly the power was back. OK, nice job guys, and on a Friday night too. Saturday Diane left early for a shopping trip. I got up, made coffee and started updating my logs. We had made plans to go to the movies with Ken and Vesta but I had to call them to confirm it. They said yes and were coming over at 10:30. I went over to pick up the shirts that Sherrie was making and to check on the progress of the woodwork projects. Sherrie had everything done except put the buttons on my shirt so I said I would come right back and went to the woodworking shop in the next boat yard. The projects were almost done (they were supposed to be done the day before) but they looked OK and I said I would come back on Monday. I went back to Sherrie, picked up the clothes and was on my way back when I saw Stephanie walking back from dropping off their rental car. I stopped at Mima for a bit to chat and then went back to Destiny. Ken and Vesta were already there and so were Jack and Joyce. They wanted to come along and when I got Diane, she said that Ralph and Barbara also wanted to come. So all 8 of us went to the movies. After an easy ride in the maxi taxi (public bus) we got to the movie theater. We paid for our tickets (about $2 US each) and saw a double feature of Evolution, a science fiction comedy, and Planet of the Apes, the remake. Both were really good, especially since we hadn't been to the movies in about a year. A small bag of popcorn and a 20 ounce Coke together was also a little less than dollar - not exactly NYC prices where you pay $10 for one movie and $5 for the popcorn alone! |