No good deed goes unpunished

 It's almost time to return north for the summer and there's tons to do. Here's a small sampling:

Richard volunteered to tow the MacGregor to the launch ramp since we had to "borrow" the battery to make the jeep run, which we needed to tow the boat back to the yard.  I got to steer so it wouldn't wander behind the dinghy too much and Gerry drove the jeep over to the ramp. As for the title of this entry: Richard's dinghy broke down on his return trip and he had to row most of the way back - took hours.

Richard holding boats

oops, apparently the winch is not supposed 

to fly off.

Where she sits for the summer

Time out to admire the bougainvillea

Folding up Ramblynn's main sail.

Main and jib in 1 bag too heavy to carry.

This beauty looks quite dead all winter then suddenly blossoms.

Eddy helping lift the dinghy onto Ramblynn

Trees had to be cut back and Richard put on a new roof.

Now it's time to return to Ontario where I hear it is STILL raining and STILL chilly.

Back to paradise

Back on the boat for 10 days, escaping the rainy weather in Ontario, is anyone building an ark yet?

Haven't traveled a road less traveled for a while so off we went to see what could be found.  We headed east in search of a new bar/restaurant that just opened. Of course we couldn't just drive straight there, detours must be made and just past, oops, can't tell you, apparently it's classified information.

Deep water canal

with lots of boat traffic

An amazingly broad beach

with sand so hard you could drive on it

with no fear of sinking

 

No shells on this beach but found this crab in the water, waving his claws at me. It's truly amazing that he can sink into the sand and disappear completely from site.

Without a map you never know where you'll end up.

 We finally found the restaurant "Bahama John's." And I think it was John himself who entertained us playing the knives, not little ones, really really big ones and you don't play them like spoons. He tried to teach Gerry but we soon discovered that I was the one with talent this time. The place is quite picturesque, except for the circling vultures. You can order anything you want on the menu, as long as it's what they've got. Took a few stabs to actually find something on the menu that they had. I tried to order a virgin pina colada and after about 10-15 minutes the waiter came back and said they didn't have the mix, so talked me into a virgin gully wash (coconut water and sweetened milk). Unfortunately in his exuberance to do this he forgot to take our food order so we had to wait until he located a coconut, searched for a machete, chopped the coconut open, found the milk, mixed the drink and returned to our table - quite pleased with himself.  Gerry of course ordered a fish sandwich (as usual) and I tried to order a fish entre ($10 including 2 sides) with no added spices, but the waiter came back, eventually, and admitted that that particular fish was pre-spiced, so it was a fish sandwich ($9 with one side) for me as well. Food was pretty good, and arrived fairly quickly, once we finally ordered it and we didn't starve to death.  I'm sure the vultures, who were now eyeing us from the beach were extremely disappointed.

Rain, bed and back south

May 15 and guess what - raining again! Between rainy days I managed to fru fru (as Gerry would say) up the trailer (see photo) and fetch my bed. The other photo is part of my bed (memory foam) which I'm squeezing into the trailer.  Too bad I don't have photos of the trip back from Waterloo with Chris, pulling Les's trailer, which we fortunately never had to backup.  Of course we didn't bother tying it down as firmly as the boys would have - one bungee across and one rope lengthwise. We had the boxspring on top weighing it all down but it kept shifting so we stopped a few times to push it back into place.  The plan was to drop the boxspring off at one of the goodwill type places in Stratford (where I knew I wouldn't have to backup the trailer), but when we pulled in there was a sign saying no mattresses! After about 2 seconds of thought I said, "This is not a mattress it's a boxspring, quick jump out and pull it off before someone notices!"  It's great to have a willing accomplice. 

Off for 10 days in the sultry heat of Port Lucaya, and I've been warned (more than once) that I'm not allowed to complain about the heat and humidity.

This is Spring????

I wonder what we've done to deserve the worst spring I can remember - rain almost every single day and the temperature barely reaching into the teens, if we're lucky. Needless to say no sailing has been done and not much work at the trailer either.  Most of the park is so wet few people can park on their site. My car is so heavy and the lawn so wet I would sink out of sight.

On one of the few days it wasn't raining Gerry decided to bury the hose and power cord so we don't run over them with the lawn mower. Luckily he discovered a pipe running from the water/hydro post to the trailer but unluckily it had a tree growing through it and was deeply buried at one end. Took some doing but he managed to get the job done. I did cleaner work, arranging the deck and lawn furniture and hanging the gecko Betty so generously crafted for me. The next almost sunny day we managed to wash the awning. Such excitement, I can hardly stand it. Gerry couldn't take it and escaped to Port Lucaya - I am really wondering why I didn't!