The heat is back

Hank and Debbie from Florida have arrived and brought wonderfully warm weather with them. Doing the tourist stuff, Bishop's, beaches, fish fry, dinghy tour, blue hole, etc. etc.

Boated down to the yacht club

Cracked conch at Bishop's

 

No one thought to take a camera to the fish fry. Two days later we made our own fish. Gerry scorched it, Hank cooked it. Was pretty darned good.

Only two things marred the week: conditions weren't favourable for sailing and the water was too churned up at the blue hole to actually see anything. Can't have it all. 

Sorry, another hermit crab post

Hank and I walked down the beach, without a camera of course and came upon a crab convention. One crab was ousted so we waited in keen anticipation to see what would happen next. Answer: nothing. The bully that had thrown his fellow crab out remained in his own shell and stretched himself over the opening of the other. Hank thinks his plan was to wait until the other crab died of exposure thus eliminating him.  His secondary plan might have been for us to succumb to heat stroke so I picked him up, the naked crab jumped back into his shell and I put them both in my bucket.

The bully is on top but couldn't pull him out.

Crabs

The green shelled crab spent at least half an hour investigating the empty shell I found, rejected it and wandered away. The bully spent most of this time sulking while the other crab tried to right himself so he could get away. We couldn't wait around all day so I finally flipped him over.

 

Arctic Air

The great white north has decided to share its horribly cold weather and has sent very very cold air down here. A low of 6 (feels like 2) isn't fun when you don't have heat. Fortunately for us it will be short lived - we've been promised fair weather in a few days.

Cold enough to build a fire - seems to be more smoke than fire.

Crowds and silicone

A most terrible thing has happened - we were at our favourite beach and 2 tourists walked right past us! A short greeting was exchanged and they kept on going.  Apparently they didn't get the memo, this is my private beach. I've taken ownership because I'm the one that's been cleaning it up. Plastic does eventually disintegrate in the sun but I don't want to look at it while it's doing it. I've started a shoe collection and a pretty bottle collection; to date I've kept 3 pristine plastic cups from cruise ships and have saved 5 washed-ashore barely alive conchs.

Last month these people walked past us. It's getting way too crowded.

They came from way down the beach and kept right on walking. One of them raised his drink to us in greeting, not even slowing down. Guess they didn't need help.

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Just a reminder to those who think it's all glamour and fun down here living on a "yacht." I spent the better part of yesterday scrubbing the decks on Dirty Girl and removing the silicone that Gerry, for reasons I don't understand, put around some of the edges on the back deck.

Should have taken a picture of my scraped knuckles.

Hermit Crab Exchange

Yesterday was Chris's last day and fortunately was a beach day. While she and Gerry got some exercise I sat patiently on the beach trying to catch a hermit crab shell exchange. Unfortunately I didn't capture it on my camera. I had just shut my camera off so there was no time - the little guy just flipped his back end out of one shell into another (one I had brought to the group). There was a lot of activity on the beach and I spent ages watching it. They were especially vigilant, every time I moved even just a fraction of an inch they yanked themselves back into their shells.

The thing on the right is a crab crammed into a broken piece of coral.

The same one is in the center of this collection of empty shells we had found. He rejected them all, even the one he spent many minutes inspecting. What an ingrate. I've spared you the boring video.

After taking an hour break I walked back to the exchange (with empty shells) and was surprised that not only was it ongoing but there were even more of them. The round white-shelled crab in this video came strutting down the beach, saw the action, walzed in and tried to take over.

The green-shelled crab with a hole, thoroughly examined a few shells but in the end rejected them all.

Scenes from the boat

Moonrise - full moon February 3










Double rainbow after a brief shower. My camera doesn't do it justice it was much more colourful.

This Winter's Project UPDATE

We finally got the seats sent out for recovering and they came back just days later - quite an accomplishment in the Bahamas.

Chris supervising installation of backrest.

Stapling the corner - tricky business.

Stapling the front edge. Notice the great stain job?

Port side complete.

Stapling the aft. Once again, great stain job.

All done!

Flying Octogenarian

After 3 days of ear pain Gerry insisted I see a doctor so I asked Gary about the doctor that stitched his arm up. He won't appreciate me telling that story because his is much more colourful. Coincidentally there was a potluck at the yacht club and he invited us along to meet her. She's quite the character - 80 years old, still practicing medicine and still flying her 172 Cessna (alone). After chatting with her for a while (she has great stories) she told me just drop in the next morning, any time!

Next morning, it was pouring rain so we didn't leave till after 10 and unbelievably there was only 1 person ahead of me. She loves guts, gore and stitching people up - I was only a little bit sorry that wasn't going to happen with me. She asked if I'd had any operations - the reason? She likes to see other peoples' work. I felt badly that I only had a tonsillectomy to show her - she said they did a good job, I think she was disappointed.  The only painful part of all this is that we had to drive all over Freeport looking for a pharmacy that had the prescribed ear drops - only 1 out of 4 did.

Medical update: Since we have medical insurance I had called to tell them I was thinking about going to the doctor so they opened a case file. Weeks later we had to "top up" that coverage and Great West (my company) won't do it.  I called 2 companies Manulife (our usual top up company) and CAA only to discover that since I had made a claim (even though not with them) they refused to insure me - for an ear infection??? I called Great West to cancel my claim and they said it was closed since I didn't call them back to say I had seen a doctor. Got Gerry to call CAA back (in case I got the same person) and we now have coverage.

Ground Hog Day

Don't have any ground hogs and he wouldn't have seen his shadow here. It was unfortunately cloudy and windy as hell when we were on the beach, and on the way home it rained.

Waves are much bigger than they appear.

Jumping the waves

Make-shift wind break.

Still better than this - Steve and Anita's driveway in Ontario.

Steve and Anita's driveway

David from NB sent this