Murder revisited

10:30 p.m. A relative of Alice the rat has been caught in the sticky trap I put in the flybridge after seeing droppings earlier in the day.

10:45 p.m. - couldn't take the noise of rat jumping around trying to release itself from sticky trap and fearing it would escape I hit it over the head with the deck broom.

11:15 p.m. - checked rat was still dead, went to bed. Someone else can dispose of the body, the someone who was too busy to deal with it when it was jumping around.

Score: Rats 0; Chris 1; Sophia 6; Gerry 0

Before you moan, "how could you just bash the poor thing" bear in mind these trespassers have not been eating any of our food, they are no doubt munching on the boat's insulation, wiring, cabling, rubber, walls, hoses, etc. They can do thousands of dollars of damage to a boat that you might not even find until you're out at sea, wondering why some vital component is no longer functioning.

On the other side of the coin, it's a good thing rats aren't intelligent enough to organize themselves and hire a lawyer (there's a joke in there somewhere) and sue us for causing trillions of damage to Mother Earth. They'd have a good argument over who should be bashed over the head.

Snorkeling 101

Honestly Chris I was laughing with you, not at you.

The top of the water is here somewhere

Getting closer..........

Skimming the surface

Ahh touchdown

Success!

October 16, 2012 Boat repair/prep - it never ends

Winds have been strong since we arrived but now that we want to go across to Florida they have completely, utterly, undeniably died. Wednesday's departure has been postponed to the weekend giving us lots of time to get Ramblynn shipshape and maybe test the jury-rigged water pump we've had to install and the home made thing-a-ma-bob to stop the top of the roller furling from turning - I think. If the pump, thing-a-ma-boband winds fail us we do have unlimited towing insurance.

A new (to us) engine awaits us in Florida - and getting it there from Nova Scotia is a long long tale of bureaucracy and stupidity (those words are synonyms aren't they?) that took about 2 weeks to sort out. Just ask Gerry, I'm sure he'd be glad to fill you in. I've almost convinced him to import Ramblynn into the Bahamas so we don't have to go to Florida if we don't want to. You're supposed to leave and re-enter Bahamas every year to renew your cruising permit.

Gary up his mast using his spiffy new mast ladder

All hands on deck, installing main sail.

Murder and Mayhem in the Bahamas

We arrrived late Monday evening and discovered droppings all over the power boat Dirty Girl. I don't mean a few here and there, about a million inside and out. A hundred rats and/or lizards must have moved in, or so we thought. Lizards because nothing was chewed up, rats because that's what you usually think it is. We cleaned up enough so we weren't stomping through the mess and called it a night. Next morning more cleaning taking time out to watch the shark (about 5' long) lazily swimming circles around the boat. Poor thing has a fishing line wrapped around it's tail, barely visible in the photo.

Nurse shark

On Tuesday cleaning soon became boring and we said “screw it, we're going to the beach.” It was so hot we spent most of the time in the water, watching a sea turtle touring the bay.

Wednesday is fish fry night down the road but I elected to stay behind in the freshly cleaned boat. So I'm sitting in the main salon when I noticed movement on the floor – a rat had just strolled in from the front of the boat. It didn't even see me until I moved and it scurried behind a table in the corner. For the next 1.5 hours I kept watch, scaring it back until Chris and Gerry came home, more than a little inebriated. Chris thought she could catch it by putting a bucket over it if it ran out and Gerry put a trap down thinking it would wander out on its own across the trap. The rat fooled them both and dashed across the room, disappearing behind the couch. We jammed mats under our bedroom doors and went to bed, thinking we had it trapped in the salon and we'll deal with it in the morning.

Thursday morning we found it had chewed its way under Chris's door so Chris and I (Gerry was at coffee club) tore the room apart, and found that our rat is a she, mother of 6, or she was – the young 'uns ended up in the canal (murder) and we're patiently waiting for dear mommy to fall into a trap. 

It's now Thursday evening, no sign of her, nor have we seen any more droppings, perhaps she's left the boat, hope so.

Guess there was no mayhem -- yet.


Update:

Friday, 5:00 a.m. mayhem struck. We had set traps in the side berth and salon. Chris opted to sleep on the couch so she'd have more room to run if the rat showed up, and show up she did, stepping on the sticky pad and running around like mad, with Chris standing on the couch shouting for Gerry to save her - was really funny (from my point of view). Gerry shoved it into a garbage can and tossed her and the sticky pad overboard. We woke both Richard and Gary, hopefully not the new neighbours.  For the bleeding hearts out there, the rat escaped and was last seen swimming for shore (minus the sticky pad) where I'm sure she's getting a posse together. I'm hoping she's smart enough to not venture back on board - we have more traps.

Chris standing on the couch, waiting to be rescued - the typical scene of a woman and mouse/rat.

Update: Saturday morning, October 13, no sign of Alice the rat.

Disney

Disney World is mostly how I remember it, except for the new attractions and I don't remember ever being as sore and tired - guess I'm not getting any younger. We stayed right on the grounds at one of the "value" resorts and had a quick service dining plan - quite handy since park food prices are high. We arrived hours before check-in but they give you your Key to the World and send you a text when your room is ready so you can go to the parks (if you want). Your key card is your room key, food plan, admission to the parks and credit card (purchases delivered to your room). So all you need to carry is that and maybe a water bottle, what could be easier?

Highs and Lows

Hollywood Studios: loved Star Tours, went on it 3 times the first day, went back on day 5 and rode it another 6 times - the ride was different every time. At the insistence of Chris's so-called friends we went on the Tower of Terror - never, never again. Toy Story, the Stunt Show and Beauty & the Beast were great.  Fantasmic (fireworks and water show), was too long, difficult to see, boring, and only had a few seconds of fireworks - a colossal waste of money - cut the budget and lower the park ticket prices. According to Wikipedia it costs $45,000 per show and sometimes it's shown twice a night.

Star Tours, our favourite ride

Animal Kingdom:  safari ride was great, walking trails interesting. The Everest roller coaster gave me a headache, will never ride that one again. Our favourite, was Kali River Rapids. We were fortunate to be directed to the wheelchair entrance. Why? Because after the ride we all begged to go around again and because no one in a wheelchair was waiting, they let us. Good thing it was hot, we were all dripping wet by the time we got off.

On safari

Everest

Kali River Rapids, our favourite - notice how wet that guy is?

We too were eventually that wet (drying in front of the fan)

In front of the Living Seas

 Day 3 was supposed to be the Magic Kingdom but it seemed the entire hotel was lined up at the bus stop so we went to Epcot - good choice we got on every ride with hardly any wait time (except Soarin' which we rode twice). Mission Space was interesting - you're in a centrifuge that creates forces up to 2.4g (Chris chickened out). The Land and the Sea pavilions were interesting, as usual. We didn't get to see much of IllumiNations. We were tired and wanted to beat the crowd out of the park but the fireworks we could see as we walked out were amazing - extra long because it was Epcot's 30th anniversary and our 3rd. We only took 2 pictures here!



Magic Kingdom: thought we had saved the best for last but we didn't enjoy it as much as other times, not sure why. The Pirates and the Jungle Cruise seemed lame, Monsters Inc and Mickeys Philharmonic were great, Stitch's Great Escape was the worst, - dark, stupid and painful. The bars to keep you seated kept hitting our shoulders, and not gently. Story was idiotic, Disney what were you thinking? The fireworks (and Tinkerbell ziplining overhead) were totally awesome. We accidentally ran into the light parade on our way out, was impressive as well.

Halloween decorations were everywhere.

Marvellous light parade

Disney does a great job - everything was clean, ride wait times weren't too bad, never had to wait long for a bus, room was good, staff (oops, Cast) were helpful and friendly, bathrooms and water fountains plentiful, food was good (portions too large). The meal plan gets you 2 meals (incl dessert and beverage) and 1 snack per person per day. We soon discovered sharing 2 meals could feed the 3 of us and we were hard pressed to use up the snacks. You also get a mug that you can refill endlessly at your resort. The meal plan can be used anywhere. Twice we drove to the upscale hotel down the road to have their (better) breakfast and Gerry could get something printed.

We wore a lot of these - good look isn't it?

Lego Land at Downtown Disney

 We're all Disney'd out, no plans in going back in the near future - next time will probably be with the grandkids. Sally has agreed to push me around the parks in a wheelchair.

All Star Music Cafeteria

Mickey waffle, everyone needs to eat at least one.

Our building is the one with the blue guy on white background.

Our last afternoon, we stayed inside and used up our meal plan before hitting the road.

Travelling in Ontario then to Florida

In August we took a wee tour up around Peterborough and dropped in on their famous locks.

Top of lock

Bottom of lock

Also, the St. Marys Cement factory had an open house complete with tours and hot dogs and contests. I won a gift certificate to the bookstore in town by guessing how much cement they make in one day. Most interesting was the experimental building which housed large vats of algae that were being fed by the waste products of the plant. A successful model of making bio fuel.

September 28

We (Chris, Gerry and I) left Ontario on Wednesday and have arrived in St. Augustine FL today, Friday. One must assume that I'm the better driver because I got all the best bits: driving through the pouring rain, up, down and around mountains, and when the highway was a hundred lanes wide, through cities with a million cars on the road. I hear no dissension so it must be true (mind you they're both asleep as I write this).  One of the few times I was in the back seat I decided to replace the too-short straps of my sundress, while wearing it. I cut off the useless back ties, cut off the original straps and attached the longer ones. One went on without a hitch but I soon discovered I had stitched the 2nd one around my seatbelt!!  I either had to cut it or the seatbelt - I chose the strap. I guess I'm the better driver and the comic relief.

We had one interesting stop -  the New River Gorge, West Virginia. On Bridge Day in October they close the bridge to all traffic and do base jumping. This year they're going to catapult a few people off it - silly creatures.

New River Gorge

New River Bridge

Scenery taken by Gerry from the opposite side of the back seat.

Paid a short visit to historic St. Augustine - quite an interesting town.  Had dinner out a very long pier where they had little doors you were supposed to throw food out to the fish but Gerry stuck his hand out and fed the stupid pigeons.

Catfish, and plenty of them.

Seagulls

Bridge over intra-coastal waterway

Instead of going back to a dull motel room we took a Ghost Tour. Was pretty mediocre until we got to the jail. The actor playing an inmate (dead of course) was really entertaining.

"The Bird Cage"

the stocks

Jail bird

Tomorrow we look at a boat Chris is interested in.
Update: boat was too small, on to Disney World!

August 18, 2012 - Best Wedding of the Century

We've flown out to Saskatoon to attend what turned out to be the best wedding we've ever been to. Sally and McKenzie outdid themselves in planning and executing the best day of their lives. The wedding was held in an old movie theatre, the Roxy, not a stuffy, pomp and circumstance affair - there was even popcorn and a'hottin' and a'hollerin'! The minister was serious and funny, the music was awesome, the brides beautiful and of course the kids were cute.

Check out the billboard

and of course there's a movie poster

Inside the Roxy

McKenzie's 93 year old Grandmother did a reading and brother Sam was the best man, hmm he seems to be the only man.

Ring bearer and Abby the flower girl

The reception was at Agar's farm just outside of town - the weather was perfect.

Head table

Cake pops seem to be the latest rage and they were yummy!

Dancing the night away.

The extremely happy couple!