A Boater's Work Is Never Done

After you hang out at a marina for a while, and are having trouble remembering how long "a while" is, things start to happen that require attention. In our case, and in the words of the three witches in the immortal bard's epic tragedy, MacBeth, "Bubble, bubble, toilet trouble".

Yup, time to run back to WestMarine for the jiffy little Jabsco spare parts kit ($65, or $5,263.99/pound), then gut it up to take the little blighter apart and replace the bits that routinely fail. The normal recommended way to do this is to don a radiation suit with full respirator (quite unlike donning gay apparel at Christmas time, but that's another story, and I'm told I'm not allowed to pursue that line, despite the potential segue into great material for a ribald stand-up comedy routine). Anyway, if you do not have a radiation suit and respirator, and of course I don't, then you get to play the game called "how long can you hold your breath while fumbling around in a cramped space and not dropping the minute parts into some bottomless hole". The answer is 47 seconds unless you drop something, in which case there is a containment breach associated with the utterance of appropriate expletives, and you then turn purple. After you've done this a few times you learn not to pass out.

I'm sure no body wanted to hear about all that, so zipping straight into the breaking news, Pete is on his way back and should be here this evening. We are eagerly awaiting the return of our fearless leader, and all the adventures that he has been plotting. We have been quietly making friends with the cruisers around here, and plan to introduce Pete at a party scheduled for this Saturday in honour of some Bahama-bound cruisers who had planned to leave on Sunday, but now it looks like maybe Tuesday- I think you get the picture. Whatever. If we have to do another party, no problem.

The guy who is the marina manager is a South African named Willem, and the photos are of his set up next to his boat (where he lives aboard). Willem's World has a hot tub complete with rubber duckies, BBQ, tables and chairs, coolers, and party lights on all the tress and some of the mangroves. It is the gather spot for evening parties.

The plan for next week is to head out to Key West and then points north and explore some of the shallow anchorages, do a bit of swimming and dinghy exploration and then return by next Friday for a trip back home to take care of business. We should be returning early March for more exploration, and then start the trip back home once it has warmed up a bit. It is still a tad chilly.