Wet and Dry
Oriole
Sun 7 Apr 2013 21:36
Tyrrel Bay, Carriacou, Grenada.
12:27.51N 61:29.15W
This week's title does not refer to the abrasive
paper used to prepare for a coat of varnish. In the present context
has a different meaning.
Wet for Chris who has spent the week emptying her
carefully squirrelled pension payments of the last six months into the coffers
of Arawak Divers. She has returned from one or two dives every day with
eulogistic reports of what she has seen and heard. The sounds on her first
two dives were of two whales conversing somewhere not too far away, and she
expected to come face to face with one of them any minute. The sights have
been carefully recorded photographically, and Connie and George have kept her
well occupied.
The much photgraphed tug boat
wheelhouse with Chris steering
The poisonous, prolific
and agressive Lion Fish, escapee from a US aquarium, is rampaging through
the Caribbean.
The tug boat decked out for a
wedding. Perhaps too wet for Andrew and Caroline and guests!
Meanwhile I have been catching up with some dry
admin, mainly concerning our little Rustler 24 at home, for which we have had a
firm offer, subject to survey. But wet will be our eyes if she does in fact
depart, but Osprey gets so little use that we cannot justify
her existance. Her running costs per hour of use must be
at least 100 times greater than for Oriole.
Dry for me, as I have been nursing a swollen leg of
unknown aetiology, which has been firmly bandaged for the best part of a
week. When allowed to see the light of day the swelling has not returned
so the diagnosis still remains unclear but I am relieved to report that my lungs
do not appear to have filled with emboli from a deep vein
thrombosis!
Dry for the weather, as we have not seen more than
a sprinkle of rain since we left Antigua. Carriacou is so dry that yachts
have not been allowed to replenish their fresh water tanks or cans (jugs for the
US audience!). This is not a problem for Oriole as we
run our watermaker to keep our supply going, but when we discovered that
some friends anchored just ahead of us were down to their last five
litres our watermaker went into overdrive and I transferred 30 gallons of
water to their tanks.
Wet has been the constant round of drinks parties,
meals ashore and pot lucks with eight other yachts who happen to have
gathered here either to lay up in Tyrrel Bay or en route for Grenada or
Trinidad, whith some sort of celebration heralding each departure. Dry I
hope will be our passge to Trinidad both from the sky and the sea and the
bottle when we leave as currently planned on Tuesday.
Dry we also hope will be Trinidad to allow us to
wash and dry all our salty gear before storing it below for the summer.
Fortunately Chaguaramas has plenty of fresh water from the wells sunk by the
Americans when they had their naval base there during and after WW2, so from
that aspect should be wet.
Enough of this wet/dry chatter. Next week's
installment should be the last in the present series.
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