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.