The fat bellies Bells

Serafina
Rob & Sarah Bell
Wed 11 Jul 2012 17:09

41:29.96N 71:23.48W

 

Fri, Sat, Sun, Mon & Tuesday – 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th and 10th July

 

 

OK so recovery from the July 4th excesses is on hold, as we are continuing to eat our body weight each day it seems.   One of our co-yachties expressed an aim to ensure that Rob's belt buckle (once a necessity to secure his jeans) disappears under flesh - thanks Craig!

 

Actually still having a great, if lazy, time - sorry to sound so smug.   And still in Dutch Harbour waiting to meet up with my cousin, plus wife, Wendy, on Thursday.   But in between we have spent the time with ‘Il Sogno’ and ‘Lady’, learning Liar Dice (not played since childhood) and teaching Mexican Train.   Dave and Judy also came on board one evening for another postal delivery for us and we went out to a new Italian restaurant with them.

 

We have even managed some maintenance:  Rob has fixed the port Lopo light, the deckwash pump, replaced our runner tail jammer cleats which seemed to have given up their bite, plumbed in our US gas bottles, and the long postponed job of repairing the opening portlight seal in the saloon has finally been accomplished as well. We had nervously not tackled this problem before our ocean passage, as whilst the hatch had not been re-opened, we weren't leaking, if hot!   So we are (eagerly?) awaiting a heavy downfall to see how we've done - and we do recognise we are probably the only Englishmen able to say this.

 

Rob is presently playing toilets as ever.   It seems the seawater intake on the aft heads might be partially blocked so at the moment we are flushing with minimal amounts of freshwater, as suggested by Lady.   (Forgive the detail here non-boaters, but this is of interest to other sad souls - and this is a full time but normal activity of all liveaboards:  solving the myriad of ever-so slightly different toilet malfunctions!)   This has the advantage of pushing the effluent beyond the valve and there is no downside of the fatal mixture of seawater and urine which promotes crystalline blockage in the pipes.   We have yet to decide how to pursue the blockage and whether one of us is going to be lucky enough to enter the oh so cold sea!   Might wait until the water is clearer and we can at least we can see the rest of our body submersed.  

 

There is one flaw in the swimming scenario:  we are heading for Provincetown on Cape Cod at the weekend and have heard reports that they are experiencing exceptional numbers of Great White Sharks......   Yes just like Jaws, which was filmed just south of there.

 

I liberally sprayed neat lemon juice on to the Chesapeake moustache (tannin stains) on the hull and it magically disappeared.   So all I need now is lots of freshwater so I can get a layer of polish on the hull, but at local berthing prices that is unlikely.   We have booked into a marina in East Boston for a week on 19th July but will spend this extravagance indulging in galleries, sights and, of course, shopping (hopefully this has a city centre unlike everywhere else which has its shopping based out of town, which is hopeless for the car-less souls like us!).   Perhaps they will have good lights and I can spend my nights polishing and justifying my existence!

 

And in our quest to spread the efficacious-ness of Spotless Stainless (my brother has been sending rude comments re what he calls our obsession - we feel we may be lightening the load for other liveaboards on the never-ending maintenance mountain) Rob did, what Craig called a infomercial, on Lady to demonstrate the stuff to Craig and Charlie and they were suitably impressed, or so they said….

 

We all went back to Fort Wetherill to watch the "tall" ships process out of Newport, under full sail but sadly with no wind,  so lots of use of surreptitious engines.   This was slightly underwhelming as the boats were really just schooners etc, the biggest being the replica, Bounty - or perhaps we are just plain spoilt in what we see in our daily lives.   Interestingly though, the viewing site was much more crowded by locals watching this pageant than for the America's Cup racing.