Lazing in LP

Snap
Mon 7 Dec 2015 23:36

Last couple of days in LP - after a week of wind from the south , it turns to help me that way soon, probably Wednesday, today being Monday.  I plan to go south then west once in the more reliable (and hopefully) warner winds a couple of days sail from here.   It's usually gentle winds to start, and so a vital aspect of ocean sailing preparation for me is getting the diesel on board, ahem, sorted today.   


More food shopping this afternoon.  The two main outlets remain HyperDino which is fine, and Corte INgles which is a bit posher.  Main difference about sailing the Atlantic in December instead of in late November is there’s full-on Christmas music in all the supermarkets all the time, and all completely English-speaking.  Perry Como, Bing Crosby, Elvis, Slade, the lot. 


The “Mojomo” signs are still splattered everywhere around the marina. This is another of those marinas where you can paint a little boat name or logo  and the result is a whole display of painted signs from visiting yachts from over the years.  Just the back wall, mind, not everywhere. I had a stencil, so instead of doing just one sign, I did half a dozen every twenty yards  - the background wall colour was already beige, so i used a big stencil and car spray paint, swooshed them all along the wall.

A friend Bethany said that she saw Mo with new owners in Bonaire just a week ago, still with the red anchor light but a new name, "My Dream" I think.  Rubbish.  it was much better having a name which means “bloke who fires blanks” in local Canadian dialect of Spanish, definitely.  A few marineros still do that smirk thing at me as they remember the name.  And nobody said a word.  Gits.  

My neighbour wanted a hand putting his tender on the foredeck before leaves for a few weeks.  Not a small item, likely 100kg, looks like a backbreaker.  I suggest that we use my spinnaker line on lucky winch, and he loves it.  His mate all turn up to help with the lift later and he happily tells them he’s done it already.  The mates shout at him asking why he didn’t think of that before the previous haulings.  

We have a laugh about it in the bar later, saying at how perhaps necessity is the mother of invention, but impatience and laziness are the grandparents.  A Norwegian with quite fluent English  says that there’s a lazy championships here next week.  Really?  We’re all amazed.  Not sure how you could validly score the laziness - surely by just turning up - you’ve lost?   No, insists, and apparently it’s the European Championship!  Wow, the laziest people from around Europe, all here to display the very best in laziness, the least energetic and most unenthusiastic and bone idle people in the whole continent.  After more discussion and exploration of the weird-sounding event,  the Norwegian tells us that it’s a regatta.  Ah right - so it’s Lasers, not laziness!  Dinghy sailing.   I would have liked to go to the European Laziness Finals and perhaps pick up some expert tips.  But there again, meh.  I’ll watch it on the telly later.  Except the remote is always miles away, sitting on the TV innit? Meh, again.