Preparations for travel continued this week with a visit to the clinic to get our second round of shots. We are now ready to take on Typhoid, Yellow Fever and Hepatitis! When we arrived at the clinic, I was hoping the nurse/receptionist who had given us our last round was going to be working. Alas, she was not and the nurse working was a new hire in training. So, she called for the doctor to give us the shots. When the doctor walked in I immediately pegged him for sleeping through the How to Give a Shot class. He was wearing jeans and cowboy boots. All he was missing was a ten gallon hat to complete his ensemble. By the time he finished with our shots, Bill had nicknamed him Dr. Harpoon. Luckily, he knew how to use a pen so he wrote a prescription I needed and we headed back to the pharmacy. While we were at the pharmacy, I asked about whether we would need a prescription for malaria pills and a pre-rabies shot. The pharmacist tilted her head and responded, “Well, I’ve never known anyone to get a kick out of a rabies shot and I doubt you could overdose on malaria pills. So, no. I’ll just give them to you when you are ready.” Can you imagine that logic taking place at your local Walgreens in the States? I think not!
We took a gamble this week and it wasn’t in a casino. Our buddy down the dock that just bought the new boat had a dinghy he wanted to throw away. We don’t need another dinghy but this dinghy was a 14 foot, center console, luxury dinghy with a 50 Hp engine! It definitely needs some love but we made a ridiculously low offer to buy it and he said, “If you take it away, you can have it!” So, now we are in the process of flipping a dinghy. Our first task was to remove the tons of water that had accumulated in the dinghy. The electric pump would not work because the battery was completely under water. So, Bill began to pump water out with our shop vac and a bucket. For every bucket he dumped, another gallon of water flooded into the dinghy. I put on my bathing suit and climbed into the dinghy to find the issue. Dinghies tend to work better if they don’t have holes pouring water in from the side! From my brief inspection, I think someone had attempted to attach the pontoons in a very poor manner. I quickly reached for my Mr. Clean Magic Eraser. It is probably not common knowledge that a Magic Eraser will cure just about anything that ails a boat….including leaks! I tore small pieces of the Eraser and shoved them into the holes that were in the fiberglass. The leaks immediately stopped and we were able to get the rest of the water out of the dinghy. Next steps involve using Harry to tow Big Boy over to the repair shop to get an estimate on repairs. After we gather that information, we will hopefully be able to do the repairs and sell it for a nice profit. However, I am going to have a time getting Bill to sell it once he gets to scoot around Sint Maarten with a 50 Hp engine! We had another first time event this week. Bill’s computer screen went to the great computer store in the sky so we took his computer to the repair shop to see if anything could be done. The shop was small but had just about everything one would need (unless one needed a phone cover for a Motorola phone instead of a Samsung or Iphone!). The repair guy looked at the computer and said he could replace the screen for $190.00. In less than 3 hours, Bill received notice that his computer was ready for pick up. Evidently this shop did not run on Caribbean Maybe Time! The computer works beautifully! The end of our week was spent waiting for weather. Our usual weather reports that we receive via daily email always tell us if storms are coming, chances for hurricane development, wind speeds, wave size and which days would be better for sailing. The reports usually say things such as “salty sailing North bound” if waves are going to be a little higher, “brisk sailing” if the winds are up or “conditions are favorable” if the meteorologists deem the weather window to be a good one. We have never seen the report worded quite like it was this week. The report stated, “Horrendous sailing for the weekend.” Horrendous? We weren’t going to argue with that report! We kept our happy little selves tucked in snugly on the dock and were very glad we did not have a “horrendous” weekend! I hope you have an incredible and non-horrendous Fourth of July weekend! As usual, eat some barbeque and homemade ice cream for me! PS: there will be no blog next week (possibly two weeks) due to my travels back to the States for an outing with my sisters! Have a wonderful few weeks!
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AuthorSally Miller Archives
May 2024
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