Little Things Can Mean A Lot

The cruising life means your boat always needs something. Sometimes it is something its needed since you bought it and sometimes it’s repairs. Sometimes you just finally understand what it is she needs. I tend to suffer (on occasion) from the misconception that if I can’t get the most expensive thing she needs then I wont get her anything she needs. Bad.

Enee needs a new head sail. That’s not going to happen this year nor probably next. But in the mean time there are little things that can be done to make our life a little more comfortable.

Two examples:

Our electrical panel is in the companionway across from the nav station. It has a smoked plastic door in front of it. At night if you want to turn something on or check battery voltage we had to feel around above the nav station to turn on that light to see what we were doing. A small thing but annoying. So, I put in a push button, normally closed, switch (like your refrigerator) in series with a 12 volt LED light inside the panel so that when you open the door, THE LIGHT GOES ON! Simple and installed with minimal swearing (one screw into the bilge. Not bad.).



I like the chart table but of course it is slanted meaning the charts, if unattended will slide off the table and onto the deck. Annoying. So, I took a hack saw blade and cut about a 5 inch hunk from each end. The ends have handy holes in them. I bent the piece into a C shape and put some electrical tape on the non-hole end. Screw this into the table and I have two clips to hold the charts! Nice.

Other things like this have happened in the past. Lighting: We now have lights inside the fridge and inside our pantry which is the large area behind the starboard settee. Boats should come with lights inside all the compartments. You can’t see what’s in those compartments in daylight not to mention trying to find a can of corn at night.

In other news. . . .

The crews from Enee Marie, Bellagio, High States, and Puddle Jumper made a trip to Mi Hacienda high in the hills above Grand Anse beach. What a wonderful restaurant. Merle the lady who owns the place says she was tired of being alone so opened her huge house as a restuarante/hotel. It’s gorgeous with a spectacular view of the Caribbean Sea and Grand Anse Beach. We had cocktails and snacks as the sun set and then tasty dinner. We were the only patrons and had the run of the place. Merle encourages guests to wander about the house which she still lives in. A fun evening and a must see place if you’re staying in Grenada.


There's Val (above) exploring the elegant living room.

Nice view. What a sunset!











Sue and are are fairly busy preparing to set sail on this coming Tuesday. Winds may finally shift out of the north-east and come from the east. Monday, Mismo will get her yearly rabies (do cats ever get rabies?) shot making her legal for air travel. Only big job remaining is to finish the motor mount for the outboard. We plan to explore maybe as far north as St. Lucia which we missed altogether on the way down. Troubling news from two little islands called Petite St. Vincent and Petite Martinique. Sue had stopped there when she was cheffing on the charter. She said it was very nice and a restaurant on Petite Martinique will pick up guests in either anchorage and bring them ashore. Well, we’ve heard two reports of glass bottles being thrown into the cockpit of anchored vessels there. On one of these occasions the glass bottle was filled with gasoline. Luckily no fire ensued even though 2 crew members were smoking cigars. Well, I guess I may strike that anchorage off my list. Too bad. Similarly the news out of Trinidad continues to decline. More crime. More bad attitude and the low prices of the past years are now on par with other places in the Caribbean. Why can’t we all just get along?

Finally, really kids, don't play with barnacles. Play with dad's power tools. Play with electricity. Play with fire but do NOT play with barnacles.

Doc says this looks good. Doctors are weird. Actually it is much better. I can go swimming tomorrow for which I have brand new protective gloves.