The guys just left on the maiden voyage of their
newly sail-rigged dinghy. Another dinghy
had gone by earlier from another boat and they were sailing and it seemed to
inspire them to finish the project.
PVC pipes and canvas and drills and line littered the
aft deck for two days while they worked; when they went off yesterday to
explore the aforementioned reef, I took up the sewing of the sail and finished
it off for Gary as a surprise. They had
some luck at the reef, but the current has picked up so quickly that they
feared becoming separated from the boat, so they scrambled back on and came
back.
Elliott saw some large fish under the boat earlier
and set about rigging his fishing line, but to no avail.
Gary was a dear, and plugged into some lively music,
did the dishes for me.
We will be leaving here some time today to take an
8-mile sail to our next anchorage, which, Gary presented, has two dockside
restaurants. Looking forward to that,
though I've been quite proud of myself for coming up with meals from seemingly
nothing. We're down to barely any fresh
vegetables and only apples and oranges, and a soon-to-be-cracked coconut, so
rice and beans may become a staple. I
used the last of the cabbage to make a lovely slaw yesterday and that was
lunch; we had a little turkey meat left over so I hobbled together burgers,
using cracker meal and eggs, onions and spices as filler. They were pretty awesome.
We do have plenty of canned goods, but fresh is so
much better; I hope we run into an open-air market or something like that on
this portion of the trip because I'd like to try some new vegetables or fruit.
I am adventurous in some aspects; hah. Speaking of which, I feel I must address my
hesitancy in swimming. I am a huge fan
of water, seas, ponds, lakes, rivers, creeks.
I adore them and respect our dependence on them for sustenance in so
many ways. But while they fill a
spiritual niche for me, I do not feel it is necessary to be swallowed up by
them. I especially respect their
strength.
My earliest memories of water are being pushed into
a deep ditch in Mississippi by the neighbor boy/sometimes bully Bubba. I was quite small, maybe 5 or so. As I was floundering about, he said,
"Watch out for the snakes!" I
was traumatized. It was sad and that
experience, unfortunately, marks me to this day. For those who think I ought to swim
everywhere, I was "baptized" in the muddy Mississippi River, whose
countenance was tricky at best. Hurling
around bends, watery fingers would latch onto you and pull you down to the
bottom in a second, with nary a concern for your comfort. I remember being caught in that current and
having to be pulled out by family. Swimming with gar, catfish, and snakes scared
the bejesus out of me and I can still smell the cracked mudflats at rivers'
edge, the oozing suck of which would bury you up to your knees and steal your
shoes if you weren't wary enough to keep a fast and light step.
And maybe I'm remembering with a heavy heart a boy I
had taken a fancy to early in high school.
He and a group of friends went swimming at a local swimming hole one day
after school and he dove into the water and never resurfaced, drowning in the
tangle of limbs of a submerged tree.
So, when I do swim, I have to be comfortable and
feel very safe. It's just who I am and I
don't think that I'm getting any less from this voyage because of it.
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