Getting ready to leave

Today we are trying to get the last of our chores done before we leave for Normans Cay in the Exhumas tomorrow. After being focused on the rudder repair we have a number of other items that we have to work on. One is the bent oars on our dinghy which happened resetting anchors at Frazer Hog Cay.  We had found one set of dinghy oars at one store that I could modify to make work, but when I return they sold just one of the set. Well, on to Plan B. If I could find a 1-⅛ diameter dowel I could hammer it down inside the bent aluminum oar tube to straighten it and strengthen it. Well, the other day at Super Value I found a 1-⅛ diameter mop handle that I hoped would do the trick. With some hammering on the cement dock it worked fine and we now have a fairly straight oar, good enough until we get back to the states.

I drop off the propane tank for a refill and fill all our water tanks, sun showers and 4 - 5 gallon folding jugs. Should last us for a couple weeks.

Ed Close & Sharon Faith (center), Win Castle & Dorothy Wilson (left & right) and Linda

 

Ed with our old rudder

Ed Close and Sharon Faith owners of the Catalina 42 who lost their rudder are going to have our old rudder welded onto their rudder post to enable them to get back to the Florida and deal with the getting a new rudder manufactured there. Foss Foam did not have a mold for their early model Catalina 42, so it is going to take more effort to get a replacement. They are Canadians from Picton, Ontario, but they kept their boat at Brunswick Georgia in the off season.

Dive boat

At this Marina are 2 dive sailboats that come in one weekend to drop off and pick up customers for the week and to clean and re-provision. The main dock is full of boxes of food they are dividing up and loading on board. Apparently the captain over ordered and the crew hands us a box of fresh vegetables, rather than toss the excess. More than we can use so we share with a neighboring boat. A little later after sunset the cook drops of another box of vegetables and cooked chicken and fish. Again we split up the proceeds with two other boats. Since we had done our provisioning yesterday I am busy packing as much as I can in to our freezer and refrigerator, it is packed.