Jan 12 - 17

On the 12th we had a busy morning finishing up some grocery shopping, exchanging books at the wonderful little library, and renewing our immigration.  In the afternoon we visited with Gail and Bob.  The next two days were quite windy (over 20 knots all day and all night) so we stayed on the boat.  The first day of being boatbound is okay, but then it starts getting really boring.  By Friday night we had resorted to drawing a cribbage board on a piece of parchment paper. I even finished knitting a sock that I have been working on for an embarassingly long time. Saturday it was still windy with some rain in the morning, but by afternoon the wind was down to 15 knots so we dinghied ashore and went for a hike up to the monument, then a walk on the beach.  It was still so windy on the windward side of the island that after about an hour we could not see through the salt on our glasses.

View from Monument Hill. The small dark hulled boat is RONDO.

Sunday's radio quote for the day "Does anyone know if we need shoes to attend beach church?"  The answer is no.  The wind was down to mostly below 15 knots so the social scene is back in full swing. We went for a hike in the morning, then Bill fixed the exhaust wrap from the turbo charger to the exhaust elbow on BLESSED SPIRIT.  Corning and Tita treated us to lunch at Chat N Chill and also introduced us to Wade and Diane on JOANA.  In the afternoon POLAR PACER pulled into the harbor and anchored behind us.  It was a treat to see Chris and Tom again. In the evening we went to a potluck.

Monday we took RONDO over to town since it is about a mile and it would have been a long wet ride in the dinghy.  Even just using the dinghy from the boat into the dinghy dock was pretty wet.  The dinghy dock is in Lake Victoria.  To get into the lake there is a tunnel under a bridge.  Incoming boats have the right of way.  It was so busy that it took four tries to get out as we had to keep circling around to let boats in.  While we were in town we went to the library, walked to the pet store (of all places) to pick up an internet card, went to the hardware store, and to the grocery store.  The mailboat comes in on Tuesday or Wednesday so the fresh fruits and vegetables were very limited, so we will have to go back in a day or so.  Monday night we were invited to JOANA for a visit.  Wade and Diane built the entire boat themselves and did a fantastic job.  We then went to the dance at Chat N Chill which was a lot of fun.  It is very rare that I can get Bill to dance so I made him dance every dance.