This is No Vacation

Wednesday July 2, 2014

As much as I would like our time here in Bermuda to be all relaxing and rum drinks, unfortunately there is a lot of work to be done as well.  Since we did happen to land ourselves in an amazingly beautiful area that deserves lots of exploring though, we decided to break up our days and do off and on boat work versus having fun.

Yesterday I hauled our overflowing bag of dirty laundry to the laundromat.  Even though we’d basically been living in athletic gear the entire passage, wearing clothes for three days at a time before changing them out (although who’s going to complain about the smell?, it’s just us), we were kind of lax on some of our chores in Miami, and laundry fell to the bottom of the list.  Which meant that on top of the past three weeks of dirty clothing and bed sheets, we had about two weeks worth of clothes from before the passage to deal with as well.

While Matt tackled some minor projects back on the ‘Dip, I loaded myself down like pack mule with about twenty pounds of clothes, sheet, and blankets between two bags, and set out into town.  I had spied a laundromat the previous day on our little hike about the area, so at least I knew where to go before the extra weight could reduce me to a mess of tangled limbs and nylon bags in the street while trying to hunt one down.  I did find out that things are done a little differently here, and instead of just inserting coins into a machine, I had to spend $5 on a card to then load money onto, which then gets inserted into the machine and deducts from my balance.  Not really an ideal situation for someone who is only going to be here once, but I didn’t have many other options.*

Once all the clothes were in the middle of a rinse and repeat, I took off down the road to check out a few of the markets to gauge pricing in the area and we could see what kind of costs we might expect to fill our pantries again.  As soon as I stepped into the first market it became apparent that our pantries would remain at low until we reach the Azores.  In only looking for basic items, this is what I found we’d be paying.  Head of lettuce: $3.50; quart of milk: $2.50; pound of chicken: $7.50; loaf of bread: $5.00; 5 lb bag of rice: $10.  At least this means we’ll finally be able to go through all the items we provisioned for while heading to the Bahamas.  And I know for a fact that there’s a can of pear halves I bought in St. Augustine that still need to be eaten.

Today, which on our ‘schedule’ was supposed to be a fun day, kind of slipped into a work one.  After sleeping in entirely too late (I’m using the excuse that I’m still catching up on two weeks of sleep), I didn’t have much drive to get off the boat.  Once the coffee was made and enjoyed we were now into lunch time, and the prospect of exerting enough energy to get off the boat and do something enjoyable was too much.  The settee, a bowl of popcorn, and an afternoon matinee sounded much more appealing.  That’s not to say we could get away without doing some kind of work though, to allow ourselves two fun days in a row then.

Remember how I mentioned we got a little lax about a few projects back in Miami?  Cleaning the bottom of the boat was another one that kind of slipped through the cracks.  A bad one.  One of the last things you want when making a 3,000 mile journey is a bunch of barnacles on the bottom of your boat slowing you down after having spent one month sedentary in a hot tropical climate.  I’m pretty sure it took at minimum a half knot off our speed during this passage, and possibly up to one.  That bottom right now is nasty.  During one bored day on passage we actually put my camera in it’s waterproof case and shot video as we dunked the camera below the water line to see exactly what we were dealing with.  No wonder all those fish attached themselves to us like a reef…..we looked like one!

Probably due to the fact that every time Matt has gone about cleaning our bottom before and the project had taken him all of one hour, I thought that with the both of us working on it we could knock it out in 45 minutes and spend the rest of the afternoon relaxing.  Sigh.  You silly, silly girl.

What happened in reality is I spent the next two and a half hours shriveling up like a prune in salt water while using muscles I haven’t used in quite a long time, and pushing myself to the limits on breath holding capabilities.  It was sad, really.  At the water line I was doing ok as long as I could hold on to something to keep the current from pushing me away from the boat.  But as soon as I tried to get the under body, my body would only allow me to stay down for three scrapes before scrambling back to the surface to gulp fresh air.

I have to say, I don’t think I’ve ever pushed my body as hard as I did today while cleaning that bottom.  Even though I wanted to give up very early and make Matt finish the project himself, I stuck it out and cleaned one whole side myself.  I give major props to Matt for doing it himself every few months in the past, as well as anyone else out there who is stuck with this horrendous project.  Unless you’re like our friends Ren and Ashley who can hold their breath for five minutes at a time.

When I finally finished and was able to climb back on to the topside of Serendipity, I was like the living dead.  I could barley move, and bumped about the cabin in a zombie like state.  An immediate nap was in order, and now hours later, I am finally regaining the status of a normal conscious person.  Just in time to enjoy a glass of wine and this sunset.  So I guess it’s not all bad.

*My card was purchased back from the owner once he found out I was a sailor in for a one time visit.  He may have actually run the barber shop next door…….very nice guy.