Be forewarned: This day’s post is more about boat maintenance and day-to-day boating life than cruising. There are some hair-raising boating adventures, but they are not ours! We articulated previously the combination of reasons why we are currently in port (re-provisioning, maintenance/cleaning, watermaker issues, visit from Glennis, weather). For the first few days here, re-provisioning and cleaning have been the focus. Today, tomorrow and Monday it’s mostly about the weather. The strong front we’re now experiencing was forecast last Monday and was the reason we decided then to come to Palm Cay earlier than we’d planned. There were high winds with  rough seas all day today, and it will be higher/rougher tomorrow. In addition to the marina here, Palm Cay is host to a boat charter company and we get to see all the chartered boats come in and go out. Today there were textbook examples of how a charter experience can go badly.

Before we bought our first boat, we chartered boats for a week at a time on four separate occasions. You make the reservations months in advance, carefully plan an itinerary, provision all your food and water toys and then pack up and go. The only problem is you can’t change the weather, and you have to deal with what you get for the week you reserved.  One time we spent almost the entire week of our charter at the dock because the weather was so bad. Charters are expensive though (especially here), and some people are committed to executing their plan and getting their money’s worth no matter what. Today a chartered catamaran left the marina and never even got out of the entrance channel before losing control in the rough weather and hitting one of the pilings.

It was windy but also sunny this morning, which allowed Paula to complete the settee cushion cleaning on the port side. This is a mild exercise class, as it involves wrestling the covers off and then back on the cushions, forearm exercise while scrubbing the covers, rinsing them in a bucket, and flexibility and leg strengthening while climbing all over the topsides to hang them to a half-dry state. At that point, with the wind continuing to rise Paula became concerned  about losing them overboard. So as soon as they stopped dripping, she rehung them one-by-one in the more secure cockpit to for final drying.

After lunch, we took the courtesy car for a big re-provisioning for Glennis’ visit and our return to the north (Florida is now the farthest point north on our world map). The emphasis was on meat and canned goods, as well as produce. Solomon’s Yamacraw is a full-sized modern grocery store, with most everything available in the USA, and some items never seen in American stores. Although Paula likes variety in her cooking ingredients, she passed on the chicken feet. Judging by the number of packages on display, they are a popular item.

Back at C Ghost, Tommy manhandled most of the bags, and Paula got to processing our purchase. This meant cooking meals to freeze, cutting up fruit to freeze, vacuum-sealing meats to freeze, taping the bottom rims of all the cans to retard oxidation due to condensation in storage compartments over time, and making room in the fridge for all the foods not yet processed. Oh, and a fruit fly trap had to be made. Tommy’s favorite lullaby is the sound of Paula working in the galley, so he took a well-deserved nap.

As the wind continued to rise throughout the afternoon, Paula was chatting with the marina manager when they both saw another charter, a beautiful 62’ Azimut towing a jetski , try to enter the channel into the marina. The Captain stated later that he became confused in the rough water as to the meaning of the markers at the entrance to the channel. He hit the reef, got stuck, rolled off, and then hit it again. He then radioed in to the marina manager and asked for assistance. The manager jumped into the marina’s runabout, (equipped with two 350 HP engines) flew out to where the yacht was circling, and guided the boat in. Fortunately, it appears that the yacht was not holed, but it’s unclear whether it sustained other damage. It is a beautifully appointed boat, and so we were doubly surprised to see the state of the electrical cord junctions of this very expensive charter boat.

When setting the table in the cockpit, the wind was now so strong that Paula had to weight down the napkins and placemats to prevent them from taking flight. From our boat you could easily hear the wind rattling the large leaves of the sea grape trees that line the marina’s piers (featured picture) . Exotic flowers on mimosa-like trees were so tossed about that it was hard to get a non-blurry picture.

Paula finally produced a dinner out of the minor chaos that the galley had become since shopping. She served crockpot corned beef, spinach ravioli, and sautéed asparagus.

After dinner, Tommy added a second spring line and another bumper at our beam. We are rolling as much as one can in a slip, and we are taking in the cockpit cushions overnight as they are trying to achieve flight. Should be an interesting night.