February 9, 2014.

The other day somebody asked me if we ever get bored. I decided to describe how we spent our time today.

We rolled outta bed at 0700 and had breakfast. Last night we had made plans to take a new couple fishing with us this morning. The wind was way down so at 0930 we were accompanied by the dinghies from two other boats as we made our way out to the cut.

The new guy got two good sized fish, a Schoolmaster and a Hog Fish. He missed a chance at a lobster but went away pretty enchanted with the expedition. The Fine Lions grabbed another 4 bugs, as did we. We also grabbed a pair of Hogs, an Ocean Trigger and a good sized Strawberry Grouper.

That cutting board is 2 feet long, those are some lovely fish

When I brought our fourth lobster to the surface Christy gave me the international signal for “something's wrong with the dinghy”. Crap. After swimming over, I got it restarted but could barely manage to get the dink to idle while in gear. Shit. We had a two mile slog back to the big boat at barely more than an idle. We did make it though, so that was a bonus.

After cleaning the fish and lobster, I changed the plugs and cleaned the fuel filter to no avail. Crap.

The definition of cruising is fixing your boat in exotic yada, yada yada

The dink would start but wanted to stall as soon as you put it in gear. Shit. Earlier, I had made plans to go to the masthead on a friends boat for a quick repair since the wind was so benign. After a quick lunch of Strawberry Grouper Christy and I were on our way. We barely made it over to Lucky Touch with the engine running like crap.

Once there I was whisked to the top of the mast to remove their annometer. After belaying it down to deck level for service I had the opportunity to snap a few pictures while I waited at the masthead.

The anchorage looking south

Us, off to the north

The Lucky Touch, a Shannon 43, 30 years old, original owners, pristine.

The cruiser built pavilion

Alibi II, mizzen boom kicked to port to gather a bit more sun for the panels.

After it was cleaned and lubed I hauled it back up and reinstalled it. Once installed, it worked like it oughta so there was great joy in the village.

Back at our boat I had to delve a little further into the outboard engine. The Fine Lions picked Christy up to do a little wallowing before an evening garbage burn. So as they motored away I tore into the carburetor in an effort to clean it. I was a little apprehensive since I didn't have a rebuild kit or a service manual on board. I found an exploded diagram on the net and I just had to be mondo careful with the gaskets and seals as I disassembled the carb. It looked great but I cleaned it up with WD40 anyway.

After putting the whole shebang back together the wee motor once again ran like a runaway train. Lovely. I put my tools away and headed in to the beach to join my friends. We wallowed for an hour, burned garbage and chatted with other people from the anchorage for a bit before heading home to the Veranda.

Christy whipped up a coconut curry Strawberry Grouper served over a bed of rice with a side of broccoli for dinner. In the cockpit we talked about what we took from the day and then Christy did the dishes, while I wrote to some friends. Next, I expect we'll listen to some music while reading before retiring for the evening, exhausted from a very busy day.....