Today we were on watch, so while the rest of the watches enjoyed another beautiful day in Bonaire we were put to work painting and rust busting. My main job today was to rust bust, wire brush, sand, corroseal, prime and then paint the plimsoll marks and surrounding hull. Now these marks show the legal depth the boat can rest in the water in different types of water; Tropical Freshwater, Tropical Saltwater, Saltwater, Tropical Saltwater and North Atlantic Saltwater. Now in the morning we set up a scaffold at just the right height a few inches off the water line and I got to work, however after lunch the swell increased, and we also took on a few extra cubic metres of water, with the combined result that I was sat waist deep in the water for a good couple of hours,.. now this being the Caribbean I wasn’t too worried,… at least until the mate started to do some guided tours and one of the attendees decided to use the salon head (toilet), the “exhaust” of which is about a metre to the right of the plimsoll marks,.. I discovered fairly rapidly that I can jump out of the water, scale the scaffolding and vault the bulwarks (all without touching my new paint) within a few seconds!.. I then gave it a good few minutes before returning to my post!
A brief tropical downpour brought our painting and varnishing to an end and we made the most of the respite by rehydrating and trying to figure out how to get beers on board for that evening.
People began to return to the ship and Adrienne proudly showed off her new bunk fan, which quite frankly wouldn’t have looked out of place on the wing of a Boeing 747, I really have to find myself a decent one as sleeping below is akin to trying to sleep whilst packed between 2 obese people on the London underground at rush hour (no air conditioning).. Seriously, it is pretty uncomfortable and waking up at 3 am drenched in sweat is not the most pleasant experience and I have taken to drying out my sheets on a daily basis on the washing lines. I have decided to invest in a decent bunk fan when we get to Panama,..
We appeared to have missed another “Best Day Ever” as Fred and Davey returned in their rented Jeep to exclaim that they had “Jeep-F*#ked” the island and animatedly described their off-roading,.. Cheri returned in a slightly less elated mood having had the steering column fall out of her Jeep,.. but then expertly repaired (albeit for the short term) by WT who lashed it together with Seine twine!
That evening we discovered that we could get internet on the other side of the dock, so I attempted to download my 300+ emails from the last 3 weeks so my account wouldn’t get shut off!! I was then on watch from 5am the next morning,.. so “early to bed, early to rise!!
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