Friday 14 February 2014

Little red sports car



It's the little things in life that keep us going, right? These last couple of weeks have been full of small pleasures strung along through lots of “work” for the Captain and Crew.

Our ship has come in, literally, with all kinds of boat bits and pieces arriving from the United States. The Captain stick-handled the paperwork through customs without any major hitches. The process included a customs official following the Captain with the goods from the customs shed to the yacht club, ensuring that these items really do go onto a boat, since we do not have to pay any Jamaican import taxes as a yacht-in-transit. I invited her to come for a cup of tea on Diva, but she didn't look too thrilled at the idea of getting into the dingy. So she watched us row the piles of boxes to the boat instead.

Christmas all over again.
The Captain was happy that everything seems to have arrived safety with only a few surprises that come from ordering things online that you've never seen before, provoking a comments like, “Oh, you mean it's THAT big?”

And of course, the smallest boxes contain the most expensive parts, tiny computers that will enable us to rebuild the existing autopilot on the boat – hooray!


The Crew stays out of the way when major boat projects are in full swing, having her own projects on the computer to keep her busy. In spite of her magic touch that causes any internet signal within range to shrivel up and die, she perseveres, with help from coffee that looks like this.


But rest assured, it is not all hard work and no play! One of the boxes contained the Captain's Christmas present to the Crew – another boat, of course. We now have a “two-car-garage” and mine is the sweet little red sports car.

My new kayak!  (And my new friend Jocelyn in her kayak.)
We also spent our first night off the boat in four months, visiting a friend's lovely house up in the hills and exploring some of Jamaica's lovely non-waterfront nature.

The Captain and our friend Jackie looking at some of her BIG trees.

Sending tropical Valentine's warmth to you wherever you are.