There is a bit of a war that is going on around here. If one stands out of the wind in the sun and gets still for more than 10 seconds, one will be attacked by Green Heads (horse flies). Of course one can wear bug juice and keep some of that to a minimum but sooner or later one will feel the sting and see the results. Some of the bites don't go away soon and I have doozie that keeps getting bigger. It is sort of entertaining in a weird way to see which bites bloom and which do not. Could it be that cruising in the heat is getting to us in a Shining (the movie) sort of way? "Oh honey, I'm home.
Last evening a large river boat pulled up to the Megadock and embarked a wedding party. Beverages were flowing even before the thing left the dock. They were docked across from us and we, being the smallest boat on the dock, were the subject of many comments from the poop deck some twenty five feet above us. Most were from folks that are not sailors. What's that thingy on the front? Looks like they have a lot of rope going all over the place. Where's Port Aransas, Texas?
There is a sailing vessel just arrived from the Caribbean Sea. Been there for a year with two youngsters aboard. They enjoyed it thoroughly but were looking forward to getting off the boat and hitting the stores and restaurants of Charleston. The girls were "home schooled" but not like doing that at home on land. We have read several articles that seem to indicate cruising youngsters are generally very well prepared for college since they have not been in front of TVs or IPods much during the cruising and since there are fewer distractions whilst aboard. Might be a good thing to send the kids to sea for a year sometime in their early years. Imagine how being away from TV, IPods and cell phones might impact their thought processes. Thinking- what a concept.
Being aboard forces one to deal with stuff as it occurs. Find the problem. Evaluate the problem, Develop solutions. Implement the solution then see if it worked. Sort of basic but we do it daily. For instance, our latest challenge is the air conditioner. Instead of air, a vessel system uses sea water to cool and condense the refrigerant. Said seawater is usually full of stuff like jelly fish, leaves, seaweed and other stuff. There is a strainer that keeps that stuff from going through the unit. Although the water here is "clean", that strainer needs constant attention, sometimes at the most inopportune time. We discovered that there is some sort of slime building past the strainer in the lines and that causes the unit to stop. Just after dinner (supper to those from SC and GA) it happened- no cooling!!!! Yikes Hal, get on it.. Heat index at the time was 117 degrees so I had to jump on it. That is twice in two days. Bear heads top side so as to not listen to me heatedly discussing the problem with my inner self. Inner self gets testy at times like that particularly that late in the day. Got it done but it dis not take long to heat the cabin. This is one system that, next to a water tight hull, is most important to this crew. I think I will experiment with bromide tablets (same stuff used in spas) in the strainer. Maybe it will keep the slime cooties moving.
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