Dunk-n-dink

Okay, so maybe, once in a while, squandering a weather window might be a good idea. Marsh Harbour has been an ugly, rolling, pitching basin of white caps since the hook hit the bottom. We would dearly love to be back in the fully protected little bay of Treasure Cay right about now. If the wind would clock around another 70 degrees and lay down 10 knots, this would be a nice place. That was forecast to happen about 14 hours ago. As it is we are nearly 20 hours after the thunderstorms rolled through last night and the wind is still honking out of the WNW. In other words I can think of a lot of other places I would rather be.

There are a lot of boats sharing the misery, and most of them got here before us. Thus it is a long, spray flying ride to the dink dock. We went in today to do laundry anyway. The white covers Deb made for the cabin cushions brightened the place up no end, but with nearly 9 months of full time living aboard ground into them they were considerably less bright then they were. Since last night's driving rain managed to find its way in and soak the starboard side, washing the batch seemed like a pretty good excuse to get off the boat for a couple of hours.

At the dinghy dock we ran into Ken and Sara, friends we first met back in Oriental during the fuel pump travail. We had no idea they were in the area so it was a very pleasant surprise. Since they are staying at one of the marinas here, going to see them will be a good reason to get off the boat tomorrow as well. It is one of the parts of cruising that is the most fun. Months later, hundreds of miles away, in a completely different country, in some out-of-the-way place, and completely by chance, friends bump into each other and pick up conversations like is has only been a couple of hours since parting.

Somehow we got from Kintala to the laundry and all the way back to Kintala while missing the bag of dirty clothes sitting in the bottom of the dink. So we took a second, wet, round-trip ride back to the laundry to finish. Why is it we pick the worst times to do the dumbest things? On the way back I completely misjudged the wind and waves and almost hooked an anchor chain with the dink motor. Deb let my brain fade pass with but a single warning and no additional comments. My only excuse is that, while better at it than I was, dink driving is still not my thing. Wet, bouncing, and trying to pick my way through waves clearly taller than the dink sides are high is nothing I really want to practice much ... but it comes with the territory.

The hope is, by morning, things will settle down a little and we can get back to enjoying ourselves again.