A bit of a strange start to our first winter in the Caribbean – it’s hot and humid and the boat projects just keep on coming!

The warm water down here (80F+) is very nice for swimming, but plays havoc with our fridge and freezer which are cooled by means of “Keel Coolers” – bronze plates bolted to the underside of the hull. Up in New England and Canada, these work great – the water is 20+ degrees cooler. Down here, the compressors have to work double time to get the heat of the system and they are just eating up our battery supply. So much so that we’re having to run the generator for several hours a day. And of course, the generator is acting up too! Whereas I used to be able to run the watermaker and the battery charger at the same time, I can no longer do that… And water costs $0.25/gallon down here, so we could really use the watermaker!

On top of that, the head stinks! I’ve had to replace the one way “Joker” valve to prevent nasty stuff coming back into the bowl – and this joker valve was only 3 months old! I’m now out of joker valves!

We’ve also had to deal with a badly fixed mainsail repair – fortunately the outfit that did the repair in Virginia recognize their mistake, but they’re only going to assist to the tune of $100 with the new sail loft – in spite of them charging us $430 for the lousy repair!

Feels like we’ve been working harder than we did when we earned money – and now we’re spending money faster than ever thought possible too! Still, I’d rather be doing this than sitting behind that desk again!

It’ll inevitably get better!!!

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone – we’ll be sitting on the beach today having swum for our beers at the Soggy Dollar!!!