They have a nice new home on a waterfront lot. They get a great view of the Caicos Bank. La Gringa and I had met M&M by pure happenstance at the Conch Festival back in November. ( I am calling them M&M because their names are Malcolm and Michelle but I don't want to give that info away. Hence the code name. sneaky, huh?) We struck up a conversation at the Conch Festival, discovered we were both building homes in the same neighborhood....and well, we became friends. Soon to be neighbors. These guys are actually the first other expats we have "hung out" with to any extent since we got here. We overlook the fact that they are Brits, and they forgive us for being Americans. We have a lot more in common than we do differences.
I thought that cloud formation in the sunset from their porch was different...Here's a better view, after I got off my lazy .....well....I walked over to the edge for a better view:
Here's another new house going up in the same neighborhood. Now THAT's a nice location for a home...
That's only about half of that house, by the way. It bends in the middle and the other wing runs along the coast about the same distance in the other direction. Beautiful.
Checking on our house and visiting M&M got La Gringa out of the house for several hours, and she needed it. She has been suffering with this lower back issue now for almost two weeks. Drugs, Chiropractor, bed rest...I know it sounds like a lot of fun, but she's been getting a little snarly with cabin fever. We stopped at Pizza Pizza on the way home, and looking over into the back of one of Sail Provo's trucks, I saw that same console we spotted washed up on the beach back several months ago. See, La Gringa, I am not the only one who sees the value in these things...
and to think that this could have been mine....
This morning, we had tentatively planned to maybe let her try a swim at one of the beaches, and mess around with the new metal detector at the same time. But the winds are still pretty strong, seas ten feet. That limits us to beaches where the waves won't knock your legs out from under you. While thinking this over, we got a call from Preacher. He was looking for some assistance in getting this boat on it's trailer. Of course I went over to give him a hand with it..
We needed to raise the boat up about a foot so we could get the trailer under it with the Land Rover. My third time backing a trailer with a right hand drive vehicle....and it still feels unnatural to be turning to look over my left shoulder.
Dwayne showed up to give us a hand with it...as we raised the boat off Preacher's carefully engineered cradle. This structure used only locally available materials... including automobile wheels and empty oil drums..
Towing the boat over to Preacher's house was a bit of an adventure. Dwayne lectured me about some of my driving. I thought it made sense to go the most direct path through a roundabout when towing a trailer twice as long as the vehicle....
Then getting the boat down Preachers driveway, and turned around was really testing my limited trailer backing skills. But it sure proved how handy the Land Rover can be. That short wheelbase made it possible. Here's the boat, now on the trailer, now at Preacher's house so he can finish working on it before taking it on a shakedown cruise.
(Preacher's the one with the hat. Dwayne is the one with the beer.)
We hope to be involved with launching it. We have a trip to another island already planned, and will take both boats. Maybe do some snorkelling...take a bunch of photos for the blog. It will be great to be back in nautical mode again.
And have some new tropical material for this blog. You can see how bleak and depressing this winter weather has been. A lot like New England or Canada in January, I imagine.
Hey, Preacher...how long's it going to take you to get this boat ready?
Yeah, that's what I thought. Well, La Gringa's still got some time to get her back untweaked before the trip.
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