Gas tank Tuesday

We got an email from the marina and took a trip down this afternoon to discuss what they are going to do about our fuel tank. It was a nice calm day, a shame we were not on the water.



(that photo look a little strange to you? Does it look right side up in New Zealand?)

Looks like they are gonna be removing the console and cutting a large, fuel-tank shaped hole in the deck. Ouch. I took a look at the mess of wires, hydraulic steering lines, throttle cable, engine sensors, bilge, livewell, and washdown pump controls, tilt, jackplate, and tab controls...and I had a sick feeling in my stomach. What are the chances of everything working right the first time after they hook it back up.... Pretty slim, I'd say.

Some people wrote me about the dock being too short for our boat at our new slip at Sherlock's. I thought I would show you what we are coming from.



So you see, we are accustomed to short docks. One of the reasons we installed two more cleats on the boat.

Thinking about fuel problems reminded me of Preacher. When he heard about our split tank, he had to tell me one of HIS fuel problem stories. Preacher has got a lot of good sea stories, not just a few of them having to do with being out of fuel. Seems the interesting bits usually seem to come right after that little basic part. But sometimes it takes a whole different story just to figure out how he even got to the point where he was in a boat out of fuel out in the ocean..which is where HE would usually rather start the story. We've been hearing more and more stories as we get to know him. When he told me this one, I never figured I would ever be writing it down. So I didn't ask enough questions. I will do better next time. But this is the way I remember it more or less:

In this case, it seems "this guy " that we supposedly know had "borrowed" a boat (and this is one of those details he likes to skip lightly over) to run over to South Caicos and back. He seems to not have known much about the condition of the boat. He filled up the tank "downunda deflo'"in Provo thinking he had enough for a round trip to South Caicos and back to Leeward. He ran out of fuel just short of South Caicos. Finally, he managed to somehow find someone who had enough spare gas to somehow get some into the inboard tank on "this guy's" borrowed boat. I don't know how he got this person's attention, or how long it took floating around out on the Banks with no fuel. I got the impression he spent the night on the boat.

Then the story jumps ahead to where he has five gallons of gas on board with him, and poured it into the tank, and primed the outboard and motored into South Caicos. He conducted his business in South Caicos and topped up the boat and his new five gallon can to head back to Leeward. He already knew that's how much gas it took to get him to South, right? A full tank and five gallons. That's what got him over.

Well, I guess about halfway across he noticed the boat was sluggish and the fuel gauge was way down, more than he expected. Using more fuel and going slower. So he finally he got around to checking the bilge. Yep, at this point he had leaked something like a full tank of fuel into the bilge, half going over, and half on the way back. Plus five gallons. Thats like 40 gallons of pure gasoline sloshing around. He didn't have an electric bilge pump (probably his guardian angel to thank for that) so he bailed all that gasoline over the side. So I got this mental picture of this rickety boat with a hole in the fuel tank, a bilge full of fumes, floating around in a huge slick of gasoline and two stroke oil. Next time I see Preacher I am going to try to remember to ask him how long "this guy" waited before he got the nerve to turn the ignition key on and crank that electric starter.

The rest of our day was pretty uneventful. I did manage to pull up a small Casurinas tree that was threatening the patio at our borrowed accomodations:



The plants down here bear watching. If they are not invading your plumbing, they might be bench pressing your patio.

Heading for surgery..

No, not us, I meant the boat. This afternoon I moved it back to the Caicos Boatyard so that they can start to work on finding and fixing the fuel tank leak. They have told me they will start tomorrow. LaGringa dropped me off in Leeward, and I ran the boat down solo. Well, Dementio The Dog was with me, but quite frankly, he's not much help on a boat unless you have a fish that needs to be bitten. It was just before dark, and there was a lot of big sky out. I was dodging squalls again. Here's looking back at Leeward-Going-Through:



Nothing much exciting happened on this short trip. I suppose that's probably a good thing when you are alone in the boat and it's getting dark. Excitement at this point is probably not going to be good. We had run most of the fuel out of the boat over the weekend since the boatyard guys are going to fill the tank with water anyhow. The gauge was sitting dead on "Empty" when I left Sherlock's Marina. ( We don't know what the name of it is going to be yet, so for now we are just calling it Sherlock's). Here's a view leaving Sherlock's. That's the Conch Farm on the left, the two buildings in the middle are the start of the marina complex he has planned. The big house on the right is the Premier's home.



I did take a six gallon can of gasoline with me but did not want to have to put it in the tank if I could help it. I ran her nose high all the way to get every bit of gas down in the back of the tank where the fuel pickup is located. Uneventful trip, only about six miles. Still feels funny running along with the needle pegged at empty. Not another boat in sight. The sensory input was all just boat, ocean, and clouds:



So, for the next few days (we hope it's only a few) we will be Boatless in Provo. We have some ideas for other things to photo and post here, though, until we get "Cay Lime" back.

Then, of course once we get the boat back, and can start filling the tank with fuel again, we still have all of the trips planned that we have had to put off. We even found out that Preacher did not make the Salt Cay trip (boat problems, now there's a surprise) so that's still on. Now to be fair, between our fuel tank problems, Tropical Storm Noel, and Preacher's boat problems, that wasn't gonna happen as scheduled. Any one of those three things would have stopped it, and we had all three. Preacher is just waiting on two new starter motors, by the way. We still want to visit East Caicos and the ruins at Jacksonville. We are not NEARLY done with French Cay. After we move into the house we will be making scrounging and beach combing trips for driftwood and interesting ocean stuff to pile around and make the place look more nautical... Looks like it's shaping up to be a fun season. I'm still glad I did get to make this little sunset trip this afternoon:



I know the recreational boating season is just about finished in the high Northern latitudes. I remember this time of year in New England very well. But here the boating and fishing season runs year round. It does get a little cooler and rougher in the winter, but the low 60s are about as cold as it ever gets. It still gets up into the 80's every day all winter long. It's about as close to an 'endless summer' as I have ever seen.

Old chairs, new slip.

Yesterday the weather finally cleared out and we took the boat over to Pine Cay. La Gringa had bought four of these old wooden chairs, and we went to pick them up. It was an excuse to get on the ocean which was good enough for me.



This past summer the Meridian Club on Pine Cay underwent another round of renovations to the hotel. These chairs were in some rooms, and when La Gringa heard they were for sale, she grabbed four of them. I don't know....is $ 25 apiece a good price for old chairs? We waited for the seas to calm down enough to go get them. For the past week if we had tried to transport them in the boat the straw seats and wood would have been soaked in sea water. Probably not good, all things considered. We got them loaded on the boat no problem:



Kinda looks like we hired a Haitian carpenter to build us a rear bench seat for , doesn't it? La Gringa rode back to Provo sitting on one of the chairs,she said it was a nice ride.

We were told that these chairs had been on the island since Liam McGuire was there. He started all this. That was back in the 60's and 70's. So, while they are not all that old, around here something surviving 40 years pretty much qualifies it as an antique by local standards. We'll have to find a place for these in the new house. Maybe I could use them for saw horses, or to hold greasy truck parts while I work on them..Should be easier than finding places for those frames from the old bar at Gilley's.

We decided to put the boat in our new slip at Sherlock's for the weekend. We will have to move it back to the boatyard by early Tuesday, if they are still on schedule to cut into it and try to find and fix the gas tank leak.



After 11 months of having to run 15 miles each way to get out to Pine Cay, it's going to be nice to have choices as to which route to take depending on the wind and waves. It's also going to be nice to only have to run 7.5 miles to get there. This slip is another $ 100/month more than our slip at the boatyard, but three trips to the Pine Cay area a month will make up the difference in gasoline costs alone. Not to mention hours on the outboard, and the wear and tear of getting down that horrible road to the boatyard. It's a good thing.

Plus we get to hang out more with our friends.

The boat fits okay. Dwayne said he could get us another cleat to put in the middle of the dock spur, which will be just about perfect. We think we are going to like it here. Even knowing it's all going to be under construction for the next year, putting in tackle shops, parking lot, restaurant.. Maybe Sherlock should name it the "Leeward Phoenix" marina.

After we left the boat snugged up we took a trip out to check on the house. Not a lot going on these days. Maybe its just our impatience to get moved into our own home and get started on all the projects we have facing us, or maybe it's just really slowed down. We were pretty glad we made the Pine Cay trip in the boat early, because the storms were right behind us. If we had been an hour later leaving Pine Cay, we would have been right in the middle of that. With La Gringa's chairs, in an open boat. Whew.

I took some photos of the house, but basically the progress is hard to see. It's small things like plaster work around some doors. All the sliding glass and louvered windows are in. There's been work on the outside shower. Stuff like that. Everything is waiting, waiting, waiting, for the guys to finish the tin roof and make the inside weathertight. The subcontractor is a month behind so far, in finishing this. We're not real happy about it. But its really the first gripe we have had since day one, so that's still not bad.

So rather than post up a bunch of photos, I just combined five of them into a single panoramic view:



Want a "Where's Waldo" puzzle? La Gringa and I are both in that photo...

We also had to drive back to Krazy Bargains, one more time, still trying to get all the right parts to put a simple bedframe together. This is the third trip. La Gringa is starting to get a little short-tempered with a certain Pakistani gentleman...

So, that was our Saturday, Nov. 3rd. Thinking about going fishing today...it's about time for the Wahoo to show up, and we haven't caught a decent fish in weeks.

We are still looking for a name for the house. How does "Kestrel" sound?

Better day

We felt the  sunrise this morning had all the earmarks of a nice day. And it was.

For the first year we were here we kept our little Whaler at one of Pine Cay's slips at Leeward. We met all of our earliest friends in the TCI at Leeward, so these are people we have known now going into our third year. When we got our present boat we had to move, and have been renting a slip at the boatyard. It's been okay, but not great. Good people there, but the logistics are not the best:



We still hung out at Leeward, but not nearly as much as when we kept the boat there. We were there almost every day that first year but only once or twice a week after we moved. Then the developers tore the marina at Leeward down to build this big new resort. We were bummed. So were a whole lot of other local boat people.

The local boat dealer, Sherlock Walkin, has been building a new marina very near the old Leeward Marina site. It's on the "corner" of Provo, right where Leeward-Going-Through widens out into the Caicos Bank. We had been bugging him to rent us a slip for months, but he would not commit. Then after Leeward Marina was torn up, we figured there was no chance to get into the new marina. It would fill up with all the local business charters and natives who were displaced. We basically gave up asking.

Then, early this afternoon the phone rang. It was Preacher, and he told us he was at the new marina and we should come down. Now, Preacher likes to talk in parables, and can be oblique sometimes. But we have learned to listen to him carefully, and we boogied on down there in about ten minutes. You just never know with Preacher. Something could always be up.

Preacher was waiting for us, and he showed us the new slip he had just rented for his own use!



He got a great spot, away from the traffic and fuel dock, bow into the prevailing winds, sheltered from wakes, and close to the bulkhead. He can park his car and be literally steps from his slip. To the right, the Caicos Bank. To the left, Leeward-Going-Through and the reef. Straight ahead, North, Middle, and South Caicos. This area historically is called "Heaving-Down Rock" - since the early 1800's.



That's Preacher's new slip, the closest one between the concrete bulkhead and the floating spur. Because its shallow and rocky next to the concrete, he got the whole double slip to himself. He can load straight from the bulkhead if he want's to. Nice.

He gave us some more good news: our friend and former dockmaster at Leeward, Dwayne, is now the new manager here. Our friend Duran now works here, we're not sure of his title, yet. In fact, quite a few of our old friends were here today.
Checking out the nice new fuel dock:



The property is still very much under construction, with backhoes and cement trucks coming and going. Sherlock has a restaurant and tackle shop planned, and yard storage for trailers. 24 hour security. The first building and Dwayne's new office is already up and running:



And "Catch the Wave" charters has that little office upstairs to the right. "Silver Deep" on the ground floor. Seems all our old buddies are landing on their feet here. Preacher says Sail Provo is being fit in, too.

The Prime Minister's home is literally right across the street:



and the Conch Farm is literally around the corner:



(We are going to get some more photos and the story of the Conch Farm for a future post)

There's a really cool new ferry boat to take people from here to North Caicos on a regular schedule. This country hasn't had that. La Gringa was talking with the guys at the gas pump about the ferry. One of them said "but where they gonna put they STUFF? Nobody EVER go to North empty-handed.." and it's a good point. I think we have posted photos here of people loading up in private boats to go back to North Caicos. Provo is a shopping trip. They take suitcases and boxes and bags of groceries. I think this ferry is going to be a great idea for commuters working in the new hotels and developments going in on North Caicos, but I also think there's quickly going to be room for a regular small daily passengers/freight service, as well. This place is growing so fast.



We were pretty envious. Things are very crowded over at the marina where our boat is. And the road, well, you have already seen photos of the road. The road to Sherlock's marina is the best, smoothest, and straightest paved road in Provo. We told Preacher we had tried for months to get Sherlock to let us reserve a slip here, and got nowhere. Now we knew why, with the sudden shortage of dockage in Leeward, with this prime marina location, he knew he would get all the business he could handle. This marina is going to fill up quick. I don't think they have advertised being open for business at all (and believe me, we watch for these things), and it's already at least half full:



So after listening to our jealousy, Preacher gave us a big grin, and said "Let's go talk to Dwayne"....and you know what those sonofagun's did? They arranged it so we got the slip right next to Preacher's. We share that first floating spur. When we walk down to the bottom of this little ramp, our boat will be two diagonal steps to the left.



Of course, we went for it. We're already paid up for two months in advance.

Another aspect of this little vignette today that La Gringa and I really appreciate is the subtle confirmation of friendship and acceptance we see in this. I suspect that for some time to come, the new resort and marina being built on the ruins of Gilley's just a half mile away with slips for yacht's to 200 ft, will be somewhat of a "them". And it's real nice to know that the locals friends we have made here consider La Gringa and I as part of their "us."

Remember when you were a kid and standing in a line while teams were being chosen for a game? It always felt good to hear your name called, didn't it?

This is kinda like that.

Cabin fever

Finally!! A dawn with something other than gray overcast windblown clouds!

After a week of being essentially 'pinned down' by Tropical Storm Noel, we see some blue sky peeking through and the winds have dropped.

Even the dog is excited:

(I didn't say he was awake yet, just that he's excited. He's multitasking.)

I guess what we have been going through the past week is a version of tropical cabin fever. Too rough to boat or dive, too cloudy for good photos, too much rain to enjoy the back roads ( flooding). So, well, we do what we can. We did manage to get some things accomplished.

Yesterday was a time with no reason or rhyme, we had too much to do in the town. Had to visit the cops and make even more stops with a whole lot of running around.

It's a year to the day when we last had to play this mad game of obtaining permits. It's to stay in these isles where we've lived for a while and the hassle is giving us fits. (that's not, by the way, what I wanted to say but it's clean and it rhymes the right bits.)

Providenciales Police Department:

(I do NOT want to see the inside of their holding cells. Nossir.)

Our first stop on this trip was to pick up our slips that the cops had prepared for us here. They say, one more time, we've committed no crimes (that they know of) all during the year.

and for the record, the PD 4x4s are not immune to the roads of Provo, either:

Then we drove through the mud to the place where our blood was examined for bad stuff like AIDS. Got our letters to show that we're both good to go, more receipts to show that we've paid.

Immigration was next, with a handful of text, affadavits and photos and money. We filled out more forms, now becoming the norm, stood in lines for so long it's not funny.

Now on the way home we decided to roam by the beach just to check out this store. Not a whole lot of thrills, but it's down in Blue Hills, we're particularly fond of that shore.

(a smudge on the lens, like a mild case of bends, puts a bubble where it is not wanted. I'm sorry, my friends, I can't make amends, and must now continue undaunted)

It's a neat little place overseen with some grace by a very nice lady named Mary. That's NOT evil eye, Mary's just camera-shy, self-conscious, reclusive and wary.

Now throughout this store they've got baskets galore, and coasters, and platters and mats. These are things all handmade by old folks in the shade who are also past masters at hats.



If you like abstract art these good folks do their part with some things that they find on the beach. They used sea-fans and wood, and some shells where they could and some feathers to color them each:



If you like to see dots, a sea-dragon with spots has a nice corner spot on the floor...



Sea-Dragons and fish and more birds if you wish (if you ask I'll be glad to post more).

And for more active troops they sell dozens of sloops that you're welcome to sail in the races. Middle Caicos, and here, and there's lots of cold beer, and dozens of happy wet faces.

For more practical minds there are conch shells we find make great bowls to serve salads and chili. A conch spoon goes great with this whimsical plate, but a knife and a fork would be silly.

Now out at his digs lives a man, Alton Higgs, who rescues old ropes from the sand. He takes old nylon line, poly pro, and some twine, and makes wonderful rugs all by hand.

Well I'm ending this post cause I fear, as your host, my brain is now turning to squash. But the sky's turning blue, we got fun stuff to do, (does dementia come out in the wash?: