{"id":2620,"date":"2014-03-03T21:32:10","date_gmt":"2014-03-03T21:32:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.argoknot.com\/?p=2620"},"modified":"2014-03-03T21:38:19","modified_gmt":"2014-03-03T21:38:19","slug":"a-month-aboard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.argoknot.com\/?p=2620","title":{"rendered":"A Month Aboard"},"content":{"rendered":"

As I write this Bob is ashore doing our laundry\u2026..yes, it\u2019s almost<\/em> unbelievable, but I promise\u2026.it\u2019s true.\u00a0 How lucky is that?\u00a0 We are in Black Point Settlement on Great Guana, where you can get a haircut and do your laundry and have conch fritters, all at the same place that overlooks the little bay where all the boats are anchored. I am suffering from a cold, the last person onboard to get it\u2026.just when I thought I had missed the nasty little germ.\u00a0 So I get to stay aboard and take a nap. Oh well.<\/p>\n

This is where you sit to get your haircut while your laundry is going inside<\/p>\n

\"OLYMPUS<\/a><\/p>\n

After Chris left last week we had big plans to sail up to Compass Cay and spend a day or two shelling.\u00a0 On the morning we wanted to depart our anchor would not come up. While we were wondering what was wrong a large power boat arrived and anchored right next to us\u2026..very close, which worried me because I had a bad feeling we\u2019d get tangled with them undoing our anchor problems.\u00a0 The short version is that after trying to get the anchor up from different angles, Bob put on his shortie suit and free dived down about 25 feet to take a look.\u00a0 I have to add that he was in the throes of his own cold then so I know this was not his first choice of how to remedy our situation.\u00a0 He discovered that the anchor was caught on a limestone ledge.\u00a0 A second dive allowed him to tie a rope around the anchor (he was intending to pull it out by tying the rope to the dinghy and driving forward), but then, while he was down there, he thought he might as well see if he could just free it \u00a0by lifting it with his hands.\u00a0 That worked\u2026.so when he hit the surface he let me know that the anchor was free.<\/p>\n

In the fast moving currents, it didn\u2019t take long for us to start skimming our way over to that big powerboat.\u00a0 So there you go!\u00a0 I was onboard alone at the wheel, Bob was in the water quickly getting left behind as he struggled into the dinghy and got the dinghy anchor up.\u00a0 I\u2019m headed toward a 70-foot luxurious powerboat, and I\u2019m dragging along a 65 lb.\u00a0 Bruce anchor as I go.\u00a0 Well, it was a lot of excitement, and I\u2019m happy to report that there was no loss of life, or any other irreparable damage.\u00a0 Whew!<\/p>\n

But all the yanking on the Bruce anchor before Bob went down to look a look, did cause some damage\u2026. that long shank on the anchor used to be straight!<\/p>\n

\"OLYMPUS<\/a><\/p>\n

So instead of heading out, we motored a short distance to some nearby moorings and picked up one.\u00a0 Then Bob spent a couple of hours undoing our damaged Bruce and replacing it with a gargantuan Fortress that we keep onboard as a spare.\u00a0 By the end of that, with his cold raging, he was too tired to think of going anywhere\u2026.and that was fine with me too.\u00a0 I can only handle so much excitement in one day.<\/p>\n

So, when we did finally tear ourselves away from Staniel Cay, we headed south to an idyllic spot that doesn\u2019t seem to attract many visitors.\u00a0 Lucky us!\u00a0 We were the only boat at Bitter Guana, and it is quite a spot.\u00a0 I hope it continues to be unpopular!\u00a0 We were alone with a stunning white beach, a large limestone outcropping, and about 16 wild iguanas.\u00a0 The winds have been pretty calm, after a week or so of too much!<\/p>\n

\"OLYMPUS<\/a><\/p>\n

\"OLYMPUS<\/a><\/p>\n

Speaking of wind: I have a love\/hate relationship with it.\u00a0 Yes, a good breeze is just what you need when the temps get in the upper 80s F\u2026. but far too often it just blows too hard down here.\u00a0 At anchor the boats roll from side to side and buck up and down (at the same time) and it\u2019s about as challenging as being underway in rough conditions.\u00a0 It\u2019s no fun.\u00a0 And the sound\u2026. There comes a point when I\u2019d give anything to turn down the volume.\u00a0 I just want some quiet.\u00a0 So wind is often the thing that is most challenging.\u00a0 Anyway\u2026..just had to whine a bit about wind.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve done a little shell collecting and illegal iguana feeding, and I\u2019ve been suffering through my cold.\u00a0 Last night\u2019s sunset gave us another green flash!\u00a0 That makes four so far!\u00a0 Last year we only saw it once!<\/p>\n

\"OLYMPUS<\/a>\"OLYMPUS<\/a>\u00a0Here\u2019s what you miss when you sleep in due to being in a Nyquil-induced fog.\u00a0 It turns out there are lots of tropical long tails nesting on Bitter Guana along with the iguanas!\u00a0 They fly out in formation first thing in the morning and return at dusk. \u00a0Sorry I slept in\u2026.<\/p>\n

\"OLYMPUS<\/a>\u00a0And about my projects:\u00a0 things are not as good as I\u2019d first thought.\u00a0 In fact, I\u2019m wondering if I am going to end up starting every single one of them over.\u00a0 I guess that\u2019s a bit of an exaggeration.\u00a0 I do have the one Oktoberfest sock.\u00a0 And I have these two newly finished embroidery projects.\u00a0 They hardly count though, because each one only needed a few areas of work to be finished.\u00a0 I think both these little cross stitch projects have been languishing in a bag for about a decade \u2026. And now they are finished!<\/p>\n

\"OLYMPUS<\/a><\/p>\n

I am on the fence about the tapestry.\u00a0 It has too much black space, meaning the space between the spools.\u00a0 That might work out for being at the top of the piece, but it seems to me that the spools on the bottom of a shelf are the ones that are the most crowded and perhaps even squashed into less round shapes.\u00a0 They are bearing the weight of all the other spools. I realize I could turn the piece upside down when it’s finished, but I\u2019m also not happy with my first two spool colors, which are in the lower left so they would be upper right if I turned it upside down.\u00a0 I love to blend colors on the bobbin, but now that I\u2019ve done a bit of work on this piece, I think what\u2019s called for is unabashedly blazen, full saturation color.\u00a0 It\u2019s a very graphic piece, lots of circles and circles within circles, and I think the shapes are quite happy shapes\u2026.so it needs happy colors.\u00a0 I\u2019m not crestfallen about undoing the weaving\u2026.I\u2019m just sad that there is so little time when the waters are calm enough to work. It\u2019s a shame to spend a perfect, calm day un<\/em>-weaving rather than weaving.\u00a0 Oh well.<\/p>\n

When all else fails, I bake!<\/p>\n

\"OLYMPUS<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As I write this Bob is ashore doing our laundry\u2026..yes, it\u2019s almost unbelievable, but I promise\u2026.it\u2019s true.\u00a0 How lucky is that?\u00a0 We are in Black Point Settlement on Great Guana, where you can get a haircut and do your laundry and have conch fritters, all at the same place that overlooks the little bay where […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"","site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[25,5,12,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2620","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sailing","category-tapestry","category-travel","category-weaving"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.argoknot.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2620","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.argoknot.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.argoknot.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.argoknot.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.argoknot.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2620"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.argoknot.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2620\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2633,"href":"http:\/\/www.argoknot.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2620\/revisions\/2633"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.argoknot.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2620"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.argoknot.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2620"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.argoknot.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2620"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}