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<\/a><\/p>\nLast year, while I waited for my wash, I met Nancy from Trumpeter<\/i> who took an hour or so to teach me how to make the local basket which is a tightly coiled technique using Silver Queen palm fronds.\u00a0 We have bumped into them again this year! Here! How serendipitous!\u00a0 Nancy makes about 100 baskets each season and delivers them to school children back in the US, when she and her husband George do a program on cultural differences.\u00a0 This year she has made a wedding present basket that is truly amazing.\u00a0 I hope to get a photo, but for now here is a photo from last year when Nancy was patiently instructing me.<\/p>\n
So\u2026.back to laundry.\u00a0 This is one of those places I count on.\u00a0 Yesterday morning Bob had already taken the sheets off the bed when a little voice told me I should call Ocean Breeze on VHF radio, and when I did I learned that their water maker is not functioning so there is no laundry available!\u00a0 Oh no!\u00a0 That made me realize a few things:\u00a0 first, I have thought that water makers have made life on these islands so much easier.\u00a0 While people still do collect water in cisterns, mostly during the hurricane season, and ration water at all times whether from the water maker or from the cistern, I never thought how fragile it is to rely on these modern conveniences.\u00a0 When mechanical things break down out here it is not so simple to make repairs.\u00a0 So, Ocean Breeze is carefully rationing their water now.<\/p>\n So that brings me to dry cleaning.\u00a0 We have heard of this and have now we\u2019ve experienced it!\u00a0 When cruisers cannot do real laundry they take their sheets and towels and hang them out in the breeze and the sunlight.\u00a0 I imagine that there is some benefit to this\u2026. clean air and bright sunlight must have some cleaning properties.\u00a0 Anyway\u2026.this was our only option.\u00a0 Next hope of laundry is either Black Point in the Exumas or Rock Sound on Eluthera.\u00a0 Must get it done before next guests arrive!<\/p>\n When you visits places like this, you have to expect some inconveniences….like resorting to cruiser style dry cleaning.<\/p>\n We have had a little tragedy onboard Pandora<\/i>.\u00a0 My wonderful little window box, full of very happy plants, fell overboard!\u00a0 You cannot imagine how sad I am about this.\u00a0 Whenever we move location we put the window box in a safe place, usually in the dinghy that is up in its davits.\u00a0\u00a0 One day, last week we just moved from one side of Elizabeth harbor to the other and we didn\u2019t even give my precious little gems a thought.\u00a0 I was at the wheel, and I didn\u2019t even see them go over.\u00a0 My chives had somehow figured out it was spring and were bursting into bloom.\u00a0 I was looking forward to having the flowers on salads.\u00a0 The geranium was full of happy red flower heads, and the parsley had gotten quite full and delicious.\u00a0 We didn\u2019t realize it had all gone overboard until about an hour after anchoring.\u00a0 Bob took off in the dinghy to see if by chance it was floating in the current.\u00a0 There was a pretty strong current taking it out to sea, and he only found the empty window box.\u00a0 The plants had fallen out and probably sank.\u00a0 I feel just miserable about this. \u00a0\u00a0All the islands and cays down here have such a desert climate that my little window box was quite a bright spot in my days.\u00a0 I am so sorry about its salty demise. I don’t even have a recent photo of it, but this is from a month ago or so…<\/p>\n Lastly, I dug out an old sock project that I brought on board.\u00a0 It is the \u201cskew socks\u201d from Knitty Winter 2009<\/a> by Lana Holden. \u00a0I am having a great time finishing up this crazily fun design!\u00a0 The straight sections are basically diagonal knitting , and the shaping of the toe and heel is quite creative!\u00a0 I don\u2019t even know how I would begin to envision this on my own, but I am certainly having a great time following the directions.\u00a0 The heel ended up being a flap that jutted out on only one side of the circular row.\u00a0 After knitting the entire heel flap (which looked nothing like any heel flap I\u2019ve done before!) you put half of the flap on each of two dps and graft them together with a bit of spare yarn.\u00a0 The working yarn ends up just where you need it to be to continue knitting around minus the heel flap that just got grafted together.\u00a0 The graft ends up being a vertical line rather than the typical horizontal, and that is part of skewed-ness of the design.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n