On Mar 11, 5:44*pm, "Flying Pig" wrote:
Hello all!

I've been put on notice that the fine folks at rec.boats.cruising have been
concerned about the whereabouts of Flying Pig and crew. Well, not to worry.
All of us are doing just fine. We've been hanging out at an anchorage close
to Volleyball beach in George Town. We haven't done any sailing nor have be
gone anywhere for about three months. We are busy working on Flying Pig as
usual fixing one thing after another that breaks unexpectedly. We are likely
to be here for a long, long time as spare parts all have to be imported with
a hefty import duty. Plus, the mail is not the most reliable thing around
here either and I think some of the stuff gets re-directed to some needy
local for his own boat.

Lydia is doing fine and is in Hog Heaven. She spends her days putzing around
with a handful of other cruising wives and they gossip and cook and shop and
work on their tans. Some of them even manage to stay somewhat sober while
doing so but not my Lydia. She's awfully fond of her rum, ya know. And rum
is one thing that's cheap around here. I don't mind her staying sloshed,
though, because then it's pretty easy to convince her how great a lover I
am.

Speaking of cheap, WOW! Don't even think about buying diesel here. It's
anything BUT cheap! Try seven dollars a gallon. I think I'm going to have to
learn how to sail into and out of the harbor as it costs too much to motor
like I used to do all the time in the States. Speaking of that, we were
sailing out of Elizabeth Harbor the other day for an afternoon sail and, as
usual, Lydia went on the wrong side of a channel post and there we were
again, hard aground. We did listen to Wilbur Hubbard this time though and
departed on slack low water so we only had to wait about a half hour for the
incoming tide to lift us off. I always thought Wilbur was something of an
ass but now that I've started taking his advice I have to admit that sailing
goes a lot smoother. Sometimes we can go for an afternoon sail and not have
but five or six things go wrong instead of the usual dozen or so.

Like the other day. We went sailing and I forgot that I had taken down the
forestay to repair the roller furling. When I yanked the mainsail up and the
wind filled it, down came the mainmast. So we had to tie it alongside and
use the motor. But it wouldn't start. I traced the problem to a corroded
ground connection which I fixed but it still wouldn't start. So I then
traced it to a bad battery. So I switched it out for one of the house
batteries and it started. But then it quit again. I traced this to a clogged
fuel filter which I changed out and it ran long enough to get us back to our
anchorage in the cove by Volleyball beach. But we had to stop twice to
unwind mast halyards from the propeller.

Well, anyway, friends, fear not. Flying Pig and crew are pursuing our dream.
We never really were cruising sailors so we don't mind admitting we'll
probably be in George Town for years. We might even buy a house as we
finally realized we will always be lubbers at heart.

L8R

Skip

Morgan 461 #2
SV Flying Pig *KI4MPC
See our galleries atwww.justpickone.org/skip/gallery!
Follow us athttp://groups.yahoo.com/group/TheFlyingPigLog
and/orhttp://groups.google.com/group/flyingpiglog

*"You are never given a wish without also being given the power
to make it come true. You may have to work for it however."
(and)
"There is no such thing as a problem without a gift for you in
its hands. *You seek problems because you need their gifts."
(Richard Bach, in The Reluctant Messiah)

:{)) Since it showed up as gregh@... it wasn't all that well faked -
but entertaining.

As the recent posts have shown, we've been busy, sort of, and not all
of it was repairs, though there were plenty of those. Also no
Georgetown groundings, but the one at norman was just Lydia being out
of the channel (and, to be fair, my not recognizing, through the
crystal water, the insufficient depth - it all looks like it's 3'
deep, when it's 12 or 20 or, in fact, 6, which is about what we
encountered there - as I was standing on the bow looking for coral
heads to avoid) as we were leaving the first time.

And, as before, I compliment whichever personality it was which posted
it, as it was entertaining reading. The last parody, where I did
that, it really confused Wilbur, and past blasts' responses have had
Bob blubbering about gentleman of the month or some such :{))

And, yeah, Lydia's a player. She liked it :{))

Nice touch to use my sig line :{)) - but you'll no doubt notice I'm
using one you've not seen for a while, or never if you're relatively
(few years) here, now...

I'm going back to the boat soon, and we'll participate in a group
dinner at Lorraine's in Black Point, Exumas tomorrow. The wind isn't
as bad as forecast, so we'll probably leave sooner than we expected,
to Staniel and points north, on our way back to SSI GA to deliver
Lydia's mom, get grandbaby fixes, see her son in his new posting in
Hurlburt as a newly minted, degreed, BMET (BioMedicalEquipmentTech),
visiting our uncle who lives in Pensacola at the same time, as we
return.

L8R, y'all. Keep up the parodies if you haven't heard from us. We'll
have the SPOT on if we're moving, and if it disappears in the middle
of the ocean, it's a fair tossup as to whether the batteries have died
or we sank :{))

Skip and crew, who likewise can't get motzarella to talk to me (501
error), nor aioe. Anyone got a freebie news reader?