A compliment to the parodist, whom or which-ever he/she/it may be:

"Flying Pig" wrote in message
...
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.

Pretty good, considering I'd not posted that information. However, noting
the starting and ending points of the race around Stocking Island would have
shown that, as, for that matter, would our track, prolly, to get there, on
our SPOT.

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.

Again, prescient, as I'd wanted to send some stuff back for electronic
repair, and elected not to do so because of the duties. We've not heard of
stuff being misappropriated, but delays and costs are a real nuisance in the
Bahamas. And, as seen in a later post, Boat Repair In Exotic Locations sort
of defines cruising :{))

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.


Heh. Nice try, there. However, shopping isn't on the agenda, though
tanning is, and Rum isn't one of our purchases, either before or being here.
OTOH, there is the OCCASIONAL rum punch at Chat 'n' Chill, though Lydia
usually prefers beer.

As to convincing, sober is a great deal better for appreciation, so you
missed on that one, too. Sorry...

Speaking of cheap, WOW! Don't even think about buying diesel here. It's
anything BUT cheap! Try seven dollars a gallon.

Another nice try. Gasoline is expensive - more so than in the states - but
we were very pleasantly surprised to see diesel very much cheaper in the
Bahamas than in the states. At the time of our only fill, it was about a
buck cheaper than road diesel, much less, I'm sure, than marina diesel
stateside.

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.

Interesting, there, too, in that we routinely sail off our anchor, now. We
usually have the motor on to put out the hook, more that we're in crowded
spaces than we need it, per se, and likely, when we get to open places,
we'll do that. It is, in fact, more a cost issue than proving any skills,
as we're already confident of the skill level. Good shot.

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.

Heh. No channel posts here, or at least extremely few. And we usually
disregard the tide advice, preferring the lift of the direction to the tide
state. You'd have to presume grounding to follow his advice :{))

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.

Excellent! He remembered all the way from our trip to Maine, when a casting
weld broke on the furler, and worked it into the story.

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.

Also excellent, in that he worked a bad ground we'd uncovered (very long
ago, but, still...) in our chasing the non-working spreader and foredeck
lights into the story. Not the same, but still a good insertion.

So I then traced it to a bad battery.

Wow! The man's prescient, too. Our start battery gave up the ghost, and
started vampiring our house battery...

So I switched it out for one of the house batteries and it started.

The (presumed) man's amazing. While swapping a house battery for the
starter wouldn't work (6V, 125#), we did take the start battery out of the
system, and all is very well with both starting (which wasn't a problem
before, since it was set to "both") and, very particularly, with charging,
but our house battery is now the starting battery.

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.

Heh. Not so good on that one - we have a killer polishing system, and the
tank is very well agitated, then cleaned, from the wreck which I estimated
had 3000-5000 impacts on a half-full tank, and the trip back to St. Pete,
where we rolled 30* in each direction (while running the fuel polisher,
having changed the filters twice in Marathon, before leaving). I would be
stunned to see a fuel clog-related problem - but if we do, we have dual
Racors, too, plumbed for non-bleeding restarts.

But we had to stop twice to unwind mast halyards from the propeller.

Well, nice simile - but we've never had to stop while under way. That's not
to say that we haven't occasionally had to unwind some line (on more than
one, but fewer than 4, occasions). Nice touch.


Well, anyway, friends, fear not. Flying Pig and crew are pursuing our
dream.

Ain't it the truth! Had fun with the swimming pigs today, and tomorrow I'll
finally dive the boat to clean off the slime (that being all that's
accumulated here in over 4 months).

We never really were cruising sailors so we don't mind admitting we'll
probably be in George Town for years.

:{)) Longer than we'd have thought, or for that matter, wanted, but we're
gone. Great time, and we'll return, no doubt.

We might even buy a house as we finally realized we will always be lubbers
at heart.

Ah, well, you're allowed one gross mistake. We can take (we'll see this
coming trip with more accuracy) about 10 days, max, ashore, before we're
absolutely climbing the walls and can't wait to get back to the boat.
That's despite our combined 8 kids and soon to be 7 grandkids.

Apparently, you managed to recall that we'd sold our houses, after an
earlier comeuppance claiming that we weren't real sailors, always going back
to our shoreside digs, but buying a house is literally the furthest thing
from our minds. Lydia's even talking circumnav, now...

Good job, otherwise. Entertaining read.

L8R

Skip and crew, lying Big Majors, through Staniel Cay WiFi

--
Morgan 461 #2
SV Flying Pig KI4MPC
See our galleries at www.justpickone.org/skip/gallery !
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