Meanwhile, over in the yahoogroup, I sent my first somewhat less
warm-fuzzy message to the interactive group. Some of you have seen
this already, being members...

Hiya, Yahoogroupies,

This will not be a regular occurrence - that is, lots of techie posts
from me - but I wanted to get something out in the open...

First, about current events.

We're deep into blister repair, which will be followed by patch-job
bottom paint to match the current color, then an entirely new bottom
paint in a contrasting color. I'll spare you the details :{)) - but,
as always, our more-or-less daily doings are documented in our gallery
under the refit section, and further under the appropriate month,
should you care to see it. The current gallery is August06.

While we were at it (famous last words - it's what has us still on the
hard, these 2.5 years later), Lydia had Chuck (our finish carpenter and
painter) redo the boot stripe and reveal stripe to match the color of
our hailing port and boat name lettering. It's gorgeous. I'll try to
get some pictures up in the gallery later tonight.

After all the bottom work is finished, we'll do the Poli-Glow treatment
to make the hull shine like a brand new paint job. Practical Sailor
reviewed it and many other sorta-similar products recently, and this
came out on top, with rave reviews from anyone who's used it backing it
up (many different discussions on several different lists got users to
comment recently).

Inside we continue to stow stuff and are very pleased with the
available room. In addition, I'm rounding third on the replumbing of
the aft head, using hard PVC instead of the stinky hose that always
eventually results regardless of how much you pay for, and how good it
is, the good stuff. Thus, in the future we'll not have to re-hose, an
entirely repulsive job.

However, to the real point of this notice:

There's been a lot of chatter in one of the mailing lists to which I
subscribe, about lawlessness in the Eastern Caribbean, our expected
cruising grounds once we finish the thorny (well, we'll do it
thornlessly) path to the island chain.

Knowing how things can get blown out of proportion, I asked one of the
Island Packet list members who's currently in Trinidad, and whose usual
cruising grounds are in that area, for a reality check. This was his
response:

Things are getting bad. Boardings, skipper beaten, women raped in St
Lucia
and Trinidad. I have worked with several people. We had a pre meeting
yesterday and will have a meeting with several hundred cruisers and the
US,
Canadian, and British Embassies tomorrow. There were a lot of murders
and
kidnappings last year and the year before, but the cruisers were not
involved until the last few months. We had the terrible experience of
listening to a woman on the VHF while she was being raped in St Lucia
and
because she spoke very little English, she could not identify the boat
or
its location. Will let you know the results of the meeting tomorrow if
you
are interested.

Bill Langlois
S/V HOPE

I replied about how distressing that was to those of us expecting to
spend the rest of our cruising days in the EC. I've asked for the
report, so we'll hear about it tomorrow. However, I really don't
expect the embassies to be able to do anything. Fortunately, our
expectation is that it will be well over a year before we'll be in that
part of the world, and perhaps the local governments will have, by that
time, decided that cruiser revenues are worth preserving, as, surely,
they will all abandon that area entirely if it remains unsafe, and
provide the "normal" (what we have come to expect in our everyday
lives) sorts of law enforcement, on the ground and in the water...

Please note that this is not intended to give alarm to our friends and
family - just to provide a heads-up that we'll be monitoring it very
closely, and if it doesn't improve, modify our cruising plans!

L8R

Skip and Lydia, hot stuff

Morgan 461 #2
SV Flying Pig KI4MPC
See our galleries at http://justpickone.org/skip/gallery/
Follow us at

"Believe me, my young friend, there is *nothing*-absolutely
nothing-half so much worth doing as simply messing,
messing-about-in-boats; messing about in boats-or *with* boats.
In or out of 'em, it doesn't matter. Nothing seems really to matter,
that's the charm of it.
Whether you get away, or whether you don't; whether you arrive at your
destination or whether you reach somewhere else, or whether you never
get anywhere at all, you're always busy, and you never do anything in
particular; and when you've done it there's always something else to
do, and you can do it if you like, but you'd much better not."

And, this is the standard footer which accompanies all the yahoogroup
postings:



The Morgan 461 Flying Pig is on the runway and gaining speed. Name and
hailing port are applied, signifying liftoff!
For a very slimmed-down, warm-fuzzy, non-technical site, go to
http://groups.google.com/group/flyingpiglog and - if you want - click
on the "subscribe" button at the top.
See our galleries at http://justpickone.org/skip/gallery/ and click the
refit section for work in progress in excruciating detail. See
snippets of what's happening at this group's photo album at
http://ph.groups.yahoo.com/group/The.../browse/1821?c



If you think you might have an interest in being part of either of
those groups, visit the website, look around, and subscribe if it moves
you...