Riddle Me Ree

How do I know that I have a three-year-old aboard?

I found this this afternoon:

Ahhh!  Pink lipsticked!

I'm only smiling on the outside.

When questioned, Indy shrugged and said, "I wanted her to be pink," as though that were obvious.

Yep.  Three.

Our Friend Harvey

[updated with photos.]

(My dears, the internet is a lazy sod here on Roatan. We normally pick up our messages and check the weather at nearby Fantasy Island resort (for reals). Alas, the internet has been down for the past week. I see your eyes popping out - a week? I might as well tell you I haven't eaten in a week. And when one kindly asks the front desk when internet might return, one receives a shrug in return. "The problem is at the provider." (This I already knew, as I'd already searched out the modem and reset everything I could get my hands on. The boat life teaches one self-reliance.) The upshot is that, while I can post these missives via ham radio, I can't include photos that way. This is a shame, as a funny picture can go a long way towards pepping up a mediocre post. But, in the meantime, we'll do it this way.)

You might think that living on a sailboat consists mainly of sailing. You are wrong. Living on a sailboat means mainly not sailing. We have met many, many cruisers who stopped for fuel and just never left the marina again. We are an anomaly, as, in our case, 'not sailing' means exploring an area, or, as we are doing now, waiting for packages to arrive. We haven't yet met our magic port.
'Not sailing' also means that, when you want to stop somewhere, you can, ie. your anchor system is doing its job. That is non-trivial. For our first eight months aboard, we used a ninety-pound CQR anchor. It was pretty good, but we did drag a few times in high winds. In Mexico, we got a great deal on a never-been-used 'used' 136-pound Manson ray anchor. It was mirror-shiny and pretty and Erik loved it like a third child. Had I internet cooperation, I would post pictures of proud Erik with his Manson. You'll have to imagine it, instead.

[...and now I can!]

Just one last smudge...

...and there!

Tremble at my awesome stopping power!

You wouldn't think those extra forty-odd pounds would made a difference in stopping a 42-ton boat, but boy-howdy, they do. The first time we set the Manson, it bit in and stopped us dead. Huzzah! High-fives all around. Erik normally doesn't sleep on blowy nights, in case we drag. (I sleep like the dead. The deal is this: I get up with early-riser Indy every day. He gets the dramatic blowy nights. I think I made out like a bandit.) But with the Manson, even Erik got some sleep.

We watch our weather pretty carefully, whether by SSB or word-of-mouth, and last week we saw Tropical Depression 8 become Tropical Storm Harvey. It was headed right for us. We'd been warned that when the shrimp boats start to pile into the little hurricane hole around the corner, we should get in there too. Sure enough, Friday came around, and in they went. In we went. We knew we'd probably only get the edge of the storm, but we decided it was good practice, no matter what. No point waiting to iron out your techniques in an actual hurricane.

Unfortunately, we're big. And aside from the shrimpers [Correction: fishing boats.  How could I have been so wrong?], there was another sailboat there, right where we needed to be. This edged us out of the good holding and onto a crummy bottom, where even the Manson didn't want to dig in. We did our best, and set the old CQR in the other direction as a safety measure.

At one am, Erik shook me awake. "Amy, I need you up. We're dragging." (Rule: bad weather only comes between midnight and four am.) I'm normally a deep sleeper, but the adrenaline got me out of bed in a hurry.

The wind was howling, and the rain sheeting down. Our dodger was off bring repaired, so the cockpit was fully exposed. We'd foolishly left up the awning over the mainsail as part of our water collection system, but the canvas was helping to sail us off the anchors. Mangroves beside us, resort dive boats behind, the second sailboat on the other side and shrimp boats ahead, we were boxed in. Erik had to use the engine to keep us in place. We cursed having done "the prudent thing" - in the bay, we were on both a mooring ball and the Manson anchor in great holding. Had we moved into the hole only to crack up the boat? I stood in the cockpit, shivering with long-forgotten cold, and longed for the days when a thunderstorm was something fun to watch through a window.

Then a miracle happened. The secondary anchor bit into something and stuck. That was enough to stop the Manson, and we stopped moving. Hooray! My services were no longer needed. After another half an hour to assure ourselves that we really weren't going to move, I went back to bed. Erik suited up in his bright yellow foul-weather gear, and stayed up until the storm blew past. Indy and I found him stretched out in the cockpit the next morning, wrapped up head to toe, finally asleep.

Even captains have to sleep sometime.

We're back in the bay now, and have been making plans about what to do when The Next One comes. Since we are alone out here (hurricane season, y'all), we may tie to a few mooring balls and set both anchors. And If the wind doesn't shift and hopelessly cluster us, we might stay in place even out here. Here's hoping.

Dear Kindle

Dear Kindle,

I know this wasn’t what you expected.  Way back when you were just a shiny group of components, all shiny and new and eager to give some upwardly mobile young person the gift of digital bookery, you had thoughts of your future.  You were destined to be stuffed in a messenger bag and cycled to the local coffee shop for some fair-trade.  To sit beside some similarly slim and sleek electronic devices on a home-office desk.  To be fitted into a specially-made cover with a light, and to glow gently in your loft apartment in the middle of the night.  Those were your hopes and dreams.  But it didn’t quite turn out that way, did it?

I can see that no one ever thought you would be doing this.  I know this, because you aren’t hiding your unhappiness very well.  I have to admit, I’ve never seen the sheath on an electronic cord shed that way.

I feel prickly.

It was pretty impressive.  Like an old sheepdog on a summer’s day.  Lucky for me, I had a spare cord, so I no longer have to get zapped every time I walk by while you are charging.

But this, this I take issue with.  Erik also has a Kindle.  Technically it was mine for about five minutes before he stole it, but let’s not quibble.  You are the same model as Erik’s Kindle.  Both 3G + wireless.  And yet, you refuse to get a signal.

It's gone, daddy, gone; the love is gone.

Look at that.  Side by side: Erik’s Kindle has four bars; you have nothing.  Why is that?  Even tech support’s magic codes didn’t reset you.  I have to tell you, this little pout isn’t going to land you a better spot via craigslist.  You are stuck with me and my salt water, baby, and you’d better learn to love it.  Even if I have to search out wireless nodes and put you on top of them to force you to admit a signal exists, you are going to download my books.  I’m a motivated disciplinarian.  And I’m guessing, Kindle, you don’t want to get passed on to the girls.  They are big readers, and those books get well-loved.  I use a lot of scotch tape.

You don’t want that.

I hope we understand each other.

Yours most sincerely,

Amy

Time flies

What do you mean I haven't posted in two weeks?  C'est impossible!  C'est ridicule!  And I have so much to talk about.  The joys of shipping things to a foreign country.  Convincing my bank / credit-card-company / retailers-of-all-sorts that I really am me, even though you can't contact me at my home phone number, and that shipping something to Honduras and not my billing address does not necessarily mean FRAUD is at work.  Amazon Kindle cords that dissolve.  All this and more awaits you, but not today!  Today I am busy calling the aforementioned bank / credit-card-company / retailers-of-all-sorts so I can please, please, pretty-please get my inverter/charger, books, birthday presents and money down here.

Instead, adorability!

Angel

Devil.  In a good way.

 And a very happy birthday to my many, many relatives with August birthdays.  As soon as I can put more minutes on my Honduran prepaid phone, I'll call.

Interim Report on Seasickness

As you know, I have been somewhat inner-ear-challenged on this trip.  Stylish and Indy have had the occasional issue, but I am a consistent mal de mer girl.  So although I have lots of fun when we arrive places, I’m afraid the getting-there isn’t all it could be.

Here is what I’ve tried so far.

1.  Dramamine, aka Gravol

Seasickness fighting power: 2/10

Adverse effects: 9/10

This stuff was plain terrible.  It robbed me of all intelligent thought, while leaving me in full possession of my blinding headaches and stomach upset.  The day I made the mistake of taking a full pill, Erik was unable to wake me for almost half an hour.  I fell asleep sitting up, for crying out loud.  So if you like to feel like your brains have been sucked out of your head and replaced with cotton wool, while simulataneously having all of your sinus cavities threaten to explode, this is the drug for you.

Hermes understands what I'm going through.

2.  Scopolamine patch

Seasickness fighting power: 8.5/10

Adverse effects: 7/10

Oh, scopolamine.  The patch was brilliant to start with.  I used it on the three-day passage from Key West to Isla Mujeres, and, for once, was in fighting shape  the whole way.  But then the itchiness under the patch started.  I developed an allergic reaction to either the drug or whatever they use to cross the skin barrier.  By the time we hit Isla and I took it off, I had a fiery red welt behind my ear that took weeks to heal.  An itchy patch I can deal with, but the patient information sheet carried dire warnings about allergic reactions leading to respiratory shutdown, and I’m less cool with that.   So, I’ll use this again in a pinch, but it obviously doesn’t like me, more’s the pity.

3.  Stugeron

Seasickness fighting power: 2/10

Adverse effects: 2/10

This was the holy grail of seasickness meds.  Everyone told me how great it was.  Banned in the US, it was bound to be good, right?  No.  It did nothing.  Nothing!

Like Radioactive Man, I'm a little disappointed.

It was like going out with your dream date, only to discover he is a dumb as a stick, secretly wears a hairpiece and still lives in his mother’s basement.  Truly, I was heartbroken. 

5.  Pressure point bracelets

Seasickness fighting power: 0/10

Adverse effects: 0/10

I think I spent too long in the sciences to have the faith required for this kind of remedy.  Enough said.

4.  Nothing + a nap

Seasickness fighting power: 3/10

Adverse effects: 0/10

Let’s face facts, boys and girls.  I’m pretty useless the first day out.  I can follow basic instructions, but my higher cognitive abilities shut down under the weight of my misery.  So, I might as well be asleep, right?  I can help with watches, ie/ make sure we don’t hit other boats and we stay on course.  I retain that level of smartitude.  And being drug-free, I am marginally more intelligent than on the stuff listed above (and, I have it on good authority, somewhat less crabby).  When it is Erik’s turn to keep watch, I sleep in the cockpit.  As long as I don’t venture into the dreaded Belowdecks, I can feel human for up to an hour after waking.  Pretty good, right?  Well, better than nothing.

This is where I call for help.  People.  This is your chance to shine!  You are smart and worldly.  You travel places.  You know someone with motion sickness.  And you have access to all the wonders of the intrawebs, which I lack via my trusty ham radio.  So help me out here.  I am ready to be a one-woman testing ground for any and all remedies, no matter how dubious!  I’m down to ginger tea on my list of Things People Swear Will Work.  Send me your magical answers.  Pretty please.  Be my hero!

Even Wonder Woman suffers during takeoff and descent.

Rodent vs Insect

In my youth, I wasn’t very fond of spiders.  Alright, I was kind of scared of them.  This wasn’t helped by the fact that our house backed onto a ravine, and every once in a while a spider the size of the Loch Ness monster would scuttle across my bedroom floor.  In general, I could manage if they were a) outside the house, and b) couldn’t contact me in any way, but if they violated either of those terms, their creepy little lives were forfeit. 

Once I had Stylish, I tried very hard to get over my spider issues.  When we encountered bugs and spiders, I would take a steadying breath, then we would examine them and talk about how interesting they were.  Eventually, my feigned non-revulsion became real.  And once we moved aboard, I was quite happy for any spiders I saw, because I knew they were keeping the bug population down.  As for the bugs themselves, pfft.  Bugs.  Big deal.

And then, it happened.

A giant cockroach.

We call them palmettos, because it sounds better, but the fact of the matter is that when two inches of dark brown buggy horror runs across the bathroom, you wish you were holding an elephant gun.  Truth be told, I jump on a chair and squeal like a cartoon housewife from the fifties who spotted a mouse.  Every time.  Erik always has to kill the damn thing, and he's getting pretty disgusted at my totally irrational reaction.  I'm trying, but so far I'm failing.  When I turn around of an evening to see those long, long antennae wiggling out from behind something, rational thought deserts me.

Sightings are rare, so we know we aren’t infested.  We seem to specialize in bringing home orphans – hiding in corrugated cardboard, hitchhiking out of the hot and humid laundry room.  We are are careful as we can be, but somehow, once in a while, they still show up.  I have Boraxed the heck out of this boat, so I know not much will survive.  Certainly not for long.  They can’t hurt me; they are just gross.  And yet, and yet...

A couple of weeks ago, we actually spotted two in one night (instead of about one every month), and Erik and I were worried.  Out came the special poisons and traps.  No way do we want to haul this boat out of the water to fumigate it.  But then a strange thing happened.

The next morning, Erik found palmetto parts strewn around the back deck.  He speculated that a bat had caught one, and we joked about building a bat house on the mizzen.  A few days later, I found some palmetto legs under the stove as I was cleaning.  And then I found mouse poops in the cupboard.

I closed my eyes and leaned my head against the wall and wondered why we had stayed in a marina.  You’re just asking for critters to run up the lines.  And here was a mouse.  A mouse to eat our food, chew the lines, chew the upholstery, chew the hoses and maybe even sink the boat.

Mice don't bother me.  At all.  I spent too long in a lab to be afraid of mice.  But I still don't want them here, so we bought sticky traps, warfarin, snap traps and a live trap.  No way was Mr Mousie going to stay on Papillon, and we sure weren't going to give it a chance to breed.

Because the food is packed in hard plastic (yes, all of it). Mr Mousie had no luck in the pantry.

Animal proof

I found he was going on deck at night to chew through the full garbage bags.  I baited the live trap with ham and peanut butter and tucked it in beside the garbage bag.  Then, off to bed.

In the night, I thought I heard the trap snap shut, and accompanying shrieking and clanging.  But it was a windy night and the sounds disappeared quickly, so I was afraid to hope.

In the morning, I crept on deck like a child afraid Santa hasn’t come.  I tiptoed through the cockpit, and saw the trap door was closed!  Oh happy day!  I traipsed to the back deck to give Mr Mousie a good scolding.

I found a big.  Stinking.  Rat.

Too big, too big!

Just call me Samuel Whiskers.

Holy cats!  He was HUGE!  Look at how he filled that trap!  Jesus H., how did that thing move around the boat undetected?  Mr Mousie, indeed.  No wonder the palmettos disappeared – Ratty ate them all, and probably in one gulp!  We’re lucky he didn’t eat us, too!

I hopped around in ataxtic terror for a few moments, then fled.  But this time, I helped Erik commit the murder.  Like I said, even big rodents aren't as scary as palmettos.  Don't ask me why.

Well.  Ratty is gone.  The palmettos are gone.  And any and all spiders are welcome, welcome, welcome.  No questions asked.

Wilkommen, bienvenue, welcome!

Guatemala Roundup

If all goes well, we should be departing Guatemala for Honduras at this time this post appears.  This is a tricky undertaking; we can only leave the Rio Dulce during the full moon high tide, because the mouth of the river spots a nasty shallow muddy bar, and we draw 6.5 feet.  So we have a short window of a few days each month when we can leave, weather permitting.  As hurricane season will only grow worse, we'll either leave this week, or not until the fall.

But let's assume that all has gone well and we are out at sea.  What did we do in Guatemala?

We climbed some Mayan temples:

I'm the queen of the castle

 Toured the rainforest canopy:

Tether mandatory.

You mean, I shouldn't jump down there?

 Played croquet on the fourth of July:

Even Indy is a princess sometimes.

 Lit confusingly-labelled sparklers:

Electric how, exactly?

 With predicable results:

Ow.  Stylish has an unfashionable hole in her foot.

 We lazed around some:

Sharing a hammock as only sisters can

 Ate some apples:

Yum.

 Enjoyed a waterfall with hotsprings:

Look!  Even Mom is there!

 And just generally admired the view.

Ahhh.

And that, my friends, is Guatemala.