Although we had an interrupted night’s sleep with the howling wind setting off the wind alarm a few times in the night, we were both a little more energetic today, despite the cold.
After Roy discovered that the bolt holding the head of the mainsail to the halyard had come loose when he was securing the sail in preparations for the stronger winds, his first task of the day was to fix the issue, albeit in freezing winds of 20 to 25 Kts. On hindsight, it was sheer luck that we had dropped the mainsail en route to Soma Bay when the winds initially picked up, otherwise we could have faced a much bigger problem, no doubt.
Next task of the day was to start the watermaker, while Elaine did the laundry; well, at least washed the few items we needed, given that everything had to be dried inside due to the volume of sand in the air, something we discovered the hard way when we woke to sand all over the saloon this morning, after leaving the saloon portholes slightly ajar overnight. Cleaning up that mess was Elaine’s first task of the day.
Then, in between the small loads of laundry, she closed up the helmstation area and washed it too, removing layers of sand as she progressed; an unbelievable mess!
A chat to Elaine’s folks in Ireland and a quick chat to Hasan, off Kantiba, on the VHF radio, was the extent of any social interaction we had, with the exception of a representative of one of the resorts requesting us to move Paw Paw because we “were in the way of the windsurfers”. Roy, being his usual polite self, indicated that we couldn’t move in the weather conditions we were experiencing, but would be happy to do so if the conditions improved. Needless to say, this was not Elaine’s reaction, given that we’d already let out more chain yesterday and had, therefore, moved back a bit already. This truly was the most ridiculous request we’ve ever had, considering we’re 0.2NM from the small marina entrance and 0.45NM from the resort area and only taking up 14 metres of linear space in a humongous, wide open bay. Fortunately for them, we were both too tired to be bothered and, of course, weren’t even entertaining the idea of moving in these conditions!
Being back online, we were delighted to receive photographs of the family who had gathered to celebrate the christening of Layla Rose, the newest arrival in the family. Looking at the photographs, it was difficult to tell, though, who was enjoying the company more, the children or granny (Elaine’s sister) or the great-grandparents (Elaine’s folks).
