Sunday, April 12, 2015

Day Two: Prep to Sail

Should we go?  Can we make it?  Do we need to go?  These were the questions that didn't keep us awake that first night.  All four of us were so spent from travel and boat cleanup, we went to bed early and slept in.  


I did get up and do some yoga before everyone else was up, and I can tell you that a catamaran makes a damn good yoga platform!  And, with no fresh food on board (the granola from South Africa was just a wee bit on the rancid side) we all sure were glad that we'd brought a big stash our beloved Java Planet coffee from home

We'd made some decent progress on the bottom cleaning the previous afternoon.  That first successful swipe with the scrubbie at the waterline was so satisfying, but then you look left down the length of the hull and multiply by 4 (two sides x two hulls) and the project was more than a little daunting.  Plus, what we'd got done, we'd got done with breathholding and no weightbelts.  Arm's reach, in other words.

Don, using brain instead of brawn, had gone hunting for Quantum Leap's reputed hookah rig.  A hookah rig is a surface air compressor that pumps air down two long hoses to divers below.  We'd heard about it....but never seen it.  He found it at the bottom of a deep deck locker.  Once out, and once all the various parts and pieces were located from other lockers, he discovered it had been put away with gasoline in it last time it was used.....like in Vanuatu, some five years and thousands of miles before!  Would it run?  In a word, no. 

But St. Francis Resort, where QL had spent the seaon, had a mechanical workshop and young Greg with the mechanical know how to clean the gummed up carbueretor and get her going again.

So, while Tom, Bette, Don and I went across to Georgetown to purchase some food to put aboard, Greg got the hookah working like a top.  Thus, when we got back, it was back in the water we went.  This time, with weightbelts and air hoses, we progressed quite a bit faster and more thoroughly, and by the time we were done, Tom was wondering if we needed a haulout at all?!

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