Wednesday, May 13, 2009

We continue to be so happy with our Alibi! We are working away at the "to do" list and feel like we are making great progress. Dick and Nelda took such good care of Alibi that the list is not all that long. Most of our projects revolve around the fact that she was in dry storage for a while AND she is not a new boat. Anyway I am scratching things from the list every day.

We were busy this weekend with lots of divers here so not much progress was made but we earned our keep. We are now into our typical summer weather pattern with less wind and more heat/humidity. That almost shuts down progress on "the list" during the middle of the day as it is like a sauna when you're working in some of the tight places on a boat - speaking of that, I was reading a list of things that Dick made up for us and had a great laugh this morning. One task on the boat is to change the oil in the windlass periodically and it is not an easy one for anything larger than a pigmy. Dick said we should train a monkey or find a small child to help us with that task. Guess who gets to perform those tasks that Darrell is too big to do - you guessed it - Annie!

The last couple of days had me crawling into the cabinet under the sink to replace a hose from the propane locker. Darrell couldn't get his shoulders through the opening. The picture shows the cabinet right next to the trash can. Yes you could say it was hot in there and since the hose had probably been there since the boat was new, it didn't want to come off. I hope that I sweated off a couple of pounds doing that! I'm on my way to West Marine to pick up a rebuild kit for our main water pump. We were showing off the boat to a friend (Pam Wilson) the other day and when Darrell opened a cabinet to show her the storage space we have, he noticed some water. When I ran the galley sink faucet, water shot out of the top of the pump. We were really lucky to have discovered it with minimal amounts of water in that compartment. Needless to say we are building a check list for daily, weekly, and periodic things to watch. We went to West Marine yesterday for two items and came away with a sack full of stuff - bet they are glad to see us come in their store.

I know this is long but I have to tell a story about our trip up the sound here for lunch. We had seen a sailboat come through (see photo above) that we hoped to get a closer look at so off we went to Gilbert's for lunch via dinghy. Of course Roxy lover the long ride :) Anyway I was reminded of the days when Jessica had a trampoline and we used to play "popcorn". The little waves out there on the bay caused Ann and Roxy to bounce quite a bit and I told Darrell that it reminded me of :popcorn". When Jessica used to do that to me I would get the giggles and laugh until I cried and I am smiling now just thinking about those times.

Darrell went diving this morning so I know that he will be coming back glowing from doing something that he loves. We are doing very well here and hope to get to come to Texas for a visit soon. I've also pasted a picture of my DEAR friend Kelly above. She and her husband and their dog became such great friends to us while they were here. They were making their way from here to the Virgin Islands on their sailboat when her grandmother became ill and had to have urgent surgery on the arteries in her neck. Before Kelly could get to an airport to fly home her grandmother died following surgery. My heart goes out to Kelly for her loss. And we hope Stephen and Jake are not missing her too bad while she's stateside taking care of family business.

Love to all,

Ann, Darrell, & Roxy