It’s Monday*, and we’re off! We had a really productive day yesterday, and by about 3 o’clock had everything ready for launch. We took the afternoon to take a cart ride around the island, passing one roadside pig and a number of the usual roadside chickens before finding some beachside rum drinks and conch- the perfect reward for our toils.
We greeted the yard workers with excitement this morning as they came in- Eddie, Craig, Laverne, Casio and Crystal are our steadies here, and it’s always so great to see them after our months away. They were all a bit surprised to hear that we actually were ready to launch as requested. (We’re getting the feeling that they hear a lot of “We thought we’d be ready to go on Monday, but let’s shoot for Thursday instead”, and other delayed options. ) However nothing motivates us like a plan, and with the vague promise that we have a friend holding a mooring for us in Hope Town, a great weather forecast for crossing the Whale, and Eddie’s insistence that we’d have a whole 6” of water under our keel even at the lowest tide with which to exit Black Sound, there’s no time like the present! We splashed, bent on the jib, topped off our water tanks, launched, kitted out and hauled the dinghy into our davits, and now an hour later we’re closing in on Whale Cay. The day is clear, the seas are calm, and while the wind is a bit on the nose, we’re making good time in our southbound journey.
Immediately upon launch and exit we realized that there’s only one thing we failed to think of: food. Thinking we might leave the boat out of the water if things didn’t line up to move it, we didn’t want stores to attract critters in our absence, and figured we’d be eating out for most meals anyway.
I come from a long line of folks who tend to eat voraciously every two to three hours, as if we’ll never see another meal again, so you can imagine my panic when I realized that onboard we currently have three apples, a few peanuts, a half of a box of Triscuits and 4oz of cheese. That will effectively last us to Baker’s Bay, which I can see quite clearly already. I consider myself a survivor-type of character- I love MacGuyvering tools and mechanisms from bits and bobs, my tolerance for discomfort in most senses of the word is quite high (I thank my dentist and her inability to hit the right nerve with the would-be-helpful novacaine before procedures for this) and in general I am a clear-thinker without the tendency to panic in emergency situations. HOWEVER. I am also almost always hungry. (In fact I even own a cookbook that is called I Am Almost Always Hungry.) Also you know what doesn’t help this fact? Writing about it. Also, does toothpaste have calories? Asking for a friend.
*Posting lag for this trip: operator and connectivity errors at play