Now what??

The last few days have been a whirlwind of activity, to say nothing of the 20-30 knot winds that we've been dealing with at the same time.

We brought the boat into the st martin lagoon Friday AM at 930 expecting to have the boat pulled out of the water on schedule approximately an hour later. Clearly we forgot about "Island Time". We were informed that the yard was an hour or so behind schedule and they pointed out an area just outside the channel for us to anchor in. Well, it was only 13ft deep in the channel and about two feet after leaving the channel (slowly) we found ourselves aground in mud.

We ended up tying up temporarily to a dock at the marina across the channel from the yard after two "exciting" attempts to tie up in winds gusting to thirty. Physically unscarred but mentally scared. A few minutes later, I'm below and hear the bilge pump running. That's always interesting, but no cause for alarm. Three minutes later I hear it again. That's a potential problem. Pull up the floorboard and check things out. Oh no! There is a constant flow of water running into the bilge. Bob and I then began a rapid process of pulling up floorboards tracking the flow of water back to its source. It was well hidden and turned out to be the small 3/8th" vent tube on the shaft seal. The install manual says multiple times not to position the vent tube with a loop in the top. The concern being exactly what happened to us, the creation of a syphon that could sink the boat! When the yard (not to be named, near Newport, RI) installed the vent tube last year they obviously.y did not read the manual! Disaster averted and we've not even pushed off the dock!

We were eventually hauled out of the water at about, 530pm on Freday, and spent Saturday repairing the nick in the trailing edge of the keel. It was a bit bigger than I thought so I'm really glad that we took care of it. I'm also very happy with the way it turned out. We also put an extra layer of bottom paint in all the high wear areas, and re-greeted the propellor. Good to go!!

And then something happened There is always something.

This time it was Debbie. She had just gotten over a bad cold a few weeks ago, and on friday night she woke up telling me that she was feeling awful and that every bone in her body ached!! By sat night she was convinced that she had dengue fever!!!! On Sunday, she described the pain as being like someone shoving an ice pick into her brain every nine seconds!! Not good!

We finally convinced her to see a doctor on Monday morning. The good news/bad news was that she didn't have dengue fever, instead she had a highly contagious flu! This flu can take anywhere from 3 to 20 days to show itself!!!

Now it is Tuesday. Deb is thankfully feeling better. Today is the day that we are all supposed to leave. Deb is scheduled on a plane and we are to leave on a 12-14 day passage to the Azores!!!

What should we do???