Thursday, March 26, 2020

Francis Bay, St. John, USVI
18.21.859N
64.44.875W

Wow!  What a great night.  I think I had the best night sleep in a long time.  No wind, rain, surge, dinghies zinging by. Not too hot or too cold.  No worrying about whether our anchor would hold or not.  The only time I woke was to a little knock once in awhile which I thought was possibly a filter rolling around underneath the bunk.  When we woke this morning, we learned that it was the mooring ball.  As there had been no wind, boats were pointed in every direction and we had actually moved up on the mooring ball so that it was hitting the side of the boat when we drifted in its direction. 

Gerry came by about 9am with his largest rivets and crawled up on the hard top with Dale to reattach the pulley that had snapped out yesterday.  Then he returned to Opal until 10am when Gene and Renee and the Tinker Twins all started the boat bottom cleaning party.  I don’t think they realized how bad our boat was until they got into it.  Dale and Gerry both took a look at the boot around the sail drive to make sure it was securely attached; it was.  Then about noon, Dale said that everyone was done.  Although he was wearing his dive suit, he was shivering cold; he has absolutely no fat on him.  I had elected to attack the rust stains again and added polishing the bright work to the mix.  I’ve got a lot more to do.  Tomorrow, they all move to Opal’s 6.5’ full keel draft.  Gerry says he’s the poor one as he only has one hull (Texas Crewed is a catamaran too).  I’d bet square footage wise, he’s got more than the rest. 

We all went our separate ways until 5:30 when I had invited everyone back to our boat for nibbles and sundowner drinks.  Of course that meant that we had to give the inside and topside of the Palace a good scrub before company arrived.  Dale took the cockpit and I attacked the salon and bathrooms.  When he was done, Dale told me I could no longer brush my hair on the boat.  I told him that I wasn’t sure where our dog, Nelson was hiding but he was definitely on the boat somewhere due to all of the hair I found.  It couldn’t possibly be all mine.  I’ll have to check that hair salon I found the other day to see if they’re open yet.  I’ll cut a few inches off and see if that helps any. 

At 5:30 Gerry, Nicky, Gene and Renee came over and we enjoyed food, drink, jokes, politics, and the world at large.  We thoroughly enjoyed the evening and hope everyone else did as well.