April 12th, 2008 Are We Having FUN yet??

(This article may contain some very GRAPHIC descriptions that may disturb you!  Read at your own risk!)  I'm Alive!  Alive!  Sorry I haven't had time to update my fog in the last month.  Yesterday April 11th was our one month anniversary of our purchase of Gypsy Cat.  How time flies by.  Ever since I got off the airplane from Seattle, Chris and I have been nonstop busy busy busy.  I can't tell you the amount of work we've been putting in Gypsy Cat and getting her ready.  She haven't had a lot of maintenance during that time so she needed A LOT of TLC.  Our typical work day has been waking up around 6 or 7 am, than going to McDonald's to get our sausage Mcmuffins and coffee, than to Wal-mart to get supplies, and than to the boat yard/storage.  We work ALL day until the boat yard closes around 8pm.  Sometimes we break for lunch and sometimes we don't.  I have never ever worked so damn hard in my life.  It's exhausting.  It's maddening.  Not only do we have to contend with Florida's weird weather (sometimes it is raining nonstop, sometimes it is hot as shit, sometimes it is way windy), but we have to contend with the sand fleas.  Lots of little critters all around that loves to come out at the Witching Hour (that's the hour of dusk when they go into a frenzy of bloodlust and feast themselves on our warm flesh).  My legs are literally infested by bites of all kinds - sand fleas, no-see-ums, mosquitoes, and all sorts of evil critters that won't leave us alone!!  I think from now on, all the pictures we take have to be from the neck up, because everything below is like a bloody war torn village.  We are  BESIEGED.  I will post some pictures of our limbs but I warn you, it is not a pretty sight.  I would suggest that you NOT be eating when you look at the pictures. 

The critters are very ferocious and can bite through clothes!  If I had not tested out this theory I would have not believed it.  Several nights, I wore long sleeved shirts and sweat pants, and lo and behold, they bit through the clothes with an appetite that you would not believe.  So if someone tells you to cover up your limbs, do NOT believe it - they can and they WILL bite through.  Right now, I have over 50 bites on each leg including their favorite morsel of ankle, arms, shoulders, back, hips, and any place you might think of or imagine.  I literally have one bite on my bikini area (and I'm being very polite when I say bikini area) and 2 bites a quarter of an inch away from my butt hole!  Scary but too true.  Imagine getting the itchys down there all night.  It's not a pretty sight or a pretty feeling.  I did warn readers that this will get VERY GRAPHIC.  Living in paradise has many dangers that I never contemplated.  I'm like a dog with fleas, I'm forever scratching, itching any bites I can reach.  I scratch so hard until my skin bleeds and I only scratch harder until it hurts like crazy.  I bet everyone is feeling the itchys as I write.  I can write a whole book on the itchiness of bug bites alone, but I will spare everyone the pain and the torture. 

The first week, my duty was to clean the boat, and it almost drove me to the asylum.  I have this friend named Ivy and she cleans out her bathroom with a toothbrush, (yes you heard me correctly - a TOOTHBRUSH) and I used to snicker and laugh at her for being so crazy.  And since life is ironic, guess who started to clean with a toothbrush?  Yes, ME!  The boat just has so many crevices and small areas where mildew infests that when I started to clean, I would see hard to reach spots where there were more mildew and the only way to get to those places, was with a toothbrush.  You cannot imagine how slow and tedious it is to clean with a toothbrush!  It took forever!  But I had to zap all the mold and mildew I was seeing.  By the way, my favorite cleaning agent is bleach!  I LOVE LOVE bleach!  You just zap it anyplace with lots of mold and mildew and it turns back to white.  I think bleach was my new BFF for the week.  But my new BFF turned out to be toxic, and now when I go near bleach, I get flashbacks of cleaning in a very small enclosed space with no air and no circulation.  I think bleach killed a few million of my brain cells as I was going through the berths and hard to reach spots.  I should have been wearing gloves, goggles, and mask, but although we bought a few of each, I could never find any handy and had to start without tearing the boat apart.  One thing about a boat is that we buy many things, but where the hell are they when you need them?  That's why you will find boaters with a gazillion of the same things, and they keep on buying more, because they can NEVER find anything.

Bleach got all over my eyes, mouth, face, hands, everywhere!  We tore the berths apart and I was cleaning like a madwoman.  We are so crazy that we even took all the cushions out to steam them and the water tanks out so we could make sure it was clean, and that I could clean underneath. Cleaning out a berth with bleach is like cleaning in a coffin.  I had to crawl to get to some places and there are only 2 itty bitty hatches (windows) that air doesn't really circulate.  My eyes were burning and watering and my nose was running constantly.  But I was like a woman obsessed, so I kept on going because I just wanted everything to be spotlessly clean.  I am usually not that clean but my OCD kicked in when I kept seeing mold spots everywhere and I had could not stand the thought that anything I owned, including my person, would TOUCH mold.  The casualty of my love affair with bleach is that my eyes were dry for 2 whole days and my fingers were a bloody raw mess.   Chris had me bleach some fenders (bumpers) on the ground (I think I got tricked) and the ground was covered with shell fillings.  Nice white, innocuous white shell fillings that were lovely to look at but combined that with bleach, it tore under my skin and left me with blood blisters on every single one of my fingers.  My fingers were so puffy and swollen, I could not use my fingers for DAYS!  It hurt to even pick up something. I probably burned my finger prints off and I could have committed any crime without being caught!

I'm scratching as I type (I can't help it).  Talk about love/hate relationship - I LOVE scratching my skin off, but than after I stop, I immediately hate myself for giving into temptation.  This is an addiction that no one should have. After Chris and I worked on the boat for 5 days straight, literally 12-14 hours a day, I was burnt out on the fifth day!  We than decided to drive back to Orlando (3 1/2 - 4 hours away from Port Charlotte) to pick up supplies that we had bought.  Needless to say, we drove back 2 times in the last month, and we had 2 trailer FULL of stuff.  How are we gonna FIT all that into the boat?  I wanted to save at least one berth for our guests, but that was a laughable goal.  Berths mean rooms on a boat.  Most things on a boat have different names which can be confusing at first.  Kitchen is galley, bathroom is the head, windows are hatches and so on.  Lots of lingo to learn.  I still get confused.  Right side of the boat is starboard, left is portside. Not only do I have to learn how to sail proficiently, I have to learn a whole new language on top of that! 

Chris read to me about how other boaters used up all their berths as storage, and in my conceit, I thought we could be different.  But I have been chagrinned and abashed to realize that we are 2 inches under the water line, and still not all our stuff has been organized into the berths.  Barnacles are happily attaching themselves to our two hulls, crinkling, crunching, crackling away.  Just last night, Chris exclaimed, what's that noise?  I said, just underwater slapping, but he said it sounded "different."  He than went to investigate and he came back saying that something organic was happening underneath the boat.  He than remembered reading about SlapDash, saying that there is this weird crinkling, scrunching noise which meant that barnacles were attaching themselves onto our hulls. 

Chris' favorite website to follow and read is TheSlapdash.com. He follows many other websites but Jaime and Seth has got to be his favorite.  They are Canadians that do not have too much experience sailing and they are going around the world in their 2004 Gemini. We have learned A LOT reading their website and Chris has been emailing them often. We bought the WonderWash (a hand turning pressurized spinning container that washes clothes) when we read that they had one and that they loved it.  It's always great to read about advice from others who have gone through it before.  I call our WonderWash R2D2 because it looks exactly like R2D2 from Star Wars. 

So no free berths on Gypsy Cat. Any friends and family who visits, will have to sleep in the salon.  We even have 3 cases of champagne in the master berth, ON the queen size bed.  We had to move it there to distribute the weight on the boat, plus, the queen is pretty roomy and we don't need all that space.  Champagne is much nicer to have than a few extra inches of sleeping room.  We plan on putting as many cases of wine that we can fit in the back of the salon area b/c most likely, no one will ever sit there.  Our Gypsy Cat is so full of STUFF, that it resembles a hobo boat.  A hobo boat that resembles their hobo owners.  One of our first names we contemplated for our boat, months back, was HOBO Boat, but that sounded so HOBOish so we passed.  We were renting a great room in a condo ON the beach (literally it takes less than a minute to walk to a private beach on the Gulf) from GREAT people while we were working on the boat in dry storage.  They didn't have live on board so we had to work there during open hours and leave for the night.  But the people we were staying with had friends coming, so we had to leave.  But around this area, cheap motels are way expensive, and camping was $45 per night.  But hell no, I would NOT camp around here to save my life, the bugs as I mentioned above are bloodthirsty vampires!  So we decided to sleep in our cars like hobos since we didn't want to camp and the motels were way pricey. 

We found this great isolated spot by a lake, and that's where we slept for 3 nights.  The only bad thing about it was that we could NOT open the door to pee b/c mosquitoes SWARM the area and cling to the windows to WAIT for you so they can pounce on you.  So needless to say, if we had to go use the restroom in the middle of the night, we would have to do it somewhere in the car.  I have a bladder problem where I literally have to pee 5-8 times a night so it was a real hardship for me to pee.  Luckily for us, we have camped before and I have devised this system called the pee pee cup where I take this huge cup and just pee in it and put the lid back on.  Even with regular camping, I am too scared at night to leave the confines of our nice warm tent, so I always make Chris bring me something (a cup or a plastic bucket) to pee in, and in the morning, he empties it for me.  We did that during Burning Man for the 2 years that I went, so it was a system that worked for me, but I have never used the pee pee cup system in the car before.  The Burning Man had a camp where they gave girls pee pee funnels, but they were always out when I found it.  Okay, this is going to get way more graphic so skim over the next paragraph if the thought of natural bodily fluids disgust you.

Well, the first night as hobos sleeping in the car, Chris forgot to get a big plastic cup for me at the gas station, so we didn't have any cups or anything for me to pee in.  I was so cranky because I knew that I couldn't sleep well if I couldn't pee when I wanted to and opening the car door was out of the question because of the mosquitos.  Our ritual for the 3 days of being a hobo, would be to get beer and ribs at this great gas station that sold yummy food for truck drivers at a great price.  They had chicken, pizza, hot dogs, and other great foods so each night we would get something new with beer and take it to our spot and eat it.  But with all that beer, I would have to pee every 2 hours.  But since I didn't have a pee pee cup the first night and we were already parked in our spot, we had to improvise.  I came up with the pee pee triple bag Wal-Mart bag to pee in but trust me, pee pee bags are very messy.  Bags do not confine as well as plastic cups or plastic containers.  Needless to say, I hope I never have to use bags again because it can get very messy.

Chris and I have backpacked through many countries, and when you backpack, sometimes there is no place to sleep because a bus or train may drop you off in the middle of the night somewhere, and many places hike up prices when you show up at 2am, so we have learned to be very flexible about what to do.  It is normal to sleep in bus/train stations for the night so sleeping in a car for a few nights is not as dangerous or bad as it may sound.  On our road trip from California to Florida, we sometimes pulled over where the truckers were sleeping for the night and got a few hours of sleep because we wanted to pull an all nighter.  Using the port-a-potty at the dry dock is much worse than sleeping in a car.  The grossest thing that has happened so far happened in a port-a-potty.  WARNING SKIP OVER THIS SECTION IF THE OTHER SECTIONS WERE TOO GRAPHIC FOR YOU B/C THIS IS THE MOST ICKY COMMENTARY..  They didn't have normal bathrooms at the dry dock so I had to use one daily many times a day.  Every time I go in, I am COMPELLED to look at what's in the hole, it's the OCD in me.  I don't want to but I HAVE to.  Seeing all the poop co-mingling and congealing together is not the grossest thing, but one day, when I had to go to bathroom #2, my poop goes PLOP, and guess what else goes plop?  Dots from the HOLE goes back up to my privates, thighs, butt and anywhere exposed.  And the hole was filled with dozens of people's feces and urine!  GROSS!  ARGHHHHHHHH!!  EEEEWWWWW!  That has to be the GROSSEST sensation I ever felt and I am not grossed out easily.  I wanted to CRY when I imagined all that putrid pudding touching my body!   Seriously, can I catch SOMETHING from that?  A yeast infection?  Something?  Needless to say, from that point on, when I had to go to bathroom #2, I would just jump up after I let loose one of my poops so no dots would land on me.  Chris said to put toilet paper in the hole first b/c that absorbed a lot of the impact of the poop, but just to be on the safe side, I jump up.  Added to that grossness was the fact that while all this was happening, mosquitos were flying around biting my ass!!  They sure love port-a-pottys!  I think anyone who has experienced this knows in their bones how utterly GROSS the sensation is.

All these commentaries from me are not meant to gross people out, but to describe the inconveniences of "roughing" it even though we are not backpacking. It's not even roughing it as long as we have someplace warm to sleep for the night and a designated bathroom aka port-a-potty (although I prefer squatting in bushes for there is no fear of any backlash in the bushes).  Life on the road is NOT glamorous - but full of hard, backbreaking work.  It's reality and sometimes reality is NOT pretty.  I often ask Chris, "Are we having FUN yet?" because the last month has been more hard work than I ever had to do in my life.  I never imagined that living my dream would entail all this hard work.  Chris and I are so exhausted each day it's not even funny.  That's why we haven't updated our log and fog, because we are so exhausted each night, we cannot think straight.  Plus, a lot of the times, we might not have internet access, or that we think we have lost cables, wires for the computer b/c the jeep is full of STUFF.  I don't know the number of times that something is picture worthy, but that we cannot find the camera.  It's getting a little better ever since we put Gypsy Cat in the water - but every day is a huge learning curve. As I'm writing right now, our latest project or problem is that our water pump isn't working - it doesn't pump out water to cool the motor which results in overheating the motor so we have been anchored at the mouth of the ocean for the last 2 nights.  STRANDED here. It's the weekend (today is Saturday) so the mechanic store is not open so we have to wait until Monday.  Before that, we were anchored for 2 days at this nice fresh water cove, and we were organizing the boat.  Than we left the cove and were so excited to go through the fresh water loch system to get to the ocean, but as we left the loch, our temperature alarm went off so we anchored to see what the problem was.  We are still stranded until Monday comes when we can talk to a diesel mechanic. 

Before we left the storage, we were stuck there for 2 days b/c the motor wasn't working (it turned out that the kill switch was not all the way down).  So every few days, we are stuck somewhere for a few days until we work on the boat, and than we get a little closer to the Bahamas.  It's constant work for Chris, b/c a few days ago he replaced the old impeller with a new one (thank god we bought spare parts) but than our water pump is still not gushing out water to cool the motor. When he was doing that, he decided to change the oil filter too.  At least now we get to anchor in 4 feet deep of water and we get to sleep on board.  It's great to get to live onboard and not to have to pay any fees. The first night we anchored, we got chicken and ribs to celebrate our first night living on board.  We busted out our first champagne to toast our milestone of anchoring Gypsy Cat for the first night.  It was incredible.  It is very romantic to sip champagne while you are on your very own boat looking out of the glistening water and about to embark on the journey of a lifetime.  We were planning on eating in the cockpit outside but as the Witching Hour hit, the mosquitos came out so we were trapped in the saloon. 

So when I ask Chris, "Are we having fun yet?" the answer is yes and no.  Yes because anything is funner than actual work but no, because working on a boat is much harder than actual work.  It would be nice if something didn't break down every few days, but it's also a great learning experience.  Later when we are sunbathing on a deserted beach somewhere, we would know that we deserved the break and enjoy every second of it.  Without all that hard work, the pleasure wouldn't be so sweet.  But now, we are stranded at the mouth of the ocean until Monday.  Hopefully we can sort out our water pump situation and head to Fisherman's Village in Punta Gorda.  La Gatita (my ever loyal hair ball pet) is a few feet from me, contentedly existing in her box.  I am still deciding on what to do with her/it.  I bought eyeballs to glue on her.  La Gatita has a hairball pet too b/c another smaller knot was ripped out of my hair that resembles half of a mustachio. She/It (The Gatita) has an It pet that is unnamed at the moment but the name IT seems to fit.  I will post pics of La Gatita and It before and after the eyeball operation.  Chris is looking over at me very worriedly for my sanity as I read him the last few sentences.  He will only shake his head sadly at me and look away.

Sorry for jumping around topics so much - it's hard to get everything we did for the last month in one entry since so many things happened.  I only wrote about a small fraction of what happened,  but now that we found our computer cables, I will try to write more often. 

Monday April 15th 2008 (It's Monday...HELP At Last!)

Hurray!  It's Monday - meaning the diesel mechanic shop is opened and Chris can row into town to get the part we need.  As I mentioned before, it has to do with our raw water pump system and it not pumping any water out.  Something to do with the female part of the part and the male shaft not fitting in correctly.  I didn't know parts had anatomical terms but when I heard Chris talk on the cell with his friend about our problem, I couldn't help but giggle because there was a male part and a female part.  The part that has the "hole" is the female and the part that sticks out is the male.  Most men who are reading this probably know all this but as a female, my knowledge is limited in these areas, and I'm learning everyday.  We spent all weekend at the mouth of the ocean, which is very nice.  We are surrounded by mangroves by all sides, and we get to see a great array of bird species fly all around us.  We saw white egrets, gray pelicans, hawks circling ahead to find its prey, and just yesterday, we saw a pack of beautiful crystal white birds (they looked like doves) but not sure what they were.  Wished we were able to take a picture but we never have one handy.  Fish jump all around us, and at the Witching Hour (Dusk when the mosquitos come out), a bunch of little birds dive into the water to catch fish.  It's a very beautiful natural environment.  Just going down the fresh water canal was like a scenic tour - we saw pine trees, mangroves, and all sorts of plants.  It reminded me of a river ride we took in Costa Rica.  The scenery in no way resembled the tropics but more of a natural mountain river landscape.  We could have been in the middle of Costa Rica or even Australia in the Outback I think (although I have never been to Australia, I can only imagine that the Outback would have similar features).  We even saw an alligator going through the fresh water canal but it scurried away when a motor boat rushed past it.

Since there are known to be alligators in the fresh water canals and even at the mouth of the ocean after you go through the fresh water loch system.  I suggested to Chris that we should jump in the water real quick and jump out because the water was so glistening green, with sandy waterbeds, which reminded me of Yosemite, but Chris said NO WAY.  He didn't want us to get attacked by alligators.  We only saw 2 alligators in these canals so far, very small ones, but the locals assure us that they see huge, 15 feet ones.  I don't know if I believe the 15 feet story, but if it's even halfway true, than that's big.  Since we have been "stranded" at the mouth of the ocean for the last 3 nights, and we were not able to jump into the water for fear of being mutilated and eaten up by alligators, we have not been able to take a decent all over shower.  Why not use our head (or bathroom for land going people)?  Surprise surprise, almost everything in our boat needs some type of repair or work, and our head is one of them.  We used it the first few days, and by golly, it smelled like a sewer smeared in shit!  It was really nasty.  Just standing by the head, you could smell the putrid odor wafting out.  It was really gross since the salon was so close by.  We didn't know what the problem was, but in the beginning when we were researching boats, Chris ran into several Geminis that the owners converted one of the berths (rooms) to another head (bathroom).  He thought it would be better to have 2 heads than 2 berths.  I was against 2 heads from the very beginning b/c I rather have 2 extra berths (more space).  Who needs 2 heads?  We can only shit so much.  But after a few days of smelling our head smell (NOT that head! HAR HAR!) Chris realized 2 heads would be a mistake.  It turned out that our toilet was flushing our urine into the bilge and under the shower.  Luckily, we decided not to go #2 on the head so we didn't have to worry about THAT being flushed back into the boat.  I am currently back to my pee pee cup system (a spic & span bottle with the top cut off).

We tried to light incense every night in the head (even 2 some nights) but the smell was VERY nauseous, until we decided not to use the head anymore.  Better just to pee overboard when no one was looking than chance an explosion from our head.  Since we were a few hundred feet from the loch (boaters go in and out at all hours) - I didn't want to pee outdoors so my handy pee pee cup was placed in the head for me to use.  For going #2, Chris was brave and just put his ass on the side of the boat every morning, but I was too shy to do that.  I had to use the Wal-Mart double bag system.  I thought that if an owner of a dog can clean up after a dog with plastic bags, than a bag is good enough for my crap.  (I don't think I shit bigger or smellier than a dog, but I could be wrong).  We could not use our shower head to shower b/c first, our shower head fiberglass is completely broken which we still need to fix, second, when Chris and I left the dock, we only took 7 gallons of water with us (not knowing that we would be stranded) plus the reason why we didn't want to fill up our 2 water tanks (which take 18 gallons on each side) was because the locals warned not to fill up there for they got there water from a swampy well, with really murky water  The first 2 days we had running water from the sinks and we took outdoor showers, but when our water pump didn't work, we ran out of water.  We have been existing on coke and beer - we have ALOT of beer - so we don't have to fear dehydration for a long time.

I have not had a decent shower in days - too many days to count.  Our method of showering is very primitive - just scoop a bucket of seawater, and dip a wash cloth in and clean our many bits and pieces.  Washing hair is much harder if you have long hair and it's hard to get at the scalp.  Chris has been more diligent than me about showering - since we are at the mouth of the ocean and close to the loch, I get embarrassed when boaters go by, and than it gets too dark and late for me to shower.  I wish I could bring a bucket inside the head and shower, but our whale pump does not work and we are still trying to install one.  Another thing that needs fixing *big sigh*.  Everything on Gypsy Cat is a work in progress.  Hopefully our head is one of the first things that gets fixed.  I'm tempted most days to just jump in the water, but it would be rather ironic and tragic if I got bitten by a sly alligator and my legs are chewed off.  My scalp is almost as itchy as the rest of my body, but I must be brave in the face of adversity, and just stoically soldier on like the good soldier I'm not.

But hopefully all that is about to change since today is Monday!!  The day that the diesel mechanic is OPEN and at last, Chris can row into town to get HELP and the parts we need.  We (or should I say, Chris) is trying to do everything on our own to save money before we get someone out here to help us.  The only thing we contracted out to do was our fiberglass repairs, detailing of the exterior of the boat, centerboards from Mary Petrie, and it was money well spent.  Every penny of it.  I must say that Mary did a FANTASTIC job.  I liked her no nonsense direct way when we first met her for estimates, and right off, I knew she would do a good job.  Usually Chris and I ask for a second opinion, but for some reason with her, she just gave us a really good "feeling."  Luckily for us, she had an opening for us.  I was away in Seattle when she worked on the boat, but Chris kept telling me on the phone that I would NOT recognize the boat after Mary got through with her.  The first day I was driven up to the boat, I was thinking WOW.  I cannot believe this is the SAME boat!!  She was GLEAMING.  SHINY.  WHITE!! The stainless steel was spotless.  All the rust stains were gone!  I was speechless and wandered around in a daze looking at the exterior of Gypsy Cat.  A million thanks to Mary for a wonderful job.  I would highly recommend Mary Petrie to anyone that needs fiberglass and detailing work if they are in the Port Charlotte area.  She is highly skilled, professional, very honest, and does a fantastic job.  Thanks again Mary!

I'm updating my fog as I'm waiting for Chris to somehow reach town.  This morning we motored back to the loch and manually pulled Gypsy Cat through the loch system.  Chris anchored me just inside the loch, and he rowed up the fresh water canal in the dinghy motor (another thing that is NOT working) to try to access a road that will take him into town.  There is a road just behind the loch but it's fenced and barb wired off, so he has to go a few miles down.  Thankfully we have a scooter that he can ride to town.  Hopefully he doesn't sink because the dinghy (can we have any MORE problems??) have a huge leak that we still need to repair.  See where this is going??  Everything we have HALFWAY works, but not all the way, so it gets frustrating b/c there are so many things to work on!  Chris called the diesel mechanic guy this morning and luckily they are opened and they have time to see us.  A storm is supposed to be heading our way today, with 10-20 mph winds.  So far, the wind isn't really that bad.  If Gypsy Cat and me were to drift, I can't turn on the engine b/c Chris took a part of it to get repaired.  Oil would just start leaking everywhere.  Pretty much I' STUCK here.  And to be honest, I am not familiar with how to start a diesel engine as of yet.  Chris would not teach me b/c he said this is no place to learn!  A diesel engine is much harder to start - I remember in class, that they said there were 5 steps to it, but I can't remember exactly how, just that you have to go in order and get it the exact way, or it could ruin the engine.

I pray that by tonight, Chris gets back and repair the parts that need repairing, and that we can be on our way to our new anchor place by tomorrow.  I'm badly in need of a shower, a HOT shower, or even a dip in the ocean.  I should rename my fog, "Chronicles of a Dirty Girl."  My friend the other day on the cell phone (thankfully, I still have a cell that works) how my head of hair is doing.  All I can say is that it is much THINNER than before, and I try not to dwell on the tragedy that befell me.  When I was in Seattle, my sister Yvi and her neighbor Sue, noticed the difference in the thickness of my hair.  They said they noticed that my hair got noticeably thinner and that it seemed I didn't have as much hair.  So that tells me that people who knew me, BEFORE and AFTER the hairball tragedy see the difference.  C'est La Vie.

The only real entertainment we had the last few days, luckily for me, were my romance books.  I got 10 for $1 at a thrift store and hadn't had time to read many, but when we got stranded, it was bliss for me to read ALL of them.  I'm on my last one today and I'm savoring it.  Poor Chris, while he works on the engine, I'm happily somewhere reading about romance, LUST, & UNBRIDLED PASSION.  Ironically the latest book is about pirates called Pirate's Passionate Slave.  Chris got the radio onboard to work yesterday so we had some music.  Plus, we forgot that we had one porno onboard, courtesy of my cousin.  Some pervert gave her a bunch of pornos for her bachlorette party and she gave them all to me (b/c she didn't want her dad finding them in her house/car).  Why throw away completely good DVDs right?  Miraculously, we took one with us on our road trip and we were able to enjoy our one and only DVD - entitled Tera Patrick "plus an all start cast" two nights ago.  I love Tera Patrick - she is GORGEOUS and so HOT!!  So if you happen to be visiting us onboard the Gypsy Cat, the only entertainment we have is one amatuerish porno (oh NO - my batteries for the laptop is running out!  The laptop is mad that I didn't include her?it? on the list of entertainment we have onboard!)  So I have to end with stating that we have 2 great forms of entertainment onboard - Tera or the laptop.  You choose. Oh, I forgot, I also have my numerous paperback smutty romance books!  You can tell that Gypsy Cat's owners are a very well rounded, intellectually stimulating, group of people!

Please pray that Chris comes back with all his parts - I mean the parts for the boat - and that we will be RESCUED...

...to be continued....

Wednesday April 17th, 2008 (We Will Have Some Good Eatin' Tonight)

I'm excited today!  Our water pump finally works!  Hurray!  The sad news is that it cost us $800 to repair it!  The part that we needed cost $500!  No kidding.  The mechanic said last year the part cost only $100 but the manufacturers decided to spike it up to $500.  The cost of inflation sure is staggering. Whoa!  MotherF*ckers!  (Sorry for such strong language, but it fits the occasion perfectly and if you were presented with a $500 piece, you would be hollering MotherF*cker too!)  We were unprepared for such a large sum, but when you own a boat - that's what you gotta do.  SPEND MONEY!  LOTS OF IT!  INDECENT AMOUNTS of it!  B.O.A.T. (BUST OUT ANOTHER THOUSAND!) You have to keep in mind that Chris did all the labor so imagine if you had to pay a mechanic to put it in for you.  It would well over the thousand dollar part and than some! The mechanic said that the previous owner had the water pump rebuilt and that the person who did it before, did a very poor job of it so it's a good thing that it busted on us now and not the Bahamas where it would cost more.  This morning Chris put the parts in and it WORKED!  Rescue at last!  Another thing that happened with our new impeller was that it one of the fins tore off b/c we ran it dry for a few minutes to get through the loch, and it broke.  Hence, we had to buy a NEW one!  Plus, another spare (just in case).  It's always great to have spares around.  Any spare part but the problem is the mounting costs of buying everything double.

We have been rescued but we have to stay anchored at this spot for a few more days b/c we are waiting for the dinghy carburetor rebuilt kit so we have to wait around inside the loch until tomorrow.  Our dinghy motor doesn't work and we are waiting for a "Jesus clip."  Apparently it's called that b/c the part is so small, that when someone drops the part, and most likely loses it, they yell, "Jesus!"  If I dropped the clip, I sure would be yelling, but "Jesus" would not be coming out of my mouth.  The part instead would be called the "F*ck clip" and not the "Jesus clip."

Our anchoring spot is very interesting and fascinating.  We got a gliimpse into the lives of fishermen.  We see them buzzing around but the interesting thing is that many of them stay just inside the loch to fish.  The sad thing about inflation is that Chris was talking to a fisherman named Larry, and he stated that with gas costing so much that it was harder to make a living.  He's a third generation fisherman.  The interesting thing is that they all make their own nets out of monofilament line and lead weights.  They throw the nets out and can catch up to a dozen or more fish, or none.    Fishermen can fish alone (as Larry does) or they can fish in pairs or more, but the more people you have, the more you have to split the profits.  Larry said a fisherman would need to catch 300-400 pounds of fish to make a profit, but if you have 3 people on your boat - you would have to split the profits.  It's a hard life.  They work constantly and we've been seeing them everyday, no matter what the weather was.  They are all very wary and fascinated by each other.  When when boat approaches, they would all stare to see what the other fishermen caught or did.  Chris said that if I was stark naked on the bough, the fishermen would still be staring at the other fishermen, and wouldn't care about my bits and pieces.  It's the competition of who catches more fish.  Chris and I love watching what the fishermen are doing and see what they catch.

Just yesterday, Chris saw a fisherman catch a crab and throw it back in the water.  He was incredulous that they would not keep it to eat, but the fisherman said that it was not worth catching only one.  This morning, we woke up to motor boat anchored VERY close to us, with two men, and they were catching crabs.  Lots of them.  We studied how they were catching them and it looked so easy!  They had a big ball of chicken (the size of a baseball) tied to a line, and they put it in the water.  After a few minutes, I guess they would feel tugging, and they would slowly bring it up.  Crab after mouth watering crab!  This brings back memories of when I was a child and I almost forgot that we used to crab.  My family and I would go to Dana Point Harbor in California, and the way we caught crab is just to put a piece of meat tied to a string and put it in the water, just like these men were doing.  I remember catching a bucketful of small crab to make a soup out of it.  I'm Asian and I should have remembered how to crab!  It should be in my memory banks and instinctive to every Asian that walks the earth.  But I VOW, I will never ever forget again.

Hallelujah!  Chris and I are gonna go crabbing tonight and we will catch ourselves some good eatin'!  I don't know if we will catch any, but it will be fun to try.  Chris is going back to town to move his car from Publix (the most common supermarket in Florida) so that it doesn't get towed away since he parked there last night.  He is going to bring back some chicken and a bottle of some strong liquid for us to keep our insides warm while we crab.  I think crabbing around here is illegal or just this spot, b/c the men sure are secretive when another boat arrives - they pretend they are fishing.  So it's probably best we go crabbing at night when there is less boat traffic! 

Just this moment, I realized I'm acting like a furtive nosey fisherman or a crabber. I saw a big boat anchored next to us, and as I stared fixedly over at them, I whispered to Chris, "What are they doing over there."  So I now understand the fascination that fishermen have for another - they want to see what each other are catching!  Now that I have caught the crab catching fever, I want to know what all the boaters around me are doing - and if they are also catching crabs.  Every few minutes, I would peek outside my window and see what people on their boats are doing.  The two men who we first noticed that were catching huge amounts of crab, are still catching crab.  I hope they don't catch all the crabs around here, I want a few for us tonight!  I guess the loch and its surrounding area is huge enough for everyone, but I sure can feel the crunch of competition in my veins pulsing HARD.  I hear it beating, CRAB CRAB CRAB!!! 

(By the way, I decided to call La Gatita's friend, IT, Mustachio.  It seems like a fitting name.  If I had the other part to Mustachio, I could dress up like a pirate with a long mustache! Arghh!)

Thursday April 18th, 2008 ("Death" Dolphins = Distraction from Deadly Disasters!!!)

I was so excited getting crab for our dinner last night, but NO CRAB!  For some reason, they did not want to eat my meat!  I felt very rejected!  I couldn't wait to get chicken from town, so I saved 2 pieces of Chinese sausage from breakfast, and I threw the sausage overboard.  Wait, Waiting, NO CRAB!  I put 2 pieces of sausages overboard.  Nothing.  So I waited for the chicken.  When Chris came back, I tied the drumsticks to a string line - I threw it in.  Wait, waiting, NOTHING!  God damn it!  They weren't taking the bait for some reason!  It was dark by the time we had the courage to throw our line over.  We definitely thought we would get PLENTY of crab for dinner, but after 30 minutes, we looked at each other and said, maybe, just maybe, we should cook the other chicken drumsticks.  The 2 men who caught crab that morning made it look so EASY - what the heck??  I thought we would be pulling in crab after crab! 

No good eatin' that night.  We just had chicken.  Bah humbug!  I couldn't sleep that night because for some reason, 3 fishermen decided to fish very close by our boat - at the loch, which was maybe 150 feet, and than around us, around 100 feet or less.  I was petrified and very SUSPICIOUS that we might be targets for robbery or some other sinister reason.  Chris and I decided not to "pack any heat" on the boat after long consideration and research.  Needless to say, we have NO GUN on board, and when someone is fishing 150 feet from our boat in the loch less than 100 feet from us, I couldn't sleep until they left (just in case).  As a woman, I'm always worried for my physical and bodily safety, and as a man, they don't have to worry so much.  They only have to worry about getting beat up maybe and have the contents of their wallet stolen.  But as a woman, I have to worry about MORE - my bits and pieces being torn apart.  Any sensible woman worries about such things and takes steps to ensure that it doesn't happen that easily.  Needless to say, I had to stay awake (getting the mace, the pocket knife, the wooden sword, and the machete ready for action).  I texted my sisters that if I disappeared, that it was b/c there were 3 fishermen around us in the loch, in Englewood.  (Just in case).  Most people are honest, but you never really know in this world anymore so I worry if something looks out of place.  I have the highest respect and regard for the hard work of fishermen (they do fish at all hours of the day and night), don't get me wrong, but if anyone, ANYONE, even if it's the Pope, is fishing by our boat less than 150 feet, past midnight, I will be alert!

So I went to sleep very late that night, the fishermen didn't leave until after 1 AM, and I had to keep a virgil (don't ask me what Chris was doing - here's a hint - we drank 2 big cups of sweetened brandy earlier that night and with the errands he had to do (run into town) - he fell asleep - zzzzzZZZZZ - and was sleeping so deeply - that I didn't have the heart to wake him).  The next morning, while I was still catching up on sleep, Chris leans over me and whispers, "guess what?"  I wanted to scream that I was sleeping and I was tired BECAUSE I was guarding both of us, but I changed my mind when I heard "I caught a crab!"  My eyes flew open and a huge smile grew on my face.  Chris caught a crab (he almost caught a second one but it got away just in the nick of time).  Sadly, the one crab was all that Chris caught even though I tried for half the morning.  There were many tugs on our line, but nothing came out of it.  I learned that I am too impatient to be a good crabber and sadly, I was not able to make my Vietnamese ancestors proud of me by my crabbing prowess.  Oh well, life moves on.

Chris was impatient to put Gypsy Cat on her paces, and wanted to take her sailing!  Sailing?  I don't recognize that word at all?  I haven't been sailing since we went to Catalina sometime last June!  I was scared!  Nervous.  I forgotten most of what I learned in my beginner sailing class.  We haven't even SAILED since we decided to buy a catamaran and sail.  It was a foreign word to me!  The Gemini we bought was in dry storage, so we didn't even take her for a test run when we bought her.  We motored Gypsy Cat out, and when we got outside the loch, Chris spotted a SHARK!  I thought it was a dolphin, but he was right - a shark!  We took out the camera and I thought I would snap it as we got close but it disappeared.  We looked back, and we saw it roaming about in very shallow waters (Chris thinks it was a bull shark b/c they are known to swim in shallow waters).  It was very cool b/c it was the FIRST time both of us saw a shark in its natural environment.  We motored and sailed to Fisherman's Village in Punta Gorda (the destination that we wanted to go to before our water pump gave out).  For some reason, it was very hard to tack on the Gemini.  We couldn't get enough speed and all our tacks didn't get completed as we wanted.  We were used to easy tacks on a 25 foot McGregor and we are still novices at how to tack on a catamaran.  We are still working on that.  But since it was our first day sailing a Gemini, it was forgivable that I needed practice.  I have only sailed a 15 foot dinghy for Beginner sailing class and Chris' 25 foot McGregor with a tiller.  I have never sailed with a real wheel - hard to maneuver compared to a tiller.  I have A LOT to learn.

For some weird reason, as we were sailing, at this one spot in the ocean, swarms of little black flies flew all over us.  EVERYWHERE.  It was very creepy.  They were smaller than a regular fly, but much bigger than a mosquito or a fruit fly.  They looked a lot like small black beetles.  I thought there would be less bugs out in the ocean, but for some reason, at this spot, they infiltrated everywhere. EVERYWHERE.  We had to turn on the motor b/c we had to escape them.  Once they got on the cockpit and on us, the strange thing is that they got very lethargic and most of them died on the cockpit without us killing them.  The good thing is they didn't suck any blood from our bodies - they just liked landing on us and staying there.

We anchored outside Fisherman's Village and boiled our one measly crab.  I think it was a blue crab b/c it's body and claws were blue, but 3 times bigger than what I'm used to in a blue crab.  Maybe a little smaller than a Dungeness crab.  We cooked it in the Vietnamese style of pouring beer into the pot to make the crab meat sweeter.  Thankfully we had leftover chicken drumsticks and rice from the night before so we had that with our crab and a 2 huge portions of garlic bread.  The crab was DELICIOUS.  YUMMY!  Sadly, we only had one, but it made our dinner and our day.  We practically ate every nook and cranny from that crab except maybe for the intestines and gills. One crab makes good eatin', although a rather measly meal. Hopefully, we catch many more crabs in the future.

The cool thing about today is all the animals in their natural habitat we saw.  Besides the shark we saw, we also saw 3 sting rays swimming on the surface of the water, which is cool because they usually like to swim on the bottom of the ocean.  The biggest sting rays I saw were in Ambergris Caye in Belize - dozens of them by the dockside.  One of my favorite things in life is when I can observe animals in their natural habitat.  That is really special to me and the moments fill me up.  I love animals of every kind (except critters that like to suck my blood and leave scar marks on my body).

We also saw dolphins.  They look so cute, so friendly, so benign - but don't let them FOOL you, they are DEADLY.  I refer to dolphins as DEATH dolphins for many reasons. I got the term "death dolphins" when we were in Catalina, sailing peacefully along the coast.  We spotted a pod of dolphins and we got really excited - we were tracking their progress and we did not notice WHITE CAPS on the waves, and before you can blink your eyes, our mainsail and our jib were overpowered.  We had to do some fast maneuvering to get out of a tight spot.  It was very dicey.  All because we were focused on the DEATH DOLPHINS.  Their intent is to DISTRACT you from deadly disasters.  Now when we see cute little dolphins, my guard is up and I whisper to Chris, "remember the deathly dolphins!"  They won't fool me twice.  They are probably in-ca-hoots with Sirens who lure sailors to their death with their beautiful siren song.  I'm not knocking dolphins, I love them, but please be aware that they can distract you from disasters!  Remember!!!

 "Death" Dolphins = Distraction from Deadly Disasters!!!

As long as you remember that equation, you may live long enough to tell your tale! 

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