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03 May 2020

16 April Weekly update


While the public is banned from swimming from the beach and must find an alternative exercise, I apply Jacqui-logic and swim from the boat. The law as written includes the word beach. Surely if I swim from a boat I'm not meeting anyone, not exchanging personal water droplets, and I'm not going ashore to walk / run / cycle. That's my reasoning should I be pulled up by the Harbour Pilot or Maritime Police.

Last week the maritime police came to see us to ask if we'd seen anyone discharging foam into the water? They had received a call from someone to say foam had been washing up on the beach in line with of us. Hand on heart it wasn't us. I hadn't run the washing machine and use a non sud, eco friendly detergent and our bilge doesn't pour foam into the water either. Then consider the wind was blowing offshore and currents in the bay. Don't know where the bubbles came from, but it wasn't us. The police took our names and phone number and bid us a good day without issuing a ticket for pollution. Phew!

I've continued to work on replacing the hatch sunshades with a new and improved design. David has cleared and tidied the large cockpit locker. We needed to access our 20lbs back up propane tank when the second of our two cooking 10lbs gas tanks finished midway through cooking dinner last night. (I switched to generator and microwave.) Under the soft curfew we can't access the local gas company to refill tanks, luckily we have the back up big bottle with custom made (in Australia when we were there) connector pipes to fill the smaller bottles from the big one by gravity.

Three days ago a French boat departed bound for Europe.   They indicated they were going to go west of Cuba, past Florida and then strike out across the Atlantic for the Azores and then home. Now we are six yachts on the moorings.  A Dutch boat, Argonaut, also plans to sail back to Europe but they are waiting until next month.

Two days ago an American catamaran arrived from Panama on route to Florida. He had a hole in the hull above the water line and wanted to top up with fuel. The authorities gave him 24 hours to pick up a mooring and do his repairs and arranged for a tanker to come to the dock for fueling. No-one was allowed off the boat so when one of the crew jumped in the water the maritime police were right there to usher them on board.

It's been a busy week in Georgetown topped off by our weekly provisioning expedition.  I need a nap to recover from the excitement.


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