Friday, December 30, 2016
Friday morning, we dinghied over to the Scrub Island Resort for breakfast and to pick up our laundry. Long wait for the laundry, but the Crunchy French toast was delish, and Carey loved his bacon, eggs, home fries, and English Muffin. (Crunchy French Toast is made with almonds, coconut, and corn flakes for you chefs out there.) Better yet, we didn't have to do our laundry--a hot and sweaty job.
The weather is much more comfortable since we returned from our trip to the snowy north. Hot in the sun, but not muggy, and it's quite comfortable in the shade (unless you're in a laundromat).
Once we got back to the boat, we dug in to our chores. I washed the flag, dove in to retrieve a plastic ring from the flag clip (any excuse for a swim), scrubbed the rust off the barbecue, scrubbed the bathroom floors, and cleaned the sinks. Carey charged up our Torqeedo dinghy battery and went around the whole boat and sprayed and scrubbed off the rust. While we were working, a two-foot reef shark swam under our boat with a yellow lure in its mouth. I guess that was the one that got away!
Around 2:40, we were just finishing up our chores and about to have a late lunch, when Carey dropped the swim platform on his toe. He bled copiously and he had two deep cuts on the top of his left big toe. Luckily, he had the stern shower in his hand at the time, so he irrigated the wound immediately. (He says he was just trying to wash the blood off the boat, but it worked great for cleaning the cut.) I doctored it up with steri-strips (to hold it closed, instead of stitches), antibiotic cream, sterile gauze, and medical tape. I hope he heals quickly and it doesn't get infected. So much for our plans to go out for dinner on Marina Cay. We stayed onboard and will take it easy while Carey heals.
Saturday, December 31, 2016
New Year's Eve! We stayed on board all day. As it turned out, it wasn't a great day--weather-wise--to go anywhere anyway. It was overcast and windy and it rained intermittently all day. We read books, did small jobs, and Carey rested his foot--elevated, of course. It swelled a bit, and bruising was starting to show on his other toes, but overall nothing too alarming.
We celebrated New Year's Eve with a spaghetti dinner and went to bed early.
Sunday, January 1, 2017
Happy New Year!
Carey's foot looks a little better today--less swelling, but we're still being very careful with it. Another day of small chores and relaxing. Carey's not allowed in the water while he's healing, so that means no snorkelling or swimming for a while. Bummer.
Monday, January 2, 2016
Happy Birthday, Jo-Ann!
Today, we wanted to get fuel, water, dispose of trash, and move to Trellis Bay. The first problem was that the boat in front of us had anchored too close, so our anchor was almost beneath his boat. (This is a common issue down here. Everyone thinks they are on mooring balls, so they anchor way too close for comfort.). We hailed him on the radio and asked him to turn his engine on and to be prepared to motor forward. He agreed, turned his engine on, but never moved, even when we came up beside him. We managed to get away without any contact, thank goodness. Our next adventure was to try to get to the Marina Cay fuel dock. The winds were howling and blowing us off the dock. In those conditions, we need someone on the dock to catch our lines. Unfortunately, the guy wasn't ready, and another boat came in right in front of us, head on, giving us no room to go around. We narrowly missed him and decided to forget about fuelling up there. We motored over to Trellis Bay for our third adventure for the morning--trying to pick up a mooring ball in 20 knots of wind is so fun, but once again we prevailed. Usually, I'm on the helm and Carey picks up the mooring ball, but since he has an injured toe, we switched places. That always makes things a bit more interesting.
Now it was time to explore The Last Resort on Bellamy Cay (a tiny island in the middle of Trellis Bay) and Trellis Bay on shore on Beef Island.
The Last Resort was closed until 4:00, but we chatted with the Executive Chef (who was casually attired in shorts and tee shirt) and perused his menu. After a wander around the shore of Trellis Bay and a couple of rum punches and Painkillers, we decided to free ourselves from the mooring ball (at $30 per night) and returned to our earlier (free) anchorage. We dropped anchor at 5:00 near Cam Bay. Yankee Lady (Ned, Kelly, and four daughters) was moored at Marina Cay, so we were hoping to see Ned and his family. We dinghied over to Pussers, and they were there. So nice to see them! They bought us a drink and we chatted for hours. I got my kid fix by chatting with Hadley (12), Findlay (11), Tilly (9), and Scotia (6). Great kids. Findlay went back to the boat to prepare supper, so when it was ready she came back to pick them up. We talked about possibly going to St. Martin with them, so we'll touch base later in the month. After they left, we ate dinner at Pussers, then dinghied back home around 11:30.
Tuesday, January 3, 2017
We lifted anchor this morning after 11 and headed west along the north coast of Tortola. It has rained almost every day since we returned, and of course it started raining as we were leaving. Luckily, the rain doesn't last long and it turns into a sunny day quickly.
We arrived in Brewer's Bay at 12:30. There's a pretty beach at the end of the bay, but no other boats here yet. It's very pretty and we have a clear view of the island of Jost Van Dyke.
Carey worked all afternoon on assembling and mounting our stern anchor while I relaxed with a book. Ahhhhhhh. Just before dark we looked down and saw a three foot reef shark lazily swimming by our swim ladder. They are amazing creatures.
Wednesday, January 4, 2016
When we sit in the cockpit for breakfast, we see and hear lots of wildlife--pelicans, frigates, and albatrosses divebombing for their food, roosters crowing, flying fish skipping across the surface (sometimes up to 30 yards!), and fish jumping. One of the truly beautiful things is when the tiny minnow-sized Silversides fish all leap out of the water in one wave. It looks like a swarm of silver locusts, or confetti tossed over the water. In this bay we have large schools of Silversides fish swimming by our boat constantly. Great feeding grounds for the birds and larger fish. The albatrosses (or fish hawks, as they are called locally) have a brown velvet look to their feathers and they dive down 3-4 feet under the water for their meals. It's quite a spectacle as they will dive so close to the boat that we can see their dive bubbles under the water.
We stopped for fuel, water, and ice at the town docks here, but the dock was extremely rolly with the northern ground swell, and Carey was not happy with the chafe on the lines and fenders. After filling up, we headed to the south side of the bay and anchored. Lots going on on this beach--tourists on beach chairs with umbrellas, beach bars, restaurants and places to provision. We went to shore to check it out and had a delicious lunch at Rhymer's (who had free wifi, of course).
Scary Stuff in Paradise
Although things are pretty darn nice down here in the Caribbean, there are a few flies in the ointment that we need to be aware of--manchineel trees, ciguatera toxin, and zika virus.
Manchineel trees grow in the Caribbean, Florida, Central and South America, and Mexico, and their fruit looks like crab apples. However, they are very dangerous. Luckily, the Caribbean governments take them seriously and put warning signs up near most of them. This is what the sign that we saw said: Warning - Poisonous Tree. This Manchineel Tree is one of the most poisonous in the world, containing strong toxins in all its parts. Standing beneath the tree during rain may cause blistering to the skin, as the sap contains phorbol and other skin irritants. The fruit can also be fatal if ingested.
Yikes, we steer clear of this tree whenever we see it!
And then, there is the Zika Virus.
Zika is primarily spread through the bite of an infected mosquito. These mosquitoes are aggressive daytime biters. They also bite at night. The mosquitoes that spread Zika virus also spread dengue and chikungunya viruses. Luckily for us, we don't see many mosquitoes down here. At dusk a few bugs come out, but then they disappear again when it gets dark.
The most common symptoms of Zika virus disease are fever, rash, joint pain and red eyes. It's a short-term illness that resolves within days to weeks. In most cases, there are no symptoms. To me, it sounds like having the flu.
There's no vaccine or specific treatment for the disease. Treatment instead focuses on relieving symptoms and includes rest, rehydration and medications for fever and pain.
The next scary thing is the ciguatera toxin.
Ciguatera is a foodborn illness (food poisoning) caused by eating fish that is contaminated by ciguatera toxin. The areas of concern include the Caribbean Sea, Hawaii, and coastal Central America. Ciguatera toxin can cause nausea, pain, cardiac, and neurological symptoms in humans when ingested. It's pretty serious.
Ciguatera toxin tends to accumulate in large predator fish (weight over 2 Kg or about 4.5 lbs), such as the barracuda, grouper, red snapper, eel, amberjack, sea bass, and Spanish mackerel, because they eat other fish that consume toxin-producing algae (dinoflagellates), which live in coral reef waters. Ciguatera toxin is harmless to fish, but poisonous to humans. The toxin is odorless and tasteless, and cooking does not destroy it.
Since Carey doesn't eat much fish, this doesn't concern him, and I'm careful about what fish I order in restaurants.
Of course, then we have scary things like sharks, stingrays, jellyfish, and sea urchins, but these are generally only an issue if you do something to them.
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