Oh boy, what a day! But first let me tell you about our night. The seas were calm when we returned to our boat from our sundowners at Avant. It was around 7pm. By 10pm everything was rocking and rolling. The wind had increase to 18 knots out of the west, directly into the bay. The waves built quickly to an estimated 3 ft. Complicating things was the fact the full moon tide was going out, amplifying the wave action and our discomfort. We were both up making adjustments to various aspects of the boat. Eventually we were able to get some sleep and even slept in until 6:30 (Rick’s normal wake up time on the boat is 5am).
We started the day with the plan of going into “town” to buy some more internet access. We had a leisurely morning. We had raised the swim platform last night because it was slapping the water and making a lot of noise. When Rick lowered it one of the lines snapped and the platform hanging from a remaining line, floating, completely off the boat, in the water. The wave action was causing it to bang against the boat. It was chaotic and stressful. For those of you not familiar with a swim platform it is the back of the boat and a significant piece of boat real estate.
We were able to get a line to secure the platform, but the bottom was not aligned or engaged with the supports on the boat itself. We used another line to pull the middle of it towards the boat and eventually got it aligned. Then Rick replaced the line that snapped. It took some more figuring before we got the new line on properly. The next problem was the brackets for the hinges were broken. We tried to fix them with zipties but that didn’t work, so we tried rope. That seemed to work.
By this time we were feeling satisfied that we might be able to continue on this journey without more lost time due to mechanical problems. We would still need to take care when raising and lowering the swim platform.
By now it was lunch time so we had a little to eat. Next we needed to resolve our internet problem, so we took the dinghy into shore. We normally get into the dinghy from the swim platform. But given all the problems and our uncertainty about the sustainability of the fix we didn’t want to leave the swim platform down while we weren’t on the boat. This meant getting into the dinghy from the side of the boat — a big step down — but we were able to do it. Off to the beach! We went to the store that we thought Bill and Susan told us sold more cards for internet access, but it was closed on Mondays. Our hearts sunk because we thought we might have to stay here another day to get the internet cards. We went into the hotel and talked to our favorite concierge (she was the one that helped us with the scooter) and she told us that the store down the road sold the cards. So we walked down the road and got more cards. Then we decided we would go to the bakery and get some bread. Many places close for lunch. It was 2:30 and the bakery didn’t reopen from their lunch break until 3:30. We decided to wait. At 3:30 when it reopened we learned that the oven was broken and there was no bread. So we walked back to the dinghy and returned to the boat.
We had to step up onto the boat from the dinghy on the side. Big step up!
We want to leave first thing in the morning so we got the dinghy motor off the dinghy and onto the boat. The boat was still rolling like it was the night before so it was difficult to move the motor, but eventually we got it situated. By now we were too tired and mentally exhausted to get the dinghy onto the deck. Also it was still pretty windy, so once the dinghy is hauled out of the water it becomes a rubber kite with a hard bottom. As Scarlett O‘Hara said, “We’ll deal with that tomorrow.” We had a light diner and hit the sack early thinking it might be another rock and roll night!