Our Lewmar Cobra steering system has performed flawlessly for us in our travels.  However, while Gray was working a new autopilot installation (a project that seems to go on forever), he discovered the stop ring had been torn.  Calls to Lewmar helped us sort out the most likely cause.  When the steering wheel reaches the ends of its range, its  mechanical advantage is the strongest.  Our former autopilot had a habit of going berserk and pounding the wheel against its stops.  It must have done that so much that the stop ring parted.

Hanse did not make changing the stop ring easy.  In addition to controlling the rudder’s range of motion, the ring also serves as the backing plate for the steering pedestal.  To make the job more interesting, the throttle and transmission cables were run through the old ring.  Almost all of the wiring in the steering pedestal was also run through the ring, but Gray had already pulled all that out as part of the autopilot work.  Gray was able to remove the ring without removing the steering pedestal thanks to the copious amounts of caulk holding the pedestal in place even though the bolts holding the ring were removed.  Large portions of the boat’s interior seem to be fabricated from caulk.  Since there is plenty of slack in the steering and transmission cables, Gray decided to route them around the new ring and cut the old ring in half to get it clear.  That seemed easier than disconnecting the cables from the throttle/transmission lever, pulling them out of the old ring, refishing them through the steering column and reconnecting them.  The hardest part was cleaning all the old caulk off the bolts before reinstalling them.  Even with the assistance of some scary yellow Dominican solvent (labeled entirely in Spanish, of course), it still took a while to get the bolts clean.  Old caulk will prevent the new caulk from sealing properly and would cause the installation to leak.

Coming soon, an update on the autopilot installation project!

Cindy and Gray

We are currently living aboard Cindy’s Island in Stuart, Florida.  While we were sailing down to the Dominican Republic, the mooring field here (recently renamed Sunset Bay Marina and Anchorage) was leased to a developer and got a massive face life.  There is now a store, a restaurant and a very nice boater’s lounge with tables and a large screen television with DVD player.  The book exchange and free internet access are better than ever.  The best news is that mooring prices are the same as they were in 2008.

We spent a large chunk of the summer and fall on the road visiting friends and family.  We also decided we needed a land base for breaks between cruises.  To that end, we purchased a small condo in downtown Providence, RI.  We are currently renting it out with the help of a property manager.  In the Spring, we will sail north to Providence and renovate our condo.  It is in a relatively secure building, so we feel comfortable leaving it for long periods of time (like the cold New England winters, brrrr!).  It is also close enough to universities, Rhode Island state government, hospitals, etc. that we should not have a problem renting it out again when we do a long cruise.

We have also joined the Edgewood Yacht Club in Cranston, RI.  They have a nice mooring field, a historic club building and tons of great people.  It will be great to be a part of the Narragansett sailing scene.

For the rest of the winter, we plan to finish up some boat projects.  It seems like we are always working on boat projects, but the reality is we don’t work on them enough and that is why we are always so far behind.

Cindy and Gray

In addition, we replaced the pieces of the dinghy’s sailing rig that Gray dropped overboard last year.  Between the sailing rig and the electric motor, our dinghy should be quite green!

Cindy and Gray

Up close with a curious manatee

There are people who wonder what’s so great about manatees.

Here’s the answer: everything!

Living on Cindy’s Island, we have had a few manatee encounters.  Typically, we hear a “whoosh” as a manatee surfaces and exhales nearby.  We might be able to follow it in the water for a while as a dull gray hump that stays close to the surface.  Once we found one munching on the slime growing around the boat’s waterline.  But they go on their way quickly and don’t take notice of the observers on the surface world.  Even though we might only see one for a few seconds, it’s usually the highlight of our day (especially for Cindy).

So, when we found out that it was possible to swim with manatees every winter in Crystal River, Florida, we jumped at the chance.  We scheduled a tour with Fun 2 Dive Scuba, who only take small groups of 4 or less snorkelers for all-day excursions.  Crystal River is on the other side of the state from Titusville, and since the tour started early in the morning, we drove over the day before and spent the night in a motel.  Our host at Fun 2 Dive got in a fender bender on the way to meet us the next day, but quickly set us up to go on a private tour with Captain Wayne White.  Fun 2 Dive was great about the situation and we had a great day with our substitute tour guide.

Manatee playing with the anchor rode. Is that a smile?

Unless you are very close, a manatee seen from the surface generally looks like a mossy hump-shaped rock just breaking the water’s surface.  But seen from underwater, they transform into delightful characters.  Since they prefer warm, shallow water, the best way to see them is to snorkel.  Scuba diving creates bubbles that actually scare them away.

The first thing we noticed when we got to the snorkeling spot was the sheer number of manatees.  They love it there.  There are areas marked off as sanctuary where you are not allowed to swim, but there are almost too many animals to fit in the sanctuary area.  There were probably a hundred of them huddled together snoozing in the warm spring.   The water was quite shallow, probably only 3-4 feet deep.  We found that the manatees avoid interacting with people standing in the water.  But if you snorkel, they lose their inhibitions entirely.  As they wake up and wander out of the sanctuary, they will come up to you and investigate.  They like to be petted and scratched (that moss must get itchy).  We could observe them “walking” on the sandy bottom with their flippers.  Up close, you could look directly at their faces and notice all kinds of little details.  Their eyes do not have lids, but close in from all sides to a single center point.  They make little high-pitched squeaks once in a while, but mostly are quiet.  They only have molars, with no front teeth.  Their snouts are flexible sort of like short elephant trunks.  While we had planned on taking lots of great underwater pictures, we actually found it difficult to get far enough away from them to get them in the frame!

Manatee "walking" with his fins on the sandy bottom.

Sadly, most of the manatees were not just mossy, but had visible scars and deformities.  They are just too innocent and curious to coexist with modern man.  A curious manatee will sometimes surface when it hears the whir of an outboard motor, with predictable results.  Happily, we saw many mother and child pairs.  We also saw several animals with tracking tags that indicated that they had been previously rescued.

Since we took the trip to Crystal River, we have had a few local manatee encounters.  Gray had the best one, when he was working at the dock by himself.  He was hosing out the dinghy, which was suspended over the water on its davits.  As the water drained out the open drainhole, he noticed a manatee rolled onto its back positioned exactly so the fresh water onto its mouth.  The manatee slurped up each drop as it landed on its face.  Good at slurping – another awesome manatee feature.

Happy travels,

Cindy and Gray

In the midst of the bigger, ongoing projects (and the copious distractions of land based living), Gray got a couple of the small tasks completed.

The first is wiring in the pedestal of the salon dining table.  We often watch movies on a laptop in the salon, but the laptop speakers are not loud enough to hear over the drone of the fans.  We had been running a line to the input on the stereo, but stringing cords around an already crowded space was pretty annoying.  Gray ran some wires to the dining table pedestal to clear up some of the strung cords.  He also ordered a custom made face plate to hold the following jacks:  a pair of composite audio connections that run to the stereo, a coaxial cable jack that runs to the TV antenna/cable and a USB jack that goes to a NMEA concentrator.

The NMEA concentrator takes data streams from our navigation instruments and combines (concentrates) them into a single stream with a USB connection.  This allows us to use a laptop for navigation and as an instrument repeater.  The concentrator also sends data and instructions from the laptop (via USB) to the NMEA network.

The next wiring project was a faceplate in the V-berth that contains stereo audio inputs and a coaxial TV antenna/cable jack.  Also in the V-berth are a couple of switches, one to switch between the TV antenna and dock side cable and another to switch between the two sets of stereo inputs.  This will allow us to watch TV in either the salon or the V-berth and place a laptop or iPod in the salon or V-berth to play music/movie audio through the stereo.

The final small completed small wiring project is the TriMetric Battery Monitor.  This unit is installed in the side of the galley facing the electrical panel.  It monitors the battery voltage and tracks the amperage flowing in and out of the battery bank.  The unit is not yet fully programmed – that will require a new battery charger capable of equalizing our new batteries (another project on the list).  For now, it is useful for monitoring the battery state and current usage.  Attaching the leads to the shunt on the battery box was an exercise in aggravation with many small parts disappearing into the black hole under the battery box.  Theoretically, the box could be moved to retrieve them, but that would involve moving hundreds of pounds of batteries, disconnecting many wires and removing several bolts.  In practice, we think of it as a black hole.

Gray and Cindy

Cindy and Big Mama

Ok, we can’t stay away from the Caribbean.  We just got back from a Southern Caribbean cruise on Celebrity Cruise Lines with Cindy’s parents.  We flew down to San Juan and spent 11 days on the Celebrity Galaxy with stops in Aruba, Curaçao, Grenada, St. Lucia, Barbados, Dominica, St. Kitts and Tortola.

It really whet our appetite for getting back out there in our own boat.  The islands in the southern Caribbean are very beautiful with friendly people.  One of the particular highlights was the Brimstone Hill Fort on St. Kitts.  This UNESCO World Heritage site is an amazing hilltop fortification with great views of St. Kitts and the surrounding islands.  They call it the Gibraltar of the Caribbean.

On Curaçao, we were really impressed with the Kura Hulanda Museum, which has moving and surpisingly thorough exhibits on the Caribbean slave trade as well as anthropological exhibits on Africa and the Caribbean.  It is situated in a collection of beautifully restored local buildings, some of which comprise a high end hotel.  We loved the sculptures displayed around the gardens here as well.

David the Goliath, Roseau, Dominica

This being a cruise vacation, we ate tons of food.  Celebrity has made some changes to their dining since the last time we cruised with them (2005, around Cape Horn).  The buffet has added an Asia section with foods from India, Thailand, Vietnam and of course, China.  There is also a custom stir fry station with a large selection of vegetables and noodles as well as three choices of meat.  The salad bar is open all afternoon, a healthy alternative to the usual pizza and burgers for afternoon snacks.  The menu was more varied also.  On our previous long Celebrity cruises, they start to repeat appetizers and entrees in the main dining room after a few days.  The portions in the main dining room seem smaller than we remember.  We appreciate that, particularly since you can always order more food if you want it. The highlight of Gray’s day, the sushi buffet, is still served in the early evening.

Brimstone Hill Fortress, St. Kitts

Early in the cruise, Cindy took advantage of the on-board salon to get a new hairdo.  She went from having hair that was almost long enough to sit on to a new cut that comes down just below her ears.  She saved her old ponytail to send to Locks of Love when we got back.  Unfortunately, the hair was still wet when it was cut, so we had to hang the ponytail from a hanger in our stateroom for a few days.  We hope that the stateroom attendant didn’t think we were in a cult or something, but we have to admit that the service was great and we almost never saw him!

Although the ship was full, there was some evidence of the economic downturn affecting the cruise line.  Specifically, they seemed short of entertainers.  There were a couple of nights where there was no show at all in the main theatre.  Also, there was no comedian, juggler or magic act (some of our favorites).  One entertainer we really enjoyed was Nadeen, the Queen of Hypnosis.  Nadeen is a certified hypnotherapist that does stage shows to raise awareness of the benefits of hypnotherapy.  In addition to her show, she did a couple of seminars that we found fascinating.  We learned a lot about hypnotherapy and how it can help a variety of conditions.

Windward Barbados

The ship we were on, the Celebrity Galaxy, is going to be leaving the Celebrity fleet next month.  After some refitting, it will go to work in Europe for another cruise line.  Galaxy has a special place in our hearts since it was our first cruise ship (2003, Eastern Caribbean out of Baltimore, MD).  We are looking forward to trying out the newer ships that have just recently launched including the Celebrity Solstice and the HUGE Royal Caribbean Oasis of the Seas.  Of course, when it is time for another cruise-ship cruise, there will probably be something even larger!

Happy sails,

Cindy and Gray

In the beginning of November, we moved back on to the boat from housesitting and began to wait for a weather window for sailing east to Puerto Rico.  The right weather is important, since the prevailing wind in the Caribbean blows from the east at 15 to 20 knots.  Our little 20 horsepower engine (Yanmar 3ym20) would have a difficult time pushing us against it and the ride would be really wet and bumpy!

As the wait for weather wore on, we began to make a list of boat projects to work on in Puerto Rico.  Although we were in the Dominican Republic for a long time, we didn’t get that much done.  A big part of the problem is the availability of parts.  In Puerto Rico, parts are easier to get but are still marked up significantly over mainland US prices.  The good boatyards are on the far side of Puerto Rico, over 400 miles away.  Florida is only a little further and has many other advantages, chiefly among them cheaper marinas, cheaper boat yards, as well as cheaper and more plentiful parts.

We decided to return to the US for refitting.  Since the weather was not going to cooperate for a while, we flew back to the US to look for places to live while we work on the boat (and also to visit Florida theme parks).  We decided on Titusville, FL.  It is on the same latitude as Orlando for easy access to the theme parks (we do love theme parks), cheap airport and plentiful (non-boat) shopping.  It also has the best marina deal we could find.  Cindy’s Island will be berthed at Westland Marina while we work on interior projects and then in their boatyard for painting and hurricane season lay up.  We rented an apartment nearby since living on a boat while doing major work is kind of a bummer.

Gray went back to the DR alone to get the boat ready for the trip and to recruit some crew for the journey.  Cindy stayed in Florida to get the apartment ready.  Gray found some reliable crew, got the boat ready and began to look for a weather window.  It is difficult to get a safe weather window in the winter due to the cold fronts that sweep down from the north.  They stir up the seas and make the winds unpredictable.  The weather looked like it was going to be nasty for quite a while, so he flew back to the US.  Gray flew to the DC area, rented a U-Haul, and began collecting furniture from our various storage locations (the basements, spare rooms and attics of generous family and friends).  Once the truck was full, he drove down to Florida to meet Cindy and we moved into our new apartment.

Near the end of December, the weather began to cooperate.  Gray flew back to the DR and on New Year’s Eve he and his crew (a husband and wife team with lots of experience) left the DR in the mid afternoon.  The trip was almost cut short when the engine stopped exhausting cooling water.  Marine diesel engines use ocean water (raw water) for cooling rather than a radiator like a car.  Gray shut down the engine and tried to open the raw water filter assembly to clean it.  After inflicting some minor damage and failing to get the assembly open, Gray decided to try starting the engine again to see what would happen.  Just like a computer, all it took to fix it was to turn it off and on again.  The problem was most likely a piece of plastic bag or jellyfish got pulled over the raw water intake and it fell off once the engine was shut down.

The weather window was so good that the seas were flat and the wind was calm.  That’s great for a powerboat, but for a sailboat that only carries about 30 gallons of diesel it is less than ideal.  We motor-sailed (sails up, motor running at low RPM) for two days until we got to Rum Cay in the Bahamas.  We planned to pull into Rum Cay to refuel.  As we approached, we radioed the fuel dock for instructions.  They informed us that there was no fuel on the entire island.  Our tank was close to empty, so we decided to motor a little longer until we had rounded the tip of Long Island and then to sail as best we could to George Town where there had to be fuel.  As we rounded the tip of long island, we shut down the motor and began to sail at a stately 2 knots.  At that rate, we would reach Georgetown by the time the fuel dock opened the next morning.  The winds picked up a little overnight and we were able to sail at over 4 knots.  We made it to the entrance of Georgetown harbor (actually called Elizabeth Harbor) at about midnight and dropped the sails.  We motored tensely through the narrow, twisty, poorly marked channel.  Gray was on the bow with a spot light to illuminate the few markers and many obstacles and the crew was manning the helm and charting software (with realtime GPS!).  We made it in, dropped the anchor and enjoyed snifters of fine Haitian rum.

In the morning, we motored over to the Georgetown Fuel Dock (actually called Exuma Docking Services) and were informed that they had no fuel.  Since we were running on fumes at this point, this was bad news indeed.  Luckily, the automotive service station nearby had some diesel (but no gasoline).  We were able to refill the tank using jerry cans and be on our way.  Once out of Elizabeth Harbor, we were able to sail again and made for Highbourne Cay.  The next morning, we transited Highbourne Cut and started across the Banks for the Tongue of the Ocean.  We made the Tongue by early afternoon and headed north-northwest for Mackey Shoals.  Gray was on watch alone as we entered the Banks on the western side of the Tongue.  The entrance was narrow (although wider than Elizabeth Harbor and straight), but he had his trusty spotlight and several powerboats to follow (although they move at about 5 times the speed of a sailboat and disappear quickly).  The next morning, we were able to get a weather report from the US.  The forecast called for a strong front to pass over the area during the evening of the next day.  We decided we should try to make Florida by the next morning to give us plenty of extra time.  Rather than head for Titusville, we headed for West Palm Beach.  We motorsailed through the pre-frontal calm into the Gulfstream.  Around midnight, the edge of the front caught us (quite a bit earlier than predicted) and the winds picked up to 25 knots (out of the south, fortunately).  The seas got choppy, but everything was fine (just more exciting).  As we left the Gulfstream and approached Florida, both the winds and the seas calmed down.  We entered the Lake Worth Inlet about 4am.  We almost collided with a poorly marked jetty (there really ought to be a big flashing light on it), but made it inside safely.  By this time, all hands were on deck since entering an inlet (particularly one you have only entered once before) in the dark is always dangerous and more eyes to spot hazards are always better.

We set the anchor and called Cindy (at 5am) to come pick us up.  By 9am, we had cleared customs, docked in Riviera Beach Marina and Cindy arrived to pick us up.  We dropped our crew off with some of their relatives and headed back to Titusville.  After a few days, Gray and Cindy went to move the boat to Titusville from Riviera Beach.  The weather was less than ideal (20 knots of wind from the north), so we motored up the Intercoastal Waterway.  It took us 4 days to motor to Titusville with stops every night.  We stopped early in the day a couple of times due to the availability of anchorage space.  Cindy’s Island draws more than 6 feet of water, so sometimes it is difficult to find an achorage deep enough in the shallow waters of the ICW.  We made it to Westland Marina, so the major work can begin.

What major work?  Well, the list is (of course) still growing.  Our battery system still needs work since we don’t have a start battery and the house battery bank is big enough to melt the 60 amp alternator in a couple of years.  We don’t have a good interior shower set up (important for crowded harbors).  The autopilot needs to be replaced, the windlass quit working again, and two of our winches have locked up.  We are also going to explore some add ons like SSB radio, a bigger inverter, a portable generator and maybe even air conditioning.  Cindy has a long list of canvas work too.

Fair winds,

Cindy and Gray

Over the course of the Spring, we noticed that our batteries were holding less and less of a charge.  On a few nights, the refrigerator’s repeated attempts to start would wake Gray up.  Firing up the engine for a few minutes or briefly paralleling in the start battery would provide enough power to start the compressor and then it would run under the house battery alone.  The volt meter would read very low voltage while the compressor ran, but but go back up above 12 volts when the compressor stopped.  By 10AM, the solar panels would have the house back up to 14 volts (suspiciously quickly considering they were reading below 12 volts before sunup).  Of course, when we had wind all night this was never an issue.

Once we got to Luperón, the winds died at night and batteries really became a problem.  In the 10 days between our arrival in the Dominican Republic and our summer trip back to the US, we had to rely on the start battery to keep the refrigerator running through the night.  We decided to rent an apartment for a couple of months to work on some boat projects including the battery bank.  After some looking around, we discovered that the batteries installed by Hanse were not only an odd size (a couple of inches shorter than a Group 31 standard battery) but that they had been discontinued.  We would need to replace the batteries with something else.  It turns out the only batteries readily available in the Dominican Republic are wet cell golf cart batteries.  They are used in many homes as the basis for a backup power system.  These batteries are a very different shape from the batteries provided by Hanse.  We would have to remove the battery box and build a new one.

Once we returned from the US and got settled into the apartment, Gray got to work on the battery system.  First, he pulled out the old batteries and attempted to unravel the the wire spaghetti in the battery box.  Even though we bought the boat new, the wiring was still kind of a mess.  The wires installed by the boatyard during commissioning were labelled, but the Hanse installed wires were not.  Wires were connected directly to one battery or the other.  There were no central buses to organize the wires.  Some of the Hanse battery connections were made with screwed on terminals instead of being properly crimped.

After clipping many wire ties and feeding the wires out of the battery box, Gray got to work on removing the battery box.  The box was very nice, made of fiberglass and shaped specifically for the space and the batteries.  Luckily, it was held in place by caulking so it was easy to remove.  The old box ended up in the flea market where a Dominican family bought it to use as a sink.  We sold the old batteries to the guy who sold us the new batteries.  Even though they won’t hold enough of a charge for our needs, they would power a lamp or other small electrical load while the power was out in town.

Gray built the new box out of pieces of marine plywood we had on board.  The sides of the box were glued and screwed together and then the seams were covered with fiberglass.  A battery box is a great first fiberglass project since nobody can see it.  That is fortunate since Gray’s work came out a little messy.  He’ll practice with more fiberglass projects later.  Before the box could be installed on the boat, Gray had to trace the curve of the hull and cut some plywood to build supports for the box.  He glued down these supports with epoxy putty, then filleted the edges of the joint with thickened epoxy.  Finally, he used strips of fiberglass cloth wetted with epoxy resin to “tab” the supports to the inside of the hull.  Once the supports had cured for a couple of days they felt very solid.

It was a while before the box went on to the supports.  Gray had to unravel and label all the wires running to the batteries, design the layout of the bus bars, fuses, shunts and other pieces of electrical equipment that he was going to add.  Of course, he also had to track down DR versions of all the parts he was missing.  Since the new battery box would stand 3 inches above the sole (floor) of the aft cabin berth, Gray also had to design a framework to raise the sole enough to cover the new box.  Finally, the new batteries vent potentially explosive hydrogen when they charge, so Gray had to install a vent system.

Gray added a 300 amp fuse on the positive wire coming from the battery box.  He used Power Post Pluses as bus bars.  A Power Post Plus is a 3/8″ stud with a round bus around the base.  The round bus has #10 screws for terminal connections.  Big wires like from the batteries and the engine go on the stud and smaller wires go on the bus ring.  On the negative side of the batteries, Gray added a large shunt for the eventual connection of the Trimetric battery monitor we bought years ago.  One day soon it will be connected!  All of this hardware was mounted on the side of the battery box with large wires running into the box.  Gray also added an engine room vent fan connected to the batteries with a voltage sensing relay.  When the voltage reaches 14 volts, the fan will run to vent any hydrogen emitted by the batteries.  The vent runs to a grille in the transom of the boat.  A new MPPT solar controller (a magic box that makes solar panels more efficient by modifying the voltage based on the state of the batteries) rounded out the new installation.

Since the new cabin sole under the berth was 4 inches higher, we decided to discard the cushion.  We sold the foam in the flea market and put the cover away.  We figured it would be easy to cut new foam to insert in the cover if we decided to replace the cushion later.  Initially, we tried splitting the cushion in two to make access to the batteries easier, but that was still too cumbersome.  Since we never sleep back there, we decided to do away with the cushion.

During the course of the wiring investigation, we discovered that our alternator had failed.  A local mechanic took it apart and reported that the stator was melted from overuse.  He told us (in Spanish) that a 60 amp alternator was not enough for the size of our old battery bank (our new battery bank is about twice as large).  Whenever the engine was running, the alternator was spinning at full load.  The small alternator that came with the engine is designed to keep a starting battery topped off, not run continuously at full load for hours (sometimes days) at a time.  We installed our spare 60 amp alternator and hope it will carry us to Puerto Rico.  Our final plan is to connect the small alternator only to the start battery (which we don’t have yet, we start off the house bank for now).  We will rely on the sun and wind to charge our house bank (with occasional help from a marina or worst case a small generator).  We will need to get a new battery charger with an “equalize” function to help maintain our new wet cell batteries.

Gray and Cindy

The town of Luperón, as seen from Gringo Hill

Halloween this year fell on a Friday, one of the last days we were house sitting.  We had been having problems with power for days, getting only anywhere from 2 to 6 hours in a 24 hour period.  This was not really enough to keep the house battery bank charged, so we had been rationing our TV, internet and washing machine usage.  Fortunately, throughout the day we managed to have enough to keep the water pump running, which kept the housekeeper happy.

One of the last things she does before leaving for the day is to sweep the “ranchito,” a deck with a corrugated metal roof next to the house.  We saw her hurry from the ranchito to the house, very perturbed.  She grabbed Gray and insisted that he come with her.  He couldn’t make out much of her rapid-fire Dominican spanish, but the word “gato” (cat) was repeated several times.  We hadn’t seen him since early in the morning, but that wasn’t unusual.  The big 18 pound tabby typically only came around when he was hungry or wanted to come in from the rain.  He was normally a bit shabby looking, having lost all of the fur off his hind end due to some sort of allergy.  But what Gray found when he looked where the housekeeper was pointing was beyond shabby.  The poor cat was laying under a chair, clearly in pain, with flies circling around him.  A closer look revealed maggots digging into his inflamed bald legs.  It is no exaggeration to say that we were almost as distressed as the cat!

We bundled the cat in towels and placed him in the old empty battery box.  We quickly lined up a an appointment with Dr. Bob, the english-speaking veterinarian and Nino, the taxi driver.  Since Nino has a hard time getting his taxi up the hill to the house, Gray drove to town and met him for the 90 minute long trip to the vet.  The housekeeper left and Cindy settled in to man the phone, trying to reach the cat’s owner and fill her in on the situation.

One of the nice things about living on top of a hill is that you can see the weather approaching well in advance.  While big black storm clouds gathered, Cindy took care of the chickens and brought the dogs in to the house.  By this time, the power had failed completely – no TV, no lights, no water, no oven.  Cindy gathered all of the candles and flashlights she could find and got ready for a dark and stormy night.

Goats lounge on the sidewalks of Luperón on a much drier day

Meanwhile, Gray and Nino had reached the vet.  The vet said that even though the maggots were disgusting, they were not a big deal to fix.  The vet technician went to work on the cat.  First, he used a razor to shave the hair from around the wounds.  Next, he picked the maggots out of the wounds with tweezers.  Finally, he packed the wounds with gauze.  The vet was more concerned about how the cat got the maggots than the maggots themselves.  Usually cats groom themselves thoroughly enough that flies never get a chance to lay eggs in their wounds.  Other animals, particularly cows and sheep, get maggots in almost every wound.  Ick.  The vet recommended that the cat stay in his clinic for some additional tests and to keep an eye on the wounds.  Gray wholeheartedly agreed and left with Nino to get some groceries before making the trip back to Luperón.

The clouds were so heavy with rain, it got dark early.  And then it rained.  Hard.  Cindy picked up her flashlight and read a book while the dogs shivered in a pathetic heap nearby.  Around 7 the phone rang.  It was Gray calling with his report.

The hard rain was not limited to Luperón.  It hit Gray and Nino as they started back from Sosua.  In Puerto Plata, the largish city between Sosua and Luperón, traffic was bad but not unexpectedly so for such a rainy day.   Once they left Puerto Plata, the road conditions deteriorated rapidly.  They passed fields that were under several feet of water and several flooded homes.  Every bridge along the road was awash since the streams were all swollen above the level of the road.  Several times, water leaked in around the door sills on Nino’s taxi.  When they finally reached Luperón, Gray transferred his groceries and the cat carrier to the Burro Pass car and tried to make it up the hill.  A large group of Dominicans told him to turn back since the bridge to the hill (not the hill itself) was impassable due to a flooding stream.  Gray went to visit friends that lived on high ground and waited for the rain to subside.  About 3 hours later, the stream was only about 2 feet above the level of the road.  Gray watched tensely as another vehicle crossed the bridge without incident and then followed.  Once he was over the bridge and climbing the hill, things were much smoother except for a few deep ruts carved by the water flowing down the hill.  Gray and his groceries sloshed in around 10:30PM.

The bad weather really brought out the community to assist each other.  Large groups of people were out in the streets to help with stuck cars, assist elderly people and children on their way to high ground, etc.  Since government services are often very limited, the residents of the outlying communities really look out for each other.

Some time in the night the rain stopped.  When we went to check the rain gauge, we found that it had overflowed.  So there had been at least 5.5 inches of precipitation that night.  If the water in Cindy’s rainboots that she left sitting outside is any guide, it was probably more like 8!

The power was still off, but there was nothing wrong with the car, so Gray drove down to the dock to bail out the dinghy and start another day of boat projects.  The dinghy was full to the gunwales with rainwater.  Unfortunately, this made it much less stable, as Gray found out when he reached his bucket down to start bailing.  The dinghy flipped over, motor and all.  Submerging the motor did nothing good for it, and Gray’s subsequent attempts at repairing it did even less.  To make a long story short, we will be rowing the dinghy until we can get parts in Puerto Rico.

The story has a happy ending though – if you like cats.  Kitty will be fine.  The vet found that the infected wounds had been the result of a dog bite (probably not one of the house dogs – who knows where the cat goes on his evening rounds?) and were easily treated.  The cat is now being coddled by his owner, safe at home on his hill.

–Cindy and Gray