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17 November- Life at the House
Its been a month since the site was last updated and there really is very little to report!
We have been in the house for a month now and Ron and Ariane have just got back so we are now back on the boat. We have used the time at the house to do stuff on the boat that would have been difficult to do whilst living on it.
Stuart has re varnished everything and the inside now looks 50 times better than it did before. He has also made a new table for the cockpit so eating outside will be a little more civilized. He has also made a new rudder for the windvane self steering device. Fixed draws, cleaned out the fuel tank, welded up the alcohol fuel tank for the cooker which was leaking and done a lots of other work with electrical and engine stuff that I don't understand!
We have taken out all of the seat cushions and I have given them all a good wash and have had to sew them all back on as the zips had completely rusted away. That was a bit of a nightmare of a job as the cushions were the original ones that came with the boat 20 years ago, I don't think they have ever been washed. They didn't look too bad on the boat but when I put them in water it turned black instantly. Anyway they are all nice and clean now and back on the boat.
I have also had to make a new cushion for the v berth as we surface washed it once and left it on the top of the boat to dry and it blew away during the night! One of the other boaters was kind enough to give us some foam that they had left over, so we had a fun afternoon cutting and gluing foam. Then I had the joy of hand sewing the material. It looked a bit wobbly in the end, but does the job.
I also started working on making a sail cover smaller. We brought it at the swap meet and it was far to big, but was a good price and we knew we could do something with it. Hand sewing through 3 layers of thick canvas with only a set of needles that came out of a christmas cracker was pretty slow going! I spent 2 days on it and didn't get half way. We then passed it on to Lobo the resident sail mender who is going to sort out our sails to finish off on his machine that is made for that kind of thing! Oh well there's only so much you can do!
I had to winch Stuart up the mast for him to do some work up there. It was fairly hard, although Stuart helped out by partially scurrying up the mast a bit at a time like a little coconut boy. I then had to quickly winch whilst he was clinging hold of the mast and the weight was off of the seat. He got to the top slowly but surely. The only problem being that I have to do it again soon so he can get the job finished!
The weather has turned a lot cooler here now. It is still nice and warm, only not half as humid which is nice, and since the rainy season has stopped (where we didn't see much rain at all) it has now started to rain lots!
We have had a few pot luck nights at Xalaha and pizza nights round 'That's', dinners round ours etc etc.
One of the pizza nights at 'That's' was quite eventful, the rooster hunt was on. They and their neighbors had been having terrible problems with a Gallo that was cock-a-doo-dol-dooing at really inappropriate hours and keeping everyone awake with its very odd call. It didn't belong to anyone either, so there was no one to complain too. This night one of the neighbors popped in after a few beers and went to get the rooster, it was found and without going into too much details, the rooster will cock-a-doo-dol-do no more. Wanting rid of the evidence Stuart said that we will take it back with us and will kindly give it to on of the many locals who come past in their cayukos'. They will be very grateful to have it for their dinner! This was a very stupid idea and needless to say the rooster was given to no one and two days later we had to take a very stinky dead rooster into town with us to dispose of it in the first bin we could find!
We had a big night on Halloween, where we went to La Launcher, restaurant, this was another time when it had been raining for 24 hours solidly and I'm not talking showers, it rained heavily non stop. It was a good night, starting at 4 in the afternoon and going through until 12, so lots of beer was consumed and lots of crazy dancing was done. No pics to show though as I forgot to take the camera, which turned out to be just as well seeing as I fell in when we got back to the house whilst trying to climb out of Manfred and Andreas dingy! I'm quite impressed though as it is the first time I have fell in in 8 months! (Stuart has been in a lot more times!)
Stuart had a monster move into his ear for a bit! He was asleep one night and suddenly jumped out of bed and was saying "look in my ear, check my ear", I sleepily couldn't see anything and Stuart decided that it must have just been in his dream as he had just been dreaming that an insect had crawled into his ear. It was hurting, so we thought that he must have an ear infection from swimming in the river. Anyway we put antiseptic in it and he went back to bed. The next morning he was cleaning his ear out with an ear bud as it was still playing up and pulled out a couple of wings and a few legs!! Arrrgh, it wasn't just a dream, he had a monster in his ear! Anyway he is all better now.
The rest of time has been spent looking after mental cats. One called 'Love Kitty' (I know, a terrible name!) who refuses to come off of Xanadu, (Ron and Arianes boat.) She is a huge cat that I don't think likes Guatemala much or the other cats, in fact I don't think she likes anything much apart from strokes and food!
We finally found out where the poop and wee smell was coming from on the boat when we caught one of them weeing in the anchor locker. This was not funny and when I went to wash it out with bleach found out that Love Kitty had been using it to poop in too!! Luckily they were all old and dry and as hard as concrete, so it wasn't as disgusting as it could have been cleaning it up! I'm just very glad that she doesn't live on our boat!
Then there's the 2 brothers Mano and Raffie, who are very entertaining to watch and Tres the mum who has very inappropriately gone back to feeding the kittens, which are no longer kittens but bigger than her now. It looks very wrong. They are an odd bunch but great fun. It will be sad to split them up again, but will save us a fortune in cat food, one is enough!
Raffie did a spectacular dive into the river the other day. I was fishing for them and caught one of the little spiky fishes that I know they wont eat so threw it back in, but Raffie being soo excited didn't want to loose his dinner and dived straight after it. He didn't realise what he had done until it was too late, then 'splash' a very shocked kitty! He swam really well to the first concrete post that he could find, climbed up it and refused to let go, Stuart had a nightmare trying to prize him off, but we got him back on dry land eventually. Wet cats look soo funny, he wasn't too impressed at us laughing at him or with Mano chasing his now rat like tail!
We had a nice night last night with Ron and Ariane getting back, had a few beers with them and 'That', they have brought back a load of DVD's, so have to dash of to Chikki's now to get some wine then off to video night!