Monday was one of those perfect blue sky days. Charlie and I were on the paddleboard before 9 am. We headed to the beach. While I combed the beach, Charlie managed to get himself into a patch of burrs. His fur is like velcro and the burrs were sharp little things. I managed to pull them out one by one. We were met at the beach by Paul, who kayaked over. After heading back to the boat we decided to go snorkeling again. This time I put Charlie on the paddleboard while I snorkeled. I was able to tie him to a dinghy mooring line which kept him near me. The snorkeling was great. So many fish to wander with. After snorkeling, we put up the sails and had a pleasant drift sail from Norman island, back to Soper’s Hole on Tortola. The skies were clear all day and evening, which has been rare. Most days we see rain showers.
Tuesday we woke early to ready the boat for it’s haul out. We are having the bottom painted as well as installing new folding props. We’ll be living on the hard for a few days. For the first few hours, we both felt like we were moving. The motion of the ocean really gets under your skin. No sooner was the boat out of the water, and the rain came down in sheets. This has happened three times so far. You can’t paint a wet boat, so the prep work is done and we wait for the clouds to clear again. The plan was a few days on the hard, but my guess is it will double at least.
Meanwhile, Charlie is enjoying the extra walks and we are doing other tasks on board while we have shore power. I’ll try to get some photos uploaded to the blog soon.