Day 304, Year 1: Changing Weather . . . Pouring Buckets of Rain
Date: Thursday, August 17, 2006
Weather: Sunny, Rainy, Rainy, Rainy
Location: Pago Pago Harbor, Tutuila Island, American Samoa

A weather system is moving through and we are getting literally buckets of rain. We have only one bucket left onboard, and we have filled it multiple times this afternoon with rain water. We started this trip with only two buckets. One of those was a little West Marine bucket that Mary Krueger, once a New Hampshire Public Radio employee and a good friend, had bought for us during a passage from Charleston, SC, to Norfolk. Even back then, she noticed that we didn’t have enough buckets aboard! Well, that little blue bucket is still aboard, but it has a huge crack in the bottom and only holds the supplies for doing stainless cleaning. The other bucket we started with bit the dust long ago. The bright red bucket currently have onboard, we bought in a little store in the Las Perlas islands, Panama. We have searched and searched since then, but no buckets have we found. When we arrived here, the first thing I asked Mark to do was to try and find a good plastic bucket, but so far no luck. So here we are with gallons of water escaping us because we have no way of collected the water. One day soon we will rent a car and do a shopping day where I’m sure we can find loads of buckets. I never knew a person could write so much about buckets, but here you have it.

Garrett, where are you when I need you? This is a plea to Garrett Stuart who served as our anchor locker hero while in Rarotonga. Anytime we have to reset the anchor, someone has to crawl up into the v-berth and be there to flake the chain. This afternoon during the pouring rain and changing wind conditions, we drug anchor and had to reset. I really missed Garrett as climbing into and out the v-berth multiple times is a real hassle with only one good leg. Garrett, we miss you for more reasons than this, but just wanted you to know that if you ever want to leave your parents, you have a place to stay!

We spent a great portion of the day answering emails from friends and family. We have more to write tomorrow. And this morning John, from the boat “Splashes” came by to offer if we needed any help. Since Mark needed to climb the mast to fix our lazy jacks we accepted his offer. For those of you who are non-sailors, lazy jacks are a set of lines that stretch between the mast and the boom and help the mainsail stack neatly on the boom when it is lowered. Ours had broken during a reefing operation on the trip here. It was an easy fix. Mark went up the mast while John tailed the halyard that Mark was attached to to make sure that he couldn’t fall. Mark tied and stitched the line that came loose back where it belonged and all was well again. Only problem was that while the line was loose it had chafed against the headsail so now that sail has to come down for some re-stitching. Always something to keep us busy.

But all in all, a day that only includes answering email, filling buckets with rainwater, fixing the lazy jacks and re-anchoring the boat has got to be called a laid back day by anyone’s standards. Maybe we can get a few more tasks on our list done tomorrow.

060817 Day 304 American Samoa–Day in the Anchorage