Day 189, Year 5: The Exodus Continues
Date: Monday, May 3, 2010
Weather: Rain Overnight, Nice Day, Rainy Evening
Location: Ile Fouquet, Salomon Atoll, Chagos

Four more boats left Salomon today, some heading back to Thailand and some heading south to Mauritius. So for a short time, we had only eight boats in the anchorage, but then in the afternoon a new French boat arrived so we are now at nine boats in the Takamaka-Fouquet anchorage, and I think six boats remain in the Boddam anchorage. Only four boats are still in Peros Banhos, so all totaled there are about twenty-one boats currently in Chagos. We know of at least two more boats leaving in the next day or two, so the numbers continue to dwindle.

The weather behaved itself today allowing me put coat #2 of varnish on the cockpit woodwork. In fact, I got up at 6:30 am, wiped away the rain we had overnight, sanded, and had everything varnished by 9:30. In that time, Mark got the toilet reconnected and I also baked a coffee cake. We then went over to Mirage for morning coffee with Jeff and Kathy and Ed and Lynne of Constance. We chatted until late morning and then we came back, had lunch, and then Mark went fishing and I started cleaning the stainless. Those adorable little Brown Noddies that have been roosting on our bow pulpit had made a royal mess of the stainless, so I scrubbed away the guano, which looked like we had whitewashed the whole bow pulpit, with water and brush and then polished the stainless. I still need to do it again, but I ran out of patience and settled for a job that looks okay but doesn’t really meet my standards. But it will do for now. I then had to re-rig the lines of hanging CD’s that we have been using to discourage the birds from roosting up front. There was very little wind, so the CD’s weren’t flying around, and when I looked up front there were six little lovelies sitting on the newly polished stainless. I went running up the deck to scare them off, tripped on the rubber fender that we sit the dinghy on when it is on deck, and along with the birds, off flew my glasses. This was a big gift for Neptune. Not only are my Titanium glasses expensive, I only have glasses with an old prescription for a back-up. I have been wearing them all evening and they do fine for everything except reading and computer work. They work for that but I have to push the computer or book far away. So I dug into a bag of reading glasses that my niece Lynn gave me to give away to people along the way who might need them and found two pair that are the right magnification for me for reading. So I can wear my prescription back-up pair of glasses for general use and use the cheap reading glasses when working on the computer or reading. It will be six months before we reach South Africa and I have any chance of getting a new pair of prescription glasses, so I hope this system works.

Mark and Ed came back empty-handed from the fishing expedition, so we’ll have to try that again tomorrow. Peppy and Bob from the boat Far Niente invited us over for sundowners this evening and we had a great time getting to know them better. Their Chagos permit ends on May 20 and they will be heading to Madagascar. They are also thinking of going to Mayotte and then on to Tanzania, but they will need to check a piracy up-date before making that decision. Once in a while we are tempted to do the same, but the piracy activity north of Dar es Salom makes it seem a little too risky.

Tomorrow’s low tide is at 10:30 am, so after doing a third coat of varnish, weather permitting, we might take the dinghy to the north tip of Takamaka and walk out to the wrecked ship that still sits at the edge of the reef. So a little exploring, a little fishing, a little stainless polishing, and a little photo editing sounds like the menu for tomorrow’s activities.

100503 Day 189 Salomon, Chagos–Aborted Walk to Wreck Off N Takamaka