Day 196, Year 5: Another Rainy Day in Paradise
Date: Monday, May 10, 2010
Weather: Overcast, Rainy Day; Winds from the S and W
Location: Ile Fouquet, Salomon Atoll, Chagos
We seem to be getting more than our share of rainy days, but we took advantage of this one to do some sewing jobs that we have put off for weeks. Today’s tasks were clothes repair jobs. You tend to wear the same clothes over and over when out here. I have a pair of REI shorts that I have been wearing since we left in 2005. They are so comfortable, take very little water to wash, and dry quickly. When we were in Thailand this year, the material got so weak that the bottom starting tearing. The same thing happened to my favorite pair of Columbia capris except that it was the knee that tore on those. Mark has been wearing the same Hook and Tackle shorts since we left in 2005. The material is still fine, but the elastic was shot. So today we sewed in new elastic, patched pants, hemmed long pants to make capris, and hemmed other pants that are just simply too long. These long pants we will use once we arrive in South Africa. While Mark was working on the repair jobs, I ripped the zippers out of our old bimini. We have looked for this for two weeks now, and we had run out of places to look. But this morning I thought of one more place to look-in the very bottom of a suitcase of cool weather clothes. There it was. I have now removed all the zippers and it is ready to be turned in to a rain catcher. Once we get this done, I’m sure we will have no more rain, but we’ll be ready just in case.
The day has been more overcast than rainy, but it is the winds that are a bit of a problem. When the winds come from the west, it puts us on a lee shore. With a reef behind us, this is not our favorite position. But winds are light and we are really hoping that they turn by morning. We are now in our second bout with west winds in this anchorage, so if this persists into tomorrow we might have to move down to Boddam. The new moon is on Friday, so we are starting into days when there is a much greater range from high to low tide. The low tides are much lower, so sometime in the next few days will be a good time to walk out on the reef again. We’d like to stay here to do that, but we will move if it seems unsafe.
