Day 199, Year 5: Oops!
Date: Thursday, May 13, 2010
Weather: Still Overcast and Rainy
Location: Ile Fouquet, Salomon Atoll, Chagos
Today’s big expedition for Mark and Ed was a four-hour fishing trip outside the atoll. Lots of fish were caught but all were Bonito, most of which were thrown back. The fishermen came back with two, gave one to Susan Margaret, and unfortunately dropped the other one in the water when filling a bucket for cleaning it. So that marathon fishing trip was a bit of a bust. I guess we’ll have to give it another try tomorrow. The other big “oops” of the day happened while Mark was grilling Bonito from yesterday’s fishing expedition. Somehow his favorite spatula went overboard. Unfortunately that spatula served double-duty as the one we use for cleaning/scraping the bottom of the boat, so it was a much greater loss than just a just a spatula. I’m sure we’ll find something else that we can use, but definitely Neptune won the game today.
We did make contact with Jay Burgess on the USS Lopez this morning just after the 7 am Net. No sleeping in today! He is here as part of a six-month tour of duty and will not be heading home until August. He said he would contact us before we leave, so we’ll look forward to talking to him again. He told us this morning that his weather information indicates a few more days of this yucky weather. We didn’t think of it until after we signed off, but Jay might be able to provide good weather information for us close to the time we are leaving for Madagascar. That would certainly be welcome information.
Other projects today included more varnishing in the cockpit and actually getting the varnished Dorade boxes back in their rightful places. That required using AwlCare to polish the areas where the Dorades sit and polishing the stainless Dorade vents. Then the Dorade vents had to be screwed down on the boxes before the whole unit could be installed. Unfortunately, it was not as easy as just plopping them back in place. Before and after fishing, Mark worked furiously to get the rain catcher made and he now has it installed. Therefore, I’m pretty sure we won’t get rain tonight.
The highlight of the day has to do with burning the trash, cutting Mark’s hair, and watching crabs-an interesting combination of activities. Yesterday I had promised Mark that I would cut his hair today, and even though it looked like it was going to pour the rain, we went to shore to the visit the local barber-that would be me. We needed to burn the trash, so we went ashore on Takamaka right in front of the 55-gallon trash barrel. It was mid-tide, so there was room to set up a beach chair that would serve as the hair cutting station. We put the trash in the barrel and got that burning. We then turned the barber’s chair so it faced the trash barrel. I figured Mark could make sure everything was burning safely while I cut. But then the real show started. There are mustard yellow crabs here with eye stalks that stick straight up in the air. Every time I take a photo of them, they end up looking like little pirates saying, “Aaarrrgh, matey!” But today we were totally fascinating by their activity. Here we are facing the trash barrel, trying to cut hair, but all we can do is watch the crabs. The tide was going out and about every three feet along the beach, these little crabs were digging holes and carrying sand out of the holes and dumping it about a foot in front of the hole. They were like little backhoes, digging sand out of a hole, moving forward, dumping, and then doing it again and again. Once in a while a rogue crab would come by and try to take over a hole, but the homeowners usually won the stand off. All of this made me think of our grandson Sam. He had his first professional haircut this past weekend, but I don’t think he got to watch crabs digging holes at the same time. I know he would have loved the barbershop this afternoon. You just never know what fascinating things might happen when you’re burning trash and cutting hair.
