Thursday, June 1, 1995 & Saturday, August 5, 1995 - Aruba

We got up at 5:30, ate breakfast, and walked to the bus terminal. Caught the 7:15 bus to the airport. Roy checked his bags and got his boarding pass. Then he paid the $12 departure tax, and we sat down and read the newspaper until 8:30. They have very good security here. I couldn't follow him when he went through the gate and cleared immigration. He was at the boarding gate at 8:45, so I left. Just missed two buses, so rather than wait an hour for another one, I hoofed it. It was a beautiful morning for a walk anyway. Got back to Sonesta Suites in plenty of time to see his plane taking off. Guess I walked about a mile-and-a-half or two miles. Now the mice can play! This wraps up the Log of the Jofian. When Roy returns, we'll be getting Jofian ready for her new skipper. No more high-seas adventures for us. We'll be going back to lubbing the land. But our heads will be filled with wonderful memories. August 5, 1995 Surprise, surprise! At the conclusion of the last log, I said something to the effect that this was it -- no more logs, no more cruising, no more Jofian. But here we go again. What happened? The main thing that happened is that I regained my health. The long rest in Aruba's ideal climate was just what I needed. While Roy was knocking himself out in sweltering 100-degree heat, I was relaxing in the shade of palm trees, swimming in delightful blue water, exploring the island, and enjoying refreshing breezes. So now I feel great, and Roy's a wreck. (Just kidding. He's still going strong. I don't know how he does it.) The other thing that happened is that the couple who want to buy Jofian don't have the money yet. Anyway, we can't leave here until the end of the hurricane season, and then we can't go north immediately, because we'd be going right into the fall and winter storms, so we're going to go to Cura‡ao and Bonaire for a couple of months and then head for Grenada. We'll spend the winter slowly working our way north up the Windward, Leeward, and Virgin Islands. By the time we get back to the States, the O'Neils will probably have the money. So that will work out nicely for everyone. Roy got back Monday, July 31st. As usual, his plane was nearly an hour late, and then he had to go through Immigration and Customs, so it was close to six o'clock when we finally got in a cab to head to the marina. The cab driver was unreal. When Roy tried to open the door to get in the cab, the driver started yelling at him that he was going to break the handle! When we finally got in and started off, the cab driver yelled at the driver of the car next to him. Then when we got to town and tried to tell the driver where we wanted to go, he yelled, "Don't tell me how to drive!" He sure got out on the wrong side of the bed this morning. No matter what we said or did, he got angry. But eventually he did take us back to the marina, thank goodness. Roy had about 800 pounds of stuff to carry, so he didn't want to walk any farther than he had to. We'd have taken the bus if he hadn't had all that stuff, but he'd brought back zincs and whatnot. We've been having a lot of fun since he got back. Tuesday, we went for a ride in the Atlantis submarine. It's a real submarine that goes down to 150 feet. There are windows all along the sides, so the passengers can look at the reefs and the fish. It was neat. Wednesday, we took a ride on the Seaworld Explorer semi-submarine. It doesn't submerge, but the passengers sit below the surface of the water and look out windows, just like on the Atlantis. We saw more reefs and scajillions of fish. We also saw a sunken airplane and the remains of a German ship that had been scuttled during World War II. Thursday wasn't so pleasant. When Roy started the engine to check it out, we heard loud noises, like a belt squealing. Then we saw black smoke pouring out of the engine compartment. When Roy tried to turn off the engine, the knob wouldn't pull out! Luckily, Roy's an expert mechanic. He plunged down into the engine compartment and did something that stopped the engine. Then he lubricated the wire, so now the knob goes in and out again the way it should. He determined that it was the belt on the new alternator that had been making the noise. The alternator was frozen tight. He removed the alternator, started the engine again, and the temperature quickly rose to the boiling point! He turned off the engine and found a big crack in part of the heat exchanger. Water was gushing out of it. Luckily, he had a replacement for the part, and he was able to take the alternator apart and probably get it repaired, but in the interim, he installed the spare alternator. We walked to Napa Auto Parts and bought a couple of belts, but they didn't have the heat exchanger part. (Roy wants to get another part, so he'll have a spare.) The guy at Napa said we might be able to get it at Bluewater Boat and Tackle, so I walked over there, while Roy returned to the boat. Bluewater didn't have it, but they told me about a diesel repair place that might have it. I made numerous attempts to phone them, but got nothing but busy signals. Since we were going down in that area Friday morning anyway, we figured we'd go by there. Friday morning, we took the bus to Barcadero and went on a tour of the WEB plant. That's where they squeeze the fresh water out of the salt water and also generate electricity. In other words, it's the island's desalinization and electrical plant. We had to wear hardhats and were supposed to wear long pants, but no one had told us, so we had on shorts. That meant we couldn't go into some of the buildings, but it was an interesting tour anyway. They pump saltwater from the sea, run it through condensers to extract the fresh water, and dump the brine back into the sea. Then they run the fresh water over pieces of coral to restore some of the minerals and give it a good taste. Huge boilers produce the steam that is used for the condensa- tion process and also the steam that is used to turn the turbines that generate electricity. All of the island's fresh water and electricity are produced at this one plant. We walked about two miles down the road to the diesel place, but they didn't have the part we needed. Maybe we can get it in Cura‡ao. We had a long, long hike back to the highway where we could catch a bus. An autobus came along first, so we took it. When we got back to Oranjestad, we visited the archeological museum, which had a lot of pottery and tools from Indian days. Then we ate lunch at Wendy's. Saturday was our last day at the marina. We had decided to return to the anchorage for a day or two and then go down and anchor in front of Eddie's place for another day or two before heading for Cura‡ao. It's a good thing we had plenty of time to get away from the dock. We had to scrub the gook off the lines and fenders. That took a long time. Then we had to figure out how to get our lines off the posts. The starboard post wasn't too bad, but the cabin cruiser on our port side had put their big, heavy lines on top of ours. I had told Roy on the phone that we were going to have a problem getting our lines off the post, but he was confident he'd be able to do it. Wrong. Both the skipper and crew of the cabin cruiser were gone, and the two women on the boat didn't have the remotest idea how to slack the lines so Roy could get ours through them. Roy struggled for an hour or more without success. Finally he gave up and cut our lines. I know that must have broken his heart, but it beat sitting there for hours waiting for the other guys to return. What a relief to finally get out of that yucky yacht basin and back into clean water! The engine heated seriously on the way to the anchorage, but we made it. Good thing we didn't have far to go. We were using city water all the time we were at the marina, so the water in the tank had gotten stagnant and smelled like an old sewer. As soon as we were safely anchored, Roy replaced the filter, so now the water is okay again. That done, he put on his snorkeling gear and jumped in the water with a scrub brush and began scraping all the goosh off the bottom of the hull. What a mess! It's never been in such a sorry condition. Barnacles and tube worms and seaweed and everything under the sun. Yuk! He scrubbed and scrubbed but has a lot more to do. No wonder the engine heated! The water intake is probably clogged, and the propeller is so coated with junk it's a wonder it could turn. Thank goodness we're finally out of that filthy yacht basin! Jofian is starting to look like a boat again. A few more days, and she should be shipshape. On the day that Roy returned, a little lizard got on the boat. I tried to catch it, but it was too fast for me. It's amazing how rapidly those little critters can move. A day or two later, Roy saw the lizard in the aft cabin. Again I tried to catch it without success. Today, I was surprised to see it on the mainsail cover. I made a quick grab and caught it by the tail. Thought I finally had it, but an instant later, I realized I was holding only a piece of tail; the rest of the lizard had zoomed off to grow another tail. Remarkable creatures! So now we've no idea where it is. I hope it didn't get so panicky it jumped overboard and drowned. One night while Roy was in California, I had a terrific scare. At one a.m., I was waked out of a sound sleep by the sound of voices on the dock. The voices had a slight English accent. A young woman's voice asked, "How do we get out of here?" A young man's voice replied, "First, we get on the boat." His voice sounded awfully, awfully close to the Jofian. A moment later, I was horrified to hear the thud of a foot landing on our deck! I immediately sat up and looked out the porthole. There was a leg! We always keep a can of mace next to the bed. I was ready to grab it, but first I yelled in my loudest, deepest, most authoritative voice, "Who's there? Get off my boat!" To my great relief, the leg immediately leaped back onto the dock. I heard the guy mutter something that sounded like, "Wrong boat." It sure was! All the unoccupied boats in the marina, and he had to pick the one with someone on it! I watched out the starboard window and saw him climb on another sailboat, about three boats up from us. He kept trying to talk the girl into getting on, too, but she wisely refused. After a few minutes, he returned to the dock and tried to put his arms around her, but she backed away. Then it looked as if they were struggling, but without my glasses, it was hard to tell what was going on, so I put on my housecoat and slippers and went to the main cabin to get my glasses. I was thinking of trying to contact the police on the VHF radio, but I wanted to be sure of what I was seeing. When I got back to the cockpit, the couple had disappeared from view, but a few minutes later, they came strolling back from the end of the dock, apparently on friendly terms. They stood near the gate for several minutes talking, but I couldn't make out what they were saying. Then, to my surprise, they both got into one of the motorboats on the other side of the dock and sat down. By then, I was convinced that the young man wasn't planning on invading the Jofian again, so I went back to bed. Fifteen or twenty minutes later, I heard them walking by towards the gate. The man was saying, "We're not in England now." The girl said, "Just because we're in America, that doesn't mean we can do anything ," which showed she had more sense than he had. They went out through the gate, and I went out on deck to be sure the gate was closed. It was, so I returned to bed, but it was a long time before I fell back to sleep.