There’s nothing like a good night’s sleep followed by tea in bed, and that’s exactly what I get. When Jim and I ask Mike what jobs are in line for today, he replied “Oh, not much". He lies!
I get up and dressed relatively early as Nick, the gorgeous young thing from WCC wants me to cut his hair. He comes over at the allotted time and says he’s got to work and can he come later so I put on another load of washing instead.
Another young blonde man turns up looking for Mike as he has heard that Mike from Jeannius can fix computers. As being helpful means that you might get help from someone else when you need it, Mike trots off to fix their internet connection while I finish the washing and Jim cleans the boat.
Washing done (for now) Jim and I go to the supermarket. This time it is to stock up the freezer and the fridge and to buy some more jerry cans for emergency diesel.
On the way, I observe that yet again, luxury and poverty sit side by side. Puerto Lucia is very upmarket with its Yacht Club and swanky hotel complex and condos, but just around the corner are shacks surrounded by rubbish and sitting right on the main road.
Most of the crews from the other boats seem to be doing their provisioning today as does the entire population of La Libertad and the queues are horrendous but we get it done and get a taxi back. Putting it all away (ie finding space for it) is always a nightmare and today is no different.
I take out the two huge slabs of beef we have just bought so that I can cut them up into steaks for the freezer but when I open the first sealed pack, it smells horrible so I cut open the second pack which is fine, so I know the first one is off. Within minutes of opening the pack, the whole boat stinks. I wash the meat and packaging as best as I can, repack it in two sealed bags and the cool bag, get the receipt and walk all the way back to the supermarket. How I am going to make myself understood I do not know.
I ask at what I believe is the Customer Services department for the manager, the head honcho, numbero uno or anyone who speaks English. I show the girl the receipt, hold up the bag and hold my nose. I don’t know if she understands but she comes back with another woman who gabbles at me in Spanish. I go through the rigmarole of sign language and nose holding but this time open the bag as well and she gets the full effect of the stench. She recoils in horror. “Mal” she cries. I agree. It is very ‘mal’ indeed. Eventually someone is found who speaks limited English and an exchange is made. I even get them to open the sealed pack this time so I can smell it and it’s fine.
The walk back to the Yacht Club is exhausting even though it only takes about 15 minutes. The heat is unbelievable but then I am being a mad dog English woman. For the first time in ages, I wear my huge floppy white hat. The brim is so large that it keeps the sun off my shoulders but it flaps around like crazy in the lightest of breezes - it either flops in front of my eyes so I can’t see where I am going, or lifts crazily upwards so I look like Dumbo, the Disney elephant, about to take off. I don’t care. It works.
My arms are nearly dropping off when I get back to the boat. Not only do I have an even larger slab of meat than I had last time (obviously they felt embarrassed about the bad one) but I also have a supply of coke cans for Mike’s night watches. Such is the nature of love.
Immediately I get back on the boat, I can smell the old meat. I pour copious amounts of bleach down the sink, over the worktop and the chopping board but we still have to open all the salon windows and the door to the cockpit to get rid of the smell. Eventually though, it disappears. It had been so bad that when Mike got back on the boat while I was out, he thought we had a problem with the toilets and had gone round flushing them all.
Jim and Mike are still cleaning the crude oil off the outside of the boat and dinghy. We have been promised that the yacht club will clean our once pristine mooring lines so they are taken off and left on the dock. Mike takes the jerry cans over to the fuel dock to be filled with diesel – they will be put in the bow lockers for emergencies. This extra diesel (50 gallons) is enough to motor 500 miles or so, and is just a safety measure.
I do another load of washing and then with a sigh of relief, the machine is stowed away. Bless it -it is making my life easier.
We notice that our mooring lines have now disappeared from the dock. They have either been taken away for cleaning or have been stolen. I guess we will find out tomorrow. Mike goes to the skipper’s briefing for the next leg of the rally and returns with our re-fuelling time in the morning – 9 am – although this is a bit of madness as three other WARC yachts have been given the same time slot! Ah well, I am sure it will all work out. He has also been given the weather prediction – light winds coming from the wrong direction. Great. I guess we’ll be motoring then.
We have steak, salad and couscous for dinner and I realise that I haven’t eaten since the few nibbles we had last night. Because I hadn’t really thought about it, I hadn’t even felt hungry. How good for my diet (diet, what diet?) to be so pre-occupied with preparations.
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