Face Paint, French Villas and Cuban Cigars

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Face Paint, French Villas and Cuban Cigars

Ellie, the owner of Lagoonies, threw a Valentine's Day party for single folk Sunday night. Everyone there had a blast, I think. Early on, my new German friend, Michael came back to the table with some face paint on, and I asked him who had done it. It was a friend he had made in Turkey. One of two Israeli sisters. So, I found her, and had mine done, just because it is so out of character for the old me.

While having it done, the best outboard guy on the island, Gary, came in, and looked down at me and laughed, and I said, "Don't say ANYTHING!" He laughed again and shook his head. He was joined by Graham's mate, Dave, from England (Gonna go have a Jimmy! ) and I snapped a pic of them. Then Gary was nice enough to take the pics of me, but laughing and shaking his head in amazement the whole time.

At my table, was Angie, a German friend who Michael has known for years as they have crossed paths while sailing the Med, Bob an out of work airplane mechanic who is spending major bucks re-doing his sailboat at the rigger's yard here and who went out nightclubbing with Christine and me a few weeks ago, Michael, my new German buddy, and a married Canadian lady who's husband has returned to Canada to take care of some business.

Michael, Canadian lady, Me, and Bob. The horns are courtesy of the crazy Italian, who MC'ed and played the dance music for the night. Damn. We had fun.

My friend Jean introduced me to Bernard when I arrived before Christmas, and he has introduced me to Alain, who is a 'boat guest' for a while, giving Bernard some help sanding and painting his hull. Alain owns a villa in the south of France, which he bought in ruins about 25 years ago. He said it had been empty for years, and no one wanted it. He quit his job in advertising, and devoted the next 20 years re-building this stone mansion., and did it all himself, with no outside tradesmen, including putting in the pool and planting all of the trees and gardens. I have finally figured out how to take a screenshot of the video of pictures of it, so am including some here. Can you imagine - 20 years to re-build it! He says it is still ongoing. But he rents it out now 'in the season' for about $5000 a week. Contact me if you are interested in a couple months, and I will pass your name on to him.

I guess when the weather is perfect nearly all of the time, you can have your kitchen outside.

And you can eat outside, too.

Or inside.

Nice digs, huh?

Joined Michael and Bob for all-u-can-eat ribs at Lady C's and a few drinks afterwards. There was a man and 2 women at the bar who were in need of a ride back to the boat they had just delivered from Cuba. (Ferro-Cement! Geesh!) It was on my way home, so I dropped them off. As reward, the captain gave me his copy of Calder's Cuba Cruising Guide, a Cruising Guide for the Dominican Republic on CD, and 2 Cuban cigars. Tonight, I shall enjoy a glass of wine on deck, along with one of the 2 cigars. It will be my first ever Cuban.

Jean just stopped by to say that Josieanne is returning from France today at 3, so I must clean up for supper at Bernard's to welcome her back.

Here we go again..........Life is good.

1 comment:

NancyFebruary 19, 2010 at 5:49 PM
Sounds life life is REAL good!
ReplyDelete
Replies

Add comment

About Annah Foster

Annah Foster is a 1980'ish Morgan 462. She is a USCG Documented vessel and the year on the document is 1979, which I believe is the year the keel was laid. She is known as a ketch, which means she has 2 masts, and the aft mast is forward of the rudder. She also is a center compartment boat, which means the helm is located between the 2 masts, which are, by the way, the main and the mizzen. She is equipped with roller furling on the jib/genoa sail which is the big triangular sail on the front. Her empty weight, or rather displacement, is 33,000 lbs, which is fat for her length. Mr. Morgan believed in thick fiberglas for strength and I am told that at places it is often found to be 2 inches of solid fiberglas. Her keel has encapsulated lead weighing 8,000 lbs.

She boasts 2 staterooms, - v-berth forward with separate head and twin beds aft with separate head, including the famous bathtub. The configuration of the aft stateroom could easily be changed with a change in the mattresses to an almost queen berth, port to starboard, but currently she has twins, running fore and aft, with 2 large mattress cushions separating them. There is also a ladder and sliding hatch aft for egress in an emergency, to the aft deck, which I call the back porch. I bought some director's chairs for it and have sat there many evenings enjoying a drink and sunset. The aft deck is also the location of the propane gas grill, storage for the 2 outboard motors, Yamaha 4hp 4cycle, and a Yamaha 15hp 2 cycle, which power a new Apex Lite 10'6 inflatable dinghy, which can hang from the installed davits.

The main sail has 2 reefing points on jiffy reefing and the mizzen has 1. No lines lead to the cockpit but the jib, main and mizzen sheets.

She has a Switlick 6 man life raft mounted aft the mizzen mast. And, an emergency tiller aboard.

She is equipped with a Perkins 4 cylinder diesel engine, powering a Hurth transmission and turning a 4 bladed Max Prop, which feathers when sailing, and reverses pitch in Reverse so that she has the same thrust as in Forward. One unique design flaw is that the propeller shaft exits the boat at 3 degrees off center, making the port prop walk in reverse, even worse. The engine is equipped with about a 90 amp alternator with a very good voltage regulator.

She also has a Westerbeke 5.7 kw diesel generator, which produces 110 v AC power, and charges the batteries thru a 40 amp charger. I also have a Honda 1000 watt gasoline powered generator for emergency 110v, and an automotive battery charger aboard.

She came with an old Windbugger wind generator, not quite perfectly mounted. Stowed in the V-berth, there is a replacement AirX marine wind generator and 8 foot mast waiting to be installed, along with the controller, and 2 solar panels, which are half the possible wattage the controller can handle.

She has 3 4-D AGM batteries for the house bank and a type 18 start battery - all are 12volt.

The 4 gallon water heater will heat with both engine cooling water and 110v AC power and is equipped with a mixing valve to prevent scalding.

Tankage - Water - 110 gallon port and 85 gallon center tanks
Fuel - 175 gallons
Range when new at 2250 RPM is almost 800 nm.

Currently, her refridgerator and freezer are 110 volt AC, with several holding plates each which must be manually started and stopped. She has waiting to be installed, 2 Cool Blue 12 volt systems, with automatic controls, but truthfully, I don't know where the new holding plates will fit.

Electronics -
She is equipped with 2 VHF marine band radios, one at the helm and the other at the nav station, with repeater at the helm, and a hand held low power VHF 'walkie talkie'. Also, at the nav station, she has a Single Side Band HF radio - SSB with a Pactor 2 modem making her capable of downloading NOAA weather fax and Sail Mail emails and Grb files. onto a dedicated IBM laptop. She has as primary a Raymarine E-80 Chartplotter at the helm and a smaller Garmin Chartplotter for back up at the helm, a handheld Garmin Chartplotter, and an older Furuno GPS at the nav station. She has an older Raytheon black and white 24 nm radar at the helm, with a repeater at the nav station. She has a RapidFix 406 EPIRB, emergency locator beacon, that is hand activated. She has a new Clarion AM FM CD player, with input for computer or MP3 player on 3 sets of individual speakers - cockpit, salon, and aft cabin.

For those who do not know me, I named her for my parents - Annah Margaret and George Foster Doak. It is through their beneficence that I am able to live this dream and I felt that I should dedicate my boat to honor their memories.