Sunday in Paradise......

Monday, November 29, 2010

Sunday in Paradise......

Feeding the watusi (sp?) right at Dennis' dock. These little rodents are cute and locally are like rabbits.

Oh Lordy, I look rather ticked off here, but that isn't the case at all....

Meet Skip, Dennis' dock neighbor.

Meet Will. He is another single cruiser in the group. His last port was Dominican Republic. He is already charting his next island hop.

I really am going to have to pay more attention to when Dennis is taking pictures! The three of us solved the world's problems that afternoon on the beach.

Back on Annah Foster, we were both trying to snap a picture of the bats coming to the hummingbird feeder. Neither camera was fast enough to catch a bat at the feeder! However, between the two of us we probably had ten pictures of the feeder hanging in the dark.

Well Sundays are a day of rest for most venues on the island. Our morning was spent reading, feeding the watusis', sippin' tea and relaxing. We walked around the Fantasy Island. Duh, I didn't connect the dots when we came over a bridge to the resort. The resort is on a tiny 22 acre island.

Returning to AF, we packed up our beach stuff and walked over to the outdoor restaurant of the resort for lunch. Then it was beach time. For a resort with 200 rooms, there are only 26 in use right now and they seem primarily to be scuba divers in that we had the beach to ourselves.

The water is clear and warm. For those of you who do not know, I had iLasik surgery done on Nov. 18th. I had thought to ask about the plane ride, but not about diving. Once the surgery was complete, my doctor asked where I was going. I excitedly said, Roatan Island, to visit a friend, to snorkel and scuba dive. It was then that I was told not to dive under any circumstances and be VERY careful even swimming. It is too soon to be getting water in my eyes, particularly lake/ocean water due to the bacteria! Ouie vey! I was excited because I would be able to see things more clearly under water! Now I have to come back! Roatan Island is an amazing destination for diving.

The rum and cokes started some time in the afternoon after lunch. I met some other friends of Dennis' who are locals and work at the resort. Rocky, who you are read about a week ago, works here at the resort. Rocky seems to really like Dennis and not just consider him another rich cruiser from the States. Rocky called me off the beach to show me a woodpecker (yellow breasted?) that comes to the restaurant. According to Dennis there used to be LOTS of these woodpeckers, but we decided they migrate because only the one appeared.

Skip joined us on the beach and rhum and koke number two was delivered to my lounge chair. The sun was hot, it is very humid here and taking refuge in the bay was fantastic. Skip called me to go feed the peacocks peanuts. These huge, beautiful birds come right up to you waiting for their treats! Reminded me of two large, spoiled dogs I have back home. We also saw the iguanas walking around. Of course I had to take a picture of wild iguanas since the only ones I've seen are pets.

So now Dennis is dancing back to our beach chairs with the third schrum and cooks! I haven't had that many drinks in a month, let alone in the space of an afternoon. However, I didn't refuse any drinks.

Once the sun started setting we took some pictures and sauntered back to AF. It was at that point I realized how many schrum and kooks I had enjoyed. :-) Oh I walked just fine and navigated climbing back onto AF. We both cleaned up a bit, getting the salt water off, kicked back on the deck. D then cooked up some beans with corn and weenies for dinner. It was good to get food back in my system ---- bring on the rum and cokes!

After dinner we attempted to take pictures of the bats at the hummingbird feeders. Dennis found a CD he has with Uncle Foster (his dad) singing in a play, talking and telling jokes on a local radio station back in the day. It was great to hear Foster's voice again and hear him laughing at his jokes before he got them totally told. For those of you who do not know our parents all passed away within three years -- Daddy died in October 2004, Mother and Foster in March 2006 and Annah Margaret in October 2007. It felt like we were back in Rosslyn Farms sitting in one of our family rooms and Foster was entertaining us with his jokes and slight of hand.

A good day and you know I slept like a baby. We could have been in the middle of a raging storm and I would have slept. :-)

Today we are headed to the zip line. It is another good day.

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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.