Cold Morning 68 degrees!!

Tuesday, December 7, 2010

Cold Morning 68 degrees!!

I awoke this morning to another cold one. 68 degrees in the cockpit. Brrrrr. I don't like it one bit, and presume that today will require, as did yesterday, jeans and a long sleeved shirt. Yuck! The first jeans I have worn for about a year now, the last time being Bermuda, probably.

The dust is settling after Rosemary's visit, and I am trying to get back into my regular lackluster and boring lifestyle. Have a few repairs to make as well as trying to find some freon for the fridge system, which leaked right after MY installation (What can I say.....?) and the tech who came out had the wrong adaptor and could only fill it about half way.

Was having a rum and coke the other afternoon with Will and a young fellow we had met staying here, and met the new sales manager for the resort. Trust me when I say that when she arrived, ALL the men noticed her. A beautiful, young Mexican lady named Patty. We had such a good time talking that I invited her over to the boat for another drink, and see AF. Re-bumped into Matt and invited him, as well, and we had so much fun, I started cooking and served them a rather poorly prepared curry rice and lobster tails. (Just have to get this fridge working! and then, could do so much better in the cooking department.)

Matt is from Lousiana and a lot of fun and has a great job. He travels the world for a Dutch company for whom he makes precise measurements - lining up propeller shafts on large ships, leveling large crane installations, and here in Roatan, is going to re-level one of the power company's diesel generators, after an earthquake 2 years ago, cracked the foundations. It is his 3rd time on the island, doing the same thing on other generators. He uses lasers to do his work, and has an engineering degree from a university in Lousiana.

Patty comes from a very large resort company in Cancun and was lured away by the owner here to get things back on track for Fantasy Island. She is beautiful, articulate - speaks English, Espanol, and French - and was a lot of fun to have for a visit. Not sure how the boss will take it if she spends too much time here on AF, but has offered to give me some Spanish lessons. We shall see if that happens.......but I really need them.

This morning I was out feeding the watusa's - called rabbits by the locals - who now come when I call and snapped this of one of them eating. He/she ate just like a squirrel back home.

My peacock buddy, when around, also comes running now when I call, and after gobbling up some stale cookies, gave me the first display I have seen here. Beautiful, and I am not sure if he 'likes' me, or was just making a threat to the watusa's who were coming pretty close.

If you ever wondered what they wear under those beautiful feathers, I snapped a picture of him in his underwear, too.

Checked the calendar to see when Denise and Erik come, and low and behold - they are coming TOMORROW, not next week! Oh, have I goofed up. Had to cancel Samuel's start on my hardtop, and will have to swing into full speed getting things right for their visit. I will meet them at the ferry from LaCeiba at 11am. Wrote Denise an email earlier in the day, and her reply mentioned that they were 'packing now'. Ooops! Will all come out in the wash, although I am sorry it seems to have turned cold again for their visit. Just heard the weather report on the net and low will be 68 tonight, with a high today of 79. 50% chance of showers.

Erik celebrates a birthday here, and I will have to find a way to bake a cake and surprise him with it in the dining room one evening. Might buy one instead - they had a great red velvet cake at the store a few months ago.

I know they want to snorkel, do the zip line, and I am sure we will dink over to the iquana farm one afternoon. It is a great place to buy souvenirs, I learned when Rosemary was here. Nice Roatan T-shirts for only $8 - hardly the normal tourist price.

So that is life for the past couple days. I have just received a long and newsy email from my Aussie mate, Graham, who is in Phuket, Thailand again, and happy with a new love - 40 year old woman who hand washes his clothes (because the machines are too hard on them) and cooks and cleans with devotion. He is happy, and I am happy for him.

So that is it for now - will post some pics when Denise and Erik arrive.

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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.