Tuesday's Adventures

Wednesday, December 1, 2010

Tuesday's Adventures

Welcome to the Iguana Farm where approximately 3,000 iguanas have sanctuary. Dennis is surrounded by a mere 100-200 iguanas at this point. But FIRST you have to check out the great lobster hunters, Dennis and Skip!

The great lobster hunters above! Lobsters 5, Hunters 0, but a lot of good laughs. Dennis had gone under water to "just" grab the lobsters we had placed a weighed net around. In the meantime, Skip appeared to offer assistance. What a laugh watching and listening to the two of them. These two are like a comedy duo.

Now back to the Iguana Farm...

There is a local who has dedicated his land and time as a sanctuary to Iguanas, birds, baramundis (SP?) and monkeys. See the pictures below and I'll explain at the end.

That hanging chair would be cool aboard the Annah Foster. This shop is at the "Iguana Farm" sanctuary and they have beautiful items carved out of mahogany.

Baramundi (SP?), here is in a temporary cage I think. They have three all together, two younger ones and this adult. They can't let them go free because they are meat eaters and would eat the iguanas. However, the police have brought most of the animals to this place because they are either killed for food, brought over from the main land where they are listed as endangered species for pet trade, or were mistreated pets.

Honduran black faced spider monkeys were confiscated by police in the pet trade. They are supposedly listed on the Endangered Species list --- maybe only in Honduras, I do not know.

It is tough to see these animals caged, but since this is saving their lives and the family hopes to build them better pens it is very decent of the family to try to save these animals along with the iguanas.

This morning when I awoke, my eyes were swollen shut! I took some children's benadryl. I do not know what is causing this and it is only my face that is swelling. It seems to subside during the day, but I wake up with swollen eyes every morning now. Annoying to say the least.

As I mentioned earlier Dennis and I tried to trap spiney lobster that nestle under rocks by his boat. We put a weighted net down around the rocks. Dennis then went in with mask and snorkel to get them. Neither of us had ever done this and I was staying on the dock. Skip showed up and offered his "help". I had my own comedy duo. Skip also stayed on the dock and was giving Dennis instructions or saying "well if I had a glove, I could help too." Dennis handed Skip a glove which he never put on. In the meantime, three or four "of the big ones" got away. Needless to say there wasn't a fresh lobster dinner last night, but a lot of good laughs between those two.

Dennis and I took the tender out across the bay area to a dock that is just over the hill to the grocery store and a few stores where the refrigerator guy has his business. Dennis made arrangements for him to come over tomorrow. We went into the store and I noticed there are armed gaurds outside of almost every business. According to Dennis, where ever there is money there are guards if the business can afford them. We got a few things from the very American-like grocery store and headed back to the tender.

We stopped at the Iguana Farm on the way back to Annah Foster. Then on the way back through the bay we came upon a black sting ray that appeared to dance under the tender.

After relaxing a bit more we headed over for dinner at the resort. There we were told about a fire show at 8:00p on the beach. The fire show consists of a young Canadian man who lives down here, has LONG dreadlocks, two ladies and a little girl. The little girl is his daughter by one of the ladies and she is adorable. She got to perform twice with a hulahoop and knew her dance very well.

After the fireshow we headed back to AF. Good night.

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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.