Mired in Marsh Harbour

[Hilde’s log]

We’re still in Marsh Harbour and I’m beginning to feel about it the way I felt about Vero Beach, Florida. We’ve been here ‘way too long to suit me. There have been some bright spots, like meeting up with long time cruising buddies Jeff and Peggy on Moonstruck and enjoying simply superb weather, but mostly it’s been on the frustrating side – as frustrating as leisure in a pretty port can be. David was kept busy a few days with our engine. While he clattered and clanked under the hood, I did mundane chores and volunteered a couple of days at a local charity.

“Buck a Book” is a local charity that support the “wild horses of Abaco.” Descended from the time of Columbus, if the more glamorous claim is true, these horses have been here at least a hundred years, and probably a lot longer. They are a distinct type of horse not found anywhere else, “a sub-group of the Spanish Barb breed,” and some of the local folk are trying to keep them from disappearing altogether. It’s a difficult task – while they roam wild on the island, they are confined to a nature preserve and must be looked after when natural disasters occur (fire and big storms) and they must be preserved from local poachers. There are only eight of these horses left, four stallions and four mares. For some reason, the mares are unable to bring their pregnancies to term, so there have been no foals for some time. To help finance its efforts to protect the horses, the non-profit runs a used book store. They take donations of books and DVDs from cruisers and the local community. They resell the books for a dollar apiece, and they rent the DVDs for a dollar apiece. They pull in about $200 - $300 a week, using only volunteer help. If your interest is piqued, look them up at http://www.arkwild.org/. They’ve had a rough week, as all the pasture for the horses has burned in a rash of wildfires.

On the theory that anything is more fun than watching David fix the engine, I volunteered to run the bookstore for a couple of days. The store is housed in a container, something along the order of a pod, that’s about 20 x 15. Like a pod, it opens only at the end. It’s lined with bookshelves and DVD racks and I guess they have about 1,000 titles at any one time. It’s a boon for the cruising community, because most cruisers devour books at an alarming rate. One of the perks of the job is getting to make the Buck a Book announcement on the morning “cruiser’s net” – kind of a cruisers’ radio show on VHF 68. So I got to write a little script and read it on the air two days in a row. I’ve now had 4 of my allotted 15 minutes of fame. It was fun – anyone know of a radio station that needs an announcer? And in there somewhere, David and I had a wonderful 8th anniversary.

The second half of the week kinda went downhill. Despite the excitement of fixing one problem with the engine and deciding the other one would hold for awhile, we started really worrying about our time window and our cash flow and the overall state of the boat. Things got kind of depressing around here as we talked over our options. It’s a great idea to keep moving when you are cruising, because the minute you stop, all your worries catch up to you and start yammering. I think I have conclusively proved that worries travel at less than 5 knots.

While we were tussling with real world problems, David came down with a painful bout of tendonitis in his left hand. Being here at Marsh Harbour, it was not difficult to find a doctor. The doctor prescribed cortisone and anti inflammatories and “bed rest” for his hand. When you stop to realize that David uses his hand for everything, and that we use David for everything related to sailing or moving the boat, you will see that this is a huge difficulty. We get to shore and back with me steering the dinghy, but there’s no question of moving Raven or going snorkeling with his hand out of commission. (Snorkeling involves taking the dinghy out, mooring it to a ball, and getting in and out of the dinghy, so there is a lot of “hands-on” to it.) Hopefully, it will be better in a few days – it is already much less painful.

However – I don’t want to take any protracted sails with my cap’n in anything less than really, really good shape. I rely on his strength and coordination to manhandle the boat while I steer (as in sails, lines, anchoring, dock work). It’s one thing when you are puttering around the ICW and a whole ‘nother beast when you are out on Big Water.

So – it feels kind of like the last straw. We are regrouping and thinking of going home for a couple of years. Raven needs repairs and upgrades and the cruising kitty is really, really low. And our seasonal window is almost gone. I don’t want to hurry or be on a forced march or be worried about money for the next six months. As of today (check back at the end of the week when, if we have not killed each other from being trapped on the boat for a solid week) we may have a different plan. For the moment, we are reading, listening to podcasts, eating junk, and glowering at the view since all we can do right now is look at it.

We will have fun going home, as we will go back to the Florida Keys and travel up the west coast of Florida and across the Gulf Coast states, which we have not done before. For those of you who don’t know, we went straight across the Gulf from Seabrook to Key West when we left two years ago. I don’t want to repeat that trip because we were so tired when we got to Key West – going the other way, we’d be in the oil fields when we were really tired and that would be really scary. So there are a lot of adventures ahead. But like any road trip, it’s never as much fun when you’d headed back.