Haul Out in Paradise

After my usual coffee in bed, I peek my head out of our boat, high up on stands, for a view of clear blue water and swaying palm trees. I climb down the ladder for a short walk over coral sand to the bathroom where I say hi to the crabs...the hermit crabs that is. Did you know that hermit crabs are called Bernard l'Hermit in French? I want to know who this famous hermit Bernard is.

We wake up early to work in the cooler temperatures and spend our day working on projects on the shady side of the boat. Every once in a while my mind becomes aware of the sound of the wind rustling in palm trees and I smile to myself thinking how different this haul out is from our last one in Victoria, BC. Every once in a while a bit of rain accompanies a shower passing overhead, a brief break in a day of clear blue skies.

Midday is time for coconut water and we hack open a green coconut with our new machete and guzzle it. Neither of us have figured out how to drink from a coconut without dripping down our chins and so we've simply decided that this is the appropriate way to drink them. We stop in the afternoon and walk straight out of the yard into the lagoon for a swim before starting our final tasks and clean up for the day.

The proprietor stops by to hand us some freshly picked papayas and to start a fire for us to ward off the mosquitoes who are patiently waiting for the heat to die so they can attack us. With the outside tasks complete, we stand by the boat in our swimsuits, and soap up with a big pink scrubbie until the suds reach comical proportions before ladling heaps of clean fresh water over our heads from the waist high blue drum that the yard fills every morning.

We retreat behind our mosquito screens for the evening SSB nets when we can hear them, a quick overview of the day and the next day of work, dinner and a movie before heading to bed early.

As per usual, we had a few surprises in this haul out -- new things to fix. It is so much easier, with this scenery surrounding us, to work long hours on the boat and to keep our cool when we find another problem. In fact, it is fairly difficult to get terribly worked up about anything or at least to stay worked up for very long. The background sounds of waves, surf and palms in the wind work on our minds subtly like a new age soundtrack, with the French cruisers we meet providing the lyrics "Pas de probleme. C'est pas grave. Inquete pas."