10 May 2012

We were up this morning about 3am to a huge thunderstorm. We had the hatches open and by the time we got everything closed up, it all quit! Timing. But man can it dump a LOT of rain in a moments notice! Glad I got the wash in yesterday.

Oh, forgot to mention, I did my first real load of laundry yesterday. That means in the cockpit with two buckets, laundry soap, borax, water lots of labor, then rinse after rinse after rinse. With that done. I hung up a clothes line, got out the wringer I so proudly purchased 8 months ago and mounted it, ran the clothes through the wringer, then hung them up. They dried, looked clean, and voila', it all worked. No laundry around here. The other boats were asking if they could bring theirs over. At local prices, I could probably make money!

Breakfast is done, we slept in, we are charging batteries, I need to check fuel levels, hope to run out of water in the starboard tank and make new before we leave. All the rest is a kick. Renne has two appointments to sell a couple of books to local stores here, so we will be out by 1000 this morning. I have to get dressed.

All for now.

1100

Interesting turn of events. Renne and I were about to get into the dinghy for our ride over to the marina when another huge downpour occurred. We settled back down in the cabin and I started calculating our average fuel flow since we left. Turns out we are burning 1 gal per hour on the engine average and about .5 gal per hour on the genset. We have 9 gal in the stbd tank and 17.7 in the center tank. We haven't touched the 42 gal in the port tank. Right now we are transferring fuel from the center to the stbd tank. It is easier to keep track of.

At 1045 we got hit by an instantaneous downdraft from the thunderstorm. POW-MIA saw 42.5 kts of wind during the event. We heard from town later that they had been hit by a small whirly-gig and there were crates all over the place.  When we were hit, we were over on our side - some say 30 degrees, some say 45.  We were hit so hard, we were almost thrown out of our seats in the main cabin.  I ran to the cockpit.  We were really drifting around. We thought we had broken the mooring ball of the anchoring device, but the culprit was the boat next to us who is on a very long tether. She was getting real uncomfortably close to us. POW-MIA had her engine running and instruments on. I am now in the cockpit looking at the weather with a sharper eye on things. We are learning!

Not sure if the weather is clearing up. Seems to be a break in things. But lightening can be heard to the east.

1300

Rode the carts out to Bluff House and Green Turtle Club - had a few more drinks

2245

Went to the Lizzard Lounge this evening.  The "Best Band in the Country" was playing.  Good, but then they may be the only band on the island!!  LOL!! 

Met some folks from Great Britain who are waiting on weather to head for Bremuda and back home. Had a great time.

Sundowners were had, we missed you all!  Thanks for following us so closely. 

JonNe'