A bad Day

7.3.09 – Most of the days on the boat are nice, satisfying days, but some times one day comes along when nothing is going your way. Maybe not all things go wrong, maybe some good things happen, but the bad stuff casts it’s shadow on the whole day and it becomes A BAD DAY. This morning I was waiting for Carlos the electrician to come with the repaired watermaker motor. We agreed that he will come at eight o’clock but he let me understand that it is 8  “mas o menos”  more or less, tilting towards the “more”. Now I am a bit nuts about an agreed meeting time – I will never be late and I get very irritated when somebody else is not on time. I will never get used to the way people regard time in the Caribbean and Central America, I can’t help it! Carlos and son arrived at 0900, did the job perfectly and the price was reasonable. Now I wanted to go to the marina’s dock to fill up water. The thing was that the dock was occupied and the fact that I arranged with the manager to be there at ten am was not a factor at all. The moment a bigh boat departed I started in the direction of the dock when a motor boat squeezed in ahead of me. I got really angry and called the manager on VHF to protest. Now the moorings in this yacht club are very close to each other, I was manuevering between them and as I was speaking to him I lost concentration, was swept by the current and woke up by a crunching sound of my topside connecting with a moored motorboat. After coming alongside I went over and apologised. Luckily there was no damage to the motor boat and they took the episode lightly. Two Oceans, however, got a relatively deep scratch, about 30 cm long. I will fix it when we are back in Puntarenas in two weeks time.

The gash

That was a BAD thing. I filled up water and was guided out of the channel. Puntarenas is on some sort of an island, not unlike Manhattan. The local “East river” is not dredged anymore, is very shallow and wreck strewn. Hence the need for a guide. As we approached the western tip, the wind gave a hint, or so I thought, of things to come by blowing 22 knots from the north. I was ready for the same conditions which I experienced on the way to Puntarenas, planning to start with first reefand go with wind and waves from behind.  This held for about ten minutes and then the wind turned 180 degrees to the south! I had a feeling that somebody is playing tricks aimed personally at me. I was working the sails continiously frustrated by the frequent changes in the wind strength and direction. At one moment, seeing some bird action on the surface, I thought that catching a fish will improve my mood. Sent the line and within 10 minutes a fish was caught. Guess what – as it came close to the stern, I even saw it’s reflection, it moved forward in a way that had the line chafe against the hull or rudder and broke it, losing me the last Rapala lure I had! I then understood that this was simply not my day for anything. I burned the rice, the fish tasted funny, in short: A BAD DAY! Oh, the SSB receiver arrived and Shimon, who is joining me tomorrow, will bring it with him. That is GOOD NEWS.