Repair Jobs in the Works

When we discovered on Tuesday we had more repairs to do, we were worried about our schedule for leaving late this week. Fortunately, yesterday we worked with the local rigging shop (called Turbulence at the Spice Island Marine Boat Yard), and they were able to help us off-load the headsail/forestay (we pulled Tahina up to the boatyard dock), and then quickly got the sail off. They hope to have the hardware part done by today (Thursday). The sail repair is a small job, but they can't do it until Friday because of other work in their schedule (there is a regatta starting this weekend, so lots of boats are having their sails repaired). The prices are mostly reasonable, the only sticker shock is the extrusion for the headsail track is pretty expensive. Fortunately, the labor hours will be low - in part due to the fact I'll be able to re-install the headsail with some help from my new cruising friends.

Speaking of which - we invited the crews from Ascension and Djarrka (who helped us on Tuesday with the sail) to come over for dinner. So, Karen and I spent the day cleaning up Tahina (inside and out), and Karen spent all late-afternoon cooking up a mighty feast. Djarrka and Ascension seemed pretty impressed with our comfortable new home. I, of course, had to show off some of my tech toys (VideoRay, cameras, kite rig, etc.), and photography. It turns out both of the crews had been gone so long, they had not even heard of the Wii. So, we gladly gave them a taste of the Wii experience. And naturally, a fair amount of time was spent talking about sailing adventures, problems, and fishing stories.

During the day, we also managed to get laundry done, trash unloaded, and a propane tank filled and put back in place. Today we hope to get more errands run, and in the afternoon pick up the repaired jibsail hardware. If we do that early enough, we hope to re-rig the forestay and hardware so we'll be ready to simply re-install the sail when its done on Friday (tomorrow). We will then be able to leave for Bonaire as soon as the appropriate time/weather window opens.