American Spirit II - Day 129; Infection Update, Skippers Meeting, Last Provisioning, Joel's Computer Died & Green Flash #9; Monday, May 12, 2014

Up at 6:00 AM so I can be first in line at the doctor's office. I was, arriving at 6:45. The doctor's office opens at 7:30 AM, and the doctor arrived at 7:45 AM. Took bandage off and did not put a new one on. The doctor also gave me the OK to shower and swim. Yeah! My total doctor bills were 21,697 or about $250 for 5 visits. The pharmacy costs were about $500 for drugs and bandages.

The Skipper's Meeting was at 9:00 AM for the next leg to Suwarrow, Niue and Tonga. Our fist stop, Suwarrow, is an atoll with no one on it. Caretakers occupy the island, but only 6 months a year. What's unique about this atoll is that we can only safely enter thru the pass in daylight. The charts are accurate enough to make a nighttime entry, but you can't see the shallow coral heads that sprout up from the bottom of the lagoon at night. So any boat arriving after sunset will have to wait until sunrise to enter. Bummer. We found out also that at Niue, when you dingy ashore you have to use a crane on shore to lift your dingy out of the water and place it on a trailer. There is no place to safely land a dingy anywhere on the island. Iron seashore.

Joel's computer won't turn on, so it is probably dead. He took it into a repair facility and was told its hopeless. So for now Joel will use my backup computer for his pictures and to send pictures to his blog. Once he buys a new computer he's convinced that he'll be able to take his hard drive out of the dead computer and put it into the new one, providing its the same model. The Rally organizers said before our trip that the typical boat goes thru 2-4 laptop computers on the circumnavigation.

After the Skipper's Meeting I made a final provisioning trip for grocery items. Two items that I can't find on Bora Bora are coffee creamer and sugar substitutes like Equal. I'm not out yet, but will be in a week or two. I guess I'll have to start drinking my coffee black.

Because of the wind strength and direction it was really bumpy at the dingy dock, with everybody bouncing up and down getting on and off your dingy. One dingy, belonging to Hebe, had Jane trying to start the dingy motor while bouncing up and down like she was riding a bull. She was actually leaving her seat in the dingy during the 'bounce up.' And Andrew, her husband, almost fell into the water because the floating dingy dock was rocking up and down, too.

At 5:45 PM we saw our ninth Green Flash on this trip.

We had a Group 2 party and dinner at 6;30 PM, buffet style. Meat and fish, rice and salad and bread. White tablecloths. Very nice. The MaiKai Yacht Club put on quite a show. Even had entertainment with a young man playing a guitar and singing. We made it back to the boat around 9:30 or 10 PM, with lights out at 11:00 PM.

355 Days until home.

Brian Fox