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American Spirit II - Day 144; Niue Driver's License, Clearing Out of Country, Broken Shroud Update & a Freind at Home Dies; Wednesday, May 28, 2014



Up at 7:30 AM, after rocking and rolling all night on mooring ball. Guess we're getting used to rocking 20 degrees each way. Typed a log and sent it out via SSB Radio.

Breakfast at 9:00 AM: bacon, scrambled eggs and bread.

At 10:30 AM took dingy to wharf and went to Police Station to get Niue driver's license. Need to rent a car. Then went to government buildings to get immigration stamp to leave country. Already had Custom's clearance paper because the yacht Hebe got it for me earlier in the day. Thank you Andrew and Harry. Brian from the Niue Yacht Club gave Joel and me, plus a French lady, a ride as it was too far to walk. The French lady has been in Niue for over a month because their large catamaran was on a private mooring ball (not one belonging to the Niue Yacht Club like we're on), and the mooring line broke and the yacht ended up on the cliff side reef. Apparently it didn't sink, but was lifted out of the water and moved a mile or two to someone's front lawn, where it was being worked on. The lady said it would be another 2 or 3 months until the boat was ready to be put back in the water. Bad luck.

Back at the Niue Yacht Club we paid for a couple extra nights on the mooring ball. 15 New Zealand dollars per night. And we bought a NYC burgee for the Boca Ciega Yacht Club and Joel bought a NYC shirt. I wanted to buy one but they were all out of the large size.

For lunch we stopped into Gill's Indian Restaurant for a beef and chicken roll. After that we stopped by the post office and bought some stamps for our post cards and then went by to pick up our laundry. The laundry was being done at someone's house. Nobody was home, so we'll have to try Thursday.

Jonathan from the 40 foot catamaran Chez Nous came over to our boat to look at our broken shroud. Upon close examination we determined that instead of 1 broken wire we had 3 out of 38 that were broken. Joel and Jonathan determined that using Dynema kevlar line tied from a spreader would work. That's one of the benefits of being in a rally, other boater's bring their experience to your boat when you have a problem. Not only did Jonathan offer us good advice, he also had 2 bear clips that are essential to temporarily fixing the problem. If the lower shroud breaks, instead of the mast coming down the Dynema line will take the place of the shroud and give us enough time to roll up our sails and take the pressure off of the temporary fix.

Sunset at 6:30 PM was cloudy, so no green flash. We were still rocking and rolling tremendously. For dinner we had steak, baked potatoes and chilled pear halves. After dinner I read a book on my Kindle. I was in the cockpit and it was chilly enough that I had to put some pants on and a heavy long sleeved shirt. First time I've had to do that on the rally. We ARE heading into winter in the Southern Hemisphere.

We watched 2 more episodes of the HBO series The Pacific; and had micro wave popcorn in the process.

I changed the dressing of my infected right calf. Still very painful. Looks like a spider bite...or a bullet wound. Quite disgusting to look at.

I tried to send out the log I had just typed over the internet, but couldn't due to a technical problem. We were receiving emails but couldn't send them. I then tried to do so over the SSB radio, but also had no luck. That problem and worrying about the leg infection kept me up to 3:15 AM. Joel too, as I woke him up to try to fix the email problem.

Lastly, when I was going thru the 125 emails I had on AOL, which I can only do when I have good internet, which isn't often, I found one that advised me that a friend and past senior sales executive from my company, Robert Glazeman, had died. If I was home I'd go to his wake and funeral and visit with his family. That's one of the negatives of being out of the country, and for so long. You get information late and often there's not much you can do with it. It bothers you because you feel so impotent sometimes. But Bob had a sense of humor, which is why he's smiling now. You see, Bob died on my birthday, May 16. And he'd be chuckling because he knew that every birthday I have for the rest of my life, I'll be forced to think of him. He's right. Good night Bob, and God Bless.

339 Days until home.

Brian Fox
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