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Mischief - Up to Mischief Log 40 Further adventures of S/Y Mischief through the eyes and ears of Chas Baynes



Monday, 21 May 2018 - Suwarrow at anchor

A slow start to the day - still in bed at 8am! Definite sleep catch-up, as I managed to fall asleep at the last night. Dave wanted to sort out the radar this morning which had stopped working during the thunderstorm the other night at sea so asked Rick from Amara, an electronics engineer to come over to assist, which he did once he had fixed Emily Morgan's computer - a busy man indeed.

I had nothing to offer so went snorkeling. I was out seemingly for hours and found a wreck of a yacht, saw a huge turtle with his left side back flipper missing as well as part of his shell, a survivor of a shark attack no doubt some years ago. The water is so clear it is not too different from air and the scenery is amazing. However, I didn't see a single shark which was surprising as its supposed to be shark infested around here so that was a little disappointing, which itself is an odd reaction to not seeing a shark perhaps? Nor did I see a manta ray which is what I really wanted to see.

When I got back to the boat it was upside down below decks, with all the floorboards up and tools and electronics stuff all over the place. In fact Emery from Someday had come over too as he has a Jeaneau as well to help but still I had nothing to add so went back out and snorkeled with Sue and Mindy - it was Sue's first outing in 'shark infested' waters. She absolutely loved it especially as I spotted the turtle again and a couple of sharks and Mindy brought Sue over for a closer look. She was ecstatic - only a manta to see now to complete the set.

However, the radar remained unfixed despite the efforts - a data issue seemingly, so something somewhere is fried but they can't find out what meaning we have no radar to pick up squalls at night until we find a Raymarine engineer somewhere.

Mindy had organized a 'Pot Luck' party ashore for 2pm where everyone brings along a dish of something and a drink, but because the Ranger guys had had a really slow start they were really behind in clearing in boats so we all went ashore to do it there instead and the party started a little late. To be honest the paperwork was ridiculous in its volume and took the best part of an hour just for our boat alone, so patience was becoming a little short shall we say! However, World ARC have agreed to pay the fees so that is a result. But the party was really great with Rick and Steve playing guitar and I was handed a Kazoo to play but had no idea even which end to blow into much to everyone's amusement. I really wish I had my guitar there too to join in more properly, not that I'm any better than with the Kazoo!

I took a few paperback books ashore to exchange in the book exchange shed which was more of a sauna and after 20 minutes looking through trying to find something readable we ended up with four titles one of which was a Geoffrey Archer which goes to show the poor choice there was. There were a few decent books but in German, but they would take me too long to read as I would have to learn German first.

Sue came back from the other side of the island with a brilliant collection of sand and coral that the rangers allowed her to keep. When she got back to the boat she discoursed the lot from her bikini top and bottoms - I asked her if she needed a hand as there were so many and I wondered just where she was hiding them all; Trevor wondered whether she was a 'Sea cup'!

The yanks played a prank later in the evening excitedly spreading a rumour on VHF that there was a very large dark unidentified object under the water within the anchorage and implored everyone to switch on their deck lights and get their powerful search lights out to scan the water for it - a touch of the 'War of the Worlds'. It was vaguely amusing for a short while but it was stretched out too long.

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