In Demand

It has been a busy day here in Hope Town Harbour. Happenings do run in threes, and it started at 8:10 this morning. Naturally today, of all days, was the first morning we have slept in until 8 A.M. We were a bit groggy when Ann and Paul from Horizons were calling out to us at the back of our boat saying that someone had untied the Jr. Sailing Pontoon Boat, with the 8 Opti sailboats on it, from the dock and it had washed up on the beach. Luckily it floated to the beach instead of out in the harbor where it could do damage to the cruising boats. It was also fortunate that the tide was high this morning so Bill from Interim and Paul pulled it off the beach, so that Ann along with Steve from Salty Turtle could tie it back to the dock. Meanwhile Dave and I arrived at the dock and saw something in the water and realized that the same hooligans that must have untied the pontoon boat, also took a bicycle and rode it down the dock and into the water. Dave used our dinghy anchor to grapple hook it, brought it to the surface and hauled it out. Now unfortunately, the pontoon boat will need to be locked up to the dock so this doesn’t happen again. This is such an unusual occurrence in Hope Town where people normally don’t even lock their doors.

View of the small beach and opti pontoon boat at the dock in the background.

That dilemma taken care of, we came back to New Horizon for breakfast. That just was not in the cards for Dave. As soon as we returned, Di from Caesar’s Ghost came over in her dinghy to ask him to help get her boat started (she’s the 80 year old solo cruiser that I wrote about before). Her batteries were dead, she had no fuel and her water supply was low and she couldn’t get to the dock. So off he went and almost wore our dinghy battery down trying to start her motor. He flagged down another boater who brought a portable generator over, and eventually they were able to get Di's boat running.

As Dave was coming back yet again to try and get something to eat, he got called over to another boat where our friend Philip from Cozy Villa on shore was trying to get the water in his runabout pumped out, but his battery was dead also. We keep a portable electric bilge pump in our dinghy so Dave pumped the water out and FINALLY was able to eat his well deserved breakfast at 11:00.

Apparently it doesn’t end there though. Now we are on dilemma number 4 and 5. Number four came from Bill on Interim when his generator wouldn’t start. Bill is extremely handy and he and Dave can fix just about anything. Now at 2PM, Dave is making a new bushing for his generator starter motor to replace the one he found broken on Bill and Carol’s 1974 sailboat.

Thankfully dilemma 5 doesn’t involve either of us, but as I was writing this blog, I heard loud crashing and crackling and looked up to see gigantic sparks running all along the power lines right in front the Harbour View Grocery Store. I’ve never seen anything like it before and it must have been deafening on shore. I bet the power is out all over Hope Town.

Wow, with all the breakdowns and problems, there must really be something in the air today!