Thursday 18th January

Luperon
Dominican Republic

19 54.4 N
70 56.5 W

A very quiet day today. I stayed on board and did some boat tidying up, started in the V berth by clearing everything off the bunk only to find that the sheets and mattress were wet – oh joy! So I stripped everything off the bunk and bundled them into a laundry bag and sent Gerry into the marina laundry to get them washed and dried. I then dragged the mattress and pillows out into the sun to dry it out. That left all the stuff that was sitting on top of the bunk – we had to find a home for them as we are keeping our fingers crossed that our friends Rose and Mark are going to be able to join us for a couple of weeks in the Virgin Islands and they will need to sleep somewhere! Between us Gerry and I managed to rearrange stuff in other places and squash some of the stuff from on top of the bunk into the resulting space. We then had another look at the things that still needed a home and began to shift things around again. We hung a second hammock in the saloon for the lightweight stuff and Gerry finally fixed the bolt on the V berth door –it’s only needed doing for 4 years! Eventually we found enough space in all sorts of other places for the stuff that was sitting on the top of the bunk. Whilst we had the V berth lockers open I decided to get out the industrial sewing machine and make up a sun shade for the side of the boat as the afternoon sun is a killer and a bit of shade was called for. Of course we had a heated discussion as to how it should be made but as I’m the one making it I’m afraid it will be however I decide in the end! After cutting the canvas for the shade I decided to leave it until tomorrow to stitch up incase I wanted to make further adjustments. Rose and Mark – we have the bunk cleaned off, a hanging locker ready for you to fill, the bathroom cabinet cleaned out, the sheets, pillow cases etc. washed and the drinks already poured – hurry up and come!
Gerry then decided that he had to "pickle" our water maker, just so you know – if you don’t use it for 14 days the manufacturer recommends that you do this to prevent bacteria from growing on the membrane and we were at the 14 days of not using it mark. The process involves flushing the whole system with an antibacterial solution and leaving the solution in the system until the next time you make water, in our case this won’t be until after we leave Luperon as the harbour water here isn’t anything that we would consider putting into our tanks. The process was fairly quick and simple although the hose we had to use wasn’t quite the right size – can anyone explain to me why you always have a million bits of equipment but never quite the right one for the job you are doing? – We know we are not alone in this phenomenon, our conversations with other sailors have verified this.
We spent a quiet evening on the boat wondering how we managed to squash all our junk into even tighter places.