January 01 - 09, 2005 - Sick Days

January 1 - 9, 2005 - Sick Days On the first day of 2005, we really tried to do nothing. Well, almost nothing since I remembered that the tape needed to be removed from the fly bridge combing. I removed it, and then noticed there was a lot of residue left. So, I wiped it down with mineral spirits which cleaned everything up nicely. That was about the extent of activity for the day. On the 2nd, we woke up feeling pretty good. Our chest colds had loosened up, and Mike wanted to do some work on the boat. Trying to ensure that we would continue feeling better, I persuaded Mike to hold off for a day before we returned to working on the boat. Instead I wrote the logs for December. Then we answered some emails and we reviewed the latest release of the vessel management software that we use, Vessel 4 from Portage Bay Marine. In the afternoon, for the first time in almost two weeks, we sat outside for a little while. Between rain, holidays, and being sick, we just never went outside. There were lots of people out on the beach, as well as on boats. There were more people than I ever remember seeing. Of course, by evening, we were both feeling bad again, as our chests tightened up. The 3rd was no picnic. We woke up feeling worse, so we definitely made sure to spend an easy quiet day. The 4th was another quiet day, though I think my cough may be getting better. After breakfast, we went into town. We needed to get more cough syrup. We stopped by the marina office to say welcome back to XJ, and as it turns out good bye to Rasheda. Then we headed to the Internet cafe to upload December's logs. Finally it was on to the pharmacy. Since the Robotussin did not help much, we decided to try something else, finally settling on Vics. We returned to the boat, took some cough medicine, and I have to say, I noticed an improvement. We spent the rest of the day lounging and playing on the computer. The 5th was galley disaster day. We were both still sick, so we didn't do anything. However, in the afternoon, I baked bread and made fudge, or at least I tried to. If only it had happened that way! The bread mixed OK, and rose beautifully. The fudge cooked well, but then it refused to set up! We started the generator and I put the bread in the oven. Unfortunately, it was to close to the upper heating element and started burning. I pulled it out, lowered the rack and put it back in. It was mostly edible for dinner, but not worth keeping after that. As I was cleaning up from the fudge, I put the fudge pan in the dishwasher, and discovered that the latch holder broke! All in all, it was a crappy day! On the 6th, we went in search of a new latch for the dishwasher. So, we hopped a bus down to Dakota and walked back to Oranjestad, stopping at every appliance store and repair shop along the way. There are about 10 of them. Unfortunately, none of them could help us! So before returning to the boat, we called Harrison Appliance, who has serviced the dishwasher before, to order the latch from them. They referred us to another company called Tribble. I called Tribble, placed my order, and then we returned to the boat and collapsed for the rest of the day. The 7th was grocery day. So, in the morning, we updated inventory and then printed out our shopping list and then headed to the grocery store. It was a pretty good trip, we were able to get most of the stuff on our list. We returned to the boat, stowed everything and then updated the inventory. Beyond that, it was a quiet day. The 8th and 9th were major do nothing days. The chest colds are lingering on, and taking their toll. So, we decided to relax for the day (which stretched in to 2 days), and hopefully we will feel better soon!