September, 2010

During early September, a couple of those low pressure waves tried to become cyclonic while passing over us. We had some fresh winds, wind reversals, and torrential rains. It was during one of those heavy rains that I realized one, possibly two,  of our scuttle portlight frames was leaking, and of course by Murphy’s Law, right onto my bed. I spent the next couple of days prying apart the frame and cleaning away all of the old, hard, cracked bedding compound, and re-bedding these frames with new marine caulking. 

For a few days in mid-September, we had three great storms at once, Karl, Igor and Julia, spinning across the Tropical Atlantic, all thankfully five or more degrees of latitude north of us.

During the latter part of September, we oiled all of the cabin joinery. We like working with the wood finishing oil, having used it in two of our homes as well. The job is made harder by having to remove the bedding and mattresses from the two staterooms prior to oiling, and removing all of the books and optical disc albums from the bookshelves. We aim to oil annually.

I’m leaving out detail of social activities and outings as being rather mundane, except to add that we ate at the wonderful Flag Restaurant a couple more times and made friends with Ken and Lynn of S/V Silverheels III, Canadians, who spent an afternoon with us giving us tips about sailing and visiting the Bahamas. We made friends with John and Patti of S/V Anhinga, a couple from the Annapolis area, with whom we shared common Maryland experiences. We also enjoyed a couple of lengthy visits with Frank and Tini, S/V Wildcat, from Holland. Frank was a banker and shared his insights into the world banking crisis and its consequences.

Sometime during September, the upper waters of the Tropical Atlantic and Caribbean Seas have reached 87 degrees and higher. Joan and I went snorkeling again and found all of the corals shallower than about 20 feet had bleached out and died. Actually, the old brain corals seem toughest. Some of them had bleached but appeared still to have living polyps. Every year since we’ve arrived in the tropics we’ve observed widespread coral death and reef deterioration. We must fear for the very survival of this ancient and once-beautiful reef system.