A Minor Update

I did another trip over to the Las Perlas Islands. It’s about a 35 mile run to the first anchorage. The trip over was a slow, slow motor boat ride. Slow because Jeorgia’s bottom was covered in an infestation of hard barnacles and green slime. The hull and keel were covered with finger tip sized barnacles – thousands of them. Under the wing keel they were fifty cent and twenty cent sized. We had 3 days of really nice, sunny weather and clear water that let me spend hours diving the boat and getting her clean again. I went out with Judy and Torbin off Tivoli, out of San Francisco. That’s Tivoli above in one of the evening thunder showers.
It was really nice to get out of the Las Brisas anchorage for awhile. Its a nice place, but you just don’t want to be here too long. Too much city, too many long term locals…… One of the locals, Ollie, the German welder, who is doing some welding for me to mount some additional solar panels, refers to the place with his German accent as ‘A Sheeet hole’. This anchorage starts growing barnacles on your anchor chain in about 3 days.
Torbin cleaned the bottom of Tivoli also. They use the same bottom paint we have, Petit Trindidad SR. There’s is about the same age as mine, maybe a few months younger. There bottom looked a hundred times better than mine. Must be the shady neighborhoods I hang in. In Jan. we are going to haul the boat in Shelter Bay Marina on the Caribbean side and put nice fresh black bottom paint on her – once I figure out how to get it shipped to Panama.
The sail back from the Las Perlas was a rambunctious beat to weather. First 10 kts of wind, then 20, then 6 then 14, then 18, then 6. A tiring 8 hour tacking session.
On a more sobering subject, the US Embassy in Nigeria just put out a set of warnings. It focuses on the capital, Abuja, and the main business hotels there. Supposedly they have info that the Boko Haram are planning attacks. These are the local bad guys who want to implement Shariah law in Nigeria. The name apparently translates to “Western education is sacrilege”. So Chris was planning a meeting over the weekend at a town not too far from where she was staying. In the end, they all decided that it would be better not to be traveling on the roads. Certainly better for Chris, so she didn’t have to bare the wrath of me bugging her. The attacks seem to be timed for the Sallah celebration at the end of the Haj, the annual trip to Mecca.
Paul
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