Day 105-106

We've spent the last two days in Clarence Town, waiting for the sea to calm down, exploring the town, snorkeling, and hanging out with Lance, the old sailing and fishing charter captain anchored next to us.


Our first morning in the harbor we were down in the dinghy, taking turns yanking on the pull cord of the Seagull until our arms ached. Once again the row ashore would be long and against the wind and we wanted to avoid it if possible.

We were taking a breather when Lance putted over in his motor skiff to ask if we'd like a ride in with him. "Yes please."







Lance had errands to run and Pete and I spent our morning ashore wandering around town. It didn't take long. We visited the community center, toured both the town's churches and the bar, combed the streets and the beach. In our travels we were followed everywhere by "Happy", a little dog that was so certain we would feed him he even waited patiently on the front stoop while we went inside the buildings.




Back in the anchorage with Lance, we were invited aboard his trimaran charter boat "E-Z" for a beer. Lance kept them coming and we kept knocking them down for the next three hours. We lounged in the shady, cushioned comfort of his sheltered cockpit sipping ice cold Heinekens (he had a refrigerator) and listening to the Sunday afternoon programing on NPR (he had satellite radio) and wondering the whole time why we hadn't thought to install these amenities on our boat.

Lance shared some great stories garnered over a lifetime of sailing and fishing among the islands of the West Indies and a tour of duty in Vietnam which he apparently spent working as a lifeguard and ski boat driver at the officer's beach on Cameroon Bay. It was a thoroughly enjoyable afternoon and as the sunbeams turned to early evening gold, we made our way unsteadily into the dingy and puttered back to Strolla for some snorkeling. The highlight was when Pete chased off a four foot Barracuda hiding under our keel.


The next morning I rowed over to listen to the weather report with Lance on his Single Sideband Radio, another item to add to the Strolla wish-list. Lance had offered to let us tinker with our little outboard on the spacious deck of one of his pontoons. He said it would be a much easier, more stable platform. I agreed and spent the morning listening to classic rock and trying unsuccessfully to breathe life back into our little British outboard.

The afternoon was spent back in town. Lance went in to do laundry and Pete and I went along to get online. Brown rice with canned corn again for dinner.