Technical Difficulties

Please excuse us, we are experiencing technical difficulties.

What difficulties?  Glad you asked.

The micro-filament that held Bit boy's lens in his glasses broke shortly after we got on the boat.  A gal from Footloose said she'd had glasses like that and had to go to St. Thomas (USVI) to get them fixed.  He's been managing with mom's duct tape fix.  (Did I mention that you should never, never ever, travel without duct tape?)  A more permanent fix will have to wait until we get to St. Thomas.

 On the subject of Bit Boy's eye sight, he has found his contacts more uncomfortable than he expected and was snorkeling without them.  He was having a hard time figuring out what we were all so excited about while snorkeling.  We found a dive shop (in Leverick Bay) that had a mask that fit him and could put some corrective lenses in it.   Unfortunately the lenses were elsewhere, so we ordered them at Leverick Bay and picked them up at the dive shop at Scrub Island Resort, while we were moored at Marina Cay.  (Got that?)

Also, Hot Dog has been having problems with his mask leaking, so we bought a different mask.  It's better, but still leaks.  He gets cold pretty fast while snorkeling, even wearing a shorty wet suit, so all we need is a mask that will last as long as he can.

Charging the electronics has proven challenging.  Despite Firelord's best efforts, not everything likes the 12volt adaptors.   Also, I didn't realize that there was a right way and a not-quite-right-way to shut down his LINUX computer, and accidentally only shut it down part way.  It discharged completely before we realized my mistake.  Also, it is one of the electronic bits that doesn't like charging on a 12V, and we haven't had shore power since Spanish Town, a week ago.  (See my good excuse for not posting?)

Wi-Fi is at some establishments, but the connection is iffy and slow.   Firelord had the brilliant idea of using his smart phone as a hot spot, but that only works if he can pick up a US signal, rather than a BVI signal.  (U.S. has 4G, BVI doesn't)  Still it's a good and functional idea. ....  Assuming his phone worked.  Which it didn't, being one of the devices having trouble getting charged.  And THEN, in the process of trying to clean the (presumed) sand out of it, Firelord accidentally damaged the connectors.  Damaged beyond fixing with the equipment at hand.  Sigh... could it get worse?  Why, yes, yes it could.

All fixes would have to wait for the USVI, since the BVI didn't have the necessary supplies on hand.  Anywhere.  Remember, it's an island territory, everything is shipped in.  Speciality items are ordered and waited for.  It's just as quick for us to get it ourselves in the USVI.

Which brings me to last Thur. (2/7/13) when we checked into the USVI at Cruz Bay.  That is a post unto itself, which I will let Firelord do.  I will share that we had more technical difficulties which involved multiple anchor attempts, and the need to sail out of a crowded harbor without a functional engine.  Why?  Because of yet more technical difficulties - the button which was supposed to pop in and out to engage and disengage then engine got stuck.  Oh, and someone accidentally bumped the switch and turned off the anchor winch, which was, at the time, terribly problematic.

BUT, all is well.  We finally found a safe place to moor, got checked in through customs, got Firelord a shiny new phone, and soothed our nerves with ice cold smoothies and baguettes.

I have left out some technical difficulties, dropping a family radio into the drink, the smell of the boat when I bought too much meat at one time, the challenges of docking and mooring...  we are figuring it all out as we go.

At the moment we are moored in Trunk Bay, St. John.  It's part of Virgin Islands National Park.  We will go snorkeling and go play at the beach, and leave all worries of technical difficulties on the boat.  (I hope!)

Sunset at Hawksnest Bay 2/8/13

Choices

I've got too many.  I'm trying to narrow down to a manageable number the books we'll bring on this trip.  I mean we'll be gone 7 weeks.  That's a lot of books.  A.  Lot. of. Books.  I was pretty proud of myself this evening when I narrowed down the choices to just a few piles.  I mentioned this to Lego Kid, who looked at my piles and rolled his eyes.  "That's already too many to carry Mom, and still not enough."

That's us.  Here's  where the e-books might help.  Just in the last 2 years we went from no e-books to 2 rooted Nooks, 1 Kindle Fire, and one Simple Nook.  Of them all, my fave to read on is the Simple Nook.  The Kindle is the only one that I have control over though, so that's the one I load up.  I don't actually get to use it, since the kids seem to think it's theirs, but there you go.

I still have to decide what to load.  I wish I could just push a button and have every classic I've always meant to read on it, but it doesn't work that way.  And how's a girl to know where to start? 

There's the Project Gutenberg.  You can search by author, title or subject.  I typed in sailing life and children, and got some good suggestions. Looking up by author I got Mark Twain, Charles Dickens, L. M. Montgomery,.... Do we, or do we not, live in the most amazing times?  I can find, at the click of my fingers the works of all the best books ever.  Thus I am totally stymied by the tyranny of choice.  Moby Dick?  Of course.  Tolstoy?  I should.  Dostoevsky?  Well.... I'm looking forward to a cheerful holiday.  I don't see that he'll help.

So let's think about audio books instead.  Libribox is to audio books what Project Gutenberg is to written books.  There aren't as many choices here, simply because they haven't gotten around to everything available through Gutenberg, but they're working on it. 

As just a side note, the Kindle needs a MOBI format, Gutenberg has this available for most books.  Not all places do, most e-readers (that are not Kindle) use EPUB.  (Cory Doctorow, for instance, publishes his e-books for free, but general in an PDF, HTML or plain text)  I've had pretty good success using Calibre to format them for my Kindle.  (Thanks to Firelord for his tech support!)

And then I feel the need to tell all of you about this, instead of winnowing the piles of books sitting in the hall.   My bad. 

But wait, you can help me!  What classics (ie copy right free ) books would you bring with you?  Which for you, and which for the kids?

Lists

Christmas is over.  New years is less than a week away.  We leave in less than a month. I need some lists!

I'm a list person.  Or rather, if I want to be anything like productive, I need a list.  I'm not really a naturally organized person, but I can fake it pretty good sometimes.

Here's a list of the lists I  need:

Clothing list for each person

toiletry and medication list for each person

Personal equipment lists

boat equipment list

distractions list (will probably need to be pared down, but I have to start somewhere)


List of stuff I need to do before we leave:

make reservations for Puerto Rico

order seeds/seedlings/trees ect. for next planting season  (little happy dance - I love seed catalogs in January!)

Clean!  Especially the bedrooms.

Stock animal feed and litter

make lists for house sitter

shop - boys need snorkel equipment

check adult snorkel gear for wear

get all prescriptions, vitamin, and OTC meds for trip


Breath.
 In.
Out. 

I need to remember that so long as we have our passports, a credit card and the prescription meds, everything else can be improvised.

 Ah... that's better.  O.K.

So, would it be helpful to anyone if I post my lists here?  I know that I have benefited from books and blogs of other sailing families.  What would be helpful?