I get by with a little help from my friends. (Part 2)

Relying on my newly acquired friends, we attempt to repair our severely depleted batteries. As Monday is the Beach Club’s closed day, we pull Roxy and John out of bed and borrow their battery charger, tester, and generator. After hooking it all up we plan to leave the generator running for a few hours and see how the batteries fair. I spend the day playing Bocci Ball on the Whale’s Tail beach with Roxy, John and Jason (Norman’s Cay locals) while Dad and Mom stayed on the boat to monitor the batteries. While I was playing the generator ran out of gas – forcing Mom and Dad to run all around the island looking for fuel. Finally, they went to Quasar and received fuel from the friendly French Canadians.

As I mentioned earlier – something crazy happened and that crazy thing was me. Of course the klutz that I am gets on a very nice boat and only bad things happen - I receive my karma backlash as when I was getting onto the million dollar catamaran, Quasar, I slip and fall – off the boat. But not only do I fall off the boat but I take one of the French Canadians with me, actually his name was Alex and he was the very cute, very rich, very rugby playing one. He hits his face on the boat and I manage to get everything in my purse soaked – goodbye camera, and dignity, and self-respect, and any ego I had left. On the upside, I held onto my drink – New Orleans friends, you would be proud.

(If you want to hear in more detail about this horrifying event for me, just shoot me a FB message.) After this incredibly embarrassing event, I became a recluse in the boat for the evening and we discuss how we are going to fix this battery situation as we are still only getting half a charge out of all of the batteries.

(Me at Norman's contemplating how to fix an engineless boat)

After making a plan I go onto shore to talk to Roxy, John and Molly – we are going to pull out the 12 volt starting battery (by the way taking out the 12 volt battery involves someone small to crawl in behind the large Perkins engine and manhandle out a very heave battery) take it to shore to be charged as well as take the Nautica boat up to Highbourne Cay to get more fuel for the generator. At 8 am the next day, I am sitting in the Nautica speeding from island to island with Molly, John, Roxy, and Jason while Kingsley is buzzing us via his high-tech helicopter – what we would have done without these helpful people is unimaginable.

We obtained gas and charged the 12 volt battery (not without a few missteps – when filling the distilled water, leave room for overflow – lesson learned). And a December 1^st miracle actually occurs, the engine turns over and starts!

Just in time actually, the next morning we start to drag anchor – FAST. The CQR held for six full days, but with the full moon and the changing tides it must have just flipped because we gave way fast. Thanks to Poseidon that today we had a working engine. After at least 7 attempts at reanchoring we move across to the awash plane and put down the Bruce anchor with a ton of chain. The day was spent watching this anchor, we would be damned if it drags again.

Final picture - when you walk around these islands there are no populations - no people really to speak of. These islands are more populated with mosquitoes and lizards - an occasional wild boar and whatnot. You really feel as if you walked onto the set of LOST, but one thing they don't tell you or at least portray in the show is the bugs. On Norman's I received the nickname Sweet Legs, not because I am extraordinarily cute (which is true), but because I am sugary sweet for the mosquitoes and no-see-ums (tiny bitey bugs you cannot see).