Busy couple days at the office

We're back in St. Vincent to take care of business. Yesterday it was a trip into Kingstown to get my cell phone setup with a local sim, buy some hard to find grocery items and visit a "department store" to get some household items. That took all day (most of it was dealing with the local cell phone tech to unlock my phone then with Digicel to get my number - took way longer than it should and it was all the phone's fault).  Feel free to call or txt. This is much more affordable now. We all knew this but Canada is so screwed up when it comes to cell phone plans. I just got a pre-paid, no contract, no questions asked, unlimited data package for my Blackberry that only costs the equivalent to around $19CAD/month.

Today it was all about boat projects. Austin and I spent most of the morning replacing a light bulb on our bow (it illuminates the red and green navigation lights needed when underway at night). This required me to hang nearly upside down over the railing (pushpit) to unscrew the light fixture and not drop anything in the water. Austin stood patiently by my side handing me tools as I couldn't put them in my pockets. Nothing fell in the water but my back did get the worst sun burn of the trip so far (I only thought I'd be out there a few minutes). Then we re-rigged the boom vang (block and tackle setup that helps us pull the boom down when sailing down wind). The shackle attaching it to the mast was bent some time ago and needed replacing. Then I disassembled the transmission control cable and reassembled it to get rid of some of the play that we've been experiencing when shifting. Then I lubed up the engine kill cable to make it a bit easier to pull (it's very stiff, now less stiff). While in there I also re-wired the 12v plug so that we don't have to keep running a long cable to the 12v plug at the nav station. And finally I replaced the engine belts as the alternator belt had begun to slip and was getting old. All this, plus a trip to the shore to buy parts, took until dinner. Still beats sitting behind a desk all day :)