Frogs in Cat Boxes

Sorry for the delay: the laptop was broken for about two weeks, hence no postings. It is now fixed, thanks to help from Lene's relations from home, UPS, local customs and a very clever local computer guy, Garvey, who installed the new screen to replace the old, which was cracked.

"Six days shalt thou labor and do all that thou art able; and on the seventh, holystone the decks and scrub the cables."
This doggerel, if Roger's memory serves him faithfully, is the beginning two lines of "Two Years Before the Mast," Richard Henry Dana's memoir of his apprenticeship on a wooden merchant vessel in the Pacific Northwest in the 19th century, which Roger read in his teens.
Holystones were large flat bottomed stones that the sailors, working in pairs, would slide back and forth across the massive oak beams that made up the decks, thereby sanding down the soiled outer layer of the oak. Heavy work and on the Lord's Day. It is a twist on Genesis's seventh day of rest, which the sailors did not get.
Holystones do not work on fiberglass boats and our decks are not pristine, but last Sunday was our 11th consecutive day of dog work, and we launched Monday a week ago for more days of work while we are on a mooring, where we have escaped the oppressive land heat in the blazing sun, the fun part of the adventure can finally begin, probably on Friday, November, 18.
Roger did get to "scrub the cables", however, if you define cables as the lines (ropes) that lead out from the top and bottom of the mast that haul the sails up and control their angle to the wind. If anyone had advised us to run up thin "messenger" lines to replace the lines that control the boat, Roger forget to do that. We don't do it in winter in NY, and I didn't do it in the summer in Grenada. But ILENE has its famous "cat boxes" in the forward ends of the gunnels, side walls of the cockpit. As noted last winter, the cats each like to hide and sleep in those boxes, while we are underway. Rain flows into these boxes but seeps out of what are called weep holes low at the outboard side. When the boat is on land, the level of fresh rainwater in those boxes is about 1/2 inch deep. Algae grew on the cables. But when Roger removed the lines to scrub them with a stiff brush and soap and Clorox, he found families of tiny frogs in each. (First a photo of Tee Pee, with our french speaking friends, Manu and Michelle, who were such good help and good friends as we shared our yard experience.) Tee Pee is on route to the water, where she launched before us but we got away before she did.

Here are two frogs. the little hole, top center, is about one inch in diameter, to give you an idea how small the frogs are. Roger thought he had chased them all away but when we were underway, from St. David's to Prickly Bay, Alpha Girl emerged with frog legs hanging out of her mouth. Roger eventually disposed of the carcass.

How did these tiny tree frogs climb from the ground up about 15 feet? We are not sure. Roger believes that the black stuff, associated with the algae consisted of tiny bits of froggy fecal matter. Cables duly scrubbed,
Roger does most of the heavy lifting and Lene is resting him to avoid potential heat prostration, and giving him lots of liquids. Flu like symptoms plus heat sap energy, which may be why progress has been so slow.

Roger smiling after scrubbing off the outer layer of the old bottom paint into a slurry, some of which seems to have landed on him. Another rag for the rag bag.


Another problem has been the solar panels,which have not been working. We did get the anchor windlass rebuilt and are awaiting an Herve, a great electronics tech, who can hopefully get out chartplotter and autopilot to work again. Apparently the problem is in the wiring by which the components of this system talk to each other. We had been in Prickly Bay before and hence were able to navigate there without the benefit of electronics, but we would rather not make a habit of it.

The kitties stayed with us in an air conditioned bungalow for the first 12 days. Here is Whitty on the veranda.

They have transitioned rather well to their new floating home, where they lived for six months last winter: Oh yeah, this again. They do suffer a bit in the heat -- wearing fur coats. Lene jumped in to save a loudly mewling strongly swimming Alphie a couple mornings ago. We think she tied to jump from the Bimini (sun shade) to the dinghy, whose big rubber tube, hanging off the back of the boat, was slippery with the morning dew.