Nadir

Roger here!
The last week has not been a fun one due to a complex of issues that are now solved. I'm hopeful that we will not have another stretch of bad time as low as this again.
Health: I'm blessed with usually being so darned healthy that when I get sick I really feel it. I whacked my head on a low passing eave (actually I passed the eave; well almost got past it) and got a headache which I feared might be a subdural hematoma. This caused a visit to the local hospital but the CT scanner was in a separate clinic and by the time they reopened two days after the incident, I had taken a Sudafed and felt a lot better. The visit to the ER cost a bit under 30 Euros; amazing! But I also had severe shaking from chills on the first night and this was followed by five days of very strong diarrhea, which are fortunately past us now.
Water: We make our own, six or twelve gallons per day, which is more than enough for us. But we have been inside Simpson's Bay Lagoon for about ten days and we can't make water when we are in a body of dirty water because it strains our filtration and reverse osmosis system too much. Of course we used much less water by taking our showers at the marina (1 Euro per token) but we still we ran out. What to do? Lene took our three one-gallon fresh water jugs to the marina, filled them and upon returning to the boat, emptied them into the ship's water tank. She makes four trips ashore in one day with the result that we had twelve gallons of water in our tank. This is more than enough.
Sewage: I brought a head (toilet) repair kit with me plus two extra "choker" or "joker" valves. This is the valve that opens just enough when material is pumped against it to let the material pass, and then closes to prevent the material from flowing back. I have only had one head that needed to be fixed in the past 20 years so I thought that the idea of both failing at once was quite remote. But lightning did strike twice in the same boat and the repair kit had only one set of the parts needed. I got some help from Reiner, a native German with 20 years in So. Africa who lives on his boat, 30 yards from ours. He was hit by a bigger boat that broke loose in a hurricane and caused his boat a lot of damage. He said he had 40 years experience as a shipwright (one who can do most anything to fix a boat except engines) and asked for $30 per hour and was hired immediately. I would not have known which part (a flapper valve and spring) needed to be replaced, but having seen him do the job on our forward head, I will now be able to do it myself on the aft head when the now missing parts arrive via Fedex from the states mid next week. Most of the three hours he worked were spent on tearing out remaining hosing from the former Lectrasan system -- I took out some pieces and he took out others. All told we removed more than 20 feet of 1 1/4 inch diameter thick heavy black hosing and one three way valve, thereby simplifying greatly the path that sewage will follow in getting from the head to the sea. And as a shipwright I figured he might be able to put to good use the hose, eight hose clamps and the valve, which he took with him, simplifying our garbage disposal system. It is good to have my hands out of sewage again after the last few days.
Bright Notes: Our new AB brand inflatable with an aluminum rigid bottom and a rather deep "V" hull and big fat pontoons is FUN! With its 9.8 HP Toihatsu outboard (vs 4 hp on our old engine) it can go up on plane and makes about 25 to 30 knots! First the front rises up and then the back rises up and then we are going really fast. We have also had a lot of fun with the Donaldsons, who we met in Maine in September 2008. So not all has been bad. Soon I will report, with photos, on our visit to the Fort.