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UPDATE#
5 02/11
thru 02/20/08
Howdy
Everybody, The
new adventures of 2008 from 1/1/08 through 2/10/08 have been published on the
website previously. We continue
with the latest edition, UPDATE 2008 # 05. UPDATE
2008 #05 02/11/08 through
02/20/08. At
last update, AMARSE was at our winter home at ABACO BEACH RESORT and BOAT
HARBOUR, in sunny Marsh Harbour, Abacos, Bahamas. 02/11/08 MONDAY
ABACO BEACH RESORT AND BOAT HARBOUR, MARSH HARBOUR, ABACOS, BAHAMAS HAPPY
BIRTHDAY, GALEN SILER. In keeping with her exercise routine, Judy
headed off with the girls on the morning walk.
After a short rest, she went over to ODYSSEY to help her friend, Sue
Graham, with her jewelry making projects. I
spent most of the day working on Updates and Logs for the website.
This is good work for me, as I still need to keep my leg elevated as much
as possible. It is getting better
but the progress is extremely slow. At
5pm, we gathered on dock #4 for a party celebration for Galen Siler from R-JOY.
Judy did the cake decorating.
Galen and Connie Siler (R-JOY) celebrating
his birthday.
Bill Tweedle from CONCH PEARL made this
little bird ornament by cutting and bending a palm frond.
Galen loved his gift.
02/12/08 TUESDAY
BOAT HARBOUR, MARSH HARBOUR, ABACOS, BAHAMAS It was quite windy with
occasional rain showers throughout the day.
Judy managed to get her daily walk in.
Dr. Amy (KIMBERLY ANN) came by for another look at
my leg wound. Again, she highly
suggested that I see the local physician, Dr. Hull. We walked to the office and
waited about 2 hours. I must say
that I am very impressed with his skill and demeanor.
He takes plenty of time so ensure that you understand all the factors
that affect your condition. He then
used a scalpel and tweezers to remove non-productive tissue that was down deep
and hiding under the edges. The
increased blood flow should foster better healing.
The good news is that no infection was evident and I won’t need to take
antibiotics right now. The doctor
explained that when the body senses a wound, it instructs the kidneys to release
more salt and allow the retention of fluids in anticipation of a loss. The result can be increases in fluid build up in the legs
called edema. This condition can
result in the decrease of circulation. Dr.
Hull recommended that I wear a compression sock to help reduce the fluid buildup
and promote the circulation that will enhance healing. Dr. Hull’s office is in the Memorial Plaza in Marsh Harbour.
If you need medical attention, I highly recommend that you see him.
While in town, we looked for compression
socks to no avail, bought some bandages and medical supplies, and did our
grocery shopping. 02/13/08 WEDNESDAY
BOAT HARBOUR, MARSH HARBOUR, ABACOS, BAHAMAS Our meeting with Kevie, the resort
activities manager, was postponed from 9am to 9:30.
As we stood in front of the office, Judy saw a small boat that appeared
to be bumping into AMARSE’s bow. We
ran out to assist only to find that the runabout had lost power and was blown in
against the pilings with its t-top caught on our bow anchor.
Fortunately, there was no apparent damage to either vessel.
The dockhands managed to pull it free using
this Boston Whaler. All’s well
that ends well.
Along with Jim Fenn (FENNDERS), Judy and I
proposed the meal menu and setup for the March Sock Hop party.
Kevie will coordinate and price the suggestions and get back to us. Judy
was at ODYSSEY doing jewelry making while I rested my leg.
We had been unable to find any compression stockings in town so I have
been using an ACE bandage to provide the tension and compression helping to
control the edema. This
afternoon, the Annual General Meeting was called to order.
A large number of members attended the event.
Fred and Sherry from CHIPKA FIRE III, a fabulous center-cockpit
Island Packet, were on hand to get the latest club news.
The members of the “Bridge” gave their
annual reports to the membership.
Vice Commodore, Margo Caldy, (PIZZAZZ),
guided the meeting under the direction of Commodore Robert Wilson (SEA ISLAND
GIRL).
After many years, Linda Gassman (LINDA G
II) resigned from her role as Rear Commodore of Membership.
We owe Linda a special debt of gratitude, as she was our guiding light
into the yacht club. We had met her
in the Solomons, Maryland where she touted the joy of membership and gave us our
application papers.
This is the Bridge for the 2008 year.
(Front
L-to-R) David Bauereis, Karen O’Brien, Rich Fickes, Jim Fenn, Ray Vallerie. (Rear
L-to-R) Ted Baker, Margo Caldy, Commodore Robert Wilson, Kathy Fenn and Rita
Wieczorek.
Following the meeting, Steve, Paul, and Tom
served soft drinks and wine. Cheese
and cracker trays were provided for snacking.
Later that afternoon, I watched the cartoon
DVD feature of ROBOTS. Judy was
busy working on the jewelry projects aboard ODYSSEY. 02/14/08 THURSDAY
BOAT HARBOUR, MARSH HARBOUR, ABACOS, BAHAMAS HAPPY
VALENTINE’S DAY
Another gorgeous day greeted the Abacos this morning.
After her morning walk, Judy and I put the dinghy atop the sunroof with
the able help of Paul Graham. Paul
is always ready, willing, and cheerful about helping the fellow boaters. While
Judy and Sue crafted the jewelry items, Paul got us sandwich lunches from the
Corner Deli and served them in the pilothouse of ODYSSEY.
You should see downstairs, the tables are full of jewelry stuff.
It is fun to see Judy and Sue having so much fun together. As you
know, I’ve been frustrated with lousy internet connections here.
Paul rode his motor scooter into town to pick up a WiFi Booster for me. Hopefully the pricy little item will improve our service and
slow down the stomach acids. I
submitted the pictures of the AGM to Rita (MAGNUM OPUS) for use in the
newsletter. We
were right on time for our dinner reservations at The Angler’s Restaurant here
at the Abaco Beach Resort. We were fortunate to be seated with Robert and Carolyn Wilson
(SEA ISLAND GIRL). Judy and Carolyn
are the real flowers in this picture.
For us, everyday is Valentine’s Day.
The resort chefs prepared a wonderful and
special menu for this Valentine’s celebration.
Starting with a fresh Lobster Bisque and followed by a Carpaccio of
Tomato and Mozzarella, the main entrees of Lobster or Filet Mignon were
wonderfully presented. Set on the
dessert plate was a richly decedent chocolate treat resting on decorative
raspberry swirls. Robert
and Carolyn have so much to smile about, the best being each other.
Madeline and Tom O’Mara (front) and
Eileen Ambrosini and Joe DeMaris enjoyed dinner and wine at their table.
Judy is my very special love and
Valentine’s dream. She always
makes me feel like I’m the luckiest man in the world.
Back aboard AMARSE, we enjoyed the first
two episodes of the Sopranos DVD, Season 5 series. 02/15/08 FRIDAY
BOAT HARBOUR, MARSH HARBOUR, ABACOS, BAHAMAS The daytime was occupied with walking and
jewelry making for Judy. Here in Boat Harbour and with the Royal
Marsh Harbour Yacht Club, the days go by but the parties never end. Tonight was the Big One.
The Commodore’s Ball was the spectacle that everyone was waiting for.
The event has been sold out for weeks now and those fortunate enough to
get some of the 166 tickets donned their outfits to represent the theme of
“Black and White”. Now in this
yacht club, it doesn’t necessarily mean society dinner styles or tuxedos and
gowns. If you wore anything in
Black and White, you were in good company.
Many were elegant and all were tasteful.
Judy and Rita Wieczorek (MAGNUM OPUS)
represented and defined the elegant.
Robert and Rita Wieczorek (MAGNUM OPUS) are
always very active and they are adored by all the members of the RMHYC group.
Fred Reed and Judy Law (AMARSE) enjoyed the
entire "black and white" theme event.
The decorative arrangements gave the
Marquis room a light and charming flair.
Bob and Judy Williams (SHADE MOR) always
spread happiness and cheer with their delightful smiles.
While maintaining the Black and White
theme, Jim Fenn (FENNDERS) dressed with a unique, nautical style. An avid fisherman, Jim always manages enough time and energy
to direct all of the club’s social events.
You gotta love his style!
Joe, Eileen, Tom, and Madeline savored the
Chicken Marsala dinner, enjoyed the wine and cocktails, and danced the night
away to their favorite tunes.
With a beautiful babe on each arm, Paul
Graham is the envy of the crowd. What
do you think he's got to make these gals smile like this?
As the music played on, the dancers filled
the floor.
Wilma
Thornton (JOHN HENRY) has some inexhaustible source of dancing energy.
Her husband, Wink, can hardly get a moments rest before she drags him out
again.
When Wink nearly collapses, Wilma and Judy
shake it up.
Everyone had such a great time. The organizers, Kathy Sales (LO KEE) and Susan Vallerie (LAST
DANCE) did such a magnificent job with all the setup and planning.
Thanks! Thanks! Thanks!
Judy jumped at the coveted opportunity to
dance with the Commodore at his special night.
A great party for a great Commodore.
02/16/08 SATURDAY
BOAT HARBOUR, MARSH HARBOUR, ABACOS, BAHAMAS The fact that we had been out quite late
last evening did not deter us from being ready at 8:20am for a ferry to
Man-O-War Cay. Two boatloads of
folks left Boat Harbour on special ferry runs to attend the annual town fair.
The DONNIE VII from Albury’s Ferry
Service embarked us at their main dock.
The event touted a couple of hundred
vendors and a couple of thousand visitors for this special fund raising
occasion. Vendors donate a portion
of their sales to the charity. Sue
Graham (ODYSSEY) was there early to secure a prime location for her table of
jewelry. Judy had help make some of
those pretty items.
These sand dollars have been artistically
adorned with bits of sea glass and colorful little shells.
Sue makes some of them into delicate necklaces.
Lovely, isn’t it?
The food vendors did a brisk business and
the event was considered a success.
Judy and I, along with Joe and Eileen, had
lunch together at the Hibiscus Café. This
is the only restaurant on the island. It
might also interest you to know that there are no alcoholic beverages sold on
this small island cay. Judy
returned to help Sue with customer sales for a while.
It was a pleasant surprise to meet up with Dave Elliot at the fair.
He is our favorite boat mechanic and lives in Port St. Lucie, Florida.
He and his wife are spending a week on Elbow Cay with friends. We
caught the 1:30pm ferry bound for Boat Harbour.
I was tired enough for a lengthy nap in the afternoon. 02/17/08 SUNDAY
BOAT HARBOUR, MARSH HARBOUR, ABACOS, BAHAMAS
On Sunday mornings, Judy usually stays here
with me for a nice breakfast together. I
decided to cook up a skillet of “Rosti”.
It is traditionally prepared in a heavy skillet for pan grilling chunks
of diced potatoes. Rösti
is a potato dish from Switzerland. It was originally a common breakfast eaten by
farmers in the canton of Bern, but today is eaten all over Switzerland. Many
Swiss people consider rösti a national dish.
We first fell in love with it during our visit to Switzerland some years
ago. This time, I grilled some
slices of Spam as a meat side. With a
generous invitation from Scott and Mary Coles, we boarded MASCOT, a Mainship 390
trawler, departing at 11am for the 1 ½ hour trip to Great Guana Cay.
Judy and Mary helped secure the lines to
the dock pilings.
Sunday’s at Nipper’s Beach Bar are
always special because of their weekly pig roast.
Today was extra special because of an appearance by Bahamian singer,
Stone McEwan. The folks love this
guy and he will be the opening act for the huge Barefoot Man Concert scheduled
for March 2nd.
Even the beach was active with swimmers on
this warm, sunny afternoon.
With a souvenir t-shirt for me and a nice,
pink cover-up jumper for Judy in the carry bag, we re-boarded MASCOT at 4pm for
the return to Boat Harbour.
This is a view of Great Guana Cay harbour
as taken from our transient dock. The
long dock is where private vessels and the ferry can unload passengers.
Mary took her stint at the wheel on the
trip back.
For dinner, I prepared linguine in a light,
creamy butter sauce. Although I preferred mine plain, I added some breast of
chicken to Judy’s. As
chairperson for the upcoming Sock Hop, I prepared copy material for broadcast
and had the draft OK’d by Jim Fenn. 02/18/08 MONDAY
BOAT HARBOUR, MARSH HARBOUR, ABACOS, BAHAMAS HAPPY
PRESIDENTS’ DAY (USA only) Shortly after 8am, the RMHYC radio program
anchor called for my broadcast over the VHF radio on Channel 78.
Having written the advance copy, I placed the invitation for the big Sock
Hop Party to be held on March 11th.
I received numerous positive comments on my style and presentation.
The most important thing will be for us to have a huge turnout for the
event. It’s going to be fun! We
were on time for my 10:30am appointment with Dr. Hull.
He recognized a slow, positive improvement without any complication of
infection. He skillfully removed
additional non-productive tissue called “sluff” using a scalpel and
tweezers. He also prescribed a
diuretic to reduce fluid build up. Sounds like good advice to me. While
in town, we located Lowe’s Pharmacy. Because
their sign is down, only a large banner advertising furniture is visible.
Fortunately, they had a pair of black, men’s size, medium compression
socks. Just what I wanted.
The other pharmacy, The Chemist Shop, filled my prescription. I
purchased two more USB cables in 10-foot increments for the WiFi Booster.
When I went to install the unit on AMARSE, I determined that both new
cables were defective. Paul came to
the rescue again. He and Judy rode
the motor scooter to return the cables in exchange for a 15-foot and a 6-foot. Unfortunately, when they returned, they had picked up the
wrong 6-foot cable with two male ends. Oh
well, we’ll return that one another day. Just
back from a local cruise here in the Abacos, Fred S. tidies up CHIPKA FIRE
III. This is the only
center-cockpit Island Packet that I have ever seen.
It is beautifully equipped including electric winches, roller furling
mainsail, and even a washer/dryer.
Following cocktail time on the dock, we
were invited aboard TARHEEL for dinner. After
a mixed greens salad, Bette Bauereis prepared a sumptuous meal of Shrimp Creole
served on a bed of grits. This is
down south cooking at its finest.
Sue Graham (ODYSSEY) made the warm,
fresh bread at the center of the table. (Note
the colorful Shrimp Creole presentation.)
Judy made fresh, warm brownies topped with whipped cream for our dessert.
Bette is the anchor for the Cruisers’ Net
broadcast on Friday mornings. The
other day, I heard her cleverly announce him as, “…My dishwashing husband,
David.”
02/19/08 TUESDAY
BOAT HARBOUR, MARSH HARBOUR, ABACOS, BAHAMAS While Judy was out for her morning exercise
walk, Eileen Ambrosini, Tom, and Madeline O’Mara were busy packing up to
return to southern New Jersey and all that icy cold weather.
As their plane was leaving, another plane was bringing Joe and Phyllis
Newkirk to Marsh Harbour for their week with Joe DeMaris aboard ADAMAS DE MARIS. Most
of the day, I helped Galen Siler with computer stuff like transferring and
storing photos. With all the
different operating systems and special programs that each computer uses, it is
a challenge to figure it all out. Judy
went with Paul on the scooter to exchange the cable and came back with the
correct one. There is a marked
improvement in the internet with this Power Booster.
At 5:30 pm, the dock members had a very
nice cocktail hour. Dinner was
nothing less than spectacular. Robert
Wilson had shared some fresh Dolphin fillets with us.
I pan grilled them in butter with lemon.
Judy made rice pilaf for our side dish.
It was fantastic. Need I say
more? We
have already completed two episodes from the Sopranos series, Season 5. 02/20/08 WEDNESDAY
BOAT HARBOUR, MARSH HARBOUR, ABACOS, BAHAMAS There was no interruption in Judy’s
walking routine today. I wish I
could say the same for the internet service.
It has been terrible to non-existent all day.
Apparently, the WiFi wireless signal has been OK, however, no one has had
much success with the Network Connection to the Internet Provider (IP). With
our old friend, Joe Newkirk, here on ADAMAS DE MARIS, I spent quite a bit of
time visiting with them. I took the
opportunity on this peaceful day to run the engines for over a half hour just to
circulate some oil and fluids. When
evening approached, Sue Graham came out of ODYSSEY all dolled up to beat the
band. They have been invited to
attend a lovely anniversary party for Amy and John Piperato (KIMBERLY ANN).
The event was being held at Winding Bay Resort south of Marsh Harbour. Doesn’t she look terrific?
The Commodore, Robert Wilson, was dressed
to the hilt in his sharp tropicals for a special evening somewhere.
Judy and I were invited aboard JOHN HENRY,
a Great Harbor 47, to help celebrate the birthday for Jim.
Jim is a guest of Andy Allen aboard SEA DEE, a Great Harbor N37. (L-to-R)
Judy Law (AMARSE), sea dog “Sara” (JOHN HENRY), Oliver and Sally (1
OLIVER 2), and Mary Coles (MASCOT).
(L-to-R) Scott Coles (MASCOT), Pat and Pat
(SALTY DAWG), and Judy Law (AMARSE).
Wilma and Wink Thornton (JOHN HENRY)
provided this nice German Chocolate cake.
Although I didn’t manage to get a picture
of the birthday boy, I did manage to get this shot of his host Captain, Andy
Allen (SEA DEE). Take a good look
because he has since cut off his beard and cut his hair real short.
The rest of that gang went to the Jib Room
for Wednesday evening Rib Night. Judy
and I decided to stay in tonight and I cooked large, cheese raviolis served with
a walnut, butter, and balsamic vinegar reduction. Sometime
after 8 pm, the initial effects of the maximum lunar eclipse could be seen with
the naked eye. My attempts to
capture it with my small camera were not exactly stellar, as shown by my result.
Taken from an internet file photo of a
previous lunar eclipse, the overall event would have appeared much like the
arc-shaped time progression. At
about 10 pm here in the Bahamas, the orangish-golden color was clearly evident.
The eclipse totality lasted about 50 minutes. With good optics, it would
probably have looked like the center of this photo.
Reportedly, the whole event took 3 hours and 26 minutes.
It was really cool since we won’t have another opportunity for many
years.
This concludes this edition of the AMARSE
Update logs. We hope you will join
us again soon for more adventures during the month of February.
POST
SCRIPT: We sincerely hope that you will
review the previous years of compilations to give context to the current
editions. Please let us know if you
have any special suggestions and thoughts. We
thank those of you who have contacted us recently and we are looking forward to
hearing from each of you in the near future.
Thanks for allowing us to share our life and adventures with you. REMEMBER:
The website is now fully active and
you can visit it at any time. You
can review any of the 2006, 2007, or the upcoming 2008 logs and learn more about
the crew and our plans. Enjoy.
ATTENTION: SPECIAL NOTE:
You may contact us via email. Our
cell phones have been turned OFF. We
do have occasional SKYPE connections at ‘amarse1’. "AMARSE".
is pronounced "AM-ARE-SAY". Our website is: www.amarse.net
. Thanks Lot of
Love, Fred Reed
and Judy Law AMARSE MT40
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