Good thing I enjoy taking photos

When was the last time you backed up your computer? If it was more than a day or so ago, I recommend doing it today. Seriously! DO IT!

For the last couple of weeks I have had this nagging feeling that I should back up my laptop but I ignored it, in spite of the fact that my computer has been acting a little wonky. Can you guess where this is leading? Two days ago, after taking three separate tries to boot up my computer (I said it was acting wonky), I opened my iPhoto application to find that all of my photos newer than 2006 had disappeared. Yes, 5 years of pics, about 10,000 or so, gone. Fortunately we do have a backup drive and I was able to restore the files. Unfortunately the most current backup was from June 23rd so I lost a month’s worth of images. As you can imagine, I wasn’t too happy about that but when compared to losing 5 years of photos, it was pretty easy to take. I guess we’ll just have to try to recreate everything we’ve done in the last month and take the photos again. Good thing I enjoy photography.

After being stationary for about 6 weeks, our plan is to move ZTC tomorrow. To be closer to all of the Carnival activities, we had booked ourselves into the Port Louis Marina for the month of August. When the opportunity arose to sail to Carriacou on the schooner Coral, we contacted the marina and asked if we could shift our stay there to arrive a week earlier, which would be tomorrow. Getting the boat ready to move again after sitting in one spot for so long takes a bit of work. Yesterday, for the second time since anchoring in Hog Island, Rebecca and I put our masks, snorkels and fins on and got in the water to scrub the bottom of the boat. This is a pretty nasty job as we come out of the water covered from head to toe with tiny little krill (I think that’s what they are).

Visualize being covered in about a million of these guys!

• Tip: We were told to squirt a bit of vinegar or rubbing alcohol in our ears after getting out of the water to kill any of the little buggers that might have gotten in there. Rest assured that we have heeded that advice.

Today we need to clean our anchor rode. Because we have been sitting stationary in the water for so long, there is considerable growth on the line/chain attached to our anchor. Our plan is to shorten our rode a bit at a time today, scrubbing off the moss and barnacles as we bring it in. Once it is clean, we’ll redeploy it to the proper scope. By getting this done today, we’ll have a much quicker and easier time getting out of here tomorrow morning.

• Tip from our friends: For those who have all chain rodes, or at least more chain than we currently have, a solution to scrubbing the chain manually is to put out extra chain a day or so before you plan to leave. The growth typically only occurs on the chain from the sea floor to the surface of the water as the chain lying along the bottom scrubs itself as the boat swings at anchor. By putting out extra chain, you give the part with the moss on it the same opportunity to scrub itself on the bottom. Unfortunately, we can’t test this out ourselves.