May 3, 2003 ----- Well! Circe has now been thoroughly scrubbed. The entire inside has been emptied, rinsed, scrubbed with bleach and soap, rinsed, then hosed out with fresh water, then sprayed with bleach. There is one pest control person on the island, and as of yet he still hasn’t shown up. Luckily, while cleaning everything out, I found a ‘bug bomb’, which is good for a room 25 x 25, so I think Circe qualifies. I figure that by the time I put all the stuff back in, I’ll set the bomb and be pretty much ok. Two nights ago I though that I’d be safe in sleeping inside, in the forward cabin…oh was I ever wrong! At that point, the forward two thirds was finished, and of course I hadn’t seen any insect activity in the forward cabin at all for quite a while. I settled in with a good book and read about fifteen pages or so when I heard flapping. A two-inch bugger came flying in from the rear, landing on my legs and then sprinting around. I bumped my head and elbow pretty well scrambling up and dashing for the Raid. Got him. Her. Whatever… Twenty pages or so later, which took a lot longer to finish as I kept getting spooked by any sound, I spy another one, probably the first one’s twin, cruising along the ceiling, heading towards me. Squirt! Got it. I decide to do a little inspection and discover two more that when spotted disappeared down the finger hole of the access panel that covers the forward water tank. Aha! I squirt Raid down the hole, then spray the hell out of the entire area from other angles and feel pretty confident that nothing could survive down there… After the next incursion landed on my feet as well, I decided that I’d had enough of sleeping inside. I got that one, too, and decided to just stay where I was, legs bent, feet a little closer, and did a little spot check every ten pages or so, to hopefully stay ahead. I nearly finished my book and then dragged my stuff outside into the cockpit, hooked up the mosquito net and went to sleep. I’d decided that was the place to stay for the duration, even though as of last night I hadn’t been able to find ANY roaches at all, not even dead ones. Well, the entire time I’ve been here it’s been very windy, with roiling clouds overhead on and off, echoing a weather system that’s in Venezuela, only about 60 miles away. Last night it decides to cut loose with a severe shower. Mind you, everything that was formerly IN the boat is now ON the boat, along the pier/dock and in the dinghies. Oh well, a little fresh water rinse won’t hurt anything at this point, that’s for sure. I snagged the blanket I was sleeping on and retreated to the relative safety of the dodger and waited for the shower to pass. No harm done, I just woke up a little damp, as is everything else… On other fronts, I met a nice couple that has a boat down at the far end of the dock, John and Brenda. We’d talked a bit on and off, them commenting on the progress and so forth, but never really had much conversation. This past week there was a two-day holiday that I wasn’t aware of, and therefore hadn’t prepared for, and ran out of bleach. Brenda loaned me some (just when I thought I had a good excuse for a break) and when I took some back I started talking with John, who was working on his dinghy on deck of their boat. His dinghy was a Carolina Skiff, which are all over the Chesapeake, extremely popular boats, and I said, ‘Oh! I haven’t seen a Carolina Skiff in a long time! They’re great boats!’ He agreed and we started talking about all kinds of stuff. Making a long story short, as I was there for a couple hours (!), he asked what I was planning and I told him of how I was returning to the States to sell Circe, then building straw bale houses in Mexico. They, the owners of Carolina Skiffs as it turns out, have been cruising for 26 years and are returning to Texas, where thirty miles out of San Antonio they have purchased 100 acres and are planning to build a home.I was the second person to have mentioned straw bales houses to them, and being very intrigued I answered question after question. I loaned them a book on board and they are completely excited to build a straw bale home. It’s just the style and type of home they were trying to find. The next question they asked was ‘When can you come to San Antonio and build us a house?’ of course. : ) I think this is going to be a very good business… On another note, last night we had dinner at a little barbecue place in town and a diving friend of theirs joined us. She’s from Venezuela and told me that it’s not even safe to visit right now, which was a disappointment. She said that there have been constant stories and reports of people being robbed on their boats literally as they are arriving. The good news is that I’ve discovered another four bottles of Aniversario rum that were tucked away, so I think I have enough. For now. Back to the task of cleaning everything and putting it back in now… -Tom Note to Mah Jong: 4,992 characters! : )
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