Splashed!

Splashed!
Or rather, slipped, since we are in English Harbor, at Antigua
Slipway where they gently lower the boats on tracks into the
water, rather than picking them up and throwing them in with
a Travelift. This means if there is a problem (engine won't
start, packing gland starts dripping) they can quickly slip you
back out again.
Fortunately, neither of the aforementioned bad things happened,
this time, so we were free to come up to the dock alongside for
another week of waiting for parts to be replaced and the life
raft to be repacked. Tomorrow the riggers will come and put
the wind instrument back on and tell us what the problem was
that they saw last spring and when they can fix it (and of course
how much that will cost.) Tomorrow we hope there will be a magic
answer to our dying radar-chartplotter at the helm, but we doubt
it. Fortunately, the one below works, so maybe we can swap them
for the trip back. Or learn to sail and navigate by traditional
means.
Naturally, our to-do list seems not to have gotten any shorter
after working at it hammer and tongs since we got here a week
ago, but this is a very comfortable place to be while we sort
things out. Our favorite hang-out restaurant Johnny CocoNat
was sold by Nat to a genial Canadian Sicilian who has renamed
it Paparazzi. His wife is an even better cook than Nat, so our
need for an evening meal that requires no work other than to
sit quietly until food comes has been filled. (No one much likes
to cook on this boat if they've been working since seven in the
morning.)
We hope to be on our way north and west in another week.
We took a break Sunday and watched the Superbowl at Paparazzi.
It didn't go so well for the Pats, as everyone knows. Today
we saw an elderly tourist in Nelson's Dockyard (Lord,not Ozzie).
The Patriots logo had been painted or decaled on his left forearm
from elbow to wrist. We made no comment, since really there
was nothing to say.
Lots of sunshine, some rain. We will see condo neighbors Jim
and Claire Saturday midday, as they drop by the Dockyard as an
excursion from their Caribbean cruise on the Love Boat out of
Baltimore. We can show off Horizons—or get some advice from
Jim on any of those pesky to-do list items that haven't been
solved by Saturday.+