I met some Polish guys who broke some of their rigging (Starboard Upper). They didn’t speak English very well; however one of them spoke Russian. My Russian was better then his English, so I was really their only option. They seemed so helpless not speaking English. I really need to work on my Spanish & French to survive better on this trip. I grew up in a European family where 5 languages were spoken at the table, talk about confusing.

It started raining hard around 17:00 and gusting over 35Kts. I fiddled with the SSB receiver and managed to get a weather fax, I could barely read it.

Didn’t go ashore today. I did some cleaning, and polished some of the stainless, it was looking rather poor. One of the locals told me to use Sno-Blo toilet bowl cleaner for my stainless, and for rust stains on the fiberglass, and boy was he right. It works better then on-an-off, and costs under $3.00 a bottle. It’s by far the best stainless cleaner I’ve found yet.

I’ve been really tired lately, I can’t ever seem to find any energy. I think it’s the heat and confinement of the boat. One of my friends told me that you sleep a lot when cruising, it’s true.

I started a new book today (Wind from the Carolinas), about the Loyalist migration from the Carolinas to the Bahamas, it’s pretty thick; I hope it takes my mind off of the wind.

I took off with one of my Canadian friends (Josée) to do some shopping and try and get a prop for my outboard. A cab would have cost $20-25.00 usd each way, so we opted for a bus ($1.00). I knew we weren’t in Kansas any more when I saw the bus driver drinking a Guinness with his buddies up front. They were trashed, dancing, stripping, blaring reggae (Bob Marley), it was so damn funny. At one point the driver jumped out of the bus to take a leek behind a tree, his buddy jumped in his seat and took over driving for a few blocks. They had a case of empty Guinness bottles under the seat which broke open and the empty bottles were rolling around the bus. One of the guys collected all the bottles, and threw the case and empties on the side of the road. It was funnier more then anything neither of us could stop laughing. They were so damn drunk.

The Yamaha dealer didn’t have the prop I needed so we went to the supermarket, the next two bus rides were a bit more laid back. We had dinner aboard their boat, they were staying at a marina, and I snuck a fresh water shower on shore and did some laundry, wow was that nice.

I borrowed Monsters Inc. from one of the kids and headed back to the boat for a movie.

It’s still blowing over 25 knots.