SailingKnitter

Here's a photo of Jonesy surveying his latest "catch". We had another southerly wind storm this week and look at what we caught! Another sailboat, this time a monohull. Can we keep it? This sailboat had been at anchor for quite some time, and survived previous storms without dragging, but this wasn't his lucky day.

Lucky for us though, he was on board his boat and several fellow cruisers who were hanging out at the bar joined in to hold him off of our bow. I'm wondering if we should install a "cow-catcher" like they have on the front of locomotives? Anyway, no damages so all is good.

Oh..also note in the photo above our beautiful anchor chain which is laid out on the deck. We had it re-galvanized so it would last a few more years. Jonesy had it folded in 25 foot lengths and has painted it: red=25ft, blue=50ft, green=75ft, white with gold stripes=100ft, 200ft, 300ft. Next, he attached matching color "tie-wraps/cable-ties" to each colored area. That way he can know exactly how many feet of chain he has released when we drop the anchor.

Here's a photo of all 450 pounds/318 feet of size 3/8ths chain loaded into the chain locker at the very tippy pointy (bow) part of our boat. Whew! There's a big (and expensive for the galvanizing at US$600) chore crossed off the list. Do we know how to have fun or what?

Another chore for us this week was to return to Baranquilla to pick up our new US passports. No biggie - we now know how to ride the buses here. Along the way we kept our eyes open for anteaters, but we didn't see any. Yep. There are warning signs all along the road with an illustration of a giant anteater like those deer caution signs back in the states. We could see many, many ant hills out in the fields - cones about 1 foot high - but no anteaters. Dang.

Long bus rides = mucho knitting time. Remember the ugly self-patterning yarn I overdyed with brown? Well here are the finished socks. I am quite pleased with the results and will be be overdying some more offensive sock yarn soon!

More socks, this time I'm using the current pattern Cloud Socks by Rebecca A (Becbec on Ravelry) from the Six Sox Knitalong yahoo group. I was searching Rav for an idea of what to knit with my Regia 6-ply and came across the socks that another Raveler had knit with this yarn. Lo and behold - I'm already a member of this yahoo group so I cast on immediately. This is a self-striping yarn, yet the short row areas of the pattern create the "clouds" of color and make 3-Dimensional waves in the fabric. I'm loving it. The pattern is written for all weights of yarns and is currently free. I received this yarn as a contest prize last year from the Mittens For Akkol yahoo group so naturally I'm turning around and knitting these socks for the kids in the Akkol Orphanage.

Okay - gotta get ready for the Mexican Train Domino game this afternoon, then trot up to the store and get some meat to toss onto the grill for the Cruisers' Potluck BBQ at 6pm today. See ya!