…and jump rope.

Today was another “fix it” day. Joe, of Tara and Joe, has a hole in his fiber (that’s what they call the long boats here). Like the one I fixed the other day in Muanaira (the second village), Joe’s boat had a hole right in the bottom about 8 inches long and 1 ½ inches wide. He’s had some foam and other stuff stuck in the hole, but they need to bail continuously to keep it from sinking. I found out and asked him if he had any glass fiber mat and he said, “Yes”. I said I had the epoxy and there you go – a partnership is once again formed.

Yep, that's a hole all right...

I had him pull it up on the beach on Saturday, turn it over and we let it dry all through Sunday. This morning I met him at 0930 and we went to work. I mixed a couple batches of epoxy and we put three or four layers of mat on. When I was finished I asked him if he would like to use the left over resin before it “kicked” on any other sections of the boat and he showed me three other small holes that were plugged with a combination of what looked like chewing gum and closed cell foam. OK, we slapped some more mat on before the resin dried and called it a day. I came back to the beach around 1600 with my battery-powered angle grinder to smooth the patches.

He was back down on the beach half an hour later (how do they know??) and launched the boat to go set a net for the night. He came past and said thanks and headed off. Orcinius called on the radio and was kind enough to let us know that through their binoculars they could see Joe and the other two guys launch the boat with “the biggest smiles imaginable!” Nice. And I forgot to say Joe gave us four lovely papayas for the effort!!

Now they can fish without having to bail constantly.

Ann’s day was supposed to be weaving with the ladies, but they were busy gathering the raw materials to do the weaving so…jump rope with the kids. And some adults. Orcinius brought in a couple jump ropes that John made and they have been quite a hit. Ann and Lisa have been showing all the kids and many of the young adults lots of different ways to jump and the songs that go with them. Much silliness was had.

Jumprope anyone?

Paradise and jumprope…not a bad combination!.