I’ve been meaning to post about the return of Capt K and Wee Happy, but truthfully I haven’t gotten around to it since he returned a week ago. He had smooth sailing all the way up here, with the exception of a few thunderstorms they managed to dodge at sea. He and Ryan both got in a little sailing fix and looked super salty when they got back.
Wee Happy is now anchored next to Way Happy and we are starting to get her ready to sell. More details to follow on that soon. Being back on Wee Happy really make us appreciate how WAY happier we are on Way Happy!!! So much more comfort and space on our new boat!
They returned just in time for the next most exciting thing to happen at the marina since the sinking of the dredging barge. The arrival of the HMS Bounty. This celebrity tall ship, which has been in movies like Pirates of the Carribean, is truly a sight to behold.

It created quite the fanfare arriving into St. Augustine.

She stayed all weekend while throngs of people came out to see her. The crew of the Black Raven toured the boat yesterday. Here are a few pics of us on the Bounty.

Lala at the helm!

Nice ass/>

The pirate crew.

So many lines!!

And, from our dinghy, a view up the ladys dress very few people get to see!!

Capt K and Ryan are out in the Gulf Stream sailing, and what exciting news do I have to report here?  Well, the most exciting thing to happen at the City Marina since we arrived in November is going on right now, and those poor boys are missing it. 

For the last 6 weeks or so, there has been a big dredging operation going on at the marina.  A huge barge with a Caterpillar on top of it has been scooping out silt and sediment which has been accumulating in the inner basin of the marina.  To give you an idea of how shallow it was getting, I used to run aground in our dinghy at low tide near the dinghy dock! 

The other day I was coming to shore in the dinghy and noticed the barge was partially submerged under water.  Hmmm, that looks strange, I thought.  It appears to be sinking.  The guys working on the barge didn’t look too stressed, however, and I shrugged it off.  Later that day I returned to find the whole barge under water, with only the Caterpillar sticking out.  It sank!!!  It would be hilarious if it weren’t so pathetic.

They have been trying to pump water out for 2 days now to raise it to no avail, and it seems to be anyones guess how they plan to deal with it from here.  Meanwhile the whole fiasco is the talk of the marina. 

And if that weren’t enough excitement, there is some kind of Nordic Tug convention going on and the marina is full of adorable boats like these:

Yesterday Cap’t K and our friend Ryan left to go to the Florida Keys to get Wee Happy, our “other” sailboat.  Wee Happy, who has been lonely and awaiting our return for many months now, is coming up to St. Augustine to be with us at last.  Cap’t K and Ryan are sailing her up here, where we can work on her to get her ready to sell this summer.  It will be a fun time for both of them I’m sure, and hopefully soon I will have photos from them to post of their journey.  It was great of Ryan to offer to help Cap’t K sail the boat up here, although I know he had his own motives of itching to be out on the water again.  He is working on his boat now and hasn’t sailed for awhile either.

Meanwhile I am left behind in St. Augustine alone, working my butt off, while those two are off on a sailing adventure.  It’s not so bad though…I needed some alone time anyway, and hey, I just got back from the beach.  There is a glorious beach here in St. Augustine that stretches on for miles.  They don’t have that in the Keys!  And the spring weather has been splendid here, with lots of flowers in full bloom, including expansive amounts of blooming jasmine that fills the streets with intoxicating scent.

I have a new pirate accessory too…..a dagger!  Who knew I would ever have a job where I would be excited to get one of these.  It goes nicely with the jasmine, don’t you think?

I haven’t written much about my pirate job….I have been on the ship about 3 days a week.  My role right now is photographer — I take pictures of the tourists with pirates, print them out on our nifty on board printer, and sell the photos for 12 bucks each.  Pretty easy, although not really authentically pirate-y.  I’ve been working towards my big debut as a singer/entertainer.  I have been praticing a solo (a different one than the one I did for the first audition) and I will be singing it solo for the crowd for the first time on Thursday.  I am expanding my horizons a lot by soloing, as it is not something I have ever done or even wanted to do in the past.  But it feels exciting now! 
Here are a few shots of my coworker pirates out for grog after yesterdays show. We pirates do love to drink, affter all!

Ahoy!!!!

We just made a major upgrade to our boat.  We got a king sized bed!  How did we do that, you ask?  Way Happy isn’t THAT big?!!

Capt K created a wooden insert to put between the full size fold out bed and the bench in the main salon.  It just happens that the space between the two is the same size as the back rest cushions, so we place those over the insert and voila!  The whole cabin has just been transformed into a giant bed!  This means that, besides a great improvement to our love life (we will spare you the details, but trust me, its WAY better), we are sleeping so very much better.  We can sprawl out and not feel cramped and crowded like we did in the v-berth.  We have been waking up happier and feel pretty darn excited about this improvement!

Our onboard garden

We got a great multi tiered planter at the farmers market and now we have our own salad garden on Way Happy!  So far the plants seem very happy and the design of the planter takes up very little space, so we are happy with it too.