Ground Hog Day, Cruising Style

The local weatherman for the Northwest Caribbean Net, Bob on s/v Tempest, has been announcing for a couple of weeks now that 'Paco the Weather Dog' was going to be our Ground Hog Day forecaster. We happen to be sharing the West End anchorage with them, so they invited everyone over at dawn today to watch Paco poke his head out the forehatch to see if he could see his shadow. But knowing that cruisers don't often get up at dawn for anything but an early departure, they invited us all over for a 'Ground Hog Day Reception' at 9am, complete with coffee and cinnamon bread.

Paco (a chihuahua) was appropriately dressed in a fancy Mexican sombrero and cape. He greeted all the visitors with a sharp little "arf!"

Paco the Ground Hog
We had a nice time visiting with the other boaters in the anchorage, including Mike and Sue from Infini, Karen and Mike from Beau Soleil, Mike and Robin from Sea Biscuit, and Tom and Crissie from Rock n Roll.

I somehow came down with Strep Throat a couple of days ago, so we haven't been diving for the last couple of days. Yesterday I was mostly 'out of it'... feeling really yucky, taking Tylenol for pain, and sleeping it off. Fortunately, Mike on Infini is a doctor and he confirmed (sort of) my self-diagnosis, and we had the appropriate meds on board.

So I started self-medicating yesterday about noon (when it became obvious that the throat issue was getting pretty severe, and wasn't just a normal cold-cycle sore throat). I could have taken a bus into 'the big city' on Roatan, Coxen Hole, and *maybe* found someone at the clinic, and then gotten the diagnosis that it's probably Strep and I should probably take antibiotics. But I've had Strep before and I was pretty certain that's what it was. When my friend the doc said "I can't tell by looking, without taking a throat culture." It seemed a good bet to go ahead and take the antibiotics. I felt much better this morning, and tonight I feel almost 100%. We've already planned a morning dive for tomorrow.

While I was sick yesterday, Dave spent the day doing lots of small projects, and crossed about 4 of them off his list. He was a happy camper last night, and even made dinner for us, so I didn't have to cook.