We settled in and started working to get the boat ready for the overnight trip to Kona. The swell is very high over there right now, but we hope to move to an anchorage on that side of the island some time this week. John got out the new spool of line from Fisheries to make new jib sheets so that he could stow the rest of the line under the quarter berth. We had moved everything out of the quarter berth to make room for an overnight visit from our friend, Tammy, who's visiting her parents over in Kona. She drove to Hilo on Friday, we visited Akaka Falls, the Lili'uokalani Gardens, and Banyan Drive before returning to Nakia in time for a cruiser's Happy Hour at the picnic table on shore. This was kind of a farewell get-together because most of us were moving on to other places after spending a month in Radio Bay. The next day we rode with Tammy to Waimea for lunch and a walk around town before saying goodbye to her and catching a bus back to Hilo.
Earlier last week John spent a day doing sail repairs for Bill on Quest and he in turn spent a day going up the mast to help us remove and replace two shrouds, the forestay, and the backstay. Having his help saved John a lot of work!
We took a break from projects one afternoon to buy a brand new 19" DTV and last night we watched an episode of Nature on PBS about hummingbirds that was just breathtaking in high definition. We get about eight channels which is plenty.
I returned to the boat early Thursday evening to find all eyes from S/V Lap To on Nakia. Ziggy had been playing on Relax's dinghy tied to Lap To (Helmut and Kerstin are huge cat fans and had Z over for several play dates). The dinghy is much larger than ours and we suspect Ziggy thought he could make the jump to Nakia from the dinghy. Everyone heard the splash and, without a single meow, Ziggy was up the stern rescue rope and back on board Nakia in a flash. I arrived in time to feed the shower hose out our forward hatch so John could rinse Z with fresh water before he began the arduous task of drying himself off with his tongue.
He seemed to recover completely from his short swim so we doubt the events are related, but last night we noticed Ziggy making frequent, lengthy, and unproductive visits to his litter box. John was able to get on the internet only to read that 24-36 hours of blockage can be fatal, and by 10 PM John was on the phone to a 24-hour emergency vet service. They told him we could bring Ziggy in but it was complicated by the fact that we're now anchored out and are still unfamiliar with any potential dinghy landings nearby (not to mention it's a mostly rocky shore and it was pitch black out). So John called Security in Radio Bay to ask permission to land our dinghy there and get an escort to the gate where we could have a taxi meet us. To our immense surprise and gratitude they said we could do that so we put Ziggy in his crate for the dinghy trip. We called for a taxi and arrived at the vet's office by 11 PM. The vet examined him and said that Z's bladder was the size of a tennis ball so they kept him overnight to put him on a catheter, antibiotics, and fluids. We got a call this morning that he's doing well, but we're still waiting for the test results to find what caused it. It will probably mean moving him to a higher quality pet food to prevent a reoccurrence. We both hate to think what would have happened had we been in the Marquesas (where the closest vet is in Tahiti) or on passage, but I'm afraid it's something we're going to have to think about before we leave Hawaii.
Linda