The Blue View - A Missed Opportunity

Just a day before we were scheduled to leave Guyana, we received an email from a friend telling us of the plight of the sailing vessel Charger. Charger is a tiny, unmanned boat that had been damaged on its voyage across the Atlantic, and was found adrift off the coast of Guyana by a local fisherman. Before long, we had several e-mails from other friends who had read of Charger's plight on Noonsite and knew we were in the vicinity.

Charger is owned by the students at the John Winthrop Middle School in southern Connecticut. The 5-foot, 45-pound, self-righting sailboat was launched north of the Bahamas in June 2012 to chart Atlantic currents as part of the NOAA “Drifter” program that is helping students and scientists map the oceans' currents. Charger is not only self-righting, but self-steering and self-tending as well. She has solar panels, a battery and a GPS transmitter that sends out its position every two hours. Pretty clever.

Over the next 2-1/2 years, she sailed more than 16,000 miles. (That's about the same distance we sail during a similar period of time). She was blown ashore, undamaged, on Myrtle Beach, SC. She was relaunched and next went ashore off northeastern Newfoundland. She was banged up a bit, but was repaired by the St. Johns School of Ocean Technology Marine Institute and relaunched. Her erratic, Atlantic journey continued, going ashore in Wales, then Portugal and finally ending up off the coast of Guyana in December, 2014. She's now living with the fisherman's family, awaiting either repairs or transport home. Her passages sound quite similar to ours – sail about 6,000 nm per year, stopping in exotic ports here and there for repairs, some inland travel and visiting with the locals.

After some investigation, the fisherman that found Charger was located. The battery and GPS unit were dead, making repairs difficult, and the plan was to try and find a way to transport her home. Andy Colloton of Shipwright Technical Services in Connecticut has been assisting the school in its efforts to get Charger back. He's been getting the word out to the seafaring community and is coordinating the effort to get her home. Lots of people have offered help. The U.S. Coast Guard offered to deliver it back to Connecticut if someone could get it as far as one of their Caribbean stations. Other yachties and even a pilot offered to help get the vessel from Trinidad to Puerto Rico. All that was needed was to find a way to get her from Guyana to Trinidad.

Since we were in Guyana, only 40 or so miles from Georgetown where Charger was currently residing, and were heading to Trinidad, we were obviously in a position to help out. It wouldn't be difficult to lash Charger down on our aft deck and bring her along on the passage. The only issue was the timing – we had already booked a flight out of Trinidad and the time was getting short.

We contacted Andy and the school teacher in charge of the project, and got very enthusiastic responses in reply. They fired off an email to the fisherman and we waited for his response on how best to get Charger to Nine of Cups. When there was no reply, they sent another email and we waited. And waited some more. Either the fisherman wasn't checking his email or was out fishing. We delayed our departure another three days, and when there still wasn't any response, we reluctantly checked out of Guyana and headed for Trinidad without Charger. Too bad – Charger would have been well on her way to completing the Atlantic circle following the route of the early explorers, and we would have had a couple of great blogs.

If you know anyone in Guyana or heading to Guyana by boat that could help, contact Andy and perhaps they'll be able to help transport Charger back home for repairs. She is surely getting homesick for her old friends and family.

Road Trip to Dolan Springs

According to a lottery executive and the Chicago Tribune, the U.S. Powerball lottery jackpot is the largest, single ticket jackpot in world history. We were deciding where to buy our out-of-state PowerBall tickets when Mary came across a thread about the tiny town of Dolan Springs, Arizona for purchasing tickets as an alternative to the 3-5 hour queues just over the Nevada-California border in Primm. We googled it. Dolan Springs was only about 80 miles south of Las Vegas, just down US93. What the heck? Road Trip! We piled into Mary's car around 8AM and headed down Boulder Highway. Dolan Springs … here we come. Just on the other side of the Hoover Dam, we saw the Welcome to Arizona sign.

It was a cool, clear, blue-sky morning. The Mojave Desert spread out before us. The Black Mountains, the River Mountains and the McCullough Range lined our route and provided an interesting contrast to the bleak, flat desert land. It's easy to see how this area was once the bottom of a warm inland sea millions of years ago.

We passed by a couple of small stops along the way … Rosie's Den Cafe, usually a lazy, convenient stop on US93 on the way to Grand Canyon, was inundated with cars and serpentine lines extended to the far reaches of the parking lot and into the desert.

We turned off the highway onto Pierce Ferry Road and headed east about 5 miles to Dolan Springs. There were a few cars, but not all that many. A bus was heading towards the Grand Canyon. Dolan Springs proved to be a one-horse, one road kind of town, just what you'd expect in the middle of the desert.

We pulled into the Wishing Well Saloon and Restaurant, touted on FB just hours before as an outlet for PowerBall tix and a great place for breakfast … selling tix from 6am-midnight. This had been our Dolan Springs destination. The empty parking lot and the big CLOSED sign on the door was a surprise and a disappointment, to say the least.

Luckily, across the street was the town's only other restaurant, the Canyon Cafe. A much-harried waitress told us to find a table wherever we could and handed us menus. The service was slow; the food was mediocre and pricey; and they did not sell lottery tix. Conversation with a couple of locals, however, pointed us to the only gas station in town which did sell PowerBall tix. We finished breakfast and headed to the Dolan Station, just down the road.

We hadn't even noticed the station on the way past earlier, but the lines and full parking lot caught our attention this time. Comparatively speaking, the line wasn't all that long; but it was growing. We weren't really sure of the rules of play, but veteran players were happy to give us pointers. Quick picks ... computer-generated numbers … were easy. We had a couple of “custom” orders to fill for friends which required blackening dots on a lotto card which were then fed into the PowerBall machine by the counter attendant. We waited in line.

We found lots to entertain ourselves while waiting. We chatted with other folks. We took turns standing in a Western miner themed“face in the hole” board. That took up 5 minutes.

I'd noticed a fun mural on the side of the nearby Double D Market and popped out of line long enough to get a photo.

After about 40 minutes, we finally stepped into the general store. Once inside, there was all sorts of interesting stuff to check out.

There were rubber band guns with extra ammo, dream catchers and coyote ceremonial headdresses ($225 … Do not remove or put on!). There was Indian jewelry and cactus candy, gold nugget gum and tequila lollipops complete with encapsulated worm. We bought nothing, but appreciated the amusement value of the local souvenirs.

Finally, it was our turn. We bought our tickets, convinced that they were the winners, and walked proudly back out of the store. We noticed the line had expanded and stretched quite a ways further back. Timing is everything.

We waited with bated breath for 7:59pm Pacific Standard Time on Wednesday evening. We watched the balls drop and the numbers immediately displayed on the screen. The bad news? Hard to believe, but we didn't win… nada … nothing at all, but someone did! The good news? Luckily, we've saved ourselves a trip back to Arizona to cash in the winning ticket plus all the angst and aggravation associated with having to figure out what to do with all that money. Whew!

Jury Duty in Las Vegas?

We are legal residents of Clark County, Nevada. Though we don't live in the USA most of the time, Uncle Sam insists we have a legal address. We chose Nevada because 1) there is no state income tax; and 2) David's mum and sisters live here and we can use their address. We have Nevada driver's licenses and have registered to vote (and do vote via absentee ballot) in the Silver State, so we meet the criteria of being residents … except we're not usually here. So when Mary informed me that a very formal “The People of the State of Nevada Send Greetings and Summons to Jury Duty” for me in the mail in December, I was surprised.

Jurors are chosen at random. It appears that though I'm not lucky enough to win PowerBall lotteries … I didn't match even one number on the PowerBall draw the other night ... I do win Juror Summons Lotteries. I was summoned twice while I lived in Colorado and twice while I lived in Wisconsin and I've served on juries twice.

Since I was in Trinidad when Mary first let me know I was a winner, I contacted the Clark County court via their “ejuror” email address and explained I was out of the country. They responded that I had 90 days to change the date and could do it only once. Failure to respond could result in “contempt” charges and a fine of up to $500. Some lottery … you pay out instead of collecting. Knowing I'd be in Las Vegas soon, I set a date and sure enough, within a week, Mary informed me that my official Jury Summons notification had arrived. It required me to complete an on-line Qualification Survey within five days of my appearance date.

Are you a US citizen? Yes

Are you 18 years of age or older? Oh, yes x 3+

Are you a resident of Clark County, Nevada? Kind of

Do you understand English? Usually

Have you ever been convicted of a felony? Not that I know of

Have you ever served as a juror before? Yes

Are you breathing? Yes

“Congratulations and salutations”, I read, “you qualify”. With such strict criteria, I was feeling pretty chuffed. I was provided with all sorts of information regarding parking, smoking, proper attire (no shorts, halter tops, muscle shirts or jogging suits allowed), parking, security, etc. The next step was to wait till 6pm the night before I was to appear and call in with my special juror ID number to determine if I was really needed.

I googled “Clark County jury duty”. Clark County even provides a 10-minute video describing jury duty and gives an overview of the trial process. Though I wasn't all that thrilled about serving on a jury, I was certainly willing to do my civic duty. I was a bit put off by several posts describing how to avoid being picked for a jury, bogus reasons to provide to the court to be excused, and generally getting out of the process. My reasoning? If I was the defendant in a case, I'd want the best possible jury of my peers to judge me … not the ones who had nothing better to do or who were too dumb to figure out an excuse. But that's just me, I guess.

I called at 6:01pm. The verdict? I was excused … not needed for jury duty. Truth be told, I was a little disappointed. After all … I have experience.