Daylight Saving Time always vexes Stephen. Twice a year he curses it and lets it ruin his mood. He wastes too many wishes in wanting it to go away. I never knew opposing it was an option, and just dealt with the minor inconveniences it posed for a couple of days before it was no longer noticed.
This year’s springing forward landed us on a day with circumstances that were quite troubling and made us rethink our travel plans for the day. If the timing of events had happened differently, we could have been in a perilous situation.
First off, the Saturday evening before brought us news that our friend Amy’s flight to Georgetown was canceled and she wasn’t coming to meet us on Tuesday. This bit of bad news made us rethink our schedule for getting to Georgetown by Monday. We wanted to get a mooring ball for the predicted big winds on Tuesday so picking Amy up by dinghy wouldn’t be such a long, wet run.
Our plan was to head to a tiny island named Poor Betty Cay on Sunday, about half the distance to Georgetown, then finish the trip Monday and do a little reconnaissance in the area before Amy’s arrival. Betty is one of our cats, of course, which is what put the location on our agenda. But instead of going to Poor Betty, poor Betty came to us…
Sunday morning, at around 06:30–I mean 07:30, it’s Daylight Saving Time —Betty meowed a bit and then suddenly started sniffing the floor, circling the perimeters clockwise. His eyes were dilated and he was unresponsive. He got himself wedged behind the toilet and tried to do so again and again until we blocked it off. He let me hold him in my arms—something normally allowed only for a few seconds—as he unendingly sniffed and bobbed his head in the crook of my elbow. When I put him down, he expanded his route to the salon and starboard hull and we had to block off areas he would otherwise get himself stuck in. Putting a food dish in his path did provide a distraction for a few bites before he returned to his task. Astro picked a fight with him and he was ready to engage, but he could not otherwise be deterred. He finally stopped and slept and we were relieved. He awoke and we saw a bit of Betty in his eyes before another episode began. This one was much shorter. Research suggested an infection, cognitive decline, vestibular disease, or a diabetic hypoglycemic episode. Any one of those sound likely. His glucose readings before this started were too low to shoot, and his normal 10-12 hours between insulin shots stretched to 20 hours. Maybe he has reduced his dosage need. We’ll be watching.
Since we were no longer on a schedule, and had a new thing to worry about, we determined that moving around to the other side of the island from our current location would be a short, quick trip and provide us a safe place to ride out the Tuesday storm. We had a beautiful little idyllic beach to ourselves—for about an hour. Now there are four other boats invading our space. 
The next day, with poor Betty back to his usual self, we pulled the clutch to disengage the propeller so we could charge the batteries at anchor. We wanted to be fully prepared for high winds and whatever may come that evening and into Tuesday. After a minute of generating, we heard a snap, and the battery charging stopped…our belt broke! We suddenly had a new plan for the afternoon, and it would have been a problem if we were at Poor Betty Cay needing to move to Georgetown by sunset (which is now an hour later, thanks to Daylight Saving Time, I might add).
Changing the belt was harder than it sounds—unbolting and pulling the drive shaft back to fit the belt through proved to be a half-day job. Stephen’s fantasy of inviting the other boats for cocktails was shot, but Daylight Saving Time did allow time after the belt replacement for a swim and a shower before his sunset drum solo…
Thankfully, the big winds and storm predicted for overnight that had the Bahamas in a tizzy didn’t result in much where we are. We’ll stay put today, and maybe move tomorrow, or maybe not. We’re feeling like a little of the wind has been taken out of our sails, as it were, with no set plans for the next few weeks, but we’re very happy in our little blue lagoon. Maybe we’ll head south to the Jumentos Islands, where it’s purportedly more remote. I really like having an anchorage and beach to ourselves. Self sufficiency is proving to be very important yet again. We’ve come a long way, but we have a ways to go. We sure could use that lost hour…
