Just back from Montego Bay & the Golden Princess

Full details on the cruise, soon. Watch this space for details. "Hey Princess Cruises, Jamaican me fat!" (That one was for Da Nator.)

The Joy of Pool

Last Monday I was doing some pool cleaning and working on the filters -- getting ready for winter. Although the pool has been too cold to swim in since the middle of September, it is pretty to look at when it's clean and sparkling. At one point I mishandled some chlorine pellets and I got my lungs full of the choking gas. I had to sit down for a few minutes. And until the next morning I had a tightness in my chest and the constant taste and smell of chlorine. Yuck. I will learn to be more careful.

While I was cleaning the pool the water level was high. Tuesday I noticed the level was down about an inch. Wednesday it was down four inches. Thursday it was down by four feet and obviously we had a leak. A bad one.

The pool people sent their man over to check it out and he said we needed a new vinyl liner. The pool and the liner are over ten years old. And a liner lasts about ten years, so our time had come. It will be fixed in a couple of weeks (for several thousand dollars). But we were expecting this to happen -- in a year or two maybe. Oh well.

Last night was very cold and there was a possibility of a freeze. So we had to bring the Polaris pool-cleaning robot in so it wouldn't freeze and crack open. It had to be in a warm place, so like a pet seal we put it in the bath tub for the night.

The Polaris attaches to the pool pump by a long hose and it slowly rolls along the bottom and sides of the pool vacuuming up sand and leaves. Its movements are quite life-like and fun to watch. Especially if it's a warm sunny afternoon and you have had a few drinks.

My lungs have recovered, the Polaris had a warm night and soon the new, deep blue liner will be installed and we will have 22,500 fresh gallons of clear, clean water in the pool. That's a lot of water, and for those of you in the rest of the world it's about 85,000 liters.