FIRE

No, this was thankfully not a boat fire. In my former work life I expierenced enough of those. Last Saturday while sitting in the cockpit with an afternoon beer I saw great quanities of smoke rising from just inland of the marina. Kathy and I took a walk to see what was burning.

VIEW FROM OUR BOAT

When we walked along the road we could see it was the storage shed for one of the "duty free" shops in town, therefore filled with alcohol and tobacco products. The fire was definitely out of control. There were no firefighter's around and no water being applied.

With the shed fully ablaze lots of folks both locals, tourists and yachties pitched in to help remove stock from the store.  That's a yachtie,Brian, wheeling out cartons of beer. I took special care to save my favorite rum.

I think this was a store employee looking to see the destruction in the shed and how close the fire was getting as the front of the store was being unloaded.

Finally after perhaps an hour since the fire started a hose was charged and water applied. You notice the high tech breathing apparatice the guys have. Protective clothing was t-shirts and shorts. The two in this photo at least had rubber boats, not flip flops. I think these guys were the firefighters from the airport crash truck. Why it took so long to get water I have no idea. The truck was on scene when we first arrived but no hoses laid

Once the got water they managed to contain the fire to the behind store shed. An unfortunate sidebar was that we had not yet restocked some alcoholic beverages aboard " Po" yet and this was the store that we had intended to use. I did find some rum at another shop and then yesterday even though the store was closed and an insurence man there Kathy managed to talk the store manager into selling her a bottle of Drambuie out the front door.

We depart the marina later today and then tomorrow it's off on a three day 350 mile passage to Borneo.