Dec 19-20: completing preparations in St. Maarten

Yesterday, December 19, was another day devoted to

boat preparations. Our rental car had to be back by

11:30 or we would have to pay for another day.

Renting a car is not cheap here. We organized our day

around the bridge opening times. At the first bridge

closing, we headed west away from the bridge in light

traffic, watching those heading east towards the

bridge lined up for a mile. We first stopped at the

sailmaker. Laura went in while I sat in the

double-parked car. Laura checked on his work and

found that he had gotten confused about what wed had

asked of him and had sewn a batten pocket closed. He

quickly set out to fix his error as we waited, but

that set us off of our tight schedule. From the

sailmaker we headed to a new supermarket we noticed on

the road to Marigot. It was the nicest one we had

seen and, with this one, we had seen them all. We

quickly loaded up the cart with 48 rolls of Charmin,

bananas, and other stuff that we grabbed off the

shelves quickly. Then back to the marina to unload

these new purchases plus those of the day before that

still filled the trunk. I also got 4 gallons of

diesel motor oil. The day was hot with passing

squalls, and we worked up a sweat hauling our load

onto the boat. We then left for the car rental place,

located on the other side of the bridge just 15

minutes before the next bridge closing. We walked

back to the marina and rested before setting out by

taxi to Budget Marine to pick up our new dinghy and

outboard engine, and a few marine odds and ends. They

now know us well at Budget Marine. We work mostly with

Rosemary and Andrew, who were very patient and

helpful. It took a while to get the dinghy all set up

at Budget Marine’s dock, and we had problems getting

the outboard to start for the first time. Finally it

sprang to life and we headed off across Simpson’s

Lagoon at the slowest possible speed. The manual says

that new outboards should be run at dead slow for the

first hour as part of the break-in process.

 

As we started the process of turning our mizzen

boom into a crane to haul the outboard onto the

transom of Sabbatical III, we starting talking with

Mike and Marlene in the boat next to ours. They have

been sailing out of St. Maarten for the past 14 years,

sailing around the islands for 6 months each winter

and spring before having their boat sailed back to the

States for them. They had some useful suggestions

about anchorages in St.Barths and elsewhere.

 

It is December 20th now, and we got lots done today

so it looks like we will push off to make the 9 am

bridge opening (the only other choices are 11:00 and

4:30). The weather is clear and hot and the wind has

moderated. “Farmer” (real name Elwyn Charles) come

by this morning to help to haul the big genoa out of

the sail locker and install some Dri-Deck on the

bottom of the locker to help keep the sail dry. While

we were at it, we emptied a number of lockers to make

sure everything is dry and mildew free, and left it

all sitting up on the deck for the day. Farmer is the

guy who watched over our boat since it arrived,

flushed our watermaker every week, and gave it a good

scrub. Everyone knows him at the marina and many

boaters trust him for all sorts of boat-keeping

responsibilities. His picture is attached, as is one

of the boat from across the dock (with our new AB

dinghy tied to the stern), and one of the sweaty

captain.

 

M.

Done