can you say overheating - or my trip to st martin 23 to 24 oct 2014

so after getting seth and jaimee of to the airport i got tom and i another Gatorade.  we tried and failed again to find darcy in the crewed yacht office to talk about work and then i decided it was time to get out of dodge.  i was exhausted after a week plus of parties but i figured i might as well be exhausted under way as exhausted sitting on the hook in road town



i got the hook up got the boat out of road harbor, got the anchor hosed down and was settling in for a nice motor when again the over temp alarm went off.  the temp gage had only lasted about 3 days so now i only got the buzzer for over temp.  i anchored behind this massive catamaran in 50 feet of water and then went down to check on the engine.  first thing i noticed was green coolant all over everything.  this i took as a good sign as something i could fix.  i found the leaking connection on the hot water heater heat exchanger.

however the hose clamp was completely unaccesable it looked like they had dropped the engine in and then put the floor in.  there was no clearance between tho hose clamp screw and the bottom of the floor (sole for you boat people).  i ended up getting an open end 8mm in there and tightening from the side.  i topped up with the last of my radiator fluid and i was done.



the wind was ten to fifteen knots and the swells mostly under  one meter  so it was a pretty smooth motor.  i even took a nap waking up just before sunset.  alas after recycling a leftover half slice of pizza from tom and my trip to st thomas the over temp alarm went off again.

this was really crappy as i had to shut down the engine and now the sub meter swell was on the beam rolling us around quite a lot.  i pulled the cap off with a rag and started adding the last of the fluid.  after this i started adding water.  got everything toped off fired up the engine and then i could see water spurting out of another hose.  i got out the wrench tightened the hose clamp on this and thought problem solved.

i logged all this and then resolved to check the coolant in 3 hours.  3 hours later i added a bit of water but all seemed good.  at 4am i had sighted st martin and again the alarm went off.  i added a gallon of water fired up the engine and after checking it water was again spurting off the last hose i tightened.  so shut down the engine again cut the hose reinstall the hose clamp add water fire up again .  this time i stayed at 2000 rpm and 4 kts because i was getting a bit tiered of this.

all worked well i got into simpson bay at sunrise dropped the hook and went to sleep :)

cheers
roger

slap dash reunion - 20 to 23 oct 2014

so this time i had not parked on the dive mooring so i was able to sleep in which is good because this happy hour at eleven pm thing is kicking my butt :)  i got over to road town around pm and got anchored in a nice hole between the vagrant boats and the sunken boat and the no anchoring buoys the marina had finally put in.



i got the boat cleaned up and then tracked down double d (aka dolphin daze) and left a note for jaimee.  i knew she was due in at 4pm and seth was not due in until almost midnight.   i went and bought tom yet another burger dinner at village key and then went looking for jaimee again.  at this point it was obvious a party was going on on one of the 5800s so i pulled up and hailed the boat.  someone recognized me and invited me on board and there was jaimee in supper happy form along with half the moorings 5800 fleet.



the party was in full swing with champagne left over from charters being poured like water.  it became increasingly obvious that the big challenge was going to be keeping the party going away until seth arrived.  the party btw was a going away party for seth and jaimee as they where leaving the moorings to start on a new 60 foot privilege cat based in st martin.  jaimee;s friend wisely pushed for us getting food even though jaimee and i where not hungry, she eventually dragged us down tho dock to pick up 60$ pizza from the moorings restaurant.



thanks to the pizza we all managed to to survive until seth arrived.  the party was pretty hopping i even danced to red solo cup with ulyian one of the moorings chefs, quite fun.  eventually seth texted he had landed and a cheer went up.  before long there he was on the dock and the party picked up.

eventually we declared victory, i only made it as far as seth and jaimee's salon, it is amazing how nice sleeping in air con is once and a while.  jaimee made it almost all the way home but did a final swim in road harbor.  fortunately she did not have her new smart phone with her.



the next am i was supposed to haul palapa , surprisingly that did not happen, as it turned out there was a boat sinking that took palapa's spot so it was a good call.  the next day was pretty much a loss, jaimee had gotten her passport taken at immigration so she had to get it back.  seth packed up a bit of his stuff for transport by palapa to st martin.  tom showed up and he and i fought over bits of canned food etc that seth and jaimee where getting rid of

eventually the day degenerated into another going away party of sorts for sava and ulyana who where heading off on charter the next day.  we invited ourselves over (with food) and again had long fun evening.

the next day seth and i again work up in the air con salon of DD.  at this point we where starting to run out of time so packing began in ernest.  we shuffled between packing and running stuff out to palapa until dark.  i was the smart one who decided we needed some food again so ordered another 60 dollars in pizza.  

this would have worked out to be plenty of pizza but as it turned out tom ended up eating most of it.  in spite of my protests to save a slice or two for the travelers when seth returned from his final shower tom had consumed it all.



a dragged tom and i off the boat to give jaimee and seth a final night alone on dd.  first thing in the am is seemed we where back on dd with me making coffee for everyone and trying to get the last minute stuff in the dingy.  seth and jaimee finally got to the cab only 30 minutes late.  another end of era era moment

i would be following in palapa on what should have been a sixteen hour boring motor but alas things never work out as planned ….

cheers
roger

Exploring the BVI - 16 to 19 oct

So i did not quite get up at dawn but by 0am i was on the fuel dock in Charlotte omallie.  it is still off season so the entire place was in "training".  fortunately i ran in to erik and pam who's wedding tom and i had missed.  erik invited me over and of course offered me a beer, how can you say no to that.  i did mange to leave after only 2 beers and got palapa fueled up watered up and underway.  i bet erik and his buddy boat i could get off the dock first and i just made it with them charging after me towards the entrance of the harbor



it was a nice motor over to st john where i had plans to meet up with allie and her bf morgan.  i got myself a place at the bar had a chicken bacon sandwich .  i got a text saying morgan and allie where at "the across the street bar" a local place that had dollar well drinks, yikes.  we had some chips and few other drinks before heading to the beach bar for bocci.



i thought i was going to rock the bocci but apparently the balls we have on palapa are not regulation.  these things where massive and i thought i would pull my shoulder out throwing.  we did two rounds i lost both and fnally declared defeat.



then the fun really started apparently there is another after hours happy hour on the island for the locals who work.  this one starts at eleven pm upstairs behind everything in this nice air con place.  we did have to wait a but to get drinks but this gave me en opportunity to play glaga and pac man with allie.  in spite of my "experience" with these games from an "early" age i again got my butt kicked.



the bar tender there is smoking hot so i highly recommend this place and will need to go back again.  in spite of this i made my way back to palapa and climbed into bed.  no sooner than i had dozed off it seemed and someone was pounding on my hull yelling "la palapa la palapa".  i tried to ignore it but it was persistent and as i crawled on deck i discovered a park ranger telling me i was on a dive mooring.

he did not want me to disrupt an early morning dive boat.   i pointed out it was off season and would it not be easier for the dive boat to wake me up when it got here.  he was unsympathetic so again i was underway at 6am.



i decided to head over to cane to track down tom as we where now both single keeping each other company..  tom invited me on a ride over to budget.  little did i realize this would result in more driving than i had ever done on the bvi.  the budget trip was easy but then tom wanted to go check out the harbor we where supposed to take the floating picnic table to the next day.  he suckered me in with a 6 pack of shaffer, did i mention tom was broke,  a dollar a beer hard to beet.



it was a serious off-road adventure involving dirt vertical roads, who would have guessed toms poc van was 4 wheel drive and we needed it.  we even when t by bomba shack and saw everyone surfing.  



if you look closely you can see another hot chick surfer catching a break.  this was all good but did not board well for the floating picnic table with its 30 amp electric motor



we where going to have dinner back on palapa but we stopped into uitos and one thing led to another and we decided to skip it.  as tom was leaving i ran into sam the marine surveyor from Antigua.  this resulted in me swimming home.  good news is the new life proof case is a keeper and my vintage iphone 4 continues to work.



the next morning i headed to shore to help launch the floating picnic table.  apparently this is on face book under angermanagmenttables  or something like this.  tom and his friend had built this while tom was on disability from work for screwing up his arm.  it is pretty famous in the usvi/bvi.  "we" had been reuted to bring the table to the bvi cable company's annual picnic.  as toms friend kevin works for them as a contractor.



the surf was pretty big so we anchored the picnic table just outside the surf line and opened a few beers.   as it turned out the surf prevented many people from coming by but eventually someone swam out.  tom invited her over, it turned out she was not from the party but a local dive instructor tanya.  



tanya was super fun and we convinced her to join us on the next event a bb on board the table at jost.  she swam out to the table with her bag resting on her head, cheating.  we had great time on the table pulling it up on the beach next to corsairs and the tire swing.  somehow i was the most sober and was eventually put in charge of the grill.



i did a pretty good job getting it going and cooking fish (jack from the bahamas) and sausage (from columbia) with no utensils.  i had to use the lid to flip the fish.  i did burn my arm but you have to make sacrifices.  we finally had to shut the party down at midnight so i could take tanya back across the water to Tortola so she could work the next day.

after dropping her off i headed back to jost dropped the hook and crawled into the back cabin.  at 4am my phone rang and i ignored it but again i was up at 7am checking msgs and saw that allie and morgan had finally responded to my text inviting them out to white bay.   we took both boats over to white bay first thing in the am, i again did bfast this time corn beef hash from san blas mixed with left over chips and a fried egg on top.  very well received.



once we where done w/ bfast i was off to pick up allie and morgan, more unpaid charter work but i was leaving soon and wanted to give them a trip to white bay.  i thought i was late but i ended up spending an hour and fifteen minutes in the bar waiting for allie to get her stuff together.  i did not bring a wallet or a shirt to shore so morgan had to cover my bar tab, should have ordered more :)



i was a bit worried about kevin and tom as they where out of rum but when i returned it looked like they had gotten themselves sorted.   we made ten dollars dropping someone off at their baby mega yacht and then the happy couple returned.   by now tom and kevien where running out of umph so i headed back to st john.  



we had an amazing sunset on the way back and then basically repeated our last night in st john. i could not resist the hot bar tenders offer of a pre happy hour drink so i wasted 3$ but other than that it was a complete success.  tomorrow is the seth and jaimee reunion fun never ends :)

cheers
roger

Hurricane Gonzolas and toms sail the lesser of to wevels - 13 to 15 Oct 2014

So i woke up at 6am and the first thing i did was check the wx.  Gonzalas was still on the same track to hit anagada about 35nm away from us but its wind speeds had been upgraded .  it seemed every time we got an update things where worse which did not give me a warm fuzzy feeling.  our plan had been to go to st john or up to north sound but these where closer to the storm so i thought why not go to culebra, also a great harbor and 20nm away from the track.  i thought tom would be unhappy with this plan as he was planning to go east to st kitts but after looking at the track he was on board.



we got under way by around 8am and by noon we where dropping anchor in culebra.  the anchorage was wide open as the few local boats with crew had gone into the mangroves.  i was much happier with no boats around and a 75 lb cr with a hundred meters of chain than in with a bunch of boats as was tom.



we spent the afternoon huracaining ourselves.  we both got extra anchors rigged in case we dragged in the wind shift i got everything inside including the sup and the surf board.



i even got the massive gerry jugs secured in the forward head.  finally i got my bed set up where i was prepared to stay up all night watching the gps display for winds and any sign of dragging.



once all was set up tom and i decided to head to shore for a beer as the forecast arrival time was midnight.  we found an open bar and within minutes of sitting down discovered the latest update was gonzalas was veering east away from us and towards st martin.  we would find out later st martin lost 30+ boats and  person.  primarily because they only predicated the hurricane at noon the day of and by then it was too late for any one to do anything.



we had seen 4 helos buz the harbor just before we came in and we learned this was the governor arriving to officially declare a state of emergency and shut down the bars and everything else.  this ironically went into effect at 5pm and then at 6pm everything was canceled based on the latest update.



we had a few beers and then headed home.  we both slept blissfully through the night getting a nice fresh water washdown.  the next day i again made bfast, seems like my job these days.  and then tom convinced me we should take advantage of the weather and take down and repair his head sail that the head had ripped out of.

this required me to go up the mast twice and jury rig a halyard to the head so we could pull up and down.  the mast trip was not bad other than trusting all the lines on toms vintage boat.  but what are friends for if not to risk their lives on the top of your mast, still safer than driving and crossing the st :)



once we got this in place we where able to lower the massive headsail onto the for-deck.  at this point i looked at the sail and said lets head over to st thomas and take this thing to a loft.  these where so many problems it was overwhelming.  tom replied, i'm out of money we have to fix it.  yikes.  so that s what "we" did.  tom did all the stitching

fortunately aimee had bought some 2 inch wide red webbing for sewing projects that was still on the boat.  we got this and all our combined sewing gear together and tom went to work.



by 5pm it was pretty clear this was a two day job so at sunset we knocked off and headed into town for dinner.  of course zacos was closed.  i was the only one with money so i selected the Chinese place.  tom got 4$ fried chicken and i got 8$ fried rice and pork & fries, everything comes with fries very authentic.  my dinner lasted two days so it was a wash.  i did have to kill a roach running across the bar but you cant have everything.



the next day tom was up at dawn sewing and at 9am i headed over for the next mast climb.  i won't try to explain the system tom has but i had to install a block on top of the foil to compress the foil and pull the sail up.  the halyard for this had to be secured to the roller furler before furling.  if anyone can understand this i will buy you a beer.



needless to say this was painful.  we ended up with the sail up flogging pinning tom between the rail and the sail holding the halyard.  eventually the boat tacked its self and we got everything under control.  

by this time it was noon so we decided to take advantage of the south winds to sail east something that almost never happens.



i must say it was an awesome sail for me back to st thomas and for tom back to cane in bvi.  i tried to track down friends on star gazer but failed so went out for sushi on my own.  i think it is the first on my own meal out i can remember.  i splurged and got two spicy tuna rolls very good :)

cheers
roger

Let the projects begin Christmas Cove USVI - 9 to 12 oct 2014

i got up early remembering tom had spent the night in the cockpit after our celebratory night out.  we was awake rebuilding a carb when i got up.  first i thought he was being super nice and rebuilding my carb but alas his was also afu.  i made us some bfast and got him off for his last day at stcw school.  he was not looking great but you would hate to look your best for a day in school.

by this point the ferry swell was kicking up so i decided to head over to christmas cove to get some nice scenery and flat water.   the two months of sailing there where uite a few projects on the board.   i decided before i got going i was going to treat my self to a nap so i did not get started until after am.



The first step was to try to fix my foot.  my brother had been apauledi had not removed the sea urchin spines from my foot and bandaged it more than two days after the event.  i soaked my foot for and hour (while updating the blog) as instructed and then started digging with pointy tweezers.  i had done this before on seths feet and this was much LESS pleasant.  i did accomplish the task and then wrapped tape around my foot to fulfill the "bandage" requirement.



the next order of business was to hose down the deck and cockpit. some how the forward water tank had gotten contaminated with enough salt water you could taste it so i used the tank up on the cleaning project.  definitely harder when you have to do everything your self.  after this i put a patch on the dingy, i used the don two part epoxy approach which tuned out to be about 85% of the fix for the problem.

by this time it was after 4pm so i dropped the mooring and headed back to meet up with tom again at the tap and still.  we pretty much had a repeat of the night before with tome getting a loaded burger and me another bacon hot dog with pretty much everything on it.  hard to beet this for 6$ and 2$ r&c's on happy hour.  we ran into pam and erik on gumption as well who where in town for pams daughters wedding.



the next day we again did bfast on palapa and then headed over to christmas cove to get some more projects completed.  the plan had been to get toms head sail down but the wind had come up.  on top of this as i pulled into the anchorage my over temp alarm went off.  the light was bad so i got only the buzzer so unsure exactly what the problem was i shut down right a way and dropped the hook.



the temp gage was also inop but i had picked one up in aruba so i was able to install this and get actual temperature.  we managed to clean toms dingy and do a few other projects including unplugging my forward head, before it was again time to head back to red hook for happy hour.  of course on the trip back my engine overheated again, this time confirmed by the new temp gauge that it was about 220F.  i motored slowly the rest of the way and dropped the hook but it looks like a problem with the heat exchanger that we will have to tackle tomorrow.



this evening we supplemented our tap and still dinner happy hour event with a trip down the street to this new bar.  there they happily announced it was always happy hour and we could again get r&c's for 2$. not sure how long we can last in red hook.  it was slow night so tom and our waitress emily took advantage of the curling tables.  tom being from canada is ver experienced in this sort of action packed game.



i did bfast again on palapa, my cabbage onion and egg fritata with oyster sauce and serachi, very good.   once we finsihed this off we started   work on the heat exchanger.  tom explained all we had to do was remove the two ands and tap it out.  i was thinking this might be too good to be true.  he then mentioned you should do this every year or so so it would not freeze up.

worse then being frozen up the forward end cap had been installed with no o ring.  this caused the aluminum housing to corrode filling the oring grouve with corrosion and eating away from the lip leaving a gap.  the lack of o ring allows cross contamination between salt water and fresh water systems.  this explained why i always seemed to have to add coolant and why the coolant was always so nasty looking.  they also had failed to seat the gasket on the other end of the exchanger allowing water to flow in and out without passing through the heat exchanger.  obviously the thing was put together on a friday very disappointing.



we eventually gave up on beating the core out as even if we got it out we where going to have to have the casing machined and more material added to fix it properly.  it was also sat so we could not get any one from the yanmar dealer on the island.  in the end we decided on another don fix silicone.  i lathered the thing up on both sides and after about 30 minutes to get tacky i reassembled.



it looked like a gooey mess but hopefully when we try it in  a day or two it will not leak.  by this point it was pushing 4pm again so we got cleaned up and again headed to tap and still for food and happy hour.  pam and erik had invited us to some wedding event at saphire beach so we headed over there at 5.  it was and interesting resort, very deserted no office we could find and after wandering for an hour or so caught the dollar bus back to town.  we obviously got yhe location or time or both wrong.  we did see a nice iguana.



we should probably have headed back to the boat at this point but we where all dressed up and had just enough time to make happy hour and the tap and still before heading to our always happy hour bar.  tom ran into an instructor from stcw and tried flirting with one of the locals and before we knew it we had been out all night again.



the next day brought t rain with much difficulty i got my dingy launched and over to toms with tang and the coffee pot for bfast we where both moving in slow motion so it was  noon   by the time tom had completed a massive onion and mushroom omelet.  eventually the rain stopped so we decided to go to town on the dollar bus for a few parts.

the good news was my dingy was now down to a very small leak after a secondary epoxy the day before.  we hit kmart, radio shack the auto store and some cosco like place before heading back,  i finally replaced the broken water jug in the cockpit and got gasket material as well as a new lifeproof case for my iphone and also red lights for the temp gage.



the trip took everything out of us so we parked our selves at fish tails to watch sunday afternoon football.  .  eventually we headed over to tap and still as well. where we discovered there was a trop storm/hurricane coming our way.  we called it an early night and after spending an hour or two on the computer looking at weather decided to check again in the am before deciding where to go.  oh and we had forgotten to pay our tab the night before at the happy   hour bar but fortunately kelly was there again and we settled up with her.  clearly a sign we need a break.

we can not stay in red hook and it looks like to storm will come right through the usvi/bvi.  it is a good thing we got my heat exchanger back together as well and hopefully that will show no leaks in the e am.  always something :)

cheers
roger

End of the Palapa Carribian 2014 Tour and back to St John USVI - 7 to 8 Oct 2014

so the sail back to St John turned out to be pretty mellow which was fine with both of us.  allie was a bit hung over and i was in a lot of pain due to my sea urchin spines in my foot.  i tried taking Tylenol which helped but then i was feeling nauseous.  we had left over ribs and left over lunch to tide us over so we did not even have to cook.



it was ironic that at this point a 100nm overnight sail seemed like nothing even to allie.  we had a final great sunset and a full moon that gave us so much light we could see almost as well as during the day.  the winds and seas continued to die down until finally at 4am in sight of Tortola i had to fire up the motor.  we took the scenic way past peter island and sopers hole and along the north side of st john before finally picking up a mooring just around the corner from cruz bay.



once we had picked up the mooring (with the new boat hook) it was time for allie to get all her stuff together.  i was anticipating this would take a while as she had auired a few new things including a tray of sand dollars and a few bags of sand and shells from various islands.  after about an hour we where ready to head to shore. we where a bit concerned how allie would find her boyfriend as she did not have his number.  fortunately we had added him to the spot thing and he had finally checkout out the messages and noticed we where parked just around the corner so when i dropped allie he was waiting for her at the same bar we headed into for bfast.

he was uite happy to have her back in one piece and insisted on buying my lunch , very nice.  my laptop was no longer charging so i brought it along hoping to get a new charger. when we headed over to the computer store i was happy to find a new old charger for 30$ but dismayed to find the dry bag had finally given up and my computer was damp.  fortunately the fabric case had sopped up most of the water   and the ipad was in a zip lock.

i gave allie all my pics in case she could not recover hers from the sd card and bid goodbye to allie and her boy friend morgan and headed off in search of a replacement dry bag.  fortunately for another 30$ i had some way yo get the computer back to palapa. back at palapa i got the dingy hauled organized palapa and headed over to red hook to meet up with top for drinks.



he had mentioned he would be in red hook for the week doing stcw and i told him i would try to meet him on wed or thurs, pretty vague.  i got palapa anchored and was getting ready to go to shore when i got a call from tom who was still in class but had spotted palapa at anchor.  we confirmed plans and i met him at the tap and stills.  

we caught up on things had some chips and burgers and talked about what we both going to do going forward now that we where living alone unemployed on our boats.  i told him i was still hoping to go around the world again in jan but it was not looking likely unless i ran into someone excited about long passages.  he was thinking of doing the charter captain thing but need ed a mate for that as well. eventually happy hour ended and we headed back to palapa for cheeper rum and cokes and free internet.    

tomorrow i will start on all the boat projects now that the Palapa Caribbean 2014 tour  is complete.  Just to recap since leaving Miami with Don on the 13th of Aug.  Palapa has traveled aprox 2800nm in two months with stops in 10 countries.  No wonder I am a bit tired :)

cheers
roger

St Kits to St Martin for ribs - 4 to 6 oct 2014

so i got up first thing in the morning and moved palapa down to the "strip".  the people we ran into the previous day from st kitts had told us this was the place to be.  it looked like a down scale version of cane garden bay set up for tons of cruise ships tourists but alas none where there.  



fortunately allie discovered we where anchored over a sea of sand dollars.  we where only in ten feet of water so she spent the whole morning collecting them.  by the end the swim stem was covered with sand dollars.  i think she would have been happy to spend the whole day there but eventually i finished the blog updates and coerced her into swimming to shore for lunch.



we had lunch at the one open beach bar and discovered we had missed the fri night party at the strip.  our waiter dude suggested down town.  allie wanted to do another land excursion so i let her organize a cab while i returned to palapa.  it seemed i only had a few minutes of relaxation and then it was time to move palapa down town to meet up with allie.



as i pulled in i was the only boat anchored out but i could here music going at the ferry dock.  i got to shore at the new "marina" really just a concrete   basin surrounded by barb wire and a dude manning a gate.  i said hi to him on the way out and went looking for a near by bar.  i found one down the street proclaiming, it offered Thai, Chinese, sushi and pizza.  i was the only patron and it overlooked a square that looked like a downscale Charlotte Omalli.  i suspect it was swarming with cruise ship people when they where in town but this was very off season.



eventually allie materialized about an hour late having had a great time touring th island.  fortunately i had gotten the cabbies no and gave him a call so i was not worried about her not making int back.

once back together we headed over to the ferry dock for "dinner" it was super fun lots of street vendors with bbed meat bears rum you name it.  all very affordable as st kitts is on the ec dollor 2.7 to  us dollar and things are about a third of the us prices.  we still managed to spend a decent amount getting ribs and bb pork along with numerous beers and a bottle of rum for r&c's.  




after finishing up on the street we headed down the beach to this pumping bar. or disco.  initially we where the only people there.  the girls where super friendly to us offering us ice for our r&cs we had brought in and eventually selling us there specialty energy concoction.  more and more guys filtered in and also where warmly welcomed.  i left thinking we had been at  a strip club or something like that, allie was convinced the dueds where just visiting their girlfriends at work.  will never know ….



we made it back to palapa with no trouble and set our alarms for a 4am departure.  we actually managed to get up at 430 and where underway by 5am.  allie let me nap until a bit past sunrise.  once past the end of the islands i got boat sails up and we had a perfect 50 to 60 deg reach up to st barts.




we made such good time we arrived by noon.  i had warned allie we could not afford much at st barts except caviar and bagget and the French grocery store.  of course after getting the dingy launched and heading in i realized it was sun and the grocery would be closed.  it was and it looked like someone had rolled up the town.



we finally found a burger place at the end of the pier.  we split a 25 euro burger with fries and had a few beers and where out of there for 50 dollas us.  a bit more than our previous night on the town in st kitts but you have to try different places to appreciate the best ones.



i did tell allie this was the place to be for the barts bucket with wall to wall mega yachts and 5 usd drinks and free appetizers but it was hard to imagine looking at the place in deserted mode




we got back underway by 2pm to head the 5 nm over to st martin.  we had a day full of activities planned and i also wanted to hit the budget for a new anchor and bottom paint.  



we got over tto the yacht club for happy hour and the sunset.  i had hoped for a bridge opening but alas we only got one little sports fisher at an unscheduled time.  the yacht club is always fun even on a sun in off season and as we chated with the bar tenders i noticed a familiar face across the bar.  it was richie from the lost resort.  the less crazy one.  we hung with him for a while telling roger and palapa and richie stories and then he took us out to the local kareoky place.




while richie and i caught up allie discovered the free rum tasting option at the bar.  richie and i finally clued in on this and joined her at the bar.  after a bit of this and with another local bottle of rum purchased we made it back to palapa.  by this point i think it was well after midnight and i headed straight to bed leaving allie in the cockpit.  



the nexot morning i manages to get up bright and early and head over to budget while allie got some well needed rest.  i needed a boat hook (we lost one on the grenada passage got swept overboard) and a new 60 lbs cr (the old one had been leaching rust all over the deck.) and new bottom paint (st martin has the best prices and most toxic paint)

amazingly i found the 60 lb cr was on sale for only one thousand dollars down from the normal sixteen hundred.  i had the guy help me carry it to the checkout and even more amazingly it rang up at 500 and showed 70% off.  the guy wanted to point out the sale sign said something different but i pointed out who where we to argue with the computer.  i got out of there so fast with my deal i even left my sunnies behind (i did return and find them later)



back at palapa i told allie about my success and took here into the yacht club for bloody mary's and brunch.  we had a long day of activities and i wanted to mae sure we had food in our stomach.  the first stop was my favorite rib beach bar in mullet bay.  i was a bit worried with off season everywhere this might not be happening but i was pleasantly surprised when we arrived and it was hopping



we got palapa anchored and swam into shore .  i had two cold coronas waiting for allie once she got done looking for sea life on the way in.  i also got two rib orders in and in now tine we where munching ribs and drinking cold beers looking at palapa at anchor off the beach.  it does not get better than this i declared and so it was



after we had our share of ribs we swam back to palapa (with some take away ribs for the trip home) and then dingied over to the airport bar to watch the planes take off and land.  i got one great shot on the way in of an aa flight coming int.  i cant help but wonder how long they will let this fun program continue before the fun police arrive from America with their fences and yellow paint and shut everything down



we had the best rum punches ever at the beach wood drift bar i really need to get the recipe.  6 different rums and some bitters and grenadine and then a splash of oj and pineapple.  we could not spend the whole evening here as we still had to be back to the yacht club for happy hour.  while we where enjoying the beach and airplanes allie got chatting with some tourists and we almost got a day charter booked the next day.  i passed not wanting to commit to something with out a plan in advance but would have been easy money



as it turned out we did nto make it to the yacht club by happy hour so we had to pay 4$ for our r&cs vs 3$ but we suffered on..  we had been told the hopping place on mondays was the red piano.  this was in fact the case.  the place was rocking and even had a live band not to mention 2$ beers.  we spent the rest of our cash here and then with ten $ left for the cab headed back to the yacht club.



i would like to say the trip back to the dingy was a again uneventful bat alas out lick finally ran out.  the dingy had been running rough due to bad gas and as such would not idel and needed to be doing a decent pace to not stall.  blasting along i managed to miss palapa on the first pass as i looked back allie saw we where headed for this submerged reef.  i had not gone over directive vs descriptive comm with her so i never heard her comment and never saw the reef.  next thing i knew we where both in the water on eather side of the dingy.  i managed to keep hold of the dingy and reach over and throttle back the engine which caused it to die.  did i mention that the kill switch ring had rusted through earlier leaving the line not attached to the switch.  great design for a boat a non stainless clip ring.

all in all it was completely my fault for being an idiot and going to fast at night but it is amazing the string of events that comes into play to make a really bad event.  good news was we where not hurt except for urchin in my foot. bad news allies phone had for once not been in its zip lock bag and flew out of her purse and sank.  we managed to paddle back to the boat without difficulty and other than a small water leak the dingy was fine.



the next morning i drained the fuel out of it cleaned it up and got the engine running again. the lid had come off the fuel tank during the event but amazingly was still in the dingy.  eventually allie got up and we dingied over to the scene of the crime and in less than 3 minutes i had found her phone.  we extracted the sim and the sd card and are hoping for the best for recovery of her pics.

we had another day planned in grand case but decided to hit the yacht club for brunch and head home before we had any more "fun"  .  it is always amazing what happens in st martin dont think i could live here long term but you never know .. :)