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Diane's Diary3/25 Monday Well, we've decided to stay until we can get our website updated. The next islands are Guadeloupe. Dominica, & Martinique. Since we don't know French, it will be hard to get our website updated (remember it's a French keyboard) from the French islands. Dominica is supposed to be undeveloped so we don't know if we will even find an internet café. Since we've had company for the last 2 weeks we haven't had a chance to work on it. It takes an incredible amount of time on both our parts to do this. Especially Larry as he has to update the website & put the pictures on it. So, we want to know from you all reading this if you've enjoyed our website or is a waste of time on our part? Should we continue it? What do you like? Dislike? Ways to improve it? PLEASE let us know- we have 15 months of our trip still left!!! We would appreciate any & all comments. Anyway, Larry updated his logs today & prints the taxes. We go to the pool in the afternoon & get the shower key so we can take showers every day- $1USD per person per day for unlimited hot showers. Anyway, I find hot showers are too hot for me anymore- I usually use lukewarm water now. We will update our website when we go into St. John's to Fed Ex the taxes. 3/26 Tuesday I took a long walk in the am before it gets too hot. Larry works on updating his logs. We go the pool in the afternoon. 3/27 Wednesday I took a long walk again in the morning. I walked over to the all-inclusive place next door. We read they have a day use pass. Found out the day use pass is only $42 USD from 9-5. It includes breakfast, lunch, unlimited alcoholic drinks, plus use of all the non-motorized sports equipment & showers. Not a bad price & it looks pretty nice, hopefully we'll have a chance to go. The boat Passagio came in this afternoon- we had been "parked" near them in St. Martin. Their Dad is visiting & will take our income taxes back & mail them for us. We are really relieved to know they are going to get there. Plus, he saved us over $30 in Fed Ex fees. Thanks Passagio! We talk with them awhile & stay up late until 11 pm working on the website. We didn't get to finish it so we will stay one more day. 3/28 Thursday I dinghy over to Passagio in the am to return some items we borrowed as they want to leave this morning. We wind up talking awhile so it got too late for me to take my afternoon swim. We enjoyed their company & hope to catch up with them again. I brought the laundry in to get done. Do it yourself laundromats are difficult to find. When I did find one in English Harbor, it took 3 hours to do & never dried. Plus, it cost $7.50 load (& use my own detergent) vs. $10 to get it wash, dried & folded. We heard from another boater the laundry is very expensive to do in Guadeloupe so I do another 2 loads here- $20!!! 3/29 Friday We went to St. John's today by bus. We go to the bank to get more EC money for Dominica & exchange EC money into French francs as there is no bank at our first stopping point in Guadeloupe, Deshaies. We wish we had gotten Francs when we were in St. Martin. Oh well. Larry updates our website at the internet café. We had lunch at Big Banana pizza- $30 for the two of us with 1 beer each! We like Antigua but find it is way too expensive here. It's about double the price of St. Martin so we try to buy very little here. We go back to the boat after lunch. Larry cleans up the boat & I go to check out. I had a dinghy accident at the customs dock. The wind was really blowing. I went to shut off the engine at the kill switch & my finger slipped & the engine didn't turn off. Since I was still in forward the boat kept going & I went under the dock! Good thing there was no boat on the other side. Anyway, I screamed & they all came out to see what was going on. Someone helped me get it tied up. I was pretty shaken up. They were all very kind to me at customs. My back is very sore & I know I will have a big bruise. 3/30 Saturday I got a really bad night's sleep with my back hurting & nervous about the crossing. I didn't sleep well at all. I have a huge black & blue mark. We didn't get a chance to bring up the dinghy last night or we would have had no air in our cabin with the hatch blocked by the dinghy. We always put the dinghy on deck for island crossings. I woke at 4am but Larry said wait until it gets lighter so we can see to bring up the dinghy. I am anxious to depart ASAP as we know the wind is lighter during the evening & early morning. We are underway by 6:15am. The forecast is wind from the east about 15-20 with 4-6 ft seas. We HAD winds up to 23 knots from the east with 6-8 foot seas. Big difference! I hand steered for the first 2 hours. Larry didn't want to use the autopilot as we were running the engine to charge our batteries since they were low. I was fine then but when he took over I got seasick. I think it was a combination of big waves, nerves, my back hurting & the sun. The passage took 7 hours & we arrived in Deshaies Guadeloupe around 1:30. We both weren't feeling well when we arrived & both had headaches so we just stayed on the boat & rested. |