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Diane's Diary7/24 Tuesday We took the bus into St. George's today. We got off at Island Water World so Larry could buy some boat parts. Then, we walked the rest of the way into town. We went to the Internet café so we could check a few things. We found out American airlines was having a sale on airfares so I'll call them when we get back to the marina. We took the 12 o'clock bus to Spiceland mall & had lunch at the pizza place. Not as good as Maria's pizza but it sure beats roti's! When we got back to the marina, we took a quick dip in the pool, showers & then called American airlines. After getting a busy signal about 20 times I finally got through. We were lucky enough to get one of the sale fares - $400 USD roundtrip from Trinidad including all taxes. We had to leave Monday - Thursday & travel between 9/4-12/1 with a blackout period during Thanksgiving. No problem - we'll do what we have to get the el cheapo flights. So, we're all booked & leave 9/6 from Trinidad to JFK. Rejoice had invited us for cocktails at Hog Island but we were very late since I was on the phone with the airlines. (S/V Duchess was also at Rejoice & promised to lend us a video of Hurricane Luis in St. Marten in 1995. Once I got through there was no way I was going to hang up. I was on hold 9 minutes before they finally came on meantime pumping coins into the pay phone. We didn't want to stay at Rejoice too long as were nervous about negotiating the dinghy cut through the reefs at night since we didn't know the way. On the way back we stopped at Kristali as we had zoomed by them before on the way to Hog Island. They were having pizza for dinner & invited us to stay. Even though we had just had pizza for lunch, we definitely couldn't pass up homemade pizza. It was delicious! Connie is planning a dinghy raftup for Saturday night. Hope the weather is good! 7/25 Wednesday Rejoice brought over the video on Hurricane Luis that Duchess was nice enough to lend us. I did some hand laundry this morning & made 2 crab quiches also. I had a migraine headache & wasn't feeling well so I decided to watch the video. It was absolutely devastating - the damage was unbelievable. We had always heard St. Marten was heavily damaged from the hurricane & this video confirmed it. It showed actual footage from a sailboat during the hurricane & from land, & after the hurricane went through. Out of 1200 boats in St. Marten only about 40 survived & even those were damaged. We went swimming & had showers at 3pm. We had drinks aboard S/V Akali around 5:30 along with Kristali & Driftwood. We watched the St. Marten video even though it was almost 2 hours long. Everyone could not believe the devastation. Duchess had told us she knew someone who seeing all the boats pouring into the lagoon in St. Marten took the last bridge opening out to sea. Everyone told him he was crazy to leave. He hit rough weather but made it to Martinique & was undamaged. It's a tough call but after going to the hurricane seminar, I'm convinced leaving early is the right move. I sure hope we don't find ourselves in that situation though! 7/26 Thursday We had heavy rain again this morning. After all, this is the rainy season in Grenada. I made some more homemade biscuits - I'm getting pretty good at it-they're made from scratch. I made a homemade apple cobbler & corn soufflé. It rained on & off all day long. Since it was raining out we didn't take our usual 3pm swim but did go in to take showers at 4pm. I was going to make steak on the grill tonight but with the rain I had to make it in the frying pan. Not as good but what can you do? I also went into the phone this morning to change the return portion of our tickets. We decided to come back Oct 3 instead so we would have enough time to visit everyone, do food, boat & clothes shopping & hopefully get a chance to go out to see Eric. We have enough frequent flyer miles we could redeem to go to CA for free. 7/27 Friday We went into St. George's today so we could pickup our plane tickets. We had to pay for them today or they would cancel the reservation. Unlike the US, they wouldn't allow us to pay for the tickets via the phone. We were also told on international flights NOT to use an e ticket since international computers are not linked to the US. Also, if the airline cancels the flight, it's harder to get rebooked having an eticket. I know we never had a problem using etickets at home but I do think it's probably a good idea not to use them on international flights. We bought some souvenirs, went to the computer store (but the internet was down), walked around town, & ate lunch at the Nutmeg restaurant again. It was on & off again heavy rain for the entire day. Legacy's son had come so he brought me a US newspaper. I had not seen one since May & it was great catching up on the news. Larry worked at restoring the old computer that died on us in St. Marten & was able to get it fixed! Great- now we will have 2 computers. That will make things so much easier as we really do need two if we both want to keep up with our logs. Plus, I can write my book on the computer instead of a notebook. We went in for happy hour at the Moorings & stayed for dinner as we had some EC dollars we wanted to use up since we'd like to leave for Trinidad on Monday. 7/28 Saturday It rained off & on again all last night so we didn't get a good night's sleep. We each have individual fans but if we have to close the windows with the rain the boat just gets too hot. So, we have to get up & close the hatch. Since it rains so much here, we just keep all the other hatches closed at night except the one above our bed. I worked on my logs this morning. I also filled all the water jugs. We are getting low on water & have had to run the water maker but since we've had no wind & little sun we have had to run the engine a lot. When we get to Trinidad we will have free unlimited water. Yea! Plus, the marina we're staying in is supposed to be beautiful. The forecast is for a stormy squally weekend. We could leave for Trinidad over the weekend but both countries charge OT to clear in/out over the weekend so we'll wait to leave on Monday. We were going to clear out Friday but since the weather forecast was bad decided to wait until Monday. However, if we don't leave Monday night we have to wait until Wednesday night to leave, as Wednesday is a holiday in Trinidad. We don't want to pay the $50USD to check in on a holiday. We swam & took showers & then went to the dinghy raftup. It was a big success We had 11 dinghys & lots of other people that walked over from Prickley Bay & needed a dinghy ride. We all had a good time. Since we ate so much at the raftup, we had a light dinner of quiche & salad when we got home. The Tropical wave came in last night but it wasn't much here. We had a terrific lightning show but not much rain or wind. Hopefully, the wave will pass by quickly so we can leave on Monday. |