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Diane's Diary12/23 Sunday We had a terrible night's sleep. Around 4am there was loud music coming from shore & woke me up. I couldn't get back to sleep & had a headache. S/V Mystique called us at 9:30am - yes, Customs is open today even though it's Sunday. So, we decided to take the boat over to Marin to check in. Larry was in a bad mood & was barking at me. Don't know why he is so grouchy today. It took us about an hour to motor over there. The anchorage was extremely crowded. We could only anchor in about 35 feet of water & even then we were sticking out into the channel a little. I was reluctant to leave the boat since we were in the channel & in deep water. So, Larry went into customs to check in. He came back & the boat had not moved at all. So, we decided to go to the supermarket since the boat seemed ok. The supermarket was very crowded - I'm sure everyone was doing last minute Christmas shopping. Luckily, we didn't need too much - we just wanted some great French cheese. We got back to the boat, had lunch & motored back to Ste. Anne. This time we anchored way out in the anchorage. We don't like other boats near us - especially the French. They always anchor too close. We finally got settled around 3pm. I made the raspberry granola bars for Christmas. We had a drink at happy hour -of course, & went to bed early. 12/24 Monday We received terrible news last night. Eric sent us an email saying Larry's Mom had died. I felt terrible about it. I am glad we got to see her when we went to CA during our trip home in Sept. I'm glad now we didn't cancel our trip to CA after the WTC disaster. Maybe Larry had a premonition about her death & that's why he was in a bad mood. Even though she had been sick for a long time, I was sad to hear about her death. But I know she is probably happier now. I told Larry I think he should go home but I will leave it up to him. We can't afford for the both of us to go home so I will stay & watch the boat. She wanted to be cremated so that makes things simpler. I made marble brownies - one of my specialties- for Christmas. We went into town, stopped at the bakery, went to the ATM & called Eric. We also went to the Nativity play put on by the St. Anne village. We got there very early since we called Eric at 5pm. By the time we finished the call it was 5:30pm. We saw Kristali & decided to go to the show early. It's a good thing we did, as it got very crowded. Hundreds of people were there. We were lucky to get seats on the bleachers but there weren't enough seats for everyone. The show was supposed to start at 6:30pm but didn't start until 7:15pm. It lasted for an hour. Unfortunately, it was all in French with no English translation. The only really good part was they had real animals - horses, donkeys, & cow. We enjoyed it but it would have been better if we could have understood it. 12/25 Christmas Day This is the first time I have ever spent Christmas away from my family & I really miss them. It just doesn't seem like Christmas with the warm weather, no Christmas shopping, putting up the tree, or Christmas cards. Actually, sending out Christmas cards is a pain in the neck but I love receiving them. I have several people I only correspond with at Christmas & always enjoy hearing from them. I also missed seeing my family & especially nieces & nephews- it's fun watching them open all their Christmas presents. Oh well, it will be Christmas 2003 before we celebrate with them. I did call my parents & Aunt Mary today. It was really nice hearing their voices & I'm glad I called. I think I have finally figured out the French phone system. Actually, it's the cheapest place to make a phone call in all the islands but you have to press a lot of digits, # & number signs. They tell you how much money is left on the card but since I don't speak French I don't understand it. Anyway, 50 minutes to the US costs about $11-12 USD so it's not too bad. Still, we don't call too often. Anyway, S/V Kristali invited us over for Christmas dinner, which was very nice of them. We had tortilla pinups, chorizo, nuts & deviled eggs for appetizers. I made the tortilla pinwheels & they came out great. For dinner, Connie made lomito steak from Venezuela, which was fantastic! I made a corn soufflé & crabmeat casserole. We also had potatoes Connie made- wonderful! For dessert, Connie made Christmas cookies & I made my famous marble brownies. I actually made them for their 15-year-old Michael - I thought he would really enjoy them as a Christmas present. I gave some to Syrena & Crusoe as a Christmas present. We went over at 1pm and stayed till 8pm. Even though I wasn't with my family, it was nice being with good friends. Oh, I went to the bakery to pick up fresh baguettes & had to wait about a half hour. There are a lot of French tourists here & everyone wanted their bread on Christmas Day. Made me think of waiting on line at Front St. Bakery at home or the dessert place in Arthur Ave in the Bronx during Christmas. 12/26 Wednesday We've had little wind & sun & the batteries are low. We're down to ¼ tank of water in one tank. So, even though we have a water maker we would have to run the engine a long time to make water. Since we can get free water at the fish market we will have to jerry jug water. It's a real pain to do & I'm glad we don't have to do this all the time. Water is very heavy to lift. We had to make 2 trips by dinghy as we can only jerry jug 12 gal at a time. That's probably the amount of water we use every day. Actually, Larry thinks we are having problems with the alternator- it's probably been going on for awhile. So, until we solve the problem, we will have to jerry jug water. We were both tired from yesterday with all that food. Plus, I was tired from all that cooking. So, we decided to take it easy today. I took a nap in the afternoon for about 1.5 hours. I got up & started to make Kapusta, a Polish dish I got from Syrena's cookbook but Kristali came over to visit so I didn't get to finish it as they stayed from 4-6pm. After they left, we had dinner & watched a movie Shrek - it was very good. We had to run the engine 3.5 hours to charge the batteries. 12/27 Thursday It rained off & on all night long so with having to open & close the hatch every time we didn't get a good night's sleep. We have our new front awning up but I think it's up to high & will have to be lowered. I went over to S/V Syrena this morning to get them to sign our application for Commodore status for SSCA. We have been cruising almost a year now so between that & our qualifying mileage from Bermuda to St. Martin, we qualify. We need to get 2 existing Commodores to sign our application. Syrena was leaving today so I wanted to get them to sign it before they left. Steve came over to help Larry with the alternator. Looks like we are definitely having a problem with our alternator & batteries. It looks like we are going to have to go into the marina for a week or so. Fortunately, the marina in Marin is one of the cheapest around at 2 francs per foot per day- about $11USD for us. This includes water & electric. Hopefully, I think it can wait till after New Year's - everything will be closed until after that anyway. Also, we can email some people & see what we can do. Steve offered to lend us their spare alternator but unfortunately, it wouldn't fit in even though they tried for several hours. 12/28 Friday We had to make 2 jerry jug trips to get water today. We have a lot of laundry to do as I haven't done it since we left Trinidad on 12/6. Now, it's back to hand laundry again. Doing laundry in the French islands is very expensive so it's better to do it by hand. It cost about $7USD for a small load of wash only. I did a few loads & then we went into town to call Eric. We saw Kristali in town, went with them to the bakery & got back to the boat around 1:30pm. I wanted to do more laundry before the wine tasting party. We went to the wine tasting party on the beach at 3pm - everyone brought a bottle of wine - there were 25 bottles & you could sample them all. It was a lot of fun. Actually, the wine we brought from St. Martin at $2USD per bottle seemed to go over well. We left at 5:30pm. We ran the engine for 1.5 hours. I was very tired from hand washing all that laundry & went to bed at 9pm. 12/29 Sat It was very windy with some brief thunderstorms so we decided not to jerry jug water today. We didn't even go to town today to get our daily bread & pastry. We are definitely getting spoiled on this French bakery! Larry was working on the alternator again today. He emailed a few people so we are waiting for their responses before we go into the marina. With the upcoming New Year's holiday, it will probably be a few days before we hear from everyone. I finished some more laundry today that had to be soaked overnight. It's much harder to get stains out of clothes when you don't have hot water. Larry wanted to continue working on the alternator so I went to play bocce ball on the beach at 3pm. There was a lot of cruisers there-at least 40. I played a game but really wanted to walk to the Club Med. It has such memories for me having been there over 20 years ago. But, I really couldn't walk that far as Kristali was giving me a ride back & I didn't want to keep them waiting while I walked. Anyway, I didn't get back to Destiny till 5:30- kind of late as I like to have dinner prepared beforehand so I can relax at 5pm with a cocktail. Unfortunately, Larry had taken the stairs out before I went to play bocce ball so I couldn't make dinner or go down below. Anyway, I made a wonderful red snapper dish for dinner. I had the snapper frozen from Trinidad. 12/30 Sun We are down to 1/4 tank of water in one tank so we had to make 2 jerry jug trips to get water. With our little 5HP this certainly takes along time. We have been thinking of buying a new dinghy & 15HP - especially if we are going to stay out cruising another year. Our engine is just too slow & we are both tired of getting wet in the dinghy. S/V Mutual Fun came in yesterday. We last saw them in Trinidad so we stopped by to say hi on our way in from the bakery. Larry worked on the alternator again. S/V Esther N signed our SSCA commodore status papers & their friends will take our mail back to the US for us. I had to do the application & a short story we all have to do to accompany it. We also had to submit a picture of Destiny & ourselves. SSCA will post our information for 4 months & if no one objects, we have our Commodore status. This means we get to fly our Commodore burgee & get to vote on SSCA issues. Being a Commodore is definitely a "status" thing. Larry could care less about being a Commodore but I wanted it. I saw 2 cockroaches on the boat today. Yuck! Prior to this I had only seen 2 on the rest of this trip & we had caught them. I wasn't able to catch them. I put out fresh roach traps & another boater gave me Boric acid. I mixed this with a little honey & left it out. Hope we get them all! I wrote some emails tonight & starting rereading old SSCA bulletins. It's amazing how many boaters we know in it! 12/31 Monday - New Year's Eve I made a batch of the tortilla pinwheels I made for Christmas to bring to the potluck dinner tonight. We had thought the potluck was on the beach located right near our boat but it turns out it was about a mile away from here - too long to dinghy with out wet 5HP - especially since the wind is really blowing. We really needed to take the big boat down to the party but Larry didn't want to. So, I guess we aren't going to do anything. I had been looking forward to the party though - especially on New Year's. Last New Year's we were sitting at our house in Yorktown Heights NY. We were supposed to fly to Bermuda on 12/30 in time to celebrate New Year's but a snowstorm forced the cancellation of our flight. We sat on our 2 outdoor chairs I brought in the house with no other furniture. Kristali came over at 2pm & we stayed talking till 5pm. They left & we had a steak dinner. The steak was frozen from Trinidad but wasn't very good as it was too windy to bar-b-que it. We went to bed as usual at 9pm but were woken up with all the party noises from shore around 11:45pm. We got up & watched some beautiful fireworks- some from the Club Med, the Caritan Hotel, & various spots on the skyline. It was very beautiful. The fireworks from the 2 hotels were actually quite good. There were several large parties at the various restaurants onshore that kept us awake for hours. The music probably played till around 4-5am. We both couldn't get to sleep with all that racket going on. |