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Diane's Diary1/1/2002 Tues New Year's Day We were both tired today, as we didn't get a good night's sleep from all the parties on the beach. I made shrimp cocktail & Connie made a foccia pizza for appetizers. Michael had wanted the shrimp cocktail for an appetizer so I made it. We only have 1 package of shrimp left before we get back to Trinidad. At Michael's request, I made turkey enchiladas for dinner. I made a key lime pie for dessert, which came out good. They came at 3 & gave us a talk on the Bahamas. Everyone we have spoken with has told us they love the Bahamas. Maybe we'll go home that way instead of via Bermuda. We'll have to see - it's still to far away to say what we will do. But I would like to see the Bahamas - we have been to Nassau by cruise ship but everyone says that's the worst part of the country. I am worried about our 7 foot draft though- much of the Bahamas is very shallow. Anyway, we had a good time with Kristali & they stayed till around 8:30pm. 1/2 Wed Today was a rainy, squally day for almost the entire day. Luckily, we don't get these too often. We did manage to jerry jug one load of 12 gal of water back to the boat & go to the bakery in between squalls. Larry had a sore throat & wasn't feeling well so he read the whole day. I made crab cakes, & caught up in my logs. S/V Syrena came back into the anchorage today & we have invited them over for cocktails tonight. They sponsored us for SSCA Commodores so we thought it would be nice to have them over for drinks. We appreciate that they sponsored us. The new euro currency was introduced on 1/1. It's very confusing with the francs, & euros compared to the US dollar. The exchange rate on euros is about .90 to the USD, 7.2 francs to the dollar. After 2/15, stores won't accept francs anymore so everything will have to do be in euro. Thankfully when we got to Martinique we only took out the equivalent of $100 USD in francs on 12/24 & only have about $30USD worth of it left. I'm sure we will have no problems spending it! Since we have gotten here we haven't spent too much money. That's good, as the bank needed a rest for a while! We had been spending a lot of money in Trinidad- that's the only place we have spent a lot of money though. Jan 3 Thursday I made a chicken jambalaya today that came out great. It made a huge pot & will be good for at least 4 meals. Next time I make it I will reduce the recipe in half - it just made too much. I started working on my Excel spreadsheet to track our expenses. Now that Larry has resurrected the old PC we can both have our own computer. That's good because before he was always on it & I couldn't do my stuff. I had kept track of all our expenses in a notebook - now I just need to add them all up, convert it to USD, & enter it in a spreadsheet. A big job but we have time to do it now. I went to bocce ball again at 3pm but Larry didn't want to come again. I took the dinghy this time so I could leave when I wanted too. After bocce, I went for a walk with Mona from S/V Mutual Fun. They are returning to the US after almost 3 years cruising. I gave Mona a People magazine & traded it for a recent USA Today. I forgot you could get the US newspaper here. I haven't read a US newspaper since we left the US except for the LA Times Dazzler gave me. Nice to hear what's going on in the news again. Jan 4 Fri We jerry jugged 12.5 gal of water. Since we are going into the marina next week to hopefully fix the alternator problem, we get free water in the marina so we won't have to get water again. We went for a long walk with Connie & Steve down the beach- it was just beautiful! We enjoyed the hike. Jan 5 Sat Larry worked on the alternator problem this morning while I cooked. I made biscuit mix, chicken cutlets, & a hummus dip. At 3pm we went to play bocce ball again. Unfortunately, it started to pour out so we left after an hour. We went swimming & then had S/V Esther N over for drinks. They were our second recommendation for SSCA Commodore so we wanted to have them over. We had a good time with them as they told us about Venezuela. Jan 6 Sun Steve from Kristali came over this morning to go over charts with Larry. Most cruisers are copying each other's electronic charts since charts are so expensive. It's good to have electronic charts as well as paper charts as a backup. I updated the finances in my notebook so I could get the information ready to load into my Excel spreadsheet. We want to keep track of how much money we have spent. We had to share the computer before & Larry was always on it so I didn't get much chance to use it. It's like the old days at work when we had to share a computer. Anyway, tonight was movie night at one of the local restaurants. The French eat their big meal early on Sunday so the restaurant would be empty at night so the owner was more than happy to show American movies. There is even a video place that rents American movies & he said he's willing to get any for us. He shows them on his DVD player but it is a small TV. This is the same restaurant that had the Christmas dinner. He offered 2 for 1 on drinks so beers were only $1 each. Even though there was no obligation to buy, most cruisers had at least 1 drink. So, the owner did pretty well & the cruisers were all happy we could watch movies. We saw the movie " Coyote Ugly" which was pretty good. Larry didn't want to go to the movie but he drove me there - With so many cruisers I knew I could get a ride back to the boat from someone. Kristali drove me back to the boat. Jan 7 Mon Last night & all today I didn't feel well, I had a headache & was nauseous the entire day so I took it easy. Larry went into town, to the bakery, bank etc as I didn't feel well enough to leave the boat. Jan 8 Tuesday We are having problems with the alternator. Steve had been helping Larry with it & we knew we had a problem. However, we knew we would have to go into the marina to fix the problem & they were packed over Christmas. Apparently, the alternator is not charging the batteries correctly, so we have been conservative with the electric. But we knew we had to get into the marina to charge up the batteries. I made a reservation last week to go into the marina & told them we needed 110-volt electric. We called the marina around 9:30am & said we were heading in. Unfortunately, the person answering the VHF didn't speak much English & kept telling us to call back. We motored into Marin as it's about one hour away by the big boat- less if you are going by dinghy & have a seaworthy dinghy. We kept circling around & the marina said they didn't have a spot for us. So, I told Larry we should anchor & go into the office where they spoke English. We anchored & we went into the office around 11:30am & they said they have no slips for us with American electricity even though we had a reservation but said to come back later. The office ladies spoke English but not great. We wanted to go to the cybercafe & while walking there we meet other cruisers S/V Honey Wild- cruisers we met in Trinidad. Martine from Honey Wild spoke French & said she would come to the office with me as I wasn't sure if I was being understood. Unfortunately, they were closed for lunch but the manager, Eric, was there & he told me to come back when they reopened at 2pm. Larry went to CS services to see when they could look at the alternator. Unfortunately, they will be busy for the next 2 days but told us to come back & they would see what they could do. We decided to have lunch at the Deli France take out restaurant- but at $11 for the two of us it wasn't worth it. We went back to the marina office at 2pm, waited a while, & they said they found a slip but didn't have any transformers left. They said to try back again tomorrow or the following day. Since we knew our batteries were getting low, we didn't want to wait 2 more days to come into the marina. We decided to go to the Internet café. We were on the Internet for about an hour. I told Larry we should stop by the marina office on our way back to the boat & see if we could speak with Eric, the manager. Well, it's a good thing we stopped back as they were trying to call us on the VHF radio to tell us they had found a slip for us with 110-volt electricity! That was terrific service! We were so pleased. We went back to the boat & pulled up anchor. Naturally, a small squall line was going thorough just as we started to pull up anchor but luckily, it only brought brief showers & little wind. We were not on the same dock as the last time even though we wanted to be. This dock was far away from the main marina, near the mangroves but at least it was a spot with electric & water. The marina is charging for water now. The last time we were here they were in the process of putting water meters on all the docks but had not come to the one we were on yet so we had free water. Now, we have to pay for it but it's still pretty cheap - about $7USD for 250 gallons or less than 3cents per gallon. Anyway, the marina staff & some people on the dock helped us get into our slip. It was almost 5:30pm when we finally got in. We were both tired from the day. Since we had electric, we decided to watch movies. We have a lot of videos we haven't seen yet. We rarely see movies while at anchor as they use up too much electric. |