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Larry's LogDiane and I decided to stay an extra day to clean the boat since we really didn't have a chance before, with the touring, the parties and such. So Monday was spent in really hard work cleaning the boat and the stainless steel. The stainless had been getting a little rusty since we hadn't been able to wash the salt off it between passages. It was a VERY long, hot day but we accomplished our goal and the boat looked pretty good. We then went over to Mima for dinner. Dinner was actually from several cans, but was really pretty good. Tuesday we had planned to leave for the Saintes as soon as we got ready. But we were both very tired still and decided to stay one more day. We spent the day organizing the boat again and cleaning the bilge (YUCH). We had brought lunch and ate at Mima (they have air conditioning when they run their generator). We were talking about leaving Wednesday, however, Stephanie pointed out that since it was Easter weekend coming up, we might have a problem if we only stayed in the Saintes for 2 or 3 days and then went to Dominica. Customs would probably be closed Friday through Monday, we might get hit with overtime charges to clear in. Then again, we could also wait to clear in until Tuesday, regardless of the day we arrive if we just fly the Q flag and don't go to shore. We decided to stay and relax the next day also. Well, so much for relaxing the next day. I continued to clean the bilge and also cleaned the dinghy. I brought it over to the dock where Mima was and we hauled it out. There were still lots of spots where the barnacles had been. Tom suggested using a scraper and got his plastic one. Well, that didn't do any good. He then got an aluminum bar that had slightly rounded edges. That worked very well, although you had to keep water running on it to prevent the metal from discoloring the fabric and also to rinse away the calcium as it was removed. It took over 2 hours, but eventually we got it all off. In the middle of the process, we all went to have lunch at a little restaurant at the marina. We then went back to the dinghy and applied a UV fabric protectant to the top. Diane, in the meantime, had done quite a bit of hand laundry since we had the water to use. After we finished doing the dinghy, the laundry and the bilge, we figured that was enough. We rested and had a nice spaghetti dinner. As we took showers that night, I noticed that the electric bilge pump didn't go off after Diane's shower. The pump went off when I pumped the water out by the manual pump so I assumed that either the switch was jammed or the pump was clogged. Oh well, something else to fix. We had said that we would leave for the Saintes on Thursday, but we now had the bilge pump to address. We would decide in the morning. Well, the next morning was pretty windy, even in the marina, so it was an easy decision. We stayed. I removed the bilge pump and cleaned it. The switch had some junk on it and was sticking; that's why the pump wasn't turning off. I also got some more junk out of the bilge using a long "grabber", one of those gadgets that becomes indispensible once you have it. I also got the tape residue off the anchor locker so Diane could clean and wax the deck fiberglass. Most of the deck has non-skid but there are spots that are just fiberglass and she wanted to clean and wax it. I also prepared the logs and new pictures to upload to the web site, but when we went to the internet place, they wouldn't let me use a diskette, so all we did was check email and delete the spam that had accumulated. Oh well, hopefully we'll find a place soon. That evening, we invited Tom and Stephanie over for dinner of spaghetti and meatballs and I showed them the Sailmail program. Radio propagation wasn't very good but they got the idea. The great thing about Sailmail is that I can send and receive email from the boat. Using Pocketmail, Tom and Stephanie have to go to shore and find a phone that will work with data transmission - not all will. Of course, Sailmail depends on radio conditions, but I still like it. If a service like Globalstar ever gets affordable, I would probably switch to that but right now, satellite transmissions are very expensive. The next morning, we decided to stay again to finish cleaning and waxing the deck and so I could clean and regrease the rigging and then retune the mast. I had wanted to do that for awhile and since the wind was still predicted to be around 20 knots, we decided to stay and finish our chores and then relax. The Saintes would wait another day. During the day, Jean left for the long weekend with his girlfriend for Les Saintes. We said au revoir but would see him there, hopefully, tomorrow. |