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Larry's LogMonday we saw that Syrena, with Voytek and Pauline, had just come in and anchored near us very early in the morning. They were one of our SSCA sponsors for Commodore status and had just made a straight trip up from Trinidad. We called over and they invited us over for coffee and cake after dinner sometime. They were tired from the trip and were going to clear in and rest. We went into shore to call FedEx to pick up our signed tax return. We were going to send it back to our CPA friend and she would then send it on to the government. They said they would pick it up at 11am, so we went back to the boat, got the papers and went back to shore and waited. We waited only until about 11:30 and the guy showed up, we filled out the forms and he put our stuff in the envelope and said it would get to the States tomorrow. I doubted that but as long as it got there in 2-3 days that would be OK. It did actually get there 2 days later, as we found out later. We saw Moornrise and Pride while ashore so we had a quick beer with them and then went back to the boat for lunch. Listening to the weather forecasts the following morning, Tuesday, we decided that we probably wouldn't try to leave until early the following week. There were some conflicting opinions though. Diane went to shore again for her walk while I stayed on the boat and worked on the web site. When she came back we had lunch and went to play bocce ball around 3. When we got back, we were treated to a nice green flash; we sometimes see it when the horizon is clear but tonight it was much brighter than we had seen before. (Yes, there really is such a thing; there's actually a Green Flash web site that has pictures of it.) Wednesday we were preparing the boat for leaving. I cleaned the bottom again and this time cleaned the chain, which had lots of growth on it. Fortunately, only the top 20 feet get this growth since the chain dragging along the bottom is brushed clean from the motion of the boat. What I "should" do is let out some extra rode every week for a few days and then bring it in again, but I never do - neither does anyone else though. After spending 90 minutes or so on cleaning the chain, the prop, the rudder, the engine intake, the depth transducer and the speed log, I was too tired to clean the rest of the hull. Fortunately, it wasn't too bad. I wasn't happy with the paint we put on in Trinidad though. It seemed to be working on most of the hull, but it came off the lead keel in patches and also some small patches at the stern. Perhaps I'm expecting too much. That evening we had a really nice bottle of wine, not French. It was from the Alexander Valley (near Napa) of California! We had bought some bottles from there 3 years ago when we visited my brother, and brought some along on the cruise. It was far superior to the French wine we bought in Martinique but then again, it had cost us about $35! The French wine we bought now was only $3 to $4 per bottle. We then made the mistake of having another bottle we had just bought. Not nearly as good and worse, we both got hangovers the next day. Life goes on though, hangover or no. Thursday we went over to Syrena in the morning to try out their dinghy since we were considering buying a similar one. Theirs was smaller than we wanted but otherwise the same, and after running it for 10 minutes, we decided that it would probably be a good investment. They were leaving soon to go north and so we said goodbye. Voytek went to Marin to clear out and we saw them raise the dinghy on deck later. They didn't leave that day though and they called the next day to say that they were going directly to St. Martin rather than to Dominica since the weather window was now good. By the time we got back from bocce that afternoon, they were gone. We had spoken to Joe and Ruth on Legacy that morning and they said they were in Martinique and would be coming down to Ste. Anne the next day. We were looking forward to seeing them again. Friday morning we motored into Marin to do some shopping, update the web site and generally catch up on things before we left. After doing all those things, we stayed in Marin for the night and went back to Marin the next morning so Diane could call her parents and Aunt and I could look in the chandlery once more. We then went back to Ste. Anne on Saturday afternoon. Around 5:30 we heard Legacy on the radio and he anchored just behind and to starboard. We went over about 45 minutes later and had a party with Joe and Ruth, Lori and Bob from Pride, Joe and Ruth's daughter, Ashley, son-in-law, John, and us. We all had a great time. They had evidently had an exciting sail up to Martinique - they saw a whale and caught a 7-foot Marlin (but didn't land it)! The next morning, I went with Joe and John into Marin on their new (old) dinghy. It was a nice 12 foot RIB with a 25hp engine and we really flew. I showed them where things were, Joe checked in (we had already checked out) and I got some water again and we started back. On the way, I showed Joe how to negotiate the reefs near the Club Med beach (lots of nice "shells"). We went back to Legacy for a while since Diane and Ruth had gone to Ste. Anne to look around. Naturally, Diane did some last minute shopping and used up our remaining Euros. That night, Joe and Ruth went to dinner with their family but stopped by to say that we would see them in Rodney Bay the next day. |