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Larry's LogWe walked back and met Bill at our dinghy. An American ex-pat and very nice guy who looked over the engine for about 5 minutes and found the problem. It seemed that the lifting strap we were using to hoist the engine was blocking the water outflow. I took the strap off and tried it. Worked fine at all speeds. Apparently, at low rpm, it wasn't too bad, but at higher rpm, the engine would overheat and stall. When I asked how much I owed him, he said "Don't worry about it." Thanks again Bill. Needless to say, we don't leave the strap on the engine anymore. Actually, the engine acted up a bit more, but after some running at high rpm, I think what ever junk that had built up was cleared and now, so far so good. If you remember, I had mentioned that the serial port of the laptop was intermittently giving me problems. Well, the next day, the end of January, it finally gave up completely. The machine would start but refused to go into Windows. Since I worked in the computer field for almost 20 years in various capacities, I can get around or fix most problems given the time. But this was a stumper. I tried restoring files it claimed were missing, I reinstalled Win95 from the hard drive, tried upgrading to Win98, but nothing worked. OK. Maybe if I can do a complete reinstall of Win95 that might work. But I don't have the CD. (At this point, the software police can look elsewhere). St. Maarten is fortunate in having a daily radio "net" at 730am in which cruising people can make announcements, ask for information, buy and sell items, etc. Its run by Tom Higginbotham, the Pastor of the International Baptist Church that is located in the Simpson Bay Marina complex. (If all pastors, reverends, priests, and rabbis were more like him, I might be more religious.) Tom operates this net everyday except Sunday, so the next morning I got on and asked if anyone had the Win95 CD that I could use to try to revive my laptop. A boat named Stage Sea replies that we can use his CD if we bring the laptop to their boat in the Island Water World Marina. We arrange to meet after a presentation that will be given at the church on dolphins and whales in the Caribbean. The 10am presentation is by the crew of Delphinus that is a research sailboat from an organization call Delphinia. Their talk is very good and it seems they are doing some interesting research. Unfortunately, the video is in PAL format (European) and the equipment is American (NTSC). We signed up to go to their boat later in the week to see the video on their equipment. After the presentation, we go to Stage Sea and meet Tony Collingridge, a very nice guy who's been cruising for about 10 years with his wife Jenny. A British couple, they cruised the Med for 7 years before crossing "the Pond" and visiting the Caribbean. While I try to resusitate Windows, Diane made some arrangements to do the laundry for later on. Unfortunately, the laptop refuses to cooperate. After trying to reinstall Win95 several times, with some different techniques, I finally give up. Although it will go into DOS and I can retrieve some data, Windows steadfastly refuses to load. After I declared the laptop "deceased", we "mourned" with a beer. Oh well, I guess a new machine is in our future. After thanking Tony and answering some PC questions he had, we left to collect the laundry and bring it to shore. While Diane went off with the laundry van (they would return her to the same spot later, I went to back to the boat and waited for her to call via the little family radio service (FRS) radios we had bought. The next day we did some shopping for the new PC. I got on the Internet at the Business Center, a part of the Simpson Bay Marina complex. It was the cheapest place around ($5 for an hour) but the connection was pretty slow and it seemed Hotmail always had problems. After some research on brands and prices, we went to Philipsburgh on the bus. The bus is just a minivan with lots of seats and cost a dollar for our length trip. The prices in town are pretty high and the selection is minimal so we decide to order via the Internet. We stop to eat lunch at a little Roti restaurant (not bad) and head back to the Business Center to get back on the internet and order a new machine. We made arrangements with the Business Center to have our purchase sent down from a Miami firm they are associated with. We order from Dell and have it delivered to the Business Center's Miami address, since Dell won't "export" the machine outside the States. Dell states that the order should be delivered in 3 to 5 business days and then it would be sent down to us in St. Maarten. I can hardly wait! After placing our order, we go over to Delphinia to watch the video of their whale and dolphin research and its really great. They are doing a wonderful job and try to raise awareness of the problems these species are having in the Caribbean. It seems that the Japanese are paying a lot of money to have whales taken here since the governments of the Caribbean need the cash more than they want to practice conservation. After the video, Stage Sea came over for cocktail hour. Tony and Jenny are really a great couple and we become fast friends. The next day the wind is really up so we don't even leave the boat and just to some repairs and chores. The problem is that the dinghy ride can get really wet in a lot of wind, so unless you're just going to the beach and expect it, staying dry can be a problem; wet bottoms and such (cruisers' butt). Fortunately, the holding here is good and we're secure. The next few days are occupied with normal daily stuff, like shopping, boat chores, etc. Diane and Jenny go into Marigot, via bus, to shop and the next day Diane and I go to a Cost-U-Less (like Price Club or Sams') and Ace Hardware. We also price a new Yamaha 15hp outboard since our 5hp goes so slowly. After getting the price, I decide (we?) that the almost $1600 it would cost is better spent elsewhere. I think we'll survive with what we have. After a few days of listening to the ROAR of the jets, we decided to move up in the anchorage a bit and see if it got better. We see some open spots and move. It's a bit better since the planes are now 500 feet high over us rather than just 200 feet. The entire lagoon is in their flight path, but at least the boat doesn't vibrate quite so much when they fly overhead. It makes you appreciate just how big a 747 really is! |