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Larry's LogAfter that disagreeable task, we decided that the moment of truth had arrived. I made sure all the valves were in the right position and turned on the Little Wonder (no I'm not being facetious, that's the name of the unit from Village Marine Tec, the manufacturer). An amazingly, it was working. Not at the rated 8 gallons per hour, but about at about 5 gallons, it was acceptable. Unfortunately, it still used about 18 amps. Well, at least it's working right. I would address the lower output with the manufacturer later. Since the intake feed line is plumbed to the engine, I wasn't sure if we could use it and run the engine at the same time. I would have to try that since the engine could only offset the drain on the batteries. Later that day, we go over to another boat, Ken and Vesta on Great White Wonder to wish Tony and Jenny from Stage Sea a good trip. They are due to leave the next morning. And they do leave the next morning after clearing out. We're both sorry to see them go, but we realize that this is also part of the cruising life. We went back into the lagoon at 11am after making about ½ tank of water. Diane goes shopping with another cruiser to Marigot but this time goes via dinghy. They have a 15 horsepower engine that takes them there in only 10 minutes. Very nice but I still don't feel its worth another $1500 for an engine and probably another $2000 for the dinghy to do it justice. This is probably the only anchorage where such power and distance ability will be needed. (I hope) While she was there, Diane called her Dad for his birthday, except it wasn't! She called a day too early. She felt really badly, but at least it was a day early and not a day late. Well, it didn't stop her from getting some more good (cheap) wine and nice cheese for lunch. The next day, a sailmaker came out (actually we brought him out) to give us an estimate to replace the center piece of the dodger. He said it should be $130 and it doesn't seem too unreasonable so we told him to go ahead. He needed the entire dodger to fit the new piece correctly so we took it off and brought him and the dodger to his shop. He promised it would be ready in 2 days. Another important event - Diane actually got gas for the dinghy all by HERSELF, and mixed the oil too!! Typically, she doesn't touch anything mechanical. You could say that this isn't very mechanically oriented, but it's a start. (Of course, she hasn't done it since, and I'm writing this about a month later.) We had heard on the morning radio net that the US warship JFK, an aircraft carrier, was due to be anchored near Philipsburgh. Tom, the net controller, wasn't sure if they would be doing tours since the tragedy on the Cole. But Diane went into town to see if they would. The information she got was that they weren't doing formal tours but that if you could find a sailor who was willing to escort you, you could get on the ship for a tour by that sailor. She was warned that this might be hard to do since they were on shore leave and they would have to be in their dress whites to do a tour. However, she asked several that she saw that morning just walking around and eventually she found a willing soul, as she was eating in McDonalds! Seems the guy she "picked" was from the same area in NY where she grew up and so "how could he refuse." Friday was the day we were to meet him at noon. That night we went to Great White Wonder for Mexican Night. Everyone made a "Mexican" dish although Diane made brownies (Mexican style?) and we had a great time. Ken's boat is 60 feet and in beautiful shape (for sale, BTW) and there were about 20 people on board so we really had a party! The next day was a productive one. We got some water from the water barge, although there must have been an air lock somewhere since we only got 69 gallons and should have picked up more. We also picked up our new dodger piece, on time and at the agreed price. We both worked on the logs and then went over to Side by Side in Marigot for drinks. As I think I mentioned, their boat is a 42 (I think) catamaran. It's amazing how roomy those boats are, and they had a beautiful example of one. The boat had a large cabin with a double berth in each hull along with a tremendous main saloon, galley and nav station in the center. I was impressed. Makes you think!! (Of course, they pay more for a slip (typically 1 and ½ times the monohull rate, but still…) Unfortunately we couldn't stay too long since with our little 5 horse outboard, it had taken ½ hour to get there from the Dutch side and we didn't want to drive back in the dark. Even though we have lights on the dinghy, many of the people there didn't and it was decidedly more dangerous since it was hard to see obstructions and shallow water. Friday came and before we were due to leave for the tour of the JFK, we went for a swim. We left the dinghy locked up at a marina dock (we always lock it as theft has become all too common) but a boat needed to come in after we left it. So the marina staff cut our cable after trying to open the lock by beating it against the pier. Fortunately they didn't just let it go adrift but tied it some distance away, at least where we could find it. It was our fault for locking it there but as we had done so before, we didn't think about it. Anyway, we now needed to get a replacement cable. We had invited Side by Side to come with us to the JFK and we meet them on the bus going to Philipsburgh. We got to the appointed place, near the Dockside Bar, at 11:30 and hoped that our guide would show up. While we waited, we could see that groups were going aboard the ship. It seemed that the ship sent out tickets to certain groups, schools, government agencies, churches, etc., beforehand and they were queuing up to go aboard. We asked one of the chiefs (a Navy rank for non-commissioned officer, I think) and he said if there was room, he would get us on a tour. We waited until 1pm and our guy never showed up (we later found out that he had a duty watch and couldn't make it). But Tony, the chief, very kindly got us on the next tender going out to the ship. We invited him to visit our "ship" but he said he probably couldn't make it. We have kept in contact though through email; it's really nice to meet people that way. |