Back In St Lucia

ChilliOyster
Dave & Becky Werrett
Thu 12 Feb 2009 09:27
 
 
Thought it was time for a quick (!) update. For those of you that didn't know Dave's mum passed away whilst we were home so we have been offline for awhile and had a n extended trip back to the UK but I flew back to St Lucia wit hth echildren last Sunday, as there were a number of things that needed to be sorted, not least of which was the fact that Molly was still in Kennels. Dave flys back out this Sunday and is bringing his Dad, Ken with him. Ken has coped really well though one of the family has been with him constantly since Heather died. The funeral went as well as can be expected and Thank you so much to those that sent cards, Ken had over 50 cards, a testament to the number of friends and people that knew and cared about them both. Before I left I took him to Primark and we stocked up on shorts & T shirts and I think he is looking forward to his holiday.
 
We collected Molly on our way back from the airport and she was so excited to see us, she was covered in bad tats and she absolutley stank - also alot of her white bits seem to ber stained orange/yellow despite the fact I used nearly a whole bottle of shampoo on her in the shower, I have asked Dave to go to petsmart to see if they have a whitening shampoo for dogs!  She is sticking to me like glue, she has also started whining so the kids are saying she is never going into a kennel again! But I think she is fine and survived remarkably well given she was there for over a month.
 
Everything is fine here not quite the same as when we left, most of the ARC boats have now moved on and the great party atmosphere has gone. It truly was a remarkable experience, I'm sure we will dine out on the stories for a long time to come and despite my feelings about the crossing itself, I think I will remember it as one of the best experiences of my life.
 
Most of the repairs we needed to make have now been done - quite a few people have been working on the boat whilst we have been away and the generator is now fixed, the starter motor repaired, a new VHF has been supplied and the boat has been thoroughly cleaned and polished so it looked lovely when we got here - Dennis (the guy we left looking after our boat) has varnished the toe rail so it looks lovely, I wonder how long it will stay lovely in this heat! Dennis's payment for his services was, in part, an ipod - he really wanted one so we bought him one back and I loaded 2-3000 songs onto it for him. Although he has now finished on the boat - he comes back to see us every morning and evening - partly to check I am ok without Dave and partly to get his ipod charged, he has a beer and does a few odd jobs, he is very sweet, mind you I have had several embarrassing moments courtesy of new ipod which is now permenantly stuck to his ear and you have to constantly shout at him to be heard! Yesterday he bought me his "extensive CD collection" ( 15 pirate copies in a bag which he proudly told me he recovered from someones rubbish!)  the plan was for me to load them on my mac then put them on his ipod, he came back to get them and whilst here he decided he was going to get some WD40 and work on the bike chains whihc had siezed with rust in the sea air and which were a rusted heap on the pontoon.  I was sitting in the cockpit working on Molly's tats when this awful high pitched noise started - the beatles song "yesterday" had obviously come round in the shuffle (he hasn't mastered playing it any other way and wants to know when the films are coming on!) anyway unfortunately Dennis knew some of the words and was singing! It was so bad a man from the boat next door came up on deck and asked him if he was ok! Later below decks I was loading several of his CD's  - all of which were copies so had no artists or song titles attached - so I had to play one or two for him so I could identify which was which - as I hit play on one, the song -" I don't want to be lonely tonight" came on and he started singing (aka wailing) the words to me! ...  I quickly turned it off lest he thought I was suggesting he take his duties one step further!
 
You'll be happy to know the weather here has not been great this week, it has rained heavily on and off  but the temp is still around 28 so I am not complaing, the clouds are all supposed to blow over this weekend but everyone I talk to says there is alot of wind about this year and sailing between the islands is quite a brisk affair. We still haven't decided where we are going to spend hurricane season, but I bumped into the big guy (do you remember the one I called Wrecking Ball!) Mark yesterday  - they were the ones that saw the killer whales on the crossing, their boat is Blue Beyond.  He invited us all to dinner on his boat last night - they are out in the bay at anchor so we we went across in the dinghy. I think we may end up spending more time with them as their plans are similar to ours.They are going to spend the summer in grenada so we might look into that - it is close enough to Trinidad to be able to run if we needed to but is a much nicer and safer place to be.  Next summer they want to go up the US intercoastal waterways and do Chesapaeake bay, which is also something we would love to do.
 
I am still having problems with the website, and I have no way of editing or updating it - I am considering what legal action can be taken as the hosts are now simply refusing to answer any calls or emails - but as they hold the domain name I can not transfer it.
 
Sorry we didn't get to see everybody when we came back this time - the trip was not exactly as we had planned. We will be home again in the summer as Flick is getting married in early June.
 
Take care all and Happy New Year