Week ending 20 January 2008
If Knot Y Knot
Patricia Day
Sun 20 Jan 2008 15:42
Monday
There is still not much wind and I have turned the fridge off to help the
batteries out, but I still had to run the generator to power the
watermaker. The good news is that the radar chart plotter is fine, but
the new autopilot has a problem with its compass and I am waiting for a
price on this. Other than that it was a long day where anything was hard
to achieve, it feels as though it could be a slow week.
Tuesday
It rained, that is a little bit more water for my tank. I made another
bungy net and then went for news on my autopilot, but nothing yet. I am
trying to install the programs on to the new computer, but I have not got
very far. At 8pm there was noise outside and I thought it was a boat just
going very close and then there was a siren, I went out and it was the
coastguard patrol, all 7 of them, who just dropped by for a chat.
Wednesday
9.30 I went through with the boats under the bridge, only in the dinghy
and headed for France. I went over to the hardware store, but I forgot it
was France and even the mega stores close for a long lunch. I had to go
back after 2.30. John and Shirley had visitors, but only four of us went
for a walk up to the top of the hill with the fort for the panoramic view
of St Barts to the South and Anguilla to the North. We stopped off for a
drink on the way back and I met up with Lorigray and they joined us. I
was bemoaning my autopilot problems, Lorigray have problems with their new
all singing all dancing toy not fitting in with the rest of their system,
but John won as he needs a new engine – a bit longer on the boatyard for
them. I should have been at the pot luck over on the Dutch side at 6pm,
but despite trying to get away several times, I did not arrive back until
8.30. Amazing how the day just disappears.
Thursday
Simrad have merged with B&G and someone else and are not responding to
e-mails or phone calls, so there is no price for my part yet; they
probably don’t know where their parts are any more. I took the computer
to the internet to try to sort my sat phone, but I was a day too late, the
rental expired yesterday and I will have to start again, but I had so few
minutes left it does not matter. I now have even less communication
capability than usual.
The outboard had stopped working earlier and it was very rough in the
lagoon and a nice man offered me a tow through the bridge, it was just
before the boats were going to come in, so I gratefully accepted. John
and Shirley were at the Yacht Club, but they had a hire car and so we just
waved.
The wind has picked up and I was able to run the watermaker and turn the
fridge back on.
Friday
John, Shirley, Danny, Tim and I were in a hire car and were meant to be
meeting the four people in Philipsburg who were also going to hire a car.
The day got away from us, we did not go to Sunset Beach to get sandblasted
by the planes, but got to the yacht club to watch the boats go through.
The others went to the airport, but did not make it to the yacht club for
either opening. We were going to try again tomorrow.
Saturday
I really had to stay in and try and get my outboard to work, but it was
too windy and rough. I lost two screwdrivers in the water before I even
got in the dinghy. Richard brought me out some starting ether and
carburetor cleaner, no one had told me before that this is the easy way, I
had just stripped the engine down every time. I could not get the ether
to go up the air intake because it is in such a difficult position, all I
achieved was to give myself a headache. I finished the netting on the
side of the boat, it has only taken me since Bequia. The genoa pole is on
new stanchion hooks,the ranging planks are tied back on and the jerry
cans have new bungy cargo nets to keep them in place. It all looks very
tidy.
I had another attempt with the outboard, but had no more luck. Richard
is 65 today, we went for a birthday dinner and I asked the band to do him
Happy Birthday. It was so windy that the batteries were full and I had to
turn off the wind generator.
Sunday
I ran the watermaker and am going to recharge the batteries as much as I
can before I leave the boat, I do not want to leave the wind generator
going as it may overload the batteries. I am going to struggle over to
the fleamarket, I do not have much to sell this week, but going to be
another attempt to play dominoes afterwards. We really owe it to St
Maarten to get them started on this, they cannot remain the social
backwater that they are.