Early October update – we’re still in St George’s!

Since our last blog, time has simply flown by. I put it down to how short the days are here. Let me explain: it’s so hot that sleeping can be tricky at times and so it’s not unusual to be a bit ‘late’ starting the day, say nine-ish. Everything then takes time as hatch covers have to go on, bedding aired, lots of domestic stuff etc etc. Then, we work on the boat or go shopping, all of which takes us to around 1230 or so when it’s lunch time. The afternoon is spent finishing any jobs we’d started or sometimes the Mate goes to do some yoga under a palm tree she’s adopted for that purpose. I sometimes go too and do some reading for an hour. All pleasant enough, but as it gets dark about 1800 everyone seems to have their Happy Hours or Sundowners about 1730, so that leaves a short afternoon before we head off for showers before said Happy Hour etc. Instead of locking the boat up, we go for showers separately so that takes even longer – but we do it that way to keep the boat aired and to save time locking/unlocking/removing hatch covers (otherwise the hatches don’t close) – anyway on it goes – I’m sure you get the idea. Why do we lock the boat in an expensive marina with security and cameras? Mmm, there’s been a theft or two recently – the boat next to us had a telescopic whisker pole stolen at 0330 one morning and there’s a report of a dinghy theft too (usually the thief just wants the outboard, not the dinghy, so we’re hoping our outboard is too small for anyone to bother with – 3.5hp). It could be worse – in Trinidad, there are reports of thieves not even stealing dinghies, but just getting busy with an angle grinder where they just cut the transom off complete with the outboard and take the whole lot with them – goodness me…

So, aside from all the jobs, we’ve had our friend David nearby on his boat, a rather nice Sabre 402 (I may have mentioned this before). David has something called a Sail Rite sewing machine, this is a machine that will stitch almost anything – you can imagine the delight on the Mate’s face, she wasted no time in ordering some sunshade fabric from which to make a rear shade for the cockpit. The delight on her face was even greater when David announced that due to the sewing machine’s age and temperamental attitude he would do all the stitching for her! As for me, I’ve been cleaning, polishing, checking the boat over, endlessly looking at some rigging stuff - any boat owner will know exactly what I mean. So all in all, that’s where our days have gone. Not particularly helped by David - who is much older than both of us - insisting on having an end of work beer on a daily basis! Luckily, he’s flying back up to the States for a few days next week, so we can take things a little easier. Not only that, but he’s offered to bring anything we need back for us. That was good news yesterday as my shoes had fallen apart and the prices in the US are far better than here! For people who’ve been paying attention on previous blogs, you may ask why not get my sister-in-law to bring more things out? The reason is that she can’t – her bags are already full :) :) Thanks dear sis-in-law…

Another thing that’s been happening is that we’ve both been feeling a little lack-lustre. We’ve found out why! All the water over here is desalinated by reverse osmosis, it has nothing in it – we’re lacking in minerals, particularly magnesium – and we’ve drunk a lot of water! The answer is of course magnesium supplements which are now on order. Plenty of cruisers have this issue and one wonders why it’s never mentioned in any cruisers guides. Maybe we’ll have to write one!

As our jobs list gets smaller – get that – smaller! We’re looking forward to the Mate’s sister arriving. In fact we’ve used her arrival date as a deadline to finish ALL our jobs. She arrives on 12 October and the three of us are going to have nearly two weeks of rest and enjoyment* (apart from the fact that the Mate’s sister is quite light, so she’s been ‘volunteered’ for a trip up the mast – if my mother-in-law reads this – don’t worry S, she’ll be fine!) *I am pleased that Skip has put this in writing – we officially have two weeks off, hoorah! Mate.

Finally, we went to see a state of the art catamaran the other day. It’s owned by someone we know from the US. The boat itself was a high tech carbon fibre build, everything is controlled from a console in the saloon – no need to be on deck or do anything at all really. My goodness, I thought, we won’t even have to sail anymore soon, simply put some sort of headset on and pretend – Oh, but doesn’t that defeat the object…

Before we go, a catamaran pulled in next to us yesterday. They’d just crossed the Atlantic, they said they’d been beaten up by strong Atlantic lows and had had a tough time of it. Bloody lucky to be alive I said, it was the most lively part of the year for Atlantic hurricanes – seriously, the mind boggles…