For a little more than a week, we’ve been released from quarantine, enjoying the view from the marina and we’ve continued to keep ourselves busy with boat work, despite my pleas to Andrew to get to know more of the island and have some fun! We tested our new Spectra water maker while still out in the bay and found that it efficiently makes about 8 liters of good freshwater out of saltwater in about an hour.
We came into the dock to take advantage of gourmet store provisioning, which really just means you can get most everything you want as opposed to the island version of everything. For instance, when you order breakfast sausage from the island store, you get a 3lb unidentified package with 50 grayish looking links when all you really wanted was 8 links of Jimmy Dean.
On one of the hotter days, we laid out 300 feet of new chain on the dock in order to install colored coded markers every 25 feet. It took hours to update computers, software and apps to test our Iridium Go communications equipment, which enables us to get weather files and make phone calls, text and email while offshore. And finally, we got our gorgeous new sail cover installed & fitted and ordered a few other covers (including a dinghy motor cover) to keep the sailmaker busy.
At sundown, we met up with some old friends (Bill and Maureen on Kalunamoo and Geri, from Gros Islet) and met new ones (Steve & Jenny on Tanglewood and Gill & Alasdair on Star Charger), while enjoying the Wednesday evening J24 races between the boardwalk and the docks. On what was supposed to be one of our last evenings, we enjoyed meeting up with new friends (Ray & Nadine on Mojito) at Salt, one of our favorite restaurants in Rodney Bay.
I finally got to take an island tour with the most able & interesting driver, Paul. He knew all about the history of the islands and who lived in the big houses up in the hills with the most spectacular views of the ocean. We enjoyed a visit to the (thankfully dormant) volcano and The Pitons in Soufriere and had the best chicken roti yet at Mon Amie.
Today, the boat is cleaned up and ready to go but we are sitting and waiting for a good weather window to Puerto Rico. We have asked Chris Parker, the weather guru, to advise us and we think he’ll agree, holding off a few days will be a more comfortable 10 - 15 knots out of the East/Southeast with 3-5 foot seas as opposed to the current 20 knots, gusts to 30, waves 5-7 feet! What would you do with a crew of two on a 47 foot boat? I think we’ll continue to enjoy St. Lucia!!
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