We arrived back to our lovely St. Maarten this week! Our trip from Antigua was uneventful which is always a plus when travelling by boat. We were welcomed back by our singing and dancing bridge tender and made our way into the Port du Plaisance marina where we spent some time last Spring. This year, we have chosen to stay in St. Maarten for hurricane season instead of making the long journey back to Grenada. Staying in St. Maarten is a bit of a gamble but since we will be pulling Galt out of the water for maintenance, he will be strapped down which should keep him out of any major trouble. The Saharan dust has already begun to blow here in the Caribbean which we love to see. The dust decreases the likelihood of early season hurricanes which makes life much easier for us! St. Maarten is our first “repeat” country that we have visited and we found settling in much easier because we knew the lay of the land. Our first day, we headed over to talk with some of the maintenance people to begin scheduling visits for estimates. Galt needs some new paint, a new manifold to help the fuel tanks function perfectly, a rigging check, fire extinguishers serviced and a multitude of other jobs. What we get ticked off our list will depend on the estimates so we will be busy this week setting priorities. We also need to find a place to live while Galt is “on the hard”. On the hard is boating lingo for out of the water. While we could live on Galt while he is out of the water, I don’t relish finding out where the term “on the hard” came from and since getting on and off the boat involves climbing a ladder at least 10 feet tall, I say no thank you. I’ll take an apartment for the month of August!
We made our way to the Carrefours Market to resupply the galley and I was very excited to find Jif crunchy peanut butter in stock. I have a few American name brands that I am picky about including JIF and Ritz crackers. Carrefours had both for a reasonable price! I threw the JIF into the cart and made my way happily back to the boat. Flash forward two days. My daily morning routine includes checking the Google news feed on my phone to keep up with the headlines from the States. Sunday’s Google Headline: JIF issues voluntary recall of certain peanut butter products due to potential Salmonella contamination….Of course they did…..I grabbed my new (thankfully unopened) jar of joy to check the lot number. Yep. Recalled. Why must the world be so cruel? So, now I need to go to Carrefours today to make sure they received the notice on the JIF before they start a Salmonella outbreak! We are back into superyacht territory and there is one near us named “Limitless”. Bill did his usual boat stalking online and found out the owner was the founder of The Limited clothing stores. He started off with one store in Ohio and made his way to superyacht level. I love stories like this one and it made the name of his boat the best one yet! Now for the surprise I promised you last week….why do we only need an apartment for the month of August when hurricane season lasts until November? We are going on a European and African adventure for three months! Last year in Grenada, Bill and I discussed how difficult it was to stay on a small island for more than 3 months. On one of my down days in Grenada, Bill suggested that we look into travelling abroad for the next hurricane season. That is all it took! I was off and planning. I currently have a spreadsheet that has fifteen tabs covering topics from general information, schedules, flights, things to do, etc. It is organized and color coded (green for flights, blue for car rental, yellow for train, etc) and we are getting close to purchasing flights for the initial leg! We are very excited to take you along on the tour which will include the following: England, Spain, Portugal, Morocco, Nice, Monaco, Italy, Montenegro, Greece, Egypt, Jordan, Tanzania for a safari and a final destination that has yet to be determined. If my spreadsheet is any indication, the trip is going to be amazing….not to mention colorful!
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AuthorSally Miller Archives
May 2024
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