Alas, we are sitting on Galt in St. Maarten lagoon waiting. Harry's Houdingy's motor was sputtering and cutting out so we took it back to the motor doctor and we need a new carburetor. Of course, the carburetor is in Miami. We ordered a new one and were told it should be delivered in four business days which would make it Tuesday of this coming week. They then shifted it to next Friday. So, we wait. We can't leave Galt in anything but perfect conditions because Bill has to row. Rowing Harry is not easy because he was not designed to be rowed. He was designed to go fast. We did venture out for dinner one night which took 20 minutes to travel 200 yards but other than that one outing, we have been doing small projects on the boat and trying not to be frustrated. I decided to watch a Harry Potter movie every day this week which should help me pass the time until the carburetor arrives. If they send the wrong part, I think our patience may come to an end but we are trying to remain positive. Sorry for no real blog this week but it is what it is. Have a wonderful Groundhog day and pray for no shadow!
0 Comments
We had a fun-filled and work-filled week on Galt. We moved from the lagoon over to the marina for a few days so we would have plenty of power to run power tools. It is “high season” in St. Maarten and not only does high season mean more superyachts and cruisers, it also means higher prices! We stayed at the same marina in July for half what we paid this week. The one plus of high season is that rich people obviously demand really hot water because the shower temperatures were much hotter than they were in July! The funny part is that none of the superyacht people would ever be caught dead taking a shower in the marina showers….we certainly enjoyed them though! There were only two marina slips available for the days we wanted so we required a lot of assistance from the dockhands in their dinghy to push Galt into place next to a 120 foot yacht. Bill found out later that the yacht was for sale. Only $17,000,000.00 asking price! We were hoping someone would make a mistake and offer that for Galt!
We rented a car for a few days to complete our errands. We used the same rental car company we had used last year because they treat us well. We arrived at the car lot to find our rental car had been crashed earlier that day. The entire side was smashed and one of the guys said his cousin had rented it and “had a little too much to smoke.” They rented us the car anyway which was fine with us. At least we did not need to worry about damaging it! We decided to have a date night on Tuesday and made our way over to the Naked Pirate for happy hour. The owner of the Naked Pirate told us about a shawarma restaurant that was supposedly better than our favorite shawarma place so we decided to give it a try. We were sorely disappointed. The shawarma was half the size and half the flavor of our favorite joint….so we learned not to cheat on the best! At happy hour, several cruisers brought their instruments and played some songs for us which was fun. We then made our way to The Red Piano bar. We had been wanting to go to the piano bar since we first saw it in 2021 and it was now reopened. When we walked into the bar, it was like stepping back in time. Bill compared it to the Holiday Inn lounge in the 1970s….complete with disco ball! We were the youngest people by a long shot aside from the local prostitute that was working the crowd before she settled on an older gentleman at the bar. I asked Bill, “Is that girl a prostitute?” Bill’s response, “I’d say that’s a good assumption. Look how into him she looks. No girl that age is that enthralled with a guy his age unless she’s getting paid.” The pianist was very talented and was also working the crowd…just in a different way from the prostitute. In the pianist’s words, “I’ll do anything you want if you pay me” so it was kind of hard to tell the difference between the two! Bill made a request for his favorite “catchy tune” song by Pitbull but she did not know it so she played him some Queen instead. A good time was had by all! After we left the bar, we were starving (given our pathetic little shawarma we had earlier) so we stopped by one of our favorite pizza joints and grabbed a pizza. We were quite proud of ourselves for making it past 10pm! We will definitely miss the variety of restaurants in St. Maarten when we leave. The rest of the week was all work and no play. Bill worked on fuel lines (yes, we are still figuring out the best setup) while I cleaned and painted his bathroom cabinet (the one with wet wood from last week). Bill pulled the motor out of our Windlass (the machine that lifts the anchor out of the water) because it had been running slowly. As he pulled out the motor, a Niagara Falls of oil spilled out on the deck making quite a mess. When the service guy fixed the motor, he said the issue was the motor was “gunked up with oil”. No surprise there! When Bill reassembled the Windlass, we carefully measured the correct amount of oil and now it works like a charm. Our last endeavor of the week was provisioning. When we leave St. Maarten (hopefully this week if weather behaves), we will be heading to islands that tend to be expensive. Therefore, we thought we would completely restock the galley and load the freezer. It took us three stores to find everything we wanted but the freezer is happily full of meat! The best deal of the day was Bill’s beer. When we were staying in Phillipsburg, he found this Danish beer called Faxe which was only $2.00 a six pack. He figured he would load up on cases for our travel season since cases of other beer in St. Maarten cost $18-$24.00. When we arrived at the store, we could not find the Faxe. Bill asked the manager and found out they “had a few cases” remaining. Bill told him he would take them all. “A few” cases ended up being 16 cases! The manager sold it to us for $5.00 a case so Bill was a happy man! I think we entertained the locals loading it all into the car but we managed to fit all the beer, the groceries and us in the car. Getting out of the marina slip ended up being even more exciting than getting into the slip. The wind was gusting 20 knots so every time the dockhands would try to untie Galt from the dock, he would head straight toward the $17m superyacht! Needless to say, the dockhands did not want to be responsible for crashing into the superyacht so it took us about 30 minutes of inching our way out of the slip to escape. We woke up early Saturday morning to go to our first boat “jumble”. A jumble is basically a garage sale where boaters take all their unwanted stuff to sell it to other boaters. Then, they buy the other boaters’ unwanted stuff to take back to their boat. We gathered our unwanted items and threw them into Harry Houdinghy. Alas, Harry had been running far too well the last few weeks. As Bill tried to start the motor, Harry refused. Luckily, our neighbors were dinghying by so we threw them a line and they towed us over to the jumble. While I sold our treasures, Bill rowed Harry over to the service shop and had the motor serviced. Looks like a new carburetor is in our near future but for now, Harry is back in the mood to run. I was quite the saleswoman and managed to make $15.00 on our stuff! So, we went to lunch and spent $30.00 to celebrate! We are now sitting happily back in the lagoon and will enjoy our last few days in St. Maarten before moving on to St. Bart’s. If all goes well, next blog should be full of new adventures! We continue to hang out in Sint Maarten getting projects completed and watching weather. This week’s blog is going to mostly be a story in pictures. It is a Day in the Life on Galt when on anchor in Sint Maarten. Most everyday things are taken for granted when living on land or in the States. On a boat, even the easiest tasks are a challenge. I thought you might like to see a Day in the Life on Galt. So, as you can see, a day in the life takes a huge amount of organization and will power. There are some days we vote to just "be bums" but those days are rare in boat life. Too many 'bum' days mean a boat full of trash, a dinghy full of rain water and empty of gas, and boat projects that never get done. We love our days and would not trade them for life on land right now but just know.... the youtubers and reality tv shows that make it seem like all bikinis and relaxation are not 'reality' at all!
Other interesting facts for 2022. Google tracks me when I am on the move (not the best thing in the world but a fact of life!). I just received my end of year numbers for travel which I thought you might like: In 2022: Total miles traveled: 33,558 Countries visited: 27 Cities visited: 161 Places visited: 592 Food and drink places: 91 Flying miles: 24606 On our previous trips to the Simpson Bay Lagoon in Sint Maarten, we were here during The Stupid and then during the "off" season. High season in the Caribbean is from November - May. We have always heard tales of High Season's Past but have never experienced it first hand. Until now. We moved Galt over to the lagoon on Monday as planned and settled in quite nicely on anchor. All systems worked well which was a blessing after December's follies! To get into the lagoon, each boat must wait in the outer bay until the drawbridge opens. The bridge opens about 5 times a day for incoming boats. In the past, we would see a few fellow sailboats enter the lagoon or some local catamaran charters. We were definitely not prepared for this week! At each opening, Bill will yell, "Bridge opening! Get ready!" and the fun begins. The size of these private and charter yachts entering the lagoon are the size of small cruise ships! Bill grabs the binoculars and jots down the boat name and then we stalk them online to find out all about them. The largest one that came in this week was called Top 5 and was 200 feet long. It was a charter boat meaning that you could rent it as your own for a week. The cost......$500,000.00 A WEEK! The others ranged from a paltry $250,000.00 a week to $400,000.00 a week. It is insane! Some of the yachts are privately owned and those are really fun to stalk because we can see how the owner made his or her money. We especially love the rags to riches stories which is what most of them are.
Other than yacht stalking, we have been doing small projects on Galt and waiting on the Christmas winds to calm down. We have enjoyed eating at our favorite places and going to happy hour at the local bar. We also went and visited a new place called The Naked Pirate which was opened while we were in Europe. Nice owner and he played country music which was high on my list! Much better than Bob Marley for the nine millionth time! At some point this week, we will pull into one of the marinas for a couple of days in order to stock up on food and fuel prior to heading out to St. Bart's. We don't know if we'll get to go this week or not.....all depends on the weather. But, if the weather is not good, we will just stay put.....after all, we can't really beat hanging out with great food, fun places and amazing yachts! |
AuthorSally Miller Archives
May 2024
|