I would love to regale you with adventures from the week but there were none. It was a quiet week with only one day of moping (by me) due to a sudden shift in the weather which curtailed our desire to depart for St. Bart's. When the weather came in on Wednesday, we were very glad we had not continued with our plan to leave as the winds were roaring and the waves were seven to ten feet which would not have been fun. We spent the week on small projects and I decided to try my hand at oil painting which has been a new challenge (I have always used acrylics). I almost gave up on the oils but Bill encouraged me to keep trying so we'll see how it goes. It is certainly testing my patience!
After Bill had worked on a nasty macerator pump clog, we decided we needed a day at the beach. We had a nice lunch of wings and spring rolls at the Cocky Turtle and then went for a crisp swim. There are definitely worse ways to spend a day in February! At this point, a weather window appears to open on Tuesday and Wednesday to make our jump to St. Bart's. Given the fickleness of the prolonged Christmas winds this year, we never know! I have included a few lovely beach pictures for those of you in colder places!
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The week waiting for our dinghy motor part was a long one. Bill started calling Outdoor World on Monday morning for updates on shipping. On Monday, we were told it was enroute. On Tuesday, we were told it was “on the island”. On Wednesday, we were told the part should arrive at the store via FedEx “either early in the morning or last thing today”. Thursdays’ call revealed that the part was still “somewhere at the airport”. Outdoor World sent one of their employees to track down the part and he brought it back to the store so we could “pick it up”. Excitedly, we jumped into Harry and grabbed the oars to make the long, arduous trek over to Outdoor World. Mother Nature had other plans. We started with just Bill rowing. As the wind gusted every minute, we ended up behind Galt instead of moving forward. We then decided to try both of us rowing. We made 10 feet of progress for every 20 feet we were pushed backwards. Finally, after making it about 100 feet from Galt, I was exhausted so we gave up and drifted our way back to homebase. Bill called Outdoor World and asked them to send someone to get us or bring us the parts. The manager responded that no one had a “boat license” to come get us. “A what?” Bill asked, laughing, “No one in St. Maarten has a boat license and the officials certainly don’t care,” but no amount of begging could convince them to come get us. On Friday morning at 8:30am, a fellow boater came over and dragged us to Outdoor World. When we arrived, our usual helper, Dylan, heard about us being stuck on the boat on Thursday. “Why didn’t you call me? I would have come to get you! I was bored just sitting here.” Sigh, evidently no one informed him we needed a ride. Bill told the mechanic we were going to run over to Island Water World for a few items and we would return shortly.
When we returned, the mechanic told us that the parts we ordered did not match the actual engine. That piece of information meant that our used motor had been rebuilt with parts other than Yamaha parts and without knowing what parts they were, we were stuck. Finally reaching the end of our patience, we broke out the credit card and bought a brand new motor. By this time, it was 10:00am. Dylan stated they would need to pick up the motor from the warehouse so it would “take a bit”. We walked over to Lagoonies restaurant to kill time and decided to eat breakfast again since they were not yet serving lunch. After we had eaten, Dylan pulled up to Lagoonies in his dinghy and walked toward us with the look of a man who had been sent to tell someone their dog died. “Even though that particular motor was in our inventory system, we don’t have it on the island. However, I have a better engine and I’ll give it to you for the same price if that’s okay.” Needless to say, we took the deal and Dylan settled in for a quick beer before heading back to work. I guess he figured he earned a beer since his boss had sent him on a suicide mission. After lunch, we walked back over to the shop. The new motor was not on the dinghy. “We can’t put the motor on the dinghy until we get this form completed. The person who needs to complete the form isn’t responding to me yet,” Dylan informed us. So, we waited. And waited. Finally, Dylan decided the mechanic could service the motor and install it prior to the form being completed. The mechanic walked over to Bill and said, “I need you to go to Island Water World and get some fuel so I can mix it for you.” Bill and I stared at him in disbelief. We had been sitting around for at least an hour doing absolutely nothing and yet he could not tell us about the fuel run? Bill sighed and told Dylan to give him a lift over to the fuel dock. It was just before 1pm. The fuel dock worker was at lunch so it took them until 1:20 to get the fuel. The good news was that by the time Bill and Dylan returned, the elusive form had been completed so we could pay for the motor. At 2:30pm, we left the store with our shiny new motor. Only 6 hours to buy a motor! It was like buying a car in the States in the 1980s! The good news is that we finished our Harry Potter marathon for the week and Harry triumphed over Voldemort once again! Our plan to get on the move is in place so fingers crossed we escape St. Maarten this week! Otherwise, I guess we’ll have to start a Lord of the Rings marathon! 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!
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! |
AuthorSally Miller Archives
May 2024
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