Sunday, December 21 thru Friday, December 26

We were having such a good time relaxing and enjoying our stay at a marina,my hat the blog took a back seat to life. So here is the scoop about our stay in a marina which we hardly ever do.

Sunday, December 22

Here at Rodney Bay there is a Cruisers Net at 830am on Ch 68 given by the same gentleman every day but Sunday and this week, Christmas Day. He covers the weather, news headlines by the BBC, new arrivals and departures and treasures of the bilge and social events, like usual Cruisers Nets. Usually there is a ladies lunch on Wednesday, but it being Christmas Eve, it was cancelled for this week.

Phil checked the valves on the engine this morning as a routine maintenance and found nothing wrong with them, a good thing. He also checked the water level in the batteries, and that was fine too. While he did that, to,stay out of his way, I knitted my left sock. I charged up Katie’s laptop using the inverter while we had plenty of sunshine giving us electricity from the solar panels. I called the Rodney Bay Dockmaster and reserved dock G14 for us after going over to see Seaquel in their slip G8 and scoping out the remaining docks close to them. We really relaxed this day.

Tuesday, December 23

Happy Birthday Mom!

Today for my Christmas Present, so Phil says 😊, we are going into the Marina for few day as Seaquel already is and Tomorrow’s Dawn will go tomorrow. We started the engine at 902am after Phil put the dinghy in the starboard side of Changes. We raised anchor at 911am was tied up stern in by 929am. Good,thing that Phil bout 35′ long dock lines, because that made it easy for the Dockmaster to catch the stern line and cleat it off and then catch the bow line even though we were about 8’off the dock. There is plenty of room between the finger piers to allow for the wide beams catamarans are know for.

Once we were set, I called Mom to talk to her in Magic Jack first, then on Facetime Audio. Unfortunately, the Internet wasn’t too strong at first so connection was lost, but I was successful a little later. Thanks Dad for giving her the birthday card I had left for her.

In the afternoon, we picked up Sally and went to the far dinghy dock in the mooring field lagoon so she could show us how to,get to the other IGA grocery store. Once you come out of the alley from the dinghy dock, we turned left and walked past some stores. Then you turn left at the end of a strip mall, past a ice cream store and smoothie store (it’s good to know where those are right?) and turn left again to find the IGA. It hidden if you don’t know where to look. We got our groceries and started back. I wanted icecream, but wasn’t willing to pay $17EC for a small cone so got a guava, strawberry and banana smoothie. I shouldn’t have gotten guava and have learned my lesson to only eat guava that has been cook without the seeds. The seeds give it a taste that I just don’t prefer. Once back and the provisions out away, we walked to Johnson Marine easily seen by the bright yellow shutters from the marina, but outside and across the street. We were looking for cockroach killer as wasn’t successful. Upstairs they have a housewares department but didn’t buy anything. We also checked out the sail loft to see if he had any phifertex plus and we were out of luck. What he ordered didn’t come in and no money to order any more. Guess I’ll have to use the two colors left for our new sunshade for the stern.

Early evening I had my first real shower for the trip and was it great. There was Fine water flow and they had warm water. All 4 stalls were busy, but quickly one opened up. It was wonderful to be clean ALL over and not sticky anywhere!! We have electricity here so I watch the old Miracle in 34th Street with Maureen O’Hara and the young Natalie Wood with my headphones on, of course, as Phil isn’t in to this. This is something we have learned is important to do to keep peace when living in a space slightly larger than a king size bed.

Wednesday, December 24 Christmas Eve

No Chris Parker weather today and none until Monday, December 29. He’s taking a well deserved vacation.

Since I have electricity and a stable boat, I made the new sunshade for the stern. We have found when at anchor that the boat swings around so the sun is on one side and swings across the stern to the other side, back and forth all the time. Unfortunately, I didn’t have any pieces that were square. The camel one was a fairly large L shaped, so sewed 3 camel colored strips together about 4″ wide then was able to use a squarish piece of linen Pfiffertex cut to size to fill the rest of the L shape. I had enough from another piece of the linen color to add about 2 feet to the end making it wide enough to cover a good part of the stern opening. I added hems and used webbing I had left over to put on the bottom hem for tying lines so it doesn’t flap in the wind. It works even though it doesn’t look as nice as I would want but necessity is the mother of invention right?

We talked to Sally and arranged to have Happy Hour on her boat for Christmas Eve. I decided to make a layered dip and went to the fruit and veggie stand right off the entrance to the docks for an avocado. Here they have MONSTER avocados the size of honeydews, no kidding. I bet I got about 2.75 – 3 pounds of avocado from it and the seed as 2.5″ in diameter. They wanted $20EC but he took $15EC. Mike and Jean from tomorrow’s Dawn joined us and we had a nice evening and the dip was a hit with using Jeans borrowed salsa. Of course I had another shower before we relaxed for the rest of the evening. I started watching “Christmas in Conneticut” starring Barbara Stanwick. This is an oldie but goodie.

Thursday, December 25 Christmas Day

Merry Christmas and Happy Birthday Jesus.

We woke to cloudy skies and rain hard on and off half the morning. I have drips off the top edge of my port lights above my settee so on and off I got drips in my arm and back of my neck and wiped off the moisture. The fun of living in a boat and something Phil hasn’t fixed yet maybe because it doesn’t happen on his side.

The electricity went out on the dock. Not a major problem for us at the moment, but Jean is to roast the turkey using her microwave/convection oven which needs electricity. It took a while for the 60 cycle electricity to come on by that time too late for her to roast the turkey. Sally saved the day: she offered her propane oven to roast the turkey. My offering today is sweet potato casserole and mashed real potatoes versus instant mashed potatoes which are the norm when cruising. Potatoes just don’t last in the tropical heat.

I wish I was better at the timing of cooking, but I do have an excuse reason. My watch syncs every night, as I think I have discussed and it still shows up as EST instead of AST that we are in, so I have to add an hour on. Now you would think this shouldn’t be hard right? But for some reason when it gets 5 min or closer to the hour, I get mixed up. So this long story leads not figuring the right time and to me running late getting the sweet potatoes and regular potatoes cooked. I had to get out the pressure cooker I was running so late. Once the sweet potatoes were the oven, I cooked the regular potatoes in the pressure cooker too and added 3 servings of instant potatoes to make sure I have enough. Phil and Mike really like their potatoes. Of course the turkey was early too. It figures doesn’t it. To help the Christmas spirit I was listening/watching “It’s a Wonderful Life” and missing Katie as we had watched this together when she was with us for a Christmas our first trip. Sniff sniff.

We had a wonderful Christmas Dinner with red and white wine, green beans and stuffing along with the turkey and my 2 kinds of potatoes. Apple and raisin pie and pumpkin pie was dessert. We arrived back at Changes just after sunset. We watched “Saving Mr. Banks” we borrowed from Mike and Jean. It’s a very good movie and I enjoyed Googling to obtain more information about P.L. Travers and Jean Lawson who wrote the biography of P.L. Travers. Needless to say, it was a late night.

Friday, December 26

After checking weather on the Internet and having discussions with Seaquel and a Tomorrow’s Dawn, we have decided to sail to Martinique tomorrow morning. Being our last day at the Marina, we designated it clean up and get ready to leave day. Phil washed down the topsides and I got out the dirty cockpit cushions to clean on the dock. First I used dawn dish soap and a scrub brush, then after rinsing I sprayed with Awesome cleaner and scrubbed and rinsed some more. I had my doubts to how clean they got, but they are much better and we are trying to be better to keep towels on them to keep them clean. Having enough fresh water to clean them is really an issue when we carry only 40 gals of water plus another 10 gallons in jerry jugs.

We also had laundry done for us by Suds Laundry for $50EC per load. We were spoiled as they pick up and drop off on the dock at your boat and got it washed, dried and folded in 2-3 hours. Phil as also able to get our extra propane tank filled and dropped off at the boat. Oh the hardships we put up with here at a marina, NOT!

Being a English colony, they celebrate Boxing Day here which means $100EC overtime charge again when Phil checked out before they closed at 1pm. Our water tanks, jerry jugs and sun showers are all filled. We are ready.

We spent this evening relaxing and taking advantage of Internet, but,not posting on the blog. I don’t know if you know but Facebook’s new Messenger App also has a way for you to talk to each other if you both are using a mobile device. I saw that my old High school friend, Noreen (Graff) Harris was on so we had a nice long talk. It’s been over 24 years since we last talked and was good to catch up. Her children are doing well and Will has a new good job.

Our plan is to leave between 6-7am probably motorsailing the entire way as the wind is going to be too close on the nose to sail.

I’d show you photos, but somehow I lost 10 days of photos off my SD card in my camera. I’m really upset and don’t know of anyway to recover them.