Flights down--JFK to Miami to Grenada -- were on time and uneventful. The dynamic duo made not a peep nor a pee from their 7:30 am entry into the carrier they share, until released into our bungalow at 10:30 pm. They seemed to be hot and a bit sweaty in that small confine under Lene's first class seat; Roger travelled coach. Well, each kitty had a five minute release -- a lap top petting break -- in Miami airport. We could have smuggled in anything because the only thing customs was interested in was valuing the cats: they were adopted at no cost, but the agent accepted Lene's explanation of the cost of their initial adoption vetting and asked us for $50EC (about $20US; 2.7 to 1).
Our room here at Bel Air Plantation is quite nice and air conditioned with kitchen facilities, and they honored Lene's request for a cabin nearer sea level to spare us the steep climb up the hill to the one we had in April, but that room was larger, with a jacuzzi and a better kitchen. Actually it is a bit pre-season here so they have only four rooms rented, and the restaurant is not open yet, so they stocked our kitchen with a few staples and hired a van to taxi us to a local market -- no fresh fruit or meat --to get more. And Saturday Lene went, as part of a group of other boaters, to a big first-world supermarket in St. George's to more fully stock us.
Many of the other boaters are staying on their boats on the hard, using buckets for heads (latrines), and thus saving $120 US per night. These include Manu and Michelle, aboard their aluminum "Teepee". These are the two French speaking ladies who hitch hiked with us from St. Martin to Antigua last winter. They spent their summer renovating a chalet near Lake Geneva in Switzerland which one of them inherited. While St. Louis was beating Texas in game 7 (which, unfortunately, will do little to reduce the Lone Star state's insufferable swaggering -- oops, Roger is a bigot) we dined with them at the restaurant of the hotel La Sagesse, on the next bay, on swordfish and king fish with our waiter also serving as our taxi driver for their free pickup and delivery.
Our boat does not have water yet but electricity was restored on Friday with the installation of the seven new batteries that were delivered Thursday night (Taking out the old and carrying up the new at about 100 pounds a piece, was Roger's daily calisthenics.) Roger took the opportunity, with the spaces vacant, to clean the battery spaces for the first time since 1999, after emery boarding off the corrosion on the cables' terminals. He also made a wiring diagram before removal and hence was able to put the new batteries back properly. They are held in place against bouncing around when the boat sails by an ingenious system of hardwood bars that are screwed to the floor, the walls and to each other. Some of these bars are somewhat "charcoalized" and will have to be removed, replicated and the new ones reinstalled -- next winter. We wonder if it was heat or chemical exposure or some combination that caused this.
Our planned launch of November 1st will not happen. One reason is work that the yard started but has not finished yet, specifically the creation of a cabinet to match the existing ones, in the space above the refrigerator where the microwave was. The microwave is out, but the cabinet is not yet in. One job was only half done, though paid in full so we will have to negotiate a price reduction. This was a refinishing of the woodwork of the companionway ladder and top rail of the galley, which is done; but they failed to do the groove into which the hatch boards fit, which we had specifically ordered, and there is no time left for the several coats of polyurethane for this to be done. We also got our bimini back from the sail loft where it had been taken for application of four leather patches to its top surface where the bolts that hold the solar panels to Erwin's rack were chafing through. It is a good thing Roger inspected it because they had only done two of the four, but all is right, now and we thus have shade.
The other reason for our anticipated delayed departure will be customs: the boat was to have arrived on Thursday, and our paperwork was given to the agent who clears shipments though customs that day, but we are told it will take "several days"; and our bottom paint is in the shipment so while the bottom has been prepared, we won't get our shipment until, at the earliest, this Thursday the 3rd. We are now scheduled to be launched on Monday, November 7th, because they do not perform launching on Fridays or weekends. This is similar to last year when Roger was supposed to leave Norfolk on 11/1 for the trip to the BVI's but couldn't leave until 11/7 because of Hurricane Tomas. This year it is customs that is our delay, but at least we're here and have an air conditioned bungalow for us and the furry felines.
Work so far has included polishing the prop, lubricating it through zirc fitting and sanding it as smooth as it has ever been and applying its three zincs. Lene is set to paint it with special underwater metal paint tomorrow. We have wet scrubbed all and sanded the rough spots of the bottom. Roger did the scrubbing and Lene was the "hose man": to wash the slurry of the spot just completed and wet the next spot to be done. (Want to see how dirty a person can get? Try wet sanding a black painted bottom of a boat!).
Internet access has been poor until recently, but our Blackberrys mostly work. Roger had a nice blog written at home covering our last month of summer, but he left it in NY so you will not get to read about our October, 2011 in NY until July of 2012!
