At anchor in Marigot Bay, St. Martin

The Wind has finally settled down and it may? be a pleasant evening. It has been blowing like snot for the last several days and our bed has been thrown about. Luckily, we are anchored well. Howled all last night. You could hear the ropes holding the anchor stretch, groan, and creak. Takes some getting used to.

We operate mostly from the sun. Our 500+ watts of solar plates provide all of the energy. In the bright day sun, we collect energy that goes into our battery bank keeping the fridge going 24/7. We make water from the sea using our reverse osmosis watermaker powered by the 12 Volt batteries. We pump water to our showers and galley, and charge our computers, cell phones, and Kindles by the same batteries/solar. We can turn on the inverter and run 220V power tools. Hopefully we will soon do some navigation and sailing using the same trusty batteries.

Listened to the SSB radio today. This is different from the VHF radio that we listen to every day at 7:30 on the local net. The SSB is long distance. We listened to a conversation between a guy in Wisconsin and another in Belize, one collecting firewood and the other hiding from the sun. I don’t have a ham license, so can only talk on maritime channels unless we have an emergency.

Next day – I bitch and complain a lot so maybe I should write about something nice, Can’t think of anything nice at the moment. Oh yeah – we did get the watermaker working. It makes 16 gal/hr. Had a technician install a new membrane. That is positive.

We have gotten into the French habit of finishing a meal with some wine and cheese. The cheese here comes directly from France and Holland since this is French and Dutch Island. Last night we had some blue cheese, Roquefort, that was mostly blue mold – very little cheese. It was sensational! Ya eat a bunch of this and have dreams in TECHNICOLOR.

Yanked thru a knot hole! After some of that really wild, blue cheese, the saying “:Yanked thru a knot hole” popped into my mind. Couldn’t get rid of it. I first heard this expression a long, long time ago from my Father when I was about 5 yrs old. Anyone know where this expression came from? It was usually spoken after a harrowing experience, like “wow I can’t believe I survived that”.

Last week we bought a new dinghy motor since the old one was very tired. Yesterday we took the dinghy into the town dock to do some shopping. We locked the dinghy and motor with a steel cable but not the red plastic gasoline tank. When we returned at about 4:30 our tank full of gasoline was gone, stolen in broad daylight! I had to hustle to go buy another tank, gasoline and oil before the stores closed, if not, we would have to paddle a long way back to the boat in a strong wind. Cost $80 and pissed me off a bit. So much for writing something nice!

The next day we planned a nice bike ride followed by lunch in a real restaurant. We biked to a new hardware store looking for a couple of small non slip bath mats. Later as we approached the restaurant, Ruth hit a gravel patch transiting from the street to the sidewalk. Next she was laying on the sidewalk in pain. The local police called an ambulance and we took a ride. After some pain pills, x-rays and a bunch of tight wrapping around the sprained knee, we called a taxi, bought more pain pills and crutches and dinghied back to the boat. Crutches on a boat are almost useless when the wind is blowing 20 knots.. It was damned tough going from a wheel chair at the emergency clinic to hauling your butt onto a bucking boat from the rubber dinghy, but that’s home, at least for now. Ruth says she will be fine in a week. I really hope so! Now I can really complain – I gotta cook!

Next day – Sunday – Ruth back to bed with another pain pill and a squall just blew thru - had some gusts of 40 knots and plenty of rain.

Next day – Monday clear with mild and gentle winds forecast for the week. We will survive if Ruthie recovers.