Starting in St. Martin

Hello from sunny St. Martin. This has been a brutal experience so far. We stayed in a one star hotel close to the field were the boat was located for the first week, while the yard moved other boats and got ready to launch us. After being lifted into the water by a 60 ton crane, we began the sea trials. With cooling (sea) water available, we ran the engines, both ok, and the fridge and freezer both worked, but generator will not. Really need a generator if we are to run fridge, freezer, computer, lights, navigation, pumps etc. The kitchen faucet leaks, but most importantly the dinghy motor does not run. No Suzuki dealer on the island and can’t buy special spark plug. We are out at anchor and paddling into windy seawater isn’t much fun. Trying to get things fixed, but dis be island time mon and mostly in French. Got sore back and tired sunburned body, otherwise having a great time.

A couple of days later – Wind and surf really picked up – rock and roll. Tried everything to get the dinghy motor to run. Finally gave up and now have a shiny new Tohatsu 9.8 hp. 2 stroke outboard. Nice!

A couple more days – we don’t always have internet available – Technician worked 3 hrs getting the generator fixed, but then the charger/inverter would not accept the power. The generator is 220V 50 cycles. So now now we need to go into a marina and plug into their 220 V power to see if out problem is the generator or the charger. Once that is fixed we can work on getting the water maker and wifi working. Marina space available Monday – maybe.

Slowly learning to face island time mon. Cost of everything here is astounding. Take US dollar price, then add 20% for Euros, then 50% for shipping. Then if it comes from the marine store – just double the whole works. For example, a sponge that costs 1$ from the dollar store is $5.95 here. On the other hand, booze is very cheap here.

Today is Saturday - Will take the charger/inverter out of the boat and take to the shop. If they can't fix, it will be another $2800 for new. We must have something besides solar plates to charge the batteries especially on overcast days. The good thing about the lst few days is that I now understand a lot more about the Northern lights generator.

Went out thru the bridge which is 9 M wide and we are 7 M wide – ya pays attention and checks the current and wind.