I didn’t sleep through the night, the winds kept on gusting and dying, and when the wind stopped Zanshin would turn her stern to the waves and they would slap loudly and also make the boat shudder uncomfortably. I turned on the bedside fan to provide some white noise but I’d still find myself waking up every hour or so when a particularly big set of waves hit the stern unexpectedly.
I left the boat around 8AM and headed towards Marigot and the Dutch side, but the traffic jam had backed all the way to the outskirts of Grand Case and after making only a kilometer progress in 10 minutes I did a U-turn and drove the other way around in little traffic and despite the trip being much, much longer it was probably significantly faster. In Philipsburg I went to Kooyman’s hardware store to get double-sided tape for the LED lights (for the parts where they go over the Sunbrella material, where I didn’t want to make any holes) and then some other hardware items significant cost savings over what I’d end up paying at the chandleries, but I made up for the savings by getting a $59 monster LED Maglite which will not only produce light but I can use it as a hammer, too.
After the hardware store I managed a short pit-stop at a gas station on the Dutch side to fill up the car’s tank and my reserve tank for the outboard at the same time, then (surprisingly) managed to walk into and then out of Island Waterworld without making a single purchase! Subsequently I had a crushed croissant which the server apologized for (but gave no discount) and a coffee at Lagoonies and then made some last food purchases at le Grand Marché before returning my rental car and heading back to the boat. Some of the previous day’s sunset pictures had a sailboat anchored behind me in it, so I copied some of the pictures to a USB stick and dinghied over to them to see if they might be interested. They were, and this good turn brought me some immediate good luck as they came by shortly thereafter with my shorts, which had blown off the boat in the gusting winds (the shorts were kept afloat by the 4 wooden clothespins, otherwise they would have sunk immediately).
I used fishing line to attach the new LED to the bimini frame and then did a bit of sewing to hide the power cord behind the bimini zipper. Now I need to check the internet for hints on how to remove bloodstains from Sunbrella material and got to use a bandage (Note to Self: don’t sew bimini when winds are gusting over 20 knots). My backpack has been slowly disintegrating and I took my whipping kit and did some sewing to make temporary repairs until I could get a new backpack. As I was using dangerous equipment for the repairs I got to use another bandage.
Since the internet on board isn’t working well, I took the PC ashore and went to Calmos Café and caught up on the web forums and news plus uploaded my blog entries and pictures from the past couple of days. I made a steak on the BBQ upon my return that was quite tasty with some toasted baguette and a glass of wine but I could tell that my stomach wasn’t quite ready for heavy food.
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