The anchorage at Marigot is certainly less comfortable than at Grand Case, perhaps because I am anchored relatively far out this time and there are still 6 foot seas running in the Atlantic. I woke up a couple of times during the night and once a loud crash sounded and I spent a while looking for the cause – with no success at all and I surmise that it was the dinghy painter pulling up the aft ladder and letting it slam down on the transom, although the sound seemed to have come from forward in the boat. I hate when something like that happens, perhaps that noise was some important piece of equipment breaking and I won’t find out until I need it!
I went ashore to my old hangout at La Sucrière for their breakfast Formule (coffee, croissant, 2 portions baguette with butter and jelly and a glass of orange juice) and to use their internet; and had to search out my steel cable and lock to make sure that my dinghy would still be present when I returned – theft at that dock in Marigot has gotten a reputation as being swift and unavoidable unless one ensures locking up. I returned to the boat to drop off the notebook and then headed towards the Dutch side, ensuring that I had sufficient gas in the tank for the return trip. After a long and boring journey I arrived at Island Waterworld and dropped off at Custom Fit Marine to ask them if they could drill out my dinghy bolts and they instead tried hammer, PB-Blaster and 2 people armed with strong wrenches and managed to move one of the bolts. We opted to let the PB-Blaster work its magic for a while and I went into Island Waterworld to inquire about getting a new dinghy. I returned, much later, and they had managed to unfreeze both bolts (only breaking off one head – which was less than I expected) and it turned out that both had galled and it took them an hour to make them usable again, but now I’ve got an engine firmly attached to the transom and am no longer in danger each time I fire up the dinghy. I will need to clean off the crud and growth from the dinghy bottom and will then, once again, be able to plane it at will.
I motored to a dinghy dock close to an electronics store, walked there and purchased an adapter from male-to-female DB9 and then had a celebratory beer or three at the Simpson Bay Yacht Club and watched the 17:00 bridge opening again. After waiting for a shower to pass and talking with a couple from Richmond, VA (I’d gone to university close to there) I hopped into the dinghy and got it to plane with just a bit of coaxing – but now my speed was at least 10x faster than before and my fuel consumption probably only about double. I zipped across the lagoon and was chased by a large and heavy looking cloud formation the whole way. I only got the leading edge of the rain and made it back to Zanshin less than a minute before a very powerful rain shower hit the boat! So the price of the fix at Custom Fit Marine was recouped the first ride since I would have gotten caught in the shower, then frozen on the ride back, perhaps catching a cold or pneumonia – which would have required medical attention costing more than the fix! At least that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
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