In the morning after the St. Martin VHF net (which is getting more and more commercial – different boaties and companies are advertising their services daily and the repetition is onerous for those who are on the network frequently) we headed ashore and did one more shopping run to Grand Marché in Philipsburg. I stocked up on emergency rations (Presidente Beer) and some other foodstuffs and returned the car just before 10AM. I did some work ashore on the computer at the Yacht Club and then bit the bullet and decided to add fuel to Zanshin. I only found one diesel 20L container accessible and Stephen offered to let me use his 3 canisters, I made 2 trips so filled up with around 150L, which should last me a long time unless I decide to motor around a lot rather than sail. The generator is quite miserly when it comes to fuel use, so I can last a very long time with what I’ve got now. Unfortunately filling up is a messy business despite taking precautions (wetting the teak down beforehand, having soapy water available to wipe spills) and I hope that the volatile components in the diesel fuel will evaporate sooner rather than later. I also recalled how much I dislike the new American “Spill proof” spouts which are basically unusable and cause more spillage because of their design than the normal spouts which they’ve replaced. Fuelling took a while, slowly decanting the diesel into the tank takes time and the trips to the distant fuel dock coupled with the fuel attendant having to leave for a while in order to go to the pharmacy took up most of the afternoon; plus cleanup took an inordinate amount of time.
But the clock on the wall is approaching 18:00, when I’ll go topsides and have my first happy-hour or sundowner drink in over two weeks. I’ll be in a better frame of mind after that and will also attempt to give the new CPL filter a go and see how it deals with a Caribbean sunset. It turned out that shooting directly into the sunset made no difference to the polarizer after all.
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