Wanita and Shaun are scheduled to arrive today, so I did a quick clean-up and check of the forward cabin and systems this morning; it turns out that those nifty Jeanneau push-button light switches need to be exercised a bit after disuse otherwise they stick. Shaun is arriving at 15:00 and I’ll rent the car just in time to make it to the airport, that will give us maximum time with the car to play tourist and to get groceries at the Epicurean supermarket tomorrow. My plans have changed, since the weather is going to change soon; the trade winds have been suppressed for over a week by the big weather system to the north, but the trades are scheduled to return along with some clouds and squalls, on Wednesday. Rather than force my guests to ride through that weather (25+ knots and corresponding seas), we’ll sail a day early before the strong system comes through and that will hopefully be a fast sail but not overly uncomfortable. This is preferable, considering that neither of them have been in a sailboat at sea before.
I ran the generator in the morning for 45 minutes as I wanted to see if the dishwasher was working on my collected set of plates and cutlery and I also wanted to warm up the water for hot showers. The dishwasher did it’s job and I’ll find out about the hot water in an hour when I shower.
I picked Shaun up at the airport after renting a car and getting my $20 local drivers permit (another name for a government imposed tax); I wanted to head to Jolly Harbour but took a wrong turn which gave us a scenic tour of parts of the island I hadn’t seen before but we made it to the beach bar despite the detour and had a celebratory drink. The prices at the supermarket were quite high, so we only got a minimum of items before St. Martin and drove back to the boat. We then waited around until it was time to head out to the airport again and pick up Wanita, who was arriving with LIAT Airlines so I wasn’t too optimistic about the flight arriving as scheduled, but she was at the curb already as we drove up. We drove all the way back to Falmouth and had a late dinner at Trappas before dinghying back to the boat.
Shaun had brought a replacement for the broken part on my toilet so despite the late hour I (successfully) finished the repairs and got to sleep sometime after midnight.
