2023-01-16 Saved by fellow cruisers

Early Morning

Fellow cruisers saved my dinghy today. Thus, my finances were spared a painful withdrawal. I found out early that my dinghy may have been retrieved. It takes the StarlinkRV a while to boot in the morning, and I use that time to make my first coffee. Before logging in to work I read my private e-mails and found several from Mark. Unlike me, he does use Facebook and other newfangled web-related software.

It seems that a catamaran had encountered my drifting dinghy while sailing from Barbuda to St. Martin! They had posted it to several places on the web. None of which I visit and some of which I wasn’t aware of. But Mark saw them and brokered the return of my dinghy. I’d sent him pictures and a description and while I was on conference calls at the office he was Facebooking (is that a term?). It seems that the ugly old restaurant kitchen rubber mat that I use was the clincher – nobody could have guessed that without knowing the dinghy!

Noon

The catamaran “Skoolz Out” has AIS so when I finished my calls and thought I could reach them on the VHF I called out to them. They responded and were happy to divert and head into Simpson Bay to effect the return of the Zandinghy. At first I couldn’t reach Mark to see if he could ferry me out to meet them, but it all worked out in the end and we met up in the middle of Simpson Bay between the megayachts.  “Skoolz Out” refused my proffered reward, but I’ll have to find some other way to make it up to them. My finances were spared a painful withdrawal by these generous fellow cruisers

They had found the dinghy very close to where I’d lost it. This made no sense, until I realized that once the storms that tore my dinghy away had passed, the frontal winds shifted and came from the “wrong” side. So whatever drifting had taken my dinghy west was counteracted by the winds shifting and moving it east.

Despite its time lost at sea, the dinghy fired up on the first pull!

Afternoon

I bought a new Gigabyte BRIX computer for the boat, but I get several BSODs as shown to the left per day, which is frustrating. After finishing up at work I wanted to start preparing for my guests who are arriving on Thursday. I didn’t get far before it was time for the 5 o’clock bridge opening.

I’d arranged to meet up with Marjorie and Mark and we were going to have dinner at Avantika, a local Thai restaurant with a very good reputation. The crew of Skoolz Out joined us for a drink at the SMYC. They had already made alternate dinner arrangements, so didn’t join us.

Evening

Dinner was very tasty at Avantika, their reputation is deserved. I celebrated that fellow cruisers saved my dinghy by starting to spend the virtual savings. Replete after a big meal and lots of wine, I returned to the boat and was soon asleep after a long and successful day.