Sunday, January 23, 2011
Today is going to be a good storage day, I can feel it; particularly after my second cup of strong coffee and the caffeine coursing through my veins is prodding me to get into action instead of sitting at the navigation station and typing on my notebook’s keyboard. I have a spider’s web of lines hanging from the genoa to the mast and spreaders to dry and as it didn’t rain overnight I think I can take them down and stow them now; then I can store the Peli cases and from that point onwards the decks will look seaworthy and that, in turn, will give me the requisite incentive to complete the storage work below. I will need to hop in to the stores on Monday to return incorrect parts and I think I’ll use that same trip to clear out of St. Martin and set my sights on St. Barths; the trip is short enough and the waves/wind calm enough that I won’t need to haul the dinghy on deck and will just tow it behind me. I had heard from Rob and Lauren that there was a French boat next to them who had had their dinghy stolen somewhere down-island and since I still have the second backup dinghy, which is in need of some repair, I thought that I could unload it on them and managed to get it out of the sail locker and onto the dinghy. Once my Windows Backup finishes (it has been running 2 hours already!) I’ll pack up the notebook so that I can do my e-mails ashore and dinghy on over to them to see if they can use the dinghy. I waited almost another hour and the backup was still running, so I headed over to the Marina, dropped off the dinghy for their perusal and headed back via Arita, where we decided to attempt scaling the heights of the Witch’s Teat without use of native Rasta-sherpas, supplemental oxygen and no bivouac station at the halfway point. We did don protective footwear and tied the dinghy to shore as our base camp before trekking up the hill.
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