Today was “moving day” as I needed to move the boat from the French side to the Dutch side and then take care of clearance formalities and then get to Budget Marine by 17:00 for the pre-Heineken Regatta volunteer meeting. The first leg of the sail from Grand Case past Marigot and the Terres Basse region was a wonderful downwind sail which soon turned into a beat to get to the anchorage outside of the Dutch bridge in Simpson Bay. I had reefed sails as I wasn’t in a hurry and enjoyed the countryside and tried to keep movement to a minimum since I was still in a bit of pain which protested using my stomach muscles.
The anchorage was quite full so I anchored far outside the inner area and close to the rocks/reef and then dinghied all the way over to the French side in order to clear out. I stopped at Mau where I got a coffee from Carmen and then continued on at 3PM (they close for while at lunch) to clear out and then immediately dinghied in to clear into the Dutch side at the immigration offices located right at the Dutch bridge. This took a bit of time and I made it just in time to get some line to manufacture another snubber. I made the mistake of not inquiring the price difference between normal white an deluxe black line and thought that the black line would hide rust marks better than white and chose 25 feet of black. I didn’t know until I was at the register that this line is 3x the price of normal line and of course it was too late to back away since they’d already cut the line. I’d say that “One lives and learns” but I know that I’ve learned, and evidently forgotten, that before…
The meeting was short and once we’d gotten to know each other we split ways and I returned to Zanshin. I was tired, but my stomach felt a bit better and I proceed to make the absolutely, positively, beyond-a-shadow-of-a-doubt worst curry meal that it has ever to be my misfortune to consume. I still shudder in the memory and I don’t understand how (or why) I ate about half of what I’d made.
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