The night had been calm and the morning hours were calm as well, but with sporadic and short-lived light showers. All 3 boats headed into the main town to the Saturday local produce market which was fun – loud, bustling, many small (and vocal) vendors and as many potential customers with just a few tourists, medical students, and boaties mixed in. I needed some local EC$ currency but the single ATM in town didn’t like my card, so we asked at the police station next door if there was another machine elsewhere but were told to try the ATM again next door several times and, as they’d predicted, the ma cine finally accepted my card and issued me a small fold of local currency. After the street market we dinghied across to the next dock (the commercial one with customs and immigration) and walked to the well-appointed grocery store whose existence I wouldn’t have expected on this island. My previous visits had missed this supermarket and I’d only visited hole-in-the-wall small stores with limited selection and thus this was a pleasant surprise. In addition to a good selection, the prices were much more reasonable than in France and St. Martin.
Back aboard I busied myself with some chores and just enjoyed the beautiful scenery in the hills surrounding the anchorage. We’d arranged to meet after sunset to watch “Captain Ron“ aboard Rocking B and I cut up the pineapple and my French cheese in order to bring that along with me in the evening and then I went below to write these words before attacking the mess in the garage and I’ll also have to finally attempt to epoxy my water pump cap as the tape I’d used as a stopgap measure is not working very well and hardly stemming the water flow when the pumps are running.
While I didn’t get to the garage I did get some maintenance time done today, I used super glue (cyanoacrylate) in the cracks of the plastic pump cover and will see if that holds, if not, then I’ll have to use sterner measures and go for the epoxy. After that the late afternoon rains set in and I used the free clean water to wash and towel off all of the stainless on deck and cockpit area. Repeatedly as the rains got stronger and stronger. I got most of the salt from the decks but was surprised that the water running off the furled genoa was still somewhat salty.
At 19:00 we all met aboard Rocking B to watch “Captain Ron“ and the “snacks” were actually a full meal, featuring the cheese squares I’d brought, some wonderful cheese dip from Margaret and popcorn and other goodies from Katzenellenbogen. We had a big screen television and since the music outside was rather loud and we had to close up the hatches due to rain showers, Ken turned on the generator and ran the air-conditioning, which was a treat indeed. After the movie we talked for a bit and I was back aboard at about 22:00. I sat in the cockpit for a while afterwards and was happy that I was anchored far offshore since the music being played ashore seemed rather loud.
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