The extra drink of water the night before stood me in good stead and I woke up refreshed, at least until I had listened to the radio traffic on the morning cruiser’s network; after which I felt like I had been thrown back one year as the announcements, the jokes, and the majority of participants were the exact same as they had been the season before. After my obligatory morning coffee I attacked the solar preparation project, trying to find a method to lead the power cable between the selected spot on deck and the battery bank. After much experimenting around I finally found a method of leading the power cable, at least on the port side and will proceed to see if I can do the same thing on the starboard side.
Although the results were simple, the process of getting that cable pulled took hours (interspersed with checking the internet for arrival information on my solar panels and drinking coffee). The winds are now howling outside and are supposed to be even stronger tomorrow and Zanshin is swinging back and forth at anchor but seems to be securely attached to the bottom, which is a good thing since my swings put me less than 30 feet from the boat behind me and I’d prefer not to have a close encounter of the maritime kind this trip.
At about 14:00 I got an e-mail notice that my panels had arrived and I quickly showered, shaved and found a cab that would take me to the airport cargo building and back; he was just leaving a store as I walked by. There was a quite a line at the cargo offices, but it moved forward very quickly indeed and soon I had my papers in hand and walked to the area where they were giving out the cargo. There was a delivery of fresh Maine lobsters being loaded onto a pickup truck, a good 75 crates of them on pallets that much have cost a small fortune and I wonder where they were destined to go.
While unpacking the package with the panels Mark came by and reminded me of our Heineken Regatta pre-meeting meeting with our organizer, Leo. So I had to stop opening my Christmas presents and head off to the Sint Maarten Yacht Club. We had our little meeting and I also met up with some of my friends from last year before heading over to Barnacle’s for some very tasty ribs.
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