Bequia, Grenadines
13.00.610N
61.14.523W

Last night after dinner, I connected to the internet and proceeded to upload my blog posts, catch up on all of our personal e-mails, our weather e-mails, paid a few bills and updated some of our computer software. By 1 am I was trying to access some information regarding our chart plotter when I lost my connection. Not only did I lose it, I couldn’t get it back. How aggravating ! I had been on a roll. But it was late, so I figured that I would finish in the morning; after all, it was a 24 hour connection. However, the morning didn’t bring any better results. So our quest today was to find out what the problem was.

We lowered the dinghy to not only seek out the brick and mortar internet store but to also check out of customs and find a trash can (remember the seasick tomatoes - Yuk!). The trash can was a quick find, the customs even quicker, the Internet store, well the store was easy but the employees didn’t show. We asked some people next door who weren’t very much help and then decided to check out a model boat maker’s work shop. We watched the Sergeant brothers work their magic for a while and talked with them extensively.

Apparently this has been a family business for some time now. There was even a letter from the HMS Britainnia from when the Queen visited here in 1985 and their cousin presented to her a replica of the HMS Britainnia. Anyway, it was pretty cool.

After visiting with them for a while, we returned to the internet store, still no joy. So we headed off to a local establishment for lunch. Dale had curried fish and I had curried chicken. What a great meal. Still, there was no one at the internet store when we left.

Rainbowrider had gotten a late start and wouldn’t be arriving until after 2pm but when they did arrive, they were able to anchor right next to us. About that time, a quick peek through the binoculars showed that the internet store door was ajar, just a little. We took this as a good omen, so we hopped into the dink and raced over.

Sure enough there was someone there. Unfortunately, no one who could help us but he did know of the one who could. He made a quick call and said that she could be there in half an hour. We went across the street for a soda to kill the time. When she finally arrived, we described the problem and she went to work. Sure enough she wasn’t able to get the connection to work either. So she rebooted the whole system. Just before she did, she said “I hope no one out there is on the line now”. Both Dale and I thought of our last conversation with Gary & Linda. He was going to check out of customs but she was remaining back at the boat to work on the internet. Well, we’d drop by and apologize on our way back.

The long and short of it was that after a few long distance calls and rebooting the system, they still couldn’t get our connection back up. So they issued us another 24 hour pass. She confirmed that it worked before we left the shop.

Right now I’m trying to finish my post for today so that I can get it uploaded and finish what I started working on last night. In case you’re keeping track, yes, we did have to apologize to Gary for knocking him off line.

Tomorrow at dawn we’ll up-anchor and head for St. Lucia. Its about 50 miles away, so it will be a full day of sailing. We know that we’ll have great weather but wish us luck anyway. Its always good to have as many blessing as you can get.