Saturday, March 21, 2020

Charlotte Amalie, USVI
18.20.072N
64.55.483W

I didn’t get a lot of sleep last night.  The wind started howling again, the boat started swinging and I started getting up to make sure we weren’t going anywhere.  Although I didn’t turn on the wind instruments, I’m sure that there were a couple of 30 kt gusts.  Later in the day, Gerry said that he did see 27kts once. 

At one point I had sat straight up in bed realizing that I was getting wet.  In my effort to close the hatch, I had to undo the screen and ended up slapping myself in the face with it and by the time I got the hatch closed, I was drenching wet.  I sat there thinking about whether it was worth the effort to get up and towel off or just lay back down.  I elected to lay back down.  Into a puddle.  There is a tiny hatch over, yet behind our pillows that usually isn’t affected by rain as its at the end of the boat and straight up and down so rain is usually blown past it.  Not this time.  Now my pillow is wet.  Dale managed to sleep through it all.  Nicky said that she was considering putting a bar of soap next to the bed for such occasions.  I think she may be on to something there. 

Then it was up and down; up and down; making sure we weren’t moving.  Once morning arrived, Dale sent me back down to get some sleep and he started some maintenance on the water maker by cleaning the salt water strainer, etc.  Gerry came over a bit later with his wowie-zowie battery tester (as opposed to Dale’s basic one) and the Tinker Twins were at it again.  However, they did find that our port side starter battery was dead with a capital D.  Since the house batteries and the starter batteries are all connected together, the dead battery was draining the house batteries (the ones we just ordered new ones to replace).  Dale called around found a good price on a replacement starter battery (that was in stock), so the Twins were off.  They dinked over to pick it up and also found a couple of gallons of oil to change the oil in both engines.  They brought back the battery, installed it, discussed the ins and outs of all things battery related before Gerry headed back to his boat.   

After lunch, Dale changed oil in both engines with enough left over for another complete oil change in the future.  

In the meantime, Nicky was on her boat making crepes for dinner and I made another fruit pizza for dessert.  We all shared our dinner on Opal and discussed our situation, i.e we are somewhat stuck in the USVI for at least 2 weeks. 

We were informed that our replacement house batteries ordered and paid for won’t be arriving on the Monday in 2 days but the following Monday.  However, we still need to return the original water maker to the manufacturer via UPS, who isn’t open over the weekend and visit a sail loft in search of some foam to replace the sling seat interior.  (The foam I used a couple of years ago, although it drains water immediately and is used specifically for outdoor use, doesn’t hold up in the sun more than a couple of years.) Therefore, we’ve decided that we can get those last items completed either tomorrow or on Monday and then head over to St. John (still in the USVI) for a couple of days to scrub the bottom of our boats (and a change of scenery) before having to come back here to pick up the house batteries.  Gene on Texas Crewed said that they might be interested in joining our bottom cleaning venture. 

So, we’ve got a plan.  Let’s see how well we stick to it.