Saturday, April 25, 2020

Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas, USVI
18.20.016N
64.55.440W

Does anyone know if we can take showers yet?  Or do we just keep washing our hands!

Well, all sorts of things have happened since I last posted.  We’re all legal now, I have a new crown and Thursday, Dale started the day with a shocking experience.  Literally! 

It all started on Wednesday afternoon; right after I finished my blog posting.  I had checked on my garden and found that it wasn’t working.  As you know I was adamantly opposed to the Tinker Twins converting my 110 garden into a 12 volt garden.  So when I found that it wasn’t working, you can imagine my demeanor in telling them “Houston, we have a problem.”  As it happened, I was alone when I discovered “the problem” and had to dinghy over to Opal to pick Dale up from helping Gerry install the new solar panels.  It was a windy day and in trying to tie up to Opal on my own, I had to make several attempts as I kept being blown off.  Into their dink, off to the side, just plain backward and my attempt to throw them a rope was no better by the time we resorted to that.  So I was REALLY in a good mood when I finally was secured to their boat and relayed the information.  The long and short of it was, since they were in the process of eating lunch, I told them what I had discovered, grabbed Nicky and then went in to the Roti shop to grab my lunch and sooth my bruised ego. 

While we were in town, Gerry and Dale took Opal’s dinghy back to the Palace to repair what damage they could find and discovered that I had locked the boat before leaving.  Dale had even asked me if I had locked the door but in my embarrassed/frustrated state, had forgotten that I had.  So, he did the next best thing.  He broke in.  The hatches over the salon are the largest on the boat, so he jimmied the locks and was in the process of crawling in when DPNR called on his phone.  DPNR is the Department of Parks and Natural Resources or the ones who we were waiting for to give us the permit to anchor in the harbor for an extended time.  Not exactly the Harbor Police but definitely officials of that nature during the Corona situation.  As Dale was in the process of breaking in and had left his wallet and phone with Gerry, Gerry took the call.  He was waiting for his permit too.  Once Dale had gotten into the boat, he then had to disassemble the lock on the door to open it.  By this time, Gerry had cleared his boat in and handed the phone to Dale who was able to clear the Palace in.  So now we’re legal.  Maybe my hair will stop falling out.   

Once the legalities were taken care of, they were able to determine that there was nothing wrong with the garden, it was the 12 volt socket that was causing the issue and, of course, needed to be replaced.  Or so they thought at the time. 

That evening everyone gathered on our boat to play Mexican Train Dominos.  We had explained the Trinadadian rules we play by to Texas Crewed back in the Turks and Caicos.  As the game progressed, we explained some of the more intricate details/rules as we went along.  Gene and Renee had declared at that time, we were making the rules up as we went along (what can I say, there are lots of rules).  This time it was Gerry and Nicky’s turn to learn the rules, so we tried to spill them out all at one time (so it wouldn’t appear that we were cheating) but even they had decided that we were making up the rules as we went along.  It didn’t help that I made a wrong move late in the game and Gerry caught me (he was right, I made too many moves). Anyway, we had a lot of fun.  Particularly since I was finally able to serve that dang watermelon.  Gina on Rum Truffle was on a paddleboard going by so I called her over for a couple of bites as well. 

Thursday morning, Dale started with a shock.  He had gone down to the same area to start the water maker and apparently put some part of his body too close to the garden socket as I was only aware of the yell.  It was the kind of yell that is startling and crap! that’s not good.  Being me, I thought the water maker had died again, 

Turns out he found several connections to the socket that were loose and arcing.  So he set about turning everything off, cleaning and reattaching them to the socket before checking every single connection with the multimeter before plugging my garden back in.  Its now working.  I did notice a couple of tomatoes were missing so I figure he’s already collecting his payment. 

Friday was another visit to the dentist.  This time we took the “safari bus” up and back.  I believe I’ve described this before as an open air conveyance that has 3 or 4 rows behind a cab.  In an effort to keep transportation available during social distancing, they limit access to 2 people per row; opposite ends of the row, please.  The fact that each row is only about 2 foot apart doesn’t seem to be a factor.  Being the only space available, we crawled in next to a single rider and moved to the opposite side of the row.  The driver took off but about 2 stops later, with people getting on and off, checked to see where everyone was sitting.  As there were 3 of us in our particular row, he asked the single rider to move forward to the next row.  Boy, did that start a ruckus.  There was no way the rider was moving because he was there first!  Dale and I both said we’d move but the bus driver wanted the other guy to move.  It was resolved when Dale simply crawled over to the seat in front.  Thank heavens it was a short ride to the dentist’s office. 

As usual, when the dentist got down to business, he and his assistant put both of their hands each containing some implement of torture into my mouth at the same time and then proceeded to try to have a meaningful conversation.  In any event, I now have a new temporary crown.  I was cautioned that this was only temporary.  Only to last a couple of months.  Do not eat frozen Snickers bars.  I was told twice not to eat frozen Snickers bars.  In the past, I’ve been warned about chewing gum, crunching on nuts or the banned ice cubes.  I’m not sure I’ve ever had a frozen Snickers bar, but now I’m curious.  Just not that curious.  Maybe once I have a permanent crown, I’ll have to find out about these forbidden frozen Snickers bars.  Obviously, they’re very chewy. 

Friday afternoon, we all gathered on Texas Crewed for burgers and finished our Mexican Train Dominos game (it’s a long game.)  Again, we had a blast.  Much to everyone’s disappointment, I did not drool. 

Today, we did absolutely nothing.  It rained off and on most of the day, so Dale ran the engine (which heats the water) to keep the batteries topped off, ran the water maker, ran the ice maker and the end result would mean that we’d have enough hot water that we wouldn’t need to use the solar showers that would have been tepid at best.  The wind piped up enough that we decided to take the tent poles out of our sun shades as I didn’t want to snap another of them. Other than that, we read, played puzzles, and watched The Martian, extended version thank you.