Wednesday, April 1, 2020

Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas, USVI
18.19.985N
64.55.545W

Happy Birthday Valerie!

Happy Birthday Gerry!

Today’s the day!  We get our batteries.  Dale called ahead and confirmed that yes the store received the batteries.  Then he called the marina near where we are anchored to schedule a time for the old batteries to be off loaded and the new ones to be delivered.  That would be this afternoon. 

In the meantime, Nicky and I loaded up our laundry and convinced the guys that if they wanted clean underwear, they really needed to help us cart everything to the laundry in town. 

A Day in the Laundry

Down came the dinks, across the harbor to the dinghy dock, push and shove our way in to secure the dinghies, hike the couple of blocks to the laundry (pray we could still do it ourselves instead of dropping it off—because you never get back everything you drop off) and then load up the washers and sit.  We were fortunate, we could do the laundry ourselves; apparently the police are leaving the laundromats alone for now; social distancing on your own instead.  Dale decided his time was spent best by crossing the street over to the grocery store to pick up some things and Gerry decided his time was best spent taking his dinghy gas can in to be filled.  Gerry was back rather quickly but Dale got stuck in a line and didn’t make it back until we were almost finished. 

Then we made the executive decision to have lunch at Wendy’s again, so Nicky and I went in to order lunch while the guys took the laundry to the picnic area in the marina to wait for us. 

Tweaker in Chief and the

 Tinkering Consultant

Once again, we had a pleasant lunch and when done, we made our way back to the boats.  Gerry, as Tinkering Consultant, came over to ours to help assist with the disassembling of the batteries and the assistance in sciencing as to how best to remove them from the salon to the dock.  The salon table was removed and placed on the refrigerator/freezer, all connections were not only disconnected but photographed and labeled.  Pullies were dug out, the decision was made to use main halyard for pulling the batteries out of the salon though one of the hatches, a pully on the boom would be used to move the batteries from the top of the salon to the pier and once all of the pieces and parts were ready, we started the engines and made our way to the marina.    

We tied up to the fuel dock and put the plan into action.  One of the marina dock hands was pretty impressed.  He even offered to let the guys use his golf cart type of vehicle to load the batteries on and move them out to the parking lot where the new batteries were being delivered.  The delivery guy commented that he had never made a quicker transfer of old to new to that marina ever!  The marina dock hand then drove the new batteries back to the boat where Dale, Gerry and I reversed the procedure and once again, had the new batteries loaded back into the salon within minutes.  As we had paid for an hour on the dock, the dock hand told us to just go ahead and reattach them while we were sitting there.  From the time we tied up until the time we dropped lines was less than an hour and a half. 

No Explosions!

We motored back to our original position and set anchor again.  Everyone was delighted that our plan and come together perfectly and the dang things didn’t explode when the switches were thrown. 

This evening, we celebrated Gerry’s birthday.  Nicky made a wonderful meal with pork chops as the main entre.  I brought the chocolate cupcakes and the 2 pints of Magnum double caramel ice cream I had stashed in the bottom of my freezer.  I remembered that Gerry had really, really liked this type of dessert.  He popped a cork on some champagne and we toasted to his good health and many more years. 

Tomorrow, we’ll hoist anchor and go in search of some mooring balls in St. John.  Hopefully there are some not in use as Charlotte Amalie has been unusually quiet with less than half the usual number of boats at anchor.  Even the large motor yachts are moving on.