Saturday, May 16, 2020

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

Happy Birthday Heather!  We hope you were able to celebrate it in some way.  

My Mom always told me I wouldn’t accomplish anything by laying in bed all day--but look at me now! I’m saving the world!

I can’t say a whole lot has changed since I last posted but we are starting to see some movement.  In my last post I told you that Trinidad had implemented a 6 phase reopening plan.  This week the various marinas and ship repair facilities in Trinidad encouraged those of us waiting, to write our respective Embassies to see if we could get some assistance from that direction. 

Greneda, on the other hand, has posted that they are hoping to be opened to registered yachts by the 1^st of June but their protocols for incoming are rather formidable.  You have to send notice 24-48 hours prior to arrival (try that at sea), arrive fully provisioned and enter into a quarantine area for 2 weeks with a $20 admin fee.  At the end of those 2 weeks you are to submit yourself to testing, at your expense of course (either $65 or $25 depending upon the test), (which really doesn’t make sense to several of us.  Either quarantine or test; why both) and this is all prior to the normal fees for entering into the country.  To top it off, they want to be paid in their own currency, which means finding a bank here to make an exchange prior to leaving; not an easy thing to do.  In the past, you checked into a country, paid in US dollars, then made a bee line to the bank to make an exchange of dollars to whatever their currency was. 

Curacao, actually gives you a choice (such as it is); enter their country on a Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday between the hours of 6 am and noon, secure your boat in a marina and immediately fly out or enter on any day Monday – Friday, secure your boat in a marina by 6 pm and then enter into a government hotel at $140/per person/per night for 2 weeks.  That’s expensive no matter how you look at it. 

St. Martin is making noises that they are opening their marinas and marine services on June 1 but no information about incoming yachts.  The long and short of it is, if all of the islands require you to quarantine for 2 weeks at each of their islands and we’ve had word that you can’t even transit through their 12 mile water borders, there’s no way we can make Grenada or Trinidad before the hurricanes really crank up.  In order to make it in a reasonable timeframe, we’ll have to make more of a direct transit further offshore.

For those who made the decision to return to the US, a low pressure system formed to the east of the Bahamas.  They’re running into nasty weather and having to anchor to wait it out; so its already started.  Damned if you do, damned if you don’t. 

In the meantime, Dale runs the watermaker every other day, makes ice every other day and runs the engines and fuel polisher about once a week.  The rest of the time he dinghies over to help Gerry, they both take off to various marine stores for the lastest item that is badly needed, reads, or checks his eyelids for light leaks. 

For me, this week was a laundry run on Tuesday with Nicky and a grocery run yesterday with Dale, who, believe it or not, had his own list.  We hosted an afternoon of Mexican Train Dominos with everyone and he decided that he was going to make pain killers.  Unfortunately, he didn’t buy enough ingredients for the well appreciated drinks.  There was enough for a couple drinks each but next time, he’ll know better.  Afterwards, when Dale went to close a hatch in the cockpit, the handle broke off in his hand.  The whole hatch surround is made of plastic and is now sun damaged.  He’s trying to glue the parts back together but I think the whole thing needs to be replaced.  Once plastic gets that brittle, it’s a cascading decline to the end. 

On Opal, Gerry and Nicky’s refrigeration woes continue.  Gerry has to go into the dinghy dock to pick up the refrigeration guys to work on his boat.  When the guy came out to de-gas the system, he arrived on board only to realize that he had forgotten to bring one of the hoses required.  So back to the dinghy dock.  Then once on board, again, he got sea sick!  Gerry suspects that he had one too many the night before.  In any event, Gerry ended up doing all of the work and then had the pleasure of paying them on top of it.  The next day he learned that the incoming plate that contained the motor and compressor was missing.  There’s now a BOLO out it.  Nicky is trying to use up all of the food she had in the refrigerator before it goes bad and Gerry is making twice daily runs in to buy a bag of ice to preserve what’s left. 

They did have one bit of good news, however, Nicky was able to obtain an extension on her visa. The first time they went in a couple of days ago to request the extension, it was all very formal and polite.  Once the extension was granted, they made the return trip to finalize it but this time it was with a different agent who wouldn’t allow Gerry in the room, was rude to Nicky and tried to short them 10 days.  This obviously, made all the difference in the world.  Gerry actually had to make a phone call to the supervisor, whom they had worked with the first time, to get the correct extended date.  In any event, she’s now legal and administratively pure. 

Gene and Renee on Texas Crewed spent the better part of this week on a sewing project.  As usual what you think will take a certain amount of time, ends up being twice as long.  At the end of yesterday, the tension on her machine started giving her grief, so it was time to take a break. 

I guess that’s it for this entry.  Hopefully we’ll have a better idea as to what is happening to us this time next week. 

Finally, a word of caution:  If you get an email with the subject “Knock-Knock” don’t open it.  It’s a Jehovah Witness working from home.