Wednesday,
July 15, 2020
St.
George’s, Grenada
Port
Louis Marina
12.02.608
N
61.44.986
W
Coronacoaster: Noun:
the ups and downs of a pandemic.
One day you’re loving your bubble, doing workouts, baking banana nut bread
and going for long walks and the next, you’re crying, drinking gin for
breakfast and missing people you don’t even like.
Still
here. Nothing really new to tell you
about. Dale went through another one of
those, ‘I can’t believe this is what it takes’ days. We had checked prior to leaving the
quarantine anchorage about the proper procedure to have mail sent to us at the
marina before sending a request for our medications to be forwarded to us. The marina informed us that FedEx was the way
to go as it was just across the road. We
followed the procedure as described and then waited to be notified that our
mail was here. Supposedly the marina would
send us a notice as soon as they knew. After
2 weeks of waiting, we decided to ask the marina folks what was going on. They suggested we obtain the tracking number
and see if it had made it to the island. We
did. It had. Three days after we had made the request.
Apparently,
everything runs as described if its flat mail but if it’s a box, then there
seems to be a missing step. Mail arrives
at FedEx and is checked in. If its flat
mail, the marina is contacted, they pick up the mail and then we are informed
that our mail has arrived. However, if
it’s a box, its forwarded to Customs; once Customs inspects the box, an invoice
for taxes AND the box is sent back to FedEx.
Unfortunately, FedEx has no way of handling a second check in to their
facilities for the same box. So the box
and invoice gets shelved. That forced Dale
to go on a walk about around St. George starting first to the FedEx station
right next to the marina to learn about this new procedure, then to the Customs
house in downtown St. George (about a mile away). Then he’s directed to another facility on the
other side of the block that takes credit cards as the Customs house
didn’t. Once that is done, he obtains a
receipt showing payment, it’s taken back to the Customs house where the receipt
is stamped showing that the duty has been paid and that the package can be
released. Then he takes the stamped
receipt in his hot little hand and walks all the way back to the original FedEx
station to exchange the stamped receipt for the box. Whew!
As the temps here are in the high eighty’s/low ninety’s every day, he
was drenched with sweat by the time he returned. But he did have the package.
On
a brighter side, a couple of really neat things the marina restaurant does is a
“Texas BBQ” on Fridays (you have to have the beef brisket) and a packed “to go”
dinner on Sundays. You pick a protein
and 4 sides for the Sunday dinner and make reservations for the BBQ. We split both dinners (which were excellent) with
Gerry and Nicky. As a funny side bar,
Nicky and I almost duplicated our desserts for the Sunday dinner. She made a pineapple crumb dessert and I made
a pineapple cheesecake. You know we ate
both.
The
guys have kept busy with boat projects. Dale’s
first project was replacing the anchor salt water wash down pump which went surprisingly
easy so we can now wash the mud off the anchor when we pull it up. This was not to be a trend however. He next ordered and replaced the pump on our
guest side shower sump. Of course, as a
newer model it was a different size, requiring him to MacGuyver the float switch
and the new pump back into the sump pump housing. (He had moved the original one from the guest
side over to the master side when our side died.) However, before he could do that, as he
opened the bilge access to get to the shower sump, he noted water in the bilge
which the bilge pump should have pumped out. His investigation of this new and
unexpected problem lead to a blown fuse to the bilge pump. He replaced the fuse
and went to check on the pump’s operation. You would have been proud of
me! I didn’t say a word although Dale
used several “sailor speak” words when smoke, aka “the magic” escaped from the
top of the bilge float switch. We have lots of fire extinguishers on board; no
need to get excited. Dale rapidly
removed the fuse and set out to replace the float switch. Fortunately, we had one on board that was
slated to go into the port bilge when we get hauled. You guessed it, it now resides in the
starboard bilge and we will need to obtain another one at some point.
Dale’s
also hired a local man to spruce up the gelcoat on the Palace. He had been working on another Manta located
at the end of the dock and Dale thought he was doing a pretty decent job. This meant that Dale and I had to disconnect
the louvers over the front windows and mark all of the stress cracks we’ve
found with blue tape before we could let him loose. I mention this as I find it fascinating that a
worker of this type doesn’t have any of his own equipment. He started out asking for money for the
materials needed, understandable, then to borrow a hammer and chisel. After the first few minutes of trying to do
math lessons with the constant tap, tap, tapping, I suggested that Dale dig out
his Dremel tools for him to use. I think
its going to take a few days as he leaves after each step is completed and
there are 4 steps to the repair.
On
the auto pilot front, we’ve received word that the part is in and can be picked
up tomorrow. Once its in hand, we can
schedule Sheldon to return and hopefully, finish fixing Lt. Schmuckatelli, our
auto pilot so that we can once again travel without the need for constant hand
steering. I’m all for that.
Gerry,
on the other hand has been up to his elbows in their aft loo. If you remember, I told you how Dale had torn
our loo apart many times trying to track down a small leak. Apparently, Gerry thought that sounded like
great fun and has been doing the same thing over on his boat.
Savannah
continues to improve with her swimming and, I’m happy to say, piano. She’s not having as much luck trying to
convince us that her teacher tells her that you can subtract 4 from 3. We’re not sure if she’s trying to tell us
about fractions or what because she knows how to subtract two and three digit
numbers that require “borrowing” from the next number. So we’re waiting for something else to clue
us in on what she’s trying to describe.
In
another area, we (as in Dale and I) learned that we can’t dismiss Savannah’s farfetched
ideas as being, well, farfetched. I’m
not sure how this came up, seven year old minds are fascinating, but she told
us that gorillas burp when they’re happy.
Really? Dale looked it up! They do, in fact, burp when they’re
happy. I had to look up the butt
breathing turtles and found that that was true too. Yep! Its called “bum breathing.” Just goes to show that you’re never to old to
learn something new too!
Finally: Day 15 – Anybody else feel like they’ve
cooked dinner about 395 times this month?
