Feb 11

I spent the morning reading while the wind continued to howl.  At noon, most of the gang ventured to shore in St. Anne for lunch.  Barb stayed onboard because she was making English muffins.  The strike continues, but we are set for food for quite awhile.  It would be nice to get some fresh veges, but we can do without them, and we have stuff to make bread.  We use juice and milk from boxes, and have several aboard, so that's not a problem yet either.  The problem the strike is causing for cruisers is a matter of gasoline.  Everybody we know has enough for their dinghies for now, but we have heard of a number of gas cans being taken from dinghies both at the town dock, and from dinghies left in the water overnight.  We usually leave the dinghy in the water when we are staying put, but we started taking the gas can out and putting it in the cockpit of the big boat.

We went to one of the sandwich shops that is still open for lunch.  This shop also has an internet cafe, so while we ate I published the update to the website.  The publishing went ok, but I had trouble sending the e-mail to everybody to announce the update.  Sometimes when using public internet access like this, you can't contact your outbound mail server.  I've encountered this before in hotels, and even at some friends houses depending on who their ISP was.

I was back on the boat a little before 15:00, and spent the rest of the afternoon reading.  We had dinner aboard as the wind continued to howl.  One thing is for sure.  I'm not worried about dragging anchor.  If we haven't moved yet, we aren't going to.

GPS N 14-26.099 W 060-53.247  Nautical miles traveled today 0.  Total miles 9741.

Feb 12

The wind and strike press on.  We spent almost all day on the boat today, not going ashore for lunch.  I attacked my dinghy again to stop air leaks.  It has been still seeping around where I previously patched it.  Instead of redoing the patch, I am trying another method which has been recommended by other cruisers.  I ran a bead of fast cure 4200 sealant around the edge of the patch that is seeping.  After a few hours to cure, I re-inflated the tube, and it seems to be holding.  We'll see if it lasts.  I think the dinghy knows I plan to replace it when we return to the boat after our work break, so it's going to do everything it can to irritate me until then.

At 17:00, we joined a bunch of cruisers ashore for a happy hour.  Tito & Roberta from Alleluia organized the happy hour.  It was held at one of the local dive shops where there is a dock we could use for our dinghies, and a picnic table for our snacks.  Everybody brought a snack and their drinks and we visited for a couple hours.  We met a couple of folks we had not known before.

GPS N 14-26.099 W 060-53.247  Nautical miles traveled today 0.  Total miles 9741.

Feb 13

We were up this morning for the regular radio stuff.  Chris Parker, the weather guy, says the wind should start to abate by Sunday, going from "blowing like stink" to "almost dead calm" by Tuesday.  Those are technical weather terms.  It is still blowing about twenty knots this morning, but it does seem pretty calm compared to the last couple of days.

We read all morning, me almost finishing the James Mitchell autobiography.  We had lunch aboard, but then joined the gang in a venture to the beach.  Yesterday at happy hour, Tito & Roberta from Alleluia had turned us on to a bar/restaurant on the beach that had free wi-fi as long as you were eating or drinking.  So, we all docked at the dive shop where we had been last night, and walked down the beach.  We didn't find the place right on the beach, so when we reached the end we asked the hostess at one restaurant where the place we were looking for was.  How tacky is that?  But, she graciously pointed us in the right direction and we found the place one block off the beach.  We had not brought our computer, since we can get e-mail via the sat phone anywhere and I didn't feel the urge to surf the net.  But the other three boats had their laptops and with beers all around, they started their browsing.  L'exotique is owned by Patrick and he greeted us as we came in.  We told him we were there on Tito & Roberta's recommendation.  (Contrary to the obvious, L'exotique is not a strip club.)  During the course of the afternoon, we enjoyed laughing with both of the bartenders, who spoke good English and tolerated our attempts at speaking French.  We cornered Patrick and asked him to explain the strike to us.  He explained that there were the issues we already knew about - 1.  White French people getting jobs over black local people,   and 2.  The cost of goods being higher here than in France, even when factoring in import costs.  But,  3. (Which we hadn't heard before) The general cost of living being unbearable.  The prices of nearly everything have gone up 50% in the past five years, while salaries have gone down 30%.  We understand the problem, but I don't personally see what the strike will accomplish.  It's the same problem all over the world, and we will probably see more of this, even at home, in the near future.

We were back at the boat a little before sundown.  We enjoyed dinner aboard, and I finished my book.  My opinion on the book is that it was poorly written and it amazes me that a book can be published by a known publishing company with so many typos, and grammatical errors.  That said, it was an interesting story, especially after being in the Caribbean for a few years.  Now that I have read the book, I wish I had taken the time to engage Sir James in a conversation when we saw him mingling at the Frangipani in Bequia.  Even if it were a brief  "are you enjoying your visit" kind of conversation, it may have been interesting.  Of course, then I didn't know he was the former Prime Minister, and hadn't read the book, so I wouldn't have had much to say.

GPS N 14-26.099 W 060-53.247  Nautical miles traveled today 0.  Total miles 9741.

Feb 14

We were up early to listen to the weather and I hosted the Coconut Telegraph this morning.  The big news with the weather is a low pressure system moving off the southeastern US that will affect us down here.  The wind here over the next week will be quite mild, due to this system north of us sucking all the energy into it.  That will be a nice reprieve since it has been blowing hard here for a week.  The bad news is that the system will be blowing so hard way north of us, that it will be sending a north or northwest ocean swell this far south.  What makes the Caribbean a nice cruising ground is that the wind always comes from the northeast through southeast, and the waves normally do the same.  So all the anchorages are on the west sides of the islands.  Most of the anchorages are just dents in the island with shallower water.  They are not protected from any waves coming from the north.  If the waves go west of north, then things really get ugly.  Last year a whole marina and part of a town at Anse Mitan, Martinique, a little north of where we are, was wiped out by a big northwest swell from Hurricane Omar, which was a couple hundred miles north.  When the north swell comes, most of the Caribbean anchorages get uncomfortable, and some get downright dangerous.  Lest you be worried about us now, St. Anne, Martinique, where we are is one of the few anchorages on the south shore of an island.  The bay is protected from the normal easterly swell by a long peninsula that forms the southeast corner of the island, and since we are on the south shore, the north swell shouldn't get to us at all.  We had planned to be exploring some of the other anchorages of Martinique by now, but since this is the safest, we will be staying put here through the week.

We read all morning.  After my last book, which took be six days to read, I blew through another Randy Wayne White book in a few hours.  Not only was it a regular sized paperback, with bigger spacing, and only 250 pages, but the mental requirements of reading a light fiction book, vs. a complicated non-fiction one were a lot less.  A little after noon, we joined the gang on the beach for lunch.  We docked our dinghies at the dive shop again, which we feel is safer than the main town dock given the problem of gas cans disappearing due to the strike.  We walked all most the full length of the beach to a restaurant just outside the Club Med entrance.  They had paninis, sandwiches, salads, and a few other things.  Several people, including Barb, got fried chicken and fries.  I was going to get a ham and cheese panini, but they used the last of the ham they had on the order before mine, so I got a cheeseburger instead.  During lunch we had the establishment's dog hanging around our table.  He was a big black dog that probably had Labrador lineage.  He was very friendly, but once we had our food, we wanted him to leave us alone.  Unfortunately, he didn't speak English, and we didn't know the French command to make him go away.  At one point, he was sitting next to Mike from Seabbatical, and Don looked at the dog and said "go find your bitch".  As if on perfect cue, he laid his head in Mike's lap, which got a huge laugh from the rest of us.

After lunch, we walked part way down the beach and sat down for a while.  Mike & Lynn had brought a sheet to spread out, so we sat down and got some sun while watching the show.  We conveniently picked a spot on the beach right across the street from a bar, so we were able to get beers.  There are a few signs posted on the beach, and best we can tell they say something about not bringing dogs on the beach.  None seem to say anything about alcohol or glass, so we just carried our beer bottles to our spot.  The bartender didn't seem to care either, so I guess it was ok.  Or perhaps they just make allowances for the stupid Americans.  We were sure to return our empty bottles to the bar when we left.

We got back to the boat a little before sundown.  We found we have a new neighbor, French of course, who is anchored too close to us in my opinion.  It's not worth the hassle to argue with him though.  The wind should stay consistent all night, keeping us pointed the same direction, so it will probably be ok.

GPS N 14-26.099 W 060-53.247  Nautical miles traveled today 0.  Total miles 9741.

Feb 15

I know that how you feel about the temperature is a relative thing.  I remember as a kid in New York thinking that in the fall, when it got down to 65 degrees you put on long pants and a sweatshirt.  But in the spring, when it got up to 65 degrees, you broke out the shorts and t-shirts.  It's all relative.  What worries me is that I'm starting to feel that 80 degrees is chilly, and I'm looking at going back to the States for a year.  It doesn't matter where I go, I'm gonna need warmer clothes.

We spent the morning aboard, running the motor to charge the batteries.  We have had the optimal alternative energy days for the past few days.  The wind has been blowing over twenty knots, making the wind generator put out it's maximum without overheating and shutting down, and it's been sunny, so the solar panels are putting out their maximum.  We have gone three days without supplementing the power requirements with running the engine, and that's good.  But, we finally had to give in and get caught up on the deficit.

Today has been designated girls day out, except the girls are going to stay in.  Lynn from Seabbatical and Barb are going to join Carol on Lightheart for a girls movie afternoon.  They are going to watch the Sex In The City movie, and talk about what girls talk about when the guys aren't around.  Of course, this means the boys have to be somewhere.  The boys are going bar hopping on the topless beach.  Sounds fair to me.  Mike, Dave, Don, Devin, and I made our way to shore and walked the beach to L'exotique.  We took turns buying rounds of Lorraine beer, in the 330ml bottles.  Before we left, we had finished all the 330ml bottles of Lorraine that they had cold.  From L'exotique we went to the place where we had lunch yesterday.  Mike's dog immediately came to him and said hi.  Here we only had one round of beers because again they ran out of cold Lorraines.  We left for the next place, just as it started to rain.  We ran back to the cover of the bar we just left and waited until the rain stopped, which in traditional island fashion was only a few minutes.  We headed back down the beach to another restaurant/bar where they had a Lorraine cooler that displays the temperature on the outside of the box.  We like these because we have encountered lots of places that don't have "cold to American standards" beer.  We befriended the proprietor of this place and ordered five more.  After four rounds here, we figured the girls had run out of things to and we should head home.

I picked Barb up from Lightheart and we went back to the boat.  She had snacked enough during the afternoon that she wasn't hungry, but she warmed me up some leftover pasta for dinner.

During the course of the afternoon, I learned that I had been spelling Devin's name wrong.  I had been spelling it Devon with an O instead of Devin with an I.  I am particularly careful about spelling people's names correctly, so I have gone back and corrected it throughout the last couple of month's logs.

GPS N 14-26.099 W 060-53.247  Nautical miles traveled today 0.  Total miles 9741.

Feb 16

We did the normal morning radio stuff today, and had a couple of pleasant surprises.  Propagation was extremely good today.  We heard Chris Parker, the weather guy, very well on his 07:00 net, which we haven't been getting lately.  Then on the Coconut Telegraph, we heard Sol Y Mar check in underway from Bequia to St. Lucia.  They may catch us soon.  Our real surprise was when Steve from Liward checked in from the San Blas islands in Panama.  I don't have the charts for Panama, so I can't tell you how far away that is, but it's farther than we usually hear on that SSB frequency.  He sounded like he was next door to us.  That's the magic of the SSB radio.  We went to another frequency and chatted with Liward for a bit and caught up on their plans.

After the nets, we got a call on the VHF from Bob on Tranquila.  He was on his bicycle in Marin and was reporting that the grocery stores were open.  We had already planned a journey into Marin today and this reinforced that plan.  About 11:15, Seabbatical, Liquid Courage, and MoonSail's dinghies began the run to Le Marin.  Given that it has been very windy, and that the wind has not died down as much today as expected, it was a choppy ride in.  I stood in the dinghy as Barb ducked down in the bow, in an effort to stay dry.  We got to the dock at the big marina in about twenty minutes.  The first thing we all did was hit the ATM that was now working to get some more cash.  Then, I went to several boat parts stores to see if I could replace my broken small alternator here.  I found one store that had one but wanted 785Euros for it.  That's about $1000 USD.  Too much.  I have since sent an e-mail to the Westerbeke distributor back in Kemah to see how much one is from them.

After perusing all three chandleries (boat parts stores) at the marina, we dinghied around to the boat haulout yard.  This is where the two large grocery stores are.  Leader Price, and Champion are the two large stores here.  Leader Price has a dinghy dock, but when we pulled up it was obvious that they were closed.  We could have (and probably should have) landed the dinghies at the boatyard.  Instead, we ventured further east where the little chart from the cruising guide showed there to be a dinghy only channel that would take you to several boat service places and the Champion store.  We found the channel and went up it to a very nice landing.  The landing served many businesses, some marine and some not.  When we walked through this business park, we found ourselves on the main road from Marin to Fort du France.  As we left the business park, we saw an Esso station across the street, complete with a Tigermart store.  I thought it was funny that even though they still use the Esso brand instead of Exxon here, the store was branded Tigermart the same as in the States.  We had heard that gas stations were opening, but here the pumps we closed but the store was open.  We walked into town towards the Champion, only to find it closed too.  Their sign outside said they were open from 8 to 8, so they aren't just closed for lunch as some stores do here.  They apparently opened for a while and then closed for the day.

Just past Champion was McDonald's.  While I would have to be damn hungry to eat at a McDonald's in the States, it seemed like a fun thing to do to try one in France.  I have been to McDonald's in Japan and Germany before, but not in France.  Sometimes it's just good to go with something very familiar.  When we got to the McDonald's though, we found a sign on the door.  The drive-thru was open, but the inside was not.  We couldn't figure out from the sign if this had to do with the strike or not.  Whatever the cause, it pissed us off.  The lady at the drive-thru said (we think) that we could walk through the drive-thru, but there was no place to sit once we did, so we aborted the whole idea.

We turned around and headed back towards where we left the dinghies.  We had passed two open restaurants which we investigated on our way back.  Getting six people to agree on a place to eat is a challenge anywhere, but when you can't read the menu, that challenge is magnified.  We ended up going back to the Tigermart, where the sign outside clearly said "pizza, poulet, frites", which we recognized as "pizza, chicken and fries".  We ended up standing at a counter inside (which was good since it poured while we were there) enjoying several slices of pretty good pizza.  They sold beer there, but we asked and think we were told that you couldn't drink beer inside the store.  So, I got a drink from the cooler that looked like it might be lemonade.  Keep in mind that almost all the products here come from France.  The drink I got didn't really taste like lemonade, but it wasn't bad to start.  As I got more into it, I detected an aftertaste that made me wonder if it was a diet drink.  I remembered the words on the label and later found out it was grapefruit juice.  I don't like grapefruit juice at all, and this didn't taste like any grapefruit I had before.  It had words on the label to indicate it was "sans something", which means it was "without something".  But it wasn't "sans sucre" which would be "without sugar", so I'm not sure what it was, but it taught me a lesson about watching out for diet drinks.

While we were at the Tigermart, we looked around at the few things they had on their shelves.  We got a box of milk, which we aren't sure if it is non-fat or full-cream, but Barb says she doesn't care for her morning coffee.  We got a bag of coffee, which I hope is correct for an American Mr. Coffee.  And, we got two four-packs of two liter bottles of Coke.  They had lots of Coke here.  Coke apparently isn't on strike.  There were six packs of 12oz cans.  Eight packs of 20oz bottles.  Four packs of 2 liter bottles.  And, 6 packs of 2 liter bottles.  All of the packaging was plastic shrink wrap, with the Coke brand on it all.  After we left the store, Devin asked if we had enough rum to mix with all that Coke, and it occurred to me that we didn't.  The strike has kept us from investigating Martinique rum at all, and we are down to our last two bottles of what we got in St. Lucia.  We either have to do some exploring, or put in an order to friends coming north.

Once we were fed and had minimal supplies, we headed back to the dinghies.  We went back to the boats where we dropped off our groceries.  Since we had no beer yet today, everybody except Barb, went to the dive shop dock and walked to L'exotique for a beer.  We found they too were now running out of Lorraine beer.  It seems the beer deliveries are not coming because of the strike, and we are depleting their supplies.  After two rounds, when there was no more Lorraine, we moved back down the beach to the other place we were yesterday.  They had no Lorraine, but they had cold Carib.  We had two rounds there before depleting that supply.  Since we had found several of the other establishments on the beach closed entirely, which is not uncommon for a Monday, we headed back to the boats.

Once back aboard, we had a conversation with Harriett on Perseverance.  Perseverance is still in Rodney Bay, St. Lucia, which is more than twenty miles south of us.  That is normally the outer extent of VHF radio range, but we have heard them several times over the past week.  At L'exotique this afternoon, we had mentioned to Tito & Roberta on Alleluia that we could hear Rodney Bay VHF conversations from here.  So, Tito hailed Perseverance on the VHF and got them to switch to the SSB radio, which has a much greater range, and they had a conversation.  I broke in at the end and Perseverance told me that Sol Y Mar had just pulled in to Rodney Bay and was anchoring.  This was unexpected as we thought Sol Y Mar was going to take a week to hop up the coast of St. Lucia, similarly to what we did.

Today has been a gloomy day weather wise.  There were storms forecast to be well south of here, but this morning Chris Parker said they has come further north than expected.  We never did have a lot of rain, but it was overcast all day.  Not your typical Caribbean day.  If you were here on vacation for a week, it would suck.  Speaking of here for a week, our friends Dale & Pat who used to own a sister ship of ours, Double Jeopardy in Washington DC, are on a two week vacation aboard a large sailing ship named Caledonia.  We knew they would be here in Martinique today, as of a few weeks ago, but their port of call was around the corner from us, and since we couldn't rent a car we couldn't get together with them.  In the evening, I heard Caledonia on the VHF as they were leaving port, so I hailed them and asked them to pass a message to Dale & Pat.  The young lady on Caledonia's radio was very nice and said she would pass the message on.  I hope they got it.

When I checked our e-mail this evening, I had a very pleasant surprise.  I had sent an e-mail to our insurance agent telling them of our plans to leave the boat in Antigua this year.  This is normally out of the covered area during hurricane season, but we were willing to take that risk.  They replied that for only $550 more, they will cover the boat there as long as it is on the hard.  That's good news indeed, as it means we can stay with the same company.  One less thing to worry about.

GPS N 14-26.099 W 060-53.247  Nautical miles traveled today 0.  Total miles 9741.

Feb 17

Today's big adventure is a hike to a beach.  Tito & Roberta from Alleluia are going to lead on this hike to Anse Salines, which is on the southeast tip of the island.  The hike was described to us as an easy, relatively flat, fifty-five minute hike.  We should have known that since Tito & Roberta hike regularly, their perspective of what constitutes an easy hike may be a little different than ours.  The others marchers on this hike were Mike & Lynn from Seabbatical, Dave & Carol from Lightheart, and Don & Devin from Liquid Courage.  We knew that this beach has vendors on it that serve food and drink, but given the strike situation, we can't be sure if they will be open.  So, we were advised to bring a light lunch and of course lots of water for the hike.  Barb and I decided to have a big breakfast and not carry food with us.  Barb made us eggs with cheese in them, English muffins, and sausage, which we ate a little after 09:00.  At 10:00, Don & Devin picked us up in their dinghy to take us to the town dock.  We are dinghy pooling to reduce the number of dinghies left at the dock subject to gas theft problems.  Once we were all ashore, we stopped at the sandwich shop we frequent, where a few people bought sandwiches or baguettes for later.  We got a large bottle of water to supplement the little one we had, and were very glad we did.

We actually got walking at 10:30.  The hike turned out to be about three and a half miles each way.  The first mile was on streets getting out of St. Anne.  Once we ran out of pavement, most of the trail was a good trail, but it was not particularly flat.  There were a couple places where it was fairly steep and being loose sandy dirt, that made it easy to slip, but nobody went down.  The trail followed the coast.  At some points we were walking just behind the beach and at some points we were a hundred feet above the water right on the edge of the cliff.  For the most part the trail was in the woods, so at least we had shade most of the way.  Being so close to the shore also meant we usually had a breeze, so it wasn't as bad as it could have been, but for us slackers it was still a strenuous hike.

We passed several small beaches along the way that would be excellent secluded places to enjoy the beach, but there were no services at any of these.  When we finally reached Anse Salines, we found lots of people, lots of cars (yes you can drive here) and lots of vendors selling food and drink.  Before we set foot on the beach, most of us stopped at the first vendor and got large Lorraines.  Our fears of the vendors not being open or fully stocked seemed unfounded.  After a beer, we went across the road to the beach and found where Tito & Roberta had staked out a spot for us.  The beach was fairly crowded especially considering it was a weekday.  I bet on a weekend it is packed.  The nice thing about lots of the beaches in the Caribbean is that the trees come right down to the high water line.  So, you can spread you blanket or towel in the shade of the trees and not bake any more than you want to while enjoying the beach.  The water was cool, but very refreshing after the hike.  The waves were higher here than at the beach in town, but only a couple feet, so it was fun.    Of course being on a French island, this beach, as all beaches here, had lots of topless women on it.  Some who should have been, and some who shouldn't.

The hike in had taken us about an hour and a half of actual walking.  About 14:30, we packed up and began the walk back.  Dave & Carol left about fifteen minutes before the rest of us, as Dave's foot was bothering him a little so he wanted a head start.  It turns out that Tito knew of an alternate path that cut about twenty minutes off the walk.  It went straight through the woods cutting off passing right along a couple of the beaches.  He brought us down the other way so we could see the nice beaches along the way.  We reached a beach where you can land a dinghy, and Roberta wanted Tito to go ahead and bring their dinghy back here to pick her up.  Barb elected to stay with her, and Dave & Carol walked up a few minutes later with Carol also staying for a dinghy ride.  Tito sprinted off ahead of us to get their dinghy, and the rest of us made our way back with Dave a few minutes behind us.  We didn't know Dave was back there or we would have waited for him.  We had leapfrogged Dave & Carol when we took the shorter trail, and they had elected to walk the beaches instead.  As we were entering St. Anne, we saw Tito headed south in the dinghy.  We stopped at the sandwich shop for beers on their nice patio by the water.  When Tito returned with the ladies, he and Roberta went back to their boat, Barb walked down to join us for a beer, and Carol stayed on the dock by their dinghy waiting for Dave.  Dave came walking into town about ten minutes later.  He stopped at the sandwich shop and said hi, but then went to get Carol and go back to their boat.  We learned later that some teenagers on the dock had been hassling Carol.  They had been yelling at her, in French of course, and kicking at her backpack on the dock.  There were five or six of them and she was quite afraid.  When Dave walked up, he threatened the kids and they dispersed.  Without knowing what they were saying, it's hard to tell if they were just rowdy teenagers, or if there was some racial issue spilling over from the strike.  In any case, they wouldn't have been out of school if it wasn't for the strike.  Had we all walked back to the dock at the same time, we could have corned the kids on the dock and looked for a gendarme (policeman) to deal with them.

When we got back to the boat, we saw that Perseverance and Alize had both made the trip up from Rodney Bay, St. Lucia today.  They were both anchored near us, and we stopped and said hi to Alize as we passed by. 

GPS N 14-26.099 W 060-53.247  Nautical miles traveled today 0.  Total miles 9741.

Feb 18

This morning there was much discussion on the radio about yesterday's event on the dock.  Lightheart is thinking about going back to St. Lucia, and Liquid Courage may go with them.  Perseverance has decided that they don't want to stay here either if they can't enjoy land tours, so they are heading back also.  We ran the motor to charge our batteries some during the morning.  After some thought, Lightheart and Liquid Courage reconsidered and are going to stay here for now.

Around noon, we all went to shore.  Barb & I are going to eat lunch ashore, while everybody has eaten aboard their boats and are just going to L'exotique for beer and internet.  We ate lunch at La Ronde des Yoles, one of the places along the beach.  We have stopped here for beer before, but not food.  We ordered beers to start, but they are completely out of beer because of the strike and possibly our patronage in the past few days.  He suggested another beverage, called Force 4, which we took.  Once we had them and I read the label, they had 0.5% alcohol, so I assumed it was a non-alcoholic beer.  But it didn't taste like beer at all.  It was kind of sweet.  Not bad, but I'll know next time it's not a substitute for beer.  For lunch, we ordered complete meals, which are called menu.  The menu (the paper list of everything available) is not called the menu in French.  That is "le carte".  "Menu" is a set meal that has an appetizer, a main course, and a desert.  We decided to be brave and order menu meals, even though we weren't exactly sure what they were.  Barb's menu started with five deep fried fritters of some nature.  We shared, and they were quite tasty.  Her main course was a grilled chicken leg and thigh with fries that was good.  My appetizer was boudin Creole.  I'm familiar with boudin from Louisiana , but it turns out to be different here.  It did look like a sausage, but that's where the similarity ended.  There were two pieces, each about two inches long.  The skin was quite thin, and when you poked at them, they seemed like they were filled with Jell-O.  I broke one open and cautiously tasted the filling.  It looked nasty, but was quite tasty.  I learned later when I looked boudin up in the French for Cruisers book, that it is blood sausage, also known as black pudding to Brits.  Again, not to visually appealing, but tasty.  My main course was chicken coco, which was a hunk of skinless chicken.  I can't tell you exactly what part it was, because they don't cut them up the same in the islands, but it was white meat and some of the rib cage was there, so it was at least part breast.  I think it had been grilled and then the skin removed, and then it was served with a thin coconut sauce over it with rice.  It was excellent.  The meals were supposed to include a desert, but the waitress informed us at the end of our meal, that they were out of deserts because of the strike.  Of course the price for the full meal was the same regardless.  It was fun to step out of the box a little and experiment, and the result was a nice surprise.

We left La Ronde des Yoles and walked down the road to L'exotique where everybody else was already surfing the net.  We got two beers, which weren't real cold, but at least Patrick hasn't run out yet.  We did some banking, updated Windows, updated our anti-virus software, got mail, read some news stories, and looked up a few French words that aren't in our book.  Our translation book is called French for Cruisers.  It focuses specifically on things boaters need to say, so it's not an entire French/English dictionary.  I had a second beer and this one was real cold.  While we were there, Patrick switched the TV, which is normally on Eurosport, to CNN where they were covering President Obama's speech announcing a plan to help reduce foreclosures.  All the local people were as glued to the TV as we were, even though they speak limited English.  Once again, it's astounding to see how attuned the world is to what the US does.

Once we were all done with the internet, we head back down the beach.  Dave & Carol went back to their boat, but the rest of us stopped at a place we haven't been before.  This place is run by an Indian couple, and the decor reflected that style.  In the corner, away from the regular dining tables, were six large rocking chairs around a small table.  Perfect.  The only beer here was Lorraine in the large 500ml cans, but it was cold.  We all agree that the Lorraine in the bottle is better than the cans, but when supplies get tight, we can't be choosey.  This place plays music aimed at the beach and the anchorage.  In the early evening, they usually crank it up to the point where on the boat we hear the bass beat, but not the song.  Last night while listening to that, the beat suddenly stopped, and we heard President Obama speaking.  After a minute of speaking, the music started again.  Well, there was a guy here this afternoon playing DJ, and I think he was trying to play stuff the Americans drinking beer would like, although it was a bit loud.  Before the guy started switching the music around, it was the heavy bass beat stuff that we could care less about.  But then that stopped, and there was the Obama speech again.  Turns out it was a podcast this guy had downloaded that starts out with an excerpt from Obama's "Yes We Can" speech.  When the excerpt from the speech ended and the music started, everybody on the beach in front of the place yelled their approval.  Once again....

We went back to the boats about 17:00.  Barb and Lynn had walked to a small grocery store that was open and picked up a few items.  One of those was a tub of butter.  The grocery items had been sitting in Barb's bag for a couple hours while we had been drinking.  When we arrived at the boat, she put the butter in the fridge.  I came aboard a few minutes later and out of habit glanced at the fridge and freezer temperatures.  The fridge said fifty-seven and was rising.  I put my head down near the compressor and it was not running, although the fan was.  That should never happen.  The fan and the compressor always go on and off together.  I glanced in the box, and the cold plate was frosty as it should be, and I touched the compressor and it was hot as if it had just gone off.  We quickly realized that the temperature was going up so quickly because Barb set the warm butter right on top of the sensor.  We moved that and the reading went back down in the low forties where it belonged.  But, the compressor was not running, and that isn't right.  After about ten minutes, the compressor restarted.  All I can think of to explain this was that we had closed the boat up when we left, so it was ninety inside.  Perhaps the compressor overheated and cut out, and then once the boat cooled to eighty after we opened it, it came back on.  It seems to be working fine since, so hopefully there's not really anything wrong with it.  That would probably make us go back to St. Lucia if we needed to have it repaired.

GPS N 14-26.099 W 060-53.247  Nautical miles traveled today 0.  Total miles 9741.

Feb 19

The weather pattern is changing again.  The winds are picking back up to the twenty knot range and are forecast to blow between twenty and thirty until the middle of next week.  Most people we know have tucked in somewhere where they will stay for a week and hopefully not be affected by the north swell.

We did pretty much nothing all day.  Barb read, while I wrote logs and played computer games.  In the afternoon we had an unforecast rain shower.  In the islands, you can get showers anytime, but this qualified as a squall, with significantly more wind and heavy rain for a good half hour.  The forecast not only didn't predict this, but it specifically said today would be dry.  Proving that even though I actually pay to get good weather info, sometimes it's as much a crap shoot as the pretty little girl on TV tells you in the evening.

I did get a few hours of fairly good Radio Margaritaville reception this afternoon.  Ironically, the first song I heard was in French.  How did they know where we were?

We were going to go to the Thursday evening happy hour organized by Tito & Roberta.  This over at the dive shop where they have a dock and a picnic table for our snacks.  But, the rain came back and persisted all evening, so the happy hour was postponed until tomorrow.  That's too bad, because there are a couple of new boats in the harbor that we know from the radio, but have never met, and I was looking forward to meeting them.  This change in plans also meant Barb had to figure out something for dinner.  We normally would have snacked at the happy hour and blown off dinner, but now she's on the hook.

Barb's dinner experiment turned out to be excellent.  I called it Italian chicken enchiladas.  It was basically, chicken enchiladas with lasagna noodles substituted for the tortillas.  It was very tasty, and the only thing missing was sour cream which we are out of.

GPS N 14-26.099 W 060-53.247  Nautical miles traveled today 0.  Total miles 9741.

Feb 20

The rain and high winds continued off and on through the night.  We are getting low on water, and I wish now that I had some method of catching rainwater and diverting it to our tanks.  You would think in four years I would have come up with something to do that, but we have never been far from a water source.  Getting water here with the marina closed, may be an issue.

I was up at 07:00 to listen to the weather, and the forecast is not good.  The wind is going to pick up today and tomorrow, peaking at twenty-seven to thirty knots Sunday morning.  Of course, the seas will be accordingly big, and the north swell from the big storm way up in the Atlantic is affecting most anchorages on the west sides of the islands.  The good news for us is that the seas don't matter, and the wind will make a lot of electricity for us.  We have had lots of wind since we have been here, so I'm not even worried about dragging anchor.  If it hasn't moved yet, it's not gonna.

On the Coconut Telegraph this morning, we heard some new news.  The first thing we ask for on the net is any priority traffic.  We always hope to not get a response to that, since priority traffic would usually be something bad.  Well today there was a bunch.  Most of it centered around people wanting to know the status of the strike in Guadeloupe and Martinique.  But then somebody asked about unrest in Antigua.  My first thought was why would Antigua be affected, since it's not a French island.  I had some interference on the radio and couldn't hear well, but it turned out to be that the guy who owns the Bank of Antigua has been charged with securities fraud in the US, so there is a run on the bank with people wanting to get their money out.  Not good news, but hopefully not something that will affect us when we get there in a couple of months.

The gang is going to go to lunch at L'exotique today.  We all thought that since Patrick, the owner, has been very nice to us, gives us internet as long as we buy something, and has explained the nuances of the strike to us, we should buy a real meal there.  Everybody else was going to go in about noon-thirty, but we were going to have to be about fifteen minutes later.  This was because Barb was making English muffins.  Bread is the one thing that we seem to be able to get despite the strike, but it's a good excuse to use up a lot of the supplies we have aboard that need to be gone by June.  Once she starts making the muffins, the dough has to rise, and then the muffins get cooked.  You can take a couple hour break in the middle of that, so calculated that we could be there at 12:45.  About 12:25, Barb was below cooking the muffins, and I was at the computer playing games.  The engine was running to charge batteries, so it was loud inside.  It was a couple minutes after the rain started that either one of us noticed it and ran forward to close the v-berth hatch.  Fortunately, we keep a large piece of vinyl over the stuff right under the hatch just in case this happens, so nothing but the floor got real wet.

The rain delayed the rest of the gang just enough that we all went to shore together at 12:45.  We dropped garbage at the dumpster conveniently located near the dive shop dock and walked down the street to L'exotique.  I think we surprised Patrick when we told him we wanted to eat before we got on the internet.  He pulled three tables together and brought us menus (le carte).  Our waiter was Chris, who has waited on us at the bar before.  He speaks pretty good English, but we were all trying to practice our French.  We had the French for Cruisers book out, deciphering words.  Once Chris came to take our order, we did our best to do it in French, although it's hard when he answers us in English.  Three of us had Poulet frites, which is a fried chicken leg and thigh and fries.  Three of us had Columbo poulet, which is chicken in a curry sauce with rice.  The meals also included appetizers, where three of us had Crudités Accras (fritters and a little salad) and three had Avocat (half an avocado filled with a sauce).  For the finale, we all got glace (ice cream).  Three had vanilla with caramel sauce, two had strawberry, and I had what he described as peanut.  Well, peanut turned out to be pistachio, but is was good.  It's a nut that starts with a 'p', so I guess that qualifies as p-nut.

Lunch was a typical European thing that took a little over two hours.  It didn't seem like that long.  Each part came at just about the time you started wondering where it was.  By 15:15, we were done eating and moved over to the area where people sit while playing on the internet.  Several of us ordered another beer, but the word came back from the bar that the cold beer was gone.  I was getting started on the computer, so I asked Barb to get me a rum and Coke.  She asked me what kind of rum, since we aren't familiar with the Martinique brands.  I told her something dark, not one of the nasty white rhum agricole's that we know about without even trying them.  A minute later, she returned to the table with a bottle of rum.  The bartender just gave it to her to bring to me for my approval.  I checked the alcohol percentage, and it was forty-two, which is about normal.  I pulled the cork out and smelled it and it didn't burn the hair from my nostrils, so I said ok.  When she returned, she had a tall glass with a few ice cubes and half full of rum, and a twenty ounce bottle of Coke.  I filled the glass with Coke and took a sip.  My nose had betrayed me, because it was not a great taste.  I may have to learn more about French rums, or just call for an emergency shipment from somebody coming this way from St. Lucia.  It was only a few bucks though for a big drink, so I suffered.  We finished surfing the net and headed back to the boat at 16:15.  We have a social calendar to keep, as happy hour at the dive shop is at 17:00. This was the one rained out yesterday.

We got back to the boat, opened the hatches to air her out, put the computer back in place, and exchanged the day bag Barb carries for the happy hour bag which had our rum, Coke, ice, glasses, and our contribution to the snack table, which was pistachios.  (Must be my day for pistachios.)  The crowd at happy hour was larger than last week.  We got to meet the boats that I wanted to meet last night.  No Doubt, with Eddie & Karen aboard, always checks in on the Coconut Telegraph.  Barb and I discussed it yesterday, and couldn't remember for sure if we had met them in Grenada or not.  As soon as we saw them tonight, I recognized that I had met them before, and then they reminded me that they had brought us a bottle of wine at the marina to thank us for hosting the Coconut Telegraph.  We visited with them for a while, and introduced them to Seabbatical.  The other boat I wanted to meet was Crusader.  Bob & Marsha had been on a mooring near us in the Pitons when we listened to the saga of Phoenix Rising almost sinking seven miles away.  Marsha was the primary relay on the radio between Phoenix Rising and the local authorities.  I wasn't sure if they knew the outcome of Phoenix Rising, whom we just met a couple weeks ago in Rodney Bay, St. Lucia.  Turns out they have seen Phoenix Rising since we left Rodney Bay, and they are all repaired and back underway.

One unfortunate thing we learned today is that Carnival has been cancelled.  We were looking forward to the parades in St. Anne, since they would have been smaller and more enjoyable than Grenada's or Trinidad's.  We partially made our decision to stay here even in the face of the strike inconvenience, based of seeing Carnival, but I guess now we are just here because of the weather.

A little after dark, the happy hour was starting to break up.  We refused Liquid Courage's invite to join them for another drink at the beach bar where we spent yesterday afternoon, and headed back to the boat.  It was definitely the right decision, as the rains came again shortly after we got back.  The showers are supposed to be diminishing tonight, although the wind is picking up.

GPS N 14-26.099 W 060-53.247  Nautical miles traveled today 0.  Total miles 9741.