Tuesday 29 January: Admin day – laundry, packing and setting up various yacht services.
We wake to a dull rainy day. Really rainy, not like the normal showers. We head ashore mid morning to FKG Rigging company and leave the vang there. Glen spends time to explain the full story on the vang.
Then we have a very good coffee in Langoonies bar. Very popular with yachties.
It was good stop, as behind the bar there is a laundry and Glen finds the refrigeration guys at Titan. So he arranges to have the 3 fridges vacuumed and refilled, as they should have been done in Antigua. Strangely though, all 3 units have been working perfectly since Antigua, 6 weeks now. If they had moisture (air) trapped inside they should have started to give issues by now. Hmm, let sleeping dogs lie? We wonder.
A quick trip back to Cloudy Bay sees us coming ashore again laiden with bags of laundry. And I mean laiden! We have not done laundry since Bermuda can you believe? 8 weeks ago. That’s how rare the laundromats are in these islands. Even with such a big load (4 large industrial washing machines and a normal size load!) we find the US$78 bill quite expensive. Still, it would have taken days with our little 3Kg machine on board.
While waiting for the laundry cycles we have a very pleasant lunch in Langoonies. I think Glen will be quite happy eating and drinking here while I’m back in Europe, because they have IPA beer!
Back on Cloudy Bay I do the chore of packing. I don’t actually need to take much back but I will use the opportunity to purge clothes and shoes which we have never worn since bringing them on board from Dubai 3 years ago. Mostly fashionable clothes that I enjoyed wearing in Dubai but have no place in boaty life.
While I’m packing Glen goes for a dinghy tour of the bay to investigate a small marina right next to the airport terminal. Maybe we can dinghy to the airport directly?
But when he returns he reports the marina is all destroyed and littered with smashed up boats, yachts and catamarans from hurricane Irma in 2017. Included is one Hallberg Rassy 42. It’s still floating, just, but the rig has gone and much of the gunnels and topside damaged 🙁
From there he decides to survey the whole bay, including the French side and even out the northern channel into Marigot Bay. It seems the French side is showing the effects of Irma much more than the Dutch side. Everywhere there are sunken or partially sunken yachts (even super yachts) and the yards are full of wrecks too. And the buildings are still looking very beaten up. What destruction it must have been.
Irma, the most powerful hurricane recorded (CAT-5), really did kick the islands: Dominica, Barbuda, St. Barth’s, St. Martin, BVIs, Puerto Rico, all severely effected. 1000 boats destroyed in St. Martin alone. No wonder maritime insurance company’s will no longer cover for named storms in the hurricane zone and season.
In the evening we relax and continue watching our crime series while cuddling affectionately on the settee. I’ll be in Europe almost 3 weeks. We haven’t been apart for a single day (or even more than a couple of hours) in almost 2 years now! What couple can claim that, and still live to tell it? 🙂
Then bliss: a shower with a clean towel, and clean fresh bedding to sleep in. The simple pleasures of life!
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