The sun is back!

Tuesday 10 Mar, Jamaica day 16, Montego Bay: Pottering onboard.

We wake to yet more showers and blustery wind but as the day progresses, the sun is out more and more. But we decide again not to go exploring today. It will be another day relaxing onboard, focusing on video editing. And it’s good to carry on while in that groove. Today Oana completes a third video. Three in three days. That’s quite a record, and A LOT of work.

After breakfast I dinghy ashore to show our customs and immigration documents to the marina office. She tells me off for not coming with them the day we arrived. Apparently I should have done. A customs lady is called and she arrives within 15 minutes to take our details. They really do have quite a robust system here. And unlike other countries, you get the feeling they do actually use all the forms that we fill out. It’s certainly not a country to try to pop into without checking-in, that’s for sure (note: not that we would ever do that).

While in Montego Bay Yacht Club, waiting for customs authorities, I chat to the reception lady and ask her how often do they race the J22 fleet which they have here in the yard. The last race was about a month ago, but they don’t go in the water too often. There used to be a Wednesday afternoon race, but too much trouble to launch all the J22 for only a couple of hours of racing. A bit disappointing to hear that really, as we are very fond of J22s, having owned and raced one in Dubai before Cloudy Bay.
And while in the Montego Bay Yacht Club office I also pick up a WiFi passcode. On Cloudy Bay we easily link into the WiFi using our booster, but the club’s internet is pretty much useless. It will barely even open up an internet page. We are very disappointed because we wanted to upload the new videos. So late afternoon we go to the club armed with PC hoping for better internet. But it’s just as useless in the club as we had it on the boat. So we go back to Cloudy before the mosquitos ravage us. It might have been a nice place for an evening drink. But there was no one else there other than the staff. The glory days of this once prestigious club are certainly over! Oh…. when will we next find WiFi that actually works? 🙁

Late afternoon I go to close the windscreen window when one of the support latches breaks. A screw has sheared. As usual, it looks like an easy fix until I find all the stainless steel screws are welded into the windscreen alloy with corrosion. And of course, none of the screws will budge 🙁 So I leave them to soak with WD40 hoping for the best. If I end up having to drill out stainless screws set in softer alloy, it’s for sure going to end up a mess.

Our evening is again video editing. It’s lovely to relive the scenes as we make the videos.