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  • Day 35

    Boat Chores and bathing

    February 17 in Martinique ⋅ 🌬 28 °C

    We bought 24 eggs at the grocery store yesterday, so oueff’s for petite dejeuner was on the menu as we still had 6 left from Antigua.
    We wrote and sipped for a long while in the morning and I marvelled at my life, grateful to be on this adventure, in a beautiful place with a great mate.
    Then to boat chores. Unfortunately, I got sucked down a CRA rabbit hole where they claim on-line that I owe $14k….when I untangled it all, I realized I have already paid. Nothing like CRA to sour a mood and bring me to tears! Finally I let it go and got to work!
    Brian was sanding and glossing the window frames in the new windows, and I cleaned out the in-floor food locker in the galley that had beer and almond milk exploded throughout. I emptied the locked, washed it and let it dry out before reorganizing. I emptied the water from the adjacent floor locker, and then got to work at cleaning the BBQ (vinegar and baking soda work wonders) so we could reassemble…. It WORKED!
    The final chore (for today) was the AIS. We tried to factory reset the old one, but finally gave up and installed the new one. We now finally have a working AIS, which means that we can see all the boats around use, but also, they (or anyone who want to find us on this link: https://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/details/sh… ) can see where we are.
    We were supposed to watch the last bit of A Mid Summer Nights Dream before our rental time on Amazon ran out, but I striped down and slide into the water instead. Brian joined me briefly… first time in over 2 weeks that we went swimming. I stayed in the water and cleaned the white line along the haul and then scrubbed the dingy.
    A quick stern shower and then got ready for a gathering of the Salty Dawgs in La Marin. I actually got dressed up and wore a dress.
    As we headed back to the town we passed another traditional square sailboat with outriggers, and got some good shoots. We did a quick run to the grocery store again for some apple and pears, and then to Kokoorum for a meet up. At the table: Edwin & Karen, Joe & Mary, Laurie and Dan, Sheldon and Susan and Kevin & Cindy. Had a great chat with Karen, who has been in a relationship with Edwin for nearly 3 years and hasn’t given up her terrestrial life (New Jersey)… we talked a lot about values, it was great!
    All left except for Joe and Mary… we stayed and had super with them (I had a fish poke bowl). Interesting couple who have only been married for a year and a half, and cruising for the same (but together 10). We talked some of the challenges of being together 24/7 and how sailing pushes you to be the best version of yourself as challenges bring out the true colors. Joe profoundly stated that the key was to wake up each morning with a clean slate, Mary felt that open and honest communication was imperative, addressing things as they arose.
    Back to the boat, it was a 30-40min dingy ride, in the dark and shallows with a catamaran nearly Plowing us down. We forgot to turn in the anchor light so some detective work in the mooring field to find Lorena, but within 5min we found her. Back aboard it was cookie time and we resolved to watch the final 40min of A Mid Summer Night Dream. However, wifi wasn’t strong enough and the timer ran out…. So we went to bed.
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