This morning around 1100 we weighed anchor and headed toward the lagoon in which the Rodney Bay Marina is situated in. I had been told that we could come in anytime and on any day. We were just to call the dock master on channel 16 when we were about to come in. Ha! We are told that via email or face to face each time we are about to come into a marina. However, about 75% of the time, or even more, when we call using the VHF radio no one answers our hail. For that reason I always try to get the telephone number for the marina’s office. If I have a local SIM card in our phone, I will use that to call, if not, then I will use our satellite Iridium Go paired with our cell phone to call. I then tell the receptionist that we are coming in and to have the dock master hail us on VHF channel 16. Usually, in a few minutes, we are being hailed by the dock master and then we make the necessary arraignments regarding what slip we will have and where it is.

This is exactly what we had to do once again. It boggles the brain as to how lax marinas are in monitoring the main communication channel (i.e., whatever VHF channel they use) that we on our boat are usually limited to.

Once we made contact with the dock master we were directed to slip D 12 and in a few minutes we were nicely tied up to the dock. We will be here at least 9 days, depending on what our friends, Dwight and Kati wish to do once they arrive. We will be getting information on what to do here in St Lucia and when they arrive, we will discuss what they would like to do while they are with us.

Once we had Leu Cat squared away, a couple of handymen approached us looking for work. I ended up getting a quote of just $350 US to have the entire outside of the boat washed, wax and polished. It is the slowest of the slow season here right now and they are anxious to find some work. This is a very good price as it included the materials and equipment need to do the topside and the hulls down to the waterline. The hours and hours of hot, back breaking, sweaty work I was envisioning doing had just gone poof! Now, I just need to get to work on make some frozen margaritas and then kicking back and slurping those down to get into practice for when Dwight and Kati are here!

I will help Mary Margaret a bit in doing the inside of the boat. She could also hire someone to do this work but she is more meticulous on cleaning than I am so she usually opts to just do it herself. It must be a girl thing…