Year 10 Day 108 A Lazy Day
15 May 2017 | Simpson Bay Marina, Cole Bay, Sint Maarten
Dave/Mostly Sunny
We were all set to throw off the dock lines and run across the bay to where FKG is located. Last week they had told us to be ready to come right at 0800 today. However, when I called at 0745 to confirm, we were told not to come as things would not be ready until tomorrow. With this disappointing news, we decided to just relax and take it easy.
Our big event of the day was to dinghy across the bay to the Island Water World chandlery where we bought a new masthead light. Tyrell, the electrician that I asked to inspect our wiring that runs up through the mast, discovered that one of the connection pins to our existing masthead light is wobbly and is about to break. My option was to contact the manufactures and order a new connection fitting, which may take weeks to get here, or just buy a whole new light. We opted for the later.
Ally, of S/V Blue Heeler stopped by our boat this morning. We last saw Ally and Wayne in February at the Cousteau Marine Reserve in Guadeloupe. We have bumped into them in Indonesia, the Chagos (in the middle of the Indian Ocean), Guadeloupe and now here. They also will be sailing to the Azores as they make their way to England.
She shared with us that she is putting together a radio net for those who will be making the passage to the Azores. In fact, a few boats left last week and she is in contact with them. Others will be leaving this week and she and Wayne are thinking about leaving in a week or so. We shared that we will be waiting towards the end of May before we make the decision to start. We wish to let the North Atlantic High be well established before we leave. Another couple that we first met in the Chagos back in 2014, Brian and Chris of S/V Coruisk are here also and they too are planning on leaving towards the end of May. As you can see, everyone has different ideas as to when it is the best time to leave.
I will need to test our SSB radio to see how well it is working. We have not used it since we first started to cross the Indian Ocean back in 2014. Since then, during passage making we have relied on our old satellite phone and our current Iridium Go to get our weather reports, emails and to post our daily blogs. This was because the SSB radio station reception that SailMail used (we use SailMail to get our reports, emails and to post our daily blog) was very poor and unreliable across the Indian Ocean. I now have one more boat project which is to check out our SSB.
We are now hoping that tomorrow, around mid-morning, we will be able to return to FKG to have our mast installed. We have our fingers crossed…