Year 9 Day 90 Ready To Launch!
27 April 2016 | La Sagesse Hotel, Near Grenada Marine, Grenada
Dave/Hot and Sticky
It was another sauna day on board Leu Cat. I was not a very pretty sight, dripping with sweat, while working hard to get the boat ready to launch tomorrow. Yesterday, the extended cable to our remote which controls the battery charger/inverter was delivered. I had been pestering the electricians to have them make this cable for almost two weeks now. Each time I would talk to them, they would tell me that they would make it and deliver it “that day”. Apparently, “that day” was yesterday. Now armed with the cable, I spent this morning snaking the cable from the little area that runs under the stern transom, through the port engine room, through a bulkhead, under the guest suite bed, through the upper reaches of the bilge, up a tight space next to the stairs that climb up into the salon, and finally into the control panel area where the new remote is now located. In addition to running the cable, I had to use cable ties to secure the line and keep it from chafing while we sail. I swear I lost 10 pounds just from the sweat I lost. It was not fun.
Once that was done, I finished the touchup painting of our port side windows and stuck on the flag stickers of the five countries we have lately sailed to (Namibia, St. Helens and Ascension Island, Brazil, Grenada and Trinidad & Tobago. I included Brazil even though we did not officially clear in during our crossing of the South Atlantic last November. We had stopped in the shallows off a Fernando de Noronha, an island that is part of Brazil, to replace a lazy jack line that had failed. I had to go up the mast a bit to do that and we sat behind the island to get protection from the swells. Ok, I know that it is a stretch to include Brazil because we never walked on shore but we were so close and were definitely in Brazilian waters…
When I was picked up at the boatyard to return back to La Sagesse Hotel this afternoon, the boatyard workers were touching up the last of the bottom paint. There is only one item that is questionable regarding being ready by launch time tomorrow afternoon. The engine mechanic who worked on resealing a water seal to our dinghy’s outboard engine had disappeared and the lower housing of the engine was not with the welders to be fixed. No one at the boatyard knew where the mechanic was nor could they find the part. Even if the part is not fixed by launching time, we will go ahead and launch without the dinghy and its engine. We will be staying in the bay in front of the boatyard until Saturday so this gives them time to finish the engine repair and motor the dinghy and its repaired outboard engine out to us.
When I returned to La Sagesse Hotel, Mary Margaret and I took our computer to the hotel’s beach bar area and fired up Skype. We then called the Medicare hotline to get help in having Mary Margaret apply for Medicare. Their online application process was not recognizing her. After waiting 30 minutes on hold, we were finally told that she would have to come into a Social Security Administration office to get things straightened out. Since we live on our boat and there is no local SSA office here, we will have to sail over to Barbados and go the US Embassy there. We have always wanted to sail to Barbados and explore that historic island so now we have another reason to do so.
We ended our long day but having dinner with two couples that Mary Margaret has been swimming with. Daniel and Sondra are a young couple from Frankfurt, Germany and Lorenzo and Julia, with their cute baby girl, Mia are Italian but have been living in the London area for the last 6 years.
We thoroughly enjoyed our time with them and over dinner they each shared information regarding places to visit while in the Med and villas to stay at while in Italy. We are very excited and appreciative to have this information.
After a wonderful dinner which ended with a bowl of banana flambé, we said our goodnights and I said goodbye. Mary Margaret will be coming to the boatyard after her morning bay swim with them tomorrow so she will say goodbye to them at that time.