Today started early because I wanted to drop the head sail before the winds came up for the day. As it was, the winds were about 10 knots but that was light enough to drop and remove the sail without the winds blowing it all over the place. Being tied to the dock we are not facing the direction of the winds. Instead we are facing downwind so the sail wanted to fly out over the front of the boat. Thus, it is best to drop and remove sails while the winds are light.

Once down and rolled up, I used a cart and hauled it over to the sail loft. I hope to have the rotten threading on the sun protection replaced and re-sewn in a couple of days.

I then spent the next few hours cleaning up stuff and getting it out of the way so that Vision and his wife could start washing and waxing Leu Cat. They will be spending the next couple of days doing that.

Mary Margaret started cleaning the inside of Leu Cat. Since my work is being handled by Vision and his wife, I offered to help Mary Margaret and she readily accepted. While she cleaned the bathroom and shower room one our side of the boat, I scrubbed the ceilings and walls to make sure no mold was present. By the time we were done, we were beat but things were shiny and clean.

Tomorrow I have the electrician coming. I have figured out why our starter batteries are not being charged by the battery charger. This is a new charger and it is different than our old Xantrex charger. The wiring to the starter batteries was never completed. Thus, the time the starter batteries were being charged were when the engines(s) were on and the alternators were charging them. I want to be able to keep them charged up when the generator is running and when the boat is plugged into shore power. Thus, I will have the electrician do this wiring.

The electrician will also be inspecting our solar panels. One of them has stopped putting out amps and I suspect a corroded connection. I will have him inspect each of the connections for each panel since if one has failed, the other two are most likely soon to follow.

As an aside, we have discovered that the Internet in general sucks on this island. There are only 170,000 people that live on St. Lucia but Digicel must not have installed enough band width to handle the load. We are struggling to connect and use it whether we are using the marina’s connection or our SIM card on our phone. It is very frustrating…