16th March

18 20 N
64 56 W

Weather; showery, windy as hell, waves n/a

Another slow start to the day - this is becoming the norm! there have been no cruise ships in the dock now since Saturday and the town is noticeably quieter. The rumour is that the port has closed to cruise liners for the time being, so on top of the USA putting a halt to any cruise ships leaving the USA the ones that come out of Puerto Rico now cannot stop here - putting a halt to them moving anywhere for the time being. We fiddled about on the boat for the first part of the morning doing some odd little housekeeping type jobs then at about 10am Gerry began stowing the dinghy back into the davits, I of course went to help as it's so much quicker and easier with 2 people. The reason was that we were going to Crown Bay Marina, just the other end of the harbor we are in, to fill up with fuel and water - just in case! We hauled the anchor up, as always it was covered in thick mud and we needed to drag it around in the water for a bit to remove the stuff. We took off towards the far end of the harbor and as we got close we saw a catamaran just about to enter the harbor, there was a chance that it was Dale and Lorie so we called them on the radio and happily got an immediate response - yes it was them entering the harbor and where abouts were we. When we explained about getting fuel and water they decided to follow us over to Crown bay and fill their own tanks - you can never have too much fuel or water in a crisis! We had to motor around outside the fuel dock for a while as there were boats ahead of us filling up but it wasn't long before we were called in and tied up in a very tight spot on the fuel dock. We took 45 gallons of fuel @ $3.47 a gallon and 120 Gallons of water @ a total cost of $20. It felt good to know that we have enough water for a decent shower and enough fuel to get us to most places in the near future. With the Corona Virus causing mayhem and closures of so much we cannot be certain of how long the fuel will be available! I mentioned the tight spot on the fuel dock - we had to squash behind a catamaran into the corner of the dock and in doing so had a glancing blow against the dock with our bow, no damage to either boat or dock but there is a dirty scrape mark which will need cleaning off, in reality we were lucky not to have done some serious damage as the dock master only caught our lines and didn't attempt to fend us off when it was obvious that we couldn't dock at the angle he had us coming in at. Anyhow all fueled up, we paid and then waited for the catamaran to leave before we attempted to pull out from the dock (oh for a bow thruster!) leaving was much easier than arriving and we made it back out into the channel with no problem, passing Dale and Lorie who were on their way in to fuel up. We motored back to "our" anchoring spot in the harbor and set the anchor, it didn't bite the first time so we had to give it a second go, this time it bit hard and we were well set. Dale and Lorie were quickly done with refueling and followed us to anchor close by. We dropped our dinghy in the water, grabbed a handful of drinks and went over to say hello and welcome - it was a well overdue reunion! We heard a short version of their trip then left them to have showers and a nap arranging to meet up late in the afternoon for happy hour and dinner. Back on our boat we had showers and a change of clothing and read until it was time to go ashore. We agreed that our best bet would be the Green House and made our way there, pointing out our favourite coffee shop on the way, unfortunately there was a notice pinned to the door saying that due to the Corona Virus they would be closed for the near future - we are devastated and hope they survive the business downturn this ghastly virus is responsible for.
The Green House was fairly quiet but filled up as the evening progressed, we had the usual round of happy hour drinks and all opted for just a main course which was more than enough before heading back to our boats for the night. We have, of course, caught up on all the news, problems and discussed our future plans and alternatives as no one can be certain what the next obstacle will be - hopefully things will be improving and not getting worse over the next few weeks. Dale has a list of jobs that he needs to do and which Gerry will no doubt be helping him with, Lorie and I will just be taking things as they come and no doubt doing a massive grocery stock up in the near future.
We spent the remainder of the evening answering emails, watching crap on our electronic devices and reading before it was time to go to sleep.
We are so glad that our buddies have finally made it to here, we are glad to see you have arrived in one piece and can now share the frustrations of everything with us. Let's hope that the sailing bit goes a bit more smoothly from here on in, let's have some fun!