30th April

18 20 N
64 56 W

Weather; sunny, wind n/a, waves n/a

BIRTHDAY SHOUT OUTS TO THOSE WHO FELL ON THE SUSPENDED BLOG TIME :-

JEAN - MANY HAPPY RETURNS OF THE DAY, STAY SAFE
BARB - HOPE IT WAS A GOOD ONE EVEN IN ISOLATION
LEE - YOU ARE SO SPECIAL WE ALL HAVE A DAY OFF TO CELEBRATE EACH YEAR!
AND OUR SAILING BUDDY DALE - WE KNOW YOURS WAS A GOOD ONE OLD MAN!.

Well it's the end of April and as promised I'm back writing about the exciting times we've been having. Thank you for checking back in with us, it's nice to know that someone reads the drivel I write. I'd like to give a special shout out to any ex Blue Starline employees who might have read or are reading this blog, please let us know in the comments who you are especially if you remember Gerry and / or have stories about your time with him that we can share!
Right on to the nuts and guts of April and what we have been up to.
As you can see we are still stuck in Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas, USVIs it's not a bad place to be stuck but even paradise becomes tedious after a while especially when you are limited in here you can go and what you can do. I appreciate that we have it a whole lot better than some of you at the moment and we can but sympathize and hope that the measures that have been taken wherever you are prove to be effective in combatting Covid 19. We have been lucky in that although we have social distancing restrictions, limits on how many people can be in a store, many businesses closed down at least we are allowed to go out, shop, exercise, buy take away meals and choose whether to socialize or not. Our supermarkets are well stocked and there is no panic buying and rum is plentiful and cheap! We are both well, just a little bored and eager to get underway as soon as possible, we aren't sure when that will be as all the islands down the chain are closed at the moment to incoming cruisers - a few are due to review their measures in the next few days so fingers crossed that they begin to open up their borders as we need to get below 12 degrees 07 minutes North (that's Grenada and beyond) before hurricane season kicks in (beginning of June) to ensure that our insurance remains valid. The British Virgin Islands, which are the next in the chain to us, have said they are remaining closed to cruisers until September so sadly we won't be able to stop there unless they change their policy - it's a good job that Gerry and I have done the BVIs twice this trip so far. Our first stop looks like being St Marten, if they open in time, otherwise we will be doing a straight run down to Grenada which will take us about 4-5 days, but at the moment it's just a wait and see game.
Whilst we have been stuck here we are actually allowed to move between the 3 islands that make up the USVIs - St Thomas, St John and St Croix, however the powers that be have tried to discourage movement so they can keep track of how many boats are around the various bays at any given time. The bays which fall under the national parks jurisdiction have mooring balls which are rented out at $26 per day, they have no access to shops, laundry etc. The parks authority decided that they would allocate a mooring ball to a single boat for a period of either 2 weeks or 1 month and you had to pay up front - that's a whole lot of money in one hit so many boats, us included, decided to anchor in the St Thomas harbor where there is easy access to shops, laundry etc. The official stance on anchoring in the harbor is that it is free for short term but if you are staying for more than 2 weeks you need to purchase an anchoring permit. Generally boats don't stay for any great length of time
so most of us were blissfully unaware of the need for a permit until April 11th when the entire fleet in the harbor was visited by a port authority boat and informed that we need to acquire the permit if we were staying long term ( as if we have an option not to!) anyway we were all directed to the online application and health questionnaire which we duly completed then waited to hear from them. It took 11 days for them to get back to us, I guess they were inundated with everyone applying at the same time, it cost $3 per foot for the permit which means that we paid a grand total of $156 for a month's permit as a mono hull. I think the catamarans got off lightly as they tend to be shorter in length BUT they have 2 hulls - surely they take up as much space as we do, just that it's the width and not the length! Having said all that its cheaper than being on a mooring in the national park for a month! Anyhow we now have the permit so can stay here for the month but have to go out 3 miles to empty out our holding tank and must return to the same general area to re- anchor in an attempt to stop us from island hopping.
In the 21 days that have passed since I last wrote Gerry has been to the marine supply or hardware store 6 times for various bits that he needed to complete jobs (more of that in a minute), we have been for groceries 5 times -mostly because fresh stuff doesn't last well on a boat, done trash runs 3 times and laundry twice. Our social scene has been dominated with several happy hours on 3 boats (ours, Gypsy Palace and Texas Crewed), an Easter dinner put on by all 3 boats and hosted on Gypsy Palace and a birthday takeaway Chinese dinner for Dale - with the fire department on standby to assist with the candles! The gang of 6 have also played Mexican Train dominoes 3 times to while away some boring hours, Gerry and I were the "green players" as the others had all played many times before - we swear they were making up the rules as we went along but we all had fun, especially as each game was accompanied by some form of alcohol imbibement (rum soaked water melon comes to mind here!) we have also visited Wendy's for take away burgers which we have eaten in the grounds of Yacht Haven Grande Marina whist sitting 6 feet apart from each other and Ideal Roti store for take away roti's - yum!
I just realized that I've mentioned Texas Crewed with no back ground - Gene and Renee, Texans - (who'd have guessed!) met Dale and Lorie and spent some time with them in the Turks and Caicos on their way to here, they were initially in a different bay to us, we all met up in Frances Bay where we scrubbed each-others boat bottoms in turn, when we returned to Charlotte Amalie they joined us in the main harbor and became part of our social scene. Around the 10th April we also met Mark and Gina, a British couple travelling on rum Truffle and Rex and Cathy, Aussies/Kiwis on Ole from Airlie Beach in Queensland - although we have invited them to our social gettogethers they have chosen to socially isolate for the time being so we just hang out in our dinghies with them on occasions.
So on to how we have been filling the hours in between. Gerry has been on a mission to find jobs almost every day and in the order that he has tackled them this is what has been "fixed" or "improved".
Installation of a new battery isolator switch, which went well until he tried to start the gen set after the installation was complete - the gen set wouldn't start - possibly due to low voltage however the main engine started first go so a bit more fiddling and eventually the gen set started and hasn't missed a beat since.
The cockpit table was sanded as Gerry wanted to get the water mark out of it, unfortunately the table has a thin veneer top and true to form it splintered as he sanded it, requiring further fixing (replacement when we can get somewhere with replacement stuff) a coat of varnish and a plastic table coating now graces the table until the permanent fix can be executed.i
Checked and changed out the zinc on the gen set and changed the oil and cleaned the filter on the gen set.
Changed out the cooling fluid to the gen set and flushed the cooling water expansion tank on the main engine.
Helped Dale to install LED lights over his transom and changed the wiring over from A/C to 12 volt D/C on Lorie's Aero Garden - no smoke seen on completion!
Installed a cooling fan to solar charge controller.
Greased turning blocks which run the jib sheets to the electric winches.
Cleaned scratches off the hull.
Replaced the lug on the D/C supply to the main electrical panel of the switchboard.
Tested the A/C ammeter, found it wasn't working and investigated -to use sailor Gerry speak the current transformer was *#@%^!. Lugs replaced and it now works - winning!
New 305 watt solar panels x 2 ordered and arrived - Gerry had decided that our current solar panels (80 watt x 6) weren't supplying us with enough power to run all the things we want to run so he wanted to replace them. The new panels arrived at the dock and he and Dale took their dinghies over to transport them back to our boat - one panel per dinghy. We muscled them on to our boat and left them overnight. The next day the Tweaker and Tinker set about removing the old panels from the top of the cockpit enclosure with a little help from me as someone had to hold the screwdriver in place! They removed one side and then installed the new panel which took up just about the same amount of space as the three that they had removed. One side down and it was on to side two following the same general pattern but with a right / left reversal. The panels were wired in and it was time for the moment of truth - instant relief as they immediately gave us 40amps on start-up - Gerry was ecstatic and almost did the power dance in celebration, we had never before managed over 29 amps with the previous panels. So we now have to try and get rid of 6 solar panels.
The T twins were at it again the next day - using Dale's Hooka they scrubbed the hull of our boat and replaced the zincs on our rudder skeg.
The plan was to do Dales boat hull the next day however Lorie had to go to the dentist with a broken crown and by the time they returned ( Lorie has to go back in 4 days' time) the wind was blowing the boats all over the place - far too difficult to scrub the hull. Gerry cleaned the water filter for the reverse osmosis then checked the sacrificial zincs on the main engine heat exchangers and found one zinc to be missing which he rectified.
Next it was the turn of the instrument panel to be scrutinized, he tested the light bulbs and thought one "didn't look right" so he wiggled it and the lug pulled out. At this point he had no idea what it goes to but he crimped a proper lug on to the wire and heat shrunk it and replaced it - none the wiser, still has no idea where it goes!
Installation of a light on the cockpit instrument panel so we can see it at night.
Sanding of the wood in the cockpit hidey holes.
Finally got round to scrubbing the bottom of Gypsy Palace's hulls with Dale - it took longer than doing our hull and was far more coated than our hull was.
Lorie has been back to the dentist for a temporary crown to be fitted, she just needs to be careful and not eat Snickers bar ice cream until a permanent crown can be made and fitted.
This has just about brought us up to date with things that have been "fixed" apart from one thing from yesterday - Gerry hired a car and we went to the second hand marine store as they supposedly had a second hand solar panel controller which Gerry wanted for the 100watt panel that is at the back of our boat on the shade cover. This will enable it to connect to the engine starting battery allowing it to supply volts just to that battery to top it up. The trip was successful, he got the controller and some electrical wire ( the guy threw the controller in for free) and once back on the boat he proceeded to connect it up, which is where the success ended, it didn't work! Taking it apart again he opened up the controller( destroying the casing in the process) to find that the inside was corroded - it had apparently been submerged at some stage and was useless - that's what you get for free! It just means that he now has to buy a new one at an astronomical cost.
We've also done a lot of examining for light leaks from behind our eyelids, a heap of mindless adult colouring in, read a few books, watched a few movies, read and written emails, had a couple of facetime calls - thank you Rose and Mark and Maz and Trev for taking the time - it's really appreciated, spoken with Abigail but not often enough, seen the sun set on a daily basis but not yet witnessed the green flash and generally watched the world stand still.
I think that just about catches everyone up with all that has been going on here .
We hope that you are all staying well and keeping sane, this WILL end, we just need to do the right thing. Until things begin to move again here I am going to restrict writing the blog to once a week so please check in again on the 7th May for the next thrilling instalment.