2nd March

10 24.394 N
75 32.692 W

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

We were both up early again this morning, not that it is really any earlier than when we were in Curacao but the clocks are an hour behind here so although we are getting up at the same time as when in Curacao it is an hour earlier in reality for here - Gerry is up before the sun and I am about an hour behind him so just get to see sunrise. Our body clocks haven't adjusted to the one hour time difference!
I bet you can't guess what the first job of the day was today. If you said hauling Gerry up the mast again go to the top of the class! This is becoming a monotonous repetitive job but we are certainly getting good at it! The reason for today's trip up the mast was to make sure that the screws holding the spreader caps in place were actually able to be unscrewed as there was no point in us getting new end caps if we couldn't actually fit the darn things once they had arrived. So for the fourth day in a row out came the bosun's chair, headsets, winchrite, a screwdriver and attitude. Gerry got himself organized whilst I sat loading the blog from the day before until he banged very loudly on the deck - he was obviously ready for me to assist in hauling him skywards. I quickly made it to the cockpit, grabbing the camera on my way, and donned my headset and waited for the Bluetooth connection to kick in and Gerry's dulcet tones to start dishing out instructions. I have no visual of him as he ascends due to the covers that are over the dodger windows so I can only respond to his instructions and these are kept to a bare minimum with much puffing and panting in between. Up he went and was soon at the first spreaders where I could quit winching whilst I listened to him muttering and cursing as he swung himself out to the end of the port side spreader and made sure that the screws did in fact unscrew, happily they did and he was ready to come back down but at this point I said he really should check the starboard side as well. Just because one side unscrewed didn't automatically mean that the other side would. More muttering and huffing and puffing came through the headset but he saw my point and swung and scrambled his way across to the starboard side to check it out. At this point I could see around the corner of the dodger and snapped a couple of quick photos. Gerry began checking out the screws and there was a bit of sailor speak following as apparently one of the screws was missing, this means that we are going to have to find a replacement and you can bet your last dollar that we won't have one the correct size or thread but at least we knew, it was a good job he had checked on both sides. With the job done it was time to let him back down to the deck once again, hopefully for the last time in a while. We both had showers and changed into clean clothes as we were going to head to the supermarket, having run out of bread and I wasn't making any when I could buy it just down the road. We set off before the sun became unbearably hot and had a pleasant slow walk along the dockside towards the supermarket. We walked past the walls of the fort which is next to the marina, past a small park, an exercise park to the local chandlery where Gerry made a brief stop as he was in need of a replacement block for one that had broken on the traveler, they didn't have one that was big enough so we lucked out there. We continued our walk past Club Nautica which was where we anchored off of the last time we were here, it has undergone quite a lot of change since then and we couldn't work out how you got into the place until we saw a young guy going in and showing the guard on the gate a wrist band of some sort - it obviously was only open to guests in the marina there these days. Continuing on we finally arrived at the supermarket, I really didn't recall it but Gerry assures me that it was the same one we used last time we were here. I'm happy to say that it is clean, extremely well stocked and comparable to every good supermarket that we have ever been to. The meat looked exceptional and the prices were really good so we will be doing a stock up on essentials before we leave here. We only put a few items in our basket, we didn't need a great deal today. Gerry asked how my foot was holding up and was I ready to go back to the boat, it was doing OK and no I wasn't ready to go back to the boat as he had previously told me that there was a pizza and burger place just around the block and it was close enough to lunch time to eat. We headed in the right direction and arrived at the place which didn't have any indication that it was open so we tried the door and found that it was indeed open but pretty well empty. We managed to make ourselves understood with our best Spanglish and the help of Google translate, getting a table, a beer, a diet coke, 2 burgers and 1 lot of fries ordered then waited to see if we had got it right! Yay, it all came out as requested, it was the best burger I have had in forever, even beat Tap and Still's burgers! all the time we were there we were the only customers in the place, my thinking was that they have a later lunch followed by their siesta so we were probably ahead of the rush for lunch. After we finished eating we walked further along the block as Gerry had told me there was an ice cream shop on the way back - who could possibly go past that one, I had been hankering for a chocolate coated soft serve for a few days and low and behold this place served them, all that was missing was the flake in the top! We were now just a short distance away from the marina so we headed back to our boat where Gerry got busy putting the port side awning into place - we don't get off the boat on that side so it could stay in place unlike the starboard side one. It was then time to relax, have a cold drink and stay out of the heat or so I thought. The bilge pump came on but made an odd noise - this had to be investigated of course. A bit of testing and observation and Gerry convinced himself that it wasn't working, this called for intervention and he hunted out our new spare bilge pump with a view to changing it out. Out into the cockpit he vanished and after a short while of silence I went to see what he was doing and if he needed assistance. The lazrette was open and Gerry was doing boat yoga inside it, I asked what I could do and was handed the old rusty bilge pump in response. I manned the torch so that he had some light on the spot he was working in - not easy as it is underneath the center of the cockpit and difficult to reach. I then handed the new bilge pump and screwdriver to him as necessary and closed my ears to the torrent of sailor speak that accompanies any job in difficult to reach places ( that's anywhere on a boat!). It was then time for testing the new pump and I was instructed to flick the switch whilst Gerry remained in the lazertte. One flick, a quick burst of the pump and it went silent, Gerry thought it had blown the fuse so he got out of the lazerett and located the fuses, changing out the old blown one for a much larger new one, this time the pump ran with no issues. Job just about done. The only thing unfinished was the issue of how to secure the new pump in place, it wasn't quite like the old one and there was no place to screw it down to - this needed some thinking about.
Everything got closed up and put away for today, there is always tomorrow. Gerry then needed an afternoon siesta and fell asleep on the sofa while I did computer stuff. Dinner time came around and neither of us wanted much so we elected to have a soup night, watch some more of House of Cards and have an early night.