St. Thomas in the rearview mirror!
22 April 2012 | West End, Tortola, BVI
David
St. Thomas in the rearview mirror! - If you check main picture on this blog, you will notice two things. One, we are not in a marina and two we are successfully attached to a mooring ball! These are two things that we have had trouble doing the last few weeks!
Well, the repairs are done. In the end, it seems as though the fix of the rebuilt transmission boiled down to a very simple adjustment. Actually, the end of the output shaft need a few shims to move it a few thousandths to take up some slack. Go figure. The mechanics finally resorted to calling in a known tranny "guru" and he made the adjustment. It also helped that Gail went around the boat with a red bag calling "Go away, bad juju! Go away, bad juju!" per her friend Sheryl's advice!
Of course, when we went out to test the tranny, the engine cooling water was not coming out! Ugh! Maybe the juju shifted to another part of the boat. But we're tough! And we figured out how to finish the sea trial and later replace a broken seacock on the engine water. We treated the tranny pretty rough and shifted back and forth for over two hours. We felt pretty confident that the fix was in place. Maybe now the juju is gone!
So, since you never leave on a trip on a Friday, we spent one more day reprovisioning and running errands for a Saturday departure. We knew it was about time to leave anyway because we were getting to be regulars at the Laundromat, at the K-Mart, the Budget Marine, and other hot spots around St. Thomas. And we were getting invited to join some of the local boater's events around the marina.
Now we have finally left St. Thomas and are now on a mooring again in West End, Tortola. As Yogi said," It's like deja vu all over again". We are in a similar situation to the March 3 blog and the April 16 blog where we left Saga Haven and were on our way to the BVI's. But this time we are in a mode of making sure all the repairs are successful and everything is working. We have picked up 5 moorings successfully in the past two days!
This is a good time to thank everyone who made our last six weeks as enjoyable as could be expected considering the circumstances. First and foremost, our biggest thanks go to Georgeann and Jimmy for all their hospitality, the time spent together and the loan of the Jeep! We enjoyed participating in some of their events and got to meet a lot of their friends in the process. It made the time on St. Thomas almost seem like home. We really learned to our way around and saw the reason that St. Thomas is such a beautiful place to live.
Also, thanks to Jack and Merle Cohen and all the staff at Saga Haven for letting us hang around for the month. We were in a slip next to the fuel dock and met a lot of interesting folks as they came in to fuel up. We will miss (or not) all the steps from the parking lot to the dock and the lone "facility" in the marina.
Another big THANKS goes to the guys at All Points Marine especially Glen Kranig who did the repair. I am sure that their bill did not cover all the phone calls to find my parts. But in the end the bill was reasonable and the time required was probably in reason considering the location.
And finally thanks to a few of our new friends that we made over the past month like the staff at Budget Marine where we visited many times (sometimes more than once a day) getting stuff for our projects. Also Victor and Chris around the marina who helped watch WD while we were out. Grant, Neal and Landy at Tropicom who helped with our electronics issues. Evelyn at Custom Canvas who repaired our sails. And Jay and Ian at Island Rigging who repaired the boom and outhaul. And to Alli at East End Florists who found our lost phone at the movies. Sne found the phone, called the last number which was Mitch's. He gave her Georgeann's number (and they already knew each other. It's a small island) and we got it back! She really saved the day!
There were others we met as well but we did not get their names. Just a big thanks to everyone else.
I also want to thank my co-brokers in Miami who sold three of my old listings last month and some add on options to another boat that provided me with enough of a commission check to cover the expenses! I would have rather had the commissions without the expenses but the check really came at the right time. Thanks, guys!
Where next? Our plans are somewhat open but we will spend the next few days in the BVI's catching up on the places we missed the first time and then on to Anegada, the forbidden island, and points east.