Day 77, Year 1: Martha’s Here
Date: Monday, January 2, 2005
Weather: Cloudy and Drizzly
Latitude: N 13 degrees 00.62 minutes
Longitude: W 61 degrees 14.52 minutes
Location: Admiralty Bay, Bequia, The Grenadines

We spent most of the day on the boat again. We ran the engine for about 5 hours in order to equalize the batteries. Evidently this is something we need to do since we are never plugged into power these days. We are our own power plant and today was dedicated to making sure everything is working smoothly. Daffodil Marine also came to fill up our fuel tanks. When they came on New Year’s Eve to fill up the water and fuel tanks, they were having trouble with the fuel. Since about every boat in the harbor was demanding fuel that day, we told them to come back today when things settled down a bit. While Mark was busy dealing with all of this, I spent the day researching and setting our itinerary from here to Bonaire. I’ll report my findings tomorrow once we have made some final decisions on where to from here.

So around 1600 we headed to town and walked around just for the exercise. We then went to Maria’s Internet Café to check our g-mail account and to send a load of e-mails I had written yesterday. We also checked out the Naugala website. This is an agency that helps cruisers deal with getting an autografo permit for visiting the Galapagos. If we can get this permit, it is good for 3 months and would allow us to stay in 4 different ports. Without the permit, we will only be able to stay in 1 port for 20 days. We really don’t plan to spend more than 20 days there, but you never know. And it would be really nice to be able to move from port to port. Heather and Jed plan to meet us there and we also need help figuring out how we can meet them and check them in as crew for a couple of weeks. I’ll let you know what I find out from the Naugala Agency.

It is still cloudy and drizzly here today, so we watched what there was of a sunset from the second floor balcony of the internet cafe. I don’t think I mentioned that the young man who helps us there looks like Tony Banderas with short hair. But that’s just a little side note. We headed down the stairs and remembered that we needed to buy a little local brew. We went to the store that has SELECT written in front and as we were checking out, who but Martha Stewart would walk through the front door. She had a young man with her, maybe a son. Does she have children? Mark thought I was crazy when I told him the woman was Martha. He thought she looked a little ragged around the edges, but I was dead certain it was her. Now you have to understand that I have the reputation for having absolutely no knowledge of pop culture. I don’t know the names of many famous people, but somehow the images of Martha’s trial and her stint in prison had stuck in my mind from looking at the tabloids in the grocery store lines over that last few of years. Martha was buying some of the exotic offerings on the shelves at the “select” shop. They sell soft drinks, beer, liquor, escargot with the snail shells, chutneys of all kinds, and all sorts of exotic canned foods. Mark still didn’t believe me, but when we got to the dinghy dock there was a VERY fancy tender with two young men aboard. The name on the very fancy dinghy was “Very Good” and I decided that this was a good thing. This had to be Martha’s boat. Mark asked and the young men admitted that Martha was not the sole owner of the very large, gray yacht in the harbor, but she was one of a few who use it. I was exonerated. It was Martha in sandals, khaki pants, a wrinkled blue blouse, and hair that looked in need of a hair dresser—no tan and no make-up. I have more pop culture knowledge that I have been credited with! The island of Mustique is just south of here and it where many of the rich and famous live. Maybe “Very Good” is just visiting here for a little shopping trip at SELECT.