Day 174, Year 6 Back to Just the Two of Us
Date: Saturday, April 16, 2011
Weather: Gorgeous Day
Location: Marigot Bay, St. Martin
By 8 am, Steve, Jeanie, Mark, and I headed to shore to have breakfast at Sarafina’s. This is an open air French cafĂ© that has fabulous pastries, flans, crepes, quiches, and on and on. They display much of the food in a glass-fronted case and you just can’t decide which wonderful thing you want to eat. I had mushroom quiche, Mark had eggs in a crepe with jambon fromage (swiss cheese), sausage, and a small salad with balsamic vinegar, and Steve and Jeanie had eggs, sausage, fries, swiss cheese, and sliced pieces of baguette. I then had a chocolate croissant, but I did share it with everyone. What a delicious way to start the day. The food here is not cheap but very inviting and really yummy. The local market area was full of vendors this morning and we walked through looking at all their wares. We also visited the West Indies Mall which looks so very fancy but has almost nothing inside. Steve and Jeanie’s flight home to Florida was at 2:50 pm, but they felt like they should be at the airport at least two hours early. Mark took them in the dinghy and then returned to Windbird. We had a wonderful time with both Steve and Jeanie and are so glad they could join us. We look forward to seeing them in a few weeks when we reach Florida. I see that Steve left the rum he bought on Windbird, so I guess we are now going to be rum runners from here to Florida.
We spent the early afternoon doing laundry, laundry, laundry. We got a text message from Steve saying their flight had been delayed until 4 pm, but we haven’t heard from him since. We are hoping to get a text message soon saying they have arrived safely. In order to keep the laundry going, Mark had to go to the marina and get our water jerry jugs filled. He also bought a day’s worth of wi-fi, but it really doesn’t work very well out here in the anchorage. Sometime tomorrow morning he will go in to the marina and use it there. But that will be after doing boat maintenance-changing the oil, changing the fuel filter, checking all of the other fluids-and defrosting and cleaning out the freezer and refrigerator. While he goes in to the marina, I’ll stay here and keep plugging away at the laundry. What a chore! We had hoped to use the facilities at the marina, but there is only one washer and it seems to be busy constantly. By day’s end we will make the decision as to whether we will leave here early Monday morning for Puerto Rico and do our food shopping and get fuel there or whether we will stay here and do food shopping and get fuel here on Monday and leave for Puerto Rico on Tuesday morning. Many boats left today headed that way to take advantage of the wind. By waiting it looks like we will be motoring, but we just couldn’t get ourselves together enough to leave today.
By this time next Saturday, we will be in Vieques and reunited with Heather, Justin, and their families. I really can’t believe it is less than a week away. I got an email from Heather last night reassuring me that if all I can do when we get there is sit on the beach and let the little ones cover me with sand that all will be well. I truly appreciated her message, but I’m hoping I’ll be able to do more than that. My back is surely not where I’d like it to be. The pain has moved from the lower back to mid-back, but I can walk upright with no pain. That’s surely an improvement but I’m hoping that in the next couple of days things will get better and better.
As we were reading about Puerto Rico and the Spanish Virgin Islands (Culebra and Vieques) this afternoon, our cruising guide said that Vieques “feels barefoot and mana?a” and that we won’t find McDonalds, Wal Mart, KFC, traffic lights, or any of the other trappings of mainland Puerto Rico. Sounds like my kind of place and I can’t wait to get there.
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| 110416 Day 174 St. Martin–Jeanie and Steve's Last Day |
