{"id":50,"date":"2006-12-20T19:07:15","date_gmt":"2006-12-20T19:07:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sabbatical3.net\/blog\/2006\/12\/20\/dec-19-20-completing-preparations-in-st-maarten-3\/"},"modified":"2025-10-01T17:03:15","modified_gmt":"2025-10-01T17:03:15","slug":"dec-19-20-completing-preparations-in-st-maarten-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sabbatical3.net\/blog\/?p=50","title":{"rendered":"Dec 19-20: completing preparations in St. Maarten"},"content":{"rendered":"<style type=\"text\/css\">\n.flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; }\n.flickr-yourcomment { }\n.flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; }\n.flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; }\n<\/style>\n<div class=\"flickr-frame\"><a title=\"photo sharing\" href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/48817769@N00\/328353185\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"flickr-photo\" src=\"http:\/\/static.flickr.com\/135\/328353185_4a787ab845_m.jpg\" \/><\/a><span class=\"flickr-caption\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/48817769@N00\/328353185\/\">Dec 19-20: completing preparations in St. Maarten<\/a>.<\/span><\/div>\n<p class=\"flickr-yourcomment\">Yesterday, December 19, was another day devoted to<br \/>\nboat preparations.  Our rental car had to be back by<br \/>\n11:30 or we would have to pay for another day.<br \/>\nRenting a car is not cheap here.  We organized our day<br \/>\naround the bridge opening times.  At the first bridge<br \/>\nclosing, we headed west away from the bridge in light<br \/>\ntraffic, watching those heading east towards the<br \/>\nbridge lined up for a mile.  We first stopped at the<br \/>\nsailmaker.  Laura went in while I sat in the<br \/>\ndouble-parked car.  Laura checked on his work and<br \/>\nfound that he had gotten confused about what wed had<br \/>\nasked of him and had sewn a batten pocket closed.  He<br \/>\nquickly set out to fix his error as we waited, but<br \/>\nthat set us off of our tight schedule.  From the<br \/>\nsailmaker we headed to a new supermarket we noticed on<br \/>\nthe road to Marigot.  It was the nicest one we had<br \/>\nseen and, with this one, we had seen them all.   We<br \/>\nquickly loaded up the cart with 48 rolls of Charmin,<br \/>\nbananas, and other stuff that we grabbed off the<br \/>\nshelves quickly.  Then back to the marina to unload<br \/>\nthese new purchases plus those of the day before that<br \/>\nstill filled the trunk.  I also got 4 gallons of<br \/>\ndiesel motor oil.  The day was hot with passing<br \/>\nsqualls, and we worked up a sweat hauling our load<br \/>\nonto the boat.  We then left for the car rental place,<br \/>\nlocated on the other side of the bridge just 15<br \/>\nminutes before the next bridge closing.  We walked<br \/>\nback to the marina and rested before setting out by<br \/>\ntaxi to Budget Marine to pick up our new dinghy and<br \/>\noutboard engine, and a few marine odds and ends.  They<br \/>\nnow know us well at Budget Marine. We work mostly with<br \/>\nRosemary and Andrew, who were very patient and<br \/>\nhelpful.  It took a while to get the dinghy all set up<br \/>\nat Budget Marine\u2019s dock, and we had problems getting<br \/>\nthe outboard to start for the first time.  Finally it<br \/>\nsprang to life and we headed off across Simpson\u2019s<br \/>\nLagoon at the slowest possible speed.  The manual says<br \/>\nthat new outboards should be run at dead slow for the<br \/>\nfirst hour as part of the break-in process.<\/p>\n<p>As we started the process of turning our mizzen<br \/>\nboom into a crane to haul the outboard onto the<br \/>\ntransom of Sabbatical III, we starting talking with<br \/>\nMike and Marlene in the boat next to ours.  They have<br \/>\nbeen sailing out of St. Maarten for the past 14 years,<br \/>\nsailing around the islands for 6 months each winter<br \/>\nand spring before having their boat sailed back to the<br \/>\nStates for them.  They had some useful suggestions<br \/>\nabout anchorages in St.Barths and elsewhere.<\/p>\n<p>It is December 20th now, and we got lots done today<br \/>\nso it looks like we will push off to make the 9 am<br \/>\nbridge opening (the only other choices are 11:00 and<br \/>\n4:30).  The weather is clear and hot and the wind has<br \/>\nmoderated.   \u201cFarmer\u201d (real name Elwyn Charles) came<br \/>\nby this morning to help to haul the big genoa out of<br \/>\nthe sail locker and install some Dri-Deck on the<br \/>\nbottom of the locker to help keep the sail dry.  While<br \/>\nwe were at it, we emptied a number of lockers to make<br \/>\nsure everything is dry and mildew free, and left it<br \/>\nall sitting up on the deck for the day. Farmer is the<br \/>\nguy who watched over our boat since it arrived,<br \/>\nflushed our watermaker every week, and gave it a good<br \/>\nscrub.  Everyone knows him at the marina and many<br \/>\nboaters trust him for all sorts of boat-keeping<br \/>\nresponsibilities. His picture is attached, as is one<br \/>\nof the boat from across the dock (with our new AB<br \/>\ndinghy tied to the stern).<\/p>\n<p>M.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Dec 19-20: completing preparations in St. Maarten. Yesterday, December 19, was another day devoted to boat preparations. Our rental car had to be back by 11:30 or we would have to pay for another day. Renting a car is not cheap here. We organized our day around the bridge opening times. At the first bridge &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/sabbatical3.net\/blog\/?p=50\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Dec 19-20: completing preparations in St. Maarten&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[21,1],"tags":[21],"class_list":["post-50","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-caribbean","category-other","tag-caribbean"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sabbatical3.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sabbatical3.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sabbatical3.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sabbatical3.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sabbatical3.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=50"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sabbatical3.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sabbatical3.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=50"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sabbatical3.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=50"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sabbatical3.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=50"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}