Monday in St Martin

Morning everybody

Apologies for not being in touch for a few days. This is a test via Martin who is going to be taking over posting duties for the blog whilst Graham is in Cuba with us.

Alastair and Stephen left on Friday, for their overnight flight home via Trinidad so it’s been a bit quieter aboard since then.

It’s Monday morning in St Martin, I’m waiting for the Fridge man to come and fit new compressor / evaporators to the fridge and freezer. I’ve been making journeys to the supermarkets to stock up on grub as it appears that it’s not easy to come by in Cuba.

There’s been a Belgian Cruiser and friends that I’ve had a few evenings with ashore and they have been good company, his friends left yesterday for Martinique, home, and he’s leaving in a day or two for Dominican Republic, we may end up shadowing each other for part of the way as I’m heading that way to start myself.

It may be that we end up going North of Puerto Rico or South depending on the weather, a system is disturbing things at the moment but it may well end up not being as bad as it had been predicted to be.

I’m struggling to get a measurer from the Caribbean Sailing Association to measure me for the Antigua Classic regatta, no one is available here, hopefully it’ll be more helpful in the BVIs.

The local carnival started on Friday night, it moves between the different towns, the opening was here and was accompanied by lots of rhythms and noise on drums, the local businesses mostly close early to avoid unpleasantness. Yesterday there was a march through here, it was a bit like a Caribbean Orange march, not the joyous riot one might expect but a little sinister and I didn’t really like the vibe so came back to the boat early and read a book whilst tearing off bits of chocolate. The temperature is not really conducive to chocolate but it was acceptable, I’ll not buy more though as it’s going to be too hot.

I’ve a fair bit more shopping to do, I’ll get through a lot today but may not get fresh chilled and frozen until tomorrow depending on how the fridge fitting goes. I know he wants to see them running for 24 hours to ensure there are no gas leaks before I set off.

The weekend here was a little different with lots of charter activity from the marina, probably we’re back to more normality today.

Well the fridge man is here so I’ll leave this and say bye for now,

Jock and Yemaya.