Sunday, May 29th , still in Bobby's Marina, St Martin, but afloat again :-)

So far so good! We're having a good time and we get along very well. Arie and Frits did a very good job in getting the AIS running, but is was a challenging job. It took them hours, it was hot and there wasn't much room to work and they had to solder very tiny parts. Anyway they got it done and it works perfect.

In the mean time Eline and I went to the supermarket to do the shopping. However, the one we wanted to go to was closed Sunday's and the next one the taxi drove us to was extremely expensive.

So we decided to wait until Monday.

Andy and Rene did a good job in fixing a new hull through fitting but when they wanted to mount the sea cock, there wasn't enough room to make the turns. So they went back to Budget Marine to get a straight connector and fixed it.

In all it took way more time to get back in the water. Not that that is a problem, we all are fine with it, it's just what it is and we're not really in a hurry or something. We talked about the plan this morning and decided not to rush, we're not obliged to leave today and also we don't have to go to Antigua, which is 90 Nm straight upwind :-*

We still want to do a first short trip before the crossing so instead of Antigua we will go to St. Barth, that's upwind too but only 20 Nm :-)

The anchorage looks very promising and it would be nice to have a real tropical swim before we leave :-)

Marie, Andy's wife drove us to the supermarket this afternoon. They really are very friendly and helpful. But then again, Andy is a sailor too. He crossed the Atlantic about 60 times, 3 circumnavigations and a lot of racing.

Doing the shopping was fun. The four of us together with Marie went over to CostUless. Everybody was collecting stuff. Eline, who was in charge of the list, wasn't getting anywhere :-) So every 25 minutes or so we had to stop and give her a chance to check the list again. Anyway, we got everything quite easy and Marie was really a great help in driving us.

When we finally got back to the boat it was about happy hour and a great dinner at Curry in a Hurry's.

This morning we got all the stuff delivered and got all the remaining things done, filling up the water and fuel tanks, go over to immigration and lots more.

At 4:30 pm we'll finally be off then for our first leg to St Barths :-)

Sunday, May 27th Bobby's Marina, St Martin

The trip was long but okay. At Antigua they surprised me by having my luggage labeled through. to St Martin. I was told to pick it up there and have it checked in again since the last part was with a different airline. When the luggage belt stopped and my bags weren't there I immediately went over to the desk because the plane was going through to Tobago, with my bags still on board ??

The lady looked at my baggage tags and told me I should pick it up at St. Martin. I didn't really believe her but there was nothing else I could do … But it all went well and I could see them unload my bags when we got to St. Martin. Eline was already there, she hes landed 10 minutes earlier, arriving from Curacao, right on schedule. She was a bit emotional... coming back after so many years :-)

Together we got a taxi and went over to Bobby's Marina. Getting on board was quite a surprise!!

When I went down I stepped in the water... salt water. That was not the idea, not at all !!!

I took off my shoes and went looking for the leak which obviously was there. It didn't take long to find it. The sea cock that I had fixed in Brighton hadn't held after all Water was coming quite fast.

When I wiggled the sea cock, it snapped completely and now water was really coming in …

Luckily the plug I have hanging at every sea cock did fit and I was able to stop the leak.

Hmm, when we had a closer look there was around 2 inches of water above the floor boards. That's a lot!! We started pumping, by hand since the bilge pump was completely under water, but it went better using buckets. When we got enough water out, the pump did the rest.

In the mean time I had called Mick, the supervisor of the marina, to ask him if he could lift me out. Since he had no one around to help him, he told me he would help us first thing tomorrow morning.

That was okay, the plug held fine so we weren't sinking any longer.

By that time Frits had called my, Arie and he had missed their connection in Miami. Customs and immigration had taken too long …. and they had missed there flight by 10 minutes. Oh well, I guess that wasn't too bad after all. The four of us might have been too many and we would have gotten in each others way.

Around 21:00 Eline and I had had enough and went out for dinner. The first place we could get to was ' Curry in a Hurry' what turned out to be a very nice local restaurant and the food was good too :-)

Next morning I went over to Mick and an hour later we were on the hard. Andy one of the engineers that was around on a Saturday, looked at it and told me he would be able to help me and replace the hull though fitting. It looked like a classic example of electrolysis that had completely eaten the fitting. Andy also checked all the other fittings and they were all fine. Since we were on the hard, we cleaned the hull. Enough came off to give us a knot or so more in speed :-)

Anyway, I guess we were very lucky after all. If we would have come a day later, the boat might have been completely sunk. Also this is not something you want to have happen mid Atlantic!!

Eline and I spend the day organizing the boat and fix the instruments I had taken home to repair. Nothing seemed to have been damaged by the water. Around 6 pm we went over to have diner and there I got a call from Frits that they had landed. It took them about an hour to get to the marina which is really a 4 minute drive,qa but anyway :-)

Well this was some arrival … and so much for the plan :-) Today we'll go and do some chopping while Andy will fix the fitting. Monday morning we'll be in the water again and off to Antigua.

May 14th, only 10 more days to go

<sup>I'm almost done gathering all the stuff that I need to take with me. Of course there were some last minute things I had to pick up at Vrolijk's, well, that trip ended very differently then expected!

After collecting my stuff at Vrolijk, I decided to walk over to the harbor and sat down at the Pasta Company. It was just the perfect day to sit outside in the sun and have a beer :-)
After a while a guy walks by and sits down at the table next to me, 15 minutes later two girlfriends come to join him. One of them asks if she could take the seat next to me so she too could enjoy the sun. We started chatting and for some reason, I don't know how or why :-), we start talking about sailing.

It turns out that Jantine is very much into sailing too and recently had been sailing up and down the East coast of Australia :-)
Of course I told her about my trip so far and my upcoming plans. She thought it to be really cool to cross the Ocean. Anyway, since I still had an open spot for the leg from the Azores back to Scheveningen, I told her she could join us if she wanted.

I didn't took the exact time but it can't be more then a few minutes before she agreed to come and join us! Wow, I guess this was just one of those special moments, totally out off the blue, but for some reason meant to happen :-) Life is beautiful when you live it!
So together with Monique and Willem Jelle we've got the crew complete for the last part to finish the trip around the Atlantic.
I guess it's time to go for it!

Next update will be from St Martin :-)</sup>