by steve, on March 30th, 2009 (
Bees Knees, St Lucia)
Another half day of trawling through bank records to figure out what was what. This time around everything is compounded by the fact that last year was probably the most complicated of our lives. That generated transactions we need to make sure are correctly understood. It also meant, as a result of all the other distractions, we delayed making good and proper records as we went or at least a short time after. Therefore our memories are being really stretched. I’m down to about the last ten or so transactions but each takes progressively longer to resolve. We’ll get there no doubt.
Yesterday morning we had good reception on the coconut telegraph. We heard our friends on Bees Knees over in Fort-de-France so we hailed them after the net and had a good chat. They should be here in St Lucia in 1-2 weeks so I think we’ll be finally rendezvousing. We like the idea of climbing the Pitons together so it would be worth waiting to do that hike/climb with good friends. We have a good reason to wait as an upgrade to the control system (just a new chip) is available. This one requires a site visit by a tech to install so we may end up waiting here to get this done. It also let’s Jim and Anne on Bees Knees catch up with us. We have a phone call with CatCo this afternoon to decide when/where to meet up. Depending on that call we’ll lay down our near term plans. We’ve been in Rodney Bay long enough and want a change of scene. Even if we agree to meet here we’ll probably head off somewhere down the coast in the interimn.
One thing I didn’t mention in our previous blog is that on Saturday, when coming back from the shops, we passed by a whole load of World ARC boats which were coming into the marina. They have just completed a 14 month circumnavigation which started and ended in Rodney Bay Marina. Didn’t realize they would be arriving nor that they were completing the ARC until I looked it up on the website afterwards. No wonder they were all looking pleased with themselves.
Every time we talk to someone who’s off on their world or semi world trip or see people finishing theirs I am reminded of our original goal and yearn to follow their tracks. As I have perhaps mentioned before we will use the summer recess (in Grenada) to finally make up our minds if we’re going to do this. The more we encounter others, the more we lean towards following our original plan and picking up the pieces afterward. Helen has met a number of ‘admirals’ who have crossed oceans with just their ‘captains’ including a couple on an identical boat. Hearing how others have fared has made her comfortable with the idea of long passages. Nonetheless, we will still make our decision this summer and will, of course, let you know what it is.
Apart from tax prep we did manage a few more boat chores yesterday. Helen cleaned some of the stainless steel while I fixed a door jamb and replaced the helm electrical panel with a new one we were given. We now have the old one as spare. The only issue was a sticky guage so now we’re in a good spot with a decent spare.
Not sure what to do today. Right now it’s peeing down. I’ve started reading “The Audacity of Hope” by Obama. It’s good. Maybe I’ll turn a few more pages today.