Morning Tea, St Martin

The morning tea posts are just my ramblings about what's on my mind at the time. When I do not have a blog post of any interest to myself I just dump my brain all over this page and see what happens. 


Morning Tea, St. Martin

You assume everyone is going your way. You assumed wrong.

I really thought there would be a lot of boats out here.

It's 2am. Deb is asleep. The AIS shows no ships. It's pitch black. You are sailing at 7.5 knots. You are on autopilot. You stare out into the dark void of the sea. It's a time when a man can reflect on his life. So you wonder... Why the hell did I eat all those Reese's peanut butter cups?

There are a lot of sailboats in the BVI.

There are more sailboats then moorings in the BVI

Against the Wind is a cool song by Bob Seger. That's about it.

Rounding a Cape is very sporty. Sporty I tell you!

The Thorny Path is doable.

Why people do the Thorny Path every season is beyond me.

Van Sant's Thornless Path is a great guide book. GUIDE book.

Today's modern electronics and weather routing and prediction make life easier.

We really do get pissed off when Mother Nature fools everyone and every thing.

This rain will end eventually. Right?

The mosquitoes are small here.

I never did like shopping. I like it even less now.

I really  need to shop for clothes.

I thought I would need a haircut by now but I think the wind is taking most of it away.

We are at the point where we take photos of awesome fresh produce aisles.

When I finally see a Wegmans supermarket again I will likely fall to my knees and cry.

There are no more good oranges. Anywhere.

My ear has been plugged for months. If it was a brain eating spider I would hear it.

What?

There is a tea shortage in the Caribbean. Lipton is not tea.

The best coffee was had in The DR and PR.

Dunkin Donuts coffee will never be the same for me

I never expected so many horses

Whenever a French woman speaks to me I just

So much of our lives require Internet now, else we have to walk, talk and by stamps.

Tough finding the local post office sometimes.

Tough finding good free WiFi.

Nothing is more embarrassing to us then the current campaign for president.

Have we really sunk this low? Yes, and it will go lower.

It's a good thing we do not have access to much Internet news.

Some mornings at anchor I hear goats...in my right ear.

Our cabin sole is trashed. Beer, molasses and saltwater floods didn't help it any.

Latino dance music without people dancing is annoying

I need to hear some new music

Guitar training is not going as planned.

We got bit by so many mosquitoes on Culebrita that we must have picked up something

Been so very tired lately

Protein. Need more protein. No, not chickens.

These deep water anchorages are a problem for Manual Windlass Man.

For every pull on the windlass handle I bring in 6 inches of chain.

It gets lonely up on the bow.

Rolling rolling anchorages suck.

Been a lot of suck lately.

We do not eat out much

Been happy to find vegetarian meals in the islands restaurants

Buying pasta and finding weevils in it really sucks

Craving bug free lasagna.

On the way back from lunch we see a cafe advertising Greek Salad Special. Doh!

We planned on buying a new dinghy motor and the old one is now running fine.

Bottom paint. You get what you pay for.

To do list. Is there anything worse to have in front of you every morning?

An empty box of tea is the worst thing to have in front of you every morning.

Cold showers use less water

Geez I hate cold showers.

You ever dump diesel in the tank and then wake up later thinking you may have put it into the water tank?

Why do boat manufacturers put the diesel fill next to the water fill?

Ever since we made doctors appointments I have been feeling shitty.

Popcorn is evil.

The best gifts we ever get while sailing are pictures of our Grandsons.

I ate a shrimp

I Feel shame

If I wear a large sunhat I look like a mushroom

Men on this island do not wear hats

Actually neither do the women

If we played a game called Spot the Yankee I would pick anyone wearing a ball cap and sneakers

Why do all the islands offer bottled water? Have they seen their shorelines?

Every boat has a blue LED exterior light now.

We could probably have one crew member who's only function is to polish stainless

We could probably have one crew member who's only function is organize the fridge

If we had an extra crew member then someone would have to clean out the V berth.

Guess we're not getting a new crew member

I miss bike riding

I can only walk for 2 miles and then my knee stops working

When my knee stops working it looks like I have a wooden leg when I walk

When I walk with a bad knee I wince in pain and my left eye closes

I usually groan and swear a bit while walking on that bad knee. Aargh, Fck that hurts!

I'm down to my last Bluetooth keyboard. Salt air killing these things?

At the supermarket I found jalapeno stuffed olives and fresh radishes

On the boat there are no antacids.

We bought a SIM card for the phone on the French side. Doesn't work on the Dutch side.

Friends bought a SIM card on the Dutch side. Doesn't work on the French side.

Telecomm companies are the best at raking in the dough. Oh yea, Banks. Forgot.

My ginger beer is pretty tasty.

One of these days I will forget to vent that Ginger Beer bottle. Boom!

We are skipping a lot of islands.

We plan on sailing back up to see the islands we skipped.

We plan on staying in the Caribbean for a while.

We are poor planners.

The boat interior needs a major overhaul.

The boat exterior needs a major cleaning.

What's the labor cost is in Trini?

The Raritan toilet we bought has an odd size joker valve. Bastards!

Why can't we just have one standard sized joker valve for all toilets?

I want to paint our boats headliner.

Is sky blue a bad color for a headliner?

We loaded up our iPhone as a backup to the squirreled iPad. The iPhone then died.

How come a version of Garmin Blue Chart is not written for Android devices?

Because I have an old pair of glasses now I have not been using them often

Because I have not been using my glasses my distance vision has improved. Weird.

There are a lot of pretty women sailing the islands.

At what point do you become a dirty old man?

Multihulls seem to prevail here but most of the boats crossing to Europe were
monohulls.

I like poking fun at my multi-hull friends

We were rolling so bad in the swell in Simpson Bay I told Deb the next boat is a Cat

If we had a Catamaran I wonder if Deb would claim one hull for herself.

If we could ever clean out that V-berth I could have a man cave.

I imagine poking holes in every dinghy on a short painter.

The other morning a guy tied off his dinghy a foot from the dock, then wrapped the extra 20 ft of line around the cleat. I calmly walked through his dinghy to tie off ours and proceeded to untie all the excess line while mumbling what a stupid fk he was. Then I saw the guy behind me. I don't understand French but I used hand signals and English to explain what stupid fk meant and why it was used.

When someone at the dinghy dock is mad at you and tries to drive away fast they should check to see if the 20ft of extra painter is free and clear.  :D

You ever buy a tube of 3M 4200 sealant and get back to the boat and find out it's black?

I think a dinghy gets stolen every week here in St Martin/Maarten

Next dinghy has an aluminum hull

I can not walk barefoot on this boat without smashing a toe.

This time it was just climbing into the cockpit when SNAP! goes the 4th toe.

Ouch. I applied rum.

In the morning my toe felt better because I was focused on my headache

Falling asleep to music in the cockpit is awesome until the iPod bitch yells LOW BATTERY!

I have never sweat so much in my life

One of the most awkward moments on a sailboat is going under a bridge in high current and doing about 0.3 knots. Are we moving?

There is a lot of nakedness among cruisers in the Caribbean.

It's never the French boat with the female super model crew


Been fun dumping my brain on you. Hope it comes off.
Cheers!
PJJB