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Published: February 9th 2012
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Bob and Princess
Bob had to have his photo with “Princess”, one of the vendors that we have dealt with. The other one we have bought quite a bit from is called “Mr. President”. He always enjoys having Bob come as he likes his laugh and positive attitude So, why have we still been in Bequia? If you remember at the end of the last blog entry we stated that we would probably be leaving the following Wednesday or Thursday. Well, a few things happened. One of course was the weather which was not the best for traveling north. This time of year the trade winds come from the north and as we are headed in that direction, it is not the best for sailing. We have also been having quite a few days of squalls and heavy seas. This would have only delayed us a couple of days as there was an opening of a couple of days, but….
As we are going back to the US in March for Janice to have surgery on her right wrist (deQuervarin tendonitis) we started making our list of things that we wanted to bring back to the boat. To save time at home we figured as we had wi-fi access we would place some on –line orders. We (well, it was really Janice) had just researched and booked the flights home, the hotel needed in NYC, the rental car and charged them all to our credit card.
One of the local taxis
One of the many taxis that you can use to get around the island. We didn’t use any of them this time, but it worked out well for taking an island tour last year when we were here. That was fine, but the next day we started ordering a few of our supplies. We had our card declined so Janice got on line with the bank at 10PM and wrote to find out what was wrong. We were impressed that at 11:20PM we got a reply that our card was compromised and were told that they sent a letter and new cards to our address back on January 17
th. In checking the next morning with my sister we found out that she never received the cards so the calls began. We have to be thankful that skype exist and that we were still in Bequia where we could make contact while still on the boat. After explaining the situation of where we were they had no problem with sending our new cards to Bequia, but were told that even though it was going to be sent by Federal Express it would take 7 days to get to us. This gets back to the point of why we are still in Bequia. There is a Federal Express pickup and delivery point right here in Port Elizabeth so we figured we better wait. We figured we are in a pleasant
A Rainy Day
Sailor looked like a little kid staring out the window at the rain today. It was coming down so hard we didn’t have any problem filling the bucket with rain water which comes in handy for cleaning and of course for Sailor’s drinking water. Sailor definitely enjoys rainwater more than tap water so she has trained us to collect it for her! location with plenty to do both on the boat and in town so we weren’t too upset. That was last Thursday, February 2
nd. We took advantage of going to shore on a few of the evenings to listen to live music which was enjoyable. We also got some more swimming and hiking in and of course the runs to the veggie market! Janice even took the extra time here to try some new recipes which was enjoyable for both of us! Monday we started checking at the local Fed Ex office to see if the package came. We also contacted the bank to provide the tracking number. In looking up the details on line Janice noticed that it was delivered but the local time of delivery was 3 hours after our local time. Now, how could that be?? In looking closer it also appeared that it was in Port Elizabeth which was correct – only problem was it was in South Africa, not Bequia!! Tuesday Janice spent hours on phone calls with the bank and Federal Express. It is always so much fun calling an 800 number and always getting a different person so you have to go through the
Improvements being Made
Work was started on repairing the Belmont Walkway in Port Elizabeth. It is quite a job but will be quite an improvement for the visitors as well as the businesses that are located along the waterfront. whole story over and over again due to the fact that the call dropped. At the end of the day on Tuesday we found that the solution would be: 1) cancel the new card number that was sent to South Africa 2) issue a whole new card number and have it sent to the next island we are going to 3) we would check if there were any fraudulent charges on our card once we could again see our credit card on line (that won’t be until we get the new cards) 4) sail to St. Lucia and hope the cards reach a marina there that we arranged to accept the package for us next week 5) hope that there is only one Rodney Bay Marina and that it is in St. Lucia so Fed Ex can’t find another continent to sent them to.
Oh dear, does this sound frustrating?? Well, having spent many hours on the phone working out the solution with both vendors and missing our small weather window last week - yes, that was frustrating. On the other hand, we do remember that we are in a beautiful area, we have had a chance to catch
Part of the Belmont Walkway
This is a small section of the Belmont Walkway – some of it is quite narrow and other areas have completely broken up as the surf is quite strong here. up with some cruisers that we met before, listen to some great music, get a few more things done on the boat, do some more reading, get a few more days of swimming in. Hey, guess we can’t complain!! This just reminded us that even with being out here in the Caribbean you can't escape some of the frustrations everyone has once in a while. We were just fortunate to enjoy the waiting! Let's just keep our fingers crossed that the cards do arrive soon!
In checking the weather tomorrow, Thursday, Feb. 9
th looks like a great opportunity to move north. We will skip the island of St. Vincent itself and head directly to St. Lucia. With the full moon being last night, as long as we don’t have a cloudy night it should be perfect for an overnight sail. We also read that it will be a great time to view Venus, Uranus and Mars so we will have something to search for while on night watch! Let’s hope for a clear night for sky gazing.
We will be back in touch once we get settled for a few days at St. Lucia.
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