Where did you put that box of crackers?
For a change yesterday came together pretty much as we had planned. At 9:00 sharp I picked up Herman, the electrician that our friends Keith and Jaime had recommended, and took him to the boat. After explaining the symptoms that our inverter/charger was displaying, he set about swapping the old one for the replacement. In less than an hour he had the new unit up and running and I’m happy to say that it works. Not only does the inverter once again function but the charger, which I had my doubts about too, is putting out more juice. Score!
- Note: Five stars for Herman. He was punctual, knowledgeable and fair priced. We’ll definitely employ him again in future should we require some electrical assistance.
We dropped Herman back off at the dock at around 10 after 10:00 giving us just under an hour to return the non-functioning inverter to Budget Marine before we had to return the car that we had rented the day previous. We definitely got our money’s worth out of that car. We picked it up at 10:59 AM and ended up returning it at 10:55. Perhaps we should have driven around the parking lot a couple of times just to make it an even 24 hours?
After returning to the boat, we raised anchor and motored the short distance over to Druif Bay, the same bay where they do the flyboarding. The water is cleaner there than it is in Long Bay and we wanted to run our watermaker to fill up our tanks. That watermaker rocks by the way! We also planned to head to shore to do a bit more provisioning recon at a different grocery store. That ended up being a productive trip too.
We get to see awesome sunsets from Druif Bay too!
The remainder of our day, until well after 5:00 PM, was spent organizing the items that we purchased for the charter. Some may find this interesting but I suspect that about 70% of the money we spent provisioning was not on food but on beverages, both alcoholic and non-alcoholic. I have not done an actual calculation yet but it will be easy enough to do once we tally our receipts. Storing these items in spots where they are safe and accessible during the charter took some planning. Rebecca dealt with most of the food so the truth is I really have no idea where 90% of those items ended up. We had better not lose her or we’ll all go hungry!
Would you believe there are 7 cases of beer, 2 cases of coke, at least 2 cases of tonic, a case of club soda and some misc sprite in there? Oh, and 12 bottles of Chardonnay and three bottles of Bubbly.
What’s on for today? Rest.
Ha! Just kidding. We need to clean the boat. Tomorrow morning we’ll be shopping for all of the fresh produce that we’ll need and then moving the boat around to Christmas Cove at the east end of St. Thomas to stage for our Tuesday mid-afternoon pickup at Red Hook. Then the fun will begin!
Can I suggest you buy a Sodastream machine for your soft drinks? The amount of weight and space to carry all of those cans is crazy and not to mention what are you going to do with empties! Just a suggestion and more environmentally friendly
Soda Stream machines are cool. We visited a boat in the Bahamas which had one. The challenge, down island at least, is obtaining the CO2 cartridges for them. I don’t think you can ship them. They may be available here though, I haven’t checked.
Mike,
We love our Sodastream and agree with Tara about weight, space and environmental issues. We buy 20 or so cartridges before we leave the states and it lasts over a year. Other advantages are not having to carry all those cans from the grocery store and we like the taste of the soda better than any national brand because you can make it as sweet (or not) as you like, and the bubbles are fresh so you never get a flat soda. We have experimented with all sorts of flavorings including crystal light, tea, etc. You can also make champagne out of wine. You would be able to offer your guests a much bigger variety for half the cost and half the space. Oh and they have tonic flavoring and you can make ginger beer too. BIG fan of Sodastream, can you tell? GL
Yes, I can tell. 🙂
Soda Stream CO2 cartridges can be refilled at Caribbean Inflatables there in St Thomas, only place we have found in all of the Eastern Caribbean for that service. To save money we purchased a 20 pound CO2 cylinder while in Puerto Rico and ordered hose/bottle adapters online while there as well. Now we refill our own cartridges for pennies. If interested I can get u the website info for adapters.
Barbara, This is one of the most helpful comments I have ever heard anyone make. Kudos for solving what is a huge problem in the Caribbean, the cost of can soda!
I would love to have that website. Thank you.
The website for the hose/bottle adapters is http://www.co2doctor.com/ and here is another very interesting site to assist building your own system, http://www.etsy.com/blog/en/2011/how-tuesday-build-your-own-seltzer-maker/
Thanks Barbara!
Wish you all the best with your first booking. I know you will be busy but we hope you keep us this blog. It’s fun to live the cruiser’s life through the two of you.
We’ll try. I doubt I’ll be able to post daily but who knows?
I have a soda stream and LOVE it. I just use it to make carbonated water which I then add to my home made lemonade (lemons & honey & water). As for the suggestions to carbonate other beverages such as wine… the directions are very explicit that only water is to be carbonated. I know a guy who used his to attempt to re-carbonate a flat beer and it exploded over his entire kitchen. It took him days to clean it all up. Not sure you want that happening on One Love!!
What kind of guy leaves a beer sitting so long that it goes flat? 😉