Yesterday, we had the St. Maarten Coast Guard board our boat. They politely asked if we minded if they come aboard. Two very nice men with big boots, guns, and clipboards came aboard. We showed them our clearance papers, boat certification, and passports. They asked about flares and lifejackets so we showed them. They also asked if we had fire extinguishers (yes, 2) and weapons (NO WAY). After filling out all the blanks on their forms they thanked us for our time and left.
This morning I noticed that the plug for our solar panel which goes through the side of our coachroof near deck level was completely broken off leaving a hole with a couple of wires sticking out... He probably didn't even feel it crunch with such heavy boots.
Oh well, not too much trauma :)
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We really miss having WiFi on the boat. We don't like taking our computers ashore because something might happen to them. We try to be careful as we know what it like to be computerless. MacDonald's has had superslow WiFi this past week. We can send mail but I cannot download all of our email before it times out. We cannot download a web page. It might be because of their ISP though and not their fault. Today we are going to try the free WiFi at the Bubble Tea place which is located at the other end of the MacDonalds building. If that's not good enough we'll go up to The Mailbox and buy a 1/2 hour of time ($5).
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What else about St. Maarten.... Oh yes, the signals for the bridge...
On the Simpson Bay side of the Dutch bridge there is a sign (Enter on Green) with two sets of red and green traffic lights. This sign has blown down. Hurricane Omar was two months ago and this sign should have been repaired. There is a light on the bridge but it is not as easy to see. I might mention this when I pay the SLAC ladies another $20 for our next weeks' stay. They may not be aware of it. I was looking for the red lights as a guide for when we were approaching St. Maarten in the dark and now I know why we couldn't see it.
Enough ranting for now :)
