Sunday, May 03, 2009

It's good to be back in FRANCE. So It Goes

Wow, it is so nice to be back in France, even if it is just the French side of the island of St. Martin / Sint Maarten. It has such a different feel about it... sort of like France :)

Friday afternoon we paid our ransom to SLAC of 19 weeks of harbor fees, at $20/wk and a $10 fee to pass through the bridge. We upped anchor and entered the lagoon and we are now anchored on the French side (free) of the lagoon.

We attended the Marine Flea Market / Boat Jumble at Time Out Boat Yard at the Sandy Ground bridge in Marigot. It was the last one of the season and was very well attended. We didn't sell our charger/inverter or ICOM M600 SSB with AT120 automatic tuner, but we did come out ahead... we made $67 and spent $14.

We don't like being in the lagoon because of the fouling, but it is kind of nice and WEIRD not rolling as much... we have that "we're aground" sort of feeling. Especially because the last time we were in the lagoon was for Hurricane Omar and we did go aground!

We are planning to haul So It Goes at Island Water World this Thursday. That's the PLAN... we'll check with them tomorrow to see. We were going to haul out at Bobby's Boatyard in the lagoon as we've hauled out two or three times there, but this year they won't let people work on their own boat below the waterline. Sorry, but I don't want to waste my precious and expensive yard time watching the workers work on my boat that I'd rather be working on. IWW is a bit more expensive, but not when you factor in the time lost supervising the workers. Plus, it is cleaner as the boat is on concrete and not in a potential mud puddle. So, no more Bobby's! Although, we'll still do our laundry at Yvonne's.

We bought gasoline at Cadisco this morning and it is still 76 cents per litre (one euro = one dollar). That was good news.