We Love The US Postal System

Thursday afternoon we ordered a 3-gallon kit of epoxy from RAKA INC in Florida. We really like this company and buy all of our epoxy and associated paraphernalia from RAKA. They understand about shipping to the Virgin Islands via USPS Priority Mail and are willing to do so!

I called them this morning (Monday) to see if they had mailed our order yet as I wanted to add something. They said they sent it out on Friday.

We just stopped by SURF THE NET (near the Boardwalk in Christiansted and very handy for cruisers) where we get mail and we were surprised that we had a large box waiting for us.  It was our RAKA order... sent Friday and received Monday via Priority Mail.

FANTASTIC !!!

Thank you, Mr. Zip :)

Friday BOAT Cat Blogging

Just had to post this photo... It is Friday after all and we haven't had a Friday Cat Blog in a bit...

Willow says HI !!!

Wednesday is OK so far

Last night we had a couple of heavy downpours.  This morning has been OK but now it is overcast and gray.

We dinghied over to Gallows Bay to pick up a few things for the mast project at Ace Hardware and St Croix Marine.  We also picked up a couple of post-mast project items for this evening... a 6-pack of Dos Equis and a nice hunk of pork loin.  And, for instant gratification, we each had an ice cream sandwich... heavenly!

It's difficult enough to be building a mast in a parking lot without the added troubles that the weather causes.  But, one must work with what one has available and be thankful...

Here's Bob yesterday glassing in some extra reinforcing biax cloth to the interior of mast half #2. We're going to have to order another 3 gallons of epoxy from Raka soon.

So It is Going...

Happy Mother's Day

If you need a quick gift, how about an Amazon Gift Certificate?  They can be emailed direct to the recipient, or printed out and put in a card.

Very handy :)

Wonderful Weather Wednesday

We had wonderful weather on Wednesday and most of Thursday. It was dry through late yesterday evening... Then it rained off and on all night and really heavy once.  This morning it has continued to rain off and on. It was very gray when I was making coffee.  The sun did peek out and now it is humid.

Even if it doesn't rain anymore today, it will still be a few hours before we can do anything so perhaps we should take advantage of the crappy weather and do some needed food shopping.

Wednesday we arranged all the strips in the mast mold into good positions (no two scarf joins side by side, for instance) and we let it sit and relax into its new orientation (some of these thin strips like to take on various artistic curves). We also had visitors drop by and chat (which was nice) so we didn't do as much as we had hoped.

Thursday was another fine day. At noontime we tacked the mast together with 5 strips of cloth. We returned later in the afternoon to apply the layer of glass to the interior of the mast half #2.  Didn't finish until it got dark, but it was good.  Lots of lizards came out to feed on the mosquitos that were feeding on us :)

We will zip over there soonish and see what's up and then continue up to the mall.

A dinghy zipped by the boat a few minutes ago and Buffy chased it down the side deck.  Our little watchcat!  Willow wants to play with her string :)

Happy Friday!

Torrential Tuesday

I'm very disappointed with the way this morning has started.  Last night we had bouts of heavy rain and some strong winds that I hoped would dry the clothes I washed yesterday and hung on the lifelines. This morning the cycle has continued. Rain, Rain GO AWAY!

Just started raining again.  Darn! Stop it!

Yesterday I did two loads of laundry at the Prince Street Laudromat. This is the laundromat over by the Seaplane.  It is very easy to get to and I have never seen it crowded. I probably could have put all my clothes in the large triple-load machine for $5 rather than use the two double-load machines for $3.50, but I didn't realize this until it was too late... next time :)

Prince Street Laundromat - Christiansted, St Croix USVI

You can read directions of how to get there in a previous posting... CLICK HERE for STX info.

When I was walking back to the worksite with the laundry (about two blocks), I ran into Bob who was coming to help carry the wet clothes back.  Wasn't that wonderful?  So nice...

I was surprised to see that he had popped the mast out of the mold.  Oooh, how cool!

The extra glass we had applied on Sunday was just fine as it didn't rain until two hours after we had left for the day.

Today will be another one of those "play it by ear" type of days... So It Goes...

More May Mast Madness

Well, yesterday was a pretty nice day in St Croix, USVI. We made a bit more progress with the mast building.

We put some carbon fiber glass tape in a couple of places...

and then we applied another layer of biaxial fiberglass to the top and bottom of the mast.

Fun stuff!

Two hours after returning back to the boat we had a heavy, 3-minute downpour to be followed throughout the afternoon with short, light rain showers. We had a nice breeze which would dry out the rain overnight, but then it rained again, of course, this morning.

Please, give us a break!  We want to get out of here ASAP, go to St Martin to take care of a few things, and get out of this area.  Reading crownweather.com's Outlook for the 2010 Hurricane Season is a great incentive (besides wanting to be a sailboat again!). The post starts with this paragraph:

I decided to write up an update to the seasonal forecast I wrote back in early March.  I am very concerned that we’re in for a very, very busy hurricane season. 

Shucky darn... So It Goes...

Happy May!

Time is flying by...

This week we received 5 sheets of plywood. Not the quality that we are used to, but you take what you can get :)

We made a dinghy kit... unfortunately, elves are not included...

We'd like to thank the nice folks over at Island Flight Adventure for allowing us to use one of their trailers as a table.  It is a BIG help and we really appreciate it. As a cruiser, we normally don't care for jet skis, but this outfit is different. They do not buzz about the boats at anchor.  How cool is that! You can rent a jet ski and go out with one of their guides on a fantastic tour, or perhaps you'd rather go out on their boat and do some fishing, take a harbor tour, or maybe waterski or tubing.  They are conveniently located on the Christiansted Boardwalk near Styxx. If you don't see them, just ask! Island Flight Adventure's phone number is 340-778-7541 or CLICK for their website.

Seems like it will be a nice day.  We could hear the announcer from the Ironman Triathalon so they must have been doing the swimming portion.

Looking forward to going over and start work on the mast.

Have a great day!

Did blooger change?

Looks like blogger has changed. Will it still work?

It still appears to have some "special features" .... what we used to call BUGS!

They've screwed up the images even more!

Darn...

Wow, the next day they've changed it so one can upload files from the computer again... Did they actually respond to the voice of the people???

I guess I can put off looking into WordPress for awhile...

Christmas Cove, USVI - New Moorings

They now have the article concerning the new moorings in Christmas Cove online.

Click here to go to the article: DPNR puts moorings in Christmas Cove to protect coral (April 25, 2010)

Surprise, it's raining!

At least yesterday (Sunday) it only rained a couple of drops very early in the morning.  We did make a bit of progress on our mast and we were looking forward to doing some major work today.

The weather forecast on the radio said that we might get a bit of slight showers today (it's really pouring) but probably not as a high pressure system is moving in and it should be dry for at least Tuesday and Wednesday.... I've heard that before...

Shucky-Darn !!!

Maybe we'll go up to the Do-It-Best Caribe hardware store by Sunny Isle shopping center and ask about some plywood.  I called them on Saturday to ask about delivery but it was definitely not the A-team (I hope!) that answered. It is usually best to ask in person and to weekday staff.

So it goes...

Tips for Hard Drives

I noticed that Lifehacker had an interesting post today about hard drives: Top 10 Hard Drive Upgrades and Fixes

I have some interesting links to check out when I have time... hopefully before my hard drive craps out... you know how that goes :)

Hope this might help you, too.

Don't believe the weatherman & new moorings in Christmas Cove

I haven't listened to the radio today to hear the weather, but it really doesn't matter because it is raining.  Didn't they say it would be dry Saturday, Sunday, AND Monday???

I just looked at WeatherUnderground and they say scattered showers and 40% chance of rain through Monday... So It Goes...

We went over to Gallows Bay and filled up some jerry cans of water. We also went to Schooner Bay Market for a couple of things (splurged on a couple of ice cream sandwiches... mmmm!). Noticed in the Virgin Islands Daily News that they had an article concerning new moorings having been installed in the north part of the Christmas Cove anchorage. Should have bought the paper but I thought it would have been online and I could have referred my dear readers to the link, sorry.  Anyway, as I recall there are 12 moorings for boats under 65 feet with a maximum stay of 10 days. No anchoring is allowed within this mooring field and there is supposed to be good clearance so the boats won't bang into each other regardless of wind direction, they say.  There's supposed to be a pamphlet, plus they gave phone numbers for Fish & Wildlife and probably DPNR (340-774-3320). No fees were mentioned.

Here's a website for the National Parks Service for the US Virgin Islands:
http://www.nps.gov/viis/index.htm

Anyway, it doesn't look like we'll be doing any epoxy work this afternoon, but I have plenty of other things to do though... maybe take a pre-lunch nap :)

Today has promise

Well, so far at 9:00am, today is looking much nicer than yesterday...

The weather forecast predicts that it will be DRY for Saturday, Sunday, and Monday.  I hope they are right this time as we are ready to go with our mast building project!

The water is very clear and inviting.  If you know where to look, you can see one of our anchors!

Weather permitting...

Today we had a few minutes of rain at 7:30ish, but it has been gray and threatening all day.

We went over to the worksite and moved some wood about.  Then we lined the molds with our newly-found doublesided tape which will keep the strips in place while we glass the interior.

We scarfed two strips of wood that were too short. Then we decided that since the weather hadn't improved, that we should just go back to So It Goes and do other stuff.

I took this picture a few minutes before it started pouring down rain.

I hung up my work clothes on the lifelines so they are getting a good soaking right now :)

Hopefully, it will be a bright sunshiny day tomorrow and we can lay up the interior of half the mast.

We'll see how it goes...

Wednesday was a rain day

Well, it rained a lot Tuesday night and early Wednesday morning. 

We had decided to go up to the stores early and we just missed the 8am bus to Sunny Isle. It seems like the buses are on time or even a few minutes early for the 8am and 9:30am Christiansted Scalehouse stop. As the day wears on, the buses usually get later than their scheduled time, but WE still make a point to be on time as you never know...

As I said, we missed the 8am bus and finally at about 8:45 a "$2.50 bus" stopped for us. We were hungry and went to IHOP for breakfast.  Didn't I say that we'd never go there again??? Well, never again :)

After a big, no so great, service-lacking, and overpriced breakfast (how much for so-so coffee?) we went to K-Mart. Hurray, I remembered to buy cat food.  Something else I don't understand... The 3.5lb bag of Purina Cat Chow is $3.99 and the 7lb bag is almost $11.  Why?  I,  Ms Cheapseats, wasn't born yesterday so I picked up two 3.5lb bags :) And, Happy HAPPY, we found some suitable doublesided tape for our mast project.  The tape container must have arrived on island. SCORE! We then did some shopping at Cost-U-Less so we are pretty well set up to go all out on the mast building project without having to worry about food shopping.

It is now Thursday and it hasn't rained since yesterday morning... until about a half hour ago. So It Goes...

Monday More Mast Progress

Monday morning we finished gluing up all the little strips of wood into their full length strips. And, it didn't rain!

The weather forecast keeps changing.  A few days ago they were saying that it would be relatively dry for the next few days and yesterday they were being all doomy and gloomy predicting rain.  All we can do is take it as it comes.

I love the lizards that are out and about :)

Making progress on the mast

Today we glued up half of the wood strips to their final full length. Tomorrow, weather and whatever willing, we will finish gluing up the rest of the strips.  Once we get all of this prep work done, we'll be able to actually start making something that looks like a mast...

The kittens find it exhausting :)

Hope you're having a good weekend, too!

Still too much rain

I was surprised when we had a phone call at 8:15 this morning. It was the driver from the lumber yard telling us that he delivered our plank of wood we bought yesterday. Wow, great service!

So, we went and cut the plank into strips but had to stop due to rain. The rain is lessening and I hope it will be gone tomorrow. It hasn't rained much in the last 2 or 3 months, but Mark took down his raincatcher (now he could catch LOTS of water), another friend is doing polyester work on his deck, and we are constructing a wood composite mast outdoors.  Of course it's raining :)  So It Goes...

When we came back to the boat, there was a huge bird sitting on top of the mast of the little boat behind us... The cats saw him...

Even the Seaplane landing next to the boat didn't phase him...

Funny bird :)

Where will So It Goes go this summer?

Just read this from Dr Jeff Master's Wunderblog at the Wunderground Weather website

April forecast for the 2010 Atlantic hurricane season issued by Colorado State University
A well above-average Atlantic hurricane season is on tap for 2010, according to the latest seasonal forecast issued last week by Dr. Phil Klotzbach and Dr. Bill Gray of Colorado State University (CSU). The Klotzbach/Gray team is calling for 15 named storms, 8 hurricanes, and 4 intense hurricanes. An average season has 10 named storms, 6 hurricanes, and 2 intense hurricanes. The forecast calls for 30% above-average chance of a major hurricane hitting the U.S., both along the East Coast (45% chance, 31% chance is average) and the Gulf Coast (44% chance, 30% chance is average). The Caribbean is also forecast to have an above-average risk of a major hurricane (58%, 42% chance is average.)

Wonderful... So It Goes :)

Sunday Sunday Sunday but no funny cars

Sunday is waffle day! We are just waiting for the waffle mixture to do its thing and then mmmmmmm....

Yesterday we started cutting up the wood to begin building our new mast.

We made the molds.

Then we cut our boards of cypress into thin strips. Today's plan is to scarf the strips and start gluing them together to make longer strips.

The New Mast is Here

Well, the potential mast is here... Or perhaps we can think of it as a mast kit... Just add labor !!

We received the wood just before noon and got right in to building some sawhorses and got the wood off the ground.

Today we plan to start cutting the strips... I'm excited!

Another fine day in St Croix USVI

It's another beautiful day in St Croix, US Virgin Islands.

As you can see by this photo, still no forestay. But good news! We've been given the go-ahead on the space to build our new mast... HURRAY !!!

Look for Mercury and Venus Tonight

Yesterday, Bob pointed out a post on The Old Salt blog that referred to this interesting article "Sunset Planet Alert" from NASA.

Last night we had our sundowner kind of late and it was dark by the time I had a martini on the foredeck. It was so very cool to be able to see the planet Mercury.  Looking forward to seeing Mercury and Venus so close together this weekend!

Speaking of this weekend... This is a very long weekend (Thursday-Monday) in St Croix and it is when everyone seems to go camping.  There are many tents set up on the beach by us in Christiansted over beyond the Seaplane on that parky bit near the projects.  There were some good BBQ smells coming from over that way last night, along with live music.

Have fun!

Today is April Fools, but also remembrance day

Today is April 1st and thus April Fool's Day (poisson d'avril in France), but for us it is a special day to remember our cat Wacka, who was born on April 1st back in 1982.

Wacka was a big help, along with Mr. B, sharing our watches when we sailed across the Atlantic Ocean to the Caribbean.

We miss her and we treasure the richness she added to our lives.