I’m Still Sanding, Yea, Yea, Yea

Hello all. Hope that you had a good Thanksgiving. We spent the day as usual working on the boat and then treated ourselves to a big pizza from the local pizzeria. It was good and tasted just like turkey and stuffing…ha, ha.

Things have progressing well here. We had Moon moved from the spot to where she had been stored in the boatyard to a spot where they put her up on stands and we have started sanding, filling and painting her bottom. Slowly but surely we are getting her completed. We are hoping to splash back in on this Thursday.

Moon getting some love from the goats as they scratch their backs on her.

Not sure why but the baby goats seem to love being inside tires.

Brian way up top on the mast putting the halyards up that we took down for hurricane season. Good thing that he is not afraid of heights!

We had to use our favorite dry bag to make a boot for where the rudder enters the hull on Moon. Brian’s sister gave this bag to us many, many years ago and it has traveled everywhere with us. Because we could not find a suitable fabric to make a boot out of the bag now has a new purpose and is a part of our beloved Moon.

We will still have to strip and paint the decks and some areas inside of the boat but all of that can be done at anchorage taking a few hours a day…it is time to get out of the boatyard and back on the sea!

Moving to our new location in the boatyard. It was too late before I realized the boat was being moved and I was on board as they moved to our new spot. I held on tight as the boat rocked back and forth in the sling. It was almost like a carnival ride!

Speaking of getting out of here, we had to do the always fun paperwork shuffle and ask for an extension on our stay. When we cleared in at the airport they only cleared us for one month. As always it is a joy to work with the local governments to determine who should help us with our issue. As we were sent from one office to another we finally ended up in Homeland Security. We requested to stay two additional weeks and they took our passports and told us that they would call us in a week or two to let us know if we had been approved for an extended stay. Here we are a week and an half later and still no call…so, I guess that means that we have been approved!

Metal plates that we used on the inside of the hull to mount the strut to.

New strut mounted and painted.

Brian painting the topsides of Moon.

What I have been working on this week. Stripping the pealing paint in the head area. Doesn’t look pretty now but it will when I’m done 🙂

Earlier this week St. Kitts was honored by a visit from Prince Harry of England. He arrived on the Royal Fleet Auxiliary, Wave Knight a working naval vessel. We had heard that he was coming and thought that we would get a chance to see him but apparently the time of his arrival was not that clear. In fact when he got to the port there was no one there to greet him right away. He was finally greeted by town folks and tourists alike because arrived right where the cruise ship passengers disembark.

Port Zante, in the center of the Bay, Basseterre St. Kitts is for use of docking cruise ships only. The Port can accommodate the largest cruise ships in the world; it also has a marina facility.

Queen Mary 2 “QM2” Unveiled in 2004, Queen Mary 2 was the world’s largest passenger vessel at the time of its debut and remains one of the largest afloat. Built with a long, reinforced bow that cuts through the waves and powerful engines capable of a speedy 28 knots, it was specifically designed to operate regular trans-Atlantic crossings — a niche that it now has to itself.

The ship that Prince Harry arrived on. Wave Knight has a crew of 72, is used for refueling Royal Navy vessels in the area, as well as carrying out counter-narcotics patrols and disaster relief missions. Earlier this month the ship was involved in a six-hour chase across the Caribbean which culminated in £40 million of cocaine being seized. A Royal Marines sniper in the back of a Lynx helicopter operating from Wave Knight disabled the drug-runners’ speedboat by firing more than a dozen rounds. The ship is supporting Prince Harry’s tour while continuing with her regular operations.

We did get to see his ship pass right by the boatyard where Moon is and there was a big ceremony for him at Brimstone Hill right above the boatyard so we were pretty close to the prince sort of, we just could not see him. That’s OK though I probably would have spent hours trying to figure out what to wear 🙂

The Wave Knight, Prince Harry’s ship in the distance passing by the boatyard.

Here are some random pictures of some of the sights that we see as we take the bus to the boat everyday. Lots of old houses and churches.

Even a monkey exhibit as we fly down the main road. (You can see them in the middle by the blue box)

Have you ever wondered if a Stinkbug can bite? Sure you have, come on tell me it’s so. Well, apparently they can and they do. And apparently Brian is tasty because he got bit not only once, but twice! One day at the boatyard Brian came over to me asking me what was biting him on his back. I did not see anything but a stinkbug. I thought that maybe an ant or something else had gotten him but that was not so. We have never heard of a stinkbug biting anyone before so we had to research it of course and we found out that it was not that uncommon. Stinkbugs can bite. They say that the bite can be pretty painful. Brian says that’s true. Poor guy had two big red swollen spots on his back. Learned something new for sure!

Mt. Liamuiga, 3,792-foot (formerly known as Mt. Misery) is an incredibly beautiful, dormant (as of 1843) volcano and the highest point on the island of St. Kitts. You can see the crater on the left side of the photo. They say that it is 1,000ft deep and almost a mile in diameter. We have thought about hiking to the top but all of the reviews say that it is a very strenuous hike. We are just plumb worn out from all of our boat work so we will have to save that for our next visit.

Typical local restaurant menu hmm, what can a vegetarian eat? Looks like I’m stuck with side dishes once again.

My treasures finds of marble and chaney this week.

Have we told you about the buses in St. Kitts yet? I don’t think that we’ve shared what an experience that they can be. It’s always an adventure!

All of the buses have their own themes painted on the front. This is just a small example of some of them.

• Lets start with the music…the music that the bus plays really defines the bus…meaning you can have someone beside you singing Gospel, Whitney Houston, Elton John, The Wailers, The Bee Gees, (yes the Bee Gees), Lionel Richey, Kenny Rodgers or Dolly Parton and on and on. I think that you get the point. The music can leaving you happy and elated or crying by the end of the trip! And if you are really lucky you can have your own personal DJ sitting right beside you adding all of his own spin to the tune too.

• Sitting on the bus one day we had a drunk man sitting squashed right beside me ranting about white people and swinging a beer bottle around as he shouted out the bus window at people as we drove by. As if that was not crazy enough he threw the beer bottle out of the bus window, thankfully it did not hit anyone. When he finally got off of the bus the other riders really got on to the bus driver for not booting him off of the bus and letting him behave like he did. I was just glad that he got off the bus!

• One day it started raining and the rider behind us closed his bus window but when he closed the window it slammed a bit. The driver immediately halted the bus to a stop and demanded to know what just happened. “Is the window mash up?” He yelled at the rider. And then went off on him about slamming the window. Other passengers were sticking up for the rider saying that he did not mean it and such. Finally the driver continued on. It was funny after that to see the other passengers gingerly trying to close their windows without the driver noticing. Kind of like you just pissed off mom or dad in the car and did not want them to pull over again and give you a whooping!

• Another time the driver was driving pretty casually well, not driving like a bat out of hell and a passenger starting going off on him for driving like he was “Driving Miss Daisy” on and on this guy when off on the driver for being slow because he said that it was the drivers fault that he was going to be late to work. He kept asking the driver to stop and refund his money so that he could get on a faster bus. Everyone on the bus laughed when he got off. He was the mornings entertainment!

• Another bus had altered it’s back seat with speakers under it. (Remember that music is important) This had made the seat so high that if a person sat in it with every bump their head would hit the roof of the bus. Needless to say because they pack the buses in there was a tall guy that ended up in the back seat. Man oh man did he lay into the driver about the seat being so high and that he was hitting his head on the ceiling. He went on the whole ride moaning and groaning on and on. It was quite theatrical.

• Last but not least….the bus that we thought that we were going to die on! We get on a bus going into town and it is just us…wow we thought, a bus to ourselves. Well, we did not know that we had race car driver Mario Andretti as our driver. This was honesty the fastest bus that we have ever been on. This guy was passing everyone, that is until he tried to pass one bus and it would not let him pass. They raced each other on the skinny winding roads, our driver getting back in our lane when a oncoming car would come and they try to pass the other bus again. OK, no problem hold on that is what the handles on the back of the seat are for…right? Everything was OK until the driver turns back to Brian and asks him to move to the other side of the bus to balance us out….what??? We are the only people on the bus…balance out what? Anyways Brian complied. Not sure what that was about but we thankfully made it safely to town and had a much deserved beer! Oh yea, he was finally able to pass the other bus but only when it stopped to pick up a passenger. The drivers did exchange a few choice words as we went by, with our driver telling us that he would get him next time!

  

  There is a reason that the buses have handles on the seats…sometimes the ride can be quite crazy!

Whew…did you really read all of that? I didn’t know that I had that much to say when I first started. As you can tell we are having fun just with everyday life. Currently Brian is sanding below me on the hull as I sit in the cockpit. I think that I have the better end of the deal today! I better go for now and get back to work. Take care all until next time.

Brian and Jennifer