Red Hook, St Thomas USVI

Last week, we realized (duh!) that if we are in US waters, we should be able to pick up US television stations. Usually we just use the tv to watch dvds and stuff, but we figured it was Superbowl Sunday so we'd see what we could get. Turns out, a whole lot of nothing. Lots of spanish channels, a couple of pbs stations, but no major networks. Lucky for us, we moved anchorages from Francis Bay to the island of St. James. There we ran into Steve and Linda on Seaman's Elixir. We were not only pleased to see them again, but they were nice enough to invite us and another boat, Magus, to watch the superbowl on their boat (they have Direct TV...something we wish we'd installed on the boat...although we'd probably never go outside if we had it). We all had a great time watching the commercials (and, of course the game. Chris from Magus apparently had a lot of money riding on the Saints and was a very happy camper by the end.

We've been having trouble starting the beast (our outboard on the dinghy) ever since we came back to the boat. Kevin finally had it when we were leaving the superbowl party and the thing wouldn't start after something like fifty pulls. Exasperated, the next day he took apart the carburetor and cleaned all the jets. Now the thing finally runs, I won't say "like new" since it is over ten years old. But at least it is less "beastly".

We moved the boat over to Benner Bay to have a canvas cover made for the outboard. Kevin wanted it made with some padding in the back to protect Solstice's hull from the outboard banging into it. The lady took the outboard cover and went to work while we took the safari bus into town to do some shopping at Kmart. We spent all day in Charlotte Amalie, killing time to give the canvas shop enough time to get the job done. When we finally got back, we took a look at the cover and realized she had put the padding on the wrong end and would have to do the whole thing over. So the next day instead of going into town we just hung out at the boatyard bar, sipping rum and cokes and watching CNN. The final product looks pretty nice, at least now we can hide the beast. Next project is to clean up and repair some of the tattered patches on the dinghy...

We are now in a marina in Red Hook, St. Thomas. Getting into the slip posed a bit of a challenge. The slip is 23 feet wide. Our boat is 21 feet wide. Not a lot of room for error. We managed to wiggle in after two tries, but who knows how we will get out. If I had my way, I'd vote for just staying here with air conditioning, easy access to bars/restaurants and a chandlery...but I guess moving around is the whole point of having the boat. So we'll see if we can get out of here tomorrow without doing too much damage!