Saturday, May 11, 2013

Charlotte-Amalie, St. Thomas, USVI


This morning, we went to get something out from behind one of our seats in the main salon.  Larry noticed, the one latch was broken.  Hmmm.  Then he realized the hinge holding the door to the bottom was bent and pulled out.  Hmmm again!  He investigated further and realized what had happened.  That loud, unresolved BANG we heard the other day … mystery solved.  We had been filling our “bladder” water tank as we made water.  Guess what … you really shouldn’t overfill those things … lesson learned!  There was so much pressure as we filled the tank, it expanded and popped the screws that held the board in place (the board that helps keep the bladder tank from moving).  The BANG we’d heard was the board pulling free, breaking a stainless latch in the process and bending a stainless hinge.  Now that’s a lot of pressure to do something like that!  If it was enough to break stainless … what did it do to the fittings on the bag itself?  Yep … the bag was leaking.  Larry had more work ahead of him as he fixed the fittings and reattached the door to the cabinet.  On a boat … work never ends!

Once he’d successfully repaired our little disaster, he was ready to head ashore.  On our outing the other day, we never did make it to Cost U Less because we found what we needed at the mall.  Today, we figured we’d explore a little.

We walked to the same bus stop where we’d caught the bus to the mall.  We waited and waited.  We were talking to some local who just happened to be at the bus stop too.  After a few minutes, she remembered … it’s Saturday and the bus does not run on Saturday or Sunday.  Now is that stupid or what???  Just then, a “Safari van” was going past.  These things run all over St. Thomas for a fee of $2.00.  We jumped on the Safari and were off.  It’s twice the price as the bus but at least they run on the weekends.

You know, taking the trip up those hills in St. Thomas in a vehicle made us realize, there was no way in hell we could have walked it.  Those hills were so steep and so curvy … we never would have made it.  Also, the way the vehicles drive on those roads … they’re death traps!

We didn’t really buy much at Cost U Less.  They had a lot of neat things but we’re pretty well stocked.  We’ve gotta use up some of our supplies before we buy too much more!  That’s actually a nice realization.

On our return trip, we got off the Safari at a little plaza across the street from Kmart.  There was a drug store there we wanted to check out.  Glad we did.  They had the same reading glasses that I paid $15-$20 for back home.  They were on sale at 2 for $10.  Holy crap!  I got 4 pair.  Now I won’t fret if I loose one!

While we were in the store, the weather changed.  The sky grew dark and the winds picked up.  You could see the gloomy, threatening clouds creep over the hilltop.  We were in for some nasty weather.  We began the walk back to the marina when the rain started.  It was very “misty” at first but didn’t take long before we had full fledged rain.  Oh well, we needed another shower today anyways.  At least this time, it didn’t matter if we got splashed on the dinghy ride back to the boat.  We were already soaked.

During the evening, we did more prep work for the blog so next time we have Internet again, we can update accordingly.

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