Lindbergh Bay and Charlotte-Amalie, St. Thomas, USVI

Here we are back in Lindbergh Bay …. again!  Maybe you’d consider this backtracking but we were on a mission for several things. 

 

First task … to find good “free” Internet. When we were here a couple of days ago, we were able to connect to an unsecured network for Carib Resort and get an awesome Internet connection.  Today, however, the connectivity is very poor.  We’re connecting but it is slow and intermittent. 

 

Now, for the down and dirty reason we actually pulled anchor and sailed away.  We are on a sailboat with two heads.  The forward head has a 15-gallon holding tank; the one in the rear cabin has a 12-gallon holding tank.  Now, the next time you go to the bathroom, think of all the water that it takes to flush a toilet.  How many “flushes” would you get for 12-15 gallons before your tanks were full?  Well, that’d be where we be so this trip is essential.  We try very hard not to pump our tanks overboard unless we are beyond the “official” 3 miles out to sea law.  I’ll admit, there have been the rare occasions where we’ve had to do minimal pumping without going out exactly 3 miles. But if so, we REALLY make sure we’re never in a harbor or at an anchorage.  Unfortunately, not all cruisers think the same.  As I look around Charlotte-Amalie harbor, there are MANY boats that have never pulled their anchor in the time we’ve been here … yet; there are people on board.  How long have they been here and what are they doing with their waste?  Don’t even think about it.  We refuse to swim or make fresh water here in this bay!!!

 

This is a major reason we need to “backtrack” every now and again.  If our tanks our getting full … our water supply low … or we’ve found WiFi on the boat at some particular location … we need to take advantage of it.  We are now back in Lindbergh bay, having emptied our holdings tank enroute, and will make water and get whatever WiFi we can obtain.  One trip, many accomplishments!

 

Our subscriber list for these updates is growing.  Perhaps some of you don’t even read them anymore.   The emails are just cluttering your inbox but you don’t want to break my heart and ask to be removed.  Perhaps you love these updates and are living vicariously through our adventure.   Either way, it is getting harder to maintain as the list grows.  Each time I send an update, I get numerous “rejects” for one reason or another and I need to spend the time (and money) to follow through on why they rejected.  It’s usually a SPAM issue (the junk mail type … not the slimy canned ‘meat’ delight)!  But in any case, it is still work to resolve and takes time and Internet fees.

 

So, how do we resolve this? We’ve given this a lot of thought and this is our solution.  Panhandle our way through the Caribbean and eventually, around the world.  Hey, remember, we are both unemployed so ‘panhandling’ is an acceptable way of life … right???  And it’s a hell of a lot nicer doing it from the comforts of our boat than to be freezing our asses off in the Northern world or getting only soggy dollars in southern US due to all the rain!  If I have soggy dollars, I want to be able to spend them in the BVI at the Soggy Dollar Bar!!

 

We’ve researched this considerably and a lot of cruisers are going this route.  But I am uncomfortable asking for handouts without giving something in return.  Here’s our solution.  We need to do something about the issues with the updates anyways.  We’ve decided to create an actual Blog. 

 

Here are your options.  We are currently working on posting our blog on Amazon.com.  Those who are interested in reading our blog can subscribe for the small fee of $0.99/month (Amazon set this fee, not us).  Anytime there is an update, you will get an email of the blog and can read it online AND it will be sent directly to your kindle so you can read it offline at your leisure.  To most of you, $0.99/month is a pittance.  BUT … if we can get enough people to subscribe, it will help us greatly.  We are hoping the small income from Amazon will help offset some of our recurring Internet expenses and allow us to keep posting the blog as regularly as possible.  You know those beers we have to drink to get “FREE” Internet can be very expensive! 

 

Option two would be to subscribe thru the blog itself.  This is free to you and provides no income to us but you will be notified (via email) anytime a new post is made.  We will have ads on this blog site.  They are supposed to only be related to the blog content and therefore, may be interesting links for you to pursue.  We are also in the process of tweaking a “Support my Blog” button that will allow very appreciated “donations” to our cause … you know, the dropping out of society and sailing around the world cause!  We currently have problems with the “support” feature and will update accordingly if/when it gets fixed.

 

Last option would be to just log into the blog site periodically to see if there are any new entries.  Again, free to you but you’d never really know when the updates occur so you may be checking periodically with no results, especially when we’re on long passages, in remote locations or just plain too busy to update!

 

This is a process in the making and we are tweaking/modifying it each day to make the Blog and Amazon links so much better.  We are trying to add photos to prior updates and will continue with photos on new updates as they become available.  Please be patient and understanding as we muddle through our issues.

 

Anyways, that is what we were working on today.  Since our Internet connection was crappy, we made slow progress.  We hope to have the site up and functional before we leave St. Thomas.

 

So … here is another reason we need to subsidize our cruising expenses somehow … today, the screen for our little laptop broke, unexpectedly.  Now we have the unforeseen expense of replacing the laptop (if we can here in the islands).  We will actually look for two so that both Larry and I can be working at the same time.  Currently we only have a large, heavy, old clunker working.  Hopefully, this will reduce our time in the Internet Cafés and give us more time to “play”.  If you are reading this blog, I’m sure you want to read about adventure … not listen to my whining about Internet connections and the time it takes to send updates, upload photos, etc.  Let’s have more adventure for you to read about!

 

In any case, the first thing to do (and we’ve got our fingers crossed and are saying MANY prayers) is to determine if we can recover the data from the hard drive.   As I’m sure you’ve each experienced, we have not taken the time to properly backup our system after each day of Internet work.  You can just imagine how stressed we are at the possibility of loosing all that work!  We pulled anchor and headed back to town to see what can be done.

 

There is a small Kmart within walking distance of the Yacht Haven Grand marina (a place where we can safely leave our dinghy).  We searched the entire store but couldn’t find computer “stuff” anywhere.  They had a few accessories but nothing like laptops, monitors, etc.  We were in search of a monitor to be able to use to retrieve the data and backup the hard drive (assuming the hard drive is not crashed!).

 

We asked a sales clerk and it turns out they had exactly ONE monitor left and it was on clearance.  It was $119.99 (no tax).  We grabbed it!

 

Wow, are we lucky.  We hooked the monitor up to the laptop and it worked great.  The hard drive had survived the crash!  Our prayers were answered!  We did a complete backup and recovered our data.  Boy, was that a relief!!!