This morning, we decided to go for a nice
walk around town. We stopped at a sandwich
shop and had the best breakfast sandwich ever.
We actually had to wait about 10 minutes because they were baking fresh
bread. That was a wait we didn’t mind! We had a bacon, egg, lettuce and tomato
sandwich on a hot, fresh from the oven baguette. Most yummy in my tummy!
While we were in town, we also picked up a
few groceries (2-dozen eggs, (4) small packages of grated cheese, (2) onions,
and of course (3) bottles of French wine!).
Back on Soulmatie, we decided to move to an
anchorage we’d seen on our way into The Saints. Pain de Sucre is only about 2 miles from town. It’s a cute little harbor with a small beach
and Hotel Bois Joli. We were hoping
we’d be able to get internet from the hotel but unfortunately, they were
secured sites. We’ll stop by the bar
sometime and see if we can get the password.
The water is quite deep right up to
shore. There were two other boats
here. One was moored (no one on that
boat) and the other was anchored in about 50 feet of water (seemed to be just
one guy on that one). We went in quite
close to shore and anchored in about 25 feet.
The holding wasn’t very good. It
was coral debris over sand. When we
snorkeled the anchor, it had dug in a little but not as much as we would have
liked. I think it’s going to be another
restless night worrying about holding!
There were several people at the beach, most
of them snorkeling. We’re hoping that
means it’s a good place to see lots of fishes!
We donned our gear and hit the water. Since we were so close to the shore, we
could snorkel to the shallows and didn’t need the dinghy. It was a great snorkel. We saw lots of stuff we’ve never seen before
(or at least, not for a very long time) but it was funny, there was like one of
each. We saw one puffer fish, one
scorpion fish, one spotted drum, one flounder, one eel … but there were lots of
fishes overall and it was a great snorkel.
For dinner, Larry made his awesome Grouper
Picatta and we shared a bottle of French wine we had bought in town. Overall, A+ day.
However … like they say … all good things
must come to an end …
About 4am, the winds began to howl fiercely
and brilliant flashes of lightning lit up the skies. The storm was right upon us.
Lightning struck somewhere … a little too close for comfort. Within minutes, the heavens opened up on us
and a deluge of water fell. We watched
our GPS as the distance to our anchor point grew from about 50 feet to almost
200 feet. Were we dragging? God, I hope not otherwise Larry will have to
go out in that weather while we try to reset.
We waited with baited breath.
Luckily, it seemed to settle around the 150-foot point. Larry checked things out on Soulmatie. He went to grab his flashlight off our
“charging shelf” (a shelf in our rear cabin where we charge everything from
flashlights and camera batteries to kindles and razors). Now that shelf was a puddle of
rainwater. It turns out, the port just
above the shelf decided it needed a good cleaning I guess because it developed
a leak and was allowing water to pour in, in a heavy stream. Damn!
All that electrical stuff was soaked.
The camera chargers/batteries were completely wet. (Please don’t let them be ruined or no more
pictures until we can replace them!).
My new Paperwhite Kindle sat smack dab in the center of the puddle. (Surprisingly, it seems okay. The cover got quite wet but the kindle
itself only had a couple of drops on it).
I’m hoping Larry caught it in time and all will survive!
It rained non-stop for a couple of
hours. The winds and rains showed no mercy. So much for sleep. We might as well just stay up!
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