Assembling the Troops

We are finally all together with the arrival of Dennis! Dennis arrived yesterday on the same flight out of Miami that Patrick and I did days earlier. This means now that with us all in the same boat, we can look for symptoms over next days to confirm none of us have contracted the virus.

Upon Dennis’ arrival he promptly dropped is eyeglasses into the Caribbean Sea near the dock in Christiansted. We were unable to locate the glasses in the clear water, so we rushed the boat to take on snorkeling gear and have another look. Patrick showed off his underwater prowess and found the glasses… Crisis averted!

Yesterday was further filled with maintenance and housekeeping. Ian went up the mast twice to sort out a faulty wind indicator. We also made yesterday wash day with changing all sheets and laundering clothes (having a wash machine onboard is a godsend!). Bathrooms were cleaned and as Ian said, “A general tiddying up”. Apparently, that is the difference between crewing on a yacht on passage and episodes of “Below Deck”, we don’t have legions of deckhands at our service to clean up. We do that ourselves. Funny how tiddying up a sailboat just feels better than cleaning up your apartment.

Tomorrow begins the above schedule with Patrick up for kitchen duty! Now if you have ever sailed on boat for more than a daysail you would know that storage is a premium and food and provisions tends to be stored all over the boat (Patrick located coffee and spaghetti noodles in the space under his bunk), therefore, knowIng what food we have to use in meal preparation is challenging. Not only do you have think up a meal, but you have locate all necessary ingredients from various points around the boat. This should be interesting.

On a completely different note, I was made aware of how Hurricane Insurance works. I did not realize, but if you have insurance on your boat in the tropics and you sustain damage from a named tropical storm and submit a claim citing the named storm as your reason for the claim. You can be denied the claim if are between certain certain latitudes (ie. in the tropics) and tied up to a dock. You are usually covered if you are actively evading the named tropical storm in the open sea, but not covered if you seek shelter of a harbor within certain latitudes. So, don’t play it safe, go for it! Or leave the tropics to begin with.