A wonderful lazy morning checking email, doing some small projects and cleaning up. We partook in some fabulous omelets before heading ashore around 9a. We needed to find euro and swing by the market for 2-stroke oil to make dingy fuel. We went to carefore, great market in the islands, and I found a woman who worked there, spoke English and walked me down the street to the bakery to get euro! Yes, she was French! All of the ATM machines don’t work, the bank and post office were closed when we arrived yesterday and very few places take plastic. Some will take visa but all of our European cards are MC. My bank card is visa so that will be scary returning to that bill when we get back. Anyway, the lady was soooo nice. We have so e euro and can start our walk. We are armed with 4.5 liters of water, bug spray and sunblock and head for the largest mountain on the island.

Le Chameau is famous here for its majestic views and 1000′ elevation. It took several hours and many stops to get there but we all did it. Fitbit said it was close to 9000 steps and 112 floors. Of course a squall hit at the top so we waited for it to pass in the fort-super funny! Anyway the way down was much easier and faster but when we got to town it was siesta and Sunday so all was closed Exocet one bar where we saddled up for some r&r! Gorgeous sunset and quiet night on the boat.

Time for rest or at least to sleep in and lime around the boat instead of pushing north. We have one more long passage from Les Saints to Antigua, where we will spend some days on the hook and not sailing as much or moving about.

So far, other than the fire onboard, and not my cooking – every thing is working as it should. Some small things, like the port fuel filter keeps showing grunge from the tank, so we drain that in the pre – check process.

Before setting out each day time we go through fluids check on each engine, check oil, water, transmission levels, look at the bilge pumps strainers, and fuel filter bowls, if anything needs topped off that is done. Then we start up the engines and check for good water flow and nothing sounds different than it should. With the sail drive maintence we also check forward and reverse is working on both sides. Thats where the fire came from the port sail drive wouldn’t shift into either gear but the throttle worked in neutural. Seems those high output alternators ARE capable of welding, the cable inside was welded tight. Good thing we had a spare from the previous owners who had replaced those cables and left the old one on board.

The long bumpy days make cooking a bit of a challenge, but still managed to get some grub to keep the natives from going cannibal. On the long leg from martinique, we left at dawn and just after we had mailsail up the waves started so breakfast quesidillas would wait till the lee of dominica some 2+ hrs away so some light fruit was enough to hold.

So far, less adult beverages are being drained. We are making that up in the diesel we are using to keep making good time in the bash or making the wind angles work with some help of the engines. Should clean out all the gunk in that port tank in no time.

When we get to Antigua, we will need some fruit and beer, maybe then we’ll find time for jello.

Weather is supposed to be in our favor (lighter winds, smaller seas) for the next 2 days, one long sail to Antigua, and maybe on to Barbuda.

Today we rest and hike about Les Saints in search of the almighty Euro, the 3 cash machines on island 2 are broken, the 3rd is unable to complete transaction at this time for anyone who tries, and since its sunday I doubt we find it works any better today than it did last night.