Clearing customs was uneventful other than the overtime fee to work on a Sunday. So it only took 1.5 hours. We are currently motoring up the coast to drop anchor and go ashore to restock with food and adult beverages.
It’s a beautiful day. Sunny, blue sky, blue water it’s awesome.
Beautiful this morning, slept I’m till 8:30 when the boat behind us wanted to move. Well we did set pretty much on top of them last night. Oh well, we are only going to be here to clear customs. They probably should have slept in too. And then we would be gone out of their way.
Off to clear customs
Wowzers what a day, no wonder tourists are always worn out!
Christine and I were up early and we decided to get the show on the road so to speak, and drop the ball and motor to another Bay where we could clear out of the country and see something different. The bay we went is called Prickly Bay. Its has a full service boat yard, island version of West Marine, called Budget Marine, and a small marina. The disposal was at the boat yard so we explored that first dropping of a bag of empty bottles and Christine checked on the rates for storing a boat there. They are already booked up and max width they can handle is 25 feet, we are 25 feet and a few inches, so it would be extremely close.
Then it was over to clear customs and immigrations. Nice office, outside patio where you can fill out the forms and very nice and helpful people. I think this is the first time Christine and Wayne got to see that side of things as we already cleared into the country they could stand around and watch the 45 minute ordeal. Then down to the watering hole to get the obligatory beer after filling out all the paperwork in sixtiplet, with real carbon paper between each page. Thats alot of pressure required.
We had read about a Rum Distillery that does tours and a Chocolate Factory that does tours as well. Next we found a Taxi complete with Rastaman, Bernard that wanted to show us around his lovely island. Of course, where the Rum and Chocolate are made are on the exact opposite side of the island.
We did it all, the tasted / sampled the Rum and Chocolate. 5 hrs later we almost missed sunset on the way back to the boat, which was still right where we left her, for what was supposed to be a quick trip ashore to clear customs. We got back so late that we decided to stay put, instead of going over to TrueBlue bay that was our original thought for tonights anchorage.
We are wiped out, I made some porkchops and grilled veggies – Wayne didn’t even stay up for dinner.
Tomorrow is our long sailday, leaving at first light. Hope that the weather forecast is correct that calls for winds out of the East at round 10knots. If we don’t get the good winds its going to be a very long day. There are a couple of oil platforms about 1/2 way there, so it’ll be alot like sailing the Gulf of Mexico.
Internet in thie bay is terrible, lots of signals but none that stay connected very long, course I’m only using the ‘free’ ones. It works but its painful, we overheard another cruising couple talk about how bad even the pay HotHotHotSpot is, I just put up with it. So no chance for uploading pictures today of all the touristy things we did, even having a monkey sit on our shoulders.
Someone left their dog on a boat in front of us, and its crying. I sure hope they show back up before I hit the hay.