Wednesday 2-24 Day 6

We get up early and by 8am they are back working on the boat. Paul starts working on the hull to try to bring back the color.
I pull out my sewing machine and make more screens for all the heads and replacement screens for the port companionway and above the stove.

Brian from Offshore Marine shows up to replace the engine harnesses on both sides to see if we can get the start and stop buttons and the gauges to work again. It is quoted to us that it should take about 2 hrs. per engine. By 1:30pm Brian is almost finished with the stbd engine. He heads out to lunch and upon return finishes that engine and begins the port engine. The stbd engine had a number of issues with the wiring. TMM when something wouldn't work would just cut the wires and add new wires. It was a mess. By 4:30 Brian is done.

At this point we still have not seen our new shaft and assorted components. Paul goes to check as to what it happening and finds that they have started working on something else instead of finishing our shaft and a new shaft nut that was determined to be needed. Gene the owner, is ticked off because they need to put us back in the water first thing Thursday along with Lisa & Andy's boat because of the 145ft. boat that needs a prop put on. Gene tells the guys to work late and they say that they will be back at 6am to finish up.

At 5pm Andy from the sailboat Zingaro proceeds to ask me a business question. He has a QuickBooks problem and can't back-up his file because it is corrupt. I tell him "no problem" I can fix it easily. Well, 2 hrs later and an hour on the phone with Intuit tech support I finally repair his file. It is now 7pm and we have dinner and head to bed with the knowledge of an early start.

Day 5 – Work Continues

Oasis of the Seas Caribbean Princess from Monday night

See how much taller the OOS is above the dry dock!

We wake up a 6:30am and get ready to watch the arrival of the "Oasis of the Seas". We see the Pilot Boat head out, so we know that we will be seeing the ship very soon. A few minutes we can see the bow coming around the point. The thing is massive. We watch it pass and then it has to turn into its slip on the far side of the dry dock we are on. 4 bow thrusters and stern pods make the turn look easy. The amount of water that is being pushed is amazing. It looks like a giant swirling pool. The swirl grows larger and larger until it covers almost have the distance to the far shore. I wouldn't want to be the boats across the way. There must have been a huge strain of the moorings that they were on. The entire dry dock is pushed by the water. Luckily the mgr. of Sub Base had his guys put additional lines and a steel cable on the dry dock to keep it in place. It took about 30 minutes for the ship to come to its final rest place next to us. We are dwarfed by it. I can't imagine how tell it is, but the dry dock is 20ft. high and the ship looms at least another 50 ft. above that. We, up in the dry dock don't even come up to the level of the life boats. All the cabins first start above the life rafts. It is just HUGE! Hopefully I can get the video uploaded.

After the ship is settled in, work begins here. They continue to work to remove the shaft and once that is out they discover that the stuffing box seal is damaged. This is the stuffing box that we replaced last Feb. Whatever is causing the bearing to heat up has apparently done damage to the stuffing box seal. It is also decided that the cutlass bearing will be replaced. They now have to Fed-Ex these new parts in from Florida for Wed. as they must be finished by Thursday morning as we need to get off the drydock as they have the 145fter scheduled to be hauled first thing. Sure hope the parts arrive on time. So our haul on Monday and splash on Tuesday is a figment of our imagination. Guess we are stuck in this drydock until Thursday morning. Yuck! Great Vacation.

So we have been told that "Cruising" is just having expensive boat repairs done in exotic places. How true!

Paul has rebedded the swim ladder bracket and has spent the rest of the day putting another 2 coats of Island Girl Products on the hull. I have cleaned all the baby powder off the stored seat cushions and put them all in place. Seems like a rather lame job, but the process takes about 2 hours. I then had to clean the rest of the baby powder out of the forward stateroom where they have been stored while we are away. Getting all the cushions out creates this giant pile and then the real job is to decipher which ones go where. This time I get smart and after I am sure that they are all in the correct places, I mark each one as to whether it is for the cockpit, bridge, or forward seating pit. Never again will it be a puzzle!

At the end of the day, we head over to Lisa & Andy’s boat for cocktails. It is interesting how quickly you can make friends in a “dry dock”. We leave LuSea on Cattitude and she is Not happy. She continues to serendate us while we are having cocktails. At 7pm, Oasis of the Seas starts to leave the dock. We head to the back of the dry dock to watch her leave. Not as impressive as the arrival as it is now really dark. The only thing that we really see are all the lights onboard. Quickly, she moves out of sight. Afterwards, a quick dinner and bed. Tomorrow is another day.

Day 4 – Haul-out at Sub Base DryDock

We slept last night in Lindberg Bay. It was noisier than we would have liked, but there was no room at Honeymoon Beach. Lindberg is a really nice big, pretty much unused bay with good holding.

We got up at 7am so we could eat breakfast and then be ready to be lifted in the Dry Dock at the scheduled 8:30am. Did I mention that we are in the Caribbean…..Island Time. By 10am it is decided that another boat who has kissed a coral head yesterday would be lifted with us. That is good since we will now "share" the cost of the haul. By 10:30am we are finally starting the lifting process. It takes a good hour to get us on block and to raise the dry dock. We are in the new dry dock, the one that can hold a 145ft.+ boat. We are dwarfed by its size. It is now noon, we are high & dry, and the guys go to lunch. After lunch they proceed to power wash the bottom and to start removing the prop, shaft, and bearing.

I am in our stateroom finishing up the unpacking and hear banging under my feet. I go running out…..they are pulling the wrong side! Gene(the owner) didn't tell the me3chanics the proper side. Whew! We almost had a disaster with the work being done on the wrong side. They then proceed to the starboard side and start removing the prop, etc. It takes the entire afternoon to unbolt everything and by 5pm (quitting time) they still don't have the shaft out. Manana. Did I mention Island Time.

Paul has taken the free time to reassemble our new salon deck chairs. When he put them together the first time he ended up with spare parts when there should have been none. I spend the afternoon cleaning up and putting away more things. The basement is finally cleaned….sawdust is gone. Thank goodness.

At 5:30pm we have cocktail hour on the aft deck with our dry dock partners. They are Andy and Lisa and are on a very pretty dark blue sail boat named Zingaro. It turns out that they have been in the Caribbean since Nov 09 having sailed down from Maryland. They own a sailing school in MD. And have been having their students come down to meet them here to continue their sailing education. They had to sent the most recent students home because of the damage and repairs.

We share Carib's and snacks and Pate' that Lisa brought from St. Maarten. We watch the Caribbean Princess leave the dock next to us and watch her head out to sea. I took pictures of her because the "Oasis of the Seas" will be coming in at 7am and I want to compare size.

After Andy & Lisa leave we have a quick dinner of Chicken Cordon Bleu and head to bed. We want to get up early to watch the arrival of "Oasis of the Seas"

Day 3 – time to leave the marina!

We get up by 7, tho I am up at 6:30. We still have a lot to do before we leave. We have a big breakfast of eggs, sausage, and rye toast with OJ and coffee so that we don't need to stop work for lunch. Paul goes to take the car back, fill the fuel tank, and make one quick stop for 3 items that we missed the day before. While he is gone, I fill the 2 water tanks. While the tanks are filling I lay out the tarp that was covering the dinghy so that it dries before we put it away. The boat that had been next to us left sometime in the past 6 months and left behind their wooden dock box. We have now made claim to it and labeled it "Now, the Property of Cattitude" We are able to store the tarp, spare 100 ft. water hose, all the covers from the wet bar, cockpit table, and the bridge helm. We are able to also fit in the old charcoal BBQ grill that we have had in the aft storage compartment. Anything that we don't have to carry is a plus. We also start the daunting process of cleaning up the stuff in the basement. We carry it out onto the dock and brush or wipe it off, then it goes back into the basement onto cleaned surfaces. Paul repairs the fwd port head, drops all the anchor chain to hose the rust off and out of the compartment and sets up the dinghy. Paul also put the fender racks up along with the gas grill. Again, we get numerous showers. We have had more rain each day than I would have expected for February. Feb./Mar. are supposed to be drier months. All weather appears to be coming from the north, which is very unusual. The weather generally comes from the east down here. I guess maybe the weather that has been hammering the U.S. is making it way down here as rain. El Nino is at work.

By 2:30 we are ready to take off. We put the electric cable away, take water & electric meter readings. (you pay per gal. for water used and per KW for electric, so you want to be sure you know what your reading are when you leave. Don't want to be paying for someone else's use.) LuSea puts her lifejacket on and we head out with our first beer of the trip. Leaving the marina Paul has a problem with the stbd shift/throttle control. It stops working, then starts again, then stops once more and starts up. Seem to be working fine now, just tempermental, though they have been problematic for awhile.

We have a nice cruise over to Water Island. They rain stays away for the most part, but it is pouring over Charlotte Amalie and St. Thomas's south coast. Big black clouds and a perfect full rainbow. I think it is the most colorful rainbow that I have ever seen. So vivid.

Upon arrival at Honeymoon Beach, where we plan to spend the night, we find that it has no room in the anchorage for us. We decide to go to Lindberg Bay by the Best Western. It looks like a really nice anchorage (if you don't mind the planes flying low overhead. We just hope they stop flying early in the evening.

Best Western Carib Beach Best Western Emerald Beach
After a long 3 days, I vote that we should forego any additional work and have cocktail hour on the aft deck. Paul agrees and we watch the sunset with drinks and snacks. It has gotten pretty windy out and is darn right chilly. I have to keep reminding myself that it IS Feb. We haven't traveled in Feb/Mar in the last 5 years, so have forgotten the difference in temps. The kids definitely need to bring long pants and a long sleeve shirt.

After sunset I make the 2^nd half of our rotiserrie chicken with baked sweet & regular potatoes and vegetables Normandy. It is now 8pm and I decide to start the blog again. Paul heads down to bed with his Kindle and I type for an hour or so. The 2^nd blog has been typed and I loose my internet connection and loose the entire thing. Lesson learned, type in Word first and cut and paste into the blog.

By 9:30 I shower and off to bed. Tonite we will have no A/C so I am hoping with the cooler weather we will be comfortable. Tomorrow we have to be up early again to bring the boat to SubBase drydock to be hauled for bottom paint and a new stbd. shaft and bearings.

Day 2 – shop till you drop!

We wake up by 7:30 am and eat a quick breakfast. Benjy is supposed to be here by 8:30-9:00am to look at the situation with the door to the basement. He arrives at 9:30am (island time) and has Kiwi (the woodworker) with him. We all look at the situation and it is decided that Kiwi will take down the door and cut it shorter. After we come back from out month trip, he will fix the opening by putting a new filler piece in where the door was. He has agreed to cut the door down while we are out shopping. This will at least make the door usable for the trip because without doing the cut, we could not open the door over the bed mattresses.

It is also decided that we will have to do the additional cleanup in the basement. What a waste of our time, but we really don't want to have to pay to have it cleaned. (they swear that they did cover everything and taped plastic up, but it sure doesn't look that way.)

While Kiwi is on the boat, I talk to him about removing the helm seat from the salon. It has been one of the things that I have wanted done for a long time. Kiwi looks at it to see how it comes off and with a screwdriver and a little assistance from me. It is out. He also breaks off the 2 wood pieces that held the seat to the platform.

I am thrilled, but the removal left some sections with bare wood. The plan is to have Kiwi put a new laminate top on and match the wood trim….but that will be done after we leave. We also give Benjy our two "barrel" chairs from the salon with the hopes that he can find someone to buy them. We have purchased 2 new teak folding chairs with blue & green striped cushions to replace the old chairs. The salon is looking better and better!

LuSea trying out the new deck chairs

By 11:30 we are finally ready to start out shopping spree. We go back to Kmart to pick up a few things and some of the liquor (it is the cheapest place on island to purchase booze, go figure). Next we go to Cash & Carry and I pick up a plastic table runner to cover the bare wood marks where the helm seat was. While there I buy a silk flower arrangement…..don't tell Paul as I haven't put it together and out yet. I have always wanted some decorative flowers for the boat, but have yet to find any and he always just rolls his eyes when I say that I want them.

Next we head to Cost-U-Less (like our BJ's) to start buying the dry goods and beer/wine. While there it allows me to see what they have in the produce, meat, & frozen sections. We have decided that we will buy the dry goods and put them in the car first. Then we will head to Price Smart (like our Costco) to start the meat, produce, and frozen food purchase. Yes, this means that we have to backtrack to Cost-U-Less, but it allows me to see what they have and what I can get at Price Smart. It is totally worth it to do it this way as I get to choose the best of both stores. The funny thing about these stores as they have many of the same items that Costco has and many are Kirkland Brand.

After the two "big box" stores, just one more stop to the grocery store. I have been told that the "Plaza Extra" is a better place to grocery shop than the Food Center out by Compass Pt., so this is my first foray to this store. I am pleasantly surprised. It is just like a large U.S. grocery store with much more than Food Center. The prices are better than "Food Center" also. Here I buy the last 10 or so items and I am DONE! 4 hours start to finish, though we are a thousand dollars poorer. Can't believe how much we spent, but this is food and booze for the month and includes the 4 kids visiting for 8 days. Paul is shocked as to how much it cost, but he rarely knows what I have spent at the food stores at home.

We now have a Ford Taurus that is loaded to the gills. There is absolutely no room left and LuSea must sit in the front as there is no room for her anymore in the back. Back at Compass Pt. we start the daunting job of getting all the stuff to the boat. Our boat is at the furthest possible slip on the dock at the end of the T-dock. Luckily they have large rolling carts and we find 2 empty and proceed to fill them. At the boat I start putting away the cold items while Paul goes back to the car for another cart-full. After it is all at the boat, Paul heads over to American Yacht Harbor in Red Hook (about a 10 min drive) to buy blocks of ice. This appears to be the only location on St. Thomas that sells blocks. Unfortunately, the marina does not sell any ice. And additional ice we need we then have to go to Food Center to buy. Luckily we do have an icemaker, so that is running full time to make cubes.

We spend the rest of the afternoon putting away everything, in every imaginable empty spot. 2 freezers and 1 refrigerator are full to the brim. Not room for one more item. It is amazing how when we shop, I always seem to buy just what will fit.

After a long day, we eat an early dinner of a rotiserrie chicken that we had the presence of mind to buy. Certainly it made for easy dinner prep. Again, in bed by 8pm.

Day 1 – Off to the Caribbean!

Friday morning 3:30am Paul & I get up and get ready to go to the airport. We pick up Ashley at 4:15am as scheduled, tho Ashley when she gets into the car says that her alarm did not go off and she got up at 4:09am. We are off to JFK for the flight. Spend an hour on the line waiting to check in and pay for LuSea. That accomplished, we go thru security and all the carry-0n bags make it thru with no problem with the exception of the backpack that has a small cooler with the rest of the food that we are taking. It makes sense to just empty the NY fridge and take all the stuff with us instead of throwing it out or giving it away. Anyway, the TSA guy takes everything out of the cooler (hello.....I am trying to keep that stuff cold!!!) He looks at everything and swabs it all, no problems. Guess he figured we might try to sabatoge the plane with the 3 pkgs of cream cheese, or the frozen cold cuts.)

Our flight was delayed for about 30 minutes as they couldn't get one of the engines started, very comforting L. Otherwise, it was a totally uneventful flight. This is the first time that we have flown into St. Thomas and it is great! LuSea again was terrific, though at one point, we did hear some whining. Guess she wants the trip over with.

We arrive in St. Thomas and pickup our Budget Car Rental. As usual, the price quoted on the internet when I made the reservation is NOT what we are charged. Got to love the Caribbean.

We head out of the airport and go over to the Best Western Carib Beach which is right nest to the airport to see where we can pick up the kids in two weeks, and check in with the "Wedding Planner" about the possibility of having Tom & Jenn's wedding here or at the Best Western Emerald Beach down the road.

Next we are off to Kmart to get LuSea a new "potty" box.

LuSea's Potty Box w/ cover

From there we head out to Compass Point to get onto Cattitude. It is now 2:30 in the afternoon, 11 hours since we got up

Upon arrival, the first thing we note is that our cabin and the basement are filthy. We had contracted to have a door made between our bedroom and the adjoining "basement" room. Turns out that the door looks great, but it is cut too low to the floor and will not clear our mattress. Now this is a real problem. We put a call into Benjy our caretaker and make arrangements for the woodworker and Benjy to visit us in the morning on Sat. to review what needs to be done. The basement looks like they did nothing to protect the boxes and crates for storage and everything is covered in sawdust. We are pissed.

We unpack our bags, put away what we can and by 6pm have dinner. After that we are both exhausted and call it a night.

We have arrived

Friday morning 3:30am Paul & I get up and get ready to go to the airport. We pick up Ashley at 4:15amn(as scheduled, tho Ashley when she gets into the car says that her alarm did not go off and she got up at 4:09am. We are off to JFK for the flight. Spend an hour on the line waiting to check in and pay for LuSea. That accomplished, we go thru security and all the carry-0n bags make it with no problem with the exception of the backpack that has a small cooler with the rest of the food that we are taking. It makes sense to just empty the NY fridge and take all the stuff with us instead of throwing it out or giving it away. Anyway, the TSA guy takes everything out of the cooler (hello.....I am trying to keep that stuff cold!!!) He looks at everything and swabs it all, no problems. Guess he figured we might try to sabatoge the plane with the 3 pkgs of cream cheese, or the frozen cold cuts.)
Our flight was delayed for about 30 minutes as they couldn't get one of the engines started. Very comforting. Otherwise, a totally uneventful flight. This is the first time that we have flown into St. Thomas and it is great! LuSea again was terrific, tho at one point, we heard some whining. Guess she wants the trip over with.
We arrive in St. Thomas and pickup our Budget Car Rental. As usual, the price quoted on the internet when I made the reservation is NOT what we are charged. Got to love the Caribbean.
We head out of the airport and head over to the Best Western Carib Beach to see where we can pick up the kids in two weeks, and check in with the "Wedding Planner" about Tom & Jenn's wedding.
Next we are off to Kmart to get LuSea a new "potty" box. From there we head out to Compass Point to get onto Cattitude.

Upon arrival, the first thing we note is that our cabin and the basement are filthy. We contracted to have a door made between out bedroom and the adjoining”basement” room. Turns out that the door looks great, but it is cut too low to the floor and will not clear our mattress. Now this is a real problem. We put a call into Benjy our caretaker and make arrangements for the woodworker and Benjy to visit us in the morning on Sat. to review what needs to be done. The basement looks like they did nothing to protect the boxes and crates for storage and everything is covered in sawdust. We are pissed.

We unpack our bags, put away what we can and by 6pm have dinner. After that we are both exhausted and call it a night.

We start again

Today is our last day in NY. Tomorrow at 6:55am we fly to St. Thomas. We are sooooooo ready.

LuSea got her haircut last night, Paul got his yesterday and I got mine last Saturday.

Just need to pack up the food and put the cases in the car.

I still need to go to the nail salon, but that is it.

Just one more sleep in NY.

We need to do all the provisioning when we arrive this time, so we have rented a car for 2 days.

Monday, we head to SubBase to be hauled out for bottom paint and a new starboard shaft, bearings, and seals.

As soon as we splash, we will probably head over to the BVI side for a week or so.

Ashley & Kevin, and Tom & Jenn arrive on March 6th, in St. Thomas so we will head back to Lindberg Bay in St. Thomas to pick them up.

Should be interesting having all 4 of them aboard. This is the first time for Tom & Jenn and on the adgenda is looking for a place for them to get married and honeymoon in the next year or so.

After that, we will give them the "circle tour" of the BVI.