Mike and Steve have lots of little engineering type jobs to do on the boat so Johanne and I leave them to it and go for a shopping into Marigot.
Firstly, though, I am forced to have my dinghy driving lesson. I haven’t driven the dinghy since the day after the hurricane last October, when I was made to take it back across the expanse of the lagoon. I was terrified all the way and pottered at about 1 mile an hour. Me not using the dinghy has been a great inconvenience to both of us and makes me highly reliant on Mike.
Johanne, Mike and myself get in. Johanne manages this quite gracefully (for a change) and we all clap. Mike starts the engine as it is always difficult to start from cold then I take over, telling him that I want him to take over immediately if I get too close to anything and look like I might hit it. I start off and before I have got the hang of which direction the tiller takes me I head straight back to Jeannius and start shouting at Mike to take over. He doesn’t immediately as we are still quite a way off but I am almost paralysed with fear as we approach. He steers us away and I take over again. This time I get the hang of it and manage, albeit it slowly, to get us to the dinghy dock unscathed.
Some men on the dock must have heard Johanne’s reputation as regards to getting in and out of dinghies (well boats in general actually) and stand waiting to offer her assistance. How nice.
We wave Mike off and trundle off around the shops. There are some lovely shops in Marigot, a real mixture of designer stuff, local stuff and tourist tat. There are some bargains to be had as we are in low season but neither of us are taken enough by anything to bother. Johanne buys me a new bikini, a bargain at $13 which, after nearly two hours of traipsing around the shops is all we have to show for our efforts. Sometimes your heart just isn’t in it, although for me, I think it’s the appearance of the poodle head which greets me in the changing room mirror which puts me off! (I let my hair go curly yesterday, much to Steve’s amusement.)
To get cool, we finish our shopping trip in the West Indies Shopping Mall opposite Marina Fort Louis, a complete contrast in appearance and contrast to the tourist market by the docks.
We call Mike and Steve for a lift back and sit on the dock to wait for one of them to come. By this time, Johanne has been walking without her shoes as her feet and ankle are so swollen and hot.
I manage to drive the dinghy back to the boat without mishap so will now be expected to do this on a regular basis, which is probably a good idea to get me over my worry. Back on the boat, we can see that the boys have been busy as there is evidence of this all over the cockpit.
While Johanne and I were in Marigot, they have fitted a new bilge pump in the starboard engine room, dismantled the old pump from there and the hull bilge pump and hopefully made one good pump from two bad ones. They also managed to remove one of the main sheet guides although not the second one. Steve, our friendly grease monkey, is going to take it back with him and make some new parts for Mike to fit back on the boat.
Beer cans are also littered around the cockpit but they have not thought of making any lunch, just waited like two little baby birds with open mouths, waiting for Johanne and I to arrive and fill them.
We make a lovely salad and as by now it is 3pm, we all go for a nap. It’s very hot though and sleep is difficult to come by. Eventually we find out that it is so hot because Johanne, ever vigilant about pirates, robbers and rapists, got up and shut the main salon doors so there was no flow through of air. She won’t do that again!
We decide to go for dinner at O Plongeoir, as we had such a lovely meal there last time, but when we ring, a recorded message says they are closed until some time later in September. I didn’t catch it all as it was in rapid French and Skype kept cutting out. We try to call the St Severin restaurant too but there is no answer there either. And I had even straightened my hair specially for going out! We hastily defrost something to cook and watch the ‘too hot for TV’ version of Mock the Week which is really funny. Two bottles of wine later (the Suttons are such a bad influence!) we all slide off to bed, leaving the washing up for Johanne in the morning. Well, she offered!
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