I wake up after a good night’s sleep around 6am. Immediately my eyes open I want to look at the weather forecast but don’t know how to connect the mass of internet cables so I have to wait for Mike to get up to do it.
The situation is slightly more favourable to us in that the system has slowed down and shows less signs of developing. I wait for the 8am update which is even more encouraging. They are going to send an aircraft up into it this afternoon which will give a more definite picture.
Per arrives to do battle with our electrics again. We leave him for a while to take the laundry in and get some shopping. For once I give in and pay someone else to do the laundry, partly because there don’t seem to be self-service laundrettes here, and partly because even if we found one close by, I don’t think I could summon the energy to do it.
Photo: Per working upside down in the engine compartment!
The 2pm picture shows little difference in the weather but I am now told that this is not particularly good news. It could just be sitting there gathering steam! It has now slowed down from 15mph to just 10mph and seems to be going more north than west.
Mike and I decide to start preparing the boat. We take down the genoa and with great difficulty, start to feed it into one of the bow lockers. Usually one would lay it out on a dock and carefully fold it. Not in this case. The wind is blowing around 20 knots so we settle for shoving it through the hatch as unceremoniously as possible. At one point Mike actually gets into the locker with it to pull it in, and I can’t see him ever being able to get out but he squishes himself round the edge and emerges. We take the barbecue off too, but with the system still so far out, it seems too early to do anything else.
Per’s friend, Owen, comes over to advise him/us about installing the long range radio equipment that we need for the World Arc. The list of required items is as long as my arm and we also discover that the antennae tuner we have is not the right one and a new one will cost nearly $500. Great.
On top of that, poor Per has looks like he is losing the battle with our new inverter/charger. After hours of leaning into the engine hole and scrabbling around on the floor with bits of cable, trying to trace things back to their origins, it is finally all hooked up but nothing happens. By this time it is dark, there is no air conditioning and I am cooking dinner for the three of us with a miner’s lamp clamped to my forehead as the bloody galley light won’t come on. We also have no electricity outlets working and the computer has run out of battery power.
Eventually after reading the blurb (that old RTFM advice) he fixes the problem, we get power back and the air conditioning and at last we can eat dinner a little happier. Only a little happier, mind. The 8pm status has upgraded our little weather system to Tropical Storm Erika, although she is now expected to arrive Thursday morning to the north of St Martin. Due to the way these tropical cyclones work, it means that we will be on the ‘quieter’ side of the storm. Things could still change. And there was a lovely sunset – the lull before the storm? Tomorrow we will get Jeannius into a marina to weather it out.
Photo: Mike on the lookout for Erika!
Photo: Sunset in Simpson Bay Lagoon
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