Despite being tired, we all wake up far too early and just potter around until it is time for Mike to go and get Per in the car – almost back to the airport again.
It is cloudy but apart from a few isolated showers, relatively dry, so when they get back, Mike goes off in the dinghy to Island Water World – his favourite haunt, and the scene of much spending. Today is no exception and he comes back with various pumps and repair kits as well as the much needed strap on thing to put our fishing rod into when reeling in. At $80 for a bit of plastic and a strap, I thought it was a tad expensive and we haven’t even got the harness part.
While we are waiting for Mike to come back, Johanne, Steve and I do some jobs around the boat. I try to clean off the tarnish from the front of the bimini frame before we put the windscreen back on. This is an awkward job which involves me lying down on top of the boat under the boom. Very glamorous!
Photo: Applying elbow grease to the bimini frame
As they are now dry, Steve carefully coils all the new warps on the deck, ready for them to be put away in the bow lockers. Hopefully the rain has now washed all the salt water from them. Johanne insists that she is helping but it looks curiously like watching to me!
Photo: Coiling the warps
With the new inverter/charger working, we leave Per fitting the battery combiners. These will combine the charging from the engines and the generator to the batteries (and if it sounds like I don’t know what I am talking about here, you would be correct in your assumption as I don’t understand electricity). We go up the road to the Ace hardware store to buy some household type stuff. I get a new frying pan, a proper basket to put my condiment bottles in, a pressure cooker (to keep cooking times to a minimum on long passages and preserve our gas) and storage boxes. Johanne gets one of those battery operated fly zappers shaped like a small tennis racquet which I know she will get a great deal of enjoyment using!
We head back to the boat as Per wants to test out the new system. It works. We have a spot of lunch, then leave him once more as we head out to Phillipsburg in search of a camera for us and a phone for Johanne. We end up in Klass Electronics, although Mike and I do check out the prices in a couple of other places. They don’t have the exact camera we want (this is the usual story) but have a very similar one. When we think about it, the one they have is a better bet as the original one has features we would probably never use and would be slightly more expensive. We end up buying the Panasonic DMC ZS1 (for some reason called the DMC TZ6 in Europe) with 4 gig of extra memory. Johanne is really pleased with her new phone too.
There are lots of shops in Phillipsburg that Johanne and I want to explore without men looking over our shoulders, and as we still need a printer/scanner, we send Mike and Steve off to buy one and have a beer, thus leaving us alone to meander.
Phillipsburg has undergone a transformation over the last couple of years and the two main shopping streets, Front Street and Back Street, both running parallel to the beach, have been block paved and planted with fully grown palm trees.
Photo: Shops along Front Street, Philipsburg
Photo: View from the end of the cruise ship dock
I treat myself to a Dior liquid eyeliner pen, although I doubt that I will be able to apply it as well as my niece, Alice does. Johanne manages to get her elusive Lancome lipstick so we are both happy, although I doubt we have come away with bargains!
On the way back to the boat we stop at the large supermarket and I dash in to buy two years’ supply of my beloved truffle creams, both the white and the black. I am beside myself to find that they have neither in stock. These are the most amazing products by a company called Roland. If you have nothing in the cupboard except pasta, a couple of tablespoons of this wonderful stuff make a gourmet meal, worth every cent of their huge price tag. I really wanted these for our long trip and could cry.
It is past 6pm when we get back to the boat, and Per is still working. Steve and I put the sun shades onto the bimini then we have a glass of bubbly before Johanne and I set to on a rather delicious bottle of sauvignon blanc. I have never tried this one before but highly recommend it. It’s a Sonoma County one (note Malcolm!), a 2006 Rodney Strong Estate Charlotte’s Home.
We are soon giggling and shrieking like schoolgirls. Per finds it all very amusing and sometimes confusing especially when Steve, completely straight faced, uses the expression pear-shaped and we all roll around in hysterics (you had to be there!).
He takes our dinghy back to his boat and will be back in the morning to finish off.
By this time it is getting so late that we can’t be bothered to cook and just make some hummus. Johanne digs out a packet of nougat which is also quickly devoured and she and Mike manage to get through a bottle of red wine.
Johanne then decides it’s time for me to sample the delights of her music. Now you have to understand something here. In the past, Mike has banned her from bringing CDs because her music tastes, to us anyway, are slightly …… let’s say dodgy! David Cassidy, Barry White …… need I say more? She now has an iPod and we can’t ban her from this, so she selects tracks for me to listen to, insisting I will like them. I don’t. Neither does Steve. Mike flatly refuses to go anywhere near the ear plugs and escapes to bed.
A lovely day!
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