St. Thomas, Two Months In
We’re still here. Hanging out just outside Crown Bay Marina on a mooring ball a friend hooked us up with. Marinas in St. Thomas are averaging over $3000/month here, so nope, no chance we’re knocking out all of these projects in a marina.
Being close to the marina means we are close to a dinghy dock, which means we are close to land – thus life is easier. And when you’re knocking out boat projects on the regular, life could stand to be a little easier.
This Week’s Projects:
While the projects tend to overlap (as do the days, where does the time go!?!) the major projects we’ve knocked out since my last post (which covered most of our major stuff like Water Maker, Solar etc) include Cockpit Cushions, a fancy install of a Dometic stand-alone freezer, new ground tackle including a beefy Mantus M2 65lb anchor with chain hook and 250′ of new chain, plastic welding of cracks in BOTH of our water tanks and painting of the dinghy cowling. Whew! It’s been busy around here. There will be videos covering some of these, so keep an eye out for those!
Shipping to St. Thomas
St. Thomas is a great spot for doing these boat projects. While we do have to pay for shipping via Amazon, we can get orders here – typically within two weeks. We can also order from other US businesses as well, with no Duties. (heh heh) That’s a pretty big deal, after ordering things in the Bahamas and Grenada – neither of which Amazon ships to and both of which charge you for bringing things into country. This means we’ve been hitting Defender, Mantus Marine and Battle Born pretty hard.
Upcoming Projects
So what’s up this week? Well, I need to recover those 2 white bolsters in the cockpit – one at the helm and one on the aft seat at the table. I don’t love to sew curves or circles, so I will ponder for a while before diving in. (Shhh, I really don’t love sewing in general. But when you would rather DIY than get a job… 🤷🏼♀️)
We should get the genoa back this week, after dropping it off to have the sacrificial replaced. I shipped 20 yards of Sunbrella in our crate specifically to do the sacrificial AND the stack pack. But the sacrificial just was not happening in our cockpit. So off it went to a local sail loft. Which means, drum roll… I am tackling the stack pack next. (And consequently meant I had plenty of Sunbrella for those cockpit cushions!)
Yes. I 100% want to tackle the massive stack pack before doing those stupid round cushions. Straight lines, baby – I’m all about sewing those straight(ish) lines.
Mystery Project
Mark is prepping to knock out this mystery project while we wait on the batteries to be released from Customs Jail. That’s right! Our Battle Borns are ON ISLAND! Installing those along with the 3000 watt Victron inverter will wrap up the last of the major projects!
Covid Cruising Plans Post St. Thomas
So what’s next? What are we doing when we up anchor and sail on out of St.Thomas? That’s an excellent question! I think we will likely squeeze in a sail to St. Croix. That will get us a solid shake down sail under our belts before we head off. And, ya know, give me a chance to learn to sail this boat. Then we just have to decide if we’re going North or South… 🤔
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