Got the Generator fuel assembly removed and went to the authorized dealer to get a replacement assembly. It has been ordered but It won't be here for another week. I hope I can put it back together :) . So now on to other projects. The next big one is removing the stove to replace a part that is "conveniently" located on the back side. I've never done this before and I'm sure it is not going to be easy, that thing weights a ton. It may also reveal additional projects (as usual on a boat). I may have to pull out the sewing machine. I've been avoiding that. But it is going to rain for a couple days so interior jobs are good.
Tuesday is grocery shopping day. I have to reprovision the boat with goodies, running low of stocks. Looking forward to tomorrow's fresh bread delivery. That stuff is awesome!
Jupiter is vomiting again. Not sure why this time since he hasn't gotten into chicken bones for a while, so lots of rug washing on Music. Cinco is avoiding him for now. Winds from the South-east today, a bit unusual, but it is still very low humidity.

I think I have the laundry routine worked out. Fill a 5 Gal bucket with dirty clothes, add warm water, about 1/4 oz of "All Free Clear" (more if any oily or greasy clothes are in the bucket) and 1 oz of ammonia (more if is really dirty). If you have really dirty stuff — use more soap and ammonia but you will need to have a second bucket of clean water to rinse clothes when you pull them out of the wash bucket as the soap residue will cause mildew to grow. Take the bucket to the cockpit and stomp on the clothes with bare feet (while pant legs are rolled up and sunglasses are on — it looks cool that way). Let clothes soak in the bucket and repeat stomping every 30 min or so. After a few hours take out the cleaner laundry and hang on the life lines, let the dirtier stuff soak longer and get more stomps. There is only room for about 6 items on the sunny side of the life lines so having some clothes soak longer is good.
If you have really dirty stuff, pull out the wringer (mangler) and run the dirty stuff through it once or twice instead of stomping. The wringer is also used for thick items like towels to get most of the water out before hanging them to dry.
It is amazing how dirty that water is when you pull the clothes out. I do laundry about twice a week depending on weather. Last couple of wash days have been great cause the humidity is down near 50% here as a result of the cold front that passed last week. Clothes dry really fast this week.
If you have really, really dirty stuff, you can tie it in a mesh bag, secure a 30ft line to the stern and toss it over board while sailing. A few million gallons of clean sea water does a good job of cleaning, but then you have to rinse the stuff in fresh water two or three times using the wringer between each rinse to get all the salt out. You don't want to have salt in your clothing, it attracts moisture. Given the amount of rinsing, you safe a lot of fresh water by not using this method and instead increase the soap in the bucket, stomp more, soak longer, and use the wringer.
Washing the rugs is another deal. This is done by laying them on the bow and fetching multiple buckets of ocean water to more across them and then scrub this with a brush. Let them sit, fetch more water to run across them, repeat as needed. When done hang the rugs on the boom and secure them with the "preventer" lines (already lost one rug to high winds in the BVI cause I didn't use the preventer lines to secure it). The number of times this is done each day or week depends on Jupiter and Cinco. If either if them is sick then I'm doing this everyday or more. We have had a couple of days with no rugs in the boat because all of the rugs and the spare rugs were being washed and dried.

When trying to bleed the system again, I cracked the return fuel line on the Gen. Shut down the fuel and put a diesel diaper under it. Look like I'll be heading to Caribs Diesel Svc on Monday to see if they can get this thing to work. Otherwise, a nice day here, sunny, warm, partly cloudy, no wind. Cold at night. Wind is going to kick back in on Wednesday. Hopefully I can get the Gen started next week cause I want to head to St. Barts. Also need my mail to arrive before I leave.
Fresh french bread delivered to the boat this morning. Yummy. Will have more on Monday.
I have to run into town today to see if I can find some peas for the puppy jambalaya and hit the bank before my card expires (still waiting on the mail package for Jimi to arrive). Otherwise everything is going great St Martin is a really nice island, visit if you can. May be going on a hike Wednesday to the top of the mountain. More to come it I take that trip (no dogs allowed).
All metal zippers rust in this environment :)

It is through back Friday here and the station is playing 1972 music. Nice treat each Friday as they pick a different year. This has been really entertaining each Friday.
No wind today and this make hopping around Le Lagoon easy in the dink. It is hot as a result of no wind; however, tonight it will be 67 degrees so that will be cold (very cold for here). A few more project to do, but not much more. I will miss St. Martin (St. Maarten). This is a great place. The beaches we have seen are awesome and everyone is friendly. I'll go up on a bus to Grand Case on Tuesday (can't do it by boat cause of the northern swell). Should be a fun street party and great french food. I tried a french Rum yesterday (it was really BAD). I'll stick to island rum!
Just sent email to the sailmaker to see about my leech line problem. I should get a reply in a few days.
Still waiting for my mail package from Jimi, two weeks and still waiting.

Went to Lagoonie's today for a talk on Pacific sailing. It was good and got to meet some fellow yachters. When daddy is away someone pees on the rug. I think he pees when there is noise or other sounds that disturb him. Tonight I came back to see 3 pee spots. Looks like i'll be washing the run in the morning.
Island 92 FM is an eclectic station. They have "little Stevey" and Surf…

Running the engine today until she cycles through Bulk, Absorb and Float. I've been doing this every day, but today looks like the day when the batts are charged enough to cause her to cycle. Better that I see what she does in Le Lagoon rather than at Sea in adverses conditions. Otherwise a lazy day, need to do laundry tomorrow. It is cold at night, I had to pull out a blanket. Making a big spaghetti sauce tonight to store some in the freezer. Have to go shopping to re-provision the boat on Friday. Running out of snacks and other things.
After 8 hours of engine time, the alternator regulator has cycled. All is good, she fully charged he Batts without overcharging them. We are in Float charge now at 11PM and slowly bleeding power. Awesome! The new alternator regulator is working as expected.

Ah yeh the gumbo was good. Re-bedded the port prism but cracked the glass in the process. I will have to find out how to get a new prism for that side. Went to Island water world to get items this morning, got most thing but a few thing I will have to pick up at an auto shop. Zippers rust in the tropics. My back pack is now useless as it is full of large legions of rust on the zippers. Oh well, I'll be looking for new back pack soon. Boat projects are moving along. I should be able to hold ice cream in my freezer again! Deck prism re-bedded but i cracked her trying to get her off. I'll check the Mason site to see where I can get a new one. Running the engine today to see if she will cycle through the charge profile.
My french is improving but when starting out from 1% going to 3% is a 300 percent improvement…but I still can't communicate in french.
We are going to a Bistro this afternoon for dinner.

The day started with rain and winds until 9AM. I finished working on defrosting the freezer and recharging and testing the system. Got more fuels for dink and mixed the oil and Seafoam. Started taking the port prism apart. It will get re-bedded tomorrow. The alternator regulator appears to work but I have yet to get her to cycle through her program. I'll try that on Tuesday since we are nearly fully charged now. I'm trying to get internet access, but my MiFi is not appropriate for the French Islands, stuck with bistros that provide free wifi. Next time I go to Marigot, I'll bring my Droid Phone and see if that will work. Winds are calming down and so are the seas. Have to start planning my next destination.
Cold again tonight, 74 deg, I'm going to have chicken and sausage gumbo :) Last batch in the freezer that I had to take out to thaw it out and recharge it.

Not much combing on the dogs… I got the major mats and tangle out, but they are a pain to deal with when cutting their hair. Hopefully this will improve over time. Not much today, defrosting the freezer/fridge so i can get her recharged. Temps were getting into the mid 20's on the freezer and that is not good. Been eating everything out of the freezer for a few days to make it easier to defrost.
A Cold front passed. It is 74 deg at night and that is really cold. I've debated pulling out my wool, really. I think my blood has thinned a bit. I also had to take a fleece blanket out for the past two nights. 86 deg in the day and low 70's at night. Going to see if I can get a Mifi SIM chip this week. That will greatly improve my Internet access. For now I rely on Shrimpy's for internet every other day or so. Still have a few boat projects to do while here, but already thinking of the next destination.

Going out for dinner tonight with the Salty Dawgs. Mike of Shrimpy's said that "Le Canal" is a dog friendly Bistro. That means the puppies are coming with me to dinner. We are anchored in Marigot Bay and the new outboard has one more hour of run time at 1/2 power to break her in after that we can run at 3/4 power (more than enough for my little dink). On Friday I'll take here into the Lagoon and head up the the Chandlery. I also have to go into town to pick up the cell phone that is being unlocked and get a Digicell SIM card and a local phone number. So don't call me on my old number. That account will be disconnected shortly.
The water here is 5 deg cooler than in the BVI - 77 deg instead of 82 deg. It's a big difference when you dive off the boat into the clear blue water.

We left the marina today and are now anchored out in Marigot Bay. I started the break in period for the new outboard motor. 10 min at idle, then 2 hours at 1/4 power…. I only made 30 min at 1/4 power… Hopefully we will get the next 1.5 hours by noon on Thursday. Otherwise all is going good. I have to deliver the starter for the Gen set to an electric show tomorrow but only if the motor can run at 1/2 power came the motor place is a couple mlles inside the lagoon on the Dutch side of the island.

As with most boat project once you start it your realize that additional projects are required. I was having problems starting the generator. I think I know why. However, in the process of trying to start her last week I fried the starter motor. So the boat project was to manually crank the engine to make sure she had compression and was not back flooded with water and remove the burned up starter. The first part of that went well once I found my Auto 1/2 socket set. The engine is not flooded and she can be manually turned. The second part was tough and at my first attempt I quit, that is removing the starter. Today I realized that the generator had shifted 3 inches to port and that the brackets holding the generator in place were poorly positioned and allowed the generator to shift port/starboard. I removed the brackets and manually tugged and tugged on the generator to move it to starboard and then some. That worked and now I had access to the starter bolts. I then tried to find the right size wrench… 14mm, almost, 1/2 not so, 9/16 was the magic number. But before I could even really crank on the bolts, the ground cable just came off. I think this is the source of my original problem starting the generator. If a ground cable, a 2/0 tinned cable, just comes lose, then there was not enough connectivity for the power draw. Get the bolts out and remove the starter. Oh, the starter power connection is 13mm. Only in America can a product use both English and Metric bolts. (Why hasn't everyone gone to metric for bolts???). The positive power cable is also connected using a cheap lug. So now that this has been pulled I need to find someone to rebuild the starter (I have no experience doing that and would mess it up). But the additional project are to get new lugs for the power cable that fit the bolts. I have one that will fit the 13MM positive post, but will need to get one to fit the 9/16 bolt for the ground. In addition, I'll have to mount some teak stop blocks to brace the generator from shifting port/starboard and then reposition the steel clamps to support the generator. Ahhh boat repairs in exotic places. It is 4PM and I'm just quiting today's projects. Have to run down the road and get either wine or rum to go with my Gumbo tonight. We will be leaving Fort Louis Marina at about 2:00PM on Wednesday. We will be anchored out in Marigot bay until the starter is fixed.

Today I purchased a new outboard motor to replace the one that Neptune took on the crossing to St. Martin. Only 1900 Euros, for a two cycle 9HP Tohatsu. My 6HP 4 cycle Tohatsu cost over 2000 USD. All the same this was an unexpected expense. I have some Spectra line that I will use to secure this one to the pulpit. Got lots of other things done but not the full list that was on today's "to do" list. I didn't finish boat projects until 4PM today and that is a violation of the routine… Oh well, its a boat and there are always boat projects. We will leave the marina in the next couple of days now that we have an engine for out "car". Tonight it is raining and cool, so I've pulled out some chicken and sausage gumbo for dinner.

On Sunday, the my original sailing instructors (Andy and Lisa) pull into the slip two down from me. We talked and made arrangements to have dinner on the waterfront. Over dinner they said the Marigot has a festival for New Year's Day. We could hear music from a couple of blocks away. We walked down after dinner and this was people watching experience. Little kids in the main square wearing lights and playing, teens on dates and parent on the steps surrounding the square. Caribbean music and dancing on the main stage and vendors all around. On the way back to the marine they said they usually have fireworks as part of this festival. Un known to me, a barge full of fireworks has anchored at the end of the pier where my boat is docked. At 9:00PM the explosions started less than 200ft from the boat! Really awesome to be this close to the launch of the fireworks. For a little while I was debating getting a fire extinguisher to defend agains hot embers. It was a nice night in Marigot.

Jupiter woke me this morning at about 9:00. I stayed up for the fireworks. 8 different sites around here had fireworks. Too much to absorb.
Made a batch of puppy jambalaya and had red beans and rice for lunch. Almost everything is closed today. It is very quite around the marina today. A few boat chores to do before things get going again on Monday. Happy New Year to all. Puppy blog should be working now. As usual, they watched be prepare the latest batch of puppy jambalaya with non-blinking attention just in case I might spill a bit or two on the floor.