Sapodilla Bay

A blissful still night’s sleep and a lie in. We had our morning cup of tea in bed with our jaws dropping at the escalating Corona Virus pandemonium. All getting a little scary as we wonder how we will ever get home, with airlines closing and more and more countries going into lockdown. Time flew by getting in contact with everyone and authorising poor old Coco to be taken to the vet…..poo troubles poor boy! Suddenly we realised the Diesel engineer was arriving in 10 minutes, to do our next major oil change service for both Pole Pole and Jeldi Jeldi. We were both a bit dubious about their rather drug dealer-ish looks, and impressive dreadlocks, but they turned out to be absolutely delightful – friendly, helpful and tidy (not a drop spilt anywhere).

We had to decide our next move, as strong winds have moved forward to Thursday and Friday, which means we should try and get half way to the Dominican Republic tomorrow and hide away from the looming big wind on Big Sand Cay that Bob has recommended. Realising that countries are closing in on us, we thought we better go and do a big provision purchase, then catch the afternoon high tide out into the bay around the corner, where we can anchor and have another early morning departure without having to worry about catching the tide.

Bob offers a curtesy shuttle to the big supermarket at lunchtime. You get an hour while he lunches there in the shopping area with his mates. However it is Island timing as he arrived nearly an hour late – he blamed the bank, which is true I’m sure. However it gave us a good opportunity to get to know our German neighbours as they were waiting to go to the shops too. My goodness they put us to shame, they had the boat purpose built for them, 52 foot and 20 tonnes, designed to go anywhere – the explorer version. They crossed over the Atlantic from Germany last August after years of getting ready by doing endless courses including an Atlantic crossing. Poor lady hasn’t had a lot of luck as she broke her leg not long after departing which meant returning to Germany for 6 weeks, then the two of them did the Atlantic crossing, which she loved, she is one tough nut! They have been in the Caribbean since November but she managed to get Dengue Fever in Martinique, had to have a local blood transfusion before being flown back to Germany to recover. What an ordeal… but she loves it and was back after another 6 weeks of convalescing. They had planned to head up the US coast to Maine, but now with the States closed they are going to go to Bermuda and then head back to Germany. They plan to do the North West Passage next, I’m just praying that this isn’t giving Rowan any ideas, as this caravanning on water is my limit!

We were so surprised how the town was so much more sophisticated than anything we saw in the Bahamas. It was a wonderful supermarket, and we filled a trolley with loads of provisions plus ONE pack of toilet rolls!

We invited our German friends for lunch which was fascinating listening to all their stories, including a course on how to deal with piracy…..eek I feel even more unprepared.

We have to check out with immigration as this is the last office we will encounter, a cat was arriving at the Marina at 4, so immigration was called to deal with both of us. We successfully checked out, and felt for the poor Cat who came in, an elderly couple who made a complete hash of mooring, crashing into boats and having everyone shouting and screaming (the couple’s screaming being the worst to be fair) in the chaos.

That put a bit of pressure on our departure, not to get any lazy lines around our prop. Thankfully it all went to plan as we waved goodbye to our German friends and Bob, and his dog Maddie (we were friends for life as we gave her left over pork skin on our arrival).

A few too many ship wrecks about

We went and anchored at Sapodilla bay around the corner. There were 4 cats at anchor and the beach looked rather fun with a restaurant on it. Another beautiful sunset the only downside was the surge and we rocked back and forth all night!