Outta Here :))

We finally checked out today and are leaving first thing in the morning. We are heading for Anguilla for a rest. We want to play. Our future updates will be more about the Islands and cruising life, than work so stay tuned and we will update with some good stuff soon. Until then we will be out sailing :) and enjoying.

Final Preparations

We're making our final preparations to leave Sint Maarten....the major work is done and we're finishing up the little things. All the navigation lights are working now, it might have taken us a little longer that we thought, because of Mike's new tradition of taking siesta's....look at that innocent face...back to work. We have the water maker plumbed in but haven't started it yet, cause the water in the lagoon ain't the cleanest. We start provisioning the boat now and we'll set a departure date.
Lots of excitement in the lagoon as the winds have been gusting up to 30 knots. A guy from the boat yard launched a couple of days ago and anchored right next to us. He dragged all night and the next day, at one point we went over and helped him re-anchor. Mike was driving the boat around the lagoon while the guy cleaned the mud off of his anchor and I tried to help Mike by telling him what was in front of him - not good visibility from this guys cockpit. His anchor is a Claw and he swears by it......in our opinion it makes a terrible anchor, but it makes a great channel dregging tool :)
In between the gusts of 25 knots we had to climb the mast to fix all the lights, we didn't think to check it when we had the mast off in the boat yard..lesson learned. So Mike goes halfway up the main mast to fix the deck light and steaming light...he wanted down. He told Kim it was her turn to learn to climb the mast, and she should go to the very top to change the bulb in the Navigation light. Mike likes it better at the bottom. The wind seemed to gust as soon as Mike started to climb, but when it was Kim's turn, calm...we were also battleing the rain that day little squalls would come in, off course only when Mike was up :) So now there's work to do on the Mizzen mast...guess who's going up..yup-Kim.
Here's a picture of our anchorage from the top. The boat you see directly behind us is called Pura Vida - a pure life. They seem to like to run around naked, so sometimes we eat inside the boat. We saw them on the beach on Christmas too...yup naked. Bye the way there like 60, and the son is about our age. Lots of good stories in the anchorage. At night we just relax and watch the sunset, the boats and the neighbors and hope they have some clothes on.
Our first destination will be Anguilla, we're going to take a day sail and have some fun, then go over to Road Bay, drop the anchor - take a much needed break from boat work and explore the island, read some books and figure out our next destination. It's all good here and we wish everyone back home well. Cheers Mike and Kim

The Good Life

Just a quick update..we have wireless connection now, but the connection is slow and unreliable where we are (it's free access at Shrimpy's so we can't complain :) We are now on a mooring. It belongs to someone we met in the boatyard, and they are not ready to go in the water yet, so we traded our air conditioner for it's use till we leave. It's really nice, we have a great view. We are almost there, just a few more projects and we can head out the bridge and start our first cruise. Till later, Mike and Kim