Cruising around the Caribbean
A Lady
Stephen Hyde
Thu 26 May 2011 01:40
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WEDNESDAY 25th May
2011
Today , we spent most of the morning
clearing out of Antigua,
First we went to the Customs, the Port Authority,
and immigration, and paid dearly for our outbound clearances,
We had this on our way to Barbados as well, a
flipping exit tax, how about that !
anyway, from there back to the marina and cleared
ourselves from there as well, then set off across the bay and topped
up with Deisel,
I think we got done with the deisel, we had 300L on
board in our tank, we hold 1040 L of fuel ( 1 ton ) so all we
really
needed was 700L,
Skipper said to the dock master, " fill her up" and
skipper watched every drop going into the boat untill she would take no
more.
" thats 205 gallons " said the dock master, then
when skipper went to the office to settle the account, the girl says
its Imperial gallons, strange, everywhere else in
the caribbean deals in US gallons, skipper pointed this out, but got
nowhere,
this translates into 930 L plus the 300L already in
the tank = 1,230 L, thats 200 more than the tank holds.
and at $5.30 per gallon, thats a nice fiddle
for someone............. you just cant be up to the xxxxx's
16.00hrs, we motored out of the harbour,
and left Antigua behind, setting a course for Bermuda, but after a couple of
hours,
we worked out that even with everyone working flat out at the respective embassies to
fast forward Skippers passport
and visa, it was unlikely to reach Bermuda within
14 days from now, so we altered course and set sail for Virgin Gorda,
a mere 160 miles away. we can spend a few lazy days
there before heading north again,
When we were fully relaxed and settled down, we
cooked Spuds, baked beans & fried eggs for dinner and had them in the
starlight restaurant, after all, the wind was just
7 knots and we had one of thos rare occasions when the sea was almost dead flat.
Its a good thing we have a secret 200 L of diesel
hidden somewhere in the bilge. it might come in handy later,
Its great to be at sea again, especially with such
calm conditions,
Thats it for now,
signed :- Stephen hyde ( Skipper
)
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