Mary E gets shafted, Bob’s next.

June 27 – July 3. Here is a mishmash of things that happened over the last few days.

The next few days we were going to be stuck in port while we waited for parts to repair Mary E.

We spent some time getting the necessary tools and parts we would need to effect repairs. We also did a grocery shopping at the local IGA. This grocery store was pretty amazing for being on a remote island. The produce was outstanding and the meats were amazing and probably the only thing on this island that’s reasonably priced.

A peculiar thing about this island is none of the roads have street signs making it extremely difficult to find things. For instance, we tried to find this laundry place called US Clean. It took three trips and several inquiries to finally find it. It was tucked away behind a huge cement wall with no sign on the building. Even the most logical entrance into the parking lot wasn’t accessible because of an unfinished roadway. Speaking of unfinished there are literally hundreds of what probably was grandiose plans for condominium complexes gone bust. This laundromat probably got a good deal on rent to locate there since this complex had many things unfinished and it certainly didn’t look like there was any intention to finish them.

There is a huge very nice Beaches Family Resort here on the island. One of the days we were looking for beach access it pointed us down this road which happened to be adjacent to the Beaches resort. It was pretty funny because here were all these nice families climbing this mega waterslide inside the compound and we were on the outside in our eggbeater car in the middle of this parking lot with broken down cars, dilapidated buildings and a huge chain link fence with razor wire and guards at the gates between us and them. I guess we were running with the natives.

Sunday here on the island, everything closes and more than on any other day we found people walking everywhere in the middle of nowhere. I mean there were no houses that we could see for miles and all of a sudden someone would walk out of this dirt roadway and start walking up the main street. We had to see at least 100 people walking aimlessly. Very very strange.

Evening entertainment is also weird here. A few times we ventured out to a bar to enjoy some of the local flavor where a band might be playing but every one of them shut down the music by 9:30 PM.

There is this one bar on the island at the Grace bay Club that boasts the longest bar in the caribbean. It is ninety feet long so we decided to go check it out. The pictures and wording in the advertisement were very misleading. It was nice but not anything like they described. Anyway the surroundings were beautiful and we had a great lunch there with Jermaine our bartender. We heard some radio ads that said this was the happening place and we thought the lighting at night would be spectacular so we got a taxi to take us there. We were so unimpressed that we called the taxi right back and asked him to take us to some fun place. He took us to the Conch Shack on the other end of the island. We had a great time partying with the natives there.

Back to the Mary E, on Monday we finally got Mike to pick up the bent shaft so he could start making the new one. We also contacted Frank and Jimmies again but this time they had a used bronze prop in stock that could be refitted to our dimensions and the price was reasonable. So Bobby ordered that. The shaft was delivered Thursday. Bobby did the necessary prep work to make sure everything would go back together much more easily than it came apart. Crazy came over that afternoon and we put the shaft and rudder back in and installed the one repaired prop on the starboard side. It was certainly a lot of work but things went pretty smoothly all things considered.

The following day Friday, the prop was delivered and crazy stopped by to install it. We fired up Mary E brought her over to the fuel dock and topped her off for the journey to the Dominican Republic tomorrow, Sat July 4^th.

Jermaine at Grace Bay Club bringing Gina her drink.

Turtle Cove Marina from the restaurant Magnolia.

Waiting for our table at Magnolia.

Preparing the rudder for installation.

Retrieving the all important grill cover that was blown into the water during a gust.


Preparing the new shaft for install.



This is what happens when you remove the plug from the dripless.

Handing the prop to Crazy.

Gina and Bob dancing on the beach.

I think I'm dancing.

The infamous eggbeater car.

Crazy George

Infiniti Bar at Grace Bay Club.

Grace Bay club pics..


Bob's three legged friend comes for a visit.

The palm tree is ready in case it decides to jump ship again.

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