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American Spirit II - Day 251; Provision Day, GPS Antennae & Auto Pilot (?) Fix, Skipper's Briefing & Jeanine Miami Moves to Nexus; Saturday, September 13, 2014



Up at 6:45 AM.

Breakfast in the marina at 8:30 AM, followed by the Rally communication's briefing at 9:00 AM. Russ and Laurie from Nexus joined us at 9:20 AM.

From 10:00 AM to 12:00 PM I typed and sent out 4 logs. This was the largest accumulation of logs I'd gotten behind in a long time, maybe since the trip started. Its amazing how busy you get when you're on land. Sightseeing, relaxing, fixing things, provisioning, movies (on the boat), dinners out, parties, etc. With the help of Jeanine's 'hot spot' phone, I even loaded two new books to my kindle: a Jack Aubrey novel called The Mauritius Command, and The Covenant. The former is about a British Captain sailing in waters we're heading to, Mauritius and Reunion islands; and the latter is the history of South Africa by James Michener.

Around 12:30 PM Jeanine and I headed to the Latte grocery store to provision the boat. I'd already provisioned in Darwin all the canned vegetables and fruit we need to last us 2 1/2 months, until we get to Africa. Now I needed to add beer, soft drinks, meats, chicken, coffee, fruit, etc. The major thing that the store didn't have was diet coke. To pay for the groceries you could pay cash or American Express. No Visa or Master Card. Go figure. After Latte I went to another grocery store, which I had to go up 3 floors of escalator to get to. I spent $550.00 on groceries. We returned to the marina around 3:15 PM and then stowed the groceries and put the meats, bread and bacon in the freezer.

While I was shopping Joel installed some cables that Jeremy had brought with him, and we think we eliminated a time error on the GPS antennae; and maybe even solved the auto pilot turning itself off problem that has plagued the boat since we left. Its possible that the auto pilot turning itself off problem might have been the result of a communication issue between various boat instruments. If that's the case, then my marina neighbor from Tierra Verde, Patrick Verheijen, gets credit for helping us solve this problem via an email he sent me a few days ago. Thank you Patrick!

I paid a worker to detail the boat, which cost $35.00; and for a diver to wipe down the boat bottom, which cost $90.00. Detailing the exterior of the boat cost about $500 in the US; but the bottom job was expensive, costing more than the $48.00 I pay in the US. The original price for the bottom job was $130.00, but I was able to negotiate the price down.

A Skippers briefing was held from 4:30 PM until about 5:50 PM. It was hosted by Suzana and Rob from Rally control. We received our passports and clearance paper to get out of the country; plus a package of paperwork concerning the activity schedules in Christmas Island and Cocos Keeling; a detailed weather briefing for the next 5 days; and some other miscellaneous information, such as be on the lookout for refugees trying to board your boat, etc.

Dinner at 6:30 PM was in the marina restaurant, with Russ and Laurie from Nexus, and Charlie, Cathy and Peter from Celebrate joining us. I had my first Caesar salad since leaving the US; and spaghetti. Good meal. And cheap. Once thing about Bali is that its a very inexpensive place to visit.

Jeanine moved to Nexus as they were short of crew and with our extra crew (Jeremy) we were full up. Jeanine had been with us since Vanuatu. For 2 months. Wow! Thank you Jeanine. Jeanine will join us again on the Cape Town to Brazil leg in January.

Due to my fighting some bronchitis, I went to bed at 10:00 PM.

Brian Fox

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