OK, we’re DEFINITELY leaving today. Before we go, I decide to try and check on the speedometer/temperature sensor at the front of the boat. I dive on it, but can’t find it! I know it is there, will have to find it while scraping.

So I scrape. Main issue is the green slime on the back bottom but I make great headway on the forest elsewhere on the boat. Eventually Christy calls me in as we need to get going.

Bye bye Portsmouth, been great to get to know you. We get ready and sail out towards Mero.

Start by going out deep, maybe we’ll see some whales. We can see the whale watching boats out a mile or two but we don’t go out that far. Instead, we try and ride the wind at a decent angle. That wind takes us at a decent pace but not in a straight line towards Mero. Eventually we tack (something we almost never do), too early, go in towards shore and eventually say screw it and power the last 2 miles to Mero.

There’s a few boats here, maybe 10. We find a good spot in the middle, swim distance to shore. After securing the boat, we take masks only, dive on the anchor, then swim to the beach. We walk the beach to the south first. There we meet an (American?) girl who is staying at an Air BnB in St. Joseph, the next bay to the south. It’s walkable around the stony headland and she says it’s awesome. Turns out St. Joseph is the town where we saw the carnival with Ormond and Ruth.

So we head that way, passing the abandoned Castaway Hotel, I couldn’t find much history of it online, but it looks like it must have been grand. I assume the hurricane took it out.

The walk is nice, the next bay is nice, looks like good snorkeling at the head. There are two sailboats over this far and both pairs are snorkeling. We walk to the end of the town beach then return the way we came.

We then walk all the way to the north end. It’s might different than the last time we were here when the beach was packed. Now it’s pretty quiet. At the north end we climb in the water, snorkel a bit but it’s kinda rough, then swim back to Milu. Nothing much to see in the water but sand. On the way, I can feel my right shoulder hurting which is a little different, for the past 3 months it has been the left. Oh well.

t’s a nice afternoon anyway, Christy reads while I do water stuff. I pump water between the two water tanks but the water maker won’t start again, with the “SYSTEM BLOCKED” error. I know how to fix that but it will have to wait. Don’t have the energy to climb into the locker and my shoulder is really hurting now.

By the time Christy has dinner ready I am on the couch in shoulder and neck agony. My right arm is literally throbbing. I usually take a 1/2 pill painkiller but I take 1 1/2 as well as 2 ibuprofin. Enough to stun a small horse but it makes it so I can breathe.

REALLY bad karaoke is coming off the beach so I go to sleep very early in the aft bedroom where the fan is loud enough to drown everything out. Have to sleep on my back because I can’t sleep on either side.

Getting up at 5:30 am for the big trek to Martinique tomorrow.