I’m frustrated by our water issues but will have to track that down later. Today we are going into Le Marin. We decide to dinghy in rather than move Milu. It’s a long dinghy ride but conditions are calm and by the time we packed up and moved Milu we wouldn’t have saved any time.

We dinghy in, checking out the secret little lagoon I discovered last spring when the winds were honking and we were hanging on by our fingernails.

First landing is near the C&I, after driving around the myriad channels we finally find the dinghy dock entrance where we drop off our garbage, check out a couple chandleries there (I learn that a washer is a rondelle in French). Then we dinghy over to the dock by the grocery store, and do a bunch of shopping, picking up groceries last.

Perhaps the best purchase ever? A foldup BBQ from the Chinese dollar store. It’s pretty cheap but will last a couple years for sure and gives us a way to have beach BBQs without having to drag around an Hibachi, etc. I never wanted a propane or even briquette BBQ on board as (a) fire risk and (b) there is no place to put one where the smoke would not stain our bimini. This should solve that.

We hit a couple of the other chandleries where we meet a great guy whose English is very good. He spies our BBQ and tells us “those things are great, I had one for 5 years until it eventually fell apart. Keep the box so you can put the dirty BBQ back in it.” Great news, I was hoping for two years and also a gem of a tip to boot.

Now just need to find briquettes. While Christy shops the El Cheapo grocery store, I go back up to the Carre Four. They have ’em but only in 25 lb bags which are huge. Sitting here writing this several days later, I wish I had bought them. Perhaps we will find something around Fort de France.

I go back to meet Christy and we dinghy around to Caraibe Marine, which is near our first stop. Very good chandlery. I’m looking for some concentrated vinegar which apparently can clean the motor’s heat exchanger which I believe is causing overheating at high RPMs. They don’t have any and they don’t have any of the other commercial products but they suggest ordinary vinegar will work. OK, that is a cheap and easy solution, we have lots of vinegar and it is an easy thing to try.

Back on Milu, I spend some time online trying to figure out how to get a Free Mobile number. Have to have a Martinique address, so I find a site that gives out fake but useable Martinique addresses. Have to have a payment system that supports IBAN (Canadian banks do not) so have to set up a WISE account. That takes an hour just to apply. Now we are waiting to be approved for that. Once I get the IBAN account, then I can set it up as a payment system for Free Mobile, get an eSIM and should be good to try. Easy as cake, piece of pie.

Also trying to troubleshoot our water issues, seems to be a freshwater leak somewhere that ends up in the bilge. Over the next few days we will dig up the boat looking for it.

I guess we dilly dally around the boat the rest of the day.