Copy of an e-mail to my children

Tuesday 16th November

Curacao is currently having the heaviest rainfall in its entire history, we may not need to be moved by boat lifting machine to be put back in the water, Mother Nature may just do it for us.

We arrived back at the boat to discover that the boatyard had not done what Dad had paid them to do;  ie charge the batteries weekly, so we were greeted with totally dead batteries, no electricity, no water, no refrigeration etc etc etc…

An entire day was spent getting the boatyard to replace the batteries for us, which they did eventually but that was not without its problems, stress, stress and yet more stress!!!

The boatyard forgot to give me the key to the ladies bathroom, so last night while sweaty, exhausted, covered in mosquito bites (yes there are MILLIONS of them here) and bursting to go to the loo, I had nowhere to go, the men’s (my only other option) was busy and I really didn’t feel like using the facilities with them so I had to wait, ooohhhhh painfull!

In desperation and fighting back the urge to pee in the bushes I went back up to the bathrooms and waited for a woman to arrive and open the door for me, I had to wait 20 minutes, by which time I was almost peeing my pants.  As you can imagine I was not a happy bunny.

We opened a tin of tuna and corn for dinner last night, OH such gormet delight's we enjoy on Crazy Daisy, this morning we had water and a nutrigrain bar, yummy! No tea, no coffee no hot food because we also have no gas.  We need to find somewhere to fill the bottles and quickly, I’m needing some luck with that…

This morning Dad is working with the battery charger which is malfunctioning, yes more problems, I have lost all my ability to keep cheerful under these continuous problems.   I keep dreaming of the house in North Carolina next year and that thought alone is keeping me sane right now.

Just helped Dad remove the strainer from under the floor,  and managed to ruin a lovely pale blue t-shirt when a load of oil  spilled out all over me as I lifted it up on deck.

We have 15 days to get everything done and get to Aruba for Edi on 2^nd December, but we are 2 days already here and have not really even started all the jobs we should be doing.

I hope to be able to write with more cheerful news soon.