Merry Christmas ho ho ho. Everything closes early today, so we're going to have to run around and try to take care of a bunch of business including buying the insurance. But it is possible that we will be allowed to leave today.
    Yesterday, we hitch-hiked to town to pick up our repaired hatch cover and go to the larger marine supply store to find some things. Some of them were available. There is a small branch of the marine supply store here in Nanny Cay, so we bought the 10 feet of headhose here so we don't have to carry it. Hitch-hiking is considered safe. We got a ride from a guy from Chicago who delivered us all the way across Road Town where our hatch cover was waiting. Then, we tried to hitch hike back, but we got taxis instead of rides. That's okay, they charge less when you wave them down -- it is not a contracted ride. The first one was a van full of locals. He didn't seem to charge us more than they were paying for the ride -- I can't figure out how they manage -- everyone was paying $2-4, and wages are low here. But I don't know from how far away they were coming.

    We are waiting to use up more fuel before we tackle replacing the fuel filler hose. But Lance is bravely attacking the smelly aft head. We have a new pump, new toilet seat, and new hose, and the boat came with a new Y-valve sitting in a drawer, so we will install them all. The y-valve is to send the waste to the holding tank instead of directly out. All the hoses are in place, but none are actually attached to the holding tank. But apparently, there is a recent requirement that all boats in the BVI should have a holding tank, and this satisfies the requirement. It doesn't actually have to be hooked up or functional. Using it would be a problem because there are no pump out stations, so we'd have to add some kind of pump to pump it out, and maybe we will someday. The instructions on the Y-valve recommend that you pump a lot of water through before you disconnect the hoses, but since the pump wasn't working, we had to fix that first so we won't be faced with hoses full of, well, you really don't want to think about that.
    I scored a Sunday New York Times from a new arrival yesterday --

     she was reading it on the airplane, and gave it to me after she was finished. So we just figured out that Trent Lott gave up his post.
     We got up in the cockpit to drink our coffee, and then a small squall sent us back inside and washed off the boat. Hiking over to the shore facilities, we find many people gathered at the cafe. One guy was having beer for breakfast. Not my choice. I was slightly chilled so I put on a short sleeve shirt over my tank top and shorts. That's as much clothes as I've needed here. My sarong gets rigged up around the cockpit to provide more shade, which is desperately needed. The locals have to work thru the afternoon heat, but the boating community generally tries to work in the morning and evenings when it is not so hot. As long as there is a breeze and you stay out of the sun, it is fine. It would be great if we could cool off by going swimming, but there is no swimming in the harbor, and no beach nearby.
     Thanks for those sending email. It's fun to hear from all of you.
     Love, susie and lance