Local knowledge
Among many other things yesterday, Rebecca and I took a foray into a bay lined with barges and half-sunken fishing boats in search of the elusive propane refilling station. In this case it wasn’t too hard to find, relatively speaking. We only needed to tie up our tender to a sketchy sea wall, hike a quarter mile around a fully fenced-in work area and then once we found someone to help, pass our empty tank over a rusty fence to the gentleman who could refill it. It could have been much worse. 🙂
Where to get propane (cooking gas) tanks refilled is just one of countless bits of local knowledge that cruisers are forced to suss out when they arrive in a new port.
- Where is the dinghy dock?
- Are there buses and if so, where do we catch them?
- Where is the ATM?
- What is the local beer?
- How do I pronounce the name of the local beer properly so I don’t look like such an outsider?
These are all critical things and the list goes on and on. In some cases this info is shared in guidebooks. At other times it is available on websites and in social media groups. Many times though it can only be obtained by word of mouth, passed from one cruiser to another.
We are fortunate in this regard as in most cases, we are not the first cruisers to arrive in these ports. The info is available even though we still have to work to assimilate it.
Shopping for Christmas decorations at Kmart. Brave, aren’t we?
Hello Mike and Rebecca:
Just having a look around your site to see where you are.
We are at Time Out in St.Martin getting a new windlass installed on Sea Bear lll.We came up from Grenada and it was a great sail.sixty-eight hours anchor up to anchor down in simpson Bay.
We look forward to hearing from you sometime and maybe even “seeing” you.
Health,happiness and best wishes.
Larry and Jan
Sea Bear lll
Hi guys
A weird coincidence… Rebecca she had just put your boat card down on the table as I was reading this comment to her (she was organizing her file of cards). Glad to hear things are well. Sailing direct from Grenada is a lot easier than island hopping your way up, at least from a wind perspective. Hope you have plans to head to the Virgins this season. We’d love to see you again.
As recently as this Spring, there was a public wooden dinghy dock in Krum Bay in decent condition. From there it was not more than a couple hundred yards to the front gate of one of the gas companies.Maybe you just like more adventure than the rest of us? Lol
We try to make things as tough as possible. 😉
Seriously though, I know the dock you’re referring to. We actually stopped on it first but not knowing where to go, we moved off it and went further into the bay by the boat ramp. Knowing where to go now, that dock would be a much better landing spot. +1 for local knowledge!