Splash

After 7 days on the hard, we have finally gone splash.  The crane broke while removing our mast, and it was down to the wire whether it was going to be fixed in time for our Monday splash.  The part was being flown in and was promised to arrive Wednesday, Thursday, then Friday.... But a miracle happened and the part arrived Monday morning.  The mast was stepped and we were the final boat to splash Monday afternoon.  

We had spent the day running around like headless chickens doing all the last minute things.  One of the items on our list was to check out at customs so we could begin our voyage up to Guadeloupe at 5am the next morning.  By the time we had splashed and had the rig tensioned, the sun was setting.  We mentioned our need to get to customs to Susie and her spaniels, who just happened to be waltzing by.  She informed us that immigration closed at 6pm.  A quick dash for the clock informed us it was 5.45.  We jumped into her rental car and she whizzed us over to customs and immigration.  Arriving at 5.52pm we breathed a sigh of relief, only to be sorely disappointed.  The immigration officer refused to process our papers as there was another boat ahead of us and she was leaving at 6pm on the dot come hell or high water.  Told to return when the office reopened at 6am, we left immigration dragging our heels and began the long walk back to the boatyard where Toodles was still tied up to the travel lift dock.

We stopped by Rodeo and said our final goodbyes to Pickle then collapsed into bed setting our alarms for 5am.  

At first light we got up and began the task of re-attaching the sails, then moved Toodles over to the customs dock.  At 6am we were ready and waiting at the door of immigration.  6am passed and so did 6.30, then 7am.  Just after 7am, the immigration officer arrived to process our papers.  After two minutes he had finished processing and now demanded the overtime fee as today was a public holiday!  In our last few days we had spent all our Trinidad and Tobago dollars, which cannot be exchanged anywhere else in the world.  We paid up and hoped the customs fees would be low.  They weren't.  We were $70TT short (just over $10US).  We searched the boat for extra $TT or $US and came up with $5.45US and $10TT.  Gary ran to the cash machine to get the remainder, a 15 minute jog each way.  When we arrived back at customs we were told they didn't take coins!!! Luckily the cash machine only gave multiples of 20 so we had enough.

Finally, at 8am we cast off the lines, hoisted the sails and set a course for Guadeloupe.