The Dinghy arrives at last!

Needless to say the dinghy did not arrive on Thursday. Darrell dropped by the office in the morning and got the DHL tracking details and to his horror when he checked its predicted arrival was Monday March 2nd. 

You can imagine his reaction! He went in for a chat with the team, and several emails were exchanged. He was a bit confused by the one who said perhaps these delays were God's way of keeping us on the island. His frustration was increased by the weather reports which were not favourable for sailing North for the next few days. So the rest of the day passed with a gloom hanging over Stream.
However, on Friday morning Darrell got the message that the dinghy had arrived. So off he went, excited as a child on Christmas day. Sure enough the dinghy was there. He then had to sort out the naming of the dinghy as the workshop had not got the message from the office, despite the emails being sent weeks ago. A named dinghy is less likely to be stolen and you are advised not to put the boat name on, as that would tell everyone who sees the dinghy you are not on your yacht. So he went through font choice, colour and spelling and returned to Stream a happy chap.

Darrell's first sight of the new dinghy.

We spent the afternoon getting the boat ready for sailing North the next day, checking the weather and doing last minute shopping; a milk delivery had finally arrived at the supermarket and everyone was rushing to get it as the supermarket had run out of milk on the Monday. So at 5pm, we arrived at the dock to take possession of 'Nautistep' our beautiful new dinghy. When we saw her we just had to laugh as the positioning of the P in her name just summed up the experience of buying a dinghy in St Lucia, but we were just relieved that we could have her so we didn't make a point of it, and expressed our thanks that we finally had the dinghy!
We swapped over the engines and said good-bye to our old dinghy and gave the list of minor repairs that were still required and off we went.
Darrell spent a while in quiet contemplation on the Nautistep, before we stowed her aboard. We then settled down for an early night so we could escape St. Lucia early the next day to continue on our adventures.

Darrell happy on the Nautistep!