December 7-8, 2022 Marigot and shipwreck on our beach

 Wednesday-  We used the rental car and drove into town to find a telephone company.  There were 2 companies close to each other.  We chose Dauphin after not even getting acknowledged at the first place we stopped.  We decided to only get a SIM card for my phone.  I use it for navigation and researching the area.  We have wifi at our condo.  And most people use What’s app for phone calls here, we were told.  So we bought a package that was only data.  We found the larger supermarket in the city of Marigot.  It’s always fun to look at the different foods.  We took our purchases back to the condo and had dinner there.  We love all the cheeses and pate’s and French wine.  The rental car company was supposed to contact us about switching to a smaller car, but we didn’t hear from them.

Thursday- We walked to a restaurant for breakfast today, Le Croissant Royal.  There is a lagoon within the island, so it was situated on the water.  I had a crepe and Dave had Coque Madam.  After eating, we walked downtown.  We found an area with several small restaurants near the water called Lolos.  There were also lots of tourist venders.  Just looking today.

Dave ordered hash browns and didn't realize his dinner came with fries.  Not a bad mistake in his mind

tourist vendors

Back at the condo, I went swimming in the condo’s pool. Not busy, so very nice.

front of our condo buildong

Since we hadn’t heard from the rental car company, I tried calling them using What’s App.  We realized that my app was connected to my old Bahamian phone number from the last time I used the app.  So the rental car company couldn’t call me.  And I now had a new SIM card in my phone, so the phone number on my reservation wasn’t functioning either.  Dave decided to activate our Verizon international service for $10 to call him.  We connected and he brought us a different car by 6:00pm, A Toyota Agya.  Small and basic, but that’s all we needed.  We enjoyed another dinner at the condo.
About 9:30, Dave heard a noise outside and found a sailboat washed up on the shore very close to our deck.   It was sideways to the beach and kept rocking back and forth.  The mast was coming very close to our deck.  A couple people were outside trying to figure out if anyone was onboard.  There didn’t appear to be anyone onboard.  Several police officers arrived.  They tied the boat to a couple trees so it would stop rocking.  It was horrifying to watch.  I could picture this happening to our boat.  I didn’t know whether to cry or be sick.  The boat had a steel hull, so it didn’t look damaged.  It had been very windy.  Dave had seen the boat on a mooring ball in the bay in front of our condo.  It looked like the line to the mooring ball had worn through with chafing in this wind.  So sad to see.