Thursday November 7, 2002 (cont.): We got to Sandy Ground Village a bit early so I took the opportunity to snap some photos of residents and visitors at the salt pond.
We walked out onto the pier at Sandy Ground Harbor and talked to Doug Carty (what a wonderful young man!) and he motioned Captain Rollins Ruan of Chocolat over. Captain Rollins came over in his dinghy.
He told us that he had just gotten his boat back from St. Martin where he was having some work done and when it was returned all the battens in the main sail were damaged or broken. He and his cousin Adrian had been working all day to try to get it fixed but finally Jacquie (Rollins' wife) had gone to St. Martin to get parts. So we were not going to be able to take our sunset cruise tonight. We were of course disappointed but mainly we felt terrible for Captain Rollins because just in the few minutes we talked to him we could tell he was a wonderfully gentle, kind person. He truly felt bad about not being able to accomodate our plans. We talked to him for a few minutes about his health since I had heard he had been in the United States having some surgery. Turns out he was not in the United States but he did have some surgery recently. Any other details I feel should be left to Captain Rollins to discuss as he wishes.