TAKING FUEL

If one ventures to get fuel from Rivere Sens one should be ready to jump down from the boat (not too hard since there is no wind), find a bollard to tie (harder, since there are only two, one at the dead corner of the dock, where a big fishing boat was tied almost next to the fuel dock. The other bollard was at the opposite end but inside corner.)  Morevover, get ready for abuse from the attendants, who do not speak a work of English themselves, and think that all English speakers are idiots. If you can past the hurdles, diesel is the cheapest in the Caribbean; 1.00 Euro a litre.

Since our helm is on the port side and Al wanted to see what I would be doing, he turned around and approached the dock from the port side. Our cleat  for the back tie is almost halfway down the side, which would not give enough space to clear the stationed boat, if I used it, so I pushed the line through the dingy cleat at the stern to tie the boat, to keep the back flush with the dock.

After securing the boat, Al went up to inform the attendant. He came back, and went through the motions as instructed:
(1) Release the nozzle of the left side of the left pump (located at the pier, three or four steps above the dock)
(2) Take the nozzle of the corresponding long hose coiled around the drum on the actual dock
(3) Press on the nozzle to fill your tank.

When Al pressed the handle nothing came out.  Al remarked that the pump was not working. So he went up again, came back with a Frenchman (some customer trying to help). Two of them prodded here and there, looked at the other coil of hose, but everything seemed to be in order. The good Samaritan went back up, and still nothing happened. After Al's third request, the attendant could not help but come all the way down, throwing up his arms,  rolling his eyes, and shouting " le gauch, le gauch, mon Dieu".  Well we know, we got the one at "le gauch", but there was no power. Poor Al was saying "n'est pa electricite", to no awail. But after seeing that it was not our fault, he went back up and dealt with the start up at his computer. At last it worked for the port tank.

When Al took the nozzle to the starboard tank the same story, no go. I told Al that the pump counter had not cleared, hence not allowing a second usage. Another trip up and down, finally we filled the tanks, which took us more than an hour (ten minutes tops in any other fuel dock).
Ridiculous!