Sailing up
the island chain is now somewhat of a blur in memory; so much so that I must
refer to our log book to remember where and when.
We arrived at
Marina du Marin in Martinique on Thursday, 10 November 2016, and took a
mooring, hoping to be there only 1 day so we could pick up a new propane gas
solenoid from the Amel service center located in Le Marin. The solenoid had failed on our final day in
St. Lucia while I was baking muffins.
Gas supply shut down when the solenoid failed. Bill found a union fixture at a local
chandlery and installed that as a temporary fix. The only solenoids available locally and
online were the cheap kind and we wanted to replace it with exactly the same
kind as original. This is a German
produced solenoid and costs about 6 times the price of the typical cheap
versions used in most boats. Bill
telephoned Amel in Le Marin and learned they had 1 in stock, so we sailed up
there.
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| Rigger in Martinique replacing forward port shroud |
That was
quickly completed and we were ready to head off again when received an email
from the buyers of BeBe stating that they would like to have a rigging
inspection performed while we were there at the Amel service center. There is a rigger nearby who is recommended
by Amel. The following day was a holiday
but the rigger agreed to do the inspection then rather than make us hang around
until the following week. Next morning 2
riggers arrived shortly after 09:00 and 1 of them quickly was up the mast. Inspection took less than half-hour. The port side forward baby shroud had 2 tiny
spots of discoloration near the upper swage.
The rigger said these 2 tiny discolorations could be an indication that
2 of the 19 twisted wires might be broken inside the shroud. The rigger looked shocked when Bill
immediately told him to replace the shroud.
Bill figured might as well replace it now while at a place recommended
by Amel – why take a chance; if there is
any possibility of a problem with a piece of the rigging, then replace it
immediately. We moved the boat over next
to the rigger’s office and work facility and within 2 hours the shroud was
replaced and we were motoring out of Le Marin.
It was too
late in the day to go anywhere so we anchored at St. Anne’s once again. Ended up staying there a few days before
sailing 26.5 NM up to St. Pierre, where we anchored only overnight
(rolly!! & tight spaces!!). At 05:30 the next morning anchor was up and
we were motoring out of St. Pierre in the dark.
This turned into a very lively day of sailing. Forecast was for 12-15 knots wind from 110
degrees but we never saw that. Actual
experience was solid 25 knots minimum, mostly 30, with gusts to40 knots – from
40 degrees to 80 degrees! Forget that
downwind sailing we were expecting. Wind
was on beam or slightly forward of the beam all day.
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| Strange clouds at sea |
As we sailed
well westward in the lee of Dominica the wind dropped to comfortable levels,
but jumped right back up to ‘a bit too strong’ as we crossed the channel to Ile
des Saintes. About half-way across that
channel is when the top half of our wind instrument blew away. We still had apparent wind speed, but no wind
direction. No more TWS, TWA, AWA; just
apparent speed. Bill tied 2 long plastic
strips on the aft mainmast shrouds on port and starboard and those little
tell-tails acted as our means of telling apparent wind direction. Back to the basics!
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| More strange clouds at sea |
We entered
via the southwest cut into Ile des Saintes – and would never do that
again!! We had motored through this cut
years ago with no problems, but today both the southwest and southeast cuts are
filled with literally hundreds of fish traps.
This could be a real mess if attempted during darkness or during rain
when could not see the floats to maneuver around and between all those fish
traps. I was very glad to put those
behind us!
Where we used
to anchor near the town of Terre Haut is now all filled with moorings, so we
picked up a mooring. Ended up staying
there exactly 1 week. This is by far our
favorite island in all of the Caribbean.
We first visited Ile des Saintes way back in 1984 when took a Windjammer
cruise aboard the Mandalay from Antiqua to Grenada. It was like a tiny piece of Brittany placed on a Caribbean island. We were impressed by the
women outside washing their stoops and doorways in the mornings. The structures
might be meager but the owners took pride in their homes and kept everything
very clean. Those days are gone; the
next generation living there today no longer go to the trouble of washing their
stoops and steps and doorways each morning.
A little sad to see this change.
Bill went up
the mast to assess the damage to our wind instrument. He ended up going up that mast 3 times and
it still was not repaired. That would happen later.
Bill posted
on the Amel Yacht Owners Group and on the Amel Owners FB Group about the parts
we needed. Lo and behold, several people
who have upgraded to newer electronics offered up their old units for spare
parts. Pat and Diane on S/V Shenanigans
shipped exactly what we needed to Connections in St. John, USVI. We are very grateful to them! Connections is a mailing and shipping service
in Cruz Bay which we used when we moved aboard BeBe in 2006. Great service and reasonably priced.
Also while in
Ile des Saintes there was a chance meeting with another Amel owner. Derrick Gates on S/V Brava, along with crew
members Doug, Roger and Gracie, arrived and moored nearby for a couple of days.
It was a pleasure meeting them. Derrick treated us to delicious dinner at a
lovely little garden restaurant; the French do know how to cook! Derrick has followed our blog and
conversation was fun because he already knew so many of the places and experiences
that Bill and I have enjoyed over the years.
This was a very enjoyable evening for many reasons – companionship,
conversation, food, discussion with fellow Amel owners. One of Derrick’s crew members also owns an
Amel; I believe he said in Maine; and Gracie is his chef. We enjoyed drinks and snacks aboard Brava
before going ashore for dinner and I can attest to Gracie’s skills as a
chef. She produced some small fish cakes
accompanied by a pickled lettuce garnish which tasted fabulous. Thank you again for a lovely evening,
Derrick!
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| Deshaies, Guadeloupe |
Next leg of
our island-hopping north was 35 NM up to Deshaies, Guadeloupe. Once again, there were many fish traps
encountered going out the northwest cut from Ile des Saintes. If we were entering or exiting Terre Haut again,
we would opt to go the extra distance and use only the northeast cut. That is where all the ferries to and from
Guadeloupe enter and exit and there appeared to be no fish traps hampering that
route. We arrived at Deshaies at 15:30
and the anchorage was pretty filled. All
the moorings were taken, plus there were 18 boats anchored outside the
moorings. And boats were pointed in
every direction because the wind swirls through this bay due to the
surrounding high mountains on 3 sides.
We dropped anchor pretty much in the middle of the bay in 9.9 meters
depth and could let out only 46 meters of chain. The bay was too congested to allow more
scope. Turned out not to be a problem;
holding was excellent.
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Montserrat. The light areas are the ash flow that covered the major
town of Plymouth when the volcano erupted not so many years ago.
Not a single person died as they were evacuated to the northern tip
of the island. The volcano remains active. |
At 05:15
anchor was up and we were motoring out of the bay. An ‘Oh-Dark-Thirty’ beginning once
again. It was a black pre-dawn exit with
no problems. This day would be 78 NM to
St. Kitts. We motor-sailed or sailed 75%
and motored 25% of the distance. Our
course was basically 320 degrees and wind 20 knots at 120-150 degrees apparent
and 2.5 meter seas, which meant jib poled to port and plenty of rolling all day
long. This time we skipped Montserrat,
going up the western side well off shore to avoid any volcanic ash in the
breeze. We have seen boats really messed
up by that volcanic ash. It is so acidic
and destroys gel coat on boats. Normally
we have gone on the eastern windward side of this island but this time we
decided to chance the western leeward side as that was better direction for our
desired route. Thankfully, the volcano
was not burping that day and we slipped past with no ash landing on BeBe.
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Sometimes what you see is not what is real. This
is called Long Point and it does look like a long
point protruding from the SW tip of Nevis. |
As we
approached Nevis and St. Kitts squalls were building. I checked our log book and noted where we had
anchored when last here in 2006. We
headed toward that waypoint in Ballast Bay as a squall rolled through. I was very thankful to have that waypoint;
knew if we safely went there 10 ½ years ago then we should be safe returning
there today – even though we could see nothing past 25-feet around our
boat. We dropped anchor and put up the
yellow Q flag.
 |
And do you see any Long Point protrusion from the
SW tip of this island? Nevis is basically a round
island. But the topography is such that the SW
tip does appear to be a long point jutting out
into the sea. An optical illusion. |
The following morning we
motored out of Ballast Bay just before 10:00 and almost instantly a large rib
zoomed up beside us filled with Dutch marines and a guy who worked for St.
Kitts (coast guard?). We slowed and
several of them boarded BeBe. They did
not even do a cursory inspection; 3 of the Dutch marines stood on the deck
while the St. Kitts guy sat in the cockpit and filled out a form, just the
basic information and basic safety equipment verification. He asked to see 2 lifejackets and the flares
and confirmed we had VHF and HF radios.
Everyone was very friendly and within 10 minutes they departed and we
continued motoring away from St. Kitts.
In all our years of boating this was the 2nd time we have
been boarded. Coincidentally, the only
other time BeBe has been boarded also was by the Dutch – in Curacao in August
or September 2007. That time they searched the entire boat; this time was just questions.
Each time everyone was very professional.
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| St. Kitts. A fort on top of the small hill by the sea |
The sail from
St. Kitts to St. John was 146 NM and was very fast! Course once again was basically 320 degrees
with wind 20 knots from 80 degrees. This
placed jib poled to port and mizzen to port with preventer. The mizzen acts to reduce twist and roll in
the 2.5 meter confused seas; large swell from southwest and wind waves from
northeast. When in the lee of St. Kitts,
again in lee of Statia and again in lee of tiny Saba, the seas calmed and
sailing was very pleasant. Other than in
the lee of those 3 islands, seas were confused and uncomfortable. When Bill glanced down and saw we were doing
10 knots SOG he decided to reef that jib!
We continued under single reef until sometime during the night when boat
speed again crept up to over 9 knots SOG and I put a second reef in the
jib. Still our boat speed was faster
than I prefer. We sailed 146 NM is 20
hours – averaging 7.3 knots SOG. And
that includes the time for the Dutch marines boarding and the time motoring
through the channel at St. John and finding a mooring at Caneel Bay. So the sailing average SOG probably was
greater than 8 knots. I prefer 6.5 knots
sailing speed. I do not like fast
sailing.
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S/V Eos. We last saw this mega yacht in Ponce, Italy. A friend
worked as crew on this special yacht back then but now works on
another mega-motoryacht. Eos anchored near us in St. Kitts. |
This final
overnight sail was bittersweet. It marks
the ‘last time’ and in some ways I am happy about that and in other ways quite
sad about it. The ‘last time’ for
watching the bio-luminescence flow down the side of the boat at night. The ‘last time’ for my enjoyable solitude at
sea at night. The ‘last time’ to see the
sky laden with hundreds of thousands of stars, as only can be seen from sea
with no ambient lighting from nearby lands.
The ‘last time’ watching other vessels pass in the darkness. I will so very much miss these things and am
very grateful to have had these experiences.
We picked up
a park mooring in Caneel Bay, St. John, before 07:00 on Thanksgiving Day. We rested a bit and then went into Customs
and Immigration in Cruz Bay to handle inbound clearance. While clearing in we learned that our LBO
(Local Boaters Option) cards which we had obtained in November 2006 are still
valid!!! The official said these LBO cards
are “pure gold” because these are much better than the current SVRS program. With the SVRS program vessels are supposed to
file float plans. With the LBO cards, we
merely need to telephone when we arrive in USVI or Spanish Virgins or Puerto
Rico. As long as we own this boat then
these LBO cards remain valid, although these are not available anymore.
Update: Effective 31 December 2016 all LBO information was purged from the systems. The only option today is the SVRS scheme. Biggest difference between the old LBO system and the SVRS system is that SVRS requires filing float plans online. Which can be difficult since cruising boats are not connected to the internet 24/7/365.
That
afternoon I roasted the small piece of turkey which was purchased at Ile des
Saintes. Our Thanksgiving feast was
comprised of roast turkey, peas, mashed potatoes and gravy and followed by
pecan pie. The worst pecan pie I have
ever baked, but appreciated by both of us regardless. This was an impromptu Thanksgiving meal as we
had thought we would be at sea all day.
The following
morning we loaded 7 of the 10 boxes of books which I had packed back in
Trinidad and took these to the US Post Office in Cruz Bay. There we learned that for whatever reason
this particular post office location will not allow any shipments in boxes
which have names of liquor or beer or wine printed on the outside. The clerk said those alcohol boxes are the
strongest boxes but she is not allowed to accept these for shipment. She loaned me a black marker and I crossed
out those offending words on some of the boxes, but the Heineken boxes had the
word Heineken all over them. We took
these boxes down the street to Connections, where we purchased heavy brown
paper and packing tape and wrapped the boxes.
Then back to the post office and shipped them. We returned to the boat for the remaining 3
boxes and got those posted also. Got to
love the US Post Office right now! They
consider USVI as domestic postal rates and also allow media rate from here to
the mainland. We shipped 200 pounds of
books in 10 boxes for total cost of around $130. That is a deal!
While at
Connections we picked up the package of wind instrument parts shipped from Pat
and Diane on S/V Shenanigans. They were
life savers! These parts are exactly
what we needed. Bill has
already tested everything and between what we had and what Shennigans gave us, it all works perfectly. If it works down here at deck level then it
should work when mounted at the top of the mast.
All the
shipping taken care of that could be handled this day, we slipped the mooring
line and motored over to Francis Bay at the northeastern side of St. John. This bay brings back many memories of our
charter days with friends back in the 1980s and very early 1990s. The following day friends Pam and Larry
Shelton on S/V Southern Girl arrived from the BVI. It was great finally catching up with them
while on our respective boats. Pam is
one of those friends with whom we chartered back in the 80s and 90s. They headed off towards Puerto Rico the following morning, while Bill and I remained on this mooring for several more
days.
We have made a couple more trips to the post office to ship more boxes, each time returning to the same mooring in Francis Bay. Bill has installed the repaired wind instrument on top of the mast and all works perfectly once again. I am very glad this is so. It was more difficult than I imagined picking up a mooring pennant without knowing the exact direction of the wind. Once we had to make 3 attempts to pick up a mooring. That is shameful! We normally get it accomplished effortlessly on the first attempt.
