Happy New Year
07 January 2013 | Fort Louis Maarina, Marigot, St. Martin
George
HAPPY NEW YEAR!
Greetings to all and Happy New Year. This first entry into 2012-2013 season’s blog is much later than usual due to our later than normal departure from the states, and because of issues, we have done very little sailing. That leaves unfortunately, little of the adventurous to report and too much of the mundane; we begin anyway.
It is now the 5th of January and we are on our 16th day Med-moored at Marina Fort Louis in Marigot, Saint Martin. Though we are getting a little stir crazy, we are both doing well. Sam’s neck surgery heeled wonderfully well, and though her activities are somewhat limited it has not deterred her from getting good exercise climbing up to the fort and taking our several daily walks around town. In the hot afternoons, we climb into the dingy and we cruise the Lagoon, Sandy Ground, and up to Friar’s Bay catching the sun, staying cool, and visiting the numerous suppliers of marine pieces and parts for which we are always in need.
Other than just a couple of cloudy days, it has been sunny and unusually clear with much lower humidity than usual even with the daily sprinkles and occasional great downpours. Through the summer, we are told, it was drier than normal however these almost daily rains over the last couple of months have made what is usually a mostly brown, almost desert island, lush and verdant. This was even truer of what we saw upon our arrival in The BVI. It has been fun to see, many of the scars of past development, roads cut through the hillsides, and the clutter typical of islands and especially the non-resort areas, nature has covered with a blanket of green.
Our trip from Vermont was as usual a bit frustrating. We had a 6AM flight out of Burlington on the 17th. There was a normal December snowfall that had started a couple hours earlier, unfortunately the airport was sleeping. With twelve flights going out, they had only one of their four de-icers working so a 6:00AM departure became 7:45. Jet Blue seemed to be handling it well; on our arrival at Kennedy, they said no problem, they let us and several other parties trying to meet connections off the plane first. They met us with a guide to show us where to run and told us our planes were waiting. Of course when we got there, our plane was there, but the doors were closed and locked and that was that. So rather than ending the day on Champlain, they routed us to Fort Lauderdale for the night with a connection to San Juan and then a jumper to Tortola arriving almost exactly twenty four hours later.
Regardless, it was great to arrive, sun, warmth, blue water and Champlain looked ready and willing. Arriving so late in the season this year, the winds had already shifted from coming from the north to the east, which is exactly where we want to head. As soon as we unpacked we checked the short and long term weather forecasts. There was to be a short-lived north, north east wind beginning the next day and if we wanted to get the 100 miles east to St. Martin, a trip necessary to get anywhere else, we needed to leave immediately, or potentially wait weeks.
It would have been nice to spend a week in the BVI trouble shooting and getting all the bugs out of the boat before leaving, but after we checked out the rig we decided as long as that was in good shape we knew we could make it to Saint Martin one way or the other. By noon the day after we arrived, we headed from Nanny Cay to Gorda Sound to rest for the night so we could take off just before dawn the next morning. In the past we have done this passage leaving late in the afternoon and sailing all night to arrive the next morning. It works fine but is very exhausting. Our only fear for leaving at dawn has been the possibility of, snarling a lobster pot while rounding Necker Island; getting hung up and drifting into the reefs called The Invisibles.
The next morning, we got up in the dark, pulled anchor and headed out of Gorda Sound with dawn just beginning to cast a faint light in front of us. So I did see the lobster pot we ran over, but too late to do much about it. Of all things, it snagged on the rope cutter on the prop and our speed slowly began to drop from 6 knots to 4 then 3 then 2. We never saw what we were dragging, one pot or several, maybe a drift net, or even a light mooring anchor, in any event it was not letting go and now with all the drag and not enough speed we lost steerage, and of course here we are drifting sideway toward The Invisibles about 300 yards away. With a sky still mostly dark and a sea very much that way, Sam grabbed our most trusted Wallin Rigging Knife and overboard I went. Once I found it, with a quick blind cut the tremendous tension was released and the boat immediately surged free. The next 85 miles were wonderful, nice seas good winds with speed averaging close to 9 knots and we arrived in a bay on the border between the French and Dutch sides of Saint Martin just before dark.
As we settled in for the night we first noticed that one of our refrigeration compressors had stopped sometime during the passage, then as we were making water, we lost prime on the low-pressure water pump, so we checked a few more things and discovered several more issues. The most serious being one of the two thru hull valves that gates seawater to the main water manifold feeding the engine, generator, refrigeration, AC etc. was seized. To end a long story, that is why we have been at the dock for 15 days. We are slowly fixing pumps, relays, and motors. The big job comes on Monday when we will put a bung into the intake from the outside and then hopefully without sinking our ship, remove and replace the main valve from the inside and then re-plumb everything.
So a few issues, then again, fifteen days in the warmth has not been all work and no play. We rented a car for four days and covered the island several times visiting beaches, wholesale French wines suppliers (very important) and of course Don and Donna. Wow, THE PROJECT, now Villa Rosa is truly beautiful, and a testament to determination, planning and the kind of intense focus few other than Don can achieve. Though skinny as pencil, Don looks very fit and should be very proud of what they have accomplished.
Well that is it for now; if we don’t sink Monday we will pick this up again.