Yesterday's news: Alan got out of bed at 6.00 am and stands on a soaking wet carpet in the galley. Panic ... where has the water come from - in the windows? from the sink? Anne gets up, listening to expletives not to be repeated and hears the water pump running. (This is indicative of NO WATER IN THE TANKS). Alan investigates under the sink and finds a cracked plastic fitting in the hot water tap (brand new West Marine taps - or faucets as the Americans call them). We then checked the bilges and .. the water level was at the height of the automatic bilge pump switch and there's cans of coke and sprite floating in their lockers and the box of soap powder has turned to glue. ASSUMPTION: we have no fresh water left in the tanks. Even more panic - ARGHH - The Saintes does not have any marinas and almost no amenities for yachts. However, to cut a long story short, we managed to get 30 gallons of water from the Town Hall from a very, very nice lady at no cost (all done in Anne's dreadful High School French of course!) It took us almost all morning to jerry jug the water back to the boat. So far, so good!!
Alan now attempts to repair or replace the broken plastic fitting on the tap with a metal one from his spares box. This took 2 hours and copious cursing and swearing as there's no room to work behind the sinks. Great - we are now ready to turn on the water using the water pump .. and ... GRRRRR .. the water pump went round but no water came out. To cut another long story short - the water pump was b****d!!!! (A drive bolt had sheered and not possible to repair at present). Another 2 hours spent cannibalising 2 pumps to make one pump and by 4.30 pm we had success - the pump was running and the water was flowing and life was beginning to look better again. A cup of tea was had ... and ... Anne came up with the thought, "Let's see how much water is actually in the tanks". Says Alan, "Don't be stupid darling, there'll be none in them other than the 30 gallons we put into them this morning, but to keep you happy I'll look anyway". So Alan looked . and lo .. and "WOW" both tanks were nearly full!!!! CONCLUSION: The water pump failed before pumping all the water out the tanks. The only thing we lost in the flood was the soap powder, but the lockers are still drying out and the inside of the boat looks as if it's been hit by a hurricane. It was a most interesting day - with a happy ending. (In case anyone remembers that we have a watermaker - it's been put to bed until Trinidad as it has a major leak).
While there's not much in The Saintes to support boating life, apart from the odd supermarket - it really is the most gorgeous place - lovely town, lovely people, things to see, islands to sail round and clear water for snorkeling. Highly recommended to those cruisers coming this way. Just remember to have plenty of water in your tanks, preferably without any leaks ....
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The video above is of our great friends Phil and Barb of "Ceres" who we last met up with in Beaufort, South Carolina. They sailed down from the Bahamas to meet up with us for a couple of days before we left St Maarten. It may be some time before we see them again, so we wish them well and lots of lovely safe sailing. We left St Maarten, with the intention of stopping overnight at Nevis. As usual, nothing quite works out to plan and we stopped instead at St Kitts and rocked and rolled all night in the anchorage. It was just too late to get to Nevis. However, we were up again at 6.00 am on Tuesday and left for an anchorage at the top end of Guadeloupe and after a very bumpy sail in a rather confused sea, we arrived outside Daishaies at 1.00 am on Wednesday morning. Rather than try to anchor in the dark again, we decided to sail on to Les Saintes. The wind howled until we got about half way down Guadeloupe when it decided to stop blowing altogether and we had to switch on the engine. We motored for about 3 hours and then the wind came back, and we had a lovely sail all the rest of the way to Les Saintes, arriving around 10.30 am. It's beautiful here, and very hot.
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On Friday night we had a party at Shrimpy's - Paul and Janie came too and we all thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. Fish and chips is Shrimpy's special and we all had a plateful - highly recommended!
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We've been really lucky and met up with "Shian" with Paul and Janie Reid and their nephew Ben. We sailed the Atlantic with them in 1999 and we haven't seen them since 2002. We celebrated our reunion at "Lees" for pork ribs last Wednesday. It was a great night, and it's great to meet up with old friends.
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We found this gorgeous conch shell in the BVI's - it was empty at the time - cleaned it up and added some tropical flowers.
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This is a view of Simpson Bay Lagoon taken through a window in a taxi when we were returning from Phillipsburgh - the Lagoon is about 12 miles long and has many marinas, boatyards and has anchoring room for hundreds of boats.
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We went out "on the town" last night to Shrimpy's - it was only supposed to be the two of us, but we ended up as a party of eight - great fun and great food. We were in company with Art and Judy from "Ciboney", Geoff and Jo from "Sutton Hoo" and Bob and Maggie from "Tangleweed". Mike is the guy that runs the cruiser's net in the mornings here, every morning. Click here for Shrimpy's
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We're still in the Lagoon in St Maarten - Dutch side - here are our rich neighbours - "Apogee" - you can charter this yacht for $375,000 per week - have a look at Apogee's web site link to Apogee
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... and these are our cruising neighbours
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Just got some photos from Marilyn, Dalry, in Scotland - we reckon we just have to put up with another day of "hell in paradise" in the Caribbean!!
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We left the BVI's on Sunday 4th March, arriving in Simpson Bay on Monday morning at 3.30 AM in the dark (obviously)! It was a lovely sail, for once the wind was kind to us and the sea was calm, with just a bit of swell. We arrived on the last day of the Heineken week and the bay and the lagoon were full of every type of boat you can imagine. Altogether manic!
While we were in the BVI's a photographer from Yacht Shots came and took us sailing through the islands - there's about 25 shots of Freya sailing from Norman Island to Peter Island on the web - see "www.yachtshotsbvi.com", click on the date 25th February and then look down the alphabetic list until you get to "Freya". Click on Freya and hey, there we are!!
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We're quite proud of this particular photograph of the Bitter End, Virgin Gorda
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Millport - eat your heart out!!
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Mmmm!
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This is our anchorage on Peter Island
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