Finally!

Today is February 21st. We left St. Pierre on the 8th and meandered our way down Martinique’s west coast to St. Anne at the southeast tip of the island. Along the way we overnighted in 3 anses (anse is a Creole word for bay), with decent snorkeling and hiking, 2 nights in the yachting center for the region, Le Marin, then around the corner to St. Anne for a more peaceful stay.

St. Anne has it all. There is a seaside trail around the peninsula south of it where there are various bays and beautiful beaches. And there are trails cutting across the peninsula. For 2 days we rented a car for a longer hike around the Caravelle peninsula in Martinique’s northeast coast and for a visit to (another) rum distillery, Clement.

If the above events sound familiar, they definitely are. I think that a change of pace in this blog would be welcomed, even by me. So, the following gives a view as to what our daily life aboard Katahdin is like while we are at anchor.

First of all, no day is alike. Sometimes we have no idea what we’re going to be doing until well into the day. I can’t say that we’ll ever be totally content without some focus for some of the time while we are aboard. However, we are getting better at not planning until we see how we feel, what boat projects we have to get done, etc. This is especially true if we know we will be at anchor in a certain area for a while.

Normally we get up around 6 and Larry turns on the single side band (SSB) radio for work or weather related emails. SSB accepts signals that originate anywhere and which bounce off the ionosphere down to a receiver onboard. As the sun rises its solar particles cause more havoc in the ionosphere so Larry has to get onto SSB early enough to receive undistorted signals.

Then, while drinking our hot beverage of choice, we check our gmail accounts. Four years ago it was much easier to have WIFI reception on our boat; we would purchase a pass for a specific amount of time from either a restaurant or an Internet store ashore and the signal strength would be sufficient to reach us at anchor. Well, the retail trade suffered a bit from us and other boaters not going in to dine while using their internet so the signal is not boosted outward. Now we have to resort to another device.

When our son Andrew visited us during Christmas he used a Nexus phone that was tied into Google Fi, a beta operating system paired with Android. He could connect to any cellular carrier in 120 countries and be charged $10 for one GB of data with a $20 monthly fee and no contract. For voyagers such as us it seemed perfect. Larry’s sister Kathy brought down this new phone 3 weeks later and we use it to tether our devices to it. We have purchased 5 GB a month but if we end up not using it all, we get a credit back. Learning how to use an Android-based phone has been a bit of a challenge but it has certainly been worth it.

After a breakfast of either yogurt with cereal or eggs and bread/croissants, we tend to do chores aboard. There’s always something to be done. For instance, yesterday, we worked on scouring out the hose from the forward head sink that has been a slow drainer for a long time. There was a bit of calcium build-up within the hose but not enough to explain the problem. With a skewer I went under the boat and cleaned out the outlet while Larry worked on the leak from that thru-hull and the one next to it.

While under the boat I became disgusted at the amount of growth on the hull – barnacles, teeny shrimp, 1½ inch florets of some algae, etc. So, armed with a long-handled brush and a windshield ice scraper I went to work. After a bit I realized that what I scraped off was feeding a small school of 8-inch fish underneath me – what fun. This scraping is to be repeated, we’re sure, in a few weeks time as our bottom paint needs a new application to keep things from growing too fast as the warmth of the water and the incessant sunlight speed up growth.

Meanwhile, Larry took the dinghy and sped 2 miles into Le Marin, visiting 4 chandleries before purchasing the correct sized O-ring to finish the thru-hull work.

Chores down, it was time to have fun on land. We took the shore-side trail to a stunning beach where we ate lunch at a beachside restaurant and took in the scenery. It’s not often that we people-watch but, when in France, do what the French do, and we did. It was highly entertaining. On the walk back we swam for a bit, read from our Kindles, then, back onboard, relaxed, read, had dinner, read, then to bed by 9. Most of the relaxation time on Katahdin we spend in the cockpit, using the sun shades which attach to the bimini so we’re not dealing with too much sunlight.

What is it like to be at anchor among 167 boats? (Yes, we counted them one evening.) It is even more interesting than people watching on the beach. There’s a lot of movement going on, coming and going, either with dinghies or boats. The one aspect of being at anchor where we can get quite anxious, even upset, is when catamarans move near us. Somehow they don’t judge their anchor placement correctly and end up far closer to us than is comfortable. They can also steam through mooring fields, weaving between boats at anchor, in a way that makes us suspect that the captain is either showing-off, has limited experience piloting a super-wide boat, or, probably, both. Many of these cats are chartered boats and Larry has had to ask a few to re-anchor for the safety of Katahdin when the wind direction changes. And don’t get us started on the lack of scope (anchor line length) these chartered boats put out; how there are not more damaged chartered cats is mind-boogling.

In general terms, then, outside of some luncheons, we usually eat aboard but take day trips ashore, either to purchase items or to hike. There is always swimming though not always snorkeling. We do laundry every 3 weeks, get water and fuel at least every 3 weeks, purchase ice and food as needed, and look through our guidebooks regularly for our current or up-coming locations. We have tans, but never a burn. It’s time, though, for another haircut which will happen at our next stop, St. Lucia.