Amulet underway

"Amulet" arrived largely safely at the MarineService Center yard in Anacortes for unloading on May 14th. There was some shipping damage to the port forward cleat, which was bent, and the teak rail below it cracked, which the yard fixed. On our way home from Claire's graduation from the University of [...]

05 May 2017

Going Windward at 60 MPH

Gary and I spent the 1st of May through the 3rd of May taking down sails, the bimini, solar panels, and dodgers, and removing much of the running rigging. Late the 3rd of May, our rigger, Brad Storm (great job-alike last name) arrived to look over things. He will help us take down the mast, standing [...]

30 April 2017 | West Palm Beach, Florida

Crossing the Stream/Back in the USA

We departed Great Sale Cay at 0500, about an hour before dawn, and made our way to Mango Cay, arriving there at 0930. Our next waypoint was Memory Rock. After 50 miles, again in 10-14 feet of water, and we passed it at 1230-excellent timing, better than expected, and with 50 miles to go, we might make [...]

28 April 2017 | Great Sale Cay

The Last of the Abacos

We had a leisurely mid morning departure from Man O' Jack Cay bound for Spanish Cay, some 14 miles to the north. We listened to the morning weather and again, some wind was expected to ruffle the Gulf Stream this coming Sunday (it is now Thursday), so we figured we should plan on crossing the Stream [...]

26 April 2017 | Man O Jack Cay

Getting Further North in the Abacos

After the somewhat disappointing couple of nights at Great Guana Cay, we pressed on a couple of islands north to Green Turtle Cay.

20 April 2017 | Abacos

North to the Abacos

The wind was still howling, with waves breaking over the reef, so there was no leaving. Gary wanted to see Harbor Island, and I had already been there, so he took off on the early ferry on Easter Sunday. I defrosted the freezer and refrigerator, and halfway filled the water tanks (52 cents/gallon, it [...]

Les Saintes, Guadeloupe

09 February 2017 | Les Saintes, Guadeloupe

John

Les Saintes is an island group 10 miles off of the coast of southern Guadeloupe and has always been one of our favorite stops. We were very happy we got to see the island of Marie Gallant, and were anxious to see the changes in Les Saintes, which we had heard had been "discovered" and was now a bit over occupied. We arrived to a buoy mooring field of perhaps 60 buoys, none of which were there in our previous visit, and all of which were occupied, and anchored on the western edge of the bay. Big wind with first night, with several boats dragging anchor, we went into town, and found it's character was still intact, despite the increased level of tourism. Many of the old families there had descended from relatives in Brittany, and hence were more fair than neighboring islands, we recognize some. On the second morning, our aforementioned cruising friends Ken and Marie radioed to say a buoy by them had just been vacated. We steamed over there and tied on, then later in the morning shared with them a rented golf cart for a tour of the small island. We particularly enjoyed Fort Napoleon which was built in 1847 to defend the island from the invading English, and Plage Sucre Pain (Sugarloaf Beach).

During this time we tried starting the water maker, but received an error message from the display, "Salinity Probe" which meant that the salinity probe had malfunctioned, and the water maker couldn't start. We started a series of phone calls to the manufacturer in Sausalito, to try to solve the problem, they advised us to hook up a new salinity probe and put the sensor in a glass of fresh water. We happened to have a new salinity probe in the inventory of spare parts we have on hand, and did as told, the problem was still not solved. This combined with our malfunctioning depth finder, and the potential generator problem led us to entertain the notion of putting in at St. Martins, an unscheduled stop as we never were fond of the place, however, it is the center of boat maintenance in this corner of the world.

At 0600 on Friday, February 10th, we departed Les Saintes for a one night stopover in Montserrat a distance of 65 miles, eventually hoping to spend a few days in St. Bart's, which we dearly love.

Photo is of Melinda and John in Fort Napoleon, Les Saintes, Guadeloupe

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