Yip. Still here. And the new windlass works! A great installation job was done by Custom Fit Marine. The old windlass was removed, holes through the deck plugged up, new holes made and then the new one fitted, wired up etc. The company is owned by an ex colleague of mine from my merchant marine days, Thomas Pinion. We hadn't seen each other for about 35 years. Small world!
Eventually! Out of St. Maartin. Jeez Louise! I've been there for 3 months. But it is the place to get things done. Like buying rum etc.
I'm sailing in the company of Skabenga, a Leopard 46, owned by a friend of mine Chris.
The morning that we leave St. Maartin lagoon, Chris' freezer dies, and while we are going through the bridges, out of the lagoon, there is a guy aboard trying to regas it.
We get out into Simpson Bay and motor sail across to the little island of Ile Fourchue. We anchored there for the night before crossing to Antigua. Chris' fridge not working. Too much good stuff on Skabenga so I sailed across to Antigua with a slight hangover. Not fun! It was bouncy as heck and I was close hauled all the way. Arrived here in Jolly harbor at about 20:30. I had a very near collision with a local fisherman while approaching the bay. It was very dark and no moon. I'd dropped the sails and was motoring in and all of a sudden a light starts flashing on my bow and a referee type whistle starts blowing. Fortunately I was behind the helm as I could immediately disengage the auto pilot and alter course. This clown had been fishing/sleeping, with no lights on and woke up when he heard my engine. It was a very close call.
Fortunately good friends of mine, Michael and Karen on Nautidog are here. Michael knows fridges well. He's into Chris' fridge and diagnoses that the control box is shot. Off we go to Budget marine here in Antigua. $500 and it will take two weeks to get it from St. Maarten. Mike calls Karen, who gets hold of friends of ours, still in St. Maarten, to buy one there. $250. Long story shorter. I get back to my boat and my fridge is having the same issue! Contagious? I don't know. So Pyp Muh Bligh is coming from St. Maarten with two control boxes.
Gotta love it. Fixing boats in exotic locations.
All right! I'm being moaned at. And rightly so. I'll try to keep the blog thing a little more current.
So there we were. A crowd of us. Back to Antigua. Arrived in Jolly harbor. A little provisioning there. Grocery shopping people! Yes. It takes us a day. We sailed around to Falmouth harbor to enjoy the Classics Race Week. The boats were beautiful and, as always, the rum parties spectacular. It was good to see so many friends there. It's also fun to walk over to English Harbor and see the historic buildings and soak up the history.
After Falmouth, it was down to Carlisle Bay where it was roly so I put out a stern anchor and pointed Golightly into the swell. That worked well and I was very comfortable. I manage to shoot a few "summer crabs" here.
Then it was back around to Jolly harbor and around to Five Islands, Hermitage Bay. We sailed up the West coast of the island and over the top to the north eastern side. Always cool.
Back to the south east side. Met up with Sid and Peg on Limin Time again. Sadly didn't see enough of them.
After a great time in Antigua, we headed of to Deshaise , Guadeloupe. Again! The best pizza in the Caribbean.