We arrived back from the US about a week before Ithaka was to be hauled out of the water in southern Martinique for bottom cleaning and anti foul painting. This was just about enough time to do a quick sail up to Guadeloupe, explore a little, and get back for the haul out. A little tight, but what the heck. So we set sail mid afternoon March 9 for the 100 mile passage to Les Saintes. Lots of adjectives could describe our passage - spicy, sporty, adventurous, nerve wracking.... The wind varied from 2 to 32 knots, with calm seas in the lee of Dominica to 2.5 meter waves/heavy winds between islands and during squalls. Tiring, but good to see how well the boat handled windy conditions and good to "remember " how to sail. We did 3 hour watches and I am happy to report that I did not wake David up during the squall where the wind was regularly gusting above 30 and the rain was pounding, although I thought about it.



We arrived at Les Saintes about mid morning the following day. The Saintes are a small group of islands about 10 miles south of the main island of Guadeloupe. The only town is Bourg des Saintes, a charming euro-Caribbean village with red roofs and stucco and gingerbread balconies throughout.


From town we hiked up to the top of Le Chameau, the highest point overlooking the harbor, where we met a young couple from Quebec via Spain. His parents were visiting them before they sold their boat and moved back home... sailboat prices, like second home prices, are quite dear now and someone made them an offer they couldn't refuse.



The next day we banged 30 miles through wind and waves to the island of Marie Gallante where we anchored overnight on the leeward side of the island. This island is verdant and rolling and is known for its sugar cane crop. We woke up the next morning and had a fun downwind sail to Bas-du-Fort Marina in Pointe-a-Pietre on mainland Guadeloupe to check it out before we we meet friends there on March 26th.

David hadn't been feeling well (lowgrade fever and cough, but with 4 negative Covid tests!) so we decided to break up our return to Martinique and travel in daylight. We spent the first night at anchor in Dominica, where we were allowed as long as we flew our yellow "Quarantine Flag" and no one stepped ashore. The island is unspoiled, beautiful, and has little of the resort development seen in many other places in the Caribbean - we hope to spend more time there in the future.


A couple more days of wonderful "on the beam" sailing in windy/comfortable conditions brought us back to Le Marin Martinique a day before our scheduled haul out.

Our lovely boat, however, is feeling some effects of the 8200+ miles she has sailed. On our last day sailing to Le Marin we noticed something wasn't right with the bimini, the sun cover over the cockpit. After the initial "uh-oh", the stitching for 4 zippers quickly ripped out from the pressure of the wind, and we had to wrestle the canvas to get it down and put away. Given the Caribbean sun (and rain) getting this repaired would be a priority. A few days earlier, we noticed that the batten (plastic or medal rod to stiffen the sail) was ripping out of the pocket on the head sail. We lowered the sail and were able to remove and save the batten pocket and batten, but it also would need to be repaired.


Unfortunately, scheduling appointments with sailmakers and canvas shops during the busy season (now) is notoriously difficult. I join Facebook groups for each island we visit and I recalled recently seeing a post of someone looking for a sailmaker in Le Marin, lamenting that they were all busy for the next several weeks. Someone had answered that "maybe he could help. He had a friend...". So I messaged this person back with our details, and he answered saying he thought his friend could help and they would come to our mooring directly and pick up the bimini! Seemed like a miracle - too good to be true? A hour later Boris came via dinghy with his friend Igor and picked our canvas up. We tried to describe what we wanted, but their English wasn't very good. Try French, we asked? No... then they sheepishly admitted they were Russians, but quickly said they had been here for several years, and didn't really like Putin, this war was terrible, etc. I think they were relieved when we lamented the state of leadership in each of our countries. We only got a bit of their complex story. They are Russian sailors who have been living in the Caribbean for a while, and are now caught trying figure out how to manage in the new world order. It is not clear whether they can go back, or whether they have access to their money in Russian banks, etc. Boris is living at anchor nearby on a boat and is trying to make some extra money with his Sailrite sewing machine. True to his word, he returned the next day with a beautifully repaired bimini at a fair price. Amazing.

If problems usually come in 3's, we are fitting the pattern. After being hauled out at the boatyard we were put on stands in a spot where we could not reach shore power.


So we carried everything from the frig and freezer the 1/2 hour walk to our studio and turned these off so as not to empty the batteries. The next day, the boatyard moved Ithaka to a spot where we could connect with shore power. Frig and freezer back on. Items carried back to boat. Freezer quickly returned to below 32F. The frig only cooled to about 75 degrees and the motor was very hot. Argh. We carried frig items back to the studio and turned the frig off.



It's Sunday. We are back at the boat, have tried turning the frig back on. It is cooling now, but slowly.... We have some names of repair people to try, bought a cooler and found out where to buy ice. Will see if we can find someone to look at the frig tomorrow.

We are supposed to splash, or return to the water, tomorrow. In order for this to happen, the boatyard needs to move the stands underneath the boat, anti foul paint the spots that had been covered by the stands, wait 4 hours to dry, then add another coat, wait to dry, and put in water. Don't think it quite adds up. And about a refrigeration tech, fingers crossed. We still haven't decided if the frig is working and it's just hot (maybe out of the water the frig has to work harder...) or we have a problem that needs to be fixed.

Our plan for tomorrow had been to head straight to Les Saintes after we get the boat in the water, about a 16 hour trip. We'll see.