As I had to have an early start this morning to catch the bridge man at 4.30am, I really didn't get much sleep over night. Hence when I arrived in Bas du Fort, Pointe A Pitre, I picked up a mooring that I could find and tried to get another hour or two sleep.
The trip through the bridges and mangroves was well worth the effort, more for the experience than the efficiency. The French do maintain the navigational markers through the channel, which is just as well because it was pitch black and my chart plotter didn't correlate to the channel marked.
The Bas du Fort Marina does the clearing in via the use of a computer, so while waiting for others to finish their checking in, I was approached by the Marina Manager who politely told me I couldn't stay on that mooring as it was privately owned. All this was in French mind you. As it was time to check my batteries again and see if the inverter/charger would work correctly, I requested dock access.
This was an interesting experience as it was the first time I would dock the boat "stern to" utilising a mooring off the dock and two dock lines off the stern. I chose to go "bow to" due to my davit and dinghy arrangement at the stern and the difficulty I would have getting on and off the boat. Anyway, I was pleased to have the assistance of the Marina Manager place the mooring line on, as I really couldn't handle that, together with two bow lines on the dock, keep the boat from hitting the adjoining boats (as there was only a 1 metre gap between them and me) and helm the boat. I know solo sailing does make you plan everything well in advance, but with any wind blowing that task would be almost impossible. It turns out, the French don't really care about the adjoining boats, they just place fenders out and muscle in regardless.
Pointe A Pitre is really set up for the yachtie. Although generally high tech yachts involved with Atlantic racing and setting new Atlantic crossing records. Hence there are many yacht services nearby. Unfortunately my encounter with the marine electrician was not the best (a wasted EU111.50), the mechanic was excellent.
The first electrician advised me that one battery needed replacing and I did see the meter's reading to verify that. However after discussions with Mike Gozzard and further testing of each battery's draw, the results suggested that there was no difference between each battery. Back to the electrician's shop and questioning the conclusions drawn by the first guy, they agreed to come and check the battery again. Well guess what, the same reading as the day before. He then proceeded to tell me to do further testing of each "battery's draw". Within seconds I had the results of my tests to hand and completed to tell him what I had done. This guy became confused wondering why their meter was showing "replace battery", when there was no significant difference in the amount of draw from each battery.
Half an hour later while discussing the situation with his boss, he decided to connect the meter's cables in a different manner (I would have expected to be a logical manner, ie use the positive AND negative terminals on the same battery, not just changing the positive leads) resulted in both batteries being quite similar.
In the end, I think my EU111.50 was really spent on their staff training. You live and learn.
Pointe A Pitre does have some interesting spice markets, vegetable markets and fish mongers selling their catch on the main dock. I reprovisioned here and then decided to patronise the Caribbean Pirate restaurant on the foreshore for lunch
I took advantage of my access to water and power and prepped the boat for the next few weeks before I "checked out" of the country and left the marina for an over night anchor about 200 metres away. I thought this would be far easier than trying to leave the dock around 6am the next morning and having to go through that whole rigmarole of leaving that dock with no assistance. Exiting is easier; however having one person throw the bow lines did make it lest traumatic for me.