When
last we left you, we were feasting on fresh tuna caught on the
way back to Culebra after dropping Emma off at the San Juan Airport.
I realize that we have been remiss in our narrative
but our silence means we are busy having fun and aren't sitting below
typing on the computer. We spent a couple of days out at the reef on
Culebra cleaning up and getting our limited space ready to take on
new guests, Sarah and Quincy of "Mostly Harmless". They had
picked up a puddle jumper from San Juan to Culebra hailed us from outside
the airport. They were trudging down the road from the Airport to "El
Batey's" as per instructions when we intercepted them by dinghy
and ferried them out to the boat. These are our boat partners from
home and they were raring to go despite the overnight flight from SFO.
We went out to the reef for a swim and a sharing of the goodies: chocolate,
Peet's, Latitude38 (the free Bay Area sailing magazine), refrigerator
insulation., and a truly cool solar rechargeable lantern. Christmas
came slightly late to the Caribbean this year but it was good.
Our guests are sailors and had been with us in the BVI
last year so we were bound for new horizons right away. The next day, we took
off for the US Virgin Islands and made it to Lameshur Bay on St. John for the
second night. The next morning we were off and running for Norman Island in the
BVI where we spent a couple of hours snorkeling the Caves. Great snorkeling and
a fast reach from there to Nanny Cay on Tortola (where we bought Eaux Vives last
year) for water and fuel. Late that afternoon we were outbound between Cooper
and Salt Island bound for the overnight crossing of the Anagada passage to St.
Martin. We organized ourselves into 4 hour watches of which 2 hours were steering
and 2 hours were for keeping the Helmsman company and serving as lookout. There
was no moon but a rich canopy of stars and we sailed most of the way under light
winds. Crossing statistics: 112.2 miles avg 4.2 Knots in 26:14 hours. To put
things in perspective, this is a lot faster than walking and we carry considerably
more stuff than one could reasonable carry otherwise.
We checked ourselves in to St. Martin on the French side
(where there is no charge), and made a beeline for the boulangerie "Cafe
Parisienne" where pain raisin and pain chocolat were washed down with latte's
and hot chocolate. When we got back to Eaux Vives, we hoist the French courtesy
flag and slept the sleep of just. St. Martin is still not new ground for the
capable captain and able admiral of the fleet (see the end of last year's journal
for pictures and details) so a single day of sightseeing was allowed to the men
and women of "Mostly Harmless" before weighing anchor for St. Barthelemy.
Although also part of the French West Indies, St. Barts (as it is affectionately
known) is a little more upscale and requires separate checkout/checkin procedures.
We made land fall in the evening after another 26.6 miles on a close reach on
a single starboard tack. Our able admiral noticed water above the floor boards
on the low side of the boat while attending to ship's affairs below but the captain
recommended running the manual bilge and convinced all concerned that a little
water in the bilge was normal and it had all been pumped overboard and there
was no sign that we were sinking or even leaking anywhere. Landfall in Anse de
Columbier was uneventful and we found a fine mooring up under the lee of the
edge of the encircling arm of the north end of the island. A marvelous dinner
in the Eaux Vives tradition and a fine sunset was followed by the second of the
twice daily running of the engine. For the uninitiated, the dirty secret of the
sailing trade is that, for all our rhapsodizing about harnessing the power of
the wind for propulsion, our refrigerator, radio, lights and even the very computer
I am typing on are all ultimately powered by the diesel engine. This selfsame
engine is used for motoring into harbors or driving upwind when we are in a hurry
or used to supplement the wind when it is lacking. We were all down below, trying
to ignore the hammering engine noise when the beep of an engine alarm brought
us racing to the helm. After shutting off the engine, we realized that we were
overheating and, to conserve energy until the problem could be resolved, we should
go to bed and deal with it in the morning.
The morning found the captain
busily peering into the engine compartment trying
to look sanguine about the situation. Sarah notices some pinched hoses running
seawater through our brand new heat exchanger for the refrigerator and the captain
noticed a fitting on that selfsame cylindrical device had partially melted and
come out of the housing. The impeller appeared to be shot and some other small
parts of the seawater pump were also in
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need of replacement. Fortunately, the
prudent captain had  an impeller rebuild kit, tools and steel determination. With
lots of Teflon tape, the melted part was inverted and made to
perform its job with only a small leak. The pinched hoses were reinforced
with spare hose clamps and the seawater pump rebuild went well and
swiftly. Sadly, ship's Quality Assurance Officer noticed that despite
the only minor leaks at the heat exchanger, and vastly improved water
flow through the rebuilt pump, no water was coming out of the boat's
exhaust.
Attentive readers among you may already be thinking, "Hah,
what about that water in the bilge?" The ship's crew was thinking
the same thing and discovered a blue plastic lunch box sized thing
that was leaking copiously from several holes. The captain had not
provided Eaux Vives with a spare blue lunch box shaped thingie. The
captain really didn't know he had one in the first place.
Nothing for it but to sail back to St. Martin
which is boat parts central for this part of the world. Our intrepid
crew jumped into action and we sailed off our mooring, back across
to St. Martin and up to Marigot Bay and on to our anchor without
resort to our untrustworthy engine. 26.6 Miles at an average of 6.7
knots (which is more like a sprint than a jog) and we made it in
time for the 45 minute dinghy ride across Simpson Bay Lagoon to the
parts place before they closed. We made it there before they closed
and held up the partially melted blue plastic lunch box thingie and
said "we need a new one of these" in our most professional
manner hoping no one would notice our damp clothes from the wet ride
nor our complete ignorance as to what the heck it was. The poor clerk
was sick as a dog but was really sure he didn't have one. He did
consent to go upstairs to the same storeroom where last year he found
our lost winch cover plate and came down with a much cleaner but
gray lunch box thingie. It came in a box labeled "Water Lock" and
the advertising on the side of the box said that (among its many
virtues) it would melt when your engine overheated instead of letting
more expensive stuff melt. It also claimed to make the engine run
quieter and do other good stuff and held the same amount of water
as the old one despite its different size and shape. We bought it.
If any of my sailing students are reading this: 1) Examine the cooling
flow of water from the engine EVERY SINGLE TIME you start it 2) check
the floorboards for water in the bilge - and if you find it DO SOMETHING.
Yet another entry in our upcoming volume: 101 Stupid Boat Tricks.
Mission accomplished but now we are low on
food and high on dirty laundry. After another day of errands, we
head back out for St. Barts. This time we stopped at "Ile Forchue" a
very small anchorage which appears to be the submerged caldera of
an old volcano. The encircling rim looks more like a lunar crater
as the island was badly overgrazed by goats who ate nearly everything
but the rocks and left a kind of lunar landscape behind. Underwater,
however, things are much lusher and we all enjoyed a long snorkel.
Our new underwater housing got a work out and many of the underwater
photos are from this location. We did finally get down to St. Bart's
capital city and main port, Gustavia and took fore and aft mooring
balls in a very picturesque, very busy, and very crowded inner harbor.
Eaux Vives is a name all the French customs officials seem to have
no problem with and she seemed
right at home among the gleaming yachts of this tres chic playground
of the extremely wealthy. St. Barts has even more spectacular food,
drink and boats than St. Martin. I am sure we could have spent more
time (and money) sampling the restaurants of St. Barts but we had
to get back to put Sarah and Quincy on the plane back to home. This
time we decided to sail up over the top (north) of St Martin and,
as the winds were accomodating, we sailed up to Orient Bay. This
long beach seems to be the capital of all the naked Frenchmen (and
women) one sees throughout the island chain. In addition to having
much better food than the Spanish, British or American Islands, the
French Islands are a good deal more liberal in their views on the
need for clothing in a tropical climate. Yet another reason to add
France to the Cheney/Rumsfield sh*t list. At bare minimum, it should
be looked into by the proper authorities.
As this is an unauthorized voyage, we anchored
at a discrete distance and left in the morning to complete our circumnavigation
of the Island and struggled awake at 4:45 to load the dinghy with
our tired (but happy) guests and luggage for the pre-dawn dinghy
ride to the airport where they were deposited in a reasonably dry
state for their journey home. As they are on this mailing list, you
may all appeal to them for the true and unbiased story of cruising
in the caribbean and uncover the reason for their mutinous mutterings
that they wouldn't want to do this for 6 months. |
