Archive | July, 2015

April 24-May 4, 2015

The origin of St. Lucia’s name is not clear. It was, not surprisingly, inhabited by the Caribs,

who might have called it Iouanalao, where the Iguana is found.

What we found was a very green island, and to call it hilly with winding roads would be an understatement. It is a volcanic island and I doubt that the many Europeans who claimed it as their possession, went very far inland. It is known to have had 14 different flags from 1660 to 1814. As a constitutional

monarchy, it is a member of the British Commonwealth. Queen Elizabeth II is head of state and is represented by a Governor-General, but the island is governed by a Prime Minister and a Parliament. Their fun fact is that St. Lucia has more Nobel laureates per capita than any other country.(2 per 181,000 people).

Rodney Bay was a marina stop for us, which meant cleaning the boat, doing some routine maintenance and fixing some odds and ends. One of our key tasks before next year, was to have our liferaft serviced. We accompanied the mechanic to his shop-I was in the cab, Jason in the back being bounced around with the liferaft.  Ever notice Jason has the dirty jobs, underwater jobs and the dangerous jobs?  We watched as our liferaft was tested. I was pleased to see that there actually was a liferaft in the canister. It was also great to familiarize ourselves with the inflated structure. Outdated water and batteries were replaced and the raft was packaged up again.  How can water go bad?  The marine industry sure knows how to use fear to get into the bank account.

 

I joined the crew of Receta for a pleasant walk to the ocean side, complete with sighting of

rocket booster debris and lots of Sargassum. Speculation on the internet is that it is from a satellite launch, and if you have a few hours to spare, you can read the debate on which satellite it might be from and whether it is, or isn’t made of titanium.

Jason went for a dive with the newly-opened dive center down the block.  He was saw sea horses and a fish swimming with her eggs in her mouth waiting for them to hatch.  Rodney Bay is a short dinghy ride from some great supermarkets and a short bus ride from Castries Market. On one of my supermarket dinghy ride, I slowed down near one of the docks and a Jack Russell terrier jumped in. I was backing away when I realized he was there;  we were at least 5 feet away when he jumped back onto the dock. I hardly knew what had happened. At Castries Market, Ann and Steve  helped us navigate the local varieties; my favorite new fruit was the wax apple and my least favorite, the soursop.

At Marigot Bay, I stepped up my Jason torture. We watched the original Dr. Dolittle movie, which was filmed in Marigot Bay. Now the bay is developed, but during the filming there was nothing there, so it looked like a remote South Pacific island.  Apart from the sing-a-long to the theme song, it was sort of a bust. Even I had to fast forward through portions of it. Jason was impressed with the huge Great Pink Sea Snail that also offered oceanic passages.  The bay itself was murky but pleasant, with some nice hiking trails and use of the hotel gym.  When living in paradise on a boat you miss some of the taken for granted luxuries available onshore.  The bug-free, car about to run you over-free gym is a luxury that we could not miss. The only downside was that some of our fellow Antares owners had experienced mooring drift while there. That is their boats drifted when the poorly maintained moorings failed. Jason was again tossed in the water to tie a back-up line to the anchor block. He couldn’t see through the muck so had to follow the chain to get there.  A new sport of braille Scuba has been created.  I think next time we will just tie a rolling hitch to the mooring line below the ball.

 

April 16-23, 2015

We have had the pleasure of meeting many Volvo dealers in the Americas, many with excellent service, some not. Our dock and technicians at Case Pilote in Martinique were uniquely wonderful.  We had heard rave reviews of the Martinique dealer from a fellow cruiser who replaced his Volvo with this dealer’s help.  This seemed like the perfect time to do an overhaul on our engines in preparation for our Pacific crossing.

About 100 feet of the local fishing pier is earmarked for Inboard Diesel and Two Fish had a reserved seat.  Upon tying up, we noticed that we had a small

tree wrapped around our rudder. We wondered how we hadn’t noticed it while sailing. Jason opined that it had cost us half a knot.  Diving under the boat is a blue job so Jason dove to remove the tree.  However,  I wrestled the tree to a safe place, where it wouldn’t fall back in the water and cause a headache for another boat.

Around 5 pm was fishing time and we observed lots of lines being thrown, with little output but much relaxation. The boats that went out to sea seemed to have better luck. Another method utilized in the harbor was to string out a fishing net and haul it into shore. Fortunately, Two Fish and her propellers were a hundred yards away.

It was a nice change from our usual cruising harbor to be in an industrious small town with its own rhythm. There was a small supermarket and bakery and a sub-standard pizza joint. What else explains why when told we could get 2 for 1 pizzas, I responded: that’s okay, we’ll just take one.

We saw a sign for a night market and eagerly planned our day around the visit. We approached the plaza and saw the six

tables of participants, one of whom was selling old books. I saw someone frying bits of something and asked for a dozen assorted. My French couldn’t keep up with what they told me they were, but I figured it couldn’t be too bad. They were a mix of donuts and fish balls, both pretty good. Jason was meanwhile enthralled by the announcer who was circulating among the six tables with a portable microphone. The announcer’s routine was to describe the wonders at the table and then hand the microphone to the vendor. The bookseller held on to the microphone for quite some time. I, of course, couldn’t understand anything. I wish there was a 0.5x button you could press to slow speakers down.

Back to the engines. Philibert took both of our engines apart, cleaning the heat exchangers, flushing the coolant loop and replacing our fuel pumps.  Volvo requires dealers, NOT owners, to do valve adjustments and injector spray tests. We have found out that Volvo engines are really Perkins parts, painted Volvo green. I am amazed at how many pieces they can be decomposed into and that they can be put back together too. Philibert couldn’t have been nicer as he responded to our questions and checked everything out.

Frank, who owns Inboard, is originally from Sweden. The garage is about a ten minute walk away from the dock space, so they have adapted a Swedish mail delivery cart for parts transport. The shop is fully stocked with a variety of parts and is the dealer for the Caribbean and Latin American region. Like kids in a candy store, we were tempted to buy one of everything.

We stayed on the dock an extra day before heading to St. Anne, so that we could travel to Fort de France to meet Krystal. We had tried to figure out when the buses run to town and came to the conclusion that they stopped at 5 or 6 pm. No problem, we’ll get a taxi. I had thought I was very smart when I checked in at Fort de France and took a photo of the taxi sign with phone numbers. I should have tried to call them then as neither number worked. No problem, we’ll thumb a ride. We have been on walks on many Caribbean islands and had cars slow down to ask us if we wanted a ride; we always refused since we enjoy our walks. Not the case in Martinique, after 45 minutes of alternate thumbs, we gave up. Hence the bad pizza. We realized we could only meet Krystal during the day.

After Case Pilote, we chose to stay at St. Anne, rather than head to the boat city that is Le Marin. St. Anne is a nice seaside village with a few good places to eat. Our friends on Receta took us to their favorite place for cocktails and croquettes and we enjoyed a few quiet nights at anchor.

Anchors, mooring balls and docks are everywhere in Le Marin. Jason drove us via dinghy from St. Anne to Le Marin. I remember it as a 15 minute ride but he says it was 45 minutes. It was definitely into the waves on the way there. The town is great if you need boat parts, but we were taking a break from boat service so there wasn’t much there for us, other than some tasty kabobs.

Onward now to St. Lucia. Once again, our AIS was a great communicator. We were spotted by our friends on El Mundo as they passed us in the opposite direction.

It was past one o’clock in the morning and I was standing on our stern steps with a flashlight beckoning a naked woman I have never met to come aboard.  While swimming, she was yelling at a guy in a dinghy “Go away, you want to kill me”.   Gail was on the VHF speaking to the Grenadian Coast Guard. How did we end up in this mess?

We were anchored in Prickly Bay on the South end of Grenada.  It is a large anchorage, popular with cruisers.  Early in the evening we had hosted friends to watch the movie “Charade” from 1963.   We had all enjoyed the movie and Two Fish went to bed to prepare for the trip East early the next morning.

A screaming noise bolted me upright. I headed to the cockpit driven by instinct and not fully awake.  It was such an odd situation that it took time to figure out what was transpiring.    Was someone in the water?  I grabbed our emergency flashlight that we always store under the helm seat and saw a woman in the water.  I asked Gail to grab the life ring.  I now could see that the swimmer was a woman and that she was being closely trailed by a man in a dinghy.  Looks like we were in the middle of a domestic squabble.   Not a good place to be.  Her illogical communication with her partner clearly indicated some form of chemical impairment.   Messy situation.

Gail had the dark thought that the two people might be enacting this as a ploy to rob us; she is a New Yorker, so tends to be suspicious.   I was focused on not letting anyone drown.   The wind was light and there were no waves, so all we had to worry about was an aquatic domestic squabble fueled by alcohol?   As she swam closer to the stern I deployed the stern ladder.   She released an exhausted burp and some more diatribe directed at her partner.   The partner was holding a short distance away and encouraging her to come aboard Two Fish.  And she did!   Wearing only panties she climbed aboard.  I went below and grabbed her a shirt and a towel.   I offered the shirt and she replied  “what is this?”.   The comedy of the moment was missing since I was genuinely concerned she might drown.  She turned down the shirt but did accept the towel.

Once aboard, she repeated herself many times – a defining characteristic of someone who got more than their fair portion of the rum bottle.  She declared that she was embarrassed to be naked.   Gail thought that the swimmer had plenty more to be embarrassed of and told her “Don’t worry, he is not looking at you.”

Gail had been busy giving the Coast Guard our details, including our Lat/Lon.   This process had taken about 10 minutes.  In the meantime, our drunk swimmer had had enough of Two Fish hospitality and decided to enter her partner’s dinghy.   This was inspired by knowing the Coast Guard were coming.   The dinghy pulled away, but after 5 seconds her fury re-ignited and she dove into the water.  Oddly, she also confessed to him how much she loved him.  We realized at that point that they were from a boat in the anchorage. The evening was not over.

We were now eager for the Coast Guard to take over.  I engaged a flashing light to help them find Two Fish.  Two nearby boats with good intentions also helped guide the Coast Guard closer to the swimmer.   Finally, the Coast Guard was on the scene and the crew of Two Fish went below to unwind.  It took a few hours to relax before we could fall asleep.

Despite our shortened sleeping time, we were in no mood to stay in the harbor for a minute longer than needed. We sailed out at daylight, hoping for more peaceful surroundings the next evening.

Lessons Learned:

1)   I was quick to judge these people at their worst.   I hope this was a one-time occurrence.  I wish them well, but will keep our distance.

2)   Good to have safety gear in fixed locations.  Light, floating ring, heaving line and knife are useful.

3)   Break up the task.  I was keeping an eye on the swimmer.  Not because she was naked!  Gail was working the VHF.

4)   The other boats were slow to help.  It was the middle of the night but it would have been great to have another boat come by in their dinghy.  Also when Gail asked for the name of the other boats speaking on the radio they would not give their name.  Odd?

Tall ship sailors used to hope for a topless mermaid to swim aboard.  I would tell them a good night’s sleep is better.