30 January Scooter day

For the craic of it we hired an electric scooter today to ride every road on Terre Haut and to facilitate, in the meaning of making easier, for the walk up to La Vigie du Chameau. A fort on top of the highest point in the Saints. The translation of La Vigie du Chameau is somewhat baffling, Camel Lookout. Camel’s in the Caribbean? Someone’s name? Does the profile of the hill resemble a camel hump? No. I don’t know. I do know from leaving the scooter at the bottom of the road (road closed to vehicles) it took 45 minutes to reach the top.

A couple of years ago we walked a couple of miles from the dinghy dock in town, climbed the peak to Camel’s Lookout crawled back to our dinghy exhausted. It was a breeze this time!

We drove every road (there’s not many on a small island), visited every beach, stopped for lunch, visited Fort Napoleon, drove second and third times over the same roads, looked at the airport building and the cemetery (on the same road) and it was still only 2.30pm. We returned the scooter at 3pm and dinghied to Jackster to drink water and recover. After so much exercise and effort I needed a rest.

Crawen beach

Pompierre beach

dreaming of riding away from it all

resting at Camel Lookout

can we go home now?

11 January 2026 Ilet a Cabrit

Back to a favourite spot and back to just hanging out, busy doing nothing after a month of ‘work’ in the marina.

cruise ship day

no cruise ship day

Ilet a Cabrit (Goat island) is one of the small, uninhabited islands of Les Saintes with 13 boat moorings, a dive mooring and beautiful clear water. We could have stayed on a mooring in town, but this is quieter and it’s not too far in the dinghy.

I feel like I’m on holiday; dipping in the water for a swim, time to read books and time to chat. Our one commitment is to feed the two feral cats who live here. They’ve been here for about a year, both female and both look healthy. I think visitors give then morsels from their packed lunch. We take a can of cat food, nibbles and freshwater each evening. Without much imagination we named one Ginger and the other Snowy.  

Miss Snowy

Miss Ginger

For our Polly David has been catching these silvery fish for her.  Such is his love he fillets them we cut them into small pieces before freezing.  Polly's a pescatarian - no meat is passing her lips, no tinned cat food, not tinned tuna.  I wouldn't say she's spoilt, but... 

Fish for Polly

We are such softies, but think if it were Polly we’d like to know she is fed and watered each day.

New year’s Eve 2025

Another year passed and a new one to begin at midnight, but do you celebrate midnight in your host country or your native country? We chose to do both. That way we could have dinner and champagne at 8pm while watching the broadcast of the London fireworks, go to bed for a while and then get up to watch the local fireworks at local midnight. How cunning are we?

New Year’s eve is a time to reminisce and for us it was counting back on previous New Years since we’ve lived on Jackster.

2008 was our first and memorable as a disaster. We were taking advantage of a weather window to travel from Luperon, DR to Puerto Rico and 30 minutes into 2009 the forward gear failed leaving us floating in a windless night and with 180nm to go. Read more at

http://sv-jackster.blogspot.com/2009/06/1-jan-2009-happy-new-year.html

2009 Cartagena with friends and strolling around the old city.

http://sv-jackster.blogspot.com/2010/01/31-december-2009-new-years-eve.html

2010 New Zealand, Urquharts Bay, Whangerei. Beautiful scenery and a quiet celebration

http://sv-jackster.blogspot.com/2011/01/new-years-eve-exercise-to-eat.html

2011 New Zealand, Russell with Chris and Dave of Chrisandaver’s Dream

http://sv-jackster.blogspot.com/2012/01/saturday-31-december-new-years-eve-in.html

2012 Sydney, The BEST time; fireworks, best friend Cathy who was the first to call me The Jackster

http://sv-jackster.blogspot.com/2013/01/new-years-eve-2012-sydney-extravaganza.html

2013 Thailand, Phuket party town

http://sv-jackster.blogspot.com/2013/01/new-years-eve-2012-sydney-extravaganza.html

2014 Palau and a last minute change of plans meant NY on anchor and not at sea.

http://sv-jackster.blogspot.com/2015/01/new-years-eve-2014.html

2015 Thailand, Nai Harn with Amy and Andrew

http://sv-jackster.blogspot.com/2016/01/new-year-2016-nai-harn.html

2016 Thailand, Nai Harn before embarking on our passage across the Indian Ocean

http://sv-jackster.blogspot.com/2016/01/new-year-2016-nai-harn.html

2017 South Africa, Richards Bay on the other side of the Indian Ocean

http://sv-jackster.blogspot.com/2018/01/new-years-eve-in-richards-bay.html

2018 Colombia, Cartagena for a second time

http://sv-jackster.blogspot.com/2019/01/new-years-eve.html

2019 Cuba, Cayo Levisa resort. The buffet.

http://sv-jackster.blogspot.com/2020/02/31-december-2019-new-years-eve.html

2020 Antigua, English Harbour in Covid 19 times

http://sv-jackster.blogspot.com/2021/01/new-years-eve-2020.html

2021 Grenada, St Georges and Port Louis Marina still with Covid 19 restrictions

http://sv-jackster.blogspot.com/2022/01/31-december-2021-new-years-eve-old.html

2022 Guadeloupe, Marina Bas do Fort French celebrations

http://sv-jackster.blogspot.com/2023/04/new-years-eve-2022.html

2023 Guadeloupe, Marina Bas du Fort

http://sv-jackster.blogspot.com/2024/01/31-december-2023-happy-new-year-2024.html

2024 Guadeloupe, Marina Bas du Fort. Again

http://sv-jackster.blogspot.com/2025/01/new-years-eve-2024.html

It's been a memorable journey.  Happy New Year to you all and thank you for following our blog.

30 December Provisioning bonanza

A pre-departure (from the marina in 5 days) tradition is to rent a car for a couple of days and venture out hunting down and gathering goods and provisions. It’s a military operation with a list of shops to visit in the most time efficient order and a sub order list of what we need from that establishment.

David’s in the driver’s seat and I’m co-driver with the clipboard. At the end of the mission we had a new bike tyre and selection of inner tubes for future punctures from Decathlon, 6m of sunbrella to make a new rear sunshade, a new cockpit dining chair after the other collapsed, 60 cans of Punk IPA brewed in Scotland, a few (?) select bottles of French wine, enough food to fill the freezer, fridge, store cupboards for a siege and 3 months supply of kibbles and cat litter.

Job’s a good ‘en.

Boxing Day 2025

That’s it. Christmas is over and a return to situation normal, ie housework and boat jobs. David was back in the engine room to check on the new fuel pump he’d fitted on the genset yesterday afternoon and I defrosted the fridge and got a haircut.

Here in Guadeloupe shops are open as normal today. In the UK they would have shut before Christmas Eve and not be back until after New Year. I’m happy, neither of us are suited for a life of sloth.

Walking back along the dock after my haircut I heard a cheery ‘hello’ coming from our neighbours boat and there was David on board Humerus having a chat with Geoff and Karen. It would have been rude not to join them for a glass of wine and a most convivial chat. Humerus is a new Oyster 56 and Geoff and Karen are preparing to join the Oyster World rally which starts in Antigua in a couple of weeks. We wished them well and look forward to following their adventures though they’ll do the trip in 15 months compared to our 10 years.

Christmas Day 2025

When it’s just the two of us and the cat there are no rules, no ‘must do’s’, except for me it was a no boat jobs, no housework day. Not quite for David.

We’d decorated Jackster with our small Christmas tree (which Polly views as a toy to attack), coloured lights strung around the salon and, new this year, a string of white solar powered lights for the cockpit. Finally we have solar power!

We eat our Christmas dinner in the evening when it’s cooler. This years’ menu was a bottle of champagne and fois gras and then a pork wellington, aka a posh sausage roll. Of course this left David with a free afternoon to change the fuel pump on the generator which had a slight leak. 

genset fuel pump

Today’s job, the fuel pump, is a small generic item which he felt would be improve the performance of the genset by replacing with the spare which he had in stock. Once that was done we went the traditional post, or in our case, pre dinner walk. Polly did her own thing today.

Let's begin

a happy Christmas day

21 December New running rigging

When we had the issue of the main sail halyard snapping back in July we replaced all the sail halyards and some of the most used lines. Since then we’ve been looking at the old lines and thinking ‘we ought to replace these too’.

With five chandleries all carrying a stock of lines in Bas du Fort we were sure we’d find everything we needed...and we did.

We bought 40m x 14mm for two genoa sheets, 22m of 12mm for the main sheet, 20m x 10mm low stretch high performance rope for the two genoa car travellers and 11.5m x 10mm of the same for the main sheet car traveller. For the rest of the lines we could have regular standard 10mm and in different colours; two x 16m in light blue for the whisker pole lifts, 10.5m of green for the mizzen out haul, 12m of blue black marl for the mizzen control sheet and 16.5m of red black marl for the passerelle line.

In all we replaced164m of old lines with new. What happened to the line we discarded? the dock master took it for the January carnival. He explained that there’s a tradition on the island of making carnival whips and by giving our old lines and it stops them stealing ropes.

out with the old

genoa sheets & grey non stretch

old on left, new on right

19 December Boat jobs Part II

For a while we’ve had a slight diesel leak on one of the injectors on the engine. This became the next job for David while we’re here in the marina. Removing and opening the injector he reseated the copper washer and added a grease known Coppa Slip that he used to use on his rally car engines. We visited all the marine stores and found nothing like it, but in a small engine repair shop in the boat yard there was a pot of the exact grease that had been sitting on the shelf for more than 12 years. The chap gave us a small amount and now no leak on the injector!

We’ve also had a small oil leak on the generator which David suspected to be the front crank shaft seal. This was fixed with a second cycle ride to SKIF in the industrial zone of Jarry who, again, had the right size in stock. David fitted it and ticked off another niggling issue.

There are still plenty more jobs and problems to keep us busy, such as the puncture on David’s back tyre picked up on the way to the seal shop. Luckily it was a slow puncture and we had the tyre pump with us and we swapped bikes for the ride home (smaller person riding the slow puncture). The supermarket didn’t have the correct size inner tube in stock and we’ve run out of puncture patches so time to get creative. With rubber from an old seal and 2 part dinghy repair glue David fixed it...until we rent a car and can get to a bike shop to buy a new stock on inner tubes. We need our bikes!

13 December Boat jobs Part I

On the sail from Antigua to Guadeloupe we noticed that the headsail furler motor was running slower than normal. A year ago when we were in Antigua it stopped all together and when David opened it up he found a seized bearing. Because a replacement wasn’t available to buy at the time he managed to free and it has worked for a year. Guadeloupe is a much bigger island with more industries and the opportunity to buy replacement parts. For this job there is a seals and bearing supplier who if you ask ‘do you have…’ almost always say ‘yes’. And it’s only a thirty minute bicycle ride, much on cycle routes, to the shop. David was able to buy new bearings and seals and now the furler motor is fully functional.

Our VHF radio has been dying slowly.   First the screen faded and then the sound went so when we knew I was going back to England we ordered new radio and a new remote handset for the cockpit.  This was one of those rare quick fits that work and it is an essential bit of kit.

Another job was to replace the up and down buttons on the windlass. Seawater has got in and corroded the connections. I’d brought new ones from home. The fix was a simple of out with the old, in with the new and improving the seal on the unit.

I’ve been working my way through the cupboards, pointy end to blunt end, sorting, chucking and rediscovering treasures I’d forgotten we had. And there’s the usual sewing repairs needed on the sunshade and a couple of zips to replace on the bimini. All good steps forward and essential to keep Jackster in top condition.

It hasn’t been all work and no play this week. We’ve been out more evenings than we’ve been in; dinner on Lumina with David and Carol from Canada, drinks with all the Amel owners on the dock; German Michael of Ripple hosted and French Roman of Coque en Re completed the party. Plus we went out for dinner a couple of times – with excellent French cuisine on offer it would be rude not to!

6 December Marina bas du Fort

Another December, another birthday and we are back in the marina in Pointe-a-Pitre. Dinner this evening was at our favourite restaurant which is conveniently next to the Capitainerie for my favourite meal of sushi. An excellent excuse to put on a dress, nice shoes and slap on the lippy!

Apart from birthday dinners over the next month we have plans to fit the boat presents that I brought back from the UK in November, replace the remainder of running rigging that we didn’t have time to do when we were here in July and I’ll do the annual check and chuck on every cupboard and storage space. With very good chandleries, shore power and water, rubbish and recycling available this is the perfect place to do our projects.