Once more unto the dock! This time it's to fit the new parts we bought in St Martin and where better or more safely (in our humble opinion) than Marina Bas du Fort in Point-a-Pitre where we can be safely tied to the dock with constant power?
We arrived on the Monday before Easter and plan to depart on Thursday 13th April in with improvements completed, provisions restocked, water tank replenished, a cleaner boat and taste buds tingled at the many excellent restaurants. Ten days should be sufficient. David has his list. I have mine and while divide and conquer is a nice maxim, team work wins the day.
David's major projects are to replace the exhaust hoses on both the engine and the genset which have been showing signs of wear. The outlet for the engine hose sits just above the waterline so much safer to fit the new one when we're not likely to be rocking and thus placing it below the waterline. There's also the comfort of being tied to the dock while the engine is disabled. Both exhausts are fitted with new hose clamps. While he's got the pipes dissembled there's the space to repair the fan that extracts hot air from the engine room where the fitting has cracked.
While David is ensconced in his engine room I crack on with the re-provisioning; lots of super quality fare to buy from the supermarket a mile away. I pedal home on my red bike with a full pannier and heavy backpack. Nothing like working hard for your supper.
One of our joint jobs was repairing the headsail. It hadn't been a planned job and only happened as we were sailing in. Sailing quickly along the coast on a close haul David spotted a large area of lighter water just ahead of us. At the last moment he saw the colour change to white and realised it was two humpback whales. A sharp turn to starboard to avoid a collision, and a turn into the wind caused the headsail to touch the lower spreader. We saw a whale and her calf flick their tail flukes and dive away, equally surprised by us as we were by them. I was watching behind for them resurface and do their tail slapping and David looked up and saw a the tear in the headsail, or as we realised, an unexpected job to add to the 'to do' list.
For the first few days in the marina the wind was blowing too hard. At 6am on Easter Monday I was woken with a gentle whisper in my ear. ''There's no wind. Do you want to do the sail now?'' Of course I do. No wind equals a much easier job. In the perfect conditions we had the sail dropped, stuck on repair fabric and stitched and re-hoisted before the croissant shop opened at 8am. (I can see the patisserie from the deck.)
This blog is our aide memoire so I'll list the other jobs completed this week; replacing the down button on the windlass, re-stitching the rear sunshade (again) and engine room fan repair .
And for our evening entertainment there was chi-chi dining at Coco Kafe and superb sushi at Quai Ouest. Polly enjoyed getting off the boat to roll on the dock and was finding a gecko supper on the racing boat next to us.
Leaving the marina at midday we were back in Les Sainted by 4 o'clock. A nice sail though we did have to pass through swathes of Sargasso weed so mighty we couldn't sail around them. At least today there was a free mooring ball available when we arrived.
Some of the crew slept on passage..
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