martin i que
Gertha4
Simon Ridley
Thu 3 Jan 2008 00:33
For the benefit of those watching we are now on a French island named after a famous fruit trader.
We have moved out of simple carribian sailing with boat boys and anchorages to europe, Martinique has this fancy marina with some big kit parked in it, no lads offering to polish your boat , no put,put dinghys with local traders offering washing and fruit, Euroes is the curency and they speak french. Even yhe coloured population is in a minority. All yhis apart we are moving north and that was the plan.
The weather is proving interesting , we are back with squls and showers, very much like the rubish we sailed into St. lucia with. The last couple of between island sails have been with seriose reefs in main and reduced jib, toe rail in water and blue juice flying over coach roof, me calmly explaining to CLS that when we round up it is time to reduce sail. I guess we are were in 25 knt terotry , the wind instrement fails to respond to bigger wind
There are possably more ARC yachts here than here are in St. L , and the boat here are in use. Hartbeat the sexiest on the fleet was towed in last night, presume no engine; and a bene first 50 that was chinese is parked up on another pontoon.
My idea that this island would be the holly grail of boat repair is a bit off the mark; engine repair would take 10 days so asked locals and a man appeared , he thinks the same as me that head unit with starter and rev counter is dead. Phoned Hamble to see if waranty, poss not however local agent shows 2 year , (watch this space.) Battern is only available in 6 meter and we wnt 1.4, where can we store 4.5 mts of spare? . Have spare windlass part and will fix tommorow. Lifejacket gas is prooving imposable, just have to pray I have eaten lots of beens before faling over , so jacket can be inflated.
When I upgraded chain cut two bolts, has taken all afternoon to polish a small amount of rust off deck, to anyone watching always clean iron fillings off a placy boat.
Caught up with hanse ownwer site tonight and it was confirmed that gertha was 18th on corected time and Peter at hanse UK may buy us all tea.
Tommorow is laundry day and try for atrip around island.
Happy days
Simon