Island Chains

Quest
Jack and Hannah Ormerod and Lucia, Delphine & Fin
Sat 27 May 2017 11:51
For a while we looked at sailing home. Across the Atlantic and back to Wales. Personally, I was excited. Another ocean passage, the hush in the middle of the ocean. Wind-powered mobility scooter speed spacing the Earth out. Then at the end, we’d be rewarded. Back against our wall in Milford. Bowling with the fishing league at the weekend, Blue Lagoon water park half an hour away. I started planning passage meals while rooting to the bottom of wardrobes for warm things. Scratching my head. When did anyone last see thermal socks? And one morning, things changed. The Cap informed me after he’d taken a Fin to the beach that we weren’t doing the sail anymore. I’d looked at Fin’s permanent smile on her chops, the sand on her paws and back up. Now… this is when having your husband as Quest’s chief gets interesting. I know, I know.. on a boat you need one person in charge. For this reason, Trump should make the White House float. A despot’s paradise. And don’t get me wrong.. when something breaks, ‘Cap! Come and fix it!’ When the sea gets really big in the middle of the night, who takes the helm? 

I sat back. Why? Well, he pointed out, most cruisers here haul out here. They lift their boats, spray them with vinegar to keep the effects of hurricane season heat away. And go home. Easier then a long sail. I felt the change like rain. His point was true. Most cruisers who manage to get here don’t just sail home when they have to go back. They pack their boats up and leave them. We’d even watched them do it from our close perch living in Grenada Marine’s boatyard last year. It was impressive. Still. We’d never left Quest like this before. But other people do it. With much nicer and posher boats than ours. In fact, a friend had told me you could rent an air-conditioning unit to keep your boat in tip-top condition. 'Really?’ I'd said. With all the effects on Quest; books and clothes and Delphine’s mountain that make our over-crowded home? I slapped myself with cold logic. We could leave her on this side, go home and when we were ready, just come back again. We looked South below the hurricane belt. Other cruisers seem to have insurance policies that leave their boats protected in a mangrove swamp with a Category 5 coming. Not us. Hauling out meant going South.

People talk about the ‘perfect’ sailing conditions in the Caribbean. Our experience is this: in the lee of each island, the water is mostly smooth and glassy. Suddenly wind rolling down from a nearby mountain pulses down straight into your sails. From ten knots to thirty-five. No wave to predict its arrival. George, our auto-pilot, being something of a delicate robotic soul tends to get upset in these conditions. The Cap took the helm and we held on, awaiting rogue gusts and watching the land pass by. Each island smelled different. Dominica smelled of sulphur. Not surprising perhaps with her bubbling lake and boiling pools. Further South, the big island of St Vincent smelled of woodsmoke. Plumes of smoke rose out of remote hills like tall, grey cedars. St. Lucia had a strange current moving against us that made us feel like we were never going to leave. It disappeared suddenly at the southern tip. We came to the island channels. The water in between each island was a different story. With a whole Atlantic Ocean of trade winds without a Caribbean reef to stop them, it's often a wild and windy affair. We battened down the hatches. Tied the children, tied the dog. Funnily, as we pitch up and down, George doesn’t seem to mind these rock’n’roll conditions at all. His auto-pilot arms pinged and whirred without a single glitch. Go figure.. 

We did stop in Martinique. The thinking was: if you finally go to one French island.. might as well buy croissants from them all.. Plus we had a small problem. Coming down through The Saintes, our genoa furlex broke. Highly technical description coming… the thingy that unfurls our genoa headsail.. good, hey :)… got stuck. ‘Probably the best rigger in the Windwards,’ was plastered in our pilot book like an arrow. We knew what to do. An early rainy Sunday morning greeted us at Martinique’s Le Marin. The yachting centre of Martinique. We tied up in the marina, waited for the rain to break and went out to explore. And we liked what we saw. The marina, although without a pool to cool off in was good-value. Super clean. Had big wide spaces and another strange European perk. Smooth concrete. This meant the girls’ scooters which had been hidden long, long ago under a bunk were rooted out. Besides a couple of worse-than-they-first-looked first-aid incidents, the girls were not seen again. Meanwhile, the Cap went to work. The riggers were next to the marina. We held our breath… the next morning was a public holiday. Doh. Girls went scootering again. We waited some more. Tuesday morning, we were first thing at the riggers’ yard. ‘We have space,’ they pointed to their pontoon, ‘come along.’ Five minutes later Quest was there. A number of men inspected our furlex. Would we need a new one, we wondered? ‘No,’ the owner, Phillipe, hazelnut-tanned, wire-coloured hair said, ‘it’s on the wrong way round.’ The whole thing? Really? We peered at it. For the four years we’d had Quest, we’d always bemoaned the difficulty of furling our relatively small sail. We’d even started using the electric winch to reef her. A lazy move but handy when you needed it done lickety-split. Aha. 

Two days. All it took for Philippe and his team to fine-tuned Quest’s rig. Like a yachting Formula One pitstop. In the meantime, we went out to the local cafe and had Moules Mariniere. Imagined living here. Come Thursday morning, the riggers were done. They started undoing our lines. ‘Another boat coming.’ True to their style, this was no place to lounge around. Philipe came onboard to say good-bye. 'If the changes work well,’ he said, 'I’d like to know.’ We looked at him. And if it doesn't, don’t get in touch? He smiled. Missed that bit out. 

Well, we owe him a phone call. Past the anchorage we unfurled and furled the genoa. No more electric winch. It was another learning curve for Quest. Make sure things are put on the right way. No down to Grenada. 

Love from Quest and her crew xx