Oranje Baii, St Eustatia
Scott-Free’s blog
Steve & Chris
Thu 3 May 2012 13:02
|
17:28.799N 62:59.319W
Thursday 3rd May 2012
Distance run: 43 nmiles
We finally lifted the anchor this morning after a
false start yesterday when the engine was very reluctant to fire up just as we
were about to leave. Neither of us was keen to go out in dying winds with
a potential engine problem, so I put the snubber back on the anchor chain
and Steve set about investigating the problem. He couldn't find one, and
each time we tried it during the day it started first time as it usually does,
so we decided to set off this morning through the 0900 opening of the Simpson
Bay Bridge on the Dutch side. This was the first time we had used this
bridge and we had a bit of fun finding the channel markers through the lagoon as
there are so many buoys it's hard to work out what is marking what! We
made it to the bridge in good time though and as it led us directly onto our
route south it saved at least an hour over leaving through Sandy Ground Bridge
into Marigot Bay on the French side.
The last few days in St Martin had
seen the arrival of Jean and Kevin's son Mark who is joining them on their
return trip across the Atlantic, and their departure for the 2000+ nmile trip to
the Azores. They passed by Scott-Free on their way out of the lagoon to
say 'Goodbye' and we wished them a safe, fast and comfortable passage. We
finished up some outstanding jobs, including replacing the stanchions
damaged in Charleston, and made a couple of runs ashore with jerry cans to top
up the diesel.
 Jean, Kevin & Mark on Amokura
headed for the Azores.
This mega yacht had to
breathe in to squeeze through the bridge!
Once out into Simpson Bay we hoisted sail and set
our best course to windward - yes, yet again! We hoped to be able to make
south east as we are heading for Guadeloupe, but there are several islands
inconveniently in the way i.e. St Eustatia, St Kitts, Nevis and Montserrat, and
we either have to go east or west of them. As Guadeloupe is south east of
us, we decided to try to go east of them, but the wind had other ideas,
surprise, surprise. So we ended up sailing south south east and as we
neared the top of St Eustatia and we had the third very wet squall of the day,
we decided to make for the west side of St Eustatia (generally known as
Statia).
We arrived in Oranje Baii, Statia around 1700 and
picked up a buoy just inside the breakwater. The one other monohull yacht
there was rolling badly, and there was indeed a fair swell running, so we
thought we'd give it an hour or two to dry out a bit and have a bite of supper,
and then decide whether to move on. The other yacht, a Moorings
charter boat was obviously a lot lighter than us as we rolled only a
little and certainly not enough to prevent sleep, so decided to stay the night
and leave early tomorrow. It must have been bad on the charter yacht as
soon after we arrived their crew went ashore in a rib and didn't return!
We wondered what a charter boat was doing out this far from a base, and
speculated that perhaps they had run out of time to get it back to base and were
abandoning it there! Quite a plausible explanation, in fact, because the
weather is pretty unpleasant at the moment, but rather expensive as they would
have to get a plane or ferry back to the base island and then pay the charter
company's expenses to send a skipper to Statia to retrieve the boat! Not
to mention the compensation for the possible loss of the following week's
charter. (You can tell I had a few hours to cogitate on this one as I was
being rocked to sleep...)
 In Oranje Baii, Statia, whichever way we
looked there were squalls.
  Clouds almost completely covering the
hills...
eventually cleared having dropped all their moisture on
us!
|