12:00.19N 61:43.47W

Monday 18^th, Tuesday 19^th, Wednesday 20^th, Thursday 21^st and Friday 22nd April.

Crumbs doesn’t time fly!

Monday was another flat calm and windless day, but to add to the eeriness of this was the spring low tide which was exceptional and which left many of the coral reefs even a long way offshore fully exposed.

We decided that spending another day in the bay was fairly pointless when we had so much to do, most of which meant being based in a marina, so we headed out and made our way round to Le Phare Bleu marina. We had been recommended to try this particular marina because it had beautiful clear water and was a very inexpensive but smart operation.

The dock master, Kevin, is English and he came out to meet us in their rib as we picked our way gingerly between the shoals, which are at least marked by buoys, even if it is still rather risky to take them all at face value! Docking alongside the pontoon was easy as we had no wind and Kevin and his assistant Julian were on the quay to take lines and manage things very ably. They welcomed us to the marina and explained the set up and the strict rules concerning waste which ensured that the water in the marina and bay remained perfect for swimming and snorkelling.

In due course we took some time to explore the venue and we felt at times that we needed to pinch ourselves as it all seemed so unlikely and perfect. The marina office, toilets and shower block are all situated in an old Swedish lightship which is also home to a fine dining restaurant. Ashore there is a less formal restaurant and bar as well as a swimming pool, mini market and a number of marine enterprises. The marina has a book swap and free film/DVD/video library (although predominantly in German) and everywhere is immaculately clean and tidy. They even have a couple of sailing dinghies available to guests.

There are some spectacular fish swimming around the bay and marina area, which probably explains the presence of a very large grey heron and two ospreys.

On Tuesday we got back into working mode and spent the next few days gradually working way our way through the huge list of jobs to do in preparing Serafina for a long hot summer ashore. Basically the plan is to do as much work as we can here by way of preparation before we motor round to Spice Island Boatyard which is in Prickly Bay. There we will be craned out onto the hard standing and the boat will be placed in a steel cradle and parked somewhere in the yard. It then gets lashed down to the ground to secure it against any passing hurricanes! I tell you this by way of explaining what we are trying to do, but the reality is something we will have to wait and see. So what we are busy doing right now is servicing every single piece of equipment so that hopefully when we return in November everything will still be functioning properly and be ready for another full season’s sailing. Also all the hull and superstructure as well as all the fittings need to be cleaned, polished and waxed to protect them from the unrelenting sun of a Caribbean summer.

There are not very many boats here, most of which are based here permanently and by all accounts do very little sailing. It is a delightful spot and very friendly and extremely secure which means that it is also very relaxing. You do not have to lock the boat every time you want to go off and do anything else and that alone is worth the mooring fees.

One slight drawback to this island is that none of the sail makers has a sail laundering service, so where we normally just remove the sails and send them off to be washed, dried, aired and stored for 6 months, we found ourselves having to perform this function ourselves! Not quite so easy  and having successfully dropped and folded the main the other day, we now had to unfold it and wash it and dry it. The local solution seems to be to lay it out on the big lawn here and rinse it with a hose and then leave it to dry. We tried this and also did the same with the downwind sail, but it was not a huge success! Washing was fine but drying proved tricky as the top side was fine, but the underside would always sweat and as you dragged it over it picked up mud from the ground.... so we ended up with two sails that were at least free from salt , but not dry. On the upside the resort had a nicely watered lawn at our expense! The solution was to hoist the sails up the mast in the early morning the next day and to let them flap in the breeze and fast warming sun. The hard wind jib we just washed as we hoisted it and then let it also air dry hanging from the mast. We just wish we had known that we would have to do this a week ago when sitting in Tyrell Bay in torrential rain! Could have done it all then and not spent an entire day messing around here.

 On Wednesday evening we signed up for the Friendship Dinner which is a great idea where they prepare one long table for dinner and everyone just sits where they like and away you go. The meal was brilliant with a wide variety of dishes for us all to try and the company was excellent. We were sat with Bobby and Lesley Ward from Florida who have an Island Packet Yacht called Gráinne and were due to be craned out for the hurricane season the next morning. They were mines of useful information both for the east coast of America as well as any number of other issues. On the other side we had David & Julia who have a 50ft Lagoon catamaran “Torvin” and their friends who had just joined them (Liz and Patrick) turned out to know well  a very good friend of ours back in Oxted, Surrey – Malcolm Lowe. It really is a very small world sometimes. It was a great evening but shortly after first light on Thursday we were back at our jobs!

Good Friday saw several yachts head off heading north for a week or two and the place began to look quite empty with only a few familiar faces were left.

We have not really had a chance yet to get beyond the immediate environs of the site yet so we have not seen much of the island. Hopefully we will get an opportunity during the coming week before we are craned out. But our appreciation of this little resort grows daily. There are a few apartments for rent and a few small marine businesses here as well as a car hire office and remarkably a Customs and Immigration office. But the real bonus’ are the pool and the crystal clear waters of the bay. The showers are housed in the Swedish Lightship and are very clean, neat and extremely practical however they are located in former cabins down the port side of the ship and as it lies facing due north, they are exposed to the full glare of the very hot sun for the entire afternoon and early evening which means that they resemble saunas rather more than shower rooms!