Deshaies, Guadeloupe.

Serafina
Rob & Sarah Bell
Thu 26 Jan 2012 02:01

16:18.49N 61:47.91W

 

Monday, Tuesday & Wednesday 23rd, 24th & 25th Jan

 

We went into town early (Sarah slightly overdressed in chest high waterproofs for the bouncy dinghy ride, but in the event she escaped a single drop of water but perhaps Rob could have borrowed them for the return journey!) to catch up on emails which involves sitting in the town square to log on to the local wifi service.   This sounds pleasant but is difficult with bright sunlight and old age sight!

 

We had a wander around the shops and bought a can of paint to see if we can lick our elderly gas bottle into acceptable state for a possible swap.   This may be the last chance to exchange (rather than re-fill) our European gas bottles as we are within French territory, before we have to bite the bullet and buy (and somehow house) American gas bottles of completely different dimensions.            We also bought some lovely French bread but the supermarkets were pretty disappointing, which isn’t surprising as everything has to come by ferry to these small outlying islands.

 

On our return we were going to do the washing and charge up a few items, but to  Rob’s great consternation the generator suddenly died.   Rob loathes any problem with the generator as it involves squeezing into extraordinary positions deep inside the engine room to get at its innards and hoping to God that he doesn’t drop that precious screw into the depths of the machinery, despite not being able to see where he’s putting it.  

 

We decided to postpone the dreaded job until after we had taken the dinghy to the headland where we have been watching the dive boats deliver passengers and had a great snorkel although a strong breeze was endeavouring to blow us north to Guadeloupe.   After lunch, a cup of coffee and a few procrastinating jobs, an hour’s sweaty work in the hot engine room proved that the impellor had become brittle and disintegrated, spraying bits of plastic around inside the pump which all had to be extracted with tweezers. A new impellor was then fitted and the genny was up and running again.   Of course, by this stage the weather had become rainy so it was impossible to dry our newly washed bedding!

 

Not such a productive day as Sunday!   But this anchorage does provide us with lots of comings and goings to watch and either learn or giggle at the antics of buoy picking up.   At one point there were 12 yachts in the vicinity with 5 dogs on board which is fairly unusual out here – the handbag variety were definitely the most irritating.

 

Tuesday was more things off the jobs to do list.   It was not such a sunny day, so some inside things got completed and Rob had another re-organisation of storage boxes.   Much to Sarah’s horror, he also discovered her spare Marmite jar had obviously re-fermented during the hot summer and burst its lid but luckily it had  been contained by the storage box – a permanent Marmite aroma in the bilges might be a bit too much for Rob!   And much of the day was pegging out, re-pegging washing due to the wind or recovering washing as it rained again – you know it isn’t as easy as you might think, this Caribbean life!  What is certain that days can fly past doing incredibly mundane things very slowly, things that living ashore take minutes.   Rob also set off to introduce himself to the owner of Apogee, an American boat flying the OCC flag.   As we are now members (sadly our flag arrived after our departure) and have heard from Scott-Free just what a boon membership has proved in the USA we thought we should start taking advantage of this great club.

 

Rob has also penned a great many emails to OCC Flag Officers in the USA to try and find a definitive answer to the question of what we will have to do with Serafina when we get to the States.   We have recently heard that non-American yachts cannot stay in the USA for longer than 12 months at a time, at which point (and not before the cruising licence has expired) we have to sail out of the country for 15 days or more;  which basically mean either south/east to Bermuda (which our timing would make this due during the hurricane season and we would not be covered by insurance, even if we should like to attempt this!) or north to Canada in June 2013.   Since we are still keen to have two summer seasons on the east coast of the States we are trying to work out how to achieve this.   We have had a flood of incredibly helpful emails back, with all sorts of suggestions and offers of great generosity and welcome, so Rob is hard at work replying and sieving out what looks like the inevitable trip up to Canada.

 

Early on Wednesday morning we set off to Deshaies in the north of Guadeloupe passing the British tall ship, Tenacious, anchored behind us (which, we think, is the ship Steve on Scott-Free used to skipper) and very grand she looked too.  We had a great close reach across the 12 mile channel achieving 9 knots SOG but as soon as we popped behind the end of the bigger island the wind completely disappeared, so we more or less motored up the west side of Guadeloupe.   We actually got to see the top of the volcano at the southern end of the island for the first time in a week as it was not covered in rain clouds.   But again not a fish caught, or a dolphin, whale or turtle seen.

 

We arrived at this delightful anchorage and were surprised to see quite a lot of yachts at anchor but managed to find a spot against the north cliff again, where we know it to be relatively sheltered and steady.   And throughout the afternoon, yachts continued to pour in until it was twice as busy as we encountered last year.