Still Martinique

This seems to be becoming a theme. We think we’ll head somewhere for a few days and then the days turn into weeks. Well, there’s usually a reason – first we aren’t on a schedule to complete an Atlantic circuit and second, all we have to do is be in Grenada in June for the hurricane season.

So, why the delay in Martinique? Well, apart from good food at good prices and a very cheap mooring, the price of which was for a full month – all good reasons in themselves. We’ve had some repairs to do. The macerator pump stopped working (this is one of the worst jobs anyone can be faced with on a boat). However, Martinique was the right place for this to happen and the impellor and a few other bits and bobs were available off the shelf. We’ll spare you the details of clearing out the holding tank and refitting the pump twice (twice due to incorrect gaskets!) We were just pleased to get the job done. For the record, the mate and I replaced all pipework and pumps in the UK (and cleaned the holding tank at the same time), it’s just part of living on the boat – these things require attention…

We then decided to attempt further fridge insulation. The solar panels (renewed in the UK) were barely able to keep up with fridge demand. This ‘little job’ involved car hire, insulation purchase (found in Decathlon of all places) and fan installation. Without boring you, we have monitored overnight ampage and it used to average around 21 amps from 2130 to 0730, now it’s more like 17 or 18, so a saving of three to four amps over that period, we’ll regard as a success. Needless to say that all lights were replaced with LED ones in the UK, so the only real overnight demand is the fridge.

What a joy this cruising life is the mate was beginning to think :) OK I said, let’s have a day out, where would you like to go I asked? To the beach at St Anne came the reply. St Anne is a large anchorage some 2.5NM away and the easiest thing was to go in Pierre (our dinghy). So off we went. As we approached St Anne’s town quay we saw it was very busy, but fighting our way in, we got to a suitable bollard and ladder. I wasn’t sure about the quay’s suitability for dinghies, but everyone ties up there and so I assumed all would be well.

As we walked around to the beach, the skies darkened. Mmm, I thought, better get the mate in the sea asap (she loves swimming in the sea). After her quick dip, the heavens opened and the tropical rain was biblical..! Finally, after what seemed ages sheltering under a tinned roofed shack, we walked back to the dinghy and found that everyone had left already. Pierre’s painter was still visible though, but sadly, he wasn’t. What had happened was the storm had changed the wind direction such that Pierre had blown underneath the pontoon. That wouldn’t have been so bad, IF, the tide hadn’t risen in the meantime (yes, there is tide – not much – maybe a foot or so) and trapped him underneath the concrete structure. With the tide still rising we had to think – and fast. The only solution was for me to climb down, get into the bit of Pierre that we could still see, lie down and press up against the underside of the pontoon with my legs and feet, forcing Pierre lower into the water. It worked, but sadly not without a little damage to the outboard cowling. Luckily, this damage is superficial scratches and to be very honest a lot of people out here actually do this themselves to their outboards to make them less attractive to thieves.

After that, we headed back to Stargazer, but had to stop at a pontoon en route. The reason was that it had rained so much that Pierre was water laden and was struggling to move properly through the water. We hoisted his bow up onto the pontoon and were able to drain all the filthy water that had run off the St Anne pontoon into him (there was a lot!).

So there we have our reasons for our longer stay in Martinique. Living the life J J

Back to our plans. On Saturday 27^th May, we plan to head off around 0830 and have an overnight sail direct to Bequia. We should arrive in Bequia somtime in the afternoon of Sunday 28^th where we will, all coms permitting, report in from there…

ps The mate wants you to know a little about our journey to St Anne, we’d decided to take a short cut. Sadly this turned out to be through reefs and a water ski area, however we didn’t ground Pierre and once those obstacles were out of the way, the mate smiled with joy as a turtle popped it’s head up about two feet in front of us. The mate loves turtles; sadly I didn’t see it – I was too busy looking for water skiers.