Arrival of Phil and Pierre II in St Lucia, plus the 60^th birthday party

We’d been in Rodney Bay Marina for a couple of nights when our friend Phil arrived. We’d only got a week with him, but we managed to get out into the bay for a dinghy cruise and visit the beach (where there was some very interesting local entertainment of young women doing a dance video, I won’t say anymore, but those of us who were there know..!). We also had plenty of time at the marina pool, where Phil became an expert of lying around in the mate’s floating hammock. The mate didn’t seem to mind and took the opportunity to swim lengths rather than be lazy like the rest of us. We also winched Phil up to the top of the mast as the wind indicator needed a little service – a job he did very well. Thanks Phil!

Phil arrives bearing gifts!

Sunset cruise (still in P1)

In the midst of Phil’s visit we went over to The Boardwalk bar and thence to Sea Salt restaurant for my belated birthday. There was a pretty good group of us in the end and we had a very pleasant evening by the water’s edge telling stories (or lies, depending how you look at it!) and eating well.

The (belated) Birthday Boy

Sadly, Phil’s visit came to an end all too soon and we saw him off in the taxi. He might have been able to stay a bit longer, but he had a HGV test back at home – which he passed. Phil is now an HGV driver, not a bad career for a 1^st Class Honours Civil Engineering graduate..!

Soon after Phil went I started the next Stargazer project which was to add in one more MPPT onto the port side solar panel. I’d left this running through the Duogen PWM controller as it would help charge the engine start battery, which was true, but after the Duogen rebuild earlier in the year it wasn’t necessary as the Duogen in wind mode would be fine for just that purpose. Having all solar through MPPTs is definitely the way to go these days so I got on with it. It turned into a slightly more involved job that anticipated (as usual! – Mate). At this point you can see why the mate got a bid fed up with it all… Anyway, job done and all well.

A few days ago we went ‘mad’ and decided to have a super clean. Up came all the sole boards which were cleaned and polished, the bilge was hoovered and cleaned, the galley and heads were all cleaned and my oh my, what a tidy boat we’ve got now. Admittedly, she wasn’t bad before but the mate and I share a little OCD-ness with matters like this.

Onto ‘Pierre II of Stargazer’ or P2 for short. He was shipped from the UK and arrived at Castries port on 21^st November (he had a nice Caribbean cruise via Barbados, Grenada and St Vincent before he arrived in St Lucia). Our customs agent did the business at this end and we now have a perfect hypalon dinghy all ready for action. Pierre the Original (P1) has had his HPIF (floor) removed as we intend to sell it and the mate has given him a bit of a clean because the local inflatables man is going to take him away and see if he can do anything to find him a home. Not a bad ending for Pierre and there are worse things than retiring to St Lucia. [Just a quick word about our customs agent; given where we are in the world, I didn’t expect things to go terribly smoothly – but they did! We had next to no dealings with the actual customs officers, all the paperwork was done for us, and P2 was delivered to our door – unbelievable! If anyone comes this way, the agent is called Kenneth, ask around RBM and you’ll find him].

P2 arrives in style

Pierre II of Stargazer

As I write, December 5^th, Charlie (who freelances at RBM is busy scrubbing Stargazer’s underside) and we are planning to head up to Martinique on Saturday. The weather has been a bit wet and windy, but Saturday seems to be a let up in conditions and we want to get up there in good time for Christmas.