On Hook Anse de Colombier, St Barthelemy 17:55.48N 062:52.21W

Ticketeeboo
Sue & Alan
Fri 2 May 2014 18:21
A pleasant, if rolly from time to time, night on hook Rad de Gustavia (bay) last night. Moved couple miles north this morning to here, where we picked-up a mooring buoy. Colombier bay is a nature reserve and droppy-hook is not allowed - although looking round that rule only seems to apply to vessels up to length 17m or so. There's been a couple of big stinkpots on hook! WIt looked like the local Coast Guard were taking a look round so we kept a low profile. It was the wardens and they left us alone (not being checked-in and all that).
Anyway, I decided to fit our new autopilot drive motor and working on the basis I could claim we are on mooring whilst undertaking emergency repairs, I thought it would sound good if we were asked why we have not checked-in yet. That's my thinking and I'm sticking to it. New motor now fitted and tested and it seems fine. Bit tight going in though. Me thinks Lewmar spline-shaft tolerances might not be as close as they should be?
As said, last night was bit rolly and looking forward to it being more settled tonight because we are further into the byte of the bay and the swell isn't getting to us as much. Put a wash on again this morning. Provided it stops raining soon there will be clean/dry sheets all-round on Ticketeeboo tonight. If different may have to use the dryer - which will be a first for moi.
Finally managed to get on-line with Kindle yesterday evening & this morning. Managed to delete some 30'odd 'spammy-type' emails. After the Coconut Net this morning our friend David (s/y Persephone) informed me Chris Parker (prominent meteorologist) is forecasting favourable weather window 8th-15th May for people departing Caribbean for Bermuda. With this info we'll be keeping good eye on weather because we will depart few days earlier than planned if this forecast looks promising. My original thoughts were to start our Bermuda passage between 10th & 14th so if we start on the 8th that'll be near-enough. We can always spend extra few days in Bermuda and/or the Azores rather than get stuck in Caribbean awaiting next favourable conditions. If so, we might now have just less than a week to move up towards BVI before heading N'wards towards Bermuda. Presently winds are thought to strengthen a little today and strengthen again tomorrow, before returning to 15kn'ish on Sunday. If it keeps r
aining this afternoon I'll likely tick-off some more jobs, which need doing sooner or later. Better sooner in the rain.
Annie & Mike have settled-in really well. They're keen and experienced and it's good they are able to learn their way around Ticketeeboo before our first ocean passage. We've had a couple of really good sails, which have been very enjoyable, covering 100NM thus far. Much more to come! Mike's trying to live with going to bed before 9pm!!!! This could take him couple of months to achieve?
We've talked through some safety issues and have agreed how we'll start overnight passage watchkeeping. We're gonna kick-off with Annie doing 2100-2400, me 2400-0300 and Mike 0300-0600. This assumes we'll all be up till 2100 and all up again at 0600. If it works well it'll be good because there's a promise of more ZZZZ's this time round.
Congratulations to Rachel for completing 10k run in just 1hr 2mins last weekend. We now have a running star in the family! Well done Rachel............ hope your not too sore? Love to Sue, M,R,S&T and J,P,S&F xxxxxxxx
Ticketeeboo MMSI 235071989 Callsign 2CED3, Ham callsign = m0hng
At 02/05/2014 17:40 UT our position was 17°55.49'N 062°52.20'W
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www.winlink.org/dotnet/maps/positionreportsDetail.aspx?callsign=m0hng