Say cheerio to all on the boat and get a local businessman, Adrian, to give me a lift to Soufriere.
The deal is he takes me to Soufriere, finds me a decent hotel, takes me to the touristy places in the area and drops me off at the hotel: all for less than the price of an official taxi ride just to Soufriere (and none of the other bits)!
Soufriere:
the Waterfall:
Les Petits Pitons:
Hand the boatover to Moorings today. All goes well and they allow us to sleep on the boat tonight.
A trip into Castries in the afternoon to post all my wet weather sailing gear back to the UK. Stupidly, I take the airmail option without thinking about it - ouch!
Depart Martinique at 1430 hours and arrive in Marigot Bay at 1910 hours. A slight touch of the keel on the bottom :-) and then we are in!
Put the boat to bed for the night and then a quick shower using the fresh water hose at the stern of the boat and over to Chateau Mygo for a few beers and a BIG steak!
Arrived in Marina du Marin at 1100 hours so that was just under 19 days from Santa Cruz.
We spent all day cleaning the boat (after 19 days at sea a half day off would have been nice).
Apperitifs whilst playing Boulet and then to one of the marina restaurants for some proper food (well, after 5 days of boiled rice and pasta, you get the drift?). Unfortunately the food on the yacht was better, a very poor meal!
Back to the marina bar (Mango bar) and got talking to Claire, Olivier and Vincent. Invited back on to their Catamaran for a few more. Finished at around 4 am.
Joined by a flying fish in the cockpit at 0450 hours. It was nice to have the company but it was not big enough for a meal for the four of us so I put him back as soon as I could grab hold of the slippery little blighter!
Played a game of Boulet: Yannick and Maeva against Francis and myself, we won, just!
No glorious sunshine this morning.
Just after 11 the heavens decided to open and wash the decks for us for the first hour or so of my watch (managed to have a nice shower though):
Hopefully be in Martinique on Sunday.
Saw a boat today off the starboard beam at about 1230 hours. The first one since we left Tenerife 9 days ago.
Not a lot of wind so we are motoring now.
(I then see another one at 0450 hours the following morning - and that is it till Martinique).
Sailing downwind, the sun is shining, the others are in the saloon playing cards and I am sitting listening to Led Zeppelins Kashmir on my iPod - fantastic!
"...Oh, father of the four winds, fill my sails, across the sea of years,
With no provision but an open face, along the straits of fear..."
Another warm day today and we are down to 1913 miles. Does not seem quite as far now we are under the 2k barrier.
Getting a lot of card playing in these days!
Cross 23.5 degrees north (Tropic of Cancer) around 10 am and are now in the tropics.
A nice sunset this evening:
This is a delivery for the charter company Moorings and they obviously want their yacht as good as it can possibly be (less wear-and-tear of 4500 miles of course), as such Francis has to go up in the bosuns chair to put some protection where the battens touch the shrouds - rather him than me:
The wind is now directly astern so we goose-wing the headsail with the spinnaker (!!) pole:
We manage to rig the rudder component of the autohelm and a quick bit of basic calibration and we are back on track. A big relief I can tell you.
A pleasant sail, averaging about 7 knots. The weather is warm: shorts and a thin fleece and all is looking good when at around 2010 hours the auto helm decides to pack in!
The rudder indicator has slipped and it thinks the rudder is 30 degrees to port when in fact it is central. The problem is when a wave hits us and the rudder needs to go to port, it goes out of the autohelm range, which then decides to switch back to manual!
It means that we now have to helm 24 hours a day as opposed to punching the course into the auto pilot. Just what you need with 14+ days to go
(There are 4 of us on board and with the distance we have to go, we can only afford one person on watch so it could prove messy if you are on the helm and caught short!)
Leave Santa Cruz again! Underway by 1130 am and run on full main and genoa for 45 minutes and then drop the main as wind directly astern and we are making 7 knots on headsail.
Passed the Reina Sofia airport early evening, then Los Abrigos, Las Galletas and, the last point before we say goodbye to Tenerife, Palm Mar (Punta Rasca) lighthouse.
We did leave...
...but 20 minutes later we had to return as the genoa halyard had snapped... obviously my my left arm was stronger than I thought it was! Good job I never used my right arm, that would have been catastrophic!
Well we got here Wednesday, the mechanic turned up today (5 days since) and spent 5 minutes looking at the problem before diagnosing loose connections...
Ah well... now we go!
Waiting on the mechanic to come and have a look at the engine (seems to be a lot of this at the moment). May get to see the rugby...
The original destination in the Canaries was Gran Canaria but a wind shift 24 hours earlier than forecast forced us to change our destination to Tenerife.
We headed for Puerto de la Cruz on the north coast but could not get in there so decided to head for Santa Cruz, the capital.
The weather then blew up (sods law) and upon trying to start the (brand new) engine that had been working thirty minutes before, found that it had other plans and would not start.
Now the prospect of being faced with what could be a twenty-hour beat to the capital with deep-reefed main and genoa does not do that much for me but do it we must! Reef in, get as close we can to the wind and grin and bear it, :-)
An hour or so later and things are not looking good: the yacht is well-heeled over, it is very uncomfortable, will be dark in two hours and we have a long way to go. Trying on the radio to get a weather report but no luck with that, another try of the engine and miraculously it roars into life - joy!!
Four hours later, sitting in a restaurant in Santa Cruz with a nice cold one, it did not seem quite as bad as it was - strange that!
The engine is in, tested and is in working order. Francis has told us we are leaving for Gran Canaria in an hour so I will not get to see the rugby this weekend - will also be out of SMS range so who knows when the result will come through...
Yannick and I took a train from Cascais to Lisbon and then had a walk about and generally did the tourist things.
After lunch we joined a tourist bus ride (not particularly good) and went and saw some of the other sites...
The Tower of Belem:
...and the district of Alfama, the oldest district in Lisbon:
Went to Sintra by bus this afternoon. Unfortunately the last bus back was in just over an hour so we didn`t have long.
...haven`t seen one of these before:
Heard today that the new engine is on the way from France as of tomorrow morning. Had a few concerns (for a while) that the delivery was going to be cancelled...
Should be away by the weekend but hopefully it`ll be after we`ve put the English in their place at Twickenham!
Three days out and heading South, we can`t start the engine and seawater has somehow managed to get into the battery chargers: consequently the decision is made to head for Lisbon.
Get into Cascais (about 30 km west of Lisbon) and moor up.
Now waiting on the diesel engine mechanic to come and have a look at the engine and to make a decision on whether or not it can be fixed or needs to be replaced. Could be here some time then!
Having a lookabout...
A few hours before departing St Gilles, Francis (the skipper) gets a call telling us that the destination has been changed from the Grenadines to St Lucia - ah well, still sounds good :-)
Get to Nantes train station and then there is a two-and-a-half hour wait for the train to St Gilles Croix-de-Vie.
1 hour 41 minutes later I arrive and walk to the yacht. Francis (the skipper) and Yannick are both on board. Franics, thankfully, speaks good English, Yannick only speaks a little - but much better than my French I might add. Three tomato ketchups anyone... :-)
Once again I get stung for excess baggage when flying. Only 7 kilos over but Ryanair must get their money somehow I guess! 38 pounds 50 pence!
Flight pleasurable enough but being a Sunday I have to wait for an hour or so at Nantes airport for the bus to the train station...
