Seaduced's Web Diary - A short stop in Nevis, and then off to St Lucia

A short stop in Nevis, and then off to St Lucia

Seaduced

John & Jane Craven

Mon 2 Dec 2013 21:16

Once we finally had all jobs done in an Antigua, it was time to bite the bullet and try sailing again. After such a long time it was quite a daunting thought! As it turned out, the engine work was a little delayed, and as such we had no choice but to motor to Nevis. When we arrived, it was pitch black and finding the moorings was something of a challenge, not helped by the fact that the only 2 other boats in the morning field didn't have a single light between them, despite the crews being on board! Amazingly, we managed a pick up on the first attempt, fortunately it wasn't blowing too hard as I soon realised that I had put our mooring line though the smaller pick up line rather than the strong line I was supposed to use! This was quickly resolved and the heavy duty mooring line was duly attached to the mooring.
That night we headed into Double Deuce to catch up with friends. We only had two days on island, but we managed to see just about everyone we knew. Friday was the first day we had to ourselves and although we had a few bits to do in the morning, we spent the whole afternoon reading and lounging on deck - bliss!
Saturday, and time to set off to St Lucia to meet up with David and Suzanne on Suzie Too. We had the most amazing first half of the trip and for the first 15 hours, we sailed along perfectly. The winds were between 15 and 20 knots and the boat speed never dropped below 8.5 knots despite us being very conservative and having a reef in both sails. Sadly, over night the winds died off as we were in the shadow of the islands and the engine had to go on. The last part of the journey was also very rough, but we arrived in St Lucia by 6pm in time to anchor before dark - or so we thought!
The first attempt to set the anchor failed and worse still, the button to retrieve the anchor at the bow of the boat had stopped working - further inspection in daylight showed the cover of the button had actually worn through and had almost certainly allowed the water in. A second attempt was successful, using the windlass button in the cockpit and it was time to get the boat back in order. There had been so much water over the deck and the boat generally that everything was coated in a thick, sticky layer of salt. As it was late, we did the cockpit so we could have dinner and left the rest to do the day after in daylight.
This was the day that we realised that we had a gremlin on board that was attacking everything starting with a 'W'! Not only did the button for the anchor windlass fail,the winches also failed, the watermaker lost pressure for no apparent reason and the toilet overflowed, thankfully with clean water! The watermaker and toilet were both an easy fix that evening, the other two may need a bit of investigation.
The weather has now taken a turn for the worse and is very wet and squally - we got up early to wash the boat before the sun set the salt hard, and just as we started the heavens opened! The rain was so hard it felt like hailstones! We were soaked to the skin, but at least saved water as there was definitely no need to use extra water to rinse the soap off - we were so wet,we could barely get our clothes off, such a glamorous life we lead!!

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