In the Lagoon and definitely ‘Stir Crazy’

“18:03.838N 63:06.144W”

5506 Miles since leaving Sandwich.

6th April 2023

Here we are anchored in St Martin Lagoon for the last week, the wind is still blowing making life uncomfortable and we are just about climbing the walls now.

On the 27^th we did indeed move the boat at 0830 right on schedule. The way it works here is that the bridge opens at 0830 and the boats coming through and out of the canal have priority, once they are all out the light on the bridge turns green and the yachts gilling about at the entrance form up line astern and steam through like the Grand Fleet at Jutland. All went very well at first as from our anchorage we espied the first couple of yachts starting to wait at the entrance to the canal at 0800. Luckily for us we could see the top of the bridge from our anchorage and so with the boat ready to go we didn’t even need to start the engine until we saw it begin to lift. By the time we had the anchor up and had made our way over to the start line the outbound traffic had mostly left leaving us only about 10 minutes to wait. When the traffic light on the bridge turned green we all formed up with Spectra number four in line and aimed for the canal. The only glitch for us was a fishing boat that decided to reverse off the fuel dock just as we approached making me stop dead in the water while he did a three point turn and then got out of the way. This left a 200 meter gap between us and the yacht in front and about a 250 meter gap from us to the second yacht in the stream. The canal was shallower than the chart predicted leaving only 0.5 meters below our keel at the inland entrance, but we popped under the bridge and into the bay without a problem. The yacht in front turned left towards Marina Royale while we were heading right to the Grand Islet area which left a large gap between us and the next yacht up who had also turned right. Unbeknown to me, and not on the chart a large shallow patch had formed directly between us and the yacht that we were now following. Due to the distance between us we had missed him doing a loop around it while we were still in the canal. Long story short, doing all of 1.5 knots the depth below the keel dropped from 1m to nothing in an instant and with Spectra’s underwater profile we glided to a halt hard aground in the mud. I tried to reverse but that dug the rudder deeper into the mud, I then tried to wiggle side to side all to no avail. Luckily this is virtually a daily occurrence and the first dinghy passing by came over and started trying to push the bows over. He was soon joined by another and then two more, leaving us with more tugs than the Titanic had when it departed Belfast.  Eventually we had one dinghy pushing our bow to port. Two dinghies attached to our port spinnaker halliard and another connected to our mizzen staysail halliard. The three dinghies attached to the halliards all pulled first which with the leverage all on the top of the masts pulled Spectra over to port at an impressive angle. This reduced our depth considerably. Then with me gunning the engine forward while applying lots of pressure to the bow thruster button and the other dinghy pushing our bows as well oh so slowly, we began to crab to port. Then the mud let go and we shot sideways into the deeper water 2.6 meters (1 meter below the keel). Much high fiving went on and promises of free beer aboard later and the all French support crew departed on their various ways. The first guy who came along, David, even led us along the deeper water route (3 meters max) all the way to our anchorage which was definitely above and beyond the call of duty. Later that day at his request we sent him a report of the incident as he is gathering information and is a serial complainer to the French authorities about the lack of dredging in the lagoon.  Well we thought, that went smoothly now we can start to explore the new location, but first a cup of tea. By the time the tea was drunk the wind had picked with squally showers shooting across the lagoon leaving the water in a really confused choppy state and so we decided that we would stay on the boat for the day, thus ended day one in the Lagoon.

Actually we have made some good progress with maintenance and upgrades while we have been here. My solar panels are now working an absolute treat and with the rails now secured and each pair of panels rivetted together by a joining bar everything feels much stronger and they have even stopped bending and fluttering in the wind which was quite disconcerting. Even with the fridge and freezer running the batteries are fully charged by lunchtime each day which is very encouraging for a future life independent of shore power hook ups and the dreaded internal combustion engine to create electricity for us. I have also double girded my loins and replaced all of the pipe work in the forward and aft heads. The forward heads were horrible and painful as mentioned earlier but the aft heads were an absolute nightmare, mainly due to an absolute shockingly bad design of the interior electric pumps on that toilet. All of the access is from either behind or below but of course you can’t get behind or below it when it is in place, so you have to leave the pipes long enough to pull the beast out and then tip it up. That is not uncommon, what is particularly bad with this design is that the connections between the pumps and hoses are weak and very easily dislodged. End result, time after time you get everything installed and pushed back into position just to have a pipe or fitting pull off and spring a leak. I have fixed it now, but it came within a hairsbreadth of being launched over the side after six hours of struggle in the heat (I hate toilets). If you are in the market to buy an electric toilet for your boat, remember, Force 4 electric comfort sea toilet 12v, ok in service when the beast has eventually been fitted and made leak free but an absolute nightmare to fit or fix so don’t buy it. In fact, I would go as far as to say that it is a crap design. On a lighter note, I have made a new/spare anchor snubber which is encased in a long hose pipe which doesn’t rub against our dolphin striker so noisily, leaving us to sleep right through on the rougher nights at anchor without the popping grinding noise of the chain rubbing against the solid bar of the dolphin striker. I have also rubbed down and revarnished the starboard aft seat lockers, gas boxes and cleats, making everything look very pretty indeed. 

We met up with our Kiwi friends on their 43ft Halberg-Rassy ‘Lobi’ again and spent good night out with them at Dock 46 on the French Canal to celebrate Simon’s birthday. They are currently anchored not too far from us rafted up alongside an 80ft ex Whitbread Schooner called Arrow which they are babysitting for the owner. We had a few beers aboard and even though Arrow is in the process of being upgraded it is still one very impressive boat.

Arrow Ocean 80 schooner, ex Whitbread round the world race competitor.

Simon and Roddy in Dock 46 at the start of a Happy Hour or three

A very friendly dog called ‘Woofalump’ that liked the smell of our food.

A bonus point for us is that, as the brothers are babysitting Arrow, they also get the use of the RIB that comes with it including a 25 HP engine that wizzes them around the lagoon at breakneck speed. Having seen just how wet we get in our little Put, Put, every time the wind picks up they very kindly lent us their old RIB from Lobi for the duration of our stay. Oh, what a difference to motor ashore and not have to change every stitch of clothing in the first restaurant you come to.

Our loaner dinghy. Not the Bell of the Ball but a first-class ride non the less.

And our dinghy after a trip across to ‘Arrow’ for impromptu mid-afternoon sundowners.

This has finally galvanised us into action and we have decided to buy a new dinghy / outboard combination. We looked at the outboards on offer locally but to be honest the prices were seriously pumped up and we decided to look further afield. Now that our son Tony has confirmed that he will be joining us in Nassau we have decided to buy a dinghy in the UK, which he will fly out with. To that end we have now purchased a brand new 3 meter VRIB tender from 3D in Germany. We have also purchased a new Tohatsu 9.8 HP 2 stroke outboard from Budget Marine on the Dutch side. That is being delivered to the boat tomorrow morning. Finally, we have purchased a new cutless bearing, a new rope cutter, some charts and a new Ocean Cruising Club pennant in the UK that Tony is carrying out with him. Needless to say, we are paying the excess baggage.

Our new dinghy in Ninja mode with ‘Floki’ the wonder dog as perspective.

French Riviera mode with the cover badly fitted. Very good perspective from the dog I think.

‘Floki’ still adding perspective on command for the dinghy all bagged up, 31 KG.

Now that our trips ashore are more pleasure than pain, we have been taking advantage of the good shopping by getting the boat stocked up again before the Bahamas and the $5 loaves of bread that we experienced last time. We have also of course been waiting for our Starlink system to get delivered and yesterday Santa arrived! I received a message from DHL that the package had been delivered while we were on the Dutch side of the island looking at outboard motors (what fool ever said that shopping was boring) and into the loaner dinghy it was for the 2 mile trip over to Shrimpy’ s laundry on the French canal entrance. Would you believe it the loaner outboard started coughing and spluttering as we approached Shrimpy’s launderette and useful boating bits emporium. With a certain amount of style and just a smidgen of panache the outboard gave a final cough and died leaving us just enough oomph to drift up to the dock. While Norma went into Dock 46 to order some beers for our twitchy nerves and contacted the KIWIS to tell them the outboard had died, I went next door to pick up our Starlink. I was met by a pile of at least 15 Starlink boxes all of which had been delivered that day. Not a bad business for Mr Shrimpy that at $10 per box. With the box under my arm I returned to the bar like a conquering hero just in time for Norma to thrust a phone into my hand with Roddy on the end of the line. We had a quick chat and figured it was probably the fuel line. After disconnecting it pumping the pressure up a bit and then re connecting the engine started on about the tenth pull and then ran perfectly for the trip home, so only a near drama that one. Once back on board it took no more that 10 minutes to unpack the Starlink, power it up and get connected. No hassle, no techno gibberish to work through, just point it at the sky then plug and play, well done Elon. To celebrate we watched two episodes of Clarkson’s farm on the TV and then put in some video calls to our kids before heading to bed for a proper YouTube fest.

It's Christmas in St Martin.

We are still looking for the Starlinks forever home but it works quite well from here at the moment.

Fridge, Freezer and Starlink powered on a cloudy day and the solar panels are covering it well.

Some more new toys for Tony to bring out with him. Cutless bearing and a Rope cutter (or is it a Ninja death star?)

With the Starlink finally here our sights are now once again focused on distant horizons. We have tweaked our plans again as the Starlink delay has pushed Norma into the last six months of her UK passport. This means that, as we have had to send her passport back to the UK for renewal, she no longer has evidence of an American visa and her Irish passport has no visa attached to it. The end result is that we are going to give St Croix, the USVI’s and Peurto Rico a miss this time and go straight through to the Dominican Republic. The customs process there is reported to be a bit of a pain so we have decided to book into a marina that has all of the offices on site which should make life easier. The fact that the marina has a spar including infinity pool has nothing to do with our decision of course. A couple of days there to recharge the personal batteries and then off to the Turks and Caicos. From there is will be a cruise up through the Bahamas chain of islands in order to meet up with Tony on the 15^th of May.

We are still not fully crewed up for the Bahamas/Nova Scotia leg but there is plenty of interest. I will make a few phone calls this week and then we should have everything locked down, through to the middle of June anyway. Looking beyond that, we have a couple of people interested in spending a week or two with us in New Hampshire and Maine in July before we meet up with my daughter and the clan in the Boston / Marthas Vineyard area in August. After that we are in the ever-changing planning stage, but I would like to spend some time in Chesapeake Bay and New York, then after crossing the Great Dismal Swamp hole up somewhere north of Cape Hatteras until the end of the Hurricane season. We will get Spectra lifted out of the water for a month towards the end of October and maybe fly home for a visit.  Well, that’s the plan anyway, I do not expect it to survive for very long but that’s all part of the adventure, isn’t it?

We plan to leave here Friday or Saturday and begin the sail up to the Dominican Republic. With a couple of overnights and a couple of anchor stops that should take 4-5 days. The difference now is that we will be able to keep in contact via Starlink along the way…