Flying fish found in the gunnels one morning
A ship passing in front of us
There she goes ........
A dramatic sunset over the Carribean
Friday, May 11, 2012
Monday, May 7, 2012
Marigot Bay, St Martins, Leeward Islands
26th March 2012
We have been here in St Martins since Monday 12th March and it has been a hard slog to resolve all the problems and get the work done.
We are in about 5 metres of clear azure water down to the sandy bottom. This is great as it means that we don’t have to worry about testing the keel as we did as when we exited the Inter Coastal Waterway at North Palm Beach and on anchor at Fort Pierce.
At night we can see the lights of the British island of Anguilla just a mile or two across the channel to the north of St Martins.
I finally got to go ashore on Friday 16th - the new Outboard arrived! I was boat-bound for 4 days. As I clambered up to the dock from the dinghy the earth really was reeling …..it took quite a while to settle but we had a delicious HOT lunch of chicken with a delicious mushroomy sauce and Chips! I swear the restaurant was swaying ……
I used the time aboard usefully to sort out the stores and clean up the place. Found that some cans of food had got waterlogged and were starting to rust a bit so have dried them out and will use them up first.
The Captain had tried to row ashore in the dinghy, prior to the arrival of the outboard, but the oars, we discovered, are too short ….. And it was a bit breezy that day….. He had to row like mad with his arms about a yard apart to get back to the boat. Looked manic! He gave up on that idea!
The man came to fix the generator on Thursday and we realised that there is an electric percolator and a griddle on board so……. We tried them and they actually work…. But not both at once as it trips out the electric supply.
Since then we’ve been eating like veritable kings! We have had anything that can be griddled, including apple fritters, bacon and eggs and homemade hamburgers. Simple things make us happy!
The same guy came and had a look at the gas solenoid on Tuesday and has fixed that so that we now also have a gas supply which is essential at sea - as the cooker is gimballed so stays more or less level, whereas a griddle would slide about all over the place and be highly dangerous!
The generator, of course, runs the auto-pilot too so that’s brilliant as we steered manually for days to get here and it was very tiring in heavy seas. We have the shower working too which is a bonus in this hot climate.
For several days there was a fish about 4-5 ft long swimming about beside the boat.
I had gone topside to throw some scraps over the side for the little fish living underneath in the shade who rushed out in a flurry of silver fins to grab what they could, totally un-phased by the presence of the biggie. He hung around for about an hour each day and then mooched off toward one of the other boats at anchor. We haven’t seen him for a few days so we think that someone may have caught him and put him on a plate (or two)! We are told it may have been a Tarpon.
We succeeded in putting up the bimini after much pulling and stretching so now we have a bit of shelter from the sun in the cockpit. It’s pretty hot here though there have been a few really heavy rain showers which means rushing to close hatches or everything gets wet!
We went across to Dutch side of the island to get some shopping and the heavens opened. You couldn’t see the shore just a few hundred yards away, it was a complete white out. On the way back we got soaked as the rain overtook us and our loaded up dinghy. When we finally reached the boat we found that a hatch or two had been left ajar and rain water had seeped in in rather large quantities….. The galley floor was awash and so we set about mopping up before we could even start to stow the shopping which was also quite damp!
We found a bar on the Dutch side of the island where all the yachties go and have met a few of the people on anchorage who are now a bit more sociable. We have an Australian flag which is quite a rarity and is a talking point.
We have now had confirmation that the Panama route will be the route we will take. We may stop at one or to of the Pacific islands en route but only if we have to as our schedule is tight. The Panama canal agents need notice of passage and it will take a week to ten days to get there from here.
We are a week or four behind schedule and have used quite a lot of the original food supplies. We also need to top up the water tanks - can‘t believe we used 300 gallons already as we‘ve been really frugal with it -having lived on boats before we know how precious every drop is.
We have been here in St Martins since Monday 12th March and it has been a hard slog to resolve all the problems and get the work done.
This was when we had just anchored and something funny struck me........
We are in about 5 metres of clear azure water down to the sandy bottom. This is great as it means that we don’t have to worry about testing the keel as we did as when we exited the Inter Coastal Waterway at North Palm Beach and on anchor at Fort Pierce.
At night we can see the lights of the British island of Anguilla just a mile or two across the channel to the north of St Martins.
I finally got to go ashore on Friday 16th - the new Outboard arrived! I was boat-bound for 4 days. As I clambered up to the dock from the dinghy the earth really was reeling …..it took quite a while to settle but we had a delicious HOT lunch of chicken with a delicious mushroomy sauce and Chips! I swear the restaurant was swaying ……
I used the time aboard usefully to sort out the stores and clean up the place. Found that some cans of food had got waterlogged and were starting to rust a bit so have dried them out and will use them up first.
The Captain had tried to row ashore in the dinghy, prior to the arrival of the outboard, but the oars, we discovered, are too short ….. And it was a bit breezy that day….. He had to row like mad with his arms about a yard apart to get back to the boat. Looked manic! He gave up on that idea!
The man came to fix the generator on Thursday and we realised that there is an electric percolator and a griddle on board so……. We tried them and they actually work…. But not both at once as it trips out the electric supply.
Since then we’ve been eating like veritable kings! We have had anything that can be griddled, including apple fritters, bacon and eggs and homemade hamburgers. Simple things make us happy!
The same guy came and had a look at the gas solenoid on Tuesday and has fixed that so that we now also have a gas supply which is essential at sea - as the cooker is gimballed so stays more or less level, whereas a griddle would slide about all over the place and be highly dangerous!
The generator, of course, runs the auto-pilot too so that’s brilliant as we steered manually for days to get here and it was very tiring in heavy seas. We have the shower working too which is a bonus in this hot climate.
For several days there was a fish about 4-5 ft long swimming about beside the boat.
We succeeded in putting up the bimini after much pulling and stretching so now we have a bit of shelter from the sun in the cockpit. It’s pretty hot here though there have been a few really heavy rain showers which means rushing to close hatches or everything gets wet!
We went across to Dutch side of the island to get some shopping and the heavens opened. You couldn’t see the shore just a few hundred yards away, it was a complete white out. On the way back we got soaked as the rain overtook us and our loaded up dinghy. When we finally reached the boat we found that a hatch or two had been left ajar and rain water had seeped in in rather large quantities….. The galley floor was awash and so we set about mopping up before we could even start to stow the shopping which was also quite damp!
We found a bar on the Dutch side of the island where all the yachties go and have met a few of the people on anchorage who are now a bit more sociable. We have an Australian flag which is quite a rarity and is a talking point.
We have now had confirmation that the Panama route will be the route we will take. We may stop at one or to of the Pacific islands en route but only if we have to as our schedule is tight. The Panama canal agents need notice of passage and it will take a week to ten days to get there from here.
We are a week or four behind schedule and have used quite a lot of the original food supplies. We also need to top up the water tanks - can‘t believe we used 300 gallons already as we‘ve been really frugal with it -having lived on boats before we know how precious every drop is.
Marigot Bay, St Martins Leeward Islands
15th March 2012
We were booked on an early flight to Florida on Sunday 19th February so the Captain and I checked in to a hotel near Gatwick for night of the 18th as we were meeting up with the German girl who was going to help crew the boat who was flying in from Frankfurt that afternoon. She had said she was up to date with the technical stuff so he thought she would be a useful asset on the trip.
On the morning of 19th February we took the hotel transport and arrived at the airport, and we went through to baggage check in. A nice young man called George, from US Homeland security, said there could be a problem. We didn’t have return tickets from the US. We explained that our return ticket was from Australia and showed him the documentation. But, he hummed and haa’d. He let us get right up to the stage of boarding and then said we couldn’t fly until we supplied information from the owner of the boat. We watched our baggage being unloaded from the hold of the plane and were escorted by staff to collect it.
So we booked another night in the hotel and managed to contact the boats owners and get evidence that we weren’t intending to stay in America as illegal immigrants. They had a friend in the local sheriff’s office who backed up their story. We then flew out the next day and George wished us well.
We arrived at West Palm Beach Airport on Monday evening and the boat owners turned up in a rather small mustang car which would only take our luggage and one crew. the Captain and I hailed a cab and after the driver had asked all his colleagues how to get to North Palm Beach marina we were finally on our way. We arrived quite late in the evening and so ate a meal on board with the owners and then retired.
The owners joked about a rat on deck in the night. It didn’t stay on board………
The owners had said that they were going to be around until 25th February to help us get in supplies for the journey and go through the boat’s systems, some of which are quite complicated. However, they announced that they were leaving in just two days, well one and a half actually. They took us to a store to buy provisions for the journey.
The owners insisted that the boat was “ready to go” and gave only cursory information about how all the electrical and mechanical systems functioned. They did leave a hand written set of notes and most of the works manuals but it seems to omit two or three important little details on specific equipment as we have since discovered. They went off on the morning of Wednesday 22nd February and left us to it.
We had to go shopping for food again, this time the Captain came along. The crew turned out to be a bit of a liability, she wanted to be Captain, Cook, engineer and crew…. You know the type...... She is supposed to have a yacht-master qualification but we suspected very early on that it was not necessarily true as she insisted on putting the safety lines, (to which you strap yourself in bad weather to get safely up to the front of the boat), on the outside of the guard rails (garden fence). That meant that you would have to stop and unclip and clip again on each side of the stays…. About 5 times at least! Really dangerous in a blow!
We got the impression that she had reservations about the trip as she listed some ‘omens’ like her personal safety equipment being confiscated from her luggage en route, a dream about being lost at sea, needing constant reassurance from her husband via skype and lots of other little things. Anyway she started making life very difficult and eventually jumped ship at Fort Pierce.
However, during the journey from North Palm Beach to Fort Pierce, she ran us aground, didn’t seem to know how to set the sails so changed course to make the wind fit the sails, when anchoring at Fort Pierce poured chain on top of the anchor - a sure way of making the boat drag, etc, etc….
We had trouble finding a deep spot to park in and kept grounding and leaning over as she swung round.
So here are the two of us on an 53 foot ketch…..it’s a biggie. Lovely inside, plenty of space, a nice pilot house to shelter in - from sun, wind and rain, and for which we have been very grateful on the journey here. When we set off on the 1st March we had a nice southerly to take us out into the Atlantic ready to go south to Cape town.
When we were about 2 miles off the US Homeland Security boarded and checked us, all documents and the boat, over. That happens quite often so we are used to that and the chaps were very nice. Just doing their job.
Well, we seem to have had one problem after another. A storm force 7 gusting 8-9 gale with big cross waves and swells of 5 metres or more which knocked us over. Luckily she righted herself again very quickly with not too much effort. VERY scary…… Then it calmed down a bit but came up again.
Some diesel from the fuel tanks spilled into the engine bilges. Apparently we overfilled the tanks.
The heads (toilets) sinks kept filling up with water when heeled over on that side because the stopcocks don’t work.
The pump for the generator which powers the autopilot blew up on 3rd March with a lot of black smoke and a big bang. On the 7th March we discovered that the battery feeding the autopilot wasn‘t being charged up as it needed the generator to do this. This meant that we have had to steer manually and in some rough seas. I took a few turns to give the Captain rest time when the sea had calmed down a bit as I am not used to wheel steering as other boats I have steered have had the old fashioned stick (tiller) method. The wheel is not so responsive especially with a long keel.
Plus, both the wheel in the pilot house and in the cockpit outside are fitted tight to the bulk head so you bang your knuckles against it.
The gas canister for the cooker ran out on 6th March, so in a quiet moment, the Captain changed it to another of the 4 spares. That turned out to be empty and set gas alarms off and to date we haven’t been able to reset it. The sensor is between the cooker and the gas tank and controls the flow and is difficult to locate when you’re bouncing about. Since then we haven’t had a hot meal and have been surviving on cheese, sausage, home made humus, onions, tomatoes, crisps and pitta breads, and chocolate. With iced coffee, and juice, etc.
The engine was also started acting up and the Captain has to do something, not sure what, in the engine room to make it start.
I got thrown across the galley (kitchen) during the storm and am black and blue and have pulled arm/shoulder muscles hauling ropes, winding winches and pumping out the loo.
We hailed a passing freighter going south for a weather report and the Indian radio operator told us “There have been winds of 45knts in the north and in the south it is worse, but here it’s just fine!” and it was….
So, we diverted from our course to St Martins to get all the above problems fixed. We realised that we were or had been in the notorious Bermuda Triangle!
On the last evening at sea a couple of sea birds were following us making the most awful racket then one landed precariously on the top of the outboard motor and managed to stay there till dawn. Looked like a surfer taking the rolls and motion of the waves. Really amusing to watch him perched there.
We hadn’t seen any other wildlife until the approach to Marigot when 6 dolphins came to welcome us. I guess we weren’t going fast enough for them to play in the bow waves as they swam off after about fifteen minutes. But it was lovely to see them.
We arrived here on Monday 12th March around 4pm, absolutely exhausted, dehydrated, more or less suffering from exposure and, as we’ve been eating cold food for days, were really looking forward to a hot meal on shore. But, the outboard engine on the dinghy gave up the ghost. The Captain took it apart but was unable to fix it.
The owners have given us the go ahead to order a new one. I can see the shore and there are lots of boats on the anchorage but not a very friendly bunch. Usually, if someone sees someone struggling to start a motor, they come across and ask if you need a hand….. Not so here…..So I haven’t reached the shore yet - think I might fall over when I do as the ground won’t be moving!
The Captain managed to hail a ride to shore this morning to clear customs etc and returned with some fresh bread and croissants. Yummmy!
We have arranged for a man to come and look at the generator but until we get the new outboard are still without cooking facilities. You’d think we would be depressed and grumpy but our spirits are remarkably high, we are still able to see the funny side of things, thank goodness. Last night we played Frisbees with some foul tortilla things which were cluttering up the fridge. Just a pair of big kids really!
Oh and we think we should go through the Panama canal and across the Pacific, which was the first intended route when I agreed to participate in this adventure, with the trade winds favourable rather than face the sometimes tortuous route round south Africa and south Atlantic.
We were booked on an early flight to Florida on Sunday 19th February so the Captain and I checked in to a hotel near Gatwick for night of the 18th as we were meeting up with the German girl who was going to help crew the boat who was flying in from Frankfurt that afternoon. She had said she was up to date with the technical stuff so he thought she would be a useful asset on the trip.
On the morning of 19th February we took the hotel transport and arrived at the airport, and we went through to baggage check in. A nice young man called George, from US Homeland security, said there could be a problem. We didn’t have return tickets from the US. We explained that our return ticket was from Australia and showed him the documentation. But, he hummed and haa’d. He let us get right up to the stage of boarding and then said we couldn’t fly until we supplied information from the owner of the boat. We watched our baggage being unloaded from the hold of the plane and were escorted by staff to collect it.
So we booked another night in the hotel and managed to contact the boats owners and get evidence that we weren’t intending to stay in America as illegal immigrants. They had a friend in the local sheriff’s office who backed up their story. We then flew out the next day and George wished us well.
We arrived at West Palm Beach Airport on Monday evening and the boat owners turned up in a rather small mustang car which would only take our luggage and one crew. the Captain and I hailed a cab and after the driver had asked all his colleagues how to get to North Palm Beach marina we were finally on our way. We arrived quite late in the evening and so ate a meal on board with the owners and then retired.
The owners joked about a rat on deck in the night. It didn’t stay on board………
The owners had said that they were going to be around until 25th February to help us get in supplies for the journey and go through the boat’s systems, some of which are quite complicated. However, they announced that they were leaving in just two days, well one and a half actually. They took us to a store to buy provisions for the journey.
The owners insisted that the boat was “ready to go” and gave only cursory information about how all the electrical and mechanical systems functioned. They did leave a hand written set of notes and most of the works manuals but it seems to omit two or three important little details on specific equipment as we have since discovered. They went off on the morning of Wednesday 22nd February and left us to it.
We had to go shopping for food again, this time the Captain came along. The crew turned out to be a bit of a liability, she wanted to be Captain, Cook, engineer and crew…. You know the type...... She is supposed to have a yacht-master qualification but we suspected very early on that it was not necessarily true as she insisted on putting the safety lines, (to which you strap yourself in bad weather to get safely up to the front of the boat), on the outside of the guard rails (garden fence). That meant that you would have to stop and unclip and clip again on each side of the stays…. About 5 times at least! Really dangerous in a blow!
We got the impression that she had reservations about the trip as she listed some ‘omens’ like her personal safety equipment being confiscated from her luggage en route, a dream about being lost at sea, needing constant reassurance from her husband via skype and lots of other little things. Anyway she started making life very difficult and eventually jumped ship at Fort Pierce.
However, during the journey from North Palm Beach to Fort Pierce, she ran us aground, didn’t seem to know how to set the sails so changed course to make the wind fit the sails, when anchoring at Fort Pierce poured chain on top of the anchor - a sure way of making the boat drag, etc, etc….
We had trouble finding a deep spot to park in and kept grounding and leaning over as she swung round.
So here are the two of us on an 53 foot ketch…..it’s a biggie. Lovely inside, plenty of space, a nice pilot house to shelter in - from sun, wind and rain, and for which we have been very grateful on the journey here. When we set off on the 1st March we had a nice southerly to take us out into the Atlantic ready to go south to Cape town.
When we were about 2 miles off the US Homeland Security boarded and checked us, all documents and the boat, over. That happens quite often so we are used to that and the chaps were very nice. Just doing their job.
Well, we seem to have had one problem after another. A storm force 7 gusting 8-9 gale with big cross waves and swells of 5 metres or more which knocked us over. Luckily she righted herself again very quickly with not too much effort. VERY scary…… Then it calmed down a bit but came up again.
Some diesel from the fuel tanks spilled into the engine bilges. Apparently we overfilled the tanks.
The heads (toilets) sinks kept filling up with water when heeled over on that side because the stopcocks don’t work.
The pump for the generator which powers the autopilot blew up on 3rd March with a lot of black smoke and a big bang. On the 7th March we discovered that the battery feeding the autopilot wasn‘t being charged up as it needed the generator to do this. This meant that we have had to steer manually and in some rough seas. I took a few turns to give the Captain rest time when the sea had calmed down a bit as I am not used to wheel steering as other boats I have steered have had the old fashioned stick (tiller) method. The wheel is not so responsive especially with a long keel.
Plus, both the wheel in the pilot house and in the cockpit outside are fitted tight to the bulk head so you bang your knuckles against it.
The gas canister for the cooker ran out on 6th March, so in a quiet moment, the Captain changed it to another of the 4 spares. That turned out to be empty and set gas alarms off and to date we haven’t been able to reset it. The sensor is between the cooker and the gas tank and controls the flow and is difficult to locate when you’re bouncing about. Since then we haven’t had a hot meal and have been surviving on cheese, sausage, home made humus, onions, tomatoes, crisps and pitta breads, and chocolate. With iced coffee, and juice, etc.
The engine was also started acting up and the Captain has to do something, not sure what, in the engine room to make it start.
I got thrown across the galley (kitchen) during the storm and am black and blue and have pulled arm/shoulder muscles hauling ropes, winding winches and pumping out the loo.
We hailed a passing freighter going south for a weather report and the Indian radio operator told us “There have been winds of 45knts in the north and in the south it is worse, but here it’s just fine!” and it was….
So, we diverted from our course to St Martins to get all the above problems fixed. We realised that we were or had been in the notorious Bermuda Triangle!
On the last evening at sea a couple of sea birds were following us making the most awful racket then one landed precariously on the top of the outboard motor and managed to stay there till dawn. Looked like a surfer taking the rolls and motion of the waves. Really amusing to watch him perched there.
We hadn’t seen any other wildlife until the approach to Marigot when 6 dolphins came to welcome us. I guess we weren’t going fast enough for them to play in the bow waves as they swam off after about fifteen minutes. But it was lovely to see them.
We arrived here on Monday 12th March around 4pm, absolutely exhausted, dehydrated, more or less suffering from exposure and, as we’ve been eating cold food for days, were really looking forward to a hot meal on shore. But, the outboard engine on the dinghy gave up the ghost. The Captain took it apart but was unable to fix it.
The owners have given us the go ahead to order a new one. I can see the shore and there are lots of boats on the anchorage but not a very friendly bunch. Usually, if someone sees someone struggling to start a motor, they come across and ask if you need a hand….. Not so here…..So I haven’t reached the shore yet - think I might fall over when I do as the ground won’t be moving!
The Captain managed to hail a ride to shore this morning to clear customs etc and returned with some fresh bread and croissants. Yummmy!
We have arranged for a man to come and look at the generator but until we get the new outboard are still without cooking facilities. You’d think we would be depressed and grumpy but our spirits are remarkably high, we are still able to see the funny side of things, thank goodness. Last night we played Frisbees with some foul tortilla things which were cluttering up the fridge. Just a pair of big kids really!
Oh and we think we should go through the Panama canal and across the Pacific, which was the first intended route when I agreed to participate in this adventure, with the trade winds favourable rather than face the sometimes tortuous route round south Africa and south Atlantic.
Thursday, May 3, 2012
St Martins to Colon, Panama
This Butterfly flew in and stayed for a few hours and then flew off!
Some piccies of our trip from St Martins to Colon, across the Caribbean sea
St Martins
St Martins, Marigot Bay Anchorage
A little house on the cliff by the entrance to the Lagoon, Frenchside
A glorious sunset over the bay
And another ......
Look at this starfish which was on the sea bed.
Tuesday, May 1, 2012
We are travelling in a 53ft Bruce Roberts Ketch from Florida to Western Australia via the Panama Canal and set out on the 24th February from North Palm Beach.
We called in at Fort Pierce on the ICW for a few days and then sailed out on our planned route via Capetown. However due to some problems we had on the way which included a gale, a knockdown, diesel spilling into the bilges, a small but smokey fire in the engine room, and the gas solenoid giving up. This meant that we lost the autopilot and had to steer manually and that we had no hot food or drink for 8 days or so. However, we decided that St Martins in the Leeward Islands would be the best place for repairs. so we arrived safely in Marigot Bay on 12th March.
We stayed for 3 weeks while repairs and testing took place, and to replace the outboard which died and for a bit of R & R after the journey.
We called in at Fort Pierce on the ICW for a few days and then sailed out on our planned route via Capetown. However due to some problems we had on the way which included a gale, a knockdown, diesel spilling into the bilges, a small but smokey fire in the engine room, and the gas solenoid giving up. This meant that we lost the autopilot and had to steer manually and that we had no hot food or drink for 8 days or so. However, we decided that St Martins in the Leeward Islands would be the best place for repairs. so we arrived safely in Marigot Bay on 12th March.
We stayed for 3 weeks while repairs and testing took place, and to replace the outboard which died and for a bit of R & R after the journey.
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