Pirate in the Caribbean

  Making Life Simple We woke up to a beautiful sunny morning in Sainte Anne, Martinique.    After feasting on some treats from a local French patisserie, Roger and Pirate went out on a tour of the anchorage and saw one of the traditional Martinique boats sailing around. We spent a relaxing day at anchor, and then it was time to head into Le Marin, a short 20 minute motor away.   Work would start on Monday to install the new davits and replace our traditional lead acid batteries for their evolution, lithium.  We enjoyed a nice sunset in Le Marin and went to Ti Toques, our favourite French/Italian restaurant, for some steak frites! We arrived with Adventure I  bright and early Monday morning at the Inoxalu dock.   The structure was ready to go and awaited just a few minor adjustments to accommodate Starlink and lighting.  A lovely German couple own the business, and they are very fastidious in their work. While we were at the dock, multiple cru...

Home Maintenance and Martinique Bound! Just like your own home, maintenance on a boat is constant.  Sometimes systems break down and need repair, or you decide to upgrade some systems to make life easier. As we came into Bequia all of our instruments stopped working.  We use Navionics on our iPad for navigation so we were still able to get from A to B without our GPS.  However, the AIS functionality which allows you to see where other boats are.  This would become important as we were planning a long sail from the Grenadines to Martinique and the early part of the sail would be in darkness.  The other thing you realize you miss is the depth gauge (sounder), especially when you are anchoring.   Fortunately, Navionics indicates the charted depth, and you can often see the bottom because of the crystal clear water.  We also did not have our wind indicator for angle and strength of the wind.   I am very lucky that our boat comes with its own handyman,...

Chillin' in the Grenadines - Chatham Bay After spending 4 days in the Tobago Cays, our plan was to head to Mustique for New Year's. Mustique is an island of the rich and famous whose local cast includes Mick Jagger, Shania Twain and Bryan Adams.  Our plan was to dine for NYE at Basil's Bar a famous oceanside watering hole. We pulled up anchor and set sail, pointing the bow north. While sailing out of the Cays we passed close astern of several mega yachts complete with helicopters. Unfortunately for them, they are too large to enter the lagoon so are stuck out in much rougher waters making it difficult for their guests to get ashore.  As we sailed upwind towards Mustique the strong trade winds were against us and the waves were building. The boat was slamming into it and we were working harder than we needed to. We had no firm agenda, so Roger and I looked at each other and said, why bother?  Thus we turned around and headed in exactly the opposite direction heading for a ...

  Chillin' in the Grenadines - The Tobago Cays We headed south from Bequia to the Tobago Cays.  It was a solid upwind sail with the warm trades blowing 18 knots.  With a boat there is always something to fix and some things are more urgent than others. A few days previous, when we entered Bequia, our instruments started to fail. This was frustrating as everything, including the radar, was new last year. There were no electricians available in Bequia and although Roger spent a full day working on the instruments, trying all the suggestions the internet provided, he could not resuscitate them. Luckily we have two iPads with a charting application on them. Before GPS and electronic charting, we only had a paper chart and a compass. With just those basic tools, Roger and I navigated much of Georgian Bay for many summers. Roger's sea-faring father, old Johnny Walker, scoffed at all the fancy electronics Roger loaded on our racing boats. He would say; "A chart, parallel rules, ...