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, Roger, a man of many talents.  Roger spent a day investigating the source of the instrument outage, but unlike most times, he was unsuccessful at solving the problem, and this would have to wait for an electrician to investigate in Martinique.

While we were in Chatham Bay, our main water pump also stopped working which meant we no longer had running fresh water for dishes or rinsing off after swimming in the salt water.  On our return to Bequia, we would try to find a replacement pump.  In the meantime, we washed dishes in saltwater and did a quick rinse with our bottled water that we were able to top up with our water maker.   

Roger was very pleased to find a new water pump in Bequia with a serial number exactly matching our old one.  However, when he went to install it, our old pump had 4 wires and the new one only had 2.  We investigated online to try to see how to get the new one working but were not able to come up with a solution.  Roger sent an urgent email to the customer service of Jabsco, the manufacturer, and amazingly received a rapid response with a recommendation with how to solve the problem.  The handyman strikes again and we have fresh water again.  Yeah!

Our next destination is Martinique, where we will have davits installed on the boat by a Inoxalu, a metal fabrication shop.  Davits are a metal crane-like structure that lifts your dinghy out of the water for the night, to prevent theft, or on long passages where you do not want to trail your dinghy behind you.  We set up this appointment last February and had the boat all measured up, so that when we arrived the basic structure would be completed and ready for installation.  

The whole purpose of the davit system is to make our life easier.  The dinghy currently has a 15 hp Yamaha 4 stroke outboard motor which weighs 111 lbs.  For long distance sailing, we haul the motor up onto a mount on the stern of the sailboat and then lift the dinghy by a halyard to bow of the boat.  All of this requires some muscle and finesse, which is fine in good weather conditions, but can be unpredictable in poor weather or rolly anchorages.  

This is the dinghy hauled up for the night:

Here is the dinghy up on deck for a longer passage:

Here is the motor pulled up on the the mount on the back transom:

With davits, we simply lift the dinghy, with motor attached, out of the water.  

For what we hoped was the last time, we lifted the motor onto the stern rail and lashed the dinghy to the bow.  The next morning at 3:30 am, we left Bequia en route to Martinique.  We were very fortunate that the wind had shifted to a more easterly direction so that we had quite flat seas as we headed along the shoreline of St Vincent.  We could see the lights of a number of other boats traveling early that morning, probably taking advantage of the favorable winds.  The sun was rising and a small squall passed through as we reached the top end of St Vincent. 

The wind picked up once we got out of the lee of the island, and we started sailing at about 8.5 knots on a tight reach with waves of at least 5 feet. 

By 9:40 we were passing the Pitons in Saint Lucia.  The Pitons are 2 majestic volcanic spires at the south end of Saint Lucia.  The Petit Piton is 743 m (2,438 ft) high and Gros Piton is 978 m (2,619 ft) high.  Reaching Saint Lucia was a welcome reprieve as we once again had calm seas in the lee of the island.  We took the opportunity to enjoy a Nespresso cappuccino to fuel us up for the rest of the passage.  

We were also treated with the sighting of a pod of 4 or 5 dolphins swimming around our boat.  Pirate was very excited to see them and barked excitedly knowing that somehow her friends from Marco had found her here.

While traveling along the coast of Saint Lucia we also encountered this boat which Roger says is very similar to the one his family had long before he came to be.  

After passing the northern tip of Saint Lucia, we had winds up to 30 knots and waves of 10+ feet for the last several hours of our sail.  Roger was in his element.

After 90 nautical miles and 13 hours at sea, we arrived in Sainte Anne, Martinique.  Pirate had not done her business in 22 hours so she was especially happy when we got the dinghy back in the water and Roger took here to shore.  

After a nice sunset and quick pasta dinner, we were ready for bed and the dawn of a new day in Martinique.