Bequia to St. Lucia to Martinique

Our time in Bequia was lovely and lively, with numerous hikes to the usual spots and usual enjoyment of the restaurants and bars.

The group of us visited the Heritage Museum in Bequia which was well worth the visit.  A talk was given by an interesting lady complete with slides.  We hung onto every word as she talked of the history of Bequia and the art of landing a whale, of which is still done today, following the guidelines set by the government and international whaling law.

This is a huge whale bone.

We found a weather window for our trip to Rodney Bay, and when we announced it, White Pearl insisted on a pre-Christmas party on their boat.  It was attended by Steve and Maria and their guest Patty, Frank and Marie Claude, Joanna and Bill, as well as the hosts and us.  It was a truly great evening. The next day, December 21, Cat Tales had a lovely sail to Chateaubelaire, St. Vincent, and a quiet night once the local kids stopped saying hello and swam to shore.  The anchorage was very picturesque, with 5 other boats keeping us company.  As the location has had trouble in the past, I asked on the radio what frequency everyone monitors at night, but I was not surprised when no answer came.  The use of cell phones has made people a lot less responsible.  We were underway before daylight at 6, simply because two boats were surprisingly circling us to anchor in the dark and we expected they’d be a complication to us.

Pre-Christmas potluck dinner aboard White Pearl (Hugh and Maria from Saint John, NB) with Steve and Maria and friend Patty, along with Joanna and Bill

…and what comes after a very long hike in the heat??  Lunch and several beers, of course!

Arriving at the Pitons in St. Lucia is always a stunning sight!

Our overnight spot at Chateaubelaire, St. Vincent…stunning scenery!

It was an easy sail to Rodney Bay, with two reefs in the main and around half the jib in use.  The seas were rough, but we missed squalls and troubles, travelling between 6 and 7.5 knots.  We were tired after a day of hanging on, and slept well in Rodney, just behind Komeekha by Reduit Beach.  We cleared customs the next day and arranged a lunch with John Fallon.  It was a great visit, and though we saw him a bit afterward, we were surprised with a good weather window and left for Ste Anne on the 29th.  On Christmas day, we had Marie Claude and Frank aboard for lasagne. We only had drinks with two guests on New Years Eve: Zeke and Halley of Wabi Sabi, the big schooner cat.  Still, we’ve had a meal at Le Sextante, had our usual shopping spree in Marin, and had a lovely sundowner party on a vessel named “Entomo”.  The name comes from Captain Guy’s career in entomology.  He has lectured for international universities on the subject as well as a significant tenure at McGill.  This has been followed by another great sundowner party aboard Falcon I, with Barbara and Andrew of Ontario.  We’ve also had our usual hiking and dining experience to Saline Point.  It’s an hour hike to get to the restaurants at Saline, and a longer trudge back after lunch and a couple beers!

Lunch at the Basilic Restaurant in Martinique with Frank and Marie Claude from Quebec.  We must say, besides being lovely friends, it was nice to have fluent French talkers when hanging about a French island with them!

Frank and Marie Claude were stuck paddling since they’re still waiting for a part for their dinghy engine.  Whenever we could we’d pick up their line and tow them one way or the other.  Frank was starting to resemble Popeye! (BTW, Laurie picked out this shirt last season, all by himself! :)

A traditional Yole sailboat.  You should see these things go.  When they race out in the bay, it’s spectacular!

One of the shortest trips is the north end of St. Lucia to the south end of Martinique, and we had the perfect direction and speed of wind to make everyone onboard happy! 

We’re not sure what we will do next, but we need one or more trips into Marin, and maybe some hiking before we begin looking for a weather window.  We may only go to St. Pierre, one of our favourite anchorages – intriguing views, history, geology, and beautiful clear water for swimming and wreck-snorkeling.

 

TECHNICAL

Well, the spilled gear oil was more tenacious than expected.  A second cleaning was required with a spray of degreaser, a scrub, and a cloth followed by a vinegar wash.  It isn’t yet perfect, but the smell is down a lot.

Besides that, we were thinking we were getting off rather lucky compared to others in our little group:  Fathom This didn’t make it out of the boatyard because their rudder had completely seized.  Then when they finally did get underway more than a week later, their windlass electric motor dropped off the windlass.  They are under way now, and indeed just arrived at Ste Anne with us.  Savannah Sky took off north as soon as their time was up at the marina in St. George’s, but when they attempted to anchor in Tyrell Bay, the windlass totally failed.  They have made it to a mooring ball in Bequia – their second, as the first mooring ball let go in the middle of the night.  White Pearl had a similar windlass failure when attempting to up-anchor in Chateaubelaire Bay, SVG.  They are having it sorted in Rodney Bay right now.  I can brag that we have had many windlass failures, and have so far been able to up-anchor manually – a “little boat” benefit.  Komeekha had their troubles too, with some engine work needed, and a totally failed outboard for their dinghy (our cars down here).  Frank has ‘enjoyed’ his extra workouts at the oars, though often someone shows up to haul or ferry them.  He is anchored in front of us at Ste. Anne, and is enjoying a borrowed outboard – albeit an outboard that has required a lot of his attention.  The worst problem was suffered by our friend Jock, who was dismasted at Kick-Em-Jenny.  The mast came straight back on his West System boat, hit his dinghy davits and knocking his davits, his dinghy, and the complete outer skin of the back of his cockpit into the angry sea.  He’s been rebuilding from scratch at the St. David’s boatyard.

Laurie chasing and fixing a leak in the starboard hull hatch.

So, just to keep up, we had a seal failure in the seawater pump for the port engine, showing up with a scary filled bilge.  I took the opportunity to upgrade some hoses and also learned from Frank of s/v Komeekha how to replace the seal without dismantling the pump.  Still, it was hot work over more than two days. 

We have a new ding on the starboard bow and we must find smaller amounts of gel coat for sale somewhere.  Whatever one buys is solid or ruined before a year is up, and they don’t give that stuff away…

 

  

Tied to a mooring ball outside of St. George’s isn’t bad.  When we’re sitting or working on the boat, we have solitude.  Solitude is good at bath-time when we clean off the sweat and grime at the back of the boat at the end of the day.  It is also the best location for Happy Hour, with good sunsets and the odd “Green Flash”.  We dinghied into St. George’s for the necessities as well:  food and booze from Foodland, boat parts from Island Water World, and social time with Steve and Maria of s/v Savannah Sky and Hugh and Maria of m/v White Pearl. 

When a weather window opened up, however, we took it and sailed to Tyrell Bay on December 6th.  We were quite nervous to see what Hurricane Beryl had left behind on the little island of Carriacou.  However, the 5 months of time since the storm has resulted in the houses looking 70% repaired, and the people’s emotional harm has somewhat lessened.  Still, we can’t understate the situation.  On nearby Union Island many people are still living in tents, having trouble coping.  All the boat wrecks are out of the mangroves, but for a ferry stuck high and dry.  Both boatyards are filled with boats being repaired.

I had to stop taking pictures after awhile, there were so many wrecked homes!

Many boats in the bay, however, there are many of them that are mastless and some that sat for weeks upside down in the mangroves.  

This WAS a house at one time

We had some walks, bought some electrical parts, had a dinner at Las Iguanas, and carried on with small boat projects.  One magnificent event was being invited to join in with birthday celebrations for Maria of m/v White Pearl.  We joined Hugh and Maria as well as Philippe and Dominique from French catamaran “Benji”, at The Gallery Bistro.  I (Laurie) got to practise my poor French, with lots of help from Hugh and Maria.  The food was a little spicy for us, with Indian cuisine, but well done.  The event was a great success, with Maria quite happy.

Maria, the birthday girl is sitting beside Dawn.  Hugh and Maria are from Saint John NB!

We checked out of Tyrell Bay on Sunday December 8, allowing us to sail to Bequia on December 9th.  We held off our departure until 8 am, hoping for the winds to die a bit.  The winds did behave to some extent, allowing the whole sail to be done with apparent winds down below 22 knots, but the sea was a bit difficult and the wind angle and current meant we had to do some tacking.  The 8 hours being tossed around were quite tiring, but there was very little fear and no squalls to concern us.

Sailboats can’t sail directly into the wind and this was the best angle we could manage.  We had to tack a couple times in order to make our Bequia destination without using the engines!

We checked in to Bequia the next day, and have been enjoying time with Savanna Sky, who motorsailed up here many days earlier to pick up a guest, and White Pearl who came in a couple of days behind us.  We’ve also been joined by Frank and Marie-Claude of s/v Komeekha, and Bill and Johanna of s/v Cloud Street who actually sailed up with us (passing us numerous times during the tacking duel with the wind and current).  With Steve and Maria’s guest Patty, we’ve been a tight, albeit large group; enjoying hikes, toasts, restaurants and happy hours.  Last night the whole crew enjoyed an extended happy hour on White Pearl, a 55’ luxury trawler.  Fantastic venue and fantastic party.

Steve and Maria and Laurie and I took the ferry to St. Vincent to meet up with Patty, their company from the US.  While we waited for her, we found a really nice restaurant for lunch, always a necessity for any outing!  We made the 4:00 ferry with just a few minutes to spare!

We are quite happy here, and that competes with our intent to get north to see other islands.  We’re watching the weather, but it will be a difficult decision.  Today, with unscheduled rain, we are making an easy day of it.  We’ll find something to clean or polish, and write up this weblog.  We heard about some serious wind and rain in central New Brunswick, and the damages it caused.  Seriously sorry for your troubles, everyone.

A very hot and hilly hike over to Hope Bay!  Cold beers all around at the end of this one!!

The distance is correct, however, the time isn’t.  I forgot to turn off the tracker while we had a 2 hour lunch!!

Thursday evening rum specials at the Cocktail Lab get many of us motivated to come out at night!

Left to right:  Maria, Steve, Laurie, Dawn, Marie-Claude, Frank, Patty and Hugh.  Maria from m/v White Pearl was taking the picture.

TECHNICAL

We’ve caught up on all our maintenance chores, but some things just come up when you think you can relax.  On our trip from St. George’s the new chart plotter and autohelm went dead.  I went below to try to troubleshoot it, and wiggled all the wires and got it going, while Dawn hand-steered.  The mess of wires, which has caused trouble at that location before, made it difficult to find the problem – so I vowed to fix it.  I went to Budget in Tyrell Bay, bought a bunch of stuff, and revamped the system.  The circuits provide power to the new navigation computer, the RayMarine backbone, the new chart plotter, and the autohelm electric motor. A harness with 4 connections became a modern terminal block for 6 connections.  The new system allows much more testing with a circuit-tester, and I determined that the problem was a friction-fit in-line fuse holder that kept loosening all by itself.  I retired the fuse holder and am confident that the sweaty two hours will be worth the extra effort.

On our rattling 8-hour sail to Bequia, a partial-bottle of gear oil tipped over and the top failed, allowing viscous, smelly gear oil to mess up the port engine room.  Two hours of bailing, mopping, cleaning with kerosene, cleaning with vinegar, water, and Simple Green, and the smell is only cut in half.  Giving it time.

I’ve lifted the two flexible panels on the bimini, allowing the panels to run cooler and with less risk to the bimini.  I used $6 worth of 5/8” pvc pipe for the project. 

The new 6 circuit terminal strip with crimped eyelets on the wires will allow better troubleshooting than the old style white connector that can be seen at the bottom of the picture.  This is for the Raymarine autopilot motor, computer, backbone and chart plotter.

The pipe allow air flow under the panels

New Canadian Tire cheapo car radio that allows the phone to Bluetooth in to stream music throughout the boat.

The last project was a swap-out of our perfectly running 12 volt car stereo with a new one that has Blue Tooth functions.  We’re presently running Dawn’s phone through it, allowing streaming music via a music app, currently listening to Rodriguez Radio.  Pretty sweet, and Dawn is happy!    Our phone has a Martinique Sim which allows us unlimited data…a first for us!!

A few days ago, I spotted a 50 something foot Chris White schooner-rigged catamaran with foiling masts rather than mainsails.  We met the couple Zeke and Halley who explained how it all worked.

Laurie is still drooling over this machine!

Launch November 2024 - Grenada, West Indies

 I start this weblog from the mooring field outside of St. George’s, Grenada.  Not that we are on a mooring ball, however – either the market for them outstripped demand or some are missing. We, along with 5 other boats are actually using our ground tackle (anchor and 170 feet of chain) in attempts to grab the bottom here.  It is like rubble and gravel thinly overlaying a poorly cast concrete driveway.  Hope we are near here in the morning…

This is the SEA temperature.  Not much coaxing needed to get in the water at the end of the day!

This year we spent a full ten nights in the little apartments of Cool Running, across the street from Cat Tales’ boatyard.  We did our best to work the full ten days, but we had the wettest day I’ve ever seen, followed by loss of running water in the boatyard and in our apartments from damage from landslides.  There was a full stream of running water under Cat Tales, mind you; and our bottom work was done with wet ankles.  It made one a little nervous to work with power tools, but at least the alligator behaved itself. 

The water situation under the boat was typical for the 10 days while working

Washing and waxing the entire boat is exhausting work in the heat.  A day off for rain actually rested my arms to get ready for another go at it. 

After the torrential rain, the stream behind our boat was alive with water.  The number of plastic containers floating out to sea was hard to take!

The work went fine, however; and we got all we needed done before splashing.  We did have a social life as well, with many ‘happy hours’ with friends at the restaurant One Love, located in the boatyard.  Most often it was Maria and Hugh of MV White Pearl, out of Saint John, and Frank from Quebec of SV Komeekha.

As we finish this weblog we can report that Cat Tales did get on a mooring ball, but only after having to troubleshoot serious but small problems with both engines.  It all got sorted out, and we have even hiked to a favourite restaurant, Umbrellas, for lunch on the same day with Hugh and Maria as well as Steve and Maria.  We can also report that Cat Tales is a sweat-box to live in when it rains, beautiful for sitting and toasting sunsets at the end of the day, and lovely for keeping hands from being idle.  Still, we are approaching being ready to set sail on some adventures and will be looking for a weather window next week for jumps to Carriacou and Bequia.  We are nervous about what we might find on Carriacou, Union, Mayreau, and Canouan after the wrath of July’s Hurricane Beryl.

Laurie up the mast securing our radar reflector that he happened to notice while doing morning stretches.

This workboat has been removing old wrecks from the bays in Grenada and its sister island Carriacou.  You can see one on the deck and another being towed.  We watched over 8 boats being removed while we were anchored there.   The wrecks were from past hurricanes, but some have been there for years and years!

Launch day for Cat Tales.  Steve took this picture of us backing out of the slip. His boat was to be launched next on the schedule.

The Spice Island Marine Services presented us with this gift basket to commemorate their 40th anniversary.  They usually give us a couple tee-shirts, but this gift was given to anyone who had stored their boat with them for 10 years or more.

Check out the personalized label on the gin bottle!  Impressive!

Besides two tee-shirts, Yeti cups, no less!  What a lovely gift.  Thank you Spice Island Marine!!

TECHNICAL

The big job that was haunting us was the application of two layers of Sea Jet two-part primer and two layers of ablative paint.  The extra layers were due to the removal of old paint and rebuilding of the bottom, as described in our spring weblog.  It was so daunting that we called the boatyard weeks ahead and asked them to do it.  Well, they only got one coat of ablative on, but we doubled up on the waterlines and leading edges, and accepted it.

The other haunting job was the removal of the lower rudder bearing housings.  You may recall that our rudders were pulled to inspect the housings, and that we had determined to have the yard take over that job as well.  When they didn’t respond with a method nor an estimate, I determined I had better do it myself, and studied at the schools of Facebook and YouTube.  I successfully got them out, epoxied new ones in place, and we popped in the new bearings and rudders just as we were being launched.

Tools required to remove the old rudder bearings.

Laurie had to remove a one cm slice of the rudder bearing housing and cut and then collapse the rest of the housing in on itself with hammer and chisel.  Of course, this is all times two, because it’s a catamaran!

Also in the spring weblog, we mentioned that we had spilled some of our sailcar bearings into the sea when a piece of sailtrack slipped.  We sorted it all out by taking all the cars down, eliminating the worn and faulty balls, getting the rigger to install 4 new screws with fresh threads and putting a new thread coil in the old hole that held sailcar ‘launch rail’.  Putting all the balls back and launching them all took a couple of hours; and that was followed by a couple of hours of bending on sails.

Other chores also kept us busy, and if we were stalled in one, we could start another.  We were fixing 5 leaks in our port front window that we learned about after becoming a temporary submarine off of Diamond Rock Martinique, repairing a bent hatch frame that showed up in the same manoeuvre, installing new bearings on the steering seat, putting the propellers back on, recommissioning the two engines, applying special coatings onto the saildrives, washing and waxing, laundry and cleaning,

Many chores need to be done before we start travelling between islands as well.  We have a serious leak in a side port that requires fixing, a new music car radio to install, the ham radio antenna and ground equipment to be removed, and the Raymarine a75 has to be switched out with our replacement.  There are even chores we put off from last year.  What fun!

 

Raymarine a75 refurbished and brought down with us in our luggage

The old Raymarine a75 - you can see why we needed a new one.

New one, working great!  Raymarine doesn’t make this model anymore and our space can’t accommodate the newer models, so after a great deal of searching, Laurie was able to find a company in Miami that sells refurbished models which allowed up to freshen up the model we had and knew would fit!

As I work on putting photos into the blog this morning, Laurie is in the engine room changing the raycor primary fuel filters, and it’s very warm indeed in there!

We’re off to lunch today with friends, so it’s not all work!

Summertime 2024

 Our ritual is to have the weblog also include a note about how our summer in New Brunswick went, and we’re nothing if not consistent.

Last summer, it was so wet that we had little beach between the shore growth and the water.  This summer, the weather was dry and the beach was as big as we have ever seen it. 

We spent most of our time close to home, with friends and family visiting, Friday night barbecues, a few organized beer tastings, some sailing and some special happy hours with our closest neighbours. 

We got out only our usual few times on the Hobie 21.  The problem is that we no longer trapeze, and Dawn does not like much in the way of wind and waves.  Still it is fun, and a few times we had excellent company.  Typically we tack upwind for a couple of hours then enjoy a beverage as we come back downwind to home.  I also got in a few sails on a boat during racing out of Douglas Harbour, most often with my brother Mike.  The boat is a Hunter 35 owned and captained by Mike Legere.  It is quite enjoyable to be out on a good boat with a captain and crew who will be competitive but enjoy the sail regardless of success.

Mike in the cockpit, waiting for a beer delivery

Our beer tastings are at a neighbour’s, and the gent is a craft beer lover, new to Atlantic Canada.  With a reasonable bunch of neighbours with similar tastes, we take the job seriously – Well, we also get it done with a lot of fun.

Aligning craft beers in proper order at Mark and Thuyi’s place

Our Friday nights are for the most part with smaller crowds than in past years.  Not only have two couples moved away, but the remainders just seem to have busy lives that take them away on some Fridays.  Still, the food and conversations are great.

Dawn and a great group of friends playing pickleball

Halloween Pickleball on the new outdoor courts in Minto.

The times we’ve left the Cove were few but memorable.  We visited with former cruising friends Brian and Paula at their cottage on the Bay of Fundy and included a bike trip from their cottage to Grand Manan. This came with the opportunity of a fine lunch with my brother Mike and Anne at their St. Andrews cottage.  We visited Bill and Lynn at their cottage on Prince Edward Island, and took in some fine old rock and roll covers at a supper theatre.  A drive up the valleys to Mount Carleton Park allowed us to camp two nights with Debbi Linton and climb the mountain.  We also dropped in on Liz Bliss on the way.

Laurie, Lynn and Bill on a PEI beach

Laurie, Paula and Brian - Bay of Fundy

Paula’s family cottage

Laurie and Debbi at the end of the hike

Debbi can’t find the mouse that she knows is in her car.  Took a day, but it was finally released!

Our guests included brother Paul and Alida of Calgary for a week, as well as ten days with half-sister Lolly’s siblings renting the Airbnb beside us.  All very fun and interesting.

Raki, Lolly’s brother in law, and Dawn and Laurie sailing out of the cove

Raki trying on the Flying Spaghetti Monster hat that Lolly made years ago.

Lolly (sitting) and her sisters Elaine, and Barb and her brother Rick while renting the spot close by.

Raki enjoying a kayak in the cove

Relatives out to see us when Lolly’s family arrived.

One other item took a bit of our time, especially mine.  I worked over the summer and fall in an attempt to get a history book published.  The work required hours of editing and work on images, and I contracted out for formatting for Amazon publishing.   I completed the task on October 17th.  The book: “Fire, Disease, and the Pump House”, is a soft-cover, 282 pages, with 65 images and around 300 footnotes; and explains what had to happen before Fredericton could have running water.  A page-turner to the right reader ;-). 

Here’s the link if you want to see it: https://a.co/d/4JLqKx5

Leo, with the help from the cove neighbours putting on a book launch party!  Well done guys! 

Jane and Leo presenting Laurie with an award!

We are writing this from Prickly Bay, and finishing just as this fine old wooden ketch goes by our transom.  How we got in the water will be our next weblog.