After Sarah and Peyton left, we knew that we needed to get the boat south, “down island”, as we are now well into hurricane season and just over a year ago an early season Cat 5 hit Grenada. The last big gnarly step was going to be the trip from the British Virgin Islands to Saint Martin, 80 nautical miles, mostly east. We staged with another buddy boat and then left on the morning of June 16. An hour into the trip we were joined by a third catamaran, as it is always nice to sail with company. It gives you a sense of security in that rescue is nearby should something catastrophic happen; it is someone to talk to on the radio; as well as another point of reference for sail trim, as in, “oh hey, look they just tacked. Maybe we should do the same?” Or not. It’s also nice to gauge your boat speed against a similar boat, not that it is always a race. (Ok, ok I’m kidding. It is ALWAYS a race.) But if you see that another boat is sailing faster than you are with the same basic sail trim, it makes you start looking at the nuances to see what you can improve upon. As we are hardly lifelong sailors, there are always new tricks to learn.
It took us a couple of hours to get completely around the eastern end of Virgin Gorda as we were going straight into the wind and waves. After that, all three boats had four or five straight hours of sailing just east of south in pretty big seas (6’-8’), but also sailing quite fast. We were doing well over 8 kn and touching 9 on occasion in sustained winds of 20-25 kts. Let me tell you, that is VERY fast for this kind of boat in big seas. But she handled it great. The roar of water coming off the back of the hulls is astonishing.
Once we had gone about 25 miles south, we were parallel to Saint Martin and had to either start tacking (zigzagging) back-and-forth or just head straight east to make the remaining 60 miles. Tacking would have taken an additional 20 hours or more so we decided to just suck it up and motor straight into it. It was very rough, but we finally made it into Marigot Bay on the French (north) side of Saint Martin. The other two boats took 12 and 14 additional hours as they tacked most of the way. The upside of this tactic is that they didn’t burn nearly as much diesel as we did, but we slept that night and they did not.
All of the French islands in the Caribbean have their own website for checking in and out. All the others islands use a website called Sail Clear. But the French website is easy enough, although you have to re-enter 100% of the boat and passenger data every single time you check in or out of a country. Sail Clear auto populate these fields once you have used it once. Where the French excel over everyone else is in the personal check-in arena. On all the French islands, you simply go ashore and walk into a chandlery, a customs office, a ferry terminal, or sometimes even a simple patisserie. There, you log on to a computer dedicated to this purpose, print out your online forms and give them to the guy at the counter who will stamp it with the official stamps. You pay between two and six euros for the privilege of printing on their machine and that’s it! Nothing else required. No walking or taxiing all over town trying to find immigration, port captain, customs, or some other official, hoping they are open and paying each of them for their time. And did I mention the huge selection of French wines and cheeses in the stores? Vive la France!
We spent four days hanging with friends and shopping at the many enormous boat chandlers (Saint Martin is considered the place to go in the Caribbean for significant boat work and parts. It is also a tax-free island.) John changed the oil and filters on both engines at exactly the 250 hour mark, as scheduled. He did not change either impeller as we were led to believe they had been changed just prior to our purchase of the boat and are good for 1000 hours, according to the manual. (There will be a test at the end as to how many engine problems we have in the next two weeks…)
Just before the first tropical storm of the season appeared in the Atlantic, we headed south on June 20 to Saint Barthélemy, aka St Barts, St Barths or where the rich folk hang out. We left Marigot Bay and went up over the top of St Martin, which ended up taking several hours to get around as we were completely unable to sail. From there, it wasn’t too bad, though there was more easting required than we would’ve liked, and we spent a fair amount of time dodging fish pots that littered the coastline.
As soon as we arrived, we got out the hose and gave the entire boat a freshwater hose down as the salt spray buildup throughout the entire cockpit had just become too much to bear. Not two hours later it absolutely poured rain! The first rain we’d had in at least 10 days. When we went ashore to check in to Saint Barts, we were told the fees were going to be almost $100 a day. We walked around a bit and found that much of the town was closed due to it being low season and French people going on their month long holidays. We stopped at Le Select and paid homage to Jimmy Buffett as it was one of his favorite places and he played many concerts there. Thinking about what else we could (or couldn’t) do on the island, we decided to go back to customs and checked out of the country rather than stay an extra day. The customs agent then realized she had made a mistake previously and it was only $30 to check out. No worries, we needed to get south anyway and will stop for a longer stretch in a few months. There was an exquisite restaurant on the bay called La Petitte Plage (The Little Beach), so we made dinner reservations and had a truly excellent French dinner in a gorgeous restaurant right on the water, complete with a hard sand floor. Very pricey as the chef is apparently Michelin starred but the place was worth it.
When we went to leave Saint Barts on June 21, the starboard engine overheated before we even finished raising the anchor. John found that the sea strainer was completely clogged with sargassum from the previous crossing. In order to clean it out, you have to close the seacock or water would flood the engine room. Well, when he reassembled everything, he forgot to reopen the seacock. When we started the engine again, there was no water flow at all. Fortunately, we hadn’t fully raised the anchor yet, so we paid out some chain and set about figuring out this next problem. It took a few minutes, but we discovered that the impeller had lost every single fin due to running without any water flow! The impeller is what pushes saltwater through the engine and out the side of the boat to keep it cool. John found the O-ring was rather crunchy and clearly older than we thought so a new one was installed.
After fixing our own problems, we got out and headed 45 nm almost due south to Saint Christopher aka Saint Kitts, passing the island of Eustatia along the way and hope to stop there on our return. We did not check into St Kitts and did not get off the boat. The next morning we sailed through the Narrows, a barely navigable stretch between St Kitts and Nevis. But it gave us the necessary easting to have a better angle on our 40 nm sail down to Montserrat. It took a while, but we got to Montserrat after a yet another boisterous passage of 8’-10’ seas and 25-30 kts of wind, but at least we were not bashing into any seas. We anchored in Little Bay near the very top of the island. And it is indeed a little bay. There was one small sailboat anchored inside, forcing us to anchor behind him and leaving us exposed to the swells just outside the entrance. It was a DREADFUL night. Certainly the worst rollies we have experienced on the catamaran.
Coming into the Montserrat anchorage we were unable to start the starboard engine. I know, I know, now what? But just wait, the story get better (or worse if you’re in our shoes). As it sounded exactly like a dead battery when trying to start a car, we pretty quickly decided that the starter battery had died. When it rains it pours. As there was nowhere locally to get a new one, we waited until we got to Guadeloupe. This meant we needed to be extra vigilant in avoiding the big mats of sargassum seaweed that could clog the raw water intake on the remaining engine and keep an extra watchful eye out for fish traps that could entangle the propeller.
Bright and early the next morning we left for yet another 40 mile sail to Guadalupe. We had planned on trying to get to Deshaies, at the north end of the island, but the sea state guaranteed that that was not going to happen. The first two hours we were shielded from the wind by the volcanoes of Monserrat. As we got right in front of Soufreiere, the one that blew its top and destroyed much of the island in 1995, it released a huge belch of nasty smelling gases that hung heavily in the air. Fortunately, we got through it with just a terrible sulphur smell. The current volcano alert is level one, safe to sail past. Um, not sure about that.
From the bottom of the island we sailed 20 miles at an average speed of 8 kn, truly flying. Seas were up to 10 feet but because we were going almost straight across it, it wasn’t a problem. Once we got into the wind and wave shadow of Guadalupe, the seas calmed down a bit but so did the winds. We listened for hours to a pan pan and the French coast guard response to what we believe is an American catamaran that was dismasted in the heavy seas north of Guadalupe. Eventually, a tanker and another catamaran responded and helped them cut away the rig. Not sure of the final outcome as we were out of range.
Because making easting is always so difficult in the Caribbean this time of year, we changed our destination to the middle of the island and then ultimately were able to get to Basse-Terre at the southern end of the island without too much trouble. To go to any of the ports farther north would’ve meant bashing into it and we will do just about anything to avoid that motion. It added 25 or so miles to the trip and it was well worth it. Around the time we first entered the wind shadow of Guadalupe, we were becalmed and started the port engine as we didn’t have time to wait around or we would arrive in the dark. (We did so anyway.) Even with the sails up and a little wind helping we were only making 1.8 kn per hour. Is this some crazy strong counter current??? After a bit, the wind picked up and we suddenly shot forward and were sailing as we would’ve expected, around 5-6 kts. In retrospect, we suspect that we had caught a large piece of fishing net and were dragging it on one of the keels or rudders and just had not been able to see it. When the wind picked up, it obviously pulled it off the boat. Crazy.
About 20 miles from our destination, we were becalmed again and went to start the port engine. It vibrated terribly! OMG, what NOW? We quickly shut it off, and John went to the back to see what might be going on. And sure enough, the excess painter line from our dinghy had fallen into the water and gotten sucked into the prop! It is a floating line so generally speaking that can’t happen except when you’re in the really big seas that we had that day. It was floating behind us with the end cut off, so we knew that the missing piece was obviously wrapped around the propeller. So we dropped the sails and John prepared to dive in to remove the stuck line. As he was getting everything ready, put fins and mask on and was about to drop the ladder, he noticed a mahi-mahi fish, bright green, right next to the boat. When it didn’t swim away, he looked a little closer and realized it was the missing piece of the painter line! Somehow, when the boat stopped, it had managed to work itself free and was now floating away. Hallelujah! He did not have to dive in 6,000 feet of deep blue sea.
So, yes, we finally arrived and anchored in the dark near several other boats, just south of the marina breakwater. In the morning, we discovered that we were literally surrounded by fish pots and one of them was right between our hulls. Somehow, we had not caught it in the dark, thank goodness. On shore we checked in and then went to a small ship chandler to buy a new starter battery as we were still pretty sure that was the problem. Took the battery back to the boat, installed it, and nothing changed. Uninstalled the battery and took it back to the store and said hey, this is not our problem after all. Only to find out that they don’t accept battery returns even one hour later! Not very happy about that but nothing we can do so we wandered the dock looking for an engine mechanic but only found a dive shop that was open. With a third-party to translate, the lady in the shop said that we could probably find an engine mechanic “over there” on the breakwater under that blue canopy in the distance. Ha ha, OK. So we wandered over and sure enough, there is a guy working on a large outboard engine and five other guys sitting around him drinking, talking and laughing. He spoke a bit of English and said after his lunch break, he would come to our boat at about 4 o’clock. Incredible! Sure enough, a couple minutes after four he appeared on a boat with two other guys. He sent them back twice to get additional tools to take apart our starter – verified that that was not the problem, checked the battery with better gear than we have and determined the battery was a bit discharged, but strong enough. Eventually, he called another guy and they concluded that we must have water (salt water) in our cylinders. Not good. Very, very, not good. We knew already that this can be catastrophic if not dealt with immediately. As this guy was more of an outboard mechanic, we were instructed to move the next morning to Porte-a-Pitre, the largest city, in the middle of the island, which is shaped like a butterfly. The mechanic was a descent man, and didn’t want to charge us for his two hours of work because he was unable to fix the problem! We paid him anyway, and told him to at least use the money to buy a round of drinks or two.
Before we left early the next morning, John dove the prop to be certain it was cleared and removed the remaining bit of line that was tightly wound around the port shaft. We knew we would have to fight the wind going around the corner of the island but discovered that the wind had shifted well north of east, and therefore we were straight into it all the way to the marina. Our expected five hour journey took nine hours due to wind, dodging fish pots, and huge mats of sargassum. We were terrified of having the remaining engine shut down from either sargassum clogging or getting tangled in the ropes of a fish pot.
The marina was going to be our first ever version of a Med moor (Mediterranean mooring). In this case, we had to attach each forward hull cleat to a mooring ball in front of us with very long lines. We had not anticipated just how long so we ended up tying two dock lines together on each side. Fortunately, a marina staff member was in a small boat helping us get each line tied and keeping our boat straight as we only had one engine to go backwards (impossible to go in a straight line). Once the back of the boat is close to the dock, you have to toss a line from the back, on each side, to someone on the dock who puts it through the cleat and gives it back to you. Not particularly difficult if you have both engines, but certainly will take some practice. The other way of med mooring is you drop your anchor well in front and pay out your own anchor chain and then tie up the back and secure yourself somewhere in the middle.
So there we were, about 5 feet from another catamaran on the left side of us, when Bella decided to leap from our boat, through the lifelines of the other boat, and refused to come back. We could not get onto that boat because it was too far from the dock so John put an inflated paddle board across the lifelines between the boats and she eventually came back using it as a bridge.
The next morning, June 26, the mechanic we had arranged showed up and verified that it was indeed saltwater in the engine. At this time, the thinking was that somewhere along the line we must have taken one or several significant waves on the aft corner of the boat where the exhaust protrudes from the side. Although there is a very tall loop in the exhaust hose for exactly this reason, there was enough water pressure to overcome that and force its way all the way back through roughly 12 feet of exhaust hose, the water lock and into the engine cylinders. Fortunately, it had only been about four days as the mechanic said that after 10 days the corrosion in the engine can be so extreme that you need to either rebuild or replace it.
In only five hours of work, he managed to disassemble the engine, get the water out, liberally spray it with WD-40, get it started to get that out, reassemble it, remove all the remnants of the impeller blades, and have the engine running like new! My fears of a multi thousand dollar bill were assuaged for only $500.
We enjoyed another extraordinarily delicious French lunch at the marina restaurant and part of John’s menu included a ti punch. To his delight, it was a self serve ti punch bar with 10 different local rhums to choose from. Add as much sugar as you want, as many limes as you want and as much rum as the glass will hold! He would’ve loved to have had a second, but as he had to rendezvous with the mechanic after the long two-hour standard lunch break, he thought better of it.
The next morning, John put the dinghy back in the water because it is our bridge to get on and off the boat from the dock. However, in his haste to get to the mechanic shop, he forgot to put the drain plug back in and when he returned, the dink was flooded with about 16 inches of water! Fortunately it did not reach the battery or battery switch, but it did set off one of the lifejackets that was stored under the seat. John was able to bail it out with a bucket and hand pump in about 20 minutes.
We finally made it out of Guadalupe proper on June 27 and headed for Les Saintes, a tight group of islands south of, and belonging to, Guadalupe. We anchored in what looked like a good spot only to have perhaps our second worst night at anchor on this boat. The rolling was ridiculous and the next morning we immediately picked up a mooring ball just off the town. But in the process of picking up the mooring ball, we found that the port engine had a terrible vibration so we quickly shut it down. Now @#$&! what? Once we picked up a ball, John dove in again and found that there was sargassum stuck in each of the three blades, all of which can rotate through 180° but were very hard to turn, even by hand. Once the weed was out, they were fine. What else could possibly happen to our engines this week? Don’t ask!!!
We had a much calmer couple of days at the little town of Terre-de-Haut. We hiked up to Fort Napoleon, had yet another outstanding French lunch (even with a two-hour lunch break we can’t understand how anyone could possibly return to work after one of these feasts!) We thoroughly enjoyed the little town and look forward to returning in a few months when more restaurants and shops are open for high season.
On June 30 we had a very nice sail 40 miles south to Russeau, near the bottom of Dominica. We were visited by dolphins and had a lovely sail as we watched a huge dump fire burn on the island until, once again, late in the afternoon the starboard engine would not start. Same problem apparently. (Anyone wanna buy a cheap boat???) We will deal with it in Martinique.
As we approached Dominica, a fast panga came charging out to us. The guy “offered” to help us pick up a mooring. No thanks, we can do it ourselves. Ha! These are known as “boat boys” and they don’t back down. They are prevalent in a few of the southern islands and of course they expect to be paid for their “invaluable” assistance! They also collect the fee for staying on the mooring ball that night. So, our $20 mooring became a $30 mooring. In all honesty, he was quite helpful as with only one engine, picking up the mooring ball was difficult. We slept very well that night.
So, to wrap up this chapter of the engine saga, we made it to Martinique but had been unable to arrange a mechanic in advance as everyone was booked. We jumped into Ginger (our dinghy) with a plan to head to shore and just ask around again. We stopped at the boat next to us with a Frenchman sitting in the cockpit. With some difficulty, we managed to ask if he knew of a diesel mechanic. He gestured across the anchorage and said to go find Didier on the big black boat. We did, and he came over that afternoon and once again got water out of our cylinders. His assistant, Eric (the Englishman), explained that our problem was not water coming up the exhaust but rather the absence of anti-siphon valves on the inlet side of each engine. They both professed to be astonished that this boat did not have them installed by the manufacturer. Needless to say, we promptly had them installed the next day and fingers crossed this is the last you will ever hear of this tale.
So how many troubles did you count? Better yet, how many were self inflicted? UGHH!
