Up with the sun

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Off the anchor at 7:15am at fuel dock at 7:30, first attempt at getting close got pushed off by the wind, back around for try 2 and then the dock help showed up and caught our lines and we surged with the swells up and down and against the fenders. Lots of noises on the lines but the fenders were doing their job.

Quick conversation with the attendant and we met all the criteria, diesel and a credit card they could accept. 30 mins later the boat weighed in about 1000 lbs heavier than normal. So the gauges are pretty close to accurate, we loaded 540 liters into our 800 liter tanks, all full and read to go for the next couple years.

Off the dock and pointed to Nevis, and damn if those little needles pointed there too, right on the nose, so we opted to head to St Kitts west side as that was an angle where the wind will fill the sails and help us get there. Wind angle of 34 we made good time till we were forced to drop the sails and just motor into the wind on the south side of St Kitts. St Kitts is a Long Island and we were getting past customs time at Nevis we spotted the customs office in St Kitts was opened till 7pm. Tried to swing in there at the commercial dock, but was told we’d have to go back the the new office at the marina, the pleasure boats go there. I guess we need the updated version of the guide book. We opted to just continue on to Nevis and grab a ball and stay on the boat instead. Just off the four seasons hotel.

Will clear customs in the AM and then see about a hike to the volcano.

One must roll along

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Perfect plans only work in a perfect world.

I know I don’t live in a perfect world, do you?

We had high hopes for St Barts again. The customs part worked flawlessly, we cleared in and out without issue. Enjoyed the burger at the finest water front establishment to the tune of a c-note.

The thing we really needed was fuel, diesel to be exact, we hadn’t fueled up on 2 years of vacations and we had a long way to go. Do YOU trust your gauges in your car? They always count down to zero miles to go, and then go negative. How far negative will you risk it? Well, yeah we have probably 200 liters or so, thats 40hrs of motoring, or 200 miles at 5 miles per hour and we are on a 400+ mile journey to Grenada. Yes we could sail, and go nice and slow, tho the South of East forecast doesn’t even permit that. The bottom line, we are on vactation, not trying to live on a shoe string, lets be safe and find some fuel, just in case.

So we showed up, fenders out, ready to fuel up at the surging dock – but not really – the cement looked like it ate fenders for a snack. These nice guys caught us on the way in, they too needed diesel but the pumps were empty, in our broken french thats what we understood and they might have more by 1pm.

Hmmmm……

Searched for an anchor spot, so we didn’t really get the nice spot we wanted at Shell Beach. Now we still needed to clear in / out of a country to carry our paper work forward, that part worked like a charm. Nevis is where we head to.

On the way back from lunch/internet/customs/grocery we stopped by the fuel dock and they said come back at 7:30am … and they would have diesel and be open, or at least thats the french to english that we understood.

So now what… what to do…

Back to the boat to stow the vittles… and contemplate the fuel drama…