Sunday fun day. Well really a sad day. Last day on hook. Last day away from the dock. It has to be done. Time to get serious about cleaning and finishing the boat projects.
Up early, and by early this time I mean 4 am. The sound of a boat futzing with an anchor nearby does that to you. Peered out the bedroom window, port hole if you will. It’s 4 feet long so it’s really a window. Noticed a cat had come in. Looked like they tried to pick up the lobster trap but then decided to drop anchor. Kept a close eye on them for a while. When they were content. I went back to sleep too.
Last breakfast. Omelette of lots of various treats that needed to be consumed. In no real hurry, content on the ball. Little Internet, then got antsy. Fired up the engines. And the sky got dark. Hmmm. St. Lucia living up to her wet ways. Just a little shower. Let it pass or at least the heavy stuff. Saw a break dropped the ball and off we went. Motoring up the coast getting sprinkled on lightly a couple times.
Looking around and there were several boats with the same route and timing. So the race was on, except we were just running slowly. No fishing just hugging the coast and taking in the scenery. Till we got up to the Marigot and the tank farm. The waves picked up as they rounded the top of the island. Wind on the nose, howling along just shy of 30 knots. Kicked the engines up to 2000 rpm and motored along. It felt as we were standing still, but looking at the GPS were were actually making foreward progress at 5.5 knots. That put us there in plenty of time, it was comfortable so keep on keeping on.
Turn the corner into Rodney bay. The star clipper 5 masted cruise shim was also seeking shelter in the big bay. With a smaller sister ship already there. We cut the corner, between the dive rock and the shore. Dodged a couple out coming boats sailing downwind. Damn if the bay didn’t have waves with white caps in it. Wind was still flirting with 30 knots. It’s got to die down closer to shore. Right? They wouldn’t put a marina in a windy place?!?
We still needed to get out our docking gear. Lines, fenders, more lines so Christine asks if she should start getting them together. I say wait till we get up there. The wind would probably blown the fenders overboard. We keep trucking. It’s not letting up. Think about entering the protected waters and rendering up in there after we see what the wind is like in the channel. We get close another boat comes out and immediately anchors.
Game time change. Our windless is acting up, but so is Mother Nature. Head to the beach where the chart shows shallow ish water. Drop the hook takes some effort but its down 7/1 scope and its windy. Relax for a bit. Start the fendering process, the wind dies down to 20 knots. I can work with that. 30 mins and we are ready. Fenders ready to kick over lines on every corner, and some in between and others just in case.
Start to pull the anchor and we are back at 30 knots. And the windlass over heats at least 5 times. I end up pulling the last 10 meters up manually while Christine maneuvers the boat.
Down the channel it’s blowing. Christine calls the marina for our slip assignment. The radio was busy with lots of requests for slips to get out of the wind. Good thing we had a reservation. They said F15. I know which is F pier but not which side is odd or even. We get close. Notice the odd side is down the finger and the dock hands are motioning down that side. Didn’t see the soon enough. Took a route down the back side to turn around. The dock hands saw us and made a call that turning crosswind on the narrow channel in this wind wasn’t a good plan. They found F10 was available. Sweet. Only one turn in 28knots of wind. Turn around. Now. Should we back in or bow in. Back in our escape hatches would be facing the wrong wind direction, but the water and electricity would be right there. Bow in, put the dock finger on the same side as the engine controls. Bow in won the heated debate I had in my own mind. Stern to is also easier to load and unload. We had plenty of fenders and pulled in without a mark. Tho even after we had tossed the lines we had to throttle up to overcome the wind trying to push us back out.
Dock hands remember us and the boat. Hook up water and out electric cord is just short. Start washing. Cleaning. Eventually send Christine to the office to do the paperwork. She brought back a case of beverages. Awesome.
Washed the top and front of the boat. Covered the main sail bag with a bag. Washed the cushions. Christine wiped down the whole interior. Good busy and productive day.
Cleaned and setup for Monday mornings borage of coordinated efforts. Laundry, dingy tune up, find Egbert the Volvo guy ( helped us out on a Sunday last time ), customs to inventory the items on board, fill up some empty propane tanks so we don’t have to do that when we return
Pizza on shore for dinner.
