11 May 1994 Pinney’s Beach to St Barts
Up and away early this morning. The boys are conditioned to move out of their cabin as soon as I start to hoist up the anchor chain. They instantly jump out of bed, run into our bed and go back to sleep. I want to go back to bed too! I fitted a new log impellor as soon as we got going - it’s a lot better now. We motored up the lee side of St Kitts. St Kitts looks beautiful with its high mountain and lush green fields stretching between the rain forest and the sea.
We sailed across to St Barts which was a close reach – fast but bouncy. We anchored in the outer part of the bay next to “Les Saintes”. The bay is very crowded and we are left out in the swell. We went into town to clear in and a quick walk around. We had to pay £3/night to anchor out here in the boonies.
12 May 1994 St Barts
Surprisingly we didn’t roll too much last night. I went and did two short dives on one tank of air which was nice. The boys and I went to get my tank filled, but the dive shop owner was still on his dive boat. I sent Brett and Craig out to pick him up in our dinghy. He was obviously impressed with Brett’s boat handling because he gave me the air fill for free – you could have knocked me over with a feather!
We all walked over to Anse Du Grand Galet which is called Shell Beach. It is amazing. Piles of shells on a beautiful 300 metre long beach with cliffs at either end. The seabed is also littered with shells and when you snorkel down you can hear the shells tinkling in the surf. There are also hundreds of live conch a little further out so I assume that it is illegal to take them – remember, the French will eat anything that moves!
13 May 1994 Anse De Columbiere, St Barts
Glenys went into town to do some shopping then we motored around to Anse De Columbier which is a very beautiful bay. We spent the day snorkelling, sitting on the beach and I did a few hours of revision. There is a farm onshore with geese and some peacocks which spend a lot of time calling.
14 May 1994 Anse De Columbiere, St Barts
Nice to spend a night without rolling. School work in the morning. Glenys has sewn two canvas panels, one for a sign advertising her sewing repairs and another for a sign to advertise “Dive Glencora”. I spent a pleasant couple of hours designing my sign and went onto designing a handout leaflet. I spent three hours revising the Open Water Manual – I’ve only gone through half of it and I’m getting bored now!
We went snorkelling off the north headland and saw a couple of barracuda. Glenys attracted a couple of garfish that followed her around. Glenys took the boys to the beach for a couple of hours. Ollie and Margaret from “Filia” (GER) came for a drink. We met them in Hog Island and they are going the same way as us.
15 May 1994 St Barts to Philipsburg Bay, St Martin
Motored to Ile Fourche which is very desolate. There is hardly any vegetation on the island and the anchorage is rather forbidding. I went and did a dive which was very good. We had a quick snorkel, lunch and then pressed on to St. Martin.
We motored all the way and decided to have a look in Philipsburg Bay before going into the lagoon. We saw “Flow” and “Drot”, so we decided to stay in Philipsburg. I spotted “Radnor” and went to have a chat with Brian and Dorothy. They were the boat who asked us to pick up some mail for them in Madeira last October!
We put out a stern anchor to keep us square on to the swell so that we wouldn’t roll. We had a meal on “Flow” with another two couples and saw 2 small turtles which seem to live nearby, as they habitually pop up in the same place. We’ve seen quite a few turtles since we left Antigua.
16 May 1994 Philipsburg Bay
I went out first thing in the morning to look around Philipsburg and get prices for a new dinghy and other bits. Glenys went out in the afternoon to do the same while I took the boys into Marigot to look for body boards. We’ve been promising to buy them some when we got to St Martin, but when we got here we found that they were at least $75US! We finally found some in Marigot for $42US, still expensive but I bought two. It was worth it to see their little faces as they carried them back to the bus.
We met Fay from “Chintoo” as we were walking around. We went to “Drot” for dinner and got a little bit drunk. Looking at the other boats, I’m glad I put a stern anchor out!
17 May 1994 Philipsburg Bay
I’ve felt better. I went to the chandlers and got them to assemble the dinghy that we had chosen while I went to the bank and got out $2000. When I arrived back to look at the dinghy, I panicked – it looked enormous. I had to go back to get Glenys to give a second opinion, then we bought it.
Glenys went out to do some serious shopping – clothes, earrings, swimming costume, etc. We did a major food shop which ended up as two trolley loads which easily fitted in the new dinghy. The dinghy is great. It planes with the boys and me, but won’t when Glenys is also in – we obviously need a 10 or a 15 HP motor!
We took a rain-check on drinks on “Filia” and went back to Glencora to collapse amongst total chaos.
18 May 1994 Philipsburg Bay
It’s still rolly in the bay, so we decided to go round to Simpson Bay to visit “Chintoo” and others. I went to get a few things from town and cleared out. They made me pay $2 departure tax for 4 days and I had to wait while they sorted out a receipt – what a waste of everyone’s time. Glenys went out for a bit of shopping while I attempted to tidy up.
When Glenys came back we decided to stay put for the night, so I worked on the dinghy and then took the boys skiing on their body boards. I stopped off on “Saltire” for a quick beer as I went past – they are getting ready to head back to Europe. We went out to a bar for twofers which was very nice with snacks laid on.
19 May 1994 Philipsburg Bay to Simspon Bay
We decided to go round to Simpson Bay. We were anchored bow and stern and the wind had swung around so it was on our starboard aft quarter. This meant that we were hanging mostly off our stern anchor and if we dropped it we would swing on our bow anchor into some other boats. We ended up running the stern anchor to the bow, snorkelling down to put a trip line on the bow anchor, pulling the bow anchor up into the dinghy and then pulling up the ex-stern anchor. It all went surprisingly smoothly.
We motored around to Simpson Bay. As we were about to anchor, Glenys put the engine into reverse but we just kept going forwards. The bolts on the coupling had sheared again! We went right up to the transom of “Aerie” barely missing entangling our dangling anchor with his dinghy. I sent Glenys up front to fend off while I confirmed that the engine was indeed useless. In the 10 seconds this took, our bow blew off to port and we gently hit “Vintage Port” amidships. I tried letting out the jib in the hope of getting some way on but we drifted down onto “Only Blue” and ended up T-boned on them with our keel on their anchor chain. The guy from “Aerie” came over in his dinghy and helped to push us backwards off “Only Blue” and we anchored (phew!)
I put out another anchor and went to work on the coupling. The bolts had sheared off in the gearbox half coupling, so I split the gearbox and took the reduction box into Island Water World so that they could get the bolts out. We called in on “Wise Cat” and had a drink, but I was not in a sociable mood! We went back to Glencora, rolled our guts out and had a bad attack of the cruising blues – I was so depressed and tired that I was in bed at eight o’clock!
20 May 1994 Simspon Bay to Simpson Bay Lagoon
It was so rolly that I ended up sleeping in the saloon with the lee cloth up. We were woken up at six o’clock by Gareth and Fi shouting. They had just sailed from the Virgin Islands and went into the lagoon. I couldn’t get back to sleep so I did some diving theory revision. I went and picked up the gearbox. The bloke had spent 2½ hours getting the three bolts out and had managed to leave four fairly reasonable tapped holes. It cost $100 dollars – that’s $40/hr!
I went back to Glencora and spent four hours refitting the coupling. Unfortunately, one of the tapped holes in the gearbox half coupling is about 10° off-square so I had to use a bit of brute force and ignorance. I think that it will get us to St Thomas but I will have to get a new flexible coupling and gearbox half coupling fitted in St Thomas. The biggest problem will be getting the bits for the gearbox because Paragon has gone out of business. The consensus of opinion is that the failure is due to engine alignment, but that can’t be done until I get new bits fitted. I got the coupling fitted by ten past five, so we just made the six o’clock bridge opening and got into the lagoon.
We took all the sail covers off and had the dinghy rigged up so we could use it if the engine failed,. I also had the kedge anchor ready to sling overboard. This was all for a 400 metre journey into the lagoon! Once safely anchored, we went for a “quick” dinner to Pizza Hut with Gareth and ended up staying up until midnight!