19 May 2011 Rodney Bay, St Lucia
Another pleasant night, but it rained quite hard in the early morning. A check of the weather forecast showed that there is a Tropical Wave passing over us, heading west. In a gap between the showers, we went into pick up the laundry and I bought a rod holder for my new rod - make that £330 in fishing tackle.
I ran an electrical cable from the fuse box to the cockpit locker to power the dive compressor. This was only 10 metres of cable, but it took me three hours of cursing and sweating to get it in place. When Mike brings out the electrical bits, we’ll finally be able to get the compressor working.
Glenys bought some grommets from the hardware store, so was able to finish off the small side panels that fit to the bimini, which should help keep the cockpit dry when it rains.
I played about with my new fishing rod, loaded the line and made a bimini twist, which is a cool way of doubling the line at the end to strengthen it for all the huge fish that I’m going to catch.
I managed to get Skype set up and had a video call with my mum – she was very excited about it. The video quality is not very good because of the poor Internet connection we get, but it’s motivated me to set up more Skype “friends” – it’s free.
20 May 2011 Rodney Bay, St Lucia
We had an abrupt start to the day when I heard a humming sound as I got out of bed. A short investigation led me to the fresh water supply pump which was running continuously. That led me to the conclusion that we had no fresh water left in our tanks. So where had it gone? I checked the bilges – no water in there. I checked under the sinks for signs of a leak – none. I checked the connections in the lazarette for the shower at the back of the boat – not that. Then I found that the dodgy valve on the water-maker had been pushed past its 90 degree position and was therefore slightly open - I guessed that it had been dumping all of our fresh water slowly overboard for the last two days.
We ran the generator and water-maker for three hours to fill the water tanks again and then I changed the valve – I bought one five weeks ago back in Grenada, but I couldn’t motivate myself to change it before now. The fitting of the valve was OK, but I ended up with air in the water-maker system and it took me ages to get rid of the air.
I did a few more little jobs and started the design of the “Alba Arch” – a very complicated thing to draw.
We’re going to go to Soufriere tomorrow, so we went into the marina and paid for a “Permit to Moor” from the customs which allows us to moor outside a port of entry – very strange concept and very confusing.
After going to the supermarket, we called in on “Hurah”, a Hallberg Rassey 43, and chatted to David and Angie (Brits)
21 May 2011 Rodney Bay to Anse Cochon, St Lucia
We intermittently motored and sailed in the fluky winds down the west coast of St Lucia to the Pitons area. After refusing an offer from a rather aggressive boat boy to tie us up to a mooring for $20EC, we pickup up a mooring next to the ”Bat Caves” near the Hummingbird Restaurant. It was incredibly rolly with a swell coming all the way across the bay. The moorings are very close to the shore and it was very worrying to hear the waves crashing onto the rocks just behind us.
After lunch, I swam ashore with a rope on a fender and tied up to a tree to bring the bow into the swell. The motion was much better. We went for a snorkel, looked back at our pitching, rolling boat and the crashing waves and decided that we couldn’t stay there. All of the other mooring places in the Pitons area looked just as rolly, if not worse, so we motored back up the coast to Anse Cochon.
Anse Cochon is a lovely little bay with a small hotel and an idyllic beach with palm trees. All of the moorings had been taken so we anchored. We went snorkelling which was good, but unfortunately, I received a really bad sting on my left arm from a jelly fish – like an electric shock. I quickly swam back to the dinghy where we have a small bottle of vinegar to counteract the effects of the stinging cells, but unfortunately it was empty… The only thing to do was to pee in the bottle and pour that over my arm – not very pleasant but the urea in urine works just as well as vinegar.
We bought two snappers from a local fisherman for $30EC, which was probably overpriced, but they cleaned them for us and were very pleasant. So we had barbequed Snapper, couscous and plantains for dinner.
22 May 2011 Anse Cochon to Malgretout, St Lucia
I did my usual check on the engine before leaving Anse Cochon to go back to the Pitons. The sump beneath the engine had over 4 pints of water in it. I’ve been trying to track down why I get small amounts of water in the engine sump, but this amount was very excessive. I checked all of the hoses on the engine and couldn’t see anything. I ran the engine for half an hour – nothing. We motored for an hour down to the Pitons and I kept checking every ten minutes – nothing. It’s a total mystery.
I changed the lure on my new fishing rod and trolled a small bright squid, but no fish…
We picked up a mooring off Harmony Beach Restaurant, which is directly below the Petit Piton and went ashore. The owner of the restaurant is called Benny – he’s a really nice guy and very helpful. We asked about climbing the Pitons and it turns out that the Grand Piton (2619 ft) is a hike which spirals around the mountain, but has no view from the top because it’s all in trees. The Petit Piton (2460 ft) is steeper and has a great view from the top. We asked Benny to arrange a guide to take us up the Petit Piton tomorrow.
After lunch at the restaurant, we went snorkelling – it was pretty good straight off the boat, but we are still getting stings from tiny jellyfish. Three noisy, party catamarans arrived at two o’clock, anchored next to each other by the beach and played loud music. The noise of three different pieces of music blaring away at the same time was surreal. Fortunately, they only stayed for a couple of hours and peace returned to the isolated beach.
We dug out our walking shoes, water containers and packed our rucksacks before going to bed early in preparation for the hike up the Petit Piton tomorrow – I’m so excited…