Getting boat back in shape

Living in a boatyard is not my thing. Especially not in a weather like we had - almost no wind, 36 deg C during the day and 30 at night, 28 if we were lucky. And since there was no wind, there were mosquitoes. But luckily we were back in the water after four days. And in the meantime...

Captain was watching every move, every detail, every thing that was done to the boat. Here is Heron coming out of the water.

The bottom of the boat was like a coral reef - barnacles, anemones, crabs, you name it - it was all there.

The boat was first roughly scrubbed and pressure-washed, right there in slings. After that it was too late to move us, so we spent first night in slings.

Next morning the first thing was removing of rudder. It had play at the lower bearing, it wasn't "sitting tight" any more, so it was time to "retighten" it.

Then the boat was moved to more "permanent" location, away from haul-out pier. It was interesting to watch how precise the guys from boatyard moved such a big thing through other boats. There were moments where we thought - this doesn't fit, it will not go through...

... but then it did!

Then the boat got sanded. The captain personally cleaned and polished the propeller - he wouldn't let anybody else touch it.

After that the boat got two coats of anti-fouling paint and rudder got tightened. After some "diplomacy" (and some additional money) we were "splashed" = put back into the water on Sunday noon. The other option was to wait till Tuesday (Monday was a holiday). After seeing that the slings from travel lift took away quite a lot of our new anti-fouling paint, which obviously wasn't dry enough, we were sorry, we didn't go in a hotel for two days and wait till Tuesday. It wouldn't have cost us much more. Well, we'll be smarter next time...

Maybe you don't recognize this one - it is called Unicorn, and is better known as Black Pearl. Yes, the one from Pirates of Caribbean. It is "parked" in boatyard in Rodney Bay. It looks nice, even from up close.

Our friends Dana and Wayne, that we met in boatyard, and their boat Journey, went into water on Saturday, one day before us. When we came out on Sunday, we anchored in Bay right next to them and we had some nice evenings together.

Returning to Caribbean

We had such a great time in Slovenija. We managed to do almost everything we set out to do, to see almost all the people we wanted to see and spent quite some time with our families. We are so lucky to have such loving and generous families and friends.

While in Slovenija we stayed at our house. The grapes were just getting ripe ...

and everything was lush and green ....

With my parents we made a trip to Balaton lake in Hungary. There was a cute little marina in Badacsony ...

... and some ducks right next to it.

This is a Little Balaton, a bird sanctuary. All the birds were either hiding in the vegetation or were to far for a good photo.

Ten weeks were over too soon and it was time to return to Heron, our other home. Saying good byes was very hard and emotional, but we both started to miss the sea and warm Caribbean weather.

Journey back was long, Air France changed one of the flights and made us travel through Paris from one airport to another by bus with all our luggage. I almost swore never to fly with them again, but then they made up for it on the flight from Paris to Martinique - with unlimited quantities of red wine, good food and lots of space to sleep in half empty plane. 

In Martinique we were lucky to find tourist office on airport still opened and the nice lady made some phone calls for us. First she found out that the ferry that brought us from St Lucia wasn't operating due to low season. That meant we would need to take the big regular ferry, but to Castries and not to Rodney Bay. She also booked a hotel for us in Fort de France, right next to ferry dock, so we wouldn't have too far to go the next day. Hotel was not very good, but we were really tired and slept well and long. Next day was Sunday and everything was closed in Fort de France. We finally found a cafe to have a drink, and then had a snack in McDonalds !!! The only other restaurant that was open was way to pricy. I never thought i would eat in McDonalds, let alone in France!

The ride to St. Lucia was bumpy and lots of people were sick. Not us, of course. After spending at least an hour in customs and immigration, we finally made it to marina at 6.30 in the evening. Marina office was already closed and only security people were around. And noone with the boat to take us and our suitcases to the buoy to Heron. After a while captain found a water taxi. The ride was expensive, but cheaper than hotel, which was our only other option.

We found Heron in great shape, we were happy that all was ok, there were hardly any traces of mold. All the cleaning and preparation work we've done before leaving certainly paid of. 

Next day we spent on floating dock in marina. Here is Heron, still without sails, but already with bimini and sprayhood - shade is essential - and anchor.

The rest of our floating dock.

On Tuesday we moved out to the bay, to have clean sea around us to swim. We had two beautiful days, with perfect caribbean weather.

And today we are "on hard" - early afternoon Heron was lifted out of the water, was scraped and pressure-washed. In next days she will get two new coats of anti-fouling paint. Hopefully we will survive couple of more days living in the boatyard.

Back to land life

How time flies..... It is now four weeks since we left St Lucia. Last days there were filled with work, we did or best to prepare the boat as much as possible for hurricane season. Even the captain was happy with the results.

On Friday, 13th, we traveled the first leg of our journey with this speedy boat to Martinique. 23 knots of speed is something we will for sure not see on our Heron.

In the evening we flew with Air France from Martinique via Paris to Ljubljana. Food was good, wine also :-) and i was watching movies all night, among them also Some like it hot, one of my favorites - i had some catching up to do after whole year without tv!

First days were a shock for us - weather was rainy and cold, and we just couldn't get over jet lag.  It took quite some time until we got into new rhythm and started to function normally. We have been very busy - there is a lot of work and cleaning to be done inside and around the house, there are some legal things to be taken care of, doctors to be visited, finance and tax matters to be solved....

But there are also much nicer things - like meeting family and old friends, visiting places, spending time with our cats... And a lot of good food everywhere. We are enjoying every moment of it.

Tinka....

... Bela...

... and Schnuki.

Pigeon Island

 What a day it was today! We woke up to a beautiful Caribbean morning with bright blue sky with white cumulus clouds sailing through it and plenty of sunshine to bring out the colors of water, trees, houses and plants. There haven't been many days like this lately,  there was always some haze in the sky that made taking photos difficult. On such a day even working is not so hard - we did "pickle" our watermaker (the process where you put some chemicals in the system to conserve it for longer periods of time), we cleaned and repaired some of the hatches, did a small load of laundry and repaired the seal on the engine command panel, that wasn't watertight any more. And in the breaks between work we cooked lunch, had a couple of swims in the sea and captain made chocolate - Gregory got us a cocoa fruit the other day, we ate the flesh that is around the seeds yesterday and toasted and grind the seeds today. Then some other ingredients were added - like condensed milk, sugar syrup etc and the result was not exactly like chocolate, but it was good and had interesting taste. It really was a beautifull day.

Yesterday we moved back to easter side of the bay from Pigeon Island to be closer to marina. We made arrangements to get to Martinique by a smaller ferry boat right from the marina, which makes departure a bit easier. 

We enjoyed the days we were anchored in front of Pigeon Island, except maybe for Wednesday that was rainy and wet. We worked a lot (we got the jib down and stored it in 20 knots of wind etc), but also snorkeled and swam, and spent two evenings on land. We visited Jambe de Bois (or wooden leg in English), which is a nice restaurant with good food and cocktails. And we walked to the fortress on the top of the smaller of two peaks and wondered through the forrest.

On Tuesday night we had a full moon.

The trees on Pigeon Island are in bloom and it looks like forrest on fire.

Jambe de Bois and the taller of the peaks.

Heron in the bay, photographed from Jambe de Bois

The terrace is lovely and furniture unbelievable.

They have several cats...

... and this one became my best friend after we shared a cheesecake.

Around the hill there are many remains of previous times - like several graves from 18th century.

There are also papaya trees in the jungle.

Pigeon Island was an island once - not too long ago when marina in Rodney Bay was built, they used the material from dredging the lagoon for connecting the island with the "mainland". The boat on photo is Heron of course...

The fortress on the top.

Looking towards the other peak called a Lookout - there the Brits had a lookout for French ships and it is said that on a clear day one can see all the way to Martinique.

The view east towards Rodney Bay

The beautiful blooming trees

Some old buildings are overgrown with trees and look like a scene from Junglebook

And then back to Jambe de Bois for a roti (like a tortilla filled with curry) and a cocktail.... or two.....

Back to St Lucia

 On early Sunday afternoon we left Clifton bay on Union island whit its colorful Clifton town...

... coral reefs with tiny islands...

... with island made from empty conch shells with an restaurant on it...

 

... and  perfect turquoise water at anchorage.

We sailed only three miles north to the island of Mayreau, to the Windward bay. It is a huge bay on east side of the island, protected by several reefs. The color of water is beautiful and one has the wiew of Tobago Cays to the east. And we were alone in whole bay.

Not only in whole bay, but we haven't seen anyone on the beach also, just a few houses on the top of the island.

The night was a bit rolly, the wind was strong and Heron was dancing on the waves like she was sailing.

Next morning we sailed north. On the west side of Mayreau we saw this beautifull bay - Salt Wistle bay. Next time we will anchor here...

 

A little further is Catholic island, no idea where the name came from, but it is pretty and full of birds - the right kind of island for me....

After 25 miles of nice sailing we reached south west corner of Bequia.

 

A little further on the western coast there are "moon houses", a project of an American architect. The original one must be the one in the cave. There are many more hidden on the hill behind and it is sort of a hotel.

We spent another two days in Admirality bay, lazying around, snorkeling and preparing for the long passage to St Lucia. We loved the Grenadines very much and haven't seen it all by far. So we will have to come back soon...

We sailed off early on Wednesday morning and it started with strong wind, that died once we reached St Vincent. So we motored for couple of hours. Off the northern point of St Vincent there was the wind again, but it was much more northerly than forecast. So we were beating hard, luckily the waves weren't too bad, only 2m. But our speed was not good, only 5 to 6 knots, and we reached Pitons on St Lucia already in late afternoon. There the wind died again (this is the curse of tall islands), so we motored for next few hours. Luckily a school of dolphins payed a visit and swam with us for couple of minutes, otherwise this would be one of the least enjoyable passages. After 12 and a half hours we reached Rodney bay and anchored already in the dark.

Next day was a laundry day, we made a good use of hot water that we had from so much motoring the day before. And on Friday we started working on the boat - we prepared the starboard (right) aft (back) cabin for storing the sails and other things, that we need to remove from deck. We managed to get the main sail off the mast between showers and stored it in the cabin, together with lazy bag. And we installed automatic switch for bilge pump (avtomaticno stikalo za kaluzno crpalko in Slovene). So now if any water gets in the boat, bilge pump will start automatically and pump it out.

For all this hard work we need lots and lots of vitamins - luckily Gregory comes by every morning and always has something new and exotic for us  - like soursop (big green thing left in the photo, we tried it already on Union island) and dasheen root (or taro root - right in the photo), wax apples (the reddish small fruit in the basket), along with "standard" offering of passion fruit, mango, ...

And today we got to try local guava (yellow round things left and under wax apples) and guinep (the small green things on top). All super yummie...

For the time being we are staying on anchor here in Rodney bay, it is calm enough to work and we can swimm in the sea often, which is necessary when working in this temperature and air humidity. We still have a lot to do and the time to our departure is getting shorter and shorter.