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Larry's LogFinally, on the 4th day, the wind started to fill in. A light East-Southeast breeze gave us the chance to unfurl the main and jib and TURN OFF the motor. Thank God for the silence. The batteries enjoyed it, but nobody else did. We were at 26d 52m North and 62d 07m West when the Trades came. We also sighted 2 ships that day. I tried calling each, but only one responded and then only briefly. The leaking head continues to be a problem. I poured some Sealube into the head (a lubricant made especially for MSDs, and asked the crew to use a bucket while it took its action. I tried tightening the gaskets and seals, but this only helped a little. Later that day, the wind increased to about 20 knots and we rolled up the jib a little. I didn't want to furl it completely to keep up our speed, but I found the shape unacceptable and we furled it completely. We were beam reaching due South now in a great breeze. Unfortunately, the laptop was giving me problems. The communications port was not working on an intermittent basis, and although I could manage to "force" it sometimes, something was definetely going. Also, the wind generator was sometimes producing electricity and sometimes not. I thought it may be a short someplace, but I couldn't really check it at sea. The next day, I "allowed" the crew to use the toilet again although it wasn't really fixed. It would have to wait until St. Martin, but it was good enough to use for now, although we needed to keep an eye on it so it didn't overflow or leak. Oh well... Also on the 5th day, we started running into some squalls. Not really bad ones, but they would give us alot of rain and some big winds for about 30 minutes. Then the wind would die and we'd motor a bit. "Some convective activity" is what I think Herb called it. We had some wind shifts naturally, and we would either alter course (if I could go east) or adjust the sails. The wind started to steadily increase and I decided to reef the main and try the jib again. The jib is a small one, only about 95% of the foretriangle, rather than the big genoa I also carry, which is 135% of that area. Sometimes when approaching a squall that looked really bad, I would furl the jib beforehand and start the engine. That way we wouldn't have to try to wind up the jib in 35 knots of wind and the batteries got charged. We were using a lot of power, for the autopilot, refrigerator, instruments, GPS, lights, etc. and they neede to be kept up. I bought Absorbed Glass Mat (AGM) batteries before the trip, which are pretty forgiving, but I wanted to take care of them. The wind had lightened up a bit so I restarted the engine. And then, at about 11am, it slowed and finally stopped. Damn! Whats going on now? I looked at the usual suspects, the fuel filter, the fuel pump and naturally check the fuel gauge. It said we still had about 1/4 tank left. The symptoms were definitely lack of fuel since the engine would start up OK but then stop. Diane suggested I just put the 2 remaining gerry jugs of fuel in the tank. So I did that and OK, she was right! The tank gauge was either wrong or the pickup tube was not getting any fuel. After I bled the fuel system several times, the engine started and kept going. Thank you!! Of course, now we have only about 12 gallons of fuel left and almost 250 miles to go. So we go on electricity rationing. I told the crew to hand steer for at least an hour of every watch so we wouldn't use the autopilot and save electricity. We primarily used the foot pump to get water and we were careful about the use of lights. I still spoke to Herb in the afternoon, but limited radio usage to that only. Fortunately, the wind started to pick up and allowed us to sail. I figured if we could sail most of the way from now on, and only charged the batteries when needed, we would be OK. The wind continued to increase to about 20 knots so we continued under reefed main. The wind increased a bit more but on a reach, we weren't doing too well under just the reefed main. I tried the jib but that was too much, the motion was uncomfortable and the amount of heel, about 20 degrees, too much for most of the crew to deal with long term. The shape of the reefed jib was terrible (this really wasn't meant to be a roller reefed sail) so I decided to put up the staysail. I went on deck to setup the inner forestay, the running backstay and then dug out the staysail from the locker. The staysail uses hanks so it was relatively easy to get on the stay and raise. The difference was immediate. The boat was more stable and we picked up about 1 1/2 knots or more. The angle of heel was acceptable so that's how we continued for the next 12 hours. The next day, Saturday, the wind was up and down and we had several squalls which dumped lots of rain and brought lots of wind. I decided to drop the staysail until we got out of the squalls, which Herb had predicted would happen in a few hours. The squalls did end and the wind lightened again, so we motored a little to get through the light spots. I figured our fuel situation was OK since I knew how much we had started with now and how much we were using per hour, which I was also monitoring closely. We also needed to charge the batteries, so we cranked up the "iron genny". We were now at about 19 degrees North and approximately a day away from St. Martin. I calculated that we couldn't arrrive in daylight on Sunday, so I told the crew we would slow down so we would arrrive early Monday morning, so we could see our final approach. So I double reefed the main and we proceeded at the stately pace of about 4 knots. During the last night, we heard some strange noises from the mast. At first I couldn't tell what it was or exactly where it was coming from, but the off watch (trying to sleep) said it was definietly coming from the mast. I heard the noise too, a kind of loud sharp creak, and when I put my hand on the mast, I could feel some vibration when the noise occurred. I said it was probably the mast partners, the rubber wedges used to hold the mast in place where it goes through the deck. It would be impossible to fix at sea in the dark, so I tried to remedy the noise by loosening the running backstay and inner forestay. This worked, although I was worried that the mast might start "pumping", there wasn't much pressure on it now with just the double reefed main. I felt we would be OK for now. Later that night, we started seeing the lights from St. Martin and Anguilla. They got brighter and we could distiunguish the Anguilla Chanel that separates the islands. I told the helmsman, Harleigh, head between the islands. By the time we got close enough for any potential danger spots we would be in daylight. As we got closer, and daylight brighter, we could make out the 2 islands, Anguilla to the north and St. Martin just 10 miles south of Anguilla. We could also see St. Barths just a little south and east of St. Martin. The great thing about navigation in most of the eastern Caribbean is that its line of sight, just go to that next island over there. There will be some overnight passages as we work our way down the chain, but nothing like the 5 days from NY to Bermuda or the 7 days from Bermuda to St. Martin. As we went through Anguilla Channel, I checked the charts some more and looked at the detail chart for Marigot Bay, on the French side of St. Martin. This island is one of the few in the world where 2 nations share an island without any (or at least very few) difficulties. There are no customs between the sides on land and travel is freely done. The language, currency and atmosphere is different, but that is the charm of the place. We had decided to clear in at Marigot since the guide books say its easy and relatively painless. We would soon see. As we passed the small bays leading to Marigot, I saw some dark squall clouds coming over the island. I hoped we could anchor before they hit. Well, we entered Marigot Bay and looked around for a likely spot. As Diane steered, I readied the anchor; took off the lines securing it to the bow roller, removed the tape from around the anchor well and made sure the chain was ready to run. I also got our the snubber and chafe gear. We found a suitable spot, I dropped the hook in 15 feet of beautiful tuquoise water, setup the snubber, and it started to rain. Then it blew - to around 30 knots in the 2 minutes from when I dropped the anchor. I stayed on the bow to make sure we were set and it seemed we were since the boats behind us weren't moving up and the boats ahead weren't moving away. The squall abated and I went back to the cockpit to join the remainder of the crew. Diane asked if she should back down on the anchor with the engine. I said, "No, the squall just did that for us. Welcome to the Caribbean!" We had dropped the hook at 0900, local time, which is Atlantic Standard Time, one hour ahead of the US East Coast. We had made the passage of about 1100 miles in just under 7 days, averaging a little over 150 miles per day. Not bad considering we intentionally slowed down the last 24 hours and had to motor at reduced speed for the first 3 days. I hoisted our Q flag, and sat down to enjoy our accomplishment. It isn't everyone who crosses 1100 miles of ocean in a small boat, but the crew soon pulled me out of my dreaming. They wanted SHOWERS, and quick. We could have done this on board, but Harleigh expressed concern that the entire island of St. Martin might not have enough water to handle his one shower, so the boat's meager supply certainly wouldn't. Alright then. I inflated the dinghy, put the engine on, got the gas we had bought in Bermuda and went to shore to seek out Customs. Actually, since St. Martin is a duty free island, its really just Immigration, but anyway, Diane and I went to shore with our USCG Documentation and all the passports. The Immigration office was a short walk from the dinghy dock. I went in, said that we had just arrived and they gave me a one page form with a carbon paper copy attached. I filled in the form, showed them my clearance from Bermuda, and "Welcome to St. Martin." Merci, and we're in. Bien venue to the land of baguettes and brie. |