It's quite a time since I did a Blog. Roysterer is in Cartagena in the Murcia Province of Spain although we are making tentative plans to sail her to Santa Cruz de Tenerife in June. I plan to turn back the clock and document our journey.
Perhaps at some time I will summarise the time since the last blog which was posted from Jolly Harbour in Antigua.
09/12/2015 - We motor sailed the 25 miles from Montserrat to Jolly Harbour. At the start of the voyage the seas were rough and water was coming over the spray hood and soaking the decks right back to the aft deck. We ploughed on and the sea settled down and the last 10 miles were actually quite enjoyable.
As per usual we had the normal chaos clearing in to Antigua (3 boats had arrived at the same time) and to compound the situation the Marina staff had the afternoon off to celebrate VC Bird day. I made the biggest hash of getting into the slip as the bow thruster refused to work after the pounding we had been through and even after these thousands of miles I'm still useless at steering Roysterer backwards without the bow thruster. No harm done, and Mark was able to man handle us away from the next boat and William the dock master cajoled us into position using his rib boat.
Earlier I couldn't upload some of the pictures at Deshaies so I have attached a couple more, one of the anchorage there and one of Penny looking very pensive on the fore deck.
07/12/2015 - Little Bay Monserrat
We motorsailed all the way from Deshaies to Little Bay in quite calm conditions so a relatively comfortable crossing. Mark tried his hand at fishing and thought he's caught something battling for 40 minutes to bring the line on board. It turned out to be a clot of seaweed but as you can see from the photo he managed to take his disappointment quite well. We also skirted around the exclusion zone and saw how the volcano had destroyed Plymouth their capital. We average 7 to 8 kts and arrived at 3.30pm but decided to put off clearing in until the following morning as they are scheduled to close at 4pm.
Montserrat has adopted the Sail-Clear system and once registered clearing in was relatively straightforward. We had arranged to meet Joe Philip of Avalon tours to take us around the island as we had so much enjoyed our earlier visit in April. We were not disappointed and Mark was very impressed with the hardships Montserrat has endured through hurricanes and more particularly Suffriere their volcano.
The photos show Mark 'fishing', a view of Pymouth, a rare cruise ship visitor anchored just a 100 yards or so from us, a view of the volcano observatory, a view of the Volcano. Also we got a chance to look inside the Montserrat cultural centre and also saw the hand prints of the famous people who performed a concert in support of the people of Montserrat following the volcanic eruptions of 1997. Our photo is of Paul McCartney's hand print.
We were all pleased to have visited Montserrat, it's still an attractive place in many ways, that has endured a lot since 1989 when hurricane Hugo struck, we hope that the volcano doesn't erupt again any time soon and they can get on with re-building what must have been a lovely place.
02/12/2015 - We had a lump passage down to Deshaies in Guadelooupe, although we did sail all the way and averaged a good speed. We hit 10.3kts maximum in 36 kts of wind and averaged over 9 nautical miles in one hour which is pretty quick for us and Roysterer.
I have added some photos of the anchorage at Deshaies which is an attractive place. While we were there we visited Point -a-Pitre, the city itself didn't look up to much but the journey on the bus through the Guadeloupe countryside was interesting.
30/11/2015 - Motored around to Falmouth in preparation for our sale to Deshaies in Guadeloupe. It took hours but was decidedly choppy and we all felt a little queezy during the trip.
We found that the house batteries were finished and so we had to delay our departure whilst we bought some batteries from Budget Marine. As with everything else on this side of the Atlantic all the sizes were different and we had to swap out our 3 knackered 140Ah batteries for 2 larger 160Ah batteries, not as good but needs must! Mark and I were able to fit the batteries ourselves with the use of some tape and cardboard to ensure everything was as insulated and as snug a fit as possible.
Another dissappointment was that Cloggys was shut so not lunch there!
We arrived back on the 23rd November staying at Tranquility Bay. The Pinacoladas in the Crows Nest are still excellent and Roysterer looks to be OK after her period on the 'hard' in the sun, wind and rain. Mark who is with us this time has also developed a taste for the Pinocoladas.
We weren't able to go to Guadeloupe as planned as our dinghy was losing air at such a rate that I was worried that it would deflate on the 1 day journey between Jolly Harbour and Deshaies. I attempted to fix the dinghy and it is now better but by the time I had allowed enough time for the adhesive to cure, time was running short for our trip to Guadeloupe, so we decided to do the 12 mile hop around to Falmouth Harbour instead. It was the day before the Antigua Classic Boat Race Week so we thought it might be interesting.
We anchored in the bay with a hundred or so other yachts and on the first day we were able to see some of the boats arriving. On the second day, the first day of the races we had a good view of the classic yachts heading out of the bay. There were some spectacular boats. We were also very pleased to see the Picton Castle the ship which was the star of the TV Series 'Tallship Chronicles'. Penny and I were avid watchers of the series when it was on the TV in 2002. As well as watching the boats we went to Cloggys in its new upstairs location 2 days running. We couldn't get outside on the first day as it was fully booked but we got a prime spot in front of the large screen TV and had a grandstand view of the England West Indies Test match. We booked for the second day and the owner found us a spot outside but in a position where I could also monitor the cricket match. Shame that it turned out to be a draw after it looked like it might have been a rare England victory.
The photos are of the Picton Castle, photos of me and Penny and several photos of the classic yachts and finally a boat which Penny said could be our next boat (a motor cruiser one step down from a superyacht).
We had a great day for my 60th Birthday with Graham and Wendy of Oystermist. We got a taxi down to Darkwood Beach but it was a bit crowded with Eastern European and French Cruise passengers enjoying their day ashore. We moved onto OJ's just 1/2 a mile down the road and had a splendid lunch and lots of cocktails (the picture is of us all looking quite compos mentos despite the alcohol!). Afterwards we adjourned back to Jolly Harbour and some further cocktails for happy hour. Fortunately/unfortuantely the service was so slow that we only managed a further 2 drinks!
On Monday we are off to Guadeloupe for a few days. We will probably go to Deshaies and then on to Pigeon Island (Jacques Cousteau Reserve) to do some snorkeling.
We've sailed on Roysterer for a weekend visit to Montserrat helped by our friends Clive and Caroline from the Lagoon 380 catamaran 'Lady Caroline'. The notoriously rolly anchorage wasn't too bad and clearing in was bright, cheerful and short which is not always the case when dealing with Caribbean offialdom. The highlight of our visit was a taxi tour by Joe Phillip (joephillip {CHANGE TO AT} live {DOT} com) where we toured the island ravaged by it's still active volcano Soufriere. The volcano has a double impact first the lava and ash rubble suspended in hot gases destroys everything in it's path as it rolls down the mountain at 100 mph and then, in heavy rain, the bits of the mountain that were blown off in the eruption gets washed down in mud slides submerging everything in it's path. Sounds like a hellish place but it is green and brimming with wildlife and in the brief encounter which we had the people seemed nice as well.
Montserrat is off the beaten trail, the only way to get to it is by boat or helicopter. Our trip was rolly and unpleasant going there but we had a very good forward reach sail on the way back to Antigua.
In addition to a picture of Roysterer in Little Bay I have attached some photos showing the volcano, Penny and Joe Phillip of Avalon tours, Clive and Caroline, 2 views of the Volcano a toad which we saw at an abandoned hotel and a couple of pictures of iguanas (of which we saw lots).
The pictures are of Roysterer on the hard before launching and the other 2 are of the frogs showing the difference in scale between the 2 types. I can't believe they are male and female of the same species, if so which ones are the males and which ones are the females!?
We've had 3 long day sails; Rodney Bay to St Pierre (Martinique), St Pierre to Portsmouth (Dominica), and Portsmouth to Deshaies (Guadeloupe). We are now within a day's sail of Jolly Harbour so we can return to UK swiftly if necessary so we feel we can rest for awhile. The anchorage is the smoothest we've experienced this season and it is a relief to not be rolling around. Although there are plenty of boats here there is still lots of room. If we go anywhere new we will post some photos.
We've been here in Rodney Bay Marina for a further 3 nights. We are now going onto the anchorage ready for an early start tomorrow for our voyage to St Pierre in Martinique. We intend to say in St Pierre for a couple of days before resuming our journey North towards Jolly Harbour, Antigua. It's now only 3 weeks before we catch our flight back to the UK.
We will be here until Friday morning after which we head back up to Rodney Bay for Penny to visit the Chiropractor and Roysterer for a good clean by Kennedy and Byron (the 2 guys that stripped and varnished the floor).]]>
First mate here. We've had an interesting few weeks sailing in the Grenadines, but the weather conditions are still not great so we've gone quicker than expected. We stayed in Tyrell Bay, Carriacou for a week, but the last 2 nights were ridiculously rolly, and the last day I even refused to get into the dinghy as the swell was so big. We loved the island but had to move on. We sailed to Petite Martinique, having been told by Doyle's Guide that the fuel there was reliable. We tied up to the fuel dock, 5 minutes after they went to lunch, and despite having 3 mooring lines and 2 springs were crashing against the dock for an hour and a half, until they decided to come back. Consulting Doyle again, we found that it was an easy dock "in settled weather". We got our fuel and set off for Union Island, where we had trouble anchoring in the high winds. It wasn't anchoring itself that was the problem, but staying in the same position to get the anchor down, as the wind kept blowing us all over the place in the crowded anchorage. When we found ourselves anchored in the ferry channel we gave up and took a mooring buoy (against Doyle's advice). A local guy rented it to us and when we asked his name, said Skipper after a bit of thought. Oh dear, we thought, it's probably not his name or even his buoy to rent, but luckily all was well, the buoy held and Skipper was ok, getting us petrol for the dinghy (at an eye-watering price, we found out too late), and taking our rubbish.
We stayed 2 nights, pretty rolly, then decided to go to Mayreau, but when we got there the boats were rolling, and we decided to carry on to Bequia, which I was really looking forward to. We arrived and didn't try to get into the very crowded anchorage near the town, but anchored at the start of Lower Bay. It was a long way to dinghy in but a lovely spot. The first night was very rolly, so the next day Pete put out a stern anchor. This didn't really do the trick of keeping us steady, so he tried a bridle arrangement which turned us round so that Roysterer was moving up and down rather than rolling. Much more comfortable. However, looking at the weather, the only weather window in the next week was two days later, after which the wind and the swell got even greater. So, we decided to go, and Pete has recounted that story in the previous blog.
We've really enjoyed being in Rodney Bay marina, hanging out with Ian and Gerri from Spray, an Oyster 47, but are currently in a hotel while Roysterer's floorboards are being revarnished. Most of the work was done on the pontoon, but Kennedy and Byron wanted to do the actual varnishing in situ, so we've taken ourselves off to an all inclusive hotel for 2 nights. It was half the price of other places that looked the same to me, so think we got a bargain, and the wine is certainly very drinkable. Back on board tomorrow.
There are 5 Oyster 435s in Rodney Bay at the moment, which is incredible as only 60 were ever made. Three are on our pontoon! Every time we spot another one we can't believe it, as we've only ever seen one before, sailing out of Les Saintes as we were sailing in.
The pictures are all of Union Island - the shark is in a shark pool at the Yacht Club.
Penny will do a blog with photos etc from Bequia but I thought I would do a separate blog just covering our journey from Bequia to Rodney Bay.
Our original intention was to go to the Marina in Marigot Bay as we were both fed up with rolly anchorages and knowing the journey was 62 miles we decided to leave in the dark at 4.00am which would give us plenty of time to get there and clear in with customs and immigration.
We left as planned but 4 hours into the journey about 5 miles North of St Vincent the engine stopped. We quickly unfurled the Genoa (foresail) but found that we couldn't sail in our desired direction as the wind was almost on the nose. We also couldn't raise the mainsail as we had had no intention of doing anything more than motorsailing and the saill was still in the sail bag and the halyard on the end of the boom and conditions were much too rough to do anything about it. The sea between St Vincent and St Lucia is notoriously rough and on the day it was behaving to type. After about an hour when the engine had cooled down a bit I changed the Primary Raccor fuel filter as I suspected dodgy fuel to be the source of the problem. Unfortunately when trying to purge the system of air the bleeding nipple thread stripped and I was unable to seal the system. In the meantime we were continuing to sail on 30 degrees away from our desired course. I started the engine using Power Start spray and the engine ran for 1.5 hours leaking diesel into the bilges and stopped again -so back to sailing again.
By now we knew that we wouldn't be able to get to Marigot for 4pm so we contacted the marina. The manager there said that he thought we had contaminated fuel and suggested we anchor in Soufrierre Bay and that the sediment would settle in calmer conditions and we could motor to Marigot the next day. After consideration we decided that Soufrierre was too deep and we couldn't put a line ashore as we had deflated our dinghy, so it wasn't really an option. We decided to aim for Rodney Bay despite it being 10 miles further than Marigot because there was so much room there we would be able to anchor in the dark without fear of crashing into other boats. In the meantime we found that we could get the engine started and it would run for a while before cutting out, but the period of running was getting shorter. Basically we were now sailing as close to our route as possible and when we could get the engine started we motored directly for our destination. The conditions had settled a bit once we got into the leeside of St Lucia so we managed to get the mainsail up which helped us point a little closer to the wind.
We actually passed Marigot at 6.10pm just as it was about to get dark but it looked crowded in the anchorage and we couldn't get the engine to run smoothly so we pressed on for Rodney Bay. So with a combination of sailing on one tack and motoring on the other we arrived in Rodney Bay at 9.00pm 17 hours after we set off. We anchored OK in 6 metres of water inside the bay. The next morning we saw that we were at least a 1/4 of a mile from the nearest boat well out in the bay.
The following morning we inflated the dinghy and motored in to clear into St Lucia. We managed to persuade Alwin to fit us into his busy schedule and we gave him a lift to the boat. He sealed the bleed nipple with ptfe tape and got the engine started without Easy Start and we motored into the Marina. We are now waiting for a company to polish our dirty fuel and then Alwin will finish off by drilling and tapping the fuel filter housing and fitting a new bleed nipple. So we will be here in Rodney Bay for a while.
I have attached a snapshot of our route from Bequia showing our meandering progress to Rodney Bay. If we hadn't been able to start the engine and get it to run for a while it would have been a lot worse as we would have been sailing back on ourselves on the port tack. Lessons learnt; always unzip the sailbag and move the halyard to the sail so that the main sail can be raised quickly if necessary.
This is a bit long, apologies for that but I am using this blog as a reminder to myself of our journey.
I'm going to have a go at posting some photos of Clarkes Court Bay (Grenada), Tyrell Bay (Carriacou) and around Carriacou although the tethered (with Digicel) seems to be particularly slow here in Bequia. Penny will do another blog with photos from our stay in Union Island.
The first photo is a view of Clarkes Court Marina from the Little Dipper restaurant and the second is of myself, Caroline and Clive at the Little Dipper dinghy dock.
The 3rd photo is of a view from the hospital at Carriacou (we weren't visiting, just passing through!), the 4th is of a partially built traditional style boat, the 5th is a view on the windward side of Carriacoou overlooking Petite Martinique. The next is a rural view. Then comes a view of the anchorage near Mebouya Island. After a couple more views spot the insect in the picture. Then there is me looking cheerful with a lunchtime glass of rum punch. The penultimate photo is a shop sign in Hillsborough the principal town of Carriacou and the final photo is perhaps of the smallest post office in the world.
We will add photos in the next few days.]]>
First mate here. We've spent 8 days in Clarkes Court Bay marina - only meant to stay a couple of days but it's a great place and hard to leave, with some real characters. The rain has finally stopped - we have whole days with no rain at all now. The marina is very laid back with a great bar that has live music on a couple of times a week. From here, you can dinghy over to Whisper Cove marina, where they have a proper butcher's shop, and also to a little dinghy dock at Woburn, where you climb up to a little restaurant with a great view over Hog Island. There is a goat tethered on the path who obligingly gets out of the way for you when he sees you coming.
On Saturday morning I went to help at a Young Readers' Group inland - a bus comes round and collects people, mostly cruisers, and takes you there. I had 2 girls to start with, Kayanna and Nikayah, both 8 and cousins, who loved reading, but then Kellona arrived and was a challenge, to say the least. It was very interesting though, and a lot of the very small children read and spelled very well.
We went on an island tour one day, with 9 other people in a minibus. Cutty, the driver, was great, kept stopping to pick leaves and fruits (often from people's gardens), most of which were instantly identifiable by the smell - tangerines, cloves, ylang ylang, which all the women recognised from bath oil, noonie, a fruit that smelled like blue cheese and lots of others.
We went to a rum distillery that has been using the same wooden equipment since 1800. Unfortunately the sugar cane crusher had just broken down, so we couldn't see it in action. The less said about the look of the rum in the big pans the better - let's just say they're not big on Health and Safety out here. We also went to a nutmeg processing plant, also with ancient equipment. It'a another world!
I think most of the pictures are self explanatory. Eagle eyed readers might recognise the caterpillar. The picture of the mansion in ruins is the governor's mansion after Hurricane Ivan in 2004. They've now built a new residence elsewhere. Pete and Dennis are trying to work out how to fix the cane crushing machine. The field is sugar cane. The tree in the last picture is a nutmeg tree. The catamaran is Lady Caroline in Clarkes Court Bay Marina. Caroline spotted the iguana, which looked just like part of the branch from a distance - very impressive.
We leave tomorrow to anchor in St George's then on to Carriacou on Wednesday.
