Preparing to depart Saint Martin
We have decided to bite the bullet and go....
Our next destination is going to be Bermuda then Azores, and after that who knows, once we are checked into the Azores we are literally checked into Portugal and Portugal mainland is only 750nm further, it will be very interesting to see if we can continue across to Britain.
Bermuda is a mere 930nm sail which should take 6-7 days and nights, we will stop there first to take a breather and rest up, plus it’s another country off our bucket list, everyone we spoke to suggested we should see Bermuda, it’s supposed to be very beautiful but very expensive.
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| Just a few jars |
So much to do....
We caught up with Scott and Deb & Earle and Diane (two more Aussie couples).
Earle and Diane have been out cruising since 2013, they are now ready to start heading back to Australia, they will be leaving for Panama and the Panama Canal in the next few weeks, not all the countries in between are open but they want to start heading in a homeward direction. These guys spent five years just in the Mediterranean.
Scott and Deb are heading back to Europe via Azores, they have done the trip 3 times already.
We are absorbing as much information as we can from these seasoned cruisers.
We caught up with Adriana and Robert on Cirrus w their 3 children, more Aussies, they have taken their time coming up from Grenada stopping in at Aruba then St Vincent’s and The Grenadines, but have decided they will head back to Grenada, haul out their catamaran and head home, they have work lined up and they are happy to haul out in Grenada, then wait and come back in a year or so to continue their journey.
The flights back to Australia and quarantine are costing them around $20,000 for 2 adults and 3 children (Junee the youngest just turned 2)
The flights alone cost $15,000, the rest will be paying for quarantine.
We said good bye to Fengua and Lance, they headed over to the island of Dominica and then just the other day she let me know they are heading back to Grenada they have a friend who has taken ill so are going to be there to help him get well.
So many people to keep in touch with I only mention the ones We have spent time with or other Aussies.
The reaction from our second dose of the Pfizer vaccine was a little bit more drastic than the first, on the first evening Craig developed a fever, he complained that he wasn’t feeling well, administering Panadol , I found he was shivering in a cold sweat, I jumped into bed to cuddle him to try and warm him up and to stop his teeth chattering.
Even though the fever broke during the night, in the morning he still had a high temp of 38.7. Pretty scary stuff, all I could think of was at least Robert and Adriana were close by and I could call them on what’s app if Craig had taken a turn for the worst.
Where would we have gone from there I have no idea, call an ambulance or take a taxi to the hospital I guess.
By the afternoon his temperature was back to normal, having a nana nap in the afternoon and an early night he was back to normal by day 3. I was fine a sore arm at the injection site but even that eased up quicker than Craigs.
We picked up our foresail and repaired side cover, two dynema shackles to be used as preventers, to hold the sails in position if there is low wind.
Spares spares and more spares, there is no import duty here so things like fuel filters and impellers cost less, there will be at least 16% import duty and or VAT in all countries from now on. Saint Martin is pretty unique in that it is duty free.
One safety item we decided to invest in was a second autopilot, the computer part, it took ages to arrive, first off we ordered it through the local dealer, Trying to buy local, but that one never arrived.
We ended up ordering it on Amazon and it was there two days later !!!
Craig installed the new one and will keep the old one wired in so that it can just be reinstated if one fails while we are out at sea.
Luckily this was just a plug in change over without any major drama.
Craig re started our iridium go, this allows us to receive weather txt messages and emails while we are literally off grid, in the middle of nowhere.
Well preparations are amping up, but things are never easy and always take sooo much longer than you think !!
Take for instance yesterday, we moved Adriana from Marigot over to Galisbay, where it’s generally much calmer so we could hoist the adjusted headsail back up.
A couple of days earlier as Craig was adjusting and tightening the furler he realised he needed a wrench just slightly larger than what he had in his quite considerable tool kit.
Finding one took a visit to 2 hardwares and an auto shop that we passed on the way.
So new wrench in hand he sat with his legs dangling over the bow and proceeded to drop a bolt into the water “plop” ok he says I’ll get that in a minute, I want to change the oil in the engine while it’s still warm (that’s partly why we moved so we could run the engine and warm up the oil) to work on the engine we have to take down the stairs flipping them back and laying them on their side basically locking ourselves inside. So it’s a bit of an all day job.
Adriana has an oil extractor fitted which does make things easier that is until the impeller breaks up and the thing no longer works. After about an hour researching on the internet it looks like the company has gone out of business. More research and it seems they might have been taken over and the impeller size is still available, ok one has been ordered, and expedited shipping costs paid.
Back to the dropped bolt, it’s a very special little piece of the furler, apparently the last time we serviced it was in Halifax and oops we had dropped the same screw in the water and we had to order the part in from f**kn “SWEDEN” and it cost a small fortune in postage, so Craig has no option but to jump in with snorkel on and find it. .....
he said he was repeating to himself “don’t drop it, don’t drop it” just before it slipped through his fingers
We enlisted the help of Iain and Brioni, they do have a good reputation for finding things (they found our dingy anchor last month)
Iain jumped in with Craig, but Adriana had swung around on her anchor and the actual chain had moved across the sand on the seabed so there was no way of knowing where we had been when Craig dropped the little bugger, it was like looking for a needle in a haystack.
Just as us girls on the bow were getting a bit bored watching them dive down time and time again .... woo hoo up comes Craig tiny bolt in hand he had actually found it !!!
After a thank you cold drink with the Reds (Iain and Brioni both have red hair, Brioni’s is long and just beautiful, and their YouTube channel is Red Seas so hence The Reds, Adam and Khiara are MF or the Millennials. I asked The Turtle ( turquoise turtle ) and yes we are simply Adriana.
The furler was put back together and the foresail was reinstated only to discover that the repair shop had shortened the loop that goes up top attaching the sail to the furler, instead of reducing it by 150cm they made the length of the loop 150cm, Craig had watched them write down the instructions and attach it to the sail. Fortunately it’s still within a decent working range whew....
Khiara took our dodger and repaired a few small tears (I had to type that a few times as I kept getting this emoji 😭 English must be so hard to learn)
Andre and Alison TTurtle invited us to a Sunday afternoon Jazz session over in Colpoy Bay, a part of the Lagoon we hadn’t visited and hey we hadn’t been out or done anything different for a while, the group who said they were interested in going dropped from 10 to 4 so we were very lucky to be able to hitch a lift in tt’s dingy, it’s twice the size of ours and a very smooth ride.
What a great day we had, the lunch was delicious, I had a salad of cranberry, blue cheese, sliced apple and pecans on mixed lettuce with a reduced balsamic dressing yum, the band was fantastic, we are not huge Jazz fans but this was more bluesy than Jazz, they played lots of old classics and with two saxophonists, a trombone, a trumpet, a lead and base guitarist and a drummer who sang along with the female saxophonist the band was full, loud and very good.
So much talent just playing on a Sunday afternoon for free, we enjoyed them so much we dropped a few dollars in the tip jar out the front.
Prepping for the long passage is underway we have chicken and vegetable soup, a stew and pre cooked mash potatoes, I made a huge tray of a very sweet muesli slice, Spag bol was added at the last minute it’s so hard to cook and not eat the meals we are making.
Sausage rolls and egg and bacon pies were on the list but we ran out of time, but we will definitely try to make them in Bermuda before the big passage.
On the Monday before our proposed departure Craig and I shared the hire of a car with Khiara and Adam so we could purchase all the heavy, bulky items (toilet rolls, beer, bottled water) and go to the out of the way places, propane refill, parcel pick up, we had the car for two days so managed to get a few loads of washing done too.
I haven’t seen it yet but I think we have A cameo appearance in their provisioning episode.
Funny story, I called into the chemist to pick up stuff for our “grab bag” and I had a lovely lady help me, remember everything is written in French so I needed help, I asked for travel sickness tablets, rehydration sachets, and a skin moisturiser, and I picked up a spare pair of magnifying glasses, she proceeded to give me a huge pile of samples including sunscreens, plaque removal toothpaste, and skin moisturisers, I think she felt sorry for me after I said “I was living on a yacht” she probably thought I needed the travel sickness tabs and dehydration cure.
We managed to get PCR tested on the Thursday before our departure, at a drive through pop up clinic in the car park behind the McDonalds, we had to stand in the car queue, which was a bit funny. Khiara and I had checked on the Tuesday that we were able to be tested there as we were not French or even EU but the girls were lovely and yes we were legible and it was free.
That nasal swab stung more than the vaccination, no not really but it did sting.
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| The PCR testing was literally in a tin shed |
The entry requirements for Bermuda
are quite simple PCR test on departure from previous country and PCR test on arrival, if all clear we will be free to explore once our test results are through. ( follow up tests on day 4, day 8 and day 20)
There is paperwork to be completed online and Khiara very kindly printed up the 2 copies of each page for us.
Word is Bermuda is very expensive so hopefully we have provisioned enough that we can afford to use our supplies and not eat out while we are there, obviously we can buy anything we have forgotten and top up our fresh fruit supply.
Our last job was to take Adriana to the fuel dock, we haven’t done this since we fueled up before we left Carriacou six months ago.
Fenders out we sidled up the the fuel dock located in the cut, a pretty narrow Chanel but we have seen some big yachts and catamarans pull up there so Craig was not too stressed. We filled up our diesel tank and 4 jerry cans that we picked up second hand for $10 each, we already had 2 and we filled the petrol one we use for dingy fuel as well, so that was about 300 litres it cost us €270 to fill up, not bad for 6 months living.
Diesel and dingy fuel, our food costs and internet are our only living expenses, we won’t talk about the constant repairs and maintenance though.
Petrol station on the water
Springing off the dock using our big orange buoy, hanging on to the stern line and using our bow thrusters we headed back to Galisbay for our last night in Saint Martin.
Turquoise Turtle invited us to go out for dinner with them, they had hired a car so we’re keen to checkout a German restaurant on the Dutch side, it sounds lovely but we declined we still had a number of last minute things to do.
The dingy motor sits on a wooden base hanging off our stern this gets hoisted onboard, then the dingy goes up. The yellow lifelines were fitted running down each side of Adriana, these are what (I never go out) Craig clips to if he has to go on deck while we are moving.
Stowing everything away especially the stuff in the gallery, I’ve been making kombucha so that had to be put in the fridge and the glass jar secured away in a cupboard wrapped in some sarongs.
I gave away my basil plant that I’d grown from a cutting and another houseplant I’d nurtured along from a small piece into a nice plant in water. I think being Australian we are very aware of not taking soils plants and pests from one country to another.
Frantically downloading movies from Netflix we tried to get an early night ready for an early start tomorrow.
Were off on an àdventure, pcr tests this morning to submit our entry applications to Bermuda for Saturday 8/5 departure to cross the Atlantic to the Azores then on to Portugal, but first a stop in Bermuda, around 930 nm sail. Bermuda to Azores will take us about 3 weeks maybe 4 depending on winds. Our plan is to ride the Bermuda/Azores high and if a low looks like dropping down from the north, we run south whilst still trying to avoid the windless areas so we can keep the engine off and keep sailing . Were so looking forward to get moving again after spending 12 Covid months in the Carribean. Don't get me wrong, we've loved every minute of our time here, and really appreciate that Grenada/Carriacou and St Martin have given us safe haven at a difficult time.
Were finalising our last jobs, making water to fill tanks, cooking and freezing meals for on passage, weather routing oil changes and safety checks. For those that are interested you can track us via the link below, well also do daily updates on the tracking page on how were travelling. Next stop Europe, which actually takes us further from home.
http://forecast.predictwind.com/tracking/display/Adriana1
“Were soon to leave on our passage to Portugal via Bermuda and the Azores. If you save link you can see our live position at any given time. We will also do daily updates on our progress, life aboard, conditions and how the boats going. C&Z”
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