Monthly Archives: December 2013

Chilling in the marina, in the shade

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Watching a guy single hand a 47 foot cat off the moorings in a very crowded part of the marina, saw him come in last night too by himself, looks like he has done it many times before as its a rental boat for day charters and huge cruise ship is in port today so even the yellow submarine was getting all docked up to pickup passengers. Its not really a submarine but a fancy glass bottom boat, that takes people out to see the reefs.

Back at the bar, but just borrowing some decent wifi while Christine is in church this morning.

Lots of good people out excecising running down the marina, I’m just sitting here watching them and waiting till its too hot in the afternoon to go do our hiking.

Amazing place. Expensive but amazing.

Our dingy in blue, the family car and how we get ashore

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Medium sized boats in the distance

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Welcome to St Barths

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Everything is bigger in Texas, but not as big as it is in St Barts. Sheesh, we expected lots of boats, but from this is huge, we were lucky to find a spot to anchor, and just then a ball came into sight so we grabbed it, a quick trip to customs as we are legal.

Tuna on board and semi early night. Music started at midnight but wasn’t terriblely loud as far out as we were.

Up early for a walk to Shell Beach and the first beer in St Barts on the shell beach, after a couple of photos before the people started showing up, there are 4 boats anchored just off the bay there, and soon enough the super yachts started to show up. One after another till it was hard to see the ocean past the anchored super yachts. There are plenty here, this year Eclipse will not be making an appearance, or so I learned when checking in. Eclipse is one of the longest privately owned yachts, at one point it was, but as everyone has to out do each other, I think there are longer ones now.

Walked around both sides of the port, and by the time we headed to the chandary to pick up a spark plug for the dingy it was closed, the dingy hasn’t been running its top, only firing on 1 of 2 cylinders, still gets us where we need to go, but with this long trek it takes some time so were trying to address it, the shop is closed till Monday.

Back to the boat for some lunch, since we sorta skipped breakfast with an impromptu 4 mile walk/wander we were pretty hungry at 1pm, wayne made more dingy fuel, I mad lunch… course a couple of beers were had on our hike so we had some more with lunch, so I took the spark plugs out, and looked for gapping tool to check the gap. Found a feeler gauge that worked, took a pair of fingernail clippers and used the file to file the top of the plug and put them back in. Seemed to start easier, took it for a spin and it got up on plane, moved right a long and even held idle better, sometime today I’ll double check that both plugs are getting spark. I won’t tell you how I know the coil is working, lets just say it enough to make my hair stand up.

So we still trying to find something for New Years, Shell Beach is booked, so we figured we’d try Nikki Beach on the other side of the island, so we walked up and over there, watched the planes take off and land mere feet above the traffic at the top of the hill. Walked on Jean beach, where we rented a house a few years ago. Eden rock was busy, lots of folks over there enjoying the water and then we found Nikki Beach, it was ROCKIN. People dancing on tables and bottles of Cristal everywhere, magnums, not the little ones. Christine foudn someone to ask about New Years, and it too was sold out but they were adding more seats in a tent over the water, and if we came back today she would be guranteed a seat, for the mere price of 3000 euro’s each. Needless to say, I think we are going to pass on that one.

Nice hike back, stopped in downtown and split some appetizers at Le Gustav over a couple of drinks, and then looked for a real dinner as they didn’t have anything but appetizers, so we wandered to the main downtown and found a rockin place, with an outdoor patio that had burgers and fries, we split a burger and a few presidentes, then it started to rain, everyone cowered, we just stayed put it was only drizzle after all

Wayne chatted with a model that just walks the waterfront, changing outfits every 15-20mins for 6 hrs a day. I haven’t a clue how she keeps cool, besides the short skirts, I guess.

One big boat is called “Blue Moon” its flying a Texas flag, so Christine asked about it, the guests onboard are from Dallas. Its BIG BOAT at the dock, but not the biggest in the harbor, but makes me wonder if blue moon brewing is doing better than I thought.

Back to the boat, to chill-lax, after a long 8 mile walk.

Sail day – beautiful sail day

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Up early start tinkering around, putting the deck chairs away, picking up thing we won’t use on the day’s sail. Start to get the spinnaker ready, the small spinnaker its only small compared to our other big spinnaker. Since we had been seeing high winds and we don’t get to practice too much we started with the small one. Oh and I can lift it out of the locker alone, where the large one we launch from the locker directly.

Christine and Wayne slowly get up, have some juice and a few internet checks, lazy start after all we only have 54 miles to go and thats a short day on this trip. The wind looks to have cooperated out of the east, can’t really tell about the wave yet, and mostly under 20knots of wind.

Wayne and I start to rig the spinnaker, on one of the many trips back to front to adjust lines I decide to start the engines, we need a little electricity as we have’t run engines for a few days. Start with the port engine, nothing. Nothing at all, okay is the battery again, couple it up the house bank, try again, still nothing, you can hear the fuel pump prime and thats about it. Try again, a soft click, sounded like the started wanted to do something but not enough juice. Did we sit too long? The battery guages show fine break out the electrical tester. Nope we have full 12+ volts at the batter and almost 13 when combined, and 12 at the starter. WTF? Tried the true redneck method and tapped the starter with a hammer to see if that would help. Nope. Hmm.. the switch has been giving us trouble, take that apart and look for corrosion, loose wires etc… Nope, sit down wondering. Leave with one engine and try and fix the other on the way? What could have gone wrong. Back with the electrical tester in cirque de soliel contorcionist position, Wayne hit the switch I want to see if solinoid is getting power. Nope, try again, Nope. Am I getting the testing probe connected correctly, let me slide this connector to show the metal, try again. Holy crap, my face and arms are all down here and this thing started right up. Remain calm and get out of the yoga position carefully. One loose wire and now we have both power houses running and can resume rigging the spinnaker. Whew.

So now a pretty late start, we chase the anchor chain aboard and head out just past the reef and hoist the spinnaker and just like that we are off. Left the engines in idle forward just to make some electricity as we were down 160p (amp hours) Our battery bank has almost 1000 amp hours, but you should never really use 50% of them or it shortens the life on your batteries, so we typically will run them to about 200-250amp hours down, before getting real concerned. The fridge and freezer use the most and since they are on all the time keeping our beers cold and jello frozen, not much we can do about that.

We drop the hooks in the water, 15 mins later zing. The starboard side is singing.. Wayne brings it in, damn cuda. Grab a pair of pliers hook out of the mouth fish back in the water. Lure back in the water, Wayne washing his hand zing, starboard side again, that damn cedar plug is rocking, another cuda and we’ll be pissed. Not this time, its Charlie, big eye’d Charlie. Guess whats for dinner.
Never frozen, just a good chilling, we tried a new method of filleting the fish that includes skinning it before creating the loins. That proved to be time consuming and difficult so we just left the skin on and got our loins. it took some time, by the time that was done we were only 64 amp hours down.

Decision time do we shut down the engine that wouldn’t start? Of course. Downwind spinnaker sailing in relatively flat water, and fish coming onboard, best recipe you could ask for.

We had plenty of water but were going to make some when we got closer. Christine checked and damn, if that starboard tank was empty again. I looked in the engine room and sure enough that bilge pump had done its job again, the same hose with the tighted hose clamp came off again, I was going to fix it right when we stopped but now we are sailing beautifully and need water, the water maker works best with lots of electricity. Fix the hose right have, Christine get me another hose clamp, now it has 2 on if our pump can push both of those off with its pressure, then I’ll have to see if I can cut a little off to get the clamps on fresh hose, and start the watermaker. Clean some strainers while in there and let the water maker run on the house bank, can see the negative amp hours slowly going out, but its quiet and peaceful and well run the engines getting to the anchorage when we take the spinnaker down.

Moment of truth, coming round some rocks on the east side of the St Barts, amp hours going down, will the port engine start? Yup, nice and easy like, no issues, now making water have a bail out plan if we can’t keep the sail full, fire up starboard a while later and we will be full of electricity and 1/2 of the water we had.

Round the corner and Gustavia is filled to the rim with super yachts, I’d be surprised if there is not at least 100 of them here, and lots of smaller boats too, was worried we’d find a spot for ours, thats how crowded it is. We went from no boats for 100s. Tried 2 spots before spotting an opening on the other side of a derelect boat, over there there was a ball, so we picked it up, got tied in, and I ran off to clear us into customs. Just about got run over by the cruiseship yatch tenders and all the other dingy’s heading to the dock, lots and lots of folks here.

Back to the boat, figured crew wanted to go ashore, they had showered but we decided to have Charlie for dinner. Cooking loins are much easier on the chef, so taking the time to loining and if we get more proficient, will continue do that.