Still here

We woke up this morning to the sound of rolling chain. It's pretty common that boats arrive in the morning or evening and the sound of chain usually prompts us to pop our heads out the hatch and check out the change in the neighborhood. But sometimes the sound is deeper, which means a bigger boat, like a megayacht. And then sometimes it's much deeper. This morning was really deep so we knew we had big company. But we're getting a little jaded so we didn't even bother to get out of bed. Then ten minutes later, more big chain, and five minutes later, even more! So we popped our heads up like prairie dogs, and there was not one, but two cruise ships. The second (closer in the photo) had dropped two anchors. Their scale so totally dwarfs everything else that they dominate the scenery. And come evening they will light up the entire area. Fortunately they rarely stay more than the day and don't show up very often. I guess Christmas cruises must be popular.

We've been working away on our annual maintenance. We've upgraded software and setup our weather retrieval systems. The last two days were spent servicing winches; totally disassembling the winches into a myriad of gears and parts, each cleaned, dried, lubricated and then reassembled.

The winches sound so much quieter and smoother that despite the totally grungy job it's pretty satisfying. We've easily got another 4-5 days of stuff to do so we'll stay here through New Years, then head to Los Roques.

And what better place to finish up the annual maintenance than where Fay can quickly get to shore and return laden with fresh baguettes and French pastries?

Where's New Morning is back

Thanks to winlink.org, you can once again check out our current position. And as we build history with our winlink reporting you can also see our historical positions at ShipTrak.org. See them both at Where's New Morning.

Hotel Les Saintes

Hotel California - you can check in, but you can never check out.
Fay goes to the gendarmes today to check in, but they tell her that the fax machine is broken and they can't check us in. But no worries, we can stay as long as we like, but we must check out. So only in France...
Hotel Les Saintes - you can't check in, but you must check out!

Les Saintes

We arrived in Les Saintes last night. It was a really sweet sail that began with 40+ miles of broad reaching from Antigua at 8-9kts. Then a mix of motoring and flat water sailing down the west coast (lee side) of Guadeloupe, then two hours of hard on the wind in 20-25kts with the wind coming directly from our destination. We departed at dawn (6:30 - local sunrise) and arrived about 5:00, just before sunset, to cover the 76 miles of total distance. We're anchored a couple of hundred yards off the little town of Bourg de Saintes and I can see our anchor on the bottom in 33' of water. We slept last night with a gentle cool breeze coming through the hatch above our heads, the first time we've felt that since last May. And this morning we were treated to a rainbow diving into the water at our favorite snorkeling spot at Pain de Sucre. It's good to be off the dock!

We felt like we needed to get clear of Antigua, but she clung on to us to the last. Coming out of the Dockyard Marina, where we were med moored while the port quarter was repaired, the anchor was caught on a chain on the bottom (apparently a frequent occurrence) which required about 30minutes of fancy maneuvering to get New Morning spun around and pulling the anchor in the opposite direction before we finally came free.

Now we're trying to finalize a major change in our schedule which will slow down the trip. Stay tuned for details.

Dockside Entertainment

With the coming and going of boats, and the work being done at the dock, there is a saying that you either watch the entertainment, or you are the entertainment. Yesterday morning, we were the entertainment.

Fay and I were blissfully resting in bed, luxuriating in the idea that we would be departing the dock later in the day and no longer on someone else's schedule. We would sail to Green Island, check out the systems for a couple of days (while waiting for excessive wind and seas to pass), then head for points south and west.

Then the sound of the wind increased, I read 33 knots and climbing fast on the wind speed, the boat heeled, went "thump" and Fay said "we hit something". I came flying out of the forward cabin in a pair of shorts and saw we were pinned at about 45 degrees to the dock. Our anchor had pulled. It hadn't dragged in the usual sense because when we pulled it up there was about half a cubic yard of mud attached to the anchor. The bottom into which the anchor was buried had separated from the surrounding ground.

Everyone on the dock rallied to our assistance and within 20 minutes our anchor had been hauled out in a dinghy, it was set and holding us off the dock once again. Then a second line to a mooring (that we had not known about) was hauled in as a backup. But the damage was done. The port side of the swim platform, and a bit of the radar post, had been ground up by the concrete on the dock. Red fairing compound was exposed all over with a bit of fiberglass visible in spots.

Stan from Antigua Rigging contacted Steve at Precision Yacht Painting who arrived 10 minutes later (on a Saturday morning and dressed for a cricket match) and he quickly covered the damage with polyester to ensure there would be no water intrusion. After a conversation with Steve and Stan we concluded that it needed a proper repair with Awlfair fairing compound, primer and Awlgrip top coat.

With the wind and seas forecasted to increase, and the large fetch at the Catamaran Marina it was suggested that Nelson's Dockyard would be a better work environment. We packed up, said our goodbyes and moved to Nelson's Dockyard. Fortunately, in spite of the crosswind, we were much milder entertainment when backing into our berth at the dockyard!

Steve arrived at 8am this morning and began working so it looks like we'll be in Antigua for a few more days. As you can see, we're Med moored at Nelson's Dockyard where the buildings date back to the 16th century, and the local HotHotHot Coffee Spot sells the "Obama smoothie", half chocolate, half vanilla. Johnny Coconut's pizza and Italian food is just across the harbor; life in the trailer park.

Whittling down the list

When we got back to Antigua, Lyman Morse had the warranty work finished and everything was in great shape.  That cleared the way for Fay and I to start on the long list of maintenance and other things that needed to get done before we departed.

Fay did lots of provisioning, filling both freezers, the refrigerator, the pantry, and the wine locker!  Then just when we thought we could hold no more, a local fisherman showed up at our transom with 25lbs of Wahoo fillets.  Now we're totally provisioned and have very little motivation to fish for awhile.

I've been working on annual maintenance and remedial maintenance.  The engine took a lot of time as what I had thought would be just changing some fuel filters turned into much more.  Sometime in the previous couple of engine hours the nut had fallen off the bottom bolt on the starboard alternator, causing it to shred both of it's belts.  Then a routine check of the other bolts found all the shaft coupling bolts loose.  But eventually we got the belts changed, the bolts tightened, the fuel filters changed, and the engine compartment cleaned up.

The list went on and on with updated software for the plotter, lubrication of everything on deck, completing the installation and interfaces to the new autopilot, setting up our new passarelle, installing a protective boot around the based of the jib furler, picking up some spares, eliminating leaks in the high pressure lines on the watermaker and on and on.

We went out for a couple of test sails with our RollGen spinnaker furler.  The first day was discouraging so we went back, read the instructions, made some changes to the furler installation and the furling line arrangement.  The second day was much better and after an hour or so just Fay and I were able to set and furl our 1,800sq ft spinnaker.  And the new autopilot did a great job of steering off the wind, never wandering.  In 12-14 of true wind the spinnaker gave us an additional two knots of boat speed so we're looking forward to using it.

But in the course of the testing, Stan from Antigua Rigging noticed that our main sail luff was loading the lower two cars.  Since we don't want a failure on the main sail in mid-Pacific we had the main removed and added both a strap for a cunningham as well as increased the reinforcement around the lower two cars.  The list never ends, but once the main is back on the mast we'll be ready to go.