We woke up early as I wanted to get a mooring as there were none left last night... so I spotted a couple of cats leaving early so I said to Joyce..... Lets get going and grab those moorings. So off we go. barily a coffee and no broffee, so off we go chasing for that mooring. I am at the bow ready to grab the mooring and Joyce is at the helm, we have our headsets on and all I can hear in the headset is "For Fu#$@'s Sake" What Joyce? "The motor quick" "What!? So I rechecked the fuel as I switched back to the Starboard tank when we ran out yesterday thinking it was a dirty filter but now we were out of fuel. Had to change tanks and both filters while we dropped the anchor where we were. She grabbed which was good...as we were moving back on to other boats in the mooring field. While I was changing the filters, Joyce saw a snorkeler around the boat and he popped up and she said hi and indicated we were having engine issues so we just dropped our anchor right here.... he said he could check our anchor if you wish... She said sure. Off he goes....while he is doing that, Scott gets finished and we try the engine...Yeah.. it goes. Meanwhile our new French friend is diving on our anchor checking it. He comes back and says we have a good hold but pushed it in just in case. We thanked him dearly. 2 mins later we lifted up to grab another mooring that just came free as we lost the first 2. Felt kinda bad since he dove about 45 feet to check it. Off we go. We got a mooring now. It was not long till we got in the dingy to town and in to make up time for the lack of Broffee that we didn't have in the morning. WE spent the next several days in the Saintes enjoying our walks each morning and the french cafes at night. The food, music and shopping here is great but expensive since they are dealing in euros. Ut wasnt to long before we hauled anchor and headed for Guadalupe.
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Long ass haul (LAH) from Martinque to the Ile Saintes....74 miles. Our motor quit off Dominique after see the dolphins ride our bow....oh well. I had to change the tank and both filters. Bled the system and got us going again. No moorrings avilable when we arrived so we dropped the anchor around 5:30 pm. Had a drink and checked out the town. Beautiful....reminded me of a small south of France town. Had a great Pizza and wine of course and headed back to the boat (Joyce is in love, amour.... with the Saintes) Wished I had of spent more time in French class. We woke up this morning swaying to our anchor in beautiful Martinique which is a french Island. The contrast when traveling from a Caribbean island to a french island is pretty amazing. These islands are only a short distance apart, however the language, architecture, food and people are worlds apart. After a relaxing morning on the boat decided to go into town before everything closed up for the afternoon hrs are usually 0800-1200 & 1500 - 1800. The restaurants open for dinner at 1900-2100. The language is a bit of a challenge but with a bit of pointing at pictures we were able to find the tourist bureau which offers free clearing in for visiting yachts. You clear in online with a computer they provide and it takes about 5 minutes, very nice. After strolling around for a bit we found a nice french cafe with wifi and a great view of the water so this is currently where we are updating, emailing and doing some banking (some tedious chores but the french wine and atmosphere is hard to beat). The people here are really friendly and helpful so once we finish here in the cafe we will do a little shopping to stock up on our wine and cheese:) Tomorrow our plan is to sail up to Portsmouth, Dominique which is about 50 miles so it will be an early night and a long day of motoring based on the light air forecast.  This morning we were planing of leaving around 0630 but I woke up sick with a bad sinus cold so we decided to maybe hold off until the following day, I felt a bit better as the morning wore on so I ran into town for a few quick supplies. Once I was back on the boat we decided what the heck lets get going with a great forecast it was hard not too, so we goat away at 0930 three hours later than planned. We stowed our dinghy and motor on the deck, hauled up our anchor and we were off with a nice a4 knot NE breeze. We shut the motor off soon after leaving and started on eof the best sails so far. We had the main and jib reefed a bit because not matter what the forecast says its always always stronger than expected. The breeze didn't disappoint us and had soon built up to about 18knots and had us flying along at over 8knots for the majority of the day. Boy it sure helps to have a clean bottom to keep the boat going fast.The sun was out and the temp was about 80 degrees and we managed to pass to similar sized boats like they were standing still:0) My time with my tutor JIm MacDonald and all the sailing was starting to pay off, we are really starting to understand how to make Rose Lee move. Forty three miles under our keel and six hours later we pulled into St. Pierre, Martinique feeling like sailing gods. WE set the anchor in 25 feet af water and got a great set right away, wow this day just kept getting better. After relaxing for a bit we took a buzz into town to check out the sites and grab an appetizer and have some wine. I put on my favorite shorts and Joyce put on a nice dress and away we went. The dingy dock was a large fixed concrete pier, which is something I haven't seen before so I approached slowly and switched into neutral. Unbeknownst to us there was a bit of a current running under the peir and even though Joyce and I grabbed hold of the dock the dinghy decided it just wanted to keep going right under the pier, well this isnt good. So now the dinghy is all the way under the pier and Joyce and I are cling to the dock with our feet in the dinghy and our asses in the water and are about to g swimming without our dinghy. Luckily there was another guy who just jumped into his boat and was able to grab the back of our dinghy and pull our boat out from under the pier. Well with wet asses and a red face I got the dinghy squared away and was to get safely on the dock with Joyce, had a few laughs tonight while enjoy our wine and food and we were pretty well dry by the time we returned to the boat. Lesson learned today everything goes in the dry bag lesson (2) when approaching a dinghy dock be afraid! be very afraid!:)  The notorious dinghy dock After a relaxing morning and stocking up a little bit at the store we were on our way for Rodney Bay by about 1030 hrs. The weather called for light winds (around 15 knots) so we were soon in to 15 knots of wind close hauled again. We have learnded from our friends Al and Michele whatever the weather forecast says add 10 knots. Joyce suggested reducing sail I said its just puffy lets carry on. Five minutes later we were reducing sail in 28 knots of wind, always listen to your wife, they are always right ( and pretty too). WE arrived back in Rodney Bay shortlu after lunch and anchored in 20 ' of water with the wind at around 25 knots. We did hook right up in nice sand so no problems sleeping last night, in fact we slept in the cockpit until 0400 since it was so mild and the sky was filled with stars. We also tracked down Joyces reitirement information and forms so that is tomorrows goals complete them and mail them.
 Twin Pitons St Lucia .'We departed Bequia this morning at 0530 with a clear sky and 15 knots out of the NE. As we rounded the point we soon had 20 knots and were close hauled making good time to St Vincent's. We were able to see St Vincent's by 0730 but it was still close to 20 miles away. We were averaging over 7 knots so this was hopefully be a bit quicker then the last time which took us 11 hours. It didn't seem very long before we were closing on St Vincent's which is a spectacular Island very much like Jurassic park. We had a nice sail along the coast and were able to see where they had hung up the pirates during the filming of "Pirates of the Caribbean", pretty cool. Soon we had passed St Vincent's and were heading for St Lucia, where you can see the twin pitons from quite far off. Two hours later we pulled in to Marigot Bay at 1500hrs and dropped our anchor in 8' of water. Wow we made great time and had a great sail, Doolittles here we come. It did take a few tries to set the anchor its super rockey here on the north side and the south side is reserved for moorings. I dove on the anchor and it had a pretty good set wedged under some sand and a big flat rock. I can't believe we ended up staying here for four nights this is a hard place to leave. This is a boat watchers paradise, they never stop coming or going and every type of boat from pirate ships to super yachts and everything in between  We had a pretty quiet day today. Started with a swim and eventually we worked our way into the shore to go through email and all that stuff. We picked our favorite local cafe "Maria's" and enjoyed the deck while we got caught up on our electronic business. Maria's is owned by Andy who has founded and funded the Bequia youth sailing program which is located on the beach right in front of his deck. It was great to see all the kids out sailing it looked like they were having a great time. We also meant the cruising couple next to us who were in their early 70's and had a two year old 50' catamaran named "Second Chance". Twenty years earlier the skipper was given 12 weeks to live and underwent a heart transplant at the last moment so his wife and him decided if they ever got a sailboat she would be called "Second Chance" pretty cool. They have now completed their two year goal and have the boat up for sale, what a great story. The cafe also had an Irish rugby game on in the background so it kind of felt like the Celtic corner on a Saturday afternoon. We headed back to the boat pretty early so that we could get ready for our big 60 mile sail back up to Marigot Bay in the morning. After we hauled off the outboard and store our dinghy on deck we were ready for a few boat drinks and a quiet evening full of stars. Next time we will spend more time in Bequia, what a gem.
When we wewre in St Lucia I cleaned the waterline and in Marigot Bay I snorkeled and got as much as I could but when I checked the propeller tere were a lot of barnacles and growth that I couldn't do with a snorkel. Today I rented a tank and did a proper job on the propeller while Joyce got the boat squared away. The propeller had quite a build up of marine life that was noticable when powering we were slow by at least a knot. I tried using a heavy plastic snow scraper to no avail the shells were just to tough. Joyce geared me up with a diving knife and after 45 minutes of hacking and scraping I now have a super clean prop. The nice thing was that the hull is perfect, no growth what so ever, how nice is that. I used Amercoat ant fouling paint(half the price of micron CSC) back at the dyc and have to say I will definatley use it again, what an amazing product. After all the cleaning and sweating we decided to check out the open deck restaurant located just off our port side from where we are anchored. We took our dingy over and Daffodil the owner assisted us in getting secured. The Young Geran sailing couple who ran the restaurant were amazing. We had a three course lunch Lobster and poached age with a lobster reduction cream sauce to start followed by Sea bass or jerk chicken and topped off with home made Banana bread for desert. What a fantastic lunch best so far in the Caribbean. After a relaxing afternoon recovering from lunch we finished our day off at the Figtree enjoying some live music (Ukulele, banjo and guitar).. I guess we dont have to eat tomorrow.
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Well here is a quick update
- March 5th arrive back enjoy a pizza and sun-downers
- March 6th go for a walk to the beach and are surprised by the huge swells and damage caused by the sand and seaweed.
- March 7th We launched the dinghy and tried to get our outboard going with no luck. We called Roger our mechanic and he took the motor away and reported back that after an inspection the motor is unrepairable its doing something called blow by and has water in both cylinders. He priced up a new one that was in stock but also had a used mercury available. I decided to go cheap and arranged to buy the mercury the following day.
- March 8th took delivery of the new used motor which was really beat up but seemed to work ok so I bought it and we moved off the marina out to anchor now that we had a motor again.
- March 9th we took the dinghy across the bay to pigeon Island which is a nice park with to tall peaks and fort Rodney and the top of the smaller one. After a great hike we stopped a the restaurant located by the water and rewarded ourselves with a few coolies. On our way back we spotted an NS flag on another sailboat and swung by to say hi. Tina and Steve were super nice and we made plans to hook up for drinks. Tina untied us and I pulled the cord to start the outboard but was rewarded the the sound of silence WTF I tried everything but couldn't get the motor started so our ne friend Tina came to the rescue and towed us back to Rose Lee. I called Roger and took the motor into shore, he was able to get it running but said it didn't sound good and needed some work. To say I was frustrated is an understatement. Roger agreed to give me most of my money back and I went up to the marine store and bought a new 2018 outboard motor, problem solved:(. What an expensive and frustrating day. We were planning on going to the jump up but opted to meet up with our new friends for happy hour. A shitty day ended up really nice with a meal of sushi and ho Saki wine. We now know two new cruising couples Yvettete and Mark out of Washington State aboard "Y Knot" and Tina and Steve out of Lahave awesome.
- March 10th We are making plans to head down to Marigo tomorrow which is a short sail south and form there we will do a straight shot to Bequia. We jumped in the tender to head in with our new motor:) to take care of clearing out and last minutes preps etc... Our new motor quit half way in WTF, the wind was up so we grabbed on to the nearest boat while I attempted to get spankey going. It turned out the fuel line became disconnected from the tank, disaster avoided:). Now just sitting here at the bar catching up on phone calls emails and the blog hope to update when we get to Bequia.
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