Ambition

Left Portsmouth, Dominica at 4AM for Fort de France, Martinique. 2 reefs in the main and genoa. A bumpy ride as the 10 to 15 foot swells or waves came from the side in the open ocean. The autopilot was NOT happy so had to hand steer for 5 ½ hours - a workout indeed. Even behind Martinique we had steady 25 knots and gusts to 33! Anchored at 1:30PM at Fort de France. Off to clear into customs and make ourselves legal! Both Cassiopee and Cafe Latte were waiting for us in the bay - they threw a nice 5 á 7 for us! More like a dinner party that started at 5 and just kept on going! First time we have seen Jean and Yolene since our wedding last August!

With a rented car all 6 of us headed off to near St Pierre for a hike along a water canal - awesome. Canal de Beauregard was built in 1760 / 70 to provide fresh water for a rum distillery in the region. At some points it is a straight drop down 100 meters – I realized that yup, I do have a ting of vertigo – no railings and a path that is at best 15 or 20 inches wide at some spots.

Moved the boat to Anse Mitan to get away from rolling by the ferries in Fort de France. Where I promised everyone a wonderful Sunday brunch at a resort. I even went in early to make sure it was available. Showed up at 10:30 Sunday morning just as they were clearing up! Apparently I understood brunch and the resort understood breakfast – big difference! Our little troupe headed off to find food. Lots of choices in Anse Mitan and we grabbed a little snack and then waited for a great lunch – all is not lost and we went home full!

Invited on board Caffe Latte for sundowners, a great evening – I never knew that Jean had so much talent with a guitar - wow he plays very well! The singers were good too even if they struggled with the lyrics!

Sailed from Ste Anne to Rodney Bay St Lucia - finally a beautiful sail. Cleared customs in at IGY Marina which is a major installation.

View of Rodney Bay from our hike

The fruit and veggie vendor in the harbour!

Hiked the National Park - first hill is simple 2nd is a lot tougher but the views were spectacular. Again first of the English / French battling each other of island supremacy so many years ago.

Last bit of shopping and back on board.

This yacht took all the fuel!

Motored early morning to Marigot Bay where we picked up a mooring ball US$30 per night (US$45 if we were in the dock) and it gives us use of all the amenities at Capella Marina! After a few hours of puttering around we get a swim in at the infinity pool! Sweet!!!

Cleared out of customs. Wanted fuel however a 160 foot MY emptied their tanks!

A little infinity pool

Capella Marina

Up at 4:30 AM for a sail to Bequia - dark and raining ugh. Rained 90% of the time to Bequia.

St Lucia -Pitons

A little more of the Pitons

Walk about after clearing Customs. Filled up with fuel from a fuel barge OUCH! EC$17.50 per gallon or Cdn $8.50 per gallon!!

The weather is expected to be nasty in Bequia so we follow Rodignard out to Tobago Cays. A five hour run under motor all the way. Wind instruments fail along the way - *&^%.

Tabago Cays behind the reef is awesome. Winds are strong but no waves.

Spent time on the phone with Garmin to troubleshoot the wind instrument - no continuity in the cable. Either the cable is chafed or the instrument is defective.

Caught up with our friends jean-Claude and Nathalie on Unity – so good to see them again! Did a lobster beach BBQ with Unity and Rodignard - wow!

Up the mast early this morning pulled the mast cable up and out, removed the instrument.

Back on deck, checked out the cable - all seems fine. Test each wire and continuity is good - not the cable. Look at the unit and notice there is electrical tape on the little wire - removed the tape - the guys that reattached all the wiring in Annapolis nicked the cable with an exacto knife and just covered it up. Corrosion finally did the wire in. With help from Rodignard, soldered a new wire in place tested - All works. Back up the mast and install a working unit - life is good! Took advantage of the birds eye view to get a few shots!

Motored to Mayreau - the anchorage ar Tabago Cays was getting crazy with charter boats piling one on top of each other as well as on us. Kite boarders flying through the anchorage. Only 5 boats in Mayreau - Saline Bay. Much better and calmer.

Little Church in Mayreau

Off for a walkabout - blew the dinghy landing in big surf - filled the dinghy up with water and sand and oh yes … my cell phone was in my pocket - a burial at sea. ^%$#*&.

Finished the day off with purchasing a live 4 LB lobster - a monster! An awesome dinner.

Robert Righteous and the Youth Bar and Restaurant

Lazy Goat

A quick motor 4 miles to Union Island to clear out of St Vincent and the Grenadines. Lots of mooring balls EC$60 per night plus a EC410 tip for the boat boy to help us get tied up. Customs and Immigration are great here, polite and friendly!

Well it was time for Maryse and I to get going on vacation time – all the big repairs are behind us, the anchor tested out perfectly, the wind generator is running on 2 of 3 phases – kind of like its owner on some days!

One of our last meals in Antigua was to enjoy a beef roti from the Roti King. We have eaten here before and a number of times and always enjoyed the experience … well this time it was an EXPERIENCE. Food poisoning!!!! We this effectively committed us to quarters for a number of days …. But as they say “this too shall pass” and so it did!

Back running on most cylinders we left Antigua for a quick overnight in Deshaies and then on to Les Saints with a plan to get to Martinique in time for Carnival February 10 to 12. Distance wise this is not an issue – that is until the weather gods get involved.

As I mentioned in our last blog, we had an event! We arrived in Les Saintes after a salty and bumpy sail from Deshaies on the northwest corned of Guadeloupe. There was not a mooring ball to be had upon arrival.

Last night was an anchoring night from hell or it is our “Salute to the start of the Winter Olympic Games” – we Canada versus the Swiss at the Anchoring Event ….

At le Cabrits, we dropped the anchor in 70’ of water along with all 250 feet of chain. For us this is very deep anchoring and not one that makes you feel really comfortable for the night. The overnight weather called for wind gusts to 35knots so just to be sure I spent the night in the cockpit - check anchor alarm on the chart plotter (this will tell us if we are dragging outside a defined circle), check behind, check in front, check wind … repeat. At 2AM a boat that was anchored a long way away was drifting very close to us, out came the high powered spot light – nothing - even on strobe the crew on board were dead to the world. Finally it took out the air horn to awaken the almost dead. By now they are within 10 feet of Ambition and I have had to start the engine so that we could motor out of their way.

A rather heated conversation as they tried to convince me that all is fine and not to worry! I am now backed almost to the stern of the boats in the mooring field! They are adamant that whey will not pick up their hook and leave …. when the Swiss are right the Swiss are right! So up comes Ambition’s anchor and we head out into the bay to collect ourselves in the middle of a torrential cloud burst raining horizontally - winds in the bay are a steady 33+knots gusts to almost 40 with zero visibility! After an hour I had at least calmed down enough that I wasn’t going to climb on board their boat and beat them to death with a winch handle!
Re-anchored Ambition in a less than desirable spot and then spent the rest of the night awake on anchor watch.

This was clearly not a strong win for Ambition Canada versus the Swiss in the 2AM stare down. But not wanting our boat damaged, the best choice was to retreat. Well during the rest of the night the Swiss boat continued to drag as it started heading for Mexico! By sunrise all three crew were on the forward deck and were unable to lift their anchor. After about 4 or 5 hours they finally did succeed but by then I felt that Ambition beat the Swiss on a technical win.

Arch Rival Swiss @##$&^%

A mooring ball became available by 7AM and we hopped onto it and I headed to bed for a few hours – after a LONG night.

At 10AM the Club Med 2 cruise ship arrived and it was interesting that it even took them 3 attempts to get their anchor to hold in the blustery conditions.

Club Med 2 trying to get their anchor to hold

Club Med 2

We ended up spending 3 nights waiting for the winds to calm down and then we headed to Portsmouth Dominica. Clearly our plan to be in Martinique for Carnival went up in smoke!

We had a super sail in 20 to 25 knots of wind and 8 to 10 foot seas. Ambition hustled along nicely and we arrived early afternoon.

Hurricane Maria – Dominica

This island sustained a direct hit of a category 5 hurricane in late September 2017. As were arrived on the western side of the island we were astounded to see the devastation on what would have been the “protected” side. There are thousands of trees that have had all branches and leaves stripped from the, they stand like sticks on the hillside. Mudslides have washed away wide swaths of forest also.

Mudslides from hurricane Maria

So many trees striped of branches

Staring to grow back

After a walk through town to clear into customs and immigration the commercial dock is a hub of activity as they distribute lumber and building supplies that just arrived by barge.

It will be years to fully recover

Palm trees sprouting new leaves

Dominica was one of the regions most important provider of vegetables and fruits. Most of that has completely disappeared – some vegetables were available in the market but not in the usual quantity we saw last winter, and no fruit at all – the trees will take years to recover I am sure.

The weather has again turned very nasty and we will remain in Portsmouth for at least 5 days. So it is time to start to knock off a few maintenance items off the to do list. We have a number of stainless steel hardware items on deck that are showing signs of saltwater getting under the fittings. Since these fitting carry a certain load they are bolted through the cabin top on the boat. To access the bolts requires that we remove all the ceiling panels in the forward head, the forward cabin and part of the salon! What a task! All the small wood trim is numbered as we remove it and pile all the pieces up so we can get them back together in a few days.

Once the parts were unbolted, cleaned and the old caulking removed, we started the process of applying masking tape (caulking compound has a tendency to cover EVERYTHING and get EVERYWHERE) and then apply new caulk and reattach the parts. You want to tighten them just enough and then wait 24 hours for it to cure before completing the bolt tightening. In the meantime the boat is upside down with parts scattered everywhere. The end result was excellent – Maryse and I are super happy with the outcome after many hours of boat maintenance fun!

Forward cabin before repairs

Salon ceiling disassembly

salon work zone!

Salon before the repairs

Caulking added

Looking good!

The after photo...perfect

Forward cabin all back together

Forward head ...all parts back in and looking good

The weather is really windy … the forecast from our weather guru stated something I have never seen before “north and southbound travel should be "due to emergency only” – steady winds of 30 knots and gusts of 40 and seas are 10 to 15 feet on a 9 second period UGH!

Here in the bay for the 4^th day winds continue to gust at 30+ knots.

Bumpy anchorage in Portsmouth

Portsmouth Dominica

As we await calmer conditions, we joined a group of folks for an island tour that took us from Portsmouth south along the coast to Canefield Airport near Roseau then up the hills inland. Past Emerald Pools that we visited last year. We stopped to hike a short distance through the forest and to see Spanny Falls and pools. WOW beautiful.

Next stop was lunch in Castle Bruce where we ate last year – what a difference – they have only partially recovered from the hurricane – half the building remains and that appears put back together from scavenged lumber and galvanized metal. The food was delicious as we recall but the surrounding hillsides here on the east coats are far more battered than what we saw on the west side of the island.

East side of the island is worse than the west side....

the trees look like Q Tips from a distance

Yesterday and today were Carnival in Dominica and every little community were drove through, we were in the middle of there little celebration – loud music, folks dancing, costumes worn by some and a few adult beverages! All is good.