Reefs everywhere …

… and nary a boat in sight.  That was Jumby Bay.

If you sail to the north of Antigua, you may find you have a lot of water all to yourself. If our experience was anything to go by, very few boats seem to travel there – deterred, perhaps, by the abundance of reefs.  Certainly, few called in at Jumby Bay and in our two days there, we only had the company of  three other boats, and a maximum of only two at any given time;  mostly, Butterfly had the bay to herself.

However, getting there wasn’t difficult, nor hazardous. The reef  that halos the north Antiguan coastline is far enough off shore to give a relatively wide passage of safe water between the two. It’s called the Boon Passage.  If you’re keen, there’s enough space that you can tack your way along, though with the regular easterly wind that blows here, you’ll be close-hauled and then some.

Mid-channel, mid-way along, you’ll come across Prickly Pear Island – a wooden shack-cum-bar on its south-west shore.   We saw no-one around the bar as we sailed by, but later, we did see a local charter boat ferrying day-trippers there. 

 

Pass the island to the north or south of it (it really doesn’t matter),  but keep a wary eye on the plotter or chart as you go, the reef is not always visible, nor the rocky outcrops that lie just below the sea hugging the coast. Follow the Boon Passage on its easterly then south-easterly course and you’ll soon come to Jumby Bay some way off towards port.

The Doyle guide book describes Jumby Bay as “exquisite”.  The private hotel and resort that stretches along the shore certainly look neat and natty and expensively manicured.  But the real attraction for us lay in the vast, shoal anchorage which is so un-crowded it could get mighty lonesome there after a while.  But for a couple of days, the space and fabulous peace are something of a novelty.

The lack of holiday-makers at the resort seems a common phenomenon this year – at least here in the Eastern Caribbean. Can  only assume the current economic gloom has clipped the wings of many would-be travellers. Over and again, we have seen holiday-complex beaches sprinkled with rows of empty sunloungers. Rarely a towel or sunbather in sight.  Certainly one of Antigua’s best-known “All-In” holiday resorts (years ago we had a family holiday there when it was packed to the rafters) boasts a long fine sandy beach which used to be fairly crowded. Today it is nearly deserted;  far more staff than guests. Jumby Bay wasn’t exactly heaving with tourists either – another excellent reason to book now, if you’re in need of seclusion and classy comfort!

One and a half days there (while on sabbatical from boat chores and maintenance) was nice, but quite enough. Besides, the weather was just too good not to get sailing again. And we needed to re-provision. So up with the anchor it was, toodle-pip Jumby Bay, and back westwards we tootled along  Boon Passage, destination Jolly Harbour (once more).

The sail back was just glorious with the wind (for once!) abaft of the beam which was a novelty.  Sod’s Law decrees that the season for travelling up island is usually when the  North-East Trades have sway.  And the journey south, down island, just before the hurricane season begins, is when the South-East Trades are boss.  So it’s usually something of a bash, either way!  I’ve suggested to His Nibbs that now and again we might just go out for an up-wind bash for a couple of hours, purely for the fun of spinning around and floating back on a run.

On the way back, a batch of bread baking in the oven and Butterfly happily whipping through the water with a  butterball sun overhead, we passed St John, Antigua’s capital.  Two huge cruise ships there, towering confections of glacier white and glinting steel. Must confess, for ourselves, we have never seen the attraction of these as a holiday (wall-to-wall eating,  entertainment and crowds are my idea of hell) -  but obviously there are plenty of folk who do enjoy – and that’s fine. And to see one of these cruise ships lit up at night  is certainly a spectacular feast for the eyes.

All too soon, we found ourselves back outside Jolly Harbour with fresh bread for elevenses and a shopping list to prepare.  Now with provisions stowed, various chores finished, tomorrow,  we’ll raise anchor and be off once more.

But for tonight, as I type this, the wind has freshened and sallies of hurrying waves have set Butterfly  swaying on her bridle.  It’s a lovely motion, and best enjoyed sleepily dozing  in a snug cabin. The whoosh and skittering slaps of sea on hulls make for an oddly soothing and beguiling lullaby.  Time, m’dears to tuck in:  Butterfly and crew are full sail ahead for The Land of Nod.

Sweet dreams, all.

Find a pretty anchorage …

… drop the hook and rest awhile. That’s cruising easy style. But find a pretty anchorage with excellent supermarket nearby, clean water, a picture perfect view, plenty of space and free wifi on the boat, and it’s tempting to rest a long while. Or it would be, if the yen to go sailing purely for sailing’s sake didn’t come a-knocking.

Lovely and convenient though the anchorage outside Jolly Harbour is, after Paul and Kathryn left, it wasn’t long before we raised the hook and set out for pastures newer, if not bluer (Jolly Harbour waters are hard to beat, colour-wise).  Unsettled weather led to a late start however, waiting for a series of squally deluges to pass though. The last leaving a complete and glorious rainbow as it passed.

The intention was to head north up the west coast of Antigua and go explore the north end of the island. A good enough excuse to simply get sailing again.

With cruising, however, intentions, are one thing; reality frequently something else. No sooner had we got into open water, set main and jib, settled on our course, Butterfly winging over a flat and shimmering sea, then a pretty little bay to starboard caught our attention, and after a quick consultation with Chris Doyle’s Guide to the Leewards, that used words like “charming” and spoke of sunken three-masted ships, we cut our sail short and turned in to Deep Bay. Ten minutes later we had dropped the hook between aforementioned wreck and shore, in a shoal and nicely sandy seabed.

Deep Bay isn’t as ethereally beautiful as the Jolly Harbour anchorage, but Doyle is right – it is perfectly charming. The wreck, a three-masted iron barque named the Andes, sunk in 1905, is still there for snorkelers to ogle; what looks like a carbuncled mast tip protruding above the sea marking its position in the centre of the bay. Though why the bay is named “Deep” is something of a mystery. We dropped anchor well back from the shore and with only 2 metres below the keel.

Deep Bay’s proximity to St John’s Harbour, the island capital, ensures daily visits from day excursion boats based in St John’s. Their pale, camera-toting cargo of tourists on a jolly jaunt to see the wreck.  In they rock and after an hour or so, out they roll.  Michael Jackson’s Thriller warbling tinnily over the waves and into the distance. Traditional Caribbean calypso is rarely heard these days.

If you fancy stretching boat-lardy legs, at the northern end of the bay, there’s a scrabbly climb to a fort embedded in the hillside. From the sea, it looks rather odd – like a model fashioned from the mud of the hill from which it emerges. From the sea is where I preferred to view it – forts being eye-fodder for blokes, I think, more than blokesses. (Well, this blokess, that is. I’m all forted out, not sharing Dick’s enthusiasm for such things.) Besides, I was pootling in the kayak, exploring the bay, when I spotted it, and wasn’t about to ruin a good pootle by climbing scrub and vertical scree dragging a paddle and kayak with me or otherwise.

The north and south shores of Deep bay are good pootling country. They boast some very pretty natural rock gardens, boulders tumbled one on top of the other, each formed from many thin layers of this and that.  Like a haggle of stout wafer pastries after an enthusiastic bun fight.

From our anchored spot on the northern side of the bay, we had a ringside view of ships passing on the other side of a break in the rocky hillside. Rather like a landscaped TV screen. Here, you can see giant glittery cruise liners silently gliding out from St John’s on the other side of the hill,before disappearing behind the resumption of rocky outcrop once more.

A few hours after our settling in the bay, a very dapper monohull sailed in skilfully, but very slowly, very cautiously. Rather to our surprise, given how much room there was elsewhere, it came to a halt just aft of Butterfly’s port sugar scoop.  We weren’t exactly thrilled by the proximity, but the rather forlorn expression of its skipper as he made to drop anchor indicated all was not well.

“No engine,” he said gloomily. “Over-heated.” The droop of his shoulders spoke bucketfuls about the situation’s PO quotient.

“Need help?” offered Dick. Though it was clear the wife on the helm and the guy himself were more than capable of anchoring without engine assistance.

For the rest of the day, and for much of the following morning, we saw very, very little of our unhappy neighbour. Both of us guessing exactly where he would be found – head buried deep in the engine compartment. It was much later, in the run up to lunch on the second day, when we saw our friend finally emerge in the cockpit; below him, just above the waterline, the throb and splutter of the boat’s engine exhaust heralding success at last.

It’s a rare and callous cruiser who couldn’t empathise with such a drama and happy triumph.

We were so pleased for him, we almost cheered.

Shall I tell you …

… about our lovely week, the one just gone, spent largely with P and K who, as pals go,  just happen to be quite the cat’s whiskers (or ass, as P would say – but that’s another story)?

Or should I warble on about our trip together, to St John’s, Antigua’s capital, and post a photo or several to illustrate it? Like this:

or this:

and this:And even:Nor forgetting: Or finally:

Or -  bugger the jollities – howzabout the triumphs and tribulations of this week’s boat jobs – fitting new galley taps (a huge improvement on the old), painting the anti-skid, mending the tramps, coaxing the Honda generator to start and the simple joy on finding the cause of its reluctance to fire, was only a dirty spark plug – would those entertain best?

Or perhaps a deliberation extolling the superiority of finish and sticking power of Epifane’s marine paints (despite many launderings, daily showers, copious washing up etc, I still have spots of boot-stripe yellow on my little finger, some 6 weeks and more after painting Butterfly back in Grenada.)

Or, as a flighty deviation from family-friendly blogging, would you like to hear about the naked couple seen dinghy-ing in flagrante delicto across Simpson Bay lagoon in St Martin, recently? (Yes, truly… !)

Or should I tell you what’s on my mind, right here and now, at this very, very moment, spontaneity-blogging at its most raw and immediate  – like what an infuriating trial it is typing this since our wifi connection is rapidly failing, and the keyboard of my trusty but rather battered laptop is slowly and steadily atrophying. A month ago, the space bar went cranky, spacing only when it felt like it; this week, the letter ‘r’ and the backspace key have come out in sympathy. So touch-typing, say,  Butterfly and Barnacle, comes out ButteflyandBanacle  before repeated, irritable jabbings of the space bar and ‘r’, render it sensible.  But wait a moment – yes! Am thrrrrrilled to rrreport the ‘r’ – as you can see – has been rudely restored as of half a minute ago, when I removed the offending grain of rice lurking below its tile. (Well, that’ll teach me not to type and eat supper at the same time.)  Though hell knows what ails the bloody space bar and backspace …  and hell ain’t bloody telling.

Or, shall I simply give you a few examples of just what it is -  despite the relentless boat-fixing, maintenance and usual live-aboard difficulties – that makes this boating lark so very addictive?  Yes, cometothinkofit  (aarrgghh that F*&%ing space bar!)  – that would actually have some value to it, I think.

So, right near the top of the list of why we do this, would be scenes like this – majestic, expansive, wall-to-wall skies: all yours for the viewing straight from your cockpit.  Little ol’ you afloat in all this big ol’ that!

Or the joy (and occasional trepidation)  of watching a squall roll in and roll by, pounding the sea, jittering halyards and working awnings into a frenzy; pulverising little boats caught in its swaggering, sweeping march.

And then there’s the addiction to scenery as picture perfect as this little corner off Jolly Harbour:  postcard lovelies as quaint as this found over and again here in the Caribbean, only a short dinghy-ride ashore for the discovery.

Or the quiet pleasure of watching brave little sails head for the horizon as the sun sinks at the end of the day:

And the ring-side view watching fierce little sails battling it out for the finishing line:

It’s being caught in the razzle of  sun spangling on waves:

And bouncing off newly-polished stainless:

And – since I’m r-r-r-r-rapidly r-r-r-r-unning out of wifi here (that ‘r’ still working, good!) -  and it is very, very late  – it’s also the quiet, shiversome thrill of saying goodnight to a vast canopy of  black velvet sky, scatter-jewelled with a zillion twinkling stars … and wondering just how you got so lucky.

Antigua it is …

… and – even better – Antigua with a wifi connection.  Not a great connection, it must be said, but it is available on the boat, and it is free (mercies be!)

So, after rather a long radio silence,  to recap a little …

We did indeed bounce up to Martinique, lively style, and pulled into Marin, where chandleries and marine services are plentiful.  A quick shopping spree there (all for Butterfly, other than a few groceries for ourselves)  then a quick flit out of Marin’s crowded bustling harbour, and a brief rest day spent at anchor at nearby St Anne’s – a pretty holiday anchorage with glorious open views of sea and sky from the cockpit. The shot below, however, taken looking to port, after a grouch of a squall had started the day with a rather wet bang.

From St Anne’s on Martinique’s south coast, it was another quick romp up to St Pierre, on the north-west coast, accompanied in part by a pod of dolphins.

(That’s St Pierre’s sea front and black sands, below right.)

A brief over-night anchor there, then a straight run to Antigua, skipping Guadeloupe and Dominica altogether. This meant an overnight journey, but with three of us aboard, we all had a chance to sleep and arrived at Falmouth, on Antigua’s south coast at 8.00 the following morning,  a little grubby and windswept but fresh enough, no post-anchor kip required. Throughout, the skip north,  the wind stayed fairly boisterous with 18-28 knots (apparent) roughly 40- 60 degrees off the nose.  Mercifully, the sea remained fairly flat.  A few dowsings here and there when a larger-than-average wave collided with the port bow, but very little crashing and bashing despite speeds of 10-13 knots for large chunks of the passage.

S-o-0-0-0-0-0  n-i-i-i-c-e to put some water miles under Butterfly’s bridge, once more!

But Falmouth brought us to a temporary halt, and Falmouth, m’dears, is where we’ve stayed these past 5 days.  Here are the very glamorous Air and Hampshire and Sequel P as proof!

Falmouth is famously home to some of the world’s most flashy superyachts.  And our preference for dropping the hook at the back of the fleet -  as near to open sea as we can – has afforded us to a ringside seat for ogling these glorious big-bold-and-beautifuls as they pass in and out of the harbour.  Peppered between the giants, vessels of a far, far humbler stature;  you really get it all here: the good, the bad and the every shade of beautiful and ugly in between.

At night, look towards Falmouth’s main docking area, and you’ll see something like this (only a little sharper focused – ah, the trials of attempting night shots on a moving boat):

During the day, look 180 degrees in the other direction and you’ll have views of Montserrat smoking away in the distance:

Friends, Paul and Kathryn, decided to join us here in Antigua – a lovely idea – so while we waited for them to arrive, we set about a few boat jobs.  Boats are hard taskmasters: no matter how much you do, the boat fix-list never seems to get any smaller; it just changes, is all. But if you don’t plow on knocking off those jobs, you’ll soon find yourself running up an escalator that’s coming down faster than you run up.  Leave a boat on the hard for several months and, like us, you’re likely to find yourself in marathon training!

Oh – and that’s Al, by the way, having kindly volunteered (honest guv, no parental bribery whatsoever) to knock the must-clean-mast-track-to-stop-the-cars-from-sticking job off that bloody list. (Another job that’s already under way is the repainting of the anti-skid – but enough of boat jobs; this is meant to be the cruising season …)

Having run our food stores w-a-a-a-y down, and with the fast flit up-island meaning very little chance to re-provision, it was a huge kindness on the part of Kathryn and Paul to feed us these past two nights aboard their boat, the sleek hulled, and fabulously speedy Cool Cat;  it really should have been the other way around, since they were coming to visit us! (In our defence, we’re slightly hampered by not having a fully operational fridge, yet, only a small freezer in operation, so can’t buy too much that needs chilling.) But shame on me, such a feeble excuse, I’m sure you’ll agree, so all the greater the need to find a decent supermarket, not only to enable us to keep body and soul together, but to repay P & K’s  lavish generosity.

So off we jolly four went to Jolly Harbour (on Antigua’s west coast) – Jolly Harbour being conveniently blessed with a jolly decently-stocked supermarket and only a short sail away from Falmouth.

Coming back from the store, tender laden with nosh provisions galore. we found ourselves racing against some ominously laden rain clouds, and, inadvertently, a fleet of monohulls enjoying a lively little race of their own.  So let me just round off this post, raggy and rambly as it is (apologies), with a few hastily grabbed shots I took, as we ducked and dodged our way back to Butterfly.

And for now, well, that’s about it.

Shall endeavour to update a little more frequently, while wifi allows.  For tonight, however, it’s been a lovely day, but the hour is now mighty late and this gal needs her shuteye.

Till the next time, then, chums, this is one happy but weary cruizzzzzzzzzer passing out …

Sleep tight!

A very good morning …

… to y’all,  from Rodney Bay, St Lucia.  In half an hour or so, we’ll be weighing anchor, raising the main, and heading off to Martinique. Other than a problem with the electric winch sticking (!) thanks to UV degradation of the rubber on the switch cover, we’ve had two days of some rather fine sailing.  From here to Martinique, raising sail is going to be such fun … !

Tuesday, when we left Sandy Island, was indeed windy as forecast. 25-30 knots on the starboard bow for much of the day. We arrived in Bequia, having bounced along at 11 knots+ for several hours, more than a little ozoned, but happy.

Yesterday, was not quite so hectic, but a lovely mix of steady 20-25 knots in flatter seas, and a more leisurely 15-18 on the leeward northern run up St Lucia.

Here’s a smattering of photos taken over the past two days – all sights taken at sea. Click on a photo and you’ll get the larger version.

St Vincents (veiled in morning mist)

you-know-who

Al and guitar

Bequia evenfall

classic

sea legs (sorry)

island tapestry

strings at sea

keeping watch

Approaching The Pitons, St Lucia

Rodney Bay late arrival

silver seas

moonrise

a reminder why we do this …

More later, m’dears, when wifi access allows.

When ya gotta fly …

… ya gotta fly! You’ll have to take my word for it with regard to that little fella seen left, since  the moment the shutter closed on this shot, he took to the wing and was outta sight, before I could frame him.

All of which is a long-winded way of saying we’re of a similar yen. We’ve been waiting here at Sandy Island for several days, first to allow a weather system to blow through, and more latterly for the Customs and Immigration office at Hillsborough to open again, after its New Year  shut-down.  Lovely though Sandy Island is, cabin fever is beginning to set in …we’re all of a mood to raise sail and get moving.

We’ve been saints (well, perhaps that’s stretching things a little – industrious, would be better), all three of us picking off jobs off the To-Do List, combining work with some play – snorkelling, mainly, and a lot of reading.  But tomorrow the offices open, and we’ll be first in the queue to get our clear out authorised, and then off we’ll jolly well go. Well, that’s the plan.

The weather is doing a lot of huffing and puffing in concentrated bursts. Then without warning, turns playful and sunnily breezy. Rather like a teenager, somewhat temperamental and hormonally-challenged. So I think we might be in for a bouncy, squally flight tomorrow, with some glorious spells in between.  I prefer it the other way round, personally, but thar ya go: no such thing as perfect happiness. We have no concrete plans, merely to keep on sailing up the island chain until the majority vote is to pull in somewhere.

But whatever the weather, at least we have a boat to sail. How dreadful it was to hear of the devastating fire that only a couple of days before Christmas, destroyed Sea Minx almost to the waterline.

This photo courtesy of Bruce Beath on Sealine.

Sea Minx was a FastCat 445 – Hull no 6 (or 7 if you count strictly in launching order) built by African Cats, who also built Butterfly. Unlike Butterfly, however, Sea Minx did not have conventional diesel sail drives, but was powered by  Gideon Goudsmit’s Green Motion electrical hybrid system.  She was the first production boat to incorporate this system.  She was launched early 2011, some two years late, and so was a mere 11 months old. If I understand correctly, there are now only 2 other Green Motion FastCat 445s out there – Goudsmit’s demo boat, Green e-Motion, launched around Christmas 2010, and one other, recently launched for another customer.  I am told 2 more 445 hulls remain unfinished at the African Cats factory, but do not know of any customers for these.  I’ve been informed one of these unfinished hulls may be for Gideon Goudsmit himself … though frankly, who cares?

What we do care about is the impact of this tragedy on the owners of Sea Minx. We met them while in Durban and they are lovely, gentle folk, who deserve far better luck than this. Thank goodness (and then some) that nobody was injured, but what a simply dreadful Christmas it must have been for these guys.

Cheerier news (I hope) anon.

Phffffff and phooowee …

… to cruising plans. No sooner had we decided on a brisk skip north to Antigua, then the weather gods decided differently.

As is our wont, we’d checked the Windguru forecast before we left Grenada on Tuesday, and seeing the prediction of a blow brewing on Friday, decided to do an overnight sail and make it up to Martinique in one hop, before the high winds arrived. Then we remembered it was a public holiday, and we couldn’t clear out of Grenada until Wednesday. But once the mood to set sail takes hold, it’s an absolute bugger to shake off, so we decided to sail to Carriacou, Grenada’s sister island, where clearing out is also an option – thinking we’d at least have a chance to snorkel and enjoy the pelicans of Carriacou’s Sandy Island, before the formalities of the following day.

So a slow motor up the leeward side of Grenada, with far too little wind, then a blustery bash under canvas across open water to Carriacou, a useful and invigorating 18-22 knots, 40-45 degrees or so off the starboard bow, and fairly flat seas. Then back to motoring once more, as The Sisters came into sight and we swung towards them with the wind rising and bang on the nose.

The Sisters are a familar marker for anyone used to cruising St Vincent and the Grenadines. A pair of rocks that look completely different depending on where you are at their approach; these guano-iced heralds announce the entrance to the channel that takes you through Sandy Island Marine Park, and on into Hillsborough, the capital of Carriacou with its customs and immigration building slap bang beside the ferry dock.

But arriving too late to check out, we picked up a mooring ball alongside Sandy Island, the intention being to spend the night there, then check out the following day.

Sandy Island I’ve written about before, but for those who haven’t visited or read about it, it is just that:  a very, very narrow strip of sand and spent coral, no human inhabitants, but the haunt of many industrious boobies and pelicans who dive and feast on the colourful  rainbows of fish neath its coral-strewn waters. It’s also a favourite lunchtime stop for charter boats, where guests can snorkel and eye them a ray or several, or a huge variety of zazzy-looking scales, or even a school of gigantic trumpet fish.

Now, you wouldn’t suspect any meteorological skullduggery afoot, looking at that gorgeous sunset, would you? (Go on click on it, you’ll see The  Sisters hovering at the back, far right.)  Such a pretty epitome of calm, taken on that first night here at Sandy Island.  But those tell-tale streaks of pink are, nevertheless, clues. Clues there is high-level action above, and that the blow predicted for Friday was on its way – and in a rush.

With sporadic wifi available, which is something of a minor miracle given so little development where we are, the next day we checked out the weather forecasts again, and decided it best to sit tight until the high wind weather system has passed. The winds at this time of year tend to have a fair amount of northing in them, so any island-hopping towards Antigua will be a bash to windward. Seas whipped up by several days of high winds and roaring gusts aren’t going to be a picnic either.  Given a choice between snorkelling, and watching the birds here at Sandy Island or slogging uncomfortably to Antigua … well, sod it, Antigua can bloody wait!

Tonight, Friday, will be another jouncy night. The sunset a few hours ago, no lovely vista of pinks and lilacs, but a drab, brief affair, the sun scurrying nervously below the horizon as if anxious to escape the shrieking winds.  For the blow did indeed arrive early, and last night, with gust after gust howling through, the sea thrashed agitatedly at her hulls, and Butterfly literally rocked us off to sleep. Had we not set up an anchor alarm, we might not have slept so soundly in our cabins. But the mooring is holding good, and we have tied off with 3 warps, 2 off the crossbeam cleats, and one threaded through the mooring loop from bridle fitting to bridle fitting.

Needless to say, the excitable weather conditions have led to some excitable mooring antics by the ever-changing parade of passing charter boats here.  Dropped boat hooks, helmsmen who come within a foot of ramming another boat, crew who couldn’t hook squat, families who bawl at each other so loudly they can be heard in Martinique, helmsmen that can’t maintain any direction due to nervousness on the throttle, others that rocket by three balls too fast for crew to even stand a chance, but hook the fourth by catching it in their prop… it’s been entertainment of a rather scary kind.  After watching these antics for a couple of days, I must admit, I think you must be seven shades of crazy to even consider letting Joe Public loose in your very expensive floating asset. Whatever fees you charge, believe me, it ain’t enough!

So, from a wind-whipped Butterfly to you, cosy on shore, or in more tranquil waters, or wherever you are – here’s to a very, very, very happy and healthy New Year for each and every one.

See ya in 2012!

ps: I was going to include the word ‘prosperous’ before that New Year greeting, but given global economic conditions, best we keep our hopes realistic … !

pps: Oh, to hell with it, no harm hoping wildly – a happy, healthy and prosperous New Year one and all!

If your Christmas …

… was even half as merry and convivial as ours, then you had a good ‘un!

When we first arrived in the Caribbean, back in 2009, it was Neil and Tracy who were there to welcome us. Yesterday, they proved what smashing pals they really are, and what great hosts, by feeding and entertaining us in right royal style. It was a Christmas Day we’ll long remember – and for all the right reasons. Oh, and trust me, if you’ve never been party to a blitz of Tommy Cooper jokes told in faux (and in my case, frightful) TC style, then you ain’t not nivver-ivver lived. A huge, huge thank you, then, to the inimitable N&T for being the veritable gems wot you are.

After Neil dropped us back at the Phare Bleu dinghy dock, Alex (our youngest son), Dick and I pootled back to Butterfly, bobbing breezily in the cut between Calivigny Island and Woburn.  A reefy passage, and one that is marked by mostly unlit buoys – hard to find in the black of night.  But it’s a trip we’ve done too often to screw up without embarrassment. And despite the levels of Christmas cheer flowing in the blood last night,  the Merediths three arrived safe and sound with no red faces, no bejuggered dinghy, happy and weary from so much laughing.

In too good a mood to want to turn in, we crashed in the cockpit and, with no wifi aboard, I checked out emails using the Kindle. Wow, what a fest of lovely Christmassy scribbles! But trying to reply on the Kindle is a mission that, as the expression goes, will do your head in – it’s far too slow and clunky for anything more than the shortest of hello-how-are-yous, and wish you were heres.  So many many thank you’s one and all for your lovely wishes and news, and this now being Boxing Day, and having found some wifi over at Phare Bleu, answers and replies are winging their way back to you.

Boats, however, have no respect for Christmas whatsoever, so today, the morning was spent on boat chores, all three of us mucking in to keep Butterfly in the pink.  And a neat thing it is too, having aboard a son who is a dab hand with splicing and whipping. Butterfly now boasting a dandy new bridle that won’t cut your hands to ribbons. The old one was so full of barnacles and slivers of shells it was becoming a savagely torturous thing to weigh or drop anchor.

When we were on the hard, I spent a little time making eyelids for 4 of the portholes. Boy are we glad of them now. Back swinging on the hook, they allow us to keep portholes open even when its raining pell-mell and even during the most savage of squalls. We know that, because last week, for several days, Grenada was buffetted by winds gusting 28-30 knots and more.   I’d love to claim these fabric eyelids as my own invention, but they’re not. They are shamelessly copied from some seen on Gypsy Blues. (Thank you Cheryl!)

The nice thing is they are quickly and easily removed before going sailing, and yet are substantial enough not to collapse when the wind blows hard.  If you’ve got a stout sewing machine, and some Subrella awning material or similar, you can run these up fairly speedily.

That right hand shot on the hard, showing the eyelids in situ, and taken just after an almight squall had swept through.

It seems all Dick’s hard work has paid off, and rudders functioning right as rain. No leaks, no squeaks. I think a third haul out would have seen me abandon ship once and for bloody all!

No surprises then, that I can’t even begin to tell you how lovely it is to be afloat once more, and even better, to kick off our cruising season tomorrow, by heading north once more.This time to take in some of the islands we’ve not visited before, and to spend a little time at others that bear a second, or even third visit. But we’ll be doing a fair bit of jumping islands so a few night sails thrown in for good measure, which providing there’s not too much traffic, and the weather is kind, is always fun.

I’m on limited wifi time here, having so many emails to try and cram in too, so forgive me for keeping this short (forgive, or thank your lucky stars!) Within a couple of days we should have wifi access once more on the boat, so till then, amigos, enjoy the rest of Christmas.

Ooooh – and if you’re a stranger to the sadly late Tommy Cooper – a much loved British comedian, here’s a taster of his very unique brand of humour …  “jussslikethat!”

£1275 later …

… and Butterfly is now back in the water. The rudder gaiters positioning and modifications for easy replacement successfully accomplished.  That shot of her taken this morning, in a mucky dash for the sea – with winds gusting at 28-30 knots.

The crux and origin of the rudder gaiter problem was a shelf  built into the rudder compartments at the wrong height. This shelf determines the height of the linear actuator and hydraulic cylinder, since they are both attached to it. They, in turn, are attached to the lever quadrant. The result? With the shelves at the wrong height, so ultimately the lever quadrants were at the wrong position on the rudder stock. With the lever quadrant too low on the stock, this left far too little room below it for the correct installation of the Jefa rubber gaiter.  This problem must have been all too clear to African Cats when they came to fit the gaiter. But rather than resite the shelf to eliminate the problem, they took the easy route by adapting the gaiter fitting – which made gaiter replacement impossible without taking the whole bloody caboodle to bits – which, in effect, means a haulout every time you need to change a gaiter.  As a reminder, then, here’s the original African Cats installation:

 

So first move was to cut out the shelf on the starboard side and re-glass it at its correct position. The cutting out was an absolute sod of a job. Cramped conditions, airless, ridiculously hot, and a shelf with a lot of carbon content – blunting saw blades swiftly. The port shelf (found to be at a different height to the starboard one) was left in situ but modified with a wooden block stoutly glassed, to bring the lever quadrant to the correct height on the rudder stock.

Once the starboard shelf was glassed back in at the right height, things got easier. We like to do as much of the work ourselves as possible, but we needed Grenada Marine to modify the lever quadrants  so that instead of a single unit with a central hole for the rudder stock to pass through, they were fashioned into two parts, bolted together, for easy removal when necessary.

So we handed in two of these: And got back two of these:While waiting for the welding guy to modify the lever quadrants (sorry, I still don’t know their proper name) – Dick delved into the top of the rudder blade, and despite promises from African Cats to the contrary,  found the carbon layer of its construction had not been properly isolated from the rudder stock.  Our reason for checking was knowing that an earlier FastCat had needed both rudders replacing due to galvanic corrosion, because the carbon layer was not isolated from the aluminium of the stock. As it turned out, we were right to be suspicious – African Cats avowals were empty ones.

So Dick dug out a channel to ensure the carbon could have no contact with the aluminium of the stock, then filled the channel with epoxy.  As an added precaution, he also added aluminium sleeves to the stocks and epoxied into place.  The whole lot then painted with a suitable antifoul.

And here I must make mention of Jefa (rudder and steering systems) who have been brilliant. Their speedy responses and clear reassuring advice and fantastically prompt despatch of sleeves and gaiters have been absolutely marvellous.

Oh, and while I’m handing out the honours where due, must also commend the management at Grenada Marine who have treated us very kindly, doing their level best to ensure we could resplash before the Christmas holiday. That this entailed giving one employee with something of an attitude problem, a rollicking you could hear in Antigua, is neither here nor there – the rollicking certainly did the trick!

Soooo …  with a little help from new friends, and a whole lot of graft by Dick, here then is the new gaiter installation – pretty much in accordance now, with Jefa’s instructions and sample photo – see previous post.

And here is the whole assembly, complete with resited shelf (starboard) :

An expensive bloody exercise, and one that shouldn’t have been necessary – but now successfully completed, kind of satisfying – and definitely reassuring. Changing gaiters should now be a doddle – even at sea.

More anon, chums – and v-e-r-r-r-r-r-y soooooooon …

 

 

 

 

 

Some of you have requested …

… photos to show the problematical gaiter and its installation that necessitated another haul-out. A sensible request since it’s far easier to show the problem in pictures rather than words.  The problem is even easier to understand if you can see how the gaiter should have been installed – as opposed to how African Cats went about it.

So first, below, is a photo shown on the Jefa Rudder Systems website. This demonstrates very clearly the correct installation of the gaiter around the rudder stock.  On Butterfly, the rubber had perished behind the top jubilee clip.

By the way, just to make it crystal clear, the gaiter is all one piece, although part of it is folded out of sight.

Okay, here’s Jefa’s shot of how it should be done:

Please note, on their website, Jefa clearly state: “The distance between both jubilee clips should be between 50 and 70 mm.”

Got that? Excellent … now let’s look at African Cat’s installation:

The second (top) jubilee clip is not 50-70mm above the bottom jubilee clip – it is several mm below the bottom jubilee clip. You can’t see it? Fear not, you’re not alone. Nobody can see it because it is tucked down completely out of sight. In fact it is so terribly tucked down, that it is bloody impossible to access.  Even with the rudder lever quadrant removed, it was still impossible to access that jubilee with a screwdriver.

By the way, the lever quadrant did not originally have a vertical cut through it – that was Dick’s doing a few days ago, as a method of freeing it. As explained, the lever while able to turn freely side to side, could not be made to move up or down on the rudder stock.

If all goes to plan, we will be able to better fit the gaiters in accordance with Jefa’s instructions. Also, we’ll be modifying the lever quadrant, so that it can be removed in two halves to ensure it can’t get stuck again. And because it should then move up and down when required, changing gaiters shouldn’t be problematical in future – at sea or on the hard… (like I say, if all goes to plan!)