Passage Grenada to Martinique
Friday 28th oct 18
So there we are, the torqueedo , our electric outboard is on the blink. The only dealership in the Caribbean is in Guadeloupe, 250 nm away… north when we were planning to go south. And as per usual, we will do this against the clock. Pascal who by the way was very positive about fixing the fault in as little of one day, is going to france for a week, so we need to be there before Wednesday, next week. It is only Friday today, we should definitely make it in 3 days.
The good news is if we are going to Guadeloupe we can stock up on nice and cheap food… and bubbly too, ready for Christmas .
The weather forcast is for 15 to 20 knots for the first 2 days, and then going down to 10 to 15 knots. Should be fine. We have a few things to do before we set off, making water, still a novelty, getting fuel and check out. Ian goes to shore and I keep an eye on the water maker… he is gone for a long time. He comes back around lunch time, only one jerry can filled up. The pump has broke and then the immigration officers did not turn up until lunch.
We finally leave prickly bay after lunch, the wind is good and we make good progress in the evening and the night, we have the full moon with us. At dawn, we are in front of st Vincent, not moving an inch, the wind has died completely, barely 2 knots on the clock. Beautiful sunrise mind, absolutely stunning. We have enough fuel to do a good chunk of the trip with no trouble and the wind will probably pick up later in the day. We put the engine on , which comes to life instantly., ian is going to bed and I fancy an apple. There is a puddle of water at the bottom of the companionway… short lived sleep for ian… it turns out that the cap on the back of the exhaust is split. Water is pumping in… whilst I have to take over from the wind steering, he can’t cope with so little wind, ian make a repair of fortune with some glue. It will take 10 hours for the glue to set. So we can’t use the engine for 10 hours . The wind comes and goes but never over 10 knots so we are moving but very slowly. We are actually moving so slowly that even the fishes come and have a closer look at us. We see st lucia and by the end of the afternoon, we put the engine on and the water leak although not stopped completely, is now manageable. With a bit of pumping every hour we should be fine. However we don’t think that we can tackle the 100 miles up to Guadeloupe. We will have to stop in Martinique and fix this. We’ll miss Pascal, but there will be more people to help if ian can’t sort the repair on his own. so we will be able to stock up in Martinique, which is actually better, we will have ample time to victual easily as the 2 supermarkets are rowing distance and better stocked than the one in Guadeloupe. We arrive in st Anne just outside of le Marin at midnight on Sunday 28th oct .