Since I got back to St. Martin a few weeks ago, it’s been a mad dash to get the boat shipshape and to prepare ourselves for the trip south to Trinidad (to find out why we’re doing this trip go to the ‘Welcome’ page on this site). The day after I arrived, Taka Trois was hauled out of the water and put ‘on the hard’ for her annual ‘beauty treatment’ which entails having her bottom scraped of impurities and blemishes (barnacles and stuff), polished and painted—I guess you could call it a kind of posterior ‘facial’ of sorts… Every inch of her, both inside and out gets cleaned and sorted (most women I know, myself included, would pay good money to get a treatment like that), her gear gets a comprehensive medical check-up and her lockers and bilges are stocked with everything we might need for the upcoming journey, including, bien sûr, ample supplies of vin français!
Our departure date was set for February 8th and our dear, but perhaps over-trusting friends, Cindy and Peter, who were accompanying us on the first leg to Guadeloupe, actually believed (haha) that we would be able to honor that date and booked flights accordingly. The long list of repairs and things to sort out was far from complete when they arrived, but as they were ‘minor’ and would not stop us from sailing, we planned on finishing everything in the marina in Guadeloupe where there are excellent facilities. That was a good plan and it could’ve worked if it wasn’t for the fact that our transmission broke just as we were slipping back into our berth in the marina after Taka Trois was put back in the water. Losing the ability to steer is not a minor problem, to say the least…urrggh!
Here’s the amazing thing: pulling into our very narrow ‘parking spot’ at the marina in Anse Marcel (see the red ‘X’ marking the spot on the photo below) is no easy task on any given day, especially as the winds always seem to gust furiously in random directions whenever we come in. This is why we always radio in for help from the harbor master’s office just before going through the channel to the marina. Usually the harbor master sends us one person to give us a hand, but on that particular day (you may call it luck, but we know it was divine intervention), there were THREE people waiting to give us a hand; the harbor master himself on the dock, his assistant in a skiff alongside and a local deck hand on the boat next to ours! In the two years we have been coming in and out of there, we have never had more than one person helping us get into our berth—thank you God!
Here’s the amazing thing: pulling into our very narrow ‘parking spot’ at the marina in Anse Marcel (see the red ‘X’ marking the spot on the photo below) is no easy task on any given day, especially as the winds always seem to gust furiously in random directions whenever we come in. This is why we always radio in for help from the harbor master’s office just before going through the channel to the marina. Usually the harbor master sends us one person to give us a hand, but on that particular day (you may call it luck, but we know it was divine intervention), there were THREE people waiting to give us a hand; the harbor master himself on the dock, his assistant in a skiff alongside and a local deck hand on the boat next to ours! In the two years we have been coming in and out of there, we have never had more than one person helping us get into our berth—thank you God!
Once we were safely berthed with the help of these expert hands, it was determined that the chain on our transmission was broken and would require a part not currently available on the island…of course (sigh). It took a week for the part to arrive and to be installed (another miracle as this sort of thing usually takes about two weeks) which delayed our eventual departure by four days giving us only four days to make our friends’ flight in Guadeloupe. We had to shorten the original leisurely plan which included a few stops along the way, but we managed to get them there in time and they even had a day to rest and enjoy one of our favorite anchorages off the village of Deshaies on the northwest coast of the island.
Aside from being a charming village, a generally peaceful bay and a fabulous place to watch the sunset (it was here we first saw the elusive ‘green flash’--see my blog entry in the archives from 5/21/2104), it is also the home of the most beautiful botanical gardens in the Caribbean. We had a wonderful afternoon enjoying the fabulous flora and fauna in this delightful place.
Mission accomplished (the made their flight in plenty of time), we sailed the boat down to the marina in Point à Pitre the next day where we have spent a week working and doing some more repairs on Taka Trois (it’s never ending…). We’ll be leaving tomorrow morning to continue our journey south stopping for two nights to anchor in Les Saintes for some much needed rest (see my blog entry in the archives from 31/5/2013 for more information on these little island just south of Guadeloupe) and then on to Le Marin in the south of Martinique, our next big stop, where more work, a few boat parts and hopefully our cruising friends Ann and Steve await us.
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