2 Guests leave, 1 Guest arrives.

We were finally able to leave Martinique to head across the passage to St. Lucia after hearing of 14-16 foot seas in that passage earlier in the week. Those high seas were the reason we opted to not deliver our recent guests, Steve and Lorraine, to the island of their upcoming departure back to the states. They opted for a ferry ride over which they said was not too bad but many of the passengers aboard the ferry would have likely disagreed. While we waited for a calmer passage, we were able to finish some of the needed work on our boat systems, primarily the battery concerns and elevating the exhaust hoses from our new mufflers. We knew of the energy issues since leaving the Virgins and the muffler situation was needed since flooding the one engine with sea water during an earlier, particularly rough passage. Our engine repairman had suggested replacing our new aftermarket mufflers with factory spec Volvo mufflers (at $500 each!) but suggested we make contact with their exhaust specialist, a technician in their Marin office, for further diagnosis and repair. Since we were fortunate to be in the boat fixing capital of the Caribbean at la Marin, Martinique so we knew we would have easy access to many quality technicians. We had made the appointment to meet with the muffler tech in Marin from the shop where they purged the seawater and saved the port engine. After his on-site review and diagnosis of tour exhaust system, he suggested that the mufflers we had should be fine, they just needed to be place further down on the floor of the engine compartment and added a long, elevated looped exhaust hose to help prevent seawater from backing into the engine again. Wow! Fixed with an extra couple hundred dollars of time and parts. What a relief! When we had our mufflers realigned in each engine compartment, we asked our mechanics for recommendations for electrical techs. He quickly offered a name and we contacted the fellow. Fortunately he spoke English and we made an appointment for him to come to the boat the next day. He was a younger man of maybe 35 but was obviously an expert in his field. He quickly set about examining and studying our electrical systems and reading the technical data from our technical specification documents. We found him quite amusing, as he would read the manuals commenting to himself in French as he read, almost to assure himself that he understood the English he was reading. He would then stop for a moment and stare into space contemplating what he had just read before resuming reading each manual. Once he completed his literary review, he undertook the physical challenge of following each wire and system to discover, then correct, each fault found therein. At one point we heard him from the salon, as he was working in the starboard engine compartment, say in beautifully French-accented English, “they just need to read the fooking BOOK!” We laughed and he replied that whoever had installed something electrical in that compartment had done so in error and if they had followed the instructions, all would have been fine. He completed his work in a couple of hours to proclaim the batteries as sufficient and good for the forseeable future and the charging system was now set up as it should have been originally. Another success! We were very happy campers!!! With the serious boat system concerns put to rest, we breathed a collective sigh of relief and made plans to head across to St. Lucia to pick up our next guest and long time Steamboat Springs friend, Jeannie Berger. The weather was good for the day before her scheduled arrival so we made the passage from Martinique to St. Lucia ahead of a developing weather front to pick her up in Rodney Bay. She flew into the airport at the extreme southern end of the island and Rodney Bay is on the northern tip. She made plans to take a taxi from the airport up to Rodney Bay to avoid us having to sail all the way to the other end of the island to get her. The hour and a half taxi ride also allowed her an opportunity to see the inland part of the island that boaters don’t get to experience. St. Lucia is a beautiful island with many high rugged mountains and majestic rain forests. She said she had a lovely trip from end to end with the taxi driver. We met her as the sun was setting at a local watering hole in Rodney Bay. We ordered a pizza and some drinks and welcomed her to the islands. Then back to the boat via dinghy and an early to bed night for us all. She had begun her travels 24 hours earlier, with a layover in Miami so she was really ready for bed and we were not to argue, as we were ready as well. The next morning, we listened to the weather guru give the news that the weather was thickening over then next several days so we decided that if we were going to get away from St. Lucia soon, that day was the best option for about the next week. We quickly prepared to get underway and headed out mid-morning across a rather bumpy and sea-sprayed passage back to Martinique. This was Jeannie’s first experience on our boat and she handled it very well through some rather difficult sea state conditions. 8-10’ waves and winds in the high teens gusting to 25. We made terrific time as the wind was coming from a good point of sail. We landed in Martinique around 4pm and were happy to be in a settled harbor, on the hook, enjoying boat drinks at sunset. So far we have been moving steadily along through the upper Windwards and landed yesterday at les Saintes, Guadeloupe. The weather has demanded that we keep moving and even suggested, at times, one might refer to sit it out for a couple of days. We knew the weather was just going to worsen so we opted to try to keep just ahead of the worst of it and so far, have done just that. We will now stay for a few days, at this beautiful area and let the weather catch up and pass us before we move on to another spot. We have had several high-speed sails in some pretty rough seas but all have faired well and the boat is performing like a young thoroughbred. A well deserved rest period is at hand!