Catch up blog!

Blog 29 Jan to 7 February

Apologies to those of you who have been waiting for blog updates. Time ran away while we were keeping busy. I’m afraid I’m going to do it by day as it is partly a log for ourselves, so we know what we got up to and when. Sorry too for the sailing bits that are boring for some, but as we do not keep a boat log (which apparently all serious sailors do!) this covers a little of that too. Wind speeds, sails used etc.

Sat 29 January

What a peaceful sleep we had and lovely to have the whole family on board. It was amazing how drained we all felt, obviously we were all on alert at sea, so it was an amazing sense of relief to be safely in St Lucia.

It was all action on the boat as Rowan had sent a message to the rigging company we used last year. They were up the mast and getting things sorted on our broken halyard. Hannah was busy packing for her flight in the evening.

Phoebs had booked lunch to celebrate my birthday. We went to a place called the Naked Fisherman, we actually went there last year but couldn’t get food because of Covid. It’s right on the beach at the bottom of a cliff so a good flight of stairs down to a magical little beach. We all had a wonderful swim to cool off first. The place was busy, unlike last year. We had a delicious and merry lunch.

My birthday lunch

It was very sad saying goodbye to Han, who had a long journey ahead. One and a half hour taxi drive to the airport, back to London for the day where she met up with her friend Arabella, and picked up her suitcase. Then overnight to Johannesburg and then a flight to Maun in Botswana.

A beautiful sunset in the marina to see Han off!

We were all so exhausted we were in bed early again, certainly we are not used to day time drinking anymore.

Sun 30 Jan

Our last day with Luke before he heads off to spend time with his friend Ciaran, they are doing a diving course here in St Lucia. Luckily we still have Phoeb’s for a few more days.

We headed off to the National park called Pigeon Island which is just along the beach from here. Last time we were here it was all locked up, so fun to get in this time. Luke and I walked to the top of the two peaks which were fortified by the Brits in the 1700’s. It is a good look out to Martinique, the Brits were always at war with the French there. In fact The Brits could signal their troops on Diamond rock, the extraordinary big rock just off Martinique. We have sailed past Diamond rock many times marvelling how the Brits had managed to occupy it for a couple of years until they lost it when those dastardly French let a few casks of rum crash onto the rock. It was a hot sweaty climb in the midday heat, our swim in the sea afterwards was very welcome. We had a tasty lunch at the little beach cafe, Jambe de Bois.

Lovely little beaches in the Pigeon Island park

Hike to the top of the peaks

Luke admiring the English canon

The manmade spit of land connecting the mainland to Pigeon Island

Pitons in the very far deistance

Looking across to Martinique

Luke left with his friend in the evening and we went and had drinks on board Volare, the trimaran that came first in our multihull division. They were 4 Americans from Miami with a professional Argentinian skipper, who looked about 25 and had a very impressive moustache! The owner’s wife was born in Argentina but has lived in the US most of her life. Their friends were interesting as he is pilot for the fire department and spends his time putting out the awful California fires. Their boat is vast, even by our standards. She has a walk in garage for storage and a laundry with a full size washing machine and dryer! The make is a Neel which is apparently very fancy, and certainly went like the clappers. They took the Northern route through some intense weather but otherwise they had a good journey, especially as their boat is as new as ours.

At the drinks were the couple from the boat called Mrs G. Funny because the kids often call me that or Mamma G. They have an immaculate Amel 60, which is huge, the two of them sailed it alone and came in 3rd overall. He is German and she is Slovenian, both on second marriages and in their mid to late 60’s I would guess. She is good fun and ballsy, she used to work for the EU gov. Very interesting evening swapping stories.

We had gone to bed when we heard the horns blowing of another boat arriving. It was the beautiful French boat Rhapsody with the two rescued Dutch guys on board. They were shouting happy birthday as they spotted PolePole. A shame I just didn’t have the stamina to get up! What’s Next arrived a little while later with the other two Dutch crew and the party went on until the early hours apparently.

Monday 31 Jan

The boats really seemed to be rolling in, and the pontoon was soon filling up with all the names we had seen on the tracker. The Norwegian boat En-deilig was close by, they were behind us on some of the crossing and we had been in contact with them after our main halyard snapped. His wife is Irish and they had two gorgeous young daughters, under 10, on board. Lots to catch up with everyone on the dock. Good to see Duco and Menno the Dutch guys full of beans, looking to buy/charter a boat for their next adventure. Their boat Brainstorm was being picked up by a salvage ship. Amazingly they had rigged up all the bilges to work, the generator was run to use the fresh water and shower pumps to keep pumping water out. It was still running 5 days later when the salvage ship arrived. Listening to stories of their transfer to the rescue boats on the dingy sounded hairy, the swell being so big they would lose sight of the rescue boat when at the bottom of the swell. They did 8 transfers, taking all their spare fuel, What’s Next had to turn around and motor 6 hours into the wind to pick them up. Arriving in the dark, so had to wait until daybreak. Rhapsody had been behind them and just had to catch up. But of course they had to transfer food and water and anything salvageable. They all had such a good time with their rescuers, a real bonding experience particularly for the young guys ( we discovered Menno is 34! He gets his twenties and thirties mixed up). The other two Dutch guys, were older, married with kids.

In the evening was the Early Arrivals sunset cruise, it was good to know we were with the early arrivals. It was an enormous big motorised Catamaran designed for entertainment. With a lot of rum punch flowing and beers it was a very jolly evening, with lots of dancing into the dark. Funny to be out at sea and being totally oblivious to being on water. Tom our crew joined us with his lovely wife Nicki and their gorgeous two girls. There were a lot of men like moths around a candle with Phoebs and Tom’s girls. It was great fun, Rowan and I collapsed into bed and Phoebs joined the young at the after party until the wee hours. All sneaking around the curfew hours!

Leaving the marina on the party cat

Tom and family waving

From left, Naia, Lola (sadly mainly obscured), Nicki and Rowan

From left, Tom, Duco, Phoebs, me and Naia

Phoebs

Naia

Lola

Tuesday 1 Feb

We knew our Norfolk friends the Bedini’s were going to be in St Lucia, when Rowan contacted them we discovered mutual friends the Sprakes, were at the same resort too. We arranged to take them all sailing for the day. Rowan invited them early to get a good sail in, and they found us pretty disorganised and all feeling a little jaded after last night’s booze cruise! I always lose my voice in loud music, I sounded far worse than I actually was!

David Sprake, not sure how this was the only photo we took on the day!

We had a great sail down to Marigot bay in glorious sunshine with perfect wind. We had a refreshing swim and then lunch at Do Little’s restaurant overlooking the water. A great location but pretty average food. But great fun to be sharing it with Norfolk friends, and lots to catch up on. We returned to the marina and celebrated my birthday by consuming a large bottle of delicious champagne that Marco had brought along. Glad we were securely in our berth before we drained every last drop.

The good news with the curfew is it means early nights.

Wednesday 2 Feb

Loads of little things to sort out on the boat, that kept us busy. Plus lots of catching up with boats. The boat Jolie Brise with all the young lads on board, got kicked out the Arc because they tested positive for Covid, arrived and were sent straight to quarantine until they all get a clear PCR result, poor things.

Phoebs last day and she wanted to have some time on the beach. We headed out the marina in the dinghy and went to the opposite side of the bay to Pigeon island. After scouring the beach for somewhere without a resort, we went to the very far end of the beach and found a very local bar, full of Rastas and best of all they were serving food. We had delicious fish and local veggies cooked over an open fire, with the best plantain chips we’ve ever had. It was a very authentic send off for Phoebs.

Phoeb’s farewell lunch

It was very sad to see Phoebs off in the evening, she was sad to leave as she was so enjoying all the socialising, especially with the Dutch guys and the French couple on Rhapsody, Jean Jaques (13th generation Cognac maker) and his wife Anne who makes the wine on their estate.

Thursday 3 Feb

A quiet day of getting things sorted, but very weird being just the two of us. Missing the family. Tom and his family seem to be having a wonderful time, his girls are gorgeous and they’ve just had the brilliant news that their one daughter Naia, got a full scholarship to go and do her last two years of schooling in Vancouver with the IWC program. There is a special full scholarship for kids from Anglesey, and she got it, which is fantastic, and promises to be a huge adventure.

Good news is we decided to run the washing machine before the repair guy came and it miraculously worked. It clearly does not enjoy being bounced about while running. At least that is ticked off. Seems like Rowan has got the main halyard back installed, Tyron went up the mast to reattach it. They then tried fixing the topping lift line but managed to lose the the old rope which was guiding it through the channels under the boat. Rowan decided to rethread and connect it all himself, and after a lot of time and effort and removing plates, his DIY skills came to the fore and he succeeded. A great achievement!

In the evening was our Arc social, fancy dress drinks at the marina bar. The theme was Stone Age. I luckily had a very lovely feather headdress from my friend Isobel, I brought it on board as it’s beautiful and knew it would come in use one day. I also purchased a cheap leopard skin scarf to wrap around me. Rowan wore a kikoi with a lot of my ethnic seed and seashell jewellery, with a sisal hand made basket on his head. I had bought the basket in Marigot bay. We had employed a guy to clean the boat called Kenyatta, when I told him my Kenyan connections he produced two birds he had made out of sisal to go on the basket. So it was quite a headgear! Besides two other couples, who were Arc support volunteers we were about the only ones dressed up. So we won best dressed boat which earned us a bottle of Rum.

Prize winners

Rowan, Menno and Dietma

Emma, Anne and Duco

We went out with the crowd from Rhapsody for a sushi dinner which was very good, a double whammy as Rowan and I had lunch there today. The only place we have eaten in so far on the marina. A couple joined us, who were Arc volunteers, Emma is English and Dietma is German, both on second marriages, and crossed with the Arc in November. She is an artist which was obvious with their very creative outfits. Poor thing she had to leave before the food arrived as she was so knocked out by the rum punches!

Friday 4 Feb

We had a lady on board to give the boat a good clean inside. They are incredibly cheeky, Kenyatta quoted two days at US$300 a day, of course as Rowan predicted, he finished after a day. Our cleaning lady quoted a whole day but was done by lunch. Hey Ho that’s island life!

The evening was the grande finale of the Arc, it’s been a slow crossing with only about three quarters of the boats in so far. The big catamaran we had our sunset cruise was attached to the middle on the pontoons and huge screens erected with a platform for prize winners. Because of Covid and their restriction of gatherings we all had to stay on our boats, huge hampers of food and booze were delivered to our boats. Rhapsody had asked us to join them as they were very close to the stage, so we went laden with our goodies.

To our surprise Pole Pole was first to be called up, sadly Tom was running late, so he missed going up to the podium with us to get third place in our multihull division. We were also surprised that we came 3rd and Kiwicat came second. We came in 4 days before them! We obviously have an enormous handicap, they also recorded us coming in on the 29th which I think is because we handed in our tracker late. We think a lot of people recorded very underestimated motoring times. We declared 100 hours, Volare the trimaran that won the multihull section declared 20 hours which seems very little. We were impressed to get any prize with our halyards broken, we hadn’t sailed over the finish line which I thought disqualified us anyway. There were loads of prizes, the youngest person was a 9 month old baby! Mr and Mrs G came first in double handers. Rhapsody came first in their category, which isn’t too surprising. Jean Jaques has been sailing and racing since a boy in La Rochelle in France, a huge boat building city. Plus he won the Fastnet race in 2013, which is a real feat. For those of you who don’t know about it, it is a race from England to Ireland and has the most treacherous history. The race is generally held every two years since 1925. A 605-mile course from Cowes direct to the Fast Net rock in Ireland returning to Plymouth south of the Scilly Isles. In 1979 a worse than expected storm on the third day of the race wreaked havoc on over 303 yachts that started the race, resulting in 19 fatalities (15 yachtsmen and four spectators). Emergency services, naval forces, and civilian vessels from around the west side of the English Channel were summoned to aid what became the largest ever rescue operation in peace-time. This involved some 4,000 people, including the entire Irish Navy fleet, lifeboats, commercial boats, and helicopters. There is an incredible interview by a survivor who was left for dead on one of the abandoned boats. Absolutely terrifying! So I have enormous respect for Jean Jaques sailing abilities, it must be one of the most prestigious sailing races to win.

The marina and the Arc laid on entertainment after the prizes were handed out. They had locals in very colourful outfits dancing up and down the pontoons, with incredible stilt walkers and fire acrobatics. All accompanied with booming music and disco lights. A great finale.

Saturday 5 February

We had an early start for us as we headed to the Pitons with Tom and his daughters, Naia and Lola. Naia is the one going to Vancouver. We had a lovely sail down to the Pitons and took a buoy on Malgretoute beach where we stayed last year just underneath petite Piton. Nicki had driven down so she was picked up in the dinghy from the dock In Soufriere. We went and snorkelled at the base of Petit Piton, the water had loads of bits in it, so not crystal clear sadly, and it was full of jelly fish, but still an impressive snorkel. We swum through the jelly fish, mainly stinging us mildly until one would suddenly be really painful. We did see a lovely big yellow octopus. There were loads of enormous vase coral but somehow the coral looked like it had deteriorated in the year we have been away, which is so sad. Tom and crew left late afternoon and we had our first night out alone on PolePole.

Malgretoute beach under Petit Piton

Sunday 6 February

Sunday was a day of chilling for me with the Sunday papers and my book to read. Rowan went over to the other side of the bay to snorkel. It still wasn’t clear water although the coral was in good shape.

Off the fisherman go, we love how they all stand on the boat with their hands behind their backs

My trusty old sun shade makes an outing again

Rasta fisherman

Monday 7 February

We sailed back to the marina in Rodney’s Bay as we have loads of repairs booked in. Lots of tacking to get back, but the sailing all went well until we snapped our main halyard again. We limped in feeling very dispirited that we still have an issue. This time the whole outer sheath was ripped, so looks like a new one. I had no idea quite how expensive these ropes are, about US$1000 each. When we got to the marina someone was in our berth which was a bit of a pain as we then had to go and dock elsewhere temporarily, which always requires time and effort. Finally got back to our berth late afternoon.

Leaving the Pitons

Petit Piton closest and Gros Piton behind

In the evening we went out for a farewell supper with Tom and his family who return to chilly Wales tomorrow. We went to the restaurant La Mesa in the Marina, I had the best steak I have had in ages. It is a speciality meat place, but luckily they had very good veggie options for Tom and his wife. We had such fun with their daughters who are real characters with loads of amusing stories. They really are a lovely family and we are so lucky to have had Tom as our experienced crew, he fitted in so well, and is so reassuringly competent when things go wrong!