Interesting sail to Guadeloupe

We’re here in Guadeloupe safe and sound. It was an interesting trip.

We left Falmouth Harbour around 7am this morning and very soon had the sails up. It took another 30-40 minutes before we were out of the lee of the land and had the full benefit of the winds. The sailing was good. We were sailing along between 7 and 8 knots making plenty of juice for the batteries.

The highlight of the trip was spotting a whale. It wasn’t satisfied to be blowing water through it’s spout which would have been exciting enough. It actually leapt out of the water about 6 or 7 times about 200 feet from us. We tried to get pics but the best we managed was a splash.

The next piece of excitement came when we put the generator on. One quirk of the system is that when the drive batteries get down to 80% charge, the cross charging from the drive banks to the house bank gets disabled until we’re back up to around 86%. Because we’d hit the 80% mark here we were making plenty of energy but all it was doing was trickle charging the drive banks and none of it going to the house. With the house bank being at a low point having not run the genny properly for two days we couldn’t make water. So we decided to run the genny for a bit to accelerate the charging of the drive banks and to put more juice into the house bank.

The genny died within seconds. Checking the flashing lights I could see that there was no raw water intake for cooling. I was due, within 20 more running hours, to change the impeller. Given that we had earlier run the genny with the raw water intake closed (an earlier error) it was quite possible the impeller had packed in early.

In theory this was not an immediate issue as we had more than enough battery power to negotiate an anchorage. If push came to shove we could have sailed onto anchor. However, we had a few hours left so I felt it prudent to effect a replacement. This is a part I carry a few spares for.

The replacement went ok except for it nearly tipping me over the edge of seasickness. I finished just in time to do some horizon watching and calm down while Helen tidied away the tools.

We didn’t quite make Port Louis on the one tack. We could have done if I had made the most of the early winds to get further east but I felt it was more important to have a smoother ride. When the wind shifted round a bit we didn’t have the easting we needed to make it on one go. Despite that we were within 1nm so it wasn’t much of a final tack to make it in.

Soon after arriving we both went ashore, principally to check in but also to explore the town. We secured the dinghy in the fishing marina and walked into town. As we expected, customs was closed so having made the effort we continued to wander around. We’ve heard Guadeloupe is fairly relaxed about this so we didn’t confine ourselves to the boat. The place was so laid back I felt the most relaxed I have in three months of cruising despite the days earlier excitement.

Most of the town was shut (by 12:00 pm Saturday for the weekend) although a few grocery shops were open. We picked up some small groceries and cheap plonk ($2 bottle of wine) before heading off to the beach the locals frequent. We decided we would eat at the restaurant by the dock but found it closed for the day when we returned. We have plenty of provisions so we’ll save this treat for Deshaies.

Back on the boat I set about rewiring the feed to my battery charger. The way it had been installed placed it behind a 15A breaker which required severely cutting back the charging capacity of the unit. This translates into longer genset run times. Having had to deal with the failed impeller earlier in the day I felt motivated. The hard part of the job, as ever, was fishing the wires through to the right place. Having done that it worked fine. Now we can bulk charge considerably quicker than before and hence reduce our genset maintenance and fuel bills.

For this evening we are well protected from the easterly winds. The sea is almost flat with a gentle swell. We witnessed a wonderful sunset over Bass-Terre, the westerly half of Guadeloupe. We’re sipping our cheap plonk. I feel pleased with today’s work. There is NO internet of any sort here. Nor will there be for the next few days. We’re quite chilled.

In a lot of ways, this feels like a new start, if not the start of our adventure.

See map on google earth.
https://earth.google.com/web/@16.20247856,-61.31490393,25.13199596a,427082.39283577d,35y,0h,0t,0r/data=MiQKIgogChwxWDFKRHJJalFIZ1VSTk84MmphbV8tSmliUjFVIAI