Monday night we walked around Marigot looking for a suitable place to eat for Mum’s Birthday. In the end we opted for The Village in Marina Royale. Very pleasant food and delicious desert.
Tuesday we went sailing. Finally. At 8am we weighed anchor and hustled over to the canal where we waited for the bridge to open and squeeze through. Then it was sails up and out into Anguilla Passage. Our target for the day was not ambitious – merely Grand Case a few miles away. We figured a short sail would be good as this would be the first real sail after loading the boat. We did have one internal spill so this was wise. Being upwind and up current of us we had to tack a few times to get there. Before going to the town proper we stopped off at Roche Creole for snorkeling. The conditions weren’t good and the water murky so it wasn’t a great success.
We had ribs for lunch then made our way back to the boat where we chilled for the rest of the day.
This morning we sailed back to Marigot. Being a downwind sail we decided to try out the new Code Zero headsail. It worked a dream. In 13knots of wind we were sailing down wind at 7knots. Methinks the current helped a bit but this was good all the same. I’m getting the impression we are under reading the regen as I’ve noticed that after running for a while, I can’t push too many more amps into the batteries if I turn the genset on. Need to work on this.
Anway, we sailed straight into Marigot, dropped the sails and anchored close to our old spot. Feels like home.
Shortly after returning we were able to establish contact with the local Beneteau rep in Marigot as we had a free upgrade waiting. Serge was soon over to replace a microprocessor which promises to provide better 72V power readings/management. Can only be good.
More chores to do today. One of the heads is backing up. Nasty job ahead. We’re doing a lot of flushing right now to clean up the lines so that when I open things up it won’t be a total nightmare.
Today we’ll also stock up with food for Thanksgiving. We’ll visit a US supermarket on the way back from the marine store.
A couple of extra incidentals for those of you really keeping track. My camera has decided to start working again. Hurray. We also found the missing suntan lotion – double hurray. Maybe the excitement of all this will make up for the mess I’ll probably endure quite soon.
Looking ahead the weather looks good for some extended sailing. With the confidence built over the last couple of days we should be able to stretch our wings.
