Le Marin and Sainte Anne Martinique

Our OCC burgee   

Almost as soon as we had dropped our anchor in Le Marin, Pam and Tom from Stealin’ Time, who had seen our Ocean Cruising Club (OCC) burgee flying, came over to invite us on board for evening drinks. Don and Anne from Salty Pause, also OCC members and anchored just ahead of us, came along too. Tom solved our immediate problem of getting our dinghy in for repair the following morning by offering to tow us ashore to drop it off. That meant that getting into the marina was not so urgent, so we could relax at anchor and enjoy their hospitality. “Helping out other OCC members, that’s what being part of the club means … right!”, well that philosophy has certainly worked for us; great support from fellow members.

The next morning, bright and early, Tom took us ashore and within half an hour or so, our dinghy was in the workshop ready to be reglued. However, we were told that the cure time for the glue was 3-4 days; we might get the dinghy back on Thursday but most likely we could retrieve it on Friday. We couldn’t depend on lifts ashore from friends for that long, so we knew that we needed to get a place in the marina.

Unfortunately, even turning up and speaking face to face to the marina staff didn’t elicit much help other than if we wanted to stay for a week we could make a reservation! However, as we wandered back towards BV we wondered if we could find a space on one of the pontoons owned by the boatyard CarenAntilles: Tom and Pam had suggested that they take a few short-stay visitors but not many. Nothing ventured, nothing gained – we made enquiries and were delighted to be allocated the last space on their walk-ashore pontoon. It was a space that very exactly fitted BV and would not have worked in anything other than very benign conditions but the forecast was good for the next few days, so we jumped at the opportunity. To celebrate our good fortune, we had Tom and Pam (Stealin’ Time) and Don and Anne (Salty Pause) over for drinks that evening and made plans to visit Salty Pause the following day to view their fridge/freezer set-up.

The generator engineer (Caraibe Services) appeared by boat the following morning (Tuesday 6 March) and spent a good 5 hours working on the generator for us. As requested he torqued up the cylinder head to see if that would stop the slight oil leak from there and, as well as completing the service, he fitted new seals to the water pump to fix a leak from that item and replaced a well-hidden pipe that was failing and which had swollen to around twice its normal diameter. We normally do the servicing ourselves but with the cylinder head leaking oil we wanted to keep everything official and in warranty, just in case a warranty claim for replacing the cylinder head gaskets or similar is required.

So, Tuesday disappeared with the generator service followed by an excellent ad hoc barbecue on Salty Pause and then Nicky made Wednesday disappear with a full-on varnishing stint. This was work to try to finish off some incomplete jobs from a few weeks back and to show the dinghy oars some desperately needed love. In fact, the oars had needed some varnishing love so much that when she sanded them down at least half of the varnish on them had peeled off in large sheets leaving the bare wood exposed. It looks as if it’ll be a long job [Ed: yes, quite how I’m going to juggle varnishing the oars when we get the dinghy back and in use I’m not too sure. #First world problems!]

First thing on Thursday morning we had a call from La Survy saying that the glue had cured and the dinghy was ready for us to collect. It certainly looks a lot smarter with the rubbing strake properly attached instead of hanging off along several 1m+ lengths! Better still, the rubbing strake should properly protect the dinghy when we go alongside quays etc. And, as the icing on the cake, the technician repaired the leaking patch on the dinghy’s seat so that now stays inflated properly – no more grovelling near the bottom boards when rowing!

With the dinghy back with us, there was no requirement to remain on the pontoon at CarenAntilles, so we paid our bill, thanked the dockmasters profusely for fitting us in at short notice and headed off back to Ste Anne. We planned to move north the next day but, before we did, we wanted to say a final goodbye to Anna-Malin and James on Yin N Yang. Anna-Malin and James had decided to head south to Grenada to look for work to tide them through the hurricane season so dinner on that Thursday evening was probably our last one together until winter 2018/9, at the earliest. We had a lovely time with them (and Bubbles!) chatting about the season so far and talking of plans for the future. It’s sad to know that we won’t see them for so long as they have been such a large part of our sailing lives over the past few months and we’ve very much enjoyed spending time with them. But, as we have proven so many times, the sailing world can be surprisingly small and we have no doubt that our wakes will cross again with them in the future.

Leaving Ste Anne   

St Anne and Le Marin, Martinique