St Barts to the North shores of St Kitts

The day starts well enough.  The weather is lovely;  bright sunshine, a few fluffy clouds and a nice breeze.  When we left Gustavia yesterday the fuel dock was already closed for the day.  (The French really do have some strange opening and closing hours over here!)  We want to get to either St Kitts or Anguilla to see something different but both require our nearly empty tank to be filled, so we head back to St Martin to get into the lagoon where we know there is an easily accessible fuel dock.

We all get up early and are on our way well before 7, arriving at Simpson Bay around 9 ready for the bridge opening at 9.30.  The bridge openings can be very exciting depending on what is trying to get in or out of the lagoon.  I have seen pictures of super yachts with what looks like inches to spare either side. 

Photo:  The closed bridge on the Dutch side

Today, however, we are the only ones waiting to get in.  Right on the dot of 9.30, the traffic on the road stops (this is the main road, note, which causes absolute chaos every day at bridge opening times) and the outgoing boats (just two) motor out.  The red light turns green and in we go.  I have never seen the lagoon so empty.  The last times we were here were in high season and before that it was during Hurricane Omar, when the lagoon was used by boats as a protected anchorage.  Today it looks ghostly with nearly all the marina slips empty.

Photo:  A boat coming out through the open bridge

We moor up at Island Water World’s fuel dock and fill with diesel and water.  While we do this, Mike goes in to see if our new inverter has arrived.  It hasn’t, so he buys 6 new batteries for the boat instead as you do.  These cost just over $800 with our discount but are badly needed as ours are quite knackered and old and are not holding the charge that our solar panels and wind generator work so hard to provide.  Mike draws a diagram showing how all the batteries are connected together but the batteries start arriving before he has time to check it.  He removes the old ones and puts the new ones into position.  These babies are really heavy.  Thank goodness we had Terry the Muscle to do the heavy lifting.

As he connects the batteries, one connection sparks in an alarming way and Mike, never happy about dealing with electrics, sends me to get a little man to help from Island Water World.  Unfortunately there is no one in the shop who knows how to do it either, so the manager commandeers a guy from the shop next door, who happily trudges out to oversee proceedings.  He and Mike take nearly another 45 minutes to sort if out.  Most combinations they try cause alarming sparks.  When they eventually sort it out, it is obvious that just one connection was missing from Mike’s diagram, so I redraw it, bigger and in colour, to help next time.

Photo:  “Mmmm, where does this lead go?”

We pull away from the fuel dock and head over to the French side of the lagoon, ready to exit into Marigot at the 2.30 opening.  We need to get internet connection to check the weather situation before we make plans for our next move.  We put the anchor down and have lunch.  We continue to eat as we watch our anchor drag across the lagoon but this is of no concern as the lagoon is so empty and there is nothing for us to hit.

We move again after lunch and hover just outside the bridge waiting for the French bridge to open.  Two thirty comes and goes.  Maybe the bridge opener is having one of those famous extended lunches.  But no.  A lady from one of the bridge side restaurants comes out and tells us there is no bridge opening until 5 today.  Terrific!

Photo:  The French bridge says “non!”

We drop the anchor again and both Mike and Viv manage to get internet connection as we are now so close to Marina Royale.  The weather news is not good.  Tropical Storm Anna is due to hit the area on Monday night, and there are now two more weather systems heading for the same spot on Thursday and Friday.  Bill, Thursday’s fun weather system is predicted to be a hurricane.

There follows a long discussion over the plans.  It is imperative that we get the boat as far south as possible to escape these three systems.  Ann, Terry, Viv and David are due to leave St Martin on Tuesday to to to Antigua to stay at Carlisle Bay, Ann and Terry until Saturday, Viv and David until Thursday.  Alice and Cat are meant to be staying with us until Saturday.

The discussion goes around in circles a bit.  It is really hard to decide what to do when the information you have is subject to change at the last minute – we all know how weather predictions can be wrong.  But you can’t mess around with a hurricane and have to take it seriously.  Eventually they decide to pack and leave this afternoon, stay in a hotel tonight, and try to get to Antigua asap.  This will leave Mike and I free to run down island on Jeannius.

Photo:  All packed and ready to go

Photo:  Ann catching the last rays on the bow of Jeannius

They all go and pack, sad faces all around.  We go back over to the Dutch side of the lagoon, where the bridge opens bang on time.  Anchored outside in Simpson Bay, Mike takes everyone ashore with their luggage.  When he returns we hastily prepare to boat for a few days of non-stop sailing down to Grenada.  We batten her down, I make a huge vat of dahl, and set sail while there is still a little light. 

As we sail out of Simpson Bay, I burst into tears.  It wasn’t meant to be like this.  I need to be prepared for a long sail, physically and mentally and I am neither, and I am very, very scared.  Mike gives me a hug but there’s a boat to be sailed, so we get on with it.

Mike takes the first three hour watch and I try to sleep but the boat is heaving around and crashing through the waves.  We have two reefs in the main sail and the genoa is out.  With Jeannius on a close reach, the wind at 18-20 knots, we sail at 7.5 to 8 knots.  I relieve Mike at 10, just as we approach the passage between Eustacia and St Kitts.  I only see one yacht, the large blue hulled beauty that came out of Simpson Bay lagoon just after us.  She left Simpson Bay quite some time after us but her size gives her speed and she overtakes us and within a couple of hours, is out of sight.  Other than that, I only see tankers queuing outside the oil refinery at Eustacia.  At midnight I am watching the lights from St Kitts as we pass the north shores.