Simpson Bay Lagoon, Day 3, Preparing for Erika

Well it’s all change again.  TS Erika has stopped going north apparently and is now going west, almost straight for St Martin.  If she continues this way she will pass, if not directly over, but to the south which means we will be in the worst quadrant.  The trouble is that they are having trouble with the predictions because they cannot determine exactly where her centre is.  They are predicting 2 to 4 inches of rain to come with her though, so Jeannius will at least be clean!

It’s a mixture of sunshine and showers first thing, along with the most amazing rainbow – a complete half circle ending right in line with our dinghy.  Unfortunately our camera doesn’t have a wide enough angle to capture the whole thing.

Photo:  Rainbow over Simpson Bay

We take down the rain curtains and sun shades.  It’s amazing how much bigger the cockpit looks without them, but they are so useful that the slightly restricted view is worth it under normal circumstances.

Per comes over early to pick up his tools and tell us he won’t be working on Jeannius today as he needs to prepare his own boat for whatever weather is coming.  We expected this so are not surprised.

Mike goes over to Port de Plaisance to arrange a slip for us then goes to pick up the laundry and a couple of bits of shopping.  He comes back with some of the shopping I asked for (carefully ignoring the request for green vegetables) but no laundry as there has been “a problem with the machine”!

We go to fill up with fuel and Mike buys some more ropes to tie us up.  Over $300 is spent buying these along with some anti-chafing stuff to put over them so that the concrete dock doesn’t destroy them.  We then go to our allotted slip in Port de Plaisance.  This place was our point of refuge when Hurricane Omar swept through St Martin last year.  Once again they give us a 60 ft slip to ourselves and we go in bows to, anticipating the approaching winds to be coming from the east.

Port de Plaisance, under normal circumstances, is very pretty.  It is a marina that is normally home to super yachts in the high season, and has a hotel on its little island connected to the mainland by a bridge.

Photo:  The bridge at Port de Plaisance

I watch as some of the hotel workers clean the beach.  I am amazed.  Why don’t they wait until after the storm as there will be lots more debris?  Then I realise that they are actually filling bags with sand, obviously anticipating flooding somewhere on the premises.

Photo:  Making sandbags on the beach

The next few hours are exhausting.  The weather is full on sun, ie hot, hot, hot but with gusts of wind up to 25 knots.  First of all we untie the mainsail lazy jacks and lower the boom onto the bimini, remembering to put towels underneath to stop the chafe.  Then we lash the main sail to the boom using my blanket stitch technique – it looks very neat when finished.  We tie the boom down, remove the windscreen, tidy the stays then it is time to adjust all the warps.  Having pulled everything tight into the dock on the starboard side, we have to loosen them all then run round like mad tightening up all the new warps on the port side.  We do this time and time again, using the winch to pull Jeannius gradually away from the dock into the middle of the slip.  By the time we have finished, she looks like a trussed up turkey!  Finally Mike puts the stern anchor out to stop her from going forward and hitting the dock, just in case the warps don’t hold her back although he is pretty sure this is a bit of overkill.

Photo:  Using the winch to drag Jeannius across the slip

Photos:  Job done!

Once we tidy up the remaining sheets and tie the dinghy up tightly, Mike connects to the internet and discovers that TS Erika has now gone south over Guadeloupe and is only just a tropical storm, with wind speeds of 40 knots.  Her bad side is now predicted to hit St Martin (but from a distance) at around 7am tomorrow morning.  We are elated that we are safe, but almost pissed off that all our work was for nothing.  However, she could change direction again so you never know.

We spend a lazy evening.  We can’t get off the boat even if we wanted to as we are in the middle of the slip and would need the dinghy to get to the dock.  Even then it is so high I doubt that I could make it.  Mike only just manages to get his leg up there from the dinghy.

Exhausted and aching but safely moored up for the night, we go to bed. The winds are getting up and it is now intermittently pouring with rain.  Oh how I love to be in the tropics!