It is indeed, a very long night, although, thank goodness, an uneventful one in that nothing breaks or falls off. We only see two ships on the horizon.
But the winds continue to be strong on the nose and our progress is painfully slow. Having the main sail up does nothing – we only leave it up in case the wind changes direction a little in which case it could help us, and also you don’t mess with things in the middle of the night if you can help it.
The constant slamming into the waves is uncomfortable and tiring. My second watch – the 2 till 4 stint – actually goes quite quickly, mainly due to my MP3 player’s headphones being firmly jammed into my ears. When my watch is over, I go and sleep in one of the aft cabins which is far more comfortable, and I get about 3 hours of sleep.
When I get up, the conditions, if anything, are worse. There is no way we are going to make it in the usual 15 hours. In fact, had we left at our usual 3am we wouldn’t have made it before nightfall, so Mike did in fact make the right decision.
I sit in the cockpit and drink my cup of tea. There is no way I can have this in bed this morning as I would be in danger of throwing it all over myself. It is so uncomfortable that I decide to go back to bed and sleep for a couple more hours. Dougie does the same. Anything to wile away the hours.
Eventually, in the haze, St Martin comes into view. As we drop the anchor into the bay at Marigot I note the fact that it has taken us a very painful 20 hours. We cleaned and scrubbed the boat so thoroughly yesterday and now, in the light of day, I can see that every surface is encrusted with salt, even the crew!
We have lunch then Mike and Dougie go off to check in so that Dougie can go and check into his hotel. The French customs and immigration officer has already cleared off to do whatever French customs and immigration officers do after lunch, so Mike will have to visit again tomorrow. We put the yellow flag up to show we have not yet cleared in.
After a shower to remove our layers of salt, Mike and I have yet another nap. I have just got up when I hear Skype calling. It is Monica and Nick. We arrange to meet up tomorrow for lunch so I start to do some of tomorrow’s jobs today – making beds and cleaning bathrooms. Tomorrow we will be in Marina Fort Louis and can hose the salt off the boat. However, if it rained really hard in the night it would save us the trouble. I pray for rain, but rain that stops at 7am. Please!
Glad you guys made it safely!!
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