The first few miles of the trip were in the
lee of Nevis so it wasn’t bad at all.
As we cleared the protection of land, the seas began building. They built and they built, all thru the
night. About midnight, we approached
Montserrat. This was a DEFINITE on our
list of places to visit but with the sea conditions so bad, we motored on
by. Since Montserrat is an active volcano,
you cannot go within two miles of the southern half of the island. Also, they recommend sailing on the
windward, not leeward side of the island or the breeze can blow volcanic ash
all over your boat. Being on the
windward side, we had no protection from the land. Like most mountainous islands, as you round the points of land,
the winds and waves are unpredictable.
As we tried to sail past the north-east corner of Montserrat, it was
worse than horrible. We got tossed like
a puppet on a string. We were fighting
wind, waves and current and our speed dropped to under 2 knots. There were times when our GPS actually read
0 knots … no speed at all!
These crossings must be getting more
difficult. You might remember that
prior to this trip, our microwave oven attempted suicide by jumping to its
death instead of facing another monstrous wave. It survived with only a broken
turntable and mounting bracket issues.
Well on this trip, our toaster AND printer both tried the same stunt. It’s like nothing is happy on this boat
during these horrendous crossings.
Death is a better option! Well
luckily, they both seem to have been unsuccessful. The printer is working fine and has found a new home on a shelf
in our main salon where we can fasten it down with a bungee cord. Just try to attempt it again little fellow …
you’ll spring right back! And the
toaster, well it seems okay although we haven’t really used it since its
attempt. We’re giving him time to heal
in case he has some minor injuries.
He’s back in his original spot but has had a stern talking to and I
don’t think he’ll attempt it again … at least, I hope!
Our travel plan was to head to Port Louis,
Guadeloupe. If we had the easterly
winds and northeast swells that were predicted, it might have been a good trip. BUT … as always, the weather forecast was
terribly wrong. The winds were almost
dead on the nose. The north-east swells
were actually south-east and we plowed directly into them. And there was no swell at all. It was major chop … one large wave after the
other.
We finally decided to veer off course and
head to Deshaies (on the western/protected side of Guadeloupe). Changing direction slightly for this new
destination was a little more bearable … but not much. When we were about 10
miles out of Deshaies, we looked into switching back to our original port of
entry. It would be about 17 miles into
the winds but we were now on the shallower banks and the waves had subsided a
little. So, do we go to Deshaies today
and head to Port Louis tomorrow (who knows what the waves will be like by then
… remember, they were growing seas) or do we just endure a little longer and
change routes back to Port Louis (another several hours of being beat up on our
already exhausted bodies)? Of course, we chose the abuse and veered
easterly. Seventeen miles took about 5
hours!
About 2:30pm (22.5 hours to travel about 76
miles/3.3 mile per hour average), we found a nice little spot off town, in
about 12 feet of water. Larry went
forward to drop the anchor. When Soulmatie
had finally come to a stop, I gave the signal to drop the hook. DAMN!!!
Larry screamed. It appears that
while we were being tossed about at sea, our anchor chain had rolled over on
itself. Now the top portion, that we
would use first, was sitting at the bottom of our anchor locker with hundreds
of pounds of chain on top of it. No way
the anchor was going down without major work!
First, we had to empty the V-Berth. For those of you who saw the state of our
v-berth before we left, you can only imagine what a job that was. The bikes had to come out. My sewing machine was next. Then two crates of miscellaneous crap … and
so on and so on and so on. While we
were sailing, all the books on the bookshelf got tossed about so those had to
be cleaned up before Larry could even start his work. It was a job and a half just to get to the anchor locker!
Then, while Larry cleared some chain free, I
was out on deck and dropped it overboard.
We let out all the chain.
DAMN!!! Another problem. The
anchor locker was full of water. The
seas breaking over the bow sent torrents of water rushing across the deck of
the boat. The hole that allows the
chain to enter/exit the boat also allowed water to seep into the locker … and
there was no drain to let it out! Next
job, get a bucket and cup and drain the anchor locker. Once it was drained, I let in chain as Larry
neatly placed it into the locker in some orderly fashion.
This ordeal took several hours to resolve
before we were finally nicely anchored.
Wow … what a trip! By far … the
worst yet!
The boat was a mess, we were exhausted and
all we wanted to do was sleep. We
raised the quarantine flag in defeat.
We will clear customs in the morning.
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