The north swell has finally arrived in Grand Case with a vengeance. The long swell period and high surf is great for those on the beach this morning, but getting ashore in a dinghy is no longer an easy matter. I had a kedge dinghy anchor on some rode made up, but the 4 bladed anchor wouldn’t hold at all and I was lucky enough to have a couple in a dinghy with a kedge anchor that held allow me to tie off the back of theirs; I said I’d be at least 2 hours and they said that was how long they would be staying as well so all was well. I walked off to Octopus Diving and used their phone to arrange a 3 day car rental and once I’d taken care of rental formalities for the ubiquitous Hyundai Getz I risked life and limb in traffic and headed to Marigot in order to perform the clearance. I was fortunate to grab a parking space from someone leaving and the clearance only took 10 minutes and I was suddenly legal. I decided to use my time to dash across to Island Waterworld in order to get a real kedge anchor for the dinghy and purchased a small 2Kg one (stainless steel, but only because they had no others) and returned to the dinghy dock in order to exchange anchors. The new anchor bit immediately and was going to do a good job keeping my dinghy off the concrete dock and I met and spoke with a couple who had just arrived at the dock. I mentioned that I was heading to Island Waterworld and within 10 minutes I was in the car and taking Duncan along.
After a bit of shopping at Island Waterworld, then Electec we had a bit of food and drink at the newly refurbished Lagoonies – a new wooden roof ensure that everything and everyone will stay dry during passing rain showers. After Lagoonies we drove past the dive shop and thence to Bobby’s Marina where Duncan had gotten word of a spare part for his Perkins diesel engine; unfortunately the part was almost the right one and we made a final stop at the sunset bar to watch a couple of jets takeoff and land before returning to Grand Case
The swell was really up, with the occasional wave breaking over the dock. The kedge had held so my dinghy was in fine shape and I quickly returned to the boat and put everything aboard so that I could re-set my kedge anchor for Zanshin before dark. That took a while and I only had partial success, but I knew conditions weren’t going to be getting better anytime soon. The conditions ashore ruled out going ashore for dinner, so I made a BBQ meal from some thawed-out spicy sausages on the BBQ and read my e-book for a bit before going to sleep.
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