I think that the breakfast delivery of fresh bread is keeping me here! Plus the picturesque setting, of course. After looking at the weather patterns for today and comparing those wind and wave directions with the anchorages available to me between the Saintes and my final destination at Point-a-Pitre I realized that they would all be more exposed than where I already was; so the decision was made to stay.
It took a long time before I finally got the energy and impetus together to attack some of the chores. I prepared the dive gear and scrapers and laid out the new clamshell-type zinc for the propeller shaft; but wasn’t sure about getting that zinc attached since it also required using a Philips-head screw on one side and an uncaptured nut on the other, two of them in total.
Upon diving I saw that there was a lot of green stuff on the hull, but that I wouldn’t be needing the scraper as no new barnacles had relocated Château Zanshin. The zinc installation took a while, particularly as the wind had picked up and the boat was swinging to and fro above me while I was holding onto the prop shaft while trying to get the top and bottom zinc portions in place and inserting the nut and bolt. I really missed holding the little nut in my mouth to free up my hands, but that’s rather contraindicated when underwater and using a mouthpiece. I did manage it in the end without losing any parts and then proceeded to use most of the air while using a Scotch kitchen pad (the kind used to clean pots and pans) to remove the accumulated green stuff from the rudder, prop assembly and keel. The hull was more work, since one has to look upwards and my mask is leaking a bit (it is getting aged, the clear plastic is already yellowish) so I kept on swallowing/inhaling seawater which didn’t make the job any easier.
I spent the sunset hour watching a 50+ foot German ketch motor around in the outer harbour – it looked like they were going to head out to Guadeloupe and then they’d turn around again. After a long period of this, they went through the anchorage at speed and exchanged words with another German-flagged vessel several boats away; then did a turn which put them close to a French monohull next to me, which caused lots of shouting from said French boat and interesting hand movements from many involved, but the collision was avoided and then the boat tied up to the already moored German one, while at least 20 boats were watching the antics and probably wondering, as I was, what the heck was going on. After a half hour of being tied up and some more shouted exchanges around the anchorage I was disappointed that my entertainment was coming to an end and the boat untied, but then (at dusk) kept on motoring around. I really don’t know what they could have been doing, although there were no moorings left in this part of the anchorage, they could have dropped anchor here or looked for moorings elsewhere; which might have been the reason if their anchor system was INOP (but then they could have changed places with the other German boat or even asked me, as I was flying my German flag from the port spreader that day. I lost them in the dark, as they were motoring without lights but the next morning (I’ll jump ahead in time) at 7AM it looked like they were just leaving the big ferry docks, either they’d tied up there for the night while the ferries were inactive, or they were still motoring around the harbour. Very strange goings-on indeed.
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