Arnd

2023-06-07 Sunny and warm

Sunrise in the Saintes where it is sunny and warm — Sunrise in the Saintes

Sunny and warm is what the weather forecast is prognosticating. No surprise there! I’m usually about halfway through my first coffee when the first of several large wakes hits Zanshin. These come from the big and fast ferries heading into and out of the dock at Terre de Haut. This first wake comes somewhere around 06:10 every morning. The boat is calm at anchor, then I hear breaking waves on the rocks of Pain de Sucre and several seconds later the boat gets slammed and rocked by the wake.It is over quickly, but a minute later the reflection from ashore hits the boat again. Then is it all calm once again. This repeats itself a couple of times a day.

I’m going to adjust the grind on my Comandante grinder a little, so that the current batch/type of coffee from Guadeloupe can taste a bit better. At the moment it is just a touch “bitter” and “intense” so I am going to coarsen the grind a little without changing any other factors. The scale fluctuates quite a bit, even when Zanshin is steady at anchor, so getting the exact same amount of coffee beans each time is a bit of guesswork. I look at the level in the glass and guesstimate. I changed my grind to coarser by 3 clicks and I think that this second cup of coffee is/was smoother. I’ll soon make my third and final coffee of the day and see if there’s a trend.The hurricane season began on June 1st. There’s a great video here by Dr. Levi Cowan from one of my tropical weather and hurricane resources – tropicaltidbits.com.

Mid-morning

Pain de Sucre anchorage on a sunny and warm day — Pain de Sucre anchorage

Some waves are rolling the boat a bit, and when the light winds stop it is pretty sticky down here at the computer. But, overall, I’m glad to be here where it is sunny and warm. I can jump into the water to cool off if I need to. I did take one quick dip before noon, the water is warm and clear today.

Noon

It has turned out to be sunny and warm, as expected. Perhaps, at times, a bit sunnier and warmer than I would have wished.I took my implements of destruction with me on my second swim of the day,. This was good exercise, scraping some more growth from both sides of the rudder. I had to dive deep and exert myself to get the hard stuff removed, then surface and catch my breath before repeating the process. But I’ve got the rudder pretty well cleaned now. I think that I might need just one more session with the propeller and then I’ll be ready to sail. If I were to put the scuba gear together and do a final cleaning it would bring the boat to almost racing standard; but I’m not sure I need that for the last passages back to St. Lucia.

Transom from below

Partially cleaned rudder

Partially scraped rudder

Evening

Slushy beer on a sunny and warm day — Slushy beer

I had a bit of a minor disaster. I’d put a beer into the freezer earlier, and after diving I pulled it out. After the salty times while swimming the ice-cold beer was going to be my reward. I popped the lid and knew immediately that my gratification would need to be delayed when there was no “hiss” of escaping CO₂ gas escaping. Although the can contents were liquid when I opened it, that quickly changed to slush. My backup beer was still lukewarm so I stared at the supercooled can in dismay and wished it would thaw quickly! I warmed up the can with my hands and in the tropical 30°C of the cabin the beer quickly liquefied, but it still took too long for my liking.

Dinner

I thawed out one of the frozen sausages in the water I’m using for making pasta. Once the noodles are cooked, I’ll slice up and fry the sausage before adding some Bolognese sauce and spices. That’ll be a simple dinner. I think I’ll peruse my collection of (mostly unwatched) movies and choose one to watch during and after dinner.