2023-06-20 South to St. Lucia

Dawn

Well, just a bit before dawn. I woke up and made coffee and procrastinated a bit before leaving the anchorage and heading south to St. Lucia. From there my plan is to head further south. As far south as necessary to avoid the upcoming storm or hurricane. It’s still a mere “Invest 92L” but I know that will change. “Investigation” is what they start with, and cyclones are numbered in sequence from 90 to 99 and start again. The “L” means it is in the Atlantic.

I got going, surprised that a leaf blower was merrily making noise ashore before 6AM! It makes sense to do outside work while it is still cool, but that’s awfully early for that amount of noise in public. Once out of the big bay the wind and waves picked up and I noticed a gaggle of birds circling and diving on something evidently dead quite a ways away. I assumed a dolphin or similarly sized fish.

Continuing on past my last close contact with Martinique, Rocher du Diamant, I was headed due south to distant St. Lucia.The passage wasn’t fast due to my not being able to use my headsail. The boat speed goes down to less than half normal without it. Each sail contributes about 50% – but they feed off each other. When one is missing the total available lift decreases significantly.

Arrival

Passing Fort Shirley, I entered the familiar waters of Rodney Bay, St. Lucia. After anchoring off the beach I did my post-sailing walkaround and was shocked to see that the mainsail outhaul had almost chafed away. The outer covering was gone in the forward part and only the inner Dyneema core was still there.

Several weeks ago a Delrin spacer had cracked and broken. I’d put it on my list of things to get at the chandlery and promptly forgotten about the Post-It note reminding me.  It turns out that this little bit of chafe protection is actually quite important!

Ashore the fuel dock was closed for lunch, so I went to the chandlery to see if they had some spacers. No luck. The sailmaker didn’t have any, either. After that joyless trip I got 40l  of fuel and did one tank filling, then returned for another 40l. That went into the main tank and I did a third trip, stopping by at the Boardwalk Bar for a happy-hour beverage amongst old drinking buddies before going back to Zanshin.