Calm Night
I had a wonderfully calm night here in the Pain de Sucre anchorage. Even though I’m not tucked in close to shore, the weak prevailing winds and lack of swell meant it was nice out here in deep water as well. The only downside is that the big ferries leave a really powerful wake when they go past. The ferries are quite loud, so after hearing one go by, there’s a delay of about 5 minutes before their stern waves arrive. By that time, the ferry is long gone, and I’ve seen people here look around in confusion, looking for the source of the wake when it hits. My mini-operation wasn’t successful in removing anything but some calluses and skin. I’ll go swimming later to cool off and soften up the area and then go back to work with the mirror, dental pick, and tweezers – all sanitized, of course.
Morning
I’m drinking my second cup of coffee now. The energy from the first cup was used to edit yesterday’s pictures and blog entry and publish them. Since this is Easter weekend, I don’t have to work on Monday and have lots of time to reach Antigua. I pulled up my weather charts and realized that I hadn’t planned my passage fully. I’d just seen low winds and left it at that. What I didn’t count on was no winds! To make matters worse, once the winds come back, they’ll be from the north, and I’m heading north.
One upside is that I can get my dinghy off the deck and mount the outboard today. Towing the dinghy across the unruly southern and northern Guadeloupe passages is not going to be a problem, and with my dinghy in the water, I can finally go ashore.
Noon
I made a simple lunch with crackers and camembert and am now ready for surgery. I got a splinter in my toe over a week ago, and initially thought I’d removed all traces, but there’s still some left deep in there, and it hasn’t grown out. The spot is on my big toe in a place where I can’t contort sufficiently to reach it. It isn’t on the bottom, but a bit to the side, and when I walk, the pressure makes it hurt a bit. I had hoped it was metallic and that I could remove it with the help of a strong magnet, but unfortunately, it is either wood or a nonferrous metal.
Dinghy
I got the dinghy untied from the foredeck and now have it tied aft. The first step is to locate the air inflator pump, secreted somewhere in the depths of the garage. Then, the next step is moving the 18HP outboard onto the dinghy. The final difficult step is mounting the engine on the dinghy. The winds are light and only the occasional wake poses a threat to my outboard going walkabout at the bottom of the anchorage.
I oiled and greased the screws that attach the outboard and got the setup ready. A ferry went by in the distance while I was doing this, so I’m taking a break until the wake passes. I’d rather not get surprised by one in the middle of transferring the engine to the outboard. The dinghy is rather unstable until the weight of the engine lowers the centre of gravity.
I managed to get the engine heaved aboard and then onto the transom with nary a mishap. Well, just a couple of sacrificial drops of blood from where the sharp edge of the propeller scraped me. It took about 500 steps (according to my Fitbit) to get the 2-stroke fired up after its long hibernation. But once running, it did so smoothly, although it is still smoking quite a bit. I’m taking a break now and drinking a 17:00 Lorraine beer for hydration. Then I’ll take a trip around the Pain de Sucre anchorage with the dinghy, making sure to have my VHF along should the engine decide to pack it up.
Later
My circuit around the anchorage in the dinghy went well, so I returned and stowed the gas tank in the garage, as I’ll be towing the dinghy to Deshaies tomorrow and want to keep it light.
Sunset was nice today and now I’m belowdecks and trying to figure out what to make for dinner. I found more Merguez sausages, so they’ll go on the barbie. Perhaps I’ll cook up some pasta to accompany the meat.
After dinner, I had my first small sip of whiskey, an Ardbeg, while enjoying the still night air and the stars above.
