Friday, January 28, 2011
Today was passage day to St. Barths and the conditions were not really bad, just not particularly great; the waves were over 2m and the boat slammed occasionally and the course I had to sail was almost directly upwind, so I didn’t make good time and also ended up motor sailing. I anchored off Gustavia and waited an hour and half for someone to come past on a dinghy who might take me in, but had no luck. I then had to take the dinghy off the deck and put on the engine and other bits in order to make the trip in to shore. Clearing in took a bit longer than it should have because I had to use the computer program and that, in itself, wasn’t a problem as all they wanted was one page but the keyboard is French and it seems that most of the letters I needed to type were put somewhere different from where I was used to. Nevertheless the process was quick and simple and I paid my €13 and was officially allowed into St. Barths. I motored the dinghy back and made my way to Anse Colombier as the main anchorage in Gustavia is extremely uncomfortable in any kind of swell and the 2+ meters that I’d encountered certainly counted as such. I found a nice anchorage position in Colombier and settled in for the afternoon and night. I was very hungry so pulled a steak and some potatoes from the fridge and marinated the steak and wrapped the ‘taters in aluminium foil and set up the barbecue grill. I fired up the grill at 18:00 and after an hour went to take out the potatoes and put on the steak and, much to my chagrin, found that the propane tank had run dry and that the potatoes weren’t even lukewarm. My stove is still hooked up to the butane tanks, so I boiled the potatoes and then fried up the steak, but it just doesn’t taste as good as when it is done on the barbie!
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