Saturday, January 29, 2011
I had forgotten how miserable Colombier can get in the early morning hours when the winds die down and the boat turns around its axis and occasionally get broadside-on to the swell and starts rolling to the harmonic frequency of the waves. I did find a couple of things that went “bang” in the night but one item escaped me and would make noises every 10-15 minutes or so. But today is wonderful – sunny, breezy and and a beautiful anchorage where the 30 foot deep water is crystal clear and I can distinguish starfish on the bottom. I finally finished my topping lift replacement. The splice was extremely bothersome to complete and I must admit that I gave up and used copious amounts of whipping to hide my deficiencies. The splice strength comes from the Dyneema core, which I spliced correctly, but the core just wouldn’t let itself get milked into the cover for the last centimetre, despite using my gardening gloves and tightening the line with winches. At shortly before 19:00 I heard a call for me from Arita on VHF Channel 16 and responded, but it would seem that my reception is better than my broadcasting and they didn’t hear me. My guess is that they departed on the 17:00 bridge from St. Martin and are on their way across and heading for Île Fourchue. I was willing to bet even odds or better that they wouldn’t be departing for at least 2 days and would have lost that bet after all. I hope to meet up with them on the morrow and convince them to head off to Barbuda as I’d like to have a pilot boat for that island.
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