A few good reasons not to have guests on board

We spent now almost two weeks with dear friends on board. It goes basically very well, of course there are a few drawbacks: Learn from our mistakes and have a "better" trip with your guests!

The most important point: Never ever have a guest which loves to cook & eat! In the beginning it's nice to get at least three hot meals served a day. But at one point your grill will break down because it tried to hold all the 20 pound T-bones (yep, it happend!) and you find yourself running for gas bottle refills in remote places. The worst part is actually the endless snacks in between! I mean after one week you start to gain all the pounds back again which you've finally lost the past few months.  

We love wine. Usually we have it for dinner. But we normally do not have it for an early apero, lunch and dinner. And of course some glasses in between as it is so refreshing during "holiday". Latest when they discovered the nice Caribbean Rums you start to think about the days after guests: Is it difficult to get regularly meetings with A.A.* while cruising?

Never, I mean really NEVER tell your guests that you have a Watermaker! Your 170 gal (650 Liter!) water tank lasts for a few hours or so. Same with electricity, our solar array is big, real big. But I literally hear my poor batteries whining when the hairdryer runs off the inverter. So it's best if you keep guests blind about technical stuff you've acquired during your outfitting process. 

The scariest part of having guests is actually if HE spoils HER. I mean Rahel is happy that someone cooks and cleans the dishes. I love that too. But it really scares the hell out of me when she starts to ask me when it was the last time I served her breakfast!!!! Don't let that happen - you will pay the next six months, at least!

Last but not least: Avoid any health freaks - I mean I know jogging every mornings is a good thing - but the look of your wife who thinks you should do something as well is real poisonous.  

So, even if we enjoy every minute of this luxury we, or most probably me, will have to pay a high price for this spoiled weeks. Learn from my mistake: Next time I will clearly plan more ahead and have some macho hardcore sailors around me who drink only beer, swear and smoke like hell. I will keep my weight and they will make me look real great!

* Alcoholics Anonymous

Hurricane Season is approaching fast..

The Hurricane* Season starts first of June and ends at the thirtiest of November. We will have Hurricanes in a very well defined area only: Between 13. to 35. degree North and 55. to 100. degree West. OK that's at least according to our insurance company. Real life could be a bit different if you check past storm tracks. Nevertheless, if we would like to keep our boat insurance we have to leave that area or store the boat safely on land. 

Safely on land means in this case: Remove the mast and all other deck clutter like solar panels, bimini and so on. Then you have to tie down the boat too with earth anchors. Quite a task and Habibi is born to be in the water right?. Besides this, all our seawater dependend systems would not work on land:  Starting with the toilet, the fridge and finally the Aircon (and that in a Caribbean summer!). Additional dry storage locations for boats are normally not the sexiest locations on the islands, you may be placed behind a Steel Mill or a sewage treatment facility.  Even I have not discussed this option with Rahel yet, I guess that's not an option for us. Guess we simply are too soft for this kind of hardcore camping. 

Keeping the boat in the water in the hurricane area would jeopardize our insurance cover. But since you never know where a storm really hits and you usually get early warnings you could move the boat always to a more or less saver place. A lot of people still do that. Does not sound too bad. I do not know why we're not considering that: could it be the fear of my father in law if something happens to his daughter or are we maybe just too soft as said before? Or maybe we are simply not yet suicidal enough.....

So our current plan says we head towards Grenada (we heard many bad stuff about Trinidad - a previously very famous shelter place). We may stay for one month there as we have a lot to do and it may be nice to stay for a few weeks at one place at a time. We're not yet sure what will happen after that - there are still so many white spots on our travel map. 

Besides a dozen islands to explore we learned that Columbia became surprisingly safe, Venezuela on the other side had a downturn. Brazil - one of my favorite place  - is very far and against current and wind. But still, is there anything comparable?? And if we would do so I promise that we will keep a bunk for Kris and Naldo warm (If Kris finally admits there is nothing above a Carioca :-))

We will continue our journey towards Grenada as soon the weather permits. Everything else is open so far. So dear readers - if you have any idea or recommendation please speak up now!

*Hurricane for Landlubbers: First of all, you need to know that it has different names: Depending on its location and strength it's named hurricane, typhoon, tropical storm, cyclone storm, tropical depression or simply cyclone. It's basically a storm system characterized by a low pressure center and numerous thunderstorms that produce strong winds and heavy rain. They usually get names as soon they reach tropical storm strength: By the way, they just get names for a practical reason: Often there are multiple depressions around, so having them named helps people to avoid confusion and track "their" storms better. 

We sailor fear it like hell, not just because of the heavy winds (sometimes over 250 kmh!). More devastating than the winds are the waves. You would not believe the power of this high seas during such a Cyclone: I'm writing this in a well protected Harbor, surrounded by 5m high massive stone walls well knowing that this now so save looking heaven would be a deadly trap during such a storm! The waves will, and already have, crush everything inside this now peaceful shelter. 

Engine Blues (almost)

old pipe with clamp & glue

OK, given the fact that we have currently guests we are a bit more relaxed and therefore lazy with writing blogs. Since I promised you to give you an update on our passage and the issues we had I will now take the time - of course while having a glass of Rum while Andi is preparing tonights dinner. Yes, having guests has some benefits, in particular if they are amazing chefs. But back to the story: When we prepared our longer journey from Puerto Rico to St. Maarten I checked the engine carefully in a remote anchorage, an usual task every 25 engine hours. And I was getting concerned when I discovered some dried salt in a hidden corner of the narrow engine compartment. A cooling water leak?? 

For the landlubbers among us: A boat engine is normally cooled with seawater, this is pumped from the sea and goes through a heat exchanger and then back into the sea. It's the same system as you know from your car, but due to the lack of air which runs through a normal car radiator under your car hood we pump sea water to get rid of the heat. And it pumps a lot of water. So if you have a leak in this system and you would not realize it on time it could be fatal. You overheat the precious engine until it's dead or worse you fill the boat with seawater not realizing it until you get wet feet. And before Rahel's Dad now gets more grey hairs: We have a lot of systems which should warn us before things get bad...but still it's a major issue.

So knowing I had saltwater where it didn't belong to I was searching for quite some time until I discovered a hidden drain valve that was leaking. Ha, easy task, just close it tight and things will go smooth again. WRONG! When I checked the valve I found some corrosion and even a small crack where the valve goes into the pipe. Guess it was once over tightened when Habibi was winterized from a previous specialist. I was confident I would just have to put a small hose clamp over the crack and then check it in St. Maarten. WRONG AGAIN! When I was fiddling with the clamp the whole thing broke just off. I had now a major hole in my cooling system! No way to use the engine with that.

For sure I did not have any particular spare pipe. And as I mentioned already we have been in a small anchorage far away from everything. Once again I had to made a fix with whatever Habibis spare stock was able to provide. First I was trying to place a piece of spare hose over the pipe. After one hour I gave up since the place was simply too tight to put two hose clamps in place. Finally I made a fix with some epoxy (cruisers most loved glue) and secured the whole patch with a single clamp. It worked out! After another hour drying it was not leaking one drop anymore. So after a 4 hour plus engine check and a few new bruises we were ready to go again. Of course I was checking the damn thing now every 30 minutes while underway....

Later I had the whole pipe and a new valve shipped from Miami to St. Maarten - one hour and 200 bucks later (for a piece of copper pipe and a small valve!) the thing is now hopefully better than new. Looking back I'm really happy I discovered the whole thing that early - if the valve broke while underway it could have been a little disaster...

 

new pipe plus valve

 

St.Barth - holiday feelings

Since our guests arrived we're having something like a holiday feeling. I know, most of you think living and travelling by sailboat must feel like holiday all the time - but it doesn't. There is always something to fix, to polish, to organise, to plan, to take care of. But especially since we arrived in St.Barth we're taking time for exploring, for swimming, for eating delicious food and drinking good wine. Maybe it's the French environment on this beautiful island. It's off-season already and therefore very quiet and relaxed. You can stroll through town and adore the nice mix of French and Swedish influence, you don't have to make a reservation in one of the restaurants and the people are friendly and talkative. Even though there are some very big boats in the harbor you don't feel to be in a posh place - OK, there are all exclusive brands (Hermes, Louis Vuitton, etc.) present you can think of and in one of the watch stores there are a few pieces displayed in one window worth millions of Euros! Shopping is definitely only for the super rich people.

A nice side story: at our arrival in St. Barth we went for dinner with some friends of our guests. While sitting in this amazing restaurant overlooking the whole harbor Marco and this guy chatted away and tried to figure out why they think they know each other. After digging into the past they figured out having worked together in the same electronic company 20 years or so ago. How far do you have to travel to meet again the peers from your first job??? Life is amazing isn't' it?

 

 

 As always there are more pictures posted on our facebook-page. Check it out!

With love from paradise
Rahel

Size does matter!!

I guess not much to say: 40 ft vs. 160 ft. 12 crew for two guests on one side, 2 crew for two guests on the other.....

At least it is a socialistic approach, even if they spend millions we still share the same hip dock in the middle of amazing St. Barth.

Welcome aboard!

Ines & Andi in St.Martin

One reason of many why we stopped in St.Martin was to pick up friends. Ines and Andi will be sailing with us to some places in the leeward islands. We're happy to have them on board - Andi is a fantastic chef/ handyman and Ines helps me with some sailing theory and practice advise. A perfect match! To be our guests one has to be very flexible in terms of date and location. As we sail without a fixed schedule, guided by the weather, it is very difficult for us to plan far in advance. For our guests this was not a problem as they booked the flight from Miami on a short notice.

delicious and healthy lunch creation by Andi

We had to wait out a blow for the last couple of days and spent the time on the boat anchored in Marigot Bay, St.Martin. That gave us the time to relax, doing some stuff on the boat, strolling around town and chat with our friends after a long time. But tomorrow we'll finally set sail again and head towards St.Barths. There are still some high seas predicted and winds up to 20 kts but as we now have two experienced sailors more on board we hope for a nice sail!

From paradise with love
Rahel

Theft No. 2

I said it before on Facebook - theft in St. Martin is a real problem. Since we learned that we chain everything - I spent actually a little fortune for locks and chain to secure our stuff. 

But it really starts to suck now on a complete new level: When our guests arrived we put all the luggage and four passengers into the new dink and started towards the boat. After just five minutes the outboard died. THE NEW OUTBOARD DIED?! I mean that's bad news, in the middle of the anchorage, dink is fully loaded to it limits and no engine? I could not imagine the engine breaking after just a few hours so I was pretty sure there is something wrong with the fuel supply. Maybe a loose plug or so. When I tried to check the fuel line I could not find it!! There was simply no fuel line anymore. Actually just a few cm before the engine. So I assumed another dirtbag tried to steal our dink - locked. So he went for the engine - locked. Fuel tank? locked as well. The only thing he could grab, or better cut out,  was the fuel line. This guy must've been a real big asshole. I mean he steals something which would cost him 20 bucks, but me at least another 100 as I need new valves as well. And worse - he jeopardized our safety. 

I really start to hate this place - time to move on! I docked my dink now four times there and had every second time a theft. That's a fifty percent chance to be robbed in a place where the government charges fees for securing that particular dinghy dock. Very efficient and perfectly under control:  Vive la France part deux! 

PS: Yes, we made it home. We docked at a fellow cruiser's  boat who borrowed us a PET bottle so we could feed the outboard through the rest of the pipe with some gas. Thanks very much MacGyver, ah Andi for this brilliant idea!