Tin Tin's Sailing Calendar

Wednesday 11 December 2019

The Hurricane Season is over - Time to get ready for sailing home

I'm sitting in St Mawes while the storms rage outside, with wind battering at the windows and the visceral, deep concussion of big waves hitting the sea wall. I'm trying to get my plans in order for the year ahead, and bringing Tin Tin back to Europe.

With Alice due to deliver a child on Christmas Day, we decided to stay in the UK until the New Year.  I expect to fly out with Julien to help me in early February.  Then Anne and Emily will join us in Grenada.  

The month of March is currently free for friends to join us, and Anne and I will be sailing up to the BVIs to enjoy time with Kate and family and Beccy and family in April.

Then I need crew to sail up to Bermuda in May, where I will be joined by Justin and Mark for the 3 week leg to the Azores.

Having explored those islands for a week or so we will head onwards to Portugal and the Mediterranean with the intention of exploring there for a couple of years.

Meanwhile I'm trying to get spares for the watermaker and the speed/log instrument, follow up on the servicing of the winches by Ian Chai-Hong, the repair of the generator by Falco, and decide on whether to do the painting of the hull in Trinidad in January.

Watermaker Aquabase XA223 showing where small leak has started

So much has happened since I arrived home on 21st May, that this week is one of the first moments when I've sat down to think about Tin Tin.

We have enjoyed Summer with friends and family in Hampshire, Cornwall, France and Mallorca.  We did the Round the Island Race, but ran out of wind, and had followed the sailing exploits of Greta Thunberg as she tries to travel carbon free to conferences in the USA and Europe.

Sadly we lost my stepfather, Ioan Thomas, at the age of 92, and my mother, Alice, has slipped gently into the mist of unknowing and, aged 88, has been settled into a care home within a few minutes of my brothers William and Mark, so that she will get all the support she needs. Meanwhile my mother-in-law, Audrey, has lucky genes and celebrated her 98th birthday by horse riding!


Saturday 16 February 2019

Hurricane Irma lingers on in the BVIs

Tin Tin arrived in Roadtown after a 90 mile overnight motor with barely enough wind to raise the flags.   

I had called ahead to book a marina berth at Village Cay, where Laros had been berthed in 2007.  

On arrival we were shocked to see the chaos of wrecked yachts at crazy angles and masts poking out of the water.   However we eventually found our berth and went to check in. The marina office was horrified to find that we had not yet cleared Customs and insisted that we leave our berth immediately and go round to the ferry dock.  

This felt immensely annoying - first time such stupid bureaucracy has got to me for at least two days! However they insisted that both we and they would face US$10,000 fines if we mentioned that we had tied up at their pontoon.  

So with teeth gritted we negotiated our way out of a tight space, and found the ferry dock.  I'd been calling on VHF to get guidance but had heard nothing back.   We tied up at a ferry dock, and bearing in mind that Customs closes at 16:30 I raced to deal with formalities.

My reception was brusque and smelt of jobsworth.  It took me about an hour and a half to get signed in at all the offices, especially since the immigration refused to deal with me until the passengers from two ferries from the USA had been processed through everything.  We motored away from the ferry dock steaming with annoyance, and tied up again at our Village Cay berth.  There's no electricity laid on yet but apparently there is water.  The little restaurant looks OK, and there's a little pool, but it's US$86 per night, which is expensive.  

Anyway we are now tied up, G&T in hand, getting some perspective by firstly catching up on WhatsApp news from Kate & Mark who are volunteering as doctors in Tanzania, and then feeling too far away from home as we learn of medical problems for my parents, fortunately now being handled by my dear brothers and sister. 

Now we have a couple of days to do laundry and stock up on fresh food as we await arrival of two groups of good friends who are coming to join us over the next month. 

Then the plan is to return home mid March for a month before taking an expedition to the Turks& Caicos Islands, folllowed by a visit to Cuba.  
Then it will be time to lay Tin stun up for the hurricane season again, and I'm delighted that Justin has kindly offered to help me with that delivery trip. 
--
Best regards

Paul

J. Paul Stephens

Discovering Saba

We set off from St Eustatius at first light to sail the three hours to its neighbouring island, Saba. Both islands are part of the Dutch Antilles, along with Aruba, Bonaire and Curaçao downnby Venezuela and Sint Maarten 25!miles to the north.

The wind was brisk and the SE swell had built up. As we left the shelter of Statia a cross swell appeared round the northern side making a confused and lumpy sea.

Saba rises sheer from the ocean as a great volcanic plug. Its eastern end looks as though a great slab broke off and fell into the sea. As we got closer, the tiny white dots along the thousand foot high steep triangular cliff top resolved into houses perched on the edge.

The tiny harbour at Fort Bay was being lashed by the breaking swell. Outside the harbour were moored fishing boats crashing up and down in the steep waves. I radioed the Saba Port to ask if they had any mooring for visiting yachts and they directed me to two yellow buoys which were almost in the surf under the cliffs. I declined the offer and we motored a mile and a half round to Ladder Bay where it was very sheltered and we picked up a mooring.

The Ladder is an ancient twisting 800 step ascent up the cliff to a little stone Customs House. This used to be the only way up to the little settlement called The Bottom, high up in a little patch of flatter land. It took twelve men to get the Island's first piano up that near vertical path and into the church.

In order to clear in and see the island we needed to visit Customs in Fort Bay. The pilot book suggests taking the dinghy round, and this we did. We donned waterproofs and life jackets, and I put the VHF radio in my pocket. I also put an extra tank of fuel in case our other one ran out. We made good progress in the lee of the cliffs until we came out of the shelter and started hitting the big waves. When the engine faltered and then died it was quite a concern. However the wind wasn't pushing us ashore andvwebcouldveasily row back into the shelter. We rowed over to a dive buoy and held on there while I swapped petrol tanks. Despite repeated attempts when it almost started, I couldn't get the motor going again. It must have sucked up some debris from the bottom of the tank when churned up in rough water. So we were greatly relieved when the Marine Conservancy boat came past and towed up the half mile into port.
The young skipper, Yelland, had been doing the job for six years, and was accompanied by three attractive young Dutch interns.

Ashore we found a far from welcoming Customs lady, who eventually gave us our clearance.Then with the help of the ferry captain we got a taxi to give us a tour of the island.

Our taxi driver and tour guide, Garvis Hassell, is a lean man of Scottish Irish ancestry, and a seventh generation islander. With a roaring engine he drove his 18 year old minibus up the amazingly steep and twisting island roads, constructed by his ancestor. Josephus Lambert "Lambie" Hassell proved the Dutch engineers wrong by building the first road. Before that the villages were connected by stone step roads along which all goods had to be carried by man or mule.

The islanders houses look very neat and charming uniformly painted in white, with window frames and doors picked out in dark green. The rooves are all a red corrugated sheet, kept very clean as they provide the main way of collecting water.

After crossing the island to see the airport Garvis took
Us high up the mountain and dropped us for a wonderful walk down to the village of Windwardside. The old stone steps provide a 90 minute ascent of the volcanic peak called Scenery Mountain. However we took the 300 step descent meeting goats and a cow grazing in grassland at the top and then diving down through lush rainforest.

In the village we enjoyed a sandwich and then I sketched the view while Anne explored. Then our taxi returned and once back in port Yelland kindly towed us back to Tin Tin. A bottle o Bordeaux changed hands in thanks for our rescue.

Thursday 7 February 2019

Adventures a deux

I haven't contributed to the Tin Tin Round the World blog since we arrived in Trinidad and laid up for the hurricane season last May.  Now after a lovely period of family cruising with our Anne and I are alone, sailing out of Point a Pitre in Guadeloupe heading north to Antigua. Rain squalls keep sweeping down out of a grey sky and the mountains disappear into the cloud Along the coastal strip the land flattens out a little and the rich green of the sugar cane fields and the red roofed houses of the villages look very enticing and picturesque. But today the weather isn't the picture postcard tropical sunshine that we've rathergrown to expect.  

Guadeloupe looks like a butterfly and we will be sailing right round the western wing, Basse Terre.  Oddly Basse Terre (or Low Land) is the mountainous active volcano, while the other wing, Haut Terre, is low and fairly flat.  Its volcano was much more ancient and has eroded away almost competely.  
On enquiry it seems that Bas and Haut refer to Low and High winds, as the mountains create a sheltered western coastline while the flat island is swept by the unceasing Trade Winds. 

I came back to Trinidad in November with Stuart, who was a great help in getting Tin Tin recommissioned for the winter season.  There turned out to be a lot more work than I'd anticipated and we must have engaged with about twenty different professionals to get all the jobs done. The saving grace was that the cafe bar at Peakes  Marina  offered a half price Happy Hour from 4pm till 8pm, including various dishes from the menu. Over ten days of hard work I gave Stuart a guided tour of most of the cocktails!

Finally we set off to sail to Grenada in the darkest hour of the night with lights off and AIS off to avoid Venezuelan pirates. On arrival our engine wouldn't start, but we sailed into Prickly Bay and anchored. 

Luckily we got the engine fixed before Anne and Beccy arrived and we set sail northwards towards St. Vincent and the Grenadines, St Lucia, and Martinique. 
--
Best regards

Paul

J. Paul Stephens