Yesterday I cut a line on the way out of Bequia and almost cut another after mooring in Mustique. On the way out it was the anchor's snubber line. We had a nice hook spliced into one end of the line to clip onto the anchor chain but one of its two forks (to the right in this photo) got bent back and the hook was useless.
So for the past few months I have been tying the other end of the line to the anchor chain with a series of hitches. The knot has never failed, but it sometimes gets quite tight needing the use of the marlin spike to loosen the knot. In Bequia, after about five days on the same anchor, mostly in 20 knot winds, it was so tight that I had to cut the knot and then re-whipped the end.
The sail was a short one, only about ten miles, and we used double reefed main and small jib, sacrificing speed for stability. The first course was near a run, without head sail, from the town out of Admiralty Bay to the westernmost outcropping off the west tip of Bequia Island. We jibed and headed south, through the passage between Pigeon Island and Quatre Island, which was plenty wide. Then it was 150 magnetic to Britannia Bay, the harbor of Mustique. This harbor is wide open to the west guarded only by a sunken reef that would not block waves from the west, but will tear your keel off if you don't watch out for it.
With houses renting for $40K US per week and the hotel at $700 US per night, minimum, we boaters are the budget conscious visitors. But to maintain an aura of exclusivity, the moorings here are 25 US per night (and they charge you the same for anchoring if the moorings are all taken) with a three night minimum.
Once on the mooring, it was time to lower the dinghy but the lines at the top block got snared, one under the other, and it was a no go, and there is a lot of weight on the line. I tried the marlin spike but again a no go. Cutting the line was ill advised because the dinghy weighs a lot and would fall suddenly, about 8 feet, onto the transom of the boat and then into the water. So I hooked a snatch block into the hoop to which the snarled block was attached, ran a line from the dinghy pickup point to the snatch block and then to the primary port winch. By taking the strain on this line we got the strain off the snarled davit block, lowered the dinghy gradually into the water and then reran the dinghy davit line through its blocks, as shown below.
Another problem solved.Yesterday was so different from today. Yesterday, the day just described, was filled with boat tasks (including the sailing from 11:20 AM until 2 PM) from 6:30 am to 5:00 pm with short breaks for breakfast and lunch. Last night we had planned to attend the jump up at Basil's, the famous waterfront bar, restaurant and boutique, of which the next photo shows a couple of its banners, waving in the breeze.
This was to cost $60 per person and was "all you can eat" with live music (which we heard on our boat until 1 am.) We had made reservations but cancelled them when we considered how bad for our health the "all you can eat" mentality is. We enjoyed a delicious home cooked pesto, salami and mozzarella pizza with salad instead.
I worked last night on my affidavit for an admiralty case in which I am the defendant along with ILENE, the boat. This is the claim by the towboat company that pulled us off the rocks in Rhode Island last August. My former insurance company is paying for my attorney and will pay the settlement, so I have no exposure. But it kept me awake last night thinking of the various ways in which the plaintiff had misrepresented the facts to puff up their claim and make me look like an idiot. They even cited an early posting of this blog as an alleged admission and falsely claimed that I had tried to destroy evidence by withdrawing that posting, which we had not done! So last night I drafted my affidavit which I sent to my attorney today.
And today was the just the opposite. I did no boat work at all: I just laid around in the boat, reading and ate the delicious food that Lene prepared for breakfast and for lunch.
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