Fort Louis and New Purchase

The blogging below is co-authored by us both.
These photos were supposed to be placed in the order to tell the story. However, each takes about 20 minutes to upload from the computer to the blog, and they appear in the disorder that they want to rather than the order we try to place them. Just another opportunity to say the serenity prayer!
In the photo at the right bottom is the fort that guards Marigot (its name has to do with Mangroves according to the museum) with Lene in front and the flag of France flying atop, as it does from our boat (so called courtesy flag) along with the US flag, while we are here. But this shot shows little of the hill one has to climb to get to this elevation, which gives the fort such a commanding presence. In fact, in the one battle fought here, the cannons at the fort were not used -- musket fire drove off the invaders with great loss.
The lowest right photo is Roger with his back to the town and to the western side of the island, from the same elevation. Marigot Bay, where we anchored our first night, is off Roger's left shoulder and our marina, inside Simpson Bay Lagoon, is above his head. The ferry dock and immigration office are at his right shoulder. The pointy peak above Roger's head is on a peninsula extending into the lagoon and is named....we kid you not, the Witches Tit. Beyond it is the town of Simpson's Bay, on the Dutch side (south side) of St. Maarten, where the megayachts are docked and the big marine stores and better shopping is located, though Marigot has an Hermes store, etc.
The top photo was taken from the top of the fort and with zoom, showing ILENE in Marina La Port Royale, with other boats moored on either side of us. We are the boat toward the back of the mass of moored boats, center right, whose mast sems to go up through a blue hulled boat further away.
Two photos of Lene with a cannon in the photo grace this posting; the one with me as well shows a portion of a large circular seawall that encloses Marina Port Louis, the expensive one outside the lagoon where our new friends, the Morecrafts, are staying.
And last but not least, top left is a view of our new dinghy. It is an "AB" brand dinghy, made in Colombia, SA, for Caribbean waters. You can see its deep "V" bow made of aluminum. Inside that bow is a small enclosed space for life jackets, pump, bailer, oil, oil measurer, lock, night lights etc. This is very handy and the top opening compartment is cushioned and covered with vinyl for seating comfort and as a step in getting in and out because the bow is so much higher than was the bow on the old dinghy.
Before we sign off to take showers and then dink over to the Dutch side to meet the Donaldsons for dinner, let me tell you about another, exciting purchase made today. Rojay and I went to the biggest Ace Hardware store you've ever seen. We bought up a storm but what I really want to tell you about and will report again on once I have an opportunity to use it, is our brand new and powerful Shop Vac. This will...I pray...be an extremely useful tool in the war against cat hair and litter dust which, in addition to the heat, is my nemesis.
Go to run. More anon.

Nadir

Roger here!
The last week has not been a fun one due to a complex of issues that are now solved. I'm hopeful that we will not have another stretch of bad time as low as this again.
Health: I'm blessed with usually being so darned healthy that when I get sick I really feel it. I whacked my head on a low passing eave (actually I passed the eave; well almost got past it) and got a headache which I feared might be a subdural hematoma. This caused a visit to the local hospital but the CT scanner was in a separate clinic and by the time they reopened two days after the incident, I had taken a Sudafed and felt a lot better. The visit to the ER cost a bit under 30 Euros; amazing! But I also had severe shaking from chills on the first night and this was followed by five days of very strong diarrhea, which are fortunately past us now.
Water: We make our own, six or twelve gallons per day, which is more than enough for us. But we have been inside Simpson's Bay Lagoon for about ten days and we can't make water when we are in a body of dirty water because it strains our filtration and reverse osmosis system too much. Of course we used much less water by taking our showers at the marina (1 Euro per token) but we still we ran out. What to do? Lene took our three one-gallon fresh water jugs to the marina, filled them and upon returning to the boat, emptied them into the ship's water tank. She makes four trips ashore in one day with the result that we had twelve gallons of water in our tank. This is more than enough.
Sewage: I brought a head (toilet) repair kit with me plus two extra "choker" or "joker" valves. This is the valve that opens just enough when material is pumped against it to let the material pass, and then closes to prevent the material from flowing back. I have only had one head that needed to be fixed in the past 20 years so I thought that the idea of both failing at once was quite remote. But lightning did strike twice in the same boat and the repair kit had only one set of the parts needed. I got some help from Reiner, a native German with 20 years in So. Africa who lives on his boat, 30 yards from ours. He was hit by a bigger boat that broke loose in a hurricane and caused his boat a lot of damage. He said he had 40 years experience as a shipwright (one who can do most anything to fix a boat except engines) and asked for $30 per hour and was hired immediately. I would not have known which part (a flapper valve and spring) needed to be replaced, but having seen him do the job on our forward head, I will now be able to do it myself on the aft head when the now missing parts arrive via Fedex from the states mid next week. Most of the three hours he worked were spent on tearing out remaining hosing from the former Lectrasan system -- I took out some pieces and he took out others. All told we removed more than 20 feet of 1 1/4 inch diameter thick heavy black hosing and one three way valve, thereby simplifying greatly the path that sewage will follow in getting from the head to the sea. And as a shipwright I figured he might be able to put to good use the hose, eight hose clamps and the valve, which he took with him, simplifying our garbage disposal system. It is good to have my hands out of sewage again after the last few days.
Bright Notes: Our new AB brand inflatable with an aluminum rigid bottom and a rather deep "V" hull and big fat pontoons is FUN! With its 9.8 HP Toihatsu outboard (vs 4 hp on our old engine) it can go up on plane and makes about 25 to 30 knots! First the front rises up and then the back rises up and then we are going really fast. We have also had a lot of fun with the Donaldsons, who we met in Maine in September 2008. So not all has been bad. Soon I will report, with photos, on our visit to the Fort.

Amazing Update!

Not much to write about today. Roger and Reiner (a friendly "boatwright" who is living on his VERY beat up looking, non sail-able sailboat which is moored near our boat) are working on fixing our heads. I am staying away from the boat until such work is complete. Its not pretty to say the very least!
However, last night when we returned to ILENE after another delicious meal at my favorite restaurant (escargot to die for, and then sea bass sauteed in garlic, butter and lemon. I thought I was eating what they must serve in heaven) we saw a sight that we'd never seen before and, frankly, were very happy never to have seen it. And that was Whitty sitting on top of the bimini. This was always the sole provence of Alpha Girl. Whitty was my safe and secure and non risk taking cat. He didn't go too close to the edge of the boat, and he certainly isn't the jumper she is. But that is all over now. He was up on top as long as I allowed them to be out last night, and he was back up there this AM. In addition to my increased nervousness that he (or she) will fall off, there is no way this canvas is going to last much longer. Whitty is a big cat. The picture above is of AG on top of the bimini just so you know what I'm talking about. I don't yet have a pic of him up there but I'm sure that will be coming soon. Oh well, there is no stopping progress.
Thats all for now. I think we'll be leaving St. Martin soon...as soon as the heads are fixed. You will be kept in the loop, I promise.

Catch Up

Its been a while, friends, but not much good has happened. Don't get me wrong, it hasn't been horrible BUT....life during the past few days has been trying.
After that wonderful meal we spoke about on Saturday night, Roger awoke at 3 AM with nausea, a terrible headache and chills. The boat was so warm and I had to put 2 blankets over him just to get him comfortable. Anyone who knows Rojay understands that complaining is the LAST thing he will do. It was scary! He woke up on Sunday feeling weak and tired, but the chills were gone and the headache had abated. But, he was going to the bathroom about every hour and eliminating solid waste that wasn't so solid. (its hard to figure out how to write about such a subject and not be totally gross)
The 24 hours of Sunday were spent on the boat. Roger slept and went to the bathroom. That was his life and I'm sharing it with him, and with all of you. His headache came and went and he had chills again but they only lasted only a short while. We are very grateful that one of our friends here, Bill Donaldson of "Lucille" is a retired physician and was so helpful and comforting. Bill assured us that the medical care here on the French side is excellent so on Monday we went to the ER of the local hospital. We waited more than 3 hours to be seen and the doctor, whose English was OK but not great, gave Roger some medicine for his stomach and a prescription for a cat scan the next day at another facility. The bill for all of this, btw, was 27 euros. Can you imagine what it would be in the states? Roger has medicare but his coverage does not extend out of the US.
We got back to the boat Monday at about 7 PM. I ate (Roger is looking as thin as he must have looked when he was a kid) some dinner and we were asleep by 9 PM. That, btw, isn't unusual. I think they call it "Sailors Midnight" which means asleep at dusk and up at dawn which is what our usual routine is. It is rare for me to be asleep past 6 AM and I am usually up before then. Whitty and Alpha Girl must be fed! They demand it in many noisy ways.
So, the end of the saga is that Roger did not go for the cat scan. His headache is gone but he does continue to be in the bathroom frequently. The BIG problem now is that neither of our heads are working. So, as I write this update sitting at a cafe still in Port Royale on St. Martin, Roger is back on the boat doing some awfully dirty and smelly work!
Yesterday, Tuesday, was a good day as we went over to the Dutch side and picked up our new and beautiful dinghy and engine. You might grasp by the previous paragraph that I took the dinghy to shore by myself!
We had lunch yesterday with Bill & Sandy from "Lucille" while we waited for the dinghy to be inflated and got some insight into our future destinations. Roger will fill you in on those.
Love to all, Ilene

New Friends and Old

We had a great day yesterday. Our new friends, Lorraine and Bob from "Scaramouche", a custom designed 58' Tayana, came to our boat for apple cinnamon pancakes (which they appropriately appreciated) at about 10. They drove a rental car to the dock and I picked them up by dinghy. (alone! I am getting much better at handling the dinghy and outboard and feel confident without Roger to save me if something goes wrong.)
Our friends from Maine, Sandy and Bill of "Lucille", another 43' Saga didn't receive all of our emails and so got to our boat closer to noon. We had more pancakes than we could handle. So, after hanging out for a couple of hours, Lorraine, Bob, Roger and I went in the rental car and toured some of the island.
It was another beautiful day with the breezes necessary so as not to be feeling the heat, and we stopped at three places. One is Grand Case, which is a beautiful bay more on the northern part of the island and then Anse Marcel, which is a really small bay on which the beautiful and elegant Radisson resort is located. We sat at the beach side restaurant there and enjoyed iced teas. We will sail there when we leave Marigot, about six miles, anchor in their bay, swim ashore with a credit card, and enjoy the restaurant -- without paying $560/day for their smallest room -- this makes Roger very happy.
We were chauffeured by our friends to Budget Marine where, at their advice, we made a significant purchase. We bought a new dinghy with a hard aluminum bottom, larger diameter hypalon tubes at the sides and a 9.8 HP outboard. We currently have a soft bottom dinghy and a 4 HP engine. The new items will make us much more self reliant and comfortable in the strong Caribbean Seas, and twice as fast. Down here the dinghy is your car and we use it A LOT! We will pick up the new dinghy on Monday and we're both very excited about using it. And, we definitely got a better deal down here than we would have back in the states.
Today is another great weather day. We'll be leaving the marina by foot and head into the main section of Marigot. We will climb the hill to see Fort Louis and the view from there. Then we'll head for an art gallery tour. We hope tonight we will get to see our friends, Bill & Sandy who couldn't come with us yesterday on the island tour.
I ate frogs legs last night at a little hole on the alley wall restaurant with Bob and Loraine. I've never enjoyed food as much! I had two left over and brought them back for the furry felines. Don't know if they enjoyed them as much as I did, but they ate most of it, garlic and all. Roger ate the biggest artichoke I've ever seen and then veal kidneys in mustard sauce. Not my favorite dish but he enjoyed thoroughly. I see no reason to go to another restaurant. I want to eat there every night!!!

Rainy Day in Paradise

Good morning. Last night was a...I hope...once in a lifetime experience. We took our dinghy across the very large Simpson Bay Lagoon from the French side, where we are at Port Royale, to the Dutch side. It was about a 25 minute ride. When we returned in the dark at about 7 PM the rains came. And I don't mean the rains...I mean THE RAINS! It was torrential! The wet was bad enough, but driving through the rain creates a very real sensation of being stung by tiny pellets anywhere you are not covered. And, in this heat we had very little skin covered. What a relief to finally reach ILENE. The irony is, of course, as soon as we got back to the boat the rain ceased. Another adventure on the high seas.
This morning we decided to do a bit of cleaning. Everyone gets assigned their chores. Whitty and AG's job is obviously to look cute.
Roger just left to take a walk to visit the local museum in town. I chose to be up in the marina office in air conditioning and work on the computer. Our strenuous plan today is to enjoy an early dinner at a restaurant a few feet away from the marina office which others have raved about called Tropicana. On their website, when it shows the white railing leading up to the right, the marina office where I'm typing this is across the water -- the octagon shaped building, and our boat is just to the right of the right side of the picture.
If our plans tomorrow come off we will be having a "game afternoon" on ILENE with two other cruising couples. One we met yesterday because they dinked to our boat after hearing Roger talk on the VHF radio. Every morning on channel 14 at 07:30 there is a broadcast of cruisers who are in St. Martin (French side) or Sint Maarten (Dutch Side). There is a sharing of information like weather and special events... a buy and sell and swap period where people can offer merchandise they want to be rid of, or one can ask if anyone listening has an extra widget for their boat. They also ask for people new to the island to introduce themselves and we did, and because this couple, Bob & Lorraine Morecraft, are familiar with the Saga sailing craft (which is what ILENE is) and had seen us, they came over to introduce themselves. They are sailing (and living for the past 3+ years) on their 58' Tayana. The other couple is Bill and Sandy Donaldson on LUCILLE, another Saga 43 who we met in Maine in 2008. Both Roger & I really enjoyed meeting them and we hung out with them on several occasions in Maine. They are fun! Bill is the one person who sold me on doing this trip with his infectious enthusiasm. So tomorrow should be a fun day. I am fairly new to this cruising life and it is interesting to realize what a small and friendly community it really is. Dick & Elle on Summer Wind...you are right!

Cats Getting Comfortable in St. Martin

Hi everyone. Today is our 2nd full day here and it's getting kind of "cool". Not comfortable cool, but "cool". I know enough not to complain to my buddies in NY about the weather here as I sit in a waterfront internet cafe and all of the beautiful french men and women walk by, oh so chic...and it is about 80 degrees and we're all in "T" shirts and shorts and sandals.
Yesterday we spent the afternoon in the air conditioned marina office typing yesterday's blog and ventured out about 5:15. The air was so balmy and comfortable and the light so beautiful. The waterfront around where the boat is moored (fore and aft mooring balls, pictured above) is like a little French village filled with bistros and stores, both local and places such as Cartier and Mont Blanc and any other high end store that can be found on Fifth Avenue. Roger says this scene reminds him of the inner harbor of Nice except these are pleasure boats instead of fishing boats.
While I type this, Roger is off running some errands and when he returns we will have some lunch and then head over to the Dutch side in our dink. The dink is our car and will be for the forseeable future. I'm seeing how important it is to have a dink with a hard bottom (our dink's bottom is soft and won't handle the rough water, when it happens, as well as one would with a rigid bottom) and a more powerful engine. Maybe I'll make a placement and buy us a present. We shall see...
I've posted some pictures of Alpha Girl & Whitty and can hopefully fill in some details surrounding the pictures...so, here goes.
One of the uppermost pictures is of my Whitty's tush. He is digging between the pillows for one of his favorite toys which is a sparkly red ball that he chases and which sheds little sparkly red threads all over. I wouldn't change having them aboard but there is definitely a price to be paid in having their hair...their litter dust and their toys as constant companions. The picture of Whitty up near the bowsprit is about as close as he gets to the edge. He is a cautious cat for which I am grateful because I don't think my heart could stand having another wild and crazy cat in addition to Alpha Girl who fears nothing! Why stay on the edge if you can tiptoe out right onto the bowsprit and straddle it?
The other picture at the top may not have been taken on this voyage but rest assured the top of the bimini is one of Alpha Girl's favorite perches. Whitty NEVER dares to go up there! Actually, AG moves way above the bimini. She frequently ventures onto the boom, which is of course even higher. In fact she will...if another boat is close enough, leap across the water to jump on the boat. She's a fun girl to have around but quite the troublemaker. The picture of us moored shows us close to the boats on either side but too far for her to make the leap.
About 4-5 days ago when Roger & I returned to the boat we noticed a pool of water on the table below one of the open hatches as well as on the cabin sole floor. Had it rained? There wasn't water below any of the other open hatches so how could this be? What happened? The answer came in the appearance of Alpha Girl from the aft cabin and while she was mostly dried off it was clear she had been submerged in water...like she'd had a bath, or like she'd fallen into the great blue sea. This will never be fully explained (without an on board video camera) but we can assume that she had her first fall into the water and she had gotten herself back on the boat!
In the last picture, if you look closely at the bottom right corner of the rear swim platform, you can see the braided line that Roger fashioned for the cats to use to climb on board if they fall in while at anchor or on a mooring.
On the overnight trip, the cats presented another aspect of the challenges of sailing with them: We were life jacketed, harnessed and tethered to a line that runs around the cockpit floor, to prevent falling off and with lights and whistles we can use to signal if we somehow did fall off. But not the cats. But they wanted out and not just to stay in the cockpit. Eventually we collared and leashed them and let them roam, but only in the cockpit.
We seem to have the picture problem solved so keep coming back and we will give you more.