Where am I?
Latitude: 17°00.9’N
Longitude: 061°46.7W
At anchor in our usual spot in Falmouth Harbour, just to the south of Catamaran Marina.
How is the weather?
The settled weather has continued this week with winds generally below 15 knots.
What am I feeling?
Pretty happy with our progress and ability so far to meet the challenges we’ve had with instruments and engine – see below. With everything that goes wrong and we fix ourselves, our confidence grows…
What has happened this week?
Given the settled weather, we decided to head up to Barbuda on 26th December to anchor off Princess Diana Beach. We had a great sail up the east coast of Antigua, one tack all the way north.
Given that Barbuda is very low lying with almost no protection from the prevailing easterlies, it’s only advisable to spend time there when the wind is going to be light. Fortunately, we had light winds for our stay there. The beach is one of the nicest we have visited anythwere – very little development, plus a Nobu and a lobster shack – Shack-a-Kai – right on the beach.
After 4 relaxing days there, we planned to sail back to Falmouth Harbour to be there for New Year’s Eve. However, two blips delayed our departure, slated for 0900. First, no wind, depth or position data was appearing on our instrument displays. Fortunately, this was fixed by switching off everything and switching back on – having done this, everything worked normally. I’m not sure why this happened but will have to keep an eye on this over next few sailing days.
Second blip – our engine would not start! I did not want to try to sail off the anchor because there were quite a few shallow coral patches in the area around us. And there are no yacht service people in Barbuda. So, time to put on my electrician hat…. Engine start battery show correct voltage. The engine itself was recently serviced and should have no issues. So that left a connection issue somewhere between the battery and the engine. So we checked the wiring loom on the engine. The dismantled the engine control panel to check all the connections into the start buttons. Put it all back and, hey presto, the engine fired up normally. Must’ve been a loose connection.
We then set off for Antigua, flying our red and white Japan themed gennaker for the first time since launch day in 2015 when the carbon fibre prodder (small removable bowsprit) shattered under the pressure of the sail (replaced by Selden free of charge as there was a manufacturing fault with it). The sail is a top down furling sail and is ideal in winds below around 15 knots coming from roughly 60° to 150° off the bow. We used this sail all the way to the south of Antigua where we made the turn east into the wind to head in to Falmouth Harbour. We sailed without the mainsail set and achieved speeds up to just over 9 knots in winds below 12 knots.
And, to cap it all, Patrick caught our first fish (bluefin trevally) on our new rods/reels which we had rigged up the day prior to departure. Shimano Tiaga Ultra rods with Shimano Talica 50 II reels loaded with plenty of 100lb hollow core braid and 60kg mono top shot. The trevally was promptly despatched and eaten later as sashimi with soy sauce. Wasabi has been added to our shopping list! We hope to see a lot more action with these rods over the months ahead! Many thanks to Tommy and Amber for your recommendations!
Patrick and Katie went off with some new friends to celebrate NYE ashore while Elizabeth and I relaxed on board with a bottle of Pol Roger.
Fujin Out!
Sounds just about perfect!