Adventures on Beannacht

       

Monday 30th March

A radio conversation we overheard during the week:

“Hey do you know the names of the Irish boats in the anchorage?”

“Oh, hi Sherri, we were talking about that yesterday. It’s spelt a funny way, but it’s pronounced brothel. I think it means something in Gaelic.”

“Brothel, that’s it. I know his name is Stuart, but I couldn’t remember the name of the boat. Thanks.”

We laughed our heads off. Channel 68 has become our collective nickname for the 150 strong cruiser population in Georgetown that sail down here at the beginning of winter, drop their anchor, and then stay for 5 or 6 months before heading home for the summer. The cruisers’ radio net every morning is a constant source of entertainment as people jostle for position in the community one witty jibe at a time.

And now to the hooks, or rather pirates. We met Tom and Karmen in J&Ks on our first Saturday in Georgetown and having explained that our roller furling was broken Tom had suggested that we speak with Olivier, the owner of P’Tit Louis a floating humanitarian mission, workshop and all.

P'Tit Louis and Free Spirit at anchor in Georgetown

P’Tit Louis is a tank of a ship, 50 ft of steel, two masts, pirate style rig; and Olivier, Natalie and Matthew the three crew are amazing. They are setting up the boat to do relief and development work throughout the Caribbean using both Olivier’s skills as an engineer, and also their contacts to complete projects ashore as they go. We managed to wangle a day of Olivier’s time repairing our roller furling and we enjoyed some good old fashioned wine and cheese on their boat.

 

In two afternoons Olivier had fabricated a stainless steel plate that bridged the break in the furler, riveted it on and we’re now as good as new. 

We’ve done some provisioning in Georgetown to last us through to the Dominican Republic in April. It’s quite a challenge when you’re using a 10 foot dinghy instead of a car

We’ve  leave for Long Island tomorrow, working our way to the Turks and Ciacos in about three weeks.