So we’re back on dry land, and I’ve finally got my thoughts together. It became difficult to keep blogging for a while aboard Beannacht, mostly as life got busy in St Martin, but also because we’d ran out of money and were having tough conversations about what to do next. I’m sure if I’d been on it there would be fertile blog posts in there, but at the time I wasn’t.

St Martin was fun, but our expectations of well paid work for the two of us proved to be unfounded. I think in another year we both would have found great jobs, but this year and the previous have been lean due to the wider economic delights. I did find work in a great little bar called Lagoonies in Cole Bay, and enjoyed about 2 months of bar tending and kitchen duties – fish and chips was my domain. Keli did some massage work in the anchorage also, but after a few weeks it became very clear that whilst we could make our expenses, it wasn’t possible to save money. This prompted us to reflect on what we were accomplishing and what our goals are.

‘Our goals’ is difficult to pin down, not least because we have different ones, but ‘a goal’ that we’re both agreed upon is a Pacific crossing from Panama via the islands to New Zealand. That one was not being served by minimum-wage work in St Martin, some intervention was required. We spent two weeks considering our options in Ireland and Canada, as well as an option in Haiti which didn’t transpire. In this time it became very obvious that Ireland, and Europe in general were in worse financial condition than Canada, and that if earning was the priority then Vancouver was the smartest move.

So on the 11^th May we boarded the first of three planes, Anzuelo at our feet in his carrier, and journeyed back to YVR, surely the most beautiful airport in the world. Vancouver had the winter olympics earlier in the year, and Canadian banks are much more conservative than their UK or USA counterparts, and by all accounts the job market in Vancouver is quite buoyant.

Dennis and Pat met us at the airport, very pleased to see us, and not so much Anzuelo! This is mostly because Kel has exhibited a tendency to bring cats home that never leave, although she usually does. We settled into Kel’s old room (another problem with Belfast is that Tom and Hazel got rid of my room about a month after I left home in 1997), and got down to fitness group and coffee the next day, established routines that we very much enjoy.

Since I last put pen to paper Beannacht has taken us from Little Harbour to St Martin/St Maarten, back to Tortola, on to guadeloupe, Grenada, and finally to Trinidad. We decided to store the boat on the hard (out of the water) in Trinidad because it is south of the hurricane belt, and less expensive. $320 storage per month is about half of what we would pay in the BVIs or St Martin, and a third of storage costs in Seattle, where we are today.

Last night we celebrated Bob Liston’s birthday with the wider family in Seattle, before heading to Michelle Ford’s wedding today on the Bainbridge Island ferry. It’s a treat to be able to drop down across the border to see Michelle again and be present as Jon and her get hitched. We’ve missed out on a few friend events since we’ve been away, and today Kellie Turtle and Stu also get married in Ireland… if we were omnipotent we would be there also, as well as in Steve Jobs’ office, or someone’s kitchen wall or something.

We skimped on the Windward Islands. Three nights in Guadeloupe, skipped past Dominica, Martinique, St Lucia and St Vincent and the Grenadines before landing in Grenada. Before Guadeloupe we’d also missed Saba, St Kits, Antigua and Barbuda. In Deshaies we received pain au chocolate and fresh pain each morning for a couple of euro. In Grenada we enjoyed amazing cooking in Joan’s restaurant overlooking Clarkes Court in Woburn Bay. Both places gave us a real taste for the Caribbean islands, a flavour that isn’t present in the more touristed Leeward islands.

Prior to making this rapid descent to Trinidad we returned to Tortola to attend a small ceremony in the British Embassy at which Keli was presented with her certificate of naturalisation in the UK. We had completed a rigorous anti-swearing ceremony (not the four letter kind) on the boat that morning to undo any royal allegiances required to attain said certificate, the normal procedure includes loyalty to Madge and all of her descendants – I mean Harry, come on – but no such oath was demanded on this occasion. Keli estimates the whole process cost somewhere in the region of £3000+, and 6 years, so to have the piece of paper is a huge relief. Of course we promptly lost it, and then found.

Now that we’re in Vancouver I have an appointment with an immigration lawyer to explore applying for residency in Canada. I have a feeling the Canadians will be nicer about the whole thing than the Brits, but immigration is a hot topic in both places at the minute. I had a small altercation at the US border a few days after we arrived as we were travelling with Kel’s uncle John down to his boat in Point Roberts, just south of the border. Apparently the standard visa waiver programme requires that you exit the US, Canada and Mexico before you can get another, and that because I haven’t been ‘home’ (wherever that is right now) since my last waiver I was flirting with the law. In the end it was fine and yesterday at the border was easy because I have a current waiver, but both Kel and I feel its becoming increasing difficult to travel when you don’t look ‘conventional’. I guess my answers to where to you live, what is your employment status, and when are you leaving Canada (on a boat, haven’t worked in years, don’t know when I’m leaving) don’t give them warm fuzzy feelings.

But we’re in nonetheless, and in a hour we see Michelle again, before driving back to Vancouver tonight. Job hunting for Keli continues, and through an amazing connection with Ruaidhri and Ursula, a beautiful Irish/Chilean couple from Connemara I’ve started working selling products online. I’ll cover that another time, but essentially I spend my day playing on the computer while Keli goes out to work – what’s not to love!

Enough for now. Good to be back.

We arrived in Dominican Republic knackered having fled the scene of crimes against humanity in Haiti late in the evening. We dropped the anchor in a bay north of Manzanillo before getting down to some much-needed sleep. On Thursday morning we motored down to the dock at Manzanillo to check in and get started on our Spanish. It’s funny having spent two weeks in Haiti speaking French how hard it is to replace ‘merci’ with ‘gracias’.

We’ve read a fair bit on DR and were aware that one of the things we’d have to watch was officials trying to extort little tips here and there from us as we made our way across the north coast, stopping in Luperon for a while and then heading east to Puerto Rico. We’d bought a case of beer in Turks and Caicos with which to ‘tip’ the officials without having to hand over cash. Arriving in Manzanillo was our first test.

We anchored off the dock at 8am and prepared our paperwork to go ashore to meet with immigration. As we were anchoring we were hailed on the VHF and some arm waving from the pier explained that we needed to move the boat to the other side of the pier and tie up beside a Navy boat. The pier was a tall concrete construction designed for tankers so there was no way we could tie to it directly.

Once secured we were boarded by five officials and a translator who talked us through the process. I’m not sure what the average is, but five officials per vessel must be close to it for DR. At the end of a simple process the translator said that the immigration official wanted a tip of $20 for not throwing things around our boat during the search – ha! We explained that we didn’t have very much money but we would happily give them a beer each and hey presto the problem went away. Of course the economists amongst you would realise that bottles of Corona are $2 each and so this little event cost us $10 anyway. But we feel it’s the principle of the thing, just because we own a boat doesn’t mean we’re loaded, and the immigration officials are paid to do their job, it’s not our duty to tip them every time. In making two more stops on the way to Luperon last week we managed to avoid most of these little ‘fees’.  

Once cleared by immigration we moved the boat out to anchor and then went ashore to find some diesel for the boat. The translator had offered to help us out so I asked him to get a price for diesel while we anchored and I’d meet him ashore. When I got ashore I was greeted by the translator and one of his buddies and told fuel was $4 a gallon – too expensive. I declined their offer and then met a Dominican called Moreno and his English wife Susan. Moreno invited us for a beer and I collected Kel from the boat and we enjoyed a nice beer ashore and got the scoop on the locals from Moreno and Susan.

Throughout the day our relationship with these two developed in slightly comical fashion. Susan talked to us about the Domincan ways, they’re highly skilled scammers and can sniff out an easy tourist from a mile off, we should stick with Susan and she’d help us out. Moreno however we discovered was a skilled Dominican scammer who happened to be married to an English wife, to throw us off the scent! I wanted to give the translator $5 for his help because Kel and I felt he had been very helpful and he didn’t get paid by immigration. Moreno agreed to give him cash because I didn’t have any on me and gave him 100 pesos. When I got ashore I gave Moreno $5 for the 100 pesos only to discover later that $5 is actually 175 pesos! At the end of the day we wanted to give Moreno and Susan a gift because they’d been very helpful and were trying to start a business servicing visiting yachts. I gave Moreno $10 to which he responded by asking for more sighting the beer earlier in the day, I reluctantly gave him $5 more despite the fact that he’d invited us for beers and that beers only cost $2.50! At the end of the day Kel and I worked out that we’d bought Moreno a 50 peso phone card, given him $15, a further 50 pesos for gas in his moped on which he collected 10 gallons of diesel for us at the accurate price. This guy had seen us coming! Despite feeling slightly scammed Moreno and Susan did invite us into their home for coffee and dinner, and so at the end of the day I gave them a little feedback on how the day had went. Not sure if it made any difference, but Kel and I at least felt we could leave with a clean conscience having made peace with our $15 and 100 pesos investment in their business venture!

Leaving Manzanillo was also a little drama. I went to the Naval port office, the Comandanzia, to get a Despatchio that would allow us to exit the port and arrive in Luperon. Kel and I were planning to leave at 5am the next morning. The officer explained that the weather was bad and that he would not grant us permission to leave. I was amazed. He claimed that it in DR law he was responsible for our safety and thus could not grant us an exit unless the weather was good. Ridiculous, just another attempt to extract money from us I thought. I returned to the boat dejected and explained to Kel that they wouldn’t give us the paper. The winds pick up very strongly by 9am as the night-lee effect of the island (I’ll provide a definition later) wears off. We were both worried that leaving later than 5am would mean that we couldn’t get into our next anchorage before the winds arrived. 

The next morning we went to the dock at 6.30 which neatly coincided with the arrival of the banana boat from England – the boat that collects bananas, rather than a large inflatable that working class kids in Northern Ireland spent too much time on each summer. Our dispatchio was delivered without any fees and we were shooed off the dock to make space for the freighter – another lesson learned, always time your departure with the arrival of a large freighter that keeps immigration busy!

We’re now in Luperon and haven’t managed to write anything for over a week for the simple reason that we’ve been having too much fun socialising with Tom and Karmen from Ellyda. We first met Tom and Karmen in Georgetown and were really excited about meeting up again, it’s the first time this has happened on the trip and it’s been wonderful to have familiar relationships after two weeks of daily change in Haiti.

Luperon is one of the best hurricane holes in the eastern Caribbean and many of the boats here, including Ellyda, are here to weather the season until November before travelling south to the Windward and Leeward Islands next winter. Tom and Karmen have been doing their best to encourage us to stay for the season also, but so far we’re resisting the temptation, not least because the water is so dirty here we can’t swim off the boat, surely one of the most important aspects of living on the water. Kel also commented today that I’m losing my tan because we’ve spent so little time in the sun during the last month – I’m returning to a life of vitamin D deficiency.

Sailing from Luperon to Puerto Rico requires us to cross the Mona Passage, one of the most challenging passages of water in the northern Caribbean. We’ve been in Luperon for one week already and there’s no sign of a weather window to move east. So we’ve been capitalising on free time with daytrips to both Puerto Plata and Santiago, and some boat maintenance projects.

On the way from Manzanillo we stopped at Puerto Rocia to shelter from the weather and I decided that was the time to change the fuel filters. I should have done this months ago but had been procrastinating. The primary Racor filter was really straightforward and the engine fired up immediately after the change and ran for over 10 minutes before I shut it off. Getting air in the fuel line is a big problem in diesels and an inevitable part of filter changes, to manage a change without having to bleed the engine is a big plus. The secondary filter is mounted on the engine and is more difficult to change; in fact this one defeated me for about 24 hours. I fitted and refitted the filter three times before I could get the fuel lines to bleed successfully, forcing us to stay at anchor for another night. The relief when the engine finally fired up and ran on the third attempt, 18 hours later, was immense. We’ve also emptied and flushed the water bladders and the fuel tank, scrubbed the desks and fitted a new alternator this week so I’m feeling pretty zen.

Last week we instigated cleaning days on the boat for the first time. Tuesday and Friday mornings are cleaning mornings when we give the boat a once over and keep up with the general maintenance tasks. It can be really difficult to give time to cleaning when there’s so much nice stuff to be busy with off the boat like sandy beaches and interesting new cities, so the captain has initiated structure to our lives and so far I like it.

It’s Taco night tonight on Beannacht so I’m off to enjoy great grub prepared by Keli and Karmen. It’s a hard life this.

Thursday 30th April

One of the many ruins of forts protecting the entrance to Fort Liberte

Unfortunately on Wednesday Haiti picked up a blot on her report card, and the scene of the crimes against these fine specimens of humanity was Fort Liberte.

We got up early and left Labadie at first light to make the 18-mile motor-sail east to Fort Liberte to pick up a clearance to exit Haiti that would allow us to enter Dominican Republic on Thursday. The port of Fort Liberte is in an excellent hurricane hole, a deep wide bay with a narrow entrance channel, and the entrance is lined with the ruins of several forts. We arrived at noon just as the wind and waves were starting to pick up, and anchored off the UN’s expansive port complex. A UN skiff met us as we entered the bay to check that we were ok, and one of their officers ashore hailed us on the radio to establish our needs and then offered us the use of their landing ramp for our dinghy. Perhaps we should have read the signals.

The weekly banana boat arriving in Manzanillo to collect another shipment. We made a speedy getaway lest we get run over by the mamma.

Once the anchor was down the first task on the list was to drop the dinghy back in the water as we had stowed it on the bow for the passage. We’ve done this several times, but it’s not yet a slick operation mainly because our winches on the boat are undersized. We clip a spinnaker halyard onto the bow ring of the rib, hoist it in the air to lift the stern up over the lifelines and then gently drop it upside down on the bow. Removing it is the reverse process.

Kel's rope-burned hand after a fight with the halyard hoisting our dinghy

On this occasion I had taken the halyard back to one of our larger cockpit winches to get better leverage, and once of the stern was over the lifelines Kel went back to drop it in the water. At this moment she had a little brain fart and opened the clutch on the line without securing it on the smaller cabintop winch – a fart aided by my new technique of using the cockpit winch which didn’t have enough line wraps to be used for slipping.  Clutches are one-way breaks that allow us to let go of lines as we’re winching them in without the line slipping back. As she let the clutch go the line took off towards the mast burning its way thought Kel’s grip in the process. In a fit of insane bravery Kel closed her grip on the rope again to try and protect me – on the other end of the line holding the dinghy – and got a really bad burn across all four fingers of her left hand. A poor start to our afternoon.

ton first tuna, a Bonite, caught on our trolling line outside Monte Cristi, D.R.

We busted into some first aid boxes to ease Kel’s pain and check that her wounds were not fatal, before fixing a few snacks for lunch. Jokes gradually returned to our conversation after an appropriate time of mourning. It’s actually our first real injury on the boat so far, and we’re grateful it was a minor event, although deserved of much sympathy.

At 2pm I got into the dinghy and headed to shore with our ships papers and passports hoping to engineer a quick clearance and acquire exit documents. En route to the UN slip a few locals called me over to the town pier, a tall concrete monster that wasn’t really for landing a dinghy. I was met by a local ‘translator’ in a cowboy hat and a few officials. Taking one look at my dinghy rolling around in the swell the officials decided they did not need to visit our boat today, but did send me back to get Kel so that we could clear immigration ashore. I duly returned with my wife and we walked to the end of the pier where they assembled to look at the foreigners.

There were 14 people standing around us at this point. Two Haitian police officers, two UN police officers, two UN soldiers from the peace keeping naval base next door, four Haitian immigration officers, three young Haitians which included the Gareth Brooks wannabe, and the guy that held the keys to the compound that housed the pier. There was obvious tension between the UN and the locals who seemed to resent their presence, and some of the UN officials didn’t help themselves by openly talking about the locals in derogatory tones and posturing, but in the moment we couldn’t do anything about that.

The conversation started well, the Chief police officer for the area was very pleasant and began by taking our passports and noting our details. The UN police followed by duplicating everything the Haitian had recorded, although I never fully understood why. The UN soldiers took me aside a few times and warned that Fort Liberte was not particularly safe and that we should be careful sleeping on the boat tonight. Not something that was a big surprise as we’d both felt tinges of concern as we’d stood on the pier for these first few minutes and looked at the shoreline with its many small boats just a few hundred meters from us, but we would take the normal precautions like stowing any valuables out of sight and sleeping with one ear open.

The day’s events then evolved into a multiple good cop bad cop storyline. Chief of police (good) continued to be very helpful and curious as to our arrival in his town. Deputy chief (bad) not so warm. Immigration lady one (good) polite, smiling and pleasant. Immigration lady two (bad) upset that she was born with a full beard and tash and was overheard by Kel to say “don’t tell that to the whites” and was often found with a frown on her face, stubble twitching accordingly. Immigration man one (bad) walked around the circle adding little comments (in Creole/French of course, which I must say I have developed something of an ear for) that questioned our documents or our intentions. Immigration man two (good) who for now was in the background but will play a starring role later. And of course Gareth Brooks (scam artist) and his two young stooges who seemed somewhat out of place, but tagged along for the ride unchallenged.

Stu proudly displaying our sewing handywork - a homemade D.R. courtesy flag

So we’re transported to the immigration office to complete our paperwork. It’s a small simple building with no lighting and one table in a office to which we’re shown in. The immigration ladies get busy with date stamps and exit papers while Gareth Brooks begins to probe about how much we had to pay in Cap Haitien for immigration fees. Kel working in her excellent French is dodging the question adeptly, and Gareth segways into a conversation about his Canadian friend Roger (read child sponsor with good motives and poor information) who sends him money whenever he needs it, and shows us some Venezuelan currency that he would like us to change into US dollars if we could.

Finally the story moves to its conclusion. Kel is handed back our passports with exit documents, but is then asked to pay the immigration fee, an as yet undecided amount that is taking shape through whispers and non-verbals around the room. We have a quick mumble in inperceptable English and decide that we’re not prepared to pay a bribe, we haven’t had to yet on the journey and think that it’s the best policy – one bribe leads to another, and one cruiser paying bribes leads to more cruisers being bribed. Our decision is that we will resist and if necessary stay on the boat without clearing immigration and move on in the morning. International law allows you to take shelter from weather as long as you stay on the boat and don’t go ashore.

Gareth keeps up his line of enquiry on the Cap Haitien fee while Frida Callo, good immigration lady and bad immigration man discuss possible fees. $50 each… $50 total… $20 each… Kel just keeps her head and asks politely to see documentation that outlines a fee structure and evidence that a receipt will be issued for our payment, which of course it wouldn’t. After about 15 minutes of dead ends, during which bad cop arrives to insist that we have to pay the fee and bad immigration choruses that we will be arrested if we don’t have our papers when we leave the office, we hand back our exit papers and walk out.

Arriving in Luperon after five days of early morning commutes across D.R. and Haiti.

We smile to good cop who gives us directions back to the dinghy and say goodbye. We’re then are chased down by bad cop who asks to see our papers, funny how this little racket operates. The 11-member chorus in this musical stand on the porch of the immigration office adding their refrains of ‘arrest them’ and ‘they’re fugitives’. Kel explains to bad cop that we were not prepared to pay a fee that was openly cooked up in the heads of the immigration officials and that would not be documented in any way. Bad cop says we must have our paperwork. Kel says that international law allows us to take shelter on the boat and that we will not be returning to land. Bad cop protests and insists we cough up some dollars.

And in a final moment of very intense and only comedic after the fact drama Kel says to bad cop, who is standing on a kerb towering over us, ‘you’re robbing us’. Bad cop is stiff as a board, both fists clenched, arms tense and by his side, eyes bulging from his scull. “What did you say to me? What did you say to me?” Kel momentarily doubted her French, the verb for robbed is very similar to the verb for raped, but stood her ground. She then continued to state her case as she had before, but bad cop was summonsed by good cop from his truck and left the scene.

A moment later good immigration man stepped up much like Babyface at the conclusion to Busgy Malone to win the hearts of the audience with one final act of ultimate good – although I’m second-guessing my memory now that I’m more acquainted with the myth of redemptive violence theory, I think Babyface wields a baseball bat? He is called to the truck by good cop and then walks over to us to inform us that we’re free to go.

Our security guard protecting our dinghy while we had dinner ashore in Manzanillo, Dominican Republic.

We walk back to the dinghy rehashing the scene together and feeling ultimately happy to have resisted a bribe, and sad for Haiti as this was a sour end to what has been a wonderful two weeks. Gareth Brooks followed us to the dinghy warning that we were illegal and are scheduled for arrest, but after a quick chat with the UN to inform them of the afternoon’s events we jump back onto Beannacht and set sail for D.R. Without exit papers, and motoring into 10 foot seas at the mouth of the entrance to the bay, we made the 2 hour passage to a sheltered anchorage north of Manzanillo and had a nice warm soapy wash in the cockpit before heading to bed. Immigration in Mazanillo would await the next morning, and we’d learn if our gamble had paid off, or whether we were simply exchanging one bribe for another.

I just found an opportunity to get this up today, part one of a multi-part tale. Our introduction to Haiti…

Fishermen returning with their catch to Cap Haitien

Monday 20^th April

We arrived in Cap Haitien at dawn on Saturday 19^th April to an armada of fishing boats tending nets and trolling lines. Some travelling under sail and many by the oars of fishermen who looked both strong and adept. Stowing our sails and preparing the boat for land, we arrived at the commercial docks at 8am to clear customs and work out what dockage was available to us in the marina, or if the marina was still there at all.

Cap Haitien from the sea

It wasn’t. And we had failed to account for the Haitian’s disregard for British summer time, it was 7am. We slept. Fatigued from the overnight passage, uneventful as it was. It’s takes more than 12 hours to get used to sleeping in 3 hour stints, neither of us were alert. Gary (my poor interpretation of his probably French name) took our lines and offered to be our boat boy, protector and provisioner all in one. He informed the harbour master that we had arrived and told us to wait for immigration to come to us.

Kel and I were both conflicted about coming to Haiti. We were lured here by Tom and Caroline’s stories of Jacmel, illuminated and coaxed further into the light by Hardy’s encouragement. By a Haitian taxi driver that fleeced Kel in West Palm as she journeyed from one to two to three camera repair stores attempting to fix her beloved Nikon. Haiti called to us through others, we didn’t really seek her out.

But we also knew of another Haiti. One whom government websites warned against all but essential travel. Whose flag was the red and blue of the French tricolour without the white, the white was overthrown, expelled in the slave revolt of 1804. The debate gained momentum. Should be travel there at all. Could we bring the boat, or was it safer left in the Dominican Republic while we travelled over land.

One of the flotilla of stunning sailboats criss-crossing through the bay

We sent out requests for information over the radio, but the nets were devoid of Haitian pilgrims. In the end we reminded ourselves that the trip was always about Haiti. And Belize, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Columbia, even Venezuela. We didn’t set sail for the Bahamas or Antigua, beautiful as they are. We set sail to encounter the unknown worlds, the back arse of nowhere, the unvisited. And so we left Provo bound for Cap Haitien determined to be faithful to ourselves as travellers, as those prone to risk, embracing experience.

After three hours in Cap Haitien jumping through the hoops of immigration and customs, without any difficulty, we made our way to Labadie, a village five miles west of Cap Haitien was our first introduction to the real Haiti. We went ashore to shed light on the coil of ropes in the corners of our minds working their way into snakes. Landing on the beach outside Norm’s hotel we stumbled into a world of helpful interesting people who have gone out of their way to expose us to the reality of Labadie. Judy, an American who has pioneered a medical training programme in the hospital in Cap Haitien greeted us on shore and offered immediately to walk us through the village. My ignorance and naivety failed to foresee the necessity of her presence with us. Haiti is an extremely poor country, the poorest in the western world, and our arrival to this small village, in our opulent sailboat, required a contextualisation that we could not achieve unaided.

We walked through the village with Judy and listened to her explain the history of the area. We met her friends, and were immersed in hospitality and curiosity as we walked through the narrow alleys. Labadie was a high-achieving Haitian village by virtue of the corrugated tin roofs, the poorest villages use palm branches. We met her friends, wonderful generous people who shared their food with us and helped us exchange money at the local rate, rather than the tourist tax.

Beannacht at anchor in Labadie

Haitian are notorious for their scamming capacities, especially with the tourists. It’s almost not something to be offended by, they’re just extremely poor, and I am extremely rich. Relatively speaking. So as we walked around the village, and as we’ve been on the boat at anchor, it’s been difficult not to feel like we’re just walking dollar bills to the locals. Just heading to the money exchange I got scammed by a Joseph. What was more humorous was the off-licence who tried to charge me 50 goo for a beer bottle that I had failed to return when the beer only cost me 35 goo in the first place.

To be continued… 

 

After two failed attempts Dennis managed to take the boxes in two trips and clear them through customs himself – our hero! Until today it looked like we were going to have to buy all the stuff again which would have been a financial disaster, so we’re both relived to have cleared this substantial hurdle.

Such a contrast to the experience we had in Morehead trying to get our cruising licence. We walked in, explained our situation, provided papers that proved we owned the boat and were in Sailcraft getting essential repairs and they were very happy to work with us. I’d like to say that we’re both done with borders for a long time, but this is actually what we’ll be dealing with on a monthly basis for the entire trip. Not least when we reach the Bahamas in a couple of weeks!

Otherwise we’re plodding along slowly, but it’s starting to come together. Keli has been doing a beautiful job painting the bottom with anti-fouling to keep the little sea creatures off, and we’ve buffed the hull and waxed it to make it shine nicely. Our new prop shaft arrived today and will be fitted tomorrow. I’ve nearly reassembled the engine and will finish changing the fuel filters tomorrow and then move on to installing our new GPS and radar system. Not riviting news for the blog I’m afraid, but we hope to be back in the water on Thursday and aim to set sail towards the end of next week so things should pick up from there.