Aaargh!! Why does it appear to be the most critical time when your laptop decides to do a Titanic? My apologies dear readers, my CPU fan has taken on the personality of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and I can only use it when it hasn’t quite realised I’ve turned it on…and so, whilst I have it fooled….

My pile of daily words is growing. I keep a few like precious stones. Words I would rarely think to use but enjoy having in my back pocket. I have begun to toss the common ones aside and hoard the treasures. This game keeps the mind sharp for me as the writer and hopefully for avid readers. More importantly, it gives me something to do while Pookie checks her phone for the hundredth time to see if our new furler has arrived yet. OK the two words I am using this week are: proficient (not something I think I am) and crepuscular which is actually something to do with resembling twilight… anyway onward with this week’s tale:

Despite our best efforts to lighten the boat. Despite selling Pookie‘s electric bike and the six-month-old air conditioning unit we had used exactly twice in the boatyard. Despite all of this, Sawasdeekat still felt heavy as we left Trinidad. She moved through the water like a reluctant whale and the two-day sail from Port of Spain to Le Marin in Martinique was slow and tedious.

The genoa failed us halfway there. It refused to roll out. Then it almost refused to roll back in. We stared at it with the kind of helpless confusion that has become our signature expression. Fearing we might never tame the beast if we let it loose again, we did what we always do when sailing proves difficult. We started the engines and motored.

Here is a truth about our adventure. We have sailed across the Atlantic ocean and we still feel we barely know what we are doing. There is a certain charm in this. A certain freedom. We are like two children who have stolen a large and expensive toy and are frankly amazed no one has taken it away from us yet.

Martinique greeted us with its usual lush beauty. The island rises from the sea like a green jewel. Volcanic peaks punch through clouds. The air smells of sea salt and sugar cane. Le Marin Marina is in a small town of the same name. A tiny scratch on the map. But its harbour is a forest of masts. Boats from everywhere crowd together like old friends at a reunion.

Fun fact: Martinique is not just an island. It is an overseas region of France. This means the euro is king, baguettes are sacred, and boat parts cost approximately the GDP of a small nation.

With our furler issues in mind we found a repair shop quickly and the man looked at our furling drum. He tilted his head and made a sound like a mechanic inspecting a dying engine. The drum had swivelled its last, he said. We would need a new one. Too old for parts, too tired to turn again.

I braced myself. Anyone who owns a boat knows the magic number. Everything costs a thousand. A thousand pounds. A thousand euros. A thousand dollars. It does not matter what it is. A rope. A light bulb. A small plastic thing that looks like it should cost fifty pence. A thousand.

This time the magic number was five thousand euros.

Five. Thousand. Euros.

Pookie went pale. I went quiet, and we stood there in the Caribbean sun and felt the weight of our choices pressing down on us. We had literally just spent a fortune on her in Trinidad getting essential maintenance done and now this. But what could we do? Pay the money or motor for the next year. Motoring is not sailing. Motoring is a necessary evil. A concession. A confession that the wind has beaten you or it doesn't care to blow enough. Here’s another fun fact: The genoa sail takes its name from Genoa, Italy, where it was first used. Sailors there discovered that a larger foresail could catch more wind. They have been chasing that wind ever since, much like we chase our own tails.

And so we paid. We booked a slot in their schedule. Our sailing season would wait. And honestly, we did not mind as much as we should have. Because in the marina sat our very good friends Pam and Theo on their beautiful boat Paloma.

We had met them here before. Blog 054. My birthday. A good time. They were back for repairs of their own. With manufacturers parts delayed their frustration was mounting. They had met some Italians on the same model boat. Become good friends. It seemed natural to invite everyone for a bite to eat.

But they beat us to it. A heartfelt invitation arrived. Join us for Christmas Day on their boat.

Christmas Day in the Caribbean. Let me describe it for you. The sun is warm but not oppressive. A breeze carries the smell of salt and something cooking. Palm trees sway. There are no jumpers. No frost on the windows. No desperate scramble for the last Brussels sprout. Instead, there is laughter. There is wine. There are people from everywhere sharing stories and food.

The Italians, Giovanna and David were wonderful. Super friendly. The kind of people who make you feel like you have known them for years within minutes. They cooked. We ate. We drank. We became friends.

Pookie decided we should return the favour. A New Years party on Sawasdeekat. And because Pookie cannot do anything by halves, she announced it would be fancy dress.

Le Marin is a tiny town on a tiny island in the middle of the Caribbean. The local fancy dress shops are exactly as numerous as you might imagine.

None.

This did not stop anyone. Someone found a wig from somewhere. Theo fashioned a costume from things found in lockers. The Italians arrived looking like characters from a Fellini film. Pookie herself wore something involving feathers and glitter. I cannot tell you what Pookie and I wore, some secrets must remain on the boat.

But before we could enjoy the event there arrived a boat from Poland.

A Bali 4.5 from Poland pulled into the marina on New Years Eve. I heard shouting before I saw anything. They were trying to park next to us. Before I could get out of the salon. Before I could do anything at all. A crunch. A scrape. A sound that makes a boat owners heart stop.

They had scuffed our brand new paint job.

I went outside. The damage was visible. A scuff mark on our pristine hull. Probably fixable with T-cut. Probably not the end of the world. But I was furious. Not because of the scratch itself. Because of the carelessness. The lack of concern. They shrugged their shoulders like it was nothing. Like our boat was nothing. They climbed back onto their quite battered Bali and disappeared inside.

I stood there for a long moment. Breathing. Counting to ten. Reminding myself that anger is a useless emotion on the water. We would get it sorted out later I told myself.

Despite this setback the night went very well. Drinks flowed and sailing stories were told. Fun was had in copious amounts and we sang songs that did not require knowing the words. We watched the old year slip away under a crepuscular sky and the new one arrive with a splash of rum and a burst of laughter.

Just after New Year, our new furler arrived. The workers came to install it. But another boat had lashed itself to our side. The workers said there was not enough space to fit our code zero. I did not argue. I did not know enough to argue. I decided to deal with it later. A decision I would come to regret. But that is a story for another blog.

This near two-week stop had pushed our time back again. We were becoming experts at waiting. Professional waiters. If waiting were an Olympic sport, we would be gold medallists.

Theo helped me replace a navigation light and Pam and Theo could not believe we had never used our radar. We have sailed so far, they said. Across an ocean. Through the Mediterranean. Past Morocco and the Canaries and Cape Verde. And you have never used your radar?

We told them we thought it was for fog.

They stared at us in astonishment.

We use ours all the time, Pam said.

We checked our radar. It did not work. A connection / set up issue. Of course it did not work. Why would anything on a boat work without a fight?

We waved goodbye to friends new and old. Sawasdeekat pointed her bows north. Our next stop was Creon Sud.

One of the crew from our Italian friends boat had helped me try to get our new Hookah diving system working. It did not inspire confidence. The Hookah is supposed to let you breathe underwater without tanks. A hose connects you to a compressor on the boat. In theory, it is freedom. In practice, it is anxiety.

We anchored in Creon Sud in four and a half metres of water. Not deep for a diver, but deep enough for a man who does not trust his equipment. I worried about rocks. I worried about the anchor getting stuck. I worried about having to swim down to free it with lungs that wanted air. I did not sleep much and so we decided to leave the next morning.

Needless worry, as it turned out. The anchor held. The rocks stayed where they were. We woke to a calm morning and motored on.

Dominica passed by on our starboard side. With no wind in the lee of the land our engines hummed their familiar song. Then we reached open water. The sails went up. The wind filled them and we made five to eight knots across the gap. Then eight to nine knots. Then we were flying.

We caught a monohull that seemed to be trying very hard to beat us into the tight gap with Terre de Bas on one side and Terre De Haut on the other. They were pushing. Sails trimmed. Crew on the rail. But we had the wind and the waves and something else. Stubbornness, maybe. We slipped through first.

Now here was a moment of magnificence and personal joy.

I had purchased some One Drop mast oil. Despite the advice on the bottle. Despite common sense. Despite everything my mother ever taught me about following instructions. I had used about ten drops on my mast runner and this was its test.

We rounded the corner towards Terre De Haut town and I dropped the sail.

It fell like a stone in Newtons experiments on gravity. Straight down. Fast. Clean. Within moments the main sail was tucked away in its bag and the front genoa was wound up on its new furler. The whole operation took less time than it takes to boil an egg.

We must have looked very proficient, I thought to myself.

Then I remembered the radar that does not work. The Hookah that does not inspire confidence and the anchor I am constatntly worried will get stuck. Proficiency is a costume we wear only occassionally. Underneath, we are still the same two people who had never sailed before buying this boat.

Terre de Haut in Guadeloupe is beautiful. The kind of place that makes you understand why people write poems about islands. We walked its streets. Ate a nice meal. Drank wine that cost about what it should have and drank cocktails on the beach as the sun drifted majestically beyond our view. We even saw our very first St Francis cousin. A fifty-foot St Francis called Tikitiboo. They did not respond to our calls. Too cool for us, perhaps. Or maybe their radio was broken. Boats are always broken in some way. We took a photo and moved on.

Guadeloupe if you didn’t know is shaped like a butterfly. Two wings connected by a thin strip of land. The French call it the butterfly island. I like this. It makes the place feel delicate. Fragile. Like something that could fly away if you are not careful.

Our next two stops were Pointe la Lazard near Pigeon Island and Deshaies. We did not stay long at either. The wind was calling. The north was calling. Antigua was calling. We didn't know it at the time but our friends on the magnificent Black Pearl were also waiting for us in Farnham Bay.

Join me next week for a look around Antigua. We will make our way to St Barts. There will be more mishaps. More laughter. More moments when we look at each other and wonder what on earth we are doing.

But that is the point, is it not? The wondering. The not knowing. The getting it wrong and fixing it and getting it wrong again. I spent my whole life caring for elderly people. Listening to their stories. Their regrets were never about the things they tried and failed at, or their regrets about the things they never tried at all.

So here we are. Trying. Failing. Succeeding just enough to keep going. Sawasdeekat may not be the best sailing vessel in the Caribbean. But she is ours. And we are having the time of our lives.

See you in Antigua.