LinoCat

We stopepd at Pigeon island due to the underwater park but there was a swell in the bay and no Dinghy dock. So with the little one we had no chance to get ashore safely. The beach was also to steep and rough and when we asked a local dive boat (of a Padi 5 star center) they did not speak a single word english. We found out that the supermarket is 2km away and no taxi here and so we left the anchorage the same day.

Lani woke up at 5.11 YEAAAH this sucks! So we head breakfast around 6.30 and a long day ahead :-) Don´t be fooled by this remote place, the french customs is coming and checking boats. It looked like they gave boat names to Guadeloupe and then boarded some of the yachts around. They dropped teams of 2 to check and the finnish boat next to us was also checked. I did the "Lani trick" and waved them a "Bonjours" together wirh Lani and so they ignored us (maybe). At around 11 we went for a walk and enjoyed the village and Lani and the skipper had a loooong nap from around 13 to 15.30. That was great. At around 16.30 we went to shore again and Lani was running around chasing cats and dogs and stretching the nerves of her parents. We had dinner at "Il Cardinale" and Lani had a really big piece of Pizza Cappriciosa while we had grilled vegetables and Rigatoni Diavolo. At 20.00 Lani went to bed and so it is CINEMA time :-) Lets see which movie is still hidden some...

Les Saintes are really nice. Thanks also to Erika and Norman from "Norm the storm" since they have suggested staying here for a while. The Mairie is responsible for clearing in. You fill out a form and they fax it to Guadeloupe and around 10 minutes later you get your clearance. Quick and friendly and they even spoke english! Funnily we also met some dutch sailors with a girl (4 years) who know the waterman catamaran owners which we met in Teneriffe. The sailing community is really small! Here they have a nice protected anchorage and even a small pedestrian area with beautful shops and nice restaurants. Only around 20m from the dinghy dock a beverage shop with rum and all other drinks. Good for provisioning. The Dinghy docks are good we walked around twice today in this lovely town. They even sell very good selfmade icecream and many cats and dogs roam around. We even saw two roosters and of course Lani wanted to "play" with all those animals.

Well, not on the PC but on the boat windows. After a while the handles get more and more difficult to operate and so after a few years i decided to take them apart. It is just a central screw and then you can take the handle apart. Clean the window and remove old grease, dirt etc. Then take out the o-ring of the handle and clean it as well. Then lubricate it with silicone grease and put everything back together. Tighten the screw slightly and the handle will work like a charm.

The anchorage in Portsmouth was really nice and well protected. The wind dies down to 0-1 knot and so the night was almost too hot. Lani woke up at 5!!!! and so we raised anchor at 5.30 and left for the Saintes during Sunrise. So again we have to use the engine today running one at 2500rpm. Since we have more engine hours on the left engine (to heat water for Lani) we are now using the starboard (right) engine. It will consume around 2,5liter of diesel per hour. When sending emails via HF SSB radio i noticed again that the watermaker is disturbing transmission. So if signals are weak i have to turn the watermaker off. Now, since we are alone again, the water consumtion went down to around 75liter per day even if we shower. When running the Spectra Ventura 200T watermaker it currently produces around 27liter of water per hour and running it for 3 hours is enough then. Yesterday the sun was very strong and the solar panels delivered 230Ah of power. A few days ago when the sky was really ...

The weather was nice after a rolly anchorage in St Pierre. We left around 7.30 to Dominica. The Wind came most of the time from behind but was quite weak and so we had one engine running at 2500rpm and making water until our tank was full. We passed Roseau where we had been in January and went to the north end of Dominica to Portsmouth. Due to the sourtherly winds there was also a southerly swell and so we anchored in the most secure place at the Portsmouth hotel. There is also free Wifi here and the water is clear. Albert, one of the boat boys is highly recommend by others and we heard also good about him from Ralf and Inge but we do not need anything. Lani will soon operate the anchor on her own i guess. She is now more and more trying out things. here she is trying out how far she can throw her doll :-)

After clearing out this morning we left Anse Mitan and after an hour some Dolphins were jumping in around 100m but we were only doing 5 knots and so it was to boring for them to play with LinoCat. The wind was south and we reached St Pierre without a problem. The picture is taken from the salon, so when you look outside it looks like somewhere in the med sea. No look with fishing and the anchorage is a bit rolly with some swell coming in from the south. Tomorrow LinoCat will sail to Dominica, but since we have already seen it, we will only pass by without even clearing in.