Improvise, Adapt, Overcome

The whole deal with sailing, as Clint Eastwood put it in "Heartbreak
Ridge," is " Improvise, Adapt, Overcome." (Also, have no expectations—that
way, they can never be dashed.)
We should have mastered this lesson years ago, but each year
we start out full of hope and good intentions, and with the knowledge
that we have done everything in the off season to prepare the
boat and ourselves. (That's the "Once Upon a Time" part of the
narrative, to be followed with "And Then One Day…")
This year, we left Trinidad much later than we thought we would
because the weather in the upper Caribbean was so horrible.
When we finally left, we still took a beating in rough seas and
had to divert from our planned arrival in Union Island (St Vincent
and the Grenadines), and go instead to St. George, Grenada (which
makes the "Heartbreak Ridge" reference apt). We figured that
would be our only stop before Martinique to get the wind instrument
and VHF radio replaced (both were working fine as we left Trini
in the morning and both crapped out in the early afternoon).

Not the worst call, as we spent a lovely week in the new marina
there while we waited for the Raymarine tech to get to us. Seven
years ago we anchored there for free. In the intervening years
Camper Nicholson has built the nicest marina we have seen in
the Caribbean with the absolute best showers, and figured out
how to price it so that mere mortals in sailing ships can stay
there. They had planned on attracting the mega yacht crowd,
which is still in short supply.
On to Union, the southernmost island in the Grenadines. We planned
to clear in there and spend a few lovely days in the Tobago Cays,
while the weather was good and before the charterers arrived
on Sunday. The weather was forecast to collapse in two days
or so, by which time we would be in Bequia. The weather was
bad getting up to Union and two locals said it was going to get
even worse: they were going to nearby Carriacou to wait it out.
We high-tailed it northward to Bequia, also safe.
The ride to Bequia was a motor sail in rough conditions, and
the alternator, which should have been spewing enough electricity
to drive the new autopilot could not. So we hand-steered. Good
thing Jack had done his rehab on last year's broken arm. We would
have to get the alternator fixed and that would probably solve
the autopilot's problem.
Fixing the alternator turned out to be simple. In the week that
we waited in Bequia, we found the alternator's problem (a wire
had come loose connecting the engine to the smart controller,
so it never could close the circuit to start charging the batteries),
and the wind generator had become unbalanced producing no useable
output. We figured when the weather calmed we were good to go—again.

We always enjoy Bequia, so it was not a hardship to wait it out
in a friendly place. We noticed it has changed a lot, like many
of the islands, there is much more business with chartering and
less of a community contact between the cruisers and the locals.
We sort of busted our budget eating out there, because the food
is good and very expensive to buy in stores to cook for yourself
(Laurie's rationalization).
We had a few email exchanges with the autopilot dealer in Trinidad,
who suspected that we had solved the problem by fixing the alternator,
but he told us that he thought we would be well advised to go
into St. Lucia to the Raymarine specialist in Rodney Bay if we
had further problems rather than waiting until Martinique.
The trip north, which finally involved pleasant sailing as well
as motoring in the flat calm lee of St. Lucia after wild gusts
of 40 knots around the headland of St. Vincent, convinced us
to call in Rodney Bay. The autopilot seemed to have failed completely.

We can't actually get home without it. The unit we bought last
year will be looked at under warranty, but we have the suspicion
that the 22-year-old drive unit is the problem. The Raymarine
tech will tell us when he can get to us. We suspect another
few Boat Units will solve the problem.
So, what to do? We have found St. Lucia's Rodney Bay Marina
quite changed since we were last here in 2003. It is huge now,
and the lagoon has been dredged and million dollar houses have
been built around the lagoon. There is a new grocery, which
appears to be sourced from the States. The Europeans who are
here appear to be using the marina as a luxury resort where they
stay on their boats at night and enjoy the warmth and the pool
in the day. We guess we will just have to adapt and adopt their
strategy. There's no point in leaving until we are convinced
that autopilot will help us get home.
The weather appears to be softening; it is March, after all.

On Tuesday the very nice Raymarine tech came to look at our problem.
Climbing into the bowels of the lazarette, he located the badly
corroded ground wire that was causing all the problems; after
reconnecting the black wire, just for good luck, he repeated
the procedure on the red wire to produce a bulletproof electrical
connection and the repair was complete. He said the drive unit,
the two boat unit part, was one of the best products Autohelm
ever made and although old, was fine. After he left, Jack climbed
into the laz and greased the whole assembly and noted the new
connectors. He would not have been able to find and correct
the problem in the 20 minutes it took Vincent. The fix cost
about $30 American.
Our next stop will be Martinique to resupply on pate, wine and
cheese. Since we have paid for the slip for a week, we will
leave on Sunday.

Fortunately, in all this down time we have had fabulous reading
material. We are not yet Kindle people. Electronics can fail
or get wet, and with it the library. So each year in the Caribbean
we each pick out books that we want to read that the other won't
hate and arrive with literally, a suitcase full of books. This
year has been our best ever on reading material. We are enjoying
new stories from Ian Rankin and Alexander McCall Smith so that
we can get ready for our Scottish trip, where we discover which
author's Scotland is the real one. We both enjoyed PJ O'Rourke's
On the Wealth of Nations, which makes Adam Smith's work approachable
and we really enjoyed Steig Larson's Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.
When we find the sequel somewhere in the jumble of books, we
have that to look forward to as well. The only thing we're really
missing is a book discussion group.