A Tale of Two Chemists: Getting ready to move north

Getting ready to move north

Sunday March 17^th to Tuesday March 19^th, 2024

On Sunday, we decided to go to the Botanical Garden again. Based on all the walking we’ve been doing recently, I expected the hike up to the garden to be easier. Dream on... We arrived at the ticket area at the same time as a raft people from the two large buses that had overtaken us on the walk. As a result we decided to walk through the garden in reverse order, to try and avoid the crowds. For the most part, we didn’t find the garden too busy. After several hours, we went to the cafe for a cold drink and ate our picnic lunch (strictly forbidden). We wandered back through to the area where we had seen a purple-throated carib hummingbird. It seemed that the sight of Mike taking photos of this bird, prompted dozens of people to stop and try to capture a picture with their phone. Eventually, it became too much for Mike and we departed the garden. The only good thing about the long walk back to town was the drop in altitude.

Today, I stayed aboard all day and did some sewing! Mike took a trip to shore to complete the check out process from Guadeloupe before our departure tomorrow. Further to our comments in the previous blog entry, it turns out that the Harbor Master now runs the check-in/check-out in Deshaies, out of his temporary office in a port-a-cabin at the harbor. Apparently they expect to move into more permanent accommodation in about 6 months, but the system seems to be working well again. After completing the formalities, Mike went on a walk along the river. It’s not my cup of tea as it involves walking in the stream and hopping from rock to rock. Once he returned, we started preparations for our passage. The dinghy is tied down on the foredeck. The boarding ladder is up. There will be a few jobs to be done in the morning. Hopefully we’ll be able to get an early start on our trip to Antigua.

Gloria

Well the sail up from Deshaies, Guadeloupe to Jolly Harbor, Antigua went really well. We were up at 6 am and dropped the mooring a little before 7 am. We motored the first 30 minutes out of the harbor and towards the north tip of Guadeloupe, until the winds filled in. We then had a fantastic sail with 13-18 knots of wind, from a little aft of the beam (wind angle ~ 110 degrees). We had full main and Genoa and we were flying (relatively speaking!). We covered the 45 nm to the channel into Jolly harbor in less than 7 hours, at an average speed of 7.2 knots. Our top speed was 10.2 knots. The really great thing was it didn’t feel particularly fast; no dramatic heeling or flying spray, just Cotinga “in the grove”. We only turned the engine on to head up the channel into the anchorage. It doesn’t get better than that! I lie, actually it does, a Mahi-Mahi, Tuna or Wahoo would have been icing on the cake, but that was not to be, despite trailing lines the entire journey. On arrival we had a bit of excitement. We had just re-launched the dinghy when I detected a strong smell of gasoline. Gloria noticed that our outboard motor gas-can, at the back of the boat, was squirting out gasoline like a baby peeing on a changing mat (from personal experience!). The rubber bulb in the feed line had perished and the pressure from the tank in the sun was squirting petrol all over the aft deck. We opened the cap and replaced the rubber bulb (we had a spare !!!) And everything was sorted. I took off to clear immigration customs, which compared to a lunar landing was trivial, but compared to the same process in France is a nightmare!

Going back to the Sunday visit to the botanical gardens. This was a lovely day, but an exercise in photographic frustration! I had the best hummingbird photo opportunity I have ever had … he would perch no more than an arms length away, turn around, fly off and return a few minutes later … and I left my flash gun on the boat! He liked the shady spots, and even with a tripod it was hard with no extra light. I eventually resorted to using my phone as a flash light to try and fill in the light. I did get a couple of decent shots (out of many attempts), but I can’t help wondering what might have been…

Mike

17 04.581 N, 61 53.639 W

The following bird and flower shots have been formatted with a "vignette" (brightening rather than darkening) to give them a similar "stylish" look. The great thing about digital editing is nothing is irreversible ... if you don't like the result, try something different! The fact that I got any decent shots of the hummingbird is a tribute to my camera sensor. I had to push the exposure 2-stops during the work-up.