Gear that I love

Solar panels

We really love our solar panels as they do most of our charging when we are at anchor. So much so that often it would be about a week before we have a cloudy day and need to charge a little. At anchor we run a fridge, freezer, electric toilet, anchor light, cabin lights (all LED), microwave, GPS chartplotter to check for anchor drift, a little TV, some notebook charging and a few other small items.

The second great thing about solar panels is that the lower constant charge rate helps to charge the batteries back to 100% charge. This would take hours of motor running as the motor charge rates taper off over about 80%. When we are doing a crossing we would charge the batteries with the motors in the morning and then let the panels do the rest.

We got four 190 watt Sanyo solar panels with the Outback DX60 regulator. This regulator gives a history for the past 30 days. We get between 200 and 300 amphours on most days.

  

Genoa cars

We have a roller furler and need to adjust the car position when we furl it in or out and when we go off wind. The ball bearing genoa cars allow us to easily set the sail correctly from the aft cockpit. If I did not have the cars I doubt that I would change the car positions as often, thus loosing out on correctly set sails.

 

Aft lead reef lines and halyards

All our halyards and reef lines lead back to the cockpit. This is great as it means that we do not have a winch on the mast and do not need to spend much time in that exposed position. The only reason we go forward is to clip in the reef points at the mast.

One electric winch

We have one electric winch at the steering position. This makes our sailing life so much easier. We have all our key lines leading to this one winch so 80% of the work can be done by it. We are a family cruiser so going up the mast with the electric winch is possible for us.

This winch has the main halyard, both genoa sheets, roller furler line, spinnaker halyard, main sheet, 1^st reef and one genoa car.

Battcar and roller blocks

Our mainsail goes up so easily with the battcar and roller bocks. We normally bounce it up about 80% of the way. We had roller blocks fitted in the top of the mast and have one above the mainsail headboard.

AIS system

This early warning of large ship position reduces the stress when doing a crossing and sailing in busy waters. Off Brazil we had 5 large ships in the area that we could easily avoid as we knew where they were and what direction they were heading (see below). With this system one can get out of the way of large ships even before they are visible on the horizon.

One still needs to keep a good watch as smaller boats and most fishing boats do not have this system.

Coup de coeur a Bequia

Petite promenade a Bequia aujourd’hui.

Visites aux artisans qui fabriquent des petits bateaux en bois, repliques des voiliers locaux, de super yachts ou de bateaux de peche.

 

We went to visit the local model boat craftsmen. Making wooden model boats is a tradition in Bequia.

We especially appreciated our visit to the Sargeant Brothers Model Boat Shop.

1st visit (9:00am): we had a great chat with Augustine Pollard, one of the craftsmen. He explained how the boats were shaped, built, varnished ...but not always sold.

2^nd visit (10:00am): new chat with Augustine. We can’t understand why these boats don’t sale. Ok, the price is may be high, but not so high considering the amount of work and the material. So, we decided to speak about him whenever we could to try to help his business. We took his details – just in case...

3^rd visit (3:30pm): these boats are so beautiful, colorful and inspiring that the boys decided to try to make one each of them. We went back to Augustine and Felix asked if he had some old wood they could try with. He had a square piece of wood and started showing us how to do. In few minutes the shape of a hull appeared and he gave it to the boys.

 

 He sent us to one of his friend who works in a wood factory to ask for more wood. So we went to meet Cliff, who gave us plenty of wood to do new hulls, keels and masts as well as a pencil and nails. He thought that he had to encourage these boys so keen to be part of a local tradition.

Tomorrow the building process start!!

Fete des meres

Apparement c'est la fete des meres! Petits cadeaux, beau dessin de Felix, gros bisous de Clea et petit mot de Victor.

Bonne fete a toutes les mamans!!

Victor and the sailfish

Hello the World from Merlin,

2 days ago we caught a sailfish. It was SOOOOOOO powerful and SOOOOOO big that it escaped. It took our greatest fishing squid and broke our line.

Latter, we caught a red tuna, that I loved.  

St Lucia: lush and luvely

We left St Lucia yesterday morning : one of our earliest start (6am).

We stayed there nearly 10 days, most of them were spent in the Marine Protected area around the 2 Pitons.

The first two nights were spent in Rodney Bay. The bay is vast and the beaches nice. There was free Internet which is always appreciated! We met up with another Dean catamaran, Lou. It is a French family who left France 18 months ago.

However, the holiday resorts along the beach had noisy toys to offer to their customers: jet skis, speed boats, ... It was too much noise for us and to many waves around Merlin.

We headed South and spent the next week around Soufriere, a small village at the foot of Petit Piton.

As it is hard to anchor there and because they are trying to protect the marine environment, we gave our anchors a break and used the mooring buoys.

A local fisherman tried to help us during our first attempt and came to close to the boat, scratching the front of the port hull. After that we were very strict with the locals who came to close to us!

After a good walk in town and around, we went to discover the Botanical Garden. The kids were happy to wander again in such a garden. However, we were disappointed as most of the plants were not indigenous (SA shows the right things to do about that). Still, there were brilliant flowers, tick vegetation and quietness.

They also have some water falls with water bubbling to the surface from underground sulphur springs (yes, there is from time to time a bit of a smell).

Close to the falls, there are some warm curative private baths or small pools. We all jumped in, enjoying these therapeutical waters but most of all we loved being in fresh water! Clea’s confidence increased in that small space and she started swimming on her own

The evening, we had what the kids qualified as their favorite meal: hamburger (home made!) and baked bananas with dark chocolate.

On our way back on board, we stopped at the bat caves: hundreds of bats are in a long crack along the rocks. It was very impressive.

We spent the next days lingering and enjoying our holidays (yes it does make a difference not to do school every day!). We stopped in the different corners where boats can moor. We enjoyed the various spots, which are all different and all very nice.

We had a preference for one between the Two Pitons, which were surrounded by the mountains dropping directly into the clear blue sea. It was quite windy (we had 25knt at one stage) but our buoy was strong and reassuring. Along the beach was a very smart resort where we spend an enjoyable afternoon.

The last day in the area was spent in Anse Mitan. We were by ourselves. Merlin was moored 10m away from the shore and had 37m of water underneath. We jumped straight in the water to discover hundreds and hundreds of fish. It was like swimming in a big aquarium. We continued our fit day by a walk to the Pitons falls. It was a very steep walk which was supposed to take us 10 minutes but took us 45 min with three kids complaining of the slope, of the heat and of thirst (we are really terrible parents).

The reward was there waiting for us: a swim under the falls in another of this curative water. The walk down was much faster. We collected about 20 mangos and 2 soursops and 1 papaya. All of them are not ripe yet but we are hoping to taste our harvest very soon.

We left early the next day as a tropical wave was forecasted. For a change we sailed along the windward side of St Vincent. The wind wasn’t too strong, the sea was bumpy and we started to get tired when we decided to go back to Bequia to wait for the tropical wave to pass and then continue South again to Carriacou.

On the way, we “caught” the biggest fish ever caught since we left! So big ...that it broke our line and disappeared with our lure and hook. It was a billfish (Marlin or sailfish). We only saw it jumping away from the line: it must have been about 1.2-1.4m long! Our consolation prize was a small tuna which marinated in some lime made an excellent dinner!