Week 42: St Martin to Anguilla (13nm)

Our friends David & Katrina left us in Marigot, and we settled back into the anchorage for a few more days. It was finally time to part ways with Seahawk for the year, but we had a fantastic last hurrah evening on their boat, where they shared their tales of the exploding holding tank and unexpected engine electrical faults. We were then off to Anguilla to check out the famous white sand and pristine waters.

Captain’s Log

17^th Feb: In the morning, we hopped the short distance from Grand Case back to Marigot to drop off David and Katrina for their taxi to the airport. It was sad to see our friends go! All four avocados we got at the start of their visit still sat uneaten, having not ripened even an iota in the four days since purchase.

18^th Feb: We pottered around the boat for most of the day, with a heavy focus on naps. By the afternoon, we found our energy again; I got out the sewing machine to patch the bimini while Alec scoped an upgrade to the switches controlling our solar power input. Sadly, one of the zipper heads from the bimini was lost to the fishies – should we start a “# of items donated to Neptune” count or would that be too painful?

19^th Feb: For most of the day all I could see of Alec was his backside sticking out of the electrical cupboard and every now and then hear some muffled four letter expletives. It was a roller coaster of emotions, as forays into the electrical cupboard often are. But, the challenge was put into harsh perspective that evening; we dinghied down to the Dutch side of the island to visit our friends on Seahawk, who’d not only had a poo-splosion (see below) but also blown out the relay on their engine while trying to service it (the same one Alec had fried on ours in Lanzarote!). They shared a special Greek spirit called ‘mastiha’ with us while recounting their tales and soon everyone was feeling more positive.

20^th Feb: Having stayed over on Seahawk for the night, we had a mega pastry breakfast with M and Sam before we parted ways for the last time this year. They were headed back south to make their way towards the Panama canal – we will miss them!! On our way back to Serenity we dinghied past an eerie Elan 434 (sister to Serenity) that had clearly been in St Martin for the hurricane – it had taken a real bruising, but at least was still afloat? The rest of the day was preparations for leaving (we’d had enough of this roll-y anchorage) while Alec wrapped up the electrical upgrades – cupboard now looking very swanky (or at least not janky!).

21^st Feb: Today I took over as skipper for our passage up to Anguilla; it was only 13 miles so a pretty low key leg to do! Before we left Marigot, we fuelled up on the cheapest diesel we’ve seen since Gibraltar, but had to buy it from the world’s crankiest Frenchman (that’s saying something). Despite 25 knots of breeze, we had a lovely sail over and found a great spot off Anguilla’s only freely permitted anchorage in Road Bay, surrounded by SO many turtles! Capped off a fab day with a cheeky pint at Elvis’ famous bar and Alec’s even more famous cowboy chilli :).

22^nd Feb: After a couple of busy ones, today was a chill day. I blogged and balanced the books while Alec whipped up some delicious meals between naps and reading sessions. Cooled off with a quick dip to check out the wildlife below the boat, where I also happened to spot a HUGE old fishermen’s anchor that must be left over from the days of yore. Avocado update: progress on one, but three still rock solid.

Story of the Week: Poo-tastrophe

I’m delighted to say this story is not about us. I honestly don’t know what I would have done if this had happened to us, but, I might have considered abandoning ship as the best option.

To set the scene: we’d hoped to find an opportunity to get Seahawk and Serenity in the same anchorage again, but it looked like it just wasn’t going to pan out. They were anchored in St. Martin’s famous lagoon down in the Dutch part of the island while we were off the French capital in the north. It would have been inconvenient for either boat to move given our respective next destinations, plus visitors and boat projects were keeping everyone busy. However, Alec and I needed to visit the Dutch side of St. Martin to pick up some boat parts anyway, so we took the opportunity to organise (aka invite ourselves over) to visit Seahawk while we were down there for a farewell get together. Luckily they were keen on that too!

A day or two before our appointed visit, I received a cryptic message from M. The poo emoji featured prominently and there was mention of a waste-related disaster, but, I sort of assumed she was joking or hyperbolising. We were nonetheless intrigued…

Tuesday eventually came round, and, after a long and stressful day of our own between the electrical cupboard and other admin, we packed up the dinghy and made our way south to see our friends. M and Sam are wonderfully upbeat people so we were a bit concerned on arrival to find them rather dispirited and dejected.

A G&T helped pep up the group and we had to dive right in – what was that poo text all about? Brace yourselves!

A bit of background: Most boats have what is called a holding tank or black water tank, where toilet waste can be collected for disposal at an appropriate location (depending on where you are in the world, this might be offshore or at a pump out station). There is a gentlemen’s agreement between sailors that we all use these to ensure anchorages and bays stay clean – no one wants to swim in poo bay! They are fairly simple – toilet pipes empty into the tank, which has an air vent and an outlet for discharge. It probably goes without saying that problems with the holding tank are high on the list of “most dreaded” for boat owners.

While Serenity has a special pump to empty the holding tank (see #10 above), Seahawk’s relied on gravity. A valve at the bottom of the boat (#9) could be opened and then in theory the tank would empty itself. Alarm bells started to ring for M & Sam when, having recently emptied the tank, the pumps on the toilet started to become really hard to use.

A bit of time googling around cruiser forums introduced Sam & M to the “Headmistress” (toilets on yachts are called heads), a fellow sailor with an impressive depth of knowledge on all things yacht plumbing. She suggested that perhaps the vent to their holding tank was blocked, which is apparently a common problem. If air can’t get out, that would block up the tank. The solution was simple – remove the vent hose from the tank, flush it out with clean water, and clean the fitting where it connects to the hull.

As they had recently emptied the tank, Sam reasoned it would be no problem to remove the vent hose – it connects at the top of the tank so, even if there was some residual stuff in the tank, leakage wouldn’t be an issue. Imagine his surprise and dismay when he pulled the vent hose off the tank and was immediately showered in sewage! Not just on him, but all around him. So, quantities of effluent drained down into the bilge under the floorboards of their boat!! I can scarcely imagine the horror!!!

Further investigation revealed that the outlet for emptying the tank was blocked. Which means that every time lately they’d thought they were emptying the tank, they weren’t… which means that anything they were adding to the tank would have had nowhere to go but up the vent pipe and out the side of the boat that way. The vent is not designed to deal with waste, so it wouldn’t have taken long for that to become blocked up as well – meaning continued use was pressurising the tank! This explains the poo shower but the damage was done at this point!!

Sam & M recounted that it took them several days to figure all this out and make the repairs. They were in shock, understandably, and for a time didn’t think to try to block up the hole in the holding tank while they were working on the repair. So there was a good day or so where they had an open holding tank – meaning any time an errant bit of wake from a passing boat rocked Seahawk, a bit more stuff would come out of the tank… absolutely awful!!!

To add insult to injury, after this whole saga, they’d gone to service their engine and accidentally fried a relay (much like Alec had done in Lanzarote with ours!). They have an old Thornycroft engine, for which parts are hard to obtain, so were going to be reduced to “hot wiring” their engine to start it for a week or so until M’s parents could bring spares out from England. What a week for Seahawk!!

Parting thoughts

Anguilla is an unusual country because it takes a totally different approach to visiting yachts than really anywhere else we’ve been. There is only one bay in which you’re allowed to anchor freely, without obtaining prior permission, which is Road Bay on the northwestern coast. This is the main entry point for customs and immigration, so at least this one spot is not restricted! But in order to visit any other bays or any of Anguilla’s outlying islands, you have to buy a cruising permit, which costs 150 $EC / 56 $US per DAY. And their definition of day runs from midnight to midnight, so if you want to anchor overnight in a spot, you have to buy two days’ worth of permit. The idea is that this protects the islands’ many coral reefs. But its an odd strategy, I think, because all but a couple of the bays around Anguilla are anchorages – not mooring fields. Most places that are looking to protect the seabed will install pay-per-night mooring balls and prohibit anchoring. I find this to be a happy medium – it protects the sea bottom from harm due to anchors and chains but keeps access open to visitors. Normally, a mooring ball in a national park will run somewhere in the neighbourhood of $10-30 for a night. It’s not free, but its reasonable, and we are happy to pay that sort of fee as it’s nice to be able to access special spots without worrying about hurting the ecosystem. But to have to effectively invest over $100 to see a place, but still need to anchor, which could easily harm the seabed… it doesn’t really make sense to me! Anyway, that is how Anguilla does it, so in the end we realised it would be much more affordable to see the island by land. We decided to rent a car to see the highlights, which Alec will go into in next week’s post!

P.s. at the start of March we were still waiting for the last of those avocados to ripen!