Week 50: Guadeloupe & Les Saintes (35nm)

After a snorkelling stop at Pigeon island, we headed to Marina Rivière Sens, where the decision to tackle our leaky window unexpectedly turned into a five day saga. BUT, it serendipitously also gave us time to get to know our excellent neighbours on Damacha 🙂

Captain’s Log

14th Apr: Our return to French waters yielded many benefits, the chief of which was fresh pain au chocolate in the morning. Despite the marvellous bakery, we decided to move on from Deshaies for a place less windful, and had a enjoyable if somewhat challenging morning sail down to Pigeon Island – the wind conditions in the leeward side of the island were highly variable in both direction and speed, but we drifted through the lulls and survived the gusts without any further breakages. Pigeon Island is a famous dive site, but was swarmed with other boats by the time we arrived so we decided to follow some advice from other cruisers to conduct a dawn raid by dinghy the next day, and in anticipation we carb-loaded that night on Mahi Pasta Bake.

15th Apr: We felt incredibly fortunate to have Pigeon Island to ourselves at 7am, and to our delight the underwater life was both bountiful and often curious of humans (video highlights below!). With the day off to such a good start we felt we were owed a counter balance on our sail down to our next stop, and the weather duly obliged with conditions changing every 10 minutes (including a 5 to 25 knot build over the course of less than a mile) – thankfully our conservative sail plan meant Serenity came through unscathed. Our destination was a small marina near the southern tip that Laura had noticed had a promotion that made a four night stop very affordable. After negotiating a tough park in the wind, we discovered it was an emblematic french cruiser hangout that would make a perfect short-term base for Serenity.

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16th Apr: It had been a while since we had an extended stay in a marina, and the forecast was for clear skies, so we thought it would be a good opportunity to fix the leak in our saloon window before seeing some more of the island. Little did we know this “simple” job would cascade out of control (see Story of the Week below), and so we were grateful to share some drinks with nearby cruisers that evening to try to take our minds off the day’s failed boat job.

17th Apr: We started the day with the optimism bestowed by a full night’s sleep, but quickly ran into more challenges on the window. On top of this, the weather was no longer playing ball and so we were having to work hard to prevent the interior from becoming very wet. We reached the end of the day having made some progress, but with a significant amount more work remaining – the one positive was that we were both so exhausted that we could sleep through the loud crackling of the tarp in the wind.

18th Apr: Another day, same window, one step forward, two steps back. We are both having flashbacks to Croatia, and staying positive has been really tough. Our neighbours on Damacha convinced us that what we needed at the end of the day was some mojitos at a local dive bar – keeping pace with their thirst was not a challenge we could win, and thankfully one of us remembered we still had a window to fix the next day (well done Lau!).

19th Apr: Finally got the window fitted in the morning with the help of our jovial neighbours, Hugo and Seb, and then spent most of the rest of the day cleaning up Serenity. Plans to go grocery shopping were shelved as we discovered everything had shut for Good Friday, but we were still able to find an ice cream as a reward for all our hard work. With food stores running low, Laura conjured up a low-tech version of nachos that defied the emptiness of the fridge and then we had an early night.

20th Apr: Our new cruising friends in the marina were also headed down to Les Îles des Saintes, albeit they had to wait for one more sailor to join them, so we decided to set off and rendezvous later in the islands. As a final act of generosity, they gave us a lift in their car to a big grocery store so we could replenish our stores, and then we successfully negotiated the narrow marina confines to get Serenity back out on the sea. A brisk wind put some water on the foredeck and thankfully none of it made its way below, so our repair seemed to have held for now – we celebrated by visiting the less popular island of Terre-de-Bas and managed to join a small local cook out that evening for some tasty BBQ.

Story of the Week: To the windowwwwww

One of the wonderful things about Serenity is how much light you get downstairs from the deck saloon windows. The biggest contributor is a huge piece of plexi that sits across the whole roof just behind the mast. But, though we love the light it gives us, this window has been leaking on and off the whole time we’ve had the boat. Lately, the leak had been getting bad enough that buckets and towels were required any time it rained (or when we got waves over the side), and frankly this routine had started to get really old.

When we discovered that Marina Rivière Sens, near the southern tip of the leeward coast of Guadeloupe, was offering four nights for the price of three, it seemed the perfect opportunity to fix the window once and for all. I’d decided that the only option was to take the entire thing out / apart so we could fully and properly clean out the old sealant and ensure the new stuff made it into every last nook and cranny. After taking a closer look, we decided this was probably a half day job (oh, how foolish we were). We decided we’d get this done first, and then we’d have several days to explore the island. Everything was shaping up swimmingly!

Step one was to remove the 42 bolts clamping the window frame to the deck. The first couple came out with no problem, but then very quickly it started to go wrong. For a number, the head of the bolt would simply shear off as soon as you tried to undo it. For others, you might get the bolt part way undone, but then it would shear somewhere down inside the frame… You know, in retrospect, after maybe the third or fourth screw sheared we should have realised how bad things were about to get and stopped. But, still feeling very optimistic, we persevered. All told about 25% of the bolts broke as we tried to remove them.

At this point, we had the bright idea that once we got the frame out of the deck, we could take the middle section off, expose the sheared off bolt remains, and probably use a combo of corrosion penetrant and pliers to coax the pieces out. Then we’d simply need to replace these with new bolts and all would be well. Easy!

It was around this time that our kind neighbours on Damacha started to notice that we were spending quite a lot of time poking around the window and first offered their assistance. We were still feeling quite confident, so optimistically refused. We were nearly done after all. Lol. Obviously by evening it was clear we were far from done, and we dejectedly got out our tarp to cover up the gaping hole in the deck in case of rain overnight. The guys next door could see our woes and invited us to take a break and come over for a drink with a few other cruisers. An evening of belly laughs and new friends took a lot of the sting out of the disappointment of the day!

We were feeling a bit brighter in the AM, and, with a significant amount of prying and pushing, the window and frame finally popped out of its hole. We could now lay it out on the foredeck to remove the middle piece of the frame and work on the sheared bolts. This central piece, which is what holds the plexi in place, is secured by another 42 screws. We got more of these out than the bolts, but of course still many insisted on shearing. The final three proved so badly stuck that we had no choice but to cut the frame apart using a blade on our Dremel. Worried but not deterred, we figured we could simply drill new holes to put new screws in. Since the screws were stainless and the frame aluminium, we figured they would self-tap and it shouldn’t be too difficult to remedy the situation. Now, it was on to removing the exposed sheared pieces of bolt with our pliers + WD40 technique. Initial success with this tactic proved short-lived, as many just sheared again, irretrievably. Leaving that issue for a moment, we tested our self-tapping screw idea to discover that it, too, was not going to work. Our problems were starting to get serious.

All told, we were left with 8 bolts and 5 screws that were sheared beyond hope and would need alternative replacement. With our self-tapping screw idea out, we next tried to see if there would be enough space within the frame to put a nut behind new bolts (rather than try to tap new holes, because 1. we don’t have a tap and 2. tapping is hard). Again, we hit a wall. It seemed we had no choice but to somehow locate a tap to make new holes we could screw bolts directly into.

Now our neighbours really came to our rescue! We were moments away from renting a car to drive all over the island seeking a hardware store that could sell us a tap. Prudently, we asked Hugo if he wouldn’t mind calling the most promising-looking store for us to ask ahead. Just as he was dialling, a friendly cruiser popped his head up from the next boat down to see what all the chat was about. He heard Hugo asking down the phone for a tap (which the store didn’t have, of course) and swiftly announced that actually he had a set we could use. We thanked our lucky stars, as this windfall probably saved us half a day at least. And we really needed some good news at this point!

We tested out the tap and started feeling a bit more positive as the first couple of holes went okay. This is despite the fact that we didn’t have the correct size of drill bit for the pilot holes (of course, taps require non-standard pilot holes…). Our remedy was to use a smaller bit and simply wiggle it around a lot to try to make a wider hole. That did come back to bite us a couple of times, as it made it difficult to get the tap to catch and therefore a few of our new holes didn’t end up with a whole heap of good thread in them, but at this point it was certainly good enough. Over a period of many hours, we managed to tap 10/13 holes and, despite flagging spirits, felt we could finally start to see the finish line on the project.

The following morning, we were back at it. We were moving quickly and were just about to finish the last couple of threads on the last hole when the unthinkable happened – the tap broke. I can’t lie, it was a head-in-hands moment for both of us. However, Alec brilliantly realised that he could use pliers to turn the remaining bit of tap and finish off these last couple of threads. A few tense minutes later, the hole was done and the broken tap was out. We felt awful that we’d broken a borrowed tool (especially one as hard to find as a tap) but could scarcely have been more grateful that it had only happened right at the end!

By some miracle, this meant we now had new holes to replace all the broken bolts and screws and could actually start thinking about reassembly. For reference, we thought we’d be at this point back on day one. And it was now day four.

After so much faff, we really, really wanted to do the job right, so we took our time to carefully remove any tiny remnants of sealant from the window’s components, clean out all the corrosion from the various places it had been eating away the frame and repaint everything to protect it from future issue. By late afternoon, we were even ready to open the tube of sealant and start putting bits back together. We decided on a “more is more” approach because we wanted this leak to STAY repaired. So, it quickly transpired that one tube of sealant would definitely not be enough, and Alec was sent to jog down to the chandlery before it closed. By sunset, the plexi was back in the frame, along with 1.5 tubes of sealant, and we decided to give it the chance to set overnight before attempting to put the frame back into the deck.

We needed a little pick-me-up to push through the final stages of the project and our neighbours, Hugo and Seb, duly invited us to join them for mojitos with some of their friends (most of whom we’d met on their boat a few nights before). Fred (from the boat that lent us the tap) had just passed the exam to become an anaesthetic nurse, so everyone had come to celebrate. One mojito turned into two and soon we were all swept up in the fun of the night, so we headed down the road to a very cool bar next to the lighthouse on the southernmost tip of Guadeloupe. It was a drive away, so either a couple of us would need to DD or we’d be napping under the lighthouse for the night… I’m very pleased that I had the foresight to volunteer as it exempted me from most rounds. Most certainly this girl would have had to be carried home if I’d tried to keep up with the rest of the crew!! It was a stand out evening and we returned to Serenity with spirits very much restored :).

I woke up mostly bright eyed and bushy tailed, though Alec wasn’t quite so lucky… but being in France I could procure a tried and tested cure in the form of pain au chocolat and before long we were both up and running (ish). Luckily, the morning called for a low stress start. Our neighbours had once again come to our aid by giving us a pack of butyl (a putty-like substance that is somewhere between gasket and sealant – perfect for this job). We took our time cutting it into neat strips to place all along the edge of the frame where it would sit against the deck. Then, it was time for the main event!

We quickly determined that reinstalling the window into the deck was not a two person job, and called in Hugo and Seb for reinforcement. Four sets of hands gingerly guided the window into position. It initially refused to set down into the deck, but with a bit of persuasion (aka standing on the frame) it yielded and FINALLY was back in place. After giving it some time to settle, we tightened down the bolts that clamp the frame to the deck, put a bit more sealant on the top (just for good measure) and rejoiced – it’s done! Hugo asked, “don’t you want to get a hose to test it?” to which we promptly replied “hell no!” After the epic marathon of the last five days, I don’t think Alec or I could have coped if we discovered at that moment that our efforts had been in vain.

Epilogue: we were spared testing the integrity of our work for a couple of days, but soon enough it rained and we were forced to find out. The good news is that it is a LOT better than it was before! But… ultimately, it’s still leaking. Sigh. We’re going to try adding a bit more butyl around the frame, but this may be a project we have to revisit during our next refit in Trinidad.

Parting thoughts: Damacha (“the crazy cat lady”)

As soon as we learned that Seb and Hugo, our neighbours on Damacha in Marina Rivière Sens, were nearly as passionate about rugby as Alec, we knew we were going to be friends. But it was their unwavering positivity and kindness that really cemented them in our esteem. They noticed we were doing a big project (and saw it was going badly!) and unfailingly, any time they were around, asked if they could give us a hand. Throughout our ordeal, they continued to not only be truly generous with their time, tools and spare parts but always had a well-timed joke when we were really low.

These guys are just genuinely nice people, which manifested itself in how they seemed to draw people to them, such that Damacha was the meeting place of the marina. They always had a gaggle of cruisers, expats, etc. around! And despite the language barrier that we posed to the rest of the group, they invited us along to every social gathering and made us feel welcome. It really helped us keep perspective and not get bogged down in the negativity of our project (who can be sad when eating saucisson?). Thank you guys for providing a model outlook that both helped us get through a tough time and left us with some great memories!

A bit of background: Hugo and Seb are both from France (nobody’s perfect), but were playing rugby together while expats in Montreal when they came up with the idea of buying a boat and doing a big trip. Soon after, they got their steel ketch Damacha (they say it “dame a chat,” which means “cat lady” in French – the equivalent of our English “crazy cat lady,” which obviously fits their personalities well). This was in anticipation of a one-year sabbatical in which they planned to sail from Canada down to Antarctica, back around Cape Horn and finally up to Tahiti (intense even by our standards!!).

Soon after setting off, the pace required for their planned route caught up to them and they sensibly decided to slow down and enjoy a full season in the Caribbean instead. We can very much empathise with an overly ambitious route – that’s exactly what we did in the Med and we definitely didn’t have nearly as much fun as we should have as a result. Sounds like they learned this lesson a bit more quickly than us, and had amazing stories from sailing through the canals of the US east coast (the ICW) and extended stays in all the islands on the way down. How happy we are this is how their trip worked out, since it meant we got to cross paths! You can learn more about them on their blog and facebook pages :).

“Yes, we had a plan too, but then we had lunch and things changed.”

Seb, reminding us not to let things going awry ruin a perfectly good day