Well, that didn’t go as planned.

We are safe and happy in Guadeloupe. Our trip here did not go as planned, however. 

We departed Nevis at midnight on Wednesday, 1/29, as planned. Conditions were rolly, as predicted, and we had to hold onto things to move about the boat, but it wasn’t uncomfortable. We wouldn’t normally choose these conditions, but since we decided to attend a scheduled rendezvous, it had to be. I guess I’m getting a little saltier with experience.

Being dark at midnight, we started the trip with both generators running. Starboard had been struggling to start up, but Dave did get both going that morning and we set off. Somewhere around 5:00 AM, both generators shut off. Fortunately, Dave was able to restart the port generator right away. As he worked on trying to restart the starboard generator, we let the starboard motor run on battery. When that got down to 35%, Dave turned off that battery bank, turned on the cross ship cable, and let the port generator run both motors. This was not a new situation for us. We spent an entire year with the starboard generator not working and had to use this approach. All was well.

Just around sunrise, we accidentally shut off the port generator (stupid buttons are too close!). Only this time, the generator display/control panel went blank. So Dave hooked up the computer to the generator controller in the port engine room to restart the generator that way. No dice. Okay, now my anxiety level is through the roof. One battery bank is at 35%, the other at 100% and we’re only halfway to Guadeloupe. If we don’t have at least one working generator, we are not going to make it. (Those of you who have been following me from the start of our journey, know this is my worst nightmare. If you don’t know the story, you can read it here. Dave tried for a good 15-20 minutes to restart port to no avail. The only reason this event wasn’t quite as scary for me as 2019, is because we were only 8-9 nm from the anchorage on Montserrat. We turned to head for that anchorage. That put the seas behind us, giving us a good push (6 knots speed instead of 4.5 knots), and the sun was getting higher (happens pretty quickly down here), so we knew we’d make it with battery power to spare. We did. Phew! My stress level dropped significantly.

Dave was pretty sure what the problem was. I told you in my January 15^th post that we had to change out the 12V batteries that start our generators, run our anchor windlass, hoist our dinghy, and a couple other things. The only 12V batteries we could find on St. Kitt’s were car batteries. They just didn’t have enough juice. We needed something more robust. We got lucky at Montserrat. It only took 2 phone calls for Dave to find a place ashore that had 12V truck starting batteries with the cranking capacity to start our generators. Sweet! 

I did our preclearance online (can’t go ashore until you clear in with Customs & Immigration, and in this case, pay a port fee). Dave went to lower dinghy – winch wouldn’t run. Not a peep. Are you kidding me?! It took Dave about 5 minutes to find a blown fuse in the port engine room, where the dinghy winch is also wired. Turns out that same fuse also prevented the helm station generator display/control AND the computer from communicating with the port generator. That’s why we couldn’t restart it. (It had been starting okay, even with the weak 12V batteries). Fortunately, Dave had spares of that fuse onboard. 

By the time we finally got ashore and cleared in, it was time for lunch, so we grabbed that first. Then we set off for the car park where we’d seen some taxis. En route, a gentleman asked us how our day was and where we were heading. When we mentioned a taxi, he said we could borrow his car. We asked how much. He shrugged and said, whatever you want to give me will be fine. Wow! He handed us his keys and we set off for the auto parts store. It was closed for lunch, but it was the end of the lunch hour, so we waited. The owner came by and saw us and let us in, apologizing for our having to wait. We found the batteries, and the nice owner helped us order them via his website (the live location is really a wholesale/online place) and pay for it with Paypal because we didn’t have any local currency with us, and he couldn’t take US money and he wasn’t set up to take credit cards because the local bank is difficult about that. He was very patient, helpful and kind. By the time we were done with that purchase, we popped one door down to the retail side of his business where the salesman was back from lunch where we purchased the post connectors Dave also needed. The salesman told us he noticed we’d borrowed Moose’s car (so that’s his name! Why didn’t we think to ask?!), and told us he is a very kind man. Yes he is.

Back we went to the dinghy dock to unload the batteries and me to stay with them while Dave returned the car to Moose. He thanked Moose profusely and paid him only slightly less than a taxi would have cost us for the trip. Once we were back on Lady it took Dave about 30 minutes to connect the two new batteries up to the two old batteries. Both generators purred to life immediately. Thanks goodness!

I want to note now that we had been considering stopping at Montserrat if it worked out, but it wasn’t a top priority for us. After our emergency stop of less than 24 hours, we’ve decided that we will definitely come back, if not later this season, then at the start of next season. The people are wonderfully friendly and the island is gorgeous! We look forward to being able to spend more time for a proper visit.

Before we’d gone ashore, I’d emailed Chris Parker, the weather routing guy we use sometimes, telling him about our trip interruption and asking for a forecast/route suggestions for Thursday, 1/30. Conditions were going to be similar, but possibly deteriorating late afternoon/early evening. He suggested we leave as early as possible to arrive by mid-afternoon at the latest. Since we’d been up since midnight and stressed/busy most of that time, we were in bed by 7:30pm. We slept well, knowing our generators would work properly and that we hadn’t entirely missed the weather window to get to Guadeloupe before conditions became inclement for at least a week.

We were underway by about 6:15 am on 1/30 and were moored at Deshaies, Guadeloupe by about 3:15 pm. It was a bit saltier than the day before, but that was mostly between the south end of Montserrat and the halfway point to Guadeloupe, otherwise it was about the same as the prior day’s trip. We opted for a mooring ball instead of anchoring, partly as a treat, because they’re easier than anchoring, and partly because we still don’t have depth data, which makes it more challenging to decide how much scope to put out when anchoring. We had a good night’s sleep.

We’ll be here in Guadeloupe for a little over a week, exploring the west coast between here in Deshaies and Basse-Terre to the south. We’ll look for a window between February 8-12 to make the 5-6 hour cruise over to Dominica from the Basse-Terre area. 

So there’s our two-day Nevis to Guadeloupe saga. Maybe next time I’ll actually get to catch you up on our two weeks in Nevis and the start of our time here in Guadeloupe.

Until then, stay safe and take care of each other!