Category Archives: St Barts

Friends; St. Barts & Antigua — March 23 – 31, 2014

One of the enjoyable aspects of cruising is socializing with fellow cruisers.   Since we moved aboard we have made friendships that equal or surpass any we ever had “on land”, even though our encounters with our cruising friends are often intermittent.   We recently had a happy reunion with long-time friends Ann & Steve (Receta) when we both found ourselves in Colombier Bay, St. Barts.  Actually, it was no accident; we learned via email that they intended to be there and we decided that was an ideal place for us to overnight on our two-day passage from St. Martin to Antigua.  Our get-together over dinner on TT2 was too brief, but we will see them again later in Antigua.

When we got to Antigua, we checked-in at Jolly Harbour, but then moved down to Falmouth Harbour, where we found lots of friends.   Bill & Coleen (Dolce Vita), Dave & Trudy (Persephone), Ellen & Rob (Miclo III), Tom & Leslie (Farhaven), Robin & Cheryl (Just Imagine) and Jack & Jo (Bodacious) were there, the latter of which had a number over for a sundowner, and on another night bunches of us met first at the Mad Mongoose for drinks and then reconvened for dinner at Trappas.   A good-sized troop hiked up to the top of the cliff north of Falmouth, and the next day we took the scenic shore route along the south of the island up to Shirley Heights.   Both walks are just a bit challenging, but well worth the effort.

One of the less-enjoyable aspects of cruising is dealing with malfunctions of vessel components.   When we arrived in Antigua, we discovered that the starboard stabilizer was not centering correctly.   When we moved from Jolly to Falmouth, we did so with just the other stabilizer activated – the one that had days earlier captured a fish trap line and jammed.   Fortunately, that stabilizer was functioning just fine after the removal of the jamming line.

It took a while to diagnose the problem with the starboard fin, but it eventually became clear that the position sensor was not functioning correctly.   Thank goodness I had a spare.   While I had the unit apart, I decided to also replace the bushings for the yoke that moves the fin.   I knew one of the bushings was frozen in its seat, since I had attempted without success on another occasion to remove it, but they both really needed replacing – the fin was starting to squeak when working.  Bill (Dolce Vita) offered to help with the removal, and before it was over we had his wife Coleen involved too, while Barb fetched tools and did the documenting.   We removed the top plate that contained the stuck bushing and took it up to the cockpit, where we had more room and better visibility.   I held the plate on its edge, Bill used a vice grip to grasp the lip of the bushing, and Coleen pounded on the vice grip with a heavy hammer while Bill rotated the bushing.  What a team.   It took a while but eventually we succeeded in removing the recalcitrant component.   Then, a careful cleanup using a Dremel on the cavity for the bushing, removing burrs that were preventing the bushing from slipping easily in and out, and we were done.   It is great to have good cruising friends, and even better when they are so competent and giving and willing to help.

Ruminations on “luck” — March 26, 2014

We humans sometimes invoke the notion of “luck” in a strange way, it seems to me.  I have already written about our rental-car trip last Fall from Oslo to Kristiansand, Norway, during which I fell asleep while driving and slid along the guard rail which separated my lane from the oncoming traffic.  I said we were “lucky” to have not incurred any personal injury.  I could have said I was unlucky to fall asleep, but instead said we were lucky that it was not worse.

Why do we say we are “lucky” when something bad happens, but could have been worse?

The mathematician in me wonders if maybe we employ our concept of luck in a manner analogous to the application of the concept of conditional probability.  I’ll resist the temptation to launch off into an explication of that concept and simply note that in addition to the mathematical concept of probability, in which we gauge the likelihood of event A occurring , there is the concept of conditional probability, in which we gauge the likelihood of B happening given that A has already occurred.  Maybe we are likewise employing the concept of conditional luck, in which we say we were lucky that B subsequently happened (or didn’t happen) given that A had already happened.

But the philosopher in me wonders if something else may be at the heart of our tendency to say we were lucky when something bad happens that could have been worse. Maybe the invocation of luck in that circumstance is really our attempt to hide from the uncomfortable fact that the universe can be indifferent to or even hostile to our best interests.  So instead of focusing on the fact that A happened, we focus on the fact that B happened (or didn’t happen) given that A had happened.

On the evening of Monday, March 23, we departed a little after 5 pm from Virgin Gorda, BVI and cruised through the night toward St. Martin.  I took the first watch and was relieved by Barb at about 2:00 am.   At about 5 am, I was awaked by Barb calling my name and by the sound of an alarm going off from the control console of our stabilizers. The display revealed that the port stabilizer was frozen in an extreme position, a fact soon collaborated by opening a hatch and gazing down. There being no obvious remedy, we shut both stabilizers down and reapplied propulsion power, only to note that our speed was drastically reduced.  Suddenly we lurched ahead and attained normal speeds.

We were “lucky” that the seas were relatively calm, and that such waves as there were came essentially on the nose, so stabilizers were in fact unneeded.  When we arrived at Marigot Bay, St. Martin, we had some breakfast and then I donned a snorkel and mask to have a look-see.   I found a length of line jammed between the stabilizer and the hull, with a juice container/float pulled up tightly to the jam.  I tried pulling on the line and then tried rotating the stabilizer fin, with no success.  I returned to the transom and had Barb fetch a keyhole saw and a small hacksaw, with which I attempted to cut the line.  I very quickly realized that the task was formidable, and so I returned to the cockpit and donned scuba gear.   And then sawed and sawed and sawed.  The problem was that the line was jammed all across the width of the fin.  As I sawed I could see just a few dark strands floating away during each stroke.  Ninety minutes later, one scuba tank depleted, the fin finally came free, with no damage done to the hull or the fin.  Lucky, huh?

Next day we cruised down to Colombier Bay, St. Barths, and the following day cruised to Antigua.   While out in the deep water between St. Barths and Antigua, we caught a tuna.  Now that is what I call genuine luck!