Our original plan was to leave from Marina Bas-du-Fort today bright and early and sail directly to Pigeon Island. Can’t do that as JP and crew haven’t finished and we suspect it will be crowded tomorrow so we have decided to hang out here until Sunday.
JP comes by early with the modified rig but it still needs a bit of adjustment. Since he shortened the whole block, the bolt holes don’t line up anymore so they will have to fix that. Off he goes again, later Valentine and another guy come over and finish the job.
While they are working away at it, Christy and I are working on other things. I have a call to go on so Christy goes and gets the old dinghy to row it over to our pier. While she is unlocking it, a young fella at the restaurant asks her about it – he has a friend interested! That would be good. We’d really like to unload it here.
JP’s crew finishes up and asks if I want to try it. OMG, I can pull the sail in and out by hand! What a change. We are thrilled, though a little concerned about what the bill is going to be. Whatever, it had to be done and no way I could have done it. Well maybe, but it would have taken weeks.
On one of our last walks through the marina, I spy a fellow with what looks like a Hook ‘n’ Moor boat hook and I stop him and ask him about it. “Bien sur!” he says, got it from one of the chandleries here, they have one left. We go and buy it. Will come in handy tomorrow! We also run into Alphonso, the guy who was interested in the dinghy. Looks like he is going to need some convincing but he says he will meet us at the dinghy dock tomorrow morning around 10:30 am.
Around noon we go to check out – we’re not sure if they’re going to get excited about our late checkout time but they’re not concerned and don’t charge us any extra.
We get then get the boat ready for departure (we leave old dinghy tied up to the outside of the pier for now) and radio the Captainerie for help to get off the dock. Our front line is tied on to their ball and would take some fancy footwork for us to untie it and retrieve it without a dinghy (ours is hung up on the davits). I radio in and they say to call when we are 100% ready to go.
We get all the lines ready and are about to radio back in when one of the guys swings by to free us. He drops the line while Christy retrieves it. The wind is blowing us off the dock so pretty easy for me to flip off the stern lines and drive out while Christy pulls in the line. Easy peasy we’re headed for a mooring or anchorage out in the bay.
It’s blowing like crazy out there and there are some free mooring balls so we decide to just take one for the night. We could anchor for free but this is easier and we trust these moorings. Pull out our handy dandy Hook n Moor and we are able to hook the ball, get settled pretty easily in a minor hurricane. 5 minutes later I watch another boat, same size as ours, with 3 people AND the gendarmerie boat with 4 guys struggle to get on a mooring. We like that hook.
Back at Milu, I empty our spare diesel tank into Milu, and make one trip in to fill it up, then empty it into the tank. Christy and I will go back in to fill the spare again when we do our last few chores.
JP emails me his invoice and we head back in via dinghy. After filling the diesel can again, I drop Christy off by the Captainerie where she will dispose of our last bit of garbage, while I take Old Dinghy (OD) off the dock and move it over by the restaurant. We plan to leave it overnight in a last-ditch attempt to find a buyer. Christy walks around to meet me and I go to pay JP. When I come back, she has met the elusive Alphonso who is interested and we agree to meet here in the morning. We’re offering him a pretty good deal.
We leave OD on the restaurant dinghy dock and head back out. Swing by Ben and Astrid’s and they invite us aboard but my neck and shoulder is on fire, we chat a bit, they show us their best boat scraping tools and we head back to Milu.