Friday, February 16th, 2018
Thom and Jeanne rented a car and stayed in Grand Case at Nevea’s that Thom found on Trip Advisor. It was a Great value, a little small. Had a fantastic breakfast/brunch before setting off for the day. Brooks, Linda, Stevan and Jonathan stayed at the Mercure.
We had dinner that evening at an outdoor cafe near Fort Louis Marina. From left to right: Captain Thom, Jeanne, Brooks, Linda, Jim, Stevan and Charlie.
Jonathan didn’t join us for dinner but I snapped a picture of him the next morning:
8AM – We’re sitting in the cockpit having breakfast, coffee and getting to know each other.
11:00 AM We’re almost ready to leave the marina, We’ve cleared customs, got the dinghy oars from the charter master & made a quick trip to pick up some of the essential provisioning that we failed to purchase the night before.
Unfortunately, we’re going to have a very windy week so we’ve modified our sailing plan to go to Saba first. It’s one of my favorite islands and if we stayed with our original plan, we wouldn’t be able to get to the island later next week.
Screenprint from iNavX showing the waypoints on our route to Saba
Our Catamaran is beautiful Bali 4.5 with 4 double and 2 single cabins. There are 4 heads which all contain their own shower. This is pure luxury!
Here’s a couple interior pictures, I’ll post more pictures of our boat from the dinghy once we arrive in Saba.
4:00 PM (16:00). We’re getting close to Saba, it’s been quite windy – avg of 18 knots and the waves are around 6 ft. We’re heading to the leeward side of the island and hopefully we’ll have a calm night in the anchorage tonight.
We’ve tied up to a mooring ball, 3 of us took a dinghy to Saba to check in at customs although we knew it was late and they were likely closed. Sure enough, they were closed but we had a quick beer at an outdoor bar near the dinghy dock, found the driver we used last year to tour the island, booked him for tomorrow and headed back to the boat.
We tied the dinghy to the boat, started getting ready for dinner when Captain Thom noticed the dinghy was gone. Yep, someone tied the cleat hitch wrong and it floated away. I shined the light on the dinghy, part of the crew heading to the bow to unhook from the mooring ball and we went back to rescue the dinghy. It was actually a pretty good pre-MOB practice run.
Once we had the dinghy secured (now on the davit), and were tied back up to the mooring ball, we enjoyed a great dinner prepared by Jonathan (I just learned he is a formally trained chef – aren’t we lucky)!
Here’s a shot of my dinner:
Well, it’s 9:30 PM and we had a full day so everyone’s crashing for the night. More to come tomorrow!