End of January Update

Where has the time gone?? Seems like just yesterday we were stepping onto the boat and getting her ready for several maiden voyages. Incredible how fast time flies in a place that is supposed to be “laid back”. Anyway, here is what’s happened (and it’s a LOT) in the last few weeks.

I suppose the biggest thing is the Lagoon fire. The lagoon fire was an event we’d love to not live again anytime soon. About 4:15pm, while cleaning up some work that was finished, there was a commotion across the dock – yelling, screaming, people running around. It turns out that what had happened was a boat being worked on, to fix a leaking fuel tank, had ignited the fuel and was now ablaze. In about 3 minutes it was an uncontrolled blaze and was threatening other boats. Unfortunately for us, the wind direction meant anything burning, or eventually drifting, would come directly at us and we jumped into “save the boat” mode. In about 90 seconds, with the help of several folks on the dock, we had electrical, water, boarding plank, dinghy, and all other possessions aboard, engines started, and dock lines freed so we could leave through the now extremely thick black smoke. From there on, it was find a safe place to moor and watch the impending disaster. You can read more about it on The Herald’s website and these are a couple of photos. Complete insanity, we’re happy to NOT have been a bigger part of the story, and we were rattled for the evening to say the least.

Picture as we were leaving the dock

Photo of the fire brigade hard at work

The name was finally put on the boat last week and it is now proudly displayed on both bows and transoms. Might be bias, but we think it looks amazing.

We also had some repair work done on the boat. The sail drives, or propellers as you might call them, needed some work to replace leaking seals. This unfortunately requires the boat to be completely hauled out of the water. Some friends of ours helped to get a priority booking at Bobby’s Megayard and we were scheduled for the next day. In all the work is pretty simple and only took a few hours before we were splashed back into the water. Let’s hope we don’t need to do that again anytime soon. We also had work done to replace a leaking exhaust pipe on the generator (hey, leaks seem to be a common theme on boats….) which required more than a little effort to remove impacted piece and replace it. C’est La Vie as they say.

Our baby hauled out and getting some repairs

After all the work, we finally got some time to play and headed out the bridge at 8:30 to spend a nice relaxing week away from the dock getting some much needed rest, relaxation, and sailing time. We’re currently in Grand Case, our home away from home away from home, where we’ve enjoyed a couple of nights at anchor getting caught up. Our Kiwi friends on Eudora are here, as are many mega yachts and charter boats. Crowded place about 5:00pm and good people watching. One of the mega yachts, “Trending”, arrived 2 days ago. Yesterday there was a large commotion around the boat and a helicopter flying what I’ll describe as “insanely low” to the water. It looked to be chasing the small power boat around and was odd to say the least. We found out later that one of the Kardasian sisters is on board with her boyfriend, and that this was likely either a self-inflicted photoshoot or potentially paparazzi trying to sneak pictures. The boat also pulled anchor about 4:00pm, left the bay in a hurry, only to proceed back and forth through the channel twice and come anchor again. All while the helicopter was circling. It was another wild day, and we’re so privileged to be rubbing sand with the rich and famous 🙂

Mega yacht being circled by helicopter

Well, bye for now and look forward to some more updates soon. Next week we return to the lagoon and a week today the boat is out for another 3 weeks with guests. Never a dull moment here in the Caribbean.