And I was rewarded with an easy, trade wind sailing kind of day.   It was easily 5 knots of speed all day with very little effort trimming the sails.   I was worried about gusts between Martinique and St Lucia and a crappy auto helm that I didn’t trust if I was surprised by the weather and had to reef.    So I started out with one reef in.   And I never wanted for more mainsail up so in the end it was the right choice.  

She galloped along, we had no rain and though I put in a little bit of effort to balance the sails I still stayed by the helm just in case.   Man I would be excited for my new autopilot to be functional.   And then shortly before St Lucia my lack of trust in the autopilot was confirmed as I turned the wheel and the autopilot literally popped apart and the ball bearings fell to the ground.    May she rest in peace.  

Happy that my sail plan includes lots of island hopping now that I really did not have an autopilot and knowing I had already paid for its replacement and just had to install it (still a few costs in the installation process to come but the vast majority out of the way), this did not get me down.   Especially in comparison to the fridge problems from the day before this was in comparison nearly meaningless.   It was a slow breakup of the relationship with my autohelm where overtime it became more and more unreliable and I had time to process its demise.   The fridge was sudden and we were at the best place we had ever been since the additional solar panel I installed less than a month earlier.   I finally had enough amps to run it off the inverter and keep it cool (though I would only run it when I was onboard and good thing as the breakdown meant I went from drawing 25 amps to 150amps.   If I was not onboard when that happened it could have cost me a new fridge PLUS a new house battery bank).   With the breakdown I suddenly had that good feeling ripped out from under me (in the form of a broken fridge, or the ‘hot box of death’ as I fondly call it).   This made the surprise breakdown of the fridge so much worse than the planned phase out of the autohelm for the new autopilot.     Add on the cost that I had not factored into the budget yet as fridge was on the ‘one day’ wish list not the ‘now’ to do list and I am sure you all can imagine the frustration and emotion.  

I was also having issues with my chartplotter (my Android tablet with OpenCPN maps) as it seemed to have no detail for St Lucia.   Luckily I still have my 2018 Garmin charts from before downloaded as my backup so I followed my Garmin Active Captain for depths.  However, since I prefer to navigate with OpenCPN I was using it while sailing and was just going to switch to Active Captain as I got close (I had already reviewed the approach in detail so that I would switch well ahead of where I had to be concerned about the depths).     But when looking at OpenCPN, I actually navigated to the wrong port.   So around 2pm, thinking I was making fabulous time, I switched to Active Captain and started thinking about when I would drop sails and start motoring – though I was skeptical about how industrial the port seemed which did not fit my expectations from the guide book – only to realise I was not there yet!   Rookie mistake! 

Luckily I had not yet dropped the sails and carried on a few miles further to Marigot.   I anchored in 11 feet of clear blue water, a nice change from the murky 20 foot depths in Martinique, and dropped the dinghy and mounted the engine to check into the country.    I popped my quarantine flag on the flag halyard and jumped in the tender, stopping by the neighboring boat – the only other boat in the anchorage – to check it was a safe area.   St Lucia has mixed reviews on theft and boat safety and everyone I knew going through here paid for mooring balls.   But with the recent breakdowns I was left to weigh if it was actually safe or if not paying 20 USD per night for a mooring ball would result in a $5,000 USD dinghy replacement.   The neighbors had been there for one night and assured me they had zero concerns and my initial instincts at the dock I generally agreed with that assessment.   Though I did not feel anything would be stolen while I was on the boat, I also was not sure it was the kind of place where I would want to leave my boat unattended for long stretches of time (i.e. to do a day trip exploring).    It sure puts the damper on being in a new country to know that you probably should not go explore and highlights a con of solo sailing that if I was a sailing couple, though not ideal, technically one of you could go for a walk or explore town while the other stayed with the boat.   An option I did not have!  

I thought let’s see how I feel tomorrow and make a plan from there, as there was no point staying if I couldn’t see the place.  And once checked in I proceeded to the local bar and bought a tropical smoothie – a bloody delicious one at that – because a lovely patron had ‘bought me a drink’ from the link on my website and it felt celebratory to be on the move again at last.   Not to mention though I was unsure of my plans and freedom to explore at this point, I was still elated to arrive in such a stunning anchorage.   A favorite so far with clear water, lush green hills and more.   Cheers all!