Spring maintenance

To own is to maintain! Cruising dreams are seldom made of..work! But even on the home grounds, cruising and owning a boat comes with its share of maintenance work.

We had a couple of very cold days during which we decided to tackle the "dodger issue"...we bought clear glass vinyl (gage 30) at Quinte Canvas and replaced all the 3 windows. Before doing so, however, we used the opportunity of having a windowless dodger to repair seams...what a job!

We just had installed a new door in the guest room and we used the old door as a work table: great work surface! The purchase of a walking foot for the sewing machine was a great investment: it made the job so much easier. 10 hours of work...the results are great!!!  We now have a new "16 years old" dodger!!

Martinique  ... or call us crazy?

So, we changed our mind following our entry of March30, 2013, and we DID go to Martinique to look at boats.

As we had said previously ... all Peter's fault!

Booking on short notice flights, rooms at the Montreal airport, renting a car and an appartment in Martinique had us scrambling.  But we made it!

Yes, we had a carefull look at boats, talked to the marina manager, the yard manager, people at the chandlery,  customs and immigration ... and let the decision "do we want a boat in the Caribbean or not" develop over the days during our stay.

In the end, we decided against it.

What surprised us was that we failed to experience strong "nostalgic tugs", which we had anticipated given our 2 wonderful years in the Caribbean on board of La Buena Vida.  No, these tugs were gone! 

It was nice to sit around the water, watching the boats at anchor, and enjoying life from this side of the beach.

Or to sit on the terrasse of our little appartment, looking at the see and the greenery around us.

Our "home" was enchanting and may have contributed to our decison to let the dream of having another boat in the Caribbean drift away.

The remaing few days were used to do road trips, to do hikes and have regular visits to the beaches of Cap Chevalier and Salines.

One particular hike we were looking forward to was walking the Canal de Esclave (also called Canal de Beauregard) close to St. Pierre.   Imagine walking along a very narrow brick wall hugging the mountainside, with very steep dropoffs to one side (some few hundred feet at places).  If you are afraid of heights, this is not a place to visit!.  And if you want to look at the scenery, you better stop ... so you can enjoy the surrounds!  Unless you are suicidal!

 

Too cool off again, we returned to the beaches, or were sitting in the shade at a small restaurant, enjoying the view (and the food and a cool beer!).

In the end, we had to bid a farewell to the island.  Fortunately, back home we were greeted with warm weather - the cold and grey April had ended during our abscence, and we were welcome with summer weather back home.  Ready to work on La Buena Vida!