The activities around our contingency planning have continued in the event of Paw Paw not being sold by the time the hurricane season rolls around. This has required contact with numerous yacht insurance companies to obtain quotations, as well as to obtain their stipulated exclusion zones, thereby allowing us to then research possible destinations of where we could spend the hurricane season, but still have insurance coverage for a named storm, since our current insurance, as it stands, presents a number of problems for us.
While prices have varied wildly, so too have the exclusion zone criteria, where most aren’t actually offering any coverage in the Caribbean, although charging a small fortune for the privilege. The end result, however, is that we’re down to a handful of options that don’t necessarily enthral us; one is having to sail up the east coast of the US to get north of 35N, which is completely out of the question for us, as Elaine cannot get medical insurance coverage at all and certainly not for the US; one major incident could bankrupt us! Another is returning to Europe via Bermuda and the Azores; not a favourite option either. The third is sailing to the Bocas del Toro region of Panama to get below 9N. The last option, offered by only one insurance company, but has other terms that are most unfavourable, would allow us to stay below 12N, opening up the possibilities of Grenada as well as the ABC islands of Bonaire, Curaçao and Aruba. Regardless, we could be caught between a rock and a hard place come April this year when the decision has to be made. What is most surprising and quite frankly, baffling, though, is that, since listing Paw Paw with a broker, we haven’t had one viewing or any positive interest, compared to when we were advertising her privately, even after dropping the price with the broker, although she is being advertised on the crème de la crème of websites, which are only assessable via a broker.
On the upside, though, getting these matters sorted out now at least puts the control back in our hands and eliminates any urgency for a sale, plus we have the added bonus of continuing a lifestyle we have both thoroughly loved for a little longer.
We’re not altogether sure we can say we’re enjoying our stay in Martinique, however, primarily because we’ve spent almost two weeks bouncing around in a very uncomfortable anchorage as the winds have consistently blown out of the southeast, when they’re usually northeast and the leeward sides of most Caribbean islands have had the seas churned up by a deep low pressure system that’s been sitting over Florida, the cold front of which was forecast to pass over us on the night of Thursday, 8th February 2024, bringing with it the associated winds and rain. Well, we got the winds, but not the rain, although we would have appreciated the latter to wash the decks. The winds, however, were strong enough to warrant Roy doing anchor watch at the height of the blow, while Elaine slept through it all, completely oblivious.
Although sleep deprived from consecutive uncomfortable nights bouncing around in the anchorage, we have been keeping ourselves busy by spending as much time as we can ashore during daylight hours, albeit that getting ashore has been too precarious most days, resulting in us having to bounce around onboard all day too.
When we have been able to get ashore, activities have included walks on the beach, eating ice-cream, browsing around the very few boutiques that are still in business, visiting the Saturday morning market, although it is tiny compared to what it was years ago, and enjoying a few delicious lunches at the various establishments we found, including Bao Beach restaurant and Basilic Beach restaurant, as well as frequenting an old favourite, Mango Bay in Le Marin. Finding other favourite restaurants completely destroyed has been very sad to see though. We did, however, have a lovely surprise of bumping into friends off Chiron, Pete and Jeremy, during one of our outings, who just happened to be having lunch at the same restaurant we had chosen; what are the chances having said goodbye to them in St Lucia as they headed south to Grenada. Another lovely surprise was discovering that Mango Bay restaurant served coffee and French pastries for breakfast; at last we could enjoy one of our favourite pastimes on a French island.
Aside from the usual chores, yacht maintenance and some minor repairs, to keep occupied onboard on the days we haven’t been able to get ashore, we’ve watched movies, continued our Irish lessons; something we hadn’t touched since leaving Türkiye, caught up with family and friends, baked and enjoyed swims off Paw Paw’s stern to cool off; the heat and humidity has been brutal. Being in direct contact with the grandchildren now is lovely, but heartbreaking at the same time, especially when Elaine receives little messages from William saying: “Grandma I miss you” or “I love you Grandma, goodnight” or Carter sending a voicemail saying: “Grandma can you please FaceTime me”. They all, however, join the banter on the family chat group which is lovely and it’s great to see their sense of humour. Sadly, moving back to the US to be closer to them is unfortunately not an option at all, for reasons beyond our control.
One yacht task, which Roy had wanted to do since arriving back in the Caribbean, was to give the watermaker a service, which included replacing pumps, piping and switches, as well as getting a new membrane, to be sure, to be sure! The latter required another dinghy trip into Le Marin to purchase the new membrane, but allowed us to enjoy a delicious lunch at Mango Bay; a deep fried Camembert starter to share, followed by a goat cheese puffed pasty salad and smoked mussels. Can’t fault the French on their cuisine!
It’s fair to say, though, there is barely a day when Roy and I don’t shake our heads at the world we’ve returned to. We’ve concluded that it’s more striking and evident to us because we haven’t been immersed in the “boiling the frog” syndrome, but rather we’re seeing the stark contrast, and indeed changes, following our abrupt return from our blissful bubble after 10 years. This was first noticeable to us when we arrived in Europe, but it has resonated with us in the US and the precious few Caribbean islands we have visited again thus far, primarily relating to the culture of the people we’ve encountered. There are so many instances that we look at each other in dismay, knowing the behaviour would never be witnessed anywhere in the South Pacific and Southeast Asia. It’s definitely taking a lot to reintegrate.
In a similar vein, the changes in weather have been just as striking, but explained by an article reported by the BBC recently: “For the first time, global warming has exceeded 1.5C across an entire year”, reaching 1.52C of warming according to the EU's Copernicus Climate Change Service, giving rise to the floods, droughts, heatwaves and wildfires we’ve seen all over the world. The world's sea surface is also at its highest ever recorded average temperature. This is rather disturbing at all levels, considering a landmark UN report in 2018 said that the risks from climate change, such as intense heatwaves, rising sea-levels and loss of wildlife, were much higher at 2C of warming than at 1.5C and still the world faffs around the edges, like getting consumers to drive electric vehicles, instead of tackling the major polluting industries around the world.
Regardless, this morning, the 10th February 2024, we woke to our first beautiful Caribbean morning as we’d experienced in a past life; sunny skies, dotted with puffy white clouds and a light breeze out of the northeast. Once breakfast was enjoyed in the cockpit, we dinghied ashore to visit the boulangerie and to clear out; we were heading back to St Lucia and what a fabulous sail we had. On a beam reach in a 10-12 Kt breeze, under a single-reefed mainsail and a full headsail, we enjoyed a SOG (Speed Over Ground) of 7.5-9 Kts. It doesn’t get much better than that!
With that it was goodbye to Martinique; for how long, we have no idea, but we will miss the myriad of turtles that kept us company in the anchorage.
