17 Dec 2014

[Cruise News] Le Marin Marina, Martinique

We're still in the marina just over one week on, though not planned.  Over the weekend we came back down to earth after the euphoria of the arrival and subsequent celebrations and set about getting Tumi ready for departing ... a good clean, inside and out, and a few small maintenance jobs.  It also crossed our minds again that on the trip over we'd run the diesel generator more than we'd thought we'd need to.  So we checked the regulator for the solar panels, which should kick out up to 15Amps in full sunlight, only to find it recording one tenth of that at best!

A long story short, it turns out the panels fitted for us were not the right ones, so we've entered into a round of discussions with the Jeanneau dealer in Plymouth over this, with a practical solution yet to be finalised but in progress.  Add to this the discussions over the whisker pole (now resolved although still to be corrected once replacement pole ends arrive from the UK, with the installer finally admitting that they used a pole from one manufacturer with fittings from another) and the fact that the compressor for the fridge was "sweating" and this condensation puddling in the bilges (also now resolved ... the system was over-gassed)   And so we remain marina-bound, the sensible option given Le Marin is the biggest yachting centre in this part of the Caribbean.

On the upside, twenty of us went out for dinner last night to a local restaurant - great fun had by all - and we have been contacted by friends we met out here 4 years ago who have invited us to join them for Christmas dinner.  We've also enjoyed sharing our knowledge of the Caribbean with many of the other boats that completed the Atlantic Odyssey with us and look forward to meeting up with some of them again in the months to come.

So hopefully, after a steel fabricator comes tomorrow morning to discuss the practical solution to the whisker pole fittings and solar panels (we might have a stainless steel frame made to fit off the stern of the boat) we'll be able to leave ... not before time!