We head back to St Martin to celebrate the New Year and to continue the relentless boat work. On anchor at the ocean side of Marigot we are near to services and shops, yet in water that we can swim in, with turtles and several unidentified large fish swimming around the boat.
The main issues to solve before we head on are poo related. One is a blocked pipe in one of our four Jabsco toilets, jammed closed by wads of toilet paper left in by a child who shall remain nameless. It proves impossible to flush, and in the end we have to disassemble the whole toilet. The pipe is rigid in places, and we suspect the children of having put coral bits in there, but it turns out to be a centimetre thick layer of what looks suspiciously like fossilised poo, left behind by ten years of inadequately flushing charter guests. In reality probably just lime scale stained an unappetising brown, but still gross, and signifying an unhealthy system – like a plumbing stroke waiting to happen, a heavily plaqued artery just waiting for a blood clot.
After changing the pipe we vow to douse the loos in vinegar regularly, to prevent any future poo-scale build-up.
Another issue is a more serious one. In order to enter the Galapagos Islands, we have to have a ‘black water’ system, because the discharge of human waste into the waters there is illegal. Having not got the time or the money to order in the custom made part from Fontaine Pajot, we decide to do a home-made installation. David spends days looking at tanks, taking measurements, poring over catalogues, trying to find the best solution. He brings back large tanks, and replaces them with even larger ones. He straps them up on walls, constructs shelves, drills, saws and swears a lot. Jabsco parts litter the boat, bags and boxes depicting alluring slogans like ‘Jabsco – Making your boat a better place to be’ (no doubt true), and ‘Jabsco – Why not upgrade your toilet NOW!’
We enviously eye up the nearby monohulls on anchorage – they have little deck space, they roll heavily on anchorage, they have a much higher chance of children accidentally falling overboard when underway – but they have one, maybe two toilets, compared to our four! A quarter or half the plumbing work! Imagine…
Jabsco is making a killing from us, and get plenty of free advertising from the children, who now role play a game involving a young boy called ‘Jabsco’, who is very brave and comes to the rescue when someone is drowning. ‘Matias, let’s play the Jabsco game’, Lukie shouts happily.
After a couple of days of struggle we emerge victorious from the battle with the Jabscos, with the upside of now having out own resident large fish, a 1 m long unidentified slim bodied fish who seems to like the ‘poo scale’ arising from the cleaning of pipes. A small shark also hangs around, enjoying the spoils.
Other minor issues are dealt with too – electrical switches, turning the wash down pump from fresh to salt, installing a new stereo, replacing a broken deck shower. We buy spares and reserves and anything we imagine we might need for a Pacific crossing. We experiment with food – this is where we will stock up before heading to Panama, so we might as well try what is on offer here – and find little gems like dried mushrooms, pickled peppers, tinned lentil ragouts which might be useful for when we run out of fresh food.
On New Year’s Eve we have a beautiful dinner by the seaside in Marigot, a play in the park under the coloured lights, after which we head back to the boat to put the kids to bed. We listen to ‘St Martin Radio – Music and News’ which consists mainly of French rap and Phil Collins covers. At midnight the anchorage fleet bob around, their anchoring lights swaying like lighters at a 1980s Phil Collins concert, surrounded by fireworks going off all around. We are bathed in light. Plenty of flares fly overhead too, their red glow lingering in the night sky for longer than fireworks. We remember last New Years, where we were planning the trip, and are happy that we are here.
Later on in the week, the radio station observes two minutes of silence to commemorate the dead from the terror attack against Charlie Hedbo, and we sit here wondering at the craziness of fanaticism. I’m reading Churchill’s ‘History of the English-Speaking Peoples’ and am struck by a quote about ‘the primary right of men to die and kill for the land they live in’, which sends shivers down my spine, it conveying so well our human passions, and the violence with which we will defend what we hold dear. Capable of so much love and of so much violence, us humans. Creators of great civilizations, and of their destruction.
Amidst all the toilet repairs, the children spend much time drawing and playing games – cards, chess, ludo, four in a row. They jump off the boat again and again under their assumed names of Jabsco and Jack. Their drawings depict pirate ships and leisure boats, with anchors and exploding bilge pumps, surrounded by sharp rocks threatening immediate wrecking, sharks, flying fish and seagulls aplenty.
SV Bob The Cat 