St Kitts is behind us now and we’ve set sail to Guadeloupe where there is an Amel yard. Since Helena is an Amel, we figured that it would be a nice place to do some large maintenance and many upgrades. Everything was nicely arranged in advance only to find out that Amel did not remember to order or prepare anything in advance, even though everything was arranged and agreed on by email in advance.

So after a big beef and some emergency stuff that could only be done by Amel, I decided not to spend anything overthere and we set sail for St Maarten again where everything is available and can be done. This trip was truly amazing with good winds and an average of 10 knots! Half way we picked up Vybrashun from St Kitts to take him on a holiday. Just for the record, he considers helping out with maintenance on board a holiday… 🙂

On St Maarten we immediately started arranging for all that needed to be done. Remember that we’re heading onto the pacific, where nothing is possible anymore, so the ship needs to be completely ready for this ocean. We have been working on everything now, ranging from new coolers/freezers to engine repairs, new rigging, a davit, solar panels, windgenerator, paintjob for the mast, repair of the windlass, new toilet, airconditioning repair, extra autopilot, extra diesel tank and many, many more. The list of jobs was 3 pages long in small print. We ended up working for 6 weeks non stop, but also ended up with a complete new ship. Arent, mary and Vybrashun have been working very hard on making this all possible. Here are some impressions on the upgrades!