What went as planned:

• two 350W solar panels got installed with their regulators. What it means: we should produce enough electricity for our fridge, autopilot, watermaker, and electronics!!
• A super efficient water maker was installed: 30L/h for only 200W. A couple of years ago, it needed 10 times more power to produce the same output!
• We bought all the safety gear needed (life jackets, fire extinguishers, life raft, axe (yep, Canadian regulation!)
• We went to the beach a few times. Beautiful beautiful beach, within a 20 minutes bus ride. Kids love it, especially after long hours waiting on Ubi while we fix one issue at the time.

What didn’t go as planned:

• As written in the previous post, on the first full day on Ubi, a professional drilled a hole on Ubi! Took two days to fix that mistake! (and a lot of stress)
• Ubi has a retractable keel and rudder. The hydraulic system to move them failed. We thought we had it fixed, but it failed again. Today, we think it is good to go… We will re-test tomorrow…
• We never managed to start the outboard (motor on the dinghy). Thankfully, somebody on the pontoon sold us their small and old spare one. It is 3 times less powerful. But maybe I should say infinitely more powerful, as the other one is not working at all!
• Radar was not working. We got rid of it. We are not replacing it for now.
• Toilets seal was leaking. We fixed it.
• There is a small oil leak in our inboard (big engine inside Ubi). Not a big issue as long as it doesn’t get worse, and we check the oil regularly.
• Windlass broke (the windlass is the motor used to lift up the anchor chain). It is kinda repaired. We will need to be careful with it. Or else we will start having arm muscles real fast…

Bonus:

• Very nice bread and croissants for breakfast
• Nice little 38^th birthday for my lovely, calm, and knowledgeable husband
• Super sweet first Christmas on Ubi
• The mast has been climbed by the whole Ubi tribe (one at the time of course!)
• We had a dinghy ride so wet and long, that we had to scoop water out non stop if we didn’t want to sink. Kids were as inside in the dinghy as possible to provide less resistance to the wind. They fell asleep, soaked…
• We had a few incredibly peaceful moments

Conclusion and next step:

• Loads of stress and frustration, kids super patient, Mike and I holding up and ready to leave the marina!
• Departure from Le Marin, Martinique planned for today… But it might change as the weather forecast is pretty bad… We would like to sail to Les Anses d’Arlet and anchor there (2 to 3 hours from Le Marin). We heard you can snorkel and see some turtles…