Leaving Grenada

Leaving Grenada

I remember a day sailing through the Bahamas still bundled in a blanket at night , even with the warm days the nights on the water with a constant wind were chilly.  I would read books about other cruisers in the tropics sailing naked through long stretches of open ocean and I would wonder …  under my blanket and winter hat .. how hot does it have to be … I no longer wonder .. I have arrived!  I do however find a loose shirt necessary sun protection (preferably with a useful pocket to hold my ipod), no matter how warm it is.

            As we prepared to leave Grenada for our four-day voyage to Bonaire, we went through the boat storing away anything that may slide about or fall.  I made sure I had my “sea bag” packed and ready to go.  Since I am sometimes prone to seasickness I pack a small canvas tote bag with things I may need/want during the voyage, so I can avoid multiple trips below decks for something I may want.  My ipod, kindle, journal, water bottle, eye mask, snacks and motion sickness drugs all go in, along with anything else I may find necessary.  My bag goes everywhere with me so my stuff is always close at hand.  I set one out for IB as well, but I find other than when he grabs it for snacks it tends to sit on one location and his things are always in multiple locations. The last thing we did was to deflate the dingy and lash it down on deck.  For short jaunts we leave it hanging on the davits, but for a multi day passage it is safer to have it on deck and besides that leaves our wind vane (that we have never used) accessible for use.

            Time happens differently at sea.  The hours and days blur together.  Time passes:  sleeping when you can, eating, thinking about what you want to eat and working up the energy to actually cook it, reading, listening to audio books, sleeping.  Even basic meal preparations at sea can be an exhausting challenge.  With the boat constantly rocking back and forth, nothing can be left on the counter without being secured.  A knife can NEVER be set down, except in the sink.  And the whole time you are juggling all the pieces of your meal, you also have to balance yourself.  And hopefully when it’s all done you will still feel like eating J

Sleeping is definitely a highlight of the day.  Since someone always has to be on watch, we sleep in shits,  Every yacht breaks up shifts differently.  We used to setup a time schedule but have found working with our natural sleep tendencies work better for us.  If I can sleep at 6:00pm, I do or as close to that as I can.  IB stays on watch until he gets really tired, usually around midnight, then I’m up till nearly dawn.  We take turns napping as needed during the day.  The schedule worked so well on this trip we arrived in Bonaire feeling relatively refreshed, rather than the typical sleep deprived.  Of course we also spend time navigating, setting the sails and checking weather updates.

            On day 2 .. or was it day 1 .. I think it was day 2 .. . either way IB opened the engine room to find smoke rolling out .. the alternator had overheated and fried.  Our new alternator, from after the lightning strike, arrived DOA, we could not get the damaged one from the lightning strike repaired in Grenada, so the original one we had rebuilt in the states was installed and working before we left Grenada.  It lasted about a week.  No alternator, means no charging the batteries from the engine.  The solar panels and wind generator do a good job of keeping power up pretty well but we still loose a lot at night.  Running the chart plotter, radar, autopilot, refrigerator and freezer all add up.  The first thing we did was turn off the freezer.  Then we finally got out the lines and hooked up the monitor wind vane.  It seemed an appropriate time to finally start using it.  Once we got it set up right, (and I read the directions on how to use it) we had it steering the boat beautifully .. and power free!  IB did managed to hobble together an alternator and get it working so we didn’t have to be too worried about our power use, I’d hate to have turned off the radar and chart plotter!  It will still need to be replaced/repaired, but for the moment it is working.

            The rest of our trip was relatively uneventful, other than dodging some squalls on our last night as we neared Bonaire.  We pulled into the harbor at 9:00am on the 13^th of November and picked up a mooring.  It’s great to be somewhere with clear water again, where we can see the sand under the boat.

 

Our Sails

Sunset at Sea

The view at sea

The Monitor Wind Vane that is steering the boat

Grenada

Downtown St. Georges

Grenada.  Adult summer camp for cruisers.  That about sums things up nicely.  From Mt Hartman Bay there is a “bus” (all the buses on the island are just vans) that leaves from Secret Harbor Marina every Wednesday and Friday at 9:30am to take cruisers to the grocery, hardware, chandlery or nearly anywhere else they need to go for just $10 EC.  ($1 US = $2.7 EC)  The bus is a great benefit that allows easy transportation to get into town and buy supplies.  The bus is also a real PITA, during many trips a lot of time is spent waiting for someone at a store you don’t need to go to, and resulting in a long day with many stops.  So it’s good, it’s bad, we all love the marina bus and we all grumble and complain about it. Every morning except Sunday there is a local cruiser net on VHF channel 68.  They have a weather forecast; information on local businesses including any specials happening; treasures of the bilge that gives cruisers a chance, to sell, buy, swap, or give away items unwanted on their boats; and different cruiser events.  Tuesday is movie night at Clarks Court Marina; it’s also 2 for 1 pizza night at La Phare Bleu Marina.  There are watercolor classes, yoga classes, tutoring kids in reading at the Mount Airy Young Reader program on Saturday morning, and French and Spanish lessons. If you lack something to do here it is simply because you are not doing something.  The first couple of weeks we zipped around from one activity to another, meeting new friends and enjoying being “settled” for the first time in a long time.  It didn’t take long for the demanding social schedule to become too much so we slowed down in our participation level. 

            We went with a group up to the Seven Sisters falls.  IB and I had been up there on our own once, but taking the public bus and hiking in to the two main water falls.  We were rained on as we left and had a hard time getting a bus back to town although we finally did.  When we found out a group was going and hired a bus to take us and wait on us it sounded like a good day to get off the boat and enjoy some cool air and fresh water.  Although summer in Grenada is hot and humid every day, just up in the mountains the air is cooler, less muggy and the waterfalls very cool and refreshing.  The group we were with hired a guide, and once we reached the main two waterfalls he took those that wanted on up a rugged path to the top of the seven falls.  From there we followed the water down, jumping down each fall as we went, ending with the highest fall of about 35 ft. 

            After our first week on Grenada we decided to go into the marina to be able to run our air conditioner and have the dock and extra power to work on some of our summer boat projects.  I also made plans to go back to the States to visit my family while IB worked on some of the dirtier projects.  It turned out to be a good plan, he got a lot of work done while I was gone, and I didn’t have to live in the dirty chaos while he did it.

Rebecca jumping Seven Sisters Falls

IB jumping Seven Sisters Falls

The hike to Mt Qua Qua over looking Grand Etang Lake

The kids at the Mt Airy Young Readers program

Yoga on the docks

Our "home" at Secret Harbor Marina

The anchorage at Mt Hartman Bay

The Grenadines

After our departure from St Lucia we had 12 days to reach Grenada before Fred needed to catch his return flight to the states.  We chose to give St Vincent a pass and go straight to Bequia.  Some cruisers still stop at St Vincent, and I hear it is supposed to be a nice island, but theft has become such a big problem there we chose to pass it by and not deal with the hassle.  The options there are to always leave someone on your boat or hire someone to sit on your boat while you are ashore.  The island doesn’t seem to be trying very hard to stop the crime, so we chose to not support them.  I have talked to some cruisers who stopped there and didn’t experience any trouble at all.. you just never know.

            We stopped at Bequia for a couple of days and then heard our first tropical cyclone warning of the season.  A 60% chance for a formation over the next 48 hours.  Depending on if a tropical storm / hurricane would form we may need to be ready to change our plans and run straight down to Grenada.  As it turned out, the chances of formation decreased everyday until it just fizzled out and our plans were not hindered.

            We continued to buzz through the islands:  Canouan, Mayreau, Tobago Cays, Union Island, Carriacou and then to Grenada.  We spent long enough on each island to sample the town, food and see what was beneath the water.  Mostly it was a very enjoyable trip and a great time hanging out with Fred, who was not only great to hang out with but was excellent at cleaning the galley!  We ended the trip with Fred in Mt Harman Bay, which was to be our home for the next four months.

St Lucia

The new Avon dingy

     I would like to tell you all about the island of St Lucia, but we hardly saw any of it.  We arrived in St Lucia, after a short sail down from Martinique.  With ten days till we picked up our guest and continued on south we thought there would be plenty of time to explore the island.  We were wrong; it was just enough to deal with a leaking dingy and explore the marina.

      Shortly after arriving at Rodney Bay we heard over the local cruisers net that Rodney Bay Marina was hosting a cruisers BBQ that included two free nights in the marina on Friday and Saturday.  Whoo hooo!!! Free marina nights… no way we were going to pass that up, and since the marina was only $25 USD a night we opted to go in a day early.

 As it turned out that was a slightly fortuitous decision as we discovered a leak in our Achilles inflatable dingy on Wednesday evening.  Since we already planned to go into the marina Thursday that seemed to be sufficient time to patch it and allow the glue to dry before moving back out to the anchorage on Sunday.  It sounded like a nice plan anyway, and even seemed to go okay, until IB inflated the “repaired” dingy on Saturday.  His patch, that was in the seam held just fine but a new spot busted out along the seam.  Plan B consisted of just buying a new dingy.  Since we had our davits installed in Florida we had discussed the benefits of a rigid bottom dingy, one less place to worry about leaks, and better performance.  So we asked around for 10’ rigid bottom dingys but there were none to be had. .. onto plan C:  have the dingy professionally repaired. The Liferaft & Inflatable Center located right in the lagoon would be able to look at it on Monday and hopefully have it repaired and be on our way mid week.  It sounded like a good plan, but once they had a chance to inspect it, the entire seam was giving out.  They suspected it was the result of a bad batch of glue, and would cost more than replacing the dingy to repair it.  Since the dingy was only about a year old this was not happy news.  We took pictures and contacted the warranty department of Achilles, who actually did a good job of sending us a new replacement dingy, only the process took longer than we had at the time and was not completed until we were in Grenada.  The good news was that the Liferaft & Inflatable Center also sold dingys and had just what we were looking for in stock in their warehouse.  An Avon 310 Lite Rib, they drove IB to the warehouse and customs to complete the purchase. With our pockets a little lighter, but with reliable transportation we left the marina to spend a pleasant evening with friends out in the anchorage.

Although we were not happy about our circumstances that kept us in the marina over a week we were quite happy with the marina.  Nice secure floating docks made getting on and off the boat easy, several good restaurants right at the marina as well as a pool that we frequented everyday.  For the first time on our trip we met many different cruisers that we would continue to see over the summer months.  By this point south the part time cruisers had mostly gone home, and the charter boats were not around, what we were mostly left with were those that would be spending the summer in a hurricane safe destination.

The pitons in the distance

The following day we pulled out of the anchorage and headed down to Soufriere to pick up Fred; our friend / guest / glorified mail carrier.  As soon as we knew he was planning to visit we started some Internet shopping.  All of our guests get to bring us packages; it’s much cheaper and more reliable than having things shipped. 

The night before we collected Fred we spent on a mooring near the bat caves and it was a very rough rolling night with the boat constantly beating against the mooring ball.  As soon as Fred was aboard we moved over between the pitons, two tall mountains on either side of the bay, and spent a very calm evening before heading on south the following day.

Martinique

St. Pierre and the Mt. Pelee volcano. On May 8, 1902 erupted releasing a giant fireball that destroyed the town and 12 ships at anchor in the bay. Only two people survived. Several minor eruptions and grumblings from the volcano in the preceding weeks had been ignored resulting in the deaths of nearly 29,933 people. As the town was rebuilt they tried to preserve a part of the old buildings in the new structure. The ships still rest at the bottom of the sea and are visited by divers. Most are at a depth greater than 100 ft. Most of the bay is very deep leaving a narrow shelf near the town dock for anchoring.

Canal de Beauregard. We went with our friends Shadowfax and Spirare by bus up into the mountains to the small town of St Denis. We had lunch at a small restaurant overlooking the valley full of lush greenery. After lunch, we parted ways and hiked down the road to the start of the canal walk as our friends went to catch the bus back to town. IB was intent on walking the canal, I was much more reluctant but agreed to go along. The guidebook warns that you should be comfortable with heights to walk along the 18-inch wide canal wall. Not quite so comfortable with heights, I have a good idea of what I’ve gotten myself into as IB tries to assure me the areas will high drops by the wall are only a few feet long, I didn’t believe him. I was right. The walk starts off easy as it meanders through a tunnel, but we do eventually get to the drop-offs, they are long sections and a long ways down. The view is breathtaking… if you can manage to look. I don’t think I saw anything but the wall and my feet, until I took that last step off the canal, and started breathing again.

The following morning we had planned to hike to the top of Mt. Pelee, however as we looked up toward the volcano all that could be seen were the clouds surrounding it. As we drank our coffee and contemplated what to do, the winds began to shift to the WSW, blowing us toward shore and blowing in waves. That made our decision for us and we pulled up anchor and headed south to Fort de France.

Fort de France may have been a nice place to see, stores to actually go shopping, but as it was we arrived on Saturday afternoon. The one inconvenient thing about French islands are the opening times for businesses. Weekends are not a time they like to open, just forget about Sunday, I think you are really supposed to stay home and rest then. And restaurants… well I’m still trying to figure out their hours, I think you are supposed to eat dinner after 9 at night. We enjoyed the evening on the boat in a calm anchorage and headed on south the next day.

On our way to Le Marin, we made a brief stop at Anse Noir where the guidebook claims there is really good snorkeling. Really good is really relative. There were certainly some creatures to see, some coral alive and a wall, just a little too deep for snorkeling, but it was definitely a big whatever. Just after pulling into the anchorage we spotted our friends on Elsyium.

Our one-day in Le Marin was spent getting checked out at customs, spending some time with our friends and making a huge mistake we wouldn’t realize for several days yet and would regret for islands to come. Having been hop-scotching down the French Islands we got quite comfortable with good cheese, inexpensive wine and a variety of other goodies from the grocery. Somehow we didn’t stop and think that this was our last French Island and we chose not to go to the grocery store. In two days we will realize that the great selection of really good wine at really cheap prices does not exist after Martinique. The great deli cheese and fresh goat cheese .. forget it. We won’t even talk about olive oil. We’ll just mark this down as cruising lesson #243.

Dominica

Eco-tourism. That about sums up Dominica. We knew the anchorages were not going to be fabulous, there are not very many, and there are a lot of restrictions. It’s true. Scuba diving can only be done with a dive boat, and many of the snorkeling areas we are not allowed to even dingy to, requiring a tour operator. There is a lot of hiking on the island, and the national parks are the main draw to the island. Never being built up most of the island is still wilderness with small towns, no large hotels or resorts are found here.

Our first stop is in Portsmouth, before we even make it to the anchorage we are met by the boat boys. They are a part of an organized group of certified tour operators, PAYS. In addition to being tour guides, the boat boys will buy ice and bring it to your boat among other services, provide you with information, and they monitor the anchorage that has really helped to reduce theft problems that have been a big issue in the past. We met up with Alexis and agreed to go on an Indian River tour the following morning. No motors are allowed on the Indian River, and no yachts are allowed to take their own boats, you must go with a guide. During The one mile paddle up the river, Alexis tells us some of the history of the island, points out different flora and fauna, birds, and even a filming site from Pirates of the Caribbean. The trip ends at a riverside bar; from there we take a walk through a plantation, where Alexis points out the different local fruits and vegetables. Alexis was friendly and a very knowledgeable guide.

The country really does it’s best to hide trail maps, bus routes and schedules and pushes taking a guided tour to visit it’s many destinations. The guides do provide a lot of information about the area but at $160 price for two to go on a 3-hour hike is a bit more than our budget really allows for. I’ve never really thought too much about eco-tourism until now. I realize that the government is trying to create jobs for the people and I would be happy to help the economy but not at US prices. In a place where the cost of living is fairly low, these tour guides are making more money than many of my friends back home.

Although the anchorage feels safe in Portsmouth, and the PAYS guys are friendly and helpful, there is also a constant barrage of other guys paddling out in boats or on surfboards trying to sell fruit take trash or anything they can make a buck on. These guys are mostly just annoying. If trying to take a nap, read a book or relax inside they will hang on the boat knocking and calling, refusing to leave until someone comes out. One day of that was really quite enough so we didn’t stay long, and headed down to Roseau.

Roseau is the southern most anchorage available, below it everything is a marine sanctuary and no boats are allowed, well except dive operators. The anchoring space was a bit limited and we opted to pick up a mooring for $10 a day, a very reasonable amount. With a nice southern swell at night, the anchorage is not the most comfortable. I wake up with my arms and shoulders sore from constantly bracing my body from rolling in my sleep. Aside from that it’s a pleasant enough place to be.

We try, unsuccessfully to find a trail map and see if we can hike on our own. We do find the forestry office and they tell us where we can find a trail map, but the store is already closed for the day. They also mention a number of hikes that are marked well enough to not need a guide (the first time we’ve heard this). In the meantime our friends find a taxi driver that will take us to Middleham Falls for $100 and claims we will need a guide there that is available when we get there. Splitting the cost 3 ways we decide to go along with the plan, since we need at least another day to figure out a trail map and transportation on our own. We should have known we were in for a ride when the next morning the taxi driver raises the price because he didn’t know there were 6 people :-/ Then he promptly hands us over to someone else, he wasn’t even taking us. Once up at the park, we see the Ranger who is collecting the required park permit that our driver has failed to acquire first. We keep going into town to get the permit, stop at one location that is closed, turn around and go back. This time I hear the conversation with the Ranger who informs our driver that he told him to go to all four locations before coming back and he should know the regulations, the Ranger than informs our driver that he will drop us at the trail and go get our permits while we are hiking. Good Ranger. Bad cab driver. The supposed available guides are no where to be found.. thankfully as the trail so did not require either a guide or a trail map. The trail was very well maintained with good signs at any intersection. The falls were beautiful and were too tall to fit in a photograph. A refreshing dip in the cold fresh water was wonderful. On the way back we detoured to the stinking hole. Which was exactly that, a hole that stinks. We find out later for $1.50 a bus comes up to this area. Great information to know for next time. It was a successful adventure; don’t think I’ll be keeping that cab drivers number though. Next time we’ll just spend a few days getting appropriate maps rent a car and go where we want.

Skipping the rest of the islands natural beauty to visit on the return trip the following day after a particularly rolly night we take off bright and early in the morning for Martinique. As we head out of the bay there is hardly any wind at all, seems as though it will be an easy trip down. A few miles later as we near the southern tip of the island, the wind and seas start to build and we start to wonder if we should have checked the weather forecast. As we clear the tip of the island, the wind is 25kts with gusts to 30kts, the seas are 6-8 ft with some occasionally higher, and we wonder if we should go back and wait for another day. There is a squall in the distance and we wonder where it’s headed. We do keep going and eventually the wind drops down to a very civilized 15kts and the seas subside to a very reasonable 3-4 ft. As we sail into the lee of Martinique our wind all but dies and we complete our trip into St. Pierre motoring.

Guadeloupe

Our first island that feels like a foreign country. Although almost all the islands we have visited are foreign countries Guadeloupe feels like it; a French department, the official language is French and English speakers are rare. We are fortunate to be here with our French Canadian friends on Spirare who are able to do some translating for us. When we are not with them we are glad to have bought French for Cruisers to help stumble through the language. The entire time I’m trying to pick up words, phrases and thinking it’s time for a language school. Speaking Spanish on a French island just doesn’t get me very far, although sometimes it does help.

Dashaies is a comfortable town to be in, except for all the rain we had there. We read through our cruising guide and decided to take a recommended “walk” up the river. The recommended walk consisted of hoping rock-to-rock up the river and occasionally bushwhacking along the banks. At least there was a road at the other end, although we had to leave the river and find it over the top of a hill, at least we had an easy walk back to the boat. Although we got along just fine, I think the “walk” was a little understated in our guide.

Guadeloupe leaves us with time decisions. There is supposed to be a beautiful waterfall on the southern end and nice national park. The Saints are supposed to be very nice. We are looking a bit at our time schedule. There are also language schools here I wouldn’t mind visiting, but I know we don’t have time for that. We decide to spend a few days at Les Saints and skip the rest. With this decision we also decide (very definitely for now at least) that next season we will return back up the island chain (at least to the VI’s) and have time to take in everything we are missing on the way down. With this in mind we head to the Les Saints stopping briefly overnight to break up the trip.

Les Saints are a small group of islands just south of Guadeloupe. They have different anchorage choices that are all very close together, clear water, decent snorkeling, a very pleasant friendly town (that is even open in the afternoon), and some sites to hike up to. We chose to hike to the highest point, the old watchtower. A rational planning person would start this hike early in the morning to avoid the heat of the day; we started at noon. There is a paved road the entire way, although it has been closed to all motorized traffic, it’s fairly steep and up all the way. On the way up we pass the local trash dump that falls steeply down the edge of the mountain and is constantly lightly burning and smoldering. Approaching it we see a cat dart out of a pile very close to fire, a hen and her chicks precariously pick their way through the smoldering garbage narrowly missing the flames, and another poor chicken that looks half roasted already with it’s tail feathers completely singed off. At the top we find the old watchtower with metal ladders we can climb to the top where the views are worth the hike up.

For our last night here we go out to dinner to sample some French cuisine. Our friends do not join us, so we are on our own. Right off the dingy dock we head to Linsolente, get out French for Cruisers and start stumbling through the menu. We manage to order and mostly know what we ordered. The food was great; since we ended up with two seafood dishes and no land meats we considered our night out a success.

Antigua

A night at sea provided steady winds and a great sail to arrive bright and early in the morning at Jolly Harbour, Antigua. That is Antigua in the West Indies, not to be confused with Antigua, Guatemala a very landlocked town. After a nap and breakfast we head to the customs office. In addition to figuring out business hours, another conundrum is customs fees. Checking in and checking out within hours of each other the fees we paid and Spirare paid differed from slightly to a lot. I’m not sure I’ll ever understand.

From Jolly Harbour we head north and spend a couple of days at Deep Bay. There is the wreck of the Andes that can be snorkeled , but the visibility was poor and the jelly fish ever present. There was also some snorkeling near the point that was nice enough, the best being the thousands of tiny fish you could swim among as they moved in unison in their shimmery dance. A hike up to Fort Barrington provided a beautiful view of the anchorage and surrounding area.

Planning to cut our stay a little short, feeling anxious to be moving south we head on down to English Harbour, home of Nelson’s Dockyard. Completed in 1745, and providing good hurricane protection, it was Britain’s main naval station in the Lesser Antilles. The main road of town runs from English Harbour to Falmouth Harbour, and is full of restaurants. Once again, don’t go to dinner before 6:30, it’s uncivilized. We’ve almost got it this time.

Our stay here was extended by a few days as a tropical wave in the area deteriorated our weather. Clouds and rain every day. At least the rain doesn’t stay all day, but when it clouds over and the shower starts, closing all the hatches on the boat becomes a sauna. The first day of such showers found me below sweating and finishing the rain tarps that will just cover the two main hatches and allow some air even during a rainstorm. That is unless the 30kt gusts blow the rain in anyway. With the forecast not looking great for the next week and a half, we pick the day that looks like it has the lowest (ish) wind and least chance of squalls to sail the 40 miles to Guadeloupe. Sunday appears as a beautiful morning, with 20kt winds and 5-6ft seas. A great day for a beam reach to Guadeloupe. All went great but about 10 miles from the coast we were enveloped in the outskirts of a squall for about 15 minutes life became exciting. Watching it’s arrival, IB put a second reef in the main, pulled in the jib, donned our lifejackets and were ready when the 30kts gusts blew in soaking us in rain.

We arrived in Deshaies (pronounced Day-ay) wet but happy, and anchored before the next rain cloud settled overhead. Of course it’s a Sunday, most of town is closed and no customs till tomorrow.

St. Barthelemy

A mere 15 mile cruise, on a nice day lands us in the waters of St. Barthelemy. We make our first stop at Île Fourchue, just off the north east of the main island, and rendezvous with Spirare and Shadowfax. A very nice little anchorage, they actually have free mooring balls to protect the seabed, by a beautiful rocky island. The water is clear, and snorkeling is okay, although there is not a lot of coral. We end up staying two nights, and spending each evening hanging out with our friends. The second day everyone, but me, heads to shore in the afternoon to hike around the island. I have the sewing machine out, making flags, and too far into the project to stop.

We say our goodbye’s to Shadowfax, we will probably meet up again in Guadeloupe or later, and head down to Gustavia for the afternoon. There we check in and out with custom, see the town, buy some groceries and get ready for another overnight sail to Antigua. Spirare calls as they get near, we pull up anchor and head to sea with them.

St. Martin / Sint Maarten

Of course we arrived during a holiday! Apparently we have a real knack for arriving at destinations during holidays. We were able to check in with customs the same day, but that shopping list for the marine stores … forget it. Not only is it carnival, but on the Dutch side no one is working in reverence of the Queen’s birthday. God Bless the Queen.

St Martin is French and Dutch (Sint Maarten for the Dutch). The smallest island that is two countries. Each country has different fees for checking in by boat. We checked in on the French side, as we were warned that the Dutch have extra fees, and it’s just as easy to visit the Dutch side by dingy. Although the language spoken is French and Dutch respectively, English is still used everywhere. Of course signs are in French of which I don’t speak a lick; that will need to go on my study list. I often find myself wanting to speak Spanish, since that’s the only foreign language I know. Not actually helpful.

Since there will be no shopping till next week, we decide to spend the weekend exploring a bit of the island. According to our guidebook the small island of Île Tintamarre has some nice mud with great exfoliate properties. Always up for a little home spa on the beach we head over to check out the mud. The mud did not disappoint, must be something from the volcanic origin of the island, after 20 minutes of basking mud caked in the sun with a salt water rinse, our skin feels soft, smooth and rejuvenated.

Next stop, Orient Bay. A lively and well-known beach, also the location of St Martin’s clothing optional beach on the east end. And of course that is where we anchored. Most of the afternoon was spent lounging and swimming off the boat, later in the day we decided to head to shore, which brings up the question; Where to land the dingy? Our cruising guide claimed there was a location on the east end, we looked and didn’t see it. Finally we found a mooring near shore that didn’t look very used so we just tied to it, stowed our gear in a dry bag and swam to shore. We were not really sure if this was an acceptable place to leave the dingy or not, but watched for several hours on the beach, eventually deciding it was fine and an unused mooring. At one point there were two other dingys there as well, guess they figured we knew what we were doing. First we head to the east end, past the sign welcoming us to the clothing optional beach resort and the sign forbidding the use of cameras, plopped our stuff down on the beach and headed in for a swim.. with suits.. mostly. Now that we had swam at the nude beach, it seemed to be getting on cocktail hour and time to see the rest of the beach, find a tasty drink and think about some food. I can see why this is an attractive beach, the water is calm and beautiful, restaurants and stores are right on the beach complete with chairs and umbrellas for rent. We found a pleasant spot, ordered a few margaritas and sat down to enjoy the beach, putting off dinner for a while. About 5:00 it seems time to look for some food, so we think. I’m not sure I’ll ever quite get the hang of business hours in the Caribbean. Everything on the beach closes up at 5:00, even though it is still quite sunny out. We are told to head downtown, of course the restaurants downtown don’t really open until 6:00. Hmm. We hang out a while, shop for a restaurant and eventually get dinner. Time to head back home. The dingy is still moored off the beach, and since we are all dressed for dinner, off come the clothes, into the dry bag they go and we swim back to the boat.

The next day it’s time to start heading back toward Marigot Bay, stopping for the night to visit Grand Case. About the only thing in Grand Case are restaurants; this is where people come to eat. Of course we go to shore too early, 5:00 is a very unreasonable hour to want to eat, we should know this by now. But this gives us plenty of time to shop for a restaurant, walking up and down the street, one by one, reading the menu’s, and time to stop for a glass of wine to discuss the menu’s. Eventually we opt for one that has a happy hour special buy one meal get one free. Maybe not the best meal in town, but definitely half the price.

Once back at Marigot Bay, we are able to get our shopping done, the marine stores have most of the items on our list. What we didn’t find our next glorified mail courier can bring down from the states when he meets up with us in St. Lucia. After shopping, we head back to customs to check out and try to stop back by the Spoon Café where we had some wonderful crepes. But alas it’s 2:00 and who would eat lunch at 2:00, they are closed. Tomorrow we head to St Barthelemy.

Virgin Islands

Our big crossing of nearly 15 miles brought us to St. Thomas, USVI. Our first stop, Charlotte Amalie, cruise ship dock and tourist mecca. In Puerto Rico we were issued local boater cards at the customs office that would theoretically allow us to call a number and report our presence when arriving in US waters. However when the internet bites, skype calls can’t be made, with no cell phone, calling is not possible. Really starting to miss that cell phone. So off to find the customs office we go, well tomorrow anyway. We have managed to arrive on Easter Sunday, a few restaurants are open but most of the town is closed up. The next morning when we get to the customs office we find that since we just came from a US waters we don’t actually need to check in at all, even though we were told in Puerto Rico we would need to, but what does Puerto Rico know about St. Thomas anyway.

We have almost a week here before my mom flies down for a visit. That’s just enough time to see town, grocery shop, scout out a few anchorages, and find some good snorkeling sites.

When Mom arrives we walk to the airport to collect her and our packages she brought along. I had a little trouble convincing her she wanted to come down and visit, and eventually ordered enough stuff that was sent to her house she had to deliver it!

The first night stay in Charlotte Amalie, walk around town and go out for dinner. The next morning we pull up the anchor and head to St. John. We pick up a mooring in Francis Bay, get into swim suits tell mom to jump overboard and take off for mom’s first snorkel. And of course we made her swim to the snorkeling, I did hold onto her though, and it’s a good thing as she kept trying to swim out to sea. She had a great time and by the end of the trip got quite comfortable in the water. From Francis Bay, we hopped around the corner to Waterlemon Cay for more snorkeling and a short hike to the Annaberg Sugar Mill Ruins. The mill ruins were in one direction and the ruins of the master’s house in another. The master’s house is on top of the hill with a great view of the anchorage, surrounding islands and the sugar mill.

We contemplated circumnavigating St. John, but decided since mom came prepared, like a good girl scout with her passport, we would visit the BVI’s at Jost Van Dyke. Anchoring at Great Harbor was a bit of a challenge, after the 8^th attempt the anchor finally caught on something on the rocky bottom. After the captain went to shore and checked us in we headed to shore to see town and visit Foxy’s for a painkiller. We had the pleasure of meeting Foxy who never lacked for a story to tell. As soon as he heard we were from WV, he told us of his friend from WV, Joe Manchin, the governor.

We moved around the corner to Long Bay the following day and passed the time snorkeling, swimming and took a short hike to “the bubbles”, a small pool surrounded by boulders. The waves would crash in through the boulders and… well.. bubble.

With the week nearing the end we headed back toward Charlotte Amalie. Mom had one more first before flying home, parasailing. So the day before she left, we put her on a boat, strapped her to a parachute and hauled her (and me with her) up into the air 600ft. She loved it. But alas that put an end to the week and we had to send her to the airport and back home.

While we were in Charlotte Amalie, we looked up some friends of friends, after all friends of friends are basically already friends right? We found Kris and Carroll downtown at their store Fishface. They came out to the boat one evening for cocktail hour and some music playing.

With a quick stop at Coral Bay on St. John, we headed over to Roadtown on Tortola. Of course we arrive on a weekend, so most of the town is closed. We did managed to have someone come out and look at our refrigerator that is acting up a bit, that is after we finally managed to locate the compressor that was hidden under the floorboards, in the rear cockpit locker. We’ve been looking around for a year trying to find that, although I don’t think that locker has ever been completely emptied. Turns out our problem was just a failing fan, since the freezer compressor is identical we just swapped them out and were working again. We’ll need to get another fan but for now we don’t need to use the freezer.

The rest of the time in the BVI’s was a brief whirlwind trip, so we could make use of a weather window to make our last overnight jump east into the trade winds. We stopped by Marina Cay, Virgin Gorda, and visited the Baths; before heading out to sea.

Puerto Rico

Our expected weather window, fell a little short of the predicted north winds. We expected a shift in winds during our first night out. They didn’t shift. But they were very light and variable and the seas were very calm, to the point of having a glassy surface at times. We are fortunate to have a reliable motor as it ran for 3 days, nonstop. Except for listening to the motor (which I’ll take any day over beating into the wind and waves), our trip went by uneventfully. Uneventful is always a bonus on a crossing or anytime for that matter. We put our trolling lines out during the day and reeled in a small skipjack tuna and our second dorado that measured 37”.

At 1:00pm of our 3^rd day we dropped anchor in the bay at Boqueron, Puerto Rico. Arriving in a new country the first stop is always customs to check in, technically your vessel is only supposed to anchor at a check in port, that would have been Mayaguez. We had heard however that here it was possible to get a cab that would drive you to customs and back and skip the not as pleasant harbor of Mayaguez. We had a little trouble reaching Raul, (the cab driver) on the VHF and for the first time since we left the states started missing having a cell phone. We did finally reach him, and very efficiently got checked in at customs and dropped back in town. Boqueron is known as a local college party town, being the wrong season and not a weekend the town was mostly empty, many places not even opening till evening if at all. I hear in peak season you can barely walk down the street for all the people. We made our way to Galloway’s, recommended as the best restaurant in town. Not only did they have good food and quiet relaxed dining on the water, but also a bustling friendly pub. The owner’s son, Eric, happened to be in town for the St Patrick’s Day festivities and we had an enjoyable time meeting him and his girlfriend.

After St Patrick’s Day, we headed around the corner to La Parquera and had our first encounter of the trade winds. As soon as we rounded the point to the east coast, the winds hit us head on, the seas picked up and we beat into wind and waves for the couple of hours to our destination. At least it wasn’t far. After this day we would learn to leave before dawn to arrive at our destination around 7am, this would allow us to take advantage of the night time lee as the winds coming down off the land would reduce the trade winds, making for a slightly more comfortable trip. It was still rough. La Parquera is a quaint little town, that comes alive after dark on weekends. We were serenaded to a variety of music late into the evening.

And moving on, before dawn, we headed over to Cayos Caña Gorda, locally known as Gilligan’s Island. The island acquired it’s name as someone decided it looked a lot like the set of Gilligan’s Island. Upon visiting the island most of the similarities were lost on me, there was a nice shallow lagoon though. We had heard that it was often crowded on weekend’s as a ferry from the mainland would bring locals over for the afternoon, we went on a Monday not realizing it was a holiday. The place was packed. A large portion of the small island is all mangroves and inaccessible. Near the lagoon is a sandy beach and picnic area. People were everywhere, packed in like sardines, so we went back to the boat. Tuesday had no ferry’s running so we headed back to the island; it was barely recognizable without a single person in sight. Two small rivers flowed through the mangroves and opened into the lagoon; empty of people it was quiet and relaxing just setting in the calm water.

Onto Ponce. Ponce was not particularly special, although the historic downtown is supposed to be nice, we didn’t make it there. We did however rent a car for a day and do some shopping. Wal-Mart, Kmart, groceries and Pizza Hut. It was great to be able to pick up the little things on our shopping list that we had been unable to find for a while, but were easy to locate in Kmart. The following day before returning the car we decided to drive up into the mountains to see the Radio Telescope at the Arecibo Observatory. With what sounded like easy directions, we were glad to have a gps as the roads were a bit hard to follow, winding and curving up through the mountains. The scenery was beautiful, thick tropical foliage everywhere, and steep mountains. We just had enough time at the observatory for a brief look and a few pictures before heading back down the mountain to return the car.

After Ponce all of our other plans fell apart with a break in the trade winds. We ended up with one quick stop overnight and then headed straight to Vieques and the Spanish Virgin Islands. One of Vieques main attractions are the bioluminescent bays. They are said to be a spectacular sight, however to enjoy the underwater light show a dark sky is necessary, since we were here during a full moon and didn’t want to wait a week or more for a bit of dark sky we skipped by this experience. We also found that a couple of the nicer bays on the eastern end of the island were closed to anchoring during the week due to the military performing artillery cleanup form when the US Navy used this as a practice firing area up until 2003. Of course we were here early in the week, oh well, with still having some settled winds we popped up north to Culebra.

Having skipped a large section of Puerto Rico to take advantage of calm winds to get here we decided to take a ferry, costing $2.50 one way back to the mainland. There we rented a car with our friends on Spirare, and drove into Old San Juan for a day. Along the way we stopped at a West Marine and picked up a few much wanted boat items. In Old San Juan we toured the Castillo de San Felipe del Morro. A fort built in 1953 under orders of the King of Spain to defend San Juan from naval attacks. It was a good trip and a long day, having arrived at the ferry dock at 6:00am and not arriving back at the boat until 11:00pm.

Our overall view of Puerto Rico was a very pleasant one. We enjoyed the small towns along the coast, found the people very friendly, and equally enjoyed the beautiful scenery of the coast and mountains. Traveling east along the southern shore in a sailboat…. Not fun at all, every mile was hard won. The water was not very clear at all and snorkeling was a disappointment, but there were some pretty beaches. As for the food: We usually enjoy trying local fare and are drawn to local restaurants, however it did not take long to discover Puerto Rican food = pork. I think they have managed to find a way to put it in everything. Since pork, chicken and beef are not a part of our dietary menu, we quickly shied away from anything advertising “local”. Pizza Hut was a welcome change.

Turks & Caicos

How hard can it be to check into a country? Well apparently when you arrive on a Sunday and Monday is a holiday it can be very difficult. Sunday, following our early morning arrival, knowing we were too tired to do anything, but not quite ready to sleep we broke out the bottle of rum for a little celebration. Normally I would be concerned about us choosing a bit of rum at 9:00 am, but after 48 hours at sea and a random sleep schedule that didn’t take notice of day or night it seemed a good day for an exception. And besides our only plan for the day was to go to sleep. And we did just that, waking up briefly for a bit of dinner and back to sleep. Monday morning we dug our bicycles out of the forward locker where they have been stored for the voyage. I do mean dug, it seems our forward locker has accumulated quite a few items, most of which I believe are the various pieces for my sewing projects not yet finished, or started. We then loaded the bikes into the dingy and headed to shore in search of customs. This is the first time we had used our bikes since being in the States, the Bahamas islands being small enough to not need them, we were very glad to have them on this island. After being accustomed to everything being within a very short walking distance it was surprising to find the island much larger than expected and everything spread out over miles. At least the exercise felt good after days of being cooped up on the boat. Our first stop, after taking the wrong road and backtracking, was at customs only to find out that is was a holiday and no one was there. The next day when we checked in with customs we were told they had a ship come in and they were actually there at 2:30pm but the workers at the gate, “Don’t know anything.”

As we were checking in the next day, we were informed that our $15 fee was good for 7 days; if we wanted to stay longer we would need to go downtown to the immigration office and get a 30-day cruising permit for $75. Decisions, decisions, deciding how long to stay. We figure we’ll talk to your weather guru, procrastinate a few days and decide later.

We rode downtown to the marine store and amazingly enough they actually had the spare part we were looking for, too bad they didn’t have the charts we wanted, oh well. How important are charts anyway? I’m sure we’ll find some eventually, since we somehow managed to leave home without paper charts for the Turks & Caicos, Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico.

We headed on up to the northern coast for some lunch at da Conch Shack. It is a charming little shack of a restaurant painted in colorful hues of pink, green and blue, sitting right on the beach. As we waited for our meal and sipped on their “infamous” rum punch, we watched the men on the beach cleaning conch. IB went down and got a few pointers. Since we were out of conch and not allowed to take any in the T&C’s he’ll just have to wait to put his new information to use. After our pleasant meal and a few rum punches we were ready for our 5 mile ride along a busy highway back to the boat.

A word about dingys. Our dingy is essentially our family car. It is how we get to and from our boat, how we get to reefs to snorkel, it’s well our lifeline to land. We are careful to make sure it is tied and even locked with a steel cable when we leave it at a dock. The possibility of having our dingy stolen is always there, even if we lock it, as thief’s are known to cut cables and take dingys, sometimes even from the boat at night. Knowing of this possibility, and dreading ever being faced with it, we were completely dumfounded as we rode up to where we left the dingy tied to find the dock gone. It took a few minutes as we looked at each other, looked at where

the dock used to be and our little brains tried to process what our eyes were seeing. Never did we imagine the possibility of someone taking the dock! We walked down the small steps to small section of dock that still remained, and then we started breathing again as we saw that someone had moved our dingy and it was still there waiting for us. They didn’t even cut our cable, but broke off the cleat it was attached to. No swimming back to the boat that day.

Back to the big debate. Pay the $75 and stay a few weeks, or head on down to Puerto Rico. The winds are going to be shifting to the southeast, so we need to leave this anchorage as there is no protection to prevent the wind and waves to beat on our boat and rock us around. There is supposed to be a short window with light winds from that north that could get us to Puerto Rico. The window seems like it will barely be long enough. After a bit of thought we decide to just stay for a few weeks and head up to the north side of the island. We had initially wanted to go to the north side as the bay there has lots of coral, snorkeling and diving nearby, as well as stores and restaurants in the vicinity. We ended up in Sapodilla Bay, on the south side, because the day we arrived with our north wind, the north swell was breaking across entrance channel to Grace Bay and would have been very dangerous to attempt getting in there. We pulled up the anchor and headed over to North West Point for the night and anchored just

off the beach where Columbus anchored in October of 1492. The beach used to be the site of Tiki Huts where the French game show Pago Pago was filmed. During the show contestants would dive down to about 35 feet, swim into a large cage and collect pearls from artificial sponges. They had “mermaids” under water with scuba tanks and the contestants could exchange bracelets for air. There was however a “bad” mermaid that would swim away and refuse the contestant air at the last moment. The show did not last long. The next morning we moved over to one of the nearby dive moorings and got out our scuba gear. The cage was just at the bottom of the mooring, although it is now collapsed and laying in pieces. The fishes still like it though. From there we swam in about 40 feet of water to the wall drop off. Floating over nothingness, with the bottom too many hundreds of feet down to see.

After our dive, we quickly stowed our gear and headed around the point to Grace Bay. We wanted to be sure that we entered the bay while the sun was still high in the sky to allow us the visibility needed to dodge coral heads. The banks of the Turks & Caicos are littered with coral heads that could cause big problems if we accidentally ran into one. Fortunately, the black spots that show on the surface from the sun are easy to identify and avoid. Once inside we anchored just off the beach in front of the beach resorts. The people in the resorts are paying a lot of money to sit on the beach and swim in the clear water; we’re not paying anything to anchor here.

Remember when we decided to stay for a while? That was just two days ago right? Well we’ve listened to the latest on weather and the window looks longer than we expected, so we’ve changed our mind we’re going to leave before spending the $75 on a cruising permit. Into the marina we go, to fill the diesel tanks, top off the water, charge the batteries and get some groceries. Since I still had yet to get that romantic dinner out I wanted on Valentine’s Day, this seemed like a good night for it. After searching the internet for restaurant reviews, I made reservations at Coyaba. It was finally warm enough in the evening to wear my summer dresses without getting chilled, so I pulled out my little white dress; my wedding dress to be precise, I knew there was a reason I made it oh so practical. We were not disappointed by the review I read. The restaurant was not oceanfront, but had a very pleasant and relaxed atmosphere. The food was truly outstanding, and I had the best company in the world. The evening was perfect. Our last one on the island, tomorrow we head back out to sea.