S/V Delilah

Original Delilah

2008-01-02T22:21:00.000-05:00

Here's a picture of John Martyn's Delilah, after which our boat was named. As usual, click on the picture for the larger version. For anyone that is interested, I have the 2400dpi version if you'd like it.

NYC Fun Times

2007-06-29T07:16:00.000-05:00

Here Jill is surrounded by trash in NYC.

Dwarfed

2007-06-29T07:15:00.000-05:00

Look what parked on top of us at our marina! Zounds! Yikes!

Home Sweet Home (or Boat for Sale)

2007-06-27T14:52:00.001-05:00

Tuesday, June 26
Boston Waterboat Marina
66 Long Wharf
Boston, MA 02110

N 42 degrees, 21.642 minutes
W 071 degrees, 02.912 minutes

602 days, 16 countries (countless islands), 3 languages, and roughly 7,500 miles later, Delilah is back where she started, plugged in, rinsed off, and patiently awaiting the real scrubbing she has earned by getting us home safely. Yes, we miss the Caribbean, but we are happy to be home. Yes, we are suffering culture shock, but there's nothing like watching Derek and Wally's condiment-squirting fight at Aunt Bernie's pool party to put the importance of home and family in context. (What I actually mean by "context" you can decide for yourself.)

We had a great time in New York with Amanzi. Kim had never been to the city before, so we hit all the major sites, and walked for miles, enjoying Chinatown, Times Square, SoHo, Greenwich Village, and Central Park and gawking at all the people—more people, perhaps, than we saw the whole time we cruised outside the U.S.

I really knew the trip was coming to an end when we hit Beaufort, but once we got to Long Island Sound, there really didn't seem to be any point to dragging our feet any longer. We gave up sailing in order to make best speed toward New England, and so our last few days at sea were full of the sound of our droning engine, and my droning on and on about how COLD it is up here (okay, it's 90-something degrees on the boat as I type this, but LAST week we were wearing long underwear and fleece). We had long days on the move, using every minute of daylight, and occasionally dodging theatrical thunderstorms off Rhode Island and Cape Cod. We caught one last fish, a bluefish, which we grilled for dinner, and on our second-to-last day at sea, Buzzard's Bay gave us a typically rowdy welcome home.

We spent our final night at a mooring in the Harbor Islands, admiring Boston from a distance. On Sunday we attempted to sail to our marina, figuring it's really pathetic to motor those last five miles. But after tacking and tacking our way into NW winds with the tide against us and increasing in velocity, we lost patience.

What next? Well, Dean and I both need to find jobs very soon, but maybe we can squeeze one last cruise in, up to Maine for a week or two, before we go back to work and Delilah, our means of escape and our home for more than five years, goes up for sale.

Stand by for some final photos.

Awwwwwwww

2007-06-19T07:58:00.001-05:00

Who's cuter than Malcolm? Nobody, that's who!

NCY Images

2007-06-19T07:54:00.001-05:00

Here we have the Statue of Liberty. You can sail VERY close to her...
And Dean, bundled up. It's been getting fairly cool, sailing through the night.

NYC, Baby!

2007-06-19T07:52:00.001-05:00

Monday, June 18
New York, New York
N 40 degrees, 47.369 minutes
W 073 degrees, 59.036 minutes

How do you stay in Manhattan for only $30 per night? Sail on up the Hudson to the 79th Street Boat Basin and pick up one of their transient moorings. That’s where we are today, following a 51-hour sail (okay, motorsail) up the coast from Norfolk.

Grudgingly, I apologize to all of you armchair adrenaline junkies who seem to think our last few passage blogs, and especially Joe’s blog, were the “best ever.” Does fearing for one’s life really make for great writing? Well, our last two long passages (up the ICW from Beaufort to Norfolk and along the coast to New York) have been fairly uneventful, even tedious at times. We did, of course, have more engine troubles along the Waterway, but having the engine stop cold at an awkward moment is becoming routine. I hardly swear at all anymore when it happens.

In Norfolk we said goodbye to our good friends on Carapan and Indra. Since April we’ve sailed well over a thousand miles with these boats, sharing meals and anchorages, swapping favorite sundowner recipes for dominoes lessons, and always planning where we might like to go next. We were sad to go our own way, but both boats were continuing up the Chesapeake to Annapolis, while we had planned a nice long visit with Tina, Ian, and Malcolm (not to mention their shower, laundry, and kitchen facilities). We picked a great time to visit, as there were all sorts of celebrations going on in the area, including a parade of tall ships and one of the best fireworks displays I’ve ever seen. We also ate countless pulled pork sandwiches at Doumar’s, and I had my first pedicure in 2 years (yes, I gave a healthy tip to the poor, smiling woman who worked on my calloused toes).

Weather delayed our departure a few days, and I don’t know how Tina and Ian felt about the house guests who wouldn’t leave, but I was thrilled to stay a little longer, visiting with Tina’s mom and awaiting the long-delayed arrival of Amanzi, who have suffered their share of adventures on the passage up from Cuba.

Kim and David arrived Thursday afternoon and helped us all celebrate Dean’s birthday, for which I had unselfishly baked a cake from scratch. Over the next 24 hours, they persuaded us to sail up to New York with them (Dean, having sworn for the 3rd time never to do another overnight passage, was pushing for a 3-day journey straight to Block Island).

Saturday morning at 7, we pulled up our anchors, and we ate Amanzi’s wake all the way here. Now we are supposed to be napping and cleaning our boats before we head into the city to see how fast we can spend the rest of our cruising kitty (all 47 cents of it). I am too excited to sleep. I swear the Statue of Liberty waved hello to me as we entered the harbor.

Joe's Guest Blog

2007-06-12T07:35:00.000-05:00

A five day cruise aboard Delilah at first sounded like a good idea. In truth, it turned out to be a death-defying, 92 hour, 1 long day @ sea, living at a 45 degree angle and eating beef raviolis out of the can for every meal experience.

I began to have my doubts as I boarded the Yellow Air Taxi in Fort Lauderdale. The yellow Cessna looked like it had seen its day. As I looked out over the wing on my side, there were rivets, screws, and hatches missing. I assured myself the plane was safe because they fly in it all the time, right? They wouldn’t let people in it if it wasn’t safe, right? Well, we got off the ground OK, took a sharp left @ about 20 feet and flew right over the terminal @ roof top level. They do this all the time, right? As we headed for Treasure Cay, there was a terrific headwind which made for a bumpy and slow flight. Landing @ Treasure Key about 90 minutes later, the pilot turned towards the runway, those headwinds were now at our side, and the plane wanted to land sideways. It was a white knuckle landing, and I was very glad to have touched down. I had no idea this was only to clear customs and we would have to take off and land again. Taking off was worse! It was down the runway, up and an instant bucking bronco ride, going sideways and bouncing all over the place. The pilot must have thought it would be amusing to buzz his friend's house @ the tip of the cay, smiling like a madman, he turned to me and said, “If they ask why we were so low, we will tell them there was a plane above us HA HA HA!" Well we landed alright, same thing, sideways, but at least that was the last time. I thought to myself, at least I’ll be taking the boat back, that will be much safer.

Dean was at the dock waiting for me: it was good to see him. Jill greeted me at the boat; it was good to see her as well.

After a couple of days waiting for the weather to settle, Dean said it was time to go; Sunday, about noon, we headed north. It was very unsettling for me, being a power boat guy, to have 10’ seas at our beam, and 20+ knot winds. We're going to turn around, right? Dean assured me that the boat would not capsize. Although the rail was in the water, and the sink was filling with seawater, Dean continued to assure me that the boat would not capsize, something about 4 tons of lead, big keel, blah, blah, blah. He also said that if it does flip, it will quickly right itself. Well, that made me feel better!

For the next 30 hours or so, we pounded north, rail in the water, and Jill bailing out the sink, each of us doing 3 hour watches at the helm with this crazy gizmo doing the steering. I still don’t know how it worked. I pondered over it for hours on watch, I didn’t want to appear stupid, but I asked Dean anyway, he mumbled something about the wind, the rudder, and ropes all over the place. It made this noise like everything was going to pop any minute. Dean was right again though, it really worked, kept us on course, despite the wind and seas, but I still can’t figure out how.

The first night at sea, the seas still about ten feet, wind still howling at our beam, I could only lie in the cockpit, tethered to the floor, with that steering contraption singing its song. Going below was difficult, I certainly couldn’t sleep down there. When I did go below to use the head, I ended up slamming my head on something, I don’t know what, but I saw stars, groping in the dark to see if my ear was still attached. It wasn’t until things calmed down, days later, that I admitted to Jill it was my blood on her pillow.

By the second night at sea, things really calmed down, it started out a beautiful, calm moonlight night. I was on the midnight to three watch, and really enjoying myself. Dean and Jill were sleeping below, and I thought things were great until I saw the squall line up on the horizon. At first it only rained a little, then a little more, then came the winds. It wasn’t too bad, not as bad as before anyway. That was when I heard this noise straight out of the movie White Squall, this incredible gust of wind from nowhere came and heeled the boat over, like nothing I had felt before. My feet were on the port gunnel, and I was grasping for the starboard rail. I swear I was standing straight up and down. The boat seemed to stay there forever. JILLLLLLLLLL……!!!! I SHOUTED IN PANIC. She peaked her head out and said, “Looks like we have a little squall, I don’t think it will get any worse, but if it does, wake me up." And with that, she went back to bed. Well! I was terrified, but shook it off. The squall settled down, but it took the rest of my watch to calm down. I spent the second night at sea, tethered to the floor in the cockpit, wondering how they would handle my obituary in the Town Crier. I was sure I would not survive this trip.

The remainder of the trip was quite uneventful, seas were calm, life was good. With the exception of a couple of minor engine problems, drifting into a flotilla of warships, and catching an excellent mahi mahi, things were pretty routine.

When dawn broke on the fifth day, I was still in the cockpit, feeling like I was in Water World. But today we would see land, and eat some real food.

All in all, it was a great trip, and I would like to thank Dean and Jill for including me in their crew. It was an adventure I will never forget. I learned many things. I learned the basics of sailing, I learned what the sails and all the other stuff are called. I learned that the boat will not flip over, but if it does, it will quickly right itself. I learned that in Marsh Harbour, there is a Kentucky Fried Chicken place. I also learned that if you drift into a flotilla of warships, they will get out of your way. I learned the Delilah is a great boat, seaworthy and sound, with an excellent captain and crew. Most importantly, I learned that although sailing is fun, I will keep my diesel powered sport fisherman, and when the rail of the Capt. Easy goes in the water, I’ll know it’s time to turn around and head for port.

Check These Out

2007-06-10T07:01:00.000-05:00

It's Big Daddy Wesley's, in Beaufort. Fishing bait, beer, and boiled peanuts (in season, apparently). Then, Dean is getting the Q flag ready for entering the U.S. after a year and a half. Lastly, Mae Mae surfs the web in Abaco.

2007-06-10T06:59:00.001-05:00

Here we see the lighthouse at Abaco and Jill's parents. Notice the coconut hat on Mr. Martyn. Nice.

Landfall Happiness

2007-06-09T08:28:00.001-05:00

Look how happy Joe is to see land. Dean is getting ready to hoist the Q flag.

The South

2007-06-09T07:18:00.000-05:00

I love the south. In Beaufort, we asked the manager of the marina where we could find a propane solenoid. He told us where to go, but it was a fair ways off. He offered to loan us this car. No signing of forms. No checking of licenses. Just please replace the gas you use. Nice.

Tardy Guest Blog

2007-06-07T16:52:00.001-05:00

Mary’s and Jack’s Visit, May 2007:

It took a Continental 737, a 20-seater Gulfstream and a ferry ride to reach Jill and Dean on Elbow Cay, a small island in the Abacos. But there was herself, wearing a straw hat and sunglasses and looking like a native of West Palm Beach which we had left just two hours before, and Dean relaxed and tanned, carefully guiding the dinghy alongside the dock.

We had a fun visit with the two sailors (sorry, cruisers) on this small island 6-1/2 mile long and only one-quarter mile wide in some parts. It’s lovely there, with many, mostly deserted, beaches to choose from. There are just a few walkways through the little village of Hopetown, where all the houses are painted pastel colors and flowers are everywhere. You park your rented golf cart at the appointed area at the edge of the village and meander around to perhaps Iggy Biggys to pick up a gift or two, or have lunch at Captain Jack’s.

Our cottage, which Rose found on the internet after much searching, provided the fun advantage, that as we sat at our breakfast table, we could observe Delilah at anchor out in White Sound, and spy through our binoculars as they took their dingy into “our” dock. Jill cooked freshly caught (by Dean) Mahi Mahi with coconut rice and veggies for our first island meal. After that, we enjoyed the mostly waterside restaurants.

An excursion to the lighthouse provided splendid views all around and gave us a sense of where some of the Abaco islands are in relation to Elbow Cay.

Many thanks for the opportunity, Jill and Dean, and safe sailing, as you continue north towards home, to complete your fantastic trip.

Passage Notes

2007-06-02T22:15:00.000-05:00

Saturday, June 2, 2007
Beaufort, North Carolina
N 34 degrees, 42.919 minutes
W 076 degrees, 39.826 minutes

I've been tardy in this blog. There's really not much you can do about it though, is there?

I think we already mentioned that our friend Joe came along to help us out on our longest offshore ever on Delilah. We picked Joe up in the Abacos, then waited a few days in howling winds for somewhat suitable (but promising to get better) weather, then headed out for our 500-mile, four-day journey to the U.S., taking us right smack through the Bermuda Triangle.

Things began on a minor down note: Saturday night, the night before we left, our propane solenoid packed it up in the middle of cooking dinner. I fiddled with it for a few hours, but it was broken beyond repair and we therefore had no hot food or drink for the entire trip. I made do with Pop-Tarts, jill with PBJ, and Joe with cold ravioli from a can. Really pretty disgusting, but we didn't starve, and four days is not long enough for scurvy to set in.

Overall, I really can't complain about the trip. Sunday we had some sort of favorable current, combined with plenty of wind, which gave us an unheard-of speed of 8 knots for the first day. We had reasonable weather for most of the trip (wind and seas were pretty rough the first two days; we knew they would be when we left, though Joe might have something else to say about that in his blog). Joe was there to help with the watches, which made such an enormous difference I can't begin to explain it). Two other boats left with us (Indra and Carapan). Our windvane did all the steering for the first two days, when maneuvering in heavy seas and high winds at a high angle of heel would have been most exhausting. However, as is probably inevitable on such a long journey, there were a few vexations and a few strange happenings.

On Tuesday, our third day, smack in the middle of nowhere, we saw a strange object off our port beam. We watched it for over an hour, puzzling over its strange shape. At first we thought it was a cruise ship, but as it got closer we realized it wasn't so much a vessel as a fuel platform...a MOVING fuel platform...headed, wait a minute...headed straight for us! Because there was no discernable bow or stern on this thing, and because it took so long for it to approach, it took until we could read the writing along its side for us to see the bow wave and realize that the Saipan 7000 was actually underway. Jill ran down and hailed the vessel, who assured us that we would pass astern (ah, the joy of radar, which we don't have). We altered course to assure ourselves the same.

Tuesday night we realized that our masthead tricolor was broken. That's our navigational light, which tells other vessels in the area which direction we are going (after altering them to our presence, of course). Not a good thing. Luckily, we have deck-level lights, but they are not nearly as visible in big seas. Luckily, we had no big seas. Then our steaming light broke. This light tells other vessels when we are under power so the appropriate rules of the road can be followed. Not a huge deal, but still.

On our third night, things got very strange. At three a.m., when most of the excitement seems to happen, Joe and I spotted an emergency flare while about 80 miles off the coast of N.C. and 180 miles from our destination. I went through the proper motions (putting a waypoint in the GPS, calling the Coast Guard, getting out the spotlight, etc.), but after searching for over an hour we decided to proceed on our journey. I think we made the correct call, but of course there's always the worry that some poor people were out there in a life raft...

Our decision was based on a few factors. First, the Coast Guard had been receiving many, many flare sightings over the past few days. Some of these were no doubt meteors (Jill saw one not 15 minutes after I saw the flare), but still... Also, the Coast Guard was not sure that the military wasn't on exercises (they were indeed on exercises, we found out later). The flare appeared green to me, and distress flares are not green. I could not be sure how far away the flare was when I saw it; another boat radioed the Coast Guard and he was 20 miles or so from our position. Finally, there were absolutely no visual reference points, which made searching very difficult. I practically pleaded with the Coast Guard to tell me what to do, and their response was basically to keep our eyes open. This was a very unnerving happening.

While motorsailing on Wednesday, our fourth day at sea, moments after Joe had caught a fish, as Jill was crouched next to the engine compartment, cleaning up the sea water that had leaked into the boat and mingled with the spilled nastiness leaking from the fridge (which is another story, one you have heard before), she noticed that the water seemed to be coming from another area entirely--the engine itself.

With fish guts all over the cockpit and a freshening wind, we had a lot going on in the cockpit, but I traded the helm with Jill and went down to investigate. It didn't take long to find the problem. Our raw water hose was on the verge of splitting wide open, and salt water was leaking everywhere. Had we not caught this in time, the hose would have failed, salt water would have leaked from the engine, the engine would have overheated, and our repairs could have become decidedly more complicated. In this case, however, we had the spare part and were able to replace the hose in a few minutes, but I was tired enough that I forgot to reopen the raw water valve. Duh. Luckily, I noticed that no water was coming from the exhaust and shut the engine down AGAIN before it overheated. Nice move.

Then there was Wednesday night, our fourth and final night at sea. Once again, in the middle of the night, the wind faded to nothing, so I turned on the engine. It ran for a minute, then died. Fuel filters. On Delilah, you can hear the noise the engine makes when it's not getting enough fuel. We have plenty of fuel in the tank, so we knew it was the fuel filters. This is a nasty business, replacing fuel our filters at sea. I won't go into details, but the whole process took two hours of bending over a compartment below our V-berth. I had to fight off puking the entire time, became covered in diesel fuel, got diesel all over the floor and walls belowdecks, etc.

Jill came below to help, and we had left Joe at the helm. To ease the motion, we hove to, which means that Delilah was basically drifting slowly through the water, with no way of steering her. Joe was under orders to touch nothing. But we were 50 miles from land, the seas were calm, and the wind was light. What could possibly go wrong?

My mood was not the greatest when Joe happened to call down for Jill. At that moment we were in the middle of a delicate fuel transfer, so she asked Joe what it was and couldn't it wait. Joe replied, "They're are all around us!" I asked who and he replied, "There are BOATS all around us. They have no lights on. We're going to drift into them!" I began to figure out how we were going to restrain Joe for the rest of the passage, as he had clearly lost his mind and begun hallucinating.

Jill and I went up, and we could just basically make out the silhouettes, but to my amazement, WE WERE SMACK IN THE MIDDLE OF A BUNCH OF WARSHIPS THAT WERE RUNNING IN TIGHT FORMATION WITH NO LIGHTS ON WHATSOEVER. And obviously, several had already had to move out of our way. Gadzooks! It was only then that I remembered that we had shut down most of the electrical systems to conserve battery power, including the VHF. I quickly turned it on and basically said: "Uhhhh. This is Delilah. Our radio has been off, if anybody cares." A little more professionally, but not much. Very quickly came the response, "This is Warship 78 off your port bow. Please turn to starboard immediately." So, we did and a few minutes later were out of the battle group. I have to say, the Navy was pretty nice about our boneheaded move, and at no time did anybody appear to be pointing any guns at us or threatening our civil liberties.

Well, we got the fuel fliter changed, made it back to land early Thursday morning with no further adventures, splurged on a slip at the marina, were checked into the U.S. by the nicest Customs guy ever, drank champagne with our friends to celebrate, and were in fairly euphoric moods for the next day or so. Today, Dave Rollins showed up in the cockpit at 7AM. He had said he'd come visit, but due to my legendary poor planning ability, combined with the uncertainty of sea travel and the sporadic communications mechanisms available to me, I never really told him exactly where we were. He came anyway and hunted us down (to the point of almost renting a kayak to paddle around the boats anchored in the harbor). We had a blast with him and Allison (Dave went to school here one summer, and so he played guide), but they had to leave that afternoon.

We had planned to move to a mooring today to save money, but none are available, as the remains of Barry are threatening high winds tomorrow (Sunday). We will proceed north as soon as conditions warrant.

Mae Mae Over And Out

2007-05-25T13:24:00.000-05:00

25 May 2007
Marsh Harbour, Abacos

So Jill's parents came down to the Abacos to visit us. They rented a house for the week, and then rented a golf cart so we could zip around the island. Jill loved the cart, and turned the island into her very own Le Mans whenever she got behind the wheel. We went to the beach (although it was very windy), the museum, etc. We ate well. The best part, however, was that the place they rented came with a VHF radio. It was to my distinct pleasure to hear Jill's mother saying "Deliah. Delilah. Mae-Mae" on VHF 16. After the conversation was over, I nearly died when she came out with "Mae-Mae over and out."

We are waiting on weather to begin our 4 day offshore passage to N.C.

Best for Last?

2007-05-18T09:47:00.001-05:00

Friday, May 18
Hope Town, Elbow Cay, Abacos
N 26 degrees, 32.404 minutes
W 076 degrees, 57.973 minutes

Okay, so we dragged our feet a little through the Exumas. With sub-tropical storm Andrea and other nasty weather on the U.S. coast causing, for us, day after day of light wind and calm seas, it just seemed like a good idea to get our fill of snorkeling and beachcombing in while we could. Mom and Dad's impending visit was weeks away.

Until it wasn't. On Saturday we still had plans to relax a little longer. Then we heard the weather forecast. Chris Parker, weather guru, was starting to sound grim. Well, we thought, we don't have far to go.
Except it was really about 130 miles from point a to point b. And there was a front coming through, and then maybe this low would form, so we grudgingly set off for Royal Island, skipping one last day of snorkeling but giving ourselves what we thought was a little bit of a time cushion to get to the Abacos for their arrival.

If Chris Parker worked Sundays, we might have heard the bad news earlier and foregone a peaceful night at anchor for a sleepless night of motoring in calm conditions. But he didn't forecast, and we missed the local marina's forecast over the VHF because we were reeling in a fish while under sail. We stopped at Royal, grilled our fish, and slept, blissfully unaware of the week ahead.

By Monday morning, it was still sunny and calm outside, but things were looking much, much grimmer for the foreseeable future. In five days my parents would arrive on an island 80 miles to the north, and here we were, safely anchored next to an uninhabited island (save for rabid, biting insects) with no means of communicating with the outside world. They wouldn't panic when we didn't show up, would they?

We listened to Chris's Monday morning broadcast, and he gave us a shred of hope that if we left RIGHT NOW and were especially lucky, we could make it to Great Abaco before dark (assuming we made 5 knots) and before things got really ugly. I mean, 20 knots of wind and 6-foot seas aren't really ugly, are they? The "trades" serve that up daily in the eastern Caribbean. We've had worse.

We got underway immediately, stowing our junk, washing dishes, and prepping sails as we motored north in light wind and flat seas.

The good news about wind and seas that build slowly is that you almost don't notice the point where they go from mild to...let's call it challenging. And then maybe uncomfortable. We ticked down the miles and the hours to go, reefing down to a double reefed main and the staysail, leaving the engine on full throttle to keep our speed up in sloppy chop and a possible countercurrent.

By the time we were a few miles away from the Abacos, the wind was cranking at maybe 30 knots (that's a guess--could have gone either way by 5 knots), and the chop was up to perhaps 6 feet. To get into the protected sound along the eastern coast of great Abaco we needed to find our way over a shallowish bar through a cut in a reef. On the charts it looked chancy. We were tired. We chose a more open and southerly anchorage, figuring the waves would go down in a day or two, and we could make those last 5 miles of open water into the hairy entrance at our leisure.

On Tuesday Chris Parker was all doom and gloom, so we waited until Wednesday. On Wednesday Chris had even more bad news, hinting about another possible low, and threatening that the miserable weather and heavy, frequent squalls in the Abacos would curse us through the weekend. THROUGH THE WEEKEND? We would miss my parents' entire visit because of 5 miles of Atlantic Ocean. Pathetic. But worse, we were in a fairly exposed anchorage if a low came through, and it was looking like a distinct possibility that we would be clobbered.

Counter to Chris's dire predictions, the wind died for a few hours on Wednesday. We waited, prepped the boat, tied everything down all over again, brought out the foul weather gear, and watched the waves pounding dramatically against and over the headland beside us. We convinced ourselves that the waves weren't so bad. Maybe they were going down. At noon we had a simple lunch. Then we bit the bullet.

At least the swell wasn't breaking along the exit to our anchorage. But it was big. From the helm I watched our bow point up, up, up at the sky, then down, straight down, at the trough between two waves. It was too late to worry about not having enough water under the keel in those troughs. Inside a minute we were in 10 feet, 12 feet, 15 feet, and then blissfully deeper water.

The waves were bigger than Monday's, but still manageable. I mean, we HAVE actually been sailing quite bit lately. We must have learned something about seamanship. Still, Dean noticed my white knuckles on the wheel, and he offered to take over. I occupied my time staring at every cloud and color change in the gray-on-gray sky. Did that contain 40 knots of wind? Would that one create steep, breaking seas?

Dean got us to the entrance. We watched the waves rolling and tumbling across the reef to starboard, and crashing 20 feet in the air against the rocky spit of land to port. It was near slack tide, so we didn't have current to worry about, and the entrance itself was almost a fifth of a mile wide. Plenty, right? On paper, certainly. On Wednesday, from my vantage point, it was distressingly narrow and certainly shallow. Waves coming up from deeper water ouside the channel were bulging higher and higher until some of them broke into angry foam. Gulp.

Our chart gave us waypoints to follow, and we lined ourselves up. We had the waves almost dead astern. Dean kept his hands on the wheel and his eyes on the compass, while I followed our course on the GPS, reading out our position. "Two feet left of course, five feet left of course, WHOAH thirty feet left of course." We'd been swept sideways by a wave. That was new. Good thing it wasn't a super big wave. Dean recovered quickly, and quickly learned how to angle the waves to keep us close to our course while our 12-ton boat surfed like a toy. We were in! And inside the reef it was eerily calm. Now all we had to do was motor another 15 miles in protected water wand avoid running aground in the shallow patches. Piece of cake!

Finally, we are here, anchored below the lovely and often-photographed Hope Town Lighthouse, fortifying ourselves for a day full of errands with extra strong Irish tea. Mom and Dad arrive in 8 hours, and the weather is perfect.

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Too Many Mahi?

2007-05-17T10:58:00.001-05:00

Sunday, May 13
Royal Harbour, Eleuthera, Bahamas

One of the best things about visiting the Exumas in May is the warmer water. The snorkeling at Thunderball Cave and The Aquarium remains the best we have ever seen, and the water here is so clear I could see starfish and blades of seagrass on the bottom as we sailed along in 25 feet of water.

And yes, by the way, I did go back to Thunderball Cave to get another look at that nurse shark. He was still there, and he was even bigger than I had remembered.

What else have we been up to, besides gazing at the perfect water? More pot luck dinners, more birthday parties, more hikes along empty beaches and on deserted islands, more cocktails on the beach, and more fresh fish than the two of us can eat. Our freezer is stuffed full. Fortunately, we have ben traveling in the company of Carapan and Indra, so we share.

I also finally got a chance to dive on the downed plane that sits in the anchorage at Norman's Island (which Carlos Lederer used as a base of operations back in the 1980s). All the stash is long gone, as are the seats, if there were any. But the plane is still mostly intact and is full of fish and the beginnings of coral growth. I was surprised by the plane's wingspan, and by how roomy it was inside. The only other plane I had snorkeled on was a one-seater, and it looked like a toy next to this.

But we have torn ourselves away from the Exumas, and made a long run today up to Royal Island, on our way to meet Mom and Dad in the Abacos. We hope to get there a few days early to begin prepping the boat for our trip back to the U.S. and to scout out the best beaches.

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Lobstah Hotel

2007-05-08T12:57:00.000-05:00

We went snorkeling today (the wind died down) and saw the most fantastic sight: a lobster hotel. Imagine a reef, roughly shaped like a ball, and INFESTED with HUGE lobsters. Every time we dove, we saw more of them, sometimes four or five at a time. Given that we'd only seen a handful of lobster in all the snorkeling we've done, this is big news. My mouth is watering.

Warderick Wells Again

2007-05-07T14:10:00.000-05:00

Hangin' in WW again. You all remember that it's part of the Exuma Land and Sea Park, which means that there are abundant fishies 'cause nobody is allowed to catch them. Beautiful snorkeling, which we haven't yet gotten to because, as they say, "It's blowin' like stink out." While we are not exposed to the hurricane-force winds off the coast of the U.S., we've got some nice wind down here and we do see some of the seas that are being kicked up way to the west of us. So, we'll hunker down here for a day or two before we press onward.

See everybody soon!

Fish!

2007-05-04T13:19:00.000-05:00

Allright, Dad, here's a picture of our latest mahi-mahi. It took about an hour to clean the fish and then the cockpit. Blood and gore everywhere! We got two huge fillets out of this guy.

Dinghy!

2007-05-04T13:09:00.000-05:00

Our dinghy is our car. Here you can see a full parking lot, and an empty one.

Me, Darryl Hannah, 007, and a Shark

2007-05-04T13:07:00.001-05:00

Friday, May 4
Staniel Cay, Exumas, Bahamas
N 24 degrees, 10.702 minutes
W 076 degrees, 26.733 minutes

By the time we left Georgetown on Tuesday, the four-mile long harbor was down to fewer than a hundred cruising boats, and I was beginning to actually enjoy it! We loved what little we saw of the Bahamian regatta, and I only wish now that we had arrived in Georgetown a few days earlier, to get the provisioning out of the way and leave us more time to watch the boats race.

But we got it all done, at least, and attended a few final potlucks on Hamburger Beach with Crossroads, who will stay another week in Georgetown with their guests and then will head to the west coast of Florida via Key West. Crossroads is also heading home, though their home state is landlocked, so the boat will stop in St. Petersburg and will go up for sale in June. We will miss Michele and Glenn, but we are already looking forward to their first visit in November, where we will plan, in earnest, a CHARTERED cruise of the Mediterranean.

Indra is still with us as we sail up the Exumas chain. We have stopped in Staniel Cay for a few days, and we are enjoying the area much more this time around, as the water is significantly warmer, and we are anchored right next to the town and Thunderball Cave, rather than two damp miles away by dinghy, off a beach that's overrun by feral pigs. We will probably stay here through May 5 in order to attend the Staniel Cay Yacht Club's Cinco de Mayo celebration. Jamie has confessed that Cinco de Mayo is her FAVORITE holiday and Mexican food her favorite cuisine. How could we possibly not stay?!

We wrote about Thunderball Cave when we snorkeled there last year. The cave, which is indeed featured in the film of the same name, as well as in "Splash," is inside a small rock island. You can snorkel inside and watch the light play on the water through various holes in the rock above and below. The effect is beautiful, and the fish and coral are plentiful inside the cave. The only catch is that the current whips through the area at quite a clip, so it's best to go at low, slack tide, when the openings to the cave are easy to find and you do not have to worry about being swept through. That means that during the ideal time, the place is PACKED with idiots in swim fins and snorkels, ruining the mood.

Since we are anchored only a hundred yards from the cave itself, I decided to head over there this morning at high, slack tide. I had the place to myself, and because the tide here is only a couple of feet, I was able to dive down and swim through the main entrance to the cave with no problems. Inside it was even more eerie, with blue light shining through the water at the entrances, and sunlight streaming down through the holes in the ceiling. I took my time exploring each corner of the cave, counting the fish I was seeing and following all the entrances and exits.

I had swum into a darker corner of the cave, to a small hole I had not noticed before, when a dark shape materialized on the floor just a few feet away. There, hanging out on the bottom with its back to me, was a nurse shark, 3 or 4 feet long.

Now, nurse sharks, of all the sharks, are some of the most docile creatures. They have small mouths and big, swishy tails, and they really don't have any interest in humans at all. We see them a lot from the boat or out in the open in coral. This shark was clearly just waiting for me to go away.

One part of my brain calmly registered these facts, and I spent a good one hundredth of a second observing the shark as I would any other fish before the other part screamed, "RUN! And don't bleed! They love blood! Oh, where is the exit? Which exit? Oh my God, I have my back to a shark! What if he grabs a fin? I'll kick him. Can he smell fear? Am I sweating in the water? Does my finning make me sound like a fish in distress? Are my endorphins kicking in? Must be, because I am outside the cave BUT ON THE WRONG SIDE OF THE ISLAND." And so on.

As far as I can tell, the shark never budged. We'll see if he's still there when we go back this afternoon at low, slack tide.

Puerto Rico Memories

2007-05-03T16:29:00.000-05:00

These are from Puerto Rico. We hired a taxi driver, shown drinking his Coco Frio (cold coconut) in the background. That's Forbes and Jamie from Indra in the portrait.

Dolphins!

2007-04-30T06:07:00.000-05:00

These guys stayed with us for quite a while as we were crossing the Caicos Banks, an area of shallow (8 to 12 feet) water that took us most of the day to cross.

Georgetown

2007-04-30T05:56:00.000-05:00

Out of Everything

Sunday, April 29
Kidd Cove, Georgetown, Great Exuma Island, Bahamas
N 23 degrees, 31.705 minutes
W 075 degrees, 46.077 minutes

It took us a little longer than planned to get to Georgetown from Mayaguana, owing to the series of storms that locked us into the southern Bahamas for two weeks. Those two weeks, in company of Carapan, Indra, and Crossroads, were a lot of fun.

But the outer islands are distinctly lacking in a few comforts we need, mainly food (other than what we catch); reasonably priced, potable water; diesel; cooking propane; and gas for the dinghy engine. Georgetown has all of that in spades, in addition to WiFi on the boat (when it works) and a NEW computer for me, brought down by Crossroads's latest set of guests, and thanks to quick work by Claudia and Matthew!

Rum Cay (two islands ago) does have a terrific marina, but the prices were way out of our budget, so we just drifted by on fumes and rainwater for a few weeks. And since I've purchase enough canned food to last us for another trip around the Caribbean, were we to turn around now, we didn't starve. Far from it. One night on Rum Cay we made use of an abandoned 50-gallon drum and some picnic tables for a barbecue and bocce on the beach. The next day Jamie from Indra made friends with the owner of the nearby marina, and procured permission for a group of us to use, for free, the marina's outdoor, wood-fired pizza oven.

On the wild ride (20+ knots on the beam, 6-foot seas) up to (uninhabited parkland on) Conception Island from Rum Cay, Indra pulled in one of the biggest mahi mahi we have ever seen. After a relaxing afternoon of admiring the spectacular water around our boat and wandering along Conception's white-sand beach, we headed back to the boat for satay mahi mahi. While it was cooking, Dean and I sat in the cockpit and watched the sunset, and were treated to a green flash. Yes, the green flash is real, but we've only seen it a few times on this trip. Atmospheric conditions must be perfect, and since Conception itself is a perfect place, we've now seen the green flash twice from that anchorage.

The next day was very busy. I had to pack in an hour of beach combing in the morning before Dean and I suited up and dinghied up to the 2-mile-long reef that extends north of Conception. We saw very little of this great system, since we didn't stay in the water too long. All that fish and lobster and stuff swimming around the reef does seem to attract sharks. We saw a 4-foot reef shark within about 30 seconds of splashing in. He had seen us and was moving on, unconcerned. We did the same.

A few minutes later I came nose to nose with a very large barracuda. Now, barracuda don't normally attack humans unless you have a squirming lobster or bleeding fish in your hands, or unless you are wearing something shiny. I was clear there, but I still haven't gotten used to the way those fish sit motionless in the water and STARE. We moved along again.

That's when Dean spotted and pointed out the 8-foot reef shark. Again, that shark had obviously spotted us first. He was not concerned with us, but I was concerned with him, so our snorkel that day was over!

Deciding to pursue a more mild-mannered creature, Dean and I dinghied down to the salt marsh that makes up most of the interior of Conception. Along the shallows at the entrance to the marsh, we watched adolescent turtles cavorting. Later we learned that friends on Carapan, who stayed on Conception one more day, came upon the fresh tracks of a turtle that had swum up to our beach in the night and laid her eggs. I am guessing those baby turtles have a very short time, once they are hatched, to make it to the salt pond before they become prey to the predator fish that swim in the area, and may account for such a concentration of big fish right off the beach. Yikes.

Friday we left Conception for Georgetown, and we had another great sail most of the way. Early on Dean pulled in a fabulous bull mahi mahi (also called a dolphin or a dorado). It was big enough that we were able to share some of it with Crossroads, whose guests brought our computer down, and with John and Kit on Kittiwake, who have been holding a package for us here in Georgetown for 2 months. The package was mailed to us by Greg over a year ago, but it arrived after we headed south, and it has sat in the cruisers' mail bin at the local market for a whole year. Well, Greg, we got it now. Some of this stuff would have been EXTREMELY useful last year, had we waited for the mail.

Georgetown is a different place this time around. Most of the regular cruisers who sit here all winter and treat the place like a retirement day camp have left. This weekend Georgetown belonged to the Bahamians (as it truly does, of course), who hold an annual regatta in which each Bahamian island competes. The wooden sloops that compete in these races are gorgeous, and it's a lot of fun to watch the crew race out on the wooden boards they stick out the side of the boat for ballast. We had intended to arrive in Georgetown earlier in order to watch more of the races, but given how much reprovisioning we need to do, and our social calendar, and WiFi, and a new computer, I'm not sure that we'd have seen much sailing this week anyway.

Service with a smile

2007-04-29T20:20:00.000-05:00

Stephen helps Rose into the dinghy.

Dock

2007-04-29T20:09:00.000-05:00

The dock in Rum Cay, Bahamas.

Catching

2007-04-28T12:18:00.003-05:00

Thursday, April 19
Abraham's Bay, Mayaguana, Bahamas

And so, this week, having checked into the Bahamas, and with fishing license in hand, we have begun, to the extent one still can, living off the ocean.

During the day, for the past few days, we've been venturing out to the four-mile-long reef to see what we can catch (that enormous grouper from last year is still hiding in the old wreck, still too wily for humans to catch him). At night, we turn the fish and conch we've caught into the main course for an ever-growing, travelling potluck. Conch fritters, conch chowder, and grilled fish with butter and lime have made the menu, along with sides of cornbread, thai noodles, chicken curry, and lemon poppyseed cake.

Unlike the enormous and anonymous potlucks in Trinidad and Grenada, where some boats would roll in with boxed mac and cheese or even plain Jello--one singlehander simply opened a can of beets one Sunday--our group, with nothing to do but snorkel and cook, has emptied the larders for every meal.

We are eating well here, but if we don't move soon, we'll be down to canned beets ouselves! The store, such as it is, is stocked to sell to whomever of the 200 total residents shops on this side of the island. Supplies for the store arrive twice a month by barge, weather permitting. From the looks of the shelves down here, I suspect we are somewhere toward the end of a shipping cycle. It's a good thing cabbage keeps so long.

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BRRRR...

2007-04-28T12:18:00.001-05:00

Monday, April 23
Rum Cay, Bahamas
N 23 degrees, 38.518 minutes
W 074 degrees, 50.767 minutes

Our most recent 24-hour sail from Mayaguana to Rum Cay was pleasant and fast and comforable and...cold! I had to dig out socks and blankets and layers of fleece for my late-night watch.

We have officially passed back out of the Tropic of Cancer, and the tropics in general, and it shows. The water is colder, the air is colder, and the miserable weather that affects the east coast of the U.S. makes its way, in diluted form, down to us now. There is allegedly some great snorkeling along the reef on the southside of Rum Cay, but I don't think my thin blood could take it.

Tonight I will be wearing pants at our beachside barbecue of fresh fish. What a shame.

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Back in the Bahamas

2007-04-17T10:17:00.000-05:00

Monday, April 16
Abraham's Bay, Mayaguana, Bahamas
N 22 degrees, 21.9 minutes
W 072 degrees, 58.7 minutes

We have made the long trek up to the Bahamas, and we are waiting in a beautiful but desolate outpost for weather. Indra is here with us, and Carapan and Crossroads have shown up as well, so we are in for a very social week.

We have been writing blogs faithfully since we left Puerto Rico last week. Because of a lack of Wifi, we'd been storing them all on the computer for a later date. And then yesterday, our computer just died. Those particularly eloquent blogs are gone forever.

Fortunately, Dean was great about backing things up to a hard drive, so we haven't lost everything permanently. We just can't look at our photographs, for instance, until we get a new computer.

So, what did we write in the lost blogs? I will try to recap.

Passage: We had our longest passage ever, three days (exactly 73 hours), from the east coast of Puerto Rico straight up to Grand Turk in Turks and Caicos. The weather was mild, we sailed most of the way, we caught a big mah mahi (also called a Dorado, Bryce), and I oohed and aahed over the beautiful stars and phytoplankton in our wake. We also kept up with Indra, which made that big ocean a little bit less lonely at three a.m.

Sailing at Night: It's scary, it's boring, it's draining, and we don't sleep well. But it is also peaceful, meditative, and awesome. We are just two people in a little boat, making our way across a deep ocean, with an even deeper, more mysterious sky above us. Scary, yes, but I always find myself out there at three a.m., wonder-struck and blissful and feeling very, very lucky.

Sunset: The third evening at sea, the wind had died and the ocean was flat, and we witnessed the kind of sunset that features prominently in religious literature and the covers of sailing magazines (sailing magazines being their own kind of religious literature.)

TCI: The water along the banks here is so clear that sailing between islands is like being in the deep end of a swimming pool that stretches from one horizon to the next. We did some excellent snorkeling, we got inked by squid and chased by a territorial triggerfish, and we discovered that the south side of Provo, with its murky water and heavy industry and unprotected anchorage in a southerly wind, is NOT the same place as Grace Bay on the north coast, where all the tourists go. We anchored off a reef for a day and enjoyed one more night of clear skies and endless stars.

Large mammals: While at anchor off Grand Turk, we spotted a whale, startlingly close to the stern of our boat, working the steep dropoff along the island's shelf.

Diving: or lack thereof. I had been planning to do some scuba diving here, in Mecca, until we realized that the price for it all was double what we would pay on every other island. We consoled ourselves with snorkeling. Along one reef at the edge of the banks, we were amazed by the sharp difference in temperature between the warm, shallow sand banks and and the chilly Atlantic Ocean. Through our maskss we could see the eddies and whorls of warm and cool water mixing.

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Guest Blog: Rose and Stephen

2007-04-11T12:07:00.000-05:00

Rose & Stephen’s Guest Blog:

Friday, March 23rd – Our adventure starts at 7am when we gate Lolli in the kitchen, drop Margot to sleepy neighbors, and drive Bryce to school. At the last second, Stephen realizes we can park at his building and save $100. So, we circle back with enough zip to bring on a slight sense of motion sick. We’re not yet on the boat. This may not be good. However, with a surprisingly smooth check in, we head off to warm ocean breezes, sunshine, and lively conversation with Jill and Dean. Arriving in St. Thomas, we taxi to our agreed upon meeting place, Duffy’s Love Shack. A clutch of Maine firemen entertain us along with the taximan’s clutch driving skills along hilly, hairpin turns, and 1 lane roads. Amidst the excitement of being on the island and the distraction of our fellow travelers, I realize that my newly prescribed anti-motion sickness patch must be working. This may be good, though we both remember the queasiness of South Boston. Once at Duffy’s, much to Stephen’s surprise, Dean, cold beer in hand, announces that there is no time to waste, kills the beer, hurries us to the dinghy dock and out to Delilah. A sea turtle’s orthogonal course provides a glimpse of things to come and instantly makes the trip a smashing success, with one item crossed of our mental list of things to do. When traveling with certain members of the Martyn family, checking things off the list of things to do is almost as exciting as doing the things which are to be crossed off the list. In the future when you see check you will know what is meant. Jill awaits us with Amstel Bright and the story of how the motor on the dinghy died. Dean returns the borrowed outboard to a nearby boat, rows back, and we are off under a double-reefed main sail to Caneel Bay, St. John (sailing-check!). Mooring at Caneel Bay, Rose jumps in for a long awaited reunion with her aquatic friends (snorkeling-check). About an hour later it’s happy hour with fresh made guacamole and beer, then tuna steaks with couscous and spinach, yum! (happy hour –check.) Jill did a wonderful job cooking in a space Stephen can barely stand in without slamming his knees into the fridge handle. J&D are surprisingly chatty, and the conversation drifts easily. After short talk of our next day’s plans we call it a day at 10:30ish. This is well past Cruisers’ Midnight which is 9pm, as Jill tells it. We settle into the sitting area newly transformed into a bed and we are gone. Rose slept fine on a gentle mooring. The patch works!

Saturday, March 24th. Our Wiemaraner, Lolli’s 1st Birthday. No doubt MaeMae will have treats back home, as Lolli is just behind Jill and Rose’s brother Doug in the pecking order. We wake early. J&D follow in time to listen to Chris Parker, marine meteorologist extraordinare. Dean and Jill are actually awake, though not conscious. Rose sits on the bed/dining room table happy with the stock of Diet Coke while Chris Parker speaks of mid-level disturbances, weak troughs, and squalls. However, a sunny warm day awaits us. Our hosts explain the workings of the bathroom, including the Edith Piaf CD - mood music/white noise, your choice. The trumpeting of the toilet pump alerts all, near and far, to the business at hand. Breakfast is Pop-Tarts & Barry’s tea. The plan is set for some snorkeling, and we’re off to Trunk Bay. Jill has researched the snorkeling here, so we avoid the crowded circuit and swim to a colorful deserted reef. Snorkeling has good visibility, fan and brain coral, giant purple urchins, parrot fish, jacks and trumpet fish. After lunch of peanut butter sandwiches and Presidente, we motor to Maho Bay hooking a mooring 100 yards from shore with inviting clear water under us. We swim(check) to shore and explore the popular hillside eco-tents of Maho Bay. Campin’ cousins lookout! ...you’ve got the sales pitch of a lifetime coming at you soon! We hike around and quickly discover that happy hour begins at 4pm at the dining pavilion. Stephen silently screams check. The steep hillsides and pavilion afford pretty views of Maho Bay. The chef’s choice of PEI mussels seems counter to our trip, so we head back to the boat for Dean’s better than Pizza Hut pizza and stories of Amherst.

Sunday, March 25th – We motor to the point in outer Trunk Bay and have a nice snorkel. Jill warns us about the current on the point but also mentions a turtle, so out we go. We’re rewarded not with a turtle sighting, but with an exhausting swim back to the boat. We cross the channel to a mooring off Whistler’s Cay and have yet another great snorkel. I try out the extra wetsuit and am last in the water. The others are way ahead when I’m suddenly face to face with a large Barracuda. This encourages me to catch up. Emerging from under a rocky coral shelf, a turtle is kind enough to hang around until I’m able to beckon Stephen back for a look. We swim south towards an abandoned cottage and Dean on the beach. After a poke around we enjoy the swim back to Delilah. Jill contacts SV Eira’s Val and Menno who offer us a loan of their extra dinghy engine. We agree to meet them in Leinster Bay where Waterlemon Cay is situated…we’ve been told Waterlemon Cay is great snorkeling. Motoring over in the afternoon, we meet up with SV Eira. Val and Menno’s kids are of similar age to ours and we’re fascinated to see how easily they have adapted to this lifestyle…including homeschooling! Jill has researched conch harvesting at Waterlemon Cay and we’re allowed a conch each as long as we didn’t throw the shell back – they count the shells. Stephen entertains us swimming the crawl stroke with a large conch in hand. Alongside the conch field, we see skates, a flounder and tons of urchins. We dinghyed to the beach for Sundowners with SV Eira - the boys show us how to release the conch from the shell with a hammer and knife. Back on the boat, Jill and I chop and chop until we have a large bowl of ceviche. Again, Yum!

Monday, March 26th – Dean dinghys Stephen and me ashore for a jog (check) along the coastal trails. We follow a pretty path which takes us back to the entrance to Francis Bay before returning to our dingy driver. We then have a great snorkel along the beach among schools of bright blue fish, translucent/yellow fish, large parrot fish, and a variety of vivid coral. One last snorkel along the other side of Waterlemon Cay before a swim out to Dean in the Dingy around the far side of the Cay. Half way to the dingy we spy two sharks skulking along the bottom. They are four ft, sleek, gray with a silhouette that could disappear all too easily. Safely back in the boat, it’s now time to stow everything and head out under sail around the east side of St. John to Coral Bay! Stephen tries his hand at the helm, while Jill and Dean take the sails and winches. They make it look easy, but I come to know better after my feeble tries. A couple of hours into it, I go below and learn that the patch has its limitations. Returning to the cockpit, I keep my eyes on the horizon and am fine. We arrive in Coral Bay in perfect time to a mix of upscale boats, wrecks and derelicts! Dean dinghys us ashore, and we walk around the bay to find the apartment we’ve booked for our last 2 nights. I booked the room as a safety in case the patch didn’t work and know now we didn’t need to. The apartment, named Inner Beauty by its owners Mark and Mark, is brand new, clean, and proximate to Skinny Legs – which I’m told was the inspiration for Cheeseburger in Paradise. We took long overdue showers and met J&D back at Skinny Legs an hour later. The menu is sparse, but the blue burgers, key lime pie, and beer were fabulous! The Boston theme (Red Sox, Patriots, Marathon, and UMass) was very homey. Chris Parker’s forecast had given our hosts a bit of worry over their anchorage due to a threat of evening squalls. They head back to the boat rather than attempt the futon we offered.

Tuesday, March 27th – We meet J&D for a morning trail hike across the island(check). St John is mostly national park and the terrain is very hilly. We have several false starts, including one ending on private property with the ominous sound of bees. We abandon the map and find our destination, Brown Bay, amidst a downpour. Upon return to the apt, Dean’s adventures in pointless excursion (he never said that, but I have a hunch) are rewarded with use of shower and clothes dryer. With the weather uncertain, we attempt the public bus system (check) for shopping in Cruz Bay…10 miles west…a very hilly ride but opportunity for Dean to nap. I like to venture out via public transit when traveling. We usually come away with a murky sense of triumph. Cruz Bay is commercial, but fits our needs. We get our few trinkets, duck into the Beach Bar for a beer and head back to Cruz Bay. J&D dinghy out to the boat for the computer to try the WiFi at the apartment. It works! And we get the bonus of calling home – all’s well. It’s agreed that we’ll try a new restaurant tonight, but we head right in to Skinny Legs. More Blue Burgers and Key Lime Pie…who ordered extra burger and pie? I’ll never tell.

Wednesday, March 28th – Stephen and I head out early for a run. On hill # 2 or 3 (did I mention that St. John is HILLY!!) we stop and walk. It hurts my pride to walk, but my husband is happy. I am now in awe of my running friend Mimi who ran St John’s 8 Tuff Miles last year as we trained for Boston. We limp back, pack up, and meet at the dinghy dock for a final ride to Delilah. Today’s sail has turned to a motor trip to St Thomas due to threat of squall. Stephen notes that sailing through a squall hasn’t been checked off yet. Luckily, we avoid the storms visible on the horizon and make it to St Thomas in time for one last snorkel. I see two fish I’ve never seen before. One is black with glowing cobalt spots, the other is bright cobalt with orange stripes. Dean tells me the black one is his favorite fish. The 2 large conch shells we want to bring home provide a challenge to our 2 carry-on packing goal, but we conchure it..haha...that’s in there just to tickle Jill’s sense for editing. We say our goodbye’s on Delilah, take a last dingy ride in and feel instantly deflated - the adventure is over. Fear not! The Cessna to San Juan proves a bonus adventure. As we take pictures for our 12 year old airplane enthusiast, our Captain seized on this enthusiasm and beckons me into the co-pilot’s seat saying, “Since it’s just us we can have some fun.” This differed from Dean’s predicted comment, “I smell something stinky from the sea.” I sat co-pilot the whole trip with our pilot dipping his wings to show points of interest including the 11 mile deep trench. Then visibility is nil as we sailed through a Squall (check!) After a smooth landing the rest is predictable.

We’re home now and wondering why we don’t chuck our jobs and set out for turquoise waters. Our heartfelt thanks to Jill & Dean for a wonderful adventure and for teasing us with a lifestyle of which we may only dream. Unless…

The Big Hop

2007-04-03T14:39:00.000-05:00

SOMEBODY is a little late with the guest blog. In the meantime, here are two blogs regarding what we've been up to for the past week. Read the bottom one first.

Tuesday, April 3
Bahia de Sardinas, Isla de Culebra, Puerto Rico
N 18 degrees, 18.038 minutes
W 065 degrees, 18.308 minutes

The prop worked, we hightailed it out of St. Thomas, and we had a fast and lively BEAM REACH to Culebra on Thursday afternoon. Delilah ate up the waves, making up to 8 knots (!!!) as the wind built toward the end of our sail. We caught no fish, but Indra caught two tuna, which they shared with us that night. Ah, sashimi! Nothing in the world tastes so fresh as tuna caught the same day, then cooled and served raw, with a little soy sauce and wasabi for a kick.

Amanzi and Carapan turned up one day later, and since then, between squalls, wind, and heavy socializing, who has time to snorkel? The little, laid back town of Dewey, off which we are anchored, takes about five minutes to walk through, but it has a good vibe. Ferries arrive from mainland Puerto Rico several times a day, and a cheap bus system whisks tent and cooler toting spring breakers to Playa de Flamenco in a constant stream. Dean and I took one of these buses on Sunday, and we found that we were, by far, the oldest beachgoers in sight.

Farther down the long, white sand beach, the crowds thinned out, and stakes marked off a few protected spots where turtles have come ashore to lay their eggs. The waves on the north coast have been building all weekend, and the crashing surf on the reefs is mesmerizing. I don't know how those poor turtles make it in and out each night.

By Monday we were ready for a little civilization, so all 10 of us took the early-morning ferry ($2.25 per person for a 30-mile jaunt) to Fajardo. We negotiated with a couple of gypsy cab drivers for a trip to Old San Juan, punctuated by side trips to West Marine, Walmart, and McDonald's (there were kids with us, after all). We got the shopping part of the day out of the way first, and then lit out on the long ride to the city.

Our driver kept us occupied on the twisty roads by blasting songs from the Spanish Top 40 out of a speaker next to my ear and driving like a maniac. "That's all right," Forbes, who was in the death seat, assured our driver after we had bottomed out on a particularly bad turn. "I don't think you needed that part anyway." Fortunately for us, we've spent enough time in the Caribbean that near-death driving experiences in extremely rickety cars do nothing to raise our blood pressure. Rory would have been impressed by the extensive bondo work on our cab's doors and frame.

Our driver redeemed himself completely in my eyes by pulling off the road on an impulse and encouraging us to try the fare on offer at one of the many, MANY roadside stands with a woman out front tending a wood fired. I have no idea what to call the thing that I ate. It was cornmeal on the outside and it looked quite like a corn dog, but it was full of smoky chicken. We wiped out the vendor's supply, so we watched while she made more, selecting beef, chicken, or crab to line the center of the cornmeal dough, then shaping it with an almond tree leaf before sliding it into the hot oil for a few minutes.

The long ferry and car rides were worth it. Old San Juan is a spectacular city, founded in the 1420s, with a well-preserved fort, welcoming plazas and courtyards, and elegant homes along cobbled streets. We all scattered like mice, eager to make the most of the short two hours we had before we needed to get back in our cabs.

And when we returned, each of us had already determined that we'd really need several days here in order to enjoy San Juan fully. While Dean and I had spent some time at the fort enjoying the ocean views, as well as strolling down the beautiful streets, the Carapan family had purchased a kite from the vendors at El Morro to make the most of the trade winds, David on Amanzi had a Panama hat fitted, and Indra enjoyed tapas on one of the pedestrian streets. We will all be back again someday. Next time, Dean will buy himself a hat.

We would be happy to stay in Puerto Rico another few weeks and maybe get around to all that snorkeling we thought we'd do, but the weather has other plans. It looks like we will have an excellent opportunity to make our biggest hop yet, from Puerto Rico to Turks and Caicos, bypassing the Dominican Republic in order to make some miles. I am sad to miss the DR, which also has so much more to see than we could pack into our short visit last spring, but I will be glad to get a few miles behind us as the time left in our trip grows short.

Westbound

2007-04-03T14:33:00.000-05:00

Thursday, March 29

Water Island, Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas, U.S.V.I.
N 18 degrees, 19.757 minutes
W 064 degrees, 56.919 minutes

As we mentioned in a previous blog, we treated ourselves to a newer dinghy so we would not have to worry about transportation for our last few months at sea. So what happened next? Our outboard engine promptly quit. Now, this would not be such a catastrophe, except the engine stopped working just as we were at "battle stations": our frantic, final preparations for Rose and Stephen's arrival on March 23. How would we get them to the boat? After that, how would we all get off the boat again?

Fortunately for us, we happened to be anchored next to Ryan and Mumfy on Liberty, whom we had last seen in August back in Trinidad. We borrowed their engine to pick up our guests. The rest of the time, we figured we'd get around by rowing or swimming ashore.

Soon enough, we ran into Eira, and they came to the rescue with an EXTRA dinghy engine, nicknamed the eggbeater, as that's just about how much power a 2hp engine packs. We were thrilled to have any motorized assistance, so we borrowed it, and we all celebrated together on the beach in Leinster Bay, St. John. Menno and family patiently and skillfully prepared the conch we had harvested behind Waterlemon Cay. Dean and I have learned to leave conch cleaning to the experts, as we only manage to make a mess and torture the poor creatures in an attempt to make dinner. As it turns out, I'd rather have a blue burger at Skinny Legs in Coral Bay any time.

But this blog isn't about our time in St. John, as Rose and Stephen will provide details in their guest blog (assuming we ever get access to the Internet again). This is about the story of our dinghy engine.

Some time in the middle of our visit with Rose and Stephen, we got a call on the radio from Forbes and Jamie, two cruisers on Indra whom we met for the first time in St. Martin. Indra, originally from New Hampshire, is heading north this spring as well, and they were calling to see what our plans were. Over the VHF in the middle of a tack, I gave our five-second situation (guests until the 28th, then one outboard to fix and another to return). Forbes shot back with his instant engine diagnosis (a spun hub), and a great offer (he'd meet us in St. Thomas today and give us a replacement propeller).

Dean and I, knowing that nothing is ever that easy, were skeptical. But we figured, as we were returning to St. Thomas to drop Rose and Stephen near the airport, that we might at least find a repair shop. We decided that, rather than anchor off the town, we'd try staying at Water Island, which is close to Crown Bay, a full-service marina. And as we dropped our anchor there, we saw a boat nearby that looked familiar. After closer inspection with binoculars, we recognized Maranatha, which we last saw at Waterboat Marina in October 2005! Rob left the marina just a few short weeks ahead of us for an offshore passage to St. Thomas, and he has been here ever since.

Rob spotted us on his way back to Maranatha last night, and when he came aboard to catch up, we mentioned our outboard woes. Rob's immediate diagnosis: a spun hub. He even showed us how to do a quick test to confirm it. Yup, we need a new prop.

So it's looking like it's going to be that easy. Indra is anchoring nearby as I type. As soon as we get the new prop from Forbes, we'll drop off Eira's outboard with mutual friends who have settled in the harbor here, and then we'll head over to the Spanish Virgin Islands with Indra and maybe Carapan, followed one day later by Amanzi, for a few days of magnificent snorkeling.

One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, BLUEFIN

2007-03-21T16:19:00.001-05:00

Tuesday, March 20
Caneel Bay, St. John, U.S. Virgin Islands
N 18 degrees, 20.477 minutes
W 064 degrees, 47.628 minutes

Or maybe it was a blackfin. Regardless, the critical point here is that, yesterday, just before the sun set, we sailed right through a school of tuna that were going NUTS on the surface of the ocean. I didn't even have to alter course. There they were, right in my line, leaping far enough into the air close enough to the boat that I could identify them as tuna and pray, without having time to check, that our lure didn't have any weeds attached.

We got a hit right away, but no hookup, so Dean started playing the lure, popping the skirt out of the water. He watched three crazed fish go for it before a nice sized tuna hooked himself firmly. DINNER! We had tuna satay tonight and have put the rest of the steaks aside for Rose and Stephen, who will arrive on Friday (you do like fresh tuna, don't you?).

The rest of our 100-mile sail was not quite as exciting as those few minutes when we caught ourselves a tuna, but it was a good downwind sail, and we made excellent time from St. Martin to St. John. There was no moon, but the stars were bright enough that we could see the horizon (a big psychological boost at night). We folded up the bimini (the awning over our cockpit) so we could stare up at the Milky Way and watch for the southern cross as it popped above the horizon after midnight. Between the stars, the need to keep a close eye on our compass, and the beautiful phosphorescence in the water, I was entertained enough that I forgot to turn on the radio during my first 3-hour watch.

I am going to have to get better at stowing things below before our next long crossing, however. Until we reach the Bahamas, we'll be heading almost due east with the wind and waves directly at our back, making for some rolly passages. You might recall how much I complained, this time last year, that we were taking what the call "the thorny path," with the wind on our nose until we turned the corner in St. Martin. We motored or motor-sailed for hundreds of miles.

I'm certainly not complaining about having the wind behind us. Okay, I am, but not about the sailing part. While is a little tricky for the person at the helm to keep the sail filled and the bow pointed in the right direction with the waves trying so hard to push Delilah all over the ocean, the person who is NOT sailing has it worse, on the overnights at least. Down below our dishes clang in the cupboards, clothes fly out of their baskets, doors slam or rattle, and items that have seemed secure on every other passage suddenly launch themselves across the boat. After getting up for the hundredth time to tighten the spare halyard or secure the bag of onions or retie the bathroom door so it stays open, we'd try to lie there and pretend it wasn't maddening.

On deck things were relatively peaceful. Without the engine on and with the wind behind us, the loudest sound was the soothing hiss of Delilah making her way through the water. Occasionally a block might drag across the cabin top, or a line might creak, or the sail might slap if I'd let the boat fall off course a few degrees, but it was hardly noticeable. In the saloon the noises from the deck of our pitching boat were amplified enough that each of us, during our time off watch, was startled enough by some noise that we came up to see what happened, only to have person at the helm say everything was fine, what loud noise?

All that to say, here we are in the United States. Dean is already asleep for the night, but I drank four gallons of lemonade in order to keep my eyes open past dinner, and now I'm wide awake. I'm sure it won't last.

Too Close?

2007-03-19T11:26:00.000-05:00

There's a bar in Sint Maarten that is very close to the airport runway. So close, in fact, that signs warn of death and dismemberment caused by the jet blast. Of course, everybody ignores the signs. It's quite a thrill to see these huge planes coming in right overhead.

We are leaving this afternoon for the USVIs and our appointment with Rose and Stephen.

Where is Snoopyville?

2007-03-19T11:24:00.000-05:00

Monday, March 19
Simpson Bay Lagoon, Sint Maarten

It should come as no surprise to us that, after a number of weeks where our spending is quite restrained, we have a reckoning. But spending TRIPLE what we have in our budget for the week hasn't happened since we had the boat hauled in Trinidad.

We did buy ourselves another dinghy this week, but the really crazy spending was for groceries. Yes, this week, egged on by Kim, who bought even MORE than I did (they are going to Cuba, those lucky Canadians, where, thanks to our government, there is nothing to buy). But St. Martin, which is actually two countries on one island--French and Dutch--has this fabulous mix of foods available in its stores, in addition to a bulk grocery store like Costco that delivers to the dock for free, that we just could not resist. And everything is duty free. And the beer is cheap. As is the liquor. As is the wine. And the meat is fresh and decently priced. And then there's the mile-long CHEESE counter in the French supermarket on the bridge! Who cares about prices when one is presented with such a selection.

So we are moving on before we spend the rest of our kitty on pate. We are also moving on because I've got to get some miles between me and the parrotheads who are beginning to flock to St. Martin in anticipation of the Jimmy Buffet concert later this week.

Ugh.

That's right, I am a sailor and I am not a fan. Seems like a contradiction? Well, if you had a sixth-grade music teacher who thought it would be a great idea to teach your class the song "Margaritaville," but couldn't actually refer to getting DRUNK in an elementary school classroom, so changed a single word in the song, Margaritaville, to Snoopyville, you might think the whole venture was pointless as well.

Try this: "Wasted away again in Snoopyville. Lookin' for my lost shaker of salt." But we had to sing the whole song that way. Heather hated this music teacher so much she used to time her sick days for Tuesdays, when we had music. I wonder what her stance on Jimmy Buffet is.

Blathering

2007-03-14T13:51:00.000-05:00

Wednesday, March 14
Simpson Bay Lagoon, Sint Maarten (a.k.a. The Dutch Side)

N 18 degrees, 02.441 minutes
W 063 degrees, 05.605 minutes

We spent an one day at Anse du Colombier in St. Barts, admiring the sand, perfectly clear to us 25 feet below, and trying to take a decent picture of one of the many turtles that hang out in the anchorage. Like most anchorages we've been to this winter, this one had many more boats than it did when we passed through last spring--an unfashionable season to see and be seen in the Caribbean.

On Friday the 10th we got up early and beached the dinghy in order to follow the narrow path along the shoreline that leads to a small village around the corner from our anchorage. I lured Dean by promising that there would be pain au chocolat on the other end. And there was, but it was not particularly flaky, as French pastries go. The town itself had one store (the one selling pastries) and otherwise consisted of beach houses that valued their privacy. After strolling down the main street and looking at a whole lot of bougainvillea peaking over tall fences, we opted to return to the trail via the pretty beach.

As we passed one couple on the beach and I threw out my casual "bonjour," the woman gave us a big smile full of lips and teeth from behind her enormous square glasses. Dean and I came to the same conclusion immediately: "THAT was Angelina Jolie!"

Well, that was Angelina Jolie if she is only average height, and not extremely thin, and if she ever walks on any beach without a passle of children hanging off her hips or hands (not if you ever examine those magazines at the checkout counter). The thin, gray-haired man she was next to would have to be her lawyer or or agent or accountant; he was certainly not Brad Pitt. We had a chance to double back and verify our sighting, but we decided that thinking it was POSSIBLY Angelina would be better for the blog than DEFINITELY NOT.

After our walk we hopped back in the boat and headed 15 miles downwind for St. Martin. Another great sail was had by all. We anchored for a few hours in the outer anchorage while we checked into the country and waited for the final bridge opening of the day. Once we got inside, we threw down the anchor and headed for Shrimpy's, where we knew we'd find Kim and David enjoying the free Wifi.

Also in various ports around St. Martin are Dreamweaver, with whom we had some bad Chinese food; Nancy Dawson, on whose boat we played a terrible game in which I lost the first three hands and found myself decorated with charred cork ash; Eira, with whom we had a very happy happy hour before dinner; and Dragonfly, who arrived this morning. We have been busy.

Last night we braved the wind and rain and dinghied over to the French side with Amanzi. From there we took a bus ($1 U.S.) up to Grand Case, where Dreamweaver and Eira were anchored. On Tuesday nights Grand Case closes its main street to cars, and musicians and vendors set up stands all along the sidewalks. Eira had told us how much fun they'd had the week before, and Avalanche had told us about the delicious and cheap order of ribs they sell at the beach shacks, so we did not want to miss it.

Nobody told us that the event is much more subdued in case of rain. The street wasn't closed, and the musicians never appeared. Still, all ten of us had a great time aboard Eira and then at the ribs place, where dinner, drinks, and tip cost us $10 U.S. apiece.

This morning we are all business again. Because of the proximity of chandleries, laundromats, large grocery stores that deliver to the docks, free Wifi, cheap water, and lots of other services, the lagoon is a place where people stay a long time, in spite of the fact that it's not actually that nice here. We are trying very hard to finish our errands in order to sail around to Marigot Bay on the French side, but everything takes a lot longer than planned.

One thing we have accomplished is the purchase of a new dinghy! Okay, it's new to us, but it's really very used. As our last two sets of visitors will attest, Digby, while still useable, was starting to exhibit signs of age, and though we knew we could continue to patch and glue the items that are coming unstuck, we figured it would be just our luck for the transom to detach itself when we are in Bahamas, with nary a chandlery in sight.

We only need something to get us back to Boston this summer, so instead of buying the beautiful, new Caribe we priced at Island Water World, we found another sailor who was upgrading, and we bought his old, off-brand inflatable for one tenth of the price of a new Caribe. It floats, it'll take four people, and it looks a lot better than Digby, proving once again that if you have low standards, you'll never be disappointed.

Guest Blog Special!

2007-03-12T15:42:00.000-05:00

This guest blog was written by Lisa, after flying home from Nevis.

Arriving in Antigua 3 hours late (2:30 am), with Jill and Dean waiting patiently in the pouring rain for us, was how Jim and I started our vacation. But that was the only bad part of a great adventure. Upon arriving at the Antigua Yacht Club there was our good friends to take us to the good ship Delilah. Once on board, Jim informed Jill and Dean that he brought breakfast and dessert for the week. Yes Nutter Butter Cookies for breakfast and Double Stuffed Oreos for dessert, and I can’t forget a special gift for Dean…. Johnny Walker Blue to go with the Oreos. We got the important stuff was out of the way and got to bed at 4am.

Later that day, once we got up, we headed into the little town of Falmouth for lunch. The place for lunch was Grace Before Meals, which was a little shack with local flavor. Jill and Jim had a roti, which is chicken and potato wrapped up in a tortilla, and Dean had the special of curried pork. Me, I am not into food adventure, so I ordered a hamburger…well I think it was hamburger, wasn’t quite sure, but I was so hungry I ate it not thinking what I was eating…word to the wise, don’t order a hamburger in Antigua. We headed back to the boat and finally hit the water for a swim. After our swim and back on the boat, I learned how to take a “save the fresh water shower”…which consisted of jumping in the water, get out wash your hair and body, jumping back into the water to rinse, back out for the hair conditioner, jumping back into the water to rinse, back on board for 2 cupfuls of fresh water to rinse the salt water off. Jim even mastered shaving in the salt water. Once showered it was time to open the Carib (beer) and enjoy Jill’s good cooking. Of course after dinner we did open those Double Stuffs, and the boys enjoyed the Johnny Walker Blue under a full moon.

After the first day we were so relaxed the days just went by, enjoying dinner with Kim and David on Amanzi the next night. Sunday we needed to go to Customs to add Jim and me to the crew list for our big sail to Nevis on Monday. Once that was out of the way we had to do the tourist thing and climbed Shirley Heights Sunday night for the sunset and barbeque ribs, but we didn’t stay too late as we needed to get back to Delilah to prepare it for our sail to Nevis on Monday.

4:45am Monday morning all were up preparing for our 50-mile sail to Nevis (sister island to St Kitts). Setting out at 6am, we began our sail with Jill at the helm and Dean pulling up the main sail. The sail was beautiful, the water a little rough, and a squall decided to catch a bit of us, but 10 hours later we were anchored on the coast of Nevis again with a Carib (beer). Ever hear the expression, there is nothing like a beer after a hard day of skiing…well there is nothing like a ice cold beer after a long sail! That night while watching the sunset and the almost full moon coming over the mountain, Dean made his famous Pizza dough for dinner that night, which was the perfect ending to the perfect day.

Unfortunately, all good things have to come to the end…this is where Jim and my adventure ended, after enjoying a local lunch on Nevis and going to customs to take Jim and me off the crew list, we headed to the airport.

Spending 24/7 for 4 ½ days on a boat there were many good laughs and inside jokes, which added to a great time. Thank you Jill and Dean for sharing your world with us for the most relaxing adventure anyone could ask for.

Monkey!

2007-03-10T19:27:00.000-05:00

This is a monkey that we saw in Nevis.

Three or Four Thousand Miles Later...a Beam Reach

2007-03-10T14:11:00.002-05:00

Friday, March 9
Anse du Colombier, St. Barts
N 17 degrees, 55.440 minutes
W 061 degrees. 52.226 minutes

Today we had a perfect sail. Once we stuck our nose around Nevis the wind hit Delilah on the starboard beam and she flew! For the first hour I clocked us at over seven knots consistently. We had reefed the sails just enough. The helm felt good. The waves were fairly big but not too steep, and they passed beneath Delilah like so much salt water under a bridge. When the wind died a little, we unrolled a bit more of our honking big genoa, and we took off again.

We caught no fish, but Dean saw the sail of a beautiful billfish checking out our lure (thank God he didn't hit it; imagine bringing in a marlin hand over hand on a yo yo). The sun shone, the water was clear, and all was right with the world.

To recap, we pulled up our anchor at dawn and were reanchored and swimming with turtles by 2:30. The passage itself, more than fifty miles, took us almost exactly eight hours. Our GPS reports that our average speed was 6.3 knots. Most times we count ourselves lucky if we average 5 knots. The miles just slipped by.

Let's hope we can do this again someday. Preferably on this trip.

Too Many Monkeys

2007-03-10T14:11:00.001-05:00

Thursday, March 8
Charlestown, Nevis

Given that the island of Nevis is only thirty square miles, most of it vertical, we planned to spend very little time here before heading further north. But our guidebook claimed that the hiking is good, and that we could see monkeys (MONKEES!) if we hiked in the vicinity of one of the old sugar plantations that's been turned into a hotel. So, promising Dean a sighting of the latter if we engaged in the former, we took a cab to the Golden Rock Plantation Inn, which invites the public to hike on and around its 96-acre mountainside property.

Cab drivers line the pier in the tiny town of Charlestown like flies line roadkill, asking every passerby, with renewed hope, if he needs a ride or, more profitably, a tour. And though there were four cruise ships of varying sizes anchored off Nevis Thursday, the passengers were either still at their buffets or had contented themselves with ambling up and down the single road that makes up most of Charlestown. Our cab driver told us he'd been waiting on the pier for two hours that morning, and we were his first customers. It lends credence to the rumors we've heard from other islanders that the Caribbean cruise ships sometimes wind up costing the little islands they visit money, as tourists eat and sleep onboard, and only sometimes venture past the first row of shops on the main drag. But SOMEBODY (and we know it's not the tightwad yachties like me) must make it worth the while of these taxi drivers to stand at the pier all day and repeat, ad nauseum, "Taxi today, ma'am? Tour the island?" Even when their question is frequently ignored or sometimes met with a stony glare, as if they were panhandling. The first time I smiled at one such driver in St. John, Antigua and answered pleasantly, "No, thank you," he looked completely shocked, and spent the next thirty seconds wishing me a great day, enjoy the island, and so on.

So you can imagine how thrilled Barry, our cab driver, was when we answered his query, "Yes, please." He was very friendly, so we pumped him with questions about the cruise ships, the town, the island's history, its former sugar industry (all the plantations shut down in the 1950s when the business was no longer profitable), and other agriculture. Unlike most other islands in the area, Nevis does not have many farms. When I expressed surprise, Barry answered, "too many monkeys." Apparently, they eat much food, and destroy what they do not eat. These vervet monkeys that Dean and I were dying to see, and which adorn most Nevis souvenirs, are not indigenous to the island (as David already knew). Some short-sighted Frenchman brought them over several hundred years ago as pets, and now they run wild throughout the island. "They reap, but they do not toil" was how another driver explained to us the farmers' frustration with monkeys.

Our own frustration with the little guys came when we hiked around in the rainforest for three hours and saw nary a one. Having read that they frequently appeared on the inn's grounds in the afternoon, we treated ourselves to lunch in the beautiful mountainside garden. Still no monkeys. We gave up, got in another cab to go back to town, and had just complained to our driver that we had seen no monkeys when he brought the car to a lurching halt. "There!" he said. "Roll down your window and take a picture." Of course, dean had just disassembled the camera and put it away. But the taxi driver spotted about half a dozen monkeys for us. Really, we couldn't have missed them, as they were hanging out by the road, keeping company with the goats, which the taxi driver claims the like to do.

Downwind at Last

2007-03-10T14:10:00.000-05:00

March 7, 2007
Charlestown, Nevis
N 17 degrees, 08.883 minutes
W 061 degrees, 37.857 minutes

Like two wayward students, Lisa and Jim have asked for extensions in turning in their guest blogs (Jim's excuse was he had to turn around and fly to Europe for work several hours after he arrived on a plane from Nevis. A likely story). Assuming our guests are, as we typing, writing diligently regarding the joys of Ting, Irish sausages, Carib beer, swimming in 79 degree water, and waking up before dawn to make the 50-mile passage from Antigua to Nevis, I'll cut to the chase.

Monday we left Antigua for a downwind (dead downwind: the wind and waves were directly on our stern) sail to Nevis. We broke out the medication early, knowing from prior experience that nothing makes one question the purpose of sailing faster than large swells hitting our stern. This time nobody got sick, but everybody needed a nap.

It is difficult to hold a compass course and keep the sails full with the wind at your back in large, following seas, but Jim was doing such an excellent job, Dean went below for a little snooze, while Lisa and I rested our eyes in the cockpit. When I opened mine again, I realized the sky behind us had turned dark gray all the way to the water. A squall was catching up to us. By the time I got my wits about me and called Dean up for a reduction in sail, the wind had already picked up another 10 knots. Heading downwind, the increase hadn't felt obvious until we tried to reef the genoa. Thank you, Hood sails, for making us a sturdy sail that two idiots can't manage to flog to pieces by letting the jib sheet go free in a squall.

We got the jib reefed, the squall passed, the wind died, and we let the jib out again. We had lots of bites on our lines, and we caught three fish, but none were keepers (two barracuda and a miniscule tuna). Fortunately, we had Dean's fabulous pizza to console us that night.

Tuesday we checked ourselves into the country of Nevis, checked our crew off of Delilah, checked out the town of Charlestown (that took about an hour), and put Lisa and Jim into a taxi for the airport. Thus deprived of company, we retired to the boat to contemplate the sunset.

Sorry, Lisa, but after five days of watching the sun set behind a hill or into clouds, we had a magnificent evening, and watched the big red ball dip into the ocean, turning green for one split second before it sunk below the horizon. Satisfied, we went below to read, and we were asleep by ten.

Only to wake up at one to the thump of a baseline from some seriously big speakers. The Double Deuce, a tiny, unassuming shack on the beach, had transformed itself to a dance club. It's happened to us a hundred times before, anchoring off various beachside communities, that we find ourselves awake and trying to ignore yet another poor imitation of Bob Marley, or worse, some garage band reggae group with cheap-but-loud equipment.

This time, after about twenty minutes of lying half awake, I realized I was enjoying whatever unfamiliar song it was that I was hearing, even though I couldn't understand a word. The song clearly had some Middle Eastern influence, and the language sounded Middle Eastern. It was hypnotizing. If it hadn't been four hours past my bedtime, I'd have been tempted to go in and find the bar.

Then the DJ came on, speaking English, letting his cheering entourage--and the entire anchorage--know that we were listening to some Lebanese club music. I hate to say it, but after a year in the Caribbean, I still don't like most reggae or Soca nearly as much as I liked that Lebanese club music. For about an hour. Then we closed all the windows and went to sleep in the saloon.

Gang Of Four

2007-03-04T15:03:00.000-05:00

Here is a picture of Tina, Ian, and ourselves. Nice, eh?

Departure

2007-03-04T14:35:00.000-05:00

Sunday, March 4 (Happy Birthday, Doug)
Falmouth Harbor, Antigua

I can almost smell the roast beef most likely being served at 161 Federal Street to honor Doug's entrance into his LATE forties today. I would be extremely envious, were I not still very full from last night's dinner of Irish sausages--the good kind--available every day in the local supermarket!

We have had a fairly quiet and relaxing week, anchored within swimming distance of Pigeon Beach, and enjoying the company of Kim and David on Amanzi. We also had another very late night with Amanzi, Mange Tout, and Kenneth, who is not a sailor but is in Antigua because he directs an organization that supports people who desire to row across large bodies of water. Three such boats have just landed in Antigua, having been rowed across the Atlantic this winter. Tara and Stewart, who watched the British boat entering English Harbor, had met Kenneth while attempting to buy the EPIRB from one of the rowboats. As luck would have it, not only were they able to rent the EPIRB (cheaper than buying, for sure), they also acquired, for free, a life raft and extra flares--all items they had planned to purchase before they cross the Atlantic themselves this spring, returning to England on the sailboat they bought in the Dominican Republic last winter.

We said goodbye to Mange Tout and Nancy Dawson on Thursday and prepared the boat for Lisa and Jim, who were supposed to fly in on Thursday night but wound up arriving in the predawn hours of Friday morning because of flight delays. Once again, we were up late enough to view the Southern Cross as it made its brief transit across the southern sky.

But that was nothing compared to the beautiful eclipse of the moon just after nightfall yesterday. Through binoculars, it had a 3-dimensional quality that a bright moon does not, and the reddish tinge was rather eerie. Lisa recalled the last time we witnessed such a phenomenon: October 27, 2004. Lisa knows the exact date because it was her birthday, and because the Red Sox won the World Series on that day. So, as we entertain our Boston friends, keep an eye out for John Henry, whose yacht is still docked here in Falmouth Harbor, and analyze spring training and the upcoming baseball season, we wonder, could this be an early and affirmative sign for success in 2007?

The weather has been rather rough for the past few days, but I still managed to sneak in one more dive with divemaster David on Amanzi's big, new, fast, and dry dinghy. We found the dive boat mooring off Windward Beach, where we had gone with Ian the week before, and spent close to an hour noodling along the ledge there. I saw no rays this time, but I did see an eel, a brightly-colored flounder, a turtle, some big groupers, and two enormous lobsters. It's illegal to take lobster while scuba diving, so we had to be content to look and merely imagine how those babies would taste grilled and topped with butter and lemon.

Today is our last day in Antigua. This afternoon we will check out of the country with our two new crew members before making the hike to Shirley Heights to watch the sunset. And at dawn tomorrow we will raise our anchor, raise our sails, and turn Delilah west for a 50-mile sail toward Nevis.

Catching Up

2007-02-26T10:14:00.000-05:00

Monday, February 26
Falmouth Harbor, Antigua

Okay, we've slipped twice, but we won't let it happen again. Our last two guests were wiley enough to avoid guest blog duties, but we are onto them, and onto you, if you think you are coming to visit and not writing a guest blog. Think again.

So...we spent a hectic day on the 17th preparing for Tina and Ian's visit, having torn the boat up to look for tools and parts we might need to make our wobbly boat. They arrived bearing the usual heavy bags, laden with my "just one more thing" requests for items from the States. The list has gotten smaller as our time out here grows short. So Greg, who visited us early on, wins the heaviest bag award, hands down.

This year I did not manage to have another birthday bonfire on the beach, but we all did climb up to Shirley Heights (if you hike up you don't have to pay the entrance fee; Tina and Ian were not impressed by our thrift) to watch the sun set, eat barbecue, and listen to some steel pan. Shirley Heights is a beautiful place, with fantastic views of the whole island, and it is very popular on Sunday nights. One might say it's too popular. I think next time I'd go on a night when there wasn't a steel band or barbecue, and avoid the wrestling match at the cliff's edge as people vie for a good view of the horizon.

After the Shirley Heights barbecue, we hit all the sights on the south coast of Antigua: Nelson's Dockyard, Pigeon Beach, Windward Beach, Sweet T's Ice Cream, and even a little underwater exploring via scuba. Then we sailed up the west coast for for a few days.

The wind and northerly swells picked up just as we were planning to head out, and though they churned up the water along Antigua's west coast, reducing visibility to mere inches, conditions did make for some great sailing between anchorages. We spent a night almost alone in enormous and undeveloped Five Islands, another night in lovely Deep Bay, where we climbed up to the fort to watch the sunset and marvel at the outrageous size and shape of the cruise ships departing St. John, and our final night in Jolly Harbor, which, from the water, looks just like the Fort Lauderdale section of the ICW.

After putting Tina and Ian into a cab, Dean and I decided to drown our sorrows by spending outrageous amounts of money on imported American processed food at the island's biggest grocery store. We haven't seen a grocery store bigger than a 7-11 all winter, accept for the French islands. Though it was fun to try new food and stock up on fabulous French cheeses and wines, sometimes you just find comfort in a box of Pop Tarts.

Larder filled, we raced back down to Falmouth Harbor yesterday on the rumor that the long-elusive Amanzi, whom we haven't seen since November, might arrive that afternoon. We dropped the anchor off Pigeon Beach and were tidying the boat when I heard an "Oi!" from the water. Stewart and Tara of Mange Tout had spotted us from the beach and swum out.

We brought them aboard, handed them each a beer, and got ourselves invited over to their boat that night for Stewart's incredibly fabulous curry dinner. Fortunately, Stewart knows how to stretch a recipe, because Amanzi DID appear yesterday, and we all stayed up VERY late on Mange Tout, telling and retelling stories as we caught each other up on the news and gossip along the eastern Caribbean.

Wobbly Images

2007-02-17T16:22:00.000-05:00

My Kind of Regatta

2007-02-17T16:20:00.000-05:00

Saturday, February 17
Falmouth Harbor, Antigua

The floor of our new boat was awash, and more water was pouring in through the widening seams. Axel's bailer had gone overboard during a jibe, and the bilge pump wasn't making much of a dent. Many boats had already succombed to the fury of the elements, and the crowd on shore had begun to believe that our boat would sink as well. But Tara, holding the mainsheet between her teeth, paddled mightily, determined to cross the finish line and beach the boat before they both went under. It was woman against the elements, and Tara won, proudly paddling the boat's mermaid figurehead across the line to a chorus of huzzahs.

A mere three hours earlier, our noble sailing vessel, Lady Roger Ring, had been a meager collection of thin plywood, knotty pine 1x1, dull nails, and duct tape provided to us by the Wobbly Club Regatta's organizing committee. Our challenge, as the multi-national corporation, "Bodge It, Cock Up, & Sink Boat Works," (motto "Every job a floater!") was to make a craft that one of us could propel around a short course. The regatta's organizing committee, on the other hand, had a goal of providing us with shoddy goods and selling us quite a lot of cheap beer as we worked in the hot Caribbean sun to build a boat.

Cheating was rampant among the 27 teams who signed up for the regatta, but we on team B.C.S. held ourselves to a higher standard, and cheated only a very little, adding a few extra rolls of duct tape and some wire to our war chest. That duct tape saved Tara from a long swim, holding the short, blunt nails in place and sealing the boat's seams long enough for her to complete the course. Many other boats did not fare so well.

We celebrated well into the evening, toasting our hard work, Randy's excellent boat designs, and Tara's competitive edge. Our excellent team spirit won us a case of beer and a bottle of rum, and even impressed the crew of a 141 foot motor yacht enough that we were invited on board for a nightcap at the bar on their aft deck. Quite.

Facing the Atlantic

2007-02-14T13:49:00.001-05:00

Monday, February 12
Nonsuch Bay, Antigua
N 17 degrees, 04.578 minutes
W 061 degrees, 40.326 minutes

The best thing to do, when one discovers on Thursday that the weekly budget has already been exceeded, is to find somewhere remote and sit there until the week has ended. Thus we were finally driven out of lively (and expensive) Falmouth Harbor for a few days.

Not that we mind, of course. Nonsuch Bay, on the eastern coast of Antigua, is a beautiful, remote area with just a few yachts and very little opportunity to spend money. Green Island, off to starboard, is uninhabited, as is Bird Island, to port. Off our bow, between us and the big ole Atlantic, is long reef. As in the Tobago Cays, the reef protects us from any large seas rolling west from Africa, but leaves us with the illusion that we are facing straight out to sea.

Unfortunately, this reef was damaged by storms and is only beginning to show new signs of life, so the snorkeling is not what it could be. Still, the remoteness of this anchorage leaves us plenty of time to perform some long-overdue boat maintenance, as well as lounge in the hammock and contemplate the horizon (thanks, Greg).

Dean may have located and fixed the hole on our cap rail, putting an end, we hope, to puddles on the galley floor when we bury the port rail. I am sure we'll have ample opportunity to test his handiwork when we leave Antigua at the end of the month.

Octopus's Garden

2007-02-08T19:05:00.000-05:00

Wednesday, February 7
Falmouth Harbor, Antigua

Well, the weekend went by so fast, as we were catching up with friends, and then some new friends arrived, and then we had to have our propane refilled, and then our starting battery stopped holding a charge (no big deal when you're in a port with several chandleries from which to choose), and then we got an invitation to go diving with some cruisers who have EXTRA equipment to share (!!!). Thus the day or two we planned to stay in Falmouth Harbor has turned into a week.

We hadn't expected to enjoy ourselves so much in the bustling harbor. But as long as I can swim off the boat without wondering what else might be floating in the water besides me and Delilah, I am content to stay almost anywhere, and Dean loves a little bit of civilization along with his blue skies and clean water. On top of that, Jake and Marnie of Avalanche (who sail to the Caribbean from RI every fall and back again in the spring) had suggested that, if they caught up with us here in Antigua, they'd take us to one of their favorite dive sites.

Though Jake was disappointed with the visibility report he got yesterday--a mere 50 feet because of the weekend's high winds--we all donned our gear for a fairly shallow and uncomplicated dive at the Pillars of Hercules along the south coast of Antigua. I was glad we were doing an easy dive, as I have not been scuba diving on for several years (the cost of renting equipment is prohibitive, and snorkeling has always seemed simpler and faster). I was nervous before the dive, hoping I wouldn't have problems clearing my ears, maintaining buoyancy, putting my equipment together, clearing my mask underwater, fitting into a stranger's BC, and all the little adjustments that make diving comfortable. But everything worked perfectly, and I found myself facing Dean on the bottom of the ocean, comfortable, happy, and ready to see some fish.

Jake and Marnie have done this dive a number of times, so they lead the way past an old anchor encrusted with coral, a spotted eel, countless fish, and some beautiful coral structures I had not seen before while snorkeling. My favorite part of the dive, however, was looking up to the water's surface and watching the waves crash along the steep coastline beside us. The only downside, of course, is that I don't know that I'll ever see the point of donning a thick, restrictive wetsuit with hood and gloves in order to swim around in the murk of New England's frigid waters (48 degrees below the thermocline, as opposed to 79 degrees here).

We're off tomorrow (9 Feb) for about a week of sailing/anchoring in places where there is no internet. Imagine!

Sailor Trash

2007-02-05T14:21:00.001-05:00

Monday, February 5
Falmouth Harbor, Antigua
N 17 degrees, 00.672 minutes
W 061 degrees, 46.659 minutes

We had been warned about the megayachts that congregate in places like St. Barts, St. Martin, and Antigua each winter, but we were not quite prepared for seeing a whole bunch of them together--especially Le Grand Bleu, Maltese Falcon (home page), and Mirabella V (home page), three whoppers known for their outrageous designs. All three of these privately-owned boats were in the harbor when we arrived, so we got a good look at them, and we even got to watch the Maltese Falcon, with its bizarre sailing rig, put her sails up as she headed out of the harbor.

Mirabella V, the sloop on steroids, is, we are told, the largest single-masted vessel in the world. At night, when all the supersize sailboats have their mandatory red masthead lights on to warn air traffic (no, I'm not kidding!), Mirabella V's light appears another twenty to thirty feet above everybody else's.

Le Grand Bleu looks like a cargo ship. On its deck are a 50-foot power boat and a 70-foot Swan sailboat (that's double the length of our boat and many times the price), in addition to a helicopter, a large crane, and a few other boats too small to mention in this case.

Given the serious size of some of the boats in the harbor, and the number of more modest sailboats anchored out by us, services in Falmouth Harbor are geared toward yachties. Many sailors base their winter explorations out of here, and flights from North America are both cheap and direct. So we should not have been surprised to sail in and find ourselves anchoring behind two boats full of friends. The only problem is, we've been having too much fun to get our errands done so we can head over to some of the more remote and beautiful anchorages on the island. Who wants to lug water and laundry and groceries around in the dinghy when there are sundowners to be had, books to swap, and stories to compare in the beautiful Caribbean breeze? Cleaning the head can always wait for tomorrow.

Final Jardin Botanique

2007-02-02T13:48:00.000-05:00

More Jardin Botanique

2007-02-02T13:30:00.001-05:00

Jardin Botanique

2007-02-02T13:27:00.000-05:00

Another Day, Another Anchorage

2007-02-02T13:23:00.000-05:00

Thursday, February 1
Falmouth Harbor, Antigua
N 17 degrees 00.669 minutes
W 061 degrees 46.647 minutes

Since our last missive, we've really gotten around. After weeks of fairly settled weather, our trusty weather guru reported that a northerly swell would set in along the northern Caribbean, followed by an increase in the trade winds. We decided to get ourselves to Antigua before things got rough. So from Marie Galante we sailed 16 miles north to the lovely anchorage of St. Anne, Guadeloupe. We anchored in a small harbor (there was only one other sailboat) and spent some time on the beach at Club Med and also on the public beach. Both were absolutely phenomenal. But all good things come to an end, and we went south again (to make it easier to go north, naturally), ending up back in Iles des Saintes, where we anchored right behind our friends on S/V Nancy Dawson and S/V Mange Tout. One thing led to another, and after having drinks with new acquaintances from S/V Vamoose (out of Marblehead) in our cockpit, we were hosted by S/V Providence (with Nancy Dawson in attendance).

Are you bored yet? Shall I tell you what we ate and drank?
Perhaps another time.

We left the Saintes on Tuesday and sailed north, stopping briefly at a mooring at Pigeon Island (home of the Jacques Cousteau National Underwater Park) to do some fantastic snorkeling and to look for the underwater bust of Cousteau, which we never found. Last spring, on our way down, we gave this snorkeling spot a pass, as the mooring looked way too close to the rocks. Since then we have become either more adventurous or more careless.

We anchored in Deshaies on Tuesday and Wednesday, planning to rent a car so we could hike the Soufriere volcano. No joy. Jill had been planning this hike for weeks, but we could never seem to find a car rental place with any cars. To console ourselves we went to the botanical gardens in Deshaies for the second time. Stupendous. Sadly, since we were there last, stray dogs came in and killed all of the flamingos. The management of the gardens was obviously very upset about the event and have not done anything to replace the birds.

After stocking up on fabulous French cheese, bread, yogurt, cheap wine, and granola (it's a long story) we set sail this morning for Antigua. We had a zesty sail, with the wind strength varying widely, even (so Jill says) hitting 30 knots at times. We'd put in a reef, and the wind would die. We'd shake out the reef, and the wind would pick up to twice its original strength. I am extremely tired, having done more sail changes today than I have in the past few months together. Needless to say, we were close hauled for the whole voyage. But it was all worth it, as we made 7 knots at times, and 6+ knots for hours on end. We have verified that we do indeed leak water into the galley when our port rail is in the water. That's not nice. Jill has tasked me with finding the leak this week. Good luck, me!

The best part of anchoring this afternoon in Falmouth Harbor was that, just as we put the anchor down, our friends from Carapan and Eira showed up to say hello. We were not sure whether we would see them again on this trip, and we enjoyed catching up over the bread, cheese, and wine we had stocked in Deshaies.

Mt. Pelee and Sunset

2007-01-26T08:28:00.002-05:00

Happy Birthday Bonnie Foulis!

2007-01-26T08:28:00.001-05:00

Friday, January 26
St. Louis, Marie Galante, Guadeloupe
N 15 degrees, 57.398
W 061 degrees, 19.298

The wind this week has been quite light and has actually clocked a little SE. Of course that meant we were compelled to sail SE, and we are now anchored off a small island below Guadeloupe. I had been lured here by a guidebook that claimed the water was so clear that one could see starfish on the seabed by moonlight...that is, if there WERE starfish on the seabed, instead of a load of weeds. It's not quite the same.

There is a lovely, mile-long, largely deserted beach here, and I have added significantly to my sea glass and shell collection. This afternoon we will move over to another, longer beach for more exploring.

There is also a little town nearby, inspiring the phrase, "nothing to write home about."

Bat Wing and Cat on Reef

2007-01-26T08:24:00.000-05:00

Horrific!

2007-01-26T08:23:00.000-05:00

Monday, January 22
Illet de Gosier, Guadaloupe
N 16 degrees 12.123 minutes
W 061 degrees 29.622 minutes

Does anyone out there have any recipes that include bat wing? I ask because I am in possession of a bat wing. No, really. I found it on the side deck of the boat. It's disgusting and cool all at once. There's certainly fur on the wing, and a little bit of bat meat, as well, so maybe it would be good in a soup. There are two working theories as to how a bat wing came to be on the deck: that a bird dropped it (plausible; after all, seagulls are merely rats with wings) or that our wind generator separated the bat from its wing (strike one for all you Cape Wind proponents). Votes from readers?

Also filed under horrific: we spent the afternoon watching a pilot boat drag a catamaran up onto a massive reef. Let me clarify: the pilot boat was trying to get the cat off of the reef, but instead of pulling it backwards, for 20 feet or so, he elected to pull it forwards, about 100 feet.

The cat was first driven or sailed by its charter "captain" onto the reef on Saturday afternoon. It being the weekend, nothing was done to rescue the cat until today. When we arrived, we looked for the boat we had been hearing about every hour on the VHF (S/V Love Me Do, for those interested), and saw it sitting far up onto the reef.

That afternoon, some guys came along with several big pieces of foam and shoved them between the hulls of the boat. Then a pilot boat affixed a long line and, full steam ahead, dragged the cat forward, further onto this fairly large and extremely shallow reef. After a while, the pilot boat was not able to make any further progress, so they added a second boat IN SERIES WITH THE PILOT BOAT. The cat was pulled free after several hours and was towed, bows low in the water, to a marina around the corner.

The whole process was very entertaining. We did not, however, get in our dinghy to get closer to the action, although some half-dozen of our neighbors did. It's better than American Idol, I'll warrant.

All that aside, we are enjoying this little island on the south coast of Guadeloupe. The aforementioned reef system makes for good snorkeling, great sand for anchoring behind the reef, and protection from waves. The little island boasts an abandoned lighthouse and a not-so-abandoned beach bar, as well as a couple of lovely beaches.

Quiet Weekend

2007-01-15T10:57:00.000-05:00

Saturday, January 13
Iles des Saintes, Guadeloupe
N 15 degrees, 52.029 minutes
W 061 degrees, 35.091 minutes

We arrived in the Saints on Tuesday after a quick stop in Dominica and another great day of sailing (okay, half-day. We motor-sailed the length of Dominica because the island's mountains are so tall they not only block the wind, they cause it to back around to the west). Pancho, the "boat helper" in Rouseau, was quick to turn around our propane refill, saving us a bus trip with the tank, and allowing us to forgo checking into the country.

And now we are back in French territory, in a small archipelago south of Guadeloupe proper, where we have done nothing much for several days, and we expect to do more of the same until Tuesday, when the wind abates and (we hope) clocks further south, giving us another shot at a great sail to the main island of Guadeloupe.

We did rouse ourselves to climb up to Fort Napolean, an extremely well-preserved fort with excellent exhibits on the Battle of the Saints in 1782, the original fishing community on the islands, early island furniture, and even art. From there we could see Delilah bobbing at anchor, the only boat in the one of the remote northerly harbors on the main island. That suited us fine until the wind came around to the north, making Baie du Marigot an EXPOSED anchorage, and we found ourselves moving to the deeper, more crowded anchorage off the main village.

Since then we have enjoyed watching the Goldilocks-like comings and goings in this large but not quite perfect harbor, as boats test one and then another potential spot, looking for a place that's not too deep, nor too crowded, nor too rolly, but just right. Eventually they compromise, as we did after several failed attempts at tucking in somewhere shallow.

In spite of being rather deep, the main anchorage does not shelve drastically, so it is quite large. Almost every day we've watched several smallish cruise ships anchoring in the bay, with lots of passengers on shore speaking very loud English and commenting on our Red Sox caps. We've noticed, with disgust, that residents of the Caribbean wear a lot of Yankees hats and shirts, but more because of the cache of affiliating oneself with such a famous city than because of the team, baseball taking a distant back seat to soccer and cricket around these parts. Nobody ever said a word to us about the Red Sox until the cruise ships rolled in.

This morning there were no cruise ships, so I entertained myself by heading to the best bakery in town, realizing shortly thereafter that I was just in time for their final batch of baguettes to come out of the oven. There was no line, just a mob of eager and impatient customers. The French don't seem to care for lines, so I elbowed my way in there and got one of the coveted loaves, along with a poulet roti--a small roasted chicken that Dean and I picked clean for lunch, and which I am now cooking down to stock for dinner.

This evening's excitement included watching three enormous, private yachts arriving in the bay and taking up just about as much room as the cruise ships do. What's most notable about these boats, aside from the fact that they are 150 feet or more in length, is that they are all motorsailers, the duck-billed platypuses of the yachting world. Two of the boats at least try to look like sailboats, in spite of the fact that they have multiple floors above decks, but one boat just looks like a regular multistory powerboat that somebody jammed a few masts into and then called it a day. I can't imagine how it could possibly sail. I also can't imagine how we will gain admittance to one of these boats, but we will work on that tomorrow.

Yahoo! Or Should I Say Wahoo?

2007-01-15T10:56:00.000-05:00

Monday, January 8
Roseau, Dominica
N 15 degrees, 17.081 minutes
W 061 degrees, 22.567 minutes

What a day! And it's only half over. We woke up in St. Pierre this morning for a dawn departure, heading for Dominica.

Yes, keen reader, you are correct in recalling that Dean swore he would never go back to Dominica (see our Dominica blog from last May for an explanation). But since we neglected to fill our spare propane tank in Bequia, and the French islands don't fill propane tanks, and we would like to continue to eat hot meals, we must stop in Dominica.

Not only did we sail all the way here on a BEAM REACH, the bloody beam reach we were promised we'd have all the way up and down the Caribbean, we made fabulous time. Delilah ate up the waves, and we even PASSED another sailboat. I'll repeat that for everyone who has ever sailed in, beside, or circles around our boat. WE PASSED A BIGGER SAILBOAT, WHICH HAD LEFT ST. PIERRE AHEAD OF US! We made six to seven knots. And we came in more than an hour ahead of our already-optimistic schedule.

And while we were at it, we spotted a whale and we caught ourselves a fish--our first wahoo.

Not bad for a Monday morning in January, eh?

Dolphins!

2007-01-15T10:46:00.000-05:00

These guys were with us for only a few minutes, but it was really nice to see.

Beautiful Pics

2007-01-15T10:38:00.000-05:00

Birds and Anchorage

2007-01-15T10:29:00.000-05:00

Here's some pics of a cute little hummingbird. Also, Delilah alone in her anchorage.

More Pics!

2007-01-07T18:02:00.001-05:00

A grab-bag! First, a dead puffer fish. Nice eyes.

Then, Greg reading the Improper. Note the signal flag. The entire hoist read "W5GSB on board". That's his ham sign.

Then, Greg and Jill disagree on which way to go.

Finally, Jill enjoys lunch with an Amigo orange drink.

Dean In Hammock

2007-01-07T17:55:00.000-05:00

Greg brought us a hammock! I try it out. Thanks, Greg!

Pics!

2007-01-07T17:44:00.000-05:00

Here we see Mt. Pele, the volcano we climbed the other day. Note the clouds which wreath the top. Then, our boat in the distance. No dogs allowed!

Volcano? What Volcano?

2007-01-06T15:59:00.000-05:00

Saturday, January 6
Anse Mitan, Martinique

Thursday and Friday we dug deep into our pockets to bankroll a two-day car rental and "see" Martinique. Normally when we go ashore, we spend most of our time within walking distance of the anchorage. That works just fine on small islands, which are frequently only a mile long anyway. Some of the bigger islands, like Grenada and Trinidad had fantastic, if death defying, public transportation systems.

Martinique is one of the largest islands in the Windwards, with one of the worst public transportation systems. As I have been enjoying our hikes along the St. Anne shoreline so much, and since there is a great big volcano on the northern part of the island with, we were told, a fabulous hike up to the crater, we felt it was worth the money to drive up there.

There is something about the combination of the French road system, a compact European car, and narrow, winding roads that brings out the Jacques Villeneuve in Dean. We had been warned about the "traffic jams" in Martinique, and about the "terrible congestion" in its capital city, Fort de France. But after living beside the big dig for more than a decade, we laughed at these minor impediments. And once we got into the more steep and rural part of the country, Dean put on his driving gloves and zipped us up Mt. Pelee in no time.

The hike itself reminded me quite a bit of our honeymoon trip to a remote portion of the Great Wall: steep, muddy, and viewable only ten feet at a time, on account of the thick clouds converging at the peak. The plant life on either side of the trail was certainly beautiful, but anyone reading this blog has as good a sense as I do now of what the crater from the early twentieth century eruptions of Mt. Pelee might look like. We also forgot to charge our digital camera, so we can't even show you pictures of what we didn't see.

Shortly after we began our descent, I discovered that my light rain jacket is no longer waterproof in a downpour, and that my flip flops, though made by Merrell, really aren't up to steep hikes along rocky terrain.

Then, as we passed the halfway mark on the trail, the rain stopped and the thick clouds just disappeared. What had been a wall of white turned into a spectacular view of the southern half of Martinique, including both the Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea.

Out With A Bang

2007-01-03T09:19:00.000-05:00

3 Jan 2007
St. Anne, Martinique

When we got out of the hospital, we realized that we had very little money on us, and only Greg's AMEX. We were, of course, dressed in our bathing suits. It was dark out. Luckily, the nurse spoke a little English and called not only a taxi but also a hotel where we could spend the night.

Oh, you're wondering how we got to the hospital? By ambulance, of course! The nice gendarmes at the beach called it for us.

Oh, about that. Greg was body surfing and got slammed to the bottom, rendering, for a while, his entire right side numb. Later, the pain set in. He feared nerve damage as his hand was tingling, etc. and his back hurt. So, off to the hospital we went. Greg's x-rays looked good, bone-wise, but there might be muscle damage, etc. So Greg spent two hours talking to AMEX who helped him change his flight to today, etc. We taxied back this morning, got his stuff, and sent him off.

I only wish I had a camera with me to document the ordeal. Some fun.

GSB On Board

2007-01-02T08:56:00.000-05:00

Sunday, December 31

St. Anne, Martinique

Greg Burd arrived just before Christmas, and we enjoyed a few quiet days of sailing, swimming, and eating pain au chocolat while Greg battled the nasty cold he acquired on the Green Line a few days earlier.

On Christmas Day we had a short, mostly downwind sail to Grand Anse D'Arlet, a small fishing village and tourist beach on the southwest coast of Martinique. We had planned to stay for a few days, but the morning weather forecast threatened a big increase in the tradewinds. We halted breakfast preparations and immediately set sail for St. Anne, which, from any anchorage in Martinique, requires a ten-mile motorsail directly into wind and chop. Not fun, but we got it over with before the wind and waves picked up.

Now we are enjoying St. Anne again, and yesterday we took Greg to our favorite beach, Grande Anse des Salines. The beach is an hour away if you walk to it from the town of St. Anne, but we have found some terrific hiking trails that follow the coastline pretty closely. The beach itself is well worth the walk, with great waves for body surfing, beautiful powdery sand, and plenty of shade. According to our friend Gilda, Salines is the best beach in Martinique, and it is popular with residents. There are a few vendors behind the beach selling beer and barbecue, but my favorite vendor is the ice cream lady, who walks along ringing a bell and wheeling a wooden tub full of homemade ice cream.

After two hours of hiking and three hours of playing in the surf, we were too tired to cook on the boat, so we went into the town for a meal. St. Anne has been hosting a week of festivities between Christmas and New Year's Eve, and last night on the stage in the square there were drummers and dancers dressed in traditional costumes. We watched until the restaurants opened for dinner (never before 7 p.m.; Mom and Dad would die), and then had a delicious meal in the open-air restaurant overlooking the anchorage. Not bad for a winter day!

Joyeux Noel

2006-12-24T10:36:00.000-05:00

December 23, 2006
Anse Mitan, Martinique

Our friend Greg arrives today for two weeks of fun in the sun. We have been trying to figure out how to get him from the airport to the boat. It's not that far, but it is apparently wickedly expensive to take a taxi, especially if they suss that you aren't a local (the not speaking French part is usually a dead giveaway). Unlike most other Caribbean islands, traffic is a nightmare and public transportation isn't particularly reliable or even in existence. No good ole maxi taxis here!

Any road, we were asking Gilda (more on her later) for her advice, and she offered to pick Greg up at the airport! This was about 10 minutes after we had first met her. Now that's hospitality! We'll see how it all works out.

Gilda is the sister of Cheryl, our bookstore-managing friend on Bequia. Cheryl is looking for a cappucino maker for her cafe behind the bookstore, and she found a good one available in Martinique. We offered to deliver a handful of cash to Gilda, who would then buy the cappucino maker and ship it to Cheryl. So yes, Cheryl trusted us enough to let us sail away with hundreds of her dollars in U.S. currency. Clear?

Gilda has also, very slowly and patiently, been speaking French to me. I've been flattering myself that my comprehension is pretty good. However, earlier this week, when Dean and I were buying a print from a local artist, she explained in detail (and in French) the process of her printmaking. I turned to Dean proudly, saying, "I understood all that!" "So did I," said Dean, who took about an hour of French in high school. Oh. Never mind.

One very funny story from yesterday: we were walking by the little beach next to where we tie up our dinghy, and a woman dipped into the water next to us, and came up whooping and rubbing her shoulders. I know this gesture; it's the kind of gesture you make when you plunge into the 58 degree surf in Ogunquit in July (or in Katrina's case, May) and instantly begin to show signs of hypothermia. The water off Martinique is certainly more chilly than it was in the summer off Grenada (only 80 degrees now, brrr!), but come on.

Still, I think Dean and I are in for a very big shock the next time we hit the beach in New England.

Good Fenders Make Good Neighbors

2006-12-18T09:39:00.000-05:00

Sunday, December 17
Anse Mitan, Martinique
N 33 minutes, 33.588 seconds
W 061 minutes, 03.292 seconds

We've had a quiet couple of days following the departure of Crossroads, Dragonfly, and Dreamweaver for points north, and in anticipation of Greg's arrival on Saturday. We will probably stay here in Anse Mitan for the week, enjoying the nearby beaches and shopping, and taking the ferry over to Fort de France once or twice for more serious provisioning.

Anse Mitan is a much smaller anchorage than St. Anne, but it is located in a large and active bay, and it faces the city of Fort de France. We've enjoyed watching the commercial and private boats that make their way past us--and into us, as happened yesterday.

Dean was sitting in the companionway watching a whole slew of boats sailing into the area as a family on a French, steel-hulled sailboat was attempting to thread its way through the anchorage. The wind, which was light all day yesterday, died to a whisper, and the French sailboat, now in front of our bow, lost momentum and started drifting down onto us.

The good thing about most sailboats is that they don't go very fast. We, being anchored, weren't moving at all, and this boat was just ghosting along at a knot or two. I was belowdecks, and I heard Dean get up and walk forward along the deck, but I didn't know anything was going on until I heard voices speaking French just over my shoulder.

Sure enough, there they were, looking like they were preparing to raft up with us. Their engine, they explained, was broken, their mainsail, inexplicably, was down, and their jib, though in good working order, hung limply from the forestay. I stood there stupidly for a moment, assessing the situation, until Dean reminded me to get a fender.

Fortunately, we had just pulled up to a marina dock the day before to top up our water tanks, and we had been too lazy since then to put all the fenders away. In fact, one was still tied onto the port side, the same side as the boat that was approaching. All I had to do was flip it over. Our mid-section, at least, was safe.

I figure it's good karma to grin and act reassuring and not glance anxiously at the BRAND NEW varnish job on the bowsprit, which I spent weeks and weeks sanding and repainting not one month ago. It doesn't take much effort for the pointy end of a metal boat to put an unsightly divot into wood. But these people were clearly embarrassed and very apologetic, and the female half of the couple on board was obviously pissed enough at her male counterpart for all of us. I've been there many times, and it actually felt pretty good to be the person with the luxury of acting magnanimous for a change. "Pas de probleme" I repeated smilingly as Dean, with a firm hold on their bow pulpit, led their boat behind us.

Les Amis

2006-12-16T10:21:00.000-05:00

Wednesday, December 13
Trois Ilets, Martinique

N 14 degrees, 32.730 minutes
W 061 degrees, 02.427 minutes

After a few weeks on our own, we've had a very social weekend in St. Anne, and a busy calendar. Highlights include an early Christmas brunch on Dreamweaver (I made a key lime pie from scratch), afternoons on the Club Med beach, viciously competitive card games on Dragonfly, southern cooking on Crossroads, dress shopping in St. Anne, a couple of long hikes along the coast, and bodysurfing at one of the most beautiful beaches in the Caribbean. We also went to a cocktail party on Rainbowrider, new friends who took us in for Thanksgiving. Rainbowrider is a spacious Lagoon catamaran. Gary and Linda invited about 16 people for drinks. Everybody came, and everybody fit comfortably in the cockpit, with room to spare.

Yesterday we tore ourselves away from St. Anne to try a few days in Trois Ilets, where the Empress Josephine was born and lived until she was 16. We started out so far east that most of yesterday's sail was downwind. We flew along with just the genoa out, snapping pictures of Crossroads and of Diamond Rock. Diamond Rock's claim to fame is that in 1804 the British managed to get a few cannon to the top of it and commissioned it as a ship. Looking at that barren, steep-sided lump of rock jutting out of the sea and surrounded, we are told, by hammerhead sharks, I feel for the crew of marines that were left to live on it for 18 months.

Unfortunately, because Trois Ilets is tucked into a protected part of the Fort de France area, the water is a bit stagnant and made murky by mangroves. We don't dare swim off the boat, so I'm not sure how long we'll last here, no matter how lovely it is on shore.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

2006-12-08T09:26:00.000-05:00

Friday, December 8
St. Anne, Martinique
N 14 degrees, 26.345 minutes
W 060 degrees 53.088 minutes

We'll start with What's good:
We caught a fish! A beautiful mahi mahi, our first edible fish since the Bahamas in February. We have caught up with Crossroads, Dragonfly, and Dreamweaver, and they had two loaves of French bread and two chocolate croissants waiting for us when we anchored. We made 7 knots under greatly reduced sail between Bequia and St. Vincent, flying along at a close reach. We'll look back on it as a "lively" sail with plenty of wind.

What's bad:
Nausea, which caused us to lose a lure by acting too slowly when we hooked our first fish, which got away. And in hindsight, it doesn't seem so bad, but boy were those waves big and steep at the northern end of St. Vincent.

What's Ugly:
The teeth marks on our mahi mahi when we brought him aboard. He went for the lure on our yo yo, which is silent, so we didn't know we had caught a fish until he'd exhausted himself by struggling back there. And he attracted a predator. Dean saw a fin as he was hauling the fish in. Luckily, all the predator got was a bit of skin. Our boat hasn't fared much better. We took a few waves over the bow, over the coach roof, over the dodger, and right in the face. We give new meaning to being salty coves--inside and out, as there were three inches of water above the floorboards in the galley about mid-passage. Fortunately, it was confined to the galley, and the bilge itself was dry, which meant we weren't sinking. Unfortunately, it means we have a leak along the port side rail, which spent much of the passage buried beneath the waves. Also, we broke our dining table when it fell down during the passage.

2006-12-05T10:25:00.000-05:00

In which we see Dean doing dishes in saltwater to conserve freshwater, Jill catching rainwater, and a dinghy on the beach.

Martinique?

2006-12-05T10:00:00.000-05:00

Last of the Grenadines

Tuesday, December 5
Admiralty Bay, Bequia, Grenadines
N 13 degrees, 00.28 minutes
W 061 degrees, 14.54 minutes

We have spent the last week enjoying Bequia, a small but lively island in the northern area of the Grenadines. The bay here is enormous, with plenty of room for the constant boat traffic, and lots of places onshore to eat and shop and look around.

We have been stuffing ourselves with roti and other West Indian curries, as I seem to recall that the little, cheap curry places were not as frequent north of the Grenadines. On Sunday we went to a great curry buffet in Coco's Place, a restaurant perched on the hillside overlooking Lower Beach and the Bay. The beach itself is a popular place on Sundays, with people playing football (that's soccer to you Yanks) and cricket, and music pouring out of the beachside bars.

As we got closer to the beach, we noticed that no other dinghies were beached there, and there was a bit of a roll picking up as we got into shallower water. I remembered reading something in our guidebook about how it was tricky and therefore inadviseable to land a dinghy there. The book recommended that we take a cab from the town--yeah, right! Pay? Real money? When we can walk or sail or dinghy or crawl? We are EXPERIENCED cruisers, right? With thousands of miles under our keel, right? So in we went through the surf, doing okay until the last few feet, when the shore shelved suddenly from four feet deep to ankle deep, and a wave broke over the back of the dinghy, soaking us both. I was glad we keep our little camera sealed in plastic, for just such occasions.

A Rastafarian had seen us and was there on shore, ready to grab our bow and help us heave the boat out of the surf. Clearly, he had done this a few times. After, he gave us a handshake and went back to dancing at one of the bars.

Yesterday I dragged Dean to the other side of the island to see an alleged turtle sanctuary. Once again, we walked. It was only two miles, but they were steep, sweaty miles, and we were glad to take a break at Spring Bay, halfway to the turtle sanctuary, and look into an old sugar plantation, part of which has been restored and turned into a potter's studio and gallery. We met the artist, who hails from Britain originally, and who had just returned from six months at his studio in the south of France (nice work if you can get it). Unfortunately, as he had been gone for six months, he didn't have any more of the fabulous plates I had seen and wanted to purchase. I consoled myself with a whimsical bowl with a toucan's head, inspired by some ancient Arawak pottery. I also became enchanted by an oil painting--a big splurge, but Dean and I agree that it's worth the money to pick up some original artwork along the way. The only problem would be getting this thing home. We are waiting to hear from the artist regarding shipping costs.

We weren't sure what to think of the turtle sancturary along the beach. Ostensibly, it's a good idea to help these rare hawksbill and green turtles, which generally have survival rate of one in a thousand in the wild. For the past twelve years, Mr. King, who started this project, has picked hundreds of newly-hatched turtles from certain beaches in the windwards, keeping them in pens until they are about ten years old, and then releasing them. Since the turtles don't begin to lay eggs themselves until they are about 25 years old, we have to wait another decade to see if raising these turtles in captivity will have an effect on the dwindling population.

We think that we are leaving tomorrow, overnighting in St. Lucia, and getting to Martinique on Thursday. We don't know what the email situation will be there...

Plans

2006-12-04T13:55:00.000-05:00

4 December, 2006.
Bequia

Well, we might leave tomorrow or we might not. If we do, we'll likely sail to St. Lucia, overnight there, and then sail on up to Martinique. If not, we'll probably be here for 4-7 more days, waiting for a good weather window.

Delilah!

2006-12-04T13:52:00.000-05:00

There's a guy down here in Bequia that races out in a dinghy to photograph incoming boats. When he showed us a sample picture of Delilah, we were hooked and had to have it. I'm posting a much-reduced size here. Click on the picture to see a bigger version.

Rollins Gets Married

2006-11-28T09:07:00.000-05:00

My good friend Dave Rollins was married recently. Wish I could have been there... Pictures can be found here.

Catching up

2006-11-28T08:49:00.000-05:00

Tuesday, November 28
Britannia Bay, Mustique, Grenadines

Did you miss us? We are catching up on our blog today, now that we've found free wi-fi. There are four more new blogs and a bunch of pictures to follow. If you want to read them in order, start at the bottom with November 13.

As for today's news, we are leaving Mustique this afternoon for Bequia. Bequia is west of here, and since the tradewinds blow from the east, we should be in for a beautiful downwind sail. Which probably means that the wind will die altogether.

This morning I went back to the petite French bakery here on the island for a little pastry (Yes, Elisa, I'm making the hand gestures) and some bread, and I've learned a disturbing yet valuable lesson: just because a bakery is called French and is owned by some guy who claims to be from France doesn't mean his pastry is any good. The baguette, however, is still warm, so perhaps we'll do better with that.

Three More For The Road

2006-11-28T08:47:00.001-05:00

Amy, here's some decent clouds for you. And for everybody else, a picture of Delilah that Jill shot from the bow. Nice.

Rich and Famous in Mustique

2006-11-28T08:47:00.000-05:00

Monday, November 27

Britannia Bay, Mustique, Grenadines
N 12 degrees 52.713 minutes
W 061 degrees 11.386 minutes

On Thanksgiving Day it was squally, so instead of dining on the beach, we repaired to the spacious catamaran Rainbowrider, along with the folks from S/V Gypsy Palace, for a real American Thanksgiving dinner. Rainbowrider had the foresight to buy a frozen turkey breast in Trinidad, and various folks made potatoes, rolls from scratch, green bean casserole, stuffing, mushroom dressing, candied sweet potatoes, pumpkin pie, etc. It was the perfect end to 15 days in the Tobago Cays (about which we have gushed quite enough, I think).

Friday we went to Mayreau (N 12 degrees 38.016 minutes, W 061 degrees 23.897 minutes), a smallish island to the west of, and therefore downwind of, the Tobago Cays. I, Dean, had the distinction of wrapping the dinghy painter again around the prop, necessitating the painter's destruction by knife. Ha ha, it is to laugh. We were surrounded by a whack of people who were visiting by cruise ship, so we spent only a short time ashore on the beach, looking at T-shirts and enjoying a single drink at a bar up a very steep hill, overlooking the anchorage. We did not try our luck at impersonating passengers at the cruise ship's private, on-beach bar, though we were tempted.

On the morning of the 25th, taking advantage of the wide open anchorage and favorable winds, we sailed off the anchor and made for Canouan (N 12 degrees 42.515 minutes W 061 degrees 19.750 minutes). We were the only cruising boat in this bay, although there were many Moorings boats there, as it is one of their rental bases. We did enjoy seeing the charterers coming and going. Town was very nice, and we had fried chicken and fresh bread in a tiny little snack shop, served by an elderly woman with no apparent sense of humor. We visited a few of the grocery stores there, and not much else. Unfortunately, Tim, we got your comment regarding the manager of Moorings after we left Canouan, so we were not able to stop in.

Yesterday, we again sailed off anchor and made our way to Mustique. We were able to sail virtually the entire way, but in the end we started our engine about two miles out, as we were growing tired of tacking into wind AND current (on the port tack we were able to do a stately 2 knots, kind of like hitting the tide at the wrong time near Deer Island Light). One has to pick up a mooring in Mustique, and pay a whopping $30 U.S. for up to 3 nights. I think it worth the money, as most of it seems to go toward preserving this beautiful island and its reefs. Also, we are in 40 feet of water, and I'm sick of pulling up all that heavy chain.

Mustique is a privately owned and managed island, with enormous houses nestled up in the hills, and a strict injunction against press photography. Most of the island seems to be beautifully manicured to resemble one's fantasy of a Caribbean island. A visitor might not notice how the whole place is not quite real unless he'd spent time on a few of the other islands nearby. Big tour boats are not allowed to anchor offshore, but there are hotels, and charters and private boats are welcome to come ashore and spend money freely. It's easy to do here.

After a long night of listening to the karaoke fiends in Basil's Bar onshore, we decided to indulge ourselves this morning and went ashore for fresh pastry (so-so). We then found the library, where we spent a leisurely hour and a half on the internet, one computer each. When preparing to leave, we found out that the internet was not free, and we ended up paying $26US! That would have bought us a full week of wireless in Bequia! To add to our injuries, we discovered the sign, as we were leaving, indicating that wifi is free. I had decided to not bring my laptop this morning, as nothing indicated that there was wifi to be had. Oh, the injustice. Our blogs and pictures will have to wait one more day.

Uncanny

2006-11-28T08:46:00.000-05:00

Wednesday, November 22
Tobago Cays

We're in a race to the finish here at the Tobago Cays, waiting to see what will run out first: our water, our food (not likely, but one gets tired of canned chickpeas and "french-style" green beans after a time), or our selection of unread books. Sadly, I think we will have to move on later this week. The French islands call, with their little cafes and pain au chocoat.

Dean has been eager to stay until Sunday. Our first week here I ruined our chances for a zero-dollar week by purchasing $4 U.S. worth of bread from the boat boys last Wednesday, so he wants to give this week another shot. We have, in fact, gone a whole week since then without spending a cent, but as our budget runs from Sunday to Saturday, the books don't reflect our triumph.

At the very least, we will stay in the Cays through Thanksgiving. I had been threatening Dean with an all-canned Thanksgiving meal--including the turkey meat, which I thought I might turn into a pot pie--until our American neighbors invited us to join them on the beach for a picnic. Somebody actually has real turkey! I don't know where or when they got it, but I think I won't ask too many questions regarding the turkey's provenance.

More Tobago Cays

2006-11-28T08:44:00.000-05:00

Here are three lovely shots of the Tobago Cays.

Dean Climbing

2006-11-28T08:43:00.000-05:00

We would go to the beach in the Tobago Cays (actually, one of several beaches) nearly every day. There Dean climbed a tree like a monkey.

Halloween

2006-11-28T08:41:00.000-05:00

We were in Hog Island for Halloween. These guys came up demanding treats. We had nothing but cookies to give them. I especially like Spider Man.

Amanzi Rainbow

2006-11-28T08:37:00.000-05:00

This was in Grenada. We noticed a rainbow that just happened to end at Amanzi!

Nowhere To Go

2006-11-28T08:34:00.000-05:00

Tobago Cays, Grenadines
Friday, November 17

Dean put out what David on Amanzi would call a "whack" of chain when we anchored here. That's because we have plenty of swinging room on this watery plain, and we knew we wouldn't be going anywhere for a while.

I guess the best place to start in trying to explain the magic of this place is to explain the geography, if that's the right word, of the area. The word "cay" is another word for a small island, and the Tobago Cays consist of half a dozen small, uninhabited islands with pretty beaches, palm trees, and walking trails that lead to excellent vistas. But these small islands are incidental, and we are anchored in front of them, not in the lee.

What really makes the area so wonderful is the system of reefs to our east, blocking large swells from the Atlantic Ocean. The most important reef is Horseshoe reef, which extends for several miles in a semicircle to the north, east, and south of the cays. Inside Horseshoe reef, where we are anchored, the water is sandy and relatively shallow--10 feet deep or less in places. The tradewinds keep our wind generator spinning and our bow pointed out to sea. Our view every day is of beautiful turquoise water that eventually gives way to the deeper blues of the Atlantic, stretching over the horizon.

We haven't seen water this clear and in such a perfect shade of blue since the Bahamas. It's a pleasure just to sit in the cockpit and watch the clouds roll by during the day, and marvel over the Milky Way by night. At least once a day, however, we don our snorkel gear and pick a spot along Horseshoe Reef to explore for an hour or two. The best spot so far has been outside the reef, where the reef drops from just a few inches below the surface of the water to the sea floor 60 feet below. On a calm day we can see up to 100 feet ahead of or below us. It's fascinating to snorkel along the wall and watch all the denizens of the reef getting on with their lives. And because the water temperature is still in the low 80s here, we can stay in the water as long as we like without getting cold.

Crossroads and Dragonfly were already in the Cays when we arrived with Dream Weaver, and we spent a very social week together. Michele, who took yoga lessons for years in Memphis, has been practicing on the packed sand under the palm trees on the nearest beach, and I recall just enough from my classes in Greensboro to be able to follow along. In the afternoon, after snorkeling, we all meet again on one or another of the beaches to read, nap, tell stories, and observe colors changing on the horizon as the sun goes down. Most nights we have improvised dinner on one of the boats, each couple throwing together a dish for our evening potluck. Our days have been busy, but not hurried.

Now our friends are heading north. Dean and I aren't ready to leave just yet, so we are spending some time on our own here baking bread, touching up the varnish on the bowsprit, snorkeling (of course), reading, and hoping Amanzi's sail will appear on the southern horizon before long.

Slowing Down

2006-11-28T08:32:00.000-05:00

Sunday, November 13
Tobago Cays, Grenadines

Dean said to me, as we sailed the last few miles the Tobago Cays Marine Park, "Are you ready for the highlight of our trip?"

Yes, the Tobogo Cays are that good. Palm-fringed islands, white sand beaches, good holding and plenty of room to anchor, turtles and rays swimming around the boat, topaz-colored water, miles of lively reefs for snorkeling, visibility of up to a hundred feet, starlit skies at night, potlucks with friends, yoga in the sand after breakfast, and a series of zero-dollar days...there's so much to tell. But it will have to wait another week. Part of what makes the Tobago Cays so charming is it's remoteness. The islands here are uninhabited, and the only way to get here is by private boat or by charter. A few locals make their living by delivering ice, bread, and fish to the boats anchored here, but Internet access is out of the question. Having stayed in Carriacou long enough to get the election results, we will suffer the deprivation as best we can.

Where else have we been lately? After leaving Carriacou, we spent a day anchored off two small, close-together islands known as Petit St. Vincent (PSV) and Petit Martinique (PM). The former, an island of the Grenadines, is a private island featuring an exclusive and all-inclusive resort, which was recommended enthusiastically by Dave Rollins. We riffraff were welcome on the beaches, in the bar, and at the restaurant and gift shop, but that was it. After months of staying in anchorages where the water had ranged from murky to downright poisonous, we were thrilled to swim in the perfectly clear water off the boat and walk along the lovely beach. I even found a new kind of shell for my ad hoc collection.

Petit Martinique, contrary to its name, is part of Grenada, not France. The island has about 800 inhabitants who make their living fishing, working at the resort on nearby PSV, and selling the occasional postcard to the few tourists who trickle there from Grenada or the Grenadines. Because there is no Customs and Immigration office in PM, and because nobody would otherwise stop there if they had to go to official ports of entry on Union and Carriacou first, officials sort of look the other way when boats stop there for a day or so after checking out of one country and before checking into another. I got official-yet-unofficial permission to visit PM after checking out of Grenada and before checking into the Grenadines, so we stopped there for the night with Paul and Karin of Dream Weaver, and spent some time walking through the small village.

One tiny store (really a small shed with some signs on it, attached to the front of someone's living quarters), advertised fresh lettuce. We stopped in to inquire if they really had any available. The shop's owner disappeared out back for about ten minutes. When she returned, she was putting two gorgeous heads of freshly washed lettuce into plastic bags. Then it dawned on me: she had picked this lettuce from her garden behind the house! What a treat.

We sailed from the Petits over to the Tobago Cays, where we will stay as long as we can. It is perfect here. So here's my advice to you (yes, you): get down here. Take a plane, book a hotel, charter a boat (Moorings operates a fleet in nearby Canouan Island), or sail your way from New England. It really doesn't matter how. Just get yourself to the Grenadines AS SOON AS YOU CAN, and then pay somebody to sail you over to the Tobago Cays. Money is unimportant. The exorbitant plane fare and the long wait between connecting flights will be worth it. Quit your job if you don't have vacation time, or fake appendicitis. Eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for a year instead of going out to lunch. Stop having your hair dyed professionally. Cancel your cable TV. Go to the library instead of the bookstore. Buy Schlitz instead of Sam Adams. There are ways, and the things you forego will be well worth the reward of sitting on a beach or a gently rocking boat and looking out over this heartbreakingly blue water for a whole day. Really, you owe it to yourself to see this place before it's bought up by some resort and turned into a theme park.

If we found a way to take all this time off, buy a boat, fix it up, learn to sail it, dispatch with debt, and make our way thousands of miles at a speed of five miles an hour, and now we're telling you that THIS is the place for you (all of you), then it behooves you to click over to Travelocity.com or call Harry the travel agent or whatever, and see how you can get here. After a year of this stuff, Dean and I are pretty discerning regarding the quality of the sand, the perfect lean of a palm tree toward the surf, the clarity and temperature of air and water, and the elegance of sea fans as they caress the fins of a colorful parrotfish swimming through a coral reef.

We recommend that you charter a boat, which would give you the most flexibility and enable you to spend a week here, where the only other people are other boaters. If you want more privacy an less tipping over than a boat like Delilah provides, rent a catamaran. They are all the rage down here in the charter world. If you must have a little civilization and dry land, try the resorts on Petit St. Vincent, Palm Island, or Mayreau (Salt Whistle Bay), or book a cruise that stops in Mayreau for at least a day. Brace yourself; it won't be cheap.

We are awestruck by the Tobago Cays. Is there really a tiny sand island just for us with only a palm-thatched hut for decoration? Yes. Can we really see ripples in the sand in eleven feet of water from the deck of our boat? Yes. By moonlight? Yes. Did a foot-wide sea turtle just surface beside us? Yes. Is it the cooling air of the Atlantic Ocean beyond the reef that makes this such a pleasantly temperate anchorage? Yes. What are we doing tomorrow? Doesn't matter. Let's just watch the sun set for a little bit longer.

Mustique

2006-11-27T08:34:00.000-05:00

Here we are in lovely Mustique, a private island that has homes for the fabulously wealthy. We are in the public library, using the free internet, but can't look at our own blog because it has been censored. Haha.

We do owe you quite a few blogs (we've written three, and are writing one to describe our Thanksgiving feast and our time in Mayreau), but we can't do it today, as they won't let me plug my memory stick in.

So, be patient for a few more days... We might go to Bequia tomorrow, in which case we'll get wifi and will be able to post our blogs and pictures (including Dean climbing a palm tree). So, stay tuned.

Sorry no posts

2006-11-25T11:58:00.000-05:00

We've been out of internet reach for two weeks or more. We are in Canouan right now, at a fancy hotel's internet cafe. They want $5US for 15 minutes, so this will be brief. More when we hit Bequia in a few days.

Carriacou

2006-11-07T10:00:00.000-05:00

Tuesday, November 6
Tyrrel Bay, Carriacou

N 12 degrees, 27.34 minutes
W 061 degrees, 29.30 minutes

Carriacou is a little island north of Grenada where we spent about ten days relaxing last June. Quite a few cruising boats come in here, as well as some charter boats, but the island has kept its sleepy charm. There are a couple of dive shops, a pizza place, a few restaurants and bars, and a few places to buy basic groceries. But this kind of bar and pizza place and grocery store is NOT what you might picture when you think these words. Instead, think of a single lightbulb, unfinished walls, ceilings, and cement floors, smaller buildings, and lots of resident cats to ward off the beasties. The result is decidedly more laid back and sometimes quite charming. Yesterday, for instance, I bought a T-shirt from a souvenir store made from a shipping container. But the container had been turned into a little room, painted bright colors and adorned with all sorts of local artwork and T-shirt designs. The whimsical effect compelled me to part with my money.

The best business in the Bay, however, is run out of a small skiff. When you arrive in Carriacou, Simon pays a visit to your boat to see if you need any wine. Chilean wine is his specialty, and the price is significantly lower than what you'll find in the grocery stores. You place your order, and Simon delivers by the afternoon cocktail hour. If he doesn't have just what you want, he makes a suggestion for something similar. We are not sure how Simon manages to charge such low prices, given the enormous import tax in Grenada, but we suspect that his little fishing boat and the proximity of the tiny Grenadine islands (part of St. Vincent, which has no tax) play a role.

And then there's the free stuff. The scuba diving is alleged to be quite good just a quarter mile outside the harbor, but I have been content to snorkel near the boat for now. Though the water in Hog Island was clean, it was made murky by the mangroves that surrounded the anchorage. And the lagoon was downright polluted. And don't even REMIND me of the filth in Chaguaramas. So it's refreshing to set the hook in fifteen feet of water, and then jump in with a snorkel to watch the anchor bury itself in the sand below you through beautifully clear water.

Yesterday we also did some sightseeing by dinghy in the mangrove swamp next to Tyrrel Bay. A number of boats rode out Hurricanes Ivan (2004) and Emily (2005) there. The mangroves' complicated root system and the windy path that the water takes among them make the swamp the best location, we are told, to avoid the high winds and rough seas during a major storm. The wind was only blowing fifteen knots or so yesterday, but inside the mangrove swamp it was calm. Fortunately for us, it looks like we won't have to find out firsthand how well the swamp works. Hurricane season officially ends at the end of this month, but the weather forecasters have declared it long gone. This year, the eastern Caribbean lucked out.

Goodbye to the Isle of Spice

2006-11-07T09:59:00.000-05:00

Saturday, November 4
The Lagoon, St. George, Grenada

The island of Carriacou, where we are headed tomorrow, is actually still part of the country of Grenada. But today is our last day on the mainland. We have been scurrying around, trying to get in a few last errands and make a few last purchases, knowing that we will not be down this way again on this trip.

Yesterday I paid my third or fourth visit to Yellow Poui art gallery in the Carenage. Dean and I had agreed that we would pick up a few pieces of art along the way to serve as souvenirs from the trip--and assuming that, one day, we will have places to put this art. But our budget is still a bit crippled from our time in Trinidad. After a great deal of indecision, we purchased a small watercolor painting of a couple of local houses on a hillside. It was fairly inexpensive, unframed, and tiny enough that we can hang it on one of the bulkheads in Delilah. I am very pleased with our purchase.

I am also pleased with the purchase we made in Island Water World, of a joker valve for the head. But I won't go into details about how that improves our quality of life...

Today Dean made the mistake of letting me go to the grocery store alone. What started out as a quick trip for a few last-minute items turned into cart-filling extravaganza, as I tried to stock up on all the things we might not be able to purchase in the remote islands of the Grenadines, where we will spend the next month. Ting (a grapefruit soda bottled in Ireland, actually), lemongrass tea, Grenada-made chocolate, paper towels (at a whopping four bucks U.S. per roll for the pick-a-size, but you gotta have 'em), chickpeas for my expanding curry repertoire, fresh vegetables, and so on. I could have purchased a MUCH more expensive painting with the money I spent in the grocery store, but that's the way it is. Fortunately, we have no choice but to give the budget a rest until December.

Year in Review

2006-10-30T13:37:00.000-05:00

Monday, October 30
Hog Island, Grenada

At 9PM on October 30, 2005 we cast off our lines from Waterboat Marina in Boston, waved goodbye to a few friends...and realized we'd forgotten to put our lifejackets on! But the wind was from the west, and we enjoyed exiting the harbor under genoa alone on our first night out.

The next few days of sailing were perhaps the most difficult so far, exposing us to strong headwinds and confused, choppy seas day after day. We were exhausted, bruised, frostbitten, and demoralized. Strong SW winds and ten-foot seas caused us to scrap our planned offshore journey to Norfolk, but we did enjoy sailing through Long Island Sound, past Manhattan, and back out into the Atlantic with the Statue of Liberty pointing the way. A week in Norfolk with Tina, Ian, and Malcolm recharged us for our further adventures south. We alternated motoring down the Intracoastal Waterway with a few overnight trips along the coast and arrived in Miami for Christmas.

Our Gulf Stream crossing held no surprises, and we sailed Delilah into a foreign country for the first time just before the new year. During two months in the Bahamas, we met friends with whom we are still cruising, we caught many fish, snorkeled daily, and hosted our first visitor, Greg.

Our forty-hour motorsail in light winds to the Dominican Republic went smoothly, and suddenly everything was in Spanish. The water heated up, the land got lush and tall and green, and we had made it past Chicken Harbor, where some cruisers spend winter after winter trying to get up the nerve to continue south.

After a few weeks, we pushed across the much-talked-about Mona Passage to Puerto Rico, then onwards to the USVIs and then the BVIs, where Bridget and Devin stopped in. Another night passage brought us to St. Martin's for the first of the French islands. Then we hopped on down the island chain (Martinique, Guadaloupe, Grenada, etc.) until we were in Trinidad for hurricane season and a visit from Joe, Sharon, Roger, and Lisa.

Trinidad was hot, humid, dirty (in our harbor anyway), and noisy. We got a lot of projects done on the boat, discovered the wonders of SOCA rhythm, pan music, liming, doubles, and Mexican Train dominoes. We swam in a pool instead of the ocean, listened to the howler monkeys and parrots across the road, and sweated off the pounds in our bunny suits while painting two new coats of antifouling on Delilah's hull.

Now we're in Grenada, having enjoyed our visit with Tina, Ian, and Malcolm, followed by a month in a quiet anchorage. In a few days we will pull up the anchor, dust off the sails, and head for the Grenadines. We are on our way back home. Surely every day is sweeter because the end is in sight--the end of our first cruise. We've been together just about 24 hours a day, every day, for an entire year. I couldn't be happier.

October Ends

2006-10-30T13:36:00.000-05:00

Sunday, October 29

Hog Island, Grenada

The past week at Hog Island has been particularly social, as we enjoyed the company of Crossroads and Dragonfly, as well as Amanzi (who had threatened to head around the corner for a few days, but thought better of it).

Friday we went back to the town of Gouyave, about an hour away, for their weekly street festival in celebration of fish. This was our third visit, so we are practically regulars at the corner bar, and we know what to avoid (the fish casseroles--lots of starch and very bland) and what to go for (the fish bakes--little fish cakes in delicious, hot bread for only $2 EC per bake). The music was fun, and the food was as delicious as always, but as we are cruisers with early bedtimes, we were ready to leave just as the locals were beginning to show up in force.

Saturday we donned our running shoes for yet another hash (group walk/run that ends at a rum shop) through the underbrush of Grenada. We've had quite a bit of rain lately, so I was pleasantly surprised that the trail was not extremely muddy. This week's rabbit (the person who laid the trail) had a cruel sense of humor, however, so there were a number of false trails that went on longer than usual, and the last quarter mile of the trail was underwater. Dean, not wanting to get his tootsies wet, built a bridge over one particularly deep section, and found alternate paths around the others. I merely slogged through and got wet to the knees. Aside from the exercise, which I need, the thing I enjoy most about hashes is the chance they give us to see parts of the countryside that we would never go to on our own. Grenada is a beautiful, lush island with interesting terrain and heartstopping ocean views from its many mountain peaks. Being on a boat in a harbor means we only see a fraction of the islands we visit. The hash gives us a chance to go where even some of the locals have never been.

Today we all convened on Crossroads for Kim's by-now famous curry dishes and a whole bunch of sangria made from some boxed wine Dean and I have been carrying around since Miami. Not even fruit, brandy, and juice could disguise that the wine had gone a little off, but Una did her best with what I gave her.

The evening devolved into a game of Mexican Train, and I enjoyed a killer winning streak that left the rest of my competitors in the dust. They say dominoes tournaments will soon be shown on ESPN. I'm ready for my television debut.

Happy Thanksgiving!

2006-10-26T13:09:00.000-05:00

Yesterday (25 October) was Thanksgiving in Grenada, celebrating Operation Urgent Fury (see this for details. The local shack, Roger's, had a band playing all kinds of good tunes, such as "Green, Green Grass of Home", "Red, Red Wine", and others, all with a reggae feel.

S/V Dragonfly and S/V Crossroads had just arrived from Trinidad and joined in the fun.

Hog Heaven

2006-10-24T10:56:00.000-05:00

October 21

Hog Island, Grenada

Writer's Note: Dean informed me, after reading this blog, that part of it is nearly identical to one he wrote last week. Since I slept through that experience, I thought it was really interesting that I would have one so similar myself. For that reason, and in spite of the fact that you might wonder if you've already read this blog, I'm posting my version.

We have put on hold our plans to take the bus to town for groceries today, as the wind is howling and the rain is coming down in buckets. Now I just hope it comes down INTO the buckets I've strewn about on deck. Any extra water that we get for free and without lugging jerry jugs in the dinghy makes it that much easier to do such extravagant chores as shower, wash dishes and clothing, flush the toilet with fresh water (salt water makes things stink), and rinse off the boat. But it's all worth the extra work for the solitude we have here in this anchorage.

The heavy rain also means there will be no brush fires on Hog Island today. The island is being stripped of vegetation before our very eyes, in preparation for the development of a Four Seasons resort. It is common practice all over the Caribbean to burn brush, and we have seen or smelled the small, controlled fires everywhere we've gone. Strangely enough, the burning wood and brush smell to me like a peat fire, so I find it comforting--except when the fire is close by and directly upwind, choking us and dropping ash on the boat, as it has been for the past two days.

It had rained heavily yesterday too, but we had been ashore at Whisper Cove Marina (the "marina" part is a major overstatement), helping the new managers, who were trying to get their Internet service running again. No luck, but we did watch from the office balcony on the hill as a dark wall of towering rainclouds swept toward us, drenching everything in sight. It was beautiful, and since we haven't had rain in almost two weeks, it was welcome too.

The rain ended by midafternoon yesterday, so we were able to return to Whisper Cove for dinner and to be serenaded by our neighbor, who plays classical guitar. I always enjoy taking the dinghy out at night here, as the water is extremely phosphorescent (see my blog from New Jersey or Vieques for an explanation). If you run your hand through the water at night here in the anchorage, you not only see bright pinpoints of light, but all the water that's been disturbed glows for a second. Something as big as a motorized dinghy, therefore, leaves a bright wake like a comet's tail.

The sky had cleared by about one AM, and since I had been startled awake by a brief nightmare, I went outside to relax, cool off, and look around. There was no moon, so the stars were bright and numerous, and where the wind was blowing the water in our normally-calm anchorage into wavelets, the phytoplankton were lighting up in small bursts on the surface, echoing the stars above us. To the south, an enormous and silent lightning storm was taking place on the horizon, illuminating the cloudbank that held it every second or two. I looked away for a moment, back up at the stars overhead, just in time to watch a meteor streak through the sky, leaving a long trail behind it. What a show!

Musings

2006-10-18T13:00:00.000-05:00

It is 4AM. I, having been startled awake by a nightmare, took a turn above-decks to clear my head. A brilliant blanket of stars awaited me, of course, but I was also tantalized by the hypnotic shusssshing of the wind generator, turning over in the pleasant breeze. Small waves gently nudged Delilah, creating an underlying murmur. Anchor lights competed with the stars overhead. In the southern distance, perhaps 40 miles away, an enormous lightning storm provided me a personal, silent lightshow. I was, as I was suddenly aware, enthralled by the sublime. This has been happening more and more to me, and I reckon that it is possibly the best side effect of our nearly year-long sailing adventure.

Recently, we went with Kim and David from Amanzi and Ian from Nancy Dawson to snorkel on the eastern side of Calvigny Island (a privately-owned island being turned, slowly, into a personal resort for a "French billionaire," we are told). At first I was not impressed by the reef, having seen much clearer water elsewhere, and much more vibrant reefs. However, when I slowed my pace and hovered two feet above the bottom, I was taken in by a small red fish, swimming in tiny erratic circles. I couldn't for the life of me imagine what would provoke such behavior. The fish certainly wasn't eating and didn't appear to be guarding young, etc. Minutes later, I finned across another fish, only thumb-sized, of the darkest black, with minute, preposterously brilliant blue dots. I watched for perhaps 5 minutes. Further on, just the claw of a small crab was visible, poking from a hole. The crab was delicately pulling seaweed from around the hole. His actions appeared so human-like I found myself with a huge smile on my face, as I was pushed about, as e. e. cummings would have it, by the "bulge and nuzzle of the sea."

My sincere hope is to remember how to embrace such smallness in the midst of city life. Where is the beauty when stuck in traffic on I-93? It's there, certainly, awaiting me.

Dean at play

2006-10-18T12:59:00.000-05:00

Malcolm at work

2006-10-18T12:56:00.000-05:00

Pocketmail Woes

2006-10-17T10:23:00.000-05:00

Well, we forgot to renew our pocketmail subscription, so you might have gotten some bounced mail. We're OK now, though, so keep sendin' those emails.