Matt & Karen's Soggy Adventure

Finally we are going to the BVIs

Where2 — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 13:16:00 GMT

Now we had heard a lot about them – the British Virgins, but we had never met them. They are supposed to be beautiful full of nice little cosy places to hide away... but you will never be alone, there is always someone coming along to snuggle up to these beautiful British Virgins, and from what we have been told – it is mainly charterers with all the known dangers associated with them – poor anchoring, aggressive mooring techniques and a certain agenda that doesn’t warrant or care about making sure their boat is securely hooked before departing for the bar.

“Not to worry” we said and invited Jon and Sam (Imagine of Falmouth) over for drinks and nibbles to tell us all about it – and it did sound nice. So the first good weather window we checked out of St Martin and did an overnight to Virgin Gorda. It was a beautiful, fast, downwind sail with a couple of gibes thrown in to keep us on our toes during the night and we arrived at Spanish Town Virgin Gorda and dropped anchor in a notoriously “bad holding” anchorage. Then we sat down and waited our hour to see we were holding before we headed ashore to clear in. So as not to waste this time, we checked for internet and got our emails. We got one from Rob and Kathy (Quetico) who had arrived in Virgin Gorda a couple of days ahead of us. It said BVIs are nice but crowded with charterers in every anchorage they tried to visit so they took off to St John’s USVIs.

As we were reading this a charter boat came in to the anchorage, proceeded to the small opening in front of us, threw all their chain over the bow, turned the engines off without pulling back, got in the dinghy and went ashore without even looking behind at us.

Well this and Quetico’s email convinced us this was not the place for us and we hauled anchor and motored around to the leeward side of St John’s and took a mooring in Caneel Bay. It was peaceful heaps of room and we knew that we had made the right decision, despite having only motored through all the beautiful British Virgins.

We got Debbie down and hightailed it around to Border Protection offices in Cruz Bay and checked into the US Virgins instead. After checking in, we decided we deserved a nice cold Margarita to finish the day off nicely and we did.
The next two days were spent exploring Cruz Bay (shops and restaurants). We thought the church parking bays we particularly well signed.

After lunch we ran into Dave and Colleen (Promise) and we all caught the bus around to Coral Bay and watched Colleen and Dave have their lunch at a bar there.

There was not much else to see there, so having been there, done that and bought the T shirt, we headed back to our boat and got ready to head to St Thomas for some more shopping.

In St Thomas we did the usual, Kmart, Home Depot and Cost U Less and relaxed a bit at the bars at the Marina, where we caught up with Rob and Kathy. Then before we left there was one more unusual stop... an Ice Bar! If anyone had told me I would be dressing in a parka in the tropics, I would have thought them mad... but here I am.

The bar was full of ice sculptures, of both local legend, Pirates and Nordic Adventurers (including Santa Claus) and all bathed in an eerie purple, blue and green light.

Karen was lining up next year’s presents with Santa whilst I was checking out the mermaids.

Of course it was only right that we sampled the local flavoured rum (it was included in the price of entry) so we selected the vanilla rum which even Karen enjoyed.

Sint Marteen or Bust... and Bust it was!

Where2 — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 13:05:00 GMT

Well we finally made it to Sint Maarten after a fantastic overnight sail from Guadeloupe where we spent New Year. The wind was on the beam for the whole way and shifted with us as we turned around the top of Nevis. If not for the fluky winds (it varied from 4 knots to 30 knots over the night) and the bumpy seas as we left Deshaies it would have been a perfect sail!

Now I will be upfront here and say, that since I didn’t write a blog about Sint Marteen or St Martin last year, when we had spent 2 months there, this blog will combine some reminiscing from our previous visit.

Also you must know something about Sint Marteen and my wife to understand why we stay so long. St Marteen is duty free on the Dutch side and the winter home for a lot of cruisers getting work done on the boat. It is also easy to shop in the States (say on eBay) and import them at very low cost. Karen is a shop-aholic. She doesn’t have to buy big or expensive or anything sometimes, just to be shopping is the need. Barely a day goes buy where she can’t find a reason to try and buy something. So we have lots of friends here and good happy hours and you can shop alot...You can see where this is going can’t you.

So let me give you a brief look at our stay last year (on the way south from Barbuda). We got here with the plan to spend a couple of weeks here before heading west to BVIs, Cuba and Louisiana and onto the Western Caribbean. We decided to stay in Simpson Bay outside the bridge for 2 reasons – one it is pretty, clean and you can swim and make water, two we have an aversion to anything solid (like a bridge) near our boat.

Well within the first week we found out it was easy to import stuff using Safe Cargo Services at the airport so we headed out and set up an account. We then spent our mornings in McDonalds using the internet and eating hash browns ordering anything we could think of off ebay and Amazon and various other vendors and had them shipped in. This included:

* An extra solar panel
* A new solar hot water collector
* A new recirculating pump
* A cruising guide to Gulf of Mexico and one for Belize and Mexico
* A set of radio headsets so we don’t have to yell at each other (which to date we don’t use as we must like yelling at each other too much)
* Ink for the new wireless printer (which we bought locally)
* A new internet booster antenna (the bullet) and associated bits and pieces
* A new central vacuum for the cleaner in the family
* Some new downlights
* A chain stopper
* A new fan

And they’re only the things I can remember 9 months later. We also bought Karen a new computer and the printer, went shopping in back street and bought shampoo, hair treatment, conditioner, placenta (don’t ask me what that is about – but it is necessary) and vitamins to name a few. So all this shopping and waiting for deliveries extended our 2 week stay to two months and we decided to skip heading west and head back down to Grenada for another season.

Don’t get me wrong, we did do other things than shop – but I just needed a bit more time to remember them as they weren’t quite as significant as the shopping or so it seems.

We did to Sunday lunch with Ricky and Colin at the Sunset bar watching the planes land over the beach. When I saw the internet pictures of this beach / airport combination, I thought they were photo-shopped – but no it is true. The planes land just over the beach.

People hang on the fence or stand on the beach to take photos in the jet wash. I even saw people park their cars on the road between the beach and the runway and get them sand blasted in the jet wash (rentals obviously). What idiots!

So I had to try it.... I stood just over the road from a smallish jet and had my camera at the ready. As the plane took off, unfortunately my hat and then my sunglasses got blown off but I toughed it out and snapped away and this was the result...

Yes that is my stomach and foot. I did get another clearly focussed photo of just the sand but I thought this one was more interesting... Anyway lunch was good and if the girls drink topless at the bars they drink for free. But alas there were no game birds there this day.

We also hired a car and tripped round the island, visiting Cost U Less, Back Street, Ace (there’s that shopping again) and Orient Beach where all the beautiful people go. I found one beautiful person there (apart from Karen) and unfortunately she was the only one with her clothes on.

We also were lucky enough to be there for Carnival on the French side, and although it was much smaller than the Grenada Carnival, the fun was still there.

Karen was also big on Sunday Dominos with the ladies (where she managed to organise the sale of Libertas to one of the yacht club members back home) and I went wandering through the streets and up to Fort Louis.

The Heineken regatta was underway when we arrived so we managed to watch bits and pieces of that as well.

With all this under the belt on our first visit, I thought that we should be right for a quick visit, but shopping got in the way again. Apart from stocking up on rum, wine, cigarettes, which is a must in St Martin, we managed to need new anchor chain which we got shipped in from Sherri at Wholesale Yacht Parts in Grenada (cheapest chandlery in the Caribbean and servicing all islands sherri@wholesaleyachtparts.com ) and charts for our trip to New York. So the quick visit ended up lasting a month. And with the sightseeing out of the way there was only one thing to do (apart from shop) – party!
Friday night bridge openings at the yacht club, dinner out every now and then, happy hours at Barnacles and Lagoonies, lunch at Buccaneers and of course Dominos every Sunday (or any day Karen could fanangle it) on Princess of Tides with Christine, Guy, Bill and his girlfriend Princess.

There was of course Australia Day as well. Overseas, this appears to be a day were everyone excuses Australians from drinking lots of beer and being boisterous – actually that sounds like every other day since I hit the Caribbean. But no – this was even bigger! The mega yacht marina held a night at the bar (probably because so many of the crew are young Australians just like me) which included pie eating and beer eating contests! I missed the pie eating contest, but my English mates Steve and Sim entered but I think the missed the point (or did they). Disregarding the objective of eating two pies and downing a pot of beer as quick as possible – these two sat back and had a leisurely free dinner.

Meanwhile, I got serious and recruited a fierce team for the beer drinking competition, Steve, Rosie, Jon, Sam and Captain Matt

Well despite all the team talks, warm up beers, and many more years of experience than our opposition we lost. Sam(antha) and Rosie put up a good show but of course us boys let them down....
For some unknown reason (mainly because I instigated it) I got recruited into another team to challenge the winners, but somehow I got stuck with this attractive, blonde, well endowed team mate, who said she had never drunk beer, doesn’t like beer, can’t imagine why she would want to drink beer but was oh so keen to be in a beer drinking competition. (She’s the one next to me on the right if my description is bit off)

Well we lost again, although she seemed to have a lovely time and hugged me forever after we lost – in fact I had to tell her my wife had a knife before she would let me go – I haven’t lost my charm – drunk girls still like me!

After 2 dismal showings in the beer drinking competition (4 free beers), we decided to call it a night (but not before Karen lifted the “Wombat Next 5km” decoration to be used on our boat next year.

St Martin is a very easy place to stay, particularly for a shopaholic cruiser and just as difficult place to leave. But we have many miles to go to get to the Bahamas and eventually to New York this summer so all good things must come to an end so it is off to the Virgin Islands again. Here is something to ponder until the next time I write...

If this is my second time in the Virgins, can they still be Virgins?

New Year in Guadaloupe.... again

Where2 — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 09:40:00 GMT

That’s right, we have only had half a holiday season in an English speaking country since we left home, (Year 1 – Baiona – Spain/ Cascais - Portugal, Year 2 – Canary Islands – Spain, Year 3 – Puerto Rico, Year 4 – Dominica (English with a twist) / Guadaloupe, Year 5 – French West Indies), but everyone still enjoys it much the same way with fireworks on New Year’s Eve and lots of partying.

One downside to cruising is cruiser’s midnight which falls at 2100hours when most cruisers fall asleep. This does tend to preclude at least some from truly celebrating NYE properly, and again I was alone on deck to watch the fireworks in the Saintes harbour. We had planned to be well north of here for NYE but we decided to hide from a largish NNE swell here on the new mooring bouys (€60 a week for us) but did not dodge the swells at all! This resulted in a rather bumpy week where a lot of reading and not much else was achieved.

The Saintes is a pretty little group of islands south of Guadaloupe with a character all of its own. Definitely French, with baguettes and accras de morue for lunch and the harbour neighbourhood starts to get dotted with small cruise ships many of them sail powered and some square rigged.

Staadt Amsterdam

They did make me appreciate just how easy it was to sail our boat – certainly couldn’t do what this lady did!

So we had a restful week, dining out, and relaxing and as a challenge I baked a banana loaf using Dinah’s (Evergreen) recipe and boy was it good!

On the sixth day we could take the rolly anchorage no longer and dropped the mooring lines and headed for Deshaies. As usual the winds were fluky coming up the lee of Guadaloupe, motoring, motor-sailing and sailing at various time. But of course the wind shot up to 30knots as we rounded up into the bay and after a quick and nervous once round the anchorage we anchored out the back in about 10m of water. Our new Rocna grabbing quickly, thank god!

We decided to wait for a nice weather window to go straight to Sint Maarten as it looked like the swell and predominant winds was going to rule out the planned visit to Monserrat again – so we sat back and relaxed, taking advantage of our familiarity with Deshaies to do very little. The most adventurous we got was to dress up in our new Christmas presents and head to Grand Anse for lunch and a day on the beach. The swells were large and breaking on the beach, so a swim was crossed off the agenda and a longer lunch was the order of the day! And we deserved it as the walk to the beach took about an hour each way (and there were hills in both directions!)

On the way to the beach we did stop in the local supermarket for a bottle of water (yes I do drink water as well) and were surprised to find a familiar advert – kinda makes you homesick doesn’t it...

Anyway, it looks like tonight is the night we bid farewell to the Guadaloupe for the last time (probably, maybe, who knows...) and head off to St Maarten.

So it is Christmas, and what have we done

Where2 — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 21:58:03 GMT

It has been awhile since I have written, as (the) one avid reader pointed out to Karen in his Christmas email, but you must understand that it has been hurricane season in the Caribbean and that means just one thing – lots of parties with friends we may have only seen once or twice over the past twelve months. But I am probably jumping ahead of myself, there were a lot of miles covered between Guadaloupe and here so I will give a quick rundown on our trip before explaining Grenada in Hurricane season.

Dominica

Dominica was beautiful as always with the added bonus of duty free fuel! We checked into Portsmouth and ordered fuel for Tuesday morning at the cruise ship terminal. They recommended taking the boat over but one look at the dock told us we were not going to do that. It had big black tractor tyres and I have a little white boat (at least compared to the size of the dock and the tractor tyres). We dinghied over to the dock with our 220l of Gerry cans at the allotted time and waited... and waited.... Thinking this was just island time, we weren’t too distressed but after half an hour we found the security guard and he called the fuel guy. The fuel guys was looking for our big boat and failed to see little Debbie from his pushed back chair at the main commercial dock on the other side of the bay (no wonder) so he would be there in an hour (as the clouds started to build over the island). It poured down as we waited for the fuel guy to arrive and fortunately it stopped while he filled the 10 gerries, but then it bucketed down while I ferried the 2 loads of gerrys (and Karen) the ½ mile back to the boat.

Once we were fuelled and stowed it was off to Roseau to snorkel Champagne, an underwater gas outlet for the local volcano. Unfortunately after three days waiting for clear weather to be able to see the bubbles we gave up and checked out to head for Martinique.

Martinique

We high-tailed it down to Grande Anse on the south west coast and found a nice spot to anchor. Dived the anchor and it looked set to hold so we hunkered down for a nice night and then to see if we could check in there the next day. The quiet night was not to be. A 54ft motor boat came and anchored in front of us (not to close so no problem), but at 4am I woke and looked up to see it’s stern swinging about 4ft from our starboard bow. Jocks on, yelling at Karen to help, I was up on the bow holding the boat off and we tried to wake the occupants. We managed to wake the crew but not the skipper before it had smashed into both bows and got its stern-drives caught inside our anchor bridle! By this stage I had climbed down onto the other boats swim platform to keep it off our boat so the crew could wake the skipper who was locked inside the boat!

By carefully driving forward with one stern drive and then stopping, we were able to take the tension off the bridle and let it drop before motoring away from our baby and re-anchoring the stink boat. At this stage it was too dark to see what damage the loud crack I heard was associated with so we agreed to meet the next morning to look at the damage. I then asked for a lift back to my boat as I was sure Karen might be a bit anxious on the boat alone with a possibly compromised anchor. The skipper, looked a bit put out by my request but acquiesced and told his crew to lower the dinghy and take me back. After checking the track I managed to get back to sleep to be awoken by Karen at 6am (yes I said Karen woke me at 6am) telling me that the motor boat had done a runner!

Well no getting back to sleep then, so p!£$€d off we had breakfast, checked the damage (which was only two small chips in the gel coat) and headed for Le Marin to see our favourite Lagoon Dealer, Hubert to pick up some parts and discuss some minor problems with the boat. Hubert as always was very helpful, had the parts ready and bought a technician out to the boat the next morning and we were ready to go. That is after we had been to Leader Price to stock up on French ham and cheese, red wine and beer!

Bequai

Stocked up, we did a two day (over-nighted in the Pitons in St Lucia as Australians still required US$50 Visas to enter St Lucia) sail to Bequai, one of our favourite islands. Of course Evergreen, our Canadian buddies met us in Bequai as they always do. This year we had however radioed them in Rodney Bay St Lucia and they sailed down to Bequai with us – so we now know they don’t just sail around Bequai. We got our dodger (windscreen) repaired here and were shocked by the timeliness of the repair – we took it into Grenadine Sails at 10am to get the zipper replaced and asked how long it would take. Expecting an “Island Time” response we were very pleasantly surprised by the “can you come back at 2” response. I almost let out the “which day are we talking about?” that was in my mind, but sure enough, at 2pm the windscreens were repaired at a reasonable cost and ready to go. I highly recommend these guys!

We ate rotis at the Green Boli and celebrated “Canadia Day” by playing Boules (petanque whatever) on Princess Margaret Beach with Evergreen and Quattico wearing Canadia stickers and a moose (Maximillian brought back by Jim and Dinah to travel the world on Where II) on my head! Unfortunately Max got pretty wet as the skies opened up and called the game short due to weather. (Either that or we lost again – can’t quite remember....)

Drinks with those guys and Cajun Diva, Daniel Story, Melvin (Aussie Lagoon 37’) and Puddle Jumper on the same beach were also interrupted due to rain – but funnily enough all my rum punch was gone by the end of it.

We also ran into a nice couple from Florida (or did they run into us???), once again Where II’s magnetic bows were active at about 0400 in the morning. The bazaar currents had us swinging in one direction and Dave and Colleen swinging in another. I must have had a feeling ‘cause once again I woke just to see their boat cross our bow. Colleen and I managed to keep the boats apart while Dave started the boat and moved to a new spot. We both checked our tracks and neither of us had dragged, but the current had bought us together. Next day, two more boats came and filled the spot Dave had vacated, leaving us with some stressful, sleepless nights.

Union Island

From Bequai, Evergreen and Where II sailed us to Chatham Bay in Union Island where we anchored smack bang in the middle of the bay, a little bit away from the resident moored charter boats (This charter company has taste – they are all Lagoons). Despite the offer of free moorings and water if we ate at the resort, we declined the free mooring. A couple of days later, Where II’s magnetism started to show again... The Lagoon 500 moored next to us seemed to be getting closer by Karen’s estimation. We checked our track and we did not seem to be moving, so I jumped in the dinghy and went and had a look - but it was still tied to the mooring so we decided to up anchor and move to a safer distance. While we were doing this, the boat boy looking after the charter boats came and said we were dragging. I told him that I didn’t think we were, but were moving anyway and he should check his mooring. In quick time, he looked at it, shot into shore to get some help to move it to another mooring. He then came back to pick up the mooring line which was attached to nothing!

We spent a week in Chatham playing boules and drinking rum punch at Vanessa and Seekie’s beach bar before hauling anchor, checking out and heading to Hillsborough.

Carriacou

Once in Hillsborough, we decided to stay put until the Carriacou Regatta week and join in some of the festivities. We also, against common cruising wisdom decided to stay in Hillsborough anchorage as opposed to around the corner in Tyrrel Bay or our favourite, Sandy Island. This seemed fortuitous, as we ran into an Aussie bloke we met 3 years ago at the St Lucia Yacht Club, Edgar Roe. Edgar had taken me sailing on his J24 – Loose Cannon, which had now been sponsored by IGY Marinas – Rodney Bay and had a sparkling new paint job. Edgar asked me to crew for the races which I quickly agreed to.

The first race was an around the island 2 handed race, so it was just Edgar and I. I packed up my sailing gear (big floppy hat, sun screen and ½ case of beer – yep I forgot things like gloves deck shoes) and caught a bus round to Tyrrel. I hitched a ride out to Loose Cannon with Terry (Melvin) who had decided since there was only one other multihull in the race to enter his house in the race and at least get a place. Edgar supplied me with the Red team uniform and we did a couple of timing runs to the line and when we had it down pat waited for the hooter and we were away, the first across the line – and then the first beers were cracked!

Now you can see from the above photo, Edgar is a fairly experienced racing sailor – just by the way he holds his beer - but I should have reminded myself I as a cruiser (on a go-slow catamaran), not a racer as Edgar’s boat did tend to bounce around a bit and lean over making it difficult for a fat slow man to move around and hold his beer at the same time.

Photo courtesy of Dave Wiatt –SV Promise

Never the less, by following one of the locals to find the good water and riding Bloody Mary’s wake we were able to stay with the big boys right up until the windward side of the island, where they started to gain a bit on us, and despite the handicap Edgar had bundled himself with by inviting me along, the J24’s time adjustment meant we won the race by about a minute!

Photo courtesy of Dave Wiatt –SV Promise

As we were sailing through the anchorage (no motor on this boat) we were met by Stefan one of the other crew members who towed us back to his boat with his dinghy. Edgar meanwhile lost his hat (see above picture) and as it was so nice jumped overboard to reclaim it leaving me with a tiller and a dinghy on the hip driven by a German whose second language was English to conduct a man overboard manoeuvre in the anchorage without hitting Spirited Lady. It was a close call but I got Edgar and the hat back. After a bowl of peas soup and a few celebratory drinks ( the half case was gone about ¾ the way round the island) we headed off to the Yacht club for the annual Children’s auction.

After checking the weather that evening, Karen and I decided that we should head south on Sunday and needed to get the boat ready on Saturday, which meant missing the second race. But as Edgar pulled Loose Cannon up to Where II he convinced us that, and I quote “But I need the fat boy up the front!” so there was no option and I raced a second time. Unfortunately, the weed that got caught around the rudder negated the benefits of a fat boy up front and we failed to win the second race, narrowly missing out (I am sure). The race around the south of the island was exhilarating, often coming within meters of reefs and at one marker buoy, within millimetres of Bloody Mary and the Robin of Bequai’s boat. I am not sure if Edgar has nerves of steel or is short sighted but it convinced me that I will never take Where II in a race that he is in.

Sunday, we packed up and left for Grenada, in what was supposed to be the only wind for the next couple of days. Needless to say, that wasn’t the case and we ended up motoring all the way to St Georges.

Grenada

Back to Grenada, our hurricane home for the past two years. We had timed our arrival to coincide with Carnival and had booked in to Port Louis Marina for the carnival special for 5 days to allow our friends Graeme and Linda who were arriving from Aus via the States and Canada to get use to the boat and see as much of carnival easily before taking off back up the Grenadines for a sailing holiday.

The first part worked well, be berthed on the super yacht dock (because Where II is super and it gave me more space not to hit anything) and went to check out the pool and surrounds. This was our first relax in a marina since leaving the Canaries and I was looking forward to it. Grae and Linda arrived on schedule with the devastating news that our TimTams had melted on route and had to be thrown out (I still think that the temptation may have been too great for them) but all else was good and they were ready to relax.

Linda immediately got into the spirit of things, enjoying the rum punches and the local wild life at Jouvet... what are those two young boys looking at?

Whilst I set Graeme to work on the boat...

That’s when it had all gone horribly wrong... While we were enjoying carnival, a small sore I had developed on my leg was deciding to have it’s own tropical experience and develop into a boil. So while I was hanging to use the pool and go sailing, my leg had other ideas. After carnival, a trip to the doctor confirmed my diagnosis and I was to be treated every two days for the next two months while this horrible thing grew, festered, was lanced and sucked out then healed. The doc said to keep it dry and stay out of the dinghy as if it gets wet with the warm salt water it will get re-infected. So we were dock-bound, with beautiful showers that I could not enjoy properly and a pool that I could not swim in and a leg with a hole in it the size of Calcutta! Karen wanted me to take some photos, but honestly when I saw what came out of my leg, I didn’t need any photos to remind me.

So Linda and Graeme’s sailing holiday turned into a holiday in a marina. Not all was lost, they did get to motor from the Super yacht dock to the main dock on Where II and John and Nancy on SV Silver Seas (a half boat) did take them sailing round to Prickly Bay.

Of course the holiday wasn’t a total loss, they did get to met some great people like the intrepid Carnival player Suzie,

Have barbeques on the beach (we let Heff the Irishman come because he could build a fire and cook the food)

...and general relax and explore Grenada. They said they had a great time even if we didn’t leave the dock – I hope they did.

A lot of the rest of the season was spent working on the boat and worrying about the results of the world cup. I was elated when England got on the bus to go home, but was devastated when Australia suffered the same fate.

I bought the Jersey off the back of an Englishman’s wife, who refused to wear it once they lost. It cost 50p at auction. Don’t worry Mal, I haven’t forgotten that I owe it to you.

Unfortunately the most famous Australian Rugby player in Grenada has a first name of Bloody and is entirely held accountable by everyone in the Port Louis Marina and Prickly Bay as the reason for this unfortunate outcome.

The work on the boat comprised finishing the projects that we had started (by purchasing the parts in St Maarten) and not finished on the way down, the major one being the solar hot water heater. Our prototype that we built in St Thomas, worked but only provided warm water and a failed pump, but the new improved one provides hot water and so far no leaks.

Of course living in the marina does have some advantages, the social life was rampart, with dock parties, pig roasts, movie nights and of course the Halloween party. Now being an Aussie and really not all that familiar with Halloween parties, Karen and I got costumes with a horror theme – Karen went as a witch (yes starting with a “W”) and I had a zombie mask. But apparently in North America, it is just a fancy dress party. Sunny from Texas was the most imaginative as a “Tropical Depression” (ie storm)

But Richard was just down-right disturbing

And then there was the Aussie Chicks – Karen, Lou and Suellen. They came as Aussie Chicks inclusive of stubbies!

Grenada would not be complete without Dominos and Cricket. Cricket was played again at Clarke’s court but we had only a smattering of Aussies so our season was not as successful as last year. Karen’s Domino season was in full swing though. Having beaten Kim at de Big Fish on a couple of occasions, Karen whipped Nahani River’s (Doug and Wendy) collective butt, so much so Wendy made Karen a Dominos tiara (seen on the witches hat in the above photo). But introducing Jon and Sam (Imagine of Falmouth) to Dominos took it to a new high with no-one leaving until 11pm at night.

I don’t know about you, but I can’t see any dominos and Karen’s tiara does seem to get around!

So once we blew the cruising budget by staying in a marina for 3 odd months it was time to head north again. We found out that St Lucia is now Aussie friendly and haul out rates were not too expensive, we high-tailed it to Rodney Bay, via Chatham Bay and Keartyon’s Bay in St Vincent. Jon and Sam had recommended the Rock Side Cafe there so we stopped for the night. We tied up to a mooring and organised to be picked up at 6pm for dinner. The message taker fell asleep and forgot to tell the Restaurateur about the arrangements so we got picked up but no food and just a little rum punch. I think we were a little early in the season but it was a nice place

St Lucia

We arrived in St Lucia on Friday evening and went into check in on Saturday morning and were pleasantly surprised by the friendly officials (this wasn’t the case 3 years ago). We then went and checked in with Edwin Chavas at the boat yard and tentatively arranged to haul and paint on Monday or Wednesday and then decided to relax, as Sunday was the ARC flotilla and we were crewing on Princess of Tides with Guy, Christine and Princess (and her boyfriend Bill).

The 0800 departure seemed early, but Guy and Christine got us there in time for delay in starting so we milled around in Castries Harbour while the rest caught us up. There were 50 odd boats in the Flotilla which made an impressive site heading out of Castries.

We of course then joined in the celebrations for the start of the 2011 ARC and I met Adam Foster, the Aussie General Manager of IGY Rodney Bay who has been pushing for the removal of Aussie Visa requirements – Thanks Adam.

Monday morning at 0730 (after a few more drinks on Princess and a game of Dominos), Edwin called me and said there was a cancellation on the lift and could we come in now. “No Problems” I said thinking this gives me no time to panic about getting into the slip. Unfortunately, just as I was about to enter the slipway, I was told to turn around and come in backwards!!$%! Which I did with the calm air that did not reflect the inner turmoil I was facing – but I did it like a pro! We met Dave and Colleen who were being launched when we were out of the slings and then we were into it. 3.5 days to sand, paint, raise the waterline (it had always sloped forward since the new engines were installed) and change the sail drive seals (with the help of Alwin of Quick & Reliable Mechanical Services ph: 1-758-520-5544 e: alwinaugustinengineer@gmail.com who I would highly recommend). Alwin also instructed me on how to change the seals in the future.
Once the boat was back in the water we did the island tour with Dave and Colleen (Promise), Mark (Sea Life) and Al and Michelle (Tarantella). This was a full day road trip quickly seeing the sights such as the Pitons and the volcano as well as enjoying a nice local meal (chicken and ground provision or if you are Karen – ground provisions) in a local restaurant in Vieux Fort.

We also spent a day in the Pigeon Island National Park where Karen actually made it to the top of the Fort!

Evergreen arrived from Venezuela, so there was more than a bit of catching up to do before they headed south to pick up their daughter and grandson and we headed north to Martinique, supposedly on our way to St Martin for Christmas. We had said goodbye for the last time so many times over the last couple of years that this parting was a bit of an anti-climax.

Martinique

So here we sit in St Anne, just some 30 miles from Rodney Bay two weeks later and only a tick of the clock until Christmas. Santa Claus (yes he does exist Tina) is climbing our mast, our Christmas tree is up, decorated with presents from the Hully’s and Evergreen and it is laden with goodies

and we even have festive (solar) light hung in the cockpit.

We will be spending our 5th Christmas far from our family and friends and our old home, but you are not far from our thoughts. Nor are all the new friends we have made on our new home. Fear not, we will not be alone, some of those new friends will be on board on Saturday night and Sunday. So we wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy, Safe and Prosperous New Year.
Karen & Matt
SV Where II
Martinique FWI

Ah Guadeloupe – You’ve done it again!

Where2 — Mon, 13 Jun 2011 10:41:00 GMT

Previously Matt & Karen’s Soggy Adventure... (bugger it read them yourself). So we checked in at Le Pelican and everything in Deshaies was as we remembered it (except Harold no longer was delivering bread, which is why we came back – fresh baguettes and croissants in the morning without leaving the boat – how civilised!) Anyway, there was not much we needed to see since we had been here before, so it was a relax station, with a dive thrown in.

So that was how it was. When we got back to the boat, Mike and Cheryl from Happy Times, whom we had met checking in, dropped by and asked us over for sundowners.... so the relaxing started. We arrived and met Mikayla, their daughter, and were introduced to Bob (a high school headmaster), who he ditched his sick wife Janice for the night and Johanna and Martin from Swedish Sailing Vessel Snowbird (you really need Cheryl’s Swedish accent to understand why it is Swedish Sailing Vessel Snowbird, not just Snowbird). We had a fun night, particularly when Bob described a real life High School Musical. I am sure that is why he left his job!

So after we got home and got some rest we decided we wanted to dive Jacques Cousteau’s marine park so we went and tried to book in at Blue Pearl www.bluepearl.gp run by Relio and Stephanie, but they were doing what they do – diving. But through the miracle of the internet we made contact and organized the dive. We couldn’t do Jacques’ place but on Saturday we dived the reef just off Anse Paul Thomas. The price was reasonable and all inclusive and Stephanie spoke English! When we arrived there were 2 other couples diving with us, but they went with Relio doing a Baptism of Diving and we got Stephanie to ourselves. The dive was fantastic ranged from 2-18m, although Karen didn’t have enough weights, so she hogged Stephanie and I had to try and keep up to see what she was being shown. We swam with a hawksbill turtle, saw fish fighting, unique sea shells, heaps of vase coral of so many shades and colours. It was great. I managed to last 45 minutes before I blew my tank. We then hauled ourselves onto the boat, ate ananas (pinapple) and bananas (bananas) and drank planteurs punch (rum punch) before heading back to the shop and having more planteurs and finding out what we had seen. It was a great day. Highly recommend doing a dive with them!

After the dive we relaxed and then motored to Le Saintes at the southern end of Guadaloupe. We tried to check in here on our way north... you would have known that if you had read the blog... but it was too crowded. This time we headed straight for Pain du Sucre (sugar loaf) under motor. All was good until 10 minutes from the anchorage when the oil pressure alarm from the starboard engine came on... what the..!!!!

We motor in on the port engine and literally dropped the hook like a charterer! 30m and probably all in a heap. I had a feeling I knew what it was and when I opened the engine compartment, I was right. My oil filter wrench had scrapped the paint on the oil filter and it rusted, pin-holed and sprayed all our engine oil around the engine room! It was the quickest oil change I have ever done – no need to pump the sump – it was empty! I changed the oil filter, filled the engine with oil (or up to the full mark anyway for all the girls out there) and tested my work – all good! So I did the Heinrick Manoeuvre (Boofa – you know what I am talking about) on the anchor and found it resting on its side on the sand below. Time to re-anchor! We test the motor and reset the hook and relaxed for the night.

Next morning, we decided to move into Grand Bourg so up came the pick and we headed on in and decided to drop the anchor near the fishing harbour where Merengue told us to. As we were setting the anchor we look over and all the other boats in the harbour were on moorings. So the hook came up again and we moved over to mooring number 47, nice and shiney new and free until 1 July (apparently). They are everywhere in the harbour which is notorious for deep anchorages and poor holding to the north, so we were happy to be on the mooring! I have heard they will be €25 a night soon.

Anyway, after deciding to never do a fort again in the Caribbean, we set off the next morning to Fort Napoleon on an overcast but humid day. It was a reasonably easy walk and the views over the harbour were great.

I hate to say it, but the fort was in excellent condition and was well worth the walk.

It was then back to the boat with baguette in hand and back at the boat we met Terry and Julie on Melvin and talked about having drinks the following night and maybe staying for the fish festival on the weekend. Now I am sad to say, we have met a couple of pretenders along our travels (Boats flying the Aussie flag, but the owners having funny South African accents – obviously they have seen the light even tho’ one who will remain nameless still barracks for the Boks), the situation on Melvin is worse... Terry is an Aussie and Melvin is flagged with a red southern cross and no Fed star (Kiwi). I will work on him on the way south and see if I can straighten him out!

Next day we catch up with Happy Times and invite them for drinks, only to find Melvin has done a runner for Pointe a Pitre – they must of heard of my rum punch, so we delay drinks for the a day and I get to work on Debbie’s old donk. To fix the gears, the whole motor head needs to be removed, and after inspecting it, this does not seem hard. I remove all the visible bolts, spill engine oil over Karen’s nice white deck, but still I can’t get the motor off. Before I resort to a hammer, I do a web search on the problem which I find is very common. The solution was to hit it with a soft hammer, which I did and it worked. The engine is apart and next step is to fix the gear shift – but we don’t want to rush things so that can wait a while.

Melvin arrived back a couple of days later, and I told them that we had had drinks without them, but the fish festival was on. So Saturday it was off to Plage de Pompierre for the concourse de culinaire (or something like that). The bay, an easy walk from town, is beautiful so we found some coconut palms (which Terry checked out for dangerous appendages) for shade and sat down to listen to the music.

As they were still setting up the stalls, this situation didn’t last long, we hopped up and headed to a restaurant close by to have a cool drink, taking in the wildlife on the way.

The restaurant was packed with locals and the food looked quite nice, but we restrained and headed back to the fish festival – there had to be food there. And there was – fish no less! So we grabbed some fish skewers (and Karen went outside to the sandwich vendor for her cheese sandwich) and settled back under the coconuts and gorged ourselves – there is no such thing as a small helping in the Caribbean!

Sunday came around quickly so it was sails up and off to Dominica, with winds on the nose and seas on the side, but we made good progress with the winds shifting to the north as we came into the lee of the island and we sailed on into Prince Rupert Bay with plenty of sun and Karen at the helm (for some of it at least)

St Kitts & Nevis – Not a lot to say...

Where2 — Wed, 01 Jun 2011 11:48:00 GMT

In our task of ticking off as many islands in the eastern Caribbean before we head a little west later in the year, we motored our way south to St Kitts and Nevis in a manner that is not honing our sailing skills at all. Kitt’s is only about 22 miles or 3 ½ hours from Statia, but when you arrive at the marina and walk through the Cruise Ship terminal to customs and immigration, you could be light years away from the tranquillity and simplicity of Statia.

We anchored in Basseterre, just of the new marina in nice sand and a fairly gentle roll coming from the south west into the harbour. We were one of three boats in the harbour, so a nice easy anchoring job. We waited until we were sure the anchor was set before heading into Customs to clear in. Of course I continued the “we’re here beer” tradition passed down to us by Jackster in Venezuela before I left. This is one reason I don’t leave the boat before 2 hours after anchoring – a very good, safe and pleasing practice.

We arrived at customs at 3:00pm, just as the officer was stepping out and were told to come back in an hour and a half and that in the mean time we were free to wander around and have a drink if we so desired – so we did. When we got back we cleared customs, paid our harbour fees and were told to come back in the morning to clear immigration. So we weren’t really in the country just yet.

When we got back to the boat we found out our friends on Evergreen who were looking to catch up with us, sailed right on by with our new sheet and anchored in Whitehouse Bay without even waving. They took off the next morning for Guadaloupe so we had no time to catch them up!

Next morning we wandered around the town doing “Tommy Tourist”. The museum was very interesting and gave a good sight into St Kitts and Nevis history and slave trading in the Caribbean in general. Whilst that is perhaps a sad part of history, it is very definite that the Caribbean would not be what it is today without it. Particularly in the British Islands, the Africans are now the dominant population. As Boofa said, he now knows what it feels like to be a minority.

Basseterre is a quaint town and we wandered through the town and visited the Catholic church. On our way there we wandered through independence square, where all the school kids hang out (and make out) at lunch time. We were approached by a man you sought support for a program to take some local kids to the Special Games, which of cause we gave to, but it did bring me back to Antigua where I bought a very ordinary CD to support another disabled program...must be the current trend. Anyway...

By the way I had problems with the camera, so independence square is all you get.
After doing the sight-seeing, having lunch and buying some fresh food we decided that we should make our way down to Whitehouse Bay ourselves for some R&R. I t was an uneventful motor and we set anchor in amongst the local and transient boats. It was not picturesque, but tranquil. There is a dinghy dock and rubbish provided by the developers who plan to put a marina in somewhere nearby so it is good for a couple of days.

While we were here we snorkelled the wreck which was pretty good – sorry no photos, you know the story – and took the weather window or no weather window to install our 5th and final solar panel! This gives us 695W of solar power and 400W of wind power (when Wally wants to work) which should have us diesel free at anchor in most situations!

As you can see it is a slightly different installation to previously, hanging off the back of the bimini (roof) and mounted on stainless steel brackets I got made by “Terry on the French Side” in St Martin. If you are looking for stainless work, he is good, quick and reasonably priced.

So anyway, the was no wind and no waves – perfect, and to appease the faint of heart among the crew, I decided to tie a rope around it as I was mounting it so it would not fall in the drink. We agreed roles and went to it. Karen would hold the rope and anchor the solar panel (even though it weighed as much as her and probably pulled her into the drink if it got away but don’t tell her that) and I would drill, glue (with our favourite body art material – 3M 5200 marine adhesive) and screw it. Well, perhaps I overemphasised the “Hold on and don’t let it fall in the water” instruction because for the next hour I struggled against Karen’s tight hold on the rope to try and get the solar panel out over the edge and into position. Once there it took 4 minutes to drill, glue and screw it down. This may be an exaggeration, but I do it only for illustration purposes as I had not camera or video. It did remind me of when Karen and I were renovating the bathroom and trying to lift 4m lengths of plasterboard (dry wall) up ladder and fix it in place near the ceiling!

After a couple of days relaxing, it was time to head to Nevis, a 5 mile motor from Whitehouse so not real exciting. We arrived on Saturday and were thinking about doing dinner in town, but when we realised that you could not lock the dinghy on we were less excited about it. Debbie had a new donk and we did not want to leave this hanging on a bowline in the dark. So we ate on board and decided we would hit Sunshines on Pinney Beach for Sunday lunch and a game of Bocce.

We met Sweet Pea, a local vendor shading herself in the outside area, who welcomed us to Sunshine’s and pointed us in the direction of the bar (like I need any help in that area) where we were greeted by Sunshine himself. He mistook me for an English chef who has his own show on the cooking channel (must be my slender physique) and showed us to a table. We went out on a limb and ordered the house drink – d’ killer bee rum punch, which must of been good as Karen had ordered a second by the time we finished lunch. I of course, being responsible, ordered the lower alcohol beer to play Bocce with. Ok Karen had blown all our money on the Shrimp Salad so I could only afford beer...

After myewhipping Karen’s butt at Bocce with our new larger and much more slippery bocce balls like Merengue’s, we headed back to the boat. After the 2 killer bees, Karen took us of the beach with the new motor like a professional!

We spent the night umming and ahhing about whether we would stop in Montserrat. The website suggested that the areas that we would want to see by tour would be closed so we decided that Monday afternoon we would check out and Tuesday motor through the coral banks of Redonda and then try and sail into the wind past the Windward side of Monserrat to at least see the scenery of the volcanic plains.
Monday was a pretty simple day. We checked out with the port office, tried to find somewhere to hve a drink while we waited for Customs to open and gave up and walked to Fort Charles ruins and figured out we are done with forts in the Caribbean. We strolled back along the beach checking out before heading back to the boat for an early night, because...

At 0400 Tuesday morning we were on the deck, and dropping the mooring lines for our full day trip to Guadaloupe. We slowly made our way out of the harbour, with Karen on the foredeck spotting boats and buoys until we had rounded the long pier and dawn started to break at 0500. The buoys did not stop however until we were at Redonda! By the way – what a rock, it would hold its head high against Uluru (Ayers Rock) back home.

Karen, of course, maintained her navigational duties, studying her tools religiously throughout the trip

We tried as hard as we could but we could not get consistent wind in the right direction to sail (heaven forbid someone mention the word “tack”) but it meant that the planned 14hour sail was reduced to 12. The view of Monserrat was magnificent – clear until the very peak, with long volcanic slopes to the shore.

At 4:00 in the afternoon we were relaxing having a “we’re here” in Deshaies, Guadaloupe!

St Eustatius – Statia for those who can’t spell big words

Where2 — Sun, 22 May 2011 17:54:00 GMT

Our plan all along was to make it north to Barbuda, across to St Martin, West to the Virgin islands and then back down through Saba, St Eustatius, St Kitts and Nevis and then back to Guadaloupe for our trip south – well that was one of the plans anyway when we decided not to go north this year. And we pretty much did it, with the exception of Anguilla and the Vis so we were pretty pleased with ourselves when we arrived in Statia. According to Doyle there may or may not be mooring buoys when we arrived and after tooling around the anchorage we decided to go with the option of No buoys as they all looked light weight and private so we dropped the pick in nice clean sand just off the old wharf ruins. The anchorage was picturesque with the fort and village decorating the cliffs above Low Town.

We checked in at the main port, paid for 3 days at the port office and mosied on down to the park office to pay or marine park fees for a week. The whole island is a marine park so no matter where you anchor you are up for the US$30 ($10 a night or $30 a week). We then thought we would take a short stroll up the old slave path to town to have a look around. Well those old slaves must have been pretty fit ‘cause that path was steep and both of us were blowing by the time we reached the top. Perhaps we should spend less time reading and relaxing and more time exercising – yeah right!

We wandered around town, which was quaint and marked with history, but we took only a little of it in as we strolled and decided that tomorrow would be our historical tourist day so we headed back on down to low town to have a sundowner at the old gin house. We took a detour half way down the Slave Path at some stairs and we caught a glimpse of a young Green Tree Lizard – I think one of the prettiest reptiles I have ever seen – greens, blues and aqua – the photo really doesn’t do him justice (and this is the best of 5 shots.

Sitting at the Gin house, watching over the bay, we decided that we should check out the diving here. Although we have been gathering diving gear since the Canaries, the only time it has been used was to repair or clean the bottom of the boat. Karen and I hadn’t done a recreational dive for almost 19 years. Unfortunately by the time we left the bar (only one and a half drinks each – ok I had 2 , Karen had 1) the dive shops were closed so it was back to the boat.

Next morning we got up at a leisurely pace (as we do these days) and then headed up to town to explore properly. We started at Fort Oranje and visited the tourist office that explained a bit about the islands history and gave us a pack including a very interesting and interactive CD. The Fort itself was in excellent condition and from here, in 1776, the first official acknowledgement of the US as an independent nation in the form of a gun salute was made. The decision to do this by the then Governor de Graffe was unfortunately a career ending one for him, but placed him in the annals of American history.

We then toured the museum, housed in an old plantation house that dated back to about the same era (prior to 1775).

There was also interesting archaeological info on the Carib Indian inhabitation and believe it or not an early Jewish Synagogue dating back to 1739. Apparently the Jews were persecuted here as well with the population being exiled after the British invaded expecting great riches from the merchants, but found none. That was until they found a lot of funerals occurring and the riches were being buried in the coffins!
During the tour of the town, we were joined at first by one dog, and then a second, who no matter how hard we tried stuck to us like glue all day. We even tried locking ourselves in a cemetery, but somehow they found a way in. We stopped wrote postcards and they just lay at our feet then followed us as we left.

No matter where you go in Statia, the dormant volcano is dominant in the background, so over lunch we decided that the next day would be a hiking day – yes you heard right – Karen agreed to hike up to the crater of the Quill!

After a day on the go we stopped at Scubaqua and spoke to Marieke and explained our experience (6 dives 19 years ago)and that we wanted to do a nice easy dive with a dive master very close. Marieke was very understanding (I mean she didn’t go “You want what?” or “ How long?” or “ I wasn’t out of diapers then” or “How was it diving in those brass helmets?”) and said that they could do that and put a dive master right next to us the whole time, and the price was reasonable. We also stopped at the other dive shop and there solution was a bit more complex requiring reintroduction type course and hence was a bit more expensive. We decided that night we would go with Scubaqua.

Next morning I donned my x-country thongs (flip flops not underwear) and Karen put on her deck shoes (for the first time since she went home) and we took off for the hike. I have by this time learned how to get the dinghy to full throttle – but it is not a thing Karen enjoys, but it was a good way to start the day. We stopped by at Scubaqua and booked our dive and headed up the track to The Quill (music should go in here – Da-na-na-na... try and imagine it please).

By the time we had made it up the cliff track we were perspiring (me) and glowing (Karen) and the pace was set for the walk – slow and hot. The track was well marked and had informative signage along the way as we searched for the Killi Killi Kestral and other exotic wildlife. The best we saw was a lot of hermit crabs, a blue throated dove and a Red Bellied Racer Snake of which we saw three.

Now, those of you who know Karen know that she is a city girl right? You can take the girl out of the city but not the city out of the girl – hence her desire to shop and her fear of snakes. Well, the first snake she saw, she observed inquisitively, but the second- for some reason she went all girly and jumped around squealing etc – very strange, but on the whole she did well in the bush – but more on that later.

After about an hour we made it to the rim of the crater and relaxed for a while, while some American tourists took photos and seemed to talk really loudly. I took some photos but the size of the crater really could not be captured by my lens. So I took a shot of Karen instead (She respectfully ask that you not look too closely at this as it is not her best shot).

From the rim of the crater, it was a 45min walk down into the crater .... with a warning....

...So of course I, not being a city boy, leave Karen at the top and head off down the trail. Well down the nice steps with the railing that started the trail, then when it got a bit steeper, I thought I had better do the right thing and go back to my wife and protect her in this wild place.

The Americans headed back the way they came, and in a bout of madness and a desire for tranquillity in this beautiful spot, I convinced Karen that I would be just as easy to branch off on the round the mountain path and work our way back into town from the other side – besides it would be a well marked trail, just like the one we came up....

Wrong!!! About 2 hours later, I found the fork in the trail which was marked sort of, after climbing over rocks most of the way down with City Girl, complaining of sore feet. We gambled and took the fork even though we could make head nor tail of the way the signs pointed and finally came to a fence, an overgrown field and what looked like a road beyond. Karen wanted to jump the fence and make straight for the road (trespassing I say and most houses here have dogs...) so the Harry Butler in me opted for divining my way through the field, what looked like lantana and finally I found our way to the road! The Leyland Brothers would have been proud!

Fortunately there was a park bench about 20 m down the road where we were able to stop and rest for a while (have the obligatory cigarette to clean the lungs of the fresh air), ‘cause by now, not that I mentioned it to Karen but my feet were hurting as well. Here we were guarded by the friendly tree, so we were safe and sound!

We took off the shoes and x-country flip flops and strolled back to town and past a bull grazing on the road. He kept a good eye on us until we came to the end of the long paddock and turned left. I thought it was a bit odd, until I realised the whole time we were walking past him and on down the road, I was waving a bright red Digicel bandana around (red rag to a bull and all that).

We made it back to the boat, exhausted, hot and sweaty where I found out that perhaps there was some basis to Karen’s complaints about her feet – blisters and most amazingly blood blisters under both her big toe nails – these shoes are really dangerous implements!

Next morning, after wondering whether Karen would be able to put flippers on, we hauled our dive gear up to Scubaqua ready for our first dive. Marieke was was replaced by Mike as our dive master and we explained again our situation. (I thought maybe Marieke had wized up to us and palmed us off to an unsuspecting newby, but it turned out Mike was one of the owners of the business and very patient as he explained how he was going to approach the dive and the rules. He then checked our gear and one of the hoses on my octopus burst and Karen’s BCD was self inflating. So we hired some gear for the dive.

Diving was everything I remembered, anxiety as we sat on the side of the boat ready to flip into an almost raging sea (2ft wind chop) and then the exhileration of being able to breathe underwater. Mike was fantastic (for a one handed diver – his second hand belonged to Karen and she wasn’t letting go of it) and coaxed Karen down the mooring line until we were on the bottom at the humps – a volcanic outflow and reef to the south west of Statia. We both adjusted our buoyancy and Michael continued to show us the sights including a young trumpet fist and snails. We lasted 40 minutes before I had blown my tank and we had to surface. Mike had managed to pry Karen from his arm and the last 10-15 minutes we swam by ourselves. I am sure Mike will be nursing his arm for a while. You should check out their website http://www.scubaqua.com particularly the photos and video of the humpback whale that visited them recently and if you get to Statia (Patrick and Silke, I am talking about you at least) stop by and dive with them.

After 4 full on days we decided to spend the weekend in Statia and relax so in the end it was a six day stay in one of the nicest islands in the Eastern Caribbean!

St Bart’s – The big boats, the big brands and a new donk for Debbie!

Where2 — Mon, 16 May 2011 11:02:00 GMT

We finally escaped the clutches of St Marteen / St Martin and dragged the anchor up after 9 weeks anchored in Simpson Bay (yes we are a bit unusual in that we never went in through the bridge to the lagoon with the big boat, but enjoyed the bay and suffered the roll and the fees) and headed east to St Barts. We were on a mission... All the brands are in St Barts, Hermes, Cartier, Ralph Laurent, Yamaha etc etc. Yes you heard right Yamaha. We had ordered a new 15 HP outboard to replace Debbie’s 6HP Suzuki donk that has started to seize up in places you would not expect.

We arrived in St Bart’s and anchored outside in Gustavia harbour, but were surprised when we went in to clear in to find that no matter where you anchored from shell bay to effectively the Columbier Bay, you were up for harbour charges – effectively about €19 per day – more than we had paid in St Marteen for a week! We had plans so we checked in and paid for 4 days and made our way round to the Yamaha dealer Chez Beranger (chezberanger@wanadoo.fr), introduced ourselves to Marie-Marcelle, with whom we had been dealing with over the past two weeks to secure their last 15HP engine, and made arrangements for the delivery of the outboard in the morning. We did pick up the harbour authority’s magazine that should have given us a clue to the prices – it was a publication that looked at home on any Toorak coffee table.

We then went back to the boat mumbling our discontent and settled in for the night or so we thought. When we got back the wind had shifted and we had swung within a boat length of the bow of a French Boat (huh - got them back!). The owner emerged as I was looking around the anchorage for somewhere else to anchor and suggested politely we were too close so we moved and re-anchored next to the channel marker and hoped like hell we didn’t drag into the channel in the middle of the night.

After a night of numerous anchor watches by captain and crew, we arose anxiously awaiting our new purchase – the new donk. We made our way in slowly and took delivery of the new motor, unpacked it on the dock and reverently lay the new Yamaha 15HP Enduro motor onto Debbie for the slow trip out to the boat. We then spent the day changing the motor, reading the manual (yes Karen now forces me to read all manuals before I can play with my new toys), figuring how to mix 2-stroke oil and getting familiar with the run in instructions. Finally it was ready to go.

Well almost, it had to run on fast idle for ten minutes before we did anything else! So we waited....
And finally it was ready to go ... slowly... for the next fifty minutes we ran it just above start trying to get it up to 50% throttle, but it went so fast that we had trouble getting there. That’s when we wondered how we would get it to full throttle for stage three, we asked our friends Guy and Christine on Princess of Tides and Guy’s recommendation was and I quote “Get Karen a Snoopy the Red Baron leather hat and goggles, sit her in the bow with 6 cases of wine and let it fly!” But I saw only one way – Karen would have to leave the dinghy and Evel Knevel here would have to do the hard work on that himself.

Anyway enough about the engine, what about something for the girls you say. Ok shopping. Our first trip with the new motor was in to do some shopping. If you are reading this Andy, you would have loved it – all the big names in about 100 yards.

And boys, you would have been proud of me – all of those expensive shops and my wife wanted to hit the chandlery and the hardware! How well have I got her trained? In fact, she had to grab me by the arm several times to stop me drooling over the €26,000 watches! We walked along the harbour to the Industrial Zone, found the champagne shop, decided not to buy the Tattinger and then found numerous homeware shops and the hardware, but as it was after 4:00 and this was France most things were shut so we took the scenic route back to the harbour (up over the hill) and had a magnificent view of the bay from the lighthouse.

Next morning we were up and did the historical tour of Gustavia, taking in the museum (not worth it), the old fort (nice view over shell beach), shell beach and a very nice bar there where we stopped for a breather, the churches, the old town hall and basically everything in the brochure and that was before lunch! We stopped at Le Select for a cool drink before Karen decided it was shopping time again. You guessed it, back to the chandlery, hardware and home shops where we bought new coasters and a beach umbrella and anything else we could think of – it was after all over a week since we had left St Martin.

We paid another day to anchor in the crowded harbour and then, after watching the Maltese Falcon unfurl her sails and sail off into the sunset, we took off north to Columbier to relax (and not spend anything) for a week.

We had planned to do a couple of jobs like install the new inverter, while we were up here, but we read the park guidelines and found we could not work on the boat. This did not however stop us from employing some of the locals to clean the bottom of the boat – and they worked for food alone!

Columbier is a beautiful bay at the north end of St Barts and a popular overnight stop between St Martin and Antigua, but we got hold of a buoy there and stayed a week. We walked up to the hills surrounding the bay and did a bit of exploring.

We did however get stopped by the gate with “Beware of Dogs” sign before we got to the old Rockefeller house

I also amazed Karen with my culinary skills making fresh roti for dinner!

As our week of swimming snorkelling, reading (I polished off 5 novels in a week) and relaxing came to an end, it was time to put Debbie’s new donk to the test – dinghying down to Gustavia to check out. Fortunately I, for some reason, had the foresight to put the boat papers in the waterproof bag, for when we turned through the dinghy channel we saw that this was probably going to be a rough trip. It only took twenty minutes, but we were both wetter than if we had swum to town! The donk went superbly, still yet to get it to full throttle but it was an exhilarating ride none the less!

We did the last chandlery run (in case we had missed anything) bought some fresh food and it is on to St Eustatius tomorrow!

Saba Sidetrip – All Cruisers take ferries sometimes

Where2 — Sun, 24 Apr 2011 21:18:00 GMT

During our one week stay in St Martin (which lasted 8 – the subject of another blog) we heard a lot of people talk about Saba and the alternatives for getting there. Very few people take their boats due to the unprotected nature of the harbour and the deep water. Saba has remedied part of this by putting deep water moorings down, but there ain’t alot they can do about the roll. The other option is to take a fast ferry across from St Martin on a day trip for about US$122 including taxes, lunch and a tour. After much deliberating about the cost and the fact that the ferry is known as the vomit comet, we decided that this was what we would do.

We rang the booking office (yes we have a phone in St Martin – when you are staying so long and buying half of America’s gross exports – you need one) and they said that they could only make reservations in person so next day off we trot to the office in the Pelican Resort and reserve our seats. The nice lady behind the counter instructs us very clearly and firmly to arrive before 0800 the next morning with our passports to finalise the tickets and the ferry would depart at 0900.

The day of the big trip arrives and we struggle up, get the dinghy down, splash through the bay and tie up at Simpson Bay Marina and walk to Pelican Resort. This is all pretty difficult to do when you’re half asleep (or half of you is half asleep) but we manage to arrive before 0800 to find the office door ajar, but a closed sign on it – it doesn’t open until 0815! Why make us get there before 0800 – is this island time thinking or what? Make sure the tourists get to experience waiting even though the office is efficient or something?

Anyway we get processed and wait....................... and then at 0915, our ferry is called (it is the only one of the day and, like the old Jewish ladies in the Elsternwick cinema, I make my way to the front of the queue dragging Karen behind as I want to get the best seat on the boat, and I come face to face with the Vomit Comet!

To say that the Vomit Comet (you can see I like this name) is an interesting boat or deserving of its name is an understatement. Check it out – ugly huh – like a caravan strapped on pontoons? And this was supposed to deliver us safely and swiftly to Saba...

Once we were inside and settled with our seats (with ventilation) the briefing by the captain gave me no more confidence. He explained that there were only 2 rubbish bins on the boat (fore and aft in the centre of the boat) and that the other 20 or so waste paper bins with liners were for personal use should the trip not agree with one’s stomach..... hence the name.

As it turned out the trip was fast and smooth, and if there had of been a good time to take the big boat to Saba, today was the day as there was no seas to speak of and when we arrived in Saba the mooring field was devoid of yachts almost completely. Oh well, this was our adventure.

As you can see in the above photo, Saba is not your palm lined sandy Caribbean island and is really inhospitable to human inhabitation, being steep to, few “beaches” and very mountainous. It is however a story of man’s pig-headedness in making harsh environments their own. The first hint of this is Ladder Bay, a small harbour with 524 steps up the side of a cliff, up which all materials bought to Saba where man handled until about the mid-1900s.

Now Saba is part of the Dutch Antilles (or was until recently and I am unsure what it status is currently), but in the 40’s they sought assistance from the Dutch Government to build a road across the mountainous island and were told it was impossible, so a local dude took a correspondence course in road building and over the next 20 odd years the locals built their road across the island using only hand tools and wheel barrows... The road up from the port gave us an idea how hard this would have been.

Anyway enough of the history, on arriving on the island and clearing immigration, we met our taxi driver, Gloria – the lady with the smile – and hopped aboard her taxi and commenced a very informative tour that showed us:

    1. The hospital
    2. The old people’s home (that is attached to the hospital and serviced by the same medical staff)
    3. The post office
    4. The two banks with their ATMs

And a host of other uninteresting stuff like :

    1. the church with the painted ceiling

    2. The glass blowing studio

    3. The Airport (another piece of tenacious engineering) The story goes that the locals hired a pilot from St Barts to find a piece of the island he thought he could land on, they flattened it and he landed and so began the construction of their airport!

    4. Before delivering us to Mount Scenery for the hiking part of the tour. We walked up about 200,000 stairs (ok maybe 200 meters and 50 stairs) before deciding that a trip in the downward direction was more to our liking so we sweated our way back down to town before lunch.

We thought that we would while away the time browsing through gift shops with local embroidery (yeah I’m really into that) and stroll through the museum but the museum was closed and the 2 gift shops took 10 minutes so it was off to the pub! (now that is my sort of tour). We scored the last table outside at Scout’s Place and enjoyed fish and chips in beer batter and a quite lager whilst advertising our friend Ricki’s bar in Grenada for those passing through.

We thought we may have missed something so after lunch we headed back out into town and after 20 minutes of searching we were again back at Scout’s Place enjoying the magnificent scenery and another cool lager.

Gloria arrived abit after the allocated time but hey, we are on island time and we were sure that the Vomit Comet would wait on us…. We hoped.

We arrived back is St Martin safe and sound after a quick trip back, and while I may sound a bit sarcastic in this blog, we had a fantastic day on the island and the tour was very enjoyable. If I was to do it again, I think I would do an over nighter so we could maybe fit in a dive as well.

Ah Barbuda At Last!!

Where2 — Wed, 02 Mar 2011 14:17:00 GMT

*Author’s note: There has been a delay in posting this blog for two reasons:
1. Since leaving the deserted island of Barbuda with it’s excellent wifi , we have been in St Marteen, one of the most developed islands in the Eastern Caribbean that has no wifi unless we take the computers into McDonalds and there are only so many Macca Breakfasts I can handle; and
2. We promised a fellow cruiser who provided directions for us safely navigate the wreck and reef strewn waters of Barbuda that we would tell no-one of the true beauty of Barbuda so others would not follow and ruin the tranquillity that is Barbuda.... so you will have to judge for yourself whether I am telling the truth in this blog or just dissuading others from following...

After much nail biting and “discussions” on which parts of Barbuda I was allowed to take Where II (Coco Point in, Spanish Point is out, Low Bay is questionable or so the missus thinks) we were ready to head north to Barbuda. We spent several hours pouring over the charts and Doyle’s guide chartlets to define a safe (read very safe) course to Barbuda. This was not easy as no two charts agreed, however we had been told that Doyle’s charts were pretty much as good as they got. WE were concerned that they did not show a large submerged rock close to where we wanted to anchor in Coco Point that was on our Navionics electronic charts, but as they say, your eyes are the best navigational tool so we set sail with a little bit of trepidation (Of course I try and hide mine so Karen doesn’t realise that I don’t really know what we are getting ourselves in for, but what the heck – you only live once and we have survived the rocks once before in our rock solid cat!)

The sail was uneventful with the sails up 45mins after we left Dickenson Bay getting ever closer to those reefs until about an hour from our destination we turned to wind and dropped the sails for the motor in through the rocks and reefs (okay – there weren’t that many but we didn’t want to add to the 300 odd wrecks that are scattered around the Barbudan waters. The motor in was also uneventful, keeping close to the route we had set. We saw some of the reefs, but never those submerged rocks so we thought Doyle must have been right and the rocks displaced in a hurricane (we have since been told that they are there so I am glad we didn’t anchor too close!)

Coco Point is just stunning – a long pinky white beach with coconut palms (planted around the two resorts) and nothing else but the hint of the private airstrip that services the one working resort (Coco Point Resort – such imagination with the names). Once anchored I did the Heinrick Manoeuvre (diving on the anchor to see that we were set – naming of this manoeuvre is another long story that I won’t get into here) and relaxed to check we were set and of course got out the wifi antennae and hooked up to the world while taking in the glorious surrounds, with only 2 other boats at anchor.

There was a prediction of northerly swells a couple of days out that could possibly turn Coco Point into an untenable anchorage that we needed to watch but other than that it was relaxing in Paradise, until...
Just as we were settling in to this beautiful bay, a new Leopard 46 arrived and I couldn’t believe it, it turned directly in front of us, stopping what seemed a couple of boat lengths away, dropped the pick and started backing up on us. “Bloody Frenchmen” I thought as I picked up my bitch wings and headed to the bow.... But no! It was an Aussie flagged boat!!! After I picked up my jaw from the deck, they looked back (I am sure with a smile on their face) and picked up their hook and moved. “Must have been taking the mickey” I thought giving them the benefit of the doubt...

Well by the end of the day there were about 15 boats at anchor so I don’t feel so bad about telling people about Barbuda, because obviously a lot know.

Next morning we went and visited the jokers on their very nice “Scolamanzi” and found the second joke they pulled was their accents. The Queenslanders, Henriette and Johann invited us aboard with very noticeable South African accents. And despite having been in Aus for over a decade, Johann inexcusably still barracks for the Boks....

After a tour of the boat (which resulted in an order for a Intervac central vacuum by the cheese and kisses as a result of BE – boat envy), and discussions on the weather (which resulted in Scolamanzi upping the anchor and heading to Spanish Point to avoid the northerly swell) we headed into the beach for a stroll and swim. The swell was a bit unpredictable but we did manage to put ashore near the K Club (now defunct, but apparently Princess Di’s favourite resort, which Karen tucked away in the gossip filing cabinet) and enjoy the beach. As we approached the other resort, the resort security approached us and explained we were welcome to enjoy the beach, but could not enter the property above the beach line. I am not sure the photos do it justice, but the beach is beautiful, with a tinge of pink from the broken shells.

We continued down the beach to the point and looked across to Spanish point to gauge (or at least I was) how difficult it would be to navigate the reefs safely if required.

Back on the boat and another check of the weather confirmed that our options were to bug out of Coco Point for Antigua, or buzz round the corner to Spanish Point to hide from the oncoming swell. Well after a lot of discussion, a quick call to our new friends on Scolamanzi and some very detailed work on the charts, we agreed that next morning we would become experienced reef navigators and head into White Bay at Spanish Point! (See I knew I would get my way)

The sun was up and the sky reasonably clear the next morning so at noon we upped anchor to head round with the sun almost directly above and moving behind us. We had a very detailed route on the chart plotter and a very nervous reef spotter on the bow and an only slightly less nervous helmsman as we motored around the corner.

We slowly and carefully worked our way around the point and zigzagged our way through the reefs, Karen very competently spotting all the reefs and Bommies (coral heads) with ample time to ensure we safely manoeuvred towards the reef (her very dry mouth made competent communication of these facts a bit more difficult but flailing arms and nervous steps can say alot). As we were nearing White Bay, I made a mistake, instead of following our route, I decided to head towards Scolamanzi, despite a couple of “obstacles” on the chart. These ones were actually there, but as I approached, my spotter kindly indicated my error, and with an “all Astern” I backed out of the reef with no contact at all – luckily as I would never have lived it down, nor been allowed to go within 100 miles of a reef again!

We dropped anchor exactly where we planned, but with rocks close by the next 24 hours was a bit nervous as we constantly monitored our track and watched how we swung in relation to these “Navigational Hazards” in the photo below – things looked the same from all sides of the boat!

Well it seemed that the northerly swells were set in and we were stuck in White Bay with strong winds, lots of sun, waves crashing over the point and clear, clear azure waters. We were in about 15 feet (yes I have succumbed to talking in the ancient imperial measurement system due to the abundance of North Americans down here) and you could see the ripples in the sand from the deck! (You may need to look very closely at the photo tho’)

We spent 11 days in this delightful place – no shopping, no bars, just beaches, reefs and water. We caught up with some friends from Grenada (Hummingbird, Act 3) and met new ones as we enjoyed a impromptu pot luck on the beach one night, dinner on Scolamanzi and drinks aboard Hummingbird. We met the owners of a Canadian 42 PDQ catamaran that had designed his own hybrid system using Fischer Panda technology (including litium Ion batteries worth $25,000). It was a different design philosophy to the Lagoon , but he loved it even though it did take him two attempts to get the system to work properly on a cruising catamaran.

We snorkelled, walked along the beach, played bocce (although the beaches in White Bay were narrow and you had to watch out for the donkey poo obstacles) and of course worried about when the swell would drop and how we would get the hell out of the reef obstacle course. The island is interesting in that it is small and inhabited by only 1600 people who effectively live in one village, Codrington, and the rest of the island is uninhabited so you could go for walks and be totally alone with only the sounds of the waves.

We saw lots of evidence of wildlife, past and present in the form of the above mentioned donkey poo, vacated land tortoise shells, interestingly coloured conch shells and other stuff. We were a little disappointed in the snorkelling as the reefs appeared a little dead compared to other islands we have visited.

Apart from enjoying the beauty of the island we also to a stroll to windward side to the surf beaches and were absolutely amazed at one low swooping white sandy beach. From a distance it looked stunning and very inviting – and we had it all to ourselves. However, when we got up close and personal, it became obvious, that all was not as it seemed.

Garbage Beach

Strewn along the beach was more garbage than I had ever seen – gin bottles, rum bottles, old buoys, crates and all manner of flotsam – all apparently wash up from being discarded or washed overboard from passing ships – it made us vow never to throw any rubbish overboard. It also instigated our cruising garbage collection system – now we use my finished 1.75l rum bottles (there are an abundance of those aboard) to collect all our packaging material. You would not believe it but in that one little bottle I fitted over 1.5 weeks of garbage, excluding organics and recyclables! We also did our bit and took away what we could carry (ok it was two nice packing crates that fit nicely in our front locker).

After 11 days it was time to say “Hasta la Vista” to White Bay no matter how idyllic our surrounds we, and following our track in (except where that little mistake was made) in reverse, we slowly made our way round Coco Point and headed north to Low Bay for a couple of days (an unfortunately short stay as beers were running low).

Low Bay is another 16 mile pinkish white beach with a couple sparse resorts on in (one near Codrington and one at the southern tip). We anchored near the Light House Bay resort and again got good wifi!

We spent the afternoon relaxing, watching the anchor track and of course taking advantage of the wifi – Karen even rang home on skype. We also organised to be picked up the next morning to visit the frigate bird rookery. We were in two minds if it would be worth the US$50 but thought it would probably be one of those things that other people would rave about and we would be disappointed if we didn’t go.

Next morning we were up early and went to meet our water taxi on the strip of white sand south of the resort.... have a look at the photo and imagine that beach went on for 16 miles then you tell me where you think we were going to meet him.... Well it turned out to be easier than we thought, another taxi driver was on the beach on at the resort and he called us in and then pointed us in the right direction and our guy appears on the beach and helps us haul Debbie up the beach to the fence.

Our guide, organised through George Jeffrey, was a professional power house operator who did tours and water taxi work part time to make ends meet. He was very informative about the island and the frigate bird rookery. In fact we learnt more about frigate birds than anyone really has the right to know!

The blokes do all the hard work, puffing up there bright red neck to attract the female. After she has checked him out and decides if his bright red neck is sufficiently large, his real estate, nice enough and he won’t embarrass her with her friend’s, she sends him out to gather building materials and build the nest. If he does a good job, he is rewarded with sex (does this seem familiar to you guys). She then gets up the duff and sends him out to get the food.

This story does have a familiar ending though. After about 2-3 months of this the bloke gets to leave for another colony and the girl has to stay behind and look and he gets to do it all over again!

After the tour we headed back in to Codrington to clear out.

Now checking out in Codrington is not something you want to do by yourself. Yes, it is a safe place and the people are friendly, but it is complicated and it is very difficult to find the customs and immigration offices. Customs is near the airport, in a house and I could not see the sign until it was pointed out to me by our guide. After about 1 ½ hours, all was done and we just needed to do some shopping for fresh and beer (I had run out!) and we were done. Unfortunately I forgot to tell the taxi driver I wanted beer and we missed that stop and not much fresh in the supermarket so not much shopping done.

The taxi driver suggested if we wanted a beer, we could stop at the resort before heading back to the boat which we did. It is a beautiful resort with the bar overlooking Low Bay and Where II.

In addition to the US$20 beer and juice, the manager gave us a tour of the resort rooms, which were fantastic. Full suites with huge bathrooms, a full kitchen (with wine chiller but no cooking facilities) and large bedrooms. At $1500 a night, I suppose it is what you would expect as I have never and will probably never pay that for a room, but all food and drinks are include at that price and if you stay 3 nights you get a complimentary one way helicopter transfer from Antigua!

After that it was back to the boat to prepare for tomorrows trip to St Bart’s and onto St Martins the next day. We tried to sort out our Gennaker but had no luck so it looks like it is a motor sail west for us.

Antigua or Bust! And that we did....

Where2 — Wed, 16 Feb 2011 12:58:00 GMT

We have been hanging out to reach Antigua – it is supposed to be fantastic. Mega yacht capital of the Caribbean.... beautiful beaches etc etc. But our arrival there was anything short of horrific. And this is how Karen described it in an email to friends back home ....

“We have had an interesting time in the Leewards. You knew the starboard engine failed in Dominica, but that was ok as we were on a mooring, sorted out the fuel intake thing and we have it working.

We had a rough sail to Antigua, waves breaking over the bimini into the cockpit. But quicker than we thought, arriving in tiny crowded English Harbour around 2pm. I put out 10 metres of chain when the windlass died completely. I had just enough out to get the anchor wrapped around an old mooring line (we didn't know it at the time) so I had to take the helm and Matt struggled to pull it up by hand. My helming was all panic, which made it harder. Matt almost got it up but didn't have the brake on at it all fell back in! After another 20 minutes he got it up, and we saw the old mooring ropes tangled around the anchor. He went back to the helm and flagged down a dinghy and got them to release it and we headed out and to the next bay Falmouth, with Marinas. I wasn't going to anchor again until we had it working. Well the $100US a night for 2 nights was beyond our budget, but while on the dock we were able to ascertain it was the circuit breaker that had failed. We walked for hours to every Chandlery, hardware and electrical shop to no avail. Matt jury rigged it with the Circuit breaker for the electric winch and we went out to anchor in Falmouth.

Meanwhile, my computer was losing the date & time, so we took it to an IT shop. They said no worries, it will be the motherboard battery, come back in an hour. Well when we went back my computer no longer worked, the guy was talking Bios upgrades, and a week later he was unable to fix it and gave it back, dead. Meanwhile Matt’s computer decided to join it and kept freezing up, then gave up. So with the only one IT shop we knew about, we had no choice but to give him Matt’s and keep our fingers crossed. He reckons Vista was corrupt, and backed it up and reinstalled everything and (touch wood) it seems to be working. So we spent 2 ½ weeks waiting on computers. Matt pulled mine apart to see if he could fix it and really put the nail in the coffin, so I am waiting until St Martin to see about a replacement.

But our sagas continued! We decided to leave Falmouth for Jolly Harbour. I had almost got the anchor up when the windlass shut off again (this time because the chain was backed up in the locker and wrapped around the Gypsy). As it was only a couple of feet above the water I put the brake on to stop it falling back in, when the port motor died. The winds were gusting up to 25k, there are mega yachts anchored all around us and we only have the one engine. I tried to release the brake and drop the anchor, but the damned thing was jammed. Matt was having a hard time keeping us off other boats, so I managed to flag down John from Millennium who came on board and helped me release the tangled chain and we dropped the hook in a hurry, hoping like hell we were set.

It turned out to be the fuel intakes pipe – the same as happened on the starboard engine in Dec. On reflection we should have changed both then.

So we waited a couple of days for my nerves to calm down, then headed to Jolly harbour. Nothing broke down; the holding was good and a big supermarket like IGA in Spiceland mall.

In the meantime our friends, who had been stuck in Martinique for 6 weeks waiting on mail, started the mad dash to catch up with us, doing day trips 4 days in a row to finally join us in Jolly. We had not seen them since pre Xmas, so it was nice to catch up.

They had friends arriving on Thursday to sail with them for a few weeks, It was really windy here, but about a week later it was agreed that the 2 boats would head 3 miles around into Deep Bay, then start making our way to Barbuda together.

Well they took off ½ an hour before us and we followed. As it was only 3 miles we were prepared to motor, but they sailed and went offshore a bit more, so got more wind & waves. Just as we rounded 5 Islands they radio us and say they have lost steerage and propulsion, they are heading back and may need a tow in. What!?!?! We have never towed a boat before and there are reefs everywhere, but we slow down for them to return. Next they radio and say they have blown out there main, and they want a tow through the cut back to Jolly. They had the Genoa out and looked like they were sailing ok, but they asked us to come alongside and take their line. Of course the wind and seas picked up, and when they threw the line it hit the Genoa, so Matt had to do a quick U-turn, missing them by a foot. Second attempt I got the line and managed not to drop in and tied in onto the Port rear cleat. Steering with their boat wanting to go in other directions was difficult, and Matt & I decided to forget the cut, and go outside the rocks and back into Jolly. The noises their lines made were scary, as was trying to control our boat. I was so relieved when they finally dropped the anchor and the tow line and we were under control again! So now they are looking for a replacement transmission coupling and sail repairs, and I am trying to get up the courage to sail again.

So if you thought I was “Nervous Nelly” before, you should see “Shaking Stevens”. I am going to look for herbal valium or start drinking with breakfast!

But it wasn’t all bad. After we sorted out the windlass and were waiting on computers, we did enjoy Antigua. We spent a day exploring Nelson’s Dockyard in English harbour.

Officer’s Quarter’s

Lord Nelson as you have never seen her

We took in the history including a nice little museum, a wander up to Fort Berkley (where we watched a mega yacht struggle to pick up its anchors amid all the yachts crammed into the anchorage one of which got towed out of the way by the marina tender!) and a T Shirt shop where Karen bought 5 pairs of board shorts – yes that is five pairs.

We also enjoyed the traditional Sunday evening at Shirley Heights – steel pan band and reggae band with a great barbeque and view of English Harbour.

The Crowd at Shirley Heights was almost as big as the Island Population

English Harbour with Falmouth Harbour in the background

We met up with another Aussie boat Alexes (although Dave was an impostor with an English accent) It was Dave’s birthday so the rum punches flowed freely.

Karen Jenny and Dave (Alexes)

We caught a taxi up to save the walk there and back (which is essential as rum punch makes rubber legs!).

Our Rasta taxi

Of course the neighbourhood we were staying in was none too shabby either. When we went into the marina, we were the second smallest boat there – not something I normally brag about!

Maltese Falcon – just one of many mega yachts we were hanging about

We lazed around Falmouth, enjoying lunch at the yacht club and dinner at the Mad Mongoose where the served Calamari and fat chips and EC$5 rum punches – it was not bad at all. Australia day was coming up and there was a Barbie being held on Galleon beach that we thought we might attend, but in the end we were invited by “Gone with the Wind” (Aussie) to celebrate it with some Canadians and Americans. We gathered up John and Nat from Millennium and met them all for drinks at the Mad Mongoose. As the others left for dinner down at Nelson’s we decided to enjoy the calamari and chips (with a half price bottle of Babich NZ Sauvignon Blanc) once more at the mad mongoose. I could not tear Karen away from the Calamari!

Now it wasn’t all just eating and drinking, we did venture in to St John’s – the capital and wandered the streets. We were caught by a disabled guy who was selling CDs to raise funds for his school. We decided on the reggae CD (Onyan “Baby Food”) and parted with our cash (not cheap but a good cause and local music I kept telling myself). We explored the Cruise dock terminal where Karen found the Body Shop and bought some eye gel, but best of all we found The Australian Ice Cream shop down near the dock. I am not sure what differentiates “Australian” icecream, but it was fantastic! (On our next shopping trip into St John’s we had to go back to introduce our friends to Aussie Ice cream).

You will be disappointed to hear that the CD I bought was effectively a donation, as I think we have listened to the CD the one and only time – it was not that great... I would have preferred to find a copy of “Drinkin’ Rum and Red Bull” and part with my cash for it. I am sure that with a name like that the proceeds go to a good cause!

We spent a couple of days exchanging files and movies with John and Nat and a club burgee with Antigua Yacht Club.

Elizabeth Jordan, the Commodore of the AYC swaps burgees with yours truly

Next we headed up to Jolly Harbour where we relaxed and enjoyed the excursions to Epicurean to shop while awaiting our friend’s arrival. There is a nice beach with white sands, a beach bar and thousands of tourists – we fitted right in. We noted it was perfect for Bocce, which we played later in our stay!

Jolly Harbour itself is like a canal development on the gold coast with every unit having its our dock. I was keen to check them out, ‘cause if Karen wanted to give up the sailing, it seemed like a nice place to park the boat and live out our retirement. Karen thought it was a stupid idea so she will have to keep sailing!

After about 2 weeks at Jolly we started heading north to Deep Bay, which is a nice protected harbour with a white sand beach (you may think I am going on a bit about the white sand beach thing but we haven’t seen too many in the Caribbean – maybe we Aussies are a bit spoilt), a quite resort, a wreck into the entrance of the bay and an old fort on the hill. So there was a bit to do. Fort Barrington was a bit of a rock climb, so Karen made it only half way, meaning sundowners up there were out of the question

But the view of Deep Bay was magnificent

Given we couldn’t have sundowners up at the fort and there was a nice white beach, we mixed up some rum punch (I think my recipe is getting quite good now) and headed into the beach and had a game of bocce! Nature of course had its own plans, and while I was whipping Karen’s but, the clouds built and we headed home without Karen’s inevitable defeat!

Next morning we headed out to the Andes to snorkel the wreck, but alas visibility was 0 and you could only make out the top of the mast, the bow and some of the deck structure. So back to the boat and some forward planning. It looked good for a short hop to Dickenson and then up to Barbuda over the next couple of days so we had an early night (probably watched an episode of Love My Way which Al and Boofa introduced us to last year).

Next day it was off to Dickenson, a nice white sandy beach surrounded by a couple of all inclusive beach resorts and expensive beach bars. We thought about going out for a special Valentines dinner, but in the end we decided to cook up some garlic prawns, have another bottle of Babich and enjoy a quiet romantic night on the boat. All that came off except the quiet bit! The resorts kept the music coming ‘til late at night which encouraged us to head off to Barbuda today!