Here, Isobel has lost her sense of humor on some long slog off the south coast of the Dominican Republic... We try to encourage her to "ride the bucking bronco", look at the clouds and see what you can see, sing "farmer in the dell" and make up new lyrics, etc... but at a certain point it is just not fun going to windward...

We are sitting here, in St Kitts, realizing that we are finally "east". For those of you who don't sail, the most rigorous point of sail is sailing up wind. In the tropics that means sailing east. Why rigorous? Mostly because you are sailing into the waves, as the waves travel (normally) in the same direction as the wind. Since you are sailing into them, you add your speed to the speed the waves are traveling... and that means that the boat is going up and down quickly with each wave... And when sailing into the wind, the boat is heeled (leaning) over. So, sailing to windward the boat is leaning over and going up and down a lot... not ideal for doing daily life!

This is why the route from Florida to the Eastern Caribbean is called the Thorny Path. There are two authors who have sold lots of books on "The thornless path"... Having come this route over the past few months and adheared to the advice of these two authors... we feel they are really praying on the hope and fear of cruisers. Hope that there is an easy way east and fear of an ocean passage. We think they are full of it!! The path is thorny, which ever way you do it.

We don't regret the places we have seen and people we have met... but, would we do it again? NO. I would say that, for those who have been to the Bahamas several times and feel like a little bigger stretch, go to Haiti. That is a great trip and takes you to a clearly new and wonderful caribbean country. When you are done, turn around and sail back to the Bahamas or Florida (or go to Cuba...)

If you want to sail to the Eastern Caribbean, sail offshore from no further south than NC. Obviously watch the weather... but you can be there in 10 days! On the way home, visit all the places we have, in reverse. Sailing down wind, and down current. How dreamy it would be to pole out a couple head sails... be able to read and cook and walk about... then choose a port based on what is there rather than thinking it is a place you can tolerate reaching.

Of course the one thing that is nice about how we have done the trip is that most places have not been busy or over crowded... on the other hand we miss having other cruisers around to socialize with, brainstorm with and explore with. And now we are almost as far east as we care to go... so at least now we can ease the sheets and sail in a little more comfort. And yet, we have to keep a "weather eye" as hurricane season is upon us and we need to be ready to bolt south when our weather says go.

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The squall swept through at about 11 am, dropping hail the size of peas for a few minutes... Ten minutes later the sun was hitting the foliage on the New York side, highlighting the beginning of the color change. This is my favorite part of the foliage season, when a few trees are brilliant against the background of green. No one is on the lake today... well almost no one. We chased a burgundy hulled sail boat for a few minutes before opting to drop the anchor in Owlshead Bay and hang out for the day. After anchoring Lara headed for her berth to curl up with a book under a down comforter. I tidied up a few lines and chatted with some women passing in Kayaks. That is when the squall blew through. A 25 knot wind is not much for big Be Here Now. Lara didn't even notice. I rigged the anchor snubber just in case.
It was a lazy day; we haven't had much time hanging out on the boat this year. June the boat was in CT being worked on, July it rained, August we worked. September we sailed in Hurricane Ike, which was fun, and we didn't get much down time. Today we get to hang out here in the sun (yup, it's out now!) and read, putter and sleep until we meet a rigger at 2 pm... Well, probably nap time now...

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Photo is of Be Here Now II across the wharf from Little Dipper.

On the boat, on a mooring in Newport. Tired... Can't believe we can reach in the fridge and grab a cold beer! Lara is cooking up some Indian food! Indie is lying up in the cockpit. The wind generator whirs. We have spent the past two days learning Celestial Navigation from Tim Queeney at Ocean Navigator. Although neither of us feels that we are quite ready to cast off tomorrow and sail across the Pacific, we both feel we have the concepts and, with a little more practice, we will be able to navigate using the stars, moon and sun. As it turns out, Celestial navigation is not too complicated. It requires simple math and patience.

We also had lots of practice this weekend moving the boat around in tight spaces. Several times we were on and off Bowen's Wharf, each time turning the boat in between the wharf and the next one over... If felt like we were turning our 38' boat in about 40' of space... in reality, maybe we had 45 feet. The boat handles very well under power. We demonstrated several times that one can rotate the boat 180 degrees with out really moving. We both agree that we love the boat!!

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