11/03/2012, Prickly Bay, Grenada

Isobel after a day at school, food, a swim, a shower... feeling like Lara and I have felt the past couple weeks...

Again, it has been a while since the last post.... ah and now I really have a good reason! No the dog didn't eat it.... We have been on a cleanse! Now is when you say, "what are you talking about?"

For those of you who don't know Lara, she is very committed to health, especially ours. And while in VT a month ago we visited a woman who diagnosed Lara with an infestation called Candita (sp?) She suggested a special diet. Lara read up on it and studied it and finally said that she would do it. I said I would do it too, since it is a whole lot better for two to eat the same thing, and we could encourage each other... etc...

Well, note to self: Read The Fine Print! I had no idea what I was getting into! No potatoes, pasta, breads. No dairy, no caffeine, no alcohol. No legumes (beans, peas, etc) No grains (rice, wheat, oats, no nothing!) So, you are probably saying what I started to say on day two or three, "What can you eat." Let me tell you:
breakfast is yogurt with almonds and some berries. Lunch Eggs with some sautéed vegetables. Dinner: Salad with chicken or beef... oh and the only vinegar we can have is apple cider vinegar!!

So... what happened, you ask. After two days I was feeling like I had run the VT 50 the day before. Everything was a huge effort (Lara said she told me that would happen...) about day 4 I got a huge sinus infection (Lara said she told me that might happen, too..) Anyway, tomorrow will be two weeks... and I must say that now, I feel pretty good. It is very exciting because tomorrow we can add Legumes and brown rice to our meals... And, in two weeks, I can have a cup of coffee in the morning and a beer in the evening... (but it is best to not daydream...

Cruising lifestyle

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Bill
08/12/2012, Prickly Bay Grenada

At some point the chain stripper was broken off our windlass. This is a little finger that pops the chain from the windlass and allows it to drop down in the chain locker. This has not been a problem... until now...

A couple years ago I had reversed the chain, end for end, as the links had been worn over the years and I wanted to get another couple years out of it. Since most of our anchorages have been shallow, this has worked well as the worn chain stayed in the anchor locker. Currently we are in 30 feet of water. We like to have 5:1 scope, meaning that we put our 150' of chain... so that put the worn chain over the bow.

Now, if you have ever ridden a bike with a worn chain, you will know that the chain has the tendency to be caught by the sprocket and pulled around the sprocket... with a windlass we call the sprocket the "gipsy". Well, without a chain stripper, the chain wants to go around and not fall off the gipsy....

So... I have the windlass off. And while I am at it, I should change the oil in the windlass.... and I should redo the rubber in the teak decks under the windlass... and I should clean up the windlass motor... Well, you get the drift of it... Hopefully I will get everything back together before the next tropical wave comes through on wednesday!

Cruising lifestyle

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Bill
08/12/2012, Prickly Bay Grenada

It is hard to capture the more than a 1000 boats that are "on the hard" in this one boat yard. All put up by folks that have left their boat for the season.

Thousands of boats flock to Grenada for the Hurricane season. Grenada is at about 12 degrees north of the Equator at the very southern edge of the hurricane belt. It sees a hurricane every 50 years as compared to islands north of here that can see 5 a year. South of 11 degrees north is considered "out of the box"... so some people take their boats to Trinidad, Columbia, or Panama.

For us, Grenada was the choice because it has a huge cruising community as compared to Trinidad, where boats are normally left for the season... Should our weather guy, Caribbean Weather, tell us there was a hurricane coming here, we could sail to Trinidad in less than 24 hours.

Around us in Prickly Bay, I counted 80 boats at anchor. There are 4 or 5 bays like this filled with cruisers here for the season. People work on their boats, get together for Yoga, running, shopping, snorkeling, etc...

Cruising lifestyle

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Bill
07/21/2012, Deshaies, Guadeloupe

One of my ongoing projects is to clean the bottom. What grows is different depending on where we are. In the nutrient rich waters of Florida there was a green algae that grew. Once in clear water barnacles slowly accumulate... and other little things that I think are the beginnings of a reef!

Normally I can do about 1/3 of one side of the boat in a session, by free diving. As you can imagine this requires a lot of dives, especially since I burn up my oxygen by scrapping...

The other day another cruiser came in to Deshaies and we went by to say hi... Some how we came to the topic of bottom cleaning and he ended up telling me about, then lending me his "snuba", which is basically a scuba regular with a long hose between the primary regulator and the secondary regulator (mouthpiece). This allowed me to leave a tank on the deck and dive on the bottom with the ease of snorkeling, but with about 2 hours of air...

I was able to clean the entire bottom and change the prop zinc in about 2 hours... in a pretty relaxed fashion. I will have to see if I can find myself a setup like that!!

Cruising lifestyle

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Bill
07/03/2012, Leverick Bay, Vigin Gorda, BVI

Well every day begins with a little Coffee. Currently we are using the Pomarosa coffee that we bought from our friend Kurt at Hacienda Pomarosa in Puerto Rico. His suggestion was that no electric grinder will give a consistent grind... and so one will never have a consistent cup of coffee. Lara found this Kyocera Ceramic grinder. And we are quite sure that we can taste the difference. And, we don't need electricity. And it is a coveted early morning activity.

We have spent the past couple days doing boat work and organization. I installed a foot pump at the galley sink. This will allow us to use water more efficiently and eliminates some electrical (pump) use. I also rerouted the Monitor Wind Vane control lines. Since I installed the secondary winches, I have not been happy with how the lines ran from the Wind-vane to the wheel. Now they have a better lead through the blocks and a reduced trip hazard as they run across the coaming and aft coachroof.

We have been feeling that we have been on vacation the past month, with the beautiful bays and great snorkeling... as well as easy sailing and peaceful anchorages. And maybe it is because we are constantly surrounded by charter boats filled with people who are clearly on vacation. Today, there must have been some kind of Pirate festival... we watched all the charter boat people loading into their dinghies dressed in Pirate garb including some women clearly going for the wench look. Now, at 9pm the music with a throbbing beat is starting...

and for us, the vacation meant entropy! Piles of laundry (how many shorts and T-shirts do we have?), lots of various things in need of repair, extended tax returns needing filing, piles of sea shells and little cups of "special" sand on the decks and a hill of desk work needing completion.

This is a good place for this. No distractions. On land, a marina/resort that has an overpriced tiny grocery store, and a couple expensive restaurants. The water is not as clear as other places... leading us to jump off the boat when we are hot, but not linger. So, we have moved the boat much closer to being ready to go to sea. Hopefully this weekend we will see another opportunity to sail to St Martin.

18 29.975'n:064 23.431'w

Cruising lifestyle

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Bill
07/02/2012, Virgin Gorda

When we cleared in the other day at Road Harbor, BVI, there was no dinghy dock. The sea-weed had filled the area by the ladder, so we tied up to a big cleat... should have noticed the very well warn tire-fender! Live and learn!

In the realm of items we are thankful for: Water Maker is one of the top things. Not a requirement for cruising... yet it has changed our lives. I installed it in February and since then we have not had to go anywhere to get water!! And we have been places where there were not places to go for water (Haiti and Cape Beata come to mind). At a seminar we attended one of the speakers said that you could subsist on rain water collection. Before the water maker we did that a couple times. And, what makes me think about the water maker and write this morning is the fact that we had a rain shower this morning for the first time in a long time. I think we had some squalls off the south coast of Haiti... Today's shower did not last long enough to wash off the decks...

For those techies: We installed a Spectra Ventura 150. There manual version. This system makes 6+ gallons an hour and uses about 1 amp/hr to make 1 gallon. We power it totally with solar and wind generated 12 volt electricity. Right now at 0810 we are making 15 amps with wind and solar... that will go up as the sun rises. We will make water all day, charge our batteries fully keep our fridge and freezer cold with sun and wind. Our poor engine has hardly run since we left PR. We have been sailing into and out of anchorages and the mooring fields at the USVIs. When we leave here, we will run the engine to help power the windlass as we have 130' of 3/8" chain and a 45 spade anchor out!

Cruising lifestyle

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Bill
07/01/2012, Cruz Bay St John

One reason (other than the generally greatness and beauty) for hanging out in St John was to wait for our new WiFi antenna. For those of you who follow our blog, you will have noticed that we haven't been posting regularly for weeks. Thanks to Towndock.net we have had this NanoStation wifi antenna which allows us to pick up wifi sites on shore.... and this allows us to blog, check weather, email and surf the internet from the comfort of our boat.

Being the great guy that he is, Keith also included a couple cool gifts for Isobel... he knew well that if I were getting a present, she would need something too! Thanks Keith!

This post is late because we had so much un-expressed blogging to do and photos to post...

Cruising lifestyle

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Bill
06/30/2012, Virgin Gorda Sound

After a great morning at the Baths including snorkeling and bouldering we had a late start to the north end of Virgin Gorda. The plan was to sail up and anchor off Necker Island to take a nap and organize the boat... Well, we arrived at Necker Island around 4:30 pm which was when we should have been sailing to St Martin... the boat was not in shape and we had not napped (except Isobel!).

Even with the wind slightly north of east, which would had made for a more direct trip... we called it a NO GO and sailed into Virgin Gorda Sound. We hope we will have another opportunity like this one... typically the wind is on the nose and would require tacking to St Martin.


18 29.980'n:064 23.429'w

Cruising lifestyle

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06/26/2012

Isobel is a great help hanging the laundry...but she gets a little too excited about taking it down. She runs back and forth bringing items back to the cockpit that are not quite done baking yet!

Cruising lifestyle

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Bill
06/20/2012, Coral Bay, St John, USVI

We had lots of surplus power and calm waters... and the threads were flying from the genoa... So, I pulled out the sewing machine and set up a loft on the aft deck. I got pretty good at peddling with my knee!

We finally broke out of Watermelon Cay to move around to Coral Bay... This is considered "the other side" of the island. One person from Cruz Bay said, "We have chickens and they (in Coral bay) have goats!"

First thing we notice are lots more sailboats and lots of people coming home to them at the end of the day. Already we have met a Dutch family who has been here a year so their six year old daughter could go to school here (and learn English). We will explore town tomorrow...

And try to find some Wifi, so we can load photos and some other blog entries I wrote over the past few days. We have to get our wifi antenna sorted out...

Cruising lifestyle

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