Bill
07/10/2012, Whitehouse Bay, St Kitts

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.

philosophy

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Bill
07/09/2012, Basse Terre, St Kitts

Isobel sports a new Batik Dress and learns about adventitious roots...

We woke after a good nights sleep feeling much more rested and found a cute spotted dinghy rowing out to the 12 meter moored beside us. I rowed over as they seemed to be having problems of some sort with there mooring... I was unable to help them, but Philip of sv Kate, a replica of a 1906 12 meter built on St Kitts in 2006 offered to drive us into town to clear in. We gladly accepted.

As it turns out Philip's family goes back to the 1600s on St Kitts and he had some impressive stories about the demise of the sugar industry and some sad stories about the island's attempts to recreate itself after sugar was history.

After clearing in with some very gracious women at Customs and Immigration... and paying a port fee, we had lunch over looking "the Circus" (the town square) and took a taxi to Romney Manor where they have an impressive Batik works and beautiful gardens. Our Taxi driver, Paula took us to the grocery store and stopped to buy some locally brewed Carib Beer, which was quit good... she then drove us back to the south end of the island where our dinghy was waiting for us. It was a brief but fine visit to the island.

the north end of the island is quite lush and has a rainforest, while the south end is arid and undeveloped... for now. There are plans for a huge development and marina: Christopher Harbour.

17 15.049'n:062 39.640'w

other countries and cultures

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Bill
07/08/2012, South end of St Kitts

We had some great sailing for about 24 hours. Our plan had been to sail down the west side of St Kitts and Nevis so they would block the Atlantic swell. And then, a little earlier than forecast, the wind shifted to the SSE... on our nose. So we pulled in close to the shore of St Kitts motored the 9 miles to a nice anchorage at the south end. We have a beautiful view of Nevis to the south and the Volcano rainforest to the north...

Comments [1]

Bill
07/07/2012, anagada passage

18 00.20'N:063 37.57'W

This is a short post while underway. We got underway from Virgin Gorda around 0830. Photo is from the next morning as we arrived at the north end of St Kitts.

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Bill
07/06/2012, Leverick Bay, Vigin Gorda, BVI

I'm not sure how she got up there and what she was doing... but she was having fun!! She must have watched me climb up there to get the sail cover off or on...

I did two main sail projects: We have adjustable batten cars... which I have never taken the time to adjust. So, we will have to see how the boat performs with tight battens...

Also, I replaced the lower nettles, those for the fist reef with some left over 5/16" yale cordage. Carol Hasse had suggested using different line for the first reef so I could differentiate it from the second reef by feel and by eye. I ignored the suggestion back in November... Now, I think it is a pretty good idea.

Lara has been cooking up a bunch of food for the little passage and the boat is as put away as it has been in months, including stowing all of our spare sheets and halyards in a compartment behind the book shelves in the aft cabin... another thing I have been meaning to do since the shelves were installed.

Dinghy is on the bow, Engine is on the stern rail. Trash is ashore, sail cover is off, sun shades are stowed away... and the forecast still looks like we will have wind just north of east to help us sail on one long tack south to Guadeloupe. There will be current against us, so if we don't make it to Guadeloupe by nightfall Sunday, we will go to Antigua or Nevis or Montseratte (the NW corner still has a community on it.)

Comments [1]

Bill
07/05/2012, Leverick Bay, Vigin Gorda, BVI

Well, you must wonder... how do we wash up? Especially here in the tropics, we take a swim then go to the aft deck, where we have a hand-held shower. We do have a shower in the head (bathroom), but it creates another clean-up-project so if we have the privacy and it is warm enough the aft deck is quite nice... view is typically good too!

Comments [1]

Bill
07/05/2012, Leverick Bay, Vigin Gorda, BVI

We left our mooring, dropping the line and furling out the genoa... testing the Monitor as we did the short sail back to Leverick Bay. We returned there because it is easy access to the pass through the reef to leave, there is an OK WiFi connection and there are turtles.

Today there were two turtles near us, one quite big and the other little. It is hard to get anything done because you just want to watch for them for another moment. We have noticed that they surface and pop their head out of the water two or three times to breath... then dive for a minute or two... beautiful.

Comments [1]

Bill
07/04/2012, Gun Creek and Bitter End

Ice, now that is another pleasure that we can afford. I have always wanted to take the time to calculate how many amp/hours it takes to freeze a quart of water... There are several things that allow us to have ice. This is a big deal on a boat... often only a dream. It used to be a dream for us too, until:
-We installed a 12 volt, "keel cooled" freezer/refrigerator made by Frig-a-boat.(during the 2008-2009 re-fit)
-we installed the solar panels (2010)
-We redesigned the galley counter-top (2011) so we could put an ice tray into the freezer.
-Our friends on Rouac gave us one of their vertical ice trays (2012). (remember, we are a sailboat, and we may lean over (heel), so a normal ice tray would not work well!)

So, we often make iced coffee in the morning... a real treat!

Today we had to go back to BVI customs and clear in and out, again. We had told them in Road Town that we were leaving by the first... and we didn't. So now we are cleared back in and out to leave by Saturday. Currently the forecast looks like the wind will again go north of 90 degrees east which will make for an easier trip to St Martin. After the visit to customs and immigration in Gun Creek we motored across the North Sound to the Bitter End Yacht Club.

We heard they were having some live music and we (especially Isobel) has been starved for live music. Since we don't have our supplemental anchor rode ready to deploy we only have 200' of chain.It was clear that the Bitter End Yacht Club had put moorings in every spot 50' or shallower... so, for music, we coughed up the $30 mooring fee... only to find that they DON'T have music tonight!! Ah well...

It is a much more peaceful anchorage than Leverick Bay, so I was able to complete my work on the Monitor wind-vane steering... reinstalling the water paddle with a new release cord. With the boat still, I also went to work on the toilet. On this boat, the flush is manual, and we were having a water leak around the pump piston. That job was easier than I thought... whew!

Oh and Fourth of July... well we figure that is a date the British choose to ignore!
18 29.830'n:064 21.669'w

Comments [1]

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

Comments [2]

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

Comments [3]