Niels Hauge at the Soggy Dollar Bar, Jost Van Dyke.

My cousin' Niels got some of the best sailing we have had with guests ever.
Unlike Mike Warren ( all upwind with a harness ), Ross ( having to jump overboard to plug a truhull ), Steve and Connie ( constant rain ) and Dave and Jackie ( rain and no wind ), Niels had 350 NM of either good reaching in 20 knots of breeze or downwind in 25! Does not get much better.
Here is a link to "Niels conditions".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yv72P1E2SSc

We covered Guadeloupe, Antigua, Barbuda ( where Niels not only got in the water for the first time in 25 years, but also perfected the Jack Coustau backflip off a dinghy and promptly filled his mask with water before joining in an impromptu beach party with other cruisers. Judy was especially impressed with his Barbuda Stunt, where he, doing his first beach landing in a dinghy, did a quick faceplant in the sand but came up with Rum and Coke unharmed, St. Martin where Judy got a hair cut and where we spend an extra day due to a slight problem with the starter solenoid, and where we scored a treasure of cruising guides and charts to Northern Europe from Paul and Sharyl Shard of Distant Shores 2. THey make a great TV show about cruising and had recently come back from a couple of years in Northern Europe - we put a link to their site under 'favorites'St. Croix complete with a visit to the Fort and a great Greek dinner with our friend Robert the Realtor, Foxy's AND The Soggy Dollar Bar on Jost van Dyke, a great farewell dinner at Cooper Island Beach Club and finally..........our first anchor dragging in the middle of the night in 3 years of cruising! Yep, after that great dinner with cocktails and 2 bottles of wine, the wind came up around midnight. When I got up to shut the hatches I glanced at the GPS to see how we were doing on our anchor waypoint. It was 250 yards away, our SOG was 2 knots and the depth was 80 feet.........did I mention that we were about 2 boat lengths away from a charter boat. I had actually gone over earlier that afternoon to help them set their anchor as they were having a hard time. Their anchor held fine, we had to pull ours and ended up motoring to Roadtown, Tortola to drop again around 2 AM.
Niels was a great visitor - this was his first time in the Caribbean, but he is a life long sailor, so having him on the was great for us - he used a lot less electricity than the autopilot, kept all his gear in his own cabin, helped us modify our strict "let's have a beer at noon routine" to incorporate some time zone further East and was fun to have around. He had been reading up on the places we were going, one highlight for him was probably a dink trip to the birthplace of the 'Painkiller'. He had been practicing at home for a while making them, now he knows the real stuff when it comes his way!
Thanks for coming, Niels.