MsChievous

Livin' the life!

Vessel Name: MsChievous
Vessel Make/Model: Hylas 49
Hailing Port: Robinhood, Maine
Crew: Susan and Jim AuBuchon
About: Livin' the life - finally!
20 March 2024 | Jolly Harbour, Antigua
18 March 2024 | Deep Bay, Antigua
08 March 2024 | Deshaies, Guadeloupe
05 March 2024 | Terre de Haut, Ile des Saintes, Guadeloupe
03 March 2024 | Prince Rupert Bay, Dominica
01 March 2024 | Prince Rupert Bay, Dominica
25 February 2024 | St. Pierre
23 February 2024 | St. Pierre
15 February 2024 | Le Marin, Martinique
12 February 2024 | Admiralty Bay, Bequia
10 February 2024 | Admiralty Bay, Bequia
30 January 2024 | Admiralty Bay, Elizabethtown, Bequia, SVG
29 January 2024 | Tobago Cays, SVG
25 January 2024 | Sandy Lane Yacht Club, Canouan, SVG
23 January 2024 | Chatham Bay, Union Island
20 January 2024 | Tyrell Bay, Carriacou, Grenada
14 January 2024 | Chaguaramas, Trinidad
09 January 2024 | Chaguaramas, Trinidad
23 May 2023 | Chaguaramas, Trinidad
01 February 2023 | Tyrell Bay, Carriacou, Grenada
Recent Blog Posts
20 March 2024 | Jolly Harbour, Antigua

Italian tonight!

Last night in the islands before we head home for a few days. Susie does great Italian dinners, but we're eating out tonight. (Last night, too - great Mexican wraps aka burritos and margaritas that took us down for the count!) Finished up our pre-departure projects today and had a refreshing dip in the [...]

18 March 2024 | Deep Bay, Antigua

Antigua

We've been having such a good time on Antigua that I forgot to keep posting! The clearance was tortuous (2 hours and most of the forms filled out online - and printed - were ignored!) but things got better quickly. English Harbour and Falmouth were filled with megayachts, and we got to see some behomoth beauties sailing. We went to a community BBQ (with reggae and steel drum band) atop a beautiful vantage point (Shirley Heighrs) with two other Hylas owners and ran into other friends we had made several islands ago. They are a delightful young British couple who sailed across the pond earlier this year, and we shared the wild beauty of Antigua's (shallow, reef-strewn) North Sound a few days later. We're now heading to the marina where we'll leave MsChievous for 10 days while we head home for a "vacation" and Summit's birthday.

08 March 2024 | Deshaies, Guadeloupe

Another old friend

We've returned to Deshaies (day-hay) in northwestern Guadeloupe - our first landfall south of the Virgins two years ago. We had a delightful three days in the Ile de Saintes and spent one of them on a ferry/rental car adventure to the big city of Pointe-a-Pitre (Clown Point -!!) to their spice market. Got a lot of nice stuff. Had a great dinner at a restaurant on the island we've visited before, and it didn't disappoint our memories. Today was a 12-mile sail to get to the leeward side of Guadeloupe, then a 20-mile motor in flat seas to our destination. This town is far smaller than Terre de Haut but equally charming - and with another spectacular restaurant we'll visit Sunday before heading to Antigua. Saturday, we plan on visiting the lively botanical garden - more fun with old friends!

05 March 2024 | Terre de Haut, Ile des Saintes, Guadeloupe

Retour a France

Ah...after a mid-morning stop at a cafe for filled muffins, lunch was in a delightful garden. Can't get too much foie gras, Susie says, especially when combined with live jazz. (Are we in t h e Caribbean or Paris?) We're in the Ile des Saintes, 15 miles south of the main island of Guadeloupe. It was a beautiful sail from Dominica yesterday (after the rain quit midday) but all the moorings and reasonable anchorage spots were taken by the time we arrived. We retreated to a nearby island (Terre de Bas) for a reasonably comfortable evening. A friend from Dominica was leaving the mooring they had at 0630, so we got up early and are now moored close to town. After an enjoyable stroll, a sit in the park and our repasts, we are returning to the boat for afternoon snoozes. Tomorrow we hope to take the ferry to the mainland big town (Point-a-Pitre) to visit the markets - if we can figure out the ferry schedule!

03 March 2024 | Prince Rupert Bay, Dominica

Into every life (or day)...

It's a quiet Sunday morning in Portsmouth, Dominica, made more so by the rain showers that started around 7:30 and are supposed to cease by 10. We'll see - forecasting is more guesswork than science here, and you don't get jungles and tropical rain forests without frequent rain. (Most common time for rain is 5-7 am it seems, but brief showers can come over the mountains at any time. It's warm, so getting wet isn't a real threat. Wearing a raincoat would make one wetter!) At least we can keep our cockpit dry and enjoy the (drippy) view. I did get a little rust removal in before the rain, part of the never-ending battle to make MsChievous look pristine. We are hoping to take the dinghy on a "shore tour" later and then get ready for the big beach barbecue tonight. (Not to worry - there's a picnic shelter on the beach if it sprinkles.)

01 March 2024 | Prince Rupert Bay, Dominica

New Discoveries

It is said that Columbus became so frustrated trying to explain Dominica's topography to the Spanish royalty that he resorted to crumpling up a sheet of paper and throwing it on the floor. Dominica is a beautifully verdant and abundantly productive Isle of dizzying switchbacks, deep valleys and sharp volcanic peaks (9 of which are still considered active). The people of Portsmouth toward the northern end of the island have figured out how to turn their beautiful Bay into a cruisers' paradise by providing moorings, security, land and water tours and even a weekly beach barbecue. Everyone is related here (and they all have huge families) so feeling welcomed and at home comes quickly. We took a day-long cross-island tour where we saw every imagineable crop being raised in jungle mountainside settings, hiked through a rainforest, forded a stream to a waterfall, walked on a spectacular ocean promontory and visited a chocolate farm/factory (founded by 2 "Bohemian Scots aristocrats" in the 30s and now run by their grandson). Today's adventure was paddling up a mangrove- and palm-lined river - ending at a "bush bar"! This end of the island seems to have figured out how to recover from a Cat 5 hurricane far better than the other (capitol) end! We plan to do some swimming and snorkeling and depart Monday for Isle de Saintes off the south coast of Guadeloupe. Have been meeting and making friends with more cruisers, many from New England, and trading lots of interesting stories and experiences!

Paperwork Cha-cha

07 February 2020 | Off Playa del Coco
James AuBuchon | Clear - 85F
Much has been written about the intricacies of clearing into a country. All of this has been grossly understated.

We approached entry into Costa Rica at Playa del Coco anticipating it would take a full day. It ended up taking 12 hours over two days. (This was after staying on the boat over the weekend because the offices weren't open then.) I started at 7 am at the Port Captain's office. They didn't want any of my pre-printed information, but their forms only took 10 minutes to complete. I was then directed to Immigration, 3 blocks down the street. Wow! This is going great! Well, not so fast. There was no sign of life at the Immigration office until 8 am when the cleaning lady arrived. She kindly offered me a seat inside (and a cup of coffee) and soon telephoned the boss - who said he could not get there until 11 am. Well, actually, it was 11:45 - and then I filled out pretty much all the same paperwork again. Except, unlike everything that is written, he wanted all the crew there - so I had to go back out in the dinghy (through the surf....) to retrieve Susie - to whom he tossed her passport out through a barely open door. Then, back to the Port Captain's office where I exchanged some Immigration paperwork for another form and was directed to Customs - at the airport, a 25-minute drive away! (Amazingly, they have Uber in Playa del Coco!) There, I stood waiting for 2.5 hours until they finally deigned to create the necessary paperwork, and then it was a $50 cab ride back to the town. Of course, by now, it was after 3 pm, and the Port Captain's office was closed. I returned at 7 am the next morning to get my clearance papers to go 5 miles to the marina. That was completed in 15 minutes - but if I wanted it before 8am, I had to pay $20. (I waited.) On checking in at the marina, we discovered that even though I needed clearance papers to get there, I needed clearance papers from the same office in Playa del Coco to leave! (We got those the next day when we had a car to go grocery shopping at a very nice supermarket - 200 yards down from the Port Captain's office.) All this bureaucracy, amazingly, does nothing for their economy as the only thing I paid for was transportation. Why make it so inefficient and complicated??
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MsChievous's Photos - Main
The pain and beauty....
7 Photos
Created 1 February 2023
Kayaking and walking in the Nariva Swamp
No Photos
Created 15 January 2023
Photos of The Gallery Inn, Cannons (replete with parrots), and Viejo San Juan
21 Photos
Created 10 March 2022
See post
2 Photos
Created 1 February 2022
The life and times of the crew of MsChievous in the Sommer Isles.
7 Photos
Created 3 January 2022
To and through the Panama Canal
16 Photos
Created 27 February 2020
13 Photos
Created 14 February 2020
9 Photos
Created 15 November 2019

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01 February 2023
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