MsChievous

Eating out is always an adventure in a foreign land. Saturday, Susie found a Mexican restaurant in the marina that had gorgeous online photos of their delectable entrees. Nothing that we couldn’t get at home, but we hadn’t eaten Mexican in a while ( except for Susie's great tacos). When we sat [...]

19 April 2024 | Le Marin, Martinique

Reflections

Our ensign (national flag) has taken a beating this year. They usually last a couple of seasons, but the higher winds we’ve encountered this year have taken their toll, much more so than on other national flags we've seen. That’s probably because other countries’ are usually a single piece of printed [...]

12 April 2024 | Portsmouth, Dominica

All aboard - and hang on!

Susie solved a problem that had been perplexing us since we got to the Caribbean: if we were to swim off the dinghy, how would we get back in?? (The tubes are big, and the freeboard is over a foot.) We considered a variety of steps/stairs, but nothing fit. A common problem was your legs disappearing [...]

10 April 2024 | Anse Joli, Ile de Saintes, Guadeloupe

On the seas again! (Sorry, Willie)

We had a great two weeks home for Summit's 7th (!!) birthday, seeing family and friends and enduring two dumpings, the second of which caused us to scramble and change our return flights - but we made it back to Antigua . There were, of course, lots of boat projects in our bags, but I wasn't expecting [...]

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.

Made it!

27 February 2020 | Panama

James AuBuchon | 80's - with a breeze!!

After an overnight passage from Golfito, we arrived at the entrance of the Panama Canal having traveled 5002 nm from Seattle. Then the fun began - as arriving in the dark and traversing the "parking lot" for the 100 or so ships awaiting transit through the canal was, shall we say, exciting. (It looked like a floating city!) With the help of our agent, we cleared in and were inspected for the canal the next day (Saturday), and he was able to arrange canal transit beginning early Tuesday morning. The transit itself was really uneventful (thankfully) but that's not to say it wasn't interesting. Seeing all that engineering and hard work - over a hundred years old - up close was fascinating. Watching the ships move in and out with just a foot or two on either side was amazing - and turning around and looking up 100 feet at the bow of a freighter 50 feet behind you took some getting used to! Our adviser was very nice and knew his stuff, as did the line handlers, so we were able to enter the locks on time (0730) and exited at 1600. Back in the Atlantic! We then went to Shelter Bay Marina, a very nice (and inexpensive, for a change) marina carved out of the jungle just inside a long breakwater creating a ship anchorage at Colon.

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