Sail Blog 3

February 2014

Barbuda

We sailed from Antigua in winds of 14 to 15 knots for about 4 hours to arrive in Spanish Point. The waters are dotted with coral & the reef infested waters had attested to some 200+ shipwrecks. The guides describe the trip for "experienced reef navigators only". We needed to plan our arrival when the sun was directly above us or behind us so you could spot the reefs underwater. I was a nervous wreck looking over the bow trying to direct Michael where to go to stay clear of the reefs, but we made it accident free. We anchored with only one other Cat besides our Boating Buddy Yachtsman's Dream. Over the course of the next week we made our way from Spanish Point around to Low Bay outside the lagoon to the capital of Codrington.

We took a day trip into the capital of Codrington via water taxi through the lagoon since it was too far & rough to dinghy. As soon as we arrived in town Michael pointed out the large red channel marker that originated in Eastern Canada & then drifted over to Europe before it made it's way to Barbuda. We told a Local that we were going to take it back to Canada & he explained that the Canadian government told them they could keep it :)

We walked the quiet streets with very few people around other than a group gathered around in the center of town having a fish fry. They tried to convince us to try a fish, but we saw they were all reef fish. We're a little concerned about ciquetera poisoning with reef fish & passed on the fish.

We wandered into a little home boutique called Art Cafe. We had a great chat with the owner Claire. She gave us a history lesson on Barbuda past & present. We had some lunch at a local eatery before making our way back to the anchorage.

The beaches were amazing! They must be the most beautiful beaches in the Caribbean. We beached the dinghy (with John's help) on a pink sandy beach to take the dogs for a swim & a game of fetch. The beach stretched for miles with no one else to be seen. This was my vision of sailing around the Caribbean.

We snorkeled everyday in the gorgeous clear brilliant turquoise blue waters. Underwater the snorkeling was fabulous with clear vision of all the fish around the reefs. We saw several different fish & turtles. Lela showed me an octopus hiding under a rock ledge. Michael attempted to capture us supper, but only managed to get one lobster. We made a lobster spread to share at our nightly supper get togethers. We hopped boat to boat each night so only one of us had to cook. John seemed to think that Lela & I had a competition going on the best food, but really we are both good cooks. I think that John & Michael were just happy they benefited from the good food.

Back to Antigua

We headed back to Jolly Harbour from Barbuda in light winds that got lighter as we reached Antigua until we hit winds of 2 knots & we needed to motor into the Harbour. Lela & I felt that we needed a day away from the guys so we headed by bus to St. John's for a day of shopping. We wandered store to store & had some lunch & great gelato when we found this nice jewelry store. That's where John bought Lela a belated anniversary present & Michael bought me an early Easter present (of course they didn't know it at the time :)). We took a second bus ride out to the large grocery store to stock up before taking the 2 bus rides back to Jolly Harbour. Walking from the bus stop to the dinghy dock we were approached by a lady selling pastries from the back of her van. We tried an elephant ear as a sample & we were hooked! We bought elephant ears, cinnamon buns & doughnuts. She told us she was there Tuesdays & Fridays from 16:00 to 18:00. Michael is now in love with elephant ears!

A couple of days later we all headed to Falmouth/ English Harbour. We toured the Nelson Dock Yard & walked around to see the town. We saw a poster at the Marina for the Annual Antigua Dog Show for that Sunday & thought it would be fun to go with our dogs. Sunday came & the Show started at noon & we had plans to visit friends for drinks at 15:00 before leaving at 17:00 for supper & drinks at Shirley Heights. Shirley Heights is located at the top of the hill overlooking Falmouth/ English Harbour where weekly you can have supper & listen to a steel drum band play music for a few hours until another band plays out until about midnight.

So our time was limited for the dog show but we all piled in the dinghy & headed across the bay to dock & walk another kilometer to reach the dog show. We knew our time was limited so I entered the boys in the first 2 categories. Well "Island Time" was in effect & it was 14:00 & it was time to go. We passed in our registration & explained we had to go. She said they would do our category next if we stayed, but we didn't have time & we headed down the long driveway. I saw all the prizes & decided that we could stay a little while longer. We rushed back to get our id badges & the competition began for Condition & Movement. Chester & I made the first cut from 20 down to the top 4. We did our final walk & trot around & they called off the names & Chester was first! He won a 50lb bag of dog food, several large cans of food, a T-shirt, food dish & a bottle of drink mix. The problem now was getting everything back to the boat. Michael carried the food & I carried the rest & walked the dogs for the long walk back. We rushed back & were a little late for our friends, but had a great time for drinks & dinner at Shirley Heights.

Once again it was time to say good bye to our friends on Yachtsman's Dream. They were heading back to St. Maarten to meet up with Lela's cousins arriving on a cruise ship. Her cousins would only be there for a day but it had been some time since she saw them & it was worth the trip. We would see them again later in Guadeloupe. They were very generous & offered to pick up a shipment from the USA for us & more dog food for the crew.

We were staying in Falmouth Harbour for a few more days before heading to Guadeloupe. On Lela & my last trip to St. John's, I bought Michael a Speedo at a store called Sunseekers, but it was too small. There was another Sunseekers store in Falmouth so we decided to stop in for a larger size. We purchased him a new pair & headed to the bus stop for a trip to St. John's for the day & out to Jolly Harbour. We were leaving the next day & we would clear out from Jolly Harbour & do some grocery shopping there. (It happened to be Friday & the elephant ear lady would be in Jolly Harbour). We made it home & later that night I was unpacking our bags & took out Michael's Speedo. I went to crumple the small bag & throw it out when I noticed something still in the bag. I assumed it was just a tag, but I pulled out a $100 US bill & two $100 EC bills! It is still a mystery how they got there, but we added it to the cruising kitty.

We sailed off to Guadeloupe the next day.

Sail Blog 2

January 2014 - February 2014

The weather is the same here everyday. Temperatures are 80 - 86, sunny with a chance of showers. The showers last only a few minutes, but it pours rain for those few minutes & then the sun comes out again.

The more I thought about the fact we were still going to need to travel as Why Knot for several weeks before we could change the name the more I thought there must be something I could do to change that. Of course Michael tells me there isn't because it's the government policy, but that just made it a challenge for me to do. I tried to reach the right person several times but either our phone had no service or I received a voicemail to leave a message. I left a message & someone had called my sister back (technically our home phone number on the application) within the 48 hours & said she could only get a message that the number we gave her was out of service, ugh Caribbean phone service! I kept calling until I finally reached Sylvie! I explained our situation of where we were now & the phone & mail service & she seemed sympathetic. I told her we mailed the original & the cost to courier. She agreed to approve the name change now but if she didn't get the original by the end of February we would need to resend the papers. I agreed & she emailed us the formal documents. I haven't changed much.

We are now officially "Nauti Dog" out of Halifax.

One morning on the Cruiser's Net we heard a boat called Banyon from Halifax arrived in St. Maarten. A couple of day before we were ready to leave I hailed them & we met up at a local Cruiser's restaurant & bar for lunch. Dave & Alex are about our age & had been cruising for about 2 years. They seemed great & we hope to meet up with them again on our way down Island.

We removed the old boat & port names & applied the new Nauti Dog & Halifax decals. We were told by other Yachties that there was a whole ritual involved or there would be nothing but bad luck on the boat. I looked up online the ritual & it involves a ceremony of praises to the wind & sea gods, removing anything that had the previous name written & breaking champagne over the bows. We removed anything written & I read the words to appease the gods, but we had no wine or champagne. So we called it complete or so we thought...

Our weather window closed for the 28th as the winds picked up to over 25knots so it now looked like Saturday, February 1. We rushed around to get all our last minute errands completed & decided Saturday morning we would go over our check list, fuel up & head to the northern island of Tintamarre for the night & then to St. Bart's early Sunday morning. It was still a little more windy than we liked so after we fueled up & decided to anchor to put a reef (or 2) in the sail before heading out. We went to raise the main sail, but it wouldn't raise all the way to the top. In fact it wouldn't go up or down after we had it three quarters raised. We found out that one of the cars that carry the main up the mast had seized the ball bearings & snapped off. Michael dingied to 3 of the local marine supply stores for a replacement, but we needed a rigging store to get a replacement & they wouldn't be open until Monday.

Of course Michael doesn't believe in superstitions, but just in case I will be buying champagne really soon.

So still stuck in St Martin. We decide to motor to Friars Bay for the night just for some place different. We looked up the part we needed on line & found a place in Marigot that should have it not far from where we were. The weather still looks good for Monday & Tuesday so hopefully we can get moving soon.

We went to the local grocery store & I got a bottle of champagne & we completed the ritual, ahhh, all will be good now.

We made it to the shop on Monday & the owner said he could order the part but to be safe to bring our boat to him & he would inspect the track to see if we needed anything else before he placed the order. The problem is that the shop is on the inside of the lagoon & the boat is not. So we needed to wait until the bridge opened at 9am Tuesday morning go through the bridge opening & try to maneuver our way through the shallow lagoon (with no charts) & dock between two other yachts with barely enough space for us to fit, no problem! We only ran aground (softly) once :)

The track was good & the parts were ordered & expect to arrive in a week, but we're not holding our breathe. The part needed to come from France!

For a change of scenery we decided to motor around from the French side back to the Dutch side. The couple we had met on Banyon were anchored on the Dutch side also & we hoped that maybe we could hook up with them again. I hailed them a couple of days after arriving to see if they wanted to meet but they couldn't that night but the following day a bunch of Cruisers were meeting at the Yacht club for drinks & we were invited to come along.

We met several different people including another couple from Nova Scotia, Dick & Deb on a boat pronounced R Scrawl, but I have no ideal how it's spelled. We also got to spend some time with Cheryl & Paul from the boat Distant Shores II. They are the couple that cruise around filming the TV series Distant Shores. They will be in St Maarten for a couple of week & are then heading north to arrive in Maine for the summer of 2014.

We met Tom on Dancing Bear who was getting ready to sail to Australia from St. Maarten. He was from England but had friends & family in Australia. His wife was staying in England until he reached Australia & she was going to fly to meet him. Dirk from Evening Ebb was going to sail with him to Australia & then fly back to his boat in Grenada for September-October.

One night when we had Yachtsman's Dream over for supper Lela was wearing these really cute beads that wrap around your second toe & ankle. I asked her where she got them & she explained that a Cruiser in Grenada made them & she called them "no shoes". The boat name was Shiloh, he was from South Africa & she was from Toronto. Well one morning when I was out with the dogs on deck there was the boat Shiloh anchored behind us! I was going to wait until after 9am to hail them & ask about the No Shoes, but at 8:30 they started to pull anchor :(

That night when we met our friends on Banyon I mentioned to Alex about the No Shoes & she knew Shiloh. She introduced me to Holli & told me to call her the next day to come & see what she has made. They had only moved inside the Lagoon to anchor so were stii clone by. We met with her & her husband John. Michael & John had a lengthy talk about Lagoons since they were on a Lagoon too. I got 3 pairs of No Shoes for $20 & I was happy.

Well a week went by & Monday no part, Tuesday arrived & we were told the part arrived on the Island Monday & it would be delivered Wednesday. Wednesday no part & I ran out of patience so I told Michael that I was coming with him Thursday to get the part with him. We arrived at the shop to find the owner cursing & swearing (in French of course) that the courier can't find the package. An order that was placed after us arrived, but still no sight of ours. He had the courier looking for our package & best we could do was come back Friday. Michael arrived at 11am when the courier was to deliver & no package. He waited until noon & still no package. Since the part was ordered on the French side of St Maarten everything stops at noon until 3pm for lunch. Michael was getting ready to leave & saw the courier truck arriving. Our part arrived!

Michael rushed back to our boat, we installed the part & we said good bye to St. Maarten!

St. Bart's

We pulled anchor & headed for St. Bart's while we could. We arrived in Anse de Colombier in St. Bart's just as the sun was setting.

We spent the night on anchor going round & round- there was some really strange currents & winds the first night. In the morning we headed to Gustavia, the capital of St. Bart's to check in & out & to see the town. We decided to dinghy around to town from where we were anchored & that may have not been the best ideal. The waves & swell made for a really rough & wet ride. We wandered around in the hot sun & made our way to Shell Beach. The whole beach was covered in small sea shells, really cool.

We returned back to Nauti Dog to find a mega sail boat anchoring right beside us. The boat's name was Twizzle & was 200 feet long! After they finished anchoring the owner went for a swim around the bay with a crew member following close behind in the "tender" (that's how we knew it was the owner). After a couple of hours they pulled anchor & off they went.

We had been keeping in touch with our friends on Yachtsman's Dream to meet them in Antigua to Buddy Boat to Barbuda. The weather looked good for Sunday February 16th so we planned our departure for 13:00 to sail through the night & arrive in Jolly Harbor, Antigua for 10:00 AM to meet Yachtsman's Dream.

Antigua

We started out sailing for Antigua from St. Bart's & the first few hours but the weather was no where close to what was predicted. It was predicted to be 2 meter seas & winds 14 knots with gusts to 17 knots. We started off winds at 20 knots & gusting anywhere from 25 to 30 knots. The gust remained constant & waves rose to 9 feet add to that the occasional rain squalls. We also discovered that the glass sliding door into the salon didn't enjoy all the banging & slapping & decided it wasn't going to stay shut. So on top of dealing with the weather we were trying to keep the door closed to keep the dogs safely inside. We managed to tie the door closed which meant that there was no going inside for anything including the bathroom without one person holding the door. We sailed for the first several hours until it stared to get dark & we decided that it was not the best way to complete our first night passage & we dropped the sails & motored for the rest of the night. I napped from 10 until 12:30 & then Michael went to sleep. He slept until about 4am until I couldn't wait any longer; I had to go to the bathroom. We weathered through a few more rain squalls until daylight came & we arrived at Jolly Harbour.

We had heard that Antigua was very difficult to clear the dogs into the country since they were a rabies free country. I had sent a few emails to the Immigration Vet, but no response. We completed the entrance papers & waited for the Vet to arrive on board to inspect the dogs. He arrived checked the dogs, checked their passports & we paid their import fee of $50US & we were all set to go in about 15 minutes.

We spent the night in Jolly Harbour before headed out with Yachtsman's Dream to Deep Bay just south west of Antigua's capital St. John's. There was a nice private beach there where we took Riley & Chester swimming. John & Lela had been in Antigua for the past month & knew their way around the island & were going to show us around St. John's. We all piled in our dinghy & we headed to the city for the day. The weather was not the best to be dinghing to St. John's. We were heading straight into the short choppy white capped waves of 3 feet. When we managed to get the nose up high enough to keep the water from coming over the bow, the water was rolling over the stern. Michael drove & I bailed until I got tired & then John bailed the entire 2 hour trip (actually only 40 minutes but it seemed like 2 hours). The water sprayed continually over the dinghy & we couldn't have been any wetter if we had just jumped in. We arrived completely soaked!

After that the day got better. The hot sun dried us & our clothes fairly quickly. We found an ATM to get some EC, Eastern Caribbean money, shopped, had lunch & shopped some more. Before we headed back to the dinghy we stopped at the Australian Ice Cream shop. The ride back was much better since the waves were pushing behind us, still slow but much drier.

After we left Deep Bay we sailed to Long Island to anchor outside of the private resort of Jumby Bay. The water was a pale green with reefs all around the anchorage & white sand beach that probably stretched a mile long with an added bonus of receiving free wifi from the boat. My great husband managed to down load all the Grey's Anatomy, Revenge & Good Wife I had missed since we left home. We all snorkeled around the reefs but found very little to see so we headed into the beach for a walk on shore.

Our next stop was at Great Bird Island. It was a very secluded spot that only had a couple of day-trip boats arrive for snorkeling adventures. We grabbed mooring balls & stayed to snorkel for the next couple of days before we headed to Barbuda. Up to this point it was the best snorkeling I had seen. The reefs were amazing with lots of fish.

November 2013 - January 2014

We'll we have been very delinquent in adding any info on our blog until now. I promise I will try to be better.

Michael, Riley, Chester & I made it to New York thanks to Dad Smith. Getting through the airport with all our luggage, dog cages & dogs was easier than I imagined. The Delta staff were great. Chester seemed pretty relaxed, but Riley was another story. His anxiety of not being attached to me seems to get worst the minute he walked in his crate. The immigration people wheeled him away in his cage & I could hear him cry the whole way. It was very upsetting but we knew it was the only way we could get the boys here. We arrived in St Maarten to a hot day & as soon as we made it to baggage claim you could hear Riley barking & crying. He was just trembling & in distress to get out of the crate. Chester was ok until he saw us, then he started barking. We got them out of the cage & all was fine.

Cars here are Very small, think Mini Cooper small. Picture 2 86lb dogs, 3 large pieces of luggage, 3 carry on bags, 2 dog crates (26"x28"x45") & Michael & I, something had to go. Michael left me, Chester & Riley & the pile of our belongings at the curb at the airport while he went to pick up the car. He bargained with the rental agency to get a larger vehicle but there was still no way to fit everything so we left the dog crates at the airport & hurried out of there. We drove by again the next day & they were both gone so we assumed someone took them home.

We made our way to the hotel only to find the clerk telling us that our reservations were for for the previous day & since we didn't arrive, they gave our room away to someone else, but they would try to get us another room. This was my first taste of "Island time". I waited about 30 minutes & still no one was willing to give me a room. Well if you know me at all I have a tendency of getting what I want. To make a long story short we ended up with a suite with a jacuzzi tub on the balcony.

We spent our two night there & headed to the yacht Monday morning only to find that they were just starting to do all the work we asked to be done the week before we arrived. Again "Island time" appears. We decided to spend the night on shore in the yacht since I'm sure it would have been another battle to get our room back at the hotel. Of course this meant no power which meant no AC! Michael crafted a set of stairs up to the boat to get the dogs off & on with spare wood in the boat yard.

We heard that the bugs were bad in the Caribbean, but we had no ideal how bad until the next morning. We are not sure when it happened, maybe after walking the dogs around the yard the night before or sleeping with the windows open, but we woke up completely covered in bites. My legs were so bad it looked like a had some kind of disease & the itching was driving me crazy. There was some calamine lotion left on board, thank god. Poor Michael had huge welts where he was bit & still has the scars to show for them.

We finally had all the oil changed on the generator, engines & the drives, the bottom painted & the sail drives painted & we were ready to launch in the water by 15:30 on November 19. We are starting up the engines of the yacht we just spent over a half a million dollars on & rushed to make the 16:00 bridge opening in the Simpson Bay Lagoon. We are in a line waiting with several multi million dollar yachts to maneuver through the bridge & now the realization finally hits that we are really doing this!

It was such a rush to get everything done before we left we really didn't get a chance for things to sink in. There was still so much we wanted to do before we left but just ran out of time. We wished we had more time to spend with friends & family. Once the house sold it was rush rush rush.

We spent a night in Simpson Bay & then headed to Great Bay to Dock Maartin Marina. We had a berth booked until all our belongings arrive from Tropical Shipping the following week. We had a car booked for the first week & since the Island is only 8km long it didn't take long to see everything here on shore. There wasn't much more we could do until everything arrived.

Finally delivery day arrived! That was good & bad. Good that we finally had everything & bad that we finally had EVERYTHING!

Four pallets eight feet high arrived & there was no way it was all going on the cat. We opened box for box & put aside everything that was not staying. We made a few friends at the Marina when we started giving everything away. Michael was being called Santa.

We met Scott & Janet on Windswept from Florida who spend the winter here & summer home. Jerry & his wife (I forget her name) from Holland & several others that hung out at the Marina restaurant & bar called Chesterfields. Our closest neighbor was a charter boat called Lord Sheffield. Mike was the resident crew that lived on board. He had spent several years captaining & delivering boats. Mike & Mike became instant friends. When I couldn't find Michael for a few hours I knew where he was.

A couple of weeks later & a several hundred dollars poorer of Marina charges we sailed back to Simpson Bay to anchor. We decided to give the boys a grace period to get adjusted to living on the boat before we started our project to teach Chester & Riley to do their "business" on the trampoline. While at the Marina it was no big deal to walk off the boat, but that all changed while at anchor. We had read to use a fake grass mat to start then move them toward the trampoline. We bought the grass mat, but why add an extra step. Our oldest Riley had no problem using the trampoline. You tell him where to go & he did (such a good boy!). Chester however was a different story. He held out for over 2 days until he finally couldn't hold it any longer. Going pee on the trampoline went well from there but he still refused to poop on anywhere but the deck. After a couple of weeks I finally persuaded him to use the trampoline & he's been great ever since. They have settled in well.

We stayed there for a few week in Simpson Bay until we decided we wanted to venture to the French side of the Island. So we left Netherlands Antilles (Sint Maarten) to sail to France (Marigot Bay, St Martin). Since it is a different country we needed to clear out of NA before we cleared in to France. That's when we found out the previous owner had outstanding fees on the boat that we needed to pay if we wanted to leave the country. Thanks!

We made it to Marigot Bay & stayed for a week before we decided to head further north to a small area called Grand Case. The sea was a little rough with high winds so we headed back to Marigot a couple of days before Christmas. On the daily Cruisers Net (VHF radio network) we heard that there were a couple of get togethers happening on Christmas Day. We decided to go & we met several other Cruisers, but our instant friends were John & Lela from Yachtsman's Dream.

They have been cruising for ten years on a 43' FP Bahia. We were invited back to their boat for drinks & we returned the invite. Several other happy hours & dinners later we became good friends. We were trying to hook up as "Cruising Buddies", but our schedules couldn't line up right away as they were ready to leave for Antigua & Barbuda & we were waiting for a shipment from the US & on the dogs Titer tests. We made plans to keep in touch & hopefully we could hook back up in Guadeloupe in a few weeks & off they sailed.

They also introduced us to a couple of their friends traveling with a dog, Paula, Tim & Nigel on Hooligan. They sailed off straight to Guadeloupe & hopefully we will meet them along the trail to Grenada for Hurricane season.

Living on the boat has been a constant adjustment. Not long after getting here about 4am one morning Riley was sick & when I heard him a jumped up to see if he was ok & to clean up the mess. Onshore I would just use toilet paper & just flush it down the toilet. Well not thinking at that time of day that things were different on the boat & not knowing that there was half a stuffed toy in the middle of all the vomit, I flushed. On the boat we have electric heads & the first flush seemed ok but the second not so much. I woke Michael & he said we would deal with it in the morning. To make a long story short I learned way too much on how to drain & clean out our septic system...YUCK! I will never do that again, ever.

Time has passed so quickly & it's been 2 months of trying to get everything ready, fixed, adjusted & provisioned for the boat & we are down to the last few days before we leave for St. Christopher (St Kitts) & Nevis. The weather window shows Thursday January 30, 2014 as the day to go. We are still traveling as Why Knot waiting for the Canadian Government to approve our new name Nauti Dog. We had sent an email to my sister to mail the paperwork & not soon after she received a call that they needed the original document. Mail here is terrible. We went to mail the original & we were told 3-4 weeks if it arrived at all. The cost to courier would be over $70, so it was mailed.

Chester just chill'n