Hello Folks,

Sailing a catamaran throughout the Caribbean sounds like an idyllic way to whittle away the winter months and so far this has largely been the case for SeaSparrow. But things aren't always clear blue water/ postcard perfect when living this lifestyle. The last couple of weeks for us illustrate this point quite well, I think.

The Good

After getting away from the Puerto Del Rey marina we set course east to really begin this year's sailing season. After spending several nights in one of our favourite spots, Culebra, it was time to move on to the smaller island of Culebrita. This is a deserted island that has a beautiful beach, crystal clear water with great snorkeling on reefs you can swim to from the boat. This is the type of stuff one sees in travel magazines and you dream of when thinking about sailing the Caribbean.



We left Culebrita and headed for the USVI's. It was a beautiful sunny warm day with winds that were perfect for sailing. Shortly after leaving the shores of Culebrita we were able to turn off the engines and sail for the first time this season. It is hard to describe the feeling when you shut off the engine noise and listen to the sounds of the boat being powered by the wind alone. That particular moment may be the time I enjoy the most out of everything we do on SeaSparrow and that is saying something as I enjoy a lot of what we do here.


SeaSparrow With Wind In Her Sails

The only thing that makes the sailing better on days like we had sailing to the USVIs is to catch our dinner for the evening. Almost right on cue one of the rods started to sing with the "fish on" song and minutes later dinner was in hand. This is a Kingfish or King Mackerel and it is far better then the mackerel from home as this is an excellent white fish that always tastes better when you catch it yourself.



Once we arrived in the USVI's we anchored in a beautiful area known as Brewer's Bay where we still sit today. There is great swimming around the boat as well a beautiful beach a 30 second dinghy ride away. The best part of this bay for us has been hooking up with friends we have met in previous years as well as making new friends. The friends you make in the boating world are almost without fail good people that are fun to be around and make your time on the water better. In addition to the above qualities, cruisers will go out of their way to help one another as you know someday you too will need help. We had the opportunity to do some "Water Buffalo'ing" here in Brewers Bay which entailed taking the dinghies to the beach and spending time in the water while having a beverage. It was also a great chance to let the dogs play.




After the beach fun it was time to break in our newest flag or pennant - The Gin Pennant. During my Navy days the Gin Pennant was hoisted when an individual or group was hosting a party and basically it served as an invite to anyone was saw it flying. My friend Bruce, who owns the Flagg Shop on Main St, Dartmouth made SeaSparrow a special Gin Pennant and I am glad to report it has been broken in nicely with our fellow cruiser friends pleased to participate.




Now that we managed to get Piper onboard I have to add her to the Good section of this blog. Piper has adapted amazingly well to life onboard. She is an awesome dog that loves to swim but won't leave the boat without our permission. She has found a favourite place to hangout while we are sailing which serves as a great footrest for me although she does make it a bit more difficult to do things when at the helm.



Piper also likes the dinghy and now is pissed when we leave her behind.



I think Piper is happy onboard as she seemed to smile at me the other day as we watched dolphins swim near the boat. It doesn't get much better than that.




The Bad

This will be a short section as things generally are pretty good living on the water but this life style is also a lot of work that can wear you down sometimes. We really don't mind the work and the only time I consider things Bad is if I can't fix something that is broken. Maintenance on a boat like ours is a given and requires attention on most if not all days. We currently find ourselves in that situation as our windlass, the thingy that raises and lowers the anchor, has been acting funny all season. After days of working on the windlass with the help of Michael from Nautidog we finally came to the conclusion that the motor was shot and needed replacement. After several additional days of work trying to find a spare motor and disassemble the windlass to replace said motor I also raised the white flag on that effort. Getting a spare here in St Thomas in a reasonable timeframe proved impossible as the earliest we could get something was three to four weeks. We have too much scheduled to be happening between now and then for that option to work. In the end I went online to a marine supply store and ordered a whole new windlass which is due to arrive in the next 2-5 days. Hopefully sooner and not later. I won't tell you the cost of this little repair but it required several G&T's to get over the bill.






The Ugly

Again, this is a very short section but in the last week or so we experienced one of those ugly moments that can shake you up a bit. I consider Ugly in the sense that we risk injury to ourselves or significant damage to our boat or another. Normally ugly things occur when the weather is bad or in the middle of the night but in this case is was a beautiful sunny day. Our ugly story began when we decided to leave Brewer's Bay and motor around the corner to Charlotte Amalie in order to check in with customs and do some provisioning. This is a short 5 mile drive that was planned to take less than an hour. As we were travelling around the point (airport runway actually) our starboard propeller caught the line from a crab pot and started to make a loud banging noise. I immediately shutdown the engine and it was easy to see what had happened. We decided to continue on with the port engine and anchor in Charlotte Amalie as planned. Along the way we decided to hook onto a mooring ball and clear our starboard propeller before getting to the anchorage. This was a reasonable plan except this is where things got ugly. The ball we tried to tied up to wasn't a mooring ball but just a bouy in the water. As I tried to back away from the bouy the line that was still wrapped around our starboard shaft got tangled in our port shaft as well. At this point the engines would start but would stall as soon as they were put into gear. So now we were in a mooring field with many boats nearby and no engines. We were also in 45 feet of water which is very deep to anchor in for our boat which has 200 feet of chain. Don't forget we also had a windlass that was at this point working kind of funny but still operational (We hadn't determined it was toast yet). Anyway, the windlass worked well enough for us to get out 175 feet of chain and very fortunately got it to stop the boat before hitting anyone. Once we got stopped things were relatively stable so Debbie went into the water to start cutting the line away from the props. The starboard prop cleared very easily but it took Debbie and I taking turns in the water for about an hour to clear the port prop well enough to carry on. My now dead windlass worked well enough that day to allow us to retrieve our 175' of chain as well as anchor two more times after this incident before dying for good. Although I am not happy having to replace the windlass the old one managed to hang in there when we needed it the most so in my eyes it has died a hero despite costing us a small fortune to replace.



As mentioned, thankfully the ugly stuff doesn't happen very often but things can go bad quickly at anytime when on the water. SeaSparrow won't be moving again until the windlass is replaced as this piece of kit is too important for safety to not be working reliably.

There is too much to describe the good and bad parts of this cruising lifestyle in one short blog but hopefully these events over the last ten days or so onboard SeaSparrow can provide a sense of how we now live. Now we prepare for our next guests, Doug and Francine, as we will all chill for a bit longer in Brewer's Bay until the new windlass arrives. There are worst places to wait for a delivery.

Jeff


SeaSparrow Musical Selection - Alcohol and Pills - Fred Eaglesmith