Portsmouth, Dominica

Dominica's Flag

We arrived in Dominica (dom-in-EEK-uh) on Sunday afternoon, after a quick 22 mile passage from Iles des Saintes. Being Sunday, customs was closed but we decided to go ashore and check things out. This is definitely a poor country, on par with the Dominican Republic as far as open gutters in the roads, clapboard houses with tin roofs, etc. But the natural beauty is pretty astounding, more about that later. We headed into a bar called "Big Poppa's" where we had some Kubuli beers and booked a River Tour for the next morning. Dominica is the first place outside of the Dominican Republic where we've really seen a lot of boat boys. Although they are called "boat boys" they are actually grown men whose business is to help the cruisers out by operating as a water taxi, bringing diesel and water to the boat, arranging tours, or just anything in general that you might need while you're in port. They can be pretty aggressive sometimes; we saw one boat anchoring this morning and there were no less than four guys in brightly painted wooden boats hovering around it asking if they needed any services. (Some of the "boat boys" don't even have boats: a few hours ago we bought a bunch of bananas from a guy paddling around the anchorage on an old surfboard.) When we got here yesterday we knew we didn't need any help with diesel or anything, but we did want to do a couple of tours, especially of the Indian River. Some cruisers we met in St. Kitts had recommended Albert, so that's who we made arrangements with while we were at Big Poppa's.

Albert on the Indian River

The Indian River got its name because many Carib Indians once lived along its banks. They have since moved (or been relocated) to the Carib territory on the Eastern side of the island. The river is protected by law, no outboard engines are allowed, and you can only go through it with an accredited guide. So this morning with Albert at the oars (you should see this guy's arms) we headed up the river. Several scenes from the Pirates of the Caribbean 2 were filmed along the river's swampy banks (you'll see it in the scenes from the witch's house), and Albert pointed the spots out to us since he helped ferry gear up the river during filming. After several "guided" trips on other islands where the guy didn't do much other than point out the obvious ("there's the ocean...that's a Baptist Church...this is a really old bridge") it was refreshing to have a true guide -- enthusiastic and knowledgeable, with 20 years experience of showing tourists his country. He knew the local and common names of all the flora and fauna on the banks, and he made it a point to look for hard-to-spot iguanas and birds and make sure we were able to see them. The greenery was spectacular with all the ferns and vines and big twisty tree roots, and there were little splashes of color as well -- yellow and red hibiscus, alongside bright green iguanas and hummingbirds.

Indian River Trees

We stopped for a drink upriver where an enterprising guy was working on building a bar in the middle of the forest to cater to the river tour crowd. The bar isn't finished yet, but in the meantime he sells soda and beer out of a cooler. The soda vendor was a well-spoken guy who gave us some insight into the politics of the country. His main complaint/idea was that although the country is poor, they don't lack for food during the growing season. Food is so plentiful that they have a huge surplus of oranges, mangoes, grapefruits, bananas, etc, even more than they can export. But he can't understand why the government doesn't put in a cannery so that they can preserve their orange juice, fruits, etc instead of having to pay through the nose for imported canned goods in the off season. It was an interesting discussion. I told the guy he should run for office but apparently there's pretty much one family with a lock on the political power in this part of the country so I guess he'll just remain a visionary who's stuck selling sodas.

Anyway, Albert brought us back to the boat and we invited him aboard for a beer and a snack. He was telling us that recently he has moved away from town to a beautiful spot by a lagoon where he can enjoy the peace and quiet and natural surroundings. He kept using the expression "I recently moved my house" and finally I asked him if he meant that literally. Yes, he said. He didn't load the whole thing on a truck, like some do, but he used all the materials from the old house to build part of a new bigger house. His new house is about 1200 square feet with three bedrooms, a bathroom, and a kitchen, while his old house was 12 feet by 16 feet (for the mathematically challenged, that's just 192 square feet). I will think about that next time I feel that the boat is too confining.



Where we are:
Location=Portsmouth, Dominica
Lat=15 34.987
Lon=61 27.836

Iles des Saintes

We spent the whole day yesterday working on the bimini repair. Had to literally tear the boat apart; we took off the ceiling liner in the main salon, and had to completely disassemble both the closets to get the supports bolted on properly. But today we motorsailed into the wind with some light choppy waves and the fix held together just fine. So now that that particular fire is out we have a pool going on what will break next. Anyone want to get in on the action?

We are now anchored in the town of Le Bourg on one of the islands that is part of the Iles des Saintes (eel day saint). It's a small group of islands between Guadaloupe and Dominica but it is still part of Guadaloupe/France. The town here is very touristy; there are day trip ferries that come over from Guadaloupe. We liked walking up and down the main street and looking for bargains. Unfortunately the currency in all the French islands is the Euro, so our dollar doesn't go as far as it does in some of the other countries. Despite that fact, we still rank Guadaloupe pretty high up the list of our favorite places we've been so far. There's a little of everything here -- cosmopolitan areas, scenic hiking, pretty beaches, and picturesque farmland. And the people here have been amazingly friendly and receptive to us, even though we don't speak the language well and they have to repeat things four times or use exaggerated pantomimes to get the point across. We're a little sad to be leaving after only a few days here. We would've liked to explore a little more but some of you might have heard that they had the first named storm of the season this week (subtropical storm Andrea). So we are eager to keep moving south to Grenada, where we plan to hole up for hurricane season.

Where we are:
Location=Iles des Saintes
Lat=15 52.046
Lon=61 35.158

Guadaloupe - Mr. Hardware

We got to the car rental place early, and despite the language barrier (so far no one says "yes" when I ask if they speak English) we managed to get one of the last available cars. We had two missions: 1. see some cool waterfalls in the rainforest, and 2. get the nuts and bolts we needed for fixing the bimini.

When Kevin was looking at the bimini problem, he discovered that the two main front support posts were only held on by 3 tapping screws each. No bolts or backing plates, just some really short screws barely penetrating the fiberglass. We're just surprised the thing didn't fall apart sooner. It looks like the manufacturer had fiberglassed some nuts into the hull, so at one time maybe the thing was put together properly, but Kevin guessed that somehow it had broken once before and the previous owner just drilled through the glassed-in nuts and put in screws instead of bolts. So because someone did a half-assed job of fixing it last time, it is up to us to full-assed fix it. But to do it, we needed to buy some really big washers and some longer bolts than we have in our toolkit. So, armed with my "French for Cruisers" book, we headed off in search of the "magasin de bricolage" (hardware store). Of course no one knew of one nearby, the three local people we asked directed us to Destreland which is in the middle of the island near Pointe a Pitre, their biggest city. Once we got close, we pulled in at a Shell station where I proceeded to go through an old Abbot and Costello routine with the clerk. Roughly translated, the conversation went something like this:
Me: Good day, sir. We look for a store of hardware, to buy something like this. (Holds up nut and bolt)
Him: Yes. Go straight and it is near the Carrefour.
Me: Thank you. Please you will write the name of the store for me?
Him: (something I didn't catch) hardware store.
Me: Yes, I understand it is hardware store, but what is the name of it?
Him: (mumble) hardware store.
Me: No, I need the name of the store, please.
Finally another guy steps in and enunciates very clearly "Monsieur Bricolage". Aha! The name of the store is "Mr. Hardware Store"! Easy enough. We find the place and of course they only carry metric hardware (damn you, imperial system!) but we find some bolts that will work. We also find a huge mall, as nice as Scottsdale Fashion Square, and have lunch. Then, off to the rainforest.

The rainforest in Guadaloupe is absolutely breathtaking. Huge canopy trees with ferns, bromeliads, orchids, and massive elephant ear plants with leaves shaped like...well, I guess the name is pretty self-explanatory. The 30 minute hike to the waterfall was enjoyable, we were up so high that we were actually in a cloud and the moisture just hung in the air. The waterfall was about 300 feet tall, people were swimming in the pool below. Our guidebook says that swimming here can give you bilharzia, which is some kind of infection carried by snails, so we took a pass on the swim.

Guadeloupe Waterfalls

Deshaies, Guadaloupe

Our journey this morning took us past some spectacular views of the Soufriere Hills volcano on Montserrat; there were several fissures in the mountainside with smoke and ash billowing out of them. And even from two miles away, we were able to see the remains of the airport and several buildings partially buried beneath the debris. Hopefully our photos will do the scene justice. When we cleared into Guadaloupe, I got to practice my high school French by asking a helpful local guy to give us directions to the customs office. I'm just glad the customs building ended up being on the right-hand-side of the street because I can only remember the French word for "right"; I wouldn't recognize the word "left" if it walked up and started dancing the can-can. By the way, the name of the country is pronounced the French way, GWAD-eh-loop, not the Spanish/Mexican/Arizonan way, gwad-uh-LOO-pay. Also the French have a rule about pronouncing as few consonants as possible, so the name of the town is actually day-HAY. All together now: Deshaies, Guadaloupe. Just say it with an outrrrageous Frrench accent, and it'll sound about right.

On the way over to Guadaloupe, we observed how a small problem can develop into a much bigger one. Yesterday in Montserrat we noticed that two of the screws holding our bimini (roof over the cockpit) had pulled loose and one had sheared off. We put off doing anything about it because it will be kind of a big job to fix, and we were leaving the next day. So Kevin re-tightened the two screws that were loose and we hoped for the best. Well, on our passage this morning, the screws pulled out again and although the bimini is attached in seven other places, it began swaying slightly. Not good. Especially since a part of the mainsail attaches to the bimini structure and with the sail up the whole structure is under a lot of stress. We could see that one of the other attachment points was taking the full load and the screws holding it were about to go too, so we took the sail down and motored the rest of the way. So I guess we've got a new project to work on.

Where we are:
Location=Deshaies, Guadaloupe
Lat=16 18.460
Lon=61 47.825

Montserrat - Kevin vs. the Volcano

When Soufriere Hills volcano erupted back in 1995, it completely destroyed the southern half of Montserrat. This afternoon as we approached the island, we could see the green rolling hillside of the north and in the background was the barren brown wasteland of the Exclusion Zone (that's what they call it -- no one is allowed to go there). The volcano itself is still belching ash daily into the sky, and tomorrow when we continue southbound we have to pass the island on the windward side so that our boat doesn't get covered in ash. We also have to stay at least 2 miles offshore as they have set up a maritime exclusion zone around the southern half of the island. But life goes on and people have resettled on the northwest coast out of range of the volcano. We are only planning on staying here overnight and aren't even planning on going ashore. But shhh...don't tell customs and immigration. We're supposed to clear in and out of each country but it is Sunday and it's not worth paying the overtime fees to be here less than 24 hours.

Where we are:
Location=Rendezvous Bay, Montserrat
Lat=16 48.523
Lon=62 12.416

Pinney's Beach, Nevis

[Kevin's Post]Oops, I accidently typed in the wrong longitude in our last post, so this post has the corrected location for those of you following us with Google Earth. Last night we dinghied over to a nearby beach bar that seemed lively with christmas lights strung up and quite a few people at the tables. Beaching 'The Beast' is always a challenge since it is so heavy. Our dinghy weighs about twice what the typical dinghy does. The beach was pretty steep, but luckily there was a guy walking down the beach who helped us pull it up. There was quite a bit of surf so we wanted to be sure it was far enough up the beach that it wouldn't get swamped. We had a nice dinner of burgers and beers before we surrendered to the mosquitos and called it a night. This morning, we went to town to clear out with customs. Every island we go to we have to clear in and out with customs and immigration the same as if you were traveling by plane. It can be a royal pain sometimes, first you have to figure out where to go, then you have to figure out what their hours are. Our guidebooks are pretty good about telling us where to go, but usually way off on the hours. We tried to clear out on Friday since we are leaving on Sunday and we thought they were closed on the weekends. Turns out they are open, so they made us come back today since you have to leave within 24 hours of clearing out. And of course we had to pay 10 bucks to leave the country. Tomorrow we leave Nevis for Montserrat. It will be about a 35 mile trip.

Where we are:
Location=Pinneys Beach, Nevis
Lat=17 08.918
Lon=62 37.765

At anchor in Nevis

posted by SSB

Pinney's Beach, Nevis

[Kevin's Post]We left the anchorage at Basseterre yesterday after two very rolly nights and moved down the coast a few miles to a place called White House Bay. We were very happy to be in a flat anchorage for the first time since leaving St. Maarten. Saba and Statia both were pretty uncomfortable, and Basseterre wasn't much better. White House Bay was just right. We spent the day doing some boat chores, we defrosted the freezer using a bucket of water and a spare bilge pump to melt the ice. Amanda did some cleaning inside the boat and I attempted to clean the rust stains off the deck where we worked on the genset. There were little flecks of rust that came off the genset during the week we had it sitting up on deck and the wind blew them all over the port deck. And then it rained. So the boat has these red spots everywhere that have been driving me nuts. Acid cleans them right off, and at this point I've managed to clean up about half the mess. After our chores, we did a little snorkeling. White House Bay has an interesting wreck in shallow water that according to one of our books is from 1799. It didn't look quite that old, but it was a pretty cool snorkel regardless with a wide variety of fish.

After one night at White House Bay, we moved on to Nevis and anchored off Pinney's Beach just south of the Four Seasons resort. This is a beautiful palm tree lined beach that stretches for 3 miles on the west coast of Nevis. This is exactly what we have been imagining the caribbean would be like. Nevis is another volcano island with a tall volcanic mountain at its center. We wandered around Charlestown for a bit and visited the Nevis museum which happens to be in the house where Alexander Hamilton was born. We ate lunch at a local cafe and then took a quick island tour in one of the taxis. We visited the Botanical Gardens of Nevis which is a 7 acre garden displaying all kinds of tropical plants and flowers. We also stopped by the Montpelier Estate which is an old sugar cane plantation which has been converted to a hotel. The old sugar mill is now used as a room for their restaurant. After our touring we headed back to the boat to cool off with a swim.

Where we are:
Location=Pinneys Beach, Nevis
Lat=17 08.918
Lon=62 32.765

St. Kitts & Nevis

We arrived in St. Kitts and Nevis (rhymes with "Beavis". Heh-heh.) yesterday afternoon. We had to go to three places to clear in with customs, immigration, and the port authority but once we were finished we had a little while to walk around Basseterre, the capital of St. Kitts. (It's a two-island nation; the island of Nevis has its own capital that we'll visit in a few days.) We had a beer on the terrace at Ballyhoo pub overlooking the Circus (main roundabout/square in town) and discovered a new favorite beer -- Skol, brewed locally here on St. Kitts. We also arranged a taxi tour for the following day to take us around the island.

This morning as we hopped in the dinghy to head into town we realized that there was a big cruise ship (the Queen Elizabeth 2) unloading passengers. It turns out our taxi driver "forgot" that he already had a cruise ship tour booked, so we were left to our own devices to find a taxi tour. It wasn't too hard, apparently every taxi driver in the country was at the main dock looking for passengers and offering cutthroat rates. We selected one and off we went.

There is one main highway that goes in a loop around the island and every tour stops at the same three sights so we couldn't quite shake the crowds. The first stop, Romney Manor, was really cool. It was part of the Wingfield Estate, which was once owned by Sam Jefferson whose claim to fame is that his great-grandson went on to become a fairly prominent politician and writer (although some might find his writing a little dry). You might know him; his name was Thomas? Anyway, although Romney manor house is no longer standing the grounds have been turned into a gorgeous tropical garden. Caribelle Batik also has a workshop there where they make batik cloth (saris, headscarves, tropical shirts). Batik is kind of like tie-dye only instead of tying the fabric they draw designs on it with wax before they dye it, and some of the work is really beautiful. I'm a sucker for this kind of thing so I ended up buying a bandana with a monkey motif.

Continuing around the loop we stopped at Brimstone Hill, an impregnable colonial era fort built on the top of a tall mountain overlooking the Caribbean Sea. At the north end of the island we also stopped at Black Rocks which are lava formations on the coast that sprout up out of the surf like stalagmites from another planet. The rest of the tour was pretty much just a drive through the countryside, which is covered in sugarcane, some of it is grown by the government but much of it just grows wild. We had the driver pull over so that we could try it, and he came back with so much that we ended up carrying it around with us all day. The locals got a kick out of it as we went around town carrying it into the internet cafe, a local fast-food place, the park. Nothing says "tourist" like a three-foot stick of sugarcane.

Where we are:
Location=St. Kitts
Lat=17 17.538
Lon=62 42.787

Statia

at the top of the volcano

posted by SSB

Statia - The Quill

The dominant geographical feature of Statia is the enormous cone of the Quill, a 1968 foot high volcano that last erupted sometime back in the 1600's and is now considered extinct. Instead of diving while we're here we decided to check out the view from up top so we packed a lunch and set off up the hill. It was a pretty relentless slog upwards. First, just getting to the foot of the cone took about 45 minutes, and that was the easier incline. From there it was another 50 minutes of steady climbing to get to the edge of the crater. But the forest was shady and at times there was a good breeze going, so it wasn't too bad. We saw all kinds of wildlife: snakes, soldier crabs, hummingbirds, feral chickens and tons of lizards. There were also some cool looking bromeliads growing out of practically thin air in the branches of trees. Supposedly the Quill is home to a wide variety of orchids as well, but unfortunately we didn't spot any. The view of the crater was pretty spectacular, it was covered in dense foliage and some of the trees were enormous. We didn't hike down the crater because by this time it was midday and we were so sweaty that practically all we could think about was getting back to the boat and in the water for a swim. Besides, heading back downhill to town was the easy part!

When we got back to the boat we put our snorkels and fins on and did a little more snorkeling around the anchorage. We saw one of the weirdest sea creatures I've ever laid eyes on. It's not in any of our fish identifiers, but I'll describe it in the hopes that somebody knows what it is and can email me. It was maybe as long as my forearm, had a face like a frog, and was using its two front fins almost like hands to dig at the bottom for food. Underneath it's body were spindly legs like a lobsters, and it also had these sort of winglike fins that it dragged behind it but occasionally it would fan them out like a fly. Then it had a tapering tail and it's whole body was covered in sort of iridescent spots, and it had kind of an antenna/lure like thing sticking up off its back. It was scuttling along the bottom, not swimming, and it used its front fins to scare up a small fish, which it then ate. Our divemaster back on Saba was talking about something called a "frogfish" which we didn't see on the dive so it's possible that this was one of them, but I'm not sure. I swear it was one of the ugliest looking things I've ever seen. I wish we'd thought to bring the camera so I could've snapped a photo. It seriously looked like something the editors of the "National Enquirer" would've dreamed up, kind of like the Bat Baby only real.

Statia - America's Childhood Friend

After a couple days relaxing on the boat in Saba we left this morning for Sint Eustatius, another tiny Dutch island about 20 miles southeast. The island is more commonly known as Statia (STAY-sha) and has quite a history. It was once the most prosperous Caribbean island, earning itself the nickname "the Golden Rock". It was a major free port during a time when some countries weren't allowed to trade with each other due to various wars (Spain vs. England, England vs. France, and eventually England vs. the Colonies). So instead Statia became the middleman for commerce, and foreign merchants could buy or sell anything they wanted here. Everyone got rich. But that all changed the day the vessel "Andrew Doria" came into port and fired a salute with her guns. The Statian Governor returned the salute, not realizing until it was too late that it was an American rebel navy ship. So Statia goes down in history as the first sovereign power to recognize the fledgling nation. The British were none too pleased, and retaliated by confiscating all ships and valuables and sacking the island. And, as if they weren't already involved in enough wars, the English also declared war on Holland for good measure.

Anyway, we arrived just ahead of a flash rainstorm (we are getting used to it being completely clear one minute and pouring rain the next), so we waited until it cleared to go check in with immigration. Being Sunday, everyone had gone home for the day so we took a quick tour of the island instead. There's just one town here, Oranjestad, but it has some cool points of interest including Fort Oranje which has been restored and overlooks the bay. The island is still a duty-free port but now there is just one main commodity being traded: oil. Huge tankers lie at anchor in the bay and the northwestern half of the island is completely given over to a dock with a pipeline and big tanks to hold the stuff. The island promotes itself as being ecotouristy, but it is hard to take it seriously when the oilworks take up half the western shoreline.

Where we are:
Location=Statia
Lat=17 28.921
Lon=62 59.475

Amanda Snorkeling in Saba

posted by SSB

Saba Sea Turtle

posted by SSB

Saba

[Kevin's Post]Believe it or not, we picked up another Saba Marine Park mooring yesterday after dragging one a half mile. The water is too deep to anchor without getting really close to the rocky shoreline, so we decided to give the moorings another chance. They're free and I guess you get what you pay for. The one we are on now appears to be screwed into the bottom, we think the one we were on yesterday was just attached to a big concrete block. Today we were going to go back and snorkel the mooring we dragged to see exactly what kind of brilliant design it was, but by the time we got there the park had already removed the mooring ball so nobody else would tie on to it. At least they responded quickly, I have to give them credit for that. They didn't stop by to say 'Hi' or refund our park fees or anything though. I don't think this is the first time this has happened, the park chart shows all the moorings evenly spaced along a straight line north to south, but in reality they are all over the place.

After nearly having our boat smashed to bits, we decided it probably wasn't a good idea to leave the boat unattended on these moorings. We had hoped to hike to the top of the island, but decided it just wasn't worth the worry. If there were some other boats here we might have asked them to keep an eye on Solstice for us. But there is only one other boat, and we dragged right past him yesterday. He either didn't notice or didn't care. So today we just took it easy relaxing on the boat, did some laundry, read, and went for a quick snorkel nearby. The new underwater camera housing works great. We've used underwater disposable cameras before and the pictures always came out really bad. So it is fun to be able to get some decent underwater photos. Most of the pictures are of Amanda though, since everything else swims away. Amanda swims away sometimes too.

Scubamanda

posted by SSB

Saba -- Dive Excursion

Here in Saba, the entire island is surrounded by a Marine Park and you are not allowed to dive without a guide. So yesterday while we were in Windwardside we made arrangements for a dive boat to pick us up and take us on two dives today. The first dive was about 62 feet deep, in an area with lots of patchy corals and some lava rocks. We saw all kinds of sea turtles having lunch on the reef, and we even saw a tiny seahorse clinging to a soft coral. The second dive was a little shallower, but was truly spectacular. We were in wide canyons of coral, with fans and soft corals sticking out everywhere and the place was just teeming with fish. There was even a swim-through passage where you were completely surrounded by walls and a ceiling of coral. The colors were amazing, and Kevin brought the camera along and snapped some great photos, although as you go deeper the color spectrum fades so in some of the photos all the colors wash to blue hues. We'll upload some when we have an internet connection.

When the dive boat returned to our boat we were alarmed to see that the boat was not where we left it! Our hearts stopped. We were still tied to our mooring but it had dragged more than half a mile, literally across the bay! Where the boat ended up was dangerously close to the shore, which was lined with rocks and breaking waves -- we were only about 2 boatlengths (~100 feet) from total disaster. If the boat had dragged any further (and it was still dragging when we got to it) it would've been pounded against the rocks. Luckily the bottom around the island of Saba drops off steeply; we were still in about 20 feet of water. So needless to say we got aboard in a hurry, fired up the engines and dropped the mooring pendant. This is the 2nd time that we have dragged due to a mooring dragging (the other time was in Farmer's Cay, Bahamas). According to the Marine Park handout, these moorings are intended to handle boats up to 60 feet/50 tons. Solstice is a mere 40 feet/7 tons. And it's Murphy's law -- we spend the first 24 hours aboard the boat and we were fine/in the right place according to our GPS/chartplotter. But we leave the boat for less than 6 hours and all of a sudden the boat drags half a mile, even though the wind and swells were considerably calmer than the previous day. It is unbelievable, and we were unbelievably lucky that we didn't lose the boat.

Saba

posted by SSB

Wells Bay, Saba

The Doyle cruising guide puts the Leeward Islands into three categories: "The Renaissance Islands" (Anguilla, St. Maarten, St. Barths), "The Islands That Brush the Clouds" (Saba, Statia, St. Kitts/Nevis, Montserrat), and "The Islands of Mountains and Mangroves" (Antigua/Barbuda, Guadeloupe, Marie Galante, Iles des Saintes, Dominica). As we approached Saba (SAY-ba) this morning (after a fantastic 30-mile sail. That's right -- look ma, no engines!) we found the guide's description pretty spot on -- the island is an extinct volcano that rises steeply up from the ocean below to the clouds above. There are no beaches here, most of the shoreline is just a spectacularly high wall of volcanic rock. There are also no great anchorages here, as the ocean floor drops off very close to shore, but the country's Marine Park has installed 7 or so moorings for traveling yachts to pick up. After the crowded lagoon in St. Maarten we are now sharing the peaceful anchorage with only four other boats -- we are definitely off the beaten path.

We dinghied in to the tiny harbor to check in with immigration and the marine park (there's a fee to use the park and moorings) and picked up a taxi to take us to the other side of the island. Saba has two main towns: the Bottom, and Windwardside. They are connected by "The Road", as there is pretty much just the one road on the whole island. Prior to 1943 the residents here walked or rode donkeys on small mountain paths. Engineers from Holland surveyed and determined that there was no way a road could be built on the island, but one determined Saban took a mail correspondence class in road construction and over the course of 20 years the road was designed and built by hand. All the locals helped build the thing using cement and wheelbarrows -- no modern equipment. The end result is a twisty, curvy, hair-raising road that is just barely wide enough for two cars. It makes for a pretty dramatic cab right, that's for sure.

Windwardside is a sleepy little town that seems like something out of a foreign film. First of all the island is so small that everyone knows everyone else (there are only 1600 residents), and secondly there must be some sort of town planning committee that only grants building permits to people who want to build quaint stone cottages and gingerbread-like shops. We walked around the town for while and after having a drink at Scout's Pub we decided to head back to the boat and call it a night.

Where we are:
Location=Wells Bay, Saba
Lat=17 38.251
Lon=63 15.425

St. Maarten - Phillipsburg

Underwater Camera

We ran a few more errands this morning (marine store, groceries, picked up laundry, gassed up the dinghy) and after lunch we hopped on a jitney bus over to Phillipsburg to see what there was to do there. Phillipsburg is a huge duty-free shopping destination -- lots of cheap liquor, fancy jewelry, fine perfumes, and electronics. The place was pretty quiet, since there weren't any cruise ships in port, which suited us just fine. We had most of the shops all to ourselves. The main purpose of the trip was to find a decent underwater camera. Kevin's Canon is too nice to take underwater, and my Fujifilm won't take good photos in low light. So we made the rounds of all the electronics stores and found a camera with a watertight housing that we liked. Then of course the real work begins -- you have to bargain with these guys. The first guy quoted us a price and we said "well, we'll think about it" then he knocked $25 off and we said "no, look, really -- we have to think about it. We're going to walk around and talk it over" which of course prompted him to knock another $25 off the price. "Special price for you", he said. Sure. So we hit a couple more stores and Kevin really started getting into it. "Tell you what," he said to one guy, "you keep the carrying case and knock $25 off the price and I'll buy it right now". He drives a hard bargain. After getting all the quotes we ducked into an internet cafe to look the price up on Froogle and realized we were being quoted a slightly better price than what you'd find on the internet. And we wouldn't have to pay shipping and could use it right away. When it's in the waterproof case, the camera actually looks a little like a child's toy, but it should get the job done (can be submerged up to 130 feet) so hopefully we'll soon have some good underwater shots to post.

Phillipsburg, St. Maarten

One other highlight (for me, at least) was that in our wanderings we passed a shop called "The Yoda Guy Gallery". Being a total star wars-ophile, I was intrigued and we had to go in to see what it was. The "Yoda Guy" is actually a guy named Nick Maley who worked on the original animatronic Yoda for the Empire Strikes Back (also on the movie "Krull" for any of you children of the early 80's). He retired from the movie business and now sells artwork alongside movie memorabilia. He happened to be in the store at the time and was very personable, giving us a nice spiel about what everything was even though it was clear that we weren't going to buy anything. Plus, he had one of the original animatronic Yoda models on display. How cool is that? Or as the Jedi Master himself would say, "Cool, it is, yes?"

St. Maarten - Diving and Dining

Ready to Dive

While we were in the Virgin Islands we spoke with a couple friends on other boats who have their own scuba gear on board. After spending over $200 to dive the Rhone with a dive shop we realized we'd have a pretty quick ROI if we bought our own equipment. So here in duty-free St. Maarten we've been investigating prices and brands, trying to figure out what we should buy. We headed to the scuba shop and bought everything we'll need except the tanks. We figure somewhere down the road we'll be able to find some used tanks for sale, and the next two islands we want to go to (Saba & St. Eustatius) require you to dive with a guide anyhow so we can just rent the tanks when we get there. Having bought all the gear we rented a couple of tanks and decided to try it out on a very shallow wreck in Simpson Bay. With all our gear set up and loaded into the dinghy, we set off into the bay looking for the buoy marking the wreck of Tugboat Annie. I was up in the bow scanning the water and not seeing any kind of buoy marking; we were worried we wouldn't be able to find it (the clerk at the store gave us a blank look -- she'd never heard of the site). I pointed out a piece of garbage floating in the water, one of those one liter water bottles, and Kevin realized it was tied to something. Sure enough we could see a big dark shadow under the water so it had to be the wreck. It turned out to be a pretty decent dive -- the wreck was resting right side up and there was a swim-through passage through the pilot house. A huge stingray swam around the wreck, keeping an eye on us while we dove, and we saw a little eel peeking out of his home in a piece of pipe. So even though it was a pretty shallow dive (only 20 feet) we had a good time, and it was nice to know that all the equipment worked properly.

Appetizers in Grand Case

In the evening we decided to give the French side another try. We got to Marigot and decided to take a jitney bus over to Grand Case, which Lonely Planet bills as "the gourmet capital of the Caribbean". How could we pass that up? Walking down the main street in Grand Case we could see how the place had earned its nickname. Almost every restaurant was right on the beach with a great view of the ocean and there were places serving everything from West Indian cuisine (barbecue with peas and rice) to fine Italian and French dining. We decided to splurge on one of the really well-reviewed pricier French places: L'Hibiscus. We were one of three American couples there and it was funny to watch the other two couples arrive. Both of them threw our French waitress for a loop: the first couple brought their two year old and were disappointed that the restaurant didn't have a high chair or kids' menu and the wife of the second couple announced that she was lactose intolerant and did the restaurant serve anything without a cream sauce. The waitress got confused and thought the lady specifically requested to eat something with dairy and started listing all the dishes that had cream and butter in them. Meanwhile our appetizer arrived and only in a fancy French restaurant can you order a $10 shrimp appetizer and get only two shrimp. But what an appetizer! First of all, it looked amazing -- the chef had wrapped the shrimp in vermicelli and flash-fried it so that it stuck straight up in the air like a delicate sculpture of pasta (I'll post a photo when we have internet access). And more importantly, it tasted fantastic. As did everything we ordered; Kevin had the roast duck with mango sauce and I had the beef filet with gorgonzola. It was a heavenly meal and a nice dining experience for us considering that the other night I made grilled cheese and baked beans, or as I call it "frommage grillee avec legumes de Boston".

St. Maarten - Goldilocks and the Three Beers

Tiny Heineken

With all our work on the generator done, we decided we'd head over to the French side to do a little sightseeing and sample some French cuisine. We got all dressed up (for us, this means wearing a t-shirt with no stains or holes) and dinghied over to Marigot, the capital on the French side. There was a pretty boardwalk surrounding the marina with lots of shops and restaurants. Only problem was that everything was closed! So much for our fancy french lunch! There was one restaurant open, a creperie, so we had a meal there and ordered beers. Although they were the same price Kevin made the mistake of ordering a Heineken. When the waiter brought out his beer I almost mistook it for a jar of tabasco sauce, it was that tiny! Something like 7.5 ounces. It's surprising because we see everyone drinking Heineken, paying the same price as other beers and getting much less for their money. It made me very curious -- I know Heineken is a premium beer but it's not THAT good. Over lunch we decided that since fate didn't want us to take a day off to sightsee, we would spend the rest of the day running errands so we headed back to the Dutch side of the island.

The first stop was finding a laundry. We found one but of course it was closed on Sundays. Then we stopped by the market to pick up some bread and produce. By the time we got there it was closed, having only been open a few hours in the morning. We were able to fill up some jerry jugs with fuel and water, but by this time it was nearly 5pm and we'd barely accomplished anything. But at least the bars were open so we stopped in at Shrimpy's and ordered beers (both Carib this time). Another boater stepped up to the bar next to us and ordered a Miller lite and a Heineken. Curiosity had gotten the better of me so I asked the bartender why the Heinekens were so small and she said she didn't know, to her it seemed silly to just order a "sip of beer". Then she said "let me show you something" and pulled out a bottle of Presidente (12 oz). Next to the big Presidente our 10 oz Caribs looked like a momma bear portion and the Heinekin was clearly baby bear-sized. I finally solved the mystery when I asked a French guy why the Heinekens were so small. It's very logical really. The Dutch brewers have figured out exactly how much cold beer an average person can drink before it starts getting warm. So smaller bottles means you never end up with warm beer for the last swig. So that mystery is solved, but here's one for you: does Heineken come in bigger bottles in the US because Americans drink faster than the Dutch?

St. Maarten - Done!

Generator in the air

So have I mentioned that my husband rocks? Well, he does. The new oilpan arrived here on Thursday morning and since then we have been working from dawn til dusk fixing the generator. Kevin has been the brains (and brawn) behind the entire operation -- first tearing out and re-installing the mylar/foam insulation in the locker (the old stuff was torn to shreds and making a mess), then building a new mounting system for the generator out of marine lumber (which is like plastic and doesn't absorb water -- the previous owner mounted the generator on a piece of plain ol' plywood, which got saturated with saltwater and is why the oilpan got rusty in the first place), and finally hoisting the generator and putting the oilpan back on and then guiding it into the locker and attaching it to the motor mounts. And of course today he spent another ten hours just reconnecting all the hoses and electrical wiring. So this evening at 5pm it was showtime and after a few false starts (air was in the fuel line) the thing roared to life and we were back in business. Now we can charge the batteries on cloudless/windless days, run the air conditioning, do laundry on the boat, have hot water whenever we want -- basically all the things most other cruisers live without but hey, we like our creature comforts!

We still have yet to see much of St. Maarten but this was a pretty big project and it is good to get it finished. We plan to do a little sightseeing sometime in the next couple of days. So this has probably been a boring week for those of you reading the blog, but for us it has been a lot of blood (did I mention I got a small shard of metal embedded in my foot? Glad I got that tetanus shot before we left), sweat (all of the work was done outside, baking in the tropical sun), and tears (of joy, that is. Because it is finally done!). Time for a rum drink.

St. Maarten -- A Little History

For those of you who are interested in such things, I thought you might want to know a few facts about the island. At 37 square miles it is the smallest island in the world to be divided by two countries. The larger northern territory is a foreign department of France while the south half of the island is Dutch and was once part of the Netherlands Antilles but according to Lonely Planet is now an independent country in its own right within the Kingdom of the Netherlands. Confusing, isn't it? Local legend has it that when the two countries divided the island they each sent a man to march in opposite directions around the coast of the island. Wherever they met up, that would be where they drew the line across. The story goes that the Frenchman quenched his thirst with wine while walking but the Dutchman drank gin instead and got so drunk he had to stop to sleep it off, which is why the French have the larger area.

As is the case with almost every island in the Caribbean, the first inhabitants here were Arawak Indians, followed by the cannibalistic Carib Indians, who tended to attack the peaceful Arawaks and enslave their women and children. Then Columbus came in 1493 and put the kibosh on that, conquering both tribes and enslaving everyone. Over time, pirates of various nationalities called this place home until the Dutch founded a settlement here in the 1600s. The Spanish didn't like that and immediately kicked the inhabitants out, so Peter Stuyvesant (who later became governor of New Amsterdam/New York) and some Dutch and French colonists fought back but were not successful. Poor Peter lost his leg, earning him the nickname "Pegleg". (I am not making this up). Unbelievably, the Spanish government rewarded the Spanish soldiers by giving them permission to leave the island, and a few of their Dutch and French prisoners got left behind to settle the island again. So if the Dutch had just bided their time they could've avoided the bloodshed and just waited until the Spanish got bored and left. I'm sure Peter Stuyvesant was kicking himself over that mistake (with his good leg, of course).

The 1600s also brought slavery to St. Martin, and the plantation system was in effect until the late 1800's (slavery was abolished in 1848 on the French side, 1863 on the Dutch). Interestingly, in 1918 the Dutch side asked to become part of the United States but that never materialized and the place was pretty quiet until after WWII (during which the Nazis overtook the Dutch side of the island), when an airport was built and tourism started picking up. So now French, Dutch, Spanish, German, and American tourists are able to congregate together in a spirit of international peace and harmony on Orient Beach (the island's clothing-optional, and most popular, beach).

St. Maarten - Lady C

So Kevin finally got the oilpan off the genset on Sunday, just before the sun went down. Basically it involved him wedging two screwdrivers between the pan and the engine and then hammering the crap out of it until it came loose. Sometimes you just need to use brute force. We did see at least one pinhole in the bottom of the pan so that is almost certainly what was causing the oil leak. Kevin put in an order to have a new one shipped from the US, hopefully it will arrive this week.

To celebrate we took the day off on Monday to explore a little bit of the area around here. The Dutch side of the lagoon is a popular spot with megayachts; there are hundreds of them docked here. Everywhere you look is a ginormous luxury yacht, some of them are so wide they barely fit through the bridge opening(which is 55 feet wide). On one of them we saw a helicopter on the top deck, I kid you not. Show-offs. We like to keep our helicopter parked below decks so as not to appear too full of ourselves.

St. Maarten has a duty-free port status, which means that all goods sold here are not marked up as they are in some other countries. So you can find some great bargains (a 1.5 liter bottle of Bacardi = $8). We wandered in and out of a few stores looking for more deals but I think all the really good shops are over in Phillipsburg. At the end of the day we headed to the yacht club where we'd heard they had $1 beers at happy hour. Unfortunately the bar was closed but there was a very surly guy (who probably knew right away that we weren't yacht club members) who advised us to "try next door". Next door was the Lady C, a somewhat shabby 1930's-era sailboat turned into a floating bar by her owner Michael. Happy hour beers were $1.75, but as a bonus it was all-you-can-eat rib night. So that sealed the deal for Kevin (a rib aficionado), and we bellied up to the bar. I think we were the only non-locals there, since everyone else seemed to know each other and they were all obviously Dutch. We could tell not only by the accents but also if you ignored the modern clothes, every guy at the bar looked like he had just stepped out of Rembrandt's "The Night Watch" (I think that's the name of the painting, anyone who didn't sleep through Art History class can correct me if I'm wrong.)

Simpson Lagoon - Zen and the Art of Diesel Maintenance

Kevin spent all day yesterday and most of this morning down in the genset locker (a workspace about 4 feet wide by 6 feet long by 4 feet tall) taking apart as much of the generator and engine as possible so that we would be able to haul it out through the 14-inch opening at the top of the locker. When it became obvious that the anchorage in the Baai (Bay) was too rolly to actually hoist the thing out, we decided to move inside the lagoon area. The lagoon is fully encircled by land, the French half of the island is to the north and the Dutch side is to the south. We went through the bridge on the Dutch side around 11:30, anchored, had lunch, and then proceeded to tackle the generator problem.

Kevin continued working while I played the role of Step N' Fetchit, trying to bring the correct tool when requested. It was a long hot afternoon, and Kevin determined that there was no way to separate the generator from the diesel engine; so instead of lifting a 120-lb block of metal, we were going to have to lift a 230-lb block of metal. Kevin rigged up a solution involving the jib halyard and another block and tackle to hold the genset steady and we were ready to begin. Kevin guided the engine up out of the hole as I cranked the winch to lift the thing. The operation went perfectly; it was our moment of triumph -- getting it out and onto the deck was much easier than we had thought. Unfortunately everything else was downhill from there.

The oil pan is so corroded that it doesn't even resemble metal so much as dirty particle board. We had hoped to find that it just had a crack or something that could be welded and thus solve the oil leak we've been having. No such luck -- the outer layers of the pan crumble to the touch. It was held in place by something like 14 bolts and of course four of them were so corroded that Kevin had to shear the bolt heads off. One of last four bolts just wouldn't budge at all and Kevin spent two solid hours and broke three tools (drill bit, screwdriver, vise grips) trying to get the damn thing off. On the upside, he did MacGyver a new way to power the cordless drill: instead of using the batteries which only hold a charge for 30 seconds, he just wired it straight to our house battery bank (six paralleled car batteries). Go, drill, go!

Anyway, as I type this he is still trying to get the oil pan off of the engine (all the bolts are gone, but it is still stuck for some reason). We have yet to explore any part of Sint Maarten, but hopefully we will get to see some of it after we get the grunt work taken care of.

Where we are:
Location=Simpson Lagoon, St. Maarten
Lat=18 02.444
Lon=63 05.568

Anegada Passage

Anegada da vi da, baby. We left Spanish Town in the BVI's at around 5pm and had a pretty uneventful passage. Well, there was one event. Our speedometer, which is a tiny paddlewheel on the bottom of the boat that tells us our speed relative to the water, and which has not worked since we were in the United States, spontaneously started working again. I guess when Kevin hacked away at all the encrusted barnacles on the thru-hulls with a screwdriver, it loosened up whatever was preventing the wheel from spinning. We'd been getting along just fine for the past 9 months using just the GPS to tell us our speed, but it sure is nice when things on the boat miraculously fix themselves for a change. Cool.

So it is 7 am and here we are in Simpson Baai, Sint Maarten. That's a lot of A's. Will write more laater, aafter we taake aa naap aand check in with immigraation.

Where we are:
Location=Simpson Baai, Sint Maarten
Lat=18 02.165
Lon=63 06.028

Spanish Town, Virgin Gorda BVI - Checking Out

We woke up this morning to a very strange sound. Hundreds of tiny little "thumps!" against the hull. Looking outside we could see that there was a huge school of small silver fish and they were jumping all over the place, and our boat just happened to be in the middle of the mosh pit. This went on for a good five minutes, hopefully the fish weren't hurt, but that's what they get for listening to speed metal while swimming. We left Leverick Bay around 10:30 this morning and motored a few miles over to Spanish Town, which is the only place on the island of Virgin Gorda where we can check out with Customs and Immigration. We dinghied ashore and walked over to the customs building and were in and out of there in only a few minutes, so it was a pretty painless check out procedure with no bribes required (like we had to do in Luperon). Although the charge to clear out was $5.13. Not sure how they came up with that amount.

We picked up some diet coke at the grocery store (we'll need the caffeine for the night passage) and headed back to the boat to grab a quick nap. It's now 4pm and we are getting ready to leave. We should arrive in St. Martin (or Sint Maarten, as the Dutch side of the island is called) early Saturday morning.

Where we are:
Location=Spanish Town, BVI
Lat=18 27.275
Lon=64 26.368

Leverick Bay, BVI

Leverick Bay

Well we've been anchored here in Leverick Bay for a few days and we've been doing...well...a whole lot of nothing, actually.  We went ashore yesterday to check out the resort - they have a small but pricey grocery (2 peppers + 4 tomatoes = $12.50) and an even pricier restaurant (entrees start at $35 -- guess we'll be eating on the boat!).  But it is a pretty spot and it is great to have some anchoring room a fair distance away from the moorings and any other boats.  Yesterday we jumped in and scrubbed the hull, it had been a few weeks and more new and mysterious creatures were trying to make their home on our boat.  We've also been using the fantastic internet connection to catch up on news and stuff we've been missing out on (including watching the Chad Vader shorts on youtube.com as well as the trailer for the next Pirates of the Caribbean Movie.  The internet is a wonderful thing.)

Sunset in Leverick Bay

Mostly we are just hanging out until the weekend, when we plan to make the 80 mile trip to St. Martin.  We are especially anxious to get there since we have recently discovered that the oil reservoir for our diesel generator has nearly rusted through and has started leaking.  We ran the genset for a half hour today just to see how bad it was and half of the oil leaked out creating a huge mess!  We're hoping to be able to get it fixed while we're in St. Martin, although it's going to be a tough job -- the oil pan is bolted underneath the diesel engine and the only way to get at it is to haul the 117-lb engine up out of the forward compartment through a 2ft by 2ft hatch in the ceiling.  Kevin is looking forward to it.

Leverick Bay, Virgin Gorda, BVI

Leverick Bay

[Kevin's Post]After a relaxing day doing nothing in Trellis Bay, we decided to find a new spot to relax and do nothing. Trellis Bay, like most of the BVI is packed with mooring balls leaving no room to anchor. If you want to stay on a mooring ball, it costs $25/night. So we were determined to find someplace decent we could anchor for free for a few days and just read, swim and relax. Our friends on Iguana Dance had marked up a few spots on our charts that they liked, so we headed for one of those. We motorsailed about 12 miles to North Sound on Virgin Gorda and anchored in a great spot just off of the Leverick Bay Marina. The anchorage is huge, has great holding and isn't too deep. Everything you could want, and the icing on the cake: free super fast wi-fi. We're waiting for a weather window for the 75 mile passage to St. Martin, so we'll probably be here a few days at least.

Where we are:
Location=Leverick Bay, BVI
Lat=18 30.025
Lon=64 23.307

BVI - The Wreck of the Rhone

Sorry there have been so few posts this past week or two. We've had a great week with my dad -- we spent a night over in Little Harbour and had a great dinner at Harris', home of the potent Bushwhacker -- as the owner/bartender Cynthia was mixing the concoction I lost count of all the alcohol she was putting in: vodka, Bailey's, Amaretto, and a couple others I didn't keep track of. Somehow she managed to blend it with Coco Lopez so that you couldn't taste any booze at all, it just tasted like a milkshake. Deadly. I only drank two.

Later in the week we headed over to Norman's Island to the Bight, for dinner and drinks at the Willy T. The Willy T is a floating restaurant that is usually the scene of some really wild parties, judging from their photo albums. (When we chartered here a few years ago, there were people jumping buck naked off the top deck into the water). But we were there for a fully clothed and relatively tame night.

The highlight of the trip was definitely diving the wreck of the RMS Rhone. This mail steamer sank in a hurricane on October 29, 1867 as she was trying to ride out the storm. The hurricane struck the ship and forced it into the rocks just off Salt Island where it broke in two and rapidly sank to the bottom in about 20-80 feet of water. Our dive guide took us through a large open hatch into the belly of the bow of the ship, which was remarkably intact. You could see small air pockets shimmering above us like a river on the ceiling; these were other divers' air bubbles that had become trapped inside the wreckage. Swimming through the wreck was probably the coolest part, but there was such a huge variety of fish and colorful coral that I could've probably stayed in one spot and enjoyed it just as much. We did two dives to explore the deeper bow section first, and then the shallower stern section where we were able to swim between the blades of the massive 16-foot propeller resting on the bottom.

So now we are back in Trellis Bay, and for my dad's last night we stopped in at the Last Resort to see the band again (Yes, they recognized my dad from last week. No, he didn't have to do five shots this time.) We saw Dad off on his 7 am flight this morning and today we are just relaxing and straightening up the boat before moving on to the island of Virgin Gorda.

Beef Island, BVI - Pinball Wizard

Denny and the Band

The past couple of days we have been on a mooring in Trellis Bay on Beef Island. Our airhorn has had quite the workout. The first afternoon, we were sitting in the cockpit and were talking about how all the moorings were taken and that boats coming in were circling trying to find an available mooring but nobody was leaving since the weather was kind of rainy and blustery. Then an hour later I look up and I said "Hey, that boat looks like it's leaving. But wait -- there's no one at the helm or on deck...". Sure enough the boat had broken it's dock line that was tied to the mooring and was adrift and heading straight for another boat. Kevin blasted the airhorn and the owner of the drifting boat (neither boat was a charter boat) quickly got to the helm but not in time to stop the collision. There was some minor damage to the teak rail of the other boat but it could have been a lot worse. A couple hours later, another boat broke loose only this was just a dinghy. Kevin noticed it drifting back and of course the owner of the boat came up on deck a few minutes too late and just helplessly watched his dinghy float toward the beach. Another boater hopped in their dinghy to bring back the wandering dinghy to its owner.

On Saturday night we dinghied in to the "Last Resort", a restaurant/bar on a tiny island in the middle of the anchorage. They had a live band that was pretty fun to watch. They had mounted two bottles of tequila on the front of the drum kit and were handing out shots to the crowd like they were candy. One of the games they played was "name that tune". They would play a few bars of a song and everyone had to hit an imaginary buzzer in the middle of their table and guess the name and artist. If you guessed right, you got a tequila shot. If you guessed wrong, nothing happened. But if you shouted out the name of the song WITHOUT hitting the imaginary buzzer you got not one but five tequila shots. Of course my dad knew every song and he'd had a few beers so sure enough he forgot to use his buzzer and shouted out "Pinball Wizard!" when they played the Who song. So the lead singer invited him up to not only do the shots but also to accompany the band as they played the rest of the song. Everyone was rolling with laughter every time the band went completely silent so that my dad could shout out "sure played a mean pin BALL!" a cappella. Dad was able to give away two of the shots to the band members, but then he "earned" another one for having sung with the band, so he still ended up doing four shots. Yikes. After "name that tune" the band played a few more songs and then announced that they were playing the "new newlywed game". Unfortunately Kevin and I were the most recently married couple in the room so we had to go up on stage and then they put Kevin in the soundproof chamber (the refrigerator of the restaurant) and asked me two questions, with the prize being a bottle of wine. The first question was what beverage would your spouse order on a long haul flight. I answered diet coke but Kevin responded beer. So we got that one wrong. But at least we got the second one right which was "which actress would your husband be most likely to want to sleep with?". So the band gave us the benefit of the doubt and we walked out of there with a free bottle of wine anyway. So it was an embarrassing, but fun, night out.

Just for the curious: the answer was Jennifer Connelly.

Where we are:
Location=Beef Island, BVI
Lat=18 26.890
Lon=64 31.881

Jost Van Dyke, BVI - Foxy's

Foxy's Beach Bar

On Thursday we made the quick 13 mile jump from Christmas Cove in the US Virgin Islands, over to the island of Jost Van Dyke in the British Virgins. Great Harbour is where the world-famous Foxy's bar is located, so we wanted to anchor there and check it out. We got into the harbor around one in the afternoon and most of the boats had left. The anchorage is pretty deep and doesn't have great holding so we dropped our anchor in 35 feet of water, let out plenty of scope, and backed down pretty well so that we wouldn't drag. Then Kevin headed ashore to check us in with customs and immigration, and came back for us so that we could go to the bar. We sat down and ordered two Foxy's microbrew beers for Dad & Kevin, and a painkiller (rum drink) for me, then we sat back and looked around at all the old T-shirts, hats, business cards, flags, bras, and other random memorabilia that people on boats have left hanging up in the bar. We've seen lots of little bars with this type of decor, but this one by far had the most of any we'd seen. After our drinks we headed back to the boat to watch the entertainment...

The British Virgin Islands is probably the premier spot for charter boats. This is where people rent a boat for a week or so and sail it around the islands. Sometimes these people are experienced sailors. And sometimes not. (We chartered a few years ago and we'd only had a week's experience sailing. We were amazed that the charter company allowed us to take their boat out with no supervision whatsoever.) Two dead giveaways that a boat is a charter boat vs a cruising boat: 1) the people aboard are pasty white, and 2) the boat is packed to the gills (the whole family plus grandma and grandpa). Charterers usually pick up moorings, since that is the easiest way to "anchor" the boat -- you pick up a line already anchored down and tie it off to your boat. But Great Harbour doesn't have any moorings so charterers are forced to anchor. It's entertaining to watch because they never put out enough scope and you watch them repeatedly drop the anchor, let out a little chain, and then drag back; when they realize they aren't set, they pick up the anchor and start again. We watched one guy make no less than 8 attempts to get his anchor set.

As the afternoon wore on, the anchorage filled up and of course a brief squall blew through. We watched helpless as one boat dragged down almost hitting another boat, Kevin blasted the air horn and luckily the guy peeked his head out of his boat and started the engine right away. Some of our friends we met in Luperon (on the boat Tusen Takk) showed up in the late afternoon and anchored right in front of us, which was a relief since we knew they'd anchor themselves properly. Later we all met up for happy hour at Foxy's and they mentioned that the charter boat next to them (Cala Mia) only had 60 feet of chain out. 60 feet of chain in 30 feet of water is only 2:1 scope (most people will advise you to have 7:1!). Basically the anchor is sitting on the bottom but won't be able to bite into the bottom to get a good set. Of course the next morning the wind shifted and we ended up so close to Cala Mia my dad had to fend them off with the boathook. We explained that if we have 170 feet of chain out and if they only have 60 feet, when the wind changes around they are right in our swing circle. The lady said "well, we aren't that big of a boat", and I patiently tried to tell her that you don't let out anchor scope based on how big the boat is, but how deep the water is. Luckily we were leaving anyway, since I'm not sure they really understood what we were talking about.

Where we are:
Location=Jost Van Dyke, BVI
Lat=18 26.479
Lon=64 45.083

Christmas Cove, St. Thomas, USVI

[Kevin's Post]We flew back to the boat on Monday with Amanda's dad, so of course we woke up Tuesday morning to pouring rain. A perfect day to head over to Culebra (sarcasm). Actually the winds were forecast to be very light so even with the rain we knew it would be a fairly easy trip over. It kind of drizzled the whole way over, but as soon as we picked up our free mooring it started coming down in buckets, we could only see a few hundred feet. We had planned to go all the way to Isla Culebrita, but we got a late start since we had to pick up the cat from the vet, hit the grocery store and return the rental car. So we called it a day on the west coast of Culebra where there is excellent snorkeling. It eventually stopped raining and we were able to do some snorkeling and grilled up some chicken for dinner.

The sun was out Wednesday and we got an earlier start. We headed over to Isla Culebrita en route to St. Thomas. There were large breaking waves on the reefs on either side of the entrance to the cove on Culebrita which made for an exciting ride in. We could see that past the reefs it was fairly calm so we went through and picked up another one of the wonderful free moorings they have here. The surf on the beach would have made landing the dinghy challenging so we decided to just swim ashore to have a look around. We were the only boat there and had the island to ourselves. Within about 20 minutes a group of teenagers walks out of the trees onto the beach complete with beach towels, frisbees and other beach toys. I asked them where they came from since they obviously had no boat. They said that they had been dropped off on the other side of the island. They were soon followed by about 20 others about half of which were screaming kids. So much for having the island to ourselves.

After swimming back to the boat, we headed off to St. Thomas, about 25 miles to the east. On the way we encountered probably the biggest seas we have ever seen on the boat. The swells were 10-15 feet, but they were far apart so it was a very gentle motion. We had fishing lines out but didn't catch anything. We knew our friends on Adventure Bound were anchored over on the East end of St. Thomas so we headed over to Christmas Cove to join them. It was good to see them and catch up with them over beers.

Where we are:
Location=St Thomas, USVI
Lat=18 18.720
Lon=64 49.928

Villa Marina, Fajardo PR

Amanda Snorkeling

And we're back . . . We flew all day and are now back in Puerto Rico on the boat. Stay tuned for more.

Villa Marina, Fajardo, PR

[Kevin's Post]Amanda flew back to Phoenix on Wednesday in order to prepare for Jamie's bridal shower (Amanda is the matron of honor) and bachelorette party.  I'll be flying back a few days before the wedding.  In the meantime I've been working my butt off on various boat projects.  It's tough for me to relax at a marina because I want to make the most of the time.  Although looking back at the projects I probably could have done almost all of them at anchor, but some of them are easier with a hose and unlimited fresh water.  For the rest, it is just nice to be able to run to the local marine store when things go wrong (they usually do).  I've polished all the stainless steel deck hardware, removed 4 of the 6 solar panels so I can reseal the hardtop seams, replaced the jib halyard, replaced the main sheet, replaced the dinghy hoist lines, got the propane filled, cleaned the grill, and reorganized half the boat. 

I know, you're probably sick of hearing about the iguanas.  If so, stop reading now, cause here comes more.   This morning I was working on getting the solar panels off when out of the corner of my eye something catches my attention.  It was a huge iguana trying to climb up the transom.  Mind you, the boat is in the slip bow first, so he had to swim all the way around the boat to get to the transom.  I ran to get my camera and when I got back he was still there, but I scared him off before I could get a shot.  Speaking of shooting . . . later this afternoon I heard this pop-pop-pop sound coming from the entrance to the marina.  I look that way and there is this guy on the back of what is probably a million dollar sportfisher with a rifle shooting at the iguanas on the way out of the marina.  Maybe this guy has been on the Disney jungle cruise one too many times.  I guess if you're going iguana hunting, you might as well do it from the back of your million dollar sportfisher.  Some Puerto Rican lady started yelling at him in spanish, so I couldn't tell what the heck she was yelling.  But, he didn't stop shooting, so for all I know she was giving him advice on his aim. 

Fajardo, PR

[Kevin's Post]We left Culebra this morning to head back over to mainland Puerto Rico where we had a slip reservation at one of the Fajardo marinas.  We've been plowing straight into the wind and waves for the past several weeks.  Every single day we have seen strong winds out of the east (no surprise there, it is the tradewinds) generally 15-20 knots.  So we were actually looking forward to the day when we would get to turn around and sail (gasp!) downwind.  Today was supposed to be that day as we had to go about 20 miles west back to Fajardo.  As luck would have it, today there was no wind at all.  So we ended up motoring the whole way back to Fajardo.

Iguanas are like pigeons here, they are everywhere.  They are on the docks, in the trees, in the bushes, in the water.  It is amazing.  And they are huge, some of them are 4' from head to tail.  If you walk by one of them on the dock, they jump into the water and swim like you wouldn't believe. I didn't even know they could swim.  But they don't dog-paddle like you might think, they swim down like a fish and disappear.  I don't know how long they can stay under, but we saw several dive in and we didn't see any of them come back up.  I'm not sure how far they can jump, but we're keeping the dock lines extra long and hoping they aren't good at tightrope walking. 

Where we are:
Location=Villa Marina - Fajardo, PR
Lat=18 20.574
Lon=65 38.207

Culebra Regatta

Culebra, PR -- Heineken Regatta

So the people on Kimi Jay (the boat that dragged towards us yesterday) finally arrived back at the boat in the afternoon around 3pm. Actually they dinghied past their boat to visit a friend on another boat and didn't even notice that they had dragged and were less than a boat length in front of us. I had to shout to the lady, "Hey! Is that your boat?". When she said yes, we told them what happened and they picked up both anchors and moved. We waited for a couple hours, expecting that they might return our anchor and rode with a thank you, but that didn't happen so Kevin dinghied over to them to pick it up. He got a quick "thanks" from the guy but that was it. Oh well. We didn't do it purely out of the kindness of our hearts; if we had done nothing their boat surely would've hit ours.

The water in Dewey's main harbor is pretty murky and we wanted to give the bottom another good scrub so this morning we moved back over to where we were on our first night on Culebra (we even picked up the same free mooring). It is definitely time for a new coat of bottom paint -- even though we'd just scrubbed the hull a couple weeks ago it was just as bad, barnacles everywhere. We aren't planning to haul out until we get to Grenada, so that means we'll need to scrub the bottom every couple of weeks until we get there so that we don't have a hull coated with growth by the time we do haul.

Originally we had intended to get out of Culebra to avoid the crowds that come here for the Heineken International Regatta. When we moved this morning, we thought we'd seen the last of the regatta (all the boats were anchored in Dewey). But sure enough, around noon we saw one boat come around the corner and pretty soon there were thirty others charging along right behind it. Seems that the big boats race around the whole island, while the dinghies just race in the harbor. So we were treated to a great view of the race, every boat went past ours on it's way around the island. Some of them even aimed right for our stern and then tacked (turned away) at the last minute. We weren't too worried though since these crews seemed to know what they were doing. Except the one that went around us and came within a few feet of the reef near the island. Some of the coral heads come up within a few feet of the surface so I was biting my nails but they managed to turn just in time.

Where we are:
Location=Culebra, PR
Lat=18 19.806
Lon=65 19.988

Culebra, PR -- Ensenada Honda

[Kevin's Post]Today it was our turn to rescue a dragging boat.  We have been anchored in the harbor near the Culebra town of Dewey for a few days longer than we had planned trying to finish up our taxes using the wi-fi here.  A big regatta started yesterday attracting boats from all around and we were hoping to be long gone before the festivities got started.  Now we remember why.  This morning I was writing an email when we heard some airhorn blasts (thank god for airhorns).  Amanda went outside to see what was going on and suggested I might want to come outside to see something.  There was a monohull about 30 feet in front of our bow, and getting closer.  It was blowing 15-20 knots.  This boat was originally anchored several hundred feet away.  We decided to let out more chain to get some distance between us.  Of course with our long bridle, that meant we had to motor forward and pull chain in to remove the bridle before we could let any out.  So Amanda took the helm and masterfully piloted us to within 5 feet of the stern of the other boat, so I could quickly unclip the bridle.  Then I let out about 30 feet more chain.  We watched the other boat hoping that their anchor had set and that they wouldn't get any closer.  Nope, they were still getting closer.  Last December we bought a 35 lb danforth anchor and mounted it on the port bow pulpit so that we would have a second anchor that could be deployed quickly in an emergency.  Of course when we dragged in Luperon, I didn't have any rope attached to it.  Oops.  We learned from that mistake and have since attached 275' of rode in a bag lashed to the corner of the trampoline.  I grabbed the danforth and anchor rode bag and tossed it in the dinghy figuring it would be fastest to just re-anchor their boat with my own anchor.  I dinghied about 100 feet in front of them and chucked the danforth in the water.  Then I dinghied back to their bow and cleated off the rode.  I tied off the dinghy to their boat, climbed aboard and started hauling in the rode I just cleated off to make sure the danforth was set and to get a little more distance between them and us.  This all took about 3 minutes.  It was an awesome performance and I don't think anybody even noticed.  Oh well.

I was a little worried that their anchor had dragged over our chain and would get fouled if they tried to pull it up.  So I put on my snorkel gear and jumped in the water to take a look.  The water here is a little murky and you can't see the bottom even though it is only 8 feet deep.  Trying to follow 100 feet of chain along the bottom is hard when you can't see it from the surface.  I would swim along the bottom until I ran out of air, come up for a breath and try to go back down before I drift too far and lose the chain.  I lost it several times, and had to swim perpendicular to the chain along the bottom until I found it again.  I eventually found our anchor, and theirs.  It must have been a 1000 to 1 chance, but their anchor actually hit our anchor and was deflected to the side coming to rest about 3 feet downwind and to the left of our anchor.  A few feet to the left and they would have missed it completely, a few feet to the right and they would have snagged our chain.    They only have about 50 feet of chain out, which is about 4:1 scope.  Not enough for 20 knots wind.

It's been several hours and we're still waiting for them to return to their boat.  They are still pretty close so we are keeping an eye on them to make sure our danforth holds.  We are hoping they will return our anchor plus our anchor rental fee: a six pack of beer. 

Where we are:
Location=Ensenada Honda, Culebra, PR
Lat=18 18.455
Lon=65 17.935

Isla de Culebrita, PR -- Bandito Nudito

Culebra Iguana

This morning we dinghied into Dewey, Culebra's only town, with our friends Eli and Marla from "Iguana Dance". Eli and Marla have the same type of boat as ours and have been cruising in this area for several seasons. Although we had never met them before we've been emailing back and forth over the past year or so. Yesterday as we pulled into Culebra we heard them hail someone on the radio and it turned out they were over in the next cove. So we got together for drinks and decided to head into town today for lunch. The ride over to town was a wet one -- straight into wind and waves coming from the east so we were all soaked. But we dried out well enough walking around the town and checking out the boutiques and dive shops. We stopped in at Mamacita's for lunch, which is a place right on the water with a pretty good menu. From our table we could see a huge iguana in the tree next to us that was hungrily eyeballing the lettuce on our hamburgers. There was a sign saying "don't feed the iguanas" so you can tell that this was probably a common occurrence at Mamacita's. Later, as we passed by in the dinghy we saw that the iguana must have made his move because he was now crawling along the deck instead of in the tree and the waitress was frantically shooing him with her apron to get out of the restaurant. Not something you see everyday back home.

Back at the boat we dropped the mooring and motored clockwise around the island of Culebra to a smaller island on the northeast side called Culebrita. In Spanish when you see an -ita or -ito after a word it usually denotes "small" or "tiny". So "Mamacita" means "little mama", and "Culebrita" means "little snake". "Dorito", "Cheeto", and "Frito" all mean pretty much the same thing: tiny tasty corn chip snack. That's the end of today's Spanish lesson.

The cove here has a beautiful soft sand beach and there's a lighthouse you can hike to as well. It amazes me that here in Puerto Rico you can find a spot like this with 7 free moorings and some are still empty, whereas 50 miles away in the British Virgin Islands you'd find a similar cove with 70 moorings for $25/night, packed with boats. The boat right next to us in the cove seemed to be particularly inspired by the natural beauty -- I was sitting in the cockpit watching Kevin snorkel and I look over and there is the guy next door, showering completely au naturel. I've seen lots of men in speedos but this is the first (let's hope for "only") time seeing another cruiser showering completely nude. And absolutely proud of it, judging how he took his time and made sure to give everyone in the anchorage a couple of 360 degree views. Okay bad enough, but then his wife put on a similar show. Mind you, we are not moored next to Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. This is an older cruising couple with, well...older cruising couple's bodies. Entertaining? Yes. A turn-on? No. Of course at this point we are looking around to make sure that we aren't in the middle of "The Nudist Regatta" or something and we notice that the guy on the boat on the other side of us is also doing something pretty funny: holding a camera.

Where we are:
Location=Isla Culebrita, PR
Lat=18 19.153
Lon=65 13.651

Isla de Culebra, Puerto Rico

We spent last night at Monkey Island. It's real name is Cayo Santiago, but most folks call it Monkey Island because there are over 500 rhesus monkeys roaming the island. A colony was originally brought here in 1939 so that scientists would have a quarantined stock of monkeys that could be used in experiments. Since then, the monkeys have had free run of the island so it's no surprise that visitors aren't allowed ashore. There were several signs warning people away and stating that the monkeys have been known to attack people. Guess we won't be going ashore to make friends. We anchored a few hundred feet off the beach and did manage to see a few of them wandering around, but other than a few glimpses we didn't see or hear much from the monkeys. Since there wasn't much to do or see, we decided to take off early this morning.

We are now in the Spanish Virgin Islands, to the east of Puerto Rico. Culebra is one of the two biggest islands in the Spanish Virgins, and has some of the best snorkeling and diving in this area. We were able to pick up a free mooring ball just 80 feet away from a spectacular coral reef, so after lunch we donned our snorkel gear and jumped overboard to have a look. This was some of the best snorkeling we've seen since last year in the Bahamas, lots of schools of fish and a field of purple and gold coral fans bowing to and fro as the current passed. There was a dive boat here when we arrived so we were able to float above the divers for a while; it's kind of a trip to see people 50 feet underwater below you.

Where we are:
Location=Culebra, PR
Lat=18 19.806
Lon=65 19.988

Punta Patillas, PR

[Kevin's Post]We left Salinas yesterday morning and motored 6 miles to Boca de Infierno, which is a small cut through a reef with some mangrove islands. We anchored in the lee of one of the mangrove islands to position ourselves for a night departure to Punta Patillas, another 15 miles away. The tradewinds are a major pain in the ass when you are trying to go eastward. Every leg we have made on the south coast of Puerto Rico has been straight into the wind and we have been generally leaving before sunrise to try to cover as much distance as possible before the wind picks up. This morning we left Boca de Infierno at 3 am and actually got to Punta Patillas before sunrise. The full moon was a nice change, it is amazing how well you can see with just moonlight. Also we were treated to a lunar eclipse last night before our departure.

We anchored in the bay at Punta Patillas at the crack of dawn this morning and promptly went back to sleep. Shortly thereafter we were awakened by the sound of jet skis. It must be Sunday. We are the only boat anchored in the bay, which of course makes us the star attraction for the local jet ski rental company. I think they are handing out flyers: 'Come see the magnificent catamaran of Punta Patilla!'. It is just 20 jet skis and us in the whole bay. They are playing games like, let's race to the catamaran and back. Or, let's do donuts around the catamaran. Or, let's see who can get closest to the catamaran without hitting it. Normally this would bug the hell out of me, but today there is a surge coming into the bay and it is pretty rolly anyway even without the jet ski wakes. And I know that all the jet skis will be turned in by sunset and it will quiet down then.

Where we are:
Location=Punta Patillas, PR
Lat=17 58.611
Lon=65 59.786

Salinas, PR -- Viejo San Juan

El Morro, San Juan

San Cristobal

Thursday morning we got a late start to avoid San Juan rush hour traffic and arrived in Old San Juan around 10 am. For those of you who were kids in the early 80's, San Juan was home to Menudo (a latino boy-band that included a pre-VidaLoca Ricky Martin). So of course I had the refrain from one of their songs running through my head all day. Old San Juan is dominated by two Spanish Colonial fortresses: the larger Castillo de San Cristobal and the older El Morro. Both have stunning views of the ocean and the city. We started off at San Cristobal and then wandered up the road to El Morro. The architecture was worth admiring, and both forts had all kinds of underground passages and spiral staircases to explore. By the end of the morning, we were all forted out. So we strolled over to the Casa Blanca, home to several generations of descendants of Ponce de Leon (you may remember him from such quests as "the search for the fountain of youth" and "finding Florida"). Anyway, we wandered through the shady courtyards in the walled gardens and admired the fountains. It would've been a great spot for a picnic lunch. If only we'd remembered a picnic lunch.

San Juan

By this time it was after one and we were ravenous so we walked into the old city and found a restaurant that seemed to be full of people. After our food arrived, we realized why all the other patrons were only drinking at the bar. It was a pathetically half-hearted attempt at spanish/mexican cuisine. Afterwards we walked down the street to Ben & Jerry's to get something that we knew for sure would taste good. We meandered some more down the city's scenic streets. Old San Juan is only about 8 blocks wide by 7 blocks tall, so we had seen all there was to see by 3pm. One point of interest that was mentioned in Lonely Planet was a visit to a shop called the Butterfly People. This is run by a family that takes tropical butterflies and mounts them in lucite (after they're dead of course) that's meant to hang on the wall like a shadowbox. The walls of the shop were covered in large-scale arrangements of color that were both beautiful and extremely creepy. Not to mention expensive: a small box with 6 butterflies was priced in the hundreds whereas the larger collections could be upwards of two grand. We had to laugh when we saw a little tacky tourist shop down the street selling framed butterfly knockoffs for only $27.

Editorial Note

Blogger lost a few of our SSB posts from last week, so there are 3 'new to you' posts dated 2/22, 2/25, and 2/26. Plus, we have uploaded some new photos.

And no, we are not in Africa. Occasionally, the Google Maps inlay to the left places us at 0 degrees latitude and 0 degrees longitude which is off the west coast of Africa. Hit refresh and it should correct itself.