LEAH'S HERE!

On Monday daughter Leah arrived on St. Maarten. This has been a week we have been looking forward to for some time. For her too since she arrived from chilly Chicago.

On Tuesday we sailed to Grand Case on the north shore of St. Martin. A pretty little town with tons of resturants and on Tuesday nights hundreds of vendors set up on the main street selling all kinds of crazy stuff. We ate dinner at 'California' which is where the three of us had our Christmas dinner when we chartered here back in 2003. Still great food!

We decided to stay another day so we could snorkle and Leah could get a good hilly run workout in.

On Thursday we tried to sail around the north-east corner of St. Martin and down towards St. Barts. When we turned to try to take our our course of 150 degrees we found the 20-25 knot wind coming out of 140 degrees. That ain't going to happen! So, we turned back and sailed back to Marigot bay, threw up our Q-flag and had another pleasant boat day while we considered our options.


While considering we decided it was time for Mismo's first swimming lesson. She loves the water as much as any cat but seemed to learn quickly where the 'rescue fender' is. This is a fender we keep hanging in the water that has been wrapped in screen type material so she can easily climb on it.






Before Leah arrived we again went to the Sunday flea market at Shrimpy's. A new cruising couple came to town with a boat load of stuff and they were sellling it on Sunday. Among the many items was a perfectly fine hammock which we quickly bought and tested out on Enee. Leah also likes how it works. We are also very excited that Leah brought her wonderful camera with her. She's a terrific photographer and has been taking many action shots as we go about our regular routines on board. Look for her blog post with her photos soon. We'll put a link here for them.

Mismo Plays Poker!

Splicing a Loop in Double Braid Line

Back in June of 05 we received a very nice going away present from our friend Jeff D. A whole set of fids and instructions for making a slick loop splice in double braid line. Since that time I’ve tried a half a dozen times to do this and only ended up teaching myself new swear words! The instructions are convoluted and besides it’s not clear what you’re even trying to do. Even having done it now I’m not sure what I did!

Well with Sue’s help we spent 4 hours and finally succeeded in making a loop. We needed to do this because we desperately wanted to replace the shackle on the main halyard and didn’t want a big old nasty bowline up there. I think we did pretty well. There is this hardest part of the whole process where you are trying to stuff a fid with the core stuffed in the end of it back inside the cover where there is already core. Right. Or as our English friends say, Wryyyght.

VERY tight fit and slow going at that point. It’s kind of amazing at the end you just milk the outer cover down toward the loop and all your work magically disappears leaving just the loop. I was actually going for a slightly smaller loop but this is as far as we could milk it.








So, THANKS JEFF!













Other gains made today...we've made our dingy official by painting the name on the side. This is a tedius process. You outline the letters using stencils and then fill them in by hand. We took the dingy to the beach side of a little island in the lagoon and got 'er done. . . .no problem except for losing my balance and spilling the paint onto the dingy tube. ARGGGGGG! Looks good from no closer than 10 meters!

Thanks Lance

Just a quick note. Enee is floating again. We have high praise for Bobby's Boat Yard (Simpson Bay). Lance runs everything there and drives the 50 BFM (Big F------ Machine) Marine Travel-Lift and was very helpful and friendly. You worry when cruising because you are always dealing with someone ONE time and are unsure of what you're getting into. Anyone out there looking for a good haulout place...Bobby's in Simpson Bay, St. Maarten is a good choice.




That's Lance. Another happy boat worker. We've met hundreds!

We've re-anchored just over the line into French territory and will have to check out of the Dutch side, check into the French side, and buy a couple cartons of smokes.

Busy, busy, busy

On a Roll

(get it we’re painting the boat. . . with ROLLERS!





Sailor Sue dons her paint overalls and is ready to go!





Seems like every once in a while we get on a good roll. That just about balances the bad ones that come our way I guess. On Monday Enee was hauled out at Bobby’s Boat Yard. No problems and the hull wasn’t as encrusted with sea life as we had feared. After a power wash it was clear that we just needed some minor sanding and scraping here and there. Wash the hull and get to painting! Before the haul out we made the trip to the French side to get the paint. Thanks to Larry and Debby from Debonair (get it?) for letting us use their dingy. I’m NEVER even going to try to start the Nissan again. EVER! That motor doesn’t exist for me. The paint is HEAVY. The four gallon boxes that we bought must have weighed 80 pounds and we bought two as we’re taking 5 and 3 are for a friend of ours on a 1948 wooden boat. He only has a rowing dingy and its at least a mile to get the paint. This was all loaded into Larry’ and Deb’s ‘fold-a’boat’. I’ve never been in one of these and I’m sure they are seaworthy but they sure don’t feel like it. The thing flexes all over the place and I have $900 worth of paint on board! It’s nasty stuff so we also bought the white paper painting suits (no cuffs) and rubber gloves. We spent the rest of the day knocking off the few remaining barnacles and the little white foot prints that they leave. We quit around 4, used the cold water shower in the yard (Yowza!) and walked the mile or so to Shrimpy’s for a well deserved happy hour beer. Also got to check on my brother law in Indiana having some heart work done.

Hang in Ken and get all better!

On Tuesday we did a little more minor sanding and cleaning and got ready to paint. We donned our paint suits with hoods, and put kerchiefs over our mouths. This stuff is really nasty! I’m sure you’d be arrested instantly trying to paint with this stuff in a U.S. yard! Hell it says right on the label,

ONLY TO BE USED IN COMMERCIAL SHIPYARDS”.
IF YOU GET IT ON YOUR SKIN SEE A DOCTOR
IF YOU GET IT IN YOUR EYE SEE A DOCTOR (USE REMAINING EYE)
IF YOU INJEST IT. . . KISS IT GOODBYE!

Stern warning!

But it goes on fine and it seemed like it would take 4 gallons or so as we had predicted to do two coats plus a third coat at the waterline. This water line coat really makes a difference. We did this back in Marathon a year ago and for all the abuse the paint has taken, I still had solid paint for the 6” below the waterline. So while we were painting Enee, Debby was headed over to Budget Marine. I asked her to check on the readiness of our dingy deal that was cooking there.

When she returned we got the good news: We can pick up our dingy any time! Yeah! We finished our first coat of paint, jumped in the shower, and grabbed a bus over to Budget Marine. A good guy there, Vossie, (yep...South African. Everyone here is from somewhere else. We’re the only people I know who don’t have accents!) helped get the deal together. We’re buying the used dingy that was returned because of some blisters on the hull. This is about a $2500 dingy when new. When I showed up Vossie hollered at a guy across the store, “Hey, you’re selling that dingy to this guy for $600 OK?” It wasn’t really a question. OK. Sweet! I never care about boat problems that are where I can’t see them anyway! We added a brand new Tohatsu 18 HP 2 stroke outboard to this. Zoom! I wanted the 15 HP but they were out. The 18 weighs the same and only costs $50 more (It’s the 15 with different carburation). They put the outboard on the dingy, gave us a splash of gas and off we went! Started on the second pull! We’re so happy to have the worry about travel away from the mother ship removed from our list of things to worry about. Global warming and the big lie about Elvis being dead are still on our list. We got some more gas along the way (mixing it 25:1 for now) and headed to Shrimpy’s (again?) to celebrate. Our good friends, Mark, Lee, and Jules were there to help with that. We had a fine time too making fun of the French. Our English friends are especially good at this. The French are accused (right or wrong) for the stealing of dingies up and down the caribbean. The English say that the English outfit their boats to go to cruising while the French go cruising to outfit their boats! I’m sure this is not true as everyone knows the French are way too busy watching Jerry Lewis movies to get involved in any high seas shenanigans.

Now for food and a special travel moment: We walked a little ways down the street to a little mexican joint. It’s really just an old van which is now the kitchen and some tables under an awning. Smells good though! While we were ordering at the window we sort of struck up a minor conversation with a lady sitting alone at a table. After we ordered the cook said, “You can sit with Loretta if you like”. Smelling a scam we sat anyway. A wonderful string of stories of a hard life some possibly even true started coming out of Loretta. It seemed she was hell bent on being very friendly to us and succeeded in being very entertaining. I sensed right away that this was an unspoken deal between Loretta and the cook where we also get to buy Loretta a couple of beers and her burritto which we did. (Loretta is not her real name because we forgot that.)



Whew! What a busy day and more painting tomorrow!

The plan now is to put the second coat on Wednesday morning, have the yard move the jack stands in the afternoon when the paint is dry and then throw a couple of coats on where the jack stands were as well as an extra coat along the water line and on all leading edges. These are places where the paint wears faster.



Wednesday arrives and we jump into our paint suits and get that second coat on well before lunch. This paint will now be dry enough in the afternoon for moving the jack stands and painting where the pads were. So, while we have time to kill we let all the chain out of the anchor locker and stretched it out 200’ through the yard. This chain has somehow become twisted so when I try to raise anchor the twists cause the chain to jump out of the gypsy. This is what caused the motor to break originally I think. Huge shock load when the gypsy re-grabs the chain. Actually it didn’t seem twisted so we just loaded it back into the locker carefully. If it stays on the gypsy now as I let it out when we anchor there should be not any twist. We’ll see. . . .

The yard boys moved our jack stands as planned in the PM and I painted the empty places where the pads were and the water line and all leading edges. Also gave the rudder and complete third coat as it always seems to wear fast. One more coat on the jack stand places either later in the day or first thing in the morning and we’re ready for launch!

Bad Timing

Looking at a very busy day coming up on Monday - haul out, pick up new dingy and motor, about a mile dingy ride, and need to run to Time Out Marina, about a mile and a half dingy ride, on the french side to pick up the bottom paint - and the currrent outboard is totally DEAD. No start today at all! I'm going to have to lean on friends for dingy rides etc. for a day or two while we sort this all out. Remember, this is the outboard with the brand new carburetor! To any of you considering a Nisson 4 stroke...I wouldn't! I have a line on a warranty dingy and new 15 horse two-stroke. This dingy is a 9 foot fiberglass bottom that was returned under warranty due to some blisters on the hull. So, I can get it for maybe $900 instead of $2900 for a brand new one. I can grind out the blisters while we're on the hard.

So, confused and busy 24-48 hours coming up for us....

Stay TUNED!

On a completely different tack...I thought I'd talk about our navigation. We have a gps at the helm with lots of information and down below we have paper charts. The morning of a departure we go over the charts and write our 'sailing directions' on a yellow sticky. Also we enter waypoints into the gps. The sailing directions are things like..."Sail from wp 3 until latitude is 18.5...then sail due east. Stuff like that. Works for us and cheaper than a chartplotter! The SSB down below also shows our lat long while we are underway so whoever is not at the helm can chart our position on the paper chart.

Busy Birthday Month

Happy Birthday to all the February birthday-ers out there. I - Sailor sue being one of them - had a lovely day, actually couple of days to celebrate. The captain made me a filet dinner with Enee fries on Thursday and yesterday we celebrated with our Manatee freinds and a delightful chocolate cake with my name on it. Nice.

In particular Happy Birthday to Andrea, Samantha, Luke, Christopher, and Georgia. Enjoy your day(s).

Simpson Bay, St. Maarten

Well, here we go again learning all about a new place where we know we’re going to be for awhile. Where’s the wifi, grocery, happy hours, other cruisers, mail, and so forth? For our first two days here we anchored ‘outside’ in Simpson Bay. This is fine but somewhat rolly. So on Tuesday we went ‘inside’ to anchor in the lagoon. The lagoon is huge and completely protected. There are only two ways in through narrow channels with drawbridges. One is on the Dutch side and one on the French. Oh yes, for those who don’t know, the island is split along a roughly east-west line with the northern hunk being french and the southern Dutch.



As the story goes a frenchman and a dutchman decided to split the island. They started from a spot along the east coast. The frenchman walked counterclockwise and the dutchman clockwise. When they met on the west side they drew the line from their starting point to where they met. A glance at a chart will show that the French hunk is significantly larger than the Dutch. It is said that this is because the frenchman carried a bottle of wine with him while the dutchman carried gin which significantly slowed his walking. You’ll also notice that the line runs right through the lagoon. This makes for some interesting international check-in/check-out questions. When you arrive at a new port you have to check in with customs and immigration. For Simpson Bay you now pay $20 a week for the right to anchor. You also pay a fee for the bridge if you come inside. Already it gets interesting. We arrived and anchored on the outside. We paid $20 for a week but no bridge fee. But, on Tuesday we came through the bridge. Are we supposed to run back and pay the bridge fee? Who, if anyone, is even checking on this stuff? Now if you enter through the French side and anchor north in the French waters of the lagoon there is no anchoring fee. There are also no buoys to tell you exactly which side you are anchored in. In theory we can check out of the Dutch side. Move the boat about 100 yards north and check in with the French and skip the $20. OK, let’s say we do that. Then on the 11th we return to the Dutch side and get hauled out at the Marina. Do we still pay the $20? We’re not anchored but we really should check in since we will be living aboard in Dutch territory. Again, who’s roaming through boat yards checking on live-aboards?

To me the solution is simple. 1. Charge the mega yachts $500 for using the bridge. Chump change. 2. The Dutch and French then need to form an agreement that checking in anywhere on the island counts for both sides. It is already true that if you check in on the Dutch or French side you can travel to the other side by car or foot or dingy without checking out or in. It’s only if you move your main boat from one side to the other. Maybe just change the name of the island to Frutch or Drench. OK, is that all clear?

The lagoon is reminiscent of Marathon Florida if you can imagine Marathon with about 50 mega-yachts! They are just amazing and there are mega-sailing yachts as well. We’re talking 200’ and beyond here. Where does all the money come from?

Those who are frequent readers of this blog know how this lifestyle has its ups and downs. It’s not all pina coladas and midnight strolls on the beach. Tough sail into here but then...out of propane again! Something is seriously wrong. I can detect no leaks but propane is vanishing from the boat. I think maybe the tank or maybe even both have rusted through the bottom. So, first order of business is to maybe replace one of the tanks with a new aluminum one. There are two great marine stores here (Budget Marine and Island Water World) and besides those there is every kind of marine service here. Kind of like Ft. Lauderdale! It’s a long dingy ride from the outside to Budget Marine way in the western corner of the lagoon. But lots of pretty boats to look at except. . . .DUM DA DUM DUM. . .

Yeah, outboard is acting up again. This is with the 3 week old carburetor. I really don’t mind problems. A big part of cruising is to really dig solving problems to keep the whole trip going but to keep trying to solve the SAME problem is very tedious. This is why we don’t have refrigeration. Just tired of worrying and throwing money at the same problem.

Well, at Budget Marine we bought some supplies for our topside painting project and looked around . . . and forgot to ask about propane tanks! Jeez-o-peet! Well, tomorrow maybe. Our next job was to find Bobby’s Marine and get information about haul out and bottom work. It is a VERY long dingy ride to Bobby’s and I had to keep nursing the outboard along. It’s like it is not getting fuel and when you rev it it barely gets going. I keep hoping someone steals the whole rig!

Then, at Island Water World I found that they now make Kevlar propane tanks. Very light and about $100 less than aluminum. I bought one and will buy another when my working steel tank goes dry.

Bobby’s is a real working boat yard. Not fancy at all. Lance, the operator seems like a good guy and we have tentatively scheduled a haul out for 2/11. We hope to get two coats on the bottom and a third coat along the water line. Now the really bad news. The paint of choice down here is SeaHawk. . . at (get ready) $265 per gallon! I’ll need 4 gallons. Oh sweet jesus. If I spill a drop I’ll probably break down in tears! We have heard of a boat yard over on the french side that is selling Ameron ABC3 paint for more like $110 a gallon. Yeah, but it has to work! My bottom (the boat’s that is) looks like a coral reef! If stuff is just going to grow there anyway I might as well put Sear’s house paint on it! Sheesh.

I’ve since got some positive reports about Ameron. It’s used by commercial boaters such as tugs and freighters and now a few cruisers are using it. It should be in friday or saturday and we’ll pick up 4-5 gallons.

On Sunday there's a flea market at this local joint Shrimpys. We decided to bring our stash of The Why Book of Sailing and try selling some. We sold half our suppy! Well that's only 6 books but seemed like free money.









Later that day we had fun watching the SuperBowl at Ric’s Bar and Grill with our new best friend Mark from Manatee. Go you Giants! Mark won the pool for the last quarter of the game and so he and his wife Lee took us out to dinner the next evening to celebrate. What fun. Thanks again kids.













We took the little bus (11 person van) to Philpsburg the other day. This is the town about 5 miles to the east where the cruise ships go. The whole town is just jewelry and junk shops. Not much reason to go there really.

Yesterday we took the dingy to the french town of Marigot. That’s a little more interesting town but the streets are bumper to bumper cars with tourists NOT looking like they are having fun!

At this writing I’m looking at a used Nissan 9.8 hp 2 cycle outboard. The guy who runs Shrimpy’s Bar deals in used marine things and especially outboards. I’m a little nervous about trading in one set of problems with another but I have zero confidence in our 4 stroke nissan. Yesterday it stalled with us about a half mile from Enee and down wind. We tried to paddle but were only breaking even when we got a tow from a passing power boat. Of course back at Enee it ran like a champ for many minutes. We jumped in to go ashore, got about 200 yards and it died again. So I’m DONE with this outboard.

Mismo continues to grow. I think we’re going to have a 20 pounder here. Here she is helping me tape for painting the topsides. What a helper!

Stay tuned for pictures of painting the bottom! With or without Mismo's help.

HAPPY BIRTHDAYS

Happy Birthday Kim on January 27th. How old are you? How old is the superbowl? That's the answer!


Happy Birthday to Enee - the namesake of Enee Marie. Our Enee will soon get a new paint job on her bottom. We assume that the real Enee is not in need of such.

Bad Sailing

Spanish Town, BVI to St. Maarten (the Dutch spelling).

This is the story of the 80 mile crossing to St. Maarten that Capt. Scott turned into a 128 mile odyssey. Yeah, you can do that. Well, I can do that.

It all started with the promise of true north east winds. Maybe even from as north as 070 or 060. This could be great for a run to St. Maarten which bears 115 degrees from north sound of Virgin Gorda. We check out of Spanish Town which is in the middle of the west coast of Virgin Gorda and get under way around noon. Plenty of time to get around the top of Virgin Gorda and begin a night sail to St. Maarten. Right?

Well, getting around the top here turned out to be a little more difficult than expected. We went more north than planned to get around the top of Necker Island instead of under but that’s ok to head a little north as the winds are going to turn to the north (right?) so this just means we’ll take even more advantage of them. Once clear of all shoals we checked our two close hauled courses: 25 degrees and 145 degrees. Don’t be shocked. Our boat tacks 120 degrees if we are lucky! Well, do the math. If we sail 25 degrees that is at right angles to our rumb line which means we are essentially going nowhere so that’s not good. The other course, 145, is pretty far south of the line but what the hell at least I’m sailing. We get on that tack and stay there accepting the east we are getting and we need a little south anyway.

A beautiful night. Stars aplenty and the moon came up like a big orange egg in the east. Sue suggests that we maybe put on the engine and get east. Naw! It’s a F---- sailboat. Who cares when we get there?

But you do have to get there.

As the night wore on we demonstrated some of the worst behaviors of sailors ever. I got a little sick. We both had too much crap in the cockpit and started tripping over it in the dark. Someone at the helm (Sue) got us backwinded and forced a tack. . . but only TWICE.(Sailor Sue: It’s hard to see in the dark! Although there’s no excuse.) We shook out the reef in the main. We put it back in. In the middle of all this we had an encounter with a catamaran.

It was past dusk into dark. We had been watching her running lights for some time and figured we’d get close. We could see through the binocs that she was bare poles and under engine only power. We’re sailing and clearly have the right of way. When you have the right of way I feel it is important to stay on course for fear you get into the sidewalk dance where two people can’t quite figure out how to pass each other when walking opposing directions down a sidewalk. Of course for this to work both boats have to know the rules of the road and they have to be watching. As we got even closer I tried to hail them on the radio. Nothing. Then the air horn and an emergency tack from us. As we spun out of their path we saw people coming to the helm from down below looking around to see what was going on. We think they were all down below, on the auto helm and not even keeping a watch. This is way out at sea with no other boats around. You never know. Catamarans are just a step above power boats! (Except for our friends on Puddle Jumper.)

We marshaled on. I figured the wind was from about 80 degrees so I would sail through it so that St. Maarten would bear maybe 70 degrees so that we could use both tacks to get us there. The trouble with that was that by the time I got to the point where that might have worked around day break we were 30 miles south west of the island. Yeah, I had basically sailed past our goal. This is maybe excusable on a boat without an engine which this is not one of! Now the gps shows our eta to be around midnight. Our 16 hour trip is turning into days!

We now try a number of things including checking the charts to see what the hell island we ARE heading for and maybe we just go there! St. Somewhere? No. Now it’s motor and main. Motor and full sail. Motor reefed main and reefed jib. Motor, full main no jib. We’re both exhausted and beat up from bouncing around the cockpit all night and cranking on the winches. St. Maarten now bears 65 degrees. I still can’t sail there! I hate me. I hate my boat. I hate republicans. I hate my 3rd grade teacher. The depth of my hate for the world, the sea and sailing in general has no limit. And, good old Mismo the cat sits on the top stair of the companionway and screams at us to come out which we are not going to let happen at night on the rolling sea.

So come morning we are now 32 miles from St. Maarten. Let’s see, around 5 pm we had 75 miles to go. Now it is 7 in the morning and we have 32 to go. Just about anything I do with the boat we go 3-4 knots and not in the direction we want to go I say, let’s set full sail, crank up the engine until it smokes and sail due north to get due west of the island. Maybe we can motor/main in from the west then. (I’m still living in a world where the wind is going to go to the north east as promised, the good guy always wins in the end (and gets the girl), and good deeds don’t go unpunished) At this point I go to sleep in the v-berth and Sue takes us north. From there we proceed to motor/main to the island. With luck we might get in before dark which is our goal.



Look really closely at the horizon and you'll see St. Maarten - 26.2 miles away; a marathon that will take us 6 hours to reach the finish line; same as some marathon walkers; basically we were walking to St. Maarten.

Of course you can’t sail 90 degrees because that is dead up wind. North-east my ASS! We bear off and sail 100-110 degrees to get the speed and do manage to tack and get there by about 1700 and anchor down. We’re exhausted. The cockpit looks like a fraternity party happened there with spilled coffee, candy, and brownies. We hoist our Q flag (yellow flag meaning you’ve not yet cleared in.) We have a rum, some cheese and go to bed. Before turning in I check the trip meter on the gps. 128 miles and 30 hours sailed. 80 miles accomplished.

Maybe we could have done better.

I still say stubbornness is a GOOD trait!

Finally safely anchored at Simpson Bay, St. Maarten Scott and Mismo play footsee or is that fingersee or pawsee.

On to St. Maartin!. . . maybe

Tuesday-
Another morning of bashing about in confused seas to make the 6 miles from Road Town to Cooper Island. This should be the last up wind trip for a bit. We picked up a mooring ball and set to work on painting the white topsides (Scott) and a hunk of teak (Sue). Hot work out in the sun but the Deliverance boat came by! The deliverance boat is one of our fondest memories of chartering here 8 years ago. It is a power boat with everything you need inside - ice, beer, snacks, charcoal, pastries, etc. So we rewarded ourselves for our labors with a couple of Red Stripes and a bag of ice. Since we are just taking off again in the morning we decided to not re-launch the dingy but we’re sure that this was the place where we spent new year’s eve in 2000. We took a swim to cool off and then made olives/pasta and pea salad for dinner. A nice night. Full Moon too!



Wednesday-
Yea! We get to sail north instead of east! Another short hop to the north end of Beef Island where lies Trellis Bay and Marina Cay. Trellis bay has fun looking beach stuff so we decide to take a mooring ball there. Very crowded with boats but we found a ball easy enough. The best news of the day is from our weather god, Chirs Parker. This weekend the winds are finally going to moderate and even back a little to come out of the north east or even north-northeast. This gives us a beautiful window for a night sail to St. Maartin. We’re thinking of leaving Friday at sunset to arrive at St. Maartin the next morning. It’s about 80 miles from Virgin Gorda to St. Maartin. We could spend more time in BVI but we hate to pass up such a nice window. Besides, daughter Leah is arriving in St. Maartin on Feb 25. Never know when you're going to get pinned down for 2-3 weeks with high trades this time of year. If it turns out as Chris says this will be a perfect reach all the way to St. Maartin - set ‘em and forget ‘em! We’ll see. Next post could be from St. Maartin! Wheee!

Mismo photo of the day. She's sleeping in our bag of clean laundry. Good place to be when the boat is heeled.











Finally, here's a couple of links to some truly excellent photography by none other than Leah Welty-Rieger. The sample on the left is called Old Hands/New iPod. Enjoy. Link 1 Link 2

Anchoring Antics/Leaving Jost Van Dyke

Jost Van Dyke is a very popular stop for the chartering crowd. It’s a nice big anchorage but fairly deep in the middle. There’s room for many boats but then more keep coming! It’s an amazing thing to watch. We had made a little run over to White Bay thinking about getting a mooring ball there but got aced out of the last ball. . . twice! Rats! Back to Jost where we on purpose anchored pretty far out against the eastern shore in about 4 meters (about 2.2 fathoms) of water. Then the fun starts. We just sat on our boat and watched the endless parade of 40+ foot Moorings catamarans come to try and anchor. Here’s the basic charterer’s anchoring drill.

1. Drive straight into the middle of the obviously crowded anchorage at at least 5 knots.

2. Have crew members hold there hands up in random positions to demonstrate to the helmsmen that there arms still work and have not been severed by the anchor chain. . . yet.

3. Assume the boats around you are anchored in Jello-O and will remain stationary for you.

4. Drop your hook and let out about 15 feet of chain (standard 1:1 ratio) to put you right between two other boats with about 10 feet to spare on either side.

5. After swinging near one or the other of the boats next to you and/or dragging to the one behind you, haul up your anchor and go back to step 2.

I’m not kidding we watched one cat do this at least 10 times. They arrived in plenty of daylight and in total darkness they were still at it. The whole time we were watching there was PLENTY of room out behind us. I think there is a clustering mentality that tells people that if you are not with the other boats you’re doing something wrong! Well, things were fine out by us. I say out by us but I’m talking maybe 200 yards (182 meters) farther from shore! What a hoot. I don’t mean to make fun and I’m not. I just think it is a funny phenomena.

The next day we got away early to head south around Tortola to Norman Island. Norman Island begins a chain of islands running to the north east. These islands along with the big island of Tortola to the north form the Sir Francis Drake Channel which is not a cable thing but it should be. In order from south-west to north east you have Norman, Peter, Salt, Cooper, and Ginger (NO! Maryanne!). These lead to Virgin Gorda the big island to the east of Tortola.

It was windy but we had a very nice reach to the south to enter the channel between Tortola and St John. Once around the corner the wind was right on the nose (of course) and howling! I think the narrows there funnel the wind. The nature of the sea was good news/bad news. Good news - looks like the heavy current here was with us. Bad news - that put the current against the wind and makes for steep chop. So, although this was only to be a run of about 12 miles we found ourselves out there beating hard to windward under reefed main and motor for about 5 hours. Nothing real violent just annoying howl of the wind and busy at the helm for the whole time.

We made the bight in Norman Island which is brimming with mooring balls. They’re not free but this harbor is very deep and anchoring would be a real challenge. We picked up our mooring ball and sat back and just waited for the man to come collect the money. Naps happened. Dinner happened. The man never came. We saw him go to several boats around us be he kept skipping over us. Cool! Knowing that if we stayed another day we’d have to pay we didn’t even launch the dingy but decided to just make a short hop the next day to mooring ball free bay. The wind howled all night.

Up at 0530 for the off shore report and to make the coffee. That’s as close as I come to a routine. We were ready to go in no time since we had hardly been there and got off before 0700. We were in no mood for a long beat today so just went around the corner of Norman to Benures Bay (or do you say Benares Bay?). There were only 3 boats in there! Yeah! We managed to anchor without waking anyone (I think) and what a beautiful spot. High rocky hills surrounding clear crazy blue water. I checked on the anchor and could see it clearly in about 10 meters of water (thats 1000 centimeters!).

We had more coffee and made breakfast during which the three boats left! See ya! Oh, how great it is to be the only boat in a beautiful anchorage like this. We launched the dingy and loaded up our snorking gear and set off. We’ve learned that you snork where the pelicans are diving. Boy, did that work here! Lots of fish and coral and beautiful water to snork in. We checked out two different spots along the shore and both were filled with fish. It’s not yet noon.

In the afternoon we were joined by two catamarans but they don’t seem to have the clustering gene like the boats from Jost had. Tomorrow, maybe we’ll stay. Maybe we’ll go somewhere. The winds are supposed to be heavy well into next week so short hops are for us and we’re in a good place to be doing that.







Time out for a picture of Mismo crawling up my 'Kool-aide'!


Sunday-
We stayed. This is a really pretty anchorage with great snorking. We have nothing but time so we decide to stay another day. I used part of this day to paint another hunk of the white in the cockpit. It’s looking good! A lot of this is technique. Not too much paint and you have to really flow it out with a foam brush. I’m using West Marine Topsider paint. It’s got a high gloss and dries very hard. I also need to paint the non-skid areas and am open to suggestions as to how to do this. Same kind of paint? Add sand? How to prepare this bumpy surface for painting?

Yesterday a big old Irwin came in. Probably about 50 feet. Obviously a charter with a man and wife owner and 4 customers. They anchored pretty far from us and that’s nice. Then, later in the day they moved their anchor to be right by us. Why? The problem here in this bay is that we don’t really feel the east wind. The winds are swirly and so is the water. The result is that boats here tend to just bob around on their anchor. We end up about on top of our anchor no matter how we set it. OK. But now we have two boats doing the random bob right next to each other and sure enough we started moving together. Worse yet, the captain took the customers for a ride to somewhere in their dingy leaving only the wife behind. Usually in this kind of situation my position is, "Hey, you moved on top of me so YOU do something". Now she is alone on a 50’ monster. Now we are about 10 feet apart and our engine is on. She asks me if I want her to haul in 50’ of chain. There’s a lot of things I want her to do right now and this is actually on this list so I say, “Go ahead”. Well, that was useless because like me she is sitting on top of her anchor. Never mind. . . we’ll move. I’m hot as it is a pretty big deal for us to haul anchor as the windlass barely works (remember the 7 magnets?) and I have to haul chain mostly by hand which I begin to do. As I’m grunting and straining she comes over in her dingy and ties on to us and starts babbling about how they used to cruise and would we want a bottle of wine and blah, blah, blah. I turned from my labors and said, "HEY!, We’re a little busy right now”! She took the hint, left the wine and beat it. We had to drop and haul anchor twice to get it to set again FAR from the Irwin. My next boat will have torpedo launchers and I’ll be stalking 'Sandcastle'!

It rained off and on the rest of the day and then it poured with lightning all night. We did sneak in on more snorking trip and it was spectacular. We think the shoreline of this entire bay, probably a mile or more, is all great snorking. We saw the usual suspects of fish and lots of our favorites - Ranbow Parrot fish. They are amazingly colorful.

Maybe we won’t get away tomorrow! Holy CRAP! I’m almost out of books too!

Monday-
After an long night of rain and lightning we awoke to Enee slowly drifting to shore. That ain't right. Although we had more or less resigned ourselves to another day to avoid a really crappy sail this bobbing about is getting really old. We haul (actually I do the hauling) anchor and plan to just go about 3 miles to Peter Island and anchor there. Sue had a peach cobbler working in the oven and on the way the fire went out. Our SECOND propane tank is dry! A quick mental inventory tells us that without propane we can eat olives, crackers, peanuts, raw potatoes, and canned peas (we refuse to eat the cat. . . so far). So, Sue got on the radio and found a marina in Tortola that could provide propane. We head there. This too is only a few miles but whoop what a nice driving rain and wind. We dock at the Village Cay Marina in Road Town. Very nice. This little stop not only allows us to fix the propane problem but to get a few things at the grocery store. It was actually hard for us to remember the last time we hit a marina. Back in Ponce PR we did a couple of awful days. One thing interesting about marinas is all the pretty boats. We may have the smallest boat here!

Tomorrow off to Cooper Island!

To the BVIs!

Coral Bay, St. John to Jost Van Dyke, British Virgin Islands

Sunday - January 13, 2008 Happy Birthday Sarah Hender!
Coral Bay, St. John

Sunday afternoon we found playoff football at the Skinny Legs bar and grill. Sorry Peyton Manning and the Colts. We left with 2 minutes to go after San Diego scored a go ahead touchdown. Gut wrenching.

We dingied over to Half Moon for sundowners and fun conversation with Joe, Becky, Becky’s sister Janey, and Bob Tis - author of ‘Down Island’ - a novel that takes place in the Caribbean. Bob lives in Coral Bay and gave us the inside scoops about the goings on here. Earlier in the day we noticed a big ship unloading these large tub containers. An unusual sight. Bob informed us that the tall ship, Tall Cloud, sails to Trinidad to buy these fiberglass cisterns and returns to St. John to sell them. The cisterns hold 2,500 or 5,000 gallons and people on the island buy them for their water supply. Tall Cloud began as a work boat on the Great Lakes of all places!

Bob also told us about the history of St. John. When the slaves were freed all the white people left the island. The freed slaves stayed. Not a bad place to be. Plus no white people with their bad dancing. When the US bought the island from the Danes in 1917 for $25 million (a nice condo in New York now!) Not much happend until the 1950’s when son of Rockefeller (Bugsy) bought most of the island and donated it back to the us government and had it all declared a national park. He also helped the natives build their economy. Consequently most of the businesses are owned by natives. This is unusual in the Virgin islands.

After a few rounds of pina coladas (thanks guys) we headed back to Enee to play with the Mismo for awhile before retiring. She was all wound up and ready to rumble. We kept her below though. This anchorage is rolly and for sure she would fall off when it’s dark and hard to find her.

We decided to stay one more day here before heading to BVI. We’ve only seen half of the town and a lay-over day after being on the move the past 5 sounds good to me.

Monday, January 14, 2008
Coral Bay, St. John

A nice layover day in Coral Bay. Lunch at the Caribbean Blue joint and walk about town. Found a few things at the little grocery store and time for a cold Presidente at Skinny Legs. As we walked about town we came to a baseball field. The 'ground crew' was busy at work. See photo.








Actually found a TINY marine store. Notice it’s really a semi trailer! Pretty well stocked though and we bought some supplies for our various painting projects.










Tuesday, January 15, 2008

Being There Again

I may have written a post similar to this at some point. I think I have. The idea that we are reaching deeper and deeper into the true ‘down island’ part of this adventure. I had this feeling when we crossed under the Mackinaw bridge, when we sailed in to New York harbor, when we reached Key West, when we anchored first time in the Bahamas, and now anchored off of Jost Van Dyke in the British Virgin Islands. Reaching (really!) this island capped about a full week of great sailing days starting back in Culebra. We’ve hardly run the engine (no refrigeration - no problemo!) and Enee’s bottom must be getting cleaner and cleaner as we peaked at 8 knots yesterday on our way to Jost.
Sailing from St. John to Jost Van Dyke means sailing around one island to another for a few hours. You really can see where you're going that easily.
Sailor Sue likes it when the seas are flat though you can still sail fast.












Check in was simple, fast and friendly. While taking care of this paper work I asked the young lady immigration agent where you go for vacation if you live here? She said, “Why would I go anywhere”? Why indeed. There are about 3 or 4 establishments on the water here including the somewhat famous Foxy’s. We had a couple of beers at Corsairs and just looked out at our boat. There is something different about being here. I feel time running at an even slower rate. I feel a certain pride for arriving here in my own boat all the way from Chicago. We chartered here about 10 years ago. To return like this makes it extra special.








Jost Van Dyke is about 3 miles north of the big island of Tortola. This harbor sits on the south side of the island and is well protected. Looking south from here you can see lots of comings and goings of a variety of boats. Yesterday I counted 21 sailboats on the move in my field of view. I like lonely little anchorages but I also like a busy harbor just to watch all the pretty boats come and go. There are actually 180 residents on the island. Some farmers and some people working the bars and restaurants.
The photos remind us of a 70' Great Lakes racing boat that apparently is now a cruising boat in the BVI. Nice.

There are large charter fleets in BVI including Moorings, Footloose, and Sun Sail and it seems they all make a stop here. You can really tell a charter boat from a cruising boat. The charter boats have clean decks and no extra gear anywhere. Your typical cruising boat has jerry cans strapped to the rail, various lines hanging here and there and some dings and scrapes from who remembers when.

A couple of days here then. We will probably take the dingy down to White Bay just to the west of here where there are some other outposts and good snorking. From there maybe to Cane Garden Bay and then around to the other side of Tortola to the string of islands - Norman, Peter, Salt, Cooper, Ginger leading one up to Virgin Gorda. We hope to end up near Bitter End on Virgin Gorda where we will wait for a good weather window to make the 80 mile run to St. Maartin. It is there that we will find a boat yard and get the bottom painted. In the meantime we try to keep up with the teak on our boat and I am slowly re-painting all the white topsides. There’s a lot but if I just do a hunk at a time it will all get done in a year or so. It’s a little difficult to paint at sea. Wind tends to blow unwanted things into the paint job and kitty leaves little paw prints if we don’t tie her down. Still, it looks better than it did. Shiny!

This post brought to you from Cosairs with bartender Lisa and her crew.