Volume 2, From Antigua, Bequia, St. Lucia, and other islands in the Eastern Caribbean

Air temp: 86, Water: 81, Conditions: Mostly Sunny

Well, here I go again. This was originally started more than two months ago, and a great deal has happened; yet little has changed except our location and amount of savings left. Our location is growing in Latitude, and the savings are shrinking.

The section on Time was written after having been in English Harbor, anchored in pretty much the same place, for over 9 weeks. The remainder of the newsletter was written starting in Bequia in late March, then finished in, of all places, English Harbor.

I’ve been reading Steven Hawking’s book A Brief History of Time and have started thinking about how some of the concepts used in the study of cosmology can be applied to cruising on a sail boat. The comparison is rich.

For example, the speed of light is very much like the departure date to another Island. The closer one gets to it, the further out time is stretched. One can never actually reach the speed of light, and apparently, leave English Harbor.

How to tell if you’ve been at anchor in one harbor too long:

You stare at a spot about 10 feet from the boat for endless minutes; and think nothing of it.

You can start to measure how many days a boat has been at anchor here by the length of the fur on its anchor.

You recognize local people on the street; and they recognize you; by name.

You spend a few days on the boat completely without going ashore, and when you do you get "land sickness." And this in when anchored in a protected harbor.

People start calling you on the VHF.

You get invited to a SuperBowl party at a local’s house.

 

We did finally leave English Harbor for a few days anchored out in Nonsuch Bay by Green Island. This is a non developed area with almost full exposure to the Easterly Tradewinds, but protected by a barrier reef. The anchorage with beautiful sandy beach is slightly behind the island and the barrier reef that protects Nonsuch bay.

Of course we didn’t just leave English Harbor once, we did it twice. The first time we left with the dinghy being towed into about 20 kts of wind. It slowly built into about 35-40 from the E (the direction of Nonsuch bay, natch), so we were fighting waves that formed somewhere off the coast of Africa, were being heaped up with near gale force winds, all while trying to tow an inflatable dinghy which now took on the characteristic of a kite rather than boat.

The inevitable happened. The dinghy flipped over, filled with water and became a nice sea anchor. At the same time pretty much everything that had been on the port side of the boat down below was now on the cabin sole, and getting soaked by the inevitable leaks. It was at this time we figured that Nonsuch Bay could wait, so we managed to tame the dinghy after only loosing the seat and headed back to our favorite harbor.

As a result of this, Christine’s and my first foray into the trade winds alone, we learned a few things.

Wait for a genuine weather window. We missed the most recent weather report, and didn’t hear the strong wind warnings.

Always, Always stow the dinghy on deck when doing inter island passages.

Don’t try to go to windward if you can avoid it.

How to get parts imported into a foreign country (namely the dinghy seat that flew away). FYI, the seat cost about $US 85, while the customs and ‘other’ costs were about $US 95.

The seat took about 8 days to get to the island and through customs. This time finally give us a weather window and allowed us to spend our first period in an ideal surrounding, Nonsuch Bay and Green Island. It also gave us practice at getting out of English Harbor, for when we did finally check out of Antigua customs we made it to the next major island on the first attempt.

We left English Harbor the morning of February 3, and had a lovely light trade wind beam reach across to Deshaies (dey-hay), Guadeloupe. It was our first nice sail alone and we had the full run of interesting sights including Dolphin, the active volcano on Montserrat grumbling, and the approach to a lush, mountainous island as it drew closer. We crossed in company with Watercolor II, with whom we have since bumped into a few times.

Deshaies is a quaint little seaside village with an open and somewhat rolly anchorage. It is in a valley formed by large hills to the north and south and a mountain to the east. No one can reasonably predict where the wind will blow from which makes selecting an anchoring spot a little chancy.

For those who know the boat, we finally got the correct sized chain gypsy for the big anchor and can now put down and with great manual effort, crank up a 65 lb. CQR on 220’ of 5/16" HiTest chain. When it’s dug in, we ain’t going no where, no how.

Ashore I had my first encounter with French since high school. For me it was exciting, but the poor shop keepers probably had had enough of middle aged Americans inflicting their fractured high school French on them. You could at least tell when you were close to correct: their frown lessened.

We managed to get by however, and had a wonderful time of it. At this phase we were both buzzed with the rapture of having actually broken free of Antigua, and now, of being in a completely foreign land.

We were also happy to be in a country that has good food. The first day we had real French espresso and pastries, bought some fresh fish whose name later translated to tuna, and eat real wooden oven baked baguettes. Life was pretty good and we had only sailed about 40 miles. The trip has had a few really high points like this that we shall remember for a long time.

Christine wanted to SCUBA dive off of Pigeon Island at the Jacques Cousteau underwater park part way down the west coast. However conditions were not right to anchor in the bay near the dive shop so we pressed on down the west side of Guadeloupe. We stopped at Anse De le Barque where we were the only boat in the harbor. It would be that last time that happened. We got to go skinny dipping, have a couple of Planteurs Punches, and saw another of our dozen or so Green Flashes to date.

The Green Flash occurs just as the upper limb of the sun falls below the horizon. It’s not really a ‘flash’ per se, but the last little sliver of the sun is definitely green and really does seem to wink at you. The problem, an astute observer will quickly note, is that it occurs just about when the average sailor is well into their second rum punch and thus may not be providing the level of objectivity that someone who has not seen the event might like to hear.

I overheard a brief conversation at the Mad Mongoose bar in (where else) English Harbor about Green Flashes that was something like this:

First Party: "We went up to the Heights [Shirley Heights, a tall hill with a stunning view] to have a few punches and see the sunset last night. We saw the green flash!"

Second: "What’s that?"

[an explanation ensues, with at least one participant putting forth the theory of a Punch-Flash connection]

[many other people chime in with their own sightings, oddly enough always around happy hour]

Third Party: "I saw a Green Flash without a rum punch!"

[at this time the room falls silent, and remains that way for about 10 seconds]

First party [incredulously]: "Why?"

Leaving Anse De Le Barque, we motorsailed close along the coast down to Basse Terre, and into the Marina De Riviere De Sens. It’s a working type of marina with mostly local boats and the kind of place where you don’t want to even rinse your cockpit with the harbor water. It was not a terribly beautiful place, but it was cool at night due to the air settling down from the mountains. There we ensconsed for about a week while playing cat and mouse with our mail forwarding service, Customs Francais, UPS, and the local marina Captain. Again, we got caught up in the time warp and we just settled down to get to know the place and it’s people.

We took a bus from Basse Terre to Point á Pitre on the other island, Grande Terre (Guadeloupe is actually two islands) and back. The ride was interesting on the way over, but on the way back stopped four times at schools just letting out, at which time it switched into school bus mode and stopped every 100 meters to dribble out a pupil or two. So what was a 1.5 hour trip over became a 3.5 hour trip back. And we had to pee before the trip started.

There’s this sort of ‘music’ like sound that is apparently called "Euro techno" or Zouk or something. It is all, and I mean all, 4/4 time with a very strong ‘walking bass’ part, using about 4 or 5 chords, and all arranged in approximately the same chord progression, and it’s heard everywhere including the busses, and in particular, the busses we rode on. The first hour or two was interesting, but after that it was pure hell; torture. One song blended into another for ever. It makes disco seem bold and inventive.

Perhaps the greatest pleasure of doing this sort of travel, aside from having some time to think and read, go swimming every day, etc, is meeting people. Christine and I are not outgoing like some are (Sally Sinclair comes to mindJ ), and as a consequence of that and not going out much at night, we have not met that many people. But the ones we have met and got to know are a delight to recall and will be a prominent part of our trip memories.

Take Jamie Bryson singlehanding the 32’ sloop Ave Del Mar. He rowed up one day in English Harbor asking some technical question about Passe Partout and we ended up talking all afternoon. Jamie has pretty much done everything. He had just sailed from southern Argentina to Antigua for about a 4,500 mile passage. He mentioned it like he had just popped over from neighboring Barbuda.

Jamie has circumnavigated, managed a Mexican hotel complex, was city editor for the San Diego (something), started a newspaper in Alaska, and now lives there when not sailing. What does he do for money? In the summer he’s a bush pilot and ferries people and cargo around coastal Alaska in various seaplanes.

He’s got more stories than O’Henry. And all of them interesting. For an example, see Cruising World, February 1998, p. 24.

In Marina De Riviere De Sens, Guadeloupe, we met another single hander of a different breed named Chris. Chris simply dropped out. He was a high level marketing manager for PBS selling mentions and sponsorships. Now he just sails around on his Cape Dory 36. Gets no mail; Sends no postcards; and is a great guy to hang out with (we did our bus journey with him.)

File this under your incredible stories department. On the way back North, we bumped into Chris in, of all places, English Harbor.

Seems he is a recovering alcoholic and seeks out AA meetings wherever he goes. So when he gets to English Harbor, he walks all the way out to the local meeting and gets there about 25 minutes early. Soon another guy, also early, pulls up in a truck, gets out and sits down besides him as they both wait for the meeting to open. They start talking. Seems the guy’s name is Eric Clapton (God for those readers are musicians), and he and Chris had a great time discussing Antigua, drying out, and marketing, which all leads to the next part of the story.

It seems Eric is building a high end rehab clinic in Antigua. Kind of a Betty Ford Clinic in the Caribbean thing. They are looking for a marketing person to spread the word through Europe. Someone with experience in talking to large corporations and someone who knows first hand the experience of addiction and cleaning up. You guessed it. Chris will work part time for the clinic; he didn’t want a full time job, after all he’s a cruising sailor. He gets to fly to Europe and convince large corporations to send their high level executives with problems here for drying out. He’ll live on his boat and cruise the rest of the Caribbean while not hob nobbing in Europe.

Some people just fall in to it…

Next door to Chris in the Riviere De Sens marina was a French couple living on board with their 3 girls (8, 12, 15) and what must be a great deal of patience. We spent some time with them while they practiced their English and we, our French. They were just moving from French island to French island while Magdaline taught school and Eric (a former mountain rescue ranger) played Monsieur Mom. I’d have to say, they all seemed pretty content.

Another single hander we met in Bequia, Tony, spends the summers in Trinidad, then works his way up the Caribbean chain in the winters. Tony is a little, er, "more out there" than the others we met. This year, for example, he made it all the way to from Trinidad to Bequia; it’s about 200 miles from Trinidad to Bequia. He has fallen into a time warp and may never get out, but is one of the cheeriest people we did meet. He does boat sketches and wood repair to get cash for himself and his two cats. Time, for Tony, is measured in months.

OK, back to Guadeloupe. Finally after more Poulet Rotis, baguettes, and warm French officials, we got our mail package on Friday. It had, of course, been siting in Point á Pitre since Monday.

We then threw off the shackles of marina life and fled for the open sea. After an arduous 3 hour passage in a beam reach of 18 kts we anchored behind Pain De Sucre (one of those often photographed anchorages you see on post cards) in The Saintes, just south of Basse Terre. The Saintes is a lovely collection of about 5 islands that are the getaway place for the hard working Guadeloupians. After the marina, any other place would have seemed clean, but in the Saints we could see 25’ feet down to the anchor, and spent most of our time in the water snorkeling the nearby coral, or just hanging out.

After a couple more days of Poulet Rotis, fresh baguettes and pastries (delivered to the boat, naturally), we had to press on. Having checked out of customs in Basse Terre, we were committed to leaving the country. It was tough to leave this ideallic anchorage, but there were places to see, and EC’s and Francs to spend.

While we were in the Marina at Basse Terre, we met a young French Canadian named Pascal. Pascal was looking for passage South but seeing as how we were waiting for a package, we couldn’t offer much. I did mention that we’d probably be in the Saintes that weekend and if he was there, we could offer a ride at least to Martinique.

So on Sunday at the Saintes, I think, we were at anchor behind Pain de Sucre and someone swam from the beach out in our direction, about 1/10 of a mile or so. Sure enough, it was Pascal and he was still looking for passage South. So we agreed to meet him the next morning and get him to Martinique. He was a great help, and between his fractured English and my almost completely broken French, we managed to communicate.

We subsequently bumped into him a couple of times again in various parts of Martinique where he finally hooked up with some one going to Trinidad. It’s a small Caribbean.

We actually bumped into a few boats more than once. Even though you may not even know, or at least remember their names, it still seems like old home week when you see them a second time.

I’m afraid all we saw of Dominica was a small very open anchorage in front of the Castaways Hotel. Dominica is a somewhat poor country with neither the room nor flat lands for agriculture, nor the necessary beaches and bays for tourism. We had decided to skip the island on the way down and maybe see it on the way back North. So we just overnighted there to break the long Guadeloupe-Martinique trip up into two sails.

If the average French citizen knew how many of their francs were making a one way transatlantic trip to the Caribbean, Martinique and Guadeloupe would be cut off in an instant. While there is a steady flow of French speaking tourists to enjoy the Frenchman’s largesse, me thinks the French West Indies budget line items are buried pretty far down in the French National Budget.

We first stopped at St. Pierre. This small city was a cultural center of the Caribbean until mount Pelée blew it’s top off in 1902 and killed all 30,000 inhabitants except for a prisoner who survived the catasthrope deep in the dungeon. The city is only now recovering.

We took one of those little tourist trolley train trips around the city to visit all the ‘must see’ sites. We sat in the front seat on the train smiling at the tour guide who was facing backwards and smiling right back at us and getting very dramatically into his lecture using great works like caticlism and catasthrophe and manifique. Of course it was all in French so Christine didn’t understand a word and I could only get every 8’th or 9’th word or so. But he smiled and we smiled right back and we saw lotsa nice ruins.

After only a couple of days in St. Peirre, we motorsailed down to Le Marin on the South coast of Martinique. Le Marin is supposed to be the major yachting center of Martinique with many people speaking English. I suppose this could have been true, but difficult to be sure of because it was just before Lent and it was Carnival and weren’t no one doing nothing. The already short French island work day had shrunk to about zero.

So we hung around there, eat some more Poulet Rôtis, drank the Rhum Agricole and Lorraine Beer, and in general had a good time.

Finally after getting some errands done and doing some food shopping, we shoved off to just around the corner to St. Anne’s Beach (Anse St. Anne). The Marin inner harbor was a little dirty to swim in, so it was nice to be in a beautiful clear and clean area where you could just fall in the water any time you wanted.

After a couple of days here, we made the passage to St. Lucia, our favorite Island so far. We had been antissipating St. Lucia for a while and just hearing English spoke on the radio was enough to raise anticipation. For we had been under the French influence for almost 3 weeks.

St. Lucia is an island blessed with many natural resources. It has high mountains that trap water, fertile valleys in which cash crops (bananas and pineapple) are grown, many long sandy beaches, numerous protected bays, and it has a beautiful and proud people living there. We managed to spend a number of days In St. Lucia in three separate anchorages and even stopped there on the way back North.

Rodney Bay was the first place we pulled in to. It has a large marina and protected anchorage inside and huge white sand beach on the outside, both of which we enjoyed. Services such as laundry, food store, chandlery, etc. were available and we could easily go out at night to a restaurant, of which there were many.

There was even a miniature golf and "Burger World" as well as a thing called the "Sip ‘N Dip" which was a huge catamaran on which a bar had been built. You waved at them from the beach to get a ride out to where they were anchored. Sadly, we did not see them on our return 3 weeks later. While they had a great location anchored off the beach, it was a little difficult to get at.

On the way back north we stopped at Rodney Bay again and got the boat hauled for a quick bottom cleaning and paint job. Even after two days on the hard, we knew boatyard life was not for us. We did at least get the bottom cleaned and painted, the topsides washed, and a few repairs done while out of the water.

Next stop down was Marrigot Bay. This is a well protected deep bay with a sand spit beach sticking right out in the middle. It is the place where the movie Dr Doolittle was filmed. The bar is called Doolittle’s, the beach is called Doolittles, etc.

Margot Bay is just about the quintessential quaint Caribbean harbor. It has surrounding hills, gobs of palm trees, good snorkeling about 100 yards from the outer anchorage, sandy beach, funky bars and restaurants, a small provisioning store, interesting boat traffic in and out all day, polite boat boys, and an open view to the sunset for the all important sundowner and green flash watch. We spent about 5 days there. Christine got a dive in, we bumped into the other yachties we had met in, where else, English Harbor. It was one of the nicest times of our whole trip.

One of the most naturally beautiful spots in the Caribbean is the Pittons-Sufriere area of St. Lucia, just South of Margot bay. Because we had to push on to the Grenadines, we only spent one night there, but it is quite spectacular with two sharp peaks jutting out of the ocean up to 2600’ about 1/10 of a mile from where you anchor. The two of them work together to funnel the wind such that it can be calm one minute then blow 45 knots the next. The shore is so steep that you use one of the Park moorings and tie your stern to a palm tree on shore about 60’ away, a problem you will have much help from locals in solving.

Throughout most of the windward islands except the French Ones there is a phenomenon called Boat Boys. They are not really boys, but youngish (15-30) locals in a small boat who try to offer some service. The economy of the non French islands is mostly based on tourism and it does not provide enough pie for everyone to get a slice. The French islands economies are based on importing French Francs.

So as a consequence of having little economic diversity and a general slow down, people try to find work of any kind. Such as selling local fruit and veggies, doing laundry, doing boat jobs such as polishing and washing, or simply taking your stern line and swimming ashore with it. Prices for boat boy goods are higher than at a market ashore but not that bad. For services such as line tying they are $EC 10 which is $US 3.86. Semi skilled labor is about $EC 20/hr.

The most notorious boat boys are the Soufriere ones. In fact one came out in his 75hp powered skiff from the Pittons and met us about 2 miles north of Margot bay, which is about 7 miles from the Pitons. All to make sure we selected him to tie up our line to a mooring. They do get a bit intense sometimes, but you just learn to live with them and choose one from the pack with whom you will do most of your business. We tended to get more stuff from them than other yachts did, but felt we were helping the local economy and free enterprise.

To hasten our trip south from St. Lucia and to avoid St. Vincent, notorious for boat boys and, "poorly tied dinghies", we left the Pitons at 4AM, skirted St. Vincent, and arrived in Bequia, the "capital" of the Grenadines.

This is it. The reward for those long days and nights of offshore sailing down from New England. The Jewel of the Caribbean. We had made it.

The Grenadines is an arc of small islands that stretch from St. Vincent to Grenada, the two big islands that administer them. Of course having spent so much time in English Harbor, we only had a 2-3 weeks to spend here, but it was enough.

Bequia

This is the English Harbor of the Grenadines. It has all the yacht services you will need for the next few islands as yacht stuff does get a little scarce from here to Grenada. Christine got in another dive here, we picked up mail, did some banking, food shopping, paid bills, and in general, got some chores out of the way.

We managed to spend about a week here, then shoved off for points south. We anchored in Admiralty Bay, directly in the way of the Bequia Blast (the wind gusts a lot here) and apparently downstream of their primary supply of fuel oil, and right where the ferries, which run about 10 trips a day, generate the largest wakes. Still, it was a good time, and you could swim right off the boat if you timed it between oil slicks. We bumped into some people we had met earlier and had a wonderful time.

To get fresh produce ashore one usually goes to open air market and buys from the local vendors. Sometimes due to lack of customers they can get a little bit anxious as to where their next sale is to come from. In fact I can definitively state that if there is no other customer in a marketplace, don’t go in alone. This is what happened to us one day and it was completely overwhelming. There was the Rasatman with the hip rap; the skinny little guy with the pathetic face; the little old lady sobbing please buy my carrots; and a complete cast of other types, all trying to get our scarce $EC. After just 10 or 15 minutes and managing to get just about everyone somehow upset we dragged ourselves out with more produce than we could eat in a week.

So after topping everything off we again were southbound; this time to the next Grenadine island of Cannouan.

Cannouan

Cannouan is a poor, rainless little island poised to make the jump into hyperspace. It has an anchorage with it’s own little wind machine of a nearby small mountain. We had Northwesterly gusts to 45+kts while 2 miles further out west into the Caribbean the wind was 15kts from the East.

There are two, count em, two hotels on the island. One was built by an Italian developer a few years back who then liked what he saw. And this is where the launch of Canouan into the 20’th century is taking place. The Italians bought the entire northern half of the island and are building a resort the likes of which we have not seen nor heard of in the rest of the Caribbean.

The land they have includes a breathtaking reef-protected bay on the windward side of the island with picture perfect beaches. They built an 18 hole golf course, one of the few in the whole Caribbean, are restoring a 200 year old church in the middle of the development for what will be the luckiest Italian priest ever born, and have just about completed 25% of the 200+ luxury villas and condos that make up the living arrangements. They are keeping about half the space forever wild for hiking, etc. They are doing it right, but unfortunately the design calls for fortified gates, and it’s unlikely the local population will ever see or mix with the Italians.

As a small matter of thanks, the St. Vincent And The Grenadines government is extending the airstrip to accommodate jets; currently only little puddle jumpers can land there. It is this expansion and the huge development that will launch a sleepy little (and poor) island into the future, for better of for worse. Who knows what will happen when the construction jobs go away.

After just 2 or 3 days here we finally sailed down to what is in many cruising sailor’s minds the diamond jewel of the eastern Caribbean: the Tobago keys.

Tobago Keys

The Tobago keys are a collection of islets and reefs thrust directly into the full force of the Atlantic tradewinds. They stand to the trades otherwise unprotected save for a huge two mile long horseshoe reef, are undeveloped except for the occasional tee-shirt vendor on a beach, and have absolutely no services save a couple of hardy boat vendors selling everything from ice to lobster (we bought some of both). It is a special, bold anchorage with a view of the Azores, given a real clear day. It is the goal I suppose that I have been driving towards for over 4 years.

The primary attraction is the snorkeling, some of the best in the world, and general peace available in an anchorage away from most of civilization. People seem to understand the uniqueness of the Tobago Keys as even a huge poweryacht (like about 85+’) turned its bright lights off at night so as not to visually pollute the skies.

The snorkeling did not disappoint and Christine reports the diving was excellent in the form of a drift dive. In a drift dive they plop you down in one spot, then motor along nearby as you drift along downcurrent, then pluck you back out before you run out of air.

We snorkeled every day. It was addictive. The water was crystal clear and the coral formations and fish life were vibrant and varied. It was difficult to stop snorkeling without a mother around to yell "Get out of the pool!" We saw brain coral the size of a person, schools of fish that could block out the sun, and coral heads jutting out of the clear white sand and bursting with rich textures and a riot of colors in coral and fishes. It was beyond a doubt the experience much of the trip had been leading up to.

But alas, after 4 days and sensing that we had to start pressing on, we shuffled on to our next paradise island.

Palm Island

Palm Island is a resort whose slogan is "This might be the most beautiful spot in the world." It’s a bit pretentious, but they may be right. It’s a little island about half the size of Cuttyhunk with a collection of bungalows and a scattering of private houses. We found the perfect Tiki Hut bar there and enjoyed sunset from it.

The next day we pushed on, which isn’t that difficult because islands are now 5-10 miles apart rather than 30-40 for the big islands.

Carriacou

Leaving Palm Island we actually had to stop by at Clifton Harbor on Union island, to check out of St. Vincent and The Grenadines in order to check into Grenada and Carriacou, which is a separate country.

Carriacou is described in the cruising guide as being an island with one road and 400 rum shops. Well, we counted two roads, but did loose track of the rum shops.

Carriacou is the home of Jack Iron Rum, a generic name for rum that’s a least 158 proof, which leaves precious little volume for flavor. It is in Jack Iron rum that an ice cube drops to the bottom of the glass. Christine bought a book on Caribbean rums before we left English Harbor, and we have been sampling the local flavors as we go a long. There are some great ones and some good ones. I can state categorically that local Carriacou rum is the most gut wrenching substance this side of an open sewer. It makes a shot of cheap tequila at 6 O’clock in the morning seem like orange juice. We managed to stash away a couple of pints of the stuff, and when we get home we will uncork one for those adventurous souls who so wish.

We could only spend a couple of days in Carriacou because it was there, at precisely 12° 27.519’ North and 61° 29.091’ West that we turned around and started heading North. The gory details of this ongoing adventure will be in our next issue. Watch this space.

OK, so the really big question to us is or will be, "What’s it like living on the boat?"

First, you can’t easily go for a walk. There’s no front door to walk out of. The bed’s uncomfortable. There’s no privacy. Good hygiene is difficult. There’s no cats, dogs to play with nor or family visit. Your roots show and there’s no hairdresser.

The two big pains that really get to you are the tightness of the space and stacking/unstacking. It’s impossible not to hit something with an elbow, knee, or head while moving about the boat; even with the most measured and deliberate movements. As soon as you try to move something, fetch something , change your position, etc, and you do it in anything but slow motion, you bang an extremity.

Because Passe Partout, while a good sized boat by most standards, can still be small for cruising purposes, you spend an enormous amount of your time accessing and deaccessing things. Murphy lends a hand here as, for instance, the pot cover you need is always at the bottom of the pot locker, and you only need it after the stove, over which you must lean to get at the pot locker, is nice and hot.

But the boat is pretty handy to visit new places. Also, living on the water’s not that bad. I mean, when you’re hot, you just step overboard. You get to spend time in surroundings you just can’t see at home.

It’s nice to have delicious fresh fruit and vegetables, although personally I think we’ve had enough cucumber and tomato salad to last a lifetime.

Oh, did I mention that we don’t have to work? That’s a pretty nice plus.

It’s also nice to have the time to complain about these trivial things

For us, the big problems such as work, family business, and so forth have not gone away, but they have receded into the haze such that only their outline appears where a big ugly problem used to be. We’ll get to deal with them in a few months, but for now we’re just trying to figure out how to get to St. Kitts then PR.

Christine and I are still speaking and using words bigger than grunts. This is almost all do to Christine’s infinite patience. She puts up with my constant fussing and demands. I have tried to be more relaxed, but still get uptight over silly things. I’m glad we are together and doing this thing and I know we will look back on it fondly, even longingly, as we are stuck in a 3’ snow drift next winter. I also know Christine can’t wait to get back to having her own space and a cat and a dog.

As to the day to day life, we usually get laundry done by a service, most of whom pick up and deliver right to the boat whether at anchor or in a slip. In Bequia, we had fuel and water delivered to us at anchor. (for the curious, it was about $5EC a gal for fuel and $.65EC per gal for water; it’s been a dry season here.)

We haven’t had to take a shower ashore yet. We carry about 120 gal of water and it usually lasts us 2 weeks, including showers, dish washing, etc.

We get to read a lot. Next to the travel aspect of the trip (sights, snorkeling, etc.) the reading has been a genuine pleasure for me. Both of us have finished many fiction and non fiction books and consider it one of the more pleasurable experiences of the voyage. I am currently rereading my American History book from Tabor and enjoying it!

The day starts about 8AM or so with fresh coffee and then with either getting a weather fax (weather map received via short wave radio and computer), and/or listening to the Caribbean weather guru David Jones on Mistine. Afterwards, we decide what to do.

The day usually ends with a fresh water shower, cocktails about 5PM, dinner, then bed and reading. When the sun sets here, it takes a rapid exit, and we are left to ships lighting to do any reading within about 10 minutes of sundown.

In between coffee and beddytime, we manage to get a lot in most of the time; although we have been known to seriously take it easy a few days, though.

A typical day might be reading a bit in the morning, doing an errand in town like shopping for fresh vegetables at the open air market, returning to the boat for lunch or eating ashore, then doing some snorkeling or at least swimming in the afternoon.

Would we do it again? Probably, but not by any serious offshore sailing. If there is a next time, in probably a great many years, we will take the ‘thorny path’ from Florida, to the Bahamas, PR, etc.

It’s April 9 as I write this graph and we are heading back. We will stop at Antigua and St. Kitts, then flash through the Virgin Islands on our way to meet Sally, May 1’st in Puerto Rico. Then the Bahamas, Florida, and home by June 20 or so.

Now it’s April 14, and we have made it as far as English Harbor. Next stop St. Kitts, then the VI’s then, PR, etc.

Today was a good day for communications. We are at anchor in The Saintes (Guadeloupe), a sort of amalgam of Cuttyhunk, Chappaquiddick, and Block Island. It’s not the place to try to find a phone, and it’s been raining most of the day any way. It is a good place to find Poulet Rôtis, but that’s another story.

Christine has had to stay in touch with lawyers and accountants at home to keep the Wolochowicz’s real estate empire from crumbling. As a consequence and so people can contact us in emergencies, we hooked up with BoatPhone, an inter island business that supports cellular phones in most of the islands. The USA cell phone crooks could learn a bit from these people.

Any way, a few communication miracles happened today. First, after many tries we got the local French cellular operator who then called the BoatPhone people who then finally called us back. The connection sounded like she was in a hurricane on a different planet, but the gist was that we were activated and now had our very own French telephone number. Having tried to get a local phone number in Guadeloupe and Martinique before and succeeding only in hitting the full resistance of France Telecom I didn’t think there would have been be much of a chance of Christine not getting wet dinghying to town, but we persevered.

The second miracle was that that phone number worked and we could call home on a nice clear circuit.

The third was that we could call our BoatPhone numbers on other islands to check our voice mail for those numbers. [at this point it’s obvious one needs a degree in phones to get by here…] On one of the voice mail boxen, there was a message from Christine’s lead real estate attorney.

The fourth miracle was that Christine called his number, and he actually took the call. Will wonders never cease.

"…OK mate, sounds good, see you in about an hour. Six - Eight."

On the marine radio People don’t say ‘by’ or ‘over and out’, they say Six Eight. Which of course means they are switching their VHF radio back to channel 68, the English Harbor calling channel. Traffic on 68 is a continuous stream of one station calling another. About half the station are boats, the other half yacht related services from all the local taxis (who have a hand held VHF, a fixed mount in the taxi, and likely a cell phone too) to the restaurants. Everyone can call anyone on 68. And they do. Often.

So if you listen to 68 and possibly scan to some of the working channels to follow the conversation (which I do), you get to hear "Six Eight" a lot. So much so that you are likely to say it rather than "bye" in a normal conversation with a person with whom you previously talked to on the radio. Like [in person] "OK Henk, thanks for the help and Six Eight."

------------------

Well this is it for this edition of my case of diarrhea of the fingers.

Six Eight.