World Cruising on RPhurst

Pictures of RPhurst in different places

2011-03-20T09:33:00.000-07:00

RPhurst at Wallilabou Bay, home of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies, Bruce Parnham

RPHurst in Greece, Tom McMaster

RPhurst underspinnaker in Vanuatu, Dave

RPhurst in Crete, Bruce Parnham

RPhurst in Phi Phi Don, Thailand, Bruce Parnham

Rphurst in a private bay Greece

2010

2010-07-15T05:35:00.000-07:00

My years always begin in about Dec, then end the following July. This is the cruising season in the Caribbean. So this blog is for December 2009 to July 2010. My course covered about a thousand miles, calling on many of the same islands as the past few years. I hope you enjoy.

Margarita to Grenada 4 Dec to 7 Dec 09

Sorry that I have been so remiss about keeping you all update on what I am doing, I will try to find the time to change that this year. If you do not wish to receive these, let me know and I will take you off the list.

After having spent the five months of July through November 2009 in Margarita Venezuela I am now in Grenada. The passage was not without it's challenges. The normal route would have me leave Margarita in the late afternoon Friday, spend one overnight of motoring into 8-10 knots of wind, to arrive Los Testigos the following morning, rest up a couple days then proceed to Grenada. That would have been good advice, if I was one to take good advice. The general problem is not the wind, I can sail that, it is the North Equatorial Current, which is NW setting and relentless, flowing at 1 to 3 knots and against me the whole way.

During the course of the first night I heard a strange sound coming from my engine, upon further checking I found I had broken a motor mount, which allowed the engine to twist itself on torque, I simply threaded a heavy line through the mount, tied it off and everything was happy, something else for the needed parts and to do list.

I arrived at Testigos Saturday morning about daybreak, but three hours before I arrived the wind came up, 18-22 knots and from the SE, which allowed me to put up canvas and sail to the NE. It also presented a choice, stop and rest up from the overnight, or keep going with the wind and get some easting. The other problem was the current, as the area around Testigos is quite shallow, I needed to get 12 miles north to get into deep water, where the effect of the current will lessen. I went with the continue on, to be able to do this I needed to take on the system used by many single handers, keeping close company with the kitchen timer. I can set the timer for twenty minutes, get ten minutes of sleep, sometimes nineteen, sometimes two and still monitor what the boat is doing, watch for ships and listen for noises that should not be there, as long as Otto Pilot is steering.

I was able to sail all day Saturday in settled conditions, the wind held steady at 12-16 knots, the seas were only 3-4 feet, however, it was a bit more north than I would like, but I was making plenty of easting, so it was a good trade. I had to figure that the wind would go back to its normal easterly direction and I would be able to gain back that south. I was now north of and still 80 miles east of Grenada making good time in 14-18 knots of wind and speeds up to 9 knots with the current and less than 5 against it. After moonrise the squalls started. The rest of the night was spent tacking trying to avoid the worst of the clouds, whose silhouetes could be seen in the moonlight, that contain these short bursts of wind, up to 30 knots and plenty of rain.

During one of my many walk throughs I noticed water under the floorboards in the starboard hull. When I tried the manual side of the bilge pump switch the pump ran, but did not want to run in the automatic side. That is about normal, the float switch has failed. While sitting in Margarita no one showers on that side, there is never any water in the hull so that pump has not had much to do, until now, and it will not do what is expected. During further investigation I discovered that the pump would run if the wires were crossed, or as I discovered, the switch held in the manual side. The selector switch is spring loaded, so I rigged up a piece of string to hold it on, let it run until the water was gone, then take off the string. Next to find out where that water is getting in. It was the hose that takes the pump discharge water to the outside. It contains a one way valve so water does not get back in. I am sure that when I take this valve apart I will find it filled with hair, the great destroyer of pumps, valves, traps under sinks and showers, in a boat or in your home. Once this valve is held open, the higher water waves exceed the height of the outlet and allow water to run back in. With a functioning float switch you would never know the difference, unless you sat there and counted the pump cycles. Something else to fix after I get in. For now the string will work.

As the wind built, the waves built accordingly and were now eight feet. As the waves got larger the motion of the boat became more abrupt, causing the fifteen gallon, hundred pound, plastic, fuel containers lashed on deck to start bumping into each other, which finally cracked one of them. The smell of fuel was the give away sign. I gathered a bucket and hose. I first siphoned off three gallons of fuel, I guess I lost a couple more through the crack, and it was now below the level of the crack. Then felt I could safely handle the container on the rolling deck back to the cockpit where I could pump the remaining fuel into the tank. Good thing I had done all that motoring or I would not have had anyplace to put that fuel.

After all of this settled down Otto decided to take the rest of the night off, I could not get him to hold a course, he would steer for awhile, seconds or minutes, but then stop, so I turned him off and hand steered, which ended my cat naps. When daylight arrived I was able to do some checking and found that the plug had lost it's contact, a small repair and Otto was working again and I was able to get a few more ten minute periods of sleep while Otto steered. My tacks were a few hours in duration and covered up to fifteen miles, more in one direction than the other, but I was still making easting, very slowly, about one mile per hour.

It was later in the morning when I spotted a very large cloud, with ugly dark, round blisters of rain soaked pockets hanging from it's belly, right in front of me, I tacked to try get around it, but after nearly an hour it was one I could simply not get around, I think it went all the way to Grenada, and by the color of the clouds and shape of the bottom I knew I was going to get wind. I reefed the sails for much stronger wind than I was experiencing while I ran parallel the cloud line, before turning to go straight through. The bottom of the cloud was getting as dark as any moonless night and darker than the most surly teenager when asked to take out the garbage, seemed to be hanging all the way down to the horizon and as I approached and I could not see to the other side, this was a large cloud, at least several miles across, and I knew I would be in it for some time. When I finally got to the wind it quickly built to 35 knots, the beginning of gale force, then to 37 but never got any higher. It held there for a half hour or more until I got into the rain. Once you get into the rain, the wind dies, so I was happy for that. The rain was a typical tropical shower, falling in sheets like a waterfall, the kind of rain that will fill the laundry buckets in minutes when at anchor, wind driven, but quite warm. We call that a squall, you call it a downpour.

Between many of these squalls the wind dies, often down to 10 knots, so during those times I would start the engine, roll up the headsail and motor straight east, sometimes for 20 minutes and sometimes for over an hour; each hour of motoring would save about four hours of sailing, so it is worth the effort. All very important easting gained. I am not sure when the wind shifted to easterly, but discovered that my tacks were gaining more east. Perhaps the current was beginning to be shadowed by the island of Grenada. The squalls ended Sunday afternoon and the sailing continued on long tacks, each only gaining a little east. On a fifteen mile tack I would gain 3-4 miles of easting and being 35 miles away, that was still going to take some time.

The balance of Sunday afternoon and night, going into Monday was easy sailing. Long tacks, the wind was down to mid teens, the seas had dropped in height to 3-4 feet, there were still clouds in the sky and I could not see Grenada, but few of these clouds had much wind. I did not need to reef again the whole trip. By Monday morning I was still 20 miles away, by mid-day 12 miles, which is when the wind died, right down to less than ten knots, which is not unusual when you approach the lee side of any high island. I started the engine, rolled up the head sail and motored straight into the wind, soon dropped the main as it was doing no good. By 4:00pm I was very nearly in. One more time Ma had other thoughts. With less than a mile to go, all sails down, I had already prepared the anchor, another squall came rolling down the steep hills of Grenada, blasted by wind up to 30 knots, heavy rain that obscured the island, continued straight into the blast that only lasted ten minutes. At least it washed off all the salt that had attached itself to the boat. I drove along the coast line to find the strongest wireless internet signal, then stopped.

So after four days, three nights the anchor is down, life is good, it is time to get something to eat, have a quick beer, well maybe two, check emails, see what the market has done and go to bed, early. In this amount of time I could have nearly been in St Martin with a much easier ride.

Sebastian and Noel

Sebastian and Noel, a young couple from Argentina, were spending some time in St Thomas enjoying a family gathering, which was to be followed by three weeks on RPhurst doing some sailing. We would spend nearly a week around Grenada waiting for the other half of the crew. We discussed the options of sailing around Grenada or spending time land touring during the wait and they chose the land touring.

They had already done the historic St Georges and the careenage before we took one day off, and in the company of friend Diane of Jabulani, to do the valley of the Seven Sisters waterfalls. This is a valley in the interior of the island where the near constant rain, at the higher elevations provide water that keep these falls, falling. There are supposed to be seven waterfalls in all, but I have only seen four of them. This has always been an all day trip, requiring getting to the central bus terminal in St Georges, a half hour bus ride to Grand Etang, a National Park in the high central mountains of Grenada. One side interest of Grand Etang are the monkeys that hang around and will very happily accept handouts of banana from anyone offering same. Some of them will lay next to your hand on the top of a fence they frequent so you can scratch their bellies.

From there we walked downhill, on the blacktop, road to the entrance to the valley, which is family owned and you are required to sign in and pay a small fee for crossing their land. They also claim that if you are not back out before dark, they will come looking. Along will all the other services, they offer good stout walking sticks, which are very necessary on the steep and often slippery walkways they call a trail but they have carved steps into the most difficult places. Care is still needed to avoid a nasty slip and slide down the slope.

After about an hour of hiking first up to the top of the ridge, then downhill to the bottom of valley where the river runs. During the times that we will be here the river is quite tame, however the signs are there of much higher water levels and greater flow, in large logs misplaced on the rocks and sometimes in the limbs of other trees. During the hurricane season this must be a real sight to behold.

The first waterfall is St Margaret which announces itself long before the first glimpse of the white water falling off a sixty foot cliff and splashing itself into the pool below. After the long and humid walk through the jungle no one can resist getting into the pool to cool off. Frequently there will be local boys willing to jump off the higher rims around the pool in exchange for some small donation out of your pocket.

We spent enough time around St Margaret Falls to recover from the walk and were ready to tackle the next falls. The next ones are not so often visited so the trail in not so well marked by traffic, but if you follow the babbling brook, it must take you to the upper falls. After the main falls the rest are all smaller, each feeding water into the larger one. Honeymoon falls is the furthest one we visited and the pool is in the shape of a heart. There we had lunch and talked over the hike, while the mist from the falls cooled the air around us. Eventually everyone was ready to leave, so we picked up all of our trash before heading out. The walk to the main trail is easy walking, even if hard to find.

Once on the main trail it is all up hill to the ridge, then down to the road. There we pass through the family garden, with every kind of local fruit and veg they can raise. There seems to be one of the brothers that is caretaker of the plot, no one can understand anything he says, but he takes great pride in describing what is growing there and is even more pleased with himself if you will taste some of the produce of his efforts, smell the leaves of spices and take a few pieces for later.

Once out of the valley we wait on the road for a bus, willing to go back to St Georges or to Grenville, whichever way has empty seats on the bus. We ended up going to Grenville, the second largest town on Grenada and this being Saturday we found the local market abuzz with activity. Then took a different bus route home, just to see some different scenery.

We had planned to do the underwater sculpture park on Sunday, but Sebastian informed me they had received an email from family in Argentina that required their immediate return home. Too bad they would miss the sailing as the next couple arrived on Monday.

Paula and Jani

The plan had been that we would have the new crew see St Georges on Monday, then head out on Tuesday, so we saw Sebastian and Noel off on Sunday and the arrival of Paula and Jani on Monday. Paula and Jani are a young couple from Finland, she has sailed more than he and she had just crossed the Atlantic on another Finish boat in the ARC, Atlantic Rally for Cruisers. Jani had joined her in St Lucia, the end of that rally, then they both flew down to join me in Grenada. Paula needed little in the way of instruction, except where things were different in detail from other boats. As with many people that know enough to get into trouble, she rarely wanted to take the instruction, but her way worked as well, so there was no reason to butt heads over it.

We left St Georges, Grenada the 22nd December, then spent a couple nights at Isla de Ronde, a remote and uninhabited island of Grenada, before moving on to Tyrell Bay, Carriacou. I had hoped to have good internet access there, but after a couple days of trying on Saturday we went out to White Island, another remote place where the protection is good, water is clear, the reef is growing and shelters lots of fish, and only a couple other boats. A current is what feeds a reef, so to have a vibrant reef requires a current. This also allows an easy drift with the current if planned correctly, done the wrong way it can be a very tough swim. Before taking the kids to the reef we discussed how they should see the reef and end up on a small island well down stream. There I would be able to see them and know when to pick them up.

We returned to Tyrell Bay to find the internet working, but barely. About all I could do was reply to prospective crew. I have started a posting on a www.floatplan.com, a different crewing site, and the response has been much better than www.7knots.com. I am still on that one, but do not get many inquiries from there.

We left there and next stopped in Ashton on Union Island, again no internet, then moved to Clifton the following morning, where I spent all of my time checking into the country, getting the last of the groceries we would need then finally one hour of internet before moving out to the Tobago Cays, one of the most popular sit spots in all of the Carib and where we intend to spend several days, snuggled behind a barrier reef, anchored in soft sand and the swell broken to calm turquoise perfection. I had hoped to be in Bequia for New Year's Eve, but the kids had other ideas, so I let them call the shots.

They knew some of the Finish boats would be there, so had some party time in mind. One night after dinner they asked if they could use the dingy to visit. I figured what trouble can they get into so close by, the other boat was only a couple hundred yards away, under a nearly full moon and said yes. Before they returned at 0400, I was getting quite worried, they had given another Fin a ride, had somehow pulled the drain plug out of the dinghy, then while bailing had scooped it overboard, then needed to fashion a wooden plug to take it's place. Good thing I had a spare.

We spent New Years Eve out there. The kids have trouble staying up past eight, so I woke them to watch the distant fireworks from Canouan, another island that has a major resort casino on it, which is part of the Trump empire.

New Year's Day we moved to Bequia, a wonderful sail, gentle wind from the east, which put it right on the beam, the current from slightly behind, hardly a cloud in the sky, leaving that deep blue color to the water, with little white spots of reflected sunlight, that makes you think of twinkle christmas lights, or the imagined sparkle off the rows of teeth in a shark as it is about to chomp down on your leg. By midday we were nearly to Bequia, so we sailed past a few miles, tacked and worked our way closer to Admiralty Bay where we would anchor in protected water for nearly a week.

I had decent wifi access so I did not care much what happened. The kids decided to upgrade their scuba certificates to advanced, so the lessons and classroom would take a few days. This way they were able to do some diving along with sailing, two very closely related activities when you live on a sailboat.

We next stopped at Wallilabou Bay, the sail was only crossing the Bequia Strait, known for it's enhanced wind, then into the lee of St Vincent, a high island that blocks of most of the wind. We were able to sail nearly the whole way. Wallilabou is the home of the filming of the Pirates of the Caribbean. The sets are quickly deteriorating but the sense of the movie making is still there. While there I always need to visit with friends I have made on shore.

We arrived St Lucia after a very a disappointing passage, through a combination of contrary wind, prevailing current and very bad steering we missed St Lucia by twelve miles, then needed to tack and finally motor to get into a different anchorage by midnight. I hate coming into an anchorage after dark. The only consolation is I have been there before.

I try to be patient with people but that starts to get old after awhile. When given an instruction to hold a certain course, the person at the wheel has an obligation to hold as close to that as possible. The female side of this couple is one of those that will not take any guidance or suggestion, she has sailed before and does not need to be told. She is terrible at the wheel but feels she wants to take her turn, then can not, or will not hold a course. It is very frustrating for me. When faced with the currents in the passes between islands, it is imperative to hold a good course, or the current will sweep you west faster than you can gain it back. It is abit like running up the down escalator, if you get tired and slow down, the escalator will take you right down again, it does not matter how many steps you have taken up, stop and they are all gone. There is no way to gain back that distance without taking those steps up again, faster than they are coming down, which on a sailing boat is called tacking.

We next moved to Rodney Bay. The kids have been in Rodney Bay St Lucia earlier so had already seen most of the sites. I was to take them to Martinique on Tuesday, then to meet with Louis, a guy who has sailed with me before, then return to St Lucia to pick up Mark. This all changed when Louis's father was hospitalized and Louis was not able to make the trip. I was able to arrange a replacement, but he also was flying into St Lucia. So the kids discovered that the boat she had crossed the Atlantic was going to Martinique and they decided to save me the round trip by sailing up this the other friends.

Mark and Juniad

Junaid and Mark, arrived in Vieux Fort, St Lucia mid January as planned, Juniad Saturday afternoon. He had told me he was big, 260 pounds, I think a bit more, so I tried to put him in the forward bunk that is closer to the floor, but he insisted on having the larger bunk aft. I shuddered each time I heard him hit the floor, expecting him to put a foot through the sole. I sent Junaid to do a land tour the day after he arrived, but being Sunday nothing was open or driving in the small town of Vieux Fort. Sunday evening Mark arrived and we were all onboard, getting to know one another and talking about the plan for the next two weeks. The plan is to see seven countries in 14 days, we will need to really keep moving.

Juniad had told me he had substantial experience, owned his own boat and sailed all the time, I am so gullible. Mark has not sailed, but has many experiences in life that blend well with sailing. I would hope for the best and plan for the rest.

On Saturday before their arrival I had moved the boat from Rodney Bay to Vieux Fort, on the opposite end of the island down the east, windward side of the island, which is about 40 miles, because both of them wanted to see the Pitons on the SW corner of St Lucia. The area around the Pitons are argue ably one of the most beautiful places on earth, with two, side by side, eroded volcanic cores pressing toward the sky, each trying to outdo the other in height, surrounded by nearly clear water and very good snorkeling. It is a magical place and a must see.

On Monday we sailed past the Pitons, but did not stop, taking lots of pictures and continuing on slow sailing in the lee of the island to Rodney Bay, arriving at 1600 where we would do the last decent grocery store for some time. During this easy passage I was to discover that Juniad always wanted to be involved in the work that was going on, whether raising the main, tacking or reefing, he wanted to stand as close as possible, often to the detriment of the person doing the job, but never, ever willing to put a hand to anything that was being done. He reminded me that this was a sailing vacation, to which I agreed, I do not care what or how much he chooses to do, but if he does not want to be part of the job, at least stay out of the way while it is being done. On arrival at Rodney Bay I had hoped to check out, but Junaid felt he needed a second shower of the day before he could go in so the office was closed by the time I arrived. This would cause plenty of concern on my part later in the season. I was able to get to the grocery store while they took a bus into Castries to see that town, this was to begin a personal difference of opinion between the two of them that would continue the whole trip. We did not stay in Rodney Bay long but headed out Tuesday morning for Martinique.

During the passage to Martinique the learning curve was very steep. They needed to follow directions for getting up the anchor, raising sails and get the boat out of the harbor shortly after seven. This was another hint that things were not going to go well with Juniad. He was quite upset that we needed to be underway at such an unreasonable hour. I guess he had no concept of time, speed and distance, while we had lots of miles to go before arriving at the next place.

As with most people, they both had trouble steering RPhurst. Anyone that tries to bully this boat will soon find they can not make a track any straighter than the lowest of snakes, wandering all over the place. Mark seemed to catch on pretty quickly; Junaid had a terrible time, at one point going from luffing the sails straight into the wind to nearly gibing the boom going downwind minutes later. I finally needed to insist that I take over or we would have missed Martinique completely. I was discovering that Juniad is one of the laziest people I have had onboard and did not seem to want to do anything that required any effort at all.

On arrival to Martinique we stopped at a small bay I know so they could get some snorkeling time. Toward the end of the daylight Juniad requested a ride to shore so he could get some pictures. He was told dinner was at seven and arrived on the dock right on time. Then Wednesday morning we headed across the bay to Fort de France to check into the country and drop them off. The plan was they would see the town of Fort de France and some of the countryside, I would meet them in St Pierre for dinner then and we would move on the following morning to Dominica.

At the last minute Mark decided to stay with the boat to St Pierre. His emphasis is to learn more of the sailing part. He catches on quickly, having driven race cars, small planes and running his own business has taught him to take instruction well and follow directions. Our passage up the lee side of the island was slow and gentle going, but we made it in by 1400, which left enough time for him to see some of the town also.

We had arranged to meet by 1900 for dinner and I had it all ready long before that. Mark and I sat down to eat at seven and Juniad finally showed up after eight. Again I was to learn he always had his own agenda and schedule. After dinner the tension between them erupted and I thought I was going to need to put on my referee hat and call the shots. They finally settled down and went to their own corners to pout.

Thursday we headed across to Roseau, Dominica. The heading on the GPS was a tighter course than I had anticipated, about 60 degrees off the wind, so after a few miles out, I rechecked my numbers and found I had entered a 2 instead of a 1 in the tens column, which made our waypoint ten miles farther east. Once that was corrected we had an easier time, with the wind angle over 70 degrees. We had larger waves in this channel so steering becomes increasingly difficult. Mark did pretty well, only losing his way occasionally, Junaid was steering a 60 degree swing, once going from heading straight into the wind to nearly gybing the main three minutes later, while claiming to be steering a straight course. He did not have a clue about the relationship of a sailing boat to the apparent wind. It was during this passage that he went below to rest, found it was too hot and felt he should be able to open the hatch over his bed. In 8 foot seas, with salt water spraying everywhere, what is this guy thinking, it is necessary to keep the boat closed up and the salt water out.

The Anchorage Hotel and Dive Center has always been the place I frequent while around Roseau, Dominica. As we arrived by 1500 I dropped the guys off at the Anchorage to see the town and arrange a land tour the following day, with a return time of 1915 for dinner, and I stayed to check emails, then get back to the boat to repair the windlass that had stopped working. It turned out to be only a corroded wire. Mark was back in daylight so I made dinner, we no more than sat down to the warm meal at 1945 when Junaid returned. He started whistling from well down the beach, he was supposed to walk down to nearly opposite the boat, so he could be seen, but he could not recognize RPhurst from the other boats moored here. I was not about to give up my warm dinner for someone that was nearly an hour late, so I continued eating before getting into the dinghy to get him from shore. In the mean time, he had found someone to take him to the boat, with a not very warm thank you and no offer of cash. Juniad informed me that he needed to be onshore by 0500 for his land tour, then I set out his dinner. Then Mark and I went back in for a couple, well maybe five, beers and listen to some of the music.

On Friday I took Juniad in at 0500, then Mark later to do land tours on Dominica while I moved the boat north to Portsmouth, arriving about 1330, was able to get online and found time to update this log. I was able to find some bread in town. Three big guys eat a lot. In this way they get to see the island and the boat keeps moving forward. We are on a very tight schedule. We had arranged to meet at The Purple Turtle Bar, by 7:00pm to eat, or you have eaten earlier, but when I arrived there, found they no longer offer food, so we left a message for Juniad and went to another place a few doors down. We had finished eating long before he showed up for the dinghy ride back to the boat.

Saturday we crossed to The Saints, which are a group of small islands and part of the southern end of Guadeloupe. There is a small fort with an impressive museum and worth seeing. As we arrived early Saturday afternoon we stopped to do some snorkeling and hiking on an uninhabited island as Juniad had requested this. This is where the guys discovered another part of cruising. Uninhabited islands do not have anyone that keeps a dock, cuts paths on the island or mows the grass. When we approached the rocky shore to let them off, I told the guys they would need to get out quickly so I could get out of the surf. As we approached the shore a wave tried to push us onto shore, I reversed the engine and told them to go, Mark was in the water and ashore in a couple seconds, Junaid was a deer frozen in the headlights of an approaching car and could not move. Mark returned to try help steady the dinghy while I was trying to reverse into the waves, most of them doing their best to fill the dinghy with sand ladened water. Finally the dinghy turned sideways and closer to shore in a wave and Junaid got out, Mark turned me bow to the waves and I was able to get a short distance away from shore, but not before getting the engine wet, so it died and I rowed the water and sand filled dinghy back to the boat. After scooping out as much water as I could I hoisted the dinghy to drain the rest, then washed out as much of the sand as possible, then removed the motor cover to let it dry out.

Clearly another approach was needed to get Junaid back into the dinghy for the return, he is quite like a cow climbing a tree. I snorkeled to the beach, talked with Mark and told him I would anchor the dinghy off the beach, then ease myself in to waist deep water, Mark would need to hold the stern stead for Junaid to get in, then Mark could get in and I would pull us into deeper water, before starting the engine, all of which worked as planned. This all turned into something about nothing, as there were no docks, no maintained paths, no one to mow the grass or chop down the cactus, neither of them walked the island anyway.

We then motored the remaining few miles into the only town in the Saints, still with time enough to see some of the town. The plan was to see the fort the next morning, it is only open from 0800 to 1200, then Mark wanted to rent a scooter to see the rest of the island. After the fort Junaid felt he had seen enough and wanted to move on, so we sailed to Basseterre, the former main town on Guadeloupe, but it has lost it's glow since the cruise ship port has been moved to Point a Petre and the banana industry has collapsed.

I have checked into Guadeloupe in Basseterre before, but when we anchored the boat offshore and went in with the dinghy the office, which was previously the main customs office and always open was shut tight. As the conditions were quite rolly we decided to move along the coast about 6 miles to a sheltered bay. Course Ma had other ideas. The wind over the whole area had died, so the sea breeze picked up, blowing straight down along the coastline, up onto the highest hills, which are on the south end of the island, yup, wind right on the nose. I felt it was simply sea breeze so finally anchored with an onshore breeze but felt that would end at sundown, which it did.

We had a comfortable night and the next morning moved the boat to Pigeon Island, a well known snorkeling site, where the guys could snorkel and I could catch a bus to do the checkin. The weather was changing, we have had two days of no wind at all, now the clouds were moving in and the snorkeling was less than the best, so Junaid chose to take a bus to town also, Mark stayed with the boat for a relaxed day. On arrival the official office was still closed, so I started wandering around trying to find the new office. Finding anyone that speaks English in Guadeloupe is not easy. Finally a street cop, who did speak some English knew exactly where I needed to go, and walked me right to the door. I would have never found it. First you need to stop on the sidewalk to talk on an intercom, then walk around the block to the opposite side to the entrance door. I now learned they do not do checkins for small boats any longer, that job is done at the new marina. The girl in the office was very helpful, did the phone calls, sent my application by fax, and stamped me into and out of the country. A very nice experience.

Now the plan was to leave Pigeon Island for the 111 mile passage to St Kitts. As we had been having no wind at all, and we had been motoring the morning before, I had not been listening to the weather forecast. It would not have been of any help to know that heavy weather was forecast because we had a schedule to meet and needed to keep moving. So we were out of bed at 2300 to begin the next leg to St Kitts. Before taking a nap I had rigged all the lines for a spinnaker as I thought it would be an easy downwind run. We motored out with no sail, then as we started getting some wind it was nearly on the beam, too high for the spinnaker, so we set the full main and headsail and were making pretty good time. After just a few miles the wind built to over 25 knots, time to put a reef in the sails. As soon as I was done with that the wind went over 30 knots, time for another reef. We were now skimming along at 8-9 knots with winds in the mid 30's, only twice hitting 38, at which time we would turn and run away to lower the apparent wind speed.

The first 44 miles was hard on the wind, so Otto could not steer, Mark got sea sick, but stayed up, Junaid went to bed right after dinner and woke for his 0400 three hour shift then stayed up for almost an hour but could not steer in the dark before going back to bed. We passed Montserrat at daybreak and then the next leg was slightly more downwind. We were making great time, but it was rough, 8 knots is too much while sailing into 10-12 foot seas. After the turn the course was more off the wind and Otto was now able to steer, but I still could not get some sleep. Mark kept me company between his naps and after sun rise he seemed to recover from the sea sickness, Junaid came up for a few minutes every few hours but went right back to bed.

On our approach to St Kitts I knew that when we rounded the last hill and began the next six miles to the anchorage that the wind would be blocked off by land. I suggested that we should take out the reef in the mainsail as soon as we entered the calm behind that hill. Junaid jumped right up and said he would take it out, I had shown them how a couple times before. We rounded the corner, the wind dropped to 5 knots, barely enough to keep moving, consistent with his earlier demonstrated desire to participate, Junaid stood there in the cockpit, after several minutes of this I simply went out and removed the reef from the headsail, which gave enough drive to steer. Once clear of the hill the wind came back and the reefed main and full headsail was enough to sail all the way to the anchorage. I did not even ask him what had happened, but it came up later and he said he was waiting for me to tell him when, to which I replied, I said as soon as we rounded the first hill. He is only on for a few more days so I probably will not kill him.

We made St Kitts by 1400, so I took them to shore, while I was headed for the grocery store. How was I to know this was the day after a local election and everything was closed. Good thing it was not too early, so a short wander, then return to the boat. Wednesday, the guys are saw Brimstone Hill, an 1800's British Fort, a World Heritage Site and well worth the time to see it. I will go get propane and groceries and try to get caught up with emails.

The gas plant has now changed the rules and will no long accept walk in bottles, so it requires me to take them to a local agent, who will take the bottles to the gas plant. I did not even attempt to try this. Being the skeptic that I am, I was certain the agent would not take them the same day, and also certain he will substantially raise the price. I could wait for St Martin. This being Junaid's night to cook I asked what he wanted out of the freezer, he said he would do burgers. While at the grocery store I picked up premade burgers and buns. When he arrived back at the boat he stated that as he had been land touring he should not be expected to make dinner, so I made the burgers. I try not to do the easy meals like that, leaving those for the people less qualified at cooking.

Thursday we headed for Statia, which is only a bit over 20 miles, the first five along the downwind side of St Kitts so very protected and calm but swirling confused winds because of all the land effect. Junaid wanted to go to St Barths, Mark wanted to see Statia, I broke the deadlock with the comment that the wind would choose, if once we clear St Kitts we can hold Barths we will go there, if not, Statia. As it was we were hard on the wind to make Statia and with gusts up to 35 knots we had another rough passage at high speeds, often seeing nine knots. We did not need to tack to get in only because of the wind wrapping around the end of the Statia and coming in from behind us allowing us to turn more toward the anchorage. As we were approaching I started the engine and left it idling for later use. When I shifted into gear I could hear parts falling off the gear shift mechanism and the shift worked, but the throttle would not. I quickly put a bungee cord on the throttle part of the governor to raise the engine speed enough to have steerage into the anchorage.

Statia is small, quaint, very Dutch and is very laid back. I took the guys to shore with instructions to find the places of interest and where to be for the later pickup. I had no more than gone back to the boat then I heard Junaid's whistle. I looked to the place they we had arranged to go for pickup but he was not there, I went back to the internet, I had a weak signal off shore, then I heard the whistle again. I looked to the designated place but there was no one there, so I went back to the computer, then heard the whistle again. This time I could see him walking down the road nearing the pickup point. I got into the dinghy and went to shore near where he was standing and moving down the rocks on the shore. When I got close enough I turned off the motor so I could hear him tell me he had forgotten to put on his pants before going ashore and needed to go back to the boat. I told him there was no way I was beaching the dinghy on the rocks to pick him up. Now I needed to motor back to the drop off point, then wait for him to walk, or was that waddle back, so I could take him back to the boat to get dressed. The shorts he had on could not be seen as anything but shorts, but he would not have it. Another wasted trip.

Friday we headed out on the 44 mile passage to St Martin. I knew there was no way we could hold a course to Barths, but Junaid whined most of the day that we were not going there. It would have required several tacks, which in the sustained wind of high 20's and gusts up to 38 knots, I did not want to do alone and knew I could not rely on him for any help. It was a fast, wet ride. We closed down the windshields and still had substantial spray in the cockpit and the entire boat is covered with salt. I have not seen too many speeds over ten knots lately but we hit that a couple times during this passage. I was suprised with the sea heights, the highest waves were only eight feet, I would have expected more from winds that high. We arrived without incident and as we approached I started the engine to motor into the anchorage and after several minutes of idling but long before being needed, it died. I restarted it and it died again, so we sailed into the anchorage under sail. These guys have done the anchoring drill enough to have this figured out. I gave each specific instructions. Mark was getting the anchor ready, Junaid was to furl the headsail, bringing it in to nearly fully furled, when it stopped. Without having done any tacks during the day, someone had changed the lazy sheet, which then kept the headsail from furling fully. While I was trying to get that corrected, Mark was distracted and not paying attention to what he was doing so was not ready to deploy the anchor when I asked for it. It was a real cockup, but we did get safely anchored.

I took the guys to shore with instructions to be at the Yacht Club for the bridge opening at 1700, I went back to the boat to find out why the engine was not running, which turned out to be air, where did that come from. I pulled up the anchor and moved closer to shore, where we spent the night. After the bridge opening, which consists of the mega yachts and smaller vessels enter or leave the lagoon. The outbound traffic is first, to minimize congestion in the lagoon and the beginning of happy hour, then the inbound opening. Watching the massive piles of money passing through the narrow bridge, sometimes getting a bit too close to the sides, and the whole crowd cheering for the bridge. The abutments have been repainted since last year, still there are a couple of very fresh chunks of concrete missing.

Saturday Junaid left after I had done the checkin. Mark and I repaired the gear shifter, then went to shore ourselves, I need to get some groceries, I have new crew coming tomorrow. Mark will leave in the morning, he will be missed. Now the adventure will begin again with three new people.

Colleen, Rob and Rich

The new crew are here, the young couple, Rob and Colleen, are very outgoing and eager, he knows more than she and they are both ready for an adventure, so I am certain they will do fine. The other guy, Rich, is a bit older than his age, does not listen at all and wants to do the instruction, but does not know what is happening, then got sea sick during the first time out in light conditions. I am pretty sure he will be alright, just needs to know his boundries. All three are here for only one week.

As the kids came in on Sunday I had them do part of the town of Cole Bay on Monday while waiting for Rich to arrive. On Tuesday we sailed out of Simpson Bay through the Dutch side bridge to sail around about one third of the island. The first leg was all down wind, so we did a couple of gybes, just for practice, then turned the first corner of the island and the wind came up on the beam, mostly in the mid to upper teens and only hit twenties a couple of times. We stayed on this tack until we were nearly at Anguilla to the north, then turned into the wind and started tacking. This was when Rich decided to spew all over the deck. We only had three foot waves.

After turning into the wind our boat speed added to the wind speed so we had higher wind speeds although we were in the lee of the island and the sea state never did build beyond a couple of feet. While sailing it is always important to keep an eye on the weather. We were tacking back and forth, enjoying the sailing while a low slung, dark bellied cloud was approaching, the darker tendrils dropping out of the bottom were giving us fair warning of something different approaching. Then during one squall the wind built to 28 knots and I needed to reef, then half hour later it was back to mid teens and we did not have enough sail up. Several tacks later we were anchored at Grand Case where we will have dinner, go ashore for a street party, then stay the night. Rob and Colleen did most of the steering during this blow, doing a pretty good job and both were wearing huge smiles.

Every Tuesday of the winter the town of Grand Case closes both ends of it's waterfront street and vendors of all kinds, artists working with canvas, local seeds and nuts, sheets of metal and cloth, wanna be musicians play, food and drinks are served everywhere. Normally a small quaint French village these Tuesdays it is transformed into a carnival atmosphere with tourists and locals from all over the island coming in to see what is happening.

As the wind had died to nothing we spent Wednesday snorkeling around a local attraction just outside of Grand Case Bay. The locals take many loads of tourists out there daily in glass bottom boats. The snorkel was only fair, but if you do not snorkel the Caribbean often, it was probably quite good. The kids bailed half way back and swam back to the boat.

This was Rich's evening to cook and had requested pork out of the freezer, he said he was going to make stroganoff. I thought that may be a bit complex, but that was his choice. When he returned from shore and asked that I show him how things in the galley worked, we had only gotten to lighting the stove, when he said this was not going to work, as he had no idea what he was doing and asked if I would make the dinner for him, which I did, but was not pleased. Part of being on this boat is to take your turn in the galley, even if all you can make is macaroni and cheese you take your turn. The alternative to that is if you do not cook, you can make reservations on shore, but the bill is yours also.

The wind had still died so Thursday we moved to Marigot Bay for some land exploration. The town of Marigot is a very quaint French village, with a small fort overlooking the bay, that is well worth the time. So I took them to shore to spend the afternoon with a pick up time later.

Friday morning we still had no wind at all, the storms on the east coast of the states have sucked all air movement into themselves, the prediction is we may not have any for several days. Then the forecast is for huge swells caused by the winds moving offshore after dumping record amounts of snow in the DC area. So I took everyone ashore to do some land exploration. Rich headed for Orient Beach, the clothing optional end and the kids wandered. I picked them up later and Rich insisted on doing burgers on the grill.

Saturday morning we headed out in very light wind toward Little Bay, I love the way the Dutch named things, as our destination. The downwind leg out of Marigot was uneventful and slow, where the wind was light and on the beam, with only the headsail up, so we kept the motor running, then we turned to go east on the south side of the island, hard into the wind. We had not gone very far before the engine died. There was a short chinese fire drill to get the mainsail up, then as we tacked into the wind, I was able to bleed the engine so it would run again, but we were making good time and the kids were having fun steering, so we sailed, tacking the length of the south side, each taking their turn at steering, Rich having the last watch. The locals have built a snorkel park in Little Bay, with lots of submerged things, like an old sailboat, cannon, jet ski, a great place for one of those, and assorted hardware. There are usually lots of fish because the local fishermen are not permitted in there. We anchored alongside and everyone did a snorkel to kill some time.

The plan had been to stay the night, then move to Philipsburg the following morning. We all wanted to see the Super Bowl and seeing the main town and cruise ship port on the island is also necessary. As we pulled up the anchor and tried to head out of the bay I noticed we could not steer straight, we could do a port around circle but not forward. I dropped the anchor again and had Rob put on his mask and get into the water. We tested the rudder positions from side to side and sure enough one moved, the other did not. I opened the rudder access and the cable that connects the two rudders was broken. I am fairly certain from turning too hard in the tacks and forcing the wheel against the rudder stops, still it should not break the cable.

So we broke out one of the emergency tiller handles and hand steered that rudder, the other worked with the wheel, to Great Bay, right next door to Little Bay and the location of Philipsburg. I took everyone to shore, did the necessary grocery store run and returned to the boat too remove the broken cable. Now finding a replacement or repair of this one could be interesting.

Sunday evening after dinner we all headed in to see the big game, and what a game it was, one of the most exciting I have seen in some time. That is the only game I take time to see each year, whether the ViQueens are in it or not.

Monday we were off again, downwind, hand steering the broken rudder to get us in the right direction, then lashing it straight and steered with one rudder. My hope was to get to Simpson Bay, then the following morning move the boat through the bridge and into the lagoon for the couple of weeks I would have to get some repairs done. After arrival we arranged a meeting place and I took everyone to shore, then went to find a replacement cable or a shop to repair mine.

The plan was to meet at the dock where I left them, if anyone wanted to come back early, they needed to walk down the beach to signal me for a ride, then walk back to the dock where I would pick them up because the beach had too much surf and was not safe to beach the dinghy. While I was having lunch I saw Rich signaling me from shore, so I waved back, then he started walking toward the dock, which was about a half mile. When he saw that I had not left yet, he walked back. I waved, then got into the dinghy and he headed out again. As I knew it would take him several minutes to walk to the dock I returned to the boat, rather than sit in the sun waiting for him. He saw me return to the boat and walked back, he waved, I waved and he started out again. When he saw that I had not left yet, he walked back.

Finally I got into the dinghy and motored over to where he was standing on the beach to tell him to go to the dock where we had agreed to meet and I would be there. With the surf breaking on the sand and the noise of the motor we could not hear each other. Then I did something really stupid and something I know not to do, I went too close to shore. Of course about that time a larger than normal wave came up from behind and broke right over me and the dinghy, which wetted the engine so it died, drenched me and half flooded the dinghy. I quickly got the oars out and rowed away from shore, outside of the breaking waves to anchor, open the motor and let it dry out, so it would start. Two hours later without tools or clothes I had the engine dry and running again. I am totally confused that some people can not take a simple instruction, signal, walk to the dock, meet, it sounds so simple to me. When I finally met him he was full of apology and could not understand how things had gotten so badly wrong. I simply pointed out that we had a plan and he did not follow that plan.

At the arranged time the kids showed up, after having seen some beaches, the small town of Cole Bay and we sat around at the St Martin Yacht Club for the bridge opening and the parade of mega yachts and smaller boats moving through the bridge first out, then in, to get into or out of the lagoon.

The whole crew left on Tuesday morning, Rich was hoping to get onto an early flight as he was going to the DC area, which we had been hearing was socked in and the airports closed. I have not heard how he did. The kids left on time and arrived home without incident.

Being only eight days this turned out to be lots of moving in very low wind conditions with lots of motoring, but I think everyone had a good time.

Lisa and Elisse

While every crew has something different to offer, the next two were pleasantly interesting. Two women, Lisa and Elisse, recommended by a guy who had been with me before, joined me in St Martin for a week. I had been advised that one of them wanted to be clothing optional so who am I to object and I fully admit to enjoying the scenery that provided.

They turned out to be lovely ladies and I really enjoyed having them on the boat. Their emphasis was on a tropical vacation and not hard core sailing.

They arrived Sunday 21 Feb mid afternoon, now these ladies know how to travel, with one small bag each. I met them at the airport and while walking back to the Turtle Pier we discussed some of the options. As the first day was shot we simply went back to the boat and settled them in and talked about the itinerary for the week. About eight they were heading for bed, which surprised me, but I figured they had just flown down and their arms would be tired.

Monday morning was time to start seeing the island, so I had them onshore early with directions to the nearest beach and the shopping areas. They did Mullet Beach, which is one of the nice ones on the south side of St Martin. By the time I picked them up I had dinner nearly ready so it was another relaxed evening. We discussed the weather forecast, which was for very light winds, mostly from the south, which will have an effect on where we can sail.

Tuesday morning the anchor was up and we made the 8:15am bridge opening on the French side, planned to sail in the sheltered water between St Martin and Anguilla until it was time to settle into Grand Case for the night. As we were sailing along the women were on the trampolines taking in the sights when Elissa's visor blew off. She made a hasty retreat to go get another one, I tacked the boat, then while sailing back to the floating visor told Lisa what she would need to do. I had her get to the bottom step on the stern, then sailed nearly to the visor, turned into the wind to reduce the speed, and the visor came right to her and all she had to do was pick it up. We still had enough boat speed to get back on course, pick up enough speed and tack. By the time Elisse came back on deck we were going the earlier direction. She noticed her wet visor and wondered how we had picked it up. I simply told her we had a man overboard drill.

Grand Case is a quaint French village that blocks off both ends of their waterfront street every Tuesday evening during the cruising season, which then becomes a carnival like setting with bars, food, entertainers, artisans selling everything from paintings and carvings to jewelry and clothes. The odor and smoke of meat cooking over a charcoal fire hangs everywhere. The fun starts at about five and goes to the wee hours of the night. Good thing for me the music stops as soon as my head hits the pillow.

Wednesday the wind was out of the south and right to sail to the east side of French St Martin, a place called Orient Bay, the home of Orient beach, famous for it's clothing optional section. The ladies spent the afternoon ashore while I did some projects on the boat. I could not log onto any of the internet sites as they were all security enabled.

Thursday we headed for Phillipsburg, the home of tourist shopping, specifically intended for the cruise ship crowd. I do not understand the mentality of people who go to foreign ports to buy high end jewelry and watches from vendors they will never see again instead of the shops back home, but they are in every cruise ship port. I had picked up wifi from shore here before and did find one this time, but very weak. I was able to read but not send emails.

Friday after I had taken the women to shore with the understanding they needed to be back by two in the afternoon, I returned to the boat to try to do some emails when I heard a loud crash, then felt the impact. One of the crazy young tourists from the cruise ship had rented a jet ski he had no idea how to drive and was speeding around the anchorage. When he realized he was going to hit my boat he bailed, letting the machine continue forward, into the stern of my dinghy, breaking the outboard motor mount bracket. I immediately jumped into the dinghy to get hold of the kid who was swimming back to the machine. I was certain that if he was able to make a clean getaway that would be the last I would see of him.

One of the employees of the jet ski rental place was quickly there to assure me who he was and where I could find their place of business, which was a sandwich board set on the sidewalk. The boss then showed up and was yelling at me for restraining the kid. I released the kid who was quickly loaded onto one of the other machines and hustled to shore. When I tried to start the outboard I discovered the impact had also broken the fuel line connection, so I rowed the dinghy to the nearest dock.

I found the jet ski rental place and the kid was no where in sight, when I tried to get some information from the young employee, he simply stated, you have no witnesses, there is no damage. That was enough for me, I headed for the police station. Not knowing where to find that I stopped at the court house, which was nearby, but was told no one would talk to me as I did not have a shirt on, but when I asked was told where to find the cop shop. I had left the boat quickly and did not put on a shirt first. I spotted a cop on the street and asked if he was on duty and he told me he was, so I gave him the short version of the details and was told that I need to get a shirt and come back to file a report. I could see all of this leading to the cruise ship leaving with any chance of recovery with it.

I went to the local market and bought a shirt, returned to the police station to report, but was told as this happened on the water it was up to the Coast Guard to investigate, one of the cops was calling as I was told this.

I then returned to the beach, found the vendors again, they had already loaded the jet ski onto the trailer and were about to close down for the day. As I questioned the guy that seemed to be the owner, who was far more concerned that I had grabbed the kid than any damage I had sustained, I simply asked what he intended to do. I do not know much about the law but I do know that the owner of the vehicle is the one who is responsible for any damage caused by that machine. We argued back and forth for awhile, then he lead me to the beach chairs where the French kid, and his father were sitting. From this point everything was done in French. The French guy was saying no way, the machine owner waved the liability waver he had signed under his nose, the French father wanted to get back the safety of the ship and I stood by hoping someone official would show up.

I estimated that my damage was three hundred dollars for the bracket, two hundred to install it, fifty for the fuel connection. I did not know that the latch for the hood and base plate for the motor were also broken. When I told all of this to the machine owner he grabbed onto the three hundred number and stayed with that. After much haggling he was able to get the French guy to cough up two hundred Euro, about two sixty in US and he said he had no more. The jet ski guy was saying take, take it, that is all you are going to get. As the French father started to head for the water taxi to return to the ship I accepted the offered amount, which I knew was low.

While the French father and son were sitting on the water taxi, waiting to return to the safety of the cruise ship, the Coast Guard showed up. They removed the pair from the water taxi to investigate, then took me back to the boat to produce my papers. After a time of Q&A, writing and form filling, the whole thing was finished. Bet that kid never gets to rent another jet ski.

The rest of the afternoon was spent getting the motor tied together with string, rerouting the fuel line, repairing the spark plug wire, fixing the hood latch, so I would be able to pick up the women later.

After the fact I discovered my numbers were even lower than I thought, but with the help of Mike Glatz of the yacht Baywood, possessor of all knowledge local in St Martin, was able to find a broken motor that had a good mount. I bought that and spent all day the following Tuesday removing the part from the motor and installing it on mine. The rest of the damage will need to wait for another time.

I then went to the grocery store for the few things we needed and stopped at a beach bar for a cold one. The guys in the bar had seen everything. In meeting all of them I discovered one was from Red Lake Falls and had gone to school in TRFalls, graduating in about '72. Now this is a small world. We had a few beers discussing world events until the women walked by, were told the whole story by the other guys, then we returned to the boat. Never a dull day in this life.

Friday afternoon we moved to Little Bay, the location of an underwater snorkeling park where the women snorkeled the park. Then we all spent some time just vegging out and I knew I would have internet connection here, it did not work. With the wind gently out of the south, and this bay being open to the south I knew it would be kind of rolly in there, but everyone was happy enough staying the night. We would need to leave early the next morning to make the early Dutch bridge opening.

Saturday we were underway early back to Simpson Bay, made the 9:30am Dutch bridge, and stopped the boat near the airport as I did not want to overwork my string motor bracket with long dinghy trips. I bid the ladies adieu and later moved the boat, found my favorite anchoring spot where I had wifi and went back to work on projects. I had new people coming in just a few days. I also needed to spend a bit of time with other cruising friends that were showing up, each with their own story of the past few months.

Mo and Patrick

Both guys, Mo then Patrick, arrived Thursday evening. While walking to the airport I met a single guy walking toward me, when we were close enough I asked if he was Mo, to which he replied yes, but how do you know me, so I introduced myself, we laughed and walked back to the airport, exchanging some stories, to wait for Patrick to arrive.

Friday I sent them off to beaches and other sites to see, while I did provisioning and putting away some of the projects I had been working on, I was able to get the steering cable repaired and replaced. We were due to leave St Martin over the weekend, so the boat needed to be ready. We had arranged to meet at the St Martin Yacht Club, a Friday ritual that draws many sailors to witness the opening of the drawbridge and the boat traffic of huge mega yachts down to the most simple sailing boat, coming or leaving the Lagoon. The bridge opens for outbound first, closes, then reopens when the vehicle traffic clears. The beers are cheap, everyone cheers for the bridge when a boat gets too close to the edge and this was the last time to say goodbye to some of the friends I had made and reacquainted while in St Martin. Mo had experienced some of the partying that goes on during the Heineken Regatta and wanted to go back to shore, so after dinner another trip was made to take him in and a time to meet established, he was right on time, so I did not need to wait while sitting on the dock by the bay.

Saturday I took the guys ashore again, with directions to the beaches, while I did the larger grocery run. They took in Sunset Beach, but alas, there were no ladies drinking free, but what do you expect it was way before noon. Sunset Beach Bar is located at the arrival end of the airport runway and is shown in most travel brochures of St Martin, the planes are literally right over head, and is famous for offering free drinks to any women who will drink at the bar topless. The guys were to find their way to Marigot, on the French side and I would get the boat through the French side bridge meet them there on the dock. It seemed all of this extra walking has irritated my Gout and my big toes are complaining, not enough to make anything change, just enough to know they are not happy.

The wind continued to blow from the south, very unusual for this time of year, but that is the way of things. The forecast was for the wind to shift to the north Saturday night, which was part of our plan to depart on Sunday. I had considered the options because we needed to start moving to get Mo to Guadeloupe by the 15th.

Marigot was very crowded because the Heineken Regatta is taking place and Marigot is the stop off for about 250 boats on Sunday. I needed to go ashore to check out of the country so used that trip to find the guys. Later we found each other and after a couple of beers returned to the boat for dinner. I noticed the boat ahead of us was quite close, but enough away. We would need to keep in eye on him.

Mo requested a ride back to shore for a bit more party time, with an arranged time to pick him up. As the next islands will not offer much in the way of night life, this was a good exchange. Unfortunately I was not able to connect to the wireless internet I have found in that harbor before.

Around nine that evening the wind started to change and the heavy, low hanging, round bellied, dark clouds rolled in. You could almost see the wind trying to escape these menacing clouds. This was a passing cold front, also very rare to be this far south. The wind quickly turned to the north and the rain started, about the same time I needed to go pick up Mo. When I departed the boat to pick up Mo, I stopped at the boat now behind us, which had been too close ahead of us, was now closer. I asked if they would consider letting out a bit more scope to gain some distance and they agreed. Several boats in the very crowded anchorage started to drag, we saw a few resting against one another and several motoring around the anchorage after dark, so it was clear they had dragged anchor. We spent a rolly night, on a lee shore, with too many boats, too close and many not anchored well so I slept with one eye and both ears open. Sleeping while anchored on a lee shore, that means dirt behind you, a building wind trying it's best to put you there, does not allow for restful sleeping conditions.

We left St Martin Sunday morning, headed for Statia which is 36 miles just east of south. The wind continues out of the north, which was very good for us, however it was not all that strong and nearly directly behind, which is a very difficult angle to steer. The route to Statia was splitting the islands of Saba and St Barths, so we had an out if we could not make Statia in time. Both guys picked up steering pretty quickly, Patrick a bit quicker than Mo, but we were able to keep going in the about the right direction most of the time. Patrick is a school teacher, has done quite a bit of sailing, so he catches on very quickly and is very pleasant to have around. Mo is an engineer by education, so he is 'what iffing' me to death, many of the questions are well thought out and valid, some are just plain silly, everything seems to be going quite well with both of them.

We were a bit too slow to make Statia before dark so I chose to put up the spinnaker, a much larger sail that goes in front of the boat. With this we should pick up more than a knot in speed and should make it in easily. We talked over what needed to be done and who would do what, in what order. While putting up the spinnaker Patrick got a very nasty rope burn that took some hide off his hand. That will be a few days before he is able to use that fully. Other than that injury the spinnaker was up and flying, only needing slight adjustment. Actually we gained over two additional knots, so we were making up some lost time.

As we approached Statia it was time to get the spinnaker down, it is such a large sail care is needed. I instructed both of them what needed to be done and everything went perfectly. We first started an engine, then set the head sail to block some of the wind out of the spinnaker, then released the after guy and pulled down the sock. Once that was done it was easy. We then furled the headsail and motored into the bay to pick up a mooring ball, ten minutes before sundown.

Everyone was worn out, partly from the lack of sleep during the blow of the night before and partly just from having done the crossing. So shortly after Patrick's dinner of stir fry chicken, everyone was ready for bed.

Monday they are ashore checking out the sites. Statia has a very good small museum, a very nicely restored fort, the history of being the trading center for the western world, supposedly the busiest sea port in the world at one time, most people do not know that most of the material for the revolutionary war came through Statia, and a small volcano, called the quill, from which seven islands can be seen on a clear day, for hiking. The snorkeling is also quite good, but the diving is supposed to be great.

We had a very slow trip from Statia to St Kitts. The wind started out alright but changed about half way down, first dying completely, then switching to the SW, we wanted SE so we could still pick up a little boost, then it went S, so we dropped all sail and motored. We then motored for the next three and a half hours, the longest motor of this year. We should not have been surprised as it happened just as predicted by Wind Guru.

That slow moving allowed for keeping an eye on the scenery, which is very impressive in the Statia, St Kitts, Nevis and Saba area. We could see all four islands for most of the day.

I took the guys ashore to see the town and I am dealing with a very weak wifi signal, it might be good enough to send this.

We will stay here through Friday so the guys can see Brimstone Hill, a restored fort and World Heritage Site, while I did the grocery store. St Kitts has been one of the places I have gotten propane over the past few years. Then move to the south end of the island for some snorkeling, then down to Nevis. We will be crossing to Guadeloupe over the weekend, which will require an overnight. These guys will be ready for that by then.

I also wanted to try to get some propane. The last time I was here I learned that the procedure had changed. I checked out the local agent that now must be used and they informed me that if I pay them, I can hand carry the bottle to the gas plant for filling, which is what I did. The price was the same and I still needed to go to plant, but it works.

After the guys did Brimstone we moved to the south end of St Kitts, there are a few nice snorkeling spots and they were ready to get into the water. We stayed the night in Balast Bay and moved to Nevis the following morning. I figured I would have good internet access in Nevis, from a bar called Double Deuce. While the guys checked out the hot springs and saw some of the town I was able to get caught up with emails.

Our plan was to spend only the day in Nevis, leaving enough before dark to clear the shallows between St Kitts and Nevis with daylight, then begin an overnight to Guadeloupe, which would be 75-85 miles, depending on the arrival point. As expected the wind would switch around to the east, we wanted SE for our heading, so it would be hard on the wind again. We took one tack north to gain a bit of easting, then tacked to the SE and kept going on that tack all night. Well, except we ran over a slightly shallow spot, not one where we would be in danger of touching bottom, but an area where the sea breaks, so we tacked around that, then went back to the original course, set Otto and off we went. While hand steering most people make a track any snake would be proud to call his own, rounding up, which stops the boat, then falling off that picks up speed but does not keep our course, so using Otto after dark makes good sense. We had discussed ship identification but as it turned out, only three vessels come into view and none were even close to us.

As there would be no moon at all, I used way points to fix points of land to go around, which requires us to hold a pretty good course. We were surrounded by waves marching by, occasionally one would break and we would get some spray, but for the most part it was quite dry and our trail through the phosphorescence was glowing behind us. We knew that once we had cleared the uninhabited rock called Redonda, funny even with only starlight, we could see the rock four miles down wind, then the island of Montserrat, which is lit up with street lights and homes, but this time no orange glow from the volcano summit and we could see the glow from Antigua from sundown on.

After we cleared Montserrat we would be able to fall off the heading just a bit and that would relax the head into the wind sailing we had been doing. The wind cooperated all night, mid to upper teens, rarely gusting over twenty, the seas did not build past 6-8 feet, so it was a pretty smooth ride with speeds mostly in the six and seven knot range. Shortly after passing Montserrat we could see the glow of lights from Guadeloupe, and by daybreak it was in sight and the wind was shifting off land and dying, the last few hours were very slow. During the night everyone took turns off watch and was able to catch a few cat naps, still after an overnight, everyone is exhausted and this was no different.

As we were not able to hold the nearest point of arrival I decided to take them to Pigeon Island, an area of very good snorkeling and shallow diving. Cousteau labeled this as one of the best dive spots in the world. I am not so sure I would go that far, but it is pretty good. Saturday afternoon we took the dinghy over to the island for some snorkeling before returning to the boat for dinner. While sitting on deck discussing the day, a dinghy pulled up and my friends Susan and Mike of Tabby Cat pulled up. They joined us for some drinks and a chance to catch up on recent events. It was obvious I had been putting way too much strain on my feet, they were getting to the point of sore where walking was a challenge.

Sunday we bid adieu to Susan and Mike as they were heading south to see a waterfall and we were heading north to Deshaise. The guys had planned to do some land touring before Mo flies out on Thursday. Guadeloupe is a large island, so they are talking about renting a car to see more of it. They should have all the info when they get back today. There are no free wifi signals in France, so I will need to use an internet cafe.

During the short, ten mile sail to Deshaise I heard a radio call for me, it was Mike, wondering what conditions we had. Which were just the opposite of the strong SW wind they found, so they turned around and sailed to Deshaise also. I invited them over for fajitas and we had another chance to catch up. Monday the guys are wandering, I am catching up on things that need doing.

We did not have any trouble finding a place to anchor, Deshaise is seldom crowded early in the day, toward evening it often fills up a bit. The sail from Antigua is about a full day and the passage up from the Saints is most of a day, so those boats have a bit of a problem finding shallow anchorage. Much to my surprise a couple hours after we arrived a few larger, 80 foot race boats came, motored around and dropped the hook. Even that did not trip my brain cells to the fact a floatilla was on the way. From an hour before sundown, to a couple hours after a steady stream of boats came in, each thinking there was still room for a couple more. Many were so close that when the wind switched they would swing within feet of each other.

The crew on most of these were Russian, so the sounds and languages coming from them was strange. Monday appeared to be a lay day for them, or the fact there was no wind kept them in port, so the onshore hot spots were lively on Sunday night. We did not go ashore, but could hear and see some of the festivities. Funny, as soon as my head hits the pillow, the music stops.

Tuesday morning they were up early and getting the boats ready to depart, the committee boat went out to set up the start line and by ten they were all gone. The guys made plans with Susan and Mike to look for a waterfall. There are no rental cars available so they are needing to use the local bus. I am sure they had a grand adventure, the rental car was then to take Mo to the airport before returning it to Basseterre.

Patrick drove Mo to the airport in Point a Petre Thursday morning for an early morning flight, then needed to return the rental car to Basseterre, the capital, before taking a bus back to Deshaise so we could leave. We expected he would be back by nine. Because of a selective strike by the bus drivers there was no service between Basseterre and Deshaise, he needed to hitch three different rides to get back by eleven, which was too late for us to leave so we put it off for one more day.

With Mo, the dynamo, being gone, we had a quiet dinner and were in bed early, with plans to get up and going early the following morning. I know, it is bad luck to begin and voyage on a Friday, but I am told that does not apply to voyages that can be concluded on the same Friday. With 47 miles to go and a forecast for good wind we should easily be in before dark.

Beginning about eight, the first three or four miles were in the lee of Guadeloupe so the wind was goofy, shifting direction, gusting and tough to steer, so we motored most of that. There were a few boats ahead of us and we could see them setting their sails about the same place, so we knew we would have some wind. When it finally arrived, it was about perfect, slightly south of east, we were headed north, and in the upper teens. We trimmed the sails, set Otto and sat back for a nice ride, and we were not disappointed. For the first 32 miles everything went perfectly, winds high teens to low twenties and the seas less than 8 feet, then out of nowhere the wind velocity picked up to the high twenties and I needed to reef. This only lasted about an hour before dropping back to the low twenties but I left in the reef, we were still doing over eight knots and would be in early. I finally released the reef in the headsail to pick up a bit of speed. The final time for the 47 miles was six hours, averaging 8 knots, not a bad passage.

Patrick was very excited when I pointed out a passing humpback whale, about 200 yards from the boat. In these seas the whales are hard to see, but I caught sight of the water plume of his breath out the blow hole. It was a simple matter of moving my eyes upwind to find the whale.

With all the crew I have been having this year Otto is not getting much time at the wheel, other than the two overnights, he told me he was happy to be working again and I was happy to know he still works.

The next crew arrive in Jolly Harbor, Antigua on Sunday, Patrick leaves on Thursday, so I have only a couple days to get provisioned and ready for more company and things keep changing. I will be spending the next several weeks around Antigua, including the Classic Race week, before moving on 1 May.

Cindy and Amit

Sunday 21 March Amit and Cindy arrived at Antigua, followed instructions perfectly and we found each other at Jolly Harbor, then returned to the boat, had dinner and discussed what they wanted to do for the next ten days. As with so many land lubbers, these kids have no concept of water or fridge temp conservation. They walk past a faucet it is necessary to run some water through it, when they open the fridge they window shop for the first couple of minutes, then slowly make their choices and even more slowly close the door. They wash their hands before using the head, something I have never understood, and again after, but when they figured they could shower together, the pump ran intermittently for nearly twenty minutes, at one time I turned the pump off, then back on a couple minutes later. After this wasteful display I talked with Amit and told him again that water needs to be conserved. Their next shower was much shorter, but still way too long.

They are both doctors, highly educated and smart, they seem to be a very nice couple, for how long I have no idea. Both are excited about spending some time sitting doing nothing, sailing and trying to find some wildlife to photograph. They seem to want to do everything together, which can get in the way of getting anything done, but they enjoy each other's company. While earlier stating an ability to put a meal on the table I was soon to learn that this had it's limitations. By the end, I just did all the cooking and everyone was happier for it. Amit made up for that by buying a meal on shore.

Monday we got a late start as the kids were not quick in getting up, it was after ten, then we sailed to a remote anchorage in Carlisle Bay. This is a good first day out, it is only eight miles, most of the sail is in protected water, but the second half is right into the wind and current, so the going is not easy. Patrick was a real help during this passage as we did ten tacks and they were only about seven minutes apart on the short leg and a bit over twenty on the long leg. I did all the steering as we could not afford to loose any distance to the current. We were passed by a few boats that were getting a great lift using only the hull of the boat and the iron sail for propulsion.

Once anchored in Carlisle Bay everyone put on the snorkel gear and hit the water. The plan was to stay here for only one night and part of two days. The wind forecast was for higher than normal winds, so sitting that out was a good idea. Tuesday was another day of snorkeling, we again got a late start due to late sleeping, hanging out and soaking up a bit of sun. Both the kids received more than their fair share of sun this day and needed to be a bit careful. Cindy sat on something in the water that she should not have and got a large welt on the back of one of her legs, a good lesson to not touch anything.

Tuesday afternoon we headed out for Falmouth Harbor but did not get underway until one in the afternoon. We were only going four miles, but more day would have allowed more sailing. The wind was still up so while they raised the main, I had Patrick and Amit put in one reef. Once we were out of shelter the wind picked up to over twenty knots, but the boat was not moving fast enough. I stuck my head out from under the bimini and could see the problem right away. They had secured the first reef on the outhaul but had hooked the second reef on the luff, we only had half the sail and were way out of trim. I quickly corrected this and we took off at eight knots. As it was we did a few long tacks offshore, then back toward the island. This allowed the kids to actually see the measure of our advance from each tack. We ended up doing six tacks, but we arrived long before dark and everyone got some practice at steering. They both caught on pretty quickly to the process of steering but neither grasped the idea of moving a boat forward into wind and current.

Wednesday was Patrick's last day and he wanted to see Shirley Heights and Nelson's Dock Yard. I had him ashore by eight then returned to the boat. My plan was to do a propane run, but I needed to wait for the kids to get out of bed, which was ten again for Cindy. Amit was out earlier looking for some coffee. About eleven we headed in, took the bus to St Johns, I gave them some directions and I headed for the gas plant. Keeping my gas bottles filled is always a priority. Mostly I know where it can be done so that has been working. The plan was to meet at a bar call the Mad Mongoose and go for pizza. Le Cap restaurant is nearby and has decent pizza. Later we needed to get Patrick back to the boat to get packed.

Thursday brings a sad ending to a great visit, I had Patrick ashore about five am for his ride to the airport, he was fun, knew enough about sailing to be helpful so I will miss him. After getting a short nap myself my plan was to hit the grocery store. The kids had said they wanted to do the beach, which is a short swim from the boat, then do Shirley Heights and Nelson Dockyard in the afternoon, so I left for the groceries, leaving them to fend for themselves until about midday. When I returned they were ready to go ashore so I made a return trip with the dinghy then back to the boat to put the groceries away. As I suspected the shower floor was wet and the water tank empty. I do not understand how the pump turned off. So while I was putting things away I ran the water maker for an hour. We are planning to head out to a remote place, Green Island, which is one of my favorite sit spots, tomorrow and I will be able to replace some of the water. I need to get to shore to work on my taxes. As it turned out, the directions from Patrick were not clear enough to get them to the top of Shirley Heights easily. Taking the long way around they enjoyed the scenery and the wildlife.

Amit is of the opinion that they should be sailing more, he wants to sail to both Guadeloupe and Barbuda, which can not be done, one or the other, but certainly not both. Cindy wants to have restful mornings, getting up after ten, which does not leave enough time to go anywhere. I am not sure how this will resolve. So earlier than normal on Friday morning we headed out toward Nonsuch Bay, then turned into the wind so the kids could raise the main. So many non sailors do not understand the need to do a job and get it done, preferring to discuss the why's and what's before doing any of the work. Much committee discussion during different parts of getting the sail up can cause the process to take much longer than it should, we had very little room between us and the island so when the sail was up we needed to fall off.

So under full sail and partly cloudy skies, the wind was over twenty knots and we were making very good speeds in 3-5 foot swells and a 3 foot chop causing small white caps, but into the wind and current, it is the current that makes thing difficult. I did the first couple of tacks, then turned the wheel over to Amit who felt he was doing a pretty good job of steering. Once he had done two tacks I turned on the plotter to give him an idea of his tracks, which nearly laid over each other. With no forward progress we would not get there today, so I steered and we were able to arrive before dark, but not by that much. I still needed to scrape the lumps off the bottom of RPhurst and finished that just before dark.

Entering the area of Nonsuch Bay requires sailing about ten miles east from Falmouth, following the coast of Antigua, which curves northeasterly, then once past York Island turn in, put the wind on the beam and an easy sail past Green Island, with special care given the reef on one side and rocks on the other. I did not remember the sailboat hull laying on the reef before, a navigational error or bad anchoring. Once past Green Island you turn to the northeast, staying inside the reef after the entrance and turning more north, then an easy reach to Bird Island, where we anchored. I suggested that we would need an earlier, at least by eight, start the next morning to be able to sail the nearly 30 miles to Barbuda.

Saturday everyone was up before eight, I thanked Cindy, the sky was going to be clear, the wind was mid teens, it was going to be a wonderful sail to Barbuda. The first couple miles out of Nonsuch Bay are winding through a reef, the channel can be easily seen with good light. While still in the channel I turned into the wind so the kids could raise the main before we were in the swells of the open ocean. I suggested that this required the job to be done much more quickly than the day before or we would run out of channel. As it turned out, I needed to have them stop, motor back across the channel, then turn back into the wind to finish raising the sail. Finally it was up and we headed out into the expected swell of 4-6 feet. We turned off the wind, set the head sail and off we went. An easy broad reach and right on course. Both the kids had a chance to steer and we had plenty of time for them to extend the track by wandering. My only concern was to get through the reef and coral heads on the south end of Barbuda, around the area of Spanish Point. Once inside and finding a large enough spot we anchored within an easy swim of several coral heads. The plan was to stay there the next day and head back on Monday.

Sunday Cindy and Amit were excited about getting into the water to do some snorkeling. The area around Spanish Point is littered with coral heads, most are dead, but provide habitat for a wide variety of fish. After an hour or so they came back, quite disappointed in what they had not seen, which really surprised me, anytime I have snorkeled this area it was alive with fish. Just after mid day, when the light is best, I snorkeled to the nearest three coral heads and found lots of fish, grouper, snapper, barracuda, trumpet fish, all of the colorful tropical fish that hang around the coral and on the way back to the boat there was a sting ray investigating our anchor, but not one lobster. When I told the kids about all of this they mentioned that perhaps they should go with me and I could point things out for them.

Later that day I took them ashore, while the water maker was running, so they could enjoy the beautiful sunny day, walk the beaches, investigate a salt water pond, get some pictures of birds and have some time to themselves. We had agreed that I would come pick them up when I saw them on the beach, eliminating the need to coordinate the time.

We needed to get an early start on Monday to get back to Jolly Harbor. The heading was easy with the wind slightly behind the beam, the sky was clear and a deep blue, the water was dark blue in the deep places and nearly green in the shallow place. We used our arrival track to get us through the reefs, then set the sails for the comfortable passage back to Antigua. Only one area of concern was ahead of us. Returning from Barbuda requires threading the needle through a reefy area that has only one half mile wide place to get through. We hit that perfectly and could barely see the lighter color water over the shallow spots on both sides. From there we had an easy time getting to Galley Bay, where they were able to snorkel the shipwreck in the harbor entrance. This is not a great snorkel, usually the water has limited visibility and today is no exception.

After the snorkel we moved the short distance to Jolly Harbor and settled in for their departure the following day. Dinner was ashore and on Amit, a welcome and appreciated gesture on their part. I have enjoyed showing them a bit of how I live and hope they enjoyed the time spent here.

Classic Race Week

The past few years I have reserved the second half of April for Classice Race Week in Antigua. Many friends gather around the same time so it is often like old home week. To qualify for classic the boat must be old, new built on old plans, or new built to look old, then they are all put into classes that approximate their build, and as you can see there is a wide spread of sizes. It is all great fun, the races are wonderful to watch and the evening festivities are subdued, lots of free booze and food put on by the sponsors. There are few surprises in the standings for the larger boats, which are professionally crewed. Often the difference between winning and loosing is a few seconds and more often determined by ratings. All in all it is a great time, a welcome rest for me in the middle of the winter and is a very nice diversion.

Louis

Louis and I have spent a few pleasant days sailing around Antigua. He has been with me before and is knowledgable and helpful, I enjoy his company. He arrived Saturday afternoon and was to meet me at the Mad Mongoose, how was I to know it would not be open because of the late night party the previous night. Sunday evening we did the trip up the hill for the Shirley Heights festivities of good overpriced food, a few beers and some lively music by a pan band followed by a local group, a good time was had by all. There I met Cris and Mark on Silhouette and spent some time visiting with them.

We first sailed out of Falmouth Harbor, on a clear sky Monday morning, on our way to Green Island, which is one of the famous sit spots in the Leeward Islands. Like many other places where a boat is anchored behind a protecting barrier reef, in good holding sand with little swell from the waves driven all the way across the Atlantic by the trade winds, some people spend a few days to a couple of weeks out there doing not much of anything but snorkeling and watching the kite surfers practice. I needed to clean the bottom of RPhurst or we would be very slow going to Barbuda, so a few hours in the disappointingly murky water and we were nice and smooth again.

In previous trips out there I have done some snorkeling on the outer edges of the new growth reef, where the water is much clearer and the swell a challenge to all but the most advanced snorkelers. Much of the reef is dead by storm damage, but the leading edge is still growing. All coral requires a current to bring food to the polyps, which leaves the leading edge the only growth area. As the reef matures it gives off sand, part of the break up of the reef as it dies, which is then carried down current to cover the older growth with sand, killing what is left.

Given our very tight schedule, he only had a week, and wanted to do as much sailing as possible so we only spent an overnight. The next morning it was up early to catch some weather forecast and then out the cut to head north the 28 miles to Barbuda. The forecast was for easterly wind in the mid teens, we actually had ESE wind in the mid teens and a very good angle for RPhurst.

The passage was begun under clear blue sky, reflecting the color of the deeper water, the most navy of navy blue, deteriorating as the day progressed to partly cloudy, we even had a three minute rain shower, then continued uneventfully and we arrived in good time, with plenty of daylight hours. The wind driven waves were coming from behind which caused Louis some difficulty in holding a straight course, then on arrival the clouds did their best to limit seeing the dangerous coral heads in our path, but we made it in safely.

Barbuda is one of the seldom visited places, and a couple more islands for him to check off his list. It does not offer wifi, much of a grocery store, very little in the form of entertainment or attractions, what it does offer is anchoring among the coral heads in reasonably clean water, miles of white sand beaches, lots of birds that come here to nest and no music coming from shore. There is something majestic in being anchored within sight of coral sticking above the surface of the water, knowing that you are safe and the marvels of the underwater world are but a short swim away.

In years past a cruiser needed to check out of Antigua, then into Barbuda, requiring a difficult trip to the only town of Codrington. This has changed and now if you are checked into Antigua, you are free to go to Barbuda without additional officious problems.

Getting in behind the protection of Spanish Point is always a challenge, always requiring good light from behind and a close eye for the many coral heads that dot the area covering a shallow of about three miles by one and a half miles, often allowing only a boat width between them, but mostly a hundred yards or so apart. The water is 25 feet deep between them, but many of them break the surface and are easy to see, the ones lying a foot under the surface are much more difficult, their jagged teeth just waiting to devour the unaware or the careless.

The anchorage behind Crown Point is much easier, but does not have much for snorkeling. It does offer a wonderful view of endless beach, actually about twelve miles, to the north, anchoring securely in soft sand. There is a high end resort located on Crown Point that is not very welcoming to cruisers, their well heeled guests pay far more than we are willing to consider.

We arrived early enough for a short snorkel before dinner. Then Wednesday was spent doing laundry, snorkeling while that was drying and I did take Louis to shore for a short walkabout and some pictures.

Thursday we sailed the 30 miles back to the west side of Antigua, Jolly Harbor, where I would check out of the country and hit the grocery store before moving on to Falmouth Harbor on Friday. Again no fish, this dragging a line and coming up empty is for the birds, but the past two days I have brought back a lure sans hook, so that is encouraging, maybe it was a fish that took the hook. This will complete the once around Antigua for Louis, and I will be in place Saturday for the next couple guys coming in on the same day Louis leaves.

The trip to Falmouth is not so difficult, only about eight miles, two of which are sliding down the lee side of Antigua in the swirling wind coming around each of the hills, before turning the SW corner and heading straight into the wind and current for six miles to Falmouth. We should be in there early enough to do emails. Well, not all goes to plan. The swirling wind along the west coast was right, we even did a full circle when Louis lost concentration and let the wind wrap around our bow, then dealing with winds up to 28 knots, under full sail. Then once around the corner and into the wind and current we did short tacks, about twelve of them, in 20 plus knot winds, to make it through a quarter mile wide and nearly a mile long narrow spot between Goat Head reef and the shore of Antigua.

Once out from behind the reef we were able to take longer tacks. This is always a struggle as we are straight into a full knot or more of current. Once we were out in the open and away from land, the wind began to fall off to the low teens and progress slowed. The day was perfect for sailing with a deep blue cloudless sky, even darker blue water that was covered with easy swells of 4-6 feet and a wind chop of not more than 3 feet. For the most part we were able to hold a pretty good line on our tacks, just needed so many of them. We were gaining nearly a mile on each tack but needed to sail about six miles to gain that one, three out and three back, such is the effect of the current.

Our last evening we spent walking down to English Harbor for the awards ceremony for Race Week. There were lots of people around, activities like large projector screens of the pics taken by the pros, award giving and speech making kept everyone entertained for a couple hours.

The taxi Louis had arranged the night before did not show, but he was able to flag down another, at 0515 is amazing, and was to the airport on time for his flight. I enjoy his company and wish he would come down more often.

Jon and Ariel

The day Louis left, which was a 04:30 trip to shore, and the taxi Louis arranged the night before did not show up, he was able to flag down another and get to the airport. Later the same day the next kids, Ariel and Jon, showed up, they are school chums from way back. Neither has done any sailing so these two weeks sailing to St Lucia could be interesting.

As this was Saturday and I needed to do the produce market anyway, after settling their stuff on the boat we all jumped a bus to town. St John's is not that much to see, but when you are there it is necessary. Much of the town has not improved with age, most of the older wooden clapboard buildings could use a coat of paint and the Caribbean architecture has not withstood the test of time. The area around the cruiseship port is all sparkle and glitz. I did the local produce market and gave them directions to the interesting sights, then I returned to the boat with a time to pick them up later at the friendly bar, Mad Mongoose. After dinner we talked about options and then went to bed, Jon soon learned about locals and their music. A DJ, I think, at a nearby bar started with the microphone about eleven, screaming, making guttural noises, singing with the music, all at ear busting levels of volume, and it lasted till about five, Jon could have killed the guy.

Sunday morning I sent the kids off to snorkel Windward Bay, a small beach between the entrances of Falmouth and English Harbors, that has a good taste of clear water and growing coral, then in the afternoon they did English Harbor. When we tried to pick up the last of beverages, would you believe the island was out of local beer, Carib, so we had to settle for Heineken, it seems all the boats leaving after Antigua Race Week had cleaned out the whole supply. Later, along with Susan and Mike from Tabby Cat, we all did Shirley Heights early enough to eat, enjoy the sunset and lovely views from the top of the hill overlooking English and Falmouth Harbors along with all of the boats anchored, as well as the magnificent homes built on the hillsides.

A new twist to the Sunday evening Shirley Heights was the entertainment, which was normally a pan, steel band, of about 20 local musicians who can make such wonderful sounds come from old oil drums, from 4-7, followed by a local band, who this evening was replaced by a bald headed, middle aged DJ from Trinidad, who clearly had the locals well in hand. They were trained as well as any church congregation, knowing each response to his suggestions. He would call for a cheer and they would cheer, he would call out what sounded like boola, which we later discovered was actually 'pull up', which means play it again Sam, he would call for signal, which meant where are you from and the crowd would cheer, Antigua. Most of this was not understandable, but entertaining. His choice of sound from the system was not my favorite and was often repeated, scratched, played backwards, or yelled over. All in all it was an interesting evening, but we were back on the boat by ten.

Under beautiful clear blue skies, contrasting with the turquoise shallows of the harbor, Monday morning we were ready to head out on the nearly 45 mile sail to Guadeloupe. We had previously done a tour around the boat naming names and learning the parts, so this morning we discussed the windlass and raising of the anchor. With the motor running to move the boat forward, the mainsail already up, Ariel was on the windlass. Wouldn't you just bet something really weird would happen during their first time in the process. While bringing in the chain and anchor the windlass motor was working really hard. As the anchor started coming out of the deep we could see a huge piece of dead coral attached to the anchor. Dropping the whole thing to the bottom was enough to make the piece fall off. Too bad we did not think to get a picture, but with the anchor off the bottom, we were drifting toward the boats down wind, so letting it down was the best choice.

Without all that extra weight we motored out of the harbor, setting the headsail as we went until we were clear of the hills and the wind became clean. Our course was easy as the wind was from the east in the mid teens and our course was nearly straight south. The boys were visibly excited to get out of the harbor and into the ocean, under the power of sails, with speeds up to eight knots. The ocean soon turned that dark circle of deep blue, indicating we were off the shelf surrounding Antigua and the swells were 3-5 feet, with small wind driven chop on top of that, and only the occasional white caps.

There were a few squalls off in the distance ahead of us and the haze kept us from seeing Guadeloupe, so we were flying by instrument. There were a few boats ahead of us and a visual reverence could be taken from one of those. We each took an hour at the helm and both guys picked up steering quite well, yes, both over steered, but not nearly as badly as some. Our speeds were good at 6-8 knots, we were making great time and the miles were falling off behind us.

Jon had mentioned his trip would be a success if he was able to see some marine life. We had been seeing turtles around the boat in the harbor, but when he spotted some dolphins coming up behind us he was truly amazed. Out came the cameras, and Ariel went to the bow to watch the magnificent creatures play in our bow wave, while they were still around the boat I spotted a whale spout well ahead of us, then told the guys to look forward as two humpbacks surfaced and one threw it's flukes in the air before diving. We did not see another spout from them, but in the moderate seas in which we were sailing that is not so strange. No sooner had the humpbacks disappeared I looked back and saw two pilot whales approaching, now all the attention turned to them, then there were two more and then two more. Generally when I see these they are in a herd of six to eight and I think we saw them all. What a way to start out the trip, I often see one of these species, but all three of the large mammals in one day is rare.

Shortly after our animal kingdom sightings I noticed a rain squall coming in from up wind. As it approached I tried to assess it's size and intensity, concluding that it was small, so might not contain too much wind. This is normally a time to be reefing, make smaller, the sails, but I felt we could simply turn away from the wind and reduce it's power. I explained all of this and when the wind finally arrived it just barely went above the strength where I should reef, and never over 26 as we ran away from it, so turning away easily brought it down to safe levels and it only lasted a few minutes. Once the rain arrives, the wind dies down.

By now we could start to see Guadeloupe, just a dark shape in the haze, but soon became an island, then hills, becoming trees. As expected our approach to the end of the island brought the wind wrapping around the end and following the coastline. These winds are often accelerated above the sustained wind and this was no different, but came from nearly straight behind so was of little concern. Of far more concern are the numerous fish trap markers that dot the shallow water along the coast. I knew they were coming so we had taken in our fish lines, alas, again no fish caught. Then sailed to a point just outside of Deshaise were we started the motor and took down the sails for the entry into the harbor. Ariel took the boat all the way in to anchor and did a good job of avoiding the many boats anchored here.

Once settled in we headed for shore, them to see the quaint French Caribbean town and me to do the official checkin. The French islands do it right, you sit down at a computer, fill in all the information and print out the form, the person at the internet cafe, bar or chandlery puts on a rubber stamp and you are in, and out usually. No more filling in five sets of copies of the same information, crew list and declarations, one stop, done.

Tuesday morning the kids headed out to see some of the countryside by bus. We had discussed what I know of the place, used the Lonely Planet guide and they had done some investigating before leaving home and had some idea what to see. How were we to know there was a bus strike on one of the legs they needed to travel, which is not unusual in France, so they made the obvious choice for an American, they rented a car to drive themselves. Actually by using the car they saw more of the island than they would have seen by bus. They took in some small towns, had a French lunch, a waterfall, where Jon irritated an old back injury and were able to get several pictures. It was also a very good idea for them to have paid me when they arrived, Jon left his wallet in the rental car. The guy said he would mail it, maybe he will.

Wednesday we sailed the nine miles to Pigeon Island, then snorkeled that area in the afternoon. This is one of the better snorkeling spots and is never a disappointment, with a clear sky the visibility was very good. This calm passage was a good time to start knot tying, so out came the practice cleat and a line. The story is told that Jacque Cousteu claimed that this place has some of the best diving in the world. I am not so sure I agree with that statement, there are many places that are much better, but this is good. As the boys had not done much snorkeling, this was very exciting for them and the fish did not disappoint. Jon picked up the anchor this morning and ran into trouble. Before the anchor was all the way up the windlass stopped working. I quickly went forward and lifted it by hand and would worry about getting things fixed later. As it turned out, Jon had changed the process of stowing the chain in the locker but out of the box, which meant he was pulling the chain out of place, inadvertently pulling it into the wires that run the motor, finally breaking the wire from it's end fitting. I will never understand why people do not accept the instructions given and not try to reinvent the wheel by doing things differently, but this is a common error.

Early Thursday morning we picked up the anchor to sail the 27 miles to The Saints, a small group of small islands that are part of Guadeloupe. The area is very French, has an interesting fort and nice clear water for those that want to get wet. The first couple of hours were very disappointing. Given the high hills of Guadeloupe, much of the wind is blocked by land. The forecast was for light wind anyway, and we had very light wind. We tried to sail away from land to get cleaner air, but the sea breeze was beginning, so the wind wanted to push us right back to the island. I finally needed to give up and start the engine. This was another good time to work on knots, so I gave them a couple more to learn and that kept them busy. We motored for about 12 miles before the breeze started to fill in and we were able to sail and turn off the motor. We had not done any tacking up to this point in the trip, so before we were out in the open and subject to the swells where we would need to turn into the wind, we practiced the mechanics of tacking. The guys picked it up very quickly and were able to continue flawless tacks all day, there were over twenty of them.

We finally arrived at The Saints just before sundown on 6 May, put the boat in order and it was time to get dinner ready, then connect to wifi and discover the wild ride the market had taken that day. The after dinner discussion centered around what to do tomorrow. Friday morning the decision was made to rent a couple of scooters, do Fort Napoleon in the morning and tour the rest of the island later. This little fort has an excellent museum and describes the sea battles and live aboard for the early navies of the world.

Friday was spent touring The Saints by rental scooter. The boys did not leave much time for the fort, which is the most interesting spot on the island, but they did beaches and had another great French lunch. I spent the day loosing my ass on the market.

On Saturday we headed out toward Dominica, 42 miles away. The route out of The Saints is around and between islands in deep water, then through a narrow passage between rocks on both sides, some of them above the surface, before finding the deep water between the islands. In good light the path is easily seen. The heading was easy, again east winds and a southerly course, we were rarely higher than 60 degrees, the winds were gentle seldom higher than high teens, the sky was gun metal gray, with a few spots where rain could be seen falling, the swell was comfortable at 4-6 feet. Ariel spotted a couple of spouts on the horizon, then with some looking we spotted the black fins of Pilot whales. They never come to play with the boat and only keep going on their way, we soon lost contact with them. One squall did try to give us some concern, but as it approached the wind went just over 25 knots and as we turned away to reduce the apparent wind it faded as quickly. We were soon back on course and still under full sail.

The only real excitement was on our approach to Portsmouth. Ariel had taken a heading that took us a bit too close to shore. When we entered the wind shadow of that big rock the wind swirled and finally was pushing us toward shore, which was far too close. I finally took over, gibed to take us away from shore, then when we were back into some wind I tacked to put us back on course. Once around that rock the wind really picked up. The harbor of Portsmouth has two large mountains on shore, sort of like book ends, with a valley between them. The wind that can not go through the mountains funnels into the valley and down into the harbor. I often see 25-30 knots of wind in this harbor, today was no different, as well as the swirling caused by the hills. We did four tacks to get in close enough to start the engine and motor the short distance to where I wanted to anchor.

Even before getting the anchor down we were surrounded by the local business men, read that overaggressive boat boys for which Dominica is famous, wanting to sell a mooring, local fruit, trips, tours and anything that could get a dollar out of our pocket and into his. The one thing that interested us was a night out on shore. The local boat boy association is having a fund raiser, where for EC$40. one can eat all you want, and drink your choice of beer or rum punch, while listening to music. In the past Dominica has had a reputation for late night boarding, which are uninvited guests calling while you are asleep and dinghy thefts. The Boat Boy Association now patrols the anchorage at night and this seems to have lowered the incidence of problems, so we are happy to support that group. As this sounds like a great end to a wonderful day of sailing we will give that a try. As it turned out, some of the details as explained by Edson were not quite as described. The buffet was limited in quantity, there was no beer and the rum punch was strong enough to wake a dead pirate and to assure you did not want more than a couple glasses, along with the price that seemed to have increased to EC$50, still a good deal and the cruiser turn out was good.

Sunday the guys wanted to do a land tour while I moved the boat about twenty five miles to Roseau on the southern end of the island. After a late night they were not in such a hurry to get up and out of bed. I was getting very nervous because I had a long distance to move the boat and wanted to arrive long before dark. It was nearly eleven when I had them ashore and was able to get underway. This would be their first chance to negotiate a tour package with the locals. There are lots of guys who claim to be tour guides, some of them even have a car, or know someone that does. So the adventure began with the guys finding a local on shore who would provide them with a tour. First he needed to find someone with a car. Finally someone was found, but alas he wanted to spend the day with his girlfriend, so a couple phone calls and someone else arrived that could drive. When asked how much they would pay, the guys offered too much and that was the end of the negotiation. Both the driver and the original guy went for the whole day.

The passage was uneventful, following the coastline, in the lee of a high island there is little wind and all of that comes from everywhere. I needed to motor the first hour, then slogged along very slowly until I was nearly at Roseau when the wind died, then wrapped around the southern end of the island so it was right on my nose. I motored the last hour also, I hate motoring. Again no fish. We had prearranged a meeting place but not the time. I was about to start making dinner when I spotted a couple guys sitting on a dock nearby, I did not make too much of this as no one was signaling. Within a few minutes I heard my name called, and sure enough the two guys sitting on the dock, were the guys I was expecting. Everyone was settled in before dark.

I thought the guys intended to do another land tour on Monday, but they surprised me and wanted to move on. They had also expressed a desire to do a night sail. I was not so convinced. They seemed eager enough to learn, but had about four passages under their belts to this point and had been doing alright up to now, but I was there to talk them through everything they needed to do. Still, the conditions were favorable, the wind forecast was for light winds, for some reason I had a brain fart and said yes. Everything is done in the same way during a night passage, you just can't see anything and Otto does the steering at night. Also, previous crew have always been excited about night passages, but they either can not keep their eyes open or get motion sick and I end up doing all the sailing for the night passage. Because of the greater distance we would cover during the night we had decided to skip the first town, St Pierre, and go all the way to Fort de France.

To get out of Roseau it is necessary to motor the first nearly five miles to clear the island. I had removed the mail sail cover before we left so the main would be ready to hoist. As we approached the end of protection I asked that the main be raised, again reminding them to always look up to be sure the halyard is not fouled before hauling. They assured me everything was clear. The fact that they could not raise the sail very far by hand should have warned me something was amiss. Then when they started to winch the sail up the rest of the way it was making noises it should not be making. I told them to stop, went up to the mast to see what was going on and right away could see the halyard was fouled on one of the mast steps. I could not get the sail down. So we turned around to motor the hour back to where we had been anchored. We could not anchor anywhere close as this is a marine park and anchoring is not permitted. Jon steered while I tried to bring down the sail by winching down the leech reef lines, then climbing the battens and using my weight to pull it down, which did not work. Finally I took a line part way up the mast, tied it off to the luff reef cringles, then winched that line down, the sail came down one reef point at a time, then I would climb the mast and tie off the line to the next one, tighten the leech reef lines, then winch the luff cringles until finally it gave and came down. The suggestion was made that perhaps we could still sail, to which I replied that it was going to be necessary to inspect the halyard and sail to be sure no damage was done. The worst damage was the webbing that holds the headboard to the slides had been torn. I was able to repair that in the morning.

After we found our way into the anchorage and were secured it was after midnight. I told the guys I was going to go up the mast to inspect the halyard and sail. I found the mast step to be badly bent, but needed the halyard to be near the position where it was stressed, so I told them I would go up the mast, have them haul the sail up by hand to that point and I could look things over. Sure enough the halyard is also cut at that spot. It is only through the outer cover so the inner core should still hold. I had replaced that halyard at the beginning of this year. I was not pleased about this whole turn of events. The topper was after I had inspected that which needed to be inspected I had them lower the sail. Then I began climbing down. When I nearly reached the boom I took the halyard in my hands and was going to let myself down. I was in for a surprise, they had not secured the halyard, so when I put my weight on it, it simply let go, leaving me to fall the twelve feet to the deck. I was able to grab another line but was moving so fast by then I was only able to slow myself to a reasonable speed before landing on the boom for which I was aiming. The worst damage was some very nasty rope burns to my hands from the line sliding through. I used cold water and ice cubes to cool the burn, but it was a week before the blisters were gone and things got back to normal.

Early the next morning I was up, made coffee and we got underway. While moving I repaired the webbing that secures the headboard so we were ready to sail. Given the shortened sailing time we headed for St Pierre. when we had enough distance from the island. Before we cleared the island and began sailing I had the guys close all the hatches and remove the hatch covers. The wind did the usual wrap around the island and blow right on our nose, but that did not last long and soon enough we were sailing along, right on course and making great time. Course the wind strength was very nearly at the point when reefing is necessary, and that time soon arrived. I put one reed in each of the sails, but found we could not quite hold course with less sail area. The higher winds came and went through the whole passage so I could not release the reefs but that also gave us enough extra speed that we changed our heading back to Fort de France. The wind was also building the sea state, which was now approaching eight feet and we had water splashing on deck. When I went to make lunch I used the head and discovered the guys had not properly secured the hatches and salt water had come through each of them, over my parts and tools in the forward cabin, in the head and on my bed. I was not happy and told them it is necessary to pay attention to details, like securing hatches. I did not bring up clearing halyards, but I am sure they had that on their minds also. These guys have been great fun, but they do not have much of an idea what makes a boat operate well and seem to let many things slide when they can.

About six miles from the town the wind died so we needed to start the motor, the seas thought the wind was still blowing 25 knots so it was like a washing machine, finally we took down the sails to keep them from beating themselves to death, twenty minutes later the wind return and we could have sailed, but were nearly there by then. During the final approach to Fort de France we could see a squall heading our way, it was impressive, with a monster rainbow and a curtain of water that obscured the shore. This is also the approach for the French ferries that service the nearby towns. Prior to getting into the rain squall I had been watching a ferry approach, we would be very close when we pass, so I slowed to let him go ahead. About that time the wind from the squall hit us with over 30 knots, we were going too slow and the wind simply spun us in a circle, then with the wind behind us the rain arrived, an absolute deluge, the galley hatch was left open and the wind driven rain was blown all the way across the saloon.

The next day the guys rented a car and did the usual American tourist trip, drive around. While I sat for hours in an internet cafe' trying to contact one of the officials in St Lucia Customs, I spoke with a couple of underlings and secretaries, but no official. Remember when I left St Lucia without clearing out, well now I want to clear in again and do not want to have any serious problems when I arrive. At eleven he had gone to lunch and at two thirty he had not returned from lunch. No one else was willing to express an opinion.

They did see St Pierre, a town that was destroyed in 1906 when Mount Pelee erupted, killed 30,000 people, most of the white population of the island and buried the whole town with ash. One man survived, he was locked in a subterranean jail and was saved from the heat, he was found three days later. This happened just six days after Sufriere on St Vincent erupted killing 3,000.

We arrived St Lucia Thursday afternoon after a pleasant sail down from Martinique under nearly clear skies and an easy motion in the swells. The wind was a bit contrary and stronger than I would like, so I reefed the sails, but then Otto could not hold our heading. We needed to do five tacks to get in.

Friday the guys spent some time exploring the island, including the Pitons from the land side. While I spent my time trying to call the customs guy, who, when I finally talked with him, said, welcome back, don't do that again.

As usual we dragged a couple of fish lines, then pulled up an empty fish line. It is hard to put a Caribbean fish in the freezer.

From St Lucia south I would not have any crew, was ready for that. Sometimes it is better to not have anyone around to piss me off. I enjoyed slow sailing in gentle winds, usually waiting for the wind to pick up before leaving. Spent some time with local friends in St Vincent, then some time in Bequia, before moving to Carriacou, then on to Grenada, where I sat for a few weeks before heading out for Margarita.

Grenada to Margarita

The passage from Grenada to Margarita was pretty easy. I left mid afternoon on a Friday for the 140 mile downwind, downcurrent run. The forecast was for winds in the low twenties, dying to mid teens by Saturday, all from the east or southeast, I was going slightly south of west so all of this was good. Included in the forecast was 100 percent cloud cover, with a small chance of rain. As this was the very end of the moon cycle there would be no light from above.

The first several hours everything went as planned, wind in the high teens, I was making good time and the miles were slipping past. The the wind began to lessen and turn slightly, more and more behind me, to counteract this I tried wing on wing, which is using one sail out on each side, which catches a lot more of the light wind, but is a much tighter steering angle. This only worked for a short time, then OTTO finally oversteered and the main backwinded and I was stuck, there is no way to steer out of that and the only correction is to ease the main to the other side, get back on course and set for a better wind angle. The wind continued to drop off to ten knots so the going was very slow.

I passed Los Testios a couple hours after sunrise, now only fifty miles to go. The current in this area was in my favor, a knot or more in the right direction, so even if the wind died I could drift to where I wanted to go. I am willing to motor the last hour to get in but hate starting the motor six hours away, anyway progress was still being made.

Shortly after passing Testigos a large dark cloud was seen heading off the mainland, about thirty miles to my south. These small systems can carry plenty of wind and rain, generated by the mountainous interior of Venezuela. Watching it for awhile made it apparent it would pass behind me. It had a wall of rain embedded under it and the gray of the cloud extended right down to the ocean surface.

It was apparent I would not make it in before dark, so I knew I would violate my own aversion to arriving after dark, the consulation is I have been in this port several times and know the area. With a very large shallow anchoring area I would not need to get close to anyone else.

Much of the last 20 miles were done at less than two knots, the last 10 at nearly three and where the current splits to go around Margarita it tried to take me north with it. It was 23:00 when I rounded the last point before turning into the anchorage. With the many lights on shore it was easy to see the other anchored boats and there was lots of room between them, so I simply sailed between them, turned into the wind, furled the headsail, dropped the anchor, then lowered the main. Another safe arrival.

I will stay here through the hurricane season and be ready for another year of adventure about late November or early December.

3 Sept 2009

2009-10-09T19:05:00.000-07:00

A WORST CASE WAY TO WAKE

by Bruce Parnham, S/V RPhurst

Thursday 3 September 2009, at about 4:00pm and lasting for about an hour, was the kind of excitement no one ever wants to see. No matter where you live you never want to be awakened by the smoke alarm. The normally active anchorage at Porlamar, Margarita, Venezuela was disrupted by a disaster in the making.

Jack, who had not been feeling well for a few days, was taking a nap in the middle of the afternoon and was awakened by his smoke alarm. He got out of bed, opened the cabin door and found the saloon filled with smoke and the beginning of flames. He shut the door and escaped through a deck hatch, thinking clearly enough to take his air horn and a bundle of important papers, that are always kept together, with him.

He sounded the air horn as soon as he was out, which was heard by Alberto on La Creature, who quickly picked Jack off the burning deck and kept him in the dinghy until more help arrived. Someone else saw the smoke pouring from every hole and put out a distress radio call to the anchorage. Within minutes there were several people on their way to help, some with fire extinguishers, others with buckets, yet others with cameras, still others circled watching the activity with interest.

More than half of the people trying to put out the fire were the local fishermen. Yes, the same fishermen that so many cruisers curse and fear as pirates, speedsters and drunks. They all worked very hard to put out the fire and are to be commended for their bravery and action. They did ask for compensation, in the amount of six dollars each, for the time they worked, as I am told is a local custom, as strange as that may seem. I could not see everyone working so I am sure I have missed several people that are not mentioned here, for which I apologize to those missed. It is hard to imagine the cruisers alone could have extinguished the blaze without the help of the fishermen.

I was on my way to shore, which is in the opposite direction from Arabella, who was burning, so I did not see what was happening. When I was told about the fire, I returned to my boat, grabbed a bucket and went to help. For the next hour I was standing in my dinghy, dipping buckets of sea water, then handing them up to a local on deck who threw the water on the fire, down the hatches and anywhere that looked like it might burn, then pass the bucket back down to be refilled. Phil of Ibote and others were doing the same thing on the other side of Arabella. The Jack, Robert of Iwi and Fabrice of Kewani were on deck, in and out of hatches working below, with the smoke and heat no one could stay below for very long. Everyone was doing their best to save her.

The policia marino boat carrying the officials, after dropping off Port Captain Senior Bolivar and a young policeman on deck, turned circles around the inferno, and kept some of the many parogues at a distance. There is something incongruous about a young cop, wearing his uniform, gun and handcuffs, standing in billowing smoke and throwing water from buckets onto a fire he could not see, he is to be thanked. The Port Captain also managed getting all of the fishermen paid for their time, adding to the list the names of each of the officials in the police boat.

By the time I arrived the entire cockpit was ablaze and smoke was pouring out of every hatch, dorade and vent, all converging into a huge plume of thick, dark black smoke billowing and rolling into the bright blue sky. The flames very quickly gave way to the water being thrown on them, but the hot spots did not want to die so easily and needed many additional douses with water. The fire extinguishers from several cruising boats were also discharged and must have been of some value.

The cockpit portion of the inferno was so intense it burned off the mainsail, UV cover and even melted much of the boom. Everything aluminum in the cockpit and around the stern was melted, including the self steering gear and wind generator. The entire binnacle mounted instrument array was gone, not a sign. The heat did not penetrate into the lockers enough to explode the propane tanks, but this was a legitimate concern for everyone that was close to the area. The interior was a chard and gutted mess, that which was not burned, was very wet.

Among the confusion of bodies on deck each trying to find a flat place to stand, out of the smoke plume and heat while still having access to a place to throw the water and the mixing of all the voices, many in Spanish, some in English, all trying to get the attention of someone else, mas agua aqui, more water here, get that out of the way, the scene was chaotic.

One real surprise was when a small explosion sounded, while everyone was looking around to find it's source, a small fire type light and plenty of smoke was coming from the bow of one of the parogues that was tied alongside. After a couple of buckets of water were unceremoniously dumped on the fire to extinguish it, I investigated, wanting to know what was incendiary in that boat. I found what I believed was Jacks flare launcher, which was later described by Jack to be his, I suspect it was picked up inside the boat, then dropped into the parogue, setting off the firing pin device and launching the flare. Jack commented later that many items disappeared from the interior of the boat. Some of which were seen being distributed among the fishermen as they were leaving. One noticeable item was a red lightweight jacket, which was seen to be worn by several helpers.

As the fire first destroyed the electrical system, none of the pumps were working, consequently all of the water that was being poured into the boat, stayed in the boat. This was about the time the local fire department showed up. They do not have a boat, so they hitched a ride, bringing no equipment at all with them. The locals then decided the boat was sinking and wanted to pull it into shallower water, the last of the flames were being extinguished as they dragged up the anchor and pulled with a fishing boat until the sail boat grounded on the bottom. Then set two anchors to hold her in place.

Two cruisers, Trevor of Norgal and Lars of Arubean Princess, offered to stand watch on the boat all night to discourage looting. During the night Arabella did not seem to get any lower in the water so there did not appear to be any water coming in anywhere and she was floating nicely in the morning.

If all of this is not enough, Jack's deflatable was tied behind with the outboard mounted. The heat of the fire was enough to destroy the tubes of the dinghy, which then let the outboard go underwater. It was towed to the Port Captains dock and stored there for the night. They were going to soak the motor overnight in fresh water and Charlie of Aeolus was successful in getting it cleaned out, dried and running the next day.

The fire may have been the result of using a recently aquired bread machine, which required running the engine for electrical power, all going through the inverter before powering the bread maker. Earlier Jack had noted the battery connections had gotten warm.

Today, right now, put down this magazine and go check your fire extinguishers, the needle should be in the green, do you have one by each the companionway, the galley, engine compartment and your cabin. At least twice per year you need to take down the extinguisher and shake, rattle and roll the cylinder to loosen the powder, which will cake to the bottom or sides and will not spray. When rolled along the edge of a table it should not be weighted on one side, but roll evenly. Do you have smoke detectors, they sense fire long before you can. People die in fires, so please don't be one of them.

Now the official headache begins as Jack had planned to leave for a trip to visit friends and family. He will not be allowed to leave Venezuela until arrangements are made for the hull.

The formerly beautiful Arabella seems to be a total loss, she was a beautiful 1987 Hans Christian about 45 feet in length and maintained in pristine condition by her skipper of four years. Cris Robinson, an insurance surveyor, from Puerto La Cruz, Venezuela, arranged by his carrier seemed to agree. She now sits on the hard at Chacachachare awaiting her fate.

2008-08-30T17:26:00.000-07:00

One of the worsts sounds you will ever hear, is the sound of swimming, when it stops.

Jan Berkey joined my in St Martin, for a leasurely sail down the islands. She was a newbie and wanted to see it, and do it, all the first day. Having spent much of her life raising kids and plants, especially flowers, she was quite familiar with them. She did not buy my story that all green leafy things, regardless of height, that have colorful things hanging from the branches, are call Geraniums. I tried to teach her but she was quite resistant and always wanted to call them names like Bouganvillia, Orchids, Flamboyant and so many other weird terms.

We visited St Barths, Statia, St Kitts and Nevis before moving on to Montserrat, where we were anchored right next to Oleander, with Prince Charles and Camilla on board and watched while they enjoying the beach.

Slowly we moved along the island chain before going east to Antigua, where we enjoyed the festivities of Classic Week. Lots of fun, parties, friends and of course the racing. Those classics are wonderful and Jan took a real interest in what was going on.

Jan had always dreamed of being a reporter or travel writer, so at every opportunity, she would interview people to learn their take on life, while taking endless pictures of the exotic places she was seeing.

We did Guadeloupe, the Saints and on to Dominica, where Jan found the rain forests breathtaking, the water falls refreshing and the people very friendly.

Jan seemed very happy to be meeting the other cruisers along the way and would ask endless questions. She wanted to know it all, and right now. Everyone was happy to answer her questions and to help guide her along on her adventure into discovery.

When we arrived at Martinique, I had another crew joining us. Pat arrived on Wednesday 21 May and we moved the boat to Fort de France. By Friday 23 May, Jan was dead.

We had spent much of Friday in Fort de France, checking out the stores, finding Internet, getting some provisions and just looking around. Jan discovered when she checked her bank that her income tax refund had arrived and she was quite pleased. We all went back to the boat for lunch and Jan asked if I would take her back to shore for the afternoon. We arranged to meet her on the dock later.

We all had dinner together, then watched a movie. Jan had seen it before so went out on the bow to watch the moon come up. After the movie I went to the bow and talked with her for a few minutes. She mentioned that she wanted to go swimming, which I replied that she had been drinking and swimming would not be a good idea. She simply replied that she is a good swimmer, which she had proven several times.

When I went back to the cockpit, a splash could be heard. Jan soon swam to the stern and was laughing and splashing around. She did a few laps around the boat, then began swimming out and back in several different directions. When she came back to the boat I suggested that she has had enough fun and should come back onboard. She merely stated that she would come back when she was ready. It was during the next swim away from the boat that the sound of swimming stopped.

I grabbed the large spotlight and looked in the direction of the last sounds. Then jumped into the dinghy to go looking. After an hour of making many ever increasing circles I returned to the boat and called the French Coast Guard, who took the information, asked several questions and said stand by.

When they had not called back a couple hours later, we went to bed, with a plan to be up at sunrise to check the area again and when nothing was found, I called the Coast Guard again. They took the same information and gave me directions to the police station and told me to go there to make a report.

The French police were thorough and efficient, they interviewed Pat and I numerous times, together and separately. Divers searched the area around the boat and nothing was found, but Jan's body was seen floating, by a French Army helicopter, and she was recovered by an Army boat on Saturday afternoon.

This began a week of lots of questions, our passports and the ships papers were seized. I contacted the person Jan had written in her passport and he notified the family. The US Embassy became involved and everyone was very professional in their efforts.

After an autopsy was performed it was determined that the cause of death was accidental drowning. At that time our passports and the ships papers were returned.

Take a lesson here, when having someone on board, get contact information, even for someone you know, and strongly discourage any swimming after drinking.

Grenada to Margarita July 2007

2007-07-01T13:29:00.000-07:00

I am now in Margarita, Jenny has been crewing with me for two months and flies out tomorrow. The plan is to do nothing for awhile, but clean up the boat, do some minor maintenance and catch up on my reading and emails.

The 90 mile, downwind, down current, overnight passage from Grenada to Testigos went quite well. I put up the spinnaker as we left St Georges, Grenada just before sundown and took it down as we approached Los Testigos a couple hours after sunrise. The wind was light, only 10 to 14 knots apparent so slight wave action, but with a favorable current we made good time. Some French boats left St Georges at the same time and a mixture of five other boats, including Drumbeat and Dreamtime, left Prickly Bay a couple hours before I did. I stayed in radio contact with the ones I previously knew all the way across and we all arrived at about the same time and anchored in reasonably calm water, close to an idyllic cut between the islands where wind driven water passes over a cut of shallow water.

The first day in Testigos was very laid back. As I get very little sleep on the first overnight I was ready for some reading, napping and doing little, if anything.

The second day I went with some of the other cruisers to explore one of the small islands I had not walked before. Given the sea ravaged coastline of eroded volcanic rock, carving deep grottos where the waves crash and echo, it is indeed a rugged place. During times of larger waves I am sure the caverns spout and the surrounding rocks show evidence of having been washed and puddled over the millennia. Finding our way through the cactus and brambles, I often wondered if we would see bier rabbit, was challenging, often finding ourselves in a box canyon of sorts, retrace our steps to find another way through. The local goats do not seem to have much of a problem, but then they have a much lower center of gravity.

In the afternoon we moved our boats to another anchorage that is closer to the larger attraction of Testigos, the beaches where the Leatherback turtles, the largest of the sea turtles, come ashore each May, June and July full moons to lay their eggs. Security is always an issue, so we decided to split the four boat crews into halves and go on separate nights, to avoid leaving the boats or the dinghies alone.

On the way to the next anchorage a problem that I had been ignoring raised its vicious head and said ignore me no longer. Actually I had intended to take care of that as soon as I was anchored, really I did. One of my engines had been cooling with about half water for the past few times it was run, indicating a problem, but it seemed to be alright if I kept the revs down to half throttle. The other engine had stopped cooling all together the last time I used it, so I did not want to run it at all, or at least only a few minutes. Still, I felt a move of less than two miles albeit into a full knot or more current, in wind of only ten knots, would not be a problem, yeah right, any problem that is not addressed, suddenly becomes a big problem. Remember, expect the unexpected to happen, at the most inopportune time. Well as I left the first anchorage I set the headsail to do part of the work and limit how much I needed to run the half cooling engine. About half way there the wind switched to right on the nose, which is always normal, and increased to twenty seven knots. With one good engine I need full power to motor into that much wind, without a current against me. Being less than a half mile from where I wanted to go, standing still running the half cooling engine at half speed, I started the non cooling engine. It would be alright as long as it contained cooling water, which it did. Anyway, the slow movement held me back for longer than I had hoped, the non cooling engine overheat alarm came on which required shutting it down now, and the other was still not up to the job, I stopped, dropped the anchor and realized, dumb shit, fix it now before you damage something. After putting impellers into both engines I was cooling again and ready to move. Except now I had one melted muffler, so that engine could not be used. Just another lesson, do things when they need to be done, not when you want.

I offered to shuttle the other two crews ashore just before sundown and watch over the boats at anchor until they called for a ride home, which was 0130. From the small beach access a challenging walk up a sand dune, as vertical as any black diamond ski run, with loose, deep and slippery sand that grabs at your feet and shoes as you struggle up its slope before it levels out on the top of the dune. This dune has been built over thousands of years of outflow from the Orinoco River in South America. The sediment is carried to the face of this island, where the current swirls and the sand particles drop out, the waves bring the sand to the beach where the wind carries the sand up onto the dune, now a couple hundred feet tall. This also offers the turtles an excellent place to lumber up the beach on the gradual incline of the windward side to lay her eggs above the high tide mark.

The teenage female turtles will return to nest on the same beach where they were layed up to ten times per laying cycle. The males will never come ashore after that frantic race to get from the nest, through the horde of feasting sea birds, to get into the water where the ravenous fish await them. I have been told that fewer than two out of a hundred hatched will survive the first few hours.

At sexual maturity, about fifteen years old, the female turtle will be about four feet long, nearly three feet across and more than seven feet from end of flipper to end of flipper, weighing more than three hundred pounds, all on a diet of jellyfish. The largest found by man was a male that weighed in at two thousand pounds. She needs to use her front flippers to drag her huge body out of the supporting seawater, to begin her twenty to thirty minute trip over the soft sand to a place where only she can decide to dig her nest. Digging with her front flippers to disguise her body with sand, then using mostly her hind legs to dig the hole for the nest, before laying a hundred or so eggs takes another thirty minutes. Then she will cover the nest, smooth the sand, then dig another hole next to the last, cover it, then move to dig another, cover it and then dig another. This is thought to be a form of camouflage to protect the nest. She does a lot of resting while all of this work is going on. She will then drag her eggs lighter body over the sand and once again into the sea. The survival of the species assured until the next moon.

On the night I did the shuttling three turtles came from the sea to lay their eggs, on the night I observed only one came out. Still a very impressive display of Ma at work. The young turtles will hatch in about fifty to sixty days to begin their race to the sea and relative safety.

Rescue at sea

I left Testigos for the fifty mile, downwind, down current trip to Margarita. This time, given the wind angle and expected heavier wind I put up main and headsail. The heavier wind did not happen but while sailing along during the first hour I observed a sportfishing type stinkpot maneuvering in what appeared to be fishing a school of baitfish. They were doing large circles about three miles north of me and appeared to be using a lot of power because the boat was doing a lot of smoking. During the following half hour or so, the erratic movement continued but seemed to slow and the amount of smoke increased, so I got the binocs to take a closer look. It was now that I saw flames on the deck. Fire is one of the most concerning problems that can happen to any boater. It denies you the boat, takes away all of your safety equipment and causes you to abondon ship when it may not be convenient, but so does sinking. Now it was good that I had set main and headsail because I did not need to take down the spinnaker to change course, which I did immediately, reset the sails for the new course, started the engine for greater speed and once on course I called friends back in Testigos on the VHF radio to request that they contact the Coast Guard to advise of a vessel in distress.

It took me nearly a half hour to cover the distance between us, and during that time I was advised by the friends in Testigos that a fast fishing boat had been dispatched and was on the way, they should have no problem finding the wreck as it was now a billowing plume of thick black smoke. I had Jenny fill small water bottles, take some pictures, get a retrieval line ready and told her what to expect when we found people in the water, we were as ready as we could be. Just so far away.

As I approached the burning hulk I continued looking for people in the water or on deck while I reduced sail and was prepared to heave to for picking up victims. Given the intensity of the inferno I did not expect to see anyone on deck, but they could have been hanging onto lines connected to the hull, they were not. As the wind was light, less than fifteen knots, the sea swell was mild, perhaps three to five feet. Heads are very difficult to see at any distance in those conditions. My plan was to get close to the wreck, a couple hundred feet, then turn into the wind, thinking that anyone leaving the boat would not drift as quickly as the boat, which was driven down wind. Once I was certain no one was near the boat I turned into the wind, keeping an eye on the water ahead I began to see debris, fuel cans, loose life jackets, sadly with no one inside of them. I continued motoring into the wind watching ahead and to both sides for any sign of life in the water. Then, a hundred yards ahead, a cluster of small dots that I knew were heads of people began bobbing above the tops of waves, one of them was even waving. I still had no idea how many, but that did not matter. This was when I first saw the distant fishing boat coming from Testigos, so more help was on the way, I also saw another cruising boat that had altered course and was approaching from a mile away.

I maneuvered as close as I could to the closest head and he swam to the boat, Jenny then threw the float and line to the next and he was pulled in. They had not been in the water that long and seemed to be in pretty good shape, but readily drank the water offered. The fishing boat coming from Testigos continued getting larger, but still a long way off and another could be seen approaching. One of the first two men took the throwing line to the bow and was ready to begin helping the next guy aboard. It was clear they all spoke only Spanish, and I was able to ask the first one aboard, 'quanto personas' Spanish for how many people, to which he replied quatro. We now know that all four were nearby and in sight.

The third guy aboard seemed to be injured and was very slow coming up the swim ladder. The second fishing boat had now arrived and was searching the area. Then as I motored toward the last man in the water, who did not seem to be participating in his rescue only laying back in his life jacket, not swimming or waving, he was found by the fishing boat and hauled aboard. The fishing boat motored over to us and two of the ones I had were transferred to the fishing boat, the last jumped into the water to swim over to the fishing boat and was hauled aboard. With lots of waves and gracias, they headed for Testigos and the safety of dry land. Just another shitty day of fishing in paradise.

The time spent during the rescue would have an adverse affect on our time left to get to Margarita. We still had 47 miles to go and less time to get there. As the wind was not as heavy as expected we put up the spinnaker and took down the rest of the sails. This increased our speed by nearly a knot and would be enough to get us there in daylight. Given that we were still nine hours away it was time to get back to the book, a Dean Koontz thriller, as if I needed more excitement today. A bright sun and fully charged battery from motoring during the rescue I started the watermaker to put some water into the tank for my time in Margarita.

By the time we had approached to within five miles of Margarita the wind began to die. This is kind of normal and I needed to replace the power spent running the watermaker, so we started the engine, took down the spinnaker and motored the last five miles, anchoring with a half hour of daylight left.

Now safely anchored in Porlamar it is time to catch up on so many things, varnish, reading, emails, get my six month overdue annual letter for last year finished.

2006 Venezuela to Antigua and back

2006-12-29T09:49:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year for 2007 and welcome to another year in the travels of your friend on RPhurst.

Sorry this is so late, things just happen that way while cruising. This has been a very different year for me as it included a trip back to the states, my first since 2001. Fact is, I traveled more distance on land this year than I did by water the past two years. I have never been able to figure out how to make the boat jump over land, so I used airplanes, trains, buses and cars. As this year has two very different segments, cruising and family, I will write separating the two. In that way those that are interested in the cruising do not need to read about family and vise versa.

Don’t forget that all of these letters back to 1999 are posted at http://rphurst.blogspot.com, if you wish to read them. I still have not figured out how to add pictures to that site, but I am trying. If anyone can help with that it will be very much appreciated.

Cruising
The year saw much of what has been seen before, Grenada to Antigua and back to Cumana, Venezuela. I spent four months going north and two heading back south to Grenada, then south to Trinidad, then crossed to Margarita, then to Cumana to put the boat to rest. I enjoyed nine guests including crew, family and women. It was a laid back sailing year with short moves and staying in one place for a longer time. It also only covered a bit over a thousand miles. R Phurst was put on the hard for five months, the longest she has been out of the water since 1997, she was due to dry out and needed some TLC.

Grenada Island Tour
In early January I continued with crew of Jan and saw the arrival of Rim we then did an island tour of Grenada. It was all day and we saw a waterfall, which probably has more water over it in the rainy season, a chocolate factory, a traditional rum distillery. We found Nutmeg, Cocoa, Banana, Breadfruit, Papaya and huge Mahogany trees, along with the Bamboo, vines, tropical flowers and heavy undergrowth of the tropics along with the remaining destruction from hurricane Ivan.

Most places I visit have something to see while doing a land tour. Each of the drivers, tour guides or street hustlers wants to show you the sites of their country, at a fee of course. Some have been exciting and informative, others boring and dull. Grenada offers so much to see that it really can not be done in a day. My next crew, Rim, has arrived and will be with me for a month, leaving from St Vincent so this is a chance for him to see the island.

We arranged with Dave, a friend of Jan’s friend, to drive us around, tell us the tales and explain the things we do not understand. Dave and his wife Jackie are Brits, have settled into Grenada and opened a guest house. Try www.guesthousegrenada.com for their web site. As a sideline to the guest house Dave also takes his guests for a tour of the island. As there were only three of us it does not warrant using one of the maxi taxi, a full size van with seats for sixteen. Dave has a four seater which will work out just fine.

We began at about 0900 and the first stop was Annandale falls just up the hill from St Georges. During the rainy season there is a large amount of water pouring over a rock ledge and falling fifty feet into a deep pool. During the dry season there are local boys wanting to dive off the ledge so you could get their picture, for a fee, of course. The walk down to the falls is lined with plantings that represent many of the flora of the island, all tagged for easy identification. We then drove through the hill land, called a rainforest but not nearly high enough for a true rainforest. Still it has spectacular views of the valleys and the sea. The damage from hurricane Ivan is still evident, with broken trees and views not previously available now open.

At the top of the spine of hills is a crater lake. Next to the lake are the remains of Grand Etang, buildings used to provide all the services tourists require, tee shirt, drinks, souvenirs and guides to show you the way around the well established trails in the area. All of these buildings were heavily damaged by Ivan and are only now being repaired. The old caldera of an ancient volcano now filled with water. It is said that when volcanic activity occurs elsewhere in the island chain that bubbles emerge through this lake. It also serves as a backup water supply for St Georges.

Next we moved on to the Chocolate Factory, or should I say the processing plant. It is housed in an older house, occupying four of the rooms. The locally grown cocoa beans are roasted, then ground, then sifted to recover all of the broken pieces of chocolate, which are all put into a rotating oven that melts out the chocolate, then separates the cocoa butter. The next step is to mold the warm chocolate into bars and cool by placing the molds into an air conditioned room. Their product is dark chocolate and baking chocolate, depending on the content. Everything is done by hand to preserve the most jobs possible and most of the power, for lights and motors is solar powered, the heating is done by gas.

We then went on to Grenville, the second largest town on the island. It is also home to one of the Nutmeg processing plants. The Nutmeg trees were so damaged by Ivan that none of the plants are open and it may be ten years before Grenada recovers from that damage. Nutmeg was the number one agricultural income producer for Grenada and Grenada was the number one producer of Nutmeg in the world. During the drive we saw several small plots of banana, mango, papaya, breadfruit trees as well as huge Mahogany trees. Bananas are another of the mainstay cash crops grown here and recovers in only one year.

We next drove to the River Run Rum Distillery. Here the old methods of production are still used. They grow their own sugar cane, harvest it by hand, squeeze it using a water wheel driven press, boil the molasses using the dried spent sugar cane stalks, hand ladle all of the liquid through the heating kettles, then giving in to technology use a gas powered pump to move the boiled liquid to the fermentation vats.

After fermentation the liquid is again boiled, this time using wood for the extra heat needed before going to the still, where steam heated vats heat the liquid boiling off the alcohol. The result of all of this is seventy percent alcohol rum, far stronger than you ever hope to drink. The distillery is so into creating jobs, not economy, that not only is the initial process done by hand with local products, ie, water and fire product, the final product is drained from the still by hand into an Igloo cooler, poured by hand into the bottles, passed to the next person who will place the cap, pass to the next for the label, pass to the next person for the customs seal, pass to the next person to place into the cardboard box, pass to the next person for the tape to hold the box closed. To be sure all of the liquid is accounted for in taxes, the Customs officer is a frequent visitor, to inspect and measure tanks and check the shipment papers.

Every step of the process, other than the one gas pump, is done the way it was done a hundred years ago and with the thought in mind to keep as many jobs as possible. The emphasis is on the workers and the product, not the profit. Free samples were offered at the end of the tour, they do not need to worry about anyone overindulging on the samples, the stuff is like lantern fuel, but the locals enjoy it.

Our next stop was a couple of beaches on the windward side of the island, something cruisers rarely see. The one place we avoid more than anything else is a lee shore, where the wind is trying to drive us into the rocks or onto the beach.

Our next stop was Sauteurs, it’s claim to fame is Carib Leap. When the Europeans were trying to exterminate the resident population of the fierce indians that defended their land so well. After having been driven to the north end of the island by the soldiers with guns the Caribs were trapped. Preferring to die than to be taken into slavery they jumped, men, women and children, off the high bluff to die where the waves crashed against the barren rugged coastline.

The drive down the leeward side of the island is calmer, the roads are much improved and it is more densely populated. We had a great day, saw much, learned a lot, have memories and a few pics.

Jan left from Grenada and will be missed, she has been with me off and on for seven months, is great crew and a nice lady.

Grenada to Union

Rim, from VA, arrived in January, carrying my new inverter, then he and I left St Georges Saturday to move out to anchor in cleaner water so we can clean the propellers and the bottom of the boat. Without doing this before a passage the boat will be very slow indeed. A lot of marine growth and dirt attach to the boat while in dirty harbors. After getting everything cleaned up we moved to Halifax Harbor, a bay just a few miles north along the coast of Grenada. Early the next morning we were ready to make the jump north to Isla Ronde. The coast of Grenada can be challenging because from about 2/3rd the way up; the west coast begins to angle east. The prevailing wind is northeast, this means the wind wraps around and blows right down the coast toward the south then joining with the wind that goes over the top of the island to make for higher than normal wind strength. To further make this passage more difficult the west setting current does the same wrap around thing and contributes to the slow going. Last year we needed to turn back because we spent so much time tacking into high winds that we did not have time to make our destination during daylight.

This time we had about the same strength winds, twenty five to thirty knots. We were not able to hold the course needed to make Isla Ronde but we were not so far off that we could make up the distance later in the day by tacking. The sail was wonderful from a sailing perspective, moderate wind up to thirty knots with one reef in the sails, moderate waves up to eight feet, a contrary current and we still made our destination before noon. Isla Ronde is an unpopulated, dry chunk of rock, right next to an island under construction, that means an underwater active volcano, called Kick em Jenny. We stayed two nights to enjoy some snorkeling, doing small projects and relaxing.

The third morning we left for Carricou, the middle size island of Grenada. Tyrell Bay is one of those meeting places for cruisers and the bay can have nearly a hundred boats at anchor. The water is swimable but just. The island is very sparsely populated and provisioning is difficult. We took the local bus into Hillsbourgh for checkout.

Next we will move to Union Island, the most southern island of St Vincent, to clear in before moving out to the Tobago Cays, which I feel are the best sit spot in all of the Caribbean. The Tobago Cays are an area of shallow behind a barrier reef, very much like an atoll. Hundreds of boats sit for days, to weeks to months there. The government of St Vincent has initiated additional charges for boats to stay at anchor there and are planning to put in moorings. This will nearly kill the cruising boats going there, so hurry.

Scaramouch

The Tobago Cays are a very busy place, with hundreds of boats; each plying for anchoring spots close to the reef for their crews and passengers. This can make for some uncomfortably close encounters with boats swinging at anchor and the ever present danger of one of them dragging.

The Cays are made up of half moon shaped Horseshoe Reef, behind which there is lots of room for boats to set their hooks and enjoy the unencumbered wind blowing from Africa and the lack of swells broken by the reef. This is as close to being inside of a South Pacific barrier reef as you will find here. Snorkeling in the shallows behind the reef is pretty good, the water is cleaner than most places, the coral heads growning behind the reef are doing well and the fish life is interesting, expecially the nurse sharks that come in to sleep under the coral heads.

Everywhere you go with a sailboat the greatest worry is not storms, pirates or governments. The greatest worry is the charter boats, at anchor or underway. They are often crewed by people with vast knowledge and skills but sometimes they are not very knowledgeable or raw beginners. One of the cheap entertainments for all cruising boats is to watch the charterers anchoring. Rarely do we need to worry about the professionally crewed charter daytrip boats, safely operating the boat is their livelihood.

Watching the eighty foot Scaramouche, a locally built, wooden, tourist day tripper boat, anchor a hundred feet in front of me was worrying. They should have at least a hundred feet of rode, which is the chain or rope connection between boat and anchor. Their anchor was not very substantial for such a large boat, had only about twenty feet of chain all of which could be lifted by two deck hands by hand. They first anchored too close to a sailing catamaran which caused them to raise the anchor, which is how I knew that two guys could lift it. They re-anchored in front of me. I felt that these guys do this all of the time so they should know what it takes to hold the boat.

Spending some time reading I felt and heard the crunch at the same time. To hear the crunch, or feel the bump separately is not so bad, when you hear and feel it at the same time it is trouble. I ran outside to see the side of Scaramouche’s hull; angled across my bow. I ran forward to fend the monster off my home, which really means pushing myself away from him. About this time the charterers ran to the gunnels to see what was happening, they were six feet above me and could only look. When I had successfully pushed myself away from them, the crew had their engine started and were beginning to back away. I looked up and saw that their substantial steel bowsprit was overhanging my boat by several feet and aimed at my shrouds, the wires that hold up the mast. There was much yelling on the Scaramouche as the crew realized what was going on. I pushed as hard as I could, they stopped backing up and we cleared my shrouds by an inch or two. If their bowsprit had caught my shrouds my mast would have come down. As they were pulling away I was able to get a picture of them still very close to me.

The crew assured me that they would return after re-anchoring to assess the damage and contact the owner. While they were re-anchoring I jumped in my dinghy to check my damage, get some pics of it and run over to their boat to get a pic of the mark on their boat before it could be washed off. I recall the time in Port Suez when I was hit by a delivery captain on a brand new eighty foot stink pot. He simply told me that he had no money and left. The crew did come over, called the owner to whom I spoke and we agreed that I would return to Union Island.

The damage to my bow looked more than superficial. I quickly emptied enough of the forward locker to see all the way to the bow, sure enough I could see daylight. If light can get through then surely so can the sea. I knew this was going to need repair before I could go on, I would find latter just how damaged it was. We picked up anchor for the short sail back to Union. Martin met us in the anchorage, viewed the damage and suggested that he have a local do the repair. I insisted that I inspect the inside of the forward locker for fiberglass damage, which would cost considerably more to repair. After closer exam I did not find that the structure of the boat was damaged, R Phurst is a very strong boat.

The following morning Martin had arranged dockage where the repair could be done and Lorenzo, a young Frenchman that works on repair of the charter fleet, arrived and hopefully we will have repairs finished in a couple of days. Lorenzo showed up the next morning as promised, Martin showed up later to make sure everything was going as planned. The hole was widened to remove all of the broken fiberglass and filler. It appeared the filler had been broken for sometime, but the glass was still intact.

After a few days Lorenzo had the hole covered, a gel coat layer covering all, so we were ready to head out again.

Bequia

Most of the areas down here have a web site to inform tourist of the area. Yes, the best pictures are used. Port Elizabeth and Admiralty Bay are the same place. Admiralty Bay is the body of water and Port Elizabeth is the town at the head of the bay. Some say it is the best natural harbor in the Carib. Yes, the island is quite small, very hilly and the people are friendly. The locals do not allow the locals to beg, something that is overdone in Kingstown, St Vincent and no one is hustling you constantly. Except when you go into the produce market, run by Rastafarians who use very high pressure techniques to sell you far more than that you want and inflate the price to extract as much as possible out of your pocket, they could sell used cars in any country. It is one of the tourist attractions, I do not appreciate the tactics. Small cruise ships stop here and haul a hundred stuffed pocket tourists ashore to spend a frenzied few hours dropping as much cash as possible.

Bequia is also a haven for cruisers and charterer as well. With no marina facilities everyone is at anchor. There are small tender boats that bring water and fuel, pick up and deliver laundry, bring ice or bread. You do not even need to launch your dinghy, the water taxi will haul you around on demand. The chandleries are the best between St Lucia and Grenada along with three sail lofts for repairs.

You may recall that it was Bequia where I crossed my own path to finish my circumnavigation. Dean, one of the long term cruisers that inhabits Bequia, coincidentally also from MN, was one of the last I saw when I left nine years earlier and he was the first I saw when I returned. He came over to the boat to see if I was still on it, and we talked for awhile when he asked where I had been. When I replied once around the world, he remarked that he was still in Bequia. It was here I met Carole, a Brit woman who works as a nurse on a traditional sailing Barq out of England, the ship takes handicapped passengers for ocean sailing. She needed to meet the ship in Antigua, so we agreed that she would meet me in St Lucia and we would sail to Antigua.

We still had a few days before Rim was to fly out so we sailed to Wallilabou, the bay where much of Pirates of the Caribbean was filmed. He took lots of pictures to show his daughter back home. We spent a couple of days wandering around the film set, and I reconnected with some local friends that live in the area. I do not think Rim was very comfortable around the locals.

When it was time for Rim to leave, we sailed the boat to Kingstown, I needed to provision anyway, so he made arrangements for a taxi early the next morning. After dropping him on shore I moved to Young Island Cut to wait for Arden, my next crew. Once he was aboard we crossed back to Bequia, during which Arden learned a little about steering a sailboat, for a few days before heading north. Once again we stopped at Wallilabou for the tourist visit to the movie site. There I met friends Buddy and Ruth on Annapurna, I had not seen since Thailand. The sailing community is quite small so you keep running into people you have met in other places.
St Vincent to St Lucia

The passage to Sufriere, St Lucia. was a great sail. After spending extra days with cruising friends I have not seen since Thailand, Arden and I did the thirty five mile passage across the Lucia Strait. We set off at 0900 and arrived at 1600. Expecting higher than normal tradewinds I set the sails with one reef before we left. Then followed the coastline of St Vincent to the north end before breaking off the coast into the wind and swell. The sailing was great with winds in the high twenties. we were able to hold a heading higher than we needed and still have a good ride in the six to eight foot seas.

We had one small cloud pass by, bringing winds in the mid thirties and some rain. With that higher wind I was forced to either turn away from the wind to lower its speed or reef during the higher wind. I elected to turn away from the wind, this caused us to loose some of the heading we had been saving for just such a circumstance. All of this passed after about forty minutes and we were right back on course again.

I was surprised that on arrival only one boat boy was trying to sell us anything. They are usually quite overwhelming around Sufreirer and the Pitons, especially wanting to pick up the mooring for you, something I can do myself.

St Lucia is the home to the pitons, twin, ancient, exposed, volcanic cores standing side by side, rising thousands of feet in the air. They really are a grand site. The whole of the area on the southwest side of St Lucia is a marine park, requiring use of moorings. A Park Ranger comes by each evening to collect the fee.

The water at the base of the Pitons is wonderfully clear, the snorkeling great and all in all a nice place to spend a few days. Arden was not one to go walking so he pretty much stayed on the boat. We moved to Sufrierer where Arden would catch a bus to the airport.

The next passage was to Rodney Bay on the northern end of St Lucia, where Carol joined me. We were on short time to get her to Antigua on time to meet the ship she was working on the return to London.

St Lucia to Antigua

I only stopped long enough to sleep in Martinique and Dominica, then arriving Antigua for Carole to meet her ship, Tenacious, and wait for Jill and Chuck. I had a tour of the ship, met the crew and had a grand time.

Again Jill, my niece, and Chuck, her husband, joined me, this time in Antigua. The week always goes way too fast but we make the best of it. We did sail all the way around Antigua, stopping at a few sheltered places, did lots of snorkeling, then dropped them off a mile from the airport before continuing to Jolly Harbor on the west coast of Antigua.

We had a bit of an overlap between the departure of Jill and Chuck the arrival of Jacco and Danielle, a young Dutch couple that would be with me for a few weeks. As they were all about the same age that worked out very well.

As we were sailing around Antigua far ahead in the distance we could see a large super yacht stinkpot turning strange corners, heading different directions, then turning to go yet another direction. The wind was steady from the east at mid teens, the swell was three to five feet, I felt they were training a new driver, or testing some electronics.

The closer we closed on them I could see a much smaller stinkpot running around in the swell. It was then I began to suspect that they were chasing something in the water and when we were about a mile from the big stinkpot I saw the spray from a whale. The second time it sprayed it was apparent it was heading in our direction and away from the stink pots. I assume they were using the small one to herd the whale close enough to the large one that the pampered did not need to get out of their seats to see the whale. These whales swim very slowly, less than ten knots, so the powerboats had no problem keeping up with it.

When it passed within a hundred feet of us we could clearly see the namesake hump of it's back, the small dorsal fin, the white of the pectoral fins, the white underbelly. It was not a huge Humpback whale, only about forty feet, but what a sight. I had been certain that I had seen one, on the distance, on the last move but could not tell the size or species, I thought it was a pilot whale.

We moved the boat to Nonsuch Bay on the east side or Antigua, another of the wonderful sit spots in the Carib, again hidden behind a barrier reef that breaks all of the swell, the bottom is sand, the water clear and warm, the wind uninteruped by any land this is a wonderful place to sit. Now it is filled with kite surfers.

This was also the place where I met Connie, one of the many internet women I talk with, but one of few that actually shows up. She and her sisters were staying at an all inclusive resort and I was able to spend a small amount of time with her.

Shark caper

After Jill and Chuck left we moved to the reef on the south coast of Antigua for some snorkeling. The Dutch kids were snorkeling on the reef and started yelling that they saw a shark. Then they said the shark was in a cage, I thought, oh sure, they just want me to get into the water. When I put on mask and fins, then swam out to see, yes there was a shark in a fish trap. It was just a young nurse shark. I swam back to get the dinghy and a line, we lifted the fish trap, tied it off to the dinghy, dragged it back to the boat, lifted it with the davits, cut a hole in the trap and released a three foot nurse shark, it did not even say thanks. We do have pictures to prove it.

Diversion to Guadeloupe

I had been talking with fellow cruisers Peter and Eileen from Max Grody on the SSB radio and learned that a Norwegian couple, Ricci and Andreas from Impetus, who were last seen in Thailand were visiting in Guadeloupe. I was so very close I just had to go see them. The day we needed to go to Guadeloupe there was no wind, it was as flat as a mirror. It was so flat that I could see some debris ahead of us and as it got closer it turned out to be two Humpback whales sleeping on the surface, then the always entertaining antics of the dolphins were a delight.

I have not been to Guadeloupe before, other than the small town check in point on the northwest coast. The whole of the north end is solid reef, the French seem to have removed a path so boats can get through to the north coast, where a delightful anchorage is found. We found a bus to take us to where we needed to go, Port de Petre, found the friends and had a great day of catching up over lunch and lots of stories. When it was time for Jacco, Danielle and I to leave there were no more buses so we ended up thumbing a ride back. Danielle as quite pretty and was able to speak some French, so she was a real asset.

The next day we sailed back to Antigua to resume our course north. We intended to go all the way to St Maarten, which was northwest, but first stopped at Barbuda, the sister island to Antigua. Barbuda is off the beaten track, is very sparsely populated, remote, low, has a large saltwater marsh that is filled with birds and has some of the best beaches I have seen in a very long time.

I spent all of one day taking the dinghy seven miles down the coast, then walking five miles to get to the road and finally into town where I could check out, then while walking back a truck stopped and gave me a ride to very nearly where I needed to go. We then moved the boat to the west side of the island to get ready to move to St Maartin. While we were sitting on the west side of Barbuda, fully protected from the easterly wind of the trades, the wind switched to the northwest, did someone tell the wind god that we wanted to go that way. Now we were on a lee shore and it was getting rough, there was nothing to do but sail back to Antigua. Jacco and Danielle left from Antigua.

Trip south from Antigua to Grenada

During the two month trip down island I stopped at pretty much the same places, I had no crew to wait for and being slightly short on time I did not spend as much time at each.

Grenada to Trini

My friends Dawn and Irv always make things welcome in Grenada. My time was spent chasing parts that would be needed later during haulout in Venezuela. I like Grenada, it has most of what cruisers need, the government is not too rigid and while costs are high, no higher than the other islands. There is a regulation that foreigners need to leave the country from time to time. As Irv was building his house in Grenada, the second actually, Ivan took the first, he was way overdue to leave the country. So I suggested that as I was going to Trinidad, he could go with me, have a short sail, be out of the country and satisfy the regulation. He agreed but when I went to check out, the immigration guy spotted the time period and said, I want to see this guy. The interrogation was short and we were soon stamped out of the country.

We were set to leave St Georges just before sundown, Irv was steering, he is a house boater from Canada. I wanted to be away from the island before dark, because the first few miles are over shallow water and the waves can be rather confused, it is better with light. Once we hit deep water the chop ended, the swell began, I put Otto to work and life is good. We had a wonderful passage, even the Mouth of the Dragon was not too bad. We checked into Trinidad and Irv arranged a flight back to Grenada.

I stayed in Trinidad for a few days, picking up more of the stuff that I could not find in Grenada. Even the right size belts for the engines are not easy to find in these places. There are a couple of good stainless welding shops and I made good use of those, even made a new muffler for the compressor engine.

Trini to Los Testigos, then on to Margarita

I have not had two more pleasant back to back passages in some time. I left Trinidad at 1700 on Tuesday 11 July, just before sundown. With the exception of the the Mouth of the Dragon at my exit point from Trinidad, yes it is even called that on the charts. Believe me, the old guys called this one right. The condition is caused by the northflowing, one knot, North Equatorial Current, which sweeps up the coast of South America, dragging the outflow of the Orinoco River north with it. Trinidad is only about fifteen miles off the coast of Venezuela and there are three more small islands of Trinidad located in those fifteen miles like teeth in a dogs mouth. This means that there are narrow gaps between the islands to allow this flow to move. Add to that the easterly trade wind driven waves meeting this flow, a choppy and confused sea is created during slack tide. Add to that the additional change of the tide by the passage of the sun and moon and when all things conspire in the right direction, up to three knots of current, this area is indeed interesting. Five foot standing waves, confused patterns, or not pattern at all, just a continuous lump from every direction all at once. At least it only lasts a few miles into open water.

Once out of this area and just before sundown I was able to set the spinnaker for the ninety five mile passage to Los Testigoes. The local logic is to not pass to closely to the north coast of Venezuela, so the rhumb line is contoured around the land to stay at least ten miles off. After that it was smooth sailing, clear skies full of stars and cool, I even needed to put on a tee shirt. The easterly trades were in fine shape and blowing from the southeast at fifteen to twenty knots, this means low teens when you subtract the boat speed of up to eight knots. While Otto steered, I wandered around, ate continuously, listened to an audio book being read, Third Degree by James Patterson, ate some more, listened to some music, watched for ships and approaching fishing boats, then at 0540 sunrise the Testigos Islands were in sight and right on course. At 0930 the anchor was down and it was time to relax.

I was very tired so I had not planned to do anything strenuous, put away the sailing gear, picked up a book, then spent the day reading, napping, feeding myself and getting a slight sunburn while I napped.

I had planned to do some Leatherback turtle watching while I was here. There were several in the sea on approach. Testigos is a known place where they come ashore to lay their eggs in huge holes they dig in the sand. During previous stops here I have walked the shore and seen the tracks they make, while lumbering up the steep sand piles. The tracks look like giant farm tractor tire tracks.

The place I chose to anchor was not so good. Each day a few local fishing boats would come in to anchor, eat, sleep, play loud music and do the things that young boys often do. I did not feel that this was a good time to leave the boat unattended for extended periods of time. Especially after dark. There will be other times and I will put my boat closer to where other cruising boats are anchored. It really is a shame that trust is something that can not be given outright.

Saturday morning I left Testigos at 0600, set the spinnaker for the forty eight mile passage to Margarita. Again the easterly trades did their thing, perfect conditions, Otto steered, I read and by 1600 I was anchored in Porlamar, Margarita. As I know the guys that have the wireless system I called and was able to hook up at 1700, what a deal.

I will spend a couple weeks here, try to get some dentist and doctor things done here, will also try to ferry across to Cumana to check out the haulout plans. Then move to Cumana in time for the June 15 haulout and the flight back to the states for my 40th HS class reunion.
Family portion

As the family portion will not be so interesting for most of you, I will put that at the end of this letter, you can skip the boring stuff if you wish.

So here I will begin with the September 20 return to the boat.

Work yard

The highlights of the yard were, poor workmanship, a wireless internet that rarely worked properly, some wonderful friends, a litter of puppies to care for and watch grow, a real doozy of a cold, as well as getting my work done, which included the removal and reinstallation of one of the engines so that I could rebuild it and finally launching again.

My worst fear was realized when I returned to the boat, that the boat would not be in the secure yard while I was gone, it wasn’t, but that was also minimized when I discovered that yes, it had been broken into, but it must have been by a very young person. The things that I can see that are missing are my collection of foreign money, an amount of local money, a couple of sweatshirts and long pants, all of my bottles of Rum and all of the lockers were searched. I will not discover all that is missing until I look for something and not be able to find it. If it had been someone else, the outboard motor, radios and electronics would have been gone. I guess this is the least of what could have happened.

This year my to do list was longer than normal partly because the boat has not been out of the water long enough to do much of this work. After two months of dirt, repairs, swearing, sanding, pulling wrenches, painting, spraying and polishing I launched on Tuesday late afternoon. The list included rebuilding one of the diesel engines, remounting the hydraulic steering, regalvanizing all of the ground tackle, repairing the places where large boats felt I had a bullseye painted on me, numerous scratches and dings, repainting the boot stripe, new floorboards for the showers in both heads, replacing most of the running rigging, replacing the dinghy, which then required fitting all of the hardware from the old one, and last anti fouling paint.

I needed to get the damage done by the Scaramouch repaired. Lorenzo had done his best but his skills are best kept for the local fishing boats. I hired a guy, through the yard to do the fiberglass repair. He rarely showed up, when he did it was late, did not do good work and took far too long to do the first half of the work. I am not very good with fiberglass, but after I let the guy go I did the next half of the fiberglass repair, it took me three days, it took the other guy over a week and he did a shitty job. If I am getting a shitty job I could just as well do it and not have to pay the excessive price the yard was charging.

Regalvanizing your ground tackle is one of the jobs that needs to be done from time to time to keep them rust free. As the yard had promised other people that it would have theirs done, but it was still laying in a pile, I did not want to trust them. I called the people in PLC that do this work, they will even come to Cumana to pick up, but are not allowed into the yard. Now I know why the other stuff is still laying in a pile. I walked the yard to see if anyone else had anything they wanted to have done and when the truck arrived we had ground tackle from four boats to load.

Just before I arrived at the yard, one of the dogs had nine puppies, seven are still with us. Marlene and Mike from Drumbeat, the cruiser that had taken on the job of feeding the bitch and caring for the puppies, and her husband have gone to do some land touring, to Merida this time. She was desperate to find someone to take over the care and feeding of the new brood. I am such a soft touch, I do not agree with the whole process, but it does not take alot of time. The best thing that could have happened would have been to kill the pups on the first day. Now they will be fat, sassy, healthy adolescent dogs who no one has taught to hunt or scavenge for food. Within a few months of all of us heading out for the cruising season, these dogs are going to be skinny, sick and a hazard to traffic. I hate to mistreat any animal and this is mistreatment of these puppies. Still, I can not take it upon myself to dispose of them now, or not without agreement from the women that have been caring for family.

Well the dogs are doing fairly well, the pups are fat and healthy looking but clearly are filled with worms, coming out both ends. One of the other cruisers, with dogs, had some deworming pills, for larger dogs, but we broke one into four pieces, and made the puppies swallow the pieces, we shall see what happens. One of the other cruisers checked on the pups later in the day and there were piles of worms on the ground, guess the drugs are working. The result was within a day, the pups are running, playing, rolling on the ground and eating much better. There are only four pups left now, they are walking out the door with the workers now that they are getting larger. It will be difficult to leave them all behind, but I feel these pups will be too large for a good boat dog. Will see later.

I seem to be coming down with a cold, sneezing, runny nose, stuffed up, hope it does not last long.

One evening I was invited to another boat for dinner. It was another single man, Leigh, the Australian owner and builder of his boat Miquerida, another Australian couple, Ann and Keith on Ketchup 2, and myself. We had grilled chicken, it is a mainstay of diets here, lots of wine, which I sampled but brought my own drink, and some veggies to go with it. We had a good meal and great company. I will see more of Leigh in the coming year.

I am putting most of my time into rebuilding the motor I have taken out, tearing it down, cleaning the parts, repairing what needs to be repaired and painting what is left. The lack of tools is the hardest part. Finding a shop to do some of this is not likely.

At one of the mid Sunday afternoon gatherings a few people to play dominos. I have watched a few times but never played before. During the game , Ann, one of the wives asked her husband, Keith, to go back to the boat and get her a drink, what a guy, he went. He was back quickly, angry and broke up the game. Seems she was using water just before the game, but there was none, that is normal. During the game the water came back on, running out of the hose she had left open and was trying to fill the boat with water. They needed to go back and clean up the mess. Details, details, details.

At least my cold seems to be abating some, enough that I am able to keep up with my running nose and I am sneezing less. It will be good to have seen the back side of this. Most drugs have been available over the counter in Venezuela, but that is changing. There have been some government changes that do not allow purchase of everything. Still a Dr visit to get a prescription costs only twenty five dollars, not the sixty to ninty for you. There is little that is needed for the first aid kit. Now chicken soup is always good. With or without lots of pepper. There is no need to worry about sweating while sleeping, it is more how to stop or slow it down.

After the work was all done it was time to splash and head back for Margarita. The downside of that passage is that it is straight into wind and current, so it requires tacking.

Cumana to Margarita

The plan was to get into the water early enough to stop at the marina in Cumana for fuel. With a need to extend my cruising permit, which is allowed for six months on each period, I made repeated trips to the Port Captains’ office over the last couple of days, I finally had the paper in hand, but too late to get down for fuel. Good thing I had picked up enough while I was in the boat yard. Darkness fell as I was leaving the boat yard. When I tried to stop at Cumanagoto Marina, I was waved off by the security guard. As it is not concidered safe to anchor outside of this marina, I continued with the original plan to cross to Punta Araya to anchor for the night. I have been in there before so I was not too concerned about getting into there at night. Everything went well, the rebuilt engine ran the whole way, even at speed. I was very concerned about that.

The following morning I was lifting the anchor by six thirty and heading out. During the cooler hours of night the wind is slightly less, during the peak of heat during the day the wind will strengthen. The passage from Punta Araya to Margarita is only thirty five miles, but when it is into a twenty plus wind and a two knot current, it can be a challenge. I was not even around the corner to turn east before the wind began. It was a great sail, at speeds up to eight knots, even if it was into the wind, nice to have a clean bottom. Tacks of eight miles took me from one side of the channel to the other, the wind building all of the time. It peaked out at thirty three knots apparent. Half way through I needed to reef the sails because of the high wind. My arrival was really pushing hard on daylight, I had about a half hour before sundown when I dropped the anchor.

On arrival in Margarita, with the anchor down, I shut down the engine I had rebuilt hearing a substantial bump when I did. I knew something had fallen off the engine, and was reluctant to open the engine compartment to look. There on the bottom of the bilge lay the freshly painted damper pulley, the one that is supposed to be attached to the front of the engine, it is the one that drives the belts. So, what to do but drag out the tools and bolt it back on again.

I was hoping to find some type of American gathering here for Thanksgiving, but when I questioned that fact on the morning radio net, there were no replies. I guess it was all small private dinners. I had grilled chicken, mashed potatoes with gravy, steamed veg and half a can of cranberries, yummy.

I will be here about two weeks. The first crew of the year was supposed to be here now but wrote last week to cancell. The next is due in on Dec 3rd. We will take the first weather window, which should be right away, to make the 435 mile passage to St Martin. We will need to wait to see the wind direction and speed before we choose the route. There is a lonely rock, belongs to Venezuela, in the middle of no place west of Martinique, where I will stop if we can. It is so far from anywhere that it should have some lobster.

Margarita

I have been having all kinds of problems with my computer, just does not want to do the things I ask it to do. Robert on Iwe, who is also the wifi guy in Margarita, try www.wifimargarita.com, is a self done nerd and knows many things, came over to look and said I will need to get the reinstall discs and reinstall my operating system. The problem is that I have a pirated copy of XP Professional. I will try the radio net in the morning, perhaps someone in the anchorage will have them. Without much luck there, I played with the computer and was able to reinstall my old navigational program, so at least we will have one. It does not matter much, I still have the old fashioned way, paper charts. I have never been happy with these electronic charting programs, and perfer to use paper, guess I am a bit old fashioned.

Ken, my crew for the St Martin passage, arrived so I took him into town for a look around, first we needed to find money. Ken is a barrel of laughs, full of stories about his previous lives and is very good company. There are plenty of young guys on the street offering to exchange money. Only a fool would do that, it will always go badly. If they do not short count the money, or run off with yours, they will signal one of thier friends to meet you down the street. I took him to the store where I have done exchange before. The official rate of exchange is 2150 Bs to $1. the street rate varies from 2500 to 2900, which is what we received today.

Ken needed to call home, he has not received a reply to his emails, wanted to buy some gifts and he really does need to see some of the town.I needed to fill the freezer, load on beer and rum, fill all of my containers with fuel and all of the other last minute details before one can leave an anchorage.

I have been trying to answer the last of the questions from Lee Sails, the sailmaker in Hong Kong, for the sails, main and headsail, I am trying to have made. I hope to have them delivered to St Martin, while I am there. Once I get the final price I can wire the money to them and I will feel better about leaving for the passage.

While checking the online weather it is clear that tomorrow is not a good day to leave, Wednesday may be better, Thursday will be much better. So we shall see when this happens. I will check out tomorrow, so we can leave when the conditions are right.

Margarita to St Martin

The 430 mile, four day, three night passage went well. The wind was higher than expected, in the thirty knot range for the first forty hours, but more favorable in direction, much closer to east and sometime a bit south of east, as was hoped, instead of the normal north of east. The seas were as expected for the wind strength, six to ten feet. The wind dropped to the mid twenties and the seas reduced to four to six feet for the rest of the trip. We were always able to hold course and only needed to tack around the first two sets of islands leaving Margarita. The system that had altered the wind also had brought a lot of moisture, so we had intermittent rain during much of the passage and into the first couple of days in St Martin. At least much of the salt sprayed all over the boat has been rinsed off.

We left Margarita at 1500 on Wednesday the 6 December hoping for the wind to be on the beam or aft. That really never happened, but it was not hard on the nose either. All in all it was a good passage. Friends that left Margarita at about the same time, took a higher course to the wind, then stopped at Statia for a rest. We arrived here a day ahead of them. After their arrival I talked with them and they said they were tired of the bashing and crashing and wanted to rest, I needed to agree.

Our original plan was to make a stop at Isla Aves, the bird island, a Venezuelan island 280 miles north of Margarita. It is a small rock, in the middle of nowhere, populated by a couple of Venezuelan coast guard guys and thousands of birds. Given settled weather conditions I think that would be a good place to stop, with the conditions we had I felt it would not be a good anchorage, so we gave it a miss.

The new dinghy that had been purchased in Venezuela, was not exactly the same size as the previous. I did not discover the difference in the size until we tried to load it before leaving. I had noticed a difference in the mounting required and had made that correction while in Cumana and had mounted all of the old hardware. What I did not realize is that the length of the fiberglass portion on the new one was shorter. It did fit the old brackets but was just barely the same size, which allowed the dinghy to pass through center and go below where it should have been supported. This put pressure on the netting below. During our first year out, ten years ago, the same thing happened, during the first inclement weather we found that we could not keep the dinghy hanging from the stern arch, it needed to be in a set of solid brackets. The way we discovered this is that we moved the dinghy to the bow, tied it in as best we could but found that it settled down to the point of putting pressure on the netting, tearing it out. The same thing happened this time. The netting was totally ripped away from it’s lashings and was dragging in the water. That will be one of my jobs while here. The first time the dinghy fell below the boat and was run over, breaking it in half, this time I was able to avoid that.

After the first stormy couple of days everything settled back to normal into the wind sailing. We did not need to do any tacking, but the course was forty five to sixty degrees off the wind, comfortable but no downwind run either. The highest wind was 34 knots, which is not that much for this boat, it can be for unsuspecting crew. Once when we had three reefs in the sails, with wind around mid thirties, I told Ken that I have sailed this boat in 57 knots of wind with the same amount of sail up. That seemed to ease his concern.

Ken was limited help. I had believed that he knew far more than what he did know, which was nearly nothing. On top of that he resented being told things. I do not understand how to convey the information that needs to be known, either you know it or need to be told. It took awhile to just get him to take a watch while I could get some sleep. On the first morning I woke him, after his nine hours in bed, to take a watch, in the next three hours he woke me three times for one reason or another, one of them was legitimate, then said after three hours on watch that he was exhasted, so I stayed up and he went to bed for another six hours of sleep. The second night he did let me sleep nearly five hours. The next day was higher winds that did not allow much sleep. Finally about 0300 the wind had died to a point where I could get some rest, which was until about 0700. It was a restless passage.

When the dinghy bracket failed and I could see the dinghy was down on the netting, I hove to, which is to stop the boat, went to the foredeck to figure out what had happened and to get the netting out of the water, being drenched with each passing wave, Ken stayed in the cockpit, once when I returned for a knife, I mentioned that he might consider giving me a hand, to which he replied that he did not think that I wanted him out of the cockpit. He then came forward to try to help. We did get the dinghy secured as best we could, I guess it was good enough, it rode there the rest of the trip.

On our arrival evening I told him the coffee pot was ready, his coffee cup was out. I wanted him to pick up a book, sit in a corner and read until I woke. At 0630 he was doing laundry in the sink of his head, something that is not allowed in the first place, shaving, cleaning up and getting ready for the day. I got out of bed, put the coffee pot on, started my day, then blew up. I told him that he was being very selfish. I had just done three days with very little sleep, while he had plenty. When I asked him to sit still and be quiet so I could get some sleep he found lots of ways to make noise to wake me. This was not part of my plan. I was pissed.

I am now finding grocery stores, hardware stores, need to find someone that will do the sewing on the trampoline netting, alter the stainless steel brackets that hold up the dinghy, find a bank with an ATM, not that easy to do here, find propane, install some stove parts Ken brought along, then try to do some email and lastly, find some time to relax. I will also gather many of the supplies I need now and others I will need for the next haulout, the chandleries, marine hardware stores, are very good here.

Maggie

While in St Martin I was treated to a visit from an attractive woman that showed some promise for a return. We had exchanged emails a few years ago, then she got married, so that ended that, until recently she wrote to say the marriage did not work and was interested in finding if we have some compatibility. Our earlier exchanges had been very interesting so I was hopeful. She flew in and we spent ten days getting to know one another, did some sailing and looking over things on land. After a good dinner we spent New Years Eve lying on the trampoline watching the fireworks at Phillipsburg, the capital of St Martin, it was a good show. It seemed to go well. The problem is, I find that she is still married, which creates a problem for me, I just do not want to become involved with a married woman. We shall see how that works out. Some of the internet women have admitted to still being married, others I have suspected. As it turns out, she will not be returning.

This brings 2006 to an end.

Family

The reason for my return was that I emotionally wanted to reconnect with family and friends left behind and not seen for five years. The excuse used was my 40th high school class reunion. After making arrangements for RPhurst to be securely stored in the security area of Navimca Boat Yard in Cumana, Venezuela and air arrangements to fly round trip to Miami, I was ready to go. As I knew I would be doing a cross country trip to see everyone it made no sense to fly round trip into Minneapolis. It really is not that far from Caracas, Venezuela to America, a three and a half hour flight and I was there.

The plan was to spend three months in the states, three weeks in TRFalls, three weeks in Minneapolis, a couple of weeks in WI, a couple of weeks in Denver, a long week in LA, then back to FL for the return flight, all of which was not nearly long enough, but there you are. Being able to move around easily without a car, or a valid driver’s license, is not easy. I had made arrangements for Leslie to be pick me up at the Miami airport and we drove to Jacksonville, seeing some sights along the way, including the Kennedy Space Center and St Augustine. Once in Jacksonville I had a couple of relaxing days with a friend before flying into Minneapolis where I was picked up by my niece Jill and her husband Chuck. In company with another niece Rebecca, her husband Brandon and Josie the fur ball, we departed right away for the three hundred mile drive to my brother Ken’s home near my home town of Thief River Falls, MN. Well, we did need to make a stop in Little Falls to pick up some of Ken’s favorite sausage.

I had asked my brother to try to plan a family gathering for the first weekend, which was why the nieces were driving up in the first place, see how conniving I can be. We had a great cookout, with lots of pictures, great food and having the chance to reconnect. The cookout was also attended by my sister Nancy and her husband Tom Issendorf as well as her daughter Amy and kids. A great time was had by all. I was also able to get onto the internet to begin ordering parts I wanted to take back with me.

The following week I would go into town with Ken as he was going to work, then I would have the day to stop and see some of the people important to see and the following weekend was the reunion. For that I stayed at my sister’s house in town, it was just so much easier. Friday was the informal gathering at one of the local favorite bars. There were lots of happy faces, lots of talk and reminiscing, lots of trying to remember names of all those old people that resemble old friends. It is difficult to imagine how some of these people have aged, while I have kept my youth. The mind is a shame to waste. Saturday evening was a slightly more formal gathering, with dinner and a short presentation. I was asked to give a short talk detailing what I have done during the past ten years. The news of my shenanigans spread quickly so it seemed that most of my conversations were about me, instead of me learning what they have been doing. We graduated 211, Friday was attended by about sixty and Saturday about seventy, not all the same, so I was happy with the attendance and I saw most of the people that were on my must see list. Ken was in his last year of working for the railroad and was looking forward to retirement in January after 37 years of hard work and a couple of major moves.

I was pressed to fit in all of my friends, but the ones that must be seen are Rick and Kathy Nelson, Tom and Paula Greelis, and Don and Paula Adamson. Unfortunately I did not get to see the Adamsons, but everyone else was found and reconnected.
Ken’s family had planned a gathering in Minneapolis to celebrate Becca’s B-day for early July so I had a ride down there. The girls had arranged for a pontoon for a few hours tour of the Lake Minnetonka. The two sisters had spent part of the day decorating it for the party. Jean was invited and it was wonderful to see her. We all ate and drank while on the boat and then retired to a bar for more drinks and food. During the entire time I was there I was overfed and over watered, it seems that food and drink are part of our culture, which is why I gained twenty five pounds while I was there.

They left me at my friend Carole’s house. She has been a constant in my life during the whole time I have been on this trip. In all of the places I stayed I asked for a list of things that could be done around the house, partly to give me something to do during the day, but also to make a small contribution to my room and board. I understand that fish and houseguests get old after about a week, so if I can stay out of the way, do some work and sometimes have meals on the table, I may be welcome a bit longer than that. It was during this time that I met Sandy, an internet woman, that seemed very excited about joining me. We made plans, stayed in touch by email and four days before her arrival she cancelled. Life should not be this difficult.
Keith Mackenroth is certainly on my must see list while in Mpls. We had exchanged a few emails and had planned to get a few people together while I was there. I knew that he would not be going to the reunion, he has not been to any of them, but he keeps in touch with many home town people that live in the area. We were able to find several evenings to get together.

Another project that I needed to do while I was in the twin cities was to get my old sailing catamaran ready to move up to Kens. When Jean and I left on this trip the plan was to be gone about five years. I left a 27 foot sailing boat in the yard of a long term friend, John Nelson. Well things can get out of hand and it has now been ten years. The boat needed to get out of the weather and must be an irritation to John. Having been sitting for so long I knew it would need new tires, tubes and bearings all around, it did. At last it was ready to go and I hauled it back to Carole’s house with the plan to have one of the nieces’ husband take it up to Ken’s before snowfall. Well it was a good plan but Ma intervened and made it snow way too early. It did make the trip later without incident.

While in WI I also needed to see another old friend, Cindy James. We spent a few days relaxing around Lake Geneva before my heading toward Oshkosh by bus. Two of my best friends live in Neenah WI and also are on my must see list while I am back there. I met them while I spent three years working in the area. Tom and Jean Harvath as well as Jeff Syring, with new wife Margie, have been with me during some wild times and we have also spent lots of time at each others homes for layed back times. With difficulty we were able to make contact and a plan to pick me up at the bus terminal in Oshkosh, yeah the place where denim clothes are made. Tom picked me up and we met Jeff, Margie and later Mike Schnieder then went to a national gathering of pyrotechnics. The fireworks show broke a couple of records, most firecrackers in a ten minute timeframe, something about a few million and the largest string of firecrackers. It also included an aerial show that was outstanding. This is the organization to which practicing pyrotechnics belong and they get together in different locations to exchange ideas and new technology. I then split my time between their houses. One evening we stopped at my old watering hole, it was not the same, it wasn’t a grand place then, now it is a dive.

The next two stops did not turn out very well. I was supposed to meet an internet woman at each, the first had about two hours for me and the other did not appear very interested either. Some of these women will not make the step to join me for a short period of time, so if I am to meet them it will need to be when I am back there. This is such a difficult process I am about to give up, it is not worth the effort.
The next stop was Denver. I had high hopes of seeing my son Jim while I was there. I am told that he does not have email and the number I have goes to an answering machine. As I am rarely at a place where I can receive a call, that is difficult at best. While in MN I began calling him and leaving the number where he could call back, he never did. A family cookout seemed to be the best idea, so we planned one at my cousin Jans' and invited him on his answering machine and he was available to join us as well as cousins Val Duggan and Sherry Netteland. It was great to see him and all of the family again. The time I spent in Denver was split between an Aunt Bernie Netteland, the last remaining of her family and my cousin Janet Brookhart along with her husband Scott. I had a great time while I was in Denver.

Then it was time to press onto Los Angles to see my dad’s widow, Claudette Parnham and her daughter Jackie Duperon and her husband Robert. I enjoy their company and have stayed in touch with this extended family over the years and since my dad’s death in ’98 have made an effort to keep it that way. They live way out in the burbs, Robert works right next to LAX and drives 80 miles to and from work each day, in that traffic, I could not do that day after day. We spent a very relaxing time, again doing some home projects and trying to be helpful.

The time for the flight back to FL had come and I was able to spend a few days with a friend before heading for Miami for the return flight to Caracas. It was a wonderful visit, filled with friends and family so sorely missed over the years. Now to get back to the boat and the work that is needed before the next cruising season.

As normal, if you do not wish to see these, let me know and I will remove you from the list. If you enjoy them, let me know, worldcruiser1997@yahoo.com

2005 Barbados, Caribbean, Venezuela, Trinidad and Tobago

2005-12-14T11:01:00.000-08:00

2005 was a comparatively laidback year compared to the distances and sights of other years. The straight line distance of only1170 miles included many interesting places and people. The year was shared with ten guests, which included family, friends, crew and women, yes that is the way I meant it. Last year a dispute erupted with one of the recipients of my letter and my niece, Becca, who tried to defend my use of the English language, was met by an abrasive and aggressive exchange, thanks for the assist Becca. One of the highlights of the year was a long awaited visit with family, my brother Ken, his daughter Jill and her husband Chuck spent a week with me in St Lucia. A great time was had by all.

The other highlight was with the 12 January arrival at Bequia where I finished my oncearound. More than forty thousand miles over nine years has shown me much of the world. This crossing should be the last of the major milestones unless I have a brain fart and head off for some other distant land. Most of the moves in the Caribbean are short, rarely requiring an overnight, the islands are close together and you can often see the next one before you leave the last. The wind rushing through the sometimes narrow spaces between the islands can be much faster than the normal trade winds causing some concern over reefing the sails and being underpowered, or let it all hang out and risk tearing something. The other factor in moving along the islands is the west setting Gulf Stream Current. Yes, all of that water that flows out the Caribbean must enter

The only fish I caught were on the end of my spear.

Last year we left off at Barbados. The passage from Barbados to Bequia was an easy downwind, down current, overnight run of a hundred ten miles done with Jane, a newbie crew. Jan and Hutch, my Atlantic crossing crew, both stayed in Barbados for some well earned land time. On arrival at Bequia, which is one of the islands of St Vincent and the Grenadines, and is overpopulated with long term cruising and charter boats; I was immediately met by two boat crews that remembered me from my former visit. In those nine years I went around the world and they remained anchored in Admiralty Bay, go figure, we each have our own path to follow. Most of the areas down here have a web site to inform tourists of the area. Yes, the best pictures are used in the glossy brochures and on the web sites. Admiralty Bay is the body of water and Port Elizabeth is the town at the head of the bay. Some say it is the best natural harbor in the Caribbean. The island is quite small, very hilly and the people are friendly. Several fine restaurants have opened to accommodate the many crew from the boats anchored here. A few impressive hotels and guest houses are here to take care of the land lubbing tourists that are also drawn to this Caribbean treasure. The locals do not allow the locals to beg, something that is overdone in Kingstown, St Vincent and no one is constantly hustling you. Except when you go into the produce market, run by Rastafarians who use very high pressure techniques to sell you far more than you want and inflate the price to extract as much as possible out of your pocket, they could sell used cars in any country. It is one of the tourist attractions; but I do not appreciate the tactics. Small cruise ships stop here and haul a hundred stuffed pocket tourists ashore to spend a frenzied few hours dropping as much cash as possible.

Bequia is a haven for cruisers, a hundred or more at a time. With no marina facilities everyone is at anchor in soft mud or firm sand, both excellent holding. There are small tender boats that bring water and fuel, pick up and deliver laundry, bring ice or bread. You do not even need to launch your dinghy; the water taxi will haul you around on demand. The chandleries are the best between St Martin and Grenada along with three sail lofts for repairs. The gas plant at St Vincent will not fill my aluminum gas bottles; it will be done in Bequia albeit at a much higher price.

Many of the islands of St Vincent still are allowed to harvest a limited number of large whales, each year and all of the Pilot whales they want. This year they did take a large one and it is all consumed locally. The Bequia whaling station is actually on the neighboring small island of Petit Nevis, with lookouts posted on the high hills of Bequia watching for the telltale water spout when the whale breathes. A stop there showed the ramp upon which the animals are hauled to be cut up and rendered in large cast pots. The Japanese have been trying to buy influence from many of these countries by providing new fishing ports, docks and markets, in exchange for favorable votes in the whaling conventions held to regulate those activities. Thankfully those votes have not yet been successful.

After Bequia we moved to the Tobago Cays, I think they are the best sit place in all of the lower Caribbean. Anchored in calm water, behind a barrier reef that breaks the waves coming unobstructed from Africa, with the trade winds blowing to hold the bow into the small waves that break over the reef and keep the wind generator turning, we enjoyed snorkeling with the numerous nurse sharks that inhabit the calm and sleep under the many coral heads. When we saw the first one I thought Jane would climb onto my back and ride back to RPhurst. The Tobago Cays are another place where you can put down the anchor and stay. The boat boys will bring anything you need including ice, bread, groceries, beer, sell you fish or lobster, take your laundry and return it clean, from Union Island, which is only a few miles away. I guess all of this is why it is not unusual to see more than a hundred boats anchored here. The government of St Vincent has given away management of the islands of Mustique and Palm, it can not be far off where they will allow someone to manage the Tobago Cays and unreasonably raise the price for being there. After a few days in the Tobago Cays we moved south to Union Island to re-supply, then dashed to Grenada to meet Jan who was rejoining the boat after some time out for bad behavior in Barbados, then to prepare for the crossing to Trinidad.

Trinidad

For the past few years I have been looking forward to spending time in Trinidad during Carnival. After arrival I learned that the country is named Trinidad and Tobago, using the names of both islands and the residents are called Trinis. I have not been to the New Orleans Marti Gras so I do not have a comparison. Yet, Trinidad makes the claim that their Carnival is the world’s largest street party. Who knows on what they base this claim. The excitement, entertainment, costumes, colors, smells, food and people watching made the whole event fun and interesting. Carnival is celebrated for an entire month ending at midnight on Fat Tuesday, February 8th this year, when Ash Wednesday officially begins. This begins the Lenten season and is the last opportunity to party for another forty days. We were able to participate in many of the activities of the last ten days, which are the most events filled.

When Columbus discovered Trinidad in 1498, on his second voyage to the new world, it was populated by Amerindian, Arawak and mostly the fierce Caribe Indians, who ate several of the early interlopers, then bargained with the successors and finally sold their rights to the land for a few bottles of rum and some shiny little things. After this a succession of Europeans, Spanish, French and English began the exploitation of climate and rainfall to cultivate sugar, cotton, coconut and bananas, building extensive plantations that needed large numbers of laborers to do the work required to maintain these estates. The importation of black slaves from Africa provided these workers until the abolition of slavery, when the importation of indentured Eastern Indian workers began. This has created an ethnic mix of forty three percent black and forty three percent Eastern Indian. The political debates are nearly always along ethnic lines and the two main political parties are controlled by these groups. Trinidad, with a population of a bit over a million people, is quickly becoming a very violent society with more than one murder per day. It is also a land of wide fauna diversity with many colorful jungle birds and monkeys of different description. Moderate high hills covering the northern part of the island, where the summer rains wash out roads and strand neighborhoods, to low flat swamps of the south that are inhabited by many aquatic dwelling birds. It also has its share of poisonous snakes which know their place and try to stay away from people. It is also a land of natural gas. Much of the gas burned on the northeast coast of America is shipped in pressurized vessels from Trinidad.

So, getting us back to the parties. Our first project after arrival was to become familiar with what is going on, when, how to get there and how to obtain tickets. Most of these issues were resolved by the two service companies that wish to get their share of your money by providing a comprehensive offering of trips to events. We could get to Port of Spain using one of these companies, who also dictated the time of return, or we could take the maxi taxi, a normal van packed with up to twenty people in sixteen seats which ran pretty much twenty four hours a day and cost one tenth the amount of the tour operators. Transport was cheap on the maxis, about a dollar each way, so cost was not an issue the return time was. On one occasion we opted to use Jesse James, yes, that is the name of his company. When we were all on the bus a return time was discussed. All of the passengers were cruisers. When informed that the event would end about five thirty, one of the women suggested we return about four to avoid the heavy traffic after the event, that was the last time I used this bus. I want to see the event, the whole event, or at least enough to know I do not want to see any more, also knowing that nothing runs on a very tight schedule the events are never on time. I do not understand people that plan to miss part of it. I later learned that this was the plan for nearly all of the events. If you do not want to be inconvenienced then stay home.

Our land crew consists of Jan, who has rejoined the boat after some time off in Barbados, Jane who joined me in Barbados and would leave for the real world on the day before the best activities began and Scotty, a friend from MN that joined us in Trinidad and will stay until St Vincent as well as myself. The final parade of bands was on everyone’s list of things to do. After that we had some discussion over events. The women wanted to see the children’s carnival, I did not, I wanted to see the final judging of the King and Queen costumes and one of the pan band finals, everyone agreed and so on until we had filled each day of our time in Trinidad.

In learning of the events I decided I did not wish to see J'Ouvert, pronounced 'jew vey' where beginning at four am revelers can expect to be covered with paint, mud or oil by others feeling it their duty to dirty any clean people, mugged for their possessions or otherwise put in harms way; all to the blasting beat of the sound trucks. The locals advise sensibility and awareness of your surroundings at all times during Carnival as this is the time that all inhibitions are lost, including law and order. During one of the pre party trips into Port of Spain, we heard the revivalists’ expounding the evils that are perpetrated during Carnival. I wonder how many of the listeners that day were whiners later. We did not witness any overtly dangerous situations, unless you include the time I caught a guy with his hand going into my pants pocket, no he was not playing pocket pool. When I confronted him I was questioned about the problem by the locals standing close by, I explained and then was told to move on.

Another time of potential danger was during the Parade of Bands. Each of the many bands has up to ten, large, semi truck trailer beds loaded full length with huge speakers, a large stationary power generating plant, stage for the DJ and entourage, onboard bar, putting out deafening levels of sound that can truly be felt as well as heard, the top of which is leveled with a metal frame covered with plywood for dancers, and a guy assigned to lifting the many wires that cross the roads under which the procession must pass. Well, while going past Jan and I, Scotty was on the other side of the street video taping, one of the top frames caught a low hanging wire that was missed by the guy supposed to lift them. This wire caught under the frame, broke it loose, raised it up until the welds held, then it proceeded to pull down the concrete power pole which then leaned heavily on the back of the truck full of speakers. The driver apparently felt this and stopped as bedlam overtook the whole area while wires began falling all over the street and sidewalk filled with spectators. People running everywhere to avoid what they felt could be live wires, one of which hit Jan on the back and left a black mark on her skin, just from the black insulation, not a burn. I grabbed Jan and lifted her out of the mess of wires then placed her clear of the trouble. As we walked out of the area, stepping over fallen wires the police began getting everyone away from the truck to avoid possible injury from the wires. During this time the people on the truck did what they should not do, began climbing off the truck and helping each other down. If the wires were hot and in contact with the truck, then contact by a person between the ground and the truck could have been a real problem. As it was the power was low voltage, still enough to be a real problem had the wires’ insulation been broken; other wires were for Cable TV, telephone and whatever wires are hung from power poles. This effectively stopped the progress of the parade and caused the route to be moved to the next block. The truck was still there hours later.

Another event which was of interest to all of us was the Pan Band, steel drums, competition. These are musical instruments fabricated from old fuel drums, by beating the metal to different shapes and thicknesses within what was the bottom of the barrel, then hanging the pan in a frame to allow maximum reverberation, which began in earlier times by people that had nothing and learned to do with what they could find. Many of these are now painted or chromed for a better appearance. These instruments and artists have progressed to the point where classical music can be played on them. Most bands are from twenty to one hundred players, about half of whom are playing the pans, the rest are playing traditional drum sets, sheets of metal, automotive and truck brake drums and other assorted pieces of metal that when struck with a stick or hammer will make a sound that combines with all of the other sounds to make music. Most of these are mounted on a wheeled cart which can be pushed by people or pulled by a vehicle down the street while the players play while walking or ridding. Each of these players is paid by a sponsor and they share in any money earned or won by the group. We attended a semi final judging for the Pan Bands. Being able to walk up to and talk with the players, ask questions, watch how the playing is done, even seeing how the notes are drawn on the bottom of the barrel, gives a new meaning to that saying, was interesting. Each band has a leader who directs the timing and beat, a tuner that moves pans around for a better sound, a composer that modifies existing music for band originality. The combined total is then judged by people that know such things to determine a winner. Overall it was very entertaining.

One of our favorite events was called Old Carnival. In this setting the costumes of prior Carnivals were modeled and explained. OK, so we did not know that costumes are very rigidly regulated. Over the years certain costumes have been introduced and if accepted are included in the approved list. When you select one of these costumes for yourself, you are expected to learn the approved dance steps, mannerisms and movements of the original. To us it all seems so disorganized; to the participants it is important. Can you see someone entering a float made of plastic in the Rose Bowl Parade, everything is regulated. All of these things were explained to us while characters demonstrate and model the costumes which included animals, fiends, sailors, fire eaters, old time women’s wear, pregnant women, large breasted women, stilt walkers, stick fighters, whip handlers, shiny and sparkly evening wear and the blue devils, drooling red or blue ooze from their mouths and demanding money from the spectators. In the real Parade of Bands the practice of demanding money or anything else from the spectators is no longer allowed and you should not give to anyone demanding same. Apparently this began to be a problem in earlier Carnivals and has been removed.

We also attended an event put on by the Technical School training locals in the treatment of tourists. The venue was the school grounds, the food was prepared by the students, the booze was poured by the students, the entertainment was local dance groups and student groups, even a comedian doing a shtick on George W. This is where I first saw the way limbo is supposed to be done. These bodies defy gravity, with feet under their thighs; the rest of their body will be level with the floor, inches above the floor, while they shuffle under the bar. I recall our inadequate attempts in my school days, so many years ago, we were proud to get below the height of our waist, Jan even made an effort to add to the festivities by making a pass under the bar, before it was lowered again, then again. Jane made her contribution to the status of our table by joining into the smile competition, something she does naturally and did it well. Scotty and I did our part at consumption of booze. The food was good, the drinks were good, the kids worked hard, we met some of the staff and learned some of the issues of the day to the locals, all in all a good day.

Another interesting venue was the Normandy Hotel where, after a four course meal was served, a music and variety show was put on to spotlight last years winners in Calypso and Soca. To a Trini, Calypso is not the salsa beat we think of when we hear that term. To a Trini Calypso is a form of folk story telling, to a beat and in the form of a song criticizing or complementing a person, place, activity or group of the day. During Carnival they also have a special contest for the best Calypso. This year’s winner is a male school teacher known as Chalk Dust, he also won last year, and the year before, his Calypso was interesting and entertaining. Soca is the result of combining the African beat and the Central American Salsa, it should not be confused with Rap which is neither music nor interesting.

The best way to get into the spirit of Carnival is to join a band. A band is a group of up to five thousand people walking, dancing, chipping, which means joining in, whining, which is a very suggestive dance performed between two consenting adults, where the woman positions herself in front of the man, bends slightly forward, back into him and she goes into the motions that simulate the production of a baby while the man returns similar motions, all to the beat of the music from the sound trucks within the band, this is quite seductive and is shared by the bystanders who dare make eye contact with some of the band members. The band chippers are more than happy to bring a smile to the face of an elderly white male bystander, me.

Anyway, deep breath, to join a band you need to register ahead of time, for the fitting of your costume, which are locally and hand made, be able to chip with the band for about twenty hours on the day of the Parade of Bands and be willing to wear the costume selected by the leaders. The cost to join a band is one hundred to four hundred US dollars, which includes your costume, food and drink, water, beer or booze, for the Carnival and all the times you will be required to attend for the parade or judging, security for all events, sometimes by trained staff. The band members are mostly beautiful, scantily clad women, often the costume is far less than would be seen at the beach and as elaborate as any Las Vegas nightclub act costume. As a concession to modesty most of the women wear pantyhose, while literally letting other parts fall out, go figure.

We visited a Mas Camp, Mas is short for masquerade, a place where the costumes are hand made by talented people sewing, gluing, forming and bending parts consisting of fabric, feathers, sparkles, glitter and wire together to form the pieces needed. They do a great job and it was interesting to see how it was done. They were making the last minute changes to costumes, mostly for women that knew they could loose that extra weight, or hoped to be able to fill that larger bra size by the time of Carnival.

As all places are made more interesting by meeting the people we were treated by being introduced to a local through a friend in Grenada. This turned out to be a real plus. Jason, a former tech school administrator turned security executive, is very well connected. When he picked us up he warned that we would be well fed and watered throughout the day, then brought us to a party being put on by the police commissioner, attended by the minister of police, the commissioner of prisons, many local dignitaries and the US Ambassador to Trinidad and Tobago, to whom I was introduced. We were told that leaving without eating would insult our host; who wants to insult the top cop, so we ate. As we were leaving we were encouraged to grab another drink for the drive, even Jason, our guide had one for the road. We walked out the gate, past the guards holding automatic weapons, before driving out of the parking lot guarded the same way, while holding drinks high enough not to spill them when you hit a bump. From there we were taken to the home of a friend of Jason’s, where we were again served drinks and met a few of the people there. Then we went to Jason’s home where after meeting his wife and a friend of hers we had a sit down meal, which his wife prepared but did not partake, then more drinks before going back to the second place where the food was now ready. We were definitely well fed and watered. Now it was time to attend the King and Queen costume judging.

The costumes in the King and Queen competition are unbelievable. Up to twenty feet high, up to thirty feet across, many need to be specially assembled for easy disassembly when narrow roads, overhead wires, remember those? and overpasses that restrict movement must be passed. Just take a few parts off and on we go. Multiple colors, fabrics, plastics, shapes and layers tell stories or depict characters of fantasy. One person propels each costume, often so heavy as to require wheels to hold up the majority of the bulk. Pyrotechnics and moving parts add to the amazing construction. We spoke with a Trini woman now living in Canada who returns annually to participate in Carnival and wear her newly designed costume entry.

While in Trinidad we discovered that the USA Soccer team was to play Trinidad during the time we were here for a spot in the world cup. Jason was able to get us tickets and we attended the game. The final score was USA 2, Trinidad 1, the game was not that close with Trinidad scoring its goal late. None of us, Americans and Canadian had ever seen a professional soccer game in person so this was a real treat. Trinidad was not to be eliminated from the World Cup Tournament and later in the year earned a qualifying spot.

After two weeks of Carnival activity we were due for some down time. As Scotty is also a diver he had much interest in seeing some of what Tobago has to offer. The difficult sail to Tobago limits the number of people that are willing to go there. It is into wind and current making for slow going. We first positioned ourselves in a bay where the water is clean enough to clean the propellers and boat bottom, and that would allow an evening departure. The plan is to make the most distance motoring along the north coast of Trinidad during the night, when the trade winds are less strong, until time to make the dash across open water to the nearest point of Tobago or at sunrise when the winds will pick up. The current certainly did affect our course but we were able to arrive at a reasonable time the following day. Tobago claims some interesting dive sites, including the world’s largest brain coral, estimated to be sixteen feet in diameter, a vibrant coral reef, a location on the migratory route of Manta Rays and clear water. The winter of 2004/5 has been an interesting year in the southern Caribbean. Heavy rain has fallen in the all of northeaster South America. Much of which has been in Guyana, which then feeds the Orinoco River, which dumps into the Atlantic and is carried north by the Guyanese Current, which meets the North Equatorial Current at Tobago. This usually means very clear, warm water filled with nutrients to feed the coral reef. With the heavy rain and associated flooding the outpouring of the Orinoco River is heavy with silt and suspended material in the water, which is then carried down current, to be found at Tobago while we were there. Visibility was a disappointing twenty feet, not the usual one hundred feet. We could not find the world’s largest brain coral, normally visible from the surface. We did do some very nice snorkels, a few decent dives and did enjoy the time we spent slowing down from Carnival. I will return to Tobago this fall and hope to find better conditions.

Scotties time

Scotty, a Minnesota friend, joined us in Trinidad the end of January for Carnival, then staying for a month. We were go go go from early morning until late. His schedule did not even allow time for me to re-provision the boat. This so often happens when people from that other world join me. They are still in ‘back there’ time, everything by a schedule and everything on schedule, without regard for the other obligations of operating a sailing boat. Most of you plan your day by the minute, I plan my year by the season.

After checking out Tobago’s dive sites we moved on to Grenada, where we spent one night. Moving north from Grenada is into the prevailing wind and current, so it can be challenging, we discovered this to be true. It was also under the full moon, which can and does have a real effect on the winds and sea state. We left St Georges Bay in early morning, intending to get to Isle Ronde which is only a few miles north of Grenada, for a couple of days of getting into the water. The conditions beginning about mid island and continuing to the north end of the island caused us to tack and tack and tack making slow progress until we were faced with over thirty eight knots of gusty headwind, an adverse current and not enough time to make our next anchorage before dark. Isle Ronde would not have been a good choice of anchorage in such conditions as it is a small island with a small poorly protected bay. We turned back, returning several miles downwind in only a couple of hours to a safe anchorage, only to try again the next morning. The gusting wind meant that often we were overpowered during the gust and under powered during the lull. This puts a lot of strain on the sails while we are overpowered before I can pull down a reef.

The next day the conditions were much the same, after skipping Isle Ronde we sailed to Carriacou which is less into the wind, arriving just before sundown. We stayed one night before moving on early the next morning to check into St Vincent and the Grenadines at Union Island before going out to the Tobago Cays. In the move from Union Island to Mayrou the strain put on the mainsail during the previous days of beating showed itself in the form of a long tear in the mainsail, just below the second reef point. We will now have only a double reefed main to work with until I can get it repaired, probably at Bequia, and will be very underpowered in lighter air. The Tobago Cays are the real attraction of this area. Protected by a barrier reef, a boat can anchor behind the reef and sit in relative calm while watching the waves, which are coming all the way from Africa, break on the reef. The water here is clear and warm, great snorkeling and a wonderful place to relax. If isolation is what you seek, this is not the place. There are about a hundred boats doing the same thing and it is crowded. We arrived late in the afternoon and the wind did not allow us to get out to the reef where the anchoring is the best so we stopped in the lee of Mayrou Island. We moved on early the next morning. The last time I was here I spent three days, still not enough time.

The next morning we left early for Canouan, Scotty wanted to leave before sunrise and when I commented that it is still dark, he said that the moon was still up. I told him we are not moving this boat around the reefs by moonlight and we would wait until after daybreak. Once in we were able to do a dive on a reef I had discovered earlier when I stopped here with Jane, nice dive.

Early the next morning we were off to Mustique, the Billionaires Island. This is the remote home of the likes of Mick Jaggar, Raquel Welch, David Bowie and now having a home built there is Shania Twain. The place is so expensive that it is rumored that footprints left on the beach are charged at the rate of five dollars each and anchoring is seventy five EC dollars for one to three nights. Here I began having problems with my scuba compressor and I needed to spend some time working on it. We spent three nights in Mustique, a much needed respite from moving everyday. The diving was OK. The best being the wreck of a French cruise ship lost on a reef while trying to cut the corner in 1971, then rolled off the reef by later storms. It is quite broken up but still a nice dive in about forty feet of water. The site is recommended for advanced divers only because of the current running through the area. The dive operators usually drop their divers up current then pick them up after they have seen the wreck. We had planned to do a drift over the wreck with me handling the dinghy during the drift, get back into the dinghy, motor up current then back into the water for another pass. Fortunately the current was not that bad and I simply tied the dinghy to the wreck and swam around having no problem getting back to the dinghy. The site is home to a large, perhaps five pound lobster, and quite a site after not seeing any on previous dives. The rest of the dives were over reefs partially covered with sand stirred up last fall by Hurricane Ivan.

St Vincent

We next moved on to St Vincent from where Scotty will return to civilization on March 1. We anchored in the Blue Lagoon, seems everywhere has one after the movie of the same name. St Vincent is not very well developed, even by Caribbean standards. It is a high island possessing enough water to export to other of the lower islands. The locals spend time fishing and farming Bananas, the major export food, along with yams, sweet potatoes, pineapple, mangoes and other tropical fruit. Still they import the juices made from these products, there has been talk of setting up a processing plant where juices could be bottled for export, but to this date it is only talk. Ganja, weed, cannabis, marijuana by whatever name is another cash crop of local interest and the smell is evident everywhere. One of the pillars of the Rastafarian Religion is that you must have your hair in Dreadlocks, another is that you must smoke weed, regularly.

After a couple of days of trying to find propane, groceries, internet, belts for the scuba compressor and land touring St Vincent, to see the movie set at Wallilabou Bay, we left for Bequia where I know I can find a sail maker for the repair of the mainsail. Jan has some Canadian friends that live each winter on Bequia so we will make contact with them while the sail is being repaired. After having the sail repaired we moved north to St Vincent. During our land trip we met some of the locals at Wallilabou. Nice, down to earth farmers, who are squatting on government land. Among this group I was drawn to a couple of women that have co-opted together and are working the land a few miles inland and up the side of the ancient volcano mountain of La Soufriere. They raise garden type produce that must be transported to Kingstown for marketing. One morning Jan joined them at 0500 to pick peppers that were mature. Later in the evening we met with the whole bunch at the local watering hole, which is a small, the size of a kid’s playhouse, store front, where cool beer and very strong rum can be purchased. I bought a couple of bottles of rum for the locals and a few beers for us; the rum is far too strong for me. Later that night, after going to bed, someone swam out to the boat, climbed on without making a sound, crept into my cabin, taking the shorts I had been wearing and removed the money before swimming away again. I did not have the door locked, I do now.

Some of the scenes from the latest Pirates of the Caribbean movie are familiar as the movie was filmed in Wallilabou Bay and the sets are being rebuilt for the sequel. I have never been on a movie set, so being near Wallilabou Bay, St Vincent during the filming of Pirates of the Caribbean II and III was exciting. While the sets were being built, equipment and props were hauled in, cruisers were allowed to use the bay as normal. We anchored here for several days watching all that was going on. During the filming the whole area was fenced and off limits for locals and tourists alike with security guards to assure compliance.

While the sets occupied the bay front, behind all of the false fronted buildings were the concession tents where hundreds of people were fed each day, administrative tents, lots of vehicles and all of those people milling around like cattle in a holding pen, waiting for their turn in front of the lights. Johnny Depp reportedly lived on a yacht which was anchored in Cumberland Bay to the north and arrived by boat. Most of the extras and others were brought in by boat from Kingstown because the road is so bad the managers feared loosing time to accidents.

Two times filming lasted all night and we saw lights, as bright as the sun, along with brighter flashes of light, cannon shots without the sound, and smoke drifting over the hill that lies between that bay and the next where we were anchored. We did play tourist one evening and peeked over the fence to see what was going on. Some locals we met took us to a hill overlooking the set and the view from there was pretty good. Glad I brought the binocs that night.

The lighting that is used for night filming is impressive. A very large light is placed inside a helium filled balloon, made of a similar reflective material to that used by photographers for flash reflectors, then raised over the area to illuminate, bright as day, the whole area. Then smaller lights on stands are used for the closer scenes. All powered by large generators set all over the site and running at full capacity. I could see that there is a lot of standing around time, setting up scenes, telling the actors and extras what is to happen, and then a very short scene is practiced with much running and waving of arms, then filmed, then on to the next scene.

The entire north end of St Vincent is an active volcano called La Soufriere which blew its top in 1902 when 2,000 lives were lost. It made little news at the time because two days later Mont Pelee on Martinique blasted off taking 30,000 of the population with it. For now it offers hikers a challenge to walk to the top. Many of the lower Caribbean islands are on a fault and are volcanic in origin. The entire region is unstable and islands could be formed or remove at any time, as evidenced when Monserrat went off in 1997, Soufriere went off again in 1979, Grenada is currently building Kick ‘em Jenny under the water on its north coast.

St Lucia family visit

The past several years have produced few visits from family. My younger brother Jerry has visited a few times while I was in areas of good diving. This year my older brother Ken, along with his daughter Jill and her husband Chuck spent a week onboard in St Lucia. I met them at the airport, with the boat close-by at Vieux Fort. We then sailed to the lee, protected side, of the island where we could move around with little wind or sea, just right for landlubber family. We enjoyed some land tours, some snorkeling, a few great dinners ashore and wonderful company.

One of the first stops was at the infamous Pitons. The Pitons are ancient eroded cones of two extinct volcanoes which were located side by side and are nearly the same height at 750 and 799 meters. Can you imagine the excitement of the sailors of old when they spotted something that resembled something they had done without for many months? The Pitons are prominent on the St Lucian flag, the local beer label and on every tourist brochure. From here we boarded a van for a tour of the still active sulfur pits, the rain forest and a lesson in the local produce. It was the first time I have sampled the Cocoa nut.

Another of our stops was Marigot Bay, a natural, nearly fully enclosed harbor, reportedly where one of the Brit Navy ships of old, disguised by tying palm fronds to the masts and rigging, hid while a larger force of pirate ships passed by. It is now the home of digging and construction of condos lining the seashore, what a mess.

The water along St Lucia offers pretty good snorkeling and the country is trying to limit damage to the reefs by installing moorings for visiting boats. These moorings are paid for through user fees charged to any boat in the area. The dive operators installed moorings years ago.

St Lucia is also the arrival port for the ARC, the Atlantic Rally for Cruisers. Each year the marina at Rodney Bay is filled with boats that have crossed the Atlantic from the Canaries. Once arrived and the parties have ended these boats disburse over the Eastern Caribbean for the season or move on to the Panama Canal to continue their circumnavigation or go to their west coast homes. Jan departed from St Lucia to return to Canada and her teaching career, buy her own boat and think about cruising.

I then followed about the same route back south. St Lucia to St Vincent, then to Bequia, onto the Tobago Cays for several days and check out at Union Island before sailing back to Grenada. From there I moved on to Los Testigos, Venezuela.

Los Testigos

Many cruisers look for a buddy boat when they intend to do a passage. As I was preparing to leave Grenada for the eighty five mile, overnight, downwind, down current passage to Los Testigos islands I met a Canadian cruising couple on the cat Always Sunday who intended the same passage. We agreed to stay in contact by radio for the whole passage; actually we were within sight the whole way. Well, for a downwind passage we sure did not have much wind from behind. In one of the very rare situations in this area we encountered very light wind from the SW, the direction we were trying to go. Most of which was caused by hurricane Dennis forming north of there, sucking all of the air into itself. It meant that we could not hold the angle to get to where we wanted to go using the spinnaker.

Los Testigos are a group of small islands belonging to Venezuela and located about half way between Grenada and Margarita. After checking in with the coast guard and visiting with other boats we recognized we moved the boats to another end of the island to enjoy the sand beach and unrestricted air flow, it is hot, and enjoy the clear water. Getting into the water was welcome after a month in Prickly Bay of Grenada where the water is not clean. We planned to explore the island the next day.

The second day I began taking apart my outboard to perform a repair that had been put off for much too long. I had a broken plastic part that is part of the throttle advance. To get at it I needed to take much of the engine apart so the job has been waiting for a time when I do not need the engine for a few days. After tearing the engine apart, repairing the part with epoxy and leaving it to set, we took the other boats’ dinghy to the sand dunes.

Los Testigos Islands are mostly great big sand piles, deposited here by the current and then blown higher and higher by the wind. I always find it amazing how Ma decides where to put things like this. It was fun to be in such a large sandbox, without any cats. The other interesting observation was the number of vibrantly colored flowers growing among the meager vegetation. As you all know, to me anything that has green leafy things and more colorful spots hanging on it is a Geranium. This eliminates all of the discussion as to the origin of any plant, they are short, tall, tree, bush or climbing, they can have red, yellow, blue or multi colored spots on them, but they are all Geraniums. Testigos offer a great place to stop, relax, enjoy the clear water and do some island walking. On one of these walks we crossed the island to see the sand dunes on the other side where we found tracks made by large sea turtles that have struggled up the sand piles to dig a hole into which they can lay their eggs. They look like tire tracks from a very large tractor. We only stayed here a couple of days as Always Sunday had a date with a marina in PLC. Also, the weather fax told us another tropical wave has developed into a low and is moving toward us. Not wanting to be in such a remote place when this arrived we chose to leave and go to Margarita. On arrival at Margarita we found the low is now a tropical storm and is nine hundred miles from here and still headed this way.

The forty four mile leg from Testigos to Margarita was not as predicted. We left under low hanging, threatening skies that produced a lightening strike not far ahead of us as we pulled out of the anchorage. The intermittent rain would last through out the first half of the trip. The wind was strong enough to have the spinnaker up, however it was from the southwest, can you imagine that, in the trade winds belt, where the wind is always out of the east we had wind from the southwest, up to eighteen knots. You know our course was southwest. I was not able to hold my heading so after hours of hoping for a shift I decided to take down the spinnaker and raise the main. While taking off the mainsail cover the wind shifted, right onto the nose and before I could get back to the cockpit to straighten things out I had torn my spinnaker. Oh well, a job for the sailmaker in PLC. The rest of the trip was motoring straight into the wind, good thing it was light.

Margarita

We arrived at 1330, 1:30 pm, Sunday and found a place to put down the hook, I then stayed on the VHF radio for more than an hour talking to boats I know. Sunday, like all Sundays around here is spent lounging, because nearly everything ashore is closed. About the only thing going on shore is the domino tournament that happens between cruisers nearly every Sunday, wherever they congregate. Monday the activity of cruising begins anew. Take the papers into the agent for check-in, take the bus to the supermarket, begin to arrange an island tour, find internet, change money, and meet more interesting cruisers. Always Sunday will leave mid week to claim their spot in Puerto La Cruz, I need to be there in about a week. Margarita is very nice, has the best supermarkets I have seen since the Med and is very economical, beer is six dollars a case, diesel fuel is ten cents a gallon. I look forward to returning to Margarita in September.

The crew of Always Sunday and I arranged a tour of the island. Margarita is a small island; it has little agriculture, no industry, no lumber or large sea port. Its income is nearly all tourism. Consequently there are many fine hotels to look at, lots and lots of beaches and a few forts from days of old, a few churches from those same days and a couple of museums. Margarita developed its tourism based on duty free shopping. A bit like driving to those big factory outlet malls. Prices are quite low and the malls and shopping centers are upscale.

As everywhere else the people on the street are wonderful, helpful, outgoing and willing to meet you. The language is a barrier because I still only speak elementary Spanish, but point and grunt still works in most cases. In the early days fishing was more than subsistence, they provided for the hotels and export by way of a cannery. The bay in which the fishing village is located, where we stopped to have lunch was filled with hundreds of brown pelicans, diving singly or in pairs, filtering out the water and swallowing the fish. I was amazed that the bay would not be fished out by these efficient fishermen.

The island is kept very clean, or as compared to the black controlled islands of the Caribbean, where nothing is thrown into a container, rather thrown on the street or the sea. Debris in Margarita is nearly unheard of, until you are driving the highway out of town where the roadside is heavily littered with beer bottles, there are no cans because they are worth money, and the bottles are not.

The few forts we saw were armed with old cannons from the days when cannon fire was the only thing that kept the pirates at bay. Yeah right, they just landed two bays down and tromped overland burning, pillaging and raping their way across the countryside to arrive at the town where it would be sacked. The infamous Henry Morgan, no not the Colonel in Mash, was well known in these parts for being the most vicious and resourceful pillager. When his standards were seen on a ship the army surrendered along with all of the wholesome virgins.

We stopped at a roadside spot for beverages. It was a local spot, thatched roof, dirt floor swept clean and smooth, sturdy tables and chairs made from rough local wood, cages of Parrots all around and the obligatory brood of puppies, they were hard to resist.

One of the best sites was the Marine Museum. Yes, I have seen many marine museums and many are much larger and better funded. This one is supported by a poor people and I found it to be a breath of fresh air. All of the signage was in Spanish, but you can not have everything.

Our driver/guide was very good. He had learned English at a school for tourism workers and is still learning. He was third born in a brood of twenty two; his father had six wives, some at the same time. He had many stories to tell and had a good knowledge of his island. In nearly every town he would stop and talk to friends and the marine museum is in his home town. So while we were visiting the museum he visited his mother and sister and then introduced us to his son and daughter found on the street.

As in many cities crime is getting out of hand. With little employment outside of fishing or tourism, for which some people are not well suited, they turn to crime. Margarita is no exception to this. The police are overworked, underpaid, untrusted and uncooperative. I remember back home when my vehicle was stolen out of my driveway in Minneapolis, I was told by the cop making out the report that they do not even look for the vehicle, just collect your insurance and buy another one. In Margarita they tell you to make yourself available, perhaps in a few hours or maybe tomorrow or possibly the next day someone will be there to take a report, the result is that victims do not even make out the report.

Emily

This was the morning we learned of the approach of Hurricane Emily, it was aimed straight at Margarita. Remember that low that chased us out of Testigos, it is now hurricane Emily, is predicted to pass within sixty miles of Margarita and is chasing nearly all of the boaters out of Margarita. The weather does dictate many of our moves and I always try to be ahead of the need rather than after, this time I was behind. I arrived at Margarita on Sunday, picked up email messages on Monday, did a land tour Tuesday with friends that were moving on quickly, then received the warnings of Emily on Wednesday morning, we all left on Wednesday. Many, including me, did not take time to check out of Margarita which may be a problem at the next port because we will not have clearance from the last port. Being in a boat within sixty miles of a hurricane, and predicted winds of up to sixty knots, nearly seventy miles per hour is not my idea of fun. We all headed south to find hidey holes along the coast of mainland Venezuela.

The night before all of this material hit the fan the locals were busy passing through the anchorage looking for opportunities to enhance their income, read that looking for dinghies left in the water overnight which provides easy access to the motor. They found two that cruisers had carelessly left in the water and took them. The rule is if you want to keep it, lock it, if you like your outboard, you should hoist it. If you leave it in the water the motor will be gone, locks, chains, cables will not help, they have large cutters. This is the equivalent to having your car stolen from your garage and finding it missing when you want to go to work. The people still had a dinghy, just no way to get it to shore. Being Mr. Nice Guy I offered to take the crew ashore so they could deal with that problem. While I was ashore I learned of the second, Wambat, and also gave him a ride to shore, towing his dinghy in with him, this is when I told him of the closeness of Emily, the blow hard. He then decided that he did not have time to look for a motor because of Emily, so I towed him back out to his boat so he could go. The first couple was trying to do things properly. They called their insurance company who want a police report, when they contacted the police they were told to stay available and an officer would be over to see them in the next couple of days. Yeah right, remember Emily. They decided the police report was not that important.

There were about fifty boats in the harbor and most began lifting anchor to get out. I stayed for awhile to help the two boats that had lost their dinghy motors and left later than I would have liked. We subsequently learned that later that morning, three armed men walked into the marine agents’ office and demanded money, and then they confronted the cruisers sitting outside and relieved them of money and passports. It was a good thing the bus to the shopping center had left half an hour earlier or there would have been twenty five more people sitting around with money in their pockets. Now before you get your shorts pulled up too tight, tell me if a 7-11 or ATM site is safe in your town. It truly was a very busy day in the neighborhood.

The escaping boats made for a variety of anchorages, all south of Margarita and most in the Gulfo de Careaco. I choose Laguna Grande, which is a multi fingered bay, totally sheltered from the north, the direction of swell from Emily and had lots of room for boats. Given that I had stayed later to help other boats I did not arrive until just after sundown. Normally I will not enter an unknown harbor after dark. The fact that there was a hurricane coming and that I had talked with other cruisers on the radio, one of whom was one of the boats I had helped with dinghy problems and being a stink pot had passed me, offered to lead me in I was able to get in without any problems. We must have chosen well because we did not have any ill effect from Emily other than a small amount of rain and fifteen knots of wind. The next day I moved to Cumana. It was here I learned that the other boat I had helped in Margarita, Wambat, who had chosen a different bay, was boarded late that evening and the thieves took everything that was not tied down, right down to his dirty laundry. Some people have all of the luck. I again saw him in PLC where he was trying to replace the things that were taken.

Puerto La Cruz

I arrived in PLC, Puerto La Cruz, on the 18th of July, intending to stay until about mid September. This was my second visit here as I had been hauled here in ’97, the first year of this adventure. When I went into the office to pay on my account they informed me that the price had gone up as of 1 Aug. The increase was substantial, from 17 to 31 thousand Bolivars per day I had received an estimate for dockage and haulout when I arrived and it is normal to pay some up front and wait with the rest. So they were willing to accept the estimate amount if it was paid in full now, with local currency.

Money is difficult in Venezuela, nearly no one uses a credit card for a couple of reasons. One is that card fraud here is rampant, even the banks can not be trusted. The official rate of exchange to US dollars is regulated by the government of Hugo Chavez, who just happens to hate America. The official rate of 2,150 Bolivars to the dollar, is just over ten percent less than the street rate or 2,450 to one, so we all exchange money elsewhere. The official exchange booths can only give the official rate. There are unofficial money changers that offer much better rates. They also accept a US check and have people that fly to America several times per week to make a deposit in an American bank. This is the money that business needs to pay of purchases of stock outside of the country or it could be drug money being laundered, who knows. No one wants Venezuelan currency.

As I needed about a thousand US, I took a check for that amount and also that amount in US cash to exchange. I do not want to walk outside of the marina walls with that much money on me. I wanted to use the dinghy to go to the adjacent marina where far more services, including money exchange are offered. I put the dinghy in the water, pushed my self out from between the boats and started the motor, well I thought I was starting the motor. With the first pull the rope broke. So I needed to fix that first, it is always something. When the dinghy was finally running again I went to the other marina to get some money. They were sold out for the day, not to worry we will have more in the morning. Yeah right. The day was ending as all of this was happening so I began to run into people I know heading for the bar for happy hour. I was tied to a chair to keep me from going home, and then forced, against my will to drink beer, and then eat dinner, which was pretty good pizza, then watch a movie. By the time I finally got home it was not a good time for details. The next morning I needed to get this money thing handled. So I take the dinghy over to see the woman with the cash at nine, the agreed time, no money yet, I checked email and killed off some time while waiting, still nothing. I left to go talk to my marina and offer to give them the amount in US until I could pay the bill in local, not good, they do not do US, needs to be in local. Well the money is supposed to be in at three. Go back over to check and sure enough it is there, now I am behind a bunch of other people wanting the same thing. See this bunch of circling Americans, check books in hand, saying 'take mine first'. I have never had so much trouble getting someone to take money before.

Concert

There are many opportunities to enjoy life in the cruising community. One Tuesday night I joined a group of cruisers for dinner at Bahia Redonda, the adjacent marina. The restaurant had been offering music for the evening in the form of a violin and guitar. Apparently this has been happening over some period of time on Tuesday evenings. We are all surprised when the musicians came in there were five of them. As they unpacked their instruments it was apparent that more than a violin and guitar were in the offing. Two violins, the guitar, a cello and an oboe were unpacked and tuned. As the apparently leader, in his broken English, introduced the members of his small group they were the first chairs of each of those instrument in the Puerto La Cruz Orchestra.

Sorry, I do not recall all of the names of the long hair music they played but did recognize most of the tunes. They played them wonderfully. When they moved onto movie theme songs and more popular music I found myself humming along to Dust in the Wind, My way, Yesterday and several others. The eaters showed proper appreciation for each of the offerings through applause and a contribution of cash to the hat. All in all it was a wonderful evening of conversation, music and the food wasn't bad either.

So much of the cruising life is centered on meeting people. The locals everywhere and the cruisers along the way each contribute to the quality of life and enjoyment. The time in PLC offered the opportunities, in the way of BBQs, dinners at restaurants, exchanging ideas, problems solving and the morning radio net for cruisers, to meet with many friends I have known for a time and allowed me to meet with so many new ones. Lots of friendships are formed by sharing time with people you may or may not ever see again. Some are moving on to sail around the world, some are going home, some I will see time and time again. We exchange email addresses and promise to stay in touch. The list is far too long for this submission but each will know who I mean when they read this.

Angel Falls

Angel Falls is a must see while in Venezuela. I traveled with Jerry, a fellow cruiser I met in PLC, he continued on to deeper South America and I returned to the boat taking the long way around. The first leg was a bus ride from PLC to Bolivar, the express bus companies in Venezuela seem to have a competition going, to see who can have the best operating air conditioning system on the bus. Buses seen driving down the road have condensation running down the outside of the windows, same as the outside of the ice cold glass of white wine you are drinking while reading this. When you see people getting on or off the buses wearing layers of coats, mittens, scarves and a blanket thrown over their shoulder, you should have a clue as to the interior temperatures. We spent a couple of days wandering around Bolivar, staying in a low priced hotel, eating local fish caught in the massive Orinoco River, talking to the local fishermen standing vigil over their multiple lines and watching the large catfish, called lau lau, surface and smile at the fishermen, while we arranged the trip to Angel Falls. Angel Falls is the highest vertical drop, at 930 meters, that is 2700 feet, of any water fall in the world. Angel Falls was discovered, right it did not exist until he found it, by Jimmy Angel. While flying around Venezuela in the search for gold, the American landed his airplane on the top of the five hundred square mile plateau in 1937. It became stuck in the mud and he could not fly off. He and his party needed eleven days to climb down from the top and walk out. The plane was removed by the Venezuelan Air Force and is now proudly displayed in front of the Bolivar airport. We flew from Bolivar to the small Indian village of Caniama in a six seater airplane, with the pilot, four passengers and a small amount of luggage behind the rear seat. As we were deplaning we were asked by airport personnel if any of us were licensed pilots, it appears they have a shortage. After doing, by boat, the lagoon and local waterfalls, one of which has been eroded away by falling water over the years so that you can walk all of the way across behind the falling water, the air being displaced by all of that falling water makes for a very windy and wet place, then dinner, we stayed over night in small motel type rooms. All meals and accommodation are provided by the tour operator, all workers are indigenous Indians, nice to see employment for them also.

During our walking excursion of the falls we watched as they found and recovered the body of a drunken Bolivian tourist, as the story is told, that had ventured too close to the flow of water and was washed over the edge. A bit more of natural selection, Ma tends to remove the really stupid ones first.

The next morning twelve of us boarded a dug out canoe powered by a large outboard motor for the four hour trip up the river of Tannin stained brown water to a base camp across the river from the Falls. On the way up the jungle lined river we stopped twice for breaks, swimming in the pool below small waterfalls and twice to portage around rapids. The canoe is able to power up most of the rapids with a load, but two must be done without a load, here we walked overland to meet the canoe on the other side. The young guys that operate the boats, one in the front with a huge paddle for steering and the other on the motor, are very good. They seem to know where each rock is located and how much water is over it. I was surprised by the lack of fauna along the way. There were few birds, I expected many, only a few turtles and no larger mammals on the banks or swimming. As we rounded the final bends in the river we began to see the towering plateau that creates the falls, then we caught sight of the falls itself. Even from a distance its height is impressive and the halos of rainbows are beautiful.

As the shy was clear on the afternoon we arrived we did the climb to the base of the falls. We walked from the base camp through flat forest land about half a mile, which was followed by another half mile of progressively steeper climbing often using the roots of very large trees or rocks as steps until we reached the base of the falls. Good thing we did because the next morning it was totally enshrouded with clouds and we would not have been able to see very much. The falls is an incredible sight, the water free falls for nearly one kilometer, nine football fields, before crashing onto the rocks with a great big splash and forming a cold water pool in which we were able to swim for a while. It was stiff nipple cold but very inviting after the hot and sweaty walk through the jungle. Sometimes during minimal flow there are times when you can see the water falling off the top, but none makes it to the pool at the bottom because it evaporates on the way down. After the walk back down the guides busied themselves with preparing our dinner. The tourists talked, stared at the falls until stiff necks made us stop, watched the huge spiders tending their webs along the edge of the jungle and readied our beds for the night. Beds were hammocks, hung from an open walled roof and were covered with mosquito netting. The guides told us that the netting is only for looks as there are no mosquitoes in the jungle. I expected to be viciously attacked about dark, there really were not any. The following morning instead of waiting for the clouds to burn off so we could see the falls again and get some more pictures, the guides wanted to get going back to Canaima, so we were awakened early, and breakfast was ready on time, for the first time, and we sped back to the base camp. On our arrival at the village camp Jerry, the guy I was traveling with, and I were told to get to the airport because our plane was waiting for us. It was a quick trip.

Oilybird

Ready for another adventure I decided to see another of the sites of Venezuela. Cuevo Del Guacharo, cave of the oilybird, in 1949 was the first designated natural monument in Venezuela, is an outstanding site to see. It is not that easy to get to or away from because the bus service is limited to vans or por puestos, private cars, that haul passengers for a small fee. I was able to find a van from Cumina that would take me to the town of Caripe where I would spend the night. Then taxi the few miles to the cave for the tour which is given by volunteers hoping for a tip. My guide was a young woman going to University; she spoke broken but understandable English and knows the cave well. The cave was formed by water running through the sandstone hills, eroding a large cavern thought to be 10.5 kilometers long, about six miles, and is home to blind catfish. crabs, centipedes and other critters that prefer dark damp places. During the rainy season the cave floods and the high water line is evident on the walls.

The Guacharo, oilybird, is a large, about the size of a hawk, night flying, fruit eating, sonar navigating, screeching bird that is a one of kind in the world and lives in a cave with about sixteen thousand of its friends. If you are wondering why they are called oilybird, take a walk through their cave, and wear good shoes, you will know. At nightfall they fly out by the thousands to forage on whole fruit and then return to the cave to digest this fruit and regurgitate the seeds. The seeds attract large mice that dine on the bounty. In later years small rats invaded the cave and being carnivores have killed off most of the larger mice.

My return trip was more interesting. As the van that I rode over returns at 0630, makes only one trip per day and I did not wish to spend another night in Caripe I went to the bus terminal, by name only, it is only a parking lot. I discovered that the only way I could return is to take whatever is going that direction, for as far as it goes, then take the next one. Finally, I rode in the back of a mini truck, a seat in a van and finally I in a car. The trip was interesting and fun.

Fools errand

Over the past several years I have been trying to find a female partner to join me. I have tried dating sites on the internet, cruisers sites where people are able to post a notice of interest, and a few friends have given suggestions. After talking with a woman for whatever period of time is needed to make us both comfortable; then I invite her to join me for a time on the boat. During which time we will be able to determine if we are compatible. This has produced mixed results, some very good friendships but no permanent results. I have always felt that the woman needs to make the trip, it is important for her to see the boat, how it is sailed and she gets a vacation. I need to see how she handles being on the boat. This year I met the most attractive woman I have known for some time and after talking for awhile we decided that we should meet. The problem was she would not travel out of the country to do this. If it was to happen I needed to make the trip. So, after a brain fart, or cruisehymers had set in, or as the old saying goes, no fool like an old fool, I made the trip. Foolish yes, still I had hopes. It did not start out well. I boarded a five hour bus to Caracas, which should have me to the airport three hours ahead of time. After seven hours I jumped off the bus, took an overpriced taxi to the airport, arriving nearly one hour before flight time, only to be told that my seat had been given away. I would need to standby for the next flights. After spending a sleepless night in the Caracas airport I did finally get onto a flight and arrived safely, if late and she picked me up at the airport. Overall it worked out well and I thought it was going well but in the end she decided that she was not ready to leave the life she has. We seemed to be so well suited in emails, yet I was unable to convince her that I was better than the life she now has. I have learned to not do that again.

Merida

I did a ten day land touring trip with Linda, who had earlier sailed with me in Italy, seeing the western side of Venezuela which offered a wide variety of sites to see. The Venezuelan, direct, express, refrigerator buses all travel at night. Leaving PLC at 7, 8 or 9 o'clock in the evening and arriving the following morning. They also skirt all of the mountain passes, for the obvious reasons. By going the long way around on mostly flat land it also takes several more hours. My decision to spend a few extra days to take shorter bus trips and stopping at several other towns was also a good choice.

The first leg was PLC to Maracay, about nine hours, the first half to Caracas over flat unremarkable scenery. After Caracas the landscape became more rolling and the large cattle ranches began to show up. Venezuela is a major beef producer, which seems strange because it is very difficult to find any good beef in the supermarkets. This is caused by the intervention of the government of Hugo Chavez. He has dictated that beef should be priced so that even the poor can afford to buy it. Seems like a great policy, right? Well the beef producers can not raise the animals for the price they receive when selling them on the local market, so nearly all of it is exported. The only beef in the local markets is the front and hind leg, the worst cuts of all. The restaurants are able to get the good stuff and occasionally the butcher shops will receive some tenderloin, but it does not last long. I bought five whole tenderloins and cut them into steaks, then froze. The price was right at just over six dollars per kilo, about three dollars per pound. I will wait until Trinidad to put most of the good beef cuts into the freezer. The chicken is pretty good and reasonable; also the hind leg is just fine for ground beef.

The climb into Maracay was gradual and mostly rolling hills. Maracay is the home of the largest Plaza Bolivar. It is about three blocks long and a full block wide. Simon Bolivar is considered the father of Central and South America, including Venezuela. It was his dream to chase out the Spaniards, under whose heavy hand the area was not prospering. Everything of value was sent back to Spain, or lays at the bottom of the ocean after attempts by pirates to take it away. After successfully and forcefully chasing out the Spanish he tried to unite Guyana, Venezuela, Columbia, Bolivia, Panama, Honduras and Guatemala into one country, or at least a block of trading nations. Sound familiar, everyone is getting into that act these days. His ousting of the Spanish was successful; his attempt to unite the entire area was not too popular with the politicians of each of the countries and consequently failed. Even with that, he is still very popular for his foresight and fairness. You would be hard pressed to find a town of any size that does not have a Plaza Bolivar. There have been other dictators that have left their mark on the country. One of whom named Maracay as the country's capital in the early 1900s.

Barinas was another seven much more interesting hours on a bus. Barinas lay at the base of the foothills leading to Merida. It is a small working community with little to offer the tourist other than an airport for those that wish to fly in then bus up the mountain. There is another airport in Merida for those that can not be bothered spending time on buses or seeing anything else along the way.

The four hour drive from Barinas to Merida was all uphill and around switchbacks, most of which have no guardrails, or if they do they would be challenged to hold back a bicycle, overlooking vertical drops of several hundred feet into valleys that seem to go on for miles. The scenery was impressive and somewhat wraps around Pico, peak, Bolivar at 5007 meters, the highest mountain peak in Venezuela. During the drive the flora changed from the dry scrub of the flat land to more lush in the midrange elevation and finally to the barren patches of short grass between the outcrops of rocks protruding from the peaks above the tree line.

The driver was amazing in his ability to round switchbacks, crossing into the other lane, sounding his horn to warn drivers coming from the other direction of our presence, while seldom staying on either side of the road very long I am certain he was due a much needed breather. Even with all of these precautions he still needed to brake hard for a couple of cars that thought they had enough time to round the turn, they did not.

At the first pass we had a rest stop, or should I say a time to pry your fingers off the seatback ahead of you. The temps had dropped to near freezing, as normal I was wearing shorts and tee shirt. Even my MN thick blood was chilled while walking around checking out the local handicrafts which consisted of woven woolens, hats, gloves, scarves and ponchos and watching the caballeros pass by on horseback. I understand why they need to dress in layers. During the fifteen minutes of the stop it rained and stopped twice.

The second pass was home to the government observatory complex with four large telescopes. The area is not accessible from the bus and would require a day trip out of Merida, it is also only open to the public on weekends. The rest of the drive into Merida was along the ridge crest, winding through small valleys and around hill tops using the level ground between the two for the road. Small quaint mountain villages dotted the landscape, each with its own selection of woven woolen wear for those hearty enough to stand out in the cold to buy such things. Garlic, cauliflower and cabbage seem to be the produce of choice. The small fields are so steep and graded that tractors would not be able to work so plowing is done with cows, yes cows, not oxen, horses or mules. I guess everything needs to be polyphasic. The property lines are delineated by rows of the ever-present rock, after centuries of picking and piling these into neat rows the fields are still covered with them. Irrigation is easily done by laying pipe from a higher spot in the numerous creeks, running downhill to your own property and the water flows of its own accord.

Once into Merida the town quickly becomes another busy city. A few Universities provide a higher level of the arts and the attraction of Pico Bolivar, the highest point in Venezuela, the highest teleferico, cable car system, in the world, which is prone to breakdowns, the cooler air of the highlands all conspire to make this a lively place to visit. The town central is typical Hispanic layout. A huge cathedral fronted by a large plaza which is surrounded by entrepreneurs who sell everything from religious artifacts, seed for the pigeons, drinks, food, tee shirts along with the sidewalk entertainers blowing on pipe flutes, I do not recall the name. Parallel, numbered and signed streets make walking around easy. When you buy your ticket for the Teleferico you are also watching the people coming down from the mountain. They are dressed like cross country skiers in the deep woods of frigid Minnesota, bundled up in multiple layers of pants and tops, woven woolen wear of hats, scarves and gloves, now I know where all of those things sold on the mountain passes end up.

Several Posadas, guest house, accommodate the active tourist trade. During most of my travels I have found these guest houses to be the best places to stay. They are owner occupied and managed, offer budget priced rooms, usually less than ten dollars, normally are very clean, usually have a kitchen and laundry facilities, are often inhabited by world travelers, from many different countries, of all ages, that all have an interesting story to tell. In most hotels no one talks to one another, in a guest house it is normal to sit and exchange stories with your fellow room mates.

The main reason to visit Merida was to ride the Teleferico, cable car, the longest in the world at 12.5 Kilometers and the highest at 4,765 meters, built in 1959 by a French company. The tickets, about twenty dollars, are normally sold for two or three days in the future, unless you choose to buy a tour from one of the many operators that hold some tickets for each day, double the price and sell the packages to tourists with more money than sense. Finding something to do for a few days is not difficult. Jump on the local bus, ride it to its extreme limit and ride back again. This saves a lot of walking and you get a good feel for the towns’ layout.

The Teleferico is in four sections, each one taking the riders to higher levels. At the terminus of each section everyone must get out of the car and walk cross a station house that offers warm food and drink, it seems like the Venezuelan people are always eating, a great deal of it carbs in the form of corn. During each of these stops more clothes are added to the ones already worn. The terrain changes were about the same as the bus ride up the mountain. Beginning with green valleys covered with vine draped trees and heavy undergrowth giving way to grassy valleys giving way to barren and dry looking grass like growth and finally above the tree line the un-eroded barren rocks that make up the mountain. Rain began during the last section and turned to snow before the top. Remains of previous cable cars, their supports and leftover cables are merely left on the mountain to deteriorate.

Before exiting the car at the uppermost terminal a guide informed everyone not to stay longer than forty five minutes. The altitude is 15,600 feet above sea level. I do not recall every being that high while standing on the ground. The air is very thin indeed and outside it was snowing, the water puddles were frozen and the surrounding mountain tops, when they could be seen during gaps between the clouds looked ominous. Pictures on the wall taken in 1946 and 2002 of the glaciers in the area show the evidence of warming as the ice covered areas are much smaller in the later pictures, or perhaps just a year with less snow. The ride down was a reverse, people shedding clothes as the temps raised.

Leaving Merida was again a challenge. All of the fast buses leave in the evening and travel at night. The same choices were made, take shorter trips to smaller towns, travel during daylight and enjoy the scenery. The first segment was to Valera down a track nearly identical to the one going up the hill. Lots of blind hairpin turns, switchbacks, waterfalls and wonderful scenery made the ride exciting. The roads are built to follow the contour of the valleys, then over the next pass and down again. The road takes us right past the highest church in Venezuela, a small chapel resting in the windswept landscape of a mountain top, glad I do not need to walk to worship there.

On arrival to Valera I discovered that one of the large bus companies had begun express service directly to PLC. As the sites had been seen in this area it was a good choice. I have boat work to get done when I get back. I could see my breath on the bus.

Bottom job

Nearly every year the bottom of the boat must be painted to limit the growth of marine critters that want to hitch a ride. Barnacles, coral worm and other hard bodied animals attached to the hull will greatly reduce performance of the boat, limit speed and increase fuel costs. During the times that the boat is hauled out there are always other projects that also need to be done. This year I did not have too much that needed to be done. I tried for two months to get an estimate of cost to do some superficial cosmetic repairs, if the yard does not have time to give an estimate, they certainly do not have time to perform the work in a professional way. I finally gave up and will carry those things onto the list for next year. So with freshly painted bottoms, new oil in the outdrives I launched, did not take on water which is good and the engines started so I could move back to tie up. I will not want to stay in PLC for long because the water in the channel is so dirty that I will begin the process of fouling the bottom once again. One final going away party with friends, at a nice local restaurant, then I am ready to head back to Margarita, then on to Trinidad and then north into the island chain for the season.

PLC to Margarita

In early October when I finally left PLC and all of the friends I had known and so many more that I met there it was because I needed to make tracks. Before I left I filled everything I have with eight US cents per gallon diesel and eleven cents per gallon gasoline. I still wanted to spend some time in Margarita, my last visit there was cut short by Emily. The provisioning there is first class and easy to do with free buses running to different large stores daily. I really did need to stock up on that six dollar a case beer. Most of the Caribbean islands are much higher priced on nearly everything.

Between PLC and Margarita are the islands of the Mochimo National Park. These dry, brown, mostly uninhabited islands offer many great anchorages. The first steps from Puerto La Cruz to Margarita were all very short moves, a few miles per day. I needed to enjoy being out of the dirty congested marina life. Being in the islands with clear water and no oil film or frequent boat wakes is welcome and allowed me to clean the props. During previous passages through this area I have not stopped, always in too much in a hurry. This time I had a few weeks before the first crew was scheduled so I could spend a week moving through them, enjoying the warm clear water that was so missed in the marinas of PLC. I pulled into an anchorage on Segunda Grande, to be met with several boats at anchor. I did not think about the fact that this was a Saturday. Before long the entire bay was filled with boats, nearly touching each other, in fact some of them were touching, intentionally. There is a great beach, a restaurant and bar on shore sharing its amplified music with the anchorage, warm, clear water and it is only about ten miles out of PLC. I was very relieved when just before sunset most of them picked up anchor and headed for home.

I stayed in Margarita for eleven days, had my first experience at WiFi, which gave me my first virus. Then repeated trips to a computer shop to cure the virus and an irritating problem with the power cord meant the total loss of the computer. When the guy had it all laying in parts on his tool bench he commented, this is really complicated. Seems to me he should have thought of that before taking it apart. I hope one of the incoming crew will bring a new one along. Several loads of provisions were hauled to the boat and stowed, including seven cases of that cheap beer, I know, I know, seven is not very many for eight months of cruising, but we need to save weight where we can.

Margarita to Trinidad

The fifty mile move from Margarita to Testigoes was a motor boat trip into the prevailing current and light wind. I left Margarita at 0400 and arrived a half hour before the sun went down. That was close. I had been in that anchorage before and was confident that I could have gotten in after dark. The water around Margarita is not clean enough for swimming either, so I had not checked the propellers, what a surprise when I found they were well encrusted with marine growth after so short a time. After cleaning they push the boat much better.

The hundred ten mile passage from Testigoes to Trinidad was nearly as expected. As the wind had been south of east for the past fifteen days I felt I should go south to the coast of Venezuela, then turn east and use the shore to protect me from any swell. This coast is not safe for boats to stop and I did not plan to spend any nights at anchor. I left Testigoes at 0700 hoping to arrive during daylight the next day. The first third of the trip was wind from the side, the best kind, and then the passage of a tropical wave broke all of the cycles. The wind went to north of east, so much for a good plan. It was beat and bash for over twenty five hours. I checked in, was very tired and could use a shower.

Crew

Rod, the first crew of the year was originally scheduled to meet me in Margarita in mid October and we would sail to Trinidad, he was delayed so those plans changed and he arrived in Trinidad the 29th. The plan was to spend a couple of weeks in Chaguaramas, then a couple of weeks in Tobago diving, then on to Grenada, from where he would return home. Cheryl arrived three days later, brought my new computer and was scheduled to stay for several months.

Chagachacare

While in Chaguaramas there were several projects I tried to get done. Nearly anything can be done in Chaguaramas, getting anything done in Chaguaramas is difficult. Most of the tradesmen are quite busy with other customers; please hold and we will get back to you. Yeah, right. I left a few projects to be worked on and we moved out to Chagachagacare for a few days of reasonably clean water. Pronounced chaga cha car e. It is the site of an old leaper colony that was operated from the mid eighties to about 1970. Most of the buildings have suffered from vandals, weather and age. Still much is recognizable as hospital, wards, staff housing, Doctor's house, churches, power plant, kitchens and water containment. The place looks like they merely shut the door and left. Medical records, beds, file cabinets, even the old X-Ray machines are there.

The women’s and men’s dorms were separated by the common area until the inmates struck to have more inter gender mixing. The whole place was run by the Catholic Church so the nuns did not want any fooling around and resisted the mixing. Eventually it could not be stopped. All of the buildings are spread over a large area of very rugged hillsides connected by walking paths cut out of the jungle. Even today the vultures circle overhead by the hundreds, could they possibly recalling the meals from limbs left behind while on a walk so many years ago?

The anchorage is fairly well protected from most directions except east. Course the prevailing winds are from the east and there is often a swell entering the bay. Also the bottom is very steep to, within a hundred feet of shore it is a hundred feet deep. Anchoring requires using a stern line to hold the boat stern to the shore, forcing the anchor to drag up a steep hill, quite unlikely. This also allows adjustment of the boat to the direction of the swell for a better ride.

This structure also provides some interesting snorkeling. The smaller fish hug the shoreline and as you get into deeper water the size increases. The visibility is not that great. Being in the direct flow of water from the Orinoco River there is a lot of suspended material in the water that is stained green from the jungles of South America. Still the alternative of swimming in Chaguaramas Harbor is not an acceptable alternative.

Being down wind from Trinidad this island does not get as much rain as the larger island. It is still very green, lush and makes difficult walking through the seldom used paths. It is also home to a number of howler monkeys that can be heard if you are very quiet. We had a great few days before heading back to the pit called Chaguaramas.

Finally we were able to pick up all of the projects, or pick up the unfinished projects, or decided to do the projects later. We wanted to go to Tobago for some diving. Having done the passage to Tobago before; I knew what to expect. The current would be fully against us, the wind would be fully against us. The passage to Tobago is so difficult that few boats go out there. The only reasonable way to make the passage is to motor along the north coast of Trinidad during the night when the trade winds are lightest, then about daylight when the winds pick up turn to cross the current by the shortest, most direct route. This worked fairly well, except the wind did not die during the night and we did not make the miles we needed to have the shortest distance across the current by daybreak. This boat will not motor into winds more than fifteen knots very well, so as the wind picked up after daybreak we had no choice but to break off from the coast and sail. After hours of tacking, making one knot made good, that is one mile per hour toward our destination, we arrived at Crown Point with less than a half hour of daylight left.

Crown Point to Charlotteville

It was at Crown Point that Rod called home and was told that his father was ill and Rod needed to get his butt home ASAP, he was good crew.

From Crown Point we moved to Charlotteville, there are several anchorages on the north coast of Tobago so we did a half day one day and a half day the next. Of course it was into the prevailing wind and current both days. We stopped early so I could get the T-Day meal ready. We had roast pork on the grill, mashed potatoes, dressing, gravy, candied carrots because we did not have sweet potatoes, jellied cranberries and avocado. Yes, there were some complaints about overstuffed after the meal.

After arrival in Charlotteville the project was to check into Tobago. I tried to get that done when I needed to get Rod off the crew list when he flew home. The officials in Scarborough, the largest town and the capital of the island would not check us in, merely told us to come back when they were on overtime to check Rod off. Now I will need to explain why we have been here for a week and have not checked in. If you never hear from me again I may be in the clearance jail.

We planned to stay in Charlotteville for a couple of days, then move to the east end of the island, where the diving is the best, there is no internet and enjoy a few days of diving. Then back to Charlotteville to check out and return to Trinidad for some projects I left there and on to Grenada. Things seem to change quickly. Cheryl had been complaining that the motion of the boat was not allowing her to sleep. The swell in Charlotteville was more than the other anchorages had been and she decided to go home. The next crew is scheduled for Christmas so I will do the passage back to Trinidad and on to Grenada alone.

After moving the boat to the opposite side of Tobago and spending a frustrating morning trying to find an internet place in Speyside, the end of the island with all of the good diving, I was finally able to get geared up for diving and get wet. The only internet place would not read my memory stick. I finally went back to the boat, copied the messages to another and took that back. The second one worked.

Brain Coral

I have been looking forward to this for sometime. One of the famous sites here is what they claim to be the largest brain coral in the world. I found it. It is in about forty five feet of water and is sixteen feet in diameter and about ten feet tall. It is also not feeling well. Much of the coral I saw was showing evidence of bleaching, which is not a good sign for coral and may predict difficult times ahead for the diving. Several dives over a few days seem to have satisfied my need to get wet and I was ready to move on. While typing messages in the evening I can hear a pan band, the local name for steel drums, did you know that they were invented in Trinidad? Jamaica only claims to have done that. They are practicing Christmas songs. Imagine if you can Silent Night played on a steel drum, yeah they really are, followed by a conga song.

Crown Point to Trinidad

The passage from Crown Point, on the west end of Tobago, to Chaguaramas, on the west end of Trinidad is about 59 miles. It should be an easy and smooth downwind and down current run that should take about twelve hours. I set the alarm for 0100, so I could get some sleep after dinner and still be underway by 0200. I did not have any problem getting the anchor off the bottom and was underway by 2am. The first twenty miles were just as predicted and expected. The rain started about a half hour after I got underway, it was a mist to a tropical downpour for the entire trip and was still raining when I pulled into Chaguaramas. As soon as I was out of the anchorage I used the minimal light of a small new moon trying to get through the thin cloud cover to set the spinnaker and looked forward to a comfortable ride. Otto was steering so I had coffee, found some cookies I had forgotten, later had cereal and fruit. I had lots of time to think about being hungry. The wind varied between 4-26 knots, all from behind. Now this is sailing.

Shortly after sunrise the tricks began. The first surprise was the spinnaker blowing back into the mast. Yes, the trade winds had reversed and now were blowing lightly from the southwest. As the downpour began I was able to get the spinnaker down without tearing it on anything. Then start the motor, set the main and head sails. The motor would run the rest of the trip. With the wind off from straight in front I was able to get some help from the sails. Given that the wind was offshore I wanted to get as close as I could to shore to minimize the waves that would blow ahead of the wind. I had nothing much to do now but pick up a book.

The motion of the ocean was much more than the light wind justified. With three well established wave patterns all trying to occupy the space under my boat at the same time I regretted not putting everything away. I always put the most breakable and the most mess creating things away before any passage and most things are generally stowed all of the time. The motion of the boat is the worst when there is a confused sea and light wind. When the wind is strong and steady the swell develops in a pattern ahead of the wind and is predictable.

The last three miles before turning the corner into the first pass where a boat can go through, called Mouth of the Dragon, yes that is what it is called, does that give any idea of what conditions could be expected. This is like any place on earth where land masses try to inhibit the flow of the tide. In the spaces between the islands the tide tries to get even by racing through, often against your movement. This time I lucked out, the water was going the same way I wanted to go, well mostly. In some places whirlpools caused by underwater structure would cause it to swirl against me for a short distance. The approach to this pass was about as confused as anything I have seen. Short, steep seas tossed the boat around and things that have never fallen over fell over. Even the water buckets of rainwater caught during the day went over, right into the inside of the boat. OH Well, it needed cleaning anyway.

Trinidad to Grenada

The passage from Trinidad to Grenada is about eighty miles and almost straight north, with a west setting current of up to one and a half knots, the wind should be easterly. All of this means that it should be a comfortable beam reach, wind from the side of the boat, which is the fastest and most comfortable on any sailing boat. The moon should give me some light for all but about three hours before sunrise. The weather forecasts had been saying the wind could be a bit more north of east and twenty to twenty five knots. This higher wind is normal for later in the year, like January, and now it is more intense because of compression of the isobars from a dominant high pressure area in the northern Caribbean. I expected a pleasant, fast crossing of fifteen to twenty hours.

After making a pot of soup for later and taking an hour nap I was up raising sail and anchor at 2200. Knowing that the current would try to take me west I tried to take some extra easting while close to Trinidad. I was able to hold a course ten degrees up wind from my needed heading. For the first two hours I gained quite a bit of easting. Good thing I did because as soon as I got out farther into the current I needed that extra distance. The wind was far more northeast than I expected, so after all is said I was able to hold a course of five degrees lower than my desired heading, while sailing at a comfortable angle to the wind. This added up to arriving seven miles down wind and down current from Grenada. It also makes the passage eighty seven miles; plus the distance to tack back into the wind.

As the sun was peaking over the horizon just before 0600 I could see the outline of Grenada about twenty five miles away. It is a large, old and high island that is rounded like the shoulders of a man that has lived too many years carrying heavy loads. I could see it, just knew that I was going to have some problem getting there. Well, that is part of sailing a boat. When you need to go somewhere you want to go, and the conditions do not want to let you go, then you must do something else. That means tacking. This is turning the boat the other direction, holding a heading of about sixty degrees off the wind for a couple of miles, then turn the boat the other way and hold the heading about sixty degrees off the wind. In this way, for each of the two mile tacks you gain about six tenths of a mile into the wind, which divided into the seven miles I was off course means a lot of tacking.

Given that for most of the night the wind had been twenty five to thirty knots, which had built seas of six to eight feet, the highest about ten. I knew I was going to need to tack; the question becomes when is the best time. It makes no difference to the boat, so comfort of the crew, me, takes priority. If I do my tacking in the open ocean, then I will be faced with running almost straight into the face of those eight foot waves. When I hit them it nearly stops the boat, which then needs to struggle to get moving again. Also, when I go over the white foam covered crest of the waves, half of the boat’s length is suspended into thin air until it finally crashes down into the trough, sending sprays of saltwater everywhere. The inside of the boat on arrival tells me that I had done some crashing and banging along the way. I decided to run until I was in the downwind protection of Grenada to do the tacking. It was much smoother and the wind was nearly as strong, but the current was halved, so I tacked and tacked until I was close to the island, then out into the ocean on the south side of Grenada as the anchorage I wanted, Prickly Bay, is on the south end.

I arrived with an hour of daylight to spare on 12 December, the exterior of the boat completely covered with salt crystals and the inside looking like moving day. This should be the last passage of this year. Having only one hour of sleep in the past forty hours I only wanted to have something to eat and get to bed. I will deal with everything else tomorrow. I have been to Grenada several times before, know where that shallow spot is for my anchor, and know where most other things are and how to get the things I need to find. It has a couple of good chandleries for those last minute parts. Many of the cruising boats anchor in Prickly Bay, the officials are there and a couple of marinas. One of the marinas offers a happy hour at the bar each evening which is good way to meet some of your neighbors.

Jan again joined me for the Christmas holiday from work as a teacher. We helped friends of hers move into their house in Grenada, enjoyed the holidays and gently welcomed in the New Year. My next crew does not arrive until after the first of the year. The cruising plan for the upcoming year is to cruise north to St Martin, then follow about the same route south to get out of the hurricane area for hurricane season. I am also planning to return to the States for my fortieth class reunion and to catch up with friends and relatives so sadly missed.

Please, if you do not wish to receive this let me know and I will gladly take you off the mailing list. If you enjoy reading these adventures, let me know. Wishing all of you a wonderful new year in 2006

Your friendly crew on RPhurst, love and kisses,
Bruce

2004 Malta, Italy, Spain, Morroco and Atlantic crossing

2004-05-16T13:18:00.000-07:00

2004 was another busy and exciting year for me, I hope it was as much so for you. My travels took me from Malta to Barbados, a straight line distance of 5034 miles. This included the crossing of the Atlantic, 2009 miles from the Cape Verde islands. I am now within eighty four miles of having gone once around, that milestone will need to wait for 2005. I am glad to be in the Carib, where warm water, coral and fish can be found, right under the boat.

I have had fourteen crew, friends, guests and women aboard to make this a year of little time alone. The longest guest was two months. I enjoy the time shared with others on the boat. It provides some company and lightens the work load. Most of these people are well received and friendly, some are not, one of the most challenging ever was with me this year, her husband made up for it. While I want everyone to feel welcome I am amazed at how some people come into my home then proceed to do everything they can to irritate me.

Email has been difficult this year. Malta was first world with great access, after that it was all down hill, Tunisia was really tough, Italy was challenging, hard to find and often would not allow the use of a disc, Spain was difficult to find and often would not allow the use of a disc, many of the internet sites in Spain were combined with a Casino. Go figure, the youth that need to become familiar with computers are not allowed to use them because they are too young to go in. Surprisingly, Morocco was not that difficult, course I did not stay there that long. Disc failures and computer problems combined to make staying in touch a challenge.

I spent five enjoyable months, December 03 to April 04, in Malta. English is spoken, the people are friendly, it has mild winter weather so it is a tourist destination for much of Europe, it provides a winter home to many cruisers, it is well supplied with chandleries for parts and it is pretty expensive.
Given that everything is closed over the holidays I could accomplish little, so sailing around the islands of Malta and Gozo with Sandy for eight days made sense.
Malta has been the subject of two sieges, in each of which the Maltese did not yield. The first was in 1565 and lasted for five months. This battle was between six hundred Knights of St John, with three thousand Maltese and five thousand mercenaries battling with thirty thousand Turks arriving on one hundred eighty ships and lasted until the defenders were reduced to six hundred men and the attackers were subjected to extremely heavy losses. The end came when reinforcements from Sicily arrived causing the Turks to leave the job unfinished.

Valletta holds most of the things I want to see, the museums, castle walls, old buildings, churches. Much of Valletta was leveled during WWII by Italian and German bombers. Because of it's strategic location along the shipping lane from western to eastern ends of the Med and consequently the supply lines for north Africa, Malta was subjected to more bombs that any other country during this war, yet it did not yield. The locals dug caves in the soft sandstone close to homes and work, when the airaid sirens would sound everyone would go to their cave to wait out the attack, then when the all clear was sounded bakcto work. Many of these caves are still evident, some have been boarded up or converted to garage or storage. Many resupply convoys were sunk before one finally was able to break the blockade. The Maltese were suffering starvation, out of fuel, and the three biplanes, Faith, Hope and Charity, they had to battle the German Stukas were ill suited for the job. The convoy also brought Spitfires which were launched from an American Carrier and flown in empty, arriving with little fuel and no arms to save weight. The Germans knew about the arrival of these planes and coordinated an attack to catch the Spitfires on the ground. Little did they know that the ground crews were able to refuel, arm and get the planes back into the air in only six minutes each. The German Stukas did not stand a chance against the modern, faster and more maneuverable Spitfires. This change of equipment signaled the end of the siege of Malta.

Marsaxlokk Bay is sectioned into three bays, one of which is a large commercial container transfer facility and oil port, one is the fishing village and the other a larger town at St George's Bay. Malta has set aside this corner of the island as a Tax Free Port where international shipments can be taken off one ship and reloaded onto another ship for further shipment. Yes, most countries charge duty on this type of operation.

The fishing village at Marsaxlokk is said to be the most picturesque in Malta. The many local fishing boats lying to moorings are painted in nearly identical color schemes, alternating blue, yellow, orange, red stripes make them very colorful, each displaying the Orisis eye on each bow. I find the use of this eye to have been consistently used in every part of the world on the fishing fleets, how did that get around all those thousands of years ago. The town was not notable. Like many others in the Med, it is wrapped around the coastline of the bay, then narrow winding streets leading up the hill, always a hill.

Hofra Bay provided a remote stop, no town, with high walls of eroded sandstone towering a couple hundred feet above the water the shelter was good. The locals sit on the bank with Huck Fin type long poles trying for the small fish that hang around the shallows.
The west side of Malta provides no shelter, therefore it must be done in one move. The only spot of interest on this coast is the Blue Grotto, a place the tourists pay a local to take them by boat to a spot where the wind and waves of winter storms have undercut, hollowed out, washed away massive rocks. Leaving a place of arches, holes, echoes and pinnacle rocks thrusting out of the sea. The water was too deep to anchor but I was able to move in very close to get a look. The west coast is only about twenty five miles, which is no big deal if the wind is right. When I last checked the weather forecast the wind was to change to the west, a great direction for the northward move along the west coast. Did it happen, no, the wind was light from the north the whole way. When I turned east, on the north end of the island I was able to get to Gozo with little daylight left.

Gozo is a step backward. A small sister compared to the island of Malta, it has four larger towns, many old ruins, including Ggantija Prehistoric Temples, reputed to be the oldest, man made, free standing structure in the world, built in about 3500 BC. Older than the Pyramids and Stonehenge. Neolithic remains have been found in the caves around Malta suggesting cave men were here. Gozo is also the home to the Citadel of the Knights of St. John. It was built in the center of Gozo and was so late in being built it was never tested as the Turks had been chased out by then. Weather is now tearing it down, one gust of wind at a time.

The Blue Lagoon on the island of Comino is just that, a well sheltered, sand bottom cove where the water is a turquoise blue. This is one of the major attractions for the tourists in summer. The island of Comino has only one hotel, yet dozens of day tripper boats bring out tourists to enjoy the blue water, laying naked on the beaches and rocks. Some stay the night and become floating discos with booming dance music till the late hours. During winter it is remote and quiet. In previous times Comino was a stronghold for pirates that ravaged shipping in the area until the Knights built a Bastion, complete with cannon, and manned by thirty men, to keep the pirate ships away. I used this calm water to get into the water and scrape my speed reducing, lump covered bottom. No the water is not warm even in a wet suit.

St Paul Bay is reputed to be where St Paul and St Luke were shipwrecked while being transported to Rome as prisoners. The ship lost its way in a storm and crashed onto the rocks in this far off bay of Malta and was beaten to pieces by the waves. The crew was here for three months, in which time St Paul was able to heal and convert Publius, governor of Malta, who was later to become the first Bishop of Malta. He was then sent on to Rome where he was beheaded, St Paul not Publius. The Church of St Paul Shipwreck, in Valletta, is suppose to have the wrist bone of St Paul and half of the column on which he was beheaded.

Malta also claims the third and forth largest unsupported domes in Europe. These people were very religious and support massive churches, each town trying to outdo the other in the size and opulence of the church they built, still use and maintain. The third largest dome is in the town of Xewkija on the island of Gozo and was built between 1951 and 1971, much by volunteers. This is not ancient times and the people are still willing to make the financial sacrifices necessary to support such a large church. The most fantastic sites are the churches, the one in Mosta, round, ornate, beautiful was in full service during WWII, when a five hundred pound German bomb came through the ceiling, bounced around inside the church full of people but did not go off, not one person was injured. I think I should be a member of that church.

Most of the time while moving I drag a fish line or two, I am convinced there are no more fish in the Med outside of the many fish farm enclosures found in many of the bays where the water would be shallow enough for anchoring.

Ma gives many reminders that she is the boss, one day in January the wind started to come up, so I set additional lines, and doubled a couple that I need to keep me off the wall. The next day the wind began in earnest, blowing moe than twenty knots on the side of RPhurst, so I released some lines, changed others to turn the boat ninety degrees, bow into the wind and swell, using the same lines to shore and my anchors. Even this small bay can build white caps and sizeable waves in high wind. Add to that the swell that is running outside the bay, some of which drives itself into the bay and it is an interesting ride.

Anytime you are tied to a wall you have reflective waves, the energy in the wave does not disappear when it hits a wall, it just reverses and moves the other direction. When a wave hits a beach, the energy is dissipated by rolling up on the shallow, much as the tsunami in the Indian Ocean. So here I am, sitting in a fully sheltered bay, wind blowing over thirty knots, with three to four foot waves rolling under me and those reflection waves coming at a slightly different angle, interesting.

Knowing full well that the rain will follow the wind I set out my laundry buckets, the next morning they are full of brown looking, very dirty water. The system that is causing all of this is centered over Africa, which is less than two hundred miles away, picks up desert sand and carries it away to combine with water droplets that begin the rain. Last year in Turkey I noticed the same thing, when the wind blew from the south, the rain was like mud, after a rain I needed to wash the boat.
All of this blowing and raining kept me on the boat for a couple of days watching the waves explosively break against the distant rocks at the entrance to the bay, sending towers of spray and foam fifty feet in the air.

With the hope and intention of finding a lower priced haulout, Malta will be the highest priced, by double, previously paid, I left Malta Friday, 6 Feb, heading for Tunisia. I had arranged crew for the passage, a woman that was interested in longer term cruising. I need crew and she wanted to sail, a win win situation. Ursula returned to the UK from Monastir after we arrived in Tunisia as arranged.

Emails over the previous weeks had identified the lower charges I could expect in Tunisia. Like many other vendors, American included, replies were sporadic. I had discussed the Monastir area with other cruisers, had accessed their web site and exchanged messages, they assured me that they could haul RPhurst. I had additionally contacted one other new facility, to which I had not received a reply. I had also been told, by other cruisers, that the fishing ports also haul yachts.

The distance to Monastir is less than two hundred miles, nearly straight west. A distance I should be able to cover in about forty hours, or less with good wind, from the right direction or longer if the conditions do not allow. I had watched the weather forecasts which told of a couple of days of light north winds, diminishing and backing to the west. I felt the window of opportunity for good wind was there.

As is often the case reality does not match expectations. The wind was moderate, mid twenties, however it was out of the west northwest. This allows me to sail, but puts me hard on the wind for the first twenty four hours, it also shifts me south of the heading I want. What was not expected was a south setting current, which moved me even farther south. On the opposite tack I was making back my northing, but a lower speed was the price. The actual time was more than I would like. I left mid day on Friday and arrived Monastir early afternoon on Sunday. Yes, I was due some sleep.

The first disappointment was the yard at Monastir is not wide enough for me to enter their lift slip. I had told them my width, they had replied they could handle that width, fact is, you can not put a twenty foot width into an eighteen foot slot. The next step was the fishing port near Monastir. They have plenty of room, a huge lift that has been off and on broken down for six months. Do I really want to be hauled at a place that could abandon me on shore for a long period waiting for the lift to be repaired before I can be launched. Next I called the yard that had not replied, they could haul me, have room and are not busy, they also charge nearly as much as Malta, plus they do not allow me to do the work. Next I took a louage, a mini-van-bus, to the fishing yard down the coast. They have a huge travelift, have plenty of room and could haul me in a few days. They are three miles out of town, security is minimal, feeding myself will be difficult, email will be impossible. I am thinking about this possibility, it has many disadvantages, yet it can be done. The same day I continued down the coast to the next larger town, Mahdia, where a large port and fishing fleet calls home. They have a large lift and plenty of room. After an entire afternoon of searching for the office, finally I was able to find the people in charge. The price was right, the lift is large enough, but, they will now begin to haul the fishing fleet and could not look at me for three weeks. This is not workable.

The following day I packed a bag to go to Tunis, the capital of Tunisia, jumped on the train, which is two different trains, and made the trip. This will include a site seeing trip to Carthage, the ancient power of the south. The day I arrived the Tunisian soccer team won their semi final game in the African Cup Tournament. The city was wild, till late in the morning, the youth, and not so young took to the streets to party and demonstrate loyalty to their team. If they win the Cup, on the coming Saturday, the city will be nuts. They did win and they were nuts, good for them.

Tunisia is very Arabic, very Muslim, very French and not very advanced. The villages resemble all of the Arabic towns and villages in all the other Arabic countries I have seen. Those pictures of rubble, damage and garbage shown in the Iraqi footage are not evidence of war, all Arabic areas look like this. They never finish a building, never take away the rubble from building, no roof is common, no stucco over the building blocks or paint on the second floor, is normal. If the builder finishes, a tax is applied, so why finish. It makes all of the rural areas look like a war zone.

Many of the young ladies wear the head scarves that are so much in the news these days. Most do not. I have not seen a Barka yet, women are allowed to drive, clearly are allowed to work and do not seem to be a lower class. The train trips have revealed only one group of camels, is that a herd.

The trip to Carthage was a disappointment. After having seen the sites at Athens, Delos, Delphi, Ephysis and Rome, Carthage does not measure up. Little has been excavated, none has been restored, yet, all of the valuable items have been taken into the museum in Tunis, the best to Paris. The museum with it's many statues, mosaics, carvings, burial chambers is worthwhile, Carthage was a big deal, the remains are not. The best preserved building in the area is a Catholic Church, erected by the French in the second millennium. The day I was there a commercial or promotional event for Nokia was in progress, seems to take away from the antiquity to have spot lights, colored lights cast onto a stage, large speakers for a sound system along with cast and crew, this all seemed out of place.

Tunisia has endless miles of sand beaches built over the years by blowing Sahara dust. As a cheap place to visit, it has built hundreds of large beach hotels that welcome hundreds of thousands of tourists every summer. Prices are far less than Malta, about the same as Croatia last summer.

The national language is Arabic, the spoken language is French, I speak neither. Language is a barrier. The bus fare to Tunis, a couple hundred kilometers, is seven Dinar, one dollar buys about one point four Dinar, a room in Tunis was forty Dinar. Email is four Dinar per hour. Fuel is point four five Dinar per liter. American cigs are less than a dollar a pack, kind of makes you want to start again. Check in is free and has no hidden charges, nor did the officials ask for Backsheesh, bribe, or any other payments. At the market most fruit and veg are of low quality. Meat is hung all day without much cooling, so do your marketing early.

In the next day or so I will decide whether to go to one of the fishing ports, or go back to Malta for the haulout. I am running out of time. Another cruising couple staying at Monastir had been ripped off in the market, twice. Once someone cut their canvas bag but did not take any of the winch parts carried inside it, the next time he had his wallet taken out of his pocket. Apparently they work in threes, one or more bump or distract you while the other does his thing. I was told that when another cruiser saw a young man steal the coin cup from a blind beggar, he grabbed the young man and held him until police could be summoned, when the police arrived they criticized him for stopping the young man. The end result was I could not be hauled there, or not in a place that is convenient or safe for me. Perhaps I will just carry all of the parts and find a place along the way. The problem with that plan is that it interferes with the cruising season and I will have crew onboard that do not want to spend time in a boat yard.

The crossing back to Malta was great sailing. The wind was on the beam or aft of the beam, the current was in my favor and on the way over I discovered three Italian islands, actually I did not discover them, they have been there for years, at about the halfway point where I could stop for a few hours and get some sleep. While the coarse going to Tunisia was bent, crooked, off heading, the return was straight as an arrow. I had little to do, no tacking, no wondering when to tack, no dangers, I had time to read part of a book.

Now back in Malta I am finding life is not so settled here either. The preferred yard with whom I had spoken is now five weeks behind, the second has raised their price, they were too high to begin with. Boat work is not supposed to be this difficult. I guess I have been spoiled by having hauled out in areas more accustomed to working with cruisers. This seems to be more dedicated to the local cruising fleet.

With extra time on my hands, waiting for parts that should have been here last week, I have been working on some of the small projects, many of which have been put off for far too long. I will need to put off the haulout until later. There are not many wood pieces on the exterior of RPhurst, some of those I have allowed to go to weathered wood. The few I try to keep varnished were well past due, so dig out all of the sanding and varnishing tools. Open the half used cans of varnish, or course I have been hauling around dried up, skinned over and worthless varnish. I had bought a new can last summer, when I saw a familiar brand. I need to go through all of my cans of paints, I am sure many are well past their use by condition.

The cockpit tables are the pieces of wood that should look good. They are one of the first things most people see when they get into the cockpit, those damn first impressions can be lasting. Next the grated board over the scuppers, Then the trim around the entry door and steps on the sides of the cabin top. Sand, sand, varnish, sand, varnish, sand, varnish. The experts say fourteen coats are the right amount, I have never used that many, normally ending after four or five. One of these days I need to get at the interior wood, which is a much larger job.

I have been meaning to change the rudder quadrant leverage for some time, hoping to correct over steering. That means taking off each of the two quadrants, measure and drill a couple more holes to increase the movement of the quadrant with the same movement of the wheel. This is a good time to grease all of the pivot points. Before this job can be done the rudder compartments must be cleaned out, where to put all that stuff for a few days, as long as I am at it I can wash them too. Hope it works. I believe an improvement is shown. Still, I do not have any problems steering RPhurst, nearly all new crew do. It is a matter of not steering, less is more in this case.

The engines are back together and they even start. The place that did the service on the injectors and injector pumps tried something different. The original spec on the injectors was not working. I have had them checked and cleaned several times without improvement. This time they increased the opening pressure of the injectors by twenty percent, like magic, the engines start like they are supposed to. I will not know the underload performance until I lift anchor and get out of the bay. The end result was smooth running engines that take twenty five percent more fuel. As long as I was in the engine compartment I replaced the broken motor mounts with the new ones I ordered. Cleaning the oil residue is a big job, it seems that diesels like to cloud their vapors everywhere in the engine compartment when they are running, this makes a big mess and smells when the engine compartments are opened. My stainless should be the next project. I keep telling people that I do not have time to work, keeping this boat floating, clean and shiny is work enough.

To make sure I had plenty to do getting ready, another cruiser added his contribution. A couple of weeks ago Ron came in with a fifty foot catamaran and tied next to me. As he was alone and I always try to help everyone out, or in, as the case may be, I did not feel he had set his anchor very well. He was so appreciative for the help that he loaned me his folder of DVDs. I enjoyed movies for more than a week.

My concern about his anchor is that if he breaks loose in the strong winds that sometimes occur from the east he will slide into me, perhaps taking my anchor with him. Two nights before I was due to leave Malta the wind turned to the south and picked up, then began to turn to the east. Having seen a few of these over the last couple of months, I turned my boat ninety degrees. In this way I am using equally only one of my two anchors along with the docking ring on the quay to hold the boat, this also puts me bow into the swell making for a much more comfortable ride, it also reduces windage, my bows catch a lot less wind than my side.

The most severe wind in Malta is known as a Gregale, which blows from the northeast. While reading a book in the evening I heard a crunch, I did not feel it, which is good, to hear and feel the crunch is very bad. When I rushed out I saw that his boat was blown against the quay and was repeatedly being driven into the concrete by the waves. I jumped into my dingy and paddled to shore, tied off and ran to his boat, assessing the situation as I went. He was not there. I untied the downwind dockline from the quay, took it well upwind and tied it to a different docking ring, went onto the boat and adjusted the line I had tied and threw off the upwind stern line. The boat immediately began to turn the bow off the wind. While the boat was turning I found fenders to put on the side that would soon be on the concrete.

While I was doing all of this a passer by on the quay asking if he could help. I pointed to the bar across the street and asked him to go over there and ask for the Ron, tell him his boat is in trouble, which he did. More passers by stopped to offer help, I had them try to keep the boat off the wall, keeping the fenders below the top of the wall, in waves they tend to work out the top and stay there.

When Ron arrived he could not believe his eyes, his boat had a sizable hole in the stern and it was pounding against a wall that would love to make more holes. He instantly jumped onboard to start an engine and try to hold himself off, this may have helped if he had started the right one, all he was doing was drive the bow into the wall and tighten already strained lines. After calming him down a little, I was able to get him to help. Telling him everything I wanted him to do would have taken far too long, nor was I certain he would have understood, so I gave him small projects, one at a time.

He needed to use his dingy, which was full of water, from being tied in the swell, to take a line to one of the tourist boat moorings. These are large, they hold large boats, we would use it to hold his boat off the wall for the night. After he secured the first line to the mooring and returned the other end to me I put the line through the midship cleat and back to the a winch and began winching the boat off the wall. I could winch a few feet, then needed to slack the dock lines, winch some more, slack the dock lines, winch again until when about fifteen feet off the wall I began to look for Ron. He was sitting in his dingy at the bow, trying to pull his boat off the wall, using his dingy in reverse. I was able to convince him that he was off the wall. Now he needed to run a second line to the mooring, which I told him to tie to a different place on the mooring, because of the chance of wear, a part breaking or a line fail he needed two lines. When he returned this line I belayed it to a cleat on the stern. His boat was now safe.

We looked at the damage, which was considerable, talked about his need to check the aft compartment, which would now be filling with water, thanked all of the people that had offered help and I went back to my boat. It was nearly midnight and the exercise had taken nearly two hours. Ron went back to the bar.

The security of his boat was of great concern to me so I did not fall into deep sleep. Sometime later I heard my lines tighten, I hurriedly stole a peek out the hatch while I put on my shorts and tee shirt, of course his boat was leaning heavily on my bow line, I was holding him off the wall, the problem was, how long would my anchor take the strain of two boats. By the time I arrived at his boat he was out of bed and ready to go to work. While I was paddling over to his boat I could see the problem, his two lines from the mooring were loose. At this time I did not know why. His boat was being held off the wall by my bow line and his dingy, which was being crushed between his boat and the wall, he needed to use his dingy to replace the lines. We were able to haul the dingy out between the waves that were driving his boat into it and pinning it to the wall. As I hauled in the first line I noticed the knot at the end that should have been tied to the mooring. I gave him this line and told him to do the same thing he had done the first time, but to a different place. While he was doing this I hauled in the second line, it also had a knot on the end of the line, something had broken. When I had the first line back I gave him the second and told him again, tie it to a different place, then I again ran the first one through the midship cleat and back to the winch and began to winch the boat away from the wall, good thing he had left the fenders in place. When he returned with the second line I put it back on the stern cleat, again he was secure. I asked what he had tied to the first time, he thought to one of the lines holding the tourist boat. I suggested he go back and look. They use three lines to each mooring, if he had broken one of their lines, not likely, they are huge, their boat could come loose.

The next day he arranged help and asked if I would assist to re-anchor his boat. When this wind and swell dies, the tourist boat will again go to work, giving the tourists a boat ride, for a price of course. He had me drive the boat while one of the other guys was in the dingy and Ron and another on the bow. He had already picked up his anchor with the windlass, it was not holding anything.

We cast off the dock lines and motored out to where he wanted the anchor, dropped it and I backed away from the anchor and toward the wall. When he reached the end of the chain we stopped, before he placed the snubber in the line I suggested we give a better pull on the anchor. When I did, it broke loose. We moved forward, picking up the anchor, when it broke the surface it had a large piece of chain attached. The chain did not seem to be attached to anything because after several minutes of struggling to get it loose and they were able to drop the chain off the anchor we had drifted away from where we had picked it up. We will try again. This time when we reached the end of the anchor chain, I applied more engine and the anchor held fast. The first time it was the weight of the chain that had stopped the boat, it would not have held in a wind. After putting the dock lines back we were certain he would hold.

The crossing from Malta to Sicily was uneventful, good wind, fast passage and is only sixty miles.

Land travel is an important part of cruising. Ports and harbors can be seen from the boat while at anchor. Other sites, towns, farms, mountains, rivers and all of the other interesting things to see require some land cruising. It is also a shared activity with crew and having someone with whom to share the cost, driving and navigating helps. Having Pam, one of my favorite crew, here for a couple of weeks offered an opportunity to see some of the island of Sicily. Renting a car on my own will usually keep me in the buses, so when I have the opportunity, I will usually go. We drove one thousand seventy one kilometers over five days. The sites were wonderful. The timing was good because nearly all of Syracusa closes for the Easter Holiday, from the Wednesday before to the following Tuesday, including email. Italians will do anything that will keep them from working.

Most Italian roads are two lane, narrow with minimal signage. At one point we needed to stop and ask a gas station attendant for directions, something that real men never do. He answered the question before it was asked, possibly it has been asked too often. Which way to Syracusa. The next sign was six miles down the road and after three unmarked turns, no wonder we could not find the way.

The Italian drivers are very nearly the worst I have seen anywhere in the world. They are aggressive, inconsiderate, demanding to the extreme. Passing on blind curves is the norm, you must assume that on every curve a car will be coming toward you, in your lane. No, they do not pull back in, they expect you to move over. Three lanes of traffic on a two lane road is not uncommon.

Anytime traffic stops, because of a wreck, pedestrian, letting another car into traffic or to get into or out of a parking place will cause horns to blow, often starting five or six cars back in the pack. Gridlock is expected, everyone that can get into the intersection does, they will jam it with cars coming in from each road, all blowing their horns. If you wait until the intersection to begin your turn, you will have one or more cars or motorbikes passing you on your left, cutting you off from turning. When room for parallel parking is not available, they pull in diagonally, with the rear of the car taking the whole traffic lane, when there still are not enough parking spots, then double parking is used, when that does not have enough room then diagonal double parking is the key, OK, so now there is not room for traffic, no problem, just drive on the other side of the road and honk your horn. The guides say that Italians believe that everyone knows where they are, if needed someone will come to get them. Enough bitching about the driving, I did not see a single accident, yes, lots of smashed up cars, but no accidents.

Perhaps they are so angry because they pay more than four dollars per gallon for gasoline, one of the real bargains in America.

Sicily has participated in and undergone the same conquest and control that has affected all of the Mediterranean. The Greeks, Romans, Carthigians, Byzantines, Normans, Ottomans, Spaniards, Venetians, French and British to name but some of the invaders who took turns with the coastal pirates to make life difficult for the locals. Each town has a grand church or churches, extravagant affairs, with fifty foot high ceilings, gilding, paintings, statues, wonderful overbuilt memorable sites to see. I can not say enough to describe the churches, they are fantastic.

The other power that has controlled Sicily is Ma, nature that is. This is the place where two tectonic plates collide. Mt Etna is one result of that incredible force, eruptions and earthquakes are a way of life. Nearly all of Sicily was destroyed by an earthquake in 1693, so most of the buildings date from that time. Lesser quakes have changed or destroyed many smaller areas. The Tyrrhenian sea, the north coast of Sicily, has several active volcanos. Stromboli is known as the first lighthouse. From ancient times, a constant flow of lava into the sea has been a guiding light to mariners, showing the way to the Messina Strait.

Many of the towns were built on the tallest, most inaccessible hill around, then the defensive fortification was built on the tallest rock on that hill. One detail I found to be very interesting, much of the sandstone used for building material or the exposed hillsides, is interspersed with fossilized seashells. A thousand or more feet up a hill you can find many pieces of seashell, amazing. Most has been pushed up there by the action of the tectonic plates.

We began from Syracusa, moving clockwise around the island, first stop Noto. Much of Sicily was destroyed in 1693 by a huge earthquake, many towns rebuilt over the destruction, others moved the town and started over, Noto was one of these that rebuilt a few miles from the original location. Baroque is the style of architecture of most of the modern towns. Large, square buildings of the local sandstone, cut into blocks and piled up. Many of the buildings are eroding away in the wind. Many of the buildings are a city block square, enclosing a decorative courtyard in the center for social space and also provided some measure of security from robbers and thieves.

As last year, I am convinced, a great business in Italy is scaffolding and construction crane rental. Nearly every church, statue, ancient site, along with many government buildings is surrounded by scaffolding, most of which has been there for years. Often a sign has been erected to advise this project is brought to you by a grant from someone else, usually including a completion date, often expired. Rarely is a worker seen working. It seems the money runs out before the scaffolding is all up, so none is left to do any of the work. The guide books advise that many of these projects are awarded to mafia construction companies, where the funding merely disappears.

Each of the towns includes a most spectacular church or two or three or more. The size and opulence in these churches is unbelievable. Clearly a competition was established that when you built a new church it must be more, larger, better, richer than someone else’s. Seems to me there should have been a conservative church somewhere that could be the measurement standard, just build better than this one, but no, larger, taller, better, brighter than all of the others. This means that in small towns an enormous church dominates the skyline, often without the maintenance required to keep it up. Many have been left to deteriorate into prideless ruin, a real shame.

Agrigento is a layered, terraced city hanging from the side of a cliff with the most narrow, crowded roads occupied by the quickest horn blowers in the whole country. It also overlooks the Valley of the Temples, the largest, most complete Greek ruins in all of Italy. The valley is a few miles in length and contains at least twelve Temples set along the crest of the ridge, in various states of ruin and reconstruction. Some have not been excavated beyond the necropolis, burial places, where the good stuff was found. The modern day archeologist lament that grave robbers have cleaned out the burial sites, before the archeologist, of course.

Selinunte was another Temple site, at least as good as the Valley. Here I saw a motor home with an Alaska sticker on the back. When I inquired whether the couple had been to Alaska I found they were German, had been in Alaska and spent a year and a half land cruising America. They gave us a ride back from the last temple, saving a half hour walk, then insisted that we join them in toasting the day, the sites and travel, their brandy was excellent.

Marsala, home of the wine by the same name, is a large medieval style town, complete with large ornamental churches, narrow winding streets paved with blocks of basalt and is a major port city. This is where we found our first Easter Parade. Marsala was the 1860 landing site for Giuseppe Garibaldi and his thousand red shirts, the peoples army that liberated and consolidated Italy, from the Brits who protected from the Spanish, who protected from the French. Everyone wanted a piece of the action.

The Misteri is a Catholic celebration of Easter where icons of the life and death of Jesus are shoulder carried by twelve or more men of the congregation, rotating between two groups that relieve each other at the sound of a wooden paddles striking each other, similar to the ringing of a bell, from the church to another site and back again, getting larger and longer for each of the four days of holy week. Each icon is accompanied by a band and large organized groups of the congregation. On the last day the celebration lasts all night and is enjoyed by the towns' entire population. This tradition, which began in Trapani, is practiced by most of the larger towns, giving us many opportunities to view the processions.

Trapani is a large port and the origin of the Misteri. We were able to get into the church, Chelsea del Purgatorio, where this celebration began in the seventeenth century. It is also the off season home to the twenty icons and where the parade begins. We watched parts of the parade as they walked around with those heavy icons on the shoulders of the men accompanied by marching bands and many spectators, as the procession passes the people watching from the sidewalk, many of those people join in making for a huge procession. This is also where the Tyrrhenian and Mediterranean Seas merge. The old town built on the tip of a peninsula is another spectacular example of baroque excessiveness. So many different enormous churches to serve so few.

Erice is an hour up the hill from Trapani and the views from the medieval town are spectacular. A castle was built in the twelfth century, over an older Temple to Venus which was built in eight hundred BC, hangs on the side of the highest rock, on top of the highest hill with only one way up. On a slightly lower tall rock is the mother-in-law apartment, accessible only by the drawbridge, which the Spaniards destroyed, now it would be a difficult rock climb. The castle has been used by the Normans, Spaniards, prostitutes and now tourists. The cistern into which the bodies of the children born to the prostitutes were thrown is still open. Erice is the culmination of the Misteri with a crowd of one hundred thousand.

Monreal is the site of the great cathedral erected by Roger, the Norman, again, huge, bigger and brighter than the others.

Cefalu' is another old town, built on the point of a peninsula, protected by a wall, then expanded inland. This is a tourist center, drawn by the sand beaches and the closeness to Palermo.

Piazza Armerina has the oldest Roman Villa found on the island. Built in 400 AD, abandoned for several hundred years before it was covered by a mudslide in the twelfth century which protected it's mosaic floors from damage and vandalism until it was rediscovered in 1880 and excavated, which continues today. I assume the guy that had this built was living off tax dollars, there seems to have been no shortage of money.

Clearly tourism is a large contributor to the economy of Sicily, agriculture is much larger. Perhaps if only to feed the tourists. Everywhere hot houses are made out of a wood frame and covered with plastic sheeting. What happens to the plastic after the sun rots it and it begins to tear. Early season fruits and vegetables do not need to be imported, grape vines produce the next harvest of wine, citrus, first brought in by the Arabs, are doing very well, almonds and pistachios are world famous.

We saw no evidence of the mafia, except the unfinished building projects. The people were smiling, seemed happy, except while driving, and well fed, they were only too happy to try to help out. The darkly dressed characters in the Sicilian movies are accurate. Everyone wears black or near black, at least very dark. Only tourists and the under twenties wear anything of color. A word of caution, each Sicilian we approached with a question replied with a long conversation, often the content of which was lost on us. Conversation among the locals is not to merely exchange information or a thought, it is a social event to be shared.

Many of these sites are listed as UNESCO Heritage sites. They allow us to view history as it was made.

In times of old seamen everywhere have feared Straits. The Messina Strait was feared by seamen of the Mediterranean Sea. The multi-headed Scilla on one shore and the Charybdis on the other. The Scilla would reach down and pluck unwary seamen off their ships, swallowing them, gives that a whole new meaning. The Charybdis would suck in water for six hours and regurgitate the same water over the next six hours. Of course we now know that the Scilla was the rough water caused by strong wind over current, which could toss men right out of their ship and the Charybdis is whirlpools created by the movement of water over an uneven bottom, reported to be strong enough to pull down a ship, of course their ships were small, powered by small sails or rowed. Both dangers are as evident now as then. An earthquake in 1908 altered some of the bottom structure on the Sicilian side, lessening the effect of the whirlpools. Now the serious whirlpools only showed up during spring tides, the largest of each month. Now is the time of the month for spring tides.

Anywhere that water moves in one direction, with wind blowing in the opposite direction a short, steep and confused sea results. Water flowing through the strait for six hours in each direction, then reversing for the next six hours, is the effect of the tides. The wind is funneled to blow along the strait, NE to SW or the opposite, by mountains on each side, if you have wind, it will be against current for part of the time. Rarely does the wind blow from the south. When it does it is called a Scirocco and blows like it means business. The normal in the strait is NE which accounts for more than half of the winds in the strait. I hoped to use the southerly flow for my passage through the strait.

With four hundred miles of Italy on one side of the strait and a hundred miles of Sicily on the other, this narrow outlet carries all of the water moving from the Tyrrhenian to the Ionian Sea. With the change of tide the amount of water flowing here is large, causing the resultant current. To compound the problem the water in the Tyrrhenian is warmer than that of the Ionian, perhaps having to do with the volcanos pouring lava into the sea. The mixing of these two different temperature waters causes stratification and contributes to the rolling effect of the waves. To the north of the strait the approach is wide open, Sicily being straight across here and Italy angling away to widening the gap. On the southern approach the lands converge from several miles away, like the taper of a funnel, getting smaller and smaller until it is barely a mile and a half wide. It is this narrow area that can create problems.

May 3rd, sitting in the harbor of Reggio de Calabria with Linda, waiting for a good time to pass, south to north, through the straits, I was able to consult with the Coast Guard for the times of the water flow. He advised the north bound flow would begin at 1500, three o'clock in the afternoon, he even wrote this number down. This means I should start out from Reggio, which is six miles from the narrow part of the strait, at about 1400, to have little current, in either direction. The wind had been mid to upper twenties from the south all day, with a forecast on Italian VHF for force 7, 28-33 knots. This should make a painless passage through the strait with wind to my back.

Having cast off the lines and sticking my nose out I found the wind was still twenties from the south. I set about half of my headsail. With only ten miles to the first anchorage on the other side of the strait I did not need any great speed. Within an hour of getting underway the wind had built to low forties, now I was nearing the strait and it was clear the coast guard guy did not understand the question of the current, or I his answer, I had four knots from behind me, that must be about maximum, far better than against me. I reduced the headsail to triple reefed, about a fourth left out.

I was doing more than nine knots over ground and would soon be in the narrowest part of the strait. The wind was now gusting to nearly fifty knots, blowing water and foam off the waves and tumbling it down wind. Small whirlwinds were passing by, picking water off the surface and carrying it high into the air, then letting it fall, like rain. I was glad I had not put up more sail, the problem now was steering. The boat wanted to heave to, using the hull as the mainsail. The small headsail was not enough to overpower the windage of the side of the boat and bring the bow of the boat downwind. First I tried changing the trim of the sail, I did not want to let out any more, the trim change did not help. Then I started an engine to create a water flow over the rudder for steerage, this worked well. During the times of gusts with the sail pulling harder I was able to slow the engine and during the lulls I would speed up the engine to maintain steerage. I wanted to hug the east side of the strait, which becomes the south side, for protection from the strongest wind. Also, when I exited the strait I wanted to turn to the east.

The next obstacle was the ferries that continuously cross the strait, with cars, trucks, people, I have been told they do not give right of way to anyone, I did not find this to be true. They were having as much trouble with the wind as I, perhaps more as they had it from the side, I had it from behind. The wind actually curves through the strait, it was always on the quarter, just off to the side of behind. The ferries were plainly visible from a distance, the ones I could not see were the ones coming out of the terminal. As I approached the terminal a ferry exited, if he continued straight across we were on a collision course, as it turned out he turned into the wind for easier steering and this gave us both room. I am not certain he did this for my benefit, but I thanked him anyway because I had little control over my direction.

As I approached the northern side of the strait the wind was gusting over fifty. I was concerned about protection at the anchorage I intended to use. There was not enough daylight to go to the next one, so if the protection behind the large rock at Scilla was not good enough I would stay offshore and heave to. My concern was unfounded, the shelter proved to be very good. This is behind the tall rock known in old times as the home of the Scilla, hence the name of the small town. There was not room for me in the marina, nor had I intended to use it. So I set two anchors, both set very well. The next morning I could see better and found the anchors had caught on large rocks, I did not need to worry about holding. Yeah right, I always worry about holding. The wind began to die down after 0100, so I went to bed.

After the Messina Straits we moved north along the Italian coast. I wanted to see the Iolian islands, north of Sicily and an active area of seismic activity. The island of Stromboli, with it's nearly constant flow of lava running into the sea was known in antiquity as the guide to the Messina Straits. Working southward through the islands, spending time to stop and investigate ashore. These islands are volcanic cones, very steep to and anchoring is difficult. Cruising the Iolian Islands is recommended only during settled weather, which we had. We continued to the town of Millazo on the north coast of Sicily where Linda will go home, taking a very sick Otto Pilot with her, and Mary Helen, a repeat form last year, will join me. The saga of Otto's trip ends in Gibralter in October. Millazo was where I saw the tuna long liners come in with their catch. I have concluded that the Mediterranean Sea is sterile, not so, these guys are bringing in up to six per boat, four to seven hundred pound Yellow Fin Tuna. All are sushi in Japanese snack bars within thirty six hours. When I questioned the fishermen they said the fish are caught on the west side of Sardinia. Mary Helen and I moved north through the Iolian Islands, then on to mainland Italy.

What trip along the coast of Italy would be complete without a stop at Pompeii, quietly resting in the shadow of Mt Vesuvius. This name is well set into my mind from childhood. There is not enough room in this writing to adequately describe the sites to behold in Pompeii. It is a must see.

The tourist books claim that the Amalfi coast is the most beautiful coastline in the world. It is very nice. This is an area of steep cliffs falling several hundred feet from the summit to the sea. Small, picturesque towns hang precariously to the cliff side, connected by a road that was quite literally carved out of the cliff side. We left the boat at Sorrento and rode a bus to Amalfi. The ride is fantastic.

After the Amalfi coast we stopped at the Isle of Capri, one of the least awe inspiring, overpriced, crowded places I have been. It's only claim to fame is that years ago the rich and famous went there to hide from their endearing public. I was not impressed. The island itself is interesting in that it appears to have been a high island that had it's center cave in. It is high on each end and low in the middle. One of the most impressive roads in the world is located on Capri, at least as curvy as that one in San Fran, is it Lombard St, I can not remember, a brake pads nightmare. We next visited the small island of Proceda, another tourist trap where the locals can not afford to live. I found a real bargain here. As my outboard motor is old, it often requires parts which are difficult to find. While walking the docks looking at the charter boats I noticed a place where three outboard motors, one identical to mine, were apparently discarded. When I inquired about them I was told that they were no good, had been brought in tax free and therefore could not be sold. However, if I wanted any of the parts I could help myself. That was like a kid in a candy store, all I needed to leave was the casting with the serial number. Mary Helen left shortly after this to visit friends cruising in Croatia.

Edited

An annual, or as long as you can stretch it out, haulout is necessary for all boats. The marine growth needs to be removed from the hull and new anti growth chemicals painted onto the hull to deter new growth for another year. I had put off the work far too long, did not get hauled in Malta or Tunisia and the last time I was hauled was in Thailand, January 02. The last year I have been getting into the water with a scraper and shaving the heads off the little buggers. However, that is a bit like cutting your lawn, it looks great for awhile, then the grass grows right back. Other work under the water line always seems to creep into the formula. This was no exception. Last summer I had a gearbox fail. In Yanmar's wisdom they designed the gearbox so it can not be worked on, not even to change the oil, without hauling the boat out of the water. When the gearbox is removed it leaves an eight inch hole in the bottom of the boat and requires two thick gasket seals to keep the water out.

Over the winter, I checked in Malta for haulout and concluded that the price was too high. I then went to Tunisia in February only to find that the local fishing fleet was being hauled and I would need to wait. As I moved up the coast of Sicily, then Italy, I kept checking the prices. All too high. All of the old pirates now own marinas. They charge far too much. In May I made a trip to Rome to visit with my cousin Janet and her husband Scot who were touring Italy. During that trip I checked out the haulout facilities in the Rome area. What luck, I found one early on that was reasonable and able to take me when I wanted to be hauled. I intentionally asked for the middle of June. All of Italy goes on vacation for the months of July and August. So all of the local boats should be out of the yard by then.

When I arrived at the yard with the boat he gave me the run around for a couple of days. He was going on vacation after a couple of days and had some other work to do. Come back this afternoon, without the boat, I will give you a time. Come back in the morning, without the boat, I will give you a time. Come back this afternoon with the boat, we will tie you up and get you out of the water. Well I turned circles in the river, one that has a strong current and is not easy to just drive around, especially with only one engine, for nearly two hours, when I returned to where I had tied the boat earlier, then took the dinghy to the yard to inquire. Now he decided that he would not have time to haul me before he left for vacation, so sorry.

Cindy had been scheduled to arrive after the haulout, now with the delay the boat would be in a work yard for her visit. She was a real trooper, taking the bus or train into Rome for site seeing while I was working on the boat. She did get a small amount of sailing in during her visit and is still speaking to me.

The next few days were spent checking the other yards in the area, with the dinghy and walking. None were anywhere near reasonable. Finally I needed to choose one and get on with it. All of this wasted a week. Finally RPhurst was taken out of the water on June 22nd, at way to high a price, and I could get to work.

I knew of three major jobs to be done. The first was the gearbox. I had ordered all of the parts while I was in Malta. Still, you never know when something strange shows up. After disassembling the gearbox I discovered that I needed one additional bearing. This was where I was adopted by Giuseppe, one of the locals who had his boat in the yard. He spent three days driving me around town. To the paint store for resin, a different paint store for glass cloth, the mechanics for Yanmar parts. He was a real life saver with his local knowledge. There was no way I could have walked or found all of these places on my own, not in a month. After checking with the mechanics and the Yanmar agent I was told that parts would not be possible. Is Italy really a developed country. The best I could do was salvage the best of four bearings to reuse.

The next major project was the result of my own carelessness. While coming up the coast of Sicily I stopped at the city of Catania. I anchored off in a place set aside for anchoring. As in most other cities, the sewerage from the city is dumped into the harbor, making the water murky, dirty and difficult to see anything. In the anchorage I could see some stains in the water. I could only assume they were something under the surface. I assume one was the sewerage discharge pipe and a large concrete block to hold it in place. Knowing this I set two anchors, each to hold me off the stains with different wind directions.

After a couple of days of wind from one direction I felt I was too close, perhaps thirty feet, to the unknown obstacles. So when the wind shifted to the other direction, blowing me away from the nearest one, I took the dinghy to pull the anchor that was now loose and move it another thirty feet farther away. Well, of course, as soon as I pulled the anchor loose the wind shifted 180 degrees and blew me right into the stain. By the time I was able to get back to the boat I was already on top of one. They were the sunken frames of old fishing boats. Now I was on top of one and with a slight swell I was being lifted and set down on top of the wreck, soon to be one myself. Of course I could have, and should have, set a third anchor to hold me off while I reset the second anchor. I will in the future. The short of the story is that I cut several holes in one of my keels. A disadvantage of a catamaran is that they are made light, this means they are weaker and not made to be pounding on top of anything. An advantage of a catamaran is that the keels are separate from the hull and can be punctured without taking water into the boat. It took me an hour to set a third anchor and winch myself off the top of the wreck. This repair went pretty well.

The rest of this problem was damage caused to one of the rudders at the same time. The plywood core was damaged and after hauling out I could see that the stock was bent. When I could see the rudders clearly I knew I would need to rebuild both. Finding a shop to straighten or repair the stocks would be the problem. Giuseppe was instrumental in finding the best metal working shop and doing the translating. Then he took me to the place for marine plywood. I would need to cut laminated layers of plywood to approximate the form of the rudders, then sculpt them to the final shape before fiber glassing them. Here again Giuseppe was wonderful, he offered the use of his power tools, including a power planner for fast removal of the wood and a belt sander for easier sculpting of the rudder blade shape. After that my palm sander was able to do the finish work.

The remaining project was to renew the antifouling paint. I still had some of the paint I had bought in Malaysia, the same stuff that had been on since Thailand and doing a good job. I bought additional paint while in Italy. The project requires sanding off the old marine growth and roughing up the surface to give the new paint something to which to adhere. I use an airless sprayer for the purpose of applying the paint. This requires more masking and needs to be sprayed on relatively windless days. Still it is much faster than a roller, however it requires thinning. After thinning to the consistency for the sprayer, I sprayed the first coat on the waterline and leading edges, the first to wear off, so they get extra coats. For this I used the Malaysian paint, because I did not have enough to paint the entire hull with it.

The next day I was getting ready to paint the second coat. I noticed that the first coat had not completely dried so I waited for a few hours, doing other small projects. While I was cleaning and reassembling the sprayer I noticed that the piston pump was not moving freely. It is a small plastic piece, pushed from one side by a plunger and returned by a spring on the other. It should move freely through it's range of motion. I tried thinning the paint enough to pump it through the sprayer, it did not work. I finally gave up and started to paint with a roller, so much for all that time masking.

The next day while preparing to paint the final coats on the waterline and leading edges I noticed that the second coat had not covered well. The old color was bleeding through. When I checked the debris from the earlier work I discovered that the first coat was still not dry. This caused the colors to bleed. I was not certain what was going on here, but felt I needed to continue. It will dry, they always do. I did not have enough paint to completely paint the entire hull, so off to the paint store and buy enough paint for another coat. This time it covered well.

I was now ready for launch. The rudders could not be installed without lifting the boat, so that must wait until it was moved closer to the river bank where a hole could be dug under each rudder to gain enough height for the long stocks to be slid into the bearings from beneath. While handling the rudders I noticed that wherever I handled them the paint smeared, as though it was soft underneath, which it is. I assume this was an incompatibility between the paint and the thinner. Buying products with labels that I can not read does not give a warm fuzzy. I fear the thinner had something to do with the problems with the sprayer. Now I hope it will set while in the water. If not, I am not certain how to get that mess off the hull next time. Perhaps it will wash off over time, which is what it is suppose to do.

On July 10th the launch went well, pick up the boat, swing it over the water and let it down. I immediately went to the engine room where the gearbox had been removed. It had water squirting in through the gasket. I told the yard operator that the boat needed to come out again, which they did, set it on shore and went on with their business. If I was able to repair the leak I would be launched again. If not, I would be charged for another haulout and put back where I had been. In two hours I was able to remove the gearbox, replace the gasket and reinstall. Again ready for launch. This time all held well. It is still dry.

A couple of day sails tells me that to rudders are working well, the gearbox is working and a clean bottom allows the speed once enjoyed on this boat, eight knots is good. We should now be ready for the Atlantic crossing.

Sardinia could easily provide cruising for an entire season, it does for many Italian boaters from the west coast of Italy, offering many sheltered bays for anchoring. Still with the time pressure to get out of the Med this year we needed to make tracks. Andy and Deb joined me in Rome and would continue to the Balearic Islands of Spain. I was land touring Florence when they arrived on the boat. We had coordinated the key and other details by email. Our first move was an overnight to Sardinia from there we moved along the coast to Olbia the home of an exclusive resort facility catering to the rich and famous. Two hundred foot stinkpots appear small in this harbor. Andy and Deb were turned away from an outdoor bar one evening because they were not appropriately dressed. We continued to follow the coastline around the north end of Sardinia, enjoying the clear, even if a bit cool, water and very good sailing.

After sitting out a three day blow at La Maddalena we stopped at a small fishing village called Stintino, on the northwest corner of Sardenga. The high wind was well forecast by the cloud formations and the weather services. We had plenty of time to find a safe anchorage where we would have access to a town. We anchored outside the break wall, which would provide excellent protection from the expected northwest wind. I put two lines to big rocks ashore and used one anchor, in case we were swirled into the break wall. We were very safe.

When the weather settled we moved on to Spain, on the island of Minorca, the town of Mahon. The passage went well. We had a forecast of favorable winds, southeast. so of course it was on the nose, southwest, the whole trip, keeping us higher than our desired course. The last twenty miles the wind built to nearly thirty knots, which is only an inconvenience on RPhurst, from the direction we wanted to go, pushing us farther off course. We ended up twelve miles north of the island. Then by magic the wind stopped so we motored those twelve miles back south for our arrival. We ended up in a different bay than intended and needed to move the next morning to where we could check into the country. Today when I awakened and while writing this the wind is from the northeast, where was that the past couple of days.

The city of Mahon has another claim to fame. In earlier days a group of French dignitaries were being entertained by the leading politicians of Minorca. The chef had made his special sauce for the meal and everyone enjoyed it immensely. Course the Frenchman, being French, wanted the recipe for this wonderful sauce, which was gladly provided. It called for a combination of eggs, oil and seasonings, all whipped into a paste like substance. When the French used the recipe in France at least they acknowledged the source in the name, from the town of Mahon came Mayonnaise.

Andy was a real treat for the passage, doing all that was needed of him. Deb was more of a pain than she has been all along. She did not show up for a single watch, did none of the cooking and required Andy to wait on her, keeping him from keeping a good watch himself. Her time was spent in bed or sitting in the cockpit complaining. One of the requirements of crew for periods of passage is that they have done some sailing before. She told me that she had done several. I fear she did the same for those, sit back and bitch while others do the work. When I asked her about this she said that modern women do not take instruction from men, they want to read about it in books written by educated people that have won awards, clearly I do not qualify. Now I think I know the problem we have been having. The last straw was after she had dinner on the last afternoon, she had a beer. This was during the high winds and building seas. I told Andy not to give her anymore, so she went to the fridge herself. When I reminded her of our agreement to not drink while underway she replied that she had been allowed to drink on other boats, so I told her she could not have anymore until we were anchored, she looked at me and said, are you serious. I told her yes, I am, until we are anchored you can not be drinking, she put the beer back. Five minutes later she came out of deck with it, Andy tried to take it away from her and she put him down hard, then sat in the corner scowling, drinking her beer then staggering around on the heaving decks of the boat in moderate seas. Then she started on the rum. Is this another test of my patience. I later discovered that in her three weeks on the boat, three bottles of rum had evaporated.

For sometime I have known that the ProFurl and head stay needed attention. In 2002, while moving north in the Red Sea, I was doing a normal rig inspection and I discovered a broken wire, one wire out of a bundle of nineteen, on the head stay. I carry a part that is designed to repair just such a problem and was able to make the repair. I also needed to have a couple of stainless steel plates for the same repair. I wanted to have all of this repair replaced with new correct parts before the Atlantic crossing. Yet, it has held for three summers.

I decided to have it done in Palma, Minorca, Spain. What an expensive decision. The ProFurl did not need much for parts. The problem was a design flaw from the beginning. After I had a rigging shop take down the head stay and furler, it took two guys three hours at over fifty dollars each per hour, I looked over the parts and talked with one of the guys and we formulated a plan to repair my old one, he agreed. A small weld was all that was needed. Additionally it needed two grease seals. I checked with the shop a couple or weeks ahead of time to have them order parts, then they would be here when we take it down. I should have stuck to my guns. For several reasons they did not think we should order the parts ahead of time, we can have them in a day, is what they said.

I felt we could make up the new wire, I could put it on and take it down when the furler was ready. Finally after three days they agreed and made up the wire, the seal came the same day. Anyway, two seals were ordered and did not arrive in one day, or two days, or three days. The whole time I was without a head stay and a couple of halyards were holding up the mast. As I am too cheap to pay a hundred bucks a night for a marina slip I anchored out. Worried about every time a ship wake came by to rock the boat. The end result is that the parts arrived, the parts repair part of the work was done right at quitting time on a Thursday. Friday they had a big job that would require their entire workforce. So I was faced with putting the unit back up alone or wait until Monday for them to do it. I have had the head stay and furler down and back up by myself before so I was sure I could do it. I did the Red Sea repair alone while the French couple was land touring Luxor. Well an hour and a quarter later the unit was back up, holding the mast. Seems strange that it takes two professionals three hours to take down what a rookie can put back up in a bit over an hour, alone. Anyway well over six hundred dollars later I am back in business and ready to sail again.

Jan was scheduled to arrive in Minorca. After the repair I moved the boat to a bay a few miles out of Palma. This is an area of heavy tourist development, really all of Spain is. High rise hotels, bars that play all night, every other place along the street is a bar or restaurant, catering to the tourists that flock here year after year. I guess the sun shines more than at home, still I find it strange that Europeans will leave their home country during the summer to vacation on the Spanish coast, winter would make far more sense. Still those tourist developments offer most of what I need. I began provisioning the boat for the Atlantic crossing here. In hind sight I would have waited until La Linea, next to Gibralter. Jan and I spent a few days looking around Palma then set out for Ibiza where we were to meet Angela. Once we had the whole crew together we moved to the small island of Espalmadora, a lovely sand spit island with hot spring mud baths, lots of naked people on the beach, clear water and blue skies.

We next stopped at a place called Mar Menor, talk about a tourist trap. Mar Menor is a sand spit that connects two peninsulas and cuts off a large salt water lake. This spit is perhaps two to five hundred yards across, runs for perhaps ten miles and is covered with high rise hotels. As we approached I counted thirty two construction cranes putting up more hotels. Moving around in the area you see several partly finished and unused buildings, seems like some of these could be finished before any more are put up. We used this as a stepping stone to see Cartagena by bus. This is only a couple hundred miles from Gibralter where we were to be met by Deanna. After receiving an email saying she was ready to leave America we set out on a two night passage to get us into Gibralter ahead of her. I was very disappointed by the message I received from her when we arrived. She had a better offer, changed her mind and was jumping ship before she arrived. The problem was she had possession of my repaired auto pilot and two new G.P.S. units from America. Instead of flying directly to Gibralter to meet us 1 October, she joined another boat in Nice, France, after the date she should have arrived, then they sailed to Gibralter.

The rock of Gibralter is one of those sites recognized by most people, even non customers of that insurance company. It is a British colony, well developed, and priced for the comfort of the Brit tourists that frequent the place, which means high. Imagine living in a land where the sun rarely shines, would you not want to see someplace sunny and warm. The Rock has been much in demand over the centuries because of it's location overlooking the Gibralter straits. It and a similar rock on the Moroccan side were known as the pillars of Hercules, identifying the end of the known world. Outside was wilderness. The rock is honeycombed with 60 kilometers of caves, tunnels, caverns and rooms, some man made, others carved by Ma. One of the larger was converted to a hospital during WWII and is now an auditorium. The east end has been heavily fortified to keep out the Spanish invaders, who have been trying for the last two hundred years to get the rock back from the Brits. Now the ongoing attempts are being done politically.

When the Moors, Arabs, were in control they brought along a slice of home, the Barbary Apes, which still have a large community on the top of the Rock. A ride to the top and a wander through the different sites is a wonderful afternoon. You can hire a guide to take you into the caves and describe the origins and past uses of these caves.

As Gibralter is quite expensive and a work force is needed to do the work of a city many of the workers are Spanish, living in the city of La Linea. Sixty thousand cross the border each morning to go to work, then cross again at the end of the day. When politically important to do so, one or the other of the governments will close the border crossing for a few days. The crossing itself is a walking path over the runway of the airport. Gates will come down to keep the pedestrians off the runway if a plane is approaching. The landing times are given on the local news. La Linea is much less expensive, much more picturesque and far less developed than Gibralter.

Once checked into Gibralter the officials will keep an eye on you to be sure you are not crossing into Spain by dinghy. The anchorage on the Spanish side is said to not be safe and a network of cruisers all help each other with dinghy rides to shore and watching each others boats during absences for land travel.

While sitting in Gibralter we talked about trying to find a bull fight. When in Spain, you know. We first checked the tourist information booth and were told they do not know about bull fights. Then walking down the street one day I noticed a poster for a bull fight in a neighboring town. Taking a bus there on the day advertised we found a lovely small town of Tarifa. We did not however find the bull fight. It was not to be. With the problems of mad cow disease in Europe all transport of live animals is restricted. Hence no bull fight.

One of the needed parts we were waiting for was for the instruments. The wind display had failed after I left Italy, the manufacturer is in France so replacements should have been a piece of cake. I contacted the company in America that is their agent and they steered me in the right direction. That was the last time anything went right. I sent my white display and the control box to them from Palma, Mallorca and provided an address for the return. They returned a black display and tested the control box, which was working perfectly. When I contacted them about the color they replied that they did not have any white ones at the moment and would need to make one, a delay of one day. Given that the delivery was six days, I was now twelve days delayed in Mallorca.

I then gave them an address in Ibiza for shipment, it should have been there right after I arrived, it wasn't. Four days later and it arrived. Now when I hooked everything up I did not have depth, speed, log, water temp on the display, I did have the wind readings that were missing before. I called them and was advised that the control box was the likely problem. Of course I questioned the results of the testing done previously and was told that it worked perfectly while in their hands. So I provided an address in Gibralter for shipment and asked for expedited handling which is much more expensive but would arrive in three days. Five days later I called from Gibralter and was told that shipping to Gibralter was too expensive so they did not send the part. They asked for an address in Spain, just a walk across the border, which I provided by Fax. Seven days later the package had not arrived. This time they had provided a tracking number and I was able to trace the package, yeah right. An attempted deliver was made on Monday 18th October, after that no activity. I checked with the agent who was able to correct the address, I checked online, I called the customer service number, no one was able to tell me where the package was located. Each day of the last week was spent walking from one office, Fed Ex in Gibralter to the Spanish agent, then to the internet until finally on Thursday 21st it arrived. The problem was obvious, Frenchy had not addressed the package properly, or the way it was on the Fax. It was addressed to me in La Linea Spain. No wonder it was not delivered. Who could have found me with those directions.

After a couple of weeks waiting for parts that should have arrived in three days and the arrival of another crew that did not show up, we are finally ready to leave Gibralter and head out into the open ocean for the Canary Islands. The crew, Angela, Jan and Bruce seem to be working out well and we are getting along.

After all of that waiting in Gibralter for things to arrive we are finally underway. Only fifteen miles, this puts us at a place called Tarifa, Spain, through the Gibralter Straits and a straight shot SSE along the coast of Africa to the Canaries. For several months I have been contemplating a stop along the Moroccan coast. Places to see like Casablanca, Marrakech and Tangier bring thoughts of the exotic and inviting. We had met a few other boats going the same direction and agreed to meet on the SSB, long range radio, to exchange locations and other information of interest.

During our overnight stop in Tarifa while I was finding bread and produce for the week long passage ahead, the crew were in a bar, talking smart and getting in their last licks for a week. It was during one of these conversations where a young, Brit, woman, Doctor joined in with the information that she was going to begin a new job in the Canaries, the time frame was right and she had always thought about spending some time on a sailboat. They would need to await my return for the last details to be worked out. During the conclusion of that exchange another guy, Roy, a New Zealander, said I want to go also. Can you imagine my surprise when I returned to find I had two new potential, for a total of five, crew for the week long trip, both raw as a newborn babe. We were able to work through the details and agreed on a two pm departure the next day.

The crossing of the Gibralter Strait was not to disappoint us. Anytime you have tall land masses on both sides of a water passage you will find accelerated wind. During the night in Tarifa the wind shot up to 35-40 knots all night. In the morning I spoke with one of the other boats met in Gibralter that had already departed that the wind ends as soon as you are out of the Strait and moving south. This meant only about 25 miles of downwind high winds, RPhurst likes that kind of wind. Sure enough, when we rounded the corner and started south the wind died and we began a two day motor boat trip, putting up sail, taking down sail, trimming for the wind that would blow for an hour from one side then an hour from the other. I guess that is what is meant by light and variable.

The forecast and weather fax were showing a probable cold front about half way to the Canaries. This caused me to search the charts for a safe harbor to sit out the blow. We decided on Safi, a medium size fishing port. Did you know that Morocco is the worlds leader in export of canned sardines. On the way toward the coast we were repeatedly approached by local fishermen. Like fishermen everywhere, they do not have enough food, water, cigs or booze. I did give them water and food, no cigs or beer. They offered us sardines in exchange, they were great on the grill. We arrived after three days to find a pleasant, well protected harbor and yes, two days later we had the adverse SW wind predicted, glad we stopped. The wind speed was not that high, the sea would have been rough but not unbearable for seasoned sailors, which we were not. The worst part was that the wind was blowing directly from where we wanted to go. The decision to stop made perfect sense and we find ourselves with five other cruisers.

From Safi we were able to catch a bus to see Marrakech. It is a wonderful mix of old world Africa, Muslim, Arabic and a very poor people trying to hustle a dollar out of your pocket into his own. Interaction with women, except those sitting on an overturned bucket, small table in front of her with a few baked goods for sale or outright begging, is minimal.

The mosques are not as elaborate or grand as those in Egypt or Turkey, yet the people are very devote, attending to their prayers several times per day. Our visit corresponded with the month of Ramadan, a time when the Muslims can not eat or drink anything between sunrise and sunset, can not drink alcohol anytime, strange rule because alcohol is forbidden at all times, but they still drink, this is a bit like our lent with tighter rules.

The old walled city of Marrakech is a maze of very narrow, twisty streets, lined with two or three story residences on both sides often ending at a dead end. Many have been converted to mini hotels by well to do French investors. The real appeal is in the squares and the Souk, market. This is high density shopping at it's finest. Anything you could want. Fabric, hardware, water pipes, knives, large and small, clothes, new things made to look old, old things that need some care, food. You pick a live chicken and the guy makes it not alive and hands you the stove ready pieces. Small mosques are spread throughout the area. The largest square offers jugglers, snake charmers, story tellers, preachers, monkey handlers, orange juice sellers which is a traditional treat during Ramadan, after dark of course, dancing ladies covered from head to foot with fanciful clothing, finger cymbals dancing to the beat of drums and the sound of the horns. Now do not get your skirt in an uproar over the ill treatment of women in this society, these dancers are men and available to the men in the crowd. There is even a boxing demonstration, with boxers from five years old on up. Everyone wants a contribution to the hat, just remember to ask permission first, then negotiate the price, one to three dollars, then take the picture. The finale' is the siren, announcement from the minaret and the rush of people to the food stalls that demonstrates sundown and the end of Ramadan for another day.

Anywhere you go in Morocco you will find yourself tethered at the hip by a 'guide'. Want him or not he is there for the duration. They speak several languages, do know where things are found and are able to help you with directions and negotiations. They will also direct you to the shops that pay the highest commissions, read that as the highest price for you. The best is if you see something you like, go back without the guide for a better price, which is not easy to do because if he is not with you another will attach himself and not leave, whatever you say or do. Keep in mind the ten percent rule, you should buy at ten to twenty five percent of the asking price. At the end of the day he will expect a gratuity, if you are happy with the service five to ten dollars will do, if you are not happy with the service then offer nothing. No matter what amount you offer he will ask for more.

After four, cloudy, windy, rainy, yes it rains here occasionally, days we are about ready to leave, now I can only hope the crew all get back in time. Roy has been gone for three days.

After five days in Safi and Marrakech, the crew has returned with no visible wear, we are again underway toward the Canaries with two hundred ninety southwest miles to go. The time was spent exploring the towns which are made up of narrow winding streets filled to capacity with small shops, kiosks, shoppers, even small hand carts covered with a single layer of one fruit or vegetable. To be able to sell something is a form of income. When the rare car wants to drive down the street with much horn honking everything must be moved out of the way with a lot of shouting, gestures and flourish for passage. Motor bikes are able to navigate the crowd with few incidents with pedestrians. Given that the streets are full this is no easy task. As six o'clock approaches, the end of Ramadan, everything is packed up, put back, wheeled off, closed up in anticipation of the long awaited meal and drink, both of which are strictly forbidden during daylight hours.

The weather system that had caused our contrary winds, clouds and rain was reluctantly leaving. I had saved containers of rain water to be used for laundry and showers during the passage. The forecast was for variable winds and some cyclonic conditions. This all means the wind will not be steady. We left Safi at 1400 and motored the first six hours from Safi before the wind became northerly as predicted, the direction we wanted and we needed to run the water maker and charge battery so the hours of motoring were welcome. We were able to set the lightweight spinnaker at 2100 and turn off the motor.

A deep low pressure system in the north Atlantic, more than a thousand miles from our position, was giving us a constant moderate to large swell from the northwest. These rollers were up to four meters, twelve feet, large, round, gentle, several seconds apart and gave the boat a soft rise and fall for most of the passage. Then add to that the chop, which was being whipped up by the twenty knots of wind from the northeast that was providing the great sailing we experienced, with breaking waves sliding sideways along the large swell that would occasionally move us off course. All of this added up to conditions of less than perfect stomachs on a couple of the crew. No one was sick, just have felt better.

A good average mileage made good day for this boat is 150 miles, we averaged 145, so it was a nice passage. Never too much wind for the boat or me, may have been more than some of the crew would have liked. The reason I need crew for longer passages is that I can not stay awake for the second night and someone must always be on watch. I can only hope to educate crew during the day so I can get some sleep while I am off watch. Still the unavoidable sound interrupting my sleep, Bruce there is a light I can not identify, Bruce we are going pretty fast, Bruce I think the wind is shifting, Bruce I forgot how to ????. All of these are valid to the person asking them. Generally I only need to get up, dressed, on deck, look around and explain that if the light is too far away to identify then it is too far away to be a concern, that the boat is happy sailing at this speed it only seems faster at night, the wind is not shifting, just a gust or wave has pushed us off course momentarily, here is how this is done. Normally when the boat really needs something I will know it before the crew does. I will take in an extra reef in the sails before I go off watch and always set wind speed parameters for the sail we have up, these are not always passed on to the next watch.

As in other passages I try to be connected to a radio net, these will not give much help if needed but give comfort to some people. After leaving Gibralter we checked in each morning to give our position, conditions and receive weather information. This was how some of the boats decided to stop in Safi for the expected wind which would have made everyone very unhappy.

Each day of our passage showed warmer water temps. It is now seventy four degrees, seven degrees warmer than the Med. The days may be much warmer also, hard to tell as we have been here only one day.

The Canary Islands are not named for the bird; the bird was found here and known as the bird of Isla Canary, hence its name. The islands are located over an active volcanic area and evidence of recent eruptions is obvious. Rain is rare so erosion is minimal, leaving the rugged shape of the islands. The most recent eruption was in 1971. I understand the older, higher, greener and more stable islands lay ahead of us. Anchoring is difficult because of the depths, the angle of the underwater structure and volcanic ruble on the bottom.

The short term crew are gone, they only wanted a ride to the Canaries anyway. They left having sailed six hundred miles, learned a little and had a grand time. Alice, the young woman is a recent graduate and newly licensed Doctor is to begin work in the islands. Roy, a young traveler is hoping to catch a boat crossing the Atlantic much earlier than is advised. Surprisingly he worked in Minneapolis during the same years as I, small world. Angela has moved on also, she has friends with a place on Tenerife and will join them. She was fun and good crew although with very limited sailing experience. We will be joined by Hutch, a Brit, who intends to stay to the Carib.

The only reason to have a plan is so you have something you can change. For several reasons we are now in the Cape Verde Islands. The passage from the Canaries was not my fastest but was very good. We covered the nearly nine hundred miles in six days and four hours.

Before leaving the Canaries we had discussed the possibility of seeing the Cape Verde's. I did not wish to motor all the way here, it is about three hundred miles out of our way. Also, if the wind is blowing favorably, the way it is supposed to, northeast at fifteen to twenty is the normal trade wind, we would not want to waste any of that by stopping. Given all of this, and the fact that a deteriorated depression is laying in our path to the Carib, I felt we could make the additional stop. The boats that carried on to the Carib are experiencing rain, squalls, gusty high wind, heavy clouds and generally poor conditions. We are now seeing a place that can only reasonably be seen while crossing the Atlantic, from Europe to the Carib.

Our winds have been between fifteen and thirty five knots nearly the whole way, after the first couple of days that is. Our passage was not all that fast because we needed to motor, then motor sail, then sail the first two days out of Gran Canaria, the winds were light and variable. After that the wind filled in and we did two days of spinnaker, one day of standard main and headsail, then another day of spinnaker. Averaging one hundred seventy miles per day, after the first two, a very nice run indeed.

Wouldn't it be something if we do not need all of this extra fuel we are carrying. I have been gathering extra plastic fuel containers for the last several months for this passage, knowing very well that if I do not have enough fuel we will not have wind.

All passages are livened up and provide great stories ashore, by fishing. The passage from Gibralter to Safi produced a smaller Dolphin fish, no not flipper, about a two mealer for five of us, this passage produced a Wahoo, similar to a Mackerel, a very good eating fish. It weighed forty pounds and was five feet long, about a ten mealer. We gave away much of it to other cruisers, who are down on their fishing luck, on arrival at Mindelo, Sau Vincente. The water continues to warm; it is now eighty two degrees. During the passage we were faced with so much cross swell that on one occasion a larger than normal wave hit us at just the right angle and was high enough to slam into one of the side mounted portlights. These are non opening glass pieces mounted into a frame. The weight of the water was enough to burst the glass out of its frame and into the boat, followed by how many gallons of salt water. When I discovered this I knew I have the hardware pieces to make the glass solid in its frame, this will last until we get into the Cape Verde's.

The Cape Verde Islands are located at seventeen degrees north and about four hundred miles off the coast of Africa, are mostly volcanic, seem quite rugged, dry and barren. They are populated by a mix of ethnic groups, mostly African, with many oriental shop keepers. The islands were under Portuguese control for many years, the language is Portugese, with much of the population speaking English. It is said that this is the fifth poorest country in the world. Until recently the cruising community avoided coming here because you could not find provisions for the long passage after leaving here. This has changed and shopping is not that difficult, not much selection and the quality is poor, but then we can't have everything.

On arrival I was surprised when I started one of the engines to motor into the harbor and found that it had no push, still do not know why and will get into the water tomorrow and check it out. Another of the advantages of a catamaran is that you have two of everything, just start the other one. When we last used that engine, while motoring away from the Canaries, it was working fine. It turns out the propeller has fallen off, I dig out the spare and put it on. We expect to stay here only a few days, perhaps that depression and associated foul weather will abate and we can make a smooth crossing to Barbados.

We arrived Barbados at 1850, ten to seven pm for some of you, 28 Dec after sixteen days ten hours underway. This puts me within eighty four miles of finishing my once around. We will next go to St Lucia, there I will cross the latitude previously sailed. This is a milestone of sorts. I am proud of being able to make the claim to have sailed around the world.

Picking the time of a passage can be one of the most challenging of decisions. Several considerations enter into the thought process. Not the least of which are season, wind, developing pressure systems, timing for holidays and arrival times. After a quick and painless passage from the Canaries to Cape Verde we felt we could spend a few days exploring still another country and its peoples. One of the factors in deciding to stop at the Cape Verde Islands was the report of yachts ahead of us reporting squally, rainy, shifty and inconsistent winds in mid Atlantic. We felt these conditions should disappear in a few days. In hind sight we spent many days of good wind to see these islands. A boat is supposed to be able to rely on the trade winds when leaving the Cape Verde islands, it says so in all of the guides. Well read on.

The trade winds are created by a large high pressure system that develops and stays over the Azore Islands, hence it is called the Azore high. The circulation around a high in the northern hemisphere is clockwise. This means that in the area north of the equator to about twenty degrees north, between Africa and the Caribbean should have steady, reliable and consistent wind of fifteen to twenty knots from the NE.

Most world passages are done consistent with season. This means that many boats are moving in the same direction at about the same time. Often a radio net among the cruisers will be formed. This is where a few rotating volunteers function as net control, taking position and condition reports from different boats along the way. Once you check in with the net you are expected to check in daily. Weather forecasts and conditions are also reported by those of us that have access to weather fax. I made my contribution by downloading the weatherfax charts from the Miami Tropical Prediction Center in FL, this is broadcast by a station in New Orleans, LA., then broadcasting my spin on what the chart shows to the net listeners. While in Cape Verde and several hundred miles from there I could not receive these images, I had been relying on the charts out of England which end at Cape Verde, so it was nice to have them from someone else. These nets also provide a way to meet other cruisers and give the illusion that you are not really alone in your blue dot. We had about forty boats checking in each day with destinations of many different Caribbean Islands, some arriving most days, others beginning each day. One boat was dismasted during the passage, did not have enough fuel to motor to Barbados and was assisted by two other boats that diverted a hundred miles out of their way to supply fuel. There are also land based services which do essentially the same thing. The best known is Southbound II, more commonly known as Herb. He transmits out of Canada, Toronto I believe, has done so for years and is on every day. He talks to literally hundreds of boats in the north Atlantic, the Tropical Atlantic and Caribbean daily. Using high tech equipment, including computers tied to different meteorological services he dispenses information and advice regarding conditions, forecasts and routing. I do not regularly listen to him, it just takes too long.

Another consideration in stopping at other countries is the exposure to germs and other bugs to which we are not normally exposed. I picked up a bug in Safi, Morocco that settled in my chest and stayed with me through most of the passage, making sleep difficult with the coughing. Jan came down with a stomach upset shortly after leaving Cape Verde which lasted several days, Hutch began the chest congestion after a couple days into the passage. Everyone is fine, no one missed a watch and we seem to have few lasting affects. Still we were like the walking wounded for several days. Our watch schedule was four hours on and eight off with me assisting if something was needed or if the boat made noises it should not have been making. Each of us are expected to make dinner every third day. I feel everyone was well rested. It can be difficult to sleep in a boat that is moving quickly through the water because of the noise and motion can be disruptive along with the change in normal sleeping times. A couple of other boats in Cape Verde were treated to such stomach problems they delayed their departure because of it. Eating ashore is always interesting.

We enjoyed the few days in the Cape Verde islands. It is a very poor country. Still the people seem to be well fed, friendly and happy. The smiles are contagious.

We left Mindelo, Sao Vincente, Cape Verde at 0900, 12 Dec, with 2009 miles to go to Barbados. The wind was light. I felt this was merely being in the wind shadow of the island, hoping that with some distance the wind will pick up and be more consistent. No way, it remained light and variable for the first two days. We took a heading that was not directly toward Barbados, rather straight west along seventeen north, given the reports from other boats ahead of us reporting poor conditions closer to the equator I felt we should stay a bit north of the rhumb line. This proved to be a good choice.

While motoring we tried many different combinations of sails to catch what little wind was there. Nothing helped until the end of the second day. We were motor sailing in light wind at midnight, before 0400 I was reefing sails in twenty five knots from the NE. After that blow and sunrise we raised the spinnaker and left it up for the next six days, changing the halyard and guy positions daily to minimize chafe. A wonderful sail, we made regular one hundred seventy to one hundred eighty mile days, way too fast for fishing. When the waves of the different patterns would occasionally match each other, causing a larger than normal wave we would take off surfing down this wave often to speeds of ten and eleven knots. This is always fun in daylight, after dark it can be more intimidating.

After taking down the spinnaker for several squalls we discovered that the wind in the rain squalls was not more than thirty knots, so when we were overtaken by one we would leave the spinnaker up, turn away from the wind and by running away we were able to reduce the apparent wind to less than twenty knots. The moon was now beginning to make an appearance, so day or night we could see the clouds that caused the squalls coming. Often we could change course enough to have the cloud miss or just brush past. Few of them were more than a couple of miles across. During this time we had moderate cross swell, waves coming from different directions, caused by storms far away. The dream of passagemakers in the tradewind belt is to have a big gentle swell coming from behind, it rarely happens, when it does it will have a cross swell on top of the big waves. We often had the big waves, just not from behind. All of this is referred to as the washing machine, for obvious reasons.

On day seven we saw three small whales. I do not know my whales well enough to guess at the breed, only that they were about thirty feet long, light in color and paid us little attention. It was day eight before we caught a fish. A one mealer Dorado took our lure and we had him for dinner that night. They are one of the finest eating fish in the sea. Also on day eight we reached the half way point, the wind began to die and a low pressure area formed ahead of us. It was not a deep low but clearly it was going to adversely affect our wind. It first showed on the weather chart about one hundred fifty miles ahead and six hundred miles to the north of our heading. With the counter clockwise rotation of the wind around a low we knew it was not going to help us any, it proved to be a real pain.

The low was stealing our wind and detouring it a few hundred miles north of us before it would again head west so the next five days would be spent under a variety of sails, many squalls, some with lightening, shifty wind, we even had a day and a half of moderate SW wind, imagine that, SW wind in the tradewind belt where the wind blows steadily from the NE. At least it was strong enough to sail with instead of motoring into. This was slow. When the wind was behind us, while motoring we could raise the spinnaker for a little extra speed, every mile the wind moves us is a mile less the motor must push us. The problem was that with the moderate swell from far distant storms we would sort of surf down the wave and overrun the spinnaker, frustrating. We had plenty of fuel so I was not reluctant to run the motor to keep moving.

We then discovered that the small low, which did not belong there in the first place was following us west. This was to cause problems for several boats that were short of fuel. Once the low dissipated the trades filled in and the boats behind us were able to again sail. Unfortunately we had made landfall by then.

On day eleven Otto Pilot died. It happened late on Hutches shift, he did not wake me. He then Jan hand steered for her four hour watch and when she awakened me she informed me that Otto was gone. I merely said a few words for him, took out the backup unit and we again were mechanically steered. They were not overly surprised that I had a spare. The irritating part of this is that this is the unit I just received back from the service center, it did not last much over a month, disgusting service.

We celebrated Christmas underway. Jan outdid herself in the galley. We had enough food for ten. I did a turkey breast on the grill, cranberries that Hutch brought from the UK, dressing, mashed potatoes, cherry pie, a real feast.

As the wind began to fill in again we found ourselves dodging small squalls. With the moon nearing full we could clearly see them coming. Running an obstacle course of a steady stream of threatening clouds did slow our progress somewhat. We observed that again the clouds did not have more than thirty knots of wind, so if the spinnaker was up we would just leave it up and run off during the blow of just a few minutes before the rain started. In these squalls the wind comes first, then the rain, when the rain starts the stronger wind is finished. We caught water in buckets and did laundry the next day.

On the last day we caught our second fish. A four mealer Wahoo. We still had fish from the previous Wahoo so we had been not deprived.

The last thirty hours were a time for decision. We could sail slowly and stay out one more night, or run the engine and make it in the next day. Given that we had plenty of fuel combined with the failure of the backup Otto so hand steering was necessary, we ran the motor to make the distance for the next day arrival. While the wind was gusting we would easily make landfall before dark, when the wind would lull we would not. My normal thought is that I will not enter an unknown harbor after dark. The exception to this is commercial harbors where lights are working, no wrecks are allowed to block the fairways and some sense of order prevails. We were going into Port St Charles, a well lit commercial harbor, and arrived nearly one hour after dark, tied to the fuel dock where we were met by the officials and efficiently checked into the country.

Jan will be leaving the boat to join a friend coming down for a vacation, she intends to rejoin the boat in Grenada after a few weeks. Hutch left the boat to go snow skiing in Colorado. Jane joined the boat in Barbados. The plan is to be in Trinidad for Carnival in early Feb, then cruise around for the months until storm season begins, about June, then haul the boat to dry the hull, she has not been out of the water for more than a couple of weeks in eight years. I am not certain what I will do, possibly land tour South America, perhaps go back to the states for a time, will see.

So sorry if you are having cold and possibly snow, heh heh, we are suffering with ninety degree days of bright, clear, blue skies and gentle breezes from the east. Finally the water is warm enough, eighty four degrees, to jump off anytime, no shivers, no chills, no wet suit, a great way to cool off during the day. Put down the book and fall off the boat. Can you believe the government of Barbados does not allow public nudity, so no topless viewing on the beach, go figure.

Right after arrival here the computer failed. I took it into a shop and they pronounced it dead, the hard drive is not working. What a mess, all of my letters from the year, from which I write the annual letter, so many pictures, navigational programs with tracks, all gone. Being the stubborn person that I am, when I returned to the boat, I plugged in the computer and turned it on, one last attempt, it started, does not do everything it is suppose to do, many files have moved or can not be found, still I have access to my writing and have been copying them to a memory stick.

As always, if you enjoy this newsletter, let me know, if you do not want to receive this newsletter, please let me know.
Your friend,
Bruce Parnham