by Judy Handley | Dec 25, 2005 | Caribbean - Windwards, Sailing Logs Year 1 |
Days 67 through 69, Year 1: Caribbean Christmas
Date: Sunday, December 25, 2005
Weather: Perfect Tropical Christmas Day
Location: Wallilabou, St. Vincent
Arrrrrrr, Mateys. We are in the land of the pirates. Wallilabou is where Pirates of the Caribbean was filmed and as we sit here in the anchorage, much of the set is still in place along the shore. Wallilabou is a sleepy little place. We are moored on one of the five mooring balls just off the Wallilabou Anchorage Hotel and Restaurant and other than that, there is nothing but the set from the movie. You have to adjust your idea of “hotel” and “restaurant”, but it works in this setting.
As soon as we arrived on Friday, we walked up the road about a mile to a little waterfall with a bit of a basin for sitting in the cool water. We saw cows, goats, and a donkey on the way, and stopped at Mona’s Craft Shop. There were a few handmade woven items, but no fresh produce as we had read in the sailing guide. October and November are the rainy months when nothing can survive the deluge, so the crops are just now beginning to grow. Everyone seems to grow sorrel and dasheen. Sorrel is a bush with beautiful red blossoms that are used to make a drink (that tastes a bit like cough syrup). Dasheen is a root crop and when the leaves are young and tender, they are used to make Callaloo soup. On the way back, Justin, Mark, and I ventured out to visit the Goldenspoon Restaurant that we had read about in the cruising guide. Twins, Ron and Ronnie, are the owners and are trying to get a start. We had a great conversation with Ron and tasted the St. Vincent brew, Hairoun. This was the original name of this island prior to the arrival of Columbus. The Hairoun natives were driven out and replaced with slaves from Africa.
On Saturday, Christmas Eve, we walked to the next little town and then took a bus to Kingstown. As in St. Lucia, the buses here are minivans, but most have the name of the van painted brightly on the front-Apache, Roach, Love, Ranger, Chance, Circumstance. And these minivans drive the narrow roads like maniacs. “Time is Money” is their byline and they pack 17-18 people into the vans. At one point we rounded a curve and there were two men herding their goats on the road. There is no “side” of the road as the road is on the edge of a cliff falling straight down into the ocean. Somehow, the goats were spared, but we were certainly glad to get back to the anchorage safely. We had taken the bus to Kingstown to find an ATM machine and visit the market. Jed was in search of the beautiful nutmeg seeds covered with red mace and found success in the Kingstown Market Place. We then found a cab driver that would take us up in the mountains to the Vermont Trails. There is a river trail and a parrot trail, so we chose to walk the parrot trail through a tropical rainforest. The St. Vincent parrot lives here and we were lucky enough to see three of the one hundred that live in this forest as they flew from one side of the mountain to the other. They were in the distance, but we felt lucky to have gotten a glimpse of this endangered species. When we returned, we decided to have dinner at the Anchorage Restaurant. We met Jake and Kathy from Virginia and celebrated Christmas Eve together. Jake and Kathy charter in the Caribbean once or twice a year and had some great tips for us. We also met the crew and visitors on Linda, a boat from Helsinke headed around the world. They are a young crew and we plan to meet them again in Bequia in the next week. They have a website that we have not been able to check out yet at Linda.fi.
Christmas Day began with the traditional opening of stockings and a few gifts, followed by breakfast and a very untraditional afternoon of snorkeling/snuba adventures. Snuba gives us a way to do shallow diving without tanks, and Heather wanted to help us feel a little more comfortable using the gear. We all tried it out and saw an amazing array of reef fish, including a couple or rare finds – spotted drums, a bridled burrfish, and a chained moray eel on the prowl. We have decided that Justin really is a fish. He swims and dives with and without equipment all day long, but I think we wore him out this day. Heather, Jed, and I went out for a sundown snorkel, but Mark and Justin decided that they had had enough. We ended our Christmas Day with another dinner at the restaurant, followed by homemade pumpkin pie and whipped cream back on the boat. We had a great time with our Christmas crackers (we’ve nicknamed them “poppers”) and fell into bed for a long winters (hot) sleep.
by Judy Handley | Dec 22, 2005 | Caribbean - Windwards, Sailing Logs Year 1 |
Days 65 and 66, Year 1: It Doesn’t Get Any Better Than This
Date: Thursday, December 22, 2005
Weather: Sunny and 83 degrees F
Location: Soufriere, St. Lucia
I wrote the last log on Tuesday morning, just before leaving Rodney Bay for Soufriere. I forgot to mention in that log that we were going to do a little sailing detour on the way to Soufriere to anchor by the Vigie airport and have Justin and Heather dinghy into the terminal which is right on the beach. Justin had brought artichokes with him as a Christmas surprise, but they had quarantined them on arrival and said that he could pick them up in 24 hours. Heather and Jed had left one of their dive bags at the airport, so we were hoping we could pick up both things. We decided to sail in instead of take the taxi, and in the end, it was actually quicker by water than by land. H & J were both successful and Tuesday evening after arriving in Soufriere, we had an artichoke feast followed by dessert that Justin had also brought with him-very large chocolate covered cherries. Since artichokes and chocolate covered cherries are two of my very favorite things, I truly enjoyed the Christmas surprise.
After the airport stop, we continued on down the coast to our next stop at Anse Cochon. We grabbed one of the mooring balls there and snorkeled for about an hour, saw some incredible fish, and then headed on into Soufriere. This coast of St. Lucia is all part of a management park and you have to use the park moorings instead of anchoring. The moorings we were hoping for on the north side of the harbor were already full, so we headed over to the south side. We were greeted by couple of kids in a pirogue offering to help us with the mooring line. This is standard practice here and you basically have to accept their offer and then pay them. Some cruisers find this practice offensive, but many of the people we met in Rodney Bay explained that for the most part, the people doing this are just trying to earn an honest dollar. The guys who came to help us were on a boat named “My Toy”. Their names were Steven and Jason and they told us they would take care of our every need, for a price, of course. They were very friendly and offered to bring us ice and fresh bread in the morning. We thought that sounded like a great idea, until they brought the things the next morning and then told us the price. We haggled a bit and settled on a price that seemed reasonable to us, but realized that we should always ask about the price first. As they were leaving we saw that a couple of the moorings on the other side of the harbor were now available, so we decided to move the boat. We told Steven and Jason that we could handle the lines on our own, but we did want them to come back at 1600 to watch the boat while we all went to dinner. The park ranger had suggested that this would be a good idea, so with those details in order, we set out for a day of diving. Justin and I took a resort course while Heather and Jed did their first dive of the day, and then in the afternoon, Heather, Jed, and Justin did a dive together. We were working with a dive guide named Chester from Action Adventure Divers and he has been phenomenal. Since Justin and I have never been diving, we had to do the resort course before they would let us dive. Mark and I had taken a course, but I needed more practice with a guide. Chester was the perfect choice. He was able to work me through my fear of clearing my mask underwater and I thought no one was going to be able to do that. While we were diving, Mark stayed on the boat repairing the head sail that was damaged in our passage. He was a little disappointed in the performance of the new Sail Rite sewing machine, but in the end was successful with his repairs.
We had decided to go to a resort near here for dinner to a restaurant called Dashene. The cruising guide said it has the most incredible view in the Caribbean, so we decided we had to try it. Since we have been very few places in the Caribbean, there’s no way to know if it truly does have the best view, but the view was just breath taking. It is high on the mountain and you look out to the ocean below and the Pitons rising straight out of the ocean and up to sky. Just before leaving the boat for the evening out, we had seen a full rainbow that seemed to start in Soufriere and end at our boat. The colors were so vivid it almost looked fake. None of us had ever really seen the violet in ROY-G-BIV, but it was quite evident in this rainbow. We actually thought the restaurant view couldn’t top the rainbow, but it did. Unfortunately, we once again had forgotten to question Steven and Jason about the cost for the evening of water taxi, land taxi, and boat watching, and when we returned from an incredible evening, we once again found ourselves haggling over the cost of their services. Hopefully, we will learn how to deal with this and ask all questions up front. Once we recovered from this little ordeal, Heather and Mark had another Christmas surprise. Mark had bought the DVD’s, White Christmas and Miracle on 34th Street. He knows both Heather and I love to watch these old movies, so we ended the evening watching White Christmas. Another fantastic day.
The diving and snorkeling here is wonderful, so we decided to stay here an extra day. Today has been filled with more dives and more snorkeling, and sometime just after mid-night, we will head to St. Vincent. We will leave during the night so we can arrive early and hope to get our choice of anchorage in Wallilibou, St. Vincent. So far, we have had a wonderful time here with our children and we are hoping for more of the same in St. Vincent.. It really doesn’t get much better than this.
by Judy Handley | Dec 20, 2005 | Caribbean - Windwards, Sailing Logs Year 1 |
Days 62 through 64, Year 1: The Kids Arrive Safely in St. Lucia
Date: Tuesday, December 20, 2005
Weather: Sunny and 83 degrees F
Location: Rodney Bay, St. Lucia
Yesterday, our daughter Heather, her husband, Jed, and our son, Justin arrived here in St. Lucia. They had a bit of a delay in San Juan, but still arrived before sundown. We are so excited to have them here for a week and to be able to share some of our adventure with them. But here it is, another beautiful day in paradise, and the parents are up and the children are sleeping in. Of course, it is not yet 0800 Eastern Standard Time, but it is an hour later here, and it is probably time to get them up. Some things never change!
A topic of conversation last night was the weather. The temperature varies only a few degrees here from morning through the night. It is just in the mid-80’s all the time. Clouds float by and sometimes drop a quick rain, but then the sun is always back out shining full tilt. Justin said to me last night, “Mom, I don’t think you understand. You weren’t just transported here in a few hours from Boston. It’s really cold back there.” I know. And that’s one reason we are here. There’s not much you can be sure of, but I think I can safely say that we will not have snow here on Christmas day.
I need to go back a couple of days and catch up on things. On Sundays, everything but the restaurants are closed here, so we spent the day here on the boat getting ready for the arrival of the kids. I baked bread, made salmon cakes to store in the freezer for quick meals, made spinach balls, and cleaned the boat. Just like home. Well, it is home. Anyway, after a busy day we treated ourselves to dinner out on Sunday night. There is one restaurant out here where we anchored. It is located in the national park on Pigeon Island and is a little more than a stone’s throw from where we are anchored. We dinghied over and enjoyed a fantastic evening. Caf� Jambe de Bois is owned by Barbara . The restaurant is an internet hot spot (check your e-mail via wi-fi while having your favorite drink and watching the sun go down), a bit of an art gallery, and on Sunday nights, it becomes a live jazz music center. Tables are scattered out on the lawn, on the deck, as well as inside. We sat on the deck overlooking the water, enjoying fantastic food, and listening to great music. Monday was spent grocery shopping, replacing the starter battery (the cell was cracked), and getting the boat ready to house three more adults for a week.
The kids arrived in Vigie, a few miles south of here around 1700. We kept in communication during the day via sat phone. Heather’s cell phone works here, so she was able to call us with flight delay information and the new arrival time. They took a taxi from the airport to the Rodney Bay Marina where we met them at Scuttlebutt’s, the marina bar and grill. After a round of rum punches and local beers, we hailed a water taxi to take the massive luggage to the boat. Heather and Jed brought all of their dive gear, so the bags were many and large. We got everything tucked away on Windbird and just enjoyed the evening together.
Today we sail down the coast of St. Lucia to Soufrierre. I’ll check in tomorrow evening to let you know how the sail goes today and to recount tomorrow’s day of diving and snorkeling.
by Judy Handley | Dec 17, 2005 | Caribbean - Windwards, Sailing Logs Year 1 |
Days 60 and 61, Year 1: Loving Rodney Bay
Date: Saturday, December 17, 2005
Weather: Beautiful
Location: Rodney Bay, St. Lucia, West Indies
What a great place! We are still anchored out by Pigeon Island in Rodney Bay. Pigeon Island used to be an island and was a British fort. A causeway now connects the mountainous island to the mainland and we sit here beneath the two towering volcanic hillsides. We have met some of the live-aboards in this anchorage, have watched many sailboats come in and out of here, and have had two Windjammer cruise ships come in and out as well. When they come in, the area changes quickly, and thankfully, temporarily. The beautiful little beach in front of us is instantly transformed when these ships come in. They bring in lawn chairs and fill the beach with horizontal rows of perfectly spaced chairs. The tourists are delivered to shore and sit in the chairs for a couple of hours and are then whisked away. The chairs disappear and ships sail away. Things once again return to normal. Today we caught a bus down to the Castries to go the open market. Most sailors take the taxi which costs about $15 US, but we chose the bus as it costs only $1 US. There were no other white people, but we are getting used to being in the minority. In the Rodney Bay Marina, white and black mix in equal numbers. When we arrived in the market area in Castries, however, we were the only white people in sight. We walked to the market area, but even there we were the lone white folks. During the afternoon, we did see two other white couples. The unemployment rate here is 40 per cent and I think the locals just wait and hope that some tourists will come to visit in order to make a sale. It is going to take me awhile to get used to the bargaining techniques required for successful market shopping, but I know I will get the hang of it soon. The buses here are minivans with extra seats installed. They cram about 14 people in them and then off you go. The terrain here is hilly and the roads are narrow and windy. There is a fair amount of traffic and traveling is “interesting”. There are skinny cows on leashes in small pastures that look more like front yards, renegade chickens running here and there, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Domino’s Pizza, and Texaco stations everywhere, and JQ’s IGA grocery stores everywhere. JQ has a corner on the market and owns all the food stores. Tonight we visited with Pete and Patti who live on their catamaran in this anchorage. They have two children, Danny, aged 3, and Tommy, aged 2. While we were there visiting, a local man from St. Lucia came to visit with two of his four adopted children. Another woman rowed over to visit. Her name is Di and she lives on her 27 foot boat with her husband, Phil. Interesting people are everywhere. We feel very much at home here. It is comfortable and the people are friendly. And we are learning so much – about the people, the landscape, the total environment. And we are loving it.
by Judy Handley | Dec 15, 2005 | Caribbean - Windwards, Sailing Logs Year 1 |
Day 59, Year 1: Finally . . . A Perfect Day in Paradise
Date: Thursday, December 15, 2005
Weather: Beautiful Day, 86 degrees F
Location: Rodney Bay, St. Lucia
We made it to Rodney Bay here in St. Lucia around 1315 this afternoon. And finally, we have had a day with no challenges. In fact, it has been a perfect day. Yesterday continued to go down hill after I filed the log. To make a long story short, the Coast Guard from Guadeloupe came up beside us while we were having a very difficult time reefing the main. Our problem was the lazy jacks that catch the sail when it is lowered was caught under the sail, but we didn’t know it. While trying to talk to the Coast Guard and answer their routine questions on channels that were not clear and a language barrier to boot, we managed to rip the Doyle stack pack sail cover. This was the perfect ending to what had already been a very bad, no good, terrible day. But today was a different story.
I came on watch this morning at 0330. I was finishing reading Pat Henry’s story of her solo circumnavigation and motor sailing along the coast of Martinique. Because of the almost full moon, the night sailing was beautiful. At about 0445, the first light of a new day was just beginning to peak through in the eastern sky. There were shades of pink streaking through the sky that had been dark just minutes before. When I turned to look behind me, the almost full moon was getting ready to set. There were clouds on the western horizon and the moon just sunk into those clouds and ended the night. The sun came up and a new day was beginning. As soon as we got out of the lee of the land and headed across to St. Lucia, we were able to set sail and had a delightful sail in 20 knot easterlies. There was a line of sailboats heading into St. Lucia from the northeast and as we found out once we got here, the ARC boats were coming in one after another. The ARC is the Atlantic Rally for Cruisers and the boats had come from Europe by way of the Canary Islands. St. Lucia is the final destination and there is plenty of celebration in Rodney Bay tonight.
We decided to anchor out by Pigeon Island instead of going into the marina area in town. This was not our plan, but as we came into the bay and I looked over at the anchorage, I couldn’t resist it. There is a beautiful beach in front of us and lush, green hills to our left. There is a very fancy resort to the right and in front of us, but I am choosing to ignore that. As soon as we anchored, all of the tension of the past few weeks finally just slipped away. The water is deeper here than in St. Martin, so it is not the beautiful turquoise here at anchor, but we can see the shallow water closer to the beach. Mark had to go check into immigration alone as crew must stay on the boat until the captain checks in here, so I have not seen town yet. But there will be time for that tomorrow or the next day. Coming here was a good decision and now it is time to relax and enjoy.
The sunset here was gorgeous tonight with lots of red sails. The full moon is up in the eastern sky and there is music in the air. It doesn’t get much better than this.
by Judy Handley | Dec 14, 2005 | Caribbean - Windwards, Sailing Logs Year 1 |
Day 58, Year 1: Engine Doctor to the Rescue, Again
Date: Wednesday, December 14, 2005, EST 1600
Weather: Mixed Bag
Air Temperature: 82 degrees F
Location: South End of Guadeloupe
If this were a board game and the goal was to successfully survive challenges thrown at you every time you make a move, then we would definitely win. Since setting sail from Boston on October 18, we have had one challenge right after another. And today was no exception. We sailed overnight by the light of an almost full moon. We passed one island after another, and shortly before daybreak we had a great view of the mountain lava flowing down the side of the volcano on Monserrat. At 0700 we checked in with Dave and Pam Gwinn, friends from Shipyard Quarters, who are spending the winter in the Bahamas aboard Jubilee. We talk with them by radio every couple of days. At 0730, we tried to listen in to the Caribbean Weather Net, but we were motoring and for some reason, we have had a lot of extra radio noise when the engine is running. I slowed down and turned off the engine so that Mark could hear the report. Here comes the challenge. You guessed it. When I tried to restart the engine, nothing. Not one single solitary sound. I double checked to make sure the gearshift was in neutral. It was. And still nothing.
The day went downhill from there. While Mark was checking things out, I tried to use what little wind there was to head us south. The wind picked up and we were able to sail to the north end of Guadeloupe. Then, no wind. We were getting 3 to 4 knots and moving ahead at about 1 knot. All the while we were trying to figure out what could be the problem. Mark checked the battery dedicated to starting the engine and it was fully charged, all connections were tight, and the ground was securely fastened. Still the engine would not turn over. It would “click, click”, and then it was silent. We decided to use the satellite phone to call David Laux, our engine doctor back in Delaware that installed the new Yanmar, but he was not at home. We called our contact at Mack Boring, Jack Law, and he connected us with an engineer. We did everything he told us to do, and still nothing. His conclusion was that we had a bad starter. I asked him how that could be since the engine is brand new. Of course, he had no answer. We got the names and numbers of Yanmar contacts in Martinque and St. Lucia, and contacted the St. Lucia shop first. They were very helpful and said that if we could get there by tomorrow, they would take care of us as soon as we arrived. They even gave us the cell phone number of someone who would come to the boat if we arrived after shop hours. That was encouraging.
There was still very little wind. We put up the spinnaker and tried to sail wing and wing with the head sail. We were going a whopping 1.5 knots, but at least we were moving south. We continued to try and reach David, and did get through to his wife Donna. She gave us a number where we could reach David around noon. We connected, he listened, and then said that times in his life, he has seen a battery register as fully charged, but not have enough amperage, possibly caused by cracked cell. And yes, our battery is brand new, but he still thought that was the problem. He had Mark make a connection from the main battery bank to the starting battery and try to start the engine. Bingo! That was the problem. David is a genius. We just need to find a way to entice him to sail around the world with us.
With all the delays, it was going to be early evening before we could get into the anchorage on the south end of Guadeloupe, so we have decided to just keep sailing through the night and stop tomorrow either in Martinque or go straight to St. Lucia. I didn’t handle this challenge very well and am realizing just how tired I am. The more I look around the boat at the things that were damaged from the rough passage to St. Martin, the more I realize that a few days of just sitting still sounds really inviting. So we will probably sail to St. Lucia tomorrow and stay in Rodney Bay until the kids arrive on Monday.
