Eyes of the World

Who’s peeking out from under the stairway, calling a name that’s lighter than air,

2008-03-10T10:37:00.007-04:00

Who’s bending down to give me a rainbow….everyone knows it’s…

Guadeloupe is little piece of France plunked right down in the middle of the Caribbean Islands. It has a personality distinctly French and both Jim and I agree; it is our favorite Island.

We first made landfall on this epicurean Mecca, at an anchorage off of a small fishing village called Deshaies (pronounced day hey, like HEY…how’s your DAY? Or got any HAY toDAY?) The cruising guide we use describes Deshaies as a delightful anchorage with great French restaurants and good holding; which means your anchor will not drag, which means you won’t wake up in the middle of the night, look our your portal (window) and see right into the portal of a boat that used to be 100 yards behind you. Our Northern Virginia readers are used to looking out their windows and into the windows of their neighbors. It’s not nearly as acceptable for this to happen on boats. The guide also mentions in passing that the anchorage has one little quirk caused by the position of the hills behind the village. They form a saddle which funnels the wind blowing over the north eastern part of the island right through Deshaies. I bet if I look up Deshaies in a French dictionary, I’ll find that it means windy as a sombitch, as in, Got any HAY toDAY? Hell no, it all blew away. For as windy as it was, the cruising guide should have gone into a bit more detail. We had no idea what was in store for us.

Another reason Jim and I love the French islands is that they LOVE dogs. Unlike the British islands, where rumor has it, they make pies out of them. Remember Sweeney Todd? He started with cats then moved to dogs and he was British. I think I’ve adequately made my point. So, with the dogs in the dinghy, and a light but suspiciously increasing September breeze blowing, Jim and I headed for “the cute fishing village” in search of an authentic French meal served in a restaurant where we would have no problem dining with our dogs.

Because it was September, a month fraught with hurricane possibilities, and every other sane sailor was way further south than we were, almost all of the restaurants in Deshaies were closed. We did happen upon a place that looked inviting. I asked the hostess in my most proficient French if we could dine with our dogs. She replied in a French that was both spoken quickly and with a Caribbean accent that her establishment did not, under any circumstances, cook dog; and that I might find a British island more to my liking. Sheepishly I explained that we just wanted to eat WITH our dogs not with our dogs covered in a beure blanc sauce. Her manner improved remarkably and we were seated at a table on a terrace overlooking the bay. She lit the candle on our table which promptly blew out, handed us our menus, lit the candle again, asked if we wanted still or sparkling water and then lit the candle one more time. My but that wind is really picking up!

The restaurant must have had seating for at least 100 people but Jim and I were the only ones dining. In spite of the windy conditions, we had a delightful meal while enjoying both a great bottle of French wine and the company of our dogs. We paid our bill, got back into the dinghy and I swear, without turning on our outboard engine, were blown the 600 feet back to our boat.

Sleeping that night was cool, cool, cool. Sleeping that night was loud, loud, loud. Man did that wind howl through our ringing, our hatch (skylight) and our nerves. It wasn’t until the next morning when we realized we had anchored in the windiest spot of a windy anchorage. We moved the boat, got a respite from the wind and thoroughly enjoyed the next two days in Deshaies.

We were in Antigua before Deshaies and in St. Barts before that. Jim usually takes care of checking us through customs and immigration when we arrive and before we leave an island. In St. Barts, I thought I’d give him a hand with the checking out. He usually seems a little bit frustrated when he gets back from the Customs and Immigration office so I figured since we were on a French Island and I did speak some French, this would be a good opportunity to score some points with Jimmy. We had pulled Eyes of the World up to the Custom’s dock in Gustavia and were filling up with water in preparation for our sail to Antigua. With the boat documents in hand, I headed for the Customs office. I had all of the immigration documents and the passports out and in hand when I stepped up to the counter. I’ve watched too many boat captains get reprimanded at the Customs counter when they start digging through their backpack looking for their documents. So, with my papers all in order, I exclaimed in my best French, “We are ready to go.” To which the Customs man said, “I am so happy for you.” While that wasn’t the response I expected, I decided to run with it. “Thank you for your kind thoughts, how much do we owe you?” At that point, he seemed to lighten up and said something like “Eight Euro.” I offered him the money and the boat documents. He took the cash but wasn’t interested in the boat docs. I commented that when we checked in, we told him that our next port of call would be Guadeloupe but that we had changed our mind and were heading to Antigua. “Do you need to change that on the boat’s papers?” I asked. “Non”, was his short but direct reply. “Do I need a receipt or do you need to stamp our passports”, I asked? Again with the “Non”. Being the record keeper on the boat, I managed to get him to stamp the Customs receipt with some official looking stamp and then had him sign it as well. He wasn’t keen on either task; however, I do like to keep things in order so I insisted.

I proudly informed Jim that Customs and Immigration had all been taken care of and we were cleared to leave. Off we sailed to the British island of Antigua. After a very nice overnight sail, we navigated Eyes into Jolly Harbour, Antigua. The first step after arriving in a new country is to visit Customs and Immigration and clear in. Up until this point, we had only cleared into one French island, one Dutch island and then another French island. Antigua was our first British island and we were kind of expecting the same procedure. Nope. The first thing we were told was that we needed to go to an internet café, pay to hire a computer, go to a website and fill out a form online. Then we were to pay to have that form printed and bring it back to Customs. Apparently, the people of Antigua are trying to rid the island of a pesky little thing called penmanship. The immigration office had forms, they had computers, they had staff and they only had us as customers…oops…troublemakers.

Like the un-pushy Americans we strive to be, we dutifully headed to the internet café, tugged on the door and almost dislocated a shoulder. It was 10:30 in the morning, the sign said the place opened at 9:00 and the sign on the door said OPEN. Hmmm. I understood the French signs in St. Maarten and St. Barts….what were these English Islands up to? Thinking that it was a time zone thing and that factored in with the Island time thing might mean that a place that says it will be open and in fact says that it IS open, might be opening soon. We waited an hour outside the closed OPEN café until we finally gave up and went back to Customs. To our surprise, the place was packed…with the same two Customs officers sitting in front of the same two computers doing god knows what (AOL chatroom…IMing important government business with someone with the screen name jnkindatrnk). I put on my best please-oh-please-god-help-me face and proceeded to start the mind control. I knew that I had to convince one of these two guys to use their government computers to do a little government work. It took me 10 minutes (impressive!) to convince the first guy to help me. It took him 30 minutes to convince swngindafrntporch (his AOL screen name) to stop chatting with jnkindatrnk and let him use the ONE computer in the immigration office actually hooked up to the internet to do a little immigrating.

Soooo, with the forms finally printed, we head to Customs where we are asked for our exit documents from our last port of call, St. Barts. With all the flourish of one who knows with confidence that the hard times are over, I produce the stamped and signed receipt I insisted on (and at this point I need to add how proud I was of myself for asking for the signed and stamped lifesaving document) from the Customs man in Gustavia. The Customs man in Antigua, and I kid you not, looked at the paper and said, “This is a receipt for water.” Drat. Foiled again.

Upon closer examination, the French word l’eau did appear many times on the official Customs document I had secured, but in my defense, we are a sailing vessel traveling on de l’eau.
It took me 45 minutes of pleading to convince the Customs man that while I thought I was checking out, the Customs guy in St. Barths thought I was just paying for my water. Back to the French books for me. I tell you all this because when we finally left Antigua and sailed to the windy village of Deshaies, we had to check into Customs. I knew better than to take on this task myself, however, I did go to the Customs office with Jim so I could provide moral support if needed. But lo and behold, we were back in France where the dogs are loved, the winds are strong and you can check into to Customs with a note you wrote yourself upon which you forged your parents signature saying you had permission to enter the country. They smile, stamp your passport and let you in. They even have candy on the counter. God I LOVE France.

Auld Langsyne

2008-01-15T09:48:00.000-04:00

When you think about where you’d like to spend your New Years Eve, what comes to mind? I’ve certainly had years that involved being around way too many people. However, in the end I’d always want to be with Rick. I also like to be in the thick of things as well, so I could amend that by saying Rick and a party.

This year was again a new experience for me. We sailed from Chatham Bay to Clifton, the main harbor on Union Island. We spent one night here to get some additional groceries and have a look around the town. It was a very pleasant town and everyone was very friendly.

The harbor is protected by a reef to the east. There are two small islands within the reef. The first is Green Cay and the second is Happy Island. Green Cay doesn’t have much on it other than crabs, palm trees and the occasional Cocker Spaniel. Happy Island is just a bar. I’m not kidding. The entire island is a bar and you can only access it via your dinghy. Everyone there certainly seemed happy – we observed from a distance.

The next day we left for the Tobago Cays. When you’ve spent so much time in the Caribbean, you start to realize that the names of places don’t always give you information on where they are. For example, you might expect the Tobago Cays (pronounced keys) to be near Tobago. But they are actually part of the Grenadines and are nearly 100 miles north of Tobago. I guess in the scheme of things, they are close – but it can cause confusion for family and friends when we tell them where we are.

The Tobago Cays are described as “serene anchorages in gin-clear turquoise waters, good holding on sandy bottoms, scenic coral reefs, all caressed by the constant trade winds.” I’d describe the water as vodka-clear, but despite that small change they lived up to the description. They are protected by a reef to the east which is unlike most anchorages that have an island to block the wind and seas. This allows for beautiful sunrises and a clear view into the Atlantic while the seas are very calm.

We had a quite New Years Eve with Chris and Margit in this beautiful anchorage. We departed on New Years Day for a short sail to Petite St. Vincent and spent the night there. The following day, we made our way to Carriacou, which is an island that is north of and part of Grenada.

(written in February)
We ended up spending quite a long time in Grenada, but have decided it was our second favorite island save Guadeloupe. Will write more to detail what has happened since that time.

Keep the comments coming. Don't be shy.

Ogling the Caribbean from the "Eyes Of The World" by a Chain Flaker in Training

2008-01-11T08:50:00.000-04:00

Jim's Comment: Another guest blog from my Uncle Steve

VHF Radio: "Eyes of the World, Eyes of the World switch 14"

My first adventure in the Lesser Antilles began when my America Eagle ATR72 TURBOPROP (travelling panache to give the illusion of experience) flight from San Juan landed in front of a solitary building that looked very much like Aunt Pearl’s cinder block house in the mountains of south central Pennsylvania. So this is Melville Hall (the name of the airport in Dominica) I thought.

I then arranged with Fred (I dunno, short for Freddo?) my taxi driver to take me to the police station in Portsmouth explaining to Fred that I wasn’t a parole violator or otherwise wanted but instead my nephew had instructed me to meet him there as the easiest destination in Portsmouth that could be described without a chance of confusion.

This trip of an hour that required crossing the mountainous northern neck of Dominica from west to east allowed me to view the beautiful natural beauty of Dominica

The Sisserou Parrot, probably the oldest species of Amazon parrot in the world, is protected and it is found only in Dominica.

The plant honored as the National Flower is a wild one known scientifically as Sabina Carinalis, commonly known as Carib Wood or Bois Caribe, it was legislated as the National Flower in 1978.

and at the same time the devastation wrought by hurricane Dean, the third most intense Atlantic hurricane (tropical cyclone in the Caribbean) ever to make landfall.

It also gave me a perspective of the poverty of the island that does not have the beaches that are so necessary to develop the beach resorts that attract so many tourists’ dollars to the Caribbean.

Interestingly in spite of its poverty the Dominicans (the people of Dominica not the Republic nor the order) have an excellent longevity.

"To us, she is the oldest person in the World, Elizabeth "Pampo" Israel, Born: January 27, 1875!"

Arriving in Portsmouth my expectations based on the many different Portsmouths I have visited in the English speaking world were let down to find a very third world looking town. (But then again Dominica is Creole French speaking.) Fred pulled up to the police station, which as far as I was concerned could have just as well been a bar, and there was Jim sitting outside.

Jim’s timing introduced one of the many skills of Jim and Rick had honed on the sea and on the land in the Caribbean, i.e. being able to calculate the timing of a series of events which could easily be interrupted by all kinds of variables, such as the weather, inefficiency, animals on the road etc.

Jim then with a fluidity of motion (which also became typical of so many series of actions that Jim and Rick performed from sailing to cooking to cleaning out the plumbing [the most fluid of all], gave me a hug, took my bags, pointed me in a direction to walk with him to the dingy, lowered himself in the dingy, positioned the dingy so I could lower my bags and then myself into the dingy (at the best angle to prevent me from falling in the water in despite my clumsiness), start the outboard, head for the Eyes, position the dingy so that I could step onto the Eyes and lift my bags to me. All of the above actions involving the dingy introduced me to a very important dimension of the sailing life, that being the “dingy.” As a result I am contemplating making my fame and fortune by writing (after more dingy research) the definitive book on dingydom,

especially since I have been told that my idiosyncrasies are well suited for such a topic. For intellectual property protection reasons I am putting Jim, Rick, Margit and Chris on notice of my intentions to also cover “dogs in dingydom.” (Margit and Chris are the extremely talented and charming friends of Jim and Rick who are sailing their own single-aluminum- hull [sailing penache to give the illusion of experience])

Once on Eyes my trip in Dominica paced that of Sue’s as she has described it in her blog and picks up again in Martinique.

Sue’s and Sam’s last day on the Eyes was spent in St. Pierre which was destroyed by Mont Pelée’s infamous eruption in 1902 in the worst volcanic disaster of the 20th Century when the eruption caused about 26,000 to 36,000 casualties in St Pierre including people from neighboring villages who had taken refuge in the supposedly safe city, except for one man, a prisoner by the name of Louis-Auguste Sylbaris who was protected by the walls of his solitary confinement (how’s that for irony or maybe masonry), who survived. He later toured the world with the Barnum and Bailey Circus.

So naturally Jim, Rick, Sue, Sam, Margit, Chris and I decided to risk the wrath of the volcanic god of Mont Pelée by climbing the last 1,000 feet of altitude of the Mont. Even though such risk may have been satiated by his emotional outburst of over ninety years ago, the risk may have been exacerbated by Chris, Margit, Sue and Sam picking carrots growing from its slopes which could have been considered by said god tantamount to pulling ear hair out of his ear. (It’s this ear hair thing which tipped the scale in favor of my designating the deity as male rather than a female). By the way, the carrots ended up into the best carrot soup I have ever had and was prepared by Margit.

However after about climbing about 400 feet of altitude towards the peak we ran into a somewhat bedraggled French speaking hiker coming down the Mont who gesticulated that he had tried to get to the peak but was frustrated by a “you can’t see your hand in front of your face” and “it was very cold up there” gestures, so we turned around so as to eat carrots another day.

The next day after visiting Fort de France, Martinique’s largest city and capital- Jim, Margit and I drove Sue and Sam to the airport outside of St. Pierre for their return to the U.S. Driving to and from the environs of Fort de France (as well as St. Pierre) I was impressed that if I didn’t know better I could have easily been outside any small prosperous city in many countries (you could tell by the Costco store).

The contrast between the third world of culture Dominica and the first world culture of Martinique presented the familiar tension between the close to the earth simplicity of the third world and the modernity of the first world. The contrast was heightened by the fact that Dominica and Martinique and neighboring islands no more than twenty-six miles apart.

The modernity and wealth of Martinique was exemplified by the trip to the Galleria in Le Lamentin outside of St. Pierre by Jim, Rick and I for a typical upscale experience of grocery shopping (exemplified by fashionably dressed customers, e.g. women shopping in high heels),

compared to the open market buy what’s available experience in Dominica and a breadth of selection in the Martinique grocery store from foie gras to designer clothes.

Back on the Eyes I encountered trouble with my head (not as in headache but as in my bowl runneth over).

Sue mentioned that I love telling the story thereby co-opting me from telling it here but also saving you from the scatological details.

Suffice it to say that I was on one hand admiring of Jim’s and Rick’s efforts, as they each took turns of forty-five minutes to an hour in the water at night with a flashlight in their mouth trying to snake out the plumbing blow out valves at the water line of the Eyes as they treaded water with their legs with nothing to hold on to and with the best prospect of their labors being a shower of black water. But on the other hand I was trepidacious that my turn was coming next. Finally Rick decided to take the plumbing in the head apart and clean up the mess afterwards.

So you think sailing is romantic. It should be noted that it seemed that either Jim or Rick or both were involved in an arduous or complex job of maintenance every day I was on the Eyes. In performing such maintenance each seemed to be fully knowledgeable and competent to take the Eyes completely apart and put it together again. All of this in addition to their sailing and cooking skills while participating in their state-side businesses and being excellent hosts at the same time. For me of all the wonder I beheld on the trip, this was the most memorable.

This sentiment brings me prematurely to end my description of my wonderful, beautiful and adventurous sailing trip on the Eyes because of all the beauty, adventure and good times that occurred until the trip ended, the above sentiment is the salient note to end with.

I departed the Eyes leaving something behind (which evidently is yet to be found) so as to have an excuse to return to the “world of the Eyes.”

VHF Radio: "Switching back to Channel 16"

“Wake up to find out that you are the eyes of the world,
The heart has its beaches, its homeland and thoughts of its own.
Wake now, discover that you are the song that the mornin brings,
But the heart has its seasons, its evenins and songs of its own.“
(Jerry Garcia, Robert Hunter - 1973)

You Put Da Lime In the Coconut

2008-01-04T16:27:00.000-04:00

Jim's Comment: This is the promised blog from my Aunt with whom we had an incredibly good time in November. Thanks, Sue!

The two weeks I spent in November 2007 aboard Eyes of the World in the company of the skippers, Jim and Rick, my dear sister-in-law Sam, and my husband Steve, are deeply etched in my consciousness.

How’s that for an intro?

I’d like to make this a pitch for anyone who has the chance to visit them – do it! In my many years of life (64, to be precise), I’ve very rarely experienced such a welcoming, attentive and considerate pair of hosts. It takes a lot to make me totally comfortable and able to let loose – it happened on Eyes for those wonderful fourteen days.

Images: the strong helping hands offered to the landlubber, boarding and alighting from various vessels; the excitement of casting off and setting sail for the next destination – with Jim and Rick totally in charge of our fate (my job was to secure the wine bottles and hold onto the dogs); the absolute freedom and exhilaration of sailing silently and peacefully over the bounding main ( I have a new appreciation for that term, by the way, but scopolamine patches took care of it); the cozy and comfortable accommodations with framed photographs of family so appropriately placed in our cabins, and even in the head; snorkeling with guys who have their knowledge and appreciation of the reefs and sea floor honed to perfection – and can dive 20’ down without a thought, to bring to the surface a wonderful critter we surface-snorkelers would never otherwise see; climbing a trail on Goat Island in Les Saintes with Chris and Margit, sweating all the way but marveling in the sights and the history; the market in Dominica and “Big Man” who found his match in Steve; the joy of spontaneous hugs and laughter (encouraged by mysterious rum drinks) and tropical rainstorms on the Indian River cruise; sleeping on the nets with Sam, with or without rain showers, [batten the hatches!], watching the passage of Orion and the incredible swath of the Milky Way; exploring Martinique on our own – our brave hosts driving, finding an abandoned carrot patch halfway up cloudy Mount Pelee, followed by a wonderful lunch in a restaurant by the sea; the history of the Caribbean! Oh my – “concise” the book was not, but for a totally left-brained person such as me, learning of the tragedies of these islands was essential. The monument of the shackled hands said it all. I could go on and on with the images – the photos don’t begin to tell the tale.

And there are a very few regrets:

(1) Despite our careful use of toilet paper (OK: two women, two weeks, only ½
roll!!!), we apparently left Eyes with a clogged holding tank. Steve witnessed
the amazing clearing of the same after Sam and I left, and loves telling the
story. Into the briny deep went our heroes, in the dark, checking valves,
disconnecting pipes, shoving hands into tanks…ok, maybe no more detail is
needed. They fixed it, of course – as they kept all of the complex systems on
Eyes going (see Rick’s previous blow-by-blow accounts on this blog).

(2) Wish I’d learned how to sail – oops, just remembered the instruction I received from the guys – how tightly I held onto the wheel and watched the compass and GPS – then came back up from a trip to the head to find autopilot doing a much more competent job than I had, thank you very much.

(3) Wish I’d conveyed more emphatically to Jim and Rick how much I enjoyed those 14 days.
Summary: the ease of daily life on Eyes with Jim & Rick. Let me repeat that: the EASE. So rare, so wonderful. Thank you, my dears. As our Governator says, “We’ll be back!”

Love, Sue (Jim’s aunt)(She married them)(and is very proud of that)

Comment from Jim: The "Coconut" song became a nightly even during which everyone sang and raised their hands in the air.

Silent Night

2007-12-25T15:15:00.000-04:00

Seth and Lesley flew back to the bitter cold north on December 15th. Their arrival back into DC was delayed by a snow storm! Oh, I’d glad to be down here this time of year! We may have to deal with rain and high winds, but we don’t see much ice and snow.

We set sail for St. Vincent on December 18th. The winds and rain we’d been seeing had calmed a bit and the sea was ready for us to make the 38 nautical mile sail to Wallilabou Bay. So we said good bye to the Pitons of St. Lucia. I wondered whether we’d see them again.

We arrived in Wallilabou Bay without incident, but the sail over had some exciting times. We ran into several 30 knot squalls which helped us become more comfortable with our boat in these winds. The weather forecast had told us of these squalls and we’d prepared by putting one reef in the main sail, which you may recall means we don’t have the entire main sail up. Eyes of the World handled each of the squalls with ease and delivered us to our destination happy and healthy.

Wallilabou Bay was one of the main sights for the filming of “Pirates of the Caribbean” a few years back. The sets are still up, although not in the best of shape. One of the main houses has been converted into a hotel and restaurant. It was a nice place to stop for the night.

The next morning, still under clouds and covered with rain, we decided to sail to Blue Lagoon near the southern end of St. Vincent. There is a marina there and we needed to clean out the boat and get fuel before sailing into the Grenadines. We spent a few days in the Marina and it was nice to be on land again.

We’d planned on spending Christmas on the island of Bequia, 8 miles south of Blue Lagoon. Leaving St. Vincent behind us, we arrived in Bequia’s Friendship Bay later the same day. The anchorage here was very nice, but a bit rolly. It was the 22nd of December, so we decided to press on to Union Island’s Chatham Bay to spend Christmas.
The sail down to Union Island was gorgeous – one of the best we’d had. Additionally, Chatham Bay was just fantastic with a well protected anchorage, snorkeling just off the boat and a long sandy beach for running the dogs and taking walks.

Our Christmas was unlike any I’ve had so far in my life. The night before, Margit made us Christmas Eve dinner on Lucky Star. Living up to her usual yet amazing standards, we had:

Starter: Smoked salmon canapés
Amuse Bouche: Fried green mango slices with balsamic reduction
Salad: Asparagus cucumber boat with St. Lucian Piton limes
Main course: Margret duck breast, potato gratin and crème de cassis foam
Desert: Mince meat pie with ginger cream

Read that again. Sounds like dinner at a 5-star restaurant, no? Well, it was a Lucky Star restaurant and it was a wonderful evening.

Christmas Day consisted of a lazy morning reading and watching the birds eat the bait fish. It doesn’t seem to bother the pelicans too much when the brown booby steals what fish it can directly from his mouth. The girls and I could watch this for hours. When we finally got going, we joined Chris and Margit for a two-hour snorkel just off the back of our boats. We were swimming among thousands of these bait fish, seeing their world now directly. I so wanted to see the pelican splash down right in the middle of them. After a small lunch, in anticipation of the upcoming dinner, we read a bit and might have dozed off for a bit.

Christmas dinner was just as good as the night before, perhaps better. Margit, once again, whipped up a meal worthy of any critic’s rating. I might mention that her galley, like ours, is much smaller than even the smallest kitchen in the US. Not to mention the availability of the food, veggies, etc. The menu for that evening included:

Starter: Foie Gras direct from Paris
Main course: Leg of lamb with roasted vegetables
Desert: Apple tart made from scratch - remember the size of the galley

It may have been a bit sad to be so far away from family and friends in the US, but we had such a good time (and good meals) with Margit, Chris, Jackie, Cooper and Coco. It was another night to remember aboard Eyes of the World.

Ain't No Mountain High Enough

2007-12-15T12:37:00.000-04:00

The Pitons on St. Lucia inspired me to use this title. They are two of the highest most dramatic peaks in the Caribbean. This was the next stop down the island chain for us. But wait, I get ahead of myself.

Rick returned from his short trip to the states on Monday, December 3rd. We had our friends Seth and Lesley arriving on the 8th in St. Lucia so we needed to get a move on to ensure we’d be there when they arrived.

We departed La Marin, Martinique on December 5th and said good bye to the last of the French islands in the Caribbean chain; at least for a few months. The sail to St. Lucia was just over 21 nautical miles and the weather was forecasted to be good for the passage.

During the sail, we noticed some squall activity heading in the direction of St. Lucia. As the line developed, a small funnel cloud formed over the north end of St. Lucia which was a very eerie sight. We were glad not to be there and able to observe the cloud from afar. We did run through a few showers, but did not have any high winds which was very nice.

Rick had his fishing line out, but didn’t get anything on this trip. Thus far, the only fish he’s landed was the mahi mahi on our sail to Dominica from Les Iles des Saintes, Guadeloupe.

St. Lucia is one of the prettiest islands that we’ve seen. It’s the second largest of the Windward Islands. For those unfamiliar with the Windward Islands, they run from Martinique down to Grenada. They are called “windward” because when the English settled these islands, they had to sail into the wind to get to them. The direction from which the wind is blowing is called Windward. Therefore, these became known as the Windward Islands.

Now, the Leeward Islands start with Anguilla and extend to Dominica, just north of Martinique. Presumably that would mean that you’d sail with the wind to get to them. However, it seems that we’re always sailing into the wind no matter what. Murphy’s Law, I suppose. That’s your educational lesson for today. Oh, and for those who are wondering which island is the largest in the Windwards…it’s Martinique.

We arrived in Rodney Bay in the afternoon and found a very nice spot to anchor. Chris and I went ashore to clear in and I was again on the search for a new SIM card for our cellular phone. We’ve been getting new SIM cards on each island because it allows us to call back to the US much more economically than using the satellite phone or land lines.

We moved the boat the following day down to Marigot Bay. On the sail down, we ran across the Queen Mary II! She was quite a sight and we were right up on her outside of Castries.

Marigot Bay was perfect for us because it was very calm and would allow us to install the new internet antenna I’d ordered. Rick brought it back with him on his trip. The new antenna allows us to pick up signals from a greater distance. The antenna needed to be mounted to the top of the mast, then a CAT-6 cable run down the mast and through the boat to our internal router. Talk about a job! With Seth and Lesley just a day away, our boat appeared a disaster area. We did manage in the end to get the antenna installed and operating properly. It took three of us to get the job done and Chris very generously helped us out.

Seth and Lesley arrived right on time and Rick and I were at the airport to greet them. We had a great time with them while they were here, even though Seth had to work during the day. We anchored near the Pitons which are an icon of the Caribbean. We really couldn’t have asked for a more beautiful spot. The snorkeling, diving and hiking were terrific.

Seth and Lesley enjoyed their time on Eyes of the World just as much as we enjoyed having them. While it was sad to see them go, Rick and I were excited to continue our journey south to St. Vincent and the Grenadines.

That’s it for this update. I hope all is well with you and yours – and we hope everyone has a fantastic holiday season!

Deck The Halls

2007-12-05T12:03:00.000-04:00

As many of you now know, Rick flew back to the US for his annual store annual Christmas party. His arrival at the party was a surprise even to his staff.

My uncle Steve had left just a few days prior to Rick going back. The picture below is of us in front of the HMS Diamond Rock. Like many Caribbean islands, Martinique changed hands between the British and French many, many times. During one battle, they elected to make this rock part of her majesty's fleet.

While Rick returned to the US, I stayed back with the dogs in Martinique. And also as many of you know, I love to decorate for the Holidays. So what did I do, you ask? Shop of course!

I would describe the shopping on Martinique as some of the best I’ve seen in the Caribbean. Martinique is like Guadeloupe inasmuch as it is also a Department of France, meaning it is like our states in the USA. The culture of the French islands is more similar to that of France than the former British (now independent) islands. Martinique has superstores that have nearly everything you could need. Both Margit and Chris joined me on a search for the perfect decorations that would fit on a 41 foot catamaran.

We went to all of these superstores on the island: Cora, Carrefore and Euromarche. We even tried the Home-Depot equivalent Mr. Bricolage. Christmas in the islands is not as much in-your-face as we are in the US. For example, the decorations did not even appear on the scene until just after Thanksgiving. I know, hard to believe.

I wasn’t having much luck on our quest for holiday cheer. I was also shopping for a 220V power washer at the same time. What’s that you say? Why? Well, while Rick was gone I also did some heavy cleaning on Eyes of the World and saw Jon Jill next to us using a power washer to make his job easier. Besides, do I really need a reason to purchase power tools?

Chris spotted the shopping center. He saw a small bricolage (French for hardware store) in a strip mall so we pulled over. Margit waited in the car because it was cool and we didn’t want to turn off the A/C. The bricolage didn’t have the power washer, but the strip mall also had a small specialty store for knickknacks. We figured, what the heck, let’s check it out.

This was one of those stores that assaults your senses when you enter. Kind of like a Body Shop or L’Occtaine. There were so many different smells and there was so much stuff crammed into this 100 sq meter store that I nearly did a u-turn and walked out as fast as we went it. However, with Chris just behind me I didn’t want to appear so shallow. I started looking around, trying to clear my mind of the overload to my nose and eyes.

Margit showed up a few moments later, deciding to give up the cool in favor of some good shopping finds. She spotted them first… Thank god she was there; I’d already given up on finding anything among all the stuff. But I’m happy to report that we have two Christmas trees, a strand of lights and some other decorations this year!

Shake Rattle and Roll

2007-12-01T07:40:00.000-04:00

On Thursday, November 29th I experienced my first earth quake. Some of you may have read about it. But it not, you can read about it here. It was a big one, 7.4 on the Richter scale and centered about 22 miles N of Martinique.

We are all OK down here – it was certainly an exciting 30 seconds. We were all on a boat at the time. I was on Eyes of the World and Chris, Margit and Rick were on Luck Star. Rick started back to our boat and realized the dock was shaking more than the boat. The water acted as an insulator of sorts. I was on a phone call with a client and managed to describe the entire experience to them.

On land it was worse. A wall fell down in the Marina Office and one man had a heart attack. Everything seems to have calmed back down now. We have electricity and internet... but most importantly, we have French wine and cheese.

We're off on Tuesday for St. Lucia and will meet our friends and neighbors Seth and Lesley Cohen next Saturday. Stay tuned for more blogs...

Oh, and in case you didn't read the Thanksgiving Day blog here's a link to it.
Yes, we actually managed to publish more than one blog within the same 2 week period. :)

Happy Thanksgiving

2007-11-22T08:22:00.000-04:00

Happy Thanksgiving to those of you who are US citizens.

As requested, let me take a moment to show you where we are. If you don't have Google Earth on your machine, you should certainly download and install it. It is great. The picture below is of the Caribbean. The sailboats "mark the spots" we've been over the past month; we're currently on the island of Martinique.

"Martinique?!?!" you say? "How did you get over 100 miles from your last blog entry?" Yes, we've been quite busy over the past few weeks, and there's a lot to tell. We've seen Guadeloupe, Dominica and Martinique AND we'll be leaving for St. Lucia in the next week. Additionally, we had our first visitors – my step mother, aunt and uncle.

I’ve started this blog several times, but just couldn’t seem to get the ball rolling. Those who know me might be able to see how my tendency toward perfectionism seems to fuel my tendency toward procrastination. With that said, I’m forging on in spite of all the details I may miss. Additionally, I’m going to ask our recent visitors to submit a blog entry to cover their time on Eyes of the World. I figure asking for that in a public forum really puts the pressure on.

As I was saying, we’re on the southern tip of Martinique in a little village called Le Marin. We've had family visiting for the past three weeks, so we decided to dock the boat at a marina so we can take advantage of unlimited electricity and water to prepare for our next round of visitors.

We had a fantastic Thanksgiving dinner with our very good friends Margit and Chris whom we met while in Guadeloupe. Margit is from Austria and Chris is from Australia. They were still very happy to help us celebrate. As they say, any excuse for a bottle of Champagne is a good excuse. For now, let’s step back to where we left off nearly two months ago. Just relax and think back…..

We arrived in Guadeloupe on September 8th. What's that you say? Why were you there for such a long time?! Well, there are a couple of reasons. We'd like to say the primary reason was to wait out hurricane season on an island with a good place to weather a storm. However, the French culture, wine, food, wine, language, wine... You get the picture.

Rick's prior blog Eyes of the World: Puff the Magic Dragon, Lived by the Sea... he told you a bit about what we've done since we were on Guadeloupe. Well, my job is to fill in some of the details, because there are many, as we've seen quite a lot while in this "Department" (read: state) and we absolutely love this group of islands.

We arrived in Deshaies after a very nice (and uneventful sail) from Antigua. Deshaies is on the island of Basse Terre. Guadeloupe is comprised of many islands with the two largest being Basse Terre and Grand Terre. They are what make people think Guadeloupe looks like a butterfly.

It was a Sunday when we arrived and as a result didn't have to worry about clearing into customs, so it was straight to town with two little dogs crossing their legs. Now, Rick and I have been to Paris quite a bit over the past 11 years and we (Rick) knows how to get by in the native tongue, French. In Paris, most of the people we’ve run across know how to speak English. And once we've done our due diligence by attempting to speak their language, they are more than happy to show-off their multi-language skills.

In Deshaies, this was not the case. And having not been in France for a few months - our (Rick's) French was rusty. We were successful in getting ourselves a bottle of wine and dinner, but it was not without its struggles and Rick was even successful in getting permission for the dogs to sit by our table while we ate.

Deshaies is a fishing village and it's beautiful. It is very small and has two main streets each running in one direction. You can walk from one end of the town to the other in about 10 minutes. Each evening, a million (ok, maybe 25) fishing boats go out to get the fish from the traps (again, see Rick's blog about the fish traps) and you can see their lights all night.

While in Deshaies, we rented a car and drove down to the capital city of Basse Terre. We had several agenda items for our trip. First, we wanted to hike in the rain forest. But we also wanted to investigate the marina there. Remember that we're still in hurricane season and so we have to be prepared in case we have to ride out a storm.

The hike to the rain forest was fantastic. We saw all kinds of lush forests and wildlife. We had the dogs with us, because we felt guilty about leaving them behind. We climbed about half way to the top of the volcano on the southern part of the island when we saw a sign indicating that dogs were not allowed. Additionally, there were indications that sulfur gas could cause breathing problems along with skin rashes. Needless to say, we elected to go back down the mountain to the safety of our French rental car.

We left Deshaies on the 13th bound for Pointe-a-Pitre. There are two ways to get there from where we were. One involved going north and then navigating the Riviére Salée which divides the two main islands. There are two draw bridges on this river and they open at 5:00am and 5:30am. I'm not kidding.

The other option was to go south around the southern coast of Basse Terre and then turning north to go back about the same distance north to Pointe-a-Pitre. If you can imagine, we chose that option. Getting Rick out of bed for a 5am departure would be quite a feat.

Upon leaving Deshaies, we chose to make the trip to Point-A-Pitre in three days. That would give us enough time to stop at Pigeon Island. This island is about half way down the west coast of Guadeloupe on the way to the capital of Basse Terre (yes, it's the same name as the island). At Pigeon Island there's the Cousteau National Park. You all know how much Rick and I like diving, so we had to stop there for a dive or two.

Anyway, I'll let Rick regale you with the story of how I dropped the boat hook while going up to a mooring ball. In case he doesn't, I'll give you the short story. In most of our sailing, all the mooring balls that we've happened upon have had a pennant (aka line) hanging off of them. This allows us to motor up on them and pick the up out of the water and hook them to the boat. We attach the pennant to the boat using a shackle and a bridle. The bridle is a line that runs from the bow of one hull to the other with a shackle in the middle. Bridles make the stay at anchor or mooring ball more stable.

Anyway, here we are motoring up on the mooring ball when I realize that there wasn't a pennant for me to grab. This means, I have to reach down about 5 feet and grab the mooring ball with one hand while using the other hand to attach the shackle to the ring on the top of the ball. I, like most of us, only have two hands which leaves me with no hands to hang onto the boat.

Our first attempt and second attempt resulted in much cursing on my part - and Rick having to swing the boat around for another try. He offered to switch places, which was a good idea considering he is much taller than I, but I wouldn't hear any of it. On our third attempt, I managed to grab the mooring ball with the boat hook and pull it up a few feet. I quickly grabbed the ball with the other hand and like a pro snapped the shackle closed on the mooring ball.

I turned around, very pleased with myself, to Rick smiling. He asked "where's the boat hook?" I looked on the nets which is the place I always leave it after such a feat. To my surprise, it wasn't there. I looked back to Rick and he pointed ahead of the boat. There it was about 10 feet from the bow floating in the water. I then had to retrieve the boat hook and admit I had/have a stubborn streak.

We had two great dives while at Pigeon Island. We bought a new underwater video camera that allows us to capture the "big fish" as it swims by. We took it on this dive with us - and lo and behold, we found an Octopus. I refer you to the blog entry: "Someone’s knocking at the door; somebody’s ringing the bell…" for the details on why this is important. But Rick passed the camera to me, and I kept shooting in Hollywood style for about 15 minutes while the two of them did the octopus two-step. When we got back to the boat and downloaded the video, where we realized the camera was off when Rick handed it to me. So nothing was captured... it's the old tale of the one that got away.

We spent the night at between Pointe Malendure and Pointe Du Mont Criquet. I'd give you a name, but for the life of me I can't find it on any charts. It's basically due east of Pigeon Island for those of you on Google Earth. It was a pleasant anchorage, but the beach was black sand which didn't go well with the dogs’ feet and our white fiberglass decks. But all was well in the end.

We set sail for Basse Terre the next day and as expected, the wind was on our "nose." That's sailor speak of having to motor directly into the wind, which us sailors always seem to end up doing more than we'd like. The motor down was fine, with the exception of the fish traps. Have I mention Rick's blog about fish traps? read it!

It was a smooth day, so we decided to let Coco have the helm for a bit. Call us crazy.

We arrived in the evening and after setting anchor, went out for a quick bite at one of the local Marina joints.

The next day we were off for Pointe-A-Pitre. You’d think since the prior day we’d motored south directly into the wind, that our trip up to Point-a-Pitre would be a pleasant sail. You’d think… However, Murphy has a set of laws that apply to sailing – and I believe the first one reads: “Where ever you want to sail, you can expect the wind to be on the nose.” And so it was for our trip to Point-a-Pitre.

About 6 hours after setting out from Basse Terre, we arrived at Marina Bas du Fort. At the time, we didn’t know that it would be our home for nearly two months. It is also where we met Margit and Chris Mills.

Rick met Chris while walking Coco and Cooper. Margit and Chris have a Jack Russell named Jackie. She has several nick names including “JD”, ”Jackie Dog” and one of my favorites “Munchie.”

Chris and Rick hit it off immediately. I think that happens when two extroverts run across each other. Especially in a country that doesn’t have many English speakers! By the end of the first meeting, we’d been invited over for coffee and home cooked bread.

Margit and Chris are on an aluminum boat called “Lucky Star.” You can read their blog at http://sailluckystar.blogspot.com/. They’ve been out for over 2 years and had an abundance of valuable knowledge and accounts to share.

We decided to stay put for the remainder of hurricane season largely because we had new found friends. Margit and Chris have brought so much to our lives. We share similar interests in wine, food and travel. Margit has brought several additional pounds around my waist with her fantastic cooking. Chris has brought us nearly every tool we’ve needed. But mostly they brought us company, friendship and fun.

So on this Thanksgiving, what am I thankful for? Well, I’m very thankful for all that I have in my life including Rick, family, my business and business partner, and the best friends. But I’m also thankful for Chris and Margit for helping make the past two months even more spectacular than I could have imagined. And thankful for their willingness to travel with us over the coming months and discover the wonders we have yet to find.

Oh, and I’m thankful that Sue, Sam and Steve are going to write an account of their time with us over the past three weeks. So everyone stay tuned for what they have to offer. Until then, stay well and be happy.

Puff the Magic Dragon, Lived by the Sea...

2007-10-15T22:24:00.000-04:00

Jim's preface: We're in Guadeloupe now. We've been here for about a month. More later on how we got here and where we've been. But first, Rick has some thoughts to share.

Puff the Magic Dragon, Lived by the Sea...

After cruising south along the western coast of Guadeloupe, Jim and I turned our rudder to port (left to you land-lubbers) and headed north, up the eastern shore of Basse Terre, the largest of the Guadeloupian Islands. We were sailing to La Marina Bas du Fort in the cosmopolitan town of Pointe-a-Pitre.

Fishing is a major source of income for the locals and one of the ways they make their catch is with the use of a fish trap. They start with branches about 1-1 ¼ inch in diameter and form a box that measures 6x4x3 feet. They cover that with chicken wire and, at either end, form the wire into a cone extending one foot into the trap. Coconut is popular bait and a hunk is secured with a piece of string dangling inside kind of like the way we hang a neon sign flashing “Eat Here” outside a diner They attach a buoy to a line tied to the trap and toss the whole thing in the drink. The fish can easily swim through the wide end of the cone, down the tunnel and then through the small end but then, sadly, it’s fish sticks for dinner.

Normally, fisherman set their traps at a depth of 30-40 feet. The Guadeloupians being much more adventurous will set their traps in water up to 150 feet deep and…they set them everywhere. Some are marked with nice, store-bought yellow or orange buoys and some are marked with bright white empty Clorox jugs. However, and I guess this is for the stealth fishermen, some are marked with clear, empty 2 liter soda bottles (Mother Nature has long since removed the labels) and as if that isn’t hard enough to see, there are a few that are marked with black floats. The clear ones are a challenge, but the back ones sneak up on you like no-see-ums. The problem this causes for boaters is simple. Props suck up line like fish traps catch fish. Once you’re “caught” you’re done for. The lines also get stuck between the boat’s rudder and the hull and when that happens, steering the boat becomes impossible. Either way, someone has to get into the water with a good scuba knife and cut the tangled mess free. If you’re lucky, the line will not have pulled your prop off. If you’re not, then someone is going scuba diving.

To pick our way through the mine field of fish traps, I stood at the bow of the boat and directed Jim with hand signals. He successfully steered us, while under full sail and without the use of our engines, to the marina in Point-a-Pitre where we were sure our fish related problems would end. Not so.

When we were about 2 miles away, we called the marina on the VHF and were told they’d send a guy out in a dingy to guide us to our slip. We made it to the entrance to the channel leading to the docks, dropped the sails and waited. Then we motored through the channel to the marina entrance and waited some more. We called again (after making sure our VHF antennae was in place – remember Simpson Bay?) and waited for a response. Nothing. There was a guy on the dock waiving, and we being the friendly Americans we are, waived back. After 30 seconds or so, he waived again and again we waived back. After another 30 seconds he waived one more time and then the light went on. Just so you don’t think we’re dense, he was waving not beckoning. When you’re on a boat, people wave at you all the time. You wave back and smile. A lot of boaters will wave and wave and wave until you wave back. It’s a boating thing.

Jim was behind the helm and steered us up to the empty space on the dock. The space the dock guy was motioning for us to parallel park our 41 foot boat into looked to be about 40 feet long. Guadeloupe is a French island; but unlike Paris, most people here don’t speak any English. My French is passable for ordering dinner, saying hello and asking the simplest of questions provided I have time to rehearse them in my head before putting my American foot in my mouth. Even though we’ve been sailing for 10 years or so, pulling up to a dock is still a little nerve racking. A 16 thousand pound boat, even moving at modest 1 to 1.5 knots, still has a lot of momentum.

Jim turned to me and said, “Tell him I’m not pulling this boat into that space. Tell him to find us another slip. Tell him, TELL him, TELL HIM….” I tried to form the phase in my head but nothing was there. All the while, the dock guy was waiving our 41 foot boat into a 40 foot space that had a 46 foot catamaran behind it and a 30 foot speed boat in front of it. Docking a boat is not like parallel parking a car in DC, where Jim often says, “They call them bumpers for a reason you know.”
I jumped behind the helm, prayed for a gigantic shoe horn to materialize in the sky and gave it my best shot. As it turned out, with the dock guy and Jim's help, I managed to squeeze in with inches to spare on each end. Don’t ask me how and I don’t think I could do it again, but we were docked.

Two of the great things about being in a marina are electricity and water; both made by someone else. Eyes of the World is all set up to make her own electricity and purify salt water into the best drinking water, but both require turning on the generator, checking filters, monitoring gauges and generally paying attention to what you’re doing. When you’re in a marina, you can hook your boat up to both water and power, take as many hot showers as you want, run the AC all you want and never turn on your generator. With the greatest of anticipation (we’d been fending for ourselves for about a week) we grabbed our hose and our extension cord and made for the hook up station. I have to explain that the extension cord isn’t like the one every keeps at home but can never find when you need it. It’s a 40 foot long, 1 1/4 inch thick, 45 pound monstrosity that carries enough juice to light up the Vegas Strip. The hose is a hose in every respect which means no matter what you hook it to and no matter how new the washer is, it leaks a little from each end. Well, neither fit the Guadeloupian hook ups. Drat. We searched the boat for the correct adaptors, the dock guys searched their workroom for the correct adaptors but we all came up empty handed. Of course it was late Saturday night which meant all the Chandleries (boating hardware stores) were closed until Monday so getting the parts we needed wasn’t going to happen until Monday and even then, whether or not we could find them was questionable. The odd thing is our boat was built in France. Guadeloupe is a French island. You’d think that those two factors would make for a perfect match. You’d think.

When you’re at anchor or tied to a mooring ball, the aerodynamics of the boat cause it to naturally point into the wind. All of the hatches open in way that directs the wind into the boat, providing you with a wonderful cooling breeze. That doesn’t work when you’re on a dock. If you’re not pointing into the wind, then there is no great cooling breeze, just an occasional puff of warm air usually carrying with it, 150 mosquitoes. We were not happy sailors.

Generally, we turn on our generator when we need to charge our house batteries, run the compressor, the water maker or the washing machine. We limit that time to an hour and a half twice a day. In addition to the fuel tanks for the motors, Eyes of the World is fitted with two additional 25 gallon fuel tanks, both of which were at least three quarters full. We decided it would be ok to run the generator overnight so that we could use the AC…for the sake of the dogs. We started her up and turned on the air and were happy sailors once again. Sleeping conditions that night were great however, shortly after sunrise, the generator turned itself off.

Our Onan generator is equipped with several safety switches that automatically shut the system down before a malfunction can cause it any damage. When any system that uses sea water as a coolant shuts down, the first thing we do is check the water flow into the cooling system of the unit. I opened up the bilge, closed the through-hull valve (you only have to forget that step once) and unscrewed the top to the strainer. To my surprise, sometime during the night, our generator strainer had become home to two juvenile puffer fish. I lifted the mesh cylinder out of the strainer and deposited the two squatters into a bowl of sea water. Jim and I took a few pictures of the little cuties and then tossed them back into the sea. We put everything back together, opened up the through-hull valve (another step you only have to forget once – keep your eyes open for a blog about impellers) and turned the generator back on. Vroom, vroom, she worked like a charm.

Our boat was back in order, it was a bright, clear day, the AC was cranking away and things were looking up. I started breakfast while Jim headed down to the…hmm…shall we say…lounge? A little while later, I hear the familiar sound of the hand pump from the head (lounge for you land lubbers) being used, and used, and used. “Hey,” Jim called up from the bathroom. “Something’s the matter with the head.” That is Jim’s boat speak for “Rick, can you come down here and fix this?” As far as maintenance jobs go, fixing the head is pretty much at the bottom of the list. I called back, “I can’t come down right now, I’m making you breakfast.” Which is my boat speak for, “Are you out of your %$#^ mind?”

There were two things in Jim’s favor. The first was that the clogged line was the salt water intake line (I’ll give you a minute to think that benefit through). The second was that he hadn’t had his morning coffee yet (take another minute on that one as well). Jim took the pump apart, checked the gasket, checked the hoses, primed the line and tried again. Nothing. He then removed the hoses, check the toggle switch that controls the pump’s direction from intake to outlet and put everything back together again. Nothing. “Hey. I’m not that hungry right now,” he called. Translation…”please come help me!”

I went down to the head and basically did everything he did but in addition, removed all of the hoses leading to the head and blew air through them to make sure they were clear. Now I want you all to remember that these were hoses that took nice clean water from outside the boat and directed it toward the head. Even so, I had to psych myself up to bring them to my lips. We put everything back together and….nothing. There was one small 6” hose that connects the through-hull to another valve but because of its position, it’s a real pain to take off. It was the only thing we hadn’t check so I bit the bullet, loosened the four ring clamps and wrestled the hose from its confines. Because of where it was, it had a pretty dramatic curve in it that made it impossible to see directly through but there wasn’t any light reflecting on the inside of the tube so I knew it was clogged. I took it up to the deck, inhaled a big breath of air and blew on one end as hard as I could. Pop. Another puffer fish shot out of the tube like a dart from a blow gun. He sailed a good 15 feet, hit the water and swam away. Jeeze, these things are worse than the mosquitoes. We put everything back together and Ta-Da!, the head was working again.

You’d think our puffer fish problems would be over. Think again. The generator shut off the next morning at sunrise. This time, I knew exactly what to do. I opened the strainer to the generator, lifted out the mesh cylinder, walked upstairs to the deck and dumped a single puffer fish (not nearly so cute as the first two) back into the water, this time, foregoing transporting him in a nice bowl full of salt water. I started to reassemble the strainer...hmm. Yesterday we had two in the strainer and one in a hose, so before I put the strainer back together, I slowly opened the through-hull and allowed water to flow through the tubes, into the strainer casing and then into the bilge. HA, there was another puffer fish in the tubes! I’m so smart! As I was congratulating myself on my ingenuity, I glanced at the mesh cylinder still in my hand. Drat. How am I going to get that puffer fish out of the strainer? The strainer looks like a jar with a narrowed opening at the top that’s just a bit larger than the mesh cylinder. Water comes into the top and is strained through the mesh before it goes into the heat exchanger for the generator. The strainer is made of clear acrylic so I could see the fish swimming around inside. I ran up to the galley and grabbed two wooden spoons thinking that I could gently sandwich the little guy between the spoons and lift him out to safety.

The wooden spoons were about ten inches long and the strainer was about nine inches deep so the math all seemed to be working in my favor; I had one inch of usable handle and was certain I could make this work. Have you ever been to a carnival and watched the “Carney” use that ring attached by a string to a pole take a Coke bottle lying on its side and sit it upright? Seems pretty easy. Oh if life were that simple. As soon as I put a spoon into the water, the puffer fish darted to the bottom of the strainer. I needed at least two inches of handle to dexterously maneuver both spoons at the same time. I could use one spoon to scoop him to the top but then only had a split second to slide the second spoon into place. He had the same amount of time to dart back to his perceived safe zone. Keep in mind that in the wild, what fish do most of the day is eat and dart away from larger fish. Puffy had a lot more practice at this than I did. After a good 30 attempts and as many thoughts about just getting the big fork we use for grilling, I finally got the little sucker. Well, I don’t know if you’ve put two and two together, but the name of the fish is a….wait for it…here is comes…PUFFER fish, and that is exactly what that little shit did. He puffed himself up to the size of a tennis ball. Oh that grilling fork was looking better and better.

I finally managed to use one wooden spoon and a set of tongs to free the little guy and release him, I’m sure, back into someone else’s strainer. We got our generator running and Jim has since barricaded all of our intake holes with chicken wire so we don’t have any more run ins with “Puff the swimming dragon, lived in the sea, clogging up our intake valves so we couldn't peeeee…”

I'm on the top of the world, looking down on creation and the only explanation ....you can hum the rest.

2007-09-11T10:37:00.000-04:00

This blog goes back in time a bit. Sometimes I have to let them bake in the oven for a while...

It’s now been almost four weeks since we first dropped anchor in St. Maarten. The original plan was to stay there for three to five days and then head east to St. Barts and then south west to St. Kitts. In an ordered world, we wouldn’t still be in St. Martin (different spelling, we’re now on the French side). In the sailing world, a plan is something you continually adjust until the result has almost no similarities with its beginning.

While in Simpson Bay, we discovered that our boat had made and offering to Poseidon in the form of our VHF antenna. We’ve had an ongoing issue with the antennae which sits precariously at the very top of the mast. The antenna was a three foot long fiberglass whip attached to a three inch long stainless steel threaded pipe. The pipe sits in a small aluminum fork bracket and then two hex nuts are screwed from the bottom to tighten the whole thing up against the bracket; all at a height of 70 feet. We were having a problem keeping the antennae tight in its bracket. Funny thing is, while making our crossing to St. Maarten, we both heard something clattering across the deck in the middle of the night. We searched for the source of the noise but couldn’t see anything amiss. It wasn’t until we were through the Dutch side drawbridge and trying to use our VHF that we discovered the gift Eyes had made to the Sea God. Apparently we could transmit just fine but were totally deaf to the marina’s responses. After a good dozen transmissions from us of, “Can you hear me now? Can you hear me now?”...which we now know they don’t like so much, they were surely saying back, “Yes, yes, for the love of Christ, yes WE CAN HEAR YOU NOW!” Eventually, for the sake of their own sanity, they sent someone out in a dingy to let us know that they we’re quite aware of our approach. I guess they don’t have the same commercials we do.

We successfully docked the boat in a slip and started our countless trips to and from Budget Marine, a boater’s version of Home Depot. The main similarity between the two is that as soon as you get there, you realize you forgot to bring whatever piece you were trying to match and as soon as you get back, you realize what you forgot to buy. Needless to say, we were not only on a first name basis with our personal customer service agent, Telluthia Cotton, (who weighed as much as a passing thought) we knew the rest of the sales staff and about a half dozen boaters who happened to be caught in the same Budget Marine forgetting cycle we were caught in.

With the new VHF antenna in hand, I strapped myself into our Boson’s chair, clipped myself to the shackle attached to the main halyard and waited for Jim to hoist me up the mast. A Boson’s chair is basically a cloth chair, kind of like a hammock you sit in. Ours was a gift from the Colorado Little’s and is a deluxe version. A deluxe Boson’s chair is one that will hold you in even if you’re turned upside down. I don’t think I’ll try that out. I’m weighing in at around 170 pounds these days so with the aid of a few pulleys and a winch, Jim started cranking me up our 70 foot mast. One of the tasks at hand was to retie the bowline knot at the top of the mast that secures the main halyard. Those of you paying attention will notices that a few sentences ago, I told you I was clipping my Boson’s chair to the shackle attached to the main halyard. Dicey. Jim cranked me up the mast, all the while I was yelling back down, “Come on you wimp, faster, faster.” In retrospect, antagonizing the person in charge of keeping you from falling 70 feet isn’t the smartest idea. My excuse is that I was giddy with the anxiety caused by attaching myself to a line that had a potentially faulty knot. A pint of sweat later, Jim had me to the top of the mast and I began my chores. I immediately secured myself with three separate lines, untied and retied the bowline knot.

We knew that the main halyard had some wear because, like the good sailors we are, we had the foresight to have our rigging inspected before we left Tortola. One of the faults the inspector, Mr. Thomas, found in the rigging while he was at the top of our mast was a worn main halyard cause by chaffing against the topping lift. He was kind enough to move the halyard in order to stop the chaffing. Interestingly enough, while he was in his own Boson’s chair, at the top of our 70 foot mast, you’d have thought he’d remove the chaffed part of the line and tie a new knot…not.

After taking care of the halyard, I installed the new VHF antennae, inspected all of the other lines and electrical equipment and then stopped working and looked at where I was. I was suspended from a 5/8th inch line 70 feet above the deck of our boat. The 360 degree view of the harbor was incredible. From that vantage point, I could appreciate not only the size of the dock in the marina around me but also the size of Simpson Bay. Half of the bay is French and the other half is Dutch. Both sides have their own drawbridge and those two entryways are the only water passage into the lagoon. The eastern shore is met by a sheer slope of the towering mountain ridge. To the south, I could clearly see the whole town and the road leading up the mountain toward Phillipsburg. My western view showed me bay outside of the Dutch drawbridge and to the north I could see the French town of Marigot. It was a beautifully humbling view that once again illustrated for me the true size of the boat we are on. We’re a pretty large boat in the marina, just a spot in the lagoon and I imagine, as you pan out, not even a speck in the ocean.

Row, row, row your boat.

2007-09-05T18:49:00.000-04:00

First, I'd like to thank those of you who leave comments on the blog. We love the feedback and also love hearing how everyone is doing back home - so keep the emails coming!

Here we are at the beginning of September, just over two months into our travels. We're currently sitting in Jolly Harbour Marina on Antigua's west coast and have been enjoying this island for a little over a week. The last you heard from us, we were in St. Martin, about to start heading south. Well, we've made it about 120 miles so far.

To give you a timeline, we left St. Martin on August 18 and headed south to St. Barts. It was a great day for sailing with clear blue skies, a nice breeze and just enough big puffy clouds to give us something to look at. The trip was only about 18 miles from where we were in Anse du Marcel. Our destination was Gustavia which is the main port in St. Barts. For those of you who haven't visited St. Barts - its atmosphere is quite a bit different from where we've been so far.

Not only is Gustavia's main harbor right out of a picture book, but all the store fronts in the town look like they'd been plucked right from Madison Avenue in New York City!

While in Gustavia, we had to get fuel for the dinghy. We were nearly out and when I say nearly, I'm kind of stretching the truth. The only place to get fuel for a boat was the commercial dock, which was about 1/2 mile from our boat. When I got up in the morning, I decided to zip over to the fuel dock and get that chore out of the way. I jumped in the dinghy and headed to the commercial dock. I ran out of gas 10 feet from the dock. Luckily, I had oars so I could row myself the remaining 10 feet.

I found myself on a commercial dock with lots of containers and machinery. I was in a little 9 foot inflatable boat wanting about 6 gallons of the island's best unleaded. Oh, and I've not mentioned that "Mon Français est très mauvais" or for those that don't "parlez", my French is very bad. I manage to find the main office and between my trying to pronounce "gasoline" with a French accent and wildly gesticulating my arms, the very nice and patient French guy understood my goal. He said in broken English, "you want gas." "Yes! Yes!", I respond. Then I saw it coming, I knew what he was going to say next. "No gas." I looked from him to the pumps and then back to him, pretending not to understand such a simple phase in my native tongue, raise an eyebrow and waited. I don't know what I expected him to say, whether it was, "Just joking...unleaded OK?", or..."I have a little stash of gas here behind the counter, for you, I can spare a few liters." What he did say was, "Pumps no work."

Yes, it's true. I'd used all the remaining gas we had in the tank to get the dinghy to a dock that had pumps and had fuel, but couldn't get the fuel where I wanted it. I managed to ask in very poor French where the nearest gas station was. "Airport!" was the kind Frenchman's response.

I'm sure you all know what happened next because of the title of this blog. I had to "Row, row, row my boat" back the 1/2 mile to our big boat. For those of you who didn't crew in college, or don't enjoy a skiff out on the river - rowing is a LOT of work. Plus, you can't see where you're going. Frequently I would find myself rowing to a destination that I had no intention of visiting

Now this is Rick adding a side note: I've seen Jim at the gym, sitting on a rowing machine, happy as a clam in sand. He gets no sympathy from me.

Well, after about an hour I made it back. The rest of that day...and I'm not kidding, was us on a quest for gas. St. Barts only has two gas stations. One is near the airport and I have no idea where the other one is. Our first order of business was to either take a cab or rent a car and drive to the airport. I have to confess, that part of me was excited about visiting another airport. I have an obsession with airplanes, so any excuse will do - and after all, this wasn't an excuse.

We boarded the dinghy and "row, row, rowed" ourselves to the dock. Fortunately, it's not far... only about a 5 minute row max. We then inquired about the cost of a cab. As it turned out, we could rent a car for less money - only about $40/day. So we chose that option. By this time, it was about lunch time. We quickly learned a very important fact about French island culture. Nearly all non-restaurant businesses close at noon and some reopen later in the afternoon (remember, it's off-season). Since we had to wait until 2pm for the car rental place to open, we decided to grab a bit at a restaurant that had a great view of the harbour. I love the way the French can teach us how to enjoy one another more by taking time to have lunch.

Anyway, I digress (the American returns). After lunch we rented a car. As a side note, cars in St. Barths for $40/day aren't nearly as nice as cars in St. Martin for $25/day. But that's another story. We were happy to be in a car and drove the 10 minutes to the airport. We got to the gas station and as it turns out, closed between 12:00 and 2:30pm. What time was it? Only 2:15! Good lord man - what are we to do for the next 15 minutes! (again, the American - or maybe it's just my OCD).

Long story short (I know, it's already long). We got the gas and were "liquid" again with dinghy fuel. We drove back to the boat and hooked up the tank and happily polluted the air while motoring 2 minutes back to the boat :)

Are you wondering how long this is going to continue? I started by saying that I would tell you about how we got to Antigua and I've just most of this blog telling you about getting gas.

We left Gustavia a few days later and headed north to Anse du Colombier, a beautiful little cove with a long white-sand beach that isn't accessible by any road. We were there with 2-3 other boats and had a great time.

We snorkeled! We've not had much of a chance to be in the water since we left Tortola, and we were in heaven. The sunset set in the west (as always) and we had a clear view.

On our last day before leaving for Antigua, we took a hike from Anse du Colombier to Anse des Flamandes. Our goal was to find a nice place for breakfast and/or coffee. For those that don't speak French, an "Anse" literally translates as "hanger." I take that to mean cove.

This hike wasn't for the feeble hearted. Cooper and Coco went with us - and at times even they seemed a bit taken aback by the sheer drop. Our effort was totally rewarded when we stumbled across a small hotel with a restaurant that served a very good French-style continental breakfast. They even had a bowl of water for the dogs. I love the French.

Once we'd hiked back, we packed everything up and headed back to Gustavia. We needed to make sure we were full on water - and after the incident with the fuel, we thought it a good idea to get an early start. There were no troubles getting the water and around 3:30 in the afternoon, we departed the lovely island of St. Barthelamy for Antigua. During the journey, we'd pass Saba, St. Eustatis, St. Kitts, Nevis and then arrive on Antigua.

For those that are wondering why we're passing all these islands, I have two words for you: "Hurricane season." We are only taking extended stays at islands that have good hurricane holes - and those that we were passing, while beautiful, aren't known for helping sailboats weather a storm.

We leave St. Barths around 4pm in the afternoon bound for Antigua. I'd been up since about 6am, so we decided that Rick would take the first watch and I would do the graveyard shift. If you're not familiar with how to sail at night, someone always needs to be awake to keep watch. Basically, the guy on duty ensures that we don't run into any passing cruise ships or freighters. After all, we're only a 41 foot catamaran and don't always register with those on the "watch" of these other ships.

I headed down to the stateroom with the nubbins around 8pm. We keep the dogs locked in the stateroom when we're at sea at night. If they were to go overboard in the dark there would be no hope finding them. I had been in bed about 5 minutes when Rick called me to come back to the cockpit...we'd hit a squall. Now, we are both very diligent about checking the weather several times before leaving on a passage. This time was no different. While in Gustavia earlier that day we both had checked the 4-5 different sources of weather that we have. We knew the squalls might happen, but this was a first for us.

I'm back on deck in my shorts wondering what on earth was going on. Rick told me the winds had risen to around 25 knots sustained with gusts up to 35. When I'd gone to bed, 10 minutes before, we were seeing winds between 10-12 knots. We immediately took action to decide how to best weather this storm. However, the dogs weren't locked in the stateroom anymore...I had neglected to close the door when I sprinted back to deck.

The moment seemed to last forever. Rick asked about the dogs and I told him they were inside. He went below to find them and told me that he couldn't find Cooper, but had located Coco. Of the two, Coco would be the one to worry more about because if it were possible, she would attach herself to Rick. Rick continued to look while I became more and more frantic at the helm. I had just about accepted the fact that the little black cocker spaniel was not going to be found on board when Rick said he had her. She had wedged herself under the desk in the office. The fact that it was night time and Cooper is black....enough said.

We managed to get through the squall and decided that it would be better to have less main sail out in case it happened again. With only one of us on watch, it would be easier to tolerate any upcoming squalls if we didn't have as much exposed sail area. Just like when you take an umbrella with you, by putting two reefs we managed to weather any other passing squalls.

We arrived in Jolly Harbor, Antigua the next morning around 8am - and jolly it was!! We'd made it to the end of this leg of our journey. We've had a great time while on Antigua - and also had quite a few more experiences worthy of blogs. We'll try to get some of them down in the next week.

We plan to leave on Sunday, Sep 9th for either Martinique or Guadeloupe. We're on the fence. Martinique gets us south faster, yet the hurricanes have been in the south. Additionally, Guadeloupe is only about 10-11 hours away which we can do by the light of day. Martinique is over 24 hours away which would mean over night sailing. We'll let you know what we decide.

In the meantime, we hope all is well with all of you. Be well and stay safe.

Someone’s knocking at the door; somebody’s ringing the bell…

2007-09-01T17:45:00.000-04:00

Jim and I are anchored in Carlisle Bay, a small bay off the south, southwestern side of Antigua. There’s a tropical depression blowing westward just to our south and because of that, the winds have stirred up the water in the bay so the visibility underwater is only about 10-15 feet.

We jumped off the back of the boat for a little swim and headed toward the south side of the bay to check out the fish in the gloom.

Jim was swimming about ten feet in front of me when I noticed a small school of Sergeant Majors, some Goat Fish and a few Wrasses bobbing in the currents caused by the small waves lapping the rocks. I was only in about 8 feet of water so I was able to see the bottom of sand, rocks and grass pretty clearly. Among the rocks, I spied a cluster of white shells starkly standing out against the background of brownish sand. With poor visibility making it difficult to see far, anything slightly unusual was good cause for closer inspection.

The shells were arranged along the opening of a very old empty Queen Conch shell, long since inhabited by its maker and clearly showing all the signs of the circle of life in the sea. Growing on its top was a coating of algae and sea moss that made it look like it was wearing a sweater. A few barnacles and small sponges were using the shell as their base, adding to the transformation of this once colorful and elegantly curved shell from clean, purposeful beauty to a new kind of opportunistic, utilitarian usefulness.

As I pulled a small scallop shell from the opening, an interesting thing happened. Something pulled the shell back toward the old conch. Because I found the shell on its back, I guessed it was not the new home of a hermit crab, and knew, again from its position and also from its condition, that there wasn’t a conch inside. I snatched a few more shells from their resting place and exposed a single eye looking back at me. I waited and within 60 seconds, a small tentacle snaked out, grabbed one of the shells I had removed and gently put it back in its place. I’d found my favorite of all sea creatures. I’d found an Octopus.

The Caribbean Octopus is a timid little creature with some absolutely amazing qualities. It can change, not only the color of its skin, but also its skin’s texture. It is almost completely made of soft tissue except for a parrot-like beak which it uses to open its primary souse of food, mollusks and crustaceans. An Octopus can squeeze its body through any hole that is larger than the size of its beak and when in danger, can produce an ink cloud that acts as a diversion.

I lifted the Conch shell and move it to a rock ledge about 2 feet under the water’s surface. Keep in mind that this Octopus had stuffed his little self up into the spiral of the shell and absolutely no amount of tugging was going to get him out. I also didn’t want to scare the little fella, however, in retrospect, I suspect I failed at that goal when I removed the first piece of his shell armor.

I lifted the shell so the Octopus was just above the water. Now before you go thinking I’m an Octopus torturer, let me explain. The National Zoo has an invertebrate exhibit that contains a few Octopi. While on a visit there, the Octopus lady told us that if the lids to the little Octopus condominiums are not weighted down with bricks, the crafty little creatures will make a mad dash for the drains in the floors! Little do they know that all they’d get would be a trip into the DC sewer system which, as I’m sure most of you know occasionally explodes. Before they'd know it, they could be shot through a manhole cover in Georgetown and right onto the plate of a tourist having lunch at a sidewalk café. Calamari al la Adrian Fente.

Anyway, there I was, trying to coax Pi (I’ve now named him) out of his hidey hole buy denying him oxygen. Unfortunately for all concerned (me and Pi), I was wearing a mask and snorkel at the time. Nobody and I mean nobody, not even Brad Pitt, looks remotely flattering with a mask and snorkel on. But Pi, bless his little heart, gingerly snaked out one of his many arms in a show of trust and friendship; then he felt flesh (mine) and BAM, back in the shell he went. Now I admit, it had been a few days since I’d seen the inside of a shower, but jeeze, I do swim every day. I couldn’t have tasted that bad. Well I just couldn’t bring myself to hold him out of the water for more than ten seconds so the only thing left to do was wait him out.

Let’s go over some of the pertinent details of the waiting game. I took a year off work (thanks Kurt) and am living on a sailboat. Obviously I don’t really care how long it takes me to get anywhere. If I did, I’d be living on a power boat or in a Winnebago. I had just eaten a nice lunch so was good for another 6 hours as far as needing food goes. The water temperature at the edge of the bay was a balmy 92 degrees so getting cold wasn’t a concern. The only real deterrent to staying in the water for a long time was the mental image I had of that crazy guy from England who locked himself in a ball of water for a week in front of Lincoln Center in NYC. He turned into a prune in about an hour, however, it wasn’t until his doctors told him that his liver and kidneys might shut down that he relented and came out of the ball. By that time, his flesh was so wrinkled that he didn’t look human. What’s the matter with people? That look isn't for me.

Back to the story at hand. Little by little I inched my index finger closer to Pi and little by little he managed to cram himself deeper into that shell until I guess there was just no other place to go. After about ten minutes, Pi extended a tentacle and lightly laid it down on the tip of my finger. All I could think of at the time was “Remain calm, he’s making a move.” What did I do? I yanked my finger back like a big girl and let out a little scream through my snorkel. He, in turn, yanked his tentacle back and this time shut his little eye. About 30 seconds later, he opened it up again, saw the strange man in the snorkel and mask and slammed it back shut. I actually think he was “willing” me away. I’ve tried to do that a bunch of times; it doesn’t work. You open your eyes and the person with bad breath monopolizing your time at a party with tales of economic brawn or work related importance is still right in front of your face. Hell, they might as well have a mask and snorkel on.

Pi’s next attempt at détente came much more quickly. Apparently, the shell was a little cramped and he had had just about enough. This time, his little arm came out and overlapped my finger by about 2 inches. All this time, he was an uninviting shade of brown with little white streaks. Well, let me tell you, right after we made contact, he instantly turned bright white whith blood red streaks, stayed that way for 15 seconds and then gradually went back to the brown. Now that he was back to his old self, he let a few more arms extend out and reached around to the back of the shell. In one fluid movement, he slid his whole body around to the back of the shell and in an instant matched his color to the color of the algae/sea moss and to my amazement, changed the texture of his skin to match the shell’s coating as well. This all happened in less than two seconds. He never made any attempt to swim away from the shell, he just clung to the back and even though I knew he was there, I had to really concentrate on where the shell ended and Pi began.

I reached my hand around to the back of the shell and laid it, palm up, right in front of him. He in turn, immediately shit his pants….no, no, just kidding….he placed two tentacles on my palm and then in less than a minute, he moved off the shell and into my palm. His color changed to a yellowish green and his skin became perfectly smooth again. He was so soft, he felt like velvet. For the next 15 minutes, he just crawled around my hands, from one to the other and then back. He moved about 12 inches up my arm, but then jettisoned himself back to my other hand. All this time, he was changing the color of his skin and the pattern of the color as well.

Eventually, I picked up the conch shell and gently guided him back to the opening. He sat on the edge as I swam him back to his original resting place. As I lowered the shell he slid inside again. I scooped up the white clam and scallop shells and lined them up along the door to the conch condo, took one last look at his little eye and swam back to the boat.

I don’t know why I have this urge to interact with animals. I want so much for them to know that I don’t pose a threat. For some reason, unknown to me, I want them to “know” me and know that I’m a friend. Their complexity is unimaginable. Their consciousness is unquestionable. I am a guest in their home and I guess I want to feel welcome.

I think I’ll have Calamari tonight.

What have we been up to?

2007-08-18T18:49:00.000-04:00

I know many of you are asking the question: "Where did they go?? It's been a week, and we've not heard anything." Well, wait no more. Here's the update from me, Jim, so it won't have quite the same level of intelligent wit as Rick's. First, let's step back just a little over a week when I took a quick trip back to the states.

Last Sunday, we were looking for a place Rick could spend the few days I would be gone. We wanted something a bit less hectic than Simpson Bay Marina. Although the people there were fantastic - it has the feel of being in the middle of everything. As an aside, we were able to see the latest Harry Potter movie at the local cinema which was within walking distance of the Simpson Bay Marina. Also, Rick went to the top of the mast to fix our VHF - while he was there, he snapped a few pictures.

Also, not to be forgotten is Maho Beach. Home to the Sunset Beach Bar AND the end of the runway to the Princess Juliana Airport. Those of you who know me, understand my level of excitement about being able to watch jets land close up. To make a good situation even better, the Sunset Beach Bar overlooks the end of the runway. That means I can watch planes land and at the same time, enjoy a freshly blended Mango Daquari at the same time. Heaven.

Here's a pic of me in front of the surf board that indicates when flights will be arriving.

So we headed out to Grande Case which is on the northwest side of the island. That meant changing our flags from the St. Maarten (Dutch) flag to the St. Martin (French) flag (a flag that smells a bit like stinky cheese. I've captured that on film :)

Grande Case has a beautiful beach and the town feels as though you're in a small French village. We had a very good dinner at a local French place and spent the night on the boat. The cove was a bit rolly, so we decided to move around the corner to a small Marina called Port Lonvilliers in Anse Marcel. And this place . . . truly out of a French story book.

Anyway, I flew back to the US from St. Martin to JFK. I won't go into the details of my travel day, but let me just say it started by trying to find a cab at 7am in a rather deserted area without the benifit of speaking much French. Shame on me for not planning better. But in the end, all was well and I made my flight to the US sans problem (maybe I can speak French).

I got off the plane in JFK and immediately wondered who were all these people? I've been used to being around Rick and the two nubbins for 5 weeks. Occasionally, we'll have a neighbor moored close by or another boat near us on a dock, but this was defiantly a culture shock. I have to say, I kind of liked it a bit - it just took a while to get used to. However, I do like the solitude of island living as well.

Three days later, after having some great reunions and meetings while in NYC and DC, I returned to St. Martin . On the cab ride back, the driver and I were talking about life and such. You'll find that you can learn more about the local culture from the cab drivers. They are incredibly friendly and will talk to you about most anything.

So, we originally planned to leave Port Lonvilliers within a few days - but then Dean happened. Rick is writing another blog about Dean, so I won't go into specifics now. But since he was headed our way - we decided to stay put. The marina is VERY protected so it afforded us a good hiding place from the impending wind. There are some good pictures of the boat that Rick took during these days. You can click on any of these pics and you'll be taken to our gallery on Picasa.

So that brings us up to date. We're planning on leaving tomorrow or the next day for Antigua. We may go via St. Kitts, but that kinda depends on the weather. I hope all is well with all of you and look forward to your comments and emails. Stay safe and be well.

The Handyman Can

2007-08-09T22:35:00.000-04:00

All those who are old enough, please close your eyes and think of Sammy Davis, Jr.

Who can take a sunrise, sprinkle it with dew
Cover it with chocolate and a miracle or two
The Candy Man can, the Candy Man can

Now on a boat…

Who can take a stopped up head, and free it from the pee
Who can fix the radar, helping it to see
The Handyman can….the Handyman can.

I’ll apologize up front for putting that tune into your head. No doubt you’ll be humming it all day.

I’m the kind of guy who likes things to work the way they’re supposed to. I’m not the kind of guy who really cares how they work, just that they do. While I love creative projects, fixing a broken widget was never something that held my interest and I never really considered the creative genius necessary to look at a broken piece of equipment, accurately diagnose the problem and formulate a plan to fix it. My creativity comes in the form of talking the repairman into not going to his mother’s house to fix her air-conditioning in the 110 degree heat, but to come to my house and fix mine first because I’m having 10 people over for dinner that night.

With that said, let’s talk about a boat. A boat, no matter what age, what make or what model, is always broken. Now that’s certainly not to say that it’s unusable or even unsightly (unless, of course, it’s on cinder blocks in your front yard, (unless you live in West Virginia, then it’s considered a status symbol)). There is a direct proportion to the amount you brag about the fancy stuff your boat has to the amount of time you spend fixing all that fancy stuff.

Our boat has a washing machine. Ohhhhh…ahhhhh. It’s located in the starboard haul directly opposite from the head. The “head” is boat speak for the toilet. I don’t have any idea why it’s called a head. I do everything I can to keep my head from getting anywhere near it. While Jim and I were at the dock in Tortola, we were able to take advantage of the two, large, top loading washing machines I once took so much for granted. I did a few loads of laundry every week, figuratively patting myself on the back for being able to take care of this basic household task. Yolanda, our domestic aid back in the States, who, in my mind, has now risen to the status of home economic goddess, used to do all of our laundry for us. Dirty clothes, sheets and towels just vanished, reappearing clean and folded as if by magic. Well, let me tell you; sweat ain’t magic. It’s not enough to round up the dirties and get them into the washing machine. Unless your favorite color is grey, you have to separate them. If you love grey, well then by George, you’re in such luck. If it’s not, then separate you must. You then have to remember that they are in the washing machine. If you don’t, they tend to take on a smell all their own and you need to rewash and then re-remember that they are still wet in the washing machine. I was averaging 2.6 wash cycles per load.

Now that Jim and I have set sail for ports unfamiliar, that little, front loading washing machine in our head has become quite the gem. Jim had to head back to the States for business so I decided to keep myself occupied by cleaning the inside of the boat from top to bottom, which included doing the wash. It was with such glee that I stripped the beds and gathered up all the laundry, knowing that I was one of the lucky few who didn’t have cart my pile down the dock to the sole public washing machine. I filled our little front loading darling, added the detergent and heading up to the salon for a date with my book and a cup of coffee. Life was good. I got through a couple of chapters of Patrick O’Brian’s Master and Commander and then remembered the wash. I was already getting to be pretty good at this whole washing thing. I went down to the laundry room (bathroom/head), popped open the outer washing machine door and gazed into the fish tank like window of the machine. Hmmm. My little gem didn’t seem to have drained out all the water. Keeping in mind that I was well under my 2.6 cycles per load average and hoping that like I often did, the washing machine forgot that there was laundry not yet finished, I just ran it again.

Back upstairs I went for another cup of coffee and a few more pages of my book. Twenty minutes later, with my coffee and book attended to, I headed back down to the toilet to see if progress had been made. Hmmmm. I really don’t know a lot about laundry but surmised that all the water had to be out of the drum before I opened the door. Actually, that has less to do with understanding laundry and more to do with understanding gravity. What to do, what to do? As much as I wanted to put off the inevitable and not deal with opening the strainer at the bottom of the machine, sending three or so gallons of water into the inside of the boat, where, if you understand anything about boats, is the opposite side you want the water, I acquiesced. Luckily, my first load wasn’t the towels, so, with a bucket positioned to catch most of the water and plenty of dirty towels stuffed around the base of the machine, I opened the flood gates and let the water come. It came with a bit more force than I expected and ended up in my lap. The reason it ending up in my lap was because I was sitting on the toilet at the time (yes, shorts on and lid closed, but still, the image is pretty funny). The economics of space on a boat requires that it be used efficiently and as such, if you wish, you can make toilette and do your laundry at the same time. I can feel that sophisticated image I’ve cultivated for so many years just slipping away, but that’s fodder for another blog.

So there I was, once again with a load of wet clothes needing to be rewashed. Because my pride wouldn’t let this laundry event exceed my 2.6 cycles per load average, I just wrung out the clothes, hung them on the boat’s life lines and got out the old tool box.

The first thing I did was look at the instruction manual. It’s in German. Those Germans sure do love their syllables. Apparently, any single syllable word in English requires at least 15 syllables in German. Being internet savvy, I logged onto Google Language and translated the first sentence in the manual. This is the god’s honest truth. The translation read, “Through print gropes, takes place one waschzeitverkurzung.” Was it time for a cocktail? Understanding that the instruction manual wasn’t going to be any help, I did what any red-blooded American male would do, I just started taking out screws. Eventually, the belly of the beast was exposed and into the abyss I peered. Hmmmm. There wasn’t a button that said, “If your washing machine isn’t draining (or your waschzeitverkurzung kazuent draivingiklerspluggen) push here.”

The long and short of it is that I finally found the pump and took it out. I hotwired 220 volts, yes you read that right, 220 volts, with some old wires I found hanging around (don’t ask) and discovered that the pump was fine. I did some other tests with a voltage meter (which made me feel so butch) and found that the power to the pump was fine. I put the whole mess back together while sitting on the toilet and ran another load. You’d think this would be over; didn’t I say the long and the short of it? The next load ran fine until a clanking noise alerted me to what I already knew. I really didn’t fix anything. I only took it all apart and put it all back together again. However this time, when I opened the door, quite a bit of smoke came out with the laundry; but the drum did drain, or, the water evaporated from the heat that caused the smoke. Not wanting to ruin my 2.6 cycle average, I just hung my clean but smoky smelling clothes out on the life lines to dry, hoping with all my heart that the island air would whisk away the smoky smell and replace it with that beautiful “hung out to dry in the fresh air” smell my Grandmother used to achieve so effortlessly.

Once again, I sat down on the toilet, took the whole mess apart, tested the pump and found nothing amiss. Damn it. With a frustration that lead me to believe that dirty clothes weren’t all that bad, I put it all back together, crossed my fingers and yes, I know it’s hard to believe, I ran another load. Just so you don’t think I’m nuts, this time I sat on the toilet with a fire extinguisher in my lap. I couldn’t hold it in my hands because, in the interest of being time efficient, I read my book while I was waiting for the washing machine to explode. Guess what? It ran like a champ. Four loads and two hours later (the last two loads without the fire extinguisher) all the wash was done, hung out to dry then folded and put away.

I decided to reward myself by eating at the magnificent little French restaurant in the marina. Dressed in some of my newly cleaned clothes, I headed to dinner where I was greeted by a beautiful hostess who said in heavily accented English, “That is a very unusual cologne you have on. If you don’t mind me asking, what it is?”

“It’s called eau du Waschzeitverkurzung, and I made it myself.”

Tank Racks

2007-07-31T08:24:00.000-04:00

You’d think that getting a couple of tank racks would be a simple thing. First things first: tank racks are racks that support SCUBA tanks on the boat when you’re not diving. The most common ones are called pelican racks which are made from heavy gauge steel wire coated in a soft plastic similar to the coating you’d find on the handle of a wrench. The wire is formed into a triple tiered grid most commonly holding four tanks in a row. The grid is then bolted at its bottom onto two rectangular pieces of wood that run perpendicular to the row of tanks and protect the deck of the boat from scratches. The problem with this type of rack is that invariably, the plastic coating fails to protect the steel from the elements and the rack begins to rust, depositing messy little pieces of grime all over the surface of our nice clean white boat. Can you guess who’s writing this blog? I’ll have none of that.
While Jim and I were tooling around St. Thomas, we happened buy “Chris Sawyer’s Dive Shop”. He had stacks of tank racks made from 8 inch PVC pipe tied together with quarter inch white line. Ingenious! No fuss, no mess and white goes with everything. With my goal insight, I strolled into the shop and asked to buy two of his best PVC masterpieces. How much could four pieces of PVC and 20 feet of quarter inch line possibly cost? One hundred and sixty US dollars, that’s how much. Oh wait…each. Exorbitant! Those of you who know me know that in addition to loving a challenge, I love to save a few bucks. My calculations brought the total cost of these tank racks to about $75.00 for both not including my time which, we all know is right now in abundance and at a very reasonable rate.
I didn’t want to haul eight pieces of eight inch PVC from St. Thomas to Tortola so I decided to wait until I got back to Barecat’s dock to start my project. Jim and I sailed back to Tortola and I began my search for the pipe. When you go into most shops “down island” they’re shelves are somewhat sparse but they always seem to have quite a bit more “somewhere in the back.” It’s like they only want to show it to you if you’ve expressed a genuine interest in making a purchase. You’re never allowed in “the back” and “the back” must me a 4 acre maze with a few coffee shops and TV playing reruns of Gilligan’s Island because, once they head into “the back”, it’s quite a while before you ever see them again. In the States, you’d just leave and go the hardware store across the street. In Tortola, there’s only one street and only one hardware store. So the employee comes back with a smile (ha, I just wrote that to make me smile) only to tell you that they don’t have it. I smile back (because my mother taught me to) and asked if they could recommend another place we could try. Then the game begins. They tell me where, I politely ask them to repeat what they said, they say it again, even more softly, I smile more broadly, make a joke about the heat and how it affects my hearing and ask them to repeat it again. They reply more loudly and with intended frustration at my unreasonableness but with no more clarity. I mumble back something in the same way people sing the lyrics to songs even when they don’t know them, thank them, leave the store and ask the first person I meet on the street where I can go to get PVC. Usually they point to the store I just walked out of and ask me if I’ve tried there.
Eventually we discover that the only place stocking the pipe is the Department of Waste Management. Delightful. I asked Jim if he would mind going to get it. Bless his heart, he says, “Sure.” Four trips to the Waste Depot later, Jim comes back with two, four foot long sections of pipe. It takes four trips because the first time, the guy who cuts the pipe was at lunch. Jim was told he would be back in fifteen minutes; three more trips and three hours later, he was there. Apparently he had lunch “in the back.”
Ok, so now I have the pipe. How to cut really big pieces of PVC at right angles? Mike and Tom, from Barecat charter are more than eager to crack open a few Old Milwaukees and watch me use their “Saws-ALL.“ Much to their entertainment disappointment, I manage to cut the pipe (and just the pipe) by tying it to what was left of a wrought iron and wood slat park bench. Then I used the grinder-from-hell to trim the bottoms flat. The grinder is from hell because as soon as it came out of the box, the West Indians removed and threw away the protective finger guard attached to the back of the grinder. What was left was a grinder with a very bad attitude and Rick with a few bloodied knuckles and one bloody knee. The bloody knee is because while sitting and grinding, I bent over to see if my line was parallel and didn’t pay attention to the grinder…ouch. But now I’m done and covered from head to toe in PVC dust. Do you know what PVC dust sticks to? Sweat. Got the picture?
I have the PVC cut and now need to tie it together. Unfortunately, I didn’t look that closely at the ready made, somewhat over-priced tank racks Chris Sawyer wanted to sell so I have to wing-it from here. I decide to drill them and screw them together. I can drill them from the outside and then counter sink the screws in from the inside so the racks are smooth. First I have to make a template so the screws all line up. No problem, I use an old strip hinge which I screw to the leg of the work bench. I’m impressing myself with each innovation. An hour later, I’ve drilled all the holes in all of the pieces of pipe however, I now find out that the initial “Saws-All” cuts were not square so the holes only line up with the guide and not with the to-be-joined sections of pipe. Out comes that nasty little grinder.
An hour later, the grinding is done. Once again, I’m covered in sweat and PVD dust but elated with being one step closer to being finished. At this point, I’m taking as much joy from each accomplishment as possible. The power of positive thinking. Now I’ll attach the counter-sinking bit to the mini drill and counter sink the 24 holes. I’ll be done in 5 minutes! The drill bit is a quarter if an inch too long. Sigh. I remind myself about the positive thinking. An hour later, all of the holes are counter sunk and my thumb and forefinger are starting to blister because I had to spin the countersinking bit by hand. Still, on the bright side, the holes are ready and the racks are almost done. I screw all of the screws in only to find that counter sinking the holes made the ends of the screw stick out the other side. Drat the luck. So I reluctantly get out the grinder-from-hell, grind down all of the screw tips and a few knuckles and am done. Or so I thought. The heat generated by grinding the screw seems to have weakened the PCV a bit. No worries, a little industrial strength epoxy in each seam will take care of that. The smallest can of epoxy available at the Chandlery (marine talk for super expensive hardware store) is $35.00 each – you have to buy two and mix them together. Before you apply the epoxy you have to wipe all of the surfaces down with acetone. Acetone cleans the plastic and burns the living hell out of your ground-down knuckles and your ground-down knee. How did I get it on my knee? You know the little boy who just has to lick the frozen light post? By now I’m wondering if Chris Sawyer went through all of this when he was making is moderately-prices tank racks.
The next morning I get up, eat my cereal and dash to the work room, or more accurately, the steel shipping container turned into a work room, to find my epoxy hardened like steel. Oh the sweet smell of success. Hey, wait a minute; my epoxy dried an ugly brown. Positive thinking, positive thinking. We just got a new, dark blue sail cover. I could cover the tank racks in blue and white ticking! You can take the boy of out the city, but…
Back to the hunt, or more to the point, back to asking Jim to go and find me white and blue ticking, which, of course, he does gleefully. He found white nylon ticking and Linda from Doyle Sails was kind enough to give him blue cotton ticking. The cotton will stretch but the nylon wont, but if I get a few pieces of teak and cinch them together with some nice black line, that would take care of the stretching. My tank racks are going to put Chris Sawyer’s very reasonably priced tank racks to shame.
The next day, I went to the teak store and asked Junior if I could get eight pieces of teak cut 12x2x1 inch, fully expecting him to say, “Sure, it will take me about ten minutes.” Instead, I got, “When you needem?”
“Today?” I replied sheeplishly.
“What time tomorrow you needum?”
“By noon?”
“They be ready at one.”
Damn, they’re good at that. So the next day at one, Jim went to pick them up. They were ready at 4:30 and only cost $80.00.
So I’ll wrap this up. Two more sessions with screws for the ticking and grinding for the screws (but thankfully, no knuckles involved) and one session with teak, clamps, knots and swear words and the racks are done. The finished appraisal comes in at two tank racks with blue and white ticking and teak accents….$300.00 each. The experience….priceless.

St. Maarten the easy way

2007-07-28T17:40:00.000-04:00

We made it. We had a little trouble with our autopilot when we left the Sir Francis Drake Channel, but Jim fixed it on the fly. The wind was light and the seas were mild so for a "to weather" trip, it was really great.

Because of the light seas, or was it because or the Benadryl, the little monsters were much more relaxed for this crossing than they were for the last one.

Jim and I did 4 hour watches, but because this was our first big crossing of the trip, neither of us got much sleep. It was waxing gibbous moon that seemed to wash the surface of the sea behind us with a river of mercury. As the moon set, the night sky over our bow opened up to reveal the Milky way, Mars and Saturn. Orion was laying down on his side and his belt seemed to point right down to St. Maartin.

The sunrise greeted us around 5:50 and because of the Sahara dust blown over from Africa, the horizon took on many different shades of gray and blue. The sun peaked above the dust and some cumulus clouds at about 15 degrees above the horizon as a blazing ball of white.

At about 7:00 we saw the faint outline of St. Maartin in the distance. We could make out the difference between the tops of the island, but not between its base and the sea. We were escorted into Simpson's bay by dozens of schools of flying fish flitting just about the surface of the waves on wings that looked like they belonged to fairies. Yeah, that was a nice way to get to St. Maarten. We'll be here for a few weeks and then it's off to points south. We'll keep you posted.

St. Maarten Bound (Take 2)

2007-07-26T15:25:00.000-04:00

It's been six days since our first attempt at a BVI to St. Maarten passage. During that time, we've installed a new outhaul, run three new reefing lines through the boom, reconfigured both the jib and the jennicker sheets, cleaned all the stainless steel, fixed the starboard air conditioner (again) and built and installed new tank racks (stay tuned for an individual post describing that fiasco). That's more work that I did in Virginia all last year! We've had time to monitor the weather for the best window to make the jump. We've re-provisioned, had a long talk with the dogs and are set to leave tonight for St. Maarten.

Now mind you, it's not a long sail as sails go, just over 90 miles. It's the point of sail that kicks your ass. This passage is a "passage to weather." There's a saying in the BVI, "Nothing goes to weather better than a 747." Going to weather means we're sailing into the wind. For those non-sailors out there, the physics of sailing allows you to sail in any direction EXCEPT the direction from which the wind is blowing. For example, St. Maarten is east of the BVI and guess where the trade winds blow in the Caribbean? You got it, they blow from the east. Some might ask, "Why Rick and Jim, why subject yourselves to such a beating from dear old Mother Nature? You seem like pretty smart guys, what's the point?" Well, we understand that in St. Maarten, there's Starbucks and Jim has it bad for a chi tea.

If all goes well, you can expect a post on Saturday detailing our successful crossing.

St. Maarten Bound

2007-07-22T21:23:00.000-04:00

OK, here's the story of our trip to St. Maarteen (and a picture taken just prior to our leaving):

We headed out for St. Maarteen - Martin - Marteen - Maarten depending on who is doing the spelling - two days ago at about 7:00 pm. It took us about an hour to clear the British Virgin islands and head into the open ocean and by that time, it was already dark. The wind and waves were both a bit stronger than forecast so it was a bit of a bumpy ride. Coco and Cooper weren't happy about the rocking and rolling the boat was making and to top it off, when you're in seas like that, there is also a great deal of sloshing and banging to go along with the rocking and rolling. Well, if you're a dog, you either pee or throw up...and they did both.

Jim and I were each feeling a bit queasy and also respectfully afraid of the sail to come. We considered turning back, but decided that we needed to get use to harsh conditions and what we were going through wasn't all that harsh. So after we got ourselves psyched to weather out the storm, we heard this big BANG and discovered that our outhaul (the line that secures the clew of the sail) had snapped, leaving our mainsail "flapping in the wind" in a bad way. The sail had to be controlled and the best way to do that was to release the mail halyard and let the sail drop into the sail bag attached along the top of the boom. We took a vote and I was elected "vice-president in charge of crawling up to the mast in bad weather". So into my jack-line harness I went and up to the mast I scurried. Eyes of the World was in about 7 foot seas which, when you're heading into the wind, equates to up to 14 foot plunges into the troughs of the waves. I was facing the front of the mast with my back to the front of the boat. Every time we dove into a trough, the water sprayed up though the nets and gave me a cool, refreshing, dousing...well, maybe not so refreshing. With my back to forward, I couldn't see what was coming, nor could I focus on the horizon (please refer to the prior sentence describing the queasy feeling) and as a result, my stomach wasn't any happier than I was. Jim was behind the helm, holding the boat into weather so that when I did release the halyard, the sail fell straight through the lazy jacks and into the stack pack. Had he not been able to do that, the sail could have blown free and fouled itself in the rigging.

All went well with the dropping of the sail and we turned ourselves around on a heading back to Peter Island. Our initial plan was to head out at dusk and arrive after dawn. The theory being, "Leave with light, arrive with light." Now we were arriving back amongst the British Virgin Islands at 10:30 PM while it was quite dark. Being the prepared sailors we are, we had a watertight monitor installed in the cockpit so we could benefit from our GPS without having to be in the salon of the boat. The damn monitor was so bright that when we turned it on at night, it ruined any night vision our eyes had developed in the dark. What we did was flip it on for a few seconds and then shut it off, wait for our eyes to adjust and then make sure we weren't going to run into anything. Not the best way to come into a landing at night. We made it through the safest passage between Dead Chest and Peter Island and headed for Great Harbour to pick up a mooring ball for the night.

Most mooring balls are covered with a highly reflective paint and will light up like a beacon when illuminated with a flashlight. We pulled out our 1 million candle power spot light and began sweeping the harbout with enough light to tan a local. I'm sure the other boats in the harbour were a little peeved. However, safety first, a good night's sleep for the other folks resting in their already moored boats....a distant second. I navigated through a field of other sailboats and Jim grabbed the mooring ball with the boat hook like a pro. We snapped the shackle shut on our bridle and both gave a huge sigh of relief only then to discover that we'd lost both dogs overboard during the chaos. Ok, I made that part up. Both dogs were fine but after the peeing and the throwing up...who knows what I could have done.

We hope the next attempt at St. Maarteen will be nothing to write a blog about!

Our Dogs

2007-07-15T10:00:00.000-04:00

About two months ago, our Cocker Spaniels had their lives turned upside down. We've always traveled a lot and when we do, we have a good friend, Ken Kraft, come and take care of our little monsters. They love Kenny, but really hate to see us leave. Being the more precocious of the two, Coco, the brown one, realizes that when the suitcases come out, someone is leaving and from that point on, she won't leave my side. We started packing the house up about two months before we left so for two months, Coco was beside herself (actually, she was right beside me). Cooper is another story. If ignorance is bliss, then that dog is in bliss heaven. She's so laid back, she could have been born in San Francisco in the 60's.

Jim and I were both stressed out about getting the dogs down here. The airlines are cool with dogs weighing less than 20 pounds riding in the cabin, under the seat in front of the owner. Our "little monsters" aren't that little. The porkers each weighed in at 27 pounds...yikes! Jim went immediately into doggie diet mode and allocated them each two pellets of food, twice a day. I of course, supplemented their diets with plenty of dog biscuits and the occasional piece of cheese that just happened to "drop" on the floor. In spite of my sabotage, Jim was able to slim the girls down to a fashionable 22 pounds.

For several weeks before we left, we discussed alternative ways to get Coco and Cooper down to the boat. Jim looked into chartering a private plane. That came to about $26,000.00. We could buy two new dogs in every port we visited for the year and still not spend $26,000.00. Needless to say, that option was out. We looked into taking a cruise ship down. They only allow service dogs on ship; anyone who knows our dogs knows that they are the ones who demand the service. That was another option down the tubes. We looked into booking our flight on a wide-body plane but the only wide-body planes that fly out of the Washington area head for a different continent. One more idea bites the dust.

In the end, we gave each dog a Benedryl, stuffed them into their Sherpa dog carriers, walked up to the ticket counter, paid the ticket agent $80.00 each for the dogs's fare, and got on the plane. Nobody even gave them a second look. I have to admit, I was the one doing most of the worrying.

They did great on the first plane but really didn't want to get back into their Sherpas for the second one. We're bigger and stronger; they got in the Sherpas.

Now they're on the boat. They love being with their two dads but are a little freaked out when their whole house starts to move. But as you can see from the two pictures below, they've adjusted just fine. Coco does what she did in Falls Church. She looks out the window/hatch hoping to find something to bark at. Cooper does what she does best....ZZZZZZZZ.

Ahhhh, it's a dogs life!

Preparing for Journey

2007-07-09T10:30:00.000-04:00

We have a lot to get done in the next few weeks. Preparing to set sail for a year has turned out to be quite different than coming down for a few weeks. First of all, when we come down for a few weeks, all the work has already been done by Barecat Charters, the company that charters our boat for us.

So after we arrived, we spent a few days getting reacquainted with "Eyes of the World." I hadn't seen her in nearly a year - and Rick hadn't in over nine months. She looked great! We had a new "stack pack" made, which is a fancy word for the main sail cover, as well as the teal boot stripe replaced with a matching dark blue.

We have lots to get done before we can leave. We bought a compressor to fill our dive tanks - so we have to go to St. Thomas to pick that up and then come back to Tortola to have Mike and Tom at Barecat Charters help us install it. Both Mike and Tom have been fantastic to us while we've been here!

Well, we're leaving the US!

2007-07-06T11:52:00.000-04:00

After several false starts, we've actually left our home outside Washington, DC too live on our boat for a year. We were successful in getting our two Cocker Spaniels, Cooper and Coco, onboard our American Airlines flight from Washington Dulles to San Juan, PR. For those of you that we've talked to recently - we had quite a bit of angst about whether we'd be able to get these dogs down to the islands.

How It All Began

2007-07-01T11:00:00.000-04:00

Nine years ago, in an airport in Miami, Jim and I were talking about all the places we wanted to go scuba diving. We had just been diving in the Florida Keys and were trying to plan our next trip. The list of places was getting pretty long and I jokingly said we should learn to sail and take a trip around the world. That way we could hit all of the best dive sites on our own schedule.
A few weeks later, Jim told me that he’d booked us a three week, learn to sail, dive vacation in the British Virgin Islands. We spent a few years honing our sailing skills and logging hundreds and hundreds of dives until we felt confident enough to take the next step, finding our own boat.
We had a lead on a 50 foot Privilege that was lying in Florida so we hoped on a plane and went down to take a look. That boat was a behemoth! She slept 14, had 9 fuel tanks, a hydraulic winch system and even an infrared night vision camera mounted on the bow. I took one look at all that stuff and said, “That too much stuff to fix.” We didn’t even take that boat out for a test sail. Since we’d flown all the way down to Florida, the boat broker, Staley, offered to take us to a few other boats.
A few years before that trip, Jim and I went to the Annapolis boat show and went aboard a Lagoon 410 and loved it. At that time, we weren’t ready to buy a boat so we quickly forgot about the Lagoon 410. Can you see where this is going? Staley said that he thought he had the perfect boat for us but wanted to show us a few others first. We went along, liking most of the boats he showed us. Everything changed when we stepped foot onto LEO. She was a customized Lagoon 410 built in 2000 with 4 previous owners. Each previous owner had taken her out for a year sail, brought her back and then sold her. She was in excellent shape with just enough add-ons to make her a “sweet ride”. Needless to say, we walked on, looked at each other and both said, “This is our boat.”
We flew down to Bimini on December 28, 2005, bought her and sailed her 1250 miles, with the immense help of our Stepmom/mother-in-law, Sam and put her into charter with our friends, Sidney and Mike Fallis, the owners of Barecat Charters.
We spent the next 18 months preparing to leave our home, businesses, friends and family (sniff, sniff…tissue please) and periodically flying down to the BVI to practice sailing on the newly named “Eyes of the World.”
So we're finally on the sailing trip that started as a conversation in an airport magazine store. We’ll leave the British Virgin Islands in a few weeks and head toward St. Maarteen. Our plan is to sail down the Leeward Islands, across the top of South America, through the Panama Canal and to the Galapagos Islands. If all goes well, we’ll turn around in 6 months and head back to Tortola. Stay tuned for more updates.