All posts by stewart135

Gucci Kit… Or how to burn your credit card…..

May 3, 2015 stewart135 3 Comments

I’d had a shopping list whirling around in my head for quite some time.

So when we planned to visit St Maartin, a wonderful tax free port, it seemed like a good idea to really look hard at what we should equip Skylark with for the rest of our journey. With 6 months under our belt, we had a fair idea on what items were vital, what were necessary at some point and then, the nice to have.

Before we left the USA, I bought 280W of solar panels, thinking that this would go a long way to help us to be self sufficient in energy. I wish I’d bought more ( the most I’ve found on one boat is 1200W!) but saying that, I’m not sure where I’d actually have been able to mount them without some fairly serious remodelling of the stern fittings of the boat. As we progressed down island, we realised that the energy bill was adding up and with no power generation at night, we were coming up short, needing to run the generator every day.

It wasn’t helped that out single 8D AGM battery was knackered after years of misuse. We were often getting up to find the battery saying 10.8V. Less than 12.3 is regarded as near flat……..

First things first, I knew that the battery had to be replaced.

Having failed to get cheap Lithium Ion batteries from fellow RHYC member, Highland Fling who had imported a number and sold them on to other boaters in St Maartin (we arrived too late), the choice was then either to stick with AGM or go for cheaper lead acid. In the end, I choose four T105 6V in series and parallel to give me near double the Ahs I had previously or would have available with a like for like AGM. I’d seen another FP Lavezzi with this set up in BVI whose owner was v happy with T105s. Unlike the AGM, I will need to make sure I carry out proper battery maintenance on them. A new addition to the monthly checks. After a few schoolboy diagrams the system was wired in without any other issues than a too short lead, quickly fixed.

An easy add on, which I originally reserved judgement on, was wind power generation. I had had a long chat with the company rep for the D400 and the Silentwind systems in the BVI who was parked a couple of boats down from us in Nanny Cay. Whilst the D400 is (maybe) the best around for power generation, it is also one of the heaviest at 20+kg. Fine if you have a big frame to hang it on but I didn’t. The next choice and his recommendation was the Silentwind, manufactured with blades designed by an infuriated German engineer sick of the noise of his own system. These blades are now used by several firms due to their efficiency and quietness. For all those who have had to put up with the noise of some sods howling generator in an otherwise quiet anchorage, that word is crucial. The system only weighed about 7kg which sounded a lot more manageable too.

After deciding that for ease of access and wiring into the house battery, it needed to be on the starboard hull it was an easy matter to drill holes and wire it in. Less easy was the balancing act to get the damn pole vertical and the final tightening of the blade hub. My thanks to Ernesto on Taia for balancing on a stack of beer cans and a small step ladder. Handy having a tall(er) friend to call on!

Silentwind 400 at work

Since we fitted it, although we have been running the water maker every couple of days, we had had to only once switch the generator on in the last week. The infamous incident involving Lou, the inverter and the toaster will need to wait for another time.

You may also remember I wrote an article a while back on “Dinghy Envy”. Well, we succumbed on our very first day here. We arrived to be told that the next day was the last day of a sale at Budget Marine, the main chandlery on the island. Can you smell the credit card burning yet?

Although the Apex dinghy we had had a plastic body, it weighed a lot. Too much frankly, especially with the 100kg limit on my davits. Budget conveniently had some aluminium ribs for sale. I knew I did not want more than 100 lb as the dinghy weight budget and the 9.5 foot aluminium AB dinghy for sale came in at 95lbs. Perfect and lighter by 10lbs than the 8’ Apex I had. Unfortunately I then got a bit carried away with the engine. I was looking at either a 9.8HP or a 15HP but was persuaded to take an 18HP 2 stroke Tohatsu at sale price…. and then with a bit more off as well – lesson for all – always, always bargin. The 18HP is the same weight as a 15HP after all. Damn engine weighed nearly the same as the dinghy…….

So, I have a big cheesy smile, a shiny new dinghy that when I opened up the engine with Lou on board, her response was to grab a handle and say, in surprise, an unprintable word. Fast, or certainly when compared to our little 5HP Mercury on the old dinghy. But a complete inability to put the dinghy up on the davits as is. Oops.

The last couple of weeks has been taken up with finding someone who could build a hoist and make some new rails to take the engine mounted on board Skylark whilst we travel. We lucked out finding Jean Pierre (arrived in his boat in 1995 and hasn’t left since) in one of the yards on the French side who quoted us a fantastic figure for the work he did. Having been quoted $850 just for the hoist and pulley before more than double that again for rails and fittings from the very good but fiercely expensive FKG, he was very very competitive. I’ll happily pass on details to anyone that needs similar work done.

The new hoist, pulley, engine mount and rail

So, we leave St Maartin with a greatly upgraded boat with only one boat system that I’m still unhappy with which is the foresail furler which remains a lot stiffer than I like. But I think I can manage that until the bank balance stabilises a bit. Maybe once we get to Columbia though…

Update posts

St Martin

May 2, 2015 stewart135 Leave a comment

Saying a sad farewell to Lou as she heads back to Europe.

The planes coming in over Maho Beach, St Maarten.

Low flying planes.

Fort Louis in Marigot, St Martin

Perched up high at Fort Louis.

Field Trip to Fort Louis.

The view of Marigot Bay from the Fort.

The battlements of Fort Louis

Matias kicking back on Almost There.

Stewart on the kneeboard

Stewart at speed.

Ernesto showing the kids how it is done.

Ernesto

Waiting while the grownups have a go on the kneeboard.

Uh oh – here cones trouble.

Hannah getting to grips with the board.

Hannah the acrobat.

Matias having fun.

Eleanor’s turn.

Hannah and Matias find a friend – Sophie the dog.

Hannah chilling at Grand Case Beach.

Snorkelling fun.

The big girls.

Fishing off the pier at Grand Case Beach.

Scrubbing the bottom of the dinghy.

Double Trouble!

St Martin, as a tax-free destination, is a great place to get work done and buy essential kit for the boat. Stewart has had his eye on a wind generator for a while so this seemed the ideal place to invest. We also needed new batteries as ours was old and was not holding a charge particularly well. The initial plan had been to purchase it and only spend four to five days here before heading to Antigua for the cricket, but as the old military saying goes, ‘no plan survives contact with the enemy’.

On arriving in Marigot Bay after a bit of a pounding on the way across, we were greeted by our old friends from Taia, bearing gifts of French cheese and ham. After booking in, Lou, the French lady who had accompanied us as crew from the BVI, immediately set about starting to look for a place on a boat heading across the Atlantic. Stewart, myself and the kids went off to find the Super U supermarket, on the lookout for some decent French cheese, some decent French wine and some Nutella. Early the following morning, Stewart headed to the sale at Budget Marine – I will let him cover the boat purchases in another blog. Needless to say, it has been a costly month!

On the first weekend we headed across to Maho Beach on the Dutch side, at the end of the runway for Princess Juliana Airport. Due to the unique proximity of low flying airplanes, the beach is popular with plane spotters. This is one of the few places in the world where aircraft can be viewed in their flightpath just outside the end of the runway. We had a great time taking photos of the planes overhead. The take-offs, however, were slightly more exhilarating. particularly for the uninitiated. We were sat in the middle of the beach, directly under the flightpath, when a rather large plane lined itself up on the runway for takeoff. It slowly dawned on us that we were in the direct line of fire for the jet exhaust. Realising that we had no time to move our belongings, we lay down across as much of it as we could. The engines then fired up ready for take off and sent the biggest wave of sand directly across us, at great speed. Talk about exfoliation! We could not open our eyes and had to just wait it out – fortunately the kids were in the sea so managed to avoid it. A very kind lady came across afterwards and suggested we might want to move as the next plane was even bigger – we can take a hint.

The next outing was to Fort Louis in Marigot. Fort Louis was built in 1789 on a hill overlooking Marigot Bay and the island of Anguilla by the locals in the town, on the orders of Jean Sebastian de Durat, who was governor of St Martin and St Barth, for the king of France at the time. Its primary function was to defend the harbour warehouses where goods were stored (salt, coffee, sugar cane, and rum).
Later the fort was abandoned and fell into ruin. In the 19th century it was restored once more, only to be abandoned again. During this period it was also the site of battle between the French and the English, as the latter regularly came across from Anguilla to raid the warehouses. The kids found this pretty amusing – raiding a fort for coffee! It was an educational morning and the kids did some sketching of the fort and the views.

About a week after we arrived, our friends on Almost There (who had turned back just off Virgin Gorda) arrived in Marigot Bay, much to the excitement of the kids. Sleepovers were planned before even the parents managed to say hello. It has been a sociable time for both the adults and the kids!

Almost There invested in a kneeboard on one of their trips to the Chandlers. So what to do on a lazy Sunday afternoon….. Disturb the peace in the bay by whizzing around in a dinghy with small children (and grown men!) squealing in delight on a kneeboard. I’m sure we were very popular but everyone had a great time.

We have had a great three weeks (yes, not four days but three weeks!) here in St Martin meeting new people and new boat kids from all over the globe but it is time to move on. It is a great place to provision and fit up the boat but we have missed the beaches and snorkelling that we have enjoyed elsewhere . We will set off to St Barths in the morning, doing some buddy sailing with Taia and Almost There.

Update posts

Weather Windows

April 20, 2015 stewart135 2 Comments

There be a squall on the horizon.

It’s a biggie…..

Full waterproofs required.

It has not been all bad.

Surfing down a big wave at great speeds.

Weather window – a limited interval when weather conditions can be expected to be suitable for a particular project, such as laying offshore pipelines, reaching a high mountain summit, launching a satellite….. or allowing the Henderson family to sail in relative comfort without the wind directly on their nose!

‘We’ll be fine, Louise. As we have time to wait for the weather then we should always be able to sail in favourable conditions.’ This was Stewart’s stock response whenever I voiced concerns about being able to deal with the weather and resultant seas – the theory and his logic seemed to be sound….. However, time (as the saying goes) flies when you are having fun. I honestly do not know where the last six months have gone but what I do know is that we are having a fantastic time and regularly lose track of the day of the week. We were not on a strict schedule but we did have to keep on the move if we are to explore the Caribbean and be far enough south for hurricane season. And sometimes the weather does not always do what you need it to do.

We have had to wait for several ‘weather windows’ on this voyage so far and I’m still not sure that I have experienced a good one. Our departure from Florida required us to wait for a weather window that would see us across the Gulf Stream. We had seen solid northerlies for more than two weeks and we had been avidly watching the forecasts for the right conditions, namely winds without any elements of a northerly. As we stood on the beach at Fort Lauderdale the night before the predicted window that would see the winds shift to the East, we questioned our decision. The ships anchored offshore were pointing determinedly to the North East and the wind was howling. The difficulty was that if we didn’t use this window, however small it was, we could be stuck in the US for several more weeks. We were keen to start our adventures and, more importantly, we needed to take the boat out of the country as we did not want to pay the tax that we would incur if we went over the 180 day period from purchasing the boat. The date was getting nearer and I had done enough shopping to last me a lifetime. So at 3am on the morning of 2 Dec 14, we set off in less than ideal conditions.

The crossing was pretty lumpy and uncomfortable but we made it and, for me, it was a real confidence boost. The 4-6 ft waves that had sounded so terrifying before we set off, as I could not visualise just how big that would translate to, were actually manageable. We survived and we made it to Bimini. However I am still envious of all those we meet who talk of ‘mirror-calm crossings’ and ‘gentle southerly breezes’.

The next weather window we were on the lookout for was to see us out of Georgetown and across to the BVIs. The tradewinds are normally from the East and we were looking for a front that would see the winds shift from the East and allow us to sail as far East as possible before heading to the BVIs. Again we waited longer than we thought for the window and, lovely as Georgetown and the Bahamas are, we had to start moving before the start of the weaker fronts in the Spring. As we set off on our longest crossing to date, conditions were not quite the perfect calm that I had hoped for. On the second night as I had a little ‘teddy in the corner’ moment when we were surfing down large waves at speeds I was less than happy with, I recalled Stewart’s words. I had a good old chunter to myself at 0300hrs over a cup of tea and a chocolate chip cookie or five. It made me feel slightly better.

Arriving in the BVI was a real sense of achievement and I felt that we had the worst out of the way until our next long crossing from Grenada to Columbia at the end of the year. However, St Martin is a good 80 miles South East of the BVI. When we were due to move on we were again waiting for a weather window where the traditionally Easterly tradewinds would shift enough out of the East to allow us a comfortable overnight crossing. Our friends on Taia had managed a relatively calm 15 hour crossing a few days earlier with a perfect weather window (jealous – moi?). Alas, it did not look as if we were going to be so lucky. We were keen to get to St Martin as we had work to do on the boat and Stewart still had a vague hope of getting to the cricket in Antigua. We set off from North Sound, BVI, in less than ideal conditions – our friends on Almost There, who had decided to come with us, turned back after battling out past the reef. They decided that they did not want to hammer their boat unnecessarily. The only difference on this crossing was that we had an extra pair of hands onboard in the form of Lou, a French lady who had made her way across the Atlantic to the US to visit her brother and was now in the process of making her way back so we offered her a berth. Lou’s extra pair of hands was a godsend. What was a particularly unpleasant, if relatively short, crossing was made 100% more bearable by the fact that we all managed an uninterrupted six hour stint in bed overnight. It was bliss and I even managed to converse with the kids on a level of more than a grunt in between being on watch and being in bed. 24 hours later we arrived in St Martin, having had to tack to the south as the waves hitting us on our nose for the rhomb line were killing our speed to under two knots – and that was with the engine on!

I am still awaiting that perfect weather window but circumstances have generally worked against us. Although we may not have had great conditions, both Stewart and I have agreed when to move on and are glad that we took the opportunities when we did. We would do it again, even with the benefit of hindsight. We have spoken with boats who missed our Florida window and, as a result, did not leave the US until the end of December. We know boats that arrived in Bimini weeks before us and were still there weeks after we had gone. Igor, our Ukranian friend, was still in Georgetown the last we heard of him, waiting for a good weather window and crew. Not for nothing is Georgetown also known as ‘Chicken Harbour’ as many boats run scared, not taking the decision to go and staying put for the season. It is easy to get comfortable. We were amazed at how quickly our three weeks ran up.

We left in February and have spent a great six weeks exploring the BVI with various family visitors. We may not have made the cricket in Antigua, but we have used our time in St Martin to get a lot of work done on Skylark, while enjoying some very good times time with our friends on Taia and Almost There.

It would be nice to have the time enough just to wait for that perfect window but as we are finding out, sometimes you just need to go.

Update posts

Fun in the Sun with Mum

March 17, 2015 stewart135 3 Comments

Pusser’s in Road Town

Stocking up at the Cash and Carry

The Bight, Norman’s Island

Surfing behind the dinghy

Karl, Kelly, Siera and Eerika from Halcyon

Siera and Eleanor kayaking

They get everywhere – a red phone box at Leverick Bay

The Copper Mine

A beautiful four master in North Sound, Virgin Gorda

Island life

North Sound, VIrgin Gorda

The Michael Bean Pirate Show

Hannah and Emily from Dragonfly enjoying a dance

Hannah partying the night away

The girls with Michael Bean after the show

Maths lessons on the beach

Marina Cay

View from Marina Cay

Pusser’s Bar at Marina Cay

Ferry from Marina Cay to Trellis Bay

Granny and Hannah

Jumping in and swimming ashore

Botanic Gardens, Road Town

Road Town

Sunset at Cane Garden Bay

Hannay and Granny on Cane Garden Bay

The beatuifully turquoise water at White Bay, JVD

White Bay – JVD

Full Moon Party at Trellis Bay

Let’s face it – my mum has always been pretty adventurous in terms of travel. My father was a drilling engineer for the big oil companies and as a result they lived abroad for most of their married life. She came to visit me in the foothills of the Himalayas in India during my gap year and endured various interesting journeys in trains, planes and automobiles. She also visited my sister twice during her time in Japan. With one daughter in the army and the other one as an army wife, there were countless opportunities for travel to wherever we were posted and she happily took them up. However, when we mentioned our sailing plans, I have to admit to being a little surprised when she said she was thinking about visiting. Yes, we had owned a small power boat when we lived in Norway but we used it to explore the inland fjords and enjoyed pretty calm seas and easy handling. I was not sure how she would take to life on a catamaran in the windy BVIs.

My mum arrived at 10pm one squally night when we were anchored in Trellis Bay. The airport is a five minute walk from the dinghy dock so it seemed like a great place to pick her up. I am not sure my mum was as convinced, climbing into our small dinghy with her heavy suitcase and a relatively big swell. Obviously I had imposed strict rules on what to pack, knowing only too well that her shoe collection could rival that of the famed Imelda Marcos, as we had a very long list of what we would like bringing out from the UK. Shoes can be surplus to requirement on Caribbean islands so I decided our needs certainly outweighed her need for footwear.

Having looked at the forecast, we decided our best bet was to take the hit and head east straight off and then work our way downwind to the west. Bitter End in North Sound, Virgin Gorda, was our first stop. After a slightly lumpy crossing, we entered the relative shelter of the sound. We spent three days on a mooring in Bitter End, enjoying the facilities of the resort. We paid $30 a night, the posh folk paid hundreds – not a bad deal. We bumped into Paul and Janey from Shian, who were fellow Royal Highland Yacht Club and Ocean Cruising Club members who we had met in Fat Hogs Bay a few days earlier who had unfortunately damaged their rig and were waiting for shipment of a new track for their mast. They were also fortuitously moored behind Halcyon who we had met at Normans Island, belonging to Karl and Kelly (with Siera, aged 12, and Eerika, aged 8) who had just bought their Leopard 46 catamaran and were on an initial trip prior to fitting Halcyon out before heading back to Florida and then setting out to Europe at the end of this year. We had an extremely sociable few days culminating in a kids sleepover that saw us with no kids on our boat – BONUS! Cooking pancakes for everyone the following morning was a small price to pay.

From Bitter End we headed to Leverick Bay Marina, tempted by the free 100 gallons of water, ice, showers and swimming pool. Our original plan had been to go to pull into Virgin Gorda Yacht Harbour so that we could explore The Baths National Park and the 19^th century copper mine in Spanish Town. However the Yacht Harbour was pretty pricey and we didn’t fancy anchoring outside Spanish Town with the weather the way it was. So I started looking at hiring a car from Leverick Bay and exploring the island that way. At $70 a day, it turned out to be a great plan. As a comparison, a taxi ride for each person one way would have cost us a lot more than this – taxis here are v v expensive.

After visiting the Copper Mine, built by Cornish miners brought across especially in the 19th Centurty. We were able to explore the Baths, which were well worth the visit and would have been even better had we got there before the crowds. We also enjoyed the absolutely fantastic views from the restaurant at the Top of the Baths, which I am not sure we would have discovered if we had dinghied in from a mooring. The girls also made the most of the restaurant’s swimming pool and joined the many other people who were subtly getting rid of the sand and salt water.

A note here. We have chosen not to pay the $50 a week license to use the National Park buoys for two main reasons. Firstly you can’t then use the moorings at night and during the day you are limited to 90 minutes use only. This might be fine for charter boat people, determined to “see” the whole of the BVI in a week and willing to whizz between the tourist attractions but for us without a timetable, a 90 minute limit just sounded nuts.

We headed back to Leverick Bay in time to catch ‘Happy Arrr’ with the Michael Bean Pirate Show. You would be amazed how many words in the English language end in ‘Arrr’ – an amusing time was had by all. It was an immensely enjoyable two hour, family-friendly show with the great musical talents of Michael Gardner, who is the co-founder and President of the Good Samaritan Foundation of Haiti Inc, whose mission is committed to the advance of education, health and welfare of the underprivileged children of Haiti. Proceeds from his CD sales and donations from the audience all go towards this worthy cause.

The following day we headed across the bay and anchored up just off Prickly Pear Island, a quiet island at the north edge of the Sound. We had hoped to be able to do some snorkelling from the beach but the waters were pretty shallow and there was not a great amount to see. However a beach is a beach and it was another sunny day so we enjoyed our afternoon ashore.

There are quite a few Full Moon parties held every month in the BVI so we were keen to experience one. Obviously with small children (and a mother visiting) not all of them were going to be appropriate, so we headed back across towards Trellis Bay to have the evening at Aragorn’s New Moon Party. Understanding that Trellis Bay was going to be quite full of boats, we decided to take a mooring at Marina Cay and use the ferry service. Marina Cay is a beautiful eight acre island, which author Robb White and his wife Rodie bought for $60 in 1937, much to the displeasure of Rodie’s wealthy family.

https://www.pussers.com/t-marina-cay-history.aspx

It is now home to a Pussers Restaurant and Villa rentals. There is a reef surrounding the south side of the island so the shallow waters are ideal for snorkelling with small children. The beach was also pleasantly peaceful with great views across to Beef Island. We all agreed that it was a beautiful place to visit.

The following day, before the Full Moon Party in the evening, we decided to brave Road Town, again using a hire car which worked out a lot cheaper than taxis. Unfortunately when I called Hertz at the airport, I believed the lady when she said that they had no cars at the current time but they would most likely have one in the morning. Not so! We turned up at the car rental kiosks at the airport and all three attendants from the three different firms just looked at me casually and stated that there were no cars and showed no intention of helping us further. This was yet another reflection of the laid back island life. Having found a car myself just outside Road Town, done the taxi fare calculations to get to the car and return it at the end of the day, we decided that we would all just taxi into Road Town and not have the freedom to explore the island. Probably not a bad thing, given the roads and the standards of driving.

I had warned my mum not to expect too much of Road Town and so we tried to find a few historical places, the Botanic Gardens and we had the obligatory visit to Pussers. It was a long day with the traffic and the dustiness so we were pleased to find ourselves heading back out to Trellis Bay. The Full Moon party was a great night with flaming stuctures on the beaches keeping us warm in what -was a surprisingly windy and cool evening. There was food, there was music and stilt walkers, there was a steel drum band – it was a great night and we would have managed to stay longer had the girls not been so exhausted from the day in Road Town. We caught the ‘ferry’ back to Marina Cay at about 9.30pm. When I say ‘ferry’, I use that word very loosely. It was a 35 ft sports fishing power boat that proved a slightly interesting ride in the side swells down the channel. Fortunately the girls were showing no fear, however my mum and I were not so brave! It really did not help with the fact that it was night time and any sort of swell in the dark is five times more scary.

From Marina Cay we sailed down to Cane Garden Bay about half way down the N side of Tortola. In the notes I made from Brendan’s talk round the islands, all I have written against Cane Garden is ‘full of tourists’ and the cruising guides all warn against lumpy nights in Northerly swells. Having read some good reviews of beautiful sunsets and a nice beach in our guide books I decided that we had to give it a go. The beach was lovely and quiet and I couldn’t see the many tourists that Brendan had talked of. We took a mooring buoy the first night and we had one of the calmest nights since my mum had arrived – unfortunately it was a Friday night so it was not one of the quietest nights. Earplugs to the ready! The music didn’t stop till 2am. The following day we moved from the mooring that we had used to anchor off the beach at what we hoped would be a quieter part of the harbour. It allowed us to swim on to the beach which H did – no mean feat by a 7 yr old. However, the lovely, nice quiet beach we had experienced the day before was gone. As we walked through the rows and rows of sunbeds, it slowly dawned on us that everyone was sporting the same blue towels. The beach had been invaded by cruise shippers and a lot of them at that. The girls, of course immediately found the only other child on the beach and we ended up speaking to an accountant on holiday with his grown up daughters, whose whole purpose at the beach seemed to be to find who made the strongest rum cocktails…. Paradise had been ruined for the afternoon – fortunately, where there is a cruise ship, there is a tight schedule. As quickly as they had arrived, they were gone; packed onto buses by 4pm to get them back to Road Town. At this point we were able to enjoy the scenery and peace once again. Oh, and the sunsets – Cane Garden Bay faces out to the West and so the sunsets from the beach are great.

From Cane Garden Bay we set out to White Bay in Jost van Dyke, the home of the infamous Soggy Dollar Bar. We arrived at about 1030 to a relatively quiet bay and managed to drop the anchor in a pretty good spot. What we hadn’t appreciated was that it was a Bank Holiday Monday as it was Commonwealth Day. As the morning progressed, the number of party boats in the bay increased in direct proportion to the volume of the music. We headed back to the boat for a late lunch and decided to spend the afternoon enjoying the bay from the slightly quieter foredeck. The girls were accosted by an Austrian live-aboarder called Sanna and spent the afternoon swimming off the back of their boat – even better!

We were joined later that afternoon by our old friends, the crew from Taia, who had just sailed across from the USVI. It was great to see them again and we both compared stories of our respective crossings from the Bahamas. They had opted for the ‘Thornless Passage’ via the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico, whereas we had gone for the ‘Thorny Passage’ out into the Atlantic. There was a LOT to talk about and they got, I think the more thorns.

Following another, somewhat quieter, day in White Bay, Stewart and I had a grown up night out at the number one restaurant in the BVI, Corsairs in Great Harbour. The food was superb. A big thanks to my mum for babysitting and to Taia for the loan of their bigger and faster dinghy.

As with everything, all good things must come to an end. We headed East the next morning into a particularly unpleasant wind and chop to get to Fat Hog’s Bay ready for my mum’s return flight to Antigua the following day. Penn’s Landing, run by Nancy and her husband, is a great little marina that has free wifi, showers and a great laundry and supermarket just down the road. We were joined by Taia, who having had a child mutiny on board, were directed to stay with us so the kids could have some time together. Sleepovers and play dates were arranged while the adults got some admin sorted, including an excursion into Road Town for Stewart and Ernesto on their bikes.

You might remember that Stewart proudly bought a foldup bike in Georgetown for $50 and this was its first real outing. Following the coast road the 5 or so miles to Road Town seemed an easy cycle. Unfortunately, Stewart didn’t realise

The chain and gears on his bike were half frozen with rust and jumped twice per revolution.Ernesto’s gears on the other hand were in perfect order, half again as big in gearing so Stewart was left pedalling like a mad thing to keep up on the flat.
That the route was far from flat with large parts of it a 1:4 gradient, up and down.
His bike’s brakes are so poor that he was unable to stop the bike on any downhill slope. With the steepness of the hills it meant he walked both up and down them.
Ernesto’s shiny bike had none of these problems allowing Ernesto plenty of time to take photos whilst Stewart quietly died behind him. He was very kind and waited…lots….

In all it turned out to be a painful journey but he got some great photos. Admin wise, Ernesto got himself a sim card to use data against from the BVI provider Digicell, and Stewart managed to get visa extensions and a temporary import document to allow us to stay in the BVI until we move S in a month or so.

Although we could say that Stewart saved $40 on taxis just on this one ride, any future use of the bike will be carefully thought about before committing bum to saddle!

We waved a sad farewell to my mother at the airport later that morning. I think she would have stayed longer, had she had the chance. She said she had had an amazing week and was really glad that she had come, as were we. I think being able to see how we are living and what we are up to was great and now when we talk on the phone she knows what on earth we are talking about. Here’s to a follow-up visit further down the Caribbean………..

Update posts

BVI – First Impressions

February 24, 2015 stewart135 2 Comments

BVI – First Impressions

Having cleared in to the BVI at Jost Van Dyke, we moved on quickly to Nanny Cay Marina on Tortola, where we intended to use hot showers to the point of pruning, catch up on sleep and then check over and fit out again to explore the BVI.

The choice of Nanny Cay was initially driven by the fact the Ocean Cruising Club (of which I am a member) Port Officer for the BVIs is Miles, the General Manager of the marina. However, we got a bit of a surprise when we posted our intention on Facebook. A good friend, Paul Joyce promptly came up to announce his brother, Brendan, also worked at Nanny Cay. I seem to be saying “small world” surprisingly often at the moment.

Needless to say for our first few days here we have been looked after royally. Brendan has sat us down and given us an excellent what to do brief around the islands and Miles very kindly allowed us to use his car to run into Road Town, the main town on Tortola to look around and provision up.

Nanny Cay is a well set up marina with excellent service facilities with dive shops, bars, a small supermarket (bigger than most in the Bahamas) a very good chandlery and “probably the best showers in the Caribbean” quote Brendan. I will concur for the time being and have promised to report back on that with any we can compare to as we travel S.

We also felt wonderfully safe in there with a gated entry and a long way for the kids to have to wander to escape the marina sanctuary. The kids have loved it. More boat kids to run riot with and a swimming pool close to hand. What more could they ask for??

Some information on the BVIs

The population of the island is between 25000 – 30000. However, the number of companies registered to the BVIs is about 400,000 as its financial position and tax free status is well known and is utilized by large international and small companies alike. The BVI was one of the Nations that Ed Milliband wrote to recently on financial behaviour to which the BVI gave back a two fingered salute.

Most of the resident population live on Tortola. However, due to the financial market and the fact that a huge number of companies (KPMG etc) have staff positioned here, the expat community is very large, making up about 60% of the Tortola numbers.

Most staff come out for stretches of a couple of years at a time. It means that house prices and the rental market are expensive and inflated.

A few staff stay longer and we met one lawyer at Norman’s Island who had been out here for 10 years, was just planning to go back to the UK and definitely not looking forward to going back to the City.

In terms of geography, the BVI islands are all very close together. Having got used to 20-30 mile jumps required between islands in the Exumas, we have been surprised at how little sailing you need to do between anchorages and mooring here.

Most islands are within visual distance of each other and looking at the chain S of Tortola which we will travel through over the next couple of weeks, the total distance is less than 20 miles covering half a dozen islands. Our daily jump would be less than 5 miles.

The history of the place is staggering as well. We are currently at Normans Island at the SW end of the BVI chain, known locally as Treasure Island. It was thought to be used as a model for the book of the same name, has its own Spyglass Hill and in 1750, part of a treasure trove of $450,000 (what would that be worth now??) was recovered from the island.

We will also be visiting Dead Chest of the famous pirates song which really does exist a couple of islands up

All this explains the popularity of the BVIs as a sailing destination which for us is both a good and bad thing. The good is that we are finding lots of boats with kids and the last couple of days we have been sharing anchorages with Karl, Kelly, Seira and Erica, a Canadian family on Halcyon III who having bought their boat will be pushing off at the end of this year to spend some time in the Caribbean.

It also means that there are lots of facilities on each of the islands, all fit for the charter crowd which means lots of good bars with free internet and the chance of a porcelain on a daily basis (army folk will get this).

The not so good is the commercialism of the sailing here. There are hundreds of yachts buzzing around and the popular anchorages of yesteryear are no longer as they have all been filled up with mooring balls which you are expected to pay for at $30 a night. On our first night at The Bight on Normans Island (about 120 moorings), the 2015 BVI Gay Armada (about 30 boats with Rainbow flags proudly flying – never seen so many gold super tight swimming costumes……) was in as well as a Pirate Appreciation Society with a large number of Capt Jack Sparrows and lady pirates in miniskirts on show. An interesting mix and made for some loud partying! But you got nothing for your $30 other than the ability to use one of their moorings.

Saying all this, it has been pointed out by Lou that if there hadn’t been for the commercialism, then the facilities wouldn’t have been developed to the standard they have etc etc. Entirely too logical. My only answer is that the moorings last year were $25. 20% increase in a year – really?

I would just also like to state that I want to both have my cake and eat it, thank you very much……

We have now moved to a bay a couple of miles away which is too small and too deep for moorings to be placed here where we have rigged a line ashore to anchor Mediterranean style, stern in. It is interesting that all the other five boats in with us are liveaboards as well.

We will continue to look for the smaller less visited anchorages to visit to be able to live as liveaboards and not the holidaying partying crowd. More to follow.

Update posts

Georgetown to BVI

February 24, 2015 stewart135 Leave a comment

I know its raining but no, you can't come in! Lou in another squall. — I know its raining but no, you can’t come in! Lou in another squall.

Louise – “I think there is a squall coming”

H – Impervious to seasickness and able to sleep anywhere.

Some of Lou’s preprepared meals ready for the off.

Arrival in the BVI - the last 20 miles can be enjoyed — Arrival in the BVI – the last 20 miles can be enjoyed

There is a little of an overlap in this post as I think Lou will cover our few days stay in San Salvador as a separate post. However, the purpose of this post is to write up the passage between Georgetown and BVI, the longest passage we will do this year and the longest that Lou and the girls have done.

The passage to the BVI from the Bahamas is done in two ways and as I have explained in the selection of the route, we choose to do the direct route which required us to push out E well in to the Atlantic Ocean, bypassing all the other interesting places we could have stopped at such as the Turks and Caicos Islands, Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico.

The trip measures about 800Nm, a little less on the rhomb line (the shortest line between any two points on the Earth’s surface) but this course is near impossible and the offshore route is normally done by heading E to the 65W longitude line then heading directly S to the BVI to “get around” the normal trade winds which come from the SE. It is otherwise known as the I-65.

We provisioned up in Georgetown and then took an overnight jump to San Salvador to get a little easting out of the way to wait for the main front that we needed to push across towards eastwards.

The marina at San Salvador isn’t great. It was an expensive investment by a family that own a small hotel a little up the road which hasn’t quite worked out. I had a good chat with the youngest son in the family who was running the bar. They had hoped to bring sailors out to San Salvador. The difficulty, whilst there is fantastic diving opportunities, there are no safe anchorages around the island unless it is a flat calm and the island is 50 miles offshore. Most people bypass it either heading S towards the Turks or keep closer to the main islands to the W.

The unmanned harbour is now the home of four fishing boats that service the Club Med resort on the island and a couple of dive boats. Whoever did the harbour design didn’t take into account the surge that the harbour experiences from the N and W and whilst they have added 100m of breakwater boulders it hasn’t made a huge amount of difference. Any kind of sea running from those directions, it is a lumpy and noisy ride inside the harbour.

We did meet some interesting people at San Salvador. We had Jim, an American who was about to fly back to the USA, and Eric and Jen, the couple who were going to sail the boat back for him.

Eric and Jen were a lovely couple. Eric bought his yacht, a 29’ sloop at the age of 19 and has been a liveaboard ever since, working when he needs to build up the funds and sailing when he has the readies. Jen is another free spirit. The pair of them put up with our small people hero worship wonderfully. H came away with a couple of dresses from Jen and E was paid for some hair braids she did for Eric with a kite. Great fun!

Having spent our time usefully catching up on email, blog and lots of cooking of premade meals that would just need reheated, the weather eventually started to turn with the wind looking to move into the SE as the start of the front came through. We pushed off on the 9^th Feb in about 20kts of wind and headed around the S tip of the island.

The next two days were lumpy to say the least. Although the wind had turned, the seas that had built up with the E wind were unpleasantly large and short. Skylark is great off the wind but struggles (as most cats do) going to windward. We were having to head far further S than I wanted or expected but with no real options that was what we had to do. The girls spent most of their time conserving energy and reading. It wasn’t much fun for them but they were stoic about it and made Lou and I’s life as easy as they could, which was much appreciated.

A note on our watch system. We used a three on, three off for dark o’clock hours, mixed with 4hr stags which were more manageable during the day. If there was trouble or a sail change was needed it was all hands on deck.

0600-1000

1000-1400

1400-1800

1800-2100

2100-0001

0001-0300

0300-0600

It meant that ever 2^nd day you would get the chance in daylight hours of some decent sleep. It actually worked pretty well for us and although we were tired when we reached the BVI’s, we weren’t exhausted.

Over this first period the wave changed from big E sea to mixed rubbish, then to the W sea that I’d hoped for. The waves were steep and short. With the wind gusting 30+ knots at times it was exhilarating sailing but sometimes a bit too much. We got faster and faster as the waves built up and occasionally decided to take us with them. We also spoke to another yacht “That’s Life” who were heading to Puerto Rico and compared notes and strategies. With no planning or coordination at all, we were to stay in contact with them by VHF for the next 4 days. One of the crew, a long term immigrant to the US, was from Dunfermline. It’s a small world.

By this time we had a v small jib flying out but were still managing 7-8kts. Our surfing speed maxed out at 16.9kts. Scared the willies out of us.

The 12^th and 13^th gave us two days of slowly weakening wind, the mainsail finally saw the light of day again and we had the fishing lines back out, catching a Mahi Mahi which fed us a couple of days.

We also had some surprising visitors. Whilst I have seen plenty of dolphin play around boats I have been on, I have never had two whales turn up and play the same tricks. First I knew about them was one of them surfacing 5m from the boat and exhaling. It was pretty big – somewhere between 20-30 feet. They spent about 30 mins around us, riding the waves just behind us, charging past us and generally looking as if they were having fun staying close to the boat.

On the 13^th as the wind died to nothing, we had one of the engines on most of the day just to keep us moving. We had reached the 66W line but still had 120 miles to go before we could safely turn S to reach the BVIs. The 14^th was filled with squalls and rain, giving the boat a good fresh water flush but meaning that the sails were up and down a fair bit. The rain at times was spectacularly heavy.

The forecast that we were getting from my father, sent out daily on the Delorme InReach by text message suggested that the wind would hold up long enough to allow us to push SE direct for the islands.

A comment on weather forecasts here.

In the Bahamas, we learned quickly that you simply could not trust a forecast any more than 48hrs ahead and frankly you were sensible to be suspicious any more than 24hrs.

Whilst the forecast passed on by Dad was generally grossly accurate, we experienced far more wind than forecast (generally by 5-10kts) and the trending that we had to rely on for the last couple of days was wildly wrong. At one point the forecast E trending SE was a W. Confusing how a super computer can be so wrong.

Once we were about 50 miles off the BVIs we decided we had fought the wind enough and the engine went back on to take us in to Jost Van Dyke, our closest port of entry which we thought we could just reach before last light.

After six days at sea, Lou’s cry of “Land Ho” on the morning of the 15^th was wildly celebrated. The BVIs are completely different from the Bahamas where you would be lucky to spot an island any more than 5 miles off, so flat are they. The BVI hills are high and we spotted Jost over 20 miles away.

Just to help us in, the wind decided to wander into the W for our last few hours. We rounded the W end of Joest and anchored in Great Harbour with an hour of light left.

We cleared in the next morning at the small police station come immigration/customs office. The main street on Jost remains a sand track which was delightful. The island finally got electricity 20 years but it still has a very relaxed feel about the place. We celebrated our arrival with our first “painkiller” rum cocktail at Foxy’s, one of the bars of the Caribbean. It went down well.

Departed San Salvador 090745Feb15

Arrived Jost Van Dyke 151705Feb15

Total Time 6 days 9 hours 20 mins

Total Distance 749Nm

Av speed 4.88kts

p.s Our friends Eric and Jen who were delivering a yacht back to the US had a more difficult trip. With a complete electrical failure and a front coming through on them with gale force wind, they were only able to get as far as Staniel Cay, half way up the Exumas before they had to stop for repairs. They are currently heading back to their own boat at San Salvador having managed to hitch a lift there with another sailing couple.

Update posts

Choosing The Right Time To Go

February 15, 2015 stewart135 2 Comments

We have been sweating about the longest trip we will do this year.

We need to go from the Bahamas to the BVIs. Roughly 850miles ESE from where we are against the prevailing trade winds. So not the easiest of passages.

There are two routes to go.

The Thornless Path

The first is to drop S from the Bahamas via the Turks and Caicos, down to Dominican Republic and then along the coast via Puerto Rico to the Virgins. This is called the Thorny Path as it goes against the Trade winds from the SE for the majority of the trip. There is even a book about how to cheat it.

Named “The Gentlemen’s Guide to Passages South” by Bruce Van Sant, otherwise known as the “Thornless Path”. It is an interesting read on how to read and cheat the weather to get you to your destination.

As it allows you to miss the difficult offshore passage and allows day and night sails, it is understandably a popular read. In my opinion it is an interesting idea but a bit ingenuous. I am not willing to sit and watch the weather to the extent this guy demands nor do we have the time required to wait around to hit the right windows and I’m not prepared to do the fall back, which is to motor for 500 miles if the wind fails or more likely doesn’t come from a sailable direction (a reasonable likelihood).

Personally I think he is on to a good thing. Lots of smug “I’ve watched the weather to the detriment of having a good time (other than my guaranteed sundowner…) but I’m getting there”…. type comments and 10 editions. Good retirement fund. But of limited use to us as we:

Have a restricted timetable and don’t have the time to fanny about waiting for the right day to day windows to take that next 20 mile jump.
Aren’t afraid to go offshore………

I will say that it is a good description of how to do a passage via the S then E route but if you have confidence in yourself, crew and yacht and want to get to the BVI sometime soon, look to the second route described below.

I-65…

The second route is the one that the delivery skippers use. For those that have agonised over their routing across the Atlantic from Europe to the USA, only to listen to the very simplistic instructions of the old and salty – “Go S and turn W when the butter melts”, so there is an equally simplistic instruction to get to the BVIs as well.

For anywhere in the S USA continent or Bahamas it is “run E until the 65W longitude then turn S”. You should hit the Virgin Isles as long as the prevailing SE winds are blowing.

No surprise, the weather gets a say here as well.

The Bahamian winter months (Nov- Mar) have a high incidence of fronts sweeping through from the N, disrupting the Trade winds from the SE. These run with a major front coming through about once a week with weaker fronts in between. These fronts take from a couple of days (weak) to a week (strong) to go through and the wind clocks from the E/SE firstly into the S, then through W to the N.

What we are looking for is a front large enough to disrupt the Trades for us to travel about 600Nm E but not so big that the wind will be up in the gale force strength. A difficult balance. You need to be out on passage pretty much as soon as the wind goes into the S so you will be out on route when the first big whoosh of wind from the W comes through.

We missed a very nice front as we simply weren’t ready to go which Taia, taking the Thornless Path, took and ran S on, past the Turks and Caicos after a brief stop to sleep all the way to the Dominican Republic. The wind was still reasonably good so they got a good hop along the coast before the weather settled back in to the SE. It would have done us too. C’est la vie.

The next big front comes through this next weekend and is coming just after another weaker front which we will use to bounce out and preposition ourselves at San Salvador and take about 100miles off the journey distance to the E. We also get the chance to do some follow up on the girl’s current history project, which is Christopher Columbus, as San Salvador is where he first hit the Americas.

Perfect.

I’ve put in a links one for Bruce Van Sant’s book for interest.

http://www.thornlesspath.com/

http://www.amazon.com/The-Gentlemans-Guide-Passages-South/dp/1470146967

Update posts

Georgetown, S Bahamas

February 8, 2015 stewart135 1 Comment

Sun set at Georgetown

H and Myron on the beach at Sand Dollar. Also being eaten alive by no see ums……

Birthday with Taia – Camila and Matias with mum Natalia

Body Boarding. Great Seas!

H and Ophelia from Paisley. A confident and determined young lady!

A Mahi Mahi! Finally…

Some rough water coming out of Rudder Cut Cay

We had decided to get down to Georgetown before Eleanor’s birthday so we could hopefully find some kids for the girls to meet up with. With the last real contact with kids being their cousins who left at Xmas, other than one girl we met briefly at Warderick Wellsand the kids from Taia one morning at Big Majors, they were in need to find some their own age.

We left Little Farmers Cay and pushed out on the turn of the tide through the rip that is similar to all the Cuts out into the deep ocean. There were standing waves, a fair amount of bounce and it all got exciting for a moment or two but then we were out with the wind just behind our beam and we were screaming down towards the S.

We hit 11.5 knots at one point, certainly the quickest we have been so far, proving that the boat can pick up her skirts if the wind and waves allow her. Great fun. We then had success number two for the day when, finally, just as we got ready to turn into Elizabeth Harbour, we hooked and caught a Mahi Mahi, locally known as Dolphin. Weight wise it was about 10lbs. After we got ourselves through into the protection of the harbour mouth, it was gutted and filleted. Good eating guaranteed for the next couple of days!

To give you an understanding of the importance of Georgetown, it is the largest and best collection of anchorages anywhere in the Exumas, certainly in the whole of the Bahamas and probably for 1000 miles. It has both hurricane holes (rarer than you would think) and anchorages giving shelter from all points of the compass. It is the largest town (pop about 1000) and is the capital of the Exuma district. It is the last safe port in South Bahamas before you leave South, either for Turks and Caicos, Dominican Republic or Cuba and for us South West to the BVI.

Its other name is Chicken Harbour because of the number of people who reach there with the intent to travel on but just don’t quite escape its charms!

Most of the yachtie visitors are from the US and many are return visitors (one visitor we met arrived in 1986 and has been back every year), enjoying the winter season in the sun before running back into the US at the start of hurricane season. However, we met lots of Canadians, Aussies, New Zealanders, Brits, Germans, French, S African, Danish, Argentinian……. the population truly is an international one.

More importantly for us, it is the yachtie community in the Bahamas with numbers annually of up to 400-500 yachts anchoring.

We knew that there were a sizable number of yachts in the harbour and we had fun trying to count them as we sailed up towards our chosen anchoring spot at Sand Dollar Beach. We got to just over 200 (by the time we left some two and a half weeks later the number was over 300). We chose a spot a little off the beach and out of the crowd in 15ft of water. An easy drop and with good holding, we had arrived.

There are four main anchorages and several other smaller less used ones. The main sites

The Holes at Stocking Island. Home to those more permanently stationed boats and these days, pretty much all moorings. Good hurricane holes.

Volleyball Beach and the Chat n Chill bar. Crowded to the point of madness and the party place. In the short time we were in Elizabeth harbour there were three major incidents of people hitting other yachts because of either too much or too little rode and frankly, plain stupidity. Yachts at times were less than a boat length apart. Saying that, you didn’t need to travel far to the happening beach where most of the yachtie activities were organised.

Sand Dollar about half a mile to the S of Volleyball. Less crowded, excellent holding in the main and where folk gave each other a bit more room.

And lastly Monument to the N of Volleyball. Another popular spot which becomes crowded quickly.

I could go on but I could also say that pretty much anywhere inside Elizabeth Harbour could be used for anchoring. It is rarely more than 20ft deep, more often like 10-15, with good holding. We spent most of our time at Sand Dollar less a couple of nights off Georgetown (shopping and doing the “Georgetown shuffle”, moving to a better anchorage for a change in the wind direction) and one day, our last, off Volleyball.

The folk of Georgetown yachting community are an interesting crowd. We met young families with real smalls on board, the youngest just about to have his first birthday when we left and families with similar aspirations to us. There were the single handers looking nervous in company and the majority, the old and bold who, in their retirement, were simply living the life and having fun in the sun. I’d say the average age of the folk on the beach would be 60+ with one of the keenest volleyball players in his late 70’s. A great crowd who gossiped quietly, knew everyone else’s problems (and tried to sort them out) and is one of the happiest collection of people I have had the pleasure to meet. They get on, endlessly boat hop for chats and meals and they all look out for each other. Certainly for the older members of the population, I can think of far worse places to live. Frankly, any town on land….

The day started every day at 0800 with Sue from Wind Dancer, our compere on the community net kicking things off, going through weather, the calls from local businesses, those needing help, community announcements, the buy, sell or giveaway and then the meet and greet for the newcomers. There were plenty of those in our two and a half week stay. It generally took about 40 minutes.

I will say that a lot of our time in Georgetown was a bit “groundhoggish”. Up, radio net, chat to a few friends or someone who was offering something I needed, school and then onto Volleyball Beach to meet up with a crowd of kids for them to run each other ragged, some volleyball for me and a sit and chat for Lou. We might for a change go to the beach on the E side of the island where the big seas are for some body boarding. We didn’t join the daily yoga…..

Not so bad a life.

There were also lots of weekly events. We decided we had to at least go once to Church on the Beach one Sunday. A good crowd and the baking provided for snacks afterwards was great.

There was the weekly stampede to the market (not quite a supermarket but nearly!) when the boat came in with the weekly dose of fresh fruit and veg, generally on a Tuesday. Not too bad a selection but expensive.

Chat n Chill had just started a weekly dance night and BBQ – great fun even if it did look as if there was an extraordinary amount of daddy dancing going on!

The rake and scrape on a Monday at Eddies. Proper Bahamian music. Pretty wild.

Although we managed it only once, there was Brownies for the girls on a Wednesday at the school in Georgetown. The local girls all wear the proper Brownie uniform I remember my sisters wearing!

We didn’t have the nerve to join in with the very competitive poker nights arranged at the St Francis resort…..

I could go on for some time about the great people we have met here. For the kids, the main three boats were Taia, Paisley and Lost Horizons. Whilst Paisley and Lost Horizons have headed back N towards the US, we hope that we will see Taia again in the BVIs. Also a mention for Kingsley from About Time who looked after everyones wee ones wonderfully.

For the grown ups (and kids), Myron and Dena from Hold Fast. A lovely couple who we first met at Thunderball Grotto and who I’d love to met up with again. IGOR and his mobile chandlery, otherwise known as S/V Von Dutch! Can’t get away from the man.

And some new friends. The wonderful Jillian, a long time Brit visitor to Georgetown who knew everyone and gave us some very good introductions.

JD and his daughter Tiffany on Seahorse who are just getting in to sailing but who both have huge heart and had made it to Georgetown in their first season of sailing. They are good people. Tiffany is off back to college in the autumn but JD will sail on.

Whilst we could see why people could get stuck in Georgetown, we had the motivation of our restricted timetable to move on. Having managed to equip ourselves with some guidebooks for the rest of the Caribbean from some folk going N, we decided to that we had to get on. Couldn’t be late for the Mother in Law (note capitals, Joyce, I know your importance!) arrival in BVI, now could we??

We will step out to San Salvador to allow us to cut the distance we need to go E by about 90 miles and wait for the right window for us to get going. We still need about 600 miles before we head S! All up about 900 miles. We will plan for about a week; hopefully it will take us less.

I thoroughly enjoyed our time here in Georgetown and the friendliness of the people, both locals and the yachties. Perhaps in a few years we will be more of a mind to enjoy a season here. Maybe after we retire properly and the kids have flown……..

I always felt I was quite good at Volleyball but I may need some more practice. Incentive enough to return I feel.

PS More photos to follow once we get one of the damn cameras to accept download instructions.

Update posts

Dinghy Envy

February 7, 2015 stewart135 3 Comments

When we started in Fort Lauderdale back in November, I viewed those boats with huge tenders equipped with massive engines hanging on their davits as having something vaguely wrong with them. You have a sailing yacht. The operative word is “sailing”. Why would you need some whizz bang rubber boat? Just a bit of showing off really, isn’t it?

A few months on, I now see exactly where their owners are coming from.

Around Scotland, the UK South Coast and all the places I have sailed before, the wee rubber dinghy with a 2 or 3.5hp engine is enough as you trail over to the pub from that nice anchorage just off. Puilladobhrain springs to mind just S of Oban in Scotland (if you haven’t been there – google it – beautiful). A lot of the time you can tie alongside, sit close to civilisation on a mooring or maybe that nice water taxi will come and pick you up for you night time libations. Even Tobermory had that, at least for Army yachts as the harbour master there was an ex Gosport man and he liked to catch up on the chat.

Here we anchor pretty much every night……….

So let’s look at my fine dinghy. An 8 ft hard bottomed inflatable APEX dinghy with our new 5hp engine. A bit beaten up, a bit heavy compared with newer types and old, patched so much so it probably wouldn’t be looked at as a targeted steal, but functional. Good enough for the four of us and room for the odd bag too. I was pretty happy when I bought the 5hp in Nassau. Bigger than most dinghies have back in the UK and I got a good deal on it too. Perfect, thought I.

Or maybe not….

The Caribbean is not like any other sailing area I have been to. Come to the Caribbean and you suddenly find that the places you anchor can be a long, long way from where you need to land at. And as we have moved down the Bahamas, we have seen longer and longer rides. Take our last stop at Georgetown and Elizabeth Harbour. The anchorage is over 3 miles long and as most boats anchor on the East side of the bay, it leaves you over a mile to get to Georgetown itself. Takes a while to travel that distance at a walking pace which is the best I can do with all of us in it. That is, as long as the current isn’t against you which is when you suddenly realise that you are moving backwards….

You also need to take into account that constant wind thing here. It is rare that there isn’t 15-20 knots with the associated fetch around, night or day and as we go further South into the Caribbean, the Trade winds will grow. No big deal if you are going across a sheltered UK anchorage. Sheltered here can mean an anchorage with a 3 ft fetch which is short and sharp. Bit different. It has been a bit cheeky sometimes just getting in to the dinghy.

I’ve also needed a change of perspective as well. No longer am I a weekend sailor happy with the safe anchorages and moorings with the pub close by. We are liveaboards and we go to the middle of nowhere on a regular basis, just because we can. We have quickly realised that as liveaboards, the dinghy is your workhorse. It allows you to travel away from the often limited safe anchorage sites to interesting islands close by, to trawl safely in the windward deep water at the edge of the reef when you have folk snorkelling and spearfishing and to carry those spare water/fuel cans you need filled (trust me two or three 6 gallon cans weigh a lot) in to harbour. And you need to do this safely and quickly to cover the distances you often need to do.

An appropriately sized and powered dinghy really is a necessity, not a luxury.

So what is the typical dinghy here? From what we have seen (and we have seen hundreds) it is 10-12ft long, inflatable but with a hard bottom, needed because of the risk of coral ripping the bottom and so it can lifted to davits. Power wise the average engine is around the 15hp mark. You very rarely see less than 10hp but 20hp is common too. This combination gives you enough power to get on the plane with 4 adults on board (ie us, the kids and associated junk that goes with us) and enough length to bridge the short seas and travel safely at speed.

The most spectacular tender we have seen was at Big Majors Spot, where someone had a 36 foot catamaran and had a 21ft tender, centre cockpit and bimini, with a 50hp on the back, dragged between the hulls on a home made harness. The only person we have seen with a smaller dinghy than us is our mate Igor, who has a sailing dinghy. But he sensibly hitches lifts if he is going anywhere far and you have seen photos of us pulling him back to his boat through some hard current he couldn’t row through. Strangely, he too is on the look out for an “upgrade”.

Back to our reality. Our normal speed is that of a fast walking pace with all of us on board as the engine just isn’t strong enough to get us on the plane. I can’t do anything about the splashes from the short chop or the associated abuse from Lou for “parking too far away” as she gets another bucket of water over her (sorry, love – it really isn’t deliberate) as we are too short to do anything other than go up and down over each and every wave.

And I have to suffer the indignity of having friends coming back to take some of my load so we can get on quicker to our destination. A 3 minute journey for them = 15mins for me. Taia, ( 2 adults and 5 kids on board) bless them, came back to whizz past me three times just so the girls could wave at me going put put to the beach…. Ernesto, I may forgive you eventually…..

The girls are in on it too. “Daddy, would you be able to buy a bigger engine if we broke this one?” asks Hannah innocently . I am feeling ganged up on.

Having seen a couple of these collapsible “unsinkable” boats and having been given very positive reviews, I am quite keen to explore either the 10 or 12ft variants as an option too. Very light and they fold flat to pack away.

I have to admit, adding weight with a bigger dinghy to the davits worries me. We have issues trying to protect the dinghy from rubbing on the davits and the davits with the solar panels and current dinghy are very near to their max allowable weight as well.

Ah well, for at least the next wee while, our dinghy will have to do. But if a good deal can be had and I can find something that my davits can take, we may just see something a little bigger appearing on the back of Skylark…….

Watch this space ……

Update posts

Black Point and the Best Laundry in the Caribbean

January 20, 2015 stewart135 Leave a comment

Farmers’ Cay

The Liberty Clipper

On the bow of The Liberty Clipper

Farmers’ Cay

The harbour at Farmers’ Cay

Who knew that I could ever be so excited about a laundry with a dinghy dock! We arrived in Black Point and we had heard about Ida Patton and her laundry, which is rumoured to be the best in the Bahamas and Caribbean. It certainly did not disappoint! The facilities are spotless, the machines are well maintained, there is free wifi, you can get a cold drink and conch fritters, you can get a haircut, you can pay for a shower – oh, and did I mention the dinghy dock? Three weeks without a laundry and I was a woman on a mission. I loaded up with laptop and my heap of dirty washing and spent the afternoon updating the blog and feeding coins into machines.

In the course of chatting with Ida, she mentioned that the headmistress at the local school welcomed the boat kids as they came through. On hearing this, both girls’ ears pricked up and they looked extremely hopeful. Eleanor and I walked along to the school and popped our heads round the headmistress’ office. Sure enough, she was more than happy to take our two in the following day. Time to dig out some skirts and shoes!

On the basis that we wanted the kids to be presentable, we paid for showers at Ida’s. All was going well up to the point where the electricity on the island failed and the water pumps went off. I was soaped up and had just put conditioner on my hair. After a good amount of laughter from S, E and H, Stewart set off to find some water which he got from the bar. When he returned with a bucket of cold water, we found that E had allowed the door of the shower she had used to close, locking in all her and S’s shower kit in. A boost over a wall and some gymnastics from E later, we were back in and I got rinsed. Let’s just say we were glad to move on!

That evening at the Happy Hour in the bar we met the crew from the The Liberty Clipper, a 125-foot gaff rigged schooner that offers Bahamas sailing holidays. Hannah, not being a shy sort, introduced herself to the skipper and then promptly asked if she could have a look around. I think she was hoping to have a go at jumping off the bow as she had seen the guests leaping off the front the day before. As they were setting off early the following day to head back to Nassau, an early visit was arranged.

With a fun-filled day ahead of them, the girls were up and ready early. Unfortunately the weather was not as accommodating. A westerly was happily blowing directly into the bay at Black Point (which directly faces the west) making for a very uncomfortable morning. I only felt better when I saw the mast of a fellow boat (a monohull with a very shallow draft) swaying massively in the swell – at least we weren’t having the worst time. Stewart and the girls headed off in the dinghy to see Liberty Clipper before their interesting ride to school and had a great time exploring the replica 19th century Chesapeake fishing boat. H and E both spent their time charming the paying guests on board. One of ladies, whose birthday it was that day, got a birthday cuddle and tearily demanding a photo with them. She was missing her grandkids.

Disembarking from the dinghy at the dock was certainly interesting with the swell but the girls were determined to get to school on time so Eleanor did the duty and steadied our little dinghy to allow Stewart and Hannah could get ashore. I stayed on board while this was all happening and found myself having to lie down in the swell as it was so lumpy – it was not pleasant. It was with great relief that Stewart came to collect me to take me ashore for a much quieter day on dry land.

From Black Point we sailed to Little Farmers’ Cay, where we stopped for a night. Our trip ashore would have probably been a tad more pleasant had we not been accosted by the town’s wood carver, who was either many sheets to the wind or simply spaced out on other substances. As we were enjoying our quiet exploratory walk into town, he must have heard us coming because he grabbed us as we passed to come into his little workshop at the back of his property. The kids were good in the fact that they accepted his slight craziness and did as they were told (BLOW!) as they were instructed in ‘conch blowing’. We slowly and politely made our exit and planned an alternative route back to the boat.

Little Farmers Cay is a really well maintained village with a lovely little harbour. It has a small bar/restaurant, called Ocean Cabin, and shop with great internet access that is run by an interesting character, Terry Bain. Stewart had a very in depth conversation with him about Scottish independence. He put up a very strong and informed case as to why Scotland should be independent. We were surprised to find such interest in this remote island several thousand miles away, on the other side of the Atlantic. It turned out one of his “early wives” was a Scottish girl and he maintained an interest in the country.

We headed back to the boat and prepared for the longer jump down to Georgetown the following day.