Zig Zag Crew Blog
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Blog page is where Natalya posts her informal impressions of what we are seeing, doing and feeling. Earliest entries are on the bottom.
(FINAL ENTRY, So Sad!) Thu, Sep 20, 2007 On Land in Vieques We have been on land for two days now and I am amazed at how easy I have adjusted and fallen into the land rhythm. As a creature of habit, I went back to these land ways, the detailed knowledge of which was stowed away just under the skin. I miss the boat, no question, since it has become my home, more than a home actually, its a living named entity, which I have endowed with spirit and personality and into relationship with which we have put considerable effort. I am wondering how its doing, whether it is set up to be faring well during our two month absence. I miss the comfort of it, knowing where everything is, how easy it is to find your way through necessary items and thus the small tasks of life. There are differences, of course, as I notice in amazement that water pressure in the shower and kitchen sink is quite strong, and I am pleased not to worry about saving every drop. I marvel at how large our empty freezer is and how well it keeps ice in a multitude of ice containers which fit upright without a glitch. Our queen size bed gives us ample room to spread out, although it feels oddly less intimate, not forcing a cuddle. Feeling wind on my face I automatically guess wind force and direction, thus being oddly aware of my new surroundings, a previously familiar place seen in a new way. We were curious watching sailboats in the harbor for roll, worried that Esperanza anchorage may be unbearable because of it. The current plan is still to bring the boat back in November after hurricane season ends and try living on it. If that doesn't work (local boat friendliness, anchorage conditions, inability to fit boat time and commitment into new lifestyle), take it to Tortola to sell, sigh.This Presentation summarizes in pictures our travels throughout the Eastern Caribbean. If you are interested, please click hereto download. It is in Adobe PDF format, size: 17 MB.
Wed, Sep 12, 2007 Going Back to PR So, Stu came back from Puerto Rico and we decided that since we want to build and establish my business in Vieques by this season, we should really go back earlier than we planned. Since it wouldn’t be prudent to take the boat from Grenada into hurricane belt of PR, we are going to leave it here in Grenada for two months and go to Puerto Rico on the 18th of September. We will then fly back on 20th of November to bring the boat straight back to PR. So, while our sailing adventure is temporarily on hold, you can find us in Vieques for the next two months. Wed, Sep 5, 2007 Sailing Instruction While Stu is away for a week, I am captaining Zig Zag all by myself. Except when there was weather potentially forming and I was offered a more secure slip to move the boat to, and I was immensely relieved that the system dissipated and I was spared the marina wide embarrassment of backing in for the first time ever. So, I decided that my lack of certain experiences on the boat (like captaining it) are so shocking, I must take matters into my hands and do something about this. Conveniently, I met a woman captain at the club house party, and she has spent the last two days giving me instruction, both of sailing skills and the boat. When Stu is back, she is going to help us (as in me with Stu being crew) take the boat out and make me reef, do figure eights and such. Under her expert tutelage, I have learned some nifty knots and discovered some glaring equipment flaws. I am feeling real good about this.
My social life is booming and I am not bored at all anymore. As a matter of fact, I have been loaned movies that I haven’t seen for the whole week – unheard of just a few weeks ago, when I declared myself to be utterly bored in Grenada and broodily dissatisfied with the “demands” of this cruising life. Every morning, after everyone has listened to the weather and local goss on the cruiser net (VHF channel 68), all the ladies meet to do exercise under Kelly’s instruction, in yoga and pilates, sometimes kickboxing. It’s a great way to start off your day. The day is spent puttsing around the boat, especially if there is an evil storm brewing off Africa, just in case. Friday morning, there is a shopping trip organized to the Spiceland Mall, home to a super Americanized IGA grocery store (I am actually in charge of organizing this trip this week). Saturday night there is pot luck and karyoke where everyone shows off their cooking skills and lack of singing skills (actually, that’s not true, for 20-30 people marina population, two can play instruments and 10 or so sing really well – Steve and Lulu, almost professional, actually – which is pretty good odds and makes it even more embarrassing for the rest of us). I have broken several of my own good behavior rules by singing La Bamba, blamed entirely on second mug of draft Carib, and done thankfully in company of two other ladies to disperse the effects of my voice. I have also tried to make friends by whipping up such exotic dishes as Indian butter curries (secret being that they are ready made from a package). Saturday afternoon Hog Island, a small mound of sand and mangroves nearby, has a BBQ, which is an interesting mix of reggae band, dogs, locals and cruisers. Rum is the drink, and you buy it by quarter with a large coke, ginger or sprite (remember those tall glass bottles for soda?). Many of our friends with kids are anchored off Hog Island. Since this anchorage is in the passage is between the island and the mainland, it is surrounded by reefs in front and back, so its protected waters offer their kids a perfect Huckleberry Finn experience. They spend their days sailing boats around and splashing in the water, brilliant and idyllic. Other cruisers in the community look after them and it seems that no society evils are present, no boogey men, TV or advertising of any kind.
Yesterday, Loretta from Fat Cat and I went to the wine tasting of South African wines and I just had the time of my life. I met Susan and Hale from Cayuga (finally, after seeing them everywhere and spending a week together in Carriacou). We picked up cruisers in all the adjacent bays, and I got to spend time with Paul and Judy who came aboard in St George’s. We tasted three reds and three whites, and I went home with two boxes of wine (granted, some of them orders from other cruisers, but a fair amount for me)!!! I like it here, its great fun, so you people, come visit, Grenada airport code is GND. Sat, Sep 1, 2007 Hurricane Felix Today we had our second hurricane scare, a tropical wave which center passed just 30 miles north of Grenada. Since Stuart left for Puerto Rico on Thursday, everybody was real nice to me about what I should do to prepare. Neighbors, Ernie from JOAT MON motor yacht (Jack of All Trades, Master of None) suggested I move the fenders up, while Kevin from Pirate’s Hideout catamaran suggested I take the bimini down, since winds were predicted to be 35-50 knots, due to hit at dawn. Sure enough, at 4 in the morning, I was awakened by roaring wind and haphazard boat motion as the waves slapped it against the dock sideways (we are sideways on the outside of the marina slip). By 5 AM, the boat was buckling like a rodeo bull going up and down and sideways trying to climb the dock. I kept listening for banging, but fenders kept us safe. When I peeked out I couldn’t see much because of how thick the rain was. I could hear the wind hauling, but there is a big trawler in front of us, offering great wind shelter, so mostly the boat felt the waves. The buckling boat motion made me seasick. As 5:30 AM when first light broke, the storm seemed less threatening and you could make outlines of other boats around and in the bay, so I climbed out in my rain gear to tighten a banging halyard. By 6AM it was over and at 7:30AM cruiser net there were stories exchanged – some boats dragged anchor in the bay, Solana (Judy’s dog) jumped ship scared of lightening and found this morning on another boat, a gorgeous wooden Lone Fox had some transom damage due to being slammed into the dock, D & Don’s non-inflatable dinghy sank – with outboard, bummer. In St George’s a gust of wind opened somebody’s in mast furling and they had to climb the mast steps to get it back in manually, while the boat was healed and anchor was dragging. The highest registered wind speed at the marina was 52 knots! The bay turned into a muddy reddish river with 2 feet wind waves rushing in. Our dinghy is full of water, almost to the rim. I took gallons and gallons of fresh water from dinghy to clean the bimini before putting it back on. After the cruiser net, cruisers were out and about assessing their own damage and commiserating, exchanging war stories. Our boat is soggy everywhere – the rugs, inside closets, below hatches. Major mildew cleanup for the next few days. Mostly it’s the tow rail and the solar vents that leak so much, but the amout of water is impressive!
OK, I admit it, I am a little bored. Look at this wonderful collage I have done of myself: Here are all the ladies signing girly songs at the club house (me, D from Southern Cross, Lili from Leeward and second from right Judy from Quest). Each pan in the parade has a Queen Bee, i.e. the most decorated person (man or woman), here is one of them Stu with our giant laundry bag – obviously we haven’t don’t it for a while Sun, Aug 26, 2007 Clark’s Court It’s the second week here now and we have comfortably settled into a marina to which hurricane Dean scare has driven us and have incorporated into marina life. We have discovered a great DVD store at the mall, and have used the rented car largely to acquire new videos. We have decided to stay at the marina for a month, since Aug and Sept are the worst two months of hurricane season and the boat is the safest it can be here. Stuart is headed to PR for a week in the beginning of September, while I am going to stay here, continuing aerobics classes in the morning, cooking dishes for pot luck on Saturday and trying to get organized. 
Sun, Aug 19, 2007 Zig Zag at Camp in Clark’s Court Marina Yesterday, we moved from St George’s, where holding is one of the worst, to Clark’s Court Marina, where we were going to be strapped to the pilings in case hurricane Dean hit us. Thankfully, the hurricane veered to the North and hit between Martinique and Dominica, but we still had fun tying the boat with three lines from each cleat, strapping the cans down, rolling the jib, etc. along with everyone else at the marina. We also joined a cruiser betting pool as to how high the winds are going to go, and lost since nothing at all happened, it was a hot sunny non-rainy day, 160 miles south from the destructive Force 2. Clark’s Court is the middle of nowhere, with just a clubhouse, surrounded by green lush goat pastures, which means everyone hangs out in the same place - the club house which conveniently has a bar. Everyone is a cruiser, owner Bob is super nice, there is yoga/boot camp in the mornings led by English military guy Scottie, everyone helps each other fix boats and exchange supplies, I have gotten burnt cake councelling from D, our Southern Cross friend, we watched videos in our AC cooled cabin and went to Hog Island BBQ with Brad and Elisa Web of Lies, got a tour of 80 ft luxury catamaran at the end of the dock, went to Spice Land mall on a grocery run which Roxanne from Raven organized. Saturday night was karyoke night, when everyone brought a dish for the pot luck and sand karyoke afterwards. 
Tue, Aug 14, 2007 Hanging out during Carnival Grenada Carnival has started this weekend through Tuesday, so we have done our share of celebrating with fellow cruisers. Yesterday we met for dinner with D & Don, our friends from Antigua, who took a bus to meet us from St George’s, and we went to Chinese food dinner with them and their friends from Second Wind (Bill and Laura). The next day, we hosted a get together of all the single handers (Judy from Quest, Paul from Sunrunner and Bruce from Molasses) while listening to loud music from ashore. It was so loud, the entire boat was vibrating. We also hung out with our neighbor Clark from Temptress, a retired computer guy most recently from Seattle.
Tuesday, the final day of Carnival, we took the dinghy ashore and watched the parade go by. The street was alive with the mad loud beat of the music: “You gotta be a little bit jealous, you have a sugar mommy, you have a sugar daddy…” “She got she boyfriend… she got she husband…" “Traffic, traffic, stop the traffic.” Glistening bodies, gyrating moves, very loud and very sexy, very fun atmosphere to be in. There were some whities as part of the parade, likely university students from the medical school here. 
Thu, Aug 9, 2007 Laundry and Russians Today was laundry day, which means that I spent half a day updating the website from the laundry room. Grenada Yacht Club is one of the very few places where you can do laundry yourself, vs giving it away. Laundry is obviously a good money making scheme, since there are full service Laundromats everywhere. You can see that Stu had to help me carry the giant bag of laundry, it has clearly been a while. While on laundry duty I met a Russian couple, whose boat with a big Russian flag I saw in our anchorage: Alexander and Angelica from Little Qwin. They were super nice, had fun stories of where they have been – they loved Suriname best since they got to go crocodile hunting in the jungle, and were treated like kings by the locals. They have a website: www.expedition1.sitecity.ru. At night, we had happy hour with the usual suspects: Nashima, Quest and Sunrunner at the Grenada Yacht Club. 
Fri, Aug 10, 2007 Fish Fry We read voraciously during the day and headed to fish fry with our friends: Quest, Nashima and Sunrunner. We were also joined by Bagheera (John and Nicky) and Trecka’s South African. Despite almost non-stop rain, we had a great time in the streets of Gouyave, a town about half an hour north by car and a fishing capital of Grenada, where the streets are full of tents on Fridays, which offer fish made in all kinds of ways – fried, steamed, fish pie, fish kebabs. There was also outrageous ice cream, which tasted like mousse. 
Carenage area of St George's, gorgeous Georgian building Passage to Grenada, foul weather and weather gear, Nat on watch for boats and floating logs They raced right between us and our friends cat, parked alongside Wed, Aug 8, 2007 Exloring St George’s Today we planed to read a lot and recuperate, except when the workers from ashore started waving frantically at us and screaming “you are dragging” and indeed, Zig Zag’s transom was headed straight into the Italian boat behind us. We reacted quickly and reanchored well when someone conveniently left, so now we have internet access from the boat. We did spend an hour anchoring, since its muddy bottom here and an absolute nightmare, bad holding and close quarters, low wind but from all directions. We also snuck to Carenage area of St George’s, the bay next to us and were thrilled to discover beautiful Georgian architecture and gorgeous brick and stone buildings. We came home loaded with books and groceries. I also finished an 800 page novel and we went for happy hour an night. 
Tue, Aug 7, 2007 Passage to Grenada We are finally in Grenada where we buddy boated with Quest, Sunrunner and Nashima. It was a rainy passage from the beginning. We were wearing foul weather gear and entire time and half of the time I had to sit up front and watch for other boats, since visibility was under a mile. Our hands and feet were crinkled due to prolonged water exposure. The sea was completely flat – calmer than some anchorages we have been to – and there was not much wind, so we ended up motoring or motorsailing. Due to rain systems all around us, the wind and rain direction kept changing, many times from West and South, in addition to the expected East. There was tons of debris in the water, some logs and grass from the river, but also lots of plastic trash, which was upsetting. I suppose its always there but you never notice because of the waves. We also momentarily spotted dolphins twice, quarter mile away from us. 35 miles later, about 3:30pm, when we arrived to the capital St Georges on the south west of Grenada, we spent about an hour and a half anchoring in the peculiar harbour. It was very close quarters with other boats and there was no wind. The boats around us kept changing directions and we would find ourselves next to someone the moment the anchor was set. After being shooshed from 3 places for being too close or sitting atop their anchor and getting comments from other cruisers including our friend Bruce (Molasses) from St Lucia who was here already, we called it quits and went outside to anchor. But, it was so rolly, that after making tea and warming up, we finally took our mainsail down (how embarrassing, we forgot all about it, no wind and all, we are going to be known as anchorage’s biggest duffices) and went back. We used the rope anchor this time and it set on the second try. Our friends were all caught up with us and anchored by now. We are next to the “Dark Star”, the Norwegian “Darth Vador” black hull 70 footer we met in St Lucia and I keep praying we stay out of his way when wind picks up. 
Mon, Aug 6, 2007 Petit Martinique and Petit St Vincent Today we did our first day trip, unfortunately all motoring, due to lack of wind. We left our fave sandy bank and went 6 miles around the corner to Petit Martinique, the smallest of three Grenada inhabited islands (after Grenada and Carriacou). The island is basically a little mountain 750 feet tall located on 600 acres, with 1,000 inhabitants who fish for living. After getting fuelled and watered up at the dock, together with Brad & Elisa (web of lies), we roamed the town in the heat of the day (noonish) in search for an open restaurant. Alas, today is last day of regatta, so a holiday, and we thought we were out of luck until we found a cute place almost at the dock and had some lunch. Then we packed up, dinghied over to adjacent Petit St Vincent, a tiny home to a posh resort hotel, and weighed anchor to go back to our spot on Sandy Island. We made plans to meet Web of Lies in Grenada, since Carnival starts next week and all are headed that way. Sun, Aug 5, 2007 Carriacou Day two of the racing we once again watched the boats race towards us from Hilsbrough and cheered them up straight from Zig Zag decks. At night we went ashore with our cruiser friends Judy (Quest), Paul (Sunrunner), Tony & Janice (Nashima) and had beef/lambi rotis, Carib beer and joined in the local fun. Despite the blaring speakers, including some faced towards the beach, the whole festivity has an air of innocence, with kids dancing about and playing games (races, carry an egg, put thread through needle), and locals being very friendly. Carriacou is a very friendly place, we feel very welcome here. We had drinks at a nice outdoor bar which Cutbert Snag, the local entrepreneur, owns and watched another gorgeous sunset. Sat, Aug 4, 2007 Carriacou Regatta Since the cruiser activities have ended in Tyrell Bay, today we moved around the corner to Sandy Cay, a sandy bank off Hillsbrough. We were anchored in the pristine spot, having the colorful local sloops race AROUND us, which was brilliant, great pictures and communicative fun as we cheered them up. We were even close enough for them to laugh at Stuart’s wise cracks. We had lunch with Brad and Elisa, butter oysters which were delivered to our boat straight from the mangrove this morning by boat boy Robert. Afterwards, they helped Stuart winch me up the mast to take down the non-working wind wane, and we all took a long snorkel on the reef below us and were duly impressed by the multitude of fish. There were so many next to the beach, you couldn’t see through their schools. Underneath, there were tropical fish in all colors – neon blue, camouflaged puffer fish, bright yellow, yellow stripes, yellow spots, multicolored, large parrot fish. The sand was pink from shells, like in Barbuda. Our anchorage is amazing, I feel extremely happy. Thank God we chose to cruise for more than 5 months, because I feel like we are finally getting the benefits now, it’s starting to pay offs. 
Us with Brad and Alyssa on the bar crawl around Carriacou Amazing Hilsbrough Sunset Happy Island made on conch shells on the reef in front of Clifton, Union Island Wed-Fri, Aug 3, 2007 Cruiser Activities and Sightseeing Carriacou This week is THE week to be in Carriacou, since Tyrell Bay is filled with 60-70 cruiser boats and there is even a cruiser net, as everyone prepares for the Regatta festivities. We have moved to Tyrell Bay and hang out with Brad and Elisa, our new friends who we met hailing down their passing dinghy to chit chat, at the cruiser’s potluck on Wed. They are on a 42 Lagoon cat named Web of Lies, since they dated for a year at work and nobody knew. With them, we rented a car on Thursday and drove around all the dirt roads of Carriacou exploring. The island is gorgeous, the views of Grenada and nearby islands are stunning, the locals are friendly and the atmosphere is great – one of our definite favorites! People are definitely friendlier down island and there is little tourism, so they are very genuine here, welcoming you into their lives. People say hello to everyone in the streets and in the stores. When we took a bus to check out Tyrell Bay before moving the boat there, all 10 occupants were laughing and making jokes at each other – I have never seen people have so much fun commuting. We used the car to go out to dinner at Callaloo by the Sea, which had yummy coconut based calaloo (kinda like spinach) soup. On Friday we spent $130 at the used boat parts auction. We happily acquired fender covers, lead line and a soda maker, donating money to the kids’ fund of Carriacou. The cruisers are a diverse bunch, dominated by American retirees, so the community has a friendly small US town feel. 
Sun, July 29, 2007 Carriacou We can even see Grenada as a distant mountain behind Carriacou, 26 miles away, our destination goal almost achieved, unbelievable really. Although we are here for the regatta, they race local wooden sailboats here starting this week, and we plan to return to lower Grenadines which we just skimmed for a week or two before vegetating in Grenada through hurricane months. Our 7 mile “passage” was as now customary uneventful, two hours on glorious beam reach, at top speeds of 4 knots due to low winds under 10 knots. In two hours, we were dropping anchor, alas the first time on the reef. The anchor just lay there, and 60 feet snaked around two large reef boulders. After I saw this during horrified last minute snorkeling expedition aimed to leisurely cool off (summer is getting hot these days), we swiftly re-anchored and were hailed on the radio by one of the other 5 cruiser boats in the harbor. It was Paul on Sun Runner, our single handed captain friend from Rodney Bay, inviting us for an outing in the beach bar. We went out with him and Judy, a single hander woman, who I am infinitely impressed by, to a beach bar and saw this amazing sunset. Another couple on an older version of our boat, dinghied by saying that they like our boat. Friends!!! I like this place! 
Sat, July 28, 2007 Union Island True to our latest tradition of an island a day, we spent Friday in Tobago Cays, Saturday in Union Island and Sunday will clear into Carriacou, our first stop our of St Vincent & The Grenadines and into Grenada. Union Island is small and relatively undeveloped, just having discovered the charter business as an income, charmingly home made piers, haphazard shops and prolific internet cafes. It had pretty jaggedy shaped hills and an informal airport, a village even compared to Vieques. The anchorage was a beautiful turquoise behind a reef, with another reef in the middle. In the midst of the reef was a shak built by rasta Jundy, on top of conch shells he helped gather, and named Happy Island. It’s now his business to serve beer and make tourists BBQ chicken, helping the economy, as he calls it. He was happy to treat us to a local Hairoun beer and fun conversation. His island is has an amazing view of Palm Island, home to a posh resort, and is painted in bright rasta colors, with hammocks and homemade furniture. 
Gulls in Turquoise vastness of Tobago Cays Zig Zag in Canouan Nat in front of Boutiques in Mustique Filling up from Water & Diesel boat in Bequia, we also did our laundry with them earlier, so convenient! Moke Admiralty Bay as viewed from the Fort 11 month old turtles at the Turtle Sanctuary Dolphins in St Vincent playing in our bow wake Set of Pirates in Willaliabou Nat next to Diamond Falls Stu swimming in sulfur bath at the bottom of volcano Soufriere Water front – desolately poor Zig Zag approaching the Pitons Zig Zag moored next to Grand Piton, next to a palm tree lawn and atop a spectacular reef Zig Zag from 57 ft in the air Nat up the mast in Rodney bay with the fixed anchor light - see the working baulb? Vision, our St Looshan helper Picture perfect Marigot Bay in St Lucia Diane and Nat welcomed to Rodney Bay marina, quiet due to off season Stu rowing back to boat after the prop had rope wrapped up around it. note to self: carry leatherman or knife with you and anchor in places without major current you cant row against Josephine’s beheaded statue in the seaside park which is being renovated Evil storm tumbling down the mountain range in Martinique straight at us . Fort de France downtown and anchorage which we left. we later came back to sightsee by ferry . Dinner first night in Martinique at Ponton dockside bar and restaurant – delicious! . Fri, July 27, 2007 Tobago Cays Getting into Tabago Cays reef is like making your way through a minefield, there are reefs and jaggedy rocks everywhere, but once you make it, its staggeringly beautiful. The water is shallow and turquoise all around, three tiny shrubbery islands with sandy rims are close together so you pass between them to get to the inside of the Horseshoe Reef, which protects you from the waters of the Atlantic, but not the winds. It would have been Paradise, and indeed, we feel very much in awe of the fact that this place exists, but it’s so crowded with charterers, its hard to believe it’s the middle of hurricane season and its scary to imagine what happens, say Christmas time. Most boaties are French – down here from charter bases in Martinique and Guadelupe – so I am guessing the SVG (St Vincent and the Grenadines) are to the French like BVIs are to the Americans/English contingent. There is also a mega yacht, Champagne Cher (their wireless is security protected unfortunately, otherwise we may have been able to sign on!) and a couple of day trip clipper ships. The reefs are brown and not terribly stimulating, though there are a couple of chapins (those white triangular fishies with black spots) nibbling the barnacles right on the bottom of our boat, not afraid of us in the least bit. We purchased baguette and ice from the also abundant boat boys. Aah, life… I feel like we are characters on one of those Tahiti calendars you hang in your bathroom. Its great to be in an uninhabited place, where there is no point in doing anything other than snorkeling, so remarkably relaxing! 
Thu, July 26, 2007 Mustique and Canouan Passage Yesterday we saw all these locals charging around on mules, this Kawasaki heavy duty golf carts, so we decided to rent one today for a Mustique tour. As we set off towards The Cotton House, the only hotel on the island, we saw a couple jog past. Stuart recognized the woman as Elle Macferson. I was too busy checking out her husband, but Stuart assures me all her limbs were in perfect order and she gave him her wonderful smile. Reputedly, Tommy Hilfiger, Brian Adams, Mick Jagger, Sheniah Twayne all have houses there, they were pointed out to us, but too obscured by the trees to see. The tour took us two hours, after which we were back on the boat headed towards our next port, Canouan island. Another small sandy isle in paradise. We listened to reggae on the way, the mood is jovial and vacationy, I love the Grenadines. Canouan turned out to be an island
“in development,” friendly but not very touristy, with a very gusty anchorage, so we didn’t last very long. We were sleepy at 7PM, in bed after 9:30PM and bright and early we set off for Tobago Cays. 
Wed, July 25, 2007 Mustique Passage Our tour of Moonhole, the apartments built into the stone cave in Bequia, today got cancelled, so we followed the example of many mobile charter boats and set off for Mustique, a posh small island 10 miles to South East. Since prevailing winds are from SE, we actually did the sailing thing this time and tacked to weather. We must have been on the starboard tack for the first time since we brought the boat back to PR from Tortola in November. Kevin, you would have been proud! It took us three and some hours and we motored two miles at the end, since the wind died out. It was very very pleasant and once we arrived, we felt very very exhausted and were falling asleep upon sundown. We went ashore to Basil’s Bar, the most informal place in Mustique, where a ribs buffet was US$50, so we just had drinks instead. 
Sun, July 22, 2007 State of Mind and Blog Apologies Since it has been a month since my last posting, I must have really started to relax! I apologize for procrastinating with the blog, but it has been so nice to gradually let go and immerse myself into cruising. As Stu wrote to his pal Kevin: “Natalya has gone completely hippy and spaced out on the web site. She spends her days with her nose stuck in trashy romance novels. She even reads Jilly Cooper. I am appalled.” Even since we have arrived in Bequia I have felt very relaxed, cruiser-like (there are TONS of cruisers here, for the first time since St Martin, cruisers outnumber charterers) and totally impressed that we have made it thus far. Even though we have a couple of tiny islands left between us and Grenada, distance wise, we are at the very end of our destination – we have traveled 785 miles thus far, having stopped at 21 islands total. I love saying “Bequia” since its got such an exotic ring to it. Its also got such exotic services as the water/diesel boat that comes to you, so you needn’t move to fill up. 
Fri, July 20, 2007 Bequia Sightseeing Today we rented a “moke” - one of those ancient Mini predecessors – and had a blast for 3 hours speeding around Bequia. I was petrified the entire time, as the roads here are quite steep, drivers maniacal, while this moke seemed more of a toy car with screeching gear box and enhanced sporty muffler effect. Stu, needless to say, loved it, jetting around like a Formula 1 driver at whopping 15 miles an hour, which really felt like at least 80. Bequia is very reminiscent of Vieques or Les Saints, a small charming place with an innocent air of being undiscovered, despite a building boom. The business signs are still largely homemade, ingeniously artsy and colorfully painted. Vast territories of Bequia are unsettled, green with pretty mountains. It has got some yellow sand beaches and remains of a fort, which consists of a couple of cannons surrounded by sheep. It still seems like a village, where people are curious, friendly and happy to see you. The main strip in Port Elizabeth is sleepy, but with robust veggie and t-shirt market, vendors, informal eateries and internet cafes. A short walk from downtown Port Elizabeth is Belmont area, with a waterfront walk, a row of restaurants, bars and dive shops, all cutely painted and with plenty of dinghy piers. A Mexican place, a whaler’s bar, ornate Gingerbread guesthouse… all incredibly cute and low key. There is also Pirate’s, a restaurant build around the rock, and Moonhole, famous houses which are built inside a stone arch. On our trek around, we visited a turtle sanctuary, where a dedicated and friendly Mr. King keeps hawksbill turtles for 4 years before letting them go. He has been doing it for 12 years and cant wait until the first batch he let go will come back in 6 years to nest around Bequia. Turtles, who live for 200 years, don’t start procreating until 25, a fact which does not bode well for their survival, them being slow, tasty and beautiful. We also visited a whaler’s museum, where an 80 year old nephew of the famous local whaler, Anthneal, told us the story of Bequia’s traditional whaling. The locals, in their traditional 27 foot wooden whale boat with wood-handled harpoons, are still allowed to catch 4 humpback whales per year, but last year they only managed to catch 1. The whale oil is used for cooking. 
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Wed, July 18, 2007 Bequia Passage and Dolphins In the morning, Speedy cast us off the pier and we were off down to coast of St Vincent and towards Bequia. The most spectacular experience was our second encounter with dolphins, who this time stayed with us for half an hour, joyfully showing off. The four of them were endlessly riding the wave in front of the boat and some of them had spotted backs. One was jumping at the side of the boat, very high and stared at us laughingly to make sure we appreciated. I was beginning to think dolphins are a myth, since we have made it through most of the East Caribbean without as much as a glimpse of them. We were ecstatic, dolphins are such interactive creatures, it was such a treat!!! Diane, what a shame you missed them, they were just one island over from St Lucia! 
Tue, July 17, 2007 St Vincent Passage and Wallilabou Bay Just as we were leaving the Pitons, heading South, we crossed with the pod of dolphins, headed West towards Vieux Fort. For a moment we were surrounded by dozens of them, swarming around the boat, their fins emerging to cause small white caps, and then they were gone, as the pod continued on their way. We debated endlessly whether to skip St Vincent and go straight to Bequia overnight, but decided that it would be best to avoid the added stress of night sailing and stop in St Vincent, chancing the rough waters surrounding 3,000 ft Soufriere volcano and reputed poverty-induced opportunity thefts. The selected place to overnight was Wallilabou Bay, a picturesque, lush green, largely undeveloped bay made famous by becoming a set for Pirates of the Caribbean I & II. The bay was quaint, the boat boy Speedy was super nice (he had a bright red canoe style boat which he rowed himself with amazing efficiency and he proudly told us he has been doing so for 27 years), the somewhat dilapidated set still had the magic of Universal Studios, the Anchorage Restaurant had outrageous prices for mediocre meal. There was a beautiful path along the shoreline, surrounded with flamboyant trees, ground bright with fallen bright orange flowers against the green grass. While there, we saw a few boats swing by just to take pictures of the set, so I was glad we stopped, a taste of richly green St Vincent’s West Coast and its proud people. 
Mon, July 16, 2007 Sulfur Springs, Diamond Falls and Botanical Gardens Today we decided to take a tourist tour and joined our wonderful driver Macgaverin, who, dressed up in logo-ized Ben’s Taxi Service uniform wizzed us around in his immaculate air conditioned new van, acted courteous and professional, obliterating our horrors of yesterday. We first went to Sulfur Springs, where we visited the only Caribbean’s drive in volcano and saw hissing smoking pools of bubbling grey mud, where magma is close to surface, heating it up. The run off goes into the muddy hot pool, which is supposedly good for you, so Stu and I had a hot bath, where we lasted 5 minutes max at a time. We painted mud masks onto our faces and became remarkably relaxed.
After Sulfur experience, we moved to the Soufriere plantation which is now glorious Botanical Gardens, rainforest paths and Diamond Falls. After wondering the paths framed with brightly colored tropical flowers, we took a half an hour hike to the old mill, where water was being brought by aqueduct to spin the giant wheel which crushed the sugar cane. Diamond falls appeared to be not high, but colorful, as iron in the water died the rock yellow and green. Macgaverin suggested a local restaurant for lunch, another great win, everything made from and decorated in wood (owner’s husband likely a carpenter) and $10 EC (US $4) roti (west Indian wrap containing curried chicken and potatoes) tasted amazingly good! 
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Sun, July 15, 2007 Happy Birthday, Slava! S Dnem Rozhdenia, Papa! Skuchau, Tselyu, Lublu Soufriere. After a rainy morning, we set off for the city of Soufriere to check out. It turned out the creepiest experience, as Soufriere is generally a slum with a seedy waterfront, full of druggy boys harassing you for money gypsy-style and an informal customs office with playboy calendar on the wall. We paid a junkie to guard our dinghy and were vastly relieved to find it still there as we legged out of the harbor throwing coins around in hopes of being left in peace. I only took the camera out once safely in the dinghy, so here is a pic from the water. 
Sat, July 14, 2007 Stu and Nat are at the Pitons! We have finally made a move from Rodney Bay marina, where we have stayed for the past 17 days, our longest stationary marina stint since Puerto Rico. It was nice to relax, but made me a bit slow at first, having to remember how sailing worked. Of course, our departure was not uneventful, as when we came out of the harbor, we heard weird mechanic noises coming from below, and true indeed, the propeller shaft was coming loose. We awkwardly anchored in the middle of Rodney Bay, and I engaged the halyard to lift the shaft while Stu slaved down below for about an hour to put it back in place. We also realized we couldn’t sail since we forgot to attach the newly fixed main’s tack, so it was all bunched up in the middle. Both operations a success, with both sails up full, we sailed for four hours in light winds towards the Pitons along St Lucia’s coast. Halfway, the waves changed from behind us to in front of us, as easterly swells rounded the islands. It was a leisurely beam reach and the weather was beautiful – not a cloud in the sky. We snuck in some motorsailing towards the end, as the mountains got higher towards the Pitons stealing our wind. The Pitons emerged majestically in front of us. They are two high peaks close to each other, 2,400-2,600 feet, part of Marine National Park. We have moored, with Simon’s help, atop of a beautiful reef with tube-like coral I have never seen before and myriads of fish. We have a long line going to shore – 100 feet back, we are using all the lines we have for the first time, tied together, but the boat is facing beautifully into the waves with back to the wind. The magnificent view around us is one of this trip’s highlights. We really feel like we are cruising, having drinks on deck with outline of mountains and huge stars between them. 
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Sun, July 7, 2007 Meeting Other Cruisers Tonight we went out for dinner and met some cruiser neighbors, for the first time in forever!!! Stu had arranged happy hour with Molasses single hander Bruce from NYC who he remembered meeting at Shrimpy’s in St Martin. Once there, we met Andy and wife from Dragonfly, who have a washing machine stripped to the mast of their ketch, and John and Nancy from Silver Seas. We exchanged some fun stories about our sailing mishaps, dispelling any myths that silly things don’t happen out at sea. Andy was telling us that when their autopilot went berserk and compass started spinning from having battery-powered flashlight too close, his wife was convinced they entered Bermuda triangle. Nancy was telling us that their first night sail in the Chesapeake, they had a gap between charts, so they did figure eights all night in a place which at daylight turned out to be in the mouth of Potomac river, quarter mile from the White House. Most importantly, everyone has an alternator story. We actually didn’t get to hear John’s since he said we need two hours for it. It was great to commiserate and it made it all feel somehow worth it.
Fri, July 13, 2007 Still in Rodney Bay The weather got better and we were going to leave, but decided to stay one more day, unwilling to leave the easy cacoon of the marina. Next stop, the Pitons in the south of St Lucia, two majestic peaks, a stunning landscape. 
Tue, July 3, 2007 Up de Mast, Mon We have been hanging about, relaxing, reading and doing boat projects with the help of our personal rasta mon named Visión. Today, I surprised myself by going up the mast to replace the anchor light bulb, a project Tom started two months ago in St Martin by removing the old bulb. I had my doubts about my ability to nonchalantly fly up 57 feet in the air, but avoiding looking down and focusing on the job, I have proudly managed just fine. I confess that my hands were shaking slightly when I was replacing the light and taking photos and my thighs were gripping the mast ever so tightly, just in case. It was an easy one since we were in the marina and the boat didn’t move sideways at all. It’s infinitely impressive when sailors climb the mast at sea where waves and wind effects are magnified so high in the air. 
Sat, June 30, 2007 Back to Reality in St Loosha Having Phil and Diane here made us feel on vacation and now, having seen them off on Friday, we are back to our routine – i.e. full time fixing the boat. Friday we dropped off sail at the sail loft – somehow we managed to rip the mainsail unreefing - and both unworking alternators to our new electrician. (By now we have been to quite an astonishing number of islands, but I can count on one hand those where we didn’t have to find an electrician or fix the alternator). We also hit Island Water World – thank God for chandleries, especially good ones – for some necessities, like new jib cleat and gas tank paint (so rust wouldn’t show). We also hired “Vision,” a rasta in red shirt, bright green pants wearing mismatched Converse sneakers, one red and one green, to scrape off the chipping polish from on deck teak and polish the rust of the bright work. His efforts worked wonders: the rust on stanchions and the steering has dissolved into oblivion adding tremendously to our marina cred, the teak is ready to turn nice and grey in the sun assuring easy maintenance and the topsides and scrubbed, buffed and polished like never before. Vision is a hardworking chap, who does good quality work, subsists on coconuts and bananas and regularly tries to sell us island tours.
We are at Rodney Bay Marina and it’s a nice complex with restaurants, coffee shops. Its not very crowded with boats, it being off season and most having gone down to Grenada already. We have a box sitting outside our slip which transforms European 220 electricity into our 110 kind. Miraculously, we also have cable TV, which means we can watch Law & Order and CSI and feel land-style homey, as if we were back in our San Juan apartment. After 4 months without television, I am amazed how good looking people on TV are, beating your average human species by miles. 
Thu, June 28, 2007 St Lucia Sightseeing Since Phil and Diane conveniently rented a car, today we felt compelled to sightsee. First we drove to the northernmost tip of St Lucia not far away, through affluent neighborhoods with grand villas, similar in their Spanish arch style to Southern California. We saw all-inclusive resorts on the north side of Rodney Bay, which is a gorgeous sandy beach, considered one of the best in St Lucia. We then turned around and went south through the exciting bustling capital of Castries with its basket market towards Soufriere volcano in southwest. We stopped for a drink at a beautiful palm-tree framed Marigot Bay, where we descended down the steepest road I have ever been on, and thankfully found another way to get back up. Continuing south for an hour through the curviest road in the entire Caribbean, and after seeing 7th sign which read 26 km to go towards Soufriere, we were all about to get carsick so we became terribly uninterested and turned around. The way back seemed much faster and we went straight to the beach at Rodney Bay, swam, relaxed, and saw a big crab as well as a colorful group of weed smoking rastas. After a quick drink at the boat, we went on to dinner at the Scuttlebutt’s at the marina, followed by banana flambé (Nick, if you are reading this, I would love to know what’s in this great sauce recipe…) at Bosun’s, where we had a great dinner and a fun waitress yesterday who hummed to herself and happily danced around. Since it’s Phil and Diane’s final night with us, we are infinitely sad, having had a great time together over the last two weeks. 
Wed, June 27, 2007 Passage to St Lucia Dropping Phil and Diane off at the Ponton restaurant pier at 7 AM, we strung the dinghy up on the boat and set off towards Rodney Bay, the center of tourism in the north of St Lucia, about 26 miles away. There was no wind or waves at all in the bay and we were initially worried, reef in sail and all, that we would have to motor all the way. However upon clearing land, we had marvelous conditions of 15-20 knot winds, no gusts, and 4 feet waves. As we approached St Lucia, the waves grew to 6-7 ft, but being evenly spaced out ocean rollers they were not scary. The wind changed on the nose, so we motored the last hour or two and reached the marina 5 hours later at 1 PM, exactly the same time as Phil & Diane, who were waving at us from the boat yard. After somewhat unelegant docking experience into the windward slip – we had 5 helpers and still managed to turn almost sideways in the double wide slip - we were finally secured. Tired from the passage, we managed a short walk around the marina, a sleepy dinner, some boat sightseeing around 230 marina slips and signed out early. 
Mon, June 25, 2007 Exploring Fort de France, Martinique Today we went off to wonder about Fort de France, which involved going ashore to Anse Mitan to discover a nice Creole Village full of stores and restaurants, having a croissant and visiting a couple of tourist shops with surprisingly friendly people. Before we made it ashore though, we had a dinghy incident, where the engine cut out and Stu, alternating with his dad, had to row back to Zig Zag against the current. After rescuing the outboard prop from the rope, we took a ferry across the giant bay into Fort de France, where we walked for miles past the big fort to check in. Unfortunately, the book ended up being updated and the customs turned out to be in a completely different place. Stuart spent some frustrating moments trying to catch a cab (7 cabs passed by) and then finally made it to Sea Services, a nice chandlery with friendly French-Canadian owners. They recommended a super internet café / restaurant next door for lunch, and we spent a few hours there checking the forecast, waiting out the rain and having a delicious lunch, being fussed over by a pleasant gay owner. I can hardly believe I am on a French island, since people are so refreshingly nice and pleasant, quite unlike our experience in Guadelupe marina. Its also my last chance to shop for “petit beurres” – delicious crispy French butter cookies I am currently taken by, and delicious Corsair beer. We waited out the rain - it seems like its always about to rain or raining in the Windwards with their tall volcanic mountains that trap clouds – and proceeded to take a walk through downtown. It turned out to be a pleasant busy shopping area, similar to New York’s garment district, full of discount shops with beautiful store fronts, streets busy with fancy dressed shoppers. We walked into a tourist office asking where the statue of Josephine, Napoleon’s empress wife who was from Martinique, was and were directed to the park. The statue stood there surrounded by excavation, beheaded by some political prank a few years ago. Despite of Her Highness’ reputed shallowness, the Martiniquans are supremely proud of her. Tired, we made our way back to ferry and went to sleep early. The anchorage is great, since it’s quite windy - meaning cool - and the wind keeps our back right into the waves - read no rolly polly - for once its perfect! The next day we went into cutsie Creole Village for lunch and more touristing and as usual checked the forecast. Since the weather changed and its expected to be rather pleasant, so we are heading to St Lucia tomorrow. Stu and I will take the boat, while Phil and Diane will watch us from the air and meet us at our next destination – St Lucia. 
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Sun, June 24, 2007 Living Life to the Fullest in Martinique I decided to live life today. In part because we have had one of the longest and roughest passages in history of sailing – ours. The day started out with alarm clock ringing at dawn and our four crew scrambling to be underway by 6:15AM. As soon as we left our calm protected harbor in Roseau, strong winds and waves engulfed us, exceeding the forecasted 11-17 knots and 3-4 feet in a very real 30 knot squalls and 6ft+ choppy waves. To start off, we had to donate our line to the Donimican mooring buoy since Pancho’s helper tied it in a knot we couldn’t undo from the big boat and dinghy was already strapped up atop of vessel. Second, in our first hour underway our boom vang clip snapped, but we valiantly went on deck and replaced it with rope. While I was fixing it, I leaned on the dodger and my elbow went straight through the see-through stuff, making a large jaggedy hole. I also discovered the hard way that I developed an innocent habit of wrapping a rope around my hand to get a better grip, which became a threat to bone structure as my hand got stuck in a cleat as the sheet was being pulled through by 30 knot winds. Next, a mother of all waves came from the front, perpendicular to all preceding waves, and we could see its green face above us, before it came down flooding the cockpit and soaking me through and through. After I changed, we heard this loud banging and Stuart went downstairs to check whether a bathroom door opened. In the time it took us to figure out that the periodic banging wasn’t coming from inside after all, but from the front anchor (the spade one, of course) which came lose and happily dented the front of the boat at least ten times. As we tried to get it in, the chain started unraveling and we must dropped it at least 100 feet of chain down – in mid ocean, mind you – before pulling it back via electric windlass, which thank God worked flawlessly against all odds. Unable to deal with the elements any longer, I promptly got seasick and went inside to lie down, while Stu, Phil and Diane battled the rough seas between Dominica and Martinique. Once in the lee of Martinique, the winds and waves dropped and we had to motor, unwilling to deal with alternating 10 knot and 30 knot gusts. A big rainstorm met us just at entrance to Fort de France harbor, adding foul weather gear to our experiences. Fort de France appeared to be an impressively large lagoon, windswept as we went towards a fort on the north side right next to downtown. In another helpful move, our makeshift depth finder called it quits upon arrival so we are anchored in some random depth with a random amount of anchor chain out. It took us 8 hours to get to the fort, which we then proceeded to leave after an anchoring attempt, going across the harbour to friendlier looking and full of boats, Anse Mitan across the giant bay. By that time we were starving, so on a nice beam reach half an hour sail across the lagoon, we ate the chicken noodle soup I heated up. I don’t think we have ever had hot food on the passage before, so it was quite a treat. Overall, it was one of “those” days and we are seriously questioning whether any of us should be allowed on a boat. Since I escaped my hand squishing ordeal with just a bruise, instead of feeling sorry for myself, I decided to embrace my aliveness together with all limbs. So, upon arrival, I went swimming for an hour in deep water without worrying – for once – about some unknown sea creature chomping down my foot, I dressed up for dinner Carmen style and made eyes at Stuart in a carpe diem fashion. Despite Stuart’s protests (who wanted to go on to St Lucia tomorrow and not even check into Martinique), we strung down the dinghy, and headed off to a yummy French dinner in the hotel area nearby and sightseeing tomorrow in Fort de France. 
| Sat, June 23, 2007 Phil’s Birthday Since we have had enough of Portsmouth, we have set off on a sail yesterday and arrived at Roseau, the capital of Dominica. Setting out to explore it at the end of the work day on Friday, we were swamped in rush to get out of town. Lots of people in the street, cars, pedestrians… a busy place. The buildings are mostly old creole houses with trims, and it’s very pretty, especially the renovated ones. The town has a old colonial feel. The area around the cruise ship dock is mostly revived and includes a gorgeous Fort Young Hotel, which is a cavernous structure built atop of an old fort. We chose it as a place to have dinner and Phil and Diane treated us to a wonderful three course meal which included the staff singing Happy Birthday to Phil, in professional voices. Before dinner, Stu and I decorated the boat in colorful palm tree garlands, wore silly hats and opened champagne to celebrate. Today, partly as a consequence of yesterdays fun, we are taking a day off, reading in bed until late hour of 10 am, swimming around the boat, doing laundry (i.e. giving laundry away to a lady in a beachhut be done), and visiting the fruit market and KFC in Roseau. Also catching up on email, since the least developed country of Dominica has the best internet connection services, impressive. Prepping the boat for tomorrow’s departure for Martinique. |  |
| Wed, June 20, 2007 Sightseeing Overload We have overdosed on touristing today, since in the morning we did Indian River tour with our boat boy Charlie and in the afternoon we went on a 5 hour ride around north of Dominica. The Indian River tour was first a nature row through the river, shaded by the jungle above. Shores around impressive baoman tree roots on both sides were full of holes with land crabs. Mullet fish swam right by, unspooked by our row boat. We saw a couple of birds. After about a mile, we stepped off and walked the trail around Duble’s plantation, tasting sugar cane, guava, grapefruit and coco’s off the trees. I never knew that pineapple grows on an aloe style bush or that cinnamon is a tree of which you peal bark. We also met Duble himself and bought some artesanry made of coconut. Charlie also made us cute little birds and fishes on a stick from that flat thick grass used to make hats. We then set off with a reggae singer/tour guide Aman in a rattly van, around the juicy green northern tip covered with banana plantations with tall coconut palms hovering above. Aman obviously has a degree in horticulture, since no plant went unnoticed or without a bus stop – we tasted cocoa fruit around the chocolate making seeds and lemon grass in addition to our morning’s foray into fruitlandia. Then we came down the east coast with stunning steep views of breaking seas through the Carib Indian reservation where we bought local woven baskets and had traditional chicken with breadfruit, rice, beans, pumpkin, and other root veggies. We also watched cassava bread being made, from grinding to being cooked on a slab of metal above the fire. We then took a swim in chilly fresh water Emerald Pool underneath a waterfall and cut westward through the middle of the island to go back. The leeward side beneath Portsmouth is very dry, I could barely recognize the lush Dominica as orangy red slopes were covered with dry grass. By the time we made it back to the boat at 6 PM, we were exhausted. Overall, Dominica emerges as an agricultural place, which has not been discovered by mainstream tourism. From what I can tell, the reason for this maybe lack of competitive beaches (all except one are black), and lack of government pro-development attitude (as manifested by a few half finished real estate projects allegedly caused by disputes with previous government). However, Dominica has got a lot going for it – its gorgeous, with super friendly people, who are curious and excited to see foreigners, and its got infinite number of fruits, vegetables and spices which make it an ideal eco tourism destination. | Shopping for baskets which Carib Indians made
. Indian River tour, under canopy of baoman trees, surrounded by their roots
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| Tue, June 19, 2007 Passage to Dominica and Happy Birthday to Jean!!! We had a gorgeous passage today – mild waves on port quarter at 4-6 ft, strong winds which started out at 15 knots at 8 in the morning and climbed to 23 knots as we approached Portsmouth at noon. We made it in just under 4 hours which is great speed towing the dinghy and a fun speedy feeling passage close to the wind. It was also cloudy so not too hot. We are really getting a hang of this sailing thing, as Stu’s dad was on the helm and Stuart was trimming the sails for optimal performance. I am involved in sail raising and taking down and figuring out most comfortable repose positions in between. We were greeted at the entrance to the harbour by Charlie, a local boat boy – boat man really in a colorful wooden fishing boat called Charlie Love. As he was one of the recommended boat boys from the cruising guide, we have acquired his services to shuttle us to customs and immigration. Immediately upon anchoring we were boarded by the Coast Guard, a grey boat came alongside us and two officials hopped on. It was somewhat terrifying to have vest wearing individuals in such close proximity, but they were friendly and laughed at our jokes. It must have been a training run, they checked our registration, asked about flares and life jackets, happily conceded to picture taking and were off. Upon their departure a fruit vendor peddled over on a surf board with his basket and all of a sudden the cockpit was decorated by a beautiful smelling pineapple, green mangoes, tiny bananas and a dozen passion fruits. Charlie came to take us to check in, where the officials were friendly and cleared us in and out on the spot, even though we are planning at least a weeklong stay. Portsmouth seemed a bit run down, but we have only seen the main street. Dominica is lush and inviting with tall green hills and fields of palm trees. As its getting dark, we can hear cicadas or frogs. Went for dinner to Purple Turtle where we had excellent chicken and fish and were able to get internet card so I could call my roomie Jean and wish her happy birthday. | Dominican Coast guard on Zig Zag
. Charlie, the professional boat boy taking us to customs and immigration - very convenient |
| Mon, June 18, 2007 Vacationing in Les Saints Now that we are in Les Saints I find myself really cruising with that nice vacation feeling. We are anchored in a gorgeous bay with one other boat. I take a dip in the deep blue water around us to cool off several times a day and the tall volcanic islands that surround us make a stunning view. When we disembarked on the Ilet Cabret next to us, we had a pregnant goat meet us waiting to be pet like a dog and chickens that followed us up and down the beach. Very idyllic, Caribbean rustic kinda thing. Today most of the day was spent sightseeing as we scootered around Terre de Haut, the main Les Saints island. We saw a well preserved (or well restored) Fort Napoleon with an impressive moat, hovering on a steep hill above the islands. We followed small roads around red-roofed houses to various beaches, most with black sand and picturesque rocks. This is a lovely place, our favorite on this trip so far. Diane cooked delicious shepherd’s pie for dinner on the boat. |  |
| Sat, June 16, 2007 Passage to Les Saints Leisurely prepared the boat for departure, taking down tarps and stowing sprawling kitchen items into non-existent stowage space. At 11 AM we finally set sail away from Guadelupe, after 12 days at the marina. It was a great sail, when we made 22 miles in under 4 hours. We read in the cruising guide that Guadelupe was a wind tunnel – its butterfly geography creates wind in the middle and that a 9ft shoal called Muchoir Carre located just east of the last buoy off the shipping is to be avoided since it breaks in heavy swells. The meaning of these two facts became ever clear to us, as the forecast of E winds 13-18 knots and 3-4 ft waves, in Guadelupe channel – for first half of passage in reality became 4-6 ft waves and 20-25 knot winds. Secondly, while fighting to trim the sales against gusty wind and beam on waves, all of a sudden Stuart sprung into action turning the engine on and pointing us east instead of south, from where, guess what, a huge beautifully formed 10 feet surfing breaking wave was fast approaching, hovering well above us. Behind it was an equally deep trough where, surrounded by mountains of water on all sides, we all clutched ourselves hoping we will not hit the shallow bottom. It was followed by some more breaking waves as we passed right over the famous shoal, oops. Once we had cleared Guadelupe headland, the strong 20-25 knots of wind propelled us along at 7 to an incredible 8.2 knots of ground speed. I don’t think our hull speed even lets us go so fast (our max is 7.8), so the waves surfing motion must have helped. Phil did a wonderful job as helmsman for most of the trip. We anchored just off Bourd les Saints, a town bespecled with red roofs situated among beautiful tall arid mountains. We went out for a stroll in town, full of well kept pastel houses with ornate wooden trims. The town was full of locals of all shapes and sizes speeding around like maniacs on mopeds and of pink shaded French tourists on a weekend away from Guadelupe. We had a beer at local café, other tables full of pretty hippyish girls and cool looking guys with dreads. Its quaint, cute, wonderful, we love it here. | Bourg Les Saints, where we anchored
. Desperados, my latest fave drink, a tequila flavored beer
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| Fri, June 15, 2007 Phil & Diane’s Arrival and Kevin's new boat Today we rented a car in slim hopes that Phil & Diane will make their short 2 hour connection at Antigua, fully expecting them to arrive tomorrow morning. Alas, they did arrive at 3:30pm today, so we were ecstatic to meet them at the airport. We then had a great dinner at the marina, where I had the best goat curry ever, a Creole food special. Broke our drinking-before-passage policy by celebrating their arrival with white wine and Desperado, this great French beer I discovered, which led to some arduous waking up the next morning. Desperados is a tequila-flavored beer, I know it sounds gross, but its actually has a pleasant taste and 5.9%, meaning happy fast. Another highlight was looking at pictures on email of great boat our buddy Kevin bought – congratulations on your Cal 28 – cant wait to raft up together at Palominitos and hang out!!! | Kevin’s new Cal 28, the dog I don’t think is his… Wind Call is a great boat name, you going to keep it?
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| Thu, June 14, 2007 Waiting for Phil & Diane This week has been uneventful. We are in our cheap all inclusive $26 per night marina, which is great, but we are getting bored of it, which is not. We are stuck in waiting mode, since Stu’s dad and stepmom are on their way to join us Saturday and we are getting a lot of AC, TV/reading time as well as on-the-shelf boat projects accomplished. Today, for example, under Captain’s nudging and supervision we hang Costco tarps which made the front of the boat shaded usable and waterproof space, despite my misgivings. Here is a pic of satisfied captain proudly enjoying the shade under newly mounted tarps | |
| Thu, June 7, 2007 Thank God for US Coast Guard and Guadelupe sightseeing A mere 15 hours after we sent our request to USCG to expedite our vessel registration, we had a copy in our email!!! And two days later the package arrived at our PR mailbox address. God Bless American government officials for efficiency and care to our cause, they didn’t leave their citizens hanging on a lifeline. We now are a step closer towards having registration in our hands and not having to float around in mid-sea until a helicopter drops off a registration papers package so we can enter some country. (I am exaggerating here obviously, but this does feel comforting). UPS then proceeded to ship the package to us in Guadelupe, which meant sending it first to Antigua, their transshipment center, and then, intriguingly, back to PR. We almost gave up but after Stuart had a good row with a UPS guy on skype, the package showed up the following day. I went as far as to write a thank you letter to US Coast Guard praising them for their efficiency, since this was such a relief. We have also done a bit of sightseeing in Guadelupe. First we took a dinghy to the local Acquarium. We docked our dinghy at Sunsail and had to climb around the spiky fence on the water side to get back in when they locked us out – despite our asking permission to be there and their reassurances that the door doesn’t close - but we did see sea rays, nurse sharks and identified all kinds of reef fish. Second, we rented a car for a day and whizzed around almost the whole island – since Guadalupe is one of the largest, we were on the road for 8.5 hours, a proper work day. Our journey included a stop and walk on the beach at Gosier, supposedly the tourism capital on the island, a somewhat shabby resort town catering likely to packaged French tourism. This was our only car stop in Grand Terre – the low marshy side, and we headed off to Basse Terre – the tall volcanic side of Guadelupe’s butterfly geography. We stopped by Jarre – an industrial park bustling with traffic, large warehouse stores and activity; passed Pointe a Pitre, distinguished by its rambling projects; went up and down mountain paths on three lane highways surrounded by juicy green trees including trying to get a view of the butterfly from Mont Luis through overgrown vegetation around a cell phone tower. Rounding the southern tip with arid hills on the other side of the mountains, we saw stunning black sand beaches and cute harbours, man made and natural, filled with colorful gommiers – local fishing boats. It was odd that they were facing the water, not shore, since we were driving along the West side. We also saw views of flat Marie Galante and tall Les Saints islands which we are planning to visit next week. We watched two trawlers round the island, and we later found them on the same pier at our marina. We passed Basse Terre, the capital, where we had delicious Chinese fast food – proving my theory that Chinese food adapts its flavors to its whereabouts – and in gourmet France, it’s excellent. Our next stop was the Corbet Waterfall, where we hiked a beautiful stone and timber laid path to see the first 300 foot leg of a waterfall. It was a wonderfully easy “hike” down, where you could fill your lungs to the fullest with moist air. It was somewhat longer and arduous treck back, but we felt marvelously close to nature so that was the highlight of the whole day. On the way back down the highway, we could see rows and rows of banana plantations, with green plastic bags covering the banana stacks for quicker ripening. It was a good day of sightseeing “work.” | Cabret lower fall picture
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| Wed, June 6, 2007 Registration Vowes Today, I found myself having a meltdown – not just a self pitying passing cry, but a teary, snotty, sobby, husband-hugging blowout. I think what triggered it was a giant roach-looking water bug which ran over my foot yesterday, in my own kitchen! – the nerve of it, after I have shuttled his whole family across half of the Caribbean, mind you! – causing me leap into the bathroom hollering for the man on the vessel to deal with it. This came on the heels of Guadalupe customs and immigration officer chastising us like a stern school principle in broken Spanish, our only common language, for our St Thomas boat registration not having our boat name on it – why doesn’t it, for God’s sake – and then sternly repeating 5 times that he wants us out of the country by the end of the month when – check this out - our registration expires, or else... Followed by making Skype work and paying hundreds of euros in internet fees while pleading with US Coast Guard to expedite our national registration, just to find out that 250 Zig Zags are registered nationwide – shattering my illusion that we were original in naming our boat! I have also managed to lock ourselves out of our home and when our nice French neighbor, after series of back an forth international gesticulations, brought us his bolt cutters and Stuart easily snapped the lock – one of those hardened marine grade overly expensive ones – in addition to relief I felt an odd worry that my life is not quite as secure as I imagined. If this is how easy it is to break in, our dinghy can be stolen at any time and our entire house exposed to complete ransacking – electronics, computer, passports, what have ya. We are safe and sound in our marina bubble, but Guadelupe is definitely the poorest place we have been to so far and our marina is surrounded by what resembles “le slum.” And how I miss my roommate Jean, whose flawless French and knowledge of French culture could have saved me from multiple cross cultural embarrassments like daring to request lunch before noon or getting just two slices while ordering 200 grams of ham at the deli counter. Now, I rationally realize how good I have it but its that time of the month, OK? Grrr |
Mon, June 4, 2007 Marina Fort Du Bas Woke up at an ungodly hour of 4 AM, relieved that we haven’t been robbed by the fishermen. Went upstairs and were immediately attacked by noseums. At 4:30, the alleged bridge time, there was still no movement at the bridge, so we started to despair, it being low season and all. However, by 4:35AM the attendant was there, the light turned green and we cleared the first bridge. It’s almost full moon, so we could distinguish the river from surrounding mangroves and navigate easily without daylight towards the second bridge. The mangroves were coming to life with bird and frog sounds. We met a Sunsail a boat on the other side, waiting to clear the other way. At customs we got in trouble for not having our boat name on the boat card and our registration about to expire, but all unpleasantness aside, we are now in our slip at Bas du Fort Marina, a fun place with lots of French restaurants and very few English speakers. Stu in front of the slum at Pointe-a-Pitre Sun, June 3, 2007 Fort Luis We are in the midst of mangrove, but right next to the car bridge with lights and the airport. We have tons of boats going by, planes landing and trucks hurrying past. Not to mention campers on our right and fishermen on our left – this must be the busiest mangrove in the world! We also saw two locals in a bull drawn carriage. Since we took a buoy (which was so large I could physically jump on it in order to weed the rope through the loop), we have watched an endless parade of pleasure power boats returning back to the marina. It being Sunday, everyone is out and about – similar to Puerto Rico. Vast majority of boat owners are white, somewhat surprising in a place with predominantly black population. Near everyone was black at Fort Luis. Sexy girls in bikinis abound. Kids on boat fronts screaming as they go under bridge. Sunburnt happy faces. This scene is worthy of boat brochures. Most are waving at us, and the considerate ones slow down so we don’t bobble in their wake. Sat, June 2, 2007 Passage to Guadelupe Alarm rang 5:45am and we set off within half an hour when it was already light. Exiting the harbour we were met with strong winds (SE 20-25 knots) and waves on our beam (E 6-8 ft), rolling us sideways. We hoisted the sail up but these conditions remained for the entire trip, making the entire 7 hour trip a fighting experience. I got seasick because of all the rolling and Stuart had a bad case of hiccups which lasted for 4.5 hours! Early on, we also met a dark sky NE from us, of what the forecast promised to be innocent “scattered showers” but looked more like a evil force which generated 25 knot gusts of wind. Momentarily scared, it made me doubt the sanity of this whole sailing thing, when I chose to forgo all the comforts of working in an office and leading a stable land life. There were some dramatic moments, as the windmill spinning uncontrollably for an hour making a deafening noise. Due to all the splashing, some alarm cables fused and even though after checking we determined there was nothing wrong, the ringing was nerve rubbing. However, a few hours into it, we had it under control. Stu, an expert problem solved, killed the ringing with WD 40, the wind mill stopped panicking, my seasickness went away as we grew accustomed to the boat’s roll. We had both sailes reefed (made smaller) and strong wind was assuring us a fast 6 knot average ride towards Guadelupe. We could see Guadalupe at noon and reached Fort Luis at 2pm, after motoring across the bay for the last hour. We arrived exhausted and anchored inside a man made enclosure. After resting we were eager to explore our new environs. We hoisted the dinghy down and took it ashore to a bustling fish market. There were brightly painted fishing boats all around. We walked around the deserted streets of this somewhat dilapidated beachfront village and made a stop at the grocery store. We noticed beautiful wooden doors and shutters on several houses – it must be a local craft. They also have these cute bright curtains made of multi colored squares. We got some groceries and headed back to the boat, somewhat worried about it given lack of affluence around. However the quaint small town scene which met us at the port has calmed us: here were pelicans hunting, boys fishing and diving off the pier, it reminded me of Vieques, but even smaller. We went to bed early and woke up 7 AM to sounds of a guy accompanied by a golden retriever practicing his trumpet on the breakwater next to us. Fri, June 2, 2007 Hanging out in Antigua This week we didn’t do much sightseeing or boat work, but instead enjoyed the historic atmosphere of the Dockyard and hang out a lot with D and Don, our friends & witnesses from Southern Cross. We ate conch curry and fried fish at local places (Life Cafe, Grace with Meals), had rum tastings at local bars (tasting Mount Gay, El Dorado and The English Harbour at The Galley), enjoyed G&T’s at the Admiral’s Inn at the Dockyard and took a bus into St Johns to pick up our marriage license. Last Sunday, we also took a taxi up to Shirley Heights, which despite being packed with pink English hotel guests, offered a great nautical view, Hoegarden beer and superb jerk chicken with appealing salad. D managed to get us a ride back with taxi driver’s wife, imagine that. We also logged in lots of internet time researching boat parts. Shirley Heights lookout . Sat, May 26, 2007 Getting Married by Mr. Ulrik Mathews This may come as a surprise to some 100+ guests who attended Stuart and mine wedding in Vieques in November 2003, but we have actually never made it legal when we tied the knot. In part due to the tropical storm which we were battling (some may remember how Puerto Rico was declared in state of Federal emergency the week before our wedding), in part due to unfathomable beaurocracy involved in getting married in PR (blood test, judge’s permission, long lines, traffic, time limits etc.). So we have lived in sin since then and being nudged along by all 6 of our parents, we have decided to get legally married on this sailing trip at a place which had the most convenient practices. Upon close examination, Antigua turned out to be such a place. Yesterday, we stopped at the Government Complex where we talked to the marriage coordinator and paid our dues ($300 for everything). They called a marriage officer, Mr. Ulrik Matthews, who was delighted to squeeze us in the next day. Everyone both at the Court House and the Legal Affairs were unfailingly friendly and nice. Our newly met cruising friends and car co-renters, D & Don, unsuspectingly became our witnesses. . Standing on bow of the boat listening to Mr. Ulrik Mattews, we are both squinting since the sun is into our eyes . .
Couldn’t help musing at how cool Guadelupe’s geography is. We cleared the bridges and mangrove and were in the middle of an industrial city port – a large container ship was coming in. This is reminiscent of San Juan Harbour – commercial, concrete. The Bas-du-Fort marina is the largest one I have ever seen – it’s got 20 docks! We took a marina mooring buoy outside, waiting for customs to wake up. 
Believing to have seen enough of Fort Luis, today’s plan was to make our way to a little island in the middle of the bay, where locals hang out on weekends and we could snorkel. However, this was not to be since as we prepared the boat and Stu carried out motor checks, he emerged proclaiming that “the alternator is not charging.” After four hours and messing and fussing (not to mention weeks and dollars in St Martin), neither of two alternators was charging. Now, I don’t know much about alternators, but I know what it looks like and I hate it with a vengeance for taking years off my life. We decided to change our plan and set off towards the entrance to the river which leads to Point-a-Pitre, the capital of Guadelupe, where we bet there are, guess who, electricians. We reefed the sails and had a very pleasant and gusty half an hour sail until the passageway through the reefs. We hoisted down the sails and used our groovy GPS to navigate the narrow channel between the buoys to the river entrance. Both sides of the river were covered with mangroves and it seemed weird that we could take our big boat through what is usually the shallows. An interesting site was a jet skier tied to one of the buoys, having run our of gas, seemingly in the middle of nowhere. We went as far as the first bridge – there are two – and we moored until the bridge opening time, a convenient 4:30AM. Upon securing Zig Zag, we immediately set off towards the city to explore the whereabouts of the marina where we are headed tomorrow – since its Sunday, nobody was answering the phones there. Once we cleared outside the channel, it became rough and we had a large container ship to avoid. There was quite a bit of traffic in the channel – jet skies and all kinds of big boats. It seems industrial, big city like, with projects, decrepit boat yards and slums. We went back, happy to find the boat intact.
I made French Onion Soup which was really good. It “only” took me 4 hours – you can have the recipe. After I spent the first two hours making it, I put the dish in the sink and started to pour from pan into casserole. Surprisingly, the casserole refused to balance precariously and fell into the sink, so only a third of the soup was saved. When I stuck it in the oven for cheese melting, another boat went by and my gimbaled stove swung gently and deposited the remaining soup upside down on the floor. I refused to give up and repeated the whole thing over again except now it was nighttime and the bugs were out. We closed all hatches and realized our 1 month old AC didn’t work. As we sweated buckets in the onion-smelling sauna, Stuart figured out that a clogged water filter was causing the problem. We slept badly after that, Stuart worried about generator being stolen by the fishermen, as tropical downpour pounded the topsides.
Stuart also got the cranky disease (a little cold the biggest symptom of which is being absolutely unbearable for a day or two), which he them passed on to me. Our friends left today for Guadelupe, and we have spent the day checking out, preparing the boat for tomorrow and hiking to a little fort at the harbour entrance. We saw Century Plants (aloe like plants which shoot up a bloom once every decade) and were surrounded by goats. It hasn’t rained the entire time we have been in Antigua, so every day is hot, not much breeze reaches us in Tank Bay, in the depth of English Harbour. We also had new Australian arrivals into the bay, Carry and Gary on Walkabout, come over for drinks. They were nice and smart and I hope we see them again. That’s the thing about sailing friends – the goodbyes are much easier given high probability of seeing each other again. Especially since everyone is currently on a southbound away-from-hurricane track, where all will settle for 3 months in Grenada or Trinidad or Venezuela’s hurricane holes. We also saw a charter captain here who we met in Trellis Bay, and the Australians saw our boat in St Maarten. Its amazing how I take it for granted now that people in my new world are so mobile and you are not even surprised to see them somewhere new. As a matter of fact, we now scope a new harbour looking for familiar boats, friends from other anchorages. 
Internet with De & Don 
10:30ish in the morning, Stuart picked Mr. Mathews up at the dock in the dingy and brought back to the boat where myself, D and Don were waiting. I dressed up in a “new” white shirt and “borrowed” a skirt from D. I had a “blue” flower in my hair and some “old” jewelry. D baked a rum cake and we put two bottles of champaign into our boat bucket, so we were ready. Mr. Mathews turned out to be the nicest person and got down straight to business. We had a quick ceremony on the bow, as Stuart and I confirmed no obstacles to marriage, exchanged our vowes repeating the chosen “modern” version after Mr. Matthews and putting on each other’s rings as symbols of our love. Since we already have been “married” for 3.5 years, this was a lovely reminder of our love & union’s fundamentals and served as a reaffirmation of those initial vows. Quickly, we were done, back in the cockpit and signing an ancient looking book, along with our witnesses. Zig Zag is not just a boat or a house now, but also a wedding hall. We are also forever engraved in Antigua’s history, along with our witnesses. The island won an award for best wedding location in 2006, by the way. We had a laugh as prior to our marriage, the book designated Stuart as a bachelor and me as a spinster. We had champaign with Mr. Mathews, who then bowed off to conduct two other weddings, while we changed and reunited with D & Don for an English lunch, which Stuart cooked: bangers & mash, mushy peas, accompanied by John Smith’s English beer. What a lovely day and place, to get reaffirmed in marriage on our own boat, in historic Nelson’s Dockyard, during our cruising trip around the Caribbean!
Champaigne “bucket” 
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Mr Matthews conducting the ceremony 
Signing the marriage book – look Moms & Pops, we are legal now! 
Our witnesses, D & Don, doing their bit 
After Lunch at Comissioners Grill The majestic Pillars of Hercules at the entrance of English Harbour Nelson’s Dockyard view from the water – can you believe this is Caribbean and not England? Wed, May 23, 2007 Jolly Harbour Hangout While Monday we felt like we were cruising, Tuesday was once again a day for projects. It started with dropping $100 at Budget Marine for things related to plumbing, installing an engine fan and solar power. While Stuart cursed and spitted upstairs hooking up the solar panels, I sweated in the engine room for most of the day, crimping and re-crimping the non-working fan, aimed to cool down the engine. All of a sudden, the day was over, so we went ashore for a drink and for DVD rental. The bartenderesses wore slutty outfits, loose hair and high heels. As we were riding back to the boat, we discovered that the harbour was bioluminescent as our engine was glowing with blue light from underneath, very magical. Cooked Indian food for dinner, discovered rented bootleg DVD was faulty and watched an episode of West Wing. Today, of course, is a cloudy day which is making it somewhat difficult for Stuart to test how well the solar panels are working. We seized the sunlessness to embark on the dinghy fixaroo project, whereby we lifted the dighy onto our front deck and glued the rubrail and handles back on, as well as turned it upside down in order to scrub the green weedy remnants of St Martin Lagoon. Before you wonder why this took us 4 hours, I must enlighten you that this involved such strenuous time consuming tasks as hosting the engine on and off, as well as prepping for glue. After putting the dinghy back together we went for a rewarding speedy spin around one of the five small islands outside the harbour, and Stuart was joyful we have reclaimed the dinghy from algae and barnacles. . Look at those purplish gentle mountains behind the anchorage – isn’t Antigua gorgeous? Dinghy fixing . Stu happy to leave Barbuda behind Antigua shores at entrance to our anchorage in Jolly Harbour Dinghying through the Lagoon towards Codrington . Goats rambling through Codrington, getting out of the gate of Police Station Stu in Low Bay beach Nat cleaning conch shell in Low Bay beach Zig Zag in front of Low Bay beach Fri, May 25, 2007 Rent a Car with Dee & Don After checking in with Port Authority to pay the garbage duties and wondering about in scorching windless sun to acquire Stuart a provisional Antiguan drivers license at a police station, we were proud operators of a right-driven $55 per day Toyota Yaris headed to St John with Dee & Don. We had a fun time as we saw the city and foraged the Antigua Museum in between running errands – getting a cell phone chip (us) and signing up for a amateur radio license (them). We also stopped at the market where we acquired the sweetest pineapple you have ever tasted, locally grown, and the government house. Antigua is the first Caribbean island we have visited so far which can boast commonplace tropical fruit availability due to own fruit production. We had a delicious lunch of marinated conch and curried chicken at Comissioner’s Grill in downtown St John. Our day culminated with Hoegarden at sunset on top of a marvelous lookout – Shirley Heights above the English Harbour, where the view is very nautical and pleasing as you see both English and Falmouth Harbours beneath you, full of anchored boats, as well as several forts and ruins. So permeated by history, the lookout makes you imagine those early navigators like Nelson, their joy upon stumbling into a protected cove such as this one and their need for fortifications against the neighboring French. 
Thu, May 24, 2007 Move to English Harbour Today we woke up with full understanding that we have exhausted our interest in Jolly Harbour (which has also turned into a rolly-polly anchorage on us during last two nights, rolly-polly is pronounced in French manner a la Stuart), so we have decided to move to St John, the capital of Antigua. About 10ish we set off to a nice sail northwards with 20 knot winds and upon entering the St John Harbour at about 1 pm we were greeted by the Adventure of the Sea cruise ship which was taking up most of the harbour space. There was not a single boat in any of the anchorages that the cruise guide recommended and this lack of precedent, combined with promises of “exotic smells” from sewer pipes and anchorages’ proximity to somewhat shady area of town led to Zig Zag’s swift turn around and making its way out of the shipping channel. We tried sailing, but the winds were from the South – right on the nose as we made our way towards English Harbour where historic Nelson’s Dockyard is located. The winds and waves accelerated to 25-30 knots as we rounded the point towards Antigua’s southern shore. The protected bay’s entrance was impressive, if somewhat scary – waves pushing us forward from the back, rocky outcrop underneath a fort on our left, and the Pillars of Hercules, columns made of canyon-like orange soil, on our right. We proceeded to anchor on the very inside of the harbour – Tank Bay, passing the historic dockyard with its brick & stone buildings and green lawns. After resting and putting the boat back together, we went for a stroll through the marvelous history ashore, passing by big anchors and anchor wheels, the Inn, the Pub, the sailmaker – all essentials of a Georgian operating dockyard. It looked so very English, prim & proper, well maintained and with cold weather architecture – UK with palm trees, if you wish. We headed for a civilized drink at a dark woody bar with very proud staff and ran into fellow cruisers, Dee & Don, who we saw anchoring right in front of us on Southern Cross, their Dickenson 41 ft ketch. We ended up having a very pleasant “yachtsmen special” dinner with them, consisting of local pumpkin soup and snapper made in “fish & chips” style and made plans to share a car rental tomorrow to run errands. They are a delightful couple who have been cruising down the US coast from Eerie lake since 2002, so they are full of gathered knowledge and experience and are smart and entertaining companions. 
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We jumped off into the water to cool off and Stu ambitiously scrubbed the big boat’s water line as well. 
Mon, May 21, 2007 Passage to Antigua Since we went to bed so early (8:30ish) and we got so much sleep the day before, we both woke up at 3 AM eager to move on. By dawn at 5 AM we have prepared the boat and at 6 AM when the sun was fully up and shining, we got ready to leave. Since the sun was behind us, it was not illuminating the different colors of the water, so Stuart impressively navigated our way out of the reef by using solely our portable depth finder (we attach it to a stick which hangs outside the boat, very gypsy like) and GPS, retracing our electronic path from two days ago, while I stood watch in the front. We managed unscathed and once on a direct rhumb line for Antigua, 30 miles away, we hoisted both sails and had a wonderful sail to Jolly Harbour on the West side, arriving eight hours later at 2 PM. The winds were 15-20 knots, waves 3-4 feet close to shore and 4-6 feet once we cleared the lee of Barbuda’s southern reef at about 9 AM. It was a sunny day, so we could see Antigua 20 miles away, and soon Montserrat as well to the right. There was a catamaran sailing behind us, which overtook us in approach to Antigua. Sailing experience today was much more pleasant than motoring to Barbuda two days ago. Zig Zag’s motion is far gentler under sail, so we didn’t get splashed or exhausted holding on and rocking sideways. Antigua is made from coral but has mountains which are gentle in their contours. From the sea it looks like a gorgeous place, undeveloped rolly hills of red and green. Upon arrival, we took a dinghy ride to shore, where we discovered a marina and endless condominiums on the water with boats parked in the back. There is Budget Marine next to dockyard with dry docks and a great grocery store where English specialties such as PG Tips Tea and Treacle are readily available. Got back to boat loaded with groceries, all of a sudden felt extremely tired. Stuart cooked newly purchased English sausages with Bisto gravy, while I prepared Spanish thick hot chocolate (chocolate a la tasa) for dessert. There is about a dozen other boats anchored at the entrance to the marina, and many cruisers waved welcoming us to the neighborhood. The bay itself is spectacular, surrounded by beaches and with cypress style trees and green brush covering red earth and rocks. As we relaxed on our deck, sipping newly purchased English John Smith beer, we discussed our Barbuda experience. In truth, it wasn’t just boredom that drove our desire to leave at 3 AM, but rather we were overwhelmed by the oppressive nature and our insignificance in the scheme of things. Despite its gorgeousness, the set of experiences we had there was unsettling – making our way to the island while completely surrounded by ocean and no other boats in site, coming to West shore of Barbuda, where there is nothing for miles except one deserted looking hotel, parking in Low Bay in the North, where the closest people are 45 minutes away in a choppy dinghy ride, traipsing through the deserted city of Codrington and going back to the boat, which looked like it was parked in the middle of the ocean – about a mile offshore with a reef protecting it another mile out, and land on one side too low to offer any protection should strong Easterly winds arrive. Needless to say, outside of wireless or cell phone range. It was scary to suddenly be away from all civilization and we found ourselves much happier in Antigua, surrounded by land on 3 sides of anchorage, with other cruising boats and lots of lights ashore, it’s comforting to be surrounded by people. I realized it’s a whole different thing to be out of sight/touch and out of reach – we enjoyed the former, but were unprepared for the latter. We were also musing about how we have done more islands in the past week (St Barts, Barbuda and Antigua) than in the last two months which we spent uniquely in St Martin. We are back on track, we are finally cruising. 
Sun, May 20, 2007 Codrington Visit Woke up 8ish and mounted the outboard engine back onto the dinghy using our new dinghy engine lift, packed boat papers, water, and put an extra gas tank into the dinghy preparing for a long dinghy ride. We left the big boat behind, so very alone and entered the lagoon going towards Codrington to check in. The lagoon entrance is magical, surrounded by mangroves, its like Florida Everglades, or a river in the Amazon, low mangroves full of birds. There are no palm trees, except those planted by the one hotel we saw. The lagoon is shallow – 3-5 feet deep, so we could see coral heads and weeds underneath the boat and touched the bottom quite a few times (thank God we have a new prop amongst our spare parts). Barbuda is home to a large frigat bird colony and we saw swarms of them circling around one of the mangrove covered islands inside the lagoon. It took us 45 minutes to get to the town, a splashy ride into the 1-2 foot waves. I made two mistakes which cost me comfort – wore a floppy hat (which flopped away from my face and put my nose at sun’s disposal as we made 11 knots into the wind) and short shorts (which gave me diaper rash for the first time since infancy, as my butt flesh rubbed against the salty buckling dingy sides). Once in the sleepy village of Codrington, we made our way to the Police Station, surrounded by chickens and goats. Police people told us to return tomorrow, when its not a Sunday. Everything was closed, the town looks like it has been evacuated. All of 1,200 residents must have been at the Sunday Church service, as magnified sounds of pastor and music professed. We make our way to the only open grocery store in town, where we happened to see four other cruisers who told us that they managed to rouse the Immigration officer. We seized the moment and checked in to both Immigration and Port Authority (some lady’s house, where we could smell her lunch cooking in the kitchen from the porch of her modest residence). Given lack of much to do in town (t-shirt selling Art Café was closed and so was Lime – the one bar), we made a much easier with-the-wind return trip to our pristine beach, stopping briefly at the pile of conchs thrown out by fishermen, to pick some up, and riding to North End beach nearby to see someone’s house on a sandy point, surrounded by palm trees.
Located in such gorgeous spot, reef and beach all to ourselves, we finally felt like we were cruising. However, after lunch and nap, we realized that we were somewhat bored in this nature paradise. The boat is infested by flies (we must be downwind from the village) and it’s too murky to snorkel the reef. We are not beach people, either, although we did take a dinghy to the beach after lunch, which had sand pink in hue – extremely beautiful. Stuart saw a woodpecker and I took a photo of large bird’s footprints on the beach. We chased a turtle to try to take a picture, watched the sunset, Stuart cooked excellent pasta with clam sauce for dinner and we retired to bed early. Aahh, life in paradise. We are planning to get out of here tomorrow, since forecast is good and Antigua sounds like more fun. 
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Nat & Stu in Low Bay beach 
Sat, May 19, 2007 Passage to Barbuda We both slept badly in anticipation of the big passage – our longest since overnight passage, 80 miles from BVI to St Martin. Given our average motoring speed of 6 knots and Barbuda being 60 nautical miles away, it would take us 10 hours to get there. We didn’t expect to be sailing, since both the wind and the waves were E/SE, right on our nose, which would have made it a very long sailing trip zigzagging towards it. After two of our alarms rang at ungodly hour of 3 AM, we scrambled up, made tea, had power bars, turned on electronics and navigation lights and at 4 AM we were weighing anchor and departing. As we looked out to the sea behind us, it was a pitch black – count on us to chose a moonless scary night. I had the dorky-looking night light on my head as I was putting anchor up. We tried using the 1MM candle light to identify boats around us but due to haze, it wouldn’t shine very far. Even though the buoys marking the shipping channel blink red and green at night, there are large rocks right next to shipping channel which made the exit somewhat nerve wreaking. There was a skinny crescent of moon early in the night, but by 4am when we wished it was there, it disappeared. Before leaving, we both sat in the salon, hyping ourselves to go into this darkness and rocks. Once we were underway and cleared of buys, the tension subsided, so the hardest part consisted of making ourselves leave. As we cleared the last lit buoy, we saw a boat moving rather fast towards Gustavia. We changed course to avoid it, but made us ponder that having a radar wouldn’t be such a bad thing. The night was so dark, we could see bioluminescence in our wake, accompanying us with speckles of light. After about 45 minutes (4:45AM), it became lighter (as if the moon came out), so we could distinguish shape of waves. At 5 AM it was dawn and by 5:30 AM it was light. Sun came up dead ahead of us at about 5:45 AM, but because of haze, it was just a soft circle so we could look at it with sunglasses on. At 6 AM, we had yogurt and I stayed on watch while Stuart went downstairs for a snooze. St Barts is barely visible behind us though only 10 miles away, it gets lost in the haze. The seas were rough 6 ft, then down to semi-rough splashy 4 ft as we cleared land and were in the midst of open ocean between the two islands. There was no traffic – no boats or airplanes entire passage. At 7 AM, St Barts disappeared completely into the haze and now we have even rounded blue ocean horizon on all sides, which is both comforting and disconcerting. The only signs of life were patches of lobster trap buoys, which made us realize we were not the first ones to conquer these waters and an occasional flock of birds headed to Barbuda at greater speed than us. Autopilot, on since daybreak, kept the boat on course, so our time was pretty idle. To celebrate mid-way of our trip, when at 9 AM we had 30 miles remaining, Stuart made excellent grilled cheese & French ham sandwiches for lunch. We listened to my old college CDs on our newly installed car stereo. The waves picked up at about 11 AM as sun became hotter. Thanks to autopilot there was not much for us to do, except keep watch, hang on and catch flying boat bits thrown around by waves. Le Spider Plant swung on the hang rail down in the cabin, emerging rather tattered. At 11 AM, we only had a third or 20 nautical miles to go, and we are utterly bored as time was ticking sloooowwwwly. We were signing along with Rolling Stones, Macy Gray and Madonna to kill time, with engine rumbling along beautifully, no electrics burning thus far and at 1:30 PM with 6 miles to go Stu saw land. By 1:45 PM I could see land too and in another hour, we approached Barbuda’s west side. We could distinguish a hotel surrounded by palm trees in the middle of a deserted 11 mile beach. It was the only building on the entire horizon, Barbuda being flat as a pancake. For the next two hours we made our way along the beach towards North anchorages at the entrance to the lagoon. To do so, we had erroneously just skirted some shallow patches of corals, since Barbuda is surrounded by a wide reef, so the sea here is brown, green and turquoise. Having arrived early we could see the water colors well, with sun above us. Nevertheless, a few times we stirred up dirt on bottom. I was using our “portable” depth finder which I dangled on the side of the boat attached to the end of PVC pipe (very gypsy like). At 4 PM, exactly 12 hours after our departure, we set anchor in a lovely and protected spot a mile away from a deserted beach. We could see almost unobstructed horizon all around us, 270 degrees of blue ocean, becalmed by the reef and 90 degrees of flat beach and shrub. When we skinny dipped to check whether anchor is set and to celebrate our aloneness, I realized how suntan we have gotten, as Stu’s blindingly white butt against the golden brown of the rest of him was waddling towards anchor before me. At 5 PM I was so tired, I was having trouble staying awake and keeping my mouth closed. We ate the remaining chicken noodle rice for dinner, watched an episode of West Wing to drag out going to bed, but at 6:15 PM, with daylight just turning to dusk, we were both in bed, happily and soundly asleep. 
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Fri, May 18, 2007 Preparations for leaving St Barts Today is our last full day in St Barts, since we are planning to leave for Barbuda early in the morning. We went to the Post Office and – miraculously, must be third time lucky - it was open, so I was able to mail a letter to my Grandma in Moscow – who I suspect doesn’t read this website, neither knowing computers nor speaking English. Stuart got our French phone card refilled (not that it ever rings when someone calls, but at least we have hope for calling out during those few moments when Emergency Calls Only sign comes off), since we will need it down island in Guadelupe and Martinique. We also went to the finally opened chandlery where we acquired a radar reflector (since we will be leaving at night) and new dinghy rope, 30 ft to be able to tow the dinghy behind. We also made a stop at the supermarket, to stock up on French niceties like jamon fume and fois gras. We then liberated the boat from double moorings and carefully headed towards the customs dock, to get water for our tanks. Stuart maneuvered the boat brilliantly, amongst other moored boats and especially when a 30 ft power boat decided to come out of her slip, with us in the shipping channel. Stuart blew the horn and the guy scrambled backwards into his slip. After acquiring water and checking out with customs (who made fun of Stuart’s pacing up and down the dock), we anchored just off the shipping channel to the Gustavia harbor entrance. It was a rolly anchorage, where we could smell the diesel from the power plant on shore. Being tossed around by swell made getting the dinghy engine off and onto main boat’s railing somewhat difficult. We managed without scraping the main boat, put our radar reflector up (new clanking noise on deck), and secured the boat for leaving tomorrow morning. We also strung a lifeline along boat’s left side to attach ourselves to while alone on deck. A large tortoise was swimming around us while anchoring. I got a little seasick while liberating the outboard engine from the dinghy, so I took Stugeron and put a patch on for tomorrow’s passage. Stuart made chicken noodle rice (it was supposed to be soup, but something happened to the proportions) and we retired to bed at 9am setting our alarm clocks for 3am.
Barbuda, our next stop, is 60 miles away and we decided against an overnight passage, so instead we are going to wake up and leave at 4 am in order to make it there by 4pm and be able to anchor safely in daylight. It’s our longest passage since BVI-St Martin, but since St Barts is so small and expensive we are ready to move on. Wed, May 16, 2007 Planning for Barbuda Yesterday we rented a car and saw most of St Barts (cute bays and coves, nice neighborhoods on hills, Eden Rock hotel in St John bay), and acquired the new Zig Zag inhabitant – the plant. Its called “Le Spider” and I got it on a whim while driving past a plant store. It was on discount – 11 euros, due to its sorry shape, I am guessing, since I had to prune a third of it to get rid of brown dry stuff. The conversation with a French-only speaking lady went like this: - Natalya in English: “Any instructions on how to take care of the plant?” Plants die on me regularly, I am thinking - French lady: “je ne parle pas ingles, reducción?” she thinks I want a discount - Natalya: “ehh, soleil?” I have remembered this word thinking of a same name bar in Pinones Puerto Rico French lady shakes her had sorrowfully and am happy the plant doesn’t like the sun, since it’s bound to reside in our cabin… - Natalya: “umm, eau?” I continue, thanking Evian for knowing the word - French lady: “tut deux jour” - Natalya: “un jour si, un jour no?” I clarify in a mixture of Spanish and French French lady nods happily and affirmatively and I am ecstatic I managed to carry on a conversation with a French person and now have a pet which will make our cabin that much cuter. St Barts is reminding me of Water Island, since it has scattered houses, but very cute ones, well maintained by house proud people. Its got cliffy edges and great views of small rocky outcrops surrounding it. Our new occupant, Le Spider Plant from St Barts Eden Rock hotel on St John’s Bay Mon, May 14, 2007 Problem Fixed!!! Stuart leapt out of bed bright and early this morning and first thing, called the local electrician, who has agreed to come take a look at 3pm. I woke up and sipped the tea Stuart kindly made me, wanting to suggest sightseeing (no point brooding about the boat when not much can be done, right?) but afraid to provoke another boot of engine fury or seem like the irresponsible one on the boat. As I longingly watched the shore, we spent the morning bickering. I remembered thinking it funny when I read that definition of cruising is “fixing your boat in exotic places” – well, here I am living out the definition: exciting new place, angry captain, all we want is the friggin’ electrician. While I dedicated myself to erecting a wind scoop above the forward hatch and mounting middle and back sun covers (which made the boat immediately cooler), Stuart studied the diagrams of our engine wirings which John the ex-ex-electrician left us, to be able to explain what’s what to the latest St Bartsian electrician. Stuart then tinkered in the engine room himself and figured out what’s wrong – the ignition wire came off the ignition harness. I was wild with joy and proud of the Captain as he called the electrician to tell him not to come. I decided the key to boat happiness is either full time crew or complete self sufficiency. We then immediately set off for the shore (Stuart being in the mood to humor me all of a sudden) and wondered around the very hot but very dolled up 3 streets that make up the town. Very chi chi, private boutiques speckled with Cartier, Quicksilver and the likes. Girls in miniskirts on mopeds, French everywhere, prices in Euros. Even people’s dogs seem classy here, as they patiently wait outside posh stores for their owners. We had great lunch at the Vietnamese place and retreated back to the boat away from the heat. Check out this quote in Quicksilver window: I say we are living up to this, what? I was beside myself with excitement when we arrived, electrics issues aside. After all, we were in a NEW place, as in not St Martin and not the Lagoon. We went past several anchorages into the heart of the capital – Gustavia and ventured to pick up one of the moorings there making complete fools of ourselves. After we had a screaming match and lost a rope, this nice Canadian guy came to help in a dinghy. It doesn’t say this anywhere in the cruising guide, but you have to get two moorings, one in front and one in back, while in close proximity to other boats you can hit. We were eternally grateful to his help and during the afternoon helped two other boats do the same thing. It’s Sunday, so in French fashion everything is closed. The harbor, which we see in the posh booklet they gave us at spiffy wood-decorated customs office, is usually resplendent with mega yachts, but is now empty due to off season. The rich and famous are off to the Mediterranean leaving their playground to us cruisers. The small town of Gustavia was empty, closed except for one bar – the Buccaneers (where we promptly had a 4 euro beer, sticker shock after 2 dollars in St Maarten). We walked around marveling at clean streets, red roofs and cutely decorated houses. There are sea gulls flying around the boat, fighting for dinner. There are Europeans walking with their strollers around the water edge and we could hear sounds of French as the occupants of the Moorings boat next to us are dining al fresco in the cockpit. As we fix our trademark dish of Indian-food-out-of-packet-bought-in-Guaynabo-Bottles mixed with canned-Costco-chicken and freshly-cooked-rice and settle for a night of reading other people’s extreme sailing adventures, I am thinking that I love my life! So civilized! Thu, May 17, 2007 Holidays I must mention that the schedule here is very French. Stores are open 10am-1pm and then reopen again 3pm-7pm. Sunday when we arrived, everything was closed, and yesterday, Wednesday was a half day, so when we went to the chandlery and the post office in the afternoon we found out it closed at noon. Today we resumed our efforts to shop, but alas its “Ascención” holiday which means everything is closed until tomorrow. We have postponed our departure to Barbuda and decided to get some projects done which do not require parts: cleaned the engine raw water intake filter (half full of debris!), Stu installed a pressure measure on the engine oil filter, while I installed salt water pump so we can wash dishes without wasting precious fresh water. Stu reinstalled the auto pilot (just in case this whole sailing thing will be too strenuous) and changed engine oil and all the fluids prior to passage. 
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“Its traveling. Its going somewhere and making the most of it. Its about being spontaneous and having fun – doing things that challenge you and put you out of your comfort zone.” 
Sun, May 13, 2007 Happy Mother’s Day (and Happy Birthday, Diane) while we set off for St Barts On May 13th, exactly two months after our March 13th arrival in St Martin, we have set off for St Barts. We have tested the electrics, rested the night before with a home cooked noodle soup, said good bye to Phil the Electrician and the Aussie family, threw out garbage, cleared out with customs, went to water and fuel dock to top up and feeling nostalgic for a place we enjoyed so much finally left with the 9:30 AM bridge out of the lagoon. Our course was set for Ile de Fourche (an island close to St Barths) for a night, then Anse Columbier (beach of St Baths) and then Gustavia, the capital. The weather was supposed to be 15-20 knots of wind and 5-6 foot waves. As we were motoring straight into the waves, they seemed larger upon our departure since they were reflected from St Martin, and they became smaller once we were in open sea. They were coming from the South through and not East as the forecast has told us, making me doubt the weather information we rely on. I was at the wheel most of the time, making a point to smell for anything weird out of the engine room. Sure enough there was a burning rubber smell, but Stuart went downstairs and fixed it quickly – just an alternator bolt coming loose. We then made it to Ile de Fourchue in two hours, an uncomfortable ride, but we were ecstatic we were underway with everything working. There was a sea gull which flew next to us at same speed for about half an hour. I guess after the Smelly Lagoon, we were expecting a sandy beach with shallow waters, since when we got to the recommended Ile de Fourchue, we were disappointed to see a swelly bay surrounded by cliffs and deep waters with no sand. It looked life a volcano crater, deep and blue. Dry red cliffs circling around the bay made it look moonscape-like. Red earth and blue water, no white strip of beach in between, spooky and ominous. There was probably great snorkeling and diving but we didn’t stay long enough to find out, since when Stuart was turning the engine off, there was no reassuring beeping sound. It then would not turn back on. After a series of threatening curses, Stuart restarted the engine by hotwiring it downstairs, and having all electrics disconnected, we made out way straight to Gustavia in a sullen mood, hoping that there are electricians there. Ile de Fourchue – Isn’t it creepy and lunar? There is the lonely shak with letters laid out of stone that we couldn’t read… 
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Gustavia moorings – safe but not as easy to use as it looks 
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Well behaved dogs in Gustavia 
Wed, May 9, 2007 Light at the End of the Tunnel Phil, the one legged electrician, hobbled in today and by the looks of it, after we test the new wiring by running the engine for 4 hours while we sit in gas masks holding fire extinguishers, we may get departure clearance. If the experiment goes well, we shall set sail (i.e. 3 hour motor into the wind) on Friday for the promised land of St Barts, an island seen beckoningly close. | |
| Tue, May 8, 2007 Today I realized that “Sunday” was really a Sunday (thus today is still a Tuesday), I just got all confused using the computer after midnight and looking at the date – which even more proves my point of not knowing what date it is, doesn’t it? I must confess that I have been reading voraciously and selfishly for the past few weeks, on a covert avoidance mission to ignore the electrics hell around me. In the meantime Stu has been spending lots of time with Phil, our smart English electrician strongly in favor, who amazingly enough diagnosed the problem and is firmly under way to fixing it. He has had a stroke of bad luck, twisting his ankle yesterday (he already had a broken rib from leaning on his dinghy engine too hard) and we were uncertain he was up for working today, so Stuart and I thought of escaping to the nearby island of Saba for an overnight getaway without the boat but logistics made it difficult. Jimmy and Phil came over and they were talking, Jimmy told us that the boat he is working on (new boat in the neighborhood, owned by some famous psychiatrist who bought it a month ago), had the wind generator drawing 20 amps of power instead of producing 12 due to shoddy wiring (tee hee). I know it’s horrible to laugh at other people’s misfortunes, but I cannot tell you how good that made me feel – imagine, other cruisers have electrical difficulties too, and at least we don’t have THAT problem! Stuart rented two movies so from now on its movie/readfest night, where we kick back and pretend the boat doesn’t need fixing. By the way, when we rented a car and Stuart was on the French side buying spark plugs for our outboard engine, in between sneaking peeks at this latest book about Russians and gypsies I am absorbed by, I went into this chi chi Froggo store and they had a t-shirt on sale which read: “Nobody cares about your blog.” I almost bought it, but I thought more prudent investing in one which wonders “Are you an electrician?” Anyways, I felt all defensive since I know for a fact at least six people who read it – our parents –RIGHT??? Hey Guys! Privet vsem! AND Thank you! | Phil & Stu coming over to the boat |
| Tue, May 8, 2007 One thing I have noticed about us is that we have started to forget what day or date it is. For example, yesterday we had a “Sunday” so we spent the whole day guiltlessly staying at home and indulging on movies we rented and I was shocked to just discover that today is a Tuesday, which most likely makes yesterday a Monday. I have forgotten which date it is a while back, but I am proud for remembering to watch out for my brother’s Igor’s birthday at the end of April and am still shocked when I am accidentally reminded by some external force like a newspaper or a second of TV at the bar that it is already May. We are certainly detached from the World News as well. Other than the World Cricket championship – a topic about the international Lagoon – and some heart wrenching 30+ casualties shooting at a US university (compliments to breakfast in front of CNN at Rick’s Place (Bar & Restaurant) – located St Martin style below Golden Eyes strip club with a dinghy dock), I am fully unawares of any big cataclysms that may have taken place. During our “Sunday” yesterday, Stuart and I were musing that out boat, despite having behaved badly as a mode of transportation (see my ravings from previous posts) has served us marvelously as a home. Its wide beam, a constant source of surprise to first time visitors who believe no 40 ft boat is entitled to such a wide interior, has provided us with ample space for living as a couple and hosting guests. Rare for a boat this size, we have found room to store unlimited food supplies and host an appliance garage with proudly displayed ice maker and microwave (a cruise rarity). First time cruisers, we have brought countless useless things with us (I am thinking of my sports clothes, guash paints (hah) and paintbrushes as well as Stuart’s long pants, palm pilot and sneakers) and have kept various previous owners’ indulgences (such as 1,001 towels and spare parts for non vital boat equipment recently replaced), but our boat has been endlessly forgiving and has allowed me to hide these excesses away from site to prevent me from guiltily stumbling upon them too often. Probed by Chez, who has asked me whether I like the boating life, I have contemplated the nature of living on a boat. She, who has moved onto a boat a few months ago with her 3 young children (10, 4 and 2) and being 6 months pregnant, finds boating life more difficult in a boat (their robust Aussie family fits well into a 4 cabin 50 footer) than life in a house, where kids did not feel stuck in a hull, but had back yards with tricycles and monkey bars where they could entertain themselves for hours. Unlike her, I find the boating life comforting. Echoing the feelings of Tom Neal (author of All In The Same Boat which introductory chapter I just read) I think that the feelings of control and independence that living on the boat gives me justify the added complexity of boat life. Yes, the anchor may drag at night and our home may wash up on the rocks, but it’s up to us to anchor well. We had the choice as to where to anchor. This choice was not always as easily executed on land – where I felt more pressure to live a certain lifestyle, wear certain clothes, live in certain neighborhood, have a certain life trajectory. Living in a house you are dependent on other people to provide you with electricity and gas, while on the boat we are self sufficient to a high extent (wind mill and solar panels), and we store our own water, food and gas for weeks in advance and will be sufficient should something like Katrina happen. We exercise control over issues of our family’s provisioning, electricity, movements and defense, which is immensely liberating (now that I have stepped outside and have unlimited time to think about it). | Nat going to the beach with Aussies .
Look, I sprouted a family - I am Babysitting |
| Mon, May 7, 2007 The Electrics Saga Continues It may come as no surprise to you that we are still in St Martin without yet resolution to our electrical troubles. However, today we officially lost John, the Australian electrician, who has claimed that the "diodes in the alternator" are to blame, even after we rented a car for 3 days and 1) taken our alternator to rebuild the diodes, and 2) bought a new alternator, 3) almost had a fire again testing the new alternator. Since according to John the new alternator the diodes were not working either, we have turned back to our long lost English electrician, Phil, who was nice enough to come to our boat and give us his expert opinion. Apparently he is closer to identifying the problem (not the diodes), so we are somewhat happier now. Tomorrow, i have to go to customs and check us back again for probably another week. We have also hung out with Jimmy and his family, one day using the rented car to take the whole family for ribs in Grande Case and it was so nice to be off the boats and away from the lagoon to some place that looked like perfect Caribbean, with clean water, restaurants and bars. Today, they picked me up to go to the beach - just outside the bridge from the lagoon and a whole new clean world - and it was great to spend time with a great family, playing in sand with little ones and listening to Jimmy's latest daring plan to go back to Australia around Cape Horn instead of through Panama Canal. I than babysat Jordan, the oldest 10 year old for a few hours, taking her to run errands with me and to the playground. We then picked up the rest of Jimmy's women - Chez with little Sheila and Tiana and went for Gellatoes, while our men were working - Stu with Phil at electrics place Electec and Jimmy's working on someone else's boat in the neighborhood. This week Jimmy also worked on our water maker, which is sort of installed by now - put together, but lotsa wiring still mising. One day in the rented car, we just spent a few hours sightseeing and it felt so good to be a tourist. We went to a new part of the French side, where Moorings marina is and had lunch (i had delicious Conch is spicy tomato sauce), with a rude French waitress from whom Stuart managed to elicit a smile, and looked at real estate, such a nice distraction from boat fixing! Today, we had afternoon drinks with Chez, Jimmy and Phil at the cheapo Chinese restaurant across the street from Shrimpy's and then ended up at Shrimpy's having beer, talking to Tammy the bartender and doing email. | By the way, I have mounted the flags onto out boat, which I am immensely proud of. They are located in three separate places: . . |
Wed, May 2, 2007 Somewhere in St Martin there is Carnival Apparently today, Wednesday, is the third day of St Maarten Carnival and everything is still closed. As the beginning of a new month symbolizes that we have been cruising for two months now, I wanted to tally our impressions. We have been in St Martin for the entire month of April, largely dedicated to boat maintenance. Romance of living on the water has worn thin and life is about pursuing daily tasks, while incidentally living on the water. The boat has become our job, representing a series of systems that need tending – mechanical, electrical, plumbing, gas etc. and we are painfully aware of its 20 year tenure as manifested in worn out accessories or shoddy patch up jobs in the engine room compliments of previous owners. Zig Zag Maintenance To Do list seems endless (we have nearly completed original list, but poking and prodding revealed new problems) and every repair takes at least three iterations. It’s like renovating our apartment all over again. The brunt of frustration is, of course, on the Captain who is wondering about sullen spirited, cursing and throwing things around. We are doing our best to get outta here fast, but given Caribbean holidays, non-stopping carnivals and such, alas our attempts are doomed. We feel our travel time eroding, since we need to be in Grenada for most of hurricane season (just 3 months away! argh). The best use of my time before leaving should have been taking an electrical basics course, to assure we have at least a few weeks of something resembling cruising instead of being dependent on hired professionals and thus port bound. I haven’t seen my swim suit in over a month now, odd given our life on the water, but not surprising since we are mostly within confines of festering lagoon waters. The excitement of setting under way is now replaced by dread as to what’s going to go wrong next. On the positive side, we have learned an immense deal about our boat and its makings, and have gotten quite good at problem management. I cannot imagine selling it given that we know and have fixed every inch of it. We have responded rather bravely to an emergency at sea and safely brought the boat to port, a confidence builder. We have developed fluidity in moving around the boat avoiding various head and knee bumps (a great feat for two clumsy creatures like Stu & I) and managed to gain this learning at low cost of minor bruises and cuts, despite reckless actions like sticking my finger into the evil windlass (heavy duty anchor chain lift). We have gotten to know St Martin well, and it’s a place we like where we can get things done with relative ease, having established the necessary connections in just one month. When something breaks, I don’t get bewildered and expect Stuart to deal with it, but rather roll my sleeves up and see how I can help. I understand the basics of plumbing (go hose clamps!) and electrics (pinching wires inside fun colored plastic thingies). I am not afraid to get into the engine room and get my hands dirty, like Stuart does on an almost daily basis. An undeniably pleasant part of the experience have been the cruisers in our “neighborhood”, as we get together to commiserate in a miserable cruiser support group: Australian Jimmy’s water maker and now rusted chain plates woes, South African Jeremy’s windmill saga, Croatian Sasha’s pricey & slow rigging repairs with KFG. Tonight we are all getting together for a drink at Shrimpy’s, the cruiser bar. The Australian mate Jimmy, calls me “missus” and Chez says cute Australian things like “jetty” (pier) and “bathers” (swimsuit). Jimmy used to be an organics farmer. In fact, they are sailing because he believes global warming would have flood his land in the next 5 years, so he got out to gain self sufficiency beforehand. Chez got pregnant with their fourth (she is about 6 months along already), putting a dampen on their plans to cruise Caribbean and Polynesia, since now she has to fly back home to give birth, while Jimmy is planning to single hand across the Panama Canal and the Pacific. Sasha, who lost one of his oars the other day, was peddling around the bay like Pacahantos and has now re-commissioned his boat hook to serve as the second ore, and we think we have problems? | Full Moon in the Lagoon at sunset (thats our neighbors Wildflower on left and Island Wind on the right) . Stu helping Sasha take his rigging down (Sasha is the one up the mast, Stu on deck of Island Wind below)
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| Tue, May 1, 2007 – Guess where? Last week was optimistic. Wednesday we did laundry, and got out of Lagoon Marina (quitting the spend of $40 per day) and anchored back in the Lagoon, in what has become our “neighborhood” – Chez & Jimmy, the easy going newly-pregnant Australian couple with three kids, on Fantasia, a Morgan Catalina 60 ft; Phil & Tammy, our ex-electrician who is dating a Canadian bartender from Shrimpy’s, on Wildflower, the boat they are babysitting; Sasha, the Croatian Formula 1 mechanical engineer who doesn’t have a motor so spends his time rowing his dinghy around between his 50 ft Endeavour Island Time and shore; and the American supposedly nice guy in huge tug boat turned yacht who has no sea manners and swings his 80 ft monstrosity into everyone. After John, our Australian electrician came over Thursday to finalize things in our messy “Micky Mouse electrics” (John’s quote), we got an OK to get out of here. However, Friday we discovered that the wind gen’s blades were not aligned so we went back to Lagoon Marina for a few hours on Saturday to re-align them. We rented a car and went out shopping to stock up with Jimmy & Chez. Back in the lagoon, we celebrated Saturday being our last night in St Martin (after a month and a half!), so we went out bar hopping with the neighbors: Jimmy & Chez and Tammy & Phil. We visited Shrimpy’s, then Peg Leg’s, then Pineapple Pete’s, in search of crowds celebrating today’s Australian win of the World Cricket Championship, but weirdly, most places were closing early. I came home at midnight, though most guys stayed out until 3 am getting rowdy. Needless to say, on Sunday morning we didn’t make the 9am bridge out of the Lagoon, but I did manage to rouse Stuart for the 11 am one. We went out and past 3 bays, with welcoming view of St Barths just 12 miles away. Then we smelled burning rubber. Stuart went downstairs into the engine room and saw that it was full of smoke. Without farther a due we turned and went towards the closest land – last stop in St Martin, Great Bay in Philipsburg. Given 8 ft waves and having spent so much time with head in smoky engine room downstairs, we both felt nauseous. We anchored, made sure nothing was on fire and identified the problem as the wrong hose we put on engine fitting – given high temperatures when underway, it started to melt. We then slept most of the day, despite the rolly anchorage. Monday we woke up to the swell so big we had to hold walls to walk around the boat. Without the hangover, it looked like a much better day, so we changed the faulty hose in engine room and were underway towards St Barths. As soon as we got out of the bay into the big swells and open seas – 8 to 10 ft waves and 15 knot winds, into which we were planning to motor, we smelled burning rubber again. The engine room was once again full of smoke and I discovered the smoking instrument on the left – the voltage separator. Stuart screamed to turn the engine off immediately, so we had some scary and uncomfortable moments as the boat turned sideways to the waves and was thrashing about dramatically, as Stuart was downstairs in the engine room prepared with a fire extinguisher, just in case. When sure that fire was not happening, we unfurled the front sail and turned around to sail towards the Lagoon, to get electrics help. John, the electrician, who we reached on the phone, explained how to disconnect the voltage separator, so we could use the engine, so after a two hour sail back we anchored with engine right outside the lagoon, spent another rolly night anchored in open waters with wires inside the mast making loud bangs, and on Tuesday morning, in evil rain, crossed the bridge opening at 9am to enter the lagoon and anchor back in the “neighborhood” (after running aground). Despite being shaken up, life was back to normal as the neighbors came to welcome us. We are here at least till Thursday given that this is Carnival week and everything is closed until tomorrow. Chez, Jimmy & the kids are off to see Carnival in Philipsburg, Stu is upstairs with Sasha discussing pro’s & con’s of anchors and listening to boat problems and money difficulties as more than expected is being plowed into a boat (typical cruiser conversation), Phil & Tammy had a fight this morning and Phil stormed off in their only dinghy so we had to give Tammy a ride – it’s the Lagoon soap opera back in full swing, as we are waiting for the electrician to show up – so familiar, almost feels like home. We checked back with customs for a full week, just in case. I cannot believe we are back here, still in St Martin, with more electrical expenditures necessary before we finally set sail again, but it feels oddly homey to be back in the loony Lagoon with our sailing buddies and all St Martin restaurants within easy reach around the lagoon. |
Burnt Isolator
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Tue, April 24, 2007 – Wind Generator is back in favor!!! Our Australian electrician, John, is back today, tinkering with the electrics and once he had properly hooked up the wind gen, it stopped wobbling and driving Stuart crazy. So we are not going to return it anymore (it would have been the third one we returned if we did). We are still at Lagoon marina, hopefully going tomorrow to re-anchor in the bay, shop for supplies and leave for St Barts. . Mon, April 23 - Stuart's Birthday!!! Since yesterday we have gone to Shrimpy’s cruiser bar with our new friends – Australian couple Jimmy and Chez, as well as South African Shrimpy’s owner Mike - where the boys have debated global warming until 2 am (while the girls rummaged the book exchange for good novels), today was a slightly hangover slowish day. It was characterized by the usual messing with the wind generator, which two weeks post-purchase, is still not working. We have put it up and down and balanced the blades at least three times – but to no avail and to great frustration. I noticed that we have developed friends based on projects – our latest South African friend is Jeremy, who is also in throws of installing a KISS wind generator, and it’s the funniest thing to watch him and Stuart discuss the manufacturer in no light terms and at great lengths, friends in misery of boat fixing, as they shuttle back and forth between their boats and chandleries, intersecting to commiserate. My birthday gift to Stuart was a) a dingie engine lifting strap – nicely matches his present to me which was a leatherman and b) a vacation guide to the Caribbean for a tourist prospective of the islands. We can now read it when on breaks from our boat maintenance. It’s not a cruising guide – a relief, since it doesn’t have any scary information about where not to anchor, where it’s too shallow or which reefs to stay away from. It’s a cheerful guide about tourist sights, beaches and restaurants, symbolizing the idle life we are about to start leading. Stuart didn’t want to do much on his birthday, so we had a quiet dinner at Chinese restaurant – White Swan on the lagoon, highly recommended – and came back to watch a movie. Just as we were about to start, the Russian girl I met today came over for a drink with her husband, and we chatted for a few hours. Theirs is a tale of international romance and I hope things work out for them as they are juggling the burocracies of Switzerland, Russia, Netherlands Antilles and Dominican Republic where they got married. Maria is a very nice person, from Moscow like me, and George is a Swiss ex-cruiser who runs the local computer store. Apparently there are a bunch of Russian girls on the island married to French people. I also saw the boat with a Russian flag the other day, it was a yacht called Edelade registered in the Russian port of Parmatar – where is that??? Wind Generator is up and running . Boat look with Wind Generator in the back Fri, April 20, 2007 Inverter Round 2 and AC Installation Yesterday was the most productive day since Tortola, when we had all of three helpers, all professional and commensurately expensive, working on the boat. John, the serious English electrician, spent 3 hours inside the engine room reinstalling the inverter and battery charger, which are now working. Leon, the cheerful South African “hole maker,” spent another three hours poking holes all around our boat for the AC, including 2 scary looking holes through the hull (thankfully above the water line) and several giant hole through my already tiny closets for the AC duct. I spent 3 hours walking behind him with a vacuum cleaner, getting rid of the dust. Keith, the English AC expert, was running around measuring things, so that he can come in today and install the AC which we have been carrying on board ever since we got it in PR (but our AC installer broke his leg somewhat halting the installation process). In the evening we went to Bavaria, a fine German restaurant near lagoon where we had great German beer, pea soup, pork loin with sauerkraut and mash potatoes. We also had some great German beer called Hell (Ale, right, Ilka? but still pretty amusing if you are me who pretends the package is in English. I was entertaining myself for half of the night, thinking of one liners like “hell never tasted so good”). By the way, the other day we went to White Swan, the best Chinese in St Martin, and I had amazingly good Ma Po Tofu (Jean and Betty, you would have loved it!). I love to St Martin~ Today, Keith came over bright and early and it’s a whirlwind of activity around the boat, as we are fluttering about helping him. Stuart spent most of his day shuttling to various vendors around the lagoon for missing parts. Keith, spent most of the day in the AC closet, which he can fit into completely – see his butt sticking out? The professionalism of all three guys we worked with has been impressive and we have once again remembered that “you get what you pay for.” No penny pinching on labor from now on. I put in my share of boat work, by helping hang up the AC tubing in the engine room. Hell Beer at Bavaria . Keith inside AC Cabinet Tue, April 18, 2007 Arghhhhhhhhh! Past week has been a nightmare and I have been propelled out of my Zen stage and firmly grounded in the bitching phase, as Captain and I have endured insurmountable difficulties in getting anything done. Phil, the electrician, is out of favor for working too slow, not showing up too often and mis-wiring some stuff – i.e. learning about boat electrics on our tab. We have the same list of unfinished projects as a few weeks ago – solar panels and wind generator installation, inverter and battery charger installation and a water maker which haven’t seen water since we left. Things are break before we can even fix them (another toilet clogging incident occurred waiting to be looked at). Money is flowing from our wallets into chandleries like they are Monopoly hotels, the boat constantly looks like a work shop and most importantly, we are NOT cruising!!! (Little did I know when I went “cruising” that I was actually signing up for an 8 month boat maintenance course and relocating to St Martin to float around Simpson Lagoon, humph). We have been stuck in St Martin for over a month now – not a bad place, I admit, but there are a couple dozen other islands which we could have visited by now! . Weather is supposed to deteriorate considerably this weekend, so we are here at least for another week and a half. We are exasperated and moody. Solution has been to move to a marina (Lagoon Marina, the one with Black Pearlesque ship at the end), where its hot and smelly, but at least we are hoping this will speed things up. We have also found an electrician (an improbable task, since most mega yachts on their way back to the Med for the summer are in need of an electrician), John, who is supposed to show up tomorrow afternoon. We are also right in front of A/C store, so maybe we will get that installed. . . .Sun, April 15, 2007 Zig Zag is now Zig Zag! A watershed event happened today – we have finally, after a month and a half of cruising, affixed name letters on our transom, so now people will actually recognize our boat as Zig Zag. It was one of those small and fun undertakings which render a tremendous impact, such as hanging lamps or buying carpets was. Talking about lamps, check out our new light fixtures below, they are regular household ones, but with 12V baulbs - how nifty is that? The boat has become a home. Zig Zag now has a name! . Stu running a credit card over the letters . Taking film off the letters 
| Fri, April 13, 2007 Boat Fixing Saga In order to engage in some more boat fixing we moved back inside the lagoon to be closer to Budget Marine dock and have engaged in significant improvements of the boat. When we were going through the bridge, we had this catamaran in front of us in line, which was moving only backwards. You can see it on this pic facing us, but moving away towards lagoon. Weird! We suspected it either had engine problems or was engaged in some dangerous and potentially expensive truth-or-dare experiment, since you can see that the bridge isn’t very wide. For last few days (and it looks like the next few too) we are back at full time fixing the boat. We now have not just one helper (Phil, the English electrician), but Tom (the Belgian sailor) too. Tom showed his fearlessness by going up our mast twice and even standing up in boson’s chair in order to take the anchor light out. Of course, we took necessary precautions such as made sure Tom was strapped in with ropes and wearing jacket/tether, and I was praying in the cockpit unable to look up at him standing up 57 feet above the boat. Some people have no fear!!! Stuart showed off his beefed up biceps by winching Tom up the mast - twice. As for our improvements, we purchased inverter, wind generator, pole for generator, and mounted solar panels. We (as in Stu, really) have then commenced to install the wind gen, connect solar panels, and oversee inverter installation. The inverter was installed yesterday after full day of work – so after borrowing a friend’s DVD set, we got to watch Law & Order on the newly mounted TV which was plugged into a socket (that’s what inverter does, changes boat produced electricity into house style electricity, whippie!) Never knew I could be so busy even though officially unemployed! I am busy, but on my own time and schedule, so ironically, now that I have control over my time, my procrastination habit is back! I am realizing I haven’t gotten to any of those things I thought I would have time to do – spend time on myself, read cooking books and practice. May seem obvious, but am realizing that I have to make time for things that I like and want to do, otherwise they will not get done – either because of work, or because of paradise getting in the way. Its all about time management, work or not. Ironically, I used work business to squeeze errands in and now without that push, I have to battle procrastination and drum up willingness to do mundane tasks. Next stop is still St Barts, hopefully mid-next week. Unfortunaly the weather is supposed to become wind-less as of Monday, so it will likely be a motoring experience. | Catamaran going backwards through French bridge . Tom standing up in bosun's chair up mast
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| Mon, April 9, 2007 Back to Marigot First of all, Happy Birthday, Diane! We are back to Marigot after a beautiful 3 hour sail from Orient Beach. Everything turns out to be closed, so we head to Shrimpy’s, the famed cruiser bar, to check email and do this website. Then off to do cruiser projects, like mounting solar panels. Tomorrow – check out and final shopping before going to St Barts. It’s just over a month of us sailing, so I have reminisced and tallied the achievements so far. The 12% or 1/8th of our cruise have given me the following: I have gotten used to and find myself happy amidst this “life on the ocean waves;” I quit my job and said good bye to friends of two years; afterwards, I have felt disoriented and confused but found meaning and purpose in new things, like learning to fix the boat and developing some useful boat fixing skills (operating various boat systems); I have become suntan and my hair sun streaked (this one is right along my predictions); I have come to terms with not being a manic career woman for a while; I have read 5 books (that’s 5 times more that last year); and I have seen BVI, St Martin & Anguilla – all of which I have seen before but I was now grateful for time to explore. Another big realization is that unless I make myself happy I am not going to be. I know it sounds trite, since my life seems so bloody amazing to everyone, but since I read an article about this chaplain going on campaign against complaining (he suggested to his parish wearing a bracelet which said “a world without complaining” and doing a three week countdown since last time they complained), I realized that I complain endlessly. Me, in the midst of my most paradisiacal existence to date, manage to constantly find things to wine about – I complain about wind being too strong or too weak when we are sailing, I complain about Caribbean water being too cold, I complain about too much rolling on a boat – all this while leading a life others would have killed for, mind you! So here is my new resolution – I will tell myself every morning that “I am the luckiest girl in the world!” I have a gorgeous loving husband, enthusiastic and supportive family and in-laws, fun friends who either visit or keep in touch. I am surrounded by love and I am in the middle of the Caribbean taking time off to enjoy myself, my husband and my boat, before entering another joyful part of life – having babies, so what can possibly be better??? It’s amazing I have allowed myself to think otherwise for the past month. | More Pix from last weekend: Raphy cooking BBQ with a flashlight on his head
. Rafi & Stuart in toga pareos on Pinel Island
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Thu-Sun, April 4-8, 2007 Raphy & Vilmarie Visit We had our friends join us this Easter weekend. They arrived late Thursday night and we dinghied them across the lagoon – about 30 minutes away, to the other end – to a restaurant called Pineapple Pete’s chosen solely on recommendation that its open late. Ended up having great food and beer, yummy lobsters with cheese, delicious! Friday morning I woke up to the engine running as we prepared to clear the bridge on the Dutch side to set sail for Grand Case – a French town a few bays away. We made it there by lunch time and had lunch at the beachside bistro ZenIt. Grand Case is a really cute French village, complete with a mile full of restaurants and beach shops, all done stylishly and very inviting. After an afternoon nap we went out again, first to a beach lounge, where we had drinks at the bar inside multi-colored lit patio, and then to an amazingly good Provence style French restaurant. There, we had lobster and trunk fish (triangular hard shelled fish). On Saturday, we woke up to sail to our next stop – Pinel, an island recommended by Rafi located in front of Orient Beach (that famous St Martin beach where people come to get tan without swimwear lines). After a 3 hour dramatic sail through big swells on the side (boat does so great!!!) and close encounter with an idiot in a purple speed boat, we arrived at Orient Beach, which must be one of the world’s busiest. Its probably about 3-4 miles long and every inch is complete with bright beach chairs and umbrellas, restaurants, beach shops, beach bars, hot waiters and semi hot tourists. Its also replete with jet skis (and all sorts of water sports like parasailing) which is a drag for us boaties, having to bask in maniacal jetskier’s constant wake. We headed over to Pinel island in our trusty dinghy for a lunch and an afternoon in the sun. Pinel turned to be the cutest little island, truly a beach and sun paradise with suntan waitresses in bikinis and pareos (boys went ahhh), hot lobster boys getting large lobsters from lobster pots, lush tropical plants surrounding the restaurant and a boat-bar with strong mud slides and pina coladas. I had parrot fish for the first time although I had no idea that its what I ordered since it was called something French on the manu, translated as Old Wife fish. After lunch we basked in the water next to a bar and actually had a Croatian long haired barman deliver us drinks in the water (girls went ahhh). There was a cute shop with Indonesian sarongs and brazilian artifacts which we had to spend a lot of money at before leaving. After a water soaked and fun dinghy ride, already very happy, we decided that we must uncork some Champaign on the nearby wild island with a tiny beach and we had the time of our lives – drinking champaign, looking at Orient beach and our boat, laughing and having fun. Back on the boat, we had barbeque and put on the speakers with music – and danced the night away around the mast with salsa, meringue, MANA and some 70’s tunes. Today, after somewhat slow recovery of a day, we were sad to say good bye to our friends catching their plane back to PR. Overall, a wonderful weekend with great company, food and lots of fun. Pinel Island Bar . Pinel Island Waitress . 
Tue-Wed, April 2-3, 2007 Stu in PR Stuart flew to Puerto Rico to get our small boat sold (bye bye Triki Traki, very bitter sweet!). He stayed there overnight, which means that I was the Captain all of a sudden, in charge of the big boat. I did great – went to cruiser bar to do email, finished my book, picked up some nautical stuff we got on boat exchange from nearby boat, got boat letters made (we now just have to glue the name on our transom, stay tuned), managed through the night (during which I locked myself in, just in case), survived anchor drag alarm at 3 am – just oversensitive GPS since it was the quietest night yet, and I even went to the fuel dock and filled the dinghy tank with gas and oil mixture and got the dinghy serviced at the local Yamaha place. I was very proud of myself as I went to pick up my captain at the airport pier in a dinghy, to help him carry new bags of boat stuff. I got presents like depth finder, TV, sink aerator and salt water pump – and I have never been happier!
Sat, March 31, 2007 Woke up, waited for sun to come up, once again thanked the German and went off to find another place to anchor. One would have thought re-anchoring is easy, but the lagoon is shallow and dirty, so you can’t see the bottom or how shallow and the maps just say “warning.” So we practiced “boat to boat navigation” – if there is a boat parked there, it must be deep enough and looked for patches of sand – not easy when it’s cloudy and water is murky. We tried our luck again around where we started and upon testing the anchor dragged again – and tangled with our other anchor on the way up. Stuart was about to through our plough anchor out to drown a sorry death and we set off to entirely different part of the bay altogether. We then anchored with our second anchor, the Danforth, getting it to bite on the second try on sandy bottom, which made us ecstatic but still suspicious. When it came to dinner time, neither of us wanted to leave the boat for fear that Zig Zag would be sticking out of nearby rocks when we return – we are so traumatized! So Stuart set our GPS to anchor alarm – brilliant move taught to us by fellow sailor Marv. This enabled us to go to bed and get a good night sleep. Our latest favorite gadget - Anchor Dragging Alarm As we came back today from having drinks and dinner at Shrimpy’s Cruiser bar and talking to owner and cruiser Mike about boats and beach bars, we could not find our boat. We then located it, 300 ft behind where it was supposed to be, it was rafted to another boat, of a nice German fellow called Heine. He emerged, sick with the flu, explaining that as our anchor dragged, we drifted past him, so he tied us to his boat. The wind has changed and was blowing quite strong from a different direction so Zig Zag and a few other boats have lost their anchor footings and dragged. After we thanked Heine profusely for saving our valued possession, Stuart has dinghied our second anchor out so the whole weight of two boats wouldn’t be on our new best friend’s boat. The whole incident was unsettling (having to worry about your house being there when you return!) and I keep thinking of this German guy with great fondness since he rescued us from much uncertainty as he could have let us simply drag past him and could have lost the boat to the rocks or worse (i.e. more expensive), hit a mega yacht on the way… We just saw another couple riding around in a dinghy looking for their boat, I wonder where their boat ended up. Stuart on the porch of Phil's habitat Double Take . Poop Jelly-o Sun, April 1, 2007 - We 've had it with cruising and we are coming home! Ha!!! Happy April Fool's Day!!! We are at it to win it! 
Fri, March 30, 2007 Today we had our friend Phil come over and check all the wires on the navigation stuff. Phil, the electrician, lives with his Shrimpy’s bartender girlfriend Tammy in someone’s boat in the boat yard – see picture on right as Stuart is arranging for when Phil will come over. It’s located close to Island Water World – our second favorite place after Budget Marine, in the part of lagoon which smells like sewage and has poop weed growing everywhere. I also saw a poop jelly fish there today – gross! We tie our dinghy really tight to dock, so rope doesn’t dip in the water – just wanted to mention this here, as there is that mistaken impression floating out there that my cruising life is all sundowners in paradise. 
Captain Morgan Tue, March 27, 2007 (Natalya) Almost a complete month has passed since I have been on the boat. Now that my “what am I doing” crisis from last week has settled, I have become happy and content and settled into the slow rhythm of the cruising life. Despite the fact that weather once again sucks (we woke up in the middle of the night to close all hatches and sure enough, it’s been drizzling all day) and our head (toilet) is blocked (we got two though, so we are postponing that particular chore). I am reading a great book (“Eat, pray, love” by Elizabeth Gilbert) and we have a never-ending project list (see picture on right) which we refreshed today, so it’s really impossible to be bored. Given the de-motivating weather, we have taken it slow today and given no lack of time, I have attempted to make a curtain with my own hands – it’s meant to look homemade – so here it is. Stu and I are yet to research a mechanism of how the curtain goes on the hatch without making huge holes in our home. I am also mastering the skill of self entertaining – you know, the one we all had before the age of Internet and computer games – where I can keep myself amused with reading, doing a solitaire, embroidering “Zig Zag” on a curtain. It’s amazing just last week I was so pained by the absence of Internet and so tormented by not knowing what’s going on in the world. Life is so much more peaceful now that I have given myself permission to enjoy myself and not worry about missing anything. Boat To Do List - 1 of 2 pages! . Zig Zag Curtain Since we had to run a generator to charge up batteries, we made bread on a 3 hour cycle, which looked cute, but still ended up a little heavy – perhaps because the generator quit, messing up the cycle so we finished it off in the oven. We dinghied out at night to have Indian food for dinner at this cheapo place next to the airport – and explored another part of the lagoon by dinghy. We also approached this mega sailing yacht to take a picture, it looked very impressive with three masts lit by the sunset. Another Bread Attempt . Big Yacht Nat during sail back . Chris and Stu enjoying the sail back to St Martin Jimmy jamming . Beach party during concert . Showing off bracelets to the Buffet show Fri, March 23, 2007 (Natalya) Chris M. arrives at 9:30am and pick him up at the airport dock in a dinghy and take him back to the boat. Then, as Stu is getting in line with the big boat to get out with the 11am bridge, I zoom in the dinghy to customs and check us all out. I return when we are already moving towards bridge exit and Lucas & Natalie are also on the boat, having joined us for the bridge crossing. As soon as we pass the bridge, its time to say good bye – I am so sad, since I have grown to like them during those two nights we hung out. We also made some exchanges – we gave them roast beef from Costco that we raved about and a Seven Seas cruising magazine and they have given us water maker handle (manual pumping) and a radio antenna (for if we ever learn the super complicated short wave radio thingie). I am very impressed they are going to cross the Pacific in the same time frame that it will take us to go around Eastern Caribbean. I would have loved to buddy boat with them to French Polynesia. I cannot believe I am getting this inkling to travel, even though I am traveling already! . We set off for Anguilla and as we get around the point, the big ocean rollers hit us sideways on and I start feeling sick. I took my fave seasickness drug Stugeron, way too late. Cannot believe I still get sick even though I’ve lived on a boat for 3 weeks, for crissake! While I spent most of Anguilla journey horizontal, Stu and Chris manned the boat which was flying with 15-20 knot winds – we went as fast as 6.5 knots, our big heavy boat loves heavy winds! As we arrived in Road bay, Anguilla was gorgeous, azure blue waters and undeveloped – 2-3 bars/restaurants on the beach, and some houses on the low hillsides – Anguillla is pretty flat. My favorite was the customs office, which was just on the other side of the beach from the dock. We made lunch sandwiches, took a nap, had a swim for the first time in two weeks (Simpson Bay was gross!). We cooked dinner and had drinks afterwards, blasting music which attracted a dinghy full of kids from St Croix who also came for the concert. We invited them over for a drink and they stayed for about an hour. I then went to bed around midnight, while the guys stayed up all night, going to the bar until 4am and having deep heart-to-heart conversations until 6am, which made them both completely useless the next day. Lucas and Natalie setting off in their dinghy back under already lowered bridge. Sad to say good byes since not sure when if ever will see them again, but we exchanged emails, so I am hopeful… . Nat not feeling so hot on way to Anguilla . Anguilla Road Bay – fishing boats around us . St Croix folks over for a drink Thu, March 22, 2007 (Natalya) Chris M. is arriving tomorrow morning, and at 11ish we will set sail to neighboring Anguilla to see Jimmy Buffet and reggae bands on Saturday. We are also uniting with Rose, Chris and Jim (our buddies from last weekend) there. I also remembered that Natalie called St Martin “a schizophrenic island” yesterday, where everything is in two languages. I think it’s very true as Lucas/Natalie St Martin is so completely different from ours as they have anchored on the French side. Their cell phone chip is from Digicell – we have to call them internationally from our St Maarten one, their own Budget Marine where prices are listed in Euros instead of dollars, their own hardware store (which is probably more expensive but in a cuter area) and their own capital – Marigot with its own set of restaurants. Wed, March 28, 2007 As the day of working on and shopping for the boat was wrapping up, we noticed that while the wind was blowing from land, the waves coming behind us were getting bigger and bigger. There was a storm behind us, heading away with dark clouds and lightning, causing these waves. Soon, the movement became very uncomfortable and the waves were almost breaking as they lifted us 4-6 feet in the air! This was in the same quiet anchorage where we have been for a few days. We saw some folks behind us quickly get their stuff together and prepare to move into the lagoon as the last bridge opening was at 5:30pm. We made a last minute decision to follow them, unwilling to see whether these northerly swells could knock us off the bed during the night. We entered the much quieter harbor at about 6:15pm, passed by Captain Morgan in the shipping channel (see my snapshot of him as pic of the week) and headed to the French side anchorage, where we found a spot between boats and have tried to anchor for an hour. After an hour and about 3 attempts to set anchor which kept dragging upon testing because of the weedy bottom, it has gotten completely dark, making it impossible to find any patches of sand which may exist. We moved positions and tried to anchor in another spot, when the guy next to us advised that we are trying to anchor in the shipping channel and showed us a new spot. Trying to follow his dinghy we ran into the weeds and were caught for a while with our keel. At about 8pm when we were still trying to anchor (3 hours of anchoring, we haven’t done this since sailing classes!), the guy from a boat next door came onto our boat and anchored it for us. And then they took us in their dinghy to dinner at a ribs place. And then we woke up the next morning having dragged like 500 feet, thank god nobody was around us. We decided not to trust anchoring experts from now on. 
Mon, March 26, 2007 (Natalya) Woke up at 6:30am as Chris, preparing to depart, made us tea which we sipped on deck watching a lady on top of next door catamaran do her morning yoga. I had a twang of guilty jealousy as I would love to start my mornings like this too, maybe I will make an effort at some point on this trip. After dropping Chris at the airport by dinghy, I made my way to Marigot in an attempt to clear French customs. We tried yesterday but it was only open 9-12pm. Today, as every weekday, the office is open 9:30-11:30am and 2-4pm, perhaps a testament to French efficiency. The dinghy dock was jammed with dinghies and customs line at 9:30am constituted something like 40 people, all those who haven’t been able to clean in during weekend, I suppose. Instead of waiting I took a stroll through Marigot, had some local guavaberry juice for 3 euros which translated into $4 dollars and found a cheap store of Chinese stuff in which I plan to spend a lot of money making the boat cute. I already laid my eyes on a few rugs and candles, deciding that our interior deco colors will be yellow and turquoise blue. As I ventured back to customs an hour later, the line was about 20 people with whom I spent an entertaining hour talking great anchorages and exchanging passage notes. Returned to boat, where Stuart made a boat jambalaya – a mix of whatever we had with rice, which turned out pretty well. We then went out in the afternoon and experienced getting a French phone number. In every other place we have been (3 so far), getting a local phone number included going into the cellular provider with your phone and purchasing a chip and a phone card, a total of maybe 5 minutes. But not here, where we spent an hour and a half and signed a whole bunch of contracts in French (for a pre-paid phone card, mind you!). We also got frowned upon for not having a French identity number and any French speaker who came in behind us got priority treatment over us. After the whole ordeal we were informed that they do not sell phone cards and that French Digicel just merged with English Digicel and may soon work throughout the English Caribbean. 
Sun, March 25, 2007 (Natalya) Woke up and decided to return to St Martin, since there is not much to be done in Anguilla and we could use a few more days of fixing the boat before heading on to St Barts and Barbuda. We had an incredibly peaceful and pleasant sail back with 10-15 knots of wind making 4-5.5 knots of speed into the 3-5 ft waves. Arriving at Marigot Bay on the French side – on the other side of the lagoon entrance – we have made an attempt to check in, but given that the relaxed customs is only open 9-12pm on Sundays. Guessing its fairly relaxed here, we strung up the yellow quarantine flag and went on with our day. We went out to enjoy the great French food, both for lunch and dinner at Marina Royale picturesque restaurant called “[Something] de la Paté”. At night I got to see fireworks – perhaps a French holiday today? I have put some pictures of French and Dutch sides on Cruising page, if you are interested. 
Sat, March 24, 2007 (Natalya) I woke up at 8:30am and took a dinghy to wonder around Road Bay. The guys woke up at noon, moaning and groaning, so I fed them some omelet to get them ready to go out. 2:30ish we set off for the concert, taking a cab ride across the island to Cove Bay on the other side. Cove Bay is one of the most gorgeous beaches anywhere, where Cuisineart resort is located and you have a stunning view of St Martin. Unfortunately, we were told no cameras were allowed at the concert, so this glorious day is completely picture-less. As we approached the concert grounds we saw a lot of people with interesting head gear – such as hamburger hats and fake parrots on their heads – all Buffet fan memorabilia. Most of people at concert were very white gone red in the heat, meaning they flew in just from the sun-less North for the event. Vast majority of the fans was white and American. Anguilla’s favorite reggae son Banky Banks, whose grounds the show was held on, gave Jimmy Buffet the intro. Jimmy was great – he came out on time at 3pm in Caribbean blue shirt and yellow swim trunks and was still jamming at 5:30pm as we were leaving to beat the crowds. He was obviously enjoying himself and his parrot-clad audience and he had a Hawaiian musician who did an amazing small-guitar instrumental. I loved the Caribbean sounds of steel drums in Jimmy’s songs, as he did all the favorites: Margaritaville and Cheeseburger in Paradise. It was HOT!!! must have been over 100 degrees and no clouds, so we almost fainted after a mere half an hour and went to sit behind the stage in the shade, where we couldn’t see but felt much more human, since we were not turning burgundy like the rest of the crowd. Towards the end we have eavesdropped that there were speakers on the beach, so we immediately leapt into action and spent the rest of the time lounging on the fine white sand with a gorgeous view of boats and St Martin mountains in a distance. We were supposed to meet up with Cris / Rose / Jim from last weekend and we didn’t find them which we believe to be a result of them showing up unrecognizable in Jimmy-nut parrot costumes. 
Got a horrible night sleep last night as the anchor chain decided to get off the windlass (that thingie on top front which controls it) at about 3am, making a large bang which had Stuart leaping out of bed at a speed of light to top of the boat to fix the problem (stark naked, tee hee) before we hit any other boats. All freaked out about how easy it would be to jeopardize our cruising plans by having to shell out thousands of dollars in damage costs to some unlucky mega yacht, I was unable to sleep and stayed up for a while making a salad for today’s dinner with Lucas and Natalie. Result – cranky cruisers today.
Tue-Wed, March 20-21, 2007 (Natalya) We rented a car these last 2 days to accomplish some more feverish shopping, spending hundreds and hundreds of dollars in hardware stores trying to avoid spending thousands at marine stores. I don’t know whatever happened to me thinking that living on a boat would be less materialistic, when we shop full time, spend money left and right, granted we are in the right place to do so (go Duty Free!) and we are still firmly stuck in fix-the-boat stage (you should see our ever growing fix-the-boat list). All our time is dedicated to continuing to equip the boat (hence $300 at Cost-U-Less, i.e. “Costco” in St Martinish) on more dried storable food, battery chargers, marine fire extinguishers, etc. We also spend the days ripping the boat apart and nights putting it back together, lately with hired help of an English electrical engineer called Phil. All this systems-related activity makes me feel like fish out of the water, since everything on a boat is a new science and I haven’t exactly studied mechanics or engines or plumbing or wires in my previous life. In the meantime, Stuart is only too happy to dive into projects either learning or applying existing knowledge. I am feeling useless and try to maximize myself by tiding up, attempting to learn, keeping lists and doing the dishes once in a while. I have also tried to spearhead some smaller projects which make me feel infinitely more comfortable as they are house-on-land variety, such as getting boat name letters done at a printing shop and making-the-boat-cute decorating. (continued to the right) | (continued from left column) However, I have faced some major challenges on both fronts, as I have been unable to obtain as much as a quote for letters due to various Caribbean excuses (Stuart vetoed my suggestion to use gardening labels), most 12 volt lighting fixtures are hideous and most Chinese-made rugs, curtains or towels I have found on the Dutch side have been less than inspiring. This has made me feel idle, and I have found myself fondly thinking of the work I left, where I felt comfortably in control and was busy the entire day. All in all, it feels as if our cruising (as I imagined it anyway: all cocktails & beaches) hasn’t quite started yet. I know your heart is just bleeding for us, but I wasn’t counting on your sympathy anyways so I did find someone to commiserate with: a fellow cruising couple. A true highlight has been having dinner with our latest friends yesterday, a couple just like us, Lucas nd Natalie. Stuart met Lucas at Nanny Cay Marina in Tortola when we were both buying a boat at the same time – we actually looked at the boat they bought – Adriatica, and its gorgeous inside – talk about boat-chic: nice wood and upholstery with anchors and sailboats. Similar to us, they have quit their jobs as researchers and decided to sail the Caribbean and Pacific for a year before they have kids. Lucas is Austrian and Natalie is French and they are a lovely couple. They are on more of a schedule than we are, trying to make it to Marquesas before typhoon season and spending significantly more money on equipment given long stretches of ocean they will have to cross. Natalie and I could relate completely, as she complained about passing wrenches to Lucas all day as I wined about having to put up with Stuart’s butt sticking out of the engine room for hours at an end. We endlessly talked about boats and cruising-to-come and laughed away our rookie mistakes. Having both bought 20 year old boats which we spend most of our time during last two months fixing and not having experience of boatyard employees before embarking on this adventure of ours, we had a lot to talk about, with cute French city of Grand Case and lovely Italian food as backdrop. I went to bed feeling completely happy yesterday as facing the same challenges has made my new life feel normal and I have resolved to adopt a positive attitude. I am sure this is just normal adjustment period and I will get the hang of it. |
| Sun, March 18, 2007 (Natalya) The Hangover Beach Day After we came home at 3am yesterday, not much happened today. We went to OrientBeach (the naked booms beach) where, as expected, we saw some people that should have kept their tops on and three men – two in thong speedos and one with nothing at all – walking along the beach. We also had a suspicion that parasailer was naked – very liberating for him. The beach was great and packed with umbrellas, chaise longes and cute beach bars. As we walked around the beach, one end was definitely posher than the other as prices got higher and people more good looking. We went to Grand Case at night and were very taken by this Caribbean city, with a long strip of small houses and restaurants. | Mon, March 19, 2007 (Natalya) Installation of the Water Heater Day Stuart’s perseverance day as he spent most of it crouched inside the engine room uninstalling the old leaking one and installing the new twice-the-size water heater into the engine room. We then went for a beer/Internet at Shrimpy’s and great Indian food at Lal’s, for which we had to dinghy at night to new places next to the airport. |
| Sat, March 17, 2007 (Natalya) St Paddy’s Party Day Stu and I used Chris’ car all morning (spent another $200 at Ace hardware and attempted to get a boat name done with no avail), while Chris and Jim went scuba diving. We now we have everything for shower pump and solar panels installations). As the guys returned from scuba, Chris went to pick up girlfriend Rose at airport, while Natalya read on boat trying to ignore the ridiculously loud 3 hour music “retrospective” which Stuart and Jim had on deck, fuelled by rapidly disappearing beer supply. This retrospective ended in computer crashing (obviously unable to take yet another Bob Sieger song) and hard drive with music dying, also unable to stand it. . Then, given Chris’s prolonged absence, Stu and Jim went to look for them, and have somehow ended up having a beer or two more at Shrimpy’s (where they allegedly went to drop off garbage), which resulted in Stuart losing balance and falling off the dinghy into the not-so-clean dumpster neighborhood water, complete with his glasses, wallet, cell phone and garbage bag. Garbage bad remained floating, Stu held on to his eyeglasses, but the cell phone has called it quits, so we are currently with no connection. . When Chris finally showed up, in absence of phone by hailing Zig Zag on the VHF radio from one of those posh-o yachts at Palapa Marina, it turned out he had some stories of his own. While Chris was checking why Rose’s flight was delayed for 2 hours, his car was towed, so they spent some time and $75 recovering it. . After some preparation, we set off for our St Paddy’s night out in the dinghy. First stop was Peg Leg Pub, where the crowd was much too subdued for an Irish Pub, so we moved on to Lady C – a ship of a bar, where we were singing along to the music and having vodka shots. We also noticed something interesting – a lady with naked top except for shamrocks painted on her – very charming if you are into that kind of thing. On the way out we saw something significantly more disturbing – a lady getting a shamrock painted on her crotch. When I asked the waiter whether this happens every St Patrick’s Day, he explained that this actually happens every Saturday (Argh!) and these are people from boats (i.e. cruising people, Oh No!!!). As we were sprinting out of there, we noticed another woman with a pirate’s head on one of her nipples. I have never seen 5 people get in the dinghy and zoom off so fast. . From there, we went to our favorite Palapa Marina, the crew bar called Soggy Dollar and danced the night away, fuelled by buy-5-Heinekens-per-t-shirt offer (which never materialized as the tent closed before we got to it). When we left, we actually made an attempt to stop at another bar – Shrimpy’s which was thankfully closed, so we dinghied back to the boat. | The “retrospective” in action – notice how Stuart has to fit his head in the hallway to be able to stand up.The Crotch Painting Scene .
Soggy dollars following Stu’s unintentional dive .
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Stu & Rose dancing at The Soggy Dollar Crew bar |
| Fri, March 16, 2007 (Natalya) The weather improves, friends arrive and we have a GREAT weekend!!! Friday, was the toilet automatic flusher installation day in advent of guests. You can see Stu on the picture proudly displaying the device. This pump is SO much better than manual pumping to flush, a major lifestyle improvement. The only drawback is quite a bit of noise, so that there is no such thing as quietly managing #1. Chris T. arrived in the evening and treated us to a German dinner at Bavaria (thanks Chris!) after which we then picked up his friend Jim at the airport (Chris rented a car and it was felt so new to be in a car for the first time in 2 weeks!) We quickly passed by Palapa marina crew bar and went home rather quickly to prepare ourselves for some heavy duty fun on Saturday – St Patricks Day. | Head Before
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Thu, March 15, 2007 (Natalya) Whats up with the weather??? Ever since we have gotten here, the weather has been miserable. Today is the most miserable day of all. First, shower drain repairs have not gone well, when (as usual) we took our morning dinghy ride to Budget Marine, and they had the wrong part for $25 (this is that metal piece in your sink we are talking about), so we dinghied to nearby Island Water World (the other large boat department store) who also had the wrong part, so they sent us for 30 minute hike (in the rain) through Dominican ghetto where we had to step over sewage and watch out for stray dogs. We finally found the main street, which had True Value (also no luck) and finally, BIP Plumbing Supplies, which had it. We were do demoralized, we had lunch at the Shell station (pizza and cola) before our hike back, during which Stuart resolved to get a car. When we came back to Island Water World for the boatie part which bolts to the sink piece, turned out they don’t fit together, so project still in flux. So, we came home and took a nap, interrupted to rescue our neighbor whose dingie motor died right next to our boat, so Stu towed him back to his place – nice guy, American. There are tons of Americans here by the way, as we see them proudly flying their large American flags from the backs of their yachts in the harbor. . Later on we explored (in the rain) Shrimpy’s (ran by a guy who does local cruiser net). It was a dockside pub full of people just like us – yachties! It was paradise, felt totally normal – there was a friendly bartender, dog sitting on a table, used boat parts store and laundry nearby and people checking email on their computers everywhere, some with busted screens. We also found a cheap (compared to PR) gourmey shop and Stu went to refill prescriptions ($30 for MD appointment and $100 for 5 medicines – the whole procedure took only 40 minutes and cost about what it would have cost in PR with insurance). We then had to ride back in the rain (getting drenched), only to find out we (as in “I”) left the hatch open above the bedroom so half of the bed (Stu’s half) got soaked (am so in trouble!). Its miserable here with this weather, I didn’t sign up for this! Palapa Marina dighy dock, where we get to park next to the mega sail yachts Stu driving the dinghy back to boat in miserable weather Wed, March 14, 2007 (Natalya) I love St Martin! Compared to sleepy rural BVIs, St Martin is a booming megapolis. It has many restaurants, clubs and most importantly, very cruiser friendly, as many services are reached around the bay by dinghy. On our first day, for example, we dinghied over to Mailboxes where we checked internet, rented a phone and got a mailing address, had lunch at the dockside restaurant and dinghies to another pub for a drink. Mega yachts - there are tons of megayachts evertwhere. You see some sailing megayachts on this picture, but there are rows and rows of power mega yachts (80+ feet long), which are probably still here post St Martin Regatta parties which happened first week in March International restaurants – we had Lebanese for lunch, there is a German place, there is great Belgian beer everywhere, Heineken on tap Bi-racial couples – this is so refreshing, probably first time I see this in such multitude since New York, usually white guys with gorgeous black women Cruisers & cruiser net – At 7:30 in the morning we connected to cruiser net and have introduced ourselves as the new arrival. There were lots of cruisers connected and they were very friendly, exchanging many ideas and buy/selling boat stuff. We truly feel a part of a boating community here, as dinghy traffic in the bay is quite common and we run into other boaties everywhere: tied at the docks at Marine stores, pubs, bars and restaurants – its great! Chandleries – there are two giant marine stores - Budget Marine and Island Water World and needless to say, we spend most of our time shuttling between them and the boat March 13, 2007 (Natalya) St Martin Passage Log This passage was a big deal, since its our longest single passage for this Eastern Caribbean trip and our first overnight one, expected to take 12-15 hours of motoring straight into the wind and waves, which means overnight, so you arrive in daylight hours to approach safely. We are not planning to raise sails at all. We have been waiting for a weather window for a week now, its now the forecast is perfect – wind 6-10 knots E/NE, waves 3-6 feet. . 4:30pm Cast off from Trellis Bay and head across the channel for fuel and water .. . 6:40pm Cleared the passage and now we have left the BVIs behind us. The seas got rougher (only 3-4 feet max, since we chose the calmest weather for passage) and I got splashed, since I went to the unprotected front to watch. Its getting dark and we can see one light ahead – we think it’s a boat/ship, but we go downstairs to check the map to ensure its not Sombrero Rock next to St Martin. Virgin Gorda’s lights are bright behind us. We made tea. Waves are stable 3-4 feel with an occasional 6 footer shaking things about, but not nearly as bad as some of the Virgin Passage waters we have been in. . 7:55pm Stuart goes to make dinner sandwiches. It’s completely dark and there is no moon yet (got to figure out moon schedule for next time). Also, our front railing reflects our front lights making it hard to see what (or who) is in front (got to fix somehow for next time). Waves got somewhat bigger, so cockpit got splashed a couple of times. When waves break on the left side where the red light is it looks like blood. It’s completely dark, the stars are bright with a large and bright Milky Way display and we can see halos of islands behind us with 3 bright lights still visible. . 8:55pm Noticed bioluminescent dots in our wake, big and bright in the absence of moon. They are much bigger than those in Vieques and there is less of them. These living organisms are keeping us company. See halo light on left – think its Anegada island. . 10:00pm Nat’s watch starts but Stu is hanging around awake. We decide “Anegada” is actually a cruiseship as it is moving towards St Martin ahead of us. We see some dim lights around us, which we presume to be other boats. After a while Stu makes me a thermos of coffee and goes to rest. Cannot see stars anymore as its overcast. . 11:30pm The dim light on our back right became three lights – I can distinguish 2 white lights and one green – thank God for navigational lights which mean things since without a moon you cannot see anything else! The three lights make a box of large size, so I can tell its some kind it tall large ship – maybe a car carrier, but since I cannot see it feels like we are being stocked by a UFO. UFO passes behind us (going St Croix-Atlantic?), but bright light behind it is still visible the entire time we are underway. Boat motion making me sleepy, so had some coffee. Its pitch dark, but I can see one light on left, two on right, and two more in the front. Its great to be your own sturdy island in the middle of the ocean, but its comforting to have these other 5 ships around, as there is no longer land seen in sight. . 12:00pm Sailboat passes us on the right going the opposite way – passes pretty closely, but since its pitch dark can only see front green light, back white light and mid mast white light – a moving triangle in the sea. He is half way to BVI, just like we are half way to St Martin, though he has a smoother ride going with the waves instead of against. Autopilot rocks! I don’t have anything to do except stay awake and keep watch, since the wheel is possessed by an autopilot ghost as it moves around steering perfect course. . 1:00am Stu takes over watch as I descent downstairs. We have a buddy boat on the right – he is moving away from us, but is definitely moving the same direction. We start to see the halo of St Martin lights ahead of us. . 2:20am I substitute Stu. Our sailboat friend fell back, but we now have another sailboat on the other side, also headed the same direction. Sea gets calmer – 2-3 feet at most. . 3:00pm I give up and descend back downstairs for some sound sleep. Crescent moon comes out, so its much easier to predict boat’s motion into the waves. . 5:00am Stu wakes me up after piloting for 3 hours to say that we are almost there and he changed course to Simpson Bay and slowed down to 4 knots (from 6) so that we don’t arrive before dawn. He told me to get him up when we get there and that he turned on the back cabin lights to ensure that the boat with no lights behind us sees us (since our back navigation light is not working). I can see extensive St Martin shoreline lights in front of us and some Anguilla lights on the left. Its very calm – 1 foot waves if that. We are almost there! . 6:00am First note without flashlight as its mostly light. Can see mountainous island shape as dawn sets in. I could have sworn I saw that boat behind us with a white hull, but as it became light the boat disappeared, a figment of our tired imaginations. The crescent moon has risen above us. I take us off autopilot since we are headed towards the shoreline away from SimpsonBay, increase speed back to full gear and wake up Stu to figure out new course. Of course, I take a pic of Stu taking a nap just before. . 7:30am We are both looking rough (see pictures) and the boat is looking bedraggled and salty. As we come in close to Simpson Bay entrance, we see two mega yachts anchored at entrance to lagoon, one of them hugely impressive as it has a power boat and a sailboat about our size (40 ft) on it, as toys probably. We anchored in front of bridge leading into Simpson Bay Lagoon. According to guide book, the bridge opens at 9 am, so we take an hour long nap after which its almost impossible to wake up. . 9:00am As the bridge opens at 9am, we rush to get in, but it closes as soon as outbound traffic comes out. Since we have our radios on, our friendly neighbors on Living the Dream have told us that inbound traffic will be let in at 9:30am, so we circle around along with them, waiting. . 9:30am A huge mega yacht entered right behind us (see picture) and right behind them, the friendly people on Living the Dream. We anchored as soon as possible after entering the lagoon. Just as we anchored, I suffered the fright of my life as a huge airplane (757?) took off at nearby airport and ascended dramatically right above us. This was about 100X louder than those slinky private jets in Tortola airport and made me think of German raids from WWII movies. Feeling completely spent and extremely accomplished. . We then took hot showers and went to check in with Dutch customs – we cleared in for a month, until April 9th and as of right now I have no desire to go anywhere else. Having registered we dinghied over to Mailboxes to send an email to family and friends that we arrived safely and had a prime rib lunch at a touristy place in the same marina. After that we took a multi hour nap and at night, dingied over to a bar – Peg Legs in commemoration of Peter Styvesant (Betty, I think it’s the same Dutch Manhattan guy your high school was named after) which had an excellent beer selection. Its dinghy heaven here, I love St Martin! Clearing Round Rock to get into open waters . Leaving land behind us . Nat's First Watch . Nat with Map downstairs . Stu getting some shut-eye . St Martin sighting at 5am . Nat looking tired in the morning . Stu yawning as he wakes up for final approach to island . Bridge Starting to Open . . Bridge Opened . Mega Yacht clearing bridge behind us
March 11, 2007 (Natalya) Boats vs House As non-paradisiacal realities of cruising life are starting to set in, I have contemplated pro’s and con’s of boats vs houses: Boats are better because (1) we swim every day, (2) we are not stuck in one place with floors of people above and below us, (3) if we have bad neighbors or are sick of having neighbors at all (at the marina), we can just leave, (4) we are traveling with our own house – such a luxury!, (5) we are meeting new people and learning new skills every day, (6) you are basically living outdoors where the sea is your backyard and you follow nature rhythm closely – wake up with sunrise and go to be shortly after sunset most nights, (7) you are your own island where you can do what you want and set your own rules, and (8) most of the time you have a gorgeous bay view outside your window. (continued on left) March 10, 2007 (Natalya) Exercise and Such Given my expectation that I will be in best shape ever living on a boat, have started to have misgivings given our current shape. While our upper body strength is definitely better – we are pulling ropes when sailing, pulling ourselves in and out of dinghy multiple times per day and stomach muscles are surely better pumping the toilet handle and balancing yourself on the boat. However, I would guess that our lower body muscles get a lot less workout, since we are sitting around most of the time – there is not much walking to be done on the boat. We are going to have to make a conscious attempt to get on shore and walk. Also, both Stuart and I have developed these strange muscle pains underneath the knee and top of calf, which are probably boat motion related. We only feel them on land though and not when on boat, I wonder if it’s a sign we are becoming boat people? According to Todd, the adjustment curve is as follows: you get on the boat and you love it since its new and exciting for a while. Then you get a clue of how hard the life is and you cannot believe you have forgone the earth’s comforts, sold the house, etc. Finally, you get better at problem solving, boat gets under control and you love it so much you cannot imagine going back to land dwelling. He also says it takes at least a year to fully get used to cruising, which he highly recommends doing (like going to Indonesia). As scared as we are of cross ocean passages, I bet island hopping is a lot harder, since you have to worry about reefs and harbor entries or worst, docking. Being out at ocean got to be somewhat easier since most important worries are avoiding storms and making sure big ships see you. The hardest is probably river cruising where big barges go but there is no space to get away. March 9, 2007 (Natalya) Butt Sightings in Trellis Bay Having only stayed in TrellisBay for 2 nights, I am proud to report having spotted naked people each day. Today there was a guy drying off with a towel while standing on the roof of the catamaran nearby – hardly accidental! And yesterday these nice people next to us decided to go snorkeling with their white butts showing right around our boat, with a woman following them in a dinghy taking pictures! We, of course, pretended this was totally normal and continued sipping our drinks on the deck. Still in a little disbelief that this is what my life is like, this is semi-permanent, not a two week vacation. On a positive note, I noticed that I haven’t twirled my hair the entire time until today, now that I am working on computer again. March 8, 2007 (Natalya) Taking Cruising Life by the Horns Todays is officially our first week of cruising - March 1st through March 8th. It’s been busy with Stuart’s parents visiting, it felt like we were on vacation, but all of a sudden they left and we were left all alone with Zig Zag and our new life. The first day was spent “relaxing” – avoiding having to do anything, I finished two Russian books in a row by Akunin (gripping reading, see recommended). When Stuart complained that he hasn’t seen me for two days, I stopped reading and became utterly bored. There are all these boat projects (never-ending really), but all this time to do them (8 more months), so why do it now? Then I realized that one has to be a self starter not to go out of one’s mind. In absence of corporate boss, I got to take initiative and organize my own life (Duh!). So we had a super busy day – paid mortgage and credit cards, visited Internet café in town, got boat stuff at chandlery, provisioned for English beer and foods at the English store (See recommended), had $5 smoothies at cruise ship tourist trap – see picture. And, Happy International Women's Day!!! March 7, 2007 (Natalya) On Bread Making, Seasickness, dinner w/Todd and Bruising Today I have baked bread (using our brand new Sensio breadmaker) for the first time - check out my cute 1.5 lb loaf! I used the quick cycle (1 hour), so the crust on the bottom and sides was great, but it was somewhat raw on the inside and unappetizing white on top. It was more like sour dough in consistency (despite my accidental yeast overdose) and quite tasteless. The regular setting takes 3 hours... 3 hours!!! Will try to do this again, eventually... Also, while I often get seasick, I have forgotten to take Stugeron (anti-motion-sickness drug which works great, see recommended) on our trip from Nanny Cay to TrellisBay and in medium seas I was fine! I even went downstairs for a few minutes, so maybe I am getting used to it, living on a boat full time. Had our great friend Todd over for dinner, whipped up the easy to do Indian (Kitchens of India, see boat food recommendations) pre-made meal and he left impressed. He is letting us borrow his car, so we are ecstatic, have a full day of shopping and errands planned for tomorrow! By the way, we learned that ice cold lager beer (Heineken, Presidente etc.) is the way to his heart, so if you are planning to buy a boat, take note. One thing about boating is that you bruise all the time. I have a giant bruise on my leg which I do not even remember getting, and 2 scabs on knee and elbow which don't want to heal. I keep bumping into them over and over again. But since this is one of my main worries, life is good. (Natalya) February 20 - March 6 From Culebra, Natalya took a ferry back to work and rejoined the team on March 1st. In the meantime, Stuart and Chris, went around USVI and BVIs "doing business" - whatever it means. Right after my arrival, Sheenah and Richard (Stu's mom and stepdad) joined us for 4 days and once they got used to the boat they loved it. We had a great time, looking at real estate at Virgin Gorda, hanging out at Bitter End Yacht Club and Saba Rock restaurant, snorkeling at Peter and Cooper Islands and eating at posh Biras Creek restaurant. Their visit ended with our docking at Nanny Cay Marina (Peg Legs Pub being one of our favorite BVI hangouts and having developed great friends in the area) where we spent the night before they left for the airport. . March 6, 2007 - Having had a rigging issue - 20 year old halyard (that rope which raises the main sail) has decided to fray and we had a bit of trouble getting the sail down in the middle of the St Francis Drake channel, having resulted in having to cut the halyard and ripping the sail some 6 inches. So as soon as we got to Marina (Nanny Cay), we set off to repairs, as in Stuart has organized boat experts to repair the boat. You see one of them (Patrick, good guy, recommended) on the top of our mast. (Natalya) February 19, 2007 For those who scolded me for not having bikini shots, here is one. Chris was cutting my hair on the boat, which was great fun, especially since he dropped the comb in the water in the middle of it and had to put on a snorkel at great speed and dive for it. Hair cuts in paradise, who's next? (Natalya) February 11, 2007 I wonder if Stuart is ever going to blog? (Natalya) Before you start spamming his mailbox with hate mail, wanted to volunteer that he's got a good excuse, since he is fixin' the old lady most of the time. As a matter of fact I havent seen him myself most of last week. Must admit to being slightly jealous, although we are about to spend 100% of our time together, so its probably for the better we are not in each other's face right now. Only has 1 week until his departure (I am working till 28th, so joining him in Tortola on March 1st)! Woo hoo! Stress!!! Boat = money sucking floating machine (and we've only had the new boat for 1 month so far!) Cruising = fixing your boat in exotic places (why am I not surprised?) This is a quote from fellow cruiser's Destiny Calls website and I couldn't agree more. Stuart and I had a wonderful farewell today with 30 of our closest friends coming to celebrate with us. While they are unanimously excited for us, our own life isn't quite the paradise they imagine (not yet, anyway). We are running around, with lists of things to buy, fix, arrange, etc. I am still working so I can't let go yet. Its incredibly stressful changing life as you know it. I mean we sold our place, we plan to live on a boat (something we've never done before), I am quitting my career (income and health insurance included, obviously)... all during a time when we need to "settle down and have kids." It all feels a bit like jumping off a cliff, since rewards aren't here yet, but the doubts and opportunity cost for both of us are glaring. Do believe we are still making right decision - when if not now? Carpe Diem and all that... We are young and can bounce back pretty quickly upon return. We get to enjoy just the two of us before kids show up. Plus kids are adaptable, who says we can't have them on a boat? We are the strongest and most able bodied now, so why wait for retirement to fulfill our dreams? January 20, 2007 - Top 10 signs that made me reconsider my full time office rat life (Natalya): Of course I would much rather be a professional woman of leisure, all blond and bronzed, most commonly seen lazying around a yacht. Despite this, I must mention that work was super fun (could you tell it was St Paddy's day before you read this?), I made good friends, drank a lot of stress induced beer and became a marketing guru (Go Cooper, Go Ace, Go Tide!!!). December 2006 - Fixing Zig Zag (Natalya) Before we could bring the boat back to Puerto Rico, some major work had to be done - painting, fuel checks, rigging adjustments, etc. The man who helped us beyond imaginable was Lincoln (look for him at Nanny Cay Marina, check our Resources page for his contact information). He is a true professional and a boat expert! We highly recommend him. October 2006 - Finding Zig Zag (Natalya) And then we saw her - here is how we first laid eyes upon Zig Zag, then known as Panasea, hidden in a forest of boats at a dry dock in Nanny Cay Marina in Tortola. There she was, covered in bird poop, with leaky rust stains, full of centuries of old crap and complete with a resident ratso, which must have been one hyper rodent once he had broken into the coffee cabinet. We were instantly in love with the "classic plastic." She had gorgeous lines (and desperate need of fresh paint on stripes), new-like topsides (v-important, since most of our time will be spent admiring our vessel from the outside while having pina coladas on the deck), and little wood (which for us, not purist buffs, means no tedious wood maintenance on the outside). We made an offer, had a drink, sold our apartment, flew back and forth to Tortola a couple of times, signed some papers and voila! we were big boat owners. Todd, our broker was an invaluable source and trusted advisor in this whole process. Having lived on a boat himself for years, he was very attuned to our needs and questions, we highly recommend him (pls check our Resources page for his contact info). 2006 - Boat Shopping (Natalya) We went everywhere to look at big boats, given that there are very few large sailboats in PR. We looked all up and down Florida coast (including in town called Stuart, Florida - isnt that cute?), Los Angeles (we were naively not deterred by the fact that we needed to cross the Panama Canal and some evil seas near Mexico, all on the maiden voyage!), as well as more prudently in the nearby St Thomas and Tortola. There were so many types of boats - the industry is much more segmented than car industry, for example, so Stu did quite a bit of research. There were decisions to make: fast but narrow (i.e. small living quarters) or slow but fat (bingo!), full keel or partial keel (the shallower the better we decided given the abundance of reefs in the Caribbean that we would like to leave as unspoiled as they were prior to our arrival), clearance requirements (Stu is pretty tall and we usually found sufficient head room only on boats 40+ ft long), master bedroom requirements (we wanted a center cockpit design which gave you a master bedroom with its own loo in the back and a pretty sizable bed). We became experts in terms like "skeg rudder" and "fuel polishing," so we can hold our own at a marina bar. Here is a pic of us boat shopping in Red Hook, St Thomas. 2004-2005 How It All Started (Natalya) It all started with us moving to Puerto Rico from New York in the summer of 2003 and joining ASA sailing school in Fajardo to take sailing lessons from Captain Mike Barnick. The Caribbean Sailing School & Club created many friends for us and served as a source of endless entertainment, matching our inexperience with its laissez faire attitude. After a few anchoring classes, we decided we were good enough to charter bareboat 46 ft catamaran in the British Virgin Islands (BVIs), which we previously visited by motorboat during our Nov'03 honeymoon. Saved only by the fact we had an experienced friend from the school with us (Go Captain Kevin!), we then ventured to BVIs on our own, chartering a solidly built and horribly maintained 32 ft C&C from the sailing club. After we ran aground 3 times, survived without the dingie engine and used broken ores, we spent Christmas in Virgin Gorda's North Sound and New Year’s in Jost Van Dyke, we knew we were in Love with the sailing life. Upon our return, we bought a McGregor, so we could enjoy the beautiful Caribbean seas around us. Here is a picture of two Triki Traki's co-owners, Kevin and Stuart, doing guess what, fixing the boat. We had a great time bouncing around the nearby islands (Palomino, Icacos) during weekends and holiday weeks, making it as far away from Puerto Rico as Anegada, which we are very proud of, given that the boat is a very light 26 foot powersailer and we made it through some evil 8ft confused seas. After which we decided we wanted a bigger boat and that we wanted to spend more time doing this.
However, houses are better because (1) you don’t get a wet butt every time you take an elevator like you do in a dinghy, (2) you don’t have to pump the toilet 10 times every time you use it, (3) you don’t have to close windows every time you leave for fear of your house getting soaked with rain or have to open them every time you return for fear of suffocating with no breeze, (4) you are not weather dependent where most of your travel and projects are halted just because the wind is too strong or waves too high, (5) a house appreciates and Home Depot is MUCH cheaper than West Marine, (6) you don’t have to worry about your house dragging anchor and ending up on the reef in the middle of the night (7) you don’t have to wonder what all those weird sounds are from everywhere. Overall, boat is better, since the freedom and adventure of it far outweighs inconveniences! (continued directly below)
Ana taking a swim next to the boat, as we were anchored right off ferry pier in Culebra (Natalya)
February 18 - Mamacitas! Stuart and Chris, long time friends at Mamacitas in Culebra. They had a drum band and it being a long weekend, lots of boatie tourists in town and dancing the night away (Natalya)
We are finally underway! You can see how exstatic I am after days and days of preparation. Chris, Kevin and Ana came with us. I still have 2 weeks of work and bumming around friends' apartments left, but no matter, at least the boat is going places. (Natalya)
February 17, 2007 Sun Avoidance. As you can imagine, sun can get quite hot in the tropics, so everyone has their method of dealing with this. I for example, am religious about sun block - 30 spf non-comedogenic for face, 50 spf for body religiously every day, since my worst fear is to end up looking all parched and orange skinned as some life long surfers I have seen. Others - see Chris on pictures to the left - prefer either hiding in dinghy under fuel dock (top picture) and when all else fails, putting a rag on his head (bottom picture). You can see Kevin, a true Englishman holding a cup of tea, evaluating Chris with some disdain as classless actions like these give English people a bad rep overseas. This is at Fajardo fuel dock, as we are preparing to depart for Culebra. (Natalya) 
February 16, 2007 From Messy Apt to Messy Boat. When stuff arrived at the boat, boat looked no prettier. We have obviously over packed, so even in a boat as giant as ours, we had (and still have) some trouble finding place for things. You may wonder what this *thing* is on top of our table and I will be happy to let you know that its a Russian instrument which generates electricity from salt water! We have it on loan from distributor friend Anastasia, who is waiting for our full report on this gadget - stay tuned for when we have more time and motivation. (Natalya) 
February 14, 2007 Happy Valentines Day to some of us, packing and moving (once again) hell for others... Here is apt #2 out of 4 apartments we have stayed at since selling ours and you can see we are in full packing alert. (Natalya) 
Some definitions: February 10, 2007 "The Trip Is Easy, Leaving Is Hard" a.k.a. the Justification Message (Natalya) 
