Welcome to Zig Zag sailing website!

FINAL Update: October 7, 2007

After six and a half months of Eastern Caribbean cruising, Stuart and Natalya decided to head back to Vieques to get on with establishing their enterprises there. The boat will be collected and brought back to Vieques in November'07, after the end of hurricane season. I have posted the last blog entries from Sep 20th and have made a presentation summarizing our journey in pictures which you can click here to download (Adobe PDF format, file size: 17 MB). Thanks to all of those who have faithfully followed our travels around the islands this year, it has been great fun and we hope to continue our travels in the future!

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After much preparation, Stuart and Natalya have finally started their 8 months cruise around the Eastern Caribbean on their 41 ft Morgan Classic sailboat, from Puerto Rico to Grenada and back, starting March 1st and returning sometime in October (no worries Betty, I promise to be at your NYC wedding on the 17th). This website is created to keep in touch with family and friends (Location, Blog and our current contact info on Resources page), as well as in hopes to be useful to other adventurers exploring the Caribbean Sea (Cruising impressions and cruising Resources suggestions).

Cruising Philosophy

We are not purist sailors, but rather of gentlemen cruiser variety – we believe in doing it in comfort. Consequently, some of the things recently purchased include a wide comfortable boat (albeit not the fastest), generator, ice-maker and we are about to install Air Conditioning and auto-pilot for ultimate creature comfort. Despite this, we admire those who like roughing it and we welcome less materialism into our lives, as we are considerably downsizing in preparations for the boat (mind you, our storage box is almost full.

Picture of the Week

Guadelupe. Stranded jet skier on a cell phone. When we came from Fort Luis to the Salee river entrance, we saw this jet skier, apparently out of gas and calling his rescuers. He waved off our help. It was really creepy to see him there – stranded in what seemed the middle of mangrove country. We realized later Pointe a Pitre was just on the other side of the mangrove river, which is easily trespassed under two bridges.

	Antigua. This was so cute, a Lagoon make catamaran with a blue hull, called Blue Lagoon. We saw it in Jolly Harbor, on the back of one of those houses with docks.
	St Barts. Zig Zag in St Barths. We climbed the hill to sightsee, and of course the best sight of all was our boat seen at the end of the street. Zig Zag in Gustavia Harbour, very posh
	St Maarten. Check this pic out, retaliation for Hooter Patrol picture, posted a few weeks earlier. A boatload of guys showed up this morning in the Lagoon (nice pic, right girls?), trying to anchor right next to us, but Stu shooshed them away by telling them it’s too shallow (it was too shallow). Eagles, huh? (St Maarten, May 9, 2007)

The Fastest Boat in the World

St Maarten. We had a sighting of ABN Amro - allegedly the fastest sailing boat in the world. Its very light and virtually empty inside. We also heard that Maltese Falcon - the largest sailboat in the world was parked outside the bay, but it was not in the main bay, so we missed it

Jimmy Buffett at Anguilla concert

Anguilla. Good Old Jimmy gave a great show in Anguilla - and thousands of people flew from US East Coast to see him. He talked to the audience a lot, gave special mention to people who sailed to the show (yeah, us!!!), and obviously enjoyed himself

Captain Morgan

St Martin. Previously mentioned Captain Morgan, aka The Stud zooming past us in his Morgan 65. There he was in his signature swim trunks flashing us an Austin Powers smile.

Le Gerdarmerie

St Martin. French Gerdarmerie, i.e. Police boat cruising past us – a few guys in briefs and a woman in a hot red bikini – I have not seen anything less official looking in my life. An interesting contrast to fully uniformed in black and bullet proof vested US Coast Guard.

Aah Life

Underway. March 25, 2007 Picture of our friend Chris M. on bow of Zig Zag thoroughly enjoying himself as we sail into the waves on our way to French St Martin from Anguilla

Stuart's First Catch

During our BVI-St Martin passage, Stuart has “caught" this fish. Well, actually, it must have flown into our bathroom window, which was open while on passage and we discovered it the next day. Check out how long the wings are! Another picture which would have made it here, had I been able to take it, was of a passing boat (we later learned that this was Captain Morgan, a 65 Morgan Catalina schooner charter) with her Captain wearing the smallest yellow swimming briefs I have seen and grinning widely – Europeans, you see. If you are interested in doing your day sail with Capt Morgan, you can check www.captainmorgan-daycharters.com. I have to recommend him since he has a Morgan built boat. (March 13, 2007)

Mega yacht with Mega toys	We saw this mega yacht at the entrance to Simpson Bay Lagoon and it impressed us not just with its sheer size, but with the fact that it had a 1) power boat, 2) sail boat - you can see that "little" 40 ft mast on the picture and 3) a trimaran on top of it for entertainment. We later learned that its owned by Prudential CEO and it used to be a working tug barge of some sort which at one point towed two aircraft carriers from Tokyo to US. Its called Lone Ranger and is on sale for US$ 18MM - interested???
Hooter Patrol IV	BVI. I was inside the boat doing something, when Stuart called me upstairs: "check this out, a Hooters boat just came in." And sure enough, big boat arrived and off it came some 5-6 certainly well endowed but otherwise skinny females variety - blondes, brunettes, olive and pink skinned, red bikini, black bikini. The gorgeous glam effect was somewhat spoiled when they pranced by looking too young and obviously enjoying the craned neck effect that the procession had on all the other boats on the pier. Needless to say they were together with some significantly dorkier men. The best thing about it is that this Hooters mega yacht pulled up to our dock, so this picture was taken from our own deck. I wonder if Heff has a boat - I betcha! (March 7, 2007)
Will This Ever End?	Mid-February, we seemed to be in a whirlwind of perpetual packing and moving (we have moved from our apartment and onto a boat, plus a large storage box in Santurce, and then sponged off 3 separate friends for 3 weeks) and here I am on the boat, exasperated. It seemed like packing, putting things into car, out of car, onto ferry, off the ferry, onto boat, into nooks and crannies on the boat, this whirlwind of boxes and ductape was never going to stop!
Taking Friends Sailing	On January 10th, we took 10 friends sailing and had a great time, sailing from Isleta Marina to Palominos. On the way, we saw a sailboat being dragged off a nasty reef by SeaTow and we offered them help with our dinghy. The help wasn't needed, but we felt good for participating in a fellow boat rescue mission! You can see how many people we have on the boat - and its so large, everyone fit on it just fine. We also managed to dock in a distinguished manner this time.
First Real Docking Experience	Our first docking experience at Isleta Marina was so memorable it warranted two pictures. The first one is of the big hurtful-looking hole at the front of the boat and second one of the pier looking even worse - lobsided electrical/water feeder (see that gash on the bottom) and the docking cleat which was taken out completely by our massive anchor (Stuart is holding it in its hand). The guy next to Stuart is Mike who was making us worried the marina is going to sue us for moving the entire pier 2 feet over when we bashed it. We were mortified, since the loud bang probably caused an earthquake in El Yunque rainforest. Within next few days Mike did an excellent job fixing both the boat and the marina bits.
Nat's Mom Visits Boat	My mom being here for New Year's - definitely a highlight. She LOVED the boat, despite my worst fears. But how can you not like a place that lulls you to sleep like a baby, works you out with its rolling so you can eat non-stop without feeling guilty and provides all comforts of home while at a paradisiacal anchorage, like the one we visited in Palominos.
Guess Which One is Ours?	Aha! Let's see, it would probably be that big fat one center left (with the dinghy in front of it), the biggest boat in the pier with the tallest mast, barely fitting into its slip... That's Zig Zag for you!
First Sail	From Tortola to Culebrita, from Culebrita to Isleta Marina. The waves got to about 10-11 ft and the boat handled it just fine, we were very proud of it. This is a picture of the Captain hesitantly checking out one of those [gigantic, no joke] waves behind us. I made macaroni & cheese on a gimbal stove, which didn't spill despite the boat's sideways motions, amazing!
First Night on the Boat	A few days before Christmas'06 - I got off work and flew to join Stuart in Tortola where the boat was put in the water the day before. This is our first night on the new boat - we are SO EXCITED! We are sitting on a swim platform at the back of the boat, contemplating our new asset, all 41 ft of it.
The Making of Zig Zag	We purchased the boat in mid December and Stuart immediately set on fixing it, flying to Tortola's Nanny Cay Marina to hire a crew to fix it (they were EXCELLENT - see the Resources section if you want their contact details). The guys were very professional and we were in the water within a week, red bottom paint, blue shiny stripe and all.