At One With Mother Nature Ep. 46

It is hard not to feel a little sense of competitiveness with your fellow Caribbean 1500 ralliers. After the rum punches and prizes were dispersed in Tortola last November, many boats like us hung out in the BVI’s for weeks – and gradually months. But a handful of more adventurous souls – in particular, one boat whimsically named ‘Over Margaritas’ for how the young couple had met and discussed their mutual sailing dreams – pointed their bows south for the 3-4 day voyage to the bottom of the Caribbean chain. On the morning SSB chat, these folks raved about places like the Grenadines for it’s isolated beauty and crystal clear waters. At one point, Karen and I had contemplated this same strategy whereby you sail to as far south as you dare and slowly make your way northward through the islands. But, how, I wondered, did these southern adventurers really know that the beauty they were experiencing was that much better then the tremendous sights we were taking in at places like St John, Jost van Dyke and Virgin Gorda? Afterall, they had skipped over those sights in their pursuit south. On what basis could they rightfully gloat about their seemingly advantageous setting? We now know!

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Speechless! Ep. 45

We have put some mileage under the keel this week! Tom finished last week’s web entry with our visit to the southern portion of Dominica. We left Dominica on Sunday morning, March 18th, and currently find ourselves anchored in the Tobago Cays — 170 miles to the south, at least as the ever busy “crow” might fly!

The first day’s sail took us 45 miles to the southwest coast of Martinique. Although tempted by the thoughts of French baguettes and croissants, we did not go ashore. This allowed us to forego the often lengthy process of checking in with customs and immigration; and, since we were moving on the following morning we decided to just borrow the anchorage! So, the boys burned off some energy by using one of our spare halyards (the lines which reach to the top of the mast) for swinging off of the boat. This is very fun and mom and dad often partake in the excitement. With a good shove from a parent, the boys can fly through the air in a nice wide semi-circle along the boat before letting go and plopping into the water. It is our solution to a tree swing!

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Double the Pleasure in Dominica Ep. 44

It is hard to believe that some cruisers skip over Dominica in their travels through the Caribbean. Yes, at one point there was a greater risk of crime to boaters anchored here, but the locals have dealt with this swiftly. And, there’s the ever-present signs of poverty throughout the island – pothole ridden roads, street side gutters with strange smells emanating forth, and rusty tin roofed huts scattered throughout the hillsides. But it doesn’t take much money to live the simple, healthy life here. The air is clean and the water so pure and sweet that the local brewery – Kubuli – could piggyback on the marketing techniques of Coors ‘pure rocky mountain spring water’ jingle. And, as Karen wrote about last week, the interior grows such seductively smelling fruits and vegetables, it is no wonder that this island boosts so many inhabitants over the age of 100. Let me tell you, it wouldn’t take much debating if Karen were to suggest we settle down for our golden years here – in a tin-roofed hut with no electricity and just fresh fruits and vegetables to live on!

For now, we settled on a 10 day stay here. After a week in the northern port of Portsmouth, we moved down to the southern end of the island, to the capital – Roseau. Despite the inherent crowds of a capital city, including the presence of two cruise ships, the sights and sounds did not disappoint us. Villomee, Arctic Tern and Asseance were with us to enjoy the scene, while our good friends on Heaven Won’t Wait had to head north to St Martin to collect visitors. With the abundance of fruits and vegetables throughout the interior, it is no surprise that each town has a bustling open-air market. Here’s the scene in Roseau.

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Same Neighbors, Different Neighborhood! Ep. 43

Early Monday morning, March 5th, we left the mid-western coast of Guadeloupe for a group of islands off the southwestern tip of Guadeloupe called The Saints or “Les Saintes” in French. We were traveling with our friends on “Heaven Won’t Wait” and the other three boats we were with in Deshaies will come to Les Saintes within a few days. We will repeat this pattern after about four days when we leave Les Saints first with “Heaven Won’t Wait” to be followed a few days later by “Asseance”, “Arctic Tern” and “Villomee”. Our “neighborhood” after Les Saintes will be Prince Rupert Bay off the town of Portsmouth, Dominica. Thus the title of this week’s web entry, “same neighbors, different neighborhood!” We will surely miss our “neighbors” when we say what will likely be a final good-bye in the next few weeks.

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Deshaies Dash Ep. 42

If the quantity of pictures are any indication of the amount of fun one has when traveling, then this week is near the top with 135 shots taken! Trying to figure out how to edit them down is a problem I don’t mind having!

After circumnavigating the island of Antigua last week, we were fortunate enough to rendevzous with good friends from the Carib1500 rally — Arctic Tern, Asseance, Villomee and Heaven Won’t Wait. This was the largest gathering of rally boats that we had see since leaving the BVI’s, and what fun it was! Through a stroke of good fortune, we all ended up in Jolly Harbor, Antigua. Bob and Linda from Villomee were nice enough to have everyone over for appetizers on the first night. It was a good thing, as, even though their boat is 47 feet long as well, it has an immense, canvas-enclosed cockpit that can hold an army of sailor friends who will jump at the first mention of “Hey, why don’t you stop over a little later today…”!

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Never Say Never Ep. 41

We left off on last week’s update in Basseterre, the main town on St Kitts. After having done the touristy stuff in that area, we headed to the southern end of St. Kitts for a well recommended anchorage named White House Bay. While we didn’t find a single house on the shoreline, white or otherwise, we did find remnants of an old dock which presented itself as we landed the dinghy. We took this opportunity to get another workout for our muscles by walking around a rather large salt pond. Now, we’ve run into several salt ponds on this trip and you might ask why it is called a salt pond, how did it form and why do we care, anyway? A salt pond is a body of water separated from the open ocean by a narrow stretch of land, over or under which the seawater can flow into the pond during heavy seas or storms. If you ever take a swim down here, you’ll notice right away, as all of us did, that the seawater here is very salty – you wonder sometimes if you are caught fish being laid down in the salty hold of a trawler, awaiting a trip to the market! Well, this seawater offers a great chance to make salt – on purpose or not. As the pond heats up under the ferocious rays of the tropical sun, the water slowly evaporates and leaves a more and more concentrated salt solution behind. Eventually, wind-driven flakes of salt crystals blow ashore and these can be cleaned and dried again to produce the salt we all call ‘sea salt’ that goes into grandma’s great cooking. Here’s a chart of the salt pond we ‘circumnavigated’ on our hike.

As you can see, there are actually two salt ponds, and these are narrowly separated from the ocean by a skinny beach.

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A Visit to Sugar City Ep. 40

Yes, we have truly, honest to goodness, left St. Martin! I was beginning to think of it as home… saying hello to all the marina staff, being recognized in the grocery store across the street, hopping on the local buses to go anywhere on the island. After so much time in one place, most of us developed an affection for St. Martin. Zachary, however, was very happy to see it become increasingly smaller behind us as we sailed away this past Tuesday (February 13th). Our second attempt at a manufactured rudder was completed over the weekend and installed on Monday. We were launched in the afternoon and were thrilled with our test-drive! It was perfect and we also have a greatly increased steering radius (an adjustment we had done while the rudder was being made). Once we cleared out of customs and immigration and grabbed a few groceries, we tossed off the dock lines and pulled away from Bobby’s Marina. Our plan was to go to St. Kitts, which would be about 60 miles. We all agreed that we didn’t want to approach a new island in the dark so we decided to anchor in the Philipsburg Harbor and leave early in the morning. This allowed us a very relaxing night on anchor with a great breeze helping to clear our memories of the three-and-a-half weeks we had spent “on the hard”.

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Standing Tall Ep. 39

Yes, you read it correctly on our ‘current location’ posting… we are still in St Martin and still dealing with our rudder issue! Last Friday, after a day of breakneck speed trying to get the new rudder mounted back on the boat and connected, and a quick coat of antifouling paint, we splashed in the water moments before the yard staff headed home for the weekend. I promised one of the employees, Melvin, a beer when we were all done. After all, he played the lead on this day to get the new rudder, complete with new bushings, rudder stop bar, and cabling, installed before 5pm, skipping his afternoon ‘tea’ break to make it happen. Hanging out on a floating boat, drinking beers with several of our friends, and knowing that we could now start on our trip again, it couldn’t get any sweeter then this! The next few days were supposed to be blustery and high swells beyond St Martin, so we chose a short hop to the neighboring harbor of Simpson Bay, still on the Dutch side. Unfortunately, it was not meant to be. As we motored out of the Philipsburg harbor, I tried my best but could not ignore the fact that the boat was being pulled strongly to port as we motored. If I steered to port, she headed that way with ease; if I steered to starboard, I really needed to muscle the wheel over and hold it firmly. Something was clearly not right with the new rudder. I didn’t want to face any more bad news – denial seemed like a better plan – but when Karen took the wheel, she brought some reality to the scene and we agreed that it would be foolish to go on with a boat that couldn’t steer straight.

With spirits dashed, we headed back to the dock at Bobby’s Marina for what promised to be a long, lonely weekend. At various times, we each tried to boost the morale of the others, but Karen did the best job of bringing us out of our collective funk. She suggested we spend one night anchored out in the harbor away from the marina, feeling the cool, mosquito-free breezes and the peaceful lapping of the water on the hull. It was a moment’s glimpse back to the cruising world, a world that we had to remind ourselves we only left two weeks ago, but continued to stay out of our reach. In our excitement after the launching, we had radioed our rally friends, who were in various attractive destinations down island such as Nevis, Martinique and Dominica, and told them the good news that we were on our way to catch up to them. Now, it would be even longer before we caught up with them. It took all the strength we could muster to keep from dwelling on the negative. The kids were particularly upset, especially Zack. This was one of those challenging times as a parent, when you feel the same pain that your children feel, but you need to stand tall, ignore the feelings you might harbor inside, and be a good example to help them through it. We’ll need some more practice at this!

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Half Way Mark, A Look Back Ep. 38

As we peek at the calendar this week, we notice that we have moved beyond the halfway mark on our journey! In some ways, it doesn’t seem possible that we have been living aboard Thalia for seven months. In the same breath, though, it seems a very long time since we lived in our Bedford, NH home; the boys running around the yard with neighborhood friends. We talk of home a lot — missed friends and activities mostly — yet now this also feels like home and we acknowledge that we will miss this life when we must resume our land-based lives. In a way, knowing that we have passed the halfway point nudges us to now hurry to see all that we can in the time remaining. However, this life is supposed to be one of slowly taking in other cultures and enjoying the day to day.

While some ideals remain ambiguous in my mind, one thing I’m certain of is that I feel compelled at this juncture to do a highlights tour of our journey so far and, hopefully, bringing in some pictures we haven’t yet displayed of our past wanderings.

Come back with me to Portland, Maine … late June, 2006.

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Life, Interrupted Ep. 37

Like a clutch of shipwrecked sailors, we have found a way to deal with the sudden change of life ashore. This is our first full week of living ‘on the hard’ as they say. Thalia is parked up in the yard at Bobby’s Marina here in Sint Maarten, but we are trying to continue our normal routine as much as possible. We’ve actually stepped up the pace of school a notch, doing 4 full lessons a week now. While you school-aged kids reading this may be envious of our kids because they get 3 day weekends, these 4 day lesson weeks will be necessary for them to stay on track each week through about July without taking vacation weeks. With the Calvert school program, you can decide to take vacation weeks off like normal school kids, or just keep an even pace going for the entire year, and we have chosen the later. So far, the kids are adapting well to the new pace, as long as both Karen and I have the time to work with them steadily through the morning. I don’t know how teachers do it with 20+ kids… it is truly a miracle that they keep themselves together and get the class all moving in something like a forward direction. Hat’s off to you school teachers out there!!

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