Category: Caribbean-Thalia

As I have explained a few times to my older son, it is often best to assume the mind-set of expecting change as the inevitable. When we get too set in our comfortable day-to-day lives, even the smallest change like a new teacher assignment for a child can send us into a tail-spin. Something much larger, like the lose of a loved one, is much more disrupting emotionally and psychologically but we might be better able to deal with the big changes in life if we don’t head into that tail-spin for the smaller ones!

Of course, we recognized that this year would be one of constant changes for us — new “home” in ever changing ports, constantly changing means of provisioning, unexpected weather and boat maintenance and, potentially, a different language or currency to accommodate. So, sometimes we get a bit stuck to the things within our control, like our upcoming travel plans or the islands we want to keep on our “hope to visit” list. When something happens to alter this, we all need to remind ourselves that change is inevitable and then adjust to the new situation.

Continue reading “Thalia Travels South East to Saba Island and Beyond … or not?! Ep. 36”

If you read many tales of long-term cruising sailors, eventually you run across a time in their travels where they discovered an urgent need to change gears. By this I mean getting off the boat for awhile or inviting friends onboard — something to mix up the experience a little. We did both of these this past week. Three wonderful friends of mine from Bedford flew down here for a four day weekend of sailing while Karen and the boys got to stay at a beach resort on Tortola. For the guys, this was the second installment of the winter respite concept, having tested the idea out with much success in Key West, FL last February.

So, with bags in hand and eyes agleam, the guys — Steve, Matt and Don — walked off the plane and made the 5 minute stroll to the dinghy dock at Trellis Bay for a little fun in the sun. They made me promise to make sure they were prominently displayed on the website, so we’ll kick things off with a few profiles! Continue reading “A Fork in the Road Ep. 35”

Since Tom wrote his piece of this week’s log before I had a chance to write about the week from my perspective, I knew I had to play off of his chosen title of, “A Fork in the Road”. I thought maybe I would write, “the other fork” or some such jumble of words. Then, as I thought of the experiences that the boys and I had during our 4-night, 5-day stay at Long Bay Beach Resort I knew the title had to encompass our reliance on restaurant food while we were off the boat.

Tom’s friends very generously put our kidsOur and I up at the resort while they enjoyed touring around on our boat. As the trip came into view, the boys and I all eagerly anticipated sleeping in a real bed–one that didn’t move, taking a real shower and letting the water run while we soaped up! It is the little things you miss! And, I would be misleading if I didn’t mention my excitement at the prospect of not washing a dish for 5 days! Nor cooking a meal, nor lugging the food for the meals from grocery store to dinghy to boat. There were several restaurants on the resort grounds, which was a good thing since the resort was quite secluded from surrounding villages or eating establishments. The interesting fact was that only one restaurant was open at a time for the evening meal! Our first night at the resort, the open restaurant was on the more dressy side… heavy on the etiquette!

Here is a picture of the boys after our first hot hotel shower as we make our way down to the restaurant.

Continue reading “The Dessert Fork Ep. 34”

What kind of New Year’s resolution did you make for this year? Eat more healthy? Start using that gym membership more often?

How about turning all of those ‘some day’ thoughts into reality? We’ve chatted with a lot of people on this trip who said they hope to some day take a trip similar to ours. But there’s only Monday through Sunday — no some day — in the week. If you’ve thought about some day taking a break from work, while you are still healthy, perhaps before your kids grow up and grow out, perhaps to get to know your spouse and kids better, or just because you’ve worked all of your life and everyone needs a break once in a while, then get out there and do it now! It will be a tough decision to make when you are in the comfort and safety of your current lifestyle, but you won’t regret it!

Continue reading “A Bubbly Beginning to 2007 Ep. 33”

I understand that you New Englanders had a pretty mild Christmas, with temperatures around 50 degrees. Well, add a measly 30 degrees to that, throw in some swaying palm trees, and a 20 dinghy raft up to take in the Davis Murray and the Barefoot Band and you have a Christmas Eve in paradise. Add a turkey dinner ashore followed by some reggae music and that about sums up Christmas Day! But I suppose you want to hear more details about our week and we’d love to share them, so here goes…

We left off last week with our exploits in Francis Bay on St John, USVI’s. We continued to stay there through Christmas – a one week stay in total and the longest time we spent in one spot since Hampton, VA. We met up again with our Maine friends — Alex, Gulley, Alasdair and Azaline — the hearty campers over at Cinnamon Bay. They offered to shuttle us all over to the southern extreme of St John, a point of land named Rams Head for an afternoon hike. What a delight it was to see parts of the island by car, and when we arrived at the parking area for the hiking trail, we immediately settled into the path down to the water’s edge and waited for the rest of the group to be shuttled over.

Continue reading “Santa and His Dolphin Duet Ep. 32”

If you can only spend a short time down here in the Virgin Islands, you must come to St. John. It’s a splendid spot to relax and it keeps pulling us back. At the end of last week, we were in Cinnamon Bay, on the northerly side of the St John. After spending several days there, the boys met a child from another family and in short order where playing and swimming at the beach. Her name was Azaline and she harkened from a rugged family from Maine. These folks came to St John for two weeks and, unlike 99.9% of the rest of the tourists who sought out comfy beds and air conditioned restaurants, her family was tent camping at the Cinnamon Bay campground! The campground has bare sites, canvas tent setups, and small cottages. I walked up to the tent site to see for sure that they were camping — I was quite impressed! Some might consider our life on a boat to be similar in style to camping, but when it rains at least we could get some positive protection out of the way in the cabin, and we could take a lot more of our ‘stuff’ with us. I must tell you, Maine breeds some hardy folks! While I was walking around the campground with my Sunday River t-shirt, I ran into another Mainer kid, complete with a big backpack and canteen. A few days later, we noticed we were anchored right in between two other boats that had Portsmouth, NH as their hailing port. Yikes, it’s a New England invasion!

Continue reading “Playmates For The Young and The Old Ep. 31”

Now, I don’t want you all to get to upset that, after reading the headline above, you think we are heading back home early! Fear not, we’ve had some difficult times, but this family is charging onwards through the Caribbean! This week, we are experiencing a little peek back into the US culture and shopping scene as we enter the US Virgin Islands. We arrived here after a great couple of days circumnavigating the island of Tortola. After leaving Trellis Bay on the eastern end last week, we sailed on to Cane Garden Bay, to Sopers Hole, and then back to Roadtown. Cane Garden Bay was described as being picture postcard perfect, with white sandy beaches shaded by plenty of palm trees, and I must agree wholeheartedly. What do you think?

Continue reading “A Carib-USA Concoction Ep. 30”

After a frustrating week at the Village Cay docks last week trying to get boat work done, we needed a little fun — after all Thalia was the goddess of comedy! On Friday night, the roads of Roadtown were bedecked in a Christmas Festival. They closed off Main Street and jammed it full of booths of vendors selling food, handicrafts and toys. “Main Street” here is so narrow, it is a one way road, and the booths, being at least 10-12′ square, didn’t leave but the gutters on both sides for all the crowds to pass by. And, believe me, you want to be careful when you walk by a gutter in these parts!

Thankfully, it didn’t take us long to find a local reggae band — down here, it’s all reggae or rap, with an occasional blues band. Here’s a video of some of the music. If you are looking out the window into a snow storm right now, this might put you in an island time, low-stress mood!

Continue reading “Paradise Lost, Paradise Found Ep. 29”

Our first full day in Roadtown, Tortola brought forth much activity despite the exhaustion we were feeling from the many nights of interrupted sleep. I can’t properly describe what it was like on our first night at the marina to actually lay down in a berth that was staying exactly level, that there was no noise of sails or winches or engines, and where I knew I could rest peacefully until the morning light arrived! I had not slept much during the 12-6am period since we had left Hampton.

Continue reading “Glimpses of Paradise Ep. 28”

When I first read about the Caribbean 1500, I was a little confused by the name, for if you look at a chart, Tortola is about 1270 nautical miles away from Hampton, VA. Folks that are wiser then I on these topics, particularly those that have done a lot of ocean crossings like my friend Sean Bercaw, were quick to point out that sometimes to get from point A to point B meant something other then a straight line. In this voyage, it’s customary to head more east of the ‘rhumb’ (or direct) line so that you can be in a position to pick up the prevailing easterly trade winds that begin to form south of Bermuda. If you ‘rhumb line it’, you risk being stuck with an upwind battle several days before arriving, just at a time when you can nearly smell the palm trees and the savory rum. However, the seasonal weather patterns were a little off this Fall, as were advised at a weather briefing conducted by visiting Nashua New Hampshirian Ken Campbell from Commanders Weather Inc. This, of course, steered the troops into a bevy of discussions — should we listen to this fellow from New Hampshire, who said to get your southing in early or should we follow tradition and favor east. Some in the ‘southing’ crowd were even talking about hugging the coast down to Cape Hatteras, NC area and then shooting across the Gulf Stream at the point because it was supposed more narrow. At the cocktail gathering that night, I pushed the question to as many people as I could and got as many different answers. A lot of this back-and-forth discussion was a good place to put the nervous energy I think most people felt on the night before leaving. So, heck, we were going to enter ourselves in the ‘easting’ group and see how it went. It seemed like Ray, Karen and I all agreed, and it just felt right to go with tradition when this was our first ocean crossing.

Continue reading “How to Get To Tortola, One Day at a Time Ep. 27”