Category: Sailing 2015

There is something mystical about crossing lines while at sea. Whether the satisfaction of crossing another line of latitude or longitude; the sense of adventure and mysticism of crossing the equator or date line; or simply crossing an imaginary line demarking one body of water from another. Cruisers generally include tracklines in this group.  Each trackline which marks your path on a particular journey, be it a global circumnavigation or trip around an island, tells its own story. The line is never straight from A to B, and rarely does it follow the planned path created before the trip began.

In days past, the trackline revealed itself by connecting a series of fixes recorded on a paper chart. Depending on the length of the journey and method of taking fixes, snapshots of vessel position, the trackline could materialize rapidly as a series of squiggly, jerky lines progressing along a trending direction; or as a series of straight lines covering chunks of distance over days at a time.

Now, with GPS and chartplotters, the omnipresent trackline is drawn behind the little red boat figure on the screen.  Depending on how much you zoom in or out reveals that part of the picture, or the journey. It can be relatively narrow in view showing how the boat skirted around a squall line; or wider, revealing the trip from the last island to the next.

In planning our crossing from Grand Case, Saint Martin back to the BVI, I had to zoom out to set a route across the 79 miles. The trackline that revealed itself was a round-about journey of the Leeward Islands from the BVI to Anguilla, south to Antigua and Montserrat and north again encompassing ten island countries. But the trackline also represented the triumphs and trials of this trip. From beach bar afternoons with dear friends and family, diving with dolphins and sharks, exploring volcanos and 225 year old ruins, to meeting wonderfully interesting people.  We ate some amazing food, ran out of fresh water, fought a temperamental autopilot and with each other. But we found peace in each other, loved the adventure around us, and discovered some truths about this lifestyle and ourselves. Like any journey, there are highs and lows, but embracing the experience is the reward.

Crossing back to BVI, the half moon set shortly after midnight.  The phosperence glittered green in our wake as we disturbed the calm waters of Anegeda Passage. The wind astern made for a relatively smooth and quick overnight trip.  The sense of the vastness of the dark sea around us in every direction pales to the infinite carpet of stars and galaxies that dances overhead.  Every star has a story written hundreds or thousands of years ago, its journey of light to Earth acting like its own trackline. There being no use in judging the universe above by the stars shining through to our eyes, there is no profit in judging the trackline of this trip against qualitative markers such as good and bad.

This journey has been eye-opening and rewarding.  The geographic trackline only tells part of the story, the song line yet another part. I don’t think that this journey will be truly finished even when we cross our outbound trackline and dock the boat back to her berth where we found her seven weeks ago. The trackline of this trip began many years ago in late night conversations between K and me.  Dreams of warm waters, sandy beaches, and finding sunny places full of shady and interesting characters.  Those dreams were realized and the happiness found along the way was intoxicating.  I think the most important lesson along this trip is that you never know how long your trackline may actually reach in life, but if you simply zoom in to the narrowest field of view and constantly circle back across yourself, without rich, rewarding and interesting new ports on the next horizon, then you might as well have stayed in port, tied to the dock gathering barnacles.

I have realized that the life I want comes with a long, meandering trackline, if I’m lucky.  It isn’t always easy for friends and family to appreciate that wanderlust in light of all the blessings that can keep one tied to home and hearth.   The hard part, however, is casting off the lines and taking the risk to put the bow on the horizon.  Fortunately I am blessed with a wonderful partner that sees the adventure to come and has honored me with her company. So, with a thirst for new stories to tell and a renewed sense of life purpose I look forward to what’s next, and which ports my trackline will encounter.

The night of sailing broke to a fabulous sunrise and arrival back in Virgin Gorda.

There are a chain of islands in the Eastern Caribbean that flaunt their volcanic origins with towering spires rising straight out of the sea thousands of feet. Ok, generally two to four thousand feet, but impressive enough when everything else is flat and coral or limestone. Nearby offshore these islands plunge a half-mile or more beneath the surface.

Two interesting things about these type of mountain islands: first, the topography is not conducive for building big towns or resorts, so they are generally sparsely populated; and second, the highest peaks, whether active or inactive volcanos, are magnets for clouds, dragging the cooler heights of the atmosphere to mix with the heat and humidity produced by the vegetation on land.  The clouds generate light rain on the leeside, making the land a little more fertile and green. So the windward side of the island may be scrub and dry, but the leeward side could be wet and green.

Our visit to the chain started in Montserrat with the active volcano; then St. Kitts/Nevis each with a tall dormant volcano and a lava cone called Brimstone Hill; followed by Statia (stay-sha) the former richest trading island in the area topped by the Quill volcano which you can hike the inside of the rainforest crater; and finally Saba (say-ba) with no suitable horizontal buildable land on the slopes of Mt. Scenery. In fact, Saba’s Dutch masters refused to build either roads or an airport claiming significant engineering challenges. Thank goodness for island tenacity and ingenuity.

Each island has it’s own character, challenges and beauty. All are friendly and opening to visiting boats, and full of interesting sights and history. One could spend six seasons cruising the islands and still not explore or see everything. But maybe I should try it and find out?

 

At some point about five years ago, R came to me with a proposition: a dive shop for sale in the Caribbean and the purchase price included a house with a pool.  We could give up our demanding day-to-day jobs and move full time to an island.  I would run the bar and maybe add a hostel and R would drive the boat and go out with divers everyday.  It sounded great (it still sounds great), but then I asked for details; in other words, what’s the catch?  The catch is location, location, location.

Montserrat, the island in question, was for years known as the Emerald Isle of the Caribbean.  The rolling green hills reminded the first European settlers — Irish Catholics who were running into difficulty with the Protestant population on Antigua — of their far away home.  The problem is, one of those rolling green hills was a dormant volcano.  The Soufrière Hills Volcano began erupting in 1995, the volcano that inspired Jimmy Buffet’s song Volcano (fast forward to about 6:10) has since wiped out the island’s largest towns and required the evacuation of all the other large population centers.  

As our fabulous tour guide, Joe Phillip, told us, he and his family who lived in the Cork Hill area were told to pack a bag for a weekend evacuation in the late 90’s.  They have not been able to move back in since (although Joe told us a perfect pirate story of going to his house to recover what he could).  Joe gave us a detailed tour of the way the volcano changed the island.

Giving us a chance to see what the community had been like,  Joe let us off at a church that served the neighborhood.

 

The pews are stacked, unsalvaged, unused.  The church’s register sits open in the pulpit; attendance on the last Sunday the church was in service was about 40.  While the galvanized roof has been eaten away by the sulfuric acid that is created by the volcano’s ash, the wood structure remains intact.

To show us what it means to be told to just pack a bag, Joe took us to a local author’s house.

The whole house had about four inches of accumulated ash, covering bookshelves that looked something like ours at home in Westford: math, chemistry, and history texts surrounded by novels and coloring books.

Demonstrating the amount of accumulated ash and giving us a view of the utter devastation of Plymouth, Joe took us to a hotel on the hill that overlooked the old downtown.

I took this picture standing in what should have been the shallow end of the swimming pool.

R is looking out from the hotel deck over where Plymouth used to be.

 

When R first proposed that we purchase the Green Monkey and move to Montserrat, I said (1) we can’t buy a dive business until we’ve worked at one, (2) we can’t buy on an island we haven’t visited, and (3) what about the volcano?  Green Monkey was luckier than this former dive shop we saw in Old Road Bay (where the Bay has been almost completely filled in by ash and sediment).

 

Green Monkey was located in Little Bay, where we anchored, which has been designated as the new capitol  of Montserrat.  But even outside of the volcano’s danger zone, the community seems to struggle to retain it’s sense of self and to create or salvage an identity separate from the volcano and its devastation.  Before the volcano, Montserrat had a full time population of over 10,000 — still smaller than the town in which I grew up.  Now, the full-time population is less than 5,000.  If your community lost its history, half its population, and still had a volcano spitting ash and steam into the sky, what would you do?

I’m so glad we visited Montserrat.  The people we met were truly lovely, but I’m not sure I’m up to the challenges that Montserrat is facing.

Some of my favorite things about sailing the Caribbean islands begin early in the morning.  I am an early riser by nature, so when the roosters and goats begin competing on the hillsides above the anchorage at 530AM, it is generally time for me to get up and make a boat check.  I get to watch sunrise over the hills in front of the boat (the boat generally faces east at anchor during this time of year because of the prevailing winds, and we try to anchor behind some hill/land for shelter from the trade winds), I watch the light spread across the island and the water, I get to notice the world come alive to a new day, and I generally am alone with my thoughts.  Almost always there is activity in the water around the boat whether it is pelicans fishing for shiners, eagle rays skimming the surface, or old cruisers swimming around the adjacent boats taking their morning baths.  I like swimming for exercise shortly after dawn when first light is on the water, but I’ll have a warm shower on the transom when I return to flush the salt away.  After an air dry, breakfast is never better than sitting in the cockpit listening to the sounds of birds and gentle lap of water on the hull or dinghy trailing like an obedient pony.

Ashore life moves at a similar rhythm.  Many people are dawn to dusk and the older ones will wander to the beach to bathe or have a refreshing float before heading off to their employment.  People always greet you with a “good morning” or “al’righ”, and if you are lucky enough to be anchored downwind of a bakery (or BBQ shack later in the day) the smell will invite you ashore as your mouth waters for pain au chocolat or fresh baguettes.

Soon the local children will be walking the roadways to school in small groups.  Always dressed in uniforms, I love the bright colors of their shirts identifying their school or grade.  Whites, reds, yellows, pinks…each a shock of color against the green and blue of the tropical world around us.  With their khaki skirts or shorts, and toting their backpack, it is evidence that people take pride in their education on the islands.  Most islands have better literacy rates than the US, and each island knows that it generally must supply all its skilled and professional trades from within its younger population because few people move to the islands to permanently work.  Therefore, schools are well funded, mandatory and teach a diversity of subjects.

By now the government workers, and every island has tons of government workers, many were British colonies after all, are heading to their offices and settling in for a day of mobile phone surfing or liming. Everything moves at its own pace here, whether it is getting a package through customs or giving a tour at the national museum.  Things will happen, but not by a watch.  Construction starts again, and the unions have nothing on islanders when it comes to overmanning and wasting resources and manpower on a construction project. We have seen fifteen men working on a 500 sq foot roof, none moving more than 2-3 feet from side to side. This is not criticism, the colonial masters instilled it in the culture generations ago when labor was forced and cheap. The governance and treatment of people in colonies, or “protectorates” is too weighty a subject for 9AM, but needless to say it permeates many parts of daily life still today.

Once ashore on many islands, they drive on the left, in smaller makes of Asian import cars and the smattering of Peugeots, Range Rovers and US trucks. The shops start to open up around 8 or 9, many times simply swinging their shutters away from the open store front.  After a wander about the island, some historical sight or running errands, the smells emanating from these little shacks will make your mouth water.  Curries, BBQ, and jerk seasoning waft through the air in an intoxicating mix with the salt air and tropical heat.  You really cannot go wrong picking food if you have a minimally strong stomach, aren’t afraid of some bones in your meat, and don’t wonder too long about which morning crooner is now lunch, then it all washes down with a lukewarm beer. The people everywhere are always friendly and charming. Many are beautiful with generations of mixing ethnicities all browned by the equatorial sun. Sometimes you sit and watch a game of dominoes or warri played by old men with lots of stories and an irreverent sense of humor.

It is sometimes funny to think that on nearly every island, there are more churches than bars, restaurants and grocery stores put together.  Years of missionary work has been extremely successful in the Caribbean.  Everything shuts down on Sundays, or maybe Saturday depending on your flavor of religion, and everyone is preached at for a few hours.  The modesty and manners are retained for the rest of the week, but these people live each day for that particular moment, and the institutional God-guilt seems lost on this culture.

Back aboard the boat, I’ll knock out a couple chores, alternate between the shade and sun and distract myself in a book, pausing to take in the happenings in the harbor or ashore.  A snorkel or swim is generally mandatory in the mid-afternoon as the sun is high and the light good on the reefs.  Then another rinse off and air dry on the trampoline with an iced rum drink perspiring in my hand.  Now I begin to think about dinner, something grilled on the boat typically sounds good.  During dinner it is time to focus aft to see if the sunrise will be a visual kaleidoscope of colors, or merely a radiant ending to another wonderful day.  I’ll watch the stars blink on above and check for Venus, Polaris and the Southern Cross; ensuring that all is directionally correct in my world.

I know it sounds a little wasteful and indulgent to lime the days away, but I don’t think there is time in our short lives for planned retirement and waiting for a better time to live the life around you.  A volcano eruption, hurricane, tuk-tuk wreck or heart attack is possible on any given day.  I see the beauty in stopping the work for a game of dominoes or shutting down for a long lunch with your family or simply liming the afternoon away.  These people live in paradise, generally don’t want for much according to their standards, and have found that smiling and being pleasant, even in the most menial jobs dealing with idiot tourists, is a healthier and more productive life worth living.  We wander many old church yards on these islands, and cannot help but notice the large number of headstones that read ages in the 80s, 90s, or older amongst the interned.  Maybe loving your life, the world around you, and having less self-imposed stress is the key to longevity.  Something to ponder over the next rum drink, but not too deeply.

OK, I have to admit that going to Montserrat has been a checklist item for this trip.  Maybe it has to do with the idea of an island that is a smoking active volcano, or maybe the interaction we had with the Green Monkey Dive shop owners…but Montserrat has been on my list for a couple years.  Today we made it!  It is called the Emerald Isle because it was a haven for persecuted Irish in the 17th century and many family names are still Ryan’s, Patrick’s, etc. Half the island is uninhabited after the 1996 and 2010 eruptions of a giant volcano on the island. It may also have something to do with the fact that all the biggest British bands and musicans of the 1980s recorded here at Air Studios with Beatles producer George Martin, before Hurricane Hugo and the volcano closed the studio. Anyways, it was awesome to see the island take shape on the horizon and drop anchor in Little Bay.

Tomorrow a tour of the island, including the Pompeii like city of Plymouth.  Should be cool.

 

Cocoa Point, Barbuda 8 May 2015

 

 

 

We don’t talk too much about work. I mean, with the beautiful scenery and underwater adventures who needs to hear about the sunny days spent in the salon researching and writing?  Nonetheless, we chose not to stop work while we sail so some days are spent catching up with clients and drafting legal documents.There have been several challenges to working, not the least of which is the draw of the beach, including difficulty connecting to the Internet or getting fast enough speeds to download documents or perform research. Unfortunately, this has sometimes meant that when we find a place with a good connection we tend to stay instead of venturing out the way we thought we would. It means more time in marinas and less time on deserted beaches.

However, on Friday I finished and filed a brief that had been looming since St Maarten.  We celebrated by heading out to Barbuda, Antigua’s sister island about 26 miles to the north.  Barbuda is famous for being surrounded by coral heads that can reach out and grab a less-than-vigilant boat.  We got there with enough light to see a perfect anchorage, avoided the coral banks, and dropped the hook.  For the first night on our trip it was just R and me, no lights from land or other boats.  The sky was light up as we camped out on the trampoline admiring the stars. As a special treat, the Southern Cross is visible right now although it will soon retreat below the horizon again.

In the morning, we had a quick breakfast and swam in to the beach (snorkeling the coral banks on the way).  We walked about six miles round trip of perfect, pink sandy beach, watching needlefish hunt just below the surface and turtles pop their heads up from grazing the patches of grass.

After swimming back to the boat, we were called back to Antigua by real life responsibilities. Roger has a few motions to write and so we need Internet again. This is the problem with being lawyers at sea.

We got the Campbell’s back to their hotel on Sunday night in preparation for their Monday flight back to the States. Not sure it was the best vacation they ever had, but they were troopers through rashes, sore feet and a boat better suited for those with acrobatic skills. We hope they enjoyed the couple days circumnavigating St. Martin and the tour of the island they received. It was nice having them aboard.

 

We finished some chores in the morning and set sail around 2pm in anticipation of a fast sail on a tight reach overnight to Antigua, about 80nm away.  To make the trip a little easier, I wanted to get to the east of St Bart’s, giving us a clear sea lane all the way southeast. And everything started beautifully; which is about the time something goes wrong on a sailboat.

 

About six miles southeast of St Bart’s, just as a beautiful sunset was taking place off the stern, the GPS failed. Not such a big problem by itself, if you have read any earlier posts.  I had a couple redundant location devices including a nice tablet with charting software.  Determining where we were and how soon before Antigua was not going to be the problem.

 

The problem was that in modern sailboats, the GPS feed “talks” to other necessary instruments and equipment, for instance the autopilot and the wind direction/speed instruments. So with a glaring beeping alarm, the autopilot shut down and became useless. We were hand steering from here on through.  Not a terrible problem, I’ve raced for 3-4 days hand steering all the way.  No, the problem is that with two people, one making her first night watch or crossing, this was going to be a long and tedious night maintaining course and speed.  So, K took a nap in preparation for relieving me at the helm around 11pm, and I settled in steering SSE and watching the moon rise on the port bow. We were making great time on the tight reach, the magic machines all saying we’d be off our harbor entrance around 5am.

 

And then….just as K woke to take her watch, the wind headed more SE.  Now, there is one HUGE disadvantage to a cruising catamaran compared to a good monohull: she doesn’t go to windward worth a damn.  To minimize the banging and pitching and make any real VMG towards your target, the narrowest apparent wind angle is really about 50 degrees.  Meaning for you non-sailors, imagine you want to walk from the front door of the grocery store directly to your car, but instead turn right about 45 degrees.  Now walk straight, until the car is 90 degrees off your left side, now turn towards your car and proceed.  See the added distance you walked.  Ol’ Pythagorean had a simple formula for determining that distance, but he wasn’t a sailor, because the distance you sail is always longer than math tells you it is.  In our catamaran, the closest you get to direct, without the engines, or beating yourself and the boat to death is about 50 degrees.  This is a long way of saying that the new wind shifted, and on our present wind angle we’d more likely run aground on Nevis than make Antigua. So, the trusty Volvo Penta engines came on and K motor sailed with the sails sheet tight to help us head SE. This exponentially increased the banging and spray on board the boat, but at least I get to try to sleep for a couple hours.  Two…to be exact.

 

Needless to say, 5am came and went and we were not at our destination. But by 2pm, we had grabbed a mooring ball in Jolly Harbor, and I was in immigration and customs checking us in.  And to no one’s surprise, it was an early night, but we did find a big swimming pool at some adjacent vacation villas and thoroughly soaked our bodies before climbing into bed.

 

We spent the next couple days wandering Antigua for sim cards(because each $%&@+&$ country has its own network, despite all being run by one of two companies), finding a Raymarine technician that could find the time to look at our GPS problem, and running normal errands like ice/water/ laundry/cleaning. The pool and its associated bar with happy hour 2-1 drinks were put to good use each afternoon. And by Friday, with a handful of scuba tanks, we crossed to Barbuda for some “isolation” and pink sand beaches. I’ll tell you all about it in a couple days, but on first glance it looks deserted and amazing.

Before I get a huge pity party complaining about paradise on a sailboat, I will get my head on straight…just wait for it.

 

St. Maarten (Dutch side) and St. Martin (French side) make up a little seven-mile diameter island in the Northeast end of the Leeward Islands.  It’s labeled SXM, after the airport.  You’ve heard of it, or its close relative St. Barth’s. These are American/European tourist havens with huge timeshare complexes and mega/super-yachts sharing the same space with 115,000 residents and a million automobiles.  We spent the past week in SXM, and I have loved and hated this week.

 

First, the bad. We delayed arrival from Sunday until Monday thinking immigration and customs would be difficult on a Sunday afternoon.  We anchored in Orient Bay on Sunday, wandering the mile long French beach….yes, very French.  It was really funny watching the looks the four of us got as we wandered down the beach together, all of us obviously NOT locals, but browned from months in the tropics. Jen found us the steel pan band we needed at a locals bar/BBQ joint. And the evening passed with poo-poos and rum.

 

A swim early in the morning kept me awake at sunrise, so I got underway and we arrived bright and early Monday morning to a marina in Philipsburg that obviously didn’t want or need transient cruisers. The dock was five feet high and all concrete. The assistant on the dock tried to put us on the outer face, just as the five-time daily ferry sped by, slamming us against the concrete dock.  A quick reverse and new plan to the small accommodating marina with one space amongst all the day boats for the cruise ships which moored 1/2 mile away. So now, each morning the marina became a sea of pasty white and pink cruise ship prisoners, who boarded catamarans, speed boats and dive boats which all fled the marina between 8 and 930. Not so private and a little odd to have 20 strangers walk down the dock while you are having breakfast, morning constitutional, or recovering items left afield during the previous night’s revelry.

 

But, we did get a dock space, and I was promptly told that it was King’s Day and the immigration/customs would be closed. Doh!  See, the Dutch monarchy changed last year…after the guide books we had on the boat were published.  So, this new holiday date was different than the books.  OK, we can adapt, and maybe get something else done….nope, everything is closed and we are now stuck at the marina.  The crew decided to hijack a nearby pool and pool bar full of 60 year old retired Americans, boy did everyone have an incredible afternoon.  But K’s parents had arrived in one piece and were quickly assimilated to the pirate lifestyle.

 

On Tuesday, I tried again to get into customs and immigration, only to be told the officer had to run to the cruise terminal and I should come back in an hour or two.  Nope, other things to do.  I walked all over Philipsburg through three different cruise ship crowds trying to find a SIM card and data plan and get a couple errands run.  Only when I returned to the boat did I realize I dropped the BVI SIM card somewhere, and retraced my route in the heat and crowds.  Giving up, we taxied over to Maho Beach to watch the planes sandblast beachgoers at the end of the runway.

 

Moments before the office closed for the day, I finally got everyone legally checked into the country, despite having been here since Sunday.  And in an amazing bit of irony, the main Simpson Bay immigration and customs office was open both Sunday late and all day Monday, in direct contradiction to what we were told AND the very large sign that said “Closed on all public holidays.”  Live and learn.

 

We then needed the amazing farewell dinner at Crazy Cow Restaurant, an unsigned outdoor deck on the lagoon.  The required rum cup presentation followed at the adjacent Pink Iguana, a floating boat/bar in Simpson Lagoon.  Faye and Jen were awarded their copper rum cups for excellent service aboard the good ship Allergic to Cities.  While most pirate crew are given dram size rum cups, I knew that anything less than half-pint cups would be laughed at. Toasts were made all around and the girls proceeded to bang the cups on the bar to get more drinks.  Oh, how we will miss them.  According to my crew, the “cute” French bartender complemented the evening perfectly.

 

The 5:30AM knock on the boat by the marina security guard was WAY TOO EARLY, and predictably, the taxi was waiting and no one was packed.  Most belongings got shoved into bags, some being in bags upon bags already, and good-byes were said as tin and copper cups clanged from rucksacks.  It was the low point of the trip so far.  Thank you both SO MUCH for your laughter, music, and wit for the past three weeks. You are missed.

 

At this point, we decided to stay in the Philipsburg marina and rent a car to get around and to/from the Campbell’s hotel on Pelican Cay. We ran a bunch of boat errands and provisioned at the major package store and grocery since the island would be shut down Thursday and Friday for Carnival and Labour Day (note the superfluous “u”, at least it’s not a “zed”). We then drove to Marigot on the French side and gorged on bread and pastries.

It is a very cute French counterpart to Philipsburg.

 

Thursday brought Carnival parade and the entire Dutch side shuts down.  We spent the morning on the beach in the French town of Grande Case, which is a gastronomical paradise of no less than 30 restaurants along the beach front boulevard.

Then back to Philipsburg to watch the parade.  Our timing was perfect; we got into town just as the first marchers arrived after a three hour-five mile trek from Simpson Bay.  We grabbed gelato and watched the sweating dancers cavort through the street in their headdresses and costumes.  It was a very fun, if loud, experience.

 

Friday was chores, with another pool interlude.  Then, finally, on Saturday, I couldn’t bear being a floating hotel tied to a dock any longer and we set sail around the island with Clan Campbell aboard. They quickly took up appropriate positions:

We found some quiet bays to anchor in and dropped the family off on Sunday night in preparations for our trip to Antigua and their flight home.

 

So, why am I torn on SXM?  There are a dozen amazing anchorages and little towns and communities on both sides of the island that are perfect for cruisers to hide and assimilate.  The people seem warm and inviting, and the opportunities for good drink and food are endless.  The place is relatively cheap compared to BVI, but more expensive than Utila. Unfortunately, our logistics and obligations made that exploration difficult.  Additionally, the center for cruisers is Simpson Bay or Marigot, but getting through the draw bridges on schedule and getting everything else accomplished during a week of three holidays was difficult.  On top of that, there are a ton of people, everywhere.  From the locals, to the land based visitors, to the 3000-5000 cruise ship passengers daily, to the thousand cruiser families, this is a busy and crowded place.  After Utila and the boat for the past three months, this large number of people was a bit overwhelming and irritating.  Add in the obvious consumer nature of the island, it is duty-free after all, which is counter to my current ethos.  All of this was compounded by a week of unusually hot weather with minimal tradewind influence, and I just LOVE the heat.

 

Oh, and we lost two wonderful crew members that have been part of our lives for the past three months.  Two people who are amazingly unique and enjoyable.  I haven’t met many people that love the sea, scuba, adventure and life as much as these two and they taught us invaluable lessons in each area.

 

So, I have a love/hate about SXM.  I’d love to come visit this island without a timeline or agenda.  There are numerous bars, restaurants and pastries to be explored; hills to climbs and beaches to wander.  But as I am learning, you cannot do even part of the Leewards on a pre-arranged schedule of two-months.  I yearn to be more centered and open to the world as it is presented to me, not attempt to force it to meet my schedule or commitments.  However, I have to remember this is a sabbatical, and life changes are still yet to come.

 

No matter what other crap floods my brain, at the end of each day I remember something a very old taxi driver in BVI told us.  Bouncer, with a six-inch scar down his skull from being pistol whipped in his youth, says: “I can complain about my life, but then I look around and see that I live in paradise, so who would listen anyways?”  I am slowly learning there may be everything to embrace in that statement.

 

Off to Antigua and a rendezvous with Pirate Murray.  More adventures to come.

Adventures in cruising abound. Over the last few weeks, we have visited more beaches (and beach bars) than I can count. I’ve learned a sun-burn lesson about switching to bikinis with less coverage and a knife lesson about cutting apples while underway. Of course, I’ve also learned to drive a dinghy, read a radar screen, and find the dock with the best deal on water.

On Friday, I had a true first: sailing out of sight of land. We’ve been on cruising trips before and we’d had more than two weeks in the BVI, but even my longest day sailing had never taken me out of sight of land. We knew that the 70-something mile crossing from Virgin Gorda in the BVI to Anguilla (an island nation North of St. Maarten) was going to be the first real sail and for a few days before it I had been getting stressed. I had the feeling you get when you have an exam coming and you know you haven’t studied enough (or at all). Luckily for me, my husband and our lovely crew didn’t throw me overboard when I got snappish and touchy.

When you’re sailing and you have a long distance to cross the one thing that will ruin your trip is wind coming from exactly where you’re heading. We’d been hoping for a Northerly wind that would push us straight to Anguilla with little motoring and a speed over 7 knots. There were about two days of Northerly wind, but they happened while R’s mom and aunt were with us – a full week before we could leave the BVI. So we kept watching the weather, knowing that we wanted to get to St. Maarten before my parents arrive on the 27^th. The reports were not good and were only getting worse. Even motoring, we’d only be able to make 5 knots in the best case and 3 or so in the worst. Suddenly the 70 mile trip was going to take over 14 hours and we’d be running the engines the whole time.

Then we had a choice, do we make the passage at night or during the day. We knew we wanted to arrive in Anguilla during the day so that we could see where we were going (and more importantly, where we were dropping anchor). But if we did the crossing over night, it meant taking watches during which I would be the most experienced sailor conscious. Hence, the feeling like I hadn’t prepared enough for the exam. The passage between Virgin Gorda and Anguilla is also heavily populated by freighters and cruise ships, most of which make the crossing during the night. Ultimately, we decided to spend one last day on the beach in Leverick Bay and leave before sunrise with R taking the first watch and me taking a shift at some point during the day.

So the alarm went off at 3:30 a.m. and R snuck out of bed to cast us off the mooring ball and start the trip to Anguilla. By the time I got up to see the sunrise, Virgin Gorda was quickly disappearing from the horizon. All around us was blue water, blue sky, and clouds. I took a short shift at the wheel (after unsuccessfully trying to make a hot cup of tea) and found myself wondering how sailors did this without compasses or stars to guide them. There’s no reference point; no feature to guide you. Luckily for us, we have GPS, a magnetic compass, and autopilot.

As we crossed we saw seabirds landing in sargossa grass islands, like desert oases in the long flight between islands. At about four o’clock in the afternoon, Anguilla’s outlying islands began to appear on the horizon and R cried, “land ho,” much to everyone’s pleasure. It took us over three more hours before we made it to the harbor. Along the way, I spotted a whale spouting and we watched attentively as it breached and tail slapped. We watched the sunset behind us, looking for the mythological green flash and counting as it was going, going, going, gone.