We left Antigua last Thursday morning for the 40-mile bash to Guadeloupe. And bash it was, with winds of 20-25knots on the nose as usual. The seas weren't quite as bad as they were on the trip from St Kitts to Antigua, so it was marginally more enjoyable. But one of these days we'll actually sail on a beam reach (wind pretty much perpendicular to the boat), or even with the wind behind us and won't that be a treat!

Guadeloupe is one of 2 large French islands in the Caribbean, the other being Martinique. There are something like 420,000 French living on Guadeloupe, and in a lot of respects is just like a sliver of France in the Caribbean. In fact the French have always considered their colonies as little slices of France, so it's no wonder places like Guadeloupe are so much like France. The British pretty much cut and ran, leaving their former colonies without much in the way of economies to sustain them. Denmark sold its Caribbean colonies. The Spanish lost theirs through revolution or in the Spanish-American War. But the French have maintained their ex-colonies as official overseas departments of France.

We arrived in the little fishing port of Des Haies (pronounced Day Hay). We tried to clear in at customs, but it appeared they were only open from 2PM until 3PM each day. So we retired to the boat, had a nice dinner, and went to bed. Next morning we hit the local boulangerie where we had pain de chocolate and croissants and cafe au lait. The French are very civilized about their food! Afterwards we walked up the hill out of town to the local botanical garden and had a lovely morning enjoying a very well-presented tropical botanical garden. The flowers were gorgeous and hopefully some of the pictures will turn up on our new re-done web site in the photo galleries once Maryann gets around to posting them.

Friday afternoon we left Des Haies, proceeding south down the coast toward Basse Terre, the largest city on the west side of Guadeloupe. But the winds were fluky, coming from all different directions, and occasionally blowing between 25 and 30knots! And Basse Terre looked to be a pretty industrial town, not terribly charming, and with very little local yachting infrastructure. So we decided to keep going the additional 8 miles or so to the Iles des Saintes, a group of 8 small islands off the southern coast of Guadeloupe.

The Isle des Saintes define French island charm in the Caribbean. The main village of Grand-Bourg on Terre de Haut, the largest of the 8 islands was all white buildings with red roofs and just jam-packed with Gallic charm. We arrived just at sunset, dropped our anchor in nearly 40 feet of water (I think the deepest we've yet anchored), and went ashore to get a Friday-night pizza. Our Palo Alto routine included a pizza and movie every Friday night. We've not been able to be consistent with it in the past several months, but it was nice to be back in the routine.

We spent the weekend eating French food, walking to the beach, taking photos of the houses, and climbing up the hill to the requisite fort built high above the town. We didn't seem to accomplish much else, though I suspect Maryann did more than I. Monday we finally checked into customs and immigration. I have to say the French are also quite civilized about this. We filled out the customs declaration form in the town hall. The local gendarmerie (police) faxed the forms off to Point a Pitre, the capital of Guadeloupe, and 25 minutes we had our clearance in and our outbound clearance both.

Yesterday morning we weighed anchor and set out for Dominica, a fairly short 16nm jaunt just south of Iles des Saintes. I went below as I'm liable to do for passages - they aren't particularly exciting, and I find closed eyes keep the dread mal de mer at bay. Midway through Maryann asked for my help on deck - we were seeing winds between 25 and 30knots! And of course, right on the nose. We needed to reef the mainsail to keep the boat somewhat more manageable. After reefing, and about 30 minutes later we completely lost the wind. From very, very gusty to almost nothing, very odd. We motored down to Portsmouth, the first town and anchorage on Dominica.

Dominica (stress on the first syllable!) is one of the least developed of all the Caribbean islands. The people have decided that protecting their islands natural beauty and environment is the only way they're going to keep tourism flourishing, so the island has many nature reserves and the local guides are well-trained and know their natural history. This morning we took a tour up the Indian River with a guide by the name of Albert. Albert was full of info on the flora and fauna as he rowed us up the first 3/4 mile of the river. No engines allowed. The tour was spectacular. It was much like a Disneyland Jungle ride, but this was completely authentic, no plastic and no concrete and no track for the boat to ride on. The jungle was so spooky in places that they actually used it in filming the Pirates of the Caribbean, parts 2 and 3 - it was the jungle home of the voodoo priestess. Hopefully some of the pictures will turn out, despite it being pretty dark back there under the trees.

After the tour we returned to the boat and motored the 16 miles along the western coast of Dominica to the capital of Roseau. We had dinner at what was supposed to be a pretty good Creole restaurant in town, yet again proving that we often eat much better on the boat than ashore (not true of St Barts or Iles des Saintes, though!). Tomorrow we're going to do a short outing to a local waterfall in the morning (when describing Dominica to Ferdinand and Isabella, Columbus took a piece of paper, wadded it up, and threw it on the table, saying that the island was similarly sharp peaks and deep valleys). And that brings us up to date. We're expecting some mail and a boat part to fix the aft head to arrive in the next couple of days. After that we're off for Martinique.

Good news, the web site is up! The blog journals have not been incorporated, but we're releasing anyway! Just think of it as a "beta." =^)

If you're reading this you know that svAurora.com still gets you to the blog. To access the new site, use the URL svaurora.com/newsite.

For those of you who like pictures (Julia are you reading this?) there is a photo gallery on the site with photos from our journey. On the "Our Location" page you can view our route as well as link to a list of all the places we've stayed. A .kmz file of our route can be downloaded and opened with Google Earth. Zoom in to see where Aurora has been. "The Boat" page has info on the boat and, yes, more pictures!

The blog journals will soon be incorporated and accessible from the "Our Journey" page. Once that happens, we will post and maintain our journals on the site.

It took a while to build the web site as I had to teach myself HTML and CSS. I tried using an application to create the HTML files, but it just didn't do what I wanted. So, I taught myself HTML with a tutorial Ken found online. Went through the entire thing, 29 lessons in all, only to find out that it was outdated! All of the HTML style source I learned to write from the tutorial was deprecated. No fair! CSS was what I needed to master. Who knew? (Erik!) To add to my challenge, I was trying to learn all of this while embarking on a new lifestyle in which access to the Internet was and is iffy. Thus what would have probably taken your average 20 year old a weekend or two to pull together took me 7 months. But it works, is easy to navigate and has lots of pictures!

Enough about the new web site. Check it out!

Last I wrote, we were in St Maarten and not sure of our next destination. Well, we've sailed to Statia, St Kitts, Antigua and are currently in Guadeloupe.

I was not so taken with Statia or St Kitts. Not sure why, maybe because St Maarten, Saba and St Barts had been such interesting and beautiful islands. Nevertheless, we spent a bit of time on each and took a tour of St Kitts. As always, the European history of the islands lives on in building ruins as well as preserved fortifications built by the English, Dutch, French and Spanish. On Statia, we visited Fort Oranje, built by the Dutch. In the mid to late 1700's tiny Statia, less than 4 miles wide and 5 miles long, was the trade capital of the West Indies with one to two hundred ships anchored in the harbor on any given day. Amazing.

From Oranjestad on Statia, we sailed to Basseterre on St Kitts where we stayed in Port Zante Marina. So nice to have access to shore power and showers with unlimited water. Shore power means we can run the air conditioner. A treat!

On St Kitts we visited yet another rebuilt fort, Brimstone Hill Fortress, an impressive structure situated on an 800 foot high hill overlooking the western side of the island. Built by the British, it served to protect the island as well as the sugar cane grown there. Today Fort Brimstone is a National Park. Pictures of the Brimstone Hill Fortress can be found in the Photo Gallery on our new site.

From Basseterre, we sailed 6 miles south to Ballast Bay on the southern end of St Kitts where we anchored for a night. Took advantage of the bay's clean, calm water to jump in and scrub the hull. Some nasty red marine life had made our hull its home. Took us most of the afternoon to clean it all off. Ken donned his SCUBA gear and scrubbed the keel, prop and underside. I snorkeled and cleaned at the water line and below. Our boat looks much better, and with the prop and bottom clean we are motoring at speed.

Our motor-sail from St Kitts to Antigua was not fun, 50 miles all directly into 20+ knot winds and 6 to 8 foot seas. Every wave brought water over the bow and sometimes into the cockpit. Nice to have that 10 hours behind us.

We spent two nights anchored in Jolly Harbor, Antigua. The day we arrived one of Ken's fillings came out. So he needed to see a dentist. Fortunately our guide book had a recommendation for a dentist in St. Johns, the largest city on Antigua and only 5 miles from the harbor. Ken called. The dentist had an 11:00 a.m. opening. We grabbed a cab and headed over. The tooth was refilled quickly, and we were on our way. A pleasant experience. So far we have found medical services easy to obtain and not too expensive. I visited an ENT in St Martin for a persistent cough. He was able to see me the day after I called. Turns out I have an allergy that caused and irritation in my trachea resulting in a cough. The medicine prescribed appears to have helped.

From Jolly Harbor we sailed to English Harbor located on Antigua's southern coast. English Harbor is home to Fort Berkeley (yet another European fort) and Nelson's Dockyard National Park. The Nelson Dockyard, circa 1745, is in the process of being restored. Several buildings have already been renovated and now house a museum, shops, restaurants, a bakery, a marina, yacht services, customs, laundry, showers and more.

Like Statia and St Kitts, Antigua did not capture my fancy. Again, I'm not sure why. Maybe it was the people. They were not as warm and welcoming as on many of the islands. Maybe it was the weather. Hot. Maybe we didn't make an effort to tour the island and see what it had to offer. The cab ride to the dentist was not a beautiful drive, but we thought of it as our "tour." English Harbor was interesting, but it lacked life. The season's over and the park was, for the most part, empty-many of the restaurants were closed, there were only a few boats in the marina, the shops had no customers. Felt too quiet for a national park. On the up side, the laundry and showers were empty and clean. I did three loads of wash and cleaned myself!

An interesting thing happened when we were clearing out of customs from Antigua. (We must clear in and usually out of customs and immigration in each country we visit.) We were told that we could not clear out due to a court order to seize Aurora, our boat! We were shown the order and told we would not be issued a clearance and could not leave. We said that the order was not for our Aurora as we were not the owners listed on the court document. So we had to produce our boat registration and wait as the Senior Custom Officer reviewed it ever so slowly and carefully. Once done, she said to the clerk in a curt manner, "not the same boat," and that was that. We were cleared out.

We left English Harbor and again motored into the wind, this time for 41 miles from Antigua to Guadeloupe. Although the wind was blowing 20 knots, the seas were not so big. The passage was enjoyable. At least it was for me. Ken was below lying down on the bunk. We arrived at Deshaies (Day-hay) in the afternoon, and anchored in the harbor for the night.

Ken has posted a couple of journals since my last update. See the May 17th and May 23rd postings. He writes more about the island histories and the latest boat issues than I do.

Don't forget to check out the web site at svAurora.com/newsite.


Safe Passages,

Maryann

Last Friday we managed to get a quick tour of St Kitts. As with most of the other Caribbean islands, Christopher Columbus was the first European that we know of who "discovered" St Christopher. Guess he likedit well enough to name it after his saint's name. The local Caribs pretty much had the place to themselves for the next 100 years or so, until 1623 when they allowed both the British and the French to colonize the island. The locals were rewarded 3 years later at Bloody Point when the Europeans massacred 2000 of them, which pretty much marked the end of the indigenous population. It was said the creek at Bloody Point ran red with blood for 3 days. Way to go, ancestors!

The British eventually took complete control of St Kitts, developing it into one of the most successful and prosperous sugar-growing islands amongst its colonies. They built a formidable fort on top of Brimstone Hill that guarded the sugar plantations from the French and Spanish. Of course the sugar plantations were only economically viable using slave labor, so when the slaves were emancipated by the British in 1833, the sugar plantation life pretty much died. Sugar continued to be the primary export in St Kitts, but absentee British landlords were no longer running things. But the sugar beet has pretty much made sugar cane uneconomical and the government of St Kitts closed the state-run sugar cane processing facility a couple of years ago. St Kitts is now dependent on tourism for foreign exchange.

Our taxi tour took in Bloody Point, the Caribelle batik factory on the grounds of a beautifully landscaped old British sugar plantation manor house, some pre-Columbian rock carvings, and the rather impressive old British fort on Brimstone Hill.

We stayed at the Port Zante marina for 3 days. The marina is relatively small, as St Kitts doesn't attract a lot of cruisers and charterers. Rather Port Zante is yet another mega-cruise ship terminal, with 3 or 4 of the behemoths putting in on any given day. That is, in season. During hurricane season, the cruise ships pretty much avoid the area and the next cruise ship visit to St Kitts won't be until October. Three major hurricanes since 1995 have required the Kittitians to rebuild Port Zante, so no cruise ship wants to be caught here in a big blow. It was pretty eerie walking around this 25-acre port with all its duty-free shops, and no customers. We paid our marina fees and took a tour, but we didn't buy anything from the shops.

Sunday we left bright and early for Antigua, a 48-mile trip directly into the wind. Once again we eschewed sailing, as gentlemen do not sail to weather, and motorsailed the entire way. It took us 10 very uncomfortable hours bashing our way through 6-8ft seas. Even though we left at 6AM we didn't arrive until 4PM, just as customs was closing. We chose to arrive at Jolly Harbour, a large fairly recent marina and real-estate development on the west coast of Antigua since the main harbor of St John is primarily given over to cruise ships. We could have headed to the more pleasant harbors on the southern coast of Antigua, we didn't want to extend the day any more than we had to after the long trip from St Kitts, so Jolly Harbour it was.

Monday morning we cleared customs and immigration and called a recommended dentist. A couple of days previously I'd gotten over-zealous with flossing and managed to pop a small filling out of one of my teeth. Our cruising guide had a recommendation for a dentist, so we called around 9AM Monday morning. They had a slot at 11AM, so we grabbed a taxi to St Johns, the main town on Antigua. Dr. SenGupta had a very modern office in a small strip mall just outside St Johns. The dental equipment was all swoopie-doopie modern, much newer than that of my regular dentist back home. Dr. SenGupta was a U Mich grad, and was much younger than I would have expected, maybe in his mid-30's. He was fast, painless, and efficient and had the filling replaced in about 10 minutes. Total cost was just a bit over $100. All in all a very positive experience.

One of the major reasons we were in Antigua was to get the local Fischer Panda dealer to service our generator. It's no longer putting out the correct voltage, and we figured the official service location would do a better job than someone who's not as familiar with the brand. But when we called the local dealer (based on Fischer Panda's web site list of international service centers) we find they are not at all associated with Fischer Panda and have no idea how they ended up being listed so on their web site.

So, since Jolly Harbour wasn't too terribly interesting from a touristy point of view, we decided to head to English Harbour on the south coast yesterday. We managed to sail for about 2 miles down the west coast of Antigua, in very fluky winds, then motored the remaining 8 miles, you guessed it, directly into the wind.

English Harbour was Britain's main naval shipyard in the Caribbean back in the 18th and 19th centuries. Nelson was stationed here for a few years, and the dockyard is, in fact, called Nelson's Dockyard. It's a charming reconstruction of an 18th century naval outpost and is the center of yachting on Antigua, one of the main yachting centers in the Caribbean. But the season has passed and the place is quiet and getting to be nearly deserted. Just a couple of weeks ago they had the Antigua Race Week headquartered here, with hundreds of yachts participating. Now most of the boats have either left, or have pulled out of the water for hurricane season. Apparently English Harbour, and the adjacent Falmouth Harbour are pretty good "hurricane holes", locations where a boat has a good chance of riding through a major hurricane. But given the imminent approach of hurricane season, most of the yachties have gone.

We'd rather get completely out of the hurricane belt, so tomorrow we'll probably continue our voyage south, heading across the 40 miles or so that separates us from Guadeloupe. Then Dominica, Martinique, St Lucia, the Grenadines, Grenada, and finally Trinidad. We want to be in Trinidad by the first week of July, as hurricanes, though uncommon in June and July, are not unheard of.

It's done! Version 1.0 of the web site is complete. Well, we don't quite have the blog linked into it yet, but other than that it's ready for prime time. Until we can get the blog merged with it you can find the new web site at

www.svaurora.com/newsite

Congratulations to Maryann who knew nothing about building a web site when we left California and is now a pretty fair website builder.

We have a new web site coming! Maryann completed a first pass at it a couple of days ago and we should be going live with it momentarily. Meanwhile, in the process of uploading the new web pages I managed to screw up the old blog, which means if you're seeing this, then you're either fairly clever about the web, or it's gotten fixed. Let's hope the latter.

And yes, the new site has lots and lots of pictures.

Meanwhile, you're stuck with my text.

Last Thursday we ordered a replacement part to fix the aft head (our toilet). Maryann asked them to send it overnight. When it hadn't arrived by Monday afternoon she called. Apparently they sent it US Mail. We have no idea when it might arrive, but once it does we'll have to have the outfit on St Maarten forward it on to us, wherever we happen to be.

Tuesday morning we pulled the anchor, fueled up, cleared out with customs and immigration, and caught the 9:30AM bridge opening to leave Simpson Bay Lagoon. We set a course south for St. Eustatius, about 30 miles away. Wouldn't you know the wind was enough out of the southeast that we ended up close-hauled the entire way! The wind was up and the seas were up, so we spent a fairly uncomfortable 5-6 hours motorsailing into the wind, yet again. Not fun being heeled over, getting pushed about by "confused" seas, with the wind gusting over 20 knots. By the way, "confused" seas means the waves come from more than 1 direction, giving a very rough and uneven ride.

One reason we motorsailed is because the generator isn't working well and we needed to make water the entire time we were in the open ocean. We can't (rather we don't want to) make water in polluted harbors like Simpson Bay Lagoon on Sint Maarten, and we generally wait for passages between the islands. The new salinity probe for the watermaker had failed soon after installation, but power-cycling the watermaker had it working well enough to make water the entire way between St Maarten and St Eustatius.

St Eustatius, more commonly known as Statia is another of the Netherlands Antilles. During the 1700's it was the busiest port in the world! It was a duty-free port, whereas the French, British and Spanish ports all levied very high taxes, so little Statia served as a trans-shipment point for cargoes of all kinds. In 1776 an American warship showed up in the harbor and, as was the custom, saluted the island with a 13-gun salute. The Dutch governor made the dreadful mistake of returning the salute, albeit an 11-gun salute. It was a memorable moment for the very young United States - its first formal recognition as a sovereign country. It was a dreadful mistake for Statia, because the British fleet under Admiral Romney came along and blasted the hell out of the place. Romney occupied it, looting absolutely everything they could. That was the beginning of the end for Statia. A couple of nasty hurricanes, an earthquake or two, and 22 changes in European owners in the last 200+ years, and that was it for a once very rich little island. Nowadays there's not much to see other than a nicely restored Dutch fort, a church or two, and some reportedly very nice scuba diving. Later edit: forgot to mention that Statia is the oil reshipment terminal for the Caribbean which had us dodging huge tankers, one that was more than a thousand feet long. The island also had a large tank farm up on a hill and an off-shore oil transfer buoy. Strange to see amid all these island paradises.

We grabbed a mooring in the harbor, with a lot of ruins and restored ruins on shore, immediately below the fort. We cleared in with customs and immigration (even though we had just left Sint Maarten, another of the Netherlands Antilles!) and walked about the town and the fort. It seemed like every few feet there was yet another plaque commemorating the First Salute. Nice place, actually, but definitely on the quiet side.

That evening we suffered what was probably the most rolly anchorage ever. The boat went from side to side, often rolling through arcs of 60 degrees. Sleeping was way difficult and come morning we couldn't wait to go on to St Kitts, another 20 miles south. It was a near repeat of the previous day, though this time the seas were slightly less confused, the wind was even more on the nose, and the wind was up to 23-26 knots consistent, with gusts to 28 and 29! We really only had an uncomfortable ride the first 10 miles, as once we got into the lee of St Kitts the seas settled nicely. The wind, however, howled the whole way.

We arrived in Basseterre, the capital of St Kitts yesterday in the early afternoon. Clearing customs and immigration and the harbor authorities took its usual couple of hours. The harbor here at Basseterre had swells to rival those on Statia, so with the boat rolling wildly, we decided to try the marina. The marina cost here is only 75cents/foot/night (marina costs are based on how long your boat is). That's considerably less expensive than we've seen previously. The most expensive we were ever quoted was in Newport, RI, $4.75/foot/night! Aurora is 46 feet, so marinas can get pricey. Anyway, the marina here, Port Zante, is small, inexpensive, and nice, having been originally built in 1995 and then re-built with a new cruise-ship dock and shopping area after hurricane Georges in 1998.

We spent the day doing a bit of cleaning (not me), and catching up on internet and getting the new web site ready. We've been without internet since Tuesday morning, horrors! :-) Tomorrow we expect to do some touring of the island. There are apparently no cruise ships scheduled in here until the end of hurricane season in November, so the local taxi drivers should be amenable to some bargaining for taxi tours. Last night we had a wonderful dinner at a place called Rock Walls, a restaurant in an open courtyard, surrounded by lush plantings and the eponymous rock walls. Tonight's more mundane, probably a sausage and cheese omelet on the boat. Can't be eating out all the time.

We'll send out a note when the new web site goes live.

We last left our intrepid adventurers (at least in my journal) sitting in Sint Maarten, the Dutch side of St Martin/Sint Maarten, waiting for our friends Dave and Kathy to arrive. Maryann has given a nice recounting of their visit, with pictures, so I'll talk about some other stuff.

First off, the island of St Martin (French side)/Sint Maarten (Dutch side), the world's smallest land mass occupied by two sovereign countries. The French side is administered by France through its overseas department of Guadeloupe. The Dutch side is administered by the loose island confederation of the Netherlands Antilles. The French and Dutch have amicably shared the island for hundreds of years. The apocryphal story of how they divided it is amusing. It is said that a Frenchman, with a bottle of wine, and Dutchman, with a bottle of gin, set out from their respective sides of the island, to meet somewhere in the center, thus setting the dividing line. French wine being somewhat less intoxicating than Dutch gin led the Frenchman to cover more ground than the Dutchman, leaving the French in control of roughly 2/3's of the island.

Be that as it may, the island is quite delightful. The French side is truly French, just like a small slice of the French Riviera transplanted to the Caribbean. The Dutch side is much more like the states, with English being most frequently spoken and most transactions denominated in the US dollar. The entire island is duty-free, and both sides have numerous businesses catering to the yacht trade. On the Dutch side of the island we have 2 chandleries that are the equal of, or better than anything we have in the states.

And we were in need of chandleries. As Maryann noted in her last entry, we managed to show our guests, Dave and Kathy, exactly how a sailboat in the Caribbean can break. We had the age-old problem of insufficient amps and interminable charging times with the batteries. The generator now refuses to put out adequate voltage. The aft head (the one we use!) had seawater coming up through the sink on our last starboard-tack sail from Saba to St Barths, and the seawater got into the Vacuflush toilet's control panel, corroding it beyond repair. There was other stuff as well, but those were the biggies.

Unfortunately the extremely well-stocked local chandleries didn't stock the Vacuflush control panel. We've got one that was 'overnighted' from a stateside distributor. We ordered it on Thursday; hopefully it will arrive tomorrow, Monday. We also need to figure out why closing the sink thru-hull still allows seawater to enter the boat when it's closed!

But the big news is I think I've finally resolved the battery issues that have been plaguing us since we took possession of the boat last August. Recall that we were only getting about half the amps out of our batteries that we should have and that charging the batteries took something like twice as long as it should have. Of course that was really all the data we needed to diagnose the problem, we just didn't know it. We hired a local electrics firm, Electec, to consult on the problem. Their working ammeter (don't ask why mine wasn't working!) told the story in absurdly simple terms: the panel I use to monitor the batteries only reports on 2 of the 4 house batteries!

So instead of only having 230AH of capacity before we're half-discharged, we actually have 460AH. And instead of needing to recharge 230AH of capacity we really need to recharge 460AH of capacity. It seems so damn simple relating it here, but for a variety of reasons we just couldn't get it until yesterday. One problem was one of our batteries was indeed weak and needed replacement and here in St Maarten we actually could find the correct replacement. A simple explanation, but one that begs the question of why we're consuming 460AH of electricity (about 5500 watts - the equivalent of running a handheld hair dryer for 5 hours) every 18-24 hours. But now that we know what the issue really is we can more closely monitor our electrical usage. We do know our refrigeration/freezer system is the big consumer of amps, and we also are consuming a lot of power with our computers.

We're still sitting here in the Simpson Bay Lagoon, waiting for the toilet control panel. Hopefully it'll arrive tomorrow, we can get it installed, and then be on our way again. It's getting late in the season. In fact, "the season" has really passed here in St Maarten and in St Barths. We're into the hump between the winter/spring season and the summer/fall hurricane season. Everybody's leaving and the marinas and the lagoon have seriously emptied in just the past couple of weeks. We need to be getting along ourselves. Florida already had the first named storm of the season and the official hurricane season doesn't start until the first of June.

We'll keep a close eye on the weather as we head south, and I suspect we'll move fairly quickly through the French islands of Guadeloupe, Dominica, and Martinique. We'd like to meet our friends Mike and Lori who are chartering the last couple of weeks of June in the Grenadines. Then it'll be on to Trinidad where we'll pull Aurora out of the water and store her from late July until around the first of November. We'll be flying to the bay area in late July for Julia and Morgan's wedding, and then we need to kill some time before we return to the Caribbean in October. Current thought is to procure a small camper van and spend the latter part of the summer and early fall car-camping and hiking around the west. Unless we get any better offers.

The Leeward Islands of the Caribbean are delightful—gorgeous beaches, perfect blue water, easy to access harbors and a quaint European look and feel. Per my last update, we scooted quickly through the British Virgin Islands. But not without an overnight at Cooper Island to dive the wreck of the Rhone, British mail ship that sank in a hurricane off of Salt Island in the in 1867, and to stop at Virgin Gorda.

We spent two nights in Gorda Sound off Virgin Gorda. Stormy weather kept us on the boat for a day. Still we made it over to Saba Rock, a small rock island about an acre in size, that is home to a hotel, restaurant and gift shop. Only way to get there is on a boat. We took the dinghy over and enjoyed a meal at the Saba Rock Restaurant. The Kilbride family lived on the Rock and ran a SCUBA dive shop from there for many, many years. They sold the Rock to a restaurateur who developed it into the resort it is today. Ken has more info regarding the Kilbride family and Saba Rock on his "On the watery road again" blog of April 26th.

From the BVI we sailed the 80-mile passage overnight to Sint Maarten/St Martin, an island that is home to two different nations, France and The Netherlands. We left at 4:30 p.m. expecting to arrive at about 6:30 a.m. the next morning. However, the wind was more favorable than forcasted and we sailed (without the help of the motor) at 7 plus knots! We had to slow down so as not to get to the anchorage before sunrise!

Our friends Dave and Kathy joined us in St Maarten. We toured the island and took in the highlights. Maho Beach lies just across the fence from the international airport runway. Jets land, just clearing the fence at the end of the runway. Jets takeoff at the end of the runway and the force of the air flow coming out of the jet engines is so strong it blows sand across the beach, pushes people down and makes the tropical beach look like a desert during a sand storm.

Oriental Beach is home to the Naturist Resort on Saint Martin where one can enjoy "fine dining, water sports, sunbathing and sailing cruises au naturel." We walked the non-resort section of Oriental Beach. It was packed with brightly colored umbrellas, red, yellow, turquoise and green, shading rows and rows of lounge chairs filled with sunbathers. Each colored section was serviced by a different beach bar/grill. Like all beaches on St Martin, topless sunbathing is customary. Unlike many of the beaches, it was crowded. People watching was a kick. At one of the open-air restaurants, we ate lunch, listened to live music and watched folks stroll along the water's edge. The music was loud enough to be heard by beach strollers. We could see them as the sound of the music hit their consciousness and they were drawn into the island rhythm and began to dance. An older couple, who had walked over from the Naturist Resort in only their matching thongs, began dancing to the music. Other sunbathers joined in the fun. Soon there was a group of barely clad folks spontaneously dancing and enjoying themselves as they walked along the water's edge. In the restaurant, another senior couple (fully clothed) got up and danced the merengue. A toddler joined the dancing. A joy-filled afternoon.

St Maarten's carnival was going on while were we there, and so we got to see a third carnival parade. This one was my favorite. The costumes were over-the-top and the young women beautiful. Unlike the Dominican Republic Carnival, St Maarten's event was a parade. The crowd stood along the sidewalk behind a rope and watched. No beating the devil out of folks at this one. Each Carnival parade has its own flavor. It has been interesting to attend Carnival parades on three different islands.

From St Maarten we sailed to Anguilla, a low lying island north of St. Maarten. Not much there. We only stayed two nights and one day. From Anguilla, we sailed to Saba.

I had never heard of Saba. What an interesting place. The island is the top of a volcanic mountain. The sides drop steeply into the ocean. There are no beaches on Saba. For hundreds of years the only way to get onto the island was via a steep stairway made up of over 800 steps cut into the rock. Today there is a small harbor and a road that one can take from the harbor up to Bottom one of the two main villages on Saba. The other is Windwardside. The inhabitants of Saba are confident and industrious people of Irish, Dutch, Scottish and African decent. In the 1950's they asked the Dutch government to have engineers evaluate their island for a road. The result of this evaluation was that a road could not be built on Saba. The islanders did not accept this answer. Josephus Hassel took a correspondence course in road building and designed the road that goes from Bottom to Windwardside. The islanders worked together to build the road. It took them 20 years, but today one can drive around Saba on "the road that couldn't be built." The other road on Saba, that goes down to Wells Bay on the same side of the island at the 800 stone steps, is know by some taxi drivers as "the road that shouldn't have been built" as it is very steep.

Saba was the cleanest island I've seen. No litter, lovely white buildings with red roofs and green shutters. Flowers everywhere. The Sabans are a proud people who take care of their island. There is a medical school on Saba with a student body of 300. The medical school, along with tourism and a gravel quarry are the main industries of the island.

From Saba, we sailed to St Barts where we stayed in the harbor at Gustavia for two days and in Anse De Colombier for a night. Visiting St Barts was like a trip to France – everyone spoke French, many people drove tiny cars and the bakery where we had breakfast could have been lifted from a street in France. The French presidential run-off election took place during our visit. The results were announced while we eating lunch at a local restaurant. The folks at the tables around us started clapping. I felt like I was in Europe and not the Caribbean.

Kathy, Dave, Ken and I rented scooters for a day and drove all over the island, which is only 5 miles square. Unlike Saba, St Barts has some amazing beaches.

From St Barts we sailed back to St Maarten so Dave and Kathy could catch their flight. We'll be staying for a few days in St Maarten to work on the boat. As always, things are in need of repair. The aft head switch got drenched in salt water and the toilet no longer works. Electronics and salt water don't mix. This means the aft head does not flush. No fun! The generator needs attention. Ken will be looking at it tomorrow. I have some sewing projects that need tending to and the stainless on the boat is in want of polishing, again. Dave and Kathy got to see all sides of cruising, the amazing places one gets to visit, the outdoor life of the sailor and the never-ending boat repairs that are part of the lifestyle.

I'm not sure which island we'll visit next. Once we address the boat issues, we'll decide. We plan to be in Trinidad by the mid July.

Maryann

Here are pictures from our past three weeks. Dave took many of these photos.

Jets landing over Maho Beach on St. Maarten.






















Beach sand and the adventurous being blown by the force of jet engines. Maho Beach, St Maarten. Photo taken by Dave Cornelius.






















Maryann watching the jets land. Photo taken by Dave Cornelius.



















Oriental Beach, St Martin. Beach bars/restaurants and lounge chairs abound!





















Philipsburg, home of St Maarten's Carnival. A look at the harbor from town.
Photo taken by Dave Cornelius.



































Another shot of the harbor at Philipsburg. (Potential Heineken ad?) Photo taken by Dave Cornelius.


















Carnival in St Maarten.



















Carnival in St Maarten. Photo taken by Dave Cornelius.



















Carnival in St Maarten. Photo taken by Dave Cornelius.



















Carnival in St Maarten.
































On Anguilla, we landed the dinghy on the beach. Kathy, Maryann and Ken. Photo taken by Dave Cornelius.



















The steps are hard to see, but this is a picture of the stone stairs on Saba. There are over 800 steps up the cliff from the bay. Until the 1940's, the only way to get supplies onto the island was to carry them up these steps. It is said that at different times both a piano and a bishop were carried up these steps. Photo taken by Dave Cornelius.
































Sunset, Ladder Bay, Saba. Photo taken by Dave Cornelius.



















Ken in the cockpit. Sunset, Ladder Bay, Saba. Photo taken by Dave Cornelius.


















Gustavia Harbor, St Barts. Aurora is the boat with the blue hull, furthest away in the second row of boats in the harbor. No, not the mega yacht!





















Street in Gustivia, St Barts. Charming. Photo taken by Dave Cornelius.



















We toured St Barts on Scooters. Fun day! Photo taken by Dave Cornelius.