Holiday Greetings from the Caribbean!

We are sailing! or at least we were. Rodney Bay on St. Lucia is where we're located right now. On December 10th we finally left Chaguaramas Harbor and headed north to Grenada. Most of the boat work was completed and those few items not done could wait.

If you've been reading our journal you know that Ken beat me to the punch and posted his Dinghy Farewell blog before I sent out my update. So here's my version of the story.

On our crossing from Trinidad to Grenada the seas were high, 10 to 12 feet, but the winds light. So it was a rolly crossing, up and down, up and down with the swells, but no chop, due to no wind. I got seasick for the first time! Guess I needed to get my "sea legs" back as I've been fine ever since. However as we continued north in our goal to reach Guadeloupe to meet Theresa for Christmas the winds picked up and the seas did not calm down. Still sailing was doable. Since we were in the Grenadines where island hops are short, 7 to 15 miles at a stretch, we continued to move north motor sailing into the Christmas winds during the day and anchoring at night. Although the weather was not ideal, seas of 10 plus feet and winds blowing 25 knots, we felt comfortable with the conditions and so set sail.

From Union island we sailed to Bequia and from there on to St Vincent. On Sunday morning we left St Vincent's Wallilabou Bay, a beautiful little harbor where the dock scenes from the Pirates of the Caribbean movie were shot. Crossing the St Vincent channel to St Lucia, we knew the winds would be gusting to 30 knots and the seas high, but we'd been sailing in this weather since Grenada, and so set sail for the longer 35-mile course without worry. And without a thought we continued to pull our dinghy behind us as we'd been doing all week rather than securing it up on the arch. Bad idea. The open sea passage between St. Vincent and St. Lucia got particularly nasty, seas were choppy and high and squalls were threatening. Our sails were reefed and we were doing fine. Then just before a squall hit us, the seas got even rougher and the dinghy, with the outboard on it, flipped over. What to do? We hove to (turned into the wind and backwinded the stay sail). Ken, secured to the stern swim steps with his harness tried to pull the dinghy in and flip it. Not possible and not worth risking his life. The outboard was off the dinghy by now, as no prop could be seen. With the safety line holding it to the dinghy the outboard was pulling the dinghy further below the rough seas. This was causing us to slow considerably in a sea where we didn't want to slow down. We needed to cross and get to the lee of the island as quickly as possible. We decided to cut the dinghy free. Ken slashed the tender line with his rigging knife and we watched our dinghy float away from us. Ouch! After that, it was an uneventful sail on to Rodney Bay.

Entering the harbor at Rodney Bay we found that over 250 boats had just recently arrived from the Atlantic Rally for Cruisers! It is the annual crossing of the Atlantic by the European cruisers. So there was "no room at the inn." We could not secure a slip and had no dinghy to ferry us to shore. Fortunately the anchorage had room and there was water taxi service. So we were able to go ashore and see about getting a dinghy. First thing yesterday we went to the inflatable-boat store. Not really a store in the conventional sense. It's a small, overly cramped office in a little yellow building made out of an old freight container. Not a store at all. Of course there were no dinghys in stock. So we're here until one can be ordered and arrive. We will not be meeting Theresa in Guadeloupe. However, she's going to rearrange her travel and meet us in St. Lucia, which is a lovely island. We'll have a wonderful visit here.

So that's where we are today. Now I'll catch you up on some of the highlights of Trinidad. Boat work. Lots of it. Ken's project list is up on our web site for those truly interested in the gory details. One of his tasks was to mount the new LED running light on top of the mast. While up there he took some photos. Sixty-three feet is a long way up!

I designed and sewed an awning for Aurora. No small task. It is a 22 by 15 foot canvas awning that fits our boat. I confess it is not done. I have two small sewing tasks to complete, but we ran out of time and my sewing machine decided to thwart me. I have some parts on order and when they arrive, I'll finish the awning.


Besides yacht upkeep ("yacht," sounds impressive, no?) we did see some wonderful sights in Trinidad. The Asa Wright Nature Center is a birders paradise. Even Ken and I who are not birders, were awed by the variety and number of birds that can be viewed from the guesthouse veranda. I even saw a Toucan through the spotting scope! There are lots of bird pictures in the Trinidad album on our site, svAurora.com. Unfortunately I don't have a bird identification book, so I can't name them all for you. And this information is not freely available on the Internet. I looked.

After two days at Asa Wright we headed to Caroni Swamp where we took a boat tour through the marsh to the island where the Scarlet Ibis roost. Riding through the swamp in an open flat-bottomed boat, we saw a variety of swamp creatures--a boa coiled in a tree, blue herons, a caiman (similar to an alligator but smaller) and crabs scurrying along the mangrove roots. Once through the dense swamp, we arrived at a large area of open water with a small island across the way from us. The sun was setting.

Our guide parked the boat and we watched. As the sun went down Ibis from all over the swamp, a 40 square mile area of protected land, returned to the island to roost for the night. They fly to the island both individually and in groups. We saw a flock of 40 or more arrive. As they come to land in the dark green leaves of the island trees, the setting sun catches them and they look like bright red Christmas ornaments being hung on a lush green tree. An amazing sight.

We also visited Pitch Lake, the Hindu Water temple and the Dattatreya Yoga Center. Pitch Lake is one of only three asphalt lakes in the world. The others are in Los Angeles and Venezuela. Pitch is another name for asphalt. The U.S. gets 38% of its asphalt from this lake in Trinidad. Thus the lake is a natural resource from which pitch is mined, refined and shipped out to countries all over the world. You've probably driven over, walked on or been in a building roofed with asphalt from this lake.

The Hindu Water Temple is a simple structure built just off the shore. What makes it noteworthy is that it was built by one man, Sewdass Saddhu a devout East Indian laborer, as his way of thanking the gods for providing him safe passage from India to Trinidad. On his passage across the ocean he made a promise to the gods to build them a temple if he arrived safely. Only he faced a problem in trying to uphold his promise. Each time he started to build the temple sugarcane estate owners destroyed it. After several attempts, he decided to build his temple in the sea as "no one owns the sea." He carried stones by hand into the ocean to create a 500-foot causeway and his temple. Today the temple is protected.

There is a large Hindu population in Trinidad as many East Indians were brought over as indentured servants to work on the sugar plantations. As a result there are many Hindu customs and traditions in the Trinidadian culture. We visited the very pink Dattatreya Center temple and ashram where we saw the 85-foot statue of Lord Hanuman, the Hindu monkey god of strength. Quite something.

In addition to seeing some of Trinidad and getting the boat ready to sail, we met several other cruising couples. The Sunday BBQ was a time to get together and swap cruising stories. Whose problems were worse? Who had to wait the longest for their vendors to get work done? Who had the worst crossings? Cruisers like nothing better than to top each other's tales of woe. Having said that, we made some wonderful friends and found an outlet for our own frustrations at these gatherings. Even with all of the "my problem is worse than yours" chatter, there is inherent in this group of individuals the strength of will and the capability to tackle these inevitable problems. Although they would prefer smooth sailing, they are not undone by the challenges of this life. In fact, I'm convinced some revel in them.

We will be spending Christmas with family this year. Theresa is joining us. But we shared Thanksgiving with fellow cruisers. The Chaguaramas Hospitality and Culinary Institute hosted a traditional American Thanksgiving dinner. Sixty people attended. Before dinner we were led in a prayer of thanks and sang the Star Spangled Banner. The room was filled with the sound of voices. Everyone was singing. Dinner, although traditional with turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, sweet potatoes, cranberry sauce and pie, was not like home. We ended the evening with another wonderful song, America the Beautiful. Felt good to share in song our feelings of home with other Americans.

It is raining at the moment. The wet season is almost over and the weather is transitioning to the dry season. For all of October, November and most of December, it rained every day. Now the rain comes every two or three days. The rain is not a cold rain like we have in California, nor does it last all day. It rains in the afternoon anywhere from 5 minutes to a couple of hours. And it dries quickly. This always surprises me as it is so humid here. You'd think it would take hours to dry off, but it doesn't. Shortly after the rain has stopped the docks are dry. One good thing about the rain is that it washes the salt off the boat. After all of the salt water that came over Aurora's bow in our passage north she's covered with salt crystals. Not good for the stainless, the varnish or the sails. Hope today's rain washes them away.

What's ahead for us this season? We're in St Lucia until after the first of the year. Then, we'll continue north up the island chain at a leisurely pace. We do have to be in the U.S.V.I. in February, as we'll be meeting Julia and Morgan in St Thomas. We hurried through the Virgins last season, so this winter I'd like to spend some time there. One of the nice things about the cruising life is that we don't have to know where we are going or when we need to be there, unless of course we're meeting someone. And even that is not a given. Christmas will be in St Lucia not Guadeloupe this year.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

Ken and Maryann
Aboard Aurora
Lying, Rodney Bay, St Lucia

We last wrote from Bequia, in St Vincent and the Grenadines. As it turns out, several of our cruising friends were also in Admiralty Bay on Bequia. We chatted briefly with friends who had left Trinidad well before we did and who had been moving northward slowly. We envied their slower pace, but were pained to hear they'd lost their dinghy outboard engine when towing their dinghy between islands. Little did we suspect.

Our visit had to be quick, though, as we needed to be moving ever northward, toward our Christmas rendezvous in Guadeloupe. We left Bequia Saturday for a fairly short hop to Wallilabou Bay on St Vincent. We had some bad luck on the passage, though. Our jib shredded its trailing edge - not the sail cloth itself, but the protective canvas that covers the back foot of so of the jib, protecting it from sunlight and UV radiation when it's rolled up and stowed. The stitching probably gave way, as the thread just isn't as UV-safe as the canvas cover. Oh well, with the wind blowing up in the 30's we'd be just as well off flying our staysail, anyway.

Wallilabou Bay was the locale for all 3 Pirates of the Caribbean movies. The dock and the cranes and the warehouse sets are all still there, though they're starting to fall apart. We were met well outside the bay by a boat boy rowing his open skiff, waiting for customers. The boat boys are a feature of St Vincent; they help folks anchor or pick up moorings, and sell produce, take garbage, etc. The bays on St Vincent are steep-to, meaning the water deepens rapidly off shore, making anchoring difficult. The drill is to back in toward the shore, dropping one's anchor in 70-80 ft, and having one of the boat boys tie a long line from your stern to a tree on shore. Or, if you're picking up a mooring, you snag the mooring and then tie a line from your stern to shore.

We originally picked up a mooring in this manner, but the mooring balls were spaced so closely together that the fellow on the next mooring over was worried that we might hit his boat. The collection of boat boys through otherwise, but they have a vested interest in getting folks moored or anchored and then on to the next customer. We were close, but given the way you're tied off, there's little chance of moving sideways. Still, rather that be rude, we moved, which entailed anchoring. We dropped the anchor and backed up between 2 other boats already at anchor. One of the boats seemed a bit perturbed, but they didn't speak anything but Italian, and nobody could understand them. We finally settled in, but with somewhat unhappy folks next door.

The next morning we learned why they'd been upset. In the process of bringing up their anchor they snagged our anchor line. I had to jump in the dinghy and go help untangle their anchor from our chain. Our chain was draped over their anchor, both ends descending 70-some feet. That's a lot of weight of 3/8" chain, but I managed to get it off their anchor without squishing my fingers.

A bit later we left for St Lucia, the next island north. The St Vincent channel between St Vincent and St Lucia can be tough, and it lived up to that reputation yesterday. We had winds consistently 20-25 knots with frequent gusts to 30, and the seas were running 10 to 12 ft. Oh, and the wind was about 35-40 degrees off our bow, essentially on the nose. Not a fun day of motor-sailing.

We'd been towing the dinghy ever since we'd arrived in Grenada, mostly because our new outboard hoist doesn't work. Nothing wrong with the hoist, it just doesn't lift the engine high enough to get it over the mounting bracket. A matter of measuring about 4 times and still getting it wrong! It misses by about 6 inches, and it's just a pain lifting the 100lb engine up those extra 6 inches.

Midway across the channel I reduced the engine speed, as the wind had (temporarily) moved around to a more favorable direction. Just then our speed dropped from the high 7's to about 4 knots. What now? Didn't reduce speed that much. Tried increasing speed, but no effect. At that point I happened to look behind us and there was our dinghy, upside down, being dragged along. Our outboard was still attached to the transom.

At just that moment we got hit by a squall. I kid you not. Stinging rain and wind blowing 30-35 knots. With an upside-down dinghy behind us. I tried tacking the boat (turning her through the eye of the wind) so we could heave-to (essentially coming to a stop by not completing the tacking maneuver), but the boat wouldn't even come through the wind. I gave it more power (good to have had the engine running!) and powered it around. Now our forward progress was pretty much stopped, I could see about doing something with our upside-down dinghy. Did I mention the 10-12 foot waves? And how hard it is moving around the boat in seas that high? I managed to get my harness tether hooked into one of our backstays, and sat on the swim step, trying to pull the dinghy close enough to the boat. But even with the minimal forward speed we had, it was impossible. Flipping it back upright would have meant going into the water, not something I considered for more than a fleeting moment. In retrospect, we might have been able to hoist the dinghy out of the water using a spare halliard, but by this time the outboard had come off the transom and was connected to the dinghy by its safety cable. Visions of the nearly 200-lb dinghy with a loosely attached 100lb outboard engine, a fuel tank, 20' of 3/8" security chain, and an anchor and more chain all flailing about as we tried to hoist the dinghy aboard a bucking and heaving boat convinced me that discretion was the better part of valor here. I couldn't untie the towing line, so out came the boat knife, and there went the dinghy. I just hope nobody run into the damn thing, as it was floating just barely out of water. I suspect the current took it off toward Central America fairly rapidly, though.

Of course 5 minutes after we cut loose the dinghy we came out of the squall. That meant the wind at least came down to 20-25 knots again, but the seas were still way high. We just both let out a collective sigh and continued on our passage. It took another 3-4 hours to reach Rodney Bay here on a St Lucia. This is probably the best place within 100 miles to buy things like dinghies and outboards, so that's some small consolation. On the other hand, Rodney Bay is the Caribbean terminus for the 2007 ARC, Atlantic Rally for Cruisers, where 250 boats cross the Atlantic in December, leaving from the Canary Islands. The marina here in Rodney bay as 220 slips and every one of them is occupied. There is no comparison to when we were last here in May (I think it was). This place is a zoo!

As it turns out, nobody stocks dinghies here. We're going to have to wait for one to be shipped via container ship from St Maarten here. We haven't got a firm commitment yet, but it appears it should arrive shortly after Christmas. We have located an outboard, though, and if there's any silver lining it's that we'll be able to have the outboard we should have purchased originally, one that's 50% more powerful, and considerably lighter than our lost outboard (the new one is a 2-stroke; the old one was a 4-stroke).

We'd like the local sail loft to repair our jib, but they're seriously booked with all of the ARC participants here. We also have an inoperative water maker, but the local service folks are as badly booked as the sail loft. So, here we sit, anchored just off the marina with nothing much to do for the next week or so. It's a big change, going from a mad dash northwards, to instant full-stop. Theresa will have to change her flight plans and meet us here in St Lucia where we'll spend Christmas. Luckily, there's some exquisite scenery, beaches, and diving here. We should have a nice visit.

You can bet we'll never tow the dinghy again when making a passage. Oh, did I mention our insurance specifically excludes towed dinghies? Ouch.

We finally did it! We left Trinidad at 5:30AM Monday morning and proceeded to motor-sail to Prickly Bay in Grenada. It was pretty uneventful as the wind was only 7-8 knots, and the seas not too bad. We spent Monday night in Prickly Bay, leaving Tuesday for Cariacou. We spent a night in Cariacou in Tryrrel Bay, then another night in the "large" town of Hillsbourough. Wednesday morning found us doing some shopping in Hillsbourough, then getting clearance to Union Island in St Vincent and the Grenadines.

We had a heck of time anchoring in Clifton Harbor in Union Island. The Christmas winds have started and it was blowing 20-30knots. We finally picked up a mooring from one of the ubiquitous and occasionally obnoxious boat boys. Spent last night on the mooring, then left around 10AM this morning for Canouan. Once abreast Canouan, though, we decided to continue on to Bequia, another 20 miles or so to the north. Probably the highest wind day we've yet seen, with consistent 20-25knots and gusts up to 32knots. The seas were up as well,
with some waves up around 10 or 12ft. Last season we'd never have ventured out in such conditions. Either we're getting more seasoned, or more complacent.

And that brings us up-to-date. We just finished our usual Friday-night pizza here in Admiralty Bay on Bequia. Tomorrow, assuming the weather's no worse than it was today, we'll head to St Vincent, or maybe all the way to St Lucia. We're moving so quickly because we need to be in Guadeloupe by Christmas to meet Theresa and Dave.

And that's the newsy part of this entry. What follows is a most likely tedious recital of the work we had done in Trinidad, and the results. Not recommended except for the most dedicated gear-heads out there.


new refrigeration
- we had our old Grunert 12vdc refrigeration replaced in Trinidad with a StoneCold unit from Nau-t-kol. We got onto their waiting list the beginning of October and they didn't start on it until the first of December. I ripped out the old unit and the Nau-t-kol folks did the installation of the new unit. It really does reduce our energy expenditure for cooling by a considerable amount and we're more or less happy with it (would be more if we didn't get things freezing in the refrigeration box, but that's not their fault). We're still using way too much electricity, so I need to do some experiments on what's taking the power.

new bimini and dodger
- a painful experience with one of the local Trinidad sail and canvas specialists. They took way too long to finish, even taking into account their well-padded estimates, and they didn't do a terribly good job.

retrieval of part from transmission
- you'll recall I managed to lose a part from the shifter into the innards of the transmission. The local diesel mechanics managed to remove the transmission and fish out the lost part. In the process they discovered the engine on the boat was 1/4" out-of-alignment, and they found the mounting plate for the big alternator was broken! All's been repaired and reassembled and after about 30 hours on the engine it appears to be holding well.

solar panel installation
- I installed 2 130watt solar panels and had one of the local electricians do the hookup. Other than some real agony as to running the electrical cable from where the solar panels are mounted to an area near the battery connections it went pretty smoothly. We're now seeing 10-15A (12vdc) going into the batteries, at least during the part of the day when the sun is overhead.

wind generator
- Never did manage to purchase one. Still waiting on the distributor in Canada to receive the correct unit from China.

aft head holding tank
- epoxy & micro-balloon filler to fix the leak. Seems to have done the job, but maybe there's another pinhole leak?

new GTO-15 from SSB antenna tuner to backstay
- I was never comfortable that the antenna connection had been made properly. So a couple of trips up the backstay in the bosun's chair and now it's much, much better. Had the local Trinidad radio and electronics guys out with their meters and they say it's all well connected. Since they didn't spend more than 15 minutes on it, they volunteered to check the VHF radio. We'd suspected something as amiss with it for quite some time, and sure enough their meter showed an intermittent gound connection. They soldered on a new connection and now we can be heard 20 miles out!

leaky water pump on generator
- After replacing the impeller (a piece of rubber with vanes that rotates with the motor, causing it to pump water), I managed to break off a screw in the pump housing. We tried having a local machine shop drill it out, but they simply botched the job. Then we tried some RTV instant gasket, but that failed as well. Thought about ordering a new pump, but that would have been a 4-6 week wait. Finally ended up ordering a SpeedSeal, a plate with a built-in o-ring which should solve the problem. But it hadn't arrived in Trinidad by Monday and we had a good weather window. Not sure what to do about this one - we're trying daily calls to the marina in Trinidad to see if it's arrived yet. We will probably have to order a new one and have it sent somewhere duty-free, like St Maarten. Meanwhile, it's a nuisance not having the generator, but not much more than a nuisance.

sails
- We had our main, jib, and staysail inspected by the local sail & canvas shop. They made some minor repairs and we hoisted them again. They all seem to be holding well, even in today's 30+ knot winds.

rigging
- We had our standing and running rigging inspected by a rigger. Needed some minor repairs up the mast, which they did. Still need our rig tuned which entails a rigger setting proper tensions on the forestays and shrouds and backstay. Not terribly critical, but it means we aren't sailing as efficiently as we could. Of course with us motor-sailing most of the time it really doesn't matter, does it? :-)

LED anchor and tri-color light
- Our current incandescent anchor light takes over 1A per hour. We bought a new LED version that should reduce that to just a few milliamps. I finally got the nerve to go up the mast the day before we left Trinidad, only to discover I needed to order a mounting bracket. Bracket is now on order and someday I'll finish this job.

lube
- greasing and silicone lubing stuff that needed lubing. :-)

mainsail battens
- we have in-mast roller furling for the main sail and we have these long vertical battens (round 5/16 in fiberglass rods) that maintain the sail shape when sailing. We lost 2 last season,
so had to replace them. Wouldn't have been an issue except a couple of the battens exceed the lengths you can get, so they have to be extended using a sleeve and another shorter piece. Think we've got all that squared away now with new battens and sleeves and end-pieces.

pushpit seats
- this Hylas 46 came from the factory with 2 teak/stainless steel fold-down seats in the stern of the boat. Installing the new radar arch a year ago ended up removing the fittings for the seats, so we had them remounted in Trinidad. Nice to have our seats back and not have to carry them in the aft lazarettes.

flagpole and outboard hoist
- had the old flagpole on the stern removed as it was shrouded by the radar arch. Also had an outboard engine hoist fabricated so that we could easily hoist and store the outboard engine on the pushpit. Somehow didn't account for the lifting harness stretch, so still have to manhandle the outboard onto its mount, albeit only about 6 inches. Going to have to re-think this one.

busted latches
- the latches used on our cabinets and drawers are chrome-plated plastic. Had to replace the ones on the trash bin and the mast cover in the main saloon. Expect this to be a continuing task.

rudder stock leak
- had been plagued with water entering the boat via the rudder stock packing gland fitting. Finally figured this out and tightened it. The hope is for a dry bilge.

windlass electrical breaker
- managed to pull the plastic knob off a threaded screw when turning off the breaker one day. Tried twice now to epoxy it back on, but so far no luck.

And there was a whole lot of little stuff as well: replace oil pressure switch (yours truly broke the original trying to remove the old refrigeration hoses); repair plastic end-piece on traveller; equivalent of Rain-X on our new dodger windows; etc., etc.

In retrospect doesn't seem like enough to keep us in Trinidad for 2 months, does it? I'm probably leaving a bunch out, but those were the highlights (lowlights? :-).

Maryann keeps threatening to post a journal update with pictures, but we'll see it when it happens.