S/V Aurora

One Adventure Ends, Another Begins

2008-11-29T10:18:00.000-08:00

Last I wrote, I didn't know what the future would hold. We had decided that the cruising life was not a long-term life style for us. I mused about it, possibly we might purchase an RV and cruise the land or maybe just hang out on Aurora for a while longer or even get jobs and return to land life. Since writing that update, life has changed for Ken and me.

I just completed my first week of work! But I'm getting to the end of the story before you know what happened. So here's how it came to be that Ken and I moved back to the San Francisco Bay Area and I started working again.

After the Annapolis Boat Show, I flew out to California to visit family and friends. Ken stayed in Annapolis with the boat. It was a good place to leave him on his own with Aurora, easy to get around, lots of boating facilities and a comfortable anchorage. Plus he had a long list of boat chores to keep him busy for the ten days I was to be gone as we had decided to sell Aurora. So on October 15th I hopped on the local bus, headed to Baltimore/Washington International and caught my flight to SFO. Little did I know that I would not be using my return ticket.

Our Aurora updates go out to a variety of friends and family, including friends I worked with at The Learning Company. So it was not surprising that Craig, a previous colleague who now works at PlayFirst, suggested we get together for lunch with some of the old TLC gang when I was in the Bay Area. Turns out that several former colleagues work at PlayFirst, a casual gaming company headquartered in San Francisco. I was delighted to hear from Craig and, of course, said yes to the lunch invite with the TLC gang.

Craig asked if I was serious about returning to work in his e-mail. However, my mind was so far away from the work world at the time, I didn't give it much thought. It crossed my mind that it would be fun to work with Craig, Kenny, Solveig and Nick again, but my focus was on varnishing the slats, stripping the cockpit table and finishing up the boat work on Aurora. Also, I was looking forward to seeing my mother, brothers and daughter again. Ken and I had talked about returning to work, but it wasn't my focus when flying out to California.

So when I arrived at PlayFirst for lunch and Craig gave me a tour of the offices and introduced me to a few folks, I was surprised at how extremely familiar and very comfortable the work environment was. I felt like I was at home, that no time had passed since I'd been in the work world. It was like two-and-a-half years were a two week vacation. It was an odd, but good feeling. Over lunch both Craig and Kenny asked me if I was interested in coming back to work. It felt so natural that without hesitation I said yes.

As they say, the rest is history. Interviews were scheduled, an offer was tendered and I accepted. This all happened in just over one week. Ken and I discussed it all over the phone. We decided I would stay out in California and get moving on the relocation; he'd stay in Annapolis a bit longer and put Aurora to bed. It was Friday, October 31st. I would start work Nov. 17th.

With the reality of a time-intensive job looming, we knew that we had to move quickly to get settled in or we'd be living out of boxes forever! Ken packed up Aurora (how did we have 50 boxes of stuff on a 46-foot boat?), secured a person to manage her while she's up for sale and took care of all the loose ends in Annapolis. Before Ken arrived on Wednesday, Nov. 5th, I rented an apartment in Burlingame, began clothes shopping (I had no work clothes!) and started a car search on Craig's List.

Ken arrived at SFO Wednesday morning at 9:30 and we went out furniture shopping from the airport! I can't remember the order of things but over the course of a week we purchased two pre-owned cars (Honda Civic and Toyota Highlander), furnishings for the apartment (much of it assemble yourself from IKEA), clothes for work and many of those small necessities of life one does not have on a boat, like trash baskets for each room. And remember the large screen TVs Ken was drooling over at Costco on the East Coast? Well we now own one. Our dining room table is a utility table from Target and we eat sitting on two $9.99 folding chairs, but we do have a 50" large screen TV in the living room! Per Ken, "Priorities, Maryann, priorities."

We quickly established ourselves in an apartment with basic necessities. However once we are settled, we hope to purchase a place of our own, probably on the peninsula and probably a townhouse or condo.

So I came out to California for a visit and never returned! I'm the Developer Relations Manager at PlayFirst (PlayFirst.com), a casual game company which sells downloadable games online for play on the computer as well as on a variety of other digital platforms--mobile phones, game consoles, interactive TV.

The past two plus years have been an amazing time for Ken and I, meeting new friends, living on a boat, visiting new countries, testing our limits. I'll miss the vagabond life where schedules are non-existent and roots are not planted. But it is time to move on and life has opened new doors for us. I'm looking forward to helping PlayFirst transition from a start-up into a young and thriving company in an exciting new industry. When I left, casual gaming was in its infancy; it is now reaching its formative years.

This is my last Aurora update. Thank you all for sharing our adventure with us. And thank you for your responses. Your e-mails have been a joy to read and a lifeline when we were out there on our own.

Safe Passages!

Maryann

P.S.
I had Ken read my update before sending it out, and he wanted to share his thoughts with all of you as well. So here is Ken's final Aurora update:

Maryann has posted her final update on the S/V Aurora adventure, and I feel I need to get a final word in as well.

As she mentioned, life's been a whirlwind of change these past 3 weeks, though it's been fun to rebuild a land-based life so quickly. However, the excitement of the past 3 weeks shouldn't overshadow the final weeks of our cruising adventure.

After Maine we transited quickly back through New England and on to New York City where we spent a very enjoyable week, then on to Washington, D.C. where we had a great time anchored in the heart of the nation's capitol.

Maryann has written of our experiences there, but I don't know that enough of the sheer enjoyment of our cruising in August and September and the first part of October came through. We really enjoyed our time in Maine and had a ball traipsing about in NYC and Washington.

Of course, a large part of it had to do with a lack of things breaking, which was really very pleasant. The beginning of the year was so frustrating in that regard, so it's nice to be able to report things just worked as they should the past 3 months.

Still, we had an uncorrected leaky rudder post, and we had an idea somebody visiting the big October Annapolis boat show might be interested in Aurora, so back to Annapolis we went, arriving about 10 days before the opening of the boat show.

We immediately headed for one of the larger boat yards in Annapolis, one which has a number of contractors on site. We asked around and got a recommendation for Seaside Boat Works and Ted Downey. Can't say enough good things about Ted. From the first moment we talked he impressed me with his no-nonsense and rigorous approach to diagnosing our leaky rudder problem.

In short order we had the boat out of the water, and the rudder out of the boat. Removing the rudder took about 2 hours, a task that had taken the previous folks we'd used nearly 2 days. Admittedly we had the experience of having done it once, but Ted and his helper Scott wasted no time in dropping the rudder.

It took s bit of work to correct the problem, but we finally had a solution that included re-facing the inner fiberglass/gelcoat surface of the rudderstock tube with epoxy, adding a thick ring of fiberglass to the top of the tube, and machining grooves into the bronze stuffing tube so that the 3M 5200 adhesive effectively formed O-rings. When we put her back in the water this time, there was *no* leak. And the rudder post had much tighter tolerances with no slop. All in all, an excellent repair. In this case, it's much better than originally shipped from the factory.

We also took advantage of the time out of the water to touch up the bottom paint (including the paint on the bottom of the keel where I had plowed a small furrow in the Potomac on the way from Washington, D.C. back to the Chesapeake :-), buff and polish the hull and topsides, and several other boat projects. By the time the boat was back in the water we'd spent about the same as we'd spent in July, except this time the rudder leak was a thing of the past and the boat was sparkling.

We took a new set of pictures of the interior and some of the exterior and posted a for sale ad on www.boats.com. We had a couple of parties come by and kick the tires, so to speak, but not as much interest in the boat from folks visiting the boat show as we'd expected. Odd, because the boat show was well-attended and a new boat by Hylas would take 2 years after ordering and would cost nearly $200,000 more. But by the 2nd week in October it was clear the economy was down the toilet and circling the drain.

We really don't expect much interest in the boat during the winter. I left the boat in a slip, with the expectation that the boat yard would move her onto the hard once the fall rush had settled, and sure enough last week Aurora was moved from her slip and onto the hard. She's been winterized (antifreeze has replaced any drop of water that was aboard!), and put to bed for the season. She's being looked after by the folks at Seaside Boat Works, and they're able to show her to any prospective buyers.

So that's pretty much it. It was boring sitting on the boat, waiting for Maryann's return from California. Which, as it turns out, never happened. Instead we're suddenly back living life in the SF bay area, almost as if we'd never left. But we did and we had some pretty amazing times. And some fairly depressing times. But all in all it was an adventure of a lifetime.

And who knows, if the boat doesn't sell and the economy turns even worse we can always put her back in the water and continue where we left off. We've still got enough left in the cruising kitty to last us another 3 or 4 years; that should be enough to get through the downturn, right?

Ken

And our address:

Ken and Maryann Klingman
1469 Bellevue Ave. #208
Burlingame, CA 94010

cell phones didn't change:
Ken 650-888-3916
Maryann 650-218-6653

New York City and Washington, DC

2008-10-01T09:00:00.000-07:00

Hello!

My feet are sore! We've spent the last three days touring New York City on foot. Although I've been to NYC on business, I've never come just to visit. So glad we decided to take advantage of the 79th Street Boat Basin on the Hudson River to pick up a mooring. NYC for $30 a night! Can't beat the price. And the location is not bad either. We're three blocks from 79th and Broadway and not too far from Central Park.

Central Park exceeded my expectations, truly a beautiful park. Negative news is what we hear, so my impression of Central Park was founded on reports of rape, murder and civil unrest. Not favorable. So I was caught by surprise to be walking through a beautifully landscaped, lush, tree-filled park, an oasis of peace within the surrounding urban congestion and noise. We went to the Natural History Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Guggenheim. Each offered visual as well as mental delights. And in each I was awed. The city's architecture is amazing. Every time I looked up there was another building worthy of more than the fleeting glance I gave it. Mostly we saw the exteriors of buildings, but in Central Park we ate lunch at the Tavern on the Green. The decor was so overdone that it was beyond tacky. (No offense to the New Yorkers reading this!) Yet it is a well known eatery in the park and we enjoyed the experience. After lunch we wondered over to the John Lennon memorial, an area in Central Park known as Strawberry Fields set aside to honor Lennon's memory. It was located near the Dakota where he and Yoko lived.

The city pulsed. It felt alive. And New Yorkers love their city. On Saturday we saw three wedding parties having their pictures taken in very public venues, the first on a Central Park sidewalk, the second in Times Square and the third on the steps of St Patrick's Cathedral as the 5:30 parishiones were making their way into mass! No one minded how public these events were. The couple in Time Square had to share their wedding video with cabs, trucks and the mass of humanity that fills the space. But they were enjoying themselves. The Catholic newlyweds didn't seem at all bothered by the throngs of worshipers and observers surrounding them on the steps of the Cathedral. On the crowded sidewalk by Lincoln Center we saw an older couple elegantly dressed for an evening out, he in a suit, she in a gorgeous black evening gown. They seemed out of place on the sidewalk with everyone else from street vendors to ogling tourists to serious business folks. But that appears to be New York, an eclectic mix of folks bumping and jostling as they move around their city.

In addition to the museums, we wandered around the New York Public Library. The interior was like something out of a movie. Grand, high-ceilinged reading rooms lined with books and filled with rows upon rows of wooden tables and reading lamps. And we went atop the Empire State Building. Too touristy for us. Felt like we were at Disneyland with all of the lines we had to wait in. Still it was a very NYC thing to do and I'm glad we went. A few mornings we had bagels and coffee in a neighborhood deli and one afternoon we even did a bit of grocery shopping in an neighborhood store. So crowded, but the variety of food was amazing. I only wish we could have spent more time in the grocery. But it was at the end of the day. We were tired and ready to get back home, to Aurora. New York is exciting, but exhausting.

We ended up leaving a day earlier than anticipated and didn't get to do everything on our list. We didn't get to see a show or go to the Fulton Fish Market. Still, it was a pleasure to visit New York City. And nice to do it for fun rather than for business! But I'll confess, as much as I enjoyed visiting New York, I was happy to return to the peace and quiet of our boat. The city assaults the senses; it's loud, visually chaotic and full of odors.

From New York we headed to Washington, D.C., sailing all day and stopping only to anchor overnight, Atlantic Highlands, Atlantic City, Worton Creek, Solomons Island on the Chesapeake, Wicomico River off the Potomac, and finally up the Potomac to Washington, DC. We anchored in the Washington Channel, just 4 blocks from the National Mall and within easy walking distance of many D.C. sites. For $15 per day we had access to the Capital Yacht Club dinghy dock, laundry, showers, lobby, bar, and mail service. Not too bad! And a metro station was within walking distance, so we easily traveled beyond the immediate locale. Not having a car, accessible and reliable public transportation is much appreciated.

We've enjoyed Washington. This visit we've spent days touring and still did not "see it all." The museums are amazing. The art impressive. The government buildings a bit different with their multitude of marble statues and neo-classical style. Still their embodiment of liberty is inspirational. We toured the Capitol, the Library of Congress, the National Archives and the Supreme Court. We viewed both the House and the Senate floors in session and sat in on a Senate committee meeting. We wandered through the office buildings of both the Representatives and the Senators. One day we visited the Jefferson Memorial and then walked across the bridge over the Potomac to Arlington Cemetery. The changing of the guard at Arlington's Tomb of the Unknown Soldier was impressive and serious.

Security is everywhere and intrusive, but access to buildings and sites was not limited. Although I was surprised to see many of the guards carrying M-16s. One guard near the Capitol looked incongruous standing under a large tree holding an M-16 while dressed in shorts, his summer uniform. He appeared more like a boy playing "war" in his backyard than a man keeping watch over our Capitol's safety. Protection in the form of arms is necessary, but I'm not used to seeing such weaponry.

One day I went over to the Mall by myself and took in the Richard Avedon Portraits of Power exhibit at the Corcoran Gallery of Art. Avedon is considered the most important portrait photographer in America during his six-decade career. Wandering through the exhibit I was reminded of the Diane Arbus show I saw at the MOMA in San Francisco. Although these artists approached photography and more to the point their subjects in different ways, Arbus capturing people, many times those on the fringe, candidly and in their environment while Avedon posed his subjects, mostly the famous and powerful, in front of a white background, each was able to capture the raw humanity of their subjects, the imperfections that make us human. The Avedon photographs were not pretty pictures, but they held the observer, evoking visceral responses. Although the Avedon show focused on the powerful, the photo that stayed with me was that of a napalm victim, an unknown Vietnamese woman. There was no hiding the horror of war in the image, in the woman's severely scared face and blinded eye. So what is more important, the wielding of power or the result of that wielding? The majority of Avedon's portraits are of individuals in which power is manifested. And yet the most compelling image I viewed called to task those who wield power.

Washington is a place filled with history and at the same time is is a place where history is being made. Our visit coincided with the rejection of the initial bailout proposal by the House of Representatives and the first presidential debate between McCain and Obama. To watch the unfolding of a presidential election as it takes place from a Washington venue, is new for me. It feels different than on the west coast.

We've had access to the Metro in Washington and been able to get to Costco. The wine is priced well, so we took advantage and restocked our supply of California Cabernet Sauvignon. But while shopping for wine, Ken found the electronics department and the new large-screen TV's. Remember we've have no TV and limited internet access for the past two years. The array of TV's was too much for Ken. After thoroughly checking out their stock, he asked me what style I preferred, matt or glossy finish? Wide or narrow frame? Back lit or flat screen? 60" or 73"? Turns out we might have to settle down just so we can purchase an enormous TV. Ah, the joys of a consumer society! For the time being, we'll continue to live with our computer screen and the occasional DVD rental movie. Although,with the help of an antenna he purchased at Radio Shack, Ken was able to get broadcast TV on our computer while we were in Washington, DC. So we got to watch the initial presidential debate. Well, I did. After having set it all up, which was no small feat, Ken zonked and I stayed up by myself to watch McCain and Obama debate.

Two years ago we began our adventure not knowing what the future had in store. We anticipated an ocean crossing and possibly years of cruising. After two years of boat life, we realize that an ocean passage is not in the cards for us and that boat life, although interesting, is not how we'll spend our future. We're headed to the Annapolis Sail Boat show with the goal of putting Aurora on the market. We've enjoyed our adventure, but have come to understand that cruising on a 46 foot sailboat is not a long-term lifestyle for us. There are a lot of reasons, but mainly we've discovered we're not very good sailors! In addition, the constant maintenance and associated cost wear on ones spirits and pocketbook. So, we'll be putting Aurora up for sale soon.

What does the future hold? Not sure. We could always return to work. Or we might purchase a truck and trailer and spend the next year or two traveling around the Americas. We'll see. Of course all this might change if we spend any more time in Costco! We might just settle down so we can purchase a large screen TV! Of course with the economy where it is we may well end up living on Aurora for a good long while before she sells.

Tomorrow morning we weigh anchor and head back to Annapolis. It is 160 miles and will take two days, anchoring overnight, to get there. Once in Annapolis, we have to clean up Aurora and get her ready to show. Looks like we'll be working on boat projects for a while.

Cheers!

Maryann

Summer Cruising in Maine

2008-09-06T07:04:00.000-07:00

It's been quite a while since my last update; we've been enjoying ourselves too much to have time to write about it, and a lack of serious breakage has stifled the need for furious spells of whining.

Last I wrote we were in Annapolis. We headed north on July 18 and did a fairly rapid transit to Gloucester, Mass about a week later. We re-traced our route through the upper Chesapeake, the C&D Canal, Delaware Bay, the coast of New Jersey, New York, Long Island Sound, Newport, and then direct from Newport to Gloucester. It was a pretty uneventful passage.

We kicked around the Salem/Marblehead/Gloucester area for about a week before leaving from Marblehead for an overnight passage to Northeast Harbor on Mt Desert Island in Maine. As Maryann has already written, we had dense fog approaching the Maine coast. It was indeed eerie, ghosting along on a nearly flat sea, avoiding the lobster pots and anxiously avoiding other boats and hoping we were where the GPS and chart plotter said we were - Maine is full of hard granite ledges at or just below the surface and it would really ruin a day to run into one of them.

We spent over a week exploring Acadia National Park, Bar Harbor, and the rest of Mt Desert Island before my son Erik joined us. We'd had cold and foggy and drizzly weather from the time we arrived in Maine until the middle of Erik's visit when it finally turned clear and a bit warmer. We spent the week exploring the islands around Mt Desert, including Little Cranberry, Long Island, and Swans Island. It was truly gorgeous cruising. The scenery is spectacular, there are many sites to see, and the distance between islands short.

There are, however, hazards to cruising in Maine. There are over 3 million lobster traps in Maine, and each trapline has 2 or sometimes 3 buoys. Sometimes it seemed as if the sea was carpeted with lobster trap buoys. We didn't do too badly, only running over and severing 2 buoy lines, and snagging 2 others. Our line cutter on the prop shaft kept us from wrapping potwarps (the line that goes to the trap) around our prop twice. There's a sharp thunk when it happens, giving everybody aboard a momentary fright. We had a longer-term fright the 2 times (inside a couple of hours!) when we snagged a potwarp and were dragging the line of traps behind us. In one case I actually had my (very thin, tropical) wetsuit half on, ready to dive in and disentangle us from the line. Luckily in both cases the lines dropped away once we stopped our forward motion without a need to jump into that 58 degree water.

Lobstering is at an all-time high here in Maine, and it seems nobody knows if it's sustainable or not. The government biologists say it's isn't; the lobstermen say it is. If you are truly geeky enough you can find a copy of The Secret Life of Lobsters and read all about it. It was particularly interesting to read since it centers on lobstermen living on Little Cranberry Island, which we visited.

Little Cranberry and Great Cranberry were once noted for their many mosquitoes, so around the turn of the century they drained the bogs to eliminate the mosquitoes. The cranberries never returned, but the mosquitoes did. Even late in the season we had clouds of mosquitoes at dusk, and obnoxious flies day and night. Not enough to seriously dampen our spirits, but annoying nonetheless.

We had a visit from Maryann's daughter Julia and her husband Morgan for a long weekend after Erik left to return to San Diego. Nice to have visitors, especially to share the beauty of the Maine coast. Also nice to have privacy again in our little living space after they leave.

After nearly 3 weeks in and around Mt Desert Island we left for new cruising grounds. We went from Mt Desert Island through Eggemoggin Reach to Castine on Penobscot Bay, stopping at the Wooden Boat school along the way. Though never particularly interested in wooden boats, it was fascinating visiting the school. Almost made we want to try building a wooden boat!

We spent time wandering about Castine, Camden, and Rockland in Penobscot Bay. Camden in particular was nice as the weekend we were there they were hosting the annual Windjammer Weekend. That was somewhat balanced by the hordes of tourists. Castine has the Maine Maritime Academy and some lovely old homes and a lot of history (including the worst naval defeat the US ever suffered prior to Pearl Harbor). Rockland, though a pretty industrialized town, has the Farnsworth Art Museum and the Maine Lighthouse Museum. So all in all we had a pretty enjoyable time for our last week in Maine.

We left Rockland earlier in the week, with the intention of sailing overnight to Provincetown at the tip of Cape Cod. Unfortunately, our autopilot decided to go nuts on us. We were headed downwind in a stiff breeze, would get a gust, and the boat would head up. The autopilot would turn the rudder to correct the movement, but then would overcorrect and with the overcorrection would then overcorrect wildly in the other direction. Out of control oscillations which were only stopped by steering manually. We didn't feel much like hand steering for 20 hours, so we reversed course and pulled into Tenant's Harbor. Next morning we talked with the Raymarine customer service folks. They suggested recalibrating the autopilot which we did; that seemed to fix the problem, so we proceeded on to Provincetown.

We'd been to Provincetown out on the far tip of Cape Cod previously, so didn't spend a lot of time wandering around. It is an incredibly touristy place, but still fun to walk about, have lunch, and people watch.

The day before yesterday we left Provincetown for the Cape Cod Canal and Wood's Hole, with the goal of heading on to Nantucket Island for a couple of days exploration. We made good enough time, though, that we kept right on through Wood's Hole and on to overnight in Edgartown on Martha's Vineyard. For old farts like us, it was interesting being on a mooring between Martha's Vineyard and Chappaquidick Island, where Ted Kennedy drove off the causeway years ago, most likely erasing his chances of ever being elected president.

Though we'd wanted to spend some time in Nantucket, tropical storm Hanna changed our minds. The remnants were predicted to pass over southern New England early Sunday morning, bringing torrential rain and wind gusts up to 50mph. Given the center of the storm was forecast to pass over Nantucket we decided that Newport Rhode Island would be a better place to ride out the storm. So yesterday we left Edgartown after refueling and headed for Newport. We had a wonderful sail with a bright, sunlit day, sparkling sea, consistent wind, and mild seas. We arrived in Newport yesterday late afternoon and picked up a slip (an expensive slip - I think Newport is the most expensive yachting destination on the east coast!). We'll park ourselves here until the storm passes, hopefully by sometime tomorrow.

Finally, for those keeping track, in the past month we've had surprisingly little breakage and very few maintenance jobs. Oil changes on the main engine and generator and filter changes on the water maker were pretty much it, other than a mild fright about dirty fuel which necessitated changing fuel filters. But in thinking about it I'm almost certain we switched to an empty fuel tank and simply ran of diesel fuel and did not really have dirty fuel; sometimes you can get confused managing 4 separate fuel tanks. I can't say how nice it is, though, not to have things breaking left and right.

We are hoping to spend a couple of days in New York before heading to the Chesapeake again. We'd like to spend a week or so anchored off the tidal basin in Washington D.C., then plan to return to Annapolis once again where we'll see if we can't get the boat in condition to sell. We've both decided we're mediocre sailors at best which precludes long passages across the Atlantic or Pacific oceans and costs are going to keep us from continuing this life style for much more than another year. Given we've heard it'll take up to a year to sell we need to get her ready. We're hoping get some interested parties passing through the Annapolis boat show the 2nd week of October, folks that are going to have sticker shock when they see new boats on display. After the boat show, presuming we don't get an interested buyer, we'll head south once again, how far south and for how long is yet to be determined.

Made it to Maine!

2008-08-12T15:32:00.000-07:00

We're in Maine. I'm wearing long pants, shoes and socks and a sweatshirt! It's cold here. Gone are the sunny, hot Caribbean days!

After our month in Annapolis, we headed north. Ken and I decided against another long passage and opted to day sail up the coast repeating our journey south of two years ago--Chesapeake Bay to the Chesapeake-Delaware Canal, down the Delaware Bay, up the coast of New Jersey, through New York Harbor, up the East River, east through Long Island Sound, stopping in Newport, Rhode Island. Each night we anchored at sunset and were up early the next day for a full day of sailing or motor-sailing depending on the wind. Although we anchored each night, we never got off the boat so it was akin to a passage in that we were on the boat for 6 days.

We joined the throngs of boats moored in Newport Harbor. I don't think moorings could be any closer! After three days in Newport, we made a one-day, 90-mile passage to Gloucester, MA. It was a long day, but nice to be moving north as we were hoping to spend August in Maine.

Gloucester, a working harbor, appears not to have changed in over 100 years! John and Karen, who helped Ken sell the Lexus two years ago and who live in Massachusetts, came to visit us while we were in Gloucester. Curious about boat life, they asked all sorts of questions: Does the boat always move? How do you cook? What is it like to live on a boat? Fun to share our lifesytle on Aurora with others in real time and wonderful to have guests visit us. We went out to Karen's favorite Gloucester eatery, Woodman's and enjoyed a quintessential New England meal of fried clams, chowder and cole slaw.

From Gloucester we motored across the bay to Marblehead which is renowned for its yacht clubs and yachting community. Marblehead was a treat. We were able to secure a guest mooring at the Boston Yacht Club for two nights. Walking around Marblehead is like stepping into the past. The neighborhood near "Boston," as the yacht club was referred to on the VHF, was residential and, due to preservation requirements of the town, filled with well-maintained houses dating from the 1700's. We wondered narrow, winding streets lined with clapboard homes sporting shuttered windows and small porticoes. The famous painting "The Spirit of 76," housed in Abbot Hall, embodies the history of the town and the pride of its citizens. A very American town, Marblehead, Massachusetts.

Salem, where we purchased Aurora, was our next stop. For me it was a nostalgic experience. Took me back to the beginning our our adventure. We had lunch at the Jaho Java coffee shop, across from Bunghole liquor, where we had spent many, many hours on our laptops ordering parts and getting ready for our big adventure. Ken didn't share my sense of nostalgia, and initially I couldn't understand why. It's true, one can never go back, still I wanted to revisit places that held special memories. Turns out what were special memories for me were not so special for Ken. I learned that he didn't savor the time we spent in the coffee shop and was quite anxious as we outfitted Aurora and prepared for our adventure. This time we left Salem familiar with Aurora, comfortable with sailing and confident in our ability to make the over-night passage to Maine.

As we entered the Gulf of Maine we entered the fog. Eerie. Quietly we moved across the water peering into the fog looking for boats and listening for the chime of bells on the aids to navigation. One relies on equipment, radar and chart plotter, but never completely. Our senses guide us as much as our equipment. As we entered the channel between islands on our way to Northeast Harbor on Mount Desert Island we could make out shapes on the water ahead of us. As we got closer the fog shrouded shapes turned into lobster boats. We watched lobster men working at their day's catch. Quickly, no movement wasted, pulling lobsters from cages tossing back those too small. Placing the catch into tanks. Reloading the cage with fish. Over the side and into the cold Maine waters goes the cage to snag another lobster tomorrow. So busy they didn't look up to see us sail pass. A cold, wet, physical life, that of the Maine lobster man.

Maine's coast is rugged and tree lined. Reminds me of the Pacific Northwest with the ocean meeting forested hills and granite outcroppings. And like the Pacific Northwest it is damp, rainy and cold!

Friday, August 8th

Been a few days since I started my update. Northeast Harbor in the town of Mount Desert is where we originally landed when we arrived in Maine. A charming little village, about 3 blocks long, with a picturesque harbor located just outside of Acadia National Park on the southern end of Mount Desert island. Unfortunately, the weather has not been cooperative and so we've not explored the island as much as anticipated. The sun came out one day and we hopped the free Island Explorer Shuttle to Jordon Pond, a glacial lake set in the lush green forest of Acadia park. After a hike around the pond, Ken and I
enjoyed lunch at Jordon Pond House, known for their popovers. Seems every dish comes with one, sometimes two, of these delicious accompaniments. And they were served with fresh, home-made blueberry jam. Delicious! From Jordon Pond we hopped the shuttle to Bar Harbor where we made reservations with the Harbor Master for dockage on Tuesday, August 12. Erik, Ken's son, will be joining us for a week, and we'll meet him in Bar Harbor on Tuesday. After a quick walk around town, we grabbed a shuttle bus back to Northeast Harbor. Nice service.

Yesterday morning we left Northeast Harbor and motored up Somes Sound, the only fjord in the continental United States. Somes Sound is a six-mile-long fiord that cuts Mount Desert island almost in two. The terrain along the coast of Maine including Somes Sound is different from the places we've sailed to date. Evergreens cover the mountains which come right down to the water. Granite outcropping meet the water rather than sandy beaches or marshy shores. And the forested islands are shrouded in fog and mist much of the time. All very dramatic. At the end of the sound is the Somesville Harbor where we are anchored. Somesville, the oldest village on
Mount Desert island, is tiny. I did find a gas station and mini market, a post office, a nice bookstore, what appeared to be an antique store and the Masonic Hall which hosts theatrical performances during the summer on my walk around town. That appears to be it for Somesville. Although small, it is quite picturesque, white clapboard houses, large lush trees, lovely flower gardens set against a backdrop of the harbor enclosed by forested mountains and a few islands.

Tomorrow the forecast is for sunshine! I'm sooooo looking forward to seeing the sun. We're going to explore the park! And we can with ease on the free Island Shuttle.

Safe Passages!

The Rudder Saga Continues

2008-07-16T14:03:00.000-07:00

I'm sure everyone is mightily tired of hearing of boat maintenance woes, but the latest on the leaky rudder shaft is too good not to share. We had 2 techs working most of last week, from Monday afternoon until yesterday afternoon (they didn't work the weekend, though), removing the rudder and reassembling things such that they would stem the slow dripping leak where the rudder enters the hull.

It was a learning experience for all of us, quite painful to be paying the boatyard for their learning curve on our boat. We had instructions from the factory for how to remove the rudder, but everything just seems to take way longer than you'd think or hope. We did find some problems with the fiberglass tube where the rudder enters the hull and we did a better job at sealing things up than the factory did originally!

We did have to manage some issues, like the lead tech wanting to go home early on Friday. We needed to lift the boat to have enough room to get the rudder shaft up into the hull and the TravelLift had 2 other boats ahead of us, it was 1:30 on Friday, and the guy who runs the TravelList was still at lunch. We got the tech to agree to stick around for an hour and sure enough inside 30 minutes the other 2 boats were done. Of course the tech was then grumpy for the next couple of hours, given he didn't get to start his weekend early.

At any rate, Monday they finished up the last bits of the installation, and true to form the TravelLift wasn't available until close to 4:30PM, closing time. No way we were going to spend another night on the hard, and we got them to drop us (slowly and gently) into the water. I jumped below and found the leak was just as bad as it had ever been! We theorize there's a microscopic crack in the fiberglass tube that will require the entire process be repeated, only this time we'll have to replace the fiberglass tube.

That makes for 2 boatyard employees working pretty much full-time for 5 days. Take your favorite auto repair shop hourly charge (slightly reduced as these guys aren't as "highly trained") and do the arithmetic. All for nothing, other than the learning process. Oh, and next time it'll be more difficult to disassemble since the techs were extra careful to use *lots* of marine adhesive in the futile attempt to stem the leak.

Needless to say we were seriously deflated. After sleeping on it overnight (with the boat in the water) we decided to postpone another attempt at a fix. We measured the leak to be about a cup of water an hour, which isn't too bad. Still, it's got to be fixed sometime since if both bilge pumps failed and we weren't around to check it could conceivably sink the boat. Besides, it'd really be nice to have a dry bilge.

Yesterday morning we moved the boat to a mooring in the Annapolis Harbor where we continue to monitor the leak. We need to stick around for a couple of days to retrieve packages we've had sent care of the boatyard. Once we have the packages, the plan is to head out to Maine and try to enjoy the rest of the summer. Further plans beyond that are up in the air.

This boat repair stuff has gotten ridiculous. Here's that list of things we've had done or done ourselves to the boat in the past 2 months:

tighten rudder packing & locktite screws (I did this - didn't help)
remove, repair, and re-bed rudder packing and bearings
fiberglass and epoxy aft holding tank (small leak, seems to be fixed)
new forestay and jib furler section; rework jib halliard at masthead
new jib sheets
new outhaul
rework running backstays
install permanent preventer
replace tri-color/anchor masthead w/LED version (low energy)
install 1 1/2" PCV on outboard tiller
change oil & oil filter main engine (twice)
change oil & oil filter generator
bottom cleaning (dumb - a month later we had the bottom painted)
replace zincs (also dumb, a month later we could have done it ourselves)
remove, refurbish, reinstall Spurs line cutter
new transmission dipstick (plastic threads were cross-threaded)
clean A/C raw water strainer (removed a plastic bag and lots of leaves)
top off refrigerant in reefer (at least in the future I can do it myself)
remove refrigerant forward A/C (compressor was over-charged)
intall quick disconnect fitting reefer compressor
repair/PM on genoa and mainsail (main in Lauderdale, genoa in Annapolis)
fins on outboard (makes the dinghy plane better)
change gear lube on outboard
rebed 3 hatches (they are now dry in a downpour!)
replace refrigerator & freezer gasketing (better energy efficiency)
salt water washdown valve replacement
re-seal mast boot and re-tape
new bottom paint (next time we do this ourselves)
clean level sensors in aft holding tank (a delightful job; not!)
replace valves on forward and aft Vacuflush toilets (paid for this - well worth it!)
clean boat speed paddle wheel
update radar firmware

Florida to the Chesapeake

2008-07-16T12:38:00.000-07:00

Florida is long behind us. We made the passage from West Palm Beach in southern Florida to the Chesapeake in 4 days and 3 nights. At more than 750 miles, this was our longest passage to date. Although long, it was extremely uneventful until just after we dropped the anchor in the Great Wicomico River off the Chesapeake. But I'm getting ahead of myself. We had nothing but calm seas and light winds during this trip. Even the seas off Cape Hatteras, known for treacherous conditions that have bested and sunk many a ship, were benign--less than two feet with virtually no wind. When making a passage we have to "stand watch" every 4 hours. It took us at least 24 hours to settle into our watch routine of 4 hours on, 4 hours off. But we did. One finds a groove and time passes easily. Although, I have to admit this passage got boring. Not much to see or do for 4 days on a very calm sea. We did pass Navy war ships practicing. Got a call from the aircraft carrier to pass them 2 miles off their stern. We complied. Got me to thinking about what it could be like to cross an ocean. Tedious? Scary? A little of each?

The waters of the Chesapeake were calm when we arrived in the morning. We had a day of sailing ahead of us. Looked like we could make it to the anchorage behind Sandy Point on the Great Wicomico by early evening. As the day progressed the Coast Guard weather reports on the VHF radio began to warn of serious thunder storms coming our way. In the afternoon, the reports became gale warnings and small craft advisories instructing boaters to seek shelter. Although we heard the reports, we didn't see any menacing weather and continued enroute to Sandy Point. The sky was clouding up a bit, but didn't look threatening as we entered the river. We rounded the point, dropped our anchor and were settling in for a nice non-sailing night when all of a sudden the wind began to blow, the sky turned dark, the water started to rage and lightning began to flash. The storms that had been racing across Pennsylvania at 40 miles an hour and had been the source of ongoing Coast Guard gale warnings were upon us like that! The rain came down in buckets! Bolts of lightning filled the sky, thunder boomed all around us, the boat rocked and rolled with the waves. Think Dorothy and the storm in the Wizard of Oz. That's what it looked and felt like. I was so glad to be at anchor and not on the Chesapeake during this storm. It was a doozy. But our anchor always holds us, so we made dinner and enjoyed not being on passage. We'd been in thunderstorms before. In a few hours the storm had passed and we went to bed. The next morning we were up early and on our way to Solomons Island for a get together with several other Hylas owners.

A three-day get together was planned for the first Annual Hylas Owners Get Together. Nine Hylas boats along with their owners made it to the get together. Although we'd met folks in the islands, we really hadn't socialized since we'd been back in the states. It was wonderful to visit with other Hylas owners. We had met Bob and Sharon on Shazaa in the Bahamas our first season out and had bumped into them again this past Spring on St John in the USVI. Great to see them once more. Everyone else was new to us. Although we've communicated with many of these folks on the Hylas owners e-mail forum, it was fun to meet them in person. Several couples opened their boats for the group to view. I was impressed with how others outfit and decorate their sailboats. Amazing! There were two other couples who cruise and live on their boats full-time like us. Those who don't live aboard, can keep their boats so tidy! I reminded myself that all they own in the world is not aboard with them! Most of the boats were 46 to 54 feet in length, but we did have one couple join us who own a 70 foot Hylas. Seventy feet is a lot of boat! They brought their captain and crew with them to the gathering or should I say their captain and crew brought them?!

After three days of socializing and exploring Solomons Island we headed north to Annapolis. Historic Annapolis, home to the Naval Academy, is a lovely town. Very walkable and oozing charm. We stopped here on our way south two years ago, and so know the harbor. Nice to be familiar with a place. Well that was a month ago, and we're still here! Been a busy month for us.

It was time to haul out Aurora for the once-a-year bottom painting that is essential to keep marine life from growing on the boat. Annapolis, "America's Sailing Capital," is well equipped with several boat yards and resources to get the work done. So we made arrangements to have Aurora hauled and painted. As our boat was going be on-the-hard for several days, I took advantage of it and visited Morgan and Julia in Ithaca, NY. Train travel is easy on the east coast, so I traveled on Amtrak from Baltimore to Syracuse. Caught the bus in Annapolis to the train station and Julia picked me up in NY. Piece of cake. And the trains are full! All seats sold out.

Julia and Morgan were great hosts. They live on the second floor of a two story house located right on the southern tip of Lake Cayuga. Really. Across the yard, over the train tracks and one is at the lake. What a view! Their porch and living room overlook the lake. Must be something in the fall with all those trees turning color. Julia and I spent time walking around town including Cornell's impressive campus, playing scrabble and just catching up. With Morgan we toured the labs where he's doing research on triblock polymers. (Right Morgan?). All very impressive. Amazing setup of tools and equipment. Julia and Morgan took me to Buttermilk Falls Park for a lovely hike. So lush. Everything is green this time of year. Not at all like the brown hills of California or the low, sandy geography of Florida. Oh, not to be forgotten, we stopped by a berry farm and picked fresh strawberries from which we made the most delicious strawberry shortcake. Yum!

And I met Clover, Julia and Morgan's Boxer. A well behaved dog, with the exception of her licking habit. Although she does stop when told. We spent Sunday morning at the local dog park. Ken would have enjoyed the dogs. All in all, a wonderful visit with my daughter and her husband. Hard to believe they'll be celebrating their first anniversary in two weeks! Time flies.

The train got me back to Baltimore no problem where Ken met me with a rental car. He'd gone to see the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum Udvar-Hazy Center near Dulles Airport. He took some great shots. His photos are in the latest album on our site.

Back at the boat yard, Aurora's bottom was getting painted. We splashed end of day on Thursday, July 3rd, just in time for the 4th of July weekend. We were excited about heading to Baltimore and enjoying the celebration in the Inner Harbor. I had secured reservations at a marina just to make sure we had a place to land for the busy holiday weekend. But, the best laid plans....... Once we were back in the water, we discovered that our rudder needed repair. It wouldn't be wise to head to Baltimore. So we enjoyed a fine 4th in Annapolis and on Monday had Aurora hauled out again. Cha Ching, Cha Ching. $$$!! Interested parties can read all of the technical details in Ken's journal entries of July 8th, Least-Coast Summer and July 9th, Rudders, on our web site.

So we lived "on-the-hard" for the past week. A boater we met likened it to living in a tree house. That about sums it up. Climb up a ladder to get onto the boat which has no running water, limited electricity (one extension cord) and is torn apart due to repair work. Fortunately the boat yard had a very nice bath house and laundry. There were convenient eateries in the neighborhood and we rented a car for the weekend to visit Washington DC. Still, nice to be in the water again!

It has been 30 years since I toured Washington, DC. Where did the time go? Anyway, the heat and humidity were the same. Ken and I walked the Mall and took in the sights. First visit to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial for me. The wall of names evoked emotions in a way the other memorials didn't. Possibly because I lived during the war, but more I think because of the nature of the work itself. One experiences rather than views the memorial. My favorite was the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery. Interesting to see the paintings, the different styles, the abilities of the artists and the likenesses of historical figures. There was a painting of John Greenleaf Whittier in the gallery. I was born and grew up in a town named after him. Odd to see his portrait, to look upon the same canvas he did, to react to a likeness of him that he must have also reacted to. I'm always struck by the how objects enable us to span the space-time continuum and bring a shared experience to people who in no other way can have a tactile connection. It is not like music or text, which make a connection, but rarely through the original manuscript or score. Our one day in Washington was not enough, but it was time to head back to Aurora.

As we were in a boat yard, I took advantage and worked on some of the varnishing. I'm redoing the slats from the stern deck seats. It is a long, tedious process as old varnish must be removed, the piece sanded, then sealed and finally several (up to 10) coats of varnish applied. Between each coat the varnish must dry and be sanded. I didn't finish my project, but did complete 4 coats of varnish. I'll see how it goes finishing the work on the boat.

And I decided to get my hair done. Remember we're back in the states and salon prices are more than when I left. So given the money flying out of our pockets, I decided I'd just go to an inexpensive chain at the local mall. I've had my hair cut under the trees in the Dominican Republic, at the boaters swap meet in St Maarten and at a neighborhood salon in Puerto Rico. What could happen at a mall salon in Annapolis? Well, the good news first. The cut was okay. But I decided to have my color touched up too. They couldn't use my dye, so I had to go with the salon's product. The bad news is I look like a goth! Well, it's not black, but close to it with no highlights. A uniform almost black color throughout. Looks like I did it myself in the garage without my mom's permission! Oh well, it will fade and grow out! On the up side, I feel 14 again! =^) Maybe I should just go gray???

After two years we are finding boat life not what we envisioned. Time to weigh the pros and cons and decide what to do. It is exciting, challenging and I love sailing to new places. The vagabond life appeals to me. We're much better sailors than we were two years ago and I like being at sea, but not for extended periods of time. We know our boat now. On the other hand, maintaining the boat is expensive and things break constantly. It is, we found out, part of boat life. Unfortunately our sailing kitty is not going to last as long as we planned. And a boat needs constant care. One could work 24/7 and still not be caught up on boat chores. And neither Ken nor I like doing chores that much! At one point this past month we were ready to toss in the towel, call it quits and purchase an RV and cruise the land. But once we slept on it we weren't so sure. So we'll head up to Maine for August and then south again in the fall. We might just keep going south and visit the southern and western Caribbean: the ABC's (Aruba, Bonaire & Curacao), the San Blas Islands off Panama, Belize, and Cozumel. We'll see. At the moment we're headed to Maine which I'm very much looking forward to.

As for good reads, I'm almost done with My Life In France by Julia Child. It's slow to start but the second half picks up and is worth plugging through the first chapters to get to the later ones. An interesting woman who at 6'2" with a determined and spirited personality must have been a odd duck in her day (Born in 1912, Smith College in the 1930's, Paris in 1946). But she took on life and enjoyed herself and shared her enjoyment with all of us.

Erik, Ken's son, is going to visit us next month. Looking forward to seeing him. It will be his first Aurora visit and I believe his first visit to Maine.

Rudders

2008-07-09T12:03:00.000-07:00

We pulled the boat out of the water Monday afternoon. We had 2 techs from the boatyard shop working all Monday afternoon, all day Tuesday, and so far nearly all of today. We started by thinking we could just seal the bronze stuffing tube to the fiberglass tube with a little more 3M 5200, and then use a couple of more bolts and nuts on either side to make sure the bronze tube was in good contact with the outer fiberglass tube.

But when they went to pry apart the bronze tube, it lifted about 3/4" from the fiberglass: enough to show there was a poor seal there originally, but not enough to allow us to create a good seal. So we had to proceed with rudder removal. We received step-by-step instructions from the boat's manufacturer on how to remove the rudder, but getting to the necessary nuts, bolts, retaining pins, split rings, setscrews, and more all disconnected and undone has been a bear. After they assembled the rudder post at the factory they pretty well sealed it up with woodwork - nice teak woodwork that we don't really want to destroy. I'm still amazed these techs can work in incredibly tight spaces with their bodies contorted all about, all day long without swearing a blue streak. I can't. Guess it's part of their professionalism.

We did find that at least 2 previous attempts to stop the leak had been made by adding layers of stuffing to the stuffing tube. Well, we don't actually know it was 2, all we know is there were 8 layers of stuffing rather than the factory-installed 3. I did one which makes for 4 done by others. I suspect they did 2 separate additions of 2 layers each time, but it could have been 3 or even 4! Who knows?

At any rate, we still haven't got the rudder out and until we do we can't get the bronze stuffing tube out. There's still one more bolt and nut the factory says has to be removed, but the techs have just thrown up their hands on it. If the so-called pros can't get it...

All the while, the meter is ticking. OK, maybe I'll spend some time looking myself. Don't know what I'll see that they don't but sometimes a second pair of eyes helps. Isn't this fun? At least it's not in the 90's again today.

Least-Coast Summer

2008-07-08T08:12:00.000-07:00

Welcome back to the continuing saga of our soon-to-be-penniless cruisers.

We are still in Annapolis, doing yet more boat repair and maintenance. It really is a never-ending story.

We arrived in Annapolis on Friday, June 20, over 2 weeks ago. We're getting very well acquainted with Annapolis, and must say that we enjoy it very much, other than the weather. The setting is lovely, there's a huge amount of history in the area, and the people are all quite enjoyable. Good food, good services and every amenity possible just a short ways away. But there's that weather thing. We're into the dog days of summer with temps in the high 80's and low 90's every day and the humidity approaching 100%. And the frequent lightning storms would be cool, if we didn't own a boat with a high mast and lots of very sensitive very expensive electronics.

Last I had written we were about to investigate having the bottom repainted, the genoa refurbished, and possibly getting the dings on the bow repaired. We spent Monday and Tuesday locating a boatyard and did pretty well. Eastport Yacht Center is a pleasant little marina (106 slips) with a TraveLift (boat hoist) and an on-site full-service boat repair shop, J. Gordon. They offered us a reasonable price on hauling, pressure wash, and new bottom paint. In the course of our time here we added repair of our bow dings and a complete polish of the hull.

Since the boat was going to be out of the water for nearly a week, Maryann took the opportunity to visit her daughter Julia and son-in-law Morgan in Ithaca, NY. Wednesday morning, the 25th she headed off to catch the shuttle to the Amtrak station at BWI airport, and then on to Syracuse. By all accounts she had a nice long weekend visiting in up-state New York.

Thursday morning I cast off our mooring and motored around to the boatyard. They're located in Eastport, which is just across Spa Creek from Annapolis proper. The boatyard is on the south side of Eastport on Back Creek. The Chesapeake is full of these little creeks and it seems nearly every one of them has a boatyard; in this case, being Annapolis, there must be half a dozen boatyards on Back Creek.

By Tuesday the bottom was repainted and Maryann was back from New York. By Thursday the dings had been repaired and the hull polished. We had the genoa back with a new UV cover and some other damaged parts repaired. I had done some miscellaneous maintenance while Maryann was gone, but mostly just melted in the heat and humidity.

I did manage to add a layer of packing material to our rudder stuffing box, which is the opening where the rudder stock enters the boat. There's 3 layers of an impregnated flax packing material that keeps the ocean from entering the boat via the rudder stock, or at least that's the way it's supposed to work. We've had a persistent leak here since we purchased the boat, and were anxious to stem the leak and perhaps have a dry bilge for the first time ever. It wasn't a serious leak, maybe a tablespoon-full every 10 minutes or so, but still annoying.

It was a difficult job, as the only access is under the after berth, where we sleep. There's enough boat parts in the way making it a job that has to be done mostly by feel. And, in fact, I couldn't get enough access to remove the old packing, so contented myself with adding just a new layer. If I'd been willing to remove the steering quadrant (the large bronze casting that actually turns the rudder from side to side when the steering wheel is turned), I probably could have done a better job, but it seemed at the time like another layer of packing would fix the problem.

We were anxious to finish the work and get the boat back in the water. It's a nuisance trying to live aboard while "on-the-hard". At least this time we had new refrigeration that doesn't rely on the boat being in the water its operation. We had been hoping to be back in the water by Tuesday, but we didn't get splashed until late afternoon on Thursday, right before the 3-day holiday of the Fourth of July. We tied up to a dock here at the boatyard, intending to leave for Baltimore early on the 4th where we were hoping to tour Fort McHenry (of Francis Scott Key and the Star Spangled Banner fame), and then watch fireworks over the Baltimore Inner Harbor. But as usual, fate had a different plan.

Once we were splashed (and the boatyard staff all went home) I checked the rudder stock and found that water was coming into the boat at a prodigious rate, maybe a gallon a minute. I tightened and tightened the flange that compresses the packing material, but it didn't seem to have much effect. I finally held our small digital camera where the fittings are and took some close-up pictures. When I got them up on the computer screen I found that I had actually warped part of the fiberglass tube where the rudder stock enters the boat! Oh crap! And when I went to make sure the bilge pumps were handling the water I found the primary bilge pump inoperative and the secondary not working either. Oh, isn't this fun? We're going to fill the boat with water and sink it at the dock. The few moments of panic passed as the bilge emptied and I realized the electrical breaker for the backup bilge pump had been turned off. OK, so we have an automatic bilge pump that works.

Note the warped fiberglass beneath the bronze stuffing tube, and the water rushing in!

After a somewhat sleepless night we were up bright and early on the 4th. We canceled our reservations for a slip in Baltimore and I found the primary bilge pump working just fine. Still have no idea what was going on there! Perhaps just the panic of the previous night when water was overflowing the bilge? At any rate, we now had 2 bilge pumps working again, and much to my surprise the water coming into the boat had slowed considerably. We knew we'd have to pull the boat out of the water again Monday and have someone with a bit more experience effect repairs on the rudder stock, but at least we probably weren't going to sink at the dock before then.

Friday evening we headed over to Annapolis, had pizza while the 4th of July parade marched by, and then walked out by the state capitol buildings while waiting for the fireworks to begin. Unfortunately, we had a pretty intense thunderstorm come through while on our walk; luckily we had our umbrellas with us, so didn't get too terribly soaked. We caught one the free shuttle buses back to town, and watched the fireworks over the naval academy. Would have been better with music as we're used to from Shoreline Amphitheatre on the 4th, but it was still nice.

Yesterday morning we made arrangements to have the folks at J Gordon repair things and the boat was pulled yet again in the early afternoon. We've been going back and forth with them, trying to figure out the best way to fix things and whether or not to remove the rudder entirely. We finally made the decision to repair things in place, and those repairs are continuing as I type this. We're hoping to be back in the water tomorrow, though it's remotely possible they'll be done this afternoon.

Meanwhile, we're getting pretty discouraged. Things seem to continue to break or require maintenance at a furious rate. We determined the other night that we've spent nearly half of our 10-year budget in just 2 years of cruising. Not to mention the rather ridiculous amount we spent to outfit the boat (we bought things that we just won't need if we aren't doing a circumnavigation, and I'd say it looks pretty doubtful that we're sailing around the world anytime soon). I would list all of the work we've done and have had done since we arrived in Lauderdale in May, but it would only depress me. And with our principal invested in the tanking stock market, we have even less.

Is it time to throw in the towel? Stay tuned.

Getting Caught Up

2008-06-22T13:13:00.001-07:00

After trying to post the previous entry using our Iridium satellite phone and having the email application repeatedly die, it wasn't clear that we had sent anything at all. As it turns out, the email did get sent, and my trustworthy son, Erik, posted the entry. We didn't know that, though, until we next had internet access, 4 days later, so we didn't post any more updates from our longest passage to date.

Strange that nobody seemed to care that we were underway from Palm Beach, posted one update, and then went silent for a week. For all anybody knew we could have been lost in the Bermuda Triangle!

Anyway, picking up where we left off, we continued our very uneventful sail up the coast from West Palm Beach toward North Carolina. Things were so uneventful and the weather so benign we continued sailing and motor-sailing Sunday and Monday, right around Cape Hatteras (the ship graveyard of the Atlantic) and into the Chesapeake Bay. We finally dropped the anchor Monday evening off Sandy Point in the Great Wicomico River, where we'd anchored 2 years previously on our way south through the Chesapeake. We managed to travel 763 miles non-stop over 4 days and 5 hours. More importantly, nothing broke!

About 5 minutes after we anchored, we had a thunderstorm wallop us! Winds gusting to 40 knots and torrential rain, with lightning and thunder to match. But we were well-anchored and felt quite safe and serene, other than some nervousness about how close the lightning was getting. The storm passed and we slept well that evening, after standing 4 hours on, 4 hours off watches for 4 days.

Tuesday we motored to Solomons, MD for the Hylas owners get-together. We had 3 lovely days meeting new friends and decompressing from our long passage. We toured 2 other Hylas 46's, a Hylas 54, and a Hylas 70. Interesting to see other folks' boats, particularly boats that aren't lived aboard 24 hours a day, boats that probably have professional cleaning regularly. Amazing how much more room there is in a 54, only 8 feet longer than our boat, and absolutely astounding how much room there is in a 70! The 70 even had a full-time captain and cook.

Friday we left Solomons and motored (not much wind on the Chesapeake and what there is has been contrary - as usual, right on our nose!) to Annapolis. We'll investigate getting our genoa refurbished here, as well as possibly get the bottom paint re-done and some dings in the bow attended to. We also need to get a handhold on the dinghy repaired that we severed when leaving the dock in Nassau.

Just one other tidbit. We met some other cruisers in a Hylas 49 in San Juan, Puerto Rico and learned that they were fearsome fish killers. They gave all credit to a magic lure purchased at a boat show. Given our lousy record fishing (several strikes, but only managed to pull in 2 barracuda, both of whom were released), I was willing to try anything. I ordered one of these magic lures and it was delivered while we were in Lake Worth. I put it out right after leaving Lake Worth and damned if we didn't get a strike about an hour later! We landed a very nice 5 lb. Little Tunny. Now if you take what I've spent on fishing gear and divide by the 3 or so lbs of meat we ended up with, you'll find that fish cost way more than the most expensive Bluefin Tuna in the Tokyo fish market. Still, it was reassuring to finally land something! We didn't do any more fishing on the passage north, but have great hopes for the future.

In Which Our Protagonists Get Overly Excited About 11 Knots

2008-06-14T01:21:00.001-07:00

We'd been waiting for the sail loft in Lauderdale to refurbish our mainsail and genoa (large jib) since well before we left Lauderdale for Lake Worth. They were finally delivered Wednesday morning; the mainsail was completed, but the genoa was not - apparently a bad couple of weeks at the sail loft. Would have been nice to have left Palm Beach earlier, but what can you do?

We put the genoa up, returned the rental car, and left the marina for one that has diesel. We only needed 66 gallons, but at $4.75 a gallon it was a bunch of money.

We anchored Wednesday night in Lake Worth south of Peanut Island, and after futzing around getting the mainsail hoisted, we finally managed to leave Lake Worth Inlet around 1:30PM yesterday.

It's been fairly uneventful, though we had to motorsail until just a while ago, due to lack of wind. We went through a couple of squalls, one with winds up in the low 30's; funny how the wind can go from 5knots to 33knots in no time!

Once we found the Gulf Stream we were doing 10+ knots consistently, up into the low 11's. We managed 220nm from 1330 yesterday to noon today, an excellent run.

This morning we were overflown by both a Navy jet and helicopter. Later we spotted the aircraft carrier (#71 - anybody want to look that one up?) which called us and requested we scoot around their stern while they were doing aircraft landings and takeoffs. Big honking carrier.

We finally have enough wind to sail, so we turned off the engine a short while ago, and we actually were doing 12 knots under sail. Haven't gone this fast since we came through Hell Gate on the East River in NYC with the tide.

We'll continue on and decide if we want to go all the way around Cape Hatteras and into the Chesapeake without stopping. We'd like to join some fellow Hylas owner's on the Patuxent River this coming Tuesday, though it's going to tight.

South Florida

2008-06-06T14:58:00.000-07:00

Hello Everyone!

May 28, 2008

The past week and a half has not been as exciting as the previous two weeks, no long passages, no mechanical failures, no lines caught under the boat. Been most pleasant!

As Ken mentioned in his May 16th Journal, we arrived in Ft Lauderdale, and that afternoon met with the rigger. Well it's been over a week and the rigger is still working. Hopefully today all will be done.

As we didn't sail to Key West, we decided to go see it via a rental car. A good decision as we were both very ready to be off of the boat for a few days. We stayed in a hotel on Duval Street in the heart of historic Key West. Soooo nice, a comfy king-size bed, a clean shower with endless hot water, nonstop air conditioning and reliable WiFi. Ahhh the pleasures of life on land.

We found Key West to be overly touristy. At times it felt like we were in Disneyland, especially when the Conch Train Tours passed by. Nevertheless, we took it all in and enjoyed ourselves. Sunset at Mallory Square was not to be missed, street entertainment and drinks every night as the sun sets over the Gulf of Mexico. Ken and I particularly enjoyed the "cat" show. Domestic cats performed for a wacky trainer. Silly and fun. The cats were impressive as they did not mind the crowd, including dogs, and did not leave the open space on the square where their show took place. And I got a kick out of seeing them jump through hoops!

We even went to the Disneyesque Pirate Soul Museum where the "in the hold" experience gave me a fright! We wandered from the Pirate museum into what appeared to be a costume shop next door, but was in fact a sex-toy purveyor. Yes, there were lots of costumes for sale, but I don't think they were meant for Halloween. And the abundance of "devices" available for purchase was, well, astounding. Merchandised from floor to ceiling, the store was well stocked. Fun to be a fly on the wall here. Just imagine the conversations of families as they wandered through the shop. =^)

The Museum of Art & History housed in the refurbished Customs House was my favorite Key West "attraction." The ICONS exhibit by J. Seward Johnson was worth seeing. Bronze, life-size sculptures of iconic images in art ("The Mona Lisa," "American Gothic," "Girl with a Pearl Earring"), but each with a different twist. His take on Mona Lisa was that she was in fact a male, as confirmed by her hairy legs which one doesn't see in the painting, but does see in Johnson's bronze.

Ernest Hemingway lived in Key West for many years with his second wife Pauline. We toured their house. Interesting man. Intense.

Route 1 through the Keys to Key West was a bit of a disappointment. My vision of an endless causeway crossing aqua blue water connecting palm tree covered keys with white beaches was not realized. No, not what it's like at all. Think about an old highway, like route 66, lined with scrub brush, sand and buildings from another era. Regularly a bridge or causeway connects two keys. The thing is, the bridges were not picturesque, just another section of an old highway that has seen better days. All in all we enjoyed Key West and our much needed break from Aurora, but once was enough.

After our return from Key West, we took advantage of having a car to do errands. We found most everything on our shopping list, did a provisioning and restocked our supply of wine. Also, I had the print we purchased in Trellis Bay, BVI framed. Finally we have a picture hanging in the saloon. We even saw the new Indiana Jones movie. So nice to have wheels. But it was only for a short time. The car has been returned.

The riggers should finish the work today. Well maybe not, it's 5:00 p.m. But for us, it's time to move on from Las Olas Marina. Our next stop is Lake Worth in the West Palm Beach area where we'll visit with our friends Gary and Len as well as take delivery our refurbished sails. Then it's on to Beaufort, NC to wait for calm weather in which to scoot around Cape Hatteras. Then we'll be in the Chesapeake where we'll spend some time. If all goes well, we'll meet up with other Hylas owners at an informal gathering scheduled for mid June.

June 4, 2008

Got busy. Didn't finish and send the update last week. We motored from Ft Lauderdale to Lake Worth (Palm Beach, Fl) and have been here since last Wednesday. Still waiting on our sails. They should be delivered by Friday. Not so. Just found out they will not be ready until next Wednesday! Another week in Lake Worth. Not where we want to be!

Given that we were here for a few days, we decided to tour Florida. On Saturday we, along with thousands of others, watched the launch of the shuttle Discovery from Titusville, a town west of Cape Canaveral. One can find a spot along the coast and watch the launch which takes place across the water at the Kennedy Space Center. Although 12 miles away, it was still an amazing view. First time I've seen a live launch. The feelings of pride and awe I experienced were unexpected and strong.

From the east coast of Florida we drove across the state to Sarasota, on the Gulf, to visit the Ringling Museum of Art, which is a complex that houses the Ringling Museum of Art, the Circus Museum, Ca d' Zan (John and Mable Ringling's home) and Historic Asolo Theater. Quite interesting and worthwhile. Learned much about the golden age of the circus in America, 1880's to 1919, and about John and Mable Ringling. The miniature circus created by Howard Tibbals was well worth seeing. Mr Tibbals spent 50 years creating his model circus. The detail is incredible, from the train yard with the unloading of the circus wagons, to the back yard where the behind-the-stage life took place to the midway with its strange and freakish shows, to the Big Top with its three rings, every detail was addressed. Mr. Tibbals even modeled both the men's and women's "rooms." Nothing fancy, not even rooms, just open-air canvased off sections between the midway and the Big Top. The men's had a ditch for a latrine with instructions stating "face this way." The dressing tents, the eating tent, the animal tents as well as every other aspect of the traveling circus was depicted in exacting detail. Truly amazing.

We had planned a slow drive back on the Tamiami Trail scenic highway through the Everglades, but had to alter plans when we took a look at the Monday tides. Oops, minus low tide at midday! We had to move Aurora into the marina on Monday to accommodate the refrigeration techs scheduled to come on board Tuesday morning. With our 7 foot draft, the only time there would be enough water in the shallow marina channel was at high tide, and high tide was going to happen in the wee hours of the morning. But if we moved her at 9:00 a.m. there would be just enough water in the channel. So we made a quick dash across Florida's interstate 75, better known as Alligator Alley, early Monday morning. Whew, we just made it! Ken said the depth finder reported 7 feet as we came into the marina!

We've seen several lightning storms in Florida. Not surprising as Central Florida is known as the lightning capital of the United States, as it experiences more lightning strikes than anywhere else in the country. On our drive to the west coast we were treated to a spectacular lightning storm outside of Tampa. Just hope a bolt of lightning doesn't hit Aurora's mast while we’re here. That would fry the electronics on the boat. Another reason to move out of Florida quickly. Hurricanes and heat being at the top of the list of why we need to scoot. Unfortunately the sail rep informed us this morning that our sails will not be ready until next week! The cruising life requires patience!

Ken has been following the adventures of a South African family on their sailing vessel Gilana for the past 4 years or so. They've been out cruising for 10 years and they maintain a great web site which they update regularly. They started out sailing with their 10 year old daughter and 80 year old mom. Been interesting to read about their adventures and how they raised their daughter on a boat. It turned out that Mike and Laura of Gilana were in Lake Worth not far from us. So we dinghyed over and introduced ourselves. For Ken it was quite something to meet the folks he has been reading about for years. We were able to get together with them for a visit which we enjoyed. Interesting to hear their story and why they chose to live on Gilana. Over the years the family unit changed. Liz their daughter grew up and moved out on her own and sadly, Laura's mom has passed away. Liz is working as crew on a mega yacht. Mike and Laura expect to sail the Med a bit more and then settle in Mallorca, a Spanish island in the Mediterranean. In fact, they will be leaving to cross the Atlantic any day now. Inspirational couple.

Well another day has gone by and this update has still not been sent! We decided to stay in south Florida and have the sails delivered to us next Wednesday. However, we changed marinas and are now at Palm Beach Harbor Marina in West Palm Beach. A much more comfortable locale within easy walking distance of services and a downtown.

Remember the awning I was working on forever in Trinidad? Well it is coming in handy in this Florida heat and sunlight. We've had it up for several days now and it helps block the sun and keep the temperature down. Guess all that work was not in vain. I was beginning to wonder if we'd ever use it.

Updated photos at:

http://www.svaurora.com/newsite/PhotoGallery/Passage%20and%20South%20Florida/index.html

Okay, time post this update, really.

Enjoy your summer,

Maryann

Back in the Contiguous 48

2008-05-16T12:02:00.000-07:00

Wednesday we left Nassau in the Bahamas and motored to Chub Cay, about 36 miles to the northwest. Anchored overnight and left early the next morning to transit the Grand Bahama Banks (again), about 86 miles to North & South Bimini, where we again dropped the hook last night. This morning we left about 6AM for our 2nd Gulf Stream passage. We did quite well, averaging over 7knots for the 50 or so miles.

We did have a Coast Guard boat approach us about 2/3's the way to Lauderdale. We gave them all of our particulars over the VHF radio and then they asked when was the last time we had a Coast Guard inspection. Of course, we've never been boarded, and we were truthful. Took them awhile to drop their inflatable, but then we were boarded by 2 nice young coasties who verified our documentation and that we had all of the Coast Guard required equipment aboard. Very polite and reasonably thorough. We got gold stars for compliance. :-)

Anyway, arrived Ft Lauderdale about 12:30 and after waiting to get through 2 bridge openings, we grabbed a slip in the Las Olas Marina where we'll the rigger inspect our sorry rigging. Kind of odd to be back in the US, at least mainland US, again.

Not So Fun Passage

2008-05-13T12:39:00.000-07:00

We stayed a couple of days in Culebra in the Spanish Virgin Islands before heading over to San Juan, Puerto Rico. When we came south last year, we hugged the west and south coasts of Puerto Rico, as the north coast is no fun for folks heading to the Caribbean. But this time we wanted to head toward the Florida Keys, and the north coast is the fastest way there. We had a nice couple of days anchored outside the pleasure boat marina in San Juan, meeting up with some old friends from Trinidad, and meeting new ones. They were all heading for San Salvador in the Bahamas (the island held to be most likely the one where Columbus landed in 1492), about 600 miles and 3-5 days away (depending on boat speed). We took another look at the weather in Key West and the temps and decided maybe we'd waited a bit too long to do the Florida Keys this year, and made the snap decision to head to San Salvador with the other cruisers.

We did have to get our mainsail repaired. Not sure we mentioned it in a previous journal, but we (I) managed to tear the foot of the mainsail when unfurling it. Inattention and I pulled too hard on the outhaul without unfurling enough and the foot tore for about 2 feet. We found a sailmaker in San Juan who did a very nice repair on the sail. Nice guy and superb customer service - Armstrong Sails.

We left San Juan Sunday morning, May 4, about 8AM. We quickly passed the other 2 boats that had left a bit earlier than we had, as we were longer than they and therefore faster. We had a nice wind from abaft the beam (behind us), so we hoisted the main and were on our way. The wind was far enough behind us to use the downwind pole and go "wing and wing". That means the mainsail was let out to port and we used our downwind pole to push the genoa out over the starboard side. Like 2 wings to either side of the boat and the wind coming from behind to push us along. We were doing 7 1/2 knots consistently and life was good, especially once the seas abated by Monday morning. The first 24 hours weren't particularly pleasant, though, with a fair bit of rolling side-to-side.

This was planned to be our first multiple day passage and we had expected it to take us 3-4 days to do the 600 miles from San Juan to San Salvador. We were doing just fine for the first 48 hours and then it all went to hell in a big hurry.

Tuesday morning we were both up around 9AM and the wind had moved around such that we needed to jibe the boat, that is, turn the boat and change the sails so that the wind was coming from the port quarter instead of the starboard quarter. We jibed the mainsail easily. We decided to furl the genoa and then pole it out to port. But somehow, in the process of rolling it up we managed to get it hopelessly wrapped around the forestay, with a couple of big hunks of sail catching the wind and flopping and flapping and booming as we sailed along.

You'll recall we'd had problems furling the jib in the Virgins and had had to replace the primary jib halyard after kinking the wire rope part of it. We figure this was just a continuation of the same problems we'd had and that we'd only fixed the symptom by replacing the halyard and that we hadn't fixed the fundamental problem, whatever it was. At any rate, here we had this horrendous wrap in the jib midway between San Juan and San Salvador.

Luckily we were only 35 miles north of Grand Turk in the Turks and Caicos Islands, so we made the decision to turn south, anchor, and attend to the jib. We started the engine and started to roll up the mainsail. The wind was out of the southeast and too much on the nose to sail. Recall that our mainsail rolls up into the mast (in-mast roller furling). When I pushed the button that runs the motor that rolls up the sail the motor went round and round, but the sail didn't move. I took a winch handle and went up to the mast to roll it up manually (we'd had to do this once before in Martinique), but that didn't turn the sail, either. We dropped the main, managing to break one of the battens as we did so, but we did get it down and folded up on deck.

At this point I think we'd both had enough of this cruising life and were considering packing it in. Unfortunately we didn't have much choice and had to continue.

It took all day to motor the 35 miles. At first we were only making 2 1/2 knots as we were heading nearly directly into the wind and the jib had enough sail out to impede our progress. It wasn't a very pleasant trip to Grand Turk. We arrived just before sunset and anchored almost exactly in the spot where we'd anchored when we'd last been there last year. We'd made a few half-hearted attempts to clear the wrap in the jib on the way down, and another couple once we anchored. We did manage to reduce the amount of sail that was flapping in the breeze, though, and left it until morning. We were really tired after 2 1/2 days on passage. We both wondered what would it have been like if this had happened 2 1/2 days into a passage across the Atlantic
Ocean? Not fun to contemplate.

Wednesday morning we were up bright and early and found that the main had not furled because the rod that connects the electric furling motor to the spool inside the mast had sheared completely through! How this happened, we haven't a clue. It may have been damaged when we tore the mainsail, as that would have put substantial torque on the spool. But it's an inch-thick aluminum extrusion, and it's still not clear how we managed to break it so badly.

We then turned our attention to clearing the wrap. We pulled and pulled with the winches, putting way too much strain on the forestay. We thought we'd break the jib sheets or do some other major damage, but we just couldn't unwind the sail. Finally, we found where the jib sheets attached to the sail (the knots were buried under multiple layers of sailcloth, tightly rolled up around the forestay), and managed to cut them away. That allowed us to unroll the sail and drop it onto the deck. Maryann probably had suggested this exact strategy the day before, but apparently the idea got lost in translation.

Once we got the jib dropped on deck and folded away we found that we had indeed damaged the aluminum extrusion that the jib connects to and around which the sail is rolled up when it's furled. We bent it and bent the slot that holds the sail as it's hoisted. OK, we can motor to San Salvador; it's only 300 miles away and we've done nearly that much mileage previously.

One of our pre-departure checklist items is to check the bilge to make sure both the primary and the backup bilge pump are working and the high-water alarm is functional. When we looked in the bilge it was black with crud and *neither* bilge pump was working! At this point I really was ready to leave the boat forever, but we'd never be able to find someone to move it somewhere it could be sold!

We hadn't been quite diligent enough in the past couple of months keeping the bilge clean. The bilge collects everything and anything that falls into the bottom of the boat and also collects any oil or diesel or refrigerant or any other liquid. Our bilge was a mess. We knew that our rudder stock was still leaking badly - in fact we have the new packing material to fix it, but were waiting until we could get a packing extraction tool on back order (it's kind of like a long corkscrew and apparently is really necessary to get the old packing material out). The leak through the packing was probably filling the bilge every 20 or 30 minutes. We'd had some diesel spill into the bilge when replacing the fuel filters on the generator recently. We also know we have a tiny leak in our refrigerator refrigerant lines as we've had to have the refrigerant topped off twice now since we had the new compressor installed last November. Anyway, all of this, plus bits and pieces of crud and some dissolved tubing had all contributed to a truly foul bilge.

We spent the next few hours cleaning it. We had to remove the switches, the primary pump, the intake for the secondary pump, and scrub, scrub, scrub. The filter that keeps crud out of the secondary pump was cracked, causing it to suck air. It was also completely clogged. Replacing the filter and cleaning the rest of it all got it working again. The primary bilge pump had crud in it's intake and cleaning it got it working again. Repeated draining and scrubbing and we finally had everything back together and working again. But by then it was too late to leave, so we stayed a second night in Grand Turk.

Thursday morning we left Grand Turk, resuming our course for San Salvador. As we were doing our departure checks we found that the AIS was no longer functioning. This is the VHF radio receiver that detects the radio signal put out by large ships (mandated by the Coast Guard a couple of years back for all boats larger than 300 tons). This was a major blow, as we rely on it to show us what shipping traffic is around us. And somewhere along the way our radar had gone kaput, so we would be relying on visuals for detecting ship traffic.

We ran all day Thursday and into Friday when we decided that with the winds having come around to the west and due to come out of the northwest that we should probably give San Salvador a pass. There are no protected anchorages on the island from northwest winds that would have allowed us to check in with customs and immigration. So we altered course for between Rum Cay (where we had been last year for a few days) and Conception Island and on into the Exuma Sound, on the way to Nassau.

Saturday morning, around 2:30AM in the middle of Exuma Sound, pitch black, and no moon, I was on watch when I felt a nasty thump. Oh shit, the boat hit something! A quick check of the bilge and interior spaces of the boat didn't reveal anything amiss, but damn, we now have a nasty vibration that's especially bad right above where the prop is! I found that if I slowed the boat to 5 knots, the vibration became almost unnoticeable. You know, words can hardly describe the feeling of knowing you've hit something in the absolute pitch black of 2:30AM and that something's not right with the boat and you've got another 4 hours or so before sunrise. It's not a fun feeling.

Around 7AM I was out on the stern, trying to see if I could see anything and sure enough there's
something streaming back from under the stern! We stop the boat (this is in the middle of the ocean, with about 4000 feet of water between the surface and the sea floor) and I see that it's some rope that we're trailing. I strip, put on mask and fins, and jump in the water. It's 80-some degrees, but it feels icy at first. Luckily the seas had dropped to the point of almost calm, which was really nice. Kind of eerie swimming around in this intensely deep blue void. And sure enough there's some nylon 3-strand line, one piece caught where the rudder connects to the boat and another piece draped around the skeg just forward of the prop. I free both pieces, run the engine up to cruising RPMs and no vibration! We're back in business, so we resume course for the Great Bahama Bank.

Just a little after noon we spot Highbourne Cay, where we will leave Exuma Sound and its comfortable depths, and pass onto the Great Bahama Bank with its nerve-wracking shallows. The path onto the banks isn't exactly straightforward and we have a few tense moments negotiating it. It's probably too late to go across to Nassau, especially since we need good sunlight from behind to see the coral heads scattered about in the Yellow Bank, midway to Nassau. So we drop the hook off Highbourne Cay and have a good night's sleep after nearly 50 hours of continuous motoring.

Sunday morning we leave Highbourne Cay for Nassau. It's a 30-mile or so motor across the banks and spotting the coral heads is pretty easy. We're a whole lot more relaxed about the passage than when we had come from Nassau to this area a year ago January! Probably too complacent, but we sight Nassau, make a reservation for a slip in a marina, and tie up on Sunday afternoon. It's been 7 days of passage with enough thrills and chills to last a lifetime.

It's now Tuesday evening and we'll be leaving tomorrow morning for Chub Cay, about 35 miles away. We plan to anchor there overnight, then cross another part of the Great Bahama Bank to Bimini Island, where we plan to anchor Thursday night. Then Friday morning, provided the weather forecast holds, we'll head across the Gulf Stream to Fort Lauderdale. We have an appointment with a guy who's supposed to be the best rigger in south Florida. It's not going to be inexpensive to fix our rigging - we have to replace a good part of the jib roller furling and we'll have to pull the mast out of the boat and replace a good part of the in-mast roller furling as well. We'll also need new running rigging, including new jib sheets, a new outhaul, a new spinnaker halyard, repair the primary jib halyard, and god knows what else. Oh, and we'll need to have the radar checked out and repaired and get the AIS fixed as well.

Are we inept or just unlucky? Or maybe a bit of both?

Good-bye Virgins

2008-04-29T06:02:00.001-07:00

Time to move on from the Virgins. Next we're headed to the Sabine Women. Okay, okay, just my attempt at humor. =^) Of course, we can't depart until packages arrive (should be here today or tomorrow), and we complete the rebedding of three hatches, which we're doing because they leak when it rains and because we have time, due to the wait for packages. Then we're heading north, well to be precise west north west. Yes, we have a plan! (Dave are your reading this?) But before I share with you what's next, time to update everyone on where we've been.

After Ken's passport arrived we sailed to Anegada the northern most of the British Virgin Islands. Unlike the rest of the Virgins, it was not formed via volcanic activity. Anegada has a completely different geological history. It is a coral atoll. As such it is low lying island, only 28 feet above sea level at its highest point. It reminded me of the Bahamas with its white sandy beaches, intensely blue waters and shallow access through surrounding reefs. At one point the water depth in the channel to the anchorage was only 7 feet 5 inches! Aurora's draft is 7 feet. Not too comfortable.

As much had been made of the grilled lobster dinner at the Anegada Reef Hotel by cruising guides and by other cruisers, Ken and I made reservations. Dinner was a pleasant enough experience, but unfortunately did not live up to the rave reviews we'd heard and read. The tables were located out-of-doors, almost on the beach, but not quite. We ate dinner with the sun setting over the ocean and our bare feet in the sand, casual with tablecloths. Very island like. The lobster was local and fresh. So fresh that earlier in the afternoon we passed our dinner on the way in from the dinghy dock. The live lobsters were held in a submerged cage just off the dock, well at least until right before dinner. And the lobsters were huge. Although a wonderful island setting, the food and service were like we've experienced throughout the Caribbean, just not very good. Yes the lobsters were large, but dry; the vegetables overdone; the salad uninteresting and the screw-top wine overpriced. The service was at best adequate, not friendly nor welcoming. I'm not sure why the rave reviews.

I've discussed this with other cruisers and they have had the same experience. Most feel they can make better meals on their boats. I have to agree. Ken cooks dinner and I prefer his meals to the ones touted in the cruising guides. As for service, it's just different in the islands. In the states, we have a competitive economy in which service is valued and ultimately rewarded with repeat customers and for those individuals providing the service, tips. Service is so valued in the US, we have a hospitality industry. One doesn't realize how this impacts life until one travels. At least I didn't. It's not that we are better, it's just that we've become accustomed to a standard of service that isn't the norm everywhere. The difference is noticeable. We in the U.S. have it good. It bears repeating, we are fortunate. Not just those who are purchasing a service, but also those who are employed in service industries. To be trained, or in some cases to know intuitively, how to do a job well and then do it so, is satisfying. It's a joy to be good at what you do. Unfortunately if being in the "hospitality" industry is the only job available and not one's calling, it may not be a joy to work. And for the customer, the feeling is the same. It may not be a joyful experience.

Having said that, so much in the islands is amazing. Until recently, SCUBA diving was not allowed in the reef off Anegada, but there is now one dive shop, We Be Divin', that has permission to dive the reef. Ken and I did a shore dive from the beach at Loblolly Bay. Boat diving spoils one. Getting in to and out of the ocean in a full set of SCUBA gear from the shore is awkward, but doable. And we did it. Ken was disappointed in the dive as most of the coral in the reef has died. It is just beginning to reestablish itself. However, I had a completely different experience. The shapes of the old coral heads and the coral canyons created by the reef were quite something to see and SCUBA through. There were lots of fish and we saw a turtle. The dive was shallow and the sun shining bright, so it felt like being in a aquarium. The sun light brought out the colors of the fish and back lit the coral heads. Looking up one from the bottom of a dark coral canyon I could see the sun shining through an opening in the coral while schools of fish swam above in the turquoise water. It was beautiful.

After our stay in Anegada, we returned to the BVI and wandered from bay to cove to bay. One of my favorite spots was Trellis bay on Tortola. The bay is a mooring field with too many boats, but at Trellis Bay I found Aragorn's Studio, an outstanding gallery and art studio. Aragorn is a native of St Thomas, received his education in Europe and is a talented artist. He works in metal, but also does wonderful etchings. My search for a piece of art for our saloon is over. I purchased one of Aragorn's etchings. It met both Ken and my requirements. It is a piece of art work of and from the islands (my requirement) and its content is nautical (Ken's choice). Not only does Aragorn display his own work in the gallery, but he also shows the work of other talented Caribbean artists. I've been to a lot of galleries on the islands, but the quality and quantity of local craft works at Aragorn's was the best I've seen. Yes, I've been to galleries with more impressive oil paintings, but not better crafts work--great Carib basketry, interesting pottery and quality carvings.

After our stay in Trellis bay we headed over to Jost Van Dyke, a small island north of Tortola. On the way we experienced problems with our genoa furler. The genoa is the sail at the bow of the boat. We couldn't furl the sail. Ken details the excitement in his April Journal entry on our web site.

We did get the sail rolled up, kind of (It certainly wasn't properly furled) and headed back to Crown Bay Marina in St Thomas, USVI to have a rigger look at it. Turns out the metal halyard somehow got caught around the furled sail creating a permanent kink in the halyard cable. Couldn't be repaired. Required a new halyard and installation. It's done and we're on our way again.

As mentioned we spent the rest of our stay in Long Bay on St Thomas working on the boat and waiting for mail. And planning our next few months of sailing. We talked of crossing the Atlantic in May and spending time in the Med. However, the Atlantic is a big ocean and we thought it might be wise for us to get more passage making experience before we tackle such a voyage. So we're heading to Key West and then up the east coast of the United States. We'll be spending July and August in Maine. We'll be making longer passages during this trip north than we did coming south. We plan to sail from San Juan, Puerto Rico to Key West, Florida. That's a 5 to 7 day passage taking us north of Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic and Cuba and south of the Bahamas. It's known as the old Bahama Passage. Then we'll head up the Keys to Ft Lauderdale. From Ft Lauderdale it's another several day passage to Beaufort, South Carolina. We'll do a two day sail around Cape Hatteras to Norfolk, VA and then up the Chesapeake where we'll spend some time. I'd like to sail up the Potomac to Washington DC. Then we'll continue on up the coast with the goal of reaching Maine by mid July. I know it's not as exotic as sailing across an ocean, but it will provide us with much needed passage making experience. And it will be nice to be back in the States for a while.

More Photos. The most recent picts are located in the Photo Gallery at:
http://www.svaurora.com/newsite/PhotoGallery/Virgins%20Second%20Season/index.html

It's now Tuesday April 29th. We sailed from the Virgins yesterday afternoon and are currently anchored in Ensenada Honda Bay on the Spanish Virgin Island of Culebra. Weather looks good for a Friday sail to San Juan, Puerto Rico. From there we leave on our week long passage to Key West, Florida.

Cheers!

Maryann

Breakage and Near Misses

2008-04-20T06:09:00.000-07:00

New photos added to Virgins Second Season.

It's been quite a while since I've written an entry. Not quite sure why the entries are fewer and far between these days, except that we're retracing territory we've seen before, particularly here in the Virgin Islands. It couldn't be because things are breaking less often or because we're having fewer close calls...

Why just yesterday we backed out of a slip in a marina in cross wind, which pushed us onto a piling as we backed out, and then kept us from being able to turn the boat and head out of the marina. This boat just doesn't like turning when it gets the wind around the bow. There were a couple of tense moments with us getting blown down on the mega yachts, but eventually we managed to power out of the marina. No damage from the piling, other than a slightly ripped cover on our Lifesling (crew overboard recovery sling). I did better at the same marina in higher winds when I did it solo; that's the difference a bit of current makes.

Then just a bit later we were anchoring and the anchor chain got caught in the fresh water hose which we stow in the forward anchor locker. Pulled a bit of hose right up the hawse pipe (the piece of pipe that allows the anchor chain to exit the anchor chain locker). So there we were without enough anchor chain out to set the anchor on the bottom, yet just enough out to possibly catch on the bottom if we try to motor forward. After a few wild minutes of "what the hell do we do now?" I managed to use a long screwdriver to push the hose back into the pipe and that freed it from the chain. Setting the anchor from there was pretty uneventful.

And then there was the frantic moment on Tuesday when we had trouble getting the jib unrolled on its furler, and then once it was unrolled we couldn't roll it back it up, nor drop the sail. We're in fairly light winds, luckily, but there we are with this big 130% genoa (that means a jib sail that fills the entire triangle between the forestay and the mast, plus another 30% that extends beyond the mast) out and no way to get it put away. We entered into the first protected bay, anchored, and had some tense moments until we finally got the jib rolled up. Very messily. So we unrolled it, with great difficulty (thought we were going to damage the forestay we were pulling so hard on it), and got it dropped. And because I couldn't see anything wrong we raised the sail and were immediately back into the same predicament, unable to roll it up or drop it.

After some more tense moments, including some dragging of the anchor, coming way too close to another couple of anchored boats, we finally managed to drop the sail again. Our halyard is half wire rope and half polyester rope, and the wire rope had somehow gotten twisted about the upper furler, giving it a kink. The kink is what was giving us fits. Yesterday we had a rigger make up a new halyard which fixed the problem, at the rather exorbitant price of $325.

Let's see, oh yeah, there was our outing to Anegada Island, one of the Virgin Islands I'd never visited. It's a couple hours sail north of Virgin Gorda and differs from the other Virgin Islands in that it's a low limestone and coral formation with a huge barrier reef (some say the 3rd largest barrier reef in the world!) rather than steeply volcanic as the rest of the Virgins. Low-lying limestone with extensive reef makes for a very shallow approach. We saw 7.4' on the depth sounder on the way to the anchorage; we draw 7', so that means there was like 5 inches of water between the keel and the bottom. I don't like shallow and it gave us quite a jolt, as the cruising guide said we'd have over 10' on the way in (and as I just found on the web, the cruising guide and our electronic charts are incorrect and there's is indeed a "bump" on the bottom that's less than 8' - sure wish I'd seen that web site before heading to Anegad!).

Things breaking? Well, recall that the mounting bracket for the alternator developed a break in one of its arms where it connects to the engine block which we discovered when we were in Trinidad. Last fall we halfway thought it was caused by the transmission work we'd had done (recall someone who will remain unnamed managed to lose a piece of the transmission inside the transmission, and we had to have a mechanic remove the transmission in order to extricate the part). Now we know that it wasn't that at all, but probably an over-zealous tightening of the twin alternator v-belts. My only defense is that I was always told that tighter was better. Apparently not, because a couple of weeks ago I noticed another complete fracture in the mounting plate, 1 inch behind the original (and now welded) break. That necessitated a couple of days in Village Cay Marina on Tortola getting the mounting plate welded yet again. Luckily this time we got a welder who was willing to pay a house call and he managed to weld it (and reinforce it) in place.

A mildly interesting aside for those would-be mechanics out there: last time in Trinidad it took a mechanic what seemed like one full day to get the plate out and 2 mechanics nearly half a day to get the plate back in. This time the welder asked me to remove the pulley and forward fly wheel from the engine to give him more room. It took about 20 minutes to do that (and would take about 5 if I had to do it again). Turns out with the additional room this gives, the mounting plate can be removed simply and easily, probably no more than a 30-minute job. Apparently the mechanic in Trinidad just didn't see it and complicated the job way more than was necessary. I'm not saying I would have known, either, but just goes to show the "pros" don't always know all there is to know.

I don't think I've updated since before we went to St Croix, but Maryann did that update, so I won't rehash it. It was pretty uncomfortable waiting for the northern swells to die away so we could get back to St Thomas, and the 4 hour trip back was quite uncomfortable, but despite that we did have a lovely time on St Croix. We did hear when we were on Anegada that they were seeing 30' breaking seas on the northern shore of the island when we were stuck on St Croix; glad we missed that on Anegada.

When we returned from St Croix we found the windlass footswitch at the bow of the boat that brings up the anchor was broken. We ordered new switches (might as well replace both up and down switches at the same time). They were waiting when we got back to St Thomas earlier this week. When I went to replace the up switch I found that the real problem was an electrical connection that was corroded and which fell apart in my hands as I unmounted the old switch. Oh well, new switches look more reliable and better water-proofed than the old.

Other broken stuff - ah, the winner by far is the salinity probe on our watermaker. We had gone through 3 separate salinity probes in less than one year's ownership on the watermaker. When the 3rd one failed I actually managed to get number 2 fixed such that it worked for a couple of weeks, before it failed anew. The watermaker manufacturer has re-engineered the part so that it is no longer subject to corrosion and sent us one of the new units about 3 weeks ago. I replaced it (and replacing it means clearing out one of our aft lazarettes, scrunching up my no-longer limber body inside the lazarette, removing the main high-pressure pump from the watermaker, removing the cover from the watermaker electronics box, pulling out the salinity probe wire, cutting 10 cable ties securing the wire, and unscrewing the fitting from the back of the watermaker with just about zero room to work; repeat steps in opposite order to install new one); it worked for about a week.

After trying a couple of suggestions from the factory that didn't work, they shipped a new unit which we received earlier this week. I replaced the failed unit. The new one also failed. I was not happy. The factory was not happy. We assumed it must be the electronics that was failing, so the factory shipped me replacement number 7 on Thursday.

Then yesterday I was securing the half-disassembled watermaker before we moved from the marina to the anchorage and a cable fell out of the housing. One of the cables for the salinity probe, of course. Apparently it had come loose and I hadn't noticed it, despite probing around inside the housing at least twice in the past week. Plugged it back in (it's a telephone-style plug and jack), and the watermaker came back to life. Well, at least we can return unit number 7 when it gets here, as we have unit number 6 installed, and number 5 probably didn't fail after all and we still have it as well.

This week we also had our wireless internet long-range antenna fail. Nothing lasts in this salty corrosive atmosphere.

I think that brings us up to date regarding failures and scary moments. Given that these were spread over about 3 weeks I guess it wasn't really all that bad. We had a very nice cruise of the British Virgin Islands, got to spend some time with some cruising friends, and just generally hung out like cruisers do.

We did come to a very important decision in the last couple of days. We've decided it's too hot and humid to return to 10 degrees north (latitude of Trinidad) for hurricane season. And we've decided that the 3000 miles or so to Europe might be tempting fate with all of our recent failures, not to mention our experience level. So, sometime next week we'll head west to Culebra and then Puerto Rico. From Puerto Rico we're looking at a 900+ mile jaunt to Key West. It'll be our first multiple day passage and should give us a taste for long-distnace passage making. We'll have the Dominican Republic, the Turks and Caicos, and the Bahamas nearby if we have to divert for weather or for a critical failure. After Key West we'll work our way up the east coast fairly quickly, looking to spend the summer in Maine and maybe even farther north. Then come the fall we'll head south again, maybe spending some more time in the Chesapeake and the south. After that, who knows? There's still a lot of Caribbean that we haven't seen.

Anybody want to help out on the trip from San Juan to Key West? Should be 5-7 days of off-the-wind sailing (nice), though you have to be a bit flexible as to timing. Shouldn't require much if any sailing experience as it'll primarily be watch-keeping. Can always tack on some touristy/sight-seeing/beach days before or after. Write quickly and let us know; there are good airline connections in San Juan and Key West. We'll probably shoot to leave around the first of May.

The Remote Virgin, St Croix

2008-04-04T14:58:00.000-07:00

Hello Everyone!

Time to renew Ken's passport. That means sending the existing passport to the State Department and waiting for a new passport to be delivered. Without Ken's passport we cannot leave the US Virgin Islands. So, while waiting, we sailed over to St Croix, the largest and most remote of the US Virgin Islands.

Our passage to St Croix was one of the easiest we've done. The sea was nearly flat and the wind no more than 15 knots. Unfortunately the wind, as always, was on the nose so we motorsailed the 40 miles. We anchored in Gallows Bay, just off the town of Christiansted. Nice location, easy access to town and services within walking distance.

St Croix, has a feeling all its own. It is a quiet island not overrun by throngs of cruise-ship tourists. For almost 200 years St Croix was under Danish rule and their influence can be seen in the architecture they left behind. The buildings are lovely with pleasing lines and a thoughtful arrangement of space. The Danes designed their buildings with covered walkways which not only keep the rain off, but also add to the charm of the buildings. These lovely walkways, made of arches and paved with cobblestone are like the buildings they butt up against, painted in pastel colors of blue, pink, yellow and green. The doors and windows shaded by these covered walkways sport brightly painted wooden shutters which add to their charm. Colorful and airy, with views of the blue Caribbean peeking through the graceful lines of Danish architecture, Christiansted is a visually captivating historic town and a delight to wander around.

St Croix, 28 miles long and 7 miles wide, is worth seeing. So we rented a car and set off with our guide book and trusty map to explore the island. The driving was an adventure in itself as St Croix is a lefty island. One drives on the left. Fortunately Ken had driven on the left in Scotland, Africa and previously in the islands, so he was comfortable. Nothing to it!

Took me a while to think like a lefty driver. Whenever we had to turn right at a two lane intersection, it always felt like we should be turning left as we were crossing traffic to make the right-hand turn. We also turned left on red. Not sure it it was legal, but we did it. I'm glad Ken was driving.

It only took one day to see most of St Croix. We visited the easternmost point of the island, which is also the easternmost point of the United States. From there we headed west on the south side of the island and passed HOVENSA Oil Refinery the largest oil refinery in the Western Hemisphere. Much of the fuel for the eastern United States is refined on St Croix. Not very pretty, but a source of 5,500 jobs for St Croix and energy for many in the states. Next we headed down the only 4 lane highway on the island, Queen Mary Highway, to the Cruzan Rum factory. Unfortunately we missed the tour and so continued on to the St George Village Botanical Garden. I liked the botanical garden. Once a sugar plantation, the gardens now "serve to conserve the native plant species of St Croix as well as threatened species of other Caribbean islands." There is a bit of a wild feel to these gardens. The plants seem to grow in and around the ruins of the plantation rather than in any formal structured arrangement. Although there are groupings of plants--cactus & succulent garden, medicinal herb garden, tropical fruit orchard--there is a freedom to the garden that appeals. It is not manicured.

We stopped at Fredricksted, the other town on the island, for lunch and wandered along a lovely but deserted waterfront park. We ate lunch at Blue Moon, an inviting cafe with a surprisingly delicious caesar salad. The owner must have lived upstairs as the restaurant bathroom also served as a personal laundry! Clean clothes were hanging from a pole overhead, detergent and washing supplies were on the shelf and the washer was free for the next load. The islands are relaxed like that.

From Fredricksted we took in one more tourist site, the Whim Plantation. A restored 1700 sugar plantation complete with a Danish great house, windmill, cookhouse and several other historic buildings. The great house was nicely restored with beautiful furnishings. I've included a photo.

As we drove east back to Christiansted we passed but did not stop at the Mt Pellier Hut Domino Club where one can purchase beer for the beer drinking pig and engage in a game of dominos. Could have been amusing, but it was time to get back to Aurora, so we just took a peek but didn't stay.

We kept the car for a second day and returned to the Cruzan Rum Distillery for the tour we missed. This facility fell between the very sophisticated Puerto Rican Bacardi rum tour where according to their sophisticated ad visuals drinking Barcardi will get you invited to the most amazing parties where you will be young and oh so sexy and the earthy River Run rum tour on Granada where nothing had changed in well over 200 years and the rum was raw and powerful. The Cruzan tour was fun and interesting. What struck me is that each barrel of aged rum was opened and emptied by hand. That's a lot of barrels to empty manually. Again, I'm surprised at the lack of mechanization in the islands, especially on one of the US Virgin Islands.

On our second day touring, we stopped for lunch at the Columbus Cafe at the Salt River Bay Marina. It was just off of Salt River Bay where Columbus landed on his second voyage to the Caribbean in 1493. Well, Columbus himself didn't actually make landfall, his crew did. This voyage was made up of 17 ships.

Later in the week we did a SCUBA dive along the wall that drops down to 2000 plus feet just off the coast of St Croix near Salt River Bay. Lots of beautiful corals.

We never made it over to Buck Island, a national monument. We had planned to snorkel there, but the weather didn't cooperate. It was quite blustery with 8 foot swells the week we were anchored off of St Croix. In the protected harbor it was rolly. We figured, in these conditions, it would not be fun to anchor and then dinghy over to the reef to snorkel. So we passed on Buck Island.

An historic sloop, Roseway, sailed out of Gallows Bay each morning and returned each afternoon. Tourists spent the day sailing on her. I enjoyed seeing her set sail in the morning with her 4 sails and endless lines of rigging. Quite lovely.

We returned to St Thomas on Sunday. The easy passage across was not to be repeated. This time the wind was on the beam, which is good but the seas were 6 to 8 feet and coming at us on the beam as well. Thus we rolled side to side for the duration of the crossing. Not a good feeling. Ken spent the entire crossing below. Fortunately with the wind on our beam at 18 to 22 knots, we made good time. We spent the night anchored in Lindbergh Bay, a quiet anchorage not far from the St Thomas airport.

After another very rolly night and with the realization that the dinghy ride to local services (laundry, shopping, etc) was going to be very wet, we decided we'd leave Lindbergh Bay and head over to the more crowded but calmer Long Bay anchorage. Should be easy, weigh the anchor, motor over to Long Bay, drop the anchor. Right? No. We live on a boat and things break. This time it was the anchor windlass (the winch that brings up the anchor chain) or we thought it was. The windlass would start and pull the anchor chain up, but not turn off. So as Ken was bringing up the anchor he couldn't get the windlass to turn off. After several tries, he hurried back to the cockpit, down the companion way and turned it off using the nav station breaker. What to do? Can't easily anchor if the windlass is busted. We decided to take a slip at the marina for the night and see if we could figure out what was going on. Turns out the problem was in the windlass bow switch and not in the windlass. This was good news. The windlass still functioned. We have a windlass switch in the cockpit as well as on the bow, so we'll just use the cockpit switch for now. Not a problem. Ken ordered a new bow switch and it will be delivered soon. So after our night in the marina, we left and anchored in Long Bay.

No passport yet, so we decided to find a quieter anchorage. One where we could clean the bottom of the boat in relative comfort, i.e., with calm, clean water. Christmas Cove on Great St James was close and met our criteria. Using the cockpit switch we anchored, no problem. Although it wasn't that crowded, Christmas Cove is the destination for several tourist boats that bring over large groups of folks to swim and snorkel. There must be 30 or so people on each boat. And there were at least 3 boats that make the trip twice a day. The boats come, provide instructions over a loud speaker, folks get in the water and snorkel around, get back on the boat and leave. The cove is calm, but there is nothing to see when snorkeling. The bottom is covered with sand and sea grass. Occasionally a few fish swim by. There are much more beautiful snorkeling spots in the islands, in fact there is an interesting spot just on the other side of the cove. It is also the destination for the group-inflatable outing. About 6 inflatable boats arrive with a leader. The folks get out swim around, get back in their inflatables and return from whence they came. Fun to just watch all the activity. Glad I'm on my own boat and not part of a group event. The next day we spent the afternoon under the boat cleaning the hull and scraping barnacles off the prop. A chore the groupies don't have to do!

Turns out the Rolex Regatta, an annual three-day sailing competition, was starting the following day and Christmas Cove was filling up with boats, some competitors, some viewers. We decided that we didn't want to stay with the crowd, so headed back to St Thomas. Still we saw part of the race while at anchor again in Long Bay. It was quite something, 90 sail boats racing. Each one sailing into the bay, around the marks and then out of the bay and back into the channel. Some of the smaller boats sailed right into the anchorage. I thought one was going to ram us! But they tacked just in time and headed out again.

The passport arrived! As did a part to fix the salinity probe on the water maker. So we headed out of St Thomas. Spent two nights in Maho Bay on St John where Ken replaced the salinity probe and I polished the stainless. An endless battle! I also snorkeled around a small reef in the bay that turned out to be a wonderful little snorkeling spot, especially early in the morning with the sun shining through the water. Lots of small colorful reef fish along with a very large barracuda who was just watching all of the little guys. He must not have been hungry.

With Ken's new and quite lovely passport in hand, we motored across the channel to Soper's Hole on Tortola in the BVI. Unfortunately the weather has been nasty, winds gusting up to 35 knots and rainy. We've not done much here but hang out on the boat. We did get to the grocery store yesterday, but that's it. When the weather calms down, supposed to next week, we're going to sail to Anegada. It's not far, only about 14 miles, but no fun in 30 knot winds. We're in no hurry, so we'll wait for calmer conditions.

Ken's whipping up chicken enchaladas tonight. I love it that my husband cooks!

Fair Winds,

Maryann

And Here are some photos....

Such lovely lines. Aesthetically Fort Christiansvaern was a delight. I enjoyed just wandering around and looking at the structure. Even the dungeon ceiling was constructed of multiple arches.

A quaint little hotel we spied while wandering around Christiansted, St Croix.

Millennium Monument on Point Udall, the Easternmost point of the United States. St Croix, USVI.

Strange looking plant. Reminded me of an octopus! St George Village Botanical Garden, St Croix, USVI.

When the Cruzan rum was fully aged each barrel was opened by hand and the rum released.

The Christiansted scale house was the place where cargo was weighed before customes fees were collected. A lovely view of Gallows Bay through the window.

A beautiful St Croix sunset.

St Maarten, The Virgins and Family, with Pictures!

2008-03-17T14:36:00.000-07:00

Hello Everyone,

Yes, we're still sailing!

Been a while since my last update. My daughter Julia and her husband Morgan came to visit at the end of February, and then I flew back to California to spend time with my Mom and my youngest daughter, Theresa. I'm back now and we're sailing again.

Ken has written a couple of interesting updates since my last entry. Check them out below, Feb. 9th, 25th and March 10th. I've also updated the photo gallery with our Virgin Island photos.

In my January 28th update, I shared with you Theresa's visit, the delivery of our new dinghy and our trek north from St Lucia to Nevis. From Nevis we sailed to St Kitts where we spent one night. Then continued on to St Maarten. The passage from St Kitts to St Maarten was an all day sail covering 60 plus miles. The first two-thirds of the sail was easy, calm seas and light wind never gusting more than 15 knots. Then conditions changed. The wind picked up, started blowing 25 to 30 knots on the nose, the seas became confused and we slowed down considerably. We had to motor into the gusting wind, neither comfortable nor fast. Normally this slow down would not have been an issue, but to get into the St Maarten Lagoon one has to pass under a draw bridge that opens at 5:30 p.m. If we missed the 5:30 opening, we'd have to wait until the next morning at 9:30. Although we could have anchored outside in the bay, it would have been uncomfortable. Very rolly! Fortunately we made it in time and passed under bridge in line between two mega yachts.

The channel through the St Maarten draw bridge is quite narrow. Many of the mega yachts squeak by with just 12 inches to spare on either side. The St Maarten Yacht Club bar is situated just past the bridge on the lagoon side. At 5:00 p.m. it's $1.00 beer. At 5:30 it's mega yacht vs narrow channel. It's truly something to see these yachts (tens of millions of dollars, 200 plus feet in length) maneuver through the tiny channel. Cheap beer and cheap thrills, fine entertainment!

Aurora had no problem maneuvering through the channel. =^) Once past the bridge we found a spot in the lagoon and anchored. No sooner had the anchor set and Ken was checking out our neighbors. He spotted Daniell Storey, our friend's Dave and Michelle's boat anchored just across the lagoon from us. Not long after, Dave and Michelle spotted Aurora from their dinghy while on a return trip to Daniell Storey. They stopped by to say hello as last time we'd seen each other was in Bequai. Of course we decided to get together and what better place than the St Maarten Yacht Club bar! We're not above cheap beer and thrills. =^)

Ken and I spent a week on St Maarten. Last season our friends Dave and Kathy came to visit us while we were in St Maarten and we toured the island with them. This season we stayed near the lagoon, focused on boat chores and waited for packages to be delivered. Ken worked on the water maker. A pump had gone out. The new pump was being delivered to us in St Maarten. As the part was under warranty, we had to send back the original pump. However there was a catch. The cost of the pump was covered under warranty, but not the cost of postage for delivery and return of a 16 lb part between the Caribbean to San Rafael, CA! It's never simple.

In addition to boat parts, we had our mail delivered. No custom or brokerage fees in St Maarten! It's a duty free island. One can just pick up a package whereever it's delivered. We had ours sent to the local MailBox store that accepts and holds deliveries. Of course there is a $2.50 fee for this, but that sure beats the $60.00 per package brokerage fee in St Lucia not to mention any duty charged by customs.

Christmas was in February for us this year. Due to the high cost of brokerage fees and duty, we had most of our mail held until we reached St Maarten. Thus many Christmas presents, cards and letters didn't arrive until mid February. Fun to open packages and to read letters and cards from family and friends.

Our next destination was Virgin Gorda. From St Maarten we made the 78 mile passage to the British Virgin Islands. It was a long day as we left at 4:00 a.m. Our engine died just after we left so we sailed the entire passage. I like sailing so that was enjoyable. However, as the engine was on the fritz we had to anchor under sail. Not easy when the wind is blowing hard, as it was that afternoon. However, we got into Virgin Gorda Sound around 5:30 just before sunset and found a fairly empty, wide open anchorage just inside the sound. We headed into the wind, dropped the sails and then the anchor. All went well. Ken then changed the fuel filters on the Yanmar and the engine was fine. We had gotten dirty fuel somewhere and it clogged the filters.

With the engine working and a bit of light left, we motored across the sound and picked up a mooring in Leverick Bay, a place we've been twice before. Unfortunately we misremembered that there was an immigration and customs office in Leverick Bay. We had planned to check in in the morning as it was after dark by the time we got settled. Well the morning came and we figured we'd check in at 9:00, but then Ken found that we had fast, free internet access. Something we did not have in St Maarten. We got involved with e-mail, and updates and news and, well, just didn't make it over to the customs office as planned. The customs folks found us. As mentioned we misremembered that there was an office in Leverick Bay. The customs office was 5 miles away in Spanish Town. The officer understood about the engine problem and not checking in the previous night, but he did not understand why we had not checked in first thing in the morning. His lack of understanding was such that he fined us $300! Could have been worse, BVI Customs can fine you up to $5,000 and impound your boat. Oops!

The irony is that Ken always checks us in as soon as possible even if we have to pay the after hours charge. He's anal about it! So the one time we relax, we are fined. Guess we won't do that again.

From Virgin Gorda we sailed over to Road Town on Tortola, the largest of the British Virgin Islands. We spent a few days in Village Cay marina getting the bottom of our dinghy repaired as well as having our fuel polished. Fuel polishing is just another name for cleaning. The engine died due to dirty diesel, so we had to have it cleaned. A process of sucking out the fuel from each tank, running it through a filter and then returning clean fuel back to the tank. Check out the photo of the gunk that was in our diesel! Nasty. Once that was done, we sailed over to Norman Island for a night and then on to Peter Island. We returned to Tortola briefly to clear out before heading to the USVI to pick up Julia and Morgan on St Thomas.

Oh yes, on our brief return trip to Tortola the engine died again! This time we were entering Road Town Harbor just as a huge cruise ship was coming in. With a working engine this would not have been a problem, we would have just motored out of her way. However, one does not want to cross the bow of a 900 foot, 2000 passenger ship under wind power alone. Not to mention we received a 5-blast notice from the cruise ship. This means "get out of my way!" So instead of continuing to the anchorage we knew, we turned left and headed toward a different anchorage.

Ken tried the engine again. Still no motor. Wind had picked up in the harbor and was blowing 20 to 25 knots and now there was a reef right in front of us. Ken tried the engine once more and this time it sputtered to life long enough for us to avoided the reef. We headed into the wind and dropped the sails. At this point, we were planning to just drop the anchor, but it wasn't to be. The windlass (anchor winch) got stuck and Ken couldn't get the anchor down. With no motor, no sails and no anchor we were at the mercy of the elements and floating right toward a large, anchored catamaran. Fortunately there were people on the cat and I yelled out to them, "We've lost our engine." A young man from the cat jumped into his dinghy and pushed us away from their boat, but now we were headed toward a concrete dock, but at least we had someone in a dinghy to help maneuver us. Another dinghy showed up. I was able to toss a line to the dinghy off our bow. He pulled us to a mooring ball while the second dinghy pushed us and kept Aurora from bumping into the dock. Once secured to the mooring, we were safe and could look into what the engine problem was. Couldn't be a dirty fuel filter as we'd just had the fuel polished and changed the filters in Virgin Gorda. What could it be? Ken thought it might be a clog in a fuel line or possibly one of the three fuel tanks the engine was pulling diesel from was empty. Guess we'll never know. However, we've not had a problem since. We don't know exactly what happened. But once we made sure the engine was running again and we calmed down, it was time to dinghy over to customs and clear out.

Then it was on to St Thomas with a short stop at St John to clean into to the USVI. Julia and Morgan were to arrive the next day, Feb. 19th, for a week long visit.

We had a great visit with Morgan and Julia and no engine problems! As they were with us only a week, we didn't make any long passages but visited the islands close by. After provisioning in St Thomas and getting settled in the boat which took a day, we returned to the BVI and picked up a mooring in Soper's Hole. That night we joined the partiers at Bamba's Surfside Shack for the monthly full moon party. Not only was it a full moon that night, but also a total lunar eclipse! Quite something.

And Bomba's was quite something, too. The surfside shack made out of driftwood has been the site of Bomba's infamous parties since 1976. His full moon parties are renowned. Quite a crowd attends. They're not fancy, the shack is on the beach just off a narrow one lane road. That night the party was so large it spilled over into an area across a narrow street where a band was playing and shroom tea was being served. Rumor has it the 'shroom tea is really Lipton's. I imagine at one time it was made of something more hallucinogenic. Lots of panties and bras lined the ceiling of the shack. If we had stayed late enough probably would have seen a few females add to the decor. But we left long before the wee hours of the morning. In fact, we had hoped to see the full lunar eclipse from the boat, but it was not to be. A cloud hid the moon moments before the earth's shadow fully eclipsed it. =^(

From Soper's Hole we sailed over to Cooper Island where Morgan, Ken and I snorkeled the wreck of the Rhone, a British mail ship that sank over 100 years ago. Ken and I dove the wreck last season and with Theresa and Erik in 2004. It was interesting to see the wreck from 30 feet up. One gets a different view, the whole picture instead of the details. Fun afternoon. Julia opted for beach combing while we snorkeled.

From Cooper we sailed to Norman island. We had drinks on the Willie T, a famous party boat. In 2004 the Willie T was still handing out free T-shirts to any one (women especially) who jumped naked from the cabin roof. In June of 2004 Ken and I took our children, Julia, Theresa and Erik as well as Morgan to the Caribbean and chartered a boat for two weeks. As a result of that trip we're a 3 T-shirt family. But I'm not telling who jumped! I understand the government put an end to the jumping in 2005 because someone got hurt. Last season there were signs upstairs, no jumping. But on this visit the signs were gone. Bar tender said they don't encourage jumping, no more free tees, but they don't discourage it either. A "don't ask, don't tell" policy seems to be in place.

Norman has some lovely hiking trails that cover most of the island. Julia, Morgan and I took advantage and walked most of them. The island is not developed, so much of the walk was akin to a walk in the woods. Quite beautiful with the Caribbean Sea on one side, Sir Frances Drake Channel on the other and the Bight filled with boats.

Much of St John is a national park and that was our next destination. We cleared in with immigration and customs in Cruz Bay and then headed out to pick up a park mooring. Anchoring in the Virgin Islands National Park is extremely limited, one must use a national park mooring ball in most cases. Just like in any U.S. national park, you pay a fee for day or overnight use, but in this case it's a mooring use fee. And just like in the states it is the visitor's responsibility to find the pay station. In Maho Bay the pay station was located on a small boat in the middle of the mooring field. On the boat was the familiar cylindrical metal container with a drop slot for the fee and a plastic box holding forms. No one on board, just an empty boat. Different, but it worked. We dinghied up, paid our fee and went on to enjoy a fine snorkel around the reef off of Whistling Cay.

We spent two days enjoying St John Island and then it was time to take Julia and Morgan back to St Thomas to catch their plane home.

We said good-bye to Julia and Morgan on Tuesday, Feb. 26th and on Thursday, Feb 28th I caught a plane to San Francisco to visit my mom and daughter, Theresa. Last July when we were out to visit, Julia and Morgan's wedding, doctor appointments and catching up with family and friends kept us very, very busy. This time I wanted to focus on my mom and daughter. Mom is 91 and lives in a wonderful retirement community in Vallejo. Life moves at a different pace when you are older, slow and easy. Our week together was so, slow and easy. We did a bit of shopping, completed a jigsaw puzzle and visited. Good seeing Theresa again, too. She's a Producer at EA and is working in their Emeryville office on a game called Spore. Fun that she works in production as it was my field.

I returned to St Thomas March 10th. Nice to be "home" with Ken and on Aurora. We're currently at anchor in Gallows Bay on the US Virgin Island of St Croix. We'll be here for a week or so. We have to return to St Thomas to pick up Ken's passport. Time for renewal, and the passport must be sent in. Thus we're in the USVI until his passport is returned. Paid for expedited service, so shouldn't take too long.

Where next? We don't know. Time to figure it out. All of our cruising friends have a general plan for the next six months, heading south to Venezuela or across the atlantic to the Med or will stay in the Virgins for the season. Some people are heading home to return to a land-based life. We haven't decided yet. Need to do so soon.

Safe Passages,

Maryann

And as always here are some pictures!

Yes, Aurora was right a home with the big boys in St Maarten! These are just a few of the mega yachts docked in the Lagoon at St Maarten.

Our new dinghy, outfitted, repaired and ready to go!

Here is the gunk from one tank of diesel. Water gets into the fuel and algae grows in that water. The black stuff in the strainer is the algae, or what's left of it after the cleaning process.

I mention boat work all the time, but rarely include photos of all that labor. So here I am polishing the bow plate on Aurora. =^)

St John off our port bow, Tortola to our starboard. We're sailing west along the Sir Francis Drake Channel as we head to Cruz Bay.

Morgan as we set sail from St Thomas, USVI. First day on the water for Morgan and Julia.
Photo by Julia Stefik

Julia takes a self-portrait as we leave St Thomas and head over to Soper's Hole.

Maryann verifying that the lines to the mooring ball are even.
Photo by Julia Stefik

South side of Norman Island, BVI.

The Bight on Norman Island. This bay is the home of the Willie T restaurant mentioned in the update.
Photo by Morgan Stefik

Morgan, Julia and Maryann in the Virgins, February 21, 2008.

Days end and sailors have found a place for the night. The Bight is full.
Photo by Morgan Stefik

de Captain! Looks like he's just about to come up the companion way.
Photo by Julia Stefik

All Alone

2008-03-10T14:27:00.000-07:00

I've been on my own for the past 10 days or so, as Maryann's been back in California visiting with her mom and daughter Theresa. She's due back tonight, so today marks an end to my bachelor days. I think this is the first time we've been apart for more than a couple of days since we got married. Actually nice to have a break, but reunions are also nice.

Being alone means I've had to singlehand the boat. When she left we were in a slip in Crown Bay Marina, for ease of transport and luggage. After putting her on the plane I moved from the marina to a quiet anchorage near the airport. It's always slightly tense backing out of a slip in 20 knots of wind, but with a couple of dockhands to toss lines and fend off any near crashes (there were none), it was pretty simple.

I'd never anchored by myself before, so that was a new experience. The bay I chose is nearly always nearly empty and I think there was just one other boat there when I arrived (and not to make it sound like an epic journey, it's only about a 15-minute motor around one headland and it's the next bay over). I picked my spot and dropped the hook. We have a windlass control in the cockpit, so that would normally make it simple. However, the latch that holds the chain when the anchor is out oftentimes will flip over when the chain is rattling out, engaging it. Then I have to go feed the chain back into the chain locker and start over. That happened as I was letting out the chain from the cockpit, but it was easy to run up to the bow and take care of it.

Lindbergh Bay, where I was anchored, is a bit rolly, being open to the south. But it also has a couple of Best Western motels and one of them has free wireless Internet! So I was in a dilemma, put up with the rolling (and sometimes I mean it rolls a lot!), but have free wireless, or move and have to pay for it. Well, I'd already paid in advance for a month's worth while at the marina, and in anticipation of being in a pay-zone, so moving won out.

Next day I raised the anchor, finding it a bit more difficult to do singlehanded than getting it down. You have to motor slowly forward in the direction of the chain, creating just enough slack to make the windlass's job easy pulling up the chain. You can't really see where the chain runs off from the cockpit, so I'd run back and forth between the bow and cockpit, leaving the boat in gear, but at idle, and letting the autopilot steer in the direction of the chain. It really wasn't too terribly diffiult, just a lot of running back and forth.

I moved out to the main harbor where there's a brand new marina and where some of the cruise ships dock (there's room for 2 cruise ships at Crown Bay and room for 3 here in Long Bay; the other day we had 5 in port and another anchored in the middle of the harbor!). We have friends on another boat who were also anchored near the new marina and I anchored just a couple of hundred yards behind them.

Spent most of last week moving up closer to the marina each day, since the closer to the marina the less rocking and rolling of the boat and the better wireless signal (detect a thread here?). Wednesday our friends' company arrived and they went off to the BVI with them; I grabbed their spot and had it pretty good. Except for wireless. I just couldn't stay connected. The boat would "sail at anchor", basically the wind blows it back and forth, back and forth, back and forth and I could not keep the wireless signal. Luckily there is a coffee joint in the marina with free wireless, so I ended up spending a fair bit of time there. Besides, a latte and bagel in the morning is my idea of breakfast heaven.

I also spent a fair bit of the week fighting with my old Mac PowerBook G4 laptop. It's 7 years old and was starting to show its age. The display would get a bad case of jitters and I'd have to carefully warp the case to get to settle down. Then it took to spontaneously powering down, even when connected to the power brick. That did it - got my son Erik to buy me a new Mac laptop (funny enough, Apple announced new models the very day I asked him to purchase it) through the UCSD bookstore at a bit of a discount. He sent it via FedEx and it got here overnight from San Diego. Spent quite a bit of the week getting all my programs and data back in order; I had a recent backup of everything buy my email, of which I'm missing a couple months worth. All in all, not too bad.

Yeseterday I was so frustrated with the wireless situation I went back to Lindbergh Bay. Getting pretty good at getting the anchor up and down and motoring by myself. With this push-button boat I'd probably be able to do a fairly decent job of sailing as well. Anyway, Lindbergh was almost as rolly as it was last week, so it was hardly worth getting the free wireless.

Today I moved back to Long Bay and Yacht Haven Grande Marina. This was a first, docking without anybody else on the boat. And it was a tricky maneuver, backing into a spot just behind a docked catamaran. In a crosswind. But the gods were smiling (or ignoring me), and it all went quite well. We're docked in the newest luxury mega-yacht marina in the eastern Caribbean. Very, very posh surroundings. It's one of the few marinas that can accomodate Larry Ellison's (Oracle) little 432' power boat, Rising Sun. Funny thing is, the marina is actually less expensive than where we were staying at Crown Bay. The marina is between the cruise ship dock and downtown Charlotte Amalie, but most of the cruise ship passengers hate to walk (not all, but a goodly number). But the marina was clever, it stretches over about 1/4 of a mile, and is chock full of very high end shops (Bulgari, Louis Vuitton, you get the idea). So there's a constant stream of cruise ship passengers walking by.

I was going to write about the other scourge of the Virgin Islands, the bareboat charterer, but this has already gotten long enough. Perhaps next time around.

May You Live in Interesting Times

2008-02-25T11:26:00.000-08:00

It's said that there's a Chinese curse that goes, "May you live in interesting times". We have had some very interesting times these past couple of weeks, in all the bad sense of the proverb.

We were last in Leverick Bay on Virgin Gorda in the British Virgin Islands, getting fined for not reporting to customs in a timely manner. We left Virgin Gorda and had a nice downwind sail to Road Harbour on Tortola, where we tied up at Village Cay Marina. We'd spent a couple of days in the marina last year, getting a leak in the dinghy repaired. This year we have a new dinghy, but there were some dings and scratches and cracks in the hull from shipping damage, so we planned to have the new dinghy repaired by the same folks. And given our "commuter vehicle" (the dinghy) would be out of service we had to plan to stay a couple of days in the marina.

It was an uneventful, albeit expensive repair. We've still not heard from the people who sold us the dinghy about reimbursement. Don't really expect to. Interesting to watch the repair process - next time I'll consider doing it myself as it wasn't difficult.

We also had our diesel fuel "polished" while in the marina. Recall that our engine had died between Sint Maarten and Virgin Gorda, requiring fuel filter replacement (and the customs fine!). We knew at least one of our tanks had gunk in it, so we had the fuel polisher come out to the boat. He has two very large, very small pore filters mounted on a cart with an electric motor driven pump. He vacuums the fuel from your tanks, strains it, filters, and returns it to the tank. Sure enough, the tank we'd switched to when the engine died was full of algae sludge (there's always some water in the diesel and the algae breed in the water). We got nearly a cupful of the black sludge in the fuel polisher's strainer. Another expensive procedure, but one we were very relieved to have done.

We needed to refill our scuba tanks, and found they were due for their yearly visual inspection. It was Friday and the dive shop couldn't get to the visuals until over the weekend, so we decided to spend the weekend out of the marina. We headed over to Little Harbor on Peter Island, but it was crammed full of boats (see companion posting on why so many charterers right now), so we headed over to Norman Island where we grabbed one of the last moorings.

We managed to snorkel the famous caves on Norman Island. They are really just 3 indentations in the rocky shore into which one can swim. The center one actually runs about 25-30 feet back, so forms an actual cave. Rumor has it that actual pirate treasure was found in the southernmost of the caves and they are quite a popular snorkeling destination. We'd tried snorkeling them several years ago when we chartered down here, but they were full of jellyfish; then last year the seas were too rough to do it. Unfortunately, the caves are being loved to death; there's just about no bottom life left and the water was extremely murky. The fish were plentiful due to people feeding them, but otherwise the caves were a bit of a disappointment.

The Bight on Norman Island is the home of the William Thornton, a permanently-moored 90-ft boat with restaurant and bar. We went over to the Willy T for sundowners before dinner. Last year we were surprised to find the party boat atmosphere had been completely eliminated with no more nude jumping for free tshirts off the upper deck. Despite that we headed over for sundowners before dinner. I first noticed the no diving/no jumping signs had been removed from the upper deck! And they'd been metal signs welded to the railing. We asked the bartender why the signs had been removed and his reply was they had typos and actually said, "No Diviing". I said it was still surprising to first see things toned down last year, then to see the signs missing this year. I mentioned the absence of the 2 photo albums they used to keep on the bar filled with pictures of naked young (and not so young!) ladies partying on the boat. The bartender reaches behind the bar and hands me a photo album with the title of "William Thornton, Family Photo Album". Inside were all the pictures from the old albums! Pretty funny, though there were young kids there for dinner with their parents; they would have quite the surprise from the "family" album. At any rate, apparently the Willy T is back to being a party boat, they just don't give away free tshirts for jumping nude from the upper deck anymore. Their idea of toning things down a bit.

Despite the restored party atmosphere nobody was jumping, probably the lack of free tshirts. We had our drinks and returned to the boat. Next morning we headed over to Peter Island where we spent the night in a rolly anchorage on the south side. The weather was really rotten all weekend, with grey skies, rain, and cool temps. Odd to be in the Caribbean with the temps in the mid-70's and wind chill dropping it to probably the mid-60's.

Monday morning we motorsailed the 3 miles across the Sir Francis Drake Channel. It was hardly worth putting up the sail, but the wind was up and the water choppy so we wanted to get across quickly. The engine died about 3/4's of the way across. No problem, thinks I, just ran out of one tank and need to switch to another. But let's not switch to the tank that had the sludge, just in case. In fact, let's just draw from all 3 of the other tanks. I turn the valves and the engine starts immediately. And dies almost as quickly. Uh oh, maybe we had sludge in one of our lines. Okay, we'll just sail into Road Harbour and drop the anchor right outside the marina breakwater. Well, other than that pesky cruise ship that's approaching from the east, as we're approaching from the south. The anchorage we want is just beyond the cruise ship dock, so we have to pass in front of them, or behind. Don't think we're going to win the race to go ahead of them, and 5 blasts from the cruise ship's very loud horn indicates he wants us out of his way. So we turn to another marina and anchorage that's out of the way of the cruise ship. Just as well, as the damn cruise ship is coming up fast and we don't want to be anywhere near them.

So we make a left turn, out of the way of the cruise ship. Now we've got 20-25 knots of wind directly behind us and I'm worried about an accidental jibe. That's when the wind catches the mainsail that's completely extended on one side of the boat, slamming it around to the other side of the boat, occasionally breaking the boom, tearing the sail, or even bringing down the rig. It is something best avoided. Okay, let's try to start the engine again. Ah, we can start it and run it just a hair above idle before it wants to die of fuel starvation. Let's take down the main sail so no accidental jibes and see if we can't limp to a shallow spot and drop the anchor. Quickly down with the sail and of course the engine then dies again. Now we're
drifting in 20 knots of wind onto a reef. Engine starts and runs long enough to avoid the reef, but then it dies again. No problem, we're in shallow enough water to anchor now, so let's get the anchor down. Uh-oh, the windlass doesn't want to run in reverse, letting the anchor down. This is a problem we've seen only sporadically, and pulling the anchor up a bit usually clears the situation. Only this time it won't. Now we're drifting quickly onto a cat that's moored just downwind of us. I'm flailing about with the windlass, trying to get the anchor down. Maryann calls the marina on the VHF, requesting assistance, but gets no answer. Luckily at this point a local guy in a dinghy shows up and pushes us so that we don't crash into the catamaran. Only now we're drifting straight into that concrete dock! Another guy in another dinghy shows up and between the two of them we manage to push the boat around the dock. At which point I finally get the windlass to cooperate the anchor goes down in 8 feet of water. You might not remember, but we need 7 feet of water before we ground, so we've got plenty. Hah! That means we have about 12 inches of water between our keel and the bottom. Not terribly reassuring.

At this point, one of the dinghies manages to tie off a line from our bow and between him pulling and the other pushing we manage to get the anchor up (fat lot of good it did us!) and then they manage to get us onto a mooring. After a little bit to let our heart rates to drop below 200, I change out our fuel filters again and switch to a single, known-good tank. And the engine starts right up and runs just fine. We're still not sure exactly what happened, but I think it's possibly a situation I've seen where I'm running the engine from multiple tanks and one of the tanks goes dry - somehow the valving doesn't smoothly start drawing from the non-empty tank(s) and the engine dies of fuel starvation. We were thinking clogged fuel filters and it was probably this latter situation instead. Of course later we find that we can't draw any fuel at all from the tank that had the sludge. Suspicion is that some of the sludge is blocking the fuel line, as the filters are working fine from the other 3 tanks. Later still, I blow out the hose that draws from the blocked tank and nothing but clean diesel comes out (spraying a bit about the saloon; oops). I removed the inspection port (losing a nut along the way) and there's no blockage to be found, anywhere. Weird.

Damn, isn't this cruising life exciting and adventurous.

We have an early lunch ashore, check out with customs and immigration (explaining our lack of proper forms was caused by the folks who fined us), collect our scuba tanks, and head for the US Virgins. We have a very uneventful and fairly pleasant downwind sail to Cruz Bay on St John where we check back into the US. First time the boat's been back in US waters since April last year. With all the hoopla about homeland security one would have expected a 3rd degree grilling. Instead, it's a couple of forms and quick, easy, and smiling checkin. Way better than a good many of the ex-English islands and almost as pleasant as going into or out of the French islands - better actually, as there's no need to check out!

Monday evening found us in Crown Bay Marina. We'd sped along from Tortola to St John (for customs checkin) and on to St Thomas so as to make the marina before nightfall. I thought we'd have our watermaker salinity probe (3rd time it's gone bad on us!) waiting for us and I'd replace Tuesday before Julia and Morgan arrived. Also expected a bundle of mail waiting for us. Of course neither was there. The mail did finally arrive just as we were ready to leave the fuel dock Wednesday morning, but the new salinity probe apparently didn't make it out of alpha test, so we're awaiting a 4th replacement of the old style probe. The watermaker can be run in manual mode, though it's a nuisance to do so.

One nice thing about St Thomas is how easy it is to get things done and get parts. Why I managed to spend $500 in no time at all! New horseshoe buoy to replace one that must have gone overboard somewhere, new floating painter for the dinghy, fuel/water separator and filter for the dinghy outboard, new zincs, new main engine fuel filters, etc. The list always seems endless, but at least in St Thomas that was all done by a quick walk to the chandlery in the marina and another quick walk to the local diesel and outboard dealer.

Tuesday Julia and Morgan arrived late in the afternoon. Wednesday morning we left the slip, took on fuel, and were on our way. Even managed quite well getting out of the slip and on and off the fuel dock despite the gusty 20 knot winds we've had the last couple of months.

Wednesday night found us in Soper's Hole at the west end of Tortola. We'd hurried along against a nasty chop and gusty winds so as to be able to attend the Full Moon Party at Bomba Shack on the north side of Tortola. Bomba built himself a surfside shack out of driftwood and other found material, supposedly in 1976. He's been selling drinks and collecting women's underwear (stapled to the rafters) ever since, but the highlight of Bomba Surfside Shack is his Full Moon Party with 'shroom tea (thought by some to be Lipton's, but boiled up in a 55-gallon drum over an open fire for the effect). And this past Wednesday was not only a full moon, but a total eclipse of the moon. As it turned out, the party was kind of dead, though not without some amusing people-watching (it was probably 3/4's cruise ship passengers who are always amusing after drinking too much). We left before the eclipse maxed out, hoping to catch totality back on the boat. Unfortunately, clouds kept us from seeing the moon totally eclipsed (well, that and sleep which claimed me). Still, an interesting night reading Bomba's hand-scrawled "philosophy" - for instance: "ladies be blessed if they give up their panties to Bomba". We missed Bomba himself, but word is success has reduced his personal appearances at the shack.

Thursday we headed over to Cooper Island for some snorkeling and some hair-raising moments when we played chicken with a power boat, both of us competing for the same (last available) mooring off the island. We'd cruised through the mooring field, noting one empty mooring at the north end. When we'd seen there weren't any more to the south, we turned around and headed for the first one we'd seen. It was a very obvious approach as we had to do the equivalent of a u-turn to come up on it. Apparently a power boat that had just arrived also decided to grab the mooring; they had to accelerate if they were going to beat us to it, so just when we're 20 feet from the mooring I see this power boat coming at high speed 90 degrees off our starboard! I yelled, "what the heck?" (or something similar) and the girl on the bow of the power boat tells the captain the mooring is already taken. But he doesn't slow down! At this point I had to do a full-throttle reverse to keep from t-boning the power boat! Just as I stop, he puts it in reverse and backs away. What a jerk! And it seemed to be a local captain with some day charterers. Normally the locals are much more polite. I have never seen such blatant discourtesy here in the BVI. And never a word of apology, not any word at all. Bizarre. They motored about for a while, waiting for one of the other charterers to leave at which point they picked up the vacated mooring.

Two near crashes in less than a week. Interesting times indeed. I shudder to think what would have happened if the engine had died when trying to keep from plowing into the power boat.

We snorkeled the aft section of HMS Rhone (see entry from last year from when we did 2 scuba dives on the wreck of the Rhone, an 1867 shipwreck of a 350ft British mail packet) and I'm happy to say I can still free dive to the (used to be) undamaged porthole, about 30ft down. The stern section isn't as impressive as the bow, as the stern used to be above water and was used by the US Navy for target practice around the turn of the 20th century. But the relatively intact bow is in 90ft of water and requires scuba while the remains of the stern can be snorkeled, though it's a deep snorkel.

After snorkeling we moved over to Norman Island and had late drinks on the Willy T. Lots and lots of folks there, so many it was difficult to move about. Still no jumpers and no naked body shots. We had a single drink apiece and retired early. Today Maryann, Julia and Morgan are off hiking the island while I babysit the watermaker and write this entry. We're heading to Cruz Bay on St John after lunch where we'll clear back in to the US VI. A couple more nights on St John and then Julia and Morgan return home. Maryann will flying out a couple of days after that to spend some time with her mom back in California, leaving me a bachelor for a spell. But there are at least 2 other cruising boats with friends that'll keep me company. I expect to work on the long-term project list while she's gone.

And a quick update - we spent 2 days on St John, one in Caneel Bay and one in Maho Bay. The latter was quite especially nice. Good snorkeling apparently (I was blowing diesel fuel through the pickup hose), and quite calm. Today the winds have dropped substantially, hardly even hitting 15 knots, and the seas are down as well. Maybe the Christmas Winds are leaving us? They're supposed to last until at least the 1rst of March, so it's about time. But it's hot again. I liked the cooler weather. Oh well, we'll have a nice steak dinner tonight and then hang out here in the marina until Maryann leaves on the 28th.

Busted in Paradise

2008-02-09T09:08:00.000-08:00

No, we aren't busted because the stock market decline has left us destitute. Not yet, at any rate. But it's tough to see your nest egg drop by 10 or 15%. No, we were busted by the authorities yesterday for breaking the law! And to keep you reading, I won't reveal how until the end of this entry.

Last I left off we were lazing about in Isles des Saintes, about 5 miles south of Guadeloupe. It was quite pleasant at anchor there, what with the downright Gallic charm, French food, clear water, and perfect temperatures. Still, we needed to be in St Thomas by the 19th of Feb, so we had to resume our northward trek. We decided there wasn't a whole lot we wanted to see in the very 1rst world island of Guadeloupe (as I've said before, only the French of all the former colonial powers have not deserted their former colonies, so the infrastructure is quite 1rst world on the French islands; whether this is a good thing or a bad thing is debatable). We did stop at Pigeon Island, about halfway up the west coast of Guadeloupe, on the southern boundary of the Jacques Cousteau National Marine Park. As Maryann already described, we did a SCUBA dive in the park, right off the island. It was notable for the size of the typical Caribbean reef fish; everything seemed to be about 50% larger than normal. Marine parks really work, wish more of the Caribbean would set aside space for them. I've heard it said that they actually improve the fishing around the parks, as the parks serve as breeding grounds, which tends to counter the argument the local fishermen make that parks cut down on their fishing grounds.

After Pigeon Island we stopped at Deshaies on the northwest coast of Guadeloupe. Much like Isles des Saintes, only much more like being in France itself. Once again I have to congratulate the French Customs and Immigration for making clearing in and clearing out simpler than any other place in the Caribbean.

From Deshaies we had a long sail to Nevis. We're getting spoiled by the wind out of the northeast; it makes heading northwest much more pleasant. And it means we can sail whereas last year when we were heading southeast into a southeast wind we ended up motoring more often than not.

We passed by the southwest coast of Montserrat on our way to Nevis, but did not stop. There has been an active volcano erupting on Montserrat for the past 10 years or so. It completely wiped out the previous capital city, and has laid waste to the southern half of the island. There's no more reasonable harbor, and the bulk of the population has fled to other lands. A very current reminder of the volcanic origin of most of the eastern Caribbean.

Nevis was nice and we are certainly glad we stopped on our way north, after giving it a pass on our way south last year. Expensive, though. From Nevis we made the short hop to Basseterre, St Kitts, intending to anchor outside the Port Zante marina. But the weather was fluky and we were getting swells from the south and southwest, making the anchorage way too uncomfortable. Instead of anchoring we stayed the night at the marina, where we'd spent a few days last season. This time around it was high cruise ship season, so the Port Zante shopping area was jam packed with cruise ship passengers. Looks like St Kitts is finally recovering from the string of 4 hurricanes that have devastated Port Zante in the recent past.

We cleared out of St Kitts and headed for St Maarten on a rare, nearly flat-sea day, and with the very light wind coming out of the northwest. As we were heading northwest, we had to motor, and had a fine passage until we were about 2/3's of the 75nm or so across, at which point the wind piped up to 20-25knots right on the nose and the seas came up, particularly choppy. Made for an unpleasant couple of hours before we gained the relative calm of Simpson Bay on St Maarten. We made it with about 30 minutes to spare for the 5:30PM bridge opening into Simpson Bay Lagoon. It was just like homecoming to enter the lagoon again, the 3rd time we've done so.

We had thought to do some boat maintenance in St Maarten, but as it turned out there wasn't anything particularly pressing that needed to be done. Kind of odd not to have 2 or 3 must-fix items on the todo list. I was wondering if we were getting better or if things have stopped breaking. Probably just a momentary cessation, as it turned out.

We hung around St Maarten for about a week, cursing the slow internet (or at least I did; Maryann did the sensible thing of going ashore to use the internet at Shrimpy's, a cruiser hangout. Did a bit of socializing with friends we'd met last season in the Dominican Republic, and marveled at how St Maarten was populated with a good number of the boats who'd spent the summer in Trinidad. We're beginning to recognize a good proportion of our fellow cruisers, or at least their boat names and radio personalities.

And things started breaking again while we were in St Maarten. First to go was the salinity probe on our watermaker. This is the 3rd time it's quit working, so we need to work with the factory to figure out why they keep dying on us. My laptop's display has gone wacky, though if I warp the case just right it clears up. Momentarily. Don't really want to invest in a new one, especially with our recent unexpected expenses of a new dinghy and outboard. More busted stuff, below.

The winds blow strong this time of year, and in fact they are called the "Christmas Winds". They should blow for the rest of February at least, and then start to die down in March. We had a reasonable weather window forecast for Thursday, though with the seas 6-8', so Wednesday evening we caught the 4:30PM outward bound bridge opening and spent a very uncomfortable night in Simpson Bay outside the lagoon, rolling from side to side.

Early Thursday we left for the 75nm trip to Virgin Gorda in the British Virgin Islands. At some point the aft head decided to stop working, so our gremlins are still with us. More seriously, the engine cut out (we were using it to boost our speed when we'd hit a windless patch). With the seas on the stern quarter at 6-8' things were very uncomfortable on the boat. We'd roll side to side with an odd little corkscrew motion that tended to make the both of us queasy. Of course there was no way I wanted to work on the engine in those conditions! Based on the symptoms I was reasonably sure it was clogged fuel filters, but the thought of trying to replace them with my head in the engine compartment, rolling and corkscrewing, just wasn't very appealing.

So we just sailed along, making 6 1/2 to 8knots with the wind almost directly behind us. Once we reached Virgin Gorda we decided to sail into the North Sound, a large area of water with land or reefs all around, which makes for relative calm. We sailed to anchor, which was a first for us, and didn't do too badly. Once at anchor I changed the 2 primary fuel filters, drained some junk from them, and changed the secondary fuel filter on the engine. Switched to a fuel tank with a little bit of known good fuel in it, and the engine started right up! Hey, maybe we are getting better at this stuff.

By this time it was sunset, so we motored across the sound to Leverick Bay, where I thought there was a customs and immigration station. In fact I'd thought that's where we'd checked out when we left for St Maarten last April (or was it March?). At any rate we grabbed a mooring and had a peaceful night after a long and very uncomfortable day. We planned to dinghy ashore early and clear in.

But in the morning we discovered free wireless, and were lazily surfing the web at 10AM when a large speedboat from the BVI Customs pulls up. This is cool we think, customs actually coming to us. Nope. Turns out it's part of an anti-smuggling, anti-drug, anti-people who don't check in with customs task force. They were not pleased that we'd not found a customs office first thing in the morning. Really not pleased. Kept saying it was a US$5,000 fine with possible confiscation of boat. Wanted to know how long we'd been on the water and didn't we know we had an obligation to report to customs at the earliest possible moment? And why were we in Leverick Bay since the nearest customs was in Spanishtown, about 6 miles down the coast.

Ooops.

Well, to make a long story short, they fined us US$300 and cleared us in. And then today we took a taxi to Spanishtown (a very spectacular ride, by the way, with fantastic views of Virgin Gorda and the rest the of the BVI), and cleared in with immigration. Now we're legal again and feeling better.

Tomorrow we'll do some boat work - need to figure out why there's no more electricity running to the aft head, and some other miscellaneous boat projects. Then hopefully Village Cay Marina will have a slip for us, so we can have the delivery damage repaired in our new dinghy's hull (see previous entry). After the repair we might get a few days to play before Julia and Morgan arrive in St Thomas on the 19th.

And that's all the news that's fit to print. Gotta go charge the batteries and get the watermaker running manually.

We're Sailing Again! Photos too

2008-01-28T16:52:00.000-08:00

January 26, 2008

(more photos at the end of the journal entry)
My last update went out in mid December. We were in Rodney Bay on St Lucia and had lost our dinghy in the crossing between St Vincent and St Lucia. It's now January. Christmas has come and gone. It is a new year and we are sailing again!
Right now we are on a mooring just off of Charlestown on the island of Nevis. But before I share what we're up to today, let me catch you up on what we've been doing the last month.

Theresa was able to rearrange her travel and joined us for Christmas in St Lucia. As you know, we didn't have a dinghy of our own, but the dealer loaned us one to use while we waited four weeks for ours to arrive. So taking the loaner we sailed with Theresa south along the west side of St Lucia taking in Pigeon Island Park, Marigot Bay, Soufriere and the Pitons and then back north to Castries. I thought we'd SCUBA dive and snorkel, but Theresa had just purchased a fancy new camera and wanted to spend her vacation taking photographs. So we wandered around the harbor towns and toured the gardens of St Lucia. Soufriere was a particularly good spot to take pictures as it was a small enough for us to walk around but large enough to have several streets of older Caribbean architecture with character along with a variety of locals who were willing to be photographed. Several people said yes to Theresa's request to take their picture. Soufriere is located in a much poorer part of the island than Rodney Bay. As a result, her streets made for more interesting and compelling photographs. If you want, you can check out Theresa's work at her site: http://ispy.petrifly.com. However, her St Lucia photos are not available from the home page. You'll need to go to http://ispy.petrifly.com/vacation/StLucia.html.

On December 31st it was time to say good by to Theresa. It had been a fun week and we enjoyed her visit. I dropped Theresa off at the Castries airport for her return home. Then Ken and I headed back to Rodney bay expecting to pick up our new dinghy on January 2nd or 3rd. Not to be. We spent another two weeks in Rodney Bay waiting for our Avon 310 RIB to arrive. It is a long story that Ken has already written up. You can read all about it in his January 16th journal entry, "The Good, The Bad and The Ugly."

Rodney Bay was not such a bad place to be stuck. It's just that we were anxious to begin sailing again as it took us so long to get work done in Trinidad and to start the season. Spending another month waiting wasn't what we wanted to be doing. Having gotten that off my chest, there were benefits to being in Rodney Bay. Sparkle laundry came by the boat, picked up our laundry and returned it to the boat washed, folded and ready to put away. Of course there was a price, but not much more than I was paying in Trinidad to launder clothes myself and I usually ended up with an extra towel or two that wasn't ours. However after a quick VHF call, Sparkle always came by to pick up the extra towels. Not sure if the misplaced towels ever got back to their owners. But that's the islands. Access to services was nice. Our printer died and we were able to replace it easily in Castries, the large town close by. Island Water World, the chandlery, was located in the marina and there was a hardware store across the street. There was even a pizza restaurant we could dinghy up to and get pizza to go. This pizza joint was the equivalent to a fast food restaurant with a playground. Only this playground had equipment for kids of all ages--two trampolines, swings, monkey bars, a hand push merry-go-round and a blow up jumping room. The equipment was situated on dirt and was not made of bright plastic, as it would be in the states. The playground was not as tidy or as safe as it would be at home, but it sure looked like all those children were having fun.

The dinghy finally arrived. We set sail for Martinique where we anchored in the bay at St Pierre for the night before moving on to Roseau Bay on Dominica. We had been in these anchorages last season in June when they were almost empty, maybe three other boats were anchored with us. But not now, it is high season in the Caribbean and the anchorages are full. Looking for a spot to anchor is like looking for a parking space in San Francisco. And anchoring with an audience is not fun as dropping the anchor isn't always a smooth process. And, Ken does not enjoy being watched, especially when Aurora has not settled where we wanted, too close to another boat. Up comes the anchor for another try. If the wind is up anchoring can be even more challenging as Aurora, like any boat, can easily be blown into another vessel. All in all one breathes easier when the anchor is set and the anchorage goes about watching someone or something else.

Of course there are other things to check out in a crowded anchorage besides the newcomer dropping anchor. The lady on the small sail boat next to us in Iles des Saints not only took her shower in full view of all of us but she must have been going out for the evening as she completed a full personal grooming routine. Ken enjoyed it. "I think she's shaving her legs, Maryann. What's she doing now? She's up on the bow. Oh she has the sun shower up and is rinsing her hair. Now she's shaving her pits!" No privacy at all in the anchorages! I wont' give you Ken's comments on the six folks right next to us in Deshaies who were all skinny dipping and showering in full sight of us. Before you begin to think this is exciting, remember most of these folks are past their prime and could loose a few pounds. But it makes for an interesting evening in the cockpit, kind of like sitting on the front porch in a small town. I hold the line at observing with binoculars, but not everyone on Aurora does.

No privacy in the anchorage extends to no privacy on the VHF radio, which I've learned is called the weHF. I've mentioned this in previous updates, but now that we have gotten to know other cruisers it is more interesting. Channel 16, the hailing channel, is used to call other boats. We always have our VHF set to 16 when we are sailing and most times when we are at anchor or in a marina. After hailing a boat on channel 16, one selects a different channel for the conversation or "traffic." Because everyone can hear the hailing channel and the selected channel for talking, one can just tune in an listen. I forget that I'm not alone on the line when I'm calling another boat. And Ken and I listen in when boats we know are talking to hear where they are and what they are up to. People stay in contact up and down the islands. And to make sure you know where everyone is there is a "coconut telegraph" on the SSB at 8:00 each morning. The purpose is for cruisers to keep in touch. Basically anyone who wants to let folks know where they are can call in and announce their location, "Ken and Maryann on Aurora in Charlestown, Nevis." If you want to contact someone you can also set that up on the telegraph.

From Martinique we sailed on to Dominica and picked up a mooring at Fort Young in Roseau. Dominica has a national marine park which we took advantage of with two SCUBA dives. It had been some time since we last dove, last May in the Virgins, and I really enjoyed myself. The dives were two of the nicest we've done--lavender, orange and chocolate colored coral; colorful reef fish and clear water. I thought if I were a decorator I'd use this color scheme in a house. The colors were just so inviting. We even saw two sea horses! And on the second dive we experienced underwater volcanic springs with hot water and gas bubbling up through the ocean floor. The dive, called Champagne, was lovely as if one were swimming through a glass of champagne with the little bubbles floating up all around.

Guadeloupe's Iles des Saintes warranted another visit this season. These small islands ooze with French charm. We enjoyed 4 days at anchor off The Saints before sailing on to Pigeon Island the home of the Cousteau National Park. Unlike Dominica, Guadeloupe allows individuals to dive independently. Ken and I did our first independent SCUBA dive off of Pigeon Island. We picked up a mooring, donned our SCUBA gear and went for a 50-minute dive on our own. Nice to be able to just dive off the swim step. It was not as spectacular a dive as the two on
Dominica, but we did see large schools of fish, lots of corals and a huge crab.

After our dive we motored up Guadeloupe's coast 8 miles to Deshaies, another small village visited on our trek south last season. I'm finding that I like our second season better. Last year everything was so new. Too new. It was a bit overwhelming. This year we know the anchorages and where to dock the dinghy and what to expect. And the visits are different. Last season Deshaies was extremely hot and humid, and we spent our time visiting the botanical garden. This year the weather was mild and I spent an entire afternoon wandering around town taking pictures. But we did have croissants at the same patisserie. So yummy.

We left Deshaies in the wee hours of the morning, 4 a.m., for the 75 mile sail to Nevis. In early June we had stopped at St Kitts, which is the other Island in the country of St Kitts and Nevis. So this time we decided to check out Nevis. And that is where I'm writing this update from. Our first night here we dinghyed over to the beach, pulled our new dinghy up on to the sand and walked to the Sunshine beach bar where we watched the sun set and drank Killer Bee rum punch. Very much the island experience. The next day we walked around town and out to the ruins of Fort Charles, another British fort on the islands.

We'll be having dinner this evening at an old sugar plantation house, Montpelier Plantation Inn. I'm looking forward to it. Ken will have to wear long pants and covered shoes. No shorts and sandals tonight. As for me, I get to wear a dress!

So that's where we've been for the past month. But it doesn't tell you much about what the second season on a boat is like. For me living on the boat is more familiar and thus more comfortable. I know Aurora--all of her storage places, all of the systems, what all the breakers are for in the nav station, how to keep her clean, and what all the different sounds are. "Oh, that's the bilge pump" or "the reefer just kicked in" or "the anchor chain is rubbing against a rock." It's akin to getting to know a new house. As I had not spent my adult life on or around boats, understanding what a boat was all about and getting to know our specific boat was a steep learning curve. This season I'm learning more about sailing. Yes, we can put up the sails, reef them and furl them, but there is much more to the art of sailing than letting out the jib. Maybe by the end of this season, I'll be as comfortable adjusting the traveler and the fairleads for proper sail trim as I am turning on the generator to use the 110v outlets. There is much more to learn and it will come with time and experience.

As for living on the boat with Ken, that too is less of a learning curve. It is a small space and there is no getting away from each other. Still, we've learned when to give the other person space and how to do so. When I ask other cruisers how this "living on a boat" is for them. The women, at least, have similar experiences. They miss the company of women. The need for women to talk with other women seems universal. I enjoyed Theresa's visit as we sat up late talking. So nice to visit with my daughter, to catch up and to just talk. As for Ken, I hear the "we've already talked about that" statement regularly. Seems women don't mind having the same conversation more than once. Talk is not a means to an end, for many of us females, it is an end in itself. Just one of the many differences between the sexes and one Ken and I dance around in our 46 feet of space.

This life is not for everyone and not for every woman. I've met a lot of men who, when they find out what Ken and I are doing, say they would love to live the cruising life, but their wives would never consider it. I'm not sure if these men are wishful thinking or if they really would cruise if their wives agreed. But it seems to be, for the most part, a man's dream. Still some men go ahead and sail leaving their wives at home. We met such a man last week. His wife comes to visit, but only if the boat is docked at a marina and not moving. She doesn't like to sail. They talk every day via phone, and he returns home periodically. Still, he's sailing with a crew member he only recently met in Annapolis. It's sad when one partner's passion is not shared by the other. However, they found a compromise that works for them. And then there are the women who are the sailors and the men who join them. Not many, but we've met a few.

The pace of life on a boat is slow. Some of it is due to the pace of island life and some just because there is no schedule or a plan and no external forces driving one to get things done. Half the time I don't know what day of the week it is. It is one of the pleasures of this life. No hurry. It does take us type-A personalities time to adjust and just let it go. Ken is forever reminding me we don't need a plan and we don't have to get things done right now. On the flip side of that is the never-ending boat work. It does eventually need to be addressed, but for the most part there is no urgency to get it done. It is 11:00 am and I'm sitting here writing when I was planning to clean the interior of the boat this morning. Oh well, it will get done later today or tomorrow or.....

Before I wrap this up, I want to remind folks that we have a web site, svaurora.com. I've updated the Photo Gallery, added the archives so our old journal entries can be accessed and updated most of the pages. The Google Earth route has not been updated from last season, but the list of our locations is current. So if you haven't checked it out you might want to. Ken only posts his updates or journals on the web and is more prolific than me. And he writes about all of the systems on the boat if you are interested.

Safe Passages,

Maryann

P.S.

We had the most wonderful dinner at the Montpelier Plantation Inn last night. It had to be one of the best meals we've had in the Caribbean. Not only was the food exceptional but the setting was elegant and the service outstanding. One could see how the sugar cane plantation owners might have lived. The Inn was lovely, the gardens inviting and well tended, the stone buildings impressive and the view of the ocean spectacular. Of course in its day this elegance came at the price of slavery. Not pretty at all. Still, last night was a wonderful evening and a pleasant surprise.

And here are the photos...

Theresa photographing a frangipani worm.

Colorful boutique in downtown Soufriere, St Lucia.

A back street of Soufriere. Not such a charming view.

The harbor at Terre de Haut, Iles des Saintes, Guadeloupe.

This boat house is where the local doctor lives. Iles des Saintes, Guadeloupe.

Entering Deshaies anchorage, Jan 23, 2008.

Deshaies from the pier. Guadeloupe.

Two doors on a Deshaies building.

Fishing nets, Deshaies, Guadeloupe.

French fabric, Deshaies, Guadeloupe.

The ruins of Fort Charles, Charlestown, Nevis.

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

2008-01-16T12:50:00.000-08:00

The good: we are cruising again. We finally left Rodney Bay Marina, St Lucia on Sunday and sailed (yes, sailed!) to St Pierre on Martinique. It was a very pleasant 40-mile beam reach in moderate winds and modest seas. Probably one of the best sailing days we've had. We averaged between 8 and 9 knots, which ain't bad in a 46-ft sailboat. We didn't go ashore again in St Pierre, though it's a very charming French village built on the ruins of the "Paris of the Caribbean", destroyed in a huge volcanic eruption of Mt Pele in 1901. We'd visited on the way south, and we were anxious to get to Dominica and do some scuba diving.

Monday, bright and early, we left St Pierre for the 30-mile passage to Roseau, the capital city (town?) of Dominica. Again, we had a lovely few hours of fast sailing. In fact, 2 days of sailing back-to-back was unheard of previously. We arrived in Roseau and checked in with customs and immigration, and made reservations to dive with a local shop on Tuesday. The downside of Roseau is the rolling anchorage. The swells hit the open roadstead, and we were rolling all night long. But the next day's diving made up for it.

The 2 dives we did Tuesday were quite simply 2 of the nicest we've ever done. Dominica is positioning itself as the "eco-friendly" island, and is looking to eco-tourism to build its economy. They have the raw material, as the island is quite undeveloped, and the marine park in which we dove was pristine. You are not allowed to scuba dive on your own in Dominica; they don't want divers spoiling what they have. We dove a volcanic area around a sulferous cinder cone in one area, the Soufriere Piton, and on "Champagne Reef", so called because of the CO2 bubbling from subterranean vents. It was like diving through a glass of champagne. Well, sort of. :-) We saw a wide variety of critters and some absolutely gorgeous plant life and invertebrates. The only thing we missed were the sperm whales that frequent that area of Dominica this time of year, though they had apparently sighted them the previous day.

Dominica does get its share of cruise ships. Our diving companions were from one of the WindStar Windjammers, enormous 5-masted motorsailers. And in the morning one of the Carnival cruise ships docked right alongside of where we were moored. Maryann wandered the streets of Roseau with the other cruise ship passengers, but I opted for an afternoon nap.

Wednesday morning, after turning on our AIS system which shows us all of the large boats and ships within a 20-mile radius I noticed a boat called the Maltese Falcon just a mile away from where we were moored. The Maltese Falcon is arguably the world's largest private sailboat, at something like 287 ft. She was built just recently by Tom Perkins of Kleiner, Perkins venture capital fame (and funny enough, the division manager at HP when I started work there many years ago in my first job out of college). We took a swing by for a closer look and a couple of photos. She has 3 enormous carbon-fiber masts, each of which has 3 huge square sails that drop from spars. And rather than adjust the spars for the wind condition, the masts themselves rotate. Simply astounding to see those masts and think about the technology required to rotate them! This last summer I read a book about her construction and the pictures of the interior were unbelievable. Very high tech and very, very luxurious. She was probably on a charter, and I suspect she charters for something well over $300,000/week. That kind of money is almost unfathomable. We left her in peace and continued our northward trek.

We need to be in St Thomas by Feb 19 to meet Julia and Morgan, so we are anxious to close the distance. We set sail (but this time we had to leave the engine running since we needed to make water) for Isles des Saintes, just 5 miles south of Guadeloupe, about 38 miles north of our mooring in Roseau. The tradewinds were blowing strongly again, after an unseasonable 5 days of relative calm. We had 18-23 knot winds, and 5-7 ft seas. Not the most comfortable, and certainly not as nice as the previous couple of days, but we only had a little over 2 hours out of the lee of Dominica, so it wasn't bad. We arrived off Terre d'en Haut, the main islet of Isles de Saintes just after noon, went ashore to have some lunch, and clear customs and immigration. Nobody was home where we clear in, so we'll have to try again tomorrow. There are 2 other Hylas boats here in the anchorage, both Hylas 54's. We've met one owner, but not yet the other.

Not sure how long we'll hang out here, but we want to do some diving and snorkeling and eat some French food. Croissants and pain au chocolat in the morning!

It has been pretty amazing that little has broken in the last few days. We were talking with the other Hylas owner and he was saying that it was his wish that something small breaks every day, because he knows something is going to break, and it's nice if it's small. I know how he feels. We've been running the generator and using the water maker and it's so nice to have them finally working again. The wait for the parts was painful, but we've had nearly 5 days of painless cruising.

Which brings me to the bad and the ugly. Those that like happy endings should just stop reading here. Those who get a vicarious thrill out of the agonies of cruising, well, keep reading.

We finally took delivery on our new dinghy on Friday last. Not sure we described all of the hassles in getting it, but it wasn't a fun experience. It took from the 17th of December to the 11th of January to get it shipped from the states, and delivered to us in St Lucia. Air freight. And when it finally arrived at the St Lucia airport a week ago Tuesday, we couldn't get it because of a complete snafu with shipping costs. We'd originally been quoted $1000 for air freight, then they gave us a written quote for $500. When it arrived, they wanted $1300! We went around and around with the fellow who runs the inflatable dealership, and he went around and around with the air freight people. We ended up paying the original quote of $1000, but refused to pay the further $300 and the dealer ate the extra cost.

Of course by the time the truck arrived at the marina with the dinghy on Friday, it was nearly 5PM. The truck driver says he needs EC$80 for "customs late fee". I never did see him give the EC$80 to the customs guy; who know where it went? However, we were just so relieved to finally get our dinghy we were willing to ask no questions.

But after taking the dinghy out of its carboard carton and out of its (large) plastic bag, we find the dinghy is quite dirty. What's up with that? Oh well, maybe it was just stored in a dirty, dusty warehouse. We carry it to a wooden dock, being very careful not to rest the fiberglass hull on concrete (we scratched our previous dinghy that way and we learned our lesson), and inflate the tubes. Push it off into the water and tow it back to our boat with the loaner dinghy.

Back at our boat I notice the bottom is scratched! About an 18" section of the fiberglass where it's been dragged on some rough surface (like concrete!). We are not happy campers. We tow the new dinghy over to the dinghy dealer (and he's as dinghy as they come), and show him the abraded bottom. We were supposed to clean his loaner dinghy before returning it, but no way am I cleaning it with the new one being as dirty and scraped up as it is. He gets his loaner back with long strings of green algae, we put our outboard on the new dinghy and return to our boat.

But wait, it gets better (worse). Sunday we hoist the dinghy up on our davits and it's heavier than it should be. Oh, forgot to tighten the drain plug that allows you to drain the area between the floor and the hull of the dinghy. We learned that with the previous dinghy also. Until, looking under the dinghy, we find the hole. And the crack. Apparently they dropped the dinghy on something sharp somewhere along the line and the hole allows water to penetrate the inner hull, filling it. Oh, and the crack probably does the same, as it's close to 10 inches long. Aargh! We are very, very unhappy boaters. We've emailed the dealer and they say they are going to file a warranty claim, though I suspect the manufacturer will claim shipping damage, and given the lack of a relationship between the dealer and the air freight folks I hold out little hope our busted up dinghy will be repaired without us digging yet deeper.

Oh well. Most everything else is good. The weather isn't unpleasantly hot, and it cools down to the low 70's overnight. The water here in Isle des Saintes is gorgeously clear. We had fresh croissants for breakfast (they were already out of pain au chocolat!), and life's good.

Waiting for Godot

2008-01-08T07:48:00.000-08:00

OK, today's culture question: who wrote Waiting for Godot? Anybody out there actually read it or maybe even seen it performed? If so, you know how we've spent a good deal of the past 3 weeks here in St Lucia, only substitute "parts" for "Godot".

Actually, before I bore everybody with the usual recitation of what's broken and what we're waiting for to repair it, I will say that we had a very pleasant Christmas and New Years. Maryann's daughter Theresa arrived on Christmas eve, after having to make a last-minute change to her travel plans, given our failure to make it to Guadeloupe. We had a very nice week, exploring the west coast of St Lucia, including the 18th century fortifications on Pigeon Island, the very lovely and very secluded Marigot Bay, and the area around Soufrière, particularly the spectacular Pitons (namesake of the local beer). By the time this is posted I think the latest batch of photos will be up on the site.

Theresa flew out on the morning of the 31rst. We had anchored adjacent to the small airport in Castries, the island's capital, so it was a very short taxi ride to the terminal. Castries is also the destination for the cruise ships which come in a never-ending stream during cruise ship season, October through May. On any given day there might be 5 enormous cruise ships in town, and since there's only room for 3 at the docks, the other 2 have to anchor outside the harbor. Oh, and if you're the Queen Mary 2 you have to anchor out regardless, because you won't fit in the harbor! We saw her originally in Crown Bay on St Thomas earlier this year, and once again anchored outside Castries when we arrived from St Vincent. Truly enormous.

St Lucia seems quite prosperous, especially after St Vincent and the Grenadines and Grenada. Not quite so natural-resource-rich and industrialized as Trinidad, but well-0ff in the mold of an earlier year Hawaii. The banana crop is still number 1 here, but tourism is number 2 and is catching up. Simply amazing the differences we see just across 20- or 30-mile channels. The poverty in St Vincent is pervasive, though I have to add that things aren't nearly as prosperous outside the northwest corner of the island.

We've learned that St Lucia is the wedding capital of the Caribbean, with an average of 10 cermonies a day, year-round. Based on the pasty-white Europeans that abound, it's also quite popular as a winter tropical getaway. There are worse places to have to wait.

But waiting But is what we're doing. When we arrived here, we had a fairly short list of things that needed attention: a new dinghy and outboard, repair the jib's shredded UV-protection strip, get the generator working again, install the new LED tri-color/anchor light, and repair the mainsail where a batten had worked its way through the sail's leech (the trailing edge of the sail). While we were here we had our new refrigeration give us some grief, but topping off the refrigerant and tightening a connection seems to have solved that.

We ordered the new outboard on the 17th, and I think we took delivery on the 18th, which was pretty phenomenal. But then these islands live and die by their Yamaha outboards, so I guess that wasn't so surprising. We ordered the new dinghy on the 18th and it might just possibly arrive this afternoon. Maybe. The local dealer couldn't get a tracking number, and "those people (the distributor) are just so disorganized". This from one of the most disorganized ex-pat Brits I've ever come across - actually being an ex-pat Brit has nothing to do with it, other than it gives it a humorous tinge of a Monty Python sketch (think Minister of Silly Walks). But he did give us a loaner dinghy while waiting for our new one to arrive and that's been essential.

Oh, even if the dinghy does arrive this afternoon, it'll be tomorrow before we see it, as it has to pass through customs, and get delivered here from the airport. The dinghy will be duty-free, as parts for a yacht-in-transit are not charged duty. Ah, but there is the customs broker!

We've had a couple of FedEx packages arrive with eagerly awaited parts. Now even with tracking numbers it's sometimes difficult to actually find the package. Even when you have the signature facsimile of the receiving person you might not find the package for a few days. But once found, there is no way for us to retrieve it. We don't have the requisite paperwork. Only these quasi-official brokers seem to possess the correct paperwork. And the broker charges something like US$60 to retrieve the package, fill out the correct paperwork, and walk it through customs where we have to open the package for customs inspection. I asked about us filling out the paperwork, but apparently the forms are only available to brokers. So each "duty-free" package costs us big time.

So far we've gotten our mail packet (with some sewing-machine parts, a mounting bracket, and some prescription medications), a part that will hopefully allow us to get the generator working once again (the part was mailed from the UK to Trinidad, and arrived a week before we left - nobody told us it had arrived; then it took nearly 3 weeks to get it "overnighted" from the marina in Trinidad here), and a new pump head for our watermaker, which has been out of action since we left Trinidad. Each package has been an adventure to receive.

And then, of course, each repair leads to others. The jib was repaired by the local sail loft, saving us a bunch of bucks since he managed to repair rather than replace the UV protection canvas strip. But putting it back on the roller furler was blocked until I could get the mechanism to stop binding. At least this was one case of where reading the manual actually gave all the info necessary to correct the adjustment.

The generator part, a simple cover for the salt-water pump housing, finally arrived yesterday. This was the part that took Coral Cove Marina 3 weeks to forward to us. It was only the work of maybe 5 minutes to install the new cover, then another 2 minutes to break an O-ring on the salt-water pump itself! So today we ordered replacement O-rings. They cost about 35 cents each. The FedEx bill will probably be US$40. We're hoping that just maybe the package will bypass customs (and another US$60 for the broker) as they don't seem to bother with soft-sided envelopes. Still, it could turn a 35-cent part into a US$100 part!

We also received the stainless-steel bracket for mounting the new LED anchor/tri-color masthead light. Haven't worked up the nerve to head up the mast again to do the actual replacement. That's a long way up there and the wind's been blowing pretty well for the past month or two! See the pictures in Maryann's last update.

We also need to repair the mainsail. We seem to get enough flutter on the leech to where the battens want to work their way up and out through the sail cloth. We have some kevlar tape that will hopefully make short work of that repair. And once we get the O-rings (tomorrow, maybe) and the new dinghy (also hopefully tomorrow), we'll be able to get this show back on the road. Guests coming to meet us in St Thomas in 46 days; gotta get moving again!

Holiday Greetings

2007-12-19T13:02:00.000-08:00

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

Dinghy Farewell

2007-12-17T12:42:00.000-08:00

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.