When getting updates about a boat build happening on another continent, there are a lot of back and forth calls, emails, and pictures. This post shares a lot of those pictures.
Sicily was all you've heard: very pretty with very good food. The marina in Riposto is right by where the the catch comes in every morning, and so just a block down and to the right is market after market of fresh fish right off the boat. We ate tuna and swordfish pretty much every day.
When the winds finally piped down, we left Cartegena. We kept moving along the southern Spanish coast in reasonable winds. But the winds had just been really blowing for several days, and the sea state was still pretty agressive. By morning, we came to realize that we had some damage.
A week and a half since my last post, and there's really not much new to report. The boat is repaired and ready to go back in the water, but it was blowing 40 kts on Wednesday, making the boat lift out of the question, and then the boat yard has been closed for Easter break every day since.
We spent several days visiting Lanzarote, which is one of the Canary Islands. I don't really know how to describe it. It's unlike anywhere else I've visited. A little bit Mediterranean feeling, but then something else, with it's white plaster buildings and brown volcano-rock landscape. Really, it felt like another planet.
Just over 600 miles to go. I talk about the state of our pantry and show you our dinghy garage. Nice win by LSU Baseball tonight! That's a good way to pass 3 hours of night watch.
I think this should be my last night watch. Thanks to everyone for all of your comments and feedback. There's been more than one night where that was the motivation to create another video. No plans to post tomorrow, but we'll have more online throughout the summer.
We arrived in Rodney Bay, St Lucia just as it got too dark to see. The anchor lights of the other boats blended in with the city lights on shore, but with the help of the radar, we got anchored in a safe calm place with plenty of room to swing without coming close to another boat.
We spent three months and chance in the Mediterranean and didn't sniff France, but here in the Caribbean, we found ourselves hoisting the French flag on the starboard halyard. As it turns out, Martinique is a part of France, just like Hawaii is part of the US. We checked in to Martinique on May 15. I stayed aboard to work...
Most of the time, I can rearrange work stuff to do the island field trips with the family. Sometimes I caan't. I didn't get to go see the volcano ruins in Montserrat, so V did a little video for me.
I implore you to visit soon. A newer, bigger airport is already under construction. We left Saturday, just before the ribbon cutting for the marina that can host mega yachts. Go now, while the resorts are small. Spend some time on the beach, and hire a local to take you on the eco-tour and snorkeling.
Like Martinique, Guadeloupe is just another part of France. They pay in Euros, fly the French Courtesy Flag, and immediately attempt to surrender their country to visiting Germans (kidding). I thought it would just be more of the same as Martinique, but my impression of Guadeloupe is better. (Bear in mind that I've seen relatively little of either place.)
Montserrat started a string of very small, lightly populated islands that I could not have identified before this trip. There is one anchorage, and it had only two other boats there when we arrived. Others came and went, but there were at most seven or so boats floating around out there.
Statia, or St. Eustatius if you prefer, is our first Dutch island. It’s just a tiny little roundish thing out here in the Caribbean, with not a whole lot of people. There’s a decent little waterfront, and then a steep climb up to the town proper. It’s a pretty little town with stone streets and friendly people. It’s a nice place.
Next in the line of countries that you can be forgiven for having never heard of was Saba. It's a small hunk of rock with fewer than 2000 people calling it home.
Sint Maarten/Saint Martin is two countries on one island, and that's a weird thing. There's no real border. You can just pop back and forth and at some point, the language and the currencies change on you.
Our first Night Watch video since the crossing. Just a quick update followed by a minute of sailing footage from a couple of days ago when we were moving with speed through a wavy ocean.
Unedited clips from my library pieced together.
Partying on board, dancing at Foxy's, and jumping from Willie T's. And about 10 seconds of a late-week snorkel.
Annika did finally work up the nerve to jump, but I couldn't find the video evidence.
The British Virgin Islands are by far the most popular cruising grounds in the Caribbean. I went in expecting to have a lot of fun, but to be underwhelmed by the "touristy" destination. But it turns out that there's a reason for its popularity. There's something that's a lot of fun on every island, and they're all just a 2 or 3 hour sail away.
After Crystal and her delightful adult daughters left us, we sailed to Saint John to meet up with some of our Baton Rouge friends. We spent a few days between floating behind Velvet Elvis, hanging out at the beautiful pool at their rental house, and exploring the bay and the island.
Once it was clear that we weren't going to be across the ocean as soon as we had hoped, the Domonican Republic is a country that we tentatively decided to skip. But then San Juan wasn't as conducive to supply runs or laundry as we had anticipated, and we found a resort with a marina who also has a good off season rate, so we decded to drop in for a bit.
The Mac Photos app made this video for me, featuring sunsets last year. While I'm not nuts about their choice of music, I am a fan of the computer maing a video where I had to do fuck-all production.
Update: I had to replace the music because there was a copyright block on the one that my Mac chose. WTF, apple!
