A Strong Sense Of Deja Vu .....

Pirate Bight, Norman Island

Ah, the British Virgin Islands. Thirty years ago I sailed here, different boat, different life, different wife, you get the idea.  It was great then Wendy, and it's great now thanks Ley. Crystal Blues sailed into the north sound of Virgin Gorda on April 20, after an easy overnight passage from St. Martin. Here we found to our delight a friendly social scene and a great number of sail boats, punctuated by the occasional spectacular power boat. We figure big power boats are OK if they look really good - like Savannah, (below) that really delivers on her hundred million dollar construction price tag. Ouch.

Then again, you can charter her for just a million bucks a week. Much easier.

This is the boat with the underwater lounge, swimming pool, and which is (gasp), "Eco Friendly"", despite the lack of solar panels and wind generators. Diesel electric propulsion pods, battery storage, and just one direct drive low RPM diesel engine. Read about it here.

When Savannah wasn't keeping us on our toes, there was no shortage of inspiration in the anchorage.

So here we started to relax a little, meeting new friends and spending time on other boats, coupled with the obligatory eating, drinking and general yabbering. Quite a few yachts are here, ready to depart for the USA, though many are joining one of two available rally groups to make the transit.

Even the ARC organisation is running a rally from here, leaving mid may to Florida, which is a little late to our thinking. Most of the named storms that sweep up the Florida coast to the Carolinas do so early in the season. We'll be on the move quite soon.

The past two days we've anchored in Cane Garden Bay on the main island of Tortola,  relaxing and doing provisioning before our next passage. It's a cruiser friendly lazy beach resort, with a perfect white sand beach and clear waters. A string of bars are scattered along the foreshore offering entertainment and sustenance to suit all budgets. For every cruising sailboat you can count at least four or five charter yachts, so entertainment is everywhere, specially at anchoring time. We were all there once I guess.

Cane Garden Bay, Tortola, BVI's

Fishy Business Again

On April 15th we departed Martinique, turning north again to cover more miles in our quest. We aimed for St. Martin, a smallish island with a large pond in the middle, all bisected by an international border - it's half French and half Dutch. The passage took us two days and 20 hours, covering around 280 nautical miles, a sedate pace that included typically uncomfortable sections, specially in the passes between the islands where the currents run strong.

However in one of those island passes Ley hooked another big Mahi Mahi, a fish that managed to slow the boat down from our 6 to 7 knot classic fishing speed. Kind of daunting really .... it went slanting off sideways on the line, tacking against the movement of the boat and then tacking back across the stern. I woke Ley as I retrieved our second unladen line, clearing the way for this big one to be retrieved.

It took another 10 minutes before we had it at the stern, and then another 5 minutes to get it on deck, at which time we shared some of our best white rum with the fish, but got no thanks, just a lot of angst.

So more rum, several times over, eventually did the trick and the magnificent fish did its magical (and somehow sad) color change, as the life force departed.

We cut two huge fillets off the fish and blessed the sea with the rest, chilling the fillets down before skinning them, so that no scaling was required. The admiral tells me we'll get 10 meals off the catch, that is great fishing.

Next morning we approached the coast of St. Martin, the western French side, in kind of sloppy conditions with a big east north east breeze blowing. We anchored off shore in calm conditions, but within 24 hours there were ocean swells running through the anchorage, heaving Crystal Blues sideways 5 meters at a time, and truly straining our friendship with St. Martin.  We could of course have moved into the lagoon, through a drawbridge that opened three times a day, and had uncertain water depths  ... instead we moved north, further into the lee of a natural point of land. There we enjoyed calm conditions and used our dinghy to explore into the lagoon - much better to run the surf into the lagoon in a small boat!

Once inside we found, on the French side, a cruisers paradise - flat water, relaxed officialdom and all the creature comforts of France, delivered in a laid back Rasta kinda way.  Cross the lagoon to Holland and things became decidedly more precise and up-market, driven by the amazing number of super yachts that were berthed there. On the down side, most of them were power boats, however it was a splendid sight. St Martin seemed like a great place to do boat work, and have a damn good time despite that. We provisioned quickly, on the Dutch side, and prepared for our next passage, just eighty nautical miles to the British Virgin Islands.

Escaping The Crowds In Martinique

Two days after our arrival the small town feel of Fort De France was completely over taken by the arrival of the cruise ship Disney Magic. She berthed with her stern no more than 200 meters from our anchor position, so we were able to watch the inevitable invasion of very white skinned tourists as they marched down the dock in their thousands, each group following a host carrying a large placard above their head, off into the wilds of French Martinique. There goes the neighbourhood ...

The Porcelain Rose

With the old town now humming to the cries of children heading for McDonalds and the buzz of electric powered chairs carrying (surprisingly young looking) tourists around the streets, we rented a car and headed for the hills.

In the mountains just north of the city we visited Jardin de Belata, a private botanical garden with exotic plants from around the world, a treetop walkway & mountain views. The Porcelain Rose Etlingera Elatior was everywhere, along with fields of cactus, massive palm groves, Japanese gardens and even a Bamboo garden. We finished our tour with a very nice luncheon at the adjacent restaurant La Luciole, a perfectly French establishment, relaxed and confident, with a small but beautiful menu. Oh joy, again.

Next day we toured north along the coast, heading for one of our essential volcano visits - the Admiral does love her volcano's - stopping along the way to drink coffee and watch fisherman work their catch in peaceful cooperation with the local pelicans.

We were also able to visit some original "Creole Era" ruins and plantation village , with truly stunning homes, as we climbed away from the coast towards the volcano.

As it happened the volcano caldera on Mount Pelee was accessible only if we were prepared for a four hour mountain hike, and that looked more like a scramble when viewed from the base of the trail.

So no, let's have lunch, this is France, there has to be a decent restaurant around here somewhere ..... but alas it was not to be, for the admiral had packed food, and we headed back to the coast to share lunch with friends Phil and Linda aboard SV Windora in the anchorage at Saint Pierre.

Carriacou to Martinique - Assisting French Customs Along The Way

French Customs Patrol Boat

Two weeks ago we sailed out of Tyrell Bay in Carriacou, heading for Martinique, looking for our first taste of France in the Caribbean. It was a 24 hour passage, covering some 130 nautical miles, and involved a mixture of spirited sailing, and flat calms requiring the engine to keep us moving forward.  We sailed right past the Tobago Cays, Mustique, Bequia, St Vincent and St Lucia - many wonderful anchorages - however life just isn't long enough to stop at every island and we're still on a mission to reach the USA before the end of May. Equally, we're careful about personal security and were committed to bypassing St.Vincent, among others (St. Vincent is responsible for more than half of all security incidents involving cruisers in the Caribbean area).

The Vessel Of Interest- Click The Image To Enlarge

Approaching Martinique we were over-flown by a patrol aircraft, then an hour or so later a very beautifully presented patrol boat (so very French) approached us at speed and asked our intentions. They sat on our stern quarter while we worked our way through the basic identification tasks for the vessel and crew, established our intentions as tourists in Martinique and as bona-fide cruisers for the past 12 years before approving our approach to the island and wishing us a good day.

Their final question was to ask if we has seen any unusual boat activity in the past few hours - which we had. I explained that we had observed a small trimaran on a reciprocal course (it was heading south) that seemed to be badly handled, with sails not trimmed properly and steering a little wildly.  They were immediately interested and asked for all of our observations, timing, position etc. - it was clear this was a vessel they were looking for. I explained that the vessel was transmitting its position via AIS, and that as our navigation system logged all targets and data I could replay our course and establish its last known position received by AIS.

Now they were really interested and offered to stand by while we shut down the Transas navigation software and re-booted it in playback mode, scanning for that vessel and event. It took 10 minutes but we were eventually able to give them an accurate last known position, course and speed for the offending vessel, after which they thanked us profusely and steamed on their way. We're not sure what was going on, but were sure happy to help.

Arriving in Fort De France a few hours later we anchored in 4 meters of water, close to the old fort on good mud holding ground and found ourselves right in the heart of town - what a joy! The French had provided a nice dinghy dock on the bay promenade, and it was literally only 50 meters to the first coffee shop and restaurant. Oh joy, welcome to France.

Chilling Out In Carriacou

We feel like we earned this place - after sweating it out in Trinidad for several months, Carriacou is a delightful backwater in the Caribbean, peaceful and relatively undeveloped, with beautiful beaches.

Moored Off Paradise Beach

The local population is only 8,000 folks, a mix of African, East Indian and European decent. Its a simple place, where people greet you on the bus and welcome you to their island.

As it happens, the most significant home on the island is owned by sailing friends we met in Trinidad - that's it in the image at left, with Crystal Blues moored up in front.

Tyrrel Bay in the south west of the island is the most sheltered anchorage, with a gently shelving sandy bottom that has space for sixty to a hundred boats, all in water between 3.0 and 5.0 meters deep.  Development is coming here, as everywhere, with a major new marina under construction, including hard stand and 100 tonne(!) travel lift. Customs and Immigration clearance procedures are simple, and there are no harbour fees or other charges for visiting yachts.

Tyrrel Bay

So we hung out with friends for a week or so, swimming, relaxing and (of course) still working on boat jobs - mainly dealing with work that was done badly by contractors in Trinidad - but thats another story...

Fresh produce was easy to come by - our fruit and vegetables were sold by the grower from his roadside stall over looking the beach, complete with hammock bed for when the cash register goes quiet.

This was the first island where we started to encounter charter yachts, invariably populated by excited white-skinned Europeans or Americans. It was also the first place where quality French cheese, wine and breads were plentiful and reasonably priced. Oh joy.

Compared to Trinidad, and even Grenada, the community here is much more relaxed, respectful and seemingly contented - in fact it reminded us of our time in Charlotteville, Tobago (read about that very special place here and here).

As we move north we are constantly coming across species that are new to us southerners - even the common seagulls here are new and different to us.

The weather is also becoming distinctly cooler - lower humidity is already making us more in the day, and even distinctly cool at night.

We're headed for the USA, where there was snow on the ground in Boston just a week or so back - roll on summer, please.  We plan to move north to Martinique, St. Martin and the BVI's before veering north west towards the US coast.

From Trinidad north the islands are all delightfully close to each other - it was 80 miles to Grenada and then only 40 miles to Carriacou. The entire passage north can be done in "day hops"if you have the time, however we'll be making some bigger jumps to see us on the US coast in time for summer, and far enough north to minimise risks of the associated hurricane season.

Hillsborough, Main Town In Carriacou

We Have Escaped !

Oh, what a feeling!

I'm not sure why, but hardstands have a strong magnetic pull on Crystal Blues. We haul out every two years so our time on the hard is always extensive. The only way to break the cycle is to set a launch date and work diligently towards it. Oops, so we missed our first launch date and only made the second date with superhuman effort.

After two weeks tied to the dock and still with a lengthy job list our final escape was determined by the expiration of our visas. Working 12 hour days, installing sails, new stanchions, running rigging and three hatches, including fairing and painting the hatch surrounds and provisioning. We sailed away from Power Boats, Chaguaramas, Trinidad bound for Grenada, sea worthy but with a long job list.

We had to dig a trench deep enough to use the needle gun.

One of the final job before launch found us digging out a 18 inch wide by 12 feet long trench under the keel. One foot deep, it allowed us to clean up the base of the keel with a needle gun and then paint with multiple layers of epoxy and antifoul.  Lacking a trenching tool or shovel, we had to dig the hole with a borrowed crowbar and a piece of timber to scoop out the compacted landfill. Fun, stressful times!

There were many reasons why we were held up in the Power Boats yard.

New stanchions took just on three months to be manufactured and were returned to thew workshop four times due to a range of manufacturing defects. Even after the final delivery we found that the holes for the locking pins were the wrong size (too small), so we had to pull them off and re-drill each piece. Then the absolute best varnishing man in the area left us with the last coat covered in dust and runs, plus varnish on the dodger glazing and cockpit paint, not a good look.

Finally, one of the props supporting the hull was faulty, and a loose bolt in the pad pierced the hull paint right down to bare metal. This damage was only revealed as we were lifted into slings for the final weekend pre-launch. Speed sandblasting, epoxy painting and antifoul followed.

Our last few weeks in pictures :

Neil spray painting the spinnaker pole.

Ley finishing off the antifoul, only the rudder to go.

Neil brushing Awlgrip top coat around the hatch surrounds.

Travel Plans

We stayed 4 days in Grenada, long enough to collect and install our new Lifeline AGM house batteries, that had been pre-ordered months earlier. Then we day sailed the 40 nautical miles to Carriacou, a smaller and peaceful island with a lovely sheltered harbour, Tyrell Bay.

From here we'll jump to Martinique, then onward to the BVI's and eventually the east coast of the USA for the summer.

Vale Bethany Smith

On March 15 we received the tragic news of Bethany Smith's untimely death, falling from the rigging of the super yacht Germania Nova, in Jamaica (read more here). Cruiser support for her family, our friends Sarah and David and their son Bryn, was amazing as the community rallied around to assist and comfort them.

We organised a raffle, with generous prizes donated by Power Boats and Jesse James, Members Only. The raffle was well supported by the local cruising and business community and the money raised helped to defray some of their escalating costs.

Live life for today, you never know what tomorrow will bring.

Bethany Smith, 17 March 1998 – 14 March 2017