BVI - SXM - ANU

A quick look back at my last post tells me I left you several islands back, so I'll skip all the humdrum sunset and fish photos and start with the good stuff.

My cousin Amy's daughter Lizzy was here with some friends on their own Caribbean adventure. They're an energetic group of college grads and soon-to-be grads with a keen interest in conservation. During their travels they'll be gathering samples and data for various marine conservation groups which will help with efforts to measure the impact of all the plastic that ends up in the sea. They're measuring and tagging sharks for another marine research group and cleaning up beaches where they can. Mostly.... they just wanted to go sailing! More power to them that they found a way to do it and to do some good along the way. We first caught up with the young salty crew in Virgin Gorda on their Tartan 37 s/v Jormungandr.

The "kids" from L to R: Henry, Kerry, Grant and Lizzy

The guys stayed on board to work out some things on the boat in preparation for the passage to St Martin, and Skip and I went hiking with the girls in North Sound. I thought I was in pretty good hiking condition until we hiked with these two athletes. Apparently.... I'm not. 

Lizzy and Kerry on the trail at Alvin's Heights

Kerry, Lizzy and me at the top

Skip and I hiked a few other days and came across the Frangipani caterpillar again, as well as another fuzzy spotted one we hadn't seen before. I've attempted to include a video of the Frangipani caterpillar chowing down, but our wifi is sketchy here so I'm not sure how successful it will be.

Frangipani caterpillar

Unknown fuzzy/spiky/spotted caterpillar. Anyone have an ID?

Another day we were hiking up Guy's Trail from the Bitter End and came across a foursome on their way down. "Skip?" they said. We drew a blank for a moment and then made the connection.... John & Terri from s/v Child's Play. We'd met them a few years ago when they were here on their C & C 41; we were anchored near them in North Sound. They'd taken their boat back north but were back chartering with family and we just happened upon each other.

Though we haven't seen them for a few years, they've been keeping up with our blog and recognized us right away. It was really fun to see them and it's good to know we're bringing some Caribbean warmth to them in the frozen north. Hi guys!!

With the wind turning in our favor we pulled up the anchor and headed for St Martin in the company of Kurt and Tina on Pneumatic. We must have pulled the last two mahi out of the sea on our previous passage. No fish this time for either boat.

In St Martin we joined the few other boats circling slowly out in Marigot Bay awaiting the early bridge opening into the French side and recognized one....

We're not really following you and reporting back to your parents that you're OK....

... well, maybe we are just a little bit.

After a few days of chores and errands, we went to check out the big boats coming through the Dutch bridge opening one evening. It was quite the event when Steve Jobs' boat Venus made an appearance. We've seen the boat in the BVI and in St Martin before, but not quite this close up. I call it the iBoat; Skip prefers iYacht. It just looks like an iSomething. We imagine the captain controlling all the boat's systems by swiping across and down touchscreens.

Just starting to peek through the opening

About halfway through

Squeaking through

Rear view. Venus enters the lagoon as a squall begins

The Sint Maarten Yacht Club is the bar/restaurant by the Dutch bridge and in addition to the up close mega-yacht viewing, they also have great wifi, which in wifi challenged Saint Martin/Sint Maarten, is precious. So, we stayed a little longer and watched the outgoing traffic.... and used the wifi.

Bye SXM

We've spent enough time here to have had several conversations with the irascible bridge tender Sam. He likes to yell. At everyone. Moving too slowly through the bridge? Sam will yell at you. Speeding under the bridge on a jetski and spraying the underside of 'his' bridge with saltwater? Sam will yell at you. Disagree with him? Sam will yell at you. But... he's also kind of a nice guy. Very opinionated, but nice. We chatted him up one evening and he told us there was a special bridge opening coming up (at a rumored $1000) for one of his favorite boats - Limitless. "Want to watch it from the control room?" he asked us. You bet! 

Sam lit a cigarette, popped open a fresh beer and took us below the bridge where we walked around the grinding gears as the bridge opened to let Limitless enter. Yep.... safety first.

Sam yuks it up by the (impeccably clean) gears that raise and lower the bridge, while Kurt and Skip look on.

Limitless, as seen from the control room. Note her home port, Newport RI. Funny... we haven't seen her there.

The wind wasn't good for the passage to Antigua but we were getting antsy in the lagoon and went out for a few days, back into the blue water of Grand Case and Anse Marcel on the North Coast.

Someone's nightmare in the lagoon

Someone's dream for sale in Grand Case

We hadn't been to Anse Marcel before since it's open to the north and it hasn't been a tenable anchorage any time we've been in St Martin. It's dominated by an enormous Radisson with a fabulous pool (that we weren't supposed to enter) that I had to try out. You'll recall the GIANT pool in Cupecoy? This one was bigger, and overlooked the sea, but like I said... technically we shouldn't have been in it. I just got in and got out. I couldn't help myself. We left before we got chased out.

Oooooooo..... giant pool

Iguana on the rocks on the dinghy ride away from the giant pool

Not feeling especially welcome on the beach at Anse Marcel (or in the pool) we pulled up the anchor and headed back to the lagoon. Rather we tried to pull up the anchor. The bottom here is sandy and seemingly free of obstacles but somehow we managed to snag a heavy chain that lay across the bay. When this happened last we were in murky Le Marin in Martinique and we used the same technique to free the anchor. We secured one end of a line to a cleat on the port bow, ran the line under the chain and secured the other end to a cleat on the starboard bow. The line held the weight of the chain and I lowered the anchor until it was free of the chain. With Skip at the helm I released one end of the line and the chain dropped to the bottom to lie in wait for the next anchor to catch.

Setting free the anchor

St Martin is indeed the Venus fly trap of the Caribbean and we were determined to take the first opportunity to continue east. We'd come across friends here that we hadn't seen in years... John & Jacky on s/v Worry No More and Daryl & Adri on s/v Leila who we last saw when they were on the hard in a yard by the bridge. Our friends Bennet and Susan just arrived on their Outbound, s/v Pratique, and we only had one evening with them before we left. We said our goodbyes to all and headed out the bridge.

Pratique arrives in St Martin

Familiar view heading out the French bridge

Safety not first... guys hanging out on the open edge of the French bridge watching the boats go by.

Daryl and Adri on lovely Leila.... looking much happier here than in the yard

The winds were light and the surface of the sea was smooth. We motor-sailed over big comfortable swells all the way to Antigua, only snagging one big barracuda that we let go.

Heading east in the morning... fire in the sky.

Looking west as the sun starts to light up the clouds

Not much to do except enjoy the ride

Big barracuda = Big teeth

The real excitement came as we approached Antigua, not counting the huge squall that arrived just as we arrived. Dolphins! They played in our bow wave, jumping and swimming as we neared the island. Knowing that I'm photographically wildlife challenged I was happy to get the few shots I did - and I'm attempting to post a video as well. Apologies for the wild swing in the middle of the video; I couldn't decide which dolphins to follow!

We're in Jolly Harbor, enjoying the company of friends and awaiting the arrival of others. Mostly though we're waiting for good weather to head for Barbuda. Barbudaaaaaaaahhhhh......

A few of our favorite things

This is a long overdue thank you to my sister Leslie's friend Penelope who's been following along since our early days out here. Penelope sailed with her family as a kid and is perfectly happy to never ever, ever have to go sailing again. Perhaps alarmed by my post about Skip modifying our old dying grill back in 2013, Penelope very kindly offered the brand new Magma grill from her family's boat (that was otherwise destined to sit unused forever) to us. Thanks Penelope... we love it!! It took about a year for it to make it's way to us... it hitched a ride on a boat from the US to Bermuda, then to St Martin and finally to us... and we've been using it ever since.

No mods needed on our brand new grill (yet)

In action!

Directions for marine grills say to remove them before sailing. Not gonna happen. So Skip reinforced the bracket that holds the grill on and we just take care to keep the exterior salt free and the interior clean so gunk doesn't drip onto the stern while we're underway. When we haul the boat, we take the grill off and let the chickens do the tough clean up. I hope they don't realize exactly what they're eating.....

Tastes like.... chicken?!

We have other friends keeping an eye on the blog and sending things our way too. Like, Oliver for one. Our SSB hasn't been transmitting as well as it ought to and a few conversations with Oliver later we had a hand me down ICOM tuner that matches our ICOM radio. Thanks Oliver!  

New ICOM tuner.... now we can talk to friends far away.

Thanks to our friend Geoff on the Outbound Wynot, we now also have a fabulous new cockpit light. We're always searching for the perfect cockpit light that's bright, lightweight, easy to put up and take down, and most importantly, isn't an energy hog. We have solar string lights that do a pretty good job but they're not quite bright enough. We spent New Year's Eve on Wynot and was admiring Geoff's very funky inflatable solar light (I guess a little too much?!) and he took it down and handed it to us as we left. Thanks Geoff.... but be careful.... we may start admiring other things on your boat too!

Solar everything... comes on at sunset

Last but not least of my new favorite things is a thermos given to me by Tina on the Outbound Pneumatic. I've been wanting to make yogurt on the boat and with some guidance from several yogurt making goddesses I've met out here, I thought I'd give it a try. Now with my brand spanking new Thermos, and a few initial failures under my belt, I'm a yogurt making goddess too.

Thanks Tina!

Homemade yogurt, with my homemade granola, of course!

I think our new grill did more traveling to get to us than we've done in the past few weeks. Sometimes we sail a lot.... sometimes we don't. Lately - we don't. Partly because it's been windy as hell and partly because there have been lots of friends around and we've been on a social binge. If I were more of a people photographer I'd have lots of great shots for this post, but.... I'm not, and I don't.

Our days have been starting with some variation of the following conversation:

Skip/Me: So.... d'you want to go somewhere today?

Me/Skip: I don't know.... d'you?

Skip/Me: I don't know. Where would we go?

Me/Skip: I don't know.

Skip/Me: How about a swim?

Me/Skip: Hmmmm... seems like a lot of work.

Skip/Me: It does, doesn't it? Maybe later....

To be fair, we have moved from the BVI (where the blog last left off) to the USVI, and then back to the BVI, but that's about it. We spent a few days on the south side of St John, which we haven't done since we first came here back in 2011, and this time we hiked trails from Little Lameshur Bay up to the petroglyphs. The petroglyphs are carved into rocks above a spring fed pool in the hills and according to the info near the site, they are thought to have been left here between 900 and 1500 AD by pre-Columbian Tainos and their ancestors.

Great stone walls along the path

Petroglyphs

More petroglyphs

Saralane on the south side of St John

Sunset from Little Lameshur

Bonus this year... Skip gets his national park senior citizens pass which gives us half priced moorings in St John! Yikes.

The trade winds are higher than normal so we'll probably hang around the BVI for a little longer, but we'll be looking for a good opportunity to sail east again to get back to beautiful Barbuda and beyond.

Back on track

Centerboard trouble? What centerboard trouble? With a little brainstorming, a few new bits and pieces and a little help from our friends, our centerboard troubles are behind us. At least for now. Here's the short and sweet version...

Instead of replacing the stainless steel wire and swage eye with the same material we opted to use Dyneema all the way.

Dyneema with spliced loop becomes our new "cable"

The year old stainless wire that rusted/frayed/weakened and snapped 

Here's where it's good to have friends with air... instead of having to do a short haul (take the boat out of the water, hang in the slings for an hour and rush to try to get the job done before the clock runs out), our friend Kurt donned his scuba gear and did the dirty work under water for us. 

Kurt and Tina arrive on their Outbound 46 "Pneumatic"

Kurt gets instructions from Skip.... tab A goes into slot B...

...and then goes in to replace the old broken swage eye and bolt with a new bolt and the Dyneema.

Not hard to tell the old bolt from the new bolt. Lots of corrosion on the old one.

The old corroded bolt came out with no problem, but the swage eye took a little more muscle (and a lot of Kurt's air). Once the old pieces were out, he got on with the task of fitting the new Dyneema. Ever try to push a big string through a small hole? It wasn't easy and Kurt came up once or twice and said "I'm not optimistic." This, coming from an engineer had us worried, but we made some adjustments to the spliced loop and he went back down and worked on it until he got it. Thanks Kurt!! 

Centerboard is winched UP again... with a length of rope temporarily holding it in place. 

On deck the same 4:1 ratio set up stays in place...

Dyneema knotted before final length is determined...

...then neatly spliced and finished off.

A celebration was definitely in order. Kurt and Skip toast the new functional centerboard pennant.

A celebratory snorkel was in order too... and Mountain Point is a good spot for it.

School of blue tang along the shore in Mountain Point

Skip tries to blend in with his blue shorts and snorkel

Mountain Point bonus - Iain and Fiona on "Ruffian" row over in their dinghy "Thug" for a visit.

The new Dynema pennant had it's trial run already on the upwind sail to St Martin and it worked perfectly. We still dive down to attach or remove the spectra loop, but as long as we're in clear water that's not a problem. A little unconventional perhaps, but also effective.

The weather in the northeast Caribbean has been unusually mild lately and we took advantage of a slight northerly component in the wind to go to St Martin - primarily to replace the anchor chain we replaced there just over a year ago. The (old) new chain started to rust within about six months so we contacted the supplier in St Martin and they agreed to replace it at no cost. We usually sail during the day so we can fish, but it was the night before a full moon and it was calm and clear so we left about 10 PM and arrived in St Martin with time to kill before catching the afternoon bridge into the lagoon on the French side.

Moon set

Sun rise

Hurricane Gonzalo did a job on St Martin in October and evidence of the storm was clear along the shoreline here. Local mariners counted 100-ish boats lost or sunk (the official count was much lower) and the recovery efforts continue.

Boats and rocks don't mix well. Top left is a work boat trying to free a small freight boat, which stubbornly refuses to budge.

I took my camera with me everywhere we went in St Martin, but somehow ended up with almost no photos. You're not missing much though - mostly what we saw was the inside of Island Water World, Budget Marine and about half a dozen grocery stores. Zzzzzzzz.... 

We did get to see our friends Tim and Nancy on "Larus" arriving through the Dutch bridge and I managed to remember to take a shot of them.

Pretty Larus arrives

As well as a MUCH bigger boat than Larus... squeezing through the open drawbridge. 

And another biggie, signaling that mega yacht season has begun.

Less visually interesting, but more important to us than mega yachts, was our anchor chain swap. Go ahead - feel free to ooooohh and aaaahhh....

Old chain / New chain - oooohhh, aaaahhh. No more messy decks!

While we were at it, we replaced the old shackle attaching the chain to the anchor. It looked OK, but better safe than sorry.

Old shackle / New shackle

Very important to attach the anchor to the boat BEFORE removing the old shackle!

Box of old chain

Bucket of shiny new chain

Anchor chain replaced, shopping done, wind (supposedly) backing to the northeast (it didn't) we pulled up the anchor (on the shiny new chain) and headed back to the BVI for a few weeks. We'll be back this way again soon though and maybe then I'll take some more interesting photos. 

Oh - I forgot to mention the BEST thing we got in St Martin (and that's saying a lot considering that getting new chain was pretty fabulous) was a new fishing lure! And it sure does work....

Mahi #1

Getting filleted

Don't be fooled by the tiny teeth - they're VERY sharp!

Mahi #2 before and after (Sylvester was here)

Wahoo

We had to look up the wahoo since we didn't think it was striped and the fish book said "Bright silver to silvery gray; back may have bluish cast. May display numerous dark bars, especially when stressed." Yikes. Hopefully he was less stressed after we tossed him back in. We caught one more giant mahi that shook off our lure before we could land him, but we were pretty happy with our catch. We'll be feeding lots of people in the next few days.

The magic lure - a plain cedar plug. 

Wing on wing the whole way to the BVI - the beautiful mythical downwind sail finally materializes.

We'll be here for a few weeks, then east again...