Merry Christmas!

I know I haven't posted in awhile. I've really just been hanging out, kitesurfing, reading, and enjoying the fact that I don't have to scrape the windshield. But last night, Christmas Eve, game me something to write about.

I'm anchored in Clifton Harbor on Union Island, and I've been here for a few weeks. In just the last couple days, the yacht traffic really picked up, and the harbor is nearly full of boats. I'm anchored as far forward as possible, just behind the shallow area where we kite. When I say "forward", it's because the wind here almost always comes from the east. Almost.

Christmas Eve brings a brilliant light show from a nearby thunderstorm, and after watching for a while, I go to bed early, as is my norm while on the water. The storm intensifies after midnight, and I am jolted out of bed by the unmistakable shock and thump of the boat hitting ground. I run up and see that the wind has switched 180 degrees, and I am now over the shallows. I thought that I had room to swing in all directions, but it is currently dead low tide, and I've run out of room. I'm not stuck, I'm just bouncing. I start the engine and pull forward, then run out onto the foredeck (naked) in a driving rainstorm to shorten scope by hand. Did I mention that my windlass is broken, and I'm waiting for a part coming by FedEx? So, with that taken care of, I reverse to keep from coming too close to the French boat which was behind me and is now in front of me, and when my boat falls back, it is no longer hitting bottom.

 

This is the strongest electrical storm I have seen in two years of cruising. In fact, it's the strongest electrical storm I have ever seen. Fortunately, there doesn't seem to be a lot of ground strikes around here, it's mostly cloud to cloud. I have time now to go below, put some clothes on, and check the radar loop on the internet. There is no end in sight. I'm going to be on anchor watch most of the night.

 

The harbor is chaos. It is brilliantly and frequently lit up, though for only for milliseconds at a time. The wind continues to swing through 360 degrees, and the storm continues to rage. One boat near me has stuck in the shallows, and those aboard are scrambling around when, as I watch, it comes free and smashes into another boat on a mooring. I see another boat which has drug anchor and is pinned sideways on the reef in the middle of the harbor. There's a lot of activity on the radio. I facilitate what I can over the air, but there is no way I'm leaving my boat in this. I guess my Christmas present is that my boat made out OK.

 

At one point during the night there is a lull in the storm, and I shout over to the French boat, which is now abeam me (all four of them are on deck).

"Merry Christmas!"

"What?"

"I say Merry Christmas!"

"Merry Christmas! Merry Christmas! Merry Christmas! Merry Christmas!"

Goin' Where the Sun keeps Shining through the Pouring Rain

 

 

Escape from The Yard!

I have finished painting the bottom with new antifouling and completed a couple of other minor things, and I can't wait to get out. I use a couple of calm mornings to get my sails on and lines run. I clear out before splashing, so all I have to do is make sure she doesn't leak, check the engines, and head out. The yard is there to lift the boat at 10:00AM sharp, and by 11:00, I have cast off the lines and motored out of the box. The main is up as I pass through the Boca at 11:30. The Orinoco River must be running a lot lower than it was in June, since the water is not nearly as muddy, and there are no standing waves. When I arrived last June, I think I was too tired and distracted to appreciate the beauty of this little straight - it is jungle on both sides with caves along the water. I don't find enough wind to sail at first, so I motor straight up wind for about an hour, getting a nice tour along the wild north coast of Trinidad.

Unlike the other islands, Trinidad is geographically and ecologically part of South America. While I was here, I saw flocks of green parrots and bats with wingspans longer than a foot. I would love to stay and explore, but I need to get to someplace where I can swim right off the boat.


As I motor along the coast, I am glad to see a Trinidad Coast Guard boat (CG14) patrolling back and forth along about a two mile stretch north of the Boca. It's equipped with a large caliber automatic gun turret-mounted on the bow. Since I can look over to the west and see the lawless Paria coast of Venezuela, this is very reassuring. At one point I am glassing them with my binoculars and they make a run straight at me, probably wanting to see if I scurry below or start dumping something overboard.

Soon enough, the wind picks up enough to motor sail, and I bear off to the north and unfurl the genoa. After about half an hour, the wind fills in, and I am sailing again. The freedom of the seas! Even though I am sailing into head seas, they are only about four to five feet, and the going is very smooth. The only time during the whole passage that my boat pounds is when I'm crossing some sort of rip current a few hundred yards wide that is obviously visible from a distance, with steep, choppy waves and whitecaps. I have the goal of passing above (east of) both platforms in the natural gas fields about forty miles north of Trinidad, and to do so before dark, since there is a lot of boat and ship traffic associated with them. I barely make it on both counts, leaving "Poinsettia" about two miles to my west just before dusk.

Poinsettia from about two miles away

Soon enough it is dark, but I know that I will only have about two hours of it before the still-almost-full moon rises. I have to radio one ship bound for Brazil to make sure he sees me on his radar crossing his bow about one mile off. Then, I see another ship on my path, but it appears to be just drifting - it is facing north but moving west at 1.5 knots. After a few tries, he finally answers the radio - it makes it pretty hard not to when I am hailing him by name. Man, I love having AIS! He confirms that he is drifting and intends to maintain present course and speed, and I inform him that I will be passing about one half mile to his east in approximately forty minutes. Why is a 380 foot cargo ship bound for Guyana just drifting offshore in the middle of the night? I don't want to know.

I see what at first looks like the glow of another ship to my east about 8:30PM, but quickly realize that it is the rising moon peeking between the clouds. I am now to the east of Grenada and out of the shipping lanes, and I have the whole ocean to myself. I lie in the cockpit with the bimini open and enjoy the stars and the night sky. The visibility with the moon is great. I can see the lights of Grenada 20 miles to my west, and all is well. What a feeling! I finally get tired enough to sleep, and I take one hour cat naps, between which I pop up into the cockpit (after harnessing in), check the wind, scan 360, take a look at the radar, and check the AIS. On one of those checks, I look up just in time to see a beautiful shooting star.

I have sailed as high as possible, eventually getting about ten miles east of the course line, since the forecast called for winds starting to head me from the north east after midnight. Sure enough, I need to alter course to port about five degrees each time I check during the last half of the night, in order to keep wind in the sails. Dawn finds me in a perfect position to sail between Carriacou and Petite Martinique, around Mopion reef, and into Clifton harbor. Perfect timing, since I drop anchor before the "boat boys" are out there to distract me while I am trying to concentrate on anchoring. Twenty one hours from dry in Trinidad to anchored in the Grenadines! To top it all off, I am greeted with a rainbow:

Welcome to Union Island

The View from my Boat

 

 

 

 

 

Old Friends

One of the best parts of cruising is seeing old friends again! One of the worst parts of cruising is saying goodbye to old friends!

Farewell Conny! Safe passages to you and Mai.

 

Life in The Yard

One of the less glorious aspects of cruising is the time spent "on the hard". Periodically, all boats must be hauled, to repaint the bottom at a minimum, but also to take care of other projects which are best done, or can only be done out of the water. The yard I am currently at in Trinidad has at least 100 sail boats chocked up, and a surprising number of those have cruisers living aboard, sometimes for extended periods (picture a "fixer upper"). The scene in a yard reminds me very much of a prison - you are living inside a razor wire fenced compound, the conditions are harsh, the bathrooms and showers are communal, and when someone asks "When are you splashing?", it sounds to me just like "When do you come before the parole board?" This time I have wimped out and splurged on an air conditioned room for my short one week stay. I justify the expense by thinking of all those nights I got out of bed to spend the night searching in the dark during a blizzard or a driving rainstorm. Yes, I deserve a comfortable place to sleep tonight!

While painting the bottom: some very temporary artwork to salute to my Swedish friends!

 

 

 

Overnight to Trinidad

After more than a year and a half in the water, it's time to haul Alannastar and spend some time at "home". Trinidad is the choice for most cruisers in this area, and all three boats are heading there. The twins want to spend a couple more days on Union, so Conny and I travel together. It is the smoothest passage I have ever had, with wind on the beam and seas on the stern quarter. We average almost seven knots and actually have to shorten sail in the middle of the night just so that we don't approach the island before daylight. We time it right and enter the Boca one behind the other just at dawn. It is quite interesting with the muddy current streaming out into the blue water, and the standing waves are large enough to require vigilance at the helm in order to keep the boat straight. But, as soon as we get through the pass and into the bay, we are greeted by a pod of the largest dolphins I have ever seen - they don't seem to mind the dirty water at all. Welcome to Trinidad!

Alannastar on Passage (thanks Conny!)

 

Back to Union

When we leave Marie-Galante, the two Swede boats want to sail overnight to St Vincent. I don't want to go there, so I decide to sail to Dominica and spend the night flying the Q flag and then depart very early the next morning. This gives me an overnight to Union with plenty of time to get in during daylight the following day. It is a beautiful overnight sail with a full moon. As the sun is setting, I sit on the foredeck and admire the stunning beauty of the orange glow to the west and the moon rising to the east. On this course, I'm far enough away from the islands that I don't encounter any boats all night, and the full moon makes this the most relaxing night passage I have ever had. (Well, actually, the only relaxing night passage I have ever had.)

A Caribbean Shower gave me a Beautiful Rainbow

 

I get to Union, and I haven't even gotten out of my dinghy when I hear "Hi John, where have you been?" I love Union Island! It is truly nice to see old friends and experience down island friendliness.

 

While we are there, the Union Island football team has a match with the Canouan Island team. We all decide to travel on the team/fan "bus", which is a very large sailing catamaran. The Swedes had played the Union team last January, so there is a relationship there, and they appreciate our support. Although the Union team ends up losing by a goal, it is a great time, and the Canouan Islanders show us a lot of hospitality by giving us free rides from the dock to the other side of the island where the football pitch is located. I can't believe how lucky I am to be able to experience days like this!

These are the teams from last Winter's Match

A Canouan fan who loved Martin's camera

 

 

 

 

 

 

Catching up to the Swedes

When I met up with Martin and Daniel in the BVI (whom I had first met in The Grenadines), they invited me to join them in sailing south to Trinidad before hurricane season, stopping to kite along the way.  I saw a very rare weather window to get back east without pounding into head seas - ten knot winds out of the south, with only two to three foot seas, so I headed for Antigua. This allowed for a comfortable 37 hour motor sail. A very severe electrical storm moved over me in the middle of the night, but I just put all my hand held electronics in the oven and went to the aft cabin (well away from the mast) and slept until it was over. I got into English Harbor about eleven PM the next night and was able to find a place to anchor without much difficulty.

After clearing in and filling the tanks, I join them and their friend Conny, who has his own boat and is also traveling in company with them, at Green Island, a beautiful anchorage and a good kiting site.

Green Island Anchorage

From Antigua, the three boats sail together for an overnight passage to Guadeloupe, leaving about five PM. It is a beat to get around the east side of the island, and we have to tack a few times. Conny and I arrive at Saint Francois in mid-morning. The twins' boat doesn't go to wind as well, and they end up taking two nights to get there - but they don't use their motor!

The four of us rent a car for two days and tour both halves of the country - Grande-Terre, the low lying island which is rich with sugar cane, and Basse-Terre, the mountainous half which has a lot of waterfalls and a volcano to climb. (Yes, I know that the names are backwards.) The volcano was quite interesting, and even though we were inside the clouds, we could see the steam belching from the crater, and if you got too close, it burned your eyes and lungs.

Daniel and Conny

Daniel and Martin

Pointe des Châteaux

It was fun hiking up to this cross after we had used it as a landmark at sea.

The Four Musketeers

A waterfall on Basse-Terre

The volcano is in lush cloud forest.

Very rugged terrain, also

Conny has a friend on the island, Marjorie, and on the weekend she and her friend Christine took us to a surfing beach one day, and a snorkeling site the next.

Daniel, Conny, Marjorie, Martin, and me

Marjorie, Conny, Daniel, Martin, and Christine

After Guadeloupe, we spent a day touring Marie-Galante, a beautiful bucolic island of rolling hills, unlike anything else I have seen in the eastern Caribbean. When I return, it will be even more enjoyable if I know more than twenty words of French!

There are many, many moulins on the island. This one was restored a couple decades ago.

Martin defying death above a blowhole

Yes, of course we took some mangos!

Julie!

I am thrilled that Julie is going to fly down from Montreal for a visit in the Virgin Islands. I pick her up at the St Thomas airport and we spend the next week and a half touring the US and British Virgin Islands. We also meet up with a couple of my Swedish friends who I last saw on Union Island, along with some friends of theirs. And we spend some time with my friend Glenn, who is a charter skipper on a luxury 55 foot sailboat whose owners only spend about 10 days a month on board, leaving him free (aside from the endless maintenance) for the other 20 days. A highlight of the vacation is spending two days in our own private bay, with no other signs of civilization. I may have had more fun sometime, but I can't remember when!

Vive le Québec!

s'amuser avec des amis sur Sandy Cay:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3F1PIh3-Ky0

 

Julie voulait voir le coucher du soleil, mais il n'était pas visible de l'ancrage, donc j'ai viré et a empanné en arrière et elle a pris cette belle photo.

Merci pour tous les merveilleux souvenirs, ma Cherie.

Back in the BVI

I need to get to the BVI in early April in order to drop off the rest of Judy's things with her friend before the friend flies home. This is the only passage all the way from Grenada which requires an overnight. People sometimes ask me if I am afraid while sailing alone. No more than I was before, I guess. I'm reminded of a small time logger whose job I checked when I was a Ranger - he worked alone, cutting enough logs for a hitch and then skidding them out. I asked him if he was worried about safety, working out there all alone, and he said, in his laconic North Country way, "Well, at least if I get killed, I'll know whose fault it was."

I leave Montserrat at 7AM, and 27 hours later I clear in at Soper's Hole and start catching up on my sleep. The wind picked up around midnight, catching me with full sail and making for a boisterous but very fast ride the rest of the way. One of the highlights was seeing the lights from Saba, Statia, St Kitts, St Bart's, and St Martin all at the same time. So, after single handing 500 miles up the arc of the Lesser Antilles, I'm right back where I was ten months ago. I'm going to see if I can find some windsurfing here. I'll keep you posted...

Montserrat

Montserrat is a small island that was devastated by hurricane Hugo in 1989. Prior to that disaster, many musicians famous came here to record at George Martin's (of Beatles recording fame) AIR studios. He still keeps an estate here - it's on Penny Lane (seriously). Jimmy Buffet used to have a house here, which is where he wrote "Volcano". I'm sure he wishes he hadn't been so prescient, because in 1995 the Soufrière Hills volcano, which had been dormant for decades, became active. There were severe eruptions in 1997, forcing the permanent evacuation of the entire southern end of the island, which had been the center of the population and included the main port and the capital. The eruptions have continued intermittently since then, and the "exclusion zone" boundaries get moved back and forth slightly depending upon recent activity, but half of the island is still off limits. The current population of 5,000 is less than half of what it was in 1995.

Leaving Guadeloupe at Sunrise

The Soufrière Hiils volcano appears to sending out a bird (a Phoenix?) as I approach the island.

The steam on the right side of the photo is from the active volcano, which is shrouded in clouds most of the time. You can see fresh ash deposits on the grey slope to the left.

This alluvial fan of ash is covering what was once a golf course.

Some of the musicians who once recorded here donated a beautiful new community cultural center after the disaster. The "hall of hands" includes Elton John, Phil Collins, Mark Knopfler, Sting, Eric Clapton, and shown here, Paul McCartney.

 

Dolphins

While enroute from from Guadeloupe to Montserrat, I am treated to dolphins playing in my bow wave:

 

 

Dolphins Playing (link)

 

 

Dominica

I leave St Pierre at the crack of dawn, and I start to sail out past the northern tip of Martinique, on my way to Dominica. All of these islands have capricious winds on the downwind side, but this is ridiculous - it goes from 20 knots on the port side to 20 knots on starboard, to calm, all within a minute! All I can do is keep the main sheeted tight and the foresail furled. To top it off, the swells are coming from the NE, and the wind is coming from the SSE, so I am already in ten foot swells (who ordered these - my GRIB files were predicting six to seven;-) Finally, the wind fills in from starboard, and I am absolutely flying across the water at speeds of eight knots plus. It's thrilling and invigorating, but I know that with the wind at 23 knots, I have too much sail up - when a squall starts approaching, it gives me incentive to reef, and then I am "only" making 7.5 knots. It's a great sail, until, of course, I get downwind of Dominica. But, hey, I love the way these islands are spaced out about 50 miles apart on a beam reach!

Mount Pelee never let me see the summit.

My flying friends will understand why the wind was so rough behind the mountain when they see the clouds in this photo ;-)

Approaching Dominica (da-min-EE-ka)

 

I arrive after Customs is closed, so I'll have to do it in the morning, but there is no problem with going ashore now. When I do clear in, the forms are done with carbon paper stapled in between! ( some of my younger readers may have to google "carbon paper" ;-) Such a difference from Martinique, where you clear yourself in a computer, which is what allowed me to check in without an outbound clearance from St Lucia and reestablish a paper trail.

 

These guys were playing drafts in Portsmouth, and I asked if I could take a picture of his shirt - President Obama has made the USA a lot more popular in the Caribbean.

 

 

Indian River

I hired Albert to take me up the Indian River. It's a national park, and a guide is required.

 

Maybe someone can tell me what type of flower this is - I just know that it's beautiful.

 

The second Pirates of the Carribean had a scene filmed here - where Jack Sparrow visits the voodoo priestess. Albert told me some interesting stories about it working on it.

 

 

Cricket

I was eating at the Purple Turtle, a beach restaurant, and listening to the cricket match. I asked a few questions of the waitress, who was obviously a big cricket fan, and she said that she and her friend were going down to Roseau tomorrow, and I should join them. I thought about it for a couple of minutes, and said "I cant wait!"

At this point, I need to back up - there are only a few test matches a year in the West Indies, and because Dominica is such a huge cricket country (and they have a beautiful new stadium), one of them is played here. This is world class cricket - the West Indies team is one of ten full members recognized by the ICC, and the only one that consists of more than one country (15, actually). A "test match" is traditional cricket, which can take up to five days to play. Basically, and this is for my American friends, it's like a two inning baseball game, but there are ten outs in each inning. A couple more things - there are only two "bases", not four, and a team mate is always on the other one, so that when you run, you trade places. There are no balls and strikes, and if you hit the ball, you don't have to run. There are several ways to make an out, but the two main ones are by letting a bowled ball (a pitch) hit the wicket, which consists of three stakes behind the batsman, or batting a ball which is caught in the air by a fielder. Now, the bowler (pitcher) doesn't throw from a mound - he gets about a 50 foot run towards the batsman before he delivers the ball. You'd be amazed at how long these batters can defend the wicket, while occasionally getting a hit, without making an out.

But wait, before we can get to the stadium, we need to take to bus from Portsmouth, in the north, to Roseau, the capital. An island "bus" is actually a mid sized van. The drivers fill them up before they leave, but there is "always room for more". We stop to pick up a couple more people, and it looks like they won't fit, but the passengers just get out and do what we used to call a "Chinese fire drill", and arrange themselves so that the girths of the passengers are equally distributed in the bench seats. Just as we are pulling away, a Mom and her baby come up - of course there's room! Another fire drill and seventeen people are snugly settled in the non-air conditioned van.

Petrolina and her daughter Aritha, both huge cricket fans

 

 

The upper photo shows Shane Shillingford the hometown hero from Dominica, in the process of bowling (left). He is a spin bowler, so when the ball hits the ground in front of the batsman, it does strange things, causing the batter to tend to tick the ball off or pop up weakly. (Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that you can bounce the pitches in.) In the close up below, you can see that there are two fielders right next to the Zimbabwe batsman. So, imagine taking the first and third basemen and having them play all the way down the lines, ten feet from the batter. That's what's going on here - except the batter isn't bunting - he's swinging away! "Coach, you want me to do WHAT?!?"

 

There were plenty of characters in the stands to get the crowd going!

 

The home team won very handily, ending the match on the third day - they didn't even need their second innings. Glad I went on Friday! The crowd got louder and louder as the final outs came. After the victory, there was a street party celebration scene outside the stadium:

Street Party

 

I don't even know what these guys are - Carribean Vikings?

 

The ladies found the team Captain, Darren Sammy, for hugs and autographs.

 

 

Fort Shirley and Prince Rupert Bay

Dominica was the first island sighted on Columbus' second voyage. Also, the three ships bound for what would become Jamestown stopped here in Prince Rupert Bay in 1607. (Yes, that's very far out of their way - at that time, most of the ships still took the trade wind route.) And, in 1952, the first woman to sail solo across the Atlantic made port here after a very difficult passage from the Canary Islands in her 23 foot boat. Her name was Ann Davison, quite an interesting woman: http://www.wavetrain.net/lit-bits/336-ann-davison-transatlantic-on-felicity-ann

These are the guns the privateers used to sink and then plunder cruise ships.

On a more serious note, this is worthwhile reading.