Mata'irea

August 31, 2010 - End of Summer Cruise, Take Two

2010-09-23T17:40:00.011Z

When the weather finally cleared up on Thursday, we headed back out to Block Island. Picking right back up where we left off, before we were so rudely interrupted by the Northeaster, Sten resumed fishing for Stripers and we headed back to the beach for some quality body surfing. Now this is what the end of August in New England is supposed to be like!

Our days out at Block were filled with friends and family. Sten's cousin Scott and his wife Chris arrived within a few hours of us on their vessel, Valhalla. Scott a consummate clam digger. We were more than happy to slurp up his harvest raw, but when Suzy arrived on Saturday, she put her own touch on the proceedings and turned Scott's bounty into some seriously tasty clams casino (recipe below).

When we arrived we got in touch with our buddy Bill, who invited us out to a bonfire on the beach in front of his place on Friday night. As we roasted marshmallows over the embers we watched a giant orange harvest moon rise out of the ocean. At the end of the evening Bill offered us his car (rather than driving us back to the Salt Pond).

The next morning we took advantage of having a set of wheels and set off on a driving tour of the island. Our first stop was Mohegan Bluffs. We couldn't believe how much the shape and composition of this beach has changed since we were last here. 13 years ago we spent a week laying on the sand here, soaking up the sun. Now there is barely any flat sand left at high tide.

From the Bluffs we continued on around the south side of the island. With hurricane swell in the forecast Sten was keen to check out potential surf breaks. That's how we found ourselves at the bottom of a steep, slippery and muddy path down to the shore, in the company of 8 other guys all looking at a few ripples in the water. But all of them, Sten included, had an excited gleam in their eyes as they scanned the coast just imagining the peaks that would be breaking once the surf picked up.

Shortly after noon we headed back to Old Harbor to pick up Susan. And then it was off to the beach to hang out with Scott and Chris and enjoy the rest of a gorgeous day. Sunday brought more of the same, but our enjoyment was tinged by the knowledge that a hurricane by the name of Earl was forming that had the potential to make its way to New England by the end of the week. And so we all began monitoring the weather and talking about it. And talking about it. And talking about it. If there is one thing that sailors love to analyze and discuss, it is serious weather.

On Sunday afternoon Sten took a break from the weather analysis and went fishing. He came back with an absolutely huge Striped Bass. At first he was a little hesitant to tell us how he caught it, but eventually we got the story out of him.

It seems that he was working the waters off the southwest coast, having absolutely no luck catching anything. He had started to head back to the harbor when he saw a disturbance on the surface. He sped over and found a big old Striper choking on a scup.

Now, I've been asking Sten to bring home a Striper for weeks. He keeps throwing them back, claiming that they are too magnificent to keep. And so what does he do when he comes across one choking to death? He tries to save her life.

First he grabs a pair of pliers and pulls the scup out of the Striper's throat. Then he starts moving the Striper through the water to try to resuscitate her. Only when he's convinced that she is too weak and too far gone to save does he actually decide to bring her home for dinner. She was big enough to feed us, Valhalla and our neighbors, Jake and Marni on Avalanche.

No trip out to Block Island would be complete without sampling one of their famous mudslides. And yet somehow this was my third visit of the summer and I hadn't had one yet. It was a situation that needed to be rectified post haste. So on Sunday night we made our way down to Mahogany Shoals to take in the Reprobates 10th annual farewell tour (good practice for their 11th farewell show next year).

On our way back to the dock in front of the Oar, with bellies full of creamy, chocolaty, boozy, frosty goodness, we came across a very stoned surveyor who was using his equipment to check out the moon, which was hanging very low in the sky. The relative lack of light pollution out at Block makes it a wonderful place to stargaze. Peering through his scope we got to see features of the surface of the moon that we'd only read about before.

We had wanted to spend the whole week out at Block and then push on out to Martha's Vineyard or Nantucket. But with Earl heading towards us with the possibility of making landfall at the end of the week we had to decide whether to hunker down in Block or return to Newport. The forecast on Monday was more dire than those over the weekend. On Tuesday afternoon Suzy decided to return to Newport via the ferry to get her house ready. Sten and I decided to wait another day before determining whether it was necessary to head back to our mooring in Newport Harbor.

One of the traditional family outings on Block is to play bingo at the fire house on Tuesday nights. The hall is filled with children still sandy from the beach and their parents looking relieved to have something for them to do after dark. And since we are worldly and sophisticated thirty somethings without children, that's exactly where we spent Tuesday night.

Sten and I picked out some cards from the pile, bought a dauber and a roll of giant sweet tarts (because really, can one play bingo without being on a sugar high?) and a bottle of soda. I apparently chose terrible cards. I didn't come close to winning a single game. But Sten, well, Sten should have played the lottery on Tuesday.

The first time he called out bingo it was just on the heels of a little boy at the table next to us. They both had 5 in a row, so they pulled cards for the tie breaker, which Sten won. They both got prizes, but he got the big one (two free bike rentals) The next time he called out bingo it was a tie with a little girl. Luckily she won the horseshoe set and he took home the gift certificate to the pub.

By the last game of the night the four boys at the table next to us were giving Sten dirty looks. When I looked at his cards and saw that he was one draw from another bingo I leaned over and whispered "if you win another game those boys are going to be waiting for us outside with their wiffle ball bats." So Sten surreptitiously slid his card over to me. Within two draws I was shouting bingo and walking up to the front of the hall to claim my gift certificate to the airport diner.

On Wednesday morning we woke to discover that the models were showing Earl tracking closer towards us. And so we decided to head back to Newport and prepare for the worst.

August 22, 2010 - End of Summer Cruise, Take One

2010-08-23T15:49:00.003Z

Similarly snotty conditions one day last month in Newport Harbor

So, that didn't go according to plan. When we left Newport for Block Island on Saturday morning we expected to have two days of nice weather out at Block before some badness came through on Monday. Instead, we had one niceish afternoon. And then the rains came.

On Sunday morning we woke up to find that it was cold and gray and drizzly, instead of the forecast warm and sunny day we were expecting. While watching a parade of boats heading out the Coast Guard Cut in the Great Salt Pond, we realized that perhaps they knew something we didn't. After listening to small craft warnings and predictions of days of dreariness ahead I downloaded some fresh grib files. The gribs showed that a low pressure system was going to park over southern New England for several days, generating high winds and plenty of rain.

Over breakfast we decided that sitting at anchor in the rain and protecting our home from dragging boats didn't seem like much fun at all. So back to our secure mooring in Newport Harbor we came. It was a rough, wet, and wretched trip back, but at least it was short. And now I'm ensconced in a cozy kitchen, drinking a hot cup of tea. Ah, the joys of coastal cruising.

August 20, 2010 - Middletown, RI

2010-08-20T20:48:00.004Z

How on earth did it get to be the middle of August? Can we really have been home for two months already? It feels like we just tied up to the dock at Goat Island last night.

Between working on my sister's house, hosting friends on board Mata'irea in Newport, and visiting with family and friends in New England, D.C. and Philly, we've managed to studiously avoid making any plans for the rest of our lives, or even for this fall or winter. We started to feel a little stressed about that, but then we realized that it was August. Summer is almost over.

The last two weeks of August is no time for making plans. It is the time for drinking iced coffee, eating lobster rolls and ripe tomatoes still warm from the garden, swimming in the ocean, and fishing for dinner. And so we are off for another little cruise of the islands. We will figure out the rest of our lives when the leaves start to turn.

July 30, 2010 - Cuttyhunk Island, Massachusetts

2010-08-16T19:02:00.015Z

On Tuesday, while enjoying our picnic lunch at Mackerel Cove, we decided that since the weather was so nice and since we just happened to have a sailboat, we should do a quick trip out to the islands. So on Wednesday afternoon we stocked up at the farmers' market on Memorial and filled out our grocery list at Stop & Shop on Bellevue. Then we met up with Suzy, who was loaded down with a cooler full of goodies from her kitchen. And then the three of us caught the launch out to Mata'irea.

Out in the harbor it was immediately apparent that the southerly had gotten stronger while we were ashore and that it was shifting to the west. We decided that it was too late to beat out to Block Island, and that motoring into 15 to 20 knot southwesterlies would be a miserable way to spend the evening. And so we decided to take a left.

One of the joys of sailing out of Newport is that there is a wonderful cruising ground at our doorstep. With Block 20 miles to the southwest and the Elizabeth Islands, including Cuttyhunk, Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket, to the southeast, there is a viable option for any wind direction. And so last night we came out of the Narrows and headed east to Cuttyhunk.

After about three hours of sailing east, we came to the edge of the known world, at least as far as our chart plotter was concerned. We haven't yet bought the electronic charts for the area north and east of Block Island. We've done some sailing these past few years without electronic charts, but it has always been in deep water, far from land.

Navigating in shallow water with paper charts makes me nervous. I haven't done much of it. Without the plotter showing me where we are relative to the dangers, I have to do a lot more guesswork and that makes me anxious.

The wind was honking and we were flying as we approached the buoys marking the shallows around Cuttyhunk. We didn't leave ourselves a lot of room to furl in the jib and douse the main. The jib sheets flogged against the lifelines as we furled in the sail. I dodged lobster pots as we turned up into the wind (and towards the shoals) to drop the main. By the time we had picked a spot to anchor outside Cuttyhunk Harbor, I was a little strung out. It was getting dark and we were in unfamiliar waters. And at that most inopportune of moments, the anchor windlass failed.

The last time we went sailing, the engine acted up. Since then the generator has been balky. And we have been having continuing problems with the watermaker. And so those systems have been getting all of Sten's attention. Well, the windlass must have been feeling left out because it decided to stop working as I was easing the anchor out onto the bow roller. The repairs Sten made in the Caribbean were enough to get us home, but the connection was tenuous, and last night it gave out.

There were plenty of open moorings in the mooring field, and Suzy immediately volunteered to pay for a mooring for the night. But we figured we'd give it at least one try barring the windlass open and freefalling the anchor before giving up and taking a mooring. Sten dug the bar out of a lazarette and we got the anchor set and the snubber on.

It was too late to attempt much for dinner so I heated up some French onion soup while Sten made tomato sandwiches. For dessert Suzy provided some tasty chocolate cake. And then we were all to bed.

That night, with the wind blowing hard over the narrow strip of land protecting the outer harbor it was pretty jostley in the anchor field. I awoke several times to the clanging of the bell on the red nun. At one point during the night I looked out and saw that the boat that had been next to us when we went to bed had dragged into deeper water.

Thursday dawned cold and drizzly. After several cups of hot coffee Sten and I took the dinghy into the inner harbor to see if there was any room for us. There were lots of free moorings so we brought Mata'irea in and tied her up to one in the middle of the mooring field. That night we would be very glad that we had not moored on the edge of the field.

The inclement weather resulted in a pretty lazy day. Other than a walk ashore and an evening fishing trip for Sten, we all spent most of the day onboard. Which was just fine. The light peeking out from under the low clouds had the most unbelievably beautiful pinkish golden tone. I'd like to live my life bathed in that light.

Shortly before midnight the front passed through, causing the wind to switch around. As the wind clocked and built, two sailboats that had been rafted up, anchored on the edge of the mooring field, tripped their anchors. The sailboats dragged down into the first row of moored boats, picking up an anchored powerboat along the way.

The tangle of boats and anchors drifted down onto the edge of the mooring field where they fetched up against a small powerboat. There was a lot of bumping and yelling but eventually they all got untangled and reanchored. The lesson of the week - this is one harbor where it pays to take a mooring.

July 28, 2010 - Newport Bar Crawl

2010-08-10T16:54:00.004Z

We've been trying to get together with our friends Paul and Sonya off of s/v Event Horizon ever since we got home. They live on their boat just up the coast in Wickford, RI. So you wouldn't think it would be that hard. But somehow it has taken 5 weeks to make it happen. And after last night, I just might need 5 weeks to recover before we do it again.

We started the night at 41 North, a new bar/resto/hotel on the waterfront that began its life as a private club last year, but which is now open to the public. The white bar and loungy furniture makes it feel like something out of St. Barts or Miami. And the prices of the beverages only reinforces that impression. If you are looking to find all the folks who need to be seen at the most expensive bar in town, this is the place to go. If you are looking for a nice place to have a drink and watch the sunset, this would also do, but at $15 a cocktail and $9 a beer, there are much less expensive places to do it.

After one round at 41 North we made for Perro Salado, one of Paul and Sonya's favorite spots. We quickly saw why. The restaurant is set in an old house with a series of small, cozy dining rooms that open onto a colorful patio. With great margaritas, decent Mexican food, and very reasonable prices, Perro is a place we'll definitely come back to.

As we were wrapping up dinner, Paul and Sonya quizzed us about where we had been in town to figure out where to go next. When they found out that we'd never been to the Top of Newport, the roofdeck bar at the Viking Hotel, the decision was made.

The bar is open and airy, as a roofdeck would be, with lovely views. Sonya convinced me to try their Cucumber Cooler - a cocktail made with Blueberry Vodka, Cucumber Juice and Lime Juice, served in a tall glass, and garnished with a skewer of blueberries. It is a surprisingly tangy combination that goes down quickly . . . too quickly for a $13 drink. But it is so delicious that I'm planning to buy a bushel of cucumbers and a pint of blueberries at the farmers' market this afternoon to try to make my own. I'm also pretty sure that it is a hangover cure. After the variety and volume of beverages consumed last night I should be feeling a lot worse than I do this morning.

Our night ended with a stop at Paul's local, the Fastnet Pub, where they pour a great Guinness, in Paul's very well researched opinion. The Fastnet struck us as a friendly local joint and all too soon it was time for us to leave so that we could make it back to Oldport to catch the last launch of the night.

July 27, 2010 - Mackerel Cove, Jamestown, RI

2010-08-09T21:20:00.002Z

We've spent most of the last two weeks working on houses. Between renovation work on my sister's place in Somerville, trimming trees and cleaning gutters at Suzy's, and cleaning out the garage at Sten's grandmother's house, we've been a bit grubby lately. It was clearly time for a swim.

With the wind out of the northwest, Mackerel Cove in Jamestown is our first choice for idyllic places to escape to. A dramatic rocky shoreline, dotted with little pebble swimming beaches, and topped with some beautiful homes in the New England vernacular, the cove is like a slice of Maine in Rhode Island. Only, the water is warmer. Not much warmer, but a little.

When the wind switches around to the south, as it does most afternoons here, the cove can get a little bouncy. But until it switches around, the water is calm, making the cove a beautiful spot for a picnic lunch and a swim . . .a very short, very refreshing swim.

July 18, 2010 - Newport Weekend

2010-08-07T12:52:00.006Z

Between all the time we've been spending up in Somerville, working on my sister's place, and our persistent frugality we haven't been exploiting our proximity to the restaurants and bars in Newport nearly as much as we expected to when we first arrived back home from our trip. We walk by them all the time, but the prices and cover charges keep us from going in. Also, the two times we flew home for the Holidays, from New Zealand and Singapore, we both packed on a lot of weight (the last time we put on 25lbs between the two of us), so we've been trying to be careful about what we put in in our mouths. But this weekend our friends Matt and Monica came up from Philly to stay onboard Mata'irea with us. And so we had the perfect excuse to revisit some old haunts and check out some new places that we'd been hearing a lot about.

Our weekend of gluttony started with an early movie at the Jane Pickens and dinner at Norey's with Sten's mom and sister while Matt and Monica battled the traffic on 95. The food at Norey's was fine, and the beer list was truly impressive (if completely overwhelming). The waitress realized that Sten was stumped and offered him samples of a few brews to help him make up his mind.
It was quite late when Matt and Monica pulled in and they were worn out from the work week, so once we had their car tucked into one of the extremely rare and super secret free parking spaces in Newport, we retired to the boat. Once on board they presented us with a gift of a mixed pack of craft beers from their favorite small breweries. It was quickly apparent that there is a lot that we could learn about beer from these two. Sten pulled a few local brews out of the fridge and we chatted late into the night, getting caught up on each other's lives.

During the early hours of the morning I woke to the sound of the fog horn. I lay in bed, alternatively hoping that it hadn't woken anyone else up, and then wishing that it would. I was so excited to have company that I didn't want to waste a minute of it sleeping. When I couldn't stand the anticipation anymore I got up, made a pot of coffee, and cut up a small loaf of my sister's zucchini bread. Matt perked up as the smell of Kona wafted through the cabin and came up to join me in the cockpit. We talked some more as we watched the harbor come to life.

Once Sten and Monica were up and caffeinated we headed ashore for breakfast at Gary's Handy Lunch, a local institution. It is one of the cheapest places in town to fill one's stomach. It also happens to be very good. It isn't fancy, but I've never had a bad meal there, which is a lot more than I can say for many of the swankier places in town.

After breakfast, Matt and Monica took off for points north and a baby shower. Sten and I took the opportunity to check out the new wine store across the street from the Viking Hotel that we've been hearing a lot about. I was totally tickled to find a bottle of Sir Lambert's, a South African Sauvignon Blanc that we last enjoyed with a meal of clawless lobster in the tiny crayfish port (which also happens to the home of a decent point break) of Eland's Bay, SA.

Next up was a stop at a little barbershop to get Sten's shaggy mane shaped up. For $7 he not only got trimmed, but got lots of info about which bars serve free food with their happy hours. How great is that? We'll be checking out those tips and reporting back on them later.

As the day heated up and the sidewalks became more crowded with all the tourists in town for the Black Ships Festival we ducked into the cool and quiet Newport library to put our new library cards to work (I shudder to think how much I used to spend on paperbacks and big glossy gardening and home renovation books). While Sten perused the periodicals I checked out a few guidebooks about local highlights.

In the past, when we would spend weekends in Newport, I relied upon Sten's family's local knowledge, not bothering to try to learn about the place on my own. I promised myself as we sailed towards home that I would explore the States the way I do foreign places. And so I have been reading Nathaniel Philbrick's Mayflower, to learn more about the history of New England, and checking out guidebooks, local newspapers, and regional magazines. But mostly I've been talking to people.

I used to assume that having lived somewhere for a while or having visited it a few times, I knew it all. Now I assume that I don't know a thing. So now, as I did while we were traveling, I stop and talk to shop assistants, launch drivers, waiters . . . really anyone I can get to slow down and chat . . . to find out what they know. Just this weekend we've been on a quest to find places for Matt and Monica to park their car in Newport without feeding a meter. Although we knew a few places, and in the past we would have relied on those, I began asking people what they knew. Now free parking spaces aren't something that one divulges without hesitation. But in trading on our secret spots we learned of several more. Just by talking to people.

Matt and Monica were late coming back down from Massachusetts, so we met them out at Pour Judgment, a bar on Broadway that we'd been hearing a lot about. While we waited for them to arrive we ordered up a beer and a glass of wine, a burger and a plate of littlenecks, and watched the Tour on the flat screen over our heads. Pour Judgment's $5.95 burger might just be the best deal in town. No, actually the best deal in town is probably their $7.95 burger and beer combo. And behind the bar they have a seriously eclectic selection of the hard stuff, making this a spot that we'll have to get back to soon.

Matt and Monica joined us for one more round at Pour Judgment before we moved on down the road to Salvation Cafe, one of our alltime favorite places in Newport. With industry night specials, a pagoda and a tiki bar, Salvation is, well, salvation. But I've got to say that their current cocktail offerings leave me cold. The bar is not showing the creativity that it used to. I'm hoping that when the menu changes this fall they will come up with something more interesting than a mohito made with coconut rum.

We closed out Salvation and walked back down to the harbor in time to catch the last launch back out to the boat. After one last round of drinks in the cockpit with some tasty snacks and we were all off to bed.

In the morning Sten whipped up some eggs and sausages. Then we dropped the mooring line to do a little sailing. It was a beautiful day and the bay was crowded, with powerboats throwing nasty wakes. We short tacked out of the bay against the current, out towards the Castle Hill Light. Matt and Monica were both having a great time. Then we turned downwind, demonstrating effectively how much it sucks to go downwind in light breeze in a sloppy seastate. Within moments everyone was feeling punky. So we turned on the engine, furled up the sail, and made for the harbor.

Before Matt and Monica hit the road we did a driving tour of the Gilded Age mansions along Ocean Drive and Bellevue Ave. We parked at the end of Ruggles to peer in through the hedges at the Breakers. While standing on Cliff Walk Monica and I made plans to spend a day sometime soon doing mansion tours.

July 11, 2010 - Block Island, Rhode Island

2010-08-03T12:49:00.001Z

One of our favorite places in the world is Block Island, a small island about twenty miles from Newport. So when our friends Bucky and Mary invited us to join them for their yacht club's annual cruise out to Block, we cleared our calendar (which admittedly, wasn't very hard).

On Friday morning Sten fired up Mata'irea's main engine and ran it for a few minutes while we tidied up and got ready to set sail from Newport Harbor. We dropped the mooring lines and began to motor out of the mooring field. As we came alongside the boat in front of us, the engine hiccuped. And then it died. This has never happened to us before. And of course it would happen in a very crowded mooring field rather than in a big empty anchorage.

Our worst case scenario in this situation was drifting down into another boat and causing it damage (we carry boat insurance but with a very high deductible to keep our annual fee down). Sten called out for me to ready the anchor. I wasn't sure the breaker was on, and didn't want to get up to the bow to find that the windlass didn't have any power. So I climbed down the companionway ladder to make sure it was on. By the time I got back on deck Sten had recalled that we had another means to propel ourselves (other than the main engine) and we rolled out the jib and sailed out of the mooring field in a 3 knot breeze.

I steered us out into the Bay while Sten worked on the engine down below. As we rounded Fort Adams I called out that it was looking a bit smoky up ahead. By the time Sten found the problem and restarted the engine we had reached the Narrows and had been enveloped in a fog bank. The next three hours were anything but relaxing as we used the radar to dodge lobster pots and stay out of the way of other sailboats, sport fishing boats, ferries and a ship.

As we approached Block Island the fog began to clear. Inside the salt pond we found plenty of space to drop the hook. We anchored, lunched, and then Sten took off to fish for Striped Bass. While he was off fishing, Bucky and Mary popped by and invited me to join them on another club member's boat. I had a fun afternoon meeting lots of new people.

When we arrived at Block I shot off emails to Bill and Merrill, the two brave guys who joined Mata'irea's crew for our first offshore passage, which turned into a very exciting trip when we ran into a storm north of Bermuda. During that trip, before things went awry, I spent a memorable nightwatch listening to Bill and Merrill's tales of their idyllic life out on Block Island. My emails to them Friday afternoon resulted in a dinner invite and an offer of a mooring ball. It is kind of great to show up someplace and be so well looked after.

Bill drives the Oldport Launch here in the Great Salt Pond. On Saturday morning, a few hours after Sten got up to go fishing, I awoke to the sound of a voice outside singing our names. Bill came back around a few minutes later and joined me for a cup of coffee and a long chat while he waited for his next call for a pickup. While the rain drizzled down we caught up on three and a half years of good living. Sten eventually made it back to the boat for a late breakfast and then he was off again to fish some more, this time with a full compliment of snorkeling gear.

That evening Bill picked us up and brought us over to his place for dinner with some of his friends and neighbors from the island. The dinner guests included another Rhode Island couple who had just completed a circumnavigation with their children. It was very interesting to compare notes about how the whole reentry process is going for each of us.

After dinner we made our way to Captain Nick's, where we listened to the band and watched a parade of bachelorette parties weave their way through the crowd with a whole range of embarrassing accessories. On the way home Sten announced that he could see us spending the fall out here, which sounded pretty good to me.

On Sunday morning Sten finally came back from a fishing trip with fish. After days of catching and releasing keeper sizer Stripers, he brought home . . . scup. I clearly need to be more specific when asking him to bring home fish for dinner.

Once he had cleaned the small and bony fish, we headed to the beach with Bucky and Mary. The rollers were really coming in and we had a wonderful time body surfing. The water was beautiful and neither of us wanted to come back to the boat. But we were starting to get pink and it was time to get out of the sun.

In three days we barely scratched the surface of this wonderful island. We'll definitely be back before the leaves turn.

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July 8, 2010 - Newport, RI

2010-07-16T13:36:00.002Z

One of the nicest things about living on a boat in Newport Harbor is all the great stuff within walking distance. Just up the hill from us are not one but two old school movie theaters. Between the Jane Pickens and the Opera House we are spoiled for choice. In a few weeks the second film in the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo trilogy is opening at the Pickens. Since we hadn't yet seen the first film (it opened around the same time we were devouring the third book in South Africa) we were stoked to hear that the Opera House would be reshowing it. So this evening we caught the launch ashore, strolled through the sweltering town and slipped into the Opera House for a few hours of air conditioned entertainment.

July 6, 2010 - Newport, RI

2010-07-16T13:15:00.001Z

Today we got to play at being cruising station hosts for some cruising buddies of ours. David and Candy on Endeavor, whom we met in St. Helena, dropped in for a short visit enroute from South Carolina to Maine. We were happy to be able to offer up hot showers and the use of the laundry facilities at Suzy's house. And then we did a whirlwind tour of Newport stopping at one spot that certainly doesn't make the must-do list for most tourists, but which should be on every cruiser's itinerary. You never know what you might find in the consignment shop at Newport Nautical. And the prices in the retail shop upstairs are much better than those at the West Marine down the road.

July 5, 2010 - Newport Harbor

2010-07-16T13:04:00.003Z

Summer seems to have finally arrived in New England. Last night for the first time we didn't need the extra blankets that we have had covering our bed since we sailed back into Newport. All morning the wind has been out of the north, blowing the heat off the land and across the harbor. By early afternoon Sten started talking about going for a swim. I wasn't so keen to take a dip in the harbor (even though everyone is supposed to be using their holding tanks) so we dropped our mooring lines and motored out from behind Goat Island with the intention of heading over to Mackerel Cove for a dip.

Wouldn't you know it but as soon as we stuck our bow out into the bay the southerly filled in, which would have made the cove a bit bouncy. But the wind coming in off the ocean was more than enough to cool us down so opted for a harbor tour of Jamestown and Newport instead of a swim. Sten was feeling pretty bad about the fact that we were the only sailboat in the bay without her sails up, but after all the miles we logged in the past few months (at least 7,000 since leaving Cape Town) I was completely content to motor around the bay with a naked stick.

Our parking permit at Fort Adams was only good for one night so we had to renew it or move the car. We decided to spend the night at Suzy's instead of paying for an additional night of parking. Once back at her house, where it was a lot warmer than it had been on the water, Sten lasted about half an hour before declaring that he had to go to the beach. His sister and I joined him and we all braved the cold, somewhat weedy water at Third Beach. A quick dip in the frigid water of the Sakonnet River was all it took to cool us down.

July 4, 2010 - Newport Harbor

2010-07-16T12:48:00.004Z

There is absolutely no better place to watch fireworks than from a boat. The way the water reflects the explosions is just magical. We didn't want to let our first summer back in Newport slip by without celebrating the Fourth onboard Mata'irea. So tossing Alena kisses and promises that we'd be back in a week to finish painting and to do something about that hole in her exterior wall we hauled out of Boston this afternoon and made tracks for Newport. We arrived at Suzy's in time to offload some gear from the car, grab some quick showers, pet the cat, and pick some fish up from Anthony's to grill for our supper.

Parking in Newport during the summer can be a problem, particularly parking overnight. The meters in town run until 9pm and start again at 9am. So unless we wanted to wait until 6pm to park, we needed to find another place to leave the car. We know of a few lots where it is possible to park for free overnight and on weekends, but they are an awfully long walk from the water when loaded down with gear. Fort Adams is an pretty convenient alternative, especially with the Oldport Marine Launch doing hourly runs between the dock there and the main harbor. For $6 with out-of-state tags or $3 with in-state tags, you can buy an overnight parking permit at the visitor's center. Monthly or seasonal passes are also available.

Just as it was getting dark, Bill and Laurie came across from Jamestown on their Whaler, bearing champagne and strawberries. We finished up dinner and waited for the Newport fireworks to start. Down the coast we could see other towns' celebrations sparkling away across the sky. For entertainment closer to home we had the chicks renting the houseboat on the mooring next to us flashing every group of guys that motored by. Finally the Newport fireworks got going, and they were well worth the wait.

July 3, 2010 - Somerville, Massachusetts

2010-07-16T12:37:00.004Z

Alena's insanely cute kitten helps me caulk a ceiling

For the past three days we have been in Somerville, a town just outside of Boston where my sister bought a two family house out of bankruptcy last year. She's done most of the hard work to get the rental unit ready for new occupants, but there are some details left to take care of. So we've spent the past few days caulking and taping, priming and painting, scraping and rewiring. In addition to all the good work we've done we also managed to put a big hole in one of her exterior walls.

I came up to the third floor on Saturday afternoon to find Alena and Sten in the process of destroying an old broken air conditioner in order to remove it from a wall. The prior owners had built the wall around the unit. Alena and Sten decided that the only way to get the unit out of the wall was to remove the guts of it so that it could be compressed enough to remove it.

At some point Sten decided that he needed to go out on the roof of a second story bay window to try to cut some of the construction adhesive that was holding the AC unit in place. When they told me about his adventures on the roof I had to leave the room for a few minutes so that I didn't bite anyone's head off. If we are going to stay in the States for a while, it is probably high time that we did something about getting ourselves some health insurance.

June 30, 2010 - Newport Harbor

2010-07-16T12:18:00.004Z

The last time we ran our watermaker, after an hour of output it stopped working. I can't remember what else was going on at the time but Sten didn't have time to tackle the problem. Five days later we needed to get it to flush, or we risked damaging the membrane. So Sten has spent the day working on it, which, as always, involves tearing apart the main salon.

We invited Bill and Laurie over for dinner, which is becoming a wonderful Wednesday evening ritual for us. It has been a cold and blustery day here in the harbor (during which Sten proclaimed that he didn't think he could do a winter up here), so French Onion soup seemed like a good choice, and besides it would let us use up the last of our Caribbean onions and South African gruyere. So while Sten wrestled with the watermaker I escaped from the chaos down below and caught the launch into town to run to the Farmer's Market for bread, salad greens, and dessert.

Every Wednesday afternoon a group of local growers and purveyors set up their booths on Memorial Drive, just east of Bellevue Avenue. In addition, there is a Stop and Shop, a natural foods store and two liquor stores a block or two south on Bellevue. With all these provisioning options it is possible to keep the pantry well stocked while anchored in Newport Harbor, even without access to a car.

When I got back to Mata'irea Sten was on deck waiting for the pumpout boat (VHF 09), cheekily named "Royal Flush," to pull up alongside Mata'irea. Pumping out our holding tank is a new experience for us. There were a few times while circumnavigating that we used our holding tank, but it was always for a very short period of time and we always put out to sea shortly afterward so we could empty our own tanks. But here in the harbor, we had to find someone to take our effluent away.

How entertained were we to discover that they guy driving the pumpout boat was Bill Bolinder. Bill used to own Redney's, one of the original surf shops in town. Sten spent many a morning of his childhood calling Redney's to get the surf report. Bill brings the same sense of humor to his current gig that he did to running a surf shop.

While pumping us out he confirmed something that we suspected: the vent hose on our holding tank is clogged up. We need to clear or replace that hose to keep those not so pleasant odors from venting inside the boat instead of outside as is supposed to happen.

June 29, 2010 - Newport Harbor

2010-07-05T22:05:00.006Z

We had dinner this evening with Sten's mom, uncle John and Carlotta, and his cousin Bob and his wife and son. During dinner Bob asked us dozens of questions about our trip. As with so many other conversations about our travels, I found myself having a hard time explaining it, the vastness of the distances, the pristine splendor of being in truly wild places, the extreme highs and really deep lows. So I found myself telling the same few anecdotes over and over. I'm afraid that over time my memories of our adventure are going to turn into a series of soundbites. And so once again I find myself very grateful for having this blog to look back on.

June 27, 2010 - Newport Harbor

2010-07-05T22:04:00.005Z

Mata'irea in mixed company at Newport Shipyard - flanked by Pangea and Hanuman and across the dock from Speedboat - and oh yeah, Meteor is just off screen to the right

We woke up this morning still tied to the dock in the Newport Shipyard. While we waited for the boat behind us to move so that we could get out of our slip we went for a walk in the Point, one of the oldest neighborhoods in Newport, which is chock full of old colonial and federal homes. It is one of our favorite neighborhoods and it was a pleasure to stroll around it on a sleepy Sunday morning, peaking into the gorgeous gardens hidden behind wooden fences.

Eventually the boat behind us moved out of the slip and we were able to head back out to our mooring. It was very cool to be in the Shipyard for the party yesterday, but I love the peace and quiet of being out on a mooring in the middle of the harbor.

Our first ten days back home were filled with reunions and getting Mata'irea tidied up for yesterday's party. We were so busy that we hardly had time to think about what was next. But during the party yesterday, that was one of the questions our friends and family asked us again and again.

What now? It is a question we have answered dozens of times over the past 10 days. There are some job and business opportunities that we want to explore, but the truth is we really don't know what will be next for us. We do know that we don't want to slip into old routines and old habits. We have an opportunity to deliberately create and shape a future and way of life for ourselves that suits us. We're going to do our best to avoid being pressured or lulled into a situation that doesn't work for us.

We could find ourselves sailing south for the winter. The Bahamas are beckoning. And we know that living on a boat, floating on aqua blue water, snorkeling, fishing, and exploring new places, cultures and cuisines is a way of life that suits us to a T.

But first we are going to spend our time helping out our family. Sten's grandmother in Providence has a list of projects just waiting for his attention, so we're going to catch a lift up there tomorrow to spend the day with her. Later this week we are going to drop Suzy off at the airport and borrow her car for a few days while she is in Florida visiting a friend. We'll take advantage of having wheels and head on up to Boston to help my sister out with some renovations on her house. Alena did so much to help us when we were getting Mata'irea for our circumnavigation - she made new cockpit and salon cushions, fender and sail covers, and mattresses for us - it is our turn to help her out.

And for the rest of the summer, who knows? This a glorious time of year here in New England and we mean to take full advantage of it. We're already planning to take Mata'irea out Block Island, Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket. If we get really ambitious maybe we'll make it up to Maine. Or maybe not.

June 26, 2010 - Newport Shipyard

2010-07-05T21:53:00.004Z

One of my strongest memories of our wedding weekend was the feeling that I didn't want it end. We had managed to gather a good chunk of our favorite people in one place and yet we didn't get to spend nearly enough time with any of them. This weekend was exactly like that, only without the white dress, black suit, cathedral and beautiful cake.

This morning we pulled into Puma's slip in Newport Shipyard. Shortly after tying up my sister arrived, kicking off a steady flow of family and friends who had driven in from as far away as Ohio, New York, New Jersey, Maryland and Massachusetts, or as close by as Newport, Providence and Jamestown to welcome us home. The afternoon was filled with familiar faces and new friends, good food and drink, and lots of laughter. We didn't want it to come to an end. But suddenly it was time to pack up the buffet table and haul the ice chests back up to the cars parked at the end of Charlie Dock.

And just like at our wedding we were both so busy chatting with loved ones that we didn't manage to eat much of anything. Once the crowd thinned out my folks, sister and her boyfriend joined us in the cockpit for one last round of drinks and to help us devour a plate of Sten's satay and a bowl of Suzy's shrimp dip. It was really nice to have some quiet time to catch up with my folks before they headed back to Ohio.

June 25, 2010 - Jamestown, RI

2010-07-05T16:27:00.006Z

Mom and Dad arrived at Alena's house in Somerville shortly after midnight. As we waited for them to arrive Alena set me to work frosting Around the World cookies, a treat she designed for our welcome home party this weekend. She had already filled in the continents with green colorflow frosting. So all I had to do was cover the oceans with blue, without using so much frosting that I caused incidents of global warming. There was one close call with Florida, and a few of the islands of the Caribbean lost some beachfront property, but I soon got the hang of it. Of course my production rate was 50% of hers, but who's counting?

After my folks arrived we spent a few hours catching up while being entertained by Alena's very energetic kitten. Eventually we all crashed. I didn't sleep that well, finding myself completely unused to the sounds of the city. Or maybe it was because it was my first night apart from Sten in over three years. In any case, at 6:30 I found myself nursing my first cup of coffee as I went through my professional wardrobe trying to figure out what would be of most use to me now. I eventually abandoned the exercise, deciding instead to bring my formal wear and shoes down to Rhody instead. Now I just need to find employment that requires me to wear old bridesmaid dresses.

Around noon my parents and I piled in the car and headed down to Rhode Island. Of course before leaving town we had to stop at Mike's Pastries in the North End to pick up a few lobster tails for dessert. Back in Rhody, we swung by Suzy's to pick up Sten, who had been busy making a small mountain of chicken satay for the party tomorrow. And then we headed over to Jamestown, where my folks would be spending the night with Bill and Laurie.

We arrived at Bill and Laurie's house to find their kitchen staged for the evening's lobster feast. The counter was lined with serving bowls, each of which was labeled: dip, nuts, chips, etc. And in the bottom of the fridge were a dozen lobbies, just waiting for the pot. We found just enough room to squeeze in the bottles of Prosecco my folks brought with them. As we prepped a few veggies for the grill the rest of the party began to arrive. Our friends Sig and Patricia had made the trip up from Baltimore for the weekend, and Patti, Jeremy and their beautiful son Gavin were enroute from New York.

With so many mouths to feed there was only one man for the job. Nobody, and I mean nobody, can cook and process a mess of lobsters like George Kates. The man is a machine. Ably assisting him was Sten's sister. With Bill manning the grill and me whipping up Dark and Stormies and Moscow Mules there were plenty of hands to keep everyone fed and watered. It was a fun evening and a great start to the weekend.

June 24, 2010 - Boston, MA

2010-07-05T15:45:00.001Z

This afternoon I took the bus up to Boston to surprise my folks who were coming into town to stay with my sister for a night before continuing on down to Newport on Friday for our welcome home party this weekend. Some of Sten's family had come out to visit us in the Indian, but I hadn't seen any of my peeps since we flew home from Singapore for the holidays a year and a half ago. So I was anxious to see them and to make the most of their time out here on the East Coast.

The regional bus station in Boston is at South Station, right across the street from the law firm where I worked for four years out law school. Two blocks away is the firm I was working at when we left for our circumnavigation. Exiting the bus station and entering the Financial District brought back a whole rush of memories, not all of which were entirely pleasant.

It was an unbelievably weird sensation to be walking down the streets of the Financial District on a Thursday wearing decidedly casual clothing and flip flops. I had an hour before I was scheduled to meet Alena at her office in Back Bay, so I decided to walk through Chinatown. As soon as I passed through the Chinatown gate I felt less displaced. Pressed ducks hanging from shop windows and signs advertising Banh Mi and big bowls of Pho . . . all of this was comfortable and familiar. Every city seems to have an Chinatown. They are all exotic and at the same time familiar.

After rendezvousing with Alena, we headed home to her new house in Somerville. There, waiting for me in one of her closets, was my entire professional and formal wardrobe, clothing which I haven't had any use for these past three and half years. Standing there, looking at a wall of black and charcoal grey, I wondered if it would ever suit me again.

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June 23, 2010 - Newport, RI

2010-07-05T15:39:00.001Z

Yesterday afternoon we went up to Providence with Sten's sister and mom to visit his grandmother. Along the way we did a bunch of errands with stops at Home Goods (where we picked up some new non-rust stained sheets for the forward and port staterooms), Trader Joe's and Whole Foods. I was so overwhelmed by the selection at Whole Foods that I almost turned around and went outside . . . outside where there was a weekly farmers market in progress, their stalls loaded with a better selection of fruits and veggies than we saw in many, many countries as we traveled. We are truly spoiled for choice here at home.

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June 22, 2010 - Newport, RI

2010-07-05T15:36:00.001Z

While we were fogged in on Sunday Sten spent some time figuring out what we needed to bring Mata'irea up to compliance with US Coast Guard regulations. It seems a little silly to be buying safety gear now, at the end of our trip, but it would also be a real bummer to get fined for noncompliance.

We knew our flares were expired. While figuring out what to buy to replace them Sten went to crack open our flare gun . . . for the first time ever. It wouldn't budge. I tried. No luck.

He took the plastic orange unit back from me and examined every working part to try to determine why it wouldn't open far enough to accept a cartridge. After a few minutes of that he got online and discovered that our flare gun had been recalled . . . years ago. As it turns out we sailed around the world with a non-functional flare gun. Nice.

While online he ordered a new horseshoe buoy from Defender, which arrived today. The cover for our old one had disintegrated somewhere east of Africa. While in South Africa we couldn't convince ourselves to buy one of the poorly made ones available in the marine stores there. So we sailed up the Atlantic without one. We still had the Lifesling mounted on the pushpit and the flashing Jim Buoy on the side rail,ready to deploy should one of us go overboard; but, we felt a little naked without a horseshoe. Now Mata'irea will be stylishly accessorized again with a bright yellow horseshoe hanging on her starboard side.

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June 21, 2010 - Newport, RI

2010-06-24T13:39:00.001Z

First thing this morning we took the boat back over to Alofsin Pier. This spot is a seriously sweet public resource. There are so few places in the world where one can tie up and water a boat for free. The boating community in Rhode Island is lucky to have such a facility. We're surprised by how little it seems to be used.

We spent the day scrubbing Mata'irea's decks and topsides. Suzy swung by to pick up another load of gear to be stored at her place for the summer and stuck around for a while to polish stainless. I'm pretty sure that I won the MIL sweepstakes.

We are expecting several friends to join us onboard this summer and so we are moving off mountains of stuff to make room for everyone. Being able to pull up to a dock to offload gear is such a boon.

This afternoon we brought Mata'irea back to the mooring, quickly showered and hailed the launch to bring us ashore. We met up with Laurie and caught a lift to the airport so that we could surprise Sten's dad upon his return from a conference. Back in Jamestown, Bill fired up the grill so that Sten could overcook the steaks (that'll teach him to leave the boat without a meat thermometer in his back pocket). We had a wonderful evening sitting out on the back porch catching up with them both. What a perfect way to celebrate the summer solstice.

I simply can't get over how late the sun sets at this latitude this time of year - or how early it rises. It starts getting light around 4:30. Since we are used to get up and going to bed with the sun (a nice schedule in the tropics where the nights are 12 hours long) we are getting a lot less sleep than we're used to.

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June 20, 2010 - Newport, RI

2010-06-24T13:05:00.001Z

On Sunday morning Laurie zipped over from Jamestown on the White Water Witch bearing a plate of excellent French pastries from the Village Bakery, a pint of local strawberries and a bottle of champers.

A girl could get used to having friends and family arrive bearing champagne for every occasion. A girl could also get used to people bringing plates of baked goods to her home. But said girl isn't going to fit into her clothing if this keeps up, especially since she doesn't have any offshore passages on the horizon.

We caught up with Laurie over brunch. We haven't seen her since she and Sten's dad visited us in the Seychelles last August, so there was a lot to talk about. The time slipped away from us and soon it was time for her to head back over to Jamestown.

As Laurie was leaving the fog rolled back in. We spent the afternoon cleaning the boat. By evening Sten was starting to feel a little boat-bound. We can spend weeks offshore without feeling a need to get off the boat, but apparently one afternoon in the harbor with poor visibility is enough to make Sten long for land. I, on the other hand, was quite content in my little fog-induced sensory deprivation chamber. After a few days ashore (back in the "real world" as it were), I was more than ready to escape back to the water. I needed time and a quiet place to process and reflect on all the experiences of the past few days.

I'm learning that it is going to take me some time to adjust to the pace of life on shore. Everything seems to be a whole lot faster and louder than I'm used to these days.

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June 19, 2010 - Newport, RI

2010-06-24T12:52:00.002Z

Sten woke up this morning in Suzy's guest bedroom with one small black cat snuggled in next to him. That gives us hope that Lenore has forgiven us for pressganging her into being the ship's cat.

After breakfast we piled in Suzy's car and drove over to the Aquidneck Island Growers Market, an excellent weekly farmer's market. We picked up organic eggs and greens, grass fed beef and a selection of local cheeses. The real discovery of the weekend for us was found at the Coastal Roasters coffee stand. They were offering cold brewed iced coffee. The cold brewing process results in coffee that is much less acidic than normally brewed coffee. It was amazing. I've got to figure out how to do this at home.

Back at Suzy's I spent the afternoon catching up on piles of laundry while Sten repaired her dehumidifier. That evening Suzy took us and Ingrid out to dinner at a new restaurant in town that is getting a lot of buzz: Tallulah's on Thames. The service was really excellent. Sten and I both ordered a scallop dish for our mains (we couldn't remember the last time we had scallops). They were served over a delicious gingered carrot puree and baby vegetables. Further research is clearly required, but I'd contend that Tallulah's scallops can hold their own against any of the best entrees in town.

After dinner Sten and I took the launch back to Mata'irea. After the whirlwind of the past few days I was so happy to be back home. So happy that I promptly fell asleep.

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June 18, 2010 - Newport-Bermuda Race Start

2010-06-23T13:24:00.005Z

Crowds lining the hillside to watch the start of the Newport to Bermuda Race

Mata'irea's new home is a mooring in Newport Harbor. Because we are going to be living aboard and because we want to make it as easy as possible for family and friends to come out of the boat with us, we decided to buy a season's pass for the harbor taxi from Old Port Marine. A season pass entitles us to unlimited trips out to Mata'irea for us and our guests. The launch is much higher and drier than our dinghy so our gear will stay drier. I can't tell you how much I'm looking forward to a summer without dinghy butt. And the best part is that we won't have to worry about where to leave the dinghy if we are going to be away from the boat overnight.

So first thing this morning we headed down to Old Port's office to buy our pass. At the office we found Meredith LeBlanc, who did the makeup for our wedding six years ago. We briefly caught up on some of the changes in our lives and I made plans to get myself up to her yoga classes at Soma Yoga on Pond Ave.

With our Old Port sticker in hand, Ingrid, Suzy and we drove out to Fort Adams where Mata'irea was still docked at Alofsin Pier. Once Suzy's friend Kathy arrived we shoved off and went to find Mata'irea's new mooring (it had been too foggy the morning before to look for it). Lyle (the mooring guy) had put orange floats and a pickup stick on the line so it was very easy to find and pick up.

Once safely tied up we had a chance to check out our new home. The mooring is in a central spot in the harbor with plenty of waterfront activity to watch. As I looked around I decided that my new floating home in Newport Harbor was in a very nice spot indeed. I think I'm going to like living here very much.

After a decadent lunch (catered by Suzy) we headed out to watch the start of the 47th Newport-Bermuda Race, which was an absolute spectacle. 183 yachts started the race in a series of starts spread out over 2 hours. There were at least as many boats in the spectator fleet. It seemed everyone in the area with a watercraft was out on the bay.

"I think they are going to beat me to Bermuda."

There were helicopters buzzing overhead and huge yachts coming off the starting line and flying past us with half the spectator fleet in hot pursuit. It was such a scene and an absolute blast.

Sten wanted to know why KP didn't have one of these when he was in school.

Sten and Ingrid's great-grandfather, Suzy's grandfather, competed in the first ever Bermuda race. It was great fun to come out and watch the start of the 47th race together.

We arrived home completely wiped out from the wind and noise and sleep deprivation only to find that we had missed the segment about us on the evening news. Artie from the station was kind enough to arrange a copy of it for us. Here it is, our 2 minutes and 1 second of fame:

June 17, 2010 - Newport, Rhode Island

2010-06-23T10:54:00.013Z

In all the miles we've done these past three and a half years there is one challenge we hadn't had to face: fog. We've been talking about heading up to Maine later this summer to do some cruising "Down East," but one concern we have about it is getting caught in the fog. The other worry is getting our propeller caught up in the lines that attach buoys to lobster pots.

We've never encountered fog while sailing Mata'irea. And we've certainly never had to deal with the triple-whammy of making a landfall at night through waters strewn with lobster pots in the middle of a fog bank. But wouldn't you know it, as soon as I climbed back into the cockpit after posting my last blog post the fog closed in. Within seconds visibility was down to a few meters. It was almost like the sea didn't want to let us go quite so easily.

The wind slacked off and we slowed down to around 4 knots, but we hesitated to turn on the engine for fear of catching a lobster pot in our propeller. So we ghosted into the Narrows past a series of red buoys, each named for the tone it makes. The Whistle was the first to loom up out of the fog. As we approached Brenton Reef, we heard the Gong striking off our starboard side. And then as we approached Castle Hill, the Bell began ringing in front of us. Between the distinctive buoys and the radar overlay on our chart plotter, we knew exactly where we were. And so we were surprisingly relaxed about the situation. Suddenly an August cruise in Maine seemed much less daunting.

Sailing past Fort Adams we hailed Sten's mom, who had come out to witness our 1am arrival, on the radio. "Mata'irea to Mata'irea Shore Party. Do you copy?" Suzy could hear us, but couldn't see Mata'irea's lights. We were only a quarter mile off the rocks, but we coudn't see her headlamp either. As we rounded the tip of Fort Adams we heard a voice very close to us shout "turn right, turn right." It was another sailboat, lost in the fog.

We continued on to the fuel dock at Goat Island where a Customs officer was waiting to clear us in and Suzy was waiting to catch our docklines. Once we were legal, Suzy dug into the tote bags she had brought aboard and proceeded to put the "party" in "shore party." We drank champagne and feasted on roast chicken, the first pea pods of the season and strawberry shortcake. Around 3am we called it a night even though all of us were buzzing with energy.

Four hours later we were woken by the news crew from the local NBC affiliate. Sten's sister, Ingrid "Dee Dee Myers" Levin, had sent out a short press release about our return to a few of the local media outlets. WJAR scooped the competition (if there was any) by sending a cameraman down to the dock as soon as it was light out.

Between the fact that we'd just finished a 12 day passage and the party the night before, neither we nor Mata'irea were ready for our close-ups. So I threw on some eyeliner and lip gloss and shoved the dirty dishes in the oven and the laundry in the bathtub while Sten tidied the cockpit. We walked up to the parking lot and found Conrad from WJAR preparing to interview us.

Things started ramping up pretty quickly after that. Goat Island Marina wanted their fuel dock back so we untied and motored over Alofsin Pier at Fort Adams. As we were tying up Conrad arrived. We spent the next hour and a half with Conrad talking about our trip. As we spoke with Conrad, the fog slowly burned off.

As Conrad was leaving, Sten's Uncle John and Aunt Carlotta arrived for brunch along with Suzy. It was such a pleasure to show John and Carlotta around our home. Over more champagne and croissants John shared wonderful stories with us about his 11 or 12 Bermuda Races and his long partnership in a Concordia.

After we cleaned up we headed over to Suzy's house to see if our cat still remembered us. Lenore was a little uncertain about who we were, but at least she didn't run in fear at the sight of us or the sounds of our voices. Soon Ingrid was home from work and there was more reuning (I really think that should be a word) to done. We took long, hot showers and changed into long pants and fuzzy jackets before heading over to Jamestown for dinner at John and Carlotta's house.

It felt like we'd been celebrating non-stop since we arrived in Newport. And the party continued at John and Carlotta's home where they were hosting the crew of s/v Zest, an entry in the Newport to Bermuda Race. The company and conversation were entertaining, and the food was delicious. Carlotta laid out a beautiful spread of chicken mirabella, huge bowls of fresh salad greens and brown rice, and blueberry compote and ice cream for desert.

Over dinner Sten and I shared our recent Gulf Stream experience. Another major topic of conversation was the recent rescue of Abby Sunderland, a young single-hander whose boat was dismasted in the Indian Ocean. It seems that everyone we've met since we stepped foot on land has asked us what we think about her situation, which is just kind of funny since we haven't had any media access in two weeks and so we know less about what happened than most of the folks asking us our opinions.

We were having a wonderful time with John and Carlotta and the crew of Zest but we were fading fast. And so we said our goodnights, swung by Alofsin to make sure Mata'irea was okay, and then we headed home to Suzy's for our first sleep on shore in 6 months.

June 16, 2010 - Enroute to Newport

2010-06-17T03:11:00.002Z

As soon as we cleared the Gulf Stream everything changed. We exchanged the heat, humidity and cobalt blue waters of the tropics for the cool, crisp, air of New England and the marine blue of the North Atlantic. I traded in my bikini for long pants, three layers of fleece, a heavy offshore jacket, and a hat with earflaps, prompting Sten to comment "I don't think I like this new look."

With the Stream behind us our thoughts and hearts turned towards home. We've spent the past two days talking about all the things we want to do when we get home. On the top of our to do list is spending some quality time harassing Lenore, our chronically seasick kitty cat who jumped ship back in Aruba.

And of course there are those local foods we can't wait to dig into: an Awful Awful, a Blue Cow from West Main Pizza, and two big bowls of chowder from the Moorings. We can't wait for Saturday morning to roll around so that hit the Aquidneck Island Growers Market and fill a market bag with all those tasty local fruits, veggies, cheeses, and baked goods. After three and half years in the tropics I've had my fill of mangoes, papayas, and bananas. What I really crave are those high latitude fruits - strawberries, blueberries and raspberries. A trip over to Sweet Berry Farm is definitely on our itinerary.

But first, while lobster pots are still sliding past Mata'irea's hull and the lights of the Newport Bridge are twinkling in the distance, first I need to take a moment to say thank you.

This blog started out as a way for us to keep our friends and family back home informed of our whereabouts and to provide them with an idea of how we were spending our days in this new lifestyle. When I published the first posts a few months into our trip I realized that we weren't taking all that many pictures. So we started to take more photos. And better photos. And now we have a hard drive full of incredible images from around the world.

As the blog's audience grew, I began to feel a responsibility to keeping you all entertained. Posts became more frequent and I stretched myself to try different things with my writing.

You all helped me find my funny bone. Turning bad situations into humorous stories helped us get through some trying times. Sitting on deck during night watch as we battled yet another squall I would look for the humor in the situation in anticipation of writing about it. I would start cracking jokes and Sten would respond with some goofy one-liner. And suddenly we'd be smiling at each other. Because we knew you all were going to be reading about it, we were able to keep our spirits up in some atrocious situations.

There have been times these past few years where we would find ourselves taking risks and trying new things with the reassurance that if nothing else, they would at the very least make good fodder for the blog. And now we have this wonderful collection of tales from our travels. And for that I thank you.

Thank you for reading. Thank you for writing to us. Thank you for being on board for this adventure.

June 15, 2010 - Enroute to Newport

2010-06-16T13:42:00.001Z

As we approached the Gulf Stream the wind filled in from behind. We spent Sunday night flying along downwind across flat water. We were making over 9 knots for hours with the assistance of a knot of current, and occasionally the speedo slipped into double digits. It was brilliant.

By morning the wind had been blowing long enough to build up the seas. As we approached the shelf waters of the Gulf Stream contrary currents crashed into the building seas to produce a confused sea state. We were still hauling the mail, but it was through a sea that had more similarities to a washing machine than a pond. It was pretty rough, but nothing we hadn't seen before.

Mid-afternoon on Monday the current switched around again. For a while the water was moving the same direction as the wind and the seas smoothed out. We had a favorable boost of a knot and the wind had begun to clock around to the west as we checked our Gulf Stream entrance waypoints with Herb Hildenberg via the SSB. By the time we hung up the mic, we had 2 knots with us and were clearly in the Stream.

Overnight the wind continued to clock forward to the Northwest. Beating into 20 knots of wind with an additional boost of 2.5 knots of boat speed from the north-setting current cranked up our apparent wind (the real feel) to the high twenties. Sten found it exciting, at least until we started slamming. I just slipped into my siege mentality - 'this too shall pass' - and hid behind the dodger.

Shortly after midnight we had gone far enough north to tack to the west. The current was still pushing us north so our angle after the tack was pretty good. We weren't laying Newport, but Atlantic City was just 250 miles away.

Around 4am Tuesday morning we exited the Stream after 10 hours of rough and wild conditions. Shortly thereafter the wind began to back and ease as we sailed into a high pressure system. We were both exhausted from the rough night so we didn't mind at all when the wind died and we needed to turn on the engine, destination Newport.

June 13, 2010 - Enroute to Newport

2010-06-13T20:53:00.002Z

We have been underway from Anguilla for over a week now. The days have been gorgeous. There hasn't been much wind (the engine has been on 66% of the trip), but the light breeze has made for blissfully calm seas. We began the passage sweltering in the heat and humidity, but as we've reached higher latitudes the air has become cooler and crisper and we've dug out sweaters and blankets. We had some mild squalls during night watch the first few nights out, but the last few night watches have been beautiful. There is no moon, so the stars are just brilliant. The big dipper is poised just above the horizon as though it is about to take a scoop out of the ocean.

Each day Sten has been setting out a veritable pu-pu platter of lures and teasers to try to entice the fish to bite, but other than one small mahi (which I turned into a tasty Thai green curry), we haven't been catching anything. Because we are motoring at a fuel-conserving speed, we probably haven't been going fast enough to fool the fish.

But all that is about to change. The wind is supposed to fill in this afternoon. Tonight we should be making fast miles north towards the last big challenge of our adventure: the Gulf Stream.

The Gulf Stream has been likened to a river running in the ocean. It is more like an overflow drain. The prevailing currents in the southern half of the North Atlantic are westbound. Those currents push a massive amount of water into the Caribbean and up against the east coast of the United States. All that water needs to go somewhere. The Gulf Stream sucks a huge portion of it back out into the North Atlantic. At times the Stream can be 100 miles wide and run at speeds of up to 4 knots. It is not a thing to be trifled with.

During periods of unsettled weather the prevailing wisdom is to cross the Gulf Steam at right angles to minimize the amount of time spent in the Stream. But in settled weather a ride in the Stream can cut hours off of a trip. The last time we crossed the Stream, southbound to Bermuda three and a half years ago, we spent an entire night riding the Stream. Mata'irea's speedo was pegged at over 11 knots for several exhilarating hours. Next week the Newport to Bermuda Race fleet will be attempting to do the same thing.

Similar to when riding the Agulhas current around the east coast of South Africa, the key is to not be in the Stream when the wind is blowing against the current. Light breeze blowing against strong current can cause short choppy seas, which are unpleasant, but not dangerous. Stronger winds can stir up standing and breaking waves, which can be dangerous.

There is currently a big eddy bending the Stream and creating a northbound section of current between 66 and 68 degrees west. We can either ride this eddy or divert 200 miles west to cross the stream at a right angle. We've decided that the weather looks settled enough to take a ride in the Stream. We expect to enter the Gulf Stream Monday night and be through it by Tuesday morning. We'd better be. The winds are forecast to clock around to the north and begin blowing against the Stream early Tuesday.

June 9, 2010 - Change of Plans

2010-06-09T22:50:00.002Z

I live for this color - this iridescent cobalt blue only found offshore in the tropics

This is kind of embarrassing, but I have to retract something I wrote in my last blog post. Remember that whole "we can motor most of the way to Bermuda" line? Well, actually, that's not quite true.

During the past three and half years of sailing around the world and doing a fair bit of motoring (see, e.g., Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand) we never really figured out how far we could motor on our tanks. Mata'irea has some pretty big fuel tanks (620L). And at any time we carry between 40L to 100L more in jerry cans. So we have made conservative guesses, such as assuming that we could motor 1 mile per liter of fuel, and that's worked for us thus far.

But with so little wind in the forecast for this passage we've been keeping careful track of our fuel consumption these past few days. As it turns out, we actually get 1.668 nautical miles (this is where it pays to be married to an engineer) out of each liter of fuel when we are motoring at 5 knots, in light winds, flat water and with a clean undercarriage. Which means that with our current fuel capacity we can motor 1035nm. Which means we don't have to stop in Bermuda.

Now, I don't have anything against Bermuda. But if we stop, we're going to be stuck there for at least 10 days. Unless we touch and go (clear in - refuel - clear out) we risk being underway when the Newport to Bermuda Race starts on June 18th. There are a lot of things that I want to do with my life, but that list does not include dodging 200 small boats with poor radar signatures in the middle of the gulf stream.

So our new plan is to skip Bermuda (as we get closer to the island we'll make the final call based on weather reports and our daily HF radio conversation with Herb Hildenberg, the weather guru). Which means we could be home as soon as next Thursday or Friday. Which is just a crazy, exciting, overwhelming thing to think about.

June 7, 2010 - Enroute to Bermuda

2010-06-07T14:46:00.001Z

Cooling down with a bucket shower

June 1st marked the official start of hurricane season. Although our insurance would cover us for storm damage incurred in the Caribbean through the end of June, we were starting to get itchy to get north. Already this year at least one system has popped up between the Caribbean and Bermuda that had it occurred after June 1st, would have been labeled "tropical" by the meteorologists. But since it went through in May, it didn't get the tropical designation. These past few weeks the local papers and conversations at cruisers happy hours have been peppered with reports that it is going to be a busy year for hurricanes. So it was time for us to get out of dodge.

The route from the Caribbean to Bermuda passes through the Horse Latitudes, a region known for its calms. The name for the region hails from a time (before combustion engines) when becalmed seamen were forced to eat the horses on board to keep from starving. These days it might as well refer to horse power (as in Mata'irea's 64 hp Yanmar) because one expects to have to motor through the calms (dallying and waiting for a tropical storm to develop just isn't worth the fuel savings). Unfortunately, there hasn't been much wind at all between the Caribbean and Bermuda for the past few weeks, and what there has been has been associated with unsettled squally weather. We carry enough fuel to motor most of the way there (an expensive way to go, but cheaper than repairing storm damage), but not quite enough. So we were waiting for a window that would give us at least a few days of sailing.

Since we can only stand being anchored in the cesspool that is the Simpson Bay Lagoon for so long, last Thursday we motored up to Anguilla to enjoy our last few days at anchor in the warm, aqua blue tropical waters of the Caribbean. Anguilla has a bunch of rules in place that make it very expensive to explore any of the island or its outlying reef by boat. So we resigned ourselves to hanging out in the only free anchorage, Road Bay, which has clean, clear water, free wifi (so handy for downloading big weather files), several beach bars, and is within walking distance of one of the best restaurants on the island. Even with all that to keep us entertained, we still were anxious to get going.

We've been watching the weather, waiting for the Atlantic High to set up to give us some decent wind south of the High. But it just wasn't happening. So on Saturday we had lunch at one of the beach bars, disassembled the dinghy and, just as the charter boats were returning from their day out at the out islands, raised the anchor and headed north.

During the first few hours of the trip we had terrific sailing. The wind was well forward of the beam but it was light and the water was pretty flat, which are awesome sailing conditions for Mata'irea. We were flying along at 7 knots, slicing smoothly through the water, which also made for great sleeping conditions. And then the wind began to slack off. By morning we were doing 2.5 knots, and then eventually we had to turn the engine on to keep moving. It is still running.

Ever since we cleared the reefs north of Anguilla we've had another sailboat within visual or radar contact. There is an adage that any two boats headed in the same direction constitutes a race. That first night, while we were still sailing, having another boat ahead of us did make us more attentive to sail trim as we worked all night to whittle away the distance between us. We had a little more speed, but they were able to point higher. By morning we were abreast of them, but a few miles to leeward. We think the other boat might be Trond on Maryam (the boat we met in St. Barths) but we haven't been able to raise them on the VHF. If this calm persists much longer we might just have to motor over and see who it is.

June 2, 2010 - Scaredycat

2010-06-04T17:36:00.000Z

For the past few weeks, really, ever since we returned to the Caribbean, I've been banging out mundane blog posts about anchorages and sailing and cocktails. I wrote the post about completing our circumnavigation several times, but scrapped every draft that dealt with anything other than the barest facts. I even roped my friend Deb into writing a few posts for me. All because I didn't want to address the issues surrounding the end of our adventure. The fact is that I'm scared and I didn't want to talk about it.

All the time people ask us what the scariest moment of the trip has been. It is the number one question we get (followed closely by "do you carry guns" and "what about pirates? - I'm sensing a theme here). I always found people's fear-based reactions to our adventure interesting, but I couldn't relate. Now, now I get it.

I'm filled with anxiety about the end of our adventure. I'm more scared of going home and trying to resume some semblance of a normal life than I have ever been about any leg of this trip.

Even before we left Boston four years ago I was concerned about how we would deal with our re-entry to the civilized world. I expected (no, hoped) that sailing around the world would change us, but I was apprehensive about how those changes would effect us when we tried to fit back in with a land-based lifestyle. Would we be square pegs trying to wedge ourselves into round holes?

Before we set off I posted a message on a cruising bulletin board soliciting others' experiences with moving back ashore. Back then my questions focused on how our potential future employers would view us. Would we become damaged goods by taking ourselves out of the job market for almost four years? These days whether anyone wants to hire us or not is the least of my concerns.

I'm afraid of not being able to relate to our old friends. It has been 18 months since we've seen any of our friends from home (other than those who came out to visit us in South Africa and the Caribbean). How much will they have changed? How much will we?

I'm afraid that desk jobs will bore us senseless.

I'm afraid of letting the internet suck up days, weeks, months of my life. I used to self-medicate at work with regular visits to celebrity gossip sites. I was reading Perez Hilton long before he became a household name. Seriously, what a waste of time. Sten's little vice was the New York Times. Any time either of us needed to destress or escape, we'd immerse ourselves in news about Things That Don't Matter. Getting all caught up with dramas on the other side of the world or that impact people we don't know and are not likely to meet was how we avoided dealing with the stuff that does matter.

On this trip I have learned to entertain myself in ways that benefit me and those around me. I can now name just about any reef fish you put in front of me, bake a mean batard, boule or baguette, and whip up any number of cocktails. But any time we have access to the internet for more than an hour at a time I find myself sliding into old habits. I need to find something to do with myself that does not require me to sit in front of a computer all day.

I'm afraid of becoming less frugal and more influenced by consumer culture. During the years leading up to our departure we learned to live relatively frugally. It is what made this trip possible.

When people ask us how we could afford to quit our jobs and travel I usually joke, "well, our other option was buying a plasma." We had one car, which Sten inherited. Our housing payments cost us way less than what we could afford (at least according the mortgage industry). I kicked a $9 a day Starbucks habit. For two years (from the moment we decided to sail around the world until we left) we only bought clothing if we absolutely needed it (like when Sten's cuffs and collars frayed or my pants wore out at that pesky spot between the thighs). Any time we wanted to buy something the analysis was "will this get us to the Tuamotus?" If it didn't, it went back on the shelf.

Our frugality only intensified after we left. At the beginning of our trip we managed to put ourselves in dire financial straits. We had been relying on the sale of our house to pay off our boat loan and fill our cruising kitty. However, our house had been on the market for several months and we hadn't had an offer. There were only a couple thousand dollars in our bank account. But it was early November and we had to leave Newport then or wait until the Spring. So we left, trusting that our house would sell in the new year.

Then, two days before we left Newport for Bermuda we did something very stupid. Through the wonders of electronic banking, we mistakenly double paid a very large credit card bill (containing some major expenditures from our Newport refit). We went from black to red with one click of the "enter" key. You would think it would be easy to unwind such a mistake, but apparently any bank transaction over $10,000 triggers the Patriot Act. And so it was weeks, and many expensive phone calls from Bermuda and St. Martin, before the credit card company returned the money to our bank account. In the meantime, Suzy stepped in and floated us, for which we still are very grateful. But we didn't want to be too much of a burden and so we learned to live on just a few dollars a day. Those lessons in frugality have served us well. Even after the house sold and we were once again on sound financial footing, we were still very careful about what we spent money on.

These days we'll splurge on things that matter to us - our health, communicating with friends and family, keeping the boat seaworthy and comfortable, travel, and good food and drink. But we'll always take public transportation if it is an option. We'll negotiate for anything. We never accept the first price offered. If a place has a low-cost of living, that makes it attractive to us. And so when we are asked what our favorite destinations were, we find ourselves saying things like "Indonesia - you could live really well for very little." Which we realize is not what most people look for in a vacation destination. Which only reinforces how out of sync we've become with society's values.

I'm afraid that we will lose our grasp on the frugality that set us free from the mundane and has allowed us to continue to live a different life. If we don't have another adventure to save up for, if we don't have a need to live cheaply, will we be susceptible to media and community messages that we need to buy this, that and the other thing? I know that material stuff won't make us nearly as happy as snorkeling over a pristine reef or catching a bull mahi on the fly, but we both have our weaknesses. But I'll say this now: the day we buy a wii is the day we have to head back to sea.

I'm afraid of becoming trapped by possessions. Being debt-free is so liberating. I don't want the burden of having to service a mortgage or a car loan. But how does one function on land without shelter and transportation? Maybe the answer is to only take jobs that one can reach by dinghy.

I'm afraid of losing my new found sense of self-esteem. I think I'm gorgeous (I didn't always). So does my husband. Why should I care what anyone else thinks? Why should I hold myself up against the images in magazines and on television? I know I shouldn't. But I do. Oh, I do.

Just a week with the magazines that Kate and Deb brought us on their recent visit has had a negative impact on my body image. All those lovely curves and that positive buoyancy are apparently "muffin tops," "bat wings," and "squidgy bits" that must be banished through a rigorous regime of 250 calorie meals and daily 60 minute work-outs. One magazine even suggested a lower calorie alternative to a mint julep. Is nothing sacred?

I'm afraid of losing the intimacy that I've found with my husband by spending day in and day out with him in a small space for oh, the last 1305 days or so. In three years the longest we've been apart is 15 hours. We used to do that daily. And the practice practically made us strangers. I don't want to be a stranger to my spouse.

I'm afraid of losing the happiness that we've found.

I'm afraid of losing touch with the things we've come to value.

I'm afraid of not finding another community as welcoming and supportive as the cruising community.

I'm afraid of not finding a lifestyle that we enjoy as much as this one.

I'm afraid that we'll freeze to death if we have to live through a New England winter.

I'm afraid that someone is going to let slip and reveal the ending of Lost before we have the chance to watch the last two seasons.

May 30, 2010 - Simpson Bay Lagoon, St. Martin

2010-05-31T22:18:00.000Z

We've really enjoyed being anchored outside of the lagoon on the French side of the island this week. The water is much cleaner than in the lagoon, which I appreciated as I spent two rainy afternoons scrubbing the bottom of the boat. The water is cooler too, which the refrigeration system always appreciates. And the holding is pretty good, which we both appreciated as a few gnarly squalls rolled through this past week bringing a deluge of rain and gusty winds.

But eventually a series of lows passing to the north of us created a northerly swell, which crept into the anchorage on Saturday night. We'd been awake for five hours, rolling back and forth, when the bridge at Sandy Ground opened at 8:15 on Sunday morning. We had to go inside eventually to refuel, and this seemed as good a time as any. The bridge entrance on the French side is much narrower than on the Dutch side. The channel leading from the bridge into the lagoon is also much shallower. It is dredged to 7 feet, but I must say that it is somewhat disconcerting to look down and see a bright orange starfish waving up at oneself while in a navigable channel.

We reanchored inside, had breakfast, and worked on a few projects. Then Sten went off in the dinghy to make sure the fuel dock was open (it being Sunday). And then we rigged our fenders and docklines and headed over to refuel.

Fueling is always a hot, sweaty process. But we now have enough diesel on board to motor most of the way to Bermuda if we have to. And unless the forecast improves, that might just be what it is going to take.

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May 29, 2010 - Marigot, St. Martin

2010-05-31T13:29:00.003Z

Two of the biggest chandleries in the Caribbean are based in Sint Maarten. Sten has been wanting to do a number of projects on the boat for the past few weeks, but has been waiting until he had access to the good duty free prices and big selection available here.

In the past few days he has:

Installed a dedicated start solenoid for the main engine start
Changed the feed pump head on our Spectra watermaker to try to reverse the unit's trend of diminishing performance
Upsized Spectra's OEM wire within the controller and to the motor
Finalized the installation of the stackpack, which required a few trips up and down the mast
Installed a new coax connector on the VHF
Changed the oil in both the generator and main engine
Tightened the shaft packing gland
Replaced the bulbs in our masthead light, so now (once again) we have full power tri-color and LED

It is like living with Bill Nye The Science Guy. Every time I turn around he is tinkering with something else. Now the electronic barometer is acting up. Every four months or so the batteries in this unit get low and need changing. Simple enough right? Well the AA batteries in this unit have a tendency to leak and cause a real mess in the process. This has happened with different brands and different ages of batteries. This time the damage may be terminal, but the jury is still out. Meanwhile, Sten has spent the past few cocktail hours tinkering with the innards of the unit.

May 26, 2010 - Marigot, St. Martin

2010-05-31T12:25:00.003Z

When the girls left on Monday morning they took all the fun (and the good weather) with them. It was time for us to get to work and get ready for the trip north. Sten spent the rest of the day and the one after installing and fixing stuff. While he was tearing the boat apart, I decided it was a good time to get out of the way. So I went shopping. As one does.

There is a reason why the Caribbean comes to St. Martin/Sint. Marteen to do its shopping. The selection is excellent, the prices good, and the taxes non-existent.

The French side of the island is known for its Parisian fashion. There are lots of wonderful boutiques, but my favorite is HipUp, which specializes in swimwear. The last bikini I bought here was so comfortable that I wore it until it fell apart after two years of nearly daily use. It served me so well that we gave it a burial at sea with full honors somewhere in the Indian.

The Dutch side of the island is known for the juggernaut of high-end duty free shopping available in Philipsburg. From electronics and jewelry, to perfume and clothing, everything the cruiseship passenger could want is available in Philipsburg, tax free.

Every fourth shop in Philipsburg seems to be a jewelry store with a side of liquor (or vice versa), but there is one worth seeking out - Gulmohar's on Front Street. Behind its unassuming facade lies a Disneyland for scotch enthusiasts. There is a veritable wall of Scotch. What's more, almost every variety on display is available for tasting. To be able to sample so many varieties at home or a bar would cost a small fortune, but at Gulmohar's, the samples are free and are accompanied by the owner's personal tasting notes.

We aren't Scotch drinkers, but the rum selection caught our eye. And soon we were tasting and talking rum with the very enthusiastic and knowledgeable owner. We tried some interesting rums from Guyana (El Dorado 15) and Venezuela (Santa Theresa 1796 Antiguo de Solera) and left with a bottle from both St. Lucia (Admiral Rodney) and Guatemala (Ron Zacapa 23 - widely considered to be the best sipping rum in the world). If we keep buying bottles at this rate we're going to have to build a bar just to display our collection. Either that or open a tiki bar.

May 24, 2010 - Marigot, St. Martin

2010-05-29T12:12:00.000Z

Here is Deb's fifth and final guest blog entry. I sure am going to miss having her do my work for me!

----- Original Message -----

We knew it had to come to an end eventually, and this was it. Kate and I got our bags packed and then Sten dropped Danika, Kate and I off in Marigot for our last couple of hours of eating and shopping before heading to the airport. Sadly, it was a French holiday (Pentecost), so many of the stores were closed. We did find a lovely restaurant -- The Croissanterie -- where we were able to enjoy croissants, pain au chocolat and a wonderful selection of sweet and savory crepes.

After our breakfast, we headed back towards the harbor to meet Sten (who had loaded up the dingy with our luggage) for a ride back to the Dutch side of the island, where we would catch our flight. As we walked back, we were delighted to find that Danika's favorite French bikini store (Hipup) was open and we browsed the beautiful and colorful selections. Just as we were leaving the store, I noticed that a man across the street had been apprehended by the police and was lying face down on the sidewalk. It was apparent -- from the wild coughing from one of the policemen -- that mace had been used to slow down the criminal. Unfortunately, the mace was traveling with the wind and eventually ended up in our eyes, nostrils and throats. It didn't take long for us to realize what was going on, so we quickly changed direction and got out of the area.

We met back up with Sten, took the dingy back towards the airport and eventually were back where it all started. We checked in and then said goodbye to Stenika, who were great hosts for our trip to the Caribe. We can't wait to see them again back in Newport, RI!

----- End of Original Message -----

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May 23, 2010 - Marigot, St. Martin

2010-05-28T13:28:00.005Z

Before Deb and Kate arrived in Sint Maarten last week we had been having an unbelievably bad run of squally, windy weather. But ever since they've been here, the weather has been perfect. It has been such a relief to be able to do everything on our packed itinerary without having to work around bad weather.

Here is the next installment of Deb's guest blog entries [with a few additions by me in brackets]:

----- Original Message -----

Do Brazil

We all slept well in the calm and protected harbor and awoke happy to see that it was another beautiful morning in the Caribbean. Gustavia had several flat stretches of road, so Kate and I decided to use that running gear that we dragged on vacation and went for a run through town. The heat was overwhelming, but we muscled through about 45 minutes of exercise (running, walking and hills) before meeting up with Danika back at the harbor.

Shell Beach

After grabbing our swimsuits from the dingy, we went to the patisserie for some water and lovely French treats. (When in France, right??) From there, we went back to Shell Beach for a little more swimming and were able to sit in the shade on the beach chairs provided by Do Brazil. The beach was much more crowded than yesterday, seemingly with locals who came prepared for a day full of sun, fun, food and cocktails. Around 1130, we decided that we'd left Sten alone long enough (and, frankly, we were baking in the sun), so we headed back to the harbor and got aboard Mata'irea and soon departed for a return trip to St. Martin.

It turned out to be a surprisingly good day for sailing, with an unusual northwest wind. We raised the main, unfurled the jib and we were soon sailing towards St. Martin at 5.5-6.0 knots. We decided to sail past Simpson Bay and directly into the harbor at Marigot, which Danika and Sten thought would be fairly well protected from the swell based on the wind direction. We anchored around 530pm and everyone took a swim to cool down after a long [and hot] afternoon passage.

When we were back on board, Danika mixed some cocktails and Sten prepared proscuitto-wrapped shrimp, which he grilled and served with marinated zucchini and eggplant. YUM. We had thought about going into town for a dessert of sweet crepes, but the heat lightning in the distance killed that plan before we even got started. Instead, we had a dessert plate of Three
Musketeers, York Peppermint Patties and Charleston Chews.

Over dinner and drinks, Kate and I were able to fill D&S in on the myriad of horrible reality TV and celebrity gossip that they have been shielded from over the past few years. It was kind of funny to see their reactions to things like "Flavor of Love", "Keeping up with the Kardashians" and the seemingly endless streams of "Housewives" shows. I have a feeling they won't be getting cable when they get back to Newport!

Sten and I fell asleep in the cockpit (as usual), while Danika and Kate finished the last of the wine [as usual]. What a wonderful evening with wonderful friends!!!

----- End of Original Message -----

May 22, 2010 - Gustavia, St. Barts

2010-05-28T13:21:00.006Z

I've probably had more exercise in the past two days than I do most weeks. One of our guests, Kate, is competing in a workout competition at her office. She explained the rules to me, oh, at least twice, but the gist of it is that she has to exercise at least five days a week to stay in the running. So, we've all been hiking and swimming and doing water aerobics to make her daily quota. I tried to convince her to substitute scrubbing the bottom of the boat (a great workout for the lungs and legs) for the swimming and polishing stainless or waxing the hull (these are mostly upper body workouts) for the water aerobics, but for some reason couldn't sell it. I clearly need to work on my powers of persuasion.

Here is the next installment of Deb's guest blog entries [with a few additions by me in brackets]:

----- Original Message -----

We woke up in beautiful Anse de Colombier and, after a quick breakfast, Sten dropped off us on the beach so we could hike around the corner of the island to Anse de Flamandes. It was a 30 minute walk and the beach at Anse de Flamandes did not disappoint. We walked to the far end of the bay on the road through town and then walked back along the immaculate white sand beach. Danika and I went for a quick swim before heading back to Columbier and Kate continued to stroll along the beach.

Once we got back to Columbier, Sten brought the dingy to shore to grab our clothes/shoes and we all swam back to Mata'irea. After our morning filled with activity, we took the boat to a [bouncy] anchorage outside of Gustavia and then took the dingy to Shell Beach (Anse de Grand Galet). We had a wonderful lunch at Do Brazil, which came with the added bonus of free lounge chairs (with umbrellas for much needed shade) for a post-lunch nap on the beach. Danika and Kate again took immigration duties while Sten and I relaxed for a couple of hours on Shell Beach.

When Danika and Kate came back from immigration, we got good news that we had secured a mooring in [the well-protected] Gustavia Harbor for the evening. So, we shuffled back to Mata'irea to (a) get ready for dinner and (b) move Mata'irea into the calmer waters of the harbor.

[Having never previously moored Mata'irea both bow and stern, Sten and Danika sussed out the situation and came up with a game plan. I joined Danika in the dinghy to rig the lines on the mooring balls while Kate stayed on board Mata'irea with Sten. As Sten drove Mata'irea into the harbor and past the stern mooring I threw the sternline up to Kate, who was standing on the back deck ready to cleat it off. Then Danika and I zipped up to the bow mooring and prepared to throw the lines to Sten and Kate, who were ready to cleat them off. The bowline ended up twisted and being way longer than necessary, so after dropping me off on the swim platform, Danika took a shorter, sturdier line from Sten to redo the bowline. The whole operation was a little tense and salty (so much for those pre-dinner showers) but very successful. We popped open a bottle of champagne to celebrate.]

Once secured in the harbor, we quickly had a visitor (Trond), who was on the sailboat next to us in the harbor. Trond has been in St Barts for a while and has a myriad of problems on his boat, including problems with his generator, alternator and engine. To take his mind off his troubles, we invited him for an evening in town with us. (Generous as that may sound, we did not invite him aboard to share in our champagne.) We looked at several menus, but I was swayed by the gazpacho and we settled in for an evening at Le Strand. It was a delicious gourmet meal, complete with truffles, foie gras, tuna tartare and plenty of beef. We finished with a few desserts to share and headed back to Mata'irea for a gentle night's rest.

----- End of Original Message -----

May 21, 2010 - Anse de Colombier, St. Barts

2010-05-26T13:14:00.014Z

Our guest blogger extraordinaire

We have two guests on board with us for the weekend, Kate and Deb. When we first invite people to stay on board with us we never know how they are going to acclimate to boat life. Kate, who spent a few nights on board with us in a marina in South Africa was a known entity, but we didn't know how Deb would do on the boat. We're happy to say that she's a natural. She is probably the least prone to seasickness out of all of us, including Sten. She also quickly discovered Sten's secret that the best place to sleep is in the cockpit. In addition, she helps with the dishes and writes the blog for me. This is one guest who is welcome back any time. Without further ado, here is Deb's daily update [with a few notes by me in brackets]:

----- Original Message -----

I woke up this morning to a beautiful daybreak, having spent the night on deck, in the fresh and warm Caribbean air. I had no idea what time it was (and didn't care), but knew that we'd be upping anchor around 9 and would head to Ile Forchue when the bridge opened at 930.

Right on target, we left Simpson Bay Lagoon at 930, but were heading directly into the wind. Danika and Sten put up the main and we motorsailed to Ile Forchue; arriving into the beautiful area at just after noon. [As we motored into the bay we passed a small French yacht that was having a difficult time picking up a mooring. As we drove by we had a front row seat for the yelling and could see how awkward and embarrassing it can be when things go wrong while trying to anchor, moor or dock a boat. And then, with Sten driving and Danika on the bow, we picked up our mooring on the first try. They were both clearly relieved that it went off without a hitch.] Danika treated us to a lunch of aged gouda, apples and wheat crackers, which we enjoyed (err ... devoured) before getting ready for our afternoon activities.

This guy really wanted to share our lunch

Next on our (very loose) agenda was some light hiking, which led to some of the prettiest views I've seen in quite some time. It was interesting to hike in such a natural environment, where there aren't yet trails to guide you along the route. Kate, Danika and I made it almost to the top (but didn't see the benefit in potentially ruining our nails to scramble the rest of the way up), while Sten went over the top and down the other side.

[Sten was above us on the descent when we realized that he'd been in the same spot for a while. We called up to find out what was keeping him. He responded that he had one of the mean cactus that populate the hillside stuck to his toe and his flip flop. And in trying to remove it he had gotten it also stuck to his hand. He was just trying to work up the gumption to yank it out of his palm before coming down. We tried not to laugh at him too much, but it was pretty comical.]

When we reached the bottom, it was time for a swim, so we jumped in to cool off. Danika, Kate and I swam back to Mata'irea (Sten took the dingy with our shoes/cameras) and then we did some snorkeling around the boat before moving on to our final destination for the day: Anse de Colombier (St Barts).

Kate donned a headscarf as part of her gambit to convince us to hire her on as our new galley slave

W[ith Kate assisting Danika on the bow] we picked up a mooring that was close to the beach and, while the ladies snorkeled around the shore, Sten began to prepare our evening feast. After getting cleaned up, we had pre-dinner wine tasting and were then treated to an unbelievable dinner of leg of lamb (rubbed in fresh garlic, ginger and pepper), tabbouleh, grilled veggies and a lovely red wine that Kate, Danika and Sten had tried (and purchased) in South Africa a few months back. We finished the night with a slide show from Kate's photo safari in Sabi Sabi and then we settled in for a good night's sleep. [True to form, Sten and I were snoozing away in the cockpit well before the end of the slide show.]

----- End of Original Message -----

May 20, 2010 - Simpson Bay, Sint Maarten

2010-05-26T00:01:00.002Z

I've been so busy catching up with two of my favorite people (Kate and Deb) and working my way through the mountain of gossip magazines that they brought us that I haven't had time to write anything. I was dreading reaching the end of their short visit with us and having to recreate the whole experience from memory, knowing that I was going to lose lots of details in the process. Then Deb showed me the daily emails that she was writing to friends and family back home about their visit. Well, since Mama didn't raise no fools, I begged her to become our guest blogger for the duration and returned to catching up on all the gossip.

----- Original Message -----

Our first day of vacation was awesome. Danika and Sten were at the airport to pick us up and, after a small snafu at immigration, we headed to the lagoon, where Danika and Sten had left their dingy, via bus. We piled in the dingy and took a short ride to Mata'irea, which was anchored in Simpson Bay Lagoon.

We caught up over a cocktail (a Moscow Mule -- ginger beer, fresh lime and vodka) before heading back to town. Danika and Kate went to the immigration office, where Kate and I were signed onto Mata'irea as temporary crew and we were cleared out of the country (Netherlands Antilles) for departure tomorrow morning. While they did the heavy lifting, Sten and I did a little swimming and we all met up for happy hour at a bar on the beach.

From there, it was a quick trip back to Mata'irea (Sten is our personal dingy/taxi driver!) for a shower and wardrobe change before heading to Marina Royal on the French side of the island for dinner and a little shopping. As promised by D and S, we were wooed by a host/hostess at every restaurant we passed, with promises of free drinks and fresh food abounding. After hearing everyone out -- and even checking out two kitchens for comparison -- we settled on a lovely Italian restaurant that didn't disappoint.

Is it any wonder that every restaurant host asked Sten how he got so lucky? Sure, it's a line. But it's a good one!

We started with mussels (after our complimentary champagne!) and then had seafood risotto (me), lasagna (sten), osso bucco (danika) and linguine with clams (kate). The meal ended with a shot of limoncello (another promotional giveaway), but they were out of profiterolles. Everything was great and we came back to Mata'irea for a few quick stories and then off to bed. I slept in the cockpit (above deck) and loved having fresh air swirl around me all night. Amazing start to our vacation!

----- End of Original Message -----

May 19, 2010 - Simpson Bay, Sint. Maarten

2010-05-24T22:06:00.001Z

Upon arrival in Simpson Bay, Sint. Maarten on Monday afternoon we anchored outside the bridge. After lunch, showers and loading the dinghy with four bags of dirty laundry we dinghied over to the lagoon entrance to clear in. We were startled to find the lagoon nearly empty. We expected all the big motor yachts to be long gone, as their Mediterranean charter season is already in full swing. However, we expected the lagoon to be full of sailboats like Antigua and St. Barts. But it wasn't.

From the entrance on the Dutch side, the lagoon looked empty. But in the distance we could see that the French side of the lagoon was chock-a-block with cruising sailboats. The new fees on the Dutch side have clearly taken their toll. There are now very few boats clearing in an out on the Dutch side, which is currently charging steep weekly harbor fees based on boat length. The fees on the French side work out to be about the same for short-term stays, but for yachts spending a long time in the area, clearing into the French side of the lagoon works out to be cheaper. So, now the French side is packed, and the Dutch side looks like a ghost town.

Three years ago we spent several weeks anchored in the lagoon finishing Mata'irea's refit and getting the boat ready for the Pacific. So much has changed since then. The laundromat is closed. The bar/wifi hotspot we used to frequent is shuttered. Based on the pile of debris outside, the cheap and tasty Indian buffet has clearly been shut down for a while. But there are a bunch of swanky new restaurants and bars and an amazing new grocery store, all of which are clearly catering to the megayacht trade.

After finding a place to take our laundry, we found a place (which used to be a different place) to have ribs and watch the Red Socks give it up to the Yankees. It's going to be a long season. As we were tucking into some tasty pulled pork we realized that the last time we'd seen a game was last summer, the night we arrived in the Seychelles.

Our friends arrive tomorrow, so the past two days have been full of boat chores. The first item on the list was to replace the broken handle on the port stateroom hatch, which we haven't been able to open for many, many months. Yesterday morning Sten went off to the chandlery to buy a new handle along with several spares. The trip turned out to be more exciting than expected.

Sten was standing outside of Budget Marine, reading the notices posted on a bulletin board, when some construction debris flew off the roof and hit him on the head before landing on his foot. His big toe was sliced open, but at least he didn't wind up in the emergency room. I would have thought that the near concussion would have entitled him to a discount, but the manager didn't offer and he didn't press the issue. Anyway, now he's running around with a piece of yellow electrical tape securing his bandage while he installs the new stackpack and replaces watermaker filters.

May 17, 2010 - Anse de Colombier, St. Barts

2010-05-18T21:19:00.000Z

Thanks to all the rough weather we've had lately, the seas in the Northern Caribbean are churned up, making yesterday's sail from Antigua to St. Barts a long, rough ride. After 78 miles of getting slapped around by short steep seas, we sailed into the lee of St. Barts. As we sailed up the the coast we were shocked by how many sailboats were anchored off of Gustavia. The last time we were here, to ring in 2007, the joint was wall to wall mega yachts with a handful of sailboats mixed in. The big boys have apparently all headed back to the Med for the summer and the cruising yachts have arrived to fill the void. We couldn't help but wonder if the number of boats here had something to do with the new fees in place in Sint. Maarten.

Just as we approached Anse de Colombier, we were smacked with another squall. It was nearly dark as we turned into the bay and dropped the mainsail. All the big moorings at the mouth of the bay were filled so we prepared to anchor. As I was untying the anchor another Tayana 48 hailed us to direct us towards a mooring at the head of the bay, well protected from the swell creeping into the mouth of the bay. Sten thanked him for the tip and we motored up towards the beach to pick up the mooring (the first we've been on since we left Chagos nearly 9 months ago). The combination of close quarters, shallow water, gusty winds and lack of practice made for a very stressful experience. By the time we had Mata'irea secured to the mooring the boat hook was on the bottom and we were none too pleased with each other. But we had a constructive talk about what to do differently next time and then tucked into some leftover tikka masala. By the end of the meal we were even laughing at each other's jokes again. As soon as dinner was over we turned in. It had been an exhausting day.

This morning, I had to take a swim to get the boat hook so I figured that I might as well do a bit of snorkeling. It turned out to be a very interesting jaunt. On the sandy, grassy bottom I spotted a nurse shark, southern stingray, and several hawksbill turtles feeding. Among the rocky shoreline I came across a nice queen helmet, but the owner was still home and very much alive, so I put it back.

With the boat tucked into such a nice spot next to the beach we hated to give it up. But our friends Kate and Deb are arriving in Sint. Maarten on Thursday and we've got a bunch of chores that we need to do there before they arrive. So, mid-morning we dropped the mooring and departed on an easy (if rolly) two hour run over to Sint. Maarten.

May 15, 2010 - Great Bird Island, Antigua

2010-05-18T21:15:00.003Z

Yesterday afternoon, after we returned to Parham Harbour from St. John's by bus, we motored two and half miles back out to the reef and anchored behind Great Bird Island. There was one other yacht anchored behind the island with us. And between the two islands just to the south of us, was one other sailboat. Both of them left this morning, leaving us all alone out here in the North Sound. The Caribbean cruising season is definitely winding down. Either that, or everyone else is too smart to come up to these outer reef islands in the inclement weather we've been having lately.

After we anchored, we each headed off on separate snorkeling forays around the anchorage. Sten went off to the reefs north of us, and I headed down to the bird nesting islands to our south. Swimming along quietly in the shallows spying on the birds I felt like a crocodile hunting for dinner. Every once in a while I would raise my head or one blue flipper out of the water, setting of a chain reaction of squawking birds. The late afternoon light peeking out from beneath the clouds cast everything with a gorgeous warm glow. I wished that I'd bothered to bring along the camera.

Last night was steak taco night on board Mata'irea. Which can only mean one thing: margaritas. Just as the sun set, a cocktail cruise boat from the local resort approached our anchorage. As they pulled up next to us Sten climbed up from the galley with the stainless steel cocktail shaker and did his best impression of Tom Cruise as Brian Flanagan for the punters. As he poured our drinks dozens of flashes went off. Now at least twenty more people think cruising is all sundowners in beautiful anchorages.

Today we finally caught a break in the weather. It is still squally but at least it is sunny between the bands of rain. I was chomping at the bit to get out and explore, but Sten, ever diligent, insisted on changing the filters on the watermaker first. Once he was done we set off in the dinghy to see if the reefs were as interesting as we had hoped. As it turned out, they were depressing as hell.

So much of the coral had been damaged by propellers and drifting fishing nets. There wasn't a sizable fish to be found. The piles of conch shells on one beach revealed that as the larger older specimens where harvested to the breaking point, the locals have turned to harvesting the younger, smaller conch. Man's footprint was everywhere we looked, and it wasn't pretty. Exploring Antigua's reefs made us so grateful that we have been able to visit places on this trip where man's tread has been lighter. From the isolated Tuamotus and the protected Andamans and Komodos to the pristine splendor of Chagos, we've had the privilege of experiencing some of the earth's last great wild places.

Back on Great Bird Island the day boats were just setting up their lunchtime bbq's. We walked up to the top of the island to check out the view. At the top we found blowholes dropping 200 feet down to the sea and a flock of angry birds. As they took to the air we realized that we must have been too close to their nests. Squatting down to look under the bushes I noticed ground nests containing two or three eggs. So we beat a quick retreat back down to the beach, leaving them in peace - at least until the next day tour climbed to the top of the hill.

Back at the beach we spent a good hour lolling around in the warm, shallow water, working on our floating techniques, and watching the mating rituals of the birds on the shoreline. Seabird mating rituals apparently involve a lot of squawking, attempts at climbing on each other's backs, precarious balancing routines, more squawking, and the occasional regurgitated fish. It made me really appreciate the human rituals of a dinner and a movie.

As we floated around we got to talking about how before we set off on this trip we thought there would be more days like this one. But they are actually few and far between. And with our adventure drawing to a close we knew we didn't have many more days like this ahead of us. So we just soaked it in. And then we headed back to the boat to scrub the hull.

After a quick lunch we spent the rest of the afternoon cleaning the rust stains off the hull (and here you all though that was just a good punchline). Coming up the Atlantic, surrounded by other boats that were doing major miles, our grungy appearance didn't bother me. But back in the Caribbean, surrounded by boats that spend their lives being polished and buffed, we rather stuck out as looking a bit ragged. This wouldn't have bothered me if our outwards appearance matched reality, but Sten is very diligent about keeping on top of the maintenance of all of our systems. I hated for anyone to look at Mata'irea and assume she wasn't well maintained. Now she is all white and streak free. She isn't shiny, but at least she isn't doing her best impression of a red-headed zebra anymore.

May 14, 2010 - Parham Harbour, Antigua

2010-05-18T21:11:00.003Z

The weather continues to be nasty. Leaden skies, choppy seas and intermittent squalls are severely limiting when one lives on a boat and enjoys doing things in the water. We are anchored in a shallow anchorage off of pretty beach in front of two gorgeous resorts. If it wasn't raining, we'd be out and about snorkeling and swimming and exploring. If the wind wasn't blowing stink, Sten might even be standing in the waist deep water of the flat next to us, casting for bone fish with his fly rod. But the weather sucks. So we decided to make the best of the day and motor over to Parham Harbour to take care of our clearance formalities.

When we arrived at the port we discovered that, despite what the 2010 marine guide says in bold, green, 14 point font, there are in fact NO clearance clearance facilities in Parham. This would have been more entertaining if it hadn't been the second time that this has happened to us this week. So we found out where to catch a shared taxi bus down to the main town of St. John. From the bus stop we walked over to the customs office by the cruise ship quay. They were happy to do our clearance, but first we had to get a piece of paper from the port authority over at the commercial port. I tried to argue that we weren't anchored in the port, so we shouldn't need a clearance from the port authority. But the customs officer just shook her head and pointed us towards the taxi stand.

Over at the commercial port it was quickly apparent that they dealt with yachts, oh, just about never. The first clue was the phone calls to customs and immigration offices in other harbours around the island trying to determine which forms to have us fill out. But it was all done within an hour and somehow in all the confusion they forgot to charge us the exit fee, a savings which just about covered the cost of the buses and taxi. And then, since we were in St. John, we made our way over to Roti King for lunch. The rotis were just as tasty as we remembered. So all in all, coming into town wasn't a bad way to spend a rainy day.

May 13, 2010 - Jumby Bay, Antigua

2010-05-18T21:07:00.003Z

Looks like a good day for eyeball navigation

Thank god for technology

The weather continues to be absolute crap. It is windy and squally. When it isn't raining, it is hot and muggy. So as soon as the rain stops we throw open the hatches to get some air moving through the boat. Then we'll hear the rain coming or feel the first few drops and quickly run around stepping down hatches and dogging them closed. These fire drills are getting old. But we are trying to make the best of it. So we've decided to continue up into Antigua's North Sound to explore the outer reefs.

After breakfast this morning we raised than anchor and headed out of Deep Bay, past St. John and into the sound. As we motored into 30 knots of wind (easily the most we've seen since leaving Simon's Town, South Africa) we had to question the wisdom of heading out of our protected anchorage and into the more exposed waters of the north side of the island. It was dark and squally at 11 am, which made trying to read the water absolutely futile. We were relying upon our chart plotter and the accuracy of our charts to navigate the reefs. It was a little hairy, but we eventually made our way into Jumby Bay.

The windlass (a very essential piece of equipment) has been giving us trouble for the past two weeks. We've been getting very low speed when we try to raise the anchor. We could pay the chain out easily enough without use of the motor, but raising a hundred feet of 3/8ths chain (not to mention the 60lb anchor at the end) by hand is a recipe for a back problem. In addition, the anchor chain has been sparking as it rolls in across the bow roller. We first had this problem in Madagascar and cobbled together a fix that was formalized by the Maxwell dealer in Cape Town. Needless to say that, was money wasted. And we can't keep using it in its current condition as we are risking burning out the motor.

Last weekend in Ile des Saintes Sten did some voltage and amperages tests and discovered all kind of crazy readings. So he took out the motor, did an inspection, adjusted the brushes and did some more tests, but it is still acting up. This morning as we raised the anchor in the rain, the chain rolling in against the stainless steel pulpit was throwing off so many sparks that it looked like an arc welder. Once we were anchored in Jumby Bay, we did some more troubleshooting on the windlass. Sten discovered that it would still work in both directions with two of the four motor brushes removed. I don't know much about mechanics or electricity, but I knew that this was bad.

So Sten crawled back into the anchor locker, which is not at all a comfortable place to work, and once again removed the windlass motor. On close inspection Sten discovered that when we took it in to be repaired in Cape Town the technician messed up and had mistakenly soldered the "down" stud to the motor housing, creating a current path where there should not have been one. So Sten took out his trusty dremel, ground out the faulty $50 solder job, reshaped the stud to eliminate any further contact with the motor housing and then reassembled the motor. When he was done, he reinstalled it (again). His fix worked like a charm. No more sparks. No more bogging down under load. And even better, no more discussion about raising and lowering the anchor and chain by hand.

Meanwhile, I spent the rainy day coming up with creative new ways to stow our stuff. We have two friends joining us in Sint. Maarten. And since they don't want to sleep together, I had to make some room in the port stateroom for one of them. We've been treating the port stateroom like a big walk-in closet for three and a half years, so it was a daunting task to try to find places to stow all the stuff we've had piled on the bunks in there. But our Tayana 48 amazes me. No matter how much stuff we cram aboard, she just continues to absorb it all.

May 12, 2010 - Deep Bay, Antigua

2010-05-18T21:04:00.001Z

This morning we cleared into Antigua with the friendly and efficient officials at Jolly Harbour. Once we had taken care of the formalities we dinghied over to the chandlery. Sten took one look at the prices and decided to wait to buy what he needed in duty free Sint. Maarten. However, he was thrilled to replace his 2006 Budget Marine catalog with the 2010 version.

Then it was off to the the grocery store to buy some fresh stuff (getting caught in a squall along the way). I don't know what we were expecting, but we were blown away by the supermarket at Jolly Harbour. It had everything we could possibly want (except Frontera salsa). The prices on most items were lower than on the French islands, so we splurged on a few treats like english muffins, sour cream and corn tortillas. Then we dinked back to the boat (again getting drenched in yet another squall).

We'd planned to sail up to the North Sound that afternoon, but decided that since the weather was such rubbish we should tuck into Deep Bay for the rest of the afternoon rather than attempting to navigate the reefs in the rain. We dropped anchor in 8 feet of water and fell back into 10. Deep Bay is a pretty odd name for such a shallow anchorage, but the whole west coast of Antigua is shoal. After the deep water navigation of the islands to our south, sailing along and anchoring in 8 to 14 feet of water took some getting used to.

As we gorged ourselves with bruschetta topped with sauteed zucchini, basil and goat cheese, we considered whether to explore the beach or snorkel on the wreck in the middle of the bay. The wreck won. The water was pretty murky but we spotted a turtle and two lobsters and were entertained by the undulations of a big bait ball.

Back in the Saints we took advantage of some unsecured wifi to skype our families. Sten's mom has been doing a bunch of entertaining at her new place in Florida and she asked me for an easy cocktail recipe. I promised to write up my super secret rum punch recipe for her. Okay, here it is:

One sour
Two sweet
Three strong
Four weak

This is a classic rum punch or planter's punch recipe. It is easy to remember and wonderfully flexible. But it does take a little decoding.

The numbers in the quatrain are ratios. For one round of drinks for the two of us, I turn the ratios into ounces, yielding two cocktails with an ounce and a half of rum in each one (three divided by two for the mathematically challenged). When making a round of rum punch for a crowd, I simply multiply each of the ingredients by half the number of guests being served. Easy. Trust me.

For the sour, lime juice is the typical ingredient. Lemon just doesn't play as well with tropical juices.

For the sweet, fruit juice is standard. Pineapple, mango, guava, or some combination thereof work well. Orange juice is too acidic to be used for the sweet on its own, but can be mixed in with some other flavors - it marries well with guava. If using orange juice, cut back a little on the sour.

The strong is rum. Spiced rums don't work in punch, so leave the Captain Morgan's on the shelf (better yet, leave it in the store). Dark rum will overpower your other ingredients. White rum, like Bacardi or Cruzan is, well, fine. But an amber rum, like Mount Gay Eclipse, Appleton or a younger Havana Club is what you want.

And the weak is ice or water or some combination thereof.

Mix in a dash of bitters, grate some nutmeg on top, and you are in business.

Now, that's your standard fruity rum punch recipe. It is always a winner. But we were introduced to an even better version by Andrew and Jo on s/v Zephyr's Zest in Barbados. Andrew's rum punch omits the fruit juice (other than the lime for the sour). In its place he uses simple syrup made from unrefined or brown sugar. Garnished with a jaunty green maraschino cherry, the result is a showcase for good rums (no white rums need apply - reach for the Mount Gay or an older Havana Club instead). We've been experimenting with Andrew's recipe for the past few weeks and are pretty confident that we've got it right. Though more sampling may be required.

May 11, 2010 - Jolly Harbour, Antigua

2010-05-18T21:02:00.000Z

Our original plan for this six week jaunt through the Caribbean involved Barbados, Martinique, Guadeloupe (let's call these first three the Rum Tour), Nevis, St. Kitts, Statia (let's call these next three the Easy Route), St. Barts and Sint. Maarten. But then on one of our day sails north, I started paging through our cruising guide. I noticed this whole reef system on the north side of Antigua, of which I had absolutely no recollection from our run down through the chain three years ago. From the chart, it looked like just our kind of place. Why hadn't we stopped?

I spent a while reading about the navigation and anchorages in Antigua's North Sound, and quickly realized why we hadn't explored it on our first pass through these islands. The last time we were here we had absolutely no experience with reef navigation. We were still learning to use our chart plotter and read our electronic charts. Our first forays into shallow water strewn with coral heads, reefs and shoals was in the Grenadines, a month after we visited Antigua. We've spent a good chunk of the three years since then navigating such waters.

Since our return to the Caribbean, we have been somewhat disappointed in the snorkeling. If any of the yachties reading this blog have been considering going to Chagos, don't. The pristine coral, abundant fish life and clear water will ruin you for the rest of the world. But the reefs on the north side of Antigua looked like they had potential. So we changed plans.

Having reached the end of the Rum Tour, we had been planning to take the Easy Route to St. Barts and Sint. Maarten. The run northwest to Nevis from Guadeloupe would have been an overnighter, but at least it would have been downwind. Instead, pulled north by the allure of the Antigua's North Sound and crushed for time because we need to be in Sint Marteen when our friends arrive next week, we spent a day beating into stiff headwinds and dodging squalls to reach Jolly Harbour, Antigua (let's call this the Hard Way). It was nauseating.

The highlight of the day was spotting four or five whales (we think juvenile sperm) lounging on the surface near a big buoy a few miles off the coast of Guadeloupe. And pulling into the anchorage outside of Jolly Harbour and finding ourselves surrounded by US boats for the first time in years was pretty entertaining. It is late in the season and so most of the yachts in the Caribbean are drifting north, to stage themselves for the jump to the Azores, the States, or Bermuda, or south, to hole up in Grenada, Venezuela, or Trinidad for hurricane season. It makes sense that most of the boats at the northern end of the chain would be from the US, but we just didn't expect it.

May 10, 2010 - Deshaies, Guadeloupe

2010-05-18T20:56:00.003Z

I adore the French islands. The food is fantastic. Between the plump local produce and excellent deli selections at the markets and groceries, and the Creole cooking with French techniques at the restaurants, we are spoiled for choice. There are lots of good anchorages, protected from the wind and swell. And the distances between make for easy day sails. Ashore, the towns and cities just work. There is decent public transportation and a high level of employment. I'm aware that all this infrastructure and prosperity is subsidized by the taxes paid by the good people of France and the EU, but hey, I just appreciate all the lovely new concrete piers.

The people are also lovely. Most folks, if they have any English, will make an effort to speak and understand it (unlike, say, in Paris). And the folks I've spoken to have been very patient with my pathetic French. Though, after a few weeks in Martinique and Guadeloupe it is improving . . . though, probably not as much as I think it is.

Whenever I'm ashore without Sten, I get hit on, which I'm pretty sure has nothing to do with me and everything to do with the culture. The men here can't help but flirt. They are French. But it isn't the aggressive, macho, come-on style of the southern islands (St. Lucia, St. Vincent), which used to make me very uncomfortable if I was out by myself. In the French islands, it is a friendlier, gentler approach, which always makes me laugh. A little flirting is so very good for the ego. I could easily spend a season just in the French islands, though by the end of it, Sten probably wouldn't be able to live with me and my outsized ego.

An unexpected bonus from a squally sail up the coast of Guadeloupe - the most spectacular double rainbow either of us has ever seen

May 9, 2010 - Ile des Saintes, Guadeloupe

2010-05-18T20:54:00.002Z

Ile des Saintes, a small group of islands on the south side of Guadeloupe, were a favorite stop of ours the last time we came through the islands. It was one of the only places from last time through that we knew we were going to return to as we worked our way up the chain. We had an easy morning sail up from Dominica, and anchored off of Pain de Sucre, a 200-foot high mini-piton, just before lunch. We spent the afternoon snorkeling and enjoying the scene. In the water I spotted two octopus and a puffer fish. I kept trying to get the puffer to puff, but then I realized that it must be the most harassed fish in the Caribbean, so I left it alone. We were pretty content and tempted to spend the evening on board, but when we realized that it was Saturday night, we decided to get off our lazy bums and dinghy into town.

Bourg des Saints is a charming Gallic town. The narrow lanes are lined with colorful old houses, topped with red roofs, trimmed with gingerbread and filled with boutiques, galleries and restaurants that cater to the tourists who arrive daily on ferries from the mainland. Tucked between the shops are family homes. Kids on bikes swerve between the knots of sunburned, window-shopping vacationers. Any time of day there is bound to be someone out and about.

We joined the families and tourists strolling around town, and made our way to a bar that we remembered fondly from our last time here. The customers at the Coconut Bar are an entertaining mix. Between the rastas, vacationers, yachties, and local families, the place always seems to be busy. As we arrived the song "I've got a feeling" was blasting from the speakers. That ditty really has staying power. It was in high rotation on the local radio stations the whole time we were driving around South Africa last winter. Since we arrived back in the Caribbean, we've heard it on every island. Though we must say that our favorite rendition was performed on steel drums in Barbados.

May 7, 2010 - Portsmouth, Dominica

2010-05-09T15:37:00.005Z

Early this morning, before upping anchor and sailing north to Dominica, we went ashore in St. Pierre one last time to run some errands. We have finally used up the last of the gasoline we purchased in the Seychelles last August, so Sten went to the gas station to fill a jerry can with some very expensive fuel (28 Euros for 23 liters) for the dinghy. Meanwhile, I stopped in at the patisserie to get a baguette for our lunch and a few pain au chocolat for a mid-morning snack. Between the rum (which shockingly has as many calories per ounce as butter) and the bread products, we're both packing on the pounds here in the French islands. But we're not worried; we've got those long passages to Bermuda and Newport ahead of us to melt it all off.

Sten caught up with me at the growers market on the pier. I already had a bag full of little green cucumbers, plump red tomatoes, crisp lettuce, and some very sharp watercress. When he found me, I was sampling the mint offered up by one of the vendors. I turned to him and said something about it being too bad that we didn't have any of the fresh sugar cane juice we had enjoyed at the distillery the other day. If we did, we could make an authentic mojito. Sten pointed out that there was a sign above my head advertising that the booth next to me was selling "Jus de Canne." What a handy guy to have around. I'd been too distracted by the beautiful fresh veggies to notice anything above waist level.

To make a mojito, a real mojito, like the ones that Hemingway used to drink at La Bodeguita in Havana, one needs to have access to guarapo, which is just the Spanish word for freshly squeezed cane juice, or as the French would say, jus de canne. Unfortunately, cane juice sours very quickly. We love the refreshing zippiness of mohitos, and drink them whenever we have access to fresh mint and fresh limes. But I always made ours with sugar, muddling the mint against it to release all those yummy oils. I never expected to have access to both cane juice and fresh mint at the same time. And I just happened to have a quarter bottle of Havana Club rum and a bottle or two of sparkling water on board. Things were shaping up for us to have some very excellent sundowners when we dropped anchor in Dominica.

We had a stunning sail from Martinique to the southern tip of Dominica, during which we had perfect sailing conditions of light seas and 15 knots of wind on the beam and saw boat speeds of up to 9 knots. And then we sailed into the lee of Dominica, and lost the wind. We fired up the engine and Sten made us some tasty baguette sandwiches for lunch. By the time we reached Portsmouth at the northern tip of Dominica it was late afternoon; and, we were hot and tired and had had too much sun. We chose a spot to anchor on the south side of the bay, far away from the mooring field filled with charter boats and boat boys. We needed a swim and a drink to cool down, not necessarily in that order.

Mata'irea's Martinique Mojito

In a glass put 10-20 mint leaves and the juice of one lime. Muddle vigorously. Add 3 ounces Jus de Canne and 1.5 ounces Cuban rum*. Stir. Add ice and soda water and stir once more.

*with apologies to the distillers in Martinique, but I don't want rhum agricole in my mojitos. I want a smooth, round, well aged Cuban rum. For those of you in the States, where such necessities of life are prohibited, Mount Gay XO (not Eclipse) will do.

May 6, 2010 - Fort de France, Martinique

2010-05-07T23:31:00.000Z

One of the curious things about this lifestyle is that Sten and I spend all of our time together. Before we left on this trip, we were lucky if we had one waking hour together a day. Now, we go days and sometimes even weeks without spending any time apart. Luckily, it turns out that we like each other.

Today, for the first time since the girls' spa day last November in Richard's Bay, I left Sten and Mata'irea for several hours, but not for a reason as fun as pedicures and facials. There is supposed to be a clearance office here in St. Pierre, the northernmost anchorage in Martinique, but the Customs Department has suspended service in St. Pierre. So today, while Sten worked on a myriad of niggling maintenance issues on board, I took the bus down to Fort de France to clear us out of the country.

I took care of our outwards clearance, then wandered down to Rue Victor Hugo to check out the boutiques. In a very cool little shop I found a few things to supplement my threadbare wardrobe and handed them to the shop girl so that she could ring them up. I reached into my bag to pull out my wallet, but couldn't find it. Had I dropped it? Been pickpocketed? A brief moment of panic was quickly replaced by utter embarrassment as I tried to explain in broken French that I wouldn't be taking those items after all. Out on the sidewalk I determined that I had just enough coins in a ziplock baggie labeled "Euros" to grab lunch at a hole-in-the-wall (a far cry from the sushi feast I'd been looking forward to) and get a shared taxi bus back up to St. Pierre. Not quite the girl's day out I had planned. Back at the boat, I was very relieved to find my wallet sitting on the nav station, right where I'd left it.

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May 5, 2010 - St. Pierre, Martinique

2010-05-06T21:17:00.012Z

Anchoring under Mt. Pelee

Back in 1902, this town was the bomb. Actually, it was "the pearl." That's what they called it - The Pearl of the West Indies. For 250 years the French had been building churches and theaters and distilleries in St. Pierre. By 1902, there were 30,000 people living here. It was the biggest city in the West Indies. And then the mountain that lurks over the town blew its top. Every single person in town was killed, except for one very lucky prisoner whose tomb-like jail cell protected him from the worst of the lava and ash.

Today, only 6,000 people live in St. Pierre. There is still a church and a distillery, but the theater has not been rebuilt. We spent a morning walking around town, visiting the ruins and the museum. These days St. Pierre is an atmospheric little town, with many houses sharing walls with ruins from the eruption.

During the hottest part of the day we hid out on the boat. Then late in the afternoon we returned to shore to walk up to Depaz. According to our cruising guide, the walk up to the distillery is 30 minutes. We got a little lost, stumbling across a few more ruins before we found the road up to the distillery (Rue Schoeler), and so it took us 45 minutes of walking up hill before we reached it.

There wasn't anybody at the entrance desk, or any brochures in English, so I grabbed one in German and we wandered off to check out the works. We checked out the paddle wheel that used to power the plant, which has long since been replaced by a steam engine. We waded through the chaff from the crushed cane. We enjoyed a glass of fresh cane juice while we checked out the stainless steel tanks used for fermenting the juice. We admired the copper still pot where the mildly boozy fermented juice is turned into something much more potent.

We peeked into the cask room, where rhum vieux ages in old whisky and bourbon barrels until it is time to be bottled. And lastly, we wandered through the gift shop. But with memories of that awful hike from the Mount Gay bottling plant fresh in our minds, we decided not to purchase anything at this distillery. Somehow, distilleries are not as charming as vineyards. I know fermentation is at the heart of it all, but the very industrial evaporation process takes a bit of the magic out of it.

When clear white rum emerges from the still pot, it is 70% abv. It is cut a little bit before it is bottled, but the grocery shelves here in Martinique are stocked with plenty of bottles of 50%, 55% and even 60% abv rhum agricole (rum made from sugar cane juice, as apposed to rum made from molasses, which is common on most other islands). And the folks in Barbados thought they were happy!

Crazy Tree

Some of the rum produced and sold here in Martinique is aged, but most of the local consumption seems to be rhum blanc, which is herby and floral, like a really good blanco tequila or cachaca. And the favorite way to drink it in Martinique is in a T-Punch.

The first time we sat down at a restaurant here and ordered a cocktails, Sten ordered a Planter's Punch and I ordered the T-Punch. Sten's cocktail came out as expected - rum and juice served together in a glass. But my drink arrived as a work in progress. The waiter set out a glass, a wedge of lime, some raw sugar, and a bottle before me. Then he left, leaving the quantity and proportions completely up to me. I stole half of the ice from Sten's glass, then it was off to the races.

May 3, 2010 - Anse Noire, Martinique

2010-05-04T21:22:00.001Z

Earlier this afternoon we rounded Cap Salomon on the west coast of Martinique. Cap Salomon is certainly not one of the world's great capes. From a sailing perspective, it is an innocuous little bump on a coastline. But for us, it was a momentous rounding. The moment we sailed past Cap Salomon, we completed our circumnavigation.

Three years and three months ago, we sailed south from Fort de France, Martinique to Rodney Bay, St. Lucia, sailing past Cap Salmon. At the time we had no idea that the cape would be the location where we would eventually cross our outbound track and, as an old salt would say, tie the knot. But leaving Marin this morning we were prepared for the occasion. The champagne and shrimp dip were chilling in the fridge and we'd picked a snug little bay just past the cape to tuck into and celebrate.

Anse Noire turned out to be a beautiful, tiny little bay. We were beguiled by its palm fringed, volcanic black sand beach, which reminded us of the Marquesas, half a world away. The wind funnels down the hills surrounding the bay, requiring lots of swinging room for boats at anchor, which makes this small bay only big enough for two or three boats. We dropped anchor in the middle of the bay, had a late lunch, and went for a snorkel along the colorful cliffs surround the bay.

As the afternoon wore on, we decided to spend the night. That evening we were treated to one of the most spectacular sunsets of our entire trip. As darkness fell, we could see the lights of Fort de France, the biggest city in the Eastern Caribbean, twinkling in the distance. But in our private little harbor, we felt a million miles away from civilization.

May 2, 2010 - Marin, Martinique

2010-05-02T18:42:00.001Z

We had an easy overnight run from Barbados to Marin, Martinique, arriving in this huge natural harbor just after dawn. As we approached the anchorage we were shocked by the number of boats around us. Between the anchorage, marina and haul out yard, there must be a thousand boats here. We found a spot at the back of the pack, next to the biggest yacht in the harbor, and dropped anchor. We figured that their big black, four-spreader mast would be a good landmark (or is it a watermark?) for us when we needed to find our way back to our own boat among the hordes. What we didn't expect was that the "professional" crew would use their emergency strobe light as an anchor light. Ah, it is good to be back in the Caribbean.

Shortly after we anchored Sten was cooking up our breakfast when he said "it is so flat, I don't know what to do with myself." Every task is much easier when you don't have to brace yourself or keep things from flying about. Not moving is such a nice change after two and a half months of constant movement. We can see why so many boats seem to have gotten stuck here. It is an awfully nice harbor.

It is so nice to be in France.

Everything in Marin is orientated towards sailors who are reliant upon their dinghies to get around. There are four dinghy docks, lining the harborfront. One is in front of the Customs office, making clearing in a snap. The next, in front of the new marina extension, provides easy access to a bakery, grocery and laundry. Down by the haul out yard, another dock provides access to the chandleries, another grocery store, a self-service laundry, a boulangerie, a patisserie, and a rotisserie (Is this heaven?). The fourth and final dock is the newest one, recently built by Leader-Price to provide yachties with easier access to that supermarket. Being able to wheel a grocery cart directly to ones dinghy makes doing a big provisioning much easier. This last dock also provides access to the McDonald's across the street ("Deux Royales with Cheese, please, err, pour favor, err, I mean, s'il vous plait."). All of this makes Marin a great stop after a transatlantic passage. And for being French the locals are surprisingly accommodating about our fumbling attempts to speak their language.

After four days here our fridge is restocked with local pate, fromage, saucisson (cured sausage, sliced and eaten with baguette and cheese), poulet fume, a surprisingly affordable leg of New Zealand lamb, and some gorgeous local veggies. Once again we have a linen closet full of clean sheets and all twenty-two ultrasuede cushion covers are fresh from the laundry. We've gorged ourselves on baguettes, fresh from the oven, and sampled the Ti Punch (a powerful cocktail made with the local rhum agricole, a dash of simple syrup and a squeeze lime), which we can report packs a wallop. We've had a few good nights sleep (despite the strobe light). And so it is time for us to move on.

We're pretty excited about our next leg (all 30 miles of it). We'll be crossing our outbound track and completing our circumnavigation. The champagne is already chilling in the fridge.

April 28, 2010 - Barbados

2010-04-30T13:52:00.000Z

We've really enjoyed some aspects of being anchored in Carlisle Bay. The water is so clear and warm that we swim every day. So do the locals. Every morning we wake to the sound of Bajans coming down to the beach for a swim before work. The jockeys from the local track bring the horses down for a sea bath at dawn as well. All of this would be more charming if the nightclubs that line the beach hadn't been going until 4:00 am. But even so, this is an uncommonly nice white sand beach.

Unfortunately, it is not such a great anchorage for a monohull. We spend all day and night rolling in the swell. If we had come to Barbados from a flat anchorage, we wouldn't have stayed more than a day or two with these conditions. But since we've either been underway or anchored in open roadsteads for the past two months, we're quite acclimated to the motion. But when the swell built to the point where the waves crashing into the beach became surfable, it was time to go.

If the swell hadn't gotten to us, the dismal selection of staples and produce at the central grocery store in Bridgetown would have forced us to move on. Our provisions are running low and Barbados is an obscenely expensive place to restock. As one expat told us, by way of explanation, "It's Barbados, Old Boy!"

Since the fishing was so unproductive during the two months it took us to travel up from South Africa, we've decimated our frozen meat supplies. With no chicken and only two steaks left, we turned to harvesting the local fruits of the sea. We're pretty sure it is legal to take conch here, but just in case, we're not posting any incriminating photos.

With visions of deli cases filled with pate and French cheese, we are headed to Martinique. The 112 mile trip is too long to do in a day, so we'll overnight it.

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April 25, 2010 - Scenic Tour, Barbados

2010-04-26T13:09:00.007Z

Every Sunday the Barbados Transportation Board runs a scenic bus tour around the island. Since we are cheap, we decided to hop on the bus for a day rather than rent a car or hire a taxi driver.

We knew we'd made the right choice when we tied the dinghy up in the Careenage and noticed the sno cone cart parked next to the bus. Any adventure that begins with a sno cone has to be good.

We bought some cones and grabbed some seats. Next thing we knew a whole Bajan family was filling in the seats around us. They had with them a picnic basket, bag of ice and a bottle in a brown paper bag. Then they leaned out the window and ordered a round of sno cones. As soon as their cones had enough room, they topped them up from their bottle of rum punch. We felt decidedly unprepared with our measly two sno cones and bottles of water.

The bus wound out through the narrow old streets of Bridgetown and up into the interior of the island. We passed lots of sugarcane fields and horse farms. Polo is a very popular sport on the island and a match was just getting underway at the field across from the farm where these guys were grazing under the palms.

We crossed the island on some back roads, which didn't seem nearly wide enough for both the bus and the cars parked along the edges, as the bridge on the main highway had been washed out. Our route took us through some lush gullies filled with tropical foliage, but most of the scenery was agrarian. And then we found ourselves on the east coast at Bathsheba, home of the island's most famous surf spot, Soup Bowl. With light swell and a strong onshore breeze, the break wasn't working, but the scenery was fabulous.

From Bathsheba we made our way south past a pair of botanical gardens and back inland to St. John's Church. The rustic coral stone church that stands at the site now is not the first to grace the property. The first, erected in 1645, was destroyed by fire. The second, rededicated in 1676, was destroyed by hurricane. During the 19th century the parish's luck seems to have changed for the better. The current structure has been standing since the 1830's.

The tombs in the burial yard overlooking the sea are shaded by flowering trees. It really would be a lovely spot to spend eternity.

From St. John's the driver took us south to Silver Sands, a beach on the Southeast corner of the island. We wandered down to the resort perched at the edge of the rocks and sidled up to the bar for some refreshments. Then we rejoined the bus for the trip back to Bridgetown. It was a long day, but a low-key way to see parts of the island that we would not otherwise.

April 23, 2010 - Carlisle Bay Marine Park, Barbados

2010-04-24T13:53:00.003Z

Just a short dinghy ride away from our anchorage is the Carlisle Bay Marine Park. In this spot in 1919 the Berwyn, a French tug boat, was sunk by her own crew. Since then a handful of boats have been intentionally sunk in the park, including one that was seized for smuggling marijuana, and a few wrecks have been relocated to the park from other parts of the island. Old canons and anchors lying on the bottom point the way from wreck to wreck, making it easy to locate all the wrecks.

The older wrecks have a a lot of soft coral growth and large populations of very friendly reef fish. They must be fed by the local dive and day boat tour operators.

We waited until all the day boats had finished their daily runs, then went over for a late afternoon snorkel. Under us were three divers checking out the wrecks from a slightly different vantage point. Their air bubbles made the wrecks look like they were breathing, which was a little spooky at first.

Snorkeling the wrecks, happy hour at the yacht club, and learning that our friends Kate and Deb had booked their flights to come visit us in St. Maarten next month were the highlights of another great day in Barbados.

April 22, 2010 - Carlisle Bay, Barbados

2010-04-23T16:55:00.004Z

Barbados is expensive. Seriously. I don't remember the Caribbean being this pricey. It will be interesting to see as we head north if Barbados is more expensive than the other islands or if we've just gotten really cheap over the past three years.

We're really struggling with how much everything costs here. So when a Dutch guy swam by our boat on Wednesday and suggested that we join the yacht club because it had good cheap food we were definitely interested in checking it out.

Yesterday we stopped in around lunchtime and became temporary members of the Barbados Yacht Club. Standing there in our flipflops and shorts we were a little intimidated by the business lunches taking place in the formal dining room over roast beef and yorkshire pudding, so we headed out to the much more casual grill down by the beach. The Dutch guy had not steered us wrong. The menu prices were 30% of those in town and the food was really good. The difference is enough that when our free membership runs out in a week we may be tempted to become paying members.

And as an added bonus, we were also given the password to the yacht club's wifi service, which we can pick up out in the anchorage. I think the last time we had access to free, unlimited wifi was 2 years ago in New Zealand. I've taken advantage of the club's wifi to upload the photos from our run from Ascension. Scroll down to see them.

After lunch we moseyed up the hill to Barbados Museum to get some culture. The displays were mildly interesting but the old brick garrison buildings that housed the galleries and the surrounding grounds were gorgeous. There were cascading purple blooms everywhere.

Today we aimed a little lower on the culture scale and hopped on a bus up to the Mount Gay Rum Visitor Center to learn more about how rum is produced. Our tour guide was very entertaining as she tottered around on 4 inch spiked heels and talked about the role of the rum shop in Barbados society. After a short film about Mount Gay's history, she led us into the bottling building. The factory produces 10,000 bottles a day, 85% of which are exported.

Interestingly, the rum available on the island is 43% alcohol. But the exported bottles are all 40%. As the bartender leading the tasting at the conclusion of the tour explained, "That is why we are happy and you are miserable."

One thing that is not expensive in Barbados is rum. So we bought enough rum to fill a storage compartment and headed out to catch a bus back to the Carreenage where we had left our dinghy. After an hour of waiting, in a continuously shrinking patch of shade, we finally gave up and started hoofing it back, each of us loaded down with several bottles of rum. Within minutes, a bus sped by us. Isn't that always the way?

By the time we had walked the few kilometers back to town, we were both hot and sweaty. We slid into a booth in an airconditioned food court and panted for a few minutes. Then we split a few guava juices and bottles of water to cool down and rehydrate while sharing a chicken roti for lunch/dinner.

Back at the boat I put on a suit and jumped in the water to cool down. While I was floating around Sten struck up a conversation with the three naked Swedes on the tiny (20ft) boat next to us. We wound up having them over for a few rums. We were shocked to learn that the three of them had sailed to the Caribbean from Sweden on that tiny little boat. Even more impressive, they handsteered all the way. After the adventure they've had these past few months, university is going to be a cakewalk.

Okay, so how many of you assumed that the three naked Swedes were female? Guys, sorry to disappoint you. Ladies, they were pretty good looking, even if they were just this side of jailbait.

April 20, 2010 - Carlisle Bay, Barbados

2010-04-23T14:47:00.001Z

Barbados is just beautiful. We are anchored in 14 feet of clear aqua water over white sand off of a long beach lined with bars. It is so nice to be at anchor. There is a little roll, but it is nothing compared to St. Helena and Ascension. We tried 5 times to anchor further out, but the CQR just dragged across the bottom. Finally we gave up and moved in to the front of the moored boats. It makes us a little nervous to be so close to the shore, but there is less current in here so it is more comfortable.

There are lots of juvenile turtles around. Our anchor disturbs the sea grass and so they treat it like a buffet line. The other day there were 10 snacking along our chain. And they don't seemed to be bothered when it swings over them.

Our first full day here was a Sunday. We spent the morning walking around Bridgetown, the capital of the island, admiring the mix of grand Georgian and chattel house architecture, while we looked in vain for a place to get Sten's hair cut. Most of the shops and business were closed so we headed back to the boat to do some much needed hull cleaning. We were in the water for hours without getting cold. That evening, the opening act of a week-long series of reggae concerts kicked off on the beach in front of us. There was a huge crowd that even the rain couldn't disperse.

Monday found us back in Bridgetown for lunch at a spot that advertised complementary wifi. After a few weeks without internet it is always a relief to check all the accounts and credit cards to make sure that everything is roughly as we expect it to be. Sten found a barber who was able to tame his mop and who also, since he had him in the chair, tried some creative up-sells. After Sten turned down the pirated DVD's, the barber flipped open his phone to a picture of two girls kissing and offered to hook Sten up with them. You've got to admire a guy with entrepreneurial spirit.

Tuesday morning we swam into the beach wearing our hats and shades and reefshirts (we're so not cool) with the intent of walking it. We didn't get very far before we started talking to a Bajan couple who had flown in from England for their daughter's wedding. Unfortunately, they were the only ones here. The rest of the party has been delayed by the volcanic ash grounding European flights.

Next, we met a New Yorker who spends four months a year at his house here. We wound up talking to him for quite a while. But we were so busy answering his questions about piracy and firearms that we completely blew the opportunity to quiz him about his favorite restaurants and the best grocery stores. By the time we wrapped up our conversation, we were well toasted and had to swim back to the boat to find some shade.

We spent the rest of the day swimming and cooking. Sten made BBQ sauce for the chicken we would have for dinner and I made flan. When the galley got too hot we just jumped in to cool off. It is good to be back in the Caribe.

April 17, 2010 - Caribbean Landfall

2010-04-18T13:20:00.005Z

Land Ho!

It has been exactly two months since we departed South Africa. In that short period we've sailed at least 5500 miles (I don't know the exact number; the trip counter on the chart plotter maxes out every 9999 miles, which it did at some point during this passage, and stops counting until one of us manually resets it, which I did when I noticed it, but it could have been on the blink for days). That's a lot of miles in two months. That's almost as many miles as we covered during the seven months it took us to travel from New Zealand to Singapore (via Vanuatu, Australia and Indonesia). It feels like all we do is sail. At one point last week we were tempted to hang a right and keep going all the way to Bermuda or home to Newport - you know, since we're in the groove. That bout of momentary insanity lasted all of two minutes.

During the last four days of the run from Ascension we had a variety of mostly pleasant sailing conditions. For two days we ran downwind under sunny skies with a full main and the jib poled out to windward. Then we sailed right into the middle of a high pressure system that killed the normally reliable northeast trades. So then we spent a day and a half motoring. Unfortunately, most of the time we were running the engine we were pushing a frustratingly persistent counter current, which ran up to 2 knots at times. If we hadn't been motoring, we would have been drifting back towards Brazil. This morning as we closed Barbados we finally shook the current and the wind filled in. We sailed the last few miles in light air cutting through flat seas in the company of whales.

18 days after departing Ascension, we arrived in Carlisle Bay, Barbados this afternoon. The 3000 mile passage from Ascension took us one day less than our 3000 mile Pacific crossing three years ago. That passage remains our longest uninterrupted stretch of time at sea.

For all the good they did us, we might as well have left the lines stored on the outboard handle.

Unlike our Pacific crossing, fishing has been abysmal on this passage with only one small wahoo landed and a small tuna lost at the boat to show for something like 7000 lure miles (we trailed an average of 2.5 lures for 3000 miles). From talking to friends who sailed from South Africa to Brasil, it seems that our experience is not atypical for the South and Equatorial Atlantic. So, we've been hitting the freezer pretty hard. There is nothing like chateaubriand on the grill to break up the monotony of a long passage. Our somewhat sparse (okay, really sparse) South Africa provisioning also provided us with an opportunity to determine that given enough time crackers purchased in Malaysia and India will still go off, no matter how much palm oil they have in them.

Sten has been doing yoeman's work in the galley on this trip. Last week when we were uncomfortably pounding along, beam to the seas, he spent two hours making a hearty sausage and tomato pasta sauce from scratch on a boat that was hurking and jerking. For two weeks, until the big stalk bananas that St. Ledger gave us at Ascension finally ran out, he made banana walnut pancakes for us most mornings. His pancakes are delicious, nutritious and parsimonious - they use 2 fewer eggs than fried eggs or an omelet. Yesterday he took advantage of the fact that we were motoring along in flat calm seas to make waffles, which are always a treat.

When we arrived in Carlisle Bay this afternoon Sten called the Bridgetown Signal Station on 16 and asked if we could anchor and proceed to do our clearance by dinghy. He explained that we were hesitant to bring our yacht into the commercial port with a stiff northwesterly (not the typical northeasterly) blowing. The radio operator said that was unusual and that he would have to ask Customs. He called us back after a few minutes and confirmed that we could come to the port on our dinghy. It is kind of a long dinghy ride from the bay (particularly with a NW wind blowing) but once we were in the port we were glad we had done it. There are big square fender pads every 25 feet or so to keep cruise ships off the cement wall. There is one section of wall without standoffs in a corner near the tug boat where we could have tied up but the substantial chop and wind blowing against the wall would have made things decidedly interesting.

While I was in the the cruise ship passenger terminal visiting the Port Health, Customs and Immigration offices (in that order), Sten was out floating around the harbor in the dinghy as there wasn't a decent place to tie it up (the pilot boat was parked in front of the closest steps). By the time I got back to him, he had been baking in the sun for an hour and all he wanted was to find a spot to have a cold beer. So we took the dinghy up the Careenage, a canal leading into the center of Bridgetown. We found a waterfront cafe and parked ourselves at an outside table. Sten ordered a Banks, the local beer and I had a rum and tonic, which is not a hardship when the local is Mount Gay.

As we sipped our drinks we watched sportfishing boats offload their catch and a guy sitting in the stern of one boat painstakingly filleting one flying fish after another. Flying fish is a local favorite, so we ordered some for dinner. For a fish that smells so strong when it lands in our cockpit or on deck underway, the flesh is surprisingly mild. After the fried stuff I was ready to order dessert, but Sten wanted to have some more "real food" first, so we ordered a round of fish cakes. The texture reminded us of Rhode Island clam cakes, but the flavor was much saltier as they are made with rehydrated salt cod. During the time of slavery and sugar plantations, salt cod was a cheap way for plantation owners to provide their workers with protein and to replenish the salt they lost sweating in the fields. Today it remains a common ingredient in the traditional cuisine of Barbados.

April 13, 2010 - 9 Degrees North

2010-04-13T14:28:00.002Z

When I last wrote we were two degrees south of the Equator. We had lost the wind and begun motoring. For two relaxing days the engine purred away as we drove north looking for the wind.

The first order of business was to fix the jib sheets. So Sten strapped on the bosun's chair and I hauled him up the forestay so he could reattach the now slightly shorter jib sheet. We figured this would be easier than dropping the jib at sea and it worked out well. The next day he changed out the primary Racor filter on the engine and I did some laundry as it was perfect drying weather. It was terribly hot so I took advantage of all the extra power coming off the engine to plug in the blender and make us some smoothies. While trying to make a blended version of teh tarik, I discovered that condensed milk, ice and chai tea makes an excellent beverage. The condensed milk makes for a thicker, creamier frappe than regular milk.

We celebrated our fourth and final Equator crossing of this trip with a swim, a bottle of bubbles and a BBQ. It is usually too windy and rough to grill underway, but since we were motoring along in 3 knots of breeze and a minimal swell it was very manageable.

After 40 hrs of motoring and a few hours after we crossed the equator (at 30.49 West) the wind filled in from the northeast. We didn't believe that we were through the ITCZ yet, so we sailed hard on the wind, pounding north. We planned to keep beating up to 4 North to make certain that we were through the ITCZ before we cracked off onto the rhumb line for Barbados.

At 2 North we pulled down some fresh weather reports and found that the wind was forecast to disappear on us again as we approached Barbados. We realized that adding extra miles onto the trip by continuing north to make sure that we were clear of the ITCZ would add too much time to the trip as we risked losing the wind before we were within reasonable motoring range of Barbados. So at 2 North and 32 West we cracked off the wind and headed straight towards Barbados on a beam reach.

For the next six days we had overcast skies and squally conditions. Even once we were certain we were beyond the reach of the ITCZ the unsettled weather continued. Our days were punctuated by big wind and temperature shifts, coupled with heavy rain, all followed by long lulls that left us wallowing uncomfortably in the swells. And then the wind would fill back in and we'd be bashing along again.

As it turns out, beam reaching in choppy seas is an awfully uncomfortable point of sail. Unlike downwind sailing, where the boat does a gentle roll as waves slide under her stern, when we are taking the seas right on our beam there is no rhythm to the movement of the boat. With the wind and seas on our beam the whole boat rocks from side to side, but the motion is choppy and jerky. It makes doing anything (walking, sleeping, cooking, washing up, writing) difficult. I seem to stub a little toe every time I stand up. We've spent a lot of time this past week laying down and reading. We can feel our legs atrophying. Luckily, Barbados is a relatively flat island.

Beam reaching might not be comfortable, but it is fast. We've been reeling off a steady 170 to 180 miles a day.

Between the squalls and the spray we had to keep the hatches and side ports closed to keep the boat dry down below. Two nights ago we had big wave catch us broadside, filling the floor of the cockpit (for only the third time in three years) with a few inches of water and sending a hail of saltwater down below.

We have been grateful for the cloudy weather, otherwise we would have been steaming away with the boat all closed up. As the sun comes up this morning it looks like we are actually going to have a sunny day today. And with the wind backing, we'll be setting out the pole this morning so that we can start running wing-on-wing again. We have about four more days (and nights) to go before we reach Barbados.

April 4, 2010 - 2 Degrees South

2010-04-04T17:43:00.002Z

So much for our hopes of having 4 or 5 more days of the good stuff before reaching the ITCZ. Last night we were hit with a series of line squalls. After 5 blissful nights where our biggest concern was keeping the sooty terns from using our bimini as a latrine, everything changed.

If we'd known that this was going to be our only catch of the passage we would have savored every bite.

The first line of squalls hit us just at sunset and just as Sten was about to serve dinner (rice and wahoo in a garlicky, capery tomato sauce). Buckets of rain came down and the wind shifted 20 degrees, but the windspeed didn't increase that much. When it was over, the wind died. We picked small bones out of the fish in the dark as we flopped around waiting for the wind to fill back in. We split an apple for dessert and then Sten went to bed.

For the next few hours we had intermittent showers, but no real shifts in wind direction or velocity. The only thing that I found troubling was seeing lightening around us for the first time this passage. Around 0200 I came off watch, and Sten came up. About an hour and a half later, we were hit with an intense squall, accompanied by torrential rain, wind building to 25 knots and a 90 degree wind shift. The boat jibed while Sten was below closing the hatch above my sleeping head. The preventer on the mainsail did its job, but the increased pressure on the backwinded jib caused a jib sheet, which had been slowly (we thought) chafing on the pole for the past 5 days, to part. Sten brought the boat around to get the main back on the proper side, but the jib was flapping around, out of control. I'd managed to sleep through all of this, so he had to come down to wake me up before going on the foredeck to wrestle with the jib. After some work, we got the jib furled and the shredded sheet, which had been trailing behind the boat, back on board. Now we could see about getting ourselves back on course.

In the dark of night, with the moon and stars completely obscured by cloud, far from land, it can be hard to get one's bearings. It took us a few minutes of looking at the compass, the chart plotter, the radar screen and finally the radar overlay of the charts to get ourselves re-orientated and figure out what the weather system was doing and which way we could go to get clear.

We had been running dead downwind for days, oscillating between a compass heading of WNW and NW. We were still running downwind (the new downwind) with the main prevented out, but now we were heading due south, traveling with the squall. Running with a squall is a slow and ineffective way to shake it. We decided to turn upwind into the weather in attempt to get clear of the squall and (as an added bonus) to head towards Barbados instead of away from it. Sten went forward to take off the preventer and then came back to the cockpit to start cranking in the mainsheet for a tack. I started to turn the boat into the wind, but just in the nick of time Sten realized that the running backstay was still on. He eased it and we completed the tack, driving ourselves right into a fresh band of rain. I was still at the wheel, so I kept steering hard on the wind. There was so much rain and wind that I had to cock my baseball hat down at an angle over one eye to keep my contacts from flushing out of my eyes.

Eventually, we drove through that band of rain and into a lull. However, the radar showed several more lines of rain around us. It was going to be a long night, but with just the mainsail up, the boat is easily manageable by one of us. At 0430 I went back to bed. By 0800 we passed through the last of the lines of rain. Unfortunately, we had also sailed out of the wind. So Sten reefed down and centerlined the mainsail (our preferred motorsailing setup). He turned on the engine and pointed us NNW. I woke up to the sound of him reefing, but after my interrupted off watch, it didn't take long for the engine to lull me back to sleep.

It was several (okay, many) more hours before I roused myself out of bed. Sten passed me a cup of reheated coffee and a freshly toasted bagel with cream cheese, and we tried to figure out whether we were in the ITCZ already. The dramatic changes in wind velocity and direction suggest that we are. But we are approximately six degrees south of where the ITCZ is supposed to be, according the daily reports we've been downloading. Unfortunately for us, we could have 3 more days of this nonsense before we break into the Northeasterlies on the other side of equator and the far side of the ITCZ. But we've got plenty of diesel to keep us moving and a fridge full of cold drinks to keep us cool.

April 2, 2010 - East of Brazil

2010-04-02T17:56:00.002Z

Sunrise in the South Atlantic

For the past four days we've had near perfect sailing conditions - sunny days, starry nights, consistent breeze, a favorable current, and comfortable seas. Mata'irea is romping along wing-on-wing under a full mainsail and poled-out jib, chewing up the miles between the South Atlantic and the Caribbean with very little assistance from us. We're hoping to have 4 or 5 more days like this before we enter the dreaded ITCZ.

The Intertropical Convergence Zone or ITCZ is an area near the equator where the southeasterly breezes that are predominant in the Southern Hemisphere collide with the Northern Hemisphere's northeasterlies. When the two wind patterns collide, they produce an area of unstable weather, characterized by violent squalls, followed by periods of calm.

ITCZ is a relatively modern term for an ancient phenomenon. Seamen used to refer to this region of unstable weather and light winds as the doldrums. Before ships had engines they could be trapped in the doldrums for days or weeks, waiting for a breath of wind to fill their sails. Luckily, we have an engine, and plenty of diesel to power through the calms if need be.

The ITCZ moves around constantly. The yachts that left St. Helena a few days before we arrived had the bad luck to have it pass back and forth over them several times as they made their way north. We've been tracking the movements of the ITCZ via daily Met.5 forecasts that we download through Sailmail. It is currently 3/4 of a degree wide (about 45 miles) and has been hovering between 2 and 4 degrees north of the equator. We're hoping that it says put for the next week. It will be a few more days before we cross the equator and then we should have another day or two of smooth sailing before we have to start working for our miles in the ITCZ. Once we pass through it, we'll be squarely in the northeasterlies, making fast miles for Barbados.

March 28, 2010 - Clarence Bay, Ascension Island

2010-03-26T11:52:00.004Z

We were planning to leave Ascension today (Sunday), so on Friday we cleared out with Immigration and the Shipping Office. But last night we had a few folks over for drinks, which turned into a real party. We woke up too exhausted to go anywhere today. So the revised plan is to leave tomorrow. The gribs are predicting a good start for the 3000 mile run to Barbados. Hope they are right!

Blackjack with a bloody nose.

Friday afternoon we hitchhiked out to the Volcano Club at the US Base. We planned to have dinner at the snack bar, which advertises "McDonald's style food," but we got sidetracked by the foosball table and ice cold bottles of Corona (with lime!) for the rock bottom price of $2. Before we knew it, the snack bar had closed and we were making a dinner out of the chicken nuggets that the bar put out during happy hour. Between us and Mike and Doreen on St. Ledger, we made a pretty good dent in that warming tray. We wouldn't be surprised if the sign out in front of the club that says "public welcome" is revised to exclude yachties. While stuffing our faces with chicken tenders, we made plans with some guys we met at the bar for them to come out to the boat the next day.

We caught a lift back to Georgetown and headed back to Long Beach to check out the turtle nesting again. On our third try we finally got to see the girls dropping their eggs into the deep holes they had dug. We were also thrilled to have an opportunity to see half a dozen hatchlings making a frenzied dash for the water.

Around 10pm we wandered back to the pierhead, where the crew of Invubu had just discovered that their dinghy was missing. Two dinghies had already come loose in the past week, one ended up on the beach filled with sand and the other was rescued while attempting an escape from the mooring field. There is too much swell here to land a dinghy on the beach. The pierhead is too small to tie off to (it would make it hard for others to get ashore; besides, rubbing up and down against the concrete for any period of time wouldn't do a dinghy any favors). So the accepted practice is to tie dinghies among the line of boats strung out between two large moorings and then use an old aluminum skiff to pull yourself to shore. However, the surge seems to cause painters (the ropes used to tie dinghies to things) to work themselves loose. We always tie off with two painters, and twice now we've come back to find that one has worked loose, regardless of which knots we use. One of the cruisers who had their dinghy come untied last week has been cruising for 30 years and this is the first time his dinghy has ever come untied. It is just a bad situation. If the mooring rope had more loops in it to tie off to, that would help matters a lot. But it doesn't. One of the boats here came up with the idea of using the cable and lock they usually reserve for locking up in dodgy harbors to secure their dinghy to the mooring cable. That seems the safest approach.

Back at the pier, we quickly distributed Invubu's crew among our and St. Ledger's dinghies to take them out to their boat. Then Sten and I borrowed a spotlight from Invubu and headed out downwind, way out beyond the outer reef marker, to look for the runaway dinghy. We maintained radio contact with Jenny on Invubu. We had her try to pick up a radar return from our dinghy, figuring if she could see us, maybe she could pick up on their larger (and brand new) dinghy, but no luck. Meanwhile, Rolf from Invubu and Mike from St. Ledger checked the shore. The moon was nearly full, and the sea was pretty calm, so the conditions were near perfect for a nighttime foray. But both search parties came up short.

Mahi caught on the fly rod.

The next morning, while wandering through the museum and old fort, we ran into David and Candy off of Endeavor. They told us that shortly after Invubu raised anchor and headed for Brazil, they found their dinghy. What a lucky break! It was only four and a half miles from the pierhead, dead downwind. After ten hours of drifting, it had traveled a surprisingly short distance.

Later that afternoon, David and Candy came over to do a media swap, which is just like a bookswap but any form of entertainment is fair trade. We were thrilled to exchange the books, magazines and DVD's that we'd already read, perused, and watched. With a long passage ahead, fresh entertainment material is a hot commodity. Candy and David are also headed towards Barbados and eventually on up to New England. We're looking forward to getting together with them again up north.

Amberjack (we think) - delicious eating

Gordon and Michael, our guests from the base, arrived at 4pm bearing gifts. We were completely overwhelmed by their gifts of frozen veggies (fresh aren't available in the stores here), fresh fruit (from the dining hall), a giant cooler of ice, ice cream and girl scout cookies (thin mints!). We knew our freezer would not be able to keep the ice cream frozen, so we called up Endeavor and St. Ledger and invited them over for some blender drinks. It turned into one hell of a party. As Gordon said, "I never knew I could make so many friends with a quart of ice cream."

Everybody contributed something to keeping the blender going. First there were the mudslides, which always remind me of Block Island. When the coffee liquor ran out, ice cream and Mandarine Napoleon made a pretty convincing round of creamsicles. When the ice cream ran out, Mike hustled back to St. Ledger and grabbed a bottle of their homemade spiced rum from Madagascar and some cans of rambutans and coconut milk, which all went into the blender and came out as a fine concoction that reminded me of the wonderful homemade ice cream at the Galle Fort Hotel in Sri Lanka. And then David scooted over to Endeavor and picked up some peach puree and Argentinian rum, to which I added some orgeat from Tahiti, a pile of ice and let it rip. Delicious. We ended the night with a round of some blended rum punch with a healthy grating of nutmeg on top.

It is inevitable that over the course of such an evening a few things will fall overboard. As long as they aren't my guests, I don't worry too much. This morning David came over with his scuba gear to rescue one of our plastic cups from Target (rhymes with orgeat) from the bottom. In the search he found some old crockery and a brass (or maybe copper) drinking vessel. It would be very cool to know what ship that came off of. Portuguese? Dutch? The whole scavenger hunt aspect of diving really appeals to my inner flea-marketer. Apart from that, we were glad to hear that our anchor was clear of the myriad of old ships anchors and chain that have been left on the bottom here over the years. Afterall, we have a long way to go and need to get a move on.

March 25, 2010 - Long Beach, Ascension Island

2010-03-26T10:43:00.007Z

Ascension Island is the second largest green turtle nesting site in the Atlantic. Every year, from November through May, some 4,000 green turtles arrive at Ascension's bays and beaches to mate and nest.

Every three or four years a mature female Atlantic green turtle makes the 2000km journey to Ascension. She swims at a rate of up to 50km a day for 5-6 weeks to get here, a small spec of an island in the middle of the vast ocean that offers her no foraging opportunities. But these massive creatures, which can weigh up to 300kg and measure 1.5m long, store up enough fat to make the long ocean voyage out and back to the coasts of Brazil and West Africa.

Shortly after she arrives at Ascension, a female green turtle is "covered" (what a terrific euphemism) by 4 or 5 different males. These "coverings" can last for several hours and are very splashy affairs. Then she finds a ledge, about 20 meters deep, to wedge herself. For a month she hangs out at that ledge, only surfacing once an hour to breathe.

After a month she is ready to begin laying eggs. At nightfall she swims ashore at the beach where she was hatched, over 25 years ago. As graceful as turtles are in the water, they are equally ungainly on land. It takes her a while to get up the steep beach and high above the tideline. Once she finds a spot she likes, she begins digging, using her front and rear flippers to fling sand out of her way. This is exhausting work for her. She pauses regularly to take a deep breath, the difficulty of her task clearly apparent. In the dark of night, the only sounds on the beach are the sounds of turtles dragging themselves up the beach, flinging sand, and the loud "pshhh" of their breathing.

Then she digs a big hole, up to a meter deep, in which to deposit her eggs. Once she has laid 100 to 120 eggs, she pats the sand down firmly, then begins flinging tons of sand around to disguise her nesting site. Once she has finished, as the sun is rising she ponderously makes her way back to the ocean. As she does, another turtle, which had been digging a nest next to hers, begins to disguise its nest, and in the process dislodges many of the eggs she painstakingly laid and buried. But no matter, in two weeks she'll be back again to lay another clutch of eggs.

As the dawn breaks, the beach is revealed to be a continuous field of craters where turtles have nested and attempted to disguise their nests. Long lines of turtle tracks, like tank tracks, lead to and from the surf. In amongst the deeper tracks, small indents, so shallow they might have been made by raindrops, depict where hatchlings have made a dash to the sea.

Baby turtles dig their way out of their nests in the cool of night. Once clear, they make a mad dash for the water. As the sky lightens, frigatebirds circle overhead, hoping to spot any stragglers. This morning there is one, a tiny little guy scurrying across the sand towards the water as fast as his flippers will carry him.

The birds swoop and dive, but a group of people surrounds him, protecting him until he can reach the water. Once he is in the sea he will face many more predators, but somehow he knows to make for deeper water where there are fewer creatures hunting him. If he survives, in about 25 years he will make the return journey to Ascension to participate in this ancient cycle of life.

March 24, 2010 - English Bay, Ascension Island

2010-03-26T10:29:00.006Z

The wind has gone light and so we decided to take the opportunity to do some long range exploring in the dinghy. On our way to English Bay the outboard suddenly went to high revs and we dropped off a plane. After three plus years of cruising and heavy dinghy usage, we had spun the rubber splines out of the propeller.

We were able to idle back to the boat as the wind was light and the sea smooth, under different circumstances, things may have been more interesting. We carry two outboards for exactly such an occasion but the standby outboard is currently out of commission due to a lower unit oil leak. However the two propellers are identical except for pitch. So after forty five minutes Sten had swapped out the propellers and we were once again on our way, this time going a little slower due to the effectively smaller propeller and the need not to over-speed our primary outboard.

On the way to English Bay we explored some lava tunnels and checked out some nesting yellow footed boobies and sooty terns. Once there, we had a picnic lunch and did some snorkeling. Sten wandered off to dive on a wreck, while I hung close to shore to watch an octopus harass some grouper - or was it the other way around?

March 19, 2010 - Ascension Island

2010-03-22T11:24:00.022Z

After 5 days and 4 hours of very pleasant downwind sailing we arrived at Ascension Island on Wednesday afternoon. Rounding Southeast Head and passing Boatswain Bird Island, a major breeding site for seabirds in the Atlantic, we were struck by the stark landscape of Ascension. Our eyes swept up brown, black and gray craggy cliffs, devoid of vegetation, to the lush green mountain perched above. It looked like a different island had been plunked on top of the first.

Our attention was diverted from the stunning landscape by the dozens of Ascension Frigatebirds that were diving on the array of fishing lures we were trailing. After one of the frigates managed to pluck a pink squid lure out of the water we decided to pull them all in to keep from injuring the birds and to avoid losing any more lures.

Rounding North East Point we saw our first of the many antennas, wind farms, domes and military installations that dot the island. Ascension belongs to the British and was first garrisoned in 1815, during the time of Napoleon's exile on St. Helena. 100 years later, the first radio was installed on the island, commencing its role as a communication's hub. The United States built an airstrip here during World War II. At one point during the conflict there were 4,000 service personnel on the island. After the war the population dropped back to 170 who supported the Cable & Wireless installation. During the Cold War the US Air Force returned, followed shortly thereafter by the British Broadcasting Company and NASA. During the Falklands War the British armed services were a bit miffed (not to mention embarrassed) when the Americans told them they couldn't use the airstrip at the US base to refuel (Thatcher eventually convinced Reagan to authorize the joint use of the airstrip at the US base). Ever since, the Royal Air Force has maintained a military presence on the island, just to make sure the Americans didn't get any further ideas about keeping the Brits from utilizing this outpost in the South Atlantic in defense of the Empire (Wideawake Field is now run as a joint facility of the USAF and the RAF). In 1990 NASA closed down its tracking station but the European Space Agency opened one on the other side of the island. Now there are approximately 800 people, a mix of Americans, Europeans and Saints, stationed on the island, which now seems to bristle with antennas.

From North East Point to Porpoise Point we were accompanied by a small pod of the biggest dolphins we've ever seen. We weren't moving all that fast, so there wasn't much of a bow wake for them to ride. Instead, they kept rubbing their backs and bellies on our bow.

Rounding North Point we passed English Bay, a golden beach framed by black volcanic rock and one of the only two safe swimming beaches on the island. From English Bay to Pyramid Point, the coastline was pockmarked with deep lava tunnels. Inland we could see volcanic craters, red mountains, and fields of black ash, sporadically dotted with round green patches, outlined in yellow, which we would find out were trees surrounded by their fallen leaves. We could only imagine how otherworldly this place must look from the vantage point of an airplane. From sea level it looked like we'd arrived at another planet.

Arriving in Clarence Bay, the only anchorage on the island, just before sunset, we carefully made our way around the floating pipeline in the middle of the bay and anchored in 30 feet of water. We were relieved to have arrived during daylight as the pipeline is not lit at night. Just after we dropped anchor, Sten caught a rock cod for our dinner off of the back of the boat. Actually, he had to catch two. The first managed to fling itself off of the fish table while Sten was in the midst of gutting it. So he put out his line and picked up another one.

Clarence Bay from Cross Hill. The floating pipeline is just visible to the right of the three sailboats.

Clarence Bay is so alive with sea life. Every time we throw kitchen scraps in the water a shoal of black trigger-fish dashes out from under the boat to scoop them up. They churn up the water so much as they fight over the scraps that they look like piranhas. It makes me almost afraid to put my toes in.

Ascension Island is a major breeding ground for green turtles. Each year thousands of turtles make the long swim from Brazil to mate and lay their eggs. The long golden beach that rims Clarence Bay is one of their prime nesting sites. At all hours of the day and night we can hear them surfacing around the boat to breathe. They pop their heads out of the water and make a loud pshhh sound as they inhale. The morning after we arrived we sat on deck with our morning coffee watching a pair of turtles mate. We then ate breakfast and started on our morning chores, all the while checking to see if they were still at it. They were.

When we arrived Wednesday evening we contacted Ascension Radio on VHF 16. It turns out that the shore station here is uplinked to St. Helena. So we were entertained to find ourselves reporting our arrival at Ascension to a radio operator in St. Helena, 701 miles away. The radio operator in St. Helena advised us to stay aboard until the Ascension Harbor Master came out to see us. Sometime after lunch on Thursday (hey, we were busy watching the turtles) we called back to ask if it was okay if we went ashore to find someone to check-in with. Shortly after that, the shipping office contacted us on VHF 08 and told us to come see them. After paying 15 pounds for "light fees" at the shipping office and 11 pounds per person and filling out a visa application at the immigration desk at the police station we were legal.

The pierhead on a calm day. To get ashore, we tied off our dinghy among the other small boats attached to the big mooring, then climbed onto small skiff, which is tied to the ladder, and pulled ourselves to the pier. When the swell is running, climbing on and off is a real challenge.

After we finished the formalities we wandered around town for 12 minutes. It isn't a big town. And Thursdays happen to be the day everything shuts down early, making this sparsely populated community feel like it has been abandoned.

It is hot here. We haven't been back in the tropics for very long and 90F and 60% humidity still feels oppressive. There are very few trees in Georgetown and very little shade to be had. By mid-day the black lava stone surfacing the streets and dark red-brown gravel covering the square had absorbed the full brunt of the day's heat and was busy radiating it back at us. So we found our way to the Saint's Club for a cold drink.

There is so little shade on this volcanic island that boat hulls were erected to provide some.

In the old stone building, which used to be a barrack, we found two seats at the bar and ordered some sodas. Sten just about swooned with pleasure when the bartender offered him ice for his glass. Most of the people who work on the island are originally from St. Helena. Before the Saints were granted full British passports a few years ago, Ascension was one of the few places they could come to make a living. Many Saints come to Ascension to work for 30 years to earn enough to buy some land and build a house back on St. Helena. The bartender at the club was almost done with her house and was getting ready to move back home.

On Friday morning we picked up a rental car from the only hotel on the island (we've since learned that the only filling station on the island has better rental rates) and set off to tour the island. We didn't have any plans, but we had a map, a picnic lunch, a cooler full of water and 11 liters of gas in the tank, which as it turns out, is all one needs to drive down every single road on this small island.

The Devil's Riding Circle with a USAF windfarm in the background

Shortly after passing the US Air Force Base, we pulled off at a sign marking the trailhead for the hike to the Devil's Riding Circle. Climbing the lip of the volcano we were walking on a surface surface of broken light-colored volcanic rock called "trachyte." The broken shards of rock under our feet clacked against each other, making it sound like we were walking on broken pottery. There were no trees or shade to be found in this hot, arid region. The only vegetation were prickly pear cactus (the magenta fruit of which, I couldn't help but sample, a stupid move for which I'm still paying in the form of several spines stuck in my fingers) and small, incongruous pink flowers.

As we climbed we passed many piles of bleached out bones and one sheep carcass buzzing with flies. It reminded me of one of the books I read in junior high, which I believe was called Deathwatch. Standing on the rim of the volcano, we could look down into the Devil's Riding Circle, so named because the outer ring of the crater is a lighter color than the inner areas, as though horses had been running around it, kicking up dust. We scrambled down into the crater and walked around a bit, but felt really uncomfortable in such an inhospitable climate, so we returned the way we had come.

In search of cooler climes, we continued up the road that runs along the backside of Green Mountain, which terminates at the now defunct NASA Tracking Station at Devil's Ashpit. We checked out the ashpit itself, then drove on back down the mountain. We made a run out to the ESA tracking station on the east coast before the heat got to be too much and we decided to head back up the mountain to find a cooler place to have lunch.

At the top of the mountain we found some picnic tables tucked among a garden. Above us hung a bunch of green bananas. As it has been a month since we left South Africa, our fresh food stores are running rather low. I topped up with whatever I could find on St. Helena, but supplies are more limited here. It will be at least a month before we reach the Caribbean. At this point, I'm not above stealing a bunch of bananas, but alas, our machete was back at the boat. Next time.

After lunch we walked Elliot's Pass, a flat trail that winds around Green Mountain and through several tunnels (a few of which are long, dark and creepy). The pass was built in 1840 to provide a series of lookout points for the British marines responsible for patrolling the South Atlantic for slave trading ships and pirates. Several small lookout caves still line the path, but much of the view has been obscured by misty clouds and lush vegetation as the island's climate has changed. Along the edge of the path groves of flowering ginger, wild raspberries and something wonderful smelling that looks like hydrangea, with large dark green leaves and clusters of fragrant blossoms (which I've since learned is called "glory bower," aka Lady Nugent's Rose).

While up the mountain we met three US Air Force pilots, Chip, Mike and Kaitlin who had flown out to the island from Westover Field in Massachusetts. Between Sten and Mike there was an awful lot of Red Socks paraphernalia loitering on the side of a mountain in the South Atlantic. Chip invited us to join them and the rest of their 12 person crew for a bbq that evening at the US Base. We immediately accepted. We got a bit muddy on our second hike, so had to find a beach to clean up at before we felt presentable enough to join anyone for a meal. So we headed over to English Bay where we cleaned off the worst of the dirt. The beach was gorgeous. We made plans to return in the dinghy to do some snorkeling.

On the way back to the US Base, we swung back over to the RAF facility on Traveler's Hill to pick up some beer and wine to contribute to the festivities. The NAAFI shop at Traveler's Hill is open to the general public, but the PX at the US Base is not. So we showed up with Castle and Guinness to a party flowing with Busch and Miller Lite.

We had such a lot of fun with the crew. Sten immediately pitched in with Chip in the kitchen, steaking two big tuna loins. Meanwhile, I did my best to encourage everyone to quit their jobs and go sailing. After dinner half a dozen of us headed down to the beach to watch the sea turtles lay eggs. Even though we were trying to avoid disturbing them, we were. So we decided to leave them in peace.

I'd love to know what the cancer rate is here.

March 16, 2010 - Mid-Atlantic Ridge

2010-03-17T13:46:00.000Z

These past four days of sailing north from St. Helena towards Ascension have been some of the most pleasant of our entire trip. The weather is fine. The sun is shining. White puffy clouds skit across a bright blue sky. The sea is gentle. And most of the time we have enough wind to keep us moving comfortably along. If we start rolling too much, we just head Mata'irea up enough to bring the wind forward and keep the sails full. The days are beautiful. And the nights serene.

It is easy to become complacent in conditions like these. The other night Sten came on watch at 2:30am and found me napping in the salon. Which would have been fine, except I'd been asleep for three hours. The following afternoon I woke up after a nap to discover Sten snoring away on the couch. Which would have been fine, except he was supposed to be on watch, and those were not the sounds of a man in the midst of a catnap.

There was so little shipping traffic on the run from South Africa to St. Helena that we stopped worrying about it. And with the boat sailing herself under stable weather conditions, there isn't a lot that needs watching. But these past few days we've seen a few blips on the radar and last night we spotted the glow a ship's lights on the horizon, so we're trying to do a better job of keeping our eyes open.

The only downside of this passage is that we have not been able to catch any fish. Actually, we caught two, but at 6 and 8 inches respectively Sten let these Mahi-Mahi live to fight another day. And our first day out, about 12 miles off of St. Helena, we watched as a marlin batted at our lure four times, its long body a clearly visible dark mass darting back and forth across our sparkling white wake.

This morning we sailed over a portion of the Mid Atlantic Ridge that rises up from the depths of the ocean to within 100ft of the water's surface. It should have been a fish playground, but we didn't even get a strike. Then this afternoon a huge fish hooked up on the marlin lure, which is rigged on our heaviest rod and reel. This exact same set up stopped a large marlin way back in Vanuatu, a fish Sten eventually released after fighting it for ages. After that marathon event we went to much smaller hooks to hopefully allow oversized fish to straighten out the hooks rather than lose the lure to a monster. Until today, that strategy had worked for us.

Sten heard the reel go off when the fish hooked up. He grabbed the rod and cranked the drag of the big reel to max to either turn the fish or to get the hooks to straighten but the line just kept ripping off the reel at an alarming rate. He turned to me as I came up the companionway with the camera and said, "a little help please." I looked up at the mainsail prevented out to leeward, the jib poled out to windward, and the staysail rigged to leeward, and with an eyebrow arched at the back of his head, I responded that there wasn't a whole lot I could do to slow this freight train down. And then the line parted. We lost the fish and the marlin lure just before the bottom of the spool became visible. We'll miss that lure. It has caught us a lot of big fish.

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March 12, 2010 - St. Helena

2010-03-15T06:46:00.001Z

This afternoon we cleared out of St. Helena and departed for Ascension Island. We are expecting to have an easy run and hope to be there in five days.

St. Helena has been a good, if pricey, place for us to wait for some wind for the 700 mile run to Ascension. Last week, a friend of ours sailed into the anchorage, snapped a few pictures, and kept going. His budget is really tight and after hearing from us what things cost on the island, he decided not to stop despite having been on passage for 18 days from Cape Town.

After three months of living in South Africa, where the dollar goes a long, long, long way, and the good life can be had for short, short money, it was a shock to our system to switch to the pound. When we exchanged money last week the rate was $1.62 USD to the St. Helena Pound (not the pound sterling mind you, though the two are exchanged at par value).

It cost us 55 pounds (28 pounds to immigration for a 10 day visa for each of us and 27 pounds to the Harbor Master for the boat), or a total of $90 to clear in here. That's one of the more expensive clearances we've done. If we hadn't had some proof of health insurance (our boat insurance provides us with some limited coverage), it would have cost us an additional few pounds per day to stay here. In addition, because there is no place to land a dinghy, we spent 20 pounds on the harbor taxi during our stay here.

One of our big expenses was internet access. Cable and Wireless has a monopoly on communications to and from the island. They provide satellite based broadband internet, but at a steep price. In St. Helena internet access costs 6 pounds an hour, or almost $10 an hour. Having fast wifi in the anchorage was too big of a temptation for us to resist. We would log on, open up a few pages, then quickly log off to read them. Even so, I'm actually too embarrassed to publicize much money we spent on internet here. But we did get our taxes filed and enjoyed reading the NYTimes over our morning coffee each day.

Other than veggies, fish and meat, we haven't done any provisioning here. Actually, despite the relatively cheap food prices, we didn't do all that much provisioning in South Africa either (other than replenishing our Diet Coke, wine and junk food supplies). We are still eating off of our dry goods and canned goods from our pre-Chagos, Malaysian/Thai provisioning, Shady Lady's 10 gallon bucket of flour, and the cases of tinned veggies we inherited from Muneera in the Seychelles. Before we left Cape Town Sten kept asking me if I was sure we didn't need to buy "___________" (insert whatever here) and I kept insisting that we had enough on board. So I was pretty embarrassed to find that we were running low on dish soap on the run here. And then a few days ago I realized that we only had two tins of diced tomatoes left and that we are completely out of Thai curry paste. I have a feeling we're going to be eating some pretty creative dishes on the run from Ascension to Barbados. The prices for everything in St. Helena (except fresh, locally-caught seafood) are roughly a third higher than in South Africa, so we've only been topping up our fresh stores here. And, um, buying two bottles of dish soap.

Where did the rest of our St. Helena Pounds go? The island tour that we did with Kieth was 15 pounds a person. We sent out 20kilos of laundry to Annie's Laundry at a cost of 20pounds. And we managed to eat at most of the dining spots in Jamestown - The Consulate Hotel, Ann's Place, Sally's Sandwich Bar, The Orange Tree, and the Coffee Shop, but none of those meals cost more than a few pounds. It must have been all those milkshakes from Sally's DVD Shop.

We didn't have to refuel, but other yachts who did found it cheaper and easier to buy diesel from Kieth, one of the water taxi drivers, than at the pump. He is able to procure it at the commercial rate of 170 pounds for 200 liters. He charges a 5 pound delivery fee for delivering it to your yacht and pumping it directly into your tanks. The fuel is reported to be very clean.

Continuing our tradition of traveling around the world, one grocery store at a time, here is a wrap up of the provisioning available in Jamestown:

Star, which stocks Spar (a South African grocery chain) products, carries some local veggies, but also carries imported fruit and veg. There is also a branch of Star on Ascension Island and we can only assume that is why we found some US brands like Ocean Spray and Charleston Chew (the world's greatest candy bar; seriously, try them frozen) at the Star on St. Helena. Star has its own bakery and we found the sandwich bread loaves at Star to be better than those at the Tea Shop and Bakery next door to Star.

The Tea Shop and Bakery, which is just up the hill from Star, produces several different kinds of loaves, rolls, baked goods and pizza bases. We liked the baguettes and other free-form loaves, but the sandwich loaves were really tough - almost as though they had been kneaded too long and the gluttens had been over stimulated. Sten, who is not a dainty guy, actually cut the crusts off of his sandwiches made from this bread. So come here for rolls and such, but go to Star for sandwich loaves.

Thorpes Market, which stocks Tesco (an international grocery chain) products, is the place to be on Thursday mornings for the best selection of local veggies. Be there by 8:45 or risk missing out. Actually, second only to getting to pet Jonathan the Tortoise, the Thursday morning mele at Thorpes was my favorite St. Helena experience. Saints and yachties start lining up out front of the grocery. Once the doors open, people calmly file inside, pick up a market basket, and head through the aisles to the courtyard behind the store. Everyone gathers in a ring around the edge of the courtyard, and with typical British patience, waits for crates of local produce to be unloaded, weighed and lined up in the center of the courtyard. Nobody (except one clueless yachty who quickly got told what for by an older Saint; and no, it wasn't me) touches a thing in the crates until the last one has been unloaded from the van parked out front. Both times I was there for it I missed the signal to begin. But the Saints know. All at once they dive into the crates with abandon equal to the restraint they showed before (the only time I've ever seen anything like it was the Running of the Brides at Filene's Basement). Broccoli and cauliflower go first. I've never cooked with either, but figured if everyone else was taking some, I should too. The only time I saw things get contentious was when the potatoes arrived. The Saints surged forward to get their hands on a bag (afterwards I learned that none had arrived on the RMS and that the next shipment wasn't due until late April, so there is currently a shortage of potatoes on the island). I wouldn't have had a chance at a spud if one of the shop girls hadn't passed me a torn bag with little new potatoes falling out of it. My second Thursday at Thorpes, I just stood back to watch the show for a few minutes before diving in.

Across the street from Thorpes, is Tinkers, which stocks frozen foods, imported eggs, cheese and butter, and local sausage.

The Growers Market, which is housed in a prefabricated cast-iron building shipped out to the island in 1865, has local veggies available every day, though the selection was more limited than what was available at Thorpes on Thursdays. Local eggs can be pre-ordered from the Growers Market. Don't count on them having any available otherwise.

Also in the same building as the Growers Market is the local fish shop. We found the locally caught wahoo and yellowfin to be very affordable. The local butcher is also located in the Growers Market building. It is open on Thursday mornings and Friday mornings. Best to get there by 8 on Thursdays and 9 on Fridays to be sure to get a chance at any nice cuts. We wound up buying stew meat with the bone in, which we turned into an incredibly rich beef stew, chock full of local carrots and potatoes.

There is another grocery up the hill from Thorpes, tucked down the next alley, that carries a slightly different selection of goods than the other stores. At this unnamed store (we're sure it has one, but without any sign outside, we've no idea what it is) Sten stooped to buying outdated beer. At half the price of the "fresh" beer, he couldn't turn it down. We've taken the Old Food Movement to a whole new level here folks.

Coffee has been grown on St. Helena since the 1730's. It has always been grown in small quantities, but in recent years production has fallen off steeply. In the few years since the Saints were re-awarded full British passports in 2002, the population of the island has been in freefall. Nearly half the island's citizens have moved overseas where they believe they have better prospects for employment and promotion than on the island. As a result, many of the coffee plantations on the island can no longer find people to pick beans. The St. Helena Coffee Shop, which is located on the harborside of the archway leading into town, is the only place we found to purchase shade grown, organic coffee beans that are selected and roasted on St. Helena. A 125g bag is almost as expensive as an hour of internet, but then the rarest coffee in the world should demand a premium, especially when it is this good. The Coffee Shop also does tasty pressed sandwiches and wraps and a decadent coffee frappe.

March 11, 2010 - Jamestown, St. Helena

2010-03-11T17:57:00.004Z

Sten demonstrating how to clean an oil stained dinghy without soiling the mothership

Today marked a huge milestone for us. After two years and many thousands of miles, we drank the very last bottle of the 11 cases of Hardys that we bought at the Warehouse in New Zealand. At the time, with the US Dollar in the crapper and the Kiwi Dollar at an all time high, I was trying to economize. But months of quaffing the same six varieties completely put me off of these drinkable, but entirely predictable wines. I was over them. I began to suspect that the different varietals were actually all the same base with artificial flavors added - like liquid smoke in fast food BBQ or "butter" in movie theater popcorn. But each time I reached for a libation, there they were.

Somewhere in Indo I realized that, unless I took drastic measures, I would never see the end of the Hardys. So after loading up with a variety of cheap, but different(!) wine in Langkawi, Malaysia, I traded the remaining (or so I thought) bottles of Hardy's for flour and butter last summer in Chagos. But earlier this week, while reorganizing our South African wine purchases, I came across one lonesome bottle of Hardy's Sparkling (note the lack of vintage, lack of varietal, and refreshing lack of pretense). And you know, absence really does make the heart grow fonder.

Sipping the last of the Hardys this evening over some Thai Green Curry, we remembered all (okay, that would be impossible . . . let's try many) of the other delicious meals that had been accompanied by similar bottles from this cheap and cheerful label. We downed the Cabernet with local beef in Vanuatu. We sipped the Sauvignon Blanc with many a freshly caught wahoo and mahi mahi in the Pacific. The Rieselings accompanied curries in Southeast Asia. And the Sparkling made a mean Champagne Cocktail in Chagos with the addition of a few dashes of bitters. Not a bad lot of memories for $3.40 a bottle.

March 9, 2010 - St. Helena

2010-03-10T09:38:00.012Z

After a week in St. Helena it was past time for us to get beyond the arid volcanic valley of Jamestown and explore the interior of the island. With the crews from two other yachts we piled into a truck for a tour of the island. Unfortunately, Mother Nature, whose disposition has been pleasant and sunny for the duration of our stay here, saw fit to change her mood today.

Luckily, Sten and the two Scots in the back of the pickup truck found humor in the situation.

St. Helena's primary claim to historical fame is its role as Napoleon's jailer after his escape from Elba and defeat at Waterloo. St. Helena's main tourist attractions are his tomb and the homes he lived in during the six years he spent imprisoned on the island.

The first stop on our tour was Napoleon's tomb, which is nestled in a lush, green garden. Because the English (who referred to Napoleon as "General") and the French (who referred to him as "Emperor") could not agree on an inscription, the tomb is unmarked. Which is kind of poetic, as his bones have long since been relocated to France. Today the garden contains a grove of banana trees, a couple of majestic Australian pines and a fence surrounding a blank tablet marking an empty grave, over which the French flag hangs limply in the humid air.

As the rain began to fall, we arrived at Longwood House, the damp home in which Napoleon resided at the time of his death. During the long, boring years of his exile on the island, the diminutive emperor apparently spent much of his time laying on a chaise, reading, or soaking in a tub, reading. In his more active moments, he channeled his energies into designing and constructing classical gardens around Longwood House. Unfortunately, by the time we were finished with the house tour, the rain was coming down in earnest, and so nobody (else) was much interested in wandering around the gardens.

Napoleon's valet resorted to draping several of the rooms at Longwood with yards and yards of fabric to hide the mildew growing on the damp walls.

After we departed Longwood we drove out to check out the meteorological station and the site of the "paused" airport project, though we couldn't make out the latter in the heavy mist. Then we crossed the green, central highlands of the island to look down into Sandy Bay and have a squiz at the interesting geological formations known as Lot and Lot's Wife. The road down to the bay is so steep that we couldn't risk going down very far on a wet day, as we might not get back up again. And so we continued along to Plantation House, the home of the island's governor, and (much more interestingly) these guys:

Giant Tortoises apparently like to have their neck's scratched - this one actually came (slowly) when I called to get his rub down.

Stroking the chin of the island's oldest inhabitant, and one of the world's oldest living animals - Jonathan is believed to be between 175 and 200 years old - was such a cool experience. It made my day.

A replica of a birdcage that once stood in Napoleon's Gardens. The doors to the old cage were never closed. "One prisoner in this house is enough," said Napoleon.

March 7, 2010 - James Bay, St. Helena

2010-03-05T09:05:00.005Z

We've spent much of this week working on projects on the boat, something we haven't done all that much of the past few months. I've been doing our taxes, laundry, and slowly plugging away at re-stitching the UV cover on the jib, which came loose on the run up to St. Helena from Cape Town. Meanwhile, Sten has done about a hundred other things. He's changed the oil in the generator, rebuilt the generator raw water pump, topped up the transmission fluid on the main engine, and topped up the fuel tanks from the jerry cans. He has also spent some time working on the dinghy outboard, to get it back in top form after 4 months of sitting on the back rail.

He also did a bit of sailwork on the mainsail, putting on some additional spreader patches and adjusting a batten. He's inspected our standing and running rigging to make sure there are no issues we should address before setting off on our next leg. As part of his inspection, I've hauled him up and down the mast twice (with the assistance of the windlass). The first time he was at the top of the mast he removed the anchor light, which had become very dim as one LED after another burned out. We didn't have the exact bulb we needed to replace it, so he jerry-rigged something that should get us back to the Caribbean.

Lastly, but certainly not least, he has spent quite a bit of time working on our grill - clearly an essential piece of equipment! He came up with a very creative, and somewhat horrifying, solution to a faulty regulator control. If we go up in a ball of flame cooking up a ribeye one night, this (and the two 20lb bottles of propane we carry) will likely be the culprit.

Pretty sure this violates the warranty.

We haven't been entirely boat-bound this week. We try to get ashore at least once a day to stretch our legs. With no protected place to leave the dinghy, we are dependent upon the local ferry service to run us in to the dock and back again. The service is only 1.20 Pounds per person round trip before 7pm. But after 7, the price jumps to 10 Pounds, which puts quite a damper on having dinner out or drinks ashore. While the RMS St. Helena was in port the crew boat ran until Midnight each night and they were happy to bring us back out to the yachts. So we took advantage of that and had a night on the town. After drinks at the hotel bar, which was a great place to meet people, we had dinner at Ann's Place, a casual restaurant that is the yachty hangout. It was fun flipping through her guest books and seeing what friends who have passed this way had to say. And the beef curry wasn't bad either!

Jamestown is a compact little town, studded with Georgian homes and businesses. The streets run up the volcanic valley at a gentle incline. The first time we walked up to the end of Main Street, every other person we passed called out "You alright?" I was thinking "Jesus, do we look that out of shape?" And then it dawned on me that "You alright?" is the local greeting. And unlike "How are you," which can be answered with a blunt "Fine," "You alright" invites conversation. It could only be the common greeting in a society where people still have time to stop and chat. And it perfectly suits an island where there are no ATMs, cellphones or airports.

A big bird in Castle Gardens, in front of Ann's Place

February 28, 2010 - Jamestown, St. Helena

2010-03-01T16:18:00.010Z

Even the Dutch Baby was happy to be in St. Helena this morning

We couldn't have timed our arrival at this rock in the middle of the South Atlantic any better if we'd planned it. A few hours before we arrived the wind died. We had to motor for the last few hours, but that's a far sight better than the yachts that arrived last week who all had to run their engines for three of four days to get here. The latest weather reports show that there isn't going to be any wind until later this week. So unless we want to burn a lot of fuel to get to Ascension, we'll be here for a few days at least. Good thing we like it here.

This daunting pier is the only way to get on or off St. Helena

The welcome we have received here in St. Helena is the warmest we've experienced anywhere in the world. Within a few minutes of stepping ashore (off a ferry boat, onto a wet quay, grabbing onto a rope hanging from a bar overhead to steady ourselves), we met a South African family stationed on this remote outpost of the British Empire on a two year work contract. After talking for a few minutes, they invited us back to their home. Driving up into the hills we were amazed to watch the barren, arid landscape of the coast give way to a lush, green semi-tropical interior, aptly described as a bronze ring with a emerald center. Over a cup of locally grown coffee we learned a little bit about what it is like to live on a isolated island.

The RMS St. Helena, the local fishing fleet and a dozen yachts anchored in James Bay - the swell is often so fierce that huge rollers slam into the waterfront. That's why we are all anchored way, way out.

On our way back to town, I asked that we be dropped off at the top of Jacob's Ladder, which the local tourism board claims is the world's longest straight staircase. The steep flight of 699 steps is a silent challenge to anyone who finds themselves on this rock. I knew that Sten would insist on climbing the thing, and I figured that if we went down it together I'd be able to graciously opt out when he decides to ascend it. Looking down from the top was intimidating. Looking back up at the top from half way down was vertigo inducing. Three-quarters of the way down, my knees started to wobble. At the bottom, my legs were a little weak; but, it wasn't until about 10 minutes later when we climbed up a short flight of steps to a restaurant that I felt the full measure of their discontent. Mounting those steps took considerably more effort than it should have.

The view from the top

There is no ATM on the island. It being Sunday, the bank was closed. We had no local currency and no way of getting any (really, we should have exchanged some Rand for Pounds Sterling in Cape Town, hindsight being 20/20 and all that; not that Pounds Sterling are the local currency, to actually buy anything on the island you need the thinly traded St. Helena Pound). But after two weeks of cooking onboard Mata'irea, a lack of local currency was not going to keep us from eating food that someone else made, off of plates that someone else had cleaned, even if we had to invite ourselves into someone's home to do it.

Jamestown is nestled in an ancient volcanic valley

The first restaurant we tried (Ann's Place) didn't take credit cards or dollars. Neither did the second (the Consulate Hotel). We were about to look for another option when the cashier called over the manager. When we explained that we were off a yacht and would be here for a week or so, she didn't hesitate to instruct the cashier to let us purchase our lunch on credit - the old fashioned kind where they keep your signed receipt as an IOU until you show up and pay it off (you know, like Mrs Ingles did at the Olsen's general store when she wanted to buy a bolt of calico for some dresses for Laura and Mary, which is, I believe, the last time anyone was extended store credit in the US). How kind. And what an insight into how things work in a small community where everyone knows everyone else, and where even transient yachties are still trusted to pay their debts before hauling up anchor and sailing away.

10 hours after we arrived, the RMS St. Helena nosed into the anchorage. The RMS (Royal Mail Ship) is this isolated island's lifeline to the outside world. It arrives every three weeks, loaded down with all the goods the islanders need to survive. There is no airstrip here, and although Britain promised the funds to build one years ago, they have recently reneged on their promise, so the only way to get goods to the island is via the RMS.

There are passengers on board as well, a mix of tourists coming to spend a few days away from the distractions of the modern world (approximately 1,200 tourists, including yachties but excluding the 8hr stops made by the odd repositioning cruise ship, visit the island each year, making it one of the most lightly traveled places in the world) and Saints (as the islanders call themselves) returning from jobs oversees. Wages on the island are so depressed that many Saints find it more financially advantageous to work off island, typically in the UK, Ascension Island or the Falklands. This is beginning to have a serious effect on the island's population. It is said that each time the RMS leaves the island, a family goes with it. Talk about brain drain.

From a purely selfish point of view, we are excited that the ship is in. Not only has it been fascinating to see how they unload the containers (by ships crane onto a variety of self propelled barges and old landing craft and then from their heaving decks to terra ferma via a seriously hazardous looking operation involving a shore crane), but by Tuesday the shelves at the half dozen stores on the island should be fully stocked and the fridges full of fresh(ish) produce from Cape Town. And hopefully we can stock up on some more of those sweet South African cherry tomatoes that we love so much.

February 27, 2010 - Arrival at St. Helena Island

2010-02-28T14:54:00.001Z

Jib sheets as frayed as our nerves

This evening, 10 days and 6hrs after departing from South Africa, we arrived at St. Helena. From a distance, in the twilight, the island looked like a forbidding fortress of sheer cliff faces. We're looking forward to getting ashore tomorrow to see how first impressions bear out.

Except for the last three days, we had primarily good, consistent winds of 13 to 18 knots the entire trip with a few lulls and stronger periods thrown in. The wind was dead behind us the entire trip making for lots of jibing and sailing off course to keep the sails full and to allow the off watch to sleep. However, the last three days the weather became less stable.

Each of the past few nights we have had to deal with squally weather and shifty wind. When the wind gusted up to 30 knots in the squalls the boat would make giant S curves under too much canvas and autopilot. When the squalls had passed by us we were left with very light breeze and a 2+ meter swell. As we rolled back and forth in the sloppy seas the whole boat would convulse. The sails popped and slammed as they filled and dumped air. All that motion did a number on our jib sheets. By the end of the trip they had nearly worn through at the point where they pass through the jaws of the pole. And the sound of equipment crashing around did a number on our nerves. It is very disheartening listening to expensive boat parts slowly destroying themselves. But the good news is that we didn't have to fire up the iron genny until the last four hours of the trip.

The highlight of the last few days of the trip was the reversal of our fishing fortunes. Early on in the run we passed through a school of something big. We hooked up both lines, but whatever was back there was too much for the 150lb test line Sten was using. We lost a bunch of gear and now there are some fish out there with some interesting lip piercings. Several days later, Sten landed a small Mahi Mahi. It was so little he tossed it back and we made pasta for dinner. But yesterday, things turned around. Sten landed a smallish Mahi, but still big enough for two meals. Since the boat was rolling too much to do anything fancy, we had deconstructed sushi rolls. The Japanese name for thin slices of fish layered upon sushi rice and garnished with toasted sesame seeds, nori strips, pickled ginger and wasabi is Chirashi-zushi. We just call it easy goodness. After lunch, he caught another Mahi, which as I write this is in the pan for our dinner tonight.

February 25, 2010 - Enroute to St. Helena

2010-02-26T06:09:00.001Z

Crossing the Prime Meridian

There were no fireworks. There was no parade. And we didn't keelhaul anyone. But this morning, at 3:19:10 UTC (and local), we crossed the Prime Meridian, that line on the globe that divides the eastern and western hemispheres. It is just a line on a map, but being back in the Western Hemisphere makes us feel like we are that much closer to home. This afternoon, to celebrate, we put on our cowboy hats, cracked open a few Coors Lights and nuked some nachos. Or we would have if we'd had any of those things on board. Instead we popped a bottle of something sparkling and made a bowl of shrimp dip (Nando's Peri Peri is a fine substitute for Heinz Chili Sauce; canned shrimp, however, are a poor replacement for frozen).

The GRIBs call for the wind to die within the next few days. We're hoping to make it to St. Helena before the fans shut off. But we still have 300 miles to cover before we get there.

February 23, 2010 - Enroute to St. Helena

2010-02-23T15:50:00.000Z

Big news on board today. Wait for it. Wait for it. Ready? Okay, we . . . jibed. After six days underway and five days of not touching the sails, other than to put in in and shake out a reef in the main, we finally had to make a sail change. We furled in the jib, set the pole up on the other side, took the preventer off the main sail, jibed the main across, set the preventer up on the new side, adjusted our heading, and unfurled the jib. With the two of us on deck, it took about half an hour. That's it, the big news from the South Atlantic.

For the past six days, the boat has basically been sailing herself. The weather has been extremely stable. Other than making minor adjustments to our heading on the autopilot, and checking the radar to see if we have any company (and other than one ship two nights ago, we haven't seen anything since the second day), watches have been very chill. After taking a few days to adjust to the motion of sailing downwind in a big swell, we've each been able to sleep for six or seven hours straight during our nightly off watch. We've been eating like kings (roast leg of lamb for dinner last night and shirred eggs with basil pesto and diced tomato this morning). So everything is good on board. Or, at least it should be.

We've both been struggling with the sheer vastness of the distances and time involved with getting the boat back to the Caribbean. Thanks to the consistent breeze we've been having on this leg, it will likely take us a total of 10 days to cover the 1665 miles from South Africa to St. Helena. From there, it may take us up to a week to sail to Ascension Island, 700 miles away, in light breezes. All of which is fine and expected. But what we didn't realize and what we are struggling to wrap our brains around, is the fact that Barbados, our planned landfall in the Caribbean, is a full 3,000 miles from Ascension. And since we expect to have very unstable weather on that leg as we pass through the doldrums around the equator, it could take us a better part of a month to cover those 3,000 miles. Oy. If we'd realized that the third leg of our run up the Atlantic was going to take so long, we might have planned to go to Brazil along with, oh, everyone else we know. But we decided not to go to Brazil because a month long detour there wouldn't leave us enough time to make it back to Newport before hurricane season sets into the Caribbean next summer.

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February 22, 2010 - Enroute to St. Helena

2010-02-22T10:13:00.000Z

It is one of the great paradoxes of our peripatetic lives that when we have the time and inclination to cook we are usually no where near a grocery store. During the three months we spent in South Africa, we hardly cooked. We spent so much time on the road, traveling around the country, that we tended to stick to yogurt and muesli for breakfast. And dinner was usually cheese and olives or something tossed on the braai. The first few days of this passage we ate meals that I cooked up and froze before we left. But now that we have gotten into the groove of this passage we have started to cook as a way to pass the time.

Flipping through cookbooks we keep saying, oh, if only we had avocados or mint or plums or whatever. After months of being completely spoiled for choice in South Africa's excellent and affordable grocery stores, we are finally in a position where we have the time to do some serious cooking and we find ourselves 850 miles from the nearest market.

I spent the last of our Rand at the Saturday market in Simonstown, buying whatever looked good. It turns out that 120 rand buys an awful lot of fruit and veg. Unfortunately, a week on much of it is already starting to turn. So we have returned to true cruiser cuisine - cooking whatever looks set to go off next. These past few days we've re-embraced the Old Food Movement with gusto. Sten kicked it off with banana walnut pancakes (thanks to Jody for the Maple Syrup), followed by a veggie omelet.

Yesterday I woke up smelling peaches and knew it was time to use them or lose them. While I flipped through all the cookbooks onboard, reviewing peach recipes, Sten quietly sat at the computer reading an article he had downloaded. Eventually I announced that I was going to make Rick Bayless's pineapple upside down skillet cake, which I made while his mom was with us in Madagascar, but with peaches instead of pineapples. He sighed and said, "I was hoping you would say that." It was delicious. But next time I decide to use the last of my local currency at a market, I'm buying nectarines. Peeling peaches is a pain in the patookas.

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February 18, 2010 - Enroute to St. Helena

2010-02-19T09:32:00.000Z

Yesterday afternoon we finally managed to coax ourselves into leaving the cozy confines of Saldanha Bay. With a big swell running outside of the protected harbor it was all too tempting to hang out for another day, and use up the last of our prepaid internet. After months of being connected, it was somewhat daunting to think of pulling the plug. But with our dinghy deflated for passage, we were effectively trapped on the boat. So, when Sten started to dig through his project drawer, looking for something to do to keep from going stir crazy, it was time to go.

If we were ambivalent about heading out sea before we left the harbor and encountered the swell and the cold waters of the Benguela Current, we were even less enthused after the sun set and it got cold. Now I'll be to the first to admit that after three years in the tropics, we are no longer the hardy New Englanders we once were. But 20 knots of wind across cold water would make anyone shiver. That first night out we both dove into the bags storing our hats and gloves, long underwear and fleece, gear we haven't touched since the run up from New Zealand nearly two years ago. Sten even broke out his sea boots to put up the pole earlier today.

We are settling into a passage routine, and getting used to operating on less sleep. Tonight seems a little warmer than last.

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February 16, 2010 - Saldanha Bay, South Africa

2010-02-16T14:58:00.008Z

Sharing an anchorage with a De Beers diamond mining ship

When I wrote that "there was no such thing as gunkholing" in South Africa, apparently I was wrong. That's exactly what we've been doing these past few days. From Simonstown we sailed around Cape Point to Dassen Island. We departed Dassen the following afternoon, setting off on the 1665 mile, two week long trip to St. Helena. Instead, we find ourselves in Saldanha Bay, anchored off the yacht club, waiting for wind.

We always find it useful to do a short hop before setting out on a long voyage, particularly after we've been sitting in one place for a long time, or if we've made substantial repairs or alterations to Mata'irea. When we left Simonstown, we weren't quite ready to go to sea for two weeks. So after spending Sunday sailing from Simonstown to Dassen, we both had a slew of things to do to keep us busy on Monday morning. While I made some more passage food, Sten worked up on deck, where the smell of frying fish coming from the commercial fishing boats anchored nearby was almost enough to get him to inflate the dinghy to paddle over and beg for a bite.

Fishing boats anchored in House Bay, Dassen Island

By early afternoon, we were ready to raise the anchor and head Northwest towards St. Helena. On departure, we had seals keeping us company and several Southern Right whales spouting close by. We put everything up and were soon making a decent 6 knots. But the wind had other plans for us. First it clocked around to the west, earlier than forecast, and before we could clear the headlands of Cape Columbine. And then it died. With a sizeable swell running and not enough wind to keep our sails full in that kind of sea state, we were looking at a long and unpleasant night of trying to beat our way around the Cape. The protected harbor of Saldanha Bay was just too attractive an alternative to pass up. So we turned east and sailed past the breakwall and into the harbor just as the sun was setting.

The day wasn't much of a success. We only managed to cover a whole whopping 21 miles of the 1665 to St. Helena. But at least we found a calm, protected anchorage in which to spend the night.

Overnight the wind continued to blow lightly out of the north. And then it started raining. As we lay in our warm, dry bed this morning, looking up at the rain drops splashing off the hatch overhead, we knew we'd made the right call. The forecast this morning confirms our decision to wait for more consistent wind. By hanging out here until tomorrow, we should be set up for a good start on the run north.

Who's ready to get back to the tropics?

February 14, 2010 - Dassen Island, South Africa

2010-02-16T12:07:00.009Z

We are cleared out of the country, provisioned, and ready (as we'll ever be) for the (possibly) two month long run up the South Atlantic, across the Equator, and back to the Caribbean. But we had one obstacle to clear first. The Cape of Storms.

Ever since we arrived in Simonstown five weeks ago, I've been worried about getting around Cape Point, aka the Cape of Good Hope, aka the Cape of Storms. When the wind blows here it can be seriously unpleasant. So we wanted a light wind day to make our rounding. The weather forecast was calling for a calm morning on Sunday, so we planned to depart then. However, the wind honked all night Saturday night into Sunday morning. I tossed and turned all night, worried about the rounding. At one point Sten woke up, listened to it, and figured we weren't going anywhere in the morning.

Before dawn I got up, made some coffee, and looked at the forecast, which unfortunately showed that the next good opportunity for leaving Simonstown wouldn't be until Wednesday. So we decided we had better go. And then Vixen left. And we really felt like we'd be wimping out if we stayed. So we popped some Stugeron and Sten unplugged us from shorepower. Bob and Glenda from Nero came down to say goodbye and help us cast off.

15 knots isn't a lot of wind, but when it is right on the nose and you are motoring directly into it, it makes for some unpleasant going. I didn't chunder, but it was a near thing. And actually, it was a glorious day for rounding Cape Point, or so I surmised each time I lifted my head from my prone position in the cockpit. Sten see plenty of tourists up by the lighthouse and could imagine all the photos being taken of our rounding of the Cape of Good Hope. Here is one that Sten took from a slightly different vantage point.

Good Hope

As we left the cozy confines of False Bay and approached the Cape the water temperature plummeted, dragging down the air temperature with it. On the western side of the Cape, we caught up with Vixen. We hope to see them again in St. Helena in a few weeks.

s/v Vixen - very appropriately canvased for Valentines Day

The rest of the afternoon was spent jibing back and forth, sailing dead downwind in a rolling swell as we made our way towards Dassen Island. Along the way, we picked up a hitchhiker. A cormorant insisted upon hitching a ride with us. Knowing what a mess his poo would make of Mata'irea's decks, we chased him off five times, but he kept coming back. The sixth time he approached the boat, he flew right into the side stays. Figuring that he was too dumb or tired to survive the night on his own, we took pity on him and let him tag along with us to Dassen Island.

Table Mountain recedes in the distance

All afternoon we enjoyed at least a half-knot of current assistance from the Benguela Current, which pulls icy cold Antarctic waters up along the West coast of Africa. We were hoping to reach the protected anchorage on the north end of the island shortly after sundown. But the wind died down in the late afternoon, and it took us until almost 11pm to reach Dassen.

One of many playful pods of seals that kept us entertained throughout the day

After dark we were treated to a spectacular display of phosphorescent comets created by seals swimming under and around Mata'irea. With no moon and limited light from the shore to guide us, we relied heavily upon the chartplotter radar overlay function to find a safe place to anchor among the fleet of commercial fishing boats sheltered behind the island. Once the anchor was down, we treated ourselves to some pink bubbles to celebrate Valentines Day.

February 13, 2010 - Simonstown, South Africa

2010-02-13T11:18:00.014Z

These past two weeks since our friends left we have been busy with the business of getting ready to go to sea. We have spent the days provisioning, doing boat work, and going back and forth with Quantum Sails about repairs to our mainsail, dodger and bimini. We've also found time for a bit of touring and some good eats.

On Saturday morning, two weeks ago, after we dropped Amy and Kate off at the airport, we headed on into Cape Town to visit the Neighborgoods Market, a food and design market that is held every Saturday morning at the old Biscuit Mill in Woodstock. Looking around at all the tempting baked goods, I was so bummed that I was still stuffed from the bagel I'd scarfed down for breakfast. Somehow, Sten managed to find room for a perfectly poached egg on a potato pancake smothered with hollandaise. Then we came back to the boat and I slept for four hours. For the past few weeks, as we toured around, I'd ignored the cold that was still dragging me down, and finally I just had to give in to it. The following day was also spent in recovery mode.

After weeks of hemming and hawing we finally bit the bullet and ordered a stackpack, which is basically a mainsail cover, but much easier to use. Hopefully, by making it easier to stow and unstow the mainsail, the stackpack will encourage us to use the main more while dayhopping the Caribbean or doing daysails out of NPT. Anyway, that's the idea. In six months we'll report back on how it works out for us.

Before we delivered our old canvas to Quantum for repairs, we spent half a day cleaning it so that the dirt stuck to it didn't gum up their machines. We were amazed by how a South African cleaning product called Blade took the Richards Bay coal dust out of our Stamoid. We were afraid that it would melt the cloth, but it seemed not to harm it and our canvas is once again white. The difference is really remarkable.

The following day we took the dodger and bimini in to Quantum. Since we were driving into Cape Town, we invited Bob and Glenda off of Nero and Jonas from Pelican to join us. With five yachties in the car, it was inevitable that we would wind up driving around the industrial section of town, hunting down the various boat bits we all needed.

We eventually broke free of the industrial area and found our way into downtown Cape Town, where we made a bee line for the bakery and take out window at Jardine, one of the best restaurants in town. We ordered up some sandwiches and found a seat at one of the picnic tables outside. Upon my first bite I couldn't help but exclaim "Hell yeah." It was that good.

After lunch, we made our way to the District Six Museum, which documents the effect of removals undertaken pursuant to the Group Areas Act in the District Six neighborhood during Apartheid. The heart wrenching displays chronicled the lives of the displaced and left us with a better understanding of the terrible effects of Apartheid. Afterwards, we wandered around Long Street. Actually, Glenda and I wandered. Bob and Sten quickly found some seats at Bob's namesake tavern and ordered a beer.

While Glenda and I were browsing in a shop, the shop girl realized that her purse had just been stolen. It seems unbelievable, but we have literally been exposed to more crime in the past three months in South Africa than our entire lives leading up to this point.

We decided to return to Simonstown via Chapmans Peak Drive, to take in the stunning views one more time. Along the way we stopped at a favorite lookout point, only to find a makeshift memorial for a man who had been blown off the ledge a few days before. The Cape is seriously a hazardous place for tourists. First Leroy, a Zimbabwean guy gets eaten by a shark, then a few weeks later some other poor guy gets blown off a cliff.

The next day, Sten, who was sick and tired of listening to me hack up my lungs, declared that he wasn't going anywhere until I got better. So I finally made a doctor's appointment. After a consultation we were both relieved to find out that I didn't have TB or the pig flu. And after a few more days of codeine-laced cough syrup and some nasal spray, I was right as rain.

Last Saturday we decided to drive up to Stellenbosch to visit one of the two weekly farmers markets held there. While in town we decided to go in search of some more wine for the bilge. Really, we should have known better than to head out to the winelands on a weekend. But it was a beautiful day spent in beautiful surroundings.

This past week I was missing having Kate and Amy around. After some arm twisting I convinced Sten to come with me to Kalk Bay for a Girls Day Out, without the girls. We wandered around the small coastal town, poking in galleries and shops. He made a valiant effort, but try as he might after an hour or so he resorted to finding the nearest seat in each successive shop we visited. He did get an almond croissant and half a latte out of the deal, so it wasn't a complete waste of an afternoon for him.

The day after our foray to Kalk Bay, we had to go into Cape Town to take our dodger back to Quantum for some additional repairs. Sten also decided to find a place to repair the windlass motor. So we made a day of it. We went to Signal Hill to get our eardrums blasted by the cannon that is fired every day at noon. Then we had some traditional Cape Malay dishes for lunch at the Noon Gun Tea Room and wound up the afternoon at the V&A Waterfront.

We spent most of the following day, which was unseasonably rainy and gray, working on the boat. Mid-afternoon we decided to celebrate Valentines early and so we booked a table for that evening at the Food Barn in Noordhoek. After all our discussions with Amy and Kate about what we might do after this trip, we've both been mulling things over. And so, over rack of lamb and cape salmon, paired with carafes of local wine, we hashed out a tentative plan. But our plans seem to change daily, so we'll wait a while before making any proclamations here.

On Thursday, after our last provisioning trip, we drove back out to the nature reserve at Cape Point. We enjoyed having one last glimpse of bucks and ostriches grazing in the fynbos. The swell was pumping, and it was exciting to see it rolling in along the west coast. But we're hoping for much calmer conditions when we round the Cape tomorrow.

Friday was the last day of our three month visas, and so we needed to go into Cape Town to clear out and return the rental car. Midmorning Quantum delivered our new stackpack and returned our repaired dodger. After spending some time making sure the stackpack fit, we drove into Cape Town to clear out and pick up the repaired windlass motor. One last trip to the cheap middle eastern food baazar on Darling Street capped off our Cape Town experience.

Today was a crush of last minute tasks getting the boat ready to go to sea. But we somehow got it all done in time for one last braai with cruising friends on Nero, Vixen, Millenium, Afar and Jan Plasier.

And now, like our friend Buddy the Cape Fur Seal, we are (soon to be) Out of Africa . . .