Slow Dancing Adventures - Up to Now

Hi
We have just started this Blog so we need to do a quick catch up on where we have been up to now.

We purchased the boat in Waukegan, an industrial city north of Chicago in the fall of 2007. We motored it down the river system (2600 kms) to Mobile Alabama and had our mast (previously shipped by truck) stepped at Turner Marine. After the normal one to two week planned stay to do repairs to get ready for the salt water, (which always seems to turn into a month) Dr Dick S, an accomplished sailing friend from Edmonton along with 2 friends I met in Mobile, Jim who had spent 22 years sailing around the world and Bernie, a neophyte like myself, sailed into the stormy Gulf to get the boat to Panama City, Florida. Here we parked the boat for a period while Dick & I returned to Edmonton. Sharen & I left a few weeks later to join Jim in moving the boat to Tarpon Springs. Sharen & I planned a short 3 day stop in Vegas on the way down. Jim called and said the weather window was closing and we decided he should move the boat with Bernie. While they got absolutely nailed with bad weather, Sharen & I enjoyed the nice sunshine in Vegas and the surprise meeting of 2 of my sisters there. Great fun (for us).
Our son Richie and daughter Becky joined us in Tarpon Springs to help us on the trip down the west coast of Florida in the ICW. Enjoyable but very little sailing. We did manage to take a side trip to the Miami Boat Show where Sharen had this picture taken with Bob Bitchen from Lats and Atts Sailing Magazine. The show was absolutely awesome. We returned home again after arriving in Fort Myers. My brother Mike joined me for the trip along the everglades to the Keys. We had great sails and interesting times, especially watching Mike fishing from our little dinghy in the mangroves listening to spooky sounds coming from the bowels of the mangroves. I informed him on his return to the boat it was probably a croc getting interested in his presence in their homeland. He chose not to take an afternoon swim.
In Marathon we did several improvements to the boat including adding solar panels which greatly improved our ability to be unhooked from marina power. I had Steve from Vancouver Island, a captain of the boat we had sailed from Barbados to the BVI's the year before, join me to get the boat from there to the Dominican Republic. This was a quick trip and thru some nasty weather especially the section from the Turks and Caicos to the DR and around to the south coast. I put the boat up on the hard for the 2008 summer hurricane season in Casa de Campo which is a 40 Sq Mile resort development outside of La Romana in the DR. This is one of the most exclusive resorts we have ever seen.
We had a great summer. The highlight was being invited to join in as crew on S/V Sea Smoke, a 38' Dufour in the Halifax to St Pierre Race. This was a great experience and I am proud to say we won our class. We did have a leg up. Both our Captain Mike who was a former crew on The Canada 1 racing team and our Tactician Matt were incredible. I learned a lot from them and Ryan, our navigation expert.

Casa de Campo DR
After I returned from a month in Nepal doing a trek across the country (a dream come true) with a group from Edmonton, Sharen & I returned in Dec of 08 to ready the boat and find a place for the kids to join us for a promised 'Toes in the Sand' Christmas. After checking several possibilities Sharen chose (and I reluctantly agreed) to the nicest of the homes. It was a humble 6000 SF gated residence with a maid and a gardener. It was a wonderful spot for the children and grandkids to join us and we had a great time.
We all returned to Edmonton shortly thereafter. I returned to the boat to move it across the Mona Passage, the 100 kt stretch of water between the DR and Puerto Rico, famous for inclement weather.

Puerto Rico and the Spanish Virgin Islands
We ended up with wonderful flat water and a beautiful overnight sail arriving in Boqueron, Puerto Rico. I hired 2 locals from the DR to help me with the passage. Leonardo who spoke no English but was absolutely one of the most fun people we have ever met stayed to join Sharen (who arrived a day or 2 later) and I on our sail to Ponce. Leo returned to the DR from there and my sister Sally and husband Bob joined us. This was a hoot as both are very funny and great to be with. We had a great sail along the south coast of Puerto Rico with some wonderful side exploration trips of the interior. We then leaped off shore on our own for the first time to Culebra, one of the Spanish Virgin Islands. Here we anchored in a beautiful protected bay and explored the island in a rented jeep. Playa Flamenco, wonderful meals along the sea channel restaurants. A beautiful stop. We then sailed to Vieques and sailed the south coast. The first bay we pulled into, which was absolutely beautiful, we were greeted with a voice over the VHF telling us that our life and property were at risk if we stayed there as this was a bombing practice area of the American military. We chose to move on.
Our next bay was very nice but no beach and a bit of an expedition to enter due to various frightening pieces of reef just below the surface. With a need to get Sally and Bob to someplace where they could depart from such that they could make a return connection to Canada we braved some rolly seas to Esperenza, a town further west along the southern coast. Here we met up again with Solonge 3, some friends we had met in Ponce, Puerto Rico. This picture is of their sons playing on a beach. Great kids. Yes, that is seaweed.
Sally & Bob departed for Canada after some wonderful days in Vieques and a promise to return.

USVI's and BVI's
We sailed onto St Thomas in the US Virgin Islands for some beautiful experiences such as watching the movie Capt Ron shown on a huge bedsheet on the beach in Honeymoon Bay with a group of local residents sitting on golf carts, drive-in style Also scuba diving with Kevin from Solonge and touring the island in a safari open air bus. We then sailed on to the BVI's and Soper's Hole in the western end of Tortola. Hooked to a mooring ball we continuously feared we would crash into a neighbouring boat. We seemed to get within 5 ft of another boat's swing but the impending collision never seemed to occur. Quite frightening. We took a ferry over to Jost Van Dyke as the sea had been higher then we wished to deal with. We were excited to meet Foxy (now retired) if possible and were thrilled to get the opportunity to not only meet him but have him give us his version of Canada in rhyme. He had an unbelievable knowledge of Canadian geography. Very entertaining fellow.
We discovered Frenchman's Key Hotel which was actually a high end restaurant (VERY nice!) with some high end vacation rental homes. The owner was a Canadian and he had done a beautiful job from having taken it over a few short years ago. We enjoyed Tortola but it was charter boat central. Everyday we would have boats raising in to grab a mooring ball before another charterer. Also watching them head off into waves we would not go out in because they were trying to squeeze lots in during a short time frame. This harried competition for a mooring ball continued in The Bite, a beautiful anchorage in Norman Island. We were happy to leave the bustle and head off to Salt Island to scuba dive the Rhone and then to Virgin Gorda where we were able to experience Cruise Ship life. One arrived shortly after our arrival to The Baths, an unbelievable surreal place where sand and huge boulders make for a very interesting landscape. The quiet beauty changed to madness when an unending line of people arrived to tramp single file to the end and back. We guessed they found everyplace ridiculously crowded wherever they went! This prompted us to grab a weather window and do an overnight run to St Martin.

St Martin's, Anguilla, Statia, St Kitts and Nevis
We had a beautiful sail except Sharen's medicine patch did not kick in until we were almost there at which time the seas started to kick up a bit but she was fine and I was able to catch a few hours snooze. We anchored in the lagoon where Sharen got the fright off her life. She emerged from the companionway to see this huge ship bearing down on us. It was moving from its berth and thankfully was under control by a masterful crew. We enjoyed touring around the island with the crew from Solonge 3. Days at the beach, lots of exploring, getting hazed by landing airplanes and getting caught grocery shopping with no rainwear for the dinghy ride back to the boat. We had not been here for at least 15 years and a lot had changed. Sally and Bob were returning in a week so we decided to sail up to Anguilla. This is a wonderful quiet island just to the north of busy St Martin's. We arrived on St Patrick's Day. We asked a couple of boys at a bus stop if they could find us a taxi tour of the island. We asked them to join us and we had great fun. We visited Moon Splash where Jimmy Buffet recorded his Anguilla Album, a number of nice resorts and most interesting was this exceptionally exclusive resort called Cuisin Art. The chef's here disliked the inconsistencies of the food supplies so they built their own greenhouses to grow their veggies. Unbelievable! The beach, lawns, dining areas... everything was meticulous. We then sailed south past St Martin's and although we both had a desire to visit the island of Saba, the north swell was too great and it would have made for an untenable anchorage. We sailed to Statia (St Eustacia). This was the centre of world commerce in the 1800's when most of the world was at war. Statia labeled itself as a free port and traded with all the countries who could not trade with each other.
Great stories such as when they were finally invaded by the Americans (Capt Rodney), they hid their wealth in coffins and had burials beneath Rodney's nose. Our Taxi tour driver was an interesting fellow who went out of his way to show us his featured place of interest on the far side of the island, a brothel. He then explained the importance of such a place and why it was so necessary. Sharen found great humor in his stories. On to St Kitts where we again met our friends from Solonge and their 2 sons James and Caleb. We introduced them to the crew from Brimble, a neighbour boat in our marina who had sailed from England on a 27 ft sailboat. Mom, Dad and 2 kids. No fridge. 20 days at sea. Wow. We took a train tour of the island and were introduced to the largest group of inhabitants. 80,000 monkeys on and island with 40,000 people. Someone brought a few here many years ago as pets and the rest is history. They are a big problem consuming much of the agriculture. We visited Nevis which had a charm all its own. A tour of the island brought us to the mountain top hotel that Princess Diana had rented (the whole hotel) a few short months prior to her accident. It was very nice and secluded. We motored back to St Martin (no wind) to pick up Sally & Bob and then on to St Barts, home of the Rich and Famous and a parking lot for 50 million dollar boats. Oodles of boats with full crews and an owner who seldom comes down. It was a thrill to see Tom Perkins Maltese Falcon. It is beautiful. Sharen met the First Mate while waiting for Sally & Bob at the airport. We stayed a few days in Anse de Colombier, a beautiful bay below an estate built by Rockefeller. Off for a wonderful sail to Barbuda. Chris Parker, our weather guru predicted calm waves but 12 ft seas. It was terrific. Slow wide seas that seemed to bury us below the horizon but slow and easy enough such there was no effect on the boat. We all enjoyed it. The problem was due to the high seas; the waves hitting the west coast off Barbuda were too uncomfortable for us to anchor on the western side near the town of Codrington. We anchored on the south western side with somewhat more protection but an uncomfortable amount of reefs. On trying to land the dinghy we discovered what the high seas do to the wave action at the beach. We were upset several times when we came ashore at the beach. We did do a tour of this wonderful peaceful island. We took the boat tour to the Frigate bird colony with another amazing guide. He got out and walked in 14 inches of mud and thigh deep water to push the boat slowly up to the nesting area to make sure we got as close as possible to get great pictures.
This island is all perfect beaches with no one there. The huge Lagoon is incredible. Hopefully the cruise ships don't find it.
On returning to the dinghy we found the seas had gotten even larger and after counting 7 waves we made a dash to get out into deep enough water to start the dinghy engine. Over and over again only to get dumped, over and over again. The first time was fun but it started to eat away at us. Finally we were able to get all of us back to the boat 2 at a time with the occasional dinghy swamping in between (here we are cleaning out the sand after again, another upset). That night we opened 2 bottles of wine with dinner. We knew we were going to need them.
Next morning early we were off for a nice sail to Jolly Harbour in Antigua. This is probably the most protected anchorage in the Caribbean. We had an issue with our windlass remote and were referred to the local electrical wizard. It turned out he was from Newfoundland and was married to my cousin Jeannie's best friend. Unbelievable!!
He sourced out a new remote for us and was able to jury-rig the old one so we had a backup in the event the new one ever failed on us. More redundancy protection. We taxied to Nelson's Dockyard and Falmouth Harbour and enjoyed a history tour of this wonderful place. We met Richard, a young man who had arrived the day before by way of a row boat from England. Yes. A rowboat. All the way across the Atlantic. Absolutely Nuts!! His T-Shirt said "Buy Me a Beer. I Just Rowed The Atlantic." We bought him a beer.
We walked the Falmouth Harbour Marina where boats were starting to gather for The Antigua Race Week. There were some
very beautiful yachts signifying some very dripping wet money. Bob had a desire to see Montserrat and the volcano damage so we sailed on over as the wind angles to there gave us a beautiful beam reach. We over nighted in a very rolly anchorage. Early the next day we sailed on to Guadeloupe where we yellow flagged in Deshaise harbour and then sailed onto Dominica the next morning. Dominica is one of the real gems of the Caribbean. It is substantially less developed then the rest of the islands. We anchored off Roseau, the capital and dinghied ashore and lucked into the best nature tour guide/taxi driver we ever had. This guy stopped at every kind of nut, fruit and flowering plant. He threw rocks up to knock down cashews, almonds, bread fruit etc to show us how they grow, taste and smell. At the look-off view above Roseau we saw a bus which had been crushed by a tree during a hurricane. It was unoccupied at the time, thank god.
The next day as we were departing the harbour, Bob quickly grabbed our camera to take a picture of a tall ship which was departing at the same time. As he turned and just as Sharen started to remind him to put the strap around his wrist, it slipped out of his hands, hit the cockpit floor, bounced onto the swim bridge and into 300 feet of ocean. We all felt bad. Mostly for Bob who was extremely upset. We fortunately had uploaded the pictures to our computer a few days before and we did have the pictures from Sally & Bob's 'new' camera. Their old one had not survived Sally's toss to the bed and broke on the cabin sole during their first trip. If you notice this area is a bit devoid of pictures.... call Bob.
We sailed on a port tack to St Lucia in beautiful weather and docked in Rodney Bay. This was the sad end of Sally & Bob's visit as they had to fly back home; but again with the promise to return next season and this time without having the obligation of the 'dreaded return ticket' and all the commitment it brings.
We had a few days to work on our never ending list of boat upgrades and repairs before we welcomed our neighbours Betty and Lawrence on board. Lawrence had some sailing courses and experience but this was Betty's first time on a sailboat. Both were as eager as we were and we were thrilled to have them join us. Prior to casting off our lines we took a taxi to Marigot Bay. This is one of those extra special places. It has natural protection with high mountains surrounding it and the entrance from the sea protected with the most beautiful long narrow sand-spit lightly sprinkled with huge palm trees. It was discovered by Walter Boudreau, a Cape Bretoner who back in the 1930's built the first resort there to welcome his guests from his sailing cruises on his beautiful sailing vessels. I had read his biography years before. It is a beautiful natural cove, although recently it has suffered from over development with a new resort, a packed marina and the bay filled with mooring balls. It is a parking lot for Moorings Charter boats.
We sailed out of Rodney Harbour in a nice easy wind and quiet seas for Souffriere on the south end of the island as a jumping off point for our run to Bequia. Souffriere is a bit sketchy security wise as there is the occasional swimmer who boards your boat stealing whatever is not locked down. This guy swam out to sell us a coconut and started to cry when I shooed him away. I gave him 5 EC to stay on the boat and make sure no others swam to our boat. We watched as he reached the beach and saw him disappear. On the sail down island Betty was thrilled and was lulled into believing the entire trip would be in these relaxed conditions. We cautioned her that although we always sail in only calm weather, it is not always this calm. She agreed to try some of Sharen's medication for the next day's run past St Vincent (a bit of a dubious place) and onto Admiralty Bay in Bequia. She believes the 'patch' helped although she spent much of the day's sail in bed with her blinders on. She is a trooper and emerged from below when we were in the lee of St Vincent to enjoy the rest of the day with us. It seemed as though every boat in the Caribbean had stopped in Bequia. The bay was packed. We located a nice anchorage not too far out and dinghied ashore to do the taxi tour of the island. All the islands have wonderful history with beautiful old fort restorations. Bequia is truly one of the top with a wonderful waterfront and shopping area. Although we were talked into purchasing too many veggies from some very persistent Rasta men in a vegetable market we enjoyed listening and dealing with them. We always enjoyed wonderful meals prepared by Betty. Sharen enjoyed the presentations so much she had to take pictures. It does look tasty (and healthy), doesn't it? The saddest event of our trip occurred here. We were visited by a nice young couple from Calgary who came by to tell us about the Grenadines. While enjoying a beer and listening to them tell us about some wonderful spots we should visit we hadn't noticed their dinghy come loose in the dark. It drifted away and was long gone by the time we discovered it was gone. We searched for a long while with our dinghy but all to no avail. We offered to pay for 1/2 the deductible but we have not heard anything from them. Very sad. The dinghy is like the family car. Actually it is more important as you are totally boat bound without one while at anchor.
After Bequia we gave a lot of consideration to sailing east (upwind) to Mustique and see the estates of The Rich & Famous. Mick Jagger and that sort. We chose to skip it as our time was running short and we wanted to make it back for our grandson's birthday.
The next island south in the Grenadines was Mayreau and we sailed into a little bit of heaven.. Salt Whistle Bay. This just has to be the most beautiful anchorage in the Caribbean. As it was shallow (consistently 9 to 12 ft), all the boats were able to anchor with short scope and such were able to anchor closer together. We were able to anchor in swimming distance to the beach, thinking we would not have anyone in front of us. Surprise. 2 more boats squeezed in between us and the beach. Amazing. The water was a picture perfect. It was a beautiful light green colour and was so clear, our 25,000 lb+ boat looked like it was floating in air. We had pre-dinner drinks ashore at a somewhat tired looking resort but with some beautiful stone tables and booths on the beach. Then back to the ship for another fantastic dinner prepared by Betty and Sharen. Oh, the life!!
Our next stop was Union Island where we were able to check out. The highlight here was a small little island on a reef in the harbour named Happy Island. It was made of conch shells. We water taxied out to meet the owner, listen to some fantastic music and have a drink, 'coke', as we still had a long sail in front of us. Next stop was Hillsborough Bay in Carricou where we able to check into Grenada and then sail onto Tyrrel Bay. A short stop over and then onto Grenada as there was discussion of a weather system approaching and Lawrence & Betty had a flight booked from St Georges back to their connection home in St Thomas. We also needed to get the boat to Trinidad to be pulled out for the hurricane season.
What a scramble as we arrived in Prickly Bay. We had a weather report from Chris Parker, our weather guru which said we needed to get going asap if we were going to beat the weather system arriving. Lawrence & Betty scrambled to get packed and off the boat as quickly as possible. A short goodbye and we were off. Just prior to lifting anchor and heading off for the overnight run to Port of Spain we decided to check with Chris one more time. He said the system was now going to arrive about midnight which meant we would be dancing in some pretty rough seas most of the night. His recommendation was that if we didn't really need to go, don't go. That was good enough for us. Why would we put ourselves and our boat in danger to meet the conditions of our insurance provider. We stayed over nite and the next morning taxied to the Lawrence and Betty's hotel and joined them on a wonderful tour of Granada, the Spice Island. It is truly very beautiful.
After waving goodbye to L&B we set about organizing for the boat to be pulled out at Spice Island Marina and preparing it for a period of hibernation until we return in October which at the time of writing is only a few short weeks away. We are both very anxious to return although our direction and path this year is still unsure at this time. I guess we will have to see which way the winds are blowing.