Hanging around Rodney Bay

A few minutes ago I jumped into the water when I saw a nice straw hat floating by. All rinsed and fits me great! While there I saw 3 starfish and 9 squid. They inked the water when I jumped in and when I spotted the ink I just had to look around there they were. The ink makes it look as if they're still in the same spot and it allow them to get away unnoticed.

The water here has been a bit cloudy lately but today is as clear as an aquarium, so I think I'll get back in and swim to the reef.

Later today, John Fallon and his guests Henry and Gail will be coming to our boat for lasagne and salad. John cooked up a nice wok of stirfry with beef last night aboard Stopp Knot, so we'll repay him tonight. Gail and Henry leave tomorrow after being on John's boat since the first of February. They have fixed everything in sight, right down to taking winches apart, which is no small job! They leave at noon and his next company arrives at 3:00 the same afternoon. It's a couple and their high school age daughter from Saint John. We'll play with them as we buddy boat down to the Pitons for the first week of Paul's visit to our boat and then we'll take Paul up to Martinique for wine and cheeses.

Laurie has been working straight out on all the repairs that have been lined up and waiting for our visit to St. Lucia. Our bimini (sunscreen over the cockpit, and our jib went into the sail maker's and are both all re-stitched and repaired. The sun has taken its toll on the threads but the sunbrella fabric is still pristine. The job was 103.00 US which we thought was pretty reasonable.

After sending our watermaker membrane back to Trinidad by FedEx for warranty, we received the replacement just this week. Yesterday Laurie got it hooked up and we're now making water again. Just in the nick of time too because of the drought that's been going on here for the past month. It was made law yesterday that because it's a state of emergency, nobody is allowed to wash their boats, cars or anything else. There has been little water available to purchase at the Marina which leaves people without water makers in a bad position. We're very lucky to have our part arrive in a timely fashion and free of charge except for shipping and customs brokerage. It would be terrible to have to drink beer all day instead of water. The hell here never ends, mon!

Besides those 2 jobs, Laurie has been working for the past 3 days to replace one of our windows/hatches. He has had one glitch after another, but he thinks the job will be complete today. The old window's bolt holes don't line up at all with the new window, and it isn't built for a curved surface, which is of course where it's going! We won't know if it leaks or not until the next rain or the next passage to another island, but he thinks it will be fine. The new window was $500.00 US and we're a little cranky that the old one split a seam and can't be repaired here. Most people say that those hatches should last the lifetime of the boat. It's been a BIG MONEY week for Cat Tales!

While Laurie worked all day in the heat yesterday on boat chores, I accepted an invitation to meet up with women in the bay who get together on Wednesdays for lunch and a dip in the pool at a local high class resort, Bay Gardens! There were about 18 of us, some of whom had met each other in that past, and others who were out looking to meet new people. I ended up with lots of boat cards and a face to put on a boat name now when we pass their boats in the bay or hear them on the radio. I started off with a diet coke for $8.75 and later on a beer for $7.00. Now what will I do the next time??? Go figure! Remember to divide by 2 to get the approximate Canadian dollar amount! We all had a ball drifting around in the pool in fresh water. This is definitely on my Wednesday to do list from here on in while in Rodney Bay!

All for now, I'm off to the reef!

Videos and Rasta John Marley

Laurie here:

Soon after Walter left us, we realized we had an extra pair of sunglasses on board. We should have realized they were special and he would want them back, regardless as to whether it took us half a year or so to get them back to him – but we didn’t. We moved them on to the first needy soul we could find.


We feel quite bad that Walter has asked us to get them back to him, and hope he will be consoled with these pictures of one of our friends, showing how happy he is to have the glasses. This is Rasta John Marley, a trader in fish, beads, woven hats, and St. Vincent-grown spice. Boy, he sure is happy to have those glasses.

We are in a bit of a pickle, here; as the island passed an edict that no more water is to be sold to non-residents. It hasn’t rained in months – they didn’t even have a decent shower during the hurricane season. The good news is that we have been told our watermaker filter is in the mail to us. Hopefully, by the end of this new week, we will have it through customs and installed back aboard. In the meantime, Rasta John, no stranger to contraband, has smuggled out a 5 gallon pail of the precious, clear fluid. Yeah, he sure is grateful about those glasses. I hope he can turn the water shortage into some fresh business. John Fallon says Rasta John keeps care of his mother in Castries, with the money he makes taxiing tourists and selling bits to the French charterers.

Its an interesting thing, this water business. Last year, during the strikes in the French islands, Rodney Bay was filled with the boats that normally stayed in Martinique. They couldn’t even get gas for their dinghies. If this water problem keeps up, we’ll all be up there, sucking on their water hoses and eating baguettes and cheeses. The hell here never ends.

Dawn here:
Here are a couple of videos from Martinique. The first one is of 4 young guys who sang together in a quartet. One of their dads wanted us to hear them sing and we loved it. Click here to see the quartet.

Also, while in Martinique, we watched many parades and although I have a lot of footage, I have narrowed it down to this small sample.
Click here to view parts of the Carnival Parade in Martinique.

--videos by Dawn with her precious canon camera which travel everywhere in her purse.

Carnival in Martinique!!

We meant to stay in Martinique for only a couple days, but when Carnival happens to be on and we can't find a customs office open to clear us out of the country, then what do you do??? You stay and party with the country!! Oh, the French...they do it up right! I will prepare some video clips and hopefully get them posted here tomorrow.

Here is a photo of Fort de France, the capital of Martinique where the streets went crazy for 3 days with parades and music.


While waiting for the parade to begin, we enjoyed the locals waiting in a little park on the waterfront.





Although John looks like he's waiting for a bus, he's actually waiting for the parade!


We all had a turn on this on-ground trampoline with Laurie having the longest turn - very cool! Kids of all ages bounced for hours!


Along the streets in Fort de France there were vendors everywhere selling the garb the paraders wore.


The theme for the carnival seemed to be men dressing as hookers. The sluttier the better.


I'll bet his mama is proud of him today!


Both of the brides pictured below are men!


Some of the cruisers out in the bay came in dressed appropriately!




We found this poor soul the morning after while we were once again on the search for an open Customs Office.



Ahh....this says it all!

We were in the fine company of Stopp Knot with John Fallon as captain, Henry and Gail and Frank as guests and crew. Besides taking in this Carnival, we also stayed in a couple of nice little bays, bought lots of bits for our dear Cat Tales and enjoyed shopping and dining in Anse Mitan, one of our favourite spots.

On our return trip to St. Lucia I caught and reeled in a nice 2 foot long baracuda. Laurie cleaned it, I cooked it and we ate the whole thing with the help of John, Henry, Gail, Frank and Jimmy from "My Way" on the boat next door to us.

Laurie's brother Paul has decided to come and see us here in St. Lucia on the 28th while his wife is entertaining family planning a wedding. Along with seeing St. Lucia, perhaps we can fit in another trip to Martinique to share the fun, wines and cheeses of the island.

Still in Martinique

We began the trip to St. Lucia today at lunch, however, the wind was strong and on the nose, so we have settled in to a little bay and will head out again in the morning.

We have enjoyed the Carnival here in Martinique and will have lots to tell and videos to show later.
Dawn

Not The Sahara

Somebody just told me that the dust that is playing havoc with everything is not Sahara dust but fallout from volcanic activity from Montserrat, many miles to the west and north. Well, darn. I suggested it could be when we first sensed it, but it was poopooed by everybody. Actually, authorities say the dust is so thick in Dominica, that they thought it was snowing. Even Dominica is far east and north from the volcano. I think I'll ask my buddy Hugh, an amateur meteorologist how the dust can get from Montserrat to here, when every cloud at every level is streaming directly westward.

Must be some massive expulsion to get to an altitude where there is something moving east and south.

Martinique

We're in Anse Mitan, Martinique, having arrived in Martinique from St Lucia this past Tuesday. We've been unlucky with internet signals, and too lazy to send by ham radio (many of you know what a headache that is). We're waiting for John and crew to finish a lunch bar-be-cue, while we nurse 1/2 litre German beer. I think my brother Ken buys this stuff at NB Liquor. Its 0.66 Euros per can here: "Konigsbacher Pils".

Our trip over was delayed as we waited for John Fallon of Stoppknot to pick up his last guest, clear customs, and fuel up. As this was just about the first time he has left the dock for about 2 years, nothing was simple for him. Even when he got to the fuel dock, it was empty, and he had to wait for a truck. The trip was lovely, with us arriving off St. Anne by 3:30 in the afternoon. We went to John's boat for drinks, then went to bed early.

Wednesday, we all got on Cat Tales, with two dinghies, and motored her into Le Marin, leaving StoppKnot at anchor. We cleared customs - always a simple process on the French islands, and proceeded to look through all the shops and chandleries. I got all the missing parts I needed, toilet seat hinges, toilet plunger gaskets, swim ladder steps, and Yanmar engine parts and spares. Dawn talked me into some LED lighting as well. We've been installing parts as needed as we've toured the island. We had a lovely lunch at Le Marin, dinghied over to the "LeaderPrice" grocery store, and stocked up on highly economical wine, beer, pate, bread, and cheeses. We even got a good rum agricole for 6 Euros - only good for "ti punch", but we like-em.

We moved to Grande Anse D'Arlet on Thursday morning, spent most of the day on the beach in a cafe, lounging around with lunch, beer and wine, went for a short hike, snorkelled just beside the boat, drank some wine with some sundown hors-d-ouvres, and went to bed early to read - all very hedonistic; and left there just at 09:00 this morning. One amazing bloggable event, is the arrival of 24+ hours of dust out of a clear blue sky. It is obviously Sahara dust, and the boat is absolutly crappy. The brown dust shows up, sticks to the salt, then the dew makes mud all over the boat. Every footstep is obvious. The grit is on the tables and in the beds. The hell here never ends, but we're hopeful that the dust storm is almost over. Also interesting, is that we haven't had a rain since Lorna and Brian's visit. Certainly, the islands are missing the moisture.

The beer is gone, so we'll dinghy in and hit the tourist traps.

Sunsets, sundowners and chores in St. Lucia

Laurie here, again.

Friday night, after shopping and tackling some chores, Dawn and I enjoyed sundowners alone in our own cockpit. The sun came down to the wet horizon, with some thick "mares tale - type" clouds off to the west. As it was obviously going to be a fabulous display, Dawn readied to take a series of pictures, attempting to document how the sunsets evolve from one bit of majesty to another. With some luck, she will be able to display some of them in today's blog.
Here they are in the order they were taken:






Sleeping was a bit of a chore for me in the wee hours of Saturday morning, thinking about the various projects facing me. I have new blades to put on the wind generator, one dead interior light and one dead exterior light, a problem with the VHF radio to scope out, a failed connection system on the anchor bridle coupled with some serious fraying, and the watermaker has to be disassembled and the membrane shipped to Trinidad. I also intend to tear down the oven to see if we could increase BTUs by cleaning the jet and insulating with some panels Brian Jeffrey brought down to me. As well, between here and Martinique, I have to find and install one hatch, three swim-ladder rungs, a toilet seat, and some other small items. The hatch will be a two-day job, easily.


Above is Laurie insulating the oven. Thanks again Brian for the insulation you brought down to us. We'll cook up some lasagna this week and let you know how efficient the oven is now!

At any rate, it came to me that facing boat repairs is a little stressful, but has its advantages. My problems and responsibilities end within 35 feet of me. At times in my life, I have been faced with repairs and maintenance to a house, a cottage, two cars, a boat or two; the management of a part-time business, and the management of a career; all at the same time. (The career was one where you had limited power to tackle the symptoms of problems for which you would be truly responsible, and no power nor responsibility for the true problems causing most of the symptoms. Looking back, I realize most people feel this way about their work.) I'll take being on a sailboat a couple of thousand miles away any day, chores or no chores.

Regardless of that Epiphany, my sleeplessness is why some people got Facebook posts from me at 3 a.m.

Between chores, we are having fun. Yesterday afternoon, we went to a barbecue in the back yard of one of John Fallon's friends, and enjoyed both old and new friends and great food and drink. Today, we are heading for a lunch at the yacht club, where we will see more old friends, meet other cruisers, and also trade some of our books.
We may be heading for Martinique on Tuesday with John Fallon (s/v Stopp Knot) and his guests, Gail and Henry from Moncton, so it's possible we'll be out of email/Internet zones for the next little while.

But for now, back to the chores for me, while Dawn works on those photos.

Rodney Bay

No photos today, sorry.

Soon after Dana and Walter left, we began our search for a weather window for a hop to the north, following something that was supposed to open up on Friday. To us, a weather window is anything that promises less than 20 knots. An excellent window for this trip would also be an east wind with some south in it, as St. Lucia, although north, is actually a bit to the east. Normal winds down here have a fair bit of north in it, making the trip significantly tougher, with the captain and crew pinching, fussing, and swearing as changes demand both helm and sail modifications. Truly, we can always sail conservatively off the wind, and then expect to tack upwind to the desired island - what else do we have to do down here? Well, the hell never ends.

Often a weather window disappears as its time arrives, or we chase it into the future. Surprisingly, the temporal patch of relative calmness grew towards us, and we scrambled to be ready to leave on Thursday morning. Engine checks, topping up on whatever isn't available further north, a last check on the mango trees (bare), and we were ready.

We set our clock for 4 am Thursday, but when I woke up at 3 and decided I couldn't sleep, I got up, checked the engines, taped up a leaking window, went through our checks, and waited for Dawn. It helped that the window I taped up was providing her with a cool breeze; and soon, the noise and the stuffiness had her up (notice I didn't say "cheerfully", although she wasn't really grumpy either).

Our sail was just great. We expected it to be a 14 hour affair, but we finished in 12, arriving at Rodney Bay close to 4 pm. We shipped some salt, and we had some engine time behind the big volcano of St. Vincent and again in the shadow of the giant Pitons of St. Lucia, but we didn't have to tack. Well, that isn't totally true either, as just beyond the Pitons, a sudden shift of wind had a beautiful but surprising breeze coming from the west. It switched quickly to the east after two hours; no harm, no foul.

Since we've been here, we've cleared customs, made contact with and had drinks with John Fallon and his company (more on them next post), rejoiced at the choices in the grocery store, spent $700-800 in the chandlery for boat repairs, and have started some of them. We have also received many emails from home, telling us what is going on. Thanks so much. Dawn is still reeling from reading in a week-old tabloid that Oprah is quitting, and is trying hard to stay current.

All for now.

Reminising the past 3 weeks

Over the past 21 days, we had the pleasure of entertaining and being entertained by my sister Lorna, brother-in-law Brian, followed by Walter and Dana, sailing friends from Boston. On each of their visits, we had a ball taking them around to our favourite places and restaurants in the Grenadines. We swam many times with the turtles and fish of the Tobago Cays; lazed around beach bars and restaurants; climbed many hills in search of views and cold beers; and read many many books. One of us (Walter) kite sailed many of the 10 days he was with us. The water in these regions is very, very clear and the temperature is warm enough to stay in the water for hours at a time. Next year, I'm not coming back without an underwater camera! It's just crazy to see everything we see and only be able to tell it in words!


Pictured above is Lorna and Brian during their 10 day stay. Check out the incredibly clear water!


Here is Walter enjoying a nap in the hammock...oops, should have taken the rum bottle out of the shot!


Walter and Dana are showing the red snappers served at Seckie's Beach Bar in Chatham Bay, Union Island. We don't even mind the heads and tails being served. Laurie says there's enough meat in the cheeks to put up with a fishhead!
Both couples treated us to meals ashore on a regular basis which we greatly appreciated. Company like we have had is welcome anytime!!


Sadly, Dana and Walter left in the early hours of the morning to catch the 6:30 am ferry to St. Vincent in order to save us the 3-4 hour sail. Notice the long pants...a hot day of travel is in their future.


This is a scene we see over and over again but never get tired of. We don't take any of our days here for granted.

We are planning to leave Bequia tomorrow morning at 4:30 am heading for St. Lucia. The winds here have been very powerful lately, but tomorrow they're calling for quieter weather.

Also, note that I have added Alan's blog to our list of links on the side-bar. Alan's boat is a Pearson 42 named "Unabated". We spent about a week sailing along side him and his gal Beckie and hopefully we'll meet again.

A second Blog I have added today is Catherine and Peter from s/v Charlotte D. (Dinghy named "Her Majesty" They're home is in Cape Breton.

Enjoy!
Dawn

Bequia Again

Guest blogger Walter here...

We are back in Bequia for the last dayof the Bequia muic festval, and
to stage ourselves for or return to StVincent. and on to Boston by
air.

We left Clifton harbor for a short sail over to Chatham Harbor (still
on Union Island). Chatham is a very quiet spot in the lee of the
island with a few local beach bars and one development by outsiders.
The development has the look of Herman Mouk's (sp?) play, "Dont stop
the carnival" in which the protagonist had great ideas for improving
the island, but is confronted by obstacle after obstacle, mostly
cultural, until the projects grinds not to a halt, but to island time.
Which may as well be a halt. The development has a couple of LARGE
titki huts with a nice bar and upholstered lounge chairs surrounded by
a dozen or so cinder block structures that are barely started. No
progress at all in the weeks Dawn and Laure have been around.

We went to a local beach bar for dinner, When you arrive, the boat
boys come out and solicit your business for buying their fish,
lobster, or coming to their bars.

If you do want to come to diner,
they take your order right then, I guess that allows them to know what
fish to keep, and which they are free to sell on the local market, Or
maybe that tells them what they have to go catch.

No need to worry about getting frozen fish, there is no electricity on
this side of the island. This particular bar is lit by LED lights off
of batteries. Technology that was doubtless imported by the visiting
yachts.

At Vanessa and Seckie's place, Happy hour is from 3 to 6, with all
drinks half price. At 6 they go up to regular price which is OK since
they become twice as large. Dawn and Laure swear that they saw print
ads for a bar in Bequia that offered 3 beers for $10EC and 4for $15EC. The stupid tax takes many forms.

We snorkeled and read, and the next morning we sailed for 4 hours back
to Bequia for the music festival. We just caught the end of the
festival, and really enjoyed only one of the 3 acts we saw. But it was
cheap and a nice scene for hanging out, and we ran into old cruising
buddies from SV July Indian for pleasant conversation. The music was
mostly popular, and we would have preferred local forms; they have
become one and the same..

Dana has become the fishing soothsayer, She successfully predicted
each of our two catches this trip. True to her second prediction, we
caught a nice little barracuda on the way, and will have it for dinner
tonight. You don't think of Barracuda as an eating fish, but we all like
it's nice white flesh with a flavor of scallops.

Our flight leaves tomorrow at 10:00, so today we'll explore the island of Bequia.

ttyl