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ALL WAYS BOAT NEWS – APRIL

In the Spanish Virgin Islands we first visited Culebrita about 18 nm from St. Thomas. It was a pleasant down wind sail with several other boats heading west. Culebrita is a tiny little island near Culebra, with nothing there but a beautiful clear water horseshoe anchorage called Tortuga Bay and the remains of an old brick and stone lighthouse left over from the 1860’s. It’s deserted now but does still works as a solar powered lighthouse. It looked like it must have also been either a barracks or an observation post. The colored marble floors were still perfectly in tact and still colorful. And the turquoise colored stone on the tower walls was quarried from the stone outcroppings around the bay. The bronze dome of the lighthouse had been blown off by some long ago hurricane but lay nearby on the ground still in one piece. The path to the lighthouse was populated by hermit crabs everywhere. Did you know that hermit crabs change shells as they grow? When they get too big for their own shell, they find a larger abandoned shell and pull up along side it, inspect it with their claw and then in the blink of an eye they hustle out of their too small shell and dive into the new shell. There is also a place there called the Baths by locals as it is lower than the sea coming in, which causes a clear water pool 3’ to 10’ deep as the waves splash in and then drain off down the other side. That evening, March 11, we watched a glorious huge full moon come up over the palm trees.
Culebra is the bigger island and is the most progressive of the Spanish virgins in self sustaining alternative energy resources. We anchored inside the huge Ensenada Honda Bay and close to the dingy dock on the west side where the major part of town is located. They have a new high school there which is completely solar powered and the roof is a cistern collection system that helps serve the whole island as they have no natural fresh water supply. The rest of the water to the island comes from an underwater pipeline that runs all the way from Puerto Rico 19 nm to Vieques and then 12nm north to Culebra. The island also is well equipped so that after a hurricane they can quickly restore power and communications. A $1 ferry ride can get you to Fajardo, Puerto Rico in about 1 1/4 hour for the 20 mile ride.
After Culebra we headed for Vieques. As you approach the island from the East you need to call ahead on the VHF to the Vieques Range Control to inquire if there is going to be any bomb explosions as you pass. We were traveling in a caravan of 3 boats. We had been unable to get the Range Control to answer our calls. As the first boat entered the first anchorage we had planned to visit the Range Control finally came over the radio stating “There are hundreds of unexploded ordinances where you are and you are putting your vessel and everyone aboard at great risk.” If those words don’t make you turn tail and run nothing will. During the several days we were there we heard several loud explosions as the military tries to clean up the area and set off all those thousands of unexploded bombs. It’s a little disconcerting to be relaxing in your cockpit and suddenly hear a huge KABOOM just a few miles away. Vieques is an interesting mix of bohemians, ex-patriots, and left over military personnel. There are lots of Paso fino horses, presumably brought there originally in the days of the conquistadors, which the kids ride around the island bareback at top speed on the weekends. The one lane road thru the beach town of Esperanza is the source of much jockeying for position as pedestrians, kids on horses, private vehicles, mini-van taxis, and occasional motor scooters all try to travel the same route. The larger main town of Isabella Segunda (II) was named for Queen Isabella the second by Christopher Columbus and is home of the last fort built by in the New World by Spain. The fort has been beautifully restored into a museum of historic relics. One of the anchorages we visited is home to numerous white, almost clear colored large jelly fish, hence their name – Moon Jellies. We had several that liked hanging out right behind our boat by the dinghy. No swimming in that water. The next bay over, Mosquito Bay is famous for being the 3rd largest Bioluminescent area in the world. They are like fireflies in the water if you can imagine. At night any disturbance of the water creates trails of light in the water as the bioluminescents move. If you put some of the water in your mouth and then spit it out it is like a fireworks fountain going off.
We sadly said goodbye to the 2 boats we had been traveling with for 2 weeks and are now back in St. Thomas anchored inside the bay Charlotte Amalie close to the dingy dock at Yacht Haven Grande. We had a nice eight hour sail back to St. Thomas from Esperanza, 42nm, 12 to 18kt winds on several tack changes. Now waiting for the north swell to dissipate so we can head to St. Croix, the largest of the USVI’s. This last particular north swell was predicted to be rather large, 12’ possibly, which is not good for anchoring at Christiansted the main yacht anchorage at St. Croix.
This weekend St. Thomas was host to the Rolex Regatta race. There were over 60 entries. Yacht Haven Grande had the finale awards party and movies of the race on an outdoor screen with hundreds of sailing enthusiasts cheering their favorites across the finish line. Even though there are lots of boats here for the event and partying ashore, the anchorage is not crowded and has good holding in 17’ of water and no one seems to have a problem dragging into each other. However, one rather large cruise ship seems to have left in a hurry and stirred up the water with its huge bow thruster and upset the anchorage for about a half hour as everybody seemed to be pointing in different directions and rather close to each other. I had to push one yacht with our dingy to keep the two apart till the water settled down (the owner was not on the boat). There was also one very windy night (gusts of 30+ knots) and all the boats, including ours, swung wildly too and fro all night. It was like playing ‘ crack the whip’ with our anchor being the handle of the whip and our boat the snap at the end. It was a very strange sensation. There is one private yacht here that is so big it resembles a small cruise ship, named after a south american indian tribe and it’s large enough to house at least one entire village. It is too large to fit into a slip so he had to tie up to the fuel dock (which is as long as a cruise ship). This marina charges $4.75+ per foot per day for large yachts so I can imagine what his dock fee must be at 300+ feet or so. Anyway, they just refueled and took all the diesel fuel until the end of the week. We are now having to go over to another marina's fuel dock so we can fill our tank with 20 more gallons to be able to head out to St. Croix. Maybe tomorrow.
Best boat name heard this week on the VHF radio, “Anger Management”. Here’s hoping all your angers are being well managed at the moment.

All Ways H. and C.

All Ways boat news, March ‘09’

It was hard to say goodbye to the cream cheese Quesitas we had become addicted to at Deli France, but our allotted 30 days in the BVI’s were up (the BVI’s didn’t want our money anymore) so we headed for St. John’s in USVI’s. Most of the shoreline of St. John’s is a national park with strict rules of what you can or can’t do. One of the rules is you can’t anchor (because of the coral reefs) and you have to use one of their provided mooring balls. We cruised into Maho Bay and found a large selection of balls to choose from. We decided on the one we wanted and headed up wind to snag it with Chuck at the helm and me out on deck with our trusty boat hook to snag the line of the ball to then hook up our line to it. I successfully snagged the mooring rope, but the boat hook refused to slide easily down the rope to where I could grab hold of it to attach our line as is the typical scenario. No matter how I tugged the boat hook wouldn’t slide and since our boat is continuing to move with the current and wind, I reach the critical point where it’s either me or the boat hook or the mooring ball, but one or more of us has to go. So before the point of getting yanked overboard I prudently decide to unhook the boat hook from the mooring line and let it go. Now ordinarily that should have been the end of it and we would just circle around and have another go at it. However – this particular mooring ball seemed to have it out for us. It apparently had been run over by some other boat and it’s line and float and ball were all a jumbled mess and no longer capable of staying in it’s assigned place and behaving normally. As we tried to back away from the ball it kept coming at us until it went under the keel and tried to attach itself to our rudder and turning propeller. We did an emergency stop and quickly killed the engine to thwart the attack. An overboard look at the situation revealed that in fact it was lightly tangled in our prop and we thought we might have to cut it loose (we didn’t think the park was much going to appreciate that and we could even incur a fine), but fortunately after a few moments it freed itself and floated off to entrap someone else. Needless to say we selected a different mooring ball for the night. The night turned out to be quite windy and rolley. Preparing dinner below deck I was mindful of the Charlie Chaplin film where he is being blown around and hopping on one foot first one direction and then the other direction. That’s exactly how I felt.
We spent another couple nights in St. John’s (different anchorage). We picked up our part that we had mailed to our friends there (no duty that way) so Chuck could now finish installing our new CD player with the IPod docking station (this is all space age stuff to us). We had a close encounter with the Westin ferry boat in Great Cruz Bay whose captain apparently felt we were anchored to close to the channel and decided to teach us a lesson. He throttled up his ferry to high speed, in a no wake zone, just before he got to us and threw a 3 foot wake broadside at our boat which had the effect of flinging our drinks off the table and all over us and throwing everything not battened down in the galley onto the floor and almost swamping our dinghy full of water. Chuck was immediately on this incident with the USCG and wrote emails with pictures to them, the Westin and the ferry boat company about the need for this dangerous captain to appear before the Captains Review Board for a refresher course in safety and etiquette training. After that, we decided to move on to Christmas cove at Great St. James just off St. Thomas. This is a beautiful little anchorage picture book right out of an island paradise advertisement. Nice and calm, no mooring balls and no ferries.
We spent a lovely week in St. Thomas in Charlotte Amalie. We met several new cruiser friends. All the amenities we needed were close at hand and reasonably priced and we enjoyed the area. One of our neighbors at home is living ashore there for the winter, so he picked us up in his car and gave us a grand tour of the island. We are now in Culebra, one of the Spanish virgin islands about 20 miles from Puerto Rico. This is a lovely little laid back island that seems to exude “ no worries mon “. We were going to share a rental car today with another boat we are cruising with, but the weather has turned rough and several boats have been breaking loose from their anchor holds and dragging (including our friends in the dark last night). Having to re-anchor at night in the dark, possibly in the wind and rain is something all cruisers strive to avoid. So we are all sticking close to our boats today to keep an eye on things instead. On days like this, one just hangs out and reads, or you work on boat projects, or write the next ‘AllWays’ boat news. I think we’ll do some of each.

All Ways

Hi there. When last we left off we were anchored just off shore in a location to watch a wedding party in St Lucia. It turned out to be quite a party, complete with limbo dancers, acrobats, steel drum band, huge bonfire, dancing, tons of food - quite the party. And it turns out it wasn't the wedding reception, it was just the kick off party for the wedding weekend, with several other events to take place leading up to the actual wedding and reception. Now that couple knows how to throw a wedding. From there we went to Rodney Bay marina, a large popular anchorage with lots to see and do. They were busy dredging the inside of the lagoon area surrounding the marina and building some additional slips in order to become a large mega yacht marina. Just about every island is getting in on the mega yacht action and building or expanding existing marinas in order to service these giant boats. We hope they are increasing their fuel dock capacity as well because it is not uncommon for a normal sailboat to want to fuel up (around 50 gallons or so) only to find some mega yacht was there before them and has taken ALL the fuel (3,000 to 5,000 gallons). When that happens there may not be another fuel delivery for sometimes days or a week on some islands.

From St. Lucia it was on to Martinique. Anchored in St. Anne with friends and Le Marin. Le Marin is the largest yachting center in all the Caribbean islands. Lots and lots of boats, and lots of support services. Fell in love with a cat there and wanted to bring him home with me but research into the matter and common sense prevailed. Guess he'll just have to live on in my heart. From there we moved up island to a protected anchorage to sit out 4 days worth of unprecedented swells (like a wave but different) the size of which (12 - 18') had not been seen in the caribbean for 40 years. At least we were fairly close to one of our favorite places to eat - so we were able to placate our appetites if not our urge to keep traveling.

When the swell finally receeded we continued on our way to Dominica, where once again the weather locked us in for the better part of a week. Dominica is a gorgeous rain forest island so we took advantage of seeing some additional sites around the island. A hike through the Syndicate rain forest to Milton falls rewarded us a torrential rainfall. Pretty appropriate I suppose. The rain in these places is like taking a warm shower. We saw and heard some of the local endangered parrots(Sisserou and Red Necked) which live only in Dominica. This is part of a national park, and Teddy Roosevelt visited here and climbed one of the peaks just in order to see these parrots. They are now protected and are making a comeback. There are a large variety of huge and magnificent trees in this rain forest which have had to adapt their root systems to all the moisture. Some of them have buttress roots which are kind of like a sloping room divider that start maybe 8' up the tree and come off at sloping angles around the tree and form almost like separate rooms at the base of the tree. Hard to describe - look it up in the encyclopedia. And there are Gommier trees which are huge and straight and the Carib indians used (and still do) to carve into dug out canoes. It must have been something trying to cut one of those down before the days of chain saws.

March 31 arrived in Deshaies, Guadeloupe. A good place to practise your french if you know any. We had not planned to stay here more than a day, but the weather once again had something different in mind with 30+kts winds and 10 to 15' seas in the passages, so it looks like we will be here about a week. Guess there are worse places to be stuck, here we have cheap french wine, fresh baked bread (who doesn't look cool walking down the street with a long baguette sticking out of the day pack), good cheese, fresh fish caught daily and Pain o Chocolates - how bad can it be? We went grocery shopping yesterday at Carrefoure - a grocery store to end all grocery stores. The selection and amount of choices are mind boggling. You can literally spend hours in there grocery shopping - of course it helps if you read french. Just the cheese aisle is 2 blocks long. There's an entire area of fresh seafood, one huge area of fresh baked french pastries, several aisles of french (and other) wines), etc. And why stop at carrying just food and liquor when you can also sell clothes (including fancy french lingerie), and hardware and household goods and TV's and electronics, and CD's and DVD's, and - well you get the picture. And it's located in a shopping mall with all kinds of other shops also. You really could spend the day there.

Evening entertainment on the boat sometimes consists of watching DVD movies which one regularly swaps with other cruisers so one always has a fresh supply of new ones to watch. Last swap we acquired the entire 2nd season episodes of Boston Legal and Desperate Housewives. If you like those shows it's fun to be able to watch them all at once (or as many as you can stand in one sitting)with continuity and with no commercials. Hope to be heading for Antigua or Montserrat on Tuesday as the weather is supposed to break then with 10 to 15 kts winds and seas 5 to 7'.

Time to go work on boat projects. Keep the emails coming. We love to hear what's going on at home too.

All Ways H. and C.

N16 18.504 W061 47.808

Guadeloupe, April1
We are now is Deshaise, Guadeloupe and haven't been able to leave for Antigua as the winds have been gusting to 30+ kts and the seas are any where from 10 to 18' in the passages from the Atlantic. The anchorage is kind of crowded now as boats are coming from the south and can't go any further north waiting for the weather break. Every thing is quiet here though. Today Hether is cleaning the cockpit and polishing everything and I'm running cleaning solution through the water maker as the water started having a sulfur smell so the membrane had something going on with it. I'm supposed to let it soak for an hour and rinse it with fresh water and then try making water again to see if that took care of it or I may have to use an additional acid cleaner. We'll see. We plan on heading out tomorrow or Tuesday for either Montserrat or English Harbor, Antigua where Hether has some friends waiting. I hope to stop at Montserrat for one day ashore to see the volcano and the destruction it caused to the town. The anchorage is not supposed to be that great in North swells and we are having NE swells currently so we are trying to talk to the Port Authority on the VHF to find out if it is okay.

St. Maarten's Simpson Bay.
April 17, 2008 at Shrimpy's dockside Bar on the internet again.
We arrived here on Sunday from St. Barths. Made the move from English Harbor, Antigua on April 9 and headed west to Nevis and up to St. Kitts North to Gustavia, St. Barths. The sail was nice with fair winds and seas. The leeward side between Nevis and St. Kitts was great sailing and the passage north to St. Barths was also okay but long. We are now ready to leave for Virgin Gorde in the BVI's and then to haul out inTortola. So today I'm on the Skype phone trying to call the boatyard to make reservations but can't get anyone on the phone that can transfer me to the right person to confirm a slot in the the long term storage yard. "It's island time don't cha know". "No problem mon just call back in an hour".
We plan to leave Simpson Bay on Thursday about 0500 for the sail west to the Bitter End on Virgin Gorda about 78nm to the BVI's about a 10 or 11 hour trip withe following winds and seas.
More later, C&H on sv/'AllWays'

The skipper's take:
We finally made our way out of Prickly Bay 24/2/08 and went around the tip of the island to the lagoon at St. George's. The next morning we sailed for Tyrell Bay, Carriacou . Tyrell Bay is a small protected shallow anchorage with a dry dock and a few beach restaurant bars and a haven for sailing cruisers. Next morning we went up to Hillsborough to check out of Grenada at customs and search for the various offices to complete the process. Customs is in one office across town from the imagration office and neither office personnel really knows where the other one is. You'd think they would have a map already printed out to show locations or landmarks as they don't have addresses. Anyway, they make it an adventure just trying to check out.
We left the Grenada islands 26/2/08 after anchoring off Petit St. Vincent and a short cross for Clifton, Union Island to check into the Grenadines and the Tabago Cays. There is a turtle refuge here and you can swim with the hawksbill turtles. They were around the boat as we anchored and when I swam on the anchor to check it's set there were two 3' turtles and a 4' stingray hanging around the spot. The cays are surrounded by a reef so the seas are calm but breezy.
The weather was changing for the worst so we pulled up and headed for Admirlty Bay in Bequia for protection from the winds which were gusting to 30kts. Met some old friends and gathered together for a crossing when the weather cleared to check out at customs in Wallilabou where the 'Pirates of the Caribbean' was shot and sets are still standing. Stayed there one night and at sunrise we let go of our mooring and headed north along the leeward side and prepare for the blast as we head into open ocean at the top of the island. It was a little rough for the first hour and then calmed down for the next 5 till we made our waypoint about 31nm at the Pitons.
We had a good crossing up to St. Lucia and stayed our three nights at the marine park on a mooring ball off Harmony Beach. The water here is so clear you can see right down to 30' and watch the fish swim past.
We are now in Rodney Bay and have just returned to the boat after going to the GIA grocery super market and replentished our stores. Tomorrow I need to go into the lagoon for fuel to get ready for the crossing to Lemarin, Martinique on the next weather window Wednesday the 12th.
The new 123 watt solar panel is suppling the much needed extra electricity to keep the batteries pumped up with help of the wind generator and our newly rebuilt depth guage is working great with new LCD screen. Now I can actually see the depth in large clear numbers as opposed to the faded screen that gave you a reading of ( "is that 15 ft or 5 ft"?) how wonderful.
More later, C&H
07/03/2008
N14 04.464 W060 57.402 Rodney Bay, St. Lucia

Hether's take:
March 4,2008
We are currently on a mooring ball in at Malagre Tout (by Soufrere) St. Lucia and tied stern to a palm tree at the base of the Piton mountains in St. Lucia. We are surrounded by palm trees, and lovely clear turqoise water, and lovely tropical plants. Started the morning by hiking to the nearby natural hot water falls which comes down from the volcano. Lounged in the pools at the bottom of the falls. Then we caught a ride to the Ladera Resort and had a fabulous lunch at their Dasheen Restaurant. I had Caribbean chicken oriental with fresh ginger and cocoanut mashed potatoes, Chuck had fresh yellow fin tuna in a fresh lime curry sauce. Without a doubt the best meal and presentation so far and it wasn't that expensive compared to US. The resort is such a wonderful place. We'd like to stay there in a room one of these days. It's the perfect peaceful gorgeous relaxing (not to mention romantic) get away.
Upon returning back to our anchorage we found the beach restaurant by our boat is busy setting up for a wedding reception on the beach later today. Looks like there will be bar b cue and live music, a big beach bonfire, flowers and dancing on into the night (we hope not too far into the night). We are in the perfect spot to be voyeurs of all the goings on, about 100 yards off the beach. And Chuck was pleased to find a stack of green bamboo poles laying there in readiness for decorations and he was able to buy a 4' section perfect for making some more bamboo glasses for our house. Next to us is moored a giant mega yacht, with a cross training exercise machine mounted on the top deck outside. Yesterday the mistress of the yacht was up exercising as she watched the sunset and the green flash. If one must exercise I can't think of a better way to do it.
All systems on the boat seem to be up and running and functioning properly. There's always a few little somethings here and there, but it wouldn't really be 'cruisng' if there wasn't. Ask any cruiser who owns their own boat, there's always something needing attention. Our new solar panel seems to really be helping our electrical needs. Chuck was able to figure out a really simple and inexpensive way to mount it as opposed to the initial $1000 estimate we got for a stainless steel mount. Meanwhile I sewed up a splash guard for the side of the boat. We'll see how well they work. I also fashioned some clear vinyl rain curtains to hang down from the bimini if it's raining and thus be able to sit in our cockpit even if it's pouring. That would be nice. They're not sturdy enough to use while underway, but good enough to use in the anchorage I hope.
While we were in Grenada we watched the lunar eclipse which lasted 3 1/2 hours (we didn/t last that long). The night before that we saw the space shuttle zooming by like a fast moving star. That was pretty awesome. Once you know where and when to look, it's unmistakeable because it's up so high and it goes so fast. It was preceeded by a stunning sunset to the east of a lavendar sky with a wide band of white clouds sitting on the horizon and the full moon rising above them. Meanwhile the local radio station was playing all steel drum music. Not just your regular variety of steel drum music, but cover tunes of various artists. I must say, I've never heard Michael Jackson's ' Thriller' played on the steel drums.
After we left Grenada we fast tracked it here to St. Lucia, and didn't linger long anywhere. In the Tobago Cays we saw at least a dozen large sea turtles swimming around our boat before we could even finish anchoring. Chuck went overboard to check out the bottom of the boat and while down there he saw 2 turtles and a sting ray all observing his activities. Can't believe how many catamarans there out these days. They outnumber the monohauls and take up twice as much space in every anchorage. In Bequia we got stuck for a few days waiting on the weather, but ran into serveral boat buddies from last year and so had a nice rendezvous and several lovely hikes, including to the turtle sancuary.
March 7, 2008
Now in Rodney Bay, St. Lucia