And We're Off

It's been rather quiet on the blog recently, but with good reason. Boy have we been busy!

We kicked it into high gear last week and have finally knocked out the last of the boat jobs that held us to the CYOA docks.

Sunrise on another day at the dock.

Along with all the boat work we'll also admit that we've been having a lot of fun. The Sunday before U.S. Thanksgiving we went over to Honeymoon beach on Water Island and experienced a real local hangout with Jay & Deb, Paul and Laurie. We were treated to a ride over on one of the Sea Tow boats; much better than the bumpy ride it would have been in our little dinghy.

Captain Paul whisked us across the bay in the Sea Tow boat.

A lazy hang-out Sunday on the beach.

It was hot, so he dug a hole and lay in it - how creative.

Paul & I sat and chatted over a cold beer while ...

Henry chatted up Bubbles!

End of a perfect day. Now to get the boat...

Thanksgiving arrived on Thursday and John & Joanne very graciously invited us to their place up on the north side of the island for the feast. Erica gave us a ride and we joined Paul, Nancy, Jay & Deb for a wonderful meal of turkey with all the fixings. John & Joanne's house is perched on the cliffs overlooking Hans Lollick and the BVI with stunning views to the north-east. It was quite amazing looking down on the islands that we have sailed to many times and watching the winds and currents swirl through the channels.

John & Joanne dishing up appetizers on the deck.

Looking east to the BVI and overlooking the new house.

Jay, Paul & Henry swapping stories.

Deb seems to think its good to the last drop!

The boat work however has continued, the solar panels are all installed up on the bimini and pumping energy into our batteries throughout the day. So far, and it is early days yet, we find that by lunchtime our batteries are back to full and for the afternoon we just stay topped up until sunset. Obviously there will be cloudy days when we won't be able to capitalize on all that free sunshine, but we'll definitely take it when we can get it.

This morning we finally got to dress up Mowzer with her new graphics. Now, when we sit in an anchorage we won't look like other charter boats, we'll have a little distinction. Totally happy with how this little project turned out!

Now she's quite distinctive.

Now that we're done with these major projects it is time to start watching for a weather window to make our way to St. Martin, and it looks like the perfect one is coming our way this weekend. Along with that it will be a full-moon on Saturday so we are hoping for a relatively easy crossing. We will leave the dock on Wednesday, make our way up to the BVI and then continue to watch the weather for a period of calm in the winds. We're heading due east which is right into the trade-winds so we'd like either a shift in the winds to the north or a reduction to less than 10 knots to ease the 100 mile passage.

Woohoo!! Here we go!

A Great Blue Heron gets ready for an evening of hunting from the docks.

Thankful All Day Long

Being U.S. Thanksgiving it is a slow day on St. Thomas and feels more like a Sunday than most Sundays and this year we get to celebrate twice which is rather fitting since we feel rather thankful. This morning, after almost a week of incessant 25-knot winds and squalls we awoke to a beautiful red sky and a gentle breeze. It was like someone had flipped the off-switch overnight. In addition, CYOA has all but two boats out on charter at the moment, which is great for them but I have to say it feels like a ghost-town with the docks so empty!

All quiet on the docks this morning.

I haven't posted in a few days as we have been busy, busy with boat jobs and a goal to leave the CYOA dock early next week. Paul has been working with us almost non-stop all week and has checked pretty well everything off the list, along with helping Henry with the solar panel wiring.

One of the nastier jobs he got to do was to replace one of our electric heads (toilets) with a manual model. The new head arrived in it's box on our deck one morning as one had been removed from a new charter boat to be swapped out for electric. Ironically, the hand-written label on the box proclaimed our head to be "manuel" so from here-on-in he shall be called "Manuel". I won't go into the gruesome detail of the work involved with pulling out a 5-year old head and all its associated plumbing, but let's just say that Paul was happy to take a shower afterward.

Manuel all ready to be pumped

The water maker has now all been installed and high pressure tests have been run, although we're not keen to make water from the harbour water. Henry just has to chase down a few final leaks and then we'll be all set to create our own H20.

Filters, membranes and pumps all installed and ready to start production.

The back of our boat is feeling rather naked at the moment since we have the fabric bimini (shade cover) removed so I can sew the attachments for the solar panels to it; they are thin flexible panels that can be attached with velcro so although not difficult it is a large quantity of fabric to fit through my machine and there are three large panels to be set up. The fourth panel will be attached directly to our cabin top and at max sun exposure we have potential for 345 watts of power. We know that typically one panel or another may be shaded since we have them mounted on both sides of the boat, but with this wattage we should be able to cover our daily battery requirements for the refrigerator, fans, computer charging, etc. On cloudy days we have our backup generator or if we have to motor anywhere that also tops up the batteries, but it will be so nice to sit in an anchorage and be able to quietly (and freely) generate power! I will post later on the details of the installation of both the solar and water projects.

Bimini off and wiring threaded through the bulkhead - it's definitely a work-zone!

These Solbian panels are so thin and flexible.

Still need to clean up what looks like a rat's nest of wiring.

In prep for changing our dinghy and adjusting the layout at the back of the boat, we have also moved our life raft. Once we removed a support post from under our helm seat, which was non-functional anyway, it was like the life raft was made to fit there out of the way but immediately accessible should it be needed. In this picture you can also see the Port Visor that we added to the aft berth port. Given that this port is directly above my head at night and is the only ventilation in our berth, this little addition will allow us to leave the port open at anchor in all but the most heavy rainfall, which is a great alternative to being woken up with rain in the face followed by a stiffling berth until the rain is past.

Life raft strapped under the seat and port visor already doing it's job against the rain.

And last but definitely not least, Bob replaced two of our leaky windows. We took very careful notes on this installation given that three of five have now been replaced which makes it a fair likelihood that we will need to look after the other two in the not too distant future. In actual fact, these hull windows have a nasty habit of bleeding black streaks down the hulls, giving what some call a wet-mascara effect, but the product used on the replacement windows should not have this nasty side-effect, so we may want to replace the other two very soon.

Bob getting the last window reinstalled.

Today, we're taking it pretty easy and then have been very kindly invited to join John & Joanne and some of the other crew from CYOA for a Thanksgiving feast. This weekend will provide time to finish up the final testing and installation on the water and solar projects and then we should be ready to kick off the dock heading eastward towards St. Martin as weather permits. The last few weeks we have definitely been live-aboard boat workers, but shortly we'll be able to truly begin life as cruisers. There is no doubt there will be many more days of boat work in our lives, but it is time to move on and spend more time on the hook.

New Experiences

I should preface this post by saying that each and every day brings new experiences, we just seem to have had a flurry of them in the last couple of days.

We had planned to leave CYOA on Tuesday but the guys got super busy with running electrical wiring for the water maker and some other engine room repairs so that we stayed through to Thursday morning. Its not often I can claim to be the smallest one around and fit into tight spaces, but Wednesday morning found me doing yoga moves in the corner of the anchor lock with a power drill all set to drill a hole in the boat - yikes?! No worries, all above the water line. In their infinite wisdom when Fountaine-Pajot built this boat they put the water level sender in the starboard water tank that can only be removed/replaced if you care to drill a 3" hole in the wooden shelf behind the fridge. I'm not talking about a hidden shelf out of sight, but the one holding our books. "Not to worry," says Jay, we'll just give you an extra fan there. And voila, Mowzer now has a working water guage and a new fan in the saloon.

For the afternoon I think Jay decided that idle hands needed a job, so he set to work to teach me how to service our winches. This is actually a job I wanted to know how to do and while I'd taken apart our winches on Blue-By-You and 'cleaned' them, I definitely hadn't done it to Jay's level of achievement. We took the winch completely apart, soaked all the parts in mineral spirits and for the badly corroded and dirty bit moved them into a bath of muriatic acit - very nasty stuff. Making sure I had the same numnber of parts for both winches (19 - thats a note for me for later) and that everything went back where and how it should, this dirty job was one. With the lovely new winch handle that Henry bought and the newly serviced winches, trimming the sails is so much smoother now.

Soaking up the spirits - all the old grease is melting away.

Trying to keep the cabin top reasonably clean around the main assembly.

One done and the second going back together.

Meanwhile, amid a little blue air from down below, Henry and Paul managed to get cables run from circuit breakers to water maker, and replacement batteries installed in the engine room. Nothing is straight (or straight-forward) on a boat so the cable run was through nooks and crannies below the cockpit and through another new hole in the boat - this one thankfully hidden.

Thursday morning saw us finally off the dock and in the calm, amost non-existent winds we motored up to Tortola where we checked through customs, did a few groceries and then made our way to Nanny Cay where we stayed in the marina for the night. After Henry did a great job of backing us up against the dock (no sarcasm - he did a great job) we realized that other than CYOA this is the first time we have ever stayed in a marina - not bad after 5 years of cruising around these islands. The reason for the marina stay was so that we could be on the dock nice and early for our marine surveyor but at $100 for the night not an experience we will be repeating anytime soon.

Loaded up with groceries - nice to wheel the buggy with heavy items right to your dinghy.

On the dock at Nanny Cay - Mowzer's the little one at the end of the dock.

Geoff Williams from West Indies Marine Surveyors arrived promptly at 9am and went through Mowzer from bow to stern and right up to the tip of the mast. As Henry commented, we've had both houses and now both our boats surveyed in the last year and a half, it all felt rather familiar. This survey is to provide us with a valuation for insurance and a double-check that as we leave CYOA there are no nasty surprises awaiting us. Geoff was the consummate professional and had us out for the sea trial just after lunch and then back to Nanny Cay for a quick drop-off at the dock. We'll see him again next week when we return for the haul-out and he can go over the hulls below the water-line. So far so good but we look forward to reading his report next week.

Checking out the rigging on the mast.

Free agents at last - or at least until next Wednesday. The boat job list awaits ... but will be quite pleasant sitting in a quiet bay on Norman Island.

If you look carefully there's a double rainbow greeting us on Thursday morning.

Canadian colours.

As a final note, as we were sailing over to Road Town today this pretty little boat passed in front of us with it's bigger than life proclamation of being Canadian - did my heart proud and made such a pretty picture with the south shore of Tortola in the background.

A Moving Experience

Remember those quiet couple of days up in the BVI when we really did nothing? So do I, with fondness...

The last couple of days have seen a beehive of activity as we have completed all the paperwork, rented a van and moved all our stuff from the shipping office to aboard Mowzer.

Also remember that I commented that Henry had picked up a tummy bug and was incapacitated on Tuesday evening? Well, the situation persisted through Wednesday, but thankfully by the evening he was starting to look himself. Yesterday still was a little dicey but at least he was able to get vertical and join me on the expedition. We figure it was all due to something he ate, most likely the lunch-time salad at Cruz Bay.

Wednesday began with arranging a van rental and by lunch-time I was off to the Excise Office, the Customs & Border Patrol Office and the CaribTrans shipping office with various officially stamped, and paid for, forms. We had cleared our first shipment of purchased items through Excise last week but we blended both shipments together for the rest of the clearances which made life a little less confusing. I'm not sure if the confusion resulted from there being so many different vendor invoices or the fact that the Customs agent was sipping back a lunch-time beer as he operated his calculator! It turns out that even if you purchase items from the States, if you have them shipped to the Virgin Islands and they were not manufactured in the U.S., you still have to pay duty on them. The good news is that the duty is 6% which is a lot lower then many other places and there is no additional sales tax, but it is still pretty mind-boggling. The Revenue Agency is about $500 richer and the shipping company made off with about $1200, but when we do the math on what we saved over costs in Canada which would have included import duty and 13% sales tax, we're still feeling pretty good about it all.

Along with regular checks on Henry to make sure he was hydrated, and still breathing, I made a couple of trips to the shipping office and back to the boat with all the boxes. It was rather like Christmas on Mowzer that evening as we unpackaged everything, going through carefully to ensure everything was present and undamaged. The resulting pile of cardboard and packaging material warranted a trip to the dumpster by itself. We filled up the spare berth with solar panels, water maker components, sewing materials, a propane BBQ (yay, no more briquettes), a wifi booster and then spilled out into the cockpick with a new Honda generator and our 'stay-put' Rocna anchor.

Thursday morning dawned bright and early seeing Henry feeling up to a visit to Home Depot - they open early with contractor hours. We knew we had lots of tools arriving in the final part of our shipment but had made the decision back home that we would purchase new power tools for the boat so along with those, we picked up some other heavy-duty bits and pieces including a couple of big pieces of corrugated plastic board to use as a backplate to the solar panels on the bimini. Sure glad we weren't trying to walk down the windy street with those suckers, we might have gone airborne!

Tools delivered back to Mowzer, we made our final visit to the shipper to pick up our personal items. This shipment completely filled the back of the van and we were super-pleased to be able to use CYOA's back door to park right at the end of our dock. We 'simply' had to stage the boxes along the dock to begin the process of finding a home for all that stuff.

With a final grocery run completed, Henry worn out and the clock ticking out the final minutes of our one-day rental, I returned the van and we are once again wheel-less.

19 items shipped from Ottawa, ranging from the paddle and paddle-board up to an 80 pound box of books, tools and assorted items, I felt like we were packing everything but the kitchen sink. By evening, everything was aboard and we were starting (just starting) to make sense of the mess. Lots of work ahead as we make Mowzer our home but the transformation from charter boat to live-aboard cruiser is starting to take shape.

Before: our main living area

Our spare berth - it a good thing no one is visiting for a little while.

Phew - that's one corner sorted out.

Back to CYOA

Book-ending the weather seems to have become a habit for us. We left the docks at CYOA a little over two weeks ago after a couple of days of squally weather in Charlotte Amalie and we returned today dodging squalls for the most part of the morning. The only other rain we have seen in the last two weeks was the squall that we got caught in on the sail up to Anegada.

Like a homing pigeon though, Mowzer made her way back to St. Thomas where we fueled up at Crown Bay before settling onto a mooring at Frenchtown Marina.

Approaching Charlotte Amalie we listened to the U.S. Coast Guard making securite announcements on the VHF that the main channel into the harbour was closed due to the International Sailing Regatta. It was quite interesting listening to the motor yacht behind us persuading the Coast Guard to let him enter so he could make his customs appointment for his passengers at 2pm, and we followed up with our own conversation as we maneuvered around the launch escort to confirm that we could enter via the East Gregory Channel. I actually found it interesting how friendly and casual the coast guard were on the radio; very easy to understand but quite a bit more conversational than I expected. On the other hand, getting the fuel dock to acknowledge our call took a bit more effort.

International Sailing Regatta action outside Charlotte Amalie harbour.

Coast Guard provides an escort through the action in the harbour.

We whiled away the afternoon in conversation with Jay discussing many of the updates and modifications we have on our list; he is a fountain of knowledge and full of great ideas.

The CYOA fleet looks poised like race horses.

Now, we're just getting ready to head out for our traditional last dinner in St. Thomas at The Pie Whole; wonder what they'll have on tap tonight?

The face of a happy, relaxed sailor thinking about what's on the menu? I think yes!

A Day on the Dock

With Mowzer having been out of the water for an extended amount of time, the folks at CYOA have had their work cut out for them over the last week getting her ready for our arrival and the follow-on charters after we leave. Lots of jobs had been completed and just a couple remained before we can push away from the dock.

So, knowing this is to be savoured, we headed off for the morning in our rental to do groceries, leaving those boat jobs behind. On our return we found B had fixed a leaky thru-hull - definitely a good thing to keep the sea water out of our bilges, N replaced the head light fixture that had gone non-functional and C had been up to the top of the mast to repair a cracked VHF antenna fixture. This was all before lunch and what amazes me is that each if these jobs would probably take us a day to prepare for and complete. Nothing daunted, in the afternoon, B and C took on the leaky port window. We had witnessed ourselves the extent of this leak in the rain yesterday afternoon as the water streamed in the top of the window and ran down to the drain in the shower - so happy that this leak occurred in the head and not the berth!

The guys got busy with various nasty-sounding tools and after a 2-hour struggle were able to get the window pried away from the hull. Other owners who have tackled this job and posted about it online have all sworn that it is a difficult job, and they weren't kidding.

The afternoon brought more rain, heavy at times, but it let up in time for the window to be reset and clamped for an overnight cure. Hopefully it will all be set and ready for us to head off tomorrow.

We treated ourselves to dinner at Hookline & Sinker. Perhaps this guy was on the menu tonight?

Re-Connected

O.M.G. - if the stress of getting ready to get away doesn't kill me, I am determined to enjoy this break.

It's been a year since we were last aboard Mowzer and the saga of why is probably best left to a later blog. Needless to say, 7 months out of the water and a major repair later, we are so happy to see her back where she belongs. A huge shout-out to all the hard work and perseverence by John at CYOA for seeing our repair through the warranty process at Fountaine-Pajot and the crew at the docks for putting her back together so beautifully.

Ottawa was a bit snowy overnight but nothing enough to cause a delay. The torrential rains in St. Thomas this afternoon definitely put a "damper" on our planned grocery excursion. Instead we went on the hunt for a data simm card for a nifty little device I picked up on Amazon. This little baby is unlocked so we can put any company's data card in it and then create our own hot-spot on the boat for any device - like my iPad I am currently using to write up this post. We'll be careful how much we load on it until we get used to how much data we're using but it is prepaid by the week and not too expensive.

Of course for any of you reading from work - I'm still out of reach :-)

In all reality though, sitting on the boat in the evening and being able to download the weather charts for the next day and shoot off the odd post or email is pretty sweet. I don't expect it's like this on all the islands, but we'll enjoy it while it's here.

A Week in Culebra, SVI - Part 1

We spent a fabulous week on the island of Culebra in the Spanish Virgin Islands.  Don't get me wrong, there is wifi available on the island but between us having a problem with our bullet (wifi) connection and then spending loads of time in isolated bays with barely a cell-phone signal, we just didn't get the blogs posted as usual.  Sorry for the length of the post but now we're back home and I'll catch you up on what we saw and did; it's the whole week in one go!

Nov 22 - U.S. Thanksgiving

Thanks to Jim for getting up so early to drive us to the airport in the wee hours of the morning under a blanket of thick, freezing fog.  Flying through Charlotte we arrived perfectly in St. Thomas and got an $8 pp cab ride down to CYOA.  What a change in one day!

Being Thanksgiving and not being near a mega mall preparing for Black Friday, the island retail was actually shut down, so finding a meal and groceries was going to be a little more of a challenge.  Wonderful Nancy however invited us to join herself and friends just next door to the docks for a fabulous pot-luck turkey and ham dinner with all the fixings, all topped off with an evening of music.  What a great welcome; never before have we sat out in the tropical breeze enjoying a traditional Thanksgiving dinner as the moon rose over the harbour and the lights twinkled on the hillsides.  Definitely something to be thankful for.

Nov 23 - Just Around the Corner

Friday morning saw us up bright and early for a walk up the 99 steps in Charlotte Amalie. I missed my usual walking companion Jan, but Henry came along and enjoyed the early morning views of the harbour as a cruise ship pulled into the dock.

Yes...we broke down and had Egg-McMuffins for breakfast (guilty yum)

Provisioning was done at Pueblo since we didn't have a car; what a difference in the grocery store in the morning, compared to when we are usually doing our shopping in the evening, when we're completely bagged from the full travel day. It was so quiet that there weren't even the usual complement of taxis lined up out front, so I'm not sure who actually gave us (and our groceries) a ride back to Frenchtown, but his 2 year old in the back seat wasn't quite sure what to make of us either.

We have decided to head to Culebra in the Spanish Virgins this week but the winds were very light, only 5 to 8 knots from the south so we decided to take a very easy day, got off the dock and just headed round the corner to Linberg Bay for lunch. We've always thought if anyone arrives in St. Thomas that we were meeting at the airport that it would be fun to pick them up in this bay and dinghy them out to the boat, and that is exactly what we saw others doing. After the excitement of doing a lot of nothing ourselves we decided to pick up and move round to Brewers Bay for the night. We were the only ones in the bay other than some moored boats so we had a charming evening until a front arrived bringing heavy rains and black skies. In hind-sight, with the winds forecast to swing around to the north overnight we should have probably moved a bit closer to the airport side of the bay, but our anchoring proved worthy to the high speed winds whistling down the steep hillside overnight and in the morning all was calm.

This was our view of Brewer's Bay a week later as we departed the island.

Nov 24 - Off to Culebra

Another early start, but this was most likely due to the fact that with the rain last night we were in bed by 9 pm. This morning we had one of the most perfect sails over to Culebra. We were off the hook at 8:30 and with winds of 8-12 knots on or behind the beam and flat seas, we were over to the west side of Culebra and tied up on a mooring ball near the ferry dock by 1:30. The sail was so relaxing, with no anxious moments, high gusts, squalls or anything else to deal with, other than watching for wind shifts and avoiding the dreaded gybe.

Sadly we discovered, as we wandered through the town of Culebra, that Mamacita's - the little bar that we had enjoyed so much with John and Eleanor - has closed down, as has also the Dinghy Dock Bar. We popped into the dive shop where they told us that Mamacita's owners are moving to the Dinghy Dock and hope to have it open as the season gets underway, but they are suffering the loss of two great hangouts at once in town.

Last night with the wind from the south and then the north we didn't have to contend with the sun shining into the cockpit as the day wore on. Today, being a much more typical Caribbean day with the winds settling into the east, we unfurled the sunshade that I made at home, and it fits and works perfectly. I can tell already that it is going to be wonderful having the additional shade at the back if the boat.

So pleased with the fit and effect of the new sunshade - it is so much cooler in the cockpit and cabin as the afternoon sun beams down.

Stay tuned for part 2...

N18 17.731 W64 53.421

This is the exact latitude/longitude where we crossed our outgoing passage and completed our loop on this trip with a total of 350 nautical miles (716 km for those of you with a metric bent.)

What a great trip we've had this time out; we've collected stamps in our passport from the US Virgin Islands, British Virgin Islands, Anguilla, St. Martin and Saba, we've completed not one but two overnight passages and we've made new friends all of whom have shown us why we love coming out here and why we continue to pursue the dream of one day cruising full-time.

Mowzer was again exceptional and we continue to be so thankful for the excellent care that the folks at CYOA provide and hope that the many people who come aboard during the year enjoy her as much as we do.

Tonight we are tied up again at the dock at Frenchtown Marina, having made the hop from St. John to St. Thomas after another morning of delightful snorkeling and just sitting watching the view in Lameshur Bay. Can't quite believe that we've only been gone for two and a half weeks, it seems like the haul-out in Nanny Cay and arrival in Anguilla were absolute ages ago. I think we've both achieved a level of relaxation and calmness (except maybe turning around at the fuel dock) that we can now only dream of as we make our way back to reality.

Cheerio Mowzer – can't wait to be back aboard (and home) again!

Sunday, St. Thomas to St. John

Forecast: Winds NNE 16-19 kn, gusting to 25 kn, seas NE swells 5-7', small craft advisory

As we arrived at CYOA on Saturday afternoon it was great to see all the familiar faces: Nancy, Jay, Jan and we got to meet Debbie for the first time.  Debbie & Jay post on the Livin da Life blog that we follow to keep up with what is happening on the island so it was fun to put a face to the woman behind much of the writing.

Having a car rental is totally the way to go.  We ate a quick dinner, got our provisioning done and headed back to the boat with absolutely no hassle.  We realized that this is  our fifth trip to the island now so it definitely feels like coming back to our second home.

Jan made the offer that if I cared to get up nice and early, I could join her on her early morning walk.  Sure enough, I was up and ready to go when she appeared at 6 am.  This may be vacation, but if you want to get in a good walk this is definitely the time of day to do it.  The humidity takes a lot of getting adjusted to, especially away from the ocean breeze.  Jan has a great workout walk into town from the marina that includes the famous 99 steps and another run of steps that I'm sure had more.  We walked up to Bluebeard's castle, back down and then Jan walked back up again (I was definitely huffing at that point) before making our way back around the harbour to CYOA.  Now if only I can keep up on this great intention to get out on a regular basis - I'll be a very happy camper.

After a few more errands and returning the car we were on our way.  A weather advisory with high winds and a strong swell were forecast so to stay out of the swells we sailed the south shore of St. Thomas and St. John, picking Little Lameshur Bay as our destination.  We came the whole way on one tack, passing through 4-5 squalls with winds and spray that made us very happy that we had prepared with a double reef in the sails. The double rainbows against the shore of St. John were spectacular and made the dodgy weather all worth it.

Given the wave action that was probably hitting the north shore beaches, there was lots of activity on the beach here until about 4pm, but then poof, everyone disappeared, including the only other boat in the bay.  Once again, coming to the south side has treated us to a lovely secluded anchorage for the night.

CoverGirl

Surprise, surprise! I had an email from Adam at SAIL magazine this past week responding to a message I'd sent him back in November when the article for CYOA featuring Mowzer appeared. Along with some great comments about a "great boat in a great location" he commented that Mowzer was once again gracing the pages of the magazine - this time on the cover of the January issue!

And... we're back on count-down til we're back aboard in February. This time we're thinking of heading south to St. Croix for a week and then Caitlin and Jim are going to join us so we'll probably return to the BVIs. This will be Caitlin's first time there so the visit wouldn't be complete without heading to Foxy's or The Bight.

Boat Show Fun and Surprises

Annapolis Boat Show - the largest in-water sail-boat show in the U.S. and for the last three years, a Thanksgiving (Canadian) tradition for us.  Let’s do a little recap:  2008 we made our first visit and toured boats and tents in awe; 2009 we met up with CYOA and amazingly (to us at least) set up the purchase and adventure with Mowzer; now in 2010 we’ve returned to see what fun the boatshow brings this year.

As we’ve found in the past, the weather gods have smiled and it has been spectacular.  Highs of 29 on Saturday and 25 today brought out the sunscreen and flipflops - what a treat in October.  The boats as always are the stuff of dreams but this time, now that we have our own dreamboat, we enjoyed checking out some of the smaller boats and looking for ideas that we might incorporate into our own setup in the future.  We also managed to get into a few of the seminars, this time a weather briefing with Lee Chesneau, a trip down the ICW reviewing navigation aids and lessons learned and finally a tour round the Abacos Islands in the Bahamas with Pam Wall.

Of great interest was checking out the changes to the Mahe 36 for 2011.  Dubbed The Evolution, these changes include modifications to the layout inside and in particular the change to a hard-top bimini and the traveller lifted up away from the cockpit.  The hull is still identical so this new cat looks exactly like Mowzer in her lines.  The Mahe is doing well in charter and CYOA has another owner joining with an Evolution that is currently in transit across the Atlantic.  Mistina has moved to another location but there will still be two of these great cats available to charter this season.

A highlight of the show was meeting up with the folks at CYOA:  John and Jo Anne, Nancy, Kirsten, Camille and Lonnie.  The booth on dock B looked fabulous and we were pleased as punch to see Mowzer front and centre on one of the display banners.  Earlier in the season, Mowzer and Mistina went out on a photo-shoot and the results are fabulous by way of great shots for advertising for CYOA.  So professional!  She’s even in a photo gracing the 2010/11 line of CYOA lip balm!  The crowds on Saturday were thronging, and on Sunday, while a little quieter, were only so in comparison to Saturday so we’re hoping lots of business will come to CYOA’s doorstep.

Finally, to really put the icing on the cake, we were delighted to see Mowzer featured in a story in the October edition of Sail Magazine. It was a little surreal but we could instantly relate to the fun and appreciation Adam Cort had for Mowzer as he and his young family toured around the USVI.  (Note the shot in the top right of the cover.)

(Pretty amazing, huh?  I’ll set up better links once I  get soft-copy of the article but this gives you the idea - or check out the October issue of Sail.)

We’re really on the count-down now, just six more weeks and we’ll be back aboard!