Hiding Out

Over the last couple of days the trade winds intensified and so we decided to sit tight at The Bight on Norman Island on the BVI.

We pulled in on Sunday morning and quickly discovered that the eastern corner just off the beach had become the "Canadian Corner" with three of us anchored, each in front of the other just begging to get to know each other and share a few sundowners. On top of this, we were sitting in one of the most popular locations in the BVI with not one, but two bars: Pirates and The Willie T.

As we weathered through the 25-knot squalls, occasionally hitting 30 knots of blowing wind and rain, we were quite content in our cozy little spot and very happy not to be out sailing.

Another bullet blows through the anchorage.

The rain is so intense it bounces off the water, making it look like fog rising.

Sunday morning saw Rick and Christina from Da Life arrive to complete the handover of our old / new to them dinghy. Treated to Mimosas and swapping a few good stories, we then handed over the "key" and waved goodbye.

Handing over the keys to the new car.

And away she goes, thankfully between squalls.

Once that order of business was concluded we set about meeting our neighbours. The Gulfstar 36 just behind us is sailed by Gerry and Dawn from Alberta, and just behind them is Cat Tales, a Tobago 35 sailed by Laurie and Dawn from New Brunswick. The Tobago is the predecessor to our Mahe in the Fountaine-Pajot line of catamarans with theirs dating from the mid 90s, and so we were each quite curious to see each other's boats to note the changes. There are definitely some design improvements in the Mahe, but the Tobago is a great boat that definitely feels more than 35', and Laurie and Dawn had some great tips for making the boat both more secure and more comfortable.

On Monday we had everyone over for sundowners and I cooked up the St. Feliciene cheese that Alex had recommended we buy in St. Martin. Now I am definitely wishing we'd bought more than one and will be looking for this on the cheese counter of any French island we visit. So yummy as a hot dip with crackers.

Tuesday saw a little reduction in the wind and amount of rain so we worked on, and completed the move of our solar panels to the middle of the bimini. Wires all rerun we are now cranking up to 13 or 14 amps into the batteries with full sun on all four panels. Work done for the day we set off on a hike along the western arm of Norman Island which afforded us some wonderful views, most noticeably back down into The Bight.

The Canadian Corner with Mowzer at the front and the others on the left.

Windswept and dry on the south coast, but just over the hill it was steamy and tropical after the rain shower.

The Bight: Pirates with the blue roof, Willie T in the foreground and Mowzer too right.

Stunning views over to Tortola, Jost Van Dyke in the far background and St. John on the left.

Finally had to clamber down from that hill with the wonderful views.

Today we are heading back into the USVI where we will return to the CYOA dock to swap out our batteries and then we will be picking up and heading west. Puerto Rico and Dominican Republic lie on that horizon.

Dolphins!

On our passage from SXM to Virgin Gorda we were treated to five dolphins frolicking between our bows.  I took a bunch of photos, some of which I posted previously and also this little video.  It's a little shaky to begin with as I got my footing on the boat, but then it settles out ... And then just like that, they're gone.

Peter Island Sojourne

Returning to the BVI and after a night at Leverick Bay in North Sound, we have now moved down to great Harbour on Peter Island with the intent to stop for a couple of days and work on some boat projects. What more could we have to do, you might ask!

Well, remember that we bought a new dinghy in St. Martin? We have been hauling two dinghies around with us since then but with an agreement to sell our old dinghy to Da Life our two-dinghy life is (happily) about to come to an end. We lifted the new dinghy onto our bow for the crossing from St. Martin and after three weeks of sitting in Marigot harbour it will be good to give its bottom a scrub before we drop it back in the water. We'll reinstall the engine and then clean up the old Carib before handing it over to Rick tomorrow. Very pleasantly we have made arrangements to meet up at The Bight on Norman Island since Rick is down on vacation on Da Life, which he and his wife co-own with Jay and Debbie.

Farewell to our old Caribe. But I bet things will be jus' fine on De Life!

Now that we are back in the beautiful clear waters of the Virgins, Henry got busy and has given Mowzer's bottom a real good scrubbing. Even though she was pressure washed in Nanny Cay back in November, Caribbean water, especially harbour water, is very fertile and we were starting a bit of a farm down there.

All squeaky clean again, well almost... And water so clear you can see the keel and rudder.

The last couple of months have been like a break-in period for us where we have learned what we did right and not-so-right with the projects we completed back on the dock in St. Thomas. One item we need to change is the layout of our solar panels. We've found that the curve of the bimini on the port side is too great and angles our two mid-size panels away from the sun just a little too much when we are at anchor. Given that the winds here are predominanlty from the east or some variation thereof, our panels need to be on the starboard side of the boat as much as possible. We had tried to avoid the boom shadow with our original placement but now realize that it will be much better to pull the boom far over to port and move these two panels as far over to starboard as possible, still leaving room to walk on the bimini to access the sailbag. This involves removing the whole bimini and sewing on new attachment plackets, although we are going to leave the old plackets so that if/when we travel somewhere where the winds are from the west, we can move the panels back to a more optimal position.

Panels in their old position, but too angled for our usual position at anchor.

New plackets on top, ready to catch more rays, once we swing the boom to the side.

Finally, and only if there is time, we purchased new life-lines to install on both sides and at the transom. Rather than going with wire strand and swaged fittings we have decided to try Dyneema line which we can splice ourselves and easily adjust or repair as needed. We have all the line and the fittings and I've done a practice splice, so this just needs us to remove the old lines and install the new. However, I think getting some of the old fittings off may be a bit of a challenge.

Dyneema and my practice splice, now just 11 more to go.

On top of all that, this Peter Island anchorage is a wonderful place to sit. We are tucked up in the eastern corner, completely protected from any swell with just the winds whistling over the hill to keep us cool. The water is deep, we're anchored very close to shore but still in 40' of water, and we can see the bottom so no problem making water here. And finally, the views looking north west over Tortola are stunning, especially as the sun sets and the distant lights start to twinkle. Again, after a month with the noise and lights of a busy harbour, it is almost mind-numbing to sit in a dark, silent anchorage with the full panorama of the stars overhead.

Mr Sulu! - If You Please?

We began our attempt to leave St. Martin in the wee hours of Wednesday morning but by Tuesday evening it was very clear that we wouldn't make our departure since our anchor was buried squarely under the boat in front if us, and no one was home.

Wednesday morning bright and early we made sure to connect with our neighbours and sure enough, with a little careful manoevering in close quarters we lifted the anchor and moved to the outskirts of the anchorage, with a clear sight on our departure line towards the BVI ready to try again.

Checked out, stocked up on baguette and pain chocolat for one last treat, garbage disposed of before reaching the $2 drop off fees of the BVI, we returned to the boat for a quiet afternoon since we would be up at midnight for our exit plan.

All clear to the Virgins, once that squall passes.

Farewell to Marigot Harbour.

As we reflected back on our month in St. Martin, other than the highlight of Jim's visit, we commented to each other that we had met some wonderful people who really made the visit memorable; always fun to share the experience. Not to be outdone, that afternoon a catamaran named Rafiki arrived in the anchorage, passing through just in front of us. Henry immediately commented, "We know Rafiki, or someone we know, knows Rafiki!" I scoffed as I had no memory of the boat but sure enough, Henry remembered that our friend Hugh back in Ottawa had told us to look out for his brother in the islands on this boat, and there he just happened to be! Ingrid, Robin and their two girls have been cruising the islands for three years now and are the first family we've met down here although we have heard that there are many more families with kids now than there used to be. We had a quick little visit and then yes, we really did settle down for an early evening as we were all prepped to go.

Midnight saw us back up, and off we headed with final goodbyes to Marigot. We have to go, the patisseries and French cheeses are much too enticing!

Ahead us lay the British Virgin Islands, just 83 miles away to North Sound on Virgin Gorda. The winds are forecast to heat up again and bring with them seas of 8'-12' by the weekend so this was our chance to make the jump in more reasonable conditions. Thankfully this is what we got since once we had cleared the harbour and were on a tack past the western end of Anguilla, we engaged the auto-pilot and this is where things got interesting.

As an aside, most folks we know have a name for their auto-pilot; we've often heard of Otto for example. I'm sure we're not unique but we call ours Sulu. Sulu is invaluable as the third member of our crew, especially on 14 hour passages. It especially means that while one of us is sleeping, the one on watch is really doing just that - watching: the radar, the AIS, the sails, the weather, and anything else that needs attention.

Now, however Mr. Sulu was not "at his station". As soon as we turned on the auto-pilot, it was obvious there was something wrong with the internal compass and the boat image on the chart plotter started spinning around. Asking for navigation to a waypoint or direction of wind started us into a gybe as Sulu attempted to turn the boat 180 degrees and back the way we came. Perhaps he was trying to tell us something?

We tried all manner of trouble shooting, such as we could get up to in the dark, but in the end decided to soldier on and hand steer for the trip - bad Mr. Sulu! Winds stayed in the 10 - 18 knot range declining as we went on and seas from behind on the starboard helped us along our way, so that pretty much on queue we arrived in North Sound at 3:30 in the afternoon.

Sir Richard Branson's estate on Necker Island. Definitely a playground for the rich and famous.

More of the estate, guest houses presumably?

One would think the palm trees would be prettier, I'm not convinced these are actually real.

Lots of toys but no one out playing today.

Our passage was fairly uneventful but just to liven things up, we had one encounter with a cruise ship requiring a course adjustment and tracked quite a few other close passes in the night. Our AIS is a wonderful addition showing us the position and course of other transmitting vessels, including all commercial ships. We could immediately see the collision course to the 900' behemoth and quickly took corrective action without a lot of worry about whether we were interpreting the situation correctly.

More favourable was the five-dolphin escort we received about 20 miles off Virgin Gorda. Happily this was in daylight and a most enjoyable break. Other than a few birds and flying fish we had not seen any other wildlife, although Henry does love it when I call out, "Brown boobie!". Yes, that is a very common bird down here. In daylight we did discover that Mowzer had been doing her own fishing and we had a couple of flying fish who had ended their flight on the deck.

Three of the five dolphin agreed to stick around for a photo shoot.

Their dance and synchronicity across the bows is like a choreographed dance.

Mowzer's catch.

Tired and hungry after check in, we couldn't resist happy hour and a snack at Jumbies and then off to bed we went.

Still being rather new at this, there are a few things we learned: hand steering sucks - especially in a following sea, downwind sailing is definitely smoother than upwind but both of us found the motion made us much more susceptible to a little "mal de mer" and as such it was difficult to prepare a meal and be inside the boat, and finally, if we hadn't been anxious to beat the weather we probably would have turned around to give further trouble shooting to the situation. All good things to keep in mind for the next time and definitely what we're out here for.

Friday morning update: a little molly-coddling in the form of recalibration has returned Sulu to his station ready to take on our next piloting requirements. A super calm day on the Drake Channel saw us driving in multiple circles to reset his internal compass and get him back on course. Definitely didn't want to try that manoever in the dark with 5' swells.

Celebrations and Wind Down

Jim's last few days with us coincided with the New Year celebration which we happily spent up in Grand Case.

We had made arrangements to meet up with Sam & George (Champlain) and Joanne & Gene (Eli Blue) and make an evening of it at Le Pressoire. We'd heard that this restaurant has been rated as the best restaurant on the island and is of course French cuisine, and despite the setting along the gritty hustle of the main street of Grand Case, once you step through the doors you are encased in the atmosphere and culture of a very bustling French bistro. Dinner consisted of shared buttery appetizers such as lobster bisque and conch tortellini, rich main dishes all with the offer of shaved truffle or a dollop of foie gras and desert was a delectable choice of creme brûlée, rich chocolate cake or caribbean sorbets. We finished off the evening with a toast of champagne on the back of Mowzer as fireworks were shot off overhead - not a bad way to mark the end of a truly eventful year and the promise of much adventure ahead! Can't believe I didn't have a camera with me :-(

The winds finally settled a little and with the threat of the Christmas winds arriving on the weekend we finally made it further along the coast to the island of Tintamarre. Jim noted immediately that the north shore of St. Martin is such as he had never seen it in other areas - it is uninhabited! Tintamarre itself is a pretty day anchorage but much too rolly at the moment for overnight. However, the main reason for going did not disappoint and we got to swim with a number of large turtles in anchorage.

Northeast point of SXM - only a quarry on this view of the island.

Tintamarre Island: not much to see on land and so rolly on the approach I couldn't even hold the camera straight!

Finally, we made our way back to Marigot on Friday ready for Jim's departure on Saturday but not before a final hike up to Fort Louis, lunch at the Banana Cafe for a good creole lunch of Chicken Colombo and a splashy wet dinghy ride to the airport.

As a footnote, Jim's flight was delayed by three hours in St. Martin, diverted to Miami where he had to wait over 15 hours for the flight to Toronto to resume. Hopefully home by 9:00pm Sunday night, almost 24 hours later!

Waiting for Jim's flight to take off, which I never did see, this rainbow appeared above the FKG rigging workshop.

While Jim waited out his time at the airport, we joined up with friends Dave & Alex (Banyan) whom we had originally met in the BVIs last March. They had just arrived from Antigua and we were pleased to be able to meet up before we depart SXM later this week. Lagoonies was offering up an evening of live music so off we went in the company of Jeff & Debbie (Sea Sparrow) for another delicious meal. Not sure what it says about us though other than we are truly pathetic because I think we all found the music rather loud and the crowds just too claustrophobic, so after the first set we headed back in our dinghies to our respective boats, ours being a truly soaking ride across the lagoon and out into the harbour as the rains came on.

Sea Sparrows, Banyans and Mowzer's - sounds like a fun group!

And the band played loud and long. They were pretty good, I think we just wanted to talk.

And finally, this is what I mean by the Christmas winds... This is a phenomenem that usually occurs in December and January (hence the name) when the trade winds are at their strongest, and in this Wind Guru view shows up with the orange and red wind numbers. It's been howling through the anchorage for the last couple of days, especially in the wee hours of the morning. Note that the seas are also pretty high at over 2 meters. I think we'll wait til Wednesday to consider our hop back to the Virgins.