Canary Islands and the SE Caribbean

April 10, 2005
We’re in the Canaries…

after a fairly good 5 day passage from Portimao. We arrived this morning, and have had showers ! The wind piped up to 30+ knots yesterday, and we think the waves got as big as 20 feet. We had an interesting situation, we were going too fast to Las Palmas and were going to get there at night. So, we took all the sails down, and were still going 4 knots. We added a drogue (a kind of sea anchor) designed by Mr. Dave Stewart, which slowed us down to 3 knots. This consisted of 2 small tires tied together with chain, dragged behind the boat on 50 feet of anchor line. It also stabilized the boat´s motion quite a bit.

It was very weird needing to slow down so much, quite contrary to our prior experience. But we did not want to enter a strange harbor at night, and it would have been harder to try to stay stationary off the harbor if we arrived early. I think we will need to keep doing this on occasion, so it was good to practice.

Finally it is warm - I wore fleece at least part of the day and night our whole trip down. Time to dig out the shorts!! We are tied up behind Yves Parlier´s latest racing machine, a catamaran with 2 masts on each hull. Tomorrow they will try to break the one day speed record, after avoiding a collision with us when they leave :).

Hydroplaneur, with Cheshire behind

We´ll be here a few days to rest and provision. Not sure yet which Caribbean island we are heading for - St. Lucia and Guadeloupe are the 2 under discussion at the moment. Anyone been to either of these?

Cheers from Cheshire!

April 21, 2005

..in Las Palmas, Gran Canaria. Despite some setbacks, we are moving towards our departure across the Atlantic. Dave Stewart decided to fly home last week, as the adventure was taking longer than we had planned. We miss him - he contributed a lot while he was here. Then my purse was stolen - from the boat while I was on board, down in the port hull. This was quite disturbing. We are staying on an unlocked dock, and there have been other reports of thefts in the area. The other night, a Lebanese ex-con was wandering around the docks and trying to get on people’s boats at 2 AM. After one of our neighbors called the police, they came and chased him off. We think he may have been the thief, but there is no way to prove it. We have lengthened our dock lines to keep the boat further from the dock and make it harder to board. I must say I will be quite glad to leave, even though the crossing will be more of a challenge with just 2 of us.

However, we continue to meet great, helpful people, which has made our stay more pleasant. Our celebrity neighbor, M. Yves Parlier took the Hydroplaneur out for an attempt at the 24 hour solo distance record. Apparently it was within reach, as he was hitting 40 knots at times. But when he put the boat on autopilot to reef the starboard mainsail, it lost control, and he broached and broke several battens in the sail. Quelle dommage. But no matter - the president of the Canaries came by, took his shoes off, and climbed onto the boat for a photo op with Yves, who thanked him for hosting the attempt (in English). Yves is an around the world racer, who is famous for repairing his dismasted boat in New Zealand waters while not breaking the race requirement to stay below the high water mark.

Yves and the President of the Canaries

http://www.parlier.org/hydraplaneur/bateau/caracteristiques.php?lang=eng

We have had the most contact with a very nice couple from Brittany, Michel and Annie. Annie does not have the use of her legs, but gets around pretty well with help from Michel and her wheelchair. They loaned us a French guide to the Canaries, and our first city map. Michel introduced us to gofrio, a kind of roasted farina particular to the islands. It can be eaten without cooking, and mixed with anything to make a breakfast cereal, a dip like hummus, thickener for soup or sauce, a side dish or dessert,… I got a kilo from the store and plan to experiment.

We first encountered the Canadian boat, Parbleu! on our way here. They were the only sailboat we saw on our passage, so we chatted for a while. We helped Pierre and Susanne move to their permanent berth, and return they gave us two rides to the hypermarket for provisioning runs, which would have otherwise entailed a taxi as we had about 15 bags of heavy stuff like canned tomatoes.

As all of the above are French speakers, I have frequent opportunities to practice my French. The guidebook was fun reading - definitely from a different perspective. In the food section, “there is not the variety of cheese you would expect in France” it sniffs, “but if you can set your chauvinism aside, the Canary cheeses are quite good, considering.” In the introduction to Canary culture, French visitors are directed to only provide one bisou (kiss on the cheek), as two or three are regarded as excessive here. Different advice than one might find in an English guidebook, I think!

For day to day transactions, dealing with police, etc., I’ve been resurrecting my rudimentary Espanol. We have a tendency to fall back into Portuguese, especially the basics such as good day and thank you. However, these are understood, with a smile. One of the most noticeable differences from Portugal is that most shops close at 1 or 1:30, and remain closed until 4:30 or later. Then they stay open till 8 or 9. One has to plan one’s errands accordingly.

We are now awaiting replacement credit cards, which we hope arrive shortly. Then we can go back to sea and head for the Caribbean at last. Since we need to be in Trinidad by June, we are thinking about St. Lucia as our first landfall, then cruising through St. Vincent and the Grenadines on our way to Trinidad. Hopefully our luck will be better...

Susanne and David

April 22, 2005
We´re off to the Caribbean!

The package with my credit cards got here today, thanks to Paige. So we will begin check out today, and plan to leave tomorrow AM. Yesterday we scoped out the fresh market, which is like a 2 story farmer’s market. There is a great spice store - I even got wasabe powder which I was not expecting to find. Our last errand will be to go there tomorrow. As per before - if you need to communicate with me before we get to the Caribbean, please do so via Paige (paigeol@hotmail.com). You can of course send messages to this address, I just won’t read them for a couple weeks.

Our most likely landfall right now is St. Lucia. It’s about 2600 miles and we think it will take us 2-3 weeks. Then, we will make our way south through St. Vincent, the Grenadines and maybe Grenada on our way to Trinidad and Tobago. I expect we will stay in Trini a little while (at least a month), and maybe tackle a few boat projects. I am interested in it because it is a “crossroads” place, where many cultures have mixed over the last few centuries. Thanks for your good wishes and news. Wish us luck!

May 12, 2005
We made it!

20 days from Las Palmas to St. Lucia. Now we are in a bar next to the marina, sipping rum drinks and beer as a squall washes the decks. Showers felt excellent. Tonight I get to sleep for more than 2 1/2 hours, for the first time in three weeks - wow. The crossing went very smoothly - we ran out of wind for a few hours twice, but otherwise had very consistent 10-20 knot winds. We checked in daily on single sideband radio with Herb Hildenberg, who runs a daily weather net and provides individual forecasts.

Not sure yet how long we will be in St Lucia, probably a week or so. We’ll probably move out to the anchorage in a day or 2 as the marina is $25/night.

Thanks for all the messages! Nighty night.

May 25, 2005

Another Saturday night, this time anchored off St. Lucia…

Fresh coconut milk at the market

Waves are gently lapping on the nearby beach next to the quiet little town of Choiseul. Our table is covered with the remnants of the maybe legal lobsters we bought off a guy in a kayak. The CD is a rasta mix we bought off another guy in Marigot Bay - not too bad. The fan moves the warm air pleasantly, but we are now accustomed to being damp with sweat pretty much all the time. A small price to pay to spend time in this lovely island of volcanoes, palm lined coves and friendly people.

View above Rodney Bay

We’ve spent the last 10 days exploring Rodney Bay, Castries, Marigot Bay, Soufriere and various points between and around the island. On Wednesday we hiked a trial along the island divide (Barre de L‘isle). Supposedly it was 1.25 miles each way, but it went up and down a lot, and was especially steep at the end. In the heat, felt like at least 5 miles! Local trees were posted along the way, and our battered map had some interesting information about them. It was a pleasant respite from the press of people in Castries and the seaside.

The Pitons

On Friday, we snorkeled in a quiet little bay, which is a great way to get the sun on the back of your body and find out if your sunscreen really is waterproof. I have not done this in a long time and felt like I was flying over a fish city. Some little purple fish seemed to like swimming with me and tickled my armpits! We went around the headland to attend a Friday night fish fry, and were greeted by Dwight, Cuthbert, Charlie, Bill, John and 2 others (age 12 or so), who swam out to the boat. They were very entertained by diving off the back of the boat, messing around in the dinghy and trying out the steering wheel. They were quite charming, and curious about the boat and our trip. We all saw the green flash at sunset, then the remaining 4 persuaded me (Susanne) to row them back to shore. I think that this was my favorite time so far (even above lobster!).

We are now in Bequia, in the Grenadines, a group of islands between St. Vincent and Grenada. We have bypassed St. Vincent due to lack of time, compelling reasons to visit and good anchorages. The Grenadines are reported to be beautiful, with a few oases of civilization and lots of nice beaches and places to swim. Then on to Grenada, and Trinidad. We are not sure yet how long we’ll stay in Trinidad. It is a good place to spend hurricane season and do some boat projects. But we have heard that there are many boats which were damaged by hurricane Ivan which are still there. Several boats we have met recently are headed to Venezuela, which has been expanding it’s marine recreation sites. So if Trini is too crowded, we will go west.

We decided a while back to not try to push through Panama this year - it just seemed like trying to do too much. We will head towards Central America in the fall, as we would like to cruise Belize, Honduras and the San Blas Islands before going through the Canal. After that, I am interested in taking a course to teach English as a foreign language which is offered in Costa Rica. Then, the Pacific!

May 31, 2005
Greetings from the Grenadines

The brochures are correct - this is a marvelous area. We have spent the past several days hiking, snorkeling, and generally enjoying being here. We are presently on Union Island, about to cross from St. Vincent to Grenada jurisdiction. We'll head to Grenada island later this week - there are still several lovely little islands to explore first.

We took a day on Bequia to hike across the island to a secluded beach. On our way back, we stopped at a nice little hotel/restaurant with a great view of the islands. The manager, from Holland, chatted with us before lunch. If you want to get away from it all and don't need beach side, consider this place:
http://www.oldfortbequia.com

Water is nearby everywhere, and it is nice to be up in the breeze and away from mosquitoes. On this same hike we began identifying fruit trees, and filled our tummies and backpack with Mangoes, limes and plums (all windfall of course).

More to come later - best wishes from Cheshire!

June 6, 2005
Grenadines, part 2

From Bequia, we sailed south to Mayreau, another island of St. Vincent. It is just a couple miles west of the Tobago Cays, a group of islets and reefs that is famous for snorkeling and diving. We traveled in company with Jan Trabandt, whom we met in Bequia and who asked to join us for the trip south. Jan develops cellphone software for a Phoenix company, and had managed to spend 5 weeks in the Caribbean by telecommuting as necessary. He sailed with us to Mayreau, the Cays and later Carriacou, but spent nights ashore in hotels. This arrangement suited all involved. We especially appreciated his help on our initial approach to the Cays, which is a bit tricky given all the reefs in the area.

We managed to snorkel almost every day in the Cays and surrounding islands. I really enjoy it. It’s a great form of low impact exercise, especially for back body muscles such as hamstrings. I love watching sunlight reveal subtle colors in the fish and the reef elements. This is best appreciated if you move slowly, and stay stationary enough so that the fish think you are a log and go about their business. Also, there is this wonderful feeling of flying over the sea bottom, while at the same time being supported by the enormous power of the ocean. David enjoys diving down to the little caves on the reef bottoms to look for lobsters. This is a bit risky because the lobsters are spiny and moray eels tend to inhabit those cavelets also. I think he would really like to catch one himself as he used to in Massachussetts, but that is out of the question here.

The boundary between the nations of St. Vincent and Grenada runs through the islands, between Union and Carriacou. It’s hard to appreciate - most maps or charts don’t even show it, and it seems like the islands have more in common with each other than their distant capitals. We spent a couple of days around Carriacou, where I met a man who said he was the only representative of the Grenada military during the invasion, and served as liasion to the US Army. People were quite comfortable stopping to talk, asking about our trip, and discussing their lives and current events such as the implementation of Caricom (the Caribbean version of the European Union).

Our last evening in the Grenadines was in a lovely little cove off Saline Island, at the south end of Carriacou. We had to work hard to get there against the strong easterly, ocean swell and 2 kt of current, but it was worth it - a jewel of a place to ourselves. Some fishermen came in to check nets and cut wood last night, but they left before sunset. We enjoyed a pleasant snorkel around the bay, then dinner, which consisted mainly of a 4 lb lobster purchased the day before in Tyrell Bay. It doesn’t get much better than this, I thought.

It’s about a 15 mile transit to the main island of Grenada, with another small island group on the way. This area is know for the nearby presence of an active underwater volcano called "Kick ‘Em Jenny." It is 500 feet underwater, but slowly building up to sea level. Someday it will form a new island. It has been know to throw up rocks and create significant disturbance when erupting. Fortunately we saw none of that, although David did propose that we should sail over it and drop our garbage down so it could be incinerated. We considered spending the night in the area, but found strong gusts from every direction in the anchorage, and even rougher conditions out side. So we sailed down the west (leeward) side of Grenada Island to tiny Dragon Bay, just north of the capital of St. George’s.

From the sea, one does not see much sign of the damage done by hurricane Ivan last September. Houses looked normal - there were a few wrecks and evidence of landslides in the higher hills. In St. George’s, however, damage was more evident. Some buildings have been repaired or rebuilt, but there is still a ways to go. We heard some lively radio debate about the progress of recovery and what has been done by the government with the resources provided for it. As it is the beginning of the 2005 hurricane season, disaster preparedness is discussed a lot as well. The manager of the electric utility made the good point that the next disaster might not be a hurricane - like Washington, Grenada is in a volcanic zone and could just as easily need to cope with an eruption or an earthquake.

Our visit here has coincided with a tropical wave, an atmospheric disturbance that can develop into a storm or hurricane. This has meant frequent rain squalls and rapidly veering wind gusts up to 30 kt. As a result, our anchor did not hold in the mucky bottom of St. George’s lagoon, and at midnight we found ourselves dragging down onto the mooring lines of a boat at the end of the yacht club dock. Fortunately we were able to disentangle ourselves before contacting them, but it was an anxious event for all concerned. We managed to reanchor further away, but spent the rest of the night on anchor watch.

Yesterday we sailed around to Prickly Bay, one of the main yacht anchorages in the region. As soon as we got the anchor down, another squall hit, and we dragged again, though David arrested it by letting out more rope (scope) on the anchor. We decided to go to another, more protected spot, Hog Island, where we set the anchor and tied up to some nearby mangroves so we could spend the night in peace. There is a small informal long term community orf expatriate sailors here, and we were immediately welcomed and invited for drinks. Tonight there is a barbeque on a nearby beach, where we will celebrate my birthday.

It was raining sooo hard..

In a day or 2 we will head south to Trinidad, thereby ending the Caribbean cruise chapter of the trip. The past month has been a lovely and much appreciated vacation after all the work of getting here. My favorite aspect has been the opportunity to meet new people, in the sailing community and island residents, as well as doing a bit of exploring and sightseeing. While we need to spend some time on boat projects in Trinidad (especially upgrading our anchor gear!) I expect we will also have time to continue meeting people and exploring there too. We have made contact with another Olympia expatriate, Ken Kleinhoff of Sangreal, who is currently anchored there after circumnavigating via Cape Horn, and look forward to hearing about his adventures. I’ll probably write you next from there. Till then, take care!