Tobago Cays

A couple days ago while walking on the beach, we met a couple from a boat called Moody Blues from Washington on the west coast. Susie and Gene have been sailing for awhile, but their present boat is a Catalina 50 which they brought down the west coast through the Panama Canal, along parts of Venezuela, northward to the Dominican Republic and down the island chain, just this past year. We got together on Cat Tales for sundowners night before last and needed to get out the maps to supplement their travel tales. Susie brought along home made sushi, not a common thing around these parts. She had packed many of the ingredients from home, and made the impressive culinary treats just for us.

In the morning, they radioed to tell us that they were lifting anchor and heading for the Tobago Cays; less than an hour upwind. We decided to follow Moody Blues, as they had asked us to allow them to host the next night. Last time we were in here (2006), you could anchor anywhere for as long as you wished. However, with these changing times, there are now mooring balls available for 45 EC a night. These aren't mandatory so you can still anchor in between them at no charge. However, the "Park Rangers" come to visit and extract 10 EC per person per night from your wallet and tell you to have a nice day! The area is absolutely beautiful, however, and worth the extra money. The water is the clearest, and the colours are amazing. The little islands and shallow sand are all behind double horseshoe reefs that protect the area from the waves that may have traveled all the way from Africa. The reefs have all sorts of different fish, and are a marvel to poke around in while snorkeling. The islands have little white beaches with palm trees. Among the scrubbier vegetation on the island hills can be found tortoises and iguanas.

An area where we anchored in the past is in a grassy spot where the hawksbill turtles would appear around the boat from time to time. This area is now off limits for anchoring and is actually roped and buoyed off in order to protect the turtles from the harm of boats and propellers. Before, the turtles would scoot away when you swam towards them, but today they are as tame as can be. You can hover with fins and snorkel over 2 or 3 of them while they munch the grass and even touch them if you want. They pay you no mind and move around naturally. They aren't locked into this area, they just stay there because of the grassy bottom. We spent a couple hours yesterday afternoon observing these beautiful creatures. I would say that these turtles are about a meter in length. Just as I was wondering how they keep their shells so clean, I spotted one with a large yellow sucker fish attached to the back of it. Problem solved.

When we arrived back to the boat, Laurie began cleaning some of the barnacles growing on the bottom of the boat. I was standing along the side of the boat when something just at the bow of the boat cleared the water. When I turned to look, I saw a huge spotted Eagle Ray land back in the water with a huge splash. Laurie, after hearing my gasp and the splash, immediately headed for the ladder to get his body out of the water! As soon as he realized it was a ray, he started swimming after it, but by then it had gone a quarter of a mile. I could see it clearly in the pristine waters here.

Last night, we went to Moody Blues for sundowners. Susie and Gene served up a magnificent meal. It is a speciality of a restaurant back in Friday Valley and consisted of an anchovy dip with home made bread along with a suvichi (fish marinated in lime juice for hours to 'cook' it) with a home made salsa and tortilla chips. Now, how can I ever keep up with all these creations??

Today, we'll head back to the reef and will remain here one more night. What paradise it is here in the Tobago Cays!!

Mayreau

We hiked, dined and sundownered with Paula and Brian from Magique and now they're gone. They are being hauled out in Grenada early in May and are making their way there.

Monday's chores included heading up to the school to seek out Sarah, the pre-school teacher we had met at Robert Righteous' restaurant. Sarah told us that she'd be at school on Monday and would love to accept the balls. Sarah had taken Paula, Brian and Laurie and I up to the school on Saturday afternoon for a little look at her preschool section of the tiny building. Although pretty rough looking and nothing we'd put up with at home, you could see for miles out of her windows. The view of the Tobago Cays was something out of this world. She had a computer in her classroom that someone had donated but it wasn't connected to the Internet. Sarah booted it up and showed us about an hour's worth of pictures of the students, a recent wedding along with anything else mixed in. We left telling her that we'd see her on Monday morning. I resisted the urge to offer to help her file those photos in appropriate folders!

On Monday the 2 of us headed up the hill with several Moosehead Light sports balls. Sarah wasn't there and school was canceled for just the little ones. Apparently she was off to Union Island for the day! We found the principal and handed them over. He was grateful, but there was no real conversation or interaction with the students, although when we walked by the school some time later, an older student said "hi again" as he was off for home for lunch.

Sarah is a typical island girl in her 30's. She has 7 children all by different men and was just giving her last man the boot when we met her on Saturday. He was screaming at her from down the hill and she was ignoring him. Later on we found him at Robert's restaurant where, after begging Robert for money for the ferry to Union Island where he lived, he took his 35 EC dollars and left. Sarah joined us at the table and engaged us in conversation about the island. Always interesting to talk to the locals!

After visiting the school, we walked down the other side of the island to the beach at Saline Bay. There are only 2 roads here; one from Salt Whistle Bay up the hill to the town, and the other down from there to Saline Bay. The walk is extremely steep and one has to avoid slipping on any loose gravel that might be under your feet. We stopped at a little "supermarket" and I use this term loosely, and bought a few grapefruit (3 for 5 EC which is about 2.5 dollars at home) and a half dozen eggs. As usual, the eggs were sitting in large flats on the counter (no refrigeration) and the gal packed 6 eggs into a plastic bag and handed them to me for safe keeping! They actually ALL made it home and are now refrigerated. If eggs haven't been refrigerated, then they're good at room temperature for many days. Flipping them helps keep them fresh. If they've been in the fridge at some point, then they have to remain refrigerated. We got over this a long time ago!

Here in Salt Whistle Bay, charter boats arrive and leave constantly all day. They're inexperienced and provide us with entertainment when they try to anchor, running aground and re-anchoring often because of their close proximity to other boats. Last night about 10 young French adults were on a boat and when the dinghy engine refused to work, one guy pulled the cord for hours without doing another thing to ensure his success. Laurie had previously watched him rocking the dinghy and soaking the engine in salt water, so we can't imagine why he'd have all the trouble!

Our 15 mangoes we scored back in Bequia are starting to ripen. We had a beauty yesterday and by the looks of things the last of them will ripen all in one day about 4 days from now.

We met a couple from a large boat called Moody Blues. Susie and Gene will come aboard Cat Tales this evening for sundowners. They are from west coast US and have sailed for many years in areas other than the Caribbean. So, we'll dig out the map of the world and figure out just where they've been!

Salt Whistle Bay, Mayreau

We had a sail from Bequia yesterday that should have taken 3 hours, but took us 6 instead. The wind was too light and was from every direction. Every time Laurie started the engine, the wind would come up. Every time he'd turn the engine off the wind would start to die and/or swing to the nose. When he had the sailed hauled in tight the wind would shift and come from behind or the beam. I simply went and had a nap while he fussed for the entire length of the trip. Not the type of sailing we had hoped for after weeks of keeping the sail in the boom bag!

We have joined up with Brian and Paula from Magique here in Salt Whistle Bay and will hike with them up the steep hill this afternoon for a lunch at "Righteous and de Youths". Robert Righteous is an entertaining rasta who will sit down and pour himself drinks while he tells you how things are going on the island. In the past, we have taken quite a few guests with us to visit Robert and it's always an interesting afternoon.

On Monday, we'll visit the school here and pass along all the Moosehead Light sports balls we collected while at home last summer. If you recall, if you bought a dozen Moosehead Light in cans, you got a free ball. Richard Brogan, from across the cove in Grand Lake, NB, helped us collect them and it's now time to give them away to a good cause!

When we sit here on anchor and look at this lovely stretch of beach, I can still see Ron Roy standing in the water up to his waist about 4 years ago when they visited us. He stood there most of the afternoon with a big grin on his face, totally at peace with the world, giving thanks primarily to the absolute beauty of the bay! Later that year, Laurie and I came back here where we celebrated his 50th birthday. We love this spot! As we're somewhere near the end of the season, there are fewer boats here, just as it was also getting very quiet in Bequia.

(If any of our usual sources of information in Fredericton are reading, we wouldn't mind a report of the news and social goings on. We feel we're losing touch with many people and events.)

Still Enjoying Bequia

Hi Folks:

We had a pretty full day yesterday.

Dawn and I got off the boat before 10 AM, a real record. We went ashore, checked for some rather basic pharmacy needs (and found what we needed), then headed for the steepest roads on the island. We walked up to the top of Mount Pleasant, and then circled its crest. Mount Pleasant has a good road all the way to the top, and a pleasant road around the upper area with many beautiful estates. We were looking for an old fort, but the fort property is privately owned, run as a villa, and is presently under renovations - so there was nothing to see there. The walk was invigorating, and the views of the sea, coastlines and neighbouring islands were fantastic.

On our trip down, we took a short-cut through a property along the waterfront called Plantation House. It is a large property with many small guest-houses, restaurant, bar, swimming pool, and other facilities. However, it was closed in a hurry three years ago and is slowly becoming dilapidated. So sad. Last time we had set foot there, it was with John Fallon, who had taught the bartender the not-so-secret recipe for Bushwackers. The good news is that we found a few giant mango trees on the property with fruit nearly ripe. We filled our knap sacks and tiptoed away. They should be ready for eating in about a week!

Before our return by dinghy, we had a nice snack and a couple of beers at the Green Boley. We sat at the outdoor picnic table, nursing the last beer for some time, just watching the water, birds, and boats.

Soon after returning to the boat, our new friends from Magique arrived to go snorkeling at the nearby rocks. Dawn swam over with them, while I did some maintenance on our hull bottoms. There were hundreds of newly-formed barnacles to be knocked off, and the cleaning of our propellers also took some time. I was just finishing when they started their return swim. I was told the snorkeling was good, with a juvenile french angelfish, many huge parrotfish, and some good-sized schools of other fish. However, as Dawn approached the boat, she caught a jellyfish tentacle across her face just above her lips. Her upper lip immediately swelled up, and she had a few unhappy moments. No lasting damage, but a cheap lip puffer alternative to the collagen treatment.

Last night, we were guests aboard Casa del Mar, with Mike and Linda from Portland, OR. The food was great and the company even better.

hikiing in Bequia

Yesterday we grabbed Paula and Brian from Magique (from Saint John, NB) and headed for the hills at high noon! Seems we can't organize a walk at a respectable early hour in the morning because it interferes with coffee, morning net, reading and so on! Our destination this time was a little place called Spring along with Spring Bay. We had heard that there was a little restaurant along the way for lunch, but our luck ran out when we discovered that it had been destroyed by fire a couple of years back. So, we kept on walking until we finally found a nice little eating spot a couple miles further right on the ocean. After looking over the menu, we opted to have a cold beer and decided to head back to Admiralty Bay where we could get our favourite roti at the Green Boley. The alternate restaurant offered only sandwiches at quite a high price (14.00 EC - which is about 7 dollars Canadian) We began our hike at 11:00 am and arrived back in our own bay at around 2:30, so we were well exercised! Laurie and I went aboard Magique for sundowners and a tour of their 44 foot C&C before heading back to our boat for our evening bath in the ocean.

The wind has kicked up here and will persist until at least Thursday, so we'll stay put until it all calms down before heading south to Salt Whistle Bay in Mayreau (in the Grenadines).

Bequia has their great end-of-season "hurrah" on Easter weekend, and we have seen this great harbour slowly empty from near 200 boats to about 60. Many yachts as well, have said their goodbyes to the crowd on the morning Coconut Telegraph net on SSB.

I am sending all blogs and checking all email via Ham Radio these days while here in Bequia because of the weak wifi connections. I was a little spoiled while up in Rodney Bay! The other day, I had 4 emails 99 percent sent when I suddenly got disconnected. It took me 1 and a half hours to get a connection again and finally get the check marks required to let me know that they went. The average speed was 500 bytes a minute! Oh, you know, "the hell here never ends"!

Laurie is again immersed in a book. Last week he read "The Poisonwood Bible" in only 3 days. It's an Opra recommended book that I had read a few years back - at the time, he thought it to be a "girlie book". Presently, he's on the last few pages of "Master And Commander" which he picked up 3 days ago at a book swap! Needless to say, chores around the boat are being neglected, but oh well...

Because we're nearer the equator, there is little fluctuation for sunrise and sunset. The sun sets here at around 6:20 (6:00 in Jan and Feb) so darkness falls quickly, followed by reading and bedtime usually before 9:00! Last night was an extremely hot one, even with a continuous breeze over us.

Hotels for Land Lubbers

Friday night, we had two couples over for sundowners and snacks: Mike and Linda of Casa Del Mar of Portland, OR, and Gary and Linda of July Indian, Port Stanley, ON. It was a really fun night, and the first true socializing since we arrived here in Bequia. Interestingly, as we were taking it easy and just having our own sundowner last night, a dinghy came up to us and, reading our stern (Saint John as our Canadian port of registry), said "We're from Saint John too". It was Brian and Paula of Magique; the boat that had so much trouble off Bermuda in November, 2006. Of course they came on board and we had a lovely couple of hours comparing notes on our cruising and reviewing our mutual friends at the RKYC. They're off to Mustique tomorrow, so we'll catch up with them again, down island.

Yesterday's off-boat excursion had us in Lower Bay, reviewing shore accommodations. Our intentions are to provide an alternative for anyone who might wish to spend time with us down here, but might be a little nervous to spend all of their vacation on a little boat. Of all the islands, we think Bequia might be the best for this. Although we did not find any "four star vacation locations" limiting this island to some of our old friends, the island has a lot to offer: long clean beaches, reasonable snorkeling just off the beach, hiking, a great number of great eating and drinking options, and easy access to us, who could anchor right off the beach.

Lower Bay is out of the downtown, and away from noise and congestion. There are nice places closer to the "action", but we would not recommend them because of the lack of beach, and some wastewater issues downtown. After checking out 5 of the most likely spots in Lower Bay, we settled on two:

Kingsville Apartments: 150 feet from the ocean, clean, nice interior sitting area, AC, fridge and kitchenette, sitting area, and quiet, clean grounds, with lots of flowers= $100 US, with 10% SV tax and 10% service chg.

Keegan's Guest House: on the beach, small, clean, mosquito nets, fridge but no kitchenette, some may have AC, interior sitting areas seem to be common for most rooms, rooms we saw were not as nice as Kingsville = $50-90, with 10%+ 10%.

A third, Coco's, is under renovation, looks promising, but is up a steep driveway.

Folks might wish to think about these, and how they may wish to use them. Anyone looking for a classier establishment should consider Sandals in Rodney Bay, where we could also just lay off the beach.

We put these out there for those still interested enough to be following our weblog and still considering some day joining us for a vacation. From this location, quick overnighters can be made to the Tobago Cays for 'real' snorkeling!

Last night, after our newest friends left, we thought we were low on battery energy (cloudy day with no wind), so I started the starboard engine. Immediately, we had a bilge alarm. The investigation resulted in me working all this morning, replacing a hose from the seawater pump to the heat exchanger. I had forgotten how hot and dirty it can be working on these little engines down here. All done, though, and all is well.

We're off to "De Reef" beach bar and restaurant this afternoon where many locals and cruisers find themselves on a Sunday afternoon!

Good Luck to Liz at home at Grand Lake who has a detached retina. We'll be thinking about you tomorrow as you head for Halifax!

Walks and Blisters

Laurie and I went for a long walk yesterday across the island to Friendship Bay on the windy side. It seemed that a few years ago, it was a much longer walk, but I think we're a bit more used to walking in the heat than we were back then. Laurie got a nasty rub mark from his flip flops and went through almost all the band aids we had in our knapsacks. I think that he would have had more luck had we found a shady spot and rested a bit in order to stop the flow of sweat to his feet. Then he could have cleaned off the area and put on a fresh band aid which would have actually stuck. Instead, every one he applied, floated off, so we just made it back before running out. Of course a cold beer at the Green Boley on the beach was in store to rest his weary foot! He kept humming Margaritaville as if he blew out a flip flop, stepped on a pop top. ("...but there's booze in the blender...")

We both received a haircut at the stern of Cat Tales when we returned; a much needed service!

Tonight, we have invited 2 couples from the bay for sundowners on board Cat Tales. We don't know a soul here in the bay, so we've decided to introduce ourselves to a couple of boats and just plain old invite them over! We've enjoyed the solitude of each other's company here since Sunday, but enough is enough! One couple is from Port Stanley, Ontario, the same port where my sister Lorna and her husband Brian Jeffrey keep their boat - small world!

I heard on the weather on the ham radio this morning that there was an earthquake off South America yesterday and that there could potentially be a small tsunami here in the islands. Eric (the weather guy) suggested that the chance is slim; however, it does remind you of the potential for things to go wrong.

The anchorage has cleared out since the big Easter Regatta over the long weekend, down to about 90 boats. This also makes walking around town and buying groceries a little less congested as well.

Happy 45th Anniversary to my Mom and Dad today (Ken and Jean Cole) who have suffered out the 2 winters now in NB since giving up their place in Florida!

Enjoying Bequia

After arriving in Bequia, we headed into the little town on Monday to clear customs and immigration. Because it was a holiday, we had to pay extra fees for overtime. The weather window to get here was perfect, so it was worth it to leave when we did.

The little town was just hopping on Monday, the 4th and final day of their annual regatta! We ran into Edgar who sailed his J24 down from St. Lucia to be in the races. Edgar is a great friend of John Fallon's and we had the opportunity to get together with him often over the past month or so. We also ran into the boat called "Carina" with the 4 young men from the US onboard. Over time, we ran into them along the way down the island chain starting from St. Eustacious. I might have mentioned them before: they had all recently graduated from university and were taking a year off to sail the Caribbean. They have hiked every hill, visited every island and have taken advantage of every opportunity to enrich their lives before heading back home to look for work in May and June! They signed up for the 4 day regatta here and did pretty well in the races. Their boat belongs to one of the boy's godfather who did the same trip when he was their age! What a wonderful gift and education for them! When I first spotted the boat back in February, I noticed that one guy leaped off the boat to dive on the anchor to check for holding. I mentioned to Laurie at the time that he seemed to be too young to take the job so seriously if he had been told by his dad to do it. When we met them at the top of a mountain, they explained the situation and it made more sense to us. Jeanne and Doug will remember meeting the boys at The Saints.

After clearing customs on Monday, we headed to our old spot, the Green Boley, on the walkway for a roti. It was still there complete with the crabby bar tender, old green picnic tables and a nasty washroom. Best and cheapest rotis on the island! Jeanne and Doug and Ron and Judy will remember eating there. The view of the bay is second to none!

There is a boat somewhere here in the bay called "Anita P". We had a great laugh when someone came on the radio the other day calling "Anita P, Anita P, Anita P. This is Imagine". It was even funnier when the conversation was finished and they said, "Anita P clear". Well, don't we all wish for that! Other new boat names are also here: "Havana Goodtime", "What's My Name", and a boat style called Oyster that goes by "Itzaperla".

The 70 miles change seems to have resulted in slightly warmer weather and warmer water. We are slowly moving to the sweltering conditions of Trinidad.

We are heading out for a hike today, crossing the island to Friendship Bay. Walking is always tough because of the steep hills, so we'll get our workout!

Bequia

Well, here we are in Bequia after getting up at 3:00 this morning and sailing for 13 hours. It's a zoo down here with the regatta going on, but it will be over soon and things will quiet down.

Back in Rodney Bay last night we had a religious revival pumped through loud speakers from 10:00 pm, and it was still blasting through when we left at 3:00 this morning. We could hear it down the coast for a ways until it finally died off. Later on, one full mile off of St. Vincent, we had to turn our own music down because we could hear the bass from something exciting happening on the shore! Boys, Easter weekend is a happening thing down here!

Sailing was beautiful with most of the time 15 knots on the beam. There were times we had to motor when in the lee of islands, but Laurie didn't mind as he was trouble shooting one more bad battery and needed the extra energy.

A rainy day drive around St. Lucia

Yesterday morning we woke up to a ‘real’ rain! Usually it rains and then 5 minutes later it’s perfect weather again. Yesterday was an exception with rain all day long. Bill and Krista had a rental car and wanted to go the southern point of the island to see Vieux Fort where Bill thought he might get an hour or two on his kite surfing practice. They kindly invited us along for the ride and since we had never taken a road trip here in St. Lucia, we were quite anxious to see what it looked like from the roadways rather than from the boat or whatever we could hike to. Like any other of these volcanic islands, the roads were steeply up and down, twisty turny and before you knew it all four of us were a bit sea sick! We had a pleasant day with lunch at the beach bar and restaurant at the end of the island. The trip is approximately 1 ½ hours long each way, and extremely tedious.

Above is a picture of Bill and Krista.


Pictured above is us…Laurie and Dawn.
When we arrived back at the Rodney Bay Marina after yesterday’s travels, we dropped in to see John Fallon at his boat. He was arranging buckets and bowls to catch the drips from a number of significant leaks in his cabin. He hadn’t seen enough rain over the past 6 weeks to know that he had leaks, but yesterday it was pretty apparent! He has organized for Robin, a local woodworker, to help him get everything sealed before he flies out on Sunday.
Below is a picture of Jimmy and his boat preparing for haul-out, just this morning. He has been our neighbor here for several weeks and is heading back to Ontario in a few days. Laurie and Bill from Songbird are on the bow helping bring up the anchor.


This afternoon, Krista and Bill (Secoudon) and Pam and Bill (Songbird) will arrive at Cat Tales for a friendly game of dominoes. Because the game is so long, we’ll begin at 2:00 and will stop for sundowners at the usual sundown time, 6:15. (and you thought we didn't have any real schedules...)

2 Johnnies are heading for NB

Well, John Sinclair left St. Lucia this morning and John Fallon will fly home on Sunday. Robbyn and Tyle (John F's daughter) leaves tomorrow after staying here at "Windjammers" for a week. I can't believe so much time has gone by! We were planning to leave St. Lucia tomorrow, however, we have decided that since Secoudon (Krista and Bill Nugent from Saint John)has come out of the lagoon and joined us out in the clear water of the bay, that we'd stay on for a couple more days. It might be a domino game day with Secoudon and Songbird!

We've been meeting people who are packing to go home, so it's a sure sign that spring has sprung somewhere...

Yesterday, we came back to our boat late in the afternoon to find that our motion detector was blaring and disturbing the boaters for over an hour. It was set to be on "chime" and was turned off at the time. We set it at night only. The batteries were a bit low and it was totally confused. We apologized to the boaters around us, however, there was one man who told us that we were damned inconsiderate to leave it on all day! Now, if one didn't know it was on, how could one have done this deed on purpose? We must look up the formal definition of 'inconsiderate'. The others around told us not to worry. I think from now on, we'll put the unit inside during the day where it won't bother anyone if it goes wonkie again!

A special hello to Kim Palmer who we don't know but works with my sister, Kathy. She tells me that he's been reading our blog faithfully and is enjoying living the life through the words on the page!

Man with a Bucket at 4:30 am

We’ve been enjoying the last few days rather leisurely, taking on only small boat maintenance jobs and doing a fair bit of socializing. We took one day off completely from work to walk to the eastern shore, hopefully to catch Bill of Secoudon taking kite-sailing lessons. He had a good day of lessons earlier, but since then his progress has been hampered by light winds. A second day, we went over again with Bill and Krista in their rented car. When the winds would not cooperate, they took us along for an extensive tour of the northern part of the island. The area is alive with development – almost completely involving large estates with fabulous views of coast and of Martinique to the north.

This is a shot of Krista at one of the resorts on the east side of St. Lucia.
We’ve enjoyed a significant amount of time lately with the two Johnnies, aboard Stopp Knot. We typically meet for one meal or another during each day.

Night before last, we had some excitement in the anchorage. We were awakened around 4:30 a.m., with someone asking for assistance on the VHF radio. It was a Quebecois man, screaming he was sinking in Rodney Bay, and asking for help from someone with a pump to assist in keeping the boat afloat. The Martinique emergency radio personnel were responding, and attempting to find out the nature, severity, and location of the problem. The skipper was screaming into the microphone that his 31’ boat had two feet of water in it, and that it was located in the south of the bay. He was being asked for GPS coordinates, but explained his GPS was not working. The exchange with the French emergency officials switched from English to French throughout the exchange. The French official was having a little trouble with both the English and the Québec French, and the exchange was outrageously strained. At one point the skipper even spelled south in French, “SUD”, to get the official to understand. When asked where he was from, interestingly the skipper said Quebec, not Canada.

Dawn and I got up, and decided to offer our assistance. Although my education included the rule that you do not begin to bail a sinking boat before you find where and how the water is coming in, I kept that to myself, and called: “Samiel, Samiel, Samiel (name of the sinking vessel); this is Canadian sailing vessel Cat Tales, presently anchored in Rodney Bay by Pigeon Island. I do not have a pump, but if you can use a man with a bucket, I will make my way over. Have you use for a man with a bucket?”

He screamed: “Yes, yes. Come, Come. I am the only one with navigation lights on”. I put on my Leatherman (knife tool), we dropped the dinghy, threw in through-hull plugs, flashlights, hose tape and clamps, and of course, some buckets; and headed towards the south of the bay.

We found other dinghies running around with lights on, looking for the stricken vessel. As we got close, however, another boat passed us heading the other way, saying the water was receding and the skipper seemed to have a handle on the problem. We continued anyway, I climbed aboard, and met the skipper, while Dawn stayed in the dinghy. He was a man of about 40 years of age, highly excited, and wearing only a tee shirt (no, not excited that way). The water had receded to only the sump over the keel, and the pump was soon sucking air.

He showed me how high the water was, and it seemed to me it was about 18” above the floor boards. I asked him if it had happened while he slept, and he said he had just returned to the boat from partying on-shore at 4:00 am. This made the fact that he was without pants and underwear rather curious. I always seem to miss those kinds of parties! At any rate, knowing that officials and other boats were on their way, I said that it looked like the emergency was under control, and that he had time to put some pants on. He concurred and looked for something to put on.

He volunteered that he had got around to shutting off his through-hull fittings. I asked if his batteries were good, and he said they were. I noted no water was running from the engine area, and asked if his engine would start. He said that he thought so, and gave it a try. It did (I didn’t think to ask him if he had shut his Kingston Cock , and hope he didn’t cause his engine any harm if it was at this time running without sea-water cooling). I asked him to think about where the water might have come from, and suggested he go through his systems. I suggested he might start with the toilet – to check if he had left the lever in the wrong position. Well, the toilet, well up the wall and above the flood-line, was full of water, having trapped water in the bowl after the through-hull fittings were closed. Likely, the lever was in the wrong position, the water seeped into the bowl and onto the floor as the monohull rolled, and slowly, the boat got lower over the hours. The full toilet was the “smoking gun”.

Dawn and I exited the scene just as others, including the St. Lucian Marine Police arrived. Just as we were untying, they requested a light, and Dawn offered a flashlight. “No,” the official answered, “I mean for a cigarette.”

Throughout the radio communication, John Fallon was listening on Stopp Knot, and finding it all rather humorous. In the morning, we heard the hail on the radio: “Man with a bucket, man with a bucket, this is Stopp Knot.” Dawn responded for us.

Later in the morning, we heard the skipper of Samiel ask for dock space in the marina. He had likely awakened with a hangover in a hell of a mess, and it was time to hose down the salty interior.

Robbyn and Tyle

Robbyn Fallon, John's daughter and her partner, Tyle arrived in St. Lucia last night. We'll have lunch with them today. John is considering moving his boat out of the lagoon and into the clear water of the bay where we are located, in order for Robbyn and Tyle to swim and do a bit of snorkeling. He's been very busy with mechanics and the like getting his engine up to snuff for the trip out. He's been enjoying electricity, fresh water, and even cable t.v. while on the dock.

Bill Nugent has been taking kite surfing lessons on the other side of the island. Laurie and I walked over there yesterday to watch, but the wind wasn't strong enough so we weren't able to get any great photos of him. He's booked again for this afternoon, but again, the wind is rather weak. Bill and Krista have rented a car for a couple of days, so if we join in the fun today, we'll ride rather than walk!

I just finished the book "The Life of Pi". What a great read that was!! Laurie read "Killer Angels". It is an Historical Fiction about the Battle of Gettysburg and the civil war. He really loved the book and had it devoured in less than 2 days! John had read it the 2 days before that!

We're thinking of finally sailing next week sometime to head for the Grenadines and Bequia. We don't have any definite plans for this departure, so stay tuned. A boat here headed for Martinique some time ago and promised to bring us some wine, so we'll have to at least wait for them.

Laurie is outside swishing laundry around in a bucket while I get caught up on email today. Not much news from here!