Waiting out weather with a beach BBQ

We've been sitting in Five Island Bay for the past several days with no end in sight for high winds and big seas. Everyone is waiting it out patiently, but having a little fun on the beach and hiking to fill in the time. Hopefully, we can head out in the next 4 days. Free Spirit is waiting to go to St. Martin. Clarity is heading for the BVI's and all we want to do is get a 3 hour sail in to Barbuda, but nobody leaves in winds like this!

Saturday, the three crews agreed to meet on the beach and bring something to grill and something to share.
We were the first to hit the beach, so there are no pictures, but it was an uneventful landing. It's always tricky to land in the surge and not get caught up in a wave. Many times, we have had unsuccessful landings and end up swamping the boat and soaking the crew. You have to watch the waves and come in just after a large one hits the beach, hoping that you'll be involved in a few smaller waves.
The crew of 'Free Spirit', Alex and John follow us into the beach.


Another successful landing with the surf. Notice John getting the motor up as quickly as he can, while Alex is ready to jump out and haul the boat to safety.


The crew of 'Clarity', Rick and Deb, lines up as the next dinghy to hit the beach.


Check out Deb getting clear of any action! You'd think she has done this before!


Before lighting the BBQ, we had a little game of Boule.


Rick cooks while the boys supervise.





Dinner's ready!

Antigua - Wind blowing like crazy!

After spending some time in Dominica this season, Laurie submitted an article to the Caribbean Compass. His article is on page 22 and 23 of the February issue. Click here for the link.

Here we are 2 days ago in Falmouth Harbour, Antigua.



Here are a few of the 'big ass' boats we see around this island of the rich and famous!
As we passed by this machine, we could hear Led Zeppelin coming from within the dinghy garage. Many workers are constantly at these boats keeping them in shape. The owners just arrive once in awhile to entertain and then fly home again. We're not totally liking this military look for a personal vessel. There must be a story in this.




Even the smaller boats in the middle of this shot are huge! Anchoring off these boats makes you feel really really small!


An interesting trimaran. Laurie really oggled over this one!




We're sitting in Antigua where the wind is just howling. Everyone is sitting tight and it looks like our trip to Barbuda might not happen this season. It's only a 3 hour sail, but out in the open between the islands is not the place to be in this wild wind and BIG seas!

Instead, we're hunkered down a nice deep bay of Five Island Bay on the western shore of Antigua just north of Jolly Harbour. Our British friends John and Alex from "Free Spirit" are here beside us and we just met a couple, Rick and Deb, on the boat, "Clarity" from Calgary. The 6 of us will move our boats closer to the protected beach on the other side of the bay and we'll do a BBQ on the beach this afternoon. All it takes is a little charcoal and a grate from an oven and then a cooler full of food and refreshments! What else are you going to do when you're storm stayed??

Arrived safely in Antigua

We had a great sail from Guadeloupe to Antigua on Monday. We're now in the land of the rich and famous. I'll share pictures later.

When in Dominica, we don't require much assistance from the boat boys, however, we've become friends with many of them. Bounty, the driver of this boat below is one of our favourites. We had been in Dominica for more than 2 weeks when we dinghied to a dock and saw a piece of Bounty's boat floating. Because of the brightly colored boats and unique art work, we knew right away that it was Bounty's boat. Later on, we found Bounty who quickly told us that "Andrew mashed my boat!". Poor Andrew was coming out from behind a wreck and couldn't be seen. Bounty was heading around the wreck from the other side and well, you know the rest of the story! They all drive very fast. Andrew is devastated and has all his friends working on Bounty's boat to make amends. Fortunately no one was hurt in this one.




On the way out of the Dominica, we motored past this nice little boat.



Look at the back of the boat.



Now, look a little closer and you'll see how the rich and famous stay in shape. I'll bet she's never seen the falls and the views we have from the tops of many of these mountains!

Grand Anse, Guadelupe

During previous visits to the Pigeon Island anchorage (Jacques Cousteau Underwater Park) we had determined that the snorkeling was "underwhelming". Well, this year, before we continued the last 8 nautical miles to Dehaies, we jumped in to try along a shore we had ignored. Not too bad, actually. Although we didn't get a good picture of everything we saw, here are two pics. One camera-shy thing that we missed was the biggest squid we've seen. I (Laurie) estimated that it was well over 300 mm long, and indeed wasn't that shy. It's big eye stayed on me, and only moved away after I got within a metre or so.





Yesterday, after going ashore and checking into Customs (la Douane), we went directly for a new hiking route. It started at the north edge of Deshaies, and climbed steeply the 205 metres up the mountain called Gros Morne (which in French seems to mean "big and dreary"). It was super steep, on both sides, but we did it, albeit stopping to catch both our breath and our balance. On the far side, just before the final descent to the Grande Anse beach, was a small cannon battery that was made into a very delightful park.

Here is Cat Tales and the mountain behind her is the way to the beach. There is a nicely marked trail through the woods up and over. Here we go...


This is the beginning of the trail (about an hour walk)


Part way up the mountain, here's a view of the bay we're leaving as we head to Grand Anse beach on the other side.


A tease of what's to come!


A view of the beach from the trail


Looking back at the mountain we hiked to get to the beach


Just a little up the beach, we stopped to inspect a little restaurant, hoping to find an appropriate place to enjoy with Hugh and Liz when they visit in March. It looked a little "past due", but we went in, giving it the benefit of the doubt. The proprietor, a big man, working alone with only his swimsuit, had already lit the barbecue. He had thrown charcoal, bag and all into the unit, and all was smouldering away, making the whole restaurant area quite uninhabitable. I challenged the smoke, and asked for two "Corsair" beers, cold. He opened up a freezer, and after digging, brought out two 1/2 litre German beers, and said (I think) they were the only truly cold beers. I gave him a 10 Euro bill, and he put his pants on to allow him to go through the pockets for change. He had none, so pushed the only other two patrons to pay early so he could provide me with the other 4 Euros. We sat outside, out of the smoke, and enjoyed the cold beers. The proprietor , finding his barbecue was warming up, brought out some chicken pieces in a large pail, placing them over the smoke. He then threw the bloody water left in the pail onto the sand at the entrance of the restaurant area. Possibly this was laziness, possibly it was dust control... Dawn noticed he went from that to wiping down some tables with a rag, without washing his hands from the chicken first. Then a small herd of pigs emerged from the woods and had a romp through the restaurant (actually, they truly startled us as they emerged from the underbrush). We had to say, they kind of picked the place up a bit. There was no menu, but the proprietor suggested his specialty was chicken colombo (we were surprised it wasn't pork). We'll wait to hear from Hugh and Liz to see if this place intrigues them.
We walked further down the beach, and at the far end were many restaurants, also just off the beach, and a larger crowd to watch in the surf. We've tried these restaurants, and will likely suggest to Hugh and Liz that they're worth the extra half-mile walk.




We both enjoyed a swim - I also played in the surf until one wave wiped me out pretty bad, and delivered me upside down well up the beach. It took ten minutes of rinsing to get the sand in my hair and pants down to a reasonable amount.
We had a nice walk back to town, and Dawn cooked up a wonderful chicken stirfry, probably better than we could have received in a restaurant.

This is the 'Stad Amsterdam' we saw in Dominica


This one was taken through the binoculars!

Arrived in Guadeloupe

We just spent 2 days traveling from Dominica to Guadalupe and up along its west coast to Deshaies. The wind was almost always on the beam and between 15 and 20 knots. With 2 reefs in the main, half the jib and both sails hanked as far over as could be we moved along at between 7 to 8 knots with total comfort on the boat. It was a dream sail!!

We'll be here for a couple of days and planning to leave for Antigua on Tuesday. We intend to spend most of it playing in the wild surf over at Grand Anse Beach, a half hour walk from here.

After spending 3 weeks in Portsmouth, Dominica, we feel we finally understand how the boat boys work and operate working together to keep us safe and offer services. The other islands have much to learn from these fine men!

We'll try to get a few pictures up soon.

Lionfish spotted!

I just talked to my mother on skype and she told me that we have not blogged for 3 days and so here it is!

Yesterday we were snorkeling along the edge Prince Rupert Bay in Portsmouth, Dominica and unfortunately ran across 2 lionfish. The lionfish is not from around these waters and are quite a threat to the fishes living on the reefs. They have no known enemies and their reproduction abilities is enormous. They have been spotted and exterminated in a couple areas down here, but when we saw these two yesterday, we were very upset. We'll report our findings to the dive shop here in the bay.

This site will help you to understand what is happening here.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pterois






To make matters worse, after we found the 2 lionfish, we came across this turtle head. Turtle hunting is illegal here and I think that it's easy to see that this one didn't die of old age.

Trafalger Falls and a Day at the Spa

Our friends Dan and Cindy on Sittitunga suggested by ham radio that we look up past cruiser friends of theirs while in Dominica. They then introduced us by email to John and Mary, Canadians, who have sailed the Bahamas but are currently living and employed in Dominica at the Ross University where opportunity was just too good to pass up. We visited them in their home a few days ago, which was beautiful. They are not lacking for a thing and enjoying the life here. They picked us up in their car and treated us to a trip to Trafalgar Falls at the southern part of the island followed to lunch out and an afternoon at the 'spa'!! We enjoyed the 2 hour drive in air conditioned comfort and it felt a little strange to be completely dry and non sweaty! Here are a few pictures to show of this great trip.













You can't make up a name of a spa, such as this one, so I thought I'd better include the building in the photos.
After we had a beautiful local lunch of creole shrimp, salads, and provisions, we headed to the spa! The spa was a beautiful design of 5 pools, each using different combinations of hot water coming from the sulfur springs and colder water from the falls. The first pool was so hot, it was difficult to get in. From there you just kept moving over the course of the afternoon from one pool to the next ending up with icy cold water to cool you down.


Our hosts, John and Mary:
















Ahhhh...now that's nice!


Thanks John and Mary for the wonderful day! Next time we arrive here, we'll be laden with white wine and cheese from the French islands to treat you!

Hiking in Dominica

We met Kristin and Terry (from the boat 'Silk Pajamas') at 10:00 sharp at Big Papa's dock for a hike along the northern part of Dominica. We caught a bus (van) which was full to the brim. In these islands, no bus is full...there is always room for one more! After the passengers were let off one after another, it was just the 4 of us left to carry on up and up the mountain on narrow roads with sharp switchbacks which eventually ended up to be a dirt road that would barely allow one vehicle.

We were dropped at Capuchin pretty much at the end of the navigable road. We were to hike the 4 hour trek and end up in Penville and hopefully catch a bus back to the bay where our boats were. The adventure began!


The trail, for the most part, seemed to be a man-made ledge, varying from 5 feet to 8 inches along the sides of steep mountains. It went up and down hundreds of feet, through gulleys and across ridges, seemingly thousands of feet from valley floors, but seldom wide enough for two abreast.

Along the way, we saw several magnificent trees. This one was a beauty!



I'm not sure what this one is called, but I'd wager a bet that it would be related to the gloxinia.


Here is a wild ginger lily. Of course, they come complete with hummingbirds, which I failed to get a shot of!


We came across a few mud slides that came close to obliterating the little continuous shelf, and had to carefully pick our way across them. Below each slide was of course a steep drop to the base of the mountain!



At this point in the trail, it was nice to see this sign, if only to let us know that we were still on the proper trail! We had already hiked about 2 hours at this point, much of it in the pouring rain, only to find that we were approximately half way through!



I wish this picture could show depth of the foliage and the stunning view we had.



From here you can see Les Saintes, the islands just south of Guadeloupe and belonging to the same.


We managed to keep our feet reasonably clean throughout the 4 hour hike, but one the very last leg of the adventure, the farmer we met said that there had been a landslide that wiped out the regular route and the new trail was just being dug out and had no vegetation to hold it all together. That along with the recent rains, he was right to warn us. There were a few rocks that we were to jump from one to the other, however, they weren't spaced as well as I would have liked! Well, I lost my balance and sunk about 10 inches deep into the sucking muck. Of course, my second foot followed the first. The farmer then told me not to worry, that he had water at the end of the trail at his house, however, we should hurry because the mud was full of disease! That made us move along a little quicker!



The farmer we met on the trail quickly took us to the tap where we could use all the water we needed to clean the mess off!




Luckily for us, a bus was there dropping off a passenger and he told us he'd be right back for us. He said that we just had time to buy a cold beer from a lady in a house that he pointed out to us and he'd be around just as we were finishing. He was right on all accounts, except that she only had 2 cold beers in that big refrigerator of hers, but we managed to overlook it and drink them warm. Of course, we gave one of the cold ones to our new farmer friend who was so kind to us along the way!