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June 1

We started the day by dinghying with Sol Y Mar down to the Simpson Bay Marina to leave our dinghies and walk across the street where Pat left a pump to be rebuilt.  While Pat was in the pump place, Barb, Dori, and I browsed a French bakery across the street.  We didn't buy anything but there was a lot of good looking stuff.  Then we headed off for a trip to the boat stores.  There are two stores here, Budget Marine and Island Water World.  Both are accessible by dinghy.  We went to Budget Marine first.  One of the things we did before leaving the US was to stock up on spare parts, thinking that there was no way to get anything in the islands other than ship it from the US.  Well, we found this Budget Marine to be much better stocked than the one we visited in St. Thomas, and better stocked than any West Marine in the States that I know of.  They not only had any accessory you might need, but lots of parts for fixing things.  We spent quite a while browsing through the store and picked up several things.  We then dinghied a quarter mile or so to Island Water World.  Their store is a little more tightly packed and not as bright and shiny as Budget Marine, but they too had an impressive stock of items and a helpful staff.  Since both companies have stores in Grenada too, I'm not worried about getting most anything I need while we are down here.  Oh, and as a bonus, the prices were cheaper on most things than West Marine in the States.

After shopping, we went to a waterside restaurant called Lee's for lunch.  This place is a restaurant and also runs fishing charters.  They had a big sign on the wall explaining their charter deal.  For a full day, it was $250 per person, and they kept any fish caught.  If there were fish caught, the people in the fishing party got a free lunch or dinner made with the fish you caught.  Seems like a major rip off to me.  We had a nice lunch though.

After lunch, we went back to the boat and I got caught up on my logs.  We then went to Shrimpy's to connect to the Internet and upload the website.  Conveniently, it was happy hour, and Sara the bartender knew what we were drinking even though we have only been here a couple of days.  We learned that Sara is from Ethiopia, and she definitely had the best personality of the several bartenders that work here.  Pat & Tom from Lone Star were here, so after happy hour was over and the website was updated, we went across the street with them to a Chinese place.  It wasn't much to look at inside or out, but the food was good and cheap, as Chinese usually is.

GPS N 18-03.020 W 063-05.597  Nautical miles traveled today 0.  Total miles 9125.

June 2

Today we took a dinghy trip north to Marigot on the French side of the island.  You can access Simpson Lagoon from either the French or Dutch sides, via bridges, but the route from the French bridge to the anchorage is shallower, so most people use the Dutch bridge as we did.  It is about a mile and a half to the north end of the lagoon, where we went under the bridge and out into Marigot Bay.  There were many boats anchored in Marigot Bay, which is nice, but not as calm as the lagoon.  We went to the northern end of the bay and tied up at the dock.  We had Pat from Lone Star with us, and Pat & Dori we chasing us in their dinghy.  The point of coming here today is that it's market day.  There are probably fifty vendors with tents selling jewelry, t-shirts, colorful dresses and sarongs, and the usual tourist crap.  There is also a fresh vegetable market and a small fish market.  We strolled through them all, and a few purchases were made, but none by MoonSail.  It is really fun shopping when you don't need a damn thing and you have nowhere to put anything else.  It makes the buying decisions so much easier.  I am getting better at just looking and politely saying no thank you to the vendors, while not feeling guilty when they give you the sad face.

On the recommendation of another cruiser, we went to lunch at a place called O'Plongeoir.  We were the first customers there, as it was a little before noon.  We have found many of the restaurants don't open for lunch until noon.  The food was very good as we had been told.  It was a little pricey, but we'll have a light dinner to make up for it.  After lunch, we strolled the main street of Marigot a bit, but since there are no cruise ships in today, most were closed.

By mid-afternoon we were back on the boats and enjoyed a quiet evening at home.

GPS N 18-03.020 W 063-05.597  Nautical miles traveled today 0.  Total miles 9125.

June 3

Being Sunday, we were told most everything on the island would be closed, so we rescheduled our planned island tour until tomorrow.  Mid-morning, I joined Pat & Dori at Shrimpy's to have an Internet day.  Barb stayed on the boat to read and clean without me in the way.  Dori got her hair cut and highlighted by a local guy who does hair on the dock next to Shrimpy's.  You sit under the umbrella in a lawn chair and get your hair done.  If a wash or rinse is needed it's done with the garden hose on the dock.  Pat and I enjoyed surfing the net without worrying about how much time or electricity we used, and the connection was good enough to be calling friends and family on Skype.

Late in the afternoon, I went back to the boat.  Barb fixed us a nice dinner and we listened to the sounds of a revival preacher on shore for a few hours.  We couldn't understand what he was saying, but he was fired up.  Fortunately, he stopped by about 21:00.

GPS N 18-03.020 W 063-05.597  Nautical miles traveled today 0.  Total miles 9125.

June 4

We rented a car today with Pat & Dori and took off on a island tour.  I was elected driver since I have been here before and have a basic knowledge of where to go.  We got the car from and independent company called Paradise Rentals, which was just down the street from Shrimpy's where we left our dinghies.  The car was the same as we rented in Turks & Caicos - a Daihatsu Charade.  I'm sure this model can't possibly be sold in the States, because it couldn't possibly pass any kind of crash test.  You could probably dent the metal with a good thump with your fingers.  We squeezed in and took off - first stop Marigot.  Dori is looking for a specific ladies electric grooming device, and was told there was a store there that might carry them.  On the road between Simpson Bay and Marigot, we passed a monument and flags that mark the border between the French and Dutch sides.  We would have stopped for pictures but I saw it too late to pull in.

In Marigot, we found the main shopping area.  Traffic was quite heavy and there was no open parking, so we dropped Barb & Dori off and Pat and I circled the block.  There were a number of one way streets, but not all of them, and there were no stop signs or other indicators of who had any right of way anywhere.  Remarkably, the traffic flowed well.  At the intersections, everybody merged one for one without any horn honking except the little toots they constantly give to say thanks.  After we had made many laps, we found Barb waiting for us.  She told Pat to join Dori to look at something, and she got in with me.  After several more laps we found Pat & Dori waiting for us with no bags in their hands.  Turned out they found what they wanted, but the salesman was so lame that they gave up.

From Marigot we continued clockwise around the island to Grand Case.  Last year we ate in Grand Case twice and had drinks at a beach bar there.  The main street of Grand Case is one-way, so we made a lap and then came around a second time and parked.  We walked from the street to the beach and walked along the beach towards the pier.  The ladies found the beach had lots of sea glass on it, which they collect.  There was more here than we could have possibly carried back, so they were discriminating in what pieces they picked up.  While they were hunting, I walked down past the pier and found the beach bar where we had sunset drinks last year.  They were one of the few places open, since we are now "out of season".  We've been really amazed at how empty everything is now that "season" has ended.  Pat & I got to the bar before the girls and ordered beers.  We were the only customers, so we got to play with the puppy who lives here.  After a bit, Barb & Dori showed up and got beer also.  We considered eating here, but decided to move on.

Back in the car we drove on clockwise around the island headed for lunch at Orient Beach.  Before we got to Orient Beach we came across the Mount Vernon Plantation.  We had been told to look for this place, as it had samplings of coffee and rum.  We had been told it was where the Guavaberry Rums that we bought in Phillipsburg were actually made.  We pulled in and walked up to the office and found there was a 12 Euro or $14 US per person admission fee.  When we started to balk at paying that much, the girl quickly said she could let us in for $12 US.  Funny how everything is negotiable "out of season".  We said ok and paid our money.  The tour is self guided and comes with an audio gadget that you listen to as you walk the path.  The audio thing told us lots about various plants found in the Caribbean, and some about life on a plantation.  This whole place is a museum built around an old stone house that may have originally been a plantation house, but it's mostly a recreation.  We walked around listening to the audio, and came to a building that was built to recreate a coffee bean harvesting/drying/roasting building.  It looked like this was where we were supposed to get a sample of coffee, but there was nobody here, so we continued along the path.  We saw the old stone house that the only original building on the site, and then came to a recreation of a rum distillery.  After the distillery was a building with some dusty displays of very old rum bottles, some empty, some full.  This looked like where we should get a rum tasting, but again, nobody was here.  After more than an hour of being in the hot sun, hearing about plants, we were back at the air conditioned visitors center.  While that was welcome, we wanted our "free" coffee and rum samples that we had paid $12 for.  The girl said she would call the guy and tell him to meet us at the coffee house.  We went back to the coffee building and in a few minutes a guy showed up.  He brewed us four little cups of coffee and poured us four little samples of their flavored rum punches and left.  The coffee was pretty bad, and the rum was worse.  As Pat said, it's got to be pretty bad to throw away free rum.  All in all, I do not recommend a visit to this place unless you are really interested in island vegetation.

By now we were all hot, hungry and thirsty.  A couple more miles and we came to Orient Beach.  Orient Beach is known as the nude beach of St. Maarten, although that is kind of not true.  If you really are a nudist, you go to Cupe Coy Beach on the west side of the island where everybody is nude and there is no development.  At Orient Beach, you will find a fair amount of topless woman, and some full nudity, but not much.  Orient Beach also has at least a half dozen restaurants along the beach which not only serve food and drink, but rent beach chairs and umbrellas.  So it is much more mainstream and commercialized.  We drove through the housing area that precedes the beach and stopped at the first restaurant we came to, Coco Beach.  As we walked to the restaurant from the parking area we spotted our first topless women on the beach.  Of course it's not polite to gawk, so we proceeded to the hostess stand to request a table "with a view".  From where we sat we could see a woman a couple hundred feet away, talking on a cell phone, pacing around between beach chairs and umbrellas, giving us just a glimpse now and then.  After several minutes of watching this, and ordering lunch and drinks, the woman and her friend put their wraps on and came up to the restaurant.  At closer range they were proof that most of the people you see on a nude beach are not people you want to see nude.  The pizzas we had for lunch though we very good.  While Pat and I were now tempted to go "looking for sea glass", we didn't.

The tour continued clockwise with a stop at a scenic overlook that looks out across some tidal flats.  This is part of a nature preserve, and there are large signs in the parking area stating that fishing and many other things are not allowed here.  The only other people here though were six locals, one with a pole, three with hand lines, and one with a cast net, all trying their luck at catching fish trapped in the deep hole left during low tide.  So much for preservation.

From the overlook, we went another couple of miles to Oyster Pond.  Here we stopped at Captain Oliver's for a drink.  Captain Oliver's is a restaurant and bar and marina.  The marina is home to the Mooring's and Sunsail charter fleets, which is pretty funny since while Oyster Pond is and excellent quiet bay, the entrance is ugly in the best of conditions.  Nothing like sending your average charter boat out into a rage to start their weeks vacation.  Captain Oliver's was empty and not expecting customers mid-afternoon.  The one person working didn't seem interested in serving us so we had one drink.  A cool thing at Captain Oliver's was the large tank of huge lobster who were probably going to be somebody's dinner tonight, and the fenced water area that had a bunch of large tropical fish and a sea turtle.  I assume the turtle had been injured in order to justify caging him, although he had all his appendages.  Since Captain Oliver's was dead, we went around the corner to Mr. Busby's Beach Bar.  Mr. Busby's is right next to the timeshares where we spent a week last year with my brother and will visit again in a few weeks.  Mr. Busby's is used to people on the beach drinking all afternoon, so service here was great as were the Guavaberry Coladas.  We had two rounds and headed back to Simpson Bay.

The traffic back through Phillipsburg to Simpson Bay was slow.  We're stuck in island rush hour!  When you only have two lanes, it doesn't take much to make a traffic jam.  We got back to Simpson Bay a little before 18:00.  We have the car until tomorrow morning, but have no need for it, and Paradise Rentals is open until 18:00, so we filled the tank and went to turn the car in now.  The girls walked back to Shrimpy's from the gas station while Pat & I took the car back.  There is just one guy working at this hour, so it took him a few minutes to take care of us.  When he did, he couldn't find our contract.  After much shuffling through papers he found us.  Then he looked at us with a worried look and said we were supposed to have the car back by 09:30 this morning.  We said, we just got it at 09:30 this morning.  He showed us the contract and it said we picked the car up yesterday and should have returned it this morning.  We said again that we just got it this morning.  Pat pointed out the date on the credit card authorization they got, which was of course today.  The guy finally got it and laughed about the mistake.  Then he looked at the estimated charges written on their copy of the contract, which said $405.  He than again clarified that we had only had the car for the day.  We said yes.  He asked me who gave us the car, because he wanted to tell the boss how stupid they were.  I didn't know her name, so all I could tell him was that it was a girl this morning.  Then he refigured the bill and said $40.  I asked how the $25 we were quoted became $40?  He pointed out the $12 "location fee" that was on our copy of the contract, although the girl never mentioned it when we got the car.  I asked what that was for and pointed out that she never mentioned it although I had signed the contract.  He explained that it was to cover the cost of picking us up at the airport.  We explained that we walked up and they didn't pick us up anywhere.  After a bit of debate, he agreed that we should not have been charged that fee and we walked out paying $25 plus a couple bucks tax.  Scams everywhere.

During the walk back, Pat & I talked about how after that deal at the rental agency we needed a drink, but we had now missed happy hour since it all took so long.  But, our ladies were looking out for us and had slightly melted, but still cold, happy hour priced drinks waiting for us on the bar.  Our stay at the bar was cut short though, due to Coast Guard activity.  Our friends on Non-Linear and Cheetah II told us about the Coast Guard touring the lagoon all afternoon, boarding boats and checking things out.  Non-Linear had been cautioned that his emergency flares were out of date.  We could see the Coast Guard boat still moving about in the anchorage.  Faced with the decision or certainly getting busted for not having a light on the dinghy or suffering the inconvenience of a boarding that I think we could pass just fine, we left before it was dark.  We got back to the boat and watched the Coast Guard.  They boarded one more boat after we got back and then it was dark and they went home.  Dodged the bullet.  I did double check my flares, and they are still in-date.

As we relaxed after dinner, we heard numerous sirens coming from both ends of the island and stopping in the main business district of Simpson Bay.  Even with my binoculars, I couldn't see where they stopped.  I also saw no signs of a fire, so I assumed it was an accident.  That was confirmed the next day in a taxi.  We got to enjoy the preacher again tonight.

GPS N 18-03.020 W 063-05.597  Nautical miles traveled today 0.  Total miles 9125.

June 5

I feel guilty.  Today I have arranged to destroy a whole eco-system.  This morning we have arranged for Mike from Shrimpy's to clean the bottom of the boat.  Mike & Sally own Shrimpy's and Mike also does bottom cleaning, outboard repair, runs the morning VHF net, and is in general the cruisers friend here.  I had warned him that the bottom was really bad, with lots of growth on it since our bottom paint is worn out.  He charges by the hour, instead of by the size of the boat, which is only fair since that builds in the varying difficulty depending on the amount of scraping.  Mike and his helper arrived about 11:00 and went to work.  It took them both a little over an hour to clean the bottom and install two new zincs.  Total price, $100.  Worth every penny, since I didn't have to do it.  When Mike got out of the water he had at least a half dozen little-bitty crabs on his wetsuit who had been made homeless because their nice fuzzy homes had been scraped off the boat.  I felt guilty for just a minute until I remembered how much faster we would go now without all that drag.

As soon as the bottom cleaning was done, we hopped a mini-bus to Phillipsburg.  Pat & Dori had gone earlier, and we hoped to meet them for lunch.  We got to Phillipsburg and found the town dead because there was no cruise ship.  This has worked to Pat & Dori's advantage because they were looking to buy a few things and the shops are really dealing since the have no customers.  We both had our handheld VHF radios, so we found each other pretty quickly.  Since we were later than we had expected, Pat & Dori had already eaten.  They were in the middle of a negotiation on some jewelry when we found them, so we decided to go eat while they finished, and they will join us later.  We went to the beachfront and found a place to eat.  Half the places are closed since there is no ship, but several are open.  We ordered beers and lunch, but before lunch even got delivered, I started feeling poorly.  I was aching all over and just felt worn out.  Our food came, and I ate my burger but had to force myself to finish and didn't touch the fries or cole slaw that came with it.  Pat & Dori found us after we were done and showed us all the goodies they had.  Pat had a new camera, and Dori had some new jewelry.

Since I wasn't feeling well, and was feeling worse as time went on, we decided to just head back to Simpson Bay.  We got back and left Sol Y Mar at Shrimpy's while we went back to the boat.  I felt achier and felt like I had a fever.  I can't blame the food since the onset was before it was delivered.  I've never heard of anybody getting food poisoning from just ordering.  We'll see.

There are eight boats, including five of our friends who are leaving to head south in the morning.  That means leaving the lagoon at the 17:30 bridge opening and anchoring outside the lagoon for the night.  We watched the parade as everybody staged for the bridge opening and then left.  We had thought about leaving with them today, but just weren't ready, and since I don't feel well, it's just as well in case I get worse.  Lone Star is not leaving today because they are having a guest fly in this afternoon.  But, we talked to them this evening, and the guest's flights were delayed and she had to be rerouted, so she won't be in until after 22:00.  We listened to the preacher again until about 21:00.  By then I was actually feeling some better and went to bed hopeful.

GPS N 18-03.020 W 063-05.597  Nautical miles traveled today 0.  Total miles 9125.

June 6

We planned to meet Sol Y Mar at Shrimpy's at 10:00 to compare notes and plan our journey from here south.  About 09:00 we saw that the Coast Guard was again cruising the harbor and boarding boats.  We decided rather than take a half hour to deal with them, we would leave the boat early and go to shore.  As we passed Sol Y Mar, we told Pat what we were up to, but Dori wasn't ready to go yet.  Sure enough, the Coast Guard paid them a visit right after we left.  Turned out he had expired flares also, but only by a couple of days, so they just warned him.  They joined us at Shrimpy's and we plotted our courses from here to Grenada.

When we were done plotting and surfing the net, we headed over to Lady C for another one of their good pizzas.  Unfortunately, they were closed.  So, we went on to Simpson Bay Marina to Jimbo's restaurant.  We had planned to come here earlier in the week but had never made it.  We had a nice lunch and got Jimbo bucks in return.  You get a Jimbo buck for every ten dollars spent.  Since we are leaving tomorrow, we won't be able to use them, but we will give them to Lone Star who will be here another week at least.

Back at the boat, we started getting ready to leave.  We have to fill our fuel and water, so I called the Simpson Bay Marina to see if the fuel dock was open.  It was, so we weighed anchor and headed around there.  Supposedly the water gets skinny in the southern end of the lagoon where the marina is, but we never saw anything too shallow and got to the dock just fine.  We filled with fuel, which is measured in liters here instead of gallons, and water, which is measured in gallons.  So, to keep my cost spreadsheet up to date, I had to actually look up how to convert liters to gallons.  I'm sure I learned that in high school, but have never needed to know.  After fueling we went back and re-anchored and Sol Y Mar took our place at the fuel dock.

While we waited an hour for the bridge opening, there was a large fire ashore.  We couldn't tell if it was just brush or buildings, but there was a huge amount of smoke.  The wind has been howling this afternoon, so that won't help.  From the time we saw the smoke until the fire truck arrived was at least half an hour.  Next time you call 9-1-1 and get five minute response, thank somebody that you live where such services are available.

Speaking of the wind howling, it was blowing in an unusual manner for the Caribbean.  The Caribbean is known for the trade winds, which blow steadily and mostly from the east.  Today, the wind speed has been very variable.  This may have something to do with it getting funneled over the island and down into the lagoon, but it is still unusual.  It has gone from almost calm, to thirty knots, then back to calm, then a few minutes of twenty knots, all afternoon.  The gusts are really something and affected us in a way we didn't immediately know.  Barb had hung my bath towel on the lifelines this morning to dry.  Late in the afternoon as we were preparing to leave, she asked me if I had taken it below.  I told her that to be honest, I didn't realize it was hanging, so the answer was no, I had not moved it.  It was gone, along with the clothespins that had been holding it.  Either the wind took it or the Coast Guard stole it.

A little after 17:00 we weighed anchor and slowly started for the bridge.  Sol Y Mar and Seagulls joined the parade, as did a couple of other sailboats we don't know.  At 17:30, the bridge opened and we went to the outer anchorage.  This was where we waited a couple of hours the morning we came in.  It was quite rolly then and it still is now.  We anchored and settled in for an early night.  We were still to be entertained though.  First a cruise ship left Phillipsburg just before dark.  It was headed northwest slowly, and then seemed to stop and turn around so it's stern was facing west.  The stern is where the dining room is, so we figured they were giving the dinner crowd a nice sunset view.  After a bit we noticed a small boat with flashing lights leave the cruise ship.  Perhaps it's a pilot being returned to shore, or maybe they forgot a passenger and are sending their small boat to pick them up.  But then the small boat turned around and went back to the cruise ship.  Shortly after that it turned around and left.  I haven't figured that one out yet.  Next, we noticed one of the resorts on the outside was showing a movie on the side of the building.  We didn't have a good enough angle on it to really watch, but through the binoculars we figured out it was a western.  Then there were the glowing things in the water.  We don't know what they were, but they were several inches long and slowly moving through the water.  Sol Y Mar saw lots of them, but we just saw a few.  So, our evening wound down and we went to bed early, planning on a dawn departure.

GPS N 18-03.020 W 063-05.597  Nautical miles traveled today 0.  Total miles 9125.

Jun 7

We were up at 05:00 and underway at 05:30.  It was just barely light, but enough to see fine.  We have over sixty miles to make today, and we want to arrive in daylight, thus the early start.  Once we were a little away from the island, we found the wind to be blowing between fifteen and twenty knots, and just enough off the nose that we might actually be able to sail.  We raised the main first and kept the motor running, and were making good speed.  Sol Y Mar and Seagulls, were behind us, but they had both sails up and were catching up.  So, I unfurled the headsail, and with the motor still running, we hit a top of 7.8 knots.  For MoonSail, that's flying.  It also proved that having the bottom cleaned helped.  We haven't been over six knots in months.  We kept the motor running all day because the batteries were in desperate need of a full charge, but we throttled back and still were doing 6.5 knots or better most of the day.

The islands from here south are volcanic in origin.  Most of them are very obvious.  As we went south from St. Maarten, we passed St. Bart's to the east, Saba and Statia to the west, and St. Kitt's to the east.  Our destination today is Nevis, just south of St. Kitt's.  Statia was probably the most dramatic example of a mountain that was obviously a volcano that blew it's top years ago.  Since we made good time all day, we were anchored in Tamarind Bay off the northwestern corner of Nevis before 16:00.  The anchorage is pretty rolly, but will do for the night.  Since we are not staying and not going ashore, we don't need to check in with Customs & Immigration.  We just fly our yellow Q flag to indicate we are not checked in and hang on the boat.

Sol Y Mar anchored behind us shortly after we arrived.  Pat and I were talking on the VHF about tomorrows plans when he suddenly said he was surrounded by bees and had to go below.  He called me back form the radio below and said there was a swarm of honey bees in his cockpit looking for a place to park.  Since my brother is a hobby bee keeper, I know a little about how this swarming thing works.  Pat said they were all landing under his solar panel and there were thousands of them.  I assured him they would figure out that his solar panel probably wasn't a good place to start a new hive and they would move on.  Sure enough they did in about fifteen minutes.  During this whole episode, the wind generator on Sol Y Mar had been happily spinning.  When the bees left and Pat went back out to the cockpit, he found hundreds of dead bees on deck that had been whacked by the blades of the generator.  Maybe that helped them figure out this wasn't a good place to be.

The rest of the night was quiet and we were asleep early.

GPS N 17-11.330 W 062-37.179  Nautical miles traveled today 64.  Total miles 9189.

June 8

We are only going forty miles today, so it wasn't a dawn departure, but we were underway a little before 07:00.  Our destination today is Montserrat.  Montserrat is the best example of a volcanic island because it blew in 1995.  The southern half of the island was decimated when the volcano blew, although if memory serves me they had plenty of warning and there was little loss of life.  But the capitol city of Plymouth, the airport, and numerous small villages were destroyed, and the southern half of the island is still off limits.  The wind is right on the nose today, so we just motored into it with twenty knots of wind and four to five foot seas.  Another testament to the clean bottom though - we were still able to make just under six knots for the whole trip.  Those conditions with the fouled bottom would have had us under five knots a week ago.

We passed a large rock known as Redonda to the east and could see Antigua off in the distance to the east.  We are destined tonight for Rendezvous Bay, which is just north of Little Bay, the official port of entry.  Again, since we are not going ashore, we will not check-in.  The anchorage is pretty small and there are already five boats here, four of which we know.  We took three tries to anchor in a spot we felt ok with.  The problem is that there is a fair swell wrapping around the northern end of the island, the wind coming down the face of the mountain, and a current, all making the boats dance around in an unpredictable fashion.  It is also quite deep unless you get real close to shore.  We finally found a place in twenty feet of water where I feel ok with our proximity to the other boats.  Sol Y Mar came in after us and anchored a little south of us.

The shore here at Rendezvous Bay has one house on it.  There is no road to it, just a foot path or beach access.  There is no sign of a boat that lives here, but there is a guy in the house.  We could see him on the porch in a chair and there were lights on in the evening.  Other than him there seem to be just goats and chickens on shore.  We watched the goats hop along the steep embankment like it was nothing.  By dark, there were thirteen boats anchored here.  And we thought it was full at six or seven.  One boat whom we don't know, came in north of us right over an obvious reef.  The woman on the bow yelled back to her husband, "We're over the reef", and then dropped the anchor.  Morons!  An anchor on the coral can destroy a hundred years growth in a minute.  The surprising thing was that it wasn't a charter boat, so you can't simply blame lack of experience.

Another good dinner and sunset and early to bed.  The weather is supposed to be getting bad in another day, so we have another early morning to make Guadeloupe.

GPS N 16-48.582 W 062-12.391  Nautical miles traveled today 35.  Total miles 9224.

June 9

We were up at dawn again and on the move to Guadeloupe.  We were the second boat to leave the anchorage and headed north around the northern tip of the island.  There has always been a caution to pass Montserrat on the windward side in case the volcano spits some ash or embers.  There are lots of stories of boats passing miles offshore on the downwind side getting holes burnt in their sails by falling ash.  We are going around to the windward side not so much for that reason, as the volcano has been quiet for a couple of years now, but rather we are doing it to hopefully have a better angle on the wind.

The trip was pretty good.  Is was about forty miles, and the wind was pretty close to right on the nose.  It was blowing about fifteen to eighteen knots, but once we were away from Montserrat, the seas were not too bad.  I had the main sail partially up to steady the boat, but the wind angle was too close to try and really sail.  There was a northbound current slowing us down until after we were well south of Montserrat also, so we could only make about five knots, but we were well ahead of the rest of the pack.  While nobody declared this a race, it would become important later.  About halfway through the trip, the wind shifted about ten degrees allowing us to unfurl the headsail.  With the motor still running, both sails up, and the current gone, we were hitting speeds just shy of eight knots.  We haven't gone that fast since we were northbound in the Gulf Stream.  The wind had picked up a few knots, and since we were close hauled, we were heeling over almost thirty degrees.  I throttled back the engine and was still making 6.5 knots.  After an hour or so of this boisterous ride, Barb was getting tired of the angle of heel, and the wind was piping up even more, so we decided to furl the headsail and just motor the last five miles.  We had only had the headsail furled a few minutes and were back on course, when the wind slowed to about fifteen knots, but then shifted eighty degrees to west of south with no warning at all.  Had that happened with the headsail up, we would have been scrambling to tack the sail across when we wouldn't have been prepared.  The reefed main was still up, but sheeted in pretty tight, so it just flopped over to the other side and we heeled over to port.  I called back to the rest of the pack to warn them of the impending shift.  Some of them replied with a tone that seemed to imply I was nuts, but then they to tacked without ever changing course.

We were the first to arrive at Deshaies (Day-hay) which is a small fishing village on the northwest corner of Guadeloupe.  The bay here is fairly large, but also fairly deep except right near the shore.  This is why it was important for us to be the first of the dozen boats headed this way to arrive.  I want to be in less than twenty feet of water.  There are only four or five sailboats already here, including our friends Britt & Terri on Sea Otter, so I have the pick of spots to drop the hook.  We cruised right up near the beach and found a spot in twelve feet of water and dropped the hook.  We have read in the cruising guide that the wind can howl off the land, even stronger than the prevailing conditions, but right now the breeze is coming from the west.  So, we set the anchor to the west and will pay close attention later when we swing around to the east.  As we were about to drop the hook, we noticed the two naked people on a small boat next to us.  Yep, we are in a French island.

The rest of our flotilla started coming in just ten or fifteen minutes after us.  We had been barely able to see any sails behind us, but they all came in within the next hour.  The good places were quickly taken and some, including Sol Y Mar who was amongst the last of our group to arrive, had to anchor in the 20+ depths.  As I have said before, that in itself is not a problem unless you haul your anchor up by hand as I do.  Most boats out here have good working windlasses to raise the anchor, so it's not an issue to them.  Shortly after getting settled, we got a call on the VHF from one of our group, Seagulls.  They had lost there motor and were going to be sailing into the anchorage, so they wondered how crowded it was.  I explained that if they didn't mind thirty feet of water, they would have lots of room at the back of the pack.  They also said the wind was dying down, so they would be a while before they got there.  We told them we would have our dinghy ready in case they needed a tow.  An hour or so later, Seagulls finally appeared around the corner.  They had given up on sailing and Ali had his dinghy lashed to the side to provide propulsion.  Unfortunately, they have experience doing this as they blew their transmission last year and had to tow themselves into Luperon where we met them this year.  Sol Y Mar and I went out in our dinghies to meet them and help position them where they wanted to anchor.  Once Ali dropped the hook, I tied my dinghy to the stern and pulled them back to set it.  Now the work begins to diagnose their engine problem.

Shortly after we had anchored, a rain shower came through.  We have not had a substantial rain in a couple of weeks, and after three days of bashing into rough seas, the boat is encrusted with salt.  So while it was raining, I got the deck brush out and gave the decks and all the stainless a quick brushing.  Since the wind died just before the shower, it was quite hot, and being out in the cool rain felt good.  So, the salt water was off the decks, but unfortunately, Barb had noticed some salt water below deck.  On the starboard side of the boat, there was wet sawdust looking stuff on the side and on the top shelf along the side in the main saloon.  This can't be good.  This is not coming from a port or hatch, and the most likely culprit is the hull/deck joint.  This will be a priority to resolve while we are in Grenada.  Barb cleaned up the mess, and fortunately nothing significant was damaged by the water.

Guadeloupe is a French island, as was the northern half of St. Maarten.  The French islands are known for being very lax about check-in procedures.  There are no charges for checking in, and you may or may not even be able to find the Customs officers.  Normally, you are not supposed to go ashore until you are properly checked in, but apparently here it doesn't matter.  We were told by Sea Otter, who was here a couple days before us, that Customs would be back in the office Monday between 13:00 and 14:00.  We are out of ice though, so a trip ashore must be made, checked in or not.  I dinghied to the main town dock and tied up.  I found the Spar supermarket a couple of short blocks away and went inside.  The ice machine was outside the front door, but was locked.  Not knowing how much English is spoken here, and not knowing the French word for ice, I said to the girl at the register, "I need a bag of ice".  She repeated, "Ice?".  I said, "Si".  I immediately corrected myself and said, "Oui!".  She laughed and I said, "Oops, wrong country".  We had a good laugh, so I guess she understood.

I took the ice back to the boat and relaxed in the cockpit with a cold beverage.  We watched as the couple from the little boat next to us, now clothed, took their dinghy to shore.  We waved as they passed.  A little while later, they returned with another young woman and a ten year-old or so boy and three pieces of luggage.  How they all fit in their small dinghy was amazing, and how they are all going to be on the small (twenty-five foot maybe) boat is interesting.  They unloaded and took a swim, and then a little before dark went back to shore for dinner.  We waved again as they passed.  Barb made us a nice pasta dinner with an experimental sauce that was quite good.  We had finished eating and were relaxing in the cockpit after dark, when it started to rain.  The wind piped up at bit, but not really howling, and it poured heavily for fifteen minutes or so.  The rain had almost stopped when I looked to our side and asked Barb, where the little boat was.  Sometimes when you swing around in an anchorage, especially at night, you get disoriented in your relationship to the other boats.  But, we opened up our enclosure side to get a better look, and sure enough, it was gone.  We spotted it a few hundred feet further out in the anchorage, right in front of an Island Packet that had come in after all of us.  I quickly hailed Sol Y Mar on the radio and asked him to go warn the Island Packet people that the little boat was adrift in front of them, and maybe catch the little boat before it hit anything, while I jumped in the dinghy and went to shore to see if I could find the little boat owners in one of the waterfront restaurants.  I raced to the dock, tied up, and spotted them in the restaurant right by the dock.  How did I spot them so easy?  Well, I have seen them naked after all.  And besides, the kid was wearing a bright orange t-shirt.  As I approached the entrance to the restaurant, it occurred to me that I was wearing only shorts, and I was wet, and I was about to go barging through a fairly nice restaurant that was about full.  Add to that that my feet were wet, and they had a nice white tile floor, which I was slipping on, and I'm sure I was quite a sight.  I think I had the attention of everybody in the place except the folks I wanted, as they we merrily chatting and oblivious to the almost naked guy skating their way.  When I approached their table, they didn't seem to recognize me as easily as I had them, and they spoke almost no English.  It took a few seconds, but I finally conveyed that their boat was leaving without them.  The couple who own the boat jumped and followed me out, leaving their guests at the table.  We all raced out to where the boat had now apparently reset it's anchor, just shy of hitting the Island Packet.  Pat was out there in his dinghy watching.  He had been unable to wake the people on the Island Packet, so he was just standing by to fend the little boat off if it had continued to move.  I illuminated the back of the little boat so the people could board it and then Pat & I went back to our boats.  The little boat came back up near where they had been to re-anchor.  As they were getting in position, Barb noticed their dinghy drifting away behind them.  I unlock my dinghy again and took off after it.  They had realized it was adrift by now and were coming to get it.  I caught it first and brought it over to them.  They thanked me again and went and re-anchored but this time ended up right in front of us.  I felt they were much to close, but I already knew I couldn't communicate this too them.  They seemed to have it secure, and they went back to dinner.  Since I wasn't confident there wouldn't be a problem, I stayed up in the cockpit waiting for them to return, while Barb went to bed.  A little after 22:00, they were back and I went to bed.  I figured as long as they were aboard, if they got too close they might notice.

About 23:45, Barb woke me from a sound sleep.  She pointed out the window in our transom and showed me that the little boat was mere feet behind us.  I jumped up and ran to the cockpit.  It was my turn to be naked now.  I found the guy and the guest on the bow, just a couple of feet from us, and the wife was at the helm.  We had all turned around since they re-anchored, and we have more chain out than they do, so we are way too close.  I asked if they needed help, but again there was that language problem, so I just stood on deck ready to fend them off if they were going to hit us.  It wasn't really clear what they were trying to do, as they weren't hoisting their anchor to move.  Instead, the guy took a second anchor in his dinghy, off the stern and dropped it way behind them.  He then used it to pull them backwards away from us, but their main anchor was still in the water.  I thought he was going to try to spend the night that way on two anchors, and they were far enough away from us now, but then they weighed anchor and moved again.  This time they went way out in the deeper water near Sol Y Mar.  Won't Pat be surprised when he wakes to his new neighbors.

While this late night activity was going on, we could see at least two other boats on the other side of the anchorage moving around also.  We learned in the morning that they too had been too close, and as we all had drifted in circles during the night, their anchor chains had become crossed and tangled with an unused mooring ball.  They were now trying to use dinghies to push the boats around each other to untangle the chains.  Eventually the anchorage returned to calm and we went back to bed.

GPS N 16-18.441 W 061-47.734  Nautical miles traveled today 41.  Total miles 9265.

June 10

We had a rolly night.  I was surprised by this, since the anchorage was not particularly rolly during the afternoon.  There never was any substantial winds to keep us pointed in one direction, and there also was not any more rain, so we were able to keep the windows open.  At 06:00, I was awakened by the church bells tolling for morning mass at the church right by the main dock.  There was no need to get up early today, since we are not moving, but I tend to wake up at dawn anyway, so I got up and watch the town slowly come alive.  I watched several sea turtles popping their heads up for breaths of air while hunting for their breakfasts.  I saw at least half  a dozen boats leave, including the Island Packet, unaware that they had a close call during the night.

I watched as a group of people onshore inflated three large yellow plastic balloons to be used as race marks.  I wasn't sure what was going to be racing.  There were a couple dozen teenage sized kids on shore, but I didn't see any small sailboats, or kayaks, or anything.  Turns out they were swimming.  But not in a way I have seen before.  They use a large single fin that both feet fit in, and swim like a dolphin without using their hands.  They have snorkels that come up in front of their faces and over their foreheads.  The snorkel joins a swim cap that has a little fin with their number on it, so they look like sharks as they move through the water.  Once they started racing, they made several laps around the triangular course, which was at least half a mile each lap.  Someone would have been rescuing my out of breath ass before I got to the first mark, but these kids just kept on going for a couple of hours.

We noticed Britt from Sea Otter moving from boat to boat in the anchorage in his dinghy.  I assumed he was just saying good morning to everybody, and eventually he came over to us.  Well, he was saying good morning in most wonderful way.  He had baked sticky buns for everybody.  He made enough that he took three to each boat he knew in the anchorage, which was abut a dozen boats.  We made coffee and enjoyed them.  We had heard about Britt's sticky buns before, but had never been there when he did this.  They were excellent.

Mid-day, we joined Sol Y Mar ashore..  The first thing we did was visit the grocery I found yesterday when I bought the ice.  Since it was Sunday, I thought they might close early, so I went to the cashier to ask.  In my best French, I thought I asked what time they closed.  The lady seemed to understand and gave me a quick answer.  When I looked puzzled because she spoke so fast, she held up three fingers, so my understanding was that they were open until 15:00.  I thanked her and we browsed around.  Being hungry, we thought we would have lunch and then come back to shop.  We found the only ATM in town and got some Euro's, the money used here, since Guadeloupe is part of France.

We only found one place open, Chez Racine, right by the dock.  A little after noon, we were the only patrons there, but shortly after we sat down, the place got half full.  I think we got there just before the lunch-after-church crowd.  The menu was entirely in French, as was the waitress.  We managed to order drinks and lunch.  The girls ordered stuffed crab, which was entirely different than stuffed crab in the States.  It was more like a large hermit crab stuffed with crab meat and stuff.  It was good, although smaller than expected.  Pat and I each ordered grilled fish with rice.  I'm not sure what kind of fish they were, but we each got two small whole fish, and a big blob of steamed white rice.  The fish was good, although a little labor intensive, as you had to pick the meat off the bones.  The service was only fair, as the waitress never did return to see if we needed more drinks.  After the meal, Pat and I ordered Ti Punches.  Ti Punch is a Caribbean rum drink, that is basically rum, lime, and cane syrup.  It is served like a large shot, although it is intended to be sipped, not shot. They were potent, and both of us added a little water to make them go down smoothly.

After lunch we headed back to the grocery, only to find it closed at 14:00.  We didn't really need anything.  Sol Y Mar needed ice.  I was most disappointed because I thought I had done so well with my inquiry, but apparently something was lost in the translation.  Being Sunday, the town was pretty closed up.  We did hear though that there was an ice cream opportunity at the end of the street.  We headed that way and found an old lady making ice cream in a wooden tub with a hand crank, ice, and salt.  All she had left was coconut, but we got several in the three Euro size.

After ice cream, we decided to take a dinghy tour of the harbor.  We found a nice little reef on the southern end, and also another bar/restaurant.  Les Canons de la Baie, is the Canons of the Bay.  In fact as we had been looking over the reef, we had noticed two old canons up on the hillside pointed out over the bay.  This place is off by itself away from town, but it has a nice dinghy dock and stairs up to the restaurant.  We hiked up there and found the bar open between lunch and dinner.  We had a few beers and enjoyed the view and the breeze above the bay.

Since we never did find ice for Sol Y Mar, and we had scored a big bag the day before, we headed back to the boats and gave Sol Y Mar a Ziploc full of ice to tide them over.  We enjoyed a quiet night after that, with no neighbors dragging, etc.

GPS N 16-18.441 W 061-47.734  Nautical miles traveled today 0.  Total miles 9265.

June 11

I was up at dawn as usual.  There are two bakeries in town, and there has been much talk amongst the boats about being there early in the morning to get fresh stuff.  Well, at 07:00, I was the only one who went to the bakery.  I was very proud of myself that the whole transaction took place in French.  I ordered two chocolate croissants and two raisin danish looking things, and got what I asked for.  Then I tried to pay my 3.40 Euro bill with a 50 Euro bill.  The lady said something that I took to mean "Do you have anything smaller?", to which I replied no.  The guy behind me in line then broke my fifty into a ten and two twenties, and we were in business.  I thanked him and the clerk and headed back to the boat.

On the boat, I turned on Chris Parker, the weather guy.  The forecast sounds like we have two days when moving may work, and then a week of big seas and winds.  Everybody in the southbound gang is listening and getting the same idea.  Unless we want to spend a week here, we need to move today.  The consensus is to move south along the coast to Basse-Terre today, and then hop to Dominica (dough-men-E-ka) tomorrow.  So, we quickly prepared the boat, after enjoying our delicious pastries, and head for Basse-Terre.

At first, we were in the lee of the island, and were enjoying a flat calm motor trip.  After an hour or so, we were hit with our first squall.  The winds picked up to thirty knots, and were right on the nose.  A couple of the gang behind us elected to duck into a small bay and stop for the day and be calm.  We pressed on for Basse-Terre, only to find that the alleged anchorage is non-existent.  There is a crappy marina there that doesn't play transients, and only water under forty feet deep for anchoring is filled with mooring for small boats.  We quickly made a change of plans and headed for Isle de Saintes.

Isle de Saintes is only ten miles south of Basse Terre, so the change in plans only took a couple of hours.  The ride was a bit bumpy and the wind was blowing about twenty knots, just off the nose enough to have the mainsail partially up while we motored along.  The only thing we worried a bit about was fish trap floats.  There is a large shelf of water about one hundred feet deep south of Guadeloupe and there were many floats out there.  That in itself isn't too bad, but when the water is very choppy as it was, they can be hard to spot.  At one point Barb spotted a float that was not quite breaking the surface.  It was bright yellow and the water was very clear, so we saw it go by about twenty feet from the boat.  That made us worry even more about catching one, but we made it through ok.

Isle de Saintes is a group of islands, of which two are good sized, and only one, Terre D'en Haut, has a town.  There is a nice large bay in the northwest crook of Terre D'en Haut, where we want to anchor.  The problem again though is finding shallow enough water, as the bay is quite deep to right up near shore.  We drove around and found a spot, very close to shore, in between several moored boats, where it looked like we would have room.  We dropped the hook in about fifteen feet, and settled back.  While I was sitting on the bow trying to assess how close we would be to the moored boats, a dinghy from the large Maritime Police boat anchored out in the harbor came by.  I had just decided we needed to move a little and started hauling in the anchor as they passed and waved.  I don't know if they were going to tell me I was too close, or were just passing through, but nothing was said.  We moved over a little and dropped the hook again, and this time I was happy with where we were.

The rest of our gang all elected to anchor around the corner from the main bay at Pain a Sucre. I had looked at this option, but it looked like thirty feet would have been the minimum depth I could have found.  Since they are out of sight and we are only staying the night, they are not going to check in.  We still don't know the legality of that, and since we are right off the town and have already been noticed by the Maritime Police, I'm going to check in and out.  I launched the dinghy and followed the directions in the cruising guide to the police station.  There were three officers there, and one of them acted like he expected me.  He had a form for me to fill out, which I did and then he politely told me to come back in twenty-five minutes.  He had to fax the form to Guadeloupe where it would be approved and faxed back with a stamp on it.

I was ready for a cold beer, so I thought twenty-five minutes would be a perfect length of time to find one.  Isle de Saintes exists primarily as a day-trip destination for people from Guadeloupe.  The small town has many restaurants and shops, but when the four o'clock ferry leaves, they start rolling up the sidewalks with a vengeance.  The only beer I could find was a case-lot beverage store, where I bought a case of Carib for later.  I carried it back and left it in the dinghy and then headed back to the police station.  I was a few minutes early, but as soon as the fax came back, the officer got it and gave it to me with a pleasant goodbye.  No charge.

Between the dock and the police station was a church.  Each of the four times I passed it, there were more and more people standing on the sidewalk across the street from it.  They were mostly older people (55+).  The men were all wearing white shirts and black pants, and the women were wearing black dresses.  It wasn't until my last pass that I noticed the dolly that a casket is rolled around on, sitting in the front door of the church.  Apparently a funeral was taking place.  I suddenly was aware that I was walking between the people and the church, and hoped I wasn't being disrespectful.  I'm not sure why they were outside and not inside, but nobody seemed to mind my passing through.

I went back to the boat, hoisted our French courtesy flag (Guadeloupe and Isle de Saintes are a department of France) and relaxed with a cold beverage.  It was quite quiet here since the town was closing up.  There was an annoying rooster crowing every thirty seconds or so.  Maybe he's calling his hens home to roost for the night.  I was reading the cruising guide about Isle de Saintes, since we had not studied this area before.  There was mention of a grocery store run by ex-cruisers that stays open until 19:30.  We hopped in the dinghy and buzzed ashore again to see if we could score some cheeses or bread.  We found the store, but it looked closed.  All the storm shutters were down, and we figured their hours must have changed.  As long as we were here we thought we'd take a little walk through the town.  We hiked up the hill to the end of the street and turned to walk back along the highest street in town.  After a few blocks, we were back in the vicinity of the store, and it was open.  Turned out we were at the back originally.  We went in and found several hunks of cheese, some crackers, bread, and crème Brule ice cream.  All the products were French, with only a few American brands.  When the cashier told me the amount, I handed her a 50 Euro bill.  When she said something else that I didn't understand, I guessed that 50 wasn't enough so I held out another 20 Euro bill.  She laughed and asked in English if I had twenty-seven cents.  The bill was something like 20.27.  Guess I need to work on the French.

We hustled back to the boat with our ice cream and settled in for the evening.  After dark, I was sitting in the cockpit humming the song Southern Cross in my head.  (I was humming to myself because my Sirius satellite radio bit the dust today.)  For the musically impaired, Southern Cross is a Stephen Stills song from the seventies, that Jimmy Buffett has sung for years.  It is about sailing and seeing the Southern Cross constellation for the first time.  I used to think you could only see the Southern Cross from south of the equator.  The cruising guide we have has a star chart, and in reading that over the past few weeks, I became aware that we should be able to see it now.  I've never been good at having the imagination to spot most constellations, and I don't know exactly what the Southern Cross looks like, but I looked to the south, and there it was clear as could be.  It was a special moment to see it for the first time as the song says.

We had a nice calm night as far as seas were concerned.  I slept pretty well, but Barb was nervous that we were too close to the moored boats, and slept poorly.  She also blamed the rooster, who continued to crow all night long.

GPS N 15-52.195 W 061-34.982  Nautical miles traveled today 31.  Total miles 9296.

June 12

We were up and underway at 05:30.  We are only going twenty miles to Dominica, but the wind is supposed to blow hard today and it usually starts off a little calmer in the morning, so we figured the earlier the better.  There were eight of us with the same idea.  As we left the protection of Isle de Saintes and got back out in the open water, the wind picked up to about twenty knots.  We could see a squall to our east, probably moving our way.  Within fifteen minutes, we were hit with wind from the squall, which got up over twenty-five knots for about half an hour before settling back to eighteen or so for the rest of the trip.  We never did get any rain from the squall.  Since it's a short trip, and the wind seems to be quite variable in speed, we elected to just motorsail with a partial main again.  I didn't want to have all the sails out and get hit by another blast like we started with.  As it turned out, the wind stayed consistent for the three hours we were out there.  Oh well.

Prince Rupert Bay is on the northwestern end of Dominica and is where the town of Portsmouth is.  There is lots of room to anchor and we found some twelve foot water near the northern end of the bay with no trouble.  This is the first place we will encounter boat boys coming out to greet you and try to sell you their services.  This used to be a hassle for cruisers, but in the last few years, most of the boat boys have formed an organization and become much more organized and respectable about how they deal with cruisers.  The cruising guide, and several of our friends who have passed through before us have recommended that we use a guy named Martin.  He is the one who formed the organization in the first place, and who has also formed a security team to patrol the harbor at night.  We hailed Martin on our way in and told him we were looking forward to meeting him.  By doing this we could fend off any other guys who approached us by saying we had already spoken to Martin.  The couple who did approach us took this answer with no problem and still were very polite and friendly and welcomed us to Dominica.

After all the boats got there and were anchored, a bunch of us met on Sol Y Mar with Martin.  He explained the services he offers, like getting you anything you need, water taxi, land taxi, land tours, etc.  He was well spoken and a good ambassador for his country.  He explained the Customs check in procedure to us and what he said matched what we had read in the cruising guide.  We arranged to do a two-hour river tour later in the afternoon, and a land tour tomorrow.

Customs is closed for lunch between 13:00 and 14:00, so most of us headed that way a little before noon.  We were amongst the first to arrive to beat the crowd.  We tied the dinghy up at the large commercial dock.  There is a small dinghy dock attached to the main dock, so that's where we were tying up.  There was a large freighter tying up on the same side of the dock as were getting out of the dinghies, which was quite intimidating, but they seemed to know what they were doing and didn't crunch us.  We found the Customs office with no problem.  There were two people working the counter, and a guy who could have been Forrest Whittaker's twin brother shuffling paper at a desk behind it.  The girl behind the counter was not particularly talkative.  In fact, she never said a word to me except to tell me the fee.  She handed me two forms to fill out, both with carbon paper to make three copies each.  I filled them out, gave them back, she shuffled and stapled and stamped, and told me $9 dollars US or $25 EC.  (This is the first country we have visited that uses the Eastern Caribbean dollar, EC.)  I handed her the money and she gave me my papers.  No hassle.  Our understanding is that Dominica has one of the best procedures for cruisers.  As long as you are not staying more than two weeks, you check in and out at the same time, can go anywhere in the country, and don't have to present yourself to immigration.  Since the girl never said anything to me, I assumed that's what I got.  Pat was checking in with the guy working the counter, and he got a different story.  The guy said if we went to other ports within Dominica, we had to get a separate coast-wise clearance, and that we had to check out before we left.  Pat called me over to ask what I got, and I asked the guy what about the new streamlined procedures we read about?  He lowered his voice and said that wasn't supposed to be known about yet.  I told him it was in a cruising guide printed a year ago.  He smiled and said he would do it this time, but don't tell anybody.  So much for consistency.

While we were checking in, it started to rain heavily.  We met another couple there, Charles & Elaine from Ancient Path.  Ancient Path is the Island Packet that almost got hit by the little boat that dragged anchor up in Deshaies a few days ago.  We introduced ourselves and explained what had happened.  As we were chatting, I noticed that Elaine was wearing a shirt from The Caribbean 1500, which is a race each fall from Norfolk to the BVI's.  I asked if they had done it this year, and they had.  I asked if they knew Guy from Sogno Mio, whom we met in the Abacos our first year out and again in New Jersey last fall.  They did, but weren't sure where he was now.  We kept chatting and learned that they were from Chicago and had come through the Erie Canal and Hudson River last year.  We asked if they knew Milano Myst, who had done the same thing, and they did.  Small world.

We dropped our papers back at the boat and headed to shore to look for lunch.  There are three restaurants on the beach, The Purple Turtle, Papa's, and Blue Bay.  All three have dinghy docks.  We picked Papa's because it was in the middle.  The dinghy dock was a collection of boards nailed together haphazardly.  We walked in to the bar and learned that the cook didn't show up today, so they had no food. We bought several of the local beers though.  Kubuli is the beer of Dominica, and appears to be all you can get here.  It's an ok beer, but it only come in these little 250ml bottles, about seven ounces, so you have to reload too often.  We left our dinghies there and walked to the Purple Turtle which was serving lunch.  We had lunch and a few more beers.

We have our river tour planned for 16:00, and it was going on 15:00 by the time we finished lunch.  We relaxed on the boat and took a quick nap before getting picked up for our tour.  Part of the price of the tour includes picking you up from your boat.  The boat boys all have open wooden boats that can seat eight or ten people.  Since so many of us are going on this tour together, Martin had enlisted two other guys, Lawrence and Edison to help.  Edison picked up us and Sol Y Mar.  The other two boats each had eight people.  The entrance to the river is down the beach a little ways.  We motored there and tied up to the dock while the guides purchased our $2 each tickets.  The river is part of the National Park system here.  Motorized boats are not allowed on the river, so from here the guides rowed the boats as they told us what we were seeing.  Edison was very knowledgeable about all the trees and plants we were passing, including their Latin names.  We joked with him that he could tell us anything for the Latin names and we wouldn't know if he were making it up.  He laughed but said he wouldn't do that.  He was very proud of knowing them all.  The trip is not very far, but he went very slowly pointing out all the vegetation and telling us a lot about the history of Dominica and the Caribe Indians.  All three boats stopped at one point and Martin took a machete and opened a couple of coconuts.  These were dried coconuts, so the prize was getting the meat out of the nut in the center.  Everybody got a chunk.  At the head of the river, where it becomes too shallow to go any further, is a dock by a small building.  This is an area where the guides and a few other locals are building a gift shop and bar.  They have built the buildings and done a lot of clearing and planting to make a nice area.  While most of it is not done yet, there was a guy there with a cooler and a few bottles.  He had soft drinks and rum punch.  The rum punch was known as Dynamite.  You could have it straight or mixed with a little passion fruit.  We each got one to sip on.  While we wandered around, the guides took some fresh palm fronds and wove little souvenirs for the ladies.  Barb's was a little bird and a fish on a stick.  Eventually, we got back in the boats and headed back to the start.  On our way back, we saw more birds than on the way up, because it was getting near dusk and they were returning home from their day of whatever birds do all day.  Again, Edison was a wealth of knowledge about what every kind was.

As most of you know, last year when we were in the Bahamas, we were being regularly interviewed by Radio Margaritaville.  After we got back to the States, we stopped doing it regularly, but another Kemah boat named Liward started doing it.  We didn't know Steve & Lili from Liward back in Texas, but have been following their travels both through Radio Margaritaville and their website.  In the past couple of months, I had made contact with Steve on the long-range marine radio, and we knew we were getting close to catching up with them.  Well, we finally did.  We saw their boat as we came into the anchorage, and Steve hailed me on the VHF from shore just after we got anchored.  They are off on a land tour today, so we won't actually meet them yet, but it was cool to have caught up.

The anchorage here is fairly rolly again.  I'm beginning to think this is the norm in the Caribbean.  I'm not sure I like that or not, but I guess we'll have to get used to it.

GPS N 15-34.768 W 061-27.637  Nautical miles traveled today 21.  Total miles 9317.

June 13

Today we are taking a land tour.  Martin has arranged for a couple of vans to take us around the northern end of the country.  I'm not sure how many people are going, but it is a bunch.  Again, Martin has enlisted a couple of the other boat boys to pick us all up from the boats.  Edison came by and got us, Sol Y Mar, Cheetah II, and Sea Otter.  We headed over to the dinghy dock by the Purple Turtle where we were met by Winston, one of the van drivers.  He had nice van that could have held twelve, but we were comfortable with eight.  As soon as we were in, we left, even thought the others had not arrived at the dock yet.  There were two more vans there waiting, so we weren't concerned.  We assumed we would all be meeting up somewhere.

We headed across the island to the Atlantic side.  I cannot begin to remember or describe all the stuff we saw.  The vegetation on the Atlantic side is much more lush than the west side.  We actually were up in a rain forest at times, but even where it wasn't technically rain forest, it was beautiful.  As we went, Winston would stop to point out various plants and trees.  Several times he stopped and got out to pick something.  He found lemon grass, basil, anise, cinnamon, bay leaves, and orange to name a few which he passed around for us to smell and told us herbal medicine uses or how to cook with them.  We saw tons of fruits also.  Dominica provides a lot of the produce for the rest of the Caribbean.  Bananas and coconuts are the biggest exports.  Most of their bananas go to England.  We also saw papayas, pineapple, mangoes, breadfruit, star fruit, avocado, cashews, sour sop, passion fruit, and plantains.  There are little stands at just about every house selling fruits and we stopped several times where Winston would buy some stuff and give it to us.  We sampled regular bananas, a smaller variety that is very sweet, passion fruit, and mangoes.  We stopped at one place where a Rasta guy came out of his shed and cut up some green coconuts for us.  The green coconuts are called jellies.  They have the coconut water in them.  He used his machete to open several coconuts so there was a little drinking hole at the top.  Of course he did this without spilling a drop of the water.  We passed them around and drank the water.  Coconut water is not like coconut cream that you make a Pina colada with.  It is very watery and not nearly as sweet, with a hint of the coconut flavor.  After you drink the water, then you cut the whole thing in half, and chip a little "spoon" out of the side of it to scrape the jelly-like white stuff from inside the shell.  If the coconut is left to dry, the water and the jelly part are what hardens and becomes the white meat inside the nut, which then you grate into what we buy at the store as coconut flakes.  I had known bits and pieces of how coconuts worked before, but never put the whole picture together.

We went to the Caribe Indian reservation, where there is a visitors center and tour.  The tour is $10 US additional, and some of our group balked at paying extra, so we didn't do it.  We'll have to come back and do it ourselves sometime.  Just out side the visitors center area, but still on the reservation, there were many booths set up selling hand woven baskets.  We stopped to look and everybody bought some.  From here we went off the reservation to a small restaurant.  There had been confusion about lunch.  Some of us thought we were supposed to bring sandwiches, while some didn't know that and assumed we were stopping where we could buy lunch.  Winston didn't know about anybody bringing lunch, so he planned this stop.  As we pulled up I recognized Steve & Lili from Liward, already here.  I recognized them from their pictures on their website.  We introduced ourselves and visited with them until their lunch came.  Seeing their lunches made our decision about eating easy.  Those of us who brought sandwiches saved them for later and partook of the local food.  The choice was chicken or fish for $10 US per person.  What you got was a large plate full of food.  The chicken was two big pieces of chicken in a curry sauce.  The fish was a large hunk of mahi-mahi.  The rest of the plate had a little bit of everything.  There was grated papaya that was raw like a slaw, dasheen and breadfruit, which are both starchy potato like things, beans, rice, sweet pumpkin, sweet plantains, cucumber, and tomato.  It was plenty of food and a great way to taste some of the local things that we are not used to.

Continuing the tour, we went to the Emerald Pool.  This is again part of the National Park system, so we paid $2 each to enter.  Winston stayed at the bus as we hiked about fifteen minutes down a trail.  We were at the top edge of a ravine where you could hear the stream at the bottom, but couldn't see it.  The foliage was incredible.  I truly felt like I was in a rainforest now.  The trail wound around and went down a number of steps to the bottom of the ravine.  You crossed the stream on a wooden bridge and went back upstream a little bit to the waterfall and pool.  The waterfall is probably a hundred feet high and dumps into a pool about fifty feet in diameter.  The pool is only about five feet deep at it's deepest.  There is a large area behind the falls that is hollowed out from erosion.  The guys, and Jane from Cheetah II all jumped in the pool.  The water was quite cold, but not as cold as the waterfalls we swam at in the Dominican Republic.  We enjoyed about fifteen minutes here and then hiked back out.  The trail out went on the other side of the river, and had a couple of overlooks where you can see the Atlantic, but with the rain that has been falling off and on all day, it was to hazy to see that far.

We saw several other notable things along the way.  There was a nice small hotel with an ocean view to die for that was not quite complete.  The outside was done, but the interior was not.  We learned that it was two Canadian guys building it, and the primary partner died.  It is now stalled in figuring out the mess.  Another property consisted of several large buildings that had been completed to the point of the concrete walls and roofs being built and then it was walked away from ten years ago.  Somebody embezzled about $40 million of the funding and that stopped that project.  We stopped at an old sugar factory.  The building is being reclaimed by the forest, but you could clearly see the water wheel that drove the crusher, and the still up on the hill.  We also stopped at St. Mary's Catholic church.  This was down a dead end road and Winston had to stop at a house to get the key.  Inside he told us the story of the murals on the walls, and showed us the alter which was made from a log that would have been carved out into an fishing canoe.  This one was not carved out, leaving a flat surface for the alter.  Also, we saw a fishing center on the Atlantic side that was built by Japanese interests.  The Atlantic side is usually rough with the prevailing waves coming from the east, making docking a boat impossible.  They built a large breakwater in order to make a calm bay for the fishing boats to work out of.  There are facilities for pulling the boats out of the water, lockers for the fishmen to store their equipment, and a market area to sell their catch.

It rained off an on all day, but the periods of no rain were usually sunny.  It wasn't dreary at all, just nice refreshing showers.  This kept the temperature very pleasant all day, until we returned to the west side of the mountains.  Once we were coming down the west side the scenery was browner and it was noticeably hotter.  Quite a contrast.  As we returned to Portsmouth, we stopped at a little shop where the ladies could buy some local spices.  It was right across the street from the entrance to the Ross University Medical School.  Here and Grenada both have US run medical schools.

It was 19:00 by the time we got back to the boats.  Winston dropped us at the dock where one of the boat boys took us to our boats.  On the VHF a little later, we heard a conversation between Cheetah II who had been with us, and one of the other boats who went with Martin.  Apparently there was a mix-up or a quick one pulled.  The other folks did not get nearly as nice a tour as we did.  They were back home by 15:00 and didn't see nearly the stuff we saw.  They were in two vans, with Martin driving one, and somebody else who never explained anything driving the other.  Martin told that group that Winston had hijacked us and he wasn't part of Martin's deal.  He even said they all had to pay $35/person instead of $30 since now his group was smaller.  We still don't now the end of this story.  We got a great tour for the $30 we expected, but we felt bad for the other folks and are a little upset with Martin.  I think the bottom line of the confusion was that Martin didn't coordinate well enough or let everybody know what the deal was.  We were picked up by the same guy who worked with Martin yesterday, and turned over to a guy on the dock.  We thought they were all working together.  It will be interesting to see how it all shakes out.

Meanwhile we are worn out from a full day of activity.  We ate our lunch sandwiches for dinner and crashed.  The only interruption was the music from reggae night at Papa's place.  It was extremely loud, and startled me awake when it started, but I went back to sleep and slept through it.

GPS N 15-34.768 W 061-27.637  Nautical miles traveled today 0.  Total miles 9317.