MUTUAL FUN - A SAILING ODYSSEY

	Sign In Sign-Up

FIRST MATE'S LOG - JAN 2002

TO RETURN TO THE HOME PAGE
CLICK HERE

January 1, 2002

Wow, I can’t believe I just typed 2002! Happy New Year everyone. We had a potluck on the beach last night with about 50 other cruisers. I baked brownies (about 1/3 weren’t quite done because we hadn’t taken the gimble out of the oven and so it was tilted) and the food was delicious. We all brought our own meat to grill and set-ups and we even had some entertainment. A guy named Paul, another cruiser, sort of does this pre-recorded keyboard thing and sings everything from Elvis to Neil Diamond. We stayed till about 9pm and then dinghied home. The fireworks were at midnight, of course, but I packed it in just 15 minutes before. What a woose. Bob made it to about 9:05pm. The first day of the New Year came up rainy and overcast but cleared up and turned about 85 and sunny. We spent the whole morning making phone calls that should have taken about ½ hour. A long story with the stupid phone card we bought not working for long distance. In any case, since we were already in town and the patisseries were open, why not have a pastry? Oh, these French islands are so bad for the waistline.

January, 2, 2002

Calling home is so much fun when the card works and it’s only $.22 per minute. It’s been raining most of the day and other then being caught in town and getting drenched on the dinghy ride back, we really don’t care. Rainy days are always a good excuse to relax and read. The euro went into effect yesterday which throws all of us for a loop; locals included. The merchants have to give change in euros and their cash registers will not make the conversion so all of the lines are real long, as the cashiers have to figure the change by conversion. For Americans, in our heads it goes like this: Say we make a purchase for 10 francs. That’s $1.42 in USD. We give them, say 50 francs, after converting to dollars in our head to make sure we want the item and then we expect to get back 40 francs. Now, we have to take the 40 francs and convert it to euro and that would be 6,10euro. Right now the euro is $.88 to the USD so at least we can figure almost 1 to 1 and come out a little ahead. We all walk around with calculators. When we first had to convert EC or Eastern Caribbean and then francs and finally bolivars, we had to use a calculator but after a week or less we pretty much had it down. We thought we would be on easy street coming back up the island chain but now we are thrown this curve ball, just to keep us sharp. Cruisers are about as sharp as a 20- year old knife. Thank goodness calculators only cost about $5.00, I mean 35 francs, no 5,68 euro.

January 3, 2002

Confirmation that I am losing my mind out here. As I was lying on my bed doing my exercises, I happened to glance over at stuffed kitty. My first thought was that he looked a little lethargic. If that weren’t bad enough, I tried to sit him upright and was sad when he fell over. Another few months out here ought to put me completely over the edge. It’s sunny today. I think I’ll go sand the other 2 handrails. If I can be trusted with electrical appliances.

January 4, 2002

Handrails sanded. Boci ball played on the beach. Big salad for dinner and an early start this morning for Anse Mitan. We had a very nice motor over here. About 20 miles and it took 4 hours, anchor to anchor. The waves were slight and the wind was light and I even got to fish. Unfortunately, I nabbed one but let it get away. We'll do a little business in town and tomorrow take the ferry over to the main city, Fort de France.

January 5, 2002

These French islands are killing my waistline. Last night we had a superb meal at a Chinese restaurant. Ordering was a bit tricky. It was a little tough to order Chinese food from a Vietnamese proprietor who only spoke French and we only spoke English. Luckily Bob is picking up bits and pieces as we go and he managed to decipher chicken with dark mushrooms; right up my alley. He had a little trouble ordering a sweet and sour chicken. They finally brought out an old menu from the last owner, which was done in English as well as French and everyone got all excited when we finally figured it all out. It wasn’t on the new menu and Bob was a little concerned they wouldn’t know how to fix it but in the end, it was the best he’s ever tasted. Again, with the communication problem, the owner managed to ask if we wanted white or fried rice and we ordered fried. Turned out to be a whole separate meal but thank goodness only 56F or $8. For a total of $30USD, we had the best Chinese food we have ever eaten. Not the best bargain but quite yummy.

January 6, 2002

We took a ferry over to Fort-de-France to check out and window shop. The customs office was closed for reasons unknown so we had a wasted trip. There were other cruisers there in various degrees of anger but what are you going to do? I started feeling exhausted after a few hours and when we got back to the boat, I lay in my bunk and read for several hours. A couple from another boat stopped and invited us for cocktails but I had to decline. Fighting no longer, I succumbed to yet another round of antibiotics for yet another sinus infection. I slept 9 ½ hours last night. Today is another rainy day so I will rest and feel lousy and be glad I am sick here and not in the cold.

January 10, 2002

Another overnight passage: another trip from hell. These things are killing us. OK, here we are being diligent and getting weather reports. The wind will be out of the east at 15k. That wasn’t 15-20, just plain 15k. The seas will be 6 feet. Fine, we get fuel and water and return to anchor for a couple of hours, so the timing is right for a daylight entry, and off we go. Destination: Isle De Saintes. Past the coast of Martinique and then open water, past the coast of Dominica and a little more open water. We start out with a glorious sail, conditions are perfect and already I am envisioning all of the wonderful things I can say in the web page. All short-lived. We had a full mainsail out and big genoa headsail. We are bookin’ at 6.5k and then, whew, here it comes. The wind picks up to 25,26,28,29k and the seas are now 10-12footers. We are screaming along and top out at 9.4K! We’re going so fast we have to change sails and slow down. Otherwise, at that rate we would get there at 3:00am. The autopilot will not hold the boat on course because the wind is not consistent and the seas are steep. Bob engages the steering vane and we’re off in a non-electric steering situation. For awhile there, we thought we were going to have to hand-steer all night. For those of you who are not sailors, hand-steering all night is the major punishment. It’s absolutely exhausting in big seas. We are at a very uncomfortable heel and neither one of us is very happy. In the open waters, we are thrown around like a toy in a bathtub and it coastal waters, the winds are fluky and we have to adjust sail, wake the other person and be bothered. We discuss whether we’re getting old or this is really just a poopy sail. We go for the poopy sail version. About 9:00pm we get a call on VHF radio from a drunken friend who is anchored off Dominica. We complain to him and he invites us into the anchorage, which is about 5 miles off and looking like a no-way. How we would love to get off the water but not into a dark anchorage. (There is, of course, no moon tonight until 4:00am.) We sail on and I am getting seasick and we’re both kind of miserable. We usually at this point in a bad sail talk about what we’re going to do when we get there and how nice it will be. We mostly talked about being in a nice warm bunk. By the way, it is getting chillier in the evenings as we head north. At anchor and for sleeping, it’s great. At sea, I had on long pants, shoes and 2 jackets. I was dying for a pair of socks but too seasick to stick my head in a drawer to find them. We could see The Saintes at about 9:00pm but by 3:00am, they were looming big and dark and scary. We were still ½ hour early and Bob slowed us down again by reducing more sail. Now we we’re sailing at about 3.5k. Neither one of us went below to sleep all night. I dozed in the cockpit and got quite a bit of rest but Bob hardly slept 1 hour all night. Still, he kept at it and I was too scared to look forward at those huge rocks. The sky finally brightened at about 5:30am and we were slightly rejuvenated. At this point, we had to take down all sail and buck into the wind and seas to keep our course. Just as we were feeling a little bit better about life, I spotted a fish pot and Bob threw it into neutral. We missed it but I had to go up to the bow with our walkie-talkies, in the heavy wind and seas and let him know if I spotted more. The seas calmed as we made our entrance and we were securely anchored at about 9:00am. We staggered below and made eggs, toast and grits. My mouth was watering at my pile of eggs and I took the first bite and they seemed off. After the second bit I declared them bad and we finished our toast, took showers and got between clean, soft sheets. This moment was what I had been dreaming about for the last 18 hours. We slept until 3:00pm and got up and did some minor clean up. My bed kept beckoning me so I got back in and read for a bit. We then made a big salad with tuna and cheese and felt even better. We got the dinghy together and Bob went into town and got an ice cream but I was too pooped. He just got back and brought me a treat so I have to go now.

January 14, 2002

All is well in this great little island called Isle De Saints. “Free Spirit” wandered in yesterday and we had an ice-cream reunion. Unbeknownst to us, there was a parade going on with music and dancing. They were all black so it must have been a French-African affair. Since nobody speaks English here, we were in the dark as to the reason for celebration. Our friends on “Bagherra” pulled in just before dark and we all had coffee and tea this morning aboard “Mutual Fun.” There is quite a siesta hour here running from 12noon until 3:00pm. Everything closes down and the streets are quiet. Otherwise, this is a pretty noisy place, with families riding scooters and much hustle-bustle from the ferries and cruise ships. There are tons of shops and prices are reasonable. The restaurants offer good food and again, prices are good. We’ll be waiting for good weather to head to Guadeloupe. We were going to do an overnighter straight to Antigua but I am sick of being uncomfortable so we’ll just take small hops to get there.

January 16, 2002

Well, today was the day we might have left but the weather is going to get feisty so we will stay put. Winds are 20-25k, seas 6-8ft. Starting tomorrow they will hike up a little and by the first of next week, they are predicting winds 30-35k and seas 8-10ft. We could have made a run for Guadeloupe but it’s a rolly anchorage and we’d be stuck there for a week and I guess we’d rather be stuck here. Only thing is we really need find somewhere or someone to do the laundry. I did a bunch of hand-wash but it uses so much water. Bob was in the cockpit and he didn’t say a word but he also skipped his shower last night.

January 18, 2002

Now this was my kind of day! We dinghied in and met Gordon and Sue from “Lady Simcoe” (friends from Trinidad) and Les and Martine from “Honey Wild” at the dinghy dock. We stopped at the market and bought baguettes, cheese, drinks and we had chips and an apple. Then we hiked a couple of miles to one of the beaches. It was on the windward side but there were reefs to protect us from the waves. There were picnic tables and to help us eat our lunch, goats, sheep and chickens. This particular beach is also a park and is kept up nicely. The girls walked the beach and over a bunch of rocks to a nice swimming area. Sue forgot her bathing suit but that didn’t stop her. After all, this is a French island. We had a nice dip and could see the waves slamming into the reef. The seas are kicked up pretty good by now and are meant to get worse. Gordon meandered over and I talked him into swimming back with me. It took about 15 minutes but would have been shorter if he hadn’t kept swimming into rocks. The girls walked the stuff back. We had our picnic lunch and those goats are not one bit shy. They came right up and put their front legs on the table until we gave them pieces of, well anything. They even ate the wax from the cheese. Goats are known to eat shoes and couches and even tin cans. As we were walking back, I happened to mention that we might just end up dead into the ice cream shop. After cones, I told Sue I was going to check out the hairdresser that I used last time I was here. She gave me a super cut. She was trained by Vidal Sasoon, in France. I just needed the back and sides done and after much pantomiming and Sue looking words up in her dictionary, we got across that I wanted my derrière cut. Meanwhile, Sue’s hair is quite long but she’s been contemplating cutting it short. While I’m in the chair, she runs down and asks Gordon what he thinks. He gives her the “it’s your head” routine and she comes back and we’re told she can come back in ½ hour. We go have a drink and arrive promptly at 3:30. This time Martine is with us and she is French. The communications go much better and Sue is in the chair getting about a foot of hair whacked off. When she was done, she lost at least 5 years, looked great and was pleased as punch. The guys agreed and to celebrate, we had another drink. Onward ho-ward to pick up our laundry. Up a hill about ½ mile. We settle with the nice young woman and haul everything back to the dinghy and to the boat. Upon unpacking our laundry, we find one whole bag wet and unfolded. Now it’s too late to let the sun dry it so I get hangars and we hang things all over the boat. But I am MAD. We paid about $25US for 3 loads. That in itself is ridiculous but we knew it would be that much and didn’t have much choice. Tomorrow, I will be back up that hill and speaking my mind. The thing is, I think she hired out the drying part and probably didn’t know. She seemed such a nice girl. Well, I didn’t let it ruin my day (just now I walked to the front of the boat for something, in the dark and scared myself silly as I walked into about 10 T-shirts.) We feasted on roast beef, mashed potatoes and a green salad. Any day I get to go to a beach is a great day for me. Bob’s birthday is in 2 days but I’m not allowed to tell anybody. Such a shame when there’s so many that would love to celebrate with us.

January 21, 2002

We’re getting itchy to move on but we had better not. Bob thought maybe we might make a run for it to Guadeloupe so I know he’s really ready to move. The first mate vetoed that idea in about 30 seconds and he just got confirmation that it is indeed rough out there. Neighbors came by and told us that a boat was dismasted out there. Other than hitting a whale or a container, that is right up there with catastrophes. Our friends were in town and watching the passengers get off the ferry and many were sick. We can see the whitecaps out in the open water from here and yesterday we even had whitecaps in the anchorage. The winds haven’t been too terrible. We’re mostly calm and then it’ll be gusty for a few minutes and then pass. I saw 27k this morning. I feel for the charter boats that only have a week or two down here and they go out in this mess. The big seas (9-12ft) are caused from 40ft seas in the Atlantic passing over. We don’t expect anything calmer until the end of the week or maybe later. Bob’s birthday was yesterday. That may sound like fun but it wasn’t. He was grumpy and didn’t say a dozen sentences to me all day. I gave him a card and bought him a little etched box for back home. If he liked it, it went over my head. I tried to take him out for dinner and instead he wanted to stay in and eat canned soup. Well, I guess not all of us like birthday celebrations. He’s not much better today so I’m staying out of his hair. You would be surprised how easy that is to do in about 200 sq. ft.

January 23, 2002

For some reason I awoke very eager to meet the day at 5:00am. I got up and made tea and woke Bob up in the process but this wasn’t till about 7:00. We both did our chores; Bob changed the engine filter and I cleaned some and did some staining, we had lunch and decided to walk to a beach. The one we set our sights on was swimmable, meaning the leeward side. It’s still quite windy and now we have 9-13 footers out there, so we’re told. I figured this would be a good hike but I didn’t figure it would be straight up the side of a mountain. We finally leveled out after about 45 minutes and then had to go back down, of course, as there aren’t too many beaches up a mountainside. We remembered this particular beach from last time we were here in the Saintes. It was calm and pretty and Bob kept occupied with the topless sunbathers. We swam and sunned a bit and then hiked back down, which was much easier and faster. Along the way we saw lots of goats and chickens, lizards and birds and beautiful houses and flowers. This island is subsidized by France and looks quite healthy. Bob told me last night around midnight he popped his head out and saw a fishing boat with 3 guys motoring around different boats. It looked suspicious so he locked our dinghy to the boat. Better safe than dinghyless. No rain today, just sun and beautiful blue skies. Better go hunt up some grub for dinner.

January 25, 2002

I lost track of how long we’ve been here now but I think we may have broken a record. It’s actually been a wonderful place to wait out the weather but we’re tired of waiting so we will leave tomorrow for Desheises, Guadeloupe. Being tired of sitting in one place is never a good reason to move on by itself. The weather is still kickin’ out there so I hope we’re not sorry.

The sail to Desheises should be fine; we’ll just be sailing up the coast of Guadeloupe but the next day we plan to sail to Antigua and that is all open seas. We’re looking at winds of 20-25k, gusting higher and seas 8-10ft. The wind direction may make it impossible to sail to Antigua in those heavy seas but I guess we’ll just have to put our toe out and see what it’s like. The predictions are almost never exact and a northeast wind would not be good where an easterly wind would be great. So, it’ll be interesting to see where the wind blows us. Who knows, we may even end up in St. Maartin. Yesterday was another great hike to the windward side to see the strong winds and seas. There is no possibility of swimming at this beach. I was even afraid to go in up to my knees. Today we’ll have one last ice cream cone, buy a couple more baguettes and kiss the Saintes goodbye.

January 27, 2002

Here we are, safe and snug in Desheises, Guadeloupe. It was one of those boisterous sails; the wind was fluky and there were a few squalls. Three times the wind hit 36 knots and a few times we went from around 7k up to 33k in a matter of seconds. The seas started out lumpy until we got into the lee of Guadeloupe and they flattened out. I was able to throw my fishing line in but then it got a little dicey so I went to reel it in but the boat turned and I snagged the dinghy. Not good. It finally came out and Bob didn’t yell at me so it was OK. We thought we would just spend one night but we heard reports of another boat that took off from here and were reporting back 40+k winds and 10-foot seas, once past the lee of the island. So, we played today. We had “Lady Simcoe” over for lunch and went with them, “Wind Shepherd” and “Kristali” to the beach. It was about a 10-minute dinghy ride and once there, we saw there was quite a swell so two of us had anchors and the other two rafted off of theirs. We threw Frisbee, played paddleball and swam. I guess tomorrow we’ll take off for Antigua. We’re not sure the winds will take us there and if not, we’ll end up doing an overnighter to St. Maartin. Wherever the wind blows…

January 28, 2002

These weathermen ought to be gathered, hung up and shot! Not even close, again! Our sail started out boisterous, in the middle was almost violent and at the end was again boisterous. Bob didn’t sleep well last night because the wind was howling all night. He almost decided not to go but we were up, coffeed and had the anchor up by 7:00am. Two other boats were behind us coming to Antigua, as well. During the first 10 miles or so, on the boisterous sail, we had winds 20-25k and seas of 6-8ft. The seas were heavy and close together and off the quarter of the bow. I had to watch for fish pots as we came out of the anchorage and went up in a T-shirt and shorts. Mistake number 1. I was drenched in no time. And I had to stay out there because there were a lot of pots. Finally I crawled back and went below, changed and put on my harness and vest. Bob didn’t want his on. We had a nice sail for a bit until it turned kind of violent. The winds were up to 25-30k and the seas 10-12ft. We were now out in open sea and there was nothing to hold it all back. I heard a thump and noticed the dinghy engine had fallen. When we remove the dinghy outboard from the dinghy, when we are underway, we do it with a hoist (powered by yours truly) and set it on a board on the stern rail. We screw it down with two large screws and if we are going a great distance, Bob ties it down. Mistake number 2, 3 and 4. The engine flipped off the board, was not tied down and Bob didn’t have his harness and vest on. The scenario went like this: Bob grabbed the line stored on the rail (the one that should have been around the motor in the first place) and tied the motor to the rail. Meanwhile, I am trying to help Bob, keep a watch ahead and hold his body from slamming into the rail. This probably wasn’t necessary but made me feel better. Once he got that secure (only 1 bloody finger), he sat and thought for a minute while I went below and got his vest. He put it on and then dug up another line and double secured the motor. This is all in big seas and winds. That done, I noticed the dinghy painter (line connecting the dinghy to the back of the boat) was getting caught by the dinghy engine so we had to untie that and retie it further back. All fine now. All of the sudden, I felt this monster wave come across the cockpit and instead of going up under the boat, it slammed broadside into the boat and drenched the cockpit. It must have been 20 feet or so. Bob saw it coming but never had time to utter a sound. Drenched again. We dried off the best we could and I went below to get lunch. It consisted of a glob of baguette and water. Another 10 miles or so and we would be in the lee of Antigua and things would calm down. I decided on a nap and managed to doze for an hour or so. Upon waking, we were called by the boat in front of us (it was a catamaran and passed us hours before) that 6-7 miles outside of our anchorage there were many fish pots. This time I got all ready in full foul weather gear. Up I went and sat up there and had a nice watch as I called back to Bob via walkie-talkies, the fish pot sightings. We were now in the lee and the winds were generally 16-22k but the seas were way down to 5 feet or so. We entered Jolly Harbour about 4:00pm and picked up a mooring ball. Well, tried to pick up a ball. I grabbed the line with the boat hook but there were all of these barnacles on the line and I couldn’t release the hook and I didn’t want to lose the boat hook and more than that, I didn’t want to lose my arm. I yelled for Bob to throw it in gear, unable to use the walkie-talkies and this alerted the boat next door and Jeff aboard “Esther N” dinghied over and rescued me. Wonderful people, cruisers are. Along with “Lady Simcoe”, we’re all going ashore for burgers. I’m beat!

January 30, 2002

I’m such a woose! It’s 8:30pm, we’ve had a long but fun day and I just closed the hatch and put socks on for the first time in over a year. Not the hatch, the socks. We can’t figure out if our blood has thinned out or normal people would be chilly at these temperatures. Inside is registering 80 degrees and outside 74. I’ll be getting out my sweats soon for the overnighters, I’m sure. For some reason both of us awoke at 5am. I went back to sleep for a couple of hours but Bob didn’t. We were looking forward to a day of adventure. Along with “Lady Simcoe”, we caught a bus to St. John’s, the center of town and then transferred to another bus to Falmouth Harbour, where we stayed last April when Bob went back home for 3 weeks and my sister came for a visit. We walked around and gawked at the mega yachts, then walked over to English harbour and Lord Nelson’s Dockyard. At Falmouth, we radioed friends on “Avalon V” and they came with. We had a wonderful lunch at Jackees and then went parted with them. Bob spotted two J-boat flags from the restaurant and we took a long walk down the dock to see “Endeavor” and “Shamrock.” These are beautiful boats that we had seen last year here but Gord and Sue had never seen them. I believe it was “Endeavor” that was refitted to the tune of $10m. They are from the 1930’s and are truly gorgeous. We bussed back to St. John’s where we did some window shopping and stopped to buy a few odds and ends at the market. The fruits and vegetables look great but everything is very expensive here. I noticed I was running low on moisturizer and stopped into a pharmacie to pick up Lubriderm and it was $46.75EC or about $20US. Maybe a $6 item back home. I passed.

Tomorrow Sue and I are going to sneak into the marina pool and do laps. It’s a huge, beautiful pool but not heated so it may take me awhile to get in. Weather has us waiting here on a mooring ball till at least Monday. The big question is whether we do an overnighter to St. Bart’s or a day sail to St. Kitt’s. I think weather will dictate.

- MORE TO FOLLOW -