Remembering 2006 and 2007 (mostly on Epicurus)

In January of 2006, we closed up our house and flew to Florida to begin our great adventure living and sailing on our newly purchased, 62-foot boat. Having never even owned a boat before, other than kayaks and canoes, we were embarking on something entirely new to us. We thought we would be ready to take off in a week! About three weeks later, we actually sailed away from Snead Island Boat Yard in Tampa Bay and steered a course south. For the first five weeks, we had a captain on board to help us, but we probably needed a therapist also! Peter was so busy--learning about all the mechanical, electrical and navigation systems; dealing with a long list of repairs; and consulting with the captain--that I felt left on my own to set up the boat as a home and parent the kids through the transition. In my opinion, we were fairly dysfunctional at that time!

Some places we stopped just to rest, but we also visited Sanibel Island, where we collected a lot of shells and learned about them at the Bailey Museum. We also spent one day on rented bicycles touring the island and the Ding Darling National Wildlife Refuge. (We didn’t really plan for a 24-mile jaunt, but we survived nonetheless!) With a bit of trepidation about going away from the sight of land for the first time, we set out on our first night sail of 100 miles, going from Marco, Florida, to Key West, where we docked for three days and enjoyed sight-seeing in the streets, at the Mel Fisher Museum and at the Butterfly Conservatory.

We had discovered the first time we tried to use it that the dinghy engine didn’t work properly. Peter spent hours working on it, but it still didn’t work when we left Key West. At the recommendation of the captain, we first stopped at Sand Key to anchor for the night and snorkel. There had been thunderstorms the day before which had delayed our departure, so, in retrospect, it was not surprising that there was surge and limited visibility in the water, making our first attempt at snorkeling from our own boat a disappointment. While we were in the water, the captain, Sandy, who was also a great cook, had prepared a delicious meal. Unfortunately, by this time, the boat was rocking so much that we were not interested in eating and went to our berths without food to await daylight. (After two years, this still remains one of our worse experiences at anchor.)

Because we draw 6 feet, we couldn’t get through the cuts between the Florida Keys to get to marinas, and without a dinghy, we couldn’t get to shore from anchor, so we spent five days passing by the Keys, getting ever lower and lower on fresh food. It was strange to be in sight of land and unable to reach it! Finally, we arrived in Miami and found a marina for a couple of nights. We rented a van for a couple days and drove around frantically shopping for everything we thought we might need and not be able to find once we left the country. We had bought provisions in Tampa at Costco, but now we had a better idea of what we needed, so a second $1000 trip to a Costco in Miami had us ready to go. We sat at anchor in Biscayne Bay for a week, waiting for the right conditions to cross the Gulf Stream to Grand Bahama, where our friends Paula and Andrew Conway, who have a condo there, were awaiting our arrival. We enjoyed the Art Deco architecture (or, at least, I did) of South Beach and the sand and surf of Miami Beach--made possible by the fact that Peter had finally coaxed the outboard engine for the dinghy to work, although its reliability made me reluctant to use it on my own.

Passing the enormous floating cities of the cruise line industry, we set out around 4 p.m. for a night crossing to the Bahamas, watching the skyscrapers of Miami disappear on the horizon as the sun set. The auto-pilot, which Peter had been tinkering with for weeks, was still temperamental, and it failed while I was on night watch when a gust of wind (of unknown velocity, since the anemometer was also not working then) hit, forcing us to heel over so much that water poured into the aft cockpit. Of course, I panicked, but Peter rushed up on deck and took over. (My hero!)

That night was the first time we had really needed the lee sheets for the berths, but, in our ignorance, we hadn’t made them taut enough. As I was trying to sleep, Peter tacked and I rolled to the lee side and found myself suspended as if in a hammock in the lee sheet over the floor. I was not very happy, and I went up on deck to let Peter know about my displeasure. The wind was stronger than any we had encountered so far. (At the time, it seemed like a gale to me, but I’m sure that it was just a fresh breeze that would now not bother me at all.) Peter was having the time of his life. When he saw me in the forward cockpit, he greeted me with a loud “Yee-haw!” thinking I was the captain, who would have shared his excitement and was shocked when “What the ****** do you think you’re doing?” was the response he got! To prevent mutiny, he decided not to sail so close to the wind!

Docking outside our friends’ condominium in Lucaya seemed like coming home. We stayed there for three weeks. With the captain gone and friends around, we were able to start feeling at home on our boat. Home schooling, which we had started at the beginning of the fall, got back on schedule, and everyone felt more comfortable with some routine. We took Epicurus out for a couple day-sails with our friends and enjoyed walking on the beach, snorkeling and seeing where Pirates of the Caribbean was being filmed. Peter celebrated his 49th birthday, quite happy with his new lifestyle.

With Andrew, we set off for Georgetown in the Exumas to attend a Music and Heritage Festival there. Our first anchorage ranks in the worst in our experience, and we set sail in the middle of the night rather than endure it any longer. The next day we found a great anchorage with no one else in sight near the southern tip of the Abacos, and we spent the afternoon snorkeling and kayaking in the typically crystal clear waters of the Bahamas. The next day, we sailed for 15 hours, racing down the eastern side of Eleuthera. We were heeled over quite a bit, which gets old after a few hours, particularly for the kids, who can’t play or do much at all tilted at 10-15 degrees. The lee shore of Eleuthera offers no anchorages, so we had to continue to Little San Salvador, where we finally anchored in the dark, after brownies I had made as comfort food had first burned and then been tossed upside down unto the floor during a tack. Peter and Andrew thought racing along close-hauled was great fun, but the kids and I were less than amused, and Peter found his pillow and a blanket tossed into the saloon from our cabin when he came below!

In the morning, we went on deck to see a huge cruise ship seemingly bearing down on us. We were sure that she could not anchor at our spot, in about 15 feet of water, but she did get quite close. When we took our dinghy ashore to the beautiful beach, we discovered that the island was privately owned by the cruise line. Although we were tolerated, we were not welcomed by security. By law, no one owns the land below the high water mark, so they could not kick us off. A few passengers enjoyed talking with us about our adventures.

After a couple more days, we made it to Georgetown, the mecca of the cruising community in the Bahamas. Hundreds of boats were anchored in Elizabeth Harbour for the festival. We anchored with many others off Volleyball Beach on Stocking Island--close enough to dinghy to Georgetown for supplies, phone calls, internet access and the festival itself, but far enough away not to be kept awake half the night by the loud, exuberant live music. Andrew stayed for a couple days before flying home to Grand Bahama, but we stayed on for nearly three weeks. Peter had envisioned encountering many other families cruising, but that is not reality--except in places such as Georgetown, where some families stay for a long time to enjoy the companionship of others. We made friends with a couple with two boys about the same age as Matthew, and there were other kids on the beach every day, so our kids didn’t feel so isolated.

Finally, we had to leave. That was as far south as we made it that first season. We enjoyed visiting various small islands in the Exuma chain. Lee Stocking Island is home to a severely underfunded but fascinating U.S. marine research facility. Warderick Wells is part of the lovely Bahamas Land and Sea Park, with beautiful unspoiled beaches and fabulous snorkeling. Eagle rays swam around our boat all the time. We went to a marina only one night, at charming Staniel Cay, famous for nearby Thunderball Cave. It provided us with over an hour of snorkeling on our own at slack tide in sunlit caves flooded with sea water teeming with life.
Southwest Allen’s Cay is the home of an endangered iguana species, members of which lumber out of the brush to greet rare homo sapien visitors. We developed our skills navigating by sight through the coral reefs of the Exuma Banks, although we barely missed colliding with a huge coral head sailing away from Southwest Allen’s Cay. Like many things about sailing, steering around the coral reefs seemed scary at first but our comfort level increased as we progressed.

People often ask us about what terrors we have encountered on the high seas; we have been fortunate in avoiding any severe weather or major failures. However, accidents happen, and the worse was when I fell from the top companion-way step to the sole (floor) about 5 feet below, hitting my head and side on the fiddle of the galley counter before landing flat on my back while we were anchored off Lee Stocking Island. At first, I thought I must have broken my back because I felt I couldn’t move. As the initial shock wore off, I realized that I had avoided that. However, eventually we realized I had broken my ribs. Peter radioed to the other boats at anchor, and Matthew capably took over the radio as Peter assisted me. Katya was a great help in getting ice and pillows. After a while, Matthew disappeared into our cabin. Later he told me that he had gone to pray “in every religion I could think of.” I couldn’t lie down or get comfortable so I spent that night (and the next few) resting my head on the dining table and dozing. I helped sail the boat the next day to an island with a clinic with one part-time nurse. It sounds quite valiant, but the pain was the same whether I stood at the wheel or not, so there was no sense in staying at anchor.

We set sail across the Exuma Sound for Eleuthera about a week after I broke my ribs. Actually, we motored because there was no wind. (We hate it when that happens!) That was the calm before the storm, I guess, because we spent the next six days at anchor in Rock Sound and at Governor’s Harbour, getting to shore during brief respites from the rain. There is a lovely little colonial-style library in Governor’s Harbour which was our refuge. On board, it was so damp that I felt that my hands and feet were never dry, even down below deck.

Our intention was to get back to Lucaya by Easter (A visit from the bunny was anticipated.), so we set off as the last of the squalls traveled through, making our way through Current Cut easily. (The warnings about dangers in the chart and guide books are useful but we have found that they sometimes make things seem more hazardous than they really are. We have had no trouble as long as we pay attention to the currents, the weather and the obstacles.) We found good anchorages along the way, did a bit of night sailing, and made it “home” (i.e., to Paula and Andrew’s!) by noon on Easter Sunday.

We stayed there a couple more weeks, relaxing, getting ready for another crossing and waiting for the right weather. Finally, accompanied by Andrew and Ian, we left and sailed north for a couple days, arriving at a lovely marina outside of Savannah. The kids, who were suffering from retail deprivation, were delighted to go to Wal-Mart. In addition to re-supplying the boat and buying new toys and videos, we spent one day in the historic downtown area, enjoying an arts and craft festival on the waterfront and strolling along the tree-lined streets reading all the historical markers. (The kids ran ahead and threw themselves in front of them, trying to stop me from reading them all.) We also toured Wormsloe Plantation, one of the earliest ones in Georgia. Our next major stop was Charleston, South Carolina. Once again, we enjoyed the historical sites. The kids and I went to the aquarium and the Fort Sumter museum while Peter worked on the boat. We learned quite a bit about the Civil War--or should I say the War Between the States or perhaps the War of Secession?--at these two cities.

We sailed “outside” for the next stretch, but our plan was to use the Intracoastal Waterway, particularly to avoid Cape Hatteras, which the charts show littered with wrecks. Our attempt to make it up the Intracoastal Waterway was stressful and finally thwarted by bridges. With all the instruments on top, our mast is about 66 feet above water level. Since the fixed bridges are 65 ft. at mean high water, we have to pay careful attention to the tides. Even so, we knocked the tricolor off on one bridge in North Carolina. (It almost hit me on the head.) A couple days later, we approached one bridge and waited and waited and finally calculated that with a strong wind blowing through the inlet just south (which was normal), the tide was a foot above low tide, meaning we could never get under unless we waited for over a week for spring tide. Of course, there was another bridge over ten miles north! Looking ahead in the guide, I found that, despite the fact that all fixed bridges are supposed to have a minimum of 65 ft. clearance, there is one on a canal connecting two rivers that is only 64 ft. Since the canal is not affected by the tides, we could never get through this spot! At this point, we turned around and went to Wrightsville Beach, NC, where we could get out the inlet, and prepared to make the treacherous journey around Cape Hatteras.

Calculating it would take us two days and nights to get to Norfolk, we called for assistance, asking my nephew who had just finished his master's degree to fly down from West Virginia to help. It was a great plan, except he got sick as a dog a half hour out (despite Dramamine), and he spent the first 22 hours either lying down or throwing up. Peter and I actually managed the watches just fine with the autopilot and the radar to help us. The trip we approached with trepidation turned out to be one of the finest we have had, with fair winds and following seas. We finally slapped a Scopolamine patch on Rick and after a couple hours he was fine and able to help us negotiate our way in the dark through the mouth of the Chesapeake, with subs and warships coming out. We anchored in a small bay at night before going the next morning to a marina in Norfolk, where we enjoyed the waterfront and touring the USS Wisconsin.

We had promised Matthew we would spend his birthday at the end of May with my family in Ohio and West Virginia, so we securely anchored Epicurus at St. Michael’s, Maryland, on a creek near the home of our friends John and Anne Morrison-Low, who kept an eye on her for a week. Getting there in time meant fighting head winds for three days, but we made it!

We spent most of June and July on the Chesapeake, where one day I barely missed running down a little fishing boat because I became engrossed in a novel during my watch! The fishermen were more distressed that I might have cut their lines. Along the shores of the Chesapeake, we visited a number of historic, quaint towns. One of our favorites was St. Michael's, which has a wonderful maritime museum. We also spend five days in Annapolis.

The latter half of June, we spent two days motor-sailing up the Potomac. We were joined one day by our friends Geoff Ingram and Dianne Shook. In D.C., we anchored in Washington Channel for 15 days and used the Capitol Yacht Club's dinghy dock and facilities (for $15 a day!) as our base for exploring the city. What a deal! We had use of the showers, the kitchen, the laundry, the library (with wi-fi), and the big-screen TV (The kids loved it!). In addition, we were welcomed like old friends at the bar when we stopped in after exhausting days at the museums and monuments, and the members are a fascinating mix of Capitol Hill workers (including a Representative), entrepreneurs and military people--all well-educated, cosmopolitan and articulate. Conversation--even when it was about boats (which can get boring for me)--was usually lively and stimulating.

We visited our friend Lori Shoemaker and her kids in Washington, and they joined us (They drove; we sailed.) for my family’s annual beach vacation in Ocean City, Maryland, in mid-July. Approaching the inlet before dawn in a very thick fog was quite an adventure for us as about 500 fishing boats were roaring out for a marlin tournament. Navigating was like a 2-person video game, with me at the radar yelling out positions (“Two incoming at 1:00 on the port side!”) and Peter manning the helm and blasting the horn.

After 7 months living on our boat, we escaped the East Coast’s summer heat and humidity and returned home the last day of July in 2006 for a break. It was good to be home, where life is more organized and in some ways less stressful. The kids took up karate and resumed tennis lessons and piano lessons and Scouts.

Matthew worked hard to complete the requirements for all 20 badges and the highest rank in Cub Scouts four months early, before we left for the boat again. We also had a chance to celebrate Halloween in the States. It is a tradition to have a family theme for costumes. We were cats in 2006.

We began our second season on Epicurus in St. Augustine, where the kids and I met Peter, who had sailed her from the Chesapeake with Andrew and Ian and two of their friends. One of the crew had made a small mistake and not released the mainsheet after the boat turned through a jibe, and the force of the wind blew the mainsail (ripped a giant gash in it), so the sail was being repaired, which meant we spent a few days at the marina there.

When we flew into Jacksonville airport, Julie Devlin kindly picked us up. We stopped by their lovely home and had a tour and relaxed a while until Pat got home from work. Then the three of them and the three of us drove on to St. Augustine. After loading our luggage on the boat, all of us (the crew, the Devlins and us) went out to dinner and had a great time. (I was really stressed about starting off on cruising again, and Julie was a welcome calming factor in the emotional chaos!)

The marina is right in the historic district, so we could walk to the fort and old churches and around the streets. At night, the town gleamed with white lights in the trees in the marketplace and on the old houses for Christmas, and one night there was the Festival of Lights, a parade of lighted and decorated boats along the waterfront. Our favorite was the Polar Express. It was surprisingly cold the first few days we were there; we were dressed in jeans and turtlenecks. We had a thermos of hot chocolate with us to watch the Festival of Lights, and everyone still was shivering. (I love Christmas lights, so I stayed for the second passing of the boats while everyone else returned to Epicurus.)

We rented a minivan for a couple days and the kids and I filled it up entirely (even the front passenger seat) with provisions from Costco and Target on one trip, getting ready for every contingency! (I bought 15 bottles of sunscreen, 10 tubes of toothpaste, 8 bottles of shampoo, 36 rolls of toilet paper, etc.. for us plus paper supplies, wine, an office chair, a convection oven and other things for Andrew and Paula in the Bahamas, where things can cost twice as much—assuming they are available.) It’s amazing all this stuff fits on a 62-foot vessel!

After about a week, we were ready to go. Hugh and Roberta (Andrew’s friends) had flown back to Chicago the day after we arrived, and Andrew and Ian had returned to Grand Bahama after a few more days. On December 15, we set off at 8 a.m., sailing for a day and a night to reach Fort Pierce, where we docked at Harbortown Marina, finding no good anchorage. Conditions did not look good for sailing the next couple days, so we made a quick decision, and within two hours of tying up at the dock, we had rented a car, secured the boat for being away, packed our bags and made reservations for two days and nights at Disney World—the kids’ main Christmas present!

Peter and I are not Disney people—it’s too artificial for us—but we have found Disneyland and Disney World to be extremely well-organized and well run, and we enjoy ourselves. Our hotel room at Riverside was really nice and quiet. Because we had only two days, we didn’t enjoy the swimming pool and other facilities (although Peter and the kids did a little fishing at the dock), but we could understand how people could spend a week, going to the theme parks some days and relaxing at their resort on others. We went to the Magic Kingdom one day and Universal the other. I like the shows the best. We all really enjoyed one where they show how stunts are done. Matthew loves Tom Sawyer Island and spent a couple hours there. Katya loves the thrill rides. I went on the Tower of Terror with her, but she had to go on the roller coaster alone. (I loved them as a kid but can’t make myself do them now.) The very best part of our short stay at Disney World during the Christmas season--for me--was the lights extravaganza on Main Street. Zillions of lights covered every building front and crossed the streets from roof to roof, and large, moving displays perched on top of the buildings and revolved and changed colors, corresponding to music. I was thrilled and they could hardly tear me away!

From Fort Pierce, we traveled to Ft. Lauderdale, anchoring overnight on the Intracoastal Waterway at Boca Raton. The bascule bridge openings in Florida are planned well, so that, traveling at 7 knots, we could move right along without much waiting for openings (unlike what we found further north last spring). We docked up the New River in Ft. Lauderdale. At first I didn’t like our location because we were right beside a bascule bridge with its traffic noise and ringing bells signaling an opening, and there were no marina facilities (such as real showers), but we came to like it quickly as we could just walk along the riverfront (in the district where the Riverwalk is). The science museum was close by, and we enjoyed that as well as seeing Night at the Museum at the IMAX theatre on opening night. (We all really liked this movie, much more than we thought we would from seeing the trailers earlier in the year.) There was a Publix (supermarket) a couple blocks away, so I made a last run for food supplies, and we cast off and headed for the Gulf Stream and the Bahamas on the afternoon of December 23. We stopped at a large marina for fuel and waited until late afternoon to leave Port Everglades for a night crossing. Conditions were really good and it was smooth, and fast, sailing all the way. In fact, we crossed much more quickly than we anticipated and had to heave to and wait for several hours for daylight to head into Port Lucaya, Grand Bahama. By noon on Christmas Eve (Customs and Immigration took three hours to arrive to clear us!), we were at Paula and Andrew’s with them and Dan and Ian, ready to celebrate Christmas together.

Paula provided traditional and delicious (and non-vegetarian!) meals for Christmas Eve and Christmas, and Andrew presented the flaming Christmas pudding, a tradition Peter has missed, on Christmas evening after the meal. The eight of us had lots of presents to open on Christmas morning around a real Christmas tree, so it seemed genuine despite the warm and sunny climate. We stayed on the dock outside their condominium for a week, long enough to enjoy the lively, colorful Junkanoo parade in Freeport on the evening of New Year’s Day.

The next morning we set sail for the Berry Islands to the south, finding a reasonable anchorage at Great Harbour Cay for the night. The next night we anchored behind High Cay in the Berries, where strong current made it a bit unpleasant, and the rolling was only slightly mitigated by a stern anchor. The next morning we left early and found our way along the inner banks to the large bight on the west side of Bonds Cay, just a bit further south. We got about as close to the beach as we could. (We’ve become comfortable having a foot or less under the keel in clear water over sandy bottoms. Peter used to insist on at least 10 feet of depth.) With the winds around 20 knots, we sat there for two days waiting for abatement and it was quite pleasant. The island is uninhabited and there were no other boats anchored in sight.

On the 6th of January, we sailed for New Providence Island and found a fairly good anchorage in Old Fort Bay, west of Nassau. We dinghied into the yacht club and had dinner at a restaurant and strolled along the docks, admiring the mega-yachts. On a couple, the owners were entertaining, and the captains stood on the dock by the gangplanks like butlers waiting to usher in guests. One had a lounge and bar on the lowest level, beautifully designed and decorated with a long couch stretching across the beam, punctuated precisely with throw pillows meticulously placed at exactly even intervals along its length. I mentioned to the kids that they should arrange our pillows in such a manner when we returned to our boat, and the captain carefully squelched a smile, not unaware of the owners’ obvious over-the-top insistence on perfection.

The next day we had good winds for sailing fast on a close-haul (which mean we heel over more than the kids usually like, but they adjusted). We passed by over-developed Nassau and anchored on the north side of Rose Island to the east, in Sandy Cay. This was a lovely place with great snorkeling which we wished we had more time to enjoy, but we had to press on to make our family rendezvous in early February.

The next morning, after some snorkeling, we hauled up anchor and headed south to the Exuma Banks, anchoring first off Norman’s Cay, then the next night in Little Bay on the western side of Great Guana Cay. Both days the wind was less than 10 knots, so we motor-sailed. As predicted, the wind increased overnight and was forecast to remain high for several days. With 15-20 knots from the NNE, we set off for a great run to Georgetown on Great Exuma, seeking better protection and some place to be with something to do during the days of high winds. We exited the banks through Galliott Cut. We were able to power through the strong current using our engine, but another boat, Heretic, which had weighed anchor just before us had to turn back because their engine was not working. We kept radio contact with them and were able to see them tack through the next cut south into Exuma Sound. (This took guts and skill as it was narrow, the current was against them and the wind was strong.) We met up with them at Volleyball Beach on Stocking Island across Elizabeth Harbour from Georgetown, discovering that the boat was captained and crewed by four well-educated, mature kids from the East Coast in their early 20s.

Our kids were a bit scared by the strong current and large waves as we passed through the cut into the Sound, and Peter got soaked, but as we turned and headed south, we had the wind on our stern and following seas, and everything was perfect. Matthew broke into a rousing rendition of one of his favorite songs, “What Do You Do with a Drunken Sailor?” Getting through Conch Cay Cut, which we had managed a couple of times last year, was a piece of cake even with 20 knot winds. We anchored off Volleyball Beach on Stocking Island with dozen of other yachts (It’s the place to be in the Exumas, and many yachts stay for weeks or even months.), but we moved on to an anchorage I found on the charts further south in Elizabeth Harbour where we were relatively stable. We stayed there the next four days and nights, taking exciting (read: wet) rides in the dinghy to go to the library, store and internet in town and to Volleyball Beach each day to join in the social activities, which include volleyball and soccer for the kids. Elizabeth Harbour is the only place where other kids are sure to be found, and our kids made temporary friends quickly, just as they did when we stayed 10 days last year. When the winds died down after four days, we moved back to anchor off Volleyball Beach, where we stayed for one more night and day before moving on.

After the Exuma chain, the Bahamian islands become more spread out, and we planned to cover some distance quickly by traveling at night—not my favorite thing to do. My biorhythms do not adjust well to night watch. However, if conditions are right, I manage. Conditions were not right on this trip. We left our anchorage around 4 p.m. and things were fine when the wind was ENE. After sunset, it clocked to the east, and we were motor-sailing into the wind as we navigated to go around the north tip of Long Island on route to a harbor on the north side of Acklins. We never made it there. The bow was being pounded by the waves after we passed Long Island and motored into the wind, ESE, and it was really quite unpleasant. Shortly before sunrise, I told Peter I was near death (only a slight exaggeration! I wasn’t seasick, just sick of the sea!), so we changed course and fixed our sights on the southern tip of Long Island, where we found a pleasant enough anchorage on the lee side by 10 a.m.

After a day of recovery, we set sail the next morning in 20 knot winds and were able to sail most of the way, before hitting head winds, to Datum Bay on the southeast side of Acklin’s Island. There we found good snorkeling, West Indian flamingoes wading in a pond near the shore, and bioluminescence in the water around the boat at night. It is a lovely place.

The next morning we moved on, next stop Great Inagua, one of the larger islands in the Bahamian chain, which has only one town of about 1200 and one industry, the Morton Salt works, which employs about 200 people and supports the entire economy. It was a pleasant sail and we found a truly wonderful anchorage in Man-o-War Bay, much closer to shore than the charts or guidebooks indicated as possible. There were no other boats anchored in this large bay the four days we were there, although the locals welcome tourists. In fact, after a couple hours at anchor, a skiff roared up from the south (the direction of the town) and came alongside merely to welcome us to their island.

We enjoyed hours and hours of snorkeling on one of the healthiest reefs we have ever encountered. We dinghied to the shore and walked along a dirt road; dragonflies and butterflies flitted and danced around and above us continuously. There used to be cotton plantations and cotton plants, with their fluffy white fleece and pink and yellow flowers, grew wild along the road. The ruins of an Anglican church built thickly of stone remain near the beach. We were told that this northwest section of the island was the white settlement when there were more people and the economy was more diversified, and a service is still held by the Anglicans once a year.

Peter practiced spear-fishing here and finally caught his first fish, one of the most beautiful reef fish, a stoplight parrot fish. Katya caught a fish with a rod the same day, so Peter grilled fish on the aft deck for dinner that night. Peter also finally got out the snuba system (We have two tanks on board.) and taught the kids how to use the regulator.

Peter found a local guy on the beach one afternoon and arranged for him to take us on an island tour in his van the next day. Great Inagua has a large salt lake in its interior and is the main breeding ground for the West Indies flamingo. Dennis, our guide, took us to see them and also took us to see the salt works, with its giant hills of glistening white salt and the settlement of Matthew’s Town. Morton Salt is not a very good steward of the environment. Salt water leaches out of its reservoirs into fresh water areas, killing off all the vegetation. Dennis told us that the company also provides no health, retirement or other benefits. Many locals would like to find some way to develop tourism, but the island is fairly far off the main cruising routes.

When the winds became favorable for heading east, after four days, we pulled up our anchor again and sailed and motored through the night for Providentiales in the Turks and Caicos. Conditions were quite pleasant, so I was able to do my fair share of night watch. (Under adverse conditions, Peter has had to do six hours at a time by himself.) The kids have grown to like sleeping in the forward cockpit during night sails, where it is quite comfortable for them. Even though they are asleep, they seem like company during watch, and, in fact, Matthew occasionally pops up to relate his thoughts about a video game or something he plans to invent or to tell a joke—and then goes back to sleep.

We arrived at Turtle Cove Marina before noon the next day and spent a night there. We found Heretic docked there also and enjoyed taking a look at their boat and having them aboard ours for an hour or so of socializing. (Everyone “oohs” and “aahs” over our boat, envious of our space not to mention our ground tackle, our rudder, our engine room and other things which excite sailors.) They seemed like the type of young people we would like our kids to grow up to be—responsible, articulate, adventurous, motivated, and amiable.

We usually don’t stay long at marinas. They are great if you need provisions or work done on the boat, but otherwise they have little interest for us. We prefer to be at anchor. Accordingly, we left the next afternoon and anchored further east along the island, positioned to begin the final push for Puerto Rico. Our plan was to drop south to the Dominican Republic (the port of Luperon) and then travel along its northern shore, cross the Mona Passage (purported to be more difficult than the Gulf Stream) and arrive on the west coast of Puerto Rico in about three days. However, we were riding the winds at the edge of a front as we left the Caicos and found we could easily travel further east than planned, so we did. Of course, Peter never really wanted to get to Puerto Rico via the Dominican Republic; he only made the plan to appease the other family members who did not look forward to a couple days and nights of sailing. He was quite happy to adjust our course so we were out, far from land, in the Northern Atlantic. The winds did not remain favorable for sailing for the entire two and a half day trip, but, even motor-sailing, we were comfortable, and we managed to avoid a couple storms (and two funnel clouds) although we were caught for only a few minutes in a nasty squall. We sailed into Boqueron Bay after sunset on the third day, ate a real meal and slept well.

It was great to see land with elevation after over a month in the Bahamian chain, where the highest elevation is 250’ above sea level. We had a rendezvous scheduled with my sister Beth Ann, her husband, her three kids and their French exchange student in early February on the eastern side of the island, so we had to keep moving.

Even though the island of Puerto Rico is only about 100 miles from west to east, it is not easy to travel in that direction since the prevailing easterlies are heading the boat all the time. The time to travel is the early morning before the wind picks up and when there may even be north or west winds caused by air flowing down from the high mountains to the north, and the local (and correct) wisdom is that you need to be at anchor or in port by noon before the easterlies really start to blow. Because of reefs, it's not wise to travel at night, particularly in or out of an anchorage, so Peter and I were up every morning for a week at 5 a.m. and hauling anchor by 6, with the sky lightening but well before sunrise. We had to motor-sail most of the time and stay close to shore, inside the reefs where there was less fetch and the waves had lost their intensity. The first day we didn't do this as it seemed dangerous to be so close to shore--despite the fact that this was the route suggested by Street's guidebook and other sailors--but we soon learned and got over our (actually, Peter's) fear of navigating among the reefs. We dropped anchor every day before noon, only once going to a marina--a day when the wind was howling well over 20 knots. We enjoyed the little towns of Boqueron and Puerto Patillas as well as some lovely anchorages where there was no one around en route to the eastern side of Puerto Rico.

We had to keep traveling despite the wind. On Sunday, Feb. 4, we rounded Punta Tuna (the SE point of Puerto Rico) expecting more favorable conditions for the sail north. True, our orientation to the wind was better, but the wind speed increased, averaging 20-25 knots with gusts to 30 by the time we found what shelter we could in the lee of Cayo Santiago. (It's also known as Monkey Island because of the non-indigenous population of monkeys put there for research and now abandoned and in control of the place.) We had thought we would be able to stay there for the 6 days that my family members were on vacation here; they could see the island from the house they were renting. (Originally, when we were making plans with them in November, we had planned to anchor just such of their location at Palmas del Mar, but found out after arriving in Puerto Rico that there is construction in the harbor and anchoring is untenable, and there are no docks for accommodating a 62-ft. vessel such as ours.) However, the island didn't offer enough protection from the rolling and rocking of the waves. We had planned to meet up with them Sunday night, but they got lost on the roads (which are not well-marked) getting from the airport. We had taken the dinghy into the nearest town and had dinner and had still not heard from them, so we returned to our boat in the dark. Waves were breaking on the shore and we had to maneuver around small fishing boats moored by the beach. We got totally soaked in the process of launching; the kids said the dinghy ride was better than Splash Mountain--giving you some idea of the adventure!


On Monday morning, we pulled up anchor and headed north toward a larger island which we thought would offer better protection from the wind and waves. Indeed, it did, but we could see that there would be no way to get to the mainland as there were only headlands, no beaches or towns. By this time, I was extremely frustrated because we were using time we wanted to be spending with family—time which is precious to us since we see family and friends so seldom while we are cruising. Three miles north was a marina, Puerto del Ray, just south of Fajardo. We had wanted to avoid staying at a marina since it generally costs well over $100 a day. (They charge by the foot, so $2 a day equals $124 for us.) We called, however, and they said they had space, so in we went. It is an extremely large and well-maintained marina but we had decided we just had to pay whatever for five nights in order to be able to hang out with my sister and her family as planned. When we checked in at the marina office, we were shocked and delighted when they told us the rate was 90 cents a foot a day on a weekly basis. We booked for a week and decided to stay on for another week after my sister et al. left so Peter could work on the boat and we could just relax and get caught up on home schooling after five days of busy sightseeing and sailing with my family following a few weeks of traveling with a deadline from the northern Bahamas to there.

While they were with us, we spent a day in old San Juan, which is a lovely and fascinating historic place. El Morro, the main fortification of the walled city, is quite impressive. On two days, we sailed to an island about seven miles off the mainland, Los Icacos, with a nice beach and great snorkeling for everyone to enjoy. One morning, Kirsten (my niece), my brother-in-law Rich, Peter and I went diving. (We have found the snorkeling to be just as good.) We also visited the only tropical rain forest in the U.S., El Yunque, on the day they had to leave. After they headed to the airport, we went off on a couple shorts hikes away from the road. It was good to stretch our legs in such a beautiful place.

We had a rental car for two weeks, allowing us to recover from the retail withdrawal we experience in the Bahamas. I don’t like to shop, but the kids do, and it was great to be able to go to Wal-Mart (no Target) or malls and find things we needed.

It was interesting to experience the culture in Puerto Rico. Although we knew that people spoke Spanish, we also knew we were returning the U.S. I had assumed that everyone would be bi-lingual because of that, but I was wrong. The majority of people speak only Spanish and most of the signage is in Spanish only. (I can only assume that Spanish, not English, is the language used in the schools.) Despite their citizenship, they are Puerto Rican and we are Americano—as foreign as if we were from Germany or Japan. They are very friendly and we managed when we had to with my limited Spanish vocabulary (I can’t construct a sentence properly.) and their limited English, although a couple of times when we got lost on the roads and asked for directions, we were still lost after the explanation of how to get to where we wanted. Once, Peter decided to take a shortcut to the house where Beth Ann was staying. (She had taken our kids for the night and we had one half-day to ourselves!) We got lost in a neighborhood in Naguabo. After driving for a while in circles, we saw a young man on a sidewalk talking on his cell phone. We asked the way to Route 3, and he gave us animated and detailed instructions with a clear intent to be very helpful. Peter listened, as did I, politely, nodding occasionally during the fast-paced discourse. Once or twice, Peter glanced at me, saw me nodding my head and assumed that I was following. So, we drove away and Peter asked me what to do. He thought I had understood! I told him that I was just being polite since the guy was trying so hard. Unfortunately, we didn’t have our Spanish dictionary with us. I did pick up some word I thought was “arreecho” with rolling “r”s a few times, so every time we reached an intersection, I repeated it with flourishing “r”s and we cracked up laughing and turned or went straight at random, finally finding the main road again. (Later, with the dictionary, we discovered he had been saying either “derecho,” meaning ‘”go straight” or “derecha,” meaning “go right.”)

After we left the main island of Puerto Rico, we visited the Spanish Virgin Islands (the islands east of Puerto Rico before the US Virgin Islands) and all three of the main islands of the US Virgins. We were thrilled to see a lunar eclipse while at anchor near St. Thomas, but one of the most exciting things we have ever seen is the bioluminescent bay on the island of Vieques, Puerto Rico. On a dark night, we paddled away from the shore in kayaks with a guide. (We were fortunate to have no one but the four of us in our group so it was very quiet and peaceful.) After a few minutes, we noticed that the blades of our paddles were starting to glow around the edges. The farther we got from shore, the brighter they became. After a while, we rafted up the three kayaks, and the four of us dove into the dark water. The effect of the bioluminescence caused by the millions of microscopic plankton being disturbed by our presence was magical. We looked as if we had pale greenish-blue auras around us. When we waved our hands vigorously in front of us, the light increased; then, when we stopped the glow turned to individual sparks of white light before fading away. Apparently, the concentration of organisms which produce this amount of bioluminescence is extremely rare world-wide. Factors which facilitate it are a narrow, shallow opening into the lagoon from the sea and shores lined by mangroves, which increase the salinity. The organisms seem to thrive in the warm, salty water which is little affected by currents or run-off.

We arrived in the BVI in mid-March and picked up two friends, Tom Pilgrim and his daughter Laura from St. Louis, at the airport on Tortola (where they just walked out of the terminal onto the beach and the dinghy dock where we picked them up). They spent a week with us and seemed to enjoy just hanging out on the boat, occasionally venturing overboard to snorkel or kayak. For them, spending almost the whole time on the water and not being on land at all some days was unique. For us, it's just a way of life--sometimes it's good and sometimes I almost feel trapped on the boat with a limitless horizon all about.

The BVI is a wonderful place to sail and hang out. (There are lots of enormous, expensive sailing yachts there, some twice our size at least, so we were no longer the big kid on the block!) There are lots of good anchorages, nice bays for kayaking and excellent snorkeling spots. We saw enormous lobsters one day. On another day, I saw squid, a rare sight. They are fascinating and even a bit scary-looking, even though they are not big. When approached, they arranged themselves in a defensive-looking semi-circle around me and allowed me to get quite close before they all turned and swam off as if in formation. We didn't see as many enormous cushion stars as we saw in the Spanish Virgins, but we saw a few fish we had not seen before.

One of the best places in the BVI is in the North Sound of Virgin Gorda, anchored near the Bitter End Yacht Club. It's actually a lovely, picturesque resort, truly idyllic in its setting. Peter spent one day windsurfing (Yet another sport at which he excels.) and the next day, Matthew learned how to do it. The people at the watersports center said they had never seen a child his age pick it up and balance so well so quickly. He really enjoyed it, and we were impressed with his perseverance and ability.

We waited there until we had favorable winds, and then we set off for Sint Maarten on what we thought would be the last night sail of this season. All the rest of the islands to the south of Sint Maarten are within sight of the next one, requiring only a few hours of daysailing to island-hop through the Lesser Antilles. Since we had to skip some of the islands, we did a couple more night-sails.

On Sint Maarten, we rented a car on Easter Sunday to explore the island's French and Dutch sides. Our first stop was a place called Loterie Farms, where there is a park called the Fly Zone in the forest consisting of zip lines and challenging (to say the least) rope bridges and ladders through the trees over gorges and valleys. It was physically demanding and scary. We thought Katya, who will take on anything at Disney, would be the one to approach the whole thing fearlessly, but she backed down before the first zip line, so she had to wait for the nearly two hours it took Matthew, Peter and me to complete the entire course. Both Matthew and I had times when we felt stuck, either daunted by the task or petrified with fear--or both. There was one high swinging bridge where the boards were nearly three feet apart where I just stopped, and I have never felt so terrified in my life. Of course, unless I wanted to face the humiliation of rescue, I realized that I had no choice but to go on, so I did, and we finally reached the end. There was a smaller, less high, less challenging kids' version of the course, and Katya and Matthew went on that afterwards. After his experience on the big stuff, it was not very thrilling for Matthew, but Katya still had some trepidation. The reward was a wonderful lunch at an al fresco restaurant on the farm which served delicious gourmet food with a French flair.

We stopped later at a lovely, miles-long beach--packed with people but nice nonetheless. We have been spoiled by being able to find beautiful beaches and bays and having them all to ourselves on many occasions. The advantage of a resort beach is that there are amenities if you want them. Matthew, who should have been exhausted from the Fly Zone, took advantage of the large trampoline on the water for an hour, jumping and diving the whole time non-stop.

We stayed at anchor in Simpson’s Lagoon at Sint Maarten not because it was so enchanting but because Peter was trying to get a part for the transmission and figure out why our radar no longer works. The kids and I kept busy with home schooling while Peter was attending to maintenance (and taxes, which you just can’t escape!).

We didn’t have time to stop at all the islands in the Lesser Antilles, but we enjoyed visits to St. Kitts, Antigua, St. Barths, Guadelupe and Martinique en route to Grenada, where the boat is now hauled out. A one day land tour of St. Kitts, included an impressive fortress and an old plantation. There was a classic regatta on Antigua which had brought in some amazingly sleek and beautiful yachts. We found Nelson’s Dockyard near English Harbour to be a fascinating historical site to explore. We enjoyed the anchorage at Colombier Bay on St. Barths and the charming little town of Gustavia and Shell Beach on St. Barths.


On Martinique, we visited the town of St. Pierre, which was destroyed by the 1902 eruption of Mt. Pelee; small town near Fort-de-France which was the childhood home of Napoleon’s wife, Josephine, as well as Ste. Anne, a lovely little town and great anchorage on the south side of the island.In general, we found the infrastructure of the French islands better organized and maintained than that of the former colonies of Great Britain, reflecting, we presume, the difference between the French practice of granting the islands and their populations full status as part of France and the English practice of treating them as governed colonies which have mostly preferred independence.

We returned to the States in mid-May, in time for Katya to participate in my oldest niece Cindy’s wedding in West Virginia. After a week visiting with family, we came home to deal with reconstruction of our kitchen and adjoining areas. A fitting on a pipe under the sink had caused flooding just a few days before. For most of the summer, we ate out a lot and did the best we could with a refrigerator and microwave in the garage. At least our new kitchen looks fabulous, with solid oak cabinets and floors and granite counter tops.

Peter left for five weeks in the midst of the chaos, visiting family and friends in England and his Dad in Kenya. He had a wonderful time. Arthur’s farm was looking beautiful with prolific crops of vegetables, maize and flowers. Peter managed to find Arthur a good second-hand Japanese import car to improve his transportation. He enjoyed riding horses around the farm and the neighborhood with Arthur, whose only concession to age is that he now wears a riding hat for his safety.

During the summer, the kids attended watersports, sailing, soccer and tennis day camps, and home schooling resumed in late August. Matthew has been actively involved in a great Boy Scout troop. We joined him and other members of the troop on a family camp-out at Calaveras Big Trees State Park. The fall foliage was stunning. It was the first time we had been camping in over two years.

Matthew has also taken up the flute, while Katya is learning guitar. Both are taking piano and tennis lessons again as well as a hip-hop dance class, and they played soccer for the first time and their teams had great seasons. (Peter enjoyed being the assistant coach for Matthew’s team. He’s also playing squash again and teaching Matthew, who is eager to learn.) The kids participated in a singing class earlier this year, and they just finished a two-month acting workshop which culminated last week in a musical production of A Christmas Carol, which was fantastic. They can’t wait to do soccer and acting again!

My parents visited us for a week in September. We enjoyed a couple days of sight-seeing and relaxing in San Francisco. We also spent a couple of days in Monterey, where we stayed with our friends, Simon and Susan, in Pacific Grove and my parents stayed at one of their favorite lodges.

We are enjoying being home for the Christmas season this year. We have missed skiing the last two winters, so we are going to get in as much time in the snow as we can before flying to Grenada in mid-January. The year 2008 may be the last year we sail on Epicurus because the kids want to be settled in regular school and activities. Therefore, this may be your last opportunity to sail with us, so don’t miss this chance! We will be in the Caribbean until mid-May and on the east coast for at least part of the summer. We already have a Disney World vacation booked the first week of June with Beth Ann and her family.

As I write this, I’m thinking about what has been important about this yachting experience. Sailing and living aboard on our yacht seems self-indulgent, and in many ways it is. However, because we generate our own power and water, we are much more cognizant of what it takes to produce it and are very conservative in its use. Without that being our intention, we are making a much smaller “carbon footprint” on the earth not only by conserving energy and water but by getting by with less “stuff” and all its packaging and transportation costs—mainly because the stuff simply isn’t available. In the States, it is wonderful to be able to find everything you need in stores or on the internet, but the over-abundance of non-necessities stands out in stark contrast to the simplicity of the markets in the Caribbean.

Of course, on the boat, most of the time the pace of our life is much slower and less filled with distractions. We are much more in tune with the weather as well as the tides and seas, and we plan when and where we travel around the daily and seasonal changes. Our daily rhythm of waking and sleeping corresponds to sunrise and the end of twilight. Except for our stays in ports on the eastern seaboard, we remain close to nature, and it is rarely boring (although I must admit it is sometimes). Certainly, the abundance, variety and beauty of life beneath the surface of the water in the Caribbean is forever fascinating.

Life is not one long vacation when we are cruising. The kids have more free time but miss the many activities at home that fend off boredom. The washing machine on the boat has only worked for a couple months, so I wash clothes by hand and now understand how “laundry day” could have actually constituted a whole day’s work for a housewife before modern conveniences. Home schooling also requires a lot of my time, and the boat demands constant attention from Peter. However, there is more time to relax together as a family and we live on “island time.” The trick is to bring some of that ambiance and attitude back to our lives on land. It’s easy to become overwhelmed with the fast pace of life in America or get sucked into the prevalent consumer culture, which can lead to caring too much about what things we have or want, or the achievement culture, which creates too many desires and much discontent. It is all to easy to forget that acquisitions and accomplishments are not nearly as important as the people and time that are the true gifts in our lives.