Adventures on Epicurus

Google Earth Track

2010-08-11T09:34:00.000-07:00

Finally, I've uploaded our track to Google Docs as a Google Earth .kml file. If you have Google Earth you should be able to view our track.

Google Earth Track

2009-08-22T10:10:00.000-07:00

We've been back on land for a year now. Epicurus is sold. I've had time to go back over our Coastal Explorer tracks and export them to Google Earth and clean them up to fill in the tracks where the computer was down due to trouble with the inverter early in the trip. The result is an interesting review of where we went which you can view if you have Google Earth installed on your computer.

I was planning to attach the tracks file, but have not figured out how to do that so if you'd like to see where we went send me an email or post a comment and I'll send the file.

From the Seas to Suburbia

2008-08-22T13:35:00.000-07:00

July 23, 2008 (Wed.) - With fond farewells to John Morrison-Low, we pulled up anchor on Leeds Creek and started out for Annapolis in the early afternoon. However, typical afternoon thunderstorms threatened, so we navigated a short distance up Tilghman Creek to drop anchor for the night, only hitting one sand bar near the marks. It was a lovely and quiet evening.

July 24-26, 2008 (Thurs.) - At 1000 Thursday morning, we left the Eastern Bay to cross the Chesapeake to Annapolis, making good time and arriving at 1530, where we anchored off the wall in front of the US Naval Academy.

While Peter was extremely busy interviewing yacht brokers and investigating boatyards and contractors, the kids and I spent time walking around in Annapolis, visiting the bookstore and the comic book store and a couple of the small boutiques. The kids were not too excited about doing it, but we took a tour of the William Paca house and gardens. He was one of the four signers of the Declaration of Independence from Maryland.

Ice cream from the Annapolis Ice Cream shop was a daily treat. Most days we bought lunch at a deli near the City Dock called The Big Cheese. The proprietors were friendly and remembered us (and our previous orders!) after the first day.

July 27, 2008 (Sunday) - After lunch, we took up the anchor and motor-sailed the short distance to Chesapeake Harbour, an up-scale marina not far from downtown Annapolis, as the Coast Guard was issuing warnings to mariners to find a safe harbor as storms approached. (We later learned that one of the boats from the Capital Yacht Club sunk that day under the Bay Bridge.)

July 28, 2008 (Monday) - Once again, Peter spent all his time looking into brokers and boat repairs. The kids and I worked on the last bits and pieces of school work for the 2007-08 academic year. In the evening, we walked down the road a mile or so to an small but much-awarded restaurant called, quite simply, the Mexican Cafe. With its colorful, cluttered tropical decor and friendly staff, it was a pleasant place to enjoy a delicious meal.

July 29-30, 2008 (Tues.-Wed.) - At the advise of one of the brokers, we went up the Severn a short distance to pick up one of the Naval Academy's mooring balls (which they only use in extreme weather) in Weems Creek. Peter found it bucolic; I found it boring. We were able to walk to a good supermarket, something that can't be done from the City Dock by the Naval Academy in Annapolis. Also, it was a flat anchorage, unlike the usually rolly conditions off the Naval Academy, but it was, nonetheless, oppressive. A short paddle up the creek in the kayak was the only highlight of our short stay there.

July 31, 2008 (Thurs.) - In the early afternoon, we dropped the mooring ball and spent less than an hour returning to civilization. As we were preparing to anchor off the Naval Academy, we heard shouts of "Epicurus! Epicurus!" Who recognized us, we wondered. To our surprise, it was an Australian family on a large cat whom we spent a bit of time with in Spanish Waters in Curacao. They had met a family from Los Angeles who were spending their summer on the east coast on the Irwin, and the girls from the two boats were out playing around on a Hobie cat. See, I told Peter we were wasting our time up a creek with no one around.

Our kids joined them on the Hobie cat and then the three girls came to visit us on our boat. Peter and I zipped over to Malawi in our dinghy for afternoon drinks with the other two sets of parents, and everyone was happy!

Once again, in the evening, we had to make the short trip into town for ice cream. A light breeze played around in the warm evening air, and the carmine bricks of the buildings and sidewalks glowed in the sunset.

August 1, 2008 (Fri.) - Peter continued running around and talking on the phone with brokers and riggers and surveyors and boatyards as we prepared to leave Epicurus, perhaps, with great sadness, for good, and put her on the market. The kids were increasingly excited about getting home, often mentioning, with variation, "The first thing I'm going to do...." I was the one least enthusiastic about giving up our second home on the water and the luxury of the cruising life. I had grown to like the simplicity and the low stress (most of the time). Particularly as he was having to make arrangements for work and listings, Peter was tiring of all the work involved in keeping our dream afloat.

August 2, 2008 (Saturday) - It was another lovely day. We had been fortunate in having a minimum number of hot and humid days this summer. All the kids got together. We visited our new friends on the Irwin, which the owners obviously sink a lot of money into; she is perfectly maintained and spotless.

August 3, 2008 (Sunday) - We got up early and went right into town to have breakfast at the Hardbean Bookstore and Cafe and shop at the farmer's market on the City Dock. Our friends took pictures of us as we raised the sails and prepared for our short trip down to Solomons, where the boat would be left for repairs and refurbishing.

Unfortunately and sadly, the predicted wind of 10-12 knots did not come up, and we were forced to motor with only 4-5 knots of breeze. We docked at Zahniser's Yacht Center mid-afternoon, finding it to be a well-maintained, nicely landscaped marina.

August 4-7, 2008 (Mon-Thurs.) - These four days went by quickly as I thoroughly cleaned down below, every drawer and lockers and cabinet and surface, and packed up clothes, books, toys and all the paraphernalia we needed to take with us to California. The challenge was getting it all in eight bags for checked luggage, each under 50 pounds. It was actually not that difficult to keep under the weight limit, and I determined that having more than 100 pounds of clothes, books and personal belongings--not just for traveling, but at all--is probably excessive. One thing we have learned from living on the boat is how little is needed to have a safe, comfortable and happy life.

When not doing the very last bits of math and spelling for school, the kids had plenty of time to relax but were actually quite helpful in scrubbing the decks and getting all the canvas down. This was the third time that we had to prepare the boat to be unoccupied and on the hard, and it seemed much less daunting than before.

August 8, 2008 (Friday) - All the luggage was taken off the boat before 8 a.m. and Epicurus was hauled out of the water. Peter and I had last-minute meetings with riggers and supervisors and canvas fabricators while the kids read and played with their Nintendo DS's. At noon, we had lunch on the patio, then jumped in the pool to cool off and relax before taking showers and getting dressed for our trip back to Sacramento.

The taxi, scheduled for 2 p.m., arrived 25 minutes late. Nevertheless, we arrived in time. Luckily, we had a couple hour lay-over in Charlotte, so we had time to relax and enjoy dinner before the long flight across the continent on USAir, which now offers transportation but little else in the way of service.

August 9, 2008 (Saturday) - It was shortly after midnight when we arrived home, relieved to find (after last year) no damage or disasters. We didn't really begin to unpack, but the kids started pulling out neglected toys while Peter and I managed to keep busy turning water and electrical appliances back on. Of course, we were all a bit hungry. Luckily, there was some food in the freezer, so we were able to snack.

August 10, 2008 and beyond! - We quickly settled back in. All the stuff we brought back from Epicurus had left this house, so I was amazed that it didn't all seem to fit back in! Somehow, I managed, though, and order from the chaos of opened suitcases was restored after a couple days. The kids got involved in soccer again. Shopping for clothes and school supplies was accomplished with relative ease. We were welcomed back by many friends at the Racket Club as well as our neighbors. We contacted our real estate agent and have begun the process of finding a new (for us) house in Gold River, where I have wanted to live for years.

Best of all, the kids were accepted at Gold River Discovery Center, Matthew's old school, and they entered the 7th and 8th grades on Monday. They were excited about being with friends and giving up homeschooling, although they haven't been particularly thrilled with the homework or the reduced amount of free time. So far, it has gone extremely well. I am reveling in my free time--7 hours a day! After dropping the kids off, I spend every morning at the club working out or playing tennis. At a leisurely pace, I can run errands and get things done at home before Peter, who does the afternoon run, brings Matthew and Katya home at 3:30.

So, the adventures on Epicurus may be over, but everyone who knows us well is sure that somewhere in the back of our minds, ideas for new adventures are beginning to mature and capture our imaginations.

Washington, the Beach and the Morrison-Low's

2008-07-22T12:33:00.000-07:00

June 20, 2008 (Fri.) – This was a very dull day. The most exciting event was my successful, flawless approach to the fuel dock at Deltaville Marina. At least I know I can still steer the boat manually with precision.

With not enough wind to power the sails, we motored up to the mouth of the Potomac and anchored for the night in peaceful Kingscote Creek.

June 21, 2008 (Sat.) – It was another day of motoring. We waited until after noon in order to use the current to our advantage. With storms chasing us upstream, we anchored around 1900 hours off Mathias Point Neck on the Potomac, out of the main channel. Gusts of nearly 30 knots buffeted us for a few minutes as we turned to anchor, but the winds subsided to under 12 knots and the storms passed us by as we sat on deck watching the lightning show at a distance.

June 22, 2008 (Sun.) – We got started at 0600 hours in order to use the flooding current. After I helped get us underway, I slept some more. Once again, it was too calm to sail, but the excitement of approaching Washington that day overpowered the tedium of motoring. We anchored at 1330 hours in Washington Channel in order to use the facilities of the wonderful, hospitable Capital Yacht Club for the next couple weeks.

After Peter re-inflated the dinghy (The patches need to be re-done.), we went to shore and checked in at the club. I left Peter to take care of boat stuff and headed off for the Smithsonian. It was wonderful to wonder around without kids or even Peter, and I thoroughly enjoyed myself. Without others with me, I felt more “present” and found myself interacting more with strangers in the museums and in the street, if only to nod or exchange a quick greeting. After stopping at the Castle to pick up the latest information on the museums, I walked to the Reynolds Center for American Art and Portraiture, where I enjoyed taking my time and reading all the signage in the exhibits on Lincoln’s 2nd Inaugural Ball and the portrait galleries of America’s Presidents. After the museum closed at 7 p.m., I walked around the nearby streets, admiring the architecture, and then strolled through the Smithsonian’s outdoor Butterfly Habitat Garden and the Ripley Garden before returning to the yacht club.

Late afternoon thunderstorms, typical of summer, loomed around the area, so Peter stayed on the boat, since we hadn’t tested the anchor in wind, and I sat in the bar and chatted with members. Also, I booked tickets for our kids to return to us on Wednesday afternoon. They are now both old enough to fly without supervision.

Peter finally arrived around 9:30. We took showers and returned to Epicurus, where I couldn’t go to sleep until I had read over all the information I had collected.

June 23-July 7, 2008 – As the sign in front of the Smithsonian Castle says: “So many museums, so little time!” The hospitality of the members and the convenience of the location of the Capital Yacht Club made our second visit to Washington, D.C. as wonderful as the first. The great variety of experiences kept me too busy to record all our adventures so I’ll just write a brief summary for now of the highlights.

For me, the Monday and Tuesday before the kids arrived were heaven! I visited museums on my own Monday morning, spending most of my time back at the Reynolds Center for American Art and Portraiture (which I figured the kids would not like). Peter met me at Gordon Biersch Brewery for a delicious lunch. Afterwards, we strolled to the Museum of African Art to view the temporary exhibits.

Tuesday I started out early and had a great time wondering from place to place. I enjoyed visiting, at my own pace, the National Geographic exhibits on the voyages of Zheng He and the temples and monks of Shaolin; St. Matthew’s Cathedral; the Phillips Collection near Dupont Circle; the tower of the Old Postal Building with its great views and bells; and the Museum of Natural History, particularly the new live butterfly exhibit. Just strolling along the city streets on my own was delightful, and for the first time in a long time, I experienced just being “me,” not a wife or a mother or a family member. It was a buoyant, free feeling.

(At the Natural History Museum, I did some research and discovered that the marine mammals we had seen in the Gulf Stream en route to the Chesapeake were not right whales but pilot whales. Peter, back on the boat, had also done research, on the internet, and had come to the same conclusion. Oh, no! We lied to the Coast Guard!)

Peter met me outside the Natural History Museum and we strolled north of the Mall, looking for a place to eat. Shortly, we came to the Navy Memorial plaza, where preparations for a concert by the Navy Band were underway. We were hungry but we also wanted to enjoy the performance, so we chose to eat al fresco at d’Acqua, alongside the plaza. What a wonderful evening! The food was really, really good, and we had a wonderful table from which to watch and listen to the instrumental and vocal production, which included music from Hairspray and theme songs from old TV Shows such as The Flintstones, Green Acres, and Gilligan’s Island. As we watched, the sky darkened to a deep blue and the warmth of the day lingered in the air. The whole day was perfect! Just bliss!

The kids arrived at BWI Wednesday afternoon, so I spent the morning at museums alone. Peter met me at Union Station around noon, and we took the train to the airport to pick up Katya and Matthew, who had left Aunt Beth Ann’s with reluctance. After getting them settled back on the boat, we went to the mall for a while to visit the Natural History Museum.

The next week and a half, we went to museums every day. Usually the kids and Peter were done after a few hours, but almost every day I stayed until the last museum closed at 7:30. In addition to the Smithsonian museums on the Mall, we also went to the National Archives, took a tour of the Capitol, visited the Botanic Gardens and the Zoo, immersed ourselves in espionage at the International Spy Museum, enjoyed a concert by the San Francisco Boy Choir and Ringmasters at the Kennedy Center, spent most of a day at the Holocaust Museum, wandered around the Bhutan and NASA exhibits at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival, and—a highlight—saw Moliere’s The Imaginary Invalid performed by the National Shakespeare Company. Peter and I couldn’t recall ever having seen a better theatre performance, and we were all rolling in our seats with laughter. Even at intermission, Katya was laughing so hard that she could barely keep upright on the way to the lobby for refreshments.

I was particularly impressed with the Folklife Festival this year. The Bhutanese exhibit included a temple which had been constructed specifically for this event. The brightly colored and carefully carved interior was a delight to the eye. I was lucky to visit when the monks were chanting and playing their drums and horns. The whole spectrum of the culture was represented in various tents, from the Buddhist faith which is incorporated into all aspects of daily life and into much of the arts and crafts, to the manual work of a single monk meticulously creating a sand mandala, metalworking, weaving, cooking, wood turning, basket weaving, and the making of white leather boots adorned with colorful embroidered geometric patterns. All of the participants from Bhutan were genial and open, reminding us of the cultural ambiance that we had encountered in Thailand a few years ago.

IWalking across the Mall on my own after visiting the Holocaust Museum (Peter and the kids left before me), I entered the NASA exhibition area of the Folklife Festival. Having recently spent two days at the Kennedy Space Center and having already spent time at the Air and Space Museum on the Mall, I figured there wouldn’t be anything new here, but I was wrong! In fact, the items on display were not significantly different than those at the museums, although, for the most part, they could be handled, which was a novelty. However, what made the NASA exhibition worthwhile was the presence of NASA scientists and other employees who were everywhere, eager to talk about their work. The excitement was palatable, and astrophysics and space science no longer seemed too advanced or too inaccessible for those of us not formally trained in these branches of science.

The next day, I took the kids to the Folklife Festival, because it truly was a unique opportunity to get a glimpse of another, little-known culture (Bhutan) and to learn about the work of NASA at a more personal level. There were a lot of activities for the kids to do at the NASA displays, earning decals from various space station missions. If we didn’t stop to talk and ask questions, the NASA folks grabbed us to share their knowledge and enthusiasm.

We went to the zoo on the Fourth of July to avoid the crowds on the Mall. In the early afternoon, we joined the members of the Yacht Club for a barbecue and then just relaxed on the boat for in the late afternoon. After nearly two-weeks sighting-seeing and soaking in all the information and culture that I could, I was exhausted and had to nap. My brother and sister-in-law, Randy and April, and their baby Kes from Charlottesville joined us on the boat in the evening to watch the fireworks over the Washington Monument.

We were going to leave the day after Independence Day, but, not unusually, we dawdled in a nice place. I went back to the Sackler and Natural History Museums for a few hours. Also, we needed to pump out the holding tank and take on water, so we docked at the yacht club Saturday evening. By the time we took care of all our chores on Sunday, it was already afternoon, so we delayed our departure until Monday morning, which actually turned out to be closer to noon.

July 7-11, 2008 (Monday-Friday) The new mainsail with the battens which had finally been delivered to D.C. was in place. We were fortunate that on the trip down the Potomac, the wind conditions were right and we got a chance to try it out. In fact, we anchored on Monday evening without the engine and even pulled up anchor under sail the next morning. The new sail is great (and makes the foresails look a bit dirty!).

On Tuesday, we stopped just downriver from Colonial Beach, by Horsehead Cliffs, to hunt for fossils. The layers of compressed clay held mostly fossil imprints. They were distinct, detailed and numerous but hard to excavate without making them crumble. We ended up chiseling off a few large hunks of the mudstone to preserve the imprints and have a few artifacts for our collection.

We got underway early on Wednesday and had excellent sailing conditions. We made it all the way to Eastern Bay before both the approaching sunset and, more ominously, an approaching thunderstorm, persuaded us to drop anchor at the mouth of Tilghman Creek. On Thursday morning, there was little wind. After valiantly trying to sail for an hour or so, we dropped the main and motored to St. Michael’s and up Leed’s Creek to find a secure anchorage for leaving the boat for a week.

Later in the afternoon, we took the dinghy further upstream to enjoy the warm welcome always available at the Morrison-Low’s home. We were sorry to learn that Anne’s mother, a wonderful woman who lived part of the year with them, had passed away earlier this year. However, we were delighted to be regaled with humorously told stories of John’s eightieth birthday celebrations and the village gossip.

On Friday morning, I picked up a rental car and ran some errands while the kids immersed themselves in cable TV and the internet. I packed up everything we needed for the annual beach vacation in the afternoon, and we were just about ready to join my family for another week of idle busy-ness, the traditions of miniature golf, the boardwalk, dinner at Phillip’s Crab House, shopping and endless games of pinochle on the beach and family games—all accompanied by food, food and more food.

July 12-19, 2008 (Sat.-Sat.) Peter shuttled everything from Epicurus to the Morrison-Low’s dock on Saturday morning and packed the car while I cleaned the boat. We used pool noodles as racks to strap the kayak on top of the car. This was a protracted job, hardly worth the effort since we ended up only using the kayak one morning. It is amazing how little time there is to do anything at the beach when we really do nothing at all!

My good friend Lori, who is a diplomat in Japan, and her two small children joined us Tuesday through Friday at the beach, making our family vacation their first stop of six weeks of home leave. It was a good chance for them to recover from jet lag, and there were enough of us around—22 to be exact—that she had plenty of help with the kids.

The weather was really perfect the whole week. There was not a drop of rain, it was never too hot or too cold, and there was a light breeze—just enough to be pleasant and not enough to blow the playing cards off the tables on the beach.The water temperature was good also, cool but not frigid. Because of storms in the Atlantic, the waves were rough but not it was still possible to body surf and jump over or under the crests. Rip currents were a bit of a problem, and both Katya and then Matthew had to be saved by the lifeguards. (A lifeguard also towed me in. I was actually fine, but I had stayed near Katya until the lifeguard reached her, so the lifeguard felt compelled to help me also.)

We drove back to Tunis Mills and the Morrison-Low’s late Saturday, stopping to pick up pizza for the kids. They stayed home to watch TV and use the internet while the four adults went to a local Italian restaurant to enjoy a particularly delicious meal and bottle of wine and great conversation. Since it was hot, we slept at the house that night instead of returning to the boat, which had been closed up for a week.

July 20, 2008 (Sun.) – The Morrison-Low’s are so welcoming, that it is difficult to leave them—so we didn’t! Peter went to West Marine and I went out for groceries in the afternoon. I forced the kids, under protest, to do a bit of left-over school work, but mostly we relaxed and prepared to depart. Since we had decided not to leave until Monday, we just spent the night in their large and comfortable house again.

July 21, 2008 (Mon.) – Well, we meant to leave, but we didn’t. Peter and I spent time on the boat hauling up excess blocks of lead from the forecastle to donate to the nearby Maritime Museum, and I hauled him up the mast in the heat of the afternoon so that he could adjust the lazy-jacks. So, Anne came home from work to find us STILL here, but we enjoyed a wonderful dinner together and lively conversation.

July 22, 2008 (Tues.) – In earnest, I began getting ready to move back onto the boat and depart, washing sheets and towels and packing our bags. Without the kids being present, Peter and I discussed our plans to cruise to New England and quickly agreed that there is not enough time left before school begins to really enjoy the sights. In addition, there appears to be a series of storms developing in the North Atlantic that may make traveling by sea difficult over the next few weeks. So we decided to leave Epicurus somewhere in the Chesapeake again for the remainder of the hurricane season. Of course, Katya was pleased with the news that we will be going home soon, and Matthew was ecstatic.

Peter immediately began to contact people to get leads on brokers for selling the boat and to work on finding a good place to leave her in the water so that she can be shown to prospective buyers. John mentioned a friend in the area who sells boats, so an appointment was made for 5 p.m. Did we leave on Tuesday? What do you think? Meanwhile, the remaining bits and pieces of schoolwork get accomplished, with geography being wrapped up for good in the afternoon.

Cruising without the Kids!!!

2008-06-20T06:47:00.001-07:00

June 11, 2008 (Wed.) – We spent the day at the marina, tidying up the boat and doing odd jobs. Since Epicurus was particularly clean, Peter took lots of pictures of the interior.

Around noon, we heard a roar and went up on deck to see a rocket hurtling up into the sky. It was the GLAST probe, which was supposed to be launched the previous Tuesday. We were thrilled that we actually got to see a launch after all.

In the late afternoon, we drove to Orlando to meet my best friend from college, Susan Hendricks, whom I hadn’t seen since before marriage—for 14 ½ years. A public defense attorney, she lived in NYC for years but moved to Lake Worth, Florida, a couple years ago. She was attending a conference in Orlando, so it was a great opportunity for us to meet again since we were only an hour away. It was wonderful to catch up on our lives.

June 12, 2008 (Thurs.) – We woke up in the morning and began preparations for leaving later in the day. I ran some last minute errands and returned the rental car. The Hertz Neverlost system took me to the wrong rental agency three times before I finally decided to use the old-fashioned method and ask someone for directions.

Thunderstorms began to approach mid-afternoon, and Peter was feeling exhausted after working in the heat and humidity all day, so we decided to postpone our departure until Friday morning. We finished up our tasks, jumped in the pool, showered and had dinner at the restaurant at the marina.

June 13, 2008 (Fri.) – We were ready to leave our dock by 0800. As I opened the logbook and began our next entry, I realized that it was Friday the Thirteenth. However, to cancel out the negativity of this, two dolphins came to wish us farewell at the stern just as we were ready to cast off the lines! Just in case this didn’t provide enough good luck, a manatee also swam by.

It took about an hour to take on over 100 gallons of fuel, which was a lot more expensive than Venezuela, but finally we were ready to leave at 1030. We went in the barge canal locks separating the Banana River from the Ocean again. There were even more manatees than before. Although enormous and ungainly-looking, they glided quite gracefully along the surface and seemed to be doing synchronized swimming as they converged in a circle, heads in and tails out, as we passed when the gates opened on the other side.

I talked with Matthew as we were going past Port Canaveral. Science day camp had just ended, and he was ecstatic that he and Jared as a team had won first place in the contests to keep an egg from breaking, even when dropped from a three story building. They surrounded it with balloons and bubble wrap. Although a couple balloons burst, the egg was unharmed. For prizes, Jared got an aquarium fish and Matthew chose the dinosaur excavation kit but was going to share it with Jared since dinosaurs are his passion.

We were able to sail and go with the flow of the Gulf Stream after 1600 hours until the early hours of the next morning.

June 14, 2008 (Sat.) – The Gulf Stream really helped us along. Around 0300 hours, during my watch, the wind became too light for sailing, and we turned on the engine. With the help of the Gulf Stream, we did 11 knots the rest of the night.

The royal blue water was beckoning Peter, so at 1000 hours, we stopped the boat and took turns going overboard. He thought the open Atlantic would be a great place to clean the log, which was not working, and the prop. Visibility was wonderful, although there was nothing to see but the sunlight splaying out across the depths and few tiny fish around the prop shaft and keel. I was hoping for a sunfish!

At 1130, we started the engine again and continued northeast. Late, Peter was napping when I spotted a large pod of dolphins, apparently resting on the surface and sleeping also. They were just floating, not diving and cavorting at all. I woke Peter up and we turned back to see them more closely. We got fairly close and cut the engine. We could hear all of them breathing! As we watched, we realized that they were not dolphins because their heads were bigger. Porpoises, we thought. After a while, some of them began to move, sticking their heads out of the water, and we realized they were small whales. Peter has guessed southern right whales, but we’ll have to wait until we get somewhere with internet access to find out. We don’t have a guide to whales. We watched them for about 20 minutes, getting lots of photos and video, before turning north.

We were monitoring a thunderstorm off our starboard side and making our way past it when a large pod of dolphins, sleek with pointed snouts, spotted us and came to play all around us. They love to surf the bow wave, and they jumped and dove and stayed with us, to our great delight, for about 15 minutes.

At 1700, we were able to turn off the engine and enjoy some quiet sailing at around 7 to 8 knots, until the wind shifted too far to the south and lightened, so we had to start the engine again around 2300 hours.

With the seas calm, I was able to cook dinner, something I don’t usually do when we’re under way.

June 15, 2008 (Sun.) – We were motorsailing along in the Gulf Stream all night, and I was looking forward to being at anchor later in the day. However, based on the weather predictions, we had to decide if we wanted to risk getting stuck in an anchorage until the forecasted front with strong north winds passed on Monday or Tuesday, or, if we felt we needed to keep moving after one night’s rest at Cape Lookout, North Carolina, and probably have to deal with beating into the wind and against north swells. I didn’t particularly like either option, staying out at sea or risking adverse weather, but we chose to keep going. The real drawback was that I wouldn’t be able to talk for Matthew for a whole week since he left for church camp in the afternoon and we were not close enough to land to get a signal on our cell phones. I have never, even when in Kazakhstan for three weeks, gone more than a couple days without being in touch with him.

We continued to see storms but managed to get passed all of them. The wind changed direction and came from the south at 10-12 knots around 1500 hours, and we put up the spinnaker. However, because we were riding the Gulf Stream and getting a 3-5 knot boost from it, the apparent wind was only 5-8 knots, so it didn’t work very well. Also, we had just got it set properly when the dark clouds around us began to look more ominous, so we hauled it in and put up the genoa. We were able to sail for an hour with it and get relief from the noise of the engine, but by 1830 the wind dropped to 6 knots and we had to start the “iron genoa” (the engine) again.

On the radio in mid-afternoon, the US Coast Guard reported that right whales had been spotted off the coast around Ocean City, Maryland, and requested that mariners report any sightings and also keep a safe distance. (Yikes, I think were a bit too close, but we didn’t harass them, just floated with them in the current!) We were happy to know that the marine mammals were indeed right whales, and I reported that we saw 18 off them sleeping in the current yesterday. (postscript -- When we got back to civilization and checked the books it turned out what we saw were Pilot Whales. Right Whales are much bigger and would never been seen in a pod of 18!)

At 2000, we stopped the engine and drifted along at 4-5 knots on the Gulf Stream while Peter took a swim around the boat and we both showered on deck to refresh ourselves. I didn’t go in because the dark water at sunset didn’t look as inviting as the bright blue of ocean during midday.

All in all, it was not a good day for me. My limit is about 48 hours at sea, and then I become a zombie-like creature. My sleep schedule—well, there is no schedule and I never slept more than a few hours at a time! I never felt really sleepy, just not well. I decided, though, that we would attempt to live as normally as possible, and at least the seas were calm so it was not difficult to stay below to make meals. However, there were occasional waves and bumps, and one hit just as I turned away from the pyrex measuring cup with pancake batter in it to light the stove. In a moment, it slid off the cutting board (It would have stayed on the counter if I hadn’t had it higher than the fiddle!) and crashed to the floor of the galley. Luckily, it didn’t break. The incident, occurring right after we had decided to continue on our long voyage, discouraged me, and Peter had to make breakfast for me, even though it was Father’s Day (without the kids).

I read another book; Peter and I played Scrabble and Anagram. When he got tired after two games, I played myself in Anagram (and always won!) and amused myself with a hand-held electronic hangman game and solitaire on the computer. However, the whole day was very dull. We only spotted a couple of dolphins.

Near the coast in North Carolina were an enormous wildfires, and the smoke was blown offshore, making visibility limited to a mile or less, so we had the radar on most of the time. We exited the Gulf Stream, with its beautiful royal blue water, around 2300 hours, and were able to start sailing.

June 16, 2008 (Mon.) – The smoke continued throughout the day, and we were invaded by hundreds and hundreds of tiny flies at dawn, so we had to close up the companionway. I got up, after two or three fitful naps throughout the night, and began to feel more or less alive. I attacked the insects with spray and then hosed them off the aft deck and cockpit and got them under control, although they were still around all day in smaller numbers.

I played many games of Anagram with myself, and Peter and I played one game together as well as a game of Scrabble. He did so well making banana pancakes yesterday morning that he used that last over-ripe banana to make more this morning. They were yummy!

The sports fisherman all came out around 0600 this morning, on my watch. With the smoke, it reminded me of approaching Ocean City inlet two years ago in the fog. Luckily, there were not 500 boats, only a couple dozen.

There was not enough wind for sailing. Sometimes there were small whitecaps, but for much of the passage, the sea looked like a sheet of gray-green, rippled, leaded glass. I missed the deep blue of the Gulf Stream, not to mention the shimmering turquoise of the Bahamas and the Caribbean already!

At 1830, we tied up at a private dock--the same one Peter used a year and a half ago, on Lake Wesley at Virginia Beach. A very nice man, Mason, welcomed us, and four people came out to help us with the lines and fenders. Mason used to cruise himself and said he always appreciated hospitality then, so now he tries to help others by giving them a place to dock. (The last time Peter was here, Mason even let him use his car!)

It seemed like we used the engine a lot over the last three and a half days, but Peter calculated that we only had the engine on about 50 hours and only used about 45 gallons of diesel. Considering how much fuel other forms of transportation use, it is amazing how little it takes to move 27 tons through the water.

As the sun set, a cool breeze blew in from the north; the temperature and humidity below deck dropped dramatically very quickly, making it quite comfortable for a good, full night of sleep.

June 17, 2008 (Tues.) – Apparently, we slept very soundly. We were told by Mason and his wife Donna that two inches of rain fell in the night during a torrential storm accompanied by lightning and thunder. Since we often go to bed with the hatches open, Peter has grown accustomed to waking up at the slightest patter of rain in order to rush on deck and close them. We were oblivious, though.

Mid-morning, Mason and Donna visited us on our boat and took a little tour. They are wonderfully easy to talk with, epitomizing southern hospitality in its typical understated way that makes it easy to take it for granted. We went up to their home, which is an older wooden house built in the 1940s, sitting in contrast to the new, huge brick and concrete mansions on the other side of the water. The unimpressive outer walls of their house, however, belie the charm inside their comfortable house, which is actually much bigger than it seems from the waterfront. Donna cut fresh herbs from her garden before we left.

The wind was not favorable for our direction of travel, but the seas were calm and dolphins escorted us as we motored into the Chesapeake Bay. Across the mouth at Hampton Roads, we found a lovely place to dock for the night at Salt Ponds Marina, nestled among the wetlands with lots of birds to enjoy. I tried taking the helm dock since the wind was light, but Peter had to take over. At least he missed getting a line to the dock hand so I didn’t look like the only slightly incompetent one. I did a great job with the lines! We seem to have become used to our chosen tasks but obviously need practice with the jobs we don’t usually handle.

We walked about ¾ miles, mostly along the beach, into the middle of the town of Buckroe Beach to have dinner at a small restaurant called Mona Lisa. The restaurant was not much more than a pizzeria, but it was pleasant and the food was delicious.

It was a quiet evening as we walked back. The nearly full moon shone like a brass disk above the water, orangish-gold from the remaining smoke in the higher atmosphere. The air we were breathing was clean, though, a refreshing relief after the dismal gray, particle-filled miasma we had endured for nearly two days.

June 18, 2008 (Wed.) – Peter was up at dawn and savored the pink light of sunrise bathing the smooth water and hundreds of boats in its warm glow. I was up by 7:00, and it felt good to be on a normal schedule of sleeping and waking. After breakfast, we paddled the kayak up the creek through the marshes, enjoying the quiet and the wading birds—including the striking yellow-crowned night heron—and gulls, barn swallows and blackbirds.

After lunch, we cast off and continued on our way north. As we passed Langley Air Force Base off our port side, the British Red Arrows, a squadron of poppy-colored jets similar to the Blue Angels and the Thunderbirds in the U.S., put on a spectacular air show. They even went right over top of us a couple times.

Once we entered Mobjack Bay in the late afternoon, the wind increased to almost 10 knots and, even though we had to tack several times because of the direction, we enjoyed sailing at our leisure. It has not been often over the past three years that we have sailed merely for the fun of it; we always seem to have set destinations and deadlines (usually sundown) which force us to motor if the wind is not favorable to hold a straight course.

We went up the East River, passing bucolic, verdant green shorelines with large farmhouses and barns sheltered in the tall pines and deciduous trees near the water, and anchored in Put In Creek. All that we could hear before sunset were birds. It became even more still as the full moon rose, and, lying in the cockpit enjoying the peace, we could only discern the usually unheard ticking of Peter’s watch.

June 19, 2008 (Thurs.) – Peter was up at dawn again, but I had been up in the night so slept later. The local rowing club went by in five sculls as well as one waterman harvesting crabs from his pots while we enjoyed a peaceful breakfast. After that, we kayaked across the wide river to visit Zimmerman’s Boatyard, a highly recommended place we might consider for work on Epicurus.

After lunch, we motored up to Deltaville to anchor. Thunderstorms started rolling in before sunset and, safe at anchor, we enjoyed the grandeur of the lightning and thunder and the sheets of rain pouring down. Between two storms, a rainbow appeared in the east before the sky darkened. We fell asleep to flashes of light and the patter of rain above us.

Pictures of the boat.

2008-06-12T19:46:00.000-07:00

People have been asking for more pictures of the boat so here are lots, both outside and in.

Epicurus docked in Trinidad. All hatches are open because it was hot. All fenders are out because some of the time we were being blown hard onto the dock.

Early morning and the kids are still asleep in the forward cockpit, the most comfortable place to sleep on a passage.

Easy sailing. The instruments show we're doing 6.7 knots with just the two headsails (the mainsail was ripped). The wind is blowing 16 knots aft of the beam.
This one didn't get away.

With the Rudd boys, tidying lines in the aft cockpit.

Matthew and Desmond locked in battle. This is over the Bahama banks and the sea is flat. I think we were sailing, not motoring.

Epicurus anchored behind Wind Horse, the Dashew's new boat, at Big Major's Spot, Bahamas.

The Nav. Station. The computer is the chart plotter.

The settee forward of the nav. station.

I'm playing YuGiOh! with Katya and Matthew. There's lots of room at the table.

This is the forward head with shower and tub. We mostly use the shower on the swim step.

This is our cabin with a good sized double bed.

Again, looking forward this time.

This is looking aft at the companion way and galley.

More detail of the galley looking aft. It's well laid out with lots of storage space and a double sink.

Aft of the galley are the washer and dryer and the microwave. The door in the background is to the aft head.

The aft head.

Matthew's cabin.

Katya's cabin.

It's hard to get a picture of the aft lazarette. This picture does show the massive rudder stock but not much else.

The forward lazarette has lots of space for lines, sails and anchor rode. It is looking full in this picture because the new mainsail is down there, waiting for the battens to arrive so we can actually use it.

The engine and water heater.

Last, the work bench in the engine room. Behind it is the water maker, to the right the air conditioners and underneath the refrigeration compressor and the generator.

I hope that is enough pictures of the boat!

Back in the USA

2008-06-11T11:29:00.000-07:00

May 9, 2008 (Friday) – It was a typical day in Elizabeth Harbour, anchored off Volleyball Beach. I managed to get the kids to do schoolwork in the morning. The rest of the day was spent playing with Justin and Josie and Margot. Peter and I kayaked to the beach south of Black Point. It was low tide, and the reefs were jutting out of the water near shore. There were a lot of juvenile fish. Peter was fascinated by the jacks that changed from pale to dark silver and back as they swam in front of sand and then reefs, always camouflaged. We discovered a lionfish, which was our first sighting this year. Its striped, stocky, reddish body is surrounded by long, feather-shaped fins and spines. It has two rows of five fins on either side, with broad stripes, pale and then dark reddish-brown; they reminded me of turkey feathers.

May 10, 2008 (Sat.) – It was another hot but beautiful day. We noticed a strange looking motor boat as it was anchoring off our stern. Before it swung on its anchor chain, we could only see the front. Peter said it looked like the Dashews. I questioned this, but indeed he was right, which we could see by the size and lines of the motor yacht when she turned. Steve and Linda Dashew have been designing boats for decades, and our boat is one of their creations. I’m sure Peter would have rushed right over in the dinghy, but he was busy with the lovely job of working on the toilet from the aft head, which was leaking.

After breakfast and chores, Matthew and I went around the harbor picking up kids—Josie and Justin from Rio Luna, a new girl named Daphne from Windborne, Margot from Fandango and Jeremy, who had just arrived with his French-Canadian parents about an hour before. When we went over to invite him to join the crowd, I asked his father if he could speak English well. His father indicated he was somewhat fluent. In reality, he and Matthew carried on a non-stop conversation from the moment he jumped in our dinghy. Not only was his English quite good, but he was fluent in PlayStation.

While I was out rounding up playmates for the kids, Steve Dashew had come by in his dinghy while Peter was on the stern swim deck cleaning parts of the head flushing mechanism with a wire brush. Steve recommended more vinegar as he introduced himself. Of course, he recognized Epicurus even though he hadn’t seen her since she was built over 20 years ago.

The sun was scorching and the humidity was high; the kids had great fun using our boat as a diving platform to play in the water. After they tired of this, they went down below to watch movies and play games. It was hopeless to think of keeping the boat tidy or cleaning around the kids, so I was not pleased when Peter told me that he had invited the Dashews over in a few hours. I told him that he would have to see if he could change the date until Sunday. Not only was it too hot and too crowded with kids to clean and get ready for guests, but we had been invited to Fandango for dinner that evening to join Dave and Donna on their boat as well as Tracy and Mike from Rio Luna. The plan was that we would barbecue and eat on deck while the kids entertained themselves below decks.

As Peter and I were on our way to Fandango, we were hailed by kids en route to our boat. They had decided they would rather hang out separately from the parents. It’s a good thing I hadn’t bothered cleaning for guests yet! We had a very nice meal, conversation (mostly about boats and sailing), and a tour of Fandango, which is much more posh if not as large as our boat. When we finally returned to our boat around 11 o’clock, our kids were exhausted—and hungry; they had been waiting all evening for Peter to deliver steaks to them so had not eaten the hot dogs that had been sent over for the kids!

May 11, 2008 (Sun.) – Peter remembered it was Mother’s Day just in time to have Katya draw some manga creature on a piece of paper for a card before I woke up.

The boat was filthy as I had put off cleaning it until the day of Desmond’s arrival. Instead of having all day, however, I had less than two hours as we were expecting the Dashews at 11 a.m. At least it was not quite as humid as the previous day, and I managed to get Epicurus presentable if not thoroughly cleaned. This was as good as it got, because after their visit, I just didn’t feel like getting back into cleaning mode before Desmond arrived. (I don’t think he noticed that my standards for cleanliness were not met!)

We, and Peter particularly, were a bit in awe of the Dashews, but they proved to be down-to-earth and friendly people. Steve gave Peter a lot of good advice about improvements that will help to sell the boat when we are ready. Linda and I spent the time talking about traveling and home-schooling children.

After lunch, I swam and Peter and the kids took the dinghy to the small reefs near Black Point to show the kids the lionfish Peter and I had seen. Katya, who, for reasons I just cannot comprehend, does not seem to enjoy snorkeling, so she was out of the water before Matthew discovered not one but two large lionfish hiding under a ledge. The small reefs close to the shores are like nurseries for many juvenile fish, the prey of the non-indigenous lionfish. Despite the predation, we saw a number of grouper, mojorra, damselfish, Spanish hogfish and jacks. There were not many parrotfish; perhaps they suffer more from the unintentional introduction of the lionfish.

I didn’t feel like cooking dinner, so we decided to go to Peace and Plenty. By the time we got ourselves ready, it was almost time to pick up Desmond by the market in town, where Peter had arranged for a taxi to bring him from the airport. It seemed best to wait for his arrival so that he could join us for dinner. The kids and I waited at the hotel and restaurant—and they used the internet—while Peter, with another captain, waited for the taxis. We waited and waited; I walked to the store. Apparently, the plane from Nassau was late. By the time the taxi arrived from the airport with passengers, the restaurant had stopped serving dinner. In addition, Desmond was not in the taxi! The taxi driver had said he had refused to get in since the driver couldn’t remember Desmond’s name or the name of our boat! It seems growing up and living part of his adult life in South Africa has made him extremely distrustful and he didn’t know that most Bahamians are honest and helpful and it’s less dangerous here than most places in the world.

Peter took the kids and me back to the boat, where we ate soup and sandwiches, whatever I could put together quickly as it was now nearly 9:00. He went back to the Peace and Plenty to wait since he had asked the hotel to watch for Desmond after they had nicely contacted another taxi. His plane was the last to arrive that day, and he showed up with the taxi bringing in the pilots and crew from the flight as the airport was closing down.

Nevertheless, we were delighted to see him, and he had brought a gift of chocolates for Mother’s Day.

May 12, 2008 (Mon.) – Conditions were perfect for sailing back to Conception Island, 12 knots from the west. We pulled up anchor around 10:00, made our way through the coral reefs to the south entrance to Elizabeth Harbour, and set sail across Exuma Sound with the spinnaker, averaging 7.5 knots. As we approached the anchorage on the east side of Conception around 1630 hours, we spied Rio Luna, and they spotted us. Four kids were ecstatic!

There was a large reef off our starboard stern, and Desmond, Peter and I swam to it. (Our kids were with Josie and Justin.) There were the usual fish and coral and sponges, and I saw one large shark.

May 13, 2008 (Tues.) – We managed to get some school work done in the morning, and the kids took themselves to the long, white beach to play in the waves and explore. Peter, Desmond and I swam to the point on the southern end of the anchorage, but there wasn’t much to see other than a large school of palometa near the sandy shore. The wind was picking up from the east, and we were concerned about the kids getting the dinghy off the beach through the growing breakers so we went in to rescue them. Matthew and I swam back to Epicurus while the rest took our dinghy, dropping Josie and Justin off at their boat. Unfortunately, Katya’s new mask, which Peter had just bought for her three days before in Georgetown, got left on the beach and we didn’t realize it until we had moved to an anchorage on the west side.

In mid-afternoon, we all went to Rio Luna to help celebrate Justin and Josie’s 13th birthdays a few days early, which Tracy had decided was a good idea since they could have friends to share in the birthday brownies.

The wind had shifted to the northeast, creating an uncomfortable surge. We took the lead leaving the anchorage around 1700 for the west side of Conception, followed by half a dozen others. The surge was hooking around the northern end of the island, so the new anchorage was no better than the east side. However, we had the opportunity to explore the marshes on the interior of the island in the dinghy before dark, although going in and out of the cut was a bit of a whitewater adventure! It was very peaceful inside, and we saw a few turtles swimming serenely near the surface. We meandered a mile of so up the waterway, avoiding the shoals. When we turned back to return to Epicurus, Desmond, Matthew and I hopped overboard with our snorkeling gear and allowed the current of the ebbing tide to carry us back to the entrance, jumping back in just before being washed out to sea.

After a quick dinner and preparations for a night sail, we pulled up anchor, bid a final farewell to friends on Rio Luna, and set off at 2300 hours for Big Majors Spot. With Desmond on board, I didn’t have to do any watches. The wind continued to blow from the northeast at 12-15 knots, allowing us to sail at 6 to 7 knots with the two headsails. According to the log, it was gusty and turbulent in the night, but I missed it!!!

May 14, 2008 (Wed.) – We anchored around 1100 hours on the west side of Big Majors Spot in the Exumas, beside the Dashew’s Wind Horse. We quickly ate some food and headed off to snorkel at Thunderball Cave off Staniel Cay. We had just missed slack water, so we had to fight the incoming current to enter and get through; we couldn’t peacefully drift and observe the tropical fish as we did two years ago. Nevertheless, we were able to spend time with large butterflyfish and some really large queen angelfish among the other colorful marine life.

We stopped to visit the wild pigs on the southwest beach of Big Majors Spot on the way back to the boat. There was a dark, cute juvenile among them. I snorkeled back to Epicurus by myself, spotting a cowfish which I couldn’t correlate to the descriptions in our tropical fish guide and also a 6-inch true tulip crawling along the sandy bottom.

Later in the afternoon, Desmond, Peter and I visited the Dashews on their motor yacht. The hull and deck are constructed of unpainted aluminum, selected for functionality. The exterior is in stark contrast to the interior which, although also designed with the idea that form follows function, is warm, bright and elegant. While Desmond and Peter spent time with Steve discussing the equipment and specifications on Wind Horse, I took a tour of the saloon, galley, staterooms, heads and engine room down below. The Dashews, for all their fame and expertise, are gracious hosts, generous with their time, knowledge and experiences. Peter could have stayed for hours more, I’m sure, but we did leave before we had entirely worn out our welcome.

May 15, 2008 (Thurs.) – We woke up to another beautiful day, still anchored off Big Majors Spot. The kids and I focused on school work, trying to catch up after too many days in the last couple weeks during which little or nothing was accomplished in order to allow them to play with Josie and Justin and other kids.

We watched an amphibious plane glide in on the water near us to drop off Sarah Dashew for a visit to her parents’ yacht. It seemed tiny next to their boat! Peter and Desmond did some exploration on land before lunch. After lunch, we pulled up anchor and motored, since there was little wind, to Warderick Wells to visit the Exuma Land and Sea Park. We picked up a mooring ball off Rendezvous Beach. I swam to the point south of us while the rest took the dinghy. Katya, as usual, preferred pacing on the beach while the rest of us explored the near shore reefs.

The most exciting encounters were with the enormous spiny lobsters sheltered under the overhanging coral of the reefs. There were also large Nassau and marbled and yellowfin groupers, red hinds, and a grasby among the other reef fish and colorful, healthy coral. A great barracuda joined us on the first reef and became our constant companion as we explored other small reefs and swam along the limestone headland to the soft, pure sandy beach. He finally left us when we were in about a foot of water. Peter thought he expected food, but I thought he was just curious and friendly.

May 16, 2008 (Fri.) – In the morning, around 0900 hours, we dinghied to the park headquarters to pay for the mooring and see what we could find in the shop. We purchased a guide to birds of the West Indies, an identification card for shells, and the third of the set of reef life guides, the guide to invertebrate creatures. I’ve become quite good at identifying tropical fish and reasonably good with coral and algae, but there have been mollusks and sponges and other creatures for which I’ve had no reference. Now I can move on to the phyla of porifera, cnidaria, ctenophora, platyhelminthes, rhynchocoela, annelida, arthropoda, ectoprocta, mollusca, and enchinodermata! (If only my kids were as interested as I am! If I could find some way to transmit the information via iPod, Katya might become excited.) Looking through the book, I can remember seeing but not being able to name bearded fireworms as well as a variety of segmented worms, of which the radioles extending from their tubes are all that can be seen. In fact, we have mistakenly called the Christmas tree worm an anemone! I realized that some of the tiny creatures Peter and I saw along the reefs of the waterfront in Bonaire were banded coral shrimps and the one creature with red and white legs and an imperceptible body was probably not a shrimp at all but a type of sea star called a swimming crinoid. The sea cucumbers come in a wide array of sizes and colors, but I have always lumped them together as the same species. There is so much to learn!

May 17, 2008 (Sat.) – We moved on to Leaf Cay, among the small islets in the Allen’s which are the only home of large, ugly, indigenous iguanas which hustle on to the beach to greet anyone who comes ashore, expecting food. (The day-tours from Nassau have spoiled them.) I snorkeled over the grassy bottom near shore, finding an abundance of live juvenile conches, smaller than the legal size for capture, as well as a great many larger but empty shells. Other than the marine parks, the conch haven’t a chance against human predators.

I spent some time with the kids doing school work while Peter and Desmond went out—unsuccessfully—with the spear hunting for dinner. Along the southwestern reefs off Southwest Allen’s Cay, they saw many large groupers, an enormous spotted eagle ray and a school of Atlantic spadefish, but they were elusive when the spear came out.

May 18, 2008 (Sun.) – Peter and Desmond wanted to return to the reef with Matthew and me (we’ve given up on Katya!) to show us the ray and the Atlantic spadefish (which they had not positively identified). We should have gone in the early morning before the current became strong, but we forgot to take this into consideration. By 0900 hours, it was difficult making headway in the dinghy to the south side of Southwest Allen’s Cay, and the current was too strong, particularly for Matthew, to make it from the beach, through the cuts and to the outside. Peter walked Matthew the short distance to the north side of the horseshoe-shaped island, where he was happy to play in the sand and the water. The three adults dinghied back out to the outside of the little islands off the point. Desmond and I donned our gear and jumped overboard. The current was still too strong to get to the reef safely, so Peter threw out a line and towed us to a place from which we could drift with the current along the reef and then swim through the cut where he could pick us up on the lee side. We were probably pushing the limits on safety, but we survived. We didn’t see the ray but we did make a positive identification of the Atlantic spadefish.

We pulled up anchor at 1100 hours, an hour later than Peter had wanted, and headed north for Nassau so that Desmond could catch his flight to London that evening. We skirted the dreaded Yellow Banks to the west. I was down below when we almost hit a wreck, probably recent, the bow of which was jutting out of the water as the stern rested on the bottom in less than 20 feet of depth.

We had intended to stay at a marina, but when we radioed for rates and availability, we found the least expensive marina charged $4/foot, which equals nearly $250 for us, for one night. The mega-resort Atlantis wanted $7/foot! Needless to say, we anchored in the harbor off the yacht club and found it not bad at all, even though the guides warn of strong currents and a bottom covered in debris from centuries of use as a primary port. We took the dinghy ashore to a restaurant, where Desmond was able to eat the local seafood for the first time on his vacation with us, since we had been unsuccessful in trawling for fish. After dinner, he was able to get an exorbitantly priced taxi to the airport and we went back to Epicurus.

Although it was not late, I was exhausted and got ready for bed, leaving the kids and Peter to take care of themselves. Earlier, Peter had visited a sailboat from Canada with two kids. As I was lying in bed reading, Jim, the dad, came to visit us and see the boat. He and Peter arranged to meet up the next day at Bond Cay in the Berries.

May 19, 2008 (Mon.) – As soon as we got up, we got dressed and took our dinghy to Atlantis to have breakfast. One of the first places we saw in the marina village was Jamba Juice. The smoothies cost twice as much as in the States, but we were excited to get them. We walked along the docks admiring the mega-yachts and then went in to the small part of Atlantis which is free to enter. Everything is very modern (although pretending to represent the architecture of a lost, sunken city) and slick, stylishly furnished and decorated in tropical colors. It’s definitely over the top and artificial, but it is large and varied enough to keep people entertained for a week’s holiday without ever leaving the premises.

At 1030 hours, we hauled up the anchor and had a pleasant motorsail to Bonds Cay, with the exception of a small squall around 1500 hours. After we had quickly taken down the spinnaker before the rain hit, Peter handed me the halyard, which I fastened to the base of the mast before I started taking up the slack. Unfortunately, I hadn’t fastened it securely, a fact I realized when I noticed there was no tension on the line after I had cranked the winch a few times and looked up to see the end dangling about 15 feet above the deck. As the rain began to pour down, Peter climbed up to the top of the boom with the boathook and attempted to snag the end of the halyard. The wind kept blowing it away from him and there was really no good holding for the hook. As he was giving up, I thought to try the long-handled fish net, and this worked. We were soaked, but the rain didn’t last long, and we dried out in the sun pretty quickly.

Peter was bored with motor-sailing and decided to try once again to catch some fish with the Cuban hand line. He immediately got a hit and pulled in a lovely 18” cero. It wasn’t long before he caught another, only slightly smaller. I couldn’t watch as he brutally killed them by whacking their heads on the deck. I guess it was better than suffocation, though. Next, Peter caught something really big, and it took him quite a while to pull in a great barracuda, whom the kids named Bob. Barracuda often have ciguatera, so we had to throw him back after Peter wrestled with him to release the hook. We all waved good-bye to Bob as he leaped of the swim deck and darted away.

Around 1800 hours, we anchored in the sand west of Bonds Cay. Peter invited the family from Canada over for dinner to share the catch. We parents ate on deck while the kids ate down below. They decided to watch a movie together, even though it was nearly 8:00. Unfortunately, our feeble attempts to get them to choose a short DVD did not work, and they selected one of the Lord of the Ring movies, which lasted nearly three hours. Jim kept falling asleep and the rest of us, although we had enjoyed conversation over dinner and wine, were not too lively as we impatiently waited for the movie to end. It is nice to meet others, but my enthusiasm for socializing, after the social whirl of the Exumas, was getting worn.

May 20, 2008 (Tues.) - At 10:30, we pulled up anchor and headed for the northern Berries to anchor someplace where we could easily get out before dawn the next morning. The first few hours we were motor-sailing, but the wind picked up to 12-14 knots by 1400 hours, and we sailed up to Great Harbour, where we anchored on the west side of Goat Cay. We managed to get some school work done. There were a couple other boats at anchor, but I told Peter I needed a rest from meeting more new people and persuaded him not to go out visiting in the dinghy. We had a quiet evening and went to bed shortly after sunset.

May 21, 2008 (Wed.) – Peter and I got up at 0400 hours and got ready to head northwest to Grand Bahama to visit Andrew, whom we hadn’t seen for a year and a half. We were underway shortly after 0500 hours, gliding out of the harbor and into Northwest Providence Channel. At 0630 hours, Peter noticed a large, dark cloud approaching from the west, and at 0800 hours, we were caught in a squall, which Peter had tried to avoid by making a u-turn. The wind clocked from the southwest to the northeast but returned to the southwest after the front passed. By 0845 hours, we were close-hauled and sailing nicely. We arrived at Bell Channel at Lucaya at 1545 hours and were docked (after several attempts and nearly dumping Andrew into the drink as he was trying to catch lines) by 1620.

We all felt right at home. Matthew was effusive in his excitement, and both kids were pleased to have access to the internet and cable TV and episodes of Dr. Who.

May 22-26, 2008 (Thurs.-Mon.) – We relaxed, enjoyed Andrew’s company, and got back on a regular schedule for school work. Andrew volunteered to teach the sections on algebra, which I agreed to readily since math is his area of expertise and he has a lot of enthusiasm for the subject. Since we had missed many days over the past several weeks, we had to work on Saturday and Sunday, but the kids did not complain. They have become quite good about recognizing that it is the amount of work accomplished that matters, not the time put in. Although our goal was to finish everything by the end of May, we still have work to complete in science, geography, first aid, vocabulary and writing, but we should be able to polish that off in a week.

Andrew hosted a barbecue on our last night in Lucaya, inviting several of his friends, all interesting people—including Pete from South Africa, whom we were delighted to see again. Matthew easily persuaded him to throw him into the pool while seated on a chair, an exciting experience Matthew had remembered from over two years ago.

May 27, 2008 (Tues.) – We cast off from Andrew’s dock in Lucaya at 1315 hours, en route to Cap Canaveral, Florida, anticipating about 24 hours of sailing. After we exited the channel and set our course, we hoisted the genoa and the staysail and were homeward bound for the States—and Disney World!

We changed watch around midnight, wishing each other a happy 14th wedding anniversary!

May 28, 2008 (Wed.) – Katya took a watch for an hour and a half in the middle of the night, so, once again, I did not have to be disturbed. We had favorable winds until 0600 hours, when they had died down to 6 knots and we had to turn on the engine. We motored the rest of the way to Harbortown Canaveral Marina on Merritt Island. For the first time, we made use of a lock to enter the Canaveral Barge Canal. There was only a negligible difference between the water level on the Atlantic side and the Banana River, so it was uneventful other than being accompanied through the lock by dolphins and two manatees.

We got settled on the dock at the marina, which is quite protected but still has a breeze coming through. Peter picked up the rental car and we all went to clear customs and immigration. After, we headed for Target, where the kids were eager to spend their money and I bought supplies and birthday presents for Matthew. Then, we went to Publix, a large supermarket, to get food, finding everything we wanted at reasonable prices, always a delight after the Caribbean and Bahamas, where you get what you can and pay what you have to.

As the day ended, anhingas came to roost on the pines near our boat. It was peaceful and it felt good to be home (although we miss the turquoise water already).

May 29, 2008 (Thurs.) – We went to the Kennedy Space Center today. The excitement of imminent launches was practically palatable. The shuttle was scheduled for launch at 1702 on Saturday, and Tuesday, a probe was being launched. We regretted that we would already be at Disney World on Saturday before the shuttle launch, which we could have seen from our boat.

Matthew remembered many of the exhibits and attractions from when we visited when he was 6 years old and was excited to visit again. He particularly enjoyed the Robot Scouts exhibit. During the short talk in the rocket garden, he was eager to impress the tour guide with his knowledge of the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo programs. Even though we had seen it before, we were still amazed at the size and complexity of the Saturn V rocket on display. The shuttle and its rockets were clearly visible on the launch pad when we took the bus tour of the center, as was the crawler, which had recently carried it to the pad from the enormous Vehicle Assembly Building.

After spending most of the day there but still not doing everything, we returned to the boat for dinner. Katya, Matthew and I went out to shop some more in the evening. We couldn’t forget goodie bags for celebrating Matthew’s birthday with three of his cousins when we arrived in Disney World on Saturday!

May 30, 2008 (Fri.) – Matthew was eager to celebrate his 12th birthday and open presents, but we insisted on finishing our tour of the Kennedy Space Center and visiting the Astronaut Hall of Fame first. We saw both 3-D movies at the space center and visited the museum on the early space program. Matthew went to the Robots Scout exhibit again. At the Hall of Fame, I spent more time in the museum section. I hadn’t realized that Neil Armstrong was the first civilian astronaut or that scientists were not hired and trained as astronauts until the Apollo missions. There was a lot of fascinating information, including the fact the average astronaut was married and had two children, one dog and one Corvette!

Back at the boat, we had cupcakes for Matthew’s birthday and he opened his presents from us, which included Yu-Gi-Oh! cards from Katya and the game of Clue from us as well as a gift certificate for Target. He can use it to purchase a new video game for the Wii system that is a gift from everyone in my family, which he won’t know about until tomorrow in Disney.

We played a game of Clue before starting to pack for our eight-day vacation at Disney World with my sister Beth Ann, her husband Rich and their children Kirsten, Olivia and Jared. We hope that we can survive it!

May 31, 2008 (Sat.) – Although we had planned for 9:00, by 11:00 we had everything on the boat secured and everything we needed packed in the car and were on our way to Disney. We stopped at a Publix near the park to get food for breakfast and snacks and more birthday cupcakes. Shortly before 1 p.m., we arrived at Port Orleans, Riverside, and Beth Ann and her family arrived a few minutes later. She and I had to negotiate a change of building and rooms so that we could be close to the main pool and the food court, and then we settled in. After dumping our stuff, we all went to the pool, where the four younger children had fun using the water squirting tubes we had picked up at the dollar store. We celebrated Matthew’s birthday again by the pool. He was excited to learn that a Wii was awaiting him at Beth Ann’s house.

That evening, we went to the Magic Kingdom for the special Princesses and Pirates Party, the boys dressed as pirates. There were treasures to be found and a special fireworks display in addition to the attractions such as Pirates of the Caribbean. Beth Ann had purchased Disney trading pins on e-bay, supplying each of the five kids with 17 pins, a new lanyard, not to mention an autograph book. This was just the beginning of late nights and intensive immersion into the Disney experience.

June 1, 2008 (Sun.) – We spent the entire day—more than 12 hours—at Animal Kingdom. In between stopping every Disney cast member we saw who had trading pins, we enjoyed the rides and the animals from around the world in the zoo-like parks. Our first stop was DinoLand, where we went back in time to the Cretaceous period on DINOSAUR in order to bring back a living specimen, being accosted by various prehistoric creatures, not necessarily in the proper time and place. The kids and I went on the little roller coaster, which jerked us around the corners but had no big thrills. Much more exciting was Expedition Everest, where the tracks are torn up by the Yeti and the cars hurtle backwards into the darkness. Matthew and Peter, not liking the sensations of thrill rides, sat that one out, as well as the Kali River Rapids, which is not at all scary but a lot of fun—and we got WET! It felt good, because it was a hot day.

We split up into various groups throughout the day, depending on what people wanted to do. Somehow, Beth Ann and Rich ended up with all the kids in the afternoon, and Peter and I had a couple hours to walk along the wildlife trails and to see the Flights of Wonder show, which featured amazing birds.

We all saw the Festival of the Lion King and It’s Tough to Be a Bug show together in the late afternoon.

In the evening, we had special tickets for a evening safari ride through the Africa area followed by a dinner at the Tusker restaurant—where we actually enjoyed Tusker beer along with delicious food. There was African music and the restaurant was noisy; Matthew was overwhelmed by the noise and commotion, so he went outside for a while for a respite but recovered his spirit when Chip and Dale, those charming chipmunks, made a special visit.

June 2, 2008 (Mon.) – We spent this day at EPCOT. We found Innoventions and the other science-related attractions lacking in any in-depth descriptions or displays of real science, and the corporate sponsorships were blatant in the advertisements. The purpose seemed to get people exciting about general ideas and products rather than educating them or allowing them to experiment. However, we enjoyed the mock game-show where Matthew and Katya competed against each other to make the highest stack with Velcro blocks and Peter competed against another man in a race to diaper the most baby dolls. The two co-hosts of the show were really funny.

The whole family met up to see the Energy Show with Ellen DeGeneres and Bill Nye the Science Guy. It was entertaining but didn’t really have much to say about sources of energy or conservation. After that, we went on Mission Space. Peter, Matthew and I chose to go on the less intense green version while the others were happy to pull more G’s on the orange ride. Matthew really enjoyed the Advanced Training area after the ride, where we were able to participate as astronauts or mission control to fix problems on a spaceship and compete against another team for speed and efficiency. The three wimps went on the Spaceship Earth ride and then to see “Honey, I Shrunk the Audience” and the “Journey into Imagination with Figment,” while the more adventurous crowd went on the Test Track. Splitting up into a different configuration of people after that, I ended up by myself(!) at the World Showcase, where I watched a Japanese woman making elaborate animals from corn-syrup candy and a short taiko drumming performance.

We all went to a special international dinner where the hosts were really lame. People who were celebrating birthdays or anniversaries were congratulated, which included Matthew (12) and Rich (really old) as well as Beth Ann and Rich (25 years) and Peter and me (14 years). Fortunately, we decided not to go down to the stage area with the other anniversary couples, who were embarrassed by the hostess, asking them what had kept them together. It was cloying and trite and went on entirely too long. Minnie and Goofy finally arrived to enliven things, and my kids were on the floor dancing away—and even asking me to dance with them! Oh, the magic of Disney!

There was a downpour after dinner, when we were scheduled to get preferred places to see the Illuminations show as part of our package. (Beth Ann arranged everything and we didn’t inquire about the cost!) The rain diminished to mist and sprinkles right before 9 p.m., and we rushed over to our place to watch the pyrotechnics and the ever-changing illuminated pictures on the globe with coordinated music. Despite the bad weather, it was a great show.

June 3, 2008 (Tues.) – The next day was the Magic Kingdom. The girls and Peter stayed at the hotel while Beth Ann, Rich and I got an early start with the boys for the much-anticipated trip to Tom Sawyer Island, full armed. Rich and I both wanted to see the show at the Hall of Presidents, so Beth Ann accompanied the boys. The animatronics show was good, but the best part was the historian who kept us enthralled with Presidential facts and trivia for about 20 minutes before the doors opened. Rich and I found the boys and the five of us boarded the raft back to FrontierLand. On the other side, we were corralled into a holding area at the exit and then, along with the other passengers for that trip, were presented with special blue caps with Mickey ears for the 2008 celebration of a Year of a Million Dreams. (We already received the 2007 version a year and a half ago.) The magic just never ended!

Peter and the girls joined us for lunch at Liberty Square for lunch; then we all went to the classic Haunted Mansion. We all did “It’s a Small World” also. Katya really wanted to get her picture taken with Ariel, so the Browns stood in a long line for the privilege while the Powells went on to other adventures. Later, the boys wanted to go back to Tom Sawyer Island, so the dads took them. Katya and I took a quick tour of Minnie’s house in Toontown and went to AdventureLand to see the show at the Tiki Room. We were all supposed to meet at 4:30 by Space Mountain, but the dads couldn’t find the boys. Katya and I stopped to the show about Mickey’s Dream in front of the castle (wondering how they perform in those heavy costumes in the extreme heat). By the time Katya and I met Beth Ann and girls in TommorowLand, she was frustrated because they had done nothing in order to get to the designated meeting place by 4:30. (It was nearly 5:00.) I left Katya with her for Space Mountain and went to meet Peter and Matthew for Peter Pan’s Flight, for which we had Fast Passes. Disney magic saved Richie, because while they were waiting in the Space Mountain arcade, Beth Ann and the three girls were randomly chosen to play for free and even received special award certificates!

After they finally rode Space Mountain, they were ready to return to the hotel. Matthew, Peter and I stayed on to do Pirates of the Caribbean again, the Tiki Room show and the Jungle Cruise.

June 4, 2008 (Wed.) – We were at the bus stop early, ready for Hollywood Studios. We wanted to get there early enough to get the boys front-row seats for the Jedi academy training by Star Tours. We actually had plenty of time to do other things first. The girls and Rich and Beth Ann took off for the Tower of Terror and the Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster. Matthew, Peter and I did the new Toy Story Midway Mania ride in which we shot at various arcade-style targets featuring different Toy Story characters. Then we all watched the High School Muscial/School’s Out performance on the Streets of America. While the girls went back to the roller coaster, we went and sat for over a half hour for the Jedi training. We were told that the kids were chosen by their level of excitement, and that it didn’t hurt to have a parent behind them gesticulating wildly for attention. I did my part for the two boys. Matthew did not have to fake any enthusiasm and was chosen quickly; Jared was much more reserved and lucky that he had me behind him, pointing emphatically at his head, and he was chosen also. They were trained by a man who looked quite like Obi Wan. After their training, Darth Vader emerged and they each had a chance to battle against him even as he was trying to persuade them to come to the Dark Side. All of us did the Star Tours ride also.

Next, we rushed to the Lights, Motors, Action Stunt Show. We also wanted to see the Indiana Jones show, so we left the stunt show before the big finale, upsetting Matthew, and then we were too late for Indiana Jones anyway. Peter, Matthew and I stayed on at the theme park while the rest returned to the hotel for naps after we all had lunch. (Beth Ann was having problems with her asthma from all the running around in the heat.) We did see the next showing for Indiana Jones and then returned to the hotel.

That evening, we went to Downtown Disney. Matthew loved the Lego store and tried to persuade me to by the 10,000+ piece, $500 set of the Millennium Falcon. Instead, he got a Bionicle. We all had dinner at an Irish restaurant, and the kids returned to the hotel while the four adults remained to enjoy the comedy shows at various clubs on Paradise Island. Beth Ann and Rich and their friend Jerry, who had joined us at dinner, stayed on until nearly closing, but Peter and I returned to our room by 1 p.m.—finding our kids still up and watching TV!!!

June 5, 2008 (Thurs.) – This was a day of relaxation. We didn’t set alarms! In the late morning, we rode the bus over to Typhoon Lagoon and enjoyed the water slides and wave pool. That evening, we stayed at the hotel. Aunt Jeannie and Uncle Ron from Sanford came with their granddaughter Stacie and her mother Linda to see us. We hadn’t seen Jeannie and Ron since Grandma’s 100th birthday party three years ago, and they had never met Katya. It was a nice little reunion. Jean seems to be doing well. Ron also seems content and healthy for 85, although Alzheimer’s disease keeps him from remembering any of us, although he does respond to Mom and Dad’s names.

We went to the shop at Riverside to see what was on the pin board and met up with a manager, Chris from New Jersey, who made some trips into the back room to get things we were looking for. He didn’t have all of our hearts’ desires, but he made a list of the pins missing from the kids’ collections and told us to meet him the next day after 4:30 in the French Quarter! What magic!

The four adults and Kirsten played pinochle while the kids watched TV and got themselves ready for bed. We just never wear out!

June 6, 2008 (Fri.) – This was the first day of Star Wars Weekend. The boys had their light sabers and their autograph books and were quite excited. We boarded an early bus and arrived at the park even before it opened. Most of the day was spent collecting autographs from and getting photographs with many Star Wars characters, including Chewbacca, Darth Vader, Darth Maul, Boba Fett, Luke and Leia, and Jedi Mickey! There was also a parade featuring many of the characters, and music from the movies played continuously throughout Hollywood Studios all three days!

We had lunch at the Sci-Fi Café, seated in fake cars as if were at a drive-in movie. A truly un-magical thing happened while we were waiting for the food. I was reviewing the photos on our camera and deleting bad ones when I accidentally erased everything—the Jedi training, the video of battling Darth Vader, the photos with Ariel—everything! I was devastated.

After lunch, Matthew and Jared and Beth Ann and I stayed at the park to get more signatures—and more pictures! Peter called me after about an hour to say that he thought he had found a website that would enable him to recover the deleted files. He’s a saint and a genius!!!

After pictures with some bounty hunters and then Darth Maul, we returned to the hotel where I had a much needed nap while Peter worked his own magic!

After meeting with our connection for pins, Chris, in the French Quarter (He had everything he had promised!), we went back to Hollywood Studios just to see the phenomenal Fantasmic show.

June 7, 2008 (Sat.) – Matthew and I got an early start for Hollywood Studios. He and I did the Star Tours ride again and collected more signatures and photos. Around 11 a.m., we took the boat to EPCOT. Everyone else was still resting at the hotel. Matthew enjoyed fish and chips in the British area of the World Showcase while we watched a comedy troupe perform a show about Camelot and King Arthur. We were encouraged to yell, “Rubbage!” in British fashion in response to the really lame jokes.

Since it was our last day, we did as much as possible. We went on the boat ride in the Mexico area and then went back to the Advanced Training area of Mission Space to compete in mission control and as astronauts three times before meeting the rest of the family. We split up into various groups again. Peter, Matthew, Rich and Jared and I listened to a rock music performance by Celtic-influenced musicians (with a bagpipe) in the Canada and watched the 360 degree show on that country. By myself, I saw a musician playing a traditional string instrument in China. Then I was joined by Katya, Peter and Matthew, and we watched the Chinese children acrobats. After the 360 degree movie on China, we met up with the other in the German section, where we enjoyed a great buffet dinner and show. We made our way through the areas on China, Norway and Mexico, where the kids collected parts of the international masks, and we rode the rides. We stayed on at EPCOT to shop, and Katya and I watched the Illuminations show again at 9:00.

Beth Ann and I made one last stop in the Riverside store and were able to bid farewell to Chris.

June 8, 2008 (Sun.) – Matthew and Katya flew to Ohio with my family, leaving me and Peter on our own for two weeks. Matthew is going to science camp and then to church camp with Jared. Katya’s vacation will be less structured, which will suit her fine. They all left Port Orleans at 7:30 a.m. Peter and I got everything packed and then relaxed by the pool for a while before checking out at 11 a.m. Peter had decided to buy a Indiana Jones hat, so we returned to Hollywood Studios. Peter suggested seeing the Muppets 3-D feature, which surprised me. As we were standing in line, I mentioned that I didn’t realize that he liked it so much that he would want to see again two days later. He had forgotten that we had just seen it! The whole Disney experience just overwhelms him! We skipped it and made our escape.

We stopped at Costco for supplies on the way back to the marina. We were anxious to get back and relax, though. Peter was also looking forward to getting the new mainsail which had been delivered in our absence. As seems to be usual with anything involving parts or repairs to the boat, things were not what we expected. The sail and the cradle had been delivered by FedEx, but the battens had not.

It was very quiet on the boat that evening without the kids. I was exhausted and unable to unpack everything, so I left the mess. After a quick swim in the pool and a bit to eat, I went to bed after talking the kids, who were doing fine without me!

June 9, 2008 (Mon.) – I unpacked everything and put things away while Peter started sending e-mails and making phone calls to track the missing battens. Apparently, they had made it to Puerto Rico with the other two other packages that had been shipped from Barbados but had been sent back for unspecified reasons. The FedEx agent in Barbados said that the people in Puerto Rico had complained about the size of the 20 foot long tube and refused to send it on. (Why it made a difference whether they shipped it northwest to Florida or southeast back to Barbados is beyond me; either way, they were handling it.) The Barbados agent said he couldn’t do anything about what went on in Puerto Rico! The man at Doyle suggested Peter find battens here in the States and he would pay for them. This would seem like a simple solution, but most sail lofts do not stock the size that we need.

Meanwhile, we took the old mainsail off the mast and Peter cut off the hardware and sections of cloth which might have other uses before it went in the dumpster. I went out shopping for groceries and other supplies.

It was quite hot. We jumped in the pool before sunset to refresh ourselves. Then we had a quiet, pleasant dinner of Portobello tortellini prima vera. I talked with the kids. Matthew had quite a lot to say about science camp, which has provided the challenge of making something that will allow an egg to be dropped three stories onto a board with breaking. He has ideas for using straws, parachutes, gel packs, silly putty and other items. Beth Ann and Rich will have their hands full helping him with his inventions, which must be ready by Friday, particularly if Jared also has several alternative solutions planned.

Even though I had two naps during the day, I was ready for bed by 11 p.m. I attribute it to recovering from Disney.

June 10, 2008 (Tues.) – We slept until nearly 9 a.m. After breakfast, Peter began making phone calls to various sailmakers, none of whom could supply the battens we need. Peter was eager to try out the new sail and is feeling quite frustrated. I suggested that, although the FedEx agent in Barbados had threw up his hands, Peter call the international FedEx office about the problem. He finally did this and spoke them quite firmly (for him, who is usually very easy going), and they are now working on getting the battens to the States. However, they are going to have to ship them further north, as Peter and I need to start heading up the coast in order to get to the Chesapeake Bay and Washington in less than two weeks to get our kids back. We will just have to manage with the headsails and the engine a while longer.

I have been busy today getting this blog up-to-date. Peter spent the afternoon shopping for marine, electrical, plumbing and other supplies. It has been hot and still today, and we have had to use the air-conditioning most of the time. The brief showers earlier today did not reduce the humidity much.

Back in Georgetown in the Bahamas

2008-05-09T10:25:00.001-07:00

April 19, 2008 (Sat.) – This was our last full day in beautiful Bonaire. We got up early to wave good-bye to our new South African friends as they sailed off to Curacao. We started to get ready for our two to three day sail north to the Dominican Republic. However, in the afternoon, we took the dinghy south of the commercial and municipal docks to Divi Flamingo and snorkeled along the pier and jetty there. We were looking for a frogfish, and Matthew, with his keen sight and curiosity, found what looked like one camouflaged on a rock covered with fuzzy algae and soft coral. Although we thought it may have been a scorpionfish, unfortunately, we didn’t get a really good look at it because Katya scared it away. She was trying to get it to move, and she did! This made definite identification impossible.

When we returned to Epicurus, Peter and I got busy preparing for our trip. We filled the tank with fresh water and, since the decks were filthy, we washed them down as the sun was setting. (We usually just wait for heavy rain, but Bonaire is a desert, so there was never anything more than a few sprinkles.) After dinner on board, we strolled one last time along the waterfront as Peter and the kids enjoyed ice cream. Peter went to clear out at customs and immigration and retrieve our flare gun as I got the kids settled down for the night.

April 20, 2008 (Sun.) – It took us the entire morning to get ready to sail. Peter put up the jack lines for harnessing ourselves to the boat at sea and did mechanical and electrical checks. I put up the lee sheets on the beds, made sure everything was well secured below decks, and retrieved the life jackets from the lockers. The kids and I went to the supermarket and bought meat, cheese and fruit pastries for breakfast and the journey. Together, we made a stack of sandwiches for the passage because sometimes it is too uncomfortable down below to spend time preparing or cooking food while under way. Peter sent off some e-mails; I called my brother Terry to let him know we would be out to sea a couple days. By the time we were almost ready, it was nearly time for lunch, so Katya and I went back to store for pastries for lunch and to spend our last Netherlands Antilles guilders and stopped at the bank to get American dollars to spend in the Dominican Republic.

Right before 1300 hours, we cast off from the dock of Bonaire Nautico Marina and headed north. I was a bit anxious about traveling such a long distance with only two of us to stand watch, but my anxiety level was much lower than it has been in anticipation of previous crossings. The autopilot appeared to be working and we hoped that it would at least last through the next couple days and nights.

As we sailed past the northern point of Bonaire into the open sea, the sea became a bit choppy. However, after a couple hours, it became calm, and the sailing was really pleasant. There was a full moon, and visibility was excellent. I borrowed Katya’s iPod for night watch and was still going strong four hours later when Peter woke up and was ready to take over. There was one ship in the night on my watch; otherwise, we sailed in isolation and quiet over the depths of the Caribbean Sea.

April 21, 2008 (Mon.) – We sailed all day, seeing only a couple other vessels. The skies were cerulean with a few drifting clouds, the sea was cobalt and smooth. We passed the time reading and playing backgammon, chess and Scrabble. (I even played a few backgammon games against myself when Peter was sleeping.) The wind remained fairly constant at 16 knots until the afternoon, and we were sailing on a close reach at nearly 8 knots.

The wind began to drop as the afternoon progressed, and Peter started considering the option of the spinnaker which we had never used. In fact, neither of us even had any experience with spinnakers on other boats at all. By mid-afternoon, the gentle breeze became a light breeze, so we hoisted the bright blue, red and white spinnaker and released it from the sock. The design is lovely, and we admired it greatly, even though the red and blue pigments had bled a bit on some of the white areas. At 10-12 knots, we were flying along at 8 knots. The weather appeared to be settled and the moon was bright, so we decided to leave it up all night. Throughout the night and the next morning, the wind was around 9-10 knots, and we glided across the flat, calm water at over 7 knots with the spinnaker billowed out in the lead and the staysail adding stability.

April 22, 2008 (Tues.) – I was prepared to awoken by Peter sometime in the middle of the night for watch and was surprised when I opened my eyes to bright sunshine. Katya had stood watch for an hour, giving Peter, who needs little sleep, enough rest, and I had been left undisturbed. With the autopilot working, standing watch does not require steering, just keeping an eye out for other vessels or adverse weather in the night and making sure the autopilot doesn’t fail, so anyone can do it.

In the early afternoon, the wind dropped down to 7 knots and then continued to die. At 1400 hours, we furled the spinnaker and were forced to start the engine. We would have continued on through the night to the north coast of the Dominican Republic if we had wind, but the quiet sailing had been so pleasant that we didn’t want to mar the tranquility by motoring throughout the night. Not heeding the advice not to enter an unknown anchorage or harbor after dark, at 1900 hours, we headed in along the well-marked channel to the marina at the developing Cap Cana resort, a sophisticated, up-scale place reflecting nothing of the culture of the country. It could be in any tropical location in the world with white sand beaches backed by palms. The dock hands were helpful, and the guy from the navy waited patiently to get information on us and our vessel. Our Spanish studies helped me communicate en poco.

After we cleared customs and immigration, a golf cart whisked us away to an Italian restaurant, where we enjoyed a nice meal before walking along the winding walls of the dredged channels back to our boat.

April 23, 2008 (Wed.) – We spent the day and another night at Cap Cana Marina because we would have had to get up quite early to make the next run before dark, and we felt like sleeping in. Peter worked on drawings for our new mainsail and I taught Matthew and Katya. I started doing laundry in our semi-functional washing machine and drying it in the dryer because the marina rules do not allow for laundry hanging on the lifelines. (How déclassé!) Peter told me there were laundry facilities by the fuel dock, but it was far from our slip, and he hadn’t checked out the cost, so I continued the old-fashioned way. We went to the fuel dock around 1700 hours to fill up the tank, and my survey of the laundry room revealed that the four new washers and four new dryers did not require any tokens or money. Of course, none of the clothes I had washed so far were dry, so I filled all four dryers and proceeded to throw all of our towels and sheets in the washers for a more thorough cleaning than my manual labor can produce.

We just stayed on the fuel dock for the night rather than move back to our slip since we could get away from it more easily in the morning without the help of dock hands.

April 24, 2008 (Thurs.) – Around 0800 hours, we cast off. The wind was never above 7 knots, so we motored to Bahia de Samana. The navy only allows pleasure vessels to go to selected places, so we were supposed to go directly to Santa Barbara de Samana. However, in the early afternoon, we encountered rain showers as we headed north. These turned to thunderstorms, with loud bangs and flashes of lightning all around us. The front was actually moving away from us at first, but as it gained power, it turned back on us. We altered course to steer away from the worst of it the best we could. The rain was torrential, and water came through hatches which had never leaked before. Water also leaked into Matthew’s cabin through a small, inadequately sealed cable hole from the instrument panel in the aft cockpit.

We tracked the lines of showers on the radar for the next couple hours. Fortunately, there were no more thunderstorms in our vicinity, although a couple more waves of rain passed over us.

We dropped anchor around 1700 hours off the town of Miches, just inside the large bay of Samana. While we were still tidying up on deck, a small wooden boat with three men roared out from the dock in the small town and identified themselves as the navy. One was toting an automatic rifle. They came on board and down below to get out of the rain. We explained that we had stopped because the storms had slowed our progress and we would not be able to make it to Santa Barbara (usually just referred to as Samana) before dark. At first there was some confusion due to language differences regarding where we had come from and where we were going (They had it backward.), but after we all managed together to straighten out the misunderstanding, they smiled and wrote down all the information they needed on a blank sheet of white paper, as the navy and customs and immigration had done in Cap Cana. The agencies don’t seem to have any forms. The navy doesn’t seem to issue uniforms either. Only the navy man in Cap Cana had one, but not anyone else. So, we had to assume that men in t-shirts and jeans or shorts and baseball caps, with one carrying a loaded weapon, were legitimate officials and not thieves when we invited them on board! As they got back in their boat, they asked Peter for cigarettes and seemed unprepared to cast off our stern until we offered a token gift for their services. Having no cigarettes, we delighted them a bottle of rum from Curacao.

April 25, 2008 (Fri.) – We had been told the previous evening that we needed to be on our way to Samana by 0800 hours, but no one bothered us to move. We took our time and pulled up anchor around 0900 hours. The skies had cleared, but there was still no wind of any significance, so we motored for four hours to the well-protected harbor of the town of Samana. Once again, a boat darted out from shore with five men, including one with a gun again. The blank piece of white paper came out and they copied the information they needed from our ship’s registration documents and our passports. After they left, we took our dinghy into town to eat, buy provisions, get local currency, and explore. The small grocery store didn’t have a lot to offer and we were too hungry to explore very far. We stopped at a waterfront café and had something to drink and then returned to our floating home after a brief expedition across a pedestrian bridge to two small islands. The many-arched structure must have been part of an elaborate development plan for tourists and locals. There is a resort hotel near the beginning, but it appears to be more recently constructed than the bridge, and the bridge, although safe, is not in good repair. The view of the town from the bridge is picturesque, and looking over the sides to the water about 50-100 feet below, we saw an abundance of large, orange sea stars, something we had not found in our travels since last year.

April 26, 2008 (Sat.) – After breakfast, we went to town again. While Peter went to deal with the officials for clearing out of the country, the kids and I walked along the waterfront and then into the true heart of the town. We were looking for a market which we had read about which offered local fruits and vegetables from vendors’ stalls. Before we made it, we were greeted on a street corner by a man on a scooter pulling a rickshaw type conveyance. (He was one among many dozens serving as taxis.) He wanted to persuade us to take a tour of a nearby national park to view the Limon waterfall. (This had been offered to us as soon as we reached the dinghy dock yesterday.) I communicated that I had to meet with my husband before making any decision, although I was disinclined to take this overpriced jaunt. He nicely offered to give us a ride to the market for free, obviously trying to keep us as his customers for future lucrative projects. It was only a couple more blocks, although we didn’t know that, and the ride in a rickshaw was fun.

The marketplace was colorful and vibrant and crowded. The first thing we saw were disorganized piles of clothes which local people sort through and make offers on. The clothing comes from the US and Europe and represents the types of items that retail stores, even Goodwill, can’t sell. I presume that the first-world country companies get a tax benefit for donating them to an NGO, which distributes them to locals to be used as the basis for these open-air retail operations. They serve to stimulate the economy and provide clothing simultaneously.

We walked past tiny shops opening up directly onto the sidewalks and streets, both of which were jammed with vehicles including pick-ups from which produce was sold. We wove our wave past the people, shops and vehicles and found a large, central, covered marketplace where the best produce seemed to be available as well as freshly slaughtered (right before our eyes!) and butchered cows and pigs and fish in the process of being gutted. The heads of all these animals were left for roaming, mangy dogs to feast on.

Inside the main market, there was an abundance of fruits and vegetables, mostly in bright reds, greens, oranges and yellows, as well as large burlap sacks of grain, particularly rice. We probably paid twice as much as the locals for the produce we bought, but we were naïve retail targets, and I just can’t seem to get into bargaining mode. Even so, the ripe, fresh produce was cheap.

Our friendly rickshaw driver took us back to the dock, where we met Peter at 12:30. The man tried to persuade Peter to take the waterfall tour the next day, but we told him we had plans to sail out of the harbor later that day. We did retain him to pick us up in hour to take us back to the market.

We had an enormous and delicious lunch on the waterfront at a café where we picked what we wanted from the freshly cooked food displayed behind glass, cafeteria-style. There were some unusual and yummy dishes, including one made with an unknown squash and another with green-colored rice combined with small pieces of vegetables and herbs. With the drinks, our meal was under $20. It was pleasing not to be overcharged just because we look like rich Americans.

Later in the afternoon, we crossed the green waters of the bay to its southern shore and anchored in Bahia de Lorenzo in Haitises National Park. As we approached, we noticed that palms marked the interface between the land and the water, but behind those rose dark green, thickly covered, lumpy hills, indicating underground collapsing of the porous limestone. Bahia de Lorenzo is quite big, and there are no settlements there. Only two other boats were at anchor. It was peaceful. Birds glided in to roost in the trees around sunset. As darkness descended, a chorus of chirping insects and frogs with their deep, hollow, woody vocalizations filled the air. Phosphorescence glistened on the tops of ripples in the waters and around the perimeter of our boat. We were far from civilization, and Peter reveled in it.

April 27, 2008 (Sun.) – After breakfast, we took off in our dinghy to explore and visit the Cueva de la Linea, which is noted for pictographs made centuries ago by native people. Tour boats bring groups of tourists from Samana, but there was no one else around when we entered the cave. The only disturbance to the tranquility was the psssssst made by the forward baffle of our dinghy as it hit the oyster-encrusted pier of the dock. We approached a bit too quickly, forgetting the warning in one of our guidebooks about the risk to inflatables in the narrow channel through the mangroves. Luckily, there are three separate baffles, so we could continue to use the dinghy if no one sat on the front.

It was our intention to leave from the Bahia de Lorenzo for the Turks and Caicos in the afternoon. Indeed, we set out on our route, but we encountered squalls while we were still in the middle of Bahia de Samana, so we went back to our anchorage by the town and waited until the morning.

April 28, 2008 (Mon.) – Although the winds were favorable, that’s about the only good thing that can be said about this day’s sailing. There were storms around us, but we did not encounter anything other than scattered showers. Although we had some sunshine part of the day, the atmosphere was mainly gloomy and overcast. The endless seas were slate blue and dull. The NE swells and the SE wind waves made life on board most unpleasant. We were rocking and lurching continuously. In the cabinets in the galley, bottles, cans, glasses, pot and pans and other items were constantly banging and clanging. Imagine, perhaps, being in an earthquake for 27 hours. Imagine the physical instability, mental fuzziness and visceral nausea of being very drunk or very sick. Imagine an interminable period of boredom.

Peter actually felt fine and was enjoying himself. Matthew spent most of the time in the forward cockpit and couldn’t eat. Katya of the cast-iron stomach was a bit sick at first but managed to rally and stayed below decks to watch DVDs and stagger around the salon listening to her iPod a lot of time. I tried to sleep as much as possible simply to avoid being conscious of my discomfort, but sleep eluded me most of the time until I finally vomited in the early evening. My stomach felt a bit better, but my emotional state was similar to that which accompanied the 24 hours of labor for Matthew’s birth, during which I also irrationally begged Peter just to make it stop!

April 29, 2008 (Tues.) – Needless to say, I only spent about an hour on watch. Katya helped Peter a bit in the night, but otherwise he was on his own and never complained. He can amuse himself by adjusting the trim of the sails a half turn on the winch or altering course slightly to take full advantage of the wind angle. During the early morning hours, he discovered that a bird was hitching a ride on the grill off the stern rail. It flew away at sunrise. Did it know where it was? Did it realize that its perch was mobile, and did it wake up confused and wondering where its family and friends were? Who knows what goes on in the minds of sea birds, if anything!

Finally(!), we saw the Turks and Caicos and we stopped at the first possible anchorage, on the leeward side of Big Sandy Cay at 1100 hours. It was a bit rolly, but it was heaven compared to the living hell of the passage. Peter finally got some sleep, and I hung up almost every towel we have on the lifelines. They were put to use over the seat cushions to soak up the water left by the torrential rain in Samana and to sop up leaks from the hatches that occurred during the trip. I also cautiously opened the galley lockers and put things back in place.

Matthew and I played some chess while Peter and Katya were sleeping. I woke them up later in the afternoon. Peter and I swam to shore, encountering a large southern stingray on the way. The beach is lovely, and we found many beautiful shells, large and small, which we brought back as souvenirs.

Listening to the meowing of catbirds, we all went to bed earlier than usual that night and slept really well.

April 30, 2008 (Wed.) – After breakfast, we pulled up anchor and sailed under very pleasant conditions for four hours to Cockburn Harbour on South Caicos, using only the spinnaker. The waves were minimal, and the kids were able to stay below and Peter and I played Scrabble in the aft cockpit.

We anchored north of Long Cay and took the dinghy to town to clear in with customs and immigration. The town is small and quiet. The streets are paved, but horses roam freely along them. There is one small grocery store where we found little that we needed other than Diet Coke, for which I was thankful.

Peter and I spent around an hour snorkeling over the beautiful reef near our boat. There is an amazing variety of shallow coral—forest green, burnt orange, magenta, lemon yellow, scarlet, ochre-- the healthiest and most diverse we have seen since Great Inagua. The fish are not as abundant as they are in Bonaire, but we spotted a big nurse shark and some large lobster, one of which seemed to be lacking some of its appendages. There were a lot of neon blue chromis darting around the coral, and we also saw a striking black and white juvenile spotted drum with its long, trailing fins, dancing like an Arabian woman with scarves billowing around. Also, there was an orange-spotted filefish, not to mention an orange filefish and two porcupine fish hiding under a ledge. Once again, we found fish we had not met before. We tentatively identified as a mutton hamlet, camouflaging itself by staying in a motionless, vertical position beside a tube sponge; with various shades of mottled green and yellow, it had bright red ventral and anal fins.
The distinctive protruding spiny brows over the eyes and the elongation of the body into a tube-like shape from which the long, blunt-ended fan tail emerged helped us identify a large cowfish which was also new to us.

The sun set in glorious shades of pink and violet, turning the surface of the rippling water into a sparkling blanket of blue and purple as we swam back to the boat.

May 1, 2000 (Thurs.) – I awoke much earlier than everyone else and enjoyed the solitude and quiet on deck as the sun was rising. After breakfast, Peter started to tackle the dinghy repair and we got on with school. Before lunch, we put on our skins and started swimming for the colorful reef nearby. In the lead, I noticed that there was an extremely strong current which we hadn’t encountered the previous evening. I went back and advised Peter to use the kayak to transport the kids. Matthew decided to swim with me, but it was tough, and Peter came to us in the kayak after he dropped Katya off on the reef. Matthew’s mask had broken and he was using a spare, but it leaked. I let him borrow mine, but it was not a good fit. Katya has been complaining that everything looks brown and is unable to keep her mask from fogging up. I realized that it is too small for her. I bought a new mask for myself in Bonaire, but now one of my fins is splitting. It’s time for new equipment for most of us, I think.

Matthew and I swam part of the way back to the boat. I pointed out a large southern stingray almost totally covered with sand on the bottom in about 8 feet of water. We could detect his outline, and his gills and tail were above the sand. We also saw a number of barracuda, including two swimming together, circling me for a while! Yet another newly identified (by us) fish was found: a sand tilefish a foot or two long. This slender, pale fish digs a burrow in the sand and coral rubble and hovers over or near it. When approached, it disappears into its hole.

In the mid-afternoon, we hauled in the anchor and set off for the western end of Long Cay. We were planning to go to the next small group of cays, but the anchorage there offers no protection from the NE, and that was the direction the wind was coming from. In fact, it picked up strength, and well before sunset the wind had sustained speeds between 20 and 25 knots, which did not abate throughout the night. On the Beaufort Scale, this is called a strong breeze, but I thing the term “breeze” seems too benign for what sounds and feels intense and a bit ferocious. It constantly whistled through the rigging and buffeted the dodgers and biminis and slapped waves against the hull. Nevertheless, we were well-anchored and safe, with our bow into the wind and waves, so we were not rocking from side to side.

May 2, 2008 (Friday) – In the morning, Peter was anxious about crossing the Caicos Banks because it was cloudy, but the wind was lighter and the skies cleared by 0930, so we pulled up anchor. We motorsailed even though the wind was favorable at 15-17 knots; if we had had to maneuver quickly and precisely around coral, the engine would have given us better control of our speed and direction. Visibility was wonderful in the 10-30 feet of the bank, so eyeball navigation was easy and we didn’t have to make any abrupt or unexpected maneuvers. The skies were blue above us while all along the 360 degrees of the far horizon clouds were clustered. The bases of the cumulus clouds, which are usually gray, were pale aquamarine, reflecting the intense hue of the pure water below them. Everything around us was diffused with vibrant light. Even our egg-shell colored head sails were tinged with turquoise. Three times dolphins danced around us during the passage, their sleek, dark forms distinct and graceful in the clear green-blue sea. The contrast was striking, as we usually see them in the open ocean where they are not as visually highlighted in the darker waters.

Peter got out the Cuban hand line again using new tackle he had bought in Bonaire. He had several bites. The first time the fish won and took the lure, hook and weight with him. It didn’t take long to reel one in, though. Peter caught a 12-inch bar jack. This fish has an iridescent blue bar running along its dorsal edge on either side and continuing on to the bottom of the forked tail fin, making a graceful arch. This bright color faded slowly. Surprisingly, the bar turned into a prism of color before it became pale and unremarkable.

We exited the banks near French Cay, where we anchored for the night. The sea floor plunges dramatically from the shallow banks to over 500 feet. The demarcation is clear and colorful; looking astern from the deep water, we could see distinct parallel ribbons of green, blue and violet separating the turquoise banks from the deep cobalt blue sea. With plenty of depth, we cut the engine and sailed smoothly along on a broad reach.

Although the environment was lovely, the holding for anchors was not. Our Bruce anchor held because it wrapped around a rock, but Peter was afraid that increased wind would cause the boat to drag. The beach looked so inviting that we decided to deal with the situation later. We kayaked in to the shore. The sand was soft and littered with shells and coral rubble. The water was calm and warm, and Matthew enjoyed playing in the sea while Katya paced the length of the beach many times. Peter and I looked for shells and found a great variety of beautiful conch, whelks and other shells.

Had we realized how difficult re-anchoring would be, we wouldn’t have put it off. We made six or seven attempts before we found a place where the anchor would hold. The wind was up to 20-25 knots again as the sun set and the light faded and our level of frustration rose. I was imagining the options: drifting all night or deciding to pick up and night-sail to our next destination. Fortunately, success came at last in 7 ½ feet of water in the dark and we were able to rest at anchor in only slightly rolly seas.

May 3, 2008 (Sat.) – Because the anchorage off French Cay was a bit bouncy since the island was not high enough to stop the 20-25 knots of wind, we took off at 8:30, after breakfast, hoping to find better protection on the lee side of West Caicos, which has an elevation of about 80 feet. Unfortunately, it was even more bouncy and rocking than French Cay, with wind waves and surge. The skies were overcast, so we did not feel comfortable re-entering the banks for shelter, since coral heads would not be clearly visible without enough sunlight. We decided to have lunch and move on to the Bahamas, a decision made easier by the fact that we were cruising along at about 9 knots on a broad reach.

With sandwiches ready, we sailed away from the Caicos at 1330 hours, and the overnight sailing was much easier than the trip from the Dominican Republic. The interval between the swells was greater and the seas were not confused. Although not as serene as the sail from Bonaire, it was pleasant. Because we hadn’t planned to leave when we did, it was the middle of the night when we encountered Mayaguana, Acklins and Crooked Island, so we passed them by. I was feeling so well, I was able to stand watch for about 4 hours. In fact, I sent Peter back to rest some more when he woke up and came to relieve me after just a couple hours.

May 4, 2008 (Sun.) – When the wind speed decrease to 15-18 knots, by mid-morning, we hoisted the spinnaker for better speed. We arrived and anchored at Port Nelson on Rum Cay in the Bahamas around 1500 hours, leaving the royal blue deep seas for the aquamarine shallow shelf around the island. The kids had homework to do, but Peter and I did a bit of snorkeling on some nearby coral. Noteworthy on this reef exploration were an ocean triggerfish, which has nearly symmetrical dorsal and anal triangular fins set at right angles to the body, looking like sails. Also, there were some yellowhead wrasse; their canary-colored forebodies are separated by a broad black band which encircles their middle, with various shades of iridescent green, blue and violet in horizontal stripes tapering down to their tails.

May 5, 2008 (Mon.) – It was overcast when we awoke, and there were only short periods of sunshine throughout the day. We were going to continue north to Conception Island, but storms with thunder and heavy rain set in before we got underway, so we stayed anchored by this beautiful little island rimmed with fine white sand beaches for another day. It cleared before sundown, and Peter and I went for a swim in the warm water as the surface turned shades of purple and pink.

May 6, 2008 (Tues.) – There was not enough wind to sail, so we motored for nearly four hours to Conception Island, finding it to be one of the most beautiful places we have ever been. We anchored between the pristine, long white beach, starkly contrasted with the turquoise water and green trees behind, and a large reef. We could easily swim to shore to walk or to the coral to snorkel. Katya took a long walk. Peter had to repair Matthew’s mask, and then the two of them joined me on the reef. They didn’t stay in the water as long as I did. It was so stunning that I swam and floated until my mouth was tired of clenching my snorkel.

The water was pure and clear and visibility was astounding. The predominant colors of the various species of stony coral--fire, lace, brain, pillar, branching, plate, sheet and flower--were shades of ochre, gold, vermillion, khaki, olive, tan, and chartreuse with occasional orange and scarlet highlights. Large sea fans and other gorgonians with bright purple branches abounded. Pure white sand surrounded the reefs in gentle patterns of ridges and troughs and reflected the honeycomb pattern of ripples and sunlight from the surface. The fish swam around, above and through the reef. Many of them, such as the fairy basslets, parrotfish, blue chromis, blue tang, squirrelfish, and cardinal fish numbered in the hundreds or perhaps thousands and stood out in stark contrast to the more muted shades of the coral. I saw two large Nassau groupers and one Yellowfin grouper, also about 2 to 3 feet long. There was one ocean triggerfish gliding at the boundary of sand and coral. Flitting and flirting were two disc-shaped Spotfin Butterflyfish, with white bodies trimmed in vibrant yellow. This fish is distinguished by a black stripe running vertically on its head, right through its eye, and a tiny black dot on the rear part of its yellow dorsal fin. Coming in and out from under the ledges were two types of boxfish. The smooth trunkfish is easily recognized by its triangular shape and white spots which change to a honeycomb pattern on its side. The honeycomb cowfish, with its yellow, black and white pentagonal pattern and feathery fan tail is similar but distinct with a spine above each eye. I also found one of my favorite fish, a porcupinefish. Broad, delicate fins flutter about its plump, spotted body, and two large bluish-black eyes adorn its broad head and face. Its whitish mouth is always slightly open in a shy smile as it hovers and peeks out from under ledges, probably wary but seeming to want to become friends.

We were getting down to the very last of our food supplies. In fact, we had even less than what we had in the Venezuelan islands. We had already run out of bread. We hadn’t been able to buy milk since we were in Bonaire. The last of the produce from Samana was gone. We still had pasta, sauce and parmesan, but I became quite creative, making a improvised version of egg-drop soup with ramen noodles and garlic toast with the very last clove of garlic and the ends of loaves of bread. (It was a hit, so I may never toss out the heels again.) After we savored the food we had, we watched the large orange orb of the sun sink into a cloudless horizon, and Peter is sure that he finally saw the elusive green flash.

Close to a new moon, the stars were brilliant, and Peter and I decided to sleep on deck, something we had never done. It was a lovely way to fall asleep, but, without covers, we both got cold sometime in the night and retreated to our bed.

May 7, 2008 (Wed.) – Peter was very worried that we might be in trouble since we had been in the Bahamas for a few days and had stopped at two islands without stopping first at a port of entry to clear customs and immigration. His anxiety bordered on paranoia. He was sure that a low-flying plane which flew directly over us at anchor in Rum Cay was spying on us! Therefore, after our meager breakfast of boiled eggs and the last of the applesauce for the kids, he was ready to pull up anchor and get to Georgetown as quickly as possible. Paradise had a strong hold on me, however, and I insisted on snorkeling again while he did the dishes and got everything ready.

Once again, I observed a Yellowfin and a Nassau grouper. The blue chromis, fairy basslets, and cocoa damselfish seemed even more numerous and were mesmerizing in the shades of violet, yellow and blue. A large dog snapper drifted by a few times. Although they were present before, I’m sure, I was thrilled to spot and accurately identify two types of black and yellow fish, the yellowtail hamlet and the aptly named rock beauty.

We pulled up anchor at 0830 hours and motored for six hours across the Exuma Sound to Elizabeth Harbour. It was hot since the following wind was nullified by our speed, and it was boring. We did all kinds of small tasks to pass the time. Since the freezer was empty, I chipped away at ice to help defrost it. This is harder than it may seem, as the freezer is quite deep and even lying on the countertop, I could not reach all the way down to the bottom with the ice pick.

When we arrived, Peter was so anxious and rushed that he took us quite close to shore and we ended up anchoring in 6 feet of water; in other words, the keel was sitting on the bottom! He made himself presentable, gathered up our documents and money, and proceeded to customs with trepidation, only to find a very nice woman who did indeed ask where we had been for the last week but did not interrogate him, levy an enormous fine or throw him in jail! As I had pointed out repeatedly, there were no reconnaissance planes or spy boats disguised as fishing trawlers tracking our movements.

He returned and we all jumped in the dinghy and headed for FOOD! The Exuma Market is one of the best on the islands even though it’s small. We loaded a cart with milk, eggs, bread, sodas, fruits and vegetables, soup and other package foods, toilet paper, paper towels and snacks with great delight.

We returned to Epicurus; the tide had risen and we were able to pull up anchor and move across the harbor to the main anchorage in front of Volleyball Beach, where we were greeted by a shark and a dolphin who came so close we could have reached out and petted it. The anchorage was practically deserted. Almost everyone had already started heading north or south for the hurricane season.

We were still putting away all the food and thinking about dinner when two 12-year-old twins from a nearby boat spotted kids on our boat and dinghied over. They invited Katya and Matthew over to watch a movie. Katya quickly ate a can of tuna and Matthew had a few Vienna sausages, and off they went, not returning until 11 p.m., long after I had gone to bed. Matthew was particularly thrilled to have other kids around. Katya is much more moderate in her demonstration of any excitement.

May 8, 2008 (Thurs.) – Peter patched the dinghy, and when it was dry, we all took a trip into town. We had to visit the immigration office, and the kids were excited about getting books from the library, which is a very nice little place with a good selection of reading material. It was hot in town, and we were quite hungry by the time we returned to Epicurus, so we made the quickest lunch we could, happy to have a selection of food.

We usually do school work about five hours a day. Since companionship was available, we decided to spread Thursday and Friday’s work out over the weekend, into four parts, so Katya and Matthew could play with Justin and Josie. I spent the early afternoon teaching and doing laundry. Our kids were just getting ready to dinghy over to Rio Luna, when they came to us. The dads took the kids to the beach, and I kayaked in after I finished hanging the laundry from the life lines.

The kids greeted me and announced their plan to gather games and DVDs from the other boat and spend the rest of the day on ours. I had to kayak back to our boat to get our dinghy to provide transportation for the four of them from the beach, to Rio Luna and then to our boat. The twins’ parents radioed around 6 p.m. that they were coming to retrieve them, but the four kids had just started watching a movie after playing a long game of Clue, so we invited the parents over. The four adults had drinks and snacks on deck for a couple hours while the kids finished the movie, then played poker and a game of Aggravation before the party finally broke up around 8:30.

Two glasses of wine had made me very sleepy, so I prepared dinner, ate mine and went to bed, leaving the rest of them to fend for themselves.

Enjoying Bonaire

2008-04-19T07:47:00.000-07:00

April 16, 2008 – We have enjoyed spending more time in Bonaire, back on the dock, although we are extremely frustrated by the inability of the local UPS office to deliver our autopilot to us, since it clearly has been languishing in customs for over a week.

While we were on the mooring ball a couple days ago, the generator started making a horrendous noise. Of course, Peter shut it off immediately and quickly discovered that the fresh water pump was not working. The last couple days, Peter and Willy from the South African boat two slips away worked on it. Peter was able to find a spare among the great number of spare parts stashed in various places throughout the boat. A bolt broke as he was removing the old one, but the two mechanically inclined men managed to drill a new hole and carefully reassemble the works so that it works better than ever. Even though we have shore power here, it’s 50 cycles and the refrigeration prefers 60, so we are running the generator an hour or so a day now just to keep our food fresh.

Another cruise ship came in to port for a few hours, disgorging hundreds of tourists. When a cruise ship is here, the square in front of the north pier where it is berthed fills up with vendors of arts and crafts. Although there is some kitsch, there is actually nice hand-crafted jewelry and other items at reasonable costs. The kids and I strolled through in the late morning on the way to the post office and the grocery store. We go to the store daily with our own bags since it’s hard to carry too much for four or five blocks.

After snorkeling with Matthew in the afternoon and reading a book lying on the foredeck as I dried off, I walked the few blocks to the market on my own. It was quite a treat to be by myself. I enjoyed talking with the friendly vendors, one of whom told me about a couple good snorkeling spots I haven’t visited yet, and actually buying a few items. I stopped on the way back to make reservations at La Flamboyant, where we went for dinner with Willy and his wife Lynn in the evening.

Snorkeling continued to be wonderful. Yesterday I saw an extraordinary shrimp with a tiny body, smaller than a penny, and disproportionately long legs. Today, Matthew and I spotted the white-spotted filefish in its orange phase again as well as dozens of various kinds of parrotfish, which delight Matthew. There were juvenile, intermediate and adult yellowtail damselfish. The tiny young ones, just a couple inches long, are oval-shaped and their dark blue bodies are covered with iridescent light blue spots. The tail is translucent. At the intermediate stage, the jewel-like blue spots are found only along the top, but the tail has become bright yellow. By adulthood, the speckles have faded, but the yellow tail flashes distinctively at the back of the bluish-black fish.

We also found a large permit swimming over the sandy bottom, the first we’ve ever seen, and tiny fairy basslets on the reef. Returning to the boat, we found a large snapper under out keel as well as a great barracuda. I’m told there are turtles and toadfish at the two new snorkeling areas. More to look forward to!

April 17, 2008 – Today it was quite windy, making it nice and cool on the boat although it still felt hot away from the waterfront. Most of the day was spent with school work.
The UPS man finally delivered the package with the autopilot. Upon opening it, Peter was quite dismayed to find that the circuit diagram and the spare parts had not been included, meaning we have waited and Peter has dealt with the bureaucracy of customs only to get nothing other than the malfunctioning autopilot back. Peter diligently worked with it most of the day, and it seems to work right now. The fault has always been intermittent and has just been occurring more and more frequently. The man at the repair facility in Canada responded to Peter’s scathing e-mail today with a mea culpa, offering to send the parts at the company’s expense. He just has no idea how long it takes to receive packages here, and we can’t wait another week or two before heading north. We hope it at least keeps working for the next couple long passages.

Peter and I escaped from our boat maintenance and teaching duties around 5 p.m. and snorkeled for a while. There were about four dozen squid under the dock in a couple groups. We found a number of large horse-eyed jacks with bulging black eyes and yellow tails swimming around the boat. Swimming south along the reef bordering the waterfront, we saw numerous eels, mostly green and spotted morays, but I also encountered a chain moray. There was also a tarpon, the big permit, and a barracuda, not to mention the usual suspects—parrotfish, tangs, doctorfish, angelfish, yellowtail snappers, etc. There were quite a few orange-spotted filefish with white spots on the upper base of their tail and pail horizontal stripes (not to be confused with the larger white-spotted filefish in its orange phase). Around Karel’s pier, we saw many schools consisting of hundreds of small fish, probably herrings, as well yet another new fish for us, about a two-foot black margate. We both saw a porcupine fish, but Peter missed seeing the reddish, prickly balloonfish hiding under a ledge.

April 18, 2008 – Peter continued to fiddle with the autopilot, trying to locate the source of the intermittent fault. The kids and I kept busy with school, although we took a long break in the early afternoon so that Matthew and I could snorkel. Katya just swam a little since she does not enjoy looking at the beautiful fish. (This is totally incomprehensible to the rest of us.) We saw a lot of bicolor damselfish and bar jack and white mullets and one rock hind as well as two black margates. Around the pier, there were rivers of fish, as Matthew called them, which he repeatedly tried to join by diving into the midst of them, only dispersing the schools of herring. Matthew found an interesting caterpillar-like creature on the coral rubble.

Right before sunset, Peter and I snorkeled along the waterfront. This is when nocturnal creatures begin to stir. Black-spined sea urchins were creeping out from under the ledges and coral reefs. Many eels had left their hiding places, and we spotted a goldentail moray in addition to the usual spotted morays, green morays, purplemouth morays and chain morays. In addition, we found a blue and red shrimp snapping its pincers at us and a crab with a tiny body and skinny golden legs. The only fish not around today was the permit.

I’m sure that many of the fish I “discover” each day have been present before. However, every day I study the fish book, and as my knowledge of the variety of fish increases, my perception rises.

We went to dinner at La Guernica again in the evening. As usual, the food and service were excellent. Peter raved about the sauces and the perfection of cooking of the fish. The kids rushed back to the boat to enjoy the internet while we have it as soon as they finished eating, and Peter and I took our time and then walked along the waterfront. This place has a wonderful, relaxed ambiance. We plan to leave the day after tomorrow. Bonaire will be one of the places in the Caribbean which we would look forward to visiting again.

2008-04-14T19:04:00.001-07:00

On Tuesday, March 25, as we were getting ready to leave Klein Curacao, a pod of small dolphins swam by close to the stern, providing a wonderful photo opportunity. Our departure was delayed when I accidentally dropped the boat hook overboard from the bow as I was getting ready to release us from the mooring ball. Peter was able to locate it about 50 or 60 feet below the starboard side but was unable to free dive that deep to retrieve it, and getting the snuba ready would have made our start too late, so we abandoned it as flotsam.

The sail to Bonaire was pleasant. As we approached, we contacted the port authorities and learned that Epicurus exceeds the maximum boat length for the mooring balls. Anchoring is prohibited around Bonaire since the surrounding waters are all included in the marine park, so we had no choice but to go to a marina. Peter had heard about a place near the center of town in the capital, Kralendijk, where sailboats could tie up stern-to but he couldn’t remember the details. We decided our only choice was to go to Harbor Village Marina, which charged $1.85/foot for dockage. Unlike in the U.S., water and electricity are almost always extra at marinas in the Caribbean, so it cost over $100 a night just to tie up to a dock and have showers.

We all walked into town, passing the small dock Peter had heard about from yachties in Venezuela. We spoke with the owner of Bonaire Nautico Marina, who told us we were welcome there and the cost was $7 a night, regardless of size! What a deal! Although the upscale marina was pleasant and more protected from waves and surge, we preferred Bonaire Nautico not just because of the price but because the location was more convenient to town and the owner was such a nice man.

The four kids and I watched a huge cruise ship casting off and leaving port from the North Pier as Peter cleared customs, and we found the supermarket and bought some more bread, juice and other items while he went to immigration. We had not had a proper lunch while sailing, and it was already after 1800 hours, so we selected a restaurant on a pier over the water for dinner (Karel’s). The sunset was gorgeous, the ambiance was relaxed, and the food was excellent. The Rudd boys, almost always energetic, initiated a game of tag on the walk back to the boat, which kept our kids from lagging and complaining of being too tired to go on.

On Wednesday, March 26, we took our time getting ready—all of us enjoying proper showers in the marina restrooms. It should have been a smooth departure, and I decided to take the helm. However, with Peter directing and scrutinizing my every move (and not deploying the running fender at the port stern corner as he was supposed to), I messed up following his instructions rather than doing what I would have done on my own and managed to crush the boat into the dock, displacing the chalk but otherwise causing no damage.

We smoothly docked at Bonaire Nautico about 15 minutes later. Large parrotfish and other fish were abundant all around the boat in the perfectly clear water. After a bit of school and lunch, we all took off in the dinghy for a nearby snorkeling spot where we saw fish large and small including drums, a moray eel and a goldspotted eel, not to mention a reclusive scorpionfish, which I approached closely to point out to the others, not realizing that it has venomous spines. We had never seen one before in the Caribbean. Swimming back to the dinghy, Peter and I saw another fish which was new to us, and we identified it as a whitespotted filefish. We are putting Humann and Deloach’s Reef Fish Identification for Florida, the Caribbean and the Bahamas to good use. I love to return to the boat and leaf through the colorful pages to read again about all the fish I have just seen. In Bonaire, there are nearly every type of parrotfish, tangs, surgeonfish, angelfish, butterflyfish, jacks, grunts, trumpetfish, cornetfish, snappers, damselfish, basslets wrasses, blueheads, cardinalfish, squirrelfish, gobies, flounders, snakefish, trunkfish, triggerfish, goatfish, barracuda and drums—and these are only the ones that I can readily identify!

That evening, we went to It Rains Fishes, the restaurant across the one-lane road which runs along the waterfront, but were told that reservations where needed. We made them for the next evening and walked a block or so along the waterfront to La Guernica, a tapas restaurant, where we were seated in a pleasant corner on the verandah, the children enjoying the cushioned seating arrangement. The food was even better than what we had eaten the previous evening, and the three boys shared and feasted on a variety of tapas. After the main course, we all had delectable deserts, beautifully presented. That night, the boat rocked gently in the small waves and we ignored the horrendous off-key karaoke singing emanating from the bar on the pier to the south of us and managed to sleep well.

We took two trips in the dinghy on Thursday, March 27, to snorkeling spots further north. (Actually the Rudd boys kayaked to the second spot, but we towed them most of the way back.) At the second place, we encountered a large tarpon right by the mooring ball. It was the largest fish we have ever swum with. As usual, there were plenty of colorful parrotfish, which delight the kids.

We just managed to get ourselves ready for dinner at 6:30 and were seated as the sun set in glorious strata of vermillion, orange and gold. After ordering, we passed the time playing a game of Pass the Pigs. Once again, the food was excellent. After dinner, Henry entertained us on the dock with his lighted poi balls.

Peter went to customs and immigration to clear out and I made a trip to the store for pastries for breakfast on Friday morning, March 28. As we were finishing our meal, we were boarded, as were the other boats at the dock, by the Coast Guard, doing routine inspections. Then the kids did a bit of school work while we got the boat ready for departure to Curacao. Just before leaving, Peter walked the few blocks to customs to retrieve our flare guns, which they retained as weapons during our stay (the first time that has happened). We had a pleasant downwind sail to Curacao, sometimes sailing wing-and-wing, although swells made it a bit difficult to keep the sails both full dead downwind.En route, the Rudd boys and Peter made another attempt to catch fish, with no luck. After we dropped anchor in the same place in Spanish Wells from which we had departed four and a half days before, we ate grilled cheese sandwiches and chicken noodle soup—nourishing but not nearly as exotic as dinner the previous three nights.

On Saturday, March 29, Katya accompanied Peter into Willamsted to clear in with customs and immigration. William and Henry finally had some success catching small fish from the stern of the boat but decided they were not keepers, so we ate pasta again for dinner.

Sunday, March 30, was the last day the Rudd boys were with us. A few final games of chess were played and they had a last paddle around the bay. With their fake letter of permission from their mother stating they were authorized to travel without adult supervision, they left with Peter for the airport. The authenticity of the document was questioned but they made it through to their flight, although they sent word back to Peter, who was waiting outside security, that they were being detained—an early April’s Fool joke!

We stayed anchored in Spanish Waters for another eight days taking care of ordinary tasks such as boat maintenance, laundry (that had piled up for three weeks and took three afternoons to do), grocery shopping and homeschooling. (We have been really good about keeping up so that we can be finished by the end of May.) The kids took windsurfing lessons for four days and did quite well. Matthew is much more enthusiastic than Katya and kept going after the lessons were over until he had blisters on his hands. Peter also got in a few hours of windsurfing, although he was wounded the first day when he stepped on a sea urchin. We returned a couple times to the sunken tugboat to snorkel during that week. Matthew and I spotted an octopus, but it disappeared before we could point it out to Katya.

We had planned to leave for a return visit to the island of Bonaire, which we fell in love with, on Monday, April 7, but we decided to wait until Tuesday for a moderation in the wind velocity and a decrease in the sea state. Also, we needed to make a trip into Willemstad to buy a new camera. On Sunday, while Peter was in town clearing out at customs and immigration, I took the dinghy out to take photographs of the kids on their last day of lessons. Since I wasn’t going far and wasn’t expecting to get water in the dinghy, I didn’t put the camera in a ziplock bag. I managed to zip around and get a lot of pictures without getting the camera wet. It would have been fine except for our rescue of a disabled windsurfer who had pulled a hamstring and been pushed around the point into our anchorage where he couldn’t be seen by the windsurfing school staff. I put the camera bag in the forward locker to keep it from getting wet before we pulled his board and him on board. What I didn’t take into account was the fact that the additional weight and the maneuvering through the waves to get him on before he ran into a rocky lee shore pushed down the bow, allowing water in to the locker. When we got back to Epicurus, I found the camera bag half-submerged in salt water.

I rinsed it off with fresh water but was afraid that water had gotten inside the outer casing. At home, I know where the tiny Phillips screwdrivers are, but not on the boat. I had no way of contacting Peter, so I got on channel 72 and hailed anyone in the anchorage who could help me. In anchorages such as Spanish Waters in Curacao, there is a great sense of community among the transient cruisers and someone is always monitoring the radio. I had an immediate response and made a quick dinghy trip to another boat to borrow tools.

I left the camera open to dry until Peter returned. We were able to get it to work well enough to download from the memory card, but the lens will not stay open. The little motor whirrs but nothing happens.

Luckily, Willemstad is a large port and caters to the cruise ship industry as well, so we were able to locate a number of stores with cameras at reasonable prices. We had just about decided on one but thought it better to discuss the options over lunch. Then we got side-tracked on an unproductive detour to the “Free Zone,” an industrial area where Peter hoped to find a booster for the wireless internet connector. (He did find one after we got lost a time or two, but it was quite expensive and not water-resistant, so we didn’t buy it.) When we returned to lovely downtown Willamsted and went to the upscale jewelry store where we had decided to purchase the camera, we were told that they had sold the last two models. The manager said she would check one more time. She made a call and then said that she would be right back. She left by the front entrance just as I was exiting to take the kids down the street to a store where they had found PlayStation2 games. I noticed that she was headed for the electronics store that also had the camera we wanted. But she came back and said that our choice could not be found in the storeroom. So, we went to the electronics store, run by Indians (as was the jewelry store), and they made a call to the storeroom and, what do you know, they had the newer model! It only cost a little more! Since the two stores are in buildings that are within the same block, we assume that they are owned and operated by the same extended family of merchants and found the charade of trying to locate the camera quite amusing.

We had a nice sail to Kralendijk (coral dyke), Bonaire on Tuesday, April 8. We are still amazed at the speed we can obtain with only two headsails even when heading up into wind. We had thought we might have to stop again at Klein Curacao, but we made it all the way under sail to the dock at Bonaire Nautico in less than nine hours. Peter and I celebrated by feeding the kids chicken nuggets and leaving them to amuse themselves with their new video games on the boat while we had a quiet evening out by ourselves at a lovely little place called La Flamoyant. The food and the service were excellent!

It is so pleasant to be in a place that is safe. We don’t close up the boat and lock ourselves in at night and we leave the dinghy in the water with the engine still on board. Also, this little city has about everything you could want, including internet and an abundance of great, small restaurants. There are two grocery stores within a few blocks of the waterfront. The water is pristine; the sky is bright blue; it is hot but not too hot. We jump off the side of the boat and find fish we have never seen before every day. The coral is healthy and the visibility is superb.

We stayed on the dock, along with a boat from Italy and one from South Africa, for three nights. The couple from South Africa came over for drinks on Wednesday evening. The woman is suffering extreme anxiety attacks and is not able to handle the uncertainty of sailing. So much depends on the weather, the seas and nothing breaking on the boat! It’s difficult to predict when you can get to a destination and almost impossible to know if the supplies you need or want will be available at the places you visit. In places such as Venezuela, the value of world currencies fluctuates unpredictably. They had found their American dollars worth a lot less than we had encountered just a few weeks earlier. Since the rand is not a strong currency, they are traveling on a limited budget, so the stress of worrying about having enough funds is compounding the anxiety about the day-to-day future. The wife is ready to give up. I can sympathize; Peter has noted that I have become quite relaxed compared to a couple years ago about uncertain itineraries. I feel so fortunate that I don’t have to worry about whether we can afford food—only if we can find it! We also can afford luxuries such as restaurants and kiteboarding and windsurfing lessons and marinas—not to mention the upcoming trip to Disney World, which is now only seven weeks away. (The kids are counting the days.)

Fancy power fishing boats from Curacao have long-term leases for the slips at Bonaire Nautico Marina and use them on the weekends, so those of us who enjoy the easy access to town and the absurdly cheap daily rates have to vacate the premises on Fridays. We learned that the maximum boat length for mooring is not really enforced, so we are now on a mooring ball not far from the dock—close enough to still pick up the internet! While picking up the mooring line, Peter dropped the boat hook over the side this time! Luckily, the new one floats!

The depth at the bow is about 20-30 feet and greater than about 60 feet at the stern, and we can see to the bottom clearly. Literally hundreds and hundreds of fish are directly under our keel! Although we have to dinghy the short distance to the dock to get ashore from here, the advantages are there are no mosquitoes (which we consider only a minor drawback on shore) and the decibel level of the music from the parties at the restaurants and bars south of the dock at night is significantly decreased so getting to sleep is easier.

Saturday morning (April 12), we dinghied over to Klein Bonaire, a large uninhabited island, part of the marine park. We pulled up on the soft, white sand and walked as far as we could in one direction. While Katya (who does not seem to enjoy snorkeling) and Matthew explored the shore, Peter and I snorkeled, drifting with the current back to the spot where the dinghy was. We found the most enormous blue parrot fish we had ever encountered and a vast array of colorful coral. All along Bonaire, the sea bed slopes down from the fringe reef at about a 45 degree angle and is covered with live coral as far as the eye can see (which is quite far). Matthew joined us as we finished, but it was impossible for him to swim against the current, so he and I walked back along the beach and snorkeled the length together. Surprisingly, fish often stay in about the same place, sometimes for days or weeks or forever, so we were able to find the large parrotfish again easily. After Matthew finished his exploration with me, I swam along the same length of the reef one more time. This time I spotted a white-spotted file fish in its striking orange phase. Matthew and I saw one yesterday as we were snorkeling close to shore, and I saw a mature one twice its size a few days ago under the dock. The wonderful thing about snorkeling is that it is possible to find new things all the time and still encounter eels and some types of fish exactly where they were before, even days before.

Peter and I snorkeled from the boat to shore in the late afternoon. There is a little reef just south of us by shore that has an abundance of fish. When we got back to the boat, once again I found fish I had not seen before. A large school of creole wrasse was around the hull. I learned that they are often seen around drop-offs in the late afternoon, where they spawn daily. These purplish-blue fish have a dominant deep purple mark around their white lips and yellow on their lower rear bodies.

In the evening, we went in to the dock to see what fish had been caught in the fishing tournament. The largest, which was being cleaned and cut when we arrived, was a 159 pound yellow-fin tuna. Since we were on shore, we walked around and found a little restaurant called Bobbejan (baboon), which had a simple menu and excellent food. My gado-gado was wonderful. After dinner, the kids and Peter had ice cream cones on the waterfront.

On Sunday, April 13, the kids worked on writing assignments. (I give them homework on the weekends now to get them used to real school life.) I did laundry and Peter took apart one winch to clean and lubricate it. (A dozen more left to go!) I snorkeled over to the reef in the afternoon. Bonefish dug their snouts deep into the sandy bottom, feeding, If presume. Two large pale-striped trumpetfish, one reddish and the other yellow, floated vertically, their translucent tiny anal fins fluttering. Pipefish or sennets glided just beneath the surface of the water. The fat green moray was still in his usual place, nearly hidden, wedged under a ledge. Spotted and smooth trunkfish wandered about individually. The dusky damselfish Peter had spotted yesterday was still defending its tiny purple eggs. Angelfish, butterflyfish, cardinal fish, wrasses, parrotfish, grunts sergeant majors, snappers and many other types of fish in adult and juvenile stages roamed the reef. I started looking more closely at the smaller fish and identified a juvenile yellow and white puddingwife with its distinctive bluish-black spot on its mid-back extending onto the dorsal fin as well as the beautiful little juvenile clown wrasse with clearly delineated stripes of black, yellow and red from snout to tail above a brilliant white belly. On returning to the boat, I looked for the creole wrasse but found instead a school of brown chromis, which have a round black spot in front of the base of their pectoral fins. Their dorsal and forked tail fins are trimmed in bright yellow.

Today (Monday, April 14), it was back to school work and trying to retrieve the autopilot from the bureaucratic quagmire of customs. UPS has now promised to deliver it tomorrow. We’ll see!

Peter and I used the snuba this afternoon to go 40 or 50 feet below the surface off the stern. At that depth, there are bigger fish and bigger coral formations as well as giant sponges. The rich lavender tube sponges grow in bunches up to four or five feet high in places, and everywhere there are brain corals, star corals, cup corals and other varieties. Peter also used the snuba for it intended purpose on the boat, to clean things on the bottom. He scrubbed the barnacles off the propeller today.

We returned to the dock before sunset, mainly to get shore power, water and internet access on both computers (The older Dell couldn’t pick it up on the mooring ball even though the Apple had no problem.) and to be at a place where the UPS delivery man can find us. It’s quiet in town tonight so far; there is no loud music at all.

So, life is good here and we will stay until the autopilot is delivered and Peter repairs it. Unfortunately, the autopilot is not repaired since the shop in Canada couldn’t duplicate the problem. We hope that they have sent the spare parts and circuit diagram that Peter requested with our autopilot so that Peter can isolate the problem and fix it himself. I don’t want to even think about the possibility of sailing without crew for a few days and nights to the Greater Antilles without an autopilot!

We have to be in Georgetown in the Bahamas by the second weekend in May to pick up Peter’s cousin Desmond, who will be joining us for a week. We are all looking forward to his company in the Exumas.

Every time I go up on deck or look out one of the windows from down below, I am stunned again by the clarity of light and the beautiful color of the water. I wonder if people who are here for a long time (or for life) ever get used to it or take it for granted.

2008-03-28T03:12:00.000-07:00

On Sunday, Feb. 17, we left Clark’s Court Marina on the south coast of Grenada just as the sun set, merely committing to an attempt of a night crossing to Trinidad, agreed that we would turn around if conditions were too rough. The wind was fairly steady at around 20 knots, and the seas were not as high as we expected, so, despite the fact that none of us felt particularly well in the chop, we radioed back that we were going to commit. I was the one down below making the radio call, and I stayed down a bit too long. Grabbing the Dramamine, I clambered up the companionway and told the kids to get out of my way quickly as I made my way to the lee side just in time. No one felt well, but I was the only one to lose my dinner.

We soon realized that we were going to reach Trinidad well before daylight as we sliced through the waves at 8 to 8 ½ knots with a reef in the main and the staysail up. The gibbous moon illuminated the surface of the sea, as did the enormous oil platforms we passed as we went further south. The kids slept on the bench seat cushions and I slept on the cockpit floor as Peter took the first watch under conditions which, had it not been our first real sail of the season, would have seemed great. My watch began at 1 a.m. and by 2:00, the lights of Trinidad could be seen, and by 3:00, the outlines of the mountains rose above the horizon. Peter woke up and decided to heave-to until daylight. We drifted slowly north, and at 6:00, I was the first up; we got under way again. I slept some more as Matthew helped Peter. The winds had moderated, so Peter lowered the staysail and put up the genoa to maintain speed.

The Mouth of the Dragon, the entrance to the Gulf of Paria, sounds frightening, but conditions were smooth in the Boca de Monos and we breezed through and went into Chaguaramas to clear customs and immigration. We decided it would be better to be on a dock in order for Peter to get mechanics on board, so we took a slip at the Crew’s Inn Marina. We had expected Chaguaramas to be truly ugly because it is known for its boatyards, not its ambiance, but the marina seemed to be situated in a nice, attractive place.

We spent two days there, and Peter was able to get some things accomplished, and we arranged to go back and rent a car for the weekend so we can explore the island by land.

Wednesday afternoon, Feb. 20, we left the dock and motored the short distance around the headland to Scotland Bay off Boca de Monos in order to have darkness for observing the total eclipse of the moon. This was a lovely, flat anchorage, surrounded by jungle inhabited by howler monkeys and many birds, including large parrots which flashed their bright chartreuse plumage as they winged in to roost in the trees by the shore for the night. Conditions were perfect for observing the lunar eclipse as we watched the bright white disk pale to dull burnt orange as the curvature of the earth crept across the orb. The greatest eclipse was after 11 p.m., so we stayed up quite late. Cruisers are usually asleep around 9 p.m., living more by sunrise and sunset than the clock.

We stayed for two days at Scotland Bay, which was the sight of a rest and recreation facility for US troops during WWII. There are no traces other than a few concrete piers and steps along the shore. Neglect allowed the jungle to consume the buildings and roads. The locals use the pebbly beaches for camping, fishing and relaxing—and they seem to leave all their trash behind. It doesn’t seem to bother them to be surrounded by their own and former visitors’ discarded bottles, bags and debris. It would be truly scenic without the refuse.

We returned to Crew’s Inn Marina on Friday, Feb. 22, in the late afternoon. There was one girl, around 8 or 9, who our kids had met at the marina, and she came over to watch a DVD. Our plans for the weekend were to go to the capital, Port of Spain, and shop for provisions on Saturday and explore the natural areas of the island on Sunday. Because rental car companies close at noon on Saturday and are not open at all on Sunday, we had to rent a car for two days even though we planned to take the bus to town on Saturday. We (particularly me) were frustrated and wasted most of the morning getting a rental car since the woman at the agency by the marina was foolish enough to lock herself out of her office (after Peter had already waited in line behind other customers for nearly an hour). We had to walk to another marina to find and negotiate for a car.

Since we had the car, we drove to Port of Spain, about ½ hour drive to the east. Traffic is described as horrendous during the week, but the roads were not crowded on Saturday. Neither was downtown Port of Spain; in fact, it was rather deserted and visually unimpressive. We went in the Red House, the building housing the parliament. It had a large enclosed courtyard with no artistic flair. There are no embellishments, color, murals, statues or paintings revealing anything at all about Trinidad and Tobago’s history, traditions or culture. We walked along Frederick Street, described in the guide books as a vibrant shopping area. The bland storefronts displayed inexpensive (should I say cheap?) merchandise in the manner of old general stores. A few people were out, but it was quite quiet. We made it to the historical museum, which was low-key but had informative and interesting exhibits on the geology of the area, including the oil and gas reserves; the political and social history of the country, including depictions of the grandeur of the colonial lifestyle for those in the upper classes; and the history of the music of Trinidad, including the development of the pan drums. The kids found most fascinating the displays of actual costumes and the photographs of elaborate, colorful costumes from Carnival.

By this time, we were quite hungry, and the friendly guard at the museum recommended the only place nearby actually open, T.G.I. Friday’s! Most people come out in the evening, he said, and that was when restaurants were open, but we were advised to avoid the city after dark.

After a good lunch and a rest, we were revived after our walking and standing around in the museum, and we headed for the zoo. It was actually larger than we expected, but most of the animals were kept in cages that zoos in the U.S. would consider entirely too small. There were agoutis, a caiman, tropical birds, peccaries, snakes and lizards as well as cats, which were of the most interest to the kids. Peter and I were most interested in seeing the animals which are native to Trinidad and South America. The kids were most attracted to the cats, even though the ocelot was the only once native to this area of the world. The African lions and Siberian tiger were the big draw for them. The zoo is surrounded by the botanical gardens, which appeared to be well-designed and well-maintained, but we didn’t have time to stroll along the paths.

We drove back toward the waterfront and the main highway south along Charlotte Street. Now this street was hopping! We drove slowly through; pedestrians were out in throngs. The shops were open and in front of these, both sides of the narrow street were lined with the stalls of vendors of fruits and vegetables. We felt safe in the car but would have felt overwhelmed and afraid of robbery had we been walking. The produce looked enticing, however, and the traffic was moving slowly enough that we could stop and buy tomatoes, portugals (a local citrus fruit like tangerines), and bananas through the car window.

We stopped at a large supermarket at a modern mall on the way back to the marina to get provisions. (Yes, they had milk!) Saturday evening must be the prime grocery shopping time, because the only time I have seen longer lines for checking out was when everyone was preparing for a blizzard at Tahoe.

The next day, Sunday, February 24, we visited two of the island’s best natural environments, both of which are protected. The Asa Wright Nature Center is in the mountainous rain forest in the north-central part of Trinidad, reached by highway to Arima and then winding roads up into the jungle. A fine rain fell as we ascended, but luckily for us, since we had forgotten to bring rain jackets, it stopped as we parked. (Going to the rainforest and we forgot to bring raingear—what were we thinking? Or, rather, what was I thinking, since it seems to be my responsibility to remember such things for the whole family!) The main building of the world-famous bird-watching center is a lovely old, sprawling house with a spacious verandah overlooking the rainforest, with bird feeders placed at the next level down to attract the birds for close viewing. Katya was particularly entranced by the brightly-colored specimens of tropical species. All the colors of the spectrum seemed to be represented. My favorite was a quite large bird with the apt common name of yellow-tail. A member of the oriole family, its body is covered with glossy dark plumage, but the long tail is vibrant yellow. It has beady blue eyes. In the highest branches of large trees, these birds build pendulous nests with openings near the top through which they enter. We stayed for a couple hours observing the lush surroundings and birds and enjoyed a delicious lunch in the library.

At 4 p.m., we, along with many other tourists and local people, boarded large pirogues on the Caroni River for a 2 ½ hour exploration of the Caroni Swamp. Our guide was quite good, pointing out a snake coiled in branches above our heads at one point and an armadillo curled up in the crook of a tree at another. I spotted another snake in a tree before the guide! The highlight of the meandering trip through the canals of the swamp was bird-watching. The boats all stop to wait for the flamboyantly colored scarlet ibis, the endangered national bird, along with the white egret, to return to roost on trees on small islands at sunset. First came flocks of herons, which seemed to decorate the green foliage like bright white flowers as they settled in for the night. Suddenly, a dozen or more flashes of red emerged from afar and the first scarlet ibises to be spotted flew to the same place, circling and alighting on the branches. Everyone reacted with “oohs” and “aahs” as if it was the beginning of a fireworks display. Wave after wave of white wings and red wings—never together--caught the last rays of daylight as the egrets and ibises returned to their homes after foraging in the mangroves all day for food. It was a lovely sight.

The next day, we got organized to leave Trinidad, clearing customs and using up the rest of our T&T currency at the marina’s grocery store. Later than scheduled (but not surprisingly for the Caribbean), the radar guy showed up around noon and actually succeeded in fixing the radar with a part from an old radar found at his shop. Of course, we won’t be using the radar as we leave Trinidad and cruise in the waters of Venezuela because we have been told that the pirates (yes, there really are pirates) use passive radar to pick up boats’ signals to find them for attack. This is the first time in over two years that we have trepidation about the places we plan to visit, and I was anxious all day as we prepared to leave Trinidad.

As the sun set on Monday, February 25, we sailed out of Chaguaramas Bay and then headed north for some distance away from the Venezuelan coast, although the direct path to our next destination, the islands of Los Testigos, would have taken us close to shore. We now find we have to add security and crime prevention to the factors of wind and waves and current in setting and steering our course. The trip was uneventful, however, and, with Peter covering most of the night watch as usual, we arrived and anchored on the lee of Isla Testigo Grande at 0930. For the first time this year, we were in crystal clear, turquoise water. What a delight! There were only two other small sailing yachts anchored with a stern line to shore; the rest of the yachties were in the more rolling anchorage a bit farther north off the beach of the tiny town. However, after a couple hours, small fishing boats started to arrive, and we realized that we had usurped their space! However, the men on the half dozen boats did not seem to mind and were quite friendly to us, despite the lack of a common language.

The island has a large sand dune which sweeps up from the windward east side and tapers down over the lee of the main hill. We took our dinghy to the lee shore and slipped and slid, with the sand falling away beneath our feet, up the steep western slope to the top of the hill. The view to the east opened up below us, a vast triangle of sand cascading down to the breakers. Smaller islands dotted the horizon. With ease, we made our way to the sea, where Matthew and Peter frolicked in the waves while Katya and I walked the length of the beach and back.

The next day, our little adventure was to the quiet, small fishing village, a simple row of buildings behind the palms of the white sand beach, open to the air. It was siesta time, and the hammocks hung low and swayed in the breeze. A generator provides all the electricity for the town. There are no cars, although pirogues are ubiquitous. Life is obviously much slower and more simple here than in our world.

Peter decided to ask the pescadores on the boat near ours for a fish to buy. I wrote down some questions and phrases for them to use; Matthew’s pronunciation is better than mine, but he was nervous about actually trying to converse in Spanish. Apparently, oral language failed, but the men and boys were charmed by the blond-haired, fair-skinned boy’s attempts and invited Peter and Matthew on board. They learned that the fishermen go out for about 10 days, working and sleeping on the decks the whole time. The fish are stored in a tank in the center which opens up on the bottom to the sea. Since we had not been to an official port of clearance yet and had not exchanged dollars for bolivars, we had no Venezuelan currency. Peter tried to give them American dollars for a fish, but they insisted on making a gift of the large snapper they offered. Later, Peter took them a gift of rum, which they appreciated and apparently shared with all the fishing boats anchored there for the night.

We were happy to be among them, not only because they were friendly but because we felt safer. However, we began our habit of battening down all the hatches and locking up the dinghy and its engine each night. We put an alarm, an unused item on this boat until now, at the top of the locked companionway. Each night, the horn is by my side of the bed and Peter has a flare gun (with the intent to use it as a weapon if necessary, not as a distress signal). Despite this, my fears of robbers surfaced in my dreams. The first night, I dreamed that I was trying to fight off a robber on board, and I woke up Peter with a violent kick to his shin (after which he woke me up). The next night, I was dreaming I heard footsteps on deck above us and was shaking Peter to wake him up because I couldn’t get my voice to work—until he woke me up. It appears that the greatest threat Peter faces is me in my sleep!

On Thurday, February 28, around 1100 we started to weigh anchor. We had discovered that the chain had wrapped itself around a log on the bottom 22 feet below, so we 45 minutes maneuvering forward and back, to port and to starboard, to disentangle ourselves. By the time we actually got out of the anchorage, we had to reassess our decision to head for Porlamar on Isla Margarita that day and decided it was too late to reach before dark. We turned around and returned to our lovely, cozy anchorage for another night.

The next day, Friday, we pulled up anchor around 0900 and headed out to sea with the wind from the east at 30 knots. How courageous we have become over the last two years! This would have scared me beyond belief before. With that wind, we should have made it to Porlamar in four or five hours. However, the wind abated and shifted, and we had to make several tacks, increasing the distance and time. We knew that Porlamar is not considered a comfortable anchorage, and we realized that we would not get there before the customs and immigration offices closed for the weekend. We changed course, and headed for the north side of Isla Margarita to anchor in the bay off the town of Juangriego for the weekend, unable to go to shore without customs clearance. (We were later told that no one would have checked or cared.)

On Sunday morning, March 2, at 0900, we pulled up anchor and motorsailed upwind to get to the southeast side of the island and Porlamar. Peter was at the wheel and I was reading in the forward cockpit when the poor old mainsail split below the second reef point in a moderate gust. Down it came and we raised the staysail. Later the genoa went up for more speed as we headed south. We realized that there is no choice but to get a new main, so after some debate and correspondence with former owners and Tony, the owner of Maya, a Sundeer, Peter has ordered one to be made in Barbados by Doyle to be shipped to us whenever, wherever we may be where it can be delivered.

Porlamar is an open anchorage with small swells, but it is a nice place. There were about 60 boats there, on the eastern end of the bay. As advised by a French couple on the adjacent yacht at Los Testigos, we sought out Marina Juan, who handles all the paperwork for clearance for the yachties there. It seemed strange to me not to go directly to the customs and immigration offices ourselves, but turning all your documents over to an agent and having them do all the work for a fee is the way it is done here.

We had been told last year by people on another yacht who had spent a lot of time in Venezuela that provisions were readily available and cheap. In fact, everything is very inexpensive here, but the selection of fresh produce is not as good as it is in Grenada and Trinidad and milk cannot be bought anywhere at any price anymore. Hugo Chavez has set price limits on the sale of milk and eggs, supposedly so that poor people can afford to buy them. However, the regulated price is so far below the cost of production, let alone distribution, that the farmers won’t supply the retailers at a loss. Instead, they are shipping the milk out of the country or making milk-based products such as yogurt, the price of which is not regulated. So, there simply is no milk for sale. Eggs can be found being sold directly by the farmers on dusty corner lots in the barrios. Luckily, the bus that transported us to the major, modern shopping mall outside the town stopped on the way back to Marina Juan’s at one of these and we were able to get three dozen eggs for about $3.00.

This is the first place where I have ever been where we exchanged currency on the black market. The term conjures up images of clandestine meetings with nefarious characters in dark, dirty back alleys. In fact, the black market flourishes everywhere, including supermarkets, shops and restaurants. Once again, it is just how things are done here. The exchange rate for foreign currencies to bolivars is set by the government at ridiculously low levels which the banks must use. At the bank, the rate is about 2 ½ bolivars for each dollar. At the supermarket, we paid with a $100 bill and received change in bolivars at a rate of 4.7.

Luckily, there were other children in the anchorage. First, we met a German family who helped us figure out the system here in Venezuela, particularly in Porlamar, for getting food, diesel and water. They have a daughter, Mira, who spent every day with our kids, either on the beach or on our boat. The last day we were there, a French boat came in with two boys Matthew’s age and a younger girl. The five kids all watched a movie on our boat down below (we seem to be the magnet) while the two sets of parents enjoyed conversation and good bottle of wine from Provence on deck. They were just beginning their live-aboard odyssey; the wife, in particular, was interested in how we were coping. Unlike us, they have a couple young men aboard as crew—seven people on a much smaller boat. Compared with most sailing yachts, particularly mono-hulls, the space on our boat seems expansive and provokes envy at times.

We were concerned about staying in Margarita or on the surrounding smaller islands because of the high crime rate. However, we learned from an American couple (actually, Peter learned; he’s the one who is the social butterfly in the anchorages and marinas) who came into Porlamar the day before we planned to leave for Isla Tortuga, that a Russian megayacht was anchored on the western side of Le Coche and was supplying security for the anchorage, so it was perfectly safe. Based on this information, we hauled anchor and motored through the anchorage, waving good-bye to our German and French friends, and sailed there on Thursday, March 6, using only the two headsails and finding they worked quite well. We dropped anchor near the megayacht Solemar, south of Punta Playa, in front of a beautiful white sand beach bordered by four small resorts. This place is a premier kite-boarding spot, which is apparently why the Russian copper magnate had come. He had entirely booked one of the resorts for his friends who flew in to join him and supplied kite-boards, windsurfers and jet skis for them all to enjoy. The area was dotted with colorful sails throughout the day.

Matthew wanted to wind-surf, but we couldn’t convince the outfit that rented gear that he had enough experience and that Peter would provide sufficient supervision in the dinghy for it to be safe, even though there was an off-shore wind. Since that was not an option, he was pleased to accept the alternative for driving a jet-ski for a half-hour.
Peter took Katya out for a few minutes first, then Matthew took control with Peter riding behind him. They both had big smiles on their faces as they whizzed around. Since Le Coche is an up-scale resort, all prices are quoted in dollars or euros and are comparable to those in the U.S. and Europe (in other words, not cheap), so the jetskiing was limited by cost.

Peter had been thinking about giving kite-boarding a try, and it looked exhilarating to be flying above the azure water on the board. We had plans to move on to Tortuga and then Los Roques, perhaps catching up with the French boat with boys so that Matthew could trade more Yu-Gi-Oh! Cards, but I decided that Peter should take lessons for two days as his birthday present. The professionals on the beach were all booked for lessons by the Russians, but a Venezuelan on the yacht anchored ahead of us gave private lessons, so Peter signed up for lessons on Saturday and Sunday. He made a great deal of progress, but the learning curve is steep even for someone with a lot of experience wind-surfing and sailing.

Peter had heard that a local yacht who had taken a few Russians to the island to the west, Cubagua, had been robbed of a dinghy and two outboard engines that weekend. They had requested assistance in making pursuit from the local fisherman, but they understandably refused, stating that they knew the pirates had guns. I was particularly alert on watch that night as we sailed away from Le Coche for Isla La Tortuga. We were still in the “high alert” zone (according to the Venezuelan authorities) until we were well west of Isla Margarita. In fact, we have only heard of piracy on yachts at anchor so we were at less risk traveling. However, we were prepared with a loud distress horn, a one- million candlepower flashlight, and the boat hook to ward off approaching vessels. It certainly seemed strange to have to discuss what actions we would take “if.”

Night sailing is more work now that the auto-pilot, which had been erratic in its performance lately, stopped working all together. Peter has taken it apart and put it back together, but to no avail. So, the wheel must be handled at all times, meaning that the person not on watch has to sleep on deck since the person at the helm cannot make short trips below. It also means that the person on the helm is more isolated; when we can use the auto-pilot, we can sit in the forward cockpit. Even though the other people may be asleep, it feels less lonely.

Right after sunrise, we arrived at Isla La Tortuga on Monday, March 10, after a choppy passage and anchored Playa Caldera. It was a lovely spot, but there was a bit of a swell coming in, so we only stayed for a few hours, long enough for Peter and me to get a little bit of sleep. We went on to a little islet of the northwest coast of Tortuga called Cayo Herradura and found a true tropical paradise and immediately decided to stay through the next day. The curving white-sand beach curved around the anchorage, and there were only two other yachts there and a few fishermen at their camps on shore. The snorkeling on the windward side of the cay was quite good, and we explored the undersea world both days. The nice thing about having our kayak is that there is no need to go to the trouble of getting the dinghy off the foredeck and into the water and lowering the outboard from its aft mount and then reversing the process in the evening for security. (The last two seasons, in safer areas, we always towed the dinghy and left it in the water at night, tied to the stern.) The kayak can be dropped in the water in a minute and is perfect for exploring undeveloped areas.

Tuesday, March 11 was Peter’s birthday, and we couldn’t have found a more beautiful place to enjoy it. In the morning, we walked along the beach. On the southern spit, dozens of pelicans and various shore birds rested, only moving when approached. The fishing camps were at the northern end. At one, the men were quite busy mending nets, hauling them on board the boats and cleaning and preserving fish. An older man deftly cut large fish into equal-sized, large pie-shaped pieces. Another man rinsed them with buckets of salt water. A third arranged them in a spiraling, cylindrical pile, loading handfuls of rock salt on each layer. When finished, the older man completed the process by placing a stretched goat skin over the symmetrically arranged pieces of fish.

Each small fishing camp had a large wooden-planked, tin or wooden roofed building with three sides. Some of the roofs had large pieces of dead coral or rocks on top to hold them down. The fourth side was open to the west and the beach, keeping out the prevailing easterly winds. Most of the work was down outside or in smaller lean-to’s; the main structure was for sleeping in hammocks, eating, relaxing. Two of the camps also had separate little structures mounted on poles containing altars. The Virgin Mary was the predominate figure; there were also candles, shells, and various offerings from the sea. Near the lighthouse there was also a small cemetery, with the few graves covered by mounds of dead coral. There were no tombstones, only wooden crosses made of driftwood.

On our night sail on Tuesday to Los Roques, Peter managed to get “Otto” the auto-pilot to function again briefly. It worked for about two minutes on my watch. (It should be mentioned that my watches are significantly shorter and fewer than Peter’s. He can manage much better without sleep than I can.) Once again, the seas were confused, so it was not a pleasant experience. We entered the beautiful area known as Los Roques through the Boca Del Medio of the Bajo de la Cabecera and dropped anchor inside the reefs on Wednesday morning, March 12. It always seems strange to anchor using reefs and not land for protection. It seems quite exposed even though there is good protection from the waves and swells. The various shades of blue surrounding us amazed us, as usual. The beauty of the water never ceases to astonish us. The shallow reef areas and sandy bottoms reflect the sunlight in such a pure way that the bottoms of fluffy white cumulus clouds are tinged with green and the blue-green waters seem to glow.

Once again, we only spent a few hours resting at anchor and then we navigated through the reefs to Noronsquies, a set of three little islands with reefs which create a lovely, calm lagoon. Jus another tropical paradise! Two French yachts were anchored here and there were day-trippers from El Gran Roque on the small beach for a while. A young South American couple had been dropped off by a day trip boat and stayed to camp there for the night. We enjoyed talking with them. Their English was a bit better than our Spanish, so we managed to converse very well.

On route to this anchorage, with food supplies running drastically low, we decided to fish. Matthew was quite excited to snag a good-sized mackerel fairly quickly trolling with the Cuban hand line. By this time, we were down to not much more than spaghetti (but no sauce), ramen noodles and chicken noodle soup plus a few vegetables and eggs for sustenance. I ate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches while the others had fish.

The next morning (Thursday, March 13), Peter and I went snorkeling on the northern barrier reef. There were an amazing number of large (not to mention small) fish, including angelfish, butterfly fish, parrot fish, tangs, squirrel fish, jacks and wrasses. After a lunch of spaghetti (again!), we set sailed wing-and-wing with the two headsails for Cayo de Agua. We had trouble, as daylight was fading, finding our way among the coral reefs using our guide and sketch charts but finally managed to drop anchor (not in the recommended place, we realized the next day when the light was better) on the northern side of the island. The location was beautiful and there were no other boats in sight. Unfortunately, it was a bit rolly but not totally uncomfortable. It passed the refrigerator door test, barely. I have determined that an anchorage is too unsettled if the refrigerator door closes itself (or rather, slams itself shut) when left opened.

The next morning, we kayaked to the beach and explored the island, which was inhabited by the Amerindians and is stilled used by fishermen for its fresh water a few feet below the surface in some places. These places are easy to find because they are the few oases in the scrubby desert landscape where palms tower above the dune-created, rolling terrain. Although we were not truly desperate for food supplies, Peter attempted to procure some food by climbing a coconut palm. Agile and nimble as he is, his attempts were unsuccessful, as were alternative methods of beating at the fronds with long sticks and throwing rocks at the tops of the trees.

We left Los Roques after lunch for our next stop in the Venezuelan islands, Islas de Aves. We chose to stop at Isla Sur in the Aves de Barlovento (the windward chain of the islands of birds). What another delightful place! Alone again in an uninhabited, unspoiled paradise, we chose to stay for two days. The northern side (the side we were on) of the island is covered in mangroves and is home to thousands of birds, including boobies, frigate birds, pelicans, and herons. Many times over the next couple days we paddled to the mangroves to observe them. With no predators, they are curious and not afraid, not even the adults with chicks in their nests. They perched and nested quite close together.

The boobies, both white and gray ones, are the most numerous. They all have long, tapered blue beaks. Most have red webbed feet, although some have yellow. The white species (or gender?) have black feathers outlining the edges of their wings. All of them have white tail feathers which splay out in a fan shape in flight. They make large (18 to 24 inches in diameter), bowl-shaped nests out of the gray twigs and small branches of the mangroves. We only observed one chick per nest. These cute nestlings are covered in white downy feathers, making them look plump and cuddly.

The brown pelicans have the usual long beaks with hanging pouches and reddish-brown, spiky feathers like manes from the tops of their heads down the back of their long necks, looking similar to the brown hairs on the back of the necks of giraffes. The black and white frigate birds perch along side them. They and the herons are a bit more skittish when approached. Their long white tails sleekly taper to one point when they are resting; these tail feathers fork in flight, a beautiful sight as they soar and glide.

Of course, the water is teeming with fish. Peter, with some help from Matthew, used the rod and reel and the Cuban hand line in an attempt to catch some food to supplement our dwindling supplies. They got bites, but all the fish broke the line or got away.

Off the small headland protecting our anchorage to the east, a long reef extended. Our snorkeling expedition revealed some of the healthiest coral we have seen in the Caribbean and an abundance of colorful, beautiful fish. Visibility is wonderful and the water is about 80 degrees Fahrenheit, making it possible to swim indefinitely without getting cold.

On Sunday afternoon, March 16, I cooked the last 8 eggs, made egg salad and used the last of the bread to make sandwiches. As the sun was setting, we hauled up the anchor and negotiated through the reefs and shallow water to the open sea, en route to Curacao. Our direct course would have been dead down wind, so Peter plotted a route southeast and then northeast, allowing us to sail on a broad reach. Although we covered more distance, we made up for it in speed, averaging well over 7 knots with winds of 15 to 20 knots, with gusts in the high 20s. The seas were not as confused as they had been on previous night sails, so the trip was smoother. We maintained our unbalanced but usual 4 hour-2 hour watches, with me getting the most sleep and less time on watch.

We approached the entrance to Spanish Waters, a large well-protected lagoon on the southern part of the island, around 0730. On the chance that there would be a local “net,” we switched the VHF to 72 and luckily found one. The net facilitator and the other yachties were welcoming, and it was easy to settle into this cozy anchorage with about 100 other yachts. We learned that a bus left the dinghy dock for the supermarket at 9:00 and 10:00, and the kids and I caught the later one. We were transported in 10 minutes to a modern, well-stocked store. In less than an hour, we managed to procure over $400 worth of groceries, including many gallons of milk, lots of bread, an abundance of beautiful fresh fruits and vegetables and four dozen eggs. We found absolutely everything we were looking for, including Easter candy!

As we were waiting for the bus, a man who was also waiting asked me if we were the people on the Deerfoot Epicurus. He then asked us if we knew Bert, the first owner. Indeed, Peter has met him and corresponds with him sometimes about the boat and our travels. This Dutchman had spent some time traveling on his boat along with Epicurus and another boat about 20 years ago.

While the kids and I were at the market, Peter was zooming around in the dinghy getting acquainted with others in the anchorage, including Bob-- who had already provided with an abundance of information of customs, immigration, buses, and shopping—and an Australian boat with a 10-year-old girl on board. In the afternoon, she and her mother picked up our kids and Peter and went to shore to hike up to an old fort overlooking the sea. I took the rare opportunity of being alone to sleep and to prepare some school work in science for the kids.

Tuesday, March 18, Peter went into Willemstad to clear customs and immigrations and the kids and I stayed on board to do school work. Over the past two and half years, we have gotten better about keeping to the schedule and not getting behind. The three of us are all determined not to be doing school work this summer. Unlike regular school, which ends each year on a certain date, the Kat-Mat Academy does not finish until all the work is done.

On Wednesday, March 19, all four of us went into old Willemstad, a compact urban area with brightly painted, historic buildings. Part of the area is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, so it is well-preserved and the facades have been maintained or restored to reflect their original appearance. Near the bus depot is the floating market, where boats from Venezuela and other countries dock and sell produce and fish under bright red, yellow, blue and green awnings. One building in town has a series of bells on the outside which ring every hour, accompanying a parade of small statues representing various ethnic groups and classes of people important in the history of Curacao, emerging from the right and circling across to the left where they re-enter there hiding place. It reminded me of the famous glockenspiel in Munich.

Willemstad has the oldest synagogue building in continuous use in all the Americas. Synagogue Mikve Israel-Emanuel was created in 1732 by Seraphic Jews who had immigrated first to Holland from Spain and Portugal in the 1600s. Many of the names associated with the history of the synagogue and the congregation are Spanish or Portuguese as a result.

In the synagogue, the tabernacle is in the middle, surrounded by ten areas representing the tribes of Israel which escaped from Egypt to find the Promised Land. Soft white sand covers the floor of the synagogue. It represents the 40 years spent wandering the Sinai desert. Also, it is a reminder of the use of sand on floors for muffling sounds in secret rooms used for worshipping during the Inquisition. It also symbolizes the words in Genesis in which God said to Abraham: “I will multiply your seed as the sands of the seashore and the stars in the heavens.” Across the courtyard from the place of worship is a cultural and historical museum including many items used in worship as well as in Jewish homes.

After visiting the synagogue and museum, we found a tapas bar nearby which allowed us to escape a brief downpour and enjoy some delicious food at a table on the sidewalk. After that, we wandered along the short blocks pass upscale shops in the Punda, the side of the city on the east side of a waterway, Saint Anne’s Bay (Sint Ana Baai), which connects the Caribbean Sea on the south to Schottegat, a large bay which is the second largest Dutch port after Rotterdam. Two cruise ships were in port, so the streets were milling with tourists. There are two forts protecting either side of the entrance to Saint Anne’s Bay, but the walls are about all that are left and are used as edifices for hotels, restaurants and government offices, so there is not much insight into their former uses or appearances.

We took a free ferry to the other side of Saint Anne’s Bay, which is called, appropriately enough, Otrabanda (literally “the other side”). The ferry is only in use when the pontoon pedestrian bridge, the Queen Emma Bridge, swings open toward Otrabanda to let water traffic through. We visited the neighborhood just north of the bridge called Hulanda, a restored 18th-century village built around a typical Dutch colonial mercantile square where slaves were once sold. Developed and restored by a Dutch philanthropist, Jacob Gelt Dekker, the area is being used unobtrusively as hotels, restaurants and galleries. It also is home to a truly wonderful museum containing his personal collection of ancient and modern artifacts, including cuneiform tablets and pottery from Mesopotamia, weapons and jewelry from the bronze and iron ages, early glass bowls, and relics from West African empires including Ghana, Mali, the Songhai and the Dogons. There is a large and graphic exhibition of the slave trade which is less euphemistic than most portrayals of it found in literature and museums produced in the U.S. or even other Caribbean islands. One of the most profound aspects of the collection of the museum is how it is all woven together into a story of the development of civilization in the western world, from Mesopotamia to Africa, Europe and the Americas. We found it fascinating and stayed a few hours.

Dodging periodic showers, we made our way back to the bus depot. We were exhausted after a whole day on land!

On Thursday, March 20, I thoroughly cleaned the whole boat in preparation for the arrival of William and Henry Rudd (ages 16 and 14), who, I’m sure, couldn’t care whether the boat was tidy and clean or not. They are spending the first part of their spring break with us before flying home to Kenya. Peter went back into Willemstad to send off the autopilot via UPS for repair and then proceeded to the airport, where the boys were being questioned and held by Immigration since they did not have a letter from their parents authorizing them to travel alone. However, they did escape the clutches of bureaucracy, and Peter brought them to Epicurus around 1900 hours.

Friday, March 21, was Good Friday, so the buses were not running on any regular schedule or perhaps not at all, but Peter and the Rudd boys pieced together taxi and van rides to get to Willemstad to clear Customs and Immigration so that the six of us could leave on Saturday for Bonaire. After their return, they enjoyed kayaking and swimming in the bay where we are anchored.

On Saturday, March 22, we got up early and were ready to depart right after 0800. As usual, we listened to the cruisers’ net at 0730 and announced our departure to the local community. “My, you’re brave!” was the response. Foolish might have been a more accurate description, I thought, considering there was a small craft advisory in effect. The highest Atlantic swells on record in the last 40 years or so were marching south through the Caribbean. The wind was averaging around 20 knots from ESE and the wind waves alone were 6-8 feet with only a 5 second interval. We had to head SE to make it around the southern tip of Curacao, and the current flows at 1 to 2 knots to the north. So, it was a battle against the wind, waves and current. We attempted to put up the mainsail with a double reef since the most recent tear is below the cringles for a double reef, but we were seeing slits of blue sky along other seams taking strain and took her back down fairly quickly. After a couple hours of beating into the wind and waves against the current, during which the boys started looking a bit unwell, the electronic charts indicated that it would be well after midnight before we would reach Bonaire, and we were still in the lee of Curacao and hadn’t encountered the north swells yet. Of course, we couldn’t enter an unfamiliar area at night and try to locate a mooring ball, and, while a few hours of enduring such a trip could be managed, the thought of another 14 hours or more was daunting. So after a couple hours, we turned back and, averaging 8 knots as we glided along smoothly with following waves, we made it back to the cut into Spanish Waters in about half an hour.

Exhausted from our three-hour adventure, we went to Sari Fundy’s for lunch. After that the three boys took off in the kayak to explore the ruins of Fort Beekenburg on the hill over Caracas Bay and go snorkeling around the piers. Peter and Katya were done in by the supposedly non-drowsy Dramamine they had taken and couldn’t stay awake any longer, so they napped. (I took it also but was unaffected by it.) Around 4 p.m., I woke Peter up and we dinghied over to a small dock and walked across a spit of land to snorkel around some other piers and a sunken tug boat, after which we went up on the hill to see the fort also.

The Rudd boys enjoyed kayaking all around the bay and swimming, and Matthew was thrilled to have boys on board. Katya, as usual, was bored with life no matter what.

On Easter Sunday, the Easter Bunny made two appearances, bringing four baskets of candy before breakfast and then reappearing later, as my kids were reading in their rooms, hiding chocolates in the saloon and leaving incriminating wet footprints on the swim ladder and deck as well as a chocolate smudge on the counter.

Since the wind was still strong, we delayed leaving Spanish Waters until Monday, March 23. Although conditions were better that day, it was still rough. The seas were choppy and the wind was still high. I fell asleep in the foreward cockpit before we came around the south end of Curacao, so I missed the confused seas. William and Henry valiantly worked with Peter at the helm and on the sheets, although neither felt too well and Henry was sick overboard. Unfortunately, the anchorage off the leeward side of Klein Curacao was rolly. Our anchor dragged, so we decided to pick up a mooring ball. The balls did not have pennants, so I “volunteered” Henry, who is always ready to help, to swim to the mooring ball and catch a line from the bow. With the strong wind, we had to make several attempts. The Rudd boys, exhausted, fell asleep, after the adventure at sea. The Browns went ashore and enjoyed walking on the beach and making a temporary collection of hermit crabs. It was spaghetti again for dinner as I was not up to making anything requiring more work as we rolled from port to starboard.

Luckily We Like Grenada . . .

2008-02-17T11:13:00.000-08:00

We are still in Grenada, although no longer in the boatyard at St. David's. The last item, a minor part for the generator, arrived on Thursday and was quickly installed. All that was left was settling up the bills, which Peter had to dispute a bit.

I had remembered to buy a card for Peter and get candy for the kids for Valentine's Day before we left the States, so we were able to recognize the holiday. We also had a delicious lunch at the Waterside Restaurant at Bel Air Plantation Resort, a very short dinghy ride from the boatyard. Peter and I also enjoyed taking the kayak out for the first time this season and exploring the adjacent bay.

We left the dock of Grenada Marine on Friday, Feb. 15, and anchored in the bay for the night. It continued to be windy, and swells were coming in, so our first night at anchor was a bit rocky and I did not sleep well. The anchorage did not pass the refrigerator door test: If the door slams closed on its own, the boat is rocking too much!!!

However, I woke up to yet another beautiful day here at 12 degrees latitude. We spent the morning bending on the headsail and the staysail and getting ready to sail and left the harbor just before noon. Outside the bay, the wind was pretty consistent at 20 knots and the waves were about 7 feet at 8-10 second intervals, so we went speeding off at 7 knots with just the mainsail. On our initial course, the waves were hitting us on the beam, rolling the boat from side to side. We were perfectly safe and not at all uncomfortable--except for poor Matthew, who does not like tipping or thrilling roller coaster rides on the waves. When we altered course, his mood altered also as we had following seas, and we made it to the entrance to Clark's Court Bay, a few miles west of St. David's on the southern coast of Grenada within an hour.

We decided to dock for the night at the marina, which is a lovely little place, because we needed to get a taxi to town to clear customs for departure and get groceries. We are very pleased that we chose to dock here, because getting things done in town was convenient, particulary since the customs office is at the yacht club and we were able to enjoy a great lunch there. (Most importantly, we were able to stock up on MILK!)

There is a nice, small group of yachties here at Clark's Court. The marina hosted a pot-luck dinner last night (Feb. 16). The kids, being the only young people here, chose to stay on board Epicurus and watch "Yu-Gi-Oh!" episodes on the internet and play games. Peter and I enjoyed chatting with people and then joined in the fun of karaoke singing and dancing. The yachting crowd is well-known for partying, and most cruising guides list happy-hours right up there with marine supplies as essential information for anchorages and ports. Although we sometimes need supplies for the boat, we haven't had any need for the listings and critiques of bars, and this was actually our first time to participate in drinking and socializing and partying at a bar. We had a very good time, as the crowd was lively but not rowdy, a variety of food for dinner was nice for a change from my adequate but not exciting meals, and the people were interesting and articulate.

The marina is also nicely situated by Mt. Hartmann National Park, a sanctuary for the endangered Grenada dove, and we took a leisurely hike earlier today on a trail the follows the headland toward a point opposite Hog Island. We are getting ready to leave for Trinidad around 6 p.m. this evening, making a night crossing. However, the wind has not abated and the seas look rough, so if it's really uncomfortable, we'll turn around and come back. Luckily, the entrance to this bay is well-marked and straight-forward, so it will be easy to re-enter if necessary.

Back in the Tropics

2008-02-11T11:00:00.000-08:00

On Tuesday, January 29, we arrived in Grenada, where Epicurus had been left on the hard at Grenada Marine in St. David’s. We had made arrangements to rent an apartment for three days near St. David’s, so that we could inspect the work that had been done on the boat before putting her in the water. Even though we had made reservations for a 4-door SUV for a week, the car rental agency only had a small 2-door SUV, with enough room for a couple pieces of luggage. Luckily, the owner the apartment met us at the airport to guide us to the place, so he was able to put most of our luggage--8 checked bags and 4 daypacks--in his van, saving us multiple trips between the airport and the apartment to transport all of our stuff.

The apartment was up in the hills with a lovely view of the mountains and the sea. The owners, Lucille and Anthony, are wonderfully hospitable. The apartment we rented is on the lower level of their home, which is terraced down the mountainside, and the pool was adjacent to our terrace. We shared a Carib, the locally brewed beer, with them after we settled in; they treated us like their personal friends and guests rather than renters.

On Wednesday, we went to the boatyard where work which had been requested eight months ago was in progress but not finished. We had planned to launch her on Friday, but by early Thursday, it became clear that she would not be ready for us to move on board. We were very fortunate that we had a nice place to stay and were able to continue to occupy the apartment for a few more days. (Of course, all the delays cost us money as well as time, but there’s not much that can be done about it in the Caribbean, so there is no sense in getting stressed.)

When Peter was not at the boatyard making sure that work was getting done properly and in a somewhat timely manner and the rest of us were not busy with homeschooling, we explored the island in the car. The capital, St. George’s, is situated on the water, by a bay called the Carenage and there are many picturesque historical buildings. The streets rise up from the waterfront to hills topped with churches and the remains of French forts. On the other side of the main hill is the commercial center of town, bustling with pedestrians and small shops. There is an open-air market in the center. We went there to buy fruits and vegetables on Saturday but didn’t find much. We were told that we needed to be there before 7 a.m. to get the best selection! Even though there a few supermarkets in St. George’s and Grand Anse, the suburb to the south which attracts tourists with its beautiful beach, most natives still go to the open-air market for produce or buy it from stands along the road.

We also drove along the winding roads up into the mountains to see Annadale Falls, which is about 30 meters high. While we were there, a local guy jumped from the cliff at the top for contributions for photographs. We also saw a Mona monkey, a descendant of monkeys brought from Africa centuries ago. (He didn't expect any money but was on the look-out for human food.) About one-sixth of the island is preserved as national parks, the largest of which is Grand Etang (Big Pond). There is a very small visitors center near this body of water, which is in the caldera of an extinct volcano, but we have found that the natural and historic sites on the Caribbean Islands are not complemented with museums and signs explaining the geology, biology, history or cultural significance of the places in any detail, as they are in the States. There are no docents or rangers. The best stop we made, for me, was a spice and herb garden which offered guided tours. Walking through the garden on our own would have been pleasant, but the guide taught us a lot about the plants and their uses, so we came away not only with a nice memory of a pretty place but with a small bit of education.

Our guide books provide only limited information, so I am often left thinking that the sites are nice but I don’t feel like I have had any in-depth experience. Also, I have been spoiled by the grand scale of places such as Yosemite, Yellowstone, the Grand Canyon, Mammoth Caves, Rome, Paris, Washington, D.C. and the small scale attractions on the islands may be beautiful, but they are usually not awe-inspiring. (Sometime the open seas are, however!) For me, the best part of the islands is the life under the water, on the reefs. I never seem to tire of snorkeling and always find new things.

There are not many tourists here, so the areas have not been intensely developed to accommodate them, although this is beginning to happen, and tourism is beginning to replace agriculture as the main industry. On some days, cruise ships disgorge hundreds of tourists for a few hours of sight-seeing and shopping in St. George’s and tour bus trips to the waterfalls and the parks, but most seem not to venture beyond the first few blocks of the city. At Fort George, a woman from one of the ships didn’t see anyone else around and asked me if I thought it was safe to enter alone into the courtyard through the tunnel-like gate. We have actually found that it seems to be very safe here, and the people are unusually friendly and helpful. There is not the same work ethic in terms of meeting deadlines, working quickly and ensuring the job is done to perfection, but this is a cultural difference and not a moral issue. The people seem to be decent, good people.

We have gotten to know a few on a first-name basis here at the boat yard. They tell me about whether they have ever lived anywhere other than the island and about their children. Most have visited nearby islands such as Trinidad (which none of them like--it’s too big and dangerous there) and St. Vincent’s, but they have not been on a continent. Most are very patriotic about Grenada and say they wouldn’t want to live anywhere else. We can appreciate this.

Thursday, Feb. 7, was Independence Day, celebrating 34 years of autonomy from Great Britain. It is a big holiday. Almost everyone dresses, even the day before, in the bright national colors of green, red and yellow. On the Monday before, I asked one of the guys who works in the boatyard to confirm that Thursday was a holiday and that all the businesses would be closed. He said “Yes, and all day Wednesday, we be getting ready!” (Indeed, it was true; on Wednesday morning, Lucille brought down a plate full of delicious cakes that she had been busy preparing.) Yikes, I thought, because Wednesday was the day the boat was re-scheduled for launch and I was afraid that no work would really be done that day. Peter spent even more time at the yard, and on Wednesday afternoon, she was hoisted onto the lift. The boat that went in the water before us had unexpected engine problems and wouldn’t start, so we waited and waited until well after 5 p.m. We were somewhat surprised that the dock hands, riggers and others who needed to help just patiently waited, even though quitting time is 4 p.m. and it was the day before a big holiday. On the other hand, no one, including us, was surprised by a delay. Happens all the time here.

Sails, lines, and other miscellaneous parts, as well as the washer and dryer, which had to be moved to get into the engine, were all about down below, but we managed to move things around and begin to settle in. We slept really well that night, tired and rocked by the sea. By the end of Thursday, I had everything unpacked and stowed, and things were beginning to look ship-shape in our living space. (My friend Paula told me that she thinks that one of the reasons living on a boat appeals to me is that I hate clutter, and having things in their place and neat is a necessity when sailing.) Peter and I put up the dodger and biminis yesterday and stowed all the extra lines back in the forecastle, so it’s looking like home on deck and below now.

We are still here in Grenada, in the water but on the dock at the boatyard, because a break in the fuel line to the generator (broken by accident when some work was being done) was discovered, and the part that is needed has to be shipped in and won’t be here until Wednesday. Meanwhile, a very nice guy who used to live in Ft. Lauderdale (and therefore works more like an American than an islander) has been busy touching up paint. The riggers were on board Friday tuning the standing rigging. I stood on the aft deck and watched, occasionally cocking my head and squinting up the line of the mast as if assessing whether the mast was straight and the rake was proper. In reality, I had no idea what they were doing or if they were doing the work right, but I gave the impression of competence, and the boss came and discussed with me why the turnbuckles are seized and the compatibility of different alloys and metals. I nodded knowingly.

Meanwhile, Peter is busy, busy, busy, and wondering why he ever bought a boat. A few good hours of sailing on Epicurus, however, and I know he won’t care about all the headaches. She’s a fine boat, even if she is starting to show her age, and very sea-worthy and comfortable. Not everything works all the time, but we learn what we can live without. (Right now, we are living without radar, and I wish we weren’t!) Peter can fix almost everything. Once again, he repaired the washing machine the best he could. Every time the boat is not being used and left in the heat, the belts disintegrate and it’s virtually impossible to find replacement parts for a 22-year old Maytag. He made a new belt himself this time, so I’m living in luxury--you would think! The reality is that the washing machine agitates the clothes, but it does not spin, so I still have to wring out every piece of laundry by hand and rinse them in the sink before hanging them out on the lifelines to dry. The dryer has always worked perfectly, but we don’t really need it! It’s also a hassle for Peter to attach the vent tube each time; it connects up to the back of the dryer, in the engine room, behind various large things in there (I don’t really know what half the stuff is.) and I can’t reach.

We are adjusting our diet to life on the boat also. One thing I really miss while we are cruising in the Caribbean is fresh milk, which is not a staple for the islanders but is my main source of protein as a vegetarian--besides, I love it! I was pleasantly surprised when we went to the supermarket in Grand Anse the day after we arrived to get groceries. There was an abundance of milk! Grenada went up quite a few points in my book! At the beginning of last week, however, when we went to get more food, there was a gaping hole in the dairy section and no milk anywhere! We figured out we had just been lucky the first time to have shopped the day after the boat with food supplies had come in. We were told that there would not be milk until Friday. Since we returned the rental car on Wednesday, we weren’t able to return at the end of the week. The boatyard is miles and miles from any shops, so we are living without milk again. On the other hand, we have an abundance of fruit and vegetables. A van came to the boatyard a few days ago loaded with freshly picked goodies. The mangoes are the best we have ever tasted, and we have wonderful papaya, watermelon and the local star-shaped fruit called carambola or five-finger fruit and wax apples as well as fresh cauliflower, cucumber, lettuce tomatoes and peppers, all picked that morning. We aren’t going to starve even if we do suffer from protein deprivation.

While we are here, we still have internet access. This pleases the kids, particularly Katya, as they can still access YouTube and watch Yu-Gi-Oh! episodes. Every year, they bring fewer toys (but all their electronic games and apparatus--although Katya forgot her DS on her bed), and I think this is a combination of their subconscious realization that they need less stuff and their growing up (always too fast). Matthew is still very much a little boy and interested in a variety of things, but Katya, now 13, has adopted an attitude of boredom which, we point out to her, is not very attractive. The usual response to most comments of this sort is her signature eye-rolling.

It rained half the day here, but the weather has been beautiful in all. It’s a bit windy and is expected to stay that way for a while, so sailing will have a thrilling edge when we finally take off.

2008 and getting ready to return to Epicurus and the Caribbean

2008-01-24T17:48:00.000-08:00

In four days, we fly out of Sacramento for Grenada, where Epicurus is on the hard at Grenada Marine in St. David's. The temperatures have been in the mid-40s (F) here, and there has been rain for days, so we are ready for warmth and sunshine.

The four of us spent a quiet Christmas at home. The kids never got out of their pajamas. I was able to read two whole books I received as presents. Peter roasted a turkey, and I made roasted potatoes and made other side dishes, so we had a proper Christmas dinner, with Christmas crackers (but no pudding!)

On January 2, we drove up to the Sierras. We missed skiing the last couple years so we spent nine days at Tahoe, where about seven feet of snow fell over the course of a few days. We were visiting friends at their beautiful second home in the mountains, but they left on the second day as a storm approached. It was lovely sitting inside and watching the falling, drifting, wind-blown snow through the large windows, cozy by a warm fire. It was even fun shoveling and blowing all that snow off the decks.

With all the fresh powder, the skiing was excellent. Katya decided to try boarding this year, and she caught on pretty quickly. Able to master any sport quickly, Peter also boarded one day, and, at her insistence, he took her to a black diamond run. Once at the top, she admitted to feeling a bit uneasy, but she made it down conservatively, laughing at Peter falling as he actually tried to carve some turns on his board.

One big of advantage of home schooling is being able to take vacation when others are in school and at work. The resorts are a lot less crowded; there are no lift lines. We signed the kids up for group lessons a couple days, but, since no other kids were around on the weekdays, they actually received private lessons. We skied and boarded on five days; Peter added one extra to his adventure in the winter wonderland, skiing with our friend Kirby when it was too cold and blustery for the kids. When we weren't at the resorts or keeping warm inside, we were out sledding or having snowball fights.

Home schooling is going well. I try to use a lot of materials from the library and the web for school when we are home. On the boat, I have to rely on whatever books I have taken with me, and the World Almanac replaces Wikipedia. It's an adjustment either way. We have information overload here. On the boat, we learn to get by with whatever resources we have with us.

Another glaring difference is in the availability of consumer goods. It's almost impossible to go to any grocery store in the Caribbean and obtain everything on my list. There are always things, such as mushrooms, which just aren't stocked or are only available on a limited basis. In smaller places, it makes a big difference whether the timing of my grocery shopping coincides with the arrival of the weekly mail boat, which also brings all the food and goods not produced on the island (in other words, almost everything). If it's been a few days since the boat arrived, many items are in short supply or just not there. However, I don't miss at all the enormous amounts of stuff available here, so much of which seems extraneous and a waste of resources. Every time we come back from the boat, I am still amazed at all the unnecessary stuff people seem to believe they need.

So, we will be off to a simpler life again, missing friends, libraries, bookstores, fresh cold milk and ice and being frustrated by the weather sometimes. But we plan to enjoy ourselves! Life is good.

Remembering 2006 and 2007 (mostly on Epicurus)

2007-12-20T16:53:00.000-08:00

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.

Home schooling at Home, Epicurus on the hardstand.

2007-11-04T22:52:00.000-08:00

It's November 2007 and we are enjoying the lovely Sacramento fall weather. Katya and Matthew are making good progress with home school. Home schooling is a lot easier at home than on the boat because it is easy to keep to a fixed schedule every day of the week. There are lots of resources available such as the library, the internet, Wikipedia. We're making the most of these few months to get ahead. Once we're on the boat the pace will change with a lot more focus on learning Spanish, reading and learning about the country and ocean around us.

Epicurus is on the hard in Grenada and has survived through the hurricane season with no serious storms hitting the well protected boatyard. The season is not quite over yet but the chances of a late season hurricane hitting Grenada now are quite low.

We are starting to plan our 2008 trip back to the USA. We hope to get the boat back in the water in January and sail along the coast and islands of South America, arriving back in Florida in June.

Safely anchored at Cape Lookout

2006-12-04T13:21:00.000-08:00

We are safely at anchor inside a protected bight at Cape Lookout. We got round Cape Fear OK though the winds were quite strong through the night. We decided to stop here for the night because the weather forecast for tonight and tomorrow is not so good. This is a large anchorage, well protected from the waves in any direction. It is not so well protected from the wind but I think we will be fine and could use a good night's sleep.

We have had one mishap. We had to tack downwind and one time as we jibed the main across we didn't let the sheet run as the boom went across. There must have been a strong gust just then and the boom pulled down on the main and ripped it just below the first reef. We sailed all day today with the main double reefed but still made good progress because the winds were mostly 20 to 25 kts. Tomorrow morning we'll take a closer look at it and see if we can use the sail with one reef in it until Jacksonville/St Augustine where I'll find somewhere to repair it.

Safely docked in Rudee Inlet

2006-12-02T14:41:00.000-08:00

We made it safely today out from Willoughby Bay to Rudee Inlet. The winds were strong from the south. We saw one gust to 40kts but most of the time it was between 20 and 30 kts. The wind was just enough offshore that the waves weren't bad but we motor sailed close to the shore from Cape Henry to Virginia Beach. As we were anchoring a nice old gentleman motioned us over to his dock and invited us to tie up for the night as he said the holding was poor due to thick mud so here we are safe. He's lent us his car so the others have gone to the local supermarket for more provisions.

If this works then maybe the radio is fixed.