Returning to Familiar Waters

     Grand Case is a lovely waterfront town with a long main street that runs parallel to a curving golden beach. It struck me as the perfect place for a low key beach vacation. The main street is packed with unique shops and restaurants ranging from inexpensive BBQ bars flouting ribs to fancy French cuisine with lobsters awaiting their fate in well-lit display pools. At night the town comes to life: tourists and locals spill onto the street, irresistibly danceable music pours from countless speakers, and welcoming light seeps from shops open well into the night.

     A rocky island called Rocher Creole sits off the north end of the bay with excellent snorkeling. While testing out our new waterproof camera chasing various fish around we were lucky enough to see three spotted eagle rays soaring off into the deep water to the north. The only other time we've encountered them was in the BVIs while scuba diving.

     Speaking of the BVIs, we've decided it is time to move on again and will be sailing back to Virgin Gorda this evening. We should arrive back in familiar waters tomorrow morning. Part of the desire to return is to enjoy some more of the amazing scuba diving found there. It is by far the most convenient place for it, with dive shops scattered throughout the islands and mooring balls available at most dive sites.

     Also it will be nice to have free Internet again. The French islands have a strong hold over wifi and we've only been able to access the Internet through the chip in the iPad. So pictures will be coming soon!

Until tomorrow,
Nicole.

Update: We are actually leaving tomorrow night as customs was closed today due to elections.

The Route Continued

     Over the last few days we've started to think ahead in the trip. Feeling we needed to set a timeline for our return journey, we sat down to map out how far south we want to go, which islands we wish to visit most, how long to stay in each place and what route we want to take to get back home. Originally we'd thought to get all the way down to Grenada and several other of the windward islands, but after creating a loose timeline we realized that this wouldn't give us much flexibility and could cause us to rush into poor weather at some point. So we've resolved to explore many of the leeward islands before heading up to the Turks and Caicos and the Bahamas.

     I thought it might be good to post our rough plan so everyone back home has a better idea of what we are thinking. At the moment we don't want to have to do a long ocean passage again, but that may change. Also the dates are a guess and we may end up spending more than a week on some of the leeward islands. There is a gap of one day or more between many of the dates to account for a day of travel between islands.

February 8-15: Dominica
February 16-23: Guadeloupe
February 24- March 1: Antigua/Barbuda
March 2-9: St. Martin or maybe Anguilla
March 10-17: Puerto Rico (To break up a long passage. Likely we won't explore much.)
March 17-24: Turks and Caicos
March 26- April 2: George Town, Bahamas
April 3-10: Nassau, Bahamas
April 11-18: Freeport, Bahamas
April...? Passage to Charleston, South Carolina

     Leaving several weeks in the Bahamas gives us the leeway to take our time elsewhere and leave on a passage to the US at any opportune time. Likely a lot of this will change as we go, but I hope this gives a good outline of what we have in mind for the second half of the trip. Once along the coast of the United States we will work our way to New York City, and then traverse the Erie Canal back to Lake Ontario. Hopefully it will be open by then! If not, we will have to work something out, because doing the St. Lawrence the other way would be a much longer trip than we want to do.

Nicole.

From Marina Cay to Lee Bay to Spanish Town

Sailing to Marina Cay

     Over the weekend we rested in two anchorages. The first was Marina Cay, where we've stayed several times. Here we snorkeled two separate reefs. On Saturday we moved to windy, secluded Lee Bay off Great Camanoe Island. This is a private island with residences built high on the large rocky cliffs. Yesterday the wind was howling so we made one long tack to Spanish Town on Virgin Gorda. Most of the shops here are located along the waterfront at the Virgin Gorda Yacht Harbour.

Lee Bay, Great Camanoe

     Last night was especially windy and not at all restful. This morning we woke to people shouting as an anchored powerboat broke loose and drifted towards them. It turns out that no one was on the powerboat, so with the help of several other cruisers, they tied it off on a free mooring ball. The wind continues to buffet us this morning as we rock back and forth continuously. This definitely isn't a comfortable, sheltered anchorage. We keep wondering why anyone would even stay overnight here without a reason. Our reason is to check out of BVI customs to begin a passage to St. Kitt's and Nevis tomorrow. The passage should take under 24 hours and we hope to arrive in Nevis on Wednesday morning to check into customs. At the moment Dad is researching how to check in and we've decided to make for Nevis instead of St. Kitt's because the customs procedures on St. Kitt's appear to be needlessly complex. It will be strange to sail away from the many islands of the BVI after so long here. But, we all feel that we've seen and done everything that we wanted to here and are ready to move on and explore new places.

Childs Play in Lee Bay

     A while back I read through our cruising guide on the Leeward Islands and took notes on each island to figure out which ones I wanted to visit most and for what reasons. For St. Kitt's I wrote, "rainforest, monkeys, hiking." For Nevis, "quiet and peaceful." On the way we'll pass by the islands of Saba and Statia, which are quite small and remote. St. Kitt's itself (or St. Christopher in its long form) was named by Columbus for his patron saint and became the first British plantation colony in the Caribbean in 1623. After French colonists arrived, the two groups ganged up to decimate the Carib population before turning on one another. The Treaty of Versailles later put an end to 150 years of fighting and the island became British. Today St. Kitt's and Nevis are independent, but still have a links to their British heritage, including many hotels created from old sugar plantations. It is likely that we'll spend a week in this area before moving on to Guadeloupe or Dominica.

All the best,
Nicole.

Boat Life, Land Life, and Travel Plans

Back at the Bitter End Yacht Club

     Nanny Cay is a large marina that caters directly to cruisers. It has a long wooden walkway stretching past the docks to a plaza with a grocery store, marine store, dive shop, yacht brokerage, several restaurants and small shops. Along the water there is a beach with lounge chairs, a beach bar and a fresh water swimming pool. During our short stay at the marina we had time to complete many small errands and got to enjoy the swimming pool and beach. This was our first time in a pool in ages and I had forgotten how much you float in salt water compared to fresh!

     Lounging on beach chairs after a refreshing dip I felt a sense or normalcy, a change from the boat lifestyle. Living on land has become a novelty- how strange! Sometimes I miss the stability of living on land in a solid house where showers are regular and beds are large. That night after the sun sank below green hills and whisked away the day's heat, Mom and I strolled the boardwalk and marvelled at the luxurious tiled bathrooms available for marina guests. It's an odd life, living on a boat. We've spent a lot of time away from land lately, only setting foot on solid ground when visiting an island for supplies or to go for a walk. Most of the islands have little on them, besides a restaurant and dive shop, so visiting anywhere with more than a few buildings its a big change. I don't necessarily miss the buzz of towns and cities, but it will be a definite eye opener setting foot in one again after being surrounded by water and green hills for many weeks now.

     After one brief night in Nanny Cay we sailed back to Cooper Island to drop off our rented scuba tanks and made one long tack back to the North Sound at Virgin Gorda. The wind has returned, so the focus of our days has shifted from scuba diving back to kiteboarding. There's also wonderful hiking to be had around the Bitter End Yacht Club, so that offers some variety.

     Plans for visiting the leedward islands are beginning to solidify and shortly we'll be doing a two-day passage to St. Kitt's. After a week or so at St. Kitt's and Nevis we'll island hop to Guadeloupe, Antigua, and Dominica. Dad hopes to get all the way to Grenada, but I am skeptical as to whether we will have enough time to visit it properly and spend a few weeks in the Turks and Caicos and the Bahamas on the return journey. I will keep everyone updated on these plans as they unfold in more detail. At the moment Dad is keeping a close eye on the weather to find a safe weather window for a passage. Happily, it will be a short one this time!

All the best,
Nicole.

Moving On

     We have had a fantastic stay in Bermuda. The weather has been great with daytime temperatures of about 75F and night-time lows of about 69F pretty much every day. It is a beautiful place and we have thoroughly enjoyed our stay here, but it is time to move on. The winds have been very strong (25-30 knots) for the past few days but they are starting to drop and it appears as though there is a pretty good weather window in the next few days that we will take advantage of.

     Our plan is to leave Sunday morning and we hope to make it to Jost Van Dyke in the BVI's in approximately 5 days. We are expecting squally weather as we get closer to the Carribean. We will use the SPOT to track our position. You can expect that instead of following directly south down the I-65 (as the cruisers call the path directly south from Bermuda to the BVI's at 65 degrees W longitude) we will try to go a little east (to about 63-30 W)so that as the winds swing around from E to S-E later in the passage that we can keep our speed up and not have to sail directly upwind.

Jon.
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Travels on Chesapeake Bay

Simple church on Solomons

     From Fish Creek we wove through endless clumps of crab traps and had a perfect leisurely sail to Solomons Island on the western shore of Chesapeake Bay. There we sighted nice stretches of beach and entered Back Creek off the Patuxent River. Winding around clumps of marinas and wharves it became clear that Solomons is a town where life is centred on the murky waters of the Chesapeake. There must have been hundreds of boats docked there and the town was small and spread out.

     We had planned to stay another day but this morning after listening to the weather forecast Dad realized that we need to get moving towards Norfolk. There is unsettled weather coming on Wednesday and Thursday so we decided to continue our progress south to reach Hampton by Friday. This morning we said goodbye to Raftan until the end of the month and did a brief downwind sail to the Potomac River. We are now anchored in a pretty rural area in a place called Glebe Creek. (For Raftan, if you are reading this it's a good anchorage and is located at 37 degrees 59.29 minutes north, 76 degrees 29.26 minutes west).

Drum Point lighthouse at the Calvert Marine Museum

     Aside from having a beautiful calm sail today we came across a naval training area and were advised by a Navy range boat to avoid the target area by 2.5 miles because there were exercises going on. After that I expected to see some exciting target practice or something exploding in the water, but that didn't happen. We did get to watch several aircraft circling the area though.

     Tomorrow we will aim for a place called East River off Mobjack Bay. Our plan for heading to Cape Hatteras for a few days will take us to Hampton Roads and the Downtown Hampton Public Piers by Friday.

That's all for now.
Nicole.
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Days in Annapolis

Bridge on Spa Creek

     On Sunday we moved to a private dock outside the condo of a friend Dad met kiteboarding in Cape Hatteras. They are such generous people letting us stay here for as long as we like and giving us use of the condo, which is up for sale. It’s a lovely spot towards the end of Spa Creek. Early Sunday morning we passed under the small lift bridge in downtown Annapolis and wove between the multitude of boats anchored and on moorings along the creek. We squeezed into another dock with pilings to settle in for a few days. It just so happened that we came in at high tide. This was lucky because at low tide the boat ends up sitting on the bottom! So it looks like we’ll have to time our departure with the tides yet again. 

      The last few days Dad has been in and out of West Marine while working hard to install our new wind generator. On Sunday Mom and I went on a long walk through downtown Annapolis exploring the numerous artisan shops scattered between clothing stores. It’s a smaller city and the downtown is beautiful with red stone streets and well-maintained buildings dating back to the War of Independence. We almost forgot it was Thanksgiving back home that day! We had a great Skype session with our awesome family who had gathered in Kingston and then had sausages for a very low key Thanksgiving dinner.  

Spa Creek

      Sarah and I have kept busy going on dinghy rides, baking, reading and catching up on some tv shows. On Tuesday Raftan moved onto a mooring right beside our dock on Spa Creek. The plan as of today is to leave Annapolis on Thursday to traverse Chesapeake Bay towards Norfolk, Virginia. We are hoping to find a secure marina in the Norfolk area to leave the boat for a few days to meet up with friends in Cape Hatteras for some kiteboarding. It looks like the road into Rodanthe reopened this Monday after the damage caused by Hurricane Irene. 
 

The oven doesn't brown things so our baked goods look white!

      I’m currently trying to convince Mom to write a post since she’s the only one who has not contributed. So if you want to hear from her about life onboard please bug her with lots of emails and comments!

Until next time,

Nicole.

Fast Passage from Block Island RI to Delaware Bay

     We had a very fast, somewhat bumpy passage from Block Island to the Delaware Bay. We achieved almost 200 NM over 24 hours which is over 8 KT average. The fastest we saw on the GPS was over 15 KT surfing down waves. The wind started on the starboard bow and we pounded into some decent sized chop. As we got more offshore the waves got longer and the seas came around to the beam, then the aft quarter.

     The last 12 hours was with quite large seas from dead astern with some good surfing opportunities. The wind was consistently 20-25 with gusts over 30 KT. All in all a fast way to get to Delaware Bay. Our plan is to anchor on the Delaware Bay side of the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal tonight. We will transit the Canal after high tide tomorrow morning (08:24 am) so we get maximum effect of the current. I understand there are video cameras at many locations on the canal. https://candd.nap.usace.army.mil

We will make sure that we wave to the cameras :)

Our plan is to be in Annapolis by the end of day Oct 7. When we started the trip we had only 3 dates we wanted to meet:
1) Sept 7 - leave Kingston
2) Oct 7 - arrive Annapolis for the Annapolis Boat Show
3) Nov 7 - planned departure from Norfolk VA to Tortola BVI

So far so good...
Jon
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Chilling at anchor

     Since yesterday we've remained anchored at Block Island, Rhode Island and have no plans to leave for a few days. This is because we're waiting for a weather window to sail to Cape May. It looks like we'll be bypassing New York, but hope to take some time there on the trip home next spring. Today was sunny and gave us time to relax, swim (which we sadly haven't managed since the trip began) and get some jobs done. We're sort of stuck on the boat being too lazy to pump the dinghy and there's not really anywhere to go anyways.

     The tentative plan is that we may be able to leave late Tuesday, but this is dependent on the weather forecast. So for now we'll get some relaxing in and enjoy the stillness while it lasts!

Updates will follow soon :)
Nicole.