Montserrat

April 28, 2011

We again left Nevis and headed south to Montserrat. This day the winds were still 20-30 kts, but we were ready for them. there were not rain showers threatening either. We had a 2nd reef in the main and a reefed jib. The dinghy was on the bow deck. Our only problems was that wind was not north easterly but south easterly so we couldn't quite head where we needed to go. We passed Redonda and could barely see Montserrat due to the clouds around the volcano. Eventually we had to

tack to get closer to Montserrat. The wave or swells were 6-9 feet. We came into Little Bay and anchored off the beach adjacent to the ferry dock by 5:30 (1730). The customs office had closed at 4 p.m. so we could not check in until the next day. We called the Becker's friends Randy and Nancy Reynolds, our hosts to let them know we had arrived.

Friday, April 29, 2011

Charlie went to check in about 9:00 and did not return until 11:00. the Reynolds picked us up at 12:30. Montserrat was having a holiday because it was the wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton so not many places were open for lunch. We did eat lunch at Mariete's Gourmet Garden, whose owner is Dutch and is always open. The Reynolds took us on a brief tour of the Island including the area added by the volcanic flow. the flow followed a river bed which is now full of rocks and muddy-looking sand. They are now excavating this ash to sell it. We met some of the ex-pats at their favorite bar: "Uncles" . We even met a couple from Charleston. They have a house in Montserrat but also one on King Street. Other couples were from Canada, Texas, and Nebraska as well as the UK. We retuned to the R

eynolds to watch some of the Royal Wedding reruns.

Saturday, April 30, 2011

We returned to the boat to run the generator to charge the batteries. We needed to defrost the boat freezer so we took all the frozen food and some of the refrigerated food to the Reynolds. We also brought some of our laundry to their house to wash. They had contacted their hair cutting person who agreed to curt both Charlie's and my hair. Then we had lunch at Tina's where we also ordered a pizza for later that evening. Back at the Reynolds, we enjoyed their lovely swimming pool overl

ooking the Caribbean Sea. They have a great view. Their neighbors, Sally (Amer.) and Tony Simpson ( a Brit) joined us for cocktails and later our pizza.

Sunday, May 1, 2011

I fixed a sausage, hashbrown potato, egg casserole for breakfast for all of us. We had some of the watermelon I bought in Nevis. We went back to the boat to charge the batteries again. The snubber line had chafed through so Charlie fixed that. We went to a fund raiser Bar-B-Q at the Woodlands Beach, a volcanic beach to benefit the animal shelter on Montserrat. We met many nice persons including the Governor of Monterrat. He is appointed by England. they ike this new Governor very much because he seems more interested in doing beneficial things for the Island. His name is Adrian Davis ( of Davies) and his wife Su is Chinese. We talked to some of their friends about our problem of needing to get some water on to our boat. Several said they would look into it for us. that night we spent some time trying to make a list of the islands and the stops we should make on our way south. Randy suggested that we go to Trinidad instead of Grenada. It is about 100 miles from Granada so it would be an overnight sail. We looked at marinas/boatyards in Granada and Trinidad. Charlie made a reservation in Trinidad for June 19, 2011.

Monday, May 2, 2011

It is another holiday in Montserrat: May Day or their Labor Day so many shops are closed. Nancy and I did find a grocery open so I could buy a few things. Greg Mehring, an ex-pat from Nebraska arrived with many coolers full of water. He and Charlie went to the boat and put the water into the water tank. Hooray! We now have water. We are very grateful to him for helping us solve this problem. I had a leg of lamb in our boat freezer so we cooked it for our Monday early dinner. Charlie wanted to be back on the boat Monday night so we could get an early start on Tuesday for Guadaloupe. Luckily we were able to find an immigration guy at the port ( drinking beer at a nearby outdoor bar) who could check us out.

Tuesday, May 3, 2011

We left Little Bay Harbor about 0745. The winds were light but we put up the sails. Randy and Nancy called us on VHF and waved as we sailed by their house. During our sail down the coast of Montserrat, we could see where the volcano covered much of their former capital, Plymouth, with lava. We could also see several other areas where the lave flowed down the mountain

to the sea adding some land mass. As we sailed out from the shadow of Montserrat, the winds picked up and the waves also grew. About 2/3rd of the way to Guadeloupe, we put the second reef in the mainsail which reduced our heeling and allowed us to sail closer to our course. We arrived at Deshaies bay about 4:30-5p.m. We did take the boat off the bow, but did not put the motor on it. After talking to a couple in a small dinghy with a grandfather, mom, dad and two boys rowing back to their boat, we also pulled up our dinghy using the rope bridle and used the cable to lock it. They had had their dinghy with 15 horsepower motor stolen off their sailboat that morning. It is so sad when crime spoils such an lovely vacation and site.

Nevis

April 24, 2011

Happy Easter. We did not find services so we stayed on the boat and ate a more fancy

breakfast...sausage, hash browns,

egg casserole. Later we motored 30 minutes further up the coast of Nevis to North Pinney Beach to two restaurants: Yachtman's Grill and Coconut Grove. After taking the dinghy to shore, pulling it up and putting an anchor high up on shore, we ate lunch at the Yachtman's Grill sitting out under their blue umbrellas

sipping cocktails and working on their free wifi. It was a beautiful sunny day and the food was good. Their in ground pool had an infiinity side. The owners were working this day giving many of their staff time off. Tthey are a delightful couple: Evelyn and Greg Slogan. When Charlie told Greg about losing our bar-B-Q grill's regulator, Greg thought that he might have some extra parts which might work and would bring them the next day. Greg had spent some years cruising himself.

Next door at the Nevis Coconut Grove there were many children and they were having

an Easter egg hunt. The wife of the owner is from Germany and she started the egg hunt tradition several years ago. It was totally unknown on Nevis. They had many families at their restaurant with its lower deck with above ground swimming pool. We went over to this restaurant for dinner. We had a delicious lobster bisque. The restaurant is in a thatched roof building the owner had built by Cost Ricans ( I think) several years ago. They brought their own materials and tools. It is quite impressive and has withstood minor hurricanes. We had neglected to bring the dinghy lights but we were very close to the boat.

April 25, 2011

In Nevis the day after Easter is "Easter Monday" and many do not work and stores are closed. The Coconut Grove was closed but the Yachtman's Grill was open. We had lunch and then it looked like it was going to start raining which it did off and on, though it was usually light sprinkles. Later in the afternoon. we rushed out to the boat just in time to close the hatches before a really hard rain came. We had to go back to the shore because Greg was on his way with the grill part. Due to the rainy evening, we went back to the boat for dinner. It rained off and on most of the evening and night so we did not try out the grill.

April 26, 2011

Alas the grill part did not work on our grill so we returned it to Greg. Greg has many fingers in many businesses, including rental of small car/jeeps to tour the island. We reserved one and picked it up about 9:30 just as the rain started again down the mountain. During what we thought was a break in the rain we drove to Evelyn and Greg's house to see the baby lamb she rescued. Unfortunately we were drenched while driving over there. We dried out while waiting for it to stop raining...about 45min-1 hour. Greg had built a nice pen for the lamb who was sharing it with a rescued puppy.

We finally felt safe enough to proceed with our tour of the island. First we had to go to

customs and check out so we could leave the next morning. Completing that we drove to "The Hermitage"an old plantation built before 1670. It reminded me a bit of High Hampton Inn in NC. The public rooms in the old house were gentile with many antiques.

Extensive gardens outside included many vegetable gardens so I guess they grow much of what they serve. There were separate "cabins" and a lovely swimming pool. The dining room was added to the back of the house as a porch and was a lovely place to dine.

We proceeded to the Botanical Gardens which were very lush

with blooming plants...orchids growing everywhere. Statuary was spread throughout the gardens, some native and much was Asian or Indonesian. There were dolphin fountains and cascading pools filled with lilly pads. A greenhouse containing plants from the rainforest

and a huge statue with waterfalls cascading off it. There were two cages with parrots. A big house in the garden was used as a shop to sell local and other products off island. The restaurant must also be in the house, perhaps on the upper floor. We felt lucky that it was open today because they usually only open it when a cruise ship is in at St. Kitts.

Our next stop was the Montpelier which

is an Inn at an old plantation site. It has this huge tree at the entrance. It also has a huge sugar windmill close to the house and this is used as part of the restaurants there. They have several buildings to house guests and a big living room with well-stocked bar, tennis courts and a lovely pool. Lunch and dinner are served out on the patio and on its porches overlooking the Caribbean Sea from the hills. special dinners can be served inside the sugar mill.

A taxi driver helped lead us to the next stop: Gold Rock Inn up in the hills close to the rainforest. The clouds on the mountain were again threatening rain. We only stayed

a short time there, but it is very impressive. A hotel has been made out

of another sugar mill and its buildings. The sugar Mill Plantation buildings were built in early 1800's. The reception is in part of the original kitchen and storage area. Gold Rock Inn is made up of numerous garden rooms with tables for intimate dining scattered sparsely. The stone is a grey and the umbrellas and chairs are red. They have added huge stone terraces with reflection pools and a pagoda. Due to the threat of rain we did not linger. There are trails from here up into the rainforest. Due to our short stay, we did not see the hotel rooms or cabins which I think are spread up into the hills.

After returning the vehicle, we stopped in at the yachtsman's Grill for a drink. We met some students from the nursing school and Medical University who had come to Nevis for a short

holiday. We made a quick trip to the boat to drop our cameras off and to pick up our computers to use at the restaurant. Then we took the dinghy back to the restaurant for their Grilled Lobster special before returning to the boat and bed. There was so much lobster that we took half of it back to the boat.

April 27, 2011

The next day we left Nevis heading for Montserrat. We were about two hours out when the bridle on our dinghy snapped. We had just put in a third reef in the main when it happened. The winds were 25-30 knots instead of the 20 we expected. We dropped the sails and headed back to try to retrieve the dinghy which by now had flipped over. By the time we retrieved it successfully, it had flipped back upright. We had to use the lines we put on it to haul it up beside the boat to prevent theft to retrieve it. We slowly towed it back stern front to Charlestown, Nevis. Then we had to bail out all the water which had splashed into it. Our new rule will be to put the dinghy up on the bow deck when traveling between islands. We stayed on the boat and had left over lobster in garlic cream sauce over rice for dinner.

April 20, 2011

We had to send our clothes and sheets to the laundry. It had been more than 2 weeks.

Charlie changed the oil in the generator and discovered he did not have enough on the boat to refill it. Back to shore to try to find oil for the generator. I tried to find a wifi spot and finally could get on at the marina sitting outside but only for 2 hours. Our laundry arrived back to the marina just after 5:00. We were shocked by the cost...$54.00 for probably 3 loads of laundry! We ended up eating on the boat that evening.

April 21, 2011

We departed Basseterre heading for the southern part of St. Kitts which was supposed to have several nice beaches with protected coves. The first stop was White House Bay where we found mostly a stones instead of sand. There was a dinghy dock built by Christopher Development who plan to build a marina and luxury resort in the area of a big salt pond. Not much besides the dock has been done to date. We went to the "beach" with our umbrella for about 2 hours. I waded and did a bit of snorkeling. Several other boats joined us during the day. Onewas a lovely yawl wooden sailboat . As they were busy putting away their sails, their small wooden dinghy wandered away. Charlie got into our dinghy and retrieved it for them for which he received a bottle of Mount Gay Eclipse rum. Another boat which arrived mid afternoon was named the Maltese Falcon. It was probably 140 feet long with 3 mechanized masts with mechanized square-rigged sails. It had two tenders with it. several other mono and catamarans were also anchored there overnight.

April 22, 2011

We went to another anchorage the next day taking only 1 hour to arrive at Major's bay. The ferry from Nevis goes back and forth daily several times from this bay. There was a nice broad sandy beach here and the anchorage had grass in which we had trouble anchoring, but finally prevailed. We were the only boat there. We took the dinghy to the next bay : Banana and Cockleshell Bay where there were two big beach bars. We went to the one with a dinghy dock: Reggae Beach Bar. There were many there due to a cruise boat being in Basseterre. They rented chairs and umbrellas. One could get hair braiding and massages on site. We had lunch and spent the afternoon, meeting some interesting folks. We went back to our boat before dark.

April 23, 2011

We sailed this morning to Nevis and picked up a mooring near the ferry dock. The wind made picking it up difficult. We checked in at Customs and Port Authority before noon as they close early on Saturday. We walked a bit around Charlestown, to a bank for money and the Methodist church to see when Easter services were, but there were no signs at all on it. We found the Nevis Bakery and Charlie stopped in at an internet place while I sought the grocery stores. I went to the one in the cruising guide but it wasn't very good so I stopped by another one where there seemed to be more people: Best Buy who even took credit cards. We also bought fresh watermelon off the back of a SUV along the street. Charlie was so hungry that we ate at a small snack bar at the ferry dock. Back to the boat to unload groceries and they we took the dinghy up the beach to a beach bar with wifi: "Double Deuce". Compared to the Four Seasons a bit further up the beach, it looks worn out, but it does have free wifi and we didn't have to go further away from out boat. Tomorrow we can pick up a mooring further north if we want. I never did find out when the Easter services are even asking numerous persons in town.

Another St. Barths beach and sail to St. Kitts

Saturday April 16, 2011

We sailed about 45 minutes to Governour's Beach which was wide and beautiful with nice

houses above it. We anchored with 3 other boats

and took the dinghy ashore. It was a pretty busy beach due to the fact that it was accessible to a road and parking lot. The waves were quite strong with an undertow. We left in time to be back in Port of Gustavia to anchor for the night.

Sunday, April 17, 2011

We left Gustavia about 0930 sailing to St. Kitts. the winds were light: 9-10 knots for most of the way so it was fairly slow going. St. Stacia looked like two islands until we got closer. We could see both it and St. Kitts from St. Barths though it was 30 miles away. The clouds were perched on top of the rain forest in St. Kitts. All along the coast of St. Kitts were small villages backed by the mountain forest. We could see the old sugar mill ruins all along the coast. As we proceeded down the coast to Barreterre the wind increased

20 kts. We arrived before sunset and anchored in the large bay near the Cruise Ship dock and Port Zante marina. A beautiful 90 ft. yacht named "Astor" was also anchored near us (picture with moonrise).

Monday, April 18, 2011

Charlie went ashore to check us into customs and then we wandered around the Cruise ship Plaza where there were many new shops and jewelry stores.....typical of cruise ship areas. It is a huge outdoor newly constructed mall. I watched some youth do the traditional dances in colorful costumes. We walked on into the old town and had lunch at an old establis

hed restaurant overlooking the "circus" with its town clock. We had a great lunch at Ballahoo and they had free wifi.

Tuesday.April 19, 2011

We went on a whole island tour with a great guide who loved the island's history. we stopped at the plantation /ruins of the only sugar mill which used water power instead of windmill power. Thomas Jefferson's father had been given this land grant by the King of England. He is buried there. They are doing archeology digs and restoration of thi

s site. At one time there was a sugar mill per each square mile of the island.

After that we went to another old plantation where they now have a Batik factory. The

gardens are beautiful, and we helped the local economy by making purchases. Then we went to the Brimstone Hill Fortress built in the 16-1700's by the British who wee besieged by the French.

I think it is the biggest fort I have ever been in.

We proceeded further around to where the Caribbean Sea meets the Atlantic and its big wave

The volcano here last erupted about 1400 years ago and there are still volcanic rocks along the

coast where the lava went into the sea. Then along the coast where the sugarcane all now grows wild. They stopped sugar production several years ago when it cost more to produce it than they got selling it.

There is a coastal area where they has been much development with condos and houses close to Basseterre and the airport but on the Atlantic coast. It is where the Marriott is. There are McMansions in this area. A schoolmate of our guide went into the concrete business just before the development boom and he has one of the huge houses in this area. If someone buys a house or condo for $350,000 or more, they get the house and citizenship for St. Kitts. It is an incentive program here. The south side of this island (which is about twice the size of St. Martin and 4x the size of St. Barths ) has some lovely beaches which are undeveloped. We plan to visit them in the next few days.

Beautiful Beaches of St. Barths

April 8-15, 2011

Charlie and I have been exploring the various beaches of St. Barths. We took a cab to the Saline Beach called such as it is near the salt ponds which they still operate. The cab ride cost 50 Euros, but it was way out in nowhere. The cab dropped us off and we walked about 5 more minutes up a rocky trail to a beautiful uncrowded beach with very fine white sand. We set up our umbrella and walked along the beach which is very wide. I did not get good picture of its expanse because the wind blew the fine sand everywhere. Most of the beaches are clothing optional on some section of them. Ladies with bare tops don't seem to count and are very common here.

Our next beach was only about a 5-7 minute walk from the Port of Gustavia to the Shell beach as it is made almost entirely of shells. A restaurant there called Do Brazil lets you use their chairs and umbrellas for 10E a piece. They serve drinks and food. Due to the closeness to Gustavia, this beach was quite crowded.

After spending a rainy day in Guatavia, we were ready to explore more beaches.

Next we went to the Beach at Colombier. We sailed to it and used one of the many mooring balls provided. many boats were in the bay. The Rockefellers built a house on the hill with stone walls and a stone dock. some visitors walked over from Flamands, about a 30 minute hike. The beach was great and there were some persons snorkling. I didn't seem to find a good place to snorkle though I did see some angelfish. We took the hike up the hill to see the waves crashing on the other side and walked until we could see the see Flamands beach. there were lovely wild flowers along the path

including angel lilies. (see picture) We spent the night in the cove.

The next morning (Thursday)we went further around St. Barths to the Baie of St. Jean which is by the airport. The beach is huge wrapping more than 180 degrees. We anchored in the bay and went ashore in our dinghy. there are manyhotels in the area so the beach was quite crowded and also had beach bars and restaurants. There are also lovely shops, but 100 E for a man's swimsuit is a bit steep! A band was playing at one of the beach restaurants that evening so we took the dinghy back

in, pulled it up onto the beach, had dinner and enjoyed the music. We could have spent more

time enjoying the various places along this beach.

Friday morning found us returning to Gustavia where we picked up some mail sent from South Carolina. We also needed to get online to check our e-mail since we had not been able to access it for several days.

Sailing to St. Barths

April 5, 2011

We left the marina heading north to Tintmarre in heavy winds. We were having to tack to make headway north. About two hours into the journey we noticed that our dinghy was no longer attached to the boat! We turned around and began searching for it. Luckily we had taken the outboard engine off it before starting out. Amazingly, we were lucky enough to find our dinghy and were able to retrieve it. The bronze connector holding the dinghy bridle to the line had snapped. I guess due to metal fatigue. As were were headed back toward Marigot Bay anyway, we continued back into the bay where we anchored. We ended up spending another night in Marigot Bay. We put the dinghy on top of the boat and secured it. It was a calm evening with cocktails and dinner on board watching the sunset.

April 6, 2011

We began sailing again to St. Barths, his time going south toward Philipsburg, St. Martin. Unfortunately the winds were coming from the exact direction we had to sail so we were tacking. I thought we might end up in Saba. Finally we had to turn the engine on and motor sail to arrive before dark. We arrived about 5 p.m. to the Gustavia area. The anchorage was very packed with boats but we were finally able to find a place to anchor. Due to the depth being 30 feet we had to put out 150 ft of chain. The anchorage was crowded because St. Barths was holding a Regatta April 4-9. We didn't try to go check in due to the time but had cocktails and dinner on board, enjoyed the starry night and pretty lights on some of the big yachts there.

April 7, 2011

After we got the dinghy back into the water and the outboard on it, Charlie took the dinghy into Gustavia Port to check us and the boat in. He came back to pick me up and we went ashore to explore. We are lunch at Le Select a popular bar which has been open since 1949. It has numerous tables under trees in a courtyard. Basically it serves hamburgers, hotdogs and fries. It was packed, mostly with french-speaking patrons. the Regatta had a lay day so many crew members were on shore. After lunch we explored some more,

walking the streets of this quaint town. It is much cleaner than St. Martin. It has lovely but pricey shops. There is a walkway all around the harbor with plantings and benches and gazebos. There are many restaurantsto choose from, too. We had cocktails and dinner on board the boat. The boat in front of us began dragging its anchor early evening. thankfully they caught it and moved and reanchored. The winds were 13-20kts and the depth was 30.

April 8, 2011

We went into Gustavia to go to the grocery store. It was much better than the one in Marigot Bay. We were able to find most of the the items we needed. We finally found sweet pickle relish. They and another upscale provisioning place did not have many types of crackers. So I bought some french bread to go with the lovely pate' I found. Pate' is one thing that they do have! YUM. they did have real milk as well as the unrefrigerated cartons of milk. I finally found some romaine lettuce.

We looked at all the big yachts in the harbor for the Regatta. The biggest ones seem to have their own banners. They began to leave about 10 as the races started at 1100. Once we were back on the boat in the anchorage, we had really good seats to watch the boats race by us. Some of the big ones had 12-19 persons on their rails. There were also boats the size of ours racing as well.

After lunch we went back into Gustavia. I found this wifi area, Charlie got the password for wifi for him on the boat, and he went looking for a rigger. During our first try to sail to St. Barths, the block holding our lazy jacks up on the starboard side broke off the second spreader. Again, this might be due to metal fatigue. We presently have it jury-rigged. During our sail to St. Barths, the third reefing line got wound around our man overboard pole on the back stay. Charlie is trying to figure how to get it untangled, but we might need help with that as well.

Tonight we plan to go to some of the festivities connected to the Regatta. They will have love music tonight and tomorrow night. It is open to the public.

Charlie signed us up for 10 days here in St. Barths, so we will have plenty of time to explore the island and sail, walk, or drive to their beaches. I will try to keep you updated and post more pictures.

Marigot and Ile Pinel

April 1-3, 2011

We took our dinghy to " The Dinghy Guy" for him to fix our "floor" which kept leaking air. We are to pick it up Monday afternoon. We explored the Marigot Bay area some more by

foot. There are many upscale shops: Rolex, Cartier, DNKY, even a Guess outlet. There was also a lovely gallery with watercolors of the beaches. One stop was the bakery Sarafina's for some morning cinnamon rolls. We had lunch at the market area: Charlie had a hamburger and I

had creole shrimp with peas and rice and a

salad. It was very good. There are many small restaurants sited next to each other in this area for the locals and the busloads of cruise ship passengers. We ate dinner on board; pork tenderloin from our freezer. (Picture above is of the Marigot anchorage with about 100 boats)

Saturday, April 2, 2011:

I walked to the "large" US Market which was a joke as most of the products were French. I bought very little as I could not find the things I was shopping for. They had a fairly big produce area but did not have romaine lettuce which I find lasts a long time on the boa

t. I was glad that I had bought tomatoes at the market on the way to this store because the ones at the market were much better. It took me more than an hour to walk there and back. I have several carriers on the boat which have wheels, so I am not carrying everything on my shoulders! On the way back, I stopped at the Tropicana Restaurant to make reservations for the evening. We had been told this was the best local restaurant. It is French and we had a lovely view of the Simpson Lagoon Harbor. Charlie had escargot and I had baked brie for appetizers. Chas had a local lobster, very good, while I had a chicken supposedly stuffed with lobster. I could never find the lobster. They had flattened the chicken and rolled it up and sliced it. We had profiteroles with hot fudge sauce. YUM! Marigot Bay is very well lit at night so we felt very safe walking back to the marina.

April 2, 2011

We took a cab to the Ferry landing for Ile Pinel at 9 a.m. The ferry left about 10a.m. While waiting we met a recently retired internal medicine doctor who had received his training in

NYC . He eventually returned to St. Martin where he had a practice until he retired. He looked like he was in his late 50's but will soon be 74.

Theferry boat was a large wooden boat with benches for about 60-75 passen

gers. It took 5-7 min to get to Ile Pinel. there was a beautiful long beach where we landed. (See picture above left) Charlie and I spent a little time hiking over the ridge of the Ile where there

is another smaller beach (see picture at right). Since it did not have umbrellas, I went back down to rent 2 chairs with an umbrella. The deal also comes with 2 "free" drinks. I was trying to stay out of the sun since we have many more days of exposure. Locals as well as tourists were enjoying the beautiful beach of Ile Pinel.

Some even were topless. Families and groups of friends seem to come together, some bringing

their own food. There are three large open restaurants on the island and they have a full menu including local lobster. We had a delicious lunch at one of them: Karibundi. I got a picture of iguanas eating the leftovers behind the restaurant.

Two of the restaurants had many sugar Quint birds flying around drinking the sugar water provided. We had seen these pretty

little birds in the Exumas where they ate the sugar from your hand. We also saw some at The Bitter End in Virgin Gorda.

We are waiting to retrieve our dinghy and to have our hull cleaned on Monday before we depart to proceed to St. Barths. In the meantime we are doing odd jobs on the boat.