JULY 2014

“Live in the sunshine, swim the sea, drink the wild air...”  Emerson

After taking an advantage of the Salinas's yard services to finish few projects we had in mind for a while and after fixing the defective engine mounts we departed for the Marquesas Islands, some 3,600 nautical miles away. The weather along the way was great, sometimes even on the light side and we ended up wishing just for a bit more wind. It took us 25 days to cover this distance with about 12 hours of motor help when the wind got very light. As almost always long passages come with some type of unexpected, usually unpleasant surprise, and this one unfortunately wasn't an exception. The rack and pinion system of our rudder wheel broke and we ended up once again hand steering, this time only for the last 30 hours with just few gears left on the system, afraid we won't make it, but at the end we did arrive safely in Nuku-Hiva and anchored in Taiohae Bay. Nuku-Hiva is the largest of the Marquesas Islands and Taiohae is the administrative capital, hence why this bay became our choice for receiving the parts. The village is located in the centre of a crater, half sunk in the ocean, with black sand beach, open to the South. The trade wind at this time of the year is from South-East and we ended up rolling almost as if we were sailing down wind! Not the most comfortable anchorage! There has been about another 30 vessels of different nationalities rolling around with us, and I bet at least half of them were waiting for some parts for repairs as well! We were lucky as this is French Polynesia, our parts were coming from France and surprisingly post office system was efficient and we received what we needed in only eight days! Meanwhile, while waiting, we investigated this sparsely populated volcanic island, with razor-edged basaltic cliffs pounded by crushing waves, deep bays with cobalt-blue water, dramatic tall waterfalls and many mysterious looking valleys with lush vegetation that feel like the beginning of the world must have looked like or like a countryside from the pages of some fairy tale. The Marquesans are very welcoming and friendly, women with flowers tucked behind ears, easy smile and both sexes adorned with very artistic, tasteful, geometric tattoos. While sailing around the island we were visited by very different looking dolphins, and as we found out later this kind of dolphin, called Electra, is only seen around this island. Since our arrival in Marquesas we have been sailing together with friends we have met for the first time in Morocco two years ago, then Caribbean and now here, also owners of Amel sailboat, but 54 ft instead of our 46. We will have to say good-bye to them soon – they, being French can stay in French Polynesia for 36 months, we as Canadians only receive three months and now we have only another two months left here and we have to move on, while they can linger. Presently, since a week we have been exploring Fakarava together, the second largest atoll of Tuamotu islands. We snorkel every day, dove both passes here with crystal-clear water, with very healthy corals of every color and shape imaginable and fish so plentiful and colorful, one doesn't know where to look first. Black-tip sharks (quite harmless) are one of the main attractions here and we meet them everywhere we snorkel in this lagoon. This is an unbelievable underwater playground with so many species of fish we have never seen anywhere else and we wish we could spend some more time here. However, soon we will have to lift the anchor and be on our way. Next we will cross first to Papeete, Tahiti island, before continuing westwards as we must...

APRIL 2014

Galapagos via Ecuador!

OK, so quite unexpectedly we find ourselves in Puerto Lucia, Salinas, Ecuador, although we already covered about 1/3 of the way to Galápagos islands! But I am jumping too much ahead, since our last entry was in January! So first, beginning February we set the sails from Jamaica to Shelter Bay, Colón to prepare Vanille for the Panama Canal crossing. The wind was perfect, the sun was shinning, and just as we settled ourselves for a pleasant uneventful crossing, we suddenly heard a very strange noise and then silence! For few more minutes Vanille kept its course and then sadly the sails started to flap...yes, our 20 years old automatic pilot died a sudden death only one and a half days out of Jamaica and so for the next three days we became real sailors, each taking one and a half hour shifts, day and night, round the clock, steering Vanille with our own hands and muscles! This sailboat was constructed to run on a pilot and the steering station is not the most comfortable place to sit for a very long time! - but we survived – good thing just before this happened I have read that the sleeping cycle for most people is 90 minutes and that did seem to work really well for us. Once in Panama we ordered not one, but right away two new motors to have a spare!! wouldn't want to steer by hand across the many miles separating the islands in Pacific! When we finally entered the Panama Canal we noticed some vibration from the motor but suspected that was due to Vanille's obesity – with all the provisioning we did for the Pacific, for sure we were about one ton heavier than before! but a closer look on the way to Galápagos we realized that the silent blocks for the engine and the transmission are at the end of their life as well and that made us change direction to Ecuador and to take care of it here, since the next place where we could do something about this is Tahiti, and that is many, many miles away! Well, hopefully after this there is nothing too old to brake in the near future. We had stopped here four years ago and took an advantage of the yard here to spruce up interior of Nikan (after which we sold it in Chile), and we are quite amazed that everybody remembers us here, even our names – we have never had such a warm welcome anywhere where we stopped for the second time before! So I am not sorry to be here right now...hopefully the next leg of our journey will be smooth with no unexpected surprises, and since we are already almost at the end of April we will most likely skip Galápagos and go directly to Marquesas Islands, some 3400 nautical miles away. This will be our longest passage so far. We will try to be more regular in our postings, although we are going to be entering islands of rare Internet, slow Internet, no Internet – I don't expect anything too efficient before New Zealand – and do I ever wish that I was wrong about that prediction!!!

JANUARY 2014

Island hopping

Since our last blog entry from Beaufort, due to an offshore weather pattern, we made several coastal jumps to West Palm Beach and from there we finally crossed the Gulf Stream directly to Nassau. The route to Puerto Rico has to be taken from the latitude of Beaufort or higher, otherwise it becomes a struggle against the wind, and so we just decided to see Puerto Rico another time... Although we visited the Bahamas five years ago, with over 700 islands and 2,400 cays there is always a new cove to drop the anchor in, a new coral head to snorkel over, another shade of turquoise water to admire or some new island where to enjoy an ice cold beer. Our final stop was Clarence Town, Long Island, the perfect place from where to await an opportunity to move on, and where you find probably the most easygoing people on Earth! On the way from Clarence Town to Île à Vache, Haiti, we made another decision to change our plans and  now here we are, in Port Antonio, Jamaica. I am very happy we finally didn't go to Île à Vache, as we have met here few boats who didn't have a good experience over there, although there are others who loved it. Amazingly Port Antonio is now very quiet - on our last visit reggae music blasted over the whole port 24/7! After the Bahamas this NE corner of the island is green and full of flowers, receiving rain daily, brought in by a steady flow of warm and humid trade wind stacking up against the Blue Mountain range. Shortly after our arrival, Compagneira, a motor sailor that we have met in Ecuador three years ago, entered the harbour and so we explore the island together, while catching up on the sea adventures and news of old friends. Although the weather for the next passage for now is not too bad, we are awaiting a bit calmer sea to sail to Colon, Panama. The heading of about 100 degrees from the wave direction could make this passage quite rolly in 12 to 14 feet wave! Meanwhile we relax and enjoy the company of friends and fellow cruisers... and the time flies by...fast... too fast...

NOVEMBER 2013

Cat-and-mouse game

The fall pattern is well established now and so we start to play cat and mouse with the weather, that is to say, we have to pick a weather opportunity to leave the East Coast of USA with favorable conditions to cross the Gulf Stream and then head South-Est toward the islands. Cold fronts are now crossing the coast every three days on average, so you know for sure one or two of these will hit you anyway, but you don't want to be in the Gulf Stream when that happens. Patience is the key, choose the wrong time, when a strong wind is out of the North blowing against the current, and you’ll find this a dangerous place to be. Contrary wind in the Gulf Stream produces steep and short waves that are not pleasant to sail thru. Unfortunately some years the weather is not cooperating as we wish and in the past we had to change our plans and work with what mother nature gave us. For now it looks like it will be one of these years, and instead of crossing the Gulf Stream from Norfolk we already had to continue by the coast to Beaufort, and now it looks like we will take us further south by the coast, rather than crossing right away. Oh well, something lost, something gained, Beaufort is very pretty town definitely worth visiting, if you can. Hopefully we will still sail offshore to Puerto Rico - our next destination.

OCTOBER 2013

We are still alive and kicking

Why silent for such a long time? Well, until just few weeks ago there was nothing much to write about, as it was basically work, work, and more work, making Vanille not only ready and reliable (hopefully not for heavy seas!), but esthetically pleasing as well. The first task we tackled was quite a challenging labour done in a typical summer weather here in Annapolis (hot and humid) and took us several weeks, stripping Vanille's headlining and replacing it with a new one purchased last year in France. Then the windlass motor had to be changed for a stronger one. While one contractor replaced all canvas outside for better sun protection, another took care of all cushion covers in the boat seating as well as replacing some of the foam, and still another one made us new carpets. Meanwhile Jean-Pierre installed a marine sanitation device system to one of the toilets to make us legal in United States (and probably elsewhere as well), he installed few additional fans, renewed all motor hoses on the Perkins motor and checked the heat exchanger. Amel head sail furler had to be exchanged for a new electric one from Harkens, and as an unexpected surprise we had to order a new HF radio and tuner since the old Furuno suddenly gave up. We also installed a new fridge before the old one would get a chance to fail us. And as part of the normal annual maintenance we hauled-up for an antifooling paint and some waxing and polishing as well. All in all this was a total refit and we think we will be under way around the mid October and will get going, depending on what kind of weather the mother nature brings us, in this almost like new sailboat!. And just to let you know this hasn't been only work and no play, we had our annual visit with the family, and played tourists when my sister Marcella flew here for a visit. With her we finally managed a proper visit of Annapolis as well as its surroundings and toured Washington city to see where all the US tax money gets spend! - we managed to visit before all the government mess and were lucky to have all these interesting museums and parks open to explore!!

MAY 2013

“You can go to heaven if you want. I'd rather stay in Bermuda,” Mark Twain

We spent some time in the sparkling, crystal blue waters of Antigua, before sailing to St. Maarten, where we waited inside the lagoon for a sailing window towards Bermuda. At this time of the year these two islands are full of many beautiful classic yachts (wow! wow! the shine and the sparkle!) getting ready for Antigua Sailing Week, the #1 regatta in the Caribbean and one of the top ten in the world. St. Maarten, the Dutch side, is often referred to as little Las Vegas, with more casinos than gas stations and 400+ restaurants! Finally on May 8 we crossed the lagoon and departed from St. Martin, the French side of this tiny island and arrived to Bermuda some 800 miles and eight days later. This passage took much longer than anticipated, we had to heave to (stop and drift) for approximately 40 hours on two occasions to let nasty weather and confused sea pass by. We detoured about 120 miles to avoid the worst of a depression passing by Bermuda. Now we are back in North Atlantic, the temperatures dropped down, gone is the humidity! This island deserves kudos for being exceptionally clean, garbage cans every few steps, and everything is extremely well organized, you feel the British discipline imposed since the beginning of this outpost. This is one of the most expensive islands we have been to so far, for example, two small beers, one soup, one burger in an ordinary restaurant at lunch time = $54, not exactly a bargain. The median income here is about one and a half amount of USA but the rental cost is about $2,000 a month per room! So even with a better salary closing the budget in the positive is a challenge, to purchase a house here is a seven figures affair. At the moment the criminality rate on the island is twice that of England and much higher than USA. Everything is imported and the cost of food is very high, and yet, just traveling around, the poverty is very well hidden, all the houses look beautiful, painted in pastel colors, the lawns cut to perfection everywhere, parks and streets spotless, the locals very friendly and still adhering to some old-world customs not seen in many places. We love the business men in their national uniform – a salmon pink Bermuda shorts (no shorter than six inches above the knee), a pair of dark long socks, smart shoes, a tie and a dark jacket – looks very chick!. Our next stop will be Chesapeake Bay where we will spend the hurricane season and finish upgrading Vanille in preparation for the next season. Have great summer and see you soon!

April 2013

Was Martinique, then Guadeloupe, today Antigua

Looks like we just skipped one month – time flies when one is in a vacation mode. Visiting the islands, happy hours on Vanille or friends' boats, reading, swimming relaxing - just being two lazy bums - and we are not ashamed to admit that once in a while doing nothing feels great, just like a long vacation. Well, in fact, this is a long vacation called retirement! The water is warm, even too warm, the air hot and humid. There isn't much to write about this lazy period, except to report that rum here is still as good as when we met here each other in the Caribbean some 28 years ago, except now we don't consume as many Ti-punches (white rum, sugarcane syrup, lime) as we did then! Sadly most of the anchorages are crowded, full of boats, for sure some 30 times more than then. Restaurants and bars are in every corners along the sea front, and unbelievably the internet services are the poorest we have encountered in years...This is a tourist zone with all its good and also its bad, just a question of what you are looking for.