Merry Xmas, Happy New Year - just a little late

Okay, so the last blog was all our boat woes. Yes, still having them, but, whatever! But ... we had a great holiday season. With our new Engel freezer, we were able to buy a small turkey breast at the grocery store, and after a long beach walk and a couple of drinks, we were back on the boat getting together a full Xmas dinner. It was so wonderful. Here is Dennis enjoying his dinner!

Decided we'd spent enough time and money at Jolly Harbour, so headed back to English Harbour between Xmas and the New Year. Met up with Samji and had a fun happy hour. Then, the fireworks from Fort Berkely on New Year's Eve were right off our stern and were spectacular. Of course, we were awoken by the fireworks because there's no way we would make it till midnight!!

Picked up anchor and have spent the past week anchored off the reef by Green Island. Wow, hard to explain, just beautiful. Wind for the wind generator all the time, but lots of swimming, snorkelling and hiking. Bob and Margo, with Paul and Bonnie, their company, pulled in Friday. Margo called on the radio on Saturday wanting to place bets on when we'd see the first boat in the 'Round the Island Race'. Amazingly, I won, with a time of 11:15 a.m. The prize was happy hour drinks, so we had a good time on Ivory Star.

Had a pretty decent downwind sail back to English Harbour today, but not a single bite on a fishing lure. Dennis was pretty disappointed.

Can you believe it, some more boat repairs, so here in English Harbour for another few days till we head to Jolly Harbour for some much needed groceries!! Then, just hanging our, waiting for our friends to arrive!!

Still in Antigua

Realized it's been about a month since I posted last, so I should do something about that! After a sleepless night in a very rolly anchorage at Five Islands Harbour, we were up early and heading to the north coast of Antigua and through the reef at Boon's Channel. Lots of reefs and eyeball navigation all the way. Doyle's guidebook talked about the beautiful anchorage at Long Island off the resort - well, the resort is under a major reconstruction, so not only is the view not great, but it was another rolly anchorage. Stayed all of five minutes, lifted anchor and went over to Davis Bay. Nice, but very busy with ferry traffic. Took the dinghy around Long Island and the only place to put in is at the resort, since everywhere else is a reef, and it was nicer swimming off the boat than off the beach. Maiden Island isn't open to exploring any longer since it's all been bought up and there's 'No Trespassing' signs over the whole island. So ... as we can do, picked up the anchor and headed to Bird Island and the outer islands for exploring, snorkelling, swimming and, most importantly, solitude. Heavenly! But, all good things must come to an end (or, in our world, the wine has run out), so off we go back to Jolly Beach.

It's been a very challenging cruising year so far with all kinds of 'little' things going wrong, that add up to money being spent. Had to buy a new macerator and a rebuilding kit for it (if you don't know what it's for, you don't want to know). Started off with the rebuilding kit, and when that didn't work, ended up putting the new macerator in. I'm tired of cleaning down below with bleach and water, burning candles, etc. to get rid of the 'eau de shit' odor! But, Dennis is the one dealing with the 'eau de shit'. Finally admitted defeat on the water pump, that we just installed in October, brand new. It wouldn't shut off and then started spewing water out the side. Okay, this is the fifth water pump in as many years. Only two have worked for any length of time. One worked for 3 weeks, this last one for 3 months. Frustrating!!!! The new solar panel wasn't working, but when the two of us worked on it, I discovered that the deck fitting wasn't working properly, so that was an easy fix. Then, woke up one morning, only down 20 amps. I'm thinking, 'way cool' - Dennis is thinking, 'what now?' There goes the fridge! Turns out it was the thermostat, only a $200 fix. This can stop any time now!!!

Have caught up with cruisers we've met before -- John and Marie on Metalia and Phil and Mel on Samji are here and we've had fun spending some time with them -- and meeting new people as well. Myrl and Glen on Kokopelli we met back in Martinique, and Margo and Bob on Ivory Star we met hiking, and they're anchored in front of us. Bob paid for drinks because we 'babysat' Margo by having her go hiking with us while he worked on stainless on the boat. Wow, how does that work?

Back in English Harbour now for three weeks, but ready to leave, weather permitting. Still doing lots of hiking, but the waves have been so bad that we have not been snorkelling. We have company coming down in February and March -- Rick and Elaine first, and then John and Brigitte -- and we're so excited to see all of them.

Hopefully off Monday, the 19th to Green Island to finally explore the eastern side of Antigua. Renewing our Immigration status for another two months was a challenge and different, but we lived and we're here till the beginning of March.

So, until next time, cheers! ~~_/)~~

Antigua

Well, it turned out the problem with the transmission wasn't too horrible. The lock nut had backed off, so the wonderful folks at MPS fixed that and replaced the seals. Almost wish they had found something bigger, just to put us more at ease. But, at only $350 US for the repairs, we're not complaining. It took a couple of weeks to get the parts in, but we used that time to explore English and Falmouth Harbours and take the bus into St. John's a couple of times. After more than two weeks, the transmission was back and installed on the boat. We had ordered new motor mounts at the same time, since we're pretty sure these are the originals. The chief mechanic came out with the motor mounts, had us start up, looked at the engine and told us we were fine. Talk about honest! That was about $600 in parts alone, not to mention labor. Vaughn was wonderful helping to put the transmission back in but, unfortunately, he lost his cell phone in our bilge. We retrieved it, but I don't think it will work again.

So, with our transmission now in and working we decided to pick up anchor and test the systems. We had met with Chris and Marsha on Endorphins and they told us that Indian Creek was a nice little anchorage, only a couple of miles away. Off we went to test everything and when all seemed to be working, we went and anchored in Indian Creek. Had to pass by Eric Clapton's little spread - not too shabby! Not a bad anchorage, but kind of buggy and with not real clear water. Spent a couple of days there and headed back to English Harbour to look at all the beautiful boats that were coming in for the charter boat show. Not for the likes of us to tour the insides, but even looking at them up close from the outside was amazing. Some people out there have a LOT more money than we do!

We finally left English Harbour and were planning on anchoring in Carlisle Bay and going out to the reef to snorkel. Kind of windy and choppy waves, so we passed on there and headed over to Jolly Harbour, home of Budget Marine. Once we pulled in and anchored we noticed that Metalia was there as well. We had met John and Marie in the work yard at Aquavit and they had given us all kinds of helpful tips on Antigua. It turned out Marie was back in Canada for the week, so we had John over for dinner and he pointed out the anchorages and problem areas - problem areas as far as the reef system goes! We tried to head north and made it to Deep Bay where the weather was not looking promising for heading farther north and cutting through the reef. So, back we went to Jolly Harbour where at least we could take the bus into town and visit three different beaches and had a wonderful dinner on Metalia. We went in and filled up with water this morning and pulled around to a little anchorage where we can steal internet, then we're off again tomorrow to attempt Boon's Pass and head into Jumby Bay.

I've posted another album, Venezuela to Antigua, on the Picasa Web Albums. That's sometimes easier than trying to download photos to the blog site.

Wishing everyone a happy holiday season!! ~~~_/)~~~

Venezuela to Antigua - 7 VERY Long Days

The last week before we left the marina we were busy shopping and stowing everything away, doing inventory lists, getting last minute chores done. You know, it's always better to leave some things until the last minute for that extra bit of stress. We had another gourmet meal aboard Nereia, cooked by Jaime, and made promises to keep in touch and meet up with he and Dan again. Told them they could always follow us to Antigua instead of heading west.

Up the next morning, Saturday, November 1st, topping off the water tanks, putting away all the loose knickknacks, hitting the bi-monthly swap meet for the last time, and off we went (even though Jaime tried to hold on to the boat and hold us back!)

Had a great motor all the way to our favorite little anchorage in Mochima Park, tucked in and secluded in 15 feet of water. Relaxed, swam and had an early night. Up and on the way to Coche before 7 a.m. Had not a bad day of motoring and some good sailing. Unfortunately, one of the small fishing boats decided that he couldn't make it past our bow, so cut real close to the stern, as we were screaming at him that we had fishing lines out. Yep, all 3 lures gone. To say DW was a little upset would be putting it mildly. Needless to say, he didn't realize at the time that this was the least of his problems.

Anchored in Coche where we were the last time and Dennis did his normal check of all fluid levels and the bilge. Red in the bilge, but no diesel smell. So not a good thing. Transmission fluid. Not quite understanding that since I had no problems at the helm with forward and reverse. Poured the last of our fluid in, only to have it run right back out. So, so not a good thing! Dennis crawled down into the small spot that he has to work in and couldn't find any problems. Now, a decision had to be made. We could sail on the outside of the islands back to Bahia Redonda and get a tow in - but the availability of parts and service people to work on Yanmar motors isn't really there. Made the decision to stick with our original plan and sail to Antigua, where parts and services would be readily available and at least we speak the same language. We had checked the weather before we left the marina and the winds were supposed to be light and the wave height down for the week. If we left Tuesday, we should miss the squalls that were going to hit the northern Windwards and Leewards. I spent Monday baking, making potato salad, pasta salad and cooking chicken so that I didn't have too much to do below underway.

Thankfully, the boat beside us left first thing Tuesday morning, so that I didn't have to worry about running into him as we pulled the anchor under sail alone. I didn't sleep all night I was so stressed about that part. We had taken up the anchor once or twice under sail, but had the motor running 'just in case'. But, that was also 4 years ago, when we were travelling with Frank and Gretchen on Infinity, and we were trying to show them that we could be real sailors too. Well, really, I wasn't sure about us! Dennis is only allowed 3 screwups a day, and he used all 3 up in the first half hour. The plan was for him to raise the main, hoist the anchor, and he'd be back to help pull out the jib. I was down below closing ports and making sure everything was ready to go and I heard the anchor coming up. Okay, he's done this before. He's taking up the snubber, right? I go up, the main isn't up. I ask him what he's doing. As usual, he ignores me (or he just doesn't hear is more like it). I give him another minute and walk up on deck and ask him what he thinks he's doing. He tells me to get back to the cockpit that the anchor is almost up. I inform him that he'd better drop it again - SINCE THE MAIN ISN'T UP! See, that's the difference between the two of us. Under stress, I get bitchy, he gets stupid! Then he didn't put a reef in, which is not a god thing as far as I'm concerned. I don't like being able to trail my hand in the water as we're sailing along. It also meant that I had to go below and put all of my clothes into garbage bags on the bed since there's a deck leak somewhere that drips down the starboard side, right into my clothes lockers. Oh, and if anyone tells you it's okay to cut the marker off Coche - DON'T! We did see 5'5" on the depth meter, I guess we were just over too much to hit the bottom!

It took us all day to get to the tip of Margarita. The first night is definitely the worst. We were both so stressed all day, neither one of us slept, so we were only doing a one to one and a half hour shift, and even that seemed long. We were also worried about power, not sure if we could run the diesel, so we ran no lights, no radio and hand steered all the way to Antigua. Let me tell you, that's a lot of work. The second day was better and we took turns napping all day and I was able to take most of the night shift. We've discovered that Dennis does well up until about midnight. After that, he just can't stay awake, even if he's just gotten up. I can handle the midnight to 5 a.m. shift as long as I have the MP3 player or IPOD going. (Found out that rechargeable batteries do not last in the MP3 player, you need regular batteries) Day 3 really is the turning point and you start to feel better. It also helped that Dennis would rig up the solar shower in the cockpit every morning so that at least we felt human at one point during the day. There was nothing out there. Usually, when I'm on night watch, there's always a freighter crossing my bow. I think days 4 and 5 we finally saw some traffic. Day 6, around 4 a.m., I could see Monserrat and Nevis. Unfortunately, it took us until 7 p.m. that night to make it past Monserrat and Redonda Rock. Light winds and strong currents. We were becalmed, doing 0.5 knots, for a couple of hours a day for 3 days. Very frustrating. Sunday night we made the crossing between Monserrat and Antigua. The waves got choppy and came over the bow and sides, getting me soaked. Dennis had to take over his shift early and put his rain gear on. Of course, not one wave came over the bow after that, and I woke to him trying to get out of his rain gear, with little success. It's cooler up here and I had on fleece!

Day 7, I think we're almost there. After the morning weather on Channel 06, everyone switches back to Channel 68. I called, stating that we were a couple of hours out of English Harbour, and if there was anyone that could help us come in to anchor, since we were without a motor, we'd really appreciate it. Sun Sail Charters responded and told us to give them a call when we were 10 to 15 minutes out. We did, finally at 11 a.m., and Sylvan and Clive came out to meet us out by the reef. Dennis said he wasn't worried. He obviously has much more confidence in my abilities than I do! They were great. They towed us in, we dropped the anchor, and they backed us up to set. We said we'd buy them a beer, but they didn't want anything. I brought in cookies and wrote a thank you to them in the Compass (January's Reader's Forum).

Got everything straightened out, had lunch, then went in to check into Customs, Immigration and the Port Authority. We'd heard not good things about the authorities in Antigua, and were a little worried since our Zarpe from Venezuela said we were checking into Guadaloupe. Fortunately for us, we ran into great people. Everyone was amazingly friendly and helpful and welcomed us to their island. The Immigration officer thumbed through our passport and commented that we hadn't been here before . We said not in 20 years, so we'd like to stay as long as possible. He laughed and said, "Welcome to our island - enjoy!"

So, here we are, the transmission having been taken out, dead in the water, waiting for our parts to arrive, two weeks later. English Harbour is a wonderful place to 'be stuck', and we've done a lot of walking, hiking and bus trips over the island.

Stay tuned! ~~~_/)~~~