Two Days in Deshaies (pronounced DAY AY)

ILENE, upper left, second day

Yesterday we did not leave the boat but blogged, cleaned the boat, read and dined aboard, all three meals, the first on baguette and croissant delivered to the boat by an enterprising young man in a dinghy. The reason for not leaving the boat: Wind. We are on the west coast of the island and the winds are from the east, so we are protected, right? But there is a valley that sweeps down from the hills to this open bay; it acts like a wind funnel, concentrating the winds. They blew at 30 knots with gusts to 35. It's just uncomfortable with the boat heeling a bit on each course it steers first on one side and then the other, (veering) trying to break free from the anchor. This causes anxiety about whether the anchor will hold, and whether, on such a veer, we will hit a nearby boat or it will hit us.

Roger accidentally attached the metal hook of our snubber line backward and the force bent back the prongs of the hook, causing the hook to release the chain. A snubber is a piece of rope that is attached to the anchor chain and bears the strain of the anchor. It is stretchier than chain, which better absorbs shock loads and avoids the loud clanging (like being hit with a sledgehammer) when the chain under load rolls a quarter turn in its roller. When the snubber detached, the chain, nearer the boat than the attachment point, which had lain slack, took the load. Roger tied the snubber back with some hitches (knots)and it held.

Today was a different story, except for breakfast. We took a hike along a mountain brook called the Deshaies River, which, after a while involved jumping from rock to rock in the stream, some of them slippery. With an average age of 64, our team decided to call it quits early. So we walked up hill on a curvy road about a kilometer to the Deshaies Botanical Garden. They charge almost $20 per adult for admission but it was worth it. They had gathered trees and plants that could grow in a tropical climate from all over the world and planted them here along a well marked paved path that took a visitor past each of them. The Bronx version is great but they do it by means of a greenhouse; this was all outdoors. there was a large 70 by 20 yard Koi pond

Ilene with Koi; man is feeding them.

stuffed with carp (orange, white and black -- the same color scheme as our cats), a Lorikeet cage (the only cage)(they sit on your hand for food)



a spot where large parrots sat and played.


There were broad vistas of the sea. The only fault of the garden, and it is one that we frequently see at home in the US too, is that the signage, describing each plant, was monolingual: all in French. In Paris almost everyone speaks English but we suppose Guadeloupe is more like the French farmland where bilingualism is not as prevalent.

Parlez vou Francaise?

We also continued our adventures in eating local. For lunch, Roger had curried goat.
W
For dinner, we cooked the yam, which looks black and has a hairy coarse outside (like the outside of a brown coconut without the husk), not smooth like a potato skin. But it is white and is supposed to be like a rather more fibrous potato on the inside. We had thought to make a potato salad but it got a bit overcooked so we made them into mashed potatoes. We also cooked the Christophane. It looks like a slightly flattened, pale green pear on the outside, but when cut in half lengthwise reveals a large flattened pit but not so round or so large proportionately to the whole as the pit of an avocado. Boiling for a half hour and scooping out the flesh, except for a quarter inch adjacent to the skin, the scooped out stuff is chopped, squeezed dry, and mixed with chopped onion, carrot, scallion, garlic. After this is sauteed, breadcrumbs and cheese are added to the mix and on top and then the things are baked for 20 minutes. Another new experience.

Tomorrow we plan to sail to Iles des Saints, a collection of small islands that is part of, though about ten miles south from, Guadeloupe.

Passage to Guadeloupe

Repairs to the hull completed on Sunday afternoon gave us the opportunity to leave big and noisy Falmouth Harbour and spend the night in a small and secluded and isolated place known as Indian Creek. The cruising guide told us we'd see more goats than people, and they were right. We left FH after filling our water tanks at the dock of the Antigua Yacht Club Marina, a place whose docks are filled with mostly sailboats and of the at least 20 that were "med-moored" there I doubt there were any less than 75 or 8o feet, and most significantly larger than that! Its really wild! They are objects of beauty and yet so ridiculously luxurious that it is beyond the imagination of mere mortals. Anyway, I can say in all seriousness that having a boat whose water tanks are filled is a great feeling. So, off we went for what I'd supposed was a 10 minute motor trip to Indian Creek which is a mere 2 miles from Falmouth. Well, I have to really learn that the Caribbean is an ocean and it has these waves or rollers and one of the reasons sailors love to come here is that there always is wind....and lots of it. So, the trip to Indian Creek was more like 60-90 minutes and what I was hoping to find there....seclusion, beauty, crystal blue calm waters would be more aptly described as brown, barren and desolate. We were the only boat that dared enter the narrow passage between two rock cliffs with big rollers cut off, but just barely, by the further one. Oh well...can't have beauty everywhere.
The next morning, yesterday, we set off for Guadeloupe which is about 42 miles from Antigua. I'm not going to get into a whole long story about how I cried out to Roger..."we can't go...we'll be lost at sea...no-one in their right mind would sail in these waves" and other such nonsense. Folks, I am telling you the ride here was like a 6 hour roller coaster with the waves coming every 10 seconds or so. It was WILD! Poor little Alpha Girl and Whitty much prefer hanging out on the boat rather than the sailing...just like me. The actual winds and waves were coming from our port side (from the east) as we headed south. This is called a beam reach. The winds reached 27-28 knots and sometimes were as low as 13 knots. On average, the winds for our passage here were about 18 knots. The big rollers reached heights of 10-15 feet but moderated as the afternoon got later.
BTW, as I sit here having safely arrived in the harbor of Deshaies yesterday at about 4, the wind outside is absolutely howling. It must be blowing about 30 knots and the noise is unbelievable. We are in an open cove that faces west but the wind, from the east, whistles through a valley, into the town (four blocks long) and right at us. We are all slightly unhappy about this wind and hope, as we've been told, that we are in the windiest part of the season...that these winds will calm down. This is a lovely small harbor and fishing village. It is part of France and consequently we had the best baguette this morning for breakfast delivered to our boat right from the oven. No wonder I'm going to be eating nothing but carrots once I get home!
We cleaned the boat so thoroughly today (another way to keep me happy, as I'm sure I've mentioned, is to have a clean boat) and will cook dinner aboard and either have friends over for some games, or finish a movie we started last week, "Australia".
Tomorrow we begin our exploration of Guadeloupe.
Last night we met up with our friends, Bill & Sandy (pictured above aboard "Lucille, their Saga 43), and met other friends of theirs who have spent the last 5 winters sailing their boat here.

Memories of Antigua

Roger here, with impressions of Antigua which we have left. Lene will post on our successful passage on Monday, January 17, from there to Guadeloupe, where we are now.

Antigua is a very British island. It also a very black island, populated mostly with the descendants of slaves who worked the sugar plantations and those who were freed and taught trades, upon arrival, after Britain had declared the slave trade illegal, but before it declared slavery itself illegal. It is also a very cosmopolitan island with yachts large and like ours, small, from cities around the world, though with perhaps a higher concentration of boats from England and countries that were once part of its empire including Canada and Australia than in the French islands.

The island is quite sports minded. We saw a young black woman whacking the heck out of a tennis ball served to her by a big strong young man -- training to be the next Williams sister perhaps? And a fleet of very small sailboats was racing around us every night, with considerable skill. It seems that an empty mooring next to us was their windward mark and they came close, some passing in front and others behind us after they rounded this mark, and yelling to each other.


The other end of their race course was under the rainbow. There was also an eight day Cricket match that we did not attend.

The salamander is perhaps the unofficial national animal. They are everywhere, mostly brown or green. I tried to help the woman in customs who had one in her office when we checked in at Jolly Harbor, but he was too fast for me to catch.

Customs was not as efficient as on the French islands where the forms are filled out on a computer, and it is more expensive in Antigua. We had to fill in long forms in triplicate on the way in $US16 (The native currency is the Eastern Caribbean Dollar with one $US equal to 2.64 $EC. But prices were high; it costs a lot of ECs to buy anything.) but then we had to fill out an almost ientical form on the way out and pay $US108 (50 for "port charges" and 58 for two exit visas -- which they would have charged us at the airport had we flown out.

Unlike all of the other nations we have visited so far, which import all of their beer, Antigua has its own home brew, Wadadli, not bad, which is the original inhabitants' name for their island.


Its label features a map of the island. The map is why I have a Wadadli tee shirt. But in fact we visited only three of the harbors by boat and one by bus, of the more than twenty harbors the island has to offer.

Antigua is where we tried native foods. We stewed a quince in white wine, cinnamon and sugar and have a black (on the outside) white (on the inside) yam to cook and a christophane (I'll tell you what it tastes like after we eat it). We got these on our bus trip to St. John, Antigua's only and capitol city, where the cruise ships come in. Our one eyed bus driver was a frustrated tour guide and gave us a running commentary on the sights of his island. Though the route went from the south central coast to the west central coast, we were able to see the other side of the island, briefly, from afar, when at the high area in the center. We also saw a church made of the pale green limestone that is quarried here.


I had dried salt cod, bakala, which Mark Kurlansky, in his book, Cod, told was was the only material protein source for the slave population, shipped to the islands from New England in exchange for sugar and rum. Bakala is kind of like gefilte fish in the sense that poor people's food becomes a nostalgic favorite. You are supposed to soak it in water to reconstitute it and get rid of the salt but you are not getting rare or even medium done fish and it remains salty. I think you have to acquire the taste for it. With it came "chop up": a mix of chopped okra and spinach. And plantains, which they boil and ducanas: a mix of banana and sweet potato, that has been steamed in a banana leaf and comes out sweet and looking like a four inch long flattened cylinder.



We were impressed with the rugged barren beauty of the cliffs that conceal inlets to this island. A photo I took from the top of Dawes' Hill of English Harbor, showing the flat peninsula jutting into it that is the Nelson Dockyard is in this post. So is a photo of the three huge manual windlasses


used to careen the warships. Careening was the process by which huge ships were pulled over onto their sides in shallow water (one side at a time) to permit the bottom to be cleaned and repaired.

Frustrations & Fabulousness

We've been trying for so long to get the internet on the boat. We have what is supposed to be the very best wifi booster in the market which SHOULD allow us to either "get" another boat's wifi signal (all of these megayachts that surround us have their own wifi network and many of them...so I've been told...have "unprotected" signals) or log on to a wifi network, we would pay for gladly. So far, no luck. Anyway, I haven't given up hope.

We arrived in Falmouth Harbor, Antigua, from Jolly Harbor, Antigua, on Saturday afternoon. We stayed on board that evening on our anchor in this big and beautiful place surrounded by these megayachts which are lit up like Christmas trees at night (their masts are so tall that they are required by law to have red lights on top to warn off airplanes). We are very close to Mirabella V (top photo), the tallest sloop in the world and Maltese Falcon, much bigger but with four rotating masts, each supporting four or five spars for square rigged sails.

On Sunday we walked about a bit and checked in with our Saga buddies, Bill & Sando on Lucille. They moved to a mooring as big winds were expected and so we did also. Sunday late afternoon there is a weekly happening on Shirley Heights, a fort on heights overlooking English Harbor (pictured above). A twelve piece steel drum band was the main attraction and about 1000 people drinking and eating up a storm. We walked up and back, about five miles, which was good exercise., with the Donaldsons, and then ate a good dinner at the Mad Mongoose, which has free 24/7 wifi! Roger had his first Wahoo, a tasty flaky fish that looks like a barracuda while swimming but is good eating.

That night at 1:30 a drunk dingy driver at high speed crashed into the side of our boat, making two gashes into the fiberglass about 2 inches long, about 25 inches above the waterline. Roger went up on deck and asked if he was hurt and he said yes but didn't need help and drifted away into the darkness. There is a five knot speed limit in the harbor and at night, without lights, he was crazy to be going fast. This damage needs to be repaired because otherwise salt water will get into the fiberglass and eat away the boat. So Roger covered it with duck tape to keep out the rain. Then we found a man who does this work, got an estimate from him and will get the work done, a few hours a day over three days, which means we will be here yet a while.

We are in the big roomy Falmouth Harbor which is a 500 yard walk from the much smaller, more protected and picturesque English Harbor. English is the home of "Nelson's Dockyard" on a peninsula into the harbor, which was the headquarters of the British navy until the late 1800's when it was given to the government of Antigua and later, starting in the 1940's, developed into a refuge for pleasure yachts instead of square rigged warships. They have a great little museum and Roger has spent several hours in it over the last few days. Nelson, Britain's greatest naval hero, actually was in command here for a few years, about 20 before his death at Trafalgar aboard the flagship Victory. But he was rather unpopular when he was posted here because of his strict enforcement of the British law that only British ships could trade with the new USA, thereby depriving local merchants of revenue. His wife, the one he separated from when he had his affair with Lady Emma, starting in 1800, who bore his daughter, Horatia, after his death, was born and raised on St. Kitts, about 40 miles from here.

St. Martin to Antigua

We got the good weather news and crossed the lagoon to exit through the Dutch side bridge at its 4:30 pm opening. Roger had been afraid to cross the lagoon because the channel is not well marked, the electronic chart had no detail and the only paper chart we had was a "sketch" chart in the cruising guide. But having traversed the lagoon at least 10 times by dinghy and assisted by our hitchhiker, Manu, we made it across, took down the French flag, did not check in with Dutch customs, and were on our way.
On board for this 16 hour journey was the Captain, me, Manu (short for Emmanuel, who is 34 years of age and a native from France born in Lyon and lives in Montreal) and Michelle. (Michelle is 54 and hails from either Australia, Switzerland France or Canada. Her accent is a combination of all 4...she has a home in Switzerland and her passport is from Australia.) Oh...let me not forget our furry felines, Whitty and Alpha Girl. I may have mentioned earlier that my cautious kitty, Whitty, has become more adventurous. Pictured above is the boy nestling on top of the boom. Alas, I have now both to worry about! Also pictured above is the view from the top of Sugar Ridge, a mountain overlooking Jolly Harbour which is the port we pulled into at the completion of our passage. The final picture is of "TeePee", a 36' aluminum 1981 french built Via that is owned by our hitchhikers and took them across the Atlantic and is being prepared for the journey, ultimately, to Australia. TeePee has been "on the hard" for 7 weeks and in the bottom left hand corner of the picture is my back and Manu, who is completely covered in white overalls and mask for sanding the bottom. Roger tells me there is no dirtier job for the care and maintenance of a boat (except maybe the cleaning and repair of the head).
For the passage, we put up a double reefed main and the small jib and this was not enough sail because the wind was lighter than we had expected so we also used the motor the whole way. The course was about 145 magnetic and took us past Saba to starboard, St. Bart to port and then St. Eustatius, St. Kitt and Nevis to starboard before seeing Montserrat to starboard and Antigua to port. The whole trip was one long 16 hour close hauled port tack. We were slowed by big waves that came from our front. Ilene cooked chicken breasts with mandarin orange and pineapple sauce, green beans with lemon, and seasoned rice which we ate as darkness fell. Roger had the watch from 6 to 9 pm and again after 3 am, and our guests shared the six intervening hours. Ilene slept on the starboard side salon bench and Roger took the Pullman which needed the lee cloth. He was awakened with a yell when about a cup of salt water landed on him. We had made a mistake in not tightly and fully battening down the two top hatches. They were closed enough to keep out rain but not to keep out water when waves washed over us. The kitties did NOT enjoy the passage, with Alpha Girl suffering feline mal de mer. We arrived at the customs dock in Jolly at precisely 8:30 a.m. We could have easily avoided a 16 hour night passage if we had stopped at the various islands we'd passed en route but decided, for several reasons, to visit them on our northward journey.
We went to Jolly Harbour first because that's where the girls boat is and, knowing we would be spending most of our time in Falmouth Harbour (where most of the action on the island is located), we wanted to experience another harbour. It was lovely and quiet and peaceful. We checked in at customs and while Roger helped the girls move their belongings to their boat and dropped off the laundry (which was washed and dried for us at a cost of $55 US!!!!) I cleaned the boat. We went for a swim in a large pool at the Jolly Harbour Resort and had a drink with the girls. We then went back to ILENE, had dinner made from leftovers and then R & I had a great 9 hour sleep. We went for a hike in the AM and the picture above is a view from the top of the hill.
We pulled off the mooring at about 1 PM and had an amazing sail to Falmouth Harbour. I have never sailed in waves this big. Some of the rollers appeared to be more than 12 or 13 feet. I'm glad it only lasted several hours. We arrived at our anchorage in the harbor at about 4 PM and decided to stay on board. It is now Sunday, Jan. 9th at about 11:45 AM. We are sitting in the cafe on the deck of the Antigua Yacht Club and the weather is perfect. Tonight, and every Sunday night, there is a party on Shirley Heights, which we hear includes steel bands and BBQ. We plan on taking the 2 mile hike up the hill late this afternoon and will carry a flashlight for the return trip. Life is good!

Final Impressions of St. Martin

Roger here:

We will have been here almost four weeks, and there are a lot more islands to visit before our adventure ends, probably in late May. So why did we tarry here so long? Well we had planned to stay a week; then I was sick for most of a week; then we had to wait for a repair part; and finally the weather has not cooperated.
SM has many positives. The French food has been great and extends beyond restaurant food to our boat eaten food as well -- where casoulet and pate have shown up. And those baguettes and croissants -- wow!
SM is an island with two nations on it but they have lived in peace with each other, except when the European nations which "owned" them went to war, for 362 years. This is a beautiful concept. The main roads are marked at the border with the flags of both nations but it is a completely unmanned and unguarded border; less guarded than the border between the US and Canada. Currencies freely are exchanged. The only friction seems to be the phone companies; we have taken to leaving our Blackberries on the boat when we visit the Dutch side because otherwise they reinitialize each time they are carried across the border, causing missed calls.
Our new dinghy and outboard and time with friends has been wonderful.
We are rested and I began a chore not done since last April: cleaning and waxing the topsides of the boat, whose white gelcoat had turned light gray during the past eight months. Working less than two hours per day, I will be done in 20 days. (Nicholas: where are you when I need you!)
Our marina staff have been so very friendly, helpful and cooperative.
Our new crew, hitchhikers really, came aboard our boat from the boat on which they hitchhiked here from Antigua, yesterday. Michelle and Emanuelle have been pleasant guests but due to our delayed departure, their stay with us will be longer than first expected. Several of our relations back home have warned us that they might be pirates, but they have not seen and spoken with Manu and Michelle.

Some St. Martin negatives too:
Simpson's Bay Lagoon is home to some boats that could probably be called derelicts, or at least "fixer uppers," some of which appear uninhabited but other of which house people who are living on tight budgets. These boats are not visually appealing.
We have been moored close to some shore housing, the inhabitants of which play electronic noise recordings. It appears to be a cross between reggae and hip hop and none dare call it music!
Too many boats in the lagoon without any boat sewage removal process (pumpout) give its waters, near the edges, a slight sewage smell.

Today we took a bus ride to Phillipsburg on the Dutch side. ($2 per person, each way, pay when you leave, buses every five minutes or so.) We went simply because we had not been there. The town is a long crescent beach with a concrete promenade (boardwalk) shoreward of the white sand and paralleled by two shopping streets, Front Street, nearer the water, and Back Street, further away, with the more expensive shops on Front St. and all name brands represented plus at least 100 jewelery stores. It reminded me of Charlotte Amalie on St. Thomas. There were three mega cruise ships docked to the left side, spewing their combined 6000 passengers into town. I was not pleased when Ilene entered a casino and bought $50 worth of chips to play blackjack because I do not enjoy any aspects or thoughts of gambling. In fact they pain me. After a dip in her chip supply, she played rather conservatively and when the has amassed $105 in chips, she cashed in, rather than stay and lose it all. The house always wins in the long run. I stood by her side and rendered moral support, which she wanted. I was very proud of her. The other good thing is that we were able to walk through the town and not buy anything; we certainly do not need anything. Well actually, we did buy one thing: an inexpensive basket made of green woven palm fronds. When they dry to brown and the article is then varnished, we will have the bread basket that Lene has so long sought. I was again very proud of Lene. In the past she would have bought jewelery simply because it was there.

Trying to Leave St. Martin

Hi all,
We are still here in St. Martin in the waters of Port Royale Marina. We've been hanging out a lot with Bill & Sandy Donaldson of the S/V Lucille, another Saga 43. They bought their boat about 5 years ago new from Saga and Bill is meticulous! He is a former racer and knows a lot about boats. Roger and I are shadowing both he and Sando, his wife (that is not a typo...that's her name) as they know so much about boating and about Sagas. I am keeping a list of small and large changes I want to make to ILENE to make it easier to keep clean and better organized. These changes include taking shoes off when entering the cabin and having shoes dedicated to cockpit use. Shoes that are worn off of the boat are never worn on the boat. There are mats that can be bought from LL Bean which absorb water, protect the floors and are of material that the cats cannot damage or use as a nail sharpener There are micro fiber towels that absorb water and dry almost instantly and will be great for use after showers. Also, we might remove our microwave, which we hardly use, and replace it with another cabinet...storage space is always a good thing. I tend not to pay so much attention to those changes that make her more seaworthy or a better sailing vessel. Roger pays a lot of attention to those details.
We play cards with them, and have now learned how to play dominoes. I'm not overwhelmed with the game but the tiles are real fun to handle. They eat on our boat and we on theirs. There is a protocol to visiting other yachts. You bring your own beverages and you take home your own garbage. They are a lot of fun as well as being terrific people. Bill is a retired orthopedic surgeon from the Boston area who did a lot of work with children suffering from rheumatoid arthritis. His stories are so moving, and the joy he feels in having helped suffering children get relief is a privilege to hear. They will be heading to Antigua as well. This is their third season in the Caribbean so we gain a lot of knowledge about different islands and where to go and what to do when we get there.
A few days ago while we were paying another visit to Budget Marine...we've probably been there a dozen times... Roger met two French women, Emmanuel and Michelle, who hitched a ride to St. Martin on Ciao Bella, a 40' Jenneau, to buy some supplies. They left their boat, which they sailed from France to Antigua, in Antigua. They are hitching a ride with us back to Antigua. In fact, as I sit here in the air conditioned marina office, Roger and the two ladies are working away getting ILENE ready for departure. We await word from Bill Donaldson on the weather to see if we will be leaving today, tomorrow or Thursday. We are waiting for slightly calmer seas as the wave height and wind direction and speed will make the 16 hour sail not as comfortable as we like. Of course the two French ladies who sailed across the Atlantic on a smaller boat are ready to go now and think conditions are just fine. I am thrilled they will be with us as it allows me to be the "stay in the cabin and cook" part of the crew. Overnight sailing is not my thing although it will be much nicer to be with someone else in the cockpit. What bothers me about the night time sailing is seeing the lights of other boats. I get frightened. On the other hand, it is an amazing experience to be in the middle of an ocean on a clear night with millions of stars alone in the cockpit. This is an experience where believing in a higher power becomes easy.
Above is a picture we took from our cockpit at dusk. One really can't capture the sunset in a photo. At least I can't. But, it is really a beautiful sight. Kind of makes it easier again to have faith that there is a power greater than myself at play in the world.
We just got word that Bill & Sando aren't leaving for Antigua until Friday or Saturday. They are subscribers to a professional weather service run by a man named Chris Parker and they put a lot of faith in his broadcasts. A lot of people do. Chris says they should not leave until then as there is a "trough" heading north which will cause gale force winds. Decisions, decisions, decisions. Well, we won't leave today and we'll take another peek at weather tomorrow.