The Bermuda Triangle: no extraterrestrials or missing bombers to report.

Well, we sailed 900 miles through the Bermuda triangle and didn’t spot one extraterrestrial or missing WWII bomber…bummer. We left Simpson Bay Lagoon in St. Martin on Tuesday through the 11:30 bridge opening. It was like starting our trip with a parade. Several boats turned north along with us, and all those who didn’t turn off within 10 miles to head into Marigot or visit the island of Anguilla were either headed to Bermuda or back to the US. We had an incredible sailing day, with perfect winds forcing us along at hull speed and a current taking us on an even faster carpet ride. We stayed in sight of several boats for a few hours, but by nightfall we had spread out enough that we couldn’t see any navigation lights. On Wednesday, we made radio contact with our friends on Waterapp and another boat nearby, Hobnob, and found out that another boat from St. Martin, Bombay Sapphire, was along in the pack. We were extremely lucky that Hobnob was in SSB contact with one of the best weathermen out there, Herb Hilgenberg in Canada, and each day we could listen to him on SSB channel 12359 giving Hobnob very specific weather information and advice from his arsenal of weather data. We had pretty good luck receiving weather files (grib) with our satellite phone as well and could keep up with the weather on a daily basis. Even though we were having exceptional wind conditions, we had extremely cloudy days with occasional rain or squalls and dark cloudy nights for the entire trip.

We continued sailing at a blistering rate doing 170 miles the fist day from noon to noon, 159 miles the next, and 169 the third...all of these far exceeding the number of miles we sailed in a 24 hour period before. At this rate we were going to make it to Bermuda in 4 days rather than the 5-7 predicted. The winds were broadside or a little forward and we could make use of all of our sails. After several days though the winds switch around to directly behind us and we started to slow down to a speed which would have thrilled us in the past, but disappointed us this week. When the winds got light enough we raised the Spinnaker and happily sailed with her for several hours until a gust caught her and blew out some hardware. We decided it wasn’t worth losing the sail, so we ended up spending all day changing our sail configurations in the light but gusty conditions trying to find something that would move us at a decent rate, but for the most our fast ride was done. We lost radio contact with everyone during the downwind portion of the sail; and although we felt we were going quite slow, we had pulled out of radio range from the others. As the winds came back around they were too light to keep us moving very fast and for the last 24 hours they were right on our nose. We tried tacking east or west, but it was disheartening making 2-3 knot progress towards Bermuda, and we finally ended up cranking up the motor for the last 24 hours.

We were required to call Bermuda Radio when we were 30 miles outside the harbor and we were already on their radar. We had pre-filed a float plan with them, so they had all of the safety information they require from each vessel nearing Bermuda. They filled us in on big ship traffic that we would encounter as we entered the harbor and asked us to call back when we arrived at the channel and they would give us further directions to the customs dock. Bermuda Radio is really like air-traffic control for the water. This is really the most formal and secure system we’ve seen so far and we were impressed with the efficiency, courtesy, and cheerful attitude of all involved. We came into the Customs dock an hour short of 6 days after we left; our travel time was 143 hours covering a distance of 894 miles, averaging 6.3 knots. We might have had our hopes up for better things along the way, but this was really much better time than we expected to make. We are anchored near the wharf in St. George’s at N32 22.80 W64 40.34 on a glorious 74 degree sunny day.

Now that we’ve been in St. George’s for a couple of days we find it absolutely charming. We spent some time with the folks from Hobnob at a street festival on Tuesday night and took a moonlight walking tour of the old city. We are cleared in for a 3 week stay and we are really looking forward to spending so much time in one place again; especially such a wonderful place as Bermuda! Gary and Chris are on their way in Thursday and we’ll let them be our tour guides. I expect we’ll even stay longer as it looks like Andreas and then Emily may get a chance to visit us in June. We'll update the blog soon with pictures of this lovely island.

Cool Weather, here we come!

We are anchored comfortably in the bustling Simpson Bay Lagoon; once again surrounded by all the wonderful things that make daily life comfortable: laundries, grocery stores, hardware stores, free wifi, and cheap beer. We entered at 11:30 on Wednesday, waved to the folks at the bar, dropped anchor at N18 02.450 W63 05.635, and were having $1 beers at the bar for the next bridge opening at 5:30. We spoke with a friendly young couple from the Netherlands whom we’ve bumped into in Statia and Saba and entered with into the Lagoon. It turns out they’ll be heading to Bermuda as well on their sailboat, “Waterapp”; and, as I was publishing this blog, we bumped into them again and decided to set sail together (as I am retyping, they are all studying the weather on their laptop).

It is a small world, and we were delighted to bump into D and Don from “Southern Cross” while we were in town doing laundry on Friday. We worked with them at the boat show and assumed they were far south of us by now, but they got held up in Oriental, NC and are just making their way south for the summer. We’ve continued to meet up with them around town ever since and have enjoyed their company.

We are leaving St. Martin for our 850 mile passage north to Bermuda on Tuesday morning, May 15th; it should take us 6 to 8 days. We have enjoyed our time in the Caribbean immensely; however, these summer temperatures are draining us and we definitely feel like its time to go. Our next blog entry should be after the 21st, once we arrive in Bermuda and find a good wifi signal.

The Tiny Island of Saba (Say-ba)

Saba is the sort of island King Kong might live on. We are used to islands with a lot to do at sea level, but Saba’s hills rise precipitously from the sea and look impenetrable. There is one small stretch of sea-level living area on the south side of the island, but the ocean swell and rough seas make it untenable; therefore, we just stopped there for a short time to clear in and then made our way around to anchor in Ladder Baai (N17 38.100 W63 15.360). Ladder Baai is so named because of the staircase, called “The Ladder”, which takes you 700’ up to a town called “The Bottom”. Why is a town perched atop a 700’ cliff called The Bottom, you ask? Probably because it is at the bottom of the 3000’ Mt. Scenic. Other than “The Bottom” there is another town on the island called “Windwardside”, which is on the windward side; there is a road which runs between the two called “The Road”. Things just don’t get any simpler, well, except for the years before the 1970s when all supplies to the island had to be brought up that darn ladder to The Bottom.

We arrived on Sunday, and were pleasantly surprised to find the harbormaster ready to clear us in and take our money and the national park office open and ready to take their share as well. We were anchored by 2pm and took our own stab at climbing that never ending staircase for some exceptional views. The Bottom is another friendly village with winding streets and red-roofed Victorian cottages…half the towns in the Caribbean are this West Indian style, but the Dutch influence seems to put the final touch on it with particularly clean and manicured domestic and public areas. Even the hotels here have the same quaint construction rather than looking like the overwhelming resorts on other islands. We came back down the ladder near sunset, the view taking our minds off our legs, which were quickly becoming noodles.

Monday’s hike ended up being a 7 hour trek on several hiking trails up to the top of Mt. Scenic. Mt Scenic is a cloud forest and it was very interesting to climb our way through the arid hills and the mossy bird-filled woodland to the moist and dark forest atop the mountain. The hiking trails are interesting as well; the trails are either typical dirt tracks through the woods but they can also be the old paved paths that folks used to get from town to town before The Road was built in the 1950s. Some of the paved trails appeared to be the only way to access some of the houses there. Paved or not, most of the trails were quite steep and a little tricky and we were happy we had our hiking boots and poles. We were pooped by the time we made our last steps down the ladder and ended the day relaxing in the water on our noodles (the pool toys, not our fatigued legs). We were so charmed by it we decided to stay for another day and spent Tuesday hiking, shopping, and just plain lounging around. We stayed one night too long; however, as we spent a sleepless night being rocked terribly by a relatively small ocean swell in windless conditions.

On Wednesday morning we were off on an exhilarating close hauled sail back to St. Martin for some requisite wifi access, blog publishing, long talks with home, and calm nights in the Lagoon. It is unfortunate we didn’t have time do any diving while we were in Saba, since that seems to be the main tourism industry in Saba. There are more dive operations there than any other island we’ve been to and I’m assuming that the diving must be brilliant. Well, I guess we have one more reason to return to the Caribbean again!

A surprise in Statia

We spent one more comfortable night in well protected Oyster Pond before heading out on Sunday to alleviate our loneliness in the colorful city of Marigot on St. Martin’s north side. We dropped our anchor in Marigot’s beautiful bay (N18 04.035 W63 05.645) and dinghied in to check things out. It was Sunday evening, though, and the city was looking a little more like a ghost town. We visited the ruins of the fort high above the city and found lots of locals there for a perfect sunset view…and once again we had forgotten our camera. Monday morning we scampered back up to the fort to take pictures, window shopped, and checked out of St. Martin before sailing south to St. Bart’s.

It was yet another great sail to St. Barthelemy (better known as St. Barts) and we anchored outside of Gustavia harbor (N17 54.045 W62 51.375) with enough time for a grocery shopping trip before dinner. When we were here with the catamaran, we were moored nicely within the harbor, we were surprised with the amount of rolling going on outside of the harbor, so on Tuesday after a pastry run, we headed a few miles north to the beautiful anchorage at Anse du Columbier and picked up a mooring at (N17 55.520 W62 52.260). It is really neat to be anchored right in the city of Gustavia, but Reinhart and I really prefer the setting of Columbier with its isolated beach and crystal clear dark turquoise water; and with a decent dinghy engine, you can motor into Gustavia anytime you want a more metropolitan existence. There was plenty to do with swimming, snorkeling, and a hiking trail to the town of Flamands on the north side of the island, and we ended up spending two nights moored securely in the bay while the winds kicked-up outside.

We decided to sail south on Thursday, dropped by Gustavia to check out with the friendly harbormaster and turned south to the island of St. Eustatius, better know as Statia. We hadn’t heard too much about Statia, and most folks we knew were passing it by for St. Christopher, better known as St. Kitts and Nevis. It’s a surprise anyone finds their way around the Caribbean with all of the nicknames! Our friends on Aurora had heard we might like the hiking trails on Statia, and that was what steered us in her direction. Statia is quite striking as you sail past with the 2000’ perfectly shaped volcano looming above; however, when we first dropped anchor in Statia’s port of Oranjestad (N17 28.810 W62 59.295) we felt like we had made a mistake. There were just 5 other pleasure craft in the anchorage, the waterfront seemed desolate except for the tugboats at the town jetty, and there were 5 oil tankers anchored way off the island, waiting to visit the refinery and pipeline located a few miles north. We actually found out that most of this “lower” section of town was a simple waterfront park and the stairs to “upper” town were located down the street…already things were looking up as we climbed what seemed like ancient stairs bringing us to the town of Oranjestad, located on a the cliff 150’ above the water. “Downtown” Oranjestad is made up of narrow tightly packed winding lanes surrounded by tiny Victorian cottages and historic ruins with beautiful gardens. Everything is extremely clean and meticulously maintained. I feel like it rivals Gustavia in beauty, although it is pretty in a simpler, sleepier way, or maybe it is just because it is so remarkably clean.

On Friday we donned sneakers and socks (such a strange feeling) for a hike up to the rim of the Volcano and down into the dormant crater. We walked through the not so charming, but far more realistic, side of town to the national park. The hike was fabulous with lots of unusual plant and animal life. The hike from the crater rim up to a high point along the rim was the most challenging hike I’ve been on, and it was quite a balancing act to climb these volcanic rocks to the summit. We hiked down the steep crater from there into a cool damp jungle of strange trees, huge vines, and moss covered rocks; swooping birds and eerie cries accompanying our decent. We hiked back to town, exhausted, but not too tired to find an ice cream shop! We took land-showers using wasteful amounts of water at the park office and headed back to Maia for dinner. We had lots of entertainment in the harbor as many of the town’s commercial boats packed the dock to bring crew members home for the weekend, and we decided that maybe we find Statia so charming because it reminds us of the ports in Alaska. Our Saturday was spent reading and rain collecting in the morning, and snorkeling with the abundant and exquisite tropical fish that reside in the old Oranjestad under our hull. Sunday we will point our bow to Saba (no nickname). We originally had no intention of visiting the tiny island of Saba, but we’ve heard great things about the hiking there and don’t want to pass up such a wonderful opportunity so close by. We’ll be making our way back to St. Martin after that and within the week we’ll be making our 850 nm leap to Bermuda, and cooler weather!