Silent Night

Seth and Lesley flew back to the bitter cold north on December 15th. Their arrival back into DC was delayed by a snow storm! Oh, I’d glad to be down here this time of year! We may have to deal with rain and high winds, but we don’t see much ice and snow.

We set sail for St. Vincent on December 18th. The winds and rain we’d been seeing had calmed a bit and the sea was ready for us to make the 38 nautical mile sail to Wallilabou Bay. So we said good bye to the Pitons of St. Lucia. I wondered whether we’d see them again.

We arrived in Wallilabou Bay without incident, but the sail over had some exciting times. We ran into several 30 knot squalls which helped us become more comfortable with our boat in these winds. The weather forecast had told us of these squalls and we’d prepared by putting one reef in the main sail, which you may recall means we don’t have the entire main sail up. Eyes of the World handled each of the squalls with ease and delivered us to our destination happy and healthy.

Wallilabou Bay was one of the main sights for the filming of “Pirates of the Caribbean” a few years back. The sets are still up, although not in the best of shape. One of the main houses has been converted into a hotel and restaurant. It was a nice place to stop for the night.

The next morning, still under clouds and covered with rain, we decided to sail to Blue Lagoon near the southern end of St. Vincent. There is a marina there and we needed to clean out the boat and get fuel before sailing into the Grenadines. We spent a few days in the Marina and it was nice to be on land again.

We’d planned on spending Christmas on the island of Bequia, 8 miles south of Blue Lagoon. Leaving St. Vincent behind us, we arrived in Bequia’s Friendship Bay later the same day. The anchorage here was very nice, but a bit rolly. It was the 22nd of December, so we decided to press on to Union Island’s Chatham Bay to spend Christmas.
The sail down to Union Island was gorgeous – one of the best we’d had. Additionally, Chatham Bay was just fantastic with a well protected anchorage, snorkeling just off the boat and a long sandy beach for running the dogs and taking walks.

Our Christmas was unlike any I’ve had so far in my life. The night before, Margit made us Christmas Eve dinner on Lucky Star. Living up to her usual yet amazing standards, we had:

Starter: Smoked salmon canapés
Amuse Bouche: Fried green mango slices with balsamic reduction
Salad: Asparagus cucumber boat with St. Lucian Piton limes
Main course: Margret duck breast, potato gratin and crème de cassis foam
Desert: Mince meat pie with ginger cream

Read that again. Sounds like dinner at a 5-star restaurant, no? Well, it was a Lucky Star restaurant and it was a wonderful evening.

Christmas Day consisted of a lazy morning reading and watching the birds eat the bait fish. It doesn’t seem to bother the pelicans too much when the brown booby steals what fish it can directly from his mouth. The girls and I could watch this for hours. When we finally got going, we joined Chris and Margit for a two-hour snorkel just off the back of our boats. We were swimming among thousands of these bait fish, seeing their world now directly. I so wanted to see the pelican splash down right in the middle of them. After a small lunch, in anticipation of the upcoming dinner, we read a bit and might have dozed off for a bit.

Christmas dinner was just as good as the night before, perhaps better. Margit, once again, whipped up a meal worthy of any critic’s rating. I might mention that her galley, like ours, is much smaller than even the smallest kitchen in the US. Not to mention the availability of the food, veggies, etc. The menu for that evening included:

Starter: Foie Gras direct from Paris
Main course: Leg of lamb with roasted vegetables
Desert: Apple tart made from scratch - remember the size of the galley

It may have been a bit sad to be so far away from family and friends in the US, but we had such a good time (and good meals) with Margit, Chris, Jackie, Cooper and Coco. It was another night to remember aboard Eyes of the World.

Ain't No Mountain High Enough

The Pitons on St. Lucia inspired me to use this title. They are two of the highest most dramatic peaks in the Caribbean. This was the next stop down the island chain for us. But wait, I get ahead of myself.

Rick returned from his short trip to the states on Monday, December 3rd. We had our friends Seth and Lesley arriving on the 8th in St. Lucia so we needed to get a move on to ensure we’d be there when they arrived.

We departed La Marin, Martinique on December 5th and said good bye to the last of the French islands in the Caribbean chain; at least for a few months. The sail to St. Lucia was just over 21 nautical miles and the weather was forecasted to be good for the passage.

During the sail, we noticed some squall activity heading in the direction of St. Lucia. As the line developed, a small funnel cloud formed over the north end of St. Lucia which was a very eerie sight. We were glad not to be there and able to observe the cloud from afar. We did run through a few showers, but did not have any high winds which was very nice.

Rick had his fishing line out, but didn’t get anything on this trip. Thus far, the only fish he’s landed was the mahi mahi on our sail to Dominica from Les Iles des Saintes, Guadeloupe.

St. Lucia is one of the prettiest islands that we’ve seen. It’s the second largest of the Windward Islands. For those unfamiliar with the Windward Islands, they run from Martinique down to Grenada. They are called “windward” because when the English settled these islands, they had to sail into the wind to get to them. The direction from which the wind is blowing is called Windward. Therefore, these became known as the Windward Islands.

Now, the Leeward Islands start with Anguilla and extend to Dominica, just north of Martinique. Presumably that would mean that you’d sail with the wind to get to them. However, it seems that we’re always sailing into the wind no matter what. Murphy’s Law, I suppose. That’s your educational lesson for today. Oh, and for those who are wondering which island is the largest in the Windwards…it’s Martinique.

We arrived in Rodney Bay in the afternoon and found a very nice spot to anchor. Chris and I went ashore to clear in and I was again on the search for a new SIM card for our cellular phone. We’ve been getting new SIM cards on each island because it allows us to call back to the US much more economically than using the satellite phone or land lines.

We moved the boat the following day down to Marigot Bay. On the sail down, we ran across the Queen Mary II! She was quite a sight and we were right up on her outside of Castries.

Marigot Bay was perfect for us because it was very calm and would allow us to install the new internet antenna I’d ordered. Rick brought it back with him on his trip. The new antenna allows us to pick up signals from a greater distance. The antenna needed to be mounted to the top of the mast, then a CAT-6 cable run down the mast and through the boat to our internal router. Talk about a job! With Seth and Lesley just a day away, our boat appeared a disaster area. We did manage in the end to get the antenna installed and operating properly. It took three of us to get the job done and Chris very generously helped us out.

Seth and Lesley arrived right on time and Rick and I were at the airport to greet them. We had a great time with them while they were here, even though Seth had to work during the day. We anchored near the Pitons which are an icon of the Caribbean. We really couldn’t have asked for a more beautiful spot. The snorkeling, diving and hiking were terrific.

Seth and Lesley enjoyed their time on Eyes of the World just as much as we enjoyed having them. While it was sad to see them go, Rick and I were excited to continue our journey south to St. Vincent and the Grenadines.

That’s it for this update. I hope all is well with you and yours – and we hope everyone has a fantastic holiday season!

Deck The Halls

As many of you now know, Rick flew back to the US for his annual store annual Christmas party. His arrival at the party was a surprise even to his staff.

My uncle Steve had left just a few days prior to Rick going back. The picture below is of us in front of the HMS Diamond Rock. Like many Caribbean islands, Martinique changed hands between the British and French many, many times. During one battle, they elected to make this rock part of her majesty's fleet.

While Rick returned to the US, I stayed back with the dogs in Martinique. And also as many of you know, I love to decorate for the Holidays. So what did I do, you ask? Shop of course!

I would describe the shopping on Martinique as some of the best I’ve seen in the Caribbean. Martinique is like Guadeloupe inasmuch as it is also a Department of France, meaning it is like our states in the USA. The culture of the French islands is more similar to that of France than the former British (now independent) islands. Martinique has superstores that have nearly everything you could need. Both Margit and Chris joined me on a search for the perfect decorations that would fit on a 41 foot catamaran.

We went to all of these superstores on the island: Cora, Carrefore and Euromarche. We even tried the Home-Depot equivalent Mr. Bricolage. Christmas in the islands is not as much in-your-face as we are in the US. For example, the decorations did not even appear on the scene until just after Thanksgiving. I know, hard to believe.

I wasn’t having much luck on our quest for holiday cheer. I was also shopping for a 220V power washer at the same time. What’s that you say? Why? Well, while Rick was gone I also did some heavy cleaning on Eyes of the World and saw Jon Jill next to us using a power washer to make his job easier. Besides, do I really need a reason to purchase power tools?

Chris spotted the shopping center. He saw a small bricolage (French for hardware store) in a strip mall so we pulled over. Margit waited in the car because it was cool and we didn’t want to turn off the A/C. The bricolage didn’t have the power washer, but the strip mall also had a small specialty store for knickknacks. We figured, what the heck, let’s check it out.

This was one of those stores that assaults your senses when you enter. Kind of like a Body Shop or L’Occtaine. There were so many different smells and there was so much stuff crammed into this 100 sq meter store that I nearly did a u-turn and walked out as fast as we went it. However, with Chris just behind me I didn’t want to appear so shallow. I started looking around, trying to clear my mind of the overload to my nose and eyes.

Margit showed up a few moments later, deciding to give up the cool in favor of some good shopping finds. She spotted them first… Thank god she was there; I’d already given up on finding anything among all the stuff. But I’m happy to report that we have two Christmas trees, a strand of lights and some other decorations this year!

Shake Rattle and Roll

On Thursday, November 29th I experienced my first earth quake. Some of you may have read about it. But it not, you can read about it here. It was a big one, 7.4 on the Richter scale and centered about 22 miles N of Martinique.



We are all OK down here – it was certainly an exciting 30 seconds. We were all on a boat at the time. I was on Eyes of the World and Chris, Margit and Rick were on Luck Star. Rick started back to our boat and realized the dock was shaking more than the boat. The water acted as an insulator of sorts. I was on a phone call with a client and managed to describe the entire experience to them.

On land it was worse. A wall fell down in the Marina Office and one man had a heart attack. Everything seems to have calmed back down now. We have electricity and internet... but most importantly, we have French wine and cheese.

We're off on Tuesday for St. Lucia and will meet our friends and neighbors Seth and Lesley Cohen next Saturday. Stay tuned for more blogs...

Oh, and in case you didn't read the Thanksgiving Day blog here's a link to it.
Yes, we actually managed to publish more than one blog within the same 2 week period. :)