A Sail of Two Idiots (46 page)

The boat had a lot of issues. But I had also learned a lot.

S
o we left Grenada on a Friday in mid-October, beating the crowds once again. First up was St. Lucia.

This would not be a meandering trip. We wanted to list
Jacumba
with a broker on St. Martin as soon as possible and see if we could get her sold. However, once we were back to the Grenadines, we were tempted to stay awhile. We had forgotten how beautiful the island chain was.

After eight hours (54 miles) of motorsailing northeast, we arrived on Union Island at dusk, which was scary. You'll remember that the Clifton anchorage was reefy. We relied on our prior chartplotter tracks to get us into the harbor and anchored safely though. We also soothed our nerves afterward with a final visit to Happy Island.

We couldn't resist snorkeling the Tobago Cays one more time the following day and then overnighted off Bequia. We sailed with dolphins past St. Vincent and ended up anchored at the very southernmost tip of St. Lucia, at Vieux Fort Bay (no boat “helpers” there), having knocked out another 55 miles. We thought about staying on St. Lucia a little longer, since we hadn't really seen the island, but decided against it, worried about money. I regret that decision. Instead, we motored up another 25 miles to Rodney Bay just to knock off more distance before the next long hop.

We got up early and had a fantastic 94-mile jaunt to Dominica, sailing almost the entire way except for when Martinique got in the way of our winds (again). While moored in Roseau, right after the sun set, we watched a phantom sailboat come in as silently as could be. We were commenting on how impressive it was for them to sail right up to a mooring when it occurred to us that there might be a problem.

All of a sudden I had a flashback to Joe and me in a Trinidad harbor when we were exhausted and trying to find one of the few remaining moorings, none with the necessary pendants, and with ever diminishing light.

Michael and I dropped our dinghy, zoomed up to the sailboat, and asked the crew if they needed help.
Oui
, they did. Their engine had conked out. They were grateful for help with a mooring so they could troubleshoot the problem. Here was our pay it forward. Nothing feels better.

Before our arrival, Hurricane Omar had swiped most of the islands from the south, so we weren't surprised that Sea Cat's dock was missing. Octavius, our intrepid Boiling Lake guide and mooring maintainer, was already rebuilding, of course. Once on Dominica, we couldn't
not
do a hike, so Sea Cat told us to take the local island bus to Trafalgar Falls. It wasn't as good as Boiling Lake, but the falls were still worth the trip.

We then motored up to Portsmouth, where it would be a short hop to Les Saintes the next day. Although we hadn't been to this harbor in months, out came Alexis, our boat helper, tour guide, and friend, all smiles and happy to see us. Even Sea Cat, after celebrating our return to Roseau, asked if we had gotten our engine repaired all right and asked about my sister. We really liked the people on that island.

Portsmouth's beach had also taken a pounding in the hurricane. Big Papas was closed because there was no way to get to the now cliff-like beach, but we knew they'd be up and running in no time. We were actually relieved to know we'd get some sleep.

Next up was Les Saintes. After a fantastic 25-mile sail across the cut between Dominica and Les Saintes, we had to intricately weave and bob around dozens of crab pots blocking the main harbor entrance before we could anchor near town on Terre-de-Haut (you may need to moor there now rather than anchor). That was annoying, but all was forgotten when we smelled the French bread all the way from the boat. Our mouths were watering. Yours would be too if you knew how good these baguettes tasted.

Tres beau
! People riding bikes or mopeds, church bells ringing, couples kissing, tourists admiring the beautiful houses. Sigh. We grabbed our beach gear, picked up some bread, and walked with the families to the public beach to spend the day.
Fabuleux
!

Before going back to our boat, we stopped at a little restaurant on the harbor for a beer. We were really waiting for the boulangerie to open again so we could get more bread. Somebody stop us! Do they have support groups for this sort of thing?

While we hung out, a group of little girls dressed in black and orange, some with witch hats, walked up to us with little bags of candy. Oh yeah! It was Halloween. We weren't sure what to do until we saw them run up to a local, who promptly
took a piece of candy from the bag. How civilized! The kids were actually handing
out
candy!

Au revoir
Les Saintes.

Although we were sad to leave Les Saintes, we were excited to snorkel Pigeon Island again (27 miles northwest). Two rocks make up this little “park,” and the smaller one turned out to be the most striking. Storm clouds were gathering, but rays of sun penetrated to the sea bottom. We were floating while bubbles from scuba divers below us caught glints of sunlight. All of us surrounded by fish. The whole experience was ethereal.

We pulled into Deshaies, Guadeloupe, at 1 p.m. (it was only a 10-mile trek), which left plenty of time for Michael to find the brand of potato chips he'd fallen in love with during our last visit. He came back from the store a very happy man.

We were determined to get to Montserrat (50 miles northwest) this time around. We had to put up with the predicted 11-foot seas and were a bit green upon arrival, but at least the wind had been behind us. Once in Little Bay, we anchored away from the ferry and freighter dock, and also from the wrecks in the harbor. If we thought the waves on the way had been bad, this bay was r-o-l-l-y. Catamarans do better than monohulls in such conditions, but it can still be uncomfortable.

In the middle of the night, I noticed a bright light overhead. A huge ferry was backing out from the dock, and we seemed to be in his way. I wasn't sure he could see us, so I turned on all our deck, stern, and masthead lights, gunned our engines, moved out of his way (while keeping our anchor down), and went back to bed.

The next thing I knew I was smelling diesel, hearing engines a little too close for comfort, and staring at bright lights again. It turns out that the ferry had decided to anchor and was putting out
lots
of chain. I scrambled to get the lights on again and waved off the ferry. Finally they stopped dropping back on their anchor rode and we both brought in some of our scope to avoid a wee-morning collision. I got to listen to and smell the boat's generator all night; Michael slept through it all. Must be nice …

We had a tour scheduled for the next day, but I was nervous about leaving the boat where it was, so we moved it around to Rendezvous Bay. Our guidebooks had said not to go there (too rolly), but it was beautiful, calm, and empty!

We dinghied over to the busy harbor we'd just left and met up with Joe, our tour guide. He had photos of the island before the volcanic eruption and promised to take us to each spot, show us a “before” picture of the location, and give us a perspective on how things had changed. One photo showed the volcano in the background, in the midst of what looked like a violent eruption, with the towns-people in the foreground just going about their daily lives. Strange what people become used to.

In 1995 the volcano started building a dome, whose partial collapsed in 1996 started a pyroclastic flow. In 1997 a massive lava flow cascaded down the mountain, burying the island's capital (Plymouth), killing 19 people, disrupting the main maritime port, and taking out the airport. Montserrat is only about 10 miles long and 7 miles wide, so losing any land is a big issue. Two-thirds of the population had to move; many were given incentives to leave Montserrat altogether and go to England. The volcano is still active and continues to seep lava that gobbles up land. There is an exclusion zone on island as well as off, so watch your charts and read your guidebooks to make sure you don't end up inside the restricted area(s).

Although Montserrat hadn't been affected by Omar's winds, the hurricane rains had carried rivers of mud and lava down into inhabited areas. Well-built but uninhabited houses were halfway up in mud and lava and most still contained the owners' belongings (some people hoped to dig their homes out someday). Docks that had been in water were now on land, and volcanic black sand spits appeared where there were none just months before.

Joe took us as close to the volcano as we could get, giving us a panoramic view of the destruction. He was having such a good time that he even brought us to a friend's house on what was left of the golf course for a drink. The island and tour are highly recommended. Who knows what you might see now. In 2010 the latest dome partially collapsed and sent volcanic material 9 miles into the sky. Pay attention to which way the winds are blowing when you sail past so you don't end up with ash in your boat engines.

Montserrat was worth the stopover but was not a place we could live (they don't want people moving
onto
the island). And nothing broke on this leg of the trip!

We got a late start to Nevis, about 40 miles and five to six hours away. The sun would set around 6 p.m. Could we leave Montserrat at 1:30 p.m. and still get to Nevis before dark?

Almost. The sun had just gone down, but we needed another 20 minutes. Although I had the moorings on my chartplotter, the cliffs seemed to jump out at me. We felt too close to shore. I got paranoid and told Michael to drop the anchor where we were. Once the sun came up the next morning, we realized we were literally 50 feet from a mooring. Shrug.

We then headed to our final pit stop on our way to St. Martin—Ile Fourchue, just west of St. Barths and a 62-mile sail. This is the same rock we had stopped at with our friends and boater wannabes Chuck and Jen the previous Christmas (almost a year before—time does fly). The moorings were still free, the turtles still swam around us, and we got a bonus of a big barracuda hanging around the boat. It was peaceful (we were alone) and just what the doctor ordered after a lot of sailing and before the busy, noisy harbor to come.

Our last hop turned out to be an easy sail with only 20 miles to cover. We tried to put up our spinnaker but couldn't remember how.

Amazingly, nothing major broke. Some seams on our on-deck cushions started to split but were a quick fix to sew. And we decided to relabel our anchor chain while we were on a mooring.

S
o let's sell a boat! We had signed with a broker via e-mail and were looking forward to meeting her, only to discover that she had quit. We signed with two new brokers, one on St. Martin and one in the States, put big fabric For Sale signs on the boat, and created a blog page with all the details. We were ready.

We had a wonderful surprise when one day the family that had looked at
Jacumba
while anchored off Grenada stopped by. Did I mention that the boating community is a small one? I thought it was so cool that they felt comfortable enough to say hello. They were getting ready to put their new boat with an Antiguan chartering company (chartering was why they needed a boat newer than ours).

Our biggest shock, however, was when the original owners of our boat (who had sailed the boat from its factory in South Africa all the way to Florida) motored up with our broker. Wow! They hadn't been sure it was the same boat; we had changed the name, but there weren't too many Island Spirits out there, particularly 37-footers, so they thought they'd just come by and see. We had so much fun listening to their stories.

Seven members of their family, from small kids to grandparents, spent two years sailing over 18,000 miles on
Jacumba
(then
Irie
). They were nuts! Two of the clan, a father and daughter, were running a horse ranch on St. Martin but were itching to get out on the water again. The daughter had been pretty young during their voyage, and it was fun to hear her observations. They couldn't believe that we still had their dolphin dinner plates. It was a fun walk through memory lane for them. Although, they were interested in buying back
Jacumba,
they had to sell their ranch first. Boo.

As fun as it was to run into these blasts from the past, we were discouraged when after a month all we found were people who were “interested … but.”

Worse, when we finally had an honest-to-goodness French buyer in the works, we ran into a really big problem—our U.S. federal documentation. Because of the age of the boat, certain certifications were necessary to change a boat's flag from the United States to any European Union country. Most boats got this certification during the building process, but that hadn't happened with ours. Worse still was that our boat manufacturer had recently gone bankrupt and couldn't issue the needed documentation. An after-build certification was expensive and no sure thing. Uh-oh. There went all French buyers—potential and real. We were in trouble
now. Unless European buyers were willing to incorporate themselves and put the boat under their new non-EU corporation's flag, or were of non-EU citizenship, we were out of luck. That meant our buyer pool had been badly diminished.