Merry Caribbean Christmas

We got to Grenada from Trinidad on the 13th of December, and learned why our friends on Tsamaya call this "Camp Grenada". There are probably 200? sailboats here, maybe 50 in Prickly Bay, where we are anchored, and so many activities we could be doing something social every morning, afternoon and evening. That's not really the style of the house, as JP would say, but we have done a number of things, including:

1. bingo night at the Tiki Bar at Prickly Bay Marina (JP and Susan); alas, no winnings to report
2. cooking "class" (more like cooking demo) at True Blue Marina, by their chef Esther and sous-chef Omega - twice, on the 15th (I learned how to make sorrel, a holiday drink in Grenada and Trinidad; it's made from a flower that is related to the hibiscus and blooms around this time of year. The drink is bright Christmas red, with a subtle flavor enhanced by ginger, clove, bay and cinnamon) and again on the 22nd ("Creole" chicken, not recognizable by an Louisianians, but delicious and worth trying).
   
3. the fresh market in St. George's, where I spent more than an hour trying to track down a bag of said sorrel flowers, but also bought my first spice necklaces
   
4. an excursion to a black beach and to Concorde Falls, involving actual rainforest hiking at an interesting incline (Susan had already returned to NH for Christmas, so this was just Leigh and JP)
5. initiating a solar panel project, at long last, that will probably keep us in Grenada until mid-January
6. an evening of local music and poetry at the Grenada National Museum in St. George'
7. a "pile on" party on FoxSea; we met Bob and Vicki at Iles des Saintes in Guadeloupe and met up with them again at Crews Inn when we got back
8. Fish Friday in the fishing village of Gouyave
9. Christmas lunch with FoxSea, Fruit de Mer, Jammin', Ruth and Smidge at True Blue

You get the idea.

For me the best parts of Grenada are the gorgeous scenery (high hills that rise behind the bays) and being back in turquoise water and being able to swim off the transom every day. We love many things about Trinidad, but we miss the turquoise water.

Here is a slide show of photos we have taken since the morning we left Chaguaramas.

Eco-touring in Trinidad

We decided to rent a car and drive to the east coast of Trinidad for a few days. We stayed in Manzanilla, and were able to get a guide to take us to a portion of the Nariva Swamp [www.limelandtours.com - Kayman is a great guy and a superb guide]. I think the photos tell the story much more clearly than my words can.

Trinidad has long had relatively little interest in tourism (it's an oil and gas producing country, so is not dependent on tourist dollars for revenue), and has nearly no eco-tourism. There are, however, some amazing sights, including Nariva, and, more traditionally, the Asa Wright Nature Center in the Northern Range. We kayaked with Kayman into what is called the Bush at Nariva; we were able to see both species of monkeys who live there, a Red Howler and (the fast moving, at least that day) Capuchin White Fronted. On Friday we stopped at Asa Wright; it's a wonderful opportunity if you are any kind of birder (I'm the kind who loves looking at them, and hardly ever learns much about them, much less tracking my sightings), love old interesting houses, or just want to be refreshed by incredible mountain views.
Here's a slideshow of our photos from the two and a half days:



We are off to Grenada, likely tomorrow; Susan is flying to the States for Christmas on the 17th and returning on the 1st.

Back to Chaguramas

We made it back to Port of Spain on Wednesday the 30th - really Thursday the 1st, as the flight was late - and after a day of recovery and preparation, and a visit to the yard (and Grace's roti shop, of course)



we were able to get her back in the water on Friday the 2nd.



We had a couple of problems once floating - a missing part on the wheel, necessitating an emergency visit from the metalworking guy, and no transmission, thanks to an incomplete job, necessitating a visit from the engine guy's emissary - but we were out in the bay at Chaguramas by about 1:30 or so. We decided to float the dinghy and mount the engine; we pushed our luck a little far because we got caught in a 30-ish knot squall with Susan still in the dinghy, but she managed to mount the engine AND get back on board Raconteur, and we headed into our slip at Crews Inn.

We met up with Vicki and Bob on FoxSea, in a slip right across from us - we met them originally in Iles des Saintes - and they were kind enough to include us in an excursion to the Indian restaurant Apsara, in Port of Spain, last night. There were nine of us in all, on four boats, and we had a feast.



We haven't really provisioned yet; we have been to the the Hi-Lo that is located here at Crews Inn, for essentials like roasted split peas and channa (snacks we love) and our new fallback drink, white rum and Sprite



and enough to manage a "breakfast" on board today - Cheddarwurst on toasted baguette - but we will probably not do a provisioning run until Tuesday.

I think we will be in Trinidad for most of this week, into the weekend, and then will start to make our way north to Grenada. Susan is flying out of St. George on the 17th, and will be in NH for the holidays; she flies back to Grenada on the 1st of January.

Three months stretched to five...but soon.

We left Trinidad on the 5th of July; JP and Susan went back for a week to oversee a couple of projects and move Raconteur to the hard. Turns out to have been a good decision, since our planned three or so months away has stretched to five.

We spent a little time in Lauderdale in early July, then were on the road to Montreal, Chester, Chichester, New Haven, Nazareth, Pennsylvania, Chillicothe, Monte Carlo, Valence, Vonnas, France, back to Lauderdale, back to Chillicothe, back to Chester, back to Montreal, back to Chichester, back to Lauderdale, back to Montreal, back to Chester...you get the picture.
JP en route back to Lauderdale from Montreal as I write; Susan is in Lauderdale, and I am in Rosslyn, Virginia (and home in Chester) until we all reconvene in Lauderdale tomorrow. Are you dizzy yet? Next week, looks like another round of Lauderdale, Montreal and Chichester before we FINALLY will book to return to Port of Spain, Chaguaramas, and Raconteur.

Once we get the bottom painted, deal with any issues that will have arisen in so many months on the hard, and get her back in the water, we will head to Grenada, where we will likely stay through the Christmas and New Year's holidays. After that...no particular itinerary. We don't want to rush, so we will have to see what that implies for NEXT hurricane season (can't believe I am even talking about this, since THIS one doesn't officially end until 30 November, AND there is a Tropical low pressure system brewing east of the Eastern Caribbean right now.

We are all dreaming about a little turquoise water - and perhaps one or two of these.

Chaguaramas, Trinidad

We left True Blue in the early afternoon on the 27th, and made an afternoon stop at Hog Island, to have a swim and a rest before the overnight passage to Trinidad. It was a good sail, but a bit on the "good exciting" side of the scale; the winds were around 20 knots or so from the east, and the seas on the high side of the forecasted 5-7 feet. We did what I think of as our usual watch schedule: Susan 1800-2200, Leigh 2200-0200, JP 0200-0600. No one slept much; it was hot and a bit bouncy below decks, and there was a squall around 1130 and then we needed to stay a mile away from the Hibiscus oil and gas platform that is about 30 miles off the coast of Trinidad, so JP stayed around after the squall for that maneuver.

JP put the engine on about 10 miles from the coast, as the wind was both "variable" and squally, and we came through the Boca de Monos into Chaguaramas around 0700. We were on the dock at Customs and Immigration by 0830; the process was pretty painless and we were in our slip at Crews Inn at 0920.

Here are some Grenada and Trinidad pictures:

2011 06 Grenada

It is hot here, as expected, and we 1) do not have an a/c because the pump was on its last legs so JP took it out in Grenada (a new one is on order and due here on Friday) 2) do not have POWER during the day because the electric company is working on things at the marina from 0800-1400(ish) during the day, so the a/c we rented after chasing one all over town isn't much help and 3)it rains regularly and sometimes HARD so having the hatches open is a problem. Not a great start to our planned several month stay here, but I will probably feel better when the a/c and power problem is resolved (fingers crossed, by Saturday sometime).

We have prepared the maintenance list and are getting ready to take it to the yard to get the process started. It's kind of a daunting prospect to think of leaving her here for nearly three months anyway, and when I look at the list I am even more anxious. This has been the plan all along, but now that it is "real", it doesn't look so easy to do as it was to say all these months.

On a funnier and more positive note, a story. Years ago, my friend Joan gave me/us a copy of the book "An Embarrassment of Mangoes", by Ann VanderHoof. Ann and her husband, Steve Manley, are a Canadian couple who took a two year Caribbean sailing sabbatical (about 15 years ago) on their 42-foot sailboat Receta; she wrote about the adventure when they got back to Toronto, and I am sure one can find many a dog-eared copy of the book in the collections of many folks who have done or want to do the same thing - me included. They got back to the Caribbean on a more or less full time basis about five years ago, and last year, around the time we were getting ready to head out, she published a second book, focused almost exclusively on the food of the region, called Spice Necklace. (EOM had a lot of food stuff too, including a number of Island recipes and cooking stories). I have both on my Kindle.

It has become a running joke on Raconteur that I consult "Ahhhnnnn" the way other cruisers consult people like Van Sant, Street, Chris Parker, Herb Hilgenberg, et.al. "What does Ahhhnnn say?" "Ahhhhnnnn says...." "Ahhhnnnn and Steve said...." etc. Even our fishing technique borrows a (jokey)bit from them.

SO: maybe nine years from Joan's gift of the book, several charters, the purchase of Raconteur, the voyages to and from the Chesapeake and Lauderdale and the Bahamas, and the 3,200 miles of this cruise later....we pulled in to the dock at Crews Inn (I was struggling not to be sideways and not to hit Blue Horizons, the boat in the next slip), I looked up, and saw....Ann VanderHoof, walking down the dock toward Receta, in the slip opposite and two slips away.



Kind of a nice coda to this leg of the journey.

Carriacou, and the "home" stretch

Here are our photos of the Grenadines, including Carriacou:

2011 06 Grenadines and Carriacou

After Bequia we headed first for Mayreau, which has a very small "half moon" beach and anchorage; we had a nice beach barbecue, but the anchorage was horribly rolly. We now classify anchorages not "rolly" and "not rolly", but by HOW rolly...Mayreau was maybe a 7.5 on a 10 point scale. It's not life-threatening, but can make cooking, sleeping and general maintenance much more challenging and tiring.
From Mayreau, to Union Island; we have very fond memories of our first stay there, on a charter in 2005, despite that fact that Susan injured her good knee on the way there and we needed to find a doctor (who assured her, correctly, that it wasn't irrevocably damaged, and that a few weeks would heal it, which was exactly the case). Anyway, we were interested to go back to see if it was as we remembered it (including Happy Island, the pile of conch shells turned beach bar that featured in our Christmas Card that year). It is truly a lovely, amazing anchorage, right on the reef (both times we were led in by a local "boat boy", this time Angelo, and took a mooring from him). We stayed several nights, did indeed revisit Janti on Happy Island (in a wild squall); we found a little market called Captain's Gourmet (I think), with a French woman proprietress (and homemade yogurt), and generally enjoyed the stay very much, despite the regular squalls. We are having a series of tropical waves, every four days or so, so we are traveling with an eye on them.
After Union, we headed for a night on Petite Martinique, which is one of the three islands (with Carriacou) that makes up Grenada. It is a fishing village, off the path of most cruisers, and we had an enjoyable (and only moderately rolly) overnight there.

As I write, we have been at Carriacou for several days, and will head off tomorrow to Grenada for our last stops before the passage to Trinidad.

Alex complained that our pictures are not "Fair and Balanced", so we tried to take a few of the "other side" of life in Paradise; not sure we really succeeded, but here they are:

FairAndBalanced

To be honest, I think we try not to be excessively "American" in our views of things that are different here, but of course we don't always succeed with that either...

Bequia, Grenadines, in a thunderstorm

Susan and I came ashore to drop off our propane tank to be refilled, drop a bag of trash, pick up a few groceries, and scope out a place for dinner. I stopped by an internet shop, and have been uploading the photos from the Pitons:

Pitons

and from our couple of days in Bequia so far

Bequia

It is raining like crazy, with some thunder and lightning, probably the advance party for a tropical wave that is due here soon. We will probably stay through tomorrow (the propane won't be ready until noon-ish anyway), and then we are planning to stop at Mayreau, maybe the Tobago Cays, and then Union, before heading to Carriacou (which is part of Grenada) and then on to Grenada proper. We are only a couple of weeks from the end of this leg. When I can, I will post an updated log of our journey. We have logged almost 2,900 nautical miles since we left Kent Island in October.

Martinique and new friends

After a few very nice days in Dominica, mostly in Prince Rupert Bay near Portsmouth, and one overnight in Roseau, we headed on Saturday morning for Fort-de-France, Martinique. In the end we decided against anchoring right off the city (the largest in the Caribbean) and headed for a place called Trois Ilets on the other side of the bay.
We had a big adventure on the way: We caught a large swordfish, which yielded 33 pounds of fish. When we got to the anchorage, we sought out fellow cruisers to share our bounty. Neighbors on Dreams at Sea and on Magus happily took us up on our offer.
In return, Magus had us and Tsamaya for dinner on board last night - a gourmet feast, as Yani on Magus is a trained French chef, Indonesian-born. Tonight we will have sundowners with Dreams at Sea.
Tomorrow we will likely head on south to Rodney Bay on St. Lucia, and perhaps a little marina stay.
I am typing on a French keyboard, so don't really have the patience for much more hunt and peck!

Covering a few nautical miles

We have been mostly on the move since my last post. We hopped through Puerto Rico and the Spanish Virgins, then spent a few nights in the British Virgin Islands - including a quick haul-out for the required out-of-water survey for the insurance company, which we were able to do at Nanny Cay on Tortola in the BVI - and then took another long (41 hour) passage from Virgin Gorda to Des Haies, on the northwest coast of the French island of Guadeloupe.
We arrived here on Friday morning the 27th, spent a quiet day and then rented a car on the 28th to see some of the interior. On the 29th (yesterday) we headed for Iles des Saintes, off the southern coast, and tomorrow will we move on to Portsmouth on Dominica (after trying to find fuel at Baie de Marigot, just around the corner; we have not taken on fuel since Soper's Hole in the BVI).
Some of our photos in Guadeloupe are here:

2011 05 Guadeloupe

We are forecast to have some stronger wind and seas over the next few days, until Friday, so we will likely stick around Dominica until then, before heading to Martinique for next weekend.

Great passage, and...

We set off from Ocean World/Playa Cofresi on Thursday around 1030, intending to land at Mayaguez on the west coast of Puerto Rico by Saturday morning. Contrary to all conventional wisdom, the gods were smiling, we had great conditions for nearly all of the dreaded Mona Passage, and we were able to come on around to Ponce on the south shore instead, by early afternoon on Saturday after about 50 hours underway. We were tired but delighted to have another 280 nautical miles behind us.
The weather and sailing conditions since have been mixed at best, but mostly yukky. We spent the weekend at Ponce Yacht and Fishing Club, enjoying a but if Puerto Rican music, food and drink at the nearby malecon (seaside) boardwalk, doing a little light provisioning, and then heading about 8 miles south and east for what was meant to be a day of R&R at Isla Caja de Los Muertos.
We found a set of moorings maintained (?) by the park service, and got one fairly easily. It was Monday so the place was deserted; we gather it is a favorite weekend spot for locals. There was a LOT of roll, but it was just one night so no worries (?). JP and Susan swam to the beach and explored the island for an hour or so. After they returned, the weather kicked up a bit more from a smallish squall, at which point JP noticed first that we were lying in an odd position to the mooring ball, and then that in fact, the ball was no longer attached to anything and, therefore, neither were we. We started the engine PDQ and Leigh drive while JP and Susan attempted first to get the mooring on board (to keep it from becoming jetsam) and then, when that proved impossible, to detach from it. There is a second anchorage area on the island, so we went there and spent the night uneventfully.
Left around 0500 to head for an anchorage at Puerto Patillas; good sailing for about two hours followed by major squalls and downpours for the next FIVE hours it took us to finish the 30 or so miles.
Heading around the corner to the east coast tomorrow, hoping for better but the forecast is not encouraging.
Neptune giveth, and Neptune chargeth for the gifts.

One week in the Dominican Republic

It took only a couple of days for us to address three of our four technical issues - the generator needed a new belt, but a bearing had seized (which probably caused the belt shredding, JP guesses) so the mechanic here fixed both and the gen is now fine. We MAY have identified the cause of the engine not charging the batteries (intermittently); only time and another voyage will tell. With the gen working, that is less of a worry. JP and Susan labored to fix the davit support that had come out for the second time, and feel pretty confident that it will hold for a while. They also made some adjustments to how the dinghy is attached, making it a bit shorter and reducing the torque on the cross-straps.

SO - with only the compass left to be fixed (and that seems to require the ability to turn the boat in all directions in very calm waters) - we set out in our rental car on Sunday to explore a bit of the Dominican Republic. We drove first to the capital, Santo Domingo, in the south, for an afternoon, evening and overnight. We enjoyed a bit of people watching in the Zona Colonial, on the Parque Colon, strolled a bit of the old city (too hot for much of that - mad dogs and Englishmen and midday and all that), and had a nice dinner in a restored colonial house near our hotel in the old city.

After breakfast on Monday, we headed for the mountain area that is north and west of the capital, to a town called Jarabacoa, to stay in a very nice resort hotel called Hotel Gran Jimenoa. It is right on a bend in the river Jimenoa that absolutely roars - lovely, lovely spot - and though May seems to be off season, the staff was very friendly and the rooms comfortable. The location is the main draw, and there are many activities in the surroundings, from white water rafting to climbing the highest peak in the Caribbean (Pico Duarte, 3,400 metres), to hang gliding...we elected the rather tamer visit by car to two of the waterfalls that are nearby, Salto Jimenoa Dos, and Salto Baiguate.

I am finding it hard to write concisely about our impressions of the DR. Susan said today that there is a 100-peso economy (about 36 pesos = $1 US) and there is a 1000-peso economy - meaning, you can get a meal for 100 pesos or so that is delicious, plentiful, served in a safe and friendly environment - and then you skip from that to the more standard $20 and up entree type restaurants (at or near the hotels, for example). We saw brand new high-rise condo buildings in Santo Domingo on the Malecon (waterfront) that could be in Miami, and plenty of very nice vacation houses both near the beach here in Playa Cofresi and near Jarabacoa. We saw lots of people clearly making subsistence incomes selling produce, breakfast foods in the town square, flowers by the side of the road. We were greeted warmly nearly everywhere (the hotel in Santo Domingo was an exception that we can't really explain) by nearly everyone; music is played in what to our ears is a nearly relentless fashion - everywhere, all the time, and at full volume - and if there isn't music playing, someone is usually singing. I guess what I would say is that it is very apparent that this isn't a place you can understand quickly or easily, but it is easy to see how people fall gradually in love with the DR and want to stick around to see and understand more.

You can see a selection of our photos by clicking on:

2011 05 Dominican Republic

We are back at the marina now, and have spent today provisioning in Puerto Plata, returning the rental car, topping off the water tanks, cleaning the boat, checking on the weather, and generally preparing to head out again tomorrow. We are going to try again to make a long passage; our target is Boqueron, on the west coast of Puerto Rico. It's about 250 miles, so we should arrive there sometime early on Saturday...though I am NEVER supposed to say such things.

Map of the voyage

http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?hl=en&ie=UTF8&msa=0&msid=216743130033821435210.0004a2b3dc947d3c2cb61&ll=34.849875,-76.695557&spn=2.492741,5.817261&z=8

Ocean World Marina and Boat Repair?

We left Provo on Saturday 30 April and headed across the Caicos Bank. It is very beautiful, we think...the ride was too uncomfortable to prove it by us! We knew we were heading into a less than ideal crossing, but had hoped to get all the way to Big Sand Cay south of Grand Turk, to stage for our trip to the Dominican Republic. Alas, much too much headwind and banging around for that, so we stopped first (for two nights) between Big Ambergris and Little Ambergris, right on the southeastern edge of the Caicos Bank, then headed along to Big Sand on Monday the 2nd. It is a lovely, lovely uninhabited island (we took an unbelievable number of photos, even for us); you can see them here:

2011 BigSand

Last evening, after talking about the weather window with Chris Parker, the cruisers' weather guru, we headed out from Big Sand intending to go all the way to Samana on the east coast of the DR. Alas, after a fabulous sail for the first 8 hours or so, the wind started to clock and to die, AND we confirmed that our batteries were either not charging or charging inconsistently from the engine, AND we already knew that our generator, which would otherwise provide battery charging as an alternative and back up to the engine, was on the fritz. So, we bailed for the north coast, and Ocean World Marina, at Cofresi, four kilometres or so from Puerto Plata.

The gen problem JP and Susan were able to diagnose:



Note thoroughly shredded belt. The engine problem awaits the arrival of the resident mechanic and electrician tomorrow; he is already at work trying to find a replacement belt. We are hoping we don't have to order it.

We will spend at least a few days and maybe as much as a week here, because we want to take care of our little problems, and see some of the DR, probably by car. Here is a little taste of the place; it is so different from the Bahamas and the Turks and Caicos, but really beautiful:






For anyone keeping track, we are now 1,186 nautical miles from our Kent Island home marina, "as the crow flies". Raconteur and her crew are NOT crows, and we have sailed and motored many more miles than that, though I will have to consult Susan and the log to find out exactly how many. We have about 762 crow miles from here to Chaguaramas, in Trinidad, to cover between now and early July...yes, that means we "flew" 1,186nm in seven months, and need to "fly" 762nm in seven weeks. Some serious island hopping ahead.

Taking care of business (not without pleasure)

So we realized sometime after we left Emerald Bay that our (brand new) refrigeration system was not really cooling as it should. It had been excellent all through the trip down the ICW and across to Bimini and down the Berry's and Exumas. By the time we got to Provo ice was melting in the freezer, drinks were not cold in the fridge, and we started to worry that if we were leaking freon we would burn out the compressor. So, we took some of the meat and poultry to the freezer that that South Side keeps for ice, and asked Bob, the proprietor, if he could track down a refrigeration technician. The first guy was booked until the next century, but he did find someone to come out yesterday. He was more than competent, quite thorough, and diagnosed the problem within an hour - a pinprick hole in the plate that surrounds the freezer compartment.
Full disclosure - JP bought an ice pick for Leigh to keep her from using the can opener to break up the ice. This may have been a tactical error, but we now know that the plate is considerably more fragile than we thought, whatever might have been the cause of the hole.
By last evening, the hole was well patched and the fridge and freezer back to full function - but we spent the entire day on the boat, despite having picked up a rental car in the morning. We dined out at the Tiki Hut at Turtle Cove Marina - that's the sunset picture above.
Today we waited a little while for the technician to return (to confirm that the fix worked, and to get paid), but decided to head off for our errands late morning. A marine chandlery, a home depot type place, a bookstore, a pharmacy and a supermarket. These are places that we have never seen in the islands - the home depot type place and the supermarket in particular are completely US style (at about double US prices, granted). I walked around the supermarket with my mouth hanging open - it could have been Publix, or a super Stop and Shop, or a brand new Safeway.



Between our trip to the chandlery and the home depot we went to lunch at "da Conch Shack" which has one of the best locations on the Island, and really good food. The conch items (conch salad and cracked conch) were good - the fried grouper was excellent. The rum punch wasn't bad either.




After putting away the overabundance of food that we bought (in celebration of the fridge/freezer fix AND the supermarket), we stayed on board this evening, eating chili and listening to the 30+ knot winds that are blowing, even in the marina. Should lie down a bit by tomorrow (Thursday) evening, but we probably will stick here until early Saturday morning before resuming our journey to the southeast.

Raconteur's third country

Raconteur will be ten years old sometime later this year; she is a 2001 Hunter 410, though for some reason she has a 2002 hull number. Her first owners kept her in Delray Beach, Florida and made regular trips to the Bahamas; we brought her home in the summer of 2005 and then made our first trip to the Bahamas in early 2009, and of course returned in early 2011.

After our two-part Bahamas cruise this year - Lauderdale to Bimini, the Berry Islands, New Providence, and the Exumas down to Emerald Bay in the first leg, and then Emerald Bay to Long Island, to Conception, to Rum and to Mayaguana in the far southeast in the second leg - we headed off yesterday very early to Providenciales (aka Provo) in the Turks and Caicos. Here is JP, taking down the Bahamas courtesy flag, and raising the quarantine flag, which we will fly until we check in to the TCI.



We made it here ahead of winds from the south that have settled in now, through sometime late Friday. We are at a small very cruiser-friendly marina called South Side, so will probably rent a jeep tomorrow and tour Provo, and may try to find a surveyor and see if we can get a quick haul-out at a nearby shipyard. We have to do it by late June or so, and so would have tried it in Grenada or Trinidad, but as JP is fond of saying, what's done is done.

Good internet access here, so more posts and pictures to come. Here are the most recent photos of our journey from Mayaguana to Provo.

https://picasaweb.google.com/raconteurcrew/SailingToTheTurksAndCaicos#

Heading south and east

We have been at Rum Cay since Wednesday, thinking we would need to wait out some weather, but have decided that we still have a window ahead of it to make a good run, with winds from the northeast, from here to Mayaguana, about 145 nauticals. We can bail out to Crooked Island if it is too rough out there, but if we don't go now we are going to be stuck again next week when the wind clocks to the south.

Rum Cay is gorgeous; you can go to https://picasaweb.google.com/raconteurcrew/201104GeorgetownToRumCay# to see the album of our trip from Georgetown to Long Island to Conception to Rum.

but here are a couple of pictures.

le



We had the most amazing meal at Kaye's last night (that's her in the first picture above); she cooks in a kitchen that is about the size of our galley but considerably older, and we had a feast. Some kind of soup, followed by grilled wahoo, a potato-lima bean casserole, one of the best cabbage salads I have ever had, if not the best, and, of course Bahamian peas and rice. $20 a head.

Once we reach Mayaguana, I may be have email but probably no other internet access. We will need to hang there until the middle of next week (27th or 28th) before we make the easterly run to the Turks and Caicos.

Having a blast...big surprise. Looking forward to the next legs of the journey.

Oh, one more cooking note. Made a fish chowder in the pressure cooker yesterday, first making fumet from the grouper parts (and ceusing our grouper fingers and some frozen scallops. It will be our dinner underway tonight.

The Galley

This is a photo of Raconteur's galley, taken today from the companionway steps. I am doing a little pre-cooking for the trip, as mentioned. Last night I did pork chops with potatoes and carrots in the pressure cooker; it actually tasted pretty good. It was a VERY basic recipe (no experimenting with more complex or expensive items, though meat and fresh vegetables are plenty expensive in the Bahamas, since nearly everything is imported), but the flavor was absolutely remarkable, and the cooking time amazing. The prep is very similar to conventional recipes (no avoiding peeling and chopping duties) and it is best to brown meats first, which I did, but once the chops and the veggies were in, it took about 10-12 minutes to come up to pressure, and 15 to cook, and then maybe 10 or so before I put it on the table. Pork was not overcooked, veggies were tasty, and if I wanted I could easily have thickened the sauce for a proper gravy.
Today I tried chili. It came out a little less thick than we normally like, but we sampled a bit for lunch and again the taste is amazing considering we typically cook our chilis for hours and hours - this was 13 minutes under pressure. Put three medium and two smaller Sterilite containers in the freezer.
This is the floor space of the galley - I can put one foot in front of the other five times from the aft cabin door to the sink, and three times from the oven to the companionway steps, four from the fridge to the bottom of the companionway.


The Force 10 oven holds a 10" pizza pan, and though we don't have one, it would JUST hold an 11X13 baking dish. We store the 6 quart pressure cooker there when we aren't using it or the oven (it hangs out in the aft cabin while we are baking). Here's the oven and stove, and yes that is a little microwave built into the cubby above the stove. We don't use it a lot, though when we are making passages, we switch on the inverter and use it to reheat our dinner (things like the pre-made chili):



The giant cutting board you can see in the first photo is one of our best investments - it is custom made to fit on top of the stove, providing additional surface. It's heavy and you have to watch to keep your fingers out of the way when moving it around, but it's a great thing.

There is never enough fridge or freezer space, and what is there is awkward, but many earlier boats don't even have the luxury of such systems. You may remember we replaced "the system" in 2010, and I say nice things about it every day. So what is in there now?

Fridge: English muffins; celery, carrots, spring onions, small sweet peppers, two heads of romaine, oranges, limes, lemons, two and a half semi-ripe (!) tomatoes, six leeks, a half pint of cream, various canned drinks (tonic, club soda, beer, ginger beer, V8, coke, ginger ale...) a plastic bottle of cranberry juice, several pints of OJ, two 16-oz containers of sour cream, various cheeses including extra sharp cheddar, colby, a wedge of "Italian", some shredded parmesan, two kinds of butter...that's what I can think of without looking.

Freezer: newly made chili; beef tenderloin bought whole and untrimmed and cut into a 1+kilo roast, nine 200-300 gram steaks, and a 250 gram "tail"; a large pork tenderloin; ten pounds of chicken quarters; a bottle of gin, a bottle of vodka, one and a half large bags of ice cubes; one package of English muffins; a one pound bag of tiny frozen scallops; a one pound package of bacon; a smoked sausage link and a kielbasa link, and some brown-and-serve sausage.

So you can see what is on MY mind today...

We are getting ready to set off toward Long Island (the north coast) tomorrow morning, and then from there to Conception. We are too out of practice to take on a 45+ mile journey all at once! Susan and JP replaced the bung for the dinghy, and did some stainless polishing (read: rust removal) while I was cooking this morning, and all that will be left is to top off the water tanks today, and stop for fuel on our way out of the marina in the morning.

Probably no internet until we hit Rum Cay later in the week.

Back aboard, at last

After more than six weeks away, we limped back to the boat on Wednesday the 13th. I brought a HORRIBLE flu back from DC and promptly gave it to both my sister (who had the good sense to go to the doctor for Tamiflu and cough syrup) and to JP - he and I just collapsed in a heap for a week. This year: FLU SHOTS ALL AROUND.
Raconteur is in beautiful shape, although the zincs had in fact totally died, as we feared they might. Susan replaced two of the three yesterday (see photo - lovely job; these are on the under the boat, on the propeller shaft, just forward of the prop) but the third was missing its screws and we could not find any metric screws today to replace them...so, that job remains for another day.
Provisioning here is very good; we have used both the Emerald Isle market (the marina shuttles guests in a golf cart) and Exuma Markets (by taxi today; thank you, Bernse!) and now we are stuffed to the gills. I am working up my courage to tackle the pressure cooker for dinner (pork chops) and for some pre-trip cooking (Chili and Ham and Split Pea soup) - I am not afraid of it exploding or anything, but I fear my ability to make anything taste good. I will report back in a future blog post.
We will head to Conception Island tomorrow or Sunday, after topping off the diesel and the water, then south to Rum Cay and down the rest of the Bahamas chain to Mayaguana. To the Turks and Caicos from there, and then a short (90 mile) passage to the Dominican Republic - about two weeks or so from now, conditions (weather and crew) permitting.
It is NICE to be back.

Getting ready to go (again)

Not exactly tropical...had to buy boots for our visit to Montreal the first week of March.

Now I qualify as a totally indifferent blogger...I have been using the photos that I post (now with captions, thanks to my friend Ellen in Portland) as a way of keeping everyone up to date on Raconteur's adventures, but thought I would try blogging again for a bit.
Raconteur ended up staying in Lauderdale a bit longer than planned, as Susan's dad Calvin died on the first of January. We stayed in NH to be with Susan's mom, and JP made a trip to Europe to see our client there, and to see his folks, so we didn't head for the Bahamas until the 3rd of February. We arrived in Bimini after about a 15 hour passage, and then headed down the chain. Here is the link to the photos from that three week trip:

https://picasaweb.google.com/raconteurcrew/201102BiminiToGeorgetown#

We got to Emerald Bay near Georgetown, on Great Exuma, on the 26th of February, and then headed back to Lauderdale on the 28th. We had commitments in Montreal and in Europe again, and Susan wanted to spend some additional time with her mom, AND I needed to hit DC/MD for a few days to check in with colleagues and to see how the Maryland house is doing. MY mom actually flew from Lauderdale to Baltimore yesterday so we could spend some time together.

We had met some really nice people on S/V Eärendil; we saw the boat for the first time when we were anchored in the Berry Islands, and then got to meet Jill and Bud and Fuzzy at a cruiser's party on Warderick Wells, and then anchored next to them by chance at Big Majors. ANYWAY - THEY kindly reported on Raconteur's well-being a few days ago when they stopped at Emerald Bay, and we are hoping to catch them when we get back, before THEY head Stateside.

So...we head for Georgetown this coming Wednesday morning, and will re-provision there (having given away or ditched all perishables when we left; Raconteur is plugged in to shore power but we couldn't risk the fridge and freezer stuff for six weeks). By the weekend we should be on our way to the southernmost Bahamas, and from there to the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, and (drumroll) THE CARIBBEAN). It is probably very bad luck to make any predictions from there, but the general plan is to be in Trinidad by the 1st of July or so.

Will post again when we are back on board.