New England: Wow

No, we did not ask Susan to walk the plank today, but isn’t this a great image?

We headed out from Guilford this morning around 0815, using a car service, and made it to Newport in time to find the launch location and early enough to grab a great breakfast at the Nitro Café  the launch took us out to the Marsgracht ahead of our scheduled 1130 launch. We got lucky - the dense fog was clearing, and there’s a front moving through overnight, so the timing was perfect. Because of the front, Susan had booked us into Newport Shipyard for three nights. We balked at the proposed rope ladder climb down, and with  the intervention of our Seven Star agent Jay (we met him for the first time today), the launch picked us up at the bottom of the floating gangplank and dropped us alongside Raconteur after she was lowered. 

We made it into the marina by 1215 - we have a perfect spot on their “working” dock - and by about 1530 or so Raconteur was a fully functioning sailboat again - decks cleaned, sails restored, dodger and Bimini re-installed, dinghy off the foredeck and onto the davits. 

This is a cool place. We will stay tonight and tomorrow night, and try to be off at or just before first light on Sunday, hoping for a rising mid-tide before sunset in the slip at Guilford Yacht Club. 

Yes, it’s all a little disorienting. 

The shipping adventure, Part One

Boat on Boat

We got back to St. Thomas on Monday the 16th, perhaps a bit earlier than we might have, as our load date and time, when it finally came through, was set for Saturday the 21st at 1500.  I easily found a room for that night at The Green Iguana, in the Mafolie area above old town Charlotte Amalie, and less easily got us onto a Sunday flight back to Miami. We had picked up a mooring at Frenchtown Bay Marina (which is mostly the base for a charter operation called Waypoints); we considered going around and anchoring near the airport but the mooring was quite comfortable and convenient, so we stayed the whole week.

We (mostly JP and Susan) then did semi-leisurely preparations for the load; we topped up the provisions and did our best to eat most of them, although we did treat ourselves to a great meal at Taco Chelle in Frenchtown on the first night.  We had already done most of the interior prep, making sure that things were not likely to fly during loading or on the journey. It's 1,430nm from the Gregerie Channel to the Narragansett Bay, give or take.

On Friday we did some cleaning, and Susan and JP took down the dodger and the bimini, battened down the mainsail (they had already done a wrap and tie on the jib), shut down the wind gen, covered and tied the winches, and got the fenders ready.  We visited the Marsgracht (the transport ship) in the afternoon to witness the proceedings; the ladders on the side of the ship looked pretty scary, and we decided that Leigh would get off with the luggage at Frenchtown Bay, drop it at the guest house, and then hang around at Crown Bay while JP and Susan took Raconteur around for her load appointment.  As it happens, Leigh got there (at the far end of the cruise center) at 1441, just in time to see Raconteur pulling around.  They got the call to come alongside, at around 1510, and I just hung around waiting for...something.  Well, the "something" was, in the end, a text from Susan at 1534: "Want a gelato?"  No ladder; they were ferried back to Crown Bay Marina (home of a delightful gelato and coffee spot) by fast dinghy.  It's not clear that the procedure by which boat owners climb rope ladders is any longer in place - I suspect the lawyers have put the kibosh on that risky sport.

I managed to capture the photo above as we were getting ready to leave Crown Bay gelato and head to the guest house, Raconteur about to be lowered onto her cradle for the trip.

We had a nice dinner at Mafolie (hotel and restaurant overlooking the city), and a quiet night, and we flew back to Miami and arrived home in Lauderdale around 1645 on Sunday - an altogether anti-climactic end to this part of the adventure.

The Marsgracht is due at Newport in the early morning of Friday the 27th; our bet is that it will be Saturday before we will be summoned for the unload.  We will take some time to put everything (or most things) back together, and then plan (WOG and WP, as the shipping line says) to make the 15 hour trip to Guilford as a passage.  

Meanwhile, here is one of the last shots of Raconteur in the beautiful turquoise waters of the Caribbean.

Francis Bay, St. John, USVI

 

An actual vacation in the USVI

Scheherezade II

We flew back to St. Thomas on the 4th of May; we took delivery of the new dinghy (a Caribe LT10, chosen by the very scientific method known as: It Was Available) on Thursday afternoon and Susan and JP spent Friday morning getting it ready for use and ensuring it could hang from the existing Cato davits.  We took a brief test spin and though we honor the Walker Bay (Scheherezade I) for her 16 years of service, we must say that the inflatable (aka Scheherezade II) is very comfortable and roomy.  In the days since, we can also say she is notably drier.

 We made a couple of provisioning runs to the excellent Moe's across from American Yacht Harbor in Red Hook; AYH very kindly kept us in the same slip for the added two nights' stay and we treated ourselves to dinner out at the very good, rather hidden Three Palms in the complex to celebrate.

On Saturday morning the 7th, we made an epic passage around to from AYH to Great Saint James, picked up a mooring in Christmas Cove, and ordered from Pizza Pi, the well-known "pizza boat" of St. Thomas, which provided dinner and two breakfasts from two delicious pizzas.

On Sunday morning, we actually sailed Raconteur around to the north side of St. John, to Maho/Francis Bay, where we lazed for three nights - unheard of for us - and yesterday we moved around about a half mile? to Leinster Bay / Waterlemon Cay.  It's a quiet week in St. John, it seems; none of the mooring fields have been full.  We will stay here another night; Susan snorkeled yesterday (she and JP snorkeled in Francis too) but I am lazy and the wind is blowing the dickens (gusts to 35).  

We've been cooking on board every day, as most of St. John is National Park, so it isn't the BVI-type experience of sailing from bar to restaurant every day.  Last night it was my mom's potato salad and my version of smash burgers; JP made a beef stir-fry one night, we fried pork chops Ree Drummond-style, and we had a fresh pasta en brodo with a Susan salad.  We are trying to use up as much of the liquor on board as we can, before the shipping adventure.

The ship (Marsgracht) is on its way to Port Everglades; the load date is scheduled for the 19th.  We will continue our vacation until early next week, and then make our way to the surroundings of Charlotte Amalie to execute the long list of things to do.  We have an AirBnB for the 18th and 19th, and a flight out on the 20th - if the dates hold.

Here is Susan, exercising the rusty skill of blowing the conch horn at sunset a couple of nights ago.

We made it

We headed off the dock at Port Louis just after 0600 Sunday morning after a nice night at a Greek place near the University with a couple of new cruiser friends (John on [boat name] and George on Rio), both of them round-the-world sailors.  We chatted a little among the three of us about the big differences in life and sailing choices between them and us - George has been "out here" for 14 years.

Conditions were indeed sporty Sunday morning; Chris had said it was still good to go, with little change from the prediction that Sunday would be salty but things would settle down Monday into Tuesday with re-building trades by Tuesday night.

The short story is that we sailed into Pillsbury Sound between St. Thomas and St. John around 0030 Wednesday morning, and managed to put the hook down in Frank Bay, south of Cruz Bay, by around 0200.  It was a bit of a hassle to clear on Wednesday, as the CBP Roam app works in theory (on line) but not in practice (IRL) for reasons attributed to "COVID".  We could then get the nice National Park Service discount for the mooring we had taken in Caneel, where we had a nice swim and a meal (the stuffed peppers and pumpkin soup) before a welcomed night's sleep.

The long(er) story is that when we were about four hours out of Grenada, the bar that stabilizes the davits and therefore the dinghy jumped out on one side and then (of course) the other, and Susan and JP spent the better part of four hours and many, many anxious moments to get it onto the foredeck.  I'm sure they can tell the detailed story of each sub-step in that process, but let's say it was a minor miracle that we still had the captain, the first mate and the dinghy at the end.

The weather did not really ever settle down, and we were reminded that a boat that is heeling on starboard tack in a broad reach is uncomfortable, period.  Next to impossible to cook, even to re-heat prepared foods.  Difficult to sleep, even in short intervals.  Variously wet, cold and verrrry windy, except for a few hours of no wind, contributing another couple of hours delay to the already-lost hours from the dinghy adventure.

AND.  We are here in the USVI.  Raconteur is intact though in need of a couple of repairs.  We are giving serious thought to what's next, but we have the time and resources to do that between now and the start of hurricane season.

The first photo is from a sunrise Monday morning the 21st.  This one below is from the anchorage at Frank Bay on Wednesday morning the 23rd.

Off with the morning light

 This is PredictWind’s version of our upcoming voyage. All of our predictors - this, Savvy Navvy, and Chris Parker - are in reasonable agreement that we will have a pretty sporty day one tomorrow, and a bit of settling on Monday into Tuesday, and re-strengthening Tuesday night. If all goes well, we expect to be in the lee of St. John in the late afternoon or early evening Tuesday. Next check-in, Wednesday from US territory. Wishing us fair winds and following seas. 

A tiny movement toward north

Under sail, at last

It looks like we might have a weather window to make our way the ~420nm north and west to the USVI, starting Sunday.  In preparation, we've made our way around from Prickly Bay to Port Louis Marina, to take on the last projects and have some un-rolly nights of sleep.  

It was always going to be hard to leave the Caribbean, so we are all approaching this passage with more than a little ambivalence.  We have been here 11 years and 9 months; we first arrived in Grenada in June of 2012 before we went on to Trinidad, which will turn out to be the furthest south we will have gone before heading back north.  Susan keeps saying that we can decide to kick the can down the road again, even from St. Thomas, and that is true.  But I think we are all feeling a little bit the call to "something new", and if (for the moment) that is neither south and west (to the San Blast, for example) or east (to the Med), then a season or three of New England/Florida/Bahamas may be new enough.  We have not sailed north of the Chesapeake, and there are many days, weeks and even months (if we can tolerate the temperatures) of places to explore in our Connecticut backyard.  And there will always be the option to retreat to Florida and across...and who knows from there?

I have some theory that I might try to update the voyage log; Susan has been catching up on the physical log in the last few days, so I will have a look and see if I can manage it.

We will make a little passage food - pumpkin soup - to supplement what's here, and get some saltines and ginger ale, just in case. There is the possibility, at least, of a fast, smooth passage, and we shall hope for that (and prepare otherwise).  Chris Parker will provide us with a custom forecast on Saturday, and I'll do a quick check in here before we head off.

Here is Raconteur, on the hook in Prickly Bay. Isn't she beautiful?

West Indies Beer Company (Island Life)

 Yesterday’s dinghy/walk excursion was to West Indies Beer Company, a Grenada brewpub along the road to PBM, before Spice Affair, Aziz, and the Calabash resort. JP and Susan have been a few times, but this was a first for me. The beer is excellent, it’s a fun atmosphere even on a hot Sunday afternoon, and speaking of hot, we shared a small order of hot wings with blue cheese dip and bought a Christmas cake (very moist fruitcake) from the market guy who was just wrapping up for the day). We walked and dinghied back, and had an excellent swim before our g&t happy hour on deck. Merguez on the grill, with doctored couscous (onion, grated carrot, island herbs in butter). Very satisfying Sunday supper. 

These are the days that make me second guess leaving. But then I also think about Guilford and Old Saybrook and the summer party at Fenwick, and that has its temptations too. As my mom says, and I repeat regularly- you can have anything but you can’t have everything. 

Awaiting the effects of a Saharan sand storm this week - something that has happened to the boat but not to us in past seasons.