Smooth sailing ......with our repaired jib and only 35 miles to go to Grenada.   Amazing.  We have been pushing hard for the last 12 days and have covered lots of water, countries, and islands with very minor problems.  The biggest problem, however, has been keeping Bentley on board the boat for over a week now.  So let me try to back track and fill you in on our travels.

June 11th -  Our repaired jib sail was returned to us by the sail maker at 4:00 in the afternoon, so we quickly left the marina and anchored out for the night to prepare for our 35 mile trip to Dominica.  We enjoyed our 5 day stay at a marina in Guadeloupe.

                                                 Black sand beach at Guadeloupe

June 12th - We pulled anchor at 7:00 am and with main sail up we tried to rehang the jib but the winds were too strong.  So Will tied the jib securely to the rails and we bucked our way through the waves with a 20 knot wind.   We anchored at Portsmouth in Dominica at 2:30 pm.  Too tired to check in but had interesting evening with three boat boys approaching our boat and trying to sell us everything from flags, fish and fruit.  We even shared a few of our beers with one of them named Sugar Daddy.  All happening under a beautiful full moon.

June 13th - We dinghied into town to find customs and immigration.  Walked for miles through a small but colorful town and found the office 2 miles from our dinghy.  The office was located behind some warehouses near a wharf.  It was so unique to see the carbon paper placed between the forms for triplicates of what we needed to fill out.  We were told not to bring Bentley ashore!!  

Carbon paper for triplicate forms.  

Three story building in down town Portsmouth

                                            Fruits and vegetables are plentiful sold at street stands


Back to boat and pulled anchor to move south along the coast.  Arrived in Rosseau 4:45 pm and was approached by boat boy - Pancho.  The water is so deep here very close to shore, so we followed him to a mooring ball right in front of his house.  We had a peaceful and restful night of sleep.

                                                               Pablo and his house.

June 14th  -  Today we leave the Leeward Islands and head for the Windward Islands.  Martinque will be our first stop.  We pulled anchor at 5:00 am and headed east with both sails up, 20 knot winds, and rough seas.  Winds died down about 2:00 so Will tried a little fishing.  We landed two barracuda but let them go as we won't eat that ugly fish.  Winds died down at 2:00 so there was a  nice sail into our next anchorage.

       Anchored at 4:30 near the town of St. Pierre and went into town for a look around.   Martinique is French territory and very relaxed about customs check in and dogs.  Bentley enjoyed stretching his legs.  We met an American couple from Greenville, SC.  They have a car so tomorrow we will go with them to see Mt. Pelee.  This volcano erupted in 1902 and wiped out the town on St. Pierre .  The side of the volcano burst open, releasing a giant fireball that flowed down over the city.  It wiped out the entire city and killed over 29,000 people.   Only two survived...one was a cobbler that was in his basement and the other was Cyparis an imprisoned murderer that was in a stone jail cell.

The stone jail where Cyparis survived

French bakery....always lots of bread

Will's favorite ...elephant ear

June 15th - Met Libby and David at their car at 9:00 am and stopped for some fresh pastries at the bakery before our drive to Mt. Pelee and our hike up the mountain.  Will and David made it up to the crater, while Libby and I only made it up and 1/10th of the way.  It was a long day but a life long dream of Will's.  In grade school he had written a paper about this mountainous country and enjoyed seeing the sights in person.


                                          

                                              View from Mt. Pelee looking down  at St. Pierre

June 16th - After two days of being in Martinique we finally checked in at 9:00 am and checked out at the same time!   Back at boat by 10 and anchor pulled by 10:30 .  Off again to stage for our next stop St. Lucia.   We arrived in Grand Anse and took a free mooring ball.  No town here and not many people but lots of boats.  Must be a mooring place for the French sailors of Martinique.


                               

                                                 
June 17tth -   Finally we are sailing.   No motor, two sails, good winds, slight heel over.....enjoyable.
This is the sailing we have been looking forward to since we left the USA.  Not pounding into the easterly winds and seas!   Arrived at Rodney Bay at 11:00.  It is a huge harbor with a very large marina.  Checked in and out  Found a Digicel phone company for a new sim card for the ipad and we now have internet on the boat again.  It has been hard finding internet spots along the way.

                

Trying to find internet by the sea

Fancy dancy boat boy in this anchorage

Will buys a pineapple just to get him to go away

June 18th -  After such a great but short day of sailing yesterday, we were excited to sail again and move on to St. Vincent.  But no such luck.  We had great winds but a 3 knot current which kept pushing us backwards.  Our 30 mile trip is going to get us into our anchorage after dark.  But at 4:00 about 8 miles away, the current changes into our favor and we are speeding along at 6 to 7 knots.  Will was excited to see the speed reach 7.9 at one point.  So at 6:30 pm we pulled in Chateaublaire and again were greeted by a boat boat...this one in a canoe.  He guides us to a sandy spot that is less than 30 feet deep and we drop anchor just after the sunsets.  We did, however, see many beautiful rainbows today and dolphins joined us as we sailed along.

June 19th -  Heading south along the coast of St. Vincent..easy on the lee side.  We pulled anchor at 9:45 and pulled into anchorage at Willilabou bay where Pirates of the Caribbean was filmed.  Boat boys are approaching, no other boats, the restaurant looks closed, it is only 11:15...we look at each other and decide to keep moving.  Next task...find diesel.   Ottley's in the guide book is a haul out place, but we see a fuel dock and pull in at 1:00.  Rodney and his partner help tie us up along side a huge pier with no gas pump.  So Will will have to jerry jug it to the boat.  But Rodney and his partner  do all the toting and Will just refills the tanks.  We gave them each 20EC$ as a tip...about $8.00.

                                          Will loved this place.  Maybe a haul out in the future.

Left the boat yard at 3:00......2 hours in a shipyard and only 5 minutes in the harbor where Pirates of the Caribbean was filmed.  Something is wrong with this picture, I feel.  Anyway, arrived at Young Island and got another mooring ball at 5:15.   I looked around and said to Will,  "This looks like the Caribbean."  We laughed....we are in the Caribbean.

June 20th  -  Quick trip today over to the Grenadines.  If you are like me you may have heard of them, but never knew any of them except Tobagos.  There are many, many little islands scattered around with names I have never heard of.   But I think I will stop here and start another post of all
of the stops we make in the Grenadines.  I am tired of working on this for over 4 hours, and you are probably tired of reading.

We are so close to our destination that we just keep pushing to get there.  Our deadline is July 1st,
and we finally think we just might make it.

Bon Jour amigos.....Well that is a little French and Spanish mixed up, but we are a little mixed up too.
Internet is so hard to find in Basse Terre and when you do find it, it is very slow.  So must get this out quickly and with very few pictures.  The good news is I did find my device to import pictures from the camera to the ipad, and I have booked a flight back to the USA.

Downtown Nevis

Cafe with egg cactus bush

Cow walking on beach

Today is June 10th and we are in Guadeloupe.  Our trip didn't go as we planned, but I will fill you in on that right now.  We had planned to leave Nevis on June 1st, but had to turn back after the engine died.  We had trouble with the fuel intake line, and Will thinks we should probably have left with a full tank of diesel.  So we returned and anchored near the town dock.  After 5 trips in the dingy to land, he walked about 20 minutes each way to fill our jerry jugs with diesel.  Tired but tanks full we spent our last night in Nevis.

We left again on June 2nd and still had trouble with the same engine problem even with all that fuel.
But we had good winds so put up both our main sail and little jib and were moving along just fine but not in the direction of Monserat.  We talked it over and thought,...let's just head in this direction and we could make Grenada in 3 or 4 days.

That didn't happen!!  However, Will was able to repair engine again before the winds died.  We were 40 miles off the coast of Guadeloupe, so with engine and sails working together with light winds, we made it to Deshaies, Guadeloupe and had anchor set by 12:15 pm on June 4th.

We enjoyed Deshaies...pronounced Day Hay. Although we never found anyone that spoke English, Will's rusty Francais from Canada helped. Checking into customs was easy....on a computer and no problem with Bentley.  We moved on to Pigeon Cove on June 6th and the last 12 miles to Basse Terre on June 7th.

We have enjoyed doing laundry, visiting the French bakeries, and making a trip by car with friends we met at the wedding we attended in May.  They took us to a National rain forest and we climbed up  windy steps to see the waterfall named Chutes du Carbet.   Now we are waiting for a local sail maker to do some repairs to our big jib which was tearing.

We have 280 miles to go to get to Grenada.  Our next stop will probably be Dominica, but who
knows!   Guess we will just have to see where the wind will take us.

Nevis is our current location and today is the last day we will have internet for awhile.  So I thought I would fill you in on our travels.

We left Bitter End in Virgin Gorda and headed to the southern end of the island near Spanish Town.  It was a great anchorage with a marina and a very nice grocery store near by.  We took a day trip with Varua to the Baths and did some snorkeling.  Of course all those pictures are on my camera and I still can't find the little tool I need to import the pictures to the ipad, so I will have to post them later.

We left from Spanish Town at 4:00 pm on Thursday May 22nd and sailed almost 27 hours of our 45 hour voyage to St. Martin.  We tacked often which made the trip much longer than it should have been, but the trip was much more comfortable than sailing into the wind and waves.  We arrived in St. Martin at 1:30 pm on Saturday the 24th.  We spent our entire Sunday resting and recuperating from the trip.  Along the way we picked up a hitchhiker and caught two baracuda.  Naturally, we let them all go.

Flying Fish catching a ride

There is a barracuda at the end of this line

Sunrise over St. Martin

St. Martin....almost there

Busy anchorage but plenty of room.  The aromas from land were awesome.

We left St Martins at 5:30 am hoping to return here someday and explore the city.   We motored sailed with the main and the little jib for 42 miles arriving in Basseterre, St. Kitts by 5:00.  The cruise ship parked at the dock left at 7:00 pm.  The next morning we hauled the dinghy off the bow of the boat and went to check in with customs and immigration.  No problems and only $42.00.  The cruise ship village was a deserted as a ghost town, but walking further we arrived at the center of town.  People, buses, and taxis all moving around the clock tower in the middle of the street.

Clock tower with water basin to wash hands or get a drink of water.

Lots of activity in the center of town.  Selling fresh pineapples from the back of a truck.

We explored a couple of other small harbors that were usually rolly from the southeast winds, but very peaceful.  on Thursday the 29th we sailed a short 6 mile hop over to Nevis and found only 4 other boats in the huge anchorage area running along the western side.  Dozens of mooring balls available, so we hooked onto #31.  Friday we all went in and explored the city of Charleston.  The streets were old and the architecture was just as old.  We saw many buildings built in the 1800's.

OF COURSE THEY ARE PICTURES ON MY CAMERA!

Memorial Square during a little rain shower.  It rains here a little bit almost every day.  

But the highlight of the day was visiting the Horatio Nelson Museum.  He is one of Will's personal heroes   and has read many books and watched many movies about this British Navy Admiral.  Nelson  was killed during the battle of Trafalgar when he was 47.

Shaking hands with Horatio Nelson

The museum was a 2 mile hike outside of town but well worth the visit.

Tomorrow June 1st we will sail south to Montserrat.  A small island with an active volcano on it called Soufriere Hills.  It has been erupting on a regular basis since 1995.  the last eruption was in 2012.  

Not sure where we will head after this stop...we have thoughts of visiting Antiqua to the northeast or heading south again to Guadeloupe.  But we will catch up with you when we get somewhere.

Paradise is not a great place for keeping a journal or blogging.  However, I do think about
working on it at least once in awhile.

We spent 65 days in Salinas, Puerto Rico and enjoyed every second of it.  We loved our
new friends, the grocery stores, the bakery, the dingy rides when the engine was working
properly.  We loved swimming in the pool, playing Mexican train on Sundays,  our road
trips to San Juan, Ponce, the Rain Forest, and along the coast through the mountains.

One special weekend we partied on a special beach with new Puerto Rican amigos.

alexandra and baron

                                                            seee if you can find me

beach mommies

I truly loved flying back to the states for ten days and visited my mother and father in Tampa.
Then a trip to Hilton Head to see Carly and friends.

Carly was the highlight of my trip

The day finally came that we pulled anchor at 1:00 am with no moon but the sky filled with stars.  With some quick over night stops in Vieques, Calebra, and St Thomas, we pulled into Soper's Hole in Tortola....the British Virgin Island.  We arrived on May 7th three days before the wedding of our friends Lara and Brian.  But on May 8th the rains came and they stayed for five days.  In between the rain drops we still had lots of fun with our good friends visiting from Hilton Head, Morris and Jim, and the new friends we met at the wedding.  

Unfortunately all the pictures of the wedding and our week in Soper's Hole are on my camera.  I lost my camea for a few days but have also lost the cord for importing pictures from my camera to the ipad.  So I will be able to share those with everyone after we return to the states in July and I can purchase a new one!

One fun road trip was to Road Town to buy hydraulic fuel that Will needed for the water maker pump and it took us five stops before we found the only place that had it or had it in less than 5 gallon drums.  The nice shop owner just poured about a quart into an empty five gallon drum and said "No charge"  While he was busy with that deal, I met Clarence from the Struggling Man Road Side cafe and we joined him there for a great seaside lunch.

On May 14th we moved to a new mooring around the corner called Cane Garden Bay and we fell in love with that place.  We took a cute pink mooring ball and enjoyed the beach, swimming, pain killer rum drinks and had dinner at Quito's where Quito played his guitar for us.

our favorite beach so far in Tortola

Back on the seas we made one over night stop before arriving at Bitter End Resort.  We finally were able to anchor out instead of paying for a mooring ball....usually $30 a night.  So a free stay at an expensive resort.  It feels like being in Disney World without the rides and the crowds. 

So my friends and family, I leave you today on May 19th until next time.  Not sure where we will be next, but I am sure it will be beautiful.  And remember that you are always in our thoughts and wished we could have each and everyone of you with us to enjoy our trip.  We are usually safe, but scraps and bruises do happen.

Missssssss   youuuuuuuu