I can't believe that I've started prepping some items for the trip home. I have bought some extra jerry cans for water, emergency rations and diesel for extra motoring conditions. Also bought the chart for Bermuda. A number of people have expressed an interest in sailing home but I wasn't able to give them a plan of attack until now. I would like to leave Saturday, April 24th from Charlotte Amalie, USVI to Bermuda - distance about 850 miles (6 or 7 days). Waiting for the next weather window, we would probably leave Bermuda for New York City about May 1st (distance about 650 miles - 4 or 5 days). You cannot make a landfall in Bermuda in gale conditions and if such existed, we would simply continue on to New York City as one trip. If this is of interest to you - contact Trevor at 416-903-5190 or email address trevor_draper1@yahoo.ca. If you're interested, try to get back to Trevor by March 20th. When you give him a $200 deposit for boat equipment, you've booked your spot on the return voyage. You will still need to budget air fare & food. Airfare from Buffalo to Charlotte Amalie (STT) will probably be reasonably cheap.
I have talked about the extravagance of various yachts but when I entered the lagoon in
St Maarten during the Regatta week, my jaw dropped and my eyes dilated wide open. This put the mega yacht harbour in St. Thomas to shame. It didn't matter whether it was massive power boats or sailboats, they were all here. Of course, I'm here with my 39 footer but that other former Lion's Head cottager outdid me. He brought his 131 ft sailboat and because it doesn't have the volume down below, he also brought his 161 ft power boat for evening activities. Make sure you keep buying those Timbits & coffee. Yes, Ron Joyce keeps his boats in St Maarten and St Bart to promote his Nova Scotia resort - Destination Fox Harbour.
St Maarten during the Regatta week, my jaw dropped and my eyes dilated wide open. This put the mega yacht harbour in St. Thomas to shame. It didn't matter whether it was massive power boats or sailboats, they were all here. Of course, I'm here with my 39 footer but that other former Lion's Head cottager outdid me. He brought his 131 ft sailboat and because it doesn't have the volume down below, he also brought his 161 ft power boat for evening activities. Make sure you keep buying those Timbits & coffee. Yes, Ron Joyce keeps his boats in St Maarten and St Bart to promote his Nova Scotia resort - Destination Fox Harbour.
The size and scope of these race boats is unbelievable. Visione, the largest sloop in the world at 236 ft didn't race but of course was here to showcase itself - and yes, there are some smaller boats in the Regatta, so Stew should check out the results of the one 36.7. The racing is during the day and the partying is during the evening. We attended 2 of the 4 evening sessions and the slogan for Regatta is Lets Have Some Serious Fun. What's nice about the bigger islands is that they have some semi taxi/bus minivans for a dollar or two.
Checking out our bank statements on the internet, we noticed numerous charges on our Visa that were a mystery to us. A call to the Visa centre and we found out that Joan's Visa card number had been stolen. The Visa centre was very nice and thankfully we only had to cancel Joan's card and that folks is called Utopia. Imagine someone else taking Joan's card away from her on my behalf. They will issue a new one but we're not sure if it will get down here or not in time for her to use it.
We were going to leave the other morning and while doing my morning checks, I discovered about 7 bucket fulls of water in the bilge below the engine. After bailing all the water (bilge pump doesn't extract from under the engine), starting searching for the possible problems. After quite some time, I discovered one hose clamp had busted and this would be an easy repair because of all my spare parts and tools which we lugged down in our luggage.
People who have sailed with me know when we have a problem, we fix it and we don't dwell on our bad luck. Quickly we move to start counting our good luck. This problem arose at dock in a marina, not out on the open sea pitching and rolling. The repair was easy, no further damage was done to any other components.
Joan got an extra day at the marina which means one extra shower....PRICELESS!
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