May 1-2, 2001 -- Our Last Days in Salinas Today was another waiting day. We didn't do much other than wait for packages. Finally, our inverter came. We tried to give the UPS guy the one that needed to be shipped back. However, UPS will not pick up unless they have prior authorization. When we tried to get the authorization, UPS refused to accept our request because we were shipping the old inverter back using Xantrex's UPS account number. They told us that Xantrex would have to call. We got fed up and shipped it via Fed Ex. They were extremely courteous and accepted the pick up call. Mike installed the inverter while I handled the shipping. When I returned to the boat, we had a fully functional inverter! On May 2, I went to Fajardo with Coos (Short for something) and Martha from Orca and Mickey from Beaujolais. We went to the West Marine and the grocery store. Then, since Coos is former military, we went to Roosevelt Roads to the PX, then Coos and Martha went to the Commisary while Mickey and I stayed in the car. After we got back to Salinas, we moved the boat out to the staging area at the entrance to Salinas. We were staging to head for Punta Patilla.

May 3-6, 2001 -- Moving, Moving, Moving We got up at 3:00 AM AST to head as far as we could make it today. There were several different places we could head; the closest was Punta Patilla. The trip was rather comfortable, and we made better time than we were expecting, so we decided to round the south east corner of Puerto Rico. We chatted a bit with Lady Simco who reported that the anchorage at Monkey Island was untenable (not useable in the current winds). So, we decided to strike out for Culebra. The winds and seas were fairly comfortable. Midway to Culebra, we decided to change destinations because things were going so well and head for St. Thomas. It was only an additional 20 miles, and it was still early in the day. Viequez was giving us a good break from the seas. We dropped anchor around 2:00 PM AST in Charlotte Amalie Harbor, St. Thomas. We did not go ashore because we wanted to get to Virgin Gorda so we could cross to St. Martin on the current weather window. However, Pamela and Zelda were close by and we chatted with them briefly. On May 4, we left St. Thomas, originally headed to Virgin Gorda. We headed up the Pillsbury Sound between St. Thomas and St. John and then headed between Tortolla and St. John. Along the way we admired the scenic anchorages and finally were lured into stopping at Francis Bay on St. John. We picked up our first mooring ball ever there. It was picture perfect. Mike motored us up to the pennant, and I picked it up and attached it to our forward cleat, all on our first try! Wouldn't you know it, no one was around to witness it! As we were looking around, we saw that Ruark was on a mooring ball not that far from us. We chatted with them on the VHF, and they invited us over for Sun Downers. We suggested moving the party to our boat since we were not planning to drop our dinghy. They joined us and we had a fun evening catching up on what everyone had seen and done since Luperon. On May 5, we got up and discussed the possibility of moving to Virgin Gorda. We decided that with the wind direction, it would be better to head for St. Martin from where we were than to leave from Virgin Gorda. So, at 3:00 PM AST, we slipped our mooring and motored slowly for St. Martin. We wanted to make sure to get out of the shallower water where fish traps were with good day light. Over all, our trip across the Anagoda wasn't bad. This is a stretch of water that has often been characterized as being lumpy at best. There is a good current that runs through the Anagoda, and it is also 'shallow'. So, all of this combines to produce higher than expected wind waves and seas that are confused. We arrived in Marigot Bay St. Martin at 7:00 AM AST. After cleaning up from our passage and chatting with Sue and Leon on Masade, we launched our dinghy and headed to shore to clear customs and find a bakery. After clearing customs, we wandered around for a while before locating the bakery. We then couldn't tell if they accepted US dollars, so we went in search of an ATM. We found one 3 blocks away, then came back and had breakfast from the bakery. We headed back to the boat, and napped. We met Masade for dinner on the French side of the island. It was a fun evening.

May 7- 10, 2001 -- St. Martin We took today to do work on boat maintenance. We have been moving so quickly, or reprovisioning that there are several things that have had to wait. So, today was the day to do them. After boat maintenance, we took the dinghy over to the Dutch side via the Simpson Bay Lagoon. First, we stopped by Sojourner to visit with them for a bit. They introduced us to Steve and Nancy from Tahoe. Next we headed to Budget Marine and Electec. St. Martin has the best marine stores we have ever seen! They actually carry, in stock, items for larger boats! We bought a number of different things that we had been looking for. Then we went to Electec. They carry the breakers and fuses that we have been looking for, for the last several years! After zipping all about, we finally headed back to the boat for a quiet afternoon. On May 8, we worked on our raw water wash down pump. We hooked everything up, turned on the pump and discovered that it didn't have enough pressure to do anything! So, off we went to the Dutch side again in search of a bigger, better wash down pump. We found one that does 40 PSI and pumps 4.4 GPM. We purchased it. Then, instead of heading back to the boat, we took a tour of the Simpson Bay Lagoon since we were going to dinner with Sue and Leon on the Dutch side of the island this time. Sue called on the VHF to let us know they were ready. We headed to pick them up, then into the dinghy dock. We stopped by the Mailbox, a shipping place, and then had drinks at The Crew Bar. Finally, we headed for Indian food. It was the first good Indian food we have had since Charleston, SC! It was a fun evening. On May 9, we installed our second new wash down pump. This one worked much better. We spent the rest of the day quietly aboard the boat. On May 10, we checked out of St. Martin. We returned to the boat and put the dinghy back on deck. Then, while I got the boat ready to travel, Mike installed string lighting in the aft state room. We had an early dinner, then watched a movie before bed.

We left St. Martin bright and early at 0930 GMT (0530 AST/EDT). We maintained good speed traveling to Nevis. We passed by Saba, Statia, and St. Kitts. It was a long 70 mile day of traveling. Nothing terribly exciting happened, though we did see a large school of flying fish about an hour and a half after we left. Along the way, we heard Sherpa, and Pearl. We hadn't seen either boat since Luperon. We dropped anchor in Nevis at 1847 GMT (1647 AST/EDT). The anchorage was beautiful, if a bit exposed. We anchored off the hotels at Pinney Beach. We had a small roll from a light northerly swell, but it was just enough to put us to sleep. We ate an early dinner, watched the second half of the movie we started last night and went to sleep. On May 12, we moved on to Dehai, Guadeloupe. We raised anchor at 0940 GMT. We passed by The Kingdom of Redonda, and Montserrat on our way. The volcano on Montserrat was active with a pyroclastic flow. However, all we saw was steam rising off the lava flow and a lot of smoke. The trip was relatively easy, just long again. We dropped anchor at 1934 GMT in Dehai, Guadeloupe. This anchorage was the pits! The wind would gust up to almost 30 knots before dying back down to 10 to 15 knots, it did this all night long, funneling down the mountain slopes. Fortunately, we didn't have much swell coming in. Though, I think we would have preferred swell to the winds. We decided to sleep in the main saloon just in case we dragged. On May 13, since there was no way we were going to stay in Dehai, we decided to travel on to Dominica. We raised anchor at 0954 GMT, and headed out. This would be a shorter trip by about 25 miles. Just as we were approaching Basse Terre Guadeloupe, Crystalee called us to let us know that the previous day, boats had seen apparent winds in the mid thirties clearing the southern tip of Guadeloupe. We promptly reduced our main sail. Sure enough, about 5 minutes later, we were hit with 30-35 knots of wind. This lasted for about 15 minutes until we cleared the southern cape of Guadeloupe. We passed off the western corner of Les Saints, and continued on our treck to Dominica. About 5 miles out of Dominica, we again went through the same type of stronger winds brought on by cape effect. We dropped anchor at 1716 in Prince Rupert Bay, Dominica. We anchored at the southern end of the bay near to the hotels. Sojourner arrived shortly after that. After setting their anchor, they snorkeled on it to make sure it was set. Then, they headed over and snorkeled on our anchor. We invited them aboard for something to drink and compared notes on our trips. They had turned away from the island when the waves started building at Basse Terre, and only experienced a small increase in the apparent wind speeds. They motor-sailed until they came into the wind shadow of Dominica and then turned a more easterly heading to come right into Prince Rupert Bay. We decided to keep that in mind for the next trip between islands. On May 14, Dan and I headed in to clear customs in Dominica. We decided to do a 72 hour clear in clear out since it looked like we would have light winds to move on to Martinique. After we got back, Dan, Jan and I wandered around the town a bit while Mike stayed aboard and did some work on our DC electrical panels that he wanted to do. Portsmouth is an interesting town. We wandered several shops, the grocery store and a few other places. Unfortunately, getting into town from a boat is inconvenient at best. There is no dinghy dock, and just about the entire shore is lined with rocks. We aren't talking just small rocks, we are talking boulders! It makes landing a dinghy difficult. Mutual Fun arrived as we were returning from town. After Dan and Jan dropped us off, we headed over to their boat to say hey. We firmed up plans to go to dinner at the Two Sisters restaurant, and Dan and Jan confirmed our reservations. We volunteered to shuttle everyone to dinner that evening. We picked everyone up, and headed for Two Sisters. Due to the rocky shore, we turned around and headed for the dock at one of the hotels. We walked to the restaurant from there. Dinner was excellent. It was almost midnight by the time we got back to the boat! On May 15, we headed from Prince Rupert Bay to Rouseau Dominica. We had all talked about it the night before and decided that we would all try to sail. Well, we raised anchor 1415 GMT (1015 AST/EDT) We went completely under sail in very light winds at 1430 GMT, and continued that way until 1645 GMT when we found out that everyone else was motor sailing. We decided to get to the anchorage before all of the spots were filled up by the groups of boats behind us that were gaining on us. We powered up the engines and doubled our speed. We dropped anchor at 1753 GMT in 98 feet of water 600 feet from shore! We decided to act cautiously so we slept in the main saloon that night. On May 16, we raised anchor at 1000 GMT. This time, we followed Sojourner's plan of attack when they headed out from Guadeloupe. We stayed further off the southern tip of the island. It worked. We never saw winds above 23 knots apparent. At 1133 we first spotted a school of flying fish also headed toward Martinique. They continued to swim/fly with us for most of the trip. It was rather cool. At 1314 we started seeing dolphins. We haven't seen any since the Bahamas. Also, we noted that the water had turned closer to the beautiful blue of San Salvadore, Bahamas. At 1322, we saw what must have been 20 dolphins leaping, cavorting and otherwise playing in the seas. Finally, we dropped anchor in Anse Mitan, across the bay from Fort de France, Martinique at 1741. I snorkeled on our anchor to make sure it was firmly set. It wasn't quite buried, so Mike backed down on it several more times. As it turns out, this was a good thing since our anchor snubber broke! It would not have done well to have it break in the middle of the night. Fortunately, we always attach a back up anchor snubber which held us. We attached a new snubber line and life was good. We invited Crystalee, Sojourner and Tahoe over for cocktails to celebrate our landfall in Martinique. Mutual Fun had pulled in to St. Pierre for the evening.

We got up this morning, and headed in to clear in. On the way, we stopped by Sojourner to see if they wanted a lift, of if they wanted to accompany us in. They were still getting ready so we met them at the dinghy dock 10 minutes later. We walked up and over the hill, then down to the ferry dock to ride from Anse Mitan to Point du Bout in Fort de France. The cost was $6.00 per person round trip or a long wet ride in our dink. We wandered a bit, and ran into the folks from Crystalee in front of McDonalds. They had just finished clearing in and pointed out Customs to us. We headed over to the cruise ship dock. After a bit of looking, we found Customs. Dan and I went in to check us in while Mike and Jan waited outside. As we were working on our paperwork, Mike from Just Desserts arrived to clear in as well. Clearing in in Martinique is easy. They give you a form to fill out, and then they look at it, your passports, and your ship's documentation. That's it. All three of us were cleared in quickly. We did introductions since Sojourner had not met Just Desserts, and then chatted about our respective trips. Mike and Dawn needed to find somewhere to dock since they were having power issues and needed to plug in. Dan, Jan, Mike and I then set out to wander the city checking hardware and marine stores. After locating all of them, we then wandered in search of a grocery store and a wine store. Finally, we headed back for Anse Mitan where we stopped for pizza for lunch. We arrived back at the boat and promptly napped! We spent the rest of the day quietly. On May 18, Mike and I headed into Anse Mitan to get some Croissants and bread. After we got back to the boat, we started doing some boat maintenance. Somewhere along the way I discovered that I had wrenched my back, so I spent most of the day lying on the floor. Mind you, a wrenched back did not stop us from going to Mutual Fun for cocktails that night! We had a fun evening with Bob and Mona as well as Dan and Jan from Sojourner. By the end of the evening, I was feeling no pain and quite blurred or was it everyone else was blurry.

We got up this morning, and after hemming and hawing, we decided to go to Le Marin. With the reports we were getting from vessels that had already left, I thought I could travel even with my back hurting. We put the dinghy up on deck even though the trip was less than 20 miles just to be on the safe side, even though many people towed their dinghies. We raised anchor at 1423 GMT. The wind blew right around 20 knots the entire trip, and it was 20 knots right on the nose no matter what way we turned! We dropped anchor in Le Marin at 1756 GMT. Steve stopped by from Tahoe to offer to help us get our dinghy down. We thanked him but said that we probably would not get off the boat today. He asked if there was anything we needed from town. We said that if he found an open bakery, we could use some bread. He said that he would keep an eye out and headed into town with Nancy. When they came back from town, they delivered a baguette and some rolls to us. We invited them over for cocktails. We had an early dinner, and then enjoyed an evening of cocktails with Tahoe. I tried out one of the pates that I purchased in Fort de France. It turned out to be very good. I will definitely need to get more of it. It was Pate de Foix pur porc by William Saurin.

May 20- 22, 2001 -- Le Marin / St. Anne I woke up this morning and my back is feeling much better. It still hurts, so I planned to take it easy today. Mike decided he wanted to accomplish a few things. He dug out the electronics cable so he could hook up our DSC radio to our GPS. He also hooked our B&G equipment into the Capn. After we determined what wires get hooked where, Mike set about his work. We heard Alvimar on the radio, so we called them. We met them two years ago at the East Port Yacht Club. More specifically, they did an open invitation to any cruisers left in Annapolis at the end of October to join them at the East Port Yacht Club for a party. We caught up with them and made plans to get together after we move to St. Anne. Right after we finished talking with Alvimar, Lady M III called us. They are anchored at St. Anne. They are planning to be here for a bit so we will also try to get together with them. They asked us when we need to be where based on insurance. Since we hadn't reviewed our insurance (beyond knowing that we needed to be below the hurricane belt), we took the opportunity and took a break to check it out. While Mike worked on the wiring, I wrote logs. We are both trying to be careful with my back. Just as were finishing up, Tahoe called to let us know that they are moving to St. Anne. They don't like taking Spirit, their dog, ashore in Le Marin. He got clipped by a car, so they want to move out to St. Anne where they hope it will be better. Next, Sojourner called to let us know that they will be moving this way tomorrow. We will play tourist together. On May 21, Sojourner brought their boat into Marin. Unfortunately, due to the crowded anchorage, Jan decided to stay on the boat while Dan cleared out of customs. Following their lead, we cleared out of customs in Martinique and moved the boat out to the anchorage at St. Anne near where Sojourner reanchored. It was during this move that we discovered exactly how bad the NMEA data collisions were! The Capn hiccuped and would not move the boat while we were navigating out to the outer anchorage! However, we made it safe and sound. The first thing we did after dropping anchor was to disconnect the B&G feed. This cleared up both the problem with the VHF as well as the problem we experienced today with the Capn. We need to get a NEMA multixplexer, that allows all of the data to come and controls how it goes out so that the data stream from one device does land on top of another. That evening, we accepted an invitation to cocktails on Tahoe. Sojourner, Pengallie, and Crystalee also gathered on Tahoe. It was a fun evening. On May 22, we spent a relaxing day. We joined a bunch of other boats, for Bachi Ball (as it was named to us!) on the beach at St. Anne. There were 10 boats or so all told. I was on the winning team for the first two games! We chatted with folks about what all cruisers chat about, the weather, hurricane season, moving the boat and where to stay for hurricane season. A few of the boats were trying to put together a wine tasting for Friday and encouraged all of us 'newbies' to stay since it was 'blowing like stink and wouldn't be a comfortable ride anyway.' We returned to the boat to discuss the wisdom imparted by the old timers and to spend a quiet afternoon and evening aboard the boat.

We got up this morning and listened to the radio for a report from Pengallie and Tahoe. They decided to leave this morning at 2:00 AM AST to head to Bequia. They offered to relay back to us the wind and wave conditions that they were seeing. When we talked to them, Pengallie reported that they saw seas of 4 to 6 feet and winds around 20 knots. Mariah left first, followed shortly by Sojourner. We, on the other hand, had to put our dinghy up on deck before we could leave. We got underway about an hour after everyone else left. Because we were expecting higher winds at the southern end of Martinique and the northern end of St. Lucia, we decided to undercanvas and motorsail. We cleared the wind shadow of Martinique and the winds climbed to 18-22 knots. The seas went from 3-5 to 6 -10 feet quickly! It was a lumpy, if fairly quick run. We caught up with Sojourner and Mariah about thirty minutes out of Rodney Bay, St. Lucia. About midway through the trip, Mariah called to report that he had seen a pilot whale surfing down a wave toward his boat and he thought that was fun. Bear in mind, of course, that pilot whales aren't much bigger than dolphins. Even still, we informed Mike on Mariah that he had a rather twisted sense of what was fun! After we dropped anchor, Mike and I dropped the dinghy so we could clear customs. On the way, I picked up Dan from Sojourner and Mike from Mariah. We headed in to clear customs. On the way in, we saw Just Dessert. We haven't seen them since Fort de France in Martinique, and that was only briefly. We cleared customs, and then on the way back we stopped by Just Dessert for a drink and to chat a bit. Since Mike and I had talked about dinner out at Pizza Pizza, I suggested that we all make an evening of it. Everyone agreed, so we made plans to come back in at 6:30 PM. We did the ferry thing, and hauled Dan and Jan (Sojourner), Mike and Barb (Mariah), and Mike and Dawn (Just Dessert) to Pizza Pizza. It made more sense to take one dinghy than four, since the dock at Pizza Pizza is very small. However, we were just a bit on the crowded side in our dinghy. It seats six, not eight, but we were only going a couple of hundred feet, once we picked up Just Dessert! Of course we could have left the dink at Just Dessert's boat and walked over, but it was a couple of miles around the water or a short trip across. Dinner was a lot of fun. We caught up with Mike and Dawn on all of their adventures, and also to hear all about the Mariah's and Sojourners adventures as well. After dinner, we went to the Ice Cream place and then headed back to the boat and to bed.

Today, we headed in to Rodney Bay to check out the yacht chandleries and hard ware stores. We discovered last night that the light switches we have on the boat can be purchased here. Being European switches, we have been nursing the old ones trying to buy a little more time out of them until we got down here and were able to get replacements. Since we have 2 that are dying, we wanted to find some replacements. First, we stopped at the Bread Basket for a breakfast of Croissants and muffins. Then we walked down to the combination yacht chandlery and hardware store where we were able to find most of the things we needed. On our way back, we stopped by the Rodney Bay Chandlery and found the exhaust blower that we have been looking for! We also found out that if we have our ship's papers, then we would be able to get our supplies duty free, so we headed out to the boat for them. On the way, we ran into Dan and Jan. We decided to look around the mall together. So, while they headed on to the dinghy dock, we headed out to the boat to get our ship's papers. We met at the dock and headed off to the mall. We wandered around the shops there, and then hit the super market. In celebration of the fact that we were finally able to get Enchilada sauce again, we invited Dan and Jan over for dinner. Then we headed back to the boat without stopping to get the bilge blower! We had a great dinner and a fun evening. On May 25, we all went in to get our clearance papers to move on to Soufries, one of two national parks here. Unfortunately, because we cleared in without doing a 72 hour clear out, we could not clear out today for tomorrow. We would have to come back to clear out in the morning. Mutual Fun arrived, and while Sojourner and Mariah were attempting to get their clearance papers, we had drinks at the marina bar. Sojourner was able to get their pass for Soufries correctly dated since they did a 72 hour clearance. Unfortunately, Mariah was stuck in the same boat as us. That evening, we went out to dinner with Mariah and Sojourner to Snouti Agouti. It is a little bar and restaurant on Pigeon Island. The food was pretty good, and the company was delightful. On May 26, we learned that the tropical wave was due to hit our area in 12 hours. It was reported that it would bring winds of 20 knots with gusts as high as 35 knots. Rather than move to Soufries, we decided that we would rather trust our ground tackle rather than a mooring ball so we stayed. Mariah and Sojourner moved on to Soufries. I headed back to Customs to clear us back in. The customs guy took our form and noted on it that we were unable to leave due to the Tropical Wave. With that, we were cleared back in to St. Lucia. After I returned to the boat, Kokopelli called us. They just arrived from Martinique after also having a boisterous sail, though not quite as boisterous as ours was. We headed over to visit with them and catch up on where they have been and how their trip was going. We returned to the boat, and after dinner flipped on the TV. We receive a few channels here, and discovered that one of the channels that split its time between several stations was UPN tonight. We were able to watch the final episode of Star Treck Voyager! On Sunday May 27, we started out the day with a few boat chores before heading over to visit with Kokopelli again. While we were there, we ran into Mutual Fun, so we all headed to lunch together. After lunch, Mike and I headed back to the boat for a nap. However, instead, we headed over to Mutual Fun to take a look at their Pactor IIe problem. We checked everything out and there appeared to be a wire short somewhere. So, after tracing out the wires and reconnecting them, things worked. However, it was getting late so we only taped them together which didn't work. Finally, we headed back to Nightwinds for a quiet dinner and a relaxing evening. I took the opportunity to write logs. On Monday, May 28, we headed back over to Mutual Fun to clean up the rewired connections we did for them yesterday. We performed several tests; unfortunately they didn't work out. We headed back to Nightwinds and spent the afternoon on the boat. On Tuesday, May 29, we worked on the main saloon air conditioner problem. We tried to track the problem down based on an email we received, but wound up having to call Merrill Stevens for more information. With a little bit of help, we were able to diagose the problem and are looking for a new relay. We headed into town where we ran into Island Spirit. We caught up with them on our various adventures and had lunch at Pizza Pizza. It was a great way to spend the afternoon. On Wednesday, May 30, we moved the boat down to the Pitons. It was an easy motor with an exciting end! As we came up to the mooring area, we discovered that the mooring pennant is too short for us to attach our bow line to from the deck of the boat. 'Fortunately' there was a boat boy there that helped us get our boat hooked up to the mooring pennant. We spent the afternoon playing in the water and relaxing on the boat. On Thrusday, May 31, we moved from the Pitons to Admiralty Bay, Bequia. We slipped our mooring at 0900 GMT in 10 to 15 knots of wind with a weak tropical wave approaching. We turned towards St. Vincent and motor sailed in 4 to 6 foot seas and 15 to 20 knots of wind. We had a few minor rain showers and a few light squalls. However, we managed to avoid the worst of the wave and were comfortably anchored in Bequia by 1800 GMT. The anchorage at Bequia was poor. It took us several tries to get our anchor set, and then it was set only because it had caught on a big rock! We dropped the dinghy and headed into town to clear in. Afterwards, we wandered around the town abit before heading back to the boat for dinner.