December 2009 Archives

Yesterday our two daughters had left to return home. We were sad to have them leave, but rather than dwell on it, we decided to move. So, we spent a couple of hours getting cleared out of St. Lucia to move to Bequia which is an island in St. Vincent and the Grenadines. It was a beautiful evening with a full moon and we had a delightful sail down the windward (east) side of St. Vincent. We then turned around the southern part to get around Bequia to enter the main anchorage at Port Elizabeth around midnight. The trip took about 7 hours. You can view the GPS track below with Google Maps, or with Google Earth in 3D.

We parked pretty far out last night because there were a surprising number of boats in the anchorage. Well over 100 I'm guessing. I guess this is the happening place on New Year's Eve! We heard there will be fireworks when we cleared in with customs.

Our best wishes to everyone - Happy New Year!

We are really looking forward to 2010 as we begin traveling to new destinations and new people. We hope you'll keep following along on this blog and enjoy the sights we share with photos, GPS tracks, and with Google Earth. We hope to have a lot to share!

As we were leaving The Pitons on Saturday morning, we had an errand to run on the way out. I had wanted to pay a tip to the guy who helped take Trisha and I get to the stables. I had been short on the local currency. So, we left Coconut - our dinghy - attached to the back, and when we rounded the northern Piton I jumped in Coconut and drove to Harmony Beach while Karen and the girls kept Tahina headed for Rodney Bay. I quickly drove on the beach and found one of Benny's sisters and gave her the money.

Coconut is much faster - especially with just one person on board - than Tahina. So, I quickly caught up to the boat. Karen stopped engines so I could re-attach Coconut to the back. We use two painters (ropes) to attach Coconut between the two hulls of Tahina. A moment later, we had Coconut tied off so I suggested we go ahead and raise sails.

We had yet another delightful sail up the coast. About half way, we had passed a mono-hull and a smaller catamaran and were making tracks comfortably. Karen and I were sitting at the helm and just remarking how nice it was. It was a little noisier than normal with Coconut bouncing behind us as she was pulled along at 8 knots. But, with the sun to our aft starboard, the helm seat was well shaded, and with a port tack, we had a nice breeze blowing on us.

All of the sudden, I noticed a change in the pattern of sound around us. My first thought was someone must be approaching us from behind so I looked to see who it was. Instead, I noticed a change in the view behind us - there was no Coconut! Coconut was a hundred yards behind us and quickly falling behind! I shouted: "Coconut came loose!" We quickly moved to man overboard mode. Karen and I immediately dropped sails, turned on the engines and turned around. Coconut was already nearly 500 yards behind by the time we started closing the distance. A visible demonstration of how important it is to act quickly in a man overboard situation.

We got to Coconut before the catamaran behind us had reached Coconut. They must've been wondering what was going on, until they saw the loose dinghy. Karen said their crew looked like they were willing to lend a hand as they went by. But, when they saw we had the two girls on board they probably concluded - correctly - we had plenty of help.

It turns out the stainless steel bracket that the painters were attached to at the bow of Coconut had come loose. The bracket was still attached to the ropes and the nuts were safely at the bottom of the anchor and gas tank well in the dinghy. After we pulled Coconut out of the water and on the deck, we raised our sails again. With the girls help we did it so fast, we were soon catching up and passing the catamaran again. Within a few minutes, I was able to re-attach the bracket and painters to Coconut and all was well again. I'll have to periodically check the tightness of the nuts now, and avoid pulling the dinghy at those speeds.

We arrived at Rodney Bay late in the afternoon. The girls (including Karen) wanted to eat out, so we got ready and went to the restaurant called H20 at the Rodney Bay Marina. We had a nice dinner and drinks, but went ahead and had some local water as well. That may have been a mistake. More on that later.

Before we left the PItons, I was determined to take a 360 panorama. I decided the water was calm enough to attempt the 360 from the deck of Tahina. The setup involves a tripod, an SLR camera with a fisheye lens, a special adapter ring, and a special tripod mount designed to allow turning the camera to several positions.

The adapter ring holds the camera at a very specific nodal point (at the focus point of light in the lens). This way as the camera turns the pictures are all taken from the center of the "sphere" the 360 panorama is created from. We got this adapter and the tripod mount from our partner Nodal Ninja. To give plenty of overlap to the pictures, so stitching is easier for the software, I take 8 photos. Six are taken at every 60 degrees with the camera in portrait orientation. Then a shot straight up, and a shot straight down.

It took two or three tries for me to get the shot the way I wanted. Clouds were going by and I wanted the lighting to be right. Plus, I was trying to take the shots quickly to reduce the effects as Tahina rotated slightly on the mooring. Finally, I was confident I had a good set, so I put away the equpiment and went inside.

I'll describe more about the processing below, but here is the resulting view of The Pitons from Tahina. Rotate around and notice the amazing view of both these magnificient mountains on the edge of St. Lucia. You can see why this is a popular place to visit by boat can't you? And check out what the view from Tahina's bow is like. It's just like you are standing there. You can look up and see the height of her mast and the breadth of her beam. The view is beautiful isn't it?

The Pitons, St Lucia from Tahina in World

We had good WIFI at this mooring, so I decided to attempt to process the photo right away. I first used software to remove chromatic abberation, adjust the exposure, and convert the photos to TIFF format from the RAW format used when taking the photos. Then I used PTGui Pro to do the stitching. I was lucky as I only had to do a few custom control points to aid the stitching process, and then slightly adjust the rotation to get the resulting shot's landscape level. PTGui Pro did the rest and I soon had a surprisingly good panorama. I quickly uploaded the result to 360Cities.net. It was after this that we prepared to leave The Pitons to head back to Rodney Bay. Catherine and Karen planned to go to the rainforest and the bus picks up at Rodney Bay Marina.

The Pitons are an amazing pair of volcanic mountains that sit on the SW edge of St. Lucia. Each mountain has huge steep cliffs jutting straight out of the water and ascending hundreds of feet to their tops. They are a trademark symbol of St. Lucia and the area is a World Heritage site. Around the peaks is a marine park, and you have to pay extra fees to moor here. Anchoring is not permitted.

We spent two nights in the area parking first near Sourfiere Town on the north side of the northern peak, and the second night in between the two Pitons. Arriving late morning on Christmas Eve, we first had to moor. In the location we picked, we had to first tie the moor on our bow, and then take a line ashore. Some locals in a boat came to help (for a fee of course), and soon had us tied off.

Since it was near lunchtime, we went to a little restaurant called Harmony Beach Bar and Grill. They weren't quite ready to be open yet, but let us get comfortable sitting on their veranda. What a beautiful view we had!

We had a nice lunch and were talking about what we wanted to do. We spoke with the woman serving us - who was the wife of the owner. We decided we would go horseback riding on Christmas Day. We had also wanted to try a zip line through the rainforest, but it turns out it was a long taxi ride from the Pitons. Since Patricia wanted to do the horseback riding the most, we decided we would split up the two activities. I would go with Patricia, and Karen would later do the zip line with Catherine.

On Christmas Day, the son of the restaurant owner came by to pick us up, and then drove us up to a plantation house a mile or so up the very steep and curvy roads behind the northern Piton. The plantation had gardened grounds with flowers and beautiful trees. It was a sight in itself. But, we were soon at the horse stables. We had a delightful two hour ride through the rainforest and over near a volcano. As we returned to the plantation, our guide took us to see how they processed sugar cane, cocoa beans, and coconuts in decades past. We had a great time, and you can see the incredible sights we saw here:

More pictures of the PItons will be added here within a few days.

Wednesday last week, we went ashore in Rodney Bay and did some last minute Christmas shopping. There's a small mall within walking distance of a dinghy dock in the harbor. We spent a few hours first with the gift shopping, having some lunch, and finishing with some grocery shopping. It took all four of us to carry stuff back to the dinghy.

For some reason, there were some large long ocean swells in the anchorage. That combined with some gusty winds, and a few jet skis nearby, had the water pretty choppy when we arrived with the dinghy at Tahina.

The girls jumped on board to hold the dinghy and help unload. I started unloading and making sure items were going well on board so they wouldn't fall off. I had just put my backpack (which holds my laptop, camera and other important items) up on the deck when the dinghy tried to go under the transom. Karen was sitting on the side of the dinghy and nearly hit her head on the bottom of transom. So, I tried to help push back. Somehow, my hand must've been tangled in the strap of the backpack. The next thing I knew the backpack was rolling off the back of the boat! I watched in slow motion as it dropped into the water.

Before I knew what I was doing I jumped into the water and grabbed the backpack before it immersed. I was hanging on the back of the transom holding it in the air. One of the girls grabbed the backpack and immediately opened it and took out the laptop. My shorts were wet, including my wallet, and I realized my iPhone was in my pocket. Uh oh!

Needless to say, this was a pretty intense moment for me. The laptop is a crucial part of my blogging and photography processing. I do have regular backups on separate harddrives, so all would not be lost. A quick examination of the laptop and backpack showed no significant water intrusion in the laptop compartment. But, there were a few drops of water on the back. I wiped it off and opened the top. Bad news! The screen was black. But, I could tell things were still working - in fact, in low-light (or shining a flashlight) I could still see the screen. Further investigation determined the only thing not working was the LED backlight was not working. I can still use the laptop hooked up to a monitor, but use on shore is not practical. So, I'll need to get this fixed.

The rest of that day I was not in a happy mood. I dried out the contents of my wallet and removed everything from the backpack and dried it out. Nothing else was harmed. I've always been so careful with the backpack, and I couldn't believe this had happened! But, it was almost Christmas, and my daughters were here. So, I did my best to put it out of my mind and enjoy our family time.

The next day, Christmas Eve, we moved to St. Lucia's World Heritage site: The Pitons. These monstrous volcanic mountains on the SW corner of St. Lucia are an amazing sight and a popular area to snorkel, dive, and bring your boat. The nice sail down did a lot to recuperate my state of mind. I'll talk more about our visit here in

upcoming posts..

Happy Holidays to everyone from Tahina in the Caribbean! We're having a wonderful time with family, and we hope you are as well. We put up some more Christmas lights on Tahina on Christmas eve and lit up our part of the anchorage for a while. I was surprised I didn't see other boats here lit up with lights - back in the US, boats often get covered with Christmas lights.

On Monday, we decided to go back to the beach Karen and I visited briefly on Sunday near the airport. The beach is east of Vieux Fort and is a really nice beach thanks to the protection of a reef and two islands further east. In fact, the beach is a popular hang out for wind and kite surfers. There's a nice surf shop, bar and restaurant called "The Reef" there. And, they have free WIFI! We were in heaven there.

So, we took Ren over and hung out a good portion of the day there. While we were there, I managed to wear myself out trying to windsurf for the second time in 10 years. For some reason I could only surf in one direction. Usually I'm quite ambidextrous, but for some reason I couldn't surf on a starboard tack. Weird! Several bruises, scratches and burns later - after two hours - I had to head in.

Meanwhile, we met a few young men at the hangout who were having some beach time while waiting for their yacht to be moved to Vieux Fort. I asked them, how big is your yacht? "Oh, it's just about 50 meters." Wow! When we told them we had a much smaller catamaran, they were nice enough to say: "A catamaran! We love catamarans!". Nonetheless, they invited us to come see their "little" boat which is called S/Y Antara (see their web site http://syantara.com ). Their father, who owns the boat, sometimes charters out the megayacht, so they have a nice web site.

We were very impressed with Antara when we got to the anchorage. Chris, one of the two sons we met at the Reef - whose father owns the boat, is a surfer and had the crew pull him around the anchorage with their dinghy. It was like knee-boarding only with a surf board.

Later that evening we went over and were invited aboard Antara. I took over some photos I took of Chris while he was surfing and gave them copies. Antara is a beautiful boat with a crew of 8, and very nice owners. We enjoyed a few drinks and chips and I got to talk to their skipper who has had an interesting sailing career and is quite a friendly chap. They have a large jacuzzi and built-in BBQ grill on top. The sails are deployed automatically, but the boat isn't too fancy with the navigation electronics. When it got dark, the lighting on the boat was amazing. They had lights underwater lighting 20 meters on every side. Check out the night shot I took of Antara from Tahina along with other photos of The Reef, the beach, and our anchorage at Vieux Fort:

The next day, was occupied with doing some shopping, catching up on Internet, and picking up our othe daughter at the airport. Once we had Patricia at the boat, we immediately set about raising anchor. We decided we would make an evening run back up to the north side of the island to Rodney Bay. We had a nice sail up the coast with a waxing near-quarter moon to help light the way. The winds were light, but we still averaged better than 7 knots under sail. We arrived about 11 PM and carefully eased our way into the busy anchorage and dropped our hook.

It's Wednesday now and we plan to do some Christmas shopping and may later move back to Martinique.

We had a brief visit to Rodney Bay. We had intended to stay there for several days to await our daughter's arrivals (two different days) and enjoy the ample facilities of modern shopping, dining, etc. However, on Friday evening while checking the flight arrival information we realized the girls would be arriving at the larger airport on the southern tip of the island at Vieux Fort, not the airport we had seen before in the capital city of Castries about 20 minutes away. After reading further, it turns out a taxi trip from the Vieux Fort airport to Rodney Bay can take 1.5 hours or more and cost $100 US each way! After a short discussion, we concluded getting Tahina down to Vieux Fort made more sense.

Another factor in the decision to leave was that we couldn't get a slip at the marina on the weekend. There were two events at Rodney Bay - the ARC (Atlantic Rally for Cruisers) and just arrived a few days earlier, after crossing the Atlantic from the Canairies. They had about 150 boats filling most of the marina, and a race involving a bunch of boats from Martinique was also going on. We had wanted to go to a slip for a night to wash Tahina with shore water.

We finally set up some Christmas decorations. We had bought a mini-Christmas tree last year for Tahina. We quickly had it set up. Then I put some lights in the back cockpit. We have some more lights I'll set up later.

On Saturday morning, I went ashore to check when the fuel dock opened. We took Tahina in at 8 AM to fuel up and fill our port tank with water we could use to wash down the boat. After getting the fuel and water I went to pay with our American Express, but they declined it. Had to call them on Skype and ask what was up. After waiting 10 minutes (it's Christmas time), they explained they flagged it because I don't normally use the American Express for large purchases in the Caribbean. Grrr...I had already called them before we left to explain how I would be using it! Anyway, we completed the purchase and then I ran the dinghy over to customs to get permission to go to Vieux Fort.

By 9:15 we were headed out, raised the dinghy, then the sails and started sailing down the coast. It was a perfect Caribbean day with lots of sunshine and moderate winds and seas. We enjoyed sailing along the coastline - especially when we got to the Pitons - the majestic giant ancient volcano cones which are one of the main sightseeing attractions of St. Lucia.

We started trying to go tight to the wind at the Pitons because we needed to turn eastward to get to Vieux Fort. Naturally, the wind would be on our nose for the last 10 miles or so. Interestingly, our track almost mirrored the shape of the shore line as we crossed the pitons. Then suddenly we were sent southwest away from the island. This was due to the bending of the winds along the southern shore. I knew the wind would bend back and, since the weather was so nice, we continued taking out hoping to tack closer towards Vieux Fort eventually. Our track did have us arcing more and more east.

We were almost a third of the way to St. Vincent before I decided we needed to go ahead and tack us back towards Vieux Fort. We tacked as close to the wind as possible, but we were still 3 miles short of Vieux Fort. Once we sailed as close to shore as practical, we dropped the sails and motored the rest of the way. We got there just in time as 3 other sailboats all arrived at the same time. We got a nice spot and anchored.

Here's a map showing our track down from Martinique, and our track from Rodney Bay to Vieux Fort (load in Google Earth here ):

As soon as we got settled (about 3:30) Karen and I got started cleaning the boat. We wanted the boat to be clean when our daughters got here. I washed the dirtiest part - our cockpit area and the back transom. Before sunset, I took a swim and snorkeled to make sure the anchor was set and free of obstructions. We then finally had some dinner and took a break before heading to bed.

Here are some pictures from St. Lucia - Rodney Bay, our trip to Vieux Fort, and the Christmas tree:

On Sunday, we finished cleaning up in the morning. After lunch, Karen and I took showers and took the dinghy ashore. As we arrived at the fishing port, a local directed us to a corner to tie up our dinghy. He insisted on helping tie up the boat and getting our bags (backpacks and trash) out. Then he gave us helpful tips on where to go and offered to take the trash away. Of course, he was looking out for a handout. So, I paid him a few bucks.

Vieux Fort is not really a tourist town - even though it is the 2nd largest city in St. Lucia. It was mostly a fishing port and commercial port, and still is. But, they do have some shopping malls, a few hotels, and a beach on the east side of town. We got hit up for more money from a few beggars along the way - one was particularly insistent. We got some ice cream near the bus stop to cool off from our walk. Then we caught a bus for the beach. The beach is a great location for wind and kite surfing. There's a great little restaurant and surf shop there. They reportedly had WIFI. We had about 2 hours before our daughter was to arrive, so we got some drinks and got on the Internet. What a delightful beach! We made a few Skype calls.

Eventually it was time to go to the airport, so we had the restaurant call us a taxi. Our daughter's flight was about 45 minutes late (fortunately we had her connecting flight to Atlanta - flights out of the northeast and even Miami were all messed up with the Northeaster snow storm). She finally cleared customs and we greeted her enthusiastically! We got a taxi all the way back to the dinghy dock. And soon were back to Tahina. Our daughter had actually spotted Tahina from the airplane when they did a high-altitude pass over the area before circling to land. She even had video she took from the plane showing she had spotted us.

We soon had our daughter take a dip to cool off and even did some kayaking. Karen had just about finished with dinner after sunset when we heard "Ahoy Tahina" from behind the boat. I couldn't believe it, but it was our friends from Northfork (the US boat we had last seen in St. Pierre, Martinique). We invited them aboard and gave them a full tour of Tahina and caught up on travels. Turns out they had chosen to come here to clear out of customs before heading south again. They eventually plan to go through the Panama canal, and do a circumnavigation. So, we may cross paths again.

For years, tourist beach destinations in Hawaii have supported the selling of fish food to attract fish when tourists snorkel or dive the reefs. Fish food, frozen peas, and other human food are not the normal part of the fish food chain. As a result, fish have been cutting back on their normal food supply and reefs have actually become covered in algae and otherwise less healthy due to the lack of attention of the fish, or due to an overpopulation of fish attracted to the human food.

In an effort led by the Coral Reef Alliance, a campaign was started to convince commercial entities to stop selling the fish food. Several organizations have agreed to stop state-wide including Long Drugs and Walmart. Read more about it.

It's really great seeing companies begin to realize the importance of protecting our reefs from human interference even if it means reducing a revenue stream (even a small one). Now if we could only get more people and organizations to realize how much more important it is not to pollute our oceans, or overfish.

Today we sailed from Martinique to Rodney Bay, St. Lucia. We had a great sail even if it was only 25 nautical miles. We completed the trip in under 4 hours despite having to stay close-reached the entire way. We sailed right to the southern edge of Rodney Bay, and lowered our sails as we motored in. Then we dropped the hook a few moments later near the entry canal to the marinas.

Along the way, we caught up and passed another catamaran as well as two mono-hulls. The other catamaran (with a French flag - sorry Gerard!), neglected to go tight enough into the wind and so we had a better angle on the wind. He also dropped his sails and motored the last 3 miles or so - not realizing I guess that the winds would bend around the island.

We cleared customs an hour or so later. There was a ton of people in the customs office because there is apparently a yacht race and many sailors from Martinique were entering the country today for the weekend race.

I finally managed to upload a panorama I took while we were in Iles Des Saintes. This 360 panorama was taken near the top of the hill which has Fort Napoleon on the top (yes, that Napoleon).

View the full screen mode to see the panorama in better detail. You can also zoom in and out with SHIFT and CTRL keys.

It's just before dawn down here in Grand Anse D'Arlet, Martinique. This is a beautiful anchorage that is very popular with boaters - and even small cruise ships. The Royal Clipper - a Star Clipper cruiseship with 5 sailing masts, which we also saw in Iles Des Saintes - was here when we arrived yesterday afternoon. After a nice afternoon swim, we spent the evening watching their ferry boat bring people back from shore.

As the sun was setting, Karen was giving me a haircut on the aft transom. This was the best view I've ever had during a haircut! Beautiful blue caribbean water beneath my feet, fish jumping out of the water, tropical forest-covered hills to my right, a fantastic sunset developing in the background, and the sillhouette of the 5-masted cruise-ship between us and the sunset. This was also the best sunset we've seen since we've come down. The clouds turned spectacular colors: orange, red, pink, magenta, neon pink, purple, ... the list goes on. Amazing! I had to keep stopping Karen to take pictures. But, she still got my haircut done before dark (it's much shorter now - yay!).

Here are more photos from Martinique including four shots of the sunset:

We have been on our trip for over a month now, and I've been thinking about our experiences so far. Tahina performed very well and delivered us safely and quickly from North Carolina to St. Martin - 1300 nautical miles away in just over 7 days. The boat has been performing very well on our passages and is a joy to sail. We've had a few minor maintenance issues, but nothing more than is typical on a boat. Tahina has many nice features that enhance the cruising life, and we have been growing to appreciate our boat more each day. Our hat is off to St. Francis for making a great boat.

So far, we have been retracing steps we made in the east Caribbean during our previous sailing adventures on our boat PatiCat during 2002/2003. This was intentional as we felt it would be a good idea to visit some of our favorite places while we re-adjusted to the new lifestyle. This has the advantage of giving us less to worry about since we are familiar with the environment, but we are really looking forward to seeing new countries and new exciting places.

We are moving through the islands at a faster pace than normal (compared to other winter cruisers down here). This was also intentional because we plan to spend more time going to new islands along the southern Caribbean on our way to Panama in March. It is early in the winter season here, and the normal cruisers are not yet plentiful in the anchorages of the east Caribbean. As a result, we haven't met as many other boaters as we anticipated. We have been amazed at some anchorages how few other boaters are around compared to our experiences 7 years ago. One of the joys of this lifestyle is meeting other cruisers and sharing experiences and knowledge with people who have a shared passion for traveling by boat. After the New Year, this problem will go away.

The climate takes a little getting used to. If you're not used to it, the temperatures are pretty hot. During the day, you can jump in the water to cool off, or enjoy cool breezes in the shade. At night, it's a little harder since the breezes often die out or are blocked by the islands. The temperature rarely drops more than a few degrees (F) at night. But, after nearly a month, we are finally getting more comfortable. The only drawback to this adjustment is that, when we get back to normal civilization, air conditioning will feel like an arctic blast to us.

As Karen said in her last post, it doesn't feel much like Christmas down here. It's so pleasantly warm, and we have been away from the shopping, marketing, and craziness that is typical during this time of year back home. Especially since we don't watch TV down here. There have been some signs of Christmas decorations on shore, but not as much as we're used to seeing in the US. We're going to put up our little Christmas tree and some lights this weekend. Our kids are comng down to join us for the holiday, and having the family together again will definitely crank up the Christmas feeling. That will be wonderful!

Blog posts are likely to be less frequent during the holidays. So, don't be surprised if only a few squeak out during the next couple of weeks. We will still maintain our position on the Tahina map, so you can see where we're at.

[I've been asking Karen to make a post occasionally - this one is by her. --- Frank]

Well, we're in Martinique now and will be picking up our daughters in St. Lucia soon for the Christmas holidays. I can't believe that it is almost Christmas. It just doesn't feel right, but we've seen some Christmas decorations around, including a decorated cactus at Fort Napoleon at Iles des Saintes. We don't have much in the way of holiday decorations, but we'll be putting up our mini tree before Christmas day.

We had a great time in Iles des Saintes. We rented a motor scooter one day and drove around the island. It was so much fun! And definitely easier and faster than walking. The first day we walked up the hill to Fort Napoleon. I'm definitely not cardiovascularly fit! I had to stop three times to catch my breath and let my heart slow down. But we made it! Just in time for them to be closing. Yep, we had a great hike for the view. But it was a great view. We tried doing some kite photography, but the wind by the fort was not consistent enough (would have crashed the camera). So we stopped on the way down at a little pull out and Frank shot a 360. Very pretty.

The people there are all very friendly but the most curious about us were the goats. They are everywhere except in town! I'm not sure how they tell which is whose, but they keep the grass mowed. We also saw dogs and cats around town. I guess they are the vermin control. The chickens must be for the insects.

After a few days, we headed for Martinique. The sail over was pretty rough. The white capped waves are called "horses" and I understand why now. It seemed like I was riding a bucking bronco, in slow motion! Still, I didn't get seasick so I can't really complain. Martinique is beautiful, very green. It is a French island, so we are getting by on the little French we've picked up on the other islands. Everyone seems to be very helpful to us non-speakers, but we are trying to speak their language when possible.

We anchored off St. Pierre for a few days. That's were Mt. Pelee blew its top in the early 1900s and killed nearly 30,000 people who did not evacuate despite the warnings the volcano gave them. There is a museum including the jail cell where the only survivor was in solitary confinement for murder. He was severly wounded and pardoned then toured the world displaying his scars as the survivor of the disaster.

While in Iles des Saintes, we met a very nice couple from the US. They also happened to be anchored in St. Pierre, so we went out to dinner together. I really enjoyed the English conversation although it made me miss my friends from home so much more.

Once again, we were unable to clear into customs. The display screen was broken and, despite the presence of three techno-savy guys trying to clear in, the owner of the shop would not let them temporarily hook up one of the other monitors. I guess it's government property, and we all know how that can go. So, we left St. Pierre to head to Fort de France, the capital.

The last time we were in Martinique, we anchored at Anse Mitan and took the ferry to Fort de France. It's a quieter, more touristy place. It was indeed quiet when we arrived. The dinghy dock and fuel dock were no longer there, having been destroyed by a hurricane in 2008. But we managed to find a place to dock the dinghy, a little floating dock designed for about five boats where there were at least ten at the time. I had to climb into/out of another dinghy in order to reach the dock, but we managed to get tied up and on to land. Our plan was to take the ferry to Fort de France and clear in. That was our plan. Oh the best laid plans... We waited quite a while for the ferry which did not come, so we decided to have lunch in Creole Village, a touristy area with restaurants and shops. We found a great bakery which also does lunch which was delicious AND about half the price of the restaurants. Still no ferry, so we headed back to the boat and moved to Fort de France. One thing about living on a boat, you can move your house. So we anchored at Fort de France and once ashore we were finally able to clear customs at a chandlery run by a couple from Quebec, which means they speak French AND English!

After we finished at the chandlery, we popped into a general store which had all kinds of housewares. I needed to get some groceries and we found a store across the street from an internet cafe. What a perfect combination for us! So Frank happily spent his time on the computer without me waiting impatiently ("When will you be done.") while I was able to shop without him looking over my shoulder ("Do we really need that?"). Heaven for us both!

Well, gotta go now. Merry Christmas to you all.

We moved today from St. Pierre, Martinique to Fort de France today. First, we went to Anse Mitan because - according to past experience, and our cruising guide - they "have" a fuel dock off the marina at the big hotel there. Well, after we motored down this morning and got anchored, we took the dinghy ashore to clear into customs. Turns out, the dock was blown away - probably by a hurricane. So, no fuel and, as we found out later, no customs.

Now we had to either take a ferry across the bay and go to Fort de France (the capital city of Martinique), or just take Tahina. After a nice lunch in Anse Mitan, we decided to move Tahina. Two miles later, we dropped the hook next to Fort St. Louis. A short walk to a nearby chandlery (with english-speaking French-Canadian owners) and we were able to clear into customs on a computer there. Yay!

Now, I'm sitting at a nice Internet cafe while Karen shops at a grocery store. Then we'll do some shopping before heading back to Tahina. Tomorrow we hope to do some sightseeing. That's all for now!

We had a full day today on our passage from Iles des Saintes past Dominica to St. Pierre, Martinique - about 75 nautical miles away. We had mechanical problems, a great sail, saw whales, raced another boat, helped another boater, and had a nice dinner. Lots more details in the write-up below. Here is a map of the journey (which you can download in Google Earth as well).

Here's a detailed version of the story of our eventful day from my journal:

We had a fun week in Guadeloupe. I posted lots of photos of our visit to Pidgeon Island already. Here are some photos of our visit in Basse Terre - the capital of Guadeloupe and rarely visited by tourists:

And, here are some photos of the beautiful Iles Des Saintes where we spent the weekend including shots from Fort Napoleon high up on the hill above the main anchorage. You can see the boats and a large Club Med cruise ship from there. The water and island are really beautiful.

We are leaving Iles des Saintes today to spend a few days in Martinique. It's a 75 mile passage so we're leaving early this morning. We had to wait an extra day because the winds were pretty strong yesterday.

While we were waiting I finally managed to create and upload a video to YouTube of some of the underwater scenes we took with our VideoRay ROV (Remote operated vehicle). This little micro-ROV is a great way to explore under the sea, and the Jacques Cousteau Marine Park was the perfect location to give it a whirl.

We spent two days snorkeling, scuba diving, and diving with the Video Ray at this wonderful underwater park. The coral was colorful, healthy, and brilliantly varied right beneath our mooring which was just 150 feet from the island. And the fish life was amazing as well. But, don't take my word - or the dozens of underwater photos we published a few days ago - watch this video (no sound yet) which just gives some highlights of what we captured:

We want to express our gratitude for the partnership we have with VideoRay. We hope to produce some amazing videos over the next five years with this fabulously versaitle ROV, and make some important observations of the state of coral reefs as we explore a small segment of the world's reefs during our circumnavigation.

We've been enjoying Iles des Saintes the last few days. We've visited Fort Napoleon, rented a scooter and drove all over Terre de Haute (the main island here), enjoyed the restaurants, met a couple from the US who are also cruising (on s/v Northfork), gone to the beaches, and spending some time on the Internet.

I've been working on improving our ability to process movies we've captured. I'm getting closer to a process that will work and hope to upload a couple of video clips soon. Sorry for the delay, but I want a process that works well and doesn't require too much bandwidth once completed. And, the underwater videos take a little extra manipulation to get looking right. Lots to do, and too many beautiful distractions!

We will probably leave on Monday to move Tahina down to Martinique. It seems like we're doing a lot of French Islands during this leg of our trip. We did go to Nevis, and our next stops after Martinique will be St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and Grenada (all British West Indies islands).

After a frustrating 3 days trying to get Internet in Basse Terre (the capitol of Guadeloupe), we decided to move Tahina to the beautiful tropical islands of Iles des Saintes just about 12 miles south of us. These hilly islands are a popular tourist destination with many ferries coming from the main island every day. Iles des Saintes is home to Fort Napoleon - located on the top of Terre de Haut, the main island of population here. This is where the main anchorage is located and was our destination of the day.

We got up and prepared to depart our anchorage at Basse Terre. We've been through this route before, so we knew that the winds can accelerate around the southern tip of Guadeloupe. We raised the sails with two reefs. A good thing because we almost immediately got over 30 knots of wind as we started sailing (just a gust). The passage to the islands is normally a tight reach to the southeast. Our trip was normal in this respect.

Here's the map showing our GPS track with some highlights, read below for some exciting details on the trip:

View Basse Terre to Iles Des Saintes, Guadeloupe in a larger map | or load the map in Google Earth

We had strong apparent wind in the upper 20 knot range with gusts into the lower 30s. As we approached the island, it was apparent we wouldn't make the entry between the islands we wanted without tacking further east. Not only that, but there were two squalls headed our way. So, we tacked a bit early hoping to go between the two squalls. Our maneuver worked almost perfectly. We caught the northern tip of the southern squall for a few seconds. You could see the wall of water approaching us and we were hammered with rain for those few seconds. We had 45 knot gusts briefly, but I turned us into the winds to take the pressure off the sails. Thank goodness we were double-reefed! Then it suddenly was over - we were in bright sunshine with a clear view again of Les Saintes, and the winds quickly dropped back to normal.

We soon tacked back towards the islands and had an enjoyable, uneventful, sail into our chosen entry, dropped our sails and motored to the anchorage. Another great sail and we were left pleased with our seamanship. As a reward, we quickly discovered we had WIFI Internet available in the anchorage and were soon gobbling up a much needed fix on the Internet and making posts left and right.

We just moved from Basse Terre, Guadeloupe over to Iles des Saintes - a wonderful set of islands south of the main island of Guadeloupe. And, they have WIFI! So, I'll try to get caught up on the Internet now. First, a catchup from Nevis...

While in Nevis we managed to capture and process three panoramas. The first was at the port for the town of Charleston at the end of the dinghy dock:

Port of Charlestown, Nevis in North America

Notice you can see Nevis peak, the ferries to/from St. Kitts, the port, and parts of the town.

Next, we have a panorama in front of the Hamilton Museum. Tahina is visible at the mooring in the distance:

Hamilton Museum in Charlestown, Nevis in North America

And finally, we took a bumpy dinghy ride up to Oualie Beach. We were hoping take some kite aerial photos as well, but we ran out of time because we needed to clear out of customs shortly. So, instead we had a drink and snack at the hotel restaurant on the beach. It was really nice. The hotel looks like a great place to stay with little villas on the beach:

Oualie Beach, Nevis in North America

As mentioned a few days ago, we had a fabulous sail from Nevis to Guadeloupe. Along the way we got as close as is permitted to the active volcano (not intentionally, it just worked out that way). There were some amazing big ash and rock events as we sailed past the volcano and we got it all with our cameras. I think some of the photos are great (unfortunately at medium resolution at the moment due to Internet problems). Check out the photos here:

On Monday we departed the fantastic underwater world of Pidgeon Island and motored through some rain showers 12 miles to Basse Terre - the capital of Guadeloupe. We like visiting Basse Terre because it is not a tourist city of Guadeloupe. Very few people speak English - which makes it challenging for us since we only speak a few words of French. But, you really feel immersed in the culture here.

After anchoring in the marina south of town, we went ashore in the afternoon to find customs. But, we couldn't find the office that used to be here. And the marine stores were closed (we found out later they are closed until mid-afternoon). We tried taking the dinghy to downtown and ferry terminal to look for customs. A police officer (who spoke some english) took us to the customs office. Fortunatley, one person at customs spoke English. She told us there was a customs computer in one of the stores near the marina we could use later in the week. Customs tends to be rather non-bureaucratic down here. :-)

We then went to a local McDonald's for a snack - and a bit of American style consumerism. Not to mention an air conditioned eating area! It was hot in the afternoon.

I kept an eye out while we were in town, but didn't spot any Internet cafes. So, after going back to Tahina we thought we would go look for Internet. I had my iPhone which I used to scan for WIFIs. There were no signs of Internet cafe's though. We had a guide which said there was a restaurant near the marina with Internet, but most of the restaurants were closed mid-afternoon. So, we tried going to town. You can sometimes catch a bus, but we didn't see any. So, we ended up walking north to town. We went to a location where an Internet cafe was reported in 2007, but we couldn't find it. We walked all over town without finding one. We're falling victim to this town not being for tourists. We found a bus to take us back to the marina, and since it was too early for dinner we went back to Tahina.

We decided we would go into town the next day and do some shopping, try to find Internet, and try to find some sights to see.

We had a fantastic underwater weekend at Pigeon Island, Guadeloupe - home to the Jacques Cousteau Marine Park. This has been, and continues to be, one of my favorite snorkeling and diving locations. What made it particularly cool is that there are moorings just off the island (I mean 100 feet away from the rocks) where we could park Tahina and spend a few nights. The mooring is in 50 feet of water, in an area filled with live coral. A perfect area to take out the VideoRay ROV (Remote Operated Vehicle) we have on board (thanks in part to our partnership with VideoRay).

So, on both days of the weekend we spent a large part of the days in the water. We snorkeled on both sides of the island (using our kayak to paddle to the other side). Just sitting off the back of the boat you could see several schools of fish swimming around. A variety of fish schools such as bar jacks, yellow jacks, and wrasse. Moving closer to the island and the sights were amazing. The variety of coral and fish life is great. But, rather than my describing it, I recommend you look at the slideshow of underwater photos I've prepared:

Amazing sights huh? Some of the photos were from our two dives down to 70 feet. We could have stayed down all day if it weren't for our tanks running out of air. The variety of coral and fish life, and the beautiful "arrangements" of coral were so spectacular. We couldn't believe the size and quantity of barrel sponges (which you could see in the photos). The colors were so awesome.

The videoray also got a good workout. The first couple of trips had some flaws because we didn't put enough ballast, and the current was too strong. When we realized the tides were effecting currents, we waited for slack currents. Then the ROV was working great and we had some great fun exploring the areas off Pigeon Island. We captured several video clips which I hope to upload to YouTube soon. I'm long overdue producing some videos and uploading. I'm going to try and correct that over the next few days.

One interesting note - I thought the point of having a marine park is that you don't allow fishing. On both mornings of the weekend, there were a pair of fishing boats who were net fishing right off Pigeon Island! One time, they actually set up their net so close to Tahina that the net drifted right up beside our boat while they were hauling it in. They didn't even apologize - they just asked (in French and hand motions) whether their net was getting caught on our boat. Sheesh! I guess that explains why we didn't see as many large fish/animals (like barracuda and sea turtles) as we did in 2003 when we were here.

Anyway, we only have two weeks before our daughters arrive for Christmas, so we have to move along south towards St. Lucia. We'll continue visiting Guadeloupe this week, and then move to Martinique next week.

We had a fantastic sail yesterday from Nevis to Guadeloupe including passing the active volcano of Montserrat. We were up before dawn preparing the boat, and left about 6:30 AM. We had a bit of drama at departure though. We decided to raise our sail while at the mooring and just sail away. But, as we began to detach our rope from the mooring we realized it was wrapped around the ball. So, I jumped into the water to unwrap. All was going well, but Tahina started to sail away as I was swimming to the back to get on. A few frantic moments later, Karen got it back into the wind, and I managed to get on board with the rope!

After that bit of excitement, we started sailing north through the cut between Nevis and St. Kitts. We had to motor the last couple of miles straight into the wind. But, after that, we sailed on one tack all the way to Guadeloupe!

We got great photos of Redonda (the little rock island along the way), and then Moserrat. Montserrat has an active volcano. And it was amazing! We saw 5 big ash events, active vents, huge ash clouds. Wait until you see the photos! Check them out here.

Our sailing track was amazing (see it here in Google Earth). We were close reached the whole way, yet went on a perfect path leading us straight to our destination: the Jacques Cousteau Marine Park in Guadeloupe. We'll be diving here all weekend. It will be a few days before we can post pictures as no WIFI is available here. UPDATE Read this post to see the pictures (or view them in the map).

Here's the map in Google Maps:

View Trip from Nevis to Guadeloupe in a larger map

Just a post to let those of you following know that we are leaving today for Guadeloupe. We'll be passing the active volcano on Montserrat on the way. Originally we thought about visiting Montserrat again, like we did in 2003, but because the volcano has been very active we've decided to just sail by instead. Because of the prevailing winds (and the chance of ash fall from the volcano), we'll pass on the North and East sides of Montserrat.

We'll be sailing all day, and our first stop in Guadeloupe may not have Internet. So, you may only see updates on our position on the Tahina Maps page, or if you follow our Twitter @GoTahina, see some updates there.

Also, yesterday we spent some time doing provisioning, and taking some 360 panoramas. I had planned to do some kite photos as well, but the first location I went to didn't have enough wind. By the time we got to another location (Oualie Beach), I realized we were out of time (too bad, there was plenty of wind there). I needed to go to customs to clear out for our early morning departure. We did take a 360 at that location though.

We got cleared out and the weather looks fine for today. Winds between 15-20 knots along our route. Chance of showers 20%. Typical for down here. We'll be pulling into Pigeon Island in Guadeloupe which is home to the Jacques Coustea Marine Park. We plan on doing some diving, and using the ROV there.

Nevis is a beautiful volcanic island just east of St. Kitts. It is much less populated than St. Kitts, with only 11,000 people living here. Everyone seems to know everyone, and, according to the taxi driver, everyone is related. The island is very beautiful and has a few interesting historical sites. (Make sure to see the photo slideshow at the bottom of this post).

One site is the Hamilton Museum which we visited on Tuesday. The museum is a tribute to Alexander Hamilton (the guy on the US $10 bills and founded our US Treasury), who was born here in Nevis. The museum is located a short walk from Charlestown. Unfortunately, the usual tributes to Hamilton were covered by a special display to pirates. Although, it was interesting reading about 18th and 19th century pirate rogues of the Caribbean!

On our walk, as in many islands in the Caribbean (although less so on the French islands), we saw mabt signs of trash in the town. I'm not singling out Nevis, they seem to be cleaner than some of the islands, but remarking that trash is an ongoing problem on the islands down here. In particular, I noticed a water sluiceway out of town to the sea which had trash and plastic bottles ready to be washed out on the next heavy rain. A bit of netting to catch the debris at the mouth, with regularly scheduled cleaning, would go a long way to reduce the amount of trash going into the ocean.

On Wednesday, we started the day with lots of little rain showers at the boat. Check out the cool rainbow shot in the photo gallery. The rain eventually wound down, and we went into town and hired a taxi to take us on a tour. I asked for a scenic tour so I could take photos - thinkng I would get some nature walks - and viewpoints looking at the shoreline. Shortly after we left, I was bummed to realize I forgot my tripod, so the 360 panoramas I planned to take were a no go.

Instead of a scenic tour we were taken to some tourist sites. The first one, called "Peak Haven" was a brand new site half-way up the peak in the tropical forest. They were highlighting what was once a hiding spot for escaped slaves. The main problem I had with the site was they charged too much $12/person, considering the place was barely open. They had a tourist guide who mostly read the signs for us. :-( But, they did have some pretty scenery, and a lookout point with a great view to the east of the ocean and lower lands of Nevis.

We also were taken to the Nevisian Heritage Village, which includes a sugar cane mill ruin, and several houses built and fixed with antique furniture simulating the way of life during the sugar cane processing days. They also had some buildings simulating Carib Indian style houses. They charged a much more reasonable US $3/person.

We asked to have lunch next thinking it would be somewhere nearby. But, he ended up driving us the rest of the way around the island. I finally asked him to stop so I could take some pictures along the way. He took us to a nice place called Sunshine's Beach Bar and Grill for the lunch. After lunch, instead of taking us somewhere else, he said the tour was over. I was a little disappointed in not getting the scenic tour I expected, and an abruptly ended tour - so I didn't pay the taxi driver a tip or offer to buy him lunch like I had planned.

Despite the tour issues, Karen and I still enjoyed the sites we saw. And, after a lot of work this morning, I managed to GPS tag and process the photos, and create a Google Earth file (showing GPS track and the geotagged photos). Check out all the photos in this slideshow (I recommend the "Full size" version):

While we were at St. Barts, I managed to take a couple of 360 panoramas. Ironically, considering we are in the Caribbean where there are normally strong trade winds, we have not had enough wind to fly the kites for aerial photography. The winds will be picking up soon though.

The two locations where I shot the 360 panoramas in St. Barts were Anse de Columbier and Anse des Flamandes. Each panorama involves taking 8 shots with a fish-eye wide-angle camera lens (six around in a circle, one looking up, and one looking down). I then use software to process the imagery and stitch them together into one spherical projection image. Finally, I upload the photo to 360Cities.net which hosts the largest collection of 360 panoramas. 360Cities also supports viewing the panoramas with Google Earth.

So, here is Anse de Columbier in St. Barts (I recommend choosing the "FULLSCREEN" option for the best experience):

And here is the 360 panorama of Anse des Flamandes in St. Barts:

We had a fantastic day yesterday on our passage from St. Barts to Nevis!

We had fantastic sailing conditions (averaged 9 knots sailing, and we sailed pretty much the whole way except for motoring 5 miles along the north coast of St. Barts). We practically sailed right up to the mooring in Nevis. We could see all the nearby islands as we sailed along. And, it was calm enough that we got some cleaning done along the way. We also made water with our water maker.

The highlight of the trip down was definitely the fishing! About halfway to Nevis I got first a nibble, and then a big strike. The reel was screaming as the line rapidly was pulled out by the fish. I quickly put the autopilot onto wind mode and pointed us tight into the wind (to slow down the boat). Then called Karen to come help. She got out the gear while I began tending the rod and reel. There was something big jumping out of the water and he was still pulling. The rod was bent over hard, so I knew we had something big.

After about 5-10 minutes, I finaly got him half way back in. He jumped out of the water and I knew we had something different. He had a long bill and a big sail. A sailfish! Karen took pictures as I reeled him in. I got him to the back of the boat and basically hung him with his mouth out. I didn't want to try and gaff him because of the long sword-like bill. I've read how some people have been impaled by a live bill fish. We eventually got him on board. Check out the pictures below to see the fish in action, and when I held him up. Next time I'll have to remember to hold out the dorsal fin when holding the fish up. This was a lot of fish for us to eat, so we stopped fishing. After cleaning the fish, we not only saved some for dinner in the fridge, but put a bunch of meat in the freezer. Karen marinated the portions for dinner, which I planned to grill.

Here are photos from the trip (including the fish) - read below the photos for more details:

And download the GPS track of the passage in Google Earth.

Once we got past St. Kitts, we went through the cut between St. Kitts and Nevis. It's a narrow passage with waters as shallow as 22 feet. We had to avoid some big rocks in the middle, but our charts were good and we could see the rocks. We had a really great sail all the way to the new mooring field NW of Charlestown (the port of entry at Nevis). We dropped sail and only had to motor a couple hundred yards to a mooring.

There was only one other boat here. A large charter catamaran called Akasha. So, we had our pick of moorings. We chose one closer to town for convenience. As soon as we were hooked up, we dropped Coconut (our dinghy) into the water and drove into town. Customs closes at 4 PM and we arrived at 3:15. We got there in time and were processed by 4. Then we walked a few blocks to the police station which serves as immigration. Next we got some local currency (EC - East Caribbean), and bought some ice cream as a reward.

Back at the boat, we were treated to an amazing sunset. WIFI is available from the mooring field, so it was a perfect end. What a great day!

I'm finally getting caught up on GPS tracks. I've processed the main tracks of our travels to and around St. Barts. Some of the runs were done with Coconut (our dinghy). You can also see the hike we did to Anse des Flamandes from Anse de Columbier (it's in green). The red track shows our passage from St. Martin to St. Barts. Zoom into St. Barts to see the more detailed tracks.

You can load the tracks with Google Earth. You can also load the photos that go along with our visit into Google Earth. This will put the photos into context with our locations.

NOTE: I hand placed the photo locations without the GPS tracks, so they don't line up with the track yet - I'll fix that later.