Day One

We flew out to Sint Maarten on Friday ready for our 14 day tour. We spent the first night on land at The Flamingo Beach Resort in Simpson Bay (except Tracy who flew on Saturday). We all managed to get up fairly early Saturday morning (given that we were all still on Pacific Time) but the taxi was slow to arrive and there was a surprising amount of traffic between Simpson Bay and Oyster Pond (Moorings base). Consequently David and Jimi were late to the captain's meeting. Fortunately, the woman running the meeting was good natured about it and went back over most of the material we had missed.

She thought our overall trip itinerary would work and had a number of comments about where we should anchor, what areas to avoid, where to get water, etc. While David and Jimi were stuck in the meeting, the rest of the families found breakfast at a nice place named Captain Oliver's, and a pool for the kids to swim in (though it was never quite clear whether the pool was intended to be reserved for hotel guests...). The pool opened into the restaurant with a glass wall which made the kids look like dolphins in a zoo exhibit.

The Moorings gave us a boat called “Retirement Fun”. It didn't take very long for our boat to be ready, but they didn't have any kayaks to rent us this year. To get out of the Mooring's there was a tricky reef, so the Mooring's staff helped us get out. David and Jimi forgot to clear out of customs on the French side of the island and didn't remember until we were past Molly Beday rock ('Molly Beday' appears to be an Anglicization of the French 'Mal Aborder' which roughly translates as 'bad deal'). After a radio discussion with the Moorings we decided to go back – which ended up costing us an hour or two. We finally got to Simpson Bay around 5pm. It was a nice calm anchorage, so everyone could adjust to staying on the boat. Jimi and the girls investigated the hotels around the bay looking for a good place to pick up Tracy. We decided that he best meeting spot would be at Ciao – a little bar and restaurant at the Pelican resort. We sent a text message to Tracy's cell phone which she was successfully able to retrieve on landing. All was good except her plane was early, and she got to the restaurant before us and didn't know if she was at the right place. We found each other pretty quickly though, had a rum punch, and headed back to the boat. Quiche for dinner. Tracy complained that the boat was moving.

Day Two

In the morning, David went to shore to clear in and out of the Dutch side of the island (we soon got tired of all the clearing in and out but it's a fact of life in the Leeward Islands where each island is a different country – and St. Martin is actually two different countries). He and Patti walked back over to the Flamingo to look for David's leatherman tool, which he had left in the hotel room the first night, but they could not find it.

We sailed around the leeward side of St. Martin to Marigot – the capital of the French side. Tracy, Patti, and the girls took the dinghy ashore to go shopping. They had a hard time finding the store that the sailing guide recommended, and when they did it wasn't in a great part of town. Patti and Tracy weren't very happy. The gate was closed on the main path to the store, and they had to go through someone's garage. The selection was not all that great but they did bring back ice cream!

After that we had a short, quiet sail to Grand Case. Dinner was at L'Escapade. It was extremely good, as usual. L'Escapade is Tracy and Jimi's favorite restaurant in St. Martin and going there has become somewhat of a tradition on trips to St. Martin. We did some swimming by the boat but it was too dark for real snorkeling. The anchorage was calm but very warm. It was hot for sleeping, even with the hatches open. It was great to be back in Grand Case, though.

Day Three

The third day of the trip we had breakfast at the Grand Case Beach Club. It reminded us of the past summer when Tracy, Jimi, Kaylynn, and Alyssa had stayed there for a week. All the same staff were there and the place didn't seem to have changed at all. They would not let us tie up to the resort dock though because they needed it for their ski boat. We did manage to use the hotel's wireless to reserve a hotel for the last night of the trip. Everyone was a bit grumpy and hot, so we decided to skip snorkeling at Creole Rock and sail straight to St. Barts.

It was a easy 2-3 hour motor sail with moderate to low waves. Everyone enjoyed getting out on the water (except perhaps Tracy who didn't like the waves). We anchored at Anse de Colombier on the north end of St. Barts. The snorkeling was great. Everyone was pretty tired, and Patti cooked a very good salmon for dinner. The weather was still uncomfortably warm. The harbor is surrounded by a high ridge that blocks the wind.

Because of that, however, it was a very quiet anchorage. Two of the other boats in the harbor appeared to be some sort of summer camp – all kids with no one seeming to be over about 20. There was also a very impressive mega-yacht. It would have been a good place for night diving if we had good lights. The mega-yacht seemed to have night diving lights on their stern that turned the water into a bright blue.

Day Four

After a quick breakfast, Kaylynn, Alyssa, and Jimi took the dinghy ashore for a short hike up the hill. It was hot at first, but cooled down nicely once they climbed over the ridge that surrounds the harbor. There were great views both over to the windward side of the island and back down into the harbor. They took lots of pictures. Jimi had one of the 2-way radios in his pocket. It got wet while beaching the dingy and stopped working – after that we carried them in zip lock bags.

After breakfast we moved the boat down to Gustavia – the capital of St. Barts. It was an easy motor sail down but on arrival there was much confusion over were they wanted us to dock.

We finally tied up to the starboard side of the guest docks near immigration. We cleared immigration and customs into St. Barts and filled our water tanks (but we were not able to hook up to shore power because there was something wrong with their outlets at the docks). The port authority told us we didn't need to switch to stern-to docking. This saved us some work but we did beat up our bumpers all night. It was noisy for sleeping, especially on the starboard side.

There was a nice little grocery store a short walk from the boat and we made a number of trips for various missing items – including Red Bull for Tracy. Patti made very nice tuna steaks for dinner. The adults took the opportunity to go to a local bar for a rum punch. Great fun.

Gustavia was a great port for groceries, restaurants, bars, and just about anything. The shops, however, were expensive – lots of designer clothes, jewelery, watches and the like. It was one of the kid's favorite places though, especially because it had showers.

Day Five

This was our first long sail so we left Gustavia around 8 AM. David did a nice tight turn out from between two yachts moored stern-to (one in front of us and one behind). The first part of the sail was a quiet passage along the lee side of St. Barths. Once we cleared the end of the island we had moderate waves. We sailed about 5 hours down to St. Kitts, and then along the windward side of the island and through the 'narrows' which separate St. Kitts from Nevis. Navigating the narrows by GPS is easy, but by dead reconning it might have been trickier. St. Kitts and Nevins are beautiful. The tall central mountains are almost always covered in cloud but are green all the way down to the water. We took a lot of pictures.

We anchored at a nice anchorage on Nevis just north of the capital Charlestown. There were lots and lots of moorings, and very few boats. We were just south of The Four Seasons (which was closed). It was a tricky mooring to pick up but we finally got it. We had a very pretty view of the Nevis volcano (inactive) with a rainbow just before sunset. A shore party went to Sunshine's bar. It looked like a reasonable place but the local crowd was dodgy and Patti and Tracy did not like it very much. While they were all on shore the dingy started drifting down into the waves. Jimi was watching from the boat wondering if he was going to have to go swimming to rescue it. Fortunately David and Alyssa noticed it bouncing and pulled it further up onto the shore. The snorkeling was not exciting, but it was said to be better by the break waters in front of the Four Seasons. Patti made a great spaghetti sauce. Everyone was tired after the 6 hour sail.


There was a rain storm just before dinner and everyone took a quick free shower (by this point in the trip we were starting to appreciate how quickly our fresh-water tanks were depleted by 8 showers....).

Day Six

This was a quiet day after the long sail of the day before. We motored down to Charlestown (all of about a mile) and picked up a mooring. We cleared customs and did some shopping. It was a depressing town. The people are nice but the poverty is obvious. There were three steps for clearing customs which took awhile. There was a small book store with novels and text books. It seemed to be the main source of literature for the island. Everything was sold in Caribbean dollars (unlike St. Barts where everything was in Euros – we all ended the trip with three currencies in our wallets).

We took a tour around the island with David Watusi who is 6'6” and writes Caribbean music when not driving his cab.

There were lots of ruins from sugar plantations and we got cool pictures of the old buildings and sugar presses.

The island economy is not doing well. David W. told us about the recent changes on the island (Four Seasons closing and scheduled flights from the US ending).


He took us to a beautiful restored plantation (now an upscale hotel) for lunch. It was expensive but very good. Once we got back to Charlestown Patti and David took a walk to an old slave market but there was not much left to see.

After we returned to the boat, we moved back to the mooring near Sunshine's to get Wifi to check the weather, email, etc. Kaylynn and Paula did a great job picking up the recalcitrant mooring. David played guitar after dinner and everyone sang. We went to bed early in preparation for a long sail the next day.

Day Seven

This was our longest sail starting at 5:15am. The sun was not up yet but there was plenty of light to drop the mooring and motor south. The waves were calm for the first 20 minutes while we were in the lee of Nevis but they pick up considerably once we passed the south end of the island. The wind was from the ESE which put us too close to the wind to sail and gave us a fairly uncomfortable powered ride down to Redonda. Redonda is basically a very large rock – 1 mile long and 1000 feet tall but completely uninhabited.

Once we cleared the end of Redonda we were able to bear off slightly and make slightly better time to Montserrat. We managed 8 knots when we headed slightly off the wind (still motor sailing though). As with many of our off-shore passages David and Jimi took turns on the wheel, Alyssa read, Kaylynn sat on the top deck and either read or watched the waves, Patti either slept or read, and Tracy, Paula, and Pamela slept as much as possible to avoid sea-sickness appearing only when we made it into a quiet harbor).

Montserrat has the most active volcano in the Caribbean. We were advised by the Moorings to stay upwind of the island, and not to put into any harbor. The issue is not so much safety, though that can be a concern, as avoiding getting the boat covered in ash. As we passed the island we could see smoke coming off the lava flows but most of the volcano was under cloud. It was hazy for most of the sail. We were upwind of Montserrat but we still wondered if the haze was caused by the volcano.

Just after we passed Montserrat something caught in the starboard propeller and we shut down both engines for fear of damaging them. We were able to bear off the wind but were still close hauled. We made about 6.5 knots which put us later into Guadeloupe than we had planned.

We anchored at Deshaies – a pretty little harbor on the north east coast. There was enough light left to anchor but not enough to dive the anchor, so we had to trust it would hold. It was a very pretty island and picturesque small village. In the fading light David and Jimi put on snorkeling masks and pulled a broken milk jug, some old underwear, and about two feet of line out of the starboard propeller (most likely the remains of the mark for a fish trap).

Day Eight

First thing in the morning we took the dinghy in to clear customs. Guadeloupe is large enough, and has enough rain fall, that it has a number of small rivers – one of which comes into the ocean in Deshaies harbor. We ended up tying the dingy to a small public dock on the bank of the river. There were a number of crabs by the dock (which amused the girls later in the day). David cleared customs and immigration while Jimi found a rental car and negotiated the contract in a mixture of French and English. It was a “mini bus” that was huge. It seated 9 people and ran on diesel. There were lots of windows which made it great for touring the island. We made a two hour drive down the west coast. There were lots of great views, but also lots of little town and local traffic so it was slow driving. The island was more developed than Nevis but it still had a very Caribbean and French feel to it.

At one point we stopped for drinks and snacks. Everyone picked out what they wanted and then we tried to pay. It turned out they took only Euros and their machines couldn't read our credit cards. We managed to find 10 euros that Paula happened to have received in change in St. Barts. The woman at the store was very nice and took it, even though the bill was 20 euros. ... Then we had to get gas. Fortunately we found a Texaco station that took US credit cards.




We drove to the south end of the island and hiked to the Carbet waterfalls. The walk was through a rain forest that could have been out of Jurassic Park. There were 20 foot fern trees! At one point, a 2½ foot green lizard fell from a tree right in front of Patti – she screamed. It ran away too fast for a photo however.

The waterfall was impressive – not something you expect to find on a Caribbean island. The plaque claimed that Christopher Columbus saw the falls from the ocean and was convinced to stop at Guadeloupe for fresh water.

It started to rain on our way back and we got drenched. Fortunately the French had paved the entire path so there was no mud to walk through. Kaylynn ditched her shoes and walked back barefoot. We were worried about David's camera since he did not have a case for it (the other cameras were smaller and fit in zip lock bags). However it survived the ordeal.

After driving back to Deshaies we split up by age – the kids made dinner on the boat while the adults went out for dinner on shore. They found a fairly good local place (which served very fresh grilled fish with the head still attached). Jimi left the rental car keys on the boat and had to dinghy back to get them. After all this back and forth to the boat everyone was getting very adept at tying up to the river bank and avoiding the crabs. There was a local band playing in the park, in town but we were too tired to hang around long.

Day Nine

This was a fairly lazy morning and most of us slept late. Then, David, Kaylynn, Alyssa, Pamela, and Jimi took a dinghy over to a snorkeling spot near the anchorage. It was a good spot with lots of fish and some caves. A huge school of small fish swam under Jimi and Kaylynn which was amazing to watch.

After breakfast and snorkeling we loaded up and went south to the town of Basse Tere to look for fresh water for showers and cooking. It was a very scenic sail and we got great pictures of the rain clouds coming through the mountains. Overall Guadeloupe was probably the most picturesque island we visited. However, the marina at Basse Tere was a ghost town on Sunday afternoon. We found someone who told us where to get water ('borrow' it actually since there was no one there to pay) but we couldn't do it because we didn't have a hose on board.

Having failed to find water at Basse Tere we sailed further south to the Saints. The Saints are a pretty little group of islands just off the southern coast of Guadeloupe which are quite popular with sailors. It was a fairly bouncy sail but it was a short passage (only about an hour) and we ended up at a very pretty harbor. In the harbor at the Saints we found a “water buoy” run by an enterprising guy named Jerome. It was a buoy with a hose attached that ran all the way to the shore. We payed 40 Euros for as much water as we wanted. The girls all showered while we filled up. It was expensive but solved our water problems. (We then had the problem of finding 40 Euros since Jerome didn't take dollars or credit cards but that's part of tomorrow's story.)

The anchorage was fairly large but only some parts of it were protected enough for quiet night's sleep. We finally anchored over near the main part of town. It was tricky to find a good spot and we ended up fairly close to shore. We dived on the anchor and it seemed to be well placed in sand (though there were rocks nearby).
Patti made steaks (and some chicken and rice for Jimi). We thought about going into town for drinks but decided we were all too tired. We did get some great pictures of the sunset. It was impressive enough that Jimi and Dave got into the dingy to get pictures of our boat with the sunset as background.

Day Ten

It was a rainy morning and everyone slept late. When we woke up it was still raining. Jimi made pancakes which were popular with everyone. After breakfast the wind kicked up to 35 knots – fairly high for a protected anchorage. We checked the weather and found that a 'tropical wave' was passing through. We watched the anchor closely but it held well. Once the rain was past David decided to move to a mooring, just in case.

We went to shore in search of cash in Euros to pay for the water and to get diesel oil. We found both at a hardware store where they very nicely gave us 1.3 dollars to the euro. Later, we changed some money officially at the 'post ' and they gave us a rate of 1.32 but charged us a 5 euro service charge.

There were lots of cool shops on shore. Most of the people were friendly, but the woman who ran the pizza place was frustrating because by the time we had the euros to pay they were closed for siesta. We ended up having lunch on board while David and Patti took the dingy back over to Jerome's place to pay for the water.

After lunch we motored across the harbor to Pain de Sucre for snorkeling. It was similar to Deshaies but the water was not as clear. Tracy, Jimi, and Alyssa all snorkeled together. In the late afternoon a shore party went off in search of groceries and to clear out of customs. They were mostly successful but the main store was closed so we could not get everything on the list. They did find some nice fresh-baked bread. We had pasta and the bread for dinner.

Day Eleven

This was a long day so we got an early start with David and Jimi up by about 6am. It was a easy sail up the lee side of Guadeloupe and then a rough but fast sail from Guadeloupe to Antigua. We were about 70 degrees off the wind and it was blowing 18-22 knots. At one point our speed peaked at 9 knots. We saw more random stuff in the water but managed not to catch any in the propellers.

Antigua was very polished compared to the other islands. A woman in uniform came up to our boat and asked what are plans were. She was very helpful, as was everyone else. Immigrations, customs, and the port authority were all next to each other. We tied up to a well restored dock at Nelson's Dock yard in the English Harbor. The harbor was Nelson's headquarters during basically the golden age of British sea power. It had nice showers for everyone. We even managed to do laundry before we left. All of this came at a price though – between immigration fees, port fees, dock fees, exit fees, and so on we were charged almost $200.

Most shops were closed because of a local holiday and because it was the low season. It was nice to have the place to ourselves but it was tricky to find an open place for dinner. We talked to various people and found that the best place still open was a restaurant called Trappas on the road into town. Following their directions Paula drove the dinghy way down the harbor to an older dinghy dock. Then we climbed through a hole in the fence and crossed the road to get to Trappas. Then we had to undo it all to get back to our boat before dark.

Day Twelve

Everyone slept fairly late and then woke up to the smell of Patti making french toast. Then some of the crew had a rough 100 ft walk to the bar, which was now open, for a morning rum punch. We found a great little museum with a presentation on the history of Nelson dock yard and the early 17th century naval history of the Caribbean. Tracy and Jimi also found a cool Antigua tile from the gift shop. Then we picked up the laundry and went looking for lunch. We found a French place called Cathrine's that was now open (it had been closed when we tried to go there for dinner). It was a really nice lunch, but it wasn't cheap. There was also a very interesting place that had a book exchange (where you could turn in novel you had finished and pick up 'new' ones) and showed movies most evenings. We were sorry we could not stay long enough to see a movie that night.

After lunch, we sailed up to deep bay – a harbor on the north end of the island. We wanted to get as far north as possible to shorten the sail the next day. The starboard engine started to overheat during the trip so we tacked into the bay. This was slightly tricky because right in the middle of Deep Bay is the wreck of the 'Andes' – a freighter from Trinidad that sunk over 100 years ago when it's cargo of pitch caught fire. The wreck is in relatively shallow water and the top few inches of its smoke stack still sticks above the water. It was easy to spot as we came into the bay because a bird was sitting on it.

After anchoring, David, Pamela, and Jimi took the dingy over to the wreck and tied off to the top of the smoke stack. It was a very cool place to snorkel but would have been better if there was more sun – they finished the dive right at sunset. There were lots of jelly fish to dodge (no one got stung) and Jimi saw a big barracuda. The rest of the crew climbed the hill to the ruins of Fort Barrington on the ridge top. Kaylynn took Jimi up quickly after the dive. The ruins were amazing, and it was easy to imagine why the fort was built there to protect the entrance to Deep Bay and St. John's (an important town in the next bay over). There were great views into Deep Bay and over to St. Johns.

Day Thirteen

We left Deep Bay around 6am for our last long sail. We tried to avoid using the starboard engine too much but it still overheated and we had to shut it off. David diagnosed the problem as a broken fan belt. Fortunately the course was a nice broad reach so we didn't really need engines. As we were leaving Antigua we crossed paths with a huge cruise ship coming into St. Johns. It towered many stories above the water – we got some nice pictures of them while they were taking pictures of us. We had to temporarily alter our course by about 20 degrees to safely miss it.

Our speed was fairly low at first due to the wind shadow of Antigua – 5 knots average for the first hour. Then it picked up and we got up to the 8-9 knots range.

We made it up to St. Barts earlier than we had expected and Patti wanted a good beach to walk on. So instead of stopping in Gustavia we anchored in Anse de Columbia (which slightly annoyed some of the girls since they liked the showers in Gustavia). We picked up a mooring within swimming distance of shore. Tracy and Jimi went snorkeling and the others went to walk on the beach. David replaced the fan belt on the engine while everyone was getting ready (fortunately there was a spare and he was able to improvise the tools he needed). Snorkeling was nice and it was an easy swim to the rocks and then into shore. Tracy and Jimi saw a large manta ray gliding above the sand.

The anchorage was fairly crowded by sunset with mostly French boats. After dinner David played guitar and we all sang – no doubt amusing the French.