Avalon: Adventures in Paradise and Beyond.: Happy Friday 6 February 2009

Friday, February 6, 2009

Happy Friday 6 February 2009

We are presently in Ilse de Saintes a group of small islands off the southern coast of Guadeloupe.

Cruising in all its wonderful joys has its minute draw backs one of which can be the availability of technology i.e. internet access. Then off course we have all the beautiful site seeing to contend with (tsk, tsk, tsk). Please bear with us as we try to update the blog .
My husband says that I am building up an alibi for the slow updates. Well...

...How can you sit at a computer when there is so much to see and do and experience?
So sorry!-)

When I think about how close these islands really are to St. Croix (175 miles) it is staggering, unless you take the time to travel within the Caribbean you have no idea who your neighbors are. Many islands I had visited before but still many I have not.

Take for example Montserrat, who would think of going there after the volcanic eruption? Well, think again there is an underlying current that comes off that island which pulls you to it. Would I go back there absolutely! After seeing from a distance what Mother Nature is capable of I want to see more. Half of the island is uninhabited, the devastation is visible (see foto). Rivers of lava packed with mud and huge boulders now solidified flow from the side of Soufriere Volcano, creating an unusual gray landscape, one I never thought I would see first hand.

The other side is green and lush the vegetation dense and bright, hence why Monseratt was once dubbed The Emerald Isle of the Caribbean. You can see many new homes on the side of the mountains and on the coast. An active effort to bring back tourism and normalcy to the island is being made by the British government.

Then there is Guadeloupe. A statement all to itself. I am in love, yes again, with the small fishing village of Deshaise (pronounced Day Hay).

Will come back to this later, right now we need to get off the boat and explore Terre de Haut. As I look at the shoreline I can see cute gingerbread laced houses with beautiful gardens they are calling to me.

2 comments:

Karla Y said...: Hi Emmy miss you gus please tell Brian Hello sending all gods blessings Karla Yhan; February 9, 2009 at 10:22 AM
Scott said...: Well, I'm sitting here in Darfur during a sand storm and all I can think is that "I want your life!" It sounds like you both are having an amazing time, Erin and I both enjoy reading the up dates and looking at the pictures. Stay safe and have fun.; February 11, 2009 at 9:22 AM

What do we do?

What on earth do we do with ourselves on the boat?

Folks who have never lived aboard a boat sometimes find it hard to imagine what we might do to keep from getting bored, spending so many hours on the boat. In a lot of ways though it’s not all that different from life ashore, there’s fixing meals and cleaning up afterwards, and a normal amount of “housecleaning.” There are always lots of boat repair and maintenance projects to keep us busy, and frequent trips ashore to shop and just walk around, hunting up free wifi hot spots, grabbing a bite at a local restaurant, etc. Not surprisingly, we do a lot of reading - novels, non-fiction, cruising guides and looking at charts to sketch out our future plans in finer detail. Of course there’s swimming and snorkeling around, a little beach-going, and thinking and talking about everything under the sun.

We have a high frequency/SSB radio transceiver onboard that we use to send and receive short email messages, as well as listen to weather reports and keeping in touch with other people cruising the region through radio “nets.” Keeping tabs on the weather is an important feature of our daily life, because although there are few strong storms down here in the winter, wind speed and direction together with size and direction of sea swells can make the difference between a fun sail or anchorage and misery! Exploring a little by dinghy is fun, and we usually rent a car for a day and drive around each island for some land based sightseeing. Meeting and conversing with locals and other travelers is always interesting, and the blog needs to be occasionally fed too!

We sometimes listen to local AM/FM radio stations to get a flavor for what’s happening on the island we’re visiting, and ask around for restaurants with good local food. What we don’t do: watch TV - well we do have some DVDs we can watch on the laptop, but no CNN, Weather Channel, Discovery Channel, etc., so when (like in St. Kitts) we walk into a place that has CNN playing it can be a little mesmerizing. We also rarely go to big resort hotels, casinos and fancy restaurants, as we’re out here for a few months and want to stretch the cruising kitty as much as possible! So one day flows into the next, and we’re thankful for each and every one!

The Boat

Avalon is a 1985 Tartan 40 fiberglass sailboat, sloop rigged, with roller furling jib and a centerboard. Designed by the famed Sparkman and Stevens naval architecture group, and built by Tartan Marine in Ohio, she’s a little over 40 feet long, almost 13 feet wide, and draws about 5 feet of water with the board up and 8 feet with the board down. We have a 44 horsepower Universal diesel auxiliary engine pushing a three bladed feathering “Max-Prop,” and carry about 50 gallons of diesel fuel and 110 gallons of fresh water. We also carry a 10’ Walker Bay inflatable dinghy with a 15hp Johnson four stroke outboard.

When I first looked at Avalon I thought her pale blue hull looked kind of odd there on the grey, murky waters of Long Island Sound, but she really looks great here in the sparkling blue and green Caribbean! A forty footer is big enough for a couple of people to comfortably cruise on for weeks at a time (many folks do it on much smaller boats) , and to entertain half a dozen on (we could actually sleep 7 close friends), or in a pinch small enough to singlehand. I actually have taken her out several times by myself, and feel pretty comfortable doing it in decent weather, but she’s a happy boat with Emmy and I aboard!

A 23 year old home ashore might need to have a few appliances replaced, and compared to what a house is subjected to, the marine environment is terribly harsh, and worse still down here in the tropics. The bouncing around while at sea and wind, combined with the corrosive effects of salt water and salt laden humid air, along with tons of UV exposure just tends to wear things out. So repairing and replacing bits, pieces and entire systems is an ongoing task, with steady application of labor and money necessary, along with a few tears and skinned knuckles.
Recent changes to Avalon include switching from CNG to Propane gas for cooking (CNG is very difficult to find in the Caribbean, and extremely expensive), and replacing the original single sideband radio with a new one that has email capabilities. Some of our systems are original equipment or several years old (GPS, chartplotter, depthfinder, etc.) but continue to perform well - yay! Downstream we’ll be looking at new refrigeration and probably solar panels to charge the batteries (hmmm…might need new batteries then too).

She’s a good boat, but a demanding mistress!

How the voyage came to be...

I (Brian) moved to the USVI in 2002 while working for a publicly held corporation (which shall remain nameless to protect the innocent). In 2003 I accepted a position on St. Croix, and not long afterwards occasional notations about the idea of buying another sailboat began popping up in my journal. I was a 50-something single guy, who loved sailing, making a decent salary, and living in the heart of some of the nicest sailing waters on earth.

I decided to “start looking” for a boat in 2004, and tromped around on everything from a Tartan 37 to a Whitby 42, Westsail 42, Peterson 44, all the way up to a Hylas 54 (pure fantasyland!). Long story short, I found a Tartan 40 (Avalon) in Connecticut that had a two boat owner; we dickered a little, and she was mine in March of 2005! The delivery voyage to the USVI via Bermuda was spirited, and Avalon and I learned a lot about each other on that trip. I feel quite certain that if I take care of her, and listen to her, she will take care of us.

Several cruises took us throughout the USVI and BVI over the next couple of years, and I kept wishing I could spend a little more time cruising the islands. Then in the summer of 2006 something happened that again “changed everything,” I met, and gradually fell in love with Emmy! Our stories were different but parallel, and intersected in many ways and places. Funny story…I needed to replace the old water tanks on the boat, and had bought and shipped new ones down. I mentioned to Emmy that I was replacing the water tanks on the boat over the weekend, and she asked if I needed an extra hand. I thought it was kind of interesting, and could use the extra hand with the bulky tanks, so agreed. But then when she asked if I wanted her to bring any tools along with her, I realized I needed to get to know this woman better!

Over the next couple of years we did a bit of daysailing and took a couple cruises to the BVI and one to the northern Leewards, and I found myself wishing we had more time to cruise, and get further down island. (Lesson: be careful what you wish for!). For a host of reasons, and with very much mixed feelings, in September of 2008 I parted company with the outfit I’d worked for since 1985. It didn’t take long to realize that a pretty amazing opportunity to take a winter cruise through the Caribbean had presented itself, and Emmy & I decided to jump on it!

After a few months of boat projects, we threw the lines in mid-December. Yay!

Avalon: Adventures in Paradise and Beyond.

Friday, February 6, 2009

Happy Friday 6 February 2009

2 comments:

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