St. Martin

St Martin and Sint Maartan is one island split into 2 countries: the French side and the Dutch side. Why 2 countries on one island? Well legend has it, they both wanted to rule St Martin but rather than fight over it, they made a Frenchman armed with a bottle of wine walk in one direction and a Dutchman armed with a bottle of gin take the other. Where the two gentlemen met, they made that the boundary and the French ended up with more as the gin was stronger than the wine!

Although it matters what side you clear in to (French is way cheaper), you are free to cross the 'border' as often as you like. Well there is no border or demarcation, the only way of knowing you are on the other side is the currency in use. For the French side they accept euros and dollars and the Dutch side accept dollars and florins. Confusing?! Sure is, we walked around with 2 wallets with a currency in each, constantly converting the prices back to pounds. Even more confusing is the use of the word 'dollars' as coming from south of the Caribbean chain, we are still programmed to think that dollars = Eastern Caribbean dollars but no, now we need to reprogramme to dollars = US dollars. Currency aside, the prices here are cheap cheap cheap. Story goes, back in the day the sugar market collapsed and in 1939 an attempt was made to boost the economy by making the island completely duty-free. We took full advantage.

Customs here was a pleasure, 5 mins plugging in our details to a PC and we were done. Note to other cruisers coming to St Martin – tell them you are anchored in Grand Case else they will charge you per day for being in Marigot. We wanted to anchor out of the lagoon as we prefer to stay way clear of floating shite from people's heads...but not pay $100+ for the pleasure.

The aim of the game in St Martin was to work through our to do list of work needed to do on the boat as well as boost our spares, tools and other important parts onboard. More work, less play on this island. After 2 weeks of hard work, 3 visits to ACE hardware, 4 visits to Island Waterworld, 5 visits to Budget and 1 to Home n Tools we succeeded. And those visits were just the time I was in attendance, it doesn't count the times I refused to step foot in the place and opted instead to sun myself at the dinghy dock! Dylan is like a kid at a candy store, walking up and down each aisle just touching the various items on sale. This is not my style, sure I love to spend money but I can't get excited about another wrench set! Dylan can fill you in on all the work we did in a subsequent blog post. It is quite impressive what Dylan has achieved on our boat considering he hasn't owned a boat himself before! Although I did chores of my own, I definitely took the role as project manager with my lists, spreadsheets and budget planner.

So we were anchored in Marigot Bay, a huge area with plenty of space to anchor and very little swell. Although not as scenic as the other islands, St Martin still has the clear water, coral sandy bottom and luscious green hills in the distance. On the shore there is a daily market with local ladies pedalling their wares of bright kaftans and vibrant pashminas and scarves.

Set back from the coastline is a lovely little town reminiscent of a mini Paris. The streets are lined with cafes bustling with tourists in the mornings eager to demolish a proper French breakfast. The smells of pastries and coffee only hit us when we dock the dinghy, a god send really else I would end up the size of a house constantly craving pain au raisins! Amongst the eateries are posh shops, Cartier on one corner, Zaviar Diamond on the other. Clearly out of our league but nonetheless there is no harm in window shopping on the way to catch the bus.

Buses are somewhat different from that in Grenada. No blaring music, no specific dude to hand the money to. These buses are big, more like coaches and air conditioned. One bus even had a tv and dvd player set into the dashboard and front of the bus for the customers to watch! The locals are from various other countries and no more is that exemplified than on the bus. Haitians speaking Spanish, locals speaking French, Creole, English. Dylan made the mistake of starting a conversation with a local preacher on the bus once and he got lectured for the remainder of the journey on the bible, in particular the Sabbath. I pretended not to know him and stare out the window, giving him the odd prod if he encouraged the conversation further. These bus drivers are very protective of their buses, giving customers a ticking off if they dare open a packet of crisps or spill a drink.

Our food was devoured mostly on the boat trying to keep the spending down in places we can control but we did treat ourselves to a few $5 lunches when out on a long errand. Yes totally OTT I know! There is this one guy who sells lunch out the back of his van opposite Island Waterworld, for $5 you can get a big styrofoam box full of rice /salad /fish. Lovely homely food that left us full for the rest of the day and I highly recommend it.

Having travelled from the UK to Canada then on to Caribbean, my summer wardrobe is somewhat lacking and with the harsh sun and salt water, my cheap primark /zara /h&m clothing isn't holding up very well. Most have holes in them, rust stains and massively misshapen. We had heard that the capital Philipsburg was a great place for cheap clothes so enticing Dylan with an outstanding electronics list we set off on a bus. Now for those of you that don't know Dylan...this was a monumental achievement. He hates clothes shopping and is totally clueless about fashion, opting for hand me downs from his friends (thanks Paulie) and Dad (!) rather than enter a shop himself. Philipsburg didn't disappoint. On Back Street there are cheap clothes stores, one after another all with decent prices. The trick was to find a shop that didn't sell lycra diamonte clothing as that really isn't my style. I came away very pleased with a dress, couple of tops and some hippy hareems, all cotton or linen and not a single sparkly thing in sight. It was here I came across a snow cone. Does what it says on the tin really, street vendors hand you a cup of ice and then you choose a flavoured syrup to put over it. A simple idea but exactly what you need in the midday heat.

With the weather now turning to the rainy season, each day is very hot and humid. A daily swim is a must and I can almost hear the fizz of water as we jump in and cool off. Dylan being the scavenger that he is has found many an item to add to our tool collection on the seabed close to our anchor chain including a $71 shackle (Dylan's addition – he spent over an hour diving with a pair of pliers trying to chip off all the rust from the chain that had seized the stainless shackle in place. He was very chuffed when A) he finally worked it loose and B) when he priced it up at $71 in Budget Marine!). One day he decided to do something with the old chain (approx 300 ft that was joined by the shackle) and swirled it up into 2 balls creating an artificial reef complete with sea anemones and shells. The fish love it and makes for a good snorkelling spot. Only yesterday we saw a huge puffa fish swimming by, checking out the new place to be. (Dylan's addition – this was another few hours of work hauling rusty 12mm chain around the sea floor – all good training for when I start spear fishing!)

A blog post on St Martin wouldn't be complete without mentioning Shrimpy's. An internet cafe /bar /laundrette located near the entrance to the French side of the lagoon, it is run by a South African couple – Mike and Sally. These guys know everything that is worth knowing about the island including the best places to get boat work done, places to eat etc. A welcoming place, we have spent hours in there on the internet, slowly getting eaten alive by mozzies.

After 2 weeks of boat work we are keen to move on to pastures new and look forward to what Anguilla and subsequently the BVIs have to offer. 

Dinghy theft in St Martin

Thieving of dinghies in St Martin seems to be a sport it is so popular. One has to wonder where all of these semi rigid inflatables and their outboard engines end up. It is a small island and with the amount that go missing on a daily basis, each of the locals should have at least a few dinghies and outboards each. That is to assume that the locals are to blame...Yachtsmen would never do that to other yachtsmen, right?

Naïve comments aside, it is an epidemic for this little island. With the replacement cost of our outboard and dinghy in the region of over 10% of the entire boats value, we make damn sure we look after our secondary mode of transportation. If we woke up with no dinghy one morning, our only way ashore would be to swim.

We have a few tips for not becoming a statistic.

1. Lock the damn thing up! That is not just to say at night, but everywhere we go we chain our dinghy to something fairly immovable. Often I might be tempted to just tie it up and pop into a store etc. Sally always reminds me to chain it regardless and it is a good habit to get into. After all, you would lock your car if you popped into the store, so why not lock your dink?
2. Have the right chains / locks. Often I see people with a thin 3mm $30 cable to secure their $20,000 dinghy and outboard. We have a 6mm chain to secure the dinghy to a pier with a nice lock at the end of it.

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   happy chain!

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   Stainless bar can be seen with lock and cable

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   Old photo when the sunbrella cover looked a little nicer.

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2. Have a good lock on the outboard. The most valuable part for most thieves is the outboard. Despite the dinghy sometimes being more expensive to replace... We have a great stainless steel outboard lock mechanism that stops the outboard from being unfastened from the transom. Through that we secure the fuel tank with a loop of 4mm wire. The replacement value for a fuel tank and 20litres of fuel is in the region of $100! Pays to have it secured.

1. No flash Harry! We have a wanked out dinghy cover that covers our dinghy and makes it look very tatty and old. It isn't, but other people don’t know that. The same goes for our outboard. It has a cover on it to not only protect it from the sun, but to remove any distinguishing features as to the make and model. We have heard that some outboards are stolen to order.
2. Nighttime. We often raise our dinghy out the water. This has a dual benefit. Firstly the bottom growth dies off so that it stops us having to beach the dinghy to clean it as often. Secondly – It is a far more difficult thing for a thief to nick a dinghy if he has to climb on your boat and slack off a halyard to do it.

1. Markings. Some people have all sorts of markings on their dinghy and outboard. There are guys that specialise in making your tender standout and less tempting to steal as it is potentially more difficult to sell.

At the end of the day, you don't necessarily have to have the best security in the world. If a thief is determined enough, they will always be able to find a way to relieve you of your goods. But sometimes by just having a little more / better security than the dinghy next to you is enough to ensure you zoom back to your boat while the man next to you trudges to the Grenadarmie to make a report.

Mods and improvements in St Martin

Since we left Grenada on our “multiple passage shakedown sail” we have had St Martin in mind as the place to visit to stock up on parts and services. When you see the price comparison between the duty free St Martin (Dutch) vs the other islands, it wins hands down and makes it worth the trip. In actual fact St Martin is a very pretty island with a lot going for it other than just marine services.

The “to do” list is an ever changing beast with one ticked off and another added almost at the same time. One never does all the chores but constantly re-prioritise the list to ensure that we stay ahead in the maintenance part. We have also been tweaking the boat to suit our purposes and preferences.

So, what did we get done while we were here?

1. Main element was to fix the oven. Sally has been amazing at cooking / baking with just a stove top over the last 3 months, so it was my turn to get her a proper working oven.
2. Replaced the halyards. In an ideal world I would have replaced all the running rigging, but we took a pragmatic view of our current sheets, halyards etc and decided on the major items. We replaced all the halyards and lazy jacks. We now have a couple of good strong spare lines (as although the outer covering of the halyards were a bit manky, the cores were all in great shape.
3. Manual bilge pump was repaired
4. Manual salt and fresh water in the galley. No more washing dishes in a bucket in the cockpit for us! We are fresh water misers and try make a tank last as long as possible. Hauling water in jerry cans is not ideal and neither is having to come along side to fill up. Not to mention the cost of water on most of these islands can make your eyes water especially when you consider it falls out the sky for free a lot of the time.
5. Guardrails – were replaced with Dyneema.
6. Our No 3 genoa had a few repairs done to the luff.
7. We bought a number of spare parts and tools to ensure that we had a better selection of gear on board for repairs and maintenance. Did you know that a little rubber impeller for the salt water cooling pump on the engine can cost you $90. Not to mention all the fuel and oil filters, oil etc There are a good few thousand dollars of spares on board this boat that I hope I never have to use.
8. Also with boat and parts from different places I have learnt that having both metric and imperial tool sets is a good idea.
9. While we were here, we also serviced the winches. All in amazingly good condition considering the age of the boat.
10. One of my most luxurious investments was a Penn rod and reel. My father had (still has?) the exact same Penn Senator reel when we first went sailing 25 years ago. If they are still making them exactly the same after all these years they must be pretty good. We are looking forward to landing some good fish on it!

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   Manual fresh and salt in the galley

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   New running rigging and guardrails

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My Hair

Thanks Nu Nu and Laani for allowing me to vent constantly about my hair dilemmas!!

I have always been obsessed with my hair. Having fine, thin hair all my life means if I make a mistake, it takes forever to grow out and I don't have enough hair to cover it up. As long as I can remember I have been dying it blonde/brown/black/purple and no longer know what my natural colour is - if I go by my eyebrows then I guess I am dark blonde.

Prior to leaving the UK to go sailing I was dying my hair myself every 4 weeks, washing it every day and blow drying it straight every morning. All these activities meant my hair was split, dry and crying out for some TLC despite the expensive products I put on my head. With the upcoming sailing adventure I figured I needed a style and colour that was easy to maintain and didn't mind salt, sea and sand in excess.

So I took my blonde locks (see my passport photo to the left) to the hairdressers for them to dye. As hairdressers in London are so expensive, especially for a dye, I got a groupon voucher and went to a salon I had never been to before but it had good reviews – big mistake. I sat in the chair and told the hairdresser that I wanted my hair dyed dark blonde, like I presumed my natural colour would be. She fussed over the state of my hair , tutting at the broken strands and set to work removing the bleach. As the hours ticked by, I grew more and more concerned. My hair had gone from platinum blonde to dark dark brown. She assured me that it would turn out dark blonde and so I relaxed a little and told myself it would go lighter when washed. Well it didn't, not even close. I came out of the hairdresser looking like Mortisha Adams. Of course typical Brit that I am, I didn't tell the hairdresser that I was horrified with the result, I just faked a smile and got out of there quickly ringing Mum and moaning at how awful I looked.

Back home I washed my hair multiple times hoping it would lighten but no luck, the colour stuck. I could have gone and dyed it again by myself but I figured my hair did feel a lot healthier and when in the Caribbean, the sun could turn it back to a dark blonde without the artificial intervention.

Packing to go to the Caribbean via Canada I was deciding what toiletries to take with me. Only having one duffel bag each, I had to be brutal with the contents so I opted just to take my Moroccan Oil and an Aussie leave in conditioner. The Moroccan Oil was recommended by multiple friends who like me, dye and manipulate their hair way too much. Although expensive, it goes a long way and is actually amazing for anyone with hair like mine. My hair (often like straw) turns into silky, glossy locks with only a tiny drop of this stuff (thanks NiCola for the heads up on that one!).

Once I got to the Caribbean, my hair did go lighter in the sun, but rather than going blonde it started to turn ginger – horror of horrors!! Fed up of shocking myself every time I looked in the mirror, I hunted down what seemed to be the only box of blonde hair dye in Grenada and whilst we were still staying in an apartment prior to moving aboard Orion, I took advantage of the bathroom and gave in, dying my hair. Unfortunately the only blonde dye I could find was a dark blonde shade but better than nothing, it definitely lightened my hair but I still wasn't satisfied.

And then 3 months went by... Now during these 3 months I had hunted on every island for more blonde hair dye but had no joy. The only hope was that the further north we were going, the lighter the shades of hair dye were getting. I was hopeful that by the time we got to St Martin, I would get my hands on this most sought after item. Poor Dylan was dragged around drug store after drug store looking for this stuff and only being met with black afro products whilst being schooled on exactly what shades I was after. Nothing with 'warm' in the title as that equals ginger on my hair and only things with 'ash' in the title as that kept the tones 'cool'. Thinking I was a total nutter at first, he soon realised how serious I was and started getting just as involved in my mission exhaling loudly when we discovered the minimal range of stock time after time.

By the time I got to St Martin, I had got my hair trimmed by Laani (thanks again!) which had tamed the straw but I had 2 inch dark roots. On our way back from ACE megastore we saw a sign for a big beauty place. Getting off the bus I walked into the store and came face to face with a whole aisle of dyes to choose from, Heaven! So I walk up and down hugging all the boxes that could be a decent shade...shunning anything that says warm and choosing anything that says 'light ash'. After much uhming and aahing and confering with Dylan (so I can blame him if it goes wrong) I chose one and took it back to the boat.

Now dying hair as you know uses a lot of water...a substance that is scarce on board a boat so I agree with Dylan that I shall wait until it rains before I stink the boat out with ammonia. As luck would have it, that night it rains really hard and I collect buckets, pots and pans full of water to wash my hair in. So this morning I don the bikini, get in the cockpit complete with full length mirror propped up and a gnome stool and get to work. The ammonia stinging my eyes, I part my hair and massage the dye right into my roots – Dylan at this point has made himself scarce. Time up I get Dylan to pour the buckets over my head (he was found hanging over the bow looking at the anchor chain – the extremes he will go to to get out of the fumes!) when I look in the mirror I see that wet, my hair looks WHITE. Dry it doesn't really change colour. Quite a surprise in fact as the colour looks nothing like it did on the box and I am one shade away from looking albino. Hey ho, good job anything goes in the cruising community and on the upside I have no roots and Dylan says I look like Storm from X-Men!!

Our First Night Passage

Until Barbuda we were yet to do a night passage on Orion. The whole point of us coming to the Caribbean and buying a boat was so I could be introduced to cruising gently, no rough weather and no long passages thank you very much! The rough weather was encountered on our second ever journey and I had put off the night passage until we had no other choice. So we were in Barbuda and wanting to get to St Martin as soon as possible to start ticking off some of our task list that had been building since leaving Grenada in January. With hurricane season in the back of my mind and no real desire to go hang out with the 'it' crowd in St Barts (that would be a long day sail), I gave in and started championing the idea of our first night passage together. I stress the word 'together' as this was a brand new experience for me but Dylan had done them tons of times before.

Sure on my day skipper course last summer myself and 3 others had done a night entry into a port but that wasn't the same as sailing between islands, taking a watch by myself and taking control of the boat whilst Dylan slept below. The more we spoke about it, the more I was looking forward to another new experience where I would be totally out of my comfort zone.

Working on a 5 knot average and a 90 mile journey we figured we didn't need to leave Barbuda until 5pm. By the time we reached our first land mass (St Barts) the sun would be rising and we would be able to see for the rest of the journey.

That morning, Dylan jumped out of bed early, very excitable and got to work on putting the jack lines in. For those of you who don't know (and I certainly didn't until a few weeks ago) these are long seatbelt material straps that run from the bow to the stern. They are used particularly on night passages to clip your safety line on to when having to go on deck so if you did stumble and go to fall overboard, you couldn't as the jack line would keep you on the right side of the guardrail. The safety line is also a seatbelt material strap that is hooked to your lifejacket. And yes parents, of course we wear these at all times!

I took a more leisurely morning reading then set about planning our passage on the charts. Figuring this was a good a time as ever to learn how to use the GPS properly, I read the manual and set about programming in various waypoints so we could follow a route considering there were no islands to navigate by. I usually manually plug in waypoints on a paper chart but with navigating in the dark, a lit up display would be much more effective. Sourcing the torches and head light I found a red bulb to use so it wouldn't detract ruin our night vision. We also have this option in the head (toilet) when getting up in the middle of the night.

As I like having 'clutter' around the boat (Ok so Dylan calls it clutter but I call it homely possessions) it is always my job to stow it away when preparing for a sail. The baskets, shells, beads, wooden carvings and cushions all go away in lockers so when we are rocking at sea, there shouldn't be any damage or anything flying about. I say shouldn't as inevitably every time we have been sailing so far there is always something that manages to find its way onto the floor.

Wanting to ensure we had food already prepared if we got the munchies I boiled 4 eggs, made tuna mayo sandwiches and put aside some Munch bars (peanut brittle) just in case. As it turned out I didn't touch them but Dylan made a substantial dent in the provisions, the cold (now cooked) eggs going down a treat.

At 5pm on the dot we upped anchor and using the setting sun in front of us, navigated our way out of the reefs and into the open ocean. Setting Orion up on a port tack and a bearing of 300 degrees I hoped that we wouldn't need to change anything once the sun set. With little light left, Dylan started his lesson on how to take a watch. It seemed quite simple, just meercat every 5 mins at what was going on around you. Look for any lights in the distance, any change in direction, any change in wind speed and any change in wind direction and then he was off down below for a 45 min snooze, leaving me fully in charge...eeeeek! So I got a big cushion out to make myself comfy and sat in the dark listening to the waves slapping the sides and straining my eyes for any lights on the horizon.

After 10 minutes I was bored. I had noone to talk to, I couldn't read, I was getting tired, it had started to drizzle and I had another 10 hours ahead of me before the sun came up. Confirming pretty quickly that I couldn't continue like that, I wacked out the iPod and started singing away to my disney soundtracks, stopping after every song to check the GPS, compass and horizon. I must have entertained the fishies that night with my rendition of 'Just around the river bend' and 'A Whole New World'. 45 mins later much to my annoyance (I was just getting into my singing session), Dylan appeared claiming he couldn't sleep and he wanted to relieve me of my watch already so I could go and get some sleep. Now I must confirm at this stage that it had nothing to do with my singing abilities...its just our boat is very musical. She bangs, clangs, jiggles, shakes, groans, creeks, putters and clinks all the time. However normally in the v berth this is just a minor background noise but sleeping in the sea berth (on the seats in our saloon) you are right in the middle of the Orion symphony.

Note from Dylan – he reckons not all the animal kingdom were entirely satisfied with my vocal abilities as one little flying fish decided to commit suicide on our boat!

Never having a problem falling asleep wherever I am, I went below to have a 3 hour nap. Arranging myself on the narrow settee I threw a sheet over me and closed my eyes trying to block out the loud noises coming from the mast and companionway. No luck, even I couldn't sleep so instead I dozed on and off until 11pm when Dylan woke me up and we swapped places.

With running down wind Orion was rocking from side to side and after a couple of hours I threw up over the side. Having had callaloo soup (spinach) the night before, it was disgusting. Luckily though it only interrupted 20 seconds or so of 'Bare Necessities' and I thought nothing of it. Until I threw up again half an hour later, this time the contents of my stomach didn't agree with my throat and it burned my voicebox rendering my voice to a whisper, feeling like a thousand needles were poking me. I remained with that pain for 3 days after, feeling like I had just got my tonsils removed, barely able to swallow a glass of milk never mind a sandwich! Unlike some seasickness mine seems to disappear as soon as I am sick so it doesn't limit my ability to take a watch, just takes my eye off the ball for the seconds I need to feed the fish.

Anyway enough about my vomit and more about our watch system. We had talked about how many hours we would do per watch beforehand and settled on 3. We started at 8pm so Dylan did 8pm – 11, 2am – 5 and I would do 11pm – 2 and then 5am – 8. Although I never really took the 5am – 8 as a watch as we were at our destination by 6am! A combination of strong and consistent winds (gusting 25 kts) meant we averaged 6.5 knots cutting our passage time down.

By 8am we were at anchor and back in our bed for a well deserved rest before we went to check in and stuff ourselves with french food. Not only have we now completed our first night passage (ok and it was no big deal I admit it and a word to sum it up - uneventful) we have also topped our 500 mile mark – total professionals now!!

Beautiful Barbuda

From 5 miles offshore, Barbuda looks like a yellow sliver on the horizon, looking at our depth gauge we can see it is quickly shoaling. With over 200 shipwrecks in the reef infested waters, I go up to the bow and direct Dylan into the anchorage, weaving in and out of the reef coloured areas.

Even once anchored Barbuda is still a yellow /pink (due to the coral) sliver set in turquoise waters, a low lying island with the highest point being a mere 125ft, you can easily see how back in the day, many a ship ran aground here. There are only 2000 people living in Barbuda with most of them clustered around the capital, the village of Codrington. When entering Barbuda, we chose to anchor first in Cocoa Point and when we arrived we were happy with our decision, a huge bay there were only 3 other boats sharing it with us. As Dylan did his usual routine of bedding the anchor, I watched Teddy the Turtle eying us up from a distance, taking a break from the reed bed he was much more curious to see what us humans were up to. The biggest turtle I have seen so far I bet he could tell a tale or two.

The Barbudan people were originally imported as slaves and worked for the Codrington family. Everywhere you see on the map of Barbuda seems to be named Codrington. Codrington lagoon, Codrington bank, Codrington farm. Since the days of slavery, the land has been held communally and keeping control of the island in this manner means land cannot be sold to foreigners. Thats what we like so much about this place, it is yet to join the 21^st century and shows no sign of wanting to. Our guide told us a story of a hotel being built by the Antiguan government. Fearing irreversible damage to the local wildlife and surrounding land the locals pushed the mobile construction offices off the cliff! Most locals here seem to make a living out of selling sand or catching fish, no desire to cater for tourists or 21^st century services.

Our first anchorage was off the K-Club where apparently Princess Diana used to come and stay. Well if its good enough for a princess....! The hotel has since closed down but the beach is pretty amazing, very very fine white /pink sand littered with small shells. Not a soul on the beach as far as we can see and the turquoise waves crashing at our feet, Dylan and I felt like we were on a deserted island.

There are no amenities ashore so our first few days were spent snorkelling on the nearby reefs where we saw loads of bright corals, an eagle ray and shoals of colourful fish then at night we would cook and play dominos – the Caribbean game of choice.

Keen to check out the west coast of the island and get close to the capital to clear out, we sailed around to Low Bay. Another quiet anchorage we were sharing this space with 2 other boats and at times it was just us there. We met an American couple on Ile de Grace who invited us around for a fish dinner (pieces of a 7ft sailfish they had caught!). These guys are just completing a 2 year circumnavigation and we all went on a tour the following day.

No dinghy docks in Barbuda, we beached the dinghy and dragged the monster up the sand bank so there was no way it would be floating out to sea by the time we got back. Meeting our tour guide, George Jeffrey, we were off to see the Frigate Bird Colony. Now his boat was built to navigate the 2 mile lagoon from our side of the sand bank over to the colony. His boat (complete with 40HP) motored across Codrington Lagoon to Codrington village. With the wind up, the lagoon was really choppy so we all got 'dinghy ass' – a new term I have learnt that describes the wet bum you constantly have when getting out of a dinghy. Park fee paid George then took us to the colony telling us the history along the way. The frigate mating season is in September and that is when the males puff out their necks like big red balloons trying to attract the females with their neck and a dance. Unfortunately we were too early for that but we still got to see them in their natural habitat and in their thousands. At 3 pounds in weight and a wing span of up to 6 ft, they have the greatest wing span in proportion to their weight. Makes for an entertaining spectacle, watching these birds trying to land in the trees in a most ungainly manner, flopping about like jellyfish, head butting the trees. The mangroves are full of the heads of frigates, all clucking away waiting to be fed. Although the chicks are very cute these looks can be deceiving as frigates are thieves. As they cannot land in the sea (due to weight: wing proportion) they steal the fish from other birds that can! This colony has been featured in the National Geographic as it is one of the largest in the world apart from the Galapagos.

Back in Codrington we started the process of clearing out and thank god we had a guide with us! Walking to opposite sides of the village with no signs pointing us in the right direction, we had to walk back and forth locating people's houses that doubled as port authority /customs and immigration. Good job George was with us as we would have got very lost otherwise. We stopped for lunch at The Palm Beach restaurant where I had lobbie and Dylan had chicken. The most massive portion sizes you can imagine and the food was excellent.

About to commence on our first night passage we wanted to get an up to date weather forecast for the area. With no available internet, we noticed a locked wifi signal at the nearby Lighthouse Bay Resort. Figuring we would buy a drink then ask for the password we ordered 3 diet cokes and a beer. You will never guess how much it set us back...US$53!! The most expensive drink I have ever drank and we didn't even get a glass or ice! The staff were extremely rude and unwelcoming and after paying for our drinks we were informed that they couldn't give the password to 'outsiders'. To put it mildly, this place is not cruising friendly and you should avoid at all costs.

After such a lovely day of seeing some of the island we were greeted back at the boat with a horrible smell. On following our nose (or rather mine as Dylan claims he never smells anything bad but he notices in seconds if I have bread or cookies on the stove!) we discover the drain in the fridge had blocked and stagnant water was accumulating in the bottom mixed with rotting callaloo that had fallen out of their bag. Nothing like a boat chore to bring you back to reality. Orion had clearly missed us that day and wanted to show who was boss.  

Queens, fishermen and the Antigua Classic Regatta 2012

Now we are not talking about the mildly effeminate men that mince around with more facial products than Sally or salty seadogs that earn a living from the sea. I am talking about the oddly named topsails sails on a 143ft gaff rigged schooner that I had the pleasure of racing on in the Antigua Classic Regatta earlier this month.

Although not exactly an oldy in age terms (she was built in 1995) she is an old design with the masts and booms made of wood in the traditional way. As too were the blocks and I could have sworn one or two sheets were hemp. There was enough varnish work to keep the crew busy for most of the season without her even leaving the dock.

The Zuca et a Moana is the largest sailing yacht that I have ever sailed on. There was no roller furlers or push button winches. Everything was manual.

Before each tack, either the Queen or Fisherman had to be lowered and then as we tacked the opposite number would be raised...manually.

Racing as many of you will know, is all about long windward legs at the start and finish and plenty of tacking in between. Raising sails, unlike on Orion where I can pop the main up singlehanded, involves 8 to 10 people. Winches are not used for raising these bad boys. It involves one or two people “sweating” (pulling the halyard) while someone else keeps a hold of the line by tailing it. Friction is applied by running the halyard around a belaying pin (those wood pins that look like skinny ten pins that you see ropes attached to on the side of old wood sailing ships in movies like Pirates of the Caribbean etc). Generally two people work in tandem to sweat the sail up and it involves pulling the halyard down with all your body weight and then moving it towards the belaying pin so that the tailer can take up the slack.

Do this a good few times and the very next day you feel like you have been roughed up by Mike Tyson except you will still have your ears.

Half way though a tack one of the belaying pins used to secure the Queens aft halyard snapped with an almighty bang. The pin itself flicked all the way across the deck and overboard. We were hurtling along at 13 knots and had a large piece of canvas flogging in the wind 100 foot above us. A couple of quick orders from the first mate and we were lowering the remaining halyard and using the sheets to man handle the sail back on deck before it became a sizeable sea anchor.

With a 143ft of boat of which over 100ft was waterline length, needless to say she made some good speed. The consistent trade winds did not disappoint and 15 knots of breeze was more than sufficient to power her along at 13knots. The regatta staggers the start times as it would be a bit hairy for little sub 40ft yachts to be dicing a start line with 150ft behemoths. Needless to say our class was one of the last to start (up to 1 hour after the first fleet sets off).

It is then fantastic to watch us reel in the fleet as we top out hull speed and in all her magnificence sail under all the smaller yachts. Being about 10feet from the water, it is also very dry on board and low heel due to her weight / size makes it easy to power through the swell while the rest of the significantly smaller yachts “hobby horse” over each wave.

Unfortunately I only raced for 2 of the 4 days on Zuca et a Moana. On day two they had me trimming the foresail (the gaff sail up forward rather than the main which is the larger and nearest the stern). So after a day of cranking sails up and down, I now spent my time grinding on an enormous winch the diameter of an oil drum. I dreaded the call for a gybe, which would be given almost half a mile from the mark we were rounding. It meant that I had to start sheeting in the foresail. Even though the winches had 3 gear ratio's, it was still slow work. Especially if we were hard on the wind pre gybe. Rounding the mark 2 or 3 crew would manually haul in as much sheet as possible while I tailed it all and then eased it out once we had rounded.

There was too much wind to fly the spinnaker, but she did have one! And THAT would have been something to see / do. Ah well there is always next year :)

Over the two days I got to meet the crew and skipper, all of whom were from western Europe and fairly new to the boat except the skipper. The skipper really knew his boat. This was a 143ft, 150ton steel vessel with non of the mod cons that modern yachts have in the form of bow and stern thrusters etc. Yet he magnificently steered her in and out of a crowded marina with a good side wind and onto the dock with the skill and precision of a Hartley Street surgeon. Quite a feat to watch.

The regatta was full of these beautiful yachts. There was a few hundred tons of varnish used on all the boats and they all gleamed. Racing was not as serious as I thought it would be with most people on the yachts armed with cameras snapping away at the fleet as they whizzed past each other.

By far the most impressive are the big gaff rigged yachts with their full array of sails up. The sheer size and scale is something to behold.

Life is all about experiences. This for me was a one of those experiences. I have now set my sights on crewing on a square rigger!