The barber is in: pictures from Pete’s first haircut on the boat.
Author Archives: Jane
Safety at Sea Part 2: Drogue Day
When we first started out we practiced our man overboard drills.
Another safety aspect is sailing in heavy weather. When there are strong winds and heavy seas, the boat can pitch-pole. That is to say it can slide down the face of a steep wave, bury its nose and tip over. There is a diagram here. For various reasons this is more of a risk with catamarans than monohulls. Continue reading
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Gustavia, Saint Barthélemy, French West Indies
The island (also called St Barth and St Barts) is named after Christopher Columbus’s younger brother. The main town on the island is Gustavia.
We really liked Gustavia in the off season. Here are some reasons why:
A spot of welding
Ponce, Puerto Rico
The electric winch pulled too tight on the reefing line at some point and broke the line and the block and an eyelet on the mast. Oops.
BVI virgins no more
Somehow we’d managed to do over a dozen Caribbean charter trips without ever having visited the British Virgin Islands. The BVIs are training grounds for charterers; most do their first charter there.
So, Sunday was our first experience of the BVIs, and it was much as we expected: lots of mooring balls, nearly all occupied by charter boats. We, however, anchored. We have a good anchor.
Mall Day
Tuesday was “Mall Day”. I suspect this was our last chance for a while to shop at a full-scale American-style mall. Gayle will miss malls inherently. The rest of us might miss malls for convenient access to a range of well-priced goods.
Our day in Ponce
Hey, that rhymes. Ponce, pronounced “pon-say”, is the second largest city in Puerto Rico. It is named after Juan Ponce de León y Loayza, and thus the city emblem is the lion. There are lots of lion statues about the place. My favourites are the newest ones. We saw them dotted around the historic city square. Chicago has its cows; San Francisco, its hearts; Vancouver, its orcas. Ponce has its lions.
An afternoon in South Caicos
We were all quite fascinated by the island of South Caicos. It was once a very prosperous little place.
South Caicos was the main export point for the local salt industry.