North Sound, Virgin Gorda 2013

North Sound, Virgin Gorda 2013

 After a couple of good nights' sleep we pulled up our anchor at Foxy's, Jost Van Dyke and headed to North Sound. It was time to fuel and water up at Leverick Bay and wait for a good weather window to cross the Anegada Passage to Saint Martin. Our little five hour run on the water was one of those where you just shake your head and say “This too is sailing”. The wind was blowing 20 knots from the east, the waves on the north side of the BVI’s where 12 to 15 ft. We were heading east. So being the old salts that we are, we fired up the Ford Lehman and headed for the cut at the airport on Beef Island to put land on our port side. Not a bad day. How bad can it be when you are in the beautiful Virgin Islands?

                                                                  North Sound                         

We dropped the hook in front of Saba Rock with the plan of spending the night and heading to the dock at Leverick Bay in the morning. Saba Rock is one of those places that we keep going back to. It’s got a great internet connection that we get  on the boat and when there is that urge to talk to someone other than someone your sharing the small living space with, we head into happy hour. Three dollar drinks, good chicken wings, watch them feed the tarpon and nice friendly people. Life is good!

                                                                        Saba Rock                       

One night became two nights, lots of wind (20 knots plus). It was looking like it was going to be blowing a stink for a while so we decided to head to the dock to get some maintenance done on Sinbad. That way if the wind ever laid down we would be ready for Saint Martin.

                                                                     Sinbad at the dock   

 Leverick Bay Marina we like. It’s the only marina that we've spent a night at in the last 12 months. We've stayed there four times, two or three nights at a time (this time five). Friendly staff, free water, nice showers, fresh-water pool, bag of ice, and all for one dollar a foot!

                                                             Cap'n Di became Painter Di !   

 Our days at the dock were made up of a little of this and that. There was the cleaning, ejector oil pump changing, cleaning, zinc pencil changing, cleaning, painting our two propane tanks, and did I mention cleaning? Having all the fresh water we could use is something we are not used to. We hit Sinbad hard inside and out. The cleanest it’s been since we left Tawas Bay in August of 2011! With all that we still managed to play a little, swimming, hiking and Happy ARRR !

                                                                        

                                       When Di say's we are going for a walk its always up hill!      

                               The fat guy taking a break, Saba Rock and Bitter End in the back ground.

                               

 HAPPY ARRR at Leverick Bay is the Michel Bean pirate show. Great show!

                                      Beans holding a pic of Cap'n Di & Lou from yrs gone bye              

                                                                      

                                                                      

                                                                               

If you can’t make it to the BVI to see Beans check him out at the Grand Haven Coast Guard Festival or on Beaver Island in Lake Michigan. He’s there for a couple of weeks every summer (his old stomping grounds), usually around the first of August.    

So we've been here over a week and it looks like at lest another week will go by waiting for our weather window- it's not easy being stuck in paradise!  

Randy                                                                 

Old Year's Night at Foxy's, BVI 2012-2013

After Christmas in St. Thomas,we left Lindbergh Bay and headed for Coral Bay, both of us hankering for delicious bacon bleu /cheese burgers and the old hippy vibe at Skinny Legs Bar and Grill.  We anchored out near the channel markers, next to the orphaned sloop ACATSGRIN, with her mast hung down alongside and her moorings festooned with seaweed, unchanged from last year.

Coral Bay, St. John,  USVI

 Also unchanged is the gang of friendly pirates at Skinny Legs, from Robby the peerless burger chef, Tiny with bootleg lobsters in  his backpack, and Laura the bartender, who is now starting up a day charter business. We stayed for an evening and left the next morning (Dec. 27) for Jost Van Dyke to get a good anchoring spot ahead of the hoards arriving for Old Years Night at Foxy’s, the Times Square of the Caribbean.

We got settled and headed over to White Bay to the beach, the finest beaches we have visited since April in Antigua. Blazing turquoise waters and ivory sands welcomed us, and we wandered among the visitors and met a lot of nice people. 

White Bay, Jost Van Dyke.  Lotsa fudgies!

Di met the Uncle Wendell, a local fisherman and mahi connection, and Toughest, a lean and muscular workman who was digging out a pig-roasting pit, and the same man who felled three coconut trees with a cutlass just before Christmas and gave Di two jelly coconuts. We danced to a great band at Gertrudes, met up with Captain Ron, Randy’s pal from Coral Bay with starboard (red) and port (green) toenail polish, and Gary from Boston, recovering from cancer, who kept us company and provided lots of savvy local knowledge. We also met Grady-mon and Hyas, local dudes here for the Old Year’s beach party.

Each day the beach filled with a larger and larger, younger crowd, ‘til Old Year’s Day when it looked like Panama City Beach at Spring Break. We met up with Tracy and Angie from “Caribbean Rose”, a boat we knew from our months in St. Thomas, and Englishman Bill aboard Corus, a fine 1984 Whitby out of Roadtown, Tortola whom we encountered last year. Delightful folks. 

Corus of Roadtown, a 1984 Whitby

Randy enjoyed watching as arriving boats did the anchoring show, speeding in on the approach and dropping anchor and chain like a bowl of spaghetti off the bow, then dropping back to within 6 feet of other boats in the neighborhood.  We made sure to hang fenders all around our boat and drop the solar panels to a protected position in case someone dragged down on us. Randy hauled Di up in the bosun's chair to photograph the crowded harbor.  What a view!

We bought tickets for Old Year Night to see the concert at Foxy’s Outback, featuring Tarrus Riley , said by all to be a great performer. 

Old Year's Night at Foxy's---Randy was the most photographed person there!

 We spent the day at the beach, rested up a bit, enjoyed a wonderful American porterhouse steak dinner grilled by Randy, with mushrooms in garlic-wine reduction and creamy mashed potatoes and asparagus, and Freixinet Cordon Negro to bubble in the new year. Then we headed ashore.  Well, the concert was interesting.  It started with an OK local dance band at around  1030.  The second band was a white rasta guy who sounded like Sting on a bad day. Midnight passed with a ten second countdown and issues with the sound system… a few cheap thrills when they dropped in part of a Bob Marley song to fill some dead air time… next came a lip sync act which left the crowd flat.  At 0130 came Tarras Riley at last, but by that time we had nicknamed him “Tarrus Bulba” and couldn't really appreciate the show, due to the late hour and the botched warm-up acts. (I think he’s good and would buy his CD- his musicians were professional, but alas the production was not.)  We stayed for about six songs and were ready to leave, weaving through the solid bouncing mass of young partiers dancing to the techno outside at Foxy’s.

New Years Day, we awoke at 0600 as usual (ugh), drank two pots of strong coffee, and in dinghied over to the beach for one last time.  We did a slow-motion stroll up the beach and back, and collapsed on the pontoons of our dinghy to lie in the sun like beached walruses.

Happy New Year 2013 to all our blog friends and family.  Love, Randy and Di

At Work in St. Thomas

Back in the USVI,  we got down to work on the projects that didn’t get done during the summer. 

 Refrigeration:

Shortly after Thanksgiving the refrigerator quit working while on a little getaway in St. John, so we promptly headed back to initiate the repair process.

Randy did preliminary diagnostics on the system, then called the Cool Blue Refrigeration manufacturer TechNautics Inc. in California and described the problem. The owner (another Randy) felt confident that the electronics module had failed.  We ordered a new one on the December 3 and it shipped the same day. When it arrived 16 days later, it took about an hour to install, no tricks.  The lifespan of the module ranges from 1-8 years in the tropics; our lasted 2 and 1/2 years. 



The black unit is the electronic module.

Randy is happy with the service the manufacturer provided but not with the USPS.  While waiting for the part, each day we bought 2-3 bags of ice at $2.50 apiece, hauled the ice aboard, drained the old ice, unpacked and repacked the cooler boxes. We kept the ice in dry-bags inside the refer box to contain the melt water. The upside is that our refrigerated food inventory was reduced and we are lean and mean and ready for a passage.

While the refer was down, Randy repaired some small but significant gaps in the insulation of the freezer and added another two inches of insulation on bottom and another half-inch on the outboard side. The result is a much colder freezer holding temperature (<12 degrees F in the middle of the box) and slower frost buildup.



New refrigerator thermometer- "Mister Frosty"



 

Solar panels:

We purchased two new Kyocera 140W solar panels to complement the two 135W Kyocera panels we installed last January in St. Thomas and June in Curacao.  Randy installed them on top of the bimini, on two new angle aluminum frames he built here in St. Thomas. 

 

 

 The panels are wired to two separate Solar Boost 2000E controllers, one controlling portside panels, the other the starboard, so that energy from the sunny-side panels does not dissipate into the shady-side panels.  A total of 550 W of power is provided now, sufficient for energy needs of refrigeration and future water maker.  The KISS wind generator remains a great alternative power source.

Security:

Randy  installed security bars on our midship and forward deck hatches.  They are designed to hinder intruders while we are asleep. They are made of angled aluminum from here on the island, and can be easily removed for passages.  

Routine maintenance:

The forward head joker valve had to be replaced, the third time in  two years for the forward head.  The aft head is still on the original valve.

 Di did some necessary repair and modification to the dinghy chaps. She sewed extra tabs on it to attach to new D rings –this will secure the aft ends of the chaps in place.  She added Phifertex panels at the ends to allow water to drain out, and added additional vinyl material where unforeseen chafing had occurred.  Amazing how much wear and tear is already evident.  Well, at least the dinghy is protected.

 Comfort and privacy:

In a crowded anchorage, it is hard to have privacy while taking our showers in the cockpit.  Di sewed privacy panels of white Phifertex which roll up and are lashed to the bimini top.  Attached inside of those is a separate panel of canvas, which provides shade (especially welcome on hot passages), deep privacy, and a bit of protection from light rain in the cockpit. Both can easily be rolled up out of the way.



Phifertex mesh for privacy.



 



Canvas for shade and light rain protection.



 

Di made new curtains for inside the dodger, which provide shade and privacy.  She used dacron sail bag material she got at the sail loft in Crown Bay. 

 

Di also made shade panels for use under way.   Our shade canopy, which hangs suspended from the mizzen sheet over the aft cabintop while we are at anchor, must be struck when we are under sail.  It can get pretty hot when the sun beats into the cockpit from behind.  Di sewed two panels which attach to the back of the bimini, separated in the middle to permit use of the main sheet.  They can be suspended higher for shade and open view, or dropped down if it’s raining to keep the helmsman dry.  They can be used one at a time.  We tested them and enjoyed some welcome shade during a hot sail to Salt Pond Bay in St. John.

 

Di sewed and Randy rigged a water catcher, much like a canvas eve trough with drain hose, which zips into place along the side of the bimini and drains into a jerry can.  Since we finished it, it has not rained.  It looks like it should work out.  The design was found on S/V Orion’s blog, dated September 5, 2012.



Rain catcher (darker gray)

 Di has also started work on a helm seat, to boost the helmsman while seated so the view is better for steering.  We do a lot of hand steering.

Pest control:

Everybody gets a cockroach on board eventually if they are in the tropics long enough.  Fortunately, the two inch long “American Cockroach” (Periplaneta americana) that boarded us in Curacao is one of the less invasive varieties. We did our exterminating here, as it involved being off the boat for most of the day. Residual pesticides were available down island (and not in the USVI), and the fumigation bombs of the safer contact-type pesticides, we found only in St. Thomas. We emptied food, utensil drawers, pots and pans and dish cabinets, placing all in tightly sealed garbage bags. Di carefully applied the residual pesticide in the bilge areas, staying away from water tank inlets, and Randy deployed the fumigation bombs and we left the boat for a day ashore.  Then we thoroughly washed and dried all the counters, shelves and cabinets, and around water tank openings, before replacing the contents. It was a lot of work.

YUK !        KILL !!!!   

 

Throughout many of these tasks, there were opportunities for deep cleaning, sorting and eliminating.  We inventoried canned and dried goods stocks in preparation for our next passage from BVI-St.Martin-Antigua to Dominica.  We also discarded several items which seemed needful a year ago, but after a year of cruising, we found unnecessary.  We refilled our propane tanks are pretty much ready to head down island.

Domestics:

While sorting things we did not need, we eliminated Di’s big old food processor, an electric hand mixer, a small smoothy blender, and a small food chopper (the last two bought to try to stand in for the food processor, which overwhelmed the inverter with it’s power demands). We found and purchased a great gadget, the Cuisinart Power Trio High Torque Hand Blender. It combines a detachable motor with immersion blender, small multi-bladed food processor, and a whisk. It is compact and works well to replace all the separate gadgets we got rid of.

 

 Di has been on a cooking binge ever since. Out of our galley have come pumpkin ravioloi, spinach cheese ravioli, sour cream pecan bread, and rum balls for Christmas entertaining, made possible by the handy Cuisiniart.

 

 

Catching Up

It’s been a long time since the last entry!  In late September, Randy’s daughter Astara and her friend Patrick came to visit us on the boat in Bonaire.  Their enthusiasm for living  was so refreshing for us, and it was a pleasure for us to show them around and to see Bonaire and life aboard Sinbad anew through their eyes.  We visited the Washington Slagbai National Park, the southern end of the island with it’s commercial salt ponds of varying shades of pink and red, and did a lot of snorkeling and some scuba diving too, which Astara and Patrick took to like young merfolk.  They used the rugged environment of the windward side of Bonaire to practice acro-yoga poses, while Randy did a photo shoot.

In mid-November, our friend and shipmate Larry “Swabby” Mitchell  came to visit again , his first return to Sinbad after his rigorous introduction to sailing during the crossing from Beaufort NC to Jost Van Dyck through Tropical Storm Sean in November 2011.   It was fun to have him back aboard!  Di and Larry had not done much scuba diving in many a long year, and we changed that in Bonaire.   We did about ten scuba dives while Larry was here, most around 60 feet max., but one day we dove to about 110’ briefly, strictly adhering to the Navy dive charts for time/depth limits for safety.  We did several dives on Klein Bonaire, using the unseasonable calm wind to explore some really nice dive sites. 

When the weather window opened, we departed Bonaire for the Puerto Rico or the Virgin Islands.  We intentionally did not designate a definite destination, since the wind and weather dictated how fast and how far east we could get. We had easy and uneventful sailing, standing four hour watches by day and three hours at night. When we were in the middle of the Caribbean Sea, around two hundred miles from land in any direction, a little martin bird approached the boat and managed to land for a brief rest.

 She was so far from land, and her rest so brief, I am afraid she did not make it back to safety.

Larry put his new fishing gear to the test, hooking four mahi-mahi and a mackerel, which we happily dined upon while under way.  It was delicious, lightly seasoned with Cajun blend spices and cooked in butter within an hour of being caught! 

 After four and a half days of easy sailing on a close reach with ENE winds, we anchored in Elephant Bay, St. Thomas shortly after sunset on Nov. 7.  In the morning, we headed over to Jost Van Dyck to reward ourselves with a day on the white sandy beach, a nice buffet dinner and dancing at Foxy’s.  After a few days, Di flew home to visit her family.

  Randy and Larry then had some manly sailing time, heading to Virgin Gorda to get some jobs done, to Coral Bay to hang out and eat great cheeseburgers at Skinny Legs, then back to St. Thomas to pick up Di.

Swabby Larry headed home the day after Thanksgiving, and since then we have been at anchor in Elephant Bay, St. Thomas, working on projects.  We had a brief interlude at Salt Pond Bay, St. John, when suddenly the refrigerator broke down.  Back to St. Thomas to make phone calls and order parts!  During this time, Randy has done lots of projects and repairs (replacing joker valves, ordering and building support structures for additional solar panels atop the bimini, etc.), and Di and the sewing machine have made a truce and produced mesh-and-canvas shade panels for the side of the cockpit, and canvas shade panels to attach to the aft end of the bimini for use underway.  Many other projects are on the to-do list.

It has been interesting to be back in St. Thomas.  Last year this was all new to us. This year, we see people whom we recognize and some whose names we remember, and they recognize us too. We know how to get around the island, where to find the things we need, and have even gotten some discounts for being “locals”. It’s a small place, and people on the island get to know faces pretty quickly.  It’s nice to be back in American territory, because all the foods, goods and services are cheaper than in other islands, especially marine parts.  And there’s good coffee and other American foods we like, such as Triscuits, Jimmy Dean sausage, and Johnsonville Brats!  Presently we are waiting for the solar panels and the electrical part for the broken refrigerator to arrive, so Randy can install them. After this, we intend to head to Leverick Bay, Virgin Gorda, BVI to complete projects requiring being at the dock (stitching up torn mizzen sail, deep cleaning upholstery, etc.). From there, we plan to travel onward to St. Martin for French wines, cheeses and baguettes, and then south to Antigua, hopefully before the new year.  This will put us in a good position to move on southward, hopefully before the gusty “Christmas Winds” begin to blow.  If we can reach the Antigua before that, we will be less hindered by weather as we move south to explore Dominica and the Windward Islands.

 Making Dinghy Chaps!      September-October 2012

Ever since we got our new Zodiac dinghy through our friend Matt Bolt at the 2011 Annapolis Boat Show, we’ve noticed wear and tear from the weather and from the non-skid grit on the foredeck where it rides on sea passages. So I decided to make “Dinghy Chaps”, a fitted canvas cover, to protect them.

In Curacao we bought a used sailmaker's sewing machine from friends on SV Seafari, downloaded the guide for making dinghy chaps from Sailrite (http://search.sailrite.com/category/instructions-canvas-awning-boating-patio-upholstery-boating), ordered materials from Sailrite as recommended in the guide, took a deep breath, and began.

First I made the pattern.  Since we were at anchor in a windy harbor, I found a ramp at the nearby sailing club, where they allowed us to haul the dinghy out and make the patterns necessary for cutting the material.   On another day, we took the material to a nearby waterfront restaurant early on a Sunday morning, where they told us it was OK to use their deck to spread out the material, pin and cut it.  It is much easier to do these operations while on terra firma rather than bouncing around in the water.

I did all the sewing in the cabin of our boat, with the sewing machine plugged into the inverter.  It draws a lot of energy, so it is best to get all ready to sew before turning on the inverter , and turn it off right after you finish a piece of sewing.

I sewed on the vinyl anti-chafing patches, and joined the sections.  I added seam binding around the cutouts for the handles, to stiffen them a bit so they would not flap in the wind.  The first cut-out for the handles was too big, so I made the next ones a bit smaller.  Toward the end, a South African sailor recommended that I use bungee cord rather than line for the drawstring securing the chaps to the dinghy.

The cost of the materials was about $200, the cost of the used Sailmakers machine was $325, and I put in at least 50 hours of painstaking work.  I have only basic sewing skills, and the last project I did that was more complicated than mending a hem was in 1978. 

The job requires you to climb in and out of the dinghy dragging your pinned lengths of canvas and fitting it over the dinghy in wavy conditions. You have to wrestle with the heavy canvas a lot and it is hard on your nails and hands, like handing a sail.  I had to tear out yards of errant seams, and we had to oil and adjust parts of the sewing machine periodically.

The only  ready-made dinghy chaps commercially available are for AB dinghies and sell for over $800.  Two professional marine seamstresses in Curacao would not even bid a job for sewing dinghy chaps.  I would undertake to sew a second dinghy cover for the low-low price of about $10,000.  It is a painstaking, frustrating, fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants, time consuming job.

Helpful Hints from Di:

1.      Think twice before you tackle this job.

2.      Make a lot of notes and match marks on your pattern. Use lots of colored sharpies to keep track of what your lines and notes stand for.

3.     I made the handle cutout about 3/4 inch wide of the handles on all sides. More than one inch was too wide for our purposes.

4.      Make oval cutouts rather than square ones, for easier sewing. Bungee cord for the exterior drawstring is a good idea.

5.      I original ordered one spool of  dacron thread, and needed two.

6.     Other useful aids to the job were electrical alligator clips  ( minimum of 6), heavy duty sewing pins ( a whole package) and  a pin cushion.  The seam tape recommended by Sailrite was a real work saver.  A seam ripper and needle threader were essential.

7.      Have your partner leave the area (or boat!) while you work.  You'll need the space, and your partner will be pleased to miss out on all the excitement. When I had everything all spread out, there was no room at all in the main salon for a second person. I cut in the galley and pieced and pinned on the settee. Materials were spread out all over the place.

8.     Try to schedule your sewing time without long gaps in between sewing days. It is easy to lose the stream of thought which makes the work easier, and lose your place.

8.      Learn German.  In German you can string together lots of bad words to create new ones, for when the old ones just aren’t adequate to express your frustration!

However, when you're done, it is a satisfying achievement and your dinghy will be protected and its lifespan will be extended by many years.  Our fellow cruisers and seamstress friends were very complimentary of the job--- all acknowledge that dinghy chaps are a really complex task!

Back in Bonaire!

We pulled up anchor in Spanish Waters Curacao on September 13th heading east to Bonaire. A short trip of less than 40 miles and we were back on a mooring in crystal clear waters. Love the water here, world class snorkeling, world class diving. Life is good. So good that we haven't updated this blog in over a month. It is said that a picture is worth a thousand words ......so.....

These pictures where shot at Klein Bonaire. Di and I just kicking back enjoying a little snorkeling.

We were here about five days and Jackson and Rico on S/V Apparition  followed us over from Spanish Waters. We have been doing a lot of diving and snorkeling with them, lots of fun!