Guess where we will be..

 

Three tomatoes are walking down the street- a poppa tomato, a momma tomato, and a little baby tomato. Baby tomato starts lagging behind. Poppa tomato gets angry, goes over to the baby tomato, and smooshes him… and says, Catch up.

So its been a while, but we are still safe and having a blast.

We arrived Sint Maarten (Dutch side) and haven’t really strayed very far. It is almost like last year, where we spent almost 6 months here getting the standing rigging replaced. Tho this time is very different.

Christine went back to the states  and I returned to work (remotely) only to find out that my job required an Austin presence, mid-life retirement kicked.

Had already run into our friends. the Princess, the Ogre, and Ho Aloha that we met here last year, they took care of me while Christine was away. So started boat projects, all the oil was changed in all 4 engines. The Dinghy engine (gear oil), the 2 main Volvo engines, and the Honda generator (used for making water and electricity when not wanting to run the diesels). Washed the boat several times, cleaned the engine rooms. Sewed a dinghy gas cover, it was just baking in the sun so I channeled my inner Betsy Ross and it turned out okay – but it still needed some love later when I had more time. That time came, and now it has a velcro opening for refilling the tank and holes for the tie downs that keep the tank from sliding around in the dinghy. Works pretty good, for using scraps of Sunbrella Christine picked up last year.

Just before Christine returned, I had had to clean up the boat and fill up the tanks with the water maker so I went for a sail. Solo. I had moved the boat solo a few times and anchored without too many issues, including a motoring Jib sail to La Semmana, and trip to Phillipsburg to pick up 700lbs of replacement ceiling material, so why not try sailing. Nice ‘green’ day, meaning less than 20knots of wind forecasted so prefect day for full sails and what else am I gonna do. Pulled anchor went out a way from boats and raised the main sail with no real issues, other than making sure all the reefing lines ran free as I wasn’t sure what reef we had in when we last had the sail up. Set a course for Saba, an island about 25miles a way. Pulled out the jib, turned off the engines, fired up the Honda, and started the water maker.

Sailed about 18 miles toward Saba and the Port tank was full, and I just made some lunch, so perfect time to turn around. I was trolling fishing lines too, but no bites on the way out – definitely none on the way back. I went to tack the boat using the Auto Pilot’s tack feature. Well that didn’t go as smoothly as one would have hoped, I didn’t get all the way around and ended up in irons. Hmmm.. I was doing 8knots, I guess that the Auto Pilot 100 degree tack needed to be a bit more so, fell off and got it going again to try again, this time with the dagger boards down and and extra turn of the wheel. Again didn’t quite make it, but this time I was also drifting backwards and the fishing lines and teasers all ended up under the boat and around the rudders. Grabbed the dock hook and was able to untangle the mess as it never made it to the propellers. But in the process broke the dock hook, in half again – had fixed that last year too. Got the lines straightened out, and fired up the starboard engine to get around and back on course back to the anchorage. Then turned it back off and started sailing toward St Barths and noticed a couple squalls (rainstorms) on the way. Now I had full sails up and rain storms normally bring more wind and looking at the water, I could see more white caps, so pulled a reef in the main, and no sooner then the wind jumped to 26knots, pulled a little jib and all was good. No fishing lines in the water tho, thus no bites. Made it back the anchorage, full of water in both tanks and full of electricity – a great day. And now we have a new boat hook that is made from one piece of aluminum instead of one put together with a an old broom handle.

Reworked the rain catchment system on the bimini, they were forever getting taken out by flapping jib sheets because they hung down too low, found some 90 degree sprinkler fittings that were able to be customized to a hose connection and epoxied in place, so far they have lasted an should be out of the way of the flapping jibsheets when taking and rolling up the sail.

Might have found the port engine staring issue as the negative connection on the starter wasn’t giving enough juice to spin the engine over, the solenoid would throw but unless there was perfect star alignment wouldn’t always engage. I had brought an automotive remote starter button so that I wouldn’t have to hot wire the connection while in the engine room, or go up and use the key. When using the remote starter I was able to hear / see the the little arc that was happening on the negative side of the starter – pulled off the wires, re-ordered them after sanding lightly, to where the biggest wire was on first to make the most connection and hasn’t been a problem since – tho now that I talk about it, its bound to happen again. We do have that extra starting battery onboard too.

​​Picking up the ceiling material was an adventure in its self, I ordered 12 4×8 foot sheets of 3mm PVC sheets, 6 in beige and 6 in white from a sign company in Puerto Rico. PVC will not mold, can get wet, should last a life time, but nothing really sticks to it. After motoring the big boat from La Semana over to Phillipsburg and frantically looking through the cruising guide as to where to anchor (as we had never been there before), found a spot that seemed good, and ran off in the dingy to find the shipping company. Walked to where the containers were, asked the guard and he pointed back down the street a half mile where I came. Then a semi truck stopped and said get on, he was going there. On? Where? He pointed to the back where the trailers get connected. I jumped up there with my dolly and held on, he dropped me at the Front office, of course lunch time had just started so I had an hour to wait till they opened up in some industrial park. Luckily it was shaded, and then I spotted a convenience store. Walked over even though it was going out of business they still had a cold beer, but only Bud Light – oh well it was hot outside, the beer was cold, and it was lunch time. After lunch when they re-opened, I went in and paid $80 for the shipping,  not bad at all, but the invoice said 700 lbs? Uh this little dolly isn’t going to work with 4 foot by 8 foot panels weighing 700 pounds. Its gotta just be the packing right? Went around to the back and the guy looked for the package. It was on the floor on two pallets. Uh-oh. Luckily, they said they deliver, so back around to the office to see about delivery. Lady in the front was so nice, but wasn’t sure when they could deliver, when I informed her the guys in the back said they could do it today as I was only a short distance away, they loaded it up with a fork lift and we took it in a truck down to the place I had left the dinghy. The driver helped me load the sheets into the dinghy, the sheets were so big that was almost no room left for me in the dinghy but made it out to the boat without the wind blowing the sheets into the water. Now back to the boat, how to unload to the mother ship? Two sheets at a time and used the blowing wind against the sheets as a kite, all aboard, then to find a place to store em. The boat is big, but finding 8 foot in a single location was a challenge. Each sheet weighs in at 15 lbs, so the actual weight is closer to 200lbs, not too bad.

 

Hiked to top of hill,

swam a shore went for a walk.

And of course celebrated the last day of work

Always excited when we get visitors from our home town of Austin, TX!  We thought Matt (big Matt) and Diana were kidding when emailed in December saying they wanted to come visit over NYE (being that it was short notice and we had not really talked about it) – but to our surprise they pulled off a miracle, arranged for sitters, bought tickets, and met us in Antigua just after Christmas!  As experienced travelers, they arrived with two small, soft, water proof bags and 18 bottles of Rosé!  Now, I am proud to say that these are our friends!  Welcome to Sugar Shack!

Adding them to the boat was fun. The eSeaClear website wanted positions for the new crew, so we had a swab and stewardess – you pick which was which.

This blog will be “G” rated partly because we were all high on Rosé most of the time, partly because I just plum don’t remember, and partly because “what happens on the shack stays on the shack.”
After everyone got settled, we discussed options for destinations, durations of sale etc, and settled on the whirlwind tour and headed off to Barbuda – one of our favorite places to do absolutely nothing.  It is a pretty quiet island offering lots of solitude, few tourist, and a 7 mile beach. Pulled in a small tuna on the way over. The boys went snorkeling and introduced our dinghy prop to some coral heads (yep, our new outboard prop has an easily identifiable chunk missing from a blade) and the girls went for a walk / selfie photo shoot.  We’d walk for a few minutes and then Diana would stop and say “wait…let’s take a photo” took me several photo shoots to catch on that she really didn’t want to walk – but we did get some great shots!

After we claimed Barbuda for an afternoon as our own island, we headed to see what a billion dollars looks like in St. Barth’s. On the way, landed a small another tuna for more some more of big Matt’s awesome sashimi.  It is where all the biggest and best boats go to be seen (not necessarily the owners, but the boats).  Of course, the mega, mega yachts are all out in the bay while the small yachts (200′ or less are in the marina slips).   We had fun showing them around this fanciful island, admiring the airport runway, and beautiful boutiques, then we came back to the boat to take naps as we anticipated a late night ashore.  We arrived to the dock in time to welcome 2017 and see the spectacular fireworks show before heading to Shell Beach.  Of course, everything was booked and private until Diana took charge.  She managed to get us a fabulous spot on the beach for my Matt (or little Matt) to nap, which always seems to happen after a little Rosé, while the rest of us to drank, danced, and enjoyed the craziness until the wee hours of the morning.  Somewhere in there, little Matt almost drowned laughing as he fell into the St Barts harbor, Big Matt and I get lost, the dinghy key is misplaced, and we get towed to our big boat around 5 in the morning.

Luckily, there were no serious injuries, dinghy keys were found in the dinghy that had tossed lil Matt overboard into the drink and we started all over again at Nikki Beach on NY Day!  More Rosé, crazy good saxophone player, scantily dressed women, and I think a mysterious pizza made an appearance just before we left. Only one thing lost on New Years day – besides brain cells of course – so we are improving.

Big Matt and Dianan fit right into the boat life, cranked on the lines, cooked gourmet meals on our 3 burner stove, and drove the dinghy while our captain became the worse back seat driver ever.  Some how they managed to have fun and said they are willing to come back – we sure hope so!

Lazy slow sail back to St. Maarten where we would find an anchor spot, and await the departure – not with out visiting sunset beach bar of course to watch the planes land and take off, and of course a round of Rosé for departure. 45mins to flight time a taxi was hailed and just as soon as they got here they were gone, 4 islands in 4 days. Very Very Fun times.