Stu and Dave 'surfing' in the harbour

Bloody awful is the only way to describe Bryan Habana’s showing at the weekend. His mustache I mean, though his rugby talents weren’t nearly as prominent as that rat hanging below his nose. Add the entire Aussie team in and you’ve got a full display of bad facial hair. November, as I prefer to remember it, capped an excellent year for Irish rugby, played 11, won 10, drew 1. Kel and I listened online at the weekend and then caught the highlights on iPlayer, four seconds at a time. Sadly the internet in Luperon is pretty patchy.

The end of Movember marks a significant milestone for us, our first year on the water! You may have noticed a few updates on the blog recently, some design modifications and the addition of a Google maps image of our trip here, and here. I’ve really enjoying going through our ship’s log, which my captain faithfully completes (up to the BVIs anyhow), reflecting on our progress so far, remembering friends on land and sea along the way. You can check our progress to date, which today is all the way to West Palm Beach. Soon I’ll have got us all the way to Luperon and it’ll be ‘live’ from then on.

We’re grateful for the generosity of others that’s carried us through thus far. We started out with a small, but we thought sufficient amount of money to get through the year, and very quickly realised how expensive this sailing lark can be. Friends and acquaintances have stuck their necks out along the way to help us solve problems with gaffer tape and hose clamps, or just fed us when we were low on morale.

Morale has been a little low of late. Luperon has become a fairly depressing place, and one that we and our friends are keen to get out of. Last time I wrote about the corrupt officials, which is a pain in the ass, but the truly depressing aspects of life here are much more related to sex work and alcohol. Two weeks ago I was sitting in one of the two gringo bars in town, Shaggy’s, and overheard a hideous, and yet so typical conversation. I’ll disguise the names for the sake of confidentiality:

Gregorio was talking with Jimmyorio about the recent visit of his girlfriend’s (read sex worker’s) fourteen year old nephew to Luperon. He came for the weekend, and was excited to visit Luperon as he had never been here, and also to stay on a boat. The three of them were out in a local Dominican bar restaurant where the ladies of the night, and morning and afternoon, meet clients. Gregorio’s girlfriend disappears for a few minutes and comes back with a lady for her nephew and the two of them disappear for the evening. Sentences like “I just had so much respect for her” and “ I mean, imagine if your aunt bought you a piece of ass when you were 14” were among the most notable. Auntie Jacqui did bust out a few tricks that mum doesn’t need to know about, but buying ass was not on the list.

These guys are hanging out on the edge of reality, dying to believe their allure lies anywhere but their wallets. Mum just emailed having returned from Thailand, sorry Padraig Thy-land, and it sounds like a very parallel culture. The girls in town are astute, and sadly realise that the gringos present them with a much more lucrative revenue stream than any jobs in the area. And judging by the physical condition of the average gringo, and the recommended daily alcohol consumption in Luperon, they aren’t troubled too often to maintain their half of the contribution. Quite a few gringos who’ve been in Luperon harbour for more than a season have developed considerable alcohol problems, two I’ve met have severe liver problems and are off booze altogether, its a dead end town for some people, particularly older men.

The most damaging aspect of this gringo intervention is how Dominican men view their women. The prostitution that is essentially encouraged and facilitated by society as money makes its way to the families of the women overtly or through unspoken transactions. At the same time the women are dismissed as whores. It is not uncommon for Dominican men to have multiple girlfriends simultaneously, and to make no effort to hide it, resulting in an instability in relationships that women respond to by putting their wares on display to provide for themselves. Prostitution is perhaps too strong a word for what occurs among Dominicans, but it is certainly trading ass-ets.

Of course I wouldn’t want to comment on all this sexual activity without sampling it myself! Not quite, but a funny occurrence none the less. I’ve had a couple of humorous mix ups with my friend Moreno who works at the factory, one of which occurred recently and was reminded of as we went out to dinner with Yasmin and her family in Las Maras, a few miles outside of Luperon. Moreno and I communicate in pigeon Spanish often, and for a while I really felt like I was making progress. When Moreno invited me to attend his graduation ceremony for the George Washington school of English as he was being presented with a certificate I of course obliged, very happy to be included. I arrived at the prearranged time only to discover that I was actually the equivalent of a prom date for his 15 year old friend. We paraded up the street arm in arm captured on videos and cameras throughout the town, and I got on stage with Yasmin for a photo when she was presented with her certificate.

On Saturday night we were treated to dinner with Yasmin’s extended family from gran to cousins. They were fantastically hospitable, a big spread of pollo, papas fritas, huevos, kayote, berejenas, zanahoria, cerveza, jugo de chinola (check out Google Translate if you’re lost). We were totally stuffed. The whole evening proceeded in limited Spanish, Keli’s capacity being vastly superior to mine, and we took our photo album to show them some images of us from Ireland and Canada. Next year we’ll come back so that I can take Yasmin as my second wife. And sometime shortly after I predict that I will magically become a eunuch.

In a bid to lift the mood in Luperon Dave and I got the surfboard out a few days ago and tried some watersurfing, or is it surfskiing off the back of the dinghy. We had a laugh cruising round the anchorage and waking the boats nearby. It was great to get physical again in the water. I’m sure I’ve mentioned that that water is full of 18,000 people’s excrement on outgoing tides, and just to confirm that there are indeed fertile organisms in there I had a headache for three days and felt like my sinus’ were exploding. Some good bugs got flushed up there when I wiped out. We’ll get out there again though, it made me pine for clear waters again.

Today we celebrated Karmen’s birthday! First mate, cook and Captain Fun on Ellida, Karmen’s been an excellent friend to us since we first met in Georgetown, and pancake breakfast was a good way to usher in the day. Ellida are probably heading out of Luperon a little ahead of us, but we’re really excited about catching them further down the chain. We may indeed coordinate a passage to Hawaii at some stage. It’s not written in to Plan A yet, but in sailing we learn that an alphabet of plans can be overwritten with the slightest change in circumstance.

Dave and Danielle have been performing some heroic feats aboard Beannacht of late. Danielle and Keli have spent many hours in front of the sewing machine working on our dinghy cover and some dresses for Kel. Dave and I checked the alignment of our engine and transmission, and adjusted our PSS drip-less shaft seal. They’re also headed for St Maarten, hopefully ahead of us, and we’re excited about hanging out with them in future.

Muma - the town goat.

So this week we’re changing gear. It’s 25 days till Keli’s birthday, 26 till Christmas, and we’re injecting some urgency into our game. We’ve made some real improvements to the boat while in Luperon, not least by the efforts of Dennis and Pat during their visit, but it’s time to finish the projects that are open and postpone the rest for the New Year. I’ve a little more work to do for Lucas at the factory, but ideally we’ll leave Luperon before Christmas and make our way to St Maarten.

And that’s about it for now.

It felt like survival out there. Leaving Luperon was really hard. In our last few days there Gaia and Sarabande had arrived in the anchorage, and for a few days the 8 of us, including Tom and Karmen, hung out loads and swapped tales of our various trips since we were together in Turks and Caicos. Doubt about the way forward has been gathering in Kel and my minds since we arrived in Luperon as we worked out how little funds we have left and kicked around ideas for work in the next few months.

To top that off we met Luc and Andresa. Luc is a French catamaran builder who arrived in Luperon 14 years ago on a trimaran he built himself in Brazil. Sadly Andresa moved to France with their two daughters during our first week here, but we would love to spend a season relaxing with Luc.

Suffice to say leaving Luperon was a hard decision, and I think we only actually left because we’re meeting mum and dad in Tobago at the end of June.

Pulling out of the anchorage at 6pm on Monday we both felt there were some ominous signs. Chris Parker, our weather over SSB radio guy, had been struck by lightning on Saturday night and was out of action until Wednesday, so we’d only a 2-day-old forecast to work with from him. Added to that Bruce Van Sant, the author of what has become our favourite sailing reference book ‘The Thornless Path to Passages South’ was out of town on Sunday morning and didn’t do his usual forecast.

It was hard to decide whether it was only the sad feelings about leaving friends, but after the first hour or so both of us were in low spirits and weren’t enjoying the conditions. The winds were scheduled to be 7-13 knots, with 3 to 5 foot seas but already the winds were significantly higher and with an easterly swell to motor into we were only making 5 knots or so.

Aside from making slow speed the first night went as expected. Hugging the Dominican coastline we gained some protection from the night lee and at noon on Tuesday we were pulling into a sheltered anchorage at the eastern tip of the north side of the island where we jumped in for a quick wash and made some food for that evening’s passage. And that’s when things started to break down a little.

When I went forward to drop the anchor I realised that the pin that locks the anchor to the deck fitting had been bent by the force of waves crashing over the bow. I deployed our secondary anchor and then got working on removing the pin. I lashed the anchor to the deck with rope and thought nothing more of it. At about 5pm I was down below making dinner and Kel was at the helm just rounding the cape before we headed south down the eastern coast and crossed the Mona Passage. Kel shouted for me and as I ran up on deck I realised that she’d heard the anchor break lose and that we were in the process of losing 300 ft of chain and a very expensive 45lb anchor in the middle of the ocean.

Fortunately the chain jammed in the locker door about 200ft out and with some quick thinking and two pairs of bruised hands we managed to get a halyard onto it to prevent any more from heading over the edge. We were both amazed by how heavy the anchor and chain were in rough seas, the load increasing dramatically as the bow oscillated with each wave. It was obvious we were not going to pull this in by hand and would need to setup a winching system.

Thinking on the fly we rigged a system where we could tie a line onto the chain at the bow roller, lead it though a block on the toe rail at the shrouds to our largest cockpit winch. With one of us winching and the other tailing we could bring in about 20 feet of chain at a time. It took us over an hour to get the anchor back above the water and on deck. Shattered and emotionally downtrodden we decided we would continue down the coastline in the night lee before heading out to see at first light on Wednesday morning, at this stage we’d motorsailed for over 24 hours and only made about 100 miles.

The winds helped us out through the night and we both felt fairly good about the Mona, a difficult passage that causes problems for boats of all sizes in the wrong conditions. But when we tacked north east to head out to sea the winds died and we realised that we weren’t going to manage to sail across and thus would eat into our limited fuel much earlier in the journey.

It has to be said at this point that my maths really isn’t as strong as I think it is. We’d bought additional diesel cans in DR increasing our capacity to 55 gallons, and knew that our engine uses about a gallon an hour, thus we could motor for 55 hours. Our normal motoring speed is about 6.5 knots, and so we had a tank range of about 360 miles, which for a passage of 370 miles seemed fine. What we hadn’t considered was that (a) our boat speed would be much closer to 4 knots, and (b) whilst the journey was 370 miles in a straight line, the conditions would require us to tack back and forth along the coastline, increasing our distance travelled.

We stopped the engine for 10 minutes at 9am on Wednesday to review the charts and discuss our options. With only 35 gallons of fuel onboard and making about 4 knots we could motor for 140 miles in a straight line, certainly enough to cross the 70 mile Mona, but nowhere near enough to make it to the BVIs, and our intended landfall of Tortola. The sea conditions were perfect for the passage though, and if we turned back to refuel could we guarantee that we would be able to cross tomorrow? We couldn’t, and so opted to press on and decided that should the wind fail to kick in we would contact the US Coastguard and request permission to take on fuel at the other side. By tea time that night we’d made about 70 miles to the north east, and were more than halfway across the Mona.

Through the night we tacked again and were really fighting to sail at any angle with an easterly component, in the early stages only managing about 170º, although during the day this improved to about 140º. At 11am, about 15 miles off the Puerto Rican coast we radioed the Coastguard and requested permission to motor to San Juan for fuel. Thankfully they were sympathetic and we switched on the engine and motored along the coastline the remaining 65 miles.

Again we made much less progress than expected, at despite a projected arrival of 8pm we pulled up to San Juan Bay Marina at 11pm to be met by two US Customs and Border officials.

 

(heading out to sea for St Thomas, but I’ll finish this tomorrow.)

Tuesday 7th April

On Sunday we met our first bugs of the trip, and neither of us slept all night. We pulled into Sumner Point Marina in Rum Cay in the afternoon because our battery bank has been giving us some gip. Over time our battery capacity diminishes because our alternator can’t keep up with the charge that we use without running the engine for several hours a day. The alternator output seems to drop from 55 amps to about 30, and in the last week it’s actually been more like 20. I’ll save you from the electrical boredom, but essentially due to persistent undercharging (thank Nigel Caulder for great terminology) our plates in the batteries are currently coated with lead sulphate, reducing their storage capacity. We’ve put the changer on a conditioning cycle and hopefully we’ll be back to full power before we leave tomorrow.

 

So back to the bugs… we pulled into the marina and were joined by Lynne and Brian from Three Sheets for a snorkelling trip out on the reef. We first met Lynne and Brian in Normans Cay when they were travelling with other friends, and we met up with them again in Georgetown. The guys marvelled at our great spot in the marina and the facilities such as wifi and the nice bar so we invited them back for dinner later in the afternoon after some snorkelling and spear fishing. When we got back to the boat at 5.30pm it was a cloud of no-see-ums (midges in Ireland) and a few mosquitoes as well. We lathered up in insect repellent, courtesy of Lynne and Brian, and got the fish on the stove.

 

Said fish was a matter of personal pride, our first Nassau Grouper which Kel and I tag teamed to spear on the reef just outside Rum Cay. Grouper are very curious fish and really fixate on you if you come to look at them when snorkelling. Kel dove down to investigate one, deciding on whether it was suitable for dinner or not, and in a bid to get more protection he swam back to the other entrance of his cave still paying attention to Kel while I popped him onto the end of our spear. Beautiful. If you’re interested we soaked the fillets in lemon juice for 30 minutes, dipped them in milk and then flour and fried them in butter for 4 minutes each. Then popped them into a buttered tinfoil bag and baked for another 10. Moist and tasty.

 

So back on the boat one of Kel’s amazing boat salads, some fresh baked bread – our current favourite recipe was provided by Natalie on P’tit Louis – and Nassau Grouper, all washed down with some rum and coke and good conversations. The bugs however did not respect our repellent and sat down for a feast of their own. At bedtime there were still millions of them swarming around the boat, and the rest of the night was punctuated with Keli whacking the ceiling, door, wall, and herself as they nibbled at our desirable selves. Brutal. Last night was thankfully better as the wind had picked up a little and we rigged a few primitive mosquito screens to keep at least some of them out.

 

We left Georgetown on Tuesday having had a great night with Mike and Ann on Mojo, and Bonnie and Morgan on Bacchagato. Mojo was the first Irish boat we’ve seen so far and I made a beeline for them to enquire about the rugby on our first day in Georgetown. I had a quick chat with Mike from my dinghy when Ann popped her head out the companionway saying ‘is that a northern Irish voice I hear?’ Turns out they lived on the Woodstock Road years back, a few streets away from Kel and I in Irwin Ave. We spent a couple of nights with them for sundowners and really enjoyed them, nothing like some sarcasm and cutting humour once in a while.

 

Tourism is a very substantial part of Bahaman industry and the cruising community in Georgetown, most of whom stay here for six months at a time, are entertained every day of the week should they wish to be. Texas Holdem tournaments, bridge, art class, beach volleyball, recipe swaps (to which Kel threatened to send me to charm the ladies), you name it. Kel and I, and Mojo and Bacchagato, have tended to keep away from these organised activities preferring a less disciplined social calendar, so having passed on the cruisers trip to Rake and Scrape the week before we thought we’d missed our chance. To go with Mike, Ann, Bonnie and Morgan was a real treat.

 

Travelling by dinghy requires a different way of thinking about both your destination and the conditions. In Georgetown it was blowing like stink for most of the time we were there, so every trip involved a change of clothes, a cloth to wipe the boat down, taking t-shirts off or hitching dresses up. In the end most of the time you get wet no matter what you try. At sunset the six of us got into two boats with our wet weather preparations complete, and motored a couple of miles up the coast to the beach outside Porgy’s bar.

 

Rake and Scrape is traditional Bahamian music that gets its name from the inclusion of a musician playing a saw blade with a knife. Very rhythmic, buoyant melodies and some great bass lines. The band set up in the bar, which is of course really a hut on the beach, and we got down to some dancing – even little old self-conscious on the dance floor me. It was 1am before we new it and tired, sweaty, fed and watered we jumped back into the boats for a customary race home.

 

After Georgetown we’ve hopped to Rum Cay via Long Island and Conception Island, another Land and Sea Park territory about 46 miles northeast of Georgetown. It seemed like a fine place to try for our first child. Skipping that, we got in the water at the northern end of West Cay we settled for a snorkel in 5-8 feet of water through a coral field with large heads interspersed with sandy channels. Not long after we got in we spotted a shark swimming between the coral about 15 meters away, just at the range of our vision in the water. We stuck close together and kept going until the point when we noticed two sharks swimming in opposite directions less than 10 meters away and between us and the beach. At that point we decided it was definitely feeding time and we removed ourselves from the menu.

 

We’ve seen loads of sharks at Rum Cay as well, with some Nurse and Bull Sharks coming into the marina at about 4.30pm every evening to feed on scraps from the fish cleaning tables. I fed the lads some grouper guts on Sunday evening, although my loyalties were divided between the sharks and the two cats rubbing against my legs and purring loudly!

 

Today a cold front is moving through the Bahamas bringing with it a change in the winds from the constant trade winds that blow between northeast and southeast all year round. At 2pm this afternoon we are going to start a 200 mile hop to Provo in the Turks and Caicos catching the north-westerly winds of the front all the way there. The trip should take 36 hours or so and then we’re in a whole new country.

Monday 23^rd March

We arrived in Georgetown on Great Exuma Island on Friday, planned to coincide with a period of stronger weather that we wanted to take shelter from, and of course the need for internet to watch the Ireland vs Wales match on Saturday. Georgetown marks the most southerly destination for many US and Canadian boats that spend their winters cruising, and we’d been warned that cruisers are herded like sheep with a tinge of military precision – perhaps related to the fact that so many Americans cruising are ex-military.

We navigated through the masts searching for a good place to drop the anchor and then I headed to shore in search of internet and a new inverter to replace our West Marine one that died for the second time. I found an amazing little wifi shack called J&K Productions that provides wifi for $5 a day or $15 a week – instead of the $10 a day we’re used to paying – and got connected to read the pre-match stories and check the bandwidth for iPlayer. With the main mission accomplished I collected Kel from the boat for a quick walk on the beach nearby and a beer in the tiki bar.

Since we last posted we’ve travelled from Norman’s Cay through some amazing anchorages and mooring fields – Shroud Cay, Warderick Wells, Cambridge Cay, Samson Cay, Staniel Cay, Black Point and Lee Stocking Island.

Warderick Wells was a particular highlight; it’s one of the main islands that make up the Exuma Cays Land a Sea Park, a protected area of 176 square miles where fishing and shell collecting are prohibited.

The mooring field at the north end of Warderick Wells is postcard perfect, although our little camera won’t do it justice. A crescent shaped bay sounded by islands on all sides, with a narrow deep channel no more than 10 metres wide arcing from the north inlet down to the southern end. The water colour was such a deep turquoise and the contrast of the drying sand bar at low tide was stunning. We walked some of the trails on the island and on one longer walk Kel met the island local mammal population – the Hutia. Hutia are like overgrown gerbils, a cross between a guinea pig and a rabbit, and as long as there’s even one palm leaf between you and the Hutia they’re content to watch you and sniff the air as if you can’t see them at all.

     

The park also provides dinghy mornings beside many of the best snorkelling spots so that you can visit them without damaging the seabed with your anchor. We spent a couple of hours every day diving on the various reefs and caves. At Cambridge Cay, ten miles south of Warderick, we swam into two caves on Rocky Dundas that were full of stalagmites and stalactites.

Harrington pulled off one of her amazing ‘tell little lies to get myself into more trouble experiments’ in Warderick which was very funny. We had stayed the night previously in Shroud Cay on a mooring ball and not visited the island to pay our $15 mooring fee into the honesty box – my fault I admit. On arrival at Warderick Kel went ashore to pay for our mooring there at the park office and had the following interaction with the office manager who is an amazing helpful woman:

OM “you were at Shroud last night”

K: “yes”

OM: “on a mooring”

K: “no at anchor” (beginning to turn pink)

OM: “oh, cause the warden knocked your hull and he was pretty sure you were on a mooring, did you anchor in the mooring field?”

K: “yea….we were close to the mooring field”

Kel came back to the boat totally embarrassed and relayed her story. Naturally I laughed hysterically, as I am doing now, and then asked her why she didn’t just say yes we owe you $15 for that. I went back to the office the next day and confessed that it was my fault that we hadn’t visited the honesty box and that Kel was trying to keep me out of trouble. By the end of our stay Kel had plucked up the courage to go back to the office to look a their book collection and buy another reference book for tropical fish and reef life – all was forgiven.

We’ve had some maintenance and repair issues on the boat in the last couple of weeks, and one of the reasons we came quickly to Georgetown from Samson Cay was to attempt a repair on our roller furling which gave up the ghost en route to Samson. The furler allows us to keep our head sail up all the time and just roll it in and out as and when we need it. Without it we have to drop the sail entirely and store it down below. It also makes sail adjustments a two person process, which isn’t great for longer passages. We had been struggling to furl in our sail at Shroud Cay and realised that the problem was the long aluminium extrusion that runs the length of the forestay and which the sail is fed into had cracked about 3 feet up from the drum at the bottom.

We knew that it wasn’t in great shape as it’s as old as the boat, but we certainly weren’t expecting it to expire in the first two months of cruising. The Bahamas has an import duty of 40% on all items so we’re going to attempt a repair to limp to somewhere like the Dominican Republic before ordering a new furler. They cost over two grand as it is without adding the import duty and shipping – we could be penniless pirates before June at this rate, something that’s provided it’s fair share of anxiety in the last week or two.

In another more straightforward fix I got our sail repair kit out in Samson to redo some fraying stitching in our mainsail. It takes about an hour per foot of stitching, which feels like an eternity, but once done the main is good as new (or good as a 23 year old sail) and I was feeling quite proud of myself.

Samson and Staniel Cays provided a few days of good entertainment. Firstly we took our dinghy to shore on Big Majors Spot to meet a herd of wild pigs that live on the island. They’re clearly smart hogs because on our first attempt, arriving with no food in hand, only one showed up and spent less than 3 minutes with us before deciding we weren’t worth her time. She trotted back up the beach and lay down in the sunshine. Better prepared we thought, we returned the next day with some scraps to feed the lads. A full compliment of pigs this time, but again our food offerings were apparently below their normal. They stayed and chatted for a couple of minutes, but before long went back to their sleeping positions in the shade of trees. It was still amazing to meet them and watch them interact with each other.

 

Just off Staniel Cay is Thunderball Grotto, named after the James Bond film that it featured in. Thunderball is a tiny island that’s been carved by the sea into a main cave with a large domed roof that the sun pours through to illuminate seabed and fish inside. At high tide the entrances to the cave are submerged, but once inside you can surface to get air and snorkel down a number of rocky channels that are filled with fish. Again it’s a no-take area for fishing, much like Exuma Park, and the increased number and variety of fish life is noticeable.

On land by Thunderball Grotto we walked on Staniel Cay to dump some trash – I have to say I’m depressed at how much waste we produce in as little as two weeks on the boat – and take a walk round the island. Staniel is small, but it does have three grocery stores and we took a walk to two of them to check out their supplies. Miss Flo runs the Pink Pearl Supermarket and we had a very funny interaction with this energetic lady in her 70s who could sell snow to Eskimos. We collected two bottles of (very expensive) Guinness for Paddy’s Day the following day and some conch and fruit for the boat. After we left the shop Kel remembered that we wanted to go the ice cream shop on the island and so I ran back to get directions from Miss Flo.

I walked into the store and posed the question, to which her response was “There’s the ice cream shop right there”, pointing to her freezer. I laughed and said “no, but there is an actual ice cream shop on the island isn’t there?” to which she replied “yes, there’s the ice cream shop right there” again pointing to her freezer. She finally conceded that there was another ice cream shop on the island but told me it was about a mile away near the airport. I thanked her and Kel and I walked round the corner, only to discover the ice cream shop three doors up. Very funny.

We celebrated St Paddy’s Day in style with some new found cruising friends from Canada, Australia and the States, no Irish to be found at Samson I’m afraid. Nathan and Tayanne have been on a similar route to us since Nassau and anchored beside us in Samson along with Ben who is single-handing his boat. On the way back from the shops on Staniel we’d also met Alan, Tony and Doonya who were anchored just off Big Major’s by the pigs. The guys joined us in the afternoon for poopoos – a Canadian expression for pre-dinner snacks like cheese and crackers – and drinks and we finished off the evening with some Bushmills and a nice Cohiba cigar.

So back to Georgetown, and rugby. We tucked ourselves into the web café to catch some of the France Italy game and check the bandwidth for the connection. Thankfully it was really good and we headed out for some lunch and a walk before we came back for the Ireland match. The nerves were phenomenal and we sat huddled by our laptop with our headphones on to catch the commentary. What a match, and what  lucky sod Paddy Wallace is! We were so sad not to be in Holywood with the folks or down in Lisbellaw to be shouting at the tele – we were there in spirit!

Due to weather, and our broken furler, we’re in Georgetown for the next few days. And then on to the outer islands, the Turks and Caicos, and then towards Dominican Republic. I’ll get some more blogging done this week tho before we leave.

Beannacht being lowered back into the water

We’re back in the water! Alan dropped us in again on Friday morning, and after a few tense moments watching water slosh around the bilge wondering if we were still leaking, we confirmed that the keel repair had worked and could concentrate on other things. The water was a hangover from installing a new fresh water filter in the galley, rather than the creek making its way into the boat. It’s fantastic to be floating again, but a sharp reminder of the extensive list of things still to do before we can set sail. We’ve worked on boat projects on a daily basis, but while the boat was sitting on the hard it wasn’t our fault that we hadn’t left yet. Now the yard is finished it’s entirely up to us.

So we’ve pared down the to-do list to essentials only for now, and yesterday got busy. Our shipment will arrive from Canada on Wednesday and brings with it both the means to get things done, like our sewing machine, and also things to get done, like install our SSB radio. Again our task list in prioritised, but we definitely can’t leave without a working engine, installing our anchor windlass (winch), lee cloths (that keep us in bed while we’re in the ocean), jack lines (that keep us attached to the boat should things get rough), and some refinements to our storage onboard to accommodate the 11 boxes arriving from Vancouver.

Our engine still isn’t working which is depressing, the amazing powers of Stu the mechanic have been exposed as the amazing overconfidence of Stu the bullshitter – which of course is nothing new. Having just tightened the last bolt on the injection pump I discovered a spring that fell out of the governor while I was replacing the o ring seals that had expired. I bled the fuel system and tried to start it just in a vein attempt to overcome physics by willpower, but no luck. All will be disassembled again tomorrow and I’ll take a trip to Coastal Diesel for the missing part.

Keli has been reading loads on Bahamas and bought some navigational charts and guidebooks this week. They’ve been arriving everyday, which feels like a special treat. Whilst our time in the states has been unexpectedly fulfilling, we’re both compelled to be in the Bahamas by Jan 29^th, and really excited about making our first passage too. It will feel real when we get there I think.

Yesterday we spent the day fitting our newly tuned sails. Mark Weinheimer a local sailmaker modified them to make them more suitable for offshore use and strengthened a few weak spots. Seeing them up on the rig was satisfying and we were delighted to have Mark Lucas, Sailcraft’s rigger and our newfound friend for a day’s free labour. Unfortunately our lack of engine prevented a test sail in the bay, but that will come early this week.

Another Oriental friend Stephanie is heading back to Chicago this week to finish her Phd in Archaelogy and asked to interview us as a potential adoptive parents for one of her cats. Radiator has been in her herd for over a year, but still hasn’t made peace with the alpha female and needs to be re-housed. We agreed to take him on a quick seatrail to see if the sea, or more specifically the confines of a small boat, might suit him.

On Thursday evening Steph and Mark came over for dinner and Radiator stayed on until the morning as a quick test. At least he stayed onboard until sometime in the middle of the night before he broke out of the boat and made a bid for freedom. Kel and I woke up thinking that he was in a zen-like state, only to discover that he wasn’t there at all! Panic ensued, but a couple of hours searching in the neighbourhood drew a blank.

Last night as we were heading to the loo for the last time Keli spotted him in the carpark. I ran to the boat for a can of tuna and Kel worked her feline ways getting him to come to her, I think she understands cats better than she understands me sometimes. She carried him back onto the boat, got the tuna and water on the go, and we spent the night with him sleeping in our bed. He had been hiding in the boat yard for two days and although the thought of returning to the secne his captivity probably wasn’t in his five day plan we were the best thing going. Steph came to collect him this morning and promptly removed him from the adoption programme.

Radiator on Steph's lap in the boat

We’ve spent time this week watching the weather systems down the coast to get a sense of what we can expect for our journey south. In November, the first safe month to sail after hurricane season, you can sail directly to the Bahamas in one go as you have slower moving pressure systems that sustain the necessary Northerly winds. At the minute the longest window we’ve seen is 2 days, and most are less than 36 hours. What that means is that we’ll leave from Oriental with a view to getting as far south as we can before the wind shifts, and then pull into a port to wait for the next window. While we’re waiting we can explore the local areas and keep working on the boat.

Anyhow, off to breakfast with Steph and Mark, will get back online later in the week as our departure plans take shape…

Our destination today is Riverside, California, where our fine friends Andrea and Hardy live. We’re both really looking forward to our annual catch up with them, and our first introduction to their one year old son Mahlon.

Yesterday we ‘did’ San Fran. Well Keli did anyhow. I chose to ‘do’ dirt biking with Dowdsy instead. Awesome balls! Mark & Claire have just moved down from Toronto and in a bid to assimilate with the natives Mark bought motocross bikes for his son Shaughn and himself. 4 hours of racetracks and trail riding. Fabulous. We grabbed dinner with them later in the evening which was lovely. I think I looked pretty good on the old bike:

A modest attempt at cornering on the track

This morning we woke up to pure luxury. Hardy’s parents, Tom and Caroline, live in downtown SF and have a beach house on Muir Beach, just 20 mins outside of the city. We met them at 5pm and had a wonderful chat over pizza and wine, listening to their stories of living in Central America and the Caribbean, and giving them the scoop on the boat. We were both really struck by their life experience, fascinating people and really hospitable. It was lovely to meet them after hearing about them for so long.

The beach house

The house is a wonderful, simple construction of wood and glass, with a large deck. Every window had a great view of the beach. The sea or the hills. A mother and two young deer sat all morning in the back garden watching us potter around making breakfast and drinking coffee. We’re stayed on their Paris apartment twice before and they have such a knack for creating simple, liveable, inviting spaces. We envy and really hope to emulated their ability to pick special homes and then open them up to people. If we find a little hideaway in Columbia or Nicaragua we may just attempt a similar feat. Kel has just told me that it must have a place for a hammock in the shade, I think we can probably work that out. If we’re stuck we can always grab a hotel somewhere like here: houston cheap hotels.

This rights many wrongs, well this and coffee.

After falling out on the way home from the Dowdses, a small matter of me failing to follow Keli’s instructions on the freeway and then taking her admonishment thickly, we made up over a coffee – even managing a game of chess without killing each other which is almost unheard of! It’s difficult to remain grumpy in such a zen like location, perhaps Maginness and Robinson need an all expenses paid trip to Muir beach- there’s even a nudist beach just below the house they could hang out on, so to speak.

Andrea and Hardy have become a continual source of amazing holiday destinations to us. I first met Andrea, pre Kel and Hardy, after failing in an attempt to chat up a hot lady at a Coldplay gig in New York. Having walked her (hot girl) back to her car and returned without so much as a peck on the cheek to a mile long queue for the bus home I didn’t fancy being delayed. I quietly slid in to the front of the queue attempting to arouse no suspicion and was greeted by a feisty Italian American who asked ‘excuse me, who are you?’ to which I of course replied ‘don’t worry, I’m just a queue jumper’. By the time our journey finished we had a date at her local Jesuit mass on Sunday, which became my NY church. That one little social infraction (i like to view it as charming and cheeky, almost Russell Brand esk?) gave birth to an amazing friendship that has opened Kel and I to great holidays in New York, Palermo, Paris, California and now a divine night in a beach house in San Fran.

It’s a funny, and in some ways lucky or coincidental happening, that has given birth to an amazing friendship. But I also think it’s the fruit of living hospitably and making conscious decisions to pursue opportunities as they arise. You make your own luck on these ones. Andrea and Hardy are already planning return visits to Columbia and Barbados which is really exciting, and we’re really hoping that Tom and Caroline make a trip out as well.

Today was also a really big sailing day as we viewed the Beneteau for the first time. As I mentioned earlier this week there are four options on the go, one of which was in San Fran. It was our first time on this type of boat, and we both had bucket loads of hopes and fears. Whatever we buy will be our home for the next 3-6 years, and despite all our research and rational thought, the right boat has to ‘feel’ right. What fun.

The boat in Alameda

It felt right. Spacious living, good deck layout. A well-loved boat waiting for new carers. This particular one has only had one owner, and has been on SF it’s whole life. We spent an hour working our way through a checklist, and in the end are both convinced that it’s the right model. We’re probably going to make our first offer on the boat in Rhode Island, it’s cheaper to start with and has a lot more kit, but this boat is a perfect backup which is great. I’ll phone our broker tomorrow to begin the bidding process.

On that note, somebody please tell me what’s to become of the stock markets and the global economy in general?! (204 miles to L.A. apparently) I’ve been watching the money markets, stock markets and housing news non-stop since we arrived in Canada as we’re going to have to convert pounds to dollars to buy the boat. In July the exchange rate was about 2:1, whereas today it’s down to about 1.75 USD to the pound- ouch! Thankfully we managed to sell our house, unlike so many of our friends, but I’m continually amazed at the extent of the crisis, and the complete failure of the free market to self regulate. Feels like a good time to be away actually, and definitely a time to learn some lessons about living more cheaply, or at least within our means- something we never managed in Ireland.

So, my turn to drive- does this road last forever or what? We’ll have driven 3000 miles by the time we get back to Vancouver- that’s about the distance of our longest ocean crossing, from Galapagos to French Polynesia. In a boat that takes a month mind you, I’ll write a book during that one!

One little story that I thought worth a mention happened in the doctors surgery, where we took Gran for a quick check-up on Thursday. Gran is fairly deaf and so conversations happen a volume that lacks subtlety. Returning from her consultation she waited with me while Keli booked her next appointment. We were chatting away when she leaned in to my ear and whispered, at something like 60 decibels, ‘have that man’s trousers split dear? It looks like his crotch is bursting out, perhaps the stitching has gone?’ The man was sitting directly opposite us, probably 8 feet away and of course heard every word. I maintained my compusure and avoided eye contact. I said to Gran, at a more modest volume, that I wasn’t aware whether his trousers had split, to which she replied (again at 60 dbs) ‘well take a look then and find out for me’. At which point Keli returned and we made a swift exit. We laughed a lot when we got home!

We got down tonight and headed out to the ballet – a production called ’9 Sinatra Songs’ by Ballet BC. I’m not exactly fluent in ballet, but I’m learning slowly. Kel had a great night and really enjoyed seeing the company again – she used to have season tickets.

Now we’re heading off again, this time on a road trip to San Francisco to view a yacht, and then to our awesome friends Andrea and Hardy in Riverside. We’re hooking up with Mark and Claire Dowds on the way through SF and I’m going dirt biking with Mark and Shaughan which will be amazing! Then on the way home we’re stopping in Seattle with Michelle Ford and our friends Marge and Bob Liston.

So, off to start packing for a 5am departure from Vancouver, but just wanted to touch base with our whereabouts. The boat we’re looking at is one of four in our shortlist, and I’d say it’s probably no.2 at present, but no.1 is in Rhode Island – a long way away. It amazes me that we will be driving for 17 hours tomorrow and still be another 7 away from Andrea and Hardy!

Check out the boats here if you’d like, if I new how I’d start a poll!

No.1
No.2 – which we’re going to see on Monday.
No.3
No.4

Will get another proper post up as we travel, and we’ll bring the camera so we can capture some shots of me killing myself on a scrambler!

It started with a conversation over lunch a couple of weeks back with Monique and Ferdinand, friends of Keli. As part of my continuing attempts to understand the strange Canadians I bump into everyday I thought I would tackle the subject of hunting. I mean hunting? Canadians are nice to the point of extinction, probably the most inoffensive nation on earth? But over lunch I discovered that Monique’s family are hunters, and that both her and Ferdinand use their own guns to hunt deer, elk and moose during the fall. This I had to see.

We arrive at the Klein’s workshop to find Mrs Klein, aged 73, chiselling Elk blood and flesh off the table of an industrial bandsaw that could have cut a Mini Metro in two straight down the middle. Dressed in a 1950s pink blouse and trouser combo. Hair curled and set to perfection. Green sparkling eye shadow, dark eye-liner extending to the side, blusher on her cheeks.  She takes one look at Keli and grabs her in a big hug, chisel in one hand, bleach rag in the other.

Pelts hang all around the workshop, some killed by the Klein’s and others by customers waiting for Mr Klein to turn them into a fur coat or a handbag. Mr Klein explodes through the door, a giant of a man with hands like shovels and a belly built with meat he stalked, killed, butchered himself. A man of a previous age, with a touch of a bully or slave driver in him. Thoroughly Austrian, with a think accent, he bellowed at Mrs Klein and slapped me around the workshop encouraging me to laugh at his jokes. They were both wonderful.

We spent an hour with them, and after a few minutes talking in the workshop Monique led us upstairs to the trophy room where Mr Klein hangs his personal collection of heads and full bodies, and where he sells pelts and stuffed animals to the public. I was amazed. All four walls of the room were lined with mounted heads. The old pool table was buried in layers of bear, wolf, coyote, elk, and deer pelts. A stuffed cat in a basket sat on a sofa, awaiting collection by a loving owner who couldn’t let go. One wall section held the results of Africa on a hunting trip in the 70s: hippo, zebra, antelope heads, and a chess table held up by an elephant foot. The elephant had died of natural causes, and Mr Klein had purchased the foot.

Bears are only considered a problem in Canada when they’ve learned how to enter your house and open your fridge to get at the goodies. Until then they’re easy to live alongside. A bear on your sofa, drinking a warm beer and watching a movie is cool. If the beer is cool however, the bear is not. Mr Klein conversed passionately about Parks and Wildlife in BC, who kill the offending bears to protect the population, but then just dump the carcass in landfill. These were people who have survived a war, and understood what is was to live on very little. Meat is precious, and meat killed, butchered, and cooked by your own hand is optimum.

I love Canada. I’m so at home in its wild terrain and expansive landscapes. The seasons here are so potent, from long warm Okanagan summers to cold crisp Whistler winters. As I listened to the Kleins talk about how they used every part of the animals, and that they had 6 chest freezers full of meat that they had butchered themselves I got so excited about hunting and the prospect of sustaining myself without relying on Tescos.

Hunting for sport without an appreciation or need for the meat, or hunting species that are endangered, I have a problem with. But spending a long weekend tracking moose in northern BC. Learning about the habits of the animal, learning how to kill the animal with minimal suffering, carrying the carcass out to your truck with your own hands. It’s the disconnection from the reality of meat eating that I find offensive, not the reality of killing animals.

We headed up to Monique and Ferdinand’s for a long evening of wine, laughter and beautiful moose steaks. I felt so privileged to have met the Kleins and be welcomed into their very special home. One more step along the journey of my Canadian education, and other lesson on sustainable living that convinces me that turning our attention to growing our own food, and reconnecting with the reality of a diet that includes meat is essential if we plan to continue living on this planet for more than a decade or two more.

Next time it’s fitness and exercise, that thought is coming together. I’m gutted I didn’t have a camera to show you some of the incredible sights in the trophy room. I’m hatching a plan to return for a visit and take some shots of me wrestling grizzly bears!

Patti picked us up on arrival and gave us the run-down to the place in the car on the way back. It went pretty much like “you have your own room and plenty of space, so just do what you want. We can eat together, or you can eat on your own, just do what you like. We have bicycles and a truck that you can use, just do what you like…” Wonderfully hospitable and really relaxed, we were grateful for a couple of days of down time. It’s funny actually how busy life can feel even when we don’t have jobs or other significant commitments. I feel like it has taken me a month just to wind down from the process of leaving.

We unpacked our bags, put on our shorts and jumped straight onto the bikes for a cycle down into Cow Bay. Patti explained it was a 15 minute cycle – easy. It took 45 and we arrived in the Bay ready for some lunch, a beer and some ice cream. That dealt with we took a walk through the shops by the water and had a peek boats in the marina. The Valley is experiencing a renaissance after decades of extreme poverty following the collapse of the timber trade. Patti and Mike’s farm is 100 years old – very unique for the West Coast of Canada – and was derelict when they found it 15 years ago because the valley economy was so depleted. Today there is a thriving community of small independent agriculture,  organic horticulture, vineyards, and some amazing restaurants, pubs and stores that specialise in selling the produce grown locally. We had a few different bottles of wine during the three days, all produced within 15 miles of the farm, and we were really impressed with the quality and variety.

After a gruelling cycle back to the farm, Patti really must be an undercover Olympic cyclist, we jumped straight into the pool for a cool down and some fun with our new waterproof digital camera. We bought it because we fully expect most of our stuff to be soaked whilst at sea, and we didn’t want to have to worry about the camera’s health when we were capturing some amazing sea creatures or “here’s us in the middle of a hurricane” photos. You can see the results in our photo gallery, but I thought a couple for show wouldn’t be excessive!

Over dinner at the farm Patti talked about the history of the area and how she came to find the place and it fed Keli and my imagination about the possibility of owning a small property somewhere in the world where we could grow our own food and raise some animals for eating. We’ve talked forever about sustainability and becoming more self-sufficient, and whilst Patti’s farm is our of our league, it reminded us how good we feel when we are in these environments, a similar feeling to visiting Bryonie and Craig on their land in Leitrim. We’ll have our eyes peeled as we sail in Central America!

There are 7 aboriginal tribes in the immediate area and so many of the town names and much of the art is derived from and connected to the First Nations. Patti has this fantastic sculpture by her pool carved by a friend who is a First Nations chainsaw carver by her pool. On Thursday morning we got a walking tour of the farm and met the Supremes, two of Patti`s free range chickens. We met the horses, Star and Remington, and the feral farm cats. And Babz, Patti`s dog, proved her dominance of the forest as we walked the trail around the perimeter.

Patti recently completed a Conflict Analysis Masters at Royal Roads Uni in Victoria and we had loads of conversations about her work in Canada and what Keli in particular had been doing in Ireland. It was great to be able to share experiences with her. Keli had looked at their Human Security and Peacebuilding Masters programme as a possible next step after sailing and so in the afternoon we took the car and headed up to the campus for a look round and a quick chat with their admissions staff. It was good to put a face to their course material, and to look around the campus and get a sense of the place.  We may just get back here at some stage in the future.

On Thursday evening we headed out to a restaurant for our final meal on the Island, before jumping on the bus home mid morning on Friday. It felt like a very long two days which was great. Both Kel and I got some reading and thinking done, drank some great coffee, and breathed in some country air. We’re meeting our yacht broker on Wednesday and so this week the boat buying part of the adventure should pick up some steam. Will keep you posted.

It was amazing to be on the west coast, looking out to the Pacific and watching the cruise ships sail their way up to Alaska. Such a stunning coastline. Alaska cruise deals.

A little snap of Keli, Nancy and Peter to sign off this evening. Nancy read a poem at our wedding and is Keli’s Godmother.

Keli, Nancy and Peter