On the Hakuna Matata

Dream Over - I think.

2009-08-31T08:51:00.000-07:00

The plan is and always was that at the end of August we would take Haku to Port Napoleon near Marseille and sell her. On the 24th we dutifully sailed in with a very sad crew and in particular skipper. A series of rather contemplative songs over the last hour through the bimini speakers ending with Disney's Hakuna Matata brought our long journey to an end.

Over the next few days we emptied and cleaned the boat ready for removal from the water and listed her for sale with Ancasta. We took all our belongings to Karen's in the Dordoigne and the came back to Port Napoleon for our haul out - only to find tht they couldn't lift the boat as she needs to be lifted. Nowhere else nearby can lift and store her so we now need a different solution and possibly a different place from which to sell.

So, is it back to Spain, off to Greece or Turkey? Or is the best place to sell her Fort Lauderdale via the ARC and the Caribbean?

Don't know yet, possibly Port Napoleon can solve the lifting problem perhaps we will move. In any case we can't stay here in the water as there is no space.

In the mean time we are in England gearing up for the new school term and wondering what the near future holds. Is the saga over?

Barcelona by Go Car

2009-08-17T08:28:00.000-07:00

The first time we left the Marina in Barcelona my eagle eyed son spotted what he thought was a two person go Cart and immediately wanted a go. The helmeted occupants of these New York Taxi coloured vehicles whizzed past from time to time and when one came close enough we were able to read that it was "Go Car Tours - the talking tour car" which sounded like fun. The next day we booked one of these for two hours and started exploring the streets of Barcelona. Built into the car is a GPS and speakers so it can give you relevant directions and commentary while you drive as well as cracking jokes and embarassing you by whistling at passers by.

We had a great fun afternoon and I added on an extra hour or so in order to go and get my daughter so she could try it too. We saw down-town Barcelona, the Olympic area, Guadi's Sagrada Familia - stopped to do some shopping and then took the Go-Car's rather too exciting secret short cut back to their offices through pedestrian streets, impossibly small gaps, a game of soccer and diners at a pavement cafe.

The only complaint was that the GPS lost signal in the built up streets a couple of times but it did let you know that you had gone wrong and redirected you.

As a first generation these things are great and you can imagine that with a few more features like a "take me straight home" button for when your time is running out it will be even better.

D Day and B Day

2009-07-15T15:43:00.000-07:00

I woke up very excited today because Sam our flat coated retriever was arriving from England and Jamie did too because it was her 11th Birthday.

Kim and I have been very worried about Sam coming – will he be seasick, will his claws scratch the hatches or damage the deck and most importantly will he wear his boots? Consequently the day started with me heading off to the local DIY store for vinyl flooring to cover the inside of the boat, Astroturf for Sam to pee on during long passages and clear vinyl sheets to cover the hatches. The flooring worked a treat and as it is cushioned is rather nice on our feet too. The clear vinyl works OK when covered with clear sticky back plastic to hold it around the edge of the hatches – Astroturf I haven’t managed to get yet.

Jamie’s birthday celebrations started last night with dinner at a very good Asian restaurant and continued this morning with present opening (iPod Nano + cover and iTunes voucher, box of chocolates, makeup and a gold plated leaf necklace plus of course the hoard of clothes already received from Gran and Aunts) and a rather nice Sacher Torte from Carefour as her birthday cake. I had planned to take her and Alex to a water park but with having to run errands and lay flooring I decided we would have to put that on hold for a day or two.

After a number of logistical planning phone calls (apparently the 27metre long dog trailer can’t be turned around in anything much less than the length of a football pitch) Sam’s couriers arrived. I met them at the top of the marina and jumped in the cab to show them where we were. As soon as Sam heard my voice he started woofing at me (to be fair, he does have a lot to complain about). He was obviously very pleased to see us all and also fairly hot which we dealt with by hosing him down and making a token effort to clip him with the noddy clippers we bought yesterday.

Our plan was to get him used to his “All terrain non-marking” boots and then take him for a boat ride. The boots worked surprisingly well except that he spent the first little while prancing like a dressage horse. He also seemed quite comfortable on the boat and we were able to keep him on it with the occasional “NO” if he got too near to the steps at the back and appeared to be heading for the water.

A short ride out into the bay, down with the anchor, on with the wetsuit (me) and Sam had his first swim. We have a couple of things for him to retrieve and I came in to get him confident in getting out using the ladder. Unfortunately, although he is losing weight the ladder is a bit tough and at the moment he needs a hand getting out. I think this will get easier with practice and as he loses weight. Sam enjoyed his swim and on the way back started walking confidently around watching what we were doing.

After dinner on the boat we all got in the dinghy and motored into the marina restaurant and shopping area which is quite crowded. I think Sam sees the dinghy as just another type of car and he just relaxed and lay in the bottom. He must be very tired as he completely ignored all distractions including red Indian street musicians, an animal impersonator and a fully costumed planet of the Apes character.

He is now peacefully asleep in his travel cage. Jamie had a happy birthday and Sam a happy return.

Jamie's Yellowstone Poem

2009-06-08T08:52:00.000-07:00

Fir and pine trees making forest of green,
White snow on the ground makes a Christmas dream.
Rhyolite columns way up high,
Snow still falling though summer is nigh.

Mud pools bubbling, glop, glop, glop.
Hot springs steaming, hot, hot, hot.
Geysers erupting through the light and dark.
Yellowstone, the very first National Park.

Elk, marmots, foxes and eagles in the sky.
A bison charging down the hill, nobody knows why.
Canadian geese singing their song, being really loud.
Critter jams along the road where animals stand proud.

Below the ground, pressure builds up, right to the max
Meanwhile above the surface, a Park Ranger chats.
Too much pressure, Old Faithful will now blow.
The most famous geyser in North America, you know.

Tranquillity, peace and harmony.
Excitement, joy and awe.
Serene, calm and beautifully still.
Yet the most moving place that I ever saw.

Yellowstone: Last Day

2009-06-08T00:13:00.000-07:00

Once Jamie had been awarded her badge, it was Alex’s turn to be a Young Scientist today. The observations for his task also centered around the hot spring basin at Old Faithful, so off we trotted again. While we had lunch in the fantastic Lodge, the heavens opened and dropped tonnes of white fluffy stuff and we were forced to stay inside (in front of a log fire)till it all went away. So we spent a little time gift shopping. When the weather lifted, Alex finished his work – he thinks geysers are not alive and can provide evidence – was awarded his badge and we celebrated by finishing our time in Yellowstone in the enormous gift shop buying souvenirs of our incredible time here.

Yellowstone: Bears, Wolves and Old Faithful

2009-06-07T09:03:00.000-07:00

Heavy snowfall greeted us this morning. Since we have a rental car, trainers, jeans and light raincoats we decided to visit the Bear and Wolf Centre in Yellowstone and wait for the weather to get better.

So we did finally get to see wolves but it’s just not as exciting when you’re not on safari! Jamie and Alex were able to join a group of children and hide treats in the bear enclosure and then watch the bears find them; I took some pictures of wolves. The weather got better and we made our way back into Yellowstone to Old Faithful. On the way we saw a bald eagle in its nest along with a couple of eagles perched on surrounding trees and a herd of bison shaking off the cold of the snow shower by laying down on a steaming hotspot!

At Old Faithful, Jamie and Alex finished their Junior Ranger worksheets and had their badges presented to them in the Visitor Centre. Yellowstone also have Young Scientist packs in addition to the Junior Ranger badges and we decided to do these for the next couple of days. They are, again, incredibly good value learning resources that teach the children good, well founded scientific method. Alex’s had him formulating an hypothesis about whether geysers were alive and then gathering evidence to support his theory. Jamie’s had her observing, gathering evidence and prioritising it to support the hypothesis that there is a volcano under Yellowstone Park. Both were accompanied with an investigation trail and a cool backpack filled with instruments such as laser thermometers and colour wheels to help the young scientists.

We did Jamie’s investigation this afternoon. It did involve walking around the Old Faithful trails which caused some grumbling but was actually extremely enjoyable.

Yellowstone: Canyon

2009-06-06T23:59:00.000-07:00

2009-06-06T02:17:00.000-07:00

I bet the question most Rangers get asked by far is “where can I see bears/wolves?” Rangers are either dead cagey about it or supremely confident. Some will say, “Well, you know, there’s no guarantee you’ll see bears or wolves” and you come back with, “Yes I know. But where are we most likely to see them? I’ve heard the Lamar Valley is good” and the dialogue continues along the same lines for a few minutes till they might grudgingly say, “Well, you might see something in the Lamar Valley.” Others will get out a map and say, “There are bears here and wolves here. They are best seen in the morning. I saw grizzlies and brown bears two weeks ago.” Who can blame them? The cautious ones don’t want any come back and the confident ones are pretty sure they won’t get any!

During our Ranger Orientation, we decided our best bet was to get to the Lamar Valley (north east of the park) by about 7 in the morning and while that wasn’t possible most of the time because of road closures, it would be possible on Saturday morning because the weekend traffic would mean the road wasn’t closed overnight. I duly roused the kids from comfortable sleep at 5:45 and we were on the road by 6.

By 6:35, we found the road was still closed and we had two options. Wait here till 8 when it opened and get to the Lamar Valley by about 9, 9:30 or drive the other way round the park and get there around the same time. Imagine how happy the kids were...

Still, the views around the lake were great, we crossed the Continental Divide twice and went through the snowline and given that we were passing the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone and were too late for early morning feeding of wolves or bears, we drove the South Rim of said Canyon and walked to Artist Point.

Wow!

It’s easy to see why this is one of the most photographed views in Yellowstone. Dramatic canyon walls shot through with the reds, browns and greens of minerals and a thundering 93 metre waterfall fringed by green lush forests and watched over by ospreys and eagles. Geologically the Canyon is here because water has eroded the softer rocks and cracks in the lava river bed faster than their harder counterparts and melt water from glaciation has carved the walls. I was so impressed that I drove round the north rim too.

Then to the visitor centre for breakfast and a bit of larnin’.

From Canyon, we went north over Dunraven Pass – which was fortuitous because after today the Pass was closed due to heavy snowfall. Then onto Tower Falls at which point we’d branch right towards the northeast entrance of the park and the Lamar Valley. The kids were on big mammal watching duty since if I’m doing it we tend to end up off the road. I was of the opinion that we had got up so early to see bears and wolves and that that’s what we were going to see.

Just before Tower Falls we hit a major critter jam and stopped. The word was “Bear”! “I knew it,” I thought triumphantly, “I’ve even got binoculars!” But all we could see was an elk pacing continuously and looking in one particular direction. Eventually we pieced together from other members of the critter jam that the bear was behind a particular pine tree (the bottom right tree of an N shape) eating the elk’s calf. And we did get to see the bear in profile as it moved its head to and fro. It was a very sad picture.

We moved on to Lamar, stopping in Tower Falls for a rest and an ice cream. Just outside Tower was a fabulous display of rhyolite columns. A little further on, a coyote ran behind the car and disappeared into the pasture. We saw herds of elk and bison. A significant critter jam got us all excited but it was for a badger, for which you needed higher power binoculars than we had. A fox showed up for a photoshoot. We saw some pronghorns. A quick stop by the side of the road revealed a skeleton picked clean by scavengers. But no wolves, not one. It’s a funny thing but if I wasn’t dog tired from over 100 miles of driving already and if it hadn’t been getting too late to get back for a Ranger-led walk, we’d have just kept driving and driving looking for wolves – we did get very focused.

Back to Tower and another critter jam. We stopped again, and were rewarded with a longhorn sheep. Just beyond Tower Falls, we stopped to see if the bear was still there. It wasn’t but the elk mother was – walking around the spot, stopping and looking at it and presenting a picture of forlorn hopelessness. This stop made us too late for the Canyon Walk – so we decided to go on our own. Actually, I decided. You wouldn’t believe the grumbling I had to endure because I wanted a walk after about 130 miles on the road. I finally gave in and drove us back to West Yellowstone for a well-earned dinner.

Was it worth it? Yes.

Yellowstone: Mammoth Springs

2009-06-05T10:33:00.000-07:00

2009-06-05T10:32:00.000-07:00

Mammoth Springs was our next destination. This route took us back through Madison to the Artist’s Paintpot and towards the north entrance of the park.

Artist’s Paintpot involved a bit of a walk uphill and this is where we noticed we were 8,000 feet above sea level! As the name suggests, the mud pools here have the colours and consistency of artist’s paint – but are so acidic they would eat the brush. They are full of Archaea which metabolise sulphur and water into sulphuric acid that has a lower pH than battery acid.

Driving north, I saw out of the corner of my eye, a huge brown shape barrelling downhill. Initially I thought it was a bear on the rampage – no such luck. It was a huge bison all on his own – there was no visible reason for his urgent solo stampede. By dint of hard braking on both our parts, we managed to miss each other by a couple of inches. He would most certainly have totalled the car.
Then we encountered a critter jam. It was a big one so quite likely worth stopping. As we joined the group of observers we could see nothing except grass leading down to a piece of woodland, but the general excitement level was very high. The word was that there were bears in the trees! We didn’t have binoculars but during the 15 to 20 minutes we watched the trees (I am convinced that the wild life watches us watching them in amusement) we did see two large shapes with bear like heads that looked like they might be foraging. On day 2 in Yellowstone we reckoned we could claim to have seen bears.

A little while later I saw a movement by the side of the road, pulled over and we watched a little mammal climb around some obsidian streaked rocks. We took photos so we could ask a Ranger what it was. It was a Yellow Bellied Marmot. Cool!

Onto Mammoth. I’m not attempting to describe the scenery because it’s beyond words but the route into Mammoth is just extraordinary. Hopeless to try and capture it with our happy snappy camera L. Mammoth is famous for its extensive travertine (limestone) formations. These cover a hillside with terraces and limestone features which grow and change almost as you watch in contrast to other thermal areas of the Park. The boardwalk trail takes you up to the top of the hillside via the best views and most interesting features. Although it may seem tame that most of our walking took place on boardwalks it’s actually pretty essential in the thermal basins – it’s easy to damage the springs and pools or yourself and even the savvy wildlife have been known to fall into a hot spring and cook. We were rewarded for our exertions by the sight of two snakes back at the bottom of the hill.
Back at West Yellowstone, we bought a pair of binoculars.

West Yellowstone: Rodeo

2009-06-04T01:04:00.000-07:00

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2009-06-04T01:03:00.000-07:00

We went to the first rodeo of the season! It started at 8pm and it wasn’t very warm but it was great fun. The Rodeo is held every Thursday, Friday and Saturday night during June, July and August. Competitors’ points are added up over the whole summer and a season-winner for each event is declared at the end.

We saw the traditional bucking broncos and bucking bulls along with calf wrangling, steer wrangling, racing around barrels and a pairs event that saw one rider lassoing the front legs of a steer and the other the back. It was a really exciting event. Around 3 of the dozen competitors in the bucking bronco event stayed on long enough to score (8 seconds). Not one stayed on the bulls for long enough to score. Two of the young cow girls were absolutely amazing in the wrangling and barrel racing event beating a lot of experienced male counterparts. And the athletes (horses and bulls) were well trained to give maximum “bang per buck”.

We loved it: we loved whooping along with our American cousins and holding our breath when the bulls were released; we loved the kids’ calf scrambling event which Alex very nearly won; and we loved the small town, wild west atmosphere. This was a professionally run event, with very talented contenders but it was raw, rough and very real.

The kids wanted to go back the next night!

Sadly it was a bit dark for our camera and the photos don’t capture the Wild West spirit of the event.

Yellowstone: Madison and Old Faithful

2009-06-04T01:02:00.000-07:00

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2009-06-04T01:00:00.000-07:00

Yellowstone is a big park (2.2 million acres/3,000 sq miles) and a visit takes some planning. Our first day was an orientation in West Yellowstone, a visit to the Junior Ranger station at Madison to get the Junior Ranger packs, a Ranger led walk at Black Sand Basin and a visit to Old Faithful. This kept us in the south west area of the park and kept the driving down to around 50 miles.

After our Orientation Talk – involving animal puppets and other exciting props – we had a good idea of where to visit and what to look for. In a nutshell, geology and wildlife*.

Just after we entered the Park, we saw our first critter jam. A critter jam is a collection of cars pulled up at the side of the road indicating the presence of a critter. This one signalled an Elk strolling through the Madison river. We were so excited! A real Elk! By the time we’d reached the Madison Ranger Station, we’d seen a bald eagle, a herd of elk and a herd of bison. We wouldn’t have stopped for just one Elk anymore!

The Junior Ranger activity was a talk about herbivores and carnivores and the food chain in the Park to a backdrop of the herds of elk and bison Alex, the walking animal encyclopaedia, found the questions a tinsy bit easy which took the Ranger back a bit. We got our Junior Ranger packs, investigated the Ranger tables and moved onto the Black Sand Basin walk via Firehole Falls and lunch.

Our poor Black Sand Basin Ranger was a Yellowstone novice and carried a guide book around with him. It was our first walk around geothermal features and we found out about the rocks we could see: rhyolite (slow moving lava that’s cooled slowly and forms fantastic columns) and black obsidian (lava that’s cooled very quickly and becomes the black sand) and sinter (silica mineral dissolved out of the rhyolite by the hot springs): the cyanobacteria that lives in the hot pools and gives them their red, brown, green or blue colours: the lodge pine which thrives in the nutrient poor rhyolite soil and has evolved like many of the trees and plants to thrive where there are frequent forest fires.

Our final stop for the day was Old Faithful. Here the kids had to time one of its eruptions and use the data to predict the time of the next. If the current eruption is less than 2.5 minutes, the next eruption should happen about 65 minutes after its start: if it’s more than 2.5 minutes, you’ve got a 90 minute wait. Our prediction was 4:16; the Rangers’ was 4:15 and it actually started at 4:14. How cool is that!

*Geologically, Yellowstone sits on top of a “hot spot”. This is an area of light, hot rock closer to the earth’s surface than usual that produces the incredible hot springs, geysers and mud pools as well as the odd volcanic eruption. The last super eruption, around 630,000 years ago is estimated to have produced 60 times more material than the Krakatau eruption and 1,000 times Mount St Helens. The dust and ash covered around 2/3 of the US mainland and the explosion was so violent that it was followed by the collapse of the earth’s crust into a bowl shaped crater called a caldera (Spanish for cauldron) that is 30-45 miles across. The region is by no means stable now: there has been a number of smaller volcanic lava flows, and the roads are in constant need of repair because of earthquakes and the caldera floor’s constant movement – currently upwards at about 3 inches a year.

Ecologically, the variety of Yellowstone’s animal species is now similar to that of 2,000 years ago – but it almost wasn’t. By the end of the 19th century, America’s last remaining herd of bison roamed Yellowstone Park and their numbers had dwindled to 50 by 1898 and 23 by 1902. Although Yellowstone was declared a national park in 1872, no one enforced its conservation until the Cavalry was despatched to run the Park in 1886 which they did for 30 years till the National Park Service took over in 1918. Even then the policy regarding wildlife has changed direction like a pinball: there was a time when bears were encouraged to eat the hotels’ garbage and special viewing places were set up for tourists, now you aren’t allowed within 100 yards of a bear or wolf and feeding them is definitely not allowed.

Idaho Falls – West Yellowstone

2009-06-03T00:21:00.000-07:00

This was a relaxed day. The hotel in Idaho Falls has a great pool and the kids met some other kids which we always try to take advantage of, so we didn’t start the journey to Yellowstone till lunchtime.

Mountains soon dominated the scenery: snow clad mountains! After the flatness of the Bahamas and Florida, here was some 3D landscape! with snow!

The hotel that was to be “home” for the next week was easily found because West Yellowstone’s downtown is approximately 2 blocks by 2 blocks – even I couldn’t get lost. We arrived in time to see an IMAX presentation on Yellowstone, wander round the gift shop, “provision” and get our bearings in town.

Yellowstone

2009-06-02T00:19:00.000-07:00

It may seem a bit odd to visit Yellowstone in the middle of a sailing trip around the Caribbean and Bahamas, but it made sense in a lot of ways to continue exploring the US while Chris was sailing back to Europe and you couldn’t have much more of a contrast to the rest of our trip than Yellowstone.

A big contrast was the temperature. When I’d researched what clothes to pack, I’d looked at the current daily temperatures and been pleasantly surprised at the high thirties, shocked at the forties and had a dawning realisation by the fifties that we were talking Farenheit. It’s cold up there and we found out when we were planning our visit that many of the Ranger-led activities weren’t scheduled to start till we got there in early June – and were in fact postponed because of the weather.

And then there was the substitution of green forest for blue sea, enormously high, snow clad peaks for white sand beaches, and large mammals for smaller fish.

But the underlying themes are the same: what an incredible and beautiful world we live in, how diverse, complex and fragile the ecosystems and how privileged we’ve been to see even such a small part of it.

St Augustine to Gibraltar: Day 0

2009-06-01T21:49:00.000-07:00

As skipper one of your primary goals is to gain the confidence and trust of your new crew. So it’s not a good idea to run out of gas as you bring them back from the airport. Fortunately a passing cabbie took us to a gas station and then to another one that had gas containers and back to the first to use the ATM so she could be paid and so the gas guy could try to sell me one of the twenty gas containers he had since found. To be fair I had filled up the tank that morning and being from the UK didn’t realise how quickly one of Detroit’s finest could lay waste to half a fossilised forest.

Pub grub tonight and a last couple of pints for the crew before we set off. If you want to read the blog of this journey, click the link here or at the top left of this page: http://chrishorsemantransat2.blogspot.com

Believe it or not! A Ghost Tour

2009-05-29T13:41:00.000-07:00

One of St Augustine’s attractions is Ripley’s Believe it or Not. We’d not bothered because we’d been to one in Los Angeles and were fairly busy. But we did decide to take their Ghost Tour.

We collected at the “museum” and were issued with a disposable camera and electronic ghost detectors (actual EMF meters) so that we could detect and take pictures of the supernatural events we were about to witness.

We were led by a lady and gentleman dressed in Gothic clothes who spoke really slowly and spookily. The man made lame Daddy quality jokes. They narrated the tour through the streets of St Augustine as night fell telling tales of murder, massacre, and betrayal. We visited the “oldest house” where a wife waits for her husband each night, a park where children play as ghostly orbs in the trees, and a cemetery that was once outside the city walls where yellow fever claimed the lives of many. We were told of the practice of putting string connected to bells on the fingers of corpses as they were laid in their coffins so that if they weren’t really dead once they were underground, they could let people on the surface know! As we went we took photos and checked the em meter -- no ghosts around that night...

Our final stop was the museum itself. Here our guides left us claiming that it was more than their pay packet was worth to enter the museum at night. A new guide took over and led us through the rooms of what was once a chic hotel where a double murder might have taken place and been covered up. If you haven’t been to a Ripley’s museum, imagine rooms stuffed with oddities, human and animal: tallest, shortest, fattest, ugliest. Think of the old fashioned “freak shows” and you’ll see why it was such a good place to scare people in the dark.

We survived and although we haven’t had the photos developed yet, we’re fairly confident that we won’t see ghostly orbs in the trees, on the stairs, above our heads!

St Augustine

2009-05-27T13:30:00.000-07:00

St Augustine is a pretty town. It’s one of the first European settlements on North America and was strategic to North America and the Caribbean so it has a rich and long history of piracy and conflict with native Americans.

It also has a microbrewery right next to the municipal marina.
We had just gone through another storm, so it was fairly rough and we went through some good waves entering the harbour. Inside was calmer and while we were waiting for a bridge to open, we watched some dolphins who were hunting for their dinner. I have another fine collection of photos showing “sea where there was once a dolphin”. These didn’t play or approach the boat and the harbour master said that this was normal – they just weren’t interested in humans.

We were in St Augustine to prepare for Chris’s departure on the Trans-Atlantic back to Gibraltar. He had a crew arriving on the 31st and 1st and we had to do all the boat preparation and checks, provision, washing, packing ... and replace our radio which had been fried in the storm.

West Palm Beach to St Augustine

2009-05-27T01:13:00.001-07:00

I had the best night watch ever on this trip. My watch was around 12-4 in the morning and took us past Cape Canaveral. Although we’d been experiencing heavy thunderstorms since Fort Lauderdale, the night sky was as clear as crystal and the light pollution from the Florida shore was much less than expected. Usually it’s hard to fill a 4 hour night watch but this was incredible.

The launch pads and the huge Vehicle Assembly Building of the Kennedy Space Center were lit up like 3 enormous Christmas trees and through the binoculars you could clearly see the details of the launch pads, the gantries and supports and struts. We’ve visited Space Center before: once with the kids on a tour which conveys some idea of the scale of the facility and once in a light aircraft which NASA traffic control allowed us to fly above the shuttle landing runway (pre 9/11). Surprisingly, sailing up the coast quite some distance off shore, brought home how big it really is -- we were in sight of the buildings for at least two hours as they continuously moved in relation to each other. There were many aspects of Floridian/US civilisation and culture that we found depressing in contrast to island living, but the magnificence of the engineering and the achievement of the space program is truly awe-inspiring and for that, you do need the infrastructure and investment that a nation like the US can provide.

I have been fascinated by stars and space since my Dad took me up to Harefield Common to identify the Plough and Orion when I was about 7 or 8. He would have loved seeing the fabulous clear skies where it’s difficult to identify constellations because of the number of bright stars rather than the light pollution we have in the UK. Jamie had been given a simple stargazing book by one of her friends at school and I used it that night to great effect to identify constellations that are too dim in the UK and to try and extend my tiny repertoire. Usually I sit huddled at the helm on night watch, but conditions and motivation were such that I walked round and round the boat with book and torch until I was dropping.

One of the wonderful aspects of this trip is that it gives you the opportunity to construct your perfect world: I’d live near a Bahamian beach that backed on to mountains, with a perfect clear night sky every night and access to Waitrose...

Thunderstorm

2009-05-26T13:22:00.000-07:00

We’d got used to thunderstorms. Even in Orlando, you generally experienced a jolly good storm in the afternoon and were able to watch the spectacular lightening in the distance from the top of a ride. We’d actually left Fort Lauderdale heading into a storm but they tend to be short-lived and move quickly so we’d managed to miss it. But we couldn’t avoid the one that hit us full on after dinner between West Palm Beach and St Augustine

We’d spotted it on the radar heading for us so we knew we were in for a difficult time. Chris was sorting out ropes and lines (preventer and barber hauler) and getting ready to haul in the sails, while I stowed everything down below. Because we’d just eaten, this involved more potentially flying objects than normal and by the time I was at the helm ready for sail work and Chris had finished his preparations we were already looking at gusts up to 25kts. We pulled in the head sail in screaming winds with huge cracks of lightening all around us and moved swiftly onto the main when the winds hit 35kt gusts. A second or two later and we were experiencing 40 to 45kt winds. From saying, “You might want to hurry, Chris”, I went straight to “We’ve just got to let it fly!” without passing “Go”. (Apparently this is the wrong thing to say -- one should say "draw"). Usually hauling in the main involves getting the boat into wind, pulling in the three reefs, stacking the sail in the sail bag while tailing the halyard and keeping the boat into the wind, tying up the sail bag and cleating off the halyard. Tonight it didn’t. Forget a nice orderly set of reefing lines and neat stacking. We pulled that puppy down and in, in record time.

Needless to say the kids were in the cabin, with strict instructions to stay there, in life jackets, we were in life jackets and foul weather gear (I’d left mine in Turks so I was a bit stuck, Chris hadn’t re-waterproofed his and was cursing his tardiness), and for the first time on the trip we went through a life raft briefing. Chris went back on the helm and tried to find a short and safe route out of the storm using radar and our visual lightning spotting from inside the bouncing saloon. We communicated via our radio intercom – or at least, we tried. The wind was so loud it was impossible to hear Chris and we had to open the door to torrential rain to shout up “starboard”, ”port”, “forward”, and “behind”. Jamie helpfully shouted up to Chris that “it’s started to rain harder!” – to which his response was, “Thanks, Jamie. I worked that one out!” Fortunately, although the wind and rain were ferocious, the sea hadn’t had time to get really wild. Huge seas and high wind are scary for land lubbers like us, although the skipper revels in them.

I can’t remember how long it took before we were back in clear skies and calm water – probably a lot less time that we thought. Lesson was learned though – Florida thunderstorms are bigger and faster than other places we’ve been and as soon as you start thinking about getting the sails in before an impending storm, it’s time to get them in.

The kids went to bed with lifejacket and warm clothes beside them, just in case...

West Palm Beach

2009-05-25T01:11:00.000-07:00

Well... you can keep it.

The guide book extolled the virtues of the Science Museum – so off we went.

We had to dinghy across the extremely busy deep channel which was fairly exciting and tied up cheekily to a local yacht club dinghy dock. An expensive taxi ride later saw us at the museum which purportedly had a really good mini golf with astronomical facts. Well it might have done at some point in time, but not when we visited.

We did enjoy the museum – especially the problem solving puzzle bit -- and planetarium but it wasn’t as good as our local one at Birmingham.

Back on the water: Fort Lauderdale to West Palm Beach

2009-05-24T13:49:00.000-07:00

Here’s something I thought I’d never think, say, dream, imagine – we were back on the water and it felt good.

We’d talked to Keith who’d changed jobs and returned to his old one in the short time we’d been away, said good bye to Scott who’d overseen all our repairs, spent just a little more time in the Captain’s Lounge and visited Coldstone’s again and waited out some storms but were finally on our way back down the river to the sea.
We’d worked out the exact sequence of bridges in advance and Chris handled them like a pro so we didn’t have to wait for any bridge to open at all.

But as we made our way down the river, we saw lightning and heard thunder and when we exited the cut, we encountered a bit of a swell and I didn’t think it was so great to be back on the water – I should have taken a Stugeron...

We’d read the pilotage but plan and reality differed -- instead of turning left and finding a nice large spot to anchor, we turned right and weaved our way through a mass of boats, finally grounding. This time, it wasn’t on purpose. Luckily we grounded on very soft sand and ungrounded ourselves easily and without damage. A helpful fellow yachtie radioed and suggested an alternative anchorage, and we went there gratefully.

Pics: the fabulous suburbs of Fort Lauderdale -- isn't it amazing how tasteless some very rich people can be...?

Back in Orlando

2009-05-20T11:33:00.000-07:00

We’re just about to head back to Hakuna Matata – we’re worried how she’s fared out of the water and are sure about only one thing -- she’ll be absolutely, disgustingly dirty.

In the interim, we stayed in our favourite hotel in Orlando (see pic) and picked up a couple of fleeces in honour of the colder weather to come.

North Carolina

2009-05-18T11:05:00.000-07:00

Ken and Chris’s house is wonderful: it’s right on the IntraCoastalWaterway and has its own dock on which Chris and Ken tie up their boat. After a spot of Pilates, which demonstrated how lamentably unfit you get on a boat, and despite the weather, the kids were keen to get on the river in Ken’s canoe. Naturally both Flatcoats love the water and are expert canoeists.

After the exertion of canoeing we drove into the local town to get an ice cream in the ice cream parlour housed in the drug store. Here is small town America.

Dog Agility in North Carolina

2009-05-17T07:35:00.000-07:00

We went to see our friends Ken and Chris in North Carolina.

Chris and I met Ken and Chris McClung during the 1990s at a Club Med on San Salvador. They had a flatcoat and ran a multimedia training business and so did we. Ken had just completed the ARC with Chris H.

We arranged that I would accompany Chris M to an agility trial to see her youngest flatcoat, Jazz, in action. Jazz is both gorgeous (successful in breed showing), talented (in agility, obedience and gundog work) and has a great character – Sam eat your heart out! From the intense heat of central Florida, the Virginia weather was strikingly cold and wet – reminded me of Good Ol’ Blighty. Despite this, Jazz did a fantastic clear in his agility round to place 2nd and made a very small mistake in his jumping – probably because the ground was affecting both members of the team. Jazz reminded me of the best elements of Poppy and Jolly.

Watch the video to see him attacking the course with joy.

The journey back to Chris and Ken’s house took about 2.5 hours and this was one of Chris’s more local trials!!! Now in North Carolina, we met Doc who is also gorgeous, well behaved and affectionate, and were treated to Ken’s incredible cooking.

Closed for a holiday in Orlando

2009-05-14T14:20:00.000-07:00

Ft Lauderdale

2009-05-07T14:05:00.000-07:00

Hakuna Matata had an appointment with a bloomin’ great lift at 8:30 the next morning. The reason it was being lifted was to effect repairs to the stern glands and to realign the shaft on the port engine.

We got into the space for the lift second time around – had to fight a bit of current – and disembarked. A diver (brave given the colour of that river water) fixed two enormous straps under Haku and the lift started. Very slowly our little boat emerged from the water and seemed to grow enormously in size. But as it moved off at a snail’s pace, controlled by a bloke with a remote control unit very like a toy car remote, it got smaller again against the giant wheels.

The boat finally came to rest amongst a bunch of others, was supported on blocks and our new way to embark was via a set of blocks, then up the vertical diving ladder and then up the transom steps. The weirdest feeling is being on a boat 20 feet up in the air and when you look through the window, nothing moves.

We spent the next few days in a hotel in the area while Chris worked on the boat. It was incredibly hot in the yard and the work was incredibly hard. We explored the beach and swam in the pool – we did do school.

Pic 1: The diver is the small dot in the middle of the picture under the boat.
Pic 2: The boat is the small thing next to the huge wheels.
Pic 3: The boys and discussing the technicalities of the job.

Ft Lauderdale

2009-05-03T00:27:00.000-07:00

This was our last day on the boat before it was “lifted” and the warranty work carried out. We spent an hour or so at the CatCo Lagoon open day and had a pleasant time looking at the new and beautiful boats as well as the pre-owned cats and the living solutions their owners had come up with.

Then we went off for an ice cream – v nice – and to visit the local Science Museum and IMAX. This was a reasonable museum and we did manage to cover some of the Science topics on the curriculum but it wasn’t the best museum ever. This clock was the most impressive exhibit. It's a huge marble madness construction that accurately tells the time!

Back at the boat it was clean, clean, clean because tomorrow we’d be disconnected from both fresh and sea water.

Miami – Ft Lauderdale

2009-05-02T00:10:00.000-07:00

The run to Ft Lauderdale was about 5 or 6 hours and we were scheduled to pick up our “river pilot” Scott mid-afternoon. You can see from the map – the red line shows our route – why we needed a pilot first time up the river to the marina.

As we approached the cut into Fort Lauderdale we saw a huge submarine steaming in at a great rate of knots. It’s one of those sights that’s both menacing and magnificent. Spot the little men on deck.

The first bridge, the 17th Street Bridge, opened on the hour and half hour – naturally we missed the opening by about a minute and had to wait for half an hour on the south side of the bridge. The bridge raises quite briefly and you have to be quick off the mark and hope that you don’t meet anything big coming the other way. Once past, we picked up our pilot at the end of one of the water streets. Scott is not actually a river pilot: he’s the Lagoon guru at CatCo and was coordinating our repairs and warranty work. Scott is larger than life, known by everyone who’s anyone at the marina and can get things done. In the case of river piloting, he directed us through the fantastically pretty water suburbs, with a commentary, and radioed ahead to the subsequent 4 or 5 bridges that open on demand so we didn’t have to change speed at any point en route.

Once safely parked, we were able to explore the marina and discovered the Captain’s Lounge. This was Alex’s heaven: it had a big TV and the Disney channel. Sadly he did have to share it with adults, but he was able to get his TV fix. We met a lovely Captain called Keith who gave Chris a lift to a Thai takeout and took a real interest in the kids.

1st pic: The map of our route through the city
2nd pic: A submarine
3rd pic: The 17th bridge raising and boats coming towards us
4th pic: A river "street"

Biscayne Bay

2009-05-01T07:43:00.000-07:00

The third and last park on our itinerary. Biscayne Bay is a largely underwater experience and the kids recent diving and snorkeling really paid off because we missed the last snorkeling trip and they wouldn’t have been able to finish their badges without this and the in-depth mangrove project we did in Antigua.

The Ranger at Biscayne was absolutely fascinated by the family’s experiences to the point where we showed her our blog and the images from our diving in San Salvador.

We did take the boardwalk through the mangroves and round the Bay – I say an Eagle ray in the shallows but we didn’t see any manatee…

Jamie and Alex did the last part of their Ranger quest and won the coveted teardrop award. Well done!

Big Cypress

2009-04-30T07:14:00.000-07:00

Chris elected to stay on the boat and catch up with chores while I took Jamie and Alex to Big Cypress. Having managed to lose ourselves regularly on the previous couple of days in Miami I had Jamie in the front with me to navigate. The reason we got lost a lot is the interesting road names. Firstly there’s the numbered streets – 1st Street, 2nd Street etc -- and the identically numbered avenues. Streets go from east to west, avenues from north to south. That’s easy enough and fairly easy to work out if you haven’t got a map and are working your way back from the car rental place to the marina. What’s less obvious is that the city is mirror imaged around Miami Avenue and Flagler. So if you’re on the first street north of Flagler and east of Miami Avenue you’re on NE 1st Street; if you’re on the first street south of Flagler and east of Miami Avenue you’re on SE 1st Street; if you’re on the first street north of Flagler and west of Miami Avenue you’re on NW 1st Street; if you’re on the first street south of Flagler and west of Miami Avenue you’re on SW 1st Street. The same goes for the avenues. The uninitiated, who haven’t bothered with a map and can’t really see the sun, can end up a long way from their destination.

Naturally without the Captain at the helm (see Stardust), we managed to navigate our way easily onto the freeway system and were so in front of ourselves that we stopped at a supermarket and bought a picnic lunch. Usually we’re so late for everything that the only meal we eat at about the same time every day is breakfast.

Big Cypress is actually a freshwater swamp north of the Everglades and reaching to the west (Gulf) coast of Florida. In the wet season, it’s underwater (and full of bugs); in the dry season, it’s grass prairie and cypress woodland. We visited at the end of the dry season. Our first stop was the Ranger station to get orientated. The Ranger suggested the Kirby Storter boardwalk saying it was probably just as good as a hike and a great deal more comfortable. But first she said we should walk along the boardwalk outside the Ranger station itself and count the alligators – which we duly did, counting 47 of the beasties in a small creek about 100 yds long and 10 wide.

Bald Cypress trees spend half their time with the base of their trunks submerged in water so they have broad bases and they’ve adapted their root system and have “knees” to provide support and to help the tree breathe air. Like the rainforest, we saw a variety of air plants (epiphytes) growing in the branches of trees; unlike the rainforest this forest was much more similar to the ones we’re used to in the UK. We looked for the Florida panther, but we didn’t see anything but birds.

We talked to a “local” in the car park on the way out. She had visited this boardwalk a few years previously at this time and the land was already wet and that the Florida drought was very severe this year. That was about to change!

Back at the Ranger Station, Jamie and Alex completed the work necessary to get the second badge in their quest.

We got back to within a couple of blocks of the marina at 6pm, looking forward to dinner, to find it inaccessible because of a corporate fun run. It was about 9pm before we got back to the boat…

Everglades

2009-04-29T14:37:00.000-07:00

“We’re going on an aligator hunt. We’re going to catch a big one. What a beautiful day! We’re not scared.”

The Everglades is a National Park – National Parks being one of the US’s best ideas – and has a number of visitor centres. We went to Shark Valley. On the way, I had to avoid an alligator that had made its way onto the road. Cool!

We chose Shark Valley because the guidebook said the train/tram ride was excellent and it was right for once. We had the best guide and learned a lot about Florida’s aquifer and the incredible changes that the canals and levees had made to the water flow into the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic. From the mid 1850s to now, South Florida has lost 50% of its wetlands and 90% of its bird population and is now directing billions of gallons of water into the Gulf, Biscayne Bay and the Ten Thousand Islands which is adversely affecting sea habitats and not helping the drought conditions in the state. Florida’s human population was 6.5 million in 1995 and is projected to reach 20 million by 2040; in 1850 the bird population was 2.5 million and had declined to 100,000 in 1995. These are jaw dropping numbers and I just hope my grandkids and their kids will still be able to visit this incredible habitat…

We were introduced to the sawgrass prairie and tree islands and hammocks, which form where small islands of limestone bedrock form above the normal Everglades water level. Tree islands and hammocks are named for the types of trees that grow on them – like mahogany, hardwood, bay, willow and cypress.

Although the bird population has declined dramatically we saw plenty of them including a rare kind of hawk and the striking anhinga. We saw turtles and snakes and of course, a whole mess of alligators – what is the collective for alligators? A snap of alligators, a snarl, a murder…? Whether they were big alligators or baby alligators, they seemed pretty relaxed -- and we were told to act like we were.

We discovered that the park did a Junior Ranger programme in association with two other parks in South Florida: Big Cypress and Biscayne. So the kids did the Everglades badge and there was nothing for it but to visit the other two parks while we were in Miami. These programmes are educational and interactive and engage Alex so I have no problem swapping National Park for school from time to time – plus I learn a lot too...although I don't get to wear the fetching hat!

Seriously, for those readers who have children, the National Parks educational programmes are inexpensive and excellent. Wherever you visit in the US, there's likely to be a National Park nearby. Check them out here: www.nps.gov

Miami

2009-04-27T03:34:00.000-07:00

We rented a car and drove down the coast to the Miami Seaquarium. The objective was to give Alex a Dolphin experience similar to the one Jamie had a few years ago.

The Seaquarium is a sort of low key Sea World: they do shows with seals, killer whales and dolphins and have exhibits such as manatee, sharks and reef fish and give keeper talks. We managed to spend a very pleasant afternoon learning about manatee and their rescue and being entertained by some very clever and well trained mammals. The trainers had really taken the training a step further than I’d seen before.

Alex’s dolphin experience was also a success. We had our doubts because Alex can change his mind about doing things if they start to look difficult and he had to put of a wetsuit and bootees and attend a briefing. He was in a small group of three people plus trainer but of course he was the youngest and I was worried that the trainer would take his initial reluctance at face value and he wouldn’t get to properly interact with the dolphins. She didn’t and he did. Here are his comments:

“The dolphins felt very silky – sort of gooey and silky. I learnt how to make a dolphin twirl round. I fed the dolphins. I rode on a dolphin. They felt big to me. I felt very nervous at first but once I’d done a few tricks with them, I got to know them so I didn’t feel so nervous. “

Miami

2009-04-26T01:32:00.000-07:00

A quiet day of chores and shopping punctuated with a visit to the Children’s Museum. This was quite fun but pitched a bit young for Jamie and Alex. One exhibit that taught kids about money was well done and got our kids thinking about how they could entrepreneurially earn some!

Miami

2009-04-25T01:23:00.000-07:00

What a culture shock! From deserted beaches, a shop every 20 sq miles and more lizards than humans to ... Miami. Constant traffic on the freeway, constant traffic on the pavement, constant opportunities to shop, eat and repeat.

We started the day with breakfast on Miami beach, a stroll along the art deco hotels and restaurants and back along the shore. For us it was an opportunity to people watch – the beautiful people, the sporty, ripply people, the rather large people and the people with accessory dogs that reflect their owner’s personality. We then went through the rather lengthy process of clearing into the US at the Port of Miami. This meant driving past the incredible cruise ships docked in the Port and the driving past the people boarding those ships... a whole new world.

Back to the boat to move it to the less expensive municipal marina at the end of Government Cut. This involved a rather difficult manoeuvre fighting wind and current to get us safely off the dock. Having tied up using the dinghy the night before, we now, for the sake of speed, had to slip our inaccessible lines and recover them later once we’d tied up to the fuel dock. Then we travelled the mile or so up the cut past the incredible container ships and slid easily into our berth in the marina which was backed by a huge shopping mall including a live entertainment area and flanked by a freeway...

What a difference the Gulf makes.

Chub Cay- Miami

2009-04-24T00:49:00.000-07:00

We moved to the “normal” anchorage first thing because the wind had moved round. Two reasons: one we wanted to use the marina facilities; two we wanted to be nearer the snorkel/dive site.

It was one of those days unfortunately. We tried and tried to convince ourselves that we could safely snorkel in the wind conditions. Chris even went on a recce in the dinghy but quickly turned back. We couldn’t use the beach because it was private. We couldn’t find an alternative beach in the pilotage. We did have a good lunch at the marina, however, so all was not lost!

I was bitterly disappointed that we couldn’t give the kids this last opportunity. I was bitterly disappointed to be leaving the Bahamas. Which is ironic because in the Caribbean I’d really felt there was little reason to spend any time in the Bahamas – all the history and culture was in the Caribbean – and I had been deeply worried about visual piloting. Ultimately we’d had the best time in the Bahamas and I had no desire to move onto the US.

I also had no desire to tackle the Gulf Stream with the forecast winds. We had two options: wait till about 5 or 6 days hence when things might be better or go NOW! But not exactly NOW because we’d arrive at the cut at the wrong time. NOW was in fact 11pm – in the dark. This was possible because our route out of Chub Cay was lit by red and green beacons. It was an incredibly risky option because we’d be crossing 2/3metre depths in the dark. Theoretically this was OK because we had GPS, charts and a recommended, surveyed line to follow. In practice, we all know that’s hoo hah.

We got started at 11 but it always takes longer to get going than you could possibly imagine and we didn’t actually up-anchor till gone 12 – which could put a possible strain on the Gulf Stream crossing. Alex, bless his cotton socks, arrived at the helm station as we were upping anchor, wide eyed, yet determined to help. He held Big Bertha, our million watt torch, and directed it at boats around us so we could avoid hitting them on the way out! Unnervingly for him because, as our anchor came up, so did a barracuda’s guts!!!!!!!!!!!!! Job done, he looked at us solemnly and said, “Can I go back to bed now?” and stamped back to his cabin. Alex is a weird mix of emotions and work ethic... in this case, he’d made a commitment quite outside our expectations and been totally serious in meeting it.

I took an initial deep water watch; Chris took the watch that took us into the shallows. He woke me once it was light enough to see what we might ground on. We were running very close to the surveyed line but I had to call Chris twice when we got into situations where we had .5 m under the keel and no apparent route forward. When we got to the cut, we could again see no apparent route through it – the sea was very active as was the wind and it was very much touch and go. All hands were working at maximum adrenalin as we had to lose the Genoa at great speed and breath “up” rather than “in”.

Once through the cut, the focus changed to navigating the river that is the Gulf Stream. This moved us north at 2-3.5 kts depending where we were. We had an Easterly wind which gave us a push across the stream but the wind was forecast to get high and move to the south during the passage. We needed to get to Miami before the winds conspired with the Gulf Stream to give us high waves as well as high winds – and of course we wanted to get to our next marina before dark. In the image you can see the red line showing where the boat is heading, the green line where the boat is actually going and the blue arrow showing the “current”.

As you can see from the “Sunset over Miami Skyline” pictures – we didn’t quite succeed. I was on watch before we both had to navigate Government Cut into Miami and there were a number of times when I looked behind at the waves we were running in front of and nearly lost my nerve and called Chris. I was extremely glad that we had chosen the marina right at the beginning of the Miami basin because we were both tired when we tied up to the dock.

But that wasn’t the end of the day. The harbour master had put us starboard side to at the end of a dock which didn’t have adequate or adequately positioned cleats to keep us in place given the wind and current. Eventually we worked out a way of using the neighbouring pilings and the dinghy to mimic a 4 piling dockage which held us off any sharp edges!

24 hours after we’d started we had a beer.

Nassau to Chub Cay

2009-04-22T00:45:00.000-07:00

Chub Cay is an obvious stop off before either stopping at Cat Cay or making a run for Florida and crossing the Gulf Stream. We had a date we needed to keep in Fort Lauderdale and the long range weather forecast showed that it was “now or never”. I was very keen to give Alex a last snorkel and Jamie a last dive in the Bahamas and Chub Cay was our best bet.

The route to Chub Cay was deep water sailing – no VPR until we got to Chub Cay itself. When we arrived wind was coming out of the North and we judged that the normal anchorage would be too exposed so we just anchored off the south of the island and used chart and eyes to navigate as close to shore as practical. It’s not just that it’s a bit uncomfortable if you can’t get shelter from the wind, it also puts more stress on your anchor. We have a big and effective anchor, but there’s always a little niggle in your mind in a windy anchorage that means sleep is a little troubled! Hence our apparent obsession with weather.

Travel days usually end in a beer and sunset. Today was no exception. Chris is holding his favourite frozen beer mug.

Nassau and Atlantis

2009-04-21T07:22:00.000-07:00

The weather dictated that we stayed in Nassau for a couple of days before heading out to Florida so we did some sightseeing. The famous Queen’s Steps and the Fort were our destination. We walked: even though this meant considerable GBH of the ears by the youngest member of our party. This was memory lane for Chris and I who had stopped over in Nassau on the way to San Salvador. The fort is miniscule after Old San Juan and the view is unfortunately ruined by the cruise ships. L I’m sure it was bigger, better and more beautiful when we went there first...

We then walked – accompanied by more whinging – to the main part of town in search of a good souvenir. No dice – furry or otherwise. Finally we gave up and went provisioning.

In the afternoon, I took the kids back to Atlantis. The weather was execrable so we only went for the Aquarium armed with some research ideas for Jamie’s fish project. Chris took us in the dinghy through the Atlantis marina – a lesson in how the other half live and once again, we all wished we had a lovely expensive rib rather than our beaten up old dinghy.

Because we had specific fish movement we wanted to observe, we elected to take a 10 minute guided tour so we could ask some questions. Our guide was on her way to qualification as a teacher and had done some marine biology and she spent about 70 minutes with us and engaged the marine experts to answer the kids’ questions. It was a great experience -- we learned about movement and adaptation and behaviour and more besides. People are very impressed with the idea of home schooling and have always been very generous with their help. They were also impressed with fish the kids could accurately and the amount they already knew. It was excellent.

We rounded off the day with a Ben and Jerry’s ice cream.

Nassau

2009-04-20T07:21:00.000-07:00

Getting back to Nassau was uneventful, anchoring less so. Nassau harbour does have some good holding but you have to search for it. We eventually managed to get settled on the east side of the bridge but were considered to be impinging on one of the Marinas and although the harbour police said we were in the right, felt that we might want to relocated for a peaceful life!!!!

We went through the bridge to the west side and again had to search for good holding out of the channel. After the beauty of the anchorages in the Exumas, the dirty water of Nassau harbour was a little soul destroying.

Shroud Cay

2009-04-19T07:19:00.000-07:00

We needed a stop off point before tackling the trip back to Nassau because of the VPR rules and we chose to return to Shroud Cay – originally with the idea that Jamie and I would get to see the little stream that bisects the island. In fact, we left Warderick Wells a little later than we’d anticipated because we met a French/US couple who were doing a similar trip to ours in a monohull at the National Park HQ. They were finishing their trip a little differently in that they were shipping their boat back after exploring the east coast of the US. We did consider this option quite seriously, but in the end decided that Plan A should prevail.

While Chris and I were in the HQ using the internet, Jamie and Alex explored the island on their own and managed to climb and find Boo Boo Hill and see the blowholes on the Bahama Sound side of the Cay. This trip has given them a lot of opportunities to become independent because we’re just not worried about security like we are in the UK. It’s a bit like the freedom Chris and I had as kids – at Jamie’s age I was able to take my dog for a walk over the fields and down by the canal – something I wouldn’t dream of allowing her to do today.

When we got to Shroud Cay, something went awry with our mooring buoy pickup technique. I just couldn’t get the d****d thing up – partly because it was damaged and had lost the float which keeps the hoop that you catch with the boat hook on the surface and partly because of the wind and mostly because I just had one of those days. The upshot was that Chris had to retrieve the boat hook from the sea bed twice and when we finally got hooked on using one of our fenders as a float, our lines and the fender lines and the mooring buoy were hopelessly tangled. This resulted in some hysterical antics as Chris tried to weight the fender down with his body and which fought back with apparently animated vigour.

Anyway, having lost most of the day and to make things a bit more interesting for the children at Shroud Cay, Chris did a treasure hunt on the beach for them. This involved some superbly creative clues involving visual identification, solving riddles, taking bearings and tracking. The reward was ... a toy fish!!

The kids loved it but said it was too short!!

Bot pic: Can you solve the riddle?

Warderick Wells

2009-04-18T07:17:00.000-07:00

Back to Warderick Wells for some more great snorkelling and a beautiful place to spend a day. It was my birthday and the kids had made me cards which were, perforce, creative and lovely. After a snorkelling trip around Emerald Rock, we decided to spend some time on a beach – curiously, given the journey we are on this isn’t something we do very often. Instead of the large iguanas at Allen’s Cay we were very quickly surrounded by tiny, inquisitive and fearless lizards. While Jamie and Alex made sand sculptures, Chris and I made photographic studies of the little critters.

Back at the boat, the kids and Chris made a chocolate birthday cake with our “oven” – it’s so low in energy that I believe the Octopus’s owners used theirs for storage!! (Octopus is another Lagoon 420 that did a similar trip last year).

Bell Island, Warderick Wells

2009-04-17T07:14:00.000-07:00

The kids and Chris went out to “provision” at the Island General Store ready to depart for Bell Island on our way back to Nassau and Florida. They were convinced they’d find fresh anything where I hadn’t managed and in fact, they were right because the mail boat came in.

There are three stores on the island. The two nearest the port are called something Pink and something Blue. The shore party visited both to be met with empty shelves and the advice to wait for the mail boat to come in, it was due anytime now. So they went down to the dock to wait with, it seemed, most of the rest of the islanders. Once the boat docked, people swarmed over it like bees on a honey pot unloading supplies into small trucks and golf carts (the main mode of transport). It was, apparently, bedlam. Chris and kids followed the largest truck to Island General the largest store on the island – I think with the idea that they could get what they wanted off the back of a lorry (lol). In fact they had to wait for the truck to be unloaded, inventory taken and shelves stacked which took over an hour. If this gives the impression that the store was now full of fresh goodies, I’ve misled you! We did manage to stock up on fresh fruit and veg for about 3 days – which is what we needed to get back to Nassau

Once they’d brought back their spoils we set off for Bell Island, an overnight stop before we revisited Warderick Wells. On the way out of the cut, we passed Club Thunderball ... and I couldn’t resist taking a photo.

Bell Island was unremarkable – we anchored in the bay where the 2 private houses had their enormous dock and were joined by their enormous boat overnight. We did do some good sunset watching and star gazing.

Top pic: The mail delivery boat
Bot pic: Club Thunderball

Staniel Cay

2009-04-16T07:12:00.000-07:00

Sadly it was time to say goodbye to the Battricks. We’d all had a great time – even though we’d had to cater for ourselves with limited shopping opportunities and absolutely no thrill rides. Something really memorable had happened every day: Adam and Callum had built on their snorkelling skills in some fabulously clear water; Cal had been up our 65’ mast; Adam had swum extensively with sharks; Cal had been introduced to diving; they’d seen rare iguanas, swimming pigs and loads of fish; and they swam in Thunderball Cave.

We felt pretty flat when they’d left. We cleaned the boat and rearranged the cabins so Jamie and Alex had their beds back and then, since I hadn’t swum through Thunderball Cave, we went and visited that again.

Compass Cay

2009-04-15T06:58:00.000-07:00

In our eagerness to make sure we delivered our guests to Staniel Cay in time to get a flight back to Nassau, we arrived a little early and found we had a day in hand so after mming and arring for a bit (over a mammoth set of pancakes cooked by Phil and eaten by kids +Chris) we decided to retrace our steps a little and visit Compass Cay where there was the promise of petting nurse sharks over lunch.

The Staniel Cay cut out to the Sound is quite narrow but once out it was a just an hour’s cruise north and then back in through a cut that was actually to some degree marked. We weren’t able to anchor near the marina but found a spot on a sand bank just outside and dinghied in.

Lunch was cooked on an outdoor barbecue and was a choice of hamburger or hotdog to the kids’ delight and was, in fact, delicious.

But what was incredible, was the pre-lunch activity. I was in the second landing party and arrived to find the children already on the small jetty watching a couple who were petting the nurse shark. The kids were a little reticent at first, but with some encouragement started to coax the sharks to come to them and stroke them. We had a wonderful time watching the sharks and their companions – some fabulous Grey Angels and other reef fish – stroking them and feeling how like sandpaper they felt and trying to give them their names -- the smallest and most inquisitive was called Squirt. Squirt was the most frequent visitor and while the other, larger sharks quite regularly went to the bottom and rested, he was constantly on the move.

2009-04-15T06:51:00.000-07:00

After lunch, Alex wanted to swim with the sharks. At this point, there were no other swimmers so he had to persuade Daddy to go in too. Eventually Alex, Jamie and Chris entered the water and swam gently and quietly over to the sharks who displayed pretty much the same behaviour as before – polite interest and the occasional desire to be stroked. Once the ice had been broken, so to speak, Adam and Callum went in followed by other boat crews. By mid afternoon, everyone was very comfortable swimming with sharks and there had been no injuries!! It was hard to convince Adam to leave his new friends when it was time to go.

We did feel very privileged to be able to stroke and swim with these creatures and we were very mindful of the fact that they were wild animals who were just used to humans – not pet dogs who are trained not to bite.

O’Brien’s Cay – Staniel Cay

2009-04-14T09:33:00.000-07:00

Two delights awaited us today: swimming pigs at Big Major Spot and the Thunderball Grotto at Staniel Cay.

Big Major Spot was crowded with boats – mostly the larger stinkpots -- when we arrived and there was no pig to be seen on the beach or in the sea. We anchored anyway and kept watch on the beach. Not too much later, we spied pigs through the binoculars. The first shore party raced off in the dinghy but were beaten to the punch by another boat. The pigs did as promised – as soon as they heard a boat they stop rooting around on the beach and swam out to the noise. We had to compete with the other dinghy for attention and since we’d brought lettuce and they had something far more delectable to pig senses, we had quite a job. Finally we got their attention although they weren’t much interested in lettuce and one tried to climb onto the boat to see what else we had. It was quite unnerving to see both its front trotters on the side of the boat...

Once we’d exhausted the thrills of swimming pigs, we moved to Staniel Cay and moored near Thunderball Cave. Tide and current meant that the best time to snorkel the Cave was around 5pm. By this point we were very low on fresh anything so I decided to check out the Cay’s stores while the others went snorkelling. I had a pleasant walk to Island General but the mail boat hadn’t been for a while so we were still short on fresh anything by the time Chris picked me up in the dinghy. Fortunately the spelunkers had a much better time!

Pics: Swimming pigs -- beer drinking pigs, swimming pigs... what's next? Flying pigs? A couple of shots of Main Street Staniel Cay

2009-04-14T09:32:00.000-07:00

Thunderball Grotto is so named because it’s where the said Bond movie was shot in 1965. From the sea it’s hard to tell that the cave exists, because it’s in one of three or four tiny islands across from Staniel Cay Yacht Club. The snorkelling party took the dinghy from Hakuna Matata to one of the dinghy moorings just offshore and then swam “into” the island. At low tide this is just a swim with headroom, at high tide you need to hold your breath to get into the cave.

On the other side of the swim through you get two unique vistas. You can look down at the wide variety friendly fish – many, many sergeant majors -- and investigate the underwater blue holes that exit to the sea and imagine where the movie makers put the bomb bay doors and where Sean Connery fought the baddies. And you can look up to the cave roof, which doubles as the surface of the island and lets in dramatic shafts of sunlight. It’s a pretty magical place in its own right, but the fact it has been a Bond movie location made it COOL.

Later that evening, in the absence of anything fresh, we went to an “all you can eat” pizza and pasta evening at Club Thunderball. While the eight of us stretched their resources to the limit and beyond, we did manage to hire the Thunderball movie from the barman and spent a pleasant evening watching Sean Connery strut his stuff.

Top pic: entrance to Thunderball Cave

Mid pic: blue hole in Thunderball Cave

Bot pic: cave roof in Thunderball Cave

Warderick Wells – O’Brien’s Cay

2009-04-13T15:14:00.000-07:00

Since Warderick Wells had land trails as well as sea features, we decided to stretch our legs and climb to the top of Boo Boo Hill and then make our way to the Park Headquarters to get internet access and pay for our mooring. Boo Boo Hill is famous because it’s the highest point on Warderick Wells and offers a fabulous view of the island and because yachting visitors leave a piece of driftwood or flag with their boat name at its summit.

Sadly we didn’t get to Boo Boo Hill – didn’t have the lat and long to hand! But we did manage a very hot scramble across the island to the Park Headquarters. The ground is a sharp, uneven and ankle turning coral and limestone covered with vegetation and pitted with swampy sand. I was, as usual, not wearing the right shoes and slipped and slid at snail’s pace while the kids forged ahead impatiently. The reward was some outstanding views of the Cay and the incredible blues of sea and sky and, at our destination, the beautiful curving Powerful Beach with its whale skeleton and pristine sand.

Given that we needed to get to our next destination in reasonable time, we sent Chris and Jamie back to the beach where we left the dinghy so they could bring it round. They took a kayak to the dinghy, then Jamie transferred from kayak to dinghy and brought it back – towing the kayak wherever possible.

Unfortunately the Park Headquarters didn’t sell ice creams or beer while we waited, but it was surrounded by some amazing birdlife and weird crabs which Alex photographed beautifully.

Once the dinghy was back, it was party A back to the boat followed by party B, release the mooring and hold our breath as we navigated the shifting sand banks back to the cut.

2009-04-13T15:13:00.000-07:00

O’Brien’s Cay is also in the Exuma Land and Sea Park and has a number of excellent snorkelling spots including one called the Seaquarium. This is both a good snorkelling and shallow diving spot and is washed by the tide so the coral is in excellent condition. It’s a reasonably sheltered spot but is subject to a strong currents so it’s best to snorkel or dive at slack water. We had earmarked this spot to give both Callum and Alex a “tryout” with the scuba gear so we did an extensive technical and safety briefing and kitted up. Phil did dinghy duty staying on the surface “in case” and Cal and Alex went down individually with Chris. Chris was impressed with both boys: they listened and followed instructions and had really excellent experiences as a result.

After that, the snorkellers had their turn. The site was magnificent. The water was incredibly clear, there was a great deal of life and the coral was healthy and colourful. It was like a mini coral wall plunging to a max depth of about 16 feet but with the variety of coral, sponge, fans, fish and ... lobster. The lobster were incredible. Chris and I spent a good 10 minutes watching a huge lobster chase a slightly smaller lobster under, round and over rocks with relentless purpose. We didn’t know if this was aggression or courting behaviour – later we discovered it might be because one of them had moulted and the other was looking for lunch!! Whatever the behaviour was, it was spellbinding. A lobster can be quite agile as it reverses into a hole in the rocks untangling its legs from fans and coral. And, of course, we must mention incredible queen trigger, grey angels, queen angels, princess parrot, etc., etc. and so on... Life just doesn’t get better.

Shroud Cay – Warderick Wells

2009-04-12T06:01:00.000-07:00

It was Easter Sunday – no Easter Eggs unfortunately. We’d bought a small pack of mini crème Eggs in Nassau and managed to lose them. The kids were great and didn’t mind at all ... well, very much. They had decided that Daddy had either mislaid them or eaten them and just rolled their eyes in resignation.

Today’s destination was Warderick Wells, at the heart of the Exuma Land and See Park. It’s uninhabited but houses the Park Headquarters, has some land trails, some great places to snorkel and some excellent mooring buoys. The buoys are allocated daily on a first come, first served basis via VHF radio so we needed to get going early to get in range of the Park and make our request. When we arrived at Warderick Wells Cut, we discovered that there was an Easter Sunday “Pot Luck” being held on the beach at 2pm. Now although the distance between our mooring and the cut was about 1 mile as the crow flies, we had to negotiate sandbanks that made it about a 45 minute journey.

But we made it! We took a couple of hastily assembled dishes and assembled on the beach with other human beings. Yachtie party talk is all about wind, tide and current, anchorages, marinas, different kinds of boat, where to get great provisions, places not to miss, places to miss...It’s a whole different world. But for the Yachtie this kind of talk is invaluable because inside information is hard to find on the net.

Party over and we got to the business of finding great snorkelling. We were anchored near Emerald Rock which was a good spot regardless of tide or current so party one went off to snorkel. Emerald Rock is a tiny round island in the middle of the sandy bay: on top it’s covered with vegetation, birds and insects while below the sea it’s covered in coral, fans and sealife. Party one reported beautiful Queen Triggerfish and tiny Angels. I went in party two and we struck out to some isolated coral heads south of Emerald Rock. I was on a moray hunt when I say the most enormous lobster lurking in the rocks. Lobsters are protected in the Exuma Park so I suppose they get to grow big.

We were moored next to a diving platform and the kids made good use of this till we hauled them in to eat.

Pics:
North mooring site at Warderick Wells. The boats moor in the dark blue bits!
Above water life
Diving platform

Norman’s Cay -- Shroud Cay

2009-04-11T20:15:00.000-07:00

Shroud Cay was recommended to us because it has a series of tiny creeks through the mangroves at least one of which bisects the island and can be navigated – carefully – by dinghy from the Bank to the Sound side of the island. It’s uninhabited and part of the Exuma Cays Land and Sea Park.

It wasn’t far from Norman’s Cay and we arrived before lunch time and anchored slightly north of the centre of the island. It was reasonably hairy: we anchored with .9 metres under the hull which meant, at low tide, we would, probably, have .2 metres clearance – probably.

As before, we could only take one party on the dinghy at a time. The creek is incredibly shallow especially at low tide. Some of the time the engine had to be pulled up and the dinghy had to be pushed. The Park authorities recommend that you explore the Cay at idle/no wake speed to avoid grounding, but some people ignore this advice – in particular, a powerful tender crewed by a bunch of teenagers (+) from one of the visiting stinkpots ripped along merrily creating mayhem and wake. “Wouldn’t it be funny“, mused our slightly jealous crew, “if they crashed into a sandbank!” and lo and behold, they did. From 20kts to zero in less time than it takes to say “No wake!” Our crew didn’t laugh at all...

Pics: The Landing Party, Baby Mangroves

2009-04-11T20:00:00.000-07:00

When the landing party returned, we decided to have our barbecue before the second party went exploring. Chris wanted to move the boat nearer to our barbecue beach destination and this involved negotiating some very shallow seas at low tide. We’re able to set a “track” with our plotter which, once we’ve navigated successfully from A to B, we can use to return from B to A. So we were relatively confident that, bar grounding, we could get back to our anchorage and from there, back to the deeper(!) water. Off we went, two adults in front and Adam reading off the depth as it changed to Chris at the helm. At one point, still some way from our destination, we hastily reversed and tried a new route. The charts are pretty good, better than the plotter, but sand shifts and you just can’t be sure. Eventually, a couple of hundred metres off shore, it got really shallow. Chris decided that this was a golden opportunity – low tide and flat bottom – to see how Hakuna Matata would handle grounding – so he let it ground. Our first observation is that the depth gauge reads .2m and then about 8m – which is handy to know. The second is that even though we grounded so gently it was barely noticeable, we weren’t getting off the sand till the tide got higher and refloated us. The third was how weird it was to stand next to the boat hulls and be able to clean them off...

We abandoned ship and took to the beach with our barbecue. It was hot. There was no obvious shade. The rocks were sharp. The sand was baking. All that was missing was Kirsty Young, the Bible and the Complete Works of Shakespeare. The kids solved the shade issue by building the little shelter shown in the last photo and we had a really tasty and largely unburnt barbecue.

The tide started to rise, we’d finished the food so we went back to the boat to let the second group tackle the creek. Sadly the dinghy wasn’t playing ball and required some TLC and by the time we had that sorted we need to move the boat to somewhere where it wouldn’t ground at the next low tide overnight.. but it was still a great day.

Pics: Beautiful Beach and Interesting Rocks, The Shelter Detail

Long Cay – Norman’s Cay

2009-04-10T10:30:00.000-07:00

Norman’s Cay was once the centre of a huge drug smuggling operation run by drug baron Carlos Lehder because it is in a perfect position to smuggle cocaine into the US using its tiny airstrip. In its heyday it was a place where anything went and was finally closed down by the Bahamian authorities in 1982 in response to pressure from the US.

But we went for the food! It’s now known for a small restaurant called McDuff’s Bar and Grill which serves great burgers – cheeseburgers in Paradise.

We left Long Cay in quite a wind – too much for us to anchor near the great snorkelling spot we’d discovered the day before because of adverse tide and current. It was only a 6 mile run but we decided to hoist the sails to take advantage of the wind and when we turned east to start navigating the sand banks, we very niftily pulled the sails down most professionally and anchored just off the beach.

The kids were almost instantly in the water, checking out the coral heads we could see from the boat and had avoided while anchoring.

But we were here for lunch. We all went ashore, ate a great lunch and explored the little hotel and the island’s diminutive runway.

2009-04-10T07:00:00.000-07:00

Coral heads called in the afternoon. These tiny underwater islands in the sea are extraordinary miniature aquariums and seem to house just ones and twos of a wide variety of species. Presumably there is traffic between these islands, otherwise there must be divine intervention to keep them populated. The coral head I snorkelled on had the usual suspects – parrot fish, sergeant majors, angel fish – plus the most perfect brain coral and a green moray eel nestling in the rocks.

After Jamie’s sojourn up the mast, the other kids were interested to find out what it was like.

Allen’s Cay – Long Cay

2009-04-09T05:57:00.000-07:00

Our destination today was Long Cay for good snorkelling. We decided to go “outside” from the Bank to Exuma Sound. On the Sound side of the Cays, there is a drop off to deep ocean not far from shore – no VP required and quite different sailing conditions. Our decision was based on three factors: we’d heard of a good dive you could do on the east of Highbourne Cay; the Battricks are sailors so we wanted to do some sailing; and we were comfortable attempting the cuts out of and into the Bank.

We found the dive site and buoy which we were able to tie up to. Jamie, Chris and I had a pretty good dive – nothing like San Salvador but still pretty with canyons of coral reaching out like fingers towards the wall.

After the dive, we sailed again – not great sailing it turned out because the wind was in the wrong direction – and anchored at Long Cay --the colours of the water through the cut and at our anchorage just taking everyone’s breath away.

Once anchored, the landing party went off in the dinghy to scout out the snorkelling opportunities. No luck at all. The lagoon they explored had a beautiful sandy bottom and nothing else. Finally we used the chart to locate a likely spot and Jamie and Chris went out and found it. Because our dinghy is smaller than we would like, we had to ferry 8 people in two trips. So half the party went off and indeed found excellent snorkelling at Lobster Cay. This was the first time Phil and the boys saw the fish life of the Bahamas – they’ve been to the Barrier Reef – and they were suitably impressed with the clarity of the water and the colours and variety of the fish.

Later that evening was a fabulous sunset and fantastic moonrise. Perfect!

Pics: Bahamian Beach; Successful Snorkel Scouting; Melting Sun; Rising Moon

Allen's Cay

2009-04-08T23:59:00.000-07:00

The reason for going to Allen’s Cay was the Rock Iguanas. They are unique to the Cay and are a popular day trip from Nassau!

As soon as we anchored, the kids jumped into the inviting water and snorkelled to the beach with the less hardy adults following in the dinghy. Initially we could only see one or two iguanas – but they are fairly large (up to the size of a cat) and reasonably curious so that was probably a good introduction. If you stayed quite still, they approached very close. They move very fast and can be quite unnerving – except that if you make any sudden move in their direction they speedily retreat.

Another dinghy arrived with some food, and suddenly the beach was full of iguanas posing for the cameras!

Nassau to Allen’s Cay

2009-04-08T12:03:00.000-07:00

We had a 35 mile run to Allen’s Cay that needed to be completed before 4pm. Prior to that we had to leave the dock and refuel. The winds were higher than we would have liked with 2 large pilings on either side but with 4 adults and some useful kids, getting out was a relative breeze. We did have one of those “duh” moments: we were warping the boat to be as central as possible to the 4 pilings and realised that Phil might have some difficulty making it back on the boat...

The refuelling dock was the other side of the bridges under which we theoretically had mast clearance but we still breathed in hard as we went under. Refuelling took a lot longer than we expected: we couldn’t get petrol for the dinghy at the first dock and had to send Phil and Jamie off in the dinghy to another with the fuel cans. This involved heroic and simian climbing skills on Phil’s behalf but meant extra delay.

The sailing was pleasant and uneventful: on the way we practised “eyeball piloting” with Phil and Debbie so we would have 5 pairs of eyes to help avoid collisions. Even though we crossed the infamous Yellow Bank on the recommended and therefore surveyed route, you still need to look out for coral heads. But it’s not a chore! On the way in, I’d been able to see starfish on the bottom through the crystal clear water.

Unfortunately the early delays meant that we couldn’t easily navigate visually once we arrived at Allen’s Cay and someone had to go up the mast to see far enough ahead. Our volunteer was Jamie. She sat in a bosun’s chair near the top of our 65’ mast and spotted for us. Allen's Cay is in fact a group of three very small islands with an anchorage in the middle. We didn’t hit anything and managed to enter the anchorage and find a nice spot to anchor in front of the iguana beach. The water was so incredibly clear it was hard to believe that we were in just 2-3 metres of water.

Pics: Simian refuelling, The Battricks, Jamie up the mast

Hurricane Hole, Nassau

2009-04-07T12:14:00.000-07:00

An unexpected day in Nassau saw us taking a walk from our marina on Paradise Island across the bridge to New Providence Island. It wasn’t a brilliant day but we took some photos from the top and they show two faces of Nassau.

Our guests, Debbie, Phil, Callum (12) and Adam (9) finally arrived in the evening. Their journey had been horrendous and they were really ready to have a holiday!

In fact Phil had a great joke ready:

Question: "Why are pirates pirates?"

Answer: "Because they arrghhhh!!!"

Atlantis, Paradise Island

2009-04-06T12:11:00.000-07:00

Chris had promised Alex that he would take him to Atlantis if he could when we were in Nassau and our guests weren’t due to arrive till 8pm at the earliest so we cleaned and provisioned like whirling dervishes in order that we could spend the afternoon there.

Atlantis is a huge resort on Paradise Island with its own hotel, marina, beach and village but what attracted us was the huge water park and marine life exhibits. We started our visit by walking past a lagoon full of very active rays swimming in “flocks”. Even though we had swum and dived with these creatures and seen them swimming around the boat many times, we still stood transfixed and oohed and aahed. I am so pleased that we never seem to lose our sense of wonder and delight. The predator tunnel beckoned and here were shark and barracuda and some really big tarpon along with a mass of reef fish. We knew that Jamie was able to name just about any reef fish in the known universe, but it was our first opportunity to hear Alex saying, “oh look, a queen trigger!” or “no mummy, that’s not a rocky beauty, it’s a creole wrasse (duh)”.

But our real business here was water slides, so that’s what we did next. They picked a nice easy tube ride for me: Jamie went on a single tube as point man and Alex and I followed behind on a double. After a series of luge like swoops and banks we plunged into a shark infested lagoon. Fortunately we were enclosed in a clear plastic tunnel to give us the illusion of being surrounded by shark while flat on our backs in an airfilled tube. A nurse shark had draped itself over the top of the tunnel and was taking a nap – quite a view.

Jamie decided to do a slide called The Abyss or Leap of Faith or something similar – and here she is!

The watery fun continued till 7 when the park shut and we had to get back for our guests. On the way out we walked past the Manta Rays and watched them moving majestically through the water – it was really hard to leave.

Once back at the boat, we again whirled around dervishly and only began to get concerned when our guests hadn’t arrived by about 9pm. Our mobile phones didn’t work in the Bahamas so we couldn’t make or receive the usual voice or text messages or even make a call. Our internet access was miserable and intermittent but we decided to check email and try to Skype. It turned out that our guests had an awful journey from the UK and missed their connection – they wouldn’t be in till the next day. We felt very deflated and disappointed – but very upset for them too.

Hurricane Hole, Nassau

2009-04-05T06:09:00.000-07:00

The wind was non-existent when we left Highbourne, the sea was millpond calm and a low level mist meant you could barely see an horizon. (see pic) In these conditions, we can only bank on 5kts – sometimes less if we’re going into a strong current or against the tide. So with 40 miles to go and a preferred ETA within VPR limits, we had to plan for 8 hours cruising, so we left at around 7am.

It was our first experience of sailing on the shallow banks and was quite surreal – we could see the bottom but no land on any horizon. We practised spotting and avoiding coral heads and even hove to near one so we could see if it represented a snorkelling opportunity. It did – even from the boat we could see coral, fans and even a lionfish so Chris and Alex leapt off an unanchored boat in open ocean -- nutters. We did manage to reunite boat and snorkelers even though my manoeuvring skills are a little bit basic.

Hurricane Hole was also a first experience. This time of docking using 4 pilings, 2 front and 2 rear, to tie off to. The idea is that the ropes are balanced to keep the boat from hitting the dockside regardless of wind or tide. The tide produces about a metre of rise and fall. The greatest difficulty was Chris’s: he had to reverse the boat between the pilings – of course, from the flat calm of the morning we now had a brisk breeze to make life interesting.

Our mission for the rest of the day and the next day was to clean, clean, clean and provision for 8 people for a 10 day cruise with only 2 possible eating out opportunities...

It would have been my Dad's birthday today. He would have loved following this adventure. We still miss him.

Back on Passage to Highbourne Cay

2009-04-04T06:04:00.000-07:00

We were all sad to leave San Salvador but we had to get to Nassau to meet some friends who were spending Easter with us in the Exumas. The Exumas is a group of small islands, called Cays, that start about 35 miles south of Nassau on New Providence Island and run more or less north to south. On one side is deep water sailing: on the other, the Bahama Bank which probably averages about 3 metres deep. Getting from ocean to bank and vice versa involves navigating the cuts which are narrow to really narrow gaps between the cays. These gaps funnel the tide and can be fraught with coral heads, rocks and sand bars and are usually subject to VPR – visual piloting rules. This means you need to go through when wind and wave conditions allow and when the light is right so you can judge depths by the colour of the sea and spot rocks. The light is right when there’s little cloud, the sun is behind you and/or high enough in the sky so you can see the bottom – generally between about 8am and 4pm. We planned the 130 mile passage from San Salvador so that we would arrive at our first deep ocean to shallow bank navigation at around 9 or 10 in the morning. We picked a not-so-narrow cut with few obstructions so we could get the hang of it (before picking up our guests!)

It was, in the event, uneventful. The weather conditions were just right and, with not much discussion, we could reconcile the plotter, the charts and what we could actually see in front of us. We were rewarded with a perfect Bahamian anchorage – coral sand beach, crystal clear water, and graceful rays clearly visible under and around the boat.

We did make a foray onto land: Highbourne Marina has a shop which was fun to browse, but mostly we swam in the sea and rested. Because we needed to start early in the morning and cross 40 miles of shallow bank, we moved anchorage so we could make an easy exit with little light.

Pic: Clear waters at Highbourne Cay Marina

Last Diving Day

2009-04-02T06:01:00.000-07:00

Our last dive started with a swim though from the sandy floor and the top of the coral reef to around 27m down the wall. From there we worked our way along and up the wall to meet the divers who needed to stay around 12m -- including Jamie. I like wall diving although it can be quite daunting and a bit disorientating to look off into the far blue yonder. On this dive we saw another shark – a rather large reef shark – who instead of just making contact and leaving, decided to cruise back and forth. I felt like I was being sized up, but I’m sure it was just an impression...

At the end of the dive, we went in search of the underwater Columbus memorial. It wasn’t hard to find and here it is.

Snorkelling

2009-04-01T06:00:00.001-07:00

There’s a dive site not far from Riding Rock called Snapshot which is just about deep enough to dive and shallow enough to snorkel. So as Jamie and I dived round some exceptionally pretty coral heads, Chris and Alex snorkelled above us. It was quite neat to be able to wave to each other and to occasionally see them free diving down to us.

Big Fish

2009-03-31T05:56:00.000-07:00

There’s a set of fish weighing scales on the Riding Rock Marina dock that resembles a guillotine. The fish caught during the day are weighed here: we saw one that weighed in at 98lb – the fisherman was disappointed because he’s trying to break the 100lb mark.

Sharks in San Salvador

2009-03-30T23:55:00.000-07:00

It wasn’t just while we dived that we saw shark! They cruise in the shallows around Riding Rock Inn and the Marina. We could watch them as we ate lunch. Bruce, our dive boat captain, said that they are attracted into the marina by the fish waste from the sport fishing boats.
Pics: Top shark outside the place we ate lunch
Bottom: Playing on the beach in a glorious sunset.

Diving in San Salvador

2009-03-30T08:04:00.000-07:00

Chris and I had decided to put San Salvador on the itinerary because it's the place where we have experienced some of our best diving in 20 years. It’s still the best. Jamie, who is 10 and has only been diving since July last year, saw 6 Hammerhead sharks and numerous Caribbean Reef sharks as well as some of the most fantastic underwater scenery, enormous and friendly grouper, turtles, stingrays – as the school instructor, Lynn, kept singing "for a moment like this, some people wait a lifetime". I could go on, but instead we’ve included a slideshow of some of our better underwater pics. Enjoy!

Arriving in San Salvador

2009-03-30T07:35:00.000-07:00

We hung around outside Riding Rock Marina until the sun was high enough to negotiate the cut. Getting in and mooring up was all very straightforward and we were parked “side to” with an easy exit and entry to the boat, a beach about 20 metres away, opposite the dive boat and school and a 5 minute walk from the restaurant. This means the kids can roam at will which is such a luxury and really helps them to develop their own self-reliance.

We’ve seen some beautiful seas on this trip, but the waters round San Salvador just take your breath away. With our happy snappy camera, we can’t do justice to the incredible blues – but here’s our best shot (pun intended!)

Whales Again! Wahoo!

2009-03-29T07:16:00.000-07:00

The passage from Turks to San Salvador lasted about 39 hours and gave us another and unexpected encounter with whales. We spotted them in the afternoon after about 23 hours (around 4 in the afternoon) and changed course to meet them getting so close that Jamie was quite concerned for a moment or two! It really lifted all our flagging spirits at just the right point in the passage.

Leaving Turks and Caicos

2009-03-28T19:38:00.000-07:00

Navigation, in the main, had previously been fairly straightforward. Assuming the wind is on your side, which it had been the majority of the time, set a course and deviate a little to take advantage of the wind direction. We had navigated around the Turks and Caicos bank and engaged the marina pilot to get through the cut on the way in to avoid what’s known as visual piloting. Now we had to bite the bullet and plan when we left, when we arrived, and when we were going across the shallow banks so we hit optimum light conditions – generally between 8 or 9 in the morning till 4 in the afternoon. We decided to leave T&C at around 5 pm -- a little bit out of the window -- because apart from the cut, there weren’t any other obstacles to navigate. This would mean we might have to hang around outside San Salvador for a couple of hours till it was light enough to navigate their cut and marina, but was the best compromise we could come up with.
The pictures show the breakers on the right and left of the cut as well as my scary bug eyed glasses that help me see well enough to give everyone a 10 second warning before we ground!!

Kayaking in Turks and Caicos

2009-03-28T19:34:00.000-07:00

Alex was keen to go kayaking with his Dad across to the mangrove park opposite us. Because the marina is situated in a cut, it’s subject to strong current and tide so they had to pick their moment – even then it was quite a paddle back – here they are on the way out. When they returned they were a sight to see – totally in sync!

Iguanas in Turks and Caicos

2009-03-26T19:24:00.000-07:00

Just opposite the marina was a park for mangroves, birds and iguanas. We thought we’d dinghy across and take a look – so here we are iguana hunting!

Partying in Turks and Caicos

2009-03-25T19:22:00.000-07:00

We made friends with the crew of a boat moored opposite us in the marina. They have been captaining/crewing what we call “stinkpots” for a long time and knew all the best places to go in the Bahamas and were fantastically helpful to us in planning our forthcoming trip. The owners of their boat were coming in for a long weekend with a party of friends and they did warn us that things might get loud. And they did! Fortunately it was mostly the sort of music that we liked too so we just sat outside and played board games using lip reading and mime to communicate! They did however play one particular anthem -- “Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue” -- on a regular and repeated basis: including when the owners arrived, when they returned to the marina and 4 times in a row before lights out at night.

Driving in Turks and Caicos

2009-03-24T19:19:00.000-07:00

Actually not so much driving as carting. To give Alex a bit of a treat we went to the local go-cart track. Alex enjoys carting and as soon as he’s in a car has a strong look of determination and focus. He took the person in front on the first corner with a daring overtaking move but after that, he started to hit the sides of the track – very unlike him. Finally, about 1/3 of the way round the first circuit, he crashed big time. Chris belted across the track and helped the poor lad get out of the car and established that the fabric lining of the safety helmet had descended over Alex’s eyes and completely blinded him. Alex was right on the lower edge of the age limit and his head was too small for the helmets – which weren‘t necessarily wonderful anyway. Alex had bruising all over his shoulders and neck and was very shaken up. He’s decided not to become and F1 driver – hopefully not forever.

Diving in Turks and Caicos

2009-03-23T19:15:00.000-07:00

The weather continued to be "not great". The wind was strong and in the north and the wave heights were high. This meant that the closer dives weren’t possible and the dive boats were venturing out to French Cay and West Caicos which involved high speed, bouncy loud trips of around an hour. Consequently, Alex couldn’t accompany us and whoever was diving was away from the boat until about 3 or 4 in the afternoon. So Chris and I each did one day with Jamie and we all saw some pretty cool fish including shark! Jamie and I were near the end of our first dive and I had just become interested in a cream and brown mottled fish that had spread its gills right out for cleaning. I was pointing it out to Jamie as she was pointing energetically behind me. Lo and behold a Caribbean reef shark was right there. We also saw a honeycomb cowfish -- the one I saw was iridescent blue – and a huge green moray amongst all the usual blue tang, black durgeon etc., etc., and so on. Diving with Jamie on my own was a big deal for me: I’m not as experienced as Chris and am used to relying on him as my buddy – now I was theoretically the more qualified and experienced!

Unfortunately we don’t have our own photos of the experience – but here are some illustrative images!

Refuelling in Turks and Caicos

2009-03-22T18:45:00.000-07:00

We thought the marina had fuel facilities – and it kind of did... If a megayachts wanted thousands of litres of fuel then a fuel lorry would deign to visit. This meant that our tiny 3 or 400 hundred litres had to piggy back on one of their deliveries.

On Monday morning, Alex had a poorly tooth and Chris took him to the dentist (who did a great job at a very low cost!) On the way, the dock master told Chris that a delivery would happen just as he should get back from the dentist. The delivery lorry couldn’t get to us, we had to get to the dockside to meet it. This meant some really nifty manoeuvring out of our berth in 20kt winds – not easy at the best of times, or in a rush in case the lorry decides that your paltry fuel requirements aren’t worth their while. As we approached the dockside, all nicely fendered, it became obvious that we needed fenders some way above our deck to protect the boat from the high, concrete mega yacht wall. So in a tide race (the tide rushes through the cut at about 2kt) and 20kt of wind, we had to reverse into a temporary berth with a post in the middle of it and a concrete wall just beyond it. Jamie and I found it hugely stressful, but Chris managed to get us in without incident – despite our Cassandra like cries.

We refuelled and given the direction of wind and wave, decided to stay put until the weather got better.

Going to the Beach in Turks and Caicos

2009-03-21T17:34:00.000-07:00

Time to visit Grace Bay. Chris’ trips to T&C had been to the Club Med on Grace Bay which is a huge long sandy beach protected by a coral reef. Since he’d first visited the island – we think about ’89 – Grace Bay has been DEVELOPED. Fortunately it’s still beautiful and you can still find more isolated spots. It was too cold for me to venture without wetsuit into the sea, but the kids and Chris had a great beachy time! Check out the colour of that water!!

Bicycling in Turks and Caicos

2009-03-20T16:58:00.000-07:00

Time to get out the bikes! These had been sitting in the forward holds for about 10,000 miles and were now going to get a workout. For Alex, who had just got used to cycling and then had his bike packed in a hold, this meant relearning some of his skills and learning how to ride on the road. Bikes added a new dimension of freedom for the kids – we could let them go cycling around the hotel and marina without worrying about traffic or security and they could get off the boat, be around the pool and on the bikes. One afternoon, we cycled to a beach – we didn’t stay on it because it was on the north side of the island which was being battered by northerly wind and waves, but we did have a great sense of achievement that we got there!

In the pic, Chris seems to be eagerly waving while he passes a boat called Escape...

Arriving in Turks and Caicos

2009-03-19T16:47:00.000-07:00

Getting into Turks and Caicos involved navigating our first “cut”. These are narrow passages through the coral reef and sand barriers to the island itself and they can be very tricky if it’s windy or the sea is high. We had arranged for a pilot to bring us through the cut and into the marina but in the event the channel was clearly marked and it was relatively simple. The only piece of excitement was at the entrance where the strength of waves onto shore meant we were surfing towards the narrow entry at quite some speed and being turned sideways which led to a feeling of being out of control next to a coral reef – but it didn’t last long!

Our new “home” combined turquoise water, white sandy beaches and the facilities of a hotel swimming pool! It was a place to relax – not a lot of sightseeing to be done, but some good diving and beaches.

Pics:

top: our pilot

middle: clearly marked channel!

middle: beach

bottom: our reward!

Chasing whales!

2009-03-17T15:52:00.000-07:00

We didn’t get to go on the whale watching tour we’d booked, so we decided to conduct our own on the way to Turks and Caicos. We aren’t as fast as the whale watching boats, so we left a bit earlier than them and then watched where they went and monitored their VHF radio channel. It was a pretty successful strategy because they cluster together in little packs.

We did see whales: just blows and surfacing but it was still exciting because we were part of the whale watching pack. We even contributed when we saw signs of whales, yelling and pointing along with the "tourists". The whales were making their way out of the shallow Samana Bay: because it’s shallow they stay near the surface and, unlike our other sightings, don’t blow, fluke and dive, forever gone, but meander (quite speedily) to the exit of the bay. This behaviour gave us the chance to “follow” them. Some of the pack were tiny speed boats and these always arrived at a sighting first with the larger boats trailing. While we didn’t see a whole lotta a whale, the experience was exhilarating.

Finally and regretfully we had to make our way out of the bay and start the two day passage to Turks and Caicos. And about four hours later we saw a couple of whales on their passage from Silver Bank to Samana Bay. This was even more fantastic than the morning encounter because the whales were engaged in slapping their huge fins on the sea and creating waves – it looks like they have huge fun, but I’m not sure if they’re really playing...

As before, click on the pic to see the little tiny images of whales we managed to get...

Marinating in Marin

2009-03-16T09:36:00.000-07:00

Note: This was written in January, but has taken its time to get here -- it's so funny, I wanted everyone to see it. It's written by Chris.

The nights here are hot and steamy which kills my sleep patterns. I have tried about everything to get to sleep and after extensive research I have had to conclude alcohol isn’t a solution regardless of quantity – which is a shame as the rum here comes in five litre cartons for about 4 Euros a litre. So when I got up early today to get some boat jobs done I’d had only two or three hours sleep and it really told. Robbie our boat slave and I got up at seven to de-baton, disconnect and remove the sails ready for North to re-stitch them and replace the reef one block. This went pretty much OK except for the rather random folding up of the Genoa. We ran this over to North on a trolley and then started the generator service which was at best farcical.
The steps for a basic generator service are:
1. Warm engine
2. Drain oil (with a scavenger pump)
3. Change oil filter
4. Refill oil with 7 litres until dipstick shows full
5. Check anode
6. Drain off water from fuel filter
7. Remove rubbish from raw water filter and top up
8. Check V belt tension
9. Start engine and check all OK, then shut down and write up service in manual
Then you are done, total time 20 minutes.
Our sequence went:
1. Warm engine
2. Drain oil, fix scavenger pump several times as oil goes everywhere when it falls apart, realise not enough has come out from sump drain so scavenge through dipstick hole with wrong size pump attachment and lots of duck tape using several bottles for the oil and dropping about half on self and floor
3. Mangle old oil filter with filter wrench then have it fall off depositing hot oil contents into lap, partially fill new filter, reattach, decide not enough oil in filter so do again
4. Refill oil with about 9 litres and dipstick not showing full then realise sump valve still open and tray below engine now full of fresh oil
5. Shut valve, go to chandlers for oil absorbent mats (3) when kitchen towel exhausted, wipe up oil with mats and own body (not intentionally), go to chandlers for more oil absorbent mats (6), mop up more oil, find more kitchen towel and remove some of slime from arms, top up oil until dipstick shows full
6. Check anode, consult manual to make sure empty nut was in fact anode, find new anode and fit
7. Explain to bored family members that delay is unavoidable and absorb abuse
8. Realise new anode pushed plug of old anode or something else into heat exchanger
9. Open heat exchanger cleanout tube, find plug of salt/calcium not old anode, also find lots of bits of impellor, clean out all rubbish and scrape of calcium, look stupidly at worn out rubber gasket
10. Go to generator agents for gasket, none in stock – they say maybe a month, realise this is just a circle of rubber with a hole so try everywhere else in Marin, find rubber gasket with hole of same size and go back to boat
11. Drink 4 pints water to alleviate heat prostration from sitting in generator housing and alleviate incipient oil poisoning
12. Explain to irate marina space owner that can’t move yet because of impellor failure and absorb abuse
13. Open oil pump to check impellor, scratch head for while as impellor is perfect and realise bits are from first impellor that blew up and was cleaned out by delivery skipper
14. Drain off water from fuel filter
15. Remove rubbish from raw water filter and top up
16. Check V belt tension, find it’s much too slack, read manual and discover 2 simple steps to fix
17. Perform step 1 and remove top cover, then side cover, then back cover, realise that engine in nice easy diagram is as seen from behind which can only be accessed by squeezing entire body into impossibly small space while bruises form from sharp protrusions. Attempt to loosen bolt that is impossible to reach without tying a rope to spanner, dropping onto nut and passing rope under engine to pull and loosen bolt. Scrape knuckles and fingers raw
18. Apologise again from inside engine to bored family who are leaving boat for something more interesting to do
19. Loosen second bolt, move alternator to tighten V belt, get help to keep under tension while tightening first impossible one back up, after 10 minutes realise must be not on back revolving so won’t tighten.
20. Dislocate several bones so rubber arm goes through bits of engine to reach invisible unreachable back nut to hold tight while tightening impossible nut with spanner held in teeth.
21. Attempt for some time to disengage tools, arms and body from space using Californian relaxation technique to get muscles unspasming so flexible again
22. Sit confused on floor until red mist clears after head right way up again
23. Start engine to check all OK, realise more rubbish now in water filter, remove and refill, start engine again. Cover manual in oil and scrawled notes, throw clothes away as unwashable and have shower to remove oil.
24. 5 hours and ---- you’re done.

National Park, Dominican Republic

2009-03-15T08:52:00.000-07:00

We tried to book a whale watching trip but couldn’t get one till Monday so we decided to go on a day sail across the bay to the National Park because they have ... caves. And wildlife, mangroves and beaches you can use a barbecue on.

We anchored in the park and explored the coastline with the dinghy. In front of the boat was a bird island with egrets and huge black soaring birds flying and landing, flying and landing. Very busy, pretty and tuneful. The limestone rock and cave formations were interesting – we managed to find a number that looked like skulls one of which we’ve included in the photos. Finally, we pulled the dinghy up on a little beach on which there was a Ranger hut, a few palm trees, a couple benches and a sign in Spanish. Surprisingly we had to pay a park fee which was higher than the guide book indicated. This cave system was partly open to the sea through erosion and was extremely pretty: lit from outside, the sea inside rippled and reflected on the red, green, brown and white rock walls and ceilings. Again it was home to bats but also to swifts. We were unguided and alone for much of the time in the caves and could use our torches to explore and watch bats and birds high up in the ceilings. Unlike Camuy, these caves felt like they could have been home to people in the past, though we didn’t see any petroglyphs and signs of old habitation, just some recent graffiti.

Click on the pics for bigger versions!

2009-03-15T08:01:00.000-07:00

As we went back to the boat in the dinghy we saw a day tripper boat leaving a little inlet, so we decided to explore that. It was an absolutely pristine piece of mangrove swamp. The Ranger who we’d paid previously was on his way out but turned round and guided us through this next set of caves which were covered with petroglyphs. While these caves weren’t open to the sea and full of light, they did have a couple of sinkholes which allowed light to penetrate. Not quite so homely from my point of view, but clearly someone thought it was.

Back to the boat and over to the beach where another cat was anchored. We’d been their neighbours in Antigua so we exchanged information and war stories. On the beach, the sun came out and we broiled as our food barbecued.

Then it was back to the other side of the bay to ensure we got on the whale watch in the morning. The bay in which we anchored had an egret tree. As the sun set, ones, twos and small flocks of egrets arrowed across the bay back to their tree. Each flock reached the tree, were greeted with great noise by the incumbents and scattered: they flew together but didn’t roost together. We spent 30 mins watching their extraordinary display. I watched the reverse the next morning at sun rise.

Puerto Rico to the Dominican Republic

2009-03-14T08:48:00.000-07:00

The weather window opened up —more or less – and we made a break for the DR. This passage was one we had dreaded: our destinations dictated that we travel the north shore of both PR and the DR. There are only two “safe havens” along the north shore of PR if things go horribly wrong in a north wind. We kept ourselves way out from shore and in the event nothing did go wrong -- except that we forgot to “clear out” of US customs and immigration and that, combined with the fact that we exceeded our speed estimates and would reach the DR at 3 in the morning, meant that we headed down the west coast to Mayaguana to kill some time the next morning.

We started across the Mona Passage in the early afternoon. Initially things were fine but the wind picked up to a gusty force 6, the sea got “big” and the waves were in the wrong direction for us. Despite the Stugeron, I was reduced to incapacity and abject misery. But I was rewarded. I was on the 4am to 8am watch and at around 7:30 before anyone else had risen, I was scanning the horizon and saw amongst the white horses an extreme white top – clearly not just a wave breaking normally. It was evidence of a whale and seconds later, the whale itself breached, coming right out of the water and slamming back down creating the spume I’d seen earlier. Chris also saw some blows before 8am and we were confident we’d see whales in Samana – even got the kids up to help watch. Unfortunately, just like the turtles, they didn’t get to see any that day...

By midday we were anchored and cleared into the DR. “Clearing” here involves a visit from a couple of friendly officials who do the paperwork on your boat and require a couple of “gifts” to keep things sweet...

Rincon, Puerto Rico

2009-03-09T08:46:00.000-07:00

From our own personal theme park, we moved onto Rincon for some whale watching. Poor maps and behaviour meant we arrived late, irritable and not in the mood to take a 50% chance of seeing whales with good grace.

Rincon is on the west coast of Puerto Rico, separated from the Dominican Republic by the Mona Passage. Whales migrate along the passage to and from the Silver Banks which are north of the DR between December and mid-March. We were heading for Samana Bay in the DR as soon as the weather and were using the opportunity of whale watching in Puerto Rico as a kind of insurance policy in case we couldn’t get to the DR in time.

We spent the first hour or so, utterly convinced that we wouldn’t see whales and that the trip was called whale watching on a very tenuous basis! But we did see whales – probably 2 or 3 travelling together. The boat was fast enough to be able to track their progress north towards Silver Banks: everyone kept a lookout for the telltale “blow” and we dashed it – staying a respectable distance away to ensure we didn’t disturb them. Although they “fluked” quite often, we really only got one representative picture because it was sunset – very beautiful but not something our camera can cope with.

Jamie was quite scared because, as you can see, the boat we were on was quite small and the whales are quite a bit bigger than it! She saw one of the whales with its mouth open showing its baleen plates quite clearly.

It was exciting and fun and really lifted our spirits. There’s the “thrill of the chase” when you’re with other people. But it’s quite a different feeling when you see a whale, or a dolphin, from your own boat: when that happens, there’s excitement but more of a sense of communication and the feeling that we’re not alone on the sea.

Fun park, Puerto Rico

2009-03-09T06:46:00.000-07:00

To compensate for the previous day’s serious sightseeing, we had promised time in the local fun park. Because it was a Monday out of vacation time, it was deserted. We and one other party were the only people in the park. Instead of opening all the rides, the organisers assigned us our own personal guide and ride starter. It was weird – our own personal fun park. We did have fun, even though it was a surreal experience!

Double click on the image to make it big enough to see!

Arecibo Radio Telescope, Puerto Rico

2009-03-08T06:44:00.000-07:00

I was excited by our next destination. There’s nothing I like more than planetariums, observatories and science museums and this is the world’s largest radio telescope and home to the SETI project not to mention some of the most important astronomical discoveries.

Kids weren’t so thrilled. It’s a long way up to the observatory especially when accompanied by moans and groans. To make the climb interesting, the curator has put the sun and planets at their scale distances along the path with loads of interesting info all related to earth measurements. I couldn’t work out how they’d fit the whole solar system in until I realised that they stopped at Jupiter. The kids could not have cared less.

But it was a different story once we started to go round the visitor centre which is packed full of great exhibits and information. I found an exhibit that charts solar lifecycles and the formation of the elements. It was just like the one I had in the first astronomy book I had when I was just a bit older than Alex and which inspired me. I took each member of the family through it exhaustively and they got so bored, they found the other exhibits – particularly the cloud making exhibit – absolutely fascinating in contrast. We also watched a film, “A Day in the life of Arecibo Observatory” which really brought the whole thing to life. And, of course, went and exclaimed over the actual telescope itself.

I loved it and in the end, I think the kids did too.

Rio Camuy Caves Park, Puerto Rico

2009-03-08T06:42:00.000-07:00

After a short dip in the hotel’s cold pool, it was off for the first of today’s sightseeing sites – Camuy Caves. I think we may be closet troglodytes!

These subterranean caves are here courtesy of the underground Camuy River, were carved out over one million years ago and now form the third largest cave system in the world.

Once we were hard-hatted, we were taken to the cave system on a Disney-like tram. This travels through some beautiful forest trails before descending about 200ft on a scale version of the Nailsworth ladder into the sinkhole that’s the entry to the parts of the cave system we’re allowed to visit. Currently only a small part is open—three sinkholes and two caves.

After the tram ride, it’s on foot for about an hour through the Cueva Clara and its neighbouring cavern. The caves are home to bats (thankfully asleep), a unique species of blind fish and some kind of spider. The incredible stalactites and mites are beautifully and artistically lit, but there’s no spiritual element like the feeling we experienced in the Caves of Diros or the caves near Karen. The sinkholes are awe-inspiring: eye achingly bright after the gloom of the caverns. We oohed and aahed at the height of the ceiling but didn’t appreciate how high it really was. Apparently there’s an optical illusion called the twilight effect which makes it look smaller than it is: Cueva Clara is about 170’ high, the height of a 15 storey building. To see the underground Camuy river rushing through, perhaps 100’ below, we had to lean over a vertiginous drop holding hard hat and glasses.

The kids were unimpressed after the first 15 minutes and perhaps the tour could have been shorter and perhaps we have visited enough caves for one lifetime...

El Yunque, Puerto Rico

2009-03-07T08:02:00.000-08:00

El Yunque (pronounced Junkay) is a rain forest and another US National Park which makes it easy to explore. It covers a range of mountains on the east of the island that reach 3500’ high (1067 metres if you’re metric) and is said to be the home of the kindly Taino spirit Yuquiyu. 100 billion gallons of rain fall here every year – making the average Brit feel right at home!

We expected to do some serious hiking and duly gathered together walking shoes and socks, rain gear and loads of other heavy stuff. In the event, our visit was dry and the National Park trails could probably be attempted in stiletto heels (only kidding). (Our last rain forest walk in Dominica had been on a park trail but was pretty challenging and very wet!)

We visited the El Portal Visitor Centre first, the entrance to which is a canopy walkway which gives you a bird’s eye perspective on the forest. The Visitor Centre is architecturally beautiful and a pleasure to wander round. We sat through a short video about the rain forest: the species, including the endangered parrot of which there are about 40 left and whose numbers were halved in the last major hurricane; the archaeology, including the petroglyphs and artefacts left by Taino Indians; and the importance of the water to Puerto Ricans.

But eventually we couldn’t avoid hiking anymore, so we got back in the car(!) and headed for the first interesting looking landmark on the road through the forest. This was the Coca Waterfall. We parked, got all kitted up and then discovered that there was no actual hiking to be done – you simply walked up a pavement to the waterfall which is by the side of the road. The kids and Chris did scramble up the rocks beside the fall to fulfil a photo opportunity, but we still had to go find a real trail.

We did. This was a short hike of around 1.5km down to another waterfall which you could swim in (if you could tolerate Arctic chill). It was a beautiful trail with a thundering waterfall and fast flowing stream as a reward. We were working on the senses in Alex’s English-- sight, sound, taste, touch, smell -- and here’s the result of our work.

Sight:
Smooth roundness of a snail
Light and shadow, bright and dark
Big spider
Roots lying on the surface
Huge leaves, lush green, broad and fern
Bright red soil
Boulders that look like they’ve been thrown by rock giants
Steep edges
White water, scattered like running deer

Sound:
The call of a frog that sounds like a bird -- Co-ki
Birdsong
Rush of water
Rush of wind
Trees creaking

Feel:
The sharp sting of spray in your eyes
Water as cold as an Arctic wolf’s nose
Soft, mossy rocks and cold hard rocks
Rubbery leaves
Slimy snail

Taste:
The moisture in the air as you got nearer the waterfalls

Smell:
The scent of wild ginger
Musty smell of decaying leaves

The waterfall pool was breathtakingly cold: we scrambled down to it and the kids took off shoes and socks to go in but it was even beyond them to stay in for more than a few seconds at a time!

We started the hike back and Alex went on ahead. About 1km later and with no sign of Alex, we started to get a little anxious – not that he could get lost but he could fall off the trail which had pretty steep sides. We started calling and calling to no effect and even Jamie (older sister and therefore arch enemy) got a bit panicky. Chris eventually took off and hot footed it up (really quite up) the trail. Jamie followed him and I followed behind more slowly (did I mention I managed to break my little toe in Antigua and it was still wasn’t runnable on?) I emerged from the trail to find red faced, exhausted husband and cool looking kids with Alex gleefully telling me how much quicker he’d got to the top of the trail than I had. Hmmm.

We left the park and headed west to Arecibo for the next day’s sightseeing. This involved navigating through San Juan, finding ourselves static in a traffic jam to do with a big game of some sort, surrounded by heavily armed police and noisy supporters, and arriving at a very unprepossessing hotel right on the highway with no visible sign of life. However, don’t judge a book, as they say, the hotel was clean, comfortable, had TV (kids ecstatic) and high speed wireless internet, a small pool, friendly staff and great accessibility to everything we needed.

Old San Juan, Puerto Rico

2009-03-06T04:38:00.000-08:00

Old San Juan is the town on a small islet that’s connected to the north mainland or Puerto Rico and guards the port of San Juan. It was of great strategic importance to the Spanish because it was the doorway for the gold, silver, jewels and treasures they brought to Spain from Central and South America. Naturally it was attractive to English, French and Dutch governments as well as pirates, so the Spanish built some fortifications. We visited Castillo de San Felipe del Morro or El Morro. Morro means promontory In Spanish.

The fortifications were started in 1539, 20 years after the first Spanish settlements, and were used by various militaries until the US Army handed over the forts of Old San Juan to the National Park Service in 1961.

Drake attacked El Morro in 1595 but was unsuccessful and lost his friend Hawkins in the encounter, and the only time the fort was ever taken was in 1598 by the Duke of Cumberland who held it for about 6 weeks until dysentery beat him.

The entrance to the harbour is really quite narrow and looks absolutely treacherous in the force 5/6 we had the day we visited. There’s a small island opposite El Morro which was also fortified and ships just didn’t have a prayer of avoiding the cannon cross fire made possible by the two forts. It was a very effective fort and very impressive. Six levels taking it from sea level to 44 metres high; immensely thick walls – 6 metres thick and apparently constructed in the early years with a “soft” interior to absorb cannon impact; narrow walkways to impossibly suspended sentry boxes called garitas and huge cannons covering over 180o round.

We had a great time exploring this site and you can see the pics in the slideshow called Old San Juan.

Marina Del Rey Puerto Rico

2009-03-05T05:48:00.000-08:00

We've decided to stay in Puerto Rico for a bit because of the weather -- windy and grim -- and because (surprise, surprise) we need something dealt with on the boat.

Although we were all keen to get out exploring (life having been a bit uneventful for a couple of days!!!!) by the time we had managed customs clearance and been drenched a couple of times, we in fact decided to retreat hermit like into the boat to catch up on some school work. Alex finally finished his St Lucia project which is excellent and sent an email to school. Jamie is working through two books this term: “Why the Whales Came” and “Kensuke’s Kingdom” and doing some very thorough comprehension/creative writing around them.

After school, Chris and the kids went to the local shopping centres and picked up some Chinese Takeaway and a couple of new DVDs – so it was film night!

USVI to Puerto Rico

2009-03-04T05:45:00.000-08:00

The passage to Puerto Rico was fairly calm but rainy. We watched a couple of nasty squalls that didn't reach us but the one sitting over the east coast ignored the wind and just sat getting bigger by the minute on the radar. We got v wet.

This little rock stands alone in the sea battered by waves and covered in guano. We saw another “blow” from a whale quite a way from the boat.

BVI to USVI

2009-03-03T05:39:00.000-08:00

We spent a couple of days doing very little except for preparing for the next big stage of our voyage: Dominican Republic via Puerto Rico. We returned to the USVI and visited St Thomas’s main port – another cruise ship destination. We did some blogging, provisioning and chandlerying... not much to report... Oh, except that the bottom of the dinghy got a puncture and running around in a dinghy with only the thin outer shell between you and the drink is not amusing!

Here's a pic of Soper's Hole, BVI -- v. pretty port.

Thar she blows!

2009-03-01T05:52:00.000-08:00

We went back to Soper’s Hole, so we could check out of the BVI, via the RMS Rhone – it was a good dive, but the vis apparently wasn’t as good as the day before. Very large puffer and a nice barracuda. I was "attacked" by a blue sergeant major fish protecting his eggs. He's about 8 cm across. He also attacked a very large queen parrot. Plucky fellow! There's a new slideshow of some of the photos we took

On the way back to Soper’s Hole we saw whales! Jamie was the one to spot a “blow” and we could then clearly see their backs in the water. They blew a few more times and then one of them fluked as they dived and disappeared. Fantastic. No pics – I wasn’t about to miss the action going to get the camera!

At Soper’s Hole we eat at a dockside pub and were entertained by a huge number of extremely large tarpon, their eyes lasing red in our torchlight.

We also went to Soper’s Hole so I could get internet access and we could check Jamie’s secondary school allocation on line – they are available at 12:00:01 on 02/03—8pm our time. I had a bit of a panic centred around the fact I couldn’t remember my password but eventually we found she got her first choice – wahoo!

This time our mooring held all night!!

RMS Rhone & Virgin Gorda

2009-02-28T05:10:00.000-08:00

When you’re in the BVI, it’s obligatory to dive the RMS Rhone, a Royal Mail Steam Packet Company ship that sank in 1867 and was split in two by the force of a devastating hurricane. She’s 310 feet long: the bow section is in eighty feet of water and the stern in thirty so it was a good dive for Jamie.

Jamie and Chris dived the wreck and came up waxing lyrical about the visibility, the fish, the lobster, the coral and we decided to return with full bottles so I could see it too. Alex and Chris snorkelled over the wreck so Alex got a glimpse – he’s dying to do his open water too.

We then went to The Baths on Virgin Gorda, a collection of giant boulders that look like a giant flung them together but are actually the result of volcanic activity. It’s a great snorkelling spot – when it’s a bit calmer. We all found it a bit rough but dutifully snorkelled around a bit imagining how pretty it would be...

Pics: Sailing and Eating

Tortola: Soper's Hole

2009-02-27T12:47:00.000-08:00

After our remora experience we sailed for Tortola and Soper’s Hole. This is a very pretty anchorage with pink, green, yellow and purple buildings in the marina and some lovely houses nestling in the hills surrounding the bay. We moored easily, explored the marina and had an expensive, execrable and slow dinner.

When we returned to the boat, we were slightly concerned with its close proximity to our neighbours, but we were moored to an immovable buoy, so we just shortened our line to the buoy. We had a couple of anchor alarms – they tell you that the boat has moved more than you should expect – and we dismissed them as GPS errors. Finally, we believed our eyes rather than the buoy and decided it was wandering.

By this time it was dark, there was no possibility of anchoring because the harbour is too deep, and the harbour was full. We had to get underway to avoid collision, so we cast off and started to sweep the sea with our Big Bertha torches to detect unlit boats and a hopefully empty mooring buoy. There were no available buoys but plenty of tension. Finally the skipper made a decision to tie to an empty private buoy on the basis this was an emergency and we would leave first thing in the morning. In the event, the owner of the buoy didn’t materialise, the mooring was strongly anchored to the sea floor so we didn’t move and everything was OK.

Really no Mora!

2009-02-27T12:32:00.000-08:00

From Jamie:
Moored up in a bay in St John. Dad and I were talking about the baby fish that were swimming next to the starboard hull. I went inside to start school when I heard Dad scream.
“Jamie! Quickly! Alex! Quick come look at this in the water! It’s there!” he cried pointing to the right.

From Alex:
I dashed to the stern when I heard Dad call. He told us to go to the starboard, then to the port, then he said to come down to the dinghy (which I wish was a rib) so I rushed down and I saw what I thought was a shark! I nearly screamed but I managed to stop myself.

From Jamie:
Sharks! The words swirled around my head. Could they really be sharks? A sudden urge to exit the dinghy and get back on the boat flooded through me but I managed to stop myself. After that Dad quietly put the waterproof camera under the water and started filming. One of the creatures was just acting relaxed and cool while swimming back and forth between the hulls.

From Alex:
Mum accidentally dropped some spaghetti in the sea so instead of just swimming round the boat they were charging at the food which was right beside the dinghy. I was scared to death.

From Kim:
There were about 4 of these fish. They were around 3-4 feet long and they really looked like sharks when they were feeding!

From Jamie:
... suddenly it raced towards the camera and Dad snatched the camera back in to the dinghy. Our hearts were now pounding. As the creature came close we saw that it had what looked like a bootprint on its head.

From Alex:
Dad said they were remora.

From Jamie:
The boot print was its suction pad. But the fins weren’t quite right.

From Alex:
I got off the dinghy onto the boat.

From Jamie:
Finally the worry was over although I must say I’m not keen on swimming in this bay ever again because the fins were not remora fins but the tail was not a shark-like tail. So we’re still not sure what they are.

From Chris:
I checked out the creatures on the Internet and in the National Parks Office and they are remora – although not a very common kind.

St John: Hawksnest Bay

2009-02-26T12:28:00.000-08:00

After some school and some swimming – Alex and Jamie decided to go seek stingray too – we moved around to the north of the island to Hawksnest Bay. This was another spectacular bay with purportedly good snorkelling. We arrived in time for a quick dinghy round the bay and sunset.

St Croix – St John

2009-02-25T12:26:00.000-08:00

We were sad to leave St Croix. I think everyone had a good time on this island. Our next destination was another US Virgin Island, St John which as a stop-off before Tortola. The crossing was a bit bumpy but we arrived in good time to moor at Little Lamshure Bay. The idea was to find anchorages like those in Greece where the kids could jump off the boat and swim. However there was some degree of apprehension because of our previous exciting underwater adventures involving stingrays. Chris persuaded the kids to go swimming with him over to an inviting looking beach having sworn oaths that there were no stingrays in the bay. The visibility wasn’t great because of the rough weather, so it was slightly unnerving when two stingray shapes were indeed spotted emerging from the depths. Kids back on board, Chris and I went stingray hunting and found one of them: fabulous creatures they are, so graceful. This one had two “friends”, small fish who followed him around (he was small, so we think it was a him). It was a lovely bay – so relaxing we forgot to take a picture of it.

The Simpsons in St Croix

2009-02-24T12:22:00.000-08:00

The day did not start auspiciously. What was supposed to be an early start to refuel the boat in preparation for leaving early the next day turned into breakfast at midday and a decision to hire a car.

To Alex’s delight, we hired an orange Jeep and went to a rum distillery, a sugar plantation and the botanical gardens. Sadly the botanical gardens were shut, so we headed up into the rainforest to a place called the Domino Club -- just past Springfield(!) -- that has a beer drinking pig – hence the title of this blog. In fact, they have two. The pigs are massive – about 3’6”at the shoulders with impressive teeth – and drink cans of no-alcohol lager which you hand to them carefully. Their eyes reminded me strongly of Sam, my flatcoat. They appear to love the visit and the petting, love the beer and love the attention, but I can’t help feeling there’s something wrong with the whole concept...