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Month: August 2015

Cruising BVI: Sandy Spit

 

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We couldn’t take Dad and Stacy to BVI without taking them to Sandy Spit just off of Jost Van Dyke.

This little spit of sand and reef has made numerous appearances in all the fancy in-flight and travel magazines. The aerial shot they use even looks like a heart. How romantic, right?

If you get here early enough you can beat the charter boat guests and take a leisurely stroll around the whole island in total privacy. With just a few lonely palm trees and some greenery in the center, the crystal clear water comes bubbling up on the white sand and you immediately feel like you’re in total paradise. The sand is littered with tiny pieces of white coral and a few little tiny shells. In the right light, the sand even appears a little pinkish in color.

The reefs don’t have very much sea life among them, but the water is warm, clear and so refreshing. True island bliss.

There’s so many gorgeous photos, I love them all!! Take a peek for yourself…

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Stacy even found a coconut lying on the beach!

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After enough fun on our own private island, we launched the dinghy and headed back to the boat for some lunch :)

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Want to see for yourself? Check back with us soon for some exciting news to learn how you can visit this very place!! :)

Hurricane Danny

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http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/cyclones/

Well folks, it’s that time of year. The hurricanes are upon us. This is our second season hunkering down in Grenada where we hope to be out of the path of most of the cyclonic activity. Why Grenada? Many other cruisers in the Caribbean choose to take their boats south of 12-degrees for four reasons.

  1. Many insurance companies will only cover you “outside the box” from June 1 to November 1.
  2. Everyone else does it.
  3. Grenada is very cruiser-friendly and it’s a fairly convenient place to spend a few months while hiding from hurricanes.
  4. It is statistically safer than anywhere else in the Eastern Caribbean. There is a really neat interactive tool on the NOAA website showing the tracks of all recorded hurricanes throughout history.
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www.spaghettimodels.com

Though there have been some devastating direct hits on Grenada, such as Hurricane Ivan in 2004, we generally have ample time to head south to Trinidad before we would be in the path of something so evil. I wrote an article about Hurricanes on the Horizon the other day on TinyHouseBlog. It also includes some interesting info about Kick ‘Em Jenny, the underwater volcano that we sail dangerously close to on the way to Grenada. Yep, you read that right, underwater volcano! Not only to do we have to watch out for hurricanes, we have to make sure we don’t sail our boat over the top of an active volcano. Boats don’t float on gas bubbles ;)

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http://www.uwiseismic.com/general.aspx?id=27

Not too long ago we saw a disturbance near the Cape Verde Islands off of Western Africa begin to grow. Along with everyone else in the Eastern Caribbean, our eyeballs were suctioned on to the screens of our laptop and iPhone as we watched it grow into a hurricane. This is the fourth named storm of the season, though the first that really had any danger of coming for us. Danny has been slow moving and very hard to predict. He is undoubtedly aimed at St. Martin, The Virgins and Puerto Rico now but forecasters think he will fizzle back down to a Tropical Storm by the time he makes landfall.

While Peter and I are relieved that we won’t feel any effects from Danny all the way down here in Grenada, our thoughts and prayers are with all of our friends that are up island in his path. Our good friend Genevieve on S/V Necesse gives a first-hand account of what it’s like to prepare and wait. I can’t even imagine what it must feel like to ram your floating home up into the shallow, dark mud of the mangroves with your family and all your belongings; tie off to the roots like Spiderman; throw out every anchor and fender you have; remove every piece of canvas and projectile object from the exterior of your boat; hope that creepy crawlies like cockroaches, rats and other bugs don’t invade your boat; praying that the forces of Mother Nature take mercy on everyone around you.

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www.tropicaltidbits.com

That’s the thing with a hurricane – you just never know what might happen. Danny may decide to veer North or fizzle out and all that may be felt is the normal trade winds of 20-30 knots of wind. The price we pay to live in paradise… At least with a hurricane we are semi-mobile on a boat. It’s a lot harder to run from a tornado or earthquake.

So we wait. While Danny makes up his mind about what he’s going to do, we are watching two new disturbances that are scrambling to catch up to big brother Danny. A perfect storm? Let’s hope not. They’ve got a pretty strong chance of cyclone formation within the next 5 days so we’ll be watching intently from our cozy boat.

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www.nhc.noaa.gov

In the event that any named storms decide to put a bullseye on our bow, we’ll be referring back to some of our favorite resources on Commuter Cruiser and The Boat Galley here and here. Both Jan and Carolyn give some very helpful tips to keep in mind while preparing for a hurricane.

I have these posted on my Resources page, but if your curious what weather sites we like to check on a daily basis, here they are:

  • National Hurricane Center – Tropical weather advisories from NOAA/National Weather Service
  • Mike’s Weather Page – Up to date tropical computer models, graphics, links and storm discussions at www.spaghettimodels.com
  • Current Storm Info – Global Tropical Cyclone and Disturbance Info from Tropical Tidbits, including predicted intensity graphics
  • StormCarib Satellite Images – Particularly helpful to see the tropical waves and Saharan dust coming off Africa towards the Caribbean Islands
  • WunderMap – Interactive Weather Map and Radar from Weather Underground, with radar images for the Caribbean Islands
  • Weather Underground – Weather Forecasts and Reports
  • Windfinder – Wind and Waves
  • WindGuru – Wind and Waves

For the most current updates, click LIKE on our facebook page! That’s where we post all the daily happenings right now :)

Cruising BVI: The Baths (round 2)

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In December we took Dad and Stacy to visit The Baths on Virgin Gorda. It’s by far one of the most spectacular places to visit in the Virgin Islands. If the weather isn’t cooperating, however, it can be difficult to visit by boat. Dad and Stacy were in luck, the weather was just right to pick up a day-mooring and swim in.

Each time I visit The Baths it’s more breathtaking than the last. It could be that I’m always looking for a pretty picture and this place is plum-full of them! As if this weren’t photo-overload enough, check out the first post I did on The Baths for a totally different perspective.

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Stacy, Dad and I swam in and stashed our fins in the bushes. The inner-Tarzan in Dad made a swift and limber appearance as he scaled a nearby boulder to find the perfect spot. I stood back and laughed a little knowing full well I was NOT going to follow. That one was just a bit too steep for my short, stubby, little legs.

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In we go!

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Can you feel the magic? This place is incredible. I’m so glad we timed it just right. Well, we planned for the perfect timing but Island Time ended up working in our favor instead.

Let me backtrack a bit to several hours before.

Knowing full well we’d visit The Baths next, we left Norman Island in the afternoon and anchored off of the West side of Cooper Island. The plan was to pull up our anchor before daybreak for arrival at The Baths at first light. We wanted to make it extra special for Dad and Stacy and we wanted to make sure to get there plenty early enough. Early as in 6:45. We know it can get crazy in there once the cruise ship passengers and charter boat guests start to arrive between 8 and 10am. We wanted to make sure there was no one in front of us, and no one behind us as we explored this majestic place all by ourselves.

Well, lets just say things didn’t work out as smoothly as we’d like. I turned on the engine, then the chart plotter and radar. Peter made his way to the bow to pull in our anchor chain with the windlass. Dad and Stacy were just waking up and thought we were crazy for leaving in the dark, yet they were super excited for what was to come.

All of a sudden Peter stopped the windlass. Shit. The anchor was stuck. “Must be wrapped around a piece of coral,” Peter mumbled into the walkie-talkie.

He had me motor around in a few different directions to see if we could dislodge the chain. What seemed to be an eternity later, Peter decided he had to dive it. IN THE DARK. We were in about 50′ of water and the sun hadn’t even begun to come up yet. A little sharky? Yeah, I’d say so! Dad wasn’t too excited to jump in either. So, we waited another 30 minutes until there was a little daylight. Peter took his new super bright underwater flashlight and his spare-air, then asked Dad to assist. Peter planned to dive down and unwind the chain while Dad stayed on the surface with a mask to communicate with me if I needed to pop the engine forward a jib or do anything else at the helm.

Peter’s an excellent diver but he was not happy about this little hiccup. I wouldn’t want to be the one to do it either. We could have just waited it out until full daylight when it would have been much easier to see, but then we’d be visiting the baths with boatloads of other tourists and waiting in line to get from one area to another.

What a guy! It took some serious underwater skills to unwrap that chain from the huge underwater boulder we had somehow swung around at night, but he did it. We were a bit behind schedule, but we would still get there at about 9-am.

Okay, back to our amazing day at The Baths…

Thanks to Peter and Dad braving it out a few hours before, we managed to sneak into our destination without anyone in front of us and without anyone behind us!! SUCCESS!!

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It’s hard to see, but this stairway leads into a little pool of water brought in by the tide…

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A view of Mary Christine with the mizzen sail up for stability on a mooring ball just outside The Baths:

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I had showed them the secret area that not everyone gets to see, but now they had to come back out…

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We made a new friend. This little guy followed us along the trails all the way to Devil’s Bay Beach. He didn’t seem to belong to anyone but acted like he’d been here a thousand times.

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I almost caught a photo of this little dog leaping off the rock into the water! Dad was ready to get the photo too, though he didn’t make a second leap.

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Cool creatures everywhere.

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All in all, we had an amazing morning!

Don’t forget to see all the photos from my first time through: The Baths

What is ONE word you would use to describe this place?

Celebrating Island-Style

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This past December, Stacy got to celebrate her birthday Island Style! We did a quick tour of the British Virgin Islands and Norman Island is where we took her for a nice birthday dinner.

If you’ve been on a boat in BVI but have never visited The Pirate’s Bight restaurant, you’re missing out. It’s a bit pricey but not more than any other local restaurant in the popular anchorages and well worth the splurge. I wish I took more photos of this place but we were to busy enjoying the scenery.

The food is incredible, the atmosphere is beachy and ever-s0-charming, and they even had a Christmas tree decorated in the lobby! Even the dinghy dock is impressive. The white sandy beach is clean and inviting and far enough away from the craziness over at Willy-T’s. We definitely prefer the relaxed beachy feel ;)

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Family Photo!

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Before leaving Norman Island we took Dad and Stacy to The Caves and did a bit of snorkeling nearby. Gunner and Betsy even got to share nap-time with Grandpa! ;)

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It was a fun stop on the whirlwind tour but little did they know, Dad and Stacy still had some pretty amazing places to see before we sailed back to St. Thomas.

Stay tuned for some gorgeous photos of Dad and Stacy’s adventures in Virgin Gorda and Jost Van Dyke! (I’m currently catching up on old posts from the anchorage here inTyrell Bay, Carriacou. We leave for Grenada in the morning!

Adventures With Dad & Stacy

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When Dad and Stacy came to visit last December they had a blast learning to use the hookah dive system, playing with the underwater metal detector that they brought for us, fishing and hunting for lobster. They had a pretty cool vacation in the Caribbean if you ask me ;)

Take a look at some of the underwater fun we had…

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We’re currently in Carriacou, making our way down to Mt. Hartman Bay in Grenada this week. We’ll be catching up on publishing a LOT of photos over the next two months… stay tuned for more!!