With the threat of TS ANA & Hurricane Bill coming our way, we decided to sail our own boat over to Curaçao but then ANA was forecast to pass to the south of us and thus getting in our way, and as BILL was to miss the islands to the Northeast, we stayed put in St. Martin. ANA became disorganized and then spread out more like a tropical wave.
We heard from Gus & Marcella (catamaran
MAROLANGA). They went to their hurricane hole in Vieques (Spanish Virgin Islands) and had lots of heavy rain & lightning. Their poor cat Sasha hid under a shelf and tried to make himself very small. They stayed there to wait out Hurricane Bill which fortunately gave our islands a wide berth. Marcella wrote today to say that they've "only had some little gusts and some rain. Not too bad…Now we getting a little bit rain from the tail of Bill. Outside are still waves 7-11 feet, so we waiting until tomorrow with sailing to Puerto Rico. Wind we have practically zero."
They are going to go into the boatyard for a little bit for new bottom paint and this and that. Marolanga is one of the few yachts chartering in the Virgin Islands through the summer season.
The trimaran
PROMENADE went to their hurricane hole in Virgin Gorda, BVIs. Here's a photo of Bazza & Simeon tying lines up to the mangroves.
Kerry is very happy to be back at their dock now that the storms have safely passed by.
Charter Yacht BLITHE SPIRIT is down in Trinidad where Dominique & Michel are growing tomatoes while in the boatyard!
Dominique didn't have to tether down her plants as Trinidad is theoretically out of the hurricane zone and Bill was nowhere close.
John & Heidi, owner-operators of the charter yacht
ANTILLEAN, are also in the boatyard in Trinidad. No pictures yet, but Heidi says that she has a crop of 30 tomato plants that she's grown from seed. Sounds like there's a little farming competition going on down there :)
Leslie & Charles of PHAEDRUS wrote to us last week... "We just got to NC on Friday and have been busy doing odd jobs, like cleaning the deck & pulling weeds out of the walkway. It's very hot here, but hopefully the temp will go down on Wednesday". Sounds like the equivalent of scraping the hull :)
STORM PETREL is chartering in New England this summer. Laura is Illinois doing a few house projects and nursing, while Phil is aboard Storm Petrel based in Falmouth, Buzzards Bay. They had a great repositioning trip, taking only 10 days to get there from St. Thomas. Phil's advice for us was: "To come north, just set your autopilot to 355, and enjoy. The spring trip is usually easy, no winds over 30 kts, seas calm... Fall is much more of an adventure!!!!"
So, if you want an affordable, fun charter, aboard a yacht with LOTS of local knowledge of the New England cruising area, look no further than Storm Petrel. Short charters, weekend & daysails, too. Contact
Paradise Connections and we'll set you up!
A couple of weeks ago, Eric from
ALOHA MALOLO wrote to say that they were "going to the Statue of Liberty today if we can get this RV through the traffic. I miss the ocean and Saltydog but we are visiting many past guests who have invited us to stop by on our trip."
Charter yacht HANALEI BAY is on the hard in Trinidad. We received a call recently from Diane. They miss being on the water but they have a beautiful view of it from their patio in Vancouver BC. They had front row seats for the annual fireworks festival,
The Celebration of Light, from their pieds-à-terre.
Kim & Rich from the charter yacht QWEST wrote to us from the boatyard in in Fajardo, Puerto Rico where they were working on the boat and getting it ready to leave while they go to the States for a couple of months.
Kim wrote "One of the high points of our summer is the Bean Blossom Blues Fest that we going to in Brown County, Indiana, next month. We'll be spending lots of time playing our ukes and jamming with friends. We don't have any photos (yet), but here's a
link to a video of a jam from last year's Bean."
So, back now to Bob & Sheila at
Paradise Connections... Due to the recent storms
our plans have changed a little, but we intend to pick up our mail soon in St. Thomas (thanks
Reefco!) and then sail towards Curaçao. We did Hurricane OMAR last year and we don't want to do that again. Quite a scary night... Especially when you have this boat dragging down on you during the stormy night of a category 3 hurricane!
Nope, don't want to do that again :)
