South bound with a little west

A little different layout this time. Mike has written the blog (and secretly I think it’s because he had sooo much fun sailing that he wanted to write about it). So here it is….Mike’s blog.
Well, as Meggie lays quietly at anchor in Porlamar, Margarita Venezuela, we feel we made a good decision to head farther south and then west to take the long way home, for many reasons. First off, Venezuela is rather inexpensive and it is also out of the so called “hurricane alley” of the eastern Caribbean islands. Those two reasons are perhaps the most important, but it’s also a chance to learn a new language and experience some new cultures. We have been away from any main land for 16 months now, but will end that once we land on the main land of Venezuela.
We plan to leave Meggie for a week or two in a safe marina and venture inland, most likely on a trekking trip into the interior mountains of Venezuela. But first she must be hauled out of the water in the beautiful Medregal Village located in the Gulfo de Cariacou. There we will give her some new paint, freshen her up and have material on board to replace her transom. With the eastern Caribbean behind us, most of our passages will be off the wind (a wind angle of 90’or greater from your desired course) also our passages will be a lot longer on average. In November we will go from Curacao to Jamaica a trip of about 500 nautical miles. If you grab an atlas, you will see what I mean and you may also notice that the prevailing trade winds are easterly (out of the east) and the equatorial current for the Caribbean basin is west to northwest setting. So for us, this means very fast and exciting sailing. We got a taste of this last weekend when we set sail from Carriacou at 1:00pm bound for the beautiful Los Testigos, some 115 nautical miles away. As we settled into our usual 3 hour watches throughout the night, we didn’t see any other ships all night long…just the way we like it. As we got clear of the southern tip of Grenada and into true air and open ocean the wind and following seas strengthened and settled in as did Meggie. With the wind on the aft quarter and full mizzen, reefed main and stay sail set we then handed the tiller over to our little buddy Timmy. (Timmy is our cap horn servo pendulum wind vane steering system) and we flew along between 5.5-7.5 knots all night long, never touching the tiller again. A steering system is vital on a trade wind route. I love to helm the boat to windward but in a fresh breeze and large following sea it is exhausting. Around 3:00am, Kylie woke me to say “Timmy doesn’t look right…I think he’s injured”. I found that 2 ¼” bolts had dropped out of the bottom and that his port side lower leg was dragging in the water. Funny enough in the stiff conditions he still manages to steer a true course. So with Kylie holding onto my ankles I was able to lean over the transom and jury rig it with rope until Los Testigos. I prefer to be awake at dawn as the sunrise is beautiful at sea and it’s time to set the fishing lines. Poor Kylie, no sooner had she gone to sleep when I called her on deck to help me drag 2 tunas on board. In ½ hour of dragging lines we had enough tuna to share with friends that we knew were in Los Testigos and 4 meals for ourselves. We make landfall at 10:00am in Los Testigos and wow…what a beautiful place, and guess what…..no sandals beach resorts or any development except a small village on one of the islands with a guardacosta (coast guard station). I met with the 23 year old port captain all dressed in full military fatigues. He spoke a little English and was polite and just a great guy. They only grant you a 3 day stay in Los Testigos unless it’s unsafe to leave, but unfortunately the forecast for a tropical wave prompted us to leave the next morning for Porlamar, Margarita. This was ok because the sailing was once again spectacular. We didn’t bother to fish as we already had enough. The weather was great a little off the forecast being strong winds at first and then lightening up in the afternoon. This time we ran down wind, wing on wing and covered 50 nm in just under 9 hours. (wing on wing is when the wind is pretty much behind you and you put your forward sail one side of the boat and the main sail on the other, therefore looking like wings). Our friends on Arctic Tern (Hunter and Devi) caught up to us during the sail to Porlamar and we were able to get some great pictures of eachother wing on wing. So once here we went about changing money, clearing customs etc… with no problems. A funny thing did happen though on the second day here. We walked a way before deciding to grab a cab into Plaza Bolivar, when a police officer stopped us (in a bit of a dodgy area) and said to get in “danger, danger” he said. So in we got and chatted (as well as our Spanish and his English allowed) and he drove us all the way to our destination…nice of him and a free ride.
We’re pretty sure he saw some mischief in the rubble we were walking by. Wow…I forgot what the hustle and bustle of a real city is like. People, cars, buses, shops and a lot of noise. One thing is certain… I much prefer the solitude of the sea and its islands with small villages! So I will leave you all with this lyric that I really like.
"Follow your heart, go out and play, don't wait until tomorrow it's too late, give it all you got today".
Peter Tosh, Jamaica


Ok then…there you have it our entrance into South America, and Mike‘s blog. We will write more once we arrive in Medregal village cause we’re gonna be there awhile! Until next time,

Hasta Luego
Mike and Kylie

Playing the waiting game in Carriacou.....

Now…where were we. Ah yes, Antigua. With the regatta over, the Southern Caribbean was calling Meggie’s name and we couldn’t wait to get back to the south. First we had a job to do. We helped a wonderful lady named Jean with a refit of the deck on her 39’ Oyster. It was a lot of tedious, hot, sweaty work…but it went well and we made a great friend who we look forward to meeting again someday. So with that done….we were being beckoned to head south as our best friends arrived in less than 2weeks….Wuhoo.
The plan was to leave Antigua and head straight to St. Lucia (200 nautical miles) as we had some items to pick up at the marine store before heading off to Venezuela, however the wind gods had something entirely different in mind. We headed out of the harbour (that we’d been in for far too long!!!), and pointed the bow south. More of a boisterous sail than we had thought, but good nonetheless. As we approached the NW corner of Guadeloupe the wind proved to be way more southerly than forecasted. Hmmm…well this might put a kibosh on our plans. “WE NEED TO GO SOUTH”! So the options were…A: stay out all night beating into the (now southerly) wind and waves or B: tuck into the beautiful harbour of Deshaises, Guadeloupe for the night, get a good night sleep, top up on wine, cheese and baguettes and head out in the morning. Can you guess what we chose??? NO…not the bashing. We pulled into Deshaises and did all the above. Gorged ourselves on fresh baguettes, olives and mmmm 3 different types of cheese and then washed it down with a $3 bottle of wine. Nice! So up the next morning and continue onto St. Lucia, only 150 nautical miles. As we entered the channel between Guadeloupe and Dominica we were again met with southerly winds….UGHHHHH…I mean come on! Hello!!! We’re trying to head south here! Anyway, we were able to hold our course to Portsmouth (JUST!) and were faced with a decision. We could either A: stay out all night beating into the (still southerly) wind and waves or we could B: tuck into the nice calm anchorage of Portsmouth, Dominica and gaze at the beautiful mountainous scenery around us and get a good nights sleep. Hmmm….what do you think we did??? We anchored in the scenic Portsmouth, Dominica and sipped on some French wine (thanks to our stop the previous night) and marvelled at the beauty…oh and we got a good nights sleep!
So…up the next morning and sail the last 100 miles to St. Lucia. Well guess what????? The freakin’ wind was still freakin’ SOUTH. Ok but however we were able to hold our course to Martinique and as the sun sunk below the horizon the wind shifted to the east and we were able to lay St. Lucia with eased sheets. We caught a little bonito (tuna type fish) just in time for dinner, so that helped make up for all the southerly winds. We had one of those magic sort of night sails. Moon shimmering on the water, light winds and seas, no traffic. With a cup of herbal tea ( and a bit of European chocolate…again thank you to the first nights stop) I was happy as a clam in the cockpit during my watch. Meggie pulled into Rodney Bay around 2:30 am (don’t worry, it’s a super easy anchorage to arrive in the dark and we had been there like a hundred times…but this is usually a big no no). Up at 7 and into town to do the running around we needed and then back out to the beautiful anchorage of Pigeon island for the night and then up the next morning at 3am (really early mornings lately) and finally down to Bequia. We entered the channel between St. Lucia and St. Vincent shortly after sunrise and Mike decided to sail down the windward side of St. Vincent, which was a treat as the shoreline is brimming with more palm trees than I have ever seen in my life. I’m not joking…there are so many palm trees you can’t even imagine. Sadly I didn’t get any pictures…sorry!
By early afternoon we could see Bequia and the realization that we were going to see our friends in less than 5 days set in and we were thrilled.We pulled into Admiralty Bay after a quick sail through the 8 mile channel (flying downwind at 7.5 knots consistently and hitting 8 knots once for like a split second but still….) and weaved our way over to “our spot” dropped the hook in gin clear water and jumped in. We saw our friends Liz and Allan right away and caught up over sundowners the next night. We spent the next few days reacquainted ourselves with the tiny island.
We boarded the ferry at 6:30 (AM!!) on Tuesday morning to head over to St. Vincent to meet Jason, Tera and Aja at the airport. Before we knew it we were all sitting by the beach with beautiful surroundings eating roti’s (a local food), drinking cold Hiroun’s (a local beer)…except for Tera as she’s pregnant, and catching up on the past two years. We couldn’t have been happier! Aja quickly disposed of her pants and shirt and was happy running around naked.
The week flew by. Jason and Tera got a taste of island life and got a glimpse of our cruising life. They also got their fair share of sun and heat. We visited numerous beaches, ate great meals, hiked up countless hills (their rental house was on a really steep hill). Mike and Jason sailed and tried for some fish, we snorkelled, shopped at the Rasta market, relaxed etc… They treated us to way too many meals, but we were very appreciative and more than anything we were so happy just being around them and seeing little Aja and the little person she is becoming, and man is she cute! She couldn’t get enough of the water and seemed happy on Meggie.
(Side note here)…Jason did manage to get 2 tuna, but you’ll have to ask him how he caught them.
Sadly Wednesday approached all to quickly and it was time to say our goodbyes. Mike and I helped them with their stuff onto the ferry and were cheated of a real goodbye because the motor roared to life and the horn blew and we had to GET OFF.
So we hugged quickly and ran off the ferry blowing kisses goodbye. We sort of looked at each other and said “so now what do we do?” back to the boat, mix up some sundowners and relax with a book. Life sure is tough!
However the next day we were back at it. Get this, get that, fix this, fix that,
however it wasn’t all work as our friends Doug and Wendy arrived on Mustang Sally. We always love catching up with Doug and Wendy and this time was no different. We will be able to spend some more time with them this time as they are also heading to Venezuela aboard their 44'catamaran (which is available for chartering...see their websit www.sailmustangsally.com).
We had been throwing around the idea of heading to Carriacou, Grenada and leaving for Venezuela from there. I pulled out the charts and after some inspection we decided it was better to leave from Carriacou. So off we went via Saltwhislte Bay in Mayreau and now we’re here.
So that’s it…a brief summary of what’s been happening in our world. We’re in Carriacou (I think this might be my favorite..but I do love Bequia…oh I don’t know…) So we’re in Carricou getting a few odd jobs done before we head away. Unfortunately we just missed a great weather window as we’re waiting for some parts to arrive from Grenada and it doesn’t look like we’ll get outta here until maybe the weekend. Ahhh weather…what can you do. So next stop, Los Testigos, Venezuela. We are very excited to be embarking on new adventures and sadly we’ll say goodbye to the West Indies but we’re both ready to leave. Next time you here from us we’ll be in South America. So until then…..
Adios amigos
Kylie and Mike