The Legacy of Grace

After the serenity of our Chesapeake Bay journey north, I was unprepared for the high octane energy of Annapolis. It hit me over the head and almost knocked me out. When we arrived on Friday late afternoon, there was a confluence of sailboats preparing for a race. Somewhat like the weekly Chicago races…only on steroids!  There were literally hundreds of forty five foot plus sailboats gearing up for the 6 pm race. There were also quite a lot of summertime tourists milling about the wharf side downtown area and cruising about in water taxis, as well as your weekend boater/party animal. Gets pretty pretty crazy in these here parts!!!!

Annapolis bound on Chesapeake Bay

There was something magically surreal as we headed north on Chesapeake Bay ...  

Back on the Intercoastal

We left Charleston Harbor Marina.

We headed southeast along the channel then made a beeline to the Intercoastal waterway.  It had been awhile... two years! And we had not been on this segment of the intercoastal on our way down. Yes!!!...a new adventure.

From Nassau to the U.S.

As hurricane season had already officially begun, Jeff and I decided to make an aggressive jaunt from Nassau to Charleston, S.C., a trip of over 400 miles. 

Leaving Nassau

Puerto Rico to Nassau or "Grace…A Sailing adventure starring Pam and Jeff Stroberg, props Ricky Warren"

Thurs 5/21

After spending five weeks in Florida we returned to Puerto Real to move Grace north.  Pam’s step brother Ricky agreed to come join us to help move us away from the hurricane zone as the season end was fast approaching.

Ricky is a delightful combination of mirth, adventure, curiosity amd humor  with a lil' wisdom thrown in ;) .  He took it upon himself to write of log of this trip. The following post includes excerpts in quotes - some more edited than others ;) - from Ricky’s log.

Puerto Rico

We refueled, re-watered and re-provisioned in preparation for our journey to Puerto Rico. The weather had been blustery with gusty winds, sporadic bursts of rain and the resulting high waves. We found a small window of opportunity and headed to Culebra.

The Virgin Islands with Leta and Al

From Montserrat we did an overnight sail to St Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands. We had a firm timetable at this point as we were meeting Jeff's sister, Leta, and her husband, Al, in St Thomas.

Unforgettable Montserrat

Often cruising plans get changed mid-stream as weather conditions shift or we gain more knowledge, Our initial plan was to head to Barbuda, a small Antiguan island. Our plans shifted after learning of the complicated customs procedure and Montserrat became our next destination of choice.  We knew that Montserrat was not a well-traveled cruising destination as there is now only one anchorage on the entire island… As it turns out, Montserrat was unforgettable.

Gorgeous Guadeloupe

We spent a few days checking out a couple of anchorages in Guadeloupe. We checked into customs at Terre de Haute, a town in the archipelago of the Iles des Saintes, a group of islands located on southeast side of Guadeloupe

and checked out at Deshaies, an anchorage on the Northwest side of the island.

Like Martinique, Guadeloupe is a French territory and again we had an easy schmeezy electronic check in/out.  While it has limited anchorages on the west side of the island, thus not known as cruiser friendly, it has the best mooring balls we’ve ever seen. They were high enough out of the water that Jeff could easily reach down and run a line through the eye. Even the seagulls agree!

When we dove on our mooring ball, we saw a huge block of concrete onto which was secured a steel cable mooring line.  SWEET!!! And they were free!!! SWEETER!!! However a lot of cruisers don’t venture to Guadeloupe because of the limited anchorages and the “rolley” conditions. And yes it was rolley! But knowing we were securely tethered definitely helped. It gave us ample opportunity to explore…

Ooh La La Martinique!

The Islands of St Vincent, Part 3 of 3 or Anchoring Angst in Bequia

Bequia is the second largest island in the Grenadines and quite well known for its long tradition of whaling as well as the building of whaling boats. Today natives of  Bequia are allowed to catch a maximum of four humpback whales a year using only the traditional hunting method of a hand thrown harpoon in an open sailboat. Apparently this limit is rarely met and if exceeded a heavy fine is incurred.

 When we stopped briefly in Beguia in May of last year it was a very quiet little town. I think we were the only tourists around at the time. Uh not so this time around...

The Islands of St Vincent, Parts 1 and 2 of 3

Part 1: Union Island

This one's for you Jonathan!

Last year, on our way down to Trinidad we stopped for one night at Union Island. Apparently Union Island is one of the meccas for a relatively new extreme sport known as Kiteboarding. As soon as Jeff saw it he was hooked.