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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 :)

Time To Head South

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Well boys and girls, the time has come for us to begin our journey South again. Where has the time gone?! We are two months into “H” season and before August is upon us we want to get down to the Windward Islands where statistically fewer named storms travel through.

If a ‘big one’ comes, we can race down to Trinidad with a few hundred other cruisers who will be watching the weather with us several times a day. The forecast for this H season is very light so we’re not too worried, though we are always cautious.

A favorable weather window has opened beginning this Friday 6.17.15. We’ll leave cozy Christmas Cove and sail up to Virgin Gorda, then point toward Guadeloupe and beyond!

Last year we made this journey at the end of June. You may recall how our first time through the OH-MY-GOD-A (Anegada) Passage went, but if you’re new to our blog, be sure to take a few minutes and read it here —> http://wp.me/p41bpr-IO

We definitely hope for a less eventful and more restful passage this time around.

If all goes to plan, our buddy-boat Necesse will be traveling with us. Eben will be returning this Thursday from a wild and crazy sailing adventure off the coast of Tanzania so he may want to wait until the next weather window before they follow in our wake. Either way, we look forward to many new adventures down island with them!

Only another week or two and we’ll be back at our FAVORITE place in the Caribbean, The Tobago Cays!

How We Almost Lost The Boat In St.Kitts

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As the sun was setting, we pulled in to the anchorage at Basseterre. It was a commercial and unprotected bay, yet the regulations in St. Kitts left us no choice but to anchor here for the night and check in to Customs the next morning. Other cruisers had warned of skipping this stop where, if caught anchored in the more desirable locations to the South without checking in first, the fine are astronomical.

The entrance to Port Zante Marina was right in front of us, but daylight was quickly fading. We had tried hailing the marina on the radio from 4:45 pm all the way up until our arrival at 6pm with no reply. (We later found out the marina staff had decided to leave work at 3pm that day. How convenient.) Without being able to see the approach and availability of slips, we decided to not enter the narrow channel and instead anchor just outside in 20′ of water. Only one other boat was in the harbor; a 226 passenger ferry named Caribe Surf, anchored maybe 200′ away. We dropped the hook, made sure our anchor was set, and went to sleep after a rough passage from Statia.

Monday Morning 6.30.14, 6:15 AM

Peter had been awake all night worried about our anchor holding. He had finally fallen asleep around 5am. I awoke a little after 6:00 to the sound of Windy (our wind generator) cranking faster than we’ve ever heard before. With a quick peek outside, it was apparent that we were smack in the middle of a squall. Winds were gusting at 45+ knots and we were surrounded by a wall of white.

I woke Peter up immediately and within seconds he flew up the companionway ladder into the cockpit. Still in bed I called out, “is everything okay?”

“NO!” he shouted back.

“Are we dragging??”

“NO!”

I was a nervous wreck as I climbed outside as fast as I could. Rain started pouring in from every direction. I looked around. We had left the mizzen sail up overnight for stability so we were a bit concerned that the sail might blow out in the squall, but I quickly saw we had bigger problems.

Big is an understatement. The 90′ ferry was coming right for us, backwards.

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It just didn’t make sense. Why was it getting closer and closer? Just then we realized, “there’s nobody on that boat and it’s dragging!” The crew had left it anchored overnight with no one on watch. Surely no one was expecting a squall to blow through.

The big blue power-cat was swinging like a pendulum in the wind as it grew closer and closer to our bow. Back and forth it swung on an arch, with each gust getting dangerously closer to us.

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We knew we needed to get the sail down, but didn’t have enough time. From where I was standing it looked as if the ferry had already bumped us, though I hadn’t felt the massive aluminum hull bump us yet.

Our Delta style anchor was holding perfectly but Caribe Surf was about to either hit us like a freight train, or catch our chain and drag us to shore. Luckily it was a catamaran and swung just above our rode, avoiding a nasty tangle.

Peter was on the bow trying to hold on to the lifelines as we bounced up and down from the waves. He let go of the snubber after wrapping the main rode around the cleat. His original plan was to let out 50% more rode but just as the last of the rode burned his hands as it slid through his fingers, the ferry was within four feet of our bow. It wasn’t helping.

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My whole body was shaking at this point. Both fear and the chill of the piercing rain and wicked wind set me into an unstoppable tremble. Within a matter of seconds I turned the engine on and I yelled out, “Cut the anchor loose!!!!! HURRY!!

It seemed like the wrong thing to do at the time, but Peter knew we had no choice but to let the anchor go.

I scrambled to get the chartplotter, radar and instruments turned on. As soon as he confirmed we were free from the anchor, I hit reverse as hard as it would go. Everything was happening in slow motion. Rain had soaked our entire cockpit but that was the least of our concerns. Suddenly, we started pulling away from the ferry and just as it swung left, I gunned it forward right at 2,000 rpms. At that moment, I was more grateful than I had ever been for our 34 year old 80-horsepower tractor engine.

Still trembling, I motored out to sea away from that horrid ferry.

Peter quickly ran from the bow to the stern to drop the sail after we were out of immediate danger. The squall was still blowing 30+ with zero visibility. He singlehandedly dropped the sail as fast as he could, tying it to the boom in a big heap. Next, he pulled the brake on the wind generator, locking it down. We both looked back to see that the ferry had already run aground on the rocky shore. Whew! That was a close one.

We’re so grateful it happened in daylight. Even though the wall of rain reduced our visibility dramatically, we were still able to see the cruise ship pilings which matched up perfectly with the charts.

Entering a new anchorage, it’s always difficult to know which way gusts will come from and which way a boat might drag. As was the case in St. Kitts, this ferry was on top of us within seconds even though we thought we had picked a good spot to anchor.

After we were motoring out to sea I dug out the lifejackets. We were headed into larger seas and there was no telling when the storm would blow over. Eventually the winds subsided to a manageable 15 knots.

While we were motoring back and forth across the harbor, we saw a small orange tender arrive at Caribe Surf an hour later where they were grounded near shore. We motored closer to them as they prepared to reset a second anchor and we yelled off the bow for the Captain to turn the radio on.

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Peter tried a few channels before finding one without traffic and spoke to the Captain.

“Good Morning, this is Caribe Surf. How can I help you today Sir?” He had such a cheery voice, despite the unfortunate chain of events that had just taken place.

Peter wearily explained how their boat had just drug into us during the squall and that we had lost our anchor, leaving no way to secure our vessel. He calmly and kindly told us to pull up to his stern and toss them a line while we wait for his diver. “He can retrieve your anchor.” It was like de-ja-vu pulling up to their stern in the wind. Peter was on the bow while I was at the helm. The damn thing nearly hit us, and here we were getting back into the very position we tried so hard to get away from! A little PTSD ya think?

It turns out that Caribe Surf busted a fluke on their anchor during the squall, causing them to drag with half an anchor still buried. The crew laughed, “That was a nasty squall, wasn’t it?”

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After what seemed like an eternity in the early morning hours, the diver finally arrived. Peter went with him bringing our iPhone to show him where our anchor was on the Garmin app. The crew on Caribe Surf had gone back to shore and I was on Mary Christine alone with the dogs watching intently as the two men searched for the anchor.

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As luck would have it, the light winds turned fluky and Mary Christine gained slack on the line connecting us to Caribe Surf. I was drifting too close for comfort and even began to face opposite ways. I shouted across the harbor as loud as I could to signal Peter that I was in trouble. I quickly turned the engine on and began to reverse away from a second possible collision with this ghost ship. Of course our full keel and undersized rudder makes it near impossible to reverse in the direction I want to go, but I managed to get far enough away until Peter and the diver could release us from the ferry.

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We hailed the marina again letting them know we were coming in to tie up and the diver promised to deliver the anchor to us at the marina.

After a few attempts to tie stern-to with our boat that doesn’t like to reverse, we eventually got the boat secured. Shortly after, the diver brought our anchor over as promised and helped Peter feed the chain back into our anchor locker. He didn’t locate the snubber but at least we got the anchor back free of charge!

We got a great deal at the marina and spent about a week recovering mentally from that ordeal.

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“My worst fear was having to cut the anchor loose in a squall,” Peter admitted. Back in the Bahamas we met some young guys on Humdinger that had to cut their anchor loose in an squall and their engine couldn’t overpower the current and wind. They ended up on the rocks totaling their boat and crushing their cruising dreams that had only just begun. Ever since we heard their story, it became Peter’s biggest fear. I still can’t believe it actually came true.

If only the marina staff had not gone home early… If we had just gone into the marina and found a place to tie up… But we’re safe now.

What’s your scariest moment at sea??

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Beating to Wind: The Southern Coast of Puerto Rico

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Our perfect Mona Passage crossing landed us on the Southern coast of Puerto Rico, in La Parguera, around 8am the morning of May 6th. We spent two nights resting at anchor near the mangroves just outside the town.

We didn’t find La Parguera to be “cruiser friendly” at all. There was no dinghy dock but a few of the local shops on the water let us tie up to their docks while we took a look around. On a second trip to shore, we found it was much easier and more welcoming to buzz up to the deserted boat ramp and tie up to the mangroves wading in to shore. No one was there to give us funny looks and it was off the beaten path which also seemed a bit safer. The town felt dirty, and not much nicer than some of the places we saw in the DR. We hoped to find some cheap authentic and tasty Puerto Rican food but our tastebuds were completely underwhelmed. Other cruisers we met along the way told us they loved La Parguera… maybe they visited other parts of town?

The remainder of our time here was spent resting on the boat. There was much sleep to catch up on after the last week of night crossings. It’s amazing how turned around your body can get sleeping during the day and staying up all night, then trying to switch back to nighttime sleeping.

On the second night, we finally began to feel a little more adventurous and took the dinghy two miles east to the Bioluminescence Bay as recommended by several locals and our Active Captain overlay in our Garmin App. As the darkness surrounded us, we sat and waited. The water was still and all was quiet. We were the only ones there. Soon, splashing our hands in the water generated small glowing streaks of blue light. We zipped in circles around the bay while huge balls of light shot out from behind the dinghy like fireballs in Super Mario Brothers. It was a pretty cool sight to see. About an hour later, we cruised back to our boat between the mangrove islands following the tracks on our iPhone Garmin app. The charts aren’t completely accurate here, placing safe water where shoals and islands reside, but we trusted our tracks in the pitch black.

A good habit to get into when arriving in a new anchorage is to stop by and meet the neighbors. We like to meet other cruisers anchored nearby and check in to see if they have any local knowledge – good, bad or otherwise. SV Rainbow was the only boat there with us. We had heard of Mark and Tina in the news several months back after they were brutally attacked on Rainbow down island. Tina was away from the boat at the time but we got to talk to Mark for awhile. The cruising community is a small world and the farther we travel the more we are meeting people with mutual friends. We learn so much from stories we hear and the experiences of others. Mark had some great tips for us on a few of the places we planned on visiting.

Mark also had a current weather report and our magic window appeared to hold up for just one more day before turning nasty. We pulled up anchor that afternoon, hoping to sweep under the nearly non-existent Puerto-Rican night lees. The wind and waves we faced on the Southern Coast of Puerto Rico were just as rough as the North Coast of the DR. The current swept us back while our 80hp Ford Lehman engine chugged along beating straight into the wind. We tacked off shore and back in again several times trying to make forward progress.

We motor-sailed our little hearts out. It was a last minute decision to skip Ponce and push on for Salinas. We had read such bad reviews about the anchorage at Ponce and after our less than enjoyable experience at La Parguera, we opted for a warm welcome in a “cruiser friendly” and safe anchorage. The journey there was rough, but we made it. We watched another gorgeous sunrise and took down the sails in the early hours of the morning. We both had a huge sigh of relief as we motored slowly into the harbor where the seas instantly turned to glass. We knew we’d be safe when the winds picked up in just a few short hours.

Stay tuned for a few highlights from our time in Salinas! We’re in St. Lucia now and have so much to share with you about all our adventures!!

 

 

The Mona Passage

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After the strange happenings in Bahia Escocesa, we motored away from the shores of the Dominican Republic past Cabo Cabron and took turns resting throughout the night. The sun came up and the rare weather window we had been carefully monitoring held steady with 2-3′ waves and 5-10 knots of wind in the Mona, just as predicted. We trolled the fishing lines and barbequed lunch on the aft deck enjoying our most pleasant passage yet.

Van Sant’s guide recommended staying North of the Mona Passage, far away from the treacherous Hourglass Shoals and afternoon storm cells gaining strength from Puerto Rico’s coast and that’s just what we did. Of course the wind is always on the nose, no matter which direction we are going, so we motorsailed across The Mona Passage as quickly as we could before our golden window collapsed.

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Peter hooked a good-sized Sierra Mackerel, but unfortunately that’s all the fish gods gave us between the DR and Puerto Rico. We still had plenty of fish in our freezer so this one was all for the dogs. We supplement their dry food whenever we can and they are always happy to get a hearty portion of raw fish in their bowls.

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We approached the shores of Puerto Rico before the sun came up the morning of May 6th and had made way better time than anticipated. Still taking advantage of the weak night lees of the West Coast of Puerto Rico, we continued South by East before arriving at La Parguera around 8am. Just outside the little town, we anchored near the mangroves and fell fast asleep. After 3 months at sea, we were finally back in US Territory!!

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Thanks for reading!! Stay tuned for pictures and stories of how we spent almost the entire month of May in Puerto Rico and the Spanish Virgins, then all of June in the BVI!! We are currently on our way south to Grenada for the remainder of Hurricane Season… Leave us a comment, we’d love to hear from you!!!