Red Adventures Blog – Page 15

Ilse de Saints – Bourge des Saints at Terre d’en Haut

April 13, 2012/0 Comments/in Blog post/by Kristine

Monday, Feb 27^th, we pulled anchor around 11:30AM and sailed 3 hours to Iles Des Saints. The winds averaged 24 knots and the sea swells made going uncomfortable. One following sea swept
over the back transom surprising us and wet washed everything in the cockpit. Luckily, it was not enough to get over into the companionway. Ken and I looked at each other and asked what just happened. We had, by now decided that wearing a life vest and tether was the best regular routine for us considering the constant high winds we had been experiencing.

When we arrived at The Saintes, we stopped at 3 different bays looking for a nice anchorage including the Bourg de Saintes near the town (all mooring full). We went back to Pain du Sucre bay and anchored along with about 10 other boats. We held most of the afternoon and then found we were moving. We reset the anchor 2 more times before being satisfied we were holding. (anchor alarm on). Around 5AM, I heard a neighbor boat owner yelling and went up top to check it out, only to find we were feet away from their boats bow. Ken and I got the boat started and I pulled the anchor up as it started to pour out.

We moved to another open spot in the bay and reset in our wet night clothes and half cat-napped until daylight when we moved back to Bourg de Saintes where this time we found a good mooring ball (#43), open and tied up to it.

Satisfied and tired after several hard days of wind and poor anchorages, we decided to stay for 2 nights. Went to town, paid our 1Euro for clearance and 11 Euros per night for the mooring and found a great French restaurant (la Case aux Epices)for lunch. I was happy to relax, shop, reprovision and get some great coffee there.

One of our first dinghy stops for lunch.

Dominica continued – Portsmouth, Feb 26th & 27th

April 11, 2012/0 Comments/in Blog post/by Kristine

In Portsmouth we called Albert (another referral) and found him outside the bay fishing. As he motored by he said all moorings were taken, but he would try to help. Inside the bay we found a reasonable place to drop anchor close to the town dock. Worked fine for the 2 nights we would stay. We hired Albert to take us to the Indian River Source for a quiet tour of the river. The pictures tell how unique the river is. Portsmouth (Prince Rupert Bay) has formed a yacht security system called PAYS (Portsmouth Association of Yacht Security). They run regular patrols of the bay to eliminate any issues with theft or pestering of the yachts. They fund this service by a weekly barbecue on Sunday nights and we decided to pay our $50 EC each and go. It was well attended and the free rum punches really gave a “punch”! We had a great time dancing and meeting all the other cruisers there.

During the first day there, after finding an internet café for Ken, I went and cleared customs and found it was almost a town away. They sure don’t make it easy for the cruiser to follow their countrys procedure!

Voile de St. Barts – April 1-7th, 2012

April 8, 2012/0 Comments/in Blog post/by Kristine

Ken returned March 27^th and we prepared for our Voile de Saint Barts Crew to start arriving.

By Friday, Wendell, Matt Mullen and Lillie had arrived. We spent the next day preparing for our sail
to St. Barts and talked strategies and crew positions.

Race courses “loaded”

Sunday and Monday prior to the first racing on Tuesday, we practiced and played with a little snorkeling in Columbier Bay. The water was crystal clear and it was time to team bond.

Lillie doing a bit of boat-bottom inspection…

Voiles de Saint Barth Recap from our Captain Ken.

“The Voiles de Saint Barth uses the Voiles de San Tropez script – many different courses using primarily islands, rocks and permanent buoys as marks. No windward leeward courses – lots of reaches, long legs and like Voiles de San Tropez – race Tuesday/Wednesday, lay day on Thursday with the big party on Wednesday evening – mid regatta not after the end of the regatta – and races Friday/Saturday.

Crew of Lilly, Matt, Kristine, Wendell and I was a little shorthanded if the winds were heavy but all had raced on the Grateful Red – were blender experienced! Winds were light to moderate, 56 boats participated in the regatta including a class of 70 foot plus boats – each race the “big dog boats” were the last to start and ripped through all the other classes – take a look at the these photos:

Fun being in the really big boats!

Great driving Matt!

Managed to beat some boats placing 44 out of 56 overall and 16 out of 19 in the spinnakeer class. of course, we crushed everyone in blender parties having the only boat sponsered party on Friday night. Matt was the Grateful Red driver and blender leader – very tough combination.

The crew was amazed at Matt’s blender abilities yet he was driving at the start line.

Broke out the wigs on the last start – the big boats took one look and gave us plenty of space as soon as the saw our blender king in pink wig heading down the line.
Unfortunately the last race ended as a drifter and shortened but the race committee met each boat with champagne – a consumption advantage for the short handed boats.