Nevis is nice and Culebra easy.


On February 8th we sailed from Antigua to Nevis which took 8 hours. Nevis was a quick stop on the way to Puerto Rico. It's a small island with just a few tourists. We always try to check out the historical sights. Nevis has a museum about Lord Nelson and a History museum at Alexander Hamilton's birthplace. Al has been amazed in the islands at the historical items and artifacts displayed on open shelves. It's good the know that these small communities are interested in keeping their history alive. 

There is not much to do on Nevis and most people go there just to relax. There is one main street in town with old buildings that hold local businesses and a few restaurants and beach bars. The sunset views from the anchorage are wonderful and all the cruisers sit out in their cockpits every evening to watch the show.  


On February 11th we sailed to Culebra, Puerto Rico which took 35 hours. It was a nice downwind sail and we anchored just before sundown on the 12th. Being back in the USA made it easy for us because our phones work and Internet access is available on the boat. So much for getting away from it all!

We found Culebra to be very relaxing. The anchorage is quiet and calm. Everything is easy to get to, grocery stores, US Post Office, restaurants, places to snorkel, buses to the beach, and our favorite... the Dinghy Dock Restaurant. We met cruisers and characters there every night.

 On Flamenco beach there are two tanks  that were used by the US military as target practice. Other than that it is a gorgeous beach. In town most of the houses and shops are freshly painted. We loved our stay in Culebra and will definitely go back. 

After playing around since November the boat needs some attention. We have some projects and general maintenance to do and Puerto Rico is a good place to do it because the stores we need are close by. Frances already polished the stainless, including the shackles and Al is doing everything else. Not exactly! 


Thanks again to all our friends and loved ones who are following along.


All our best,
Frances and Al 

Anitgua

We sailed overnight from St Martin to Antigua with our friends Fran and Bob. It was a little rough going into the wind but great to have some help with the trip. Antigua has a restored British boatyard from the 1700's. Having spent plenty of time in boatyards ourselves we wanted to check it out.  To repair sails in the 1700's small boats would row into this channel and the sails were lifted into a huge sail loft supported by the columns. It is still a working marina and boat yard where the mega yachts come to enjoy the island and have repairs done. It's taking two men at once to varnish this mast it is so big. The original gate to the complex looks medieval with a door inside the gate and a hole in the door to see who's knocking at the gate! 

We toured an old sugar plantation where there is a restored sugar mill. We learned all about the sugar / rum making process. Something had to be done with the leftover products from producing refined sugar. Some smart person realized they could make rum.

The sugar mills and copper sugar pots are everywhere on the island.






This is Bob having a nice time listening to a steel drum band at a party and Fran at sunset on the trip over. They definitely left smiling!

We enjoyed the beaches too and also spent time in Jolly Harbor where we rejoined our friends on Mirliflore, Gypsy and Kalista. This last picture is the view of Montserrat from the anchorage in Falmouth harbor.
We left Antigua February 8th, stopped in Nevis and are now in Culebra, Puerto Rico.

Our best to all our friends and loved ones,

Frances and Al

St Martin, yum!

St Martin grew on us and we appreciated it even more after we left. Visiting the Caribbean is a little like taking a trip to Europe. The French influence on St Martin means that it has great bakeries, a supermarket with European quality food and everyone is fashionable. We ate baguettes and drank espresso every day. There are wonderful restaurants and clothing shops. Frances had to buy some clothes of course.  This is the view of Marigot from Fort Louis. It had a cannon facing every direction to protect the town from the British.

This is a house in downtown Marigot. It is typical of a lot of Caribbean houses with heavy shutters that can be closed to lock up at night or keep out high winds.  

There are some strange pastimes for tourists in St Martin. The airport has a short runway that backs up to the beach. The thrill is to stand behind the planes before they take off and withstand the blast from the jet engines. Luckily the guys lived to tell about it.

A town we really liked in St Martin was Grand Caas, a cute beach town with restaurants, clubs and more clothing shops. The group of boats we are traveling with went there as well, Gypsy, Defiant, Mirliflore, Wind Dancer and Kalista. It's fun to explore a new town with a group of cruisers. We left St Martin and are now in Antigua. From Antigua we will go to Guadalupe. We are still having fun and are finding it very interesting to explore the islands. They are all different despite being so close together.

All our best,

Frances and Al

Back in the BVI, New Year's Eve, New Year's Day

We spent New Year's Day on Marina Cay, an island we really like. It has a pretty view, a great beach and a reef close by that's nice for snorkeling. We were also using the laundry facilities all day, too.

The night before was one of the best New Year's Eve parties we have ever attended. Trellis Bay on Tortola throws a party with a buffet of local foods, music, dancing, performances, fire and fireworks. Large metal sculptures are lit with fire all night long on shore. There are bands playing and performances by stilt dancers called "Jumbies". People of all ages are enjoying the evening.  At midnight they light metal sculptures in the water and shoot off fireworks.  It was very dramatic! 

On Marina Cay we ran into a familiar face, the guitar player and singer Eric Stone. He plays 
there at happy hour almost daily. If you request a song you get a free shot of Pussers rum! 

We are now in North Sound on Virgin Gorda. This is a gorgeous spot so we have a lot of company. The big luxury yachts are here along with cruisers and lots of charter sailboats. Cruise ships show up occasionally, too. It's funny that no matter what the size of the vessel we are all doing the same things: checking out the view, going to the restaurants, swimming and snorkeling, and spending time hanging out with friends. We are heading to St Martin early next week with a few of our friends.

Thanks for continuing to follow us on our adventure!

All our best,

Frances and Al

Christmas in St Thomas

We have enjoyed many things about St Thomas and had a Christmas that was even a little bit like home. Being back in the US made it easier to call home and we stocked up at all the stores that are not available in the BVI. St Thomas is a lively town that has cruise ships almost daily, some days there are 5 ships. However, the real fun here are the parties and festivals for the locals residents. The Friday before Christmas we went to a festival downtown with a boat parade, steel drum bands in the streets and local foods. It was better than any restaurant. We were able to taste dishes like conch in butter sauce, potato stuffing, tamarind candy, fish and johnny cakes and guavaberry wine. The shops stayed open late that night so people could buy their Christmas presents. To celebrate Christmas we had dinner with our Canadian friends on Mirliflore. Then we all went to the 11pm service at the Episcopal Cathedral. It was a traditional service with all the hymns we are used to. This is Al and I on the way home from church at 1 am Christmas morning. On Christmas day we had a turkey dinner and got together with friends in the evening.  

This is the view from the highest point in St Thomas, it is supposed to be the best view in the Virgin Islands. We saw this scary looking iguana up there, too. He was about three feet long.

We are now back in the British Virgin Islands. We decided to spend New Year's Eve in Trellis Bay and avoid the craziness at Foxy's. We are anchored outside the mooring field in Trellis Bay, it is wonderfully quiet here and very dark at night. It was fun to be in the  city of St Thomas but we are now happy to be in a remote location again.   

We would like to express our wishes to everyone for a Happy New Year. Enjoy the holiday with family and friends. We wish we were there, too!


All our best,  


Frances and Al LIma

The British Virgin Islands

In the past few weeks we have been traveling around the BVI. We have been to Rhode Town, Cooper Island, Norman Island, Virgin Gorda, Anegada and Jost Van Dyke. They are all gorgeous places and in general have very few people living there. This is a great place to get away from it all as the saying goes. Not much is happening and there is little to do but enjoy the peace, tranquility and beauty of the islands. We have done a lot of snorkeling and hanging out with our new friends. We are traveling with two other boats, Mirliflore and Gypsy. They are boats that, as Fran's mom says, are crazy enough to sail straight from Virginia to the BVI in the Caribbean 1500. It's a pleasure to hang around like minded people! We have had no phone service and could only get Internet access at a bar or a restaurant. We didn't mind being without these services last March in the Bahamas but this time it was difficult that we could not call our family.  

The photos here are from Anegada. One is a view of Virgin Gorda from Anegada. We toured Anegada by renting a truck with our friends. There is an Iguana Headstart program there to raise iguanas until they are old enough to release. They are trying to repopulate the island with native iguanas, feral cats are eating the wild baby iguanas. The beaches on the north side of the island were worth the trip. We all enjoyed each beach for several hours, Loblolly Beach and Cow Wreck Beach. It is a paradise there.

We are now in St Thomas, USVI. Our friends are here, too. We are going to hang out here in civilization for a while. There are some sights to see  plus we can get groceries and enjoy being in a city again. This is a big city compared to where we have been for the past few weeks. 

We are making plans for Christmas and will be going to Foxy's on Jost Van Dyke for New Year's Eve. We miss everyone especially during the holiday season. Thanks to everyone for keeping in touch and following our progress!  

All our best,

Frances and Al

The voyage from Virginia to the Virgin Islands

We left November 11th at noon from Hampton Virginia. We had a good breeze from the stern for about 24 hours. The first two days it was very cold, but with the right clothing on you don't notice it! We crossed the Gulf Stream without any problem and turned on the motor to get as far east as we could. One way to make this passase is to go east to longititude 66 and then head south to Tortola, picking up the trade winds around latitude 20. A group of boats headed east. This year the eastern course put us in an area of light winds. For three days we made very little forward progress. But a front was predicted to come in a few days that would bring very strong winds in the right direction. We waited for the front. It was frustrating but we enjoyed our time reading, relaxing, having good meals, talking and laughing. It was wonderful to be on a calm sea and experience the vastness and beauty of the Atlantic. The water is incredibly blue. However, the fact that you are in a precarious situation is always in the back of your mind. It keeps you alert. Everyone on the boat worked to keep it moving safely towards our destination.
Both Bob and Julio were good company and excellent crew. Julio was the fisherman and caught a Mahi Mahi with his trolling line. Bob kept us laughing.

The winds came along just as predicted and blew us all the way to Tortola! We were on a reach or a broad reach for 4 days going at top speed the entire time. At one point we were sailing with just half the Yankee (jib) out and no main. We used various sail combinations based on the wind speed. We had ocean swells on the back quarter and that had us rolling side to side at times. Moving around down below was pretty hard, sometimes we had to hold on with both hands. We still managed to make coffee every morning and have a hot meal every night. Even though it was a little difficult it was extremely satisfying to experience Jade as a sailboat. To move at 6 to 8 knots for days at a time was more than we could have hoped for in this passage. Jade felt like being on a smoothly galloping horse. It was fantastic to be sailing on Jade after the time and effort we have put into making her ready for this trip.

We made it to Tortola at 6:30am Wednesday November 23rd. We were greeted with a glass of rum punch. We were actually a little sad that the trip was over but very happy to have made it safely.

Since being in Tortola we have been to parties and had some celebratory dinners on the boat. We toured Tortola by car with Bob and Julio. We have cleaned up the boat and are now ready to start moving again. We are leaving the marina this morning but we don't have a destination yet! There are lots of places to go that are just a few hours sail away. Our plan is to stay in the Virgin Islands area for a month and then move on. For now we just need to take it easy and savor the feeling of accomplishment of having made it this far.

We made it! Wednesday 11-23-11 6:30 am

We arrived safely in Tortola, BVI after 13 days at sea. It was a fantastic experience. The crew and the boat did very well and sailed through all the different conditions without any problems.
We will post photos and more information after we settle in for a few more days.

Caribbean 1500

We will leave soon on a 10 t0 12 day passage in the Atlantic. We have joined the Caribbean 1500 Rally, a group of sixty boats sailing directly from Hampton, Virginia to Tortola, BVI. The planned departure date is Monday November 7th, weather permitting.

During the voyage Jade and the other boats will be tracked on the Caribbean 1500 website. http://www.worldcruising.com/carib1500/ The progress of each boat will show up on a map along with daily logs. Please follow along and keep us in your thoughts as we take this challenging and exciting trip.

Two experienced sailors will be traveling with us, Bob Caffee and Julio Menendez. With these two guys along the trip should be a lot of fun and easier than with just the two of us.

The next blog post here will be soon after we reach the islands!

Inspiration in Annapolis and Washington D.C.

We are in Annapolis and have had experiences in the past three weeks that remind us of some of the great things about this country.

We have attended services at the Naval Academy chapel twice and have been so impressed with the architecture and the service. It takes us out of our small world of boating and reminds us of larger ideals and truly important endeavours.
Thanks to our friend Jeff Hazzard we had a tour of Washington DC that included many of the highlights of the National Mall. At the National Archives we saw the original Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Then we went to several of the Smithsonian museums. We saw the Air and Space, American Indian, Hirshhorn, Natural History and American History museums. We saw the Capital Building and the Whitehouse but just from the outside.

The Washington Memorial is in view no matter where you go on the Mall. The Air and Space Museum amazed us with actual rockets from the space program and planes of every type starting with the Wright Brothers plane. Here's Al in front of the lunar module. It looks like something you could make in your backyard but one just like this made it to the moon.

Jeff's wanted his picture in front of this commercial airliner to show how enormous these planes are.

In the evening we saw the Vietnam Memorial, the Lincoln Memorial and the WWII Memorial. We started the day with the beginning of the country, then viewed artifacts of our history, art and culture and ended it with stunning reminders of those who struggled or died to keep the country going. It was an emotional experience and we found ourselves feeling very grateful and humbled at the end of the day.