We have had terrible Internet here in the Galapagos and we leave in about an hour. I will provide much more detail in our next port, but we passed through the Panama Canal without incident, went to the Perlas Islands, Panama, sailed for 5 nights to the Galapagos, saw San Cristobal, Isabela and Santa Cruz Islands of the Galapagos, and now we leave for a three week passage to Hiva Oa, French Polynesia.
Highlights: we saw marine iguanas, penguins, sharks, blue footed boobies, red footed boobies, the magnificent frigate bird, tortoises, turtles, rays, etc. The wildlife in the Galapagos was fantastic but it is rather bureaucratic here. The kids took a surfing lesson and really enjoyed it.

The ARC kids made a movie which will be shown in French Polynesia, and we ended up coming in first in the multihull category from Colombia to the San Blas Islands (but we blew out our Genniker sail and had to have it fixed for $580; it was a rough passage), and second on our leg from Las Perlas to the Galapagos (despite a lot of motoring). I guess a lot of catamarans motored! We ended up with a bottle of rum and some Galapagos coasters as our prizes.

We are well stocked for the passage so hopefully it will go smoothly. We will update you when we get there!

We stayed as long as we could in San Blas, but we needed to head down to Colon, where we would transit the Canal. You have to be measured, briefed, etc. beforehand so we left San Blas, overnighted in an anchorage called Linton Island (where we saw monkeys), and headed to Shelter Bay Marina the next day to do what we needed to do. Now we are in Shelter Bay awaiting our canal departure today. We have had some fun here too despite the chores we had to get done. We spent an entire day provisioning because apparently, we are not going to have a big grocery store with good prices until we reach Tahiti so everyone really stocks up big time here. It was an hour bus trip to the grocery store and we were caught up for a bit waiting for a ship to go through the canal (there is a bridge in the canal we have to go through to get to the store). After returning with the groceries, we basically spent hours trying to organize it all and find space for it. What a chore! We finished that off with dinner with Widago while the five kids, who had already eaten, stayed onboard Widago to play together.

There is a short but wonderful walk right at the marina. One day we saw spider monkeys and a mother and baby three-toed sloth, and this morning, Ali and I saw white-faced capuchin monkeys playing in the trees. I still can’t run and my ankle still hurts, but I can’t be completely sedentary!

A great picture of mama sloth and her baby.  The baby can be seen in the second photo much better.

Monkeys in Colon, Panama

Yesterday, the kids and I went on an organized trip to visit the Embera’ Indians. They are one group of indigenous people from Colombia who moved to the national forest land of Panama because of the drug cartel issues in the 1970s. The government provides them two teachers for their children two times a week (up to grade 6), but they are a people who truly live like they have for centuries. They are a peaceful culture that hunts, fishes, and gathers, and they live in elevated huts on the Chagres River. To be able to continue on their own, they allow groups to come to their village two days of the week. They truly do live rustically, but outside influence has crept into their lives as well. They have 15 and 30 horsepower outboards on their dugout canoes! At first, I thought, what a way to ruin the “real” feel of it all, but from where they pick you up to where you need to go, it is an hour up-river and they have to navigate very shallow areas by having someone pull the boat forward with a stick from the bow. When we arrived, we were greeted by a lot of topless village women and some music playing. The villagers make a lot of things by hand and some of it was quite good. They weave intricate plates and bowls, carve wood, and also make animal carvings from a nut called Tagua, which is also known as vegetable ivory. Ryan loved them so much that he bought one with his own money. The villagers made us fried tilapia and plantains and served them in a palm frond bowl. They danced a bit and explored the village. It was an interesting day, but I did feel like it was a bit “staged,” and it didn’t help that a big group of cruise ship people with an obnoxious tour guide came after we were there only about 40 minutes. Prior to that, it was only our group, so it was quieter and subdued. The other ARC folks (who transited the canal on the first day) went to the village a few days earlier and had no cruise ships. We would have preferred that. I am glad we went, as it was very eye opening to see that some people still live so primitively, but I’ll never forget Ryan’s comment when we left: “Before we came here, I didn’t know that everyone would be topless.” A ten-year old boy who was probably a bit shocked at the experience, initially, but he handled it like a travel pro!

Embera Indians, Dug-out Canoe ride to their village an hour away (on the northwestern part of the Chagres River.

The Embera Indians cooking Tilapia and Plaintains in Leaf Bowls

Kids at play

Ariana and 5 year old Angelina

A typical hut and kids playing hide and seek

A staircase that is carved out of a log 

Embera Indians and ARC members

So today, we go through the canal. You can actually watch us transit the Panama Canal on their live feed, if you’re interested.   The site is:  http://www.pancanal.com/eng/photo/camera-java.html

We will be going through Gatun Locks tomorrow afternoon (the 2nd) late afternoon/early evening (approximate time after 4:45 p.m. Eastern time), and the Miraflores locks before noon on the 3rd (that is the Pacific side).

There sure is a lot to it.  Being a line handler is not going to be easy, and I may have to rely on Ariana to tie a bowline for me when the line with a monkey fist is thrown at me. Under pressure, I don’t think I can do it and she is a pro! So, you have an “advisor” onboard who will expect dinner tonight and breakfast and coffee by 6 a.m. tomorrow morning for the continuation. We will go through the first set of locks this evening (Gatun), anchor in the man-made lake tonight, and proceed through the locks on the Pacific side (Miraflores) tomorrow morning.   The advisors don’t sleep on our boat, but they are there fairly late and back again the next morning.

If you look for us on the live feed, we should be in the middle of three boats, with one monohull on either side of us.  The canal is 110 feet wide and can take ships to 106 feet wide.  They are building a much wider canal next to it so they can clear through larger vessels.  Panama is hoping it will be completed this year.

Also, I found out that a big freighter would pay about $200-$400K to go through the canal, and a cruise ship pays based on potential occupancy (not actual occupancy) and may pay about $475K.  Personal sailboats are about $2K from what I understand but the ARC fees cover our transit (and they may get a better deal because we raft up in threes and there are 30 boats).  The canal puts through about 30-45 boats per day.  Do the math.  They make a killing!  The U.S. turned it back over to Panama on December 31st, 1999, and Panama earns all of the money from it (and our Navy pays to transit too). Of course, the former President is being hunted down because he was corrupt and pocketed a great deal of money from the canal, but he hasn’t been found yet!  Apparently, if Panama does not continue operating the canal properly, the U.S. has the contractual right to come back in and take it over. Wish us luck. This should be a unique experience for the kids (and for us)!

Our Sail to San Blas Islands, Panama

“Woop, there it is!” Leaving out of Santa Marta, we experienced heavy winds, swells on our beam, and fast speeds. We started with a double-reefed main and our jib for the first 30 miles of our trip. It was rough and a bit precarious; we again hit 40 knots of wind but it was the seas on our beam that caused the most heartache. Finally, we were able to turn and experience the swells coming from downwind. That was a relief! Surprisingly, only Ariana got seasick, but it was bad enough this time that we had to give her a patch, which pretty much knocked her out for a day and a half. The poor girl made it down to her head and vomited all over everything in there.   Luckily, she had eaten strawberry yogurt prior to passage so clean-up was super-easy! (said with sarcasm)—hard, pink, crusted-over vomit. Another great sailing moment for the Gabiers!

The winds died down some after several hours so we decided to sail with our Gennaker, which is a large sail that is a cross between a genoa and a spinnaker. Well, when we put it up, we were on a broad reach, winds were light, and we were still making good speed. When we sail downwind with the gennaker, we have to take down the main sail, because the main sail blocks the wind and the gennaker luffs a lot and the main doesn’t buy us any additional speed.

As an aside, this was considered a racing leg with the ARC. Some legs they have a friendly competition among boats and prizes are awarded later on. You CAN motor, but that time motoring counts pretty heavily against you, so it is most beneficial to sail, regardless of the light wind conditions. The kids really wanted to try to “win” one of the racing passages, and we figured this was the one we had a shot at winning because the winds were generally heavy and coming at us from 60-120 degrees which are great points of sail for our boat—and it was only going to be a two night sail. So, when the winds died sufficiently (at one point, we were only making about 3-4 knots speed over ground), we had a family meeting and asked the kids if they still wanted to continue sailing, even if it meant arriving much later because of our poor speed. The consensus was “so what if we arrive later—let’s sail on!” So, we didn’t turn on the motors and sailed slowly for a while. Then, miraculously, the winds shifted to a beam reach, (which meant the wind was coming from our side), so we were able put the main sail back up without a luffing gennaker. And—the winds picked up… A LOT, and shifted more upwind (60 degrees off our bow). We actually ended up overpowered with our gennaker and our main sail up full (no reef), but there was no way at that point that we could bring in the gennaker safely, so eventually, two things happened: (1) the last night at 1 a.m., we blew out our gennaker. Yup. True. Our sail essentially exploded at 1 a.m. AND (2) our boat saw 18.2 knots speed over ground for a second. That’s a lot of speed for a 40-foot cruising catamaran—almost 21 miles per hour. Holy crap.   We were overpowered.

Anyway, after our gennaker was no longer usable, we put up our jib (the sail we wished we had had up beforehand), and sailed on. We arrived over the finish line before 4 a.m. and had to sail back and forth until dawn (because there was no way we were going to anchor in the coral-full San Blas Islands in the dark). The kids were shocked because before they went to bed they still thought we wouldn’t get in until about 11 a.m. because of light winds. How quickly things change!

San Blas Islands, Panama

Cruisers talk about their love of the San Blas Islands and I can understand why. There are about 350 islands and only about a seventh are inhabited. The people living in the islands are Kuna Indians who came down from the Darien Mountains long ago to reside in the area. Some of the San Blas Islands have only one family living on them, and other islands have a village of people. Our favorite was BBQ Island, which may or may not have a more formal name. The island had grass, a hut, a few picnic tables, lots of palm trees, and water volleyball. There was also a nice field for the kids and adults to get a game of stickball going. The man who lived there had a puppy and cold beer. What more can you ask for?

San Blas Islands, Panama

Kuna Indian in a dug-out canoe

One of the San Blas Islands

A beautiful San Blas beach

A Flamingo Tongue–viewed on coral while snorkeling

Dinghy ride with Widago and K1W1Beans

BBQ Island, San Blas Islands

A stickball game on BBQ Island

One of the uninhabited islands

Typical huts on a San Blas Island

The kids get along well–most of the time!

We did some snorkeling in the San Blas and that was also quite good. Ariana and Dan saw a few nurse sharks when they went, and the number of species of different fish was amazing!

Another island that was fantastic was Salardup. One family lived there and if you give them a heads-up, they will prepare dinner for you on their one big picnic table with folding chairs. Earlier in the day, he showed us the lobsters he had caught and would be serving to us, and then he killed them in front of us (which I could have done without because it is basically just chopping them up into pieces). He served it with white rice that had a bit of coconut milk in it for $7 each. We went out to eat with Ali and Guy from Widago and the very nice folks on Carango (Peter, Vicky, Richard and Tricia from Great Britain). We had a really nice evening. The only thing that wasn’t as great about this island was the little noseeums that would bite you. That’s why our kids and Widago’s three boys decided to stay on Widago for dinner and we just brought them back some lobster.

Our private dinner on Salardup, San Blas Islands, Panama with Widago and Carango

Dinner for someone!

I had a bit of an accident while in the San Blas. We went to Provenir to check in to Panama (after several days of already being there), and Dan finished the process and came back to pick me up so we could go in to meet Widago and K1W1 Beans for a beer. I was putting our passports and documents away and accidentally stepped on and rolled off of a boat hook that I left in our cockpit/companionway. My ankle twisted, I heard a snap sound, and thought for sure I had broken my ankle. It swelled up immediately and hurt like Chinese torture for a little while, so I couldn’t do anything but lie there and ice it. Peter and Vicky on Carango summarized it as: “so you fell over trying to get a beer?” In essence, I guess they’re right, but I never did get that beer!

Now it has been about a week, and my ankle still swells up during the day and hurts. I don’t know exactly what damage I did to it, and may never know because it’s not like I can get an x-ray or MRI at the drop of a hat! I haven’t let it stop me from doing things, but I definitely can’t run yet, which just stinks. The optimist in me thinks at least it’s not broken!

We arrived into St. Lucia after a quick sail from Martinique on December 28^th, 2015. St. Lucia was spent getting checked into the ARC rally, provisioning our boat, and solving the issues that had been causing us problems (such as our AIS, radar, our freezer, etc.). We did manage to have a day to bus it to Castries and then on to Marigot Bay, which was okay. Marigot Bay is pretty, but it is not as I remembered it from years ago when Dan and I visited.   It was MUCH more touristy, and the only really good part of being there was Dan’s interesting and much needed haircut on the beach. Otherwise, the prices were outrageous and the people were focused on targeting tourists, neither of which are my favorite things!   Castries was much more “real” for good and for bad. One of the local women on the bus told us to hide our cash in Castries—so we decided to heed her advice. But, we did see a street fair going on, which was mainly focused on selling a lot of hard alcohol at every kiosk. This was definitely different than a street fair in the U.S. but made for an interesting walk-through.

Marigot Bay, St. Lucia

Haircut on the beach

Marigot Bay

Castries, St. Lucia

Another day, the kids went ziplining with Mary Beth from Paradise Found and several of the other rally kids.   They had a great time but I don’t get the sense ziplining is the least bit exhilarating after doing it three or four times.

Otherwise, St. Lucia was mostly “business” for us (along with a handful of cocktail parties), so I was glad when we were finally able to move on and head to Colombia.

Of course, I had been dreading the sail to Colombia from the moment we signed up with the ARC. It was notoriously rough and many people from years past reported seasickness onboard their boats. I pretty much expected we would experience that as well. But, we really had very little. Only Ariana was seasick briefly on this passage. And it was calmer than I envisioned—well, up until the last few hours. Then we had the 35-40 knot winds I had come to expect.   The one nice thing was that the boats ahead had informed us of the conditions, so we had our main sail double-reefed and we were ready to be pummeled a little bit. What was REALLY strange was going from 40-knot winds to 6 in a matter of minutes. As soon as we rounded the corner into the marina, we had basically NO wind. Overall, the sail to Colombia lasted into the fifth night and we arrived at about 3:30 a.m. I couldn’t wait to sleep but we did have a quick Piton beer upon arrival.   Ariana was awake (again) but I couldn’t believe Ryan never woke up, despite being thrown around A LOT, having the lights turned on in the cabin, getting into the marina, getting into a slip, and talking to the ARC folks on the dock. Sadly, all of us could fall off the boat screaming and Ryan would have absolutely no clue. He would just wake up the next morning and wonder where we all went…

The start of the ARC race (from St. Lucia to Santa Marta, Colombia)  

A beautiful sunset on our way to the Santa Marta, Colombia

Our dolphin visitors

Ha, ha!  And we thought this was some significant speed.  We hit 18.2 SOG (speed over ground) at one point surfing down a wave on the next leg from Santa Marta to San Blas Islands, Panama.  (We were overpowered.)

Arriving into the marina at Santa Marta, Colombia in the middle of the night.

Colombia was BUSY. The first day there we were off for a city tour. I think the man who talked the whole time was in education because all I learned besides the history of Simon Bolivar (who by the way had syphilis, tuberculosis, and was quite the ladies’ man, in hindsight, much to their chagrin) was about every private and public school in the city of Santa Marta.

The second day we had a huge ARC BBQ on a beach that was really fun (with about 130 people there). Ryan and Ariana got to play cricket, which is quite different for Americans who usually swing bats in a baseball position and drop the bat before running to base. Ryan had a difficult time hanging on to his bat.

Tug-o-War at the Beach Party.  Ariana is the second child in the photo.

Ryan playing cricket.  Before he hit it, someone corrected his stance so it was actually cricket and not baseball.

Widago and K1W1 Beans adults

Another day we went on a smaller (mostly kid boats) trip to a native people’s land along the Tayrona River (and there we learned that men sleep in hammocks while the women sleep on mats on the hard, dirt ground so they can be closer to the earth and therefore more fertile—what a load of crap that is!) followed by lunch and a lazy inner tube float down the river. Add to that a lot of happy hours, dinners and cocktail parties and that was Colombia. We were ready to depart Colombia after about 5 days, but the port captain would not allow any boat to leave the harbor because of conditions out at sea. So, we were supposed to start our next “racing” leg at noon but had to wait until 8 a.m. the next day.   That was fine, but we did lose out on a day in the San Blas Islands because of it…

Colombia

Some of the ARC boat kids (including ours)

Ariana’s photo

More Santa Marta, Colombia

Santa Marta, Colombia

Adults’ night out for dinner in Santa Marta, Colombia

A knife to the throat in Santa Marta, Colombia

Happy Hour men

We left for Martinique on December 22^nd. We were headed for an anchorage in Sainte-Pierre. It was a day sail—approximately 6 hours, and it was predicted to be very windy. It was. For a brief moment, we hit 40 knots of wind, and had about 35 knots of wind for an hour or two when we were not in the lee of the islands (we were in between the two). We had a double reef, and our speed was consistently 9-10 knots during this time, upwind. That being said, no one was seasick!  No vomit to be found anywhere on our boat!  It was a banner day…

Arriving into St. Pierre, Martinique

Sainte-Pierre

Christmas Eve last minute shopping and a rum punch at a bar

It rained a lot in Sainte-Pierre. We were back to the land of good baguettes but bad lunchmeat. And we were back to butchering the French language. We took a bus to Port de France the day after we arrived so we got to see a bit of the island. Port de France is a bustling city and it even had a very nice indoor mall with stores like Benetton (I haven’t seen that store in YEARS). The kids wanted to get some presents for us, so we agreed to give them about an hour and a half to shop on their own in the mall. Last year, we allowed them to go Christmas shopping together on their own in downtown New Bern (our small town) and they did great. We were upping the ante here, being in a foreign country with a foreign language, but they were successful! Ariana bought Dan some coffee and she said people were looking at them funny in line; two young foreign kids satisfying their coffee fix. Poor caffeine-addicted children…

While the kids shopped, Dan and I scored Lebanese chicken schwarma pita pockets for lunch. They were so good.

Port de France, Martinique, I loved these two buildings side by side!

For Christmas, I cooked a turkey and just about everything I would cook at home. I couldn’t believe how well the turkey came out in only the small convection oven we have. We had to run the generator for about three hours but it was worth it. Dinner was great and we followed it by jumping off the back of the boat and swimming for a while.

Christmas in Martinique

The kids having a joyride in the dinghy in Sainte-Pierre, Martinique

We also started catching up on the Star Wars movies so we could see the new one in St. Lucia without being completely in the dark, and we eventually did see the movie with people from two other boats on the ARC who are very nice.  The eight of us were the only people in the movie theater for Star Wars, if you can believe that!

After Christmas, we sailed to Sainte-Anne on the southern part of Martinique and we stayed there for a few nights. It was definitely more touristy but pleasant enough. Overall, Martinique was pretty nice, but I definitely preferred Les Saintes south of Guadeloupe.

Sainte-Anne, Martinique

As a write this, we are in Saint Lucia (we came here on the 28^th) and after some issues receiving packages that were sent to us, we are frantically hurrying to get our new chart plotter and AIS installed. We also had an issue with our freezer and electric winch, but those both turned out to be voltage problems rather than the electrics themselves (good news)!  Our new chart plotter is in, AIS is in, the Genneker sail is rigged, and we are almost ready to go.

So, things are looking up! We leave St. Lucia on January 9^th and sail straight to Santa Marta, Colombia with the World ARC boats. It will be fun to finally be in a Spanish speaking country!

We have also had the opportunity to meet the folks on the other boats in the ARC and that has been a lot of fun.  There are people from Great Britain, Australia, France, Argentina, Germany, Finland, New Zealand, Malaysia, (Denmark too, I believe) and of course, the United States, and I am probably missing others too.  The best part was when we learned there are more kids going on this trip than we originally thought.  There are four kid boats instead of only two!  Ariana and Ryan met most of the other kids yesterday and today they are going ziplining with our friend, Marybeth from Paradise Found, and many of the kids are going too, including three boys from the United States, a 13 year old boy from France, and possibly one 9 year old boy from England (and his dad is originally from New Zealand).  I love that the group going on the ARC has such diversity!

Okay, I need to end this post.  I am off to take a bus to the big grocery store to reprovision for about the next month.  They say we won’t have very good provisioning until Panama so I better make sure I stock up!

Sailing into Portsmouth, Dominica

Passage to Dominica from Les Saintes was nice and short. It was windy, and once again, we were upwind, but we arrived into Portsmouth on the 17^th in the afternoon, got anchored, and awaited Bill, Tinka, and Cora Talbert’s arrival. I was really looking forward to Dominica because I had heard the hiking was incredible, and it is not very touristy compared to other Caribbean Islands. The only negative was that we were now sandwiched between two French Islands and would have no chance of finding good baguettes!

Bill and Tinka Talbert

The Talberts arrived and Dan and Bill went off to clear customs. I haven’t really discussed it much, but Dominica uses the Eastern Caribbean dollar as its currency, but the French Islands we had been to (Guadeloupe and Martinique—after Dominica) use Euros.

After the kids did some school, the Talberts dinghied over to our boat. It was so great to see them! We ended up drinking some wine/beer, having an easy dinner on our boat, and catching up. The next morning, the men went into town via dinghy to rent a van and we drove about an hour south to hike to Middleham Waterfall.

It was perfect because Bill served as our very own tour guide. He drove us to our destinations on the island, and had to deal with a lot of detours because much of the bridge infrastructure was destroyed from the tropical storm that hit them recently.

We stopped at a small restaurant in Roseau the Talberts had been to before, which served very large “rotis” to go. We ate them before our hike and they were very good but so filling.   It was a great hike (a good gauge of that is that Tinka’s and my calves hurt A LOT the next day), but we all ended up off of the not-so-well-marked trail and trying to make our way through a jungle. Tinka pioneered off a different way and discovered the main trail. Then we waited for our kids to backtrack and a very nice local man ensured we were headed in the right direction from then on (despite the fact he was there trying to be snuggly with his girlfriend!) Anyway, the falls were beautiful. The Talberts had been here previously and, at that time, they got to swim right next to and under the falls, but it was now rainy season, so the waterfall was much more intense and too dangerous to go sticking our heads into.

Middleham Falls with Bill, Tinka and Cora

After our hike, Bill drove us back to our boats and we had a delicious pork curry stew on Proud Mary, the Talberts’ boat. It was a fun day.

The next day, we had grand visions of doing the boiling lake hike, which takes at least 6 hours and ends at a lake that is, well, boiling. So, this hike was not going to end in a cool dip in the water. We wouldn’t have wanted a cool swim anyway. It was cold up in the mountains! I really did wish I had a sweatshirt, and Cora was the only one who brought one. (Smart girl.) We had gotten up early to dinghy in to town and to drive more than an hour to get to the trailhead. With all of the planes, trains and automobiles, it wasn’t early in the day anymore. And the guidebook cautioned that you should not veer too far off the boiling lake hiking trail because some areas have a thin crust that may cause you to fall into molten lava. Geesh…given our track record the day before that found us completely off-trail in a thick jungle, maybe this wasn’t the best hike for us? That combined with the general consensus that a six-hour hike was a bit much after hiking the day before, and we were not too eager to go. It wasn’t too hard to be dissuaded when we asked a local man sitting in his car where the trailhead was, and he opined we were getting a late start for this hike.

Needless to say, we opted to find a more reasonable day hike, which Tinka found in her guidebook. It turned out to be a beautiful hike that seemed a bit magical and surreal at the beginning. Throughout, we had to make our way over slippery rocks and logs while inclining and declining. We warmed up throughout the hike, but the end was, in my opinion, not as beautiful as the hike itself. There was a lake (this one was not boiling!) that was foggy and chilly. We sat and had some snacks and two young men from the Jamaican Army in only shower shoes emerged from the trail. They were working in Dominica to rebuild the new bridges that we had been traveling over the last few days!

Bill drove us around the north side of the island the next day. He was like a feral island man who had been living off the land for a while; he knew all of the fruits and vegetables, and hacked open a coconut that had turned foamy and spongy inside. We tried it (except for Ryan). I didn’t love it but it was certainly interesting! Another fun moment was when Bill suddenly pulled over the car and stopped off the side of the road. He had seen an avocado tree so we got out of the car and threw coconuts and rocks at the avocados to get them to fall. Yum. We were hungry and there were no restaurants in the area but we found a few women in a glorified hut cooking chicken on the grill and selling it to the neighborhood folks. They also had baked macaroni and cheese, beans and rice, and cold beer, so you really couldn’t ask for more than that.

Chicken on the side of the Road…

Photos of the northern part of Dominica

After our day exploring, we headed back to our boats in Portsmouth. Another cruising family with a kid came by and their son swam with our kids for a few hours off the back of the boat while I cooked some chicken piccata for dinner.

We had another day to spend together and we opted for mellow, which was great. We dinghied in to the local beach in Portsmouth and had a pretty boring rum punch at their newest bar so we went next door to “Chez Felix.” That place was fun as was Felix! His drinks were like art, which is not surprising given he is an artist. He told me he lived in Paris for 20 years. His bar/shack is filled with his artwork and his dog had a litter of adorable puppies. They were full of fleas and some were stronger in health than others, but they were so fun to have around. Tinka and Cora wanted to take one with them, but it was too early in their journey home to be able to take a pup. We swam and relaxed for several hours and headed back to our boats.

Chez Felix

Felix

It was fun seeing the Talberts. I laughed a few times until I cried, especially when a big truck came around the corner headed straight for us (they have very narrow roads) and Tinka’s reaction was to frantically pull her map in front of her face like that would protect her from experiencing a head-on collision! We also laughed so much playing Catch Phrase one night. Good times.

Dominica is a very different island from the others in the Caribbean. It is volcanic and does not have beautiful beaches, and it is not inviting with perfectly landscaped resorts or flashy storefronts. At the same time, there is something incredibly real and rustic about it. Driving the northern part of the island, the scenery over the water is beautiful, with the modest, colorful houses and the various fruit trees that dot the hilly roadside. Heading south, it is dramatically different with the bustling city of Rouseau that transforms into a lush, verdant, hiking wonderland once you escape its borders. I felt as if I were in Jurassic Park and I half-expected dinosaurs to emerge from these tropical hiking grounds. So, is Dominica the best island in the Caribbean? That all depends on what you like to do. If you’re a beach person, I would say definitely not. If you love hiking, and want a more authentic, non-touristy destination, this may well be your place.

The Crazy Americans

We needed groceries. I really wanted a decent-sized grocery store to buy a bunch of things we had run out of since leaving North Carolina. When we arrived on the mainland Guadeloupe, we saw on a map that there was a large grocery store in Basse-Terre. We walked to the center of town to the Digicel store to get a SIM card for our MiFi and asked the young man working there how to get to the supermarket (Super Marque Casino). (He actually knew a bit of English; most people here do not speak ANY English).   Altogether, the grocery store was about a three-mile walk. We figured we would walk there and ask them to call us a cab to take us back to our dinghy in the marina. We had seen a bunch of cars with these signs on the top that said: “Auto Ecole.” They were everywhere—around the marina, the center of town, and there was even an office for “Auto Ecole” in the center of town. A few times earlier in the day, we had tried to flag one down but they always had a passenger already.

Well, we had a great shopping experience. I was in my heaven. The store was huge and had so many things, and at really great prices compared to what we had seen previously. They had French wines, champagnes, cheeses, smoked salmon, baguettes, fresh fruits and vegetables, Special K with berries, and you name it, they (almost certainly) had it. They had Boursin cheese for $2.99 Euro, and with the pretty fantastic exchange rate right now (1 Euro equals $1.09 U.S. Dollars) we managed to stock up on quite a bit of food for a little over $200. When it came time to pay and leave, Dan approached the security guards to ask them to call a cab but only one guard (who was from Dominica) spoke English. At first, she conferred with her colleagues and said there were no taxi companies in Basse-Terre—but then someone knew of one. I thought that was very strange given all the cabs we had seen over the last few days, but whatever. Our car service arrived and it was obviously a different company because it had no sign, but the car was brand new and really nice. Ryan pointed out that he hadn’t been in a car since we left the States over a month ago and with the great air conditioning, we were happy. It was an expensive cab ride, but there is absolutely no way we would have been able to make it all the way back to the marina with our four computers in backpacks (we had from earlier) and all of our groceries.

Now, at this point in the story, if you know some French, you want to scream and tell us that we’re idiots. Auto Ecole is NOT a taxi service. Ecole means school, which days later, I found out by putting two and two together reading a sign and seeing a school. Apparently, we were the crazy Americans walking around Basse-Terre trying to hail rides from students learning to drive! At least that explains why they always had a passenger…

This is the sign that made me realize ecole was school…

Ile Des Saintes, Guadeloupe

Fast forward a few days and we are now in Ile des Saintes, which are islands south of mainland Guadeloupe that are still part of Guadeloupe. It was only about 2 hours to get here (upwind again so we motored with just the jib), which was FANTASTIC in my book.  This place is absolutely breathtaking. I hope the photos capture how quaint and picturesque it really is.

The church on the left and the doctor’s office on the right!

Ariana’s photo:

On the second day here, we rented two Mopeds for 24 hours and cruised around all of Terre-de-Haut with the kids—driving on pretty much every road they have here on this island. I had actually never driven a Moped before so that was a first, with Ryan as my (initially nervous) co-pilot. I don’t blame him. He asked me if I had ever driven one and I said: “nope, never.” It didn’t help that some of the roads on the island are very steep and the roads have “reverse curbs.” That is my own terminology. Instead of having elevated curbs on the side of the road, the roads had about a foot drop into a gutter (for rain water, I presume—or possibly to try to take down the tourists who can’t drive Mopeds). Initially, I had a difficult time with tight turns, but since I didn’t kill us or injure anyone else on the roads (okay, I did have ONE close call with a woman), I guess that makes my first Moped experience a success!  Oh, and one other important tidbit of information is that Mopeds are only allowed on the main road at certain times of the day, but there was really no other way around to the other side.  So, we got yelled at (or “educated” about the rules) a few times by some of the shop owners.  Beware!

Something was on our camera lens in this one but at least we’re all in it!

We packed a pasta salad and baguette lunch and ate in on a shaded picnic table at the beach.

The next morning we took the Moped back up the large hill to Fort Napoleon. It has beautiful views and a museum inside that turned out to be quite nice.

Fort Napoleon:

If you look closely, you will see that this man is the “gabier” for “Le Patriarche.”  Coincidentally, a gabier is a sailor who works on the rigging on a boat.  So very fitting for Dan…

Part of the museum inside the fort:

Dan and I also managed to have a date night. We are on a mooring here in The Saintes (rather than at anchor) so we don’t have to worry that our boat will drift away with our kids onboard! We went out for dinner on Saturday night and I had a poisson augratin followed by a whole spiny lobster with mixed mashed varieties of potatoes and root vegetables, and a chilled crème brulee. I also had a mixed drink that is made here that is essentially a coconut punch. We then went down the street to an indoor/outdoor bar that was packed, had a beer, and danced a little bit before heading back to our dinghy. It was a nice night!

Today, we Christmas-shopped while the kids did their school (it is challenging to shop here; this is definitely NOT the U.S.) and in the afternoon, we kayaked for a while before having some dinner. It was a fairly uneventful day. Tomorrow, I think we are going to dinghy over to the other habited island in the Saintes and see what it is like. Plus, I need to once again hit a grocery store and make sure I have enough French wine to get us through our time in Dominica! 😉

On Thursday morning, we leave for Portsmouth, Dominica where we will meet up with Bill, Tinka and Cora Talbert (on Proud Mary) from our home town in New Bern. That will be a lot of fun!

More photos from Ile Des Saintes, Guadeloupe:

Christmas in the Islands:

We got the last small fake Christmas tree at the hardware store and spent part of the afternoon making decorations for our new Charlie Brown Christmas tree.  The lights are 240 volts (with a European plug) so we had to convert them to work for our boat.

The cemetery:

Typical Ile des Saintes houses:

A field of goats and two “wild” bunnies and a chicken in the junkyard.  It’s like Easter!

Carved wooden house detail and street/house scene:

A woman working on her house and a political rally on the island.  Election time!  

The recycling here is fantastic.  They have recycling bins throughout the island and they actually do something with it…

British Virgin Islands

Ari finished her scuba diving certification successfully, so we finally got our go ahead to leave Sea Cow Bay in Nanny Cay.

Ariana doing scuba diving book work:

Ariana sailing with the Nanny Cay yacht club kids:

We headed for Norman Island (also part of the BVIs). The anchorage was nice and the water was VERY inviting. When we first got to Norman Island, we dinghied over to the Willy T’s. Luckily, we went early in the day when it was not so “rowdy.” I didn’t realize it was probably not the most appropriate place to take kids. The Willy T is an old boat that has a bar and restaurant. On a TV screen, they continuously play photos of all of the women who end up going topless and jumping off the second floor of the boat into the water. Even though it was only about 3 in the afternoon when we went for lunch, we ended up seeing a bit of that ourselves; two older women jumped topless and were only holding a towel up to them when they walked back through the restaurant to the second floor. Interesting place.

The Willy T

Unfortunately, Dan got terribly sick while we were at Sea Cow Bay in Nanny Cay. We are pretty certain it was chikungunya, a mosquito-caused disease that came to the Caribbean Islands from Africa. (Why do they always seem to have the worst stuff over there?) They had A LOT of Chikungunya last year in the BVIs, but apparently, no real serious outbreak this year—but I guess that sole infected mosquito managed to find Dan. Anyway, it started with a high fever (103.2) and a rash, and then came the fairly severe joint and muscle pain, nausea, and a headache with shooting eye pain. Even after 11 days, Dan still has nausea, which is not a common malady for Dan. He REALLY doesn’t like it. We held off leaving for Guadeloupe for several more days so he could recuperate.

Back to Norman Island. The next day Dan was still not feeling well, so after the kids finished school, we kayaked over to the beach and then swam around the boat playing. The next day we decided to take Do Over around the corner to the caves where we snorkeled and swam into each of the three caves. That was pretty neat—not as good as The Baths, but still cool nonetheless! Dan lasted two caves and needed to go back to the boat. It is amazing what a mosquito can do to a person.

Dan at the bow off of Tortola, BVI and Ariana kayaking Ryan and me to shore…

The next day, we took the boat over to Cooper Island where we ended up staying for three nights so Dan could try to get over his Chikungunya. The kids and I snorkeled and saw a ton of fish, including a Lionfish (a venomous fish that is not native to these waters but is unfortunately becoming quite commonplace).

Norman Island and the Caves (needlefish in the second photo):

Cooper Island Beach Club and a full rainbow:

On our second day there, another cruising family (Andy, Heidi and kids Drew and Evelyn from Tangent—and Heidi’s mom Joyce who was visiting them for the week) dinghied over to our boat to introduce themselves. Earlier, they saw Ryan helping us anchor, and families cruising with kids are still fairly rare. We ended up meeting them later at the beach and hanging out with them there, and joining them for happy hour 2X1 Painkillers at the restaurant later that evening. It was fun!  Poor Dan stuck to diet Coke. I sure do wish he felt better!

Ari and Ryan with Drew and Evelyn from Tangent drinking virgin cocktails:

We were really hoping we could meet up again with Bob and Lori Brothers (on Barbara Jean) and Wendy and Lou Griffith (on Annabella) but they were all the way over in Jost Van Dyke and we were WAY behind our schedule. We had them over for a potluck dinner when we were over in Sea Cow Bay and we had a great time!

Bob and Lori Brothers:

After yet one more night at Cooper Island, we decided to make the voyage to Guadeloupe…

The Short and Terrible Passage

Where to begin. This was the worst passage yet—even though it was the shortest (46 hours and 30 minutes—can you tell I’m scarred for life?).

I’m not sure what made it the worst, although it could be any number of the following things:

• We ALL were seasick (well, Dan’s nausea was probably not seasickness but he felt sick the entire time too).
• The seas were very rough.
• We pounded into the wind the ENTIRE time.
• The winds continued to strengthen throughout the second night and we only had one reef in the main (I would have preferred a double reef at this point)
• It was squally.
• We had no AIS because we shipped our brand new unit back to San Diego for replacement or repair (we were only able to receive information about other boats but we were not transmitting our information to the other ships)
• Our radar that was only working for three-minute transmissions decided to quit altogether.

So, we were down to our pair of binoculars for locating ships and that good ‘ole technique of determining “constant bearing/decreasing range” with points on our boat while trying not to vomit. Good times.

How could you not love sitting at the helm of a boat at night and cringing every time you see a grey blur on your bow that you know is just a big deluge of water that is going to hit you in the face about 2 seconds later? What, that doesn’t sound appealing?

I’m pretty sure the rock-bottom moment for me was when I was trying to make us burritos (which I didn’t end up eating) and ended up sitting on the floor of our salon with my head against the cabinet throwing up into a one-gallon Ziplock bag. That pretty much sums up our passage to Guadeloupe.

Guadeloupe

We got into an anchorage at about 7 a.m. on Tuesday, the 9^th. You would think we would be jumping for joy but we were so exhausted, our reaction was numbness. We had to go to sleep for a while, actually. But later, only somewhat reinvigorated, we headed for land.

The marina in Basse-Terre, Guadeloupe:

First, we were above the pretty bridge.  We walked back a different way and the bridge was closed so we had to wade through the water.  Ryan picked a bad day to wear sneakers!

Basse-Terre, Guadeloupe

Graffiti on a side road:

The first day, we walked into the center of town, explored a little bit, had some pizza in a nice air conditioned restaurant, bought some fruits and vegetables at a store that had way more vegetables than anywhere in the BVIs, and headed back to the boat in the late afternoon.    I finally got Haricot Verts!  They were impossible to find in the BVIs but being in a mini-France here in Guadeloupe, I found fresh green beans!!   I can’t wait to buy pain (bread) today.  Yum.  We just ate mozzarella tomato paninis here in an outdoor cafe and I even got to have a small kitten on my lap after lunch.  This is MUCH better than being seasick on a boat.  I do wish, however, that I spoke more French.  Spanish-speaking countries are much easier for me!  Not a lot of people here speak English.  They may know a few words but that is about it.  So, it is fun to try to communicate back and forth!

Where we are anchored now, there is a small, volcanic beach at the shore.  The school kids come to the beach to learn to swim, kayak and sail.  It is interesting that this seems to be part of their curriculum.  There are also a lot of swimmers out by 7 in the morning, bicyclists, and some runners/walkers.

Virgin Gorda (The Baths and The Bitter End)

We spent 5 nights on Virgin Gorda. The first night in, after sailing for seven nights straight, we STILL were unable to touch land! We were stuck onboard our boat because we could not clear customs in time. We were in “quarantine” which meant we had to hang a yellow flag. It also meant people weren’t supposed to talk to us until we were officially paid up and welcomed into the country. At least it was cheap—only about $9 for us to clear customs in the BVIs (compared to $320 in the Bahamas!). Which leads me to one funny side story…we had been waiting for our weather window in NC for a few days and when it was time to go, we had to GO. We left like we were new members of the witness protection program—I canceled my cellular plan after we left dock and started sailing, and we didn’t even go to the bank to get money. I guess I wasn’t thinking we would need American dollars out at sea, but with an unexpected stop in the Bahamas, I was clearly wrong. We attempted to clear customs and you have to have $320 in CASH. Our first question: “Is there an ATM around here?” Response: “No.” We sat there for a minute, and asked our kids: “Do you guys have any money?” Well, Ryan had a bunch of cash in his lockbox but he didn’t know where the key was. Dan and Ryan had to go back to the boat and break into Ryan’s lockbox to pay for customs. That was a great parenting moment! And the next day, we had to borrow Ari’s money for something because—still—no ATM. Yeah, yeah, they’re paid back now, but we felt like fugitives for a little bit…

Before we started out from Beaufort, NC, we had signed up with the “Salty Dawgs,” a group that leaves from Hampton, VA and surrounding areas to sail to Virgin Gorda. Even though we never were able to meet anyone from this group prior to departure, we knew we would get to place faces with HF radio transmissions of their boat names when we finally arrived. We did not know that folks from the group would be so nice and so helpful. Our dinghy had a fast leak—actually, our dinghy had a few large leaks. Initially, we didn’t want to try to duct tape it because we didn’t want to have extra difficulty patching it up properly. We woke up on Day 2 of arrival into the BVIs and realized just how bad our dinghy was and so on the scheduled VHF call in the morning with the Salty Dawgs, we asked if anyone had a patch kit we could borrow until we got cleared into the country and could go into town to replace it. Phil and Judy from Rum Runner offered up their patch kit for our use—and we had never even met them. Not only that, they brought the patch kit over to our boat, and upon learning of our situation, took Dan over to customs in their dinghy. That was incredibly nice of them. Our second night in, upon hearing of our dinghy woes, Paul and Gwen from Blue Skies agreed to pick us up at our anchored boat and transport us in for happy hour and dinner with the group. They did this without ever having met us, and also brought us home! The Salty Dawg sailors are an amazing group of people, and we had so much fun with them at happy hour and at the welcoming dinner a few nights later.

The next day, we decided to take Do Over to Spanish Town and to get good Internet so we could connect with family and research where we could purchase a new dinghy. We realized the dinghy was in rough shape, and since it is essentially the family car for the next two and a half years, we figured we needed one that was reliable. Anyway, after researching it, we decided we would purchase one in Nanny Cay, Tortola when we get there. Our motor is good (thanks to Dan’s dad who gave us his), but a new dinghy will probably cost about $3,800. Ah, the joys (and expenses) of cruising!

The next day, we took our boat over to a day mooring at The Baths, dinghied in to the dinghy line (duct tape can only do so much; Dan and I got a lot of exercise pumping up the dinghy), and swam to shore. It was actually a pretty tough swim because the seas were a bit rough, so I was glad we “strongly recommended” to Ryan that he wear a life jacket. My little heart was beating out of my chest by the time we made it through the surf to shore!

This is when the fun really started. Only Dan had been to The Baths previously, and for Ari, Ryan and me, it was a great new adventure. Interestingly, Ryan loved it so much, he proclaimed that it was absolutely the most fun place we have ever been to while traveling (with second place going to Universal Studios). That is a great endorsement from Ryan, especially since we’ve been traveling to fun and foreign places since he was a baby.

Here are a bunch of photos of The Baths:

Tired boy with a head full of sand…

On the way back through the Baths, Dan decided to make it even more fun for the kids by taking them “off the beaten path” through smaller crevices that they “discovered” as they went along (and that a lot of adults would never try to squeeze through). That added to Ryan’s enjoyment of the place—and Ariana was also impressed (as was I).

We finished our day with a drink at the bar and the arduous swim back to our dinghy. It was a nice day.

The next day we cleaned in the morning and relaxed at the Bitter End resort pool in the afternoon. We finished out the day with the Welcoming Dinner with the Salty Dawgs. There were about 90 people there, and most of them sailed down within the last week or two. It was a nice night.  Here we are on our way.  Never mess with a dressed up woman driving her dinghy…

Here is an unclear photo of us helping to thank the organizers of the rally, who had not yet made it to the BVIs (a crew member put water in their fuel tank!).

The next morning, this was our view from our anchored boat:

Goat

After watching goats, the kids did school, and in the afternoon we kayaked to shore (we have two double, inflatable kayaks), and then hiked up through the hills to the Fat Virgin Restaurant. On our hike, there was a lot of cactus, troops of butterflies, and the most amazing caterpillars we had ever seen.

At the Fat Virgin.  I tried Banana Catsup.  It wasn’t too bad!

Between the kayaking and the hiking, we were pretty tired when we got back to the boat. I made some dinner with some freshly baked bread we picked up at the Bitter End Emporium, and we relaxed.

We have more errands and boat issues to figure out, but we are finally starting to relax a bit and have some fun. It is so wonderful…

Nanny Cay and Sea Cow Bay, Tortola

Well, we have been in Tortola since Tuesday, which makes it already 5 days. This is not the greatest place on earth because the water all around us is not very inviting for swimming and snorkeling. But, we had a few reasons for coming this way. First, Ariana is getting scuba certified here. It is a lot less money than the resorty Bitter End and the dive shop here is rated quite highly. So, we need to stay about a week for her to get it done.

Nanny Cay Beach Bar

In addition, we met up with Bob and Lori on Barbara Jean who will also be doing the World ARC with us starting in St. Lucia in January. We had met them at the ARC seminar in Annapolis earlier this year so it was fun to see them again. For Thanksgiving dinner, we ended up joining Bob and Lori and the other Carib 1500 rally folks for a potluck right above the beach.   There was a turkey, a ham, chicken, and many other foods for dinner and it was really nice!

Everyone had to bring a dish or two to share and their own silverware and plates for dinner. After dinner, I asked Ryan to rinse the plates down in the water on the beach and he came back minus a fork and a knife. Darn! I only have so much silverware on our boat!  We may be eating everything with spoons by the time we hit Fiji.

After dinner, a handful of us went to Captain Mulligan’s to watch American football on the HUGE screen. Biggest screen I have ever seen. I got to see the Panthers beat the Cowboys and remain undefeated this season while drinking Painkillers. All in all, not a bad Thanksgiving.

Today, Dan and I went on a steep walk before the kids were even up. There is this hill here that is so incredibly steep, it puts all others I have been on to shame. Coming down, I had to walk slanted backwards. Then we rallied the kids and took the dinghy over to Road Town here on Tortola. There was a European cruise ship in town that I didn’t think would be there (on the website, it showed no cruise ships in town here today). It wasn’t too badly inundated with tourists though. We just walked around for a few hours enjoying the side streets and checking everything out. We ended up having lunch there, doing some grocery shopping and heading back in the afternoon.

A mom and her babies…

Ari has diving again tomorrow. On her first open water dive, not only did she see colorful, tropical fish, but she saw a Caribbean reef shark and three sea turtles! I was so excited for her, but Ari was less than enthralled. What?!! On my first certification dive in cold, coastal San Diego with a mucky dirt bottom, I saw dirt. And I was happy to see it. And this was after I accidentally grabbed my scuba instructor in his private parts getting over the surf. (Note: I was not happy I did THAT.) I also walked uphill to school both ways in two feet of snow with ill-fitting shoes when I was a kid…

Anyway, when I pointed out to Ariana how rare it is to see such cool things on a first dive and that I was shocked she wasn’t more excited, she said she was excited to see them but she was just tired. Teenager thing? I hope her enthusiasm for scuba grows. It is an incredible world down there!

Ariana is going to sail Optis with the local yacht club here in Tortola tomorrow afternoon too; she IS very excited to do that. So her social calendar includes diving (and testing) from 8 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. followed by sailing from 3:30 to 6. My social calendar includes shuffling Ariana to her “sports.” I thought we were going to be getting away from that when we left the States! 😉 Hopefully, we can get Ryan to sail tomorrow too. So far, he says no. I am not sure why he doesn’t love it as much as his sister…

Provisioning for an offshore cruising trip can be a bit daunting at first, especially if you aren’t sure what people onboard will want during the trip. When I was seasick, I could really only envision eating peanut butter sandwiches, pasta with butter and salt, almonds, and Ritz crackers. But, when you’re feeling well, what do you eat?

I read this before and I think it is true; at sea, you tend to eat what you eat at home. I can tell you I have had little desire to stand for hours in a small galley kitchen whipping up a gourmet meal, but we have “real” meals for dinner most nights. Here’s what our week has looked like so far:

In port: The first night we arrived in port in the Bahamas, Ariana was dying for some pasta with vodka cream sauce. I made some homemade vodka sauce and we had that with spinach fettuccine and salad. The next night, we went out for dinner. Our last night, I made pizza on the grill. I made pizza dough from scratch in the morning while the kids were doing school and I had stocked some Boboli pizza sauce (easy to store). I had shredded mozzarella cheese, pepper jack cheese, Boar’s Head turkey pepperoni (that stuff is good), and green pepper. I made two pizzas on the grill and we had some salad. (I didn’t love my pizza crust this time, though.)

First night out to sea: We had Szechuan chicken stir-fry with jasmine rice. Our stir-fry had grilled chicken, fresh green beans, a bit of green onion, fresh carrots and canned water chestnuts. The kids don’t like spicy stir-fry so I made theirs more plain with soy sauce chicken before I added our zing.

Second night out to sea: We had hard tacos with organic ground chicken, shredded Mexican and pepper jack cheese, fat free refried beans, and tomatoes. I also made up a few small cheese quesadillas. We had salsa (of course) because we can’t live without that.

Third night out to sea: One of my throw-everything-in pasta dishes with angel hair pasta, (previously frozen chopped) spinach, tomato, broccoli, Boursin garlic cheese, and a bit of tomato and herb feta thrown on top for good measure.

Fourth night out to sea: Red beans and rice. Not homemade (the packaged kind that you cook), but super good out here on the ocean. Dan and the kids had a turkey hot dog too.

Fifth night out to sea: Okay, tonight it is ROUGH. We are going to be happy with bean and cheese burritos, or I might get sick.

Sixth night out to sea: Still rough. Still not feeling great. Pasta with marinara is the menu tonight—with garlic bread.

For breakfast on these two legs, I have made cinnamon French toast with turkey bacon, biscuit breakfast sandwiches with scrambled egg, cheese and soy sausage patties, a “scramble” of eggs, black beans, cilantro, and turkey sausage crumbles eaten in taco sized tortillas with avocado (and salsa, of course!), warm croissants with honey, and another meal of scrambled eggs, Applewood smoked chicken sausage links and grilled English muffins. Other days’ breakfast has been a bowl of cereal (we have 5 different kinds onboard right now), a bagel with cream cheese, or a piece of (unsweet) homemade Bahamian coconut bread that we bought in New Plymouth, Abacos based on the recommendation of two very nice, young American women we met in MacIntosh restaurant while we were eating lunch.

For lunch, we sometimes have a sandwich (I bought Boar’s Head chicken breast and froze about three pounds of it before we left. I also bought five kinds of packaged cheese and split them in half—one half for the fridge and one half for the freezer for later). We have also eaten soup, angel hair noodles with herbs and butter (the boxed kind), and Ryan has partaken in a nice can of Chef Boy r Dee Beef Ravioli! Much to Dan’s chagrin (he and his family love the cold sandwich), the kids and I prefer “hot lunch” so lunch could be a number of things, but never too difficult to make.

We anticipate having another 7 or 8 nights out here, before we reach the BVIs and I have written out about 8 more dinners I have the capability of making onboard prior to provisioning again.   Examples: pork fried rice, turkey hot dogs or fish sticks with frozen vegetables.   If we go longer than eight more nights, well, I have enough food on board to make a bunch more meals, but we may have to repeat some or not have every single ingredient we normally have!

I also have a lot of snack foods. We have chips, Gold Fish crackers, Power Bars, Bel Vita Bars (my favorite!), apples, bananas, cashews, almonds, peanuts, cookies, pizza rolls, etc.  WE LOVE PIZZA ROLLS AT SEA!