Ensenada Race

Hey Everyone,

Our delivery goes well. We are about 180 miles North of the BVI's now, and the weather is right on forecast. Something that we always like!! Beam reaching in the trade winds in 15-16 knots. Very nice!!

Just before leaving, I read something about a boat that sunk doing the Ensenada Race?? There were not many details, but if anyone can find some info on the internet and relay the basics our way, we would sure appreciate it. Everyone onboard has done that race and we are very interested in whatever happened.

thanks,

-Jim

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Pick up your screen and rotate 90 degrees right!!

That's it folks.  We are 30 minutes from heading North to Bermuda. 

Had a great day showing Doug and Tom around Virgin Gorda Sound, and I got in one more fantastic kitesurfing session just prior to sunset.  Patrick you should be jealous, you would have loved it!!

Will provide updates along the way.

We are off!!

We have shifted into pre passage prep mode

It's Carnival time in St. Thomas and the bands and parades started along the waterfront at 6am!!  Pretty serious party time around here but we are having none of it. 

It's time to get ready to go!  Our crew shows up Friday evening, and with luck we will be sailing towards Bermuda Sunday morning.

Fuel tanks full - check!

Water tanks full - check!

Grocery shopping done - check!

Oil change done - check

Emergency grab bag checked - check!

Life jackets and harnesses ready - check!

Laundry done - check!

We are ready to go!!!!

Jim Gregory 

Saba Rock

Jim Gregory 

Pre Departure Projects

Saba Rock, Virgin Gorda

Check out Morpheus on the webcam at Saba Rock Webcam

The picture above was taken from the top of Morpheus' mast during a rig check.  Happily no problems found, and a great chance to take some pictures. 

That was four days ago in almost no wind.  Yesterday and the day before, the winds were howling with avg speeds between 20-30 knots! I've spent so much time kitesurfing (in the area on the far side of this photo) that I almost couldn't walk this morning. 

While I'd like to, I'm not sure if I can blame all that pain on getting old.  I did almost kill myself at one point.  I was getting started just off the beach and had to clear a shallow reef about 15 feet off the beach.  Well, I didn't quite make it and my board "tripped" over something leading to a pretty impressive wipeout.  As I was falling face down towards the reef I thought it could get pretty ugly, but I guess I'd forgotten that I was still attached to a big kite that was doing its thing up above me.  (You should never forget about the kite!)  The next moment I found myself doing my superman imitation about 10 feet in the air back over the beach.  Oh no...not good.  My male ego started to get in the way and for a split second I thought I could get control of things, but that didn't last long.  Lucky for me, I knew right where the release was and it worked flawlessly.  I pulled that red handle and the kite was gone, leaving me to fall however far onto the beach while my kite collapsed harmlessly downwind of me.

There were plenty of spectators on the beach watching, and I'm certain that they were entertained.  I also think my little flying act was good for business at the kitesurfing school.  Nobody that saw that is going to try to teach themselves...

For those that say - "What's so good about this cruising life?"

I'll try to keep it simple for you....

Casual Shoes

Dress Shoes

Leslie Richter

Leslie and Rob

We recently wrapped up a nice almost two week visit with Leslie Richter.  It was a great chance for all three of us to spend some time together and there was of course lots of conversation about Rob.  I think/hope that it was good for all of us.

We were able to spend some time exporing St. Martin, St. Barths, and Antigua, with a few excellent overnight sailing trips in between.

We caught up with a few friends in St. Barths doing the Voile de St. Barths which is a relatively new Caribbean regatta on the rise. 

We also spent two days anchored off Green Island, on the Northern end of Antigua.  This was great and allowed us to get away from the crowds for the first time in months.

On the way back from Antigua we scattered some of Rob's ashes off English Harbor near the starting line used during Antigua Race Week. 

Leslie's back home now working on the hundreds of photo's that she took while she was here.  Hopefully, we'll be able to post a few of them soon!!

-Jim and Deb

Don't go cruising unless you..

Are married to MacGyver!!

jim:  One of our red idiot lights went on this morning and that's never a good thing.  It was the much feared and dreaded "no charge" light.  Bottom line that means the batteries are not getting re-charged and it wouldn't be long until lots of things stopped working.

A quick look check of the alternator outputs confirmed the problem, so we found a calm anchorage near Jost Van Dyke and started debugging.  Long story short....the regulator was not getting a signal on the wire that confirms that the "key has been turned", so it didn't want to turn on.  No regulator means no alternator, means no battery charging!!  I have not figured out why the signal was not there, but I ran a secondary wire from the ignition to the regulator and all is well.

Just another day of the boat trying to break and us trying to stay one step ahead (or maybe behind!) 

Right on schedule

1015am and six miles offshore of St. Thomas. 

Had an easy night with no problems. I always like it when that happens. 

Time to gybe, I have to go..

Jim Gregory 

St. Martin to St. Thomas - Tonight!

It's time to start moving again!!  It's actually been very interesting over the last week or so to see so many of the larger yachts heading off to Europe or the US.  It seems like a switch has been thrown and suddenly everyone is leaving.  We are beginning to think that we may have missed the memo!

The marinas here in St. Martin look to be about half full and getting more and more empty.  This place must be very very different during the Summer.

Anyway, tonight (in a few minutes) we take off for St. Thomas.  We are heading there to have some safety gear inspected and recertified and then it will be off for Bermuda and then Newport, RI on or about April 28th.

So for those of you into such things, watch our progress tonight on "SPOT"!!

See you on the other side....

-Jim and Deb

Thank you Sally!!

About a month ago, Debbie's sister Sally and I came up with a plan to surprise Debbie with a visit from Sally.  I figured I could use a few bonus points, and honestly it just felt great to be able to do something really nice.

The visit was a total success and we all had a great time roaming St. Martin and St. Barths for ten days.

I never had a chance to post a wrap-up of that visit, so here are some of my favorite photo's and a link to many more....Pictures of Sally's visit

Thanks Sally!!

-Jim

We caught a fish

2 inches.
Impailed by hook while floating around in it's seaweed home.

I hate fishing off the boat!

Score so far

3 lures (including a rasta squid), 0 fish.
Deb

Ita got ....

A tattoo!


jdg:  I need to go on the record and say that I had absolutely nothing to do with this!  This one is all on Debbie.  Poor Ita....

A Spectacular Moon!

A beautiful night

Hello All: Deb here.

We are anchored way up north off Antigua, and it is a beautiful night. All good here. Hope all of you are well, too.

St Barths to Antigua

With the Easterly trade winds at an all time low, we decided yesterday afternoon to do an overnight sail to Antigua. (80nm)

Good decision!!!

It was pretty much a one tack beat in very flat seas and 8 to 10 knots of wind under an "almost full" moon. Nothing exciting, just a VERY nice sail. No water hit the deck. 

Now the plan is to spend 3 or 4 days here and then back to st Martin where Leslie will leave us. Deb and I will then head to st Thomas for final prep before sailing north to Bermuda at the end of the month! 

Jim Gregory 

Nice!

Jim Gregory 

All Good back in St Barths

We have a new guest onboard. Leslie Richter!  Picked her up in St Martin and are currently anchored once again in the harbor outside Gustavia,st Barths

There is a regatta scheduled to be sailed here next week, but we will probably stay only for one day. Our plan is to take off either for Antigua or St Thomas

 

The winds are scheduled to drop for the first time in weeks so I'm thinking upwind to Antigua may be the winner. 

Stay tuned.....

Jim Gregory