S/V L'ORIENT

Some of you who sail may realize that most of the danger to your boat occurs long after you anchor. That's when drunk yachties, rental-boat admirals, ferries, illiterate fishermen, etc. all come to port and anchor too close to your boat. Winds shift, currents change, squalls arrive and BOOM........boats collide. This happens all the time. So, it's important to stake out your territory and even more important to defend it. Fortunately, we have a few things going for us aboard L'ORIENT. First of all, we're Americans. Why would that be of benefit ? Well, according to an informal poll (Kirstin and I dining with our friend Sauvignon Blanc), Americans are now in the top-5 of "scary white people". Here are the results we came up with: 1) Serbians- they hold grudges for 400 years, love weapons, and also seem to always be in trouble with Interpol and The Hague.........gotta love them- a consensus #1 seed for sure. 2) Boers- farming in South Africa amongst insects...

Kirstin and I are fascinated by the multitude of sea turtles that we have seen. They stay on the surface for 3-5 seconds, their bulbous head scanning around.........then they dive for 5-7 minutes.  As I was sipping a delightful Sancerre (which I highly recommend), I was struck by the notion that due to our intermittent wifi signal, Kirstin and I are much like our aquatic friends. When our signal is good, we ravenously scan Advisory Board email........How is Q1 going ? How is Ryan doing ? We look at our investments, pay some bills...........and our greatest collective vice.........we check CNN. Whitney Houston died 3 days ago ? Really ? (Rats.......She's not on our death list, unlike Margaret Thatcher, Fidel Castro, and Aretha Franklin). Rick Santorum ? Who is he ? What happened to that guy from Texas ? Or that lady from Minnesota ? Wow...........all that happened in 2 weeks ? The stock market has been soaring, but we hear about things like rumors spreading through the gypsy com...

Last Wednesday night, we sailed the 80 miles from Nevis to Guadeloupe. Because it's important (to us) to arrive in a new anchorage in daylight, and averaging 5 knots can be difficult in unpredictable conditions, we chose to leave on Wednesday night. We looked at Passageweather.com, which called for ENE wind at about 10-15 knots.........perfect sailing conditions. If it were only correct. We had planned to sail on the eastern side of Monserrat to get here. Why ? Seems half the island blew up in a volcanic eruption about 15 years ago and there have been frequent rumblings. Ash and various noxious gasses still spew forth, which is why you want to sail east of the island. Problem was, the wind didn't allow us to go there. We sailed west of it and smelled rotten eggs for about 10 miles. Very spooky at night. We were also shadowed by some rat bastards on the Baltic Star (freighter) which didn't seem to mind getting rather close to us. Vengeance will be mine, Baltic Star. I know...

While "British Colonial" now largely refers to a design style elsewhere, here on Nevis it feels like the plantation owners left just yesterday. Signs of them are everywhere - from the grown over mills that processed sugar cane to the graceful plantation houses up on the mountain with spectacular views of the ocean. This is an island 100% dependent on tourism now and we hope that the tourists will keep coming despite the recent negative publicity the island has received. The Four Seasons has a significant outpost here - complete with a gorgeous golf course. It was rebuilt after the last major hurricane just a few years ago - apparently the tidal surge deposited three feet of sand in each of the ground level rooms. But to truly appreciate the island you should be elsewhere - the Hermitage, Nesbit Plantation, Golden Rock are places of true beauty where traditional Nevis houses have been restored and are now used to house the tourists. The colonialists here now are definitely t...

We were lounging in the cockpit (telling knock-knock jokes or something) when we noticed a fellow yachtie driving his Amel 54 at breakneck speed up and down the mooring field. This is a big, expensive boat (the ugly sister of our Super Maramu 2000 if you asked me, but I digress). The Amel 54 was dragging his rear fenders, his ladder was down, and conspicuously, there was no dinghy. For those of you who don't sail a lot, a dinghy (or tender) is the small inflatable that you use to go from your boat to land. It's kind of important if you don't want to swim to shore. Dinghies are quite expensive (around $3500 to start) and then you need the obligatory $2000 outboard, oars, gas can, dinghy anchor.........all in this can run about $6000. In the Caribbean, they get stolen a lot. (Imagine that.........people living on $5 a day, constantly subjected to watching rich folks parade their million dollar barges around the islands sometimes do the unthinkable !!!) Anyway, I was hungry....

"They're going to be so happy". "They look so happy". "I bet you'll be so happy". We say and hear this all the time- but what does it mean ? To me, happy is that 10 year old on Christmas morning feeling- pure elation........nobody feels that way all the time. Even billionaires get pissed off and have bad days. I'm coming to think that "happy" is not a state of mind but a state of transition between places. With that in mind, I've been successful at recreating the 10 year old on Christmas day feeling almost every day on this trip. I'm floating in front of Nevis right now. I'm content. I'm definitely enjoying myself. But whenever I want that super-charged happy feeling I think about what I COULD be doing now back in my old life............how about sitting on an American Eagle flight to DFW with my knees right under my chin and a 300 lb guy with a cold next to me for 2 1/2 hours. Bamm..........the "content" f...

View from our boat in Nevis Nevis has been in the news lately and that is not good news for this little piece of paradise. We arrived here about two weeks after the Supreme Court Justice was robbed by a machete wielding visitor. Our initial reaction- Will he have to recuse himself from People v. Chicago Cutlery? Anyway, this high profile robbery has made us think harder about our security precautions; especially as we head further south. Our dinghy is always locked, frequently chained, and not that appealing to a would-be thief because a) it's Maryland state markings make it easily identifiable; b) our outboard, at 8 hp, is never the most powerful at the dinghy dock and thus not the most likely to be stolen. Our sailboat has only 4 hatches- all very heavy duty with strong locks. The companionway door is 3/8 inch solid wood with a keyed lock. We also keep hornet spray around - just in case. Oh, and I should also mention that the boat has a flare gun. "Hello Nevis Coast...

Mogadishu or Mustique ? St. Kitts is neither and both. We anchored in Basse Terre outside of the marina (Kirstin being midwestern, we needed to avoid the $25 marina fee). Once on shore, we checked in and walked around looking for food. Basse Terre is a Potemkin village entirely dedicated to down and out locals having a fast, transactional relationship with cruise ship people. "I'll take a rum punch, the Bob Marley tee shirt in XXL, and some Tanzanite jewelry to go please". Go too far from the cruise ship area and you get into poor Caribbean village central, complete with homeless, Rastas (who we want to hang with in a safer environment), and folks we'll call dead-enders.  After the cruise ships both left, we were the only non-locals in Basse Terre. We double locked our dinghy and made it back to L'ORIENT before sunset. Not five miles from Basse Terre, we decided to rough it (that means we cooked on the boat) at White House Bay. Drop dead gorgeous lagoon, just be...

We have raved about this island for the last eight years and the chance to spend three weeks here has been a privilege we will always remember. This is a special place - aside from the restaurants and the charm of Gustavia, St. Barths is a beautiful island that the community has taken great steps to preserve. Words don't do it justice but these pictures just might.... Gustavia Harbour St. Jean Beach - Eden Rock Resort and Airport in distance Road to Lorient Flamands Beach

Okay- everyone who's in their 40s (or older); I want you to think back to your 20s......remember Friday night ?.......around 7:30 - 8:00 PM ? Remember asking yourself "Should I go out ?" What did you weigh in the decision ? On the positive side, fun with friends......cocktails.......jokes/funny stories........meeting new people. What was the negative side of the equation ? Potential headache.......OK that's controllable; just don't drink too much. But the other negative was often the one that kept me at home. The smell. Remember  the 80s and 90s ? Besides Members Only clothes, girls with big hair and all that........there was the smoking thing. Anywhere you went out, smoking was allowed and your clothes and hair would smell like cigarettes the morning after. Well fast forward to 2012 and St. Barths..........same thing, except no Members Only jackets with zippers. Everyone smokes everywhere. It's really weird, because these kids/adults are for the most part m...

Let everyone think that vacationing for a year is, well, a picnic..........there are chores to be done; some of which land-based people take for granted. Of first importance is of course, water. On land, when you turn on the tap, out comes water. On a boat, water is precious. You don't waste it. But even the most miserly of cruisers eventually run out of water. Our 1,000 liter water tank is huge, but the real luxury our boat possesses is a high capacity reverse-osmosis watermaker. We can make fresh water out of sea water at a rate of 147 liters per hour. Bam !!! The most important thing this obviates are trips to the dock with the boat (hazardous and time consuming) or trips to the dock with the dinghy carrying jerry cans (heavy and cumbersome). So today was watermaking day. We turn on the generator (5 KW for you techies out there), and shazamm.....water. We also run our clothes-washer, hot water heater, and 100 amp battery charger at the same time so as not to waste diesel. Clothe...

Lest you think that Anguilla was only about barking dogs and close getaways, we wanted to revisit the island as we didn't do a summary of our time there due to bad internet access. Anguilla was the only place so far where we had a celebrity sighting - and the celebrity was Tom. We walked to the closest grocery store to provision - a leisurely two miles away - and at the checkout register the clerk began staring at Tom and smiling....."You are a celebrity... who are you?" After Tom assured her that he was just a normal guy, the employee proceeded to call over others in the shop to determine who Tom really was - this went on for five minutes until we made a move to the door. The more we laughed and denied it, the more sure the staff was that they were on to us. We exited the door with Tom saying... "Well, maybe" and winking. Apparently Shaq had been in Anguilla a few weeks before so their celebrity radar was on.......but clearly not working. Anguilla is the kind...

Actual quote- "OH-MY-GOD..........take my pick-cha.........I'm in St. Baaaahts" I sat up from my beach towel as if awakened by a nightmare. What did I just hear ? Could it be ? Yes, that "nails on a chalkboard accent" was all around me on St. Jean beach. Long Island had invaded St. Barths. All around us were drunk thirty and forty-something partyers.........beer swilling while jumping waves.........doing shots off of each others' bodies.....fake tans,....fake boobs......gaudy jewelry....the whole Long Island thing on display.....dropping f-bombs. And that strange phenomenon of drunk girls feeling like they have to jump up and down while drinking beer to signify that they are "partying". An of course treating the wait staff like their personal servants.   Actual quote- "Hey- this glass isn't filled.........you think I'm a sucka or something ?" Ahhhhhhhhhhh. How did they get here ? More importantly when are they leaving ? An...

This morning we dinghied over to the new neighbors to offer some bread and water. Based on their boat, they clearly needed it. Wooden boat (from the looks of it at least 150 years old), real rope rigging, and clothes looking like 18th-century thrift store. We won't we seeing them at Nikki Beach !!! Anyway, the Stad Amsterdam crew was poor but proud, refusing our offer of assistance.......they continued to toil away without winches, electronics, or other modern contrivances. I respect that..........wouldn't want to use a wooden bathroom like them, but you've got to respect them.

OK- this "green thing" just isn't working. We actually believed in September that our electric outboard (3hp) would be our primary dinghy motor in the Caribbean. We were fancying ourselves all crunchy and green........the wind generator recharges the outboard........no fossil fuels........mother nature is happy, etc. The real world was different. Big wind, huge swells, and too much time to recharge the outboard. So we went ahead and bought an economical Honda 2 hp before we left Annapolis. Sips gas...........mother nature still pretty happy, right ? Problem- in certain wind conditions, the lack of power is downright dangerous. We both fear nothing more than being blown out to sea (as many people have) never to be seen again...........(footnote- see "Mexican fishermen turn up in Australia 280 days later). So we just bought "Seymour", our 8 hp Yamaha outboard. We have been giddy with smiles as the dinghy now powers around at a respectable speed. No more...

No, not in the blustery, materialistic way you might think. Our boat literally rocks..........all the time. Here in  Port du Gustavia, St. Barths the wind direction and swell are such that the boat is constantly rolling back and forth.........walking, cooking, reading..........everything is effected. You learn to take a shower to the rhythm of the boat movement.........put down the bath gel on the wrong beat and soap-pocalypse. We've tried to move L'ORIENT several times within the harbor looking for a protected spot. Once, we failed to notice our perfect anchoring spot was near a small orange buoy. Big mistake, as that small buoy held a big mooring for an even bigger trans-island ferry...........which came at night to claim it. An unfortunate wind change put us about 10 feet from each other. Since about half of the sailboats here don't use mast lights and there are unmarked rocks everywhere, we could only wait until morning and get the fenders ready. Finally, we decid...

Kirstin and I enjoy comedy........especially the stand-up variety. We find it remarkable that a guy who can make 400 people laugh hysterically for an hour is generally so poor, he sells CDs after his act at the Improv while someone who can dunk a basketball generally drives a Ferrari. The invisible hand at work, obviously. Anyway, there are no comedy clubs here in the Caribbean (at least we haven't found one), so we need to make our own fun. One aspect of being a cruiser affords us great comedy potential in this area; first impressions. Cruisers seem to recognize each other instinctively and want to find out about you. I guess living on a small boat (sometimes alone) makes you want human contact all the more. Anyway, almost without exception- the first question anyone asks is what is/was your job before you began life on a boat. This is where the fun begins. Whatever comes out of your mouth will shape the way they think about you..........the way they fill in all the blanks tha...