S/V L'ORIENT

This is the question we encounter most often when we're visiting (ugh, or working) back in the US. Without a house, car, kids living home, full time jobs, etc..........what do we do all day ? Well, to dispel any notions that we've become lazy, frivolous wastrels; I'll attempt now to fill you in. Going diving 7:30 AM- Slowly waking from last night's festivities, I stagger to the galley and start the generator. I begin the water making and power generation process. Since I still would like to complete my slumber, I also turn on the aft cabin A/C and return to bed. 8:30 AM- OK, time to actually get up. We've already accomplished a lot (the batteries are now charged and our reverse-osmosis water maker has added 150 liters to our tank). And, it's breakfast time........fresh mangos and cereal.........and possibly one of those yummy raison buns. We read the NY Times to be sure we are up to date on all the world's crises............hard to feel close to any...

Did we sink ? Did we sell the boat ? Have we decided to quit cruising ? None of the above.......we're just in paradise now (Bonaire) and between diving, hiking, happy hour(ing) and reading, it's hard to work anything else in. Typical day......wake up (by 10:00AM), eat tropical fruit for breakfast, do a quick boat project, lunch, dive for 75 minutes, get caught up on all the news we don't care about;  then happy hour, dinner, sleep, repeat. To catch everyone up, we left the boat in Grenada from mid August to the end of October. We were lucky enough to catch Carnival in Grenada before coming back to the US. The festivities start at 3am with an event called Jouvert where people walk down the street with vats of paint and used motor oil with which they cover themselves and anyone in the vicinity. I had to take Kirstin's word on this as she attended with boating friends (as I decided that getting up in the dark to be covered in motor oil was not appealing) - she arrived ba...

Serena 2015 Cruisers will tell the uninitiated that offshore sailing is statistically safer than golfing.....which strictly speaking, is correct. However, any offshore sailor who tells you he/she hasn't thought about the unlikely yet terrifying scenario of being caught in a storm far from help......is just full of shi*. In 2012, we met a number of wonderful people and made several close "cruiser-friends". We follow these people through e-mail, blogs, and by meeting them from time to time in the islands. In 2012, no friends we made were closer than our Finnish friends, Arja and Henti (they appear in our posts from 2012). Serena (their boat) was a sturdy Malo 50. Arja and Henti themselves were very experienced sailors, having sailed Serena from Finland to the Caribbean, a trip certainly not for the feint of heart. Arja and Henti, 2012 In the Spring of 2013, Arja and Henti began the long trek back to Finland in Serena, with two family members as passengers. Seren...

Carriacou The question, delivered in a West-Indian patois, burned through me like a hot knife. "Excuse me?" "You put the boat name in the wrong place" was the retort from the fat, lethargic functionary at the Customs and Immigration Office. To be 52 years of age is to be self aware. There are lots of people I've met who based on their superior intellect (if not superior manners) could justifiable inquire as to my level of intelligence. I didn't, however, include this fleshy oaf among that group. Kirstin, while seemingly friendly to all in her midwestern way, is quite protective of her husband. When provoked, she can be surprisingly aggressive in these situations. So, I quickly gave her that pained smile that said (in our own unspoken, microwave communication) "Sweetie, let that one go". We subsequently found out from talking to other cruisers that this woman seems to think everyone who walks through her door is stupid.  So,...

To us this is gold - toilet motor As we approach Grenada and the end of our 4 month sailing segment, "the list" becomes important to maintain. As we spend most of our time anchored in front of the third world islands of the southeast Caribbean these days, we need a lot of things. Kirstin and I dream of a fully stocked chandlery and hardware store where we can buy things like wire, insulation, and diesel engine oil. Here at Union Island, the only wire available is inside that broken TV rusting next to the cinderblock hovel on the hill. While fruit is plentiful, our boat projects and never ending effort to accumulate spare parts must pause for a while. We have become binge consumers of boat parts, which is probably why we spend so much time on the phone with credit card security staff........no activity for 2 months, then bamm.......a big shopping spree from a different country. We've also learned to take pictures of everything we need..........our cell phones, in...

Tobago Cays, Grenadines With a few notable exceptions, the further south you go in just about any geography, the less signs of obvious wealth you will see. The Americas, Europe, Asia are examples of this.........as is the Caribbean. Since November and our departure from Miami Beach, we've headed slowly southeast and have seen our beloved Patisseries in St. Barths turn into sketchy fish mongers selling you long-dead (and dirty) fish of suspicious provenance. Turtle preserve - Tom with dinghy But the southeast Caribbean is truly rich in one aspect, and that is scenery. Kirstin and I have become so used to a life where we have a 360 degree view of turquoise waters, sea turtles, and brilliant blue skies that we sometimes get concerned that we take it for granted. Even the storms have a beauty......the deep slate gray flat clouds, the jolts of 30 knot cold winds, and the sideways rain. Mayreau To stay reasonably fit (and to justify our wine consumption at Happy Hour), mo...

Sailboats don't have tires, but our equivalent is our genoa. Our forward most (and largest) sail provides most of our power when we're moving, so when it rips it's a big deal. It weighs about 250 lbs and is obviously quite awkward to take down and put up, being the height of a 6 story building. So we were quite disappointed when ours started ripping during a period of time where the wind never went below 15 knots. So, we decided to "just do it". Quite a few hours later (and lots of profanity later), Kirstin finished re-sewing our sail and we put it back up. After this effort we went to bed early and slept for 11 hours, totally exhausted. Of course, right after we raised the sail in howling winds, the wind dropped to 5 knots........Neptune having more fun with us.

"Hello" "Anyone home" Tom- "shi*". We needed visitors like we needed additional holes in our heads. I had the galley torn apart rebuilding the refrigerator. Kirstin was sewing a bedspread in the rest of our space. I went out to dispatch our visitor. "Oh, hey Ralph". Ralph is actually a good guy so my annoyance dissipated. He invited us to a 4th of July party at a restaurant here in beautiful, but third world,  Bequia (Grenadines). It was easier to say yes than no so we agreed. Our fellow cruisers all brought board games. Ugh. It seems they like to play at parties.....so, we went along. As we drank beer and got into the games it became apparent (and quite funny) that our American cruising brethren were not the sharpest tools in the shed. Be it math, word association, or even a basic understanding of English, they fell woefully short........like 80 IQ small yellow bus short. They couldn't even follow directions, and nobody had more than ...

Yesterday as we rode our dinghy into the gas station, all we needed was a black flag and we would have been the ISIS navy. We had no fewer than 7 empty fuel containers.......both diesel and gasoline. The trip back to L'ORIENT is a bit more hazardous as we now have 400 lbs of explosive liquids. The last thing we need is more freight. Of course this is the moment the fruit guy arrives. This local guy makes a living trolling the bay selling cruisers fruit from a dugout canoe festooned with flags, a thatch canopy, and looking like he lives in it. This guy never ceases to arrive at the most inopportune times so I was fearing this event. As I paid for the gas, Kirstin shopped for fruit, my task of driving the dinghy now complicated by the constraint of not spilling the juice from the coconut which the fruitman thoughtfully decapitated. Fruit, diesel, and gasoline all arrived safely. Hey, it's not the Greece crisis or the Middle East, but it's news in our world.

L'ORIENT being an Amel means that the design conformed to Henri Amel's view of the world.......and he apparently thought wood was stupid on the outside of a boat. Kirstin and I have pitied the many sailors we see sanding teak decks in the hot sun for weeks. Well, our comeuppance was this week. We had to repaint our faux teak deck. The heavy lifting is painting the thin black lines between faux teak deck panels. Its basically a pin stripe. But, because our boat is 53 ft long, with 9 lines on each side and more in the cockpit......its 2/10 of a mile. Imagine painting a pin stripe this long on your hands and knees and you will understand this project. How bad is sanding teak ? We prefer our project to that. Using my German pin striping tool (like all machines from Germany.....expensive but worth it) we have knocked this out in about 4 days. And truth be told, we weren't doing anything anyway.

Crypt with a view Beep, beep.........I'm on a hospital bed with a doctor and nurse nearby and medical device noises all around....."Doctor, his cholesterol is dropping"..........."Nurse, start a cheese IV right away"........I wake up from my dream, but it's not a dream. We have to leave the French Caribbean tomorrow. Six weeks in a wonderful world of baguettes, fresh fish, fruit, diving and hiking are coming to an end. OK, St. Lucia is nice too (our destination) but it has the misfortune of being the island south of Martinique. Despite the exercise we've had, we feel like we've gotten a bit sailing lazy........putting off projects, reading 4-5 hours a day..........in short, suffering from the cruisers affliction of trying to fit 2 hours of work into a 24 hour day. While Kirstin is reading some highbrow revolutionary war thing, I've gotten deep into gangs.......my third book on inner city gang warfare, politics, and business practices. Wi...

So, Kirstin likes hiking and I like marital harmony.............so, by Modus Ponens (for our Ukrainian audience with PHDs in Math), I like hiking too. Martinique is blessed (read cursed) with hiking trails everywhere..............and the intrepid cruiser community who is waiting out hurricane season marches all over the island on these paths. It's a 6-7 times daily ritual to meet a European with an indeterminent (yet foreign accent.......remember the hotties in James Bond movies who would swoon when he entered a room and say Oh, Jimmz) where you exchange the one word you both know in French............Bonjour. As you get out of earshot, both couples speculate on the origin of the other couple. Tom/Kirstin- "Could be Swedish or Norwegian, but there's only like 10 million of them and we've seen at least 8 million in Martinique so far" Random Euros- "Americans or Canadians.............but they weren't drinking and it's 10:30 AM so let...

It's 6:30 PM two days ago, so of course Kirstin and I are about two cabernets into happy hour on L'ORIENT. All of a sudden a dinghy full of Germans floats by...........vs. motors by, which would have been more expected.  Tom- "Darf ich Ihnen helfen ?" (Can I help you ?) The Germans look confused.........is it more surprising that an American speaks German or that an American is offering help. Germans- "Our outboard is dead......can we have a ride to our boat ?" So, Kirstin and I tow them over to their boat "Pamela", an older but sturdy sloop nearby. Of course they insist on repaying us with drinks....the official legal tender of the Caribbean. Then it gets really weird. We tie up both dinghies to Pamela.......I tie ours, and Norbert ties theirs......Norbert is a bit drunk as is his buddy (also named Norbert). So, after some drinks and interesting conversation, we prepare to leave. As we do, we notice Norbert's dinghy is gone....

Tom's new friend The world economy is probably in better shape than anyone realizes. Why? Because live-aboard cruisers like us are entirely excluded from statistics. For example.......a few days ago we were low on food and needed a new SIM card. The neighbor anchored next to us had just pronounced his outboard dead........which is ideal because we have three spare outboards. Fast forward a few hours and he's got my old outboard and I have 4 kilos of tuna, a new SIM card and 550 euros. Bamm !!! Four kilos of tuna Its a strange community we belong to. We are acquainted with 20-25 boats and most of us are heading south. We have exchanged boat cards (even yachts have these) and we know the basics about each other.. We help other boats where possible and socialize together in kind of a random, haphazard way. The other night we had a Swedish couple onboard who sailed here via the Gambia (yes, the place in Africa). The unifying trait is that everyone is really ...

St. Pierre has had some seriously bad luck. Gray sand beaches don't remind anyone of Miami Beach. Its not sand anyway, but volcanic ash. Anyone unlucky enough to be here in May of 1902 was incinerated by a volcano (30,000 died in one day....but thinking positively, there were 2 survivors). It was the largest loss of life due to a volcano in the 20th century. The town was known as the Paris of the Caribbean prior to the quake - while a long way from Paris now, it is a both charming and haunting place. We have seen the evidence both above and below water - there are over 12 wrecks in the bay and we have been doing some dives to see them firsthand. By the way, if you prefer your apocalpyses watery, the same town was destroyed by a hurricane in the 1700s. Ruins of the theatre St. Pierre with Mt. Pelee in the back There might be more tourists here save for the hazards of the parks. One notable hike takes you up the mountain and requires you to walk on top of an old stone a...

OK- I'm sure nobody feels sorry for us because our yacht doesn't get internet when anchored off this town in Marie Galante, Guadeloupe. But this place is an enigma.......a stunning island with only one safe anchorage.......and that anchorage is off a hamlet where everything is sketchy and the people are kind of angry. How angry ? We rented a scooter and drove 15 miles to a cafe to avoid the one right in front of the boat in St.Louis (we were scolded there a few days ago). I really wanted to go gangsta on her when she yelled at me in French/creole that there are no more sandwiches. "Maybe if you say it even louder I'll understand, you one toothed freak". But on a happier note, the rest of the island is amazing. Rugged, beautiful, and wonderfully Caribbean..........but with those French touches we love, like great food, wine, and would you believe chocolate rum ? Marie Galante Today we will continue our tour de Guadeloupe and also go for a hike. Next ...

Morning Baguette Delivery Iles des Saintes, Guadeloupe......we love this place. This morning at 7:15 am, the baguette/croissant delivery guy comes to our boat (exactly when he said he'd arrive). "Your bread, sir". If only the French had colonized every island in the Caribbean....... Today we actually had a bit of stress in the morning (although living on a yacht in the Caribbean makes that a relative statement). We are moored on a buoy fairly far out in the harbor. Two problems ensue.....first, it's a bit more rolly due to the swell......second, we're further from the wifi signal we are tapping into so internet is slower. This morning a boat on THE PERFECT MOORING BALL left this morning. Shazam, we spring into action...............Tom fires up the engine, Kirstin mans the bow with her buoy-harpoon (the device you grap the buoy with)...........and 10 minutes later L'ORIENT is living large in the high rent buoy district. Today's activities are ...

Ahh, boat life......for the uninitiated, living on a boat amounts to living inside a machine.........a machine that is your vehicle, powerplant, kitchen, bathroom, shower, communications center, shelter, and toolbox. Being in an environment characterized by salt water, salt air, and the relentless UV rays of the sun.......(you guessed it).......things break. Our boat (an Amel Supermaramu 2000) is among the most systems-heavy of cruising yachts. This boat was intended to make a cruising couple as independent of land as possible.........huge fuel and water capacity (and the ability to make fresh water out of sea water); 3 refrigerators, lots of storage, etc. But most of all, everything is designed for convenience (and it seems complexity)..........example- the toilets flush electrically !!! To maintain our domicile, we've had to become engineers, electricians, plumbers, woodworkers, fiberglass guys, painters, and tech-geeks. After 4 years aboard, you learn to pick your ba...

We returned to L'ORIENT on April 30 and held our collective breath. We had never been off our boat for even 2 weeks since we moved aboard......much less 9 weeks. Everything was OK and we quickly bought food, fuel, and prepared to get out of Jolly Harbor. Our time in the US was productive, if a bit wierd. I gradually got used to working and living out of a suitcase.........even having a bit of fun with business meeting introductions....."so, Tom did you fly in from Washington ?"........"No, my commute was a bit further." We were able to visit parents, kids, cousins, and friends......which was nice. We also were able to purchase some hard to find boat parts. As of this writing we are in Deshaies, Guadelope.........a notorious internet and wifi black hole. We just found out that the SIM card we bought in Antigua (36 miles away) doesnt work here although Digicel operates networks in both countries. More evidence that we are aging.......our ability to use...

Saying Goodbye in Antigua We're 3/4 of the way through our first "intermission" - our first of two separate eight week stints of work in the US. The boat is in Antigua ...........and Kirstin and I are living out of suitcases in various cities while I work. I've had to be a bit evasive in business meetings............."So Tom, where do you live ?"......Can't tell a guy from Allentown, Pennsylvania that I live in Antigua on a yacht..........I just quip that I have a long commute. The transition has been difficult, to say the least..........I arrived in DC wondering why I was sneezing constantly. I found to my horror that both of the suits I had brought back from the Caribbean had mold on them.............hanging in a humid locker in our sailboat did not do too much for wool. Being the cheap cruiser that I have become, I wiped them off with a Clorox wipe and in my mind, they're fine..........and since my work involved being in hospitals, any...

Now interviewing hairstylists As we reach the end of the first phase of our new life (taking the boat 1500 miles east) we have been trying to pack as much fun into every day as possible before we go back to the US for my 8 weeks of work. St. Barths was good fun, especially the diving. As Kirstin and I had only done diving in Bonaire (no sharks), we were quite surprised to be sharing the waters off Gustavia with 6-7 ft legit, scary sharks. We would love to report how cool and calm we were but we found that in those moments, the operative emotion was more like terror, fear, and with a side order of panic......we both remembered the famous "Far Side" cartoon........I dont need to be faster than the shark; just faster than my wife. Leaving St. Barths, we sailed for Antigua.......needing to arrive during daylight required us (as usual) to sail overnight. Without moonlight there is a certain element of luck in not hitting anything. Well, our luck ran out at 4:00 am (t...

As taken from our 10 foot inflatable dinghy... Steve Jobs may be gone, but his gadgets large and small are everywhere. His largest, the motor yacht "Venus" is here in St. Maarten. It actually looks like a condo building on its side........sleek, lots of glass.......modern lines. At 100 million euros (a bit cheaper lately with the exchange rate) this boat is around $380 thousand per foot. Not much of a bargain hunter, this tycoon. He could have had LORIENT for just $7500 per foot. The bigger insight is that someone's boat is always bigger. Much bigger, as you approach Antigua, St, Barth's, and St, Martin. The difficult thing is figuring out who is with each boat. Cruisers look the same........blood and grease on your shorts, hair a mess, and they arrive in dinghies that are definitely  not "rental". The game at the dockside bar is to gather info without giving any up, Kirstin and I think we are clever at this but who knows if across the years a cel...

View from the stern of our boat in St. Barths - good we didn't get hit by that! Columbier (St. Barths) was a crowded little bay. Gustavia (the main anchorage) was untenable (defined as not permitting anything to remain upright on a table without suction). The boats were streaming into this secondary anchorage. We had parked L'ORIENT in the corner near the shore; a perfect spot for the evening................or so we thought. At 4:00 PM, a British catamaran (oddly  named "Twenty Two") dropped anchor very near us. In fact, by our judgement.............far too close. I strode out to the bow of our boat and gave the British captain my icy stare - it usually results in the offender yielding and moving their boat. The etiquette is that whoever gets there first can make this decision. But, it was getting late, there were few spots left, and he was British. What does that have to do with it ? Everything. You see, we have studied Brits as amateur cultural anthropol...

"We don't need that expensive anchor" - post-hurricane St. Martin Sorry for the gap between posts; I know we've gotten a lot of flack from our Latvian and Ukrainian followers- we'll try to be better. While the French excel at boat making, food, and wine- the islands haven't joined the connected world quite yet. After 1200 miles of bashing into the wind (Kirstin calculated this on i-Sailor) we arrived in Marigot Bay, St. Martin on Jan 15th. This represents several milestones for us......getting into the "real Careibbean" and having some good food are two of them. We also have busied ourselves with a lot of boat projects. We keep L'ORIENT in good shape so this never happens to us. New relays for the generator, new fresh water pump, oil and fuel filters in the engine room..........Kirstin is making dinghy chaps. What is this, you may ask ? As the dinghy cost a preposterous $4400 to replace and it's out in the sun all the time. Th...

Kirstin and I have been spoiled by having Emily on board for over a week. Emily fills the role of stunt-kid, sailing buddy, snorkel pal, and general co-conspirator. At 20, she's at the age where she's young enough to be adventurous at yet old enough to get into adult trouble. We heard about a cool snorkeling spot on the island and found it an irresistible opportunity. There was one small impediment.......that being that the area is closed by the US Military (some matter about unexploded ordnance again). The closed, chained, and locked gate......along with big, big warning sign further whet our collective appetite for fun. Not wanting to disappoint Emily, we squeezed through the gate and were off. A short half-hour later we were chasing stingrays and fish in another cool coral field. We've also harnessed the labor potential of the situation and promoted Emily to chief pancake maker. Her skills, finely honed at VA Tech, have made her a natural on a boat, where limite...

After Vieques and it's unexploded ordnance we made our way to Culebra. Kirstin had done extensive research on this island and it was at the top of her bucket list............beautiful beaches, great food, lots of wildlife; in short, the perfect island. Culebra certainly didn't disappoint. We both had tears in our eyes when we left and sailed east toward St. Thomas. The problem we had was that Emily (my daughter) was meeting us in St. Thomas for 10 days on L'ORIENT as she is on winter break from Virginia Tech. After Culebra, I had a feeling that we would crash pretty hard (and we did)............we knew that St. Thomas was a bit sketchy (and it was). The main bay (Charlotte Amalie) had drunks, homeless, cruise-ship people, and a well deserved run-down reputation. Having spoiled my daughter for years, I felt like we should present her with the options. Go back to Culebra or stay in sketchy St. Thomas. Not surprisingly, Princess Emily chose Culebra and is seen here pilot...