S/V L'ORIENT

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