S/V L'ORIENT

Greetings from South America We've crossed that magic line in the sea......we call it "the Bonaire line".......the point from which getting back to the comfortable Eastern Caribbean becomes a major pain in the ass....as you are too far west. We're now in Santa Marta, Colombia after a 3 night sail that was blasé, boisterous, then terrifying. We've cruised the Eastern Caribbean for a long time. Everything was comfortable.........and armed with Kirstin's encyclopedic knowledge of where to find anything on any island, life was easy.....almost too easy. Rum punch and arepas on a Sunday afternoon on Bonaire - you got it! A gluten-free rum punch at 2:00 PM......accounting seems pretty far away We even know the right beaches to pick up family by dinghy from the airport. Pictured below is Emily and Kirstin (her driver) starting another fun week on the boat with us. Train (DC) to the planes (DC-Houston-Bonaire) and finally via dinghy to the boat...........Em...

Our first posting gap in a while........we hope our loyal Chadian, Malaysian, and Kazakh readers will be understanding. We know, we know........this blog really makes a difference. We'll try harder. Really. View from the bow So, the World Cup is over and Les Bleues were victorious. I have to say, it was fun watching although depending on who was playing, one of our favorite lunch places (El Mundo) was either empty or insanely packed with all tables reserved. Peoples of the world killing time watching football on a Tuesday morning And who knew that the Swiss had such a visible contingent.......although at first glance their fans still always look like a Red Cross convention. Kind of a "cat in the hat" look but at least she's supporting her team Kirstin completed a family visit to her parents' house in Wisconsin........and returned smuggling about 100 lbs of boat parts.....the final leg in L'ORIENT's complex supply chain. Parts ordered i...

Who's rustier....man or machine ? Through blog statistics and sleuthing, we've established beyond a reasonable doubt that the SV L'ORIENT blog now has more diverse readership than any publication in the history of man with two notable exceptions- The Bible and 50 Shades of Gray; "Wow", you say......Quite a Bold Statement. We now have substantial readership in Northwest Canada......meaning native Canadians (more appropriately "First Peoples"). Adding this to our American great plains cohort of Doomsday Preppers (who we call "Last Peoples")...need I say more? Case closed. Today concludes 21 straight days at the gym......or Klingon Death Camp. This is a 90 degrees, no AC and less maintenance affair on the second floor of a blighted village block in downtown Kralendijk, Bonaire which we affectionately call "the Dijk". With strange techno-music blasting and the guttural mutterings of the 6'7 tall membership and their gangly ar...

The lifejacket was decorative.....wouldn't have helped much if there was a problem How's that for band-width (a 1937 Spencer Tracy movie reference)! Shazam. Anyway, the moment had finally arrived. But let me rewind.......Amel Super Maramus (like our yacht) have a unique and dramatic "nuclear option" for going straight down wind. To quote De Gaulle (which oddly and redundantly translates to "of France")........France is not France without grandeur. And our French super boat is no different. On our boat there is an option to put genoas (a huge foresail) on both sides of the bow, creating an enormous wall of sail that propels you at very high speed. We had never used this before........and quite honestly were a bit fearful of this "nuclear option". The second foresail (called a ballooner) is a dramatic kaleidoscope of red, white and blue........a huge, preposterous middle finger aimed at the rest of the sailing world that seems to say "How do...

Forgot our meds... oops No question between partners demonstrates the difference between cruising and real life quite like this innocuous inquiry. On L'ORIENT, this question elicits laughs (every time). The reason ? Life on a yacht (even a large one) is all about proximity. Kirstin and I spend probably 23 out of 24 hours each day within 5 ft of each other. Really. Between dinghy rides, boat projects, snorkeling, swimming, hiking, dining, happy hour and sleeping..........that figure is about right. So "How was your day ?" becomes ridiculous since both of us know how our day was...........we had the same day. Merely operating a blue water cruising yacht requires two people........adjusting the sail plan, anchoring, launching and retrieving the dinghy........there's a ballet of motion and timing that develops between partners where almost everything is unsaid yet can be relied on to happen. We've noticed that conflict resolution among our cruising friends is ...

Sunset in the salon Kirstin and I are often times visually offended by the boats (and even yachts) of others. In short, many of them are a hot mess; holes drilled haphazardly in mahogany, wires running loose everywhere.....switches, breakers, and lights scattered randomly around the boat.......kind of like a bomb went off in a Radio Shack. Not so on L'ORIENT. We have no art, pictures, exposed electronics.............in short, our boat is everything we need and nothing we don't. OK, we need our clothes washer, dishwasher, 3 A/C units, etc. but the point here is we haven't cluttered things up with flourishes of our own twisted design. But there is one exception...........a small half hidden grab bar in the galley has taped to it various fortunes from cookies we've gotten in Chinese restaurants across our travels. This area is known as the W.O.K (the wall of knowledge). Like pilgrims climbing to the top of a buddhist temple in search of knowledge, occasionally we s...

Remind me... why did we leave Grenada and this beach? So Kirstin and I are in Grenada missing our $5 Bordeaux and other French goodies.........missing them so much that we decided on a quick 150 mile trip north to Martinique to buy 100 bottles of wine. As I write this I can see that it looks stupid, but trust me.......it made perfect sense at the time. Why not? Probably get to use my birthday present (a legit deep sea fishing rod) and finally land "the big one". I'm actually feeling a bit of fishing hubris. Watch out 300 lb tuna ! Armed with my new rod, I feel dangerous. To quote Julius Oppenheimer (not much at fishing but I recall he did something)...."I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds" (I double checked that seemingly ungrammatical flourish). OK that's a bit aspirational...I'll walk that back....I'd settle for one freaking fish. We take a casual look at the weather........northeast wind at 15-18 knots, 3-5 foot seas. OK, a little ba...