Sometimes you stumble upon Paradise

We are on our way back to Granada from the Grenadines. The trip is unfortunately winding to a close. We are all somewhat preparing for the trip back to reality, and not really wanting this slice of heaven to end. As is usual in this latitude, we are running short of ice. Our crew is used to COLD weather this time of year. Temps in the upper 90's and a brutal sun has the crew rapidly drinking cold beverages. No matter how much ice we pack in the ice chest, it always seems to disappear in day.

We are headed South and determine that we will need some ice for our sail to Grenada. Carriacou Island is off the starboard bow and we decide to slip into Tyrrel Bay and pick up some ice at a store in Harvey Vale. As we sail up, there are hardly any boats in the bay. We wonder if there is enough civilization in the bay to produce a store that would carry ice....

We pull up along the Northern shore line and notice all the mangroves. We anchor out near the mangroves and take the dinghy into shore. Once we get there we are surprised. The town is very nice, the locals are enchanting, and there are a lot of stores, bars and restaurants. We proceed to walk down the main street that runs between the beach and the buildings. First a beer at a bar, then a stroll through some stores. We find a liquor store. The prices are fantastic. Most of the crew buy tarrif free liquor for home. I personally buy a bottle of grenadier, and a couple of other long strange looking liquor bottles with tall thin bottle necks. (they never make it back to college - as they are tossed back and forth in the plane they break inside my duffle bag soaking all my clothes with sticky liquor...)

Everyone shops at their own pace, and most of the group split up and see what they want to see. I buy a few beers and anchor myself in front of the main pier watching the world go by. I cannot imagine a more peaceful setting. Candy pulls up as my wing man. We wait for the others. Eventually everyone works their way back to the dinghy pier. We saddle up in the dinghy, head back to the boat, and weigh anchor. I remember thinking - man we really missed out on a great place to stay for a night. Too bad the boat was due back in Grenada this evening.

Oh well, it was a fantastic find, and a wonderful reminder of how easy life could be if we allowed ourselves to slow down and enjoy it!

Oh yeah.....Scope.

So, this is your first bareboat charter. You think you know a lot about sailing, right? Been a sailor for decades, right? This should be a breeze! Then again.....

As the title of this blog states, we are from the midwest. Not real familiar with the idea of tide, or the general nature of the bottom for anchorages in Southern Florida. In Lake Michigan, Tide is not a factor, and it is such a deep lake that you rarely ever anchor out. Go find yourself a marina dude!

So, now you have the primer.

We are all excited as this is our first bareboat charter. The Florida Keys sound like the perfect chain of islands to explore for 10 days. The crew is comprised of Don and Mary Ann (Captain and Cook - also the benefactors of this little vacation), and a bunch of early 20 something kids (Jim, Pete, Lisa, Troy, and Steve.) Most of us have been sailing for decades. We pick up the 42 foot Endeavor - Aeolus (AO-Bus; our nickname as it is not a real competitive sailor) in Miami at Florida Yacht Charters. After a brief introduction and a short test, followed by sea trials, we depart on our journey. Our final destination - Key West. However the goal for the first night - Key Largo. The sail down is great; why wouldn't it be in comparison to winter in Wisconsin. Sailing in Hawks Channel with beer and cocktails beats snowblowing the driveway any day.

As we get close to Key Largo, we begin to look for a place to "drop the hook" for the night. Largo Sound looks like a great place, so we navigate our way in and weave through the ships that have beat us to prime anchorage locations. We finally drop anchor a little North of Transylvania Ave. A crew is quickly dispatched to get fuel for the dinghy and Ice. Little did we know that the closest store is all the way out at US Hwy 1... Not a short walk later we find what we need and then venture back. As we motor back to the boat, night is setting and Mary Ann is ready with dinner. We all are relaxing after dinner, laughing at the table. The wind is picking up outside. We individually notice it I am sure, but no one pays much attention to it. Soon a strange alarm is going off in the cabin. And about the same time we hear some yelling outside the boat. As we run up the steps to the cockpit, we see a group of people on our starboard side yelling at us from their sailboat. "Wake Up! Your adrift!" Sure enough the boat is drifting in the wind at about 5 knots down wind. We quickly fire up the diesel and motor forward. When we set the anchor this time, we leave out a lot of scope (extra line) and hope the anchor holds. It was a long night as we listened to the wind whip through the sound. Always wondering if we were adrift again.

Next morning, we weigh anchor and head out the narrow channel that leads from Largo Sound to Hawks Channel. This was our reminder to check the charts for tide when we depart locations. As we were leaving, we felt the keel touch down in the channel. Thankfully, the prop and rudder are set significantly higher on the AO Bus. The keel only touched down in a few short places, and the 89 hp Turbo Diesel pushed us through these little snags.

So, all in all, Day 1 was full of learning experiences. We became much wiser sailors. However, it will always be remembered for three guys and a few beers at the end of Transylvania Ave.!

What's a Stuben anyway?

Ok,

I realize that most of you know what a "Stuben" is, but this is for the folks that stumble across this blog.

The "Stuben" was invented by Stub. I am willing to stand corrected, but here is my recollection:

In the BVI's, long night of fun at the Bitter End Yacht Club. The crew stumbled back to the dinghy and motored back to the boat. Stub was hungry after a long night of beer and rockets. He looked into the ice chest and found a smorgesboard of leftovers. In typical Stub fashion, this was an opportunity to push the edges and make the crew laugh. He pulled out the bread and stacked it with anything he could find in the ice chest. If I remember correctly it a few of the ingredients were beef jerky and string cheese. Everyone that was up got a chuckle. At first we called it a "Dagwood" but then "Stuben" was thrown out and eventually stuck.

Ever since this day, the group has made a tradition of building Stubens when we get back home from a long night of drinking. The picture attached is from this Spring in Fort Myers Beach after a long night of drinking. Give it a try, you might really enjoy what you create!

Stub vs Mr. Johnson!

We pull into Canouan Island. This had been after a casual night in the Tobago Cays. The group was interested in night life. As we pull into Charles Town, we anxiously look for an anchorage near any bar. Captain Don, as usual, weaves in and out of boats in the bay. He tucks in very close to shore, but actually found an opening for once. We set anchor, test it with one of the two aux engines. All appears ship shape. Everyone piles into the dinghy and we head for shore.

On shore we find a little bar above a restaurant. We are practically the only patrons at this time - early afternoon. It has the slow turning leaf shaped ceiling fans, and tons of wicker furniture. We proceed to order a few rounds and relax the afternoon away. I spent some time walking around the little bar, and exploring. It seems to be in such a remote location in the world. The bartender disappears for long periods of time, basically requiring us to track them down when we need another round. The port is very quiet, and there does not appear to be a whole lot of activity going on. It is early March in 1994 so there is no airport on Canouan Island, or any fancy resorts. Just a very peaceful and tranquil existence.

Eventually, we end up back on the boat. A small sailboat comes in as we are eating dinner, and they are looking for a place to drop anchor. The boat decides that in front of our cat would be the best location, so they drop anchor and drift toward us. A few of us remark that they are cutting it a little close. Oh well, we continue on with our evening and several hours and many laughs later - call it a night.

Now, it has to be 2 AM when I hear the wind pick up outside. I am actually relieved because the boat has been a hot box for the last few days. Nothing like being within the tropic of cancer to turn up the heat on a situation. The wind feels fantastic, and helps to purge the cabin of it's musty smell. (hey I was bunking with Candy...two guys in a little room gets a little ripe!) Shortly after the wind picks up, I start to hear this weird noise. It is a clicking noise. Kind of like a chain running along a......rudder? YIKES! I jump up and stick my head out the hatch. Mark and I are in the front Port cabin. I had pole position for the nights events. The boat in front of us was drifting free of it's anchorage. It was on top of our boat, and the clicking noise was the rudder of the boat in front of us running up and down the bridle (Cat's have a bridle system for the anchor to keep the nose pointed into the wind.) The boat was only 10 feet off of our bow.

Now, at this time I (not so delicately) kick Candy in the head and yell GET UP! I run to the Front Starboard cabin and yell at either Stub or Toast - GET UP! I need your help. Very quickly the entire crew (less Candy) is up and yelling at the boat in front of us. A head sticks out of the companion way. Something is yelled back in French.... Lisa steps forward and tries to communicate. The couple aboard the boat in front of us is obviously new to charter boats as he is fumbling around and clueless. He acts like he is going to start the engine and we all scream at him NO! (his prop would have wrapped up in the anchor chain that is running under his hull!

Stub and I jump in the dinghy. We figure that we are going to have to pull him off of our anchor line. We pull in front of his boat, and he tosses a line to Stub. I start to back up - pulling him forward and away from our boat. At first there does not appear to be any progress, so I start to dial up the throttle. The outboard on this little inflatable dinghy is a 35 HP. Way over sized. I - in my adrenaline rush - decide that if there is no movement at low throttle, then why not just Give 'er! Stub starts to scream "Your pulling my arms off, slow it down!" Later he swears that he almost went swimming as I tried to pull the dinghy out from underneath him. After a few dozen yards, we slow down, and the couple fire up their engine. The sailboat pulls forward and we go back to the cat. We watch the young french couple set their anchor again, and then go down to sleep again.

Next morning as we are all sitting around the big table in the open cockpit, we are discussing the evenings events. Candy actually says "your kidding, I don't remember a thing!". I swear that Mark could sleep through a small nuclear blast ;)

I thought I had heard it all...

I have heard many tall tales in my life, but I think this one took the cake...

We were all sitting around the table after eating dinner. We were on a rather comfortable boat this year (Contango II, 49 foot Hylas). After dinner we were bantering about. Lots of stories were being told, and one focused on "Hot" food. Now to preface this tale, Kelly seemed to have a habit of always having a better story than the one you just told. If you had a fast car, her car was the fastest in the state. If you could eat a one pound hamburger, she once ate a 1-1/2 pound hamburger. You could never get away with finishing your story and having it be done, everyone move on to a new subject. Nope, Kelly had a better story waiting...

So back to the tale. Someone ate something really hot and there was a funny story about it. The best part about this story is that no one will ever remember what the funny story was that started this tale. That is because the "Mine is better than yours" story took the cake. So Kelly starts off something like this. "Well I once flew into Buffalo NY, and on my layover I stopped into THE original Buffalo Wing bar. I ordered the hot wings and took them back to my hotel room. They were SO hot that when I ate them I got a blister on my lip!" Stub bursts out laughing. Pete makes a comment that lands him in the dog house - God bless ya buddy, you were keepin' it real! But to this day, I have never heard a taller tale about hot food!

Laaahlll Laaaahhlll!

That is a direct quote of Pete - and it is done by rolling your tongue inside your mouth. Try it - Laaahlll. It's fun!

Now I suppose you are wondering.....what is this about?

Good question. It was our first trip to the Bahamas on the original Pathfinder! We had sailed through heavy seas to make it to Bimini, but I already re-capped that trip. The next day we sailed out to the Concrete Boat just South of the South island. we spend the afternoon snorkeling around the boat. It is pretty cool, and you are warned that this was a live bombing target for american pilots in the past so be careful what you touch!

Later that day we headed back to Bimini and back to The End of The World bar. Many pain killers later we work our way back to the boat. It is now about 2 AM. Don decides that this would be a great time to start sailing to Nassau. Nassau is not very close to Bimini so we would waste an entire day if we waited until morning. So the reasoning was - why not start now at 2 AM while the majority of the crew is sleeping. This is very compelling reasoning. Especially to a bunch of drunken sailor! So, 2AM we cast off lines and fire up the diesel.....or was it the other way around? Out the channel we go. Around the North End of the North Island and headed East toward what else? The tongue of the ocean! This was when Pete fired off the "Laahlll Laaahll!" He was working on the charts and figuring out our navigation route for the trip when he discovered that we would be sailing into the "Tongue of the Ocean" The next 3 hours in the dark, as we navigated around un-lit channel markers, Pete and I continued to drink beer and shout out the occasional "Laahll Laaahlll!"

Pete and the Jellies!

After my last posting, Pete sent me the following e-mail!

Don’t forget that one time in the Bahamas when we sailed at night and the luminescent jellies where in schools under a full moon. I don’t remember what island, but we never went to shore. I remember there was a big fight on that night and we could hear the yelling coming from a house/shack on shore. Very weird