Today begins Day 52 of our Living the Dream in Quarantine! Things haven't changed much for us here on 5KNOTS. Still Quarantined to our boat with the exception of going to shore for Groceries (provisions), Fuel, Water or Laundry needs. Renée typically goes to shore once a week for groceries and I make the run to Shrimpy's (image at left) for water and to drop off laundry. Renée does the grocery shopping at a gas station that also has a small market with a pretty good
Since arriving on March 15th, there really isn't much exciting to report except that we are still Quarantined to 5KNOTS. Today is Day 24 of our confinement! When you say day 24, that is quite a long time for us because the only place we stayed this long at one time was a couple of years ago when anchored at Long Island in the Bahamas. We stayed there not because we had to but because it was a great island to visit. Restrictions here in St. Martin
The trip from Antigua to Saint Martin went fairly smoothly with a few exceptions. Around 3:00 am during Renée's watch we ran into a couple of squalls and rain. I was asleep in the cockpit and awoke when I felt water landing on my legs. Wind perked up to around 26 knots but Renée handled the situation like a seasoned sailor. So I went back to sleep. A little while later we found ourselves in another squall but this time without rain so it was much better.
One of our goals this season is to get to St. Martin, St. Thomas and then St. Croix before turning south to make the long trip to Trinidad where we will store 5KNOTS for this hurricane season. We have friends on all three islands and was hoping to be able to visit with all of them. It is better sailing if you want to hit these three islands to go counter clockwise because the trade winds routinely come from the east so while heading north or south
Rather than make the 110 nautical mile trip all at once, we decided to break it up into three relatively easy short hops. From our current anchorage in Saint Anne we would travel 33nm to Anse Turin located on the northwest side of Martinique. The next day was 56nm to Portsmouth, Dominica. Portsmouth is a large deep bay with a number of moorings that you can purchase for the night. We had been to Portsmouth on our way south and knew it would be an easy in/out
We have been looking forward to our next stop, Martinique. We stopped for a few days last year on our way south and enjoyed our stay but knew there was a whole lot more to see. We figured we would stay around two weeks and two turned into three. Again in part waiting for decent weather to travel. While spending three months in France this past summer we became accustomed to enjoying deserts, baguettes, sweet rolls and Pain au Chocolat's (our favorite). Pain au Chocolat translates
Located in Marigot Bay on the island of Saint Lucia is a large deep anchorage with moorings. Unlike other mooring anchorages, if you take a mooring here you have access to the Marigot Bay Resort. This was a no brainer for us and were looking forward to a few days of relaxation, resort style. Marigot Bay is a fairly long and somewhat narrow but then opening once you reach the resort. As we approached the entrance to the bay we hailed the marina office and requested
Staying in Bequia's Port Elizabeth anchorage is always a good time. It is hard to pick a favorite island, but Bequia is up there at the top. You can imagine that being confined to a boat that is 40' long and 13' wide doesn't leave much for the way of getting exercise. Sure the usual scrubbing the decks, lifting sails, and schlepping 5 gallon Jerry cans of water and diesel back to the boat takes some effort, but we still look forward to long hikes once
Leaving, we planned to make an overnight stop at the underwater statues located on the southwest side in Grenada just north of the St. George's anchorage of Grand Anse. The statues are part of the Molinere Beauséjour Marine Protected Area and consists of a number of statues/objects scattered around the area in around 15 - 23 feet of water with the main sculpture consisting of a ring of figures all seeming to be holding hands. This stop has been on our to-do list since heading south last
So just when you think you are finally on the way, your transmission goes out! When we left Georgia back in February 2019 we started to notice a slip in our transmission. However, we were already out in the ocean heading down the coast of Florida in order to make Lake Worth inlet in 54 hours. We traveled all season through the Bahamas and the Caribbean to our final destination in Grenada where we left 5KNOTS for hurricane season. Since we are technically a sailboat, we do