Holiday Greetings from the Caribbean!

We are sailing! or at least we were. Rodney Bay on St. Lucia is where we're located right now. On December 10th we finally left Chaguaramas Harbor and headed north to Grenada. Most of the boat work was completed and those few items not done could wait.

If you've been reading our journal you know that Ken beat me to the punch and posted his Dinghy Farewell blog before I sent out my update. So here's my version of the story.

On our crossing from Trinidad to Grenada the seas were high, 10 to 12 feet, but the winds light. So it was a rolly crossing, up and down, up and down with the swells, but no chop, due to no wind. I got seasick for the first time! Guess I needed to get my "sea legs" back as I've been fine ever since. However as we continued north in our goal to reach Guadeloupe to meet Theresa for Christmas the winds picked up and the seas did not calm down. Still sailing was doable. Since we were in the Grenadines where island hops are short, 7 to 15 miles at a stretch, we continued to move north motor sailing into the Christmas winds during the day and anchoring at night. Although the weather was not ideal, seas of 10 plus feet and winds blowing 25 knots, we felt comfortable with the conditions and so set sail.

From Union island we sailed to Bequia and from there on to St Vincent. On Sunday morning we left St Vincent's Wallilabou Bay, a beautiful little harbor where the dock scenes from the Pirates of the Caribbean movie were shot. Crossing the St Vincent channel to St Lucia, we knew the winds would be gusting to 30 knots and the seas high, but we'd been sailing in this weather since Grenada, and so set sail for the longer 35-mile course without worry. And without a thought we continued to pull our dinghy behind us as we'd been doing all week rather than securing it up on the arch. Bad idea. The open sea passage between St. Vincent and St. Lucia got particularly nasty, seas were choppy and high and squalls were threatening. Our sails were reefed and we were doing fine. Then just before a squall hit us, the seas got even rougher and the dinghy, with the outboard on it, flipped over. What to do? We hove to (turned into the wind and backwinded the stay sail). Ken, secured to the stern swim steps with his harness tried to pull the dinghy in and flip it. Not possible and not worth risking his life. The outboard was off the dinghy by now, as no prop could be seen. With the safety line holding it to the dinghy the outboard was pulling the dinghy further below the rough seas. This was causing us to slow considerably in a sea where we didn't want to slow down. We needed to cross and get to the lee of the island as quickly as possible. We decided to cut the dinghy free. Ken slashed the tender line with his rigging knife and we watched our dinghy float away from us. Ouch! After that, it was an uneventful sail on to Rodney Bay.

Entering the harbor at Rodney Bay we found that over 250 boats had just recently arrived from the Atlantic Rally for Cruisers! It is the annual crossing of the Atlantic by the European cruisers. So there was "no room at the inn." We could not secure a slip and had no dinghy to ferry us to shore. Fortunately the anchorage had room and there was water taxi service. So we were able to go ashore and see about getting a dinghy. First thing yesterday we went to the inflatable-boat store. Not really a store in the conventional sense. It's a small, overly cramped office in a little yellow building made out of an old freight container. Not a store at all. Of course there were no dinghys in stock. So we're here until one can be ordered and arrive. We will not be meeting Theresa in Guadeloupe. However, she's going to rearrange her travel and meet us in St. Lucia, which is a lovely island. We'll have a wonderful visit here.

So that's where we are today. Now I'll catch you up on some of the highlights of Trinidad. Boat work. Lots of it. Ken's project list is up on our web site for those truly interested in the gory details. One of his tasks was to mount the new LED running light on top of the mast. While up there he took some photos. Sixty-three feet is a long way up!

I designed and sewed an awning for Aurora. No small task. It is a 22 by 15 foot canvas awning that fits our boat. I confess it is not done. I have two small sewing tasks to complete, but we ran out of time and my sewing machine decided to thwart me. I have some parts on order and when they arrive, I'll finish the awning.


Besides yacht upkeep ("yacht," sounds impressive, no?) we did see some wonderful sights in Trinidad. The Asa Wright Nature Center is a birders paradise. Even Ken and I who are not birders, were awed by the variety and number of birds that can be viewed from the guesthouse veranda. I even saw a Toucan through the spotting scope! There are lots of bird pictures in the Trinidad album on our site, svAurora.com. Unfortunately I don't have a bird identification book, so I can't name them all for you. And this information is not freely available on the Internet. I looked.

After two days at Asa Wright we headed to Caroni Swamp where we took a boat tour through the marsh to the island where the Scarlet Ibis roost. Riding through the swamp in an open flat-bottomed boat, we saw a variety of swamp creatures--a boa coiled in a tree, blue herons, a caiman (similar to an alligator but smaller) and crabs scurrying along the mangrove roots. Once through the dense swamp, we arrived at a large area of open water with a small island across the way from us. The sun was setting.

Our guide parked the boat and we watched. As the sun went down Ibis from all over the swamp, a 40 square mile area of protected land, returned to the island to roost for the night. They fly to the island both individually and in groups. We saw a flock of 40 or more arrive. As they come to land in the dark green leaves of the island trees, the setting sun catches them and they look like bright red Christmas ornaments being hung on a lush green tree. An amazing sight.

We also visited Pitch Lake, the Hindu Water temple and the Dattatreya Yoga Center. Pitch Lake is one of only three asphalt lakes in the world. The others are in Los Angeles and Venezuela. Pitch is another name for asphalt. The U.S. gets 38% of its asphalt from this lake in Trinidad. Thus the lake is a natural resource from which pitch is mined, refined and shipped out to countries all over the world. You've probably driven over, walked on or been in a building roofed with asphalt from this lake.

The Hindu Water Temple is a simple structure built just off the shore. What makes it noteworthy is that it was built by one man, Sewdass Saddhu a devout East Indian laborer, as his way of thanking the gods for providing him safe passage from India to Trinidad. On his passage across the ocean he made a promise to the gods to build them a temple if he arrived safely. Only he faced a problem in trying to uphold his promise. Each time he started to build the temple sugarcane estate owners destroyed it. After several attempts, he decided to build his temple in the sea as "no one owns the sea." He carried stones by hand into the ocean to create a 500-foot causeway and his temple. Today the temple is protected.

There is a large Hindu population in Trinidad as many East Indians were brought over as indentured servants to work on the sugar plantations. As a result there are many Hindu customs and traditions in the Trinidadian culture. We visited the very pink Dattatreya Center temple and ashram where we saw the 85-foot statue of Lord Hanuman, the Hindu monkey god of strength. Quite something.

In addition to seeing some of Trinidad and getting the boat ready to sail, we met several other cruising couples. The Sunday BBQ was a time to get together and swap cruising stories. Whose problems were worse? Who had to wait the longest for their vendors to get work done? Who had the worst crossings? Cruisers like nothing better than to top each other's tales of woe. Having said that, we made some wonderful friends and found an outlet for our own frustrations at these gatherings. Even with all of the "my problem is worse than yours" chatter, there is inherent in this group of individuals the strength of will and the capability to tackle these inevitable problems. Although they would prefer smooth sailing, they are not undone by the challenges of this life. In fact, I'm convinced some revel in them.

We will be spending Christmas with family this year. Theresa is joining us. But we shared Thanksgiving with fellow cruisers. The Chaguaramas Hospitality and Culinary Institute hosted a traditional American Thanksgiving dinner. Sixty people attended. Before dinner we were led in a prayer of thanks and sang the Star Spangled Banner. The room was filled with the sound of voices. Everyone was singing. Dinner, although traditional with turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, sweet potatoes, cranberry sauce and pie, was not like home. We ended the evening with another wonderful song, America the Beautiful. Felt good to share in song our feelings of home with other Americans.

It is raining at the moment. The wet season is almost over and the weather is transitioning to the dry season. For all of October, November and most of December, it rained every day. Now the rain comes every two or three days. The rain is not a cold rain like we have in California, nor does it last all day. It rains in the afternoon anywhere from 5 minutes to a couple of hours. And it dries quickly. This always surprises me as it is so humid here. You'd think it would take hours to dry off, but it doesn't. Shortly after the rain has stopped the docks are dry. One good thing about the rain is that it washes the salt off the boat. After all of the salt water that came over Aurora's bow in our passage north she's covered with salt crystals. Not good for the stainless, the varnish or the sails. Hope today's rain washes them away.

What's ahead for us this season? We're in St Lucia until after the first of the year. Then, we'll continue north up the island chain at a leisurely pace. We do have to be in the U.S.V.I. in February, as we'll be meeting Julia and Morgan in St Thomas. We hurried through the Virgins last season, so this winter I'd like to spend some time there. One of the nice things about the cruising life is that we don't have to know where we are going or when we need to be there, unless of course we're meeting someone. And even that is not a given. Christmas will be in St Lucia not Guadeloupe this year.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

Ken and Maryann
Aboard Aurora
Lying, Rodney Bay, St Lucia