 |
| The view from Colombier |
It
seems like all of the boats are eager to be on the move right now. Many of the boats are heading south, to
get just below the hurricane belt for the summer. That doesn’t sound very pleasant to us, and we’ll be going
to Bermuda and then on to the US and Canada instead. Have we mentioned it is
hot? It doesn’t sound so bad – it gets into the high 80s during the day and
drops into the low 80s at night. However, with both the heat and humidity on the rise, it is on the
sweltering side of comfortable right now, and it is time to go north.
 |
| Rockhopper on a mooring in Anse du Colombier |
We
spent the last week of April preparing the boat for passage in lovely St.
Barth. We spent a couple of nights
in the outer anchorage at Gustavia, which started getting a little rough when
the winds turned and left the open anchorage exposed. We then headed over to quiet Anse du Colombier for 3
nights. Colombia is a protected bay
in the marine park; it has great swimming and a couple of nice hikes.
One
day we walked to one of the beaches on the north side of the island, and saw
several tortoises, iguanas, and few other large lizards. We also hiked up to the village of
Colombier which sits on a cliff 500’ over the bay. We spent a lot of time
checking systems and rigging, and moving our “fun” gear into deeper storage
while making our safety and rescue gear easily assessable. Lots of stuff has to wait for last
minute though, like deflating and stowing the dinghy on deck, and setting up
the windvane. 
We
are back in St. Martin now. We
entered the lagoon to fill up our diesel tanks before we leave on passage, just
over 100 gallons this time around. We were thrilled to drop our anchor and discover that we have access to
wifi at the boat for the first time in the lagoon – unlocked wifi has been a
pretty rare occurrence anywhere this time around. There was lots of shopping to
get accomplished as well. The
variety of items at the grocery stores is excellent, the prices are comparable
to the US, and vices (alcohol and cigars) are duty free, so we are happy to
take advantage of that as well. We
had oodles of last minute things to do, but now that we are “stuck” here in
paradise, we have to undo and redo some of our preparations while we wait.  |
| This is the ominous weather system we are avoiding. |
We
were hoping to be on our way north at this point already. However, a large low-pressure system in
the US is affecting the weather from Bermuda all the way down to the Caribbean,
and we are waiting it out. We’ve
been listening daily to our favorite weather man, Chris Parker, discuss the
weather with his subscribers at 6am (ugh). Some of them are caught up in violent squalls and we are
glad we waited. We think we’ll end
up leaving this Monday after the trough has dissipated. It is just a week later than what we
planned, but it feels like we’ve been waiting for weeks. The trip from St. Martin to Bermuda is 900
miles, which will take 7-9 days of 24 hour sailing. Reinhart and I alternate
3-hour on-watch shifts. Back in
2007, it took us just 6 days to make it, but we were sailing extremely fast and
can’t count on that every time.
Once
we head out, we’ll start sending daily-preprogrammed location emails to a small
list of folks using the spot tracker. If you are interested in tracking us,
here is the link to Rockhopper’s spot page, which shows the last 7 days of
locations. Another way to check us out is by using a marine traffic
tracking program to see our AIS signal, like marinetraffic.com.
Rockhopper
Anchorages:
17°54.011N
062°51.469W; Gustavia Outer Harbor, St. Barth 25-26Apr16
17°55.503N
062°52.146W; Anse du Colombier mooring, St. Barth 27-29Apr16
18°02.374N
063°05.648W; Simpson Bay Lagoon, Sint Maarten; 30Apr16…
