It is often said that blue water cruising is defined as fixing things in exotic locations. Simple things in the USA become tedious in the tropics. In our case replacement deck blocks turned from a four day delivery to a one month wait. The good news is we were able to find a rigging company F.K.G. in Simpson Bay that carried some big blocks. The blocks were not a perfect match but like the wind you must work with what you have versus what you want. F.K.G. has an impressive fabrication shop and we would advise using them if you have any big rigging projects. While Jim was finishing the boat work today, Amy made a run to the Super U for a big provision. Renegade is now put back together and ready for action. Our current weather window is to leave Sunday at sundown to Falmouth Harbour, Antigua. The wind angle is not optimum, but the waves and velocity look good.
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Happy New Year! We have been exploring SXM and working on some projects. Jim’s deck inspection before we left USVI revealed a frozen main halyard block at the base of the mast…
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The senior cruising sailors say “that’s one for the books” if a particular passage falls outside of the norms. In our case the trip to St. Martin was one for the books.…
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Merry Christmas! A front is coming through producing unusual southerly winds so we should be able to reach over to St. Maarten as we had hoped. We should arrive midday on the…
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Christmas Cove is home of the famous pizza boat Pizza Pi you have probably seen on travel sites or TV. We decided to check it out today and called in for a…
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On the 21st Jim happened to have the camera out at Caneel Bay for a storm picture when a full rainbow briefly appeared and both ends were captured. On the 22nd we…
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On the 19th we departed Coral Bay back to Cruz Bay to complete our circumnavigation of St. John. We stayed an extra day in Coral because the weather was a little sporty…
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We found a spot to anchor out of the big winds and swell but like all locations behind mountains, you get a lot of puffs with big swings. We closely monitored the…
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On the 15th we motored upwind to moor in Waterlemon Bay. This bay gets several snorkel day boats because it has a little rock island in the middle of it. There is…
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Over the years we have heard more than one experienced sailor tell us the sail from the BVI to St. Martin (upwind) was the worst they had ever experienced. With that in…