“As commanding officer Dave Merrill
piloted the 900-ton, black-hulled U.S. Coast Guard cutter Frank
Drew up the Chesapeake Bay, he contemplated a world that
resembled the South Pole: a wide expanse of glittering white,
with its only boundary the pale blue horizon.
“‘There’s ice as far as you can see,’
said Merrill. “It’s hard to tell if we’re in Baltimore or
Antarctica.'”
Thanks to Big Rick Stuart of KFOG-FM for
sending this in.
Profligate’s Progress
February 13 – St. Barth, FWI
It’s Friday the 13th, which is particularly
unlucky for us, because it means it’s the end of the February
segment of our 25th Anniversary Cruise aboard Profligate
in the Caribbean. We sure hope summer has come to Northern California,
because we don’t know how we’re going to be able to survive with
anything less than 82-degree air and water temperatures. It would
also be nice if SF Bay waters had miraculously turned a transparent
blue.
Actually, the weather has been a bit off
here for the last week. The air and water are still warm, but
it’s been cloudy and windy. Yesterday was a beauty, but today
is kind of overcast and gray again. When we say windy down here,
we mean windy. We tried to sail to Anguilla the other day from
St. Barth, and had a steaming reach in the teens with just a
main and a tiny jib. But when it started blowing over 30 late
in the day in the lee of St. Martin, we decided to bag it right
there, as the water was going to be too cloudy for good snorkeling
anyway. On our return trip two days later, we tucked a reef into
the main – something we’re embarrassed to say we haven’t done
in about three years – and headed back to St. Barth. As you might
expect, it only blew 8-10 kts and we were way under powered.
Then the squalls came, with lots of rain with wind in the low
30s. Oh yes, were we glad to have the reef in. With the changes
in wind speeds came great changes in sea conditions. In a distance
of 15 miles, we had everything from 8-ft seas to virtually flat
water – on the open ocean.
As we sailed down to St. Martin, we crossed paths with the ‘windjammer’ Polynesie, taking a new load of tourists to St. Barth.
Reefed down, she was looking good and moving fast – although
she may have had her engine on.
We have mixed feelings about St. Martin.
One one hand, it’s naturally an even more beautiful island than
St. Barth, but then you go ashore. Geez, there’s garbage and
trash everywhere, and the hubbub of a busy and crowded island
with lots of traffic. It’s a shock after the tranquility of St.
Barth. Even more regrettably, you have to deal with some surly
attitudes. In a typical example, we politely paid a West Indian
woman some money for our Internet time. She got our change, and
deliberately looking away from us, slapped it down on a table
about 10 feet away and walked away. It’s the all too common West
Indian ‘cut off your nose to spite your face’ attitude toward
tourists, which, unfortunately for them, are their economic lifeblood.
St. Martin does have a lot of things going
for it: It has a good airport with excellent connections to the
States and other islands; it’s a great place to pick up a charter
boat; it has great anchorages; it’s very close to other great
islands such as Saba, St. Barth, and Anguilla; in Budget Marine,
it has the best chandlery we can remember seeing anywhere; it
has some great restaurants on the French side; and it’s the home
base to some of the greatest boats in the world. But none of
these things mean that much to us if too much of the place has
trash everywhere and a percentage of the people make it clear
they dislike you even while taking your money. We were thrilled
to get back to St. Barth.
While all the big boats bring the owners and guests to St. Barth
to play, many of them are based in St. Martin. Check out this
little beauty. Felicita West is a 210-footer designed
by Ron Holland and built by Perini Navi. Her 200-ft tall main
mast – second highest in the world to Mirabella V’s much
taller monster – means she won’t be able to come through the
Panama Canal.
Some readers might think that we like to
get back to St. Barth because of all the rich people and big
boats. We’ll just say that we’re thrilled to report that upon
our return, we got our interview with Jim Greene of Tango
II. Greene, you may recall from an earlier report of ours,
is the fellow from the Northeast and St. Barth who has circumnavigated
three times – his wife Anna was along twice – with a 43-ft boat
with just over nine feet of beam that was designed for racing
in protected waters. The boat is wood, and to give you an idea
of how old she is, her hull was buried in a hole in a shipyard
to prevent the approaching Nazis from finding her. Jim’s the
kind of guy who took off on a circumnavigation with his new girlfriend
with just $142. We hope to have that interview in the next issue
of Latitude 38,
which will come out on March 2, to prove that couples can circumnavigate
on about $1,000 a year. Not $1,000 a month, but $1,000 a year.
Last week we also went to a lunch party
at the ‘farm’ of Antonio, who was often our captain aboard Big
O in the Caribbean, starting 18 years ago. The local guests
were cooks, carpenters, shopkeepers, landscapers and the like.
We can’t remember having such a lovely afternoon. As for the
place Antonio, his lady Isabelle, and baby Pablo are building,
it will be 15 square meters – or about the size of some of the
walk-in closets on the megayachts. “What else do you need
here?” asks Antonio. Indeed, the house will be like many
of the other traditional houses on the island.
An afternoon party at Antonio’s farm in ‘the country’. This was
as local as you can get. After several rounds of ribs, somebody
broke out fist sized chunks of foie gras. It was attacked. But
they really went at it when the cheese plate was brought out
at the end. It was really something for an American to watch.
Friends Luc and Rochelle of St. Barth. Luc is a carpenter on
the island who is helping Antonio build his house. He was a fountain
of information about ‘slavery days’. Among other things, Rochelle
makes the guava rum as seen in the bottle. It’s critical, she
told us, that you use sugar from St. Kitts, which is the best
to be found. She also explained in no uncertain terms that people
like her from Brittany consider themselves about as French as
the Irish consider themselves English.
18-month old Pablo and Isabelle at the party at the ‘farm’. Isabelle
runs La Marina Restaurant on the water in Gustavia, which is
where we found Big O 18 years ago. They fly in mussels
from Paris for dinner on Thursday night, and the place is packed.
We love to look at all the great yachts
that come through. And in St. Barth, the cast of characters changes
every single day. The other day the motoryacht Grand Finale
was tied up to the quay. If we’re not mistaken, she’s about a
130-footer from the St. Francis YC. Back home, she’s huge. In
St. Barth, a motoryacht has to be over 200 feet to be a big deal.
As it was, Grand Finale was probably only the fifth biggest
motoryacht in the harbor.
Nobody has a sleeker cruising sailboat than Hasso Plattner’s
R/P 147 Visione. Yes, this is his cruising boat. His new
racing boat, a MaxZ86 with a canting keel and canard rudder that’s
almost identical to Roy Disney’s new Pyewacket, will be
in St. Martin next month to race against Disney’s new boat at
the Heineken Regatta. Plattner also has a new Farr 40 and a bunch
of other boats. You can do that when you’re one of the software
titans of the world.
With Carnival just around the corner, every Sunday night the
locals get out to make music and practice. St. Barth doesn’t
have the biggest Carnival celebration in the world, but it may
be the cutest. Photos Latitude/Richard
The Extensions Are Torture
February 13 – New Zealand
Don Engle, who is having a big cruising
cat, to be named My Way, built in New Zealand, reports
on the last trip there to check on construction progress: “Karen
and I had a spectacular time traveling around both the north
and south islands as well as visiting the yard. As you can see,
progress is being made on the boat but always more slowly than
hoped. The launch date had moved again; now projected to be late
May. I want to be sailing her so badly I can taste it, so the
extensions are torture. The quality remains exceptional but the
yard is finding that they underestimated the man hours it
is taking to finish her off.
Photos Donald Engle
“We continue to be amazed at the beauty
of New Zealand and the friendliness of the people there. On this
trip, after visiting the yard, we went fishing in Taupo and then
explored the Marlborough and Milford Sounds in the south
island. My favorite was the whole Marlborough area. It’s like
a combination of the Napa Valley and the San Juan Islands with
a bit of the Sierras added for spice. You can hike mountain trails,
sail isolated coves and dine in world class vineyards; all within
a 30-mile radius. We can’t wait to go back!”
Word of the Day
February 13 – Mill Valley
Because we believe that you should never
stop learning, we subscribe to an email ‘Word of the Day’. Yesterday’s
word happened to be ‘latitudinarian’:
latitudinarian lat-uh-too-din-AIR-ee-un;
-tyoo-, adjective:
Having or expressing broad and tolerant views, especially in
religious matters.
noun:
1. A person who is broad-minded and tolerant; one who displays
freedom in thinking, especially in religious matters.
2. (Often capitalized) A member of the Church of England, in
the time of Charles II, who adopted more liberal notions in respect
to the authority, government, and doctrines of the church than
generally prevailed.
Latitudinarian comes from Latin latitudo,
latitudin-, ‘latitude’ (from latus, ‘broad, wide’) + the suffix
-arian.
Who is out making passages in the Pacific
and what kind of weather are they having? The YOTREPS daily yacht
tracking page has moved to www.bitwrangler.com/psn.
Looking for current as well as recent wind
and sea readings from 17 buoys and stations between Pt. Arena
and the Mexican border? Here’s the place – which has further
links to weather buoys and stations all over the U.S.: www.ndbc.noaa.gov/Maps/Southwest.shtml.
Pacific Winds and Pressure
The University of Hawaii Dept. of Meteorology
page posts a daily map of the NE Pacific Ocean barometric
pressure and winds.
