Life Aboard in the French West Indies

Some folks are under the impression that it never gets cold in the Caribbean. Well, last night the temperature plummeted to a near frigid 71 degrees. It was so cold that several thin-blooded locals were actually seen wearing long pants, which are novelty items on the island. For those who got too cold, there was a quick way to get warm — jump in the 82 degree water.

Fortunately, the daytime temps will be back in the low 80s today for the Carnival School Parade, during which time all the costumed kids on little St. Barth will march through the streets of Gustavia. Carnival falls very early this year, with February 5th being Mardi Gras or Fat Tuesday. At midnight on Tuesday, all the celebrations end on the Brit or formerly Brit Islands. But not on the French Islands, where the really big deal of Carnival is Wednesday the 6th, which is Mercredi des Cendres or Ash Wednesday. On that day the revelers dress in black and white costumes, and that night Vaval, the spirit of French Caribbean Carnival, is taken to Shell Beach and burned. It’s sort of like a mini Burning Man, but with lots more young French girls in sexy outfits dancing to a Caribbean beat.

But we’re here for work, and we can’t think of a better place to have a winter office of Latitude than in St. Barth. The reason is simple — sailing and sailors permeate the island life. When we’re in St. Barth, the interesting sailors, sailing news, and great yachts all but come to us. If you’re a sailing junkie, this is the place to get your fix.

Last night, for example, we were in Le Select Bar when we bumped into Luc Poupon — brother of former round-the-world record holder Phillipe Poupon, who also lives on the little island — who is a fine and still very active transocean racer. We started talking about the great Francis Joyon, who as you all know just set the around-the-world record with his 97-ft trimaran IDEC. Luc had a funny story to illustrate the kind of guy Joyon is.

"One day IDEC, Joyon’s sponsor, said that they’d like his trimaran —  not the current one, but the previous 90-footer he raced around the world — to be painted red for greater publicity value. Francis said that was fine, went to the local hardware store, bought some normal red paint, got in his dinghy and started going around the boat painting the hulls. In two hours he was done. That’s Joyon!"

When we asked if Luc knew where Joyon was sailing next, Luc said that he would be arriving right here in St. Barth very soon with his family.

"On the maxi trimaran IDEC?"

"No, no, no. Francis collected a bunch of stuff from old boats and put together a 36-ft cruising catamaran. He’ll be sailing here from France with his family aboard the little cat. That’s Joyon, too!"

A couple of hours earlier, we’d bumped into South African Peter Pixton, who we’d met in the mid-’80s in Antigua when he was the captain of the Ocean 75 Ocean Mermaid, a slightly larger sistership to the Ocean 71 Big O we owned back then. For the last bunch of years, Peter has been working for Tom Hill, who has owned about 25 racing boats named Titan. Peter actually runs the mother ship, which is Hill’s 115-ft sailboat, but also crews on the race boats. In a five-minute conversation, we learned:

1. That having done Malta’s Middle Sea Race last summer, Hill had sold his R-P 77 Titan.

2. That Hill was having a R-P 80 built in the Northeast, a boat that would hopefully be done in time for the next Miami to Jamaica Race. Hill holds the record for that event and doesn’t intend to have anyone else take it.

3. That Hill bought a Q boat, similar to Cotton Blossom, the Q boat Dennis Conner bought and restored in California, so Hill could also do the classic regattas.

4. That Dennis Conner had recovered at least part of the fortune he’d spent restoring Cotton Blossom by selling her for somewhere in the $1 million range in Europe, where classic wood boats are king.

The next day, Tim Schaaf and Marsha McCroskie sailed in from the British Virgins aboard their Robertson & Caine 45 cat Jet Stream. Lots of Mexico vets will remember Tim as the Dockmaster at Cabo Isle Marina for many years, and as one of the main guys behind saving all the boats tossed up on the beach at Puerto Escondido by hurricane Marty.

Tim and Marsha do "sailing and golf" charters on their cat in the British Virgins, but having a break, and seeing a great weather window, had made the 130-mile sail to St. Barth. Usually it’s a bitch coming across the Anegada Passage in winter, sort of like the worst of a Baja Bash. But thanks to some strange weather, they managed to motor across with light following winds. It was like getting a southerly for the Baja Bash.

Tim told us he was disappointed he hadn’t been here a few days earlier when Mike Harker of Wanderlust 3 had come through in the process of completing an 11-month circumnavigation. "I was the Dockmaster in Cabo when Mike was about to do the Baja Bash in ’01, and the thing that I recall was how disillusioned he was with sailing. He gave me the impression that he was going to sell his boat as soon as he got to California, and that would be it for his brief sailing career. To think that he’s done about 55,000 miles since then, mostly singlehanded, is very interesting to me."

Tim also told us a few of the invariably hilarious charter related stories. For example, a friend of his with a Lagoon 55 was doing one of his first charters with a strange couple and their two kids. As they approached Trellis Bay and the drop-off at the end of the charter, as per the contract, the captain couldn’t wait to get rid of the guests. But suddenly the woman demanded to be dropped off at Road Town instead. The captain said he was sorry, but he was following the contract, and that they’d be dropped off at Trellis Bay. The next thing the skipper knew, the police, weapons drawn, were coming up to board his cat. It turns out that the angry woman had disabled the boat’s VHF, then got on her cell phone and called the police to tell them that she and her family had been kidnapped and were being held hostage! It took almost no time for the police to decide who was the real nut in this case, so it was all over. But the story will live on in the lore of Caribbean chartering.

We and Schaff also had a good laugh about how insanely inefficient things are in the Caribbean compared to the States. He told us about the Ice Man at the Anegada Reef Hotel. "If you go to the hotel and want ice, and it’s the Ice Man’s day off, you can’t get any ice, even if there are six other staff members on duty and the freezer is full of ice. ‘No ice today,’ they’ll tell you, ‘it be the Ice Man day off!’ Then again, if the Ice Man is working, and has bagged 20 bags of ice, but still has 20 more to go, you have no choice but to wait. The Ice Man will absolutely not sell any ice until he’s bagged every single bag." By the way, Anegada is remote and ice is hard to come by, so it’s $7 a bag.

Here’s to hoping that everyone back home is warmer than the locals are here, and that your Mercredi des Cendres is a wild one.