St Barthelemy

This is the latest short & sweet since the battery is nearly down and I have yet to synchronise Google so that I can write replies to all your emails. 
Monday (14th) through Thursday sailed quite happily just the two of us again, good speed and fair weather apart from one or two squalls. Anchored just off Gustavia very early on the Thursday about 0800, just after I had woken up. We texted Jane &amd; Paul whom we arranged to meet ashore while completing entrance formalities.
   This done we were treated to a tour of the island (see Picasa) and a wonderful Italian lunch.

We chilled out at there villa and were also invited to a slap up steak dinner (wow thanks; it was delicious!)
Since then we have had great fun exploring the many and various beaches around the island watching the wildlife ad snorkelling. It is a great shame that we didn’t take the underwater camera because the fish were quite inquisitive. Paul & Jane were even intrepid enough to come sailing with us! We took them to the Marine Nature Reserve at Colombier Beach.  Yet AGAIN on the return trip the engine FAILED to start so we sailed without it, with the generator running so that the batteries would be absolutely full when we next tried it—yes you guessed it started first time. So does this mean that we have found the answer??? Only time will tell.

St Barths

Passage here was great, just a minor blip with the engine and a few showers,(pleasant).  As usual wifi is poor and having just uploaded all the Barbados images for you I haven't had time to do St Barths yet. However we are sitting on the quayside besides all the superyachts (Gin Palaces) watching all the rich people in designer gear coming ashore for whatever, it being Sunday I guess it will be church!  Meanwhile we are going for a hike with Paul & Jane to some saltpans, picnic en route and swimming afterwards.  I'll do some more next time we get a connection like this.

Barbados

Andromeda Botanical Gardens Saturday.

We took the bus towards Bathsheba and got off a few stops before. What a superb gardens! They were named after the Greek Goddess because they are chained to the coral rock of the East Coast. It is the only Botanical Garden on the Island and was created by Mrs I Bannochie (1914-1988). She and her husband built their beach house and she promptly set about the garden. It has a hotchpotch of plants from all over the world. On her death she left the Gardens to the Barbados National Trust, they are now managed by Perseus Inc who do a superb job of maintaining such a vast collection .

There were two trails and we did them both, eating our picnic in a shady spot. The second trail was shorter and probably most visited being nearer the main house. I recognised a few plants which I used to keep as house plants back home before we sold up.

The last tree on the tour was Mammea Apple Mammea Americana. This had large brown fruits which drop like missiles. The native monkeys love them. We were fortunate enough to find a neawly dropped specimen and brought it back to taste Pineapple crossed with melon.

Images are in Picasa and more detail in Friends Reunited (Timeline) Well worth the visit,in a few days when I've updated it!

Jackfruit Tree. A member of the Artocarpus (Breadfruit ) Family, these stinky fruits are similar to the Durain. Commonly called the Two Man Fruit since it takes two men to carry them without damaging

Corypha umbraculifera. Talipot Palm, The largest Fan palm in the world. Native of India and Sri Lanka 'flowers' once in it's life between 25-50 years old. It then bears the largest inflorescence in the plant kingdom! (5m). It takes a year (?) to flower and seed followed by the death of the plant. This one is just coming into flower.

Etlingera elatior. Zingiberaceae South East Asia.(Syn Nicolaia elatior, Phaeomeria magnifica.

The Pond Crossing

Here is a pirate copy of Malcolms email, which some of you will not have read.
We have also been to the Barbados Beach Club Hotel to visit Vals' brother Norman, he is on a diet! but looks fit and well! No luck with Picasa so I'll wait 'til we get to St Barts next week and try there.....

Well we made it to the other side, arriving in Barbados on 27 Jan after almost exactly 18 days, which was at least 3 days quicker than we had counted on. The first English person we met when we arrived, had seen Piano when she was new and being fitted out!

Our only serious problem was a failure of the generator water pump impeller on the second day out. Then the replacement failed 7 days later  but luckily the second replacement hasn't suffered the same fate. Also we lost a bowthruster propeller but that almost certainly happened in Las Palmas but we only discovered it while swimming around the boat here.

The distance over the ground was 2538nm, giving an average distance covered of 141miles per day (average speed 5.9 knots). The log recorded 2640nm, giving an average daily run of 147 miles (average speed through the water of 6.1 knots but I'm not sure how accurate the log is!). Our best daily run was 162nm (6.75knots), according to the log or 157nm over the ground and the worst 114nm. In fact we only had 4 days on which we covered less than 140 miles. We only had the mainsail up for 3 or 4 days towards the beginning of the passage - after that it was either one or two yankees and the staysail. While the trip was much faster than we had planned for, it was relatively uncomfortable, with lots of rolling but just two waves broke into the cockpit and the maximum wind we saw was 35 knots (very briefly). Sue coped very well and wasn't seasick at all (probably thanks to the Stugeron).  Otto fished for a while but on the second day, he lost lure, weight and half the line to something that was probably bigger than we wanted to deal with and didn't try again. Still we had fresh meat and some vegetables throughout and ate very well. We saw 2 pilot whales, a turtle or two and quite a few dolphins but generally we were all alone. On the whole trip we saw just a handful of ships, coming within 2 miles of two of them. Our closest encounter was with another British yacht, also bound for Barbados, which we first saw on the AIS at around 15 miles and which finally passed about one mile astern of us. We had a long chat with him on VHF and he was surprised to learn that I had seen his green navigation light from over 7 miles away!

When we arrived, we checked in at Port St Charles, a very upmarket marina village development at the northern end of the west coast before coming down to anchor off the beach in Carlisle Bay, Bridgetown. We've done some exploring, using the excellent (and cheap) bus services and yesterday met up with old Canadian friends Jim Salmon, his wife Deedee and most of his family. We hadn't seen them for about 18 years and it just happened that they were on holiday here this week!

It's a new experience for us, being anchored for so long, rather than being alongside. It's nice to just be able to jump into the water when it gets too hot - we also get the occasional visits from turtles. On the other hand we slightly miss shore power and unlimited fresh water. The beach is superb, with the best sand I've ever seen, but it's quite a windy anchorage, with lots of noise from the beach bars at the weekends We've met up with 4 boats we knew from  the other side of the ocean, including some old friends from our time in Portimao - John and Kerry on Folly.

We'll stay here until towards the end of the week, then probably set off on a 350 mile trip towards the northern end of the Caribbean, to meet some other friends, Paul and Jane, in St Barts.

We hope that everything is well  with you and that the end of winter is in sight (for those of you in Northern latitudes)!

Carlisle Bay, Bridgetown, Barbados.

First let me say that the internet is poor here so I'll have to be brief.
We had a fantastic sail here from La Gomerra, in the Canaries.  Just 18 days straight down the wind with twin Yankees poled out most of the time. Some days we notched up 150 odd nautical miles.
  Since arriving we have been able to swim to the silver sands which they call the beach!  The weather is good, (understatement) but intermittent hot rain showers which last 2-10 minutes and are sooooo refreshing!
 Our friends aboard Folly are here as are Moosher and Life O Reilly.
  Ashore so far we have toured the South Eastern coast and seen the Orchid Gardens.  Travel around is easy with a regular bus service plus yellow buses and minivans in competition but for the same price BA$2 for any trip.
   We have some American friens coming out to St Barts so will probably sail there to see them, and then back to St Lucia where some English friends are having a holiday- but as you know plans change by the day....
  I'll try some pictures if this works