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Tomas
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It's been a long while since you were last graced with our wit and wisdom, so there is a lot of ground to cover. We last left you in our hot tropical paradise of Tobago with a general plan of going north after hurricane season to Tyrell Bay where we made arrangements to resurface our teak deck. We did spend the last three weeks of October getting this work done by an extremely hardworking local shipwright named Nolan. Tyrell Bay is a hurricane hole with a nice mangrove swamp to hide in when the 'cane threatens.
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Susie and Nolan
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Since the hurricane season officially ends in December, we felt it reasonably safe to head north to Puerto Rico to catch a flight home for a Thanksgiving visit after the work was done. The tropical waves coming off the coast of Africa had changed from a regular procession of embryonic cyclones to just the occasional sporadic wanderer mostly spiraling harmlessly off into the northern Atlantic. When Nolan finished the deck there was just one wave over the horizon. It was forecast to arrive as only a tropical storm and to enter the Caribbean well to the south of us along Trinidad or even Venezuela. It's a long trip to Puerto Rico and we felt reasonably safe sailing north in the two weeks remaining. We thought the worst case would be a stop in Le Marin, Martinique - another excellent and roomy hole to hide in which we would be passing as the storm arrived. We headed out of Carriacou planing on sailing as far north as the winds allowed. However, when night fell, the skies were dark and there was thunder and lightening all around. We were just passing Bequia and decided to stop in, sleep and check the weather in the morning. We are familiar enough with Admiralty Bay that anchoring in the dark is not anywhere near as scary as sailing around in a lightening storm.
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360 degree trip track during Tomas
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Tucked up against hills we went to sleep content that our "hurricane plan" of running well away from hurricanes had worked well this season. In the morning, the weather reports predicted that the storm would head north of us! Continuing north would be heading into the storm and ducking south might just well have the same effect. The good news was that the it was expected to just be a tropical storm when it passed the island chain. So we changed the plan to "hunker down here and see which way the wind blows". We moved the boat to the other side of the bay where we thought we would get more protection from the north and west. We snorkeled the anchor and took down canvas, stuff that might blow away and settled in to await developments.
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Island Freighter in Tomas
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Around 10:00 am the wind started picking up and a small local fuel barge tied up close to us. We were not thrilled as we could expect to swing 360 degrees no matter what kind of storm came through and it clearly would not work to stay where we were. Most of the locals did not seem too concerned however and we just moved back across the bay to the original location to settle in. By late afternoon we were starting to rock and roll. The storm was by now a category 1 hurricane and passing between Martinique and Saint Lucia about 100 miles to the north. We were on the "good" side of the storm and the hurricane was "small" but we still spent a sleepless night amidst the roar of the storm and the violent rocking and banging of the boat. Water was flying everywhere and many of the big ferries and island freighters were dragging anchor. The noise inside the boat was terrible and Susie spent most of the night wrapping things in towels to cut down on the racket and I spent most of the night trying to peer through the flying water for signs we were dragging or that others were dragging down on us. Not an experience we wish to repeat. To quote Susie: "it was better than I feared and worse than I expected." The new hurricane plan: put the boat on the hard for hurricane season and get the hell out of Dodge.
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Home for Thanksgiving
Yuki, Emma, Karl & Leighton
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click for movie in the windup to Tomas
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Queen Emma buzzing along in Christmas winds
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The waves, rain and wind settled down surprisingly quickly when the storm was gone. One boat was lost on the rocks in Admiralty Bay and another lost a mast but no one was hurt and the land side did not suffer too much damage. The story was different however for St. Lucia. As we passed by the southern part of the island, we listened to local radio. The southern end of the island was completely cut off from the north and all the bridges were washed away. The reservoir was broken and water was already a problem. We could see big chunks of the hills had come down and over a dozen people were killed by mud slides. The wind was not the problem, it was the shear volume of rain! Martinique is a part of France and damages there were more quickly repaired but there were signs that several boats had blown onto the reefs even there. Tomas was a bit of a wobbler however and was lurking to the west, forecast to pass north. Still we continued northward planning on making it to the airport in San Juan for our planned trip.
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| Quay at St. Barths |
Progress was very slow however. Tomas was wandering around in the Eastern Caribbean and seemed to be moving north as well. Though well to the west of us. it sucked up all the wind. Now it was dead still and we ended up doing a very long motor/sail to Antigua. We entered Falmouth in the dark and realized in the morning that traveling on to Puerto Rico would entail a good deal of motoring in the best case. In the worst case, there was substantial risk of running into our old friend, Tomas, a second time! After watching the looping path of Tomas for a while, we decided to leave the boat in Antigua and just fly to San Juan from there to catch our flight home. We ran into the charming young adults of the South African catamaran "Faith" in the internet cafe and pitched them on boat sitting Queen Emma while we were gone. We knew them from Tobago and everyone was amenable to the plan. We returned to a clean, well-cared-for boat after the holidays ready to continue north to meet guests in St. Martin. Tomas had done damage up north in Saint Martin, Anegada and Tortola until it finally dissipated. We were glad we hadn't gone on.
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| karl on Sandy Island |
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| Yuki on Sandy Island |
With Tomas gone, we made rapid passages up to Saint Martin. In fact, after nearly a month of no wind, the "Christmas winds" came to dominate the weather reports. Boats coming to the Caribbean visualize gently wafting palms when they hear of "trade winds". In winter those winds are regularly blowing 25 knots and gusting much higher. As one exhausted British sailor complained, "These sailing conditions are much more like you might find in the Solent than the gentle sailing I expected." We met up with our son and his fiancee and had a great time sailing in the area of Saint Martin. We made fast sails to St. Barths, playground of the rich and infamous. We sailed around busy Saint Martin and visited tranquil Anguilla. The sailing was fast and fun but the snorkeling was often hampered by the wind stirred waters. During their stay, we broke two snubbers. When this line on the anchor chain (which serves to break the shock of the boat blowing against its anchor) first broke, we thought it must have been weakened by all the stretching it underwent in Tomas. When the second one broke, we increased the size of the line and improved the chafe protection. So far, it is still good but it's blowing pretty hard and the third snubber has had to have emergency repairs.
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Queen Emma at 11 Mile beach
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Our second set of guests arrived in Saint Martin for a planned trip to Barbuda. Barbuda is a long, low island of pristine waters and miles of deserted, pink tinged beaches. We couldn't sail straight to Barbuda because the wind was from the east and so we sailed 83 miles as close as possible into the winds to Antigua. Green water coming over the bow the whole way found new ways into the boat and we now have some leaks to fix that even Tomas did not find. Our friends are sailors so they were very patient with the long ride from St. Martin to Antigua and the wind driven change of plans. We did eventually make it to Barbuda and anchored for a few days off 11 mile beach. We had a fabulous trip to the Frigate Bird colony by George of Garden of Eden. He picks you up on the beach and motors you across the lagoon to the handfull of mangrove bushes where most of the island chain's Frigate birds are bred. We then moved around to Spanish Point where we nosed in among the coral heads for some spectacular snorkeling. One advantage of the surplus wind: plenty of power for reading lights, movies and music.
The plan now is to spend a while trying to fix leaks while we are still here in Antigua. Then we will head south to our beloved Saint Lucia. Assuming the weather permits.
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George of Garden of Eden at the frigate bird colony
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