All the talk about sailing prompted me to rummage around for some photos of a leisurely couple of weeks in and around the French West Indies. When I finally found 'em, I decided this might be a good time of year to share these (mostly) sunny vistas. Enjoy!
The crew consisted of two Iowans, two Tennesseans (sp?), and two Virginians. This Iowan hid behind the camera. :)
A link would probably help...
Nice looking reportage.
This was my sisters genius - some quiet (well, not /always/ quiet) time for catching up and storytelling on a rented boat in a pleasant place. Six people sharing the chores (and splitting the boat rental) made for lots of relaxation and a surprisingly inexpensive vacation.
That's what I'd like to do when I retire.
Did you notice that the islands are all volcanic? I'd never realized that before.
from the ocean floor. Montserrat is in that neighbourhood, right?
Montserrat is the next inhabited island down (~30 miles) from Nevis. The island itself was marked off-limits on our charts (because one of its 3 volcanos is active), so we swung around Nevis and headed back north.
Morris Dovey wrote in news:hj61jk$mip$2 @speranza.aioe.org:
I'm jealous. It is wintry here in Jersey ...
Great photos, Morris! Please do tell me when you need a crew member ...
Montserrat and also leaving us with a DVD of Mark Knopfler doing Brothers In Arms (Just awesome) and Paul McCartney doing Golden Slumbers in a way that's almost creepy... that how good it is. The song on it are: Take Me Home (Phil Collins), Hot, Hot, Hot (Arrow), Blue Suede Shoes (Carl Perkins), Volcano (Jimmy Buffett), Brothers in Arms, Money For Nothing (Mark Knopfler), Message In a Bottle, Magic (Sting), Your Song, Live Like Horses, Don't Let the Sun Go Down On Me (Elton John), Broken Hearted, Layla, Same Old Blues (Eric Clapton), Yesterday, Golden Slumbers, Hey Jude, Kansas City (Paul McCartney). I can't believe that was done 13 years ago.
Google Earth really shows the devastation and gives a bit of an inkling how a tropical paradise can be transformed into hell-on-earth is just a few short moments.
Excellent pictures...
One of your friends has a local t-shirt on...
"Litchfield Beach" is here in my neighborhood.
Thanks. I probably should have taken more - but was too busy gabbing most of the time to remember the camera.
I had to look. Fred (in the t-shirt) and Marty (in aqua) hail from the Volunteer State. I believe that if it were possible, they'd move Tennessee to the coast. :)
It's been frozen and foggy here for most of the past week, with freezing rain all day today - perfect weather for looking at photos of past vacations and planning the next...
On Tue, 19 Jan 2010 22:42:17 -0600, the infamous Morris Dovey scrawled the following:
Beautiful boat, beautiful surroundings. Cool. Was that big blue thang in front a spinnaker sail wrapped around a pole on a bow line? It looked like it had a winding mechanism on the bottom. Cool2.
The Athéna is/was a rental Beneteau 34 and is indeed a beautiful, easy-to-sail boat. The sail is called a genoa (like a jib except that when unfurled a genoa extends behind the mast to overlap the main).
The furler allows furling/unfurling a genoa or jib from the comfort of the cockpit. Clever, eh? :)
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6 folks on a 34.Needless to say your were a friendly bunch.
On my 30, when people asked, "How many...", I had a standard answer.
"Day sail a dozen, sundowners and/or dinner for 6, and at the end of the evening, there is room for a bunk buddy and me."
BTW, that Genny a 150?
Lew
We got on well, and the only time it felt a bit cramped was during meal preparations - which the gals solved by limiting the galley crew to two of them at a time on a rotating schedule, and by scheduling the men (one to grill and two to supervise) to grill the meat (topside) and dry the dishes. I was usually first awake, so I put on the morning coffee and sloshed a couple of buckets of water around the cockpit to chase the sand/crumbs out. I think we all adopted some regular chores, and that helped make life easy.
It was a group with remarkably diverse (and to me, fascinating) life experiences, considerable fondness for humor, and many stories to share...
Athéna had three staterooms and two heads, so if anyone wanted to get up and fix a midnight snack, they could do that without disturbing anyone other than possibly their bunk mate.
A dozen would have felt crowded. I think I'd have been inclined to put the second six in the dinghy. :)
I don't know.
Two cooks in the galley of a 34, now that is an accomplishment.
One way or another, a schedule evolves.
That's why talking to people is so much fun.
A dozen was definitely not much more than a harbor cruise.
If the Genny was big enough to lap back past the side stays holding up the mast, it was probably a "150".
Translation:
There are various sizes of triangular head sails starting with a working sail or 100% which is the size developed by the sail designer.
Each sail is a little larger, 110%, 120%, 135%, 150%, and sometimes even a 170%.
A 150 is quite common as the largest or #1 head sail.
A spinnaker or "chute" is a whole different thing.
(More than you ever wanted to know about sails)
Lew
Then that's probably what it was - it'd seem reasonable that these boats are rigged so as to be most familiar to most people.
I don't recall seeing a bag of appropriate size, but if we'd been aware of one, we probably would have passed. That trip was all about taking it easy. Carol and I only get to sail every couple of years, and I gather the same is true for Fred and Marty - so we brought more enthusiasm than experience. My sister Lisa and her husband John sail an O'Day 302 out of Yorktown whenever they can.
Not so - I get kidded about being "Dr What-Why-How", Dr Who's long lost not-quite oriental cousin. It's fortunate that John likes to talk about sailing or I'd have been left somewhere along the way. :)
On Wed, 20 Jan 2010 22:39:13 -0600, the infamous Morris Dovey scrawled the following:
Extremely. I like it!
Ugh, I just Watcoed a piece of moulding for a client's rental and my fingers reek of it, even through the latex gloves.
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Ah-Ha, now it makes sense.
Somebody had to have some sailing experience.
They just don't charter a boat to just anybody without some documented experience.
Lew
The guy at the helm in the picture, with the foul weather slicker and a cup of coffee in hand, sure had that cast in his eye that said "sailor".
The only thing missing was the patch and the pegleg.
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