An update-at last!!!
Normangcarter
Norman Carter
Tue 23 Feb 2010 19:41
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After crossing the Atlantic as crew on "Raylah" a
42ft Island Packet, Sara and I set to working on Norsa, on the hard in Rodney
Bay, St Lucia.She had been their for 6 months and needed quite a lot
of TLC (Norsa not Sara)
We also fitted a Hydrovane self steering
system.
The kids, well Eli, Halen and Ben came over for two
weeks for Christmas which was great. they left on the 1st Jan and we left for
Bequia the next day, caught a tuna and dined well! We left Bequia on the
6th Jan bound for Arruba via Bonnaire and Curacao, where we were to pick up our
friend Adrian Woods who was to join us as far as
Porvenir, Panama.
The sail to Arruba was fine once we had worked the
best sail configuration which was goose winged with a poled out genoa and a
preventer on the main.
390miles later we arrived at Bonnaire where
the whole coast line is a National Park and anchoring is not allowed so one has
to pick up one of the moorings or go into the marina - I chose the later and
what a mistake! eaten by mossies1
We bought a dive from a dive school and
walked into the water from the school straight onto the reef, so well
preserved and the highlight was seeing a tiny yellow frog fish with a huge
mouth!, lots of fairly small turtles and an abundance of fih on the
coral
One of the constaints of having passengers
is that you have to pick them up and drop them off so we were unablaae to
stay longer and left to overnight at Curacao and then to Arruba where checking
in to customs was nothing more than a bllody nightmare.
We had to visit the commercial port where we rafted
against a dodgy looking Venezuelan boat which Sara crossed to access the
customs office.The guys on board were friendly enough an gave me an armful of
mangos but a short while later decided to leave and just cast me off - my first
experience of being on Norsa alone.
Adrian had arrived so we made our way to the Marina
and stayed there a couple of nights.Close by we found an amazing little
restaurant that did the best steak I have eaten and before I finish this
blog I'll find the name of it just in case you should go
there!
The next leg
There is a guy by the name of Chris Parker who each
day does an ssb transmition for the weather in the whole of the Caribbean and
his general advice was not to bother with the route that we were about to take
for the next 6 weeks! but there were a number of yachts who had little option
but to go and we were one of them.
The other advice was to stay well out from shore
and we did. After 48 hrs of very heavy seas, heavy winds - a sustained F9, a
broken goose neck and being pooped and under storm jib only and still doing up
to 9 knts I discussed the situation with Sara and Adrian and decided to go
inshore and follow a route written by Lourae and Randy Kennofel and
printed in Caribbean Compass in June 2001and an updated in August 2006. We
found these articles extremely useful and found a safe and peaceful anchorage at
Punta Hermosa and after several G+T's had a wonderful nights rest.
The next day found us in Cartagena, Columbia.Many
sailors speak highly of this place and although the old city is very interesting
I found it dirty and oppressive - always lift your dinghy and lock your
outboard!
Well I've started and there is so much more to
write, so more tomorrow - I think there's a cold beer in the
fridge.
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