bob's blog

Judy and I arrived on Virgin Gorda on Dec 30th, 2002. We walked over to Sea View at the Wheel House only to find that there was no one on the desk. There was a phone number posted at the metal gate to the reception area. I walked over to Virgin Gorda Yacht Harbor to call the number and blew through all my quarters without getting an answering machine. Bad number, swallowed the coin, lost the coin at the fuel dock, “all circuits are busy please try your call later.” I knew it was time for a beer.

I got more quarters and tried the phones at the other end of the parking lot, by the showers, with similar results. No message machine, no problem! I went back over to the Sea View, and lo and behold, my daughter shows up, with the only key it turns out. Getting through to the front desk wouldn’t have done any good anyway! Welcome to the islands mon.

This was an incident of two ships not passing in the daytime but actually, fortunately connecting at the door to the air conditioned room that the three of us would share for the next few days. And a glorious three days it was. Installed a new diesel tank on the thirty first, rang in the New Year with rum and champagne and music well past midnight, spent New Year’s day unfolding my bird wings in the boat yard and put the fish body in the lift for the splash on the second. The diesel kicked in, we motored 10 yards to the diesel pump, loaded up 25 gals of diesel, 150 gals of water, and picked up a load of ice. A pleasant night at a slip rounded out the preparations for slipping our lines on January 3, 2003.

My daughter had a return flight on January 5th, so we made our way down to West End, checked out on the morning of the 5th and headed to Red Hook.

I spend the whole day on the 6th doing the running lights over, shopping for flares, a few extra life preservers, some electrical connectors for a new deck light, another fire extinguisher, charging up the batteries for the blender, installing a new mirror in the head, and securing the water tank on the starboard side with holddowns. The 7th called for us to do a good wash down inside and out for the trip to St Martin and to get the forward berth ready for additional company. Around five p.m. I wandered around American Yacht Harbor looking for Richard, trying to figure out what happened to him. Judy called the office and there was a message from Richard saying he was in Red Hook and “by the way where the hell are you”?

We wandered over to the ferry dock and caught Richard, Lynn and Matt as they were discussing getting the ferry over to St. John. “Richard, Richard, Richard,” I said, “why St. John?” “I distinctly told you American Yacht Harbor.” “Why didn’t you just walk along the dock?”

“Oh, right,” says he, “but I thought you kept the boat on St. John?” “Well,” says I, “your just lucky that our two ships didn’t pass in the daytime and we connected.” “Let’s have a beer!”

The dates started to roll toward our departure on the night of the 9th, which we spent on Cooper, just below Virgin Gorda. We slipped the mooring there around 5 a.m. on the 10th on a bearing of 124 degrees.

It just so happened that Richard had grown up in Haiti. He left there some thirty five years before, a displaced American, traveling the mission circuit with his preacher father. I only mention that because while we were sailing to St. Martin with Virgin Gorda on our stern, another boat was doing the reverse with St. Martin on their stern and Virgin Gorda dead ahead. Their boat also had a person from Haiti on board. In fact it had 70 people from Haiti on board and they made a very hard landing indeed in the black of night on Virgin Gorda.

The British Virgin Island Authorities started rounding up the survivors on Friday, January 10th.

On the 11th I checked into the market scene by the new marina in Marigot. Everything was different but not much had changed. The pain au chocolat was a wonderful breakfast. We found an old ironing board for Richard so he could iron his going ashore clothes in the dinghy at the head of the bay. I know that sounds a little strange to most of you, but he’s seriously into a new sport called X-treme Irony where you haul an ironing board to remote or inaccessible places and get photographed doing the mundane. It’s big in New Zealand, I guess. I had never heard of it myself.

We dropped Richard at the fuel dock in Philipsburg on the afternoon of the 13th. The only unusual activity at all was a French Coast Guard boat that was shooting depth soundings all around the inner harbor and the fuel dock area. I think they were looking for anomalies. They seemed friendly and detached, smiling each time they approached my vessel. They were mildly entertaining, with their curious recording devices. Cameras at the ready.

We moved over to St. Barts on Wed. Jan 15th. St. Barts was a swap deal between the French and the Swedes. King Gustav III was marrying off some royal blood line to the French and to sweeten the deal, the French gave the Swedes St. Barts for a warehouse in Gotheberg. Later the Swedes sold the Island back to France. There was a stipulation made as part of the deal. A very interesting notion in the age of piracy. If you could get your sorry ass to St. Barts, it didn’t matter how or who was pursuing you, the Island would provide sanctuary. Many of the first settlers were former prisoners and the flat broke. Pirates settled there as well with bags of money. One of the most famous was MonBars the Exterminator. A curious mix of desperados had to agree to become French citizens. A referendum passed and St. Barts became a French Island. St. Barts settled into French wine and cheese, for lunch every day, topless if that appeals to you. I know it appeals to me.

We returned to St. Maarten on Sunday Jan 19th . We motored past Bobby’s fuel dock where a couple in a day sloop waved us off. “Closed on sundays!” We thought about putting the hook down for lunch but decided instead to keep heading up to Simpson Baie. We passed a curious blue boat with a pilot house hailing from Dominica, parked on the Dutch Side. Nobody was moving about on deck, on this lazy Sunday afternoon.

We finally got into Simpson Bay and dropped the hook for hors d’oeuvres, after a short interlude at a deserted lunch spot, around three thirty or so and I went hunting for ice. I was curious why the guy with the camera wanted my picture so I approached him to see if he knew where I could get some ice and a closer look at his face. He nodded toward the Mega boat in the background. "Good luck." He clicked a few more shots and left. I finally found some ice after motoring through the entire inner lagoon. Man have you ever seen so many Megas! Boat lift capacity that would make Fidel shudder. Or should I say Miami?

I got back to the boat and poured a couple of rum drinks with lime and ice, the way she’s gotta have it. The green Heineken Cat was returning with a trampoline full of party folks around five. Not ten minutes later the Coast Guard arrives, five guys, no nonsense business folk. They pull up to the cat and do the formal request for identification, at attention, four guys on the cat, one guy in the dink. Thank you Sir! After ten or so minutes the guests are allowed to disembark, and the incident plays out without a hitch. “Curious,” says I, to no one in particular. “They looked at the wrong boat.” The green Heineken Cat is advertising fun that other blue boat downtown is advertising stealth.

On Monday, we motored back into Philipsburg to get diesel, water and ice. The place was as bit busy with a nice motor yacht with a nice looking French couple doing some clean up at the fuel dock another guy fueling up and us, doing lazy circles around the blue boat from Dominica. Teco and Taco on board. The front end has a bowsprit, a tattered looking set of sails, a gerry rigged aft end with an outboard mounted aft that could only control the boat when Teco was perched on it steering with his foot. I wanna say “King Fish” “Island Fisher”, but it could have been “Queen Something or Other”. It was hand painted in white script on the blue hull, like someone was using a q-tip dipped in white paint. It had a red or pink accent strip on a hard chine separating the flush deck with the hull. The pilot house was a shack, no running lights, a couple of life preservers for bumpers along one side. “A real working boat,” I mutter to myself.

As the situation eased on the fuel dock, I pulled in and right on my ass the blue boat pulls in. I get the nod from the fuel guy to pull myself all the way forward and tie off, and I slipped on aft to help fend off the oncoming bowsprit which is a mere two feet from my aft stay. Must be a bit bigger than my 37 feet and taller too, I register my dismay at the near disaster of tying them up. These guys had clothesline for dock lines and nothing to hold up their pants.

Teco says “thanks” for the tie up on the aft end. “No problem, where you guys from?” “Dominica”. “How’s your boat sail in these waters”. “Do you have a beer for me?” Teco gets right to the point.

“Sure man, do you want a Heineken or a Carib?” He shrugged. I decide, two beers, one for each of them, a Heineken and a Carib. Let them sort it out, fellow sailors, plying the blue green water. I look into the aft cabin on my way out of the galley and there is the ditty bag with a bank envelope sticking out the end. In clear view of anyone on the dock. I hand him the beers and slip into the aft cabin. How incredibly careless. I sent Judy up town to buy some food and she left the ditty bag out so I could pay for diesel. I slip a fifty in my pocket and bury the ditty bag. I jump up to the dock and nod to the fuel guy. He was watching the whole scene, behind a pair of very dark and very distant wraparound sunglasses.

Just then a ferry moves by and we get a big bump at the dock. My boat is not that heavy, I think, steel boats have big mass. I wonder what he’s got lurking below.

I get diesel, I get dinghy gas, I get water and ice. They get water. They’re gone before I notice. I settle up and head to the French side for a couple more days of hanging out.

I sailed back from Marigot to Virgin Gorda, coming in dead nuts on the Round Rock, pulled on down the channel to Dead Man’s Bay and dropped the hook as the moon was coming out on the morning of the 24th. Had breakfast the next morning after sunrise and went downtown to see my man at customs. “St. Martin,” I volunteer, “got in last night.”

“Work with us, we work with you.” She says. “Enjoy your stay.”

I did Foxy’s 35th, my first Bahn Here beer, jammed with Shango and bought some bread from Pam’s kitchen at Annagada. A nice way to wind down from the New Year. I picked up the Beacon on the 6th. More migrants showed up on the 2nd. “Blue Guys came back”, I think to myself.

“Keep it legal”, I told those guys on the 4th at Cooper during the weave up, when they came by to check my papers. It was blowing like stink. The Customs guys blew off in their inflatable promising a bit more air. “Got to keep in shape”, they yelled back. I’d be surprised if the blue guys made it. They must have been in that blow on the 4th on the return trip. Going to weather. Did they file a float plan anywhere? Maybe they won’t be coming back.

I came back to the yard on the seventh, flew out on the tenth.

Lives are at risk in every part of this tale. Some sailors have instruments others risk it all.

What you don’t know can kill you. If you want to know more, send a fuel guy to work for Bobby’s.

If you like my writing, you can contact me at Bob@Rivard.Net">Bob@Rivard.Net......,

or you could deposit directly to my account at Barclay’s on Virgin Gorda.