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  New Moon, Rainbows, Dolphins and the Virgin Mary Our 70 mile journey from Les Saintes, Guadeloupe to St. Pierre, Martinique would take us about 10 hours.   In order to arrive in daylight, we needed to set out before sunrise.  Our wake-up alarm went off at 3:50 am, but I was not sleeping that well anyway.  The plastic mooring ball had been bouncing against the hull throughout the night and the hatches were closed due to the intermittent rain, leaving it a little too warm for comfort in our cabin.   Roger got up and put the kettle on and we both got dressed in the clothes we had laid out the night before.   We had a quick breakfast, secured the cabin and headed up on deck with our life jackets and headsets on.  We had secured the dinghy the night before as well, so Pirate was not going to be able to relieve herself until we reached our destination.   Roger went forward to start releasing the lines.  I hear over the headset, ‘Tam, we’ve g...
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  The Necessity of Water We left Ile a Cabrit in Guadeloupe headed for Point a Pitre, with a full main and 3/4 jib.  It was initially an upwind sail, with the wind blowing 16-18 knots.  The jib is on a furling system, which allows us to easily unfurl the sail to meet the weather conditions.  We decided that we could release the rest of the headsail and were moving along steadily at 7+ knots.  The sea state was quite manageable so it was a beautiful sail.   Along the way we crossed paths with a similar sized Dufour sail boat, also headed upwind to Pointe a Pitre, and suddenly a leisurely sail became an unspoken race.  The winds were shifty, and at one point the wind died down to a few knots.  The boats were hardly moving so I said to Roger we should start the motor,  and he said "No, not yet".  My response was, "If the Dufour wasn't there would you have started the engine already?"  Fortunately for Roger, the wind picked up righ...
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  Heading South and New Friends Our plan this year is to head southbound to Guadeloupe and then Martinique where we will meet up with Roger's sister Pam and her husband Ross in late January. Many cruisers follow a rule that states guests can stipulate pickup date or country but not both. The reason is, safe travel by boat can be restricted by weather. We however do not adhere to many rules so we are picking them up on the 28th in Le Marin Martinique. They will sail with us through Martinique and then down to St Vincent and the Grenadines.  The Grenadines is one of Roger's favourite places on this planet, so he is looking forward to sharing these magical islands with his sister.  After dropping them in St Vincent, we will sail north again making our way to the British Virgin Islands where we will spend a month before hauling the boat out at the end of April for hurricane season. While we had lots of time to get to Martinique, we were keen to start our voyage instead of b...
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Pirate Returns to the Caribbean After spending the past 2 Christmas seasons in the Caribbean, we decided to mix it up and stayed at our house in Marco Island this year.  We were joined Christmas Day by some good friends for a delicious rib roast dinner with Yorkshire pudding and all the trimmings.     Several days later, our friend Jimmie B, kindly dropped us off at the Miami airport - a 4 hour return trip - thank you JB!  We headed out on a plane bound for Antigua where Adventure I had been 'on the hard' for the past 8.5 months.  Pirate was greeted at the airport by Dr. Edwards, the local veterinarian, and her entry was approved.  We were able to find a dog friendly taxi who transported us down to Jolly Harbour where,  thanks to all Roger's hard work, Adventure I was already in the water at the dock waiting for us to arrive.  In early December, Roger had flown to Antigua and spent a week getting the boat ready for our next adventure.  E...
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