Voyage 15

Our 15th voyage aboard Kalunamoo ended when it was hauled and placed on the hard on June 10^th. The list of M&R to be completed by October includes work on the davits and their deck mounting to fix leaks, repair cap rail leaks, thru-hull modifications, new house batteries, repair some hidden interior carpentry, and routine cleaning and bottom painting. After all, it is our home that we must maintain (and keep afloat) and of which, most of the work, has to be done when the boat is out of the water. For eight months a year, only emergency work is done while we sail around the islands. For two of the four hurricane months we “vacation” off the boat. The other times we are still aboard but not afloat.

Last June the title of the first blog of Voyage 15 was “Slaves of the Sea”.  It concerned the social aspect of liveaboard cruising on a sailboat. No need to repeat what I wrote but this season confirmed our basic idea of what our lifestyle has come to be. High adventure to distant shores is for younger folk than us. New and distance ports are certainly worthy of sailing to, but we became Stuck in Paradise and having some Quality Time becomes us; and the social interaction with those we meet. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ui6A-IyGLA

As far as quality time, we did meet Bankie Banx in 2017 in Anguilla at his Rendezvous Bay Dunes Preserve with Doug and Katie, s/v CASA TU, on one of our road tours. Perhaps Paradise is not as exotic as assumed but neither is reality so immutable as experienced. Or as Bob Bitch’n proclaims, the difference between ordeal and adventure is attitude.

The social scene in Paradise this voyage began with meeting the Salty Dawgs in Antigua. Bob, Brenda and their son Christopher (s/v PANDORA) were there along with about 100 other Dawgs. Fun times for a couple of weeks. Our daughter Melanie and son-in-law Dave came down in January for a week which is always an enjoyable and welcome visit. The weather was perfect while they were with us. The day they left it turned windy and rainy for about a month.

We sailed to Martinique to spend some quality time with Nada and Polda (ex-s/v NADA) in St Anne. They swallowed the hook a few years ago and manage to come to Martinique for a month or so every February. We caught up with them to take a few car trips, eat bokits at Boubou and played some Mexican Dominoes. We hope to see them again this summer in Massachusetts.

In St Lucia we met up with a number of cruisers and ex-cruisers in Rodney Bay at beach BBQ’s, the marina’s resturants and Mexican Train Dominoes. Jason (s/v BLUE BLAZE) was instrumental in plugging a corroded thru hull that was very disconcerting!

Further down the island chain in Bequia, the cruisers we came across were BEBE, TEGAN, REMEDY, SWEET CAROLINE and EXODUS all cruisers we have come to know. Janet and Joe (s/v TEGAN) who we saw in St. Lucia and Bequia, added to my ongoing efforts to promote cruiser’s musical jams. We first met them years ago in Trinidad and they only just recently completed their 20+ year circumnavigation.   

Mark and Cathy on NANCY LU were in Grenada when we anchored in Prickly Bay. Mark was very active on the Coconut Telegraph this season, which is an old-style social network on SSB HF radio. Yes, we can still communicate without Star Link! They introduced us to Sabrina Francis at the Tree House, way up in the mountains of Grenada. A unique evening listening to Sabrina and her band in a very intimate setting.

Our voyage ended in Trinidad as it has been for the last number of years. Mark and Willie (s/v LEAHONA) are back in Trinidad after a few years in Puerto Rico. One night, we got together with them and Jesse James, his wife Sharon Rose and other cruisers for dinner at the Meena House, a great Indian restaurant in Port of Spain. Good times catching up again!

Voyage 16 will commence when we splash Kalunamoo in late October. The Eastern Caribbean will again be our sailing area, where we will anticipate meeting cruisers we know and ones we will come to know. Perhaps Slaves of the Sea connotated a too negative view of liveaboard cruising but does convey the considerable difference between living on land and living on the sea. I’ll leave it to the reader to determine which is more like slavery. At the very least, living on the sea does demand actions that must be taken to survive. The primary one being: keep the sea out of the boat. The summer will see us visiting family and friends in the States as well as in the UK (Doug and Katie) and a ‘busman’s holiday” in Turkey aboard a gullet with 5 other couples. Travel will be by jet, as Kalunamoo rests in Trinidad and awaits our return in the fall.