By Fair Grace

So, after the necessary farewells, and not knowing when we might return this way next, we drifted gently out of Penbscot Bay and pointed Fair Grace to what felt like North but is actually closer to East. We slipped past Mount Desert Island and Schoodic Point into the more remote “Downeast” part of Maine.

We were feeling a little shy at this point as, after leaving Belfast we were technically illegally in US waters. Well, it's a longish story, but essentially we should have renewed our cruising permit which only lasts for 12 months. We did try. Having phoned the Customs and Border Protection office in Bangor who assured us they could renew it, we drove our borrowed Land Rover up to the airport where the officials were somewhat embarrassed to admit that they didn't actually know how to renew it without FG having left the country. They told us to call them before we left, which we did, and then told us we must declare ourselves outbound to Canada.... We didn't have much option at that point, but decided to carry on up the coast in any case.

There was a slightly nervous moment when a large coastguard cutter came tearing down to coast towards us the following day, but it flew straight past, apparently on the hunt for a dead whale(quite why we never discovered) Other than that, we spent most of the next week in thick fog, but in a completely enclosed, heavily wooded anchorage on Great Wass Island.

The weather forecast for our crossing of the Bay of Fundy to Nova Scotia was frustratingly changeable, with favourable weather windows disappearing as they approached. In the end we became so frustrated that we left our anchorage in thick fog and with a heavy swell running. Not the most tranquil of exits, especially as I had managed to reverse onto one of the prolific lobsterpot buoys only moments after getting the anchor up. After a bracing swim armed with a sharp knife we managed to get clear and retie the buoy to its pot. The exit from between the islands with barely visible surf breaking on rocks close on either side was a little un-nerving, but things settled down once we cleared the shallow water and the fog even lifted for a few hours.

After a very damp, cold night, the next morning revealed another change in the weather forecast and we decided to head for Yarmouth instead of the planned Shelburne. We were starting to get a bit more accustomed to sailing in fog by this time, but it's not really much fun at the best of times and downright creepy at others. We heard whales blowing around us, some really close, but saw none. Then later saw a ship headed down the bay towards us which then vanished into a bank of murk about a mile away.

The visibility was so poor approaching Yarmouth that we nearly crashed into the buoy marking the entrance before seeing it, but radar and GPS make this sort of entry possible for us now, even with a strong Fundy cross tide running.

Yarmouth is a friendly, if slightly socially challenged little town. Like all of the ports on this coast, it has a proud history of fishing and shipbuilding, but the demise of one and then the other of these has caused real hardship. We enjoyed our stay, but came to the conclusion that in addition to the economic hardships, the gene pool might be somewhat limited....

And the verdict on Canada so far? We'll let you know when we can actually see it.

Yeah, well I know it's not a prime sailing destination, but hey.....
Pitched up here in Qatar a week ago after a rash decision to accept an offer of a job with Halcrow.

One couldn't, in all fairness, say that the country is scenically well endowed. The adjectives that most readily spring to mind are: brown, dusty etc. But on the positive side it feels very safe, actually quite civilized and mostly well organised. The most dangerous thing is the driving, as all Qataris (who make up only 20%of the population) own Land Cruisers and appear to be in something of a hurry.

The weather is pleasant. Blue skies and warm days, cool nights. But come the summer, it is hot..... I mean really hot. Like 120 degrees hot.... which I can't say I'm looking forward to.

The building is mostly modern and uninspiring, apart from some of the high rise blocks which are actually rather spectacular and imaginitive and about the only thing worth photographing.

As it happens, the job is pretty interesting. The scale of the work takes a bit of getting used to, with each of the various construction packages valued in hundreds of millions of pounds, and is a slight change from dealing with our cruising budget of 20 pounds a day. But it does have one or two....er......issues. Still, if it was all going smoothly I wouldn't be here. It must be said that coming back to a particularly intense project after 3 years of not doing any paid work has taken a little adjustment, but at the moment it's not without its excitement and stimulation.

Lucia is still at home sorting out the house and waiting for the visa paperwork to be finalised before coming out.

I'm just coming up to my first weekend here (actually Friday and Saturday) so looking forward to doing a little exploring....

Well, surprise surprise, the plan changed again.

When it came to it, the crew was a little reluctant to put to sea from Norfolk, where we spent a pleasant few days taking in some big city sights and enjoying the company of friends that we’d met in Florida and to our surprise, Rolf and Femke in their drop-dead-gorgeous steel ketch, Rajac, who we last saw in Portugal heading across and towards the Pacific. At least it’s not just our plans that change...... theirs was adjusted after a 50% increase in their crew by baby Sil, now 7 months old.

Norfolk is the home of the US navy and the array of ships is really something to behold. It makes our home port of Plymouth with its Royal Navy base seem positively small time.

So, meanwhile hurricane Bertha was lurking out in the Atlantic and Tropical Cyclone Cristobal was causing trouble down in the Carolinas, so we decided to take the inside route up the Chesapeake instead. I guess that we didn’t see the very best of the bay. We’d got to the stage of being a bit fed up with the heat and un-nerving thunder storms, water spouts etc, and wanted to get up to Maine, however we did stop in Annapolis which is a charming town and home of the Naval College. Felt a bit like Dartmouth but hotter and, lets be fair, rather more grand.

Through the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal and down Delaware Bay was hot, hazy and undistinguished except by yet more thunderstorms. So at last we came to the point where there was no option but to put out to sea for the 100 mile uneventful trip up to New York.

After a night recovering just inside the Bay, we made an early morning run up into the Hudson River. While I’m not naturally a city person, this has to rate as one of the most exciting bits of the journey so far. Sailing past the Statue of Liberty and the Manhattan waterfront was simply jaw dropping. Anchorages are a bit scarce in NY harbour and the tide runs up to 5kn in places, so we decided to take a convenient but rather uncomfortably bouncy mooring at the 79th St Basin.

We unloaded the now slightly rusty bikes into the dinghy and within half an hour we were cycling down Broadway with skyscrapers, yellow cabs, neon lights, bagel shops etc all around. It’s difficult to describe how arriving somewhere by small boat feels quite different from any other means. To say that it felt unreal doesn’t really convey the full weirdness of jumping off Fair Grace and being there in what is anyway a bizarrely alien city but full off familiar landmarks and references.

Suffice to say that we spent the next week cycling around trying to see as many things as we could, and while our legs got tired, we really never tired of just looking around (and mostly up) and taking it all in. We also visited Halcrow NY office which is on the 31st floor overlooking the World Trade Centre site (construction still not above ground level).
We decided that it would be easy to spend a lot more time in NY.....as long as one had considerably more money than we currently have.....


Sailing out of the city and into Long Island Sound is rather like going out the back door of NY harbour, and was just as spectacular as arriving, but the next day brought a bit of a shock as the temperature dropped to a shocking 70 degrees during the morning and saw us in full oilskins, socks and woolly hats until midday.

Our thoughts that we would escape the thunderstorms when north of NY were dashed when the first night brought warnings of severe storms with tornadoes just a couple of miles away from us, but luckily we only caught the edge of it.

The last push took us through the Cape Cod Canal, a short cut route through the neck of the cape and out into CC Bay where we lost count of the number of (humpback) whales and dolphins we saw.

So here we are now in Maine, where we arrived after an overnighter and the last 6 hours in thick fog, for which this coast is renowned. We heard motors going by.....felt the wash of passing boats, smelt pine trees, but saw nothing but white while cautiously nosing our way into Penobscot Bay, except a bouy that Lucia nearly ran into, and lobster pots so numerous that it was sometimes literally difficult to find a path through them. Finally, as we approached a cove that was to be our stop for the night, rocks loomed out of the murk ahead and then a few minutes later we emerged with shocking and implausible suddenness into a warm clear sunlit afternoon and a ruggedly beautiful wooded cove.

We really felt like we’d arrived.

Well, the good news is that we’re in the States and have our cruising permit after a trouble free but windless passage from Isla Mujeres.

The bad news is that we’ve discovered, now that we’ve got to Fort Myers, that the Okeechobee canal is effectively impassable for us, having about 4ft depth due to drought.

So, with the initial shock and swearing session past, we’ve braced ourselves for the trip down and around the corner.........

The other downside is that after refusing to shell out $60 per night in a marina (special reduced rate mind you) is that we’re anchored between two rather charming motorway bridges......... but it’s free!

The natives so far appear friendly although some of their customs we find strange....

Lucia has already eaten far too much ice cream and feels slightly queazy!

When I said that the next posting would be from Cuba via the Dominican republic, I was clearly lying. We’re now in Jamaica, via Haiti....

In truth it’s been a while since writing properly and that’s really a function of the places we’ve been. The islands have been, without exception, scenically beautiful. The people, similarly, have been friendly and happy and each place has had its own particular character.

So.... we’ve really enjoyed working our way up the Windwards. After Trinidad, we bashed up to Grenada, hard on the wind and with the trades blowing freshly and a strong current pushing us westwards. Not an easy sail, but just one night which made it OK. Grenada was very different from Trinny; good housing and a feeling of being financially secure, in spite of having been utterly ravaged by hurricane Ivan only a few years previously. We spent a day or two in Prickly Bay, with maybe 50 other boats then headed 5 miles or so up the coast into Port Egmont, probably the best Hurricane hole in the southern Caribbean. We spent a secluded week or so in there with just Mick and Bee for company, sitting out a spell of even windier than usual trade winds (by all accounts it has been and unusually windy year).

There is poverty there, but (and maybe this is a bit facile) somehow it doesn’t seem quite as bad when there is such abundance of fruits growing everywhere and which apparently seem to be there for the picking. We went on a hash through the jungle at the north end of the island and, by chatting to a local, ended up trying all sorts of fruit from what appeared to be every second or third tree. Spectacularly good were cocoa seeds. After cracking open the bright yellow pods about 8” long, we picked out the chestnut sized nuts and sucked the jelly-like stuff that coated them..... no remote taste of cocoa, just a zesty lemony taste, but slightly sweet.... delicious.

From Grenada, the next stop was Carriacou, which we decided was our favourite Windward island. Seriously chilled out, no hassle from anyone, a lovely busy little boatyard in a well sheltered bay, beavering away repairing traditional wooden boats as well as a few yachts.

We caught up with friends here, Tony and Chris on Shamsuddin, Erik and Heike on Auveq and others. We’d have happily stayed longer, but wanted to spend some time in the Tobago Cays, so headed on north to Union Island to officially check into the St Vincent Grenadines.

Union was a bit of a shock really. For us it was the beginning of charter boat territory. Yeah, I know this is a bit snobbish, but it was truly a bit scary being in the crowded anchorage at Clifton Harbour in a strong wind, with big charter boats tearing through.

On land, the attitude of the locals was consequently quite different, being geared towards people on short holidays with plenty of spending money...... so on again and into the Cays which are famous for their exquisitely coloured water, coral and turtles. So, we swam with turtles, who were happily munching on the sea grass beds in 3-4m of water and not remotely bothered by us, and snorkelled through and finally out of the encompassing reef. Looking over the edge into the depths was one of those spine tingling moments.......

But, the Cays have long been a favourite destination for charterers and I suppose that having them there in quantity makes it more difficult for us to sustain our self image as adventurers rather than the tourists that we really are. So we were content to move on again after a few days to Bequia. The sailing between the islands has been brisk and bouncy, but mostly in daylight and with the destination in sight and hence good fun.

Admiralty Bay in Bequia is a huge, well sheltered bay, with lots of yachts. By any standards it’s a pleasant place to be and we enjoyed our stay, but I guess that by this point we were becoming just a little bored by tourist focussed places. We’d planned to jump off from here to Cuba via the Dominican Republic, but a last minute craving for baguettes and croissant made us divert to the French island of Martinique, skipping St Lucia and St Vincent. It really is, as they say, a little outpost of France in the Caribbean; and the Pain au chocolat were worth every mile of the trip.

So, having stocked up, we decided to give the DR a miss and head off to Cuba, with a stop at Ile A Vache in Haiti. In spite of Haiti’s reputation as one of the most violent and dangerous (and poor) countries in the western hemisphere, we’d heard that this offlying island was safe, and that officials rarely made it out to check on yachts.

This was a delightful 7 day passage of calm seas and following winds pushing us gently along at a steady 4-5 knots. The wind died away for the last day, and we had a swim in 2000m of water. A bit scary, but worth it, if only for the awesome blueness when you look down into the depths.

As we approached Ile A Vache, we began to see the local fishermen. Not a sign of the big outboard engines so ubiquitous in the Windwards, only dugout canoes and little spritsail rigged boats, with sails as often as not made from what looked like old dustbin liners stitched together.

On the last morning we caught a big Wahoo (see the pics!) but had to wait to ask one of the fishermen whether it was safe from ciguatera (a poison that they can accumulate from an algae). In my rusty French we established that it was OK, gave them a big chunk of the fish, and ate sushi for lunch.

Ile A Vache certainly provided the antidote that we had been seeking to the comfortable, largely safe, tourist oriented Windwards. We rounded the last point of the island and nosed our way into Port Morgan, erstwhile base of the pirate Henry Morgan. It can’t have changed much since his time. Still no cars or electricity and the locals apparently surviving by fishing or subsistence farming.

For all our wishes for a change from the creeping complacency of the Windwards, we suddenly began to feel profoundly uncomfortable. Here we were, cruisers on a “small” budget, arriving in a place where we seem impossibly and ostentatiously wealthy.

From the moment we arrived in this utterly tranquil little bay, we were besieged by children in dugout canoes begging or wanting to sell bits of scraggy fruit.....

Well, we dispensed pencils and paper, sweets and bought a few bits and pieces of the fruit and in truth if it had been just the kids then it would have been OK.

What was a very special surprise was to round the last corner to see the twin white tipped masts of Hannah peeping over the little sandy spit which protected the inner basin. They had arrived only a few hours before us from the DR. Having parted in Carriacou, we had thought not to see Mick and Bee again for months.

I find it difficult to describe and explain our collective feeling of unease at being there. I guess it was a combination of factors.

In addition to the children, there were about 10 adults who were determined, in a polite but relentless way, to lever some money out of us. This put us in an awkward position. Having spent the previous 2 years spinning out our meagre (rental) income and trying to get the best deal for everything we spend, we have a strongly established resistance to parting with un-necessary cash, particularly for stuff we actively don’t want. So, a battle of wills ensued.

With the benefit if hindsight, we should probably have relented and paid one of them to be our minder, which might have got rid of the rest, but this ran strongly against the grain and, while we were happy to put money into their economy in some way, these people seemed amongst the least deserving.

So our walk ashore in the little village nestled around the bay was accompanied by a posse of these characters helpfully “showing us around”, turning us into something like a tour of minor royalty. We narrowly managed to avoid the cock fight, which seems to be the main entertainment activity in the island.

Then there was the question of immigration formalities. The island doesn’t have any resident officials who occasionally cross from the mainland port of Les Cayes. The alternative is to cross on the small ferry to see them. This seemed to be one of the ploys of the locals to “guide” us to the mainland, and the story of how much it cost and what happened if they came out to the island was vague and changeable. We tried to play them at their own game and obfuscated. Maybe we’d go over tomorrow, maybe we’d go by sail, maybe we’d depart.....

We decided that we fancied a trip to the local market the following day at Madame Bernard, the main “town” an hour’s walk away. That evening we planned to give the posse a firm talking to in the morning before we set off... and so we did...... “pas d’argent pour vous” and so on. The lads looked at us glumly - and came anyway.

I have to say that I found the trip to the market engrossing (I’m not sure about the others). Haiti is the oldest black republic in the Caribbean and it felt to me to be intensely African in a way that none of the other islands approached.

The walk was scenic, tranquil and interesting. The people greeted us politely and it would have been marvellous if not for the now rather sullen group of lads with us, clearly discussing us at length and regularly slipping in immigration into the stream of patois. There were also insinuations by some that others worked for the immigration department or the secret police.......

We walked through the animal market on the way. This comprised a group of serious looking men gathered under a stand of palm trees with a couple of dozen assorted pigs goats and a cow. One of the animals had clearly just been slaughtered and butchered there on the sand. Various grubby overfilled bowls of entrails were being carried around. Later we saw an image which struck us all; two small boys carrying a freshly slaughtered cow’s head between them by its horns. We were all too self conscious or too slow to take a photograph. The market again felt wonderfully African. Nothing much for us to buy except some fruit and bread, which we did. We started feeling a bit self conscious, being the only white faces we’d seen all day and decided to retreat.

The posse insisted we go on a different, shorter, route home. I started to feel a bit nervous when we left all the settlements and headed off into a more remote feeling part of the island......I suppose the underlying tension was that this was after all part of Haiti, where grizzly violence has been one of the main features of its sad and unsettled history.

Suffice to say that we all got back safely, apart from all being individually asked for money (except me having delivered the morning speech) for bicycles, operations, school fees etc.

So, we arrived back at the bay, feeling satisfied (speaking personally) but pretty tense. We gave each of the gang a couple of beers, which they accepted like sulky children, and then decided that enough was enough. We had lunch and headed out.


Working our way westwards down the Haitian coast was a slow, and slightly eerie business. For 50 miles or so we drifted at 2-3 knots past a hazy mountainous coastline, completely devoid of any signs of life except the lazily drifting smoke of occasional fires. It must have looked virtually identical when Columbus came past 500 years ago. We had just discovered from another cruiser that Santiago de Cuba, our intended port of entry, was closed to yachts and seemed likely to remain that way, so we had taken the decision to head another 300 miles or so down the south coast to Cienfuego. Happily, Mick and Bee had decided to come there as well, so we sailed in company. Both of us were running a little short on diesel and with the prospect of light winds continuing (in spite of the forecast for 20knts!) we were reluctant to motor more than absolutely necessary. This was OK until we cleared the end of Haiti and encountered an unpleasant cross swell coming down the Windward Passage. Combined with very little wind, this was becoming very hard on sails and nerves alike and we started to feel quite glum.

By radio, Mick suggested diverting to Jamaica, and in spite of the slightly unsavoury reputation for crime, we figured it still had to be better than this, and so changed course to the south. Almost as soon as we’d made the decision, the wind picked up and we arrived at Port Antonio late the following evening. We decided to heave-to rather than try a night entry, so made it in to a tranquil, scenic bay early the next morning.

It turns out that Port Antonio area has amongst the lowest crime rates in the Caribbean. The little marina here is smart, well organised, friendly and sensibly priced. The town is scruffy but vibrant, busy and unpretentious, with a wonderful market. If there is a downside, it is that the marina and anchorage area feels a bit segregated from the town and locals. I can imagine them feeling slightly resentful of the idle rich in their secluded compound, but we have to admit to enjoying the showers, swimming pool, WIFI etc, so we aren’t complaining. And to be fair, I’ve felt no hostility at all in the town.

So. We wait here for good winds to head for Cienfuego, recuperate with good nights’ sleep, catch up on emails, and ponder the morality of having the luxury of time and money to wander the earth.