Leewards

We finally departed Puerto Rico and the Spanish Virgins for the rest of the Caribbean, starting with the legendary Virgin Islands. Above we see a sunrise shot of St Thomas in the distance. This was pure motoring, as we had to go due east and the wind would almost never be in our favor.

If you look carefully you will see numerous bumps on the horizon. This is a typical seascape in the Caribbean and why Columbus could "discover" most of it in one voyage: you are rarely out of sight of land, somewhere. His other method involved kidnapping locals and using them as guides.

We admit we only visited St Thomas but what we saw was rather sad. The locals are decidedly racist and often hostile, our first encounter with a trend we would see increasingly as we headed south.

We did briefly visit St John. Note the villa-looking things on the hillside. We thought they might be resorts but they all appear to be private houses, an example of real money in the islands. As we understand it, the entire big island of St John used to be owned by one of the Rockefellers, which is an example of REAL money.

We happily left the USVIs for the more pleasant British Virgin Islands, aka BVIs. We began at Jost Van Dyke, a smallish island just north of St John and then did a general tour of the place, all the way from Anegada in the north to Virgin Gorda in the east, thence to Road Town in Tortola, Cooper Island, etc, etc.

This was taken from the NE end of Virgin Gorda and shows a small island to its north, Necker Island. If you look very closely you will notice that the top of the island is actually a huge house, with smaller buildings down the hillside to the right. We were told it belongs to Richard Branson, an example of semi-REAL money. We would daily see helicopters flying in and out from the main airport near Tortola. No, he didn't invite us over for a beer, which caused us to take our custom southwards, towards Sint Maartin via what's called the Anegada Passage. Some call it the OhMyGoda Passage.

Even that goal was frustrated when we made the latitude of Saba but we thought, heck, we're only 20nm west, we'll just tack our way back there. Uh uh. We found we were making no headway to the east. We also had a good lesson in what shallow water will do for you. West of Saba is the Saba Banks, a large area of water between 15 and 100 feet deep. As we'd seen before, shallow water in the middle of the ocean kinda sucks and this was no exception. But, sometimes the lesson has to be repeated to sink in and there we were, stuck in steep 10' waves on a bottom that was often only 30' deep.

After trying the sailing approach the intrepid (read: dumb) captain opted to motor straight there. Bad idea. We found the seas would only allow us to make about 2.5kts and we had 20nm. Just doing the math says 8 hours, but pounding into these seas made it seem like 80. At times all you could do was howl in frustration. Adding to the feeling was the illusion of the island: Saba is a just a big volcanic cone sticking out of the water and looks much closer than it really is. Hour after hour, pound, bash, howl. It was not what you call Pleasure Boating. John asked, What looks different here, brilliant answer from blonde wife: it looks really deep here. What else is there to say?

We forget how far away we were when this was taken, maybe 15 miles. You'd think you were almost there, but the math said 6 more hours. Howl! In between oaths there was the vehement statement, "this place better be worth the hell of getting there". Fortunately, it was.

Saba has to be the nicest, most spectacular island in the entire Caribbean. It also has the best diving we have found anywhere in the world. It is stunning, both above and below the water. The pinnacles with circling sharks at 110 feet would satisfy any diver needing some small adventure. Visibility was 100 feet , at the very least!

Here's a tub shot showing the mooring area west of the island; there is no anchorage as such, the water's too deep and you wouldn't want to mess up the coral.

One thing you can't see in this shot is a stairway hewn into the cliff that goes straight up the side. Saba had professional bearers who would carry cargo on their backs up the steps to the towns above. In the 1950s they built a road up to the topside but the carriers objected to losing their livelihoods. If you look closely you will see some houses overlooking the cliff.

If you look to the base of the volcanic cone in the background you will see the village of The Bottom. The village might have been created by Disney, with munchkin-sized Dutch houses and tidy miniature streets. Although it's part of the Netherlands Antilles, the language normally spoken here is English. Since it's at an altitude of maybe 1000'+, the climate in the village of The Bottom is mild and it's pretty hurricane-proof. We loved it. Wouldn't mind having a home here.

That's the town of Windwardside. If you look carefully, you will see a runway on the flattened spot jutting to the north. We've been told that landing and taking off from this airport is a unique experience, as there is no room for error. A helicopter seems to be a better mode of transportation.

Here we see the admiral posing next to a banana tree, the first of zillions we've seen elsewhere. These pictures were taken on Mt Scenery, at 3000' the highest point in Saba. The change in altitude allows for a variety of climates. If it's too hot, just go up a bit.

The island is amazing, but what really makes Saba awesome is the diving! Our mooring, which cost a whopping $3/day, was in 100' feet of water but we could easily see the bottom. It has the clearest water we have ever seen. A special treat are the seamounts west of the island. They are perfect cones rising from about 300' to a little less than 100'. Large pelagic fish swim in circles around the pinnacles; we saw schools of black-tip and bull sharks, even wahoo. This is probably the single best collection of dive sites we have ever visited.

Whether you go diving or not, if you want to see some of the most stunning scenery in the Caribbean, this island is for you.

We really enjoyed Saba, but we had to pick up a shipment going to Sint Maartin. It's about a 25nm sail, more or less north of Saba. We opted to skip Simpson Bay and head for Great Bay to the east. Here we had our first encounter with a "Med-Mooring", which involves dropping an anchor and backing into a narrow stretch of dock. It was hairy, but we survived. Having gotten there, we were loathe to leave the dock, though after visiting Simpson Bay by cab we decided it might be a much better place to stay.

Sint Maartin is a duty-free island, which means shopping is simple and cheap. This is a great place for stocking up on food and parts, with huge grocery stores and chandleries. The living was easy, but while we were there a tropical storm blew over. It was June and this was a wake-up call - time to go south.

We wanted to visit all the islands, but time was running out. We figured we would at least drop by the historic island of St Eustatius, aka Statia.

This is a view of the famous harbor of Statia, as seen from Fort Oranje. Statia was a major trading port and a crucial source of weapons for the American Colonies during the Revolutionary War. At the time it was common for this bay to have up to 200 ships at anchor. As a result, it was raided, looted and flattened by British forces led by Admiral Sir George Rodney. You can still see the walls of the old warehouses lapping in the surf at the shoreline. Nowadays it is still a trading stop, in this case being crude oil stored in tanks on the west side. If you look near the horizon on the right you will see a tanker.

Here's another view from the fort. If you look carefully you will see a large tanker peeking out from the landmass in the background. If you look really hard you will see the island of Saba looming in the distant sea mist just to the left of the tanker.

A better shot of Saba, from Statia.

For those who are interested, you might read The First Salute by Barbara Tuchman, which describes how much more important the Caribbean islands were than the American Colonies and why Britain gave them up in preference to keeping Jamaica and Barbados. It seemed like a good idea at the time.

We did do some diving here but after Saba it was a disappointment. Like Saba the locals are very friendly and welcome visitors. Both islands are among our favorites.

By now we were becoming rather anxious to get moving, not to mention the bay is very rolly. We therefore set sail for the island of Nevis, which is a short daysail south. While storms had abated, we were shocked to find the trade winds had waxed to 25+ kts, pretty much all the time. For those not familiar with strong trades, be advised they are relentless and tend to pin you down in places you don't want to stay. We anchored at Nevis in a bay full of stressed-out, anxious people who were not thrilled to see yet another boat arrive. Some had been waiting weeks for the winds to abate, to no avail. We decided there was no reason to even go ashore and Nevis became the first island we "bounced" off, i.e. we spent the night but didn't bother with any Customs formalities.

We next "bounced" off Montserrat. We anchored in a bay on the NW, arriving as the trades exceeded 30kts and visibility was reduced to just a mile or so in heavy sea spray.

In 2003 only half the island of Montserrat could be visited, as a very active volcano had ruined the southern end of the island. It is difficult to see, but the old capital of Plymouth is near the shore, buried to the rooftops in volcanic ash. The clouds you see are sulphurous steam coming out of vents to the right. It appears very much like Pompeii and one can barely breathe when downwind. The mood of the island is eerie and sepluchral.

Our next stop was the French island of Guadaloupe. The town of Des Haies on the NW is well-protected and picturesque, though it became somewhat challenging as they only speak French. Farther south we found a great dive location off Pigeon Island in the form of the Cousteau Marine Park. The quantities of fish are simply staggering.

After Martinique we "bounced" off Dominica. There are various reasons for this. The main one was we really had to keep moving south. The hurricane season was in full swing and their tracks seem to move southwards as the season progresses. Another problem is that Dominica has had a reputation as being not entirely safe. Thirdly, the island is very "steep to", i.e. it gets very deep in a hurry, such that you have to get within a boat length of the shore to take even a deep mooring. On top of all that was a reluctance to do all the Customs formalities if we had no time to spend there in the first place.

When we approached Dominica, we met our first "boat boys". These are young men who race out to meet yachts and try to sell them on different things. Sometimes it can be simple extortion, such as boarding the boat and refusing to leave until paid to go away. In this case, however, the guy was very nice and helpful. He got us a mooring for $10 a night and offered to take us on some tours, though we had no time for that. Like most of these islands, the people are very poor and try to make a living any way they can. We really appreciated these 'boat boys'.

That's it for the Leewards. Please join us as we bounce our way down the Windwards!

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