Martinique

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We arrived in St. Pierre, Martinique at 2:00 pm today. We had an exciting sail with 20 knots of wind on the beam. Crossroads was sailing along at 8 knots. I think this is a record for her speed. Glenn got a touch of food poisoning last night. Needless to say he was happy to stop today and go back to bed. St. Pierre lies a the foot of Mt. Pelee volcano.

Guest Entry: A Wonderful Visit

We just returned from a wonderful visit with Glenn and Michele and they asked us to share our experience. We flew into Guadeloupe last week to join them on Crossroads for a few days. Our trip started with the challenge of coordinating flights with their sailing plans because their schedule can change at the last minute depending on the weather. We finally came up with a plan and booked our flight two weeks in advance. We arrived in Guadeloupe and took a cab to the marina where Michele met us. We were surprised to see her looking very tan and blond! Glenn was waiting for us on Crossroads to welcome us aboard. It was so great to see them after seven months. It was our first time to see Crossroads and it is a beautiful boat! Of course they were very gracious hosts making us feel welcome, making room for us and all our things, and making us wonderful meals aboard Crossroads.

We sailed from Guadeloupe to the Saintes and finally to Dominica. We had many wonderful experiences along the way like having crepes at a French restaurant overlooking the marina in Guadeloupe (wishing we’d learned French), sitting in a beach club in the Saintes listening to one of their friends play guitar and sing (Jimmy Buffet songs of course), and hiking to Victoria Falls in Dominica (with our Rastafarian guide). But we would have to say our best times were sailing and spending time on the boat with Glenn and Michele. They have truly made Crossroads their home and it is so comfortable. They have also become very creative in coming up with new recipes with local food. We particularly loved Michele’s chicken salad and Glenn’s fried rice. And of course their special fruit punch always hits the spot! We enjoyed the food so much we asked them to add a recipe section to their website.

We were so glad to meet their friends from Dragon Fly, Wasabi, and Delilah (yes, we have learned to speak in “cruisingease” – calling people by the name of their boat.) They were all so nice and it was great to see how they have so much fun together and look out for each other along the way. One evening as we were telling Glenn and Michele how great is was to get away from all the stress back home, Michele shared with us that it is not that different living on the boat because they stay so busy. She went on to say “for example, we have so much planned every day I get stressed when I’m late for happy hour on Dragon Fly or late for yoga”. Of course we all got a big laugh out of that! Seriously though, even though every day seems to bring a new friend or a new adventure for them, life on the boat is a lot more work than they have been letting on. We thought we would share some pictures to show how hard they really do work every day.

In the past five years we have sailed with Glenn and Michele on two charter trips in the Caribbean. Both times they talked of their plans and dreams of buying their own boat and sailing the Caribbean but it always seemed so far away. It was wonderful to see them finally living their dream and we were so happy to have a chance to share it with them for a few days. We would like to thank them for our wonderful visit and wish them much happiness, good weather, and calm anchorages as they continue on their journey.

Ken and Becky Hamric

Visit From Ken and Becky

We had a wonderful visit with our friends Ken and Becky from Memphis. We had five wonderful nights on Crossroads with many laughs, good times and wonderful meals. If you have never had the pleasure of eating Becky's homemade spaghetti, you are missing out.

Ken and Becky made a promise several years ago while chartering with us. They said, if we got our boat and they visited us they would put us up in a hotel. They knew we would appreciate the endless water and electricity. Boy, did they deliver! We just spent two wonderful nights at Jungle Bay Resort and Spa (www.junglebaydominica.com). Jungle Bay has 30 rustic cottages set into the jungle mountain side over looking the ocean. Check out their website, I am sure you will want to visit Dominica. Yesterday, we had an awesome hike to Victoria falls. Ken will be adding photos soon. Thanks for everything, Ken and Becky.

So now all of our rechargable devices are recharged and so are we. Crossroads patiently awaits our return. Tomorrow we will head for Martinique (more French pastries).

Michele and Glenn

Dominica

[N15d17:24, W061d22:62] We arrived in Dominica today and anchored in Portsmouth Harbor. We plan to do more inland travel tomorrow in Dominica. This is an amazingly rustic, beautiful island.

Michele and Glenn

Martin, our guide on the tour of the Indian River in Portsmouth.

The Saintes

[N15d52:12, W061d35:20]Fortunately we were in Guadeloupe on Saturday when the volcano blew in Montserrat. Ken and Becky arrived on Saturday, we have been having a ball with them. We left Guadeloupe on Sunday after eating fresh French pastries. We are spending a couple of days in the Saintes before sailing to Dominica.

Michele and Glenn

Gaudeloupe

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We arrived yesterday in Dehaies,(pronounced Day-hay) Gaudeloupe. We had a very rough motor sail from Montserrat. I was not a happy camper.(poor Glenn) The best part of the day was seeing a whale. Very cool! This French island is sooooooo beautiful. We are surrounded by mountains and a quaint little village with delicious French pastries. Happy late Mothers day to all our friends and family that are mothers.

Michele and Glenn

Montserrat

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We are in Montserrat, this beautiful island has an active volcano on the south end of the island. We have black ash all over the boat. Yuck! We passed by the island Redonda and looked for the dragon but did not see it. We plan to sail to Guadeloupe tomorrow. We will post photos when we get to Gaudeloupe.

Michele and Glenn

Nevis

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It is great to be back in Nevis. We came here on a charter trip about 5 years ago. We only spent one night and we longed for more time on Nevis. Alexander Hamilton was born on this island. Nevis has a population of 12,000, is quiet and peaceful. Tomorrow we plan to explore the island by bike. More details and photos soon.

Michele

Wayne eating traditional fair

Gary from July Indian gives the other guys good luck lures

St. Kitts

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The Caribs called St. Kitts "fertile isle." Columbus renamed it after his patron saint and nowadays it is known either as St. Christopher or by the abbreviated St. Kitts. We are excited to return to St. Kitts. We arrived yesterday at 3:00 PM, Glenn went to customs and cleared us in and we went to dinner with our friend Brian. The anchorage was sooooooooooo rolly I thought I would scream. Glenn and I woke up at midnight and we both felt like we were sleeping in the middle of a see- saw. Bright an early this morning we motored over to White house bay. This is a much nicer spot. We scrubbed the bottom of the boat all day, dirty job but you got to get those barnacles off the bottom. Yuck!

michele

St. Barts

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We are anchored in beautiful St. Barts in the Columbier bay. This bay was originally owned by the Rockefeller's. We arrived yesterday and snorkeled from the boat. It rained all night accompanied by high high winds and lightning. We plan to take a hike today and check out another French bakery.

Carnival in St. Martin

I think when you see the photo's you will see how much fun we had at Carnival. They were celebrating the Queen's birthday.

St. Martin

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We decided to skip the Virgin Islands. This was a really tough decision as we were really looking forward to going back to the British Virgins for their beauty and easy navigating. Thanks to Katrina, we are about a month behind schedule so we had to skip something. We really want to see St. Martin, St. Barts, Nevis, Guadeloupe,Iles Des Saintes, Dominica, Martinique, St. Lucia, St. Vincent, The Grendines and Grenda. The good news is, these islands are all very close together. Our insurance says we have to be as far down as Grenada by July 1st. Our hurricane goal is to be in Trindad by July 1st. We think this will be another rough hurricane year and we would rather be farther south then Grenada.

We arrived in St. Martin yesterday at 8:30 am after a 26 hour passage from the Spanish Virgin Islands. We were traveling with Dragon Fly, July Indian and Wasabi. We had a wonderfully calm motor sail. Dolphins played in our bow wake for a long time. It was so cool! Our friends Cliff and Melanie from Clift's Note met us in the harbor as soon as we went under the bridge at St. Martin. We were so excited to see them. They showed the whole crew their favorite French pastry, sandwich shop in Marigot. Yum! Yum! I have been longing for French pastries. After the yummy lunch Glenn and I went on a extremely technical hike with Cliff and Melanie. Oh my God! We thought it would be great to walk up to a scenic view; four hours later we were beginning to wonder why we did not bring a map and GPS with us. We got a little concerned when it was 5:00 pm and we were very lost in the woods. We finally found our way out, we were on the other side of island in the Dutch territory. We took a taxi back to our dinghies. I think it goes without saying we slept great.

Michele