Cruising with a Dog

I'm hardly an expert on this subject since we've only had Luna aboard Storyville for about 3 months, but I thought I would give my perspective on what it's like to cruise with a puppy. We've been cruising for over 2 years now (wow, time does fly when you're having fun!). Our last dog, Harley was already 12 or 13 when we started dreaming about going cruising on our boat. By the time we actually cut the dock lines, he had already gone to live with my daughter because he was over 15 and the boat life was just too difficult for him.

We decided that, even though we are both dog lovers, it would be difficult to cruise with a pet so, sadly, we made the decision to leave without a canine companion. I'm sure it was the right choice for us at the time. We already had so much to learn - a whole new way of life. One that we pictured to be carefree, with even less responsibilities. A pet just didn't fit into that scenario. We did learn a lot in those 2 years and while the cruising life is sometimes a carefree one, we quickly learned that there are still many responsibilities, just different ones than we faced while living on land.

About the time we hit our 2 year cruising anniversary, I started planning and dreaming about having a puppy on board to share our adventures. Maybe scheming would be the better word since I still had to convince Troy that this was a good idea and I knew that it would take some pretty smooth talking! I strategically waited until one night after happy hour and a few rum and cokes to bring up the subject. I was pleasantly surprised when he didn't just dismiss the idea outright. We actually had a great discussion that first night about the pros and cons of having a dog. It went something like this:

Deana - "I've been thinking that maybe we should consider getting a puppy"

Troy - "A dog is so much responsibility"

Deana - "Yes, but what else do we have to spend our time on?"

Troy - "A dog has to be exercised and taken for walks every day, even if it's raining"

Deana - "Yes, but more exercise would be good for all of us"

Troy - "But dogs are messy and they shed"

Deana - "But they’re fun, remember Sampson (a Border Terrier that belongs to our friends on s/v Virtue and Vice), he doesn't shed and he's a really cool dog"

Troy - "I only want a dog if it's a really cool one"

Deana - "Of course our dog will be really cool!"

After that, I knew that I had my foot in the door. We spent many hours that first night talking about the pros and cons of having a dog and we finally agreed that it might not be so bad to have a puppy to love. Before he could change his mind I started doing research to find us a puppy that would be the best fit for us.

I brought Luna home to Storyville in early December. She’s a Border Terrier, she is a great size for a boat dog (she should be somewhere between 11 and 15 pounds), she doesn’t shed and, of course, she’s a really cool and adorable dog with a great big personality!

We’ve had loads of fun taking her to the beach, hiking trails or even just walking her through town. Yes, having a dog on board definitely adds another level of responsibility to our lives but I can tell you that it’s so worth it. We’re looking forward to enjoying many years with her.

We long for an affection altogether ignorant of our faults. Heaven has accorded this to us in the uncritical canine attachment. ~George Eliot

I think dogs are the most amazing creatures; they give unconditional love. For me they are the role model for being alive. ~Gilda Radner

British Virgin Islands

We made a really quick trip through the British Virgin Islands this time. We had originally planned to spend a little more time here, but we got caught up in the US Virgin Islands while waiting for parts to repair the windlass and Troy's guitar. Since we got to spend 2 months here last year, we figured that we had hit most of the “must see” places. One anchorage that we never made it to last year though was Cane Garden Bay. So, we had a quick sail over from Francis Bay, St. John to Great Harbor, Jost Van Dyke where we checked into the BVIs, then headed right back out and sailed over to Cane Garden Bay and met up with Steve on Alternate Latitude. What a beautiful little place, the beach is picturesque and the sunsets are spectacular. We spent a day and a half there enjoying the scenery.

On Wednesday we decided to head on up to North Sound in Virgin Gorda where we met back up with our cruising buddies on Pipe Muh Bligh, Island Dream and Illusions. Steve had to head back to St. Thomas where he is getting his charter business started ---- Gotta make a plug for Steve here, remember if you book a cruise with him you will get 10% off by mentioning “Storyville”.  You can book a cruise by clicking HERE ---- and the other boats are now in North Sound waiting for a weather window to cross the Anegada Passage to St. Martin/Saint Maarten.  Looks like we are all set to leave tomorrow mid morning for the 18 hour (more or less) crossing. Be sure to watch our SPOT for location updates.

We've seen some beautiful sights here in the Virgin Islands. What a fantastic place to visit and sail. My photography doesn't do it justice, but here are a few photos for your enjoyment:

Luna on lookout!

Sunset at Cane Garden Bay

Storyville anchored in St. John

 

Deer on St. John

British Virgin Islands as seen from St. John

Great Lameshur Bay, St. John

At anchor in Great Lameshur Bay

Storyville attached to a mooring

When we left St. Thomas last week our anchor windlass motor decided to give up the ghost. What that means is that, in order to anchor, we would have to do it all manually. Given the fact that we have a 45 lb. anchor and at least 100 feet of chain attached to it, that doesn't sound like a great idea to us (especially Troy, who would be playing the part of the manual windlass!). So, fortunately for us, Great Lameshur Bay, and all of the other bays on St. John that fall within the Virgin Islands National Park, have mooring balls. These mooring balls will make our life much easier while we wait for the motor rebuild kit to arrive. Even better, the cost of the moorings are $15.00 per day, paid by the honor system into a "pay station" and the money goes to the park service.

Normally we try to avoid paying for moorings as that can add up quickly and take a bite out of the cruising budget, but with the anchor issues that we are having, it doesn't sound like such a bad idea. Plus, this bay is pretty remote and it's almost impossible (almost impossible in this case is defined as a $35.00 taxi ride, one way) to get to town. Since we don't want to part with $70.00 for a taxi ride that is probably 5 or 6 miles one way, we have decided to lay low and enjoy our time in this beautiful bay. Fortunately we are well provisioned and have been able to enjoy our time here in the beautiful bay. For some great information on the park, click THIS LINK.

So, how have we been spending our days? With a little work, a lot of relaxation, a little rain and lots of sunshine.  All of our buddy boats have moved on to the British Virgin Islands while we chose to remain here and wait for our repair kit. We will catch up with them in the next week or so.  In the mean time, we've been filling up our days quite well with:

• Swimming/Snorkeling
• Beach Walking
• Hiking
• Kayaking
• Cooking (and, of course, eating)
• Reading Books
• Watching Movies
• Working on boat projects such as:
• Installing the Mack Pack on the main sail
• Working on a few sewing projects
• Removing the anchor windlass in preparation for the repair
• And just enjoying each other's company and having fun with Luna

Even though we are in a remote bay, we discovered that the Virgin Islands Environmental Research Station or VIERS located here has WIFI that you can purchase by the hour, day or week.  With our Wirie booster, we are able to have Internet on the boat, even in this location. VIERS was established for environmental educational activities and scientific research. Get more information by clicking THIS LINK.  Thank you VIERS!

Life has no auto-settings. No batteries. You gots to wind it up! ~Jeb Dickerson

Where is Storyville?

Map courtesy of World Atlas

The easy answer is that we're in St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands, a territory of the United States. If you want to see where we are on the map you can click the link over on the right that says "Where is Storyville" and that will always let you know exactly where we are. But I was thinking about all the cool places that you hear about and wondering where we are right now geographically speaking.

We are in the Caribbean Sea. That's pretty cool, but then you start hearing things about the West Indies, The  Greater Antilles, the Lesser Antilles, the Leeward Islands, the Windward Islands.  It all gets kind of confusing so I decided to give myself a geography lesson. Luckily, Google and Wikipedia make that an easy task.

The West Indies are all of the islands that separate the Caribbean Sea from the Atlantic Ocean. All the way from the Bahamas to the Grenadines. They got their name from Columbus in 1492 because he thought that he had made it to the Asia when he first discovered these beautiful islands. The West Indies are broken down into some additions regions:

• The Bahamas (this is the north part of the West Indies)
• The Greater Antilles (this is the central part of the West Indies, with the biggest islands, including Cuba, Jamaica, Hispaniola (Haiti and the Dominican Republic) and Puerto Rico.
• The Lesser Antilles (all of the other, smaller islands to the south and east)

The Lesser Antilles are broken down even further into two different groups:

• The Leeward Islands
• The Windward Islands

These islands are all made up of different island countries and territories, some independent countries, some US territories, British, Dutch, French and probably more.  We are excited to be headed down the Leeward and Windward Islands in the next few months and discovering even more cultures and wonderful people.

If you want to do more research for yourself, check out this information on World Atlas

So, here is the answer: 

Storyville is currently in The Caribbean Sea, St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands, The West Indies, The Lesser Antilles, Leeward Islands

A Day in the Life...

Most of our friends think that we are just living a life of leisure with endless sunny days spent sailing, swimming and hanging out on the beach. Well, OK, sometimes that's what we're doing, but other days reality gets in the way of that. Have you ever thought about how we do our laundry or buy our groceries? Next time you throw a load in the washer that's just down the hall, or hop in the car to run to the nearest store for a grocery run, think about how much easier you have it than we do. I'm not asking for sympathy, just stating facts.

Depending on where we are, sometimes those chores are easier than others. In Luperon we were spoiled because there is no laundry mat and the town is without power for most hours of the day so we had a wonderful local lady wash our clothes. Most other places we have to find a laundry mat (hopefully within walking distance) and tote our clothes down the street and back in the hot tropical sun, pay an arm and a leg, sometimes two arms and a leg, to wash our clothes. The same thing with groceries.

Yesterday we made a provisioning run (in cruiser speak that means we bought groceries) to a store called Cost U Less. It's like a Sam's Club or Costco, but you don't need a membership card. The hard thing is buying only what you can physically carry and then transport in a dinghy. We took a Safari, which is the wonderful and inexpensive local public transportation on St. Thomas. They are open-air trucks with covered seats and the cost is either $1.00 or $2.00 per person, depending on if you are staying "in town" or going "to country". Cost U Less is in country.

So, first we need to find the store and figure out where to leave the dinghy and whether we will be able to walk to the store, or will we need to find public transportation. Locals and other cruisers as well as cruising guides are all good sources of information. Next we have to make sure that we don't buy more than we can carry and then we have to reverse the process of getting back to the dinghy with our purchases, load them into the dinghy, get them back to the boat (hopefully they are still dry at this point) and load them from the dinghy onto the deck of the boat and then into the boat and finally, find a place to store everything (hopefully remembering where it all is later).

Every island is different so we find that we are always on the lookout for grocery stores and places to do our laundry.

Troy paying for our ride on the Safari

View from the Safari 

Cruisers and their provisions

Troy has the heavy bag

Food is an important part of a balanced diet. ~Fran Lebowitz, Metropolitan Life, "Food for Thought and Vice Versa"

Mack Packs

Before I get started, let me apologize to my non sailing friends. This post probably will be pretty boring to you, but we are really excited about how easy this will make our sailing life and it might be interesting to our sailing/cruising/soon to be cruising friends.

Since it looks like we will be in St. Thomas for the next week or so, we decided to order new Mack Packs for Storyville.  We've been wanting a stack pack system for a long time and since we are planning to do a lot of sailing once we get past St. Martin, and head south, we figured this would be a good time to make it happen.

We put all new sails on Storyville before we left two years ago (Wow - two years ago, hard to believe) and at the time we had the chance to add stack packs. We decided not to do so because we were worried that it would affect our sail performance. Sail performance, that's a laugh. We haven't done near as much sailing as we had hoped to do. The reason for that is that we've spent most of the last two years heading east into the prevailing trade winds. On the few opportunities that we have had to sail, we realized what a pain it is to use our main sail. Mostly because we are a center cockpit boat and it is impossible to reach the sail in order to stow it away properly and get the sail cover on.  It can be a 45 minute to an hour job that takes both of us to accomplish properly. After a day of sailing the last thing you want to do is spend an hour and a half putting away two sails (the main and the mizzen), so as a result, we tend to sail without the main. If we have sufficient wind, that usually is not a problem, but it will be so nice to have the option.

We ordered our system from Mack Pack and it will be shipped here next week. Click the link to learn more about their system. 

UPDATE: We received the Mack Packs and have them installed.  It took about a day for each one as the sails had to be removed and there was a lot of drilling and tapping in order to attach the packs to the masts and booms. Troy made it all look easy. Mack Pack sent a great instructional video and written instructions. There were a wonderful company to work with.

Here is a picture of Storyville with her new Mack Packs.  We think they make the boat look great:

To reach a port, we must sail - sail, not lie at anchor - sail, not drift ~Franklin D. Roosevelt

The Christmas Winds

We’re still here in St. Thomas. There are several reasons for that: a) we like it here; b) Troy is playing a gig Saturday night; and c) The Christmas Winds have set in. There are a few other reasons, but those are the main ones. We’re enjoying our time in the busy harbor of Charlotte Amalie, watching the mega yachts and cruise ships, walking Luna, shopping (getting some provisioning done before we get to the expensive BVIs) and spending time with our other cruising friends – Pipe Muh Bligh, Illusions and Alternate Latitude.

The Christmas Winds affect the Caribbean every year, around some special holiday, I forget which one.  Anyway, we knew that there would come a time when we would want to find a place to wait out these winds, and here we are.  With about 25 knots of wind, straight out of the east, which is the way we are headed, it makes a lot more sense to stay put for a while.

In technical terms there is something called the Atlantic subtropical high, or Bermuda High, that is always around in the Atlantic, shifting with the seasons and varying in strength and size. During the winter months of December and January, the high shifts further south and results in increased gradient pressure and higher winds in the region. 

Anyway, all that scientific weather talk (the whole two sentences worth) just means that we are planning to enjoy St. Thomas for a bit longer than planned and hopefully sneak over to St. John before too long to see what we can find there.

Oh, one other big benefit.  All of the wind and sunshine have our battery bank in a happy place because our new solar panel and our wind generator are making power all day long!

Don't knock the weather; nine-tenths of the people couldn't start a conversation if it didn't change once in a while. ~Kin Hubbard

There is a muscular energy in sunlight corresponding to the spiritual energy of wind. ~Annie Dillard