25 December 2007We pulled into Simpson Bay, on the Dutch side of St. Maarten, just after sunset. Again, we arrived at night, making anchoring difficult. But luckily, our good friends/next-door neighbors from Simi Valley were in the bay on Aquila (their Hylas 49) and they helped guide us in. After spending the night and morning […]
St Maarten Neatherland Antilles With sub-tropical storm Olga headed our way, we ducked into Red Hook Bay, St Thomas for some cover. While this sounded good, it turned out to be a bad decision. Red Hook faces east and with the strong east winds around Olga, anchor holding in the harbor was poor at best. […]
We spent December in the British Virgin Islands, mostly in Nanny Cay Tortola, while we were redoing some work on the boat that didn’t go as planned over the summer. This included a few weeks in a local hotel that we renamed “Villa Roach”. On December 12th we celebrated the biggest, brightest and last full […]
While the boat bottom was being painted in Tortola, we took a ferry over to St. John in the US Virgin Islands to see the island from the land. We had visited St. John more than 10 years ago and wanted to see some of our favorite spots from that trip. The Hyatt Grand at […]
Great Harbor Jost Van Dyke BVI While cleaning the bottom of the boat before leaving the US, we found a lot of growth. It had been almost a year since she was painted, so we had Berkeley East hauled and the bottom painted at Nanny Cay Tortola. With our new bottom paint we made a […]
Since arriving in Tortola, we have been cruising around the BVI, enjoying many different islands including Virgin Gorda, Cooper Island, Salt island, Peter Island, Norman Island and Jost Van Dyke. We dove the wreck of the Rhone, a 300′ Royal Mail Ship sunk in 1867 where we ran across this four-foot’ barracuda. Hung out on […]
18 25.411’N:64 37.073’W Berkeley East crossed the Caribbean 1500 finish line in squall conditions just 8 days after departing Virginia. We had an exciting passage with both highs and lows. When it was all said and done we were the 13th boat across the line, despite a few setbacks. We had great sailing, covering over […]
04 November 2007 | Hampton, VA “Our crew, Rich and John, friends from college days, joined us on Thursday and we finished up preparations and should be in the British Virgin Islands in less than 10 days. Wish us luck, fair winds and following seas. You can track our progress at http://www.carib1500.com/ . Just click on the […]
We left Martha’s Vineyard with a north wind blowing 20 – 25 kts, and a forecast of big seas. We were not sure exactly where we would go. While getting back to Hampton, Virginia to prepare for the Caribbean 1500 was necessary, we also thought a trip back through the Chesapeake Bay hitting some of […]
On our way south we stopped in at Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket. Two great islands. On Martha’s, we biked most of the island (with a little help from the bus system). We were moored in Edgartown, but saw Vineyard Haven, Gay Head (now called Aquinnah), South Beach and Memensha. We loved this island and can’t […]
