Author: Karen Crowe

We have had some boat projects that have kept us in St. Maarten for several weeks. I haven’t really minded – I really like St. Maarten, and I would stop here again. But after almost a month at the marina, we were getting itchy sails. So we decided, since it would be another week before…

I’m sitting in the forward cockpit of the boat tonight, in front of Lagoonies restaurant and bar in St. Maarten, listening to the clinking of forks on plates and ice in glasses, while a local on the dock delivers a fiery (and foul-mouthed) diatribe against Americans to some audience I cannot see. Ah, the Caribbean….

Our Thanksgiving visit home was full of the typical holiday errands and activities, but they were especially meaningful to us this year. Seeing family and friends when you’ve been away puts your life into a new perspective. We gave thanks with gusto. We returned the boat in Point-a-Pitre, Guadeloupe with a little trepidation. The flight…

Some of you can prove you are legit grown-ups because you recognize that song, about… wait for it…CAMP GRENADA! (Although they pronounce it differently in the song than actual Grenadians do. In case you wondered, to a local it’s gre-NAY-da – not gre-NAH-da. Now you won’t sound like a noob when you come for a…

It’s been a little quiet here on the blog for the last month. That’s because we were hosting friends and then traveling. We’re now back in Grenada, so I thought I should post an update. The last couple of weeks before our trip home were about building new friendships and nurturing old ones. This made…

Maybe it was the fact that we were ALMOST THERE – almost to the magical 12º 40’ latitude line that marks the official insurance-approved lower boundary of the hurricane zone. Maybe it was the fact that it had been a long time since we had seen our daughter. Maybe it was the ideal sailing weather…

The sail to Martinique was easy – they have all gotten easier, now that we are no longer sailing right into the wind. We did have some rain, but just little squalls and moderate wind. We used the jib and the motors, since our mainsail clew was still giving us problems and either breaking a…

Our journey south continued with an overnight stop in Dominica. We had bought some extra-strong line in Guadeloupe to use as a tie-down for the clew (rear bottom attachment point) of our mainsail. It’s been breaking loose when we use the main, and every time it happens we have to drop the sail to fix…

Montserrat – by Andy We left St. Maarten early on July 27 and set sail for St. Kitts. We had great sailing winds for this part of the trip, and we arrived around 3:30 p.m. We had plans of going ashore and helping the local economy, but we could not hail anyone at the marina…

Our journey from Virgin Gorda, BVI to Simpson Bay, Sint Maarten was pretty bumpy and uncomfortable. Some of that was because it was long and windward– about 80 miles southeast, nose straight into the trade winds. We did it overnight, so that we would not arrive in a new port in the dark. Also, the winds…