I DID IT! Well since I did not post a trip report after our Oct 03 Cattitude ShakeDown cruise, I figured I need to do this one right away or it will never get done.
Sat Feb 28th arrive Beef Island (AA flight actually early)…..But luggage decides to go on “Island Time” in SJU. Finally arrives 4 flights later. We wouldn’t have waited and have it delivered, but we had brought “Lunch” for the crew at TMM. NY Bagels, Cream cheese and Lox etc…..so by the time we arrive at TMM lunch became dinner.
We had charterers on the boat until Sun am (though when we arrive they were already in at the dock and washing and scrubbing the boat. (Just love them)) It was nice to meet some of the people using Cattitude and to pick their brain as to how their trip went.
After talking to them we headed off to Hotel Castle Maria. As was stated before on this forum it is indeed “Rustic but clean”. After checking in….. down to the bar….Desk clerk Rajah” now becomes bartender….we ask for snacks…None….order a couple of Caribe’s and while sitting & talking…. “Chris” comes in with a can of peanuts. Snacks for the bar. Turns out he is the owner and we spend the next 1.5 hrs talking to him about his life in NYC. He taught college there. It is very interesting how so many of the “belongers” come to NY and then years later go back to the BVI. We thoroughly enjoyed our discussions with him.
Off to Dinner at Brandywine ……..wonderful meal, great ambiance and Cele and David were wonderful hosts. Although we had never met them before, we felt that we were with old friends. A great evening that ended with Grappa and some further antics. Grappa makes you do VERRRY strange stuff…..
Sun Feb 29th wake up to a beautiful day…..arrive at TMM to drop off luggage. Head to Prospect Reef Resort for breakfast and to see “Swim with Dolphins”. Our guest “Dee” wanted to do the swim, but 2 weeks before she hit a tree in Vermont with a snowmobile and broke 3 ribs and ruptured spleen……no dolphins for her. We thoroughly enjoyed watching others “Swim with the Dolphins”. (We did it in Oct and so did everyone who joined us on that trip.) It is truly an amazing experience. I do know that it is controversial in the BVI, but as an animal handler in showbiz in a former life….I truly believe that the program is a very well done and that the dolphins get the best of care. If people would only look at statistics, they would find that wild animals in captivity that are well taken care of: 1. live longer. 2.live better lives. 3. have the easy road…they do not have to look for food, great medical care, and truly do enjoy the interaction with humans. (have you played with your dog lately?) OK, OK, off my grandstand and back to the trip….
While at Prospect Reef Hotel, I discover that the Wantagh High School Band (Long Island, NY) is staying there…..they are performing with the Tortola high school band in a concert that nite….Turns out that one of my clients daughters is a chaperone with the band…..Small world…and we run into her.
Just as we are ready to head back to TMM to get on the boat……….the clouds come up over the mountain…No Problem, I say…… “a quick shower”…..wrong again!.....Rain the rest of the day and the winds start.
We head onto the boat to start unpacking and Bobby’s market delivers right on time. Only 2 mix-ups…..lime juice instead of lemon and no Diet Tonic. Call Bobby’s and within 10 minutes we get replacements.
By 3pm we are ready to head out….and it is still raining….TMM asks us to fuel the boat as the charterers were not able to because the fuel dock was closed…No problem, and we head over to the Moorings to fuel up. Entering the dockage area, Paul puts the starboard engine into forward again and this time “THE BOAT GOES BACKWARDS”. He tries everything, but the starboard engine just keeps going in reverse. I try from the lower station…No Luck. He manages to back all the way out of the harbor in winds that are blowing like a banshee. We call TMM and Lucien is out in 10 min. to fix the problem. Gear cable bent on too sharp of a turn is kinked and snaps (thank you Lagoon). Within 10 more min. he has it out of the boat and heads back to TMM. 20 min. later he is back with a new cable and has it installed in minutes. He is a wonderful mechanic. We just thank God that it happened to us and not the charterers.
Well, it is now 4:30 and we try to go back to the Moorings….We call on the radio to tell them that we are coming in for diesel and they reply now that they have none and won’t have until Tues. “On to plan B”. We head straight to Norman Island, pick up a mooring (it is now 5:30 and there is still one free….amazing). Rain and wind or not we start with our first batch of painkillers. (Thank you Walker, for that great recipe using a gallon water jug. We always include that gallon of water in our Bobby’s order. I use the water to make the first batch of fresh iced tea.) Then the “ALL IMPORTANT JUG” for painkillers for the rest of the trip.
Dinner at Pirates and the food as usual is great. Not much else doing there so after dinner we head back to Cattitude and SLEEP.
Monday morning we head over to the Caves to try to snorkel, but it is blowing so hard we knew that visibility would be crummy. We decide to head to Peter Island to do the fuel that we couldn’t get Sun nite. Dee & I are sitting on the bow for the very first part. We are already taking some light water over the bow. I realize that when we get past Peter Island into Drakes Channel we are toast, so I have Paul duck behind Peter Island to allow myself and Dee (the one with broken ribs, wouldn’t want her to get banged around trying to walk back while underway) move to the cockpit. A VERY Good decision. As we round Peter Island the waves are now breaking over the bow. See webshots for trip pics (5599).
Paul is up on the bridge getting soaked (he will never pilot from the lower station) and the rest of us are doing the most logical thing. Sitting in the cockpit staying perfectly dry and comfortable having Caribes. The boat cruises thru it like a piece of cake.
We arrive at Peter Island fuel dock. They tell us it will be a few minutes as they are just filling the tank. Ok, Island Time again. 1hr later they finally fuel us up…and that takes another hour because there is something wrong with the pump. We spent the 2 hrs. talking to the Crew of “Enterprise V” a 196ft Feadship owned by the owner of Peter Island resort. What a beautiful ship. Makes Cattitude look like a toy boat.
We are finally fueled and we are off to Trellis Bay, right up Drakes Channel into the wind. The trip is suprisingly smooth though the waves are pretty big. The worst was probably rounding Beef Island and taking the waves broadside.
At Trellis Bay it is PACKED. We look unsuccessfully for an hour for a free mooring or a place to drop anchor. Finally anchor out on the eastern entrance. Within minutes of anchoring, we see a boat pull out that had been on a mooring. Lou and I jump into the dink and move to find the free mooring while Paul and Dee pull up anchor and meet us.
In that wind we much preferred to be on a mooring. Time for more painkillers.
Dinner tonite at the Last Resort. Food again was excellent. The entertainment was a singer. Not Al. I was disappointed, as when we were there in Oct Al entertained us, and he was excellent. Only other we ever saw was Tony Snell and he rarely is there now. (our charterers did say that he was there the week before). I understand that Al “the singing cook” plays only on Thurs thru Sun and the other guy Mon thru Wed. We did enjoy the evening even though when asked to sing a song about our home (New York, New York,) we couldn’t remember the words…..too many painkillers, so “Oklahoma” sang it for us.
Tuesday morning we head off to Monkey Point hoping that the snorkeling there might be ok. We arrive, get a mooring and 3 other boats show up. They all dink into the cove to try to snorkel. Paul snorkels in from Cattitude to see how it is and gives it the “thumbs down”. They don’t even get out of their dinks and head back to their boats and leave.
We now head off to Cane Garden Bay. The run on the north side wasn’t as bad as I expected and I rode on the bridge with Paul. No water over the bow as we were now heading with the wind. It was beautiful. The water to the north was all that “picture perfect” aqua color with white foam on the top of waves. Did not see another boat while traveling. Was almost like October. Guess people stayed wherever they were.
We arrived in Cane Garden Bay and found only 2 other boats on moorings. Amazing.
By the end of the day there were only about 6 boats in the entire bay. The anchorage was delightful. Flat as a pancake.
We headed into shore by dink to make dinner reservations at Quito’s. Shopped along the beach. Visited the Callwood Distillery. The beach was pretty empty, but there were a large number of beach chairs out. The cruise ship crowd was expected. They didn’t show up until about 3pm so it was fine with us. We headed back to Cattitude and painkillers by then.
Dinner at Quito’s was great. It was good to see Karen (I felt like a long lost friend)again. She is a great waitress. She remembers that I drink "Feel Alright" and Pauls special drink invented for us in October "I'm Still OK". ('We are still waiting for it to be a regular on the menu.) We danced the night away to Quito playing solo. While there, a dinghy that was left on the beach decides to leave on its own. Paul offers to take the owners out to retrieve it, but by the time he gets to our dinghy “Montreal” runs into the water to get it for them. She (Montreal) gets a bottle of wine from the owners of the runaway dink and they also buy our table a round for Pauls effort. Thank you Jeff.
Wednesday morning we head over to Sandy Cay and Sandy Spit. Too rough to anchor out and go ashore. We idle there briefly to take some quick pics for our guests. Off to White Bay. White Bay is protected from the wind and the waves and we drop anchor to the east of the channel entrance. There are a number of boats on the east side by Ivans on the moorings. Into shore we go for more painkillers and to do what everyone does best in White Bay…..Limin away in the hammocks of the Soggy Dollar. We walk the beach and find no one using ATVs, or anything else. The place is pretty much like it was in October. I guess everyone is still hanging low in whatever anchorage they were in. After spending most of the day there we head out to Little Harbor….My first choice was to go to Diamond Cay and Foxy’s Taboo but with the wind we decided to head to Little Harbor. We took the furthest back mooring and hoped for the best. The wave action was light, but the winds were heading straight down the harbor and it was a noisy night.
Off to Harris’s place for dinner. We were the only guests (again, as we were in Oct.) Mrs. Harris (Adina) cooked for us. Lou (our guest) decided to help her and became the bartender, busboy, kitchen assistant and dishwasher. It as absolutely great. It was like have dinner in her home. We had the ribs & chix barbeque (all you can eat). A truly delightful meal. At the end Lou cleared the table and washed the dishes as Adina sat with us to talk about her life in New York. (as we did in Oct. with her daughter Cynthia). Lou had a great time and was certainly in his environment. Adina offered him a job.
Thurs. morning we awake to still more wind, but decide to head back to Norman Island and to try to snorkel there. The trip across is not a bad as the prior and I decide to pilot the way there. Only a few hits in the face with wave action. The trip is pretty much uneventful and we take a mooring ball at the south bay of the caves. The water has cleared enough to do some snorkeling and we finally take our guests for their first experience. Afterwards, back to the boat for painkillers and off to the Bight for the evening. We decide to have dinner on Cattitude and afterwards head to the WillyT for partying. Low and behold…..there is “Montreal”…who has proceeded to jump once already and tries to ply us into doing the same. Dee.is willing but can’t… (remember broken ribs)…. We do spend the night having a blast dancing and watching many others party and jump. Body shots are now flowing and it is an interesting time. Dee finally gets her butt Tatoo…… A great time for all of us….I do remember Dee dancing between two 20something year olds weighing about 200lbs each and yelling “I love this place” so much for Grandmahood. She will pay the next morning……….
Friday morning after soothing hangovers we decide to head back to the Caves. The wave action has let up and clarity is better. We head into the water and are immediately surrounded by tons of yellow and black striped fish….see webshot underwater photos. Lou and Dee follow me in, but are intimidated by the fish. The fish love my new underwater housing for the camera and keep “bumping” it. We snorkel for awhile and decide to move on to Cooper Island. Upon arriving at Cooper, most of the moorings are taken. We try to take one that has the painter is missing. Mistake! Totally impossible to get our line thru the eye of the mooring and we bend to boathook trying and them finally drop the boathook overboard. No problem…Cattitude has 2 boathooks and we are able to recover the first one. We head further north in the mooring field and hook up. While we are on the mooring we watch the boat in front of us have their inflatable picked up by the wind and totally flipped over. Yes, that wound be engine under water. After a lot of effort they finally get it upright and fasten it so that it cannot happen again. We figure that they are now calling the charter company to tell them the woefull tale, but lo & behold, 20 minutes later they start the engine and head to Cooper Island Beach Club for cocktail hour. Amazing.
We start cocktail hour (guess what we are drinking) and head in after dusk for dinner. There again we meet “Montreal”. They are on the last night of their trip and we share last nite stories. Dinner as usual was great. We make it an early nite to bed.
Friday morning off to the Baths. The swell has left and we are actually able to take a mooring and “do the Baths”, Lou and Dee are in awe. We have drinks at the “Top of the Baths” and a quick dip in the pool (allowed if you order drinks up there). Back to Cattitude and off Trellis Bay….we were suppose to head back into TMM and then go to Bomba’s for full moon party, but upon reflection we decided that another nite on the “Hook” or mooring was better than a nite at the dock and decide to do Full Moon at Trellis Bay. We get a mooring….finish the last of the painkillers and head to DeLoose Mongoose for dinner. We share a table with a charter couple from England, along with their children and their captain. The lobster was great. Everyone enjoyed their dinner and then off to Cybercafe for the party. We had done this full moon party in Oct. and the entertainment was just a good this time. The Fire Limbo, The stiltwalker(dancers) & the band were great. The fireball was having a hard time in the wind, but was still fun to watch. A calm party, but fun.
Sun am…..ok it is finally time to head to TMM and we start out early so as to pack up everything and clean up before we leave. The water and wind have finally calmed down and it is a delightful trip. Sad…..we are actually back at the dock…. Major bummer….
The trip was certainly wild and windy but our guests had never done the BVI so for them it was a giant natural wonder. For us….well…..it beats working……
ALL in ALL I must say that Cattitude handled the action remarkably, if not spectacularly well. We have a 33ft Carver in NY and I would have been scared ***t in that boat. We are almost glad that we had some weather so that we could see how she really handled. We are most definitely pleased. No one got sick. She rode the wave action so flat that I was truly amazed. We traveled every day and the sea conditions never stopped us. The fuel consumption was great again. 85 gal for 8 days of cruising at 9 to 14 knts. She only burns 5.6 gal per hr. (a far cry from our Carver burning 25gal per hr in NY).
And what the heck only 85 days to our June trip! <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/circle.gif" alt="" />
See Webshots of the trip
Mar 04 "Blowin By Pics Mar 04 "Blowin By" underwater pics
