Author: Tom Grimmett

Yes, you read it correctly on our ‘current location’ posting… we are still in St Martin and still dealing with our rudder issue! Last Friday, after a day of breakneck speed trying to get the new rudder mounted back on the boat and connected, and a quick coat of antifouling paint, we splashed in the water moments before the yard staff headed home for the weekend. I promised one of the employees, Melvin, a beer when we were all done. After all, he played the lead on this day to get the new rudder, complete with new bushings, rudder stop bar, and cabling, installed before 5pm, skipping his afternoon ‘tea’ break to make it happen. Hanging out on a floating boat, drinking beers with several of our friends, and knowing that we could now start on our trip again, it couldn’t get any sweeter then this! The next few days were supposed to be blustery and high swells beyond St Martin, so we chose a short hop to the neighboring harbor of Simpson Bay, still on the Dutch side. Unfortunately, it was not meant to be. As we motored out of the Philipsburg harbor, I tried my best but could not ignore the fact that the boat was being pulled strongly to port as we motored. If I steered to port, she headed that way with ease; if I steered to starboard, I really needed to muscle the wheel over and hold it firmly. Something was clearly not right with the new rudder. I didn’t want to face any more bad news – denial seemed like a better plan – but when Karen took the wheel, she brought some reality to the scene and we agreed that it would be foolish to go on with a boat that couldn’t steer straight.

With spirits dashed, we headed back to the dock at Bobby’s Marina for what promised to be a long, lonely weekend. At various times, we each tried to boost the morale of the others, but Karen did the best job of bringing us out of our collective funk. She suggested we spend one night anchored out in the harbor away from the marina, feeling the cool, mosquito-free breezes and the peaceful lapping of the water on the hull. It was a moment’s glimpse back to the cruising world, a world that we had to remind ourselves we only left two weeks ago, but continued to stay out of our reach. In our excitement after the launching, we had radioed our rally friends, who were in various attractive destinations down island such as Nevis, Martinique and Dominica, and told them the good news that we were on our way to catch up to them. Now, it would be even longer before we caught up with them. It took all the strength we could muster to keep from dwelling on the negative. The kids were particularly upset, especially Zack. This was one of those challenging times as a parent, when you feel the same pain that your children feel, but you need to stand tall, ignore the feelings you might harbor inside, and be a good example to help them through it. We’ll need some more practice at this!

Continue reading “Standing Tall Ep. 39”

Like a clutch of shipwrecked sailors, we have found a way to deal with the sudden change of life ashore. This is our first full week of living ‘on the hard’ as they say. Thalia is parked up in the yard at Bobby’s Marina here in Sint Maarten, but we are trying to continue our normal routine as much as possible. We’ve actually stepped up the pace of school a notch, doing 4 full lessons a week now. While you school-aged kids reading this may be envious of our kids because they get 3 day weekends, these 4 day lesson weeks will be necessary for them to stay on track each week through about July without taking vacation weeks. With the Calvert school program, you can decide to take vacation weeks off like normal school kids, or just keep an even pace going for the entire year, and we have chosen the later. So far, the kids are adapting well to the new pace, as long as both Karen and I have the time to work with them steadily through the morning. I don’t know how teachers do it with 20+ kids… it is truly a miracle that they keep themselves together and get the class all moving in something like a forward direction. Hat’s off to you school teachers out there!!

Continue reading “Life, Interrupted Ep. 37”

If you read many tales of long-term cruising sailors, eventually you run across a time in their travels where they discovered an urgent need to change gears. By this I mean getting off the boat for awhile or inviting friends onboard — something to mix up the experience a little. We did both of these this past week. Three wonderful friends of mine from Bedford flew down here for a four day weekend of sailing while Karen and the boys got to stay at a beach resort on Tortola. For the guys, this was the second installment of the winter respite concept, having tested the idea out with much success in Key West, FL last February.

So, with bags in hand and eyes agleam, the guys — Steve, Matt and Don — walked off the plane and made the 5 minute stroll to the dinghy dock at Trellis Bay for a little fun in the sun. They made me promise to make sure they were prominently displayed on the website, so we’ll kick things off with a few profiles! Continue reading “A Fork in the Road Ep. 35”

What kind of New Year’s resolution did you make for this year? Eat more healthy? Start using that gym membership more often?

How about turning all of those ‘some day’ thoughts into reality? We’ve chatted with a lot of people on this trip who said they hope to some day take a trip similar to ours. But there’s only Monday through Sunday — no some day — in the week. If you’ve thought about some day taking a break from work, while you are still healthy, perhaps before your kids grow up and grow out, perhaps to get to know your spouse and kids better, or just because you’ve worked all of your life and everyone needs a break once in a while, then get out there and do it now! It will be a tough decision to make when you are in the comfort and safety of your current lifestyle, but you won’t regret it!

Continue reading “A Bubbly Beginning to 2007 Ep. 33”

I understand that you New Englanders had a pretty mild Christmas, with temperatures around 50 degrees. Well, add a measly 30 degrees to that, throw in some swaying palm trees, and a 20 dinghy raft up to take in the Davis Murray and the Barefoot Band and you have a Christmas Eve in paradise. Add a turkey dinner ashore followed by some reggae music and that about sums up Christmas Day! But I suppose you want to hear more details about our week and we’d love to share them, so here goes…

We left off last week with our exploits in Francis Bay on St John, USVI’s. We continued to stay there through Christmas – a one week stay in total and the longest time we spent in one spot since Hampton, VA. We met up again with our Maine friends — Alex, Gulley, Alasdair and Azaline — the hearty campers over at Cinnamon Bay. They offered to shuttle us all over to the southern extreme of St John, a point of land named Rams Head for an afternoon hike. What a delight it was to see parts of the island by car, and when we arrived at the parking area for the hiking trail, we immediately settled into the path down to the water’s edge and waited for the rest of the group to be shuttled over.

Continue reading “Santa and His Dolphin Duet Ep. 32”

If you can only spend a short time down here in the Virgin Islands, you must come to St. John. It’s a splendid spot to relax and it keeps pulling us back. At the end of last week, we were in Cinnamon Bay, on the northerly side of the St John. After spending several days there, the boys met a child from another family and in short order where playing and swimming at the beach. Her name was Azaline and she harkened from a rugged family from Maine. These folks came to St John for two weeks and, unlike 99.9% of the rest of the tourists who sought out comfy beds and air conditioned restaurants, her family was tent camping at the Cinnamon Bay campground! The campground has bare sites, canvas tent setups, and small cottages. I walked up to the tent site to see for sure that they were camping — I was quite impressed! Some might consider our life on a boat to be similar in style to camping, but when it rains at least we could get some positive protection out of the way in the cabin, and we could take a lot more of our ‘stuff’ with us. I must tell you, Maine breeds some hardy folks! While I was walking around the campground with my Sunday River t-shirt, I ran into another Mainer kid, complete with a big backpack and canteen. A few days later, we noticed we were anchored right in between two other boats that had Portsmouth, NH as their hailing port. Yikes, it’s a New England invasion!

Continue reading “Playmates For The Young and The Old Ep. 31”