Author: Tom Grimmett

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”

Now, I don’t want you all to get to upset that, after reading the headline above, you think we are heading back home early! Fear not, we’ve had some difficult times, but this family is charging onwards through the Caribbean! This week, we are experiencing a little peek back into the US culture and shopping scene as we enter the US Virgin Islands. We arrived here after a great couple of days circumnavigating the island of Tortola. After leaving Trellis Bay on the eastern end last week, we sailed on to Cane Garden Bay, to Sopers Hole, and then back to Roadtown. Cane Garden Bay was described as being picture postcard perfect, with white sandy beaches shaded by plenty of palm trees, and I must agree wholeheartedly. What do you think?

Continue reading “A Carib-USA Concoction Ep. 30”

After a frustrating week at the Village Cay docks last week trying to get boat work done, we needed a little fun — after all Thalia was the goddess of comedy! On Friday night, the roads of Roadtown were bedecked in a Christmas Festival. They closed off Main Street and jammed it full of booths of vendors selling food, handicrafts and toys. “Main Street” here is so narrow, it is a one way road, and the booths, being at least 10-12′ square, didn’t leave but the gutters on both sides for all the crowds to pass by. And, believe me, you want to be careful when you walk by a gutter in these parts!

Thankfully, it didn’t take us long to find a local reggae band — down here, it’s all reggae or rap, with an occasional blues band. Here’s a video of some of the music. If you are looking out the window into a snow storm right now, this might put you in an island time, low-stress mood!

Continue reading “Paradise Lost, Paradise Found Ep. 29”