December 28, 2006
We are still in Nevis. Tomorrow we plan to go to Golden Rock Estate, which is up high on the slope of Mt. Nevis, for a hike in the rainforest. There are supposed to be great views and lots of monkeys in the trees.
Winds in the anchorage have picked up considerably but luckily there is still only a light swell here on the leeward side of the island. We listened to Chris Parker of CaribWX give his 8:30 am forecast on the SSB radio (similar to ham radio). He broadcasts from the British Virgin Islands. Lots of sailors listen in to his broadcast, and then identify themselves and ask questions about forecast conditions for the route they have planned over the coming days. The winds and seas are forecast to abate on Sunday and early Monday morning, and then pick up again, so we have planned to sail the 115 nm. to Pointe-a-Pitre, Guadeloupe in one go, leaving Sunday late afternoon and arriving Monday morning. The other possibilities did not seem attractive. We could sail to Antigua and then on to Guadeloupe, but the sail to Antigua would be directly into the wind. We could sail to Montserrat, but it was pretty much destroyed by a volcano a few years ago, most of the population evacuated, and there has been an exclusion zone around much of the island due to falling ash and volcanic flows. As it is,our list of preparations for the sail to Guadeloupe include calling the Montserrat Volcano Observatory to make sure our course past Monserrat takes us far enoughaway to avoid the sticky ash that has been reported to fall downwind of the island.
Please check our slide show. We have added photos from St. Maarten and St. Barts. You can get to the slideshows from the home page, click on slide shows, and then the Caribbean Dec. 2006 link. The resolution looked poor from the internet cafe here in Nevis, but that could have just been the computer that I wsas using.
I think that I may have fixed the problem with the formatting of the blog but I am not certain. If it looks funky, please let me know.
M.