Moondancerx's BIG adventure

Today's date - 5th February 2019 - Its hard to believe that I have not visited this blogsite since 2015.  I remember so well at the beginning of our adventure aboard MoondancerX how vital it was that I write and publish posts even when the internet connections were so bad that it would take hours to post just a couple of photographs and a little bit of text. In September 2008 when Tony, my son Johnny and I left Sidney North Saanich Yacht Club we were so 'fresh' and excited about what was to come - Oh did I forget to say 'nervous'.   The preparations Tony and I made to MoondancerX took 2 years.  She was already an ocean going boat but needed a few major repairs and updates and we needed education, most of which we got through the Bluewater Cruising Association, a great organization to belong to if planning to go offshore.  And now that I am back I still value the company and sharing of common experiences with other 'doners' - and what is as important to the ...

Christmas 2015 – Great Abaco Island   Its Boxing Day now, it was supposed to be a race day in the Sea of Abaco hosted by the Hopetown Sailing Club, but for some reason at 8.15am it was postponed until next week due to inclement weather.   It would have been a great race day with tons of wind and sunshine – maybe they thought it was too windy, or maybe the organizers were suffering Christmas Day hangover, I know I was, but was still looking forward to the wind blowing away the cobwebs.     Hopetown is a lovely little town on Elbow Cay but not somewhere I would want to be for that much time, so I’m back in Marsh Harbour.   Its not that Marsh Harbour is particularly beautiful but it is the hub of Abaco and has the life sustaining facilities.   Its also where I don’t feel guilty about running my generator for many hours trying to get my batteries up to 100% capacity.   I was given a battery monitor by another lovely couple on Sargo, John...

    Its now December 20 th 2015, almost Christmas and that time of year when the urge to be home with my family becomes quite consuming and of course a bit sad. I got back to Marsh Harbour mid-October, spent 2 weeks living on board in Marsh Harbour Boat Yard with 10,000,000 little biting bastards that left almost no skin unbitten anywhere on my body; noseeums – worse itch than most mosquitos. Its always tough living on board in a boat yard but its bound to be as that’s not where boats are supposed to be – on land.     But of course it’s the necessary evil – boats cannot be submerged in water without protection from all of the little underwater critters who will embed themselves in the fiberglass, not to mention just the water getting in, so we haul our boats out regularly and spend lots of money painting the soon to be submerged part.   And then of course while its out of the water there are all of the other projects to get done.   So...

  9 th – 13 th May 2015   We were all pretty glad to get out of Grand   Turk, maybe we were there at the wrong time of year, but even if it were the height of their season (whatever that is) there was little to offer the sailing cruiser.   Perhaps the cruise ship terminal has sucked all of the life out of the tiny island, and as we didn’t go to the terminal (no interest in doing so) we didn’t see where all the life went. And the biggest issue on my mind was FUEL FILTER, or lack thereof.   The marine supply store didn’t have one. So we were going to have to sail pretty much all of the way there because I was saving whatever filtering ability the one I had installed to get us in through the hazardous reefs leading into Great Abaco Island. And as we were going to be in the Atlantic Ocean all the way there I fully expected us to be using the trades to get us there. And that’s exactly what we did – it was generally great sailing, mostly...

Grand Turk 6 th – 9 th May As we approached, kinda limped into Grand Turk we called (as one does) the Harbour Authority to ask if we could go straight to the Town Site as we only wanted to anchor once, while we got all of the earlier described problems dealt with. A very nice gentleman called us back and said that would be fine, suggested where it would be good for us to anchor and even told us he would wait for us to take us to Customs and Immigration.  Wow, now that’s hospitality – never been received into a country like that before. But as the saying goes, if it seems too good to be true, it usually is.   The nice gentleman turned out to be the only ‘white’ taxi driver on the island, we didn’t really give a s—t, what color the taxi driver or the taxi is, but it would have been honest for the guy to tell us what he was when he answered our call on VHF.  I did tell him that – he didn’t comment.  The next day I hired him to take us to get water, take ...

Sint Maarten to Grand Turk, Turks and Caicos 29 th April – 6 th May 2015 Approx. 600 miles – no stops ( Author’s note -  My memory is a little vague now on this journey and the log kept is mostly essential information only, which though helpful is not that interesting to anyone – not even me anymore – so unless something really exciting was going on this might be dry reading). Planned route was Sint Maarten to a waypoint above Anegada, then a long leg supposedly heading west with a little bit of north until below Mouchoir Bank  before turning further north for Grand Turk which is just a little bit of land which manages to stay above the reef, or a 7000’ high underwater mountain.   It is the northern part, the southern part of it is about 30 miles south, where the reef shallows up to about 20feet, quite suddenly. Off we went, left with the 10.00am bridge opening to get out of Simpson Bay Lagoon, all tanks full, Jerry cans full;  200 gallons o...

Saint Lucia – Sint Maarten 23 rd – 26 th April 2015 3 days in St. Lucia and we worked very hard while there – the genoa halyard was very difficult to re-wind onto the drum, with all three of us putting our  heads together, Adam and I dismantling the lower drum several times – all of us taking turns to read and attempt to understand why we kept getting it wrong.  Now and again I think that I might be dyslexic, this was one of those times – no matter how many times we re-wound the furling line onto  that drum it was backwards. Debra and I working on sewing the sun strip back on the genoa We got it on eventually,  and furled and unfurled it while on our mooring and all seemed well – It wasn’t, it plagued us throughout the rest of the trip – we were constantly reefing and unreefing it – the unreefing was the problem and I broke another rule I usually adhere to – ‘if you have to use brute force to make something work, something’s obviously wrong an...

MoondancerX’s Big Adventure     Resumed after a 3 year hiatus in St. Vincent.   Since our arrival here in May 2012 many changes have taken place, the biggest of which of course is that Tony and I are no longer married.   We’d been working for 3 years with Barefoot Offshore Sailing School as Sailing Instructors – separately and fairly constantly.   Tony has gone to live in Nova Scotia with his new family and after 1 year on my own in St. Vincent it came time to move on. MoondancerX has sat so quietly on her mooring ball with very little input from me, other than my attempts to keep her brightwork looking half decent and  some attention to her canvasses. So – preparation for my journey to the Bahamas, why here – I’ll get to that.   The date I’m writing this is December 4 th 2015 The decision to move on was difficult to make – to start anew in a totally foreign (to me) country where until I made friends...

As you can see our little Value Village tree is back out of the closet and hanging in place after a 2 year break.  It still looks good, does the job.  Last year we were crossing the Atlantic, and even though I did cook a Christmas dinner which we ate out of deep tupperware containers, the gimballing of the tree might have been a bit much.   We'll not be aboard Moondancer this Christmas - not sure which Barefoot boat we will be aboard, but that's where we'll be.  Originally were both booked on separate boats with 2 different groups of people who didn't want to spend Christmas at home, but preferred to spend it learning to sail in the Windward Islands. So now by the grace of Liat, our monopolizing uncaring for its customers airline one of those groups' flights were cancelled resulting in the cancellation of their Christmas plans.  So that either meant that one of us would stay home alone over Christmas - or we both go on the same boat.  Tha...

Alot of water has flowed under the bridge since the last post - or it would have if there was a bridge. We've been with Barefoot since May of this year and have gone through their 'slow' season which really was quite busy - we've been home to Canada for 6 weeks, seeing our families and friends. I was lucky enough to have my arrival at my daughter Mary's home coincide with the birth of Isaan, her second child and my third grandchild.  During that visit I had some quality time with Mary's first-born, Mission, a lovely little boy who is almost 3.  Now I understand what happens in a Grandmother's heart - it tops many of the other things I have going on in my life. Tony and I are both working alot now - I got my cross-certification to the American Sailing Assoc. as an instructor teaching levels Basic up to Bareboat Skipper and Catamaran Skipper. Tony is also teaching a more advanced course - level 106. This is good work, we are both sailing on several diffe...

Please note that I've gone back to WEBSHOTS as a way of showing the majority of our photographs. It still takes too long to upload them to the site and any suggestions as to a better site would be greatfully received. In the meantime I've posted the most recent pictures on Webshots, click on the link at the side. We're back in Bequia, on board Moondancer - we've provisioned for the week, cleaned half of her bottom (we'll do the rest today), the St. Vincent coffee is brewing (its very good coffee) and I can sit around our cabin half dressed as the only person who'll see me is my husband - and he doesn't mind. We really like Bequia - to be more accurate I should say that we really like Admiralty Bay in Bequia, because quite honestly we've seen little else. We have what we need here - a quiet anchorage which is mostly very comfortable - NOT rolly as it has been for the past couple of days. The water is usually very clear and the snorkelling and divin...

Having just looked at this site for the first time in months I realise how time has flown by since the last entry. We've been very busy since we left Antigua. We spent a bit of time in Sint Maarten where we tried out for a week with Tradewinds, a charter club where we would be operating their catamarans as Captain and Chef - I thought I could be that Chef person until I actually saw the job in action. Though we liked the company I knew that I would not be happy in that job. In early May we heard of a charter company/sailing school further south in St. Vincent who needed instructors. Looking back on my records I found that we had applied to them when we first arrived in the Caribbean with no response, but the school director of that time was leaving and our timing now was right on. They asked us to come down to them as soon as possible, we did and we've been working regularly since we arrived. To be more accurate I should say that Tony has been working since we arriv...