Hope's and Howard's Sailing Adventures

Atlantic and Mediterranean Cruising on board Lady M

Red Bottom

Earl and James have done a fine job of first sanding, then applying an undercoat followed by two coats of anti-fouling …. but the question is, did we choose a good color? The jury is still out here. We have it on authority that either red or black anti-fouling remains effective for longer than blue…. and it does go with our red stripe, so I guess it’s OK. New zincs.. Read More

Shore time

Redundant crew will recognize this spot with the ‘best drinks on the island’. For the rest, we are currently back in Nanny Cay, where the boat is being hauled and the bottom painted. We are enjoying a day or two off and will have the opportunity to stay on dry land. The first time for a while where we will not be rocked to sleep by the motion of the.. Read More

Long Bay, Tortola

We took a break from the preparations yesterday to join Sue, Ash and Clay (our dock manager) in a car ride over to Soper’s Hole where we hung out for a while on Warren and Vicky’s spacious aft deck. On the way we took a look at the Frenchmans’s restaurant and resort on Frenchmans Cay, which is the ‘island’ that forms Soper’s Hole. It would be a lovely spot for.. Read More

Progress with jobs

Back on the dock at Village Cay, we are making progress with preparations for our next adventures. On the ‘to do’ list was to give the captain a haircut … And in case you are wondering, no, I did not chop off his ear! We have decided to have the boat hauled in Nanny Cay Marina next week not only so we can put new (and hopefully more effective) bottom.. Read More

Francis Bay, St John

Having taken care of a few things in Charlotte Amalie and moving out of the main harbour to the other side of Water Island, opposite Crown Marina to join Sue and Ash, we are slowly making our way back to Village Cay in Road Town. We are currently on a mooring in the lovely Francis Bay, St John and will probably head back to V.C. tomorrow. We have some maintenance.. Read More

Detour

Well, we did get up early and tried our best to head for St Croix but Mother Nature did not oblige. The wind was more like ESE as opposed to the ENE we had anticipated. So, after plugging away for about 4 hours, we tacked and decided that if we wanted to make landfall in daylight St Thomas was a much better option, it being closer and a better angle… Read More

Vieques

Another great day. It started with coffee at the dinghy dock shortly after 8am where we met up with Kim, Mehrnaz, Ash and Sue to discuss plans for the coming days. Ash and Sue decided to stay a few more days at Culebra to let Ash’s wrist recover from what we think is tendinitis. Kim and M are game to spend a few days in Vieques and we want to.. Read More

Spanish Virgin Islands

Our first destination from the dock was Peter Island, a short, easy hop from Road Town that didn’t even warrant raising the mainsail. There we spent most of the afternoon scrubbing the bottom of the boat to remove the forest of weed, barnacles and what we think were sea anemones that were about 2 inches long! Howard donned his scuba gear and used a full tank of air in the.. Read More

The start of a new phase of life

So, we have been busy over the past few months.  Howard returned to the U.S. in mid-February to frigid weather to sort out our years of accumulating way too much “stuff”, off-loading about half of it either by selling or donating to charity and placing the remainder into a storage unit.  The house sale finally went through on March 31st….. Yippee!!  Meanwhile I (Hope) continued to work up until April.. Read More

Vacation draws to a close

It has been a most enjoyable family time but sadly Scott is already on his way back to Oregon and Sonia and Hope leave early tomorrow.  Since our last blog, we have visited Saba Rock in Gorda Sound (where we saw in the New Year), Cooper Island, Peter Island and Norman Island.  We returned to Village Cay in Road Town, Tortola yesterday.  Beautiful sailing, wonderful company and some spectacular fellow.. Read More