Follow up to my last blog on ocean rowing;

As the crowd began to gather at the arrival of the "The Reason Why" I could not help but get caught up in the moment. Well OK! I must admit that this endeavor is nothing less than an extraordinary accomplishment. Yes I still feel strongly about these small boats in a big ocean. But what I will say is that they are manned by very strong people. I just do not mean that in the pure physical sense either. Trust me they are in shape. What I was taken by the other evening was the emotion of these guys arriving after 55 days at sea.

The emotion of their friends knowing that at last they are OK.

The emotion of themselves in the reality that it was over. This brought home to me what they have done and my hat is off to them for this accomplishment.

The next thing that blew me away was the two guys on the "The Reason Why ". Old guys rule in my book and after seeing these guys I want to get back into rowing again. No worries I will not be doing a trans Atlantic any time soon. Just some recreational rowing will be fine thank you. I was taken by the fact that these guys, I am not sure of their exact ages but certainly mid to late 50 somethings were only a few hours behind two members of the British Special forces Marine Commando unit. Talk about a couple of guys in shape. These guys are poster child's for the fitness aspect of rowing. Any how I certainly feel if there was a handicap rule of some kind in this sport these guys would be the winners. So I congratulate these guys on achieving their goal.

While enjoying the excitement of the event, I was made aware at the gathering that there were still 14 rowers out on the Atlantic still trying to make it to Antigua. It was a sobering reminder of how hard this is to do. It was also suggested that there may be boats out there well into the month of February.Whew what a thought. At this point after 55 days it becomes more than just the accomplishment but more a case for survival. God bless them and God Speed to them. I hope and trust that they will all make it safely to Antigua.

People of the Dock Yard

The People of the Dock Yard:

What I have come to learn about these islands is within the diversity of its people. What I have also learned is that it is easy to fall in love with a particular place. Each of these islands has it’s own sense of character. To me it is difficult to find a place that has more character than Nelson’s Dock Yard in Antigua. Just the sense of the history that is here makes this a very special place. More importantly it is the people of this place that separate it from other spots one can find as you travel through the archipelago. There are many more wonderful people here in the Dock Yard that I have not mentioned in this blog. I will try and fold some of them in future blogs about the Dock Yard. If you are sailing the Caribbean do not miss a stop at Nelson's Dock Yard.

You will be gald you did.

Aukland Joseph :
With his cool shades and signature baseball cap Aukland Has been the dockmaster here for over twenty years. This year he will be retiring from his job at the Dock Yard. All of us within the yachting community will miss his warm and friendly smile upon arrival here at the Dock Yard. Aukland has created a nice little business for himself to carry him along in his post dockmaster years. He has a storage business located not far from the docks. I am sure this will be a big hit with many of the cruising boats especially those that make the trip annually.

Apple Water Taxi :
Apple is best known for his Island style fedora.
Apple has run the water taxi here at the Dock Yard for over twenty years.
Before this he did this for other people . He used to take people out for snorkeling
Trips. Has had different business in the Dock Yard. A true Antiguan he is the son of a son. A true man with great hope and a wonderful demeanor.

Miss Baltimore Laundry:

She is one of the first to greet you upon arrival at the Dock Yard.
We have come to know her as the Laundry Mafia Don. She has run this
business here for thirty plus years. Her mission is your laundry. For the most
part she does a great job. There is a lot of competition here on the dock and
she is the most competitive of the bunch. This is a valuable service for those
who are in need of some clean skippys after a long passage.

Kerry at the Galley Bar :

She is a youngster around the Dock Yard as compared to the above group. She has

been working at the Bar for over a year and has developed her own following of fans.

Terry has been joining her for coffee almost every day since we have been in Antigua.

Good thing they do not sell desert.

Loyd Day Worker :

I met Loyd two years ago after a passage from Bermuda. He is an honest hard working young

man who is an Antiguan to the core. Born and raised here he is very good at many skills in the

area of boat detailing. I try and employ Loyd whenever I can to help with the recovery work needed to bring WINGS back to her shiney ways. Ocean passages are hard on the cosmetics.

Feat or Folly or Crazy????

It is with great curiosity that I find my self looking at these boats and wondering just how much pain and suffering is the human willing to self administer. I confess I do not know much about ocean rowing other than it takes a long time in a small relativly open boat to make a trans atlantic trip. Granted these boats are designed from the bottom up to do this job. I have spent many days at sea on sailing vessels of a much more substantial nature and am always in awe of how small we are when out at sea.

So let us take a close look at what was home for some very hardy and I will say adventureous souls who have just completed a trans altantic crossing in these boats. I have had some experience with rowing as an activty for fitness and recreation. I am proud to say I owned a Alden Ocean Shell for many years. Now granted the ocean shell has about as much freeboard as a bowl of chili. But the sliding seat and the foot attachments were not at all different than what I was to observe on these boats. I was also to obeserve that there were differences between each of the boats with this regard. Of the four boats that I have had the opportunity to see only one appeared to have what I would call a decent seat. Well I do not know about you but two months at sea on my butt I need a good seat. Some of the foot attachments were crude at best and one was what I would call essential. When I was rowing my Alden I installed cross country ski bindings and shoes for the foot attachments for the sliding seat. This improved the efficency of the rowing by leaps and bounds over the supplied straps. Only one of the boats appeared to have such an arrangement.

Well enough with some of the small detail observations. Once again as I said having been to sea for many ocean miles I cannot think that these guys and gals who do this are nuts. It has also been brought to my attention that more of them have been rescued at sea than have ever comleted the passage. God bless them I guess for trying but they do put other people in harms way in order to go out and save them when they are in trouble. For this reason and this reason only I cannot support this as a feat but more of a folly.

There was a woman from New Hampshire who was running for Congress. You may have heard of her. She became known as Granny D. Well she decided that in order to learn what was happening across the country she decided to walk it. She walked from LA to Washington DC a distance of 3200 miles at 90 years of age. To me this was a feat.This took every bit as much to accomplish as any of the ocean rowers have. She is certainly not the athlete that any of these rowers are. She did not need to be rescued by anyone. If she was to have failed at her attempt she would have simply gone home. This is something you cannot do when at sea. Someone has to come and fetch you. I do not mean to diminish the physical aspect of this sport. I am not sure it can be called a sport but I did anyway.

I guess that these boats are life rafts in and of themselves. I guess that it really comes down to the risk factor. We take great pains with respect to safety procedures and equipment to insure the safety of all aboard before we go offshore. I wonder just how much these rowers know of the ocean before they leave the safety of the harbor. If they really understood how unforgiving the ocean can be would they be putting to sea in such small boats. These are questions of which I cannot answer. The only thing I can tell you is that it would take an athlete of tremendous fitness and strength to endure what they must have, in order to make such a voyage in a small open boat. It is not unlike climbing the highest mountains in the world. We all know how many souls have been claimed in that endeavor.

Sailing in the land of the Giants

Everything in life can take on a certain relavance when one looks at the context of the view. When Wings is tied to the dock in Rockland Me at the public landing she can certainly take on the presence of a large vessel. When she is tied to the dock at Nelson's dockyard here in Antigua she can appear to be relatively small when surrounded by a rack of superyachts. When a superyacht makes an appearance on the coast of Maine in a small town like Rockland it can be an event amongst the sailing community. Here in Antigua they can be stacked like cord wood. Having had the opportunity to be here in Antigua for the annual yacht charter show I was blown away by the quanity and size of the vessels on display. There was a time not long a go when there were less than 500 yachts of 100' or greater sailing on the planet. At this time there are 500 per year being built at this time.There has become a huge demand for dock space for these vessels and new marinas are being built just to accomadate these bohemoths of the sea. Many marinas that once were the home of a smaller crowd are being displaced in order to make room for the giants.

Although there are some spectacular sailing vessels being built in this genre most are of the Tri Deck Motor Yacht class. These boats cannot purchase fuel at most fuel docks as the docks do not have enough fuel in their tanks to accomadate them. It is not uncommon to see a couple of large tanker trucks along side a dock for a fill up.In a world where we read every day about greenhouse gases and the warming of the planet this concept is somewhat disturbing. The buzz word in this talk is carbon foot prints. Talk about a carbon footprint. These boats have enough power aboard to run a small town. It will become obvious if not down right apparent that I am a sailor and lean toward the sailing side of these giants. Some can take on the look of a motor yacht with masts and some can take on the look of a classic schooner built 100 years ago. What has always been an attractive side of sailing to me is that you can always get home with your boat regardless of weather or if the engine decided to quit. The same is true for a superyacht if it is powered by sail.

The other morning while I had few extra minutes to spare I took a walk over to the Antigua Yacht Club dock to take a look at what might be the most spectacular superyacht on the planet.While there I was blessed with a most unique photo opportunity. Alongside the Maltese Falcon was a traditional square rigged sailing vessel. What a contrast these two vessels made. I was taken back by the sheer size of the Falcon as she dwarfted the small ship that was next to her. As the Maltese Falcon has a completely modern and totaly unique rig it was an interesting view to say the least. The Maltese Falcon has what would look like a square rigged ship at a distance. When up close and personal to the vessel she is very far removed from the past. This is one very impressive sailing vessel. It is as high tech a boat as has ever been built. She is a superyacht of epic perportions yet she is sleek and elegant. While there the captain was getting the vessel ready to get underway. I was treated to a spectacular view as the sails started to set and the boat began to sail off of the dock. This maneuver is not for the meek and weak but the conditions were light and perfect to accomplish this spectacular departure.

So as I made my way back to the reality of our lovely and elegant little ship I was taken by the accomplishments of the shipwrights and craftsmen who build these boats. It is one thing to see them and to look at them tied to the dock. We must remember that human hands build these vessels and human hands sail them.

Repairs,laundry,and other stuff in Antigua:

This day has gone pretty well all things considered. We have sorted out the issue with our Gen although not good news not overly bad news either. It appears that we have an issue with the exhaust system possibly causing seawater to get back into the engine of the gen. What is it that they say about BOATS. These are complicated beasts in themselves and have lives of their own in certain ways.

Whew what a pile of laundry we sent out today. The one thing that you can count on in Antigua is great laundry service. Old Miss Baltimore Laundry runs the docks around here. We call her the laundry Mafia. You do not want to mess with her. She has also found out that she cannot mess with Terry either. It better be right and not messed up. The competition is pretty stiff around here.

We had without a doubt one of the best Mechanics aboard working on the Gen I have run into yet since being aboard WINGS. There have been a number of good guys aboard this boat for different projects and repairs. This Guy who used to work on ships and 100,000 hp motors really knows what he is doing. It will take a while for us to get the parts needed to repair the Gen so we will sail next week without the use of the Gen. Discovered a wonderful metal fab shop today and to have our injured boarding ladder repaired this week as well.

It is a good thing to have a few days between sailing. Our next guests arrive on Tues of next week. We are looking forward to the next few weeks and getting underway again. It is nice to be back in Antigua but one does long for the sea and the adventure that lies over the horizon. It seems with sailors that when at sea they cannot wait to get to where they are going and when they get there they cannot wait to leave and return to sea. It is an interesting parody. The sun is well over the horizon and there are some really wonderful aromas comming from the Galley.I think that this would be a good time to stop writing.

Perception and Reality on Security

Well at this time we are back in Antigua after a sail down Island to St Lucia and the Pitons.The Islands as one sails south are very dramatic and lush with vegatation. It is hard to imagine with such beauty that one needs to concern them selves with security for both property and personal well being. The thought was brought to my attention the other day by a long time cruiser who has lived in the Islands for some time now. If we are in the main stream world and our 25,000$ car is stolen we call our insurance company. Down here in the Islands if our dingy is stolen we get our shorts in a huge tuff and alarm the cruising world of how bad security is. Well if you lock your car and take the keys the chances of your car being stolen are less than if you left the keys in the ignition. The same is true if you leave your dingy unlocked. On the personal side ones personal security is another story. On our recent trip down island we were alarmed to learn of the armed boardings and robberys on St Vincent. In particular the anchorage at Chataubelair. Their were two incendents before Christmass and two just after the new year. Armed with machete's thugs boarded an anchored yacht with a couple aboard and injured the captain and threated their lives if they did not produce all of the money they had. The captain was cut severely in trying to bravely repel the attack. As a result of this we did not sail anywhere near the Island of St Vincent and have no intention at this time of doing so. This is very unfortunate for the people of St Vincent as they need the visiting yachts to help with what is a very poor economy. So what does one do in light of these issues. As for personal protection one is faced with the delima of weather or not to resist and attack or to sucumb to it. Despite the fact that the couple had given them all of their money they still assaulted them. Carrying weapons has it's own problems and most countrys will not allow you to have them abaord while you are visitnig. I think that sailing in company with other yachts is one of the best forms of security as all of these incendents were against lone anchored yachts. Make sure that getting aboard the boat is not easy. Raise your dingy out of the water and make sure that the boarding ladder is not over the side overnite. By stringing lines across the deck so as to cause tripping and to put obsticals at entry points can at least alarm one to a boarding. This is no less than a home invasion and must be taken very seriously. We have made our own version of pepper spray using spray bottles and HOT HOT HOT liquid pepper as a personal wepon. I can only imagine how it would feel to have this stuff sprayed in your face ,eyes and nose. It appears that these thugs are a very violent segment of the Island community. I have not and hope to never meet any of these people. I will say that most all of the Islanders we meet are wonderful people and are always willing to help in many ways. Many provide great services that make our visits more enjoyable. I will say that this issue has changed my perception of paradise and unfortunatly made one become a bit more paranoid about being anchored alone off some remote island. Sure one can say that the numbers are small as compared to the dark side of a major city back in the states or europe for that matter. None the less perception or reality in certain circumstances I find myself sleeping with one foot on the floor. We have chosen as a fundemental philosiphy to defend ourselves. If one is to be attacked by violent thugs I am going down with a fight.