The People We Meet

I am writing this from Portsmouth Dominica. It is a cool overcast morning with occasional showers. Very beautiful anchorage.

We flew back on May 11 and splashed the boat on May 13. Our plan is to take the boat to Grenada for hurricane season making stops along the way. The boat will be hauled out on July 25.

Making Connections was no worse for the wear after being in the boat yard for 3 months. Just needed some major cleaning and waxing. After splashing the boat we headed for PDP Marina to get the boat ready for our journey. The people at PDP Marina are great, especially Anthony. It took us about a week to get everything ready.

We left the lagoon and spent the night in the bay for an early departure to St. Kitts, our first stop. At 7:00 AM on May 22 we raised the anchor and headed for St. Kitts. The wind was a good 16-18 knots at a 60 degree wind angle on a port tack. We had not sailed the boat that much but learned that it likes the 60 wind angle and is easy to set the sails. We had a great sail except that Margie and I didn’t have our sea legs and were feeling a little queasy. We sailed past Eustatia and into the capital of St. Kitts, Basseterre. It was Sunday and pretty quiet. St. Kitts is a little off the beaten track for most cruisers as you have to go west a little, meaning you have to come back east into the trade winds to get to the next island.

One of the things that I have learned is that not only are the new places that you visit interesting, is that the people you meet are also interesting.

In St. Martin we met Kevin, whose boat was tied to the dock at FKG Rigging. His boat’s home port was Littleton Colorado and he had a Colorado flag flying. Kevin saw us looking at this boat and introduced himself right away. We made the Colorado connection and he invited us onboard his boat GIGI. Kevin has been sailing his boat single-handedly in the Caribbean for a number of years. Kevin had very interesting stories to tell and was so helpful in sharing his knowledge.

The morning after we arrived in Basseterre, we made our way to Frigate Bay where we met Mike. Mike was the champion of replying to Margie’s questions on a Facebook group for St. Kitts. He was very helpful. Mike is very interesting. He lives on a 100 ft salvage boat with his fiancé, Shakira. His full time job is rescuing boats that are in distress. He has a smaller boat that he uses to get to where he needs to go very quickly. We made contact with him and he invited us over onto his boat. Mike shared many stories about his past adventures.

As we were leaving his boat, the control lever of our dinghy had been rubbing on one of the ropes on his boat and fell into the water. Oh well, that is gone I thought. Not Mike. He had an air compressor on his dinghy. Mike did not hesitate he put on his googles, started the air compressor, and jumped right in to retrieve the lever. The water was 28 ft deep. I thought no way. But sure enough, after about 5 minutes Mike comes up with the lever. If you are going to lose something in the water, do it next to the salvage guy's boat.

We took Mike and Shakira to dinner to thank them for their help and good information. Again more interesting stories from Mike and Shakira on the salvage business. In Frigate Bay there are a number of bars that line the beach. One of Mike’s favorites is Mr. X's Shiggidy Shack. When we got back from dinner Mike wanted to know if we wanted a nightcap. Thank goodness Margie said no. We needed them to take us back to our boat on their dinghy. Mike went to the bar and Shakira took us back to our boat. After she dropped us off, she went back to the bar. I woke up about 4 am and hear their dinghy heading back to their boat.

We raised anchor the next morning and headed to Christophe Harbor. We pulled in and anchored near some mooring balls. A man in a dinghy approached our boat and I thought he was going to tell us we couldn’t anchor there. He was actually very friendly and gave us the use of one of his mooring balls and he even offered to help us get it tied up. We took him up on his offer and as soon as we were secure we asked him to come aboard.

Buddy is a spry 76 year old solo sailor living on a boat on one of the mooring balls next to us. We adopted him for the day. We learned about his heart attack and his stroke and all about St. Kitts. He told us that people call him the mayor of St. Kitts. Buddy told us one interesting story after story. I was getting hungry for lunch and offered to take Buddy to lunch. It worked out great. Buddy had a car on shore and took us to the Reggae Beach Bar for lunch. Buddy gave us non stop information and advice about the islands were were going to visit.

After lunch we went back to our boat and continued the conversation until about 7:00 pm. Buddy had a plan for next day where we were going to go into Frigate Bay and get coffee and then go to lunch. We loved our time with Buddy, but needed to move to Nevis the next day.

What we realized during this time that the people we meet make this adventure special.