Cruising in Maine and the Caribbean

Copyright © 2007 By David H. Lyman

(This article fist appeared in PointsEast Magazine, Winter 2008)

It’s no great stretch of the imagination to be sailing in Penobscot Bay and at the same time, in Sir. Francis Drakes Channel in the British Virgin Islands. Both have much in common. The waters are deep and steep-to, you see them from afar (as opposed to the Bahamas), the dollar is legal tender, the Longitude is almost the same, and the language is the same (with the exception of a local dialect that I still cannot understand after 25 years of sailing there) and many of the people look familiar . . . and so they maybe. Many a New Englander has found themselves lured to these Tropical Islands for one reason or another. Facing yet another winter of frozen water pipes, a truck that won’t start, shoveling snow in a -45 wind chill, it’s a wonder anyone is left north of Manhattan in the winter. While down south of parallel 1827, the temperature hovers between 75 and 85, nearly year-round. The closest thing to ice in the Caribbean is that which cools your Mount Gay and  OJ.

For a sailor, getting there has always posed a problem. When 90-foot wooden schooners, packed full of ice blocks and sawdust left Rockport, Maine bound for the Caribbean, their only sailing directions were” steer SE until the butter melts, then due south until you see the tall islands, or spy a lone fisherman in a dory, then ask for directions.” Things have changed. What has not changed is the distance: 1700 nautical miles from Rockport to St. John, via Bermuda; 2,000 if you make a detour in to Norfolk, VA or depart from Beaufort, NC. The 2-week voyage, while at times pleasant, is always risky. This voyage is one of life’s great challenges and rewards. What makes it rewarding is the destination, a strong magnet to any east coast sailor longing to escape the winter, but like any mountain, it is a chancy adventure, for many people have been put adrift in a small life raft, or gone missing altogether. It’s no walk in the park getting from New England to the Caribbean. But beside the charms of a warm winter to lure one south, the voyage itself is a reward.

Beside the distance, and the 2-weeks at sea, there are two other obstacles to overcome: Hurricane Season and the Gulf Stream. The rules I’ve followed for 15 years of voyaging south are: head for Bermuda in the early fall, before mid October. Yes, this is still hurricane season, but the distance is only 650 miles from Newport, doable in 4 days. With a clear window in the tropics, you can make Bermuda before a hurricane, born in mid Atlantic, gets in the way. Stay in Bermuda until mid November, then make the 800 mile trip to St. John in the USVI. It’s a 7-day trip for most, faster for the longer boats.

If you can’t get to Bermuda before mid-October, head for Norfolk. The Blue Water Marine in Hampton, VA is an excellent jumping off spot. Excellent provisioning and repairs abound. You can then leave as late as mid-December. It’s 12 hours to the Gulf Stream and within 24 hours you’ve put the worst behind you. This route adds 2 days to the trip, but leaving directly from the US mainland has it’s advantages over the Bermuda route.

Then there’s the Gulf Stream--that deep river of super warm,  fast moving water that spews out of the Gulf of Mexico via the nozzle that is the Florida straits hemmed in by the Bahamian Bank. The Stream is only 60 miles across off Cape Hatterass, (half a day out) and its western wall is very predictable. Departing from Newport or New York City to Bermuda, means two more days before you approach the western wall of the Stream, and its exact location is unpredictable.  A lot can happen in those two days in November. And, then there are the eddies to contend with. Misjudge the axis of these whirlpools that spin off, the Stream itself, and you could add another day to the voyage. Accurate weather and Gulf Stream reports are a must. Herb has these on SSB every afternoon at 4 PM, EST—FREE. You can also pay for tailored weather briefing. This is cheap insurance toward a safe trip or one that could have you selling to boat when you finally reach Bermuda.

Something so enjoyable as swimming in 75-degree pond water in the middle of the winter, which is what the Caribbean is, and feeling the warm night breeze wrap around you like a down comforter in the evening, watching a stunning sunset every night, these are what fuels by dreams as I bash my way south in the fall.  Sleeping on deck at night, the stars overhead . . . until a rain shower comes through at 3 AM, sending you dragging your bedding below to close hatches. It’s worth all the agony of getting there.

But you can forego all the risk and agony by chartering a boat in the Islands . . . or you leave your boat there, as I did in the early 90s. That was until hurricane Marilyn came through the USVI in September of 1995 and trashed much of the islands and destroyed my boat on its mooring in Great Cruz Bay on St. John. Ironically, only ten days earlier I’d flown down to move my boat (a 41-foot Lord Nelson) to a safer anchorage in Mahoe Bay where I rode out Hurricane Luis. Who would have guessed two hurricanes so close apart would come calling.

Insurance companies now frown on their yachts being in the hurricane belt in hurricane season. The options are: haul the boat out in June, your boat’s keel sunk in a hurricane pit and your masts removed; that, or sail the 1700 miles back to New England, or anywhere north of Charleston, SC.

Yes, chartering is a viable option for that winter sailing fix.

There are more bunks afloat in the charter fleet in the British Virgins than ashore in all the hotels, B&B and inns, combined. Cruising World lists the fleets, and the ads tout the luxuries and amenities of the various boats. My problems with chartering include: the boats available for charter are all from the same mold. There is little individuality, no personality, and therefore no connection. It’s like deciding on which rental car to reserve. They are all the same, just the size and price are different. My friends questioned the financial sanity of my sailing my boat down each fall, and back in the spring, or even keeping it there. “It must coast you twice as much to keep your boat in the Caribbean as it would to charter,” they asked. While that’s not really true, price was never really a concern. What far out weighed the cost was the deep satisfaction of ownership of and responsibility for a boat, and a boat that was mine, with all its idiosyncrasies, problems and things that needed fixing. It seems there never was a day that I spent just sailing for pleasure. I was either on my way to some harbor for parts, or hole up in an idyllic anchorage sanding and varnishing. But that’s what I wanted. Being a New Englander, hard work had its own reward, and fending for myself, fixing my boat, taking care of her (that was before a wife and children came along), was reason enough for ownership over chartering someone else’s rental car.

I’ve sailed and explored most of the Windward and Leeward islands. Oh, there are a few islands I’ve not had time to visit, so they await another time. Now I can bring along my two young kids with me. We did spend the winter of 2003 cruising the BVI with the kids (2 and 4 at the time). They still talk about it, asking when are we going back . . . and when we do it’ll be the US and BVI which I’ve called my winter home since 1980.

    For 15 years I made the trek from Rockport to the Islands each fall, returning to Maine in the spring. The first summer I left my Lord Nelson 41 on its mooring on St. John, I found myself riding out hurricane Hugo in Coral Bay in September 1987. In September 1995, I rode out Hurricane Luis in Mahoe Bay. I put the boat back on her mooring in Great Cruz Bay and flew back to Maine. Ten days later, Hurricane Marilyn came through the islands and  devastated the fleet in Great Cruz Bay, my boat among them. The Caribbean has its nasty side as well.

My first Caribbean experience was in 1979. The Seymours,  a couple from Vermont, and Kate, my girl-friend then, joined me on a chartered Morgan 41 Out Islander out of Nautilus Charters on the Lagoon on St. Thomas in January 1979.  The boat was a floating living room. It did not sail well, but it did the job of getting us around the islands during our ten-day charter. Just before we departed, the agent tossed us a gallon jug full of complimentary rum punch. I’ve been addicted ever since. The route is now well documented in all the cruising mags. Leave St. John and clear into the BVI at West End, then down to the Bight on Norman’s for a visit to the caves, then dinner at the “Willy T,” a floating restaurant in the Bight, then eastward, with stops at Dead Chest Bay on Peter’s Island, a dive on the Rhone off Salt Island, dinner at Copper Island. The next day, up to the Baths on Virgin Gorda, then on to North Sound . . . for if this is Wednesday, it must be the Bitter End. Gone is the Pirate’s hangout at Saba Rock. Bert Kilbride finally gave in to the Bitter End’s desire to rid  this bar-on-a rock in their front yard  and sold out. Gone is one of the great Caribbean Drinking Establishments. Then, its off westward to Trellis Bay, Marine Cay, Green Cay and then an evening at Foxy’s, sobering up the next morning at White Beach, just next door, before the sail back to USVI, T-shirt buying in Cruz Bay after clearing in at US Customs and heading home. Not enough for me. I wanted months of this island hopping, even heading down islands to St. Martin, St. Barts, Antigua, and the French islands. Now, that’s a voyage worth making and one that every boat owner dreams of, even those of us with only a sailing dinghy. There is enough in the US and BVI to keep any sailor interested in the next anchorage, even after 25 years.

    As I said earlier, cruising in the Winter Islands is like cruising Penobscot Bay in the summer. The anchorages are no more than a 2-hour sail apart. There are so many places to dine ashore that provisioning is unnecessary (if your budget can afford it). The Islands have that same feeling of rural isolation that Penobscot Bay affords, except for the Bight on Normans Island, which is like Camden when the New York Yacht Club is in town for the Eggemogon Race. And the similarities  do not stop there. There is the same helping of dockside characters in both places. The managers at Mahoe Bay, the Eco-resort on St. John are from Belfast. Stew Brown and his wife Glen from Southwest Harbor have run St. John Water Sports and Proper Yacht Charters out of Cruz Bay for more than 20 years. The crewed charter boats working out of Camden and Southwest Harbor in the summer are found working out of Red Hook on St. Thomas and Rhode Town on Tortola in the winter. The Schooner Heron which day-sails out of Rockport in the summer, heads to St. John in the fall, with Bonnie and Twig and their two little girls aboard for a winter of day sailing out of Maho Bay on St. John. The lobster in Maine is tastier than the claw-less Langoustine of the Caribbean, which is more expensive and less available that La Hommard. The Cruising grounds in the Islands tend to be more populated, and by less experienced sailors than you find in Maine. It’s not uncommon to count over 100 sails on a normal March day off the south shore of Tortola.

    The Islands landscape even looks like Maine. There is no where on the entire East Coast of the United States were the mountains meet the sea, as they do on Mount Desert Island and Camden, until you reach the Virgin Islands. I took a photograph of the Schooner Roseway one winter, her distinctive red sails set against the mountains of St. John.  The photo was used in the Camden Chamber of Commerce magazine for two years as a two page spread, and no one even doubted the mountain behind the Roseway were other than the Camden Hills. Sailing and navigation in both locations is easy, almost eye ball or VFR. Sure, Maine has its tides and currents to contend with, which the BVI lack, but the BVI have no navigational aids, no light houses or reliable lighted buoys so night sailing is risky. Maine has its “smoky Southwesterlies” and the Islands have what Antigua Radio used to report . . . “winds will be east north east to east south east from 10 to 15 knots, with gusts to 20 knots . . “ Day after day the trade winds blow from Africa, depositing a fine dusting of red Saharan sand on the deck. In Maine the wind is more variable, but in the summer predictable. Sea breezes in the afternoon, give way to a “getting home puff” after 5 PM, then calm at night. Maine has mosquitoes, but the Islands have pesky, ankle biting sand fleas, and no-seems, which prompts the prudent sailor to anchor as far off shore as depth will permit to get some wind over the deck. Provisioning is difficult in both places, with the rare exception where a market is near the docks. In the Islands this means Rhode Town, Tortola and Charlotte Amelia on St. Thomas; and in Maine it has to be Camden, where French and Brawn is within walking distance from the dinghy dock. Elsewhere, it’s a trek, a cab ride or a rental car to stock up. Water is 10 to 15 cents a gallon in the islands, and free at the gas dock in Maine. Fuel is about the same price either place.

    The differences are enough to make each sailing destination unique and worthy of a lifetime of exploration. The things these two sailing grounds share make them familiar friends, places we want to spend time in each year. Both are home. Today, the insurance companies insure that we make the annual trip south in the fall, and back north in the spring.  But as any sailor knows the voyage is reason enough to put to sea in the first place.

David H. Lyman is a life-long journalist, photographer, sailor and adventurer. He has held a Coast-wise Masters license, and has made 15 solo offshore voyages to the Caribbean from his home in Rockport, Maine. A former photojournalist, he was the founder and for 33 years the Director of The Maine Photographic Workshops, a media arts center based in Rockport. Far from retiring, David has launched a new enterprise:  Workshops International, which organizes photo trips, workshops and learning vacations to destinations around the world.  You can reach David at DHLyman@mac.com.