RAPAREE - entering the Grenadines for New Year 26 to 31 Dec

PM 26th and we finally make our way southwards from the marina glue of St Lucia.  Coastal cruise down the hills and cliffs before passing Soufriere Bay and the photo-opp Pitons before anchoring under the stars overnight in a little rocky bay next to the village of Laborie on the south of the island. Interesting chain clunking and surf noises all night....just right for the skippers beauty sleep. Fast offwind sail, well reefed, southwards, down the exposed windward shore of St Vincent, in order to avoid the calms behind the islands. Lumpy seas and big wind acceleration zones at the tips of each island.
We decide to miss out St V on the way down, and head for Bequia as we had heard it was a great stop for New Year. Also some big winds are forecast and good shelter would be available there over the period. After an all day sail we enter a blustery and busy Admiralty Bay at tea time. We are ready to anchor but a one toothed chap chap in a rasta hat leads us to his mooring buoy which doesnt look too bad and which is probably safe enough for a night (4 days later we are still there!).
Bequia is NOT a small flat white coral place. It is a big Salcome/Dartmouth like yachty estuary/bay, with high hills, trees, villas etc.  Loads of yachts and boats from Abramovitch type jobbies to dugouts, and tugboats to schooners. Boaty stuff always going on. Traditional Caribe Veg and fruit markets all along the main street. A lot of souvenir type places as well.
We are now fully in Bequia routine with ladder down and dinghy and engine fully rigged for harbour ferry service. Very loud reggae, Steel bands, and Carib Beer are on the menu. 
Weather OK, apart from occasional heavy showers and big gusts in between very hot and humid bits. People very pleasant. Skipper slightly uneasy as the smell of new mown hay (grass?/weed?) is strangely pervasive at all social events. Keep getting offered horticultural samples round the back but not sure where to use it as we dont have a lawn on the boat and watering would be a bit of a problem.
2 crew are now wearing knitted rasta hats and balding old skipper has beaded necklace in rasta colours.
Now planning our New Years eve run ashore. Chicken Jerk on papaya and rice with avocado on board. Fireworks party and more steel bands ashore. 
Planning on leaving 1st or 2nd southwards for Tobago Cays. This will probably be our furthest south before heading via St Vincent back N to St Lucia base for maintenance and crew flights etc.

Anyway me hearties will keep ye all posted
Michael B & Raparee
Geoff Bell & Andrew & Charlotte

Raparee's short Christmas Message

Happy Christmas one and all.
After a good round of Christmas parties, and a lesurely mini-refit, RAPAREE is off again today on another little ramble. This time southward towards Grenada but with possible stops at St Vincent and the Grenadines en route. New crew is Geoff Bell, plus his son Andrew, and daughtter Charlotte.
Attended amazing Christmas eve Vigil/Mass thingie with Caribbean gospel music in large corrugated church in nearby village of Gros Islet. Service lasted about 4 hours and took a lot of stamina but certainly put us in the Christmas spirit. Great day out by dinghy on Christmas day to nearby beach hotel where we and 6 other boats had booked in for their all day buffet, Sun, sand, santa, and turkey with papaya.
Plan is to get away tomorrow to head southwards towards the Grenadines or Grenada. Weather has been very changeable and there is some big wind coming up so not sure where we'll be for New Year. Hopefully somewhere sheltered from the forecast 3 metre swell.

Boat rather chaotic and full of junk, so no change there.

Regards and Happy Christmas and New Year to one and all.

Mike on RAPAREE at St Lucia

Christmas Decisions & Stuff

Still at Rodney Bay Marina, St Lucia, getting through the post-T/A job list. David Mac (new grandfather as of this AM) leaves tomorrow so we'll have a farewell curry tonght. Geoff Bell and son and daughter join Friday night. Decision time whether to go to sea or leave it until after Christmas when all the pzazz has died down a bit. Weather outside boisterous, squally, and lumpy, but at least the wet bits are warm. Need to move on soon as I'm getting bored by jobs and am developing marina fever. A Rasta man has come to service the fridge and a bloke in a boat made of coconuts has take away my laundry. You have to LOVE Bob Marley to live here. He joins you every morning at 0700.
Its weird hearing carols and (seeing Santa Claus and Christmas trees here when its 36 degrees outside!

Not decided on mid Jan onwards leg yet. Laying up and flying home is a possibility, with a return in early Spring to sail home. This is because I have not as yet got any crew, and solo coral hopping is a bit dodgy, and also a bit depressing I should imagine.

Anyway, happy Christmas one and all.

Michael B & RAPAREE

One Final ARC Event at St Lucia

PM Sat 17th. Everyone went to the end of event prizegiving do this evening. A pretty well-managed affair with lots of talks and thank-yous to all and sundry. Also prizewinners and trophies in many categories throughout the 250 strong fleet. Sadly RAPAREE did not win a prize although we did aquit ourselves very well indeed. Of the 139 boats in the cruising class we came in at 61, so less than half way down. Not bad for one of the smaller and older boats in the fleet. Pretty pleased all in all.
Boat still chaoticaly full of jobs and junk. Haven't yet managed to escape for a full island tourist day off as too much to do before next phase.
Tootle-pip for now
Mike B

Wednesday 13th Dec and the start of our St Lucia fortnight

The first few days at St Lucia have been hectic and much work has to be done. And of course essential socialising as well!  We managed one final boat outing with the current crew, taking a day trip to the beach anchorage at Pigeon Island (Tuesday 12th) and a dinghy ride and walk ashore to Fort Rodney on top of Pigeon Point.  Nick Moody, who turned out to be a great addition to the crew,  flew home to Spain today and David Mac has moved ashore, he says to allow work to progress on the boat. He says its nothing to do with the comfortable beds, hot showers, hotel luxury pool, and the air conditioning .

The mainsail is being restitched, a fridge man is coming tomorrow. Skipper has dragged out his 3000 item job list and is grumpily working his way through it.  36 degrees today with 82% humidity. Getting more fans on board is a priority. Ventilation rather than human type, although would also apreciate the latter. Rodney Bay Marina is not a place for relaxing in serene silence. Every boat boy, pirogue, pirate ship, hot rod, and burger stand, has the world’s loudest reggae rap ghetto blaster to rend the night, or early morning, sky by. I guess boring staid old folks have to learn to wise up and get used to it....go with the flow even.  I’ll practice with some rum and see if that works ok.

There are still a few boats left to come in but the finish line officially closes on Saturday. Because the fleet was so spread out, working out actual corrected times will be  a little difficult so we will not know our final place for a while. I was happy that we did our best and we brought Raparee in fairly high up the field for her age and size.  Our motoring hours will of course knock us back down a bit, but we had no control over the weather at the end, so we can’t help that. She went pretty well in the first 2 weeks keeping up some regular 24 hour 7 knot averages. Not bad for an old cruiser.

The transatlantic element is over (ARC website blog),  but  Raparee’s own travel blog will continue.

Thanks to Bill Lewis for putting Raparee's blogs on the blogsite during the crossing. I sent them to him by radio.

There may be a slight delay in getting restarted though because getting good internet access is fraught with difficulty. Photos were originally intended as well, but bandwidth limitations have also made this very difficult.

Mike B and RAPAREE at St Lucia

Raparees’s final TransAtlantic day’s run

Sadly no more wind appeared on Friday 9th and we continued to burble on, motor sailing as best as we could. We try to keep the revs as low as possible, but yet another reserve fuel jerry can bites the dust by midday, and there’s only the small emergency can left now.   By mid afternoon we sight a sail ahead. It’s the big italian ketch ‘Futura’ bravely ghosting along under a big spinnaker. Embarrased, we put our spinnaker up, knock off the donk, and try to keep her company. A less than walking speed slow motion duel in the wrong direction goes on all afternoon, but she steadily draws ahead. Having already blotted our copy book by motoring for  well over a day, we decide to back off and get under way again, in the right direction.

As a tea-time treast we decide to put the clocks back, for the last time, to -4. No sooner had we done this than Nature came and put on a special little finale show for us. In quick succession:

1.       A short visit by choreographed dolphins

2.       A huge full moon rising in the East directly behind us, at the same time as:

3.       A glorious sunset lighting up the sky dead in front of us

4.       2 big bright planets also in line overhead

5.       Land appearing out of the sunset, port and starboard, ahead of us.

6.       A megga bite on the fishing line, bringing us a dorado as big as a hog alongside.

The moon hangs in a clear blue sky over a great silver-blue reflection in our wake. Ahead the horizon is a million colours.  The giant dorado thingy fights with zeal and our efforts with the gaff are puny. With one bound he is free, taking our best lure and trace, although he is likely to need some serious dental work for some years to come.

 We steadily plod on over a glassy sea with the distant glow of Martinique visible on the horizon.

By midnight, there is a very slight wind so we have main and genoa drawing but with the donk still assisting.  By 0200, there is a strongish current in the channel between Martinique and St Lucia so we need to crab and tack our way upwind across to Rodney Bay. As navigation lights are pretty rare around here, we have a little difficulty in the darkness identifying the various headlands and hills before we can make out Pigeon Island and the entrance to Rodney Bay.  Eventually we make out the commitee boat and the finish line, so we knock off the engine and do our best to tack our way across it.   

Lots of hooters and cheers and we are across. Photo Rib boat alongside for happy snaps by moon light.

Sat 10th Dec 03h47m41s is our finish time, just over 19.5 days elapsed. 2921 miles at an average of about 6.25kts since Las Palmas, and 4968 miles from Raparee’s home berth.

After a warm rum punch welcome alongside we commandeer the rest of the rum bottle for medicinal purposes and finally get to bed after cock-crowing time.    

Mini-blogette - St Lucia at last

Muchos apoliogos folks.

This is just a short fill-in blogette to update fings. Very slow internet connection here. so it has been difficult to get on line. I will try to do a proper blog to fill in details later.
We drifted across the line at Rodney Bay st Lucia on Sat AM at 0330. 19 days 15 hrs or so elapsed time although our 60 hrs motoring in calms will now have to be added to this.
Raparee did pretty well, as did the crew, so all are pleases. Now I have to stick ther bits back together again,
must go as batt low.
Back later,

Mike