Nudity

This is for soon to be cruisers or those thinking about cruising.

If you are thinking about cruising the Eastern Caribbean, you need to know that you will run into and experience nudity in nearly every anchorage.  It's not rampant (as in every boat) but it's there.  99.5% are your fellow cruisers.  The rest are local fisherman, with an occasional tourist tossed in for fun.

It is a fact of cruising life down here.  It is not in your face nudity, but simply bathing off the back of the boat or in the cockpit.  Here and there is the odd, old sailing dude working all around the deck of his boat naked.  Or even the local conch diver changing out of this diving clothes into something dry.

We knew this fact prior to cruising down here AND it's just not an issue for us.  Stereotypes and jokes about the nationality of the naked people (French) aside, we find it is actually a wide swath of nationalities, personalities, shapes, sizes and ages.

The main reason I bring this up is if this makes you really uncomfortable or you find yourself thinking or saying.....with attitude...."Why can't they just put clothes on!"  Or "I have my 8 year old daughter and/or granddaughter onboard, how inappropriate to be naked in front of her from afar!"  Then perhaps you need to rethink your choice of cruising here.  Nudity is a fact.  Deal with it or go somewhere else.  Bitching and moaning does nothing but make you look bad! 

Dominica to Martinique

May 2, 2014
5:15 AM the alarm went off.  Ugh!  Luckily most of our pre-departure items had been done the night before despite having Steven and Shawn from Sv Amaris and Ann and Steve from Sv Receta over for sundowners, munchies and laughs.  We had a long haul to get to St Pierre Martinique.  The anchor was up at 5:30.  We motor sailed down the west coast of Dominica in shifty and variable winds - exactly what we thought they would be in the lee of the island.  After clearing the south tip of Dominica, the real winds and seas showed up.  We had 13-15 and then 17-19 with gusts to 22.  The waves were 6-9 with a few big ones thrown in for fun.  We took a couple of waves that landed up over our Bimini.  Thank goodness for our dodger and bimini!!!  The lee of Martinique was just as fickle as Dominica with shifty, variable winds that gusted to 26.....wait for it......let's say it all together......ON THE NOSE. The 26 knots of wind probably has something to do with Mount Pelee that towers some 4500+ ft over the northwest coast.  We dropped anchor at 16:50 off St Pierre Matinique.  Tricky anchorage in that it goes from the shore to 4.6 ft to 20 and then 80 in a very short distance. We had to hit the 20 ft shelf prior to the drop off.  Tomorrow we will sail for St Lucia so we can catch the St Lucia Jazz Fest.  But never fear, we will be sailing back to Martinique after Jazz Fest so we can explore this beautiful looking island.  

*Ann, I am pretty sure we won the contest of first out of anchorage, beating Sv Amaris.  However they caught us in St Pierre.  Buddy boating with a super fast cat is so ego deflating.  

More Anchoring Fun

All chain helps but is not guarantee

April 29th
We were in Prince Rupert Bay Dominica.  After relocating, Tom dove on the anchor to be sure we were set.  That night I was really tired and went to bed early.  I slept like the dead.  Suddenly for some unknown reason I woke up aburtly.  I have no idea what time it was other than o'dark thirty and very late.  Checking our position, I found we were very, VERY close to another boat.  Dangerously close.  I woke up Tom.  At first he thought that boat moved up on a mooring right behind us and then realized NO, we had drug down towards this boat.  I scrambled to fire up the engine and Tom scrambled forward to the anchor locker.  Now we were even closer to hitting them!  AND - this is a boat we know!  Super nice people.  It would be like hitting your favorite uncle's fancy, top of the line Mercedes.  It's terrible to drag down on anyone!  But absolutely horrible to drag down on a seasoned cruisers you know who has been helpful with advice and guidance.

I couldn't wait any longer, I slowly powered us forward to avoid hitting them.  Tom brought the anchor in.  I suggested we just take a mooring and Tom agreed.  Great..... But.....moorings here are not like the big, shiny balls with long, floating pendants you find in the BVI's.  Oh no!  More often than not, they are a gallon oil jug (sometimes yellow, sometimes black....because that's easy to spot half submerged) 1/2 floating in the water with a pendant that may or may not be good.  However, first we had to find a mooring in the dark.  Not an easy task.  Tom spotted one and started me towards it.  I landed the approach on the first try and he was able to snag it and get us secured.  The pendant seemed beefy and we watched for a while to be sure it was holding us.  Then we went below...dumbstruck about what had just happened and fitfully fell asleep.  

The next morning, as we laid in bed, we tried to figure out what happened - how we could have come lose and drug.  Our answer came when we got up in the cockpit for morning coffee.  Just before sunset the night before, a yacht came in and anchored between us and the yacht ahead of us.  The next morning they were in our exact anchor location - not where they were before!  We think they drug down across our anchor, popping us free.  That was more than likely the motion that woke me up.  Now....this might be us making excuses for dragging anchor but it seems logical.  We were set and Tom dove on the anchor to be sure, then suddenly we were dragging freely and the next morning another boat has drug down into our exact anchor location.  Hum?  
NOTE - No, I did not set an anchor alarm.  Yes, I should have.  To my knowledge, the "favorite uncle" boat never woke up.  Whew!  No, I am NOT saying who it was.