May 3, 2009 – Saba
First day of diving. We’d stopped off at the two dive shops to get rates and see if they’d pick us up at the boat and settled on Saba Deep – staff seemed much friendlier and they were willing to pick up at the boat. For us it’s easier – it’s one transfer of gear as opposed to three (from boat to dinghy to shore to boat) and quite frankly I’m perfectly happy to reduce the number of chances I have to drop my very expensive camera rig into the ocean.
Our first dive was to a series of pinnacles west of Saba and just west of our mooring. The crew settled on Third Encounter, a site that goes down to 100ft, circles a pinnacle. It was a little lackluster, though we did see a nice little nurse shark hanging out at the edge of the reef and our ascent and safety stop were accompanied by a very decent sized barracuda who came right up to Ryan and I and yawned and both of us missed the photo op!
After a surface interval at Fort Bay, we headed out for dive two. Much back and forth between Mike and Bob with respect to dive site selection. Where do you wanna go? I don’t know, where do you wanna go? What do you think? This went on for quite some time until they finally decided on a site fairly close to Fort Bay. But the current was ripping, and with seven divers, both dive masters were going out so no one to be on boat and follow bubbles. This lead us right back to square one and another series of “Where do you wanna go?” “I dunno, where do you wanna go?” The final decision was Diamond Rock (Saba’s Bird Poop Rock) which I’d been eyeballing since we arrived sure that it would be fun to circumvent that thing on Scuba. After the first dive I was really rather Meh on Saba. It was okay, viz wasn’t great (not that good viz means great dive – heck we’re used to Monterey where you can have a fantastic dive in 15 foot viz so long as a harbor seal comes to say hi), but the life wasn’t anything super special and the reef formation wasn’t either. But this dive was fantastic. Beautiful reef structure, lots of sponges and corals and some cool critters to look at. I did get an elusive glimpse of a turtle. Ryan got some pics of a squirrely drum. And some nice eels came out to say hi as well.
I was able to finally get my camera wet again (with memory stick inserted this time). Here beginneth the learning curve of underwater digital SLR photography. Hoping to get lots of practice in the coming weeks.
Dinner tonight will be another feast – a combined effort. Salmon on the Barbie, creamy polenta and sautéed spinach. Tarte aux pommes for desert.
Fell asleep to Sum of All Fears.
May 2, 2009 – Saba
Our arrival into Saba came around 12:30 (lunchtime 12:30). Approaching the mooring area, we took down the sails and motored our way to the anchorage.
Saba is a rock sticking straight out of the Caribbean Sea. It is vertical up. It is not a gentle slope. From our vantage point about 200 yards from shore, I can turn to the right and see to one end of the island and I can turn to the left and see clear to the other end of the island. Indeed, it is 5 square miles with an elevation of 3000 ft – no diving and hiking!
We are moored on the leeward side. There is quite a bit of water movement, so the boat is rocking from side to side, lulling us, but the view is quite spectacular. Our other option would be right out of Fort Bay, the town on the southern side, but it is quite noisy down there. But at least we’ve stopped and I don’t feel like I’m gonna be ill any more.
Warren, Mickey and I dinghyed into Fort Bay to go give our howdies to the local authorities. Fort Bay is two bars, two dives shops, marine park offices, a generator (responsible for all the noise) and the harbor master. We visited five of the seven.
You can’t dive Saba without a local guide. That’s the rule. What I’d like to know is what the penalty is for breaking the rule, because quite frankly, the rule sucks. We’re moored, there’s no current to speak of and there’s a dive site right underneath our keel and they’re telling Ryan and I we can’t go down there and take a looksy? Crap!
The rest of the afternoon gave way to idleness. I fell asleep on deck in my book. Ryan read indoors. All the while Mickey and Warren went back into Fort Bay to book our diving.
Dinner was at 7:00. Bavellini Bolognese. I made the Bolognese and it was excellent. Early to bed until I awoke at 3:00 in the morning and started writing.
May 1, 2009 – St. Thomas
The boat was anchored in Yacht Haven Club, a Rodeo Drive-esque , upscale American tourist oriented type place. It was an outdoor shopping mall sporting your usual high end shopping mall fair – Coach, Tommy Hilfiger, Louis Vuitton, etc. Obviously designed to appeal to the cruise ship crowd only interested in shopping. Only difference from home is that here it’s duty free. All of this, of course, set in very much of a third world type setting – decrepit houses, etc. Warren and Mickey told us that it was by far the fanciest place they’d anchored and warned us not to get used to it. That was just fine by me. And for those of you who know Ryan, I’m sure you can see he’s not the Louis Vuitton type.
Having shopped at Cost U Less, Costco’s Caribbean cousin on Thursday to stock up on vitals, Mickey and I spent the majority of the morning organizing the galley and wrapping veggies so as to maximize their shelf life. My dreams of a big spacious, cabinet filled kitchen are obviously not met in the galley even of an 80 footer. We then secured the boat in preparation for our sail, which includes making sure all the port holes are locked, “nailing” down just about everything that can be “nailed” down. As I discovered later, shit goes flying!
In the meantime, Ryan was like a pig in a pigsty, having been assigned the tasks of changing out one of the fuel filters and running the compressor to fill the banks. We have four 50 liter banks from which to fill the tanks before running the compressors again. I have yet to find out what that converts to in cubic feet, but they’re big-ass tanks, as vague of a description as that might be. I think that we need to start getting used to meters and liters anyway. Ryan was always jealous that I’d gotten to play with all this working at DD’s and I have to say that I was a little jealous of him today.
We’d aimed to set sail around 2:00, but when we went to check out at 1:30 we found that customs was closed and wouldn’t be back until 3:00. At each port we have to tell customs where we came from, how long we’re staying and where we’re going next. Some of the islands are a little more laid back than others. St. Thomas being a U.S. territory is under the jurisdiction of Homeland Security so obviously not the most laid back of the lot. Saba was a bit of a different story. So we waited for Homeland Security over some sandwiches at a Yacht Club restaurant.
And then we set sail. Again Ryan gets to have all the fun as he navigated this behemoth out of port and into open sea. We were on our way at 4:30. Navigation is made easier by this great little computer program Warren has which allows you to plot your trip with a very simple click and drag type application. The app plugs into your gps. You plot your trip and a little boat icon follow your path on the screen, telling you were you are, if you’re on course, etc. You can then make adjustments based on where your icon is. Once we were clear of St. Thomas, we put up the sails and switched to auto pilot. After that the watch began. On watch your job is to keep an eye for anything you might run into. Radar helps you with this. You also need to keep an eye on your trajectory to make sure you’re staying on course – there are no street signs and yellow lines to let you know you’re going in the right direction.
While Ryan and I took first watch which would go until 1:00 a.m. Warren cooked us up a fantastic shrimp stir fry with a coconut milk sauce thing which was delicious and we ate ravenously. At 8:00 Warren and Mickey were in bed and Ryan and I were left to our own devices. For me, at about 9:30 nausea set in. I don’t know if it was the amount the boat was pitching or the fact that in the pitch black of night it’s hard to make out the horizon to keep your eye on a fixed stationary point, but I found that the minute I got up from my corner couch to sit in the captain’s chair or walk around life sucked. So I let Ryan watch out for obstacles and curled up in my corner couch with my laptop watching season five of Alias.
Incidentally, the only “obstacle” that made a bleep on our radar all night was a cruise ship that we could see from some 20 miles away. Eventually it did get within 6 miles or so of us, at which point it did start to look a little more distinctly like a cruise ship.
At around 11:00 I threw up for the first time. Shortly followed by my discovery that shit goes flying as I opened the “bar” fridge for a soda, they all went flying out and it was a fight with gravity to push them all back in and close the door. At midnight I threw up again. Shortly followed by my discovery that my perspective on life was really much better from a laying down position than a sitting up position. So at 12:30, having heard that Warren was up and mucking around in the engine room, I begged off to sleep and must have fallen asleep rather quickly as it was a huge surprise to reach over and feel a Ryan lump next to me when I woke up certain that he’d decided to stay up and hang with Warren.
To say we got any sleep that night would be a gross overstatement. At what must have been around 8:00 I decided that life was really still much much better laying down than sitting up and asked Ryan to go see about some anti-sea sick drugs for me. And I must say that the Bonine did help greatly. Note to self – taking that early and often for our next crossing. I finally felt brave enough to get up around 9:30 and the next few hours consisted mostly of sitting in the captain’s chair, staring at Saba willing it to get closer quicker.
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