Caribbean Cruising

Well I've made it!
I've made it past the one month trial period, but only just as there have been a few incidents which I thought would have stitched me up for sure. Such as pre empting an anchor drop & letting it plummet to the ocean floor while still pushing 4 knots and then there was nearly losing the waverunner which I could have sworn I clipped on; until seeing it about 200 meters away and realising that " Hey! That's ours!!". But I take a little comfort in the fact that my deckie buddie, who is also a newbie; managed to nearly lose the tender....at night! We were lucky enough to see it in the dim moon light being wished away by the strong currents. The captain must think he's got a couple of clowns working for him.
So it's being a very interesting, challenging and tiring month.

As the owner was on for all of our cruising of the Caribbean it's being non stop shifts 24/7 and not being able to get away from it like a normal shore job has taken some getting use to and I'm still not cool with it but we have got to see some wonderful places along the way.
After leaving St Martin we headed down to Antigua to pick up some guests before cruising down to Guadeloupe and all the islands down to St Lucia, which is about halfway down the Caribbean chain of islands; before heading back up to Antigua. It all took a little under 2 weeks to take in all the islands on our whistle stop tour before the owner and the guests got off and we started to prepare for our next journey.

The weather here had being a bit shitty and not really what I expected of the Caribbean for this time of year with choppy seas, non-stop wind and countless passing rain showers to drench the boat that you have just meticulously dried from the previous shower.
But on the days that have been perfect I've tried to make the most of the down time we have and any shore leave that we're given and were lucky enough to be treated to a watersports day where we could use the yachts toys like the jet skis, waverunners and kayaks and I've never had so much fun on a waverunner as I did that day. Jumping over 8-10ft relentless swell of one of St Lucia's beautiful points, wave after wave; airborne and blinded from the salt spray. Wicked stuff!

So now we're heading across the Caribbean Sea, heading fro Panama and the famous canal where we will hopefully get some shore time before making the long 10 days treck up the coast to San Diago and the U S of A baby!

Check out the pics here >>>
http://redmonkey.smugmug.com/gallery/4648377_n8w4r/1/271325639_Fp4SA