Meeting up with Beowulf

	That's cruisin'!

Here are 2 pictures for you.

The first one shows Calvin about 5 miles south of Rodney Bay, St. Lucia, after an all day trip from Bequia, about 70 miles against the wind. At the time of the photo we had been sailing with 2 reefs and the jib rolled up half way for a few hours. When the jib is rolled up and pressed hard for a number of hours the edges tend to creep together along the roll and the luff gets loose and bagged out like it shows in the photo. But, considering that we are down to about 50% of our upwind sail area, Calvin is certainly hauling ass, don't you think?

The family portrait was taken at a place called "Moonhole", in Bequia. Moonhole is a mortar, stone and coral alternative-vacation housing project that was undertaken about 30 years ago by an eccentric US ex-pat, and is now ruled by his rather obnoxious son. During the first half of the tour we thought "moonhole" was the term they came up with to describe the son, who was also our tour guide. But then we learned that the moonhole itself is a dramatic irregularity in the volcanic rock peninsula that forms the southwest leg of Bequia. The hole in the island is something like 100' in diameter and the premise is that if you look through this giant hole during the summer or winter solstice you will see the moon set over the ocean horizon to the west. It is a very cool place that has, unfortunately, been compromised by the misguided vision of one small man.

Moonhole was the second tour that we paid for on Bequia. The first was the Turtle Farm that Karen told you about. They are on opposite ends of the island. Both tours are run by the guys who live at, and manage the sites. Although their messages and venues are pretty differant, both tour guides had a similar, self righteous, in-your-face delivery. Matt lagged behind at each tour, listening with a cynicism way beyond his years. He is the one who pointed out to me that the two guys (the born-again spear fisherman turned turtle savior, and the alcoholic, do-nothing son of a frustrated architectural sculpture) are much the same. According to Matt, they fashion themselves "the last 2 good people left on the Earth."

Calvin crew.

Everybody has something to sell. It is the same here as it is in the US. Selling and shopping are the bane of our existence, the price we have to pay for enjoying the comforts of civilized living. The only way to get away from consumerism is to stay on the boat. When we get off, we are accosted by every human we come into contact with. Tour spokesmen, taxi drivers, customs agents, boat boys, market vendors, local "guides," farmers of legal and illegal herbs, gigolos; everyone wants a piece of us. To escape the clutches of commerce we need to avoid people and any places that humans have seen fit to "improve." That means staying on the boat and keeping the radios switched off. But then we run into the small problem of food.

Sorry. I lost the plot.

Both of these pictures were taken by Steve Dashew with his new digital camera. We met up with them in Bequia and sailed up here to St. Lucia in their company. Their current boat, which they designed, is the 80' "Beowulf".

Beowulf has been the latest in a string of motherships that we have hooked up with on this trip. We don't really look for motherships, but we don't turn them away either. Our motherhships (Santa Cruz 52, "Aquila" in the USVI and Grenada; Deerfoot 75, "Maya" in Virgin Gorda; Oyster 61, "Lulu" and Trintella 53, "Feisty" in Antigua; Swan 65 "Talina" in the Tobago Keys; Swan 51 "Temptress" in Mayreau and now "Beowulf") fill our water tanks from their desalinators, feed us, let us use their hot water showers, take us water skiing behind their tenders and generally show us great pity for having to live in the relatively primitive conditions on Calvin.

Karen, Dani, Matt and I went for 2 daysails on Beowulf and were simultaneously impressed and depressed with how fast, dry, comfortable and easy to sail she was. When Steve and Linda offered to have Matt and Dani sail to St. Lucia on Beowulf, I tried hard, but could not come up with a scenario to have me go on Beowulf and Karen, Matt and Dani take Calvin. So we dropped off the kids. It was actually a great day on both boats, save for one food fit from you-know-who. Steve and Linda spent 6 years circumnavigating with their two kids so they are familiar with the need to get a little space in your family's togetherness. (Rodger Martin also warned us about this before we left, stressing the need to take regular "walks in the dinghy".)

We dropped the kids on Beowulf at 7:00 am and got a good half hour jump on the big boat. As usual, we passed everything in site during the day. But meanwhile, Beowulf went storming past us at about 8:30, sailed a couple of circles around us to take photos, went completely over the horizon before noon, pulled into Soufriere and anchored for lunch for 90 minutes, came back out, caught us, slowed down to take a bunch more photos, and beat us into Rodney Bay by at least a half hour. We always knew where they were because the kids would call us on the VHF once every hour or two. The typical report was that they were going upwind at 10.5 knots, Linda was taking a nap, and the rest of them were hanging out in the pilot house listening to "Weird Al Yankovitch" on the CD player.

We want one of these boats. 80 feet looks about right for a two-person cruiser to us now.

We will be in St. Lucia for the next 10 days or so. Tomorrow we will likely move to Marigot Bay for a couple of days and then come back up here to meet my parents and my big sister Donna and her son Connor. We are banking on great weather for them. It looks like about a 1/3 waxing moon tonight so in a week we should have a good night light. After they leave we are off to the BVI to be the witnesses for Dan Dickison's wedding, three words that those of you who know Dan never expected to see strung together. We met his bride, Cindy, on a vacation in the BVI last year. Cindy is a psychologist who told me that most of her work is with the "worried well," which immediately made my list of top ten favorite clinical descriptions.

Calvin out.