compass rose

 Accidental Cruiser in the West Indies

 

Fequently Asked Questions

Who are you?

Lance and Susie Moving on board

Susie Bowman and Lance Batten are a long married couple (30+ years) in our late fifties. We are both typical U.C.Berkeley Grad students who never quite grew up nor permanently left town. Both of us have worked for many years in the software business (mostly database), most recently together in our own software consulting business, Tilden Park Software. In 2002, with a little help from the dot com collapse but without a particular plan, we took up a new life as cruisers. In the winter, we sail aimlessly about the islands of the Eastern Caribbean enjoying the warm water, the travel, the people and (last but not least) the sailing. In the sumer, we remind our friends of our existance and enjoy cold water sailing on SF Bay. We are definitely "fair weather sailors"; we are not challenging nature (or ourselves). We are not "old salts" but two salted nuts possessed by the strange idea that sailing should be fun and pleasant. Our motto: "There will be no suffering aboard." Should you care to contribute to the delinquency of majors you could click on some of the ads. If you wish to return us to the world of remunerative occupations, my resume is here.

We can be reached at either lance or susie @accidentalcruiser.com. Click this mail link , we love to hear from you.

What about pirates?

Flag of Thatch (Teach) known as Blackbeard

A pirate is one who robs or plunders at sea without a commission from a recognized sovereign nation. Unlike the Disney pirate with cutlass and masted sailing ship, today most pirates get about in speedboats wearing balaclavas instead of bandanas, using AK-47s rather than cutlasses. While boats off of South America (particularly Venezuela), in the Red Sea, and in the straits of Malacca and Singapore are are still molested by pirates, the problem is much reduced in the Eastern Caribbean since the end of the 19th century. The professional mariners publish a guide on how to avoid pirates who seem mostly interested in commercial freight and not the molding, rusting contents of the average cruiser's boat.

The captain and crew of Queen Emma stand ready to repel such invaders but have yet to encounter any. There are, of course, bad apples everywhere and opportunistic burglaries and even occasional robberies do occur. We have been the victim of a snatch and grab of my wallet when we were going through it in a restaurant in St. Vincent. We also had a computer stolen off the boat while it was in storage in Rodney Bay. In general we have found the Eastern Caribbean safer than the East Bay and take the same kind of precautions there as we do here. For those of you from more idyllic locations, this includes locking the house and all bicycles before we leave, avoiding the sketchy parts of town after dark and not leaving valuables lying about in plain sight. The Caribbean Safety and Security net maintains a database of incidents which is available on line. This site contains information collected from cruizer reports over the last years running the Safety and Security Radio net which meets on Marine SSB at 8104 ath 8:15 AST. It is a considerably less alarming read than the Berkeley crime log.

There are more sites about old time pirates but my friend Beverly recommend this one:www.adc-fl.com/pirate-dentistry/ It will explain (among other things) why pirates had such bad teeth.

What about sharks?

Nurse shark
Jaws movie poster
We have seen sharks (mostly nurse sharks asleep on the bottom) and barracudas but have escaped unharmed so far. Actual attacks by sharks are unheard of in the Caribbean though every once and a while we get a shark attack on a surfer or Abalone diver in Northern California. A local once asked me "why do the tourists always ask about sharks and never about coconuts?" Not having previously recognized the dangers of coconuts, I was informed that the common tourist practice of lounging around under coconut trees in a stiff breeze had lead to more casualties than sharks ever had.

What are the biggest seas you've seen?

The biggest seas we've seen are out in the Pacific Ocean where some of the largest waves on the planet are formed. Unless you are trying to cross a river bar, these seas are not particularly uncomfortable. It can be intimidating looking over your shoulder and seeing a wall of water towering over you but generally the period is long enough that the boat just rises up to allow the water to pass harmlessly underneath. The more difficult going is when the period (time between wave peaks) is less than the wave height. Short steep seas can be very nasty. You can break things and shake yourself up in typical short square Caribbean seas. A seven foot sea with a 6 second interval will have the nose buried into the face of the wave ahead. Seas three times that size with a 30 second interval will only raise and lower the boat and can be great fun to sail down. Most of the time you are at sea, you will believe the seas are much larger than they are. Most sailors lie about the huge seas they have bested. You should measure your eye level above the water when seated in your usual position. If the horizon disappears when you are in the trough, that wave is higher than that measurement. You can easily estimate how much higher or lower the peaks are from that base. In addition, sea heights are not reported by the absolute largest wave that came by, but rather the average of the tallest third.of the waves. Correlating the heights of the seas you are comfortable with (by this measure) against reported heights and period is a worthwhile exercise. You can learn to avoid an uncomfortable and noisy ride and possibly an unpleasant attack of sea sickness. Swapping lies about the monster seas you were in is not particularly useful.

 

 

What is your favorite island?

This is a tough one. The best answer I have heard is "For what?" Each island is very different with different cultures and even languages. I can't pick a favorite although I will try to offer some highlights:

 

 

What is an Accidental Cruiser?

Our work collapsed in the dot bomb of 2001 and we decided that, as long as we were going broke, we should at least be having fun. We cruise as a result of this serendipitous event, not as part of a long planned adventure or retirement. The term also captures the way we travel: we avoid having plans and pretty much go where the wind blows. We place particular emphasis on fine dining and beautiful sunsets.

What we are not is "old salts". You've read about them in the sailing mags. Old Salts were born on a sail bag, and have been racing since they started on dinghies at the age of six and are currently rounding the horn the wrong way. We, on the other hand, took up sailing in the late 90's because we live near the SF Bay. It is beautiful, peaceful and much closer to home than the Sierra Nevada mountains and therefore much nicer for the 2-3 days a month we could get off work. We are still in awe of the old salts but are not expecting to emulate them.

How does an "Old Salt" go cruising?

An old salt usually goes through the following steps:

Captain at the wheel
  1. Have the dream* - round the horn, round the world or escape from the world
  2. Research and find the perfect boat
  3. Outfit and equip the boat
  4. Sell house and possessions, quit jobs, cut ties
  5. Take a shakedown cruise
  6. Make your first passage (i.e., "turn left at the gate")
*Whose dream is it anyway (what's in it for the ladies?)

How did the Accidental Cruiser go cruising?

We had no goal of cruising at the time we started. In retrospect, our escape plan was::

  1. Learn to sail and sail weekends on the bay.
  2. Take some offshore trips, make a few passages locally
  3. Bare boat charter a couple of times
  4. Buy a boat and go sailing*
This accidental plan worked out well for us. We dipped our toes in slowly and didn't have to do any serious passages to arrive at our goals. We moved to the next step as we were ready and didn't have to sell the house and possesions until we were quite comfortable with the cruising life.

*In retrospect, our first year spent largely in the British and US Virgin Islands was a kind of shakedown for us and for the boat as the sailing there is a little more protected and easier than elsewhere in the Caribbean.

What do you do all day?

This is question number one. Our typical day is different if it is a day at anchor or a day spent on the move.

Day in the life at anchor

We usually rise before the sun and spend a good deal of time listening to weather nets.
We make coffee
We watch the sunrise
We do some stretches
We make, eat and clean up after breakfast
We read
We start any projects* or set out for an adventures** (limited to one per day - any more engenders stress)
We have lunch. This is usually our main meal. It could occur ashore if the step before has taken us there, otherwise, prepare, eat and clean up)
We read. Occasionally, if it is warm or the snorkeling beckons, we swim
We continue our projects/adventures
We check the afternoon weather nets
We celebrate the sundown either on our or another's boat
We clean up. Close up the boat, set lights. We turn on the radio and fall asleep

*Our projects are generally boat repairs, fetching provisions, getting water, getting rid of garbage or finding boat parts.

**Our adventures are sometimes a side effect of the projects and sometimes land tours, hikes or visits to customs and immigration.

Day in the life sailing

The day before we leave,:
    We hoist dinghy out of the water and stage the boat at a convenient jump off point
    We prepare some "leftovers" for eating underway

The day we leave, :
    We make coffee
    We pack up boat. Everything not secured will be thrown on the cabin sole.
    We raise anchor
    We motor out of the anchorage
    We set out our fishing lines.
    We have breakfast
    We check the weather
    We play music. We chat. We tell bad jokes. We check the charts. We wave at anyone we see.
    We have lunch
    We sail. We watch for whales, dolphins, birds. We watch the world go by.
    We anchor
    We pick up everything that was thrown on the cabin sole.
    We swim/snorkel
    We have our sundowner
    We clean up.
    We turn on the radio. We go to /sleep

But what do you really do all day?

Maintaining and repairing the boat takes up a fair amount of time. Cruising is often referred to as "the art of fixing your boat in exotic places." Provisioning for fresh items and getting rid of garbage in a conscionable manner are nearly daily chores. Irregularly we need to get propane (for cooking) do laundry, get water, get diesel, exchange books and visit the internet cafe to catch up with the outside world.

On the plus side, we spend a lot of time watching the birds, the fish and the sunrise and the sunset. We socialize a great deal playing dominoes, telling bad jokes, exchanging cruiser information or helping each other with boat projects. Often we hike or play tourist visiting the many attractions ashore. It is a rare day we don't spend some time in the water often with snorkel and mask. We try to reserve some time for reading, particularly when in the grip of an extra good book.

 

How much does it cost ?

Many cruisers have posted their cost records for a trip around the world. My general impressions agree with this one. However, this is a hard question to answer with just numbers. I think it is really a number of questions:

How much does a cruising boat cost?

Boats cost according to size (price goes up with the cube of the length), quality (we have what is somewhat disdainfully referred to as a "production boat" of medium coastal cruising quality), condition and equipment. It is possible to spend as much as you want on boats. Our first boat cost under $100,000. It had fairly new sails and a new engine for a boat of 7 years of age. It is kind of an average white boat of 40' length. Specifically, it was an ex-charter Beneteau. It was bone simple with out most of the fancy boat toys that make for higher maintenance and purchase costs. Among the things we didn't have are: water maker, air conditioning, EPIRB, life raft, television, radar, satellite communications or internet connections. Among the items we don't consider toys are: good inflatable dinghy, High Frequency Radio and radio modem for email, portable PC, an adequate stock of books for exchange and a very comfortable bed.

Our new boat is a "blue water" boat which cost about three times what our first boat did. It has a water maker, EPIRB, life raft, radar and is a little longer and a lot heavier. We moved up to the new boat because we are getting a little more adventurous and are thinking of doing some longer passages. Plus, I can stand up in the new boat and we no longer have a house. Ultimately this is a lifestyle question akin to asking "how much does living in California cost.?"

How much does the cruising life cost?

As with the previous question, the answer is: it depends.

     How much do you eat out? Restaurants can be ridiculously expensive for very poor food (particularly on the English Islands) We eat out a couple of times a week, usually lunch and usually at a place patronized by the locals. We do not eat out on the more expensive islands unless we are being treated by guests. Most islands catering to tourists will have a $25.00 per meal price for a meal regardless of quality. Locals will spend closer to $6.00.

What do you eat? If you insist on finding your favorite breakfast snack, it ranges from expensive (everything is brought in from outside) to impossible. Outside of Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands, items from home can cost up to twice what you would expect to pay at Safeway. The grand exception is frozen chicken which is readily available and generally reasonable everywhere. Fruits in season and fish can be very inexpensive. Lobster is probably only worth the money once.

How much do you spend on land trips? We will generally do guided land trips only with others to split costs. Most islands have cheap buses (really kind of vans) that you can ride with the locals everywhere. We have taken to calling them dollar buses as the fare is usually somewhat in that range. This has the added advantage of introducing you to normal people and not just those hanging about the docks.

Which island are you on? St. Bart's can be fantastically expensive as it caters to the European gliterati. Dominica offers its natural wonders nearly for free.

Do you want to hang out at the marina? The social life can be fun but a slip will cost anywhere from $20 to $50/day. Moorings cost from $10 to $25. These are quite reasonable charges for the charterer who may well be splitting the costs with the others on the boat and is, at any rate, only there for a week or so. For us, it is normally prohibitively expensive.

Our largest bill is health insurance and our largest monthly expense is boat maintenance. The latter comes in lumps and could easily be mistaken for breakdowns but one becomes accustomed to the regular wear of stuff in the harsh marine environment. Most boating stuff is either built to last a short time (most boats aren't used much) or has a known life under the Caribbean sun and salt that is much shorter than you expect. Rigging, lines, sails, hatches and electronics all require regular replacement. I figure 10% of the boats value per year is a reasonable estimate of what you will spend.

What do you eat?

Generally, we eat that which is available. In the USVI and in Puerto Rico (but not Culebra or Vieques) there are large, well stocked groceries with items familiar to Americans. The French islands offer excellent wines, cheeses and pates as well as fresh fruits and baked goods. The English speaking islands will tend more to an old fashioned British sense of proper food, which is to say: pretty bad unless you are fond of Weetabix and marmite. The exception is Antigua which has a couple of really great grocery stores. The items not subsidized by the EU or grown or caught locally can be fairly expensive though and it is good to develop a basket of recipes which use local, cheap foodstuffs.

Ours include lots of tropical fruit in season (mango, papaya, avocado, etc) and the ever present bananas and grapefruit. Fish, either frozen or fresh can usually be found and chicken is often cheap (though often frozen and brought in from the US) . We bake bread when we get a yen for good bread as we are not so fond of white balloon bread. Local greens make a ready spinach substitute and we stock up on canned meals (cous cous, tabouli, paella, lentils), wines, cheeses and jams when in the French islands.

I want to visit, what should I bring?

Lay out all the stuff you want to bring on your bed. Return 1/2 of it to your storage at home. Get a small soft backpack and put in it: swim suit, several pairs of shorts, many light cotton shirts and as much underwear as will fit. You will want waterproof sandals (we like chacos). Toiletries with a little extra emphasis on sunscreen and bug repellant. Regarding sunscreen: .you will want a high SPF sunscreen which does not stain. Note: if the bottle says "may stain some fabrics" it will definately make a mess of your T-shirt collars and all my fiberglass. Look for titanium dioxide or zinc oxide to make your dermatoligist happy. Regarding bug repellant: look for the percentage of DEET. Its nasty stuff but it works. We rarely encounter mosquitoes or no-see-ums on board but you will want repellant for morning or evening shoreside excursions. A high SPF hat which provides ear covererage is quite nice - the sun is very intense. A normal white cotton T-shirt has an SPF rating of 5 and you will return from a snorkeling trip or a walk with a sunburn if it is your only protection.

Warning: NO SMOKING!

If you are a smoker, you must be prepared to go without cigarettes for the duration of the visit. You cannot step aside and keep the cigarette smell out of the boat. There is no smoking in the boat, near the boat or by those who expect to spend the night on the boat.

Wear your long sleeve shirt and shoes on the plane, you will not need them again until you return. We generally wear shirt and shorts and sandals all the time. It is typically around 80 degrees with a light to moderate breeze and you really do not need to wear much except as modesty dictates. Bring your passport - you will be entering and leaving many foreign countries and they are not impressed with your state driver's license. You can get money in the many automated bank money machines. There is no place to store your large hard-sided luggage on a boat, leave it at home. You do not need to bring your PFD(Life Vest), the boat has plenty if we sink and they are a little warm to wear around the deck. The water is also in the 80's and very salty so you float easily - if you fall in, you will not drown nor suffer hypothermia. (However, we do not recommend falling in as it can be quite difficult to find you in bouncy seas). Prescription lens wearers will want to bring a dive mask which fits their prescription, all else is available locally. Boat gifts should be consumable: coffee, the New York Times, good peanut butter (unsalted, unsweetened crunchy is unavailable) and good books are all very appreciated. In contrast to the boat advertisements featuring roses in stem glasses, life on a boat is quite like camping (but without the dust) and fairly close. The most important item to bring is: a good attitude.

 

 

Do I need a watermaker in the Caribbean?

In the immortal words of Don of Cygnus, "Its a lifestyle issue!" There is ample water available at the fuel docks all up and down the island chain costing between 10 and 25 cents a gallon. You will not save money running a watermaker.. You will have the issue of supplying it with sufficient power, the requirement that it be run regularly and the inevitable occasional breakdown. You will save the trouble of docking and filling the tanks or having to transport water in your dinghy. You will have as much water as you want (which is kind of fun)

I don't think that the water maker is worth the money if you are in an area where water is available. I have observed quite a few people become slaves to the watermaker where they could easily buy water at a much lower investment in time and money. If you have one, you must run it (and in a clean water area) or it will fail. It is a necessary evil  if you are going to be at sea for long periods or are spending time in areas where potable water is just not available. We carry about 110 gallons of water and find we usually go about 2 weeks without having to fill the tanks. I would like to have a better water capture and rainwater filtration method but am more content jugging water aboard than working on a complex piece of equipment I don't understand. On the other hand, some people feel the same way about having an engine in the boat. It's a lifestyle issue.

Is there cell phone service in the Caribbean ?

Your cellphone may work in the Caribbean. Your roaming service can be extraordinarily expensive to use in the islands and locals will be very reluctant to give you a call. Calls to the US can be quite high. We have purchased a good quad band phone which is "unlocked". This means that you can put other companies SIM cards and switch services. Naturally the phone companies don't like this possibility and as far as I know only T-Mobile will give you the unlock codes. The technically savvy might enjoy the exercise of joining the on-line hacker communities to get their phone unlocked. We then buy a pre-paid SIM card from Digicell which gives us a local number in most of the Anglophone Islands and free incoming calls. The French islands are treated just like France and, if your French is good, you can presumably do the same thing there. One caution: if you want to add more time to the account, you must buy the card in island where you bought the SIM card or you will have to get a new phone number. On Antigua, we just rented a cell phone from British Cable and Wireless for essentially the cost of the minutes on the phone. When we were ready to leave, we returned the unit.

 

I would like to get your opinion of the 1995 Beneteau 405 I want to buy from the Moorings charter fleet.

We owned a 1995 Beneteau 405 for our first part of our cruising career and were very pleased with it. It is great fun to sail, quite comfortable inside and  very well thought out as a Caribbean boat. There are so many of them on the market that you get a lot of boat for your money and everyone in the Caribbean knows them well because many of the marine industry businesses got their start with Moorings  or have worked on their boats. The major thing to look for is that the hull is sound. These boats are made with an inner pan which is shaped to form kind of hollow ribs which are then bonded to the hull to give the boat rigidity. The bonding seems to have been done with old chewed up baguettes as the inner liner can become loose from the hull which is then very flexible. Your surveyor should carefully tap the entire outside of the hull looking for signs of such separation. We have had two areas of our hull sawn open and fiber glassed to restore the structure and it was quite messy and expensive. A boat of over 10 years should have new standing rigging and you must think about replacing the keel bolts. We have also had to reinforce the rudder and replace the rudder bearing which is also common. We have replaced the old engine driven refrigerator and insulated and cut down the box to make for modern, reliable refrigeration systems. These boats were laid out for 3 couples to sail on for 10 days and therefore have entirely too much room for beer and sleeping and not enough storage. Comes with the territory. They are bone simple and a blast to sail. Good ventilation. Great cockpit. Easy access to the water. What's not to like? The cruisers tend to think you are a charterer and may be given to throwing out fenders when you come in to an anchorage. Get a Seven Seas Cruising Association burgee and put a bunch of jerry cans on deck and even that will go away.

Do you purchase ( or are you able to purchase) insurance for your boat during hurricane season?

The insurance industry has defined a "box" for far too many boats which requires that they stay south of latitude 12 (at or below southern Grenada) or north of southern US. during hurricane season. This has had the unfortunate effect of concentrating the risk by crowding too many boats into a few anchorages. When Ivan came, the hit was huge because so many people were concentrated in Grenada. It would be better from an actuarial standpoint to spread the fleet evenly and require good hurricane preparations. We have had United Insurance out of Barbados for the last two years. They do not have a hurricane box restriction but we keep our boat out of the water over the summer. Our current policy requires we stay south of Antigua and north of Venezuela. They will write riders (at a cost) should we wish to travel elsewhere. Contact a marina in the area you are thinking of staying over hurricane season and they will probably be able to direct you to an insurer.

Many of the non-US insurers are restricting boats from US waters because of excessive litigation and huge losses in hurricanes. We had one year where we "self insured" but I was concerned about liability. If I could by liability insurance only, I would. Unless you sink your boat, you are unlikely to collect anywhere near enough to cover premiums, hassle, delay etc. or even enough to put your boat back together . If you do sink your boat, you might not feel like replacing it. Insurance aside, I feel a boat is much safer in one of the hurricane holes than it is in the anchorage in Trinidad or in Florida. A hurricane hit on any given island is a rare enough event that the statistics are not of much use. Prepare your boat carefully and consider the quality of the preparations of the other boats. See our hurricane preparation tips for the level of risk we tolerate.

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