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Last report position from station Pepper

Date: 2019-12-26 14:26
Station ID: Pepper
Position: 17º 51.34'N:077º 46.92'W
Course: 113º Speed: 6.00 knots
Received via: Panama SailMail - HPPM2-1 with pactor4/FBB-2/8185.0
Date: 2019-12-21 15:10
Station ID: Pepper
Position: 21º 14.73'N:086º 44.67'W
Course: 028º Speed: 0.10 knots
Received via: Panama SailMail - HPPM2-1 with pactor4/FBB-2/8185.0
Date: 2019-12-10 23:44
Station ID: Pepper
Position: 21º 44.87'N:086º 44.79'W
Course: 358º Speed: 6.40 knots
Received via: Panama SailMail - HPPM2-1 with pactor4/FBB-2/8185.0
Date: 2019-12-06 13:55
Station ID: Pepper
Position: 18º 32.95'N:086º 36.93'W
Course: 352º Speed: 6.50 knots
Received via: Panama SailMail - HPPM2-1 with pactor4/FBB-2/8185.0
Date: 2019-12-05 12:26
Station ID: Pepper
Position: 16º 17.54'N:086º 35.84'W
Course: 085º Speed: 0.00 knots
Received via: Panama SailMail - HPPM2-2 with Pactor3/FBB-2/8185.0
Date: 2019-11-28 21:31
Station ID: Pepper
Position: 16º 21.33'N:086º 26.46'W
Course: 123º Speed: 0.20 knots
Received via: Panama SailMail - HPPM2-2 with Pactor3/FBB-2/5870.0
Date: 2019-11-26 13:39
Station ID: Pepper
Position: 16º 05.67'N:086º 53.89'W
Course: 104º Speed: 0.00 knots
Received via: Panama SailMail - HPPM2-1 with pactor4/FBB-2/5870.0
Date: 2018-06-15 14:49
Station ID: Pepper
Position: 15º 49.29'N:088º 44.97'W
Course: 249º Speed: 5.90 knots
Received via: Panama SailMail - HPPM2-1 with pactor4/FBB-2/5870.0
Date: 2018-06-15 14:49
Station ID: Pepper
Position: 15º 49.29'N:088º 44.97'W
Course: 249º Speed: 5.90 knots
Received via: Panama SailMail - HPPM2-1 with pactor4/FBB-2/5870.0
Date: 2018-06-15 12:20
Station ID: Pepper
Position: 15º 55.05'N:088º 37.76'W
Course: 249º Speed: 5.90 knots
Received via: Panama SailMail - HPPM2-1 with pactor4/FBB-2/8185.0
Date: 2018-06-14 00:16
Station ID: Pepper
Position: 16º 30.50'N:088º 21.82'W
Course: 256º Speed: 0.00 knots
Received via: Panama SailMail - HPPM2-1 with pactor4/FBB-2/8185.0

Position Tracking & Reporting Service for
YachtCom and SailCom customers.

Tracking The lowest number is the latest position, green dot


1 2019-12-26 14:26 Pepper
2 2019-12-21 15:10 Pepper
3 2019-12-10 23:44 Pepper
4 2019-12-06 13:55 Pepper
5 2019-12-05 12:26 Pepper
6 2019-11-28 21:31 Pepper
7 2019-11-26 13:39 Pepper
8 2018-06-15 14:49 Pepper
9 2018-06-15 12:20 Pepper
10 2018-06-14 00:16 Pepper

Reports



Date: 2018-06-15 14:49
Station ID: Pepper
Position: 15º 49.29'N:088º 44.97'W
Author: Hatty
Location: Livingston, Guatemala
Title: Sand bar

Crossing the sand bar at Livingston was nerve racking. The boat in Front, Aztec Dream were dragged across with a halyard tilting them across. They draw 2.1m we draw 1.7 so we were reasonably confident. We think the other boats were dragged across too. Luckily no wind so little
bounce but we did read zero for most of the way. Just kept speed up to 4.5 knots to plough through. Waiting for Raul, customs man to check us in and the adventure of going along the river Rio Dolce begins.
Date: 2018-06-15 14:49
Station ID: Pepper
Position: 15º 49.29'N:088º 44.97'W
Author: Hatty
Location: Livingston, Guatemala
Title: Sand bar

Crossing the sand bar at Livingston was nerve racking. The boat in Front, Aztec Dream were dragged across with a halyard tilting them across. They draw 2.1m we draw 1.7 so we were reasonably confident. We think the other boats were dragged across too. Luckily no wind so little
bounce but we did read zero for most of the way. Just kept speed up to 4.5 knots to plough through. Waiting for Raul, customs man to check us in and the adventure of going along the river Rio Dolce begins.
Date: 2018-06-14 00:16
Station ID: Pepper
Position: 16º 30.50'N:088º 21.82'W
Author: Hatty
Location: Belize
Title: 13 June

Well we've checked out of Belize. We used Placencia because the anchorage has good protection. The whole trip took 2 hours and around 48 pounds. We took the water taxi because yachts aren't allowed up the creek. Yesterday we stayed in a super brand new marina in Sapodilla
Reserve, great facilities, bar, restaurant, laundry room and wifif all around the marina. Also easily buoyed to enter with plenty of deep water. We met a lovely family Marianna, Barney and their cute 4 year old daughter Myria. They are starting out learning to sail and live in Belize city. She's
from Moldova and he is from Hungary! Fabulous mix. I hope we meet again. We sailed an average of 8 knots from Sapodilla to Placencia. As the reputation stands Belize sailing has fabulous wind on the beam and flat seas thanks to the reef which runs along the coast. It took a couple
of hours to do 17nms. Wish it was like that every sail.

Placencia is nice. Great restaurants with typical Belize menu: Cows foot soup, fry jacks and Spanish type foods. We ate in a local restaurant called Wendy's twice which was superb produce and well put together. No complaints there. We caught up with Marianna and Barney, Jane and
Jim on Adventure (they live in Guatemala and Jane went to Godolphin in Salisbury-the same school the girls went to). And our Alabama friends. We feel as though we are catching up with other sailors more as we are closer to the hurricane hole in Rio Dolce.

Tomorrow we will leave early for 47 nms to Guatemala anchorage to wait for the highest tide the next day at 0830 before entering the river Rio Dolce. To enter the river you need to cross a sand bar which is as low as 1.8m.. We draw 1.7m. The sand is forever shifting so shallows could be
less than 1.8m. This is why we have picked 15 June at 0830. It's the highest tide for the month at .70m which should give us a safe passage across. Luckily the difficult section is 200m and the locals are at hand to help; at a price of course. The general procedures are to try to free
yourself, wait for higher tide (we plan to cross at 0730 .66m high tide which would give us an extra lift should we run aground), or tilt the boat by attaching a halyard to another vessel and they pull you over lifting the keel. I'm sure we will be fine and I will record our crossing in. Booking in
will be with an agent Raul. He comes highly recommended and can arrange for 6 months without difficulties. After checking in we have a 7 nm passage along the river through a high;y steeped canyon with beautiful green tropical jungle trees either side with monkeys too. The river which
translates as Sweet Water is fresh as it runs off the hills. Although brackish waters manatees live here which we are looking forward to seeing. The river opens up into a huge lake which is where we will stay for the hurricane season. All around the lake are various ancorages and marinas,
we have chosen RAM because of its' excellent reputation and of course a lift. We'll lift Pepper out 25th June and carry out our million jobs. The labour is much more affordable and it is wise to take full advantage of this. As you can imagine our 'To do' list is growing.
Date: 2018-06-14 00:16
Station ID: Pepper
Position: 16º 30.50'N:088º 21.82'W
Author: Hatty
Location: Belize
Title: 13 June

Well we've checked out of Belize. We used Placencia because the anchorage has good protection. The whole trip took 2 hours and around 48 pounds. We took the water taxi because yachts aren't allowed up the creek. Yesterday we stayed in a super brand new marina in Sapodilla
Reserve, great facilities, bar, restaurant, laundry room and wifif all around the marina. Also easily buoyed to enter with plenty of deep water. We met a lovely family Marianna, Barney and their cute 4 year old daughter Myria. They are starting out learning to sail and live in Belize city. She's
from Moldova and he is from Hungary! Fabulous mix. I hope we meet again. We sailed an average of 8 knots from Sapodilla to Placencia. As the reputation stands Belize sailing has fabulous wind on the beam and flat seas thanks to the reef which runs along the coast. It took a couple
of hours to do 17nms. Wish it was like that every sail.

Placencia is nice. Great restaurants with typical Belize menu: Cows foot soup, fry jacks and Spanish type foods. We ate in a local restaurant called Wendy's twice which was superb produce and well put together. No complaints there. We caught up with Marianna and Barney, Jane and
Jim on Adventure (they live in Guatemala and Jane went to Godolphin in Salisbury-the same school the girls went to). And our Alabama friends. We feel as though we are catching up with other sailors more as we are closer to the hurricane hole in Rio Dolce.

Tomorrow we will leave early for 47 nms to Guatemala anchorage to wait for the highest tide the next day at 0830 before entering the river Rio Dolce. To enter the river you need to cross a sand bar which is as low as 1.8m.. We draw 1.7m. The sand is forever shifting so shallows could be
less than 1.8m. This is why we have picked 15 June at 0830. It's the highest tide for the month at .70m which should give us a safe passage across. Luckily the difficult section is 200m and the locals are at hand to help; at a price of course. The general procedures are to try to free
yourself, wait for higher tide (we plan to cross at 0730 .66m high tide which would give us an extra lift should we run aground), or tilt the boat by attaching a halyard to another vessel and they pull you over lifting the keel. I'm sure we will be fine and I will record our crossing in. Booking in
will be with an agent Raul. He comes highly recommended and can arrange for 6 months without difficulties. After checking in we have a 7 nm passage along the river through a high;y steeped canyon with beautiful green tropical jungle trees either side with monkeys too. The river which
translates as Sweet Water is fresh as it runs off the hills. Although brackish waters manatees live here which we are looking forward to seeing. The river opens up into a huge lake which is where we will stay for the hurricane season. All around the lake are various ancorages and marinas,
we have chosen RAM because of its' excellent reputation and of course a lift. We'll lift Pepper out 25th June and carry out our million jobs. The labour is much more affordable and it is wise to take full advantage of this. As you can imagine our 'To do' list is growing.
Date: 2018-06-10 18:50
Station ID: Pepper
Position: 16º 53.17'N:088º 07.35'W
Author: Hatty
Location: Belize
Title: 6-10 June Cozumel, Mexio to San Pedro, Belize

Arriving in San Pedro, Belize: Two night sails and one day; 30 hrs of rough rolly sailing. Running along the length of Belize is the second largest reef in the world. On the ocean side is 800m+ deep ocean, on the inside nothing much below 12m. The reef takes all the energy from the
waves so inside the reef is calm waters but there's always the wind to keep you sailing and generally an easterly wind so it's on the beam-a comfortable sail. We were checking in Belize at a town called San Pedro which has a cut in the reef so you can get access to the mainland. Going
through the cut of the reef was incredibly tight with a dog leg which made motoring from a rolly windy sea into calmer shallow waters very nerve racking. The depth guage read 0 a few times. The colour of the sea is stunning. Bright blue and gin clear. Seeing the bottom was easy. We
didn't enjoy San Pedro. It was grotty and we were conned by a taxi driver who said he said 35 dollars both ways when at the beginning he said 25 dollars! Sometimes it's just not worth arguing, But he gave us a bad first impression. Customs and immigration was straight forward. In the
centre of town upstairs form the Scotia Bank opposite the airport not as indicated in the pilot book. The port office, a shack, was a taxi ride away on a pot holed dirt track with rubbish everywhere. We didn't hang around long and headed for Caulker Caye. It's very tendy, young, colourful,
quaint, fun with lots to see and do; even managed a yoga session here. A few other yachts were anchored here, Irish and American. After a day in Caulker we headed off to St George's Cay which had a British army R&R camp 70-90s; we thought this would be interesting to see. On the
way to this Cay we needed to pass Port Stuck which is a shallow area between Hicks Cay and Montejo Cay. The pass isn't marked although a few sticks were dotted around giving no indication which side to pass. A long story short, we ran aground 'briefly'. We knew it would be a tough
section, navionics is useless in parts too, so planned to pass through mid rising tide (high tide was only 16cm), we were fairly confident with the drills. 15 minutes getting through the pass a 35 knot gusting Force 8 squall came through-great timing! Wouldn't have been fun having that along
with running aground. We enjoyed St George's, took loads of photos of the army accommodation and had a chat in the bar with the owner of the resort who had lived there since 1930s. Heard some great stories. Next stop was Colson Cay, nothing exciting here, no life but quiet and
pretty. We saw a huge dead turtle who had become trapped by a rope attached to a fish trap. Very sad to see. The weather has been frustrating. We've taken shelter today over lunch in Coco Plum Cay. Too windy to go ashore. It started off beautifully but the squalls come in big and
fast. Unfortunately we are not seeing Belize in its' best light. We're deciding wether to stay in a marina on the mainland or ride this squall out...tbc
Date: 2018-06-10 18:50
Station ID: Pepper
Position: 16º 53.17'N:088º 07.35'W
Author: Hatty
Location: Belize
Title: 6-10 June Cozumel, Mexio to San Pedro, Belize

Arriving in San Pedro, Belize: Two night sails and one day; 30 hrs of rough rolly sailing. Running along the length of Belize is the second largest reef in the world. On the ocean side is 800m+ deep ocean, on the inside nothing much below 12m. The reef takes all the energy from the
waves so inside the reef is calm waters but there's always the wind to keep you sailing and generally an easterly wind so it's on the beam-a comfortable sail. We were checking in Belize at a town called San Pedro which has a cut in the reef so you can get access to the mainland. Going
through the cut of the reef was incredibly tight with a dog leg which made motoring from a rolly windy sea into calmer shallow waters very nerve racking. The depth guage read 0 a few times. The colour of the sea is stunning. Bright blue and gin clear. Seeing the bottom was easy. We
didn't enjoy San Pedro. It was grotty and we were conned by a taxi driver who said he said 35 dollars both ways when at the beginning he said 25 dollars! Sometimes it's just not worth arguing, But he gave us a bad first impression. Customs and immigration was straight forward. In the
centre of town upstairs form the Scotia Bank opposite the airport not as indicated in the pilot book. The port office, a shack, was a taxi ride away on a pot holed dirt track with rubbish everywhere. We didn't hang around long and headed for Caulker Caye. It's very tendy, young, colourful,
quaint, fun with lots to see and do; even managed a yoga session here. A few other yachts were anchored here, Irish and American. After a day in Caulker we headed off to St George's Cay which had a British army R&R camp 70-90s; we thought this would be interesting to see. On the
way to this Cay we needed to pass Port Stuck which is a shallow area between Hicks Cay and Montejo Cay. The pass isn't marked although a few sticks were dotted around giving no indication which side to pass. A long story short, we ran aground 'briefly'. We knew it would be a tough
section, navionics is useless in parts too, so planned to pass through mid rising tide (high tide was only 16cm), we were fairly confident with the drills. 15 minutes getting through the pass a 35 knot gusting Force 8 squall came through-great timing! Wouldn't have been fun having that along
with running aground. We enjoyed St George's, took loads of photos of the army accommodation and had a chat in the bar with the owner of the resort who had lived there since 1930s. Heard some great stories. Next stop was Colson Cay, nothing exciting here, no life but quiet and
pretty. We saw a huge dead turtle who had become trapped by a rope attached to a fish trap. Very sad to see. The weather has been frustrating. We've taken shelter today over lunch in Coco Plum Cay. Too windy to go ashore. It started off beautifully but the squalls come in big and
fast. Unfortunately we are not seeing Belize in its' best light. We're deciding wether to stay in a marina on the mainland or ride this squall out...tbc
Date: 2018-06-10 18:50
Station ID: Pepper
Position: 16º 53.17'N:088º 07.35'W
Author: Hatty
Location: Belize
Title: 6-10 June Cozumel, Mexio to San Pedro, Belize

Arriving in San Pedro, Belize: Two night sails and one day; 30 hrs of rough rolly sailing. Running along the length of Belize is the second largest reef in the world. On the ocean side is 800m+ deep ocean, on the inside nothing much below 12m. The reef takes all the energy from the
waves so inside the reef is calm waters but there's always the wind to keep you sailing and generally an easterly wind so it's on the beam-a comfortable sail. We were checking in Belize at a town called San Pedro which has a cut in the reef so you can get access to the mainland. Going
through the cut of the reef was incredibly tight with a dog leg which made motoring from a rolly windy sea into calmer shallow waters very nerve racking. The depth guage read 0 a few times. The colour of the sea is stunning. Bright blue and gin clear. Seeing the bottom was easy. We
didn't enjoy San Pedro. It was grotty and we were conned by a taxi driver who said he said 35 dollars both ways when at the beginning he said 25 dollars! Sometimes it's just not worth arguing, But he gave us a bad first impression. Customs and immigration was straight forward. In the
centre of town upstairs form the Scotia Bank opposite the airport not as indicated in the pilot book. The port office, a shack, was a taxi ride away on a pot holed dirt track with rubbish everywhere. We didn't hang around long and headed for Caulker Caye. It's very tendy, young, colourful,
quaint, fun with lots to see and do; even managed a yoga session here. A few other yachts were anchored here, Irish and American. After a day in Caulker we headed off to St George's Cay which had a British army R&R camp 70-90s; we thought this would be interesting to see. On the
way to this Cay we needed to pass Port Stuck which is a shallow area between Hicks Cay and Montejo Cay. The pass isn't marked although a few sticks were dotted around giving no indication which side to pass. A long story short, we ran aground 'briefly'. We knew it would be a tough
section, navionics is useless in parts too, so planned to pass through mid rising tide (high tide was only 16cm), we were fairly confident with the drills. 15 minutes getting through the pass a 35 knot gusting Force 8 squall came through-great timing! Wouldn't have been fun having that along
with running aground. We enjoyed St George's, took loads of photos of the army accommodation and had a chat in the bar with the owner of the resort who had lived there since 1930s. Heard some great stories. Next stop was Colson Cay, nothing exciting here, no life but quiet and
pretty. We saw a huge dead turtle who had become trapped by a rope attached to a fish trap. Very sad to see. The weather has been frustrating. We've taken shelter today over lunch in Coco Plum Cay. Too windy to go ashore. It started off beautifully but the squalls come in big and
fast. Unfortunately we are not seeing Belize in its' best light. We're deciding wether to stay in a marina on the mainland or ride this squall out...tbc
Date: 2018-06-10 18:50
Station ID: Pepper
Position: 16º 53.17'N:088º 07.35'W
Author: Hatty
Location: Belize
Title: 6-10 June Cozumel, Mexio to San Pedro, Belize

Arriving in San Pedro, Belize: Two night sails and one day; 30 hrs of rough rolly sailing. Running along the length of Belize is the second largest reef in the world. On the ocean side is 800m+ deep ocean, on the inside nothing much below 12m. The reef takes all the energy from the
waves so inside the reef is calm waters but there's always the wind to keep you sailing and generally an easterly wind so it's on the beam-a comfortable sail. We were checking in Belize at a town called San Pedro which has a cut in the reef so you can get access to the mainland. Going
through the cut of the reef was incredibly tight with a dog leg which made motoring from a rolly windy sea into calmer shallow waters very nerve racking. The depth guage read 0 a few times. The colour of the sea is stunning. Bright blue and gin clear. Seeing the bottom was easy. We
didn't enjoy San Pedro. It was grotty and we were conned by a taxi driver who said he said 35 dollars both ways when at the beginning he said 25 dollars! Sometimes it's just not worth arguing, But he gave us a bad first impression. Customs and immigration was straight forward. In the
centre of town upstairs form the Scotia Bank opposite the airport not as indicated in the pilot book. The port office, a shack, was a taxi ride away on a pot holed dirt track with rubbish everywhere. We didn't hang around long and headed for Caulker Caye. It's very tendy, young, colourful,
quaint, fun with lots to see and do; even managed a yoga session here. A few other yachts were anchored here, Irish and American. After a day in Caulker we headed off to St George's Cay which had a British army R&R camp 70-90s; we thought this would be interesting to see. On the
way to this Cay we needed to pass Port Stuck which is a shallow area between Hicks Cay and Montejo Cay. The pass isn't marked although a few sticks were dotted around giving no indication which side to pass. A long story short, we ran aground 'briefly'. We knew it would be a tough
section, navionics is useless in parts too, so planned to pass through mid rising tide (high tide was only 16cm), we were fairly confident with the drills. 15 minutes getting through the pass a 35 knot gusting Force 8 squall came through-great timing! Wouldn't have been fun having that along
with running aground. We enjoyed St George's, took loads of photos of the army accommodation and had a chat in the bar with the owner of the resort who had lived there since 1930s. Heard some great stories. Next stop was Colson Cay, nothing exciting here, no life but quiet and
pretty. We saw a huge dead turtle who had become trapped by a rope attached to a fish trap. Very sad to see. The weather has been frustrating. We've taken shelter today over lunch in Coco Plum Cay. Too windy to go ashore. It started off beautifully but the squalls come in big and
fast. Unfortunately we are not seeing Belize in its' best light. We're deciding wether to stay in a marina on the mainland or ride this squall out...tbc
Date: 2018-06-07 15:59
Station ID: Pepper
Position: 20º 31.04'N:086º 56.85'W
Author: Hatty
Location: Mexico
Title: Cozumel 3 June

We decided to check out of Cozumel. It's 150 dollars less to pay than in El Cid.
We spent the weekend in El Cid using our food and beer tokens, taking full advantage of the gym and yoga classes. No wind and very hot in the marina. We hired a car and went to visit Chichen Itza-a Mayan temple really interesting. The Mayans designed a calendar which is far more
superior than the one we use today. We did a big food shop and saw the organic health food store that I had been ordering from in Isla Mujeres. Isla Mujeres is great it's bohemian, back packers, vegan restaurants, yoga retreats etc.

Cozumel was fun, we saw a mock demonstration of the traditional ball game pok-a-tok. two sides passing a solid rubber ball using their hips. There are hoops on the sides of the walls where you would win should you put the ball through the hoop. We saw these huge stadiums when in
Chichen Itza so it was good to see how they played in real life. It's a brutal game and they conducted human sacrifices BC.
Date: 2018-06-07 15:59
Station ID: Pepper
Position: 20º 31.04'N:086º 56.85'W
Author: Hatty
Location: Mexico
Title: Cozumel 3 June

We decided to check out of Cozumel. It's 150 dollars less to pay than in El Cid.
We spent the weekend in El Cid using our food and beer tokens, taking full advantage of the gym and yoga classes. No wind and very hot in the marina. We hired a car and went to visit Chichen Itza-a Mayan temple really interesting. The Mayans designed a calendar which is far more
superior than the one we use today. We did a big food shop and saw the organic health food store that I had been ordering from in Isla Mujeres. Isla Mujeres is great it's bohemian, back packers, vegan restaurants, yoga retreats etc.

Cozumel was fun, we saw a mock demonstration of the traditional ball game pok-a-tok. two sides passing a solid rubber ball using their hips. There are hoops on the sides of the walls where you would win should you put the ball through the hoop. We saw these huge stadiums when in
Chichen Itza so it was good to see how they played in real life. It's a brutal game and they conducted human sacrifices BC.
Date: 2018-05-24 19:15
Station ID: Pepper
Author: Hatty
Location: Mexico
Title: 19 Apr - 24 May general stuff

I really enjoyed my 3 day raw food yoga retreat. I learnt a lot about both. Yoga for me isn't sitting on a mat making lots of sounds feeling spiritual. Although I appreciate its usefulness, for me, I enjoy the physical challenging aspects. However having attended this retreat I have started to
incorporate more of the mindfulness of yoga. We have been eating incredibly healthily whilst here and both have been going to yoga classes. I order all our fruit, veg, nuts etc from an organic company and have followed some interesting recipes using avocados as dressings for example
and generally lots more fruit and veg in our diet. It's good prices too. Isla Mujeres is very Bohemian many vegan restaurants, tattoo shops, artists, yoga retreats, hippy clothes shops and back packers around. It's been fun to be a part of it.

We have made a few friends here but folk are starting to leave as it's hurricane season soon. Our intent is to sail south, spend a month exploring Belize then head into the Rio Dolce which is a long fresh water river in Guatemala. There are high mountains either side in the canyon and it's at
least 5km inland. It is considered a hurricane hole. Here we hope to cross the bar at Livingston and motor inland on 15 Jun and be lifted out 25 in RAM marina. We will stay in an affordable shared accommodation whilst working on Pepper. It's a jungle in Guatemala and it gets very hot
and humid with many rain storms. Accommodation, albeit shared, with air conditioning would be such a treat after many days work doing boat jobs. We hear the labor is cheap with skilled workers. We have a few carpentry jobs which we would like doing, sanding and varnishing anti
fouling and our prop shaft needs replacing. Not too much. We intend to book a flight to Hong Kong to see Lizzy and her baby (due 15 Aug) but no plans to come back to UK at the moment. We will plan on a few jungle tours and see inland too.

Illness:
My stomach had been feeling rotten for quite some time with a huge solid stomach and not too great on the loo. Phil and I popped in to the local doctors who took blood and stool tests. I had picked up a nasty parasite and 4 bad bacteria; E Coli and Salmonella to name 2. Phil had the
bad bacteria but not parasite-greedy me. We were put on many antibiotics, I took 8 a day. The battle inside made me feel completely awful, tired, foggy mind and just generally rotten. However, we have won the war and have the all clear, but never again. I think I had been carrying that
around for quite some time at least 6 months +, We have got medication to take 4 monthly to avoid any more of these problems. We were just unlucky. We've visited many countries where hygiene is not a priority, and occasionally whilst out at sea even our hygiene standards may drop
because of the inconvenience. Our lesson learned was to listen to your body and if things aren't right-get to the docs. The wonderful thing is our results arrived the same day and it was twelve pounds! You'd never get that in UK. However...imagine a comedy sketch: Phil and I sitting in
the surgery. The doctor can't speak English. Our Spanish is limited and certainly no medical vocabulary. The nurse was useful and he could translate for us. However, he had a terrible stutter! Looking back on it now, it would have been a hilarious sight watching the four of us in that
conversation. We're not sure to this day what was said :-)

We were waiting for George to visit us in Mexico now that he has finished university and is a rocket scientist. He has RAF interviews coming up, an exciting time for him, and we need to head south because the weather systems have changed-big wind and a lot of rain. I doubt hurricanes
follow the Gregorian calendar either. We are sitting in 30mph winds watching other boats drag. As soon as this low to the west of us disappears we are off to Belize. Hopefully George will visit us when we get there.

Love to you all.
Date: 2018-05-24 19:15
Station ID: Pepper
Author: Hatty
Location: Mexico
Title: 19 Apr - 24 May general stuff

I really enjoyed my 3 day raw food yoga retreat. I learnt a lot about both. Yoga for me isn't sitting on a mat making lots of sounds feeling spiritual. Although I appreciate its usefulness, for me, I enjoy the physical challenging aspects. However having attended this retreat I have started to
incorporate more of the mindfulness of yoga. We have been eating incredibly healthily whilst here and both have been going to yoga classes. I order all our fruit, veg, nuts etc from an organic company and have followed some interesting recipes using avocados as dressings for example
and generally lots more fruit and veg in our diet. It's good prices too. Isla Mujeres is very Bohemian many vegan restaurants, tattoo shops, artists, yoga retreats, hippy clothes shops and back packers around. It's been fun to be a part of it.

We have made a few friends here but folk are starting to leave as it's hurricane season soon. Our intent is to sail south, spend a month exploring Belize then head into the Rio Dolce which is a long fresh water river in Guatemala. There are high mountains either side in the canyon and it's at
least 5km inland. It is considered a hurricane hole. Here we hope to cross the bar at Livingston and motor inland on 15 Jun and be lifted out 25 in RAM marina. We will stay in an affordable shared accommodation whilst working on Pepper. It's a jungle in Guatemala and it gets very hot
and humid with many rain storms. Accommodation, albeit shared, with air conditioning would be such a treat after many days work doing boat jobs. We hear the labor is cheap with skilled workers. We have a few carpentry jobs which we would like doing, sanding and varnishing anti
fouling and our prop shaft needs replacing. Not too much. We intend to book a flight to Hong Kong to see Lizzy and her baby (due 15 Aug) but no plans to come back to UK at the moment. We will plan on a few jungle tours and see inland too.

Illness:
My stomach had been feeling rotten for quite some time with a huge solid stomach and not too great on the loo. Phil and I popped in to the local doctors who took blood and stool tests. I had picked up a nasty parasite and 4 bad bacteria; E Coli and Salmonella to name 2. Phil had the
bad bacteria but not parasite-greedy me. We were put on many antibiotics, I took 8 a day. The battle inside made me feel completely awful, tired, foggy mind and just generally rotten. However, we have won the war and have the all clear, but never again. I think I had been carrying that
around for quite some time at least 6 months +, We have got medication to take 4 monthly to avoid any more of these problems. We were just unlucky. We've visited many countries where hygiene is not a priority, and occasionally whilst out at sea even our hygiene standards may drop
because of the inconvenience. Our lesson learned was to listen to your body and if things aren't right-get to the docs. The wonderful thing is our results arrived the same day and it was twelve pounds! You'd never get that in UK. However...imagine a comedy sketch: Phil and I sitting in
the surgery. The doctor can't speak English. Our Spanish is limited and certainly no medical vocabulary. The nurse was useful and he could translate for us. However, he had a terrible stutter! Looking back on it now, it would have been a hilarious sight watching the four of us in that
conversation. We're not sure to this day what was said :-)

We were waiting for George to visit us in Mexico now that he has finished university and is a rocket scientist. He has RAF interviews coming up, an exciting time for him, and we need to head south because the weather systems have changed-big wind and a lot of rain. I doubt hurricanes
follow the Gregorian calendar either. We are sitting in 30mph winds watching other boats drag. As soon as this low to the west of us disappears we are off to Belize. Hopefully George will visit us when we get there.

Love to you all.
Date: 2018-05-24 18:55
Station ID: Pepper
Author: Hatty
Location: Mexico
Title: 19 Apr - 24 May Sean and Vicky's visit

We are currently sitting out a rotten storm waiting for a good weather window to head south to Belize. Since our last post Sean and his girlfriend Vicky came out to visit us.
Sat 21 Apr: We collected them from Cancun airport. There were a few stressful moments when they were told they should have applied for ETSA visa for USA (they were changing flights here). You should apply 72 hours before flight. Long story short they sat in Heathrow completing their
visas and luckily they came through quick enough for them to board the plane otherwise they would not have been accepted. Lesson learned. We stayed in El Sid which is 20 mins drive from the airport. El Sid is a 5 star hotel marina all inclusive. We spent the evening showing them
around the marina and the boat (first time Vicky has been sailing). Sun 22: Did yoga, sun bathing, went to see the dolphin prison, ate lots of food and drank a lot of cocktails whilst the men played beach volleyball. A great day. Mon 23: Left El Sid for Isla Mujeres. Vicky was terribly seasick
so suggested she slept the 5 hour trip and felt a lot better for it. We saw dolphins and sea turtles, caught two tuna on one line but broke the rod reeling them in. Tue 24: Walked around the north of Isla Mujeres, ate brussel sprout tacos at skulls landing and bimbled around in the dinghy
showing Sean and Vicky the lagoon. We pumped up the paddle boards and towed them around the north side. I picked up a nasty cold sore on my lip which hurt when I smiled :-(

Wed 25: Vic and Sean joined me for yoga, we went snorkeling to the wreck on body boards. Sean and Phil scrubbed the bottom and Vic had a go going up the mast. We hired golf carts to drive around the island which was great fun. We went into an Ice Bar which was 30 degrees below
zero. They gave you bear rug coats to wear but Sean and I decided to have a quick change and went back inside wearing our swim wear taking a few photos-obviously didn't last in there too long. Even the alcoholic shots were frozen. Driving back we were greeted by a torrential rain
storm, soaked to the skin but at least it's warm so it was quite good fun driving through flooded roads and getting back to the boat. Fri 26: the kids went souvenir shopping, we had a curry on board and tried a moijito in skulls landing with prosecco and fruit-really lovely. Sat 27: Last day, we
took the ferry across to Cancun mainland and said our emotional good byes. It was fabulous having them visit us. It was incredibly hot with no wind and many mosquitos around, we think they coped quite well considering.
Date: 2018-05-24 18:55
Station ID: Pepper
Author: Hatty
Location: Mexico
Title: 19 Apr - 24 May Sean and Vicky's visit

We are currently sitting out a rotten storm waiting for a good weather window to head south to Belize. Since our last post Sean and his girlfriend Vicky came out to visit us.
Sat 21 Apr: We collected them from Cancun airport. There were a few stressful moments when they were told they should have applied for ETSA visa for USA (they were changing flights here). You should apply 72 hours before flight. Long story short they sat in Heathrow completing their
visas and luckily they came through quick enough for them to board the plane otherwise they would not have been accepted. Lesson learned. We stayed in El Sid which is 20 mins drive from the airport. El Sid is a 5 star hotel marina all inclusive. We spent the evening showing them
around the marina and the boat (first time Vicky has been sailing). Sun 22: Did yoga, sun bathing, went to see the dolphin prison, ate lots of food and drank a lot of cocktails whilst the men played beach volleyball. A great day. Mon 23: Left El Sid for Isla Mujeres. Vicky was terribly seasick
so suggested she slept the 5 hour trip and felt a lot better for it. We saw dolphins and sea turtles, caught two tuna on one line but broke the rod reeling them in. Tue 24: Walked around the north of Isla Mujeres, ate brussel sprout tacos at skulls landing and bimbled around in the dinghy
showing Sean and Vicky the lagoon. We pumped up the paddle boards and towed them around the north side. I picked up a nasty cold sore on my lip which hurt when I smiled :-(

Wed 25: Vic and Sean joined me for yoga, we went snorkeling to the wreck on body boards. Sean and Phil scrubbed the bottom and Vic had a go going up the mast. We hired golf carts to drive around the island which was great fun. We went into an Ice Bar which was 30 degrees below
zero. They gave you bear rug coats to wear but Sean and I decided to have a quick change and went back inside wearing our swim wear taking a few photos-obviously didn't last in there too long. Even the alcoholic shots were frozen. Driving back we were greeted by a torrential rain
storm, soaked to the skin but at least it's warm so it was quite good fun driving through flooded roads and getting back to the boat. Fri 26: the kids went souvenir shopping, we had a curry on board and tried a moijito in skulls landing with prosecco and fruit-really lovely. Sat 27: Last day, we
took the ferry across to Cancun mainland and said our emotional good byes. It was fabulous having them visit us. It was incredibly hot with no wind and many mosquitos around, we think they coped quite well considering.
Date: 2018-04-19 01:11
Station ID: Pepper
Author: Hatty
Location: Mexico
Title: 19 Apr Port Aventuras

We're visiting various places so that when Sean and Vicky visit we don't waste time and can plan a great itinerary for them. We quite like it here. It's different. Lots of condos and sadly a large area of captured sea life creatures:dolphins, manatees and sea lions. Not sure why they need
another pen of dolphins. There's many restaurants and bars around here which surround the captured sea life. You can enjoy your meals watching these beautiful creatures which are better off in their own habitat. I imagine it's a real tourist thing. Playa de Carmen is only 15 mins drive
away. We had an odd sail here. 17 knots of wind but traveling at 5 knots of speed. Tide was weird (i is the gulf stream head on) and confused seas. As soon as we came into the break water the seas eased and we were surrounded by beautiful clear green water as we entered the
marina. Very pretty, I thought it looked like parts of Italy. We entered the marina with condos and little alleyways surrounding it. The locals were really friendly providing us with useful information; again lots of expats from USA. There's a nice bay with a good beach so it seems a good place
to bring our visitors.
Date: 2018-04-19 01:11
Station ID: Pepper
Author: Hatty
Location: Mexico
Title: 19 Apr Port Aventuras

We're visiting various places so that when Sean and Vicky visit we don't waste time and can plan a great itinerary for them. We quite like it here. It's different. Lots of condos and sadly a large area of captured sea life creatures:dolphins, manatees and sea lions. Not sure why they need
another pen of dolphins. There's many restaurants and bars around here which surround the captured sea life. You can enjoy your meals watching these beautiful creatures which are better off in their own habitat. I imagine it's a real tourist thing. Playa de Carmen is only 15 mins drive
away. We had an odd sail here. 17 knots of wind but traveling at 5 knots of speed. Tide was weird (i is the gulf stream head on) and confused seas. As soon as we came into the break water the seas eased and we were surrounded by beautiful clear green water as we entered the
marina. Very pretty, I thought it looked like parts of Italy. We entered the marina with condos and little alleyways surrounding it. The locals were really friendly providing us with useful information; again lots of expats from USA. There's a nice bay with a good beach so it seems a good place
to bring our visitors.
Date: 2018-04-18 01:23
Station ID: Pepper
Author: Hatty
Location: Mexico
Title: Isla Mujeres 03 Apr

The sail here was fabulous. We had the parasailor up, saw loads of dolphins, a bird stopped by for a rest, we caught our first ever fish-tuna skipjack and ate cheviche for lunch. 300nms to go and we did it in 58hrs. The wind did drop off one night but overall a great sail. We arrived late
afternoon 1700 and dropped anchor for the night. The following morning we booked in. It's a scruffy little place but lively and colourful. The Mexicans are really cute: little and their Spanish accent is funny to hear. It's very singy (if that's a word). Booking in took 4 hours and we needed to
go to the hospital, bank and it was a long dragged out process. But we don't need to keep booking in and out every time we move to a different location in Mexico. I bought a fishing licence which they never asked for. You need to temporary import your boat (TIP) into Mexico when you
arrive which was also another long drawn out process of having to go to the mainland and fill out numerous amounts of paperwork. All done now. We had hoped to catch up with our friends we met in Grand Cayman, Babz and Paul but they had already set off for Florida. We had a brief
time with them in GC and I felt a little sad they weren't here. I had a good connection with Babz; I'm sure we'll catch up with them another time.

The water isn't as clear as other places but it's got a great airport in Cancun with affordable flights from UK. Sean and his girlfriend Vicky have booked a flight 21 Apr for a week-so looking forward to seeing them. Compared to GC the food and beer prices are fantastic! The Mexican food is
great. Avocados, limes mangos etc a plenty, big, delicious, local and a great price.

I found a yoga place to go A34 an hour. They had started a yoga raw food retreat to which I joined in. It meant Phil had to eat on his own for 3 days, but I learnt so much about raw food and healthy eating that Phil has joined in (occasionally) when I make our meals. There is a great sailing
community here. I think the good prices draw folk in. We've met an American couple Ginny and Stephen and S African John and his wife Jen. They're great fun. John and Jen are heading into Rio Dolce this hurricane season so we'll no doubt catch up with them again.

There's a good community here too of Canadians etc settling in Isla Mujeres. Everyone drives around in golf buggies. At first I found it a bit hustle and bustle but I've settled into the lifestyle. The souvenir shops and restaurants are super, colourful with great choices. If you like Mexican
food, you need to visit.

We've headed off to the mainland a place called El Cid, Porte Morrelos. It's the closest to the airport so we can pick up Sean and Vicky. It is a marina with excellent facilities attached to an all-inclusive hotel. A gentle intro to Pepper for Vicky we feel. We have to wear wrist bands but mot
the same colour as the hotel guests. Phil has had the odd free beer. We went on a crazy bike ride for food shopping on a tricycle. If you've never been on a tricycle: trust me it's NOT like riding a bike. You have to steer it like a car. We are both sore and our bottoms need some rest.
We've been attending the hotel's yoga and gym classes and getting in some great runs in. There's a northerly at the moment so it feels quite cold in the evening. It's 20 degrees. I wore jeans last night and a fleece to yoga at 0630. It is nice in the afternoon. The beach has been overrun
with seagrass. Apparently there's been a storm in the Gulf of Mexico which has pulled up loads of the stuff. They are removing it from the beaches and I hope it's all gone by the time Sean and Vicky arrive.

Tomorrow we are heading off to Aventuras to see that marina then onto Cozumel. We've heard the water is clear there and we feel that Sean and Vicky will enjoy the snorkeling better there. We're just recce'ing places to show them.

Date: 2018-04-18 01:23
Station ID: Pepper
Author: Hatty
Location: Mexico
Title: Isla Mujeres 03 Apr

The sail here was fabulous. We had the parasailor up, saw loads of dolphins, a bird stopped by for a rest, we caught our first ever fish-tuna skipjack and ate cheviche for lunch. 300nms to go and we did it in 58hrs. The wind did drop off one night but overall a great sail. We arrived late
afternoon 1700 and dropped anchor for the night. The following morning we booked in. It's a scruffy little place but lively and colourful. The Mexicans are really cute: little and their Spanish accent is funny to hear. It's very singy (if that's a word). Booking in took 4 hours and we needed to
go to the hospital, bank and it was a long dragged out process. But we don't need to keep booking in and out every time we move to a different location in Mexico. I bought a fishing licence which they never asked for. You need to temporary import your boat (TIP) into Mexico when you
arrive which was also another long drawn out process of having to go to the mainland and fill out numerous amounts of paperwork. All done now. We had hoped to catch up with our friends we met in Grand Cayman, Babz and Paul but they had already set off for Florida. We had a brief
time with them in GC and I felt a little sad they weren't here. I had a good connection with Babz; I'm sure we'll catch up with them another time.

The water isn't as clear as other places but it's got a great airport in Cancun with affordable flights from UK. Sean and his girlfriend Vicky have booked a flight 21 Apr for a week-so looking forward to seeing them. Compared to GC the food and beer prices are fantastic! The Mexican food is
great. Avocados, limes mangos etc a plenty, big, delicious, local and a great price.

I found a yoga place to go A34 an hour. They had started a yoga raw food retreat to which I joined in. It meant Phil had to eat on his own for 3 days, but I learnt so much about raw food and healthy eating that Phil has joined in (occasionally) when I make our meals. There is a great sailing
community here. I think the good prices draw folk in. We've met an American couple Ginny and Stephen and S African John and his wife Jen. They're great fun. John and Jen are heading into Rio Dolce this hurricane season so we'll no doubt catch up with them again.

There's a good community here too of Canadians etc settling in Isla Mujeres. Everyone drives around in golf buggies. At first I found it a bit hustle and bustle but I've settled into the lifestyle. The souvenir shops and restaurants are super, colourful with great choices. If you like Mexican
food, you need to visit.

We've headed off to the mainland a place called El Cid, Porte Morrelos. It's the closest to the airport so we can pick up Sean and Vicky. It is a marina with excellent facilities attached to an all-inclusive hotel. A gentle intro to Pepper for Vicky we feel. We have to wear wrist bands but mot
the same colour as the hotel guests. Phil has had the odd free beer. We went on a crazy bike ride for food shopping on a tricycle. If you've never been on a tricycle: trust me it's NOT like riding a bike. You have to steer it like a car. We are both sore and our bottoms need some rest.
We've been attending the hotel's yoga and gym classes and getting in some great runs in. There's a northerly at the moment so it feels quite cold in the evening. It's 20 degrees. I wore jeans last night and a fleece to yoga at 0630. It is nice in the afternoon. The beach has been overrun
with seagrass. Apparently there's been a storm in the Gulf of Mexico which has pulled up loads of the stuff. They are removing it from the beaches and I hope it's all gone by the time Sean and Vicky arrive.

Tomorrow we are heading off to Aventuras to see that marina then onto Cozumel. We've heard the water is clear there and we feel that Sean and Vicky will enjoy the snorkeling better there. We're just recce'ing places to show them.

Date: 2018-04-18 00:58
Station ID: Pepper
Author: Hatty
Location: Grand Cayman
Title: Grand Cayman 16 Feb - 01 Apr

The sail here was terribly lumpy, rolly and most unpleasant. I thought I had sea sickness and tried everything to keep stuff down. We arrived in Grand Cayman at 0730hrs which was great to arrive in daylight. Phil booked us into customs and immigration because I wasn't feeling too good
and thought that a proper English breakfast would do the trick. Booking in was easy and my English breakfast was a real treat until a couple of hours later...I wasn't expecting to see it again! It seems that I had food poising from the lobsters. I spent the next 4 days in bed with D&V. It was
awful. Phil fed himself on subway and KFC.

Anyway you don't want to hear about that stuff; lets move on to Grand Cayman. This is by far the best place we've been to! Perhaps we're comparing it to Cuba where there is nothing in the shops and you need to que to get into them. Grand Cayman has Subway, Burger King, a shop
similar to Waitrose called Kirks, KFC (and we had chicken: heard England had sold out), it has a cinema, amazing shops but best of all the clearest bluest water ever. We were on a buoy (for free) in George Town. Lots of cruise boats visited here. Beautiful gin clear water. During a full
moon you could see so much detail looking as deep as 10m. The purpose for coming here and not Jamaica was I have a friend out here and it's great to catch up with people on our journey. I met Lianne as college. We booked her dive company to take our students on an intro to
SCUBA. We stayed in touch and Lianne and her partner John moved over here 3 years ago to teach diving. Victoria would love it here. Lianne and John looked after us really well. They invited us to a work function which was a film festival with an excellent barbque. They went through
our SCUBA skills with us and took us diving to some amazing sites. We played with Sting rays in shallow water and even went SCUBA diving to see them. We went to a brunch (GC folk do enjoy their brunches). Expensive but it was A365 a head for all you can eat and drink prosecco for 3 hours. The food was top level and absolutely beautiful-well worth the treat. Sore head the next day.

For me GC was my favourite and has a piece of my heart because on 04 March at 2130 Phil, after 11 years of waiting, asked me to marry him. To which I obviously said yes. We had a wonderful few days celebrating and Phil bought a beautiful ring. This is the place to get diamonds. We
hoped to get married in GC but it was proving difficult to get all the children together. It's important to us that the 4 of them would be with us. George had exams, Sean needed time from the RN, Wiz is pregnant and we didn't want to risk her flying in from HK and the possibility of the zika
virus. Victoria was the only flexible one. It was becoming unpleasant trying to plan so soon, so we've decided to leave it for a while and hope somewhere which means a lot to us pops up.

We loved it here so much we looked at property and potential jobs (for me). The houses are beautiful. There's a wonderful ex-pat community. It is a British overseas territory. Many people are here from Scotland and Ireland. In fact the accent over here sounds Scottish. It's a little piece of
Britain in the Caribbean. Simply wonderful! Oh did I say it is really really expensive... A310 for a beer :-(
Date: 2018-04-18 00:58
Station ID: Pepper
Author: Hatty
Location: Grand Cayman
Title: Grand Cayman 16 Feb - 01 Apr

The sail here was terribly lumpy, rolly and most unpleasant. I thought I had sea sickness and tried everything to keep stuff down. We arrived in Grand Cayman at 0730hrs which was great to arrive in daylight. Phil booked us into customs and immigration because I wasn't feeling too good
and thought that a proper English breakfast would do the trick. Booking in was easy and my English breakfast was a real treat until a couple of hours later...I wasn't expecting to see it again! It seems that I had food poising from the lobsters. I spent the next 4 days in bed with D&V. It was
awful. Phil fed himself on subway and KFC.

Anyway you don't want to hear about that stuff; lets move on to Grand Cayman. This is by far the best place we've been to! Perhaps we're comparing it to Cuba where there is nothing in the shops and you need to que to get into them. Grand Cayman has Subway, Burger King, a shop
similar to Waitrose called Kirks, KFC (and we had chicken: heard England had sold out), it has a cinema, amazing shops but best of all the clearest bluest water ever. We were on a buoy (for free) in George Town. Lots of cruise boats visited here. Beautiful gin clear water. During a full
moon you could see so much detail looking as deep as 10m. The purpose for coming here and not Jamaica was I have a friend out here and it's great to catch up with people on our journey. I met Lianne as college. We booked her dive company to take our students on an intro to
SCUBA. We stayed in touch and Lianne and her partner John moved over here 3 years ago to teach diving. Victoria would love it here. Lianne and John looked after us really well. They invited us to a work function which was a film festival with an excellent barbque. They went through
our SCUBA skills with us and took us diving to some amazing sites. We played with Sting rays in shallow water and even went SCUBA diving to see them. We went to a brunch (GC folk do enjoy their brunches). Expensive but it was A365 a head for all you can eat and drink prosecco for 3 hours. The food was top level and absolutely beautiful-well worth the treat. Sore head the next day.

For me GC was my favourite and has a piece of my heart because on 04 March at 2130 Phil, after 11 years of waiting, asked me to marry him. To which I obviously said yes. We had a wonderful few days celebrating and Phil bought a beautiful ring. This is the place to get diamonds. We
hoped to get married in GC but it was proving difficult to get all the children together. It's important to us that the 4 of them would be with us. George had exams, Sean needed time from the RN, Wiz is pregnant and we didn't want to risk her flying in from HK and the possibility of the zika
virus. Victoria was the only flexible one. It was becoming unpleasant trying to plan so soon, so we've decided to leave it for a while and hope somewhere which means a lot to us pops up.

We loved it here so much we looked at property and potential jobs (for me). The houses are beautiful. There's a wonderful ex-pat community. It is a British overseas territory. Many people are here from Scotland and Ireland. In fact the accent over here sounds Scottish. It's a little piece of
Britain in the Caribbean. Simply wonderful! Oh did I say it is really really expensive... A310 for a beer :-(
Date: 2018-04-18 00:46
Station ID: Pepper
Author: Hatty
Location: Cayo Largo 02 - 15 Feb
Title: Last 2 weeks in Cuba

We decided to re-visit Cayo Largo (an island off Cuba) because the last visit was cut short so we could make sure Victoria got her flight back home. It's always nice to return somewhere, the place feels familiar and people seem happy to see you back. We also wanted to come here to
watch the rugby. However we needed to go to a hotel for that. Fortunately for us it was an all-inclusive hotel and we picked up a couple of beers and a lunch for nothing. We visited the iguana island. A bit scary at first but they just wanted feeding. I thought they were going to attack
us...
We met some crazy Austrians who were on a sailing holiday. They were great fun. Russian sailor spent 40 times trying to park his boat then went out to anchor. A few months back I saw a similar boat to ours for sale in Panama. I had a look at the photos on the website and it was painted
bright green inside. There's a reason for this story because as we parked in Cayo Largo a French man Oliver shouted over to us asking if Pepper was a Feeling. To keep a long story short-it happened that Oliver's parents sailed around the world for 27 years in the same boat as Pepper and
there boat was the same one I saw being sold in Panama. Oliver looked emotional, understandably so looking around Pepper. He told us stories of his parents and it was fun comparing changes that we and his parents had made to make life on a boat more comfortable. On our last night
we were given 4 lobster tails for free. We had no wifi so I couldn't check how long to cook them for. I prepared them with garlic, lemon etc and cooked them in the oven but they were a bit raw so they went back into the oven for a bit longer...the story continues in Grand Cayman.
Date: 2018-04-18 00:46
Station ID: Pepper
Author: Hatty
Location: Cayo Largo 02 - 15 Feb
Title: Last 2 weeks in Cuba

We decided to re-visit Cayo Largo (an island off Cuba) because the last visit was cut short so we could make sure Victoria got her flight back home. It's always nice to return somewhere, the place feels familiar and people seem happy to see you back. We also wanted to come here to
watch the rugby. However we needed to go to a hotel for that. Fortunately for us it was an all-inclusive hotel and we picked up a couple of beers and a lunch for nothing. We visited the iguana island. A bit scary at first but they just wanted feeding. I thought they were going to attack
us...
We met some crazy Austrians who were on a sailing holiday. They were great fun. Russian sailor spent 40 times trying to park his boat then went out to anchor. A few months back I saw a similar boat to ours for sale in Panama. I had a look at the photos on the website and it was painted
bright green inside. There's a reason for this story because as we parked in Cayo Largo a French man Oliver shouted over to us asking if Pepper was a Feeling. To keep a long story short-it happened that Oliver's parents sailed around the world for 27 years in the same boat as Pepper and
there boat was the same one I saw being sold in Panama. Oliver looked emotional, understandably so looking around Pepper. He told us stories of his parents and it was fun comparing changes that we and his parents had made to make life on a boat more comfortable. On our last night
we were given 4 lobster tails for free. We had no wifi so I couldn't check how long to cook them for. I prepared them with garlic, lemon etc and cooked them in the oven but they were a bit raw so they went back into the oven for a bit longer...the story continues in Grand Cayman.
Date: 2018-02-02 14:23
Station ID: Pepper
Author: Hatty
Location: Cuba-Havana to Cienfuegas
Title: 02 Feb

We've not been on SSB for some time. Vicky has been over visiting us for 2 weeks. It's been a full on 2 weeks, 500 nms sail round from Havana to Cienfeugas. We stopped on route so Vic could do some diving: Levisa, beautiful beach, restaurant but apparently the diving wasn't that
special. We continued to Gorde de Maria: excellent wifi, beach, bar, restaurant and diving. We met a nice Brit lady Sue. Then a horrible night sail beating with huge waves where Pepper slammed her way to Isle de Jueventud (biggest island South of Cuba). Quiet little place with a real
gentleman Coast Guard. Gave him some tuperware for his coffee. The Hotel Colony, .5 nms away, was built in 1958 and hasn't changed since! Stuck in time. No tourists but great beach, swimming pool, people. We got our laundry done here and played with 3 puppies. A very interesting
place lost in time. Sad to see it wasted. We took the local bus into the town (north) where Castro served some time in prison. The plan was to get Vic a ferry ride to the mainland but because of bad winds, ferries were canceled so we needed a plan B. Vic booked a later flight giving us
another 3 days to get to the mainland. So we set off for Cayo Largo in good winds to get a flight to Havana-plan B. Arrived early hours. Very beautiful, touristy, good restaurant and excellent diving Phil and Vic saw a crocodile. We booked a flight from Cayo Largo for Vic to get to the
mainland for her connecting flight to UK. The weather for the next 3 days was bad and the probability of this Russian plane flight being canceled was high. We set sail for the mainland Cienfuegas plan C; at least we would be on the mainland to get taxi or bus to Havana for Vic's flight to
UK. This was by far the worst sailing conditions we've ever been in. Beating into wind, heavy seas, 35 knots of apparent, full moon which was helpful. Never again. We arrived at Cienfuegas at 0200, were asked to move closer to the marina at 0900 and again the following day... At least
we're on the mainland. We tried to get a refund for flight booked Cayo Largo to Havana- not possible. Staying with plan C, on the 01 Feb we got into a taxi, a 1989 Volkswagen; gearbox, breaks etc falling apart and took Vic to the airport. The driver had his lady friend with him clearly in
love. He would be in his late 60's lady in 50's. Very cute. It should be a 2.5 hour trip to Havana but 9 hours later, being gassed out by carbon monoxide we arrived back on Pepper, but Vic got her flight ok and it was sad as always to see her off.

Not sure what the plan is now. We need to check Pepper over after her awful sailing trips and to top up on fresh foods. We'll also be on the mission of finding somewhere to watch the rugby. We will visit Trinidad by road 60 kms away; it's the oldest city in the western world so that should
be interesting. Jamaica or Cayman islands but not sure in which order.

Happy birthday to Sean tomorrow 25 years old :-)
Date: 2018-01-11 16:38
Station ID: Pepper
Author: Hatty
Location: Cuba-Havana
Title: 11 Jan

Wow what a fab trip here!
We slipped Cayo Blanco at 1630 waved adios to one of the three people who live there. Sea completely flat. Completely. So flat that later in the evening we saw airplane navigation lights reflecting off the water. As we set off the water at 5 m was incredibly clear. You could see the sea
bed. Ripples on the sand beneath. After 20 minutes we saw dolphins in the distance. It didn't take them long to see us and came over for some fun. Over 8 dolphins played with Pepper in the clearest of waters. They were jumping up and landing on their sides to splash us. I took some
brilliant videos of Phil on the bow with them all around him. A great farewell to Cayo Blanco. As the sun was setting Phil panicked that the alternator wasn't charging the batteries and we'd need to turn round. There was 2 knots of wind and we had 12 hours of motoring ahead. As usual I
wasn't best pleased about this news and suggested we fix it. A few huffs and puffs and all was fixed. We plodded on following the coastline of Varadero and all the hotels dotted along it. The wind picked up and we hoisted the head sail and eventually turned the engine off. We were
managing 5 knots which was better otherwise under engine (6.5 knots) we'd arrive too early following our usual routine of arriving in the dark. We took a couple of hours off for some rest. Hard to believe that the water drops from 2m to over 1000m in just a mile off shore. We had a knot of
the gulf stream against us but we had a good sail West nevertheless.

I woke around 0700 to the coastline of Havana. It looks fascinating, crumbling away but has so much history and uniqueness you can't help but fall in love with it. We saw the Russian Embassy looking grotesque but beautiful at the same time. We sailed along listening to Camila Cabello's
'Havana' song-silly not to.

Arriving in Earnest Hemmingway Marina 10nms West of Havana was a simple process. Easy to enter, people very helpful and professional. the coast guard did their look around the boat, the agriculture man came on-all very friendly polite and work really hard at their English. Sadly our
Spanish cannot compare to their English-but we're trying. We're along side 112 next to an interesting small catameran with 4 folk who look like hippies. Nice kids from America. They are heading to Mexico and we may see them in Riio Dolce (our hurricane hole).

We've just opened a beer. It's stifling hot and the infill awning is a gift from heaven. there's a little palm tree providing some shade on the bow.

Victoria arrives on the 18th next week. We are so excited to see her. We've an excellent trip planned for her with lots of sailing and diving. Places we haven't been to either. We plan to find the best places in Havana before she arrives to make sure we don't waste time in places of little
interest. Then we will head round to the south coast for the diving centres. Great times ahead!
Date: 2018-01-10 18:56
Station ID: Pepper
Author: Hatty
Location: Cuba
Title: 10 Jan

Happy New Year to you!

We found a great restaurant for New Year's eve. We had a set menu which was Pate, chateau briand (best we've ever had), nougat, chocolate brownie and ice cream dessert with a bottle of red and glass of champagne for 65 dollars for both-well worth it. It was a stunning setting looking
out into the marina, again very empty. I suppose most folk will be in their all-inclusive holidays. We walked around watching various shows around to keep awake for midnight. We are normally asleep by 2200. We returned to the boat hearing the cheers from restaurants and hotels we
welcomed 2018 on Pepper. 30 seconds later-off to sleep.

We managed a couple of runs along the beach. It's very long and empty, but running on sand is always a tough one. We took the bus into Santa Marta. It's where the locals live who serve the tourists along Varadero. It's incredibly run down, broken foot paths, drains flooded etc but
lively, exciting and the people were so friendly. We had lunch in a paladar (private home with front made into a restaurant). We decided on a light mixed starter. It took some time but we were proudly presented with square pieces of processed cheese, spam and chorizo! Fortunately the
wine was good. But this is Cuba. We sat watching what is well-known in Cuba a que of people waiting to enter a food store. The communist life style is really fascinating, but you can see some difficulties the people face although they appear reasonably content. There's a well known joke
here: 2 men in a food que, one says to the other,' I'm going to kill Castro'. The following day, the 2nd man asks the man, 'how did it go killing Castro?'. the reply was, 'the que was too long'. Money here goes on education, health and the military. It's fantastic that everyone can read and
write, but the saying is: there's nothing to read and you've got to be careful what you write about...

We looked around the bat cave ( I remembered it from 15 years ago), visited an Americana shopping centre. We stayed up till late one night to watch a music 'show' only to find it was a disco-for the younger generation. We went to the well known Beatles Bar and saw live rock band- very
good. We traveled in an open bus top in the rain. We've tried fishing but no luck. We're also working really hard on our Spanish. The locals really appreciate the effort. A few people arrived in the marina; Swiss German who had circumnavigated twice and a French Canadian couple.

Weather has been cold, overcast, with a northerly strong wind. We need light winds or at least a NE to enter Havanna (our next stop). So we've spent 12 days hanging around waiting for a weather window; spending many hours in a coffee shop on the internet.

Alas, the wind has dropped and we have 2 days of calmness. So we have stopped on route to Havana in Cayao Blanco, a small island 6 miles NE of Marina Gavoita. When the wind picks up (tonight) we will head W to Havana 85nms. Cayo Blanco is pretty, quiet with a beautiful white
beach on the SW tip. We took the dinghy round to have a look. Water is beautifully clear. We are anchored close to where the tourist catermarans come in and at 1500 when they leave only 3 locals stay on the island. We have had a lovely couple of days here but still... no fish!
Date: 2017-12-29 23:45
Station ID: Pepper
Author: Hatty
Location: Cuba
Title: 29 Dec

We said goodbye to America after 6 months and our great friends Kris and Kenny SY Petunia. After 6 months it was time to leave and move on to our next destination Cuba. We left Marathon at 1630 yesterday refueled and topped up water. Good job it
was still light because of all the lobster pots out. We knew it was a one night sail so didn't really go into our night routine of 4 on 4 off. More 2 on and off or whoever needed to close their eyes for half an hour. Over half a moon it was quite bright until
0300. Wind was 15 but during a squall it reached 25 knots. Sails slamming on a broad reach. We were going against the gulf stream (4 knots) so our direct route had a large curve in it. We saw land at first light and had a lovely sail into Marina Gavoita.
Lots of tourist catamerans about. We were so surprised to see such a huge marina empty. If this was UK it would be packed.
On our arrival we were met by a doctor who checked our health and medications, the coast guard who gave us our sailing permit, lots of paperwork to complete and searched the boat (whilst asking for a tip...), agriculture department came on to check
our food products and the dockmaster to check through boat details. Lots going on but they were all incredibly friendly and spoke good English. We had a couple of hours kip before exploring. Walked along the beach, met a couple of British tourists,
recce'd a few restaurants for New Year. Now back on board, we will have some super and an early night.

Tomorrow the plan is to take the bus into the town.
Date: 2017-12-20 14:04
Station ID: Pepper
Author: Hatty
Location: Heading south
Title:

We came up the ICW, in the pouring rain, to Fort Lauderdale and anchored in Lake Sylvia along side SY Four Seasons, Caroline and Chris. The ICW along this route is spectacular! Huge monster sized mansions side by side with super yachts parked
outside. Not just a couple of miles but hundreds of miles. The owners probably visit them twice a year. The 1% live here. I like all the Christmas decorations, obviously no expense spared here. We planned to arrive in time for the boat light parade which
we did. We sat in our dinghy in a great spot in Lake Sylvia wearing wooly hats, drinking beer, with friends watching brilliantly decorated boats with live singers and dancers on. Caroline and Chris showed us around the shops etc. The Raw Bar is the
only dinghy place at 10 dollars which can go towards beer or food in the restaurant. The Raw Bar is perfectly located for victualling. Care is needed entering Lake Sylvia. Very shallow in the centre. Hug the East side when entering then 2/3s cross
straight over to the west. We saw many boats run aground here. Phil had a parcel being delivered in Las Oslas Marina so we spent a couple of nights here. Very nice, clean and close to the beach. The beach front is very lively with a vibrant
atmosphere: designer dogs, sports cars, glamorous women, cocktail bars etc. Great to people watch. We managed a run one morning which felt fantastic. We heard a man on his mobile phone talking about how busy his morning schedule was at 0830
walking along the sea front...how the other half live.

Whilst at Las Oslas an old school friend who I knew in HK (84-86) David Jones came to visit us. He lives in Florida and has been really successful in his business, he should be very proud. He was genuinely interested in our adventure and it was fun
showing him around Pepper even though he is not a sailor. David bought us a bottle of champagne, cakes and coffee-really kind of him.

SY Four Seasons left and SY Petunia and Livingstone arrived, great to catch up with them.

We had to go into Miami to see if we could extend Pepper's cruising permit. As you know we went back to UK and Spain for a couple of months. Although we have a 10 year visa we need to leave every 6 months for 14 days to restart permits.
Pepper's runs out 31 Dec. Although we have later discovered that you can request 1 year. Anyway, no luck our options are Bahamas but our 6 months permit ran out there and it costs $300 for another or go to Cuba but Miami won't accept us back in
but other ports will! Very complicated and we tried all options so we'll stick to our original plan which is still fantastic. Christmas in Florida Keys, NY in Cuba. We've had a super time in USA and it will be sad to leave having met some super friends, felt so
welcome and secure here.

Not sure what we thought of Miami. It's stunning from the sea-a mini Manhattan, but on land it's full of skyscrapers and feels like a Sunday, and everyone is Spanish/Cuban. Glad we saw it and we did have a mojito for Cuba visit prep.

We stopped off in No Name Bay anchorage. Very peaceful apart from the odd party boat. We went for a walk around the park and along the beach with Kenny and Kris, had a Peruvian lunch. Interesting but too expensive for us. Apparently it's the 'in'
thing. Phil and I had soup and a burger. We saw manatees which are potato pretend dolphin looking creatures. So ugly they're cute.

We're heading for Marathon at the moment. It's the spring board for Cuba. Wind is slight 10 knots SE, sun shining, warm waters. We have an technician in Marathon checking our electrical systems, fit another solar panel and add another battery bank.
We're just not producing enough amps. I wonder what could go wrong next.

We're both well, happy and looking forward to our next country. Much love. xxx
Date: 2017-12-08 20:47
Station ID: Pepper
Position: 26º 47.03'N:080º 02.72'W
Author: Hatty
Location: Heading south
Title: Palm Beach

Just passing Palm Beach. It is massive! Full of concrete high risers and tourists. Interesting.
Date: 2017-12-08 14:27
Station ID: Pepper
Position: 27º 17.47'N:080º 14.38'W
Author: Hatty
Location: Heading south
Title: 8 Dec

Wow what a super evening. Worth the detour to see our American friends on SY Petunia, Kenny and Kris. They made g&t with a pamalmouse French liqueur very very lovely with boiled shrimps which were huge and delicious. Although heads are a bit wooly this morning. Short and sweet,
great to see them and we've made arrangements to meet in the keys, probably Marathon which is the departure place for Cuba, Varadero 93 nms away. There's no wind and it's foggy so we're taking the ICW route inside again. It's a direct route, we'd have the engine on anyway with no
wind, there are things to see and we are avoiding the most narrowest section where the Gulf Stream passes. No brainer really.
Date: 2017-12-07 23:18
Station ID: Pepper
Position: 27º 28.18'N:080º 19.46'W
Author: Hatty
Location: Heading south
Title: 07 Dec

It's been rather tedious. Wind is non existent. The good news is that our wonderful American sailing friends Kris and Kenny who we met in Deltaville SY Petunia ( Kris was called that by her late mum) text us to say they were in Fort Pierce, 18nms away. As we were slogging along engine
on with no wind we thought it wise to stop over for the evening and see them, catch up on experiences and plan for future get together's. Fort Pierce is known for the SEAL's training ground and for its fishing-just off the strongest section of the gulf stream; all types of fish are available, also
manatees are in abundance here as they like the warm waters produced from the factories... We will spend the night here with our great friends then leave on good tide tomorrow morning for Fort Lauderdale. We plan on getting the parasailor out as winds are northerly and 10 knots-perfect!
Date: 2017-12-06 00:13
Station ID: Pepper
Position: 30º 39.67'N:080º 38.89'W
Author: Hatty
Location: Heading south
Title: 6 Dec

It was lovely to catch up with our Danish friends from SY Capri. They were in the boatyard up river Wondo in Charlston. We had free berth for a few days and our friends had a car so we could victual and enjoyed a couple of restaurants for a change. We left them on Monday am and
headed to Charlston city to wait for the new alternator to arrive. Then slipped City Marina in the afternoon and headed out for Florida 400 odd nms. We need to stay out of the gulf stream which is heading right for us at 4 knots! So we are hugging the coastline as best we can to stay in
shallow water. The temperature is definitely warming, the seas are becoming clearer and we are making good progress. Unfortunately the wind is coming from the south, where we are heading, so tacking is required (slow and can be uncomfortable) Our making tack is 6.5 knots but the
other around 4.. However wind with current provides you with a flat sea and we are very comfortable. Dolphins all around and a war ship had helicopters landing and taking off on an exercise. We are starting our second night and memories of the Atlantic are coming back; the all too
familiar sounds and moving around the boat. A totally different experience from the ICW.

We will meet many of our sailor friends when we arrive in Fort Lauderdale and there is a boat light parade which we are looking forward to seeing on Sat. FL is a main sailing booking in place and we hope to buy some charts for the pacific, fit the alternator, and buy our Christmas presents
which we have decided will be a bar b que. Beats cooking down below when it is hot.
Date: 2017-11-30 17:15
Station ID: Pepper
Position: 32º 46.85'N:079º 55.10'W
Author: Hatty
Location: Heading south
Title: 30 Nov

We arrived in City Marina, Charlston as we expected at 0130. We had a few problems finding a suitable spot to anchor in the dark. We are aware that there are some issues with spoiled ground. Around 0900 we went across to the marina to spend the day & night there to wait for our new
alternator to arrive. We caught up on a few jobs; varnishing the table still, sorting out the autohelm and general cleaning up. We contacted our good friend Vinnie and Carlson from SY Capri who are a few miles up Wando River. We are heading there now to spend a couple of days with
them to catch up and drink some refreshing beverages. Charlston really is a beautiful place. Great protection from bad weather. It got its name from King Charles 2nd. It's very luxurious, cosmopolitan with 6 museums, 5 nationally historic hones, 4 scenic parks, loads of churches, old
market and city hall. The Old Exchange Building and Slave Market is worth a visit to watch grass basket weavers. Very impressive work. Theaters are aplenty. The Patriot was filmed here. Fort Sumter is a water taxi ride from Patriots Point, cobble stoned streets and impressive bridges.
Dining is actually a pleasant experience some casual, French but shrimps and grits are top of the list to try. We did the tourist thing on our way north. This trip is to visit our friends and to do a few jobs before heading to Florida.
Date: 2017-11-28 21:43
Station ID: Pepper
Position: 33º 01.01'N:078º 56.73'W
Author: Hatty
Location: Heading south
Title: 28 Nov

It's been a great 24 hrs. We are about 8 hours from getting into Charlston, as usual in the middle of the night. We've been in here before so confident on finding anchor spot. Leaving Beaufort at 1400 there was no wind the sea was completely flat. You could not see where the sea
stopped and the sky started very eerie. But you could see all the dolphins with every splash. The wind picked up around 0600 15-20 which was perfect! Head and main were up and we had a good sail making excellent progress. I have never heard this down below before but when I
went off stag last night whilst in the fore peak cabin I could hear clicking, woshing, squeaking sounds all around for at least a minute. I got up spoke to Phil and he said we're surrounded by loads of dolphins. It was lovely falling asleep listening to them chatting away. The wind has
dropped off so we'll engine in these last few 47 miles. I'm making sweet and sour chicken tonight. It's definitely warming up!
Date: 2017-11-26 21:11
Station ID: Pepper
Position: 34º 42.85'N:076º 39.83'W
Author: Hatty
Location: Heading south
Title: 26 Nov

Great motor sail today from Belhaven to Beaufort 62nms in under 10hrs so good day in all. The homemade bread rolls, biscotti biscuits and raisin oatmeal biscuits are a real treat especially with the home made chutney (or boatmade). That's the great thing on the ICW, you can live a
reasonably normal life. Baking can help the boredom too. Adam's Creek was stunning. We saw dolphins and beautiful houses with beautifully kept lawns and private boat pontoons. How the other half live, but we can't complain; we're having a great time. The plan is to go outside and
head to Charlston to catch up with old sailing friends who came across the Atlantic the same time on the ARC+ SY Capri. Good to share the year's experiences and hear of their next plans. We will refuel and top up with water here before setting off tomorrow or early Tuesday. We have
plenty of food a the fridge freezer, again repaired, is doing brilliantly with its new keel cooler ( not cheap). And, it's so much warmer. Fleeces are off and shorts have been moved to the top shelves. What a difference 250nms can make to the temperature.
Date: 2017-11-25 22:55
Station ID: Pepper
Position: 35º 31.79'N:076º 37.31'W
Author: Hatty
Location: Heading south
Title: 25 Nov

Yesterday was a good day going through bridges and locks (probably our last one before the Panama Canal). It's fun calling them to request openings hearing the different voice procedure: we were 10-4'd a couple of times. Last night we anchored south of Buck Island. although not
marked as anchorage, water was deep enough. However, this morning was a bit emotional. We had a soft bump and got a little stuck pulling off our anchorage site. All was good-a little bow thrust and reverse got us off and on our way as the sun was rising. It feels cold still but it is
definitely warming up as we head south. Alligator canal seemed a little dull coming back through. Not much to see just 20 miles of trees. YOu can see the damage the boat wakes are causing though; many trees falling into the water as the soil is washed away from their roots. We looked
for bears but no luck. Tonight we are anchored in Belhaven. A popular spot as it sits in the most sparsely populated area along the ICW. Although the sun has set we can still see the marinas and beautiful houses dotted along the edge. There's a break water that we are tucked inside and
the water is completely flat; very beautiful. We've topped up with fuel. Chilli is on the stove, calling the kids. Early night as we hope to leave early first light. Northerly wind as we head south so it would be great to pull the head sail out and motor sail tomorrow.
Date: 2017-11-24 13:03
Station ID: Pepper
Position: 36º 47.68'N:076º 17.71'W
Author: Hatty
Location: Heading south
Title: 24 Nov

Happy Thanksgiving! We left Deltaville yesterday lunch. Felt a bit sad leaving having made some great friends. We have done a huge amount of jobs all listed in the log, but still more to do...it's a boat!
We decided to come inside onto the ICW yesterday having originally decided to go outside. There is no wind anywhere. It's pointless motoring around Hatterass when we can come inside and cover 70 miles less. Although we need to stop over at night-the bridges close at 1900. The sun
is shinning. Pepper is sounding and looking great, skipper and crew both healthy and happy. It is cold. 9 degrees onboard this morning. We anchored over in Norfolk last night opposite USS Wisconsin. We stopped over here on July 4th on the way up. No need to visit here with so much
to do. We do love it here. Full of navy ships and subs.
Date: 2017-07-03 15:37
Station ID: Pepper
Position: 36º 51.13'N:076º 17.87'W
Author: Hatty
Location: ICW ends
Title: Norfolk

We've had a lovely time travelling up the ICW to Norfolk. It's been incredibly relaxing, peaceful and beautiful. We've met some lovely people and their dogs on the way. Bob & Lynn on a Bavaria, Fergus, Nev and Molly on SY Two Drifters, Benjamin and Bhodi SY Satori. Now we are
members of the OCC (Offshore Crusising Club) we can contact port officers who can advise us on free berthings and local knowledge. We've contacted Gary and Greta, port officers from Norfolk, who have been fabulous. They have made us feel very welcome and provided us with good
information. They have even invited us to join them for 4th July Independence Day celebrations tomorrow. There's fireworks, picnic parties and shows along the sea front. Norfolk is a huge naval city with many great USA battleships around. The museum, which we will visit, has Battleship
Wisconsin-it is massive!
Norfolk is very modern and friendly. We had a super meal in the Freemasons Abbey Restaurant-the best we've had over here. There's a huge shopping mall which we spent 4 hours in yesterday not shopping but just cooling down on one of the sofas there.
We have new neighbours, a dutch couple Jan, Corrie and dog Ula, SY Livingston very nice people.
We have booked a haul out next week to scrub the bottom and do some serious jobs in Deltaville.
Date: 2017-06-26 15:00
Station ID: Pepper
Position: 34º 42.85'N:076º 39.82'W
Author: Hatty
Location: ICW
Title: Swan Point Marina to Beaufort

We've been having a super time on the ICW. It's incredibly relaxing or perhaps we've been incredibly lucky we're not sure which but we haven't gone aground; touch wood (or some tired looking teak). Some areas have been incredibly shallow but every night we plan a route following a
flooding tide which gives us the speed and piece of mind that if we do run aground, there is water on its way in to lift us up. This has been my department: planning around tides, distance to travel and stop off points. I've been enjoying the challenge and opportunity to plan and organise.
However Phil has been fabulous on the helm steering all the way with a sterling effort of concentration (which is needed - there's some very shallow water because of so much shoaling). It would be foolish to use auto helm in the ICW-too many hazzards, bridges, shallows water etc and
without complete concentration and local knowledge the probability of mishaps are high.

Swan Point was interesting. We met a huge and I mean 'huge' 16 year old who, as far as I know, was an expert at fishing. He gave us a 3 hr lesson and sold us a second hand rod with reel (our original one is too large to fish on board- it's a beach rod, and heaven forbid, if we caught
anything I'm not sure we could land it). We met SY Satoni with Benjamin and his dog Bhodi (there was a lady on board but she didn't stay long).

Along Cape Fear River we experienced a lot of shoaling which all adds to the excitement and keeps the heart pumping. Going around R27 was interesting. Do not follow the ICW preferred line here it goes across shallow water. Do not take the short cut go round. We watched a barge
run aground here the night before.

However, Beaufort is absolutely beautiful. I had a quick dip and swim around Pepper, not sure I would have done it before the G&T but it was the first swim since Bahamas and it felt fantastic. Phil wasn't tempted. Perhaps the alligators put him off.
Date: 2017-06-26 15:00
Station ID: Pepper
Position: 34º 42.85'N:076º 39.82'W
Author: Hatty
Location: ICW
Title: Beaufort

We met a great American Benjamin and his lovely dog Bhodi (who could do fab tricks). Benjamin gave me a jolly good starter kit for fishing, trolling out at sea and static. I've been very enthused with the fishing world, but I am clearly awful at it. There's so much to learn and everyone has
different ideas. I just want to catch a fish! I am ever grateful for all the gear he has given me.

Our trip up north to Goose River has been lovely. There's been a very cooling NE'rly wind however we have not been able to put the head sail up because that's the way we're heading. We're currently anchored just off the ICW in a very peaceful location, it is simply beautiful. I noticed the
holding tank with all our...well... what a holding tank holds... is now blocked and I got a little upset with the recent days' produce is now pouring out of the breather. It smells nasty but I've been assured that it can be sorted once we've emptied the tank and fitted a pump. It wasn't that bad,
I felt awful because Phil had spent so long fitting the holding tank in the first place. All's well and ends well. Chili on the menu, 3 lines out catching: bugger all.

We've heard Sean is going on his sub 10 July now. We wish him the very best of luck and to stay strong. We will be thinking of you. The thing about submarine drafts is you don't know how long they are away for. We will think of him, as we do with all the kids, every day.

Let's see what tomorrow brings.
Date: 2017-06-26 15:00
Station ID: Pepper
Position: 34º 42.85'N:076º 39.82'W
Author: Hatty
Location: ICW
Title: Beaufort

We decided to spend two nights here on anchor (no charge). We were informed that the nearest grocery store was one mile away but whilst walking there, in the heat, we felt it was a lot longer to Piggly Wiggly (food store) than we thought. We topped up on groceries at Piggly Wiggly,
walked the miles back to town and stopped off at 'Wine and Coffee', more local, to pick up a bottle of wine. The wine shop was not as expected if you're on a budget, but it has the most stunning designed bar. The wood was from South Africa and it has a hand carved compass,
accurately facing, in the centre. All designed and built by the two men who own it. Worth a visit. We enjoyed a salmon pasta and white wine for supper and a crazy swim round the boat.

Next day we took the dinghy to an inlet and it was fantastic to be able to swim in clearer waters. Good to be on a beach again and paddle in warm waters to actually relax from the journey so far. We used our free beer token at the Dock House, thank you Frank. Had some chili nachos
then dinghied back to the Pepper. But we stopped off on route to see a UK vessel SY Ille ???? (Bavaria) but the people on bard were Bob and Lynne. They are so friendly and members of the Ocean Cruising Club (OCC). We have very recently joined the OCC and are delighted to be
accepted. As a member you fly a burgee and it's a great way of making friends with like minded views of sailing. SY Cammomile joined in on the anchorage. Not a great place if busy.
Date: 2017-06-22 11:29
Station ID: Pepper
Position: 33º 48.10'N:078º 44.82'W
Author: Hatty
Location: ICW
Title: ICW Inter Coastal Waterway

We are really loving travelling along the ICW! It is so peaceful, relaxing, so many things to look a, we are able to meet the locals on the way and learn about their culture (mostly big eaters).
We have met SY Lost and Found Frank and Jovani - two married chaps on their way to Columbia. They taught me how to Flamenco and tango dance-the rum helped.
Passing under the 65 feet bridges has been unnerving but we're 60 feet - it does look close though. There's swing bridges along the way too which have been interesting. One looks identical to the Pegasus bridge in Normandy.
We've travelled through Florida, South Carolina and are heading to North Carolina today.
It's been raining lot which is down to the storm Cindy in the Gulf. We hear UK has had great weather -yay!
xx
Date: 2017-06-20 20:03
Station ID: Pepper
Position: 33º 21.95'N:079º 17.09'W
Author: Hatty
Location: Charlston, South Carolina & Gerogetown
Title: Charlston, South Carolina 11-18 Jun Georgetown 18 - 20 Jun

Charlston is beautiful! It is like being in a film set of 'Gone with the Wind'. The prettiest of houses were built here. Colonial structures and features along every street. All have stunning, regal stairs, two of them either side, covered in decorative iron railings work their way up to huge front
doorways. All the houses had beautiful and immaculately maintained gardens with the typical porches or piazzas around them covered in furniture of swinging seats and rocking chairs. There are two main streets in Charlston Meeting and King Street: both work their way southwards with
designer shops, bars and restaurants dotted along the way. We walked for miles around the city.

We visited Boone plantation and took a history tour around the town. Pam our bus driver shocked us at first with her energetic manner and very strong southern accent. Boone House was built in 1936, so not that historic and actually rather small. The slave houses were interesting. Each
one had a theme explaining the slaves' lifestyles etc. Charlston is known as The holy city because of its large number of churches. One crossroads is called the crossroads of law. On each corner there is a type of law: a church, law of God, a federal law, county law and municipal law
building. They are well known for their shrimp and grits. Which is ok, but had it once and that's enough.

We met 3 SYs here: Isa with Matz and Marie from ARC+, SY Shamal with Georgiana and John (from Salisbury) they sponsored our OCC membership and gave us many books and dvds and a catamaran Two Drifters with Nev, Fergus and Molly their dog. it was great to see other like minded
sailors. We gate crashed a marina party with free booze and nibbles that was nice and hitched the marina bus to West Marine (chandlery) to buy parts for the holding tank.

Phil did a fabulous job of fitting the holding tank it took him 2 very long and hot days. It is getting really hot now with not much wind.

We got our first violation for not booking in as soon as we arrived - lesson learned. It would have been a $5000 fine!

We decided to use the Inter Coastal Waterway (ICW; it runs all along the east edge of America from Florida to Norfolk) to head further north to Georgetown. The ICW is very beautiful, we had the tide with us and wind just off the stern so we reached over 8 knots in parts. We went through
2 swing bridges and slowly slid under a 65 foot bridge (we are 60 feet) very unnerving. We saw a couple of alligators and many dolphins. The water looked blood red - very odd. Again beautiful, huge, colonial style houses trimmed the waterway; most of them had piers jutting out into the
waterway with motor boats attached. There's a lot of money here.

We've arrived in Georgetown. Not too much here. Good to meet up with SY Two Drifters. They sailed the coastal route. It is raining heavily and there are many alligators here. Next stop will be somewhere in the ICW but we are heading to Beaufort and onto Norfolk.
Date: 2017-06-12 03:37
Station ID: Pepper
Position: 32º 46.50'N:079º 57.18'W
Author: Hatty
Location: St Augustine
Title: St Augustine and Cape Canaveral afterburners

CC:
Whilst out running here we passed a lake with a warning, 'Alligator' sign! That was a bit worrying.
We were able to touch a stone from the moon.
Visited Rustys Restaurant, the man in the office said it was rustic-rude not to. Same man who I asked if a launch was a party.
They are big on their coupons with discount over here so we've been using them a lot.
Loved the shopping in Walmart and Publix-so much choice excellent quality. Eating oranges from Florida in Florida was great!
We caught up on the clothes washing although I took 3 x 25 cents (thinking they were dollars) asking for 12 quarters for the washing machine. She did explain the whole American denominations after my idiotic moment.
We rented a car for a couple of days and picked up Skipper's Bob inter coastal waterway (ICW) guide, good selection of fresh rations and even watched Pirates of the Caribbean in the cinema.

St Augustine, the oldest town in the USA was beautiful. The Spanish were the first to settle so there were many shops, bars and restaurants with Spanish themes and a fort with many cannons, one set off every day.
Thirty knots of wind came through the river one day. I stayed on board whilst Phil picked up a local mobile. Never seen such volume in rain as we did here.
We had an ice cream, Phil chocolate, mine lime key pie (it was too sweet).
We found a great bar, very English looking, with good beer and pretzels. We visited during happy hour to use wifi. We spent a few hours here researching weather and routes etc.
We bought a hotspot rooter which allows us to use wifi whilst on board which is exciting.

Setting of to Charlston was great. Saw many dolphins. Easterly wind 10-15 knots a fine reach all the way and as per usual Pepper went quicker than expected; we arrived in the dark 12 hours earlier than planned. It was a further 8 nms into the anchorage along the ICW. The huge colonial
houses running along side the river are simply beautiful!

We've just had breakfast, then getting ready to head into the marina, via the dinghy (only 5 dollars to park it) and have a look around to do the touristy thing
xx
Date: 2017-06-10 15:21
Station ID: Pepper
Position: 29º 53.62'N:081º 18.57'W
Author: Hatty
Location: Cape Canaveral
Title: Cape Canaveral

We had a great start to the sail heading for USA with a bit of motoring towards the end. We arrived in Cape Canaveral mid day greeted by many dolphin pods. The water is horrible here, green and merky looking. We were on the look out for Manatees but did not see many. It was very
unerving seeing Phil on the bow working when a shark passed by.

The people are really friendly. We both love being in America. Everything is so clean, so organised, well sign posted, so big: cars, meals, shops, roads etc. Couldn't imagine anyone being stressed here.

I wasn't aware that this is where the shuttles are launched form so when the chap in the marina office informed us that there was a launch later on in the evening. I asked him what it was and was it a party... he did look at me oddly and Phil explained what a launch was. It was cancelled
that night because of bad weather but we were so lucky. 2 days later we visited the NASA space centre, which was fantastic, and that very evening they had a launch. It was fantastic.

It was sad to leave here, as are most of the places we leave. We got a couple of runs in and Phil sampled the local beer. We even had some oysters.

Next stop St Augustine.
Date: 2017-05-31 15:52
Station ID: Pepper
Position: 26º 18.80'N:078º 24.61'W
Author: Hatty
Location: Bahamas, Nassau
Title: 21-31 May

What a full packed 10 days.

We arrived at 0400hrs and the slip (American for moorings) appeared complicated and we didn't really gain much info from the lady in the office when we called earlier so we decided to anchor outside and wait for daylight. Nassau has an island called Paradise with two bridges connecting
them to the main land so it felt as if we were anchored in Southampton Water.

We didn't make our best entry onto our birth: tiredness, hunger, heat, hormones and a large tide running through made it all very complicated and stressful only to be told, once along side, that we needed to go to another marina to book in with customs another complicated entry. At least
we got to practise coming along side. Oh! And also the slip only reached mid ships (half way). Next to us was SY Juniper with 3 lovely young people: Chrisitine (Skipper USA), Nikki (Brit) and Kirk (China). Christine is a very interesting woman with lots of fascinating stories. She is in finance
and shark conservation and is a story teller. Nikki is a psychologist so between Christine and Nikki, having spent 6 days with Phil, I got my girly chat fix enough to make one's ears bleed. That along with a one hour chat with Amanda. We invited them on board before they set off to
Cayman Islands - a fun night.

We completed our USA visa applications which was also stressful phoning up family asking for dates of birth and marriage divorce dates etc. We booked our interview and somehow we got our days mixed up and arrived 24 hrs early! Fortunately Bahamas was having their opening of
parliament so we spent most of the day watching military parades and hundreds of folk dressed in fabulous attire of dresses, hats and even gloves-all very interesting. We felt quite honored to be part of it all.

Many tourists were about 5 cruise liners but we did visit Star bucks and Hard Rock Cafe. We even visited the grotesque, monstrous and artificial Atlantis 5 star hotel. It's a huge complex with an aquarium running through it. Very sad to see sharks, sting rays turtles etc squeezed into small
pools. We tried to cover as much as we could before security asked us about the lack of wrist bands but we had seen enough and it was full of tourists and very expensive with designer shops and casinos. We did enjoy the air conditioner though bimbling across plush carpets with our
beach kit on and yes sand on our feet oops. Real stow aways.

We did a couple of early morning runs, caught up on emails, watched tv and spent some time with Paul the owner. A rasta man incredibly kind and patient man who got on very well with Phil.

We collected our visas on Tuesday afternoon, yesterday, and slipped Central Bay Marina to head for Cape Canaveral. Miami seemed complicated and we didn't have any pilot books so we borrowed one and took photos. CC is further up the coast line. Phil is concerned about getting out
of the hurricane season before 1 July. The lat and long is 3 sail days away so I'm not overly worried. We'll do Miami on the way down.

We're almost a day in and are having to put the engine on as we head for the gulf stream to take us up the East coast of America. Sea is calm so all good, still hot. It's a short trip so we should be in late Thu.
Date: 2017-05-20 22:41
Station ID: Pepper
Position: 25º 34.75'N:076º 41.02'W
Author: Hatty
Location: Bahamas
Title: 20 May

We hope your weekend is going well. We're just rounding the northerly tip of Eleuthera, Bahamas. It's a very long thin island which we need to get around to get to New Providence, Nassau. The sun is setting and as per our tradition it looks like we will be arriving in the dark. Once we've
rounded Eleuthera there's a further 40 nms to go. We've spoken to the marina and they are expecting us. We're very glad to be arriving safely. We have not seen a single sailing yacht. Interesting how we will be received here.
Date: 2017-05-20 06:26
Station ID: Pepper
Position: 24º 26.16'N:075º 13.74'W
Author: Hatty
Location: Bahamas
Title: 20 May

We've been shifting along quite well. Wind is averaging 18 knots but a couple of days ago, in a squall, we had 28 knots. We did have three reefs in the head and main sail and our speed averaged 9 knots! We're not far from our final way point but we need to sail around a very long reef
to get into Nassau. The Bahamas have many islands, low lying with very shallow waters: less than 2 metres covering many square miles. Our expectations of Nassau will be that the marinas will house lots of power boats and have little in the way of sailing support. Nassau does sound
interesting from reading our books. The Loyalists from the American Revolution settled there and it does have a lot of history attached including slavery and piracy. Black beard was the most infamous pirate from these waters. It's hard to believe that when we arrive in Nassau (Sunday) we
will be 55nms from Miami! And only three more days sail until we are out of the hurricane zone. Hopefully we can slow down and spend some time sorting out Pepper having sped through all the islands from Grenada to BVIs we feel she needs some serious TLC. She does look after us
though.

The journey has been tedious. I think we miss the contact we had crossing the Atlantic and most of our games: name British tv programmes/popstars etc have already been covered. The shepherd's pie and curry have been great and although I've been on a diet, Phil has enjoyed his
meals. Still no sea life. We stuck a fishing rod out for 10 mins but decided it wasn't good conditions should we catch anything given we are rolling around a lot. We'll save that hobby for another day.

Have a great weekend and we'll contact you on Sunday when we arrive.xx
Date: 2017-05-17 21:33
Station ID: Pepper
Position: 21º 07.17'N:069º 56.16'W
Author: Hatty
Location:
Title: 17 May

I think it's day three. Seems very similar to day one and two. All is well so far. It's the longest passage since crossing the Atlantic but without the radio checks and presence of other sailors, which we miss. It's very overcast and has been for the last two days; at least we have respite from
the sunshine. I read in the day and play solitaire at night. Phil reads and plays Candy Crush (never really got into that). The shepherd's pie and curry meals which were prepared are going down well. We've seen a couple of tankers and cargo vessels but no sailing vessels. We've poled
out headsail and have reef in main. It's very rolly but wind is 17 knots. Last night it got up to 32 knots. Luckily we took the parasailor down before it reached 17. An interesting night. The depth is over 6000 metres but where the banks are (along our port side) the depth goes to 22 metres!
We've given the banks a wide berth. We stick to 4 hours on and off. I start at midnight. This way meals are taken together. We're enjoying not drinking any alcohol. Seems that the community we are now part of does drink a bit more than probably recommended by specialists. No sea
life apart from our departure where we saw two dolphins.

Love to all xxx
Date: 2017-05-15 12:21
Station ID: Pepper
Position: 18º 26.50'N:064º 45.71'W
Author: Hatty
Location: White Bay, JVD, BVIs
Title: Departing for Bahamas

Having left Stinky Road Town we came to Sopper's Hole which is beautiful. Topped up with fuel and water and headed off to Sandy Cay. As you can imagine it's a very small island with sand all around it. Wish I could have owned it - have many plans in my head as we walked around it.
This was a day time stop off so after a bit of snorkelling; we saw millions of very tiny fish along the shore line; we headed round a nm away to Treat Bay but being a Friday night it was full of chartered boats, so we headed round to White Bay less than a mile. Very beautiful here. Its the
American equivalent I suppose of Ayia Napa. Many young folk pushing out muscles, very tanned with designer swim wear. We fitted in well ha ha. White Bay has a well known bar called 'Soggy Dollar'. Because of sailors swimming ashore with wet money and the cocktail 'Painkiller' was
invented here. Obviously Phil and I had a couple, took photos etc.

We walked up the mammoth hill to see Great Bay before heading back to prepare the week's food for our journey to Bahamas. Sheppard's Pie and curry. An early but rolly night. We have started to watch the old tv series 24 which keeps us entertained before getting some sleep.

This morning we are tweaking a few things before bimbling round to Great Bay to book out then 800nms to Bahamas!

I'll keep you updated as we cross.
xx
Date: 2017-05-13 14:07
Station ID: Pepper
Position: 18º 23.14'N:064º 42.13'W
Author: Hatty
Location: Sopper's Hole, Tortola, BVIs
Title: Dolphin Experience

We arrived in Road Town, Capital of Tortola. The water was black, it stunk, we couldn't use the electric (USA) and the water to top up tasted disgusting all for $60 a night. The torrential rain didn't help either. The pontoons were tucked up in a mangrove so loads of mozzies and no wind.
Generally a rotten night's sleep. But we are here for the dolphin experience:

We arrived (after 30 mins walk) at the Dolphin centre and seeing the dolphins from the outset just brought tears to my eyes. Hearing them squeaking, jumping up and tilting their heads to the sides to see you was completely overwhelming. We had a quick bite to eat. Phil had already
decided he wouldn't go in. It was quite costly and he said he'd prefer to watch and take photos. The last time I swam with dolphins was in Cuba but they were out in the sea and approached you because they wanted to. Seeing these intelligent creatures in pens did upset me a bit. The
marine specialists gave us briefings about the dolphins themselves and how they are looked after. We were also briefed about the activities we would do. We had boyancy jackets on and entered the water (I say we, there was an American couple going in too). There were 3 dolphins in
the pool. We stroked them, gave them hugs and kisses, belly rub. They also sprayed water at us for a joke. Then we swam out into the pool and had a fin tow. The best was a push up where you lay on your front and the dolphins swim up behind you and lift you out of the water with their
noses. We had more hugs and dancing. This was the best experience. I know what you're thinking about them being couped up. I felt the same, but I still loved the experience. Phil took some great photos too.

We walked for miles to find a chandlery (in the midday heat) to get some parts Phil needed for connecting the new battery charger-no luck. Att 1600 we headed back to Pepper to slip for Sopper's Hole. We got away without paying for an extra night - just as well.

Heading west into the sunset surrounded by USBVIs and BVIs was stunning. It was late afternoon and the sea was beautifully calm with an easterly 9 knot wind with head sail up - a perfect hour. Sopper's Hole is very special. It reminded us of a bay you would see in Cornwall. Brightly
coloured houses either side of the bay with great restaurants, bars and boutiques towards the head. We really loved it here. Just the one mozzy intrusion and annoyingly Orange texting at 0200 to welcome us to Jamaica, Antigua etc - argh!

We will top up of water and fuel and head NW to Jost Van Dyke, Green and Sandy Cay. We plan on a couple of other stop over's in JVD before heading off for 4/5 days to Bahamas. I will keep updating this blogg especially on the long crossing. We'd also welcome the odd email too if
that's ok?
Date: 2017-05-11 21:03
Station ID: Pepper
Position: 18º 25.47'N:064º 37.08'W
Author: Hatty
Location: BVIs Marina Cay
Title: BVIs Marina Cay

Marina Cay is a beautiful, tiny island surrounded by a reef. We had a couple of painkiller cocktails and listened to live music in the Happy Arrr Bar on the top of the island. We took some photos of the red letter box and looked around the Pusser's shop - American style clothers. Very pretty
and at night the lights look beautiful. We then headed early in the morning (thinking it was Wednesday full moon party) 2 nms south to Trellis Bay expecting to attend the Full moon party. Weather was raining and rather miserable so we thought they'd cancelled the main BVI event and
stayed on Pepper. The next day we walked around Trellis Bay - very expensive: 2 tomatoes, 2 onions, 4 burger rolls A37.00! Burgers were nice anyway. We realised that we were ahead of ourselves with the days and the full moon paty was the next day. We did feel silly speaking to locals
saying, 'it was a shame it didn't happen last night because of the rain'. So the next night we attended the party. Trellis Bay is well known for it's artistry, carvings and pottery shops. During the party lots of round metal features were placed around the beach and out at sea with fires lit inside
them. One statue was a huge man, again lit up. All very pretty with live music stands all along the beach. A lot of Americans enjoying themselves. We left reasonably early as things got silly - many drunk folk around. That night we experienced the biggest thunder/lightning storm ever. Not
good stuck out in a boat with a huge metal thing sticking out the top. Next morning we engined (no wind) to Norman Island where Treasure Island was themed around and swam in the pirates' caves near The Bight. This was fantastic! Amazing fish and a monster ray! We bimbled past the
well known Willy T, a schooner converted into a bar; not our thing really. Again many drunk folk jumping off. Heading north across Sir Francis Drake's Channel we arrived in the the capital of Tortola, Road Town to a stinky marina, we can't use the electric and the water is not too good. It
costs A360 a night! However this is where the Dolphin Torture Place is and we planned the experience in our trip round the BVIs. So all that to look forward to.

Hope all's well.
xxx
Date: 2017-05-08 19:55
Station ID: Pepper
Position: 18º 27.73'N:064º 31.63'W
Author: Hatty
Location: BVIs Marina Cay
Title: 08 May

This morning we went on an epic bicycle ride along Anegeda. Phil's bike came with its own steel band, metal clanking on route, and mine was a kiddie's bike with a basket on the front with a big hole in it. Neither had gears and it felt very strange to pedal backwards to brake. Very sweaty
and aching knees we guzzled some water then slipped Anegad for Marina Cay 12 nms (very similar to Saba Rock). At least we're in a good position to pick up a good buoy for tomorrow early morning in Trellis Bay (Full Moon Party on the beach). Again many Americans on chartered yachts
and with it being overcast the sea doesn't look as blue or inviting. It is supposed to get better in the next day or two.
Date: 2017-05-08 12:59
Station ID: Pepper
Position: 18º 43.37'N:064º 23.11'W
Author: Hatty
Location: BVIs Anageda
Title: 08 May 17

We had an excellent sail up to Anageda (12 nms). Anageda is very flat surrounded by a lot of coral and shallow water. Population: 350. It is busy in the anchorage/moorings with many chartered boats blasting music. This was expected. It's a route that the chartered boats go on.
Anageda serves the best and cheapest lobsters in the Caribbean but Phil feels that our lobster we had in Union Island has satisfied our need for anymore. I'll just look at everyone's plates as I pass by :-(

We're not overly impressed so far. It might be because it is overcast and the water is very cloudy. We'll take the dinghy ashore and look around for a couple of hours before heading south to Tortola, Marina Cay.
Date: 2017-05-06 15:32
Station ID: Pepper
Position: 18º 30.20'N:064º 21.55'W
Author: Hatty
Location: Virgin Gorda BVIs
Title: 05 May 17

It took around 12 hours to sail from Anguilla to Spanish Town, Virgin Gorda. The first 6 hours were fantastic averaging around 7 knots but as usual, the wind died down and the passage became very rolly and uncomfortable. Coming round the SW tip of Virgin Gorda was interesting. We
cut through the small islands and saw the huge boulders which Virgin Gorda is well known for. We arrived at our moorings around 0730. Had breakfast then slept for a few hours. Spanish Town was as we expected of the BVI islands: $2.00 here and there for ridiculous things using dinghy
dock etc. Customs were not impressed we hadn't booked in until the afternoon when we arrived at 0730. They asked Phil twice why we didn't book in on arrival. Paperwork was tiresome although the staff were really friendly.

We walked up to The Baths for a recce (we plan on anchoring outside these the next day to look round). There are huge granite boulders dotted along a white beach with clear blue water. Fabulous and so unusual. We made our way back to Pepper and the moorings man gave us a free
bag of ice so at last a perfect sundowner with G&T AND ice! We set the alarm for 0530 (we read that you need to arrive at The Baths first light to be guaranteed a mooring because of the chartered vessels) and slipped for The Baths/Caves. They were only 30 mins away but it was very
satisfying being the first on the scene and picking up the closest mooring buoy to the shore. We had a few hours sleep before setting off as 'tourists'. We put essentials; money, shorts, tops, sun block etc in a waterproof bag (which floats) and snorkelled ashore. The water was warm,
glorious blue and clear. We snorkelled around the granite boulders taking photos and generally relaxing in the water. The walk to Devil's Bay from The Baths was stunning. Only around 30 mins but the huge boulders and cacti were so unusual to see on in the Caribbean. We entered the
famous caves (Devel's Bay to The Baths) which were can be described as an adults' play ground. Meandering through the boulders with the sea lapping around our feet, ladders to climb and rope pulls we worked our way back to The Baths all in swim wear. A great adventure and such
fun. The light that works its way through the boulders reflecting of the walls and the sea is stunning. We took many photos. We headed back to Pepper, had lunch then slipped northwards to Saba Rock/ The bitter End (next door to Richard Branson - Necker Island). A fantastic sail -
wind on the beam and a little race during the last hour (4 chartered boats). Saba Rock is beautiful with a price tag to match. We had sundowners in the bar (Pain Killers) and watched the Tarpons (2 meters long) being fed. Phil had a go too. We met a nice couple Karen and Nigel, who
happen to know SY Enavigo. They gave us some advice on areas to visit.

This morning we've done some washing, Phil connected the water to the cockpit shower. This will be fabulous once connected. Good to rinse off the salt after a swim. I plan on making the wind scoop today too.

We hope you are all well and planning your visit out here. xxx
Date: 2017-05-03 14:19
Station ID: Pepper
Position: 18º 12.00'N:063º 05.62'W
Author: Hatty
Location: Anguilla
Title: School Reunion

After a stunning 3 hours sail from Saint Martin we arrived in Anguilla. Beautiful white beaches and the clearest waters we have seen so far. The sole purpose of us coming here was not for the touristy thing but to see an old friend of mine from boarding school. Chrissie Brooks-35 years we
last saw each other.

We arrived in Sandy Bay to book in with immigration/customs. But you have to pay 54 US $ a day for cruisers' permit if you go anywhere else on the island. It's free here in Sandy Bay. We didn't mind this too much but the permit lasts for 24 hours and the 24 hours ends at midnight! So if
you are overnighting, that will be 108 US $. Chrissie lives in the next bay, Crocus Bay in the biggest yellow house on the island. Crocus Bay is simply beautiful and Chriisie's house looks onto it and a fabulous restaurant Davida is on the sea front. We are on a budget so unfortunately we
took a taxi round to meet her and her husband Clive. The taxi ride was interesting. He wasn't really a taxi he just stopped to offer a lift. The car was a mess, the driver was a huge rasta man trying to sell his music CDs to which he was singing to loudly. He asked Phil if he liked the
music...Phil replied, 'not my favourtie'. The driver/singer then asked Phil if he wanted any ganja...Obviously we declined but the driver smoked away. A funny situation to see Phil in.

Chrissie and Clive showed us around some of their island and it really is beautiful.. Sadly we are short of time so our time together is short. Clive is driving us around today; Chrissie is working. Tonight we head off to BVIs Virgin Gorda first leaving around 1700 for an overnighter. We hope to
catch up for longer next year.
xx
Date: 2017-05-02 13:47
Station ID: Pepper
Position: 18º 04.09'N:063º 05.62'W
Author: Hatty
Location: Saint Martin
Title: 02 May

Saint Martin is different. It's French in the north and Dutch in the south with a huge lagoon in the middle. To gain access to the lagoon you need to enter through a couple of bridges with various opening hours. We decided to anchor outside the lagoon in Marigot Bay, French side; it's
cheaper and the sea looks beautiful out here. That said the weather is rotten. We've had rain and it's been mostly overcast. At least warm. We walked into the town, up to Fort Louis and took the dinghy into the lagoon to a dinghy dock and shopped in Carefour. Filled a trolley full of
French products. We liked the Lagoonies Bar-very sailor - ey. Had a super lunch and couple of beers there. Unfortunately it was labour day (holiday) yesterday and nothing was open. So Phil and I had a spa day on board. I cut my hair, did nails and feet, put face pack on and hand pack
(didn't know they existed-cheers Trish), waxed and polished. Phil fixed the shower pump for the cock pit (still associated with a 'spa' day I guess), but he did have a hair and beard cut too. So we are very clean, shiny and feel almost human again. Our friends on SY Laumare, Franc, Rose,
Maire Helene and Laurence invited us out to supper last night. Rose and the children go back to Holland today. We've known them since Union Island; we will miss them. Franc and his brother will sail their yacht back to Portugal later this week. We had a lovely night and thank you
Franc for supper.

Phil has gone ashore to book out of immigration before we head off to Anguilla. I have an old boarding school friend who lives there and I am looking forward to catching up after 35 years. The sun is shinning at last and there's a great wind. It's a couple of ours sail so it should be a good
passage.

xxx
Date: 2017-04-27 20:12
Station ID: Pepper
Position: 17º 09.36'N:061º 45.78'W
Author: Hatty
Location: Antigua
Title: Boys visit

Moserate was stunning. We sailed clockwise round heading south first where the active volcano is. As you approach you can smell and see the hot ash forcing its way out. Going round the west side is a maritime exclusion zone for which we were most grateful; the sulphur was rich and
very pongie. It was fascinating to see how the ash and lava had spread covering most of the southern island. We anchored in a very dark bleak bay up north where we saw the best sunset ever. The boys really liked it here. They liked the people and the sunset. After Monsterat we went
to Barbuda. Here is miles and miles of the whitest sand anywhere in the Caribbean. There isn't much to do here so we decided to walk into Codrington the town. Unfortunately it was slightly inland a dusty straight road in the middle of the day. Very boring, very long and very hot. We were
rescued half way by an English couple-thank goodness. Apparently no one walks into Codrington froom where we were anchored. It seemed like a good idea a the time. We ate a chicken take away on the beach and we all swam in the crystal clear blue waters. After Barbuda we
headed off to the NE coast of Antigua, Jumpy Bay on long island. Very pretty shallow bay where the boys snorkeled. We were looking forward to a sundowner shore side but were embarrassingly turned away because it was private, despite what the pilot book said.

We motored to Great Bird Island where Devil's Gate is and the boys enjoyed the best location for snorkeling. Coming to the end of the boys visit we headed back west to Jolly Bay Marina. It was hot and lots of mosquitos here but the night life was a bit more entertaining for their last night.
Trish and John had arrived but spent the first 2 nights in Jolly Bay Spa whilst we still had the boys on board. We all caught up for a drink then drove the boys to the airport-another emotional time...

Trish and John joined us in the marina and it was decided to move to an anchorage because the marina lacked wind and we needed to cool down. Carlisle Bay was crystal clear with many star fish around. John snorkeled for the first time and it was a lovely evening watching the sun set
and bobbing around in the anchorage. The next day we headed to English Harbour. It was Classic Week and we thought John would enjoy the races and looking at the boats. In English Harbour we visited Shirley Heights for a reggae dance off, saw steel band, hired a car for the day
where John and Trish got to experience flour like sand. We walked up the coast line a couple of times to watch the racing. The tot club had an open invite so luckily John and Trish got to experience that. I tried teaching John how to dance on the lawn in front of the Copper and Lumber
(all in Nelson's dock yard). I swam ashore towing Trish (she is uncomfortable in the water not knowing what is underneath). John and I did a lot of snorkeling; the best was at Hercules Pillars outside English Harbour. An amazing place to snorkel although quite rolly. Phil towed us outside to
avoid the swell which was intimidating to say the least but a spectacular view of the topography of the pillars and fish.

Trish and John enjoyed their last couple of nights in the Copper and Lumber-a beautiful hotel with excellent furnishings from Nelson's era. We visited Boom Bar, Cheeky Monkey but enjoyed eating on board or having lunch in the hot club. Our last night with John and Trish was memorable.
They treated us to an Italian (unlimited alcohol-we couldn't partake because we were heading off). A lovely meal and afterwards we said our teary good byes, they helped slip our lines and they watched us hoist the main and set off waving our last guests who had visited us out of 5 weeks
of having family and friends on board. We have had a lovely 5 weeks seeing everyone- thank you all for visiting us.

Phil and I sailed overnight to St Barts-it seems a little dull here, weather doesn't help much but we are anchored here for a couple of days for some R&R and tidy up. Snorkeling was good today we saw a lot of fish and got some exercise in. Tomorrow we head off to St Martin (French side-
it's cheaper) and will dinghy round to the Dutch for victuals and parts for the boat.

Hopefully that is all updated now. We are pressing on to get to the Bahamas for our USA visa but will visit as many islands as poss.

Missing you all.
xxx
Date: 2017-04-07 00:44
Station ID: Pepper
Position: 17º 00.32'N:061º 45.65'W
Author: Hatty
Location: Antigua
Title: Boys here!!!

Phil and I had a great week in English Harbour with Vic. She managed to get a couple of dives but no sailing. I decided to defrost the fridge with a sharp knife...phsstt! A3650 later we have a new plate fitted.
We were invited to a few Tot evenings with John, Jacquie and Chris from SY Aqua Dais, really nice people. We went out for another boogy night with SY Billio Jack and Adele. Sam and Steve popped by to visit us. They have a new boat called SY Wonder Lust-really good to see them
both. We met a nice American couple, Lisa and Rus on SY Uproar and spent a couple of sun downers with them which was lovely. We got the windlass and bow thruster fixed too.

We hired a car to pick up and drop off Vic so we were able to see a lot of the island by land. Saw some amazing houses in Jolly Harbour with the owners yachts parked next to the boat-how the other half live. Beautiful white beaches all around. We found the place where Phil stayed for a
holiday 27 years ago with Vic and Wiz.

The boys are with us now. It's so good to see them although today we are all a bit sore from too much drinking last night. We're currently anchored in Carlisle Bay, very clear waters and are setting off nice and early for Monserate.
Date: 2017-04-07 00:44
Station ID: Pepper
Position: 17º 00.32'N:061º 45.65'W
Author: Hatty
Location: Antigua
Title: Boys here!!!

Phil and I had a great week in English Harbour with Vic. She managed to get a couple of dives but no sailing. I decided to defrost the fridge with a sharp knife...phsstt! A3650 later we have a new plate fitted.
We were invited to a few Tot evenings with John, Jacquie and Chris from SY Aqua Dais, really nice people. We went out for another boogy night with SY Billio Jack and Adele. Sam and Steve popped by to visit us. They have a new boat called SY Wonder Lust-really good to see them
both. We met a nice American couple, Lisa and Rus on SY Uproar and spent a couple of sun downers with them which was lovely. We got the windlass and bow thruster fixed too.

We hired a car to pick up and drop off Vic so we were able to see a lot of the island by land. Saw some amazing houses in Jolly Harbour with the owners yachts parked next to the boat-how the other half live. Beautiful white beaches all around. We found the place where Phil stayed for a
holiday 27 years ago with Vic and Wiz.

The boys are with us now. It's so good to see them although today we are all a bit sore from too much drinking last night. We're currently anchored in Carlisle Bay, very clear waters and are setting off nice and early for Monserate.
Date: 2017-03-21 14:32
Station ID: Pepper
Position: 16º 13.31'N:061º 31.78'W
Author: Hatty
Location: Guadaloupe French offshore island
Title: 25 March - Sinking Ship!

Happy Mother's Day!

After arriving in Pointe a Pitre SW of Eastern island we met SY Enavigo, Jodie and Steve. We invited them on shore for a chili which was great. A nice evening even though there were a few passionate discussions of the RYA syllabus. After 3 1/2 bottles of red wine, I have no idea what
the outcome was.

We hired a car for two days. First day we traveled around the East island. (There are two islands with a couple of road bridges connecting them. East island is 30 million years older than the west one-totally different and fascinating because of their formations) The beaches round this
island are brilliant white with pink coral amongst the sand. Although a windward side the reefs around it take off a lot of the energy from the Atlantic so a great place to swim. We had a local lunch with chicken, rice and veg-nice but pricey - this is France I suppose. On the way back we
stopped off in Carfour, the biggest one outside France. We bought many heavy bulk items for our lovely visitors: Vic on Tue, then the boys 4th Apr then Trish my friend with her husband 14ish. However we did not have all what was needed, in my opinion, so decided to go back the next
day.

The next day was the west island but we were shocked to see that it was a holiday and all the shops, including Carfour, was shut! I'll come onto that bit later. The west island is where most yachts travel along so this gave us a good opportunity to see all the bays along the route. There
were some very nice bays but looked busy-no buoys available. We visited the botanical gardens-simply amazing! Took many photos. They had parrots, pink flamingos and hundreds of fabulous plants. We had a picnic lunch looking over the bay-trying to cut down a bit. I went into a hot
sulphur spring-apparently it's good for you. I just came out smelling of eggs although my skin felt soft-not sure how long that will last. At the end of the day we drove up to see the biggest waterfall in the Caribbean, Chutes de Carbet. We saw the waterfall sailing round and it did look pretty
awesome from there. It's in 3 stages but we could only see the 2nd one because you need 3-5 hours trek to visit the others. Very beautiful, great views, cool with amazing vegetation. Again totally different to any other island including it's neighbor, the east side.

We came up with a few plans to get to Carfour for the next day. We had it booked for 2 days only and had still not bought fresh produce-cheese, fruit, veg etc. Unfortunately the car was booked out but luckily we were able to pick up another at 1030.

I left Phil to do some jobs and actually it's less stressful shopping for food on my own. Phil hates shopping especially food shopping. There is a 100m row of yogurts-that's how big this place was. Me, I was in heaven. Eyes darting everywhere comparing prices and absorbing all the
amazing products. Strangely the Carfour prices were more expensive than local produce. Fruit and veg does not last long from here either. Surprised they import some of the fruit and veg too.

So Phil did his jobs, and I shopped for around 3 hours. On returning, very pleased with the amazing cheeses and hams I had bought, I noticed the boat looked odd... Phil started jumping about saying we're taking on water. I asked him what he meant but he was busy thinking what had
gone wrong-difficult to think and speak at the same time I assume. Long story short, Phil had washed the boat down but left the hose connected to the tap left on and turned the water off at the nozzle end. The nozzle had obviously fallen off so the water carried on: completely filling the
locker behind the bulk head to where we sleep for around 3 hours. The water, when I stood in the locker getting the water out with a bucket, was up to my neck! Probably around 3 tons of water sitting pretty. I wasn't best pleased, but I've never been one to cry over spilt milk or spilt water
in this case. The bow thruster is knackered but we've dried off the sails which were completely saturated (including the parasailor).

We were heading off for Antigua but stayed an extra night to dry off. We have time, Vic arrives on Tuesday.

Date: 2017-03-18 19:15
Station ID: Pepper
Position: 15º 51.71'N:061º 36.02'W
Author: Hatty
Location: Guadaloupe French offshore island
Title: 19, 20 & 21 March

A lovely day! We must have been in the best bay in the Les Saintes, just round the corner from Sugar Loaf Bay. This day we were rather productive- cleaned the boat, did 3 washing cycles, went snorkelling (saw 3 massive parrot fish), took the dinghy into the town, walked up to Fort
Napoleon, Marigot Bay and Pompierre Bay, had a lovely ice cream and French wine watching the sun go down before dinghying back to Pepper.

Monday we left for Guadeloupe, a good sail up. Beautiful white beaches and again French. Marina is modern but some areas are looking a bit tired. Tried wifi but without much success but apparently the Pirate Bar has good wifi so we'll try there. We caught up with SY Enavigo, Steve
and Jodie. Saw a man plucking hair from his chin in the bar.

Today we woke up early. Phil got to a dentist who sorted his tooth ache out and cheapish too. Apparently his teeth are too close together for the floss...We've booked a hire car for a couple of days. We thought it would be quicker to see the islands by road than sailing to each place.
We need to get to Antigua by the weekend. Cleaned the boat, posted Tilley hat for repairs on the brim. Now we're off for a coffee and wifi.
Date: 2017-03-18 19:01
Station ID: Pepper
Position: 15º 51.71'N:061º 36.03'W
Author: Hatty
Location: Guadaloupe French offshore island
Title: 18 March 17

Dominica:

The Indian River was fab! Others joined in to share the costs: French Canadian couple SY Caffe Latte, Jean & Yolene, SY Mr X, Ian and Manuela and SY Enviago, Steve & Jodie (met in UK). I took loads of photos. Very interesting - the guide was very knowledgeable. Felt a bit weird on
way back though. Top thigh felt painful and my chest was a bit sore. We had little sleep because of the loud music on the beach that night and then someone tried to sell me insurance on my phone from UK at 0500. That along with a heavy and hot run was probably why I felt a bit weird.
We arranged to meet everyone for happy hour in a bar beginning with M, blue roof. But got a bit drunk and had risotto on Mr X which was lovely. I fell on a winch with my bum so that's a bit sore two days later.

The next day we felt a bit delicate so decided to stay another night and not risk sailing without feeling 100% We did absolutely nothing! Read all day - bliss!

This morning it was gusting 30 knots in the bay. Weather forecast said it would ease as the day progressed so this morning around 1100 we set off for Guadeloupe. Sail wasn't too bad 20-28 knots on the beam. Again it's a French island. Very European. We've decided to moor in some
of the bays in the small islands south: Les Saintes and Terre de Haut, again very beautiful. Clear blue waters and very French. Then we'll head into the main land of Guadeloupe and explore there. It's very exciting that the next island is Antigua. Here is where Vic, Sean and George and my
friend Trish will be flying in to spend time with us over 5 weeks. Vic flies in first in 8 days so we'll do as much as we can here before setting off. There's a Carefour in Guadeloupe so we will need to stock up on food for the boys.
Date: 2017-03-13 18:15
Station ID: Pepper
Position: 15º 34.92'N:061º 27.90'W
Author: Hatty
Location: Dominica
Title: 13 March

Happy birthday Ant (my brother)!

Yesterday was perfect! We went on a tour with other sailors we just met: Maz & Grelena French and John, Jackie and Chris British. We went in a minibus to the lakes, waterfalls and swam in caverns and crawled up waterfalls. Half way up there were hot sulphur springs coming out which
was so lovely a bit like being in a hot bath. We ate lunch opposite Trafalgar falls - beautiful! When we arrived back at the boat SY Enviago Jodie and Steve were anchored. ( I did my HF course with them and we have stayed in touch, so really lovely to see them again).

Today we headed up north to Portsmouth. It's a lovely big bay. Had a nightmare with the anchor setting again! It looks nice here. We hope to do the Indian River Jungle Tour and look at a huge fort.
Date: 2017-03-13 18:15
Station ID: Pepper
Position: 15º 34.92'N:061º 27.90'W
Author: Hatty
Location: Dominica
Title: 13 March

Happy birthday Ant (my brother)!

Yesterday was perfect! We went on a tour with other sailors we just met: Maz & Grelena French and John, Jackie and Chris British. We went in a minibus to the lakes, waterfalls and swam in caverns and crawled up waterfalls. Half way up there were hot sulphur springs coming out which
was so lovely a bit like being in a hot bath. We ate lunch opposite Trafalgar falls - beautiful! When we arrived back at the boat SY Enviago Jodie and Steve were anchored. ( I did my HF course with them and we have stayed in touch, so really lovely to see them again).

Today we headed up north to Portsmouth. It's a lovely big bay. Had a nightmare with the anchor setting again! It looks nice here. We hope to do the Indian River Jungle Tour and look at a huge fort.
Date: 2017-03-08 20:36
Station ID: Pepper
Position: 14º 44.63'N:061º 10.68'W
Author: Hatty
Location: Martinique to Dominica
Title: 08 March 17

Well that was a new experience! We woke at 0530 to head up to Dominica this morning. In the lee of Martinique the wind was between 6-15 knots - rather pleasant. We noted that the weather was going to be bad which is our reason for leaving early. We made sandwiches before we
set off and ensured that we and Pepper were ready for a 3 hour rough passage. However rounding the north side of Martinique the wind went to 35 knots with waves at 4 m predicted for a later time. It was really horrible. Pepper was on her ear and the waves sprayed over the spray hood.
After 5 minutes and the 10th large wave we turned round and headed for the lee. If we were caught in those conditions out at sea we would adjust our point of sail and go with the wind making it less unbearable. Dominica was on the nose as was the wind. Pepper is our home, we need
to look after her and if one of us should fall in, the other wouldn't have been able to do recovery. A good decision. We are in the lee of Volcano Pelee which destroyed the north part of the island in 1902. Today we rested, did some swimming and tomorrow we may explore the town.

We spotted Mr X another SY who also turned round. They are joining us for pizza tonight.
Date: 2017-03-07 22:25
Station ID: Pepper
Position: 14º 37.13'N:061º 06.41'W
Author: Hatty
Location: Martinique
Title: 07 March

We spent a few nights in Marin and Point do Bout (Martinique). Very French so great for shopping. Our Austrian friends on SY Lusea, Helene and Klaus caught up with us at long last in Marin (we met them in Cadiz, S Spain they sailed the Atlantic after the ARC). It was fantastic to see
them. We had lots of hugs, lots to talk about and lots of wine and rum. We had a meal in the floating cloud restaurant, cooked a curry on board and did lots of shopping for food & wine. We decided to stay with Lusea; they were heading south but because we know St Lucia very well we
thought to show them around a bit. Both boats headed of for Rodney Bay. Very rolley and big winds. Pepper won that journey, in fact we won all the sailing trips :-) Rodney Bay was fun, nice to be next to Lusea. Helene and I did yoga one morning. The other reason for coming back to
Rodney Bay was Wiz's friend Lozzy was over with family and Harper her 17 month old baby-an absolute beauty. Lozzy, Elliott, Donna and Ralph came on board for nibbles and iced tea. Everyone was so enthusiastic about Pepper and I think Donna and Ralph are looking at doing a sailing
course-they were bitten by the sailing bug.

Helene, Klaus and I walked up Pidgeon Bay and stopped off for a drink in Jambe de Bois-lovely and unusual restaurant. Phil repaired the bow thruster which has been intermittent for some time. The 4 of us decided to go into the bay so we could do swimming, running and snorkelling. A
great idea. Although taking the dinghy on board to go for a run along Sandels Hotel was a bit frustrating. Snorkelling was fun until a fishing boat came by dropping a fishing net covering a large area. Poor fish. It rained a lot but sun downer was in Jambe de Bois again. Next day we raced
to Marigot Bay only a short trip and both boats picked up bouys inside. We ate on board Lusea, had Happy Hours in Hurricane Hole, got the body boards out. We had my birthday here, a lovely day. Snorkelling, Klaus made an Austrian cake washed down with Turkish coffee and
champagne lovely! We ate in the Indian although this time was rather disappointing.

This morning we said goodbye to our lovely friends. Very upsetting. They head south and we head norht. But what a great week and we've exchanged experiences and passed on some good advice on places to visit. We are now anchored off Schoelcher (he abolished slavery here).
The wind was gusting 30 knots in Fort de France. We head off to Dominica tomorrow morning. Apparantly if Columbus returned he would say nothing has changed there. There's lots of jungle treks and waterfalls to visit. Sounds fun.
Date: 2017-02-21 20:49
Station ID: Pepper
Position: 14º 26.43'N:060º 53.03'W
Author: Hatty
Location: Martinique
Title: 21 Feb 17

Thought it would be a good time to write. We left Marin to anchor outside St Annes (Club Med) as planned, however the wind came round to the south west, west and north west. This is very rare and unpleasant because most bays, anchorages etc are on the west side (leeward) side of
the islands. So we have strong winds pushing us on to shore. There appears a huge low (anti clockwise) circling round just off Cuba. We are now sitting out the squalls rolling around on anchor watch. Many yachts have already re-positioned their anchors. The prevailing winds are
normally from the east and now the wind has turned 180 yachts have swung round and are too close to other vessels. Not a lot else to do.

Last night we went for a walk along the huge beach-so very French here. This morning we did put on snorkel and mask and scrubbed Pepper's bum. Lots of barnacles and weed have developed whilst sitting still. It was very rolly but we got most of the belly done. The keel and rudder look awful. When we are settled in a calm bay we'll put on our SCUBA gear and do the keel.

Last night was awful, squalls and very rolly - eyck!

Date: 2017-02-19 15:39
Station ID: Pepper
Position: 14º 27.92'N:060º 52.47'W
Author: Hatty
Location: Martinique
Title: 19 Feb

We left St Lucia a couple of days ago and sailed for 3 hrs north to Martinique-wind on the nose again. Martinique is French and is an overseas French territory ie France goes on strike, so does Martinique. On the positive side of things they have a Carefour shopping centre which sells
French produce: Cheese, olives, hams etc. It appears cheaper in price too. We will do a huge shop here before moving on. It's s lovely to have European foods. Martinique is trendy, young and very European. In fact we feel as though we are back in France. They even use the Euro.
Phones and internet work better here and costs per minute 3.7p compared to =A33.00 - you'll be receiving lots of calls from us no doubt.

Phil and I celebrated our 6 month journey this week (in a restaurant which sprays mists of water with plastic clouds turning pink on the ceiling- really cute). We spent some reflection time talking about what we've enjoyed the most, what would we have done differently, what have we
improved on etc. Some couples struggle spending a few hours together. Phil and I are 24/7 and have been for 6 months. We are both so very happy, in love and are best friends. We agreed that we would have liked to have done more swimming, running and physical activities. Although
we agree we have become more flexible and fitter. Phil can get into the companion way (door to down below) without holding his knee to get his foot through now. We have become more tolerant of each others' niggles: leaving doors left open, tools left out etc we can't change our
behaviour now after all this time together. 'It is what it is'. We laugh at each others' mishaps and are such a strong team. I am biased but he really is the kindest and most wonderful man in the world. I'm looking forward to the next 19 1/2 years.

We're in a bay called Marin. There's over 500 boats. Mostly annoying chartered catermerans... We won't swim in here. All I can think of is at least 500 poos every day floating by. St Annes, touristy beach place, is further out so we may spend a day swimming out there. I think our friends
on SY Laumare are joining us there too before exploring Port d' France the capital. The capital is very colonial, trendy with boutiques, museums etc- looking forward to that. Then there's a few isolated bays on the way before Sainte Pierre (northerly point), the first place the French set up but
it was destroyed in 1902 by volcano Pelee. Apparently it's very eerie walking through the streets. A good week ahead.

We hope you've had a good half term. We're looking forward to the boys coming out first week in Easter and hopefully Vic for round two and my friends, Amanda, Trish & John at some point. Probably in Antigua-good flights and cheaper. Lots to do there 365 beaches with lots of RN
history.

Miss you all xxx
Date: 2017-02-17 12:18
Station ID: Pepper
Position: 14º 04.42'N:060º 57.00'W
Author: Hatty
Location: St Lucia
Title: 17 Feb

Not sure where I am up to in this blogg. After we dropped Wiz off in St Vincent, which was very upsetting. We had the evening with Vic who treated us to a sunning meal in a lovely restaurant. Vic ate some red snapper and thoroughly enjoyed it (Vic has always hated fish). Hopefully she
will try more on her travels. Again very upsetting saying goodbye to Vic the next morning. We had such a lovely time, packed with so much to do-a lovely week. Phil and I set of to St Lucia. We saw Vic's plane in the sky as we were leaving the bay and waved her off a bit teary eyed.

We spent a few days in Marigot Bay. It felt like coming home here. If you remember we spent a long time here over Christmas. We caught up with Rose and family (Laumare). Met some nice tourists at Hurricane Hole (cocktail bar). Warren and Jenny took us on a tour up the hill. The
view was stunning. Met a family who's children went to the same boarding school as Sean. Small world. Caught up with Paul from Enigma-nice to see him back on the water. And Lynne and Peter (Christine) who we are always in the same places. It was good to be back in the gym doing
yoga and pilates with Lenka and Faye.

Phil was becoming agitated about where to watch the rugby so we headed up to Rodney Bay (first place we came to when crossing the Atlantic). It's very touristy here with lots of sports bars so we knew we'd find somewhere. Again SY Christine was here, good to see them safe and
sound. We watched the rugby which was a jammy result Eng v Wales. Got my sim card trimmed down to fit the new S7 phone-still can't text though! We fixed the generator. Topped up on water and fuel etc. Every morning on VHF Ch 68 there's a local sailors crew brief with weather and
social events, lifts etc. They mentioned yoga Tue, Wed Thu am so I attended those this week and I tagged along to the Ladies' Lunch which was so lovely. Sue, a retired lady, very enthusiastic and works hard for local charities runs a huge amount of events raising money (yoga one of
them). She invited me to join them in Bay Gardens with the other retired ladies, one celebrated her 61st wedding anniversary!

Margaret and John (Arcanum) arrived from UK with their friends, Jill, Joyce and Paul. Margaret bought across some washing products for me-she'd bring across anything she's so kind. Jill and I swam the whole of the bay! She's a good swimmer. They're heading south so we said good
byes and hopefully we'll catch up further north on their next visit.

The boat next to us (SY Magic Dragon) Allan and Donna were lovely too. And Allan recognised me from our SSB HF course we did last year back in UK! It rattled my brain trying to work out where I knew him from, because you meet so many people. We met a nice young couple on a cat
(Due West) Jenny and Paul. They are planning on Panama and the rest of the world.

I think that's mostly up to date. We're just prepping the boat for a few hours sail to Martinique. We've completed a full loop from our first destination and heading north. I miss the old ARC+ gang around, but we have good memories of everyone and we are always bumping into them and
new friends.

Just off to cut Phil's hair.

xx much love xxx
Date: 2017-02-09 17:30
Station ID: Pepper
Position: 12º 57.97'N:061º 01.43'W
Author: Hatty
Location: Lizzy and Victoria Visit
Title: 28 Jan 2017

Phil, Wiz and I were sitting in a bar just off Young Island south of St Vincent waiting for Vic to arrive. We received a message from her to say her flight from Barbados to St Vincent was canceled! Apparently due to too few passengers. Obviously this was a huge disappointment because
we only had the girls for a short time and we wanted to show them as much as we could and spend every second with them. The flight was booked for the following morning and Vicky stayed in a hotel in Barbados for the night. The following morning Phil, Wiz and I stood patiently waiting
for Vic to arrive. Both girls had really long flights with many connections. Vic came crashing through the door with two huge suitcases knocking everyone over. It was brilliant! I had ordered two 9ft body boards on Amazon for Vic to bring over. Thought they'd be fun for the kids when they
all visit. She didn't mind one bit and the joy of everyone together was incredibly emotional. Charlie, taxi driver, drove us back to the anchorage where it took a couple of runs to get all kit and passengers back onto Pepper. A quick bite to eat (egg sandwiches-their favourite) and iced tea
and we set off for Mustique a few hours away. It was incredibly rolly. Wiz perched on the upper side was shrinking every time a huge wave came past. Vic just giggled. There were huge waves but it was great fun. Phil and I hadn't been to Mustique before. The moorings are 200 EC
dollars a night so we thought it would be best to wait when they were with us. Mustique is for the rich and famous. If you're asking for prices, you shouldn't be there. Mick Jagger, Elton John etc have homes here. Mustique was having a blues festival which was held in Basil's Bar. Wiz
and I had a dance it was a great atmosphere. We wouldn't have recognised anyone famous if we tried. Vic was looking a bit tired from her journey so we left at a sociable time.

The following morning we had a walk along the beach front which was in immaculate condition. Not quite like the other, natural and actually better islands around. There was a fuel tanker refueling Mustique so we had to dinghy around it to return to Pepper. The paddle boards were tested
here. In the wind Wiz ended underneath a catermaran all very funny. Glad Vic brought them across. Very beautiful and you can see why the rich live here.

Next stop was Salt Whislte Bay, Mayreau to try the Mayreau Magic Cocktail and walk the 'A&E' hill. We had many problems here at the start. Rudder touched some rocks, pestered from locals and worst of all the anchor (missing a part from its last repair) failed miserable. Love it when the
locals state the obvious to you: 'I know we've hit a rock now bugger off and stop making waves with your boats which really isn't helping and no I don't want to buy a lobster right now and stop leaching at our girls!' Amongst other comments. Very stressful but a good insight for the girls with
what we have to deal with occasionally. They went for a paddle swim, walk whilst we repositioned the boat. Vic was like a fish in the water with snorkel and mask on checked out for any damage-all good. That evening we took the girls up the hill to Paradise Island to meet James the
inventor of the Mayreau Magic Cocktail. He's not daft and knew on the 2nd glass to reduce the rum a bit. He remembered our last visit there the night I recorded Phil walking down the hill (on FB). It was funny watching us all get drunk slowly but surely. Next door was Robert's Bar. Here
is a very small disco area where the 4 of us practised some groovy moves. A local taught us how to dance and it was lovely seeing Phil dancing with the girls. The walk down the hill was the same. Hilariously steep! Although we adopted a really cute dog and a baby on the way - thanks
Wiz :-)

Next stop Tobago Cays. A real shame but it was a bit windy. We saw a Catameran lose control and take out another 2 cats. We were well away from that mess. We stayed the night here and was pleasantly surprised that it was much calmer the next day. The girls went snorkeling and saw
a turtle. I think it's the same one which is always there. Think it's on a bit of rope or something-he's always there. Took loads of photos and recorded our family 'Wave after Wave' video-for our eyes only. We made a drive past Palm Island (our anchor wasn't working) which was always
going to be a short lunch stop over, but it's great for photos with the whitest of beaches and clear blue sea.

Next stop Clifton in Union Island. This is everyone's favourite. Coming along side was interesting. You have to reverse into the dock having picked up a bow buoy line. Having picked up the buoy the wind was so strong we couldn't get the arse end across (excellent nautical expression).
I suggested Phil takes the dinghy across to the dock with a rope and attached the other end to a winch on Pepper and once he's along side, I'll press the electric winch button. Slowly the arse end came round and we were safely alongside. Another experience for the girls to see. Wiz
and Vic got a dive in, interesting they were shipped to Mayreau for the dive... The kite surfing bar was fun although much quieter in the day. Phil and I had our full moon beach party here a few weeks earlier.

Next stop Bequia for Vic to see. I'll finish here as this may take some time to send. I'll write more later. xxx
Date: 2017-01-29 12:46
Station ID: Pepper
Position: 13º 07.98'N:061º 12.17'W
Author: Hatty
Location: Lizzy and Victoria Visit
Title: 29 Jan

Arrived between Young Island and the main land of St Vincent. We took the dollar bus into town which was an experience in itself. Loud music to the point that your ears are in pain, drivers thinking they're Lewis Hamilton. People jumping on and off every few minutes. Rolling off and on
like sardines. All I could think about was hitting one of the huge monsoon drains with the wheels then ouch...

We picked up Wiz in the morning by Charlie the taxi driver. It was so lovely to see her coming through the door having traveled for 30 hours. She looked stunning as always. Had a swim and egg roll. We then headed to Bequia. Walked to Friendship Bay, had a cocktail or two in Jack's
Bar. Watched a steel band. Picked up some more victuals. The next day Wiz's friend Edward's mum (Amanda) invited us for breakfast. They have a huge holiday home up on the hill overlooking Friendship Bay, with an infinity pool looking out to sea-perfection! Lovely people: Nigel, Sarah
and Bev.

We returned to St Vincent to pick up Vic hitting a squall of 40 knots of wind. And closed hauled. Very uncomfortable!

Vic's flight got canceled. Apparently there weren't enough people on the flight so it was delayed! Interesting. Such a shame because the girls are here for such a short time. So now we have just had breakfast waiting for Charlie, taxi driver to collect Victoria when all on board we will head
to Mustique where the rich and famous live. Then Salt Whistle Bay for a Myru Magic Cocktail then Palm Island and Union Island. I'll update as we go along.

I have to say it's absolutely wonderful having the family on board with us in such a perfect place sharing experiences together.
xx
Date: 2017-01-24 14:24
Station ID: Pepper
Position: 12º 36.09'N:061º 27.03'W
Author: Hatty
Location: Bequia
Title: 24-25 Jan

We've headed back north to Bequia. We had a great anchor spot in clear blue water just off the white beach. It seems much quieter here now than New Year. Here we booked in immigrations for St Vincent Grenadines. This morning we sailed a couple of hours into Blue Lagoon St
Vincent. Wiz flies in tomorrow and Vic two days later. Once they're both on the plan is to go south as far as Union Island. We've done a thorough recce of the best places to take them to.
Date: 2017-01-23 14:03
Station ID: Pepper
Position: 12º 02.69'N:061º 44.89'W
Author: Hatty
Location: Grenada-Hog Island
Title: 23 Jan

It feels like a wet Bank Holiday in August. Lots of rain but warm at least. We tootled round Hog Island Bay-very pretty but decided not to stay. The facilities lacked somewhat but there's a lovely beach. We decided not to stay and made our way to St George's and moored up along side in
Port St Louis. Treated ourselves with electricity and a top up of water. There's a fishing festival going on across the water and it was lovely watching them returning with their catches. We will top up on food for when Wiz and Vic arrive this morning. It's very overcast so we'll make the
most of St George's whilst we can. We are setting off north to meet the girls in St Vincent, we may stop off on route somewhere. It's 85nms so not too far. That's Grenada completed now as we head north to explore other islands. Beautiful spice island!
Date: 2017-01-22 14:30
Station ID: Pepper
Position: 11º 59.97'N:061º 46.19'W
Author: Hatty
Location: Grenada-St George's & True Blue Bay
Title: 22 Jan

Gosh what a birthday week! Dad's 70th, Emily's 21st, Tyler's 15th and Allison's ???
Happy birthday everyone!!!

We really enjoyed St George's Bay. We walked around the town and up to the Fort where one of their presidents was assassinated. Although it was a bit run down after hurricane Ivan, there's been real effort to replace houses and roofs etc. The market was fantastic! Much cheaper and
we found an excellent duty free shop where cruise passengers go and bought lots of gin for when Wiz and Vic arrive at the end of the week. I bought a white snapper from the fish market which was lovely-very delicate. I tried to make soup with the head but it was disgusting so that's going
back into the sea. Our lovely Dutch friends from 'Laumare', Frank, Rose and their children joined us for sun downers one evening, but Frank was very ill the next day (We think it was the cucumber in the Hendrix). They needed repairs doing along side so we helped Rose take the boat into
the marina (from the anchorage) for the engineers. It's a 60 ft yacht so it was fun to be on a bigger boat. After their repairs they joined us in True Blue Bay, south of the island. We met up with 'Billio', British sailors Jack (31) and Adele (29) very intelligent, brave and inspiring young couple.
Adele and I spent most of the evening dancing with the singer (the only two on the dance floor) whilst Phil and Jack drank a locally brewed beer at the bar.

The plan was to do internet stuff at the bar, so we had phones, ipads etc with us. After too many drinks, climbing into the dinghy at the end of the evening, Phil decided to throw himself into the water (with water proof, overboard back pack containing all ipads and iphones). He also took
the dinghy with him so it was completely upside down with him under it. We managed to haul him back out and flip the dinghy to its upright position but Phil decided to fall back into the sea a second time! Luckily the boat stayed upright this time. To move you forward with the situation, the
dinghy engine started up ok (although I insisted I rowed back to the boat- much safer), it has a few dents in it and the 'water proof - overboard' back pack did not do what was 'said on the tin'. By the time we settled in the boat I poured the water out of the back pack and fished out phones
and ipads...

We spent the next day walking around St George's finding a repair shop. Two cruise liners were in so it was mobbed with tourists, it was terribly hot and we had very sore heads from the previous night. However, both my ipad and phone are beyond repair. I am so upset because all the
photographs I had were on my ipad. I'm not technologically minded to understand about icloud and backing up your system. All photos from the trip, Sean's passing out parade, Phil's mum's visit on Pepper sailing, Christmas family moments etc lost... Someone said I was better for the
experience now than in a few years to come. I will make sure to back up the system from now on. We're hoping Wiz might find a techno wiz kid in HK to retrieve the photos-fingers crossed. And I suppose I did post a lot of photos on Face Book so not all is lost. Wiz is bringing out new
ipad and phone, so hopefully, normal life will resume.

Yesterday we went on a tour guide with Laumare. Billio were busy extending their stag pack for their main sail using my cast iron sewing machine. The sailing community really helps one another. Billio hired a conference room which had tables for them to stretch the sections out which had
batons in them. They did really well. The tour was fantastic! The driver/tour guide, although a bit bossy, was incredibly knowledgeable about the history, plants and spices. Every now and then he would stop at a plant or tree and explain what it was and what it's for. The smells and
tastes were fabulous. We visited a chocolate processing factory and sampled 60-100% chocolate. We did buy some ginger, nutmeg and nibs at 60% along with cocoa butter which is a good moisturizer. We all met up at the bar, had pizza and planned to do some yoga on the surf boards
the next morning before heading off to Hogs Bay where they hold parties with bar b ques and vendors.

This morning, I can't see any surf boards out yet. It is raining so we'll head off to Hog Bay.
xxx

Date: 2017-01-16 19:30
Station ID: Pepper
Position: 12º 02.51'N:061º 45.34'W
Author: Hatty
Location: Carriacou Island and Grenada
Title: 16 Jan

Carriacou is not the best of islands we've been to so far. We did book into the Grenadines and use wifi. We tried Hillsbourough but that was too rolley so came round to Tyrell Bay which was a bit better. We took the dinghy along the mangroves which was quite pretty. AGain all islands
are very different from each other. We picked up a few duty frees but nothing too spectacular.

After a couple of rolley nights in Carriacou we set off early today for Grenada, again totally different. It's very colonial here with oodles of history. We had a bimble round the lagoon, St Georrge's, where there main marina is but it's free out here on anchor. There's the biggest beach Anse
next to us which claims to be the best beach in the Antilles. We're more than likely to spend 3-5 nights here, hopefully hire a car, see the whole of the spice island and collect victuals which are a little cheaper here.

Wiz and Vic are joining us in a couple of weeks so it will be best to stock up on pop etc here.

I imagine wifi is good along side so we'll be in touch soon.

xxx
Date: 2017-01-14 23:55
Station ID: Pepper
Position: 12º 27.47'N:061º 29.17'W
Author: Hatty
Location: Union Island
Title: 14 Jan

This is by far our favourite island. We anchored in Clifton which is surrounded by reefs, there's a roundabout system for going in and out with a reef in the middle. There are two very small islets on the outside reef where one man, Russell, lives. He built his house of recyclable materials and
Conch shells. He's a bit odd but likes to talk. The good thing about his island is that there are bouys around his house where you can leave your dinghy to go snorkelling. The other island is called 'Happy Island'. There's a small bar on here (slightly pricey) but again good to snorkel around.
They have a kite surfing school and it's very entertaining to see the experts and students thrashing around the yachts, strings just missing masts.

The town is fun with lots of creative decor-bright colours with funny comments on bill boards. They are very friendly here.

Our first night was interesting. We were walking down the main street, Phil 20 meters in front - usual positioning. A young man approached me holding the biggest lobster I have ever seen-easily 9 lbs. He asked if I wanted to buy it. Lobster is quite expensive out here (a tourist thing
obviously) and the rate per pound is A320. I've also been really keen to prepare and cook fresh lobster and I'm very found of fish food. I asked him how much - 60 EC!!! That's around A320! Never wanting to miss out on a bargain, and I need to add at this point that I had just had 2 mojitos, I
couldn't refuse. Having paid the good young man, I ran up to Phil, very proud with my excellent spotting of a great bargain and simply said, 'Look what I've just bought!' holding it up in the air. Phil looked gob smacked, asked how are we going to get it to the boat, prepare it etc (Clearly I
hadn't thought of those key points). I shrugged my shoulders and said, 'It'll be fine'. At this point the lobster started to have a hissey fit jumping about in my hand ( which was already aching from holding the thing up). This made me jump and I did the girly thing and squealed. In the middle
of the street. With local men sitting around chatting having the odd beer. The men laughed and could see I was struggling with the sea creature in my hand and that Phil was not impressed with my recent purchase. One of the men came to my rescue and asked me if they would like him
to cook it. Well...not a second went by and the lobster was placed firmly in his hand, I said, 'Yes please' and grinned to Phil. We followed this chap into a local, and rather seedy, restaurant and two men showed me the complete process in the back kitchen. They were incredibly friendly
(although they did bicker about different processes-that's kitchen I guess) and they taught me how to prepare the lobster and a jolly good garlic sauce to go. This thing was so big - I never want to eat another. Phil and I sat in a dingy restaurant, in the dark working our way through half a
lobster each. I can tick that off the bucket list!

The next night we were invited to a Full Moon Beach Rave/Party. We met a lovely couple from Manchester on a Southerly Christine, they told us about it. We were tired to start with but dragged ourselves to go - what a fantastic night. It was at the kite surfing bar, they had beautiful lights
spiralling around the frangipani trees and the moon shinning brightly across the sea. Soft sand underfoot. Music pumping out of 6ft high speakers. And the kite school did a display wearing LED clothing jumping over bonfires in the middle of the sea-fantastic!

We did really like it here and our favourite bar was The Loft with views to the sea and to the street with the market all around. Great wifi too. We met an ARC+ boat 'Laumere' with Rose, Franc, MarieHelen and Launston (I think that's the little boys name). They are from Holland and are
simply lovely. I'm sure we will stay in touch. They invited us for a gin and tonic and it was so nice to converse with such similarities. We like them a lot.

Today we booked out of St Vincent and the Grenadines into Grenada, we tried to get duty free in Petite Martinique but those times were long gone. Heading to Carriacou, Hillsbourough Bay was too rolly so we carried on to Tyrell Bay. Again it's hard to explain how different every island is,
it's culture, decor ,personalities and priorities. It's not that spectacular, but it's on route to our most southerly point Grenada (20 nms away). It's still rolly, so not sure if we'll stay here too long.

Hopefully that's all the news for now. Hope you are all well and not being to inconvenienced with the snow.
xxx
Date: 2017-01-11 19:17
Station ID: Pepper
Position: 12º 35.78'N:061º 24.74'W
Author: Hatty
Location: Union Island
Title: 11 Jan

Having spent two fantastic days at Tobago Cays we headed to Palm Island. The beach is the best we've seen so far-glorious white obviously from coral and conch shells. Unfortunately the island is owned by a hotel and we were reminded of where we were not allowed to go ie anywhere
but the beach! One beer and a lime drink was A311. We stayed for a few hours and are now in Clifton Union Island.
Date: 2017-01-10 00:24
Station ID: Pepper
Position: 12º 38.08'N:061º 21.68'W
Author: Hatty
Location: Mayreau & Tobago Cays
Title: 09 Jan

Mayreau-one word 'stunning'. We stopped over in Salt Whistle Bay (Phil had been here 10 years ago), If you were to design a personal Caribbean location, this would be it. Salt Whistle Bay is small with white beaches around with about 25m walk across the sand to the windward beach.
Here kite surfers were out. This island is 1.5 square miles with a steep hill in the centre where 550 people live. There's a few restaurants on the way. On the other side is Saline Bay, a mile long white beach, again dotted with palm trees, but completely deserted. We stayed here for 2
nights and tried the Mayreau Magic cocktail (2 was the limit). I think I'm just recovering, over 24 hours later.

This afternoon we motored across (3nms East) to Tobago Cays. The best location for snorkeling in the Caribbean. We are anchored between two very small, uninhabited islands. All with beaches and reefs surrounding them. Here the water is the brightest blue I have ever seen. It's
picture postcard perfect! It seems that the locals from Union Island arrange beach b-b -ques for the tourists here but we'll save that experience for when Wiz is here. In the meantime we are sitting in the cockpit watching them have fun being mindful of the anchor. There is limited room
here as it is very popular. Tomorrow we will take the dinghy over to the reefs for some snorkeling.

I've started to try the local cuisine. Or rather eat whatever is available. All with success. My favourite so far is the mango coleslaw. Phil will eat anything so no worries there.

Date: 2017-01-07 16:53
Station ID: Pepper
Position: 12º 42.44'N:061º 19.68'W
Author: Hatty
Location: Canouan
Title: 07 Jan

We've spent 2 days in Canouan, Grand Bay. We had a lovely walk to the south of the island and saw locals getting the creatures out of the Conch shells. I tried a Conch Rotis (curried potato mixture in a wrap) which were really nice. We met and Italian lady and Brazilian chap on Petite
Prince. Shame they're heading north as they seemed fun. We looked around Tamarind Hotel-expensive and wifi is too and very slow. Mangrove Restaurant is better and serves good food. However, time to move on. The wind is currently ranging from 4-35 knots within the same minute-
most peculiar. Phil stayed awake all night watching the anchor alarm and eventually came to bed at 0500. It is beautiful here and the diving is one of the best in the Caribbean but with the gusts of strong winds we are moving on to Mayreau, Salt Whistle Bay (8nms south). It's a smaller
island 1.5 square miles with 300 population.

We're heading there in 20 mins.

Hope all's well xxx
Date: 2017-01-05 20:08
Station ID: Pepper
Author: Hatty
Location: St Lucia update
Title: 05 Jan 2017

Happy New Year to you all!!!

I am concerned that time and islands are passing us by and I have not updated the blogg. So here goes; I will try to put as much detail as succinctly as possible:

On arriving in St Lucia, Rodney Bay Marina we were met by ARC+ staff, a fruit basket, a bottle of rum and a rum punch. The rum punch set the mood and went straight to our heads. We arrived late evening in time for last orders at the bar. It was funny to see how we moored up the
previous night, so badly the following morning (most unprofessional) .Our first few days in St lucia were a bit of a blur-lots of rum punches and celebrations watching the other ARC+ boats arrive. We made many friends in Cape Verde so it was lovely to watch them come in through the day
and night. Rodney Bay was superb. Lots of shops, restaurants and boat facilities. The beach was nice too along with the bars with happy hour (buy one get two). We spent a good 5 days with all the yachts who sailed with us and it was quite sad to see them all leaving for other
adventures or returning home. We did however win 3rd prize which we were delighted with. Phil and I did 'race' across and were pleased being only double handed. We also got another bottle of rum for being radio controller. Like the idea of gaining a bottle of rum for talking! Win win!!
The atmosphere changed somewhat when the ARC (200+ yachts) started to arrive from LAs Palmas. Slowly to ARC + yachts were disappearing being taken over. Time to move on.

We spent almost 2 weeks in Rodney Bay repairing the fridge (topped up with gas). Then we headed a few miles (6nms) south to beautiful Marigot Bay where our fridge broke again (a further two times) so we had the compressor replaced and the system cleaned out-so far so good...
Marigot Bay saw Christmas in. We were able to use the 5 star hotel which had a great pool (with bar inside), gym and yoga classes all included in the moorings. We spent Christmas with our good friends from Spirit, Keith, Claire, Sami and Leo. Again another bar with happy hour this one
was called the Hurricane Hole. The weather, unfortunately, was diabolical constant rain 24/7. So we decided to stay here till 30 Dec because there was good wifi and we could keep ourselves busy. Here we hired a car and drove round the whole island-interesting that each side is so
different.

We then headed to Bequia (60 nms south) for New Year. The wind was 25 knots and the anchor wasn't holding very well so we stayed on board and watched the fireworks from Pepper. The restaurants are superb and the fruit market provided us with plenty of local produce to start
making Caribbean meals. We walked to Friendship Bay and round to Moon Hole which was fun but tiring. The dollar bus for the return saved our legs. We spent 4 days here using Afrikan's buoy. Spent time with Spirit and Capri. A stunning location. The fridge is holding up :-)

Today we have arrived in Canouan (18 nms south) and it is so peaceful and typically Caribbean. Bright blue ocean and white beaches dotted with palm tress. We are taking short stops on the islands to recce them for when Wiz arrives on 25 Jan in St Vincent. We will pick out the best
spots including Mustique (too expensive to stay twice so we'll save that island for when Wiz arrives).

I hope you are all well. Apologies for lack of updates, but we are still enjoying our adventure and each other. I will write more frequently and I hope you are up to date.

Again Happy New Year to you all.

xxx
Date: 2016-12-02 22:15
Station ID: Pepper
Author: Hatty
Location: Cape Verde to St Lucia Leg 2
Title: Land Ahoy!

WE SEE LAND!!!

And the tears have not stopped rolling down my face. The absolute relief is overwhelming: not that the journey has ended but that it is beginning and we have made the journey safely and the best we could to get here. We were able to see St Lucia just in time for the sun to set. We've
always come along side in the dark so why should SL be any different. I'm sure in the morning we will see its beauty. We think we'll be along side after midnight tonight. SL is 4 hours behind so we may get last orders (Phil's comment). The only damage to Pepper was her bicolour had been
knocked off, probably by one of the parasailor lines. Phil has a few twats to his head and I've a crushed finger. So that's just great. I note there are 13 ropes attached to the main sail, 7 to the parasailor. Pepper is busy with lines heavy but she has looked after us.

17 days out at sea and you all made it possible for us. Thank you all for all your help, advice, support, motivation and so much more:

Kids for lovely emails full of support
Laura and Trish for fleet updates
Peter Stableford for tactics
Mum for updates on life, Sean and Nana
Dad for updates on life and Sean-you can put the flag out now :-)
Rob and Sara for texts of support and handling our admin from home
David and Eileen for entertaining and funny emails
Klaus and Helene for being our best sailing friends with weather updates
Allison and Stewart for being great sailing friends and for setting us off on the journey 15 Aug
Aunty Annis and Doug for motivation and encouragement
Allan from Hawkehouse for helping me with upholstery
Bob and Claire for HF training and advice
James, Stuart and Tom for the Parasailor
Julian from GN Espace

There's so many of you but I'm overwhelmed right now; I apologise if I haven't mentioned you yet. But most of all - thank you Phil. He has been my strength throughout this journey. It's been frustrating at times with poor wind and changing sails constantly to go that little bit faster, but he's
ploughed on and has been fantastic. He has jumped around the bow and cockpit pulling strings and pushing round poles for 17 days in the blistering heat and rolling seas. Not many people could cope being together 24/7 but we've been a great team and I wouldn't - couldn't have done it
without him.

Now I would like to sit with Phil and watch the miles tick by till we reach Rodney Bay.
Thank you, thank you and goodnight.

Lots of love Hatty & Phil




Date: 2016-12-01 00:24
Station ID: Pepper
Author: Hatty
Location: Cape Verde to St Lucia Leg 2
Title: 325 nms left!

Happy 1st December!

We've heard it's frosty every morning and very cold in UK, we hope that you are not suffering too much.

Yep 325 nms left to go and the wind has been great over the last 12 hours and it is set to last, at least until we finish-fantastic news! It's between 13-18 knots and we've maxed 9.9 and averaged 7.0 this is what we needed. Not to mention we are surfing off some super waves. The
parasailor is up and has been most of the time. I feel as though I have done the sail a disservice. It's a super sail and engineered brilliantly, it's just that on a rolling sea hundreds of miles from land it's a bit intimidating and should anything go wrong we can't call RNLI out. Sailing on calm
waters with a steady wind along the Cornish Coast line cruising - perfect! I will look forward to cruising with it after this week when we don't have Enigma ahead of us to catch (number 2 at the moment).

It's fun to watch the GPS tell us how many hours we have left (TTD). If things carry on we'll arrive between Friday night and Saturday lunch. Obviously the TTD changes depending on our current speed. Tonight I saw it go as low as 42 hrs! That really means that tomorrow night is our last
night. We are both really tired and are finding it difficult to nod off. We've lost our sleeping pattern partly because the time is 3 hrs behind so UTC can be confusing when sun rises at 0950. We both stay in the cockpit in case things go wrong. The sail is like a new born baby, you watch
every move and listen to every sound-no respite. I am slightly envious of other boats with 4-8 crew but this is something we wanted to do together and we're really pleased with how things have gone. What's another 300 odd nms?

Tonight's game was naming British singers and pop groups. Interesting the diverse music knowledge Phil and I have. I swear he's made some up :-) We sang a few rugby, Beatles and Abba songs-badly too.

The air temp has changed considerably-it feels incredibly humid and much hotter. Looking forward to that first swim.

Phil's knee pads are working a treat. They end up around his calves as he crawls back into the cockpit most times. I will take some photos-he looks good honest!

Wind picking up so I'm going up on deck, so I'll finish off.

TTFN
xxx

Date: 2016-11-30 04:56
Station ID: Pepper
Author: Hatty
Location: Cape Verde to St Lucia Leg 2
Title: 3/4 done ! 29 Nov

Good morning,

We've had a lovely day today. I woke Phil up at 0400 begging him to get the parasailor up (difficult for one to manage and we promise not to go forward when dark and the other is down below asleep). The wind had gone up to 14 knots. He had only just gone to bed but it was agony
seeing brilliant wind for the first time and not take advantage of it. Up she went and she did really well. I sat trimming it for 7 hrs! Paying for it now-eyes very sore even wearing sunglasses. You shouldn't really need to trim a parasailor (pull different ropes attached to the sail to shape it for
better efficiency), but because it is so rolly the luff (front edge of sail) and leech (back edge of sail) kept collapsing in. Generally the sail will swing to sort itself out, not always, we had two wraps the previous day (luff and leach swap places and it twists; the sail-looks like one end of a
Christmas cracker) and it's a bugger to undo and a tad stressful. I thought about the times I've cried on this trip: once saying goodbye to Sean on the phone when we set off from Las Palmas, another when we left Las Palmas with all the music and crowds waving (Phil joined me for that
one) and twice over the parasailor! Twice! It's great when she's up with consistent wind speeds...too many things to go wrong with it and we're rolling all over the place on the bow preparing for hoisting it. However, she's been up all day and is still up (at night) and we're averaging 5.6, but
wind has varied a lot. At one point we nearly took it down. A few times it dropped and dragged in the water. Not pretty!

We saw lots of seaweed today, huge lumps of the stuff-surely that's a sign we're near land. Around 429.6 nms I reckon. For the last week a brown bird flies around us just before sunset. We've thrown out stale crackers- not interested, No other sea life :-( It's very black at night with no
moon, the stars look amazing and do offer some light. We have red light down below (does not affect night vision).

Folk refer to days of the week as Mon, Tue, Wed etc, we use Squall day, Jennifer day, Twin head sail day, Fridge broken down day. We also thought we'd never use data or look at computer screens anymore when we left work. All we've done is look at speed averages; VMG (velocity
made good (coming off course to gain more speed); comparing engine hours with generator hours and work out how many extra minutes are added on to overall time etc and actually we've been very much bombarded with numbers, data and staring at B&G (GPS) screens...so what's
changed? :-)


The fridge has been ok-ish. You're right David S that the gas is low. We've kept the temp quite high (over 10) so the motor doesn't burn out and it's really helped keep things fresh. The meat is stored closer to the cooling plate, it's a bit colder there. Fingers crossed we won't be throwing
anything away. Hamilton suggested turning the fridge upside down. Not sure what he's implying there: the fridge is fitted to the boat! :-)

We've been playing, 'Name a tv Programme' for the last 3 nights. It's been good fun and good to kick the memory. It's good to remember some of them too. We've mentioned everything from Tales of the Unexpected to Gladiators, Peaky Blinders to Generation Game. You should try it on
long car journeys or perhaps a non stop 17 day sail. Any age can play but two or more players is best.

Boats are starting to arrive at SL already, they must be thrilled to see land. Since we started this journey every time we have come into land it's been in the dark: La Carona, Bayona, Porto, Lisbon, Cadiz Lanzarotte, Las Palmas-all of them! We would really like, for once, to arrive at Rodney
Bay, SL in daylight! Pleeeeaaaseee! I know it won't matter what time as long as we arrive safely, but it's that law called Sod. It would also add some visual to the experience.

I hear strange noises on deck-Parasailor having a hissy fit no doubt.

Thinking of you all and not long whoop whoop!

XXX
Date: 2016-11-27 13:05
Station ID: Pepper
Author: Hatty
Location: Cape Verde to St Lucia Leg 2
Title: Not the best day!

Apologise for not writing yesterday-I was completely fed up with the poor wind of 6-8 knots from all directions. We must have done over 6 sail changes throughout the day to get the best speed. It was hot and lots of rain, which did bring some lift to the wind. Pepper is a heavy boat and
screeches along in knots over 15 (I may have mentioned this once or twice). In 6-8 knots the sails just slam around (sounds awful) and the slamming back and forth could damage the rigging. Furthermore, the two yachts Moana and Enigma who we've been fighting for 2nd/3rd place are
much lighter who do well in such winds. Seems a shame to lose out after so much hard work-there's a few days left-but wind is not improving (according to the forecast). It was probably best not to write because I would have moaned too much. Still today is marginally better although it's
confirmed Moana and Enigma have over taken us; we had our worst day ever of 4.4 average, Moana 5.0 and Enigma 5.5. I wish I could just relax, not be so competitive and just go with the flow but out here it means so much...The only hope is that the engine hours used or not used will
work in our favour. We won't know that until the committee have done the formula.

The good news is that I 'think' we've got the fridge working. I did some tweaking and cleaned everything out (it was starting to smell) and there is a sound coming from the compressor and the amps have gone up. The fridge was reading 20 and is reading 15 now-so fingers crossed. (I think
the gas in the system might be low-it's taken a few hours to come down). The down side is that all the meat (and there's tons of it) has defrosted so we have to eat it all in the next day or two! Still have last night's curry to finish off. The ARC is not an opportunity to lose weight. In addition, I
feel as though my legs have wasted away completely. You hardly use them really and climbing up the companion way seems a little tiring. Looking forward to a run when we hit land.

I volunteered to run the net today. That was exciting. All stations report their positions and wind and the net controller controls the station-funny ol' thing. It was fun, my thumb started to go numb on the PTT switch. I'm glad I volunteered to do it.

Not sure what to do for lunch today: chicken pieces, chicken breasts, beef, lamb, mince meat, bacon, pork chops, pork pieces...or left over curry.

Phil has just repaired the bilge pump in the engine room. It was making a strange churning sound, doubtful it was working effectively. Apparently it was blocked, now clear so all good there. Every noise on the boat is telling you something-you have to be so in tuned. We've both had
showers. There's a pile of dirty clothes and t-towels piling up in the front heads (bathroom). We've just filled a 2nd bag of rubbish which is good. We're still stuffing plastic into large plastic bottles-no smell and everything is contained. There's a few tomatoes, potatoes, carrots, onions,
oranges, and a marrow and butternut squash left and of course the dried and tinned stuff.

757 nms to go, we'll be 2/3 on 733 nms. Still seems a long way off. If we would do this journey again, we would wait until a better weather window that's for sure. One yacht has lost her main and is doing 2.3 knots under head sail. I shouldn't complain. That's one good thing with the ARC
is there is always someone close by to support you if things go wrong. Our friends who won the 1st leg are 233 nms behind. Different experiences all round.

We hope you've had a good weekend and are refreshed for the week ahead.

Fridge is down to 14! Off to open it to make lunch.

TTFN xxx
Date: 2016-11-25 23:33
Station ID: Pepper
Author: Hatty
Location: Cape Verde to St Lucia Leg 2
Title: Wind!!!

At last 18 knots of wind! We've averaged 6.7 in last 24 hrs and I believe we've over taken Moana and Enigma (again). Such a difference when it's like this. Lots to think about and have your senses perked up. We've had the parasailor up all day and again tonight. She's on her limit but
holding well. On a broad reach which can have a different pull on the parasailor.

Shame to hear about the ARC boat Noah, very upsetting.

We cannot fix the fridge and I'm in despair planning meals to ensure we use the best of the meat before it goes off. Luckily the meat has been vacuum packed which will help and they were all frozen before the fridge packed in. More importantly there's no way of cooling the champagne
down now when we get in. Hopefully we'll arrive in daylight and can buy some ice.

We didn't have our half way swim today. Too windy. But we had a tot of rum with our bacon rolls and fresh coffee for breakfast around 0900. Only 938.2 nms to go. If wind holds, we expect to arrive on 2nd Dec.

Lunch was last night's stew and for supper we had lamb curry (it's Friday after all)..

Hope your weekend is going great.

Lots of love.

xxx
Date: 2016-11-25 01:57
Station ID: Pepper
Author: Hatty
Location: Cape Verde to St Lucia Leg 2
Title: Dolphins!

Another slow day with poor winds of 8-9 knots, We've had the parasailor up all day and it seems to be doing ok. We've left it up tonight but we are spending our off watches in the cockpit in case a squall approaches and we need to get it down quickly. The auto pilot is set to 'wind' rather
than a 'bearing'. This way, should the wind shift, the boat will steer to match the wind angle; the sail stays full and doesn't collapse.

I clearly got my imperial and metric measurements wrong on last night's blogg. The sea is 5000 metres deep not miles. Are you thinking, 'oh that's not a lot then'? I zoom out on the GPS chart occasionally to see CV and St Lucia and it's rather nice to see our little boat is half way. We
should be exactly halfway tomorrow-time for our swim, but if the wind stays the same and we are doing 4 knots, I'm not sure I'm tempted to bring the sails down and slow the boat for a paddle with the sharks.

Dolphins arrived this evening, just after supper whilst watching the sunset (there is life out there). They were rather small and appeared bored (dolphin whisperers now); they didn't hang round long. Probably because we were going too slow and we provided little competition for their
entertainment.

You may have heard the yacht Noah from the ARC (the other fleet) took on water then eventually sank today. Crew were recovered thankfully but it's incredibly sad for a boat to go this way particularly for the owners. Parts of their boat were seen floating by-very sad.
I'm sure we'll get details when we land.

The really rubbish news is that the fridge may have packed up. It won't turn on. There's an awful lot of meat left in there (vacuum packed luckily) and at this speed we'll need all of it. We will have a look at it first light. It's too dark to be delving into cupboards and we need our eyes up on
deck. Hopefully we can sort it out. A day's blogg wouldn't be complete without an update on our rations so ham sandwiches for lunch and beef stew with mashed potatoes (not powdered) for supper. No table though-too many ropes in the cockpit. We have plenty of tinned and dried
rations should the meat go off, but I'll try to plan to make good use of it (that's if the fridge can't be repaired).

Phil is looking great, he's got a very healthy tan and the beard is looking great on him. For a couple to be 24/7 in such a confined space could have issues, but we are very content and are enjoying our time together. Yes, I think we'd both like to go a bit quicker but that's out of our hands.

Have a great Friday!

Thinking of you all.
xxx
Date: 2016-11-24 00:44
Station ID: Pepper
Author: Hatty
Location: Cape Verde to St Lucia Leg 2
Title: A rather pleasant day! 23 Nov

Good morning,

We hope Angus the big bully has left you all and you are able to get on with normal routine. Can't believe it's nearly December and people are telling me they're making mince pies. I have a jar of mince and a pudding from Sara but we'll save that for later. Mind you at this speed we may
well be having our Christmas out here. I imagine all the shops are full of Christmas cheer tempting you to put hands into pockets.

Today has been rather pleasant. I woke up to the sound of sails not engine which put a smile on my face straight away, saw Phil which put a glow in my heart. Wind was 6-8 and full main with LW genoa was up and we were doing a steady 5 knots. This stayed with us most of the day; it
was worth heading south to pick up the extra knot. To save fuel if nothing else.

It was so pleasant Phil let me open a few hatches to allow the air to circulate and get rid of many odours. Best not to have them open in case lines get caught and rip hatches etc, but today there seemed little concern with a steady gentle breeze. Still no sea life- not a fin flip or a sea spray
from a blow hole. And we have been looking. A couple of birds though. We've decided what to do for our halfway point. Weather dependant of course: We are going for a swim! It's 5000 m deep, the sea is the purest blue you could dream of and if the wind is how it's been today we
thought it would be something fun to do. Obviously one after the other- reminds me of that film where all the crew jump in and can't get back on board where there's been a baby left:-brrr shudder at the thought. The sea temp is 27.8. It's really interesting to see the temp rising as we're
heading W. Similarly the sun setting later on in the day. As you know we do 4 on 4 off. My off is 2000 and on route to CV we would be ready for night routine ie it's pitch black. Now at 2000 the sun is still in the sky. Not entirely sure how many time zones we've gone through. 15 degree
every hour-possibly 2...

Also, not sure how, but there's a mosquito lurking around. How he got out here we've no idea. We've also no idea why it keeps chomping us in daft places: knees, knuckles, why not the fleshy parts? Perhaps he couldn't cope with the extra weight. He's just as much right to be here as us
so the fly spray has been left in the cupboard. No we've not gone hippiesh 3D too early for that. You just feel that when you see a living creature out here, you acknowledge its life-I'll stop there!

Lunch was nice today: salmon with an assortment of salad products. We had the table set up this evening for supper (remember little wind). Rather than a hot pot (save that for when it gets colder, plenty lamb left) we had lamb, pepper and pineapple kebabs with a chili, lime and coriander
mayo dip with home made chips. We drank a whole bottle of white H2O toasted our lovely day with our plastic tumblers and watched the sun set- simply stunning!

The sunsets are rather amazing. I know everyone comments on sunsets on holiday. Out here every 45 degree angle and 30 seconds displays different cloud formations and colours of blues, pinks, purple, gold, orange and red. It's a full-on 360 display. The kind you'd expect to see in
those 360 cinema things. We've put half the bimini up to offer some respite from the day sun and the shade positions itself nicely in the cockpit. As the day passes and the sun moves forwards the sails offer shade-rather a good direction to be traveling in actually 3Dgot it all covered. We
send a hug with the sun to Wiz knowing it will be waking her up in HK during this time.

We're not sure on positioning, nor do we care at this time. The YB tracker will only pick out who is closest not engine hours (obviously). We hope we've done well. She's a big old boat with a lot of weight-beamy and we've done the best we can. Lighter boats will be doing incredibly well in
these conditions. Still it's not half way, which we think will be on Friday (swim day!), and anything can change. These winds are forecast for a further 5 days :-(

I'll end there, just to say it's been a lovely day totally stress free but please send us some wind.

Thinking of you all. Take special care of yourselves and each other.

xxx
Date: 2016-11-23 01:22
Station ID: Pepper
Author: Hatty
Location: Las Palmas to Cape Verde (CV)- Leg 1
Title: Frustrating Day 22 Nov

ZZZ that's all!

No wind! We have head sail up- but because we go faster than the wind (or rather breeze) the sail backs (goes the other way acting as a brake). Too light for the parasailor too. The swell doesn't help either and it's very swelly (not sure that's a nautical word) and the boat is rolly and
actually more dangerous to move around than if we had some 'way on' (movement through the water). At least you can gauge the next movement when you're under way. Most boats have engines on. We can tell that from the reports, difficult to do 6 knots in 4-6 knots of wind. It's
become a race as to who has the most fuel. Poor wind is set for 3 days. We're heading south to pick up the extra 1-2 knots they have down there. Most people have that idea too. The tracker must look quite interesting now. We're using the engine wisely to conserve fuel-might need
some at the other end and during that time zap up the fridge and make water. Thought about fishing but we're not going fast enough for the trace and worried about drag. One boat Boystrous has turned up on AIS. We always seem to end up near them-nice folk.. In fact Arcanum and
Enigma are lovely people too. It was good to meet everyone in CV-put a face to a name. There is a cut off to arrive so lots of maths working out if we have enough fuel and will we arrive in time. Those sailing might not make it in time I feel. It's getting the balance right I guess.

Shepherd's pie round two was equally lovely and for lunch we had tuna salad, new potatoes and a vinaigrette coleslaw (cabbage to use up). the fridge is starting to look empty and I'm planning on using the dried rations soon. It gives me something to think about whilst watching the sea.
Ice is being made for the half way point-still not sure what to have.

Not sure if you can explain this but we've noticed that looking into the sea, it looks like you can see the sea bed. We know this is not the case because it's 5000 m down. I thought it might be the different water temperature or saline changes levelling off and that's what we can see. The
sun's been shinning today and it's been interesting reading about types of weather patterns. We think Angus has nicked all the energy which is why the trade winds haven't kicked in yet. I'm sure we'd all agree Angus would be better off down here-heard about floods etc-poor ol' UK :-(

We've sailed for longer than leg 1 now so every nm and hour adds onto our longest time at sea. Still a long way to go. Grateful the Pacific has islands along the way.

Think that's our day so far, very slow and frustrating not like yesterday with squall day. Hope Angus leaves you all soon. Stay safe.

xxx
Date: 2016-11-22 11:56
Station ID: Pepper
Author: Hatty
Location: Las Palmas to Cape Verde (CV)- Leg 1
Title: Frustrating Day

A few of you are worried that we have lost a place maybe two.

Unfortunately the wind has dropped to 4 knots and will stay that way for everyone over the next 3 days. There is a cut off for arrival at St Lucia and we're not one to miss out on the arrival party or free berthing for the days we're expected so everyone including us is using their engine. The
'race' has become about who has the most diesel not sailing skills unless you want to lie ahull for a week. It's a real shame as we were doing so well picking off the bigger faster boats whilst sailing. However, the sun is shinning and things have dried out from the squall and we have tuna
salad for lunch. We are strictly monitoring our fuel consumption and feel that we don't mind about who comes in where now. We know we've done well.

Thinking of you all.

xxx
Date: 2016-11-22 01:23
Station ID: Pepper
Author: Hatty
Location: Las Palmas to Cape Verde (CV)- Leg 1
Title: Mon 21 Squall chasing

Happy Tuesday everyone!

We hope you are all keeping well and warm. Couldn't imagine how cold it must be in UK.

We've had the best sailing today! We've been chasing squalls. You may remember the film in the 90s where a team of researchers chase twisters to see how they work by chucking silver receiver things inside them. We've done something almost similar - hunting squalls. Odd I know, one
imagines danger and big seas, but the squalls we've had carry 18 knots of wind on the leading edge (and a wee bit of rain). Anywhere else is around 5 knots. Our lovely Pepper at 18 ton won't shift in such light winds. It seems we were lucky because we had a day of squalls and we were
sitting comfortably doing 7 knots. Wind from the south on a port REACH ( no trade winds yet). That lasted throughout the day until sunset (which was beautiful). After sunset the wind dropped to 2-3 knots and I'm afraid to say, we had to turn the engine on. This is set for the next day or two.
Everyone is in the same 'boat' - ha ha. With light airs and a heavy swell the sails just flap, or rather slam, bash, crash against the rigging. And apart from the potential damage it may cause, it's heart breaking to hear such sounds. We've a long way to go and we need to look after her.
She's stood by us so far.

We had a bit of a worry with the engine at first. Not sure why, tiredness, darkness, but Phil accidentally turned off the water inlet valve to the engine. You may be gasping at this point knowing what happens next. Yep: engine overheats. So very quickly the covers were open by torch light,
thorough checks and top up of water, and it was ok. The thought of coming along side in St Lucia under sail, doable, is not something we'd be wanting to do after such a long journey.

The flying fish seem to be much bigger out here. Early this morning I heard one land flapping about in the cock pit. I'd heard stories of them taking your eyes out. In the dark I couldn't see it but hearing it flapping for its life was quite upsetting. It was behind the wheel 8 inches dead this
morning. That would have taken your block off not your eyes out. If they can fly on to the boat, why can't they fly off?

We had shepherd's pie and tinned runner beans for supper. The beans always remind me of when I was young. Must have been something we had as children with our corned beef (dog) on Sundays. I've started on the fresh meat with what fresh veg is left. Really yummy and as usual,
made enough for tomorrow: with the other half tin of runner beans. It was the first time we fancied a glass of white wine tonight; not sure why. Might save that for the half way point. We were always amazed at how much rubbish our house accumulated in Salisbury and my concern was
what to do with the rubbish on board- after all you can't just chuck it over board. The food stuff goes over, carrot ends, potato peel etc. We planned well before we left by decanting cereals into containers and binning cardboard for example. On board plastic waste gets cut up and stuffed
into plastic bottles. Tins get crushed. We're still on the first bag which is good. Actually it might be because we're not drinking plonk or having take-aways. Hand washing was done today (machine will wait till St Lucia) and it does dry slowly but better when the sun is shinning.

I think they've got this boat material thing all wrong. What you need to do is remove teak decking and lay industrial velcro. Crew can wear velcro shoes, pads for knees, forearms, hands and bum (optional-size dependant). You could vary the colour to match the boat and crew can wear
their velcro pads, along with their life jackets, whilst walking around Cowes...just a thought.

We love receiving your emails with updates-thank you so much. Address: MHXG3@sailmail.com. We've no idea what's going on in the world and who is winning 'Strictly'.

We've not seen a soul all day-a bit annoying, it's good to have a 'target' to catch up with. But also no sea life, well living anyway. Seems the ocean is empty at the moment. I did think we'd feel intimidated by the vastness of the ocean, but I think, because you can see up to the horizon it
doesn't seem too bad. I hope I'm not being naive. The water is really beautiful and looks incredibly pure, Parker ink blue.

I think that's pretty much all the news. It isn't ground hog day-not really. The sea, sky, wind, dramas etc all vary from day to day and bring new experiences and challenges. We're learning loads. We love what we're doing and we have a very well run and organised team/boat. We think
of you all and miss you very much. Looking forward to hearing from you.

H&P xxx

Date: 2016-11-20 19:57
Station ID: Pepper
Position: 16º 28.57'N:034º 07.36'W
Author: Hatty
Location: Las Palmas to Cape Verde (CV)- Leg 1
Title: Start of Blogg

Morning all,

I've been mindful that our experiences are passing by and our memories of them are fading and I have yet to put 'pen to paper' of our journey this leg. I'll do the best I can to bring you up to date and hopefully I will stay on top writing daily ones from now on. The reason for not getting started
is that we actually haven't stopped; the wind has been all over the place and at different speeds (not quite like the trade winds you'd expect) and because of this our sail plan has changed so many times that we're either busy tweaking sails, eating, trying to dry off (yes it's raining loads) or
getting some sleep, so writing a blogg was a wee bit low on my list. However this morning, unpredicted weather, we have good winds and surprisingly on the beam so doing rather nicely. In fact so nice, I've let Phil have a lie in. So I can catch up with this journey so far.

Cape Verde was different. It certainly felt like we had actually arrived somewhere overseas. Not like somewhere in Europe which can actually feel quite the same, but CV felt a foreign country. The locals are from Africa, speak Portuguese and the extremes of wealth and poverty were
evident. Beggars were outside the marina shifting through our rubbish taking what food they could, stray dogs everywhere. Very sad but nice people, nice place, but we were glad to leave. Our day trip to the northern island was fantastic. Obviously volcanic, the lava was pushed so high
(over 1000m) that the topography is incredibly dramatic. Someone said it was similar to Thailand or Hawaii. There is one road that goes over the top with a sheer drop either side, space for two cars only. That journey went on for a few hours meandering around the mountains. Luckily the
minibus driver knew 2nd gear only. Stunning landscape. We topped up our fresh rations, repaired the autohelm-thank you John, Arcanum, walked to the white beach, fell out with the noisy Germans next door (0200 loud music). I sat there shinning the bird scarer (very bright light) at them
after asking them nicely to turn it down. The light worked... Met others from ARC+. This was the first time we were all together and not mixed with the ARC. It was good to meet the others including one lovely lady Viv who knows all of Phil's family in Looe-small world. We also won 2nd
place for our class which was nice.

We left on the Wednesday at 1300 start time. Poor winds so a frustrating start. Seeing all the yachts moving at their steady pace was great and as night fell the green, red and white (unfortunately (stern)) lights started to drift apart to their own adventures and chosen waters. We got the
parasailor up and a few commented on it with envy on the VHF. (If only they knew the difficulties that it can bring) Frustratingly the wind dropped to 1.9 knots and an 18 ton boat cannot be moved. With no way on (no speed-no steerage) and boats surrounding us we put the donkey on-for
no more than an hour! ( Not being penalized again). Then put up white sails. Just off full moon-a lovely evening.

I've lost track of how long we've been out now, but we've been caught in squalls, rain clouds, rainbows and lightning-all good fun. We've eaten really well. My plan was to eat the fresh produce before it turned and work around fruit and veg adding meat as and when. We didn't throw
anything away on the last leg. Folk prepared meals, kept them in the fridge, but also bought fresh produce. They ate the prepared meals so no wonder the fresh stuff went off. The only thing we prepared was egg mayo sarnies for the start. Then cooked on route. Phil had a shower in a
squall, photos to follow :-) Rain stopped when soaped up so used warm water to rinse. Yes it's quite cold and we've worn our oilies and fleeces. Not quite like the temperature ( or trade winds) we were expecting. Speaking of trade winds or the lack of them, we've changed the sail plan so
many times in the last 48 hrs, I've given up recording them in the log. Parasailor, poled out head, poled out twin heads, reef in reef out, preventer on, preventer off. So many strings on this boat-unbelievable. Now I know them in the dark by the texture and oddly the smell of them. Can't see
colour and best not to use white light or you'll lose night vision. (You could close one eye I guess...that way you keep night vision).

We radio in with our positions and wind info still. We receive positions, distance left, average speed of other boats along with weather forecast. That along with great emails with regular updates on daily life and what position we're in (not that we're racing) keeps us focussed and motivated.
TY Laura, Trish for updates and Peter Stableford with tactics and strategies.

Sean had his op removing tonsils and it made my day calling him on satphone. He's a little sore but glad they've gone (2 lots of quinsey-not good). He also got promoted so that's something brilliant. I'll be sure to celebrate that when I hit land. Already excited about seeing land and only 1/4
done.

Pepper has been great, we're staying safe and sailing efficiently. I'll write more tomorrow, but I hope that's brought you up with our adventure- very tired now and it's 1 1/2 hours passed my off watch but good to catch up on stuff. I'm very tired so apologies for spelling grammar etc.

Night all, or rather good morning and have a great Monday! xxx
Date: 2016-11-11 15:11
Station ID: Pepper
Position: 17º 29.89'N:024º 34.08'W
Author: Hatty
Location: Las Palmas to Cape Verde (CV)- Leg 1
Title: Last few miles

Good afternoon all,

At long last there is a blue sky, unfortunately the wind has dropped to 17 knots (Pepper is at her best in stronger winds). We've 44 nms left to go! We've had a shower, cleaned the boat a bit and are looking forward to coming along side in Mindelo. We've received some excellent emails of
good will which have been fantastic-thank you. Our email is: MHXG3@sailmail.com

With the wind dying down we've been thinking about how to get the boat going faster as we believe we are 2nd in our class, possibly 27 overall ( obviously handicap and engine hours may change that for everyone- annoyingly they have us as 13000 ton not 18000, but we were late to
protest). So our plan was to shake out the reef in the mainsail and put up the longer pole and take out the headsail reef. This was the first time we'd used the other longer pole (lesson to be learnt there). Anyway the pole has two sections for extending, one inside the other, there are
buttons along the top and bottom which allows the pole to extend. The waves are very rolly and every bit of our bodies are clinging to stay on. Phil asks me to push the button in outer section in the pole to release the inner section. As I do so he yanks out the inner section with my finger
still inside the hole where the button once was. I hope I've explained this, but to keep a long story short, I nearly had the top of my finger off, blood everywhere with a cut in a very neat circle all round. I did yelp, I did run back down below for some ice and I did stuff a ton of pain killers to
numb the pain. Luckily, it's intact and the pain killers are working. Lesson learned there-know your equipment, practice using it and enjoy the last bit of the journey or you'll make mistakes. It is parasailor conditions, but we're calling that sail change off for awhile.

Apart from that my Aunty Annis gave me a soup cook book which we have been using daily. I always wondered why we have all the ingredients required and why were we always hungry by 1500. The book is a slimming world one! Haribos anyone?

We've had a load of flying fish land on the boat. Apparently there's some tradition that the skipper eats the first one landed-they're only 3 inches long so we'll give that one a miss.

We think, according to GPS, we will arrive in Mindelo around 2100-2300 all things going as they are. We will go to the bar and enjoy a good night sleep after. Looking forward to speaking to you on Saturday.

Hope all is well and you're enjoying watching the fleet make its way down on YB Races.

Take care of yourselves and avoid sticking your fingers in where they don't belong.

xxx
Date: 2016-11-10 04:23
Station ID: Pepper
Position: 20º 48.79'N:021º 54.97'W
Author: Hatty
Location: Las Palmas to Cape Verde (CV)- Leg 1
Title: Thu 10 Nov

Morning all,
Well we're over half way and I've finished my stag: midnight-0400 and it's so black out there you can't see where the sea ends and the sky starts. It's overcast so you can't see any saucepans in the sky-not quite what I was expecting. Still wearing a fleece, probably more for protection
bouncing around the cockpit than feeling cold. Phil has a rather dapper pair of white plastic sandal things on which protect his toes, not sure they go with the 'man-up' beard. Lots of phosphorous lights floating past in the sea though. We've got a reef in the main, two in the head sail polled
out. The wind occasionally catches at the front of the head sail causing it to collapse which is particularly worrying-there's a loud slapping sound and the whole rigging and boat shudder. We've put the pole forward which helps a bit because we need to stay on course rather than steer
more down wind, but it's a tad slower. Wind doing 25-29 knots. Pepper averaging 7-8 knots. We are 6nms in front of Boystrous so all that concentration paid off. She's in a higher class though and I do believe there is Sea to Sky a catamaran ahead. The boat that is in our class is
Arcanum, according to the positions we received today she is the only one ahead of us - perhaps you can see more on the YB Races. I think I mentioned we are not racing but it's good to see Pepper's capabilities and develop our skills in correct sail planning to steer her as quickly and as
safely as possible which is our agenda.

Phil has had some good rest today which is good. Thank you Trish for your lovely email, cheered me up at 0400 this morning. Miss those chillis : =3D) I'm sure the bathroom will be worth it one it's finished. Not quite =
like a MQ ahy?

Steak, chips and salad for supper which was lovely (you won't get fed that on a plane George & Sean). We lost a grapefruit over board-it just decided to go for a swim. Actually watching it shoot off was a reality check for how quickly you could lose sight if MOB. Trick is not to fall in I
guess. We used 14 tomatoes up for lunch Aunty Annis gave me a soup book so we had a tomato soup with rolls. It took me some time to find the two sections of the whisk thing. Didn't think to store them together of course... one section was in the cake/bread making cupboard and the
other in the saucepan cupboard. We had a late lunch.

We heard the news about Trump. Probably a good thing we're away, but it is good to hear what is going on in the world. Interesting times ahead.

290 nms to go and already we're getting excited. I appreciate that the next leg is longer but you prepare yourself mentally for the distance and when it's that last bit of nearing your destination, you want to just hurry up and get there. I suppose the same feeling in a long car journey.

Sean is having his tonsils out on the 18 Nov- having had Quinsey twice! I'll be out at sea during that time, so I hope you'll cheer him up with emails/FB messages. He'll like that :-)

We hope you are keeping warm and taking care of yourselves.
Lots of love

P&H XXX

Date: 2016-11-09 09:47
Station ID: Pepper
Position: 22º 39.44'N:020º 24.94'W
Author: Hatty
Location: Las Palmas to Cape Verde (CV)- Leg 1
Title: Wed 09 Nov

Morning all,
Hope you are all well. Apologies for not writing sooner-we have had a rather interesting 36 hours. We currently have three reefs in the main and three in the head sail-it's blowing 25-30, gusting to 34 knots. For those unfamiliar with sailing, generally a nice 12 knots with the whole sail is
rather pleasant. However, last night Pepper probably tipped her fastest time (feel a drum roll here) 16.7 knots!!! Little Tinker! Again those unfamiliar with such talk, 6-8 knots is again rather pleasant. She was on top of the biggest wave (no tautology) and the wind gusted 32, so she just
flew! Amazing! Although hit a 4 knot speed at the bottom. Makes me wish I did Clipper racing. We have a couple of rivals either side of us. Boystrous was 14 nms ahead a few nights ago; we caught her up but we can't seem to shift her. Allende to our port is a catamaran. We can't really
see them because it's very overcast out there and the sea has huge waves- very grey indeed. No 50 shades going on here, just dark grey the sea, and light grey the sky. Both other yachts should be watching us in their rear view mirror-they've more water line and faster than us. So we
think we're doing ok at 8-10 knots.

We have to report our position and wind state daily to a controller and the ARC team send an excellent weather forecast (we might not always be pleased with what's ahead mind). We think we're doing ok, but can't see the YB tracker that you are all using. Hope that's going well for you
all. I was fixed watching last year's.

We're eating really well. Cereals for breakfast, sandwiches for lunch and which ever vegetable falls into the cockpit from our hanging net gets eaten with some meat. Last night a leak, carrot and a couple of potatoes were playing in the cockpit, so I cooked them in a pressure cooker,
added a bit of cream and black pepper; along with a couple of grilled pork chops really nice. This morning I was greeted by an onion and a sweet potato along the starboard toe rail. We've got steak tonight and I'll chip the potato and make a ratatouie (no idea how to spell that). We've a
mountain of tomatoes still so they'll be made into a soup- I think I've some coriander tinkering away somewhere. Not the weather conditions for fishing at this time.

Phil's having difficulty sleeping. We've just had our 3rd night but it's very noisy down below as you can imagine. I'm lucky I can sleep on a chicken's lip. He's asleep now. I've spent the last hour going around placing tea towels in every cupboard where there's a rattle. Hope I can find
those later. We decided not to do the 6 on 6 off-it was too long in the evening to be on your own, so we're back to 4 on 4 off. We spend a few hours in the day together, setting sails, checking the boat, cleaning, throwing out rotten veg/fruit etc. I think I'll let him lie in today.

Thank you for the tourist information Peter Symons, unfortunately if we turned to Port the waves would be on our broad side. And I've heard it's rather nice in Cape Verde this time of year :-)

Thank you for the emails of news reports and general morale boosters although informing us of how many more miles to go, at this time, is a wee bit... urk, and our GPS is telling us of that. We've 432 nms left so we're nearly at the half way mark on Leg one.

I'm itching to see where Boystrous and Allende are, not that we're racing, so I'll close now. We're both doing really well and Pepper is in her element.

We think of you all and are looking forward to Saturday when we expect to arrive in Mindelo to call you and hear your news.
Love to all, take special care.

P&H xxx
Date: 2016-11-06 16:36
Station ID: Pepper
Position: 27º 54.43'N:015º 19.66'W
Author: Hatty
Location: Las Palmas to Cape Verde (CV)- Leg 1
Title: Mon 06 Nov

Good afternoon all,

And we're off! At long last. Thank you all for your well wishes on FB, text or phone calls etc-they really meant a lot to us. As we left Las Palmas hundreds of people were sitting on the wall waving us off with loud music and toots everywhere. Incredible to see and incredibly emotional. We
both had tears in our eyes.

For those using the free YB Races app, you will notice before 1300 we were bimbling around waiting for the 1300 start, Yachts will be penalized 3 hours if you cross too early. The YB tracker updates itself every 4 hours so if we appear not to have moved very far, wait for the 4th hour.
There's some amazing boats out with interesting sail configurations. We ranked quite low in the handicap (in our favour), so positions etc will be adjusted once we arrive in Cape Verde (5 day stop over). Thank you for your sound advice: keep away from the start line early due to potential
crashes many people will be nervous, zealous, inexperienced etc best not to get involve (Peter Stapleford x). There was very little wind around so a bit of frustration at the start, but everyone crossed and was safe so that's fantastic. We've already seen two lots of dolphins, eaten two
carrots (only another 26 to get through) and had the engine on for 15 mins- wind died to 2 knots :-( Engines are allowed on but overall timings will be adjusted. Our tactic is to use it now because we know the wind picks up later and we'd like to remain with the fleet as others are using
engines too. Also the YB app shows those who are closest to the finish point, not who is necessarily the lead-not that we're racing...honest :-)

It's a bit too early to start routine, but there's a curry made ready for tonight and egg mayo sandwiches made up for lunch. We have to conserve our water because CV has very little, is expensive and we'd need it for the 2nd leg. No showers for a week! I won't go into detail but we can
wash in other ways.

We met some great folk in Las Palmas: our Italian neighours Angelo and Lucie either side of us. Sweedish Carlston and Vinnie, Bob and Claire from UK who checked our SSB stuff, Chris Ali and Peter on Cherish-just a few. The seminars were great, really interesting and helped bring some
knowledge to the forefront of the brain. We did a lot of work on the boat: fixed water maker and auto helm. Hired a car and saw the whole of the island. Phil had his 60th and was treated to a complete SCUBA kit. We bought a ton of meet, fruit and veg. We washed the fruit and veg in
milton before landing it on Pepper to remove any insect eggs and the boat is piled up with net bags of potatoes, cabbages, carrots, onions, peppers, 3 stages of tomatoes ripeness, apples, pears oranges, lemons, limes, corgettes and probably some other stuff that I can't remember 1:-what it
is or 2:- where it is.

I'll sign off for now, but hope to write a couple of times a day. Thank you all again for your kind words, we miss you all terribly but know you all support us with this adventure. Virtual hug to you all.

H&P xxx

Date: 2016-10-19 19:43
Station ID: Pepper
Position: 28º 20.91'N:014º 53.72'W
Author: Hatty
Location: Leg to Las Palmas
Title: 19 Oct

Evening all,

Can't believe it's been nearly a month since our last entry. We've had a busy and wonderful few weeks. Rubicon Marina was fantastic. We used the marina swimming pool; anchored off a bay and swam to the beach (nudist beach); tried most of the tapas bars; spent time with our good
Austrian friends Helene and Klaus; my friend Trish visited us from UK and cooked the best chili ever; we flew back to UK for 9 days saw Rob, Sara, Lucy, Maggie and Jimmy had an excellent belly pork dinner and was advised on cooking fish (tbc); visited my nana, my brother and his family
We stayed over at Amanda's house in Basingstoke (although she was on an ex in America). John and Emily Amanda's husband and daughter) hosted us and there was sufficient room for Sean and Vicki (Sean's girlfriend) Vicky and Billy, George and Emily's boyfriend James to stay-thank
you for this opportunity. It was really great to see everyone all at once. Phil spent his last day of 41 years in the army and received some lovely gifts including champagne which is being kept for the Carribean and was treated to a lovely lunch by Ian-thank you. It was a full week. We were
also able to buy things for Pepper, charts, autohelm etc. Just paid for extra baggage.

We flew back early Mon morning to see Pepper looking perfect. Helene and Klaus joined us for supper where I cooked the fish I'd bought earlier in the day served with ratatouie and potatoes. (I have more confidence in cooking fish now) The next day Pepper was lifted out to clean the
bottom and replace anodes. We were parked next to our friends who are having problems with their rudder.

So today we are heading for Las Palmas. It's 95nms away but because we are reaching 7 knots we'll arrive early in the morning 0100-0300. We're on a broad reach with 17 knots of wind main reefed once. Sky a bit overcast so poor light tonight. We are contacting Helene and Klaus on HF
at regular intervals. They're heading for Tenerfie but will join us for Phil's 60th birthday on the 27th.

It was lovely to see all our family and friends in UK. Very sad to say goodbye again. We love and miss you all and hope you will visit us soon.

Lots of love,

P&H xxx

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