Happy Holidays from Guadeloupe!

After the Christmas winds died down, we decided to say goodbye to Deshaies and head south to explore more of Guadeloupe.

Pigeon Island

Our first stop was Pigeon Island. The reef and sea life inside the Cousteau Nation Park is protected, meaning that anchoring and fishing is strictly forbidden. We anchored in the nearby cove for a couple of nights. We broke out the dive hookah and went exploring underwater. The water was the clearest we’ve seen since the Bahamas and the coral formations were just breathtaking. We hardly even noticed that it was raining buckets the entire time we were out. We dove until our flippers gave us blisters, then returned to the boat for another rolly night. Even though the winds had calmed down, it would be a few days before the seas followed suit. read more

And the New Name is…

When we adopted Jaela last year we decided right away that we would rename her. “Jaela” wasn’t as bad as Baxter’s pound name, “Coco Puff”, but we could come up with something better. After two days of reviewing dog (and people) name lists, we decided to stick with Jaela after all. It was just easier. read more

Operation Cushion Update: Completed

I am a domestic goddess! Okay, that’s a bit of a stretch, but we finally finished updating the salon cushions and they are divine. After reading Jody’s (Where the Coconuts Grow) DIY Cushions post and watching some Sailrite videos, I was convinced that updating our cushions would be a breeze.  They made it look so easy. Who cares that I’ve never really sewn before?  My recent throw pillow success had me filled with confidence. read more

One Step Forward…Two Steps Back

Well, we’ve had our boat for a week now and we’ve already learned that owning a sailboat is HARDWORK. We’ve been working very long days. The good news is that we are becoming very familiar with our boat’s systems. The bad news is that every time we fix something, we discover two more things that require maintenance in the process. We were testing the hot water heater, when our fresh water pump failed. We cleaned out the anchor chain locker only to find that the windlass and raw water wash down pump weren’t working. Thus, our to-do list is growing faster than we can cross items off. read more