Passage to the Virgins

From The Saintes to the Virgins straight is about 220+ miles.  This means passing many great islands like Guadeloupe, Montserrat, Nevis, St Kitts, Statia, St Bath's, St. Martin and Saba without stopping to explore.  In fact, Guadeloupe is the only island we passed in daylight.  We passed most of them in the dark.

Captain Tom had set our course to sail up Guadeloupe's leeward side but then to bear northeasterly in order to pass on the windward side of the next string of islands in the chain.  This ensured us what sailors call "clean air", or uninterrupted trade winds in this case, and made for fantastic sailing.  We were very lucky because we had the 20-30 knots this big boat needs to pick up her skirts, but the seas never seemed too bad.  Of course, this is all part of the joy of sailing off the wind (relatively downwind).  Going the other way would have been murder!

The sun was just heading to the horizon as we passed Montserrat.  Montserrat once was the island of the rich and famous.  Many celebrities had homes there as did well-to-do Americans, Canadians and British.  

In 1989 the island was hit hard by Hurrican Hugo.  In NYC I had neighbors with a condo on Montserrat ands the hurricane experience was hugely traumatic.

Then in 1995, the year of more ravaging hurricanes (including Marilyn that caused so much damage in St. Thomas), the truly unexpected happened, the dormant volcano at the southern end of the island erupted.  Lava and ash covered crops, houses, and streets.  In 1997, the year Don and I first sailed to Trinidad on Whisper, the volcano had another major eruption forcing authorities to shut down the capital city of Plymouth and more than half the island.  Some two thirds of the population left the island, while those remaining settled around the north end. 

In 1999, Don and I stopped off in Montserrat's tiny northern anchorage on the first leg of our outbound journey to the South Pacific. The hardy survivors have rebuilt a community there.  In the morning we beat hard into the wind back around the northern tip in order to sail past the island's on its windward side.  Nobody wants burning ash on their sails and deck!  We passed fairly close by on that safe side and could see isolated houses still standing, but engulfed by lava and ash.

In 2003 the volcano's dome collapsed and it was thought the beast within might be going to sleep.  However, it has not been so.  There have been several more eruptions, including a major one in 2010, and cleanup and partial re opening of Plymouth was aborted.

With dusk approaching, we did not sail as close to the island as Don and I did fifteen years ago, but with binoculars it was close enough to see that no houses remained visible.

As dark fell, Don and I shared the first two watches of the night from six to midnight.  Sombrero-shaped Nevis was fringed in lights, next St. Kitts.  Away off to the east we could see the lume of Antigua.  

Overhead, the sky was a swirl of mixed clouds, fair weather cumulus below, dappled cirrus clouds aloft, and swashes of filmy hazy between them.  The quarter moon sought gaps to shine pearly white ovals of light onto the waves, there one minute and then gone.  Then abruptly the gauzy haze cleared, and we could finally make out stars, bright through the gaps.  The ride was grand.  We are getting accustomed to this catamaran motion and spoiled by speeds like 7-9 knots.

Abruptly I was gripped with an illusion of returning home, an illusion, definitely, as we left out two rather major legs -- the Indian Ocean and the Atlantic, both of which, ironically, we could have done aboard Quantum Leap had we been able.  But the feeling was no less strong for that, for this would have been the route we would have taken to close our circle.

When we came topside at six a.m, the last island in the chain, Saba, was receding on the horizon behind us.  Saba has been a favorite over many years.  in the past, we would have stopped to visit with my good friends and mentors Rob and Barb Newnam who settled there a few years after our service together on the Aquanaut ships.  Sadly, though about my age, first Rob then Barb passed in recent years.  I sent my good wishes winging in the wind back to their spirits, which surely remain there in the place they so loved.

It took us pretty much all day to slog our way across the Anegada Passage.  The Anegada Passage, a great gap of water between the Virgin Islands and St. Martin and Saba, is one of the bears of southbound navigators, with currents setting the boat hard away from the destination and winds on the nose.  With the great  tradewinds we'd been having and being northbound, we were optimistic about a sleigh ride.  Didn't happen.  The winds inexplicably went light and dead astern.  It took us forever to raise the Virgins on the horizon.