Time to begin heading north

BeBe will be on passage north to Grenada when this post is published.  We are sailing in a little informal flotilla of 7 boats.  Hurricane season will not be over until the end of November but the Atlantic is calm at this time and all 7 boats are sailing up to Grenada.  We hope to meet up with friends there for a few days for the final time; they then will be sailing west to the South Pacific and we will continue north to the Virgin Islands.

We had planned to sail non-stop from Grenada to the British Virgin Islands, but now have had second thoughts.  There is no reason for us to hurry as the new owners do not arrive in the Virgin Islands until 11 January -- except that the wind traditionally begins to switch predominant direction during November from SE of the summer to NE of the winter and we do NOT want to be forced into headwinds because we dallied too long down-island.  Careful eye to the weather, as always.

Things I will miss about Trinidad:  the friendly people and flavorful ethnic foods.

Things I will not miss about Trinidad:  the heat, humidity and biting noseeums.  I swear Trinidad is as bad as Houston or New Orleans for heat and humidity.  Of course, this is no surprise as we are on the same latitude as Cochin, India.  I am holding out high hopes for cooler weather at 18N than it is here at 10N.  As we leave here I feel as though I have been eaten alive by noseeums.  Not a single other person around me has been bitten.  I have been covered with the strongest insect repellents available, yet I am the one who has dozens of very itchy bites.  PLEASE let there be no more of these noseeums at any of the places we stop going north!

After catching up with friends in Grenada we now favor island hopping north rather than sailing non-stop to the BVI.  Both Bill and I would enjoy visiting Ile des Saintes one final time, indisputably our single favorite island in the entire Caribbean.  If the wind changes direction while we are still island hopping north, we should be able to turn NW at any point and get on over to the Virgins without difficulty (or headwinds!).

Forward cabin is now a storage space.  Port side leeboard in place
and ready to set sail northward.  Should be a starboard tack for the
entire trip to the Virgin Islands; these boxes should ride fine.

And our destination has been changed from the BVI to St. John in the USVI. I have taken advantage of being berthed in Trinidad with no busy social schedule and have packed up boxes of things to be mailed back to Texas.  I have 9 boxes of media (books, CDs and DVDs) that will be mailed via the US Postal Service from St. John to Texas.  Love that domestic postal rate and especially that ultra-inexpensive media rate!  

According to the USPS website the post office in St. John should have stock of the flat-rate boxes in the sizes we need.  Rather than ship our things back to Texas we have decided to mail things home.  Bill is convinced that the post offices in the USVI will have stock of the flat-rate boxes which we need.  I am not convinced those boxes will be stocked in those locations.  So....in order to be prepared (as always; it is my neurotic weakness)...I have collected what boxes were available from the local supermarket.  The boxes were saturated with roach spray before being allowed on our boat.  These are reserved as our last resort in case the post office has no flat-rate boxes in stock and there are no small heavier moving boxes available for sale in the USVI.  Moving is stressful!!

Do not look for more postings on this blog for weeks.  As we will be island hopping, we will not purchase data sims because each island has a different system.  Therefore, unless we just happen upon some open WiFi somewhere, I will not be updating this blog any time soon.