The Pimentel Family visits

Posted on April 6, 2013 by

In the four months since Brian left us in Grenada, Makai only had to deal with the five of us us plus Topaz.  Here in the British Virgin Islands we’ve scheduled all of our guests to join us.  Why BVI? There are more islands and anchorages than we could possibly explore, it’s easy to have great sailing days without leaving the country and modifying the crew list, access to the airport is a short dinghy ride and a short walk away.

Each guest offers us a new experience on Makai. We’ve been waiting for the Pimentel family to show us how to have fun on a Leopard 47, because they have experience.  In the fall of 2009, Rodney, Jane, RJ and Leo shipped a pallet of stuff to St. Lucia where Azure II was waiting for them.  From there they cruised the Caribbean Islands and the Mediterranean Sea, leaving the boat in the Canary Islands at the end of their adventure.  December of 2011 Rodney and Eric along with Jamie and George sailed Azure II across the Atlantic Ocean in 17 days to Grenada where she was renamed Makai and waited there for us to move aboard at the end of 2012.

We visited the Pimentels on Azure II April of 2010 here in the British Virgin Islands, and now here they are visiting us.  It’s sooo cooool!

After a late night of excitement and catching up, we headed out looking for something fun to do. First off, lets put up the spinnaker and see if Rodney has any tips for us.  Yes indeed, we learned this and that, tell us more Rodney.

The weather was beautiful and mooring balls were available, so our first stop is the Rhone, our favorite dive site.

Rhone Dive

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 When the Rhone sunk, the boilers exploded and the ship was ripped in two pieces, so the stern and bow are a short distance from each other.  I hadn’t taken the kids to the bow portion because it is documented to be 70 feet deep and their Jr. certification doesn’t allow them to go that deep.  We cruised past the stern, rudder and propeller, along the drive shaft, past the hole where Genny found Lobzilla, off to the right and into the bow section.  At the opening of the hull, two more huge lobsters were enjoying life in the national park.  We met divers from a local shop swimming out of the hull so figured it was ok to go in.  There is a nice clear path through the hull to the other side where the mast and pointy end of the ship rested.

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The next stop is Deadman’s Bay, across from Deadman’s Chest Island.  Dead Chest Island reputedly got its name when the notorious Blackbeard, after a mutiny, put 15 men ashore on this island with only a bottle of rum, hence the song: “15 men on a dead man’s chest, yo ho ho and a bottle of rum.”  We enjoyed the snorkeling in this bay the other day, the huge school of fish and 4 foot tarpon were impressive.

Deadman’s Bay

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Unfortunately, the weather was getting nasty and we decided to bail on the anchorage when it was still time to move before dark.  Back to our favorite Peter Island anchorage with the wind turbines.  Saturday we had a nice walk on land, another snorkel, and off to bed.  Well, going to bed and bad weather doesn’t mix, so at 2 am, we were up again and moving, this time in the dark to an anchorage we had never been too.  Everything worked out fine, we anchored off of Norman Island at the entrance to the Bight.

Sunday Morning was Easter, Jesus came and opened the gates of heaven to all those who believe and wish to join him for eternity.  We had an egg hunt on Makai.

It was fun hunting for eggs in places unique to the boat, like the sail.

Or the anchor roller.

But, weather or no weather, we’re on vacation and off to the next adventure.  Most of the day was spent on an upwind bash to the far end of Virgin Gorda, someplace new for us. RJ, looking for a thrill, sat up on the bow waiting for the next wave to crash over and flush from under the bow.

Rodney was in his element, Makai hat on top and Azure shirt in front.

The Bitter End is a resort with restaurants, rentals, and rooms.  We enjoyed all the amenities during our stay.

The girls rested on beach chairs looking for the waiter, luckily he never came.

We set off for a nice walk to look for iguanas.

It turned into a challenging bolder scramble up a steep path.

Once at the top, the path offered beautiful views of the bay.

Back to the beach, Topaz drank three hat fulls of water and soaked at the beach, while we learned what Jimmy Buffet meant by “Cheeseburger in Paradise”.

 

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As if we hadn’t had enough fun sailing yet, we rented Hobie Waves. When my kids ask what I enjoy most to do, I always say, “to watch you have fun”. Well, sailing the Hobie we have back home might be a very close second place on my most fun thing to do list. Jane and RJ buzzed around the bay together.

While I had the 8 – 12 year old crowd.  There we’re plenty of obstacles in the bay from the dozens of charter boats, ferry shuttles, a sea plane and speed boats coming from other islands for lunch, to the Mega Yachts anchored out past the mooring field.

The Maltese Falcon that we were acquainted with from Antigua’s Falmouth Harbor, was our downwind marker.  Check out the inflatable slide, we’ve seen these on a few mega yachts here in the BVI.  Hopefully we’ll be out of town before I get up the courage to ask one of these boats if I can try out the slide, Eric would be so embarrassed.

To all my friends in Long Beach that I took sailing on the Hobie and assured them it would never tip over, I was wrong!  I guess the 15 – 20 knots of trade winds in this bay is a bit different from the 5-10 kts in Alamitos Bay.
RJ capsized twice, apparently he didn’t get the memo on how to prevent this problem.  No one on our boat wanted to be flung into the water so when ever we thought we were going to capsize, the helmsman would head up into the wind and the guy in charge of the main sheet would let it go. Besides a little adrenalin, all was well.
Eric calls it supporting the local economy, so we have permission to buy trinkets :)  There have been very few shops in our path, so trinkets were a treat.  After comparing prices with a shop in Trellis Bay, I think we got a bargain from the traveling trinket lady.
The plan was that the first one up had to get us ready to head down to the Baths, a Virgin Gorda attraction.  We arrived around 9:30am, 75% of the day mooring balls were already taken, but we got a spot.  The Baths is a path through these huge boulders that offers pools of water and a little climbing fun.
As soon as we hit the beach the kids took off ahead of us.  I’m sure they had fun where ever they were, but I didn’t get any pictures of their fun because we spent much of our time looking for them.
I did manage to capture little Marie.
While we were traipsing along the path we came across the crew of the 289 foot super yacht Maltese Falcon, and their employers.
The Baths is National Park Day mooring, so after a busy morning at the Baths and a big leftover lunch at Conch City on Fallen Jerusalem,  we had a nice down wind sail to Brandywine Bay.
Topaz got excited when she saw Marie pull her bed out, but then settled on her carpet because the bed was obviously not brought out for Topaz, but instead for Marie, Roy and Eric to nap on.
Brandywine Bay is a quiet little bay without any mooring balls or services, but it is close to Road Town and our evening guest, Tim.  Tim has a Leopard 45, Jetstream, that he’s been chartering here in BVI for nearly 10 years.  This was a technical visit for Eric and Rodney getting tips on sailing and repairs.   Meanwhile, since the kids we’re banned from electronics because they ran off earlier, they went to the beach to play with hermit crabs.  This was a great activity as it took up most of their time for the next 2 days.
Boo Hoo, the week with the Pimentel family is coming to an end.  We have to head back toward the airport.  On the way Rodney and Eric practiced ‘man overboard‘ drills with a fender, and since Genny begged, she got to be the final drill victim.
The method we used is to yell “man overboard”, have at least one person keep an eye on the victim, the helmsman falls off the wind, tacks around and then ‘hove to’, stopping the boat but still maintaining enough steerage to creep ahead and scoop up Genny.
Enough with all this work, lets hang around.
For our final night we stayed at Marina Cay.  By the end of the week, the crew is all trained, and I can take a break as the main deck hand.
Our final dinner is at the restaurant on Marina Cay, we had dinner here with Becky and David as well.  Casual atmosphere and delicious food, but be prepared for “Island  Time”.
Jane and I spent quite a bit of time talking about the differences between life at home and life on the boat. Some of the interesting comments we both got before we left home are like, “will you ever stop anywhere” or “where will you get food”, “on a ocean crossing where do you anchor for the night”, stuff like that.  We talked about how crazy it is that everyone piles into the dingy to go out to dinner.   On the way we have to think about things like wet feet, a wet butt, and splashes coming over the bow.  Our new lifestyle all makes sense out here, but once back home where the toilets flush with the push of a lever and water flows out of the tap, this will be a distant memory.

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2 Responses to The Pimentel Family visits

  1. Rodney Pimentel says:
    April 6, 2013 at 11:36 pm

    We really enjoyed a fantastic week with you guys. Thank you for being such great hosts! Being back in the grind make you wonder about priorities! Cheers!

  2. Jamie says:
    April 8, 2013 at 3:24 am

    Awesome !! Looks like a great time was had by all.