life BOB — SV shift

Now that we’re living Back On the Boat its taken a bit to readjust - at least for the kids and I.

After our super vacay at Coconut Bay with my family, we all parted ways on February 6th and headed back to Shift who was docked at Rodney Bay Marina - the north east part of St. Lucia. It was back to fine tuning our boat life and adjusting to the new surroundings and climate. Yeah for warm weather and water! Enzo felt happy to be back on the boat and Anais had no problem finding her groove once again.

St. Lucia is english speaking and the currency is Eastern Caribbean dollars. You can definitely sense a rasta vibe from the locals which is surprising for how south the island is.

We replaced our batteries since during the Atlantic crossing they were losing their charge and were at the end of their life. We'll be relying on them more when we anchor out. Once Andreas has those installed we left for St. Anne in the south of Martinique, the next island to the North. Our good friends Pete and Bamboo were anchored there and we were looking forward to seeing them.

The passage to St. Anne was a short 28 nautical miles, about 4 hours, but quite rough and strong wind. Stupidly, I didn't take any seasickness medicine and it ended up being my worst 4 hours. To top it off, our autopilot and navigation went haywire and Andreas had to hand steer the entire way. I tried to take care of Anais the best I could and kept thinking how incredibly strong she is and what a great sailor she makes. Enzo is right up there with her. He took such great care of me and helped Andreas the entire time.

We made it to the anchorage, a beautiful spot right in front of Club Med with turquoise, aqua and turmaline waters all around. Apparently the other 80 boats thought the same so we were numerous to say the least. Pete and Bamboo has us over on Salty Walter - a Nautitech 40 that we've heard so much about and finally got to meet in person! Bamboo started us off with a ti punch - traditional Martiniquais drink with local rum, cane syrup and a squeezed lime. We enjoyed a few days relaxing and coincided with Carnaval which was happening right in the small town of St. Anne saturday night.

Our navigation couldn't be worked on until monday so we sailed up north to an even more spectacular anchorage at la Grande Anse d'Arlet. The water was even clearer and right when we anchored we spotted a turtle next to us. Perfect spot to hang out a few days to snorkel, paddle board and swim. Enzo's splint came off and he finally got to snorkel which made him very happy. Apparently February is the high season for sailing and there are sail boats everywhere! What a change to the fall in the south of Spain where all we saw out were fishing boats. Here the coast is like a highway of sailboats.

We had a great time hanging out with Pete and Bamboo and were sad to have to part ways to go back to Marina du Marin to work on the navigation... We're hoping we can meet up with them once we're done. The sail back south was pleasant and we got a spot at the Marina. Its a huge hub for charters and there are catamarans everywhere. Fortunately you can find just about anything for the boat which is a nice change.

Navigation turned out to be something simple, and quite dope on our part! We had too much metal stuff around the compass which threw everything off. Since we were here it made sense to add more solar panels and have the structure made. So we've been here a week and we're getting stuff done. Lots of nice, interesting people to meet and we've been practicing our french. Back to paying in Euros and eating good bread, cheese and pastries!

Salty Walter and Shift hanging out in St. Anne

To clear customs; go to the local cafe and fill out the forms online. It should always be this easy!

Stumbled upon Carnival in St. Anne! So vivid and colorful. Anais rocked to the loud music!

Unique, recycled and homemade costumes were the best!

p'tit punch and Acras de Morues [fried fish dumplings] - yum!

Sailing with Salty Walter to la Grande Anse d'Arlet

Anchoring in front of Club Med is not too shabby

Captain Enzo does an awesome job shutteling us to the beach and back

Such a great concept; order your pizza from these guys and they'll deliver it, by dinghy, to your boat! Hurray for Pizz Boat!

Pano of Marina du Marin with Enzo's drone- we're on the small pontoon in the foreground