Long challenging sails, exotic island locales, and hours of relaxation beside the blue, blue water were the highpoints of our visit to St. Martin, St. Barts, and St. Kitts. Not the advertised island inventory you say? True enough. Our trip coincided with a rare weather pattern that made the anchorages on our planned itinerary something more than uncomfortable. Here's how we adjusted, and probably had an even better time.

A number of our group arrived early on St. Martin. Most stayed at the charter base hotel where they enjoyed the pool and seafood dinners at one of the local restaurants. Except for Bob and Bruce, who both found it impossible to stay awake. For Bruce this is standard procedure. Bob was coming off a marathon of work and family commitments that had worn him out more than he realized until he slept twenty hours out of a twenty-four hour period. Bob claims you are all just jealous, so make all the jokes you want.

By Sunday afternoon everyone was engaged in boat checkout and loading provisions except for Charlotte, who was not on her scheduled flight. Skipper Mia reached her via text message, learning that she had missed the flight, had rebooked for Monday, and was researching how to get to St. Barts. This presented various logistic challenges, but there was nothing for it but to carry on with crossed fingers. These did not impair anyone's ability to enjoy a libation with dinner.

On Monday morning Julio was itching to get away, so Bob and Mia got their crews moving too. In Oyster Pond, the Sunsail crew handles undocking and docking, then hands the boat over to the charter skipper once it's in clearer water. Mia's crew found itself fighting with a tangled main halyard while the Sunsail skipper impatiently waited for them to get the sail up in the narrow turning basin just inside the mouth of the harbor. Mia was vaguely aware that the two cats were not there trying to get past, but only learned why hours later: Julio's crew also had trouble raising the main, so Sunsail's people docked the boat and replaced the halyard winch. And they wouldn't let Bob's boat depart until it was done.

Standing at a computer in the harbor office, Mia entered the information for her boat and the five people who were aboard, preparing to plead her case to the officials. She had Charlotte's passport information, but not her actual passport. As she hit enter on the form she looked up and out the window at the bright afternoon. There was Charlotte, standing out there looking around. Charlotte had caught a flight from St. Martin to St. Barts and cleverly asked a taxi driver the best way to connect with someone on a sailboat. He'd brought her to the harbor master with serendipitous timing.

All crews enjoyed dinner ashore, some opting for cheeseburgers in paradise at Le Select. Most of Yawasa II crew had dinner at Black Ginger, a fantastic Thai restaurant. They insist that they received neck massages before their complimentary Kahlua. A highlight of the meal was the Thai traditional of warm mango and rice wrapped in a fancy banana leaf package. It was served with an excellent coconut ice-cream with fresh currants on the side - very enjoyable!

It was an uncomfortable night aboard Luxor, Mia's monohull, which moved constantly in the rolling seas. The cats didn't have it so bad except for 12V power problems on Bob's boat. After returning from dinner to the anchored boat, Yasawa II's crew discovered the 12V outlets did not work. Unfortunately only the 120V AC outlets were used while at the Sunsail base. The problem was traced to a blown 30 Amp fuse located behind the power panel. Power was temporarily obtained overnight by using a staple as a fuse and allowing only two devices to charge at a time. Sometime during his sleep Bob realized his still unpacked inverter had a spare fuse of the same type. Power was now fully restored and worked without a hitch for most of the trip until a new device with a 12V plug was inserted for the first time. This evil plug had a design flaw that instantly blew the fuse. Luckily Bob had one more spare fuse. Lesson to remember in the future: a little bit of duct tape wrapped on the tip of the plug would have prevented this problem.

The first two thirds of Tuesday's forty five nautical mile trip offered a great close reach sail. While Luxor pointed perfectly at the passage between St. Kitts and Statia, the two cats had to add a little iron jenny to get the proper course. And while the cats did a bit of pounding across the rolling seas, the monohull sailors had a mostly comfortable, heeled ride. Unfortunately, Ingrid had arrived feeling ill and the sailing so far had not been much fun. Walt also succumbed to seasickness, so for them the long trip was rough. There were a couple of crew on the cats who had a similar day. On Eden For Ever, Julio was feeling a little sick and Cherie suggested he insert a small piece of tissue on the ear opposite his dominant hand. He did and it worked. Go figure.

Once the boats reached the passage between the islands things got tougher. Confused seas and fluky breeze forced all three boats to resort to motoring for about an hour to get to the western side where conditions evened out and they could sail again. As the day inched toward evening, Mia, in the lead by about an hour, cranked up the engine to get to Port Zante, St. Kitts before sunset.

Contrary to the Sunsail briefer's assertion that south-facing anchorages would be fine, the southerly breeze had built up large seas, and the two boats anchored outside the marina at Port Zante were bouncing all over the place. The small marina did not answer either the VHF radio or the telephone, but Mia faced a mutinous crew. There was no way they could tolerate a night anchored there. Watching depth gauge and boat traffic in the channel, they inched their way in behind the protective seawall. Inside the water was glassy although the breeze was still strong. And all of the slips appeared occupied.

The crew on deck searched for an open slip while Mia tried in vain to activate the bow thrusters, which had worked back at the charter base. The wind pushed the boat toward the back of the marina, and without thrusters Mia could not get the bow to turn back into the wind. From a docked powerboat a helpful fellow shouted at her to mind her dinghy, but that was the least of her concerns as she struggled to turn forty-five feet of fiberglass around before it hit the docked boats. Then the guy asked if she knew where her slip was. What slip? Back in the corner, he pointed. She saw only boats, but shouted to the crew to look. Sure enough, there was one empty slip.

They docked bow in, haphazardly lassoing pilings and hunting for long enough lines to pass to helpful folks on the dock. Once they were secure, Mia collected passports and papers and jumped to the short finger pier from up near the bow.

The marina office was locked, but next door customs was open. By the time Mia finished with them the man who'd directed her to the slip had turned up in the marina office & turns out he was the dock master. As she was finishing paying for two nights in the marina, Mia's radio crackled with a call from Julio. The cats had just arrived in the anchorage.

Mia loathed having to explain that there was no more room inside, and Julio and Bob, and their crews, regretted having to hear it. While the cats were less affected by the rough anchorage than the monohull would have been, they were still anchored in a rough bay with little protection from the south. Bob and Julio's dingy ride to shore to visit customs was exciting. The trip back in the dark was eerie, and watching the two catamaran bows moving five feet up and down was downright scary. Securing the dingy on davits was a hazardous task: thank you Bruce for handling it aboard Yasawa II!

Early Wednesday morning Julio was watching when a large catamaran departed the marina. Working by VHF with Mia and the dock master, he arranged for the two cats to move inside and raft up, Julio's boat on the seawall and Bob's tied to it. A cruising couple on their own boat willingly moved their boat to better accommodate this arrangement. There was barely enough room on the seawall to accommodate the cats, but both skippers were able to very slowly and with the help of Mia, dock the cats. Before breakfast both cats with their weary crews were secure. The crews of both catamarans welcomed the stop of the wild motion machine and slowly began to realize that their appetites were returning.

Once immigration was taken care of at the cruise ship terminal, all crews were free to explore the island. Some signed up for island bus tours, some just relaxed in town, and some visited the historical museum then hired a taxi to visit the fort on Brimstone Hill. Mia had arranged with Sunsail's local representative for a trip to the island's famous batik factory and a seafood dinner that afternoon. Mia's and Bob's crews all joined this expedition, and Julio's group turned up later at the restaurant. The menu was basic: fish, fish and ribs, fish and chicken, fish and lobster, fish and shrimp, and two sides. No substitutions, no whining. Pay at the bar. There were no complaints.

By Thursday the southerly winds had calmed down, but conditions in the south facing anchorages were still rough & based on observation of the anchorage outside the marina. The skippers decided to stay rather than move to an anchorage that would be beautiful, but might be very uncomfortable. Some crew found their way to the beach, others explored the town some more. A little shopping was done, including Mia's and Julio's purchase of spiny lobsters for their boats' dinners. Luxor did not have a lobster pot for cooking the evening's feast so this was taken care of during a walk around town. Mia and Don headed off to a hardware store and got about a block ahead of some of the rest of the shore party. Mary Ann spotted an unexpected store that had lobster pots so she helpfully yelled out to Mia "I found the pot store" then quickly corrected to "I found the lobster pot store." That evening everyone convened on the cats for a cocktail party. By chance the group that Mia had shared a taxi with on St. Martin had moved in to the slip next door that morning. She invited them to the party and they turned up, blending in easily with the Sailing Club crowd. Later that night, the crews of the cats tied next to each other decided to have an impromptu dance party with some pole dancing thrown in. Although short, it was a lot of fun.

On Friday the fleet finally said farewell to St. Kitts and had a lovely sail back up the coast to Statia. Approaching Oranjestad, they could see enormous breakers coming from the northwest pounding the island's west facing cliffs. In the anchorage, the depth fluctuated from eight to fifteen feet or more as the swells rolled in and slammed against the seawall. Complicating matters, the skippers had to take the dinghies ashore to clear in and out, because Statia is an independent nation.

Amazingly, after getting into the dinghies in the rolling seas and motoring across the swells toward the spot indicated on the chart as the dinghy landing, they actually found a protected jetty with cement steps, where a cluster of boats had tied off. It was much easier than they expected to get ashore and take care of the paperwork in the adjacent immigration and customs offices. But nobody was willing to get back into a dinghy to go visit the town, which is situated at the top of a cliff.

It was another uncomfortable night for the monohull crew as the swells rolled through and the boat rocked back and forth. The cats didn't have too hard a time of it. But that's probably why Mia's boat was away shortly after seven a.m. on Saturday. The return to St. Barts from Statia was thirty-eight miles of great sailing, and they glided in to crowded Anse du Columbier by mid-afternoon. Mia had just decided to look for a mooring rather than anchor, despite Sunsail's warning not to trust the moorings, when Julio radioed from about a half hour back suggesting the same thing. They found three moorings on the east side of the wide, protected bay. The waters were calm, with the potential for good snorkeling. After the days in the marina and town, this felt like the real Caribbean.

The fleet spent all of Sunday there. Crews took the dinghies to the beach, went snorkeling and hiking, lazed around on the boats reading, and absorbed the atmosphere. And atmosphere there was, with the local party boats coming and going and sending large groups to the beach. They conducted races and silly contests, and played very loud music. There were small private cruise ships with pampered guests and crew at the beck and call. Mid-afternoon a sailboat race ended in the anchorage, with thirty foot and larger sailboats barreling through under sail. Bob spotted a runaway dinghy, but his own dinghy was hoisted up on the davits. While he set about lowering it, he saw a man from another boat dive in and swim after the wayward dink. The man caught it and climbed in, but found that the motor would not start. He laid over the bow of the little boat and started hand paddling against the wind, making remarkable progress until Bob could get there in his dinghy to help.

First thing Monday morning the fleet dropped their moorings and sailed north to Ile Forche for a lunch and snorkel stop before the final leg back to Oyster Pond. That evening Julio's boat hosted a final must-go cocktail party at the Sunsail dock.

The trip was all about the waves - from rocking off Gustavia to rolling off Statia - and all about making the best of it despite unexpected weather, illness, and a missed flight. In the end it was all good.