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Miscellaneous:
Date of Last Update: March 03, 2011 |
Season Greetings from a steel band “duo in training!”
Our adventure in playing Santa began when Jackie dropped Chris at the Charlotte Amalie Ferry Dock at 5:20 pm Saturday night the week before Christmas. We planned that he would go ashore to visit a friend and that she would return later to retrieve him. An American couple frantically waved us down and explained that they had missed the last cruise ship launch to return to the Queen Mary 2. Evidently they thought that the last launch departed at 5:30 pm but 5:30 pm was actually the departure schedule for the cruise ship. We told them that we could not transport them to the anchored cruise ship without permission, especially now that the US Coast Guard uses machine gun boats to accompany ships out of the harbor. So Chris asked the ferry boat captain if he could use the ferry boat’s VHF to hail the Queen Mary 2. A once in a lifetime opportunity: “Queen Mary 2, Queen Mary 2, this is sailboat SHIBUMI. Come back.” When the officers on the Queen Mary 2 acknowledged that they were missing two passengers, they emphasized that they needed to depart immediately. In the meantime, the stranded wife regarded the beautiful rainbow which had developed in Charlotte Amalie harbor in the few minutes that Chris was aboard the ferry and mentioned that it must be a good omen for their plight. I told her that it was actually an omen that we would soon be drenched. On the other hand, my mother had taught me that I was “wash and wear.” The couple’s identification, credit cards, and passports were on the cruise ship with her 87 year old mother. Their next port was New York City. After confirming that the names of our couple matched their missing passengers, the Queen Mary authorized us to dinghy the couple to the cruise ship which had already raised her anchor and was underway out to sea…making way, under way as we say. That’s exactly when the rainbow disappeared as the rain fell in sheets. Hurriedly we loaded our two passengers into the bow of the dinghy and Chris headed for SHIBUMI. All our hatches were open so rain was quickly drenching the pilothouse sofa, the saloon upholstery, our bunks, etc. Remember that Jackie was just planning on landing Chris ashore, not negotiating a trip to the open ocean. She was also not dressed appropriately as she was still wearing the camisole she dons while working aboard. Definitely not shore attire for a prude like Jackie. A couple of minutes later the dinghy was airborne in the wind and rain dodging the only other cruise ship also underway, making way out to sea. Masses of water over the sides of the dinghy seemingly aimed at Chris and Jackie. Thankfully, it is hard to miss a ship the size of the Queen Mary 2, even in a rainstorm. Chris inched SHIBUMI’s dinghy to the pontoon on the ship’s starboard side in the lee of the weather as their crew held the cruise ship straight and steady at about 4-5 knots. While Chris monitored the two boats, Jackie in her wet t-shirt look transferred our soaked, but relieved, passengers to their mother vessel. Amazingly both took the time to give her a big, wet hug! When we disengaged from the Queen Mary and turned back toward land, we realized that St. Thomas had disappeared in the weather: the island literally was not in sight. So we aligned our stern to the QM2’s stern and fled back to SHIBUMI arriving at 5:50 pm. Ho-Ho-Ho and a Merry Christmas to a family from Utah!
2005 was a year of travel for us after we arrived in Antigua from Europe last December. We spent most of the first quarter anchored in Simpson Bay Lagoon in St Martin. Later in the spring we cruised and chartered casually in both the US and British Virgin Islands. Since many of the folks we met in Europe kept in touch by email, we had many reunions with new and old friends along the way from St Martin to Martha’s Vineyard. We still savor these memories and wish our cruising friends peace and safe passages as we all head our separate ways. Cruising is a time-consuming lifestyle: it resembles being a pioneer of old. No aspect of daily living comes easy and everything takes much more time that you would expect. What a hurricane season it was! There were lots of early indicators for a bad hurricane season in 2005 even before it started. Instead of sailing south to Trinidad, we decided to head north to visit family on the mainland US. We thoroughly enjoyed a fog-filled, cool summer in southern New England and exploring the Chesapeake in the fall. Finally we arrived safely back in Charlotte Amalie, US Virgin Islands, last week after an eight day “shake and bake” passage from Beaufort, NC. Visit our web site www.meridians.us to see the details of our adventures in 2005, all 5,500 sea miles of them. Our plans for 2006 include cruising the Spanish Virgin Islands and St. Croix in January, visiting cruising friends in St. Martin for the first half of February, and then returning to the USVI for the remainder of February. We plan to head further south in the Caribbean later, but that’s as far in the future as we dare to plan for now! The cruiser’s maxim is that plans are as firm as water, salt water that is. One of the few negative aspects of long-distance cruising is losing close contact with friends and family. So we hope that you can find a little time to email us and let us know what you and yours are doing. We would really appreciate hearing from you! Have a great holiday season. We wish fair winds and calm seas for you and yours!
Chris and Jackie Lambertsen |
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