OUR FIRST DATE WAS SAILING (SAN FRANCISCO)

“Our first date was sailing and the second date was varnishing!” That’s what we Scan 15tell people anD however unromantic it sounds, it is the truth.  When Whitey asked me on a date to go sailing with him in May, 1988, I thought it would just be a fun day with an obviously fun guy.  As a single girl living in San Francisco, the opportunity to go sailing on the bay was naturally on my wish list.  As a girl from Utah, I had lived three years in the Bay Area and had yet to be invited on a boating trip on the Bay.  

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RUNNING FROM THE STORM (ST. MARTIN)

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Tamarin sailing

Hurricanes can be devastating and disastrous.   Over the years Whitey and I have had our share of disasters, most (but not all) from hurricanes. Each one is a story of it’s own.

One year, we thought we were being prudent by getting out of the Virgin Islands by early July and heading south for hurricane season. It was 1996 when we scheduled a charter in the St. Martin and St Barth’s region for the first two weeks of July. We were then planning on heading straight to the island of Grenada that is south of the hurricane belt.

The previous year, Hurricane Marilyn in September, 1995 had done tremendous damage to our charter catamaran, Tamarin of Tortola. The complete rebuilding of Tamarin in 4 months is another story. However, with insurance and the hard work of us, friends and the boat yard in Tortola, we were back in business by the end of January, 1996.

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PAELLA, PAELLA! I JUST HAD A DISH CALLED PAELLA! (CARIBBEAN)

GOURMET CHARTER MEALBeing a ‘Gourmet Chef’ was an evolution for me. An evolution that took a while. When Whitey and I first started working on charter boats I was very much a novice in the galley, kitchen, whatever you want to call it.   Luckily our first jobs as crew were in the British Virgin Islands, which is charter boat center in the Caribbean, which meant there were many chef’s to network with, swap recipes and get lots of ideas. All the networking provided all of the newby chef’s valuable assistance as we planned meals and cooked for our charter guests.

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IT’S ALL ABOUT THE DUCK (SAN FRANCISCO, PANAMA CANAL, BVI)

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Being towed behind the boat

We have a duck! Yes, that is right. Deek is the easy child or guest you always wanted. His needs are simple, he doesn’t eat, has no complaints – just sits on the boat with a happy grin on his little beak. He prefers sunshine but is content on the boat if it is raining. Our duck is called ‘Dr. Deek’ which is short for ‘Dr. Decoy Duck’.

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MOVIES AND BREADFRUIT (SAN BLAS ISLANDS, PANAMA)

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Victor and Lisa’s Island

We had become friends with Victor and Lisa, the Chief and his wife of the Western Hollandaise group in the San Blas Islands. One day, Victor showed up at our boat, ‘Tamarin of Tortola’, to collect the $5 Monthly Cruising Tax. It’s just a little fee for anchoring in their little group of islands.

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Nargana in the San Blas Islands

The Hollandaise Islands are approximately 7 miles from the main land of Panama. The nearest populated islands were Nargana and Corazon de Jesus, two crowded islands that were joined together by a bridge. Victor and Lisa were from Nargana, which is also known as Rio Diablo after the nearby river. They and their extended family were in charge of the group of islands known as the Western Hollandaise.

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