RUNNING FROM THE STORM (ST. MARTIN)

c Tam Sailing

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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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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AWARD WINNER! (ST. THOMAS CHARTER BOAT SHOW)

I am not a trained chef. Really it was only a slight interest to me as a young adult. I knew enough to get by when I was single and had a couple of signature dishes to show off to a new boyfriend. That was until my husband and I landed our job as Captain and Chef on a charter boat. Chef – that’s me. Old land based friends would say ‘I didn’t know you could cook Max’. It’s amazing what you can do if you put your mind to it. After working for a charter boat company for three years in the BVI’s we moved into working on our own private charter boat. It’s a natural evolution that most crews do. (more…)