For the first few days after arriving in Barbados, we attended the informal 2016 Nordhavn Barbados Rendezvous with Robbie and Jo Ashton of Nordhavn 47 Southern Star and Jennifer and Mark Ullmann of Nordhavn 46 Starlet. They’d just crossed the Atlantic together from the Cape Verde Islands and had arrived in Barbados a few days before us. What an amazing coincidence.
It was really good to catch up with Robbie and Jo. We’d last had dinner on Southern Star in Fiordland, New Zealand in 2014. And it was great to meet Jennifer and Mark of Starlet. We were lucky to even have official Nordhavn representation at hand. Doug Harlow of PAE was out to video an interview with us all on our Atlantic crossings. Update: Doug recently posted his video interview of the group, Three Nordhavns in Barbados.
Trip highlights from February 4th through 8th follow. Click any image for a larger view, or click the position to view the location on a map. And a live map of our current route and most recent log entries always is available at http://mvdirona.com/maps
 |
Boat cleaning
Position: -59 38.67, 13 15.80
We spent the two days after our arrival washing and waxing the boat–it was pretty dirty after 5,400 miles of run-time, particularly the stack. We first cleaned the stack to get the surface dirt off, then waxed it to get it all white and shiny again.
|
 |
Storm plates
Position: -59 38.67, 13 15.80
We’ve not removed the storm plates since we installed then in Dampier, Australia. Now that we don’t have any big or dangerous passages coming up, we finally took them down.
|
 |
Help
Position: -59 38.67, 13 15.80
We hired two Barbadians to help with the cleaning and waxing of the boat.
|
 |
Nordhavn Barbados Rendezvous
Position: -59 38.67, 13 15.80
Drinks on Dirona with Robbie and Jo Ashton, left, of Nordhavn 47 Southern Star and Jennifer and Mark Ullmann of Nordhavn 46 Starlet. They’d just crossed the Atlantic together from the Cape Verde Islands and had arrived in Barbados a few days before us. What an amazing coincidence. It was great to catch up with Robbie and Jo–we’d not seen them since Fiordland in 2014, and to meet Jennifer and Mark.
|
 |
PAE interview
Position: -59 38.67, 13 15.80
Doug Harlow from PAE came out to do a quick video interview talking about our trip and our experiences so far.
|
 |
Lunch
Position: -59 38.65, 13 15.83
After a busy few days, we had a long and relaxing lunch on the deck at the Port St. Charles yacht club. The food was incredibly good food and wow, what a view.
|
 |
Provisioning
Position: -59 38.65, 13 15.83
We watched the crew of the anchored superyacht La Masquerade load this big tender up multiple times with provisions. One load filled the boat entirely with bottled water stacked a couple feet above decks.
|
 |
La Masquerade
Position: -59 38.67, 13 15.80
Sunset overlooking the superyacht La Masquerade that we’d watched provision earlier in the day.
|
 |
Starlet
Position: -59 38.81, 13 15.64
Another Nordhavn get-together, this time dinner on Nordhavn 46 Starlet at anchor with Southern Star just off marina. They’d both originally checked into Port St. Charles, then went to anchor off Bridgetown at the southwest end of the island and returned to Port St. Charles a couple of days after we’d arrived.
|
 |
Super Bowl
Position: -59 38.32, 13 11.14
The crews of Starlet, Southern Star and Dirona, and Doug Harlow from Nordhavn, went down to Surfside in Holetown to watch the Super Bowl. We had dinner on the beach enjoying the sunset over moored boats, with the surf rolling in beside us. And at nightfall on came a massive 20ft big screen with a great sound system to watch the Super Bowl. It wasn’t the strongest game offensively, but this might have been one of the best spots in the world to watch it.
|
 |
Southern Star
Position: -59 38.68, 13 15.77
Southern Star fueling up at Port St. Charles. We all gathered on board for Doug Harlow of PAE to video an interview with us all on our Atlantic crossings.
|
|
|
Lunch
Position: -59 38.66, 13 15.83
We completed the Nordhavn Barbados Rendezvous over lunch at the Port St. Charles yacht club. Starlet and Southern Star were leaving that afternoon to cruise the Caribbean and Doug Harlow was flying back to California the following day. We plan to stay and enjoy Barbados for another week or so.
|
|
Click the travel log icon on the left to see these locations on a map, with the complete log of our cruise.
On the map page, clicking on a camera or text icon will display a picture and/or log entry for that location, and clicking on the smaller icons along the route will display latitude, longitude and other navigation data for that location. And a live map of our current route and most recent log entries always is available at http://mvdirona.com/maps. |
If your comment doesn't show up right away, send us email and we'll dredge it out of the spam filter.