BHPian Jeroen recently shared this with other enthusiasts: Not an update on Sirion, as we are currently in Barbados, West Indies. My wife grew up on this tiny island, this is where we met and got married in 1983. We have been travelling to Barbados every year at least once. Our kids love it here too. Our son Thomas is with us already. Tonight our daughter Ellen with husband Brian and our two grand children will arrive too. Our eldest son Luc and his wife Maloeke and our grandson Ben could not come during this period, but will be on the island in April. We tend to sail various boats here as well, so I thought ai would share on this thread. My brother in law Greg has a gorgeous Benetau 50 sail yacht. He lives in Texas, but he spends much of his time sailing around the Caribbean. He has clocked well over 300000 miles on this lovely vessel, called Hydro Therapy. A substantial number of these miles single handed too. Earlier this week Greg and I spend a day cleaning the hull and keel prior to a round the island race. Which meant spending long hours in the sea with a diving mask. Compressed air system and a little scraper. It was well worth it as Greg came in first in his class and came in second overall. And the weather was pretty awfully with very strong winds. Half of the racing skippers decided not to start! Today we were going along with Greg to sail Hydro Therpay from her current Marina Port St. Charles at the north of the island down to Bridgetown harbour, the so called shallow draft. An area with moorings for yachts. Much more closely to where we live. We drove up to the shallow draught in two cars and parked one car there. All of us piled into the other car and we drove further up north. I had a chance to have a quick look at the jetty. I was very p, eased to see this magnificent Betram yacht moored. I know this yacht very well! It used to belong to friends of ours, Wayne and Kathy. I have helped Wayne with all kinds of jobs on it and I have been out fishing with it many times. I might have shown this video somewhere else, but it is a good video showing what fishing out on sea on these boats is. At the time we had our friends Philip and Caroline from the UK, staying with us. Philip is a very keen fisherman, but this was new to him. https://youtu.be/8SePixISz4k Currently this boat is now owned by Chris. Who happens to be my best man at our wedding almost 43 years ago. He and his dad used to run this absolutely gorgeous classic schooner, Exctasy. https://youtu.be/beZT6tZuLZs This particular location is also the headquarters of Atlantis submarine. They operate submarines all over the world in tropical waters. We have been on them numerous times. Good fun. This is one of their decommissioned submarines. More on the submarine later. So drive over to Port St Charles. Stopping along the way at a local supermarket to pick up some food and drinks. Here it is Hydro Therapy She was moored right next to Wayne’s current boat. A very modern. Extremely capable fishing boat, kitted out to the nines for deep sea fishing. We stored all our provision, applied plenty sunblock and casted off. Here we are making our way through the marina This is near the marina entrance. There is a bunker station here and also customs and immigration facilities. Why anybody would want to have a black yacht in the tropics is beyond me, but here we are! We motored out to sea, turned into the wind and set sail. Very easy on this boat. Electric winches and all! Not a bad life! note the shirt Im wearing. Its one of these UV block shirts. Very effective. I tan easily, but even I need to be careful when out all day in the tropics. These shirts are ideal, you can jump into the sea and they still protect your skin. Look what we came across, one of the Atlantis Submarines! We had the full rig up and a steady easterly wind from the island, bft 4. Made for good sailing. We did well over 8 knots most of the time. To enter the shallow draft you pass the entrance to the deep seawater harbour. Lots of cruise ships in town. The largest was this one, Queen Victoria of the Cunard line. Note the square rigged cruise ships at the back of the harbour? These are becoming increasingly popular. As we entered the shallow draught, this boat came out. It is the tender for the Atlantis submarine. The submarine stays out near one location the whole days. They use this ferry tender to shuttle passengers back and forth. We passed this massive cargo ship. Alongside a barge with a tug. The ship is brining huge pieces of granite to the island. Look at that immense grappler on the ships crane. It loads the granite in the barge. The barge has a ramp, they move it to a different are of the harbour where they can lower the ramp onto the docks and a big JCB will scoop out the granite. Only way to of load granite here in Barbados. Here we are, Hydro Therapy moored along side Chris his boat. Greg and Chris go way back. When they were little boys the families used to be neighbours. These two have been going out on boats for decades. We had a very pleasant day out. Nothing broke, nobody got hurt. When you go out to sea on vessels like these, that is considered a good day, no matter what else happened. Jeroen Read BHPian comments for more insights and information.
