I quit my job

At the end of July I decided to leave the Encore crew. It was just time and I had another job lined up. I was supposed to work until September, go to England, and come back and take this other job but I got antsy (surprise, surprise my last name is gaudet). So as of August 1 I was unemployed, uninsured and happier than ever. I immediately drove to Newport and got on a boa racing that weekend. Turns out I stumbled onto a great one and have raced a bunch with them. When I finally made it home to see Mom and Dad (ok I really needed to drop off my stuff, I had a truck full) I got to spend some time in Maine and NH and it was great. I went sailing with half the fam.

I had time to help Missa

move to Balitmore and got to see Julia at the same time. And force her to hang out on a boat.

I even had time to take artsy shots of the Domino sugar factory,

and spend a weekend on Appledore Island (no photos, I thought my camera was gone forever at the bottom of Narragansett, it wasnt, it was in Flurte's tender in Nantucket.)

The next Rima race was in Stamford, the same town that Michelle works in! We raced ~150nm in 30 hours under 8 knots... it was slow to say the least. The more exciting part was the dinghy racing that happened the next day at Michelle's yacht club.

After hanging with M I finally got to fly to England! That other job that I had lined up fell through, and I got to stay quite a bit longer than intended. While I was there I checked London, Cowes, Gibralter, sailing in the med, and Malta off my list of TO DO's.

And I even made it back in time to see

Allison get married and hit up NH for one more hike before taking my new job.

We're based in Antigua and have christmas off.... anyone feel up to traveling with the rest of the world?

Summer of Firsts

This summer has been a summer of firsts.

Living in Long Island is a first. It's not a very interesting town so I bought my first skateboard.

I ride it before the kiddies get out of school because I get embarrassed when the 14 year olds show up at the park and I can hardly ride in a straight line. I try to practice on my way to work but let's face it, skateboarding is something you should start at an early age.

Sometimes the boat goes to Newport on our way to or from the outer islands. Newport is a much nicer town with lots of people in it. There are a lot of boats that summer in Newport thus a lot more "yachties." Sometimes we get together and do things. Most of the time those things have to do with a bar or rum but not always. This time when we rolled into town a few of us had started playing Polo. Since I have never seen a polo match and haven't ridden a horse in about 15 years, I decided I definitely should try it out.

I think I was quite good, all things considered. I hit the ball quite a few times and even scored a goal. (against equally green polo players, though some very good riders!) Polo is very popular in Rhode Island.

July started off with a bang. The whole fam came out to the great city to see a Broadway play (a first). I chose Mamma Mia so as not to be too serious, themed, or controversial. It worked and everyone left laughing.

While in Newport I got invited to sail in the Marblehead to Halifax race.

The boat was a 72' Santa Cruz sled and we went very fast. Ok there was hardly any wind and we went about 5 knots on average, but we did beat all but 4 boats in. This was my first time in Halifax. It really is a nice city, just cold. I recommend that everyone buy a big, warm hat and go there.

The race was hosted by the Royal Nova Scotia Yacht Squadron. The RNSYS is one of a very few yacht squadrons in the world. The difference between a yacht squadron and a yacht club is that a squadron is sponsored by a royal family and is technically part of a country's armed forces thus it can be called into service in time of war. I dont know if I would want to defend anything with any little sail boat, but who knows.

Kate and I seem to have the same problem keeping a blog regularly but I think it makes it all the more exciting when we do post. I just finished our work log for the boat for the Caribbean season, backlogging daily work done on the boat, and it propelled me to think back over the past few months. 

When I left you last we were on charter in the height of charter season. Since then I've traveled ~10,600 miles (as the crow flies) and acquired 6 new stamps in my passport. We went down island we went up island and I even flew to France. Here are some of the pictures!

We had a charter that went from St. Lucia down to Grenada stopping at St. Vincent, Bequia, The Tobago Cays, Carriacou and stopping at the southern tip of Grenada. The big islands were beautiful, very green and lush and very different from the islands Im used to. 

The Pitons of St. LuciaMarigot Harbor, St. Lucia 

On the way back we stopped in Dominica for a couple hours off. With over 600 rivers it is one of the wettest islands and has amazing rainforests and waterfalls because of it. At the bottom of this valley we jumped off a cliff into a waterfall pool!

I also visited Antibes, France et il ete tres bien, bien sur! 

The Monaco Grand Prix race trackOld cathedral village in Vence. I was reading Ken Follet's The Pillars of the Earth (a really good story that you all should read!)  at the time and it was so exciting to see the construction he was describing right in front of me! Antibes city square with a view of the water. 

News from around town

Though I dont have any photos to post I think it's time I put up a new entry.
My life here in the caribbean has settled into a "routine" (or as much of a routine as one can settle into when they move around and do different things everyday). We have been on charter for most of the month of March and moving the boat between St. Maarten and the VIs inbetween. This leaves little time for wakeboarding, running, or anything fun and personal. I just barely got my brackets into Dad before the games started and, I'm not going to lie, I hardly looked at which teams I was clicking on to win. But so be it, that's the nature of the beast, I can hardly complain. Though our routine is an odd one it's nice to have one and it's very nice to be back in the VI because they're much prettier islands.
Anyways, all this time sitting around waiting for our guests to do something has left me ample time to ponder things like what I'm going to write about in my next blog. I have been making a concerted effort to catch up with and stay in touch with many people from back home. This blog is about is what everyone else is up to.
Let's see....
Congratulations to Lindsay K, my college roomate, for getting into Vet school! Though years of school doesnt sound awesome to me Im wicked proud of the girl!
Speaking of college roomates, Allison D is getting Married this fall! yikes!
Marrige is contagious and Jill P is getting married in the fall as well!
Rachael M is back at the books studying criminal law and living in Brooklyn, I cant wait to catch up in the city this summer!
Amanda A is teaching music to kids in NH, appropriately and happily.
Joanne S got her first offical passport and is coming to visit me in the islands! (She got the passport to go on vacation with Mike in Europe, but those are just details).
On the traveling note, Seth and Will have undertaken their craziest endeavour yet and are calling it the Epic Man http://theepicmancometh.blogspot.com/. And I thought running a marathon was hard.
Michelle just bought a car!
Nell has moved to the big city of Portland to stay while Dustin is in New Zealand learning about grapes.
I guess those are the big Milestones... Noone is pregnant (Jen?) Graduating early? (Kate?) I dont have much going on, looking at taking my AEC (which is the first certification for marine engineering) and upgrading to an unlimited Yacht Master at some point this summer or fall. Trying to fit everything into the 4 weeks of vacation with an actual vacation far away from boats (or at least sailing on boats).
What is everyone else up to?

It seems last time I wrote I was wishing everyone a merry christmas and happy new year, sounds like a good time for an update.
Again, because the days run together on the beach, Ill have to refer to the contents of my overused camera.
After our charter in the BVI we took a half of a day to play and rest in the North Sound, VG. Pretty much top 3 favorite places of mine, if you didnt know. Since Ben came up to visit I had to show off my local knowledge and we drove out to The Grotto to do some cliff jumping. The Grotto is in the rocks on Mountain point and pretty much the coolest spot ever to jump in the water. As you swim up to it it looks like an uninteresting pile of rocks and you have to dive below it or climb over it to get in. Since we forgot masks we chose to climb (and I got a chance to show off my wicked bouldering skills). After a few climbs and jumps we swam back to the dinghy and went to Saba Rock for lunch, YUM!
Sad as it was, we had to start our drive back to St. Maarten that evening and after 11 hours of pounding into the wind and waves we dropped anchor and waited for the morning bridge.
When we got back we found the island to be full of friends. Ben and Dee were off charter and Tony and Nina were getting their decks done and in town for a week or so. First order of operation on any good day off is to steal Knickerbocker's crew tender and go wakeboarding! if I ever figure out how to load videos onto this you'll see how sick I am (well sort of). That photo is of Dee. Since we had such a tough morning we decided to take the rest of the day on the beach.
Im going to jump ahead a couple weekends, there was plenty of working being done during the weeks, I swear, I dont hang out on the beach everyday. I do go wakeboarding pretty much every day after work though, so Ive got that going for me, which is nice.
There is a day off tradition that happens every once in awhile called Rose Lunch. Basically this consists of going to a beach with a restaurant (not hard to find here in tourist country) and ordering a bottle or 3 of the cheaper rose wine. As you can imagine lunch stretches right on to sunset. I was at one of these rose lunches whcn Dad and Mom were visiting Jules in DC. That's me talking to Dad. After that we were back on charter and I left my camera in my room. Tune in next time for Meredith's surprise birthday!

A Visit To See Julia

Mom and I flew to D.C. to see Julia this weekend. We left Manchester early Saturday Morning after Mom spent too much time being padded down by security. It seems that if you pack away your boarding pass and then set off the security alarm, the security people get awful suspicious. The good news is that Mom passed the security investigation and we were able to complete our flight to D.C.

We landed at Reagan National airport despite our political misgivings at using an airport named after a person for whom we hold little respect. Jules picked us up at the curb and we drove off to Brian and Brenda's house for breakfast and to see the twins.


The bird joined our breakfast and ate dad's muffin.

Jules treated us to very good seats at half court / row 2. Watching the game from these seats was like sitting on the bench and watching. Georgetown played an interesting and exciting game but ended up losing in overtime.

On Sunday morning we toured Julia's workplace and saw her cubicle as well as the Georgetown campus. Nice place! We spent the rest of Sunday touring the mall.





Our flight home was very smooth without anyone being padded down.

Salsa Recipes

Hi everyone,

Reggie and I have been eating more and more salsa lately and I too have become disappointed by most of the store bought salsas, so a request for any recommendations and if you could post any recipes to the family recipe page?

Hope all is well with everyone!

Jenny