Leeward Islands

I spent the summer of 2001 working for Broadreach teaching SCUBA diving and leading adventures programs for teenagers sailing the Leeward Islands. I actually had very little time to sit in a hammock.

St. Martin was our home base and after loading up weeks worth of food, I soon left solid ground and made my home on a 47' catamaran, equipped with a Bauer compressor for filling tanks.

We had to fill over a hundred SCUBA tanks and load them on the various boats. There was great black sand for exfoliating off the island of Nevis, below.


The first task for the students was to learn how to raise the mainsail. Not only were they going to learn how to sail and dive, they were responsible for making meals and would switch leadership roles every few days.

Here we are off the Dutch island of Saba. It was both a majestic and an eerie place to be. It had fantastic dive sites but with the strong winds and currents, I never felt safe on the anchorage.





We would accept challenges from other boats for ultimate Frisbee games when we would go ashore. We Won!

Meet "DIVE Betty!" She was quite a mystery and would be seen water-skiing past other boats until she lost her "fruit". She bore a great resemblance to skipper a.k.a. Irish.