St. Maarten - Lady C

So Kevin finally got the oilpan off the genset on Sunday, just before the sun went down. Basically it involved him wedging two screwdrivers between the pan and the engine and then hammering the crap out of it until it came loose. Sometimes you just need to use brute force. We did see at least one pinhole in the bottom of the pan so that is almost certainly what was causing the oil leak. Kevin put in an order to have a new one shipped from the US, hopefully it will arrive this week.

To celebrate we took the day off on Monday to explore a little bit of the area around here. The Dutch side of the lagoon is a popular spot with megayachts; there are hundreds of them docked here. Everywhere you look is a ginormous luxury yacht, some of them are so wide they barely fit through the bridge opening(which is 55 feet wide). On one of them we saw a helicopter on the top deck, I kid you not. Show-offs. We like to keep our helicopter parked below decks so as not to appear too full of ourselves.

St. Maarten has a duty-free port status, which means that all goods sold here are not marked up as they are in some other countries. So you can find some great bargains (a 1.5 liter bottle of Bacardi = $8). We wandered in and out of a few stores looking for more deals but I think all the really good shops are over in Phillipsburg. At the end of the day we headed to the yacht club where we'd heard they had $1 beers at happy hour. Unfortunately the bar was closed but there was a very surly guy (who probably knew right away that we weren't yacht club members) who advised us to "try next door". Next door was the Lady C, a somewhat shabby 1930's-era sailboat turned into a floating bar by her owner Michael. Happy hour beers were $1.75, but as a bonus it was all-you-can-eat rib night. So that sealed the deal for Kevin (a rib aficionado), and we bellied up to the bar. I think we were the only non-locals there, since everyone else seemed to know each other and they were all obviously Dutch. We could tell not only by the accents but also if you ignored the modern clothes, every guy at the bar looked like he had just stepped out of Rembrandt's "The Night Watch" (I think that's the name of the painting, anyone who didn't sleep through Art History class can correct me if I'm wrong.)

Simpson Lagoon - Zen and the Art of Diesel Maintenance

Kevin spent all day yesterday and most of this morning down in the genset locker (a workspace about 4 feet wide by 6 feet long by 4 feet tall) taking apart as much of the generator and engine as possible so that we would be able to haul it out through the 14-inch opening at the top of the locker. When it became obvious that the anchorage in the Baai (Bay) was too rolly to actually hoist the thing out, we decided to move inside the lagoon area. The lagoon is fully encircled by land, the French half of the island is to the north and the Dutch side is to the south. We went through the bridge on the Dutch side around 11:30, anchored, had lunch, and then proceeded to tackle the generator problem.

Kevin continued working while I played the role of Step N' Fetchit, trying to bring the correct tool when requested. It was a long hot afternoon, and Kevin determined that there was no way to separate the generator from the diesel engine; so instead of lifting a 120-lb block of metal, we were going to have to lift a 230-lb block of metal. Kevin rigged up a solution involving the jib halyard and another block and tackle to hold the genset steady and we were ready to begin. Kevin guided the engine up out of the hole as I cranked the winch to lift the thing. The operation went perfectly; it was our moment of triumph -- getting it out and onto the deck was much easier than we had thought. Unfortunately everything else was downhill from there.

The oil pan is so corroded that it doesn't even resemble metal so much as dirty particle board. We had hoped to find that it just had a crack or something that could be welded and thus solve the oil leak we've been having. No such luck -- the outer layers of the pan crumble to the touch. It was held in place by something like 14 bolts and of course four of them were so corroded that Kevin had to shear the bolt heads off. One of last four bolts just wouldn't budge at all and Kevin spent two solid hours and broke three tools (drill bit, screwdriver, vise grips) trying to get the damn thing off. On the upside, he did MacGyver a new way to power the cordless drill: instead of using the batteries which only hold a charge for 30 seconds, he just wired it straight to our house battery bank (six paralleled car batteries). Go, drill, go!

Anyway, as I type this he is still trying to get the oil pan off of the engine (all the bolts are gone, but it is still stuck for some reason). We have yet to explore any part of Sint Maarten, but hopefully we will get to see some of it after we get the grunt work taken care of.

Where we are:
Location=Simpson Lagoon, St. Maarten
Lat=18 02.444
Lon=63 05.568

Anegada Passage

Anegada da vi da, baby. We left Spanish Town in the BVI's at around 5pm and had a pretty uneventful passage. Well, there was one event. Our speedometer, which is a tiny paddlewheel on the bottom of the boat that tells us our speed relative to the water, and which has not worked since we were in the United States, spontaneously started working again. I guess when Kevin hacked away at all the encrusted barnacles on the thru-hulls with a screwdriver, it loosened up whatever was preventing the wheel from spinning. We'd been getting along just fine for the past 9 months using just the GPS to tell us our speed, but it sure is nice when things on the boat miraculously fix themselves for a change. Cool.

So it is 7 am and here we are in Simpson Baai, Sint Maarten. That's a lot of A's. Will write more laater, aafter we taake aa naap aand check in with immigraation.

Where we are:
Location=Simpson Baai, Sint Maarten
Lat=18 02.165
Lon=63 06.028

Spanish Town, Virgin Gorda BVI - Checking Out

We woke up this morning to a very strange sound. Hundreds of tiny little "thumps!" against the hull. Looking outside we could see that there was a huge school of small silver fish and they were jumping all over the place, and our boat just happened to be in the middle of the mosh pit. This went on for a good five minutes, hopefully the fish weren't hurt, but that's what they get for listening to speed metal while swimming. We left Leverick Bay around 10:30 this morning and motored a few miles over to Spanish Town, which is the only place on the island of Virgin Gorda where we can check out with Customs and Immigration. We dinghied ashore and walked over to the customs building and were in and out of there in only a few minutes, so it was a pretty painless check out procedure with no bribes required (like we had to do in Luperon). Although the charge to clear out was $5.13. Not sure how they came up with that amount.

We picked up some diet coke at the grocery store (we'll need the caffeine for the night passage) and headed back to the boat to grab a quick nap. It's now 4pm and we are getting ready to leave. We should arrive in St. Martin (or Sint Maarten, as the Dutch side of the island is called) early Saturday morning.

Where we are:
Location=Spanish Town, BVI
Lat=18 27.275
Lon=64 26.368

Leverick Bay, BVI

Leverick Bay

Well we've been anchored here in Leverick Bay for a few days and we've been doing...well...a whole lot of nothing, actually.  We went ashore yesterday to check out the resort - they have a small but pricey grocery (2 peppers + 4 tomatoes = $12.50) and an even pricier restaurant (entrees start at $35 -- guess we'll be eating on the boat!).  But it is a pretty spot and it is great to have some anchoring room a fair distance away from the moorings and any other boats.  Yesterday we jumped in and scrubbed the hull, it had been a few weeks and more new and mysterious creatures were trying to make their home on our boat.  We've also been using the fantastic internet connection to catch up on news and stuff we've been missing out on (including watching the Chad Vader shorts on youtube.com as well as the trailer for the next Pirates of the Caribbean Movie.  The internet is a wonderful thing.)

Sunset in Leverick Bay

Mostly we are just hanging out until the weekend, when we plan to make the 80 mile trip to St. Martin.  We are especially anxious to get there since we have recently discovered that the oil reservoir for our diesel generator has nearly rusted through and has started leaking.  We ran the genset for a half hour today just to see how bad it was and half of the oil leaked out creating a huge mess!  We're hoping to be able to get it fixed while we're in St. Martin, although it's going to be a tough job -- the oil pan is bolted underneath the diesel engine and the only way to get at it is to haul the 117-lb engine up out of the forward compartment through a 2ft by 2ft hatch in the ceiling.  Kevin is looking forward to it.

Leverick Bay, Virgin Gorda, BVI

Leverick Bay

[Kevin's Post]After a relaxing day doing nothing in Trellis Bay, we decided to find a new spot to relax and do nothing. Trellis Bay, like most of the BVI is packed with mooring balls leaving no room to anchor. If you want to stay on a mooring ball, it costs $25/night. So we were determined to find someplace decent we could anchor for free for a few days and just read, swim and relax. Our friends on Iguana Dance had marked up a few spots on our charts that they liked, so we headed for one of those. We motorsailed about 12 miles to North Sound on Virgin Gorda and anchored in a great spot just off of the Leverick Bay Marina. The anchorage is huge, has great holding and isn't too deep. Everything you could want, and the icing on the cake: free super fast wi-fi. We're waiting for a weather window for the 75 mile passage to St. Martin, so we'll probably be here a few days at least.

Where we are:
Location=Leverick Bay, BVI
Lat=18 30.025
Lon=64 23.307

BVI - The Wreck of the Rhone

Sorry there have been so few posts this past week or two. We've had a great week with my dad -- we spent a night over in Little Harbour and had a great dinner at Harris', home of the potent Bushwhacker -- as the owner/bartender Cynthia was mixing the concoction I lost count of all the alcohol she was putting in: vodka, Bailey's, Amaretto, and a couple others I didn't keep track of. Somehow she managed to blend it with Coco Lopez so that you couldn't taste any booze at all, it just tasted like a milkshake. Deadly. I only drank two.

Later in the week we headed over to Norman's Island to the Bight, for dinner and drinks at the Willy T. The Willy T is a floating restaurant that is usually the scene of some really wild parties, judging from their photo albums. (When we chartered here a few years ago, there were people jumping buck naked off the top deck into the water). But we were there for a fully clothed and relatively tame night.

The highlight of the trip was definitely diving the wreck of the RMS Rhone. This mail steamer sank in a hurricane on October 29, 1867 as she was trying to ride out the storm. The hurricane struck the ship and forced it into the rocks just off Salt Island where it broke in two and rapidly sank to the bottom in about 20-80 feet of water. Our dive guide took us through a large open hatch into the belly of the bow of the ship, which was remarkably intact. You could see small air pockets shimmering above us like a river on the ceiling; these were other divers' air bubbles that had become trapped inside the wreckage. Swimming through the wreck was probably the coolest part, but there was such a huge variety of fish and colorful coral that I could've probably stayed in one spot and enjoyed it just as much. We did two dives to explore the deeper bow section first, and then the shallower stern section where we were able to swim between the blades of the massive 16-foot propeller resting on the bottom.

So now we are back in Trellis Bay, and for my dad's last night we stopped in at the Last Resort to see the band again (Yes, they recognized my dad from last week. No, he didn't have to do five shots this time.) We saw Dad off on his 7 am flight this morning and today we are just relaxing and straightening up the boat before moving on to the island of Virgin Gorda.

Beef Island, BVI - Pinball Wizard

Denny and the Band

The past couple of days we have been on a mooring in Trellis Bay on Beef Island. Our airhorn has had quite the workout. The first afternoon, we were sitting in the cockpit and were talking about how all the moorings were taken and that boats coming in were circling trying to find an available mooring but nobody was leaving since the weather was kind of rainy and blustery. Then an hour later I look up and I said "Hey, that boat looks like it's leaving. But wait -- there's no one at the helm or on deck...". Sure enough the boat had broken it's dock line that was tied to the mooring and was adrift and heading straight for another boat. Kevin blasted the airhorn and the owner of the drifting boat (neither boat was a charter boat) quickly got to the helm but not in time to stop the collision. There was some minor damage to the teak rail of the other boat but it could have been a lot worse. A couple hours later, another boat broke loose only this was just a dinghy. Kevin noticed it drifting back and of course the owner of the boat came up on deck a few minutes too late and just helplessly watched his dinghy float toward the beach. Another boater hopped in their dinghy to bring back the wandering dinghy to its owner.

On Saturday night we dinghied in to the "Last Resort", a restaurant/bar on a tiny island in the middle of the anchorage. They had a live band that was pretty fun to watch. They had mounted two bottles of tequila on the front of the drum kit and were handing out shots to the crowd like they were candy. One of the games they played was "name that tune". They would play a few bars of a song and everyone had to hit an imaginary buzzer in the middle of their table and guess the name and artist. If you guessed right, you got a tequila shot. If you guessed wrong, nothing happened. But if you shouted out the name of the song WITHOUT hitting the imaginary buzzer you got not one but five tequila shots. Of course my dad knew every song and he'd had a few beers so sure enough he forgot to use his buzzer and shouted out "Pinball Wizard!" when they played the Who song. So the lead singer invited him up to not only do the shots but also to accompany the band as they played the rest of the song. Everyone was rolling with laughter every time the band went completely silent so that my dad could shout out "sure played a mean pin BALL!" a cappella. Dad was able to give away two of the shots to the band members, but then he "earned" another one for having sung with the band, so he still ended up doing four shots. Yikes. After "name that tune" the band played a few more songs and then announced that they were playing the "new newlywed game". Unfortunately Kevin and I were the most recently married couple in the room so we had to go up on stage and then they put Kevin in the soundproof chamber (the refrigerator of the restaurant) and asked me two questions, with the prize being a bottle of wine. The first question was what beverage would your spouse order on a long haul flight. I answered diet coke but Kevin responded beer. So we got that one wrong. But at least we got the second one right which was "which actress would your husband be most likely to want to sleep with?". So the band gave us the benefit of the doubt and we walked out of there with a free bottle of wine anyway. So it was an embarrassing, but fun, night out.

Just for the curious: the answer was Jennifer Connelly.

Where we are:
Location=Beef Island, BVI
Lat=18 26.890
Lon=64 31.881

Jost Van Dyke, BVI - Foxy's

Foxy's Beach Bar

On Thursday we made the quick 13 mile jump from Christmas Cove in the US Virgin Islands, over to the island of Jost Van Dyke in the British Virgins. Great Harbour is where the world-famous Foxy's bar is located, so we wanted to anchor there and check it out. We got into the harbor around one in the afternoon and most of the boats had left. The anchorage is pretty deep and doesn't have great holding so we dropped our anchor in 35 feet of water, let out plenty of scope, and backed down pretty well so that we wouldn't drag. Then Kevin headed ashore to check us in with customs and immigration, and came back for us so that we could go to the bar. We sat down and ordered two Foxy's microbrew beers for Dad & Kevin, and a painkiller (rum drink) for me, then we sat back and looked around at all the old T-shirts, hats, business cards, flags, bras, and other random memorabilia that people on boats have left hanging up in the bar. We've seen lots of little bars with this type of decor, but this one by far had the most of any we'd seen. After our drinks we headed back to the boat to watch the entertainment...

The British Virgin Islands is probably the premier spot for charter boats. This is where people rent a boat for a week or so and sail it around the islands. Sometimes these people are experienced sailors. And sometimes not. (We chartered a few years ago and we'd only had a week's experience sailing. We were amazed that the charter company allowed us to take their boat out with no supervision whatsoever.) Two dead giveaways that a boat is a charter boat vs a cruising boat: 1) the people aboard are pasty white, and 2) the boat is packed to the gills (the whole family plus grandma and grandpa). Charterers usually pick up moorings, since that is the easiest way to "anchor" the boat -- you pick up a line already anchored down and tie it off to your boat. But Great Harbour doesn't have any moorings so charterers are forced to anchor. It's entertaining to watch because they never put out enough scope and you watch them repeatedly drop the anchor, let out a little chain, and then drag back; when they realize they aren't set, they pick up the anchor and start again. We watched one guy make no less than 8 attempts to get his anchor set.

As the afternoon wore on, the anchorage filled up and of course a brief squall blew through. We watched helpless as one boat dragged down almost hitting another boat, Kevin blasted the air horn and luckily the guy peeked his head out of his boat and started the engine right away. Some of our friends we met in Luperon (on the boat Tusen Takk) showed up in the late afternoon and anchored right in front of us, which was a relief since we knew they'd anchor themselves properly. Later we all met up for happy hour at Foxy's and they mentioned that the charter boat next to them (Cala Mia) only had 60 feet of chain out. 60 feet of chain in 30 feet of water is only 2:1 scope (most people will advise you to have 7:1!). Basically the anchor is sitting on the bottom but won't be able to bite into the bottom to get a good set. Of course the next morning the wind shifted and we ended up so close to Cala Mia my dad had to fend them off with the boathook. We explained that if we have 170 feet of chain out and if they only have 60 feet, when the wind changes around they are right in our swing circle. The lady said "well, we aren't that big of a boat", and I patiently tried to tell her that you don't let out anchor scope based on how big the boat is, but how deep the water is. Luckily we were leaving anyway, since I'm not sure they really understood what we were talking about.

Where we are:
Location=Jost Van Dyke, BVI
Lat=18 26.479
Lon=64 45.083

Christmas Cove, St. Thomas, USVI

[Kevin's Post]We flew back to the boat on Monday with Amanda's dad, so of course we woke up Tuesday morning to pouring rain. A perfect day to head over to Culebra (sarcasm). Actually the winds were forecast to be very light so even with the rain we knew it would be a fairly easy trip over. It kind of drizzled the whole way over, but as soon as we picked up our free mooring it started coming down in buckets, we could only see a few hundred feet. We had planned to go all the way to Isla Culebrita, but we got a late start since we had to pick up the cat from the vet, hit the grocery store and return the rental car. So we called it a day on the west coast of Culebra where there is excellent snorkeling. It eventually stopped raining and we were able to do some snorkeling and grilled up some chicken for dinner.

The sun was out Wednesday and we got an earlier start. We headed over to Isla Culebrita en route to St. Thomas. There were large breaking waves on the reefs on either side of the entrance to the cove on Culebrita which made for an exciting ride in. We could see that past the reefs it was fairly calm so we went through and picked up another one of the wonderful free moorings they have here. The surf on the beach would have made landing the dinghy challenging so we decided to just swim ashore to have a look around. We were the only boat there and had the island to ourselves. Within about 20 minutes a group of teenagers walks out of the trees onto the beach complete with beach towels, frisbees and other beach toys. I asked them where they came from since they obviously had no boat. They said that they had been dropped off on the other side of the island. They were soon followed by about 20 others about half of which were screaming kids. So much for having the island to ourselves.

After swimming back to the boat, we headed off to St. Thomas, about 25 miles to the east. On the way we encountered probably the biggest seas we have ever seen on the boat. The swells were 10-15 feet, but they were far apart so it was a very gentle motion. We had fishing lines out but didn't catch anything. We knew our friends on Adventure Bound were anchored over on the East end of St. Thomas so we headed over to Christmas Cove to join them. It was good to see them and catch up with them over beers.

Where we are:
Location=St Thomas, USVI
Lat=18 18.720
Lon=64 49.928

Villa Marina, Fajardo PR

Amanda Snorkeling

And we're back . . . We flew all day and are now back in Puerto Rico on the boat. Stay tuned for more.

Villa Marina, Fajardo, PR

[Kevin's Post]Amanda flew back to Phoenix on Wednesday in order to prepare for Jamie's bridal shower (Amanda is the matron of honor) and bachelorette party.  I'll be flying back a few days before the wedding.  In the meantime I've been working my butt off on various boat projects.  It's tough for me to relax at a marina because I want to make the most of the time.  Although looking back at the projects I probably could have done almost all of them at anchor, but some of them are easier with a hose and unlimited fresh water.  For the rest, it is just nice to be able to run to the local marine store when things go wrong (they usually do).  I've polished all the stainless steel deck hardware, removed 4 of the 6 solar panels so I can reseal the hardtop seams, replaced the jib halyard, replaced the main sheet, replaced the dinghy hoist lines, got the propane filled, cleaned the grill, and reorganized half the boat. 

I know, you're probably sick of hearing about the iguanas.  If so, stop reading now, cause here comes more.   This morning I was working on getting the solar panels off when out of the corner of my eye something catches my attention.  It was a huge iguana trying to climb up the transom.  Mind you, the boat is in the slip bow first, so he had to swim all the way around the boat to get to the transom.  I ran to get my camera and when I got back he was still there, but I scared him off before I could get a shot.  Speaking of shooting . . . later this afternoon I heard this pop-pop-pop sound coming from the entrance to the marina.  I look that way and there is this guy on the back of what is probably a million dollar sportfisher with a rifle shooting at the iguanas on the way out of the marina.  Maybe this guy has been on the Disney jungle cruise one too many times.  I guess if you're going iguana hunting, you might as well do it from the back of your million dollar sportfisher.  Some Puerto Rican lady started yelling at him in spanish, so I couldn't tell what the heck she was yelling.  But, he didn't stop shooting, so for all I know she was giving him advice on his aim. 

Fajardo, PR

[Kevin's Post]We left Culebra this morning to head back over to mainland Puerto Rico where we had a slip reservation at one of the Fajardo marinas.  We've been plowing straight into the wind and waves for the past several weeks.  Every single day we have seen strong winds out of the east (no surprise there, it is the tradewinds) generally 15-20 knots.  So we were actually looking forward to the day when we would get to turn around and sail (gasp!) downwind.  Today was supposed to be that day as we had to go about 20 miles west back to Fajardo.  As luck would have it, today there was no wind at all.  So we ended up motoring the whole way back to Fajardo.

Iguanas are like pigeons here, they are everywhere.  They are on the docks, in the trees, in the bushes, in the water.  It is amazing.  And they are huge, some of them are 4' from head to tail.  If you walk by one of them on the dock, they jump into the water and swim like you wouldn't believe. I didn't even know they could swim.  But they don't dog-paddle like you might think, they swim down like a fish and disappear.  I don't know how long they can stay under, but we saw several dive in and we didn't see any of them come back up.  I'm not sure how far they can jump, but we're keeping the dock lines extra long and hoping they aren't good at tightrope walking. 

Where we are:
Location=Villa Marina - Fajardo, PR
Lat=18 20.574
Lon=65 38.207

Culebra Regatta

Culebra, PR -- Heineken Regatta

So the people on Kimi Jay (the boat that dragged towards us yesterday) finally arrived back at the boat in the afternoon around 3pm. Actually they dinghied past their boat to visit a friend on another boat and didn't even notice that they had dragged and were less than a boat length in front of us. I had to shout to the lady, "Hey! Is that your boat?". When she said yes, we told them what happened and they picked up both anchors and moved. We waited for a couple hours, expecting that they might return our anchor and rode with a thank you, but that didn't happen so Kevin dinghied over to them to pick it up. He got a quick "thanks" from the guy but that was it. Oh well. We didn't do it purely out of the kindness of our hearts; if we had done nothing their boat surely would've hit ours.

The water in Dewey's main harbor is pretty murky and we wanted to give the bottom another good scrub so this morning we moved back over to where we were on our first night on Culebra (we even picked up the same free mooring). It is definitely time for a new coat of bottom paint -- even though we'd just scrubbed the hull a couple weeks ago it was just as bad, barnacles everywhere. We aren't planning to haul out until we get to Grenada, so that means we'll need to scrub the bottom every couple of weeks until we get there so that we don't have a hull coated with growth by the time we do haul.

Originally we had intended to get out of Culebra to avoid the crowds that come here for the Heineken International Regatta. When we moved this morning, we thought we'd seen the last of the regatta (all the boats were anchored in Dewey). But sure enough, around noon we saw one boat come around the corner and pretty soon there were thirty others charging along right behind it. Seems that the big boats race around the whole island, while the dinghies just race in the harbor. So we were treated to a great view of the race, every boat went past ours on it's way around the island. Some of them even aimed right for our stern and then tacked (turned away) at the last minute. We weren't too worried though since these crews seemed to know what they were doing. Except the one that went around us and came within a few feet of the reef near the island. Some of the coral heads come up within a few feet of the surface so I was biting my nails but they managed to turn just in time.

Where we are:
Location=Culebra, PR
Lat=18 19.806
Lon=65 19.988

Culebra, PR -- Ensenada Honda

[Kevin's Post]Today it was our turn to rescue a dragging boat.  We have been anchored in the harbor near the Culebra town of Dewey for a few days longer than we had planned trying to finish up our taxes using the wi-fi here.  A big regatta started yesterday attracting boats from all around and we were hoping to be long gone before the festivities got started.  Now we remember why.  This morning I was writing an email when we heard some airhorn blasts (thank god for airhorns).  Amanda went outside to see what was going on and suggested I might want to come outside to see something.  There was a monohull about 30 feet in front of our bow, and getting closer.  It was blowing 15-20 knots.  This boat was originally anchored several hundred feet away.  We decided to let out more chain to get some distance between us.  Of course with our long bridle, that meant we had to motor forward and pull chain in to remove the bridle before we could let any out.  So Amanda took the helm and masterfully piloted us to within 5 feet of the stern of the other boat, so I could quickly unclip the bridle.  Then I let out about 30 feet more chain.  We watched the other boat hoping that their anchor had set and that they wouldn't get any closer.  Nope, they were still getting closer.  Last December we bought a 35 lb danforth anchor and mounted it on the port bow pulpit so that we would have a second anchor that could be deployed quickly in an emergency.  Of course when we dragged in Luperon, I didn't have any rope attached to it.  Oops.  We learned from that mistake and have since attached 275' of rode in a bag lashed to the corner of the trampoline.  I grabbed the danforth and anchor rode bag and tossed it in the dinghy figuring it would be fastest to just re-anchor their boat with my own anchor.  I dinghied about 100 feet in front of them and chucked the danforth in the water.  Then I dinghied back to their bow and cleated off the rode.  I tied off the dinghy to their boat, climbed aboard and started hauling in the rode I just cleated off to make sure the danforth was set and to get a little more distance between them and us.  This all took about 3 minutes.  It was an awesome performance and I don't think anybody even noticed.  Oh well.

I was a little worried that their anchor had dragged over our chain and would get fouled if they tried to pull it up.  So I put on my snorkel gear and jumped in the water to take a look.  The water here is a little murky and you can't see the bottom even though it is only 8 feet deep.  Trying to follow 100 feet of chain along the bottom is hard when you can't see it from the surface.  I would swim along the bottom until I ran out of air, come up for a breath and try to go back down before I drift too far and lose the chain.  I lost it several times, and had to swim perpendicular to the chain along the bottom until I found it again.  I eventually found our anchor, and theirs.  It must have been a 1000 to 1 chance, but their anchor actually hit our anchor and was deflected to the side coming to rest about 3 feet downwind and to the left of our anchor.  A few feet to the left and they would have missed it completely, a few feet to the right and they would have snagged our chain.    They only have about 50 feet of chain out, which is about 4:1 scope.  Not enough for 20 knots wind.

It's been several hours and we're still waiting for them to return to their boat.  They are still pretty close so we are keeping an eye on them to make sure our danforth holds.  We are hoping they will return our anchor plus our anchor rental fee: a six pack of beer. 

Where we are:
Location=Ensenada Honda, Culebra, PR
Lat=18 18.455
Lon=65 17.935

Isla de Culebrita, PR -- Bandito Nudito

Culebra Iguana

This morning we dinghied into Dewey, Culebra's only town, with our friends Eli and Marla from "Iguana Dance". Eli and Marla have the same type of boat as ours and have been cruising in this area for several seasons. Although we had never met them before we've been emailing back and forth over the past year or so. Yesterday as we pulled into Culebra we heard them hail someone on the radio and it turned out they were over in the next cove. So we got together for drinks and decided to head into town today for lunch. The ride over to town was a wet one -- straight into wind and waves coming from the east so we were all soaked. But we dried out well enough walking around the town and checking out the boutiques and dive shops. We stopped in at Mamacita's for lunch, which is a place right on the water with a pretty good menu. From our table we could see a huge iguana in the tree next to us that was hungrily eyeballing the lettuce on our hamburgers. There was a sign saying "don't feed the iguanas" so you can tell that this was probably a common occurrence at Mamacita's. Later, as we passed by in the dinghy we saw that the iguana must have made his move because he was now crawling along the deck instead of in the tree and the waitress was frantically shooing him with her apron to get out of the restaurant. Not something you see everyday back home.

Back at the boat we dropped the mooring and motored clockwise around the island of Culebra to a smaller island on the northeast side called Culebrita. In Spanish when you see an -ita or -ito after a word it usually denotes "small" or "tiny". So "Mamacita" means "little mama", and "Culebrita" means "little snake". "Dorito", "Cheeto", and "Frito" all mean pretty much the same thing: tiny tasty corn chip snack. That's the end of today's Spanish lesson.

The cove here has a beautiful soft sand beach and there's a lighthouse you can hike to as well. It amazes me that here in Puerto Rico you can find a spot like this with 7 free moorings and some are still empty, whereas 50 miles away in the British Virgin Islands you'd find a similar cove with 70 moorings for $25/night, packed with boats. The boat right next to us in the cove seemed to be particularly inspired by the natural beauty -- I was sitting in the cockpit watching Kevin snorkel and I look over and there is the guy next door, showering completely au naturel. I've seen lots of men in speedos but this is the first (let's hope for "only") time seeing another cruiser showering completely nude. And absolutely proud of it, judging how he took his time and made sure to give everyone in the anchorage a couple of 360 degree views. Okay bad enough, but then his wife put on a similar show. Mind you, we are not moored next to Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. This is an older cruising couple with, well...older cruising couple's bodies. Entertaining? Yes. A turn-on? No. Of course at this point we are looking around to make sure that we aren't in the middle of "The Nudist Regatta" or something and we notice that the guy on the boat on the other side of us is also doing something pretty funny: holding a camera.

Where we are:
Location=Isla Culebrita, PR
Lat=18 19.153
Lon=65 13.651

Isla de Culebra, Puerto Rico

We spent last night at Monkey Island. It's real name is Cayo Santiago, but most folks call it Monkey Island because there are over 500 rhesus monkeys roaming the island. A colony was originally brought here in 1939 so that scientists would have a quarantined stock of monkeys that could be used in experiments. Since then, the monkeys have had free run of the island so it's no surprise that visitors aren't allowed ashore. There were several signs warning people away and stating that the monkeys have been known to attack people. Guess we won't be going ashore to make friends. We anchored a few hundred feet off the beach and did manage to see a few of them wandering around, but other than a few glimpses we didn't see or hear much from the monkeys. Since there wasn't much to do or see, we decided to take off early this morning.

We are now in the Spanish Virgin Islands, to the east of Puerto Rico. Culebra is one of the two biggest islands in the Spanish Virgins, and has some of the best snorkeling and diving in this area. We were able to pick up a free mooring ball just 80 feet away from a spectacular coral reef, so after lunch we donned our snorkel gear and jumped overboard to have a look. This was some of the best snorkeling we've seen since last year in the Bahamas, lots of schools of fish and a field of purple and gold coral fans bowing to and fro as the current passed. There was a dive boat here when we arrived so we were able to float above the divers for a while; it's kind of a trip to see people 50 feet underwater below you.

Where we are:
Location=Culebra, PR
Lat=18 19.806
Lon=65 19.988

Punta Patillas, PR

[Kevin's Post]We left Salinas yesterday morning and motored 6 miles to Boca de Infierno, which is a small cut through a reef with some mangrove islands. We anchored in the lee of one of the mangrove islands to position ourselves for a night departure to Punta Patillas, another 15 miles away. The tradewinds are a major pain in the ass when you are trying to go eastward. Every leg we have made on the south coast of Puerto Rico has been straight into the wind and we have been generally leaving before sunrise to try to cover as much distance as possible before the wind picks up. This morning we left Boca de Infierno at 3 am and actually got to Punta Patillas before sunrise. The full moon was a nice change, it is amazing how well you can see with just moonlight. Also we were treated to a lunar eclipse last night before our departure.

We anchored in the bay at Punta Patillas at the crack of dawn this morning and promptly went back to sleep. Shortly thereafter we were awakened by the sound of jet skis. It must be Sunday. We are the only boat anchored in the bay, which of course makes us the star attraction for the local jet ski rental company. I think they are handing out flyers: 'Come see the magnificent catamaran of Punta Patilla!'. It is just 20 jet skis and us in the whole bay. They are playing games like, let's race to the catamaran and back. Or, let's do donuts around the catamaran. Or, let's see who can get closest to the catamaran without hitting it. Normally this would bug the hell out of me, but today there is a surge coming into the bay and it is pretty rolly anyway even without the jet ski wakes. And I know that all the jet skis will be turned in by sunset and it will quiet down then.

Where we are:
Location=Punta Patillas, PR
Lat=17 58.611
Lon=65 59.786

Salinas, PR -- Viejo San Juan

El Morro, San Juan

San Cristobal

Thursday morning we got a late start to avoid San Juan rush hour traffic and arrived in Old San Juan around 10 am. For those of you who were kids in the early 80's, San Juan was home to Menudo (a latino boy-band that included a pre-VidaLoca Ricky Martin). So of course I had the refrain from one of their songs running through my head all day. Old San Juan is dominated by two Spanish Colonial fortresses: the larger Castillo de San Cristobal and the older El Morro. Both have stunning views of the ocean and the city. We started off at San Cristobal and then wandered up the road to El Morro. The architecture was worth admiring, and both forts had all kinds of underground passages and spiral staircases to explore. By the end of the morning, we were all forted out. So we strolled over to the Casa Blanca, home to several generations of descendants of Ponce de Leon (you may remember him from such quests as "the search for the fountain of youth" and "finding Florida"). Anyway, we wandered through the shady courtyards in the walled gardens and admired the fountains. It would've been a great spot for a picnic lunch. If only we'd remembered a picnic lunch.

San Juan

By this time it was after one and we were ravenous so we walked into the old city and found a restaurant that seemed to be full of people. After our food arrived, we realized why all the other patrons were only drinking at the bar. It was a pathetically half-hearted attempt at spanish/mexican cuisine. Afterwards we walked down the street to Ben & Jerry's to get something that we knew for sure would taste good. We meandered some more down the city's scenic streets. Old San Juan is only about 8 blocks wide by 7 blocks tall, so we had seen all there was to see by 3pm. One point of interest that was mentioned in Lonely Planet was a visit to a shop called the Butterfly People. This is run by a family that takes tropical butterflies and mounts them in lucite (after they're dead of course) that's meant to hang on the wall like a shadowbox. The walls of the shop were covered in large-scale arrangements of color that were both beautiful and extremely creepy. Not to mention expensive: a small box with 6 butterflies was priced in the hundreds whereas the larger collections could be upwards of two grand. We had to laugh when we saw a little tacky tourist shop down the street selling framed butterfly knockoffs for only $27.

Editorial Note

Blogger lost a few of our SSB posts from last week, so there are 3 'new to you' posts dated 2/22, 2/25, and 2/26. Plus, we have uploaded some new photos.

And no, we are not in Africa. Occasionally, the Google Maps inlay to the left places us at 0 degrees latitude and 0 degrees longitude which is off the west coast of Africa. Hit refresh and it should correct itself.

Salinas, PR -- Caves and Radio Waves

Rio de Camuy Caves

Our second road trip took us up to the north central part of the island, through the Cordillera Central mountain range, to the caves at Rio de Camuy and the Observatory at Arecibo. There was no direct route from Salinas to the area, so we took twisty mountain roads that were in some places only one car width wide. Standard practice in such passes is to honk your horn repeatedly while continuing full speed ahead to let the people coming the other way know that you're not gonna back down. The scary part was that since there's no other way to go, the truckers use the roads on their routes and occasionally we'd turn a corner and see a big Mack truck bearing down on us. Also Puerto Ricans are nutjobs in general when it comes to driving their cars; we'd be coming down the road where there would room for both cars to get past each other easily IF we both moved a little to the right side of the road. Sounds reasonable, right? But no. For whatever reason, some people here just seem to enjoy playing "chicken" and making you slow down to a crawl and pull way over so that they can drive down the center (the mountain roads had no yellow lines in the middle), horns blaring all the way. So getting to the caves was a white-knuckle ride.

The Rio de Camuy caverns were pretty awe-inspiring. The tour took us down through a sinkhole over 400 feet deep, overgrown with lush jungle foliage. Then we entered the main room of the cavern through a small tunnel in the rock. There were huge formations under a massive domed cavern stretching 170 feet high -- clusters of stalactites clung to the ceiling like one of Chihuly's pointy spiral chandeliers, only made of rock instead of blown glass. And because the area gets so much rainfall, the cave is still "live" and water continues to build the formations up with the passage of time. At one of the cave entrances it's like standing under a shower nozzle (albeit with very weak water pressure); the drops come down like rain.

Arecibo

After a quick lunch we took more twisty back roads over to the radio telescope observatory. This is the largest single radio telescope in the world at 305 meters (1006 ft) in diameter, dwarfing the competition (the next largest in Bonn, Germany is only 100m, and the one in Charlottesville, VA a mere 42m). The dish is immense and is built right into a natural depression in the karst rock surrounded by hills. The disk part is stationary and they've worked it out so that only the Gregorian dome moves to receive the radio waves. It's quite a feat of engineering. James Bond fans will recognize it from "Goldeneye" where Pierce Brosnan is climbing all over the huge dish. When workers walk over the dish they use special snowshoe-type shoes that don't damage the aluminum panels. It would have been fun if that had been part of the tour. I would have settled for just walking out over the catwalk, but visitors only get to view it from the platform at the visitor center.

Where we are:
Location=Salinas, PR
Lat=17 57.653
Lon=66 17.549

Salinas, PR -- Rainforest Road Trip

La Mina Falls

While we're in Salinas we have rented a car to do some inland exploring around the island. Today's stop was El Yunque, the Caribbean Rain Forest in the north part of the island. (It is practically across the street from the Westin Rio Mar, so while I'm thinking about it: hello to everyone at Starwood!) El Yunque is overseen by the US Forest Service, and it's the only tropical rainforest in US jurisdiction. The Forest Service has done a lot of work putting in nice trails to all the waterfalls and interesting areas of the park. We did one of the more challenging hikes down to Mina Falls and we were rewarded with a spectacular waterfall cascading down the rock face. There was a swimming area at the base of the falls, but we had absentmindedly left our swimsuits back at the car. That was okay though, because there's a reason it's so green and called a "rainforest": it rains every day. Hard. We got doused while we were on the trail and it actually cooled us off pretty well. We hiked back up to the car and got to hear the native Coqui (ko-KEE) frogs chirp; we didn't actually see any of them though. However, we did see some other wildlife: massive iguanas. And not in the rainforest, either -- these were huge lizards hanging out by the roadside in town, walking down the sidewalks, everywhere. The first time I saw one it was starting to cross the road right in front of our car but luckily Kevin avoided it. There must be plenty more of them because there were tons of carcasses on the road that hadn't been so lucky. We even saw a schoolkid pick a live iguana up and literally throw it at a girl he was walking home with. Boys, especially at that age, are so stupid sometimes.

El Yunque Rainforest

On the way home we hit rush hour traffic in San Juan. We were starving and the car was low on gas so we got off the freeway to look for a gas station and maybe some cheap food. As I was paying the cashier at the Shell station, I glanced out the window and saw a mall with all the typical American chain restaurants -- Chili's, Johnny Rockets, and most importantly Macaroni Grill. See, we received a generous gift certificate as a wedding gift and yet every time we've been back in the states we forget about it until we get back to the boat (neither the Bahamas nor the Dominican Republic had a Macaroni Grill, go figure). So I've been carrying this card around for a year and finally we found our chance to use it. Much better fare than McDonald's, that's for sure. Plus, while we were eating one of the other tables had a birthday and all the waiters gathered around to obnoxiously sing the chain's signature birthday chant. Judging from the birthday guy's reaction, it's just as embarrassing when they sing to you in Spanish.

Salinas, PR -- Free At Last!

So it has been a running joke between us and our friend Jim that our dinghy is the "Beast". For starters, it's usually the longest dinghy at the dock (13 feet vs most are like 8-10 ft). Secondly the outboard is 30 horsepower, while you see most other dinghies with something less than 10hp. But what really makes it a Beast is that it revs up with a huge roar and a big belch of smoke when you start it. When we first started cruising, I tried to start the damn thing and ended up hurting myself and cussing up a storm. So for the past two years Kevin and I have been kidding that I'm his "prisoner" because I can't start the outboard and go ashore by myself. So we've been joking with Jim from Adventure Bound about how we'd be willing to trade in the Beast and finally he just had me come onboard their dinghy and start it to see how easy it is to start most outboards. Piece of cake, started up no problem. Meanwhile his wife Amanda, a triathlete who is in way better shape than me, had a go at starting up the beast and had no trouble. So then of course I had to go over to our dinghy to prove that I couldn't start it, except -- I did! It took a two-handed pull, but it sputtered to life! So this morning Kevin had me try to start it cold (the "Beast" doesn't like waking up early in the morning). After 10-plus pulls, I was able to start the thing, and Kevin had me practice steering it all over the anchorage. I feel like a 16 year old who has just learned to drive!

Salinas, PR

We were up and at 'em early on Saturday morning, motoring over to Salinas. We had our mail shipped there and since it was a good couple of miles to the post office, we hauled out the bikes and took a ride down there. So far the bikes have held up pretty good for being non-marine-grade made-in-China models. They both had lot of superficial rust on the surface, but other than that they worked just fine.

As the sun set we headed over to meet up with friends on "Sol Magique", where Ginette and her husband Paul hosted a quesadilla dinner for six (Jim & Amanda from Adventure Bound, and Kevin and me). Everyone brought a little something to share and we all had a good time. By cruiser standards we were out pretty late (9:30!) and we were pretty tired out from the long day. Our guidebook says that Salinas is the cockfighting capital of Puerto Rico and we realized that this morning at 4:30 am when all the roosters in town decided to start cock-a-doodle-dooing at the same time. The sun wasn't even up yet. What a racket.

Where we are:
Location=Salinas, PR
Lat=17 57.653
Lon=66 17.549

Isla Caja de Muertos, PR

Caja De Muertes

On Wednesday and Tuesday we shared a rental car with Amanda & Jim on Adventure Bound to do some provisioning and run some errands. High up on the priority list were some fast-food runs (our first since leaving the States) to Pizza Hut and Burger King. Most importantly for me was renewing my passport. Since you have to send in your current passport, I figured I'd do it while we're in Puerto Rico so that I can still fly back to the US in March using my drivers' license. Hopefully all goes as planned and we get my new passport back before we have to go to the British Virgin Islands when my dad comes to visit. I have my fingers crossed anyway.

This morning we headed over to Isla Caja de Muertos (Coffin Island - because in profile and on a map it is somewhat coffin-shaped). The water here is so clear we both jumped in with our snorkels to try to dislodge some stowaways (barnacles) that we must've picked up in the murky waters of Luperon. The hull was covered in baby ones, the big kind are harder to scrape off so we were lucky in that sense.

Amanda kayaking

We then hopped in the dinghy and headed over to the beach and ranger station. Coffin Island is extremely popular on weekends -- there's a ferry that leaves the anchorage in Ponce several times a day on weekends, complete with twinkle lights and vibrant music, packed to the gills with partygoers. But today is Thursday and it is all peace and quiet, in fact there's only one other boat in the anchorage. There are three rangers here full-time and as we walked up the beach one of them waved. His name is Orlando and he's been a ranger here for over 10 years. The rangers do rotations where they spend a whole week on the island and then are relieved by the next week's crew. Just looking around the island you can tell that these guys take their job pretty seriously -- the trails are well maintained, there are signs showing points of interest, there's no sign of trash anywhere, and there are some beautiful picnic areas with nice resort-style gazebos. I can see why people come here by the ferryload on the weekends. During May-November, the rangers help out by protecting the sea-turtle spawning habitat on the Eastern side of the island. We hiked up the hill to take a look at the lighthouse which dates back to the 1880's. On the trail we saw lots of lizards, and when we came across a couple of small snakes I'll admit: we BOTH screamed like girls. The lighthouse was all locked up and there was some vandalism so it wasn't much to look at, but the view down to the bay was breathtaking, a green oasis surrounded by crystalline blue water and our boat just a white speck in the water. Hopefully in Salinas we'll be near an internet connection so we can post the photos.

Where we are:
Location=Caja de Muertos, PR
Lat=17 53.173
Lon=66 31.844

Ponce, PR -- Carnaval

Ponce Carnaval

We have moved the boat back over to the anchorage near the yacht club. It's much more convenient to go ashore here plus there is free wi-fi so that clinched it for us. We put together an interesting anchor combo since it's so deep here and we don't want to drag: we put out our Fortress (an anchor with really good holding power) then 50 feet of chain, then our Delta (a heavy plow shaped anchor) then another 100 feet of chain. The delta acts as a kedge to keep the fortress buried (or so we hope). There is supposed to be a front coming today with strong winds from the northeast so we'll see if our trick works.

Ponce Carnaval

Our friends on Adventure Bound arrived on Saturday afternoon from Luperon. Despite having just finished a killer 50 hour passage and having to hand-steer the whole way, they were up for going out for beers at the boardwalk. The boardwalk seems like a scene for tourists and locals alike. They have a bunch of little take-away places selling empanadillas (fried meat-filled pastry) and pinchos (meat skewers). Plus Medalla Light, the local beer, is only a dollar and you can walk around with it. Just like everywhere else we've been, it seems like only the tourists drink the local brew. In the Bahamas and Turks instead of Kalik and Turks Head, the locals were drinking Heineken. That's understandable since Heineken is kind of internationally known as a "good" beer. Here though, instead of Medalla Light the locals drink Coors Light, which costs more and isn't as strong. Can't really figure that one out.

Giant Puppets

This week is Carnaval in Ponce. There have been parades every day, but Sunday is supposed to be the big day so we went downtown to the main square (called the Plaza las Delicias) to check things out. We could hear the music from the band onstage before we even got to the square (click on the link below to see the video). The streets were crowded with people, vendors selling ice cream and empanadillas, and teenage kids dressed up in brightly-colored Carnaval costumes with scary masks. Some of them wore the traditional elaborate papier-mache masks while others were wolfmen, monsters, and even Jason from Friday the 13th. They have an interesting tradition: the costumed kids (primarily boys) carry around these papier-mache balloons on strings, and when they walk past a girl they whack her booty as hard as they can with the balloon. I don't know if it hurts (I wasn't whacked) but it makes an incredibly loud noise. Most of the girls just keep walking and ignore it, so it can't hurt too badly. The religious theory behind the tradition is to "beat the devil" out of you before the Catholic season of Lent, but I think the modern theory is that adolescent guys have an excuse to smack the butts of the girls they like. The parade began with some guys wearing tall costumes rigged so that the huge papier-mache hands were on sticks so they could move them like puppeteers. There were a few more pretty costumes, then the parade started to resemble any small-town parade -- classic cars, high school bands, beauty queens, etc. The parade moved at a snail's pace so that the floats would stop, wait for 20 minutes, then eventually move on. There was crowd-control tape to try to keep people off the streets but it was pretty much ignored and bystanders could walk right across the parade at will. So as the afternoon wore on and the parade got slower and slower it eventually dissolved into total disorganization, with the crowd intermingling with the local high school bands as the band kids wandered around drinking bottled water and chatting with their friends on the sidelines.

Where we are:
Location=Ponce, PR
Lat=17 58.681
Lon=66 37.518

Ponce, Puerto Rico

The past couple of days we have just been taking it easy. We get up at 4 or 5 in the morning, motor east for a few miles in light winds, and drop the hook before the trade winds kick up from the east. Yesterday we were in a spot nicknamed Gilligan's Island (really called "Cayo Aurora"). In the morning just as we got into the dinghy to ride over to the mangrove island, we saw a ferryload of pasty white tourists arrive with plenty of pool toys. The island is a state park "manned by rangers" (meaning we saw a guy lounging around in his boxer shorts at the ranger station) and it is hugely popular with locals and tourists. There were picnic tables, fire pits, and a picturesque shallow lagoon where people were swimming and snorkeling. We took a snorkel through one of the mangrove streams and didn't see much in the way of aquatic life but it was cool to look at the mangrove roots underwater. We then tried to walk around the island to the beach/reef side but there was no path -- guess most of the appeal of the island is the lagoon and picnic spots.

This morning we arrived in Ponce (PONE-say), Puerto Rico's second largest city named for Juan Ponce de Leon. There's a small anchorage near the Ponce Yacht Club, but the depth there is 30 feet and there were already several boats anchored and many more on fixed moorings. In order to put enough scope down you'd want to put at least 150 feet of chain out and things could get a little too close for comfort if the wind shifts. So we just tucked around the corner near the industrial dock (where the big ships tie up) and found a nice spot where we dropped the hook in 15 feet of water instead. Not much scenery to look at though -- in one direction we have the shipyard and two lovely landfills and in the other lots and lots of urban sprawl. Perhaps there's a reason we are the only ones anchored out here...

Where we are:
Location=Ponce, Puerto Rico
Lat=17 58.681
Lon=66 37.518

Cabo Rojo, PR - Telemundo

We motored about 8 miles south of Boqueron to a small bay called Cabo Rojo. The trade winds have picked up and it's been blowing a pretty steady 15-20 knots out of the East each day. We are just at the southwest corner of the island of Puerto Rico, so once we turn the corner and start heading along the south coast we will have to make small jumps along the coast in the early morning before the wind pipes up.

Just for grins we tried to catch the national news on TV last night. We figured that we are in US territory, surely they broadcast the major channels right? No such luck, just Univision, Telemundo, and a whole host of other Spanish-language channels. We had great reception, but some of the programming that they show is pretty crazy. They have these variety-entertainment shows that give "Wallace & Ladmo" a run for its money -- grown-ups dressed as pirates and clowns and god knows what. I kept expecting to see the bumblebee guy from the Simpsons wander onto the screen. On their version of "Entertainment Tonight", one of the co-anchors was a puppet. A puppet, I kid you not. Take that, Mary Hart.

Where we are:
Location=Cabo Rojo, Puerto Rico
Lat=17 56.564
Lon=67 11.828

Boqueron - Nightlife

Today the first order of business was to get ourselves checked into Puerto Rico. We'd been told we had to go to Mayaguez, but it was Sunday so we thought we'd try calling in since we are registered with a US Customs Decal. We got the number for San Juan, who told us to call Mayaguez, who told us (only in Spanish) that they were closed and to come in Monday. Not satisfied with that answer, we called San Juan back (each call was at a minimum 50 cents so I had to keep going into a liquor store to get change -- the clerk thought I was crazy) and after answering their questions about home port, last port, people and food on board, we were finally given our clearance back into US waters. We used up our stock of laundry quarters ($6) but we saved the $30 cab ride to Mayaguez, so it worked out well. People here have been very friendly, one lady overheard Kevin asking "habla usted ingles" on the payphone and asked if we needed help translating, and we met Ida who is a bartender at one of the pubs and she gave us some info on where live music would be playing and where we could get free internet. Not to mention the nutty, Spanish-mumbling elderly gentleman we met in the park who kept making baseball motions and showing us baseball cards while pointing at himself. We finally got it when he pulled out his wallet and showed us a black-and-white photo of his younger self in a baseball uniform, had to have been more than 60 years ago since the guy looked to be about 80. After it was clear we understood his pantomime, he hopped on his bike and rode away. Surreal.

Went for a walk along the beach and a swim in the afternoon and then dinghied into town around dinnertime. Even for a Sunday night, the place was hopping. Boqueron is a resort town and college kid hangout so it's chock full of bars and restaurants. We had dinner at one of the waterfront places and watched the birds flitting to and fro after the sun had set. Birds? Wait, no...not birds -- bats. It took us awhile to realize it because they were flying by so fast. Guess there's a reason the Bacardi emblem is a big bat. After dinner we wandered into a couple pubs and clubs and it also took a few moments for us to catch on that the guy to girl ratio in most places was way off. Also a dead giveaway: most of the guys were extremely well-groomed and had nicer highlights in their hair than me. Anyway the music was loud and fun so we just kicked back with a couple Medallas (local beer) and people-watched for the rest of the night.

sunset over the DR

Boqueron, Puerto Rico - Convoy!

Well we left Luperon a little less than two days ago. Two other boats left around the same time (Sol Magique and Mi-Lady) so we kept in touch while we were underway. As we approached the Samana peninsula on the DR's east coast, we caught up with several other boats who had left Luperon a few days before and so we all trucked along across the Mona Passage, keeping in touch via VHF and SSB radio. We have never really traveled in a group with other boats before, usually we do these crossings solo, so it was nice for a change to keep in touch with other boaters as the nights passed.

We had some great luck with sea life on the passage. First, Kevin caught a 20 lb mahi-mahi. This time we were smart: while it was still fighting in the water, we dug out the fish scale so we could weigh it. Kevin also did a fantastic job of filleting and flaying it so very little of the fish was wasted -- we should be eating lots of fish in the coming weeks. Man, cleaning a fish that size sure makes a mess on the deck. Ick. After we'd cleaned up we noticed some humpback whales cavorting off on the horizon. They were slapping their tails and jumping clean out of the water. It was too far away to get any great photos, but Kevin did manage to catch some of the action with his telephoto lens - we'll see how good those pics turn out. And just before sunset a big pod of dolphins came racing through the waves to ride our bow wake. They were in such a hurry to get to our boat they were getting their entire bodies airborne like torpedoes.

We crossed the Mona Passage early this morning and conditions were very calm. We had heard this could be a rough crossing so we specifically chose a window with very light wind and waves. We were both able to get some good sleep and when the sun rose we could see Isla Desecheo (a part of Puerto Rico) towering above the water. Around 10 am a big US Coast Guard cutter came up on the boat behind us (Mi-Lady). After some discussion they sent a boarding party, armed of course. Jim on Mi-Lady said that they were very courteous and it was just a routine boarding inspection. He didn't even have to slow down or change course. We later heard that several boats had also been boarded this morning, so it sounds like the coast of Puerto Rico is well-patrolled.

Anyway, we are in Boqueron (boke-eh-ROAN) which is on the southwest coast of PR. We are pretty tired but we have to run into Mayaguez (a nearby town) to check in with Immigration. More later.

Where we are:
Location=Boqueron, Puerto Rico
Lat=18 01.194
Lon=67 10.746

En Route to Puerto Rico

We left Luperon last night at sunset and are about halfway to Boqueron in Puerto Rico. Two other boats left about the same time so we have been chatting with them on the radio a bit. The coastline of the Dominican Republic does weird things to the wind since it has such high mountains. Some of the capes can accelerate the wind up to 10 knots, and changing the direction all over the place. So far everything is going fine, we've got two fishing lines in the water and are watching for whales. Right now we are rounding Cabo Cabron which is at the tip of the Samana peninsula on the DR.

Where we are:
Location=Cabo Cabron, Dominican Republic
Lat=19 23.000
Lon=69 13.000

Luperon, Dominican Republic

Dominican Republic landscape

Luperon - Puerto Plata day trip

On Wednesday we got together with two other couples (Roger and Andy on "Oma & Opa" and Mike and Gail on "Wild Rover") to rent a van to head into Puerto Plata, a larger town about 30 miles away. Our first stop was the Fortaleza, a well preserved fortress overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. While we were there we saw huge waves crashing offshore. At least we thought they were waves until we saw a massive body fling itself out of the water. Turns out they were humpbacks! Of course Murphy's Law dictates that they jump out of the water to attract our attention and then refuse to surface once we finally have a camera pointed at them. So no pictures, but hopefully we see some more while we are in this area - it's the mating season and the majority of the whales have migrated to a spot just off the northeast coast of the DR.

Next on our list was a tour of the Brugal Rum Factory. In Spanish the word for rum is "ron" pronounced just like the English word "run". The sugar cane is harvested and distilled elsewhere on the island, but they bring it to the Puerto Plata plant to be diluted and bottled. The assembly lines were something to see -- in a space of about 200 feet the bottles go from being completely empty to full of rum, capped and sealed, labeled, and packed in cases of 12. I half expected one of the Dominicans to put his glove over a bottle and wave at it a la "Laverne and Shirley". And of course after the tour you get to sample the product. It was still before noon but we didn't let that stop us.

Those were the two highlights of the day. There was an amber museum that wasn't super exciting, and then we stopped off for a really nice lunch at a restaurant near the beach. We also hit the fruit market and the supermercado which was just like a supermarket in the US (the stores in Luperon are much smaller with less selection). After lunch we attempted to ride the cable cars that go up the mountainside and are supposed to give a great view of the surrounding area. Unfortunately the cable car was closed for maintenance. Of course looking on the bright side, I'd rather they close the thing and not let us on than defer the maintenance so that we could have a ride to the top.

Today (Thursday) we are planning to depart Luperon bound for Puerto Rico. The forecast is for mild conditions for the next several days so we are planning to go all the way to Boqueron on the SW coast. It's about 250 miles and should take us 40-48 hours, making landfall Saturday afternoon sometime. It's a long passage, but we will be within sight of land most of the way for a change. (our return from the Bahamas last year was 335 miles) The first 150 miles we will travel along the north coast of the Dominican Republic, then we will cross the Mona Passage which is the body of water between the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico.

Luperon - Las Cascadas

Yesterday we spent the afternoon changing the oil and fuel filters in both engines. We also had the local handymen bring us 20 gallons of diesel to top off our tank. There are two local guys who work together to take care of all the boats in the harbor: "Handy Andy" (not sure if that's his name but that's what he's called) and Papo (pretty sure that's his name). Recently a boat in the harbor sank because of a leaky head, and they were the ones who managed to get it afloat again. There are two marinas in Luperon but neither has a fuel dock, so we were happy that we didn't have to jerry jug the fuel ourselves.

This morning we had made plans to rent a car and caravan with the folks on "Adventure Bound", "Sol Magique" and "Eleytheria" to the "Cascadas". Cascada means "waterfall" in Spanish and the waterfalls here are really something. There are 27 levels (counting each waterfall, even the smaller ones) and they twist and turn through the rock just like the waterslides at a waterpark. As it turns out, that's exactly what they are -- natural waterslides. We arrived at the base of the mountain and were given life jackets and a helmet. We then had to decide how many waterfall "levels" we wanted to do. We all decided to do the first seven falls since that seemed to be the most popular. It was a twenty minute walk to the base of the falls and then we followed our guides wading through and climbing up the first seven waterfalls. Then they had us turn around and go down all the falls one at a time. Most were like slides, but there were a couple where you had to jump. In fact, Jim and Amanda (Adventure Bound) had already toured the falls once before and they convinced the guides to take some of us up one extra level to "Numero Ocho" which turned out to be at least a twenty foot jump into a deep pool of water below. Of course I am somehow first in line and Tyra (the guide) keeps telling me "es seguro, es seguro" ("it's safe"). Right. Looking down it was very intimidating but I couldn't back out, and when he counted to three I just jumped. It was actually pretty cool and it was nice to be able to turn around and watch the rest of the group jump as well (only two people didn't end up jumping). Of course our other guide, Jacobo, dove head first. Show off. Really, the guides were great, and the "Cascadas" was definitely a not to be missed experience.

After the waterfalls, the group split up and Kevin and I had our driver Titico take us over to La Isabella, the site of Columbus' first settlement in the New World. Titico was a great guide, but he spoke only Spanish for the most part, so I tried to translate what I understood for Kevin. I'm glad to know a little Spanish, but I'm pretty sure I sound like a small child (no prepositions, broken sentences only in the present tense). "Dominican Republic is country pretty. Many people is nice here friendly. I happy to speak small Spanish. Me talk pretty one day".

Luperon, Dominican Republic

[Kevin's Post]It seems like every conversation here starts with, 'So how long are you staying here in Luperon'. And the answer is always 'till the next weather window' or occasionally, 'we have no plans to leave'. There is a large community of expats here and the harbor is filled with unoccupied boats of people who came and never left. Some of them have even married Dominicans and have started businesses and families here. The cost of living is so low here that the cruisers can really stretch their cruising dollar. Plus the harbor is one of the best hurricane shelters in this part of the Caribbean due to the surrounding hills and mountains, so people can stay here year-round in relative safety. People say the longer you stay the harder it is to leave. Well, we'll be here at least another week since the tradewinds are relentless and there doesn't appear to be a weather window on the horizon.

Since returning from Santo Domingo, we have spent quite a bit of our time socializing with the other boaters and have made many new friends. Friday night we stopped by 'Oma & Opa' to thank Roger for his help securing our boat the previous day. Roger and Andi are a retired german couple, Andi was with us on the trip to Santo Domingo, Roger stayed behind. They invited us aboard for drinks and we stayed for a few hours before inviting them over to our boat for more drinks (a popular activity in Luperon). They have traveled extensively and we enjoyed hearing about their cruising experiences in Cuba, a place American vessels cannot go. Saturday night another boat decided to have a hot dog roast and bonfire on the beach since it was a full moon. So, Amanda made up some baked beans and we headed over to that. There were about 20-30 people there and it was a good time. We chatted for several hours with 'Eleytheria'. They have cruised throughout South America. Until now, the vast majority of the cruisers we have met have only been in the US or Bahamas, so it is exciting to hear about more distant waters.

Sunday is a big day at the Puerto Blanca Marina here in Luperon. In the morning there is a cruisers swap meet where everybody brings stuff they are trying to get rid of. We brought one of our 3 outboard gas tanks (containing fuel more than 2 years old) and sold it for $10. We also brought our 3 volume Atlantic light list publication which is about the size of 2 large phone books. We have never used them, so ended up giving them away. There were other cruisers selling baked goods, jams and jellies made with local produce, charts and cruising guides, dvds, etc. The swap meet was followed by a wonderful Dominican barbecue of chicken and steak served with rice, beans and vegetables. It was pretty pricey at $6 per person (ha), but we splurged.

There was just an announcement on the VHF that one of the local restaurants will be showing the Superbowl tonight. No guarantees that it will be in English though.

Santo Domingo, DR

Well we have re-anchored and we backed down on the anchor with both engines at 2000 rpm for 40 minutes. So I think we'll hold here. Sounds like several other people have dragged in the last few weeks so we're not the only ones.

Santo Domingo Caves

Anyway, on Thursday we were up before dawn and took an organized tour down to Santo Domingo, the country's capital. Luperon is on the north coast of the country and Santo Domingo is on the south side of the country. It was a four hour bus ride but at least it was air conditioned. In fact, driving through the countryside was one of the highlights -- the country is lush and mountainous and pretty much anything they put in the ground will grow here -- pineapples, mangos, citrus, bananas plus in the lowlands they can grow tobacco and rice. Every so often the bus would pass through a small town and you'd see roadside stands hawking vegetables or pork (from an entire roasted pig). So on the bus ride there and back our eyes were just glued to the window taking it all in.

First Church in the New World

Originally the Spanish built the first settlement in the new world at La Isabella in the north part of the country, but after many of them began dying of malaria they moved on to the south and built Santo Domingo. Our first stop was the cave called Los Tres Ojos (the three eyes). This is a series of three immense caves, two filled with freshwater lakes and the third is fed with saltwater from the Caribbean sea. Our first stop was also the first of many encounters with Dominican hucksters trying very persistently to sell you their necklaces or limestone carvings. I don't know if they realize that some people would be more likely to buy if they could just have a quiet look at the merchandise themselves without being hassled with constant patter about how these are the "best quality handmade (necklaces, carvings, statues, whatever) you can find". We kept saying "no, gracias" and the guys followed us nearly all the way back to the bus. Our guy spoke excellent English and it made me want to ask him why he didn't use his language skills to become a tour guide or hotel concierge or something instead of hustling tourists selling necklaces. But maybe necklace sales are more profitable than I think. Anyway it was a relief to get back to the bus after having run the gauntlet.

Santo Domingo Market

Our tour bus made a very brief stop at the "Faro a Colon", which translates to "Columbus Lighthouse" but really is a monument not a navigational lighthouse as we know them. It was built in 1992 to honor the 500th anniversary of Columbus' first voyage. Our tour guide told us that we had 5 minutes to get out of the bus and take pictures but that we weren't going inside because "there is nothing in there". I found that funny because our National Geographic guidebook says not only is there a museum inside with the anchor excavated from the wreck of the Santa Maria (yes, THAT Santa Maria) but also Columbus's tomb where they have a pretty strong case that the ashes kept there are really those of the explorer although they can't be 100% certain.

After the bus stopped at another tacky tourist trap (gift shop) for 40 minutes, we continued on to the historical district. Santo Domingo's Colonial Zone is chock full of historic buildings -- Catedral Basilica Santa Maria la Menor (the first cathedral built in the new world finished in 1540), the Alcazar de Colon (where Chris Columbus's son Diego lived with his wife Maria Toledo), and the Calle de las Damas (the street where Maria's ladies of the court walked around in search of husbands). We enjoyed the tour of the Alcazar, especially since our 22 year old tour guide kept touching things! He would say, "this painting is a triptych dating back to the 15th century" as he caressed the paint itself with bare fingers while some of the folks in the tour group leaned up against the tapestry woven in the 1470's. So it was interesting to be able to see all the artifacts up close, and we were glad there weren't any American or European museum curators in our tour group -- they would've had a heart attack.

Luperon, Dominican Republic

Beach Cows

Wednesday night's post:
We did a little more exploring today, walked over to the all-inclusive resort to check out the beach. Getting there was interesting; we'd been told that if you try to get to the beach via the resort they turn you away if you aren't wearing a wristband. So we went the back way instead and wound up walking along a cow path (the cows graze within sight of the beach -- isn't that funny?) We walked along the beach to the resort part and it looked like your typical resort - banana boat riding the waves, deck chairs, palappa umbrellas, etc. Rather than risk getting caught checking out the hotel we just turned around and went back the way we came. We stopped at a tourism office and signed up to do a tour of Santo Domingo tomorrow, then we hung out briefly at the marina bar before heading back to the boat. Jim and Amanda from "Adventure Bound" came over for dinner, and we had some pizza, salad, and delicious brownies that Amanda had made.

Luperon Harbor

Thursday night's post:
One of our worst nightmares happened today. Our anchor dragged while we were not on the boat. Let me back up a little: when we first got here, we set our anchor but felt we were too close to several other boats. So we picked it up and re-set it in a different spot, and this is how we met Adventure Bound in the first place because just after we dropped it Jim and Amanda came by in their dinghy and warned us that the area we were in held about as well as teflon. When we backed down on it, we seemed to hold pretty well so we decided to keep an eye on it and maybe back down on it again after it had had time to settle some more. But complacency set in and since we were still exactly where we were supposed to be after three days, we thought the boat was fine. So we got up at 5am on Thursday and went on the all-day Santo Domingo tour (I will have to save that for a different post). We were gone until 7pm and as the bus returned to Luperon we could see from the trees swaying that the wind had picked up considerably. We headed back to the boat and my heart just about stopped when we realized that the boat wasn't where we'd left it. So we knew we had dragged and immediately I started praying that we hadn't hit any other boats. Just as we were tying our dinghy to the boat, Jim came by and told us the story. The wind had picked up to 25 knots and by noon it was obvious that we were moving backwards. Miraculously we managed to miss every other boat, but it was clear to Jim that we were heading towards a pretty shallow spot and would end up aground in the mangroves. So he and Amanda jumped aboard and started our engines and tried to re-set our anchor. Fortunately Jim was familiar with catamarans so he had no trouble with the helm controls, but I just felt awful when we found out that poor Amanda had to haul up our anchor and chain BY HAND because we stupidly left the windlass breaker in the off position and because the boat was locked they had no way to turn it on. It is a tough job for Kevin to pull up the chain by hand even in light winds, but here she was hauling it up in 25 knots! Plus -- it didn't set the first time (the anchor got fouled in some junk on the bottom) so she actually hauled all that chain and the 44lb delta up TWICE. And this is not a sand bottom; it is some of the foulest muck we've seen not to mention that we have doubts about the sanitation level of the water. After hauling it up the second time they decided to put us on an empty mooring ball in the harbor. At this point Roger from another boat "Oma and Opa" had dinghied by and was able to help them get Solstice secured on the mooring. We are just so grateful. Not even sure how to begin to thank them, as they basically saved our house and our cruise.

Luperon - Lost in Translation

Okay, we are finally all checked in to the Dominican Republic. They sure love their bureaucracy here. After going ashore and checking in with Immigration ($25) and the Navy (free!), we returned to the boat and were visited a few hours later by the officials from the Department of Agriculture and Tourism. The agriculture guy said he needed to inspect our food, and when Kevin opened our fridge & freezer, the guy looked at all the frozen food, muttered "ohhhhh..." under his breath, and shook his head slowly. Luckily we were able to tell him that all the food was from "los Estados Unidos" and he left it at that ($20 to inspect the food and also the cat). The Tourism guy handed us two tourist visa cards ($10 each) and told us that we needed these cards to travel in the country and that tomorrow we had to have them officially stamped by the Immigration guy (who we'd already visited). Plus we had to visit the Port Authority and pay to enter the port (but the port authority was the one at the fiesta so that would also wait until tomorrow). So the next morning we head over to the customs/immigration shack and pay the port authority lady and we go to get our tourist visa cards stamped -- the guy stamps them, hands them to me, and immediately asks me to put them in "the box", which appears to be something like a suggestion box labeled "tourism". I can't for the life of me understand why yesterday a guy handed me these cards, saying (in Spanish of course) that they were necessary and valid for "the whole country" and now that we have them officially stamped we have to basically throw them away. I try (in very crappy Spanish) to ask why so that I understand what is happening, and the guy says (in Spanish, I am paraphrasing here) "Hey, I am the Immigration Official; if I tell you to put the cards in the box, you put the cards in the box." Okay, okay...in the box. Hope we don't need them at the next port of call. I do have to say that every single official was absolutely honest and above board about the charges so far. After Kevin paid one guy $20 and I handed another guy $20 I said in Spanish: "okay, that's $10 and $10" and was immediately corrected and handed two receipts totalling $40. Did I mention that I suck not only at Spanish but math as well?

So today we wandered the town and ate lunch at a local restaurant. We were the only gringos in the place at lunch but the waiter came over and spoke impeccable English. We ordered the plate of the day which was a huge amount of rice with pork, a side of beans, and a small green salad, plus two cokes. Of course he brings out the cokes and we find out they are each a 1/2 liter bottle -- so here we are, the Americans, drinking more coca cola with one meal than a Dominican family probably drinks in a week. (Okay, next time just order ONE bottle). The food was excellent though and even more so when we got the bill -- only 180 pesos. Awesome. Plus, the restaurant had cable TV and was tuned to Superstation TBS. Bonus. So, Meal and Drinks: $5.45. Watching the end of "The Fifth Element" with a bunch of Dominican motoconcho (motorcycle taxi) drivers: Priceless.

Later in the afternoon we headed over to the Marina Puerto Blanco to sample the local beers, Presidente (for export, slightly more expensive) and Bohemia (domestic only, and a little cheaper). Then we wandered over to Marina Luperon and ran into a couple of cruisers from a boat called "Adventure Bound". Amanda and Jim are our age and we really hit it off. We headed over to their boat afterward for drinks and snacks. They've been here a week and were able to offer some great advice on what to see and do while we're here. So far every cruiser and every local we have met have been amazingly friendly and helpful. We are looking forward to spending some time here getting to know the place.

Luperon, Dominican Republic

[Kevin's Post]We had an easy passage to Luperon last night and got here about noon. There was a lot of bioluminescence in the water last night which made it look like the boat was throwing green sparks as it moved through the water. The Dominican Republic looks very different from the Bahamas and Turks & Caicos. Everyplace we have been so far has been very flat, the mountains here are a big contrast. We tried to clear in here in Luperon, but some of the officials we need to visit were gone to a fiesta so we'll have to finish the paperwork tomorrow. We were too tired to do much exploring, but did walk up and down the main street before heading back to the boat. Time for a siesta.

Where we are:
Location=Luperon, Dominican Republic
Lat=19 53.942
Lon=70 57.213

French Cay, Turks & Caicos

[Kevin's Post]We left the Marina this morning and crossed the Caicos Banks to French Cay where we plan to sleep for a few hours before departing for Luperon in the Dominican Republic. The Caicos Banks is a minefield of coral heads with overall depths from 6-12 feet, so you have to keep a constant lookout. Just as we were anchoring we saw a large ray jump out of the water and land with a splash. It was pretty cool. Leaving here for Luperon will be about a 20-24 hour trip so we should be getting into Luperon tomorrow (Monday) afternoon sometime.

Where we are:
Location=French Cay, Turks and Caicos
Lat=21 30.703
Lon=72 12.205