KWANESUM

Oh dear....

2011-05-14T11:27:00.001-07:00

So...does the fact that I didn't write in my blog for all this time mean I'm a failure at blogging?

Or, a non-blogger?

Or, a blogger wannabe who just doesn't keep up?

Or, it's my journal and I've been lost in a cave for months with no writing instruments???

Not sure what happened to me. Captured by aliens and rendered blog impaired.

Doggoneit...I've let a lot of people down, including Randy and myself, and that doesn't feel good. Rats.

It is my goal and my duty to try to get back in the saddle and catch up on our adventures and declare this blog back in action! The trials and tribulations and fun of Randy and Ellen and their faithful boat Kwanesum are in my head and waiting to be put into word and picture. Now on with it Ellen!

Now in Marina Riviera Nayarit, La Cruz de Huanacaxtle, Mexico!

2010-11-17T12:14:00.000-08:00

Kwanesum remains here. Dock 9, slip A8.

Love this little town!

To the Pacific, Capt. Ran!

2010-07-30T11:22:00.000-07:00

I’m having one of those moments! One of those moments when I want to beam everyone I know right to where I am. We are in the most beautiful anchorage at Bahia Honda, Panama. A spot we stopped on our way to Costa Rica. Drinking martinis in the cockpit, overlooking tranquil waters and beautiful mountains. The beaches are brown but pristine. The mountains are jungle…thick jungle that ends at the brown beach with palm trees. You can imagine the velociraptors parting their way through the jungle to get to their prey. You can hear the howler monkeys which is eerie, but actual…and cool. It’s like a lake here…but it is a bay off of the Pacific Ocean. This is a much needed anchorage for us. We’re alone…no other boats. Only those that live on the island.

In extreme contrast, we just experienced one of the worst nights on our trip. After leaving Isla Taboga (I’ll catch you up on all the details later in this post chapter) and traveling overnight we ended up at an anchorage recommended as a good stop on our way north. We were looking forward to a good night’s sleep as you don’t really sleep all that well when traveling. It ended up being a dreadful anchorage of extreme rolling with a boisterous thunderstorm thrown in. We were up all night being vigilant of our position and trying to quiet everything that was banging in the galley. No sleep that night either!

But where we are right this minute… wipes all of that out, and with a martini in hand and my best friend with me in the cockpit…analyzing life and what we want to do in the future…life is perfect. And I wish you were all here with us.

To our adventures since we last left you….
We are movin’ now, folks! Watch out.

We’ve covered some territory in the past couple of months; checked some things off our Bucket List. We LIKE to keep moving. We like to get there, see stuff, then, keep moving. Or we like to get there…and do nothing for awhile. Or… we will get there, see stuff, do a little boat work, and do nothing for awhile...then keep moving. Many times we arrive after a long passage, which we’ve done a few times lately, and the down time is greatly appreciated. And the views while you’re having that glass of wine or martini or rum drink…are priceless.

Let’s see: Curacao to Cartagena…Cartagena to San Blas…San Blas to Colon…through the canal…the Pacific!... Las Brisas to Taboga…Taboga to right now, anchored at Bahia Honda.

CURACAO: We were waiting for weather in Curacao. All of us would rather have spent more time in Bonaire. By ‘all of us’ I mean Ran and I and the crew of Quic en grogne, with whom we were still traveling: Isabelle, Roel, Tessa and Yoan. We liked Bonaire better. (Tessa found some friends on another boat in Curacao, so she was quite happy.) It was a much simpler place in Bonaire and the water was crystal clear. You could snorkel right off the boat and see tons of fish. And you were able to dinghy in and walk right to where you wanted to be. In Curacao things were far away from the anchorage in Spaanse (Spanish) Waters. And it was a kind of rolly and always windy.

But we had fun, too. We bought yummy ice cream bars from the ladies on the ice cream boat. The same lady goes around and fills your water ranks if you hire her to do that, which we did. Very convenient. We met great people, which is such a plus in this life adventure. Blake and Sunny and their daughter whom we met in Bonaire were here. Nathalie and Art. Nathalie is French and an artist…Art is …Art, just a great guy. They were taking their boat, Fanta Sea back to Florida for awhile. Gatherings were enjoyed at Fishermans Marina, the dinghy dock, and at the little club off of our anchorage. We celebrated my birthday aboard Kwanesum with the crew of Quic en grogne. I made my favorite dinner, macaroni and cheese, and cupcakes for dessert, Tessa drew me a picture of Kwanesum and they brought a cake, too. Another day Quic en grogne invited us over for dinner and Roel made crepes. So yummy! Crepes made by a French person! Can’t beat that!

Ah, yes...in Curacao we were also boarded by the coast guard. Seems they targeted the US boats. We had no problem with them. We invited them on board and showed them all of our papers. But another US boat didn't have a good experience I guess. But they were very resistant to letting them on board for some reason. We did find a paper missing, however, when we went to check out...again walking hither and yon to all the spots we needed to visit to check out. We were worried that the coast guard may have inadvertently taken our paper with them. There are so many papers you must fill out and then keep and then show people when they ask for them...the 'paper shuffle'. It's a wonder more papers don't go missing. But Randy is very good at keeping all in order. That's why we were so surprised to find one was missing! We actually weren't sure what to do about the missing paper, except...the people in the office had a COPY of the same paper. Hellooo? Must you hassle us if you already have a copy? This checking in and out of countries is getting old. Anyhoo...got 'er done. Thank heaven.

But we were ready to go. Hoping the weather would cooperate. We were also determining what our next destination would be. The closest spot was Aruba. And then there was Cartagena, Colombia. And then Panama. We could go to Aruba and hang out there and then determine if it would be Cartagena or Panama next. We could go straight to Cartagena. We could go straight to Panama. After sitting awhile at Curacao we were anxious to get going further than Aruba. When the weather window opens we need to get going while the gettin’ is good. So the next question was… straight to Panama or to Cartagena first? Cartagena was a bit of a challenge to decide because of tales from other cruisers and because our insurance company would charge us extra to go there. The charge was only $100 so that was not a big factor. The scuttlebutt was that it was 'unsafe', 'dirty water', 'the marina was all torn apart', 'you have to use an agent to check in', 'it’s gorgeous', 'do NOT miss it'….we ignored the first part and concentrated on the latter. And when are we ever going to get to Colombia again?

“All those in favor of Cartagena say, Aye.” “AYE!!!” “All those opposed…”(silence). To Cartagena it is! The trip there will not be easy. They say it is the 5th hardest passage, apparently. (I found that out after the fact.) Not sure what the others are, but I have an inkling. We will wait for a good weather window and the wind and seas will be behind us. These are good things.

Well, it was definitely Mr Toad’s wild ride. We were wing and wing, with the wind and seas behind us, able to sail, but the winds were big and the seas were big and the Proactive Puking Management that I thought was no longer needed proved to be necessary. Thought I could do it, but I was wrong. I tried really hard, but the body was in charge. Oh well, back to the PPM. Whatever it takes. Rocking and rolling are here to stay for awhile.

The first 24 hours we made 170 nautical miles. Hello??!!! We were cookin’! We wore our life jackets the whole trip. Normally we wear them only at night and clip ourselves on when in the cockpit. But with this wild ride, we kept them on the whole trip. We obviously had a current with us and there were waves we were surfing down at times but our speed at one time was 10kts!! That’s HUGE! With a good current we can do 7.5 – 8kts sometimes, but not often. Usually we do 5 – 6.5kts, depending on the elements. It took us 3 complete days/nights to get to Cartagena. And it wasn’t much fun. Our preventer (which holds the boom out on the wing and wing sail configuration, and keeps it from jybing, aka slamming back) broke a couple of times… WHAM/BANG/UGLY! Always at night, of course, when things seem to get a little livelier…like the seas slamming us around and the wind slamming us around. KAPLOWEY!!! “Holy crap what was that??” I hollered, having been blasted out of a sort-of sleep down below. “The damn preventer broke. Grab the helm and hold the boat steady, El, while I try to secure the mainsail.” “Uhhh, roger Ran, I’m trying but she’s not cooperating very well. We seem to be going back the way we started. Man, I’m glad we’re not going THIS direction in these waves! Yeee Haww!”

It’s hard to see at night. =) At this point Randy is forward, always hooked on to the jack lines which hold you on board, wrestling away with the boom and the lines. I turned on the deck light so he could kind of see. “Screw this shit, El, start the engine. I’m pulling in the sails. We will deal with this in the morning when I can see.” Our beloved Yanmar engine which is soooo good to us, started right up. We motored the rest of the night pounding through the seas that were like a washing machine. Next morning, we discovered the boom vang had pulled out of the mast. The boom vang's job is to hold down the boom of the head sail. Lovely. Not crucial, fortunately, but not exactly the greatest thing you want to happen. Randy jury rigged it and we'll fix it later. This was one of a couple of times that we had drama in the night on this leg of the trip…and always at night. Must be the sea gods’ revenge. Are we having fun yet? =)

CARTAGENA: Arrived at Cartagena, early, early and had to wait around before we could call to get permission to go in. It was not a pretty site. I began to have doubts about our decision. The sky line was of tall buildings and there seemed to be smog! I guess I was expecting green hills with a quaint village tucked inside. And the water was green/brown. Ugh. We got permission to go in. Quic en grogne had a hard time being understood. Their boat name is not easy, particularly if you don’t speak the language well. Roel was tired and becoming frustrated. It had been a long journey. Isabelle speaks fluent Spanish and finally got on the radio but the harbor patrol still could not understand their boat name. We went ahead in. Their patrol boat came out and checked with Quic en grogne and all was well. Now into the anchorage. So glad to be here! Yay! We made it!

Not lovely. Lots of garbage in the brown water. Ahhh…this is what people were talking about. I really didn’t expect such a city, city! Tall apartment buildings and I assume some business buildings on the peninsula surrounding the bay. You could see bits of the old town peaking through on the mainland. OK…we’ll give this a try but right now…I’m not impressed. We decide not to check into the country until the following day as we all need to sleep and rest a bit. We leave our yellow quarantine flag up and hit the hay.

The guide books say you need an agent to check in to the country and they suggest 2 names: Manfred and David. Roel, Yoan, Randy and I dinghy in to Club Nautico, the so-called marina there. NOT what you’d expect… however, we were forewarned by Noonsite (a website, by and for cruisers) that it was a little ram shod. They were very nice at the marina. Apparently, as it was being built, the mayor of the city decided to put a halt to the progress as there was a question of ownership. So it is a partially built marina with lots of rebar and boards and whatever to hold it together and planks to walk on from the dinghy to the covered area and little building that acts as an office. One of the agents, Manfred, said to meet him at the grocery store down the street. That sounds a little odd. The other agent, David, happened to be in the office when we got there. I had read on Noonsite that he was the better agent. In hindsight I’m not sure that was true, but you gotta go by some reasoning so we decided to go with David. Long story short, it ended up being a ‘give me your passports, I’ll take care of it’ (which is always scary but necessary, I guess)…wait… ‘come with me here’….wait…wait…wait…finally done. Then to check out…same thing…David was never on time…wait…wait…but he’s got your passports so what can you do? Then pay him $50 for all of that…waiting. But it got done. Thank heaven.

We fell in love with Cartagena. Once we got off the boat and into the town, we loved their grocery store/coffee shop/internet café/ laundry that was just up the street. Quaint town. Nice people. Ran and I walked across the bridge into old town and just loved it! We were hungry and had our eyes out for a little cantina that held the promise of a great lunch. We were not disappointed. We peaked into doorways here and there and chose one that had a wonderful narrow courtyard with little tables. We thought we might eat inside, but their air conditioning had gone out so they recommended outside. It was perfect.

They were having a wonderful celebration while we were in Cartagena. Por la Ruta de los Galeones, El Caribe se Llenara de Velas: "On the route of the Galleons, the Caribbean is full of sails." We were able to watch the parade of ships from our boat as they came into the harbor and again the day they departed. Much pomp and circumstance and standing on the yardarms. A nice unexpected touch to our Cartagena visit. With that there were celebrations in old town, too. We felt very safe there. Never felt uneasy. And it was very charming. More than I could have ever imagined. We strolled around the old town a couple of times. We visited the fort and had a wonderful anniversary dinner at the quaintest of spots in old town. Enjoyed with Roel, Isabelle, Tessa and Yoan. It was so nice. We stayed in Cartagena 5 days. Memorable, memorable, memorable. You MUST see Cartagena.

Now…to the San Blas! Yay!

SAN BLAS ISLANDS: OK…this is one spot Ran and I had been waiting for. When we were still in Deltaville, fitting out our boat and preparing for our adventure, we came across a boat in the yard from San Francisco. The couple that owned her were working away repainting the bottom and polishing the boat to store while they went home for awhile. We always like to talk to folks that have ‘been there and done that’ to glean any bits of information that might help us on our trip. One of the questions we asked them was what their favorite spot was along the way. “The Swimming Pool in the San Blas Islands.” This was the spot they said was so gorgeous and clear and wonderful. And we were about to get there! Nice!!

This journey from Cartagena to the San Blas was excellent. Ellen kind of excellent. Well, almost. It would have been more excellent if we could have sailed, with smooth seas (I’m so picky!), but barring that happening, we motor-sailed on smooth seas. With a full moon. I’ll take it! It was an easy 207 mile trip that took us a day and a half. A nice way to come into this beautiful spot. We got to Porvenir, the Port of Entry for the Comarca of San Blas, about 0800 to check in. Comarca means it’s an independent country, not part of the Republic of Panama. The indigenous Kuna people have resisted outside government for 400 years. In fact, the Kunas call this area Kuna Yala. They do not like the name San Blas as it was given the name by the Spanish invaders. Porvenir is not a great place to stay so we just anchored there for the duration of our check-in process. And of course we were too early for the officials. So we wait….wandering around the island to check things out. There were a couple of restaurants and what I think was a hotel and a landing strip, of sorts.

The San Blas Islands are mostly small islands of coral and sand, some densely populated. The Kunas create and sell molas which are unique 3, 4 or 5 layer fabric panels decorated with reverse appliqué designs and embroidery. I loved them, but I’m not sure what to do with them. Actually we purchased one from Vernancio, a master mola maker. It’s gorgeous. You can see the wonderful hand sewing that is done. We’ve decided we will frame that one. It was expensive for this area but worth it. It will remind us of our trip to the San Blas and it goes well in the boat. =) The Kuna women make identical mola panels and use them for a blouse by adding a yoke and puffy sleeves out of whatever fabric, not always matching. Kinda funky. They also wear gold through their ears and nose and wrap beads around their arms and legs. And of course tattoos. It’s apparently a matriarchal society. The women are well respected. They control the money and the men move into the women’s family compound. In fact many men dress as women and act as women here. Transvestites. Some of them very prominent in their village.

Before we left Porvenir I had one of the older women put ‘wini’ beads on my arm. She methodically wrapped them and secured each wrap twisting the string around each row. Then carefully and securely tying it off. She was darling. But they don’t like you to take their picture. I would have loved to have gotten very close to her wonderful face for a picture.

From Porvenir we decided to go to the West Lemmons, which was close, to anchor for a couple of days. There are many, many islands to explore. But we weren’t going to take too much time so we needed to chose carefully those we did see. We found a nice little anchorage at the West Lemmons. Stayed there for 3 days. There were several other boats anchored here, some appeared to have been here for quite some time. VHF channel 72 was the voice of the cruisers net in this area. Always useful information available on the nets. Quic en grogne only stayed for 1 day and then were off to explore other islands. We decided to go our separate ways and meet up again in a couple of weeks. While at the Lemmons we had, of course, the vendors. The Kuna Indians selling their wares. In their dugout canoes called ulus they would have a pig in the front, a couple of children, an older grandmother, the son, perhaps, and a dog with pups. All in one canoe! They are so charming. They were selling molas. I did buy one, for $10. We had a sense of the price from the shop at Porvenir. Then Vernancio came along with his really wonderful molas. This is where I purchased one for $100. It’s wonderful. I actually wanted to buy 3 more to make pillows for the cockpit but we were concerned about using too much cash. Darn it!

Now our mission was to find the Swimming Pool we had been dreaming about. It’s in the East Holandes. We set out for there, found it and anchored in 9 feet of crystal clear fabulously azure water! OK…this is the spot!! There were about 17 boats spread around. Apparently during the busy season they get about 8 times that! Glad we weren’t there during that time. There were boats from S. Africa, France, Ireland, Spain, Germany and of course America. Plenty of room. So beautiful. And the weather was perfect. We immediately jumped in the water. We were in the water constantly.

As we set our anchor and have our safe-arrival beer, which has become a tradition, Randy decided to don his Speedo (just kidding!) and dive in and check out the anchor. It’s so clear you can see it really easily. As he was snorkeling about I heard our bilge go off and saw it spurting water out the back. Hmmmm….wonder why it wants to do that? “Uh, Ran! Why’s our bilge going off?” “What??!!!” he says as he’s climbing up the stern ladder. “Holy shit we’re sinking!!!” “Huh???” (Well I wouldn’t go that dramatic, but that’s what he said.) In a flurry of arms and legs and dripping all over the inside of the boat Randy starts pulling things apart…checking the through hulls…looking everywhere…finally rips off the mattress of the aft berth, flinging it into the main saloon area (which is not easy to do) and checks the water pump. I’m standing around watching him in awe and wondering what the heck I can do to help. “Aha! That’s it! We’re saved! A hose came off the water pump.” Randy, my hero, fixes it after another flurry of finding the right tools. “The good news is…we are no longer sinking. The bad news is…there goes all our fresh water.” “Huh???” “Well…not all of our fresh water, but we’re going to have to watch it until we get a good rain storm.” Phew…not all is lost. And we can bathe off the back of the boat. No problemo. And we did get a good rainstorm while we were there that filled us right back up with fresh water.

We spent the most wonderful, relaxing 2 weeks at the East Holandes. We snorkeled and snorkeled and cleaned the bottom of the boat. We met some wonderful people also on their sailboats. Exchanged books. Had an appetizer exchange on the beach. We had Kunas come out in their ulus to sell us vegetables, rum, beer, cookies, lobsters (which we BBQ’d), whatever we needed. We gave them some gasoline, which they always ask for, and treats por los niños, which they also always ask for, as well as dollars. The US dollar is the currency used here and in Panama. One enterprising young Kuna wanted to sell Randy a doll that was supposed to be useful like Viagra! “Ahhhh…no gracias. Don’t need no stinking Viagra doll.” Too funny! Quic en grogne joined us for the last couple of days at the anchorage and then we were off to Porvenir to check out of the San Blas. Then on to Panama and “le canal,” as Isabelle says.

To step back a minute….remember I said there was plenty of room at this anchorage. Well…it never fails…that some boat wants to anchor right next to you! This particular boat was anchored a nice bit away from us originally and for some unknown reason decided to move…right next to us. OK. We’ve gotten a little more relaxed about that but please…with all this room, why right next to us?? And this guy was weird. I figure he was about our age. His wife seemed ok, but this guy liked to be in the nude a lot. Lovely. And he had a duck decoy he put out behind the boat. Lovely. And he liked to wear his camouflage jacket (yes JACKET) and floppy hat…with nothing else. Lovely. And he decided to fly a kite one day off the back of the boat…in the nude. Lovely. “Uhhh…Randy…it might be getting close to time to leave this spot.” Do you think he was trying to get us to leave??? I don’t think that was his raison d’etre but….Lovely.

We arrived at Porvenir, anchored and went in to check out only to find …they were at lunch. We wait…. Decided to try lunch at the little restaurant while we were waiting. There was a French film crew there that Roel and Isabelle recognized from French TV. Apparently they were doing a documentary of the San Blas. That was kind of cool. They had the head Kuna honcho there on the island to film. The Kuna Indians are VERY small and this man was VERY small and unassuming.

At the restaurant, we were waited on by little Kuna young ladies with their piercings and tattoos and beaded arms and legs. And I don’t think they knew what to do. We ordered. We wait… We had beer that smelled of fish. They brought out one…lunch…at….a…time. Not sure why. You can imagine how long that took! Waiting…. And it ended up Randy never did get his lunch! By that time they had forgotten him, I think, and he told them to forget it. This made for a grumpy Randy, as you can imagine. Kind of a weird way to run a restaurant but we’ve learned not to expect much on some of these trips. But we at least thought we’d all get served our lunch! And we were very hungry. Poor Randy.

We finally get back to the immigration office on the little island, go through all the paper rigmarole, give them more money and we’re outta there. I tell ya…one thing we will NOT miss is checking into and out of countries. By checking into Panama at the San Blas we got our cruising permit until the end of July. That covers us for all of Panama. But as we got to Panama proper we found we needed to check with immigration again, but we paid the marina where we stayed to do that for us. Nice.

We motored over off the island of Porvenir to a nicer anchorage and spent the night amongst some heavily populated Kuna islands. We arose early in the morning to leave and watched the Kunas row to work in their ulus or sail in their cayucos. On we went to Isla Linton where we planned to stop for the night on our way to Colon. It was a nice anchorage tucked inside a little bay. Lots of sailboats here. Some of them we recognized from other anchorages. You start to remember boat names. There started to be a lot of debris in the water, mostly logs, on this leg of the trip. So we had to keep a good watch to avoid banging things up. Again we are up early and off…to Colon! The Panama Canal awaits. Holy cow. This is huge. We can’t believe we have come this far.

Traveling with Quic en grogne along the Atlantic side of Panama we start to see the big ships anchored, waiting to go through the canal. This is very exciting. We have heard so many stories and read so much about the Panama Canal and now here we are in person! It was…awesome. That’s the only word that described our feelings upon arrival.

THE PANAMA CANAL: Our destination on this side of the canal, Colon, was Shelter Bay Marina. It’s located quite far outside the city of Colon in a national park. The surrounding buildings and airstrip are part of Ft Sherman US military reserve. It is a very secure area. Colon itself is notoriously NOT secure. This is where we will stay while we make arrangements to go through the Panama Canal.

The stories and advice and cruising guide information about transiting the canal is overwhelming. It is a BIG, BIG deal. And you want it to go well. Our senses are on high alert to glean every bit of information from whatever source we run into about making a successful canal transit. While we were in Cartagena I made the attempt to contact via email several suggested agents to use to deal with the bureaucracy of going through the canal. An agent isn’t necessary, but all the people we knew that have gone through the canal used one. On the advice of s/v Ocean Pearl, whom we met in Grenada, we tried contacting Tina McBride as our agent. She had been recommended by others on Noonsite and in one of our cruising guides as well. She was delightful, answered right away, but said she was going to be on vacation during the time of our expected arrival. She immediately gave me 2 other names to try: Enrique and Stanley. I had read not good things about Stanley, but Enrique was used by Terri and Lyman our buddy boaters on s/v Sans Cles so I emailed him. I’m sure Stanley is also a good agent, as others have alluded to when we got through the canal. It’s just that once something is written about you that’s not good, it’s hard to overcome that. So Enrique it was. Our agent was decided and contacted before we left Cartagena.

On arrival at the marina, and after checking in with them, we notice on the bulletin board an ad for a sailboat needing line handlers. When you transit the canal you have to have line handlers on board to deal with the large lines used to tie you to the canal. They can’t be yourself because you will be at the helm. In my case I was choosing whether to be a line handler or at the helm. We decided I would do the helm so Randy immediately volunteered to go with the boat needing line handlers. Roel, too, decided to make the trip. This will give them a good indication of how the whole process works. It’s actually recommended that you go on another boat first. I decided not to go as we had just arrived and I had tons to do aboard to get us ship shape. As long as one of us got the experience that was ok.

The agent deals with all the bureaucracy/paperwork for the canal. The cost for the agent was $400. For me that provided a lot of reassurance. If you do it yourself, everything has to be in cash. That was another deterrent for me but didn’t seem to be a problem for others. I didn’t want to locate a bank and take out $850 cash which you have to give the canal as a buffer, plus the $800 cash or so you need for the transit fee. The buffer you are supposed to get back in 3 months or so, and I’m sure you do but I’m not sure where or when. Anyway…following the advice of our friends who had previously gone through the canal, we opted to pay for an agent. Hiring an agent saved us time, money and aggravation. This was a big decision for all of us to make. Agent...yes? or no? Quic en grogne opted not. Our trip, including the transit fees and agent, cost us about $1400.

Enrique was not the most on-time agent in the world, though we have found that to be the case with most people we have dealt with in the Latin countries, but he was thorough and all went well. He scheduled the ad measurer for a Sunday, which we thought was odd and that proved to be true. We waited all day for him and of course he did not come…because it was Sunday! We told Enrique Monday morning we would not be at the boat as we were scheduled to take the bus into Colon for provisions. “No problem.” The ad measurer came while we were gone…of course. He did come by later that evening to finish up the paperwork. He was extremely nice. The ad measurer…measures your boat. He also fills out all the paperwork for the transit including how fast your boat can go and where you want to be in the canal chamber during the transit. They want you to say you can go 8 knots. We cannot go 8 knots under power unless we have a current with us. A big current. In fact there aren’t too many boats our size that can go 8 knots under power so it’s kind of a moot question. He said, no problem. And it wasn’t…but it’s weird. But the canal will charge you more if you say you cannot go 8 knots, so 8 knots it is. As far as position in the canal, we were told to say center chamber, if possible. The other choices are along the wall and tug tied. Center chamber is the least likely to have any damage. Well THERE’S a good idea! Damage??? I’m starting to get a little nervous about all of this. The ad measurer said you do not always get what you request as the Lock Master makes the decision within minutes of your approach to the locks. Well…we’ll just hope for the best I guess. All of our paperwork, and there’s a lot, was held by Enrique for us.

Enrique said we’re scheduled to go through on Thursday. He gave us very specific instructions. I am getting more nervous by the minute. I have not been nervous about anything on this whole trip, but this canal business made be nervous. You read in the guide books all about the transit and they specify exactly what you do. They also let you know all the things that can happen. Great. I know we need to know this but it just kept my nerves a rollin’. The boat berthed next to us at Shelter Bay had not had a good experience. They had been tied to another boat in the chamber and they were tied too tightly together. A tug in the chamber reversed its engines which creates a lot of water turbulence and caused the boats both to move about erratically fighting against each other. The sailboat couldn’t release their line fast enough and one of their cleats tore off. Fortunately it didn’t hit anyone! That could have been very dangerous. It takes a lot to pull off a cleat! Oh good…nerves are getting worse. Randy wasn’t as worried because he had taken that trip through the canal as a line handler. I’m so glad he did that.

We got our heavy 125’, large diameter lines, 4 of them, from Enrique. That was another plus of having an agent. They get the lines for you and they will also get line handlers if you need them. But they cost $60/day. We hoped to avoid having to pay for line handlers, so Randy went scouting. John, who was on a boat down the dock from us, said he would go. What a great guy he was. He had gone with Randy and Roel on the sailboat that went through the canal earlier. Then we found Paul Cahill and Tamar Lowell, who are from our yacht club in Alameda! They had been traveling down the Pacific coast and through Central America and were moored at the Pacific side of the canal. Rick who had a boat at Shelter Bay was talking about the boat Xanadu and we immediately perked up our ears knowing that might be Paul and Tamar. Sure enough. So Randy called them to see if they wanted to be line handlers for us. And bless their hearts they said yes. Excellent. We have a good crew. That helps.

My job was to make sure we had all the provisions we needed and all the meals for the crew. And places set up for them to sleep. It’s a 2 day trip to go through the canal for our size boat. From the Atlantic side you go through the Gatun Locks first, then spend the night out on Gatun Lake. Then up early the next day and travel down the lake and through the Miraflores Locks to the Pacific. So…I needed to have lots of snacks, lunch, a good dinner and something for breakfast. OK…got it down. John and Randy said the guy on the boat they helped did not have good food. John said he would go only if I had good food. =) And you have to feed your advisor, too. I’ll get to that in a minute. Preparing the boat sleeping quarters and food provisions helped keep my nerves at bay.

I know this is lengthy, describing all of this, but bear with me. I want to let you know what we went through and I want to have it for posterity on here, too.

Tires….we had to have tires tied alongside our boat to defend it from damage. (Everything seems to be there to defend from damage! Arrghh! Worry, worry…) Some folks use the fenders they have, but we don’t have that many fenders and the tires are recommended as they’re tough. We’ve heard of fenders being torn up pretty good. (Worry…worry) We got 10 tires. You can usually get them off a boat that has finished their transit or you can find one of the guys on the dock to hunt them up for you for $1/tire. We used 10 tires…5 on each side. The tires are covered with garbage bags so they don’t mark up the boat. Now we need to cover our solar panels. It’s recommended that you do this, too, as the line men in the chambers will throw their lines at the boat. These lines have monkey-fists tied on the ends so that they can be easily thrown and grabbed. Now in my nervous mind I’m envisioning HUGE monkey fists that will really put dents in our boat! So I was adamant that Randy cover the solar panels. We put on our cushions on top of them and then covered that with our shade tarp. Then tied it all down. Looking more and more like the Clampetts every day! Randy assured me that the monkey-fists and lines weren’t as big as I imagined, not even as big as the lines from Enrique, but I still thought the worst.

OK…I think we’re ready to go. Paul and Tamar come over from Balboa Yacht Club on the Pacific side on Wednesday, late afternoon. That way they are all settled and ready to go the next day. That was fun. Getting to know them again and talking about all our travels here and there. They are great, great people. John was ready to go the next day. I’ve got my food prepared. Now we relax (NOT!) and wait. We are to call Enrique at exactly noon on Thursday to get our time to meet our advisor out on the Flats. We are also to call the Port Captain and let him know when we are out on the Flats ready to receive our advisor. There are heavy fines involved if you miss your time or if your engine fails you and you can’t make it through, etc, etc. (Worry…worry.)

The Flats is an area out near the mouth of the Gatun Locks. This is where a pilot boat will bring out our Transit Advisor. If you are under 65’ you will have an advisor. If you are over 65’ you need to have a Pilot. We left Shelter Bay with all our crew at 2pm to go out to the Flats and pick up our advisor. Jorge, our advisor, arrives, gets on the boat and starts telling us what to expect and inspects our lines to be sure they are laid out cleanly, and checks the cleats and chocs. The advisor gives helm instructions and coordinates all transit activities by radio. But he does not drive the boat. The pilots, however, do drive the larger boats. They are very professional. Jorge gets word that we are to wait for another sailboat that we will raft up with for our trip through the canal. The great news is that we will be in the center chamber and there will be no other ships in the chamber with us. This is really, really good news. Having the big ships in the chamber with you is worrisome (I don’t need more worry!) in that they create a lot of turbulence when they begin to move in or out of the chambers. You are very, very close to the ships in the chambers since they are so big. Hooray for us that we can avoid that experience. So far so good! So now we wait for NorthFork, the sailboat we will raft up with.

They are late. And we wait. Apparently they had to wait for some paperwork before they could depart Shelter Bay. Jorge radios the advisor on NorthFork and tells them we are prepared to have them raft up on our port side. “Uhhh…be advised that NorthFork needs to raft up to Kwanesum on her starboard side. NorthFork has their outboard engine on their starboard side so that will not work.” Uhhh…excuse me? We are waiting, waiting for them and now they want to call the shots? We prepared by taking our outboard off! (Ok…the nerves are making me cranky.) We move our extra fenders to the starboard side to prepare for their arrival. Finally they arrive and start rafting up to us. And start telling us what to do! Helloooo!!! ???(Ok Ellen…calm down.) The little gal on NorthFork, Dana, was really being pushy by ordering all of us around. She was concerned about the spring lines holding the boats together being too tight. And rightly so because of the incident I mentioned above. But our crew decided to vote her off the island. She was too bossy. Particularly after we had to wait and wait for them. We knew what to do and didn’t need her telling us and bossing us around. Her husband was delightful, just manning the helm and asking Randy if everything was ok. They were on their honeymoon! She later told us they had gone through as line handlers and had a horrible experience where the spring lines were too tight and the 2 advisors were arguing about what to do. So she had reason to be a little uptight about it all. But it didn’t fit right with the Kwanesum crew.

But it was a good trip. The Gatun Locks are the easiest of the locks to transit. Each chamber is 110 feet wide and 1000 feet long. (Interesting to note, the tidal range on the Atlantic side is 3 feet. On the Pacific side it averages 18 feet!) We pull into the first chamber rafted up with NorthFork. Since NorthFork is the bigger boat, they were the power and steerage for both of us. You just need to heed all the spring lines and try to keep the boats steady together so there will be no damage bumping together. We did really well with that. We were a good team. We’re in the center chamber and the canal line handlers throw the monkey-fists on board. Here’s an example of part of my worry, a quote from one of our cruising guides: “In spite of stories, they don’t deliberately knock out windows and spot lights, but it does happen. You could be knocked senseless by a monkey-fist if you don’t pay attention.” (Worry…worry.) Since we are rafted to another boat we only need to have line handlers on the port side. Therefore, Randy manned our helm and I took pictures and worried! Yay! Tamar also took pictures and Paul and John were our line handlers. Jorge made sure we were doing everything properly and Roy the advisor on NorthFork did the same on their side.

The monkey-fists are thrown. John grabs one on the bow and Paul grabs one for the stern line. They quickly tie one of our big canal lines with the loop end onto the monkey-fist and the canal line handlers pull the tied loop up to the chamber side. The canal line handlers then hook our loops to the bollards of the chamber. Bollards are basically giant cleats up on the canal side. Our line handlers then adjust the lines going through the crocs, then the cleats for better leverage and safety. Our boats need to stay centered in the chamber and parallel to the side walls. Everyone must adjust the lines to factor this and keep it that way. The advisors we had were excellent. They were nice, vigilant, helpful and non argumentative with each other. So far so good.

The canal gates are locked behind us and 52 million gallons of fresh water begins to rush in from below us. The fresh water mixing with the salt water causes a little extra turbulence, but it’s not bad. It’s doable. We begin to ascend. The line handlers are constantly hauling in the lines as they begin to slacken trying to keep everything coordinated. The advisors are vigilantly watching to be sure both boats are synchronized with their lines. It takes about 15 minutes to fill the lock. Here is where we were really lucky not to have a large ship in front of us. When it’s time to exit the lock, a big ship, which by the way are pulled by little trains (mules) along the canal, often have to apply power to get going out of the lock. That power creates huge turbulence that, if you are behind them, will set your boat straining to stay center and safe. I’m so glad we didn’t have that to deal with. (Less worry…yay!)

We go through two more locks with the canal line handlers walking us through, then tying off again onto the bollards. We now enter Gatun Lake, the man made freshwater lake 85’ above sea level. Here we will spend the night. Our advisor Jorge guides us to a large mooring that we will secure to for the night. NorthFork ties up to the mooring on the opposite side. Our advisors are picked up and we prepare to spend the night. I make spaghetti, salad, and French bread and with some red wine we are very content. It’s Tamar’s birthday! So we have cupcakes too. How many guys…do you know…that will take you through the Panama Canal for your birthday! (Inside joke from Paul.) Mark and Dana from NorthFork come over for a chat with the guys while Tamar and I sit below and relax and chat away. It’s a nice evening. But it’s rainy. It rained a lot of the day actually, but did not deter any of the crew. This is an exciting experience. My worries are starting to fade. We did really well. So far so good.
We are up early serenaded by howler monkeys to accept another advisor and it’s Roy! He was the advisor on NorthFork the day before and he’s great! Yay! NorthFork also gets their advisor and his name is Roy, too. So off we go with the 2 Roys to travel across the Lake and on to the next locks and the Pacific. We do not raft up with NorthFork until just prior to the locks so we go on our separate ways, but following. Gatun Lake is 20+ miles. It takes us 3+ hours. As we travel we pass several huge ships, particularly the car ships. They are so big! We feel like peewees next to them. I actually think we did this transit at a good time. I believe the canal traffic is down this time of year as compared to the high season. For that I am grateful. (Less worry…yay!) The weather isn’t bad today. It’s not raining.

We cross Gatun Lake and reach the Gaillard Cut, the narrowest part of the canal. According to my sources I’m referring to in telling you all about this, Eric Bauhaus and Pat Rains, the Gaillard Cut was carved through the Continental Divide. We travel this about 7 miles and prepare to raft up again with NorthFork for the final Lock transits. We enter the locks, again center chamber and prepare the lines with the canal line handlers. But we are waiting and we now see we will have another boat with us in the chamber. But it’s not big…it’s a canal tour boat. Cool! Just the right size. This first lock is called the Pedro Miguel Lock. There is apparently a geological weakness on the Pacific side so they have separated the down locks. The people on the tour boat are very curious and are taking our pictures. We must be quite a site as we are so small in these big chambers. We feel like celebrities. We wave, pose and smile for their pictures! (Worry is going away by the second now.)

Downward lockages are easier, not as much turbulence. You just need to remember to feed out your lines as the chamber sides get taller and taller! We now cross Miraflores Lake to the Miraflores Locks. There are two of them. This will take us down 54 feet. The last chamber of these locks is the highest due to that large tidal variation I mentioned before in the Pacific. Holy cow we are almost done! (Worry is almost completely gone!) The chamber gates open and there is the Pacific! High 5’s all around. Beer for everyone! I take a picture of the crew. I forget to have them take a picture of me. We were all too excited.
We separate from NorthFork and wait for the pilot boat to pick up Roy. While traveling with Roy we learned it is quite a privilege to work for the canal and particularly as an advisor or a pilot. It is a much wanted job there. He loves it. The pilots make more he said but their time is more in demand. Roy was anxious to get going because he was meeting his family for pizza and a trip to see the new Toy Story movie. So he declined my lunch and snacks and beer. He was so great and he and Jorge made our trip so relaxing and easy. How lucky we were to have these good circumstances for our transit.

We now pass under the Bridge of Americas…in the Pacific, Ran, we made it to the Pacific!...and take our crew to the Balboa Yacht Club where they will depart. As we pull up to the dock we pay the guys there $1/tire to take them off our hands. We say goodbye to our crew and head out around the Amador Causeway to Las Brisas where we will anchor for a few days. There are what seem like a zillion ships anchored all over out here. Waiting to go through the canal I guess, or be loaded or unloaded at the big ship dock just prior to the canal on the Pacific side. Quite a site. Paul and Tamar have their boat moored there at Balboa Yacht Club but it’s pretty expensive. Paul said it costs him $1/hour to stay there. But they are having engine problems and need to be there to get it fixed. We will go around to the free anchorage. We find a spot to anchor as the skies grow very dark. We can see the Panama City skyline and there are very dark clouds there with thunder in the background. Our first try at anchoring doesn’t work so we decide to go farther out and let the boat anchor itself and have plenty of room to swing. That worked perfectly. We have heard of a number of boats dragging anchor here at Las Brisas, its very soft mud, so we were prepared to anchor a couple of times until we felt secure. Time for a safe arrival beer! What an experience. Memorable, memorable, memorable. And my worries were for naught. Yay!

LAS BRISAS, PANAMA: Now, we are relaxing and regrouping. We stayed at Las Brisas anchorage for 3 weeks. We met up with Paul and Tamar at the Balboa Yacht Club at the Monday night book exchange there. Tuesday nights the book exchange was at the Las Brisas area. Pizza and book exchange. We enjoy this for the obvious reason of exchanging books but also for the camaraderie. Channel 74 on the VHF radio was the go-to net that brought cruising folks together and told of what was going on. Or if you had something to sell or needed anything or needed line handlers, that was the place to be. I liked that. The people are great. One of the major perks of cruising is the people. We met with Paul and Tamar frequently. We met Howard and Donna on Nintai. They were a hoot. Donna ran one of the nets on certain days, as did Paul. Cracks me up that Donna used to be a Private Investigator. I just love all these people we meet. She told us of a time her granddaughter or grandson had her go in to their school to talk about her occupation. And what they said was…’Grandma…tell them how old you are!’ She’s a hoot. We took cabs into town and went to Albrook Mall which was the first mall we had seen in quite some time. Bought some new prescription glasses for Ran. I bought some reading glasses that were $5/each. Love that! I had my hair colored and cut…sorely needed. The natural color…now very dark…had grown back completely and I hated it. Now I feel like a new woman…young and sassy. We relaxed at las Brisas and read. It was nice. Ran and I decided to treat ourselves to a dinner out and chose a restaurant close to the dinghy dock at las Brisas. It was a wonderful dinner that we shared. The dinner had a large plate with different meats on it and I ordered yuca frita (fried yucca) and patacones (fried plantains) (in Puerto Rico they were called tostones) to go along with the dinner. It was so wonderful. And only $23. For the two of us. But…since we decided to have chardonnay with our dinner, and ended up having 3 a piece throughout the evening…at $5/glass…our dinner ended up being quite a bit more. =) Oh well…it was so worth it and was such an enjoyable relaxing evening. Our waiter was perfect.

We said goodbye to Quic en grogne. So sad! After traveling with them for months...from Grenada to Panama they were traveling on to their home, New Caledonia. They must travel along way across the Pacific to get there and they will have some wonderful stops along the way. They had a successful transit through the canal, then prepared for their LONG voyage. They will have long spells at sea. They have a companion with them now who will help man the helm. Isabelle has a good routine for everyone: Tessa does her lessons everyday, Yoan...causes trouble (as Roel says) and Roel keeps everything shipshape. We will miss them very much. They have been a wonderful part of our lives.

Then it was time to move. We decided to start heading to Costa Rica where we will leave our boat while we travel home for a much needed break from the boat and visit with family and friends. We miss our family so much…specially those grandkids. Time to go home for awhile. Hurricane season is July through November. Panama and Costa Rica are not in the hurricane zone. We decided to leave our boat in Costa Rica as it is a little closer to our destination…home. We researched everything and decided on Land Sea Marina in Golfito, Costa Rica which is just past the border of Panama. While in Shelter Bay Marina I contacted them and made all the arrangements to leave our boat there and our flight arrangements for home. The big stickler for that is that we cannot leave our boat in Costa Rica for more than 90 days. After that, we would have to have the boat bonded, which is a dog and pony show and expense…and if bonded you can’t use the boat during that time. OK…can’t do that. So we need to be back to Costa Rica before our 90 days is up. That cut our trip short by a couple of weeks but we are on the home stretch and will be permanently back before we know it. It’s just that we would have liked to have visited more of Costa Rica while we are here. We’ll just have to come back.

We first checked into leaving our boat in El Salvador, which is closer to the border of Mexico but still out of the hurricane zone. But El Salvador has an even stricter rule. You cannot leave your boat past 60 days or they will charge you a value added tax of 10% the value of your boat based on what THEY think is the value of your boat. I DON’T THINK SO!!! Why these countries want to shoot themselves in the foot with these restrictions is beyond me. We are more than willing to stay awhile in their country and spend money. But these costly restrictions deter us from making that decision. As you can imagine, the marinas there are not happy.

So it’s off to Land Sea at Golfito, Costa Rica. Enrique checked us out of Panama and brought all of our papers to us and we say goodbye. Because we cannot get to Golfito much before August 1, we head out to Taboga, an island off of Panama. Randy had called Chuy (Chewie) who is in charge of the moorings over there and told him our plans to come over for a few days. There are only a few moorings so we wanted to be sure there was one available. There are many boaters that leave their boats with Chuy, as we are leaving ours at Land Sea, while they travel home. Therefore a lot of the moorings are already taken up. But he saved us one and we headed out. First to fuel up and fill up our water tanks at Flamenco Marina near Las Brisas. Then traveling through the parking lot of huge ships waiting to go through the canal. Quite a site to see. And, of course, it’s raining.

TABOGA: Taboga was a sweet island and Chuy and his girlfriend Susan were delightful and as helpful as can be. We stayed at Taboga for 8 days. The weather was holding us back. And the seas. We needed to have decent conditions to get around Punta Mala, one of the tips of Panama. The weather in Las Brisas wasn’t all that good either. But then…it’s the rainy season here. And that’s what we got. Lots of rain and thunderstorms. We hunker down when that happens and read our books and do Sudoku and play SkipBo. And if I can get online…that’s where I am. We toured the little island. So clean and nice. Had good meals and met interesting people. We had lunch with a family from Spain, the father is American, who are planning to move to Panama. They were delightful. Xanadu, Paul and Tamar, got their engine fixed and needed to pout hours on it so they motored over to Taboga for a few days and we had a good time with them. Rum cocktails in the cockpit in the evening. Exploring the town, including the graveyard, in the day time. (That is when we weren’t being rained in and rocking and rolling on the mooring.) They say that they’re running out of room in the graveyard, so often they dump the bodies behind the cemetery into the sea. We peaked back there and there is proof of that happening. The smell was telling, too.

While we were at Taboga there was a saints celebration. Not as much pomp and circumstance as we thought but lots of fireworks/firecrackers and a parade of boats. The church on the island is of course the center of all that happens. It is said that it is the second oldest church in the hemisphere. Taboga is also known for the hospital that was there during the building of the canal that housed the people that were overcome with tuberculosis or malaria or other such communicable diseases. Gauguin was said to have stayed there for a time.

Finally the weather cooperates. We say goodbye to Xanadu and to Chuy and we head to Naranjo which is around the corner of Punta Mala. We decided to overnight it all the way there. We want to make sure we position ourselves so that we can easily make it in to Golfito when the time comes. We got pointers and checked the cruising guides to see which spots where best for anchoring along the way. As we go, the weather wasn’t bad and the seas weren’t bad, just a little confused which makes it slightly uncomfortable but not bad at all. We spot our destination and maneuver ourselves into the anchorage. Nobody there but us, but we were expecting that. This isn’t the time of year most folks travel along here and they usually aren’t gong this direction.

Seems like a nice anchorage, with clean brown beaches. No one there. Signs of life living on the beach but we see no one. The water is slightly rocky but not bad. We had some pretty rocky nights at Taboga so we were glad to have it quiet and still here. I made us a great dinner of fried chicken and rice and salad and we enjoyed the evening. But not for long. The weather started becoming squally and the water started becoming rolly. Oh great. Then it started becoming MORE of everything. Oh great. Randy checked our chart plotter to see if we had moved and he thought we had! It looked as if we had moved a few feet and were getting closer to the shore. “We’d better reset the anchor El or just leave and slowly make our way to the next spot.” By now it’s REALLY getting rolly and the thunderstorm is very loud and boisterous. But I got to thinking. “Let me look at the chart plotter Ran. Ahhh…I marked our anchor spot with a little martini glass symbol this time. The spot you’re looking and measuring from with the anchor symbol is the original way point to anchor from the guide book. No wonder you thought we had moved. Sorrryyyyy!!!” We hadn’t moved at all. Phew!

But we were still VERY uncomfortable. Sleep was hard coming. Having traveled all night the night before we had taken big naps on arrival to this anchorage. It’s a good thing! Everything possible in the galley was banging around. Despite my attempts to secure it all. We had decided to sleep in the saloon area as it’s more comfortable when we’re rocking around, but you hear everything in the galley a lot more. Just as I would get one thing secure…another banging would start up. Secure that…then something is rolling back and forth. Not very loudly but just enough to drive you nuts. Arrrrgggghhh!!! Finally I got everything quiet. By now it’s about 3:00 in the morning. The storm settled down but the seas did not. Rock….roll…rock…roll….BIG rock….BIG roll….BIG rock…BIG roll…medium rock…medium roll…rock….roll…rock…roll. All …night…long….

OK…let’s blow this joint!! We were up and outta there so fast you couldn’t even see us. Faster than the speed of light. On to Bahia Honda. “At least it looks like Bahia Honda anchorage is back in a nice bay. Hopefully, it’s quiet back there.” I made much needed coffee (we had not had any the day before because it’s too hard to make coffee while traveling and the seas are big) and we actually had a nice day of travel. We are motor-sailing going this direction. We don’t want to but we have to. We are heading directly into the wind, if there’s any wind at all. But bless our engine, its working great.

Speaking of engines, we did have a bit of trouble on the way to Naranjo, now that I think about it. The alternator keeps coming loose for some reason. Randy tightened it before we left Taboga. As we were traveling to Naranjo, just prior to coming around Punta Mala and still in the shipping lanes, Ran and I were changing shifts at midnight. (Yep...everything happens at night...when it's dark.) He’s coming up…I’m going down to sleep. He checked the engine first and “Damn! The alternator’s loose again. Shut the engine off and let me tighten it, El.” “This is not a good time Randy! There is a ship coming up behind us. The AIS says it will be within a mile of us. And the rip tides are extreme right here. I don’t want to get any closer to the shore.” “Well I have to tighten it. I’ll try to be quick.” Randy starts throwing things around down below to get his tools and into the engine compartment. I shut off the engine and try to hold the boat steady as possible and not allow us to get further into the shipping lanes or closer to the shore. Not easy when there’s no wind to help along and there's a really strong current goin' on. Fortunately the sea gods were with us and we hung tight right where we were. Yay!! Alternator is all snug. Randy comes up for his watch. I go down below for my sleep time. It’s now about 2:00am.

Oops! “El, need to come up here. We just broke our alternator belt.” Oh great. Ran turns the engine off quickly. Up I go and Randy starts tearing things apart again down below. Fortunately the belt is a spare part we have…but it’s our last one. Apparently when the alternator gets loose enough it rubs on the belt. That’ll do it every time. This is easy and quickly fixed so we’re back on the road again. Randy tells me to go back down to sleep and he’ll take it until 6:00am. He’s all wound up. Then I’ll come up and take over. Roger that. And of course now I can’t sleep at all. But…at least I’m resting.

But I got off track…that was the night we left Taboga. We are now heading into Bahia Honda. It was a nice day of travel. The seas weren’t bad at all. And because we are traveling along the coast, there are green mountains all around. And we saw whales! Not sure what kind but Randy spotted them swimming quite far from us. And then again …we saw them breaching! That was exciting! Unfortunately (or fortunately) they were quite a ways away but we could definitely see them and I was able to get some pictures with my zoom lens. Quite spectacular to watch.

I am going to leave you here on our way to Bahia Honda, Panama. This post is quite long so stopping here is a good idea. I'll pick up on our trip to Golfito in the next post. Lots to tell you there!

Movin' on down....

2010-05-07T15:53:00.000-07:00

Above: Martinique at sundown.

Left: St Barths

SPOILER ALERT! At risk of repeating myself and sounding self indulgent I’m SPOILING the blog by beginning this with a little whining of sorts. This blog is about our travels but also about our life as we travel and therefore…I tell it like it is. Or …like I’m experiencing right now. Some people want, or need, to know how it really is. So…if you don’t want to read the rant jump down a bit to RANT DONE. =) And if you continue to read here…thanks for listening.

Sometimes this life isn’t the greatest. Often times this life isn’t the greatest! It sounds glamorous and romantic and like a dream come true (and it is)…but oft… it’s not ....in the real world. Everything seems to be a hassle.

Has∙sle (noun): a source or the experience of aggravation or annoying difficulty.

EXACTLY! Hassle > doing the dishes…usually in cold water. (Which I’m trying to do now and which prompted this rant-like carrying-on). Hassle > because you have to try to SAVE water, you therefore are always recycling the dishwater. Yuck. Hassle > taking a shower…99% in cold water. Hassle > getting the laundry done…most often in only cold water. (Sheets and towels need HOT water!) And so… laundry doesn't get done often and...you wear clothes over and over until someone starts to look at you funny. Hassle > getting…cold water!

Hassle > lugging groceries from the store; particularly a case of beer. Randy has to carry the beer. =) We have collected a random selection of bags to use for our groceries, which really work great. And are necessary. A lot of the stores don’t have bags to put groceries in. If you have to get a lot of stuff…they get heavy. And the store may be a mile or more away from where you can park the dinghy. (Hassle > trying to find a place to PARK the dinghy.) Or you may need to get on one of the local buses that are hot and crowded with people so you have everything piled on your lap. I need to find a folding pull cart to help us. I should have already bought one as I’ve seen them here or there, but it never seemed important at the time. When you’re trying to lug your groceries back to the dinghy, then to the boat…it’s important then! (UPDATE…I found one! YAY!)

Hassle > finding what you need at the store. Makes me miss the wonderful grocery stores at home. I’ve been trying to find Velveeta Cheese for a few islands, now. Just an odd thing that I want to have on board. I use it for a really yummy dip when we have guests over for cocktails… 'sundowners' they call them in the cruising lingo. Always need to have snacks on hand for that. And Velveeta can last for years! I should have purchased a case when we were in the states. And corn tortillas. I find flour, but not corn. Silly things but I want them. =) Marc used to bring over his CheeseWiz as a munchy. Love that! Creative dining.

Hassle > finding a bank to get cash and then figuring how much you need (you may not find an ATM handy at your next spot. So glad they have ATMs now!) Must figure out what currency you need and what the dollar is worth in that country.

Hassle > getting in and out of the dinghy, getting wet on the way, trying to look nice, but failing by the time you get where you’re going. My legs carry an assortment of bruises most of the time from dinghydom.

Hassle > trying to find an internet source. Hassle > trying to call your family, because you need an internet source. Glad to be traveling in this day and age of internet!

Hassle > watching your power usage all the time. I know it’s a good thing to do anyway, but essential on a boat running on its own little power source. I believe I mentioned before that now we have replaced most all our inside lights with LEDs (my cousin Deb will be glad to hear that!) so we can use them freely at anchor and not eat in the dark with candles. Well, maybe not freely, but we can use them. And candles are nice, but on a boat…sometimes not the best. In Puerto Rico we bought more power: one more solar panel and Hank…our Honda 2000 generator.

Hassle > of constant repairs… Randy’s job. Always working on the stainless. Salt water makes for rust. Trying to keep ahead of maintenance.

Hassle > cooking, when the boat’s rolling all over the place….

You get the picture. And I’m sure you might be saying… 'what is she complaining about? They are in wonderful warm places having a lifetime of experiences…and she’s complaining?!'

Is it worth it? Absolutely! I wouldn’t change this experience for anything. But it does get to me once in a while. (Can you tell?) If we were to do this, perhaps, for six months…then take a six month break…and do six more months, where everything is shiny and a new experience again….maybe it wouldn’t hang there so ominously how much a hassle it all is. =) As it stands right now it’s been 9 months since we’ve been off the boat. It will be a year by the time we fly home for a break in August. I just like a little more convenience. Like being plugged into a marina with electricity and water and TV reception!

As a result…Ran and I have decided we aren’t cut out to do this forever. Our kids will be glad to hear that. =) Some people do. And we actually thought we might want to carry on. We continually meet people, more so as we get into these southern islands, that are living/have lived this lifestyle for many, many years. Only taking short breaks from the boat. Traveling to wonderful places, always living on their boat. Most, not in marinas. They may change their boat, but they continue to travel from island to island. Some find an island they like and stay for months or years. Then decide to travel on. Some just decide to stay anchored out in one island permanently. Most of these I’ve found are men, by themselves. That might be telling. =) It’s definitely a cheap way to live, on the hook, but it’s not exactly luxury living. It’s just not easy. I’m not opposed to ‘not easy.’ Sometimes ‘not easy’ spurs me on. But Ran and I miss our family. And I just plain like convenience! This life is really interesting. LOVE the adventure. LOVE the challenge (sometimes.) LOVE meeting the people. LOVE seeing the new islands we land on. LOVE the experience of sailing on the water and overnight excursions. But it’s not what we want to do for a long, long time.

Our aim was to buy our boat, the boat we’ve always wanted, and sail it home to where our family and friends are. And we’re doing that and living a lifetime full of experiences along the way. We won’t look back and say, ‘we should have done that!’ Something we will talk about and relish for the rest of our lives. Stories we can share with our grandchildren. Let our kids and grandkids know that there’s a lot of life to live and only a short time to do it. So go for it!

When we say we’re headed home, cruising people (that’s the name they give those of us who live on boats and sail from place to place) often say, ‘but your boat IS your home!’ That’s true. And we love this home. But ‘home’ to us is close to our family and friends and plugged into a marina. =) And there’s something about the familiarity of a home town or at least a home state or at least a home coast! I miss that. I miss the connection. By the time we get back to California I think it will have been about 8 years since we’ve been permanently ‘home.’ Five of them living back East in Virginia. That’s way longer than I anticipated we’d be gone. I like grabbing life as it comes and taking advantage of opportunities. And that’s certainly what we’ve done. Moving back to Washington DC for a stint back there, retiring, buying the boat of our dreams and sailing it home. Check that off our Bucket List. But it’s time to go home.

We plan to continue to live on our boat when we get back, happily plugged in at our yacht club marina in Alameda. Perhaps we will make more excursions of the shorter variety, there are wonderful trips to take just around the Bay, and we want to get our grandkids sailing… but now we’re headed home.

RANT DONE. Again…thanks for listening! =)

When I left you on our last post we were waiting for our son and daughter-in-law to arrive for a visit. That’s the best; sharing with family and friends.

We were so excited for Skip and Kim to arrive. We wanted to show this life to our family so they can see what it is like, at least a little bit. And we hadn't spent much time with just Skip and Kim, so this was very exciting for us.

The weeks prior to their arrival seemed to go… so.....slowly. You know how it is when you're excited to have someone come visit or when you're going to visit them? We tried to stay busy working on boat projects but knew they would be much easier when we moved into the marina. There we would have unlimited power and water; essential cleaning tools.

We hung around Caneel Bay (St John, USVI) awhile prior to heading into the marina to prepare the boat for guests. To keep our so-called 'budget' inline, we didn't want to go into the marina too soon. Staying on a mooring ball or at anchor is hugely cheaper (grammar gasp!). Seeing parts of the world and traveling from a small private boat gives you a unique perspective and is fairly inexpensive if you don't buy t-shirts and hats at every stop (which Ellen is wont to do) and if you don't eat out all the time and order the foo foo drinks (which Ellen is wont to do.) This all considering your boat is ship shape and large expensive repairs aren't needed, knock on wood.

Caneel has been one of our favorite spots. Not that it’s the best anchorage in the world, but it’s very convenient and it’s pretty there and if Ellen wants to get a foo foo drink and break the budget we can dinghy in and spend too much money on one drink. =) And look at the beautiful view. It’s a good location, easy to get to Cruz Bay, St John and easy to get to some of our favorite anchorages, plus RedHook where the marina is on St Thomas where we will pull in. We found a good mooring ball that’s strategically located so we get decent internet coverage and isn’t too roly, most of the time. We liked Cruz Bay. Found a good optometrist there to fix Randy’s sunglasses. They worked very hard to repair the screws on the frames that the optometrist in Oregon said could never be fixed. So now Randy has 2 great pair of prescription sunglasses. It’s just one of those little towns that you felt comfortable in and were able to find needs in.

Because we still had a few days to wait until we headed into the marina, we buzzed back around to one of our favorite anchorages, Maho Bay. Such pretty anchorages there are in the Virgins. We relaxed there and went exploring ashore to their camp ground we hiked up to. Neat place. Very rustic.

Now it’s time to go into the marina at Redhook and prepare for Skip and Kim. We wanted to do some big time cleaning and laundry. Nothing like having guests come visit to get things done around the ‘house.’

All is ship shape and we left for the airport so excited to see the kids. We left too early. We weren’t sure how long it would take to get there because the airport was on the other side of the island. We had everything done so we left giving ourselves plenty of time. Our taxi driver asked when the kids were arriving and whistled when he realized how long we’d be waiting. Oh well…we’ll just have a drink and relax while we wait. And we brought our books to read.
We were practically the ONLY people at the airport. Good grief. It was night, the plane wasn’t due in until 9 something. NOTHING was open. There were a few people working, but not many. So we sit…and wait…and read our books. I had enough time to literally memorize all of the advertisements that were rotating on the signs all around the airport.

Finally they arrive! Yay! It was so good to see them walking toward us down the hallway. Yay! Off we go. Back to the boat to get them acclimated to life on the water. Skip had been on our boat in Virginia but Kim had no idea what to expect. We gave them a quick briefing and relaxed and talked. So good to see them! I miss them just writing about it!

We had SUCH a good time. The weather wasn’t as good as Randy and I wanted, but it didn’t matter. We headed out to some of our favorite places. First to Sandy Spit on Jost Van Dyke. Our last visit there was so beautiful and warm and calm. But of course this visit was not. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t nice enough to spend the night. We donned our snorkel gear and swam around awhile, but then decided to go on to Norman Island and spend the night at The Bight. The kids didn’t have a long time to be with us so we couldn’t waste valuable time.

It’s nearly always nice at The Bight. As long as you can get a mooring. And we found one. In a good spot. We got all snuggled in and opened some beer and relaxed. Talking about all kinds of things. That’s so fun. Randy noticed a couple of guys trying to anchor in the middle of the mooring field. Oh, oh…that’s not going to work. Following the lead of another friend of ours from another mooring experience, Randy went forward to tell them they were not supposed to anchor in the middle of a mooring field, there’s not enough room. There are plenty of places to anchor along the sides. They weren’t happy with his interference and said so. “We did NOT pay $25 for this mooring to worry about running into you in the middle of the night because you’re anchored too close! Now MOVE!” said Randy with a few expletives added in. A few expletives back…and they moved. Well that’s ONE way of having your new daughter-in-law get to know you! =)
We donned our a-little-bit-nicer attire and went into the Pirates Bight for dinner. It was a beautiful evening. After dinner we headed over to the Willy T for drinks. Skip was trying all the fancy drinks: Painkillers, Bushwackers. I think he preferred beer. But you need to try them while you’re there. It was a fun evening.
The next morning we had a nice breakfast in the cockpit and went over to the Caves to snorkel. It was sort of a windy, choppy day but not bad. The good thing about that …there weren’t many people there. This is the place I mentioned in my last post that we snorkeled and a big load of people were dumped off at one time by a catamaran. That wasn’t fun. Getting elbowed while you’re trying to enjoy the ocean life isn’t what I had in mind. This time it was perfect. Just a few of us there. And it was spectacular. We saw more and the sea was clearer. And Kim spotted a turtle eating on the bottom! So cool! What a fun day. I could do that over and over again. But it had to come to an end.

It was still early in the day so we decided to head over to Sopers Hole on Tortola to have a late lunch with Terri and Lyman our buddy boaters from the boat Sans Cles. I wanted the kids to meet them. And they could do a little shopping there. After lunch we unfortunately had to head back to the marina in anticipation of their flight home early the next morning. Too short a visit! We did dinghy over to Latitude 18 for a great dinner and some nice entertainment.

Up early and put the kids in a taxi for their ride back to the airport. Pooh! =( Too short a visit but so fun. It’s so good to spend close, quality time like this with your kids. I need more.

Now it’s time to get going. We have been in the Virgins a long time. We pointed the boat back to Sopers Hole on Tortola to do a 72 hour check-in/check-out of the BVIs. That should give us enough time to get down to Gorda Sound and head out the Anegada Passage to St Martin. We did our check in/out and headed to Coopers Island. We wanted to try to get to the Baths on Virgin Gorda before we headed out. We spent the night on the mooring at Coopers and got up early to head to the Baths. But it was not a good day. Very, very windy and the mooring was very choppy at the Baths. We decided not to stay. We weren’t comfortable leaving our boat on the mooring in such choppy seas. Oh well, you can’t see everything. We headed on around to Gorda Sound and anchored off of Prickly Pear where we had been before. This gives us great spot to get going to St Martin.

Because we had the kids visit we hadn’t been traveling with Terri and Lyman the last week or so. We caught up with them at Gorda Sound to make our future travel plans. Randy and I wanted to start going more quickly down the islands. Terri and Lyman wanted to go to Anegada first. So we decided to meet up in St Martin. Terri and Lyman have guests coming aboard in St Martin, but we told them we would wait there so we could see them one more time before we start going faster. We have been with Terri and Lyman since May 2009, so it’s going to be very hard to say good bye to them. The good thing is, they live in Portland, OR so we know we will see them again.

Just as our 72 hours was about up…who should appear at our anchorage in Gorda Sound but the immigration guys! Holy Cow! First time of all our travel that we’ve had them come to our boat. Fortunately for us, we had done the 72 hour in/out. And we had planned to leave that afternoon for the overnight to St Martin. Whew!

About 3pm we up anchor and head down the Anegada Passage, passing Richard Branson’s Necker Island as we go out. What a spot that is. Imagine owning your own island! He was hosting a whole slew of kite boarders that weekend apparently. Fun to watch them.

The weather was perfect, but there was no wind. But that’s ok in this case. We would be going against the wind anyway. So we motored with calm seas, a beautiful sunset and a beautiful full moon. Nice.

Early morning arrival in St Martin. We are now in the Leeward Islands. We put down the Virgin Islands Cruising Guide and pick up the Leeward Islands Guide. We decided to go to the Dutch side, St Maarten. There is also a French side, St Martin. We anchored in Simpson Bay. There is a lagoon inside this island but you must pass under a bridge at appointed hours to get inside and find an anchorage. For a couple of reasons, we decided to stay outside in Simpson Bay even though it was pretty roly. The main reason was the race. While we were there the St Maarten Yacht Club was hosting the Heineken Regatta which was spectacular. We discovered that the yachts came out of the lagoon and into Simpson Bay everyday to practice, and the finale of the race was next to where we were anchored. So much to see. And there were some very large yachts anchored out where we were. Always something to see when you live on a boat. Your back porch is a window to the world. We did put up with some big roly seas, but I thought it was worth it.

We took the dinghy inside to the lagoon to provision and get on the internet and go to Budget Marine and Island Water World, the big chandleries. We took the dinghy over to the French side which was very quaint with bistros. It was very hot that day and we stopped for a beer at one of the bistros and had the best Stella Artois beer from the tap. So cold and refreshing. When you’re hot, that’s when beer tastes best.

We visited the St Maarten Yacht Club now and then and mingled with the racers just a bit. Of course having Heineken beer. Low and behold….Ran and I are sitting at the yacht club having a beer and we spot Igor!! Igor whom we met in the Dominican Republic! Unbelievable. He was crewing on a race boat. That was fun. It’s such a small world.

We stayed at St Martin for a week wanting to see Terri and Lyman before we departed. They came in just as the regatta was ending. We spent some quality time with them and then had to say goodbye. They were waiting for friends to visit and Randy and I had decided we wanted to move a little faster. A gloomy wet morning Ran and I pulled up the anchor but not before giving a sad, sad goodbye to Terri and Lyman. We will miss them terribly. As we drove off the anchorage we went by their boat and Randy blew the conch horn. I think I cried most of the day. We had gotten to be really good friends.
But on we go to St Barths. On to a new experience.

It only took us 3 hours to St Barths but it was a gloomy trip. Just as we pull in, though, the sun started shining and we saw a whale spouting. Cool. And it smelled like flowers. How lovely. There was the weirdest looking yacht anchored outside the bay. We later learned that’s it’s called ‘A’ and is named after the man and woman who own her, whose names begin with A. They are Russian. There are some very rich Russians with yachts around. But this yacht was really different. Like a space ship!

I had been waiting to go to St Barths. This is where Jimmy Buffett supposedly wrote Margaritaville at the Le Select bar. I read all his books and of course love his music and lifestyle, and he spent a lot of time in these waters. My sister-in-law told me all about St Barths years ago when she had gone. At that time it all seemed so far away and mysterious. Little did I know that one day I would be sailing my own boat into St Barths. Go figure.
What a quaint little town. I loved it. I wish my daughter Lacey had been with me. We would have had a great time there. Of course we would need an unlimited credit card. Very expensive. But very classy. We checked into the country using the French computer. It’s actually a neat way of filling out the forms. But you have to be careful because some of the keys are in different spots on their computers, for some odd reason. And the French don’t use the English language much on their forms and signage. Everywhere else we go has an English translation…but not the French. But they were very nice. We had croissants and cappuccinos and wandered around the town walking up and down the hills and into the neighborhoods and we had a wonderful lunch with a wonderful glass of wine, overlooking the harbor. We didn’t stay long. Only 2 nights.

Now on to Nevis. I like to keep moving. I like stopping, too, but there’s something really neat about picking up anchor and traveling on to the next spot. A new adventure. We left St Barths at 0430 and arrived in Nevis at 1245. We took a mooring at Penney Beach. Nice anchorage, but a little roly. Pretty island though. We checked in at the Police Department which was a hoot. I guess the normal person wasn’t there so another official looking gal looked through their desk to see how to stamp the passports and figured out how to do ours. OK! Whatever it takes. They were really nice. We filled out all of our paperwork at the customs place but needed to go to the police department to have our passports stamped.
It’s always a new adventure going through customs and immigration at each spot.

While we were at the local spot for customs/immigration we decided to reserve a taxi to take us around the island the next day. Sarge was our driver. What we have discovered on our island treks is that there is a lot of the same stuff. Different island but old forts and old sugar plantations. They’re really neat though. Not sure it was worth the price of the cab ride. We ended up going to a lot of resorts that were made from old sugar plantations and are of course gorgeous and very exclusive. We didn’t get to see the monkeys. We didn’t get to a couple of other spots I thought we should see. But we did get to go around the island. We also walked around the area near our boat and saw some wonderful old churches. Interesting thing about Nevis is that Alexander Hamilton was born there. An interesting story. And of course Horatio Nelson was there. Horatio was married there. It’s kinda cool to think you’ve sailed the same waters as some of these famous people.

We spent 4 days in Nevis then up early and on to Antigua. Jolly Harbour will be our first stop there. It’s a nice protected area, but I was disappointed in what they had to offer. Often on these islands there are a lot of places that look like they were ‘hopping’ at one time but now you see a lot of them closed up. This was the case here. The mooring was nice and calm, particularly after the roly one in Nevis, but the town didn’t offer much. We did provision and filled with fuel and water at a decent price. We also had our laundry done…at an ok price. And they did have hot water! While in Jolly Harbour we ran into some people we met in Deltaville…Roy and Doon from New Zealand. Before we left Virginia they had their boat at Deltaville. Again…so fun to run into people you know…in this small world of ours. We spent a nice evening with them.

Now we are ready to head to English Harbour. We check the weather and decide to get up and go. We head out and turn left. Everything seems ok but it’s a bit breezy. We go along down the island at a pretty decent pace and start our turn toward English Harbour. To do that we poke our heads out at the southern end of the island and it’s blowing like crazy! We have our engine running, our main sail and staysail up and we are only doing 1knot!! OK…this ain’t gonna work! We decide to turn around and try it again another day. It’s not that far and we have time and we would have been ready to kill someone by the time we got there if we had continued against the wind and seas like that.

Off again…next morning it looks much better weather wise. Trying again to get to the other side of Antigua and English Harbour, where Lord Nelson held court. This day we got there likety split, no problem. I liked it much better. Very quaint and charming. Nice anchorage. Neat little town to walk to. Lots of historic buildings here. We stayed at English Harbour for 5 days. Igor and Caroline were there with the Conch Pearl. They brought the Conch Pearl from the Dominican Republic to Antigua. The Pearl is owned by our friend Neil whom we met in Rum Cay in the Bahamas. We traveled from Rum Cay to the DR with Conch Pearl but Neil peeled off and went to the Turks and Caicos. That’s where he met Igor and Caroline and they traveled together later to the DR. Neil brought the Pearl to Ocean World where we were staying and hired Igor and Caroline to clean her up and take her on down the islands. They got as far as Antigua, but the Pearl needs some extra work I’m afraid before she goes much further. It was fun seeing Igor and Caroline again, though. Not sure what their future plans will be.

In English Harbour we hiked up to Berkeley Heights to a great area for a Sunday night BBQ. Quite a hike up hill but well worth it. The view was spectacular and the ribs were fabulous! Not to mention the steel drum music and wonderful people we met there. The hike back down in the dark was a bit more of a challenge but we made it fine. Thanks to my Indian scout Randy.

One of the spectacular highlights we experienced while at English Harbour was the event of the Woodvale rowing competition. We didn’t realize what this was until these row boats…very modern and well equipped row boats…started trickling into the harbor under much fanfare. We later discovered they rowed from the Canary Islands all the way to Antigua! The first guy that made it in had been rowing for 75 days! And they came in for days after that. A couple of women teams, too. And some that were single handed. Amazing. It was quite something to see their boats and to think about what they had done in seas that had to have been much more of a challenge than what we’ve been through.

The weather looks good and we’re ready to head on down the islands. We’ve decided to do the next few islands more quickly. We will just anchor out at the next island and not check in. Then we will leave first thing in the morning. We want to quicken our pace a bit. And these islands seem to be the same in a lot of ways. Interesting but the same. Same relics of churches, forts and sugar plantations. We decide we don’t need to see them all. The next island down is Guadeloupe. It was nice and still the morning we departed Antigua. We motor out beyond the island and there’s a wonderful wind out there and we sail the whole way to Guadeloupe, doing 6 knots mostly which is pretty good for our boat. Nice. We pulled into Des Haies at a sweet, quiet anchorage. As we are stowing après sail things a skiff approaches and asks if we’d like baguettes in the morning. Oh man!! Of course we do! But…we are leaving too early. Darn it. We enjoy a wonderful sunset, briefly flying our Guadeloupe courtesy flag along with the yellow quarantine flag.

Up early, early and we’re heading to Dominica. We are bypassing the Saintes, just below Guadeloupe, which are fabulous islands according to friends who have been. We hate to miss that but we just don’t want to take that much time. Our goal now is to get over to Panama by late May early June. Originally we were going to head to Trinidad and leave our boat there for the hurricane season. But we have decided to step it up a bit and get closer to home before then. So Dominica is another island we just anchored off.

First into Prince Rupert Bay. We had big winds along the way and sailed half way but had to turn into the wind to approach the island. I lost my favorite Island Packet hat along the way! Darn it! Randy wouldn’t turn around for it. =) I thought we could practice our man overboard drills. Oh well. I have a zillion other hats but that was my favorite to wear while traveling. I have a clip to put on it, but obviously I didn’t use it. Got settled into Pr Rupert Bay and were immediately approached by boats wanting to sell things. But we didn’t need any of their wares. Again we put up our quarantine flag and the Dominica flag and watch the beautiful sunset. It got a little chilly that evening.

Next day we did a short sail down to Roseau, Dominica for overnight. Again anchored off shore. Again we were approached by boats selling things. And ‘Did you pay for the mooring?’ which we had to take there in Roseau. ‘No we haven’t paid.’ ‘I’d be glad to take the money for you.’ ‘Thank you. That would be nice. Would you please bring us a receipt?’ ‘No problem.’ Never saw him again, as you probably guessed. Roseau was not the greatest spot we had anchored. Not a pretty shoreline and the fellow in the skiff made us uncomfortable. Oh well…we are leaving manana.

Up early, early again and off to Martinique, destination Fort de France. It’s a nice, still morning. Had a big but short squall along the way. Found a great spot to anchor along the pretty city front. Again I could smell flowers as we approached the island. We are now in the Windward Islands. Close the Leeward Guide Book and open the Windward. We are makin’ time.

I liked Martinique. It was very French which I loved. The check in on the French islands is Simple Simon. Nice. The great thing about the guide books we use is that they tell you where everything is in the islands. For instance, they direct you where to check in. In Fort de France, we checked in at Sea Services, a chandlery on the main road. It is owned by folks that speak perfect English. Excellent. And they had good wares in their shop, including St James apparel which I love. Ciarla, who is from Canada originally, even let us collect a FedEx package there at her business. So nice and so helpful. Because our health coverage is Kaiser we can only receive 90 days of medication at a time. This is not helpful when you’re traveling around like we are. But we like our health coverage and don’t want to change so we put up with having to receive a package every 3 months or so. You can get medication easily in Martinique, and some other countries, so we both have stocked up a bit on what we need in case there’s a delay in a package being received wherever we are. So our daughter Lacey packed us a package to receive in Martinique.

When Randy and I were in St Maarten we decided to buy an unlocked iPhone to use. a/ we can use it to get internet when ashore, b/ we can buy a local sim card to make local calls which comes in handy if we are in a port for a long time. In Martinique we set off to find a sim card for the area. We found Orange, which is a cell store there and on other islands. Of course not many speak English (constantly surprises us when the main business on these islands is tourism) so we had to find someone we could communicate with. We found a very handsome young man that spoke pretty good English. Excellent. However, $80 USD later…we figure we bought the wrong thing. Oh well! We also thought it would be cheaper when calling home. In St Maarten it was. In Fort de France it was not. Oh well…live and learn. Back to Skype.

There was not a good internet source from the boat in Fort de France so we had to find internet cafes. We have a booster antenna on our boat and can often find unsecured internet sources that don’t require passwords from there. But there were none to be had in our location in Martinique. So we packed up our computers and took them for a dinghy ride into town. We found a little bar upstairs on the main road that had internet. Beer and email go together. We found an even better source a few days later. It was a wonderful bistro a little off the beaten path that had a great, secure internet and wonderful salads! And, of course, beer.

We stayed in Martinique at Fort de France for 5 days. The plan now was to head to St Lucia, then Bequia, the Tobago Cays and on to Grenada. We started out early, early which we like to do. We got past the island and had really great wind and were sailing along beautifully. We were making good time. ‘Hey, El, since we’re going along so well…want to just keep going?’ ‘Sounds good to me!’ So we decided not to stop in St Lucia, not to stop in Bequia and not to stop in Tobago Cays. We went all the way to Grenada in one fell swoop of a trip. We weren’t able to sail the whole way but we had the great full moon and the seas were good. I know we missed visiting some nice places, but that’s ok. We are on a boat delivery trip.

We arrived at the bottom of Grenada, Prickly Bay, at 1100 the next morning on the 3 April. It’s very dry here! Not what we expected at all. I thought it would be lush and green. It seems that many of these islands are having a drought. We found a good spot to anchor. We decided to rest all that day and check into the country the next day, Sunday. We are now at the end of the Windward Islands!

The customs and immigration folks were wonderful here. As you know from previous postings that is not always the case. But these guys made us feel so welcome and glad that we are there. After checking in we went over to the little outdoor restaurant there to see about something to eat. That’s when we met Beryl and Claus. They had just arrived after sailing from South Africa for 53 days straight! They had 50 something feet catamaran. Oh my! Beryl was having a hard time being on land. I guess so! And she was so fun and smiley and laughing a lot. I would have been ready to kill someone after 53 days at sea! I later told Randy…I’m changing my attitude. I need to be more glad. =) What an inspiration she was in only the short time we had known her. Needless to say we spent some wonderful days in Grenada with Beryl and Claus.

We learned to take the bus in Grenada. Had to get downtown to the chandlery and to the store and to explore. We didn’t do too much exploring. Seemed like we were doing more chores than exploring. But the buses were a hoot. ‘Look for the little buses with the ONE on the front. That’s the one to take to town and get back here.’ OK. We walk up the street a bit to the rotunda and find the bus. They are like a really small van with a million seats packed inside. There is a driver and there is a guy that sits near the sliding door and hangs out trying to find more passengers. The holler at anybody they see that might possibly ride in their bus. Some were very aggressive at finding passengers. Quite the trip. They pack you in there and you hope they understand where you want to get off. And it’s hot. The worst was when Ran and I went downtown to where the cruise terminals are to the outside market. Looking for fresh vegetables, fruit, and then went to the regular market for some extra stuff we needed. We bought our wares and then had to tote them down to the bus depot. Not a short trip. Then they piled us on the little bus. We had to stack everything on our laps, hoping not to crush the fresh bread we bought. Thank heaven I’m not claustrophobic and they had windows to open. I was really glad to get off that bus, even though we had to walk another half mile or so back to the place we parked our dinghy. Our arms were falling off by the time we got there. So we stopped for a beer first. =)

On some of the islands where we have been there has been a cruisers’ net on the VHF radio. This was the case here in Grenada. The other instance was in Georgetown, Bahamas. It’s actually quite a good thing. Every morning at 7:30, or whatever appointed hour they choose, on a particular channel…for Grenada it was 68…they broadcast what is going on in the area that cruisers might be interested in. They ask who is new to the area, who might be leaving, do you have anything you need or want to get rid of, they give you the weather, and the businesses around announce any news they might have…like happy hours or specials in their restaurant or tours they are offering of the island. It’s very helpful. You can put in a ‘query’ if you need to know, for instance, where to get water or fuel or have you laundry done or if anyone is heading the direction you are going and want to travel together or if you want to go together and rent a car, etc. Often, too, the cruisers group does things for the island people, like volunteer in their schools or do a cleanup of their beaches, etc. It’s quite a nice idea and comforting to know there’s help if you need it.

We ended up staying in Grenada for almost 3 weeks. Our next trip was to Bonaire and it was going to be a 3 or 4 day trip so we needed to watch the weather closely. While we were waiting a young man approached our boat in his dinghy with 2 little kids. He had heard we were heading to Bonaire. They were going that way, too, and wanted to travel with another boat. We like that as well, especially on the longer trips. We chatted a bit and decided on a date to leave. What a lovely little family. The Vrenkens. Roel is Dutch but lived in France. He is a teacher. Isabelle is French and she is a doctor. Tessa is 7 years old and Yoan is 22 months. Though they are from France they now live in New Caledonia! Roel has sailed for many years and found the boat he wanted in Europe so they are taking it back home to New Caledonia. In France, when you have a baby you can take 3 years off and still get your job back. You don’t get paid for the time off but your job is there when you return. So they are taking this time to travel home. There life in New Caledonia sounds fascinating. Not sure if it will happen but it would be wonderful to visit them there. But I’ll fly…not take our boat.

We leave at 0800 on 22 April after filling with fuel and water the day before. We will be able to sail for the first time most of the way, if not all of the way. The wind and the seas will be behind us. We will sail wing and wing, which is having your jib sail out on one side with a whisker pole holding it and having your mainsail out on the opposite side. With the wind at your back this configuration allows both sails to fill full of wind. It’s not the easiest configuration to set up but it’s worth it. We scooted along very nicely. Randy made a preventer for our mainsail. If the wind makes a shift at all the mainsail can let go and jibe (swing to the other side.) This is not what you want to happen. Roel’s boat, Quic en grogne, is longer and faster so he had to hold back a bit so we could stay together.

It took us 3 days to get to Bonaire. We did pretty well, sailing along. But Randy worked hard to keep our sails full. We did have some problems and of course they all happen at night when you can’t see. But they were minor…just annoying. It’s a sail position I like, but when the seas are big…as they were many times…it’s VERY roly. Good thing we had everything nailed down below. We did have a time in the middle of the night when the winds got big and the preventer broke. WHAM! Sounded like the whole mast had come down! I was down below trying to sleep. Woohoo! There’s never a dull moment when you’re sailing. Well…that’s not true. There are tons of dull moments when you’re just drifting along. But you know what I mean.

We saw some neat stuff on this trip. We saw the green flash which was amazing! It occurs just as the sun sets on the water. I thought it was just a myth but it’s true! I didn’t take a picture but I found one online. We saw some Portuguese Man o War floating by…looking like bathtub toys. We didn’t know what they were at the time but found out later. Weird looking and not very big for being such mean things. We had dolphins playing beside us for quite awhile. Dolphins are the best. They have such fun. They jump and dive and race with your boat. Unfortunately it was after dark, but we had a full moon. I was hoping they would make phosphorescence but they didn’t. Dolphins just make you feel good and we hadn’t seen some for awhile.

We arrived in Bonaire, tied to a mooring, at 0645 on 25 April. We actually arrived around 0300 but hung around outside as we were not familiar with the area. We follow the rule of not going into any new area in the dark. The mooring was along the city front. Kralendijk (don’t ask me how to pronounce it) was the name of the town. The water was crystal clear. I just love that. That’s what I loved most about the Bahamas. The water there was spectacular. We could snorkel from our boat and see more fish and coral than when we were in the water in the Virgin Islands! Loved it.

We stayed in Bonaire for a week. The first night we were there we were invited for drinks and wonderful, majorly yummy Korean hors d’oeuvres on a catamaran, Slow-Mocean two moorings down from us. Blake, Sunny and Eileen. They noticed our Seattle, Washington hailing port on the back of our boat and invited us over. Fun! They are from Seattle. Nice people. Then…to top it off… Roel and Isabelle invited us over for dinner to have a fish they caught on the way. No…we have not caught any fish yet. No…we are not trying very hard. Yes…we should try harder because they’re so good! Not sure what recipe Isabelle used but it was like sashimi. Soooooo good. Good food, good wine, good people. Love this part of this life. A nice way to start our stay in Bonaire.

The highlight of Bonaire….the Harley ride. So fun! Roel had stopped by the boat and said he had found a place to rent Harleys. Do we want to go with them and tour the island? Are you kidding? YES! Randy went downtown and reserved one for us. Roel had to reserve a trike because they had the whole family. What a fun day! We drove all over the island and ended up at a perfect beach where they do a lot of sail boarding. We had some of the best calamari and a wonderful salad for lunch. The beach was perfect for the little ones as there was a nice shallow area where they could play. The sand was like powder. It was a long, hot, fun, fun day. Randy and I had always wanted to rent a Harley and ride. Now we have done it!

Now it’s time to go on to Curaçao. Just a short trip. We departed Kralendijk (I still don’t know how to pronounce it, but it looks good doesn’t it?) at 0810 on 2 May. Again, sailing wing and wing. The seas got a bit big, but at least they’re behind us. No way could we have gone if we were beating into the seas. We had no cruising guide for Curaçao. We had a brief one for Bonaire that included Venezuela, but none for Curaçao. We got online and on our charts and found where we wanted to go and headed out…again with Quic en grogne. BTW…that’s pronounced sort of like this: keek in groi-ña. Roughly, according to Roel, it means ‘others may grumble, I don't care’. It's old French - older than the 19th century.

We arrived and anchored in Spanish Waters, Curaçao at 1500. Kind of breezy in here and very crowded. But we were able to find spots to anchor together. It’s good holding and it’s not roly. Two important things to me. Unfortunately the water is not as nice and clear here as in Bonaire. There are people swimming in it but I don’t think I will. As we got settled, I checked online for an internet source and found one available for yachts. It also had all the information about the area we needed available. That was extremely helpful as we needed to know where to go to check in! We again decided to check in the next day. You usually have 24 hours in which you can check in but you need to put up your yellow quarantine flag in the meantime.

Up the next day we go off with Roel to check in to the country. We knew there was a bus scheduled to go by near the dinghy dock, and we had also heard of small buses like in Grenada that also stop by. Unfortunately we missed the early morning bus but knew there would be another around 1030. It was now 930. Ugh. Hopefully one of the small buses will come by. They didn’t. We walked up the road a bit thinking we might see one. We did see a couple, but they did not stop. Certainly wasn’t at all like Grenada where they were hanging out of the small buses trying to drum up customers!

We finally get on a large, very nice bus and head into town. We told the bus driver to take us to customs. And that happened to be near the bus station so that worked out well. We asked a few people where it was and along our way we come to the floating market we had heard about. So neat! Boats from Venezuela come in and tie up together and sell the most wonderful fruits and vegetables. I loved it. We decided to buy some on our way back.

First we need to find customs. Finally found it…big yellow building on the water. We fill out our paperwork there, no problem. In the meantime we run into people we had met in Bonaire; the crew from Slow-Mocean and another catamaran that was in Bonaire. They had left early in the morning and were just getting to customs. What happened? They were told to go to immigration first, which was on the other side of the waterway. But when they got to immigration and after waiting in line over there, they were told they must go to customs first! Oh dear. We lucked out I guess and blindly went to customs first. Phew! Now we had to cross over the water and try to find immigration.

They have a floating bridge you use to cross the water but it was being moved aside for ship traffic. Kind of cool! But we were able to take the ferry across which was just leaving. Another lucky move. Across on the other side we again ask directions and walk up to immigration. We had to show our passports to get down by the water where immigration was. Now we wait in line. It is finally our turn and Roel goes first. They are very slow here. They told Roel his whole family must come in. What?! The standard rule is that the captain checks everyone in. Brings in there passports, etc. That way there aren’t a million people waiting around. And there was no problem in that regard with customs. But this lady said he must bring in his whole family. And it must be done today. What??!! Roel is not happy. Randy is not happy that Roel has to go through that. I usually go in with Randy because I have better printing than he does to fill out the forms and I always want to take pictures etc and see everything. But for Roel, he would have to drag in the little ones and put them through what can become a long process. And today was one of those days.

When Randy and I had finished Roel again asked if he could please just get it all done now. They wanted him to bring his family back when they reopen at 2000 which would have been very late and dark. No way. Finally another woman who looked more in charge decided he could complete transaction. Thank heavens. This was the most time consuming and difficult check in we had encountered. Bonaire was a breeze! Now we had to go to the Port Captains office to again fill out paperwork and pay for anchoring in one of their ports. Just a minor fee. But…the office was closed for lunch. We had to wait. Finally…we got it all done and were by now starving.

Roel was concerned that Isabelle was probably worried about us all since it had been so long! But we stop for lunch and a beer. We stop by the floating market and get some produce, we wait at the bus station for the bus back. We make it back to the dinghy dock and finally get back to the boat. My goodness! The good part about the day was seeing the neat buildings downtown and the floating market. I want to go back and see those again. Of course we have to go back anyway to check out of the country. Hopefully that will go more swiftly. I suppose another hassle rant could be added here but I’m not gonna do it. I do appreciate this experience good, bad or ugly. And my self indulgence has been spoken for.

We are now waiting to go on. We want to continue to travel with Quic en grogne. I think we will go to Cartagena and then on to the San Blas Islands. That will be about a 4 or 5 day trip. But we are waiting for weather. Nothing new there! We need a good weather window to continue on. In the meantime we are enjoying Curaçao.

Yeah, I know…this was another LONG post and…yeah, I know I should do them more often and make them less long. Each time I think that’s what I’m going to accomplish. But you never know next time!

A view of the BVIs

2010-02-09T07:48:00.001-08:00

It’s an interesting thing, sailing these Virgin Islands. You longingly look forward to getting here…you arrive…they’re wonderful…gorgeous…magnificent …and fun…but now what? We sort of feel like we’re partied out! LOVE the snorkeling. I could do that all day every day…well maybe not ‘all day every day’ but a lot. But not every place has that available. We are staying in and around the USVIs and the BVIs in anticipation of our youngest son and his wife coming to visit. Skip and Kim. We can’t wait to see them and are planning our route for their short stay with us. And we are anxious to show them some of our favorite spots in the short time they’re here.

But in the meantime…we’ve decided these BVI islands are pretty much just tourist islands. That’s not a bad thing but…it’s interesting for us, as full time cruisers who live on their boat all the time. We like to find places to explore on the islands and so far it seems these are mostly resorts/shops/restaurants/bars. They are so beautiful, but there are so many charter boats. And all the islands seemed to be geared to charter boats or big cruise ships. I would venture to say there are 8 charter boats for every 2 privately owned boats. Or more. And that’s fun. I don’t mean to sound negative but it’s sort of an invasive thing. In a way. We are tourists, too, so that’s kind of an odd observation but what I’m getting at is when we go to a new island here, it’s about grabbing a mooring ball or an anchor spot before the next guy gets it! Parking lot activity! Then it’s party city. And I love that…as most of you know I would, but when we are here all the time it gets a little much. I don’t want to sound like I’m whining and I actually feel really odd making these statements, but I guess I never realized how MANY charters there would be and how many people on each charter boat. But, then again, I would recommend people to do just that, as this is so great and fun and beautiful! I’m just a little worried about the space all these boats take up…particularly the catamarans. And trust me…I’m not what you might call an environmentalist, I just think we need to take care of what we have as best we can and I guess the number of people startles me a bit. When you snorkel some of these places you actually run into people! They’ve just come in on a big fat catamaran and there are 25 or 30 of them all at once trying to snorkel in a relatively small area. Then that boat calls their people back and a new boat comes in with the same thing. Interesting.

I’m all for people enjoying seeing all of this and having fun, and that’s exactly what we’re doing so I shouldn’t be worried about it, but I’m wondering what it will be like in a few more years? It feels like you’re in line at Disneyland sometimes out here. I don’t know the solution…or even if it’s a problem, it’s just my observation. I guess I didn’t expect this. And we can move on…to different islands south and we will. I think it just caught me by surprise as I have never been here before.

We’ve noticed in the BVIs… particularly since we have just reentered the USVIs where the anchorages are run by the parks dept… they cram the mooring buoys into their anchorages. Then they charge you $25/night. Here at Watermelon Bay on St John, USVI, where we are this day as I write, the moorings are far apart. You aren’t allowed to anchor here unless there are no moorings at all. So it seems more peaceful. They only charge you $15 here or $7.50 if you’re over 62 like us! At this spot there isn’t a noisy,‘I’m having too much fun’ restaurant/bar thing going. Trust me, I like those too, but I think this peacefulness is what it’s all about.

OK…enough of my pontificating and on to what we’ve been up to. Mostly seeing the beautiful BVIs and taking advantage of all I was just worrying about! Being tourists! =)

As we last left you we were in Sopers Hole. We ended up weathered in at Sopers Hole, BVIs for 3 days. It's a good protective harbor for not so great weather conditions. In the meantime we got lots of internet work done at the Jolly Roger where they have a good signal and great pizza and beer. Good combination for us. Finally, the weather turned gorgeous and we were ready to leave. Our next destination will be Norman Island. We filled up with water and provisions and tried to get our propane tank filled but failed to do so. Something about our little propane tank is not compatible with a lot of propane places. Well, that’s a pain in the rear. We had trouble in Puerto Rico, too, but they finally figured out how to fill it. We need propane to cook so it’s kind of an essential product. Though I guess we could eat out all the time. I’m not much for cooking anyway. =) But that wouldn’t be good. As much as I like having people cook and wait on me, those home cooked meals can’t be beat. So we will try to get it filled when we get to another marina area. After a bit of a George and Gracie morning, we’re off.

Our first stop will be The Indians, just off Pelican Island on the way to Norman Island. I believe it was named so because it looks like the feathers on the Indian’s headdress. It’s a wonderful snorkel spot. The jutting rocks make cliffs of sort on which the coral has grown. Unfortunately it’s very popular, too. We are still traveling with our friends on Sans Clés and they were able to find a mooring ball right away. We had to drive around and around and wait for one of the other boats to finish before we could snag a mooring. [Cue my whining rant at the beginning of this post about finding a parking spot.] There are only a few moorings available here, and that’s a good thing. That way there are not so many people snorkeling about at one time. So we patiently waited. We noticed a boat making preparations as if to leave so we stationed ourselves near in a position that said…”this is our spot…just TRY to take it from us!” There were other boats waiting as well. Finally we can jump in and enjoy. Snorkeling is such a peaceful thing. You are floating and all you hear is your breathing. I like it. And I love seeing the different fish. The coral is interesting, but the fish are what I love. Just watching them.

Now to our final destination, Norman Island in the Sir Francis Drake Channel. To the Bight, which is a well protected anchorage there. We grab a mooring ball after checking to see if there were places to anchor…and settle in. Norman Island is referred to as Treasure Island. It’s beautiful here. Apparently legend has it that there is sunken treasure about. Perhaps I shall dive and recover doubloons! We jump in the dinghy and go into the Pirates Bight restaurant for lunch. It’s fun to see people at these restaurants as everyone is in a great ‘I’m on vacation!’ mood… in their swim wear or shorts and flip flops. My kinda place, 98% of the time. We watched some folks play a game of stacking blocks of wood. Often there are silly games of this sort to challenge you at these places, particularly the more casual spots like this.

Gorgeous day, the next one! I relaxed in the morning on the bow of the boat with my book and watched the goings on in the little harbor. So nice. In the afternoon we dinghied over to Treasure Point and snorkeled and explored the caves which were fabulous. We snorkeled a long time. Loved it. A charter company dumped off about 20 people and that was annoying as it stirred up the water too much, but it was still fun. We dinghied back and had a beer at the Willy T, aka the William Thornton, a floating restaurant/bar named for the architect of the US Capital building. Our guide book said the vessel is a replica of a topsail lumber schooner and measures 93 feet long. Stories of raucous fun and abandon run rampant about the Willy T. It’s all pretty much validated by the x-rated slide show that continually plays at the bar showing the antics of past patrons. =) We decided to come back for dinner later so we made reservations just in case. Dinner was fun. Not the greatest but it didn’t matter. People start piling on the Willy T as the night goes on. WHAT A GREAT DAY!

Here at the Bight and also at Cooper and Peter Islands, the supply vessel Deliverance makes rounds about 5pm to see if you need anything. They have just about everything you might be lacking. And they take your garbage! For a fee of course. But sometimes that’s a great service. Looking for places to take your garbage can be a challenge. Some places are free…some charge you a small fee. Also if you need anything special you just hail Deliverance on the VHF and they will bring it to you. Pretty neat little business. Randy likes it best when the cute girls in their bikinis deliver. Yeah, yeah, yeah…

We decided to move closer to the inside of the bay and try to anchor, saving us $25/day. Not sure why they have to charge so much. We did find a good spot as did Sans Clés. Excellent. Then it started to rain. We set up our rain catcher, which I made for days such as this. Kinda funky but it works pretty well! It blows around when empty and the wind is going crazy so not sure if that’s a good thing. But what a concept, yeah? Catching your own fresh water? We did catch some water in our bucket and in our rain catcher. Pretty cool. Our boat holds 160 gallons of fresh water, which is pretty good. We figure we average maybe 10 gallons of water per day, give or take. So we are good for a long time, but it would be so fun to top off the tank with rain water.

The night was busy! Pirates Bight had music…sort of reggae…wannabe reggae. They weren’t very good but they were loud! I had to put earplugs in when we went to bed. They didn’t last long. Willy T had music, too, but we were far enough away from them to not hear it much. The harbor was busy with dinghies zipping here and there. When you looked out…there was a ‘sea’ of anchor lights from all the boats. Pretty cool. Wish I could have captured that on film. We had an early dinner and watched more episodes of Deadwood. We bought all 3 seasons in Puerto Rico. We started watching the series when we lived in Virginia, but then we stopped HBO and never finished it. Love that show. Hate when it will be over. We don’t watch TV as we have no antenna or cable, so movies it is…or books. We do tons of reading, too. And… Sudoku. And…play cards, dominoes, etc. And…I beat Randy at Scrabble. The wind and rains came up again that night. We caught more water in our bucket and in our rain catcher.

Next day was nice. We piled in our dinghies and went in to the Pirates Bight to have lunch and work on our computers. That is we tried to work on computers. We can get a small signal from the boat but we wanted to go in and get a strong signal. We were working great when their system went down. Ugh! Finally Terri asked them to try to reboot it and it was fine. They just aren’t tuned into computers like we are. =) They could care less if the system is working right or not. Made me miss my tech guys from work! Terri and I played Scrabble. She won. Crap. I need to tune up my brain. There was more music that night from the Pirates Bight, but this time the band sounded 100% better and not as LOUD! Holy Cow. I just read what I wrote and I sound OLD! There was a time when I would have been there, where the music is, dancing my brains out! I still do that now and then, but not every night. Thank heaven. But it does make me sound old writing that. Goodness. We watched more Deadwood and I finished my book, and started another. Saw a topless lady on a Swedish boat today. Randy got all excited until he zoomed in on her with the binoculars. Guess she was older than he was expecting. She piled in a dinghy with 3 other guys…that also looked older…and off they went! Somewhere! Maybe to snorkel? We weren’t sure. Hmmmmm….

The next day we departed the Bight on Norman Island. Just as we got outside, our engine overheated. Oops! “Good eye, Randy.” Part of our routine when motoring is watching the engine rpms, the oil pressure and the temperature. Ran caught it right away. “Stop the engine, El, while I put up the sails!!” We were heading to Cooper Island and at this point were just off Pelican Island where the Indians snorkel area was. We stopped the engine, Randy pulled up the mainsail and went below to see what was wrong while I manned the helm. It was a fan belt. Randy scrambled around and found the new belt in his spare parts duffel and proceeded to change it. I was monitoring the boat, at sail, in very light winds and felt we were getting too close to Pelican Island. “Uh…Ran. I’m going to tack. I don’t like the direction we’re going and that we’re getting so close to Pelican Island.” “Roger that”, Randy mumbled with his head inside the engine compartment. I tacked through the wind to point the boat away from the island. It was a good move. I had to reach through the dodger opening and muscle the boom over to allow the wind to catch the mainsail as there was virtually no wind. It all went well. Randy got the belt changed, we started up the engine and she worked perfectly. Excellent. Love that smart husband of mine that knows how to change fan belts. He’s my hero!

We were headed to Salt Bay to snorkel on the ship wreck of the Rhone before proceeding on to Cooper Island. According to Wikipedia, the RMS Rhone was a British packet ship owned by the Royal Mail Steam Packet Company. She was wrecked off the coast of Salt Island in the British Virgin Islands on 29 October 1867 during a hurricane. We grabbed a mooring ball at the wreck site. The seas were pretty busy but it was fine. It was an interesting snorkel experience. Ran and I swam from the boat to the wreck. Terri and Lyman anchored farther out so they took their dinghy. From there we motored to Cooper’s Island at Manchioneel Bay. We grabbed a mooring and relaxed. We missed our first grab which is the first time that happened. I didn’t have the boat facing into the wind and the wind pushed us past the pennant grabbing spot. No problem, I turned the boat and we tried again. We relaxed and had lunch and then dinghied over to snorkel at Cistern Point. Now this is quite a feat for me. Dinghying over to snorkel. The dinghy over…I can do. The jumping in the water from the dinghy…I can do. Getting back into the dinghy from the water…not easy for Ellen. Randy rigged up a stirrup on a line across the bow of the dinghy so I can get a leg up. Not an attractive site but it works. =) While snorkeling I saw a barracuda so I quickly swam back to the boat hoping that guy wasn’t following me. They do like to follow you. And they won’t harm you if you leave them alone but they look imposing. I didn’t want to look back at him because I didn’t know if he saw me and I didn’t want to know if he was still there!

After a great day of snorkeling we went back to the boat and waited for our dinner reservations while watching everyone come into the anchorage and try to grab mooring balls. It can be very interesting watching other boats. Sometimes Randy and I are really catty and rate them on how well they are doing. We’re so perfect, you know. =) We gussied up and went in for dinner with Lyman and Terri. It was very good. We toasted with Bushwackers and my Painkiller! Randy is letting his hair grow long and he looked extra handsome that night. Very suavé and captain-of-the-boat-like. It was another really good evening with Terri and Lyman.

We had a Tania Aebi siting at Cooper Island. Tania Aebi completed a solo circumnavigation of the globe in a 26 foot sailboat between the ages of 18 and 21. Most of us cruisers have read her book Maiden Voyage about her trip. Quite a feat. Today there are two 16 year old girls trying to do the same thing but they’ve got a lot more equipment they can use now. Still, quite a feat. Tania now, apparently, does training on sailboats and there were 2 charter boats full of women moored there at Cooper Island that she was in charge of. Kind of neat for us to see her.

Next day we left Cooper Island to try to catch a mooring at The Baths on Virgin Gorda. We didn’t leave early enough, darn it. There were only yellow buoys left and Randy and I thought they were designated commercial use only. We later found out this was not true at this spot. Terri and Lyman took one and asked about it when they went ashore. Apparently it is ok to grab one of those for the day. We went on in to Virgin Gorda Yacht Harbor where we had reservations for 2 nights. We can visit The Baths another day. We have time. We easily got into the marina. Nice place, but small. We had lunch and a beer and watched all the Sunsails charter people bring their charter boats back, again rating how they did. We are so tacky! We also watched some apparently wealthy people have lunch on the back of their large yacht. It was odd to us why they had their yacht facing the shore restaurant instead of facing the ocean? As we are sitting there having our burger and beer, they are being served by several crew quite a fancy meal with wine. Ahhh…the life of the rich and famous. In the marina we got on the internet…so nice to have it on the boat. YAY. I need to get my fix on the internet. We relaxed and at happy hour took our cocktails down to Sans Clés, who had since arrived, and sat there for hours analyzing life. Another great day.

Busy day, the next. Had the laundry done. It cost too much, but it was nice having someone else wash/dry/fold while I worked on other chores. I finally mended the dodger. It's like wrestling with a crocodile trying to get that thing in the sewing machine. Stupid dodger/bimini hasn’t lasted worth a darn. I keep having to mend it. The threads have rotted out and the canvas, supposedly good quality Sunbrella, has faded terribly. This is about the only thing I’m unhappy with on our boat. I love the style of the dodger/bimini, but for the amount of money we spent it sure hasn’t lasted.

Randy worked on a bridal for the dinghy so we can tow it if we want. We went to the little store to get provisions. Spent too much money on lousy coffee. I miss my Starbucks French Roast! For the life of me I can’t figure out why Starbucks hasn’t invaded this area yet. The Pottses (Terri and Lyman) came over for happy hour and we again solved the problems of life and reminded ourselves of our favorite movies. Later Ran and I finished watching Deadwood. Darn it. I wish they made more seasons. I’m going to miss it. Slept really good. Not always the case.

Off to Gorda Sound today. We sailed a tiny bit, then motored in. It’s still really windy. You might say that’s good for a sailor, but too much wind in the wrong direction doesn’t make for good travel. This area has lots to see: Saba Rock, the Bitter End Yacht Club, Leverick Bay and some other anchorages. We toured around and found a good spot to anchor off of Prickly Pear Island. We can dinghy in to Saba Rock and the Bitter End and to Leverick Bay from here. This is the last of the BVIs after which we will go on to the Leeward Islands when we're ready. The water doesn’t seem as clear at our anchorage but maybe that’s because of the winds and currents. But it’s a beautiful blue. We watched a gorgeous tall ship come in and another multi masted cruise ship come in. It’s nice to have a good anchorage that’s close to all we need to see. It’s still very windy but not rocky too much. Tonight we watched a Die Hard movie. We’re running out of movies! There is lots of book trading as we go along but not so much with movies. We trade back and forth with Sans Clés but I think we’ve about seen all of our inventory.

Today we went in to Saba Rock for lunch, taking our computers to catch up on stuff. It’s a beautiful day but it’s kind of a choppy ride in the dinghy. And our dinghy engine hasn’t been working well…STILL! I’m so sick of that stupid Yamaha 9.9 four stroke piece of crap! =) Just venting. The lunch was ok and VERY expensive. Beers were $5.50. Too much! It was almost $70 for the 2 of us for lunch including drinks. Nice place though. Since we are anchored off of Prickly Pear Island which is a ways out the trip in with the dinghy got Randy VERY wet. The water always splashes on the side he needs to sit on to run the engine. Should have bought a hard bottom dinghy.

It was a really windy night so Ran and I were up and down all night, making sure things were ok. We both dove on the anchor this morning just to check and it hadn’t budged at all. Love our Rocna anchor! We went into the Bitter End Yacht Club today. Another wet dinghy ride and our engine was really acting up today. The Bitter End is not really a yacht club, but a resort. It’s beautiful, but we were a little disappointed in the place. It’s very expensive. I guess that’s to be expected. They only had a buffet to offer at the main restaurant for $28 per person. Didn’t look like what we wanted. We ate lunch at their pub instead. We had quesadillas that we shared. They were pretty good but, again, it’s not enough for the price. But the place is just gorgeous. Terri and I found some lounge chairs overlooking the beach and sat and talked all afternoon while Lyman and Randy did the hike of the island. That was fun. Now we’ve decided to dinghy across to Leverick Bay thinking we would hit their happy hour and therefore cheaper drinks! But when we got there, their happy hour didn’t start until 5! Ugh! It was only 4:00! At the Bitter End and Saba Rock the happy hours started at 4:00. Doggoneit! Well…we’re here…we need to order drinks. What the heck. Bushwackers and my Painkiller ordered up. $8 each. And they’re too small for that price. Ugh. Oh well! We still had a lovely time with a lovely view. Tomorrow off to Trellis Island.

Off we go to Trellis Bay on Tortola. We sailed but it was hard. The wind was behind us and the seas were following but choppy. It’s hard to hold the boat steady and keep from accidentally jibing. To explain the jibe, here is a blurb from the web: A jibe or gybe is a sailing maneuver where a sailing vessel turns its stern through the wind, such that the wind direction changes from one side of the boat to the other. Because of the inherent dangers in jibing (uncontrolled, the boom can travel almost 180° with great speed and lethal force), communication with the crew is important. It’s also important for the helmsman (me) to pay attention! We did an accidental jibe once. I wasn’t paying attention. Damn. But it was ok. I concentrated much harder the rest of the journey. We are finding our auto helm, aka Max Headroom, doesn’t seem to be holding right. But then with the wind behind us and following seas it’s more of a challenge for Max, too. We will have that checked when we get to the marina in Redhook at the end of February.

We made our way into Trellis Bay and we see out friend Marc on Opal! Yay! Fun to see him here. It was very busy in there with several boats trying to find a mooring, though there were plenty to be had at this time of day. It gets a little more crazy toward the end of the day when people try to find moorings that are no longer available. I avoided banging into a couple of boats milling around the mooring, but it was ok. This weekend is the Full Moon Party here. Saturday night. That should be fun! Marc dinghied over when we were settled and we visited with him and then made plans with Marc, Terri and Lyman for dinner at the Last Resort, the restaurant that sits on the little island at the head of Trellis Bay. We got to the Last Resort by Happy Hour and had Painkillers…two for one. Yay! Really cute place. Had a wonderful dinner and conversations. First really great meal I can say we have had around here…particularly for the prices they charge in the BVIs. We had a cute little waitress from South Africa that Marc had already befriended. Of course.

Then the entertainment started setting up. We thought we might not stay…probably will be too loud and the same old reggae songs. The guy started playing. He was unbelievable! So good! He was not only an excellent musician but quite the personality. They were to have name-that-tune contests where the winners got to go on stage and have a shot of tequila and help sing the song. Oh great…this sounds a little corny. When he started playing Dock of the Bay, he asked us all to whistle with him. OK…been there, done that. But it was good! And Randy got to go up and have a shot because he’s such a good whistler. That Randy is so talented, you know. Then the entertainer guy...it would be nice if I could remember his name...started the name-that-tune stuff. OK…we may want to go now. But …again…it was good! The songs he chose were great. And the renditions he and a key board player did were OUTSTANDING. By now, I know I can do this. I know I can guess at least one of these songs. Five notes in…I’ve got it! “Come Together by the Beatles!” YAY! I won! Lyman guessed it, too, but he let me win. I go up, get my shot of tequila, entertainer guy says, “This is going to be the upbeat version.” Ohhh kayyyy. I stand there and they begin. And they’re playing fast. This is not normally a fast song. I can’t even think of the words at that speed so I mostly just dance around and sing the chorus when I hear it. They played an 8… minute… long version of that song. I stood up there for 8… …minutes making a fool of myself! But they are such good musicians, it was so fun. (The reason I know it was 8 minutes was because Terri video’d the whole frickin’ thing!) Goodness! What a fun, fun, fun night.

Next day the weather was kind of a crummy. We dinghied to shore and had burger at da Loose Mongoose. Good burger. We planned on going back over for the Full Moon Party that night but the weather was awful. Rainy, windy, so we stayed in. We would have been sopped by the time we made it to shore from riding in the dinghies. I hated to miss this once a month traditional party. Marc, of course, did manage to go and said it was great! This was his second Full Moon Party. The first one he attended was on New Years Eve. Marc KNOWS where the parties are. It’s ok…we had such a great time the night before that made up for missing this one. Randy and I ended up watching the movie Serenity…the ending movie of the Firefly series we had borrowed from Terri and Lyman. We liked the series but not really the movie.

The next day was STILL windy but now at least the sun was out. We all decided to stay another day at Trellis. I had wanted to visit Marina Cay just across the bay but the weather wasn’t great to take the boats over. So Terri got us all together and we took a ferry to Marina Cay. And it was free! Amazing. We just had to call for them to pick us up. We figured that out after we stood and waited for awhile. Duh. It was really pretty over there. We walked around, had lunch, and I got another cup for my collection from the Pussers Restaurant. Of course it was filled with a Painkiller. =) Fun day.

A rainy, windy, ugly morning. What’s the deal? We paid for sunshine…always! We left Trellis Bay and put the sails up. We are headed back to Norman Island. Terri and Lyman needed to get back to the USVIs as Terri’s mom and son were coming to visit. We also need to get back as we’ve been in the BVIs for most of the 30 days we are allowed and we are also expecting company the end of the month. So we’re working our way back to the USVIs together. It ended up being a nice peaceful sail. The rain went away and the winds died down a little. We again anchored in the Bight, about where we were before. And what should we see but Opal! Marc decided to head that way, too. Yay!

I always want to get in the water when we reach spots so I immediately donned my attractive snorkel paraphernalia and snorkeled on the anchor to check it and then around the edge of the bay. It felt good to be back in the water. Trellis Bay wasn’t conducive for snorkeling. After a bit we decided to move our anchor. We felt we were too close to the cement dock that was there… if the boat were to turn and swing that way. That’s better. The new spot is better. Marc stops by and he’s headed to the Willy T for drinks about 5-ish.

“OK…sounds good, but just drinks. We’ll have dinner when we get back.” Off we dinghy. Five hours later…. Holy Cow! I must have had a zillion painkillers! We met so many fun people and they were buying us drinks and we were talking and laughing and dancing and….whoa! It’s time to go! And the place hadn’t even really started to rock and roll! We were taking our dinghy back to the boat as many others were dinghying on to the Willy T. Holy Cow! I can’t keep up with that bunch. Marc, of course, stayed. He's younger, you know. =) It was sooooo fun. But we hadn’t eaten…ugh. That doesn’t bode well for the rest of the evening. Memorable, though! It was memorable! We did the tourist/party thing that night. Yes...we...did.

Ugh…slept in. I’m sure you were expecting me to say that! Headache/stomach ache. Can’t do that anymore! But it was such fun. It’s a windy day (windy all night, too) but the sun is out. Everyone just sort of hunkered down on their boats today. We read books…played Soduko. I made spaghetti and found out I can get online from the boat. Good. We had a nice quiet night and the wind was quiet too.

Up and at ‘em, we left Norman Island to check out of the BVIs at Sopers Hole. Marc's engine was overheating...again...so he headed out to Roadtown where he had mechanics work on his engine before. Randy started to check the engine oil, as is routine, and there was oil all on bottom of engine compartment. Oops! Not sure what that was. Randy mopped it up and checked the oil. It looked ok but needed a little more. Then he tightened the oil filter. We’ll just keep an eye on that. She started fine and was ok all the way to Sopers. We had an early dinner with Terri and Lyman at the Jolly Roger. Pizza and beer. I had them put anchovies on my half of the pizza. =) As long as they don’t touch Randy’s half. Nice evening. Nice sunset.

Checked out of BVIs the next morning…easily. The guys were nice, and efficient, for a change. We said goodbye to the Pottses as they were heading into Redhook to get their new cockpit cushions they were having made. They then were headed to Christmas Cove in anticipation of their family coming on Saturday. We are kinda having separation anxiety! We’ve been together with Sans Clés most of the time for the last 2 months. We decided to head to Watermelon Bay. One of our favorite spots on St John. That’s where we spent Christmas Eve. It’s so nice here. Very peaceful. And very close to Sopers Hole so it was an easy motor over. Got a mooring no problem. Went snorkeling. Relaxed. Met the couple that are volunteers for this little bay for the parks dept. So nice. Ran into another couple we met through Terri and Lyman at Ocean World. Connie and Keith. They spent hurricane season at Luperon. They are both now working in Charlotte Amalie to build up their coffers. We had a very nice quiet evening. But didn’t sleep well! Maybe it was too quiet and still.

It’s so peaceful here. This is a very protected area with tall mountains all around. The area reminds Randy of the Pacific Northwest. With the green hills. The next day Randy worked hard on waxing the transom and the port side of Kwanesum. I worked on the blog out in the cockpit. Lots of fish around. We saw an iguana swimming across the anchorage. Not sure what he was doing! I guess just swimming from the tiny island to shore. Silly iguana. There is lots of fish activity, jumping all around and little fish swarming. We saw a shark, too. A nurse shark. Randy saw it later sitting under our boat. Nurse sharks aren’t known to be aggressive. But I didn’t jump in that day…just in case it was the shark’s day to go against that rule.Our mooring neighbors on a boat called Hanco stopped by and chatted from their dinghy and invited us over for cocktails at 4:30. They also invited us to ride with them into Cruz Bay in their large tender for lunch but we declined. We’re trying to save some money and we had work we were in the middle of. We did take them up on the cocktails on their boat. I made some tortilla chips and a dip and we took our drinks over. Very fun. Very nice people. From Ohio. Of course when we left their boat we had trouble starting the damn Yamaha! Finally… got it started. Ugh. YAMAHA FOR SALE!!!

Woke up and decided to move on. We left Watermelon Bay and motor sailed to Christmas Cove. Found a good spot to anchor. It is more rolly over here but so nice. The weather was good. We did have to ask a boat to move as they anchored too close for an overnight anchorage. You never know which way you will swing during the night and they were too close. They were very nice and moved. They seemed to have trouble anchoring. They were on an Island Packet that was chartered out of Redhook. We snorkeled for an hour or so on the reefs near our boat. Love it! Randy decided he was going to work on the dinghy engine. OK. Good idea! When we were in Sopers Hole Lyman and Randy took off the cowling and did a lot of cleaning and checking. (Terri and I played Scrabble. She beat me again, dammit.) So today…Ran decided to take apart the carburetor. Not an easy job! He checked everything and cleaned it out with gasoline. And he got it all back together! First time he’s done that. Where’s Al on Painkiller when you need him! =)

OK…the engine seems to run well now, according to his test run. Yay. Hope it stays that way. We had dinner of hash and salad and we sat in the cockpit until dark. Saw some neato phosphorescence in the water from fish. We weren’t expecting to see that here. Loved it. Nice evening. Breeze started coming in from the West which is different. Turned our boat the opposite way. Hope the anchor knows that. Randy slept in the cockpit, which he loves to do when there are no mosquitos or noseeums. I got online! Someone in the anchorage had wifi. Perfect.

The next day we decided we are not comfortable at this anchorage. The boat turned almost completely around during the night which meant the anchor twisted around, too. It looks ok, Randy dove on it, but we aren’t comfortable with it. And it’s rolly here. I think we’re going to leave. We wanted to stay and wait for Sans Clés and meet Terri’s mom and son, but we’re not sure when they’ll be here. We decided to just head over to Caneel Bay. We found a mooring just to the left of the entrance to the Caneel Bay Resort. It’s a perfect spot. And…tah dahhh…I have GREAT internet! Three bars! The weather turned out to be great this day. We are making lots of power with this sunshine. Now that we have that 3rd solar panel our power has been excellent at anchor. So nice not to have to worry about that. Ran and I decided to dinghy over to the resort for a fancy drink and share a quesadilla. They were having a super bowl party that evening but it was going to be $30/person and then …you buy your drinks on top of that. Cheap beer was offered, but it still seemed too expensive. Last year we were in Lucaya and watched the super bowl there with our friends from New Zealand, Robin and Peter. But this year we weren’t sure we wanted to spend the money. We walked around the resort, it’s beautiful, and then went back to the boat and had our own drinks in the cockpit. Cheaper! We will probably stay here a few days. It’s nice.

Another nice, relaxing day. The weather was beautiful. The water was calm. We had a nice late breakfast and I put the computer in the cockpit and started back on this blog. That is exactly what I had pictured myself doing before we left on this adventure. It was so nice. Sometimes people look at us funny when we lug our computers in…specially in the BVIs where there are a lot of charter people on vacation. They’re wondering why these people bring their computers on vacation. Terri got an odd look one day from a guy. The deal is…this is our life, so we have to get our internet where we can…to check our banking, to check email, to check the weather, to search websites for various things we’re looking for or need information on, or to Skype our families. It just happens that most places that offer internet are bars/restaurants. Oh well. They can just think either we’re very busy business people…or we’re weird. =) Steaks for dinner tonight, with my son-in-law Greg’s rice recipe that I love and tomatoes and avocados drizzled with olive oil and balsamic vinegar, feta cheese and walnuts sprinkled on top. Yummo! Dinner in the cockpit with an ocean view. Doesn’t get much better than that.

We will probably stay at this location another night or so. It’s a good spot. We are waiting until the21st when Skip and Kim will arrive on St Thomas, which is just right across the bay from here. I’ve got cleaning and provisioning to do prior to their arrival and we’ve already visited just about all the spots in this area so we’re just enjoying being at anchor…or on a mooring.
I’ve written this post off of a journal I’ve started to keep nightly. Not sure it’s the same rhythm as my other posts but it was certainly easier for me to put together. I’m not sure it reads as well, but you’re still getting the gist of our days on the boat. Cheers everyone. Stay tuned for another episode soon.

The blog returns!

2010-01-17T10:01:00.000-08:00

Back by popular demand…well, perhaps not, but it sounds good…are the adventures of Randy and Ellen and their faithful boat Kwanesum, with sidekick dinghy Bob and chief auto helm Max Headroom. And now with additional characters on board: Hank…our Honda 2000 generator; Sunny3, our third solar panel; and Blue our new stereo (named because it lights up blue).

OK…my bad. I knew I was behind on my posting but now I’m realizing how FAR behind I am as I checked to see what I wrote in the last post! Which was the end of August. It’s now the middle of January. Hello??? Ellen??? Not sure if I’m getting lazy or having too much fun. I need to be in the ‘zone’ when I write and it appears the ‘zone’ has been long in coming. But I also haven’t been targeting the ‘zone.’ So it looks like it falls under the lazy category. If you don’t just sit down and write…the ‘zone’ doesn’t happen. I tend to post the pictures on Facebook, when I can get internet, and then carry on with my playing and not think about the blog. I must remedy this thinking. Have I said this before? Probably. Will I say it again? Probably.

With such a delay in posting, I have to go back over my notes of the past months. We have had so much fun…but for hurricane season we were a long time in one place.

LEAVING THE D.R.

Ending our stay in the Dominican Republic was bitter sweet. We were ready to go but hated leaving new friends behind. We packed in whatever we could in those last weeks. I failed to mention before, that while I was visiting family in California, Randy spent a few days in the capital of the Dominican Republic, Santo Domingo. Our friend Marc, on s/v Opal, had taken an apartment in Santo Domingo for a few months while waiting out hurricane season with his boat anchored in Luperón. Randy decided to take advantage of Marc’s stay in Santo Domingo and see the city Columbus frequented, the Zona Colonial. Taking a pretty decent bus and traveling for 3 hours or so, he arrived and proceeded to partake in festivities Marc lined up and tours of the city. I regret that I didn’t get down there to see the sites, but Randy said it was magnificent and so poignant walking the grounds that Columbus walked on.

Because of our lengthy stay in the D.R., the people we met became dear to us. I’m afraid it was a teary day for both Randy and I when we left Playa Cofresi, the neighborhood beach area where Ocean World is located. We said our goodbyes to all our new friends, which was very hard. As it turned out, we had to wait an extra week because the weather turned bad. So we had to say our goodbyes again. I hurried through them the second time because it was just too sad! We both hope to get back to the D.R. to see these wonderful people again. They have made a mark on our hearts.

And a cast of characters they were:

Our marina family:

James, the stoic, British Marina Operations Manager

Roberto (with blue sunglasses in pics), one of the greatest of Harbor Masters that have touched our lives

Always smiling, always appreciative, always there to help. So hard to leave Roberto.

Bernardo (in the black hat in pics), one of the dock workers
“¿Qué pasa?!” he would shout every time we saw him, often driving around in the dock cart. Always smiling, always teasing me. Always ready to get us anything we needed, even if he had to drive into town for it. He didn’t always find the right thing but, oh, how we loved him for trying. He would help us with our Spanish. How we cried when we hugged him goodbye.

Jose, one of the guards

“¡No ducha!” he would say, teasing us as we sat in the pool every afternoon, Randy with his Orange Julius (Randy’s concoction of orange juice and rum) and me with my tropical drink of whatever my mood was that day, splashing him while he pretended he would jump in. “No ducha… for 20 days!” he would tease, waving his finger back and forth. “Pew!” we would answer back, pinching our noses. So fun. He was so touched by our tears when we hugged him goodbye that he wrote down his name and phone number in case we needed anything. Many of the guards became good friends, but Jose was special.

DANNY & FLORENCIO, the pool dining area waiters

Always smiling, always helpful and friendly. When you stay in one place for 5 months you get to know everyone. I loved saying Florencio’s name. Flllooorrrennnciiioooo! It would always make him smile.

EDY, my laundry guy

LOVED having my laundry done, returned perfectly folded and smelling wonderfully clean. I do miss Edy. =)

IGOR AND CAROLYN, they took over the Conch Pearl (you will remember from Rum Cay) when Neil brought her in to Ocean World and then went back home. They were great. They worked so hard on the Conch Pearl to get her all ship shape to charter. Hoping to see them down island.

Our Playa Cofresí family:

JUAN, from the mini mercardoA quiet, gentle, handsome man. Always helping us with our Spanish. Supplied Randy with orange juice and rum for his Orange Julius drink and had the Snickers bars cold in the refrigerator for Randy’s sweet tooth.

CHRIS & MADY’S RESTAURANT, our home away from the boat

Chris, Mady, Jennifer, Jason, Christal, Johnny, little Ally and Denise…all family we learned to love. Sweet Shereen and Carlitos, family, too, and always getting us what we needed. Hard to leave these people.

JOHN DOBBS…our VERY special friend. With his perfect Atlanta southern drawl. So hard to leave John. He and Randy became very close friends. John would cook BBQ chicken every Sunday. Soooo gooood. We watched sports and drank Presidentes with John. Love him.

JOE & ANNE … (Picture coming J & E!) became VERY special friends and hailed from Canada. In charge of fun and frivolity and Tuesday night movies! They were so fun and helpful to us. Picking Randy up from the airport. Taking us to la ferretería. Going above and beyond. They have since moved back to Canada and we hope to do the Calgary Stampede with them some day. Joe and Anne had Canadian ‘drawls.’ =) Eh?

PHILLIP, who spent days wrangling with our sewing machine and helping us so much by repairing our dodger and bimini and making new awnings for us. In turn we gave him a stipend, enjoyed lunches with him and drinking Cuba Libres and Bloody Caesars. Phillip had a Tennessee drawl.

MARIANNE AND EDUOARD, from Germany…and their 3 scottie dogs. A fun, interesting couple that we were privileged to see often at the restaurant. We drank their German beer. Eduoardo always on the computer, trading stocks. Marianne…so fun to talk to with her German accent.

Always a grand time, and good quiet moments, with the gang at Chris & Mady’s. We miss them all… a lot.

DESPERADOs restaurant

KAREN & RANDY JOHNSON, fun, friendly, very generous. Loved the calamari they made there along with their burritos and queso dip. YUM! And the Johnson Java! Wonderful, chocolaty, coffee martini. They had the best margaritas in the neighborhood, too.

LAS CHURROS restaurant

Tim and his wonderful family that put on quite the show on a Sunday night with traditional dancing, serving us mouth watering mango margaritas and tapas.

AHORA restaurant...Saheel and Charley and Jenny. Eating good burgers at the beach bar with Presidente beer. Randy is growing his hair like Saheel’s ponytail. What a smile Saheel has. Charley, a charming, handsome young Dominicana whom we had good talks with… left before we did to visit his girlfriend in Germany. Never saw him again. He was worried about living in Germany, learning German when we met him, and concerned that her parents might not like him! Hope he’s doing well.

We had such fun in the D.R. at Playa Cofresi, partaking in a beach party for Phillip’s birthday, Christal’s birthday party at the new pool behind the restaurant, Sunday BBQ chicken made by John complete with corn on the cob and football, Tuesday night movies, Canadian Thanksgiving dinner, music put on by Chris which prompted much singing and dancing…. Staying in the D.R. meeting all these wonderful people was truly one of the highlights of our lives. They made us feel so at home. Randy took a brief week to fly to Oregon and visit his mom. Our new friends in the D.R. took great care of me while he was gone. Not that I needed that but it was nice knowing they were there if I needed them. Very nice.

Because we were delayed a week longer in Playa Cofresi due to weather, we were able to partake in one of the best parties ever! Halloween! Ocean World Marina went all out for Halloween…moving their disco downstairs in the dining room and preparing a cool haunted house that you had to enter to get in. The costumes were unbelievable. Ran and I scrambled around the boat trying to figure out a costume without making complete fools of ourselves. “Ran…what’s new with that? We are always making fools of ourselves.” :::smile::: Not sure he appreciated my humor.

But 1^st we started at Chris & Mady’s restaurant. Festivities began there with great costumes, good beverages, cigars and dancing. So fun. Then we moved down to Ocean World to check out the haunted house and the great costumes. In the meantime, while we were drinking and dancing and carryon, what turned out to be new friends were entering the harbor. They pulled in Halloween night to all the party festivities in their wonderful sailboat Allegro. Camilla and Peter.

We met Camilla and Peter the next day and became fast friends. After a couple more days of weather-waiting, it was time to go. Camilla and Peter decided to leave in the morning. We were going to leave that night, but waiting for night proved to be too frustrating for us. We were already a week overdue. So off we went…waving goodbye to the marina office, turning right and heading into the Mona Passage for Puerto Rico.

¡Vaya con Dios, Republica Dominicana!

THE MONA PASSAGE

It was uneventful for us! We had read and read about the trip across the Mona Passage…when to go, when not to go, what time of day to go, what time not to go, which course to take, which course not to take…. It was sort of a daunting trip hanging in front of us. One of the longer trips and the passage could have its quirks. Sometimes I think we read too much. We like to be über-prepared for our crossings, but after reading and reading you start to worry and worry. And it turned out to be just another day and a half on the water.

Originally we planned to leave with Fernando, a fellow from Uruguay who had his boat next to ours in Ocean World. He left his boat there for the hurricane season. Randy and I wanted almost perfect weather when we tackled the Mona Passage. We wanted plenty of days to get there and have 2 or 3 places to duck in should we need to. Fernando agreed. We checked all our weather sources and thought we were ready to go. We contacted customs and the navy who have to see us before we leave. All set.

Then a fishing boat came in with his tuna tower banged up. Randy walked over to talk to them. “Don’t go out there!” the fisherman said. “The waves are huge and we got banged up.” Allll…rightythen!! We shall wait.

Fernando was getting impatient. He wanted to leave soon and he wanted us to go with him. We explained to him, through a little bit of a language barrier, that we weren’t going unless the weather met all of our criteria. And it still wasn’t matching our specifications. Fernando went ahead. We weren’t ready. He made it fine and so did we, about a week later. By then Fernando had moved on as he was meeting his family in Trinidad. He was on a schedule. We were not.

The Mona Passage turned out to be very easy for us. It took us 1.5 days. Allegro being a much longer and therefore much faster boat made it in less than a day. We met up in Boquerón, Puerto Rico!

¡Hola Puerto Rico!

PUERTO RICO!

Boquerón! Marc on Opal was there, too! YAY! So fun to find the people we have met along the way when we pull into a new port, or when they pull into the port we’re in. We’re all headed in the same direction, give or take.

We chose Boquerón as our port of entry to Puerto Rico. It was recommended by the ‘guides’ and it proved to be a good decision. Now we have to check in. We called a phone number or two to see the best way to check into the country. One of the calls we made was to Raul Santiago. Though we can sometimes get worried silly reading so much in our cruising guides, they more times than not, become invaluable with their information. Obviously these guides are written by those who have gone before us, so they are tried and true bits of information. To call Raul proved to be one our best guide-following decisions.

Raul met us in front of one of the restaurants near the dinghy dock. Fun place, Boquerón. Lots of neat restaurants near the dinghy dock. (Lots of mosquitoes though!) Raul pulled up in his very used looking van with his daughter riding in the back. OK. Let’s do this. Off we go to Mayagüez where the ferries dock. We timed it perfectly to avoid the crowd coming off the ferries. We are met by a nice looking trim, cute, immigration senorita. She led us through all the paperwork and customs. Raul told us he was no longer able to take people to help them through customs and immigration, but he took us anyway. And the immigration gal said for him to call her anytime. That she would help. So nice, these people are.

It was a huge help having Raul take us there. We told him we were in need of a Yamaha outboard engine repairman and a marine store. He found both for us on the way back to the dinghy. Eric, the Yamaha repair guy followed us back to the dock and we immediately arranged for him to take our engine to be repaired. It needed maintenance and the carburetor needed cleaning. Remember our prior frustrations with our dinghy? This was one…now fixed. Perfecto!

Boquerón was quite the happening place…toward the end of the week. Beginning of the week proved to be very quiet. But by Wednesday or so, it got shaking…bands, singing, traffic driving through the little narrow streets, families and friends walking up and down, all hours of the day and night…mounds of fresh oysters and clams piled high at road side stands. With lemons and hot sauce, waiting for you to buy. We hesitantly shied away from them because they were not on ice or being kept cold in any way. It killed us to let these piles of savory goodness go past, but our instincts said no. Instead we found a neat tapas bar with Camilla and Peter. So good! And the music was so LOUD! Got to the point where you could not carry on a conversation anymore. But was fun while it lasted.

Days were spent at Galloways drinking beer and sitting on the computers trying to connect with home. I guess I shouldn’t say ‘home’ as home is our boat, but in this sense ‘home’ being our family and friends. One of my frustrations, as a computer/internet fan, is finding good sources of internet reception. It usually can be done, but can be frustrating. I know…not one of my best traits, but it’s my connection to friends and family. An instant pick-me-up for me, and an instant way for me to share our pictures and thus our adventures…right away. From the moment I figured out about computers I have loved them, explored them, ruined them, and hollered at them, but it’s something I really enjoy. From the games to uploading pictures to email to searching for information to reading the news to trying to watch Project Runway and American Idol, to Skyping the family….it’s my thing. Sometimes I get cranky, even though I’m in Paradise, if I can’t be in touch. Not sure if it’s good, bad, ok or not ok, it’s what I like. Therefore…finding sources of internet connection are part of my program. That and finding great cheeseburgers, great beer….and Painkillers! =)

We spent 10 days in Boquerón during which we rented a car and explored Puerto Rico. One of our plans for Puerto Rico was to be hauled out of the water and new bottom paint put on. While in Boquerón we contacted a fellow name Jose Becerros in Ponce. It was suggested that he was an excellent source for our bottom paint job so we called him and arranged to be pulled out of the water. While we had a rental car we decided to drive to San Juan by way of Ponce so we could talk to Ho Chi, as he is called, in person. We found the place in Ponce, stopped had lunch and talked with Ho Chi and the person in the office to arrange our haul out. Excellent! All is on the books.

From Ponce we drove into Old San Juan and explored this wonderful old town. It was a gorgeous drive. Puerto Rico is just beautiful. And Old San Juan is just as you’d expect. Though it was raining we had a nice day walking around the cobblestone streets. While there…we had to find West Marine! A sailor can’t go too long without West Marine. We knew there was one in San Juan, but we weren’t exactly sure how to get there. And when we called…the message was all in Spanish. Shoot.

While wandering around Old San Juan we of course mosey into a neat little bar and have a beer. While there we ask the bartender to please call West Marine for us so we could understand how to get help on the phone. As it turns out, the bartender knew where West Marine was! YAY! She gave us directions, we finished our beers, and we were on our way. A few hundred dollars later we were on our way back to Boquerón …with all the things we needed, and some that we didn’t… but I wanted anyway.

Now it’s time to head on to Ponce and getting our boat hauled out. We leave Boquerón early on a beautiful November morning. We decided we also want to put on another solar panel to boost our power when at anchor while we are in Ponce. We called Ho Chi about that and he thought he could do that no problem. Excellent. On our way to Ponce we stop at La Parguera, a little anchorage we can duck into. Another Island Packet, Marilou, whom we briefly met before we left Boquerón, also anchored in this little area. It was fun getting to know Ann and Jay on Marilou. La Parguera is a sweet little area. We swim a little and take a cocktail cruise in our dinghy to see the neat houses all along the shore. It’s like a Caribbean Venice.

We spend one night at La Parguera and are then up early to head to Ponce. “If we get there before noon, maybe they will pull us out today.” Randy was hopeful that this would be the case. Particularly since we had it all arranged and they were expecting us. We were scheduled to be pulled out the next morning.

We arrive in Ponce and try to find a place to anchor. The area is full of private mooring balls which makes anchoring a chore. We drive slowly around trying to find a good spot and drop the anchor out near the yellow midchannel marker. There is a malacón (boardwalk) nearby and the Ponce Yacht Club. We aren’t feeling great about where we are anchored but know that it will just be for one night. “Let’s call Ho Chi and see if they can pull us out soon.” Randy makes the call to let them know we’re here and ready to go when they are. They’ll call us back. We wait. Not much to see from this anchorage and we feel we’re close to the public dock where a large party-type boat is docked. We wait. No call. Randy calls again. “Oh, let me check and I’ll call you back.” Ok. Seems as though he forgot about us. We wait. It’s now late in the afternoon and obviously they aren’t going to pull us out today. That’s ok. We should be scheduled for the morning. We can see the travelift sitting there unused. Oh well. We wait. Finally Ho Chi returns our call. “It looks like we won’t be able to pull you out until Thursday or Friday. (Today is Tuesday.) The yacht club regatta is this weekend and they need to pull out the committee boat to work on it.” “Uh….Ho Chi…we made a special trip over here to schedule the haul out with you and the marina and they said tomorrow morning. We asked you if there was anything going on at the time or any problem with getting hauled out on time and you had said there wasn’t. Have you checked on ordering the solar panel?” “Uh…no…I’ll have to find out about the solar panel. I….” “Ho Chi…forget it! Obviously you aren’t worried about accommodating us, we do not like waiting in this very crowded uncomfortable, noisy anchorage, so we’ll just weigh anchor in the morning and go. Thanks anyway.” Well…so much for prearranged planning! We just didn’t have a good feeling about the whole thing. Other cruisers have enjoyed this anchorage and working with the boatyard, but apparently it was not to be for us. We will figure something else out.

Off we go, early the next morning, to Salinas, Puerto Rico. What a great anchorage this is! Lots of room, nice and calm, lots of boats around. We drive around looking for a good spot to drop the anchor and do so. Not sure it’s a good spot though…we seem too close to one of the boats. We sit and wait to see what we think. In the meantime, in comes Marc on Opal! Yay! As it turns out there are several other boats there that Marc knows from Luperón. They call themselves the Luperón ex-pats as they all stayed there for hurricane season. Nice people.

We visit briefly with Marc and then decide we do NOT like where we are anchored. Up comes the anchor and we drive around and around testing the best spots. Like a dog that circles and circles before he finally lays down. There… we choose a spot that has plenty of room around it and is sort of away from the madding crowd. Sometimes being farther away is quieter and you know you have plenty of room around you. The more we anchor, the more we are getting used to picking good spots and trusting what we do.

Now I get on the phone. We knew that we could also be hauled out in Puerto del Rey marina in Fajardo. It’s a well recommended boat yard area. I call them and ask for companies that can haul us out and do the work we need. I am given two options and I pick Ken at Island Marine. I call, he answers, I tell him what we want done, he asks me to email him the information and he’ll get us a quote. I email him, he immediately sends a quote back. Now this is more like it! I like to see everything in writing and know exactly what’s going to happen. The good news is the price is right and he can order the solar panel we need. The bad news is…we have to wait until the first part of December. But this time that is no problem for us. We like where we are anchored, we like Ken and his prompt and diligent responses to us, we can wait. Having good communication is such a key element in reducing stress when you’re spending money and having work done such as this. We are feeling good about Ken, his assistant Jenifer and Island Marine boat yard at Puerto del Rey. Excellent. We settle back to enjoy Salinas. We will be here 2 weeks.

At Salinas we enjoy meeting and getting to know the Luperón ex-pats as well as Paul and Lynn on s/v Kiana and Sue and Rick on s/v Orion. We glean much appreciated information from Paul and Linn who have been living the cruising lifestyle for 10 years. They have a wonderful big Wauquiez, which is the kind of boat we had in the San Francisco Bay before we moved east and bought Kwanesum. We learn a lot about our travels ahead, while enjoying gin and tonics in the cockpit. We learn what to expect, what to see, where to leave our boat during the next hurricane season down in Trinidad the latitude where we must be to accommodate our insurance restrictions. Randy and I just love this part of our cruising life, meeting new people. Not only do we get to see new countries, but we have the privilege of meeting wonderful, new, interesting people. At least 99% of them are. You know there are always a few that aren’t quite as wonderful. =)

Sue and Rick (insert picture of Sue & Rick, Ellen!) have their boat in the marina at Salinas and are planning to retire and go cruising soon. They are so great and Sue is quite the entertainer on her boat. As is Lynn. Many gin and tonics and Sue’s famous rum drink she likes, produce wonderful cockpit conversations while the sun sets. I highly recommend this life.

Through Paul and Lynn we were invited to a nice Thanksgiving Day feast at Drakes, a little bar/restaurant near the marina owned by Luis and Nancy. Luis smoked a turkey and we all brought side dishes. Since we couldn’t be with our own families this was the next best thing. You just have to remember to bring your mosquito spray with you everywhere you go.

We had GREAT burritos at Barkita topped with Franks Hot Sauce, which I HIGHLY recommend and have purchased since, every time I see it in the store. We sauntered down every other day or so to Cruisers Galley to get on the internet and have lunch and a beer. Always meeting colorful characters along the way. Some more colorful than we need.

And now we are ready to head to Puerto del Rey. It’s located a ways around the east end of Puerto Rico so we decided to stop at Puerto Patillas along the way. That will break it up into shorter trips. Besides it’s fun stopping in these little anchorages. We are up early, which is the best time to leave. And it’s always so beautiful in the morning. “Should be a short trip, El. It’s not far at all.” Love that.

The seas are kind of tumbly but because it’s a short trip it shouldn’t be bad. We are going along quite nicely when Randy notices a small fishing boat off to starboard, waving a red flag in distress. One of the codes of being a good sailor is to always stop to help those in need. Randy slows Kwanesum and hails the coast guard. “United States Coast Guard, United States Coast Guard this is the sailing vessel Kwanesum, over.” “This is the United States Coast Guard, go ahead.” “Roger, Coast Guard, we are spotting a small fishing boat in distress at…” Randy

gives our latitude and longitude at the time. “Roger, Captain. We request you stand by the vessel until we can be of assistance. We had received notice of flares in this area that we are investigating. Can you get close enough to the vessel to ask if they had released the flares? Over.” “Roger, Coast Guard, will do.”

We maneuver Kwanesum closer to the little fishing boat. The seas are no help. It’s like a washing machine out there. Up, down, up, down, sideways, up, down…. I am hanging on to the stern rail on the starboard side so I can talk to the fishermen, hoping they speak English, and trying to practice my PPM (proactive puking management for those just joining us.) Randy steers the boat close as possible and I try to holler to find their status. I, however, don’t hear worth a damn anymore, and I don’t wear my hearing aids when I’m on the water, so that’s kind of a useless tactic. We switch places. Randy is able to communicate with them, and, yes, they speak English. Their engine quit. They did not send up flares. We relay the information back to the Coast Guard. In the meantime a Coast Guard helicopter has come hovering over. Oh good. They can take care of things. But as it turns out, the helicopter was out only to see why flares were sent up the past early morning. So the helicopter left. Helloooo??? Now what?

“Uh….United States Coast Guard, this is the sailing vessel Kwanesum standing by the distressed vessel waiting for further instructions.” We did not want to bring these people onboard unless absolutely necessary. First of all the seas would be very difficult to manage to get near enough to bring them aboard. Second of all, we have heard of situations such as this where it is a setup to get aboard and rob you. Third of all we don’t have a ladder available for boarding the side of our boat anyway. “Coast Guard…still standing by…” “Uh roger Captain.” “Randy…now what are they doing? They are holding up their oar and it’s cracked in half!” They had started to row to shore making hardly any headway at all as the seas were so high and the shore was a long ways away. We watch them maneuver their little boat close to a fishing buoy and tie off to that. Well at least they have that available to cling to.

“Uh, Coast Guard, two of the people on the boat donned snorkel gear and jumped over the side.” Ellen is thinking…Are you kidding me??? What the heck are they doing?? Keep in mind, that while all of this is going on we are circling and going back and forth slowly to stay near them….slowly…Kwanesum bobbing and weaving through the big seas…Ellen practicing her PPM. “Uh, Captain, can you get close enough and ask them what they are doing?” We circle around and try again to get close enough to talk to them. Randy hollers, “What are you doing??!!” “Oh! We’re cleaning the bottom of the boat. We figured as long as we’re out here waiting we might as well be doing something useful.” Ellen is thinking…Are you kidding me???? “United States Coast Guard, this is the sailing vessel Kwanesum.” “Go ahead Captain.” “Uh, roger, we spoke to the vessel in distress and they have attached themselves to a fishing trap buoy and are in the water cleaning the bottom of their boat.” Silence. “Roger, captain. Don’t they know it’s against regulations to tie themselves to a fishing trap buoy?” Huh? Ellen is thinking…Are you kidding me??? The US Coast Guard is worried about them breaking the regulation for tying to a fishing trap buoy? This is getting weirder by the minute.

The coast guard had indicated when we first talked to them that they were sending someone out. No one was coming. Oh great…now what are we supposed to do? We kept standing by to be sure they were ok, by circling and driving back and forth. Well this puts our travel to Puerto Patillas a lot longer than we anticipated! We notice out of nowhere, another little fishing boat come up and throw the distressed vessel a line. Yay! Where did they come from? They are going to tow them to shore. Perfect. Now we can get on our way. “United States Coast Guard, this is the sailing vessel Kwanesum.” “Go ahead Captain.” “Uh, roger. Another fishing vessel has come along side and is towing the distressed vessel to shore. Requesting permission to go ahead with our plans to Puerto Patillas.” “Roger, Kwanesum. Can you continue standing by the vessel for another 20 minutes or so to be sure they will make it to shore?” Ellen is thinking…Are you kidding me??? “Uh, roger. Kwanesum standing by.” Oh well….good Samaritan and all, it’s the right thing to do to stand by for a while. We will eventually get to our destination. We slowly drive alongside the two fishing vessels. The guys on the distressed vessel wave at us signaling thanks for standing by them. That made us feel good. We stood by for the additional 20 minutes or so and requested permission again with the coast guard to be on our way. Permission granted. We can now continue on to Puerto Patillas in time for sunset.

Puerto Patillas is a quaint, calm small anchorage. We arrived in the late afternoon. We poured ourselves a nice drink and watched the sunset in our cockpit. Nice. The area is very charming and I take my usual tons of pictures. We are just there for the night so enjoy a nice meal I rustled up and some wine. I’m telling ya people…you gotta try this!

All in all it was a good day.

Up early and on to Puerto del Rey marina. We are ready to be in a marina. It’s a nice change of pace having tons of power and tons of water available. Long, hot showers. Excellent. We have arranged to go in to the marina a couple of days earlier than our haul out time. We arrive on a Friday. They will pull us out Monday. We have a good trip around the east end of Puerto Rico and pull on in. And what to our wondering eyes should appear but GravyBoat!! Hooray! Our friends Jack and Marianne who we were berthed next to in Deltaville when we started all this craziness. We knew they had kept their boat on the hard at Puerto del Rey during hurricane season and we knew they had arrived back to Puerto Rico but we weren’t sure where they were. And now we find them only 3 berths down from us. How fun. Break out the beer! Oh, wait…Jack is having a serious conversation with a rigger. Beer later. In the meantime Randy is able to hire the rigger to go up our mast and check all our rigging, too. A good thing to do now and then. All is well. Excellent. Now, bring out the beer.

While in Puerto del Rey we also found our friends on Archipelago that we met in Ocean World. They had stopped by O.W. on their way to P.R. Donna and David. They used to work at Puerto del Rey and now are back here working for the owner…designing the new island he bought. Ellen is thinking…Are you kidding me??? =)

Donna is an architect. What a great job, eh? She confirmed our excellent decision to use Ken at Island Marine for our haul out. That made us feel really good about our choice.

We had a good experience with our stop at the marina. We were able to enjoy time with Jack and Marianne. We found a perfect Mexican restaurant per their tour guiding one day as we rented a car. Great margaritas and food! Yummo! Our haul out went great. We ordered our new Honda generator, from Camping World of all places and it was delivered, after a little fiasco with the shipping, as we were to get it in Salinas originally. Our new Rocna anchor was delivered and put on. Ken’s crew did an excellent job of attaching our new solar panel. They were superb with the bottom paint job. We were so glad we made the decision to have the work done by Island Marine.

We drove through the hills one Sunday to find the best pig BBQ ever in the southern rain forest of Puerto Rico; the area Anthony Bourdain and Andrew Zimmern, the chef’s extraordinaire from the travel channel, recommended. What a beautiful drive that was. We didn’t make it to the big rain forest, El Yunque, but our drive through the other little rain forest area was perfect. At the BBQ we had the best food and pina coladas and Heinekens and watched everyone dance. It was a great day. All come out on a Sunday for dancing and fun at the BBQ.

We drove up the coast to Best Buy and bought Blue, our new Sony stereo for the cockpit. We were disappointed to not find good Bose speakers for down below but we will keep looking. They only had big speaker packages for a whole theater type set up. We just need 2 small speakers. That can come later. In the meantime we have a stereo we can hook our iPods too while watching the sun set. All these years….and I do love my music….we have not had music in the cockpit. Just with my standalone Bose docking station for my iPod and that takes electricity. Now we are all set. Happy me! Happy me!

We drug out the Sailrite sewing machine as we AGAIN had to repair our dodger. The StrataGlass had torn on the side panel. Ugh…I thought we had re-enforced it all. Apparently not. In the meantime I also got the name of a fabulous fabric store in Fajardo that had all the outdoor type material I could ever imagine! I was looking for screening type material to make shade panels for the cockpit. The sun can get very hot out there and we want to be able to put up panels to diffuse the light and keep it cool. This store I could have spent a fortune in. It’s called ONE, or something like that. Unfortunately I didn’t have a fortune or the time to look at everything. I found the Textaline I needed for my screening and some other things. We repaired the dodger and I made my screens. They work just great. We just need to figure out how we want to fasten them to our bimini so they will be easy to put on and off. We will live with them awhile to see what might work best.

OK…are we ready to hit the Spanish Virgins? Bottom paint done? Check. New solar panel? Check. Honda generator? Check. Rocna anchor? Check. New stereo? Check. Dodger repaired? Check. Screens made? Check. Spent a fortune at West Marine? Check.

It's 106 miles to Chicago, we got a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, its dark, and we're wearing sunglasses. Hit it.

THE SPANISH VIRGINS

Ok, Captain Ran, we are heading into the beginning of the Virgin Islands. Technically the Spanish Virgins belong to Puerto Rico, but they are part of the Virgin Islands to our thinking. We head out of Puerto del Rey and into some great winds for sailing. Ellen is thinking…Are you kidding me??? You mean we can finally sail? You betcha. Randy has all 3 sails up: the jib, the staysail, and the mainsail. We are on a beam reach and we are haulin’! Love it! Our plan is to sail over to Vieques to Green Beach and spend the night. We are heading that direction. “Kwanesum, Kwanesum, this is Sans Clés. Over.” Sans Clés!!! These are our friends we buddy boated with from Hotel Rum Cay, you will remember, to Ocean World. They left their boat in Ocean World to travel back to Oregon for hurricane season. We departed Ocean World before they returned. It was sooo good to hear from them!

Our plans quickly changed. We wanted to catch up with Sans Clés. The plan is to rendezvous in Puerto Ferro on Vieques. Roger that, we are on our way. Now we’re even more excited. It’s so fun to catch up with people we have met along the way but particularly those we have enjoyed traveling with. We are very compatible with Sans Clés as far as destination choices and daily activity choices. And we don’t have a need to be with them all the time…which can be stifling if some folks want to spend all hours of the day with you. It’s just a real pleasure traveling with Sans Clés. And we have learned so much from them. We can’t wait to see them again.

We round the corner of Vieques and go down to Puerto Ferro. Puerto Ferro is one of the bioluminescent areas that we wanted to experience. Like on the Pacific Coast, phosphorescence appears at night when the water is disturbed…as when your hand travels through it, or the dinghy travels through it. We will experience that tonight when we get to Puerto Ferro. We travel down the coast and turn into the little harbor. Lyman travels out on his dinghy to greet us and help guide us into the harbor. It’s so good to see him. We immediately drop anchor, get settled and dinghy over to Sans Clés for happy hour and appetizers Terri has so thoughtfully prepared! Hooray! We weathered Rum Cay with them, sailed for 3 days with them to Ocean World in the D.R., did the 27 Charcos with them, drove around the island of D.R with them, then parted in July when they flew back to Oregon. Now we’re together again…on the beautiful island of Vieques! Cheers!

Later that night we waited until it was pitch dark and headed out in our dinghies to find the bioluminescence. Going back into some of the coves, we thought the water would be more ‘rich’ with the plankton that cause this spectacular event. As we drove the dinghies I could see it in the wake the boats made. Like little sparklers going off. We were hoping to see some caused by fish, but we did not. It was still pretty cool and kinda fun running around in the dinghies at night. We spotted a large sailboat back there in the mangroves just sitting, waiting for hurricane season to end. Everything taken off of it, anchored back there all by itself. Someone had obviously trusted that all would be ok when they returned. I don’t know how they do that. I couldn’t leave my very expensive boat sitting at anchor with no one to watch it. To each their own.

We stayed 2 nights at Puerto Ferro. Terri spotted a great place on the charts for our next destination, Bahía Icacos, a little spot on the North side of Vieques so off we go on a beautiful December morning. We round the east coast of Vieques and we can see islands off in the distance. “Randy…is that St Thomas?” “By golly, I think it is!” Randy radios Sans Clés to confirm our siting. Terri confirmed by saying, “I think this may be heaven’s gate.” From there we could see Puerto Rico, Culebra (the other Spanish Virgin island), St Thomas and St John. We have made it! It was a milestone for us. This is what we had imagined for many, many years and now here we were, at heaven’s gate.

We carefully picked our way into Icacos between the corals. The water was like the Bahamas, wonderfully clear and spectacularly azure. Mother nature never fails to impress me with the colors she chooses to paint things. I loved this anchorage. We swam and snorkeled and visited the tiny island of Isla Yallis where I picked up shells for Abby, our son Kevin’s little step daughter. She has a shell collection going.

We had fresh lobster! A fisherman came by and sold us 3 fresh caught lobsters. Oh my.... Randy put them on the barbecue and it was THE BEST lobster I have ever had.

US and NATO navies have used the east end of Vieques for land, air and sea based war games and that was evident everywhere ashore. There were signs prohibiting us from going ashore at Icacos. We could, however, go onto the little island of Yallis. At night we could see lights ashore, and black vehicles, sometimes with police type lights glowing, driving around. We were sure they were spying on us. As you know, we do have a former CIA agent aboard. Perhaps they know this and are afraid. They should be very afraid. We were indeed quite curious what they were up to though. Interesting.

We stayed and relaxed and swam and snorkeled and hunted shells at Icacos for 2 nights. Then on to Culebra, a very short trip. It’s still very exciting seeing St Thomas and St John out in the distance. Beckoning to us. So cool. We went into the little harbor of the town of Dewey. While here Terri can do some laundry and we can get on the internet again to catch up and upload pictures. It’s a cute little town. We find a great grocery store that has wonderful produce and meats. It’s fun finding these quirky little stores in the oddest places that are almost gourmet. We picked up quite a bit of things we needed and some that we didn’t need but really wanted, like more rum and orange juice. I’m always on the lookout for fresh tomatoes and avocados, onions and potatoes, and good breads. We need to fill our water tanks while we’re here so Lyman and Randy schlep water containers from dock to boat. We gather with Terri and Lyman at Mamacitas for mucho gin and tonics. They met up with friends from other boats they knew previously. Fun night had by all. Randy felt a little ‘scratchy’ the next morning, as our Australian friend Peter likes to say.

And now…into the United States Virgin Islands!

THE USVI

Anxiously, we get up early, weigh anchor and depart for St John, USVI. We decided to go directly there first….bypassing St Thomas. We will go there later. St John is where Terri and Lyman got married so they are very excited to return. We head for Caneel Bay, which is adjacent to Cruz Bay. It’s now December 23 so we are planning ahead for where we should have our Christmas dinner.

It takes awhile to motor sail past St Thomas, but its interesting watching the cruise ships come in to Charlotte Amalie, the capital. Looks like a busy place. We continue to motor sail, as the direction is still with the wind on our nose. But that’s ok. We put our mainsail up and our staysail and it makes for really smooth motor sailing and powers us up a bit more.

A milestone has happened here. All along our trip, since Virginia, we have used cruising guides. They are wonderful. As I said previously, they are written by those who have gone before and they give you charts and routes and places to see and places to eat and what to avoid…they’ve proven invaluable. We have now closed one of the most useful books, The Gentleman’s Guide to Passages South. We had previously read and re-read this book in anticipation of traveling the Bahamas, the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico. It’s sort of the Bible of cruising this area. And now we have done it! We have traveled down the Intracoastal Waterway, we crossed the Gulf Stream into the Bahamas, we crossed from the Bahamas into the Dominican Republic, we crossed the Mona Passage into Puerto Rico, went through the Spanish Virgins and now into the Virgin Islands themselves! We close the The Gentleman’s Guide and open the guide to the Virgin Islands. Holy cow. We are here!

We enter Caneel Bay on the island of St John… and there are mooring balls. This is our first mooring ball experience! They are everywhere in the Virgin Islands so we must learn to deal with them. No problemo. I head straight for the mooring ball we have picked and go very slowly. Randy stands on to the side of the bow with the boat hook ready to snag the pennant that’s attached to the mooring ball. Ran snags the pennant, I stop the boat, Ran pulls our bow line through the pennant and attaches all to the bow and we’re all set! That was easy! We are now mooring ball qualified.

We settle ourselves, clean up and dinghy over to the Caneel Bay Resort. Very fancy place, I guess. We are ready for our fancy Virgin Island drinks. Everyone orders Bushwackers, except me. I order a Pina Colada. $10 a pop. OK. But we are celebrating so it is ok. Bushwackers are too ice-creamy-chocolaty for me. Lol picky, picky. We toast our arrival and order some appetizers, which are excellent. This is a top notch resort, after all. It is now December 23.

We buzz over to Cruz Bay the next day which is just a dinghy ride around the corner. Neat area. We go to the National Parks office to get our senior discount for the mooring balls in the USVI. SENIOR DISCOUNT!! Ellen is thinking …Are you kidding me??? Are we that old already? Well, Randy is. ;) You get half off the mooring price if you’re 62 and over. We were advised of this by our friends Paul and Linn and we are glad! So instead of paying $15/night it’s only $7.50. Every little bit helps. While we are here Terri makes reservations for Christmas dinner at Morgan’s Mango. They had eaten there before and it sounds perfect.

It’s rocky and roly here at Caneel. There are a lot of ferries that go by lickety split and their wakes make for much rolling. We decide to move for the night. We leave that afternoon for Maho Bay, around the other corner of St John. Also mooring balls. We are prepared…we get half off the price and we are now mooring ball experts! So pretty here. We spend Christmas Eve and we have carolers! A wonderful little family from one of the boats came by in their dinghy with their Santa hats on and serenaded us. It was too perfect and made missing our family a little easier to deal with.

It’s December 25. Merry Christmas! We spent a leisurely Christmas morning at Maho Bay, then head back to Caneel Bay to prepare for our Christmas dinner at Cruz Bay. Again, roly, but it’s ok. It’s Christmas! We dinghy’d over to Cruz Bay, had drinks and bought some neato wine glasses at a little kiosk bar in Mongoose Junction before dinner, had a wonderful dinner and toasted everyone. Missed our family terribly, but was glad to be able to share Christmas Day with Terri and Lyman. I love this life, our travels, the friends we meet, but I miss our family. I had a bad day early on in December knowing that I would miss the fun Christmas stuff and making cookies and pies with our grandbabies. It’s very hard to be away. I allowed myself that one bad day and then I carried on. Facebook has been so helpful in that the kids can put pictures on there immediately, as well as videos, and when I get to an internet source I can see everyone. From Puerto Rico it was easy and cheap to call. But from the rest of the areas it’s very expensive. We do use Skype, but we need a good internet source for it to work right. We will get back to the West coast next hurricane season which will be July. We plan to leave the boat this year in Trinidad, which is below the hurricane zone, and we will stay 3 months or so in California and Oregon and Washington visiting family and friends. That will be wonderful!

Again we pick up and go around the corner of St John, past Maho Bay to Leinster Bay and Waterlemon Cay…or Watermelon Cay. We have seen it written both ways in the guide books and charts and we’re not sure which is right! Doesn’t matter…it’s spectacular. We stay there for 3 days, swimming, snorkeling, hiking to the sugar plantation ruins. It was a beautiful place. We meet up with Opal there! Marc! And he has Amber with him, whom we had met in Nassau. So fun. We have dinner together on Sans Clés. It’s just so darned fun doing all of this and then to top it off meet up with people we have gotten to know along the way. Marc and Amber are headed to Jost Van Dyke, BVI for New Years. There’s a huge party at Foxy’s. It’s the place to be…unless you don’t want to deal with a zillion people all in the dinghies. We opt to wait for the Foxy experience. But we so love Marc and Amber. It’s good to see them. Amber is a school teacher from Delaware, so she’s just out for the holiday. Her goal is to buy her own boat one day. I love that about her!

Lyman and Terri leave a day early, as they had some things they needed to do back on St Thomas at Redhook at American Yacht Harbor. We spend the extra day at Waterlemon Cay and then go back to Caneel. I want to see more of Cruz Bay and we have things we need to pick up at the hardware store there. There are some nice upscale grocery stores and shopping areas there. We do lots of walking around and have a great lunch overlooking the bay.

The next day we decide to take the ferry across to Redhook in St Thomas and go to the marine store there and have lunch. It’s a rainy day. We find Terri and Lyman at the marina and decide we’ll all go to Christmas Cove for New Years Eve. The weather is super lousy…raining all day…and we want a nice calm anchorage. Terri and Lyman leave for Christmas Cove and we do our chores there, head back to our boat at Caneel and proceed to Christmas Cove. We wanted to see fireworks somewhere but the weather was so bad we just decided to go to this neat cove on St James Island across from St Thomas. It was a perfect decision. I LOVED Christmas Cove.

In my opinion Christmas Cove has the best snorkeling so far. We are well protected from the seas and winds there. It’s New Years Eve! I cook turkey legs and wings in my pressure cooker, Terri makes a great potato salad, I make a cabbage salad, too and we toast in the new year…early…about 8:00 or so. Cheers! Happy New Year to everyone.

We just enjoy the heck out of Christmas Cove…swimming, snorkeling, having happy hours watching the sunset. We dinghy across to St Thomas to the St Thomas Yacht Club one day where we can get online. Neat club. We have lunch, do all our internet stuff and dinghy back making plans to return the next day and hike down to the main road, catch a safari taxi for $1/person and go into Charlotte Amalie, the capital of St Thomas and the USVI. Randy and I were looking for new computers and we thought we might find some down where the cruise ships come in at the duty free shops. We walked and walked and walked until we found the main road. Whew! Good exercise. But not attractive when you get all sweaty. We grab a safari taxi and head into Charlotte Amalie. We peruse the shops all along the harbor but they have no computers. Only every other thing you can possibly imagine. We walk along the bay back toward the Yacht Harbor looking for a Radio Shack. Might be a computer possibility. We find it, but no computers. But we find a good place for lunch and Bushwackers…and for me…a Painkiller. I have a wonderful Caesar Salad with calamari. That hit the spot! Charlotte Amalie from the vantage point that we had that day is not worth the trip. Not our kind of spot. But I’m glad we went.

No computers there but we do know where Office Max is in Redhook. So we jump on the safari taxi back and stop off and buy 2 new computers. Coolness! We safari taxi from there and then walk and walk and walk back to the St Thomas Yacht Club where our dinghies are. This time carrying a bag with computers. Ugh. We definitely got our exercise that day!

The weather is starting to turn again, we are starting to rock a lot, so we decide to move across the bay to a better location to anchor. We choose Great Bay on St Thomas. This is where the Ritz Carlton is. Nice little bay and we find a spot along the shore that keeps us turned the right direction for the winds and seas. Much more comfortable. In the meantime we watch the patrons of the Ritz enjoy the toys they have: Hobie Cats, kite surfing, canoes. They’re all having fun. Too bad the weather isn’t better.

It is decided that we all need to go into the marina at Redhook the next day. Everyone needs to get supplies, do laundry, get on the internet and get mail. We call American Yacht Harbor and make arrangements to be in there for two days. We head in there after spending one night at Great Bay. Again…nice to have lots of power and lots of water to take long showers! Internet isn’t what it should be but we at least have it. I do 7 loads of laundry….with HOT water. Yay! Puerto Rico didn’t have hot water. I like to do sheets and towels in hot water. Everything came out smelling so nice and fresh and clean. Edy wasn’t there to fold my clothes for me, but that’s ok. They were so nice in the Laundromat. They were watching the Price is Right and I told them my son and daughter-in-law were due to be at the Price is Right! So exciting! They thought that was great. I later learned that Skip and Kim never got called up to play but they were on TV because the people next to them did. Cool! It was a fun Christmas gift to Skip from his dad. I think their episode is due to be aired February 12. I hope someone is Tevo-ing it!

We get all our chores done there…water, fuel, laundry, mail received, new snorkel fins purchased (I LOVE my new snorkel fins), Mexican food fix….done deal. Terri and Lyman left the day before to anchor out. Now we are ready to go. Let’s hit it!

THE BRITISH VIRGIN ISLANDS

We are departing American Yacht Harbor, Redhook, St Thomas, USVI at 0945 on January 8, 2010. WE ARE HEADED TO THE BRITISH VIRGIN ISLANDS!! Woohoo! This is big. This is the dream. USVI…yes. But BVI??!! That’s the beginning of the rest of our trip down island. This is very cool.

We talk to Sans Clés on the VHF and decide we are all heading to Jost Van Dyke (named after a Dutch pirate)…to Great Harbor, where Foxy’s is! We can go through customs there. It’s a perfect day.

Foxy is a legend in the Virgin Islands. We have read in all of our sailing magazines about him for years. To get to Jost Van Dyke and then to Foxy’s is huge for Randy and I. I know…it doesn’t seem like much in the scheme of things, but it has been part of the dream! And Jost Van Dyke is the island Kenny Chesney sings about…No Shoes, No Shirt, No Problem. To semi-quote from Peter Farrell who wrote about him, Foxy is a delightful very Colorful Caribbean Character who has created a unique island paradise. Foxy is an entertainer, entrepreneur, philosopher, community activist, world traveler, conservationist, musician, storyteller, cultural historian, fisherman, comedian, sailor – a true West Indian Renaissance Man. Just this past year Foxy received a medal as a member of the Order of the British Empire for his exemplary contributions to tourism and preservation of the Territory’s culture. Quite the guy. Gotta find Foxy.

We set our anchor and wait for the rain. Seems like it’s raining a lot here! It’s still paradise. The rain finally subsides and we dinghy in to check into customs. Island customs people are their usual not-friendly-we-don’t-smile, surly selves. Not sure why, but they all seem to be like that on these islands. Particularly the women with power. We finish our forms and get it all done with no problem. They charged us 20 cents for the forms. But surly customs people are not the best welcome to a new country. What’s so hard about smiling and saying hi? Perhaps, as Terri suggested, if they are friendly they will not command as powerful a presence as their position requires. Perhaps.

We’re hungry so we hunt out a spot along the beach. We find Corsairs…and Vinnie. It looks like our kind of place from the outside. We walk in and are immediately greeted with folks having fun and Vinnie with a big smile. THAT is what we are looking for! We order Red Stripe beers…they’re Jamaican, but why not? We haven’t had those yet. We ask for a menu as we haven’t had lunch. He’s sent the chef home. Shoot! But…he says…just walk next door and order something from them. They will bring it down. I do that, at the little shack-like place next door…order chicken and fries, what they said they had…to share with Ran…then back to my beer. No Shoes…No Shirt….No Problem. A great way to start our BVI entrance. Terri and Lyman join us and we mosey on down to Foxy’s! Excellent.

It’s just plain a neat area…Great Harbor. I like it a lot. Not sure what I’m expecting at Foxy’s but it’s about what I thought. Lots of beach, cruiser, island, laid back, tag-we’ve-been-here kind of place. I like it. We check out the bar and order our drinks, talking with Hedrick, the bartender. As we stand there drinking and talking another tourist type rushes in very important like and orders a beer. It’s for Foxy, he says, very self-important and rushed like. All red in the face. Whoa! Cool! Foxy’s out back, Hedrick says. Go back and say hi! We grab our drinks and head back there. There is a huge stage area out back and Foxy is sitting in a chair with all this weird stuff lined up on the lawn below the stage. Lines with tree branches and poofed out black stuff. Foxy is busy poofing out some of the black stuff and there are 2 tourists hanging all over him for pictures, one being the self important tourist that came in and got the beer for him. We stand back and watch…while they make fools of themselves. Finally they’re done and we go up and introduce ourselves and he asks where we’re from. We tell him and he immediately goes into poetry about the Bay area of California and the Portland area of Oregon. It’s so cool! He mentions in his sing/song poetry way all the spots we frequent. He’s quite the showman, obviously. We had no idea we would get to see/meet him. That was quite a treat. There is a large wooden ship back there up on stanchions that apparently Foxy has arranged so students can work on it and learn the trade of building boats. How great is that?

Right now we’re cruising here and there with Sans Clés around the islands…the British Virgin Islands. From Great Harbor we did a day anchorage right on the beach at White Bay, still on Jost Van Dyke, in front of the Soggy Dollar Bar, so named because you must swim ashore from your boat and your dollars get wet. They invented the Painkiller drink. My favorite. But I must say I’m partial to the Pussers Rum version that I got accustomed to at the Annapolis Boat Shows. Not that I’m picky, mind you. A beautiful beach here. We swam ashore with Terri and Lyman, had chicken roti for lunch, painkillers for Terri and I and beer for Randy and Lyman…played the cruisers beach game of trying to get the ring on the hook…we got good at this on Rum Cay….Lyman is the champ….and just relaxed. Until a small party boat bringing guests to swim and snorkel decided to park WAY too close to our boat. So close they put a fender out. Ellen is thinking …Are you kidding me??? Randy swam out and told them what a BAD idea that was. “It’s ok”, the guy said. “We have a fender out.” “Look bub…if you have to put a fender out you’re too damn close! Move!” Ahhhh…the joys of boating.

Since that’s just a day anchorage we go around the corner to Little Harbor for the night. Small, quiet place…with mooring balls. $25/night. Ugh. Cynthia comes around in her little boat to collect our fee. She’s delightful. Gives us coupons to eat/drink ashore but we’re all eat/drinked out so we will save the coupons for another time.

From Little Harbor we go to Green Bay where Sandy Spit is on Little Jost Van Dyke. Terri and Lyman know of this place as a great snorkeling area. It’s also near Diamond Cay which has Foxy’s Taboo, another one of his establishments. It’s beautiful here! Randy and I sit on our boat just thinking about how we’ve dreamed of getting to places like this. And now we’re here. We swam and snorkeled…had a great day. A boat is coming toward us…and now their honking….it’s Allegro! Camilla and Peter, our Australian friends we met at Ocean World right before we left. How fun! I had been in touch via email with Camilla so they knew kind of where we would be…and that we wanted to find Sandy Spit because it reminds us of the screensaver we have all had on our computers one time or another. They have 2 of their kids with them, Simon, who’s 19 and Lauren, who’s 18, I believe. So fun to see them. We all decide to dinghy over to Foxy’s Taboo that evening for drinks and dinner. Another great evening.

It started getting really rocky at Sandy Spit so we decide with Sans Clés to go to Soper’s Hole on Tortola, right across the bay. We bid Allegro farewell and we will see them again. Soper’s Hole is a great sheltered harbor but has mooring balls, so again $25/night. No senior discount on the BVIs. Pooh. It’s just so much cheaper when you can anchor. Saving here and there helps a lot! But it’s fun to be at Soper’s Hole and see my first Pusser’s Landing in the BVIs and have painkillers. Sounds like my life revolves around my drinks but it really doesn’t. It’s just that these fun drinks are…so….fun! It’s like going to Hawaii and having a Mai Tai. You know you’ve arrived.

We stayed at Soper’s Hole one night. Got online at the Jolly Roger restaurant there so we could upload pictures and check our mail. Then we went back to Little Jost Van Dyke, this time anchoring at East End Harbor which is a little more sheltered. The weather is still pretty brisk and rainy. We anchored ourselves good and solidly in there, also putting out stern anchors to keep us facing the direction that was most comfortable for the weather we were having. Anchored there 2 nights. Mostly just staying down below out of the weather and working on my blog. Sorely needed, I’d say! But it was still really rocky and in checking the weather it sounds like its going to last a few more days. We decide to go back into Soper’s Hole to wait it out. Fine with me! I can finish my blog and get it uploaded with pictures, I can catch up on my email and Facebook, I can have a Painkiller if I feel like it and I need to buy some beach towels. They have great shops here.

So I will leave you here for now. Sitting down below finishing this blog and watching all the action in the harbor, boats racing for mooring balls to get out of the weather, and watching the rain come down. We will go over to the Jolly Roger later and have a late lunch. That is if the rain lets up a bit.

Cheers, everyone, for you new year. Hope all your wishes and resolutions come true. I’m going to try a different tactic on keeping up with this blog. Hope it works! We shall see.