Christmas in the Caribbean

Christmas came and went and it was very different spending Christmas down here.  This was the first Christmas that I have ever spent away from Colorado and away from Amanda so it was a bit difficult.  It didn’t even really feel like Christmas.  I mean there was Christmas music and decorations everywhere but it just wasn't the same.  Then of course it snowed on Christmas day back in Colorado which is a rarity.  Amanda said the chances of snow on Christmas day in Colorado is 14%.

Don’t get me wrong, we are having a great time down here and I wouldn't trade this experience for anything but it’s just that sometimes you do miss home, family and friends.  

Wes and I both got a bit down on Christmas day but I think it was a combination of a lot of things.  First the boat hasn't been running as good as we would like, in fact it was probably the worst it has been since we bought it and it seemed like every time Wes tried to fix something, something else would break (very frustrating).  Then it hit me that my dad won’t be around anymore to talk to and get advice from.  Then just not being home at Christmas.  But it will get better and we will be spending Christmas back in Colorado at some point.  

The couple on the boat next to us invited us to have a traditional turkey dinner on another couples boat.  There was actually 8 of us that all got together and had turkey, ham, mashed potatoes, gravy and all the fixins.  It was a lot of fun.  

Once we get everything working right, we plan on taking a trip over to St Croix which will be nice because neither of us have ever been there.  We have seen so many very cool places and have met some really great people.

This was our Christmas tree that Amanda brought for us.  It has shells and starfish on it.  It is pretty cool

This is the boat next to us that had some cool Christmas lights strung 

The James Gang Visit

My sister Elizabeth and her family were down here for 5 days. There are five of them and two of us plus the dogs. We though having the dogs on board would be a little too much so we decided to board them for 6 days. We can sleep 6 on this boat very easily but we had to put one kid outside because there were 7 of us. Turned out they didn’t mind at all and they traded off sleeping outside during their visit 

Since it was the week before Christmas I figured the BVI’s would be too crowded, so we took them to Culebra, which is a Spanish Virgin Island. Culebra is great because it has the best snorkeling around here. They have reefs that are not visited everyday and we had a great time snorkeling.

We also took them to a bay just off Culebra and they loved it. We hiked to the oldest light house in the Caribbean. We went to the town on Culebra and also to a bay on the north end of St Thomas, Megans bay, which was pretty awesome.

All in all it was a good week. Elizabeth and her family are all used to the water and they love to swim and play in it. The kids in her family are 15, 15 and 19 so they do not need much supervision either in or out of the water.

We will be spending Christmas, just the 4 of us (Lexie and Max) on the boat so it will be pretty different this year.  We will be having dinner with 4 other couples on one of their boats with turkey and all the fix ins’.

Hope you all have a Very Merry Christmas

 Here are some pictures.

Elizabeth on the paddle board

Elizabeth falling off the paddle board

Thomas on top of the light house

Jeff driving the boat

The James family at Megans Bay

Thomas getting some skiing in

It got a little rough on the way back but the kids made the most of it.

Steve and Sandra are leaving

Today is the day Steve and Sandra go back to Puerto Rico. I think they had a good time. Sandra did some diving while she was staying with us. We dove the caves and the Wreck of the Rhone.

On the Wreck of the Rhone we got down to 75 feet. It was a pretty awesome dive. There were a lot of fish. We saw some big groupers, some turtles and about 100 different kinds of fish.

We to the baths on Virgin Gorda with them and the Willy T off Norman Island.  It was a pretty good week in general. 

The only problem I’m having now is with the electrical system on the starboard engine. I think I need to re wire the whole thing because what I have now seems possessed. Things will work one minute and then the guages will be spinning about the next minute. The starboard engine is the one that got the lighting strike back in Florida and has never been all the way correct since. 

Steve and Sandra at the baths

The Famous Willy T

Sandra relaxing with the dogs

A rather nice sun set

Steve and Sandra are Visiting

Steve and Sandra got here yesterday and we took them from the airport to Sugar Bay Resort. I think they had a pretty good time sailing. They didn’t get sick so I guess they had a good time.

We stopped over at Red Hook last night. Red Hook is a happening place. They have about 12 bars right near the water. So we might look to stay close to Red Hook when no one is down here. Tonight we are staying in the bay right below the Sugar Bay Resort where Steve and Sandra are staying. We found a nice anchorage and I think this will be a great spot to stay the night. 

Steve and Sandra's Hotel

Our Anchorage.

Tough Week but Good Week

This was a very emotional week.  Last Saturday my dad had a major stroke and on Sunday Amanda and Remi were scheduled to get on a plane to see us.  Amanda was debating whether she should get on the plane or stay there in case something happened.  We told her that she should still come out to see us because we weren’t sure what was going to happen with her Grandpa.  My dad ended up passing away on Monday and it was really difficult to handle being so far away but I was so thankful that Amanda was here with me.  Even if we would have flown home, both my brothers said that my dad wouldn’t have even known I was there because he never woke up after the stroke.  I really think God works in mysterious ways and this happened while Amanda was here so we could go through this difficult time together.  It would have been awful if I was here and she was back in Colorado. and this happened.  We went on and had a really nice week visiting the BVI’s because I know that’s what my dad would have wanted.  We talked about him often over the week and all of the memories.  We will have to make a trip back to Colorado in January because they are planning the memorial service then but for now I will remember all of the good times I had growing up with such a wonderful man for a father. 

Then today I had to say goodbye to Amanda which was hard.
As Kenny Chesney says “If I’m gonna be down, I’d rather be down, way down here”

This is a very old picture of my dad and Amanda but I love this one.

Amanda's visit

We had Amanda and Remi down all week. We took them to Trunk Bay, Foxies Taboo, Foxies, Monkey Pt., The Baths, Cooper island,  The Caves, The Willy T, and back to St Thomas. I think they had a pretty good time. We are heading in for some shopping now.
Here are some pictures from Amanda's visit.


Amanda and Remi Relaxing

At the Baths

Jumping off the boat.

Remi did most of the driving

Amanda at Foxys.

Some pictures from our perch in St Thomas

Here are some pictures from where we are anchored in St Thomas
We have one to five cruise ships in a day.

Some where back here is the town.

A whole week In St Thomas

We have been hanging around St Thomas for a week now. It’s been pretty busy.

The first night we were here we couldn’t get the dinghy engine started. The next day I found it didn’t have spark. That meant we had to row for 5 days until I purchased a new dinghy engine.  I did find a new dingyy engine. It’s a six hp Evinrude. It works great. Gets a lot better gas mileage, it's quieter and starts better.

I should have got that one in the first place. 

The other thing that happened this week was I left my MacBook Air on a bus down here. When we found the correct bus, all that was left was the dry bag the Macbook Air was in. I called up Matt, my son, who works in Apple support.

He was able to locate it and showed me how to locate it myself.

The first day I called the cops and we tried to get it back but the person that had it shut it off before we could get there. The second day I saw they powered it back on and we went to the house with the cops. They said they didn’t have it, but after the cops dropped us off we got a call from them telling us that the person who’s house we were at called them and was bringing the lap top in.

The dad at that house talked with his son and found they had the laptop and he was going to make the correct move and turn it in. The cops down here did a wonderful job. I didn’t think they would take as much interest in this case as they did. But they really put effort in to recovering the laptop. 

Other than that we have been getting the boat ready for Amanda’s visit. She comes down for a week on Sunday and we are very excited to see her.

St Thomas, Watching the Broncos game.

We have been in St Thomas for three days. It all would be prefect except my dingy engine will not start. I took to into the dock the first night we were here and then when I was going back to the boat the dingy engine wouldn’t start. The next day I checked out the engine and found I have no spark, I have no juice going through the wires to the spark plugs. They come directly from the magneto’s so I don’t no why its not working. We are going to have it looked at by someone who knows what they are doing. But until that can happen we are rowing. Both Karen and myself are starting to get a little sore. Its about 500 stokes in and I have done it about 10 times. 

Other than that St Thomas is great. They have everything we need here and it not to expensive. They is a good grocery store that is easily to walk to. They also have a Kmart that is by the ocean. Then they have about every type of restaurant All that may not sound that that fantastic but we haven’t had it this easy since we started sailing.

They have a Hooters down by where the cruise ships are and we are going to watch the Broncos game there today. Its weird watching the games down here, Usually I'm the only one cheering against the Broncos, But down here you have fans from all over the country so someone else is bound to dislike the Broncos as much as I do. 

We're HERE

We haven't been to a place that has had wifi so here are a couple of posts.
We spent the last couple of days cruising around Culebra and visiting the different beaches then on Thursday we headed over to Culebrita which is a small island off of Culebra.  It has the oldest lighthouse in the Carribean but it isn't working any longer as you can see from the pictures.  The island had some really great snorkeling too.  Then this morning we headed over to St Thomas which we pulled into the bay in Charlotte Amalie at around 2:00 pm.  We will be hanging out here for the next week waiting for Amanda and Remi to visit on Sunday (can't wait).  We will probably sail around the island and check out Red Hook and some other places.  This is where we are thinking of making our home port because it is easy to fly into and out of and we are fairly familiar with the island after visiting several times.  It is also US territory so it will be easier to ship things here.  I really didn't think we would make it but this was our goal and WE DID IT-pretty awesome.  We didn't add it up but we think we did around 3,000 miles.  There were some stressful times but the majority of it was really great.  Now we are going to spend time enjoying the US and British Virgin Islands.  We have quite a few people scheduled to come down and visit so it will be a great time showing them around the islands that we are fairly familiar with.

Culebra

Tuesday 11/11/14

We left Fajardo on Sunday after the rain let up and headed to Culebra which is just about half way from Puerto Rico to St. Thomas.  It was a very bumpy ride because we were going directly into the wind so we weren't able to sail at all.  We had never been to Culebra but did spend some time in Vieques.  They are the two Spanish Virgin Islands off of Puerto Rico.  We anchored in Ensenada Honda which is a very popular anchorage and centrally located on the island so it is easy to get to a lot of places.  We decided to rent a golf cart so we could check out the whole island.  it is about six miles long and has some of the most beautiful beaches I have ever seen.   We took the dogs with us to some of the beaches which was pretty comical trying to get them on the back of the golf cart.  Then there are some pretty steep hills and of course graceful Max fell off when Wes hit the gas on one of the hills.  He fell on his side then got up without missing a beat and proceeded to trot after us worried he was going to be left behind.  Good thing there wasn’t anyone following us too closely or he would have been a goner.  We snorkeled at Tamarindu Estates Beach and saw several turtles.  They are much tamer here then in any other place we have seen them.  Normally as soon as they see us they take off the other way but these guys stayed right with us and I even thought this one guy was going to kiss my mask he was that close.  From what I understand, Culebra is known for their turtles because so many of them come here to lay their eggs.  They have sections of the beaches roped off to protect the nesting area.   Then in the afternoon we visited Flamenco Beach which is probably the most popular beach on the island and then we stopped at Zoni Beach to check it out.   Today we sailed over to the Carlos Rasario beach and picked up a morning ball.  It’s nice here because the National Parks Reserve has placed mooring balls throughout the island that are free to use.  We snorkeled the reef here and it was amazing.  We saw some fish that we hadn’t seen before, some amazing coral and saw a nurse shark sleeping.  Tomorrow we are going to head over to the far east side of Culebra where there is a small island that has supposedly another very nice snorkeling spot on Tortuga Beach and there is also the oldest lighthouse in the Carribean there called Culebrita’s Lighthouse which we plan on visiting.  

A face only a mother could love

Our New Dinghy

San Juan, Puerto Rico

After spending five wonderful days in San Juan we decided to head to Fajardo.  I love San Juan and we are pretty familiar with the area because we have visited here five or six times.  It was nice because the marina was within walking distance to Condado Beach and Old San Juan so we visited the beach a couple of times then went to old San Juan a couple of times.  We also rented a car because we decided to spend the money and get a new dinghy.  Wes tried everything to patch the leak but nothing seemed to work.  So now we are the proud owners of a 9 foot 4 man hard bottom dingy.   At least Puerto Rico is close enough to St. Thomas that we can run back over here fairly easily.  

We made it to Fajardo which is on the very east side of Puerto Rico after a tremendous rain storm. some hellacious big waves and 22 mph winds.  We decided to pull into the Puerto Villa Marina and sit this out.  They are saying it is supposed to be like this till Monday.  Boy the weather guy got this one wrong.

Back in the USA, well close

We made it to San Juan. It was a 45 hour trip and about 200 knots and Max held it the whole way. He has been pooping ever since. There really aren’t many good anchorages on the north shore of Puerto Rico and we had such good weather for sailing that we just kept going.

I told Karen she is a real sailor now. Since we left we’ve been to three countries and past hundreds of islands and now we come back to US territory. She has stood many watches in the middle of the night by herself.  We got ready for two different hurricanes, although they never hit us, she has seen eight different water spouts. We have surfed into lagoons pushed by ten foot waves and through it all Karen only lost her cool once. That is a true sailor and I’m very proud of her.

I also feel more like a real sailor.

San Juan is a great place, Karen and I have been here many times and we just love the place.

We went for dinner in Old San Juan last night. At a place we always go to, Sofia’s Italian Restaurant. Then we checked out the town. Today we are going to Condado beach with the dogs and just relax. Later we will look for a place to watch the Bronco’s game.

Then tomorrow we will get busy, I will rent a car and we will go to Walmart and West Marine and the Bacardi factory. They have a 30 year old bottle of rum that I want to buy.

That’s all for now.

Puerto Bahia, Samana DR

I think we are in one of the most beautiful places on earth. If you have never been to the Dominican Republic you need to put it on your list.  We happen to be staying at a very nice resort in Samana Bay which has an exclusive hotel that happens to have a very (cheap to stay) nice marina. At a $1 per foot we couldn't pass up staying two nights at this little slice of heaven. We took a trip into town to see the sights and boy were there sights to see. There were so many motor bikes running around it was complete chaos.  The hotel/marina gives you a ride into town but then you have to find your own way back. You can either take a mini van (taxi), ride on the back of a motor bike (no way) or ride in a cart pulled my a motor bike.  We chose the latter though I don't think any of them are really that safe but we made it back in one piece.  We have to do a couple of repairs to the boat (no surprise there) and we had some dock boys patched the dingy for us for $6 ~ we'll see how it holds.   Then we gave the dogs a desperately needed bath on the dock and of course Max fell off the boat shortly after.  Tomorrow we will head out at around 10:00 am after we check out with customs and start our long trek to Peurto Rico.  It's about 125 miles and we will sail straight through.  The winds are suppose to be in our favor the next two days.  It will be sad to leave the DR but hopefully we will be back and see more of this beautiful island sometime.

The bay in downtown Samana

Downtown Samana

The Market 

This is what we rode back to the marina on

Puerta Bahia marina

The marina grounds

The infinity pool at the hotel/marina

In Luperon

We made it to Luperon. This is a cool place. The bay is bio-illumine-cent. Its as good as the bio-illumine-cent bay in Viegas we went to last year. We each paid 40 bucks to go on a dingy ride there and here we had just as good bio effect and we were just dingying in. 

The town of Luperon is just like a South American or Caribbean town should look like. There are 500 little motorcycles running around the town. They out number the cars 3 to 1. Then there are the dogs. They have 100 or so dogs all over the place. I haven’t taken our dogs to town. That would just be too much action for me to handle. Max would be just too big a target for all the dogs in town. So I take them to  a beach on the other side of the bay. I think they like that better anyway.

I’ve been fighting a hole in my dingy. This hole I fix for a day then the patch comes off a little and I have the same hole again. I’ve been fighting this thing for a week or two. If anyone knows a secret to fixing a dingy leak please let me know. The problem seems to be that the patch goes over a place that is in one position when there is no air in the dingy, But its in a different position when there is air in it. So every time I put air in the dingy it stretches the patch and eventually starts leaking again.

Today I did my 100 mile oil change. With as much as we have been running lately it seems like just yesterday that I changed my oil. But it was two weeks ago. I will have to do another one before we get to St Thomas. But at least my engines seem to be running well. I had to change the fuel filter on the starboard engine this morning. The engine would stop every once in a while. But I think that change fixed the engine stopping.  So now I’m done working on the boat. I think I will take the dogs in one more time then Karen and I will go to town. There is a lot to explore in town and I think we will have a great time checking it out. That’s all for now.