Posting again

I know I haven't posted in a while, but for the last three weeks I have been trying to get my boat fixed. That was accomplished yesterday. I had all the motor mounts changed and it needed it. I had two motor mounts on the port side that had screws missing. On the starboard side I had two motor mounts that were broken. So that side only had two motor mounts holding the engine. We took it for a test run today and the engines stayed so straight. It was amazing. I have never seen these engines run like that. There was always a wobble to them. I had mechanics tell me that is the way a two cylinder westerbeke engine ran, so I didn't think they were running incorrectly. But now I know that they were never correct.

Mel, the mechanic down here in Antigua, also did a lot of other work on things that I had patched over the last year. In most cases he came up with a better way to fix them than I thought of.
He fixed the port side cutlas bearing. It was wobbly and after we got the boat out of the water we cleaned up the shaft and when we put it back together it was solid. He changed two injectors on the starboard side engine now that is running a lot better. He fixed my alternator belt on the starboard side where the bracket had worn away. He also rebuilt my Starboard engine transmission.
I would highly recommend Mel as a mechanic.

So other than getting my port side fuel pump hooked up I think we are in good shape. I will do that today and take it for another test run tomorrow. If we run good we will head south sometime after Monday.


Lexie getting off the boat on the hard

Max getting off the boat

A place we went past on our test run.

Antigua

Well, we have been in Antigua now for 16 days.  We are staying at Antigua Slipway and they pulled the boat out last Monday. We had them paint the bottom since we had it out of the water and it really did need it as you can see from the pictures.  We found a guy who came highly recommending that is working on the engines.  His name is Mel, so he must be an all right guy.  He has one engine pulled and is working on rebuilding the transmission.  It looks like we may be another week on the hard.  

It was nice because we stayed in a hotel Monday through Thursday so we could keep out of Mel's way while he was working.  That was a challenge to find a place that would let us bring the dogs but we stayed at The Lodge which is where the sailing academy is.  It was really strange staying off the boat though.  We also rented a car for the week and toured the island.  The roads here are really bad and they drive on the left.  We were out in the middle of nowhere and hit a pothole and actually blew two tires.  So we had to call the rental car place to help us.  But they gave us a different car and we went on touring the island.  It is a very nice island and Wes really surprised me because he said he wouldn't mind living here.  That's the first time out of all the places we have visited so far that he has said this.  

We are right across the bay from Nelson's Dockyard which is a really cool place.  They took all the original buildings from the old fort and have refurbished them and now use them for different things.  Like customs and immigrations are in one, they have a hotel in another, a museum, a bakery, a restaurant, and a sail maker.  Being that this is there off season, a lot of places are closed.  I guess they have a huge Regatta here in April and the whole place is packed with yachts from all over the world.  But right now it is really quiet here, which is kind of nice because we are able to get things done a little faster (if anything can be considered fast here on the islands haha)  

 

We also replaced all 7 batteries because the old ones just weren't keeping up with everything.   It would be great during the day because of our awesome solar panels but as soon as night hit, it would just drain the batteries and the fridge and freezer weren't staying cold.  So Wes got all of the new ones in and rewired everything so he could put in an isolator to switch from the starting batteries to the battery bank.  Everything works great now and I'm very excited because I can use my Keurig again.  

We hiked up to Shirley Heights and these were taking from there:

Nelson's Dockyard:

A couple of the beaches we visited:

This is called Devil's Bridge-pretty cool place:

Before

After

This was taken from our boat when we were anchored in the bay-I think he was actually posing for me.

St. Kitts / Nevis

Sorry we haven't posted anything for a while.  The beginning of June we were in St. Kitts and Nevis. Certainly not our favorite islands but not terrible places either.  I guess we just didn't really like the water.  We have been so used to really clear water where you can see the bottom at 10-12 feet which is normally the depth we anchor in but you really couldn't see down that far.  When we were in St. Kitts we stayed in the marina because the anchorage there was really rough.  It was nice staying in  a marina for a change and it was right where the cruise ships come in.
While we were there we decided that we really needed to get the boat running right before we went down island further.  Wes seemed to be spending so much time working on the engines that he really wasn't able to enjoy all of the places that we were visiting.  So we decided that we would head over to Antigua because the island has quite a few places where you can get work done.  Wes thought that the motor mounts weren't good any more and the engines needed to be aligned so the transmissions would run right.  So on June 3rd we headed over to Antigua.  It was only a 45 miles across but being that we only had one engine running and the wind was not in our favor, it took us 26 long hours to make it.

The view from our boat

These had to be the strongest rum drinks we ever had!!

Supposedly there are wild monkeys all over Nevis but this is the only one we saw which was in a cage at the beach bar.

Wow-One Year Has Gone By

Yes it's been one year since Wes and I loaded up the rental trunk with the two dogs and the minimal amount of possessions we were going to take on our boat and headed south.  I can tell you the year certainly went by fast but looking back we sure did see a lot of amazing places, met a lot of interesting people and learned a ton about sailing that we certainly didn't know. I am so glad that we decided to take on this adventure at this point in our lives because it certainly isn't easy sailing a boat several thousand miles around the Caribbean in all kinds of different weather with things breaking all the time.  I can also tell you that it is even more of a challenge with two large dogs.  Before we left people would ask us how we are going to stand being around each other 24/7 and that had me a little concerned but we have learned to understand each others moods and know when we shouldn't say anything and just listen.  So far it has gone pretty well and Wes hasn't thrown me off the boat yet (I'm sure he has thought about it) but I also think Wes has a lot more patience than I do.

There was a lady we met in the Bahamas and I asked her what she missed the most back home and she said she didn't miss anything. I have thought about her statement several times over the last year because I miss quite a bit of the luxuries and comforts of home, so maybe I'm not a true sailor. I haven't ever regretted what we did but I can sure tell that there have been times where I have just wanted to park the boat somewhere and fly home.  But I also know that this is temporary and we won't be doing this forever and I'm sure I will miss it when we are done but wow what an experience and I wouldn't trade it for anything.
A look back at where we've been:

 Key West -

 Bimini -

Berries -

Exumas -

Abaco's - 

Turks and Caicos -

Dominican Republic - 

 Puerto Rico -

 Culebra -

Vieques - 

St. Thomas -

British Virgin Islands - 

St. Martin - 

St. Bart's -