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.

Heading to Dominican Republic

We left Turtle Cove which is on the north side of the island and headed around to the south side and anchored.  Then on Wednesday we headed towards Sapodilla Bay and we were going to anchor the night there then leave really early Thursday.  When we got around the island the water was really rough.  We were pulling towards the anchorage and we were talking to the other boat we were with, Off The Grid, and they didn’t want to battle the rough waters for an extended time but we decided that we would be better off just leaving straight to the Dominican Republic because if we didn’t, we might not be able to go until Monday because of the weather and wind.  So we left them in Sapodilla Bay hoping they will catch up with us and headed south.  It would have been nice to have another boat along on the crossing. It has been a long 34 hours and we are still about 40 miles out from Luperon.  We decided to slow down so we would get in in the daylight and should arrive first thing Friday Morning.

In the middle of the night I was at the helm so Wes could get some rest.  He was out on the bench on the deck and all of a sudden he lets out this yell and scared the sh— out of me.  He said something hit him between the legs.  So we got the flashlight out and started searching the deck and there bouncing around on the floor was a flying fish.  He looked a bit dazed and confused so Wes picked him up and threw him back in the water before the dogs could figure out what it was or it would have been complete chaos.

It will be good to get this long stretch done and we won’t have any more this long.  It’s about 150 miles with tacking because of the wind and averaging 4 knots an hour makes for a very long ride.  

Here are a few pictures of coming into Dominican Republic with more to follow once we look around the town.

More on Provo

I wanted to blog a little more about Provo in the Turks and Caicos because it is a really neat little island.  We stayed at Turtle Cove Marina on the north side of the island and we had them send out a pilot boat to guide us in when we got close because there is a reef around the whole area and there is just a small section to go through and as you go through there are big breakers on each side of you.  It was a bit scary but with the guide boat it made it a lot easier.  The Marina was pretty nice.  The only bad things were there was  no laundry facility and there was only one shower that was quite a ways from the slips where we were.  They have a very nice tiki bar though.  There is also a nice sports bar called Sharkbite that is on the other side of the marina and we were able to watch the Avalanche game on Saturday, though they lost and the Broncos game on Sunday night-at least they won.  Chris, the Manager is a really nice guy and he is also a Bronco’s fan.  

We decided to rent a car on Monday because we had quite a few places we needed to go and they weren’t in walking distance.  They have a pretty nice grocery store so we were able to get stocked up on everything.  Then we had to get the laundry done and of course stock up on rum and beer.  They have a really big place that is like a home depot that had just about everything we needed to get things fixed.  We stopped and had lunch at this cool little shack on the top of the hill and the son of the owner, who actually runs the place came out and talked to us for a while and told us the history of the restaurant.  They had great Caribbean and Chinese food.  I had the sweet and sour chicken and it was really good.   It was nice having the car because we were able to see quite a bit of the island.  Then in the evening we went to the Grace Bay area, which had all of the boutiques and shops and then to Mango Reef for dinner.  

Leaving Turks & Caicos

We decided to leave Turks & Caicos today because the wind is supposed to change on Saturday and come straight out of the south which makes for difficult sailing when your heading south.  So we want to get to Dominican Republic before Saturday. We will head to the south side of T&C's today then start our 34+ hour trek to DR on Thursday morning. That will be a long couple of days but that will be the longest stretch of the trip.

At least we were able to see some of Provo, do a little shopping and have a really nice dinner last night on the beach at a really cool restaurant.

Turks and Caicos Islands

We made it safe to Turtle Cove Marina which is actually on the Providenciales Island of the Turks and Caicos.  I think it is probably the most populated part of the T&C's.  We plan on staying here 4 days because we have quite a bit to do on the boat with fixing some things, cleaning and reprovisioning.  It was a nice quiet sail (motor) over with not much wind.  We were able to put up our spinnaker on the way down because we were heading down wind and our friends took some pictures. There were huge swells which must have been left over from the hurricane passing through.  It's nice being near civilization again after several days in the Acklin Islands where there is not much population but nice beaches, clear blue water and beautiful sunsets.   Here are a few pics from along the way.  We haven't seen much of the T&C's islands yet, so once I get some pictures I will post them and let you know about the island.

We had this little guy visit us on our way to T&C's.  The dogs were going crazy trying to catch him.

 

Waiting on Gonzo

Right now we are heading for Atwood on the Acklands, in the Bahamas. We are heading there to ride out hurricane Gonzola. We are busting our but to get there. Yesterday we sailed from the other side of the island to about 14 miles await from Atwood. We never would have made it to Atwood before dark. So we found a place that was an anchorage and stayed there. Its a little bumpy but better than out in the ocean.

That was a rough sail. We did the first 10 miles easily, but the next 15 were though.

We have 6 to 8 foot seas and we were heading right into them. We couldn’t use the sails so we just slugged it out. Plus we had some current against us and for a while we are only doing 2 miles and hour. I will fell a lot better when we get to Atwood. 

 This morning we are doing the last 14 miles. The hurricane is supposed to be its closest to us tomorrow night. It isn’t supposed to hit us but you never know. Atwood is the only real hurricane hole on Crooked Island and Ackland Island so it looks like a pretty good place to ride out this storm.

There is nothing around here. The islands have about 200 people on them. You will see a fishing boat now and then but that is about it.

One good thing is we found some folks to cruise with. They have a cat two and are going to go with us to St Thomas.

In Georgetown going to Turks and Cacos

We are currently in Georgetown. That is in the southern part of the Exumas, Bahamas. We have three more big islands to go through before we get to Turks and Caicos. But they don't have many people on them. They say a lot of people end up staying in Georgetown after they try to sail down to Turks and Caicos. It apparently gets rough in between the islands we have left and some people turn back.
We found another couple that is also going that way so they are going to sail with us for a while. That should be a great way to go from a safety point of view and also just to have some company. It's 210 miles to Turks and Caicos and I think it will take us 7 to 8 days.
I have done the 300 hour boat maintenance. That's change the oil. Check the Zinc Andotes, check the transmission oil. Check the coolant and the belts.
We gassed up and have filled our water tanks and got grocery. So I think we are set to make the run down there.
We are going to leave Wednesday and I'm not sure when we will have internet again. But I should be posting by the middle of next week.

The Exumas

We have been heading South through the Exumas, which is another string of islands in the Bahamas.  We haven't had much internet access because the islands are not too inhabited.  We first stopped at Allen's Cay, which I don't think anyone lives on it-at least human.  There are a bunch of Iguana's that live there and are very friendly once they figured out you aren't there to hurt them.  We didn't take the dog's on shore because we thought they might have way too much fun chasing the little creatures.

Our next stop was Warderick Wells, which is the headquarters for the National Park that covers several islands in the Exumas.  There is a trail that goes all over the island, which includes going through the water several times that we took.  It also takes you up to Boo Boo Hill, where its tradition to take a piece of driftwood with your boats name on it and put it in the pile at the top of the hill.  There was a ship that wrecked off the island and there were no bodies recovered and they say that their spirits haunt the island.  That is why it is called Boo Boo hill and supposedly they chant hymns which are heard from the blow holes if you listen very closely.

 a baby ray we saw on the hike

Wednesday we visited Staniel Cay which does have about 100 people living on the island.  The marina was closed for renovations though.  We are finding out that a lot of things are closed this time of year while they try to get repairs done in the down season, before the high season kicks in.  There are not a lot of boats sailing around either.  There is an amazing snorkeling spot called Thunderball Grotto, named after the James Bond movie of the same name that was filmed there.  We snorkeled through the rocks to the inside of a cave that opens up and it has the most beautiful coral and fish and one very large barricuda.  I wish I could have taken pictures but my underwater camera is not working-bummer.
Then we went over to Big Major Cay to see the wild pigs and I tell you what, they were not as cute and nice as the ones on No Name Cay.  These guys were very aggressive and very greedy.  I thought the 300 pound fat one was going to jump into the dinghy