HAPPY BIRTHDAYS

Happy Birthday Kim on January 27th. How old are you? How old is the superbowl? That's the answer!


Happy Birthday to Enee - the namesake of Enee Marie. Our Enee will soon get a new paint job on her bottom. We assume that the real Enee is not in need of such.

Bad Sailing

Spanish Town, BVI to St. Maarten (the Dutch spelling).

This is the story of the 80 mile crossing to St. Maarten that Capt. Scott turned into a 128 mile odyssey. Yeah, you can do that. Well, I can do that.

It all started with the promise of true north east winds. Maybe even from as north as 070 or 060. This could be great for a run to St. Maarten which bears 115 degrees from north sound of Virgin Gorda. We check out of Spanish Town which is in the middle of the west coast of Virgin Gorda and get under way around noon. Plenty of time to get around the top of Virgin Gorda and begin a night sail to St. Maarten. Right?

Well, getting around the top here turned out to be a little more difficult than expected. We went more north than planned to get around the top of Necker Island instead of under but that’s ok to head a little north as the winds are going to turn to the north (right?) so this just means we’ll take even more advantage of them. Once clear of all shoals we checked our two close hauled courses: 25 degrees and 145 degrees. Don’t be shocked. Our boat tacks 120 degrees if we are lucky! Well, do the math. If we sail 25 degrees that is at right angles to our rumb line which means we are essentially going nowhere so that’s not good. The other course, 145, is pretty far south of the line but what the hell at least I’m sailing. We get on that tack and stay there accepting the east we are getting and we need a little south anyway.

A beautiful night. Stars aplenty and the moon came up like a big orange egg in the east. Sue suggests that we maybe put on the engine and get east. Naw! It’s a F---- sailboat. Who cares when we get there?

But you do have to get there.

As the night wore on we demonstrated some of the worst behaviors of sailors ever. I got a little sick. We both had too much crap in the cockpit and started tripping over it in the dark. Someone at the helm (Sue) got us backwinded and forced a tack. . . but only TWICE.(Sailor Sue: It’s hard to see in the dark! Although there’s no excuse.) We shook out the reef in the main. We put it back in. In the middle of all this we had an encounter with a catamaran.

It was past dusk into dark. We had been watching her running lights for some time and figured we’d get close. We could see through the binocs that she was bare poles and under engine only power. We’re sailing and clearly have the right of way. When you have the right of way I feel it is important to stay on course for fear you get into the sidewalk dance where two people can’t quite figure out how to pass each other when walking opposing directions down a sidewalk. Of course for this to work both boats have to know the rules of the road and they have to be watching. As we got even closer I tried to hail them on the radio. Nothing. Then the air horn and an emergency tack from us. As we spun out of their path we saw people coming to the helm from down below looking around to see what was going on. We think they were all down below, on the auto helm and not even keeping a watch. This is way out at sea with no other boats around. You never know. Catamarans are just a step above power boats! (Except for our friends on Puddle Jumper.)

We marshaled on. I figured the wind was from about 80 degrees so I would sail through it so that St. Maarten would bear maybe 70 degrees so that we could use both tacks to get us there. The trouble with that was that by the time I got to the point where that might have worked around day break we were 30 miles south west of the island. Yeah, I had basically sailed past our goal. This is maybe excusable on a boat without an engine which this is not one of! Now the gps shows our eta to be around midnight. Our 16 hour trip is turning into days!

We now try a number of things including checking the charts to see what the hell island we ARE heading for and maybe we just go there! St. Somewhere? No. Now it’s motor and main. Motor and full sail. Motor reefed main and reefed jib. Motor, full main no jib. We’re both exhausted and beat up from bouncing around the cockpit all night and cranking on the winches. St. Maarten now bears 65 degrees. I still can’t sail there! I hate me. I hate my boat. I hate republicans. I hate my 3rd grade teacher. The depth of my hate for the world, the sea and sailing in general has no limit. And, good old Mismo the cat sits on the top stair of the companionway and screams at us to come out which we are not going to let happen at night on the rolling sea.

So come morning we are now 32 miles from St. Maarten. Let’s see, around 5 pm we had 75 miles to go. Now it is 7 in the morning and we have 32 to go. Just about anything I do with the boat we go 3-4 knots and not in the direction we want to go I say, let’s set full sail, crank up the engine until it smokes and sail due north to get due west of the island. Maybe we can motor/main in from the west then. (I’m still living in a world where the wind is going to go to the north east as promised, the good guy always wins in the end (and gets the girl), and good deeds don’t go unpunished) At this point I go to sleep in the v-berth and Sue takes us north. From there we proceed to motor/main to the island. With luck we might get in before dark which is our goal.



Look really closely at the horizon and you'll see St. Maarten - 26.2 miles away; a marathon that will take us 6 hours to reach the finish line; same as some marathon walkers; basically we were walking to St. Maarten.

Of course you can’t sail 90 degrees because that is dead up wind. North-east my ASS! We bear off and sail 100-110 degrees to get the speed and do manage to tack and get there by about 1700 and anchor down. We’re exhausted. The cockpit looks like a fraternity party happened there with spilled coffee, candy, and brownies. We hoist our Q flag (yellow flag meaning you’ve not yet cleared in.) We have a rum, some cheese and go to bed. Before turning in I check the trip meter on the gps. 128 miles and 30 hours sailed. 80 miles accomplished.

Maybe we could have done better.

I still say stubbornness is a GOOD trait!

Finally safely anchored at Simpson Bay, St. Maarten Scott and Mismo play footsee or is that fingersee or pawsee.

On to St. Maartin!. . . maybe

Tuesday-
Another morning of bashing about in confused seas to make the 6 miles from Road Town to Cooper Island. This should be the last up wind trip for a bit. We picked up a mooring ball and set to work on painting the white topsides (Scott) and a hunk of teak (Sue). Hot work out in the sun but the Deliverance boat came by! The deliverance boat is one of our fondest memories of chartering here 8 years ago. It is a power boat with everything you need inside - ice, beer, snacks, charcoal, pastries, etc. So we rewarded ourselves for our labors with a couple of Red Stripes and a bag of ice. Since we are just taking off again in the morning we decided to not re-launch the dingy but we’re sure that this was the place where we spent new year’s eve in 2000. We took a swim to cool off and then made olives/pasta and pea salad for dinner. A nice night. Full Moon too!



Wednesday-
Yea! We get to sail north instead of east! Another short hop to the north end of Beef Island where lies Trellis Bay and Marina Cay. Trellis bay has fun looking beach stuff so we decide to take a mooring ball there. Very crowded with boats but we found a ball easy enough. The best news of the day is from our weather god, Chirs Parker. This weekend the winds are finally going to moderate and even back a little to come out of the north east or even north-northeast. This gives us a beautiful window for a night sail to St. Maartin. We’re thinking of leaving Friday at sunset to arrive at St. Maartin the next morning. It’s about 80 miles from Virgin Gorda to St. Maartin. We could spend more time in BVI but we hate to pass up such a nice window. Besides, daughter Leah is arriving in St. Maartin on Feb 25. Never know when you're going to get pinned down for 2-3 weeks with high trades this time of year. If it turns out as Chris says this will be a perfect reach all the way to St. Maartin - set ‘em and forget ‘em! We’ll see. Next post could be from St. Maartin! Wheee!

Mismo photo of the day. She's sleeping in our bag of clean laundry. Good place to be when the boat is heeled.











Finally, here's a couple of links to some truly excellent photography by none other than Leah Welty-Rieger. The sample on the left is called Old Hands/New iPod. Enjoy. Link 1 Link 2

Anchoring Antics/Leaving Jost Van Dyke

Jost Van Dyke is a very popular stop for the chartering crowd. It’s a nice big anchorage but fairly deep in the middle. There’s room for many boats but then more keep coming! It’s an amazing thing to watch. We had made a little run over to White Bay thinking about getting a mooring ball there but got aced out of the last ball. . . twice! Rats! Back to Jost where we on purpose anchored pretty far out against the eastern shore in about 4 meters (about 2.2 fathoms) of water. Then the fun starts. We just sat on our boat and watched the endless parade of 40+ foot Moorings catamarans come to try and anchor. Here’s the basic charterer’s anchoring drill.

1. Drive straight into the middle of the obviously crowded anchorage at at least 5 knots.

2. Have crew members hold there hands up in random positions to demonstrate to the helmsmen that there arms still work and have not been severed by the anchor chain. . . yet.

3. Assume the boats around you are anchored in Jello-O and will remain stationary for you.

4. Drop your hook and let out about 15 feet of chain (standard 1:1 ratio) to put you right between two other boats with about 10 feet to spare on either side.

5. After swinging near one or the other of the boats next to you and/or dragging to the one behind you, haul up your anchor and go back to step 2.

I’m not kidding we watched one cat do this at least 10 times. They arrived in plenty of daylight and in total darkness they were still at it. The whole time we were watching there was PLENTY of room out behind us. I think there is a clustering mentality that tells people that if you are not with the other boats you’re doing something wrong! Well, things were fine out by us. I say out by us but I’m talking maybe 200 yards (182 meters) farther from shore! What a hoot. I don’t mean to make fun and I’m not. I just think it is a funny phenomena.

The next day we got away early to head south around Tortola to Norman Island. Norman Island begins a chain of islands running to the north east. These islands along with the big island of Tortola to the north form the Sir Francis Drake Channel which is not a cable thing but it should be. In order from south-west to north east you have Norman, Peter, Salt, Cooper, and Ginger (NO! Maryanne!). These lead to Virgin Gorda the big island to the east of Tortola.

It was windy but we had a very nice reach to the south to enter the channel between Tortola and St John. Once around the corner the wind was right on the nose (of course) and howling! I think the narrows there funnel the wind. The nature of the sea was good news/bad news. Good news - looks like the heavy current here was with us. Bad news - that put the current against the wind and makes for steep chop. So, although this was only to be a run of about 12 miles we found ourselves out there beating hard to windward under reefed main and motor for about 5 hours. Nothing real violent just annoying howl of the wind and busy at the helm for the whole time.

We made the bight in Norman Island which is brimming with mooring balls. They’re not free but this harbor is very deep and anchoring would be a real challenge. We picked up our mooring ball and sat back and just waited for the man to come collect the money. Naps happened. Dinner happened. The man never came. We saw him go to several boats around us be he kept skipping over us. Cool! Knowing that if we stayed another day we’d have to pay we didn’t even launch the dingy but decided to just make a short hop the next day to mooring ball free bay. The wind howled all night.

Up at 0530 for the off shore report and to make the coffee. That’s as close as I come to a routine. We were ready to go in no time since we had hardly been there and got off before 0700. We were in no mood for a long beat today so just went around the corner of Norman to Benures Bay (or do you say Benares Bay?). There were only 3 boats in there! Yeah! We managed to anchor without waking anyone (I think) and what a beautiful spot. High rocky hills surrounding clear crazy blue water. I checked on the anchor and could see it clearly in about 10 meters of water (thats 1000 centimeters!).

We had more coffee and made breakfast during which the three boats left! See ya! Oh, how great it is to be the only boat in a beautiful anchorage like this. We launched the dingy and loaded up our snorking gear and set off. We’ve learned that you snork where the pelicans are diving. Boy, did that work here! Lots of fish and coral and beautiful water to snork in. We checked out two different spots along the shore and both were filled with fish. It’s not yet noon.

In the afternoon we were joined by two catamarans but they don’t seem to have the clustering gene like the boats from Jost had. Tomorrow, maybe we’ll stay. Maybe we’ll go somewhere. The winds are supposed to be heavy well into next week so short hops are for us and we’re in a good place to be doing that.







Time out for a picture of Mismo crawling up my 'Kool-aide'!


Sunday-
We stayed. This is a really pretty anchorage with great snorking. We have nothing but time so we decide to stay another day. I used part of this day to paint another hunk of the white in the cockpit. It’s looking good! A lot of this is technique. Not too much paint and you have to really flow it out with a foam brush. I’m using West Marine Topsider paint. It’s got a high gloss and dries very hard. I also need to paint the non-skid areas and am open to suggestions as to how to do this. Same kind of paint? Add sand? How to prepare this bumpy surface for painting?

Yesterday a big old Irwin came in. Probably about 50 feet. Obviously a charter with a man and wife owner and 4 customers. They anchored pretty far from us and that’s nice. Then, later in the day they moved their anchor to be right by us. Why? The problem here in this bay is that we don’t really feel the east wind. The winds are swirly and so is the water. The result is that boats here tend to just bob around on their anchor. We end up about on top of our anchor no matter how we set it. OK. But now we have two boats doing the random bob right next to each other and sure enough we started moving together. Worse yet, the captain took the customers for a ride to somewhere in their dingy leaving only the wife behind. Usually in this kind of situation my position is, "Hey, you moved on top of me so YOU do something". Now she is alone on a 50’ monster. Now we are about 10 feet apart and our engine is on. She asks me if I want her to haul in 50’ of chain. There’s a lot of things I want her to do right now and this is actually on this list so I say, “Go ahead”. Well, that was useless because like me she is sitting on top of her anchor. Never mind. . . we’ll move. I’m hot as it is a pretty big deal for us to haul anchor as the windlass barely works (remember the 7 magnets?) and I have to haul chain mostly by hand which I begin to do. As I’m grunting and straining she comes over in her dingy and ties on to us and starts babbling about how they used to cruise and would we want a bottle of wine and blah, blah, blah. I turned from my labors and said, "HEY!, We’re a little busy right now”! She took the hint, left the wine and beat it. We had to drop and haul anchor twice to get it to set again FAR from the Irwin. My next boat will have torpedo launchers and I’ll be stalking 'Sandcastle'!

It rained off and on the rest of the day and then it poured with lightning all night. We did sneak in on more snorking trip and it was spectacular. We think the shoreline of this entire bay, probably a mile or more, is all great snorking. We saw the usual suspects of fish and lots of our favorites - Ranbow Parrot fish. They are amazingly colorful.

Maybe we won’t get away tomorrow! Holy CRAP! I’m almost out of books too!

Monday-
After an long night of rain and lightning we awoke to Enee slowly drifting to shore. That ain't right. Although we had more or less resigned ourselves to another day to avoid a really crappy sail this bobbing about is getting really old. We haul (actually I do the hauling) anchor and plan to just go about 3 miles to Peter Island and anchor there. Sue had a peach cobbler working in the oven and on the way the fire went out. Our SECOND propane tank is dry! A quick mental inventory tells us that without propane we can eat olives, crackers, peanuts, raw potatoes, and canned peas (we refuse to eat the cat. . . so far). So, Sue got on the radio and found a marina in Tortola that could provide propane. We head there. This too is only a few miles but whoop what a nice driving rain and wind. We dock at the Village Cay Marina in Road Town. Very nice. This little stop not only allows us to fix the propane problem but to get a few things at the grocery store. It was actually hard for us to remember the last time we hit a marina. Back in Ponce PR we did a couple of awful days. One thing interesting about marinas is all the pretty boats. We may have the smallest boat here!

Tomorrow off to Cooper Island!

To the BVIs!

Coral Bay, St. John to Jost Van Dyke, British Virgin Islands

Sunday - January 13, 2008 Happy Birthday Sarah Hender!
Coral Bay, St. John

Sunday afternoon we found playoff football at the Skinny Legs bar and grill. Sorry Peyton Manning and the Colts. We left with 2 minutes to go after San Diego scored a go ahead touchdown. Gut wrenching.

We dingied over to Half Moon for sundowners and fun conversation with Joe, Becky, Becky’s sister Janey, and Bob Tis - author of ‘Down Island’ - a novel that takes place in the Caribbean. Bob lives in Coral Bay and gave us the inside scoops about the goings on here. Earlier in the day we noticed a big ship unloading these large tub containers. An unusual sight. Bob informed us that the tall ship, Tall Cloud, sails to Trinidad to buy these fiberglass cisterns and returns to St. John to sell them. The cisterns hold 2,500 or 5,000 gallons and people on the island buy them for their water supply. Tall Cloud began as a work boat on the Great Lakes of all places!

Bob also told us about the history of St. John. When the slaves were freed all the white people left the island. The freed slaves stayed. Not a bad place to be. Plus no white people with their bad dancing. When the US bought the island from the Danes in 1917 for $25 million (a nice condo in New York now!) Not much happend until the 1950’s when son of Rockefeller (Bugsy) bought most of the island and donated it back to the us government and had it all declared a national park. He also helped the natives build their economy. Consequently most of the businesses are owned by natives. This is unusual in the Virgin islands.

After a few rounds of pina coladas (thanks guys) we headed back to Enee to play with the Mismo for awhile before retiring. She was all wound up and ready to rumble. We kept her below though. This anchorage is rolly and for sure she would fall off when it’s dark and hard to find her.

We decided to stay one more day here before heading to BVI. We’ve only seen half of the town and a lay-over day after being on the move the past 5 sounds good to me.

Monday, January 14, 2008
Coral Bay, St. John

A nice layover day in Coral Bay. Lunch at the Caribbean Blue joint and walk about town. Found a few things at the little grocery store and time for a cold Presidente at Skinny Legs. As we walked about town we came to a baseball field. The 'ground crew' was busy at work. See photo.








Actually found a TINY marine store. Notice it’s really a semi trailer! Pretty well stocked though and we bought some supplies for our various painting projects.










Tuesday, January 15, 2008

Being There Again

I may have written a post similar to this at some point. I think I have. The idea that we are reaching deeper and deeper into the true ‘down island’ part of this adventure. I had this feeling when we crossed under the Mackinaw bridge, when we sailed in to New York harbor, when we reached Key West, when we anchored first time in the Bahamas, and now anchored off of Jost Van Dyke in the British Virgin Islands. Reaching (really!) this island capped about a full week of great sailing days starting back in Culebra. We’ve hardly run the engine (no refrigeration - no problemo!) and Enee’s bottom must be getting cleaner and cleaner as we peaked at 8 knots yesterday on our way to Jost.
Sailing from St. John to Jost Van Dyke means sailing around one island to another for a few hours. You really can see where you're going that easily.
Sailor Sue likes it when the seas are flat though you can still sail fast.












Check in was simple, fast and friendly. While taking care of this paper work I asked the young lady immigration agent where you go for vacation if you live here? She said, “Why would I go anywhere”? Why indeed. There are about 3 or 4 establishments on the water here including the somewhat famous Foxy’s. We had a couple of beers at Corsairs and just looked out at our boat. There is something different about being here. I feel time running at an even slower rate. I feel a certain pride for arriving here in my own boat all the way from Chicago. We chartered here about 10 years ago. To return like this makes it extra special.








Jost Van Dyke is about 3 miles north of the big island of Tortola. This harbor sits on the south side of the island and is well protected. Looking south from here you can see lots of comings and goings of a variety of boats. Yesterday I counted 21 sailboats on the move in my field of view. I like lonely little anchorages but I also like a busy harbor just to watch all the pretty boats come and go. There are actually 180 residents on the island. Some farmers and some people working the bars and restaurants.
The photos remind us of a 70' Great Lakes racing boat that apparently is now a cruising boat in the BVI. Nice.

There are large charter fleets in BVI including Moorings, Footloose, and Sun Sail and it seems they all make a stop here. You can really tell a charter boat from a cruising boat. The charter boats have clean decks and no extra gear anywhere. Your typical cruising boat has jerry cans strapped to the rail, various lines hanging here and there and some dings and scrapes from who remembers when.

A couple of days here then. We will probably take the dingy down to White Bay just to the west of here where there are some other outposts and good snorking. From there maybe to Cane Garden Bay and then around to the other side of Tortola to the string of islands - Norman, Peter, Salt, Cooper, Ginger leading one up to Virgin Gorda. We hope to end up near Bitter End on Virgin Gorda where we will wait for a good weather window to make the 80 mile run to St. Maartin. It is there that we will find a boat yard and get the bottom painted. In the meantime we try to keep up with the teak on our boat and I am slowly re-painting all the white topsides. There’s a lot but if I just do a hunk at a time it will all get done in a year or so. It’s a little difficult to paint at sea. Wind tends to blow unwanted things into the paint job and kitty leaves little paw prints if we don’t tie her down. Still, it looks better than it did. Shiny!

This post brought to you from Cosairs with bartender Lisa and her crew.

Good bye Culebra --- Hello St. Thomas and St. John

Wednesday, January 9, 2008 -- Happy Birthday Mike Hender. Are you 60 yet?

This date also happens to be the 2nd Wednesday of the month and so the visiting vet from Fajardo was in town. We (being Scott, Sue, and Mismo the wondercat in her new pet carrier cage) took the dingy about a mile down to the DNR (division of natural resources) dock. Once there we walked up the hill to the makeshift vet facility that is part of Fish and Wildlife - go figure. We heard there can be a long line so we planned to get there just as they opened at 8:00 a.m. As it turned out it took us a while to find the place since there are no signs anywhere. Luckily there was no line either.

There were 2 vets on call - both very friendly and Mismo was well taken care of. She got the first series of her shots and her ears are getting better. The vet said to use the medicine Leah sent us twice a week, not every day. This should work fine even though she’s not the recommended 12 weeks old. He estimates her to be 8-10 weeks old and after standing on the scale with her we found out she weighs 2 pounds!

We got Mismo’s health certificate and back in the dingy to the mother ship to get ready to sail. Yeah. Sue went ashore to get 10 more gallons of water and other necessaries - bread, butter, eggs. Scott stayed onboard to ready the boat. He also planned to scrape a bit more of the hull but when we saw a sucker fish sucking on the side of our boat at the water line (this was a good thing) we also saw a huge fish - maybe barracuda - below hovering (this was a bad thing). So we planned instead to scrape once we arrived at our new anchorage. We weighed anchor around noon and headed out to Culebrita (18 19 . 00 N 65 14 . 00 W) - a small island just east of Culebra. Just as we were heading out we saw a dolphin swimming off Bellagio’s bow. First time we saw so much wildlife in this harbor.

Culebrita would be a short 7 mile sail but enough to feel like we were on the move once again. So nice to feel the water move under the keel and with the sails full. Well mostly full. It got a little flukey when passing between two hills. We noticed a few mooring balls on the south side of Culebrita and thought these could be an option if we didn’t like the swells in the northern anchorage.





We maneuvered our way between the shoals and into the anchorage. Only one boat at anchor here - a huge power boat that left mid-afternoon. We took a mooring ball and decided that the swell coming in wasn’t too bad so planned to stay the night. The mooring was close to shore so we snorkeled our way to the beach then walked to a rocky area to snorkel some more. Breakers there were kind of wild and we could barely get out fins on sitting in the shallow. The waves kept pushing us back to shore. Finally we were able to snorkel out but the waves stirred up the sand and visibility was bad, plus the waves crashing on the rocks wasn’t a place we wanted to hang out anyway.

So after getting sand EVERYWHERE we walked the beach back to the boat and snorkeled on home. Scott saw a ray but I missed him. Back on board we saw many turtles - or was it the same turtle many times. Too bad he wasn’t around when we were in the water. Turtles are a lot like dolphins. As soon as you get your camera they disappear.

It was a nice evening after we rinsed off with our on deck shower bag. Sand was everywhere. And since there was nobody around it was a thorough rinsing. We had a shot of rum and watched the sun set. Scott made pressure cooker stew and we watched an episode of ’24’. The rollers were rocking us a bit but it was tolerable.

At 1:00 a.m. the wind died and the waves were hitting us directly abeam. Rock and roll. Scott rigged a bridle but with no wind it couldn’t have an effect. Had we thought of it earlier we would have put a stern anchor out. Oh well, it’s only one night. One night with little sleep. But the stars were spectacular and the sound of the surf soothing. Who needs sleep?!?

Thursday, January 10, 2008
Culebrita to St. Thomas

Okay. The next time one of us says it won’t be so bad at a rolly anchorage, don’t listen. Though beautiful we couldn’t wait to get out of there. St. Thomas here we come.

We left around 7:30 and were able to sail most of the 15 miles to the next island. Sweet. We found a mooring ball at Druif (Honeymoon) Bay (18 19 . 00 N 64 57 . 5 W) on Water Island just south of Charlotte Amalie - the big town/harbor in St. Thomas. It was about 10:30. Sue made eggs and hash, and after brunch we both took a long nap. This anchorage was much calmer. Although much busier. Just to the north moored at Little Krum Bay was the world reknown cruise ship Queen Mary 2. The size of a floating island. The West Gregerie Channel just off our bay had tugs, ferries, and dingyies of all kinds cruising on by. Wonder if the Queen comes out this way too?

Enee in the middle-back of photo at Honeymoon Beach

But wait.....what’s that on shore.....that little trailer thing....look!....someone just got a Heineken! Time to launch the dingy. It’s cervaza time. As we dingy ashore we notice this pirate ship looking sail boat moored nearby. What are all those people doing swimming not in the swim area? What is this a trialthelon? No. Just swimming back to the pirate ship. Now that is a Head Boat!

As we get ashore we discover that this little beach bar is a boat trailer with a plywood hut instead of a boat on it. In other words - a bar. We sat under the Martha Stewart designed canopy which covered the trailer hitch that had a counter built off the hut. In other words - the sitting part of the bar. We each had a beer and looked at Enee at anchor among the other boats - all sailboats or catamarans.

Two locals were already at the Martha Stewart bar. One guy lives on his catamaran in the bay and works for the Tropical shipping company. The other guy is a tug captain. They both had interesting stories. The tug captain said his favorite tug is the Commodore - a riveted classic built in 1919 changed to diesel engine in 1956. It holds 60,000 gallons of fuel although the day tanks only hold 7,000. The engines take up the rest of the space. Huge. We mentioned seeing he Queen Mary 2 in the harbor. They said that ship is the biggest cruise liner in the world although it has fewer cabins for passengers than most. The cabins however are large and luxurious. We decided we would take a cruise across the Atlantic on the Queen Mary 2 if invited.

After just one more - a few times we headed back to the boat to watch the sun set and give Mismo some topsides time. Then what did we hear but the Queen Mary 2 announcing she was leaving port. Surely she wouldn’t come through this channel. It’s too small. Ahhhhh...apparently not. We almost had to back up our boat to get her in the picture. Impressive.

Scott made tuna casserole in the pressure cooker and shortly after dinner it was time to read in bed. The channel traffic calmed way down once the sun went down although a few dingyies still made their way to the trailer bar on the beach.

Friday, January 11, 2008
Honeymoon Bay to Christmas Cove (18 18 . 5 N 65 50 . 0 W)

So, where to today? Sounds like the weather will stay good through the weekend so why not a short hop (8 miles) to Christmas Cove. We heard about this anchorage from our sailing friends Joe and Becky on Half Moon so we didn’t want to miss it.

We headed out about 7:30 planning to arrive in time for brunch again. We raised the main then released the mooring and were off. Light wind - as in none - at first. Once around the southern point of Water Island the breeze picked up to about 10-12 knots (guessing). If we headed directly to Christmas Cove (96 degrees) the winds would be right in our face. Instead we sailed a course that gave us about 3.5 to 4 knots (130 degrees). I mean we were only going 8 miles. Why hurry? We tacked a few times to reach the anchorage. It was around 11:00 a.m. when we put the hook down. Time for ham and cheese omelet. Scott outdid himself.

As we’re eating we notice that Enee is facing a direction different from every other boat. And our lat/long is changing. Must be dragging. Surely there’s time to finish the omelet. Dragging means dragging not speeding. Even Sue got most of her omelet down before starting the engine while Scott pulled up the anchor - literally. The windless is acting up again. Must be missing it’s one magnet.

We moved to the northern anchorage area and found some good sand to stick in. Scott dove to check and for sure we’re in this time. He also scraped the hull a bit while he was in the water.

We planned to snorkel here as much advertised by Joe and Becky. The rain however changed that plan. We did capture some fresh water in our tanks and a 5 gallon bucket full from our bimini. Good water for clothes washing. There was another 5 gallons in the dingy that we drained into a bucket. A little dirty but fresh and good for something. One thing about this anchorage - it is rolly when the fast ferry boats and power yachts come by. Our fresh 5 gallons was sitting too high in the cockpit and tumbled over giving the deck a good rinsing. Oh well. Washing will happen another day.

Mismo 'catching' rain.

It finally stopped raining and the sun peeked out. We heard a dingy motor and a dad with his 2 kids stops by to say that our boat was at the end of a rainbow and where’s the pot of gold? We already spent it - sorry.

Tomorrow we plan to sail to an anchorage on the south end of St. John.

Saturday, January 12, 2008
Christmas Cove, St. Thomas to Little Lamshore Bay, St. John

Another day. Another island. What a life.

We’re really getting into these morning sails. It’s a great way to start the day. Again, only an 8 mile run but we’re determined to sail it. Also again we see several boats on motor apparently making a bee-line to their destination. It’s true that at this hour (weighed anchor at 7:30 a.m. again) there is no wind. Even as we round the point from our anchorage the breeze is very light. That’s okay. The main is already up as we raised her at anchor. Let’s see what we can do with the jenny out as well.

Hmmmm. A slow boat to china. Going only 2 knots and heading more south that east. The tell tales are limp.

But wait for it. The wind will come. We can see it on the water out there. Mismo - want to see the cat paws? The sails start to fill and we reach 4.1 knots with a much better heading. Now the tell tales are flying and the sails are full.

We tacked a few times then headed into the anchorage at Little Lamshore. Gorgeous! And the snorkeling was fantastic.

Sunday, January 13, 2008
Lamshore Bay to Coral Bay, St. John

Another morning - another good sail. We even put a reef in the main today since the winds built up. We even sailed over 6 knots since our bottom is constantly moving. Nice.
As we entered the anchorage a dingy came by to greet us. It’s Bob the author we met in Luperon. He lives here. How nice. Once anchored and settled in - after eating brunch and a little nap - Bob stopped over with a few cold Presidente’s to share. How really nice. Half Moon is also here and we’ll all get together for sundowners later today.

Not sure if we’ll stay another day here or move on to BVI tomorrow. Time will tell.

Mismo is growing!

COMMENTS? PLEASE POST THEM.

Problem Solving Under Way 101

Happy Christmas everyone. Here's a little essay I wrote along the way on our recent mini-trip to Vieques and Palominos. Besides fixing major things on occasion the cruising life is full of little problems and little solutions. Sometimes those are the most satisfying. We may be in Culebra through new years as there is no drop in the trades in sight. Every day is 20-25 knots with 9 foot seas. We could sneak to St. Thomas by leaving around 0300 and motor in the light night winds but we may have more fun here in Culebra with our friends. Besides, we haven't really finished exploring this island. Today we will walk to a beach where there is greaet snorkling. Stay tuned.


Problem: Our snubber line runs through the hawse hole and suffers from chafe. (Who doesn't?)

Solution: Typically people run the line through a hunk of hose to take away the chafe. I've tried this but the hose always gets sucked through the hole and slides down the line to the chain. I've tried different things to get this to not happen without much luck. Then, while messing with my Ashley Book of Knots I had the idea. I just need a big old knot forward of the hose to not let the hose move down the line. It's actually knot number 2203 (out of about 3900 knots!) and is a variation on the 'monkey fist'. Anyway it works and now one less thing to worry about.

Problem: When we drop the mainsail there is going to be some slack in the part of the halyard from the sail to the top of the mast. I can't put a lot of tension on this line now or I just raise the sail again. So what? Our boat has mast steps and external halyards. Who thought that was a good idea? If conditions are rolly or we get motoring with the wind behind us the halyard can wrap around a mast step. When it does we are totally screwed. We have to take the halyard off the mainsail (by climbing up 2 mast steps) and then walk the line around the lazy jacks to have a chance to whip it around the step. No big deal in a slip but on the rolling sea this can be quite an adventure.

Solution: One solution is to quickly zip up the bag to capture the sail but this takes some time and it can already be too late. So, I attached a bungy cord from the top of the sail to the first sail slug under it and closed the hooks on the bungy. Now when I drop the sail I can grab this bungy and loop it under the rams horn. Mainsail is now down and captured and I can tension the halyard and keep it from the steps. Nice.

Circumnavigating the Spanish Virgin Islands

OK, look out faithful reader. . . it’s another long one as Scott and Sue are back from their circumnavigation of the Spanish Virgin Islands. Enjoy.


December 17 Monday - Culebra (Dakity) (18 17.5 65 16.8) to Ensanada Honda on the southern coast of Vieques (18 06.8 65 20.5)

The general plan is to totally explore these Spanish Virgin Islands AND in so doing enjoy some non-beating-our-brains-out to-windward sailing. The wind is supposed to be 15 -20 knots east all week and I don’t think the trades get down much below that often. Sure you’d like 10-15 knots and two foot seas but we’re not in Kansas anymore. Wait there’s no water there...uh... We’re not in Chicago any more! We’ve been in Culebra over a week which is over my limit! So on Sunday night we moved the boat about a mile to a bay called Dakity. There are mooring balls in here (free!) and you can see the state of the seas from the anchorage. It’s well placed behind some reefs so the waves are non-existent. We could see that the seas were not all that friendly as the sun went down but maybe better tomorrow. We only have to sail about 15 miles south (BEAM REACH!) to get to the eastern tip of Vieques. We are up at 0600 and checking the seas as the sun comes up. Not too bad. Let’s GO! And we do. As we get under way I check the ‘dripless’ gland for the prop shaft. This allows water to make its own seal around the prop shaft. Very clever. Clever but right now I have about 6” of water over the top of my diesel tank! The dripless seems to be dripping. Why isn’t the bilge pump coming on? Well, that’s another question. Right now I hit the over-ride switch and make the bilge pump come on. It is winning the battle so I guess water isn’t coming in too fast if at all now. For all I know this water came in during the night. . . or yesterday! So, go on or go back?

I love Sue. I asked here her opinion and she said, “Well, when we get to an anchorage at Vieques or back at Culebra the boat will still be in the water so what’s the difference”? Onward! We think it is dripping when we are underway and spinning the prop shaft and today should be a lot of sailing and not much engine.

We sailed beautifully. Now that the wind was abeam and even a little aft of beam Enee is not so slow. We made 6+ knots and sometimes 7. This with a nasty bottom!

As we approach and round the eastern tip I hail the Vieques Range Officer to see if they are playing war games today in Salina Del Sur. I tried three times as we approached to hail them but no response. Good. I guess they are not playing soldier today. We have no trouble navigating between the rocks and turn east to get in the lee of the hills. We had a couple of dolphins lead our way in! Time to turn on the engine and pull in the front sail. Uh....no go. Can't start the engine because the push button doesn't do anything. Tack back out into the deep-wide water. Snappy has to go down into the engine room and jump start with a channel-locks. Ok, now we can tack back in and make our way to the anchorage.

As we continue toward our anchorage we get hailed. Yeah. We are gently asked to leave as they are going to play today. Rats! We just beat a squall in and now we have to go back out and sail about 3 miles to the next anchorage.

We begin to raise the main again while in these calmer waters but...... now what?!? The halyard is trapped around a mast step. Not just any mast step. The second step from the top. No jiggling it off from there. Have to unhook the halyard from the sail - which means climbing 2 steps up the mast. Then walking the halyard back through the lazy jacks and finally swinging the thing free of the step. Sheesh what a pain. Step back up and reattach the halyard without letting it get around a step again. Have to keep pressure on both ends and hang on. Quite a trick. We finally get the main up - reefed of course - and head back out to sea.

A little rough now with the squally weather cranking up the wind. Worst of all we have me at the helm with the wind behind us. The main has been reefed all day and now we roll in some of the jib before the squall we can see behind us comes to eat. Not too bad but I’m glad we got some of that huge jib in in time. To turn to make our approach to Ensenada Honda we need the wind on the other side of the boat so we do a “Mr. Teyema”. My brother-in-law’s father used to take me sailing when I was a kid on his little Sunfish. When we were running before the wind and then had to get the wind on the other side of the boat we’d turn all the way to the wind and through it (tacking) instead of jibing. I think on the old wooden sailboats they called this ‘Wear Ship” (There, there ship!). A neat maneuver but you have to make sure you wait until the jib blows across before letting go the sheet or you’ll have the jib out in front of the boat. Not that WE’VE ever done that!

We don’t have detailed charts for this bay. We only have the chart for the whole of Vieques Island and Bruce Van Sant’s chartlet from his book. But we follow his directions and we read the water pretty well (Light blue shallow but maybe ok. Brown BAD) and make our way north and then back east to get tucked into the mangroves and out of the wind and waves. Water got pretty thin at one point - 0.9 meters under the keel (~3 feet) but then it went up shortly thereafter. We can see a boat anchored on the right hand shore but we go past it to get our nose stuck farther up the bay toward where a river empties into the sea. Anchor down and nobody died and only the switch on the bilge pump broke.

Ah, back on anchor and we look around. Nice. We’re the only boat back in here. What’s that? The water is teaming with jelly fish! Who knew? Well, no swimming today and if Mismo falls off the boat here, she’s on her own!

Speaking of Mismo, she had a rough sail during the first part anyway. It took her awhile to accept the fact that we can’t pay total attention to her while reefing the jib and navigating these waters. For awhile we put her sleeping box in the cockpit and she did hunker down in it. Then she had to take care of some bowel business and after that quickly jumped out of her box. Down below you go. Cleaned up her sleeping box but she kept climbing the steps into the cockpit. Things were getting a little dicey out so we put the board in and closed the hatch so she had to stay below. She found her way into our bed (the v-berth with the steps of cushions to climb in) and tried to sleep. One other place she found to hunker down down below was just under the bottom step where her water and food dishes are on top of a non-skid rubber pad. She liked the non-skid.

After a light lunch I re-wire the float switch and it is back in operation. No water is coming in right now so I’ll mess with that ‘dripless’ gland another day.










December 18 Tuesday Ensanada Honda to Sun Bay...no wait....to Esperanza 18 05 . 5 N 65 28 . 5W

Scott is up by 0500. It’s still very dark out. We’re not leaving until the sun is up. But he wants to put way points into the GPS and find other things to fool around with. So he’s up. Not me. I can still see Orion through the hatch so it’s still night time as far as I’m concerned so I roll over and sleep for another hour or so. However once one person is up according to Mismo everyone should be up. She can’t stand it any longer and begins to jump on my face enough times that I too get up.

We listen to the off shore report. Sounds about the same. 15 - 20 knots from the ENE. Seas 5-9 feet. We had a wonderful flat night at anchor last night and this morning this bay is very calm as the sun comes up. Hard to believe it’s blowing and rolling that much out there. We raise the main at anchor then raise anchor and off we go.

We follow our tracks from the day before. Scott discovered that our GPS has this feature where you just move the cursor to where you want to make a way point and it automatically puts one in. You just have to name it. Pretty slick. He highlighted some points along the path we took in and they were a good guide to follow. Much easier than trying to stay on the jagged path line.

As we make our way out into the sea the waves are rather large and rolly. We let the jib out only to the spreaders and find that we can comfortably sail with the wind and waves at our quarter with no problem. Of course we’ll have to tack (do a Mr. Teyema - see yesterday) a few times to make our mark to Sun Bay but we are sailing! Nice.

It was less than 10 miles to our next anchorage. We left at 0700 and had anchor down and breakfast cooking at 1000. What a great way to spend a morning.








We pull into Sun Bay and see that there are mooring balls. A sailboat is just leaving so we take his mooring. Must be a good one if they stayed on it all night.











How beautiful. This bay has a mile long beach that curves around the opening of the bay. It’s lined with palm trees and clean light sand. We decide to rig the dingy, go ashore, Scott will run/walk to the other end of the curve, I’ll join him there - just walking and taking pictures, and we’ll check out the bay of Esperanza next door. The bay next door is not as rolly as Sun Bay and is closer to town so we decide to walk back to dingy, get back aboard and motor on over to the other mooring balls in Esperanza bay.

As we get to the dingy we suddenly hear a noise and realize that it’s a horse announcing his arrival. Just one young horse running through the woods coming out by our dingy just 10 feet away then running down the beach. What’s that about? By the time I get my camera out of the waterproof bag - he’s gone.

Time to tackle the outboard again. We barely got ashore coming in because the motor was acting up again. Scott thought that the hose end that attaches to the gas tank didn’t get attached properly and that’s why the motor stopped suddenly and the bulb on the hose deflated. Before we head back to Enee he makes sure the hose is attached properly and sure enough the motor starts right up. Half way back it dies again. Well that wasn’t the fix either. We row the rest of the way. We did order a new carburetor - finally- for the thing and it should be in Culebra when we return. Hopefully that will really fix this monster. In the mean time we plan to anchor as close to shore as possible. The mooring balls we’re heading for are fairly close to shore.

We raise the dingy on the davits with the motor on it since we’re just going around the corner. We follow the 10 meter depth line and easily make our way into the next anchorage. There is a shoal marked on the charts that stretches far into the anchorage from a small island. We note the lat/long of that shoal and stay well north of it. But wait....why is the depth dropping???? According to the chart it should be 3 meters deep here but I read less than a meter (Add 1 meter to 1.5 meters of our keel and you still don’t get 3 meters)! Dropping fast to .5 .4 .3 .2 Back Up! Quick!! It got to .1 meters under the keel when I backed up and returned to deeper water. When backing up much of the bottom (which was very close to the prop) was stirred up and a sting ray jumped out of the water about 5 feet. Sorry guy. Didn’t mean to disturb you.

Okay. Forget the mooring balls. We anchored in 3 meters of water (really) out by the little island. This will be close enough to shore.

Scott jumped in the water with fins and snorkel to check the anchor. We read that it can be slippery here with the grass but our anchor dug in after only one bounce. He says it looks good and sure enough our lat/long isn’t changing except for our swing. Another anchorage, another view, and also quite beautiful in its own way. There are many boats here, mostly fishing boats so the bay looks busy. And indeed there is more life on shore - we can see a beer banner. We see the dingy dock and decide to visit later in the afternoon, once we’re sure the anchor is really really holding and that means there’s time for a nap too.

About 4 p.m. we dingied ashore with no motor problems, said hello = hola to the family jumping and swimming off the dock, and walked down the road along the shore. First we saw signs advertising burgers, snacks, cold drinks this way with an arrow toward a fast food trailer on the beach. The guy yells, ‘Cheeseburgers here. Cold Cerveza!’ Sounds tempting but we walk on. There are several bars/restaurants along the street right next to each other as if they’re connected.
We walk into Bananas where the bar has two open places. We sit down and immediately the bartender greets us and asks when we arrived and where we’re from. We ordered Medalla’s and chatted with Kevin - the bartender. He was busy making tropical drinks in the blenders that were right in front of us. Each time he had a little extra and poured a short glass for us. Yum. We’re going back tomorrow for sure. Banana’s is a great place to sit and watch the sun go down with your own boat in the picture!



December 19, Wednesday - Layover day in Esperanza

The morning started with me taking the dingy ashore for a little run/walk. I’m trying hard to do this when the situation allows and this one does. The motor almost runs all the way there. Nice. I’ll worry about that after the run. I just follow the road parallel to the sea. After about 3 blocks I’m basically out of town. The road is hilly but not all up so that’s good. After about a mile I turn around and jog back. Sue and I will explore more of this little town later in the day.

After several pulls I get the motor started and cast off. And then it dies. Then it won’t start. I drift and wish the damn thing would just fall off the transom and leave me alone. After ignoring it for a few minutes I try again and it starts and runs roughly back to Enee. Later that morning Sue and I go out and see about snorking along the shallow spit that runs to the north of the little island off the coast here. It’s real close to us. Dingy takes us there but we have to row part way back. I’m ready to explode.



Dingy on shoal near our anchorage. Notice how the waves come from both directions making for a very shifting shaol.

After pouting on board for awhile I get back in the dingy and mess with the motor. There is not much to adjust and I’ve had the damn carburetor apart 1000 times. I squirt some CRC 656 into the air intake and run it wide open. I do this a few times. Hmmmm, maybe that helped. Well, winds are light and we can row if we have to. In to town we go (motoring all the way!). We walk to the little store called the Green Store. Pretty well stocked store. We pick up some kitty food, 2 potatoes and 4 apples. We take another route through the neighborhoods back to the water and stop at Bananas for a beer.

While there our friends on Whisper came in. We saw them arrive earlier and warned them of the shallows. Their boat is smaller though and they made it through. We talk with them for a bit about which boats are still in Salinas and who is going where when. We know almost every boat that is talking on the VHF now between Salinas and Culebra and we know all of them from Luperon. The fleet is now coming more together and I think when we get back to Culebra we’ll be in the company of over a dozen boats we know.

Back on board for sunset and a perfect one it is. I may have even seen the ‘green flash’. Is he a big Norwegian looking guy? Somebody help me here. I make potatoes, cream of mushroom soup, onions, and ham in the pressure cooker (10 minutes is too long!). Yum. I call it scalped potatoes and I guess it’s close. We sit on the foredeck with a glass of wine after dinner. The little town has strung christmas lights along their main street for about 3 blocks. Looks like a little pretend city. Another great day!



December 20, Thursday - Back to Green Beach 18 06 . 6 N 65 34 . 6 W

That was a nice lay over day but it’s time to get moving again! Just 9 miles to the west end of the island - Green Beach. This is where we stopped on our way to Culebra from Salinas a couple of weeks ago. Again we sail there on a nice downwind run. The mooring balls are still there and we get one nice and close to the beach this time. We’re close enough to snork from the big boat toward shore and forget the dingy. Really! I don’t need that outboard ruining my day. Nice snorking here. Reading and laying about filled in the rest of the day. The moon is getting nearly full and it’s a wonderful view from this beach looking back toward Puerto Rico.

December 21, Friday - North to Palimonoes 18 21 . 0 N 65 34 . 7 W

Off we go! I am digging keeping on the move this way. For the first time in . . . I can’t remember, there is not enough wind to sail. Shocking! We have to use some engine assist. After a couple of hours though some wind came up and we were off the engine and sailing on a beam reach north to a little island off the north east corner of Puerto Rico called Isla Palaminoes.






Captain talking to Leah off the east coast of Puerto Rico. And yes that is a cigar!

Very pretty location. The parks dept. has put mooring balls on the western shore here and we take one. Now you can see nearly the entire expanse of Puerto Rico’s eastern seaboard. Nice. There is probably good snorking around here but we have zero confidence in our dingy motor and don’t want to get stuck stranded out here or find our selves drifting out to sea. Having a dependable dingy would make for a much more interesting trip! Our boat is surrounded by millions of little fish. Every once in a while they get themselves all worked up and come boiling out of the water. Crazy.

Peter and Crystal are here aboard Sundowner. Crystal is about 5 months pregnant and has just recently returned to the boat from New England to continue the cruise. Very exciting times for these two young cruisers!

This is a pretty busy place. There is ferry service from mainland Puerto Rico about every 30 minutes. This causes some wake when they come and go but not too bad. We can see lots of power boats with there sterns to the beach as well. This island is only about 5 miles from the biggest marina in the entire Caribbean - Marina Del Rey. I think this island makes for a nice day trip for those boat owners. But, everyone goes home before sundown leaving just 3 cruising sailboats on their moorings.



December 22, Saturday - Return to Culebra 18 18 . 5 N 65 17 . 9 W

Well our stint of downwind sailing is over! We originally thought that if we were getting headed too much to go to Culebra that we would fall off and just head for Isabella Secunda on the north shore of Vieques. Turns out the wind put both of those in our initial no go zone. So we did our motor, full main and reefed genny routine and started clawing our way toward Culebra. At about the halfway point we could have used this wind to sail south to Isabella Secunda but that’s a big town and to get ashore we’d have to wrestle with the outboard again and I’m so done with that. We think we have a new carburetor waiting for us back in Culebra so we decide to just keep tacking and use the day to get back to our anchorage there. We arrive around 3 PM and anchor right back where we were next to our good friends on Bellagio - who treated us to a wonderful 'boat' cooked chicken dinner. What a great welcome home.

Mismo Update:
So her favorite hiding place is in a canvas sack filled with plastic grocery bags. It's a perfect fit for her and she likes to climb in when we're under sail. It's her cruising hammock.


Whew! A whirlwind tour of the Spanish Virgin Islands. This is a great cruising and sailing region. The seas of Vieques Sound are fairly well protected and there is a lot to explore. We don’t think anyone really goes here they mostly just pass through on there way to BVI and beyond. Good. Keep going. Makes for nice cruising for the few who take the time to knock around these parts.

Now what? Got to get the outboard in shape. I hope the new carburetor is the answer. We didn’t get back to Culebra in time to see if it was waiting for me at the post office so now we’ll have to wait for Monday. So, Chirstmas in Culebra. Once the outboard is fixed we are thinking about sailing 40 miles south to St. Croix. From what we read this place is also largely ignored by the cruising communitiy as it is not right on the trail through the virgin islands. But, we think we can make a big ‘V’ and sail south-south east to St. Croix and then north-north east to the British Virgin Islands and make this hunk of easting two long beam reaches. Looking forward to that!