03/20/2009 Vieques

03/19/2009 Last evening I made it to the west end of Vieques. This is known as Green Beach. The anchoring was good for the evening as I sat in the lee of the island. I had gentle winds and a flat sea for good sleeping and star watching. I am not sure if I talked about it in the past week, but I saw the Southern Cross in the sky here. I have seen it once before when me and my family traveled to New Zealand. I am able to see in the sky at the same time the Southern Cross and the Northern Star.

I got the dinghy off of the davits and went for a beach hunt. I walked the beaches to the point, did some snorkeling and then walked the beach south. There are many shells and treasures on this beach. I shared this beach with very few other people. It is probably because it is mid-week.

Later in the day I pulled the anchor and headed for Esperanza. I motored for less than two hours to make my way there. There are few places to anchor and mooring balls located there. I was able to grab a public mooring ball that had no charge associated with it.

That evening I went ashore and walked through the town. The town, or village, is probably only ½ mile long. There are many vendors there selling different items such as clothing, home-made jewelry, paintings, food and tours. The hair on the back of my neck stuck up a little bit. It finally dawned on me that I was in a touristy area. My last two weeks in Puerto Rico have been on areas that usually only locals of PR would go to and now I am in an area that is frequented by Americans and Europeans. It has a different feel to it.

3/20/2009 Today I needed to make it to Isabel (or locally known as the town). I hitch-hiked my way there. It is probably about 5 miles to the town located on the north shore. I was able to get a ride with no problems at all. I went there to get some grocery shopping in as it has been hard to get fresh produce. It was no different there. I walked around the town and out to the light house with a stop in one of the bars for a beer. There are some shops with art work, local made clothing, a coffee shop with wi-fi (another reason for the trip), etc. It is the city hall for the island. There is an older feel to the architecture here. After a few hours and my errands completed, I hitched back to Esperanza without any problems. The locals again are as friendly as I have met anywhere.

Later that afternoon I took No Rush over to the entrance to Mosquito Bay. This is suppose to be the most brilliant area in the world for bio-luminescence. This is created by a plankton that lights up when it is agitated. The bay has a high density due to the shallow entrance that does not allow the plankton to wash out during the tide changes. After dark, I took the dinghy into the bay to see this. It was amazing. As I was motoring into the bay, I noticed the prop wash was super bright and then also the wave splash from the dinghy. Then I looked and could see fish dart through the water as I went by. When I was in the bay, I went over the side and swam. This caused the water to light up around me. It is hard to describe what it looked like here on this page.

After making my way back to No Rush, I decided to move the boat to Sun Bay that night. I was on a day mooring with a south-east swell and winds. It was not going to be a comfortable night and I was not sure of how good the mooring is. With the help of the chart plotter, I made my way into the large bay that is protected from the southeast winds.

03/22/2009 After spending the whole previous day anchored in Sun Bay with beach walking and back into Esperanza, I made for an early morning motor back to Isla Pineros. I am spending the night there as I have a slip reserved for the next couple of days to get ready for my daughters to arrive. I could definitely tell there was weather coming in. The seas were as flat as possible and no wind. That afternoon it rained most of the day. The deck was naturally cleaned. I have not seen that much rain since September when I was still on the Chesapeake.
03/23/2009 After getting the boat put away in the marina I jumped in a rental car and did a little touring. I saw Laquillo Beach and the 60 bars. This is an interesting collection of shacks with many different bars, restaurants and souvenir shops.

I made my way to San Juan and finally found Christian. It turns out he left a few days after I did and was not able to use the front to travel on. He island hopped down to Turks and Caicos and had a fuel problem. He was able to jury rig a by-pass fuel line and then finished the trip with a straight shot motor-sail into the San Juan harbor. The good news for him was that he picked up a crew member, Ann, to assist with him for this leg. Having the second set of hands and the ability to have watches made it easier for him.

I then made a quick tour through Old San Juan. I hope to make it back there with the girls if we have the time during their time here. There are two Spanish Forts, along with the narrow streets and many old building and structures to explore.

03/18/2009 Puerto Rico (South shore)

03/06/2009 Here I am sitting in Boqueron. I have a few items I need to take care of and I hope that Christian made it out of port and is heading for PR. First things first today is that I need to check in with Customs and Immigration. I made a call to the office and they asked me to call back later as they were in the middle of clearing in the ferry from Dominican Republic. Later that day I made the call and they were very anxious for me to be in the office before 4:30, since I arrived yesterday. I needed to get to Mayaguez. Mayaguez is located about 20 miles north of where I am now. In my cruising guide, it is recommended to call Raul on his cell and he will taxi you to immigration. I called, he answered and was available. He turned out to be my first contact in Puerto Rico and he was a great welcome wagon.

We scheduled to meet up in about an hour to make the trip. After I cleaned up and readied all of my documentation needed, I headed into shore and tied up the boat. I stopped at the first bar for a beer as I was little early. My first beer in PR costs $1.25. Heaven. After spending typically $4-6 a can in the Bahamas I can see I am going to enjoy Puerto Rico.

Raul is waiting for me as we scheduled and off we went. Raul is a native Puerto Rican that spent most of his life living in New York. He worked in transportation for Columbia University and other jobs. He decided to come back to Puerto Rico about ten years ago and could not find work. He bought a taxi and has been doing that since he arrived. He made a good friend in the writer of my cruising guide and now is listed in there and is the prime taxi driver for cruisers coming into PR. He was very helpful in making sure Immigration was ready for me and he gave me pointers to avoid while talking with the agents.

The process only took about 15 minutes and we were back on the road. Now I am legal in Puerto Rico. After the trip back to Boqueron I decided to walk around town and find out what was available to me for products and services. Boqueron is a sleepy little village on the back side of Puerto Rico. There was a small (real small) grocery store, pharmacy, bakery, couple of gas stations, marine store, etc. This is a little getaway town though during the weekends. It is known as the Key West of Puerto Rico. The only people that visit it though are islanders. After a weekend here, it may be the Key West of Puerto Rico, but you have to compare the size of the US to put it in perspective. I love it here.

There is a beautiful public beach here lined with palm trees and some restaurants and bars. Along the street though are little businesses set up that sell local made jewelry, t-shirts, fresh oysters and clams and my favorite, a bbq grill that they cook shiska-a-bobs of chicken, fish and beef. The main street is lined with these all the way up and down. During the weekend the partying went on all day and late into the night. I was amazed even on Sunday. I figured things would roll up around seven or eight o’clock. The music was going on until 11:00.

There were a couple of bars in town. Galloways is the cruisers hang out. I didn’t spend much time the there. I enjoyed going to El Swar. It was a bar at the dinghy dock. I enjoyed sitting and watching the people there play pool, sing karioki and just have fun. The beers are cold and the place is really much more lively than sitting at Galloways. I met Frank there. He is the bar tender and spoke great English. I talked with him and his brother every time I stopped by there. As it appears to be everyone I run into, they spent time in the US working and then came back to PR to live a different life and also usually come back to family.

03/10/2009 I have waited for four days for Christian to make it to Boqueron and there is no sight of him. I hope he is alright in whatever plans he went with. I am using Bruce Van Sant’s Passages South as my cruising guide for Puerto Rico and will follow most of his recommendations.

I take off for La Parguera. It is another little sleepy town on the south coast. I round Cabo Rojo (Red Cape) on get a picture of this beautiful light house. It appears most of the light houses are built from this mold down here. As I enter the area I stop for a swim on a reef I notice that there are mooring balls. It is a small beautiful reef with good live corals and small fish.

I later make my way to where I anchor and hook up with Graham and Wendy again. This will be the norm for the week, as they move much earlier than I do when going onto the next anchorage.

The next morning I get up and throw the gas and water cans in the dinghy and head over to the local marina to try and fuel up and get some water. When I arrive there, there are only three men that are working on a boat. The mechanic speaks good English and I ask about fuel. He tells me the bad news that the station in town is closed and the marina does not have any fuel. He does though, without any prompting, offer me a ride down the highway to the next gas station to purchase fuel. The generosity just blows me away. His name is Joe and he was in the US Coast Guard for eight years. As we are driving he tells me all about his love for boats. Any boats. Power, sail, skiffs. Whatever it is as long as it floats.

03/11/2009 After Joe brought me back to the docks, I headed off to Gilligan’s Island. This is located off of a resort. The new thing I am learning is about the trade winds. It has appeared to me all along the south shore that I have to power and not sail as the wind is usually blowing from the east. There do not appear to be the weather windows I could rely on in the Bahamas to change the weather and the wind direction.

After dropping the anchor, I took the dinghy to Gilligan’s Island. The island is a mangrove island and it appears that people from the resort are ferried to the island to hang out. There are picnic pavilions a couple of small sandy beaches and trails for walking. Everyone is having a good time here.

That evening I took the dinghy to the resort and met Carlos there. He is the bar tender at the bar n the beach. He is a young guy that has good stories about the country. I asked for his specialty. It is the Puerto Rican Ice Tea. It is great. There are four flavors of Rum, Sour Mix and a slash of Coke. The Puerto Rican version of the Long Island Ice Tea. They went down smooth.
03/12/2009 This morning I took off for Salinas. It is a major cruiser’s hang-out. There is access to fuel, groceries, rental cars, etc. It sits back in a mangrove protected harbor. There are several small restaurants, bars and little stores around the marina.

I met up with Graham and Wendy again. Friday night I made a pot of spaghetti. They brought over a salad and a chocolate bar for desert. We had a great time sitting around eating spaghetti and drinking plenty of wine. It was a real fun night catching up with them and what their plans are and mine. They have been on the boat for five years now and they are trying to determine what their next adventure is going to be. Oh the tough life.

03/15/2009 Today I have taken off for Puerto Patillas. Another sleepy little town with a public beach. The park is full of people all having a good time. There are boaters here also. There are several people on jet skis zipping around. I am definitely in a different place right now. Jet skiers always seemed to be my nemesis. It was fun to watch them just having fun, even when they came zipping by my boat. It was like a mark to go around, as there was only one other sailboat anchored here. There were also three men on sunfish like sailboats. They would race across the bay and back. The fastest of them would come right behind my boat off of the transom. I knew he was a racer as he had no problem dipping my transom as I would do if I were racing. He would yell, “Buenos Dias, mi amigo”! I felt welcomed and belong.

As with Boqueron, the partying and music went on late into the night Sunday. I am so happy to watch people having such a good time. It was not uncommon to have people say hello to me as I was walking around the village. While in the grocery store I met a man that was doing his best to share with me about the bottle of rum I was buying. This rum was recommended to me by Carlos from the resort I had the PR Ice Teas. He was kind and patient, but really wanting to talk with me. It is times like this that I put in the extra energy to learn another language.

I stayed here two days. There has been weather rolling in with rain. The rain isn’t heavy by any standards, but it the most amount of rain I have had since September in the Chesapeake. This gives me a chance to wash the boat down. The island seems to be making the weather. Puerto Rico is fairly hilly. The winds comes from the east, hit the hills and rain. The eastern side of the island is much more lush and green than the west side that was more dry and arid.

03/17/2009 After a couple of days in Puerta Patillas I took off for Roosevelt Roads. This is a mostly closed US Navy base. It was supposed to be the largest US Navy base in the world by square miles. I motored into the harbor and could not raise a harbor master. The base appears to be mostly abandoned, with very little activity.

At the marina there is a small PX that also acts as the marine control. They charged $20 to even anchor there and provided no real services since I am not, or ever was, in the military. I moved on to Isla Pineros.

What a great move that was. I had the whole channel to myself with a lovely little beach on the lee side of the island. It was a quiet little place with no one else around.

03/18/2009 I made my way to Puerta del Ray. This is the largest marina in the Caribbean. I was in desperate need of fuel after motoring against the wind along the coast for the last week. I was also there to check out availability for a slip, rental cars and marine needs for the next part of the trip.

I have my daughters flying in on Tuesday and this place will work out great as a staging place. It is about 40 miles from San Juan with plenty of marine, grocery and department stores in the area that I can use for supplying for the next three months when traveling to Grenada.
After fueling up, I was able to sail for the first time in a couple of weeks and headed for the west end of Vieques. This is the largest of the Spanish Virgin Islands and one of the areas I have wanted to make it to since planning this trip many years ago. I made it to Green Beach on the northwest end of the island just as the sun was setting.

03/01/2009 George Town to Puerto Rico

03/01/2009 This morning I left George Town for the big trip. I am planning an open water crossing to the west end of Puerto Rico. I figure it should take between 4-5 days, but as many as 7 days. I worked with John from the boat Buddy on some weather tracking, plus the information
I have been picking up from Chris Parker. Chris is a weather tracker for cruising sailors and provides a net service on the Marine SSB radio. He broadcasts 6 days a week in the morning across the whole North Atlantic, Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico. He not only provides weather including wind speed, direction, sea state, frontal activity and tropical storm warnings, he also provides recommendations to vessels, for a fee, on when and how to move with the weather.
I met John about a week ago. He is on a beautiful 44 foot trimaran that he designed and built. He has made four runs each direction between the Virgin Islands and the Bahamas. We reviewed weather forecast maps from NOAA and determined that it is a good time to leave with and on-coming cold front. The winds will shift from the normal Trades direction of east to south, southwest and then northwest as the front passes. This should give me winds that I will be able to carry most of the way into Puerto Rico without the need for tacks.

As I left this morning, I have felt the most prepared. That doesn’t mean I don’t have the jitters. I have been worrying about this day for a couple of weeks now. It did feel good though to pull the anchor and get on my way. I may have been a little anxious as I left maybe a little early in that I should have waited until the wind was coming out of due south. It was coming out of about 160 degrees and that will make for some tight reaching until the front starts to close on me.

The front is suppose to hit George Town about 4:00 or 5:00 AM Monday morning. With me moving now, the good news is it will probably be daylight for me when the front passes me. This is a large front and there are suppose to be some squalls involved with the front. The last weather report I had received indicated that the squally weather should be further north. You know how the weather goes. We will only have to wait and see and be as prepared as possible to slow the boat down.

After pulling the anchor, I was required to motor down the harbor to the east cut as the wind was on my nose. After I made the turn into the cut, the sails filled and off I went. I had a great reach north east to Cape Saint Maria on the north end of Long Island. From there I have had a tight reach and passed Rum Cay on the north side of the island. That may very well be the last land mass I see in the Bahamas for this trip is all goes as planned.

I have had a great time in the Bahamas. When I first arrived I felt like I had been rushing around and really tense. I thought that I might stay the whole winter and spring in the Bahamas and then take the boat back to the States. I had talked with several people about how they would spend three months alone in the Abacos. I thought that was what I wanted, but that is not in my nature at this time. I started to run into people that do the more longer range cruising and that seemed to get me more back on-track. I was excited to move on, but did enjoy myself at the different places I have stopped.

George Town is the winter home for many cruisers and it culminates with a cruiser regatta. The regatta includes dog parades, boat parades, poker and bridge tournaments, volleyball tournaments and even a boat race. There are many people there that will set anchor for three months. There is no way I could do that at this point in my life. I was itching to leave after being there only three days. After a week, I couldn’t wait.

I had a great sunset as I passed Rum Cay.

03/02/2009 0130AM I wake up from a nap with a ship in my sights, a rain squall showing up on my radar and my generator stops. I thought I had my radar to alert me if anything showed up in a security zone. I was wrong. I have a large cargo boat ahead of me and I cannot figure out which way to go to clear the boat safely. I try what I think is cutting across his bow, but I keep seeing in red port bow light. Red means danger in boating also. I start going in circles and I scare the cargo boat away from the crazy sailor. While in the middle of this I have a rain squall approaching from my stern and I have full main up. I lowered the main low enough to set the second reef point. This comes in very handy later in the night. Now I have two issues resolved. The third was the generator. I run the generator at night when I am running the radar. It draws quite a bit of power and this keeps the batteries charged. It turns out the generator was only out of gas. And after all that, as I was being pitched around the cockpit, I put my hand down on the table to catch myself and bent the wire frames on my reading glasses. I have extras and later was able to repair them.

0400AM The front rolls through with a slight fury. I had just cracked off the sails to run as the wind had started to clock from the south. This came just in time as the wind hit apparent wind speeds of 33 knots and the boat was flying along in the pitch black, except for rain and lightning, at 11.5 knots. She handled very well and the front passed over in about an hour.

I figured out all of the settings on the radar. I have it set up to turn on every 5 minutes and take 10 turns. If anything, including a mark, ship or rain, shows up, an alarm will go off until I acknowledge it. This will allow me to sleep easier during my 20 minute cat naps.

0600AM The sun is coming up. I felt I had a great first night for this passage so far. I was able to handle the boat in the weather and overcame each obstacle that came up. It is wonderful though after a long dark night, 12 hours, of seeing the dawn. I was able to make out the seas and watched as the light broke over the clouds ahead of me. There is a lot of comfort in the light. I am north of Samana Cay by about 17 miles. I will be leaving Bahamian Waters and traveling the Atlantic Ocean until I get to Puerto Rico.

0930AM Wind is pretty light. I take the reef out of the main sail and then go to work on the spinnaker. I worked on the spinnaker for about a half an hour. It has a good wrap in it as usual. It is the one thing I don’t like about the spinnaker sock. I have a wrap almost every time I pull it out of the bag. I also notice that I am very irritable this morning. It probably has to do with the lack of sleep.

1300PM Thankfully I wasn’t able to get the spinnaker up earlier. The winds clocked around through the west and now out of the NNW. This was expected and with the winds out of the NNW, the speeds have built, along with the seas. This reminds me of the trip from the Abacos with my parents, except the seas aren’t as big. I decide to put the reef back in the main sail as the auto-pilot is having a tough time keeping up with the waves and power. After that things settle down, but I am still at times surfing in the 14s. I feel more comfortable with the boat than any time in the past with these speeds.

I did realize something today as I was looking around the sea. The sea is a very large area, but all I can see is about 5-7 miles in any direction due to the curvature of the Earth. It really doesn’t look that big from this point of view and not so intimidating. It is sort of like sitting on a knoll on the prairie.

1800PM Time to settle on for the night again. I am trying to get into some sort of routine. I don’t want this trip to be some kind of survival trip. I work on cooking up dinner. I pan fry some pork tenderloin in a cracker crust with parsley, salt, pepper and parmesan cheese. As I am cooking, it is the first time on this passage I don’t feel not so well. I need the fresh air. I am sure it was just the fumes from cooking and that I have the seas off my port quarter. That is the worst point of sail as the boat rocks from corner to corner to corner to corner.

Dinner did taste very well and I have found some creature comforts. One is that I noticed my feet are always wet. I was hoping to get them to heal from cuts and scrapes. They are like prunes right now. I slipped on the Crocks and that keeps them off of the wet deck. The other is a good place for me to lie down and for sleeping. I am stretching across the settee form port to starboard.

This does not have the rocking motion to it sleeping forward to aft. I am now able to sleep.
I can sleep on the boat because I have such an alert crew. I have more instrumentation that has alarms than I would like sometimes. I have the radar that tells me if anything above the water is in my proximity (within 4 miles), my auto-pilot to announce a wind shift of more than 15 degrees, my depth alarm for when I go into water that is no more than 100 feet and my watch that awakes me every 20 minutes to verify the rest of the crew is on alert.
As the night before, the radar was working double time due to rain. I rain patches around me and that alarm went off for about an hour until the rain cleared and the auto-pilot was busy all night with wind shifts. I knew though that I was getting sleep. It was not just shut-eye. We are making good time though.

03/03/2009 0200AM I pass a ship about 7 miles off my starboard beam. It is only the third vessel I have seen since I left George Town. Not too busy out here. The skies have also cleared for a time. There is no moon and the stars fill the sky.

0600AM Morning time again. There will be no sunrise as the clouds are so thick. If you have been following the weather since I left on this passage, you should have seen how far spread the clouds are on this front. This is the cost of easy passage making on the fronts, rarely do you get warm sunny skies.

We (No Rush and I) have now made 300 miles distance in less than 48 hours. We are about half way to our destination. It will be great if we can make this passage in four days.
We are out of Bahamian waters now and after almost two months I take down the Bahamian courtesy flag.

1000AM Air has gone flat. It is like drift racing on Chatfield, except for the three foot swell. I am working on a jigsaw puzzle to kill time and try to keep the boat moving.

1220PM I don’t feel like I am giving up, but the auto-pilot will work itself to death at trying to keep up with the rotating light winds. I have dropped the port motor in the water for low RPM cruising looking for some wind. I expect that if this front has blown itself out, I should start to see the NE Trades kick in and hopefully I am far enough north and east to carry them into Puerto Rico.

1430PM I was awaken from a good nap with a breeze on my face. The wind has found us again. I put out the jib shut down the motor. The breeze started to fill in from the north. I decided to try the spinnaker again. This time I was able to clean up the lines and get all of the wraps out of the sail. I had one of the most wonderful sails you dream about on the open waters. It is like showing up at Steamboat and find champagne powder up to your knees at the lift and flowing over your waist as you cut through the trees. I had 10-13 knots of wind with a gentle swell of 3-5 feet. I just coasted along at 7-8 knots enjoying the afternoon after the swirly light winds this morning.
1800PM Another great sunset at sea. I took the spinnaker down for the night. I am still sailing at 7.5 knots with the main and jib. I will probably reef the main as the night goes on. The winds are building a little with the cooler north winds. I am now making time again.
1900PM I put in the double reef. I probably should put in the third reef also, but this worked well last night. I saw the largest ring around the moon this evening. I am not sure, but this maybe what they call a moon bow.

2000PM I should have put in the third reef. The winds and seas have been building all afternoon and they continue this evening. I am seeing wind speeds in the low 20s and boat speeds of 12 knots bursting to 14 sometimes. It is spooky during the day to have these speeds, even that much more at night. I am making real good time.

03/04/2009 0600AM It is good to see the daylight after last night. The boat is handling well, but the noise from the water rushing by is incredible. Now that it is light out, I turn the boat into the wind and put in the third reef. I am still seeing 11-12 knots of boat speed, but the boat feels much more in control.

1445PM I am now making my final turn towards Puerto Rico from the route I programmed into my chart plotter. It is like across the country and know that you only have one more state to travel through. I still have 170 miles to reach Boqueron. That will be my stopping place to check into customs and wait for Christian for a few days. At this rate I expect to arrive there tomorrow evening at sunset. I hope the winds keep up as I don’t want to enter a strange port at night.

2200PM The steering is having trouble keeping up with the waves and wind. I keep trying different sail configurations thinking the boat is out of balance. It is frustrating.

03/05/2009 0400AM I can’t stand listening to the auto-pilot alarm me one more time. I haven’t had much sleep and I am very tired and frustrated right now. I put the boat into a maneuver known as to heave-to or hove-to. The plan is that I tack the boat through the wind, but I don’t release the jib to the other side of the boat. This will cause the sail to backwind and the boat comes to a stop and sits fairly idle in the wind and waves. All has gone quiet. I am now able to take a one hour nap.

0500AM I feel a lot better after the hour nap. I reset the sails and head back towards Puerto Rico again. Now that I am more awake I notice that the auto-pilot is not working correctly. I think the belt or a gear may be failing. I am going to need to hand steer the boat the last 80 miles. I am not looking forward to that, but I know I can do it.

1030AM LAND-HO!!!!! I see land for the first time since Sunday evening. Off my port bow I see Punta Borinquen on the main land and Isla Desecheo (Desolation Island). I am now entering the Mona Passage. I do not have much documentation on it, but everything I have read is that it can be a nasty place to be boating if conditions are bad. What are those conditions? And am I in those? Who knows, not me. I do know I have 20-25 knot winds and seas building to 12 feet.
1300PM I have now made it into Puerto Rico waters. I am excited, but not anchored yet. I have been trying to keep the boat slow as I need to be able to trim the sails and steer at the same time. I am sure I could have been surfing all I could handle, if I was up to it. Big waves all around me. They are not breaking, but they are there. I decide that I need a break and thinking about taking all the sails down and motoring the last 15 miles. I hove-to again. While there I make some lunch and decide it is time for another nap.

1430PM After my nap and lunch I drop the sails and fire up the motors. My original plan was to tuck in behind Punta Higuero> I figured the seas would be lower with the protection and so would the winds. The problem was that the closer I made it towards shore the higher the winds grew. Not only did I have the sea breeze, but the winds coming down off the mountains. I saw 33 knot winds. That was why I decided it was time to motor.

After motoring about 20 minutes, I set the jib again and I was able to make the same or better speeds under jib alone. I pulled the motors and sailed down the coast until I reached Boqueron Bay. This will be my final stopping point for a few days.

1715PM Anchors away. I am now anchored off of the port town of Boqueron. It is a pleasant town from the water. There is a beach lined with palm trees and everything is quiet. There is a light breeze and just a ripple on the water.

After I am anchored I seeing a couple waving to me. It is Graham and Wendy on Bravo 2. They are the first couple I met when I started cruising by myself and I had not seen them since Annapolis in October.

02/27/2009 George Town (Round Two)

02/20/2009 I left Staniel Cay this morning after the weather net. I was expecting some light winds, but not no wind at all. I took a leisure 57 mile motor trip down Exuma Sound. This is one of those days I am really happy I have a good auto-pilot on the boat. About an hour out of George Town I noticed that the waves had started to build and I had some wind. I was able to pop the spinnaker and sail into the west end cut into Exuma Harbor. I was expecting to do a little show off by carrying the spinnaker down past the anchored fleets, but one too jibes and I wrapped the spinnaker into a figure eight and then around the forestay. Luckily the wind was light enough and I had enough room within the cut to get the spinnaker down without incident.
I was able to sail the boat into the area I anchored and dropped the anchor under sail. I needed a little hot-dogging. I have been working on the systems on the boat and they are coming second nature.

The reason for getting down here was to meet up with Christian from Camelot. I met him in Little farmers Cay a couple of weeks ago. We discussed traveling together onto Puerto Rico together as solo sailors. I was happy to see him anchored in the same area as me and we took off for town for the night.

We were all in a celebration mood. I made it to George Town and found Christian. Christian along with a new friend of his were out fishing today and caught a 60 pound Wahoo. It was the talk of the area as there hasn’t been much fishing going on. It was a fun crowd at the local watering hole Peace and Plenty.

02/21/2009 After a good night of celebrating I headed over to Volleyball beach. While there I found that there is a regulation volleyball game also, besides the cruiser volleyball. I am hooked. I was able to get in three hours of 4 v 4 and had a blast.

02/22/2009 Today I made it into a local church in George Town for service. It was at St Andrew’s Parish, an Angelican/Episcopol. I wasn’t sure of what to expect, but it was the longest service I believe I have been since I was a child when a missionary attended my local church. The minister had over an hour and a half long sermon. The full service lasted for two and a half hours. The sermon was one of the best I ever heard as she put so much into it. She broke the Word apart and deep and she is a good speaker. It turns out that that is not normal as most people were saying they were good for three weeks now.

We had light nice winds and good weather down here today so I took the boat out for a sail and made it out the east end of the harbor. I expect that will be the way I leave and wanted to get a look at the cut for future reference.

02/23/2009 This evening I went out to the fish fry area to Porgies. Tonight the local entertainment is what they call Rake and Scrape. It is a collection of musicians playing whatever instrument they can put together. There is an electric guitarist and bassist, a guy beating on a drum, another playing a saw and another playing a bass wash tub. The sound is pretty good and everyone is having a great time.

Also I was watching a few men shouting and carrying on around a TV. It was a few local Bahamian sailors watching older videos of their sailboat racing. I felt like was at home with other racing. The BS was as deep as any other club I could be sitting in and the talk about how they would take one another out and how the boat would make mistakes and they would take advantage of it. This last picture is of Christain and Sue. Christian is the guy I expect to sail out of Exumas together with and Sue is a local that has been int he islands for over 40 years. She was everywhere.

02/25/2009 I am still getting the boat ready for the next passage. I also look forward to 2:30. That is when the regulation beach volleyball starts. The crowds have been building each day and we are able to get two courts playing. It is a good work-out. I am also learning new techniques of volleyball as the rules I played with mostly were indoor 6 v 6. I have been taking more showers in the last week because of the work-outs.

02/27/2009 Not much going on here except non-stop winds out of the east. A weather system has set in and keeping the winds in this direction. I am looking for anything that has west in it to move on. I was not expecting to have to wait this long.

I have been using this time to ready the boat and me. I met John and the boat Buddy. It is a 44 foot trimaran with beautiful lines. I was able to spend an afternoon picking his brain about traveling to Puerto Rico. He has been sailing down here for many years and has quite a bit of information. My plans now are to sail to the west end of Puerto Rico and then around the southern coast. With that passage if things get rough the first couple of days, I can duck into Turks and Caicos or even Dominican Republic. It gives me many options and then I get to see a beautiful coast of Puerto Rico.

At this time it appears we will be leaving either Sunday or Monday. All dependent on the weather.