Sun Bay Marina Fajardo, PR

      We arrived in Puerto Rico on Sunday before the arrival of our family on Wednesday. We spent a couple of days cleaning and polishing (yes, some more) on the boat. We ALL enjoyed unlimited water.  We rented a car - driving a car felt wierd after about four months of not. Did a little exploring and a lot of shopping. The kids came in on a flight at 7:30 PM on Wednesday. On our way back from the airport, we stopped at a Burger King and a playground for Lyric. While we were eating, the car was broken into and a bag with a new camera of Jessica's plus her phone was stolen. Luckily we had purchased insurance on the rental - covered damages at least - and got us another car that night since the passenger window was destroyed. Great way to start the trip! :(
        While they were here, we went swimming at their condo, found a playground at the condo, drove up to and walked some of the El Yunque Rain Forest, went on a day sail and swam in the ocean and played in the sand. Lyric was running fever most of the days they were here so we took it easy.  His naps still take up a big portion of the day so activities had to be brief. 
        The visit was all too brief!  They left on Monday (1/28/13) and have some "exciting San Juan Airport" stories of their own to tell about bumped flights and then moving them earlier but not notifying passengers. Anyway they made it home to Pampa about 2AM (much later than expected).  We were so sorry to see them go!
        Paw-Paw and Nan were so intent on getting that little one in the ocean that we had to row the dinghy in to the beach and back out to Alibi - only about 100 ft. We have since determined the cause of the dinghy motor not working. It seems like every time Jessica & Craig are around, we have some sort of boat trouble. Dive boats, DnA, The dinghy ..... You name it!  Lol
        After they left, we got busy spending money to provision the boat. There are many stores here in Puerto Rico that have things we have been unable to buy "down island". So the boat is loaded!  
        Next stop will be Culebra again. We get to catch up visiting with Wayward Wind. They left our company in December to fly back to the US. I have some canvas projects to give them and we may help them get THEIR exterior teak restored. 
        We have been in contact with Jim Fagan regarding a visit on Alibi during his Spring Break again. It will be great to see him again and show him something new (he's been to George Town, Bahamas twice now).  There is even talk of our friends Dan and Stephanie coming down for a visit - oh boy!!!!
        We have been on this adventure for over a year now.  February 10, 2012 was our departure date from Key Largo.  I wonder how long we can stay in de islands!?!?!?

Culebra to Puerto Rico

     We arrived in Culebra a few days before Christmas. We have had a good stay, but it is time to leave. We are eager with anticipation of the next several days. Our kids - Jessica and Craig - and their son ( our grandson) Lyric are coming to visit us for the first time since we have been on the boat. 
      In preparation for their visit and routine maintenance of the boat, we have been working on the teak. All the exterior has a minimum of 10 coats of varnish on it and all the interior has been oiled and hand rubbed. Most of the hull has been rubbed with a multi-step process before applying wax. The bottom is going to get cleaned prior to our sail to Puerto Rico.  When we get to the marina in Fajardo, she is gonna get cleaned til she sparkles!  She is gonna be so pretty!!
      After the visit with our family, we are doing some major provisioning. As many of you recall, we canned a lot of meat before we left Key Largo - which is now all gone.  We are going to do some more canning. These stores have been very helpful along the way. 
      We have also begun preparations to rework all the canvas on the boat - hard to believe ours is 3 1/2 years old!  It is pretty threadbare in places. The fabric and notions are ordered and should arrive while we are at the marina. It is nice to be able to do the two things I love the most on our boat - maintaining the teak varnish and sewing. Now, I just have to figure out how to make a living doing these!!
      Sometime soon, we have to start thinking about a haul-out. This means getting the boat out of the water to check hull and thru-hulls for integrity, sand and paint the bottom , and any other issues found in the process. We did this two years ago in Key Largo (wow, has it really been that long?).  New coats of bottom paint will give us more speed and efficiency in the water and minimize the build up of sea critters on the bottom of the boat. This is generally a few days and it is called "on the hard" - as in ground. We power wash her off, block her up on stands and go to work. Something we are used to after owning two dive boats for those years. Only difference this time, is that it will just be me and Darrell - Capt. Al and the crew aren't here to help us!  Hope we can muddle through - lol. 

Some Pictures from the trip back up the island chain

A lesson in line splicing - that took all day!

Darrell blowing the conch

St. Anne Anchorage

Sunset St. Pierre

Mr. Pelee - the volcano

Phillipsburg, St.Maarten to St. Croix

    We came back to Phillipsburg to shop and have lunch. Last time the local tavern was out of curry goat and I really wanted to try it!  THIS time - I ordered it (delicious)!!  The proprietress even remembered us!!! We are living a life Mike would enjoy - every trip a field trip, every meal a banquet! To get here, we take a local bus. Last time, there had been an earthquake here and the whole bus was buzzing about how strong the tremor had been. This is very much a tourist stop - more than some of the islands we visit. 
    We waited out some strong winds to depart St. Martin. We left on Monday about noon. We parted company of Wayward Wind - ;.(.  They fly back to the US for the holidays next week. I am guaranteed to see them up island, though. We are making a new genoa cover and a new helm cover while they are gone and while we are waiting on the visit from Jessica, Craig, and Lyric. 
    A pleasant overnight sail of 19 hours - 100 miles. Much of it with our gennaker and going seven knots downwind.  We anchored Tuesday morning and low and behold, we are almost IN the airport runway. Yes, St. Croix uses seaplanes for air service. Interesting to watch and a busy place!  Weather dictated a short stay in St. Croix. 
    We left Thursday for Culebra. Had a wonderful beam reach for 9 hours to get here!  I think Christmas in Culebra sounds great - we were considering Christmas Cove but the northerly swells didn't sound great for that location.  We are here with Celtic Rover and hope to see Azaya, Kolibrie, and Plane to Sea while we are here. Also have some boat projects to tend to. 
    Happy Holidays to ALL!
    

Moving UP the island chain!

Guadeloupe

            Iles Des Saintes was the first stop in Guadeloupe.  We only stayed there for two nights before moving on.  Beautiful place!  Next, we traveled up the coast to a place called Pigeon Island – city named Malendur.  Just one mile off the coast is a waterpark named after Jacques Cousteau – SPLENDID!!  Gorgeous water, plentiful fish life, and warm.  Good thing it was protected waters, because there were some yellow tails that were big!! 

            After being joined by our friends for some snorkeling and and nice anniversary dinner in Malendur, we moved up to Deshaies – on the northwest corner.  Weather dictates that we move on or be here for at least another week.  So we checked out and left early on December 7.

St. Martin

            Just about 24 hours later, we anchored in Simpson Bay to wait for daylight and the lift bridge to open so we could enter Simpson Bay Lagoon.  A day to recuperate from the crossing and we are going strong again.   We are enjoying the tuna we caught on the crossing.  We shared with Celtic Rover – the ½ tuna we caught.  Yes, we had a double strike and by the time we reeled the second one in, he was only the front half.  Nice, fresh tuna that we ALL enjoy (including Roxy). 

            Bruce helped us with a tune up on the carburetor of the dinghy motor and we are back in business with being more mobile again.  Roxy appreciates being able to travel to shore more regularly – as we all do.  Literally, anything you need for a boat is here in St. Martin.  We are here in the protected lagoon to wait out the winds that have increased significantly in velocity.  It is a lot different here than when we were here in June or July – many more boats and some big mega yachts! 

            As soon as the weather allows (maybe Monday the 17^th), we are going to move again toward the USVI.  We are trying to make Culebra for Christmas.  Next stop, our phones will work once more!!!! :D 

Some pictures

Ann Snorkeling

And taking pictures

Alibi on the move Again

St. George's Harbor - Windjammer Mandalay at anchor

Cutty, our Island tour guide

Ann & Darrell at the waterfall

Who has a monkey on her back!?!?

Didn't know bamboo was so strong

Nutmeg, one of the spices of the spice Island

Rum Distillery

Wow, that's powerful stuff!

Carriacou was the first stop.  A very nice day sail of about 8 hours!  It was good not to be going far because we had some kinks to work out after sitting in one place for over three months.  This is a lovely place!!  We came REAL close to seeing some friends who have their boat in Key Largo.  They had stopped there on a Windjammer sail – sorry we missed you, Marty and Louise!

            We were at Sandy Island, just off Hillsborough, Carriacou.  While there, we enjoyed some great snorkeling.  Darrell was the party planner when he invited the whole anchorage to a beach party.  We roasted hot dogs, chicken, kielbasa, fish and had all the trimmings.  We even had a musician.  What a fun time!!  The next night, we had an evening get-together with some other boats we met in Grenada (Darrell’s friends from Volleyball). 

            The next stop was Petite Martinique for rest and cheap beer.  It is the first place I have ever seen where your cases of beer are delivered by tractor bucket to the dock!  When we left there, we were gone for one hour and our main halyard broke (IN the eye splice)!

            SOOOO, once again, Darrell was up the mast!  This was one of many trips since we replaced the coaxial antenna wire for our VHF radio while we were in Grenada.  Our logbook reads:  Up the mast, down in the bilge, up the mast, down in the bilge, up the mast, …….hahaha!  At least the halyard didn’t break with him on it!!!!  Weather finally cooperated and we were able to leave there – after Miss Roxy got us kicked off a beach!

            Twenty-four hours later, we landed at Martinique again.  Le Marin is a very protected anchorage with LOTS of sailboats!  A few days there was enough (Thanksgiving included) so we moved to St. Anne (Great name).  We love the town and anchorage.  Much less crowded and pretty water.  While we were in Le Marin, we took Roxy to the vet for her annual shots – she got a pet passport and it’s in French!

            These French islands are challenging me to rapidly improve my French!  We so enjoy the culture.  Baguettes are quite nice!  We tried something here called accras – kinda like fritters. 

            We are waiting on our friends and buddy boats – Wayward Wind (Dave & Linda) and Celtic Rover (Bruce & Jan).  They are enjoying the Grenadines  -  a stop we had to miss because of the dog.  We really enjoy travelling in their company!

            We spent a few days in St. Pierre on the north west coast of Martinique with the above boats.  They will never trust Darrell to plan any shore excursions again!  WE all decided we wanted to see Mount Pelée up close – more history in a bit.  So we boarded the bus.  We departed the bus and began a hike up toward the mountain – a LONG hike.  We were a few kilometers from the summit when we all decided we had had enough uphill climbing.  So we returned to the bus stop.  After several minutes (about 40), we decided to start walking in the direction of St. Pierre and catch the bus as it came by.  MANY minutes into the trip, we had not seen any busses.  We kept walking (at least it was downhill).  Finally one of our group had had enough exercise – he decided to go call a taxi at a local house.  A few minutes later, we were all loading into a man’s van and being taken the rest of the way down the mountain.  It seems that the busses don’t run in the afternoon – lol!  We tallied the distances and think we probably walked about 15-18 kilometers – YOU do the math! 

            We left there on Friday night for a 15-16 hour sail to Iles Des Saintes (Guadeloupe).  A nice night sail with the full moon BUT we had a few squalls to contend with.  One on each end of the island Dominica.  We were pretty tired after the overnight sail so we rested most of yesterday.  Today, Darrell has been fixing some things on Wayward Wind and Roxy and I have been taking care of business.  We enjoyed a brief SKYPE session with Jessica, Craig, and Lyric at lunchtime.  They are coming to Puerto Rico in January – reason we are making tracks north to meet them! 

            Anyway for the history of St. Pierre:  It was the hub of the islands at the turn of the century with a population of 33,000 and considered the Paris of the Caribbean.  In 1902, the volcano erupted and killed the entire city but one man who was in a prison cell and one man on a boat.  Several boats in the harbor were also sunk.  The gaseous blast froze folks in their tracks.  Many had been encouraged not to leave for multiple political reasons – sad.  Now, only about 3,000 people reside there and the volcano is expected to erupt again sometime in the next 100 years.  I would have to think twice about staying there!