Culebra, Puerto Rico

After spending the night at Buck Island we motorsailed over to Isla Culebra, one of the Spanish Virgin Islands. Unfortunately one of our engines is down for the count and is puffing out black smoke in the exhaust. This is the engine where we used Kevin's dress sock as the air filter, so at first we thought maybe it wasn't getting enough air flow, but taking off the sock didn't stop the smoke. So now we think it may be an injector problem. It's always something... Anyway, luckily our other engine worked fine; it's nice to have the redundancy of two engines.

We anchored just off the town of Dewey because they have decent wireless internet here. Starwood Hotels has a programming project that Kevin is doing some work on, so we needed to be sure there was good wifi. Starwood also has another project that starts in May and would require both of us, so we've decided to go ahead and haul the boat earlier than planned and head home to Phoenix for the next six months. It all works out: the tenants just moved out of our house, Starwood has some interesting work for us to do, and most importantly it is starting to get hot and humid which is our least favorite boat weather. So we've pushed up our boat storage plans and have commenced a major "eat down" to empty the freezer and pantry. We haul out on Sunday and will spend three days getting the boat prepped for hurricane season before we fly home on Thursday (Boris's first plane ride, that'll be fun). Then we'll just need to buy some acceptable work clothing, since we gave everything to Goodwill before we left for the boat...cut-offs and flip-flops aren't considered business casual, are they?

Where we are:
Location=Isla Culebra, Puerto Rico
Lat=18 18.365
Lon=65 17.851

Isla Culebra, Puerto Rico

After spending the night at Buck Island we motorsailed over to Isla Culebra, one of the Spanish Virgin Islands. Unfortunately one of our engines is down for the count and is puffing out black smoke in the exhaust. This is the engine where we used Kevin's dress sock as the air filter, so at first we thought maybe it wasn't getting enough air flow, but taking off the sock didn't stop the smoke. So now we think it may be an injector problem. It's always something... Anyway, luckily our other engine worked fine; it's nice to have the redundancy of two engines.

We anchored just off the town of Dewey because they have decent wireless internet here. Starwood Hotels has a programming project that Kevin is doing some work on, so we needed to be sure there was good wifi. Starwood also has another project that starts in May and would require both of us, so we've decided to go ahead and haul the boat earlier than planned and head home to Phoenix for the next six months. It all works out: the tenants just moved out of our house, Starwood has some interesting work for us to do, and most importantly it is starting to get hot and humid which is our least favorite boat weather. So we've pushed up our boat storage plans and have commenced a major "eat down" to empty the freezer and pantry. We haul out on Sunday and will spend three days getting the boat prepped for hurricane season before we fly home on Thursday (Boris's first plane ride, that'll be fun). Then we'll just need to buy some acceptable work clothing, since we gave everything to Goodwill before we left for the boat...cut-offs and flip-flops aren't considered business casual, are they?

Where we are:
Location=Isla Culebra, Puerto Rico
Lat=18 18.365
Lon=65 17.851

Buck Island, St. Croix

[Kevin's Post]Saturday we planned to fuel up and head out to Buck Island, one of St. Croix's major attractions, en route to Culebra. We were about to head over to the fuel dock when Amanda noticed there was a megayacht docked there. She called over to the marina office to see how long they would be and was told they would be there until Monday. Bummer. I had been looking forward to fueling up here since they have the cheapest fuel north of Venezuela (there is an oil refinery on the island). So we tossed our 5 jerry cans in the dinghy deciding that some was better than none and decided to at least get 25 gallons the hard way. Someone from the marina helped us fill our jerry cans and when they were all full he announced that we had taken on 29.97 gallons. What!? Our jerry cans hold 5 gallons each (plus a little extra if you go over the fill line). 5 x 5 still equals 25 right? Now I can probably squeeze an extra half gallon into each can if I fill all the way to the spout(which I did not), but there is no possible way I can fit a full 6 gallons into a 5 gallon jerry can. I figured it was pointless to argue with the guy, so I paid for the fuel and decided it was a blessing in disguise that the megayacht was there and we couldn't take on more than 25 gallons (or 30 if you ask the marina). So, if you decide to buy fuel at St. Croix Marine, be forewarned that you will be paying for 10-20% more fuel than you are actually getting. It was still cheaper than the $6/gallon we paid a week earlier in Antigua.

After our fuel fiasco, we hauled up the anchor and motored the 5 miles over to Buck Island. One of our guide books claims that Buck Island has some of the best snorkeling in the world. We were a bit skeptical of that, but after snorkeling there we agreed that it was the best snorkeling we've ever seen - in the Caribbean at least. Hopefully, the photos give some idea of what it was like. There was gigantic elkhorn coral growing 30 feet high, and many more fish than you typically see snorkeling. We saw at least 6 barracuda. There is an underwater snorkel trail with signs labeling different types of fish and telling you which direction to swim. It was definitely worth a stop.

Where we are:
Location=Buck Island, St. Croix
Lat=17 47.238
Lon=64 36.575

St. Croix - Sea Horses?

Kevin and I spent all kinds of money on dive equipment so that we could dive whenever/wherever we wanted, and we still seem to always end up paying to go with a dive shop and instructor. St. Croix has an overwhelming number of dive sites, many of which are accessible from the beach, so we decided that for sure we would dive on our own here. So on Wednesday morning we loaded our gear into the rental car and drove over to Cane Bay (on the north side of the island).

We could tell right away that this was a very popular spot. We kept seeing groups of divers crossing the road in full dive gear, walking down the beach, and then disappearing into the water. We donned our gear and headed out. The wall is about 50 yards out from the beach, so we snorkeled over there so as not to waste any dive air. Swimming with 30 pounds of gear on your back is not recommended. I was exhausted by the time we got over there and then I noticed some other divers who were actually swimming backwards so that their tanks were floating under them instead of on their backs. Clever. And much, much easier. When I finally caught my breath we descended next to a marker buoy showing where the wall begins. Right at the bottom was a strange sight. Someone had installed a carousel horse down there. The pole was embedded in the sand and the horse just looked so absurd -- I was kicking myself for not bringing the camera along on the dive. The rest of the dive was good, lots of big corals and sponges but we didn't get to see any actual sea horses -- too bad. We had a bit of a scare when one of the other divers who was down there decided to spear a fish with his spear gun. I looked around and realized that there was at least one other diver who was also swimming around, spear gun at the ready. Holy crap, isn't diving an exciting enough sport as it is? These guys were spearing fish and waving around the bloody bodies as though they were *trying* to attract the attention of some hungry shark. Idiots. Plus, it's just dirty pool to use the advantage of being able to breathe underwater to kill fish. It doesn't seem as sporting as if they were free diving. Anyway, we swam as far and as fast away from the bloodbath as we could.

When we finished the dive, we were going to eat lunch while our tanks were being refilled, but as it turns out both tanks were due for a visual inspection and the dive shop wouldn't fill them without it. The lady said the tanks would be ready the next day, so we left them there and headed back to our boat. We were relaxing in the cockpit after finishing the chore of rinsing down all the dive gear. I noticed something very odd in the water. I pointed and asked Kevin, "Is that...a horse?" Sure enough, somebody was swimming laps around the anchored boats while pulling a horse (the equestrian kind) around the water behind him. I think it's a method for training or rehabilitation. Since then, we've seen "Seabiscuit" out there swimming every afternoon, so today I went out there with the telephoto lens and hopefully got a few good photos.

Christiansted - Great Danes

I just reread my last post and realized that with all my whining about what broke I neglected to mention the one *very important* thing that was fixed before we left -- the autopilot. Having a working autopilot made the 180-mile passage from Antigua to St. Croix a much easier task, that's for sure. Since we arrived, Kevin has also got the genset working again. Fixing the mainsail problem is just a question of how to best thread the sheet so that it doesn't chafe. Kevin's dress sock is still doing double-duty as an air filter (we're not too worried about that one). So all is about as "ship-shape" as it usually is...

St. Croix is really a fabulous island. It's a perfect blend of old and new. A little history: Christopher Columbus landed here (the only documented landing on US soil). First the Spanish, then the French, then English, and finally the Danish took control of the island. The US passed up the chance to buy the Virgin Islands from Denmark for a mere $7.5 million in 1867, instead waiting for the sky-high price of $25 million (in gold) during 1917. But despite being a US possession, there's still a lot of Danish history and architecture all around the island, and you see Danish flags everywhere.

On Sunday we went ashore to check out the town. Downtown Christiansted is dominated by an enormous yellow fort -- Fort Christiansvaern. We started there and worked our way along the waterfront boardwalk, checking out all the preserved buildings. We weren't able to do too much sightseeing our first day, since it was Sunday and most things were closed. But there were plenty of people at the Fort Christian Brew Pub, a microbrewery that we just happened upon during happy hour. Monday it rained, but Tuesday was sunny so we rented a car. First stop: Kmart, to pick up massive quantities of cheap paper towels, cat litter, and toilet paper (God Bless America!). Then we hit the Botanical Gardens, which was located on a former sugar plantation. The ruins were cool, and the grounds were well cared for but I think we've maxed out our tolerance for botanical gardens (same as with forts). So we didn't spend too much time there.

We then headed to Fredericksted (which is dominated by an enormous red fort -- at least the Danish liked to use bright colors, most of the forts we've seen are just a boring brown!). Fredericksted had a beautiful stone walkway along the beach and every building on the main street was appealingly painted in Caribbean-style pastel colors. But it was eerie. There were hardly any people anywhere. Most of the pretty buildings were unoccupied or closed down. I guess they like to keep up appearances for when cruise ships are in town, but it seemed like Fredericksted was like one of those Hollywood backlots -- beautiful facades but not much behind them.

It was getting late, so we did a quick tour of the Cruzan Rum Distillery (can't pass up a tour with a free drink at the end!) and then headed back to the boat. Tomorrow we are hoping to do some diving.

Christiansted, St. Croix USVI

We've been having a string of bad luck where things keep breaking. First our alternator on our generator literally fell off (the mounting bracket broke). Then when Kevin was preparing the boat for the passage to St. Croix he noticed that one of our engine air filters had torn. So he tried to put on a new one, but it tore as he was putting it on. (The air filters are made of foam and very flimsy.) We didn't have another spare and didn't want to run the engine with nothing filtering the air, so Kevin MacGuyvered a solution using one of his dress socks. Things usually break in threes, so we knew that something else would be breaking soon, probably on our passage.

We left Falmouth Harbour, Antigua around noon. It started pouring rain the moment after we pulled up anchor, but luckily the rain didn't last long. We were pretty excited to be finally going downwind for a long passage (it is 180 miles from Antigua to St. Croix, for us it would take about 30 hours). We put up the main and were able to turn the engines off and save some fuel. Woohoo! Kevin threw out a fishing line and a few hours later he started reeling in what we thought was a huge fish. After a great deal of effort to pull it in, it turned out to be a big piece of fishing net. Oh well. But at least so far the passage was going well -- we were sailing, the seas were behind us and not too big, and we were making good time doing 8+ knots. Of course it couldn't last: shortly after it got dark we heard a horrible banging coming from the boom. Sure enough, a block that guides the mainsheet had broken and now the mainsheet line was chafing on an opening in the boom. Crap. If we left the line alone, it would chafe through and cause the boom to swing forward uncontrolled. Kevin tried his best to fix the line, but it was dark and rolly and with the sail under load it really wasn't possible to do much. So, we did the only thing we could do: we lowered the sail and turned on an engine. Kevin was extremely disappointed to have to motor when conditions were perfect for sailing. But there really wasn't any way to repair the problem. So once again, we motored our way around the Caribbean.

We arrived in Christiansted around 3pm on Saturday. Technically we are back in the good old US of A! All we had to do to clear in was make a phone call. So simple. We were both exhausted but managed to make our way ashore to the Golden Rail Bar where we had two Bud Lights and some awesome cheeseburgers. Then we headed back to the boat to get some much-needed sleep.

Where we are:
Location=Christiansted, St. Croix USVI
Lat=17 45.051
Lon=64 41.858

Antigua - Side Trip

To bring everyone up to speed: last week we received a call that my youngest brother Scott (who is on a study abroad program in Groningen, Netherlands) was admitted to the Groningen hospital in critical condition with a mystery illness. His condition was so bad that he was sedated and put on a ventilator and feeding tube. I flew out there from Antigua and have spent the last week with my family hoping Scott would get better. He finally woke up on Wednesday morning. He is still very ill and will be in the isolation unit for the next few weeks until they figure out what the problem was, but he is awake and they were able to take him off the ventilator. It has been a difficult week for me and my family, but we are just so thankful that he is alive and hope he will make a full, albeit slow, recovery.

So now I am back in Antigua. I was able to get 8 hours sleep and now we are heading out on an overnighter to St. Croix in the US Virgin Islands. We are preparing the boat this morning and plan to leave around noon. We should have good weather and be able to sail most of the way.

Falmouth Harbour -- "Two weeks."

Well all week it's been windy and rainy here. Right now the wind is fierce and it is pouring. Of course every once in a while the weather gods will play an April Fools joke on us and it will suddenly turn sunny, not a cloud in the sky. So then we open all the hatches and ports and just when we get comfortable -- WHAM! Thirty-knot winds driving rainshowers straight down into the hatches. This has been going on all week and we are getting tired of it. The other day one of us forgot to completely dog down a port and our bedroom got flooded with half an inch of water (yet again -- it's not the first time that has happened). The other downside of all the rain is that we haven't gone ashore much. I've read more books and done more Sudoku and played more hands of Solitaire than I care to count! (Okay, maybe I did count: five books, 11 Sudokus, and I am 14 for 20 on "Freecell"). Plus there is the unfortunate fact that our settee is about as comfortable as a cement bench covered with a wafer-thin throw pillow. Between the hard seats and the lack of exercise I have lost all feeling in my backside. I now know what it's like to be a baby calf destined to wind up as part of someone's Veal Parmesan. Enough with the April showers, already.

We are still waiting on the autopilot. Early last week, the repair guy said "no problem". Kevin called on Thursday and it wasn't done but the guy said "tomorrow afternoon". We went by the shop on Friday and were told "Monday morning, for sure". On Monday we called and it was "either end of day or early Tuesday". It's now Wednesday and still no autopilot. Anyone ever see the movie "The Money Pit" where Tom Hanks hires contractors to fix up an old house and they keep telling him it'll be done in "two weeks"? In the movie it was hilarious, but in real life? Not so funny. So we sit here in Antigua waiting for sunny skies and a working autopilot. Email us. We're bored.