Merry Christmas!

Santa's biggest gift to us was finally finding a flat anchorage! We moved from Coral Bay over to Hansen Bay and each of us finally got a decent nights' sleep. We have run into some old friends (Cynthia and Mike on "Minx" and John on "Sojourn") as well as made some new friends (Mark and Chris on "Silhouette"). We had everyone over for a Christmas eve party, which was a lot of fun.

For Christmas Day, John offered to host everyone on his roomy trawler. We had Duck, Turkey, Roast Beef, stuffing, sweet potatoes and all the fixins. It was nice to spend the afternoon with friends, although we are both missing our friends and family back home. Merry Christmas to all!

St. John

[Kevin's Post]Friday morning we left Culebra for St. Thomas. In hindsight we probably should have waited another day or so to leave, but we were getting stir crazy in Culebra waiting to go. We had a pretty miserable crossing, the 18 miles took us nearly 6 hours limping along on one engine into the wind. Yep, we could have walked there faster. The forecast was for 12-16 knot winds with 2-3 ft seas, but instead we had 18-20 knot winds and 4-6 foot seas. It was not pleasant. But, we made it to Charlotte Amalie without any issues and were happy to have our friends on Iguana Dance buddy boat with us for the slow trip.

This was our first visit to the mainland of St. Thomas, so we anchored off of downtown Charlotte Amalie in order to do a little exploring. St. Thomas is a duty free island which subsists primarily on the spending of cruise ship passengers. Walking down the main street of St. Thomas, it is strange to see that nine out of ten businesses are jewelry stores. There's probably 100 of them in a single city block. It is amazing that there is enough demand for all of them to stay in business. Especially since all of them claim to be selling their wares at a 75% discount (ha). All of them have salesmen standing out front trying to lure tourists inside with discounts and air conditioning. They all seemed mystified that we weren't there to shop for jewelry.

We stopped into a waterside bar to cool off and learned that in the evening would be a big christmas celebration with steel pan bands, a boat parade, and other festive activities. Normally we're on the boat by dark, but decided to make an exception and come back ashore to check out the festivities. We had a great rib dinner at a place we picked pretty much at random (Tavern on the waterfront). They had a live jazz band crooning christmas songs which put us in the holiday spirit. From our table we could see the boat parade. It wasn't much of a parade, since it was only about 5 boats, but they kept circling to give the illusion that there were more boats, so it lasted quite a while. After dinner we wandered around a while listening to the steel pan bands and eventually there was a parade down main street with a couple marching bands, floats, and lots of baton twirlers. It was a good time, but it eventually started pouring and everyone took shelter, things slowed down, and we headed back to the boat.

Overnight, the wind shifted more to the south and the Charlotte Amalie anchorage started to roll making it very uncomfortable to be on the boat. So in the morning we decided to get off the boat and explore St. Thomas a bit. St. Thomas has great public transportation, you can get pretty much anywhere on the island for $2 and closer destinations for only $1. We took the safari bus all the way to Red Hook (on the east coast) and back which gave us a good orientation to the island. We also stopped by the Independent Boatyard marina to check it out since Iguana Dance was staying there. After our self-guided island tour we had dinner at the Fat Turtle at the Yacht Haven Marina and then back to another rolly night on the boat.

Sunday morning we left early to head to Lameshur Bay on the south coast of St. John to meet up with our friends on Seaman's Elixir. We hadn't seen them since leaving Grenada 2 years ago. They are doing well and it was great to catch up with them. We spent the afternoon snorkeling in the bay looking for lobster (unsuccessfully). Linda invited the whole anchorage over for dinner and made a wonderful pork tenderloin. A good time was had by all.

Monday we had arranged to go scuba diving with Steve on Seaman's Elixir and John on Sojourn. We tossed all the dive gear in the dinghy and took off for White Point about a half mile away. Neither of us had dived in almost 2 years so were glad to do a shallow easy dive to get back in the swing of things. It was a great dive site with lots of cool canyons and walls. Since it was pretty shallow (max depth 45 feet) we were able to stay under for almost an hour. We didn't take the camera this time, so sorry, no pics.

Tuesday, after going ashore and exploring some of the nearby trails, we headed over to Coral Bay where we are now. Coral Bay is a small hippie community on the east side of St. John. Walking through town we met a guy selling hot dogs who claimed to have walked to the bottom of the Grand Canyon barefoot in 1975, "When I was a hippie". I guess he's not a hippie anymore, so sad. The Coral Bay anchorage was perfectly flat until dark, then it started to roll like hell so neither of us got much sleep. Today we continue our search for a flat anchorage.

No Mo' Mofongo Por Favor

We are still here in Culebra, waiting for weather to cross over to St. Thomas. On Saturday night we went out for dinner at a nearby restaurant. I had churrasco, which is skirt steak with chimichurri sauce. It is one of my new favorite foods. Kevin ordered mofongo with pork. Mofongo is a traditional Puerto Rican dish with mashed plantains stuffed with a meat filling. We had never tried it and were curious. Unfortunately, the meal placed in front of Kevin didn't look too appealing. What we didn't know was that the pork was actually pork cracklings and was deep fried to a beyond-crispy, bone-dry texture. The plantain part was very good but Kevin could only eat so much of it. Luckily my entree was huge and we were able to split it. It was nice to get off the boat for a bit. The restaurant was all decked out for the holidays and was playing spanish Christmas music, so that was a treat as well.

While at the restaurant we met Jose and Crissy, a very friendly Puerto Rican couple who happen to be on the boat next to us. She is a world-class triathlete who just finished the Kona Ironman. He is the former attorney general of Puerto Rico. They now live in Annapolis but keep their sailboat in Puerto Rico and were here for a vacation. We had them over for drinks and enjoyed talking with them.

Later last night Kevin and I watched the Geminid meteors streak across the moonless sky, a perfect ending to the weekend.

Ensenada Dakity

[Kevin's Post]We saw Margaret off early Saturday morning and took advantage of the rental car for the rest of the day to go shopping. Home Depot, Super Walmart, Bed Bath & Beyond, etc. Puerto Rico is great for shopping. Then it was back to the boat for more marina chores. We did 6 loads of laundry before turning in for the night.

Sunday we tried to hit a grocery store for some last minute items before returning the rental car and checking out of the marina, but amazingly none of them open here before 11AM on Sunday. After trying 4 different grocery stores we gave up and returned the car in defeat.

We left the marina early in the afternoon and made a short trip over to the lovely Isla Palominos. We were a little worried it would be packed with power boaters enjoying the last bit of the weekend, but were pleasantly surprised to find that even though there were a lot of them there was still plenty of room for us. We picked up a free mooring at the northern end of the anchorage away from the bulk of the power boaters (sometimes referred to as the Puerto Rican navy). The island is the largest private island in Puerto Rico and is owned by some wealthy family. They have a large house on the north end of the island. The southern half of the island is leased to the El Conquistador resort and they ferry hotel guests over all day to enjoy the beach. We were moored at the north end of the island near the house. As the sun set, we were amazed to see floodlights come on from the island lighting up the whole anchorage and much of the island like a baseball field. I'm not sure if the residents are just trying to discourage overnighters like us (it certainly would, I doubt we'd go back), or if they're just scared of the dark. I guess being isolated on a private island would make you paranoid, it's not like you can just dial 911. But what's the point of owning a private island if you have to light it up like Fenway Park. It was pretty rolly anyway, so that's another reason we probably won't return to Isla Palominos.

Monday morning we moved on to another spot we'd never been, on the southwest corner of Cayo Luis Pena, a place called Lana's cove. It was a beautiful cove with a white sandy beach and some of the best snorkeling we've encountered anywhere. Amanda spotted a big lobster but wouldn't tell me where. We had a wonderful afternoon there, until the tide changed, then it became very uncomfortable. The boat was rolling so hard, it knocked our lamp over onto the floor. It was already dark by the time it started to roll, so we decided to stick it out and leave first thing in the morning.

Tuesday we were underway at pretty much first light and headed 5 miles to Ensenada Dakity where we are now. Entering the anchorage, we were motoring between the reef to port and the mangroves to starboard. As we were motoring in, a charter cat was motoring out. I had turned to port (left) to pick up a mooring, and common sense would dictate that the charter cat would go behind us and continue out the anchorage. Well, he didn't. He kept coming towards us and appeared intent on going between us and the mooring we were trying to pick up. Not knowing his intentions, I tried to just stop the boat and maintain our position until he was out of the way. After he was a safe distance, I tried to head back towards the mooring we were originally trying to pick up when I noticed something strange. The boat wouldn't turn to starboard against the wind. Crap. I tell Amanda, I think we just lost a propeller. Meanwhile, the wind is blowing us towards the mangroves. You can turn with engines alone by putting one in forward and one in reverse, but only with two propellers. Otherwise the boat has to be moving fast enough for the rudders to do their thing. I put both the engines in forward and try to steer us away from the mangroves with the helm. We came within about 20 feet before we were going fast enough to maintain steerage. We limped over to another mooring and picked it up using only the starboard engine. After the boat was secure I jumped in the water expecting to see a saildrive with no prop, and was briefly pleased to see it was still there. My glee was short lived when I came to the realization that something less obvious was still broken with the saildrive. I had Amanda try to run the engine in forward and reverse while I watched with a mask and snorkel from a safe distance. The prop didn't move. Not good. With the engine off but in gear, I could easily spin the prop in both directions, so something is clearly broken in the transmission between the engine and the propeller. We're going to need professional help on this one.

There's a Yahoo forum for Manta owners that is fairly active, so I posted an inquiry there explaining the symptoms and asking for recommendations on boatyards in the Virgin Islands. By the next day I had two emails from two other Mantas that had similar problems in the past. In both their cases it was a vibration dampener that connects the engine crankshaft with the saildrive input shaft. So I ordered that part in the hopes that it is the problem. Unfortunately, it is coming from Sweden (Volvo) and won't be here for 2-3 weeks. So, we are going to try to continue east on one engine and get to competent help in the British Virgin Islands. I spoke with a mechanic there this morning and he thinks it can be repaired in the water if the problem is the part I think it is. We're hoping he's right, because we don't really want to haul again after only being in the water for less than a month.

It's blowing pretty hard right now in Culebra and we need to go straight into it to get to St Thomas and Tortola. So, we're planning to stay right here until the middle of next week when winds are supposed to be lighter.

El Yunque, Puerto Rico

[Kevin's Post]Friday we left Green Beach very early because we wanted to get back to Puerto Del Rey Marina early enough to rent a car and take Margaret to the rainforest. We had a 15 mile trip into the 6 foot seas which was not pleasant, especially after a night of drinking. You get the picture. Apparently captain Kevin was the only one affected. I was happy to get to the flat water inside the breakwater and tie up at a slip. After checking in we picked up the rental car from Thrifty and drove out to El Yunque to go hiking. We stopped at the main visitor center and watched a movie about the rain forest, then continued on to the La Mina falls trail. Amanda and I had hiked this trail before, but hadn't brought swimsuits and towels so couldn't swim. This time we had planned ahead. Margaret and I waded all the way out to the waterfall while Amanda stayed behind playing photographer. It was a great day in the rainforest, there weren't many people and it didn't rain much until we were driving away.

That evening we went to the upscale Marina restaurant for dinner. There's never anybody in there, and I'm not sure how they can stay in business unless they are subsidized by the marina. But the food was surprisingly good despite the absence of any diners and we had plenty of leftovers.

Green Beach, Vieques

[Kevin's Post]Thursday we had a nice downwind sail about 8 miles to a spot on the west coast of Vieques called Green Beach. There was one other sailboat there when we arrived so we didn't have the place to ourselves, but pretty close. We snorkeled for a while and were relaxing when Dirk from the other boat, Lison Life dinghyed over. He had heard on the VHF that there was a water spout spotted in St. Thomas and coming this way and wanted to make sure we knew about it (we didn't). He also wanted to know what time happy hour was on Solstice. A bit later he reappeared with his wife, Sylvia and a cooler of beer. Happy hour turned into dinner (Amanda and Margaret made some delicious enchiladas), and then into after dinner drinks. They left around 11 I think. I went to bed, and the girls stayed up late talking.

Esperanza, Vieques

[Kevin's Post]
Wednesday morning we moved west a few more miles to one of the main towns on Vieques, Esperanza. We anchored off the town dock and dinghyed to shore to see what the town had to offer. Just north of the dinghy dock was a kayak shop advertising nightly tours of the nearby bioluminescent bay. We had been wanting to see it, so we went in and talked to the guy. It would be a full moon so not ideal conditions for seeing the bioluminescence, but we were there, so decided to take a chance and made reservations.
After making kayak reservations, we wandered down the Esperanza boardwalk which is lined with restaurants, bars and shops. We had a great lunch at a place called Bellybuttons. Having no plans for the afternoon, we continued to wander down the boardwalk and turned it into a pub crawl.

Later that evening we returned to the kayak shop at the appointed time to go to the bioluminescent bay. 14 of us piled into a large van for the 3 mile bumpy ride to the bay. It sounded like the van was scraping the bottom the whole way, and the trees were definitely scraping both the sides the whole way. The road was no wider than the van, I'm not sure what they would do if they met someone coming the opposite way. Arriving at the bay, Alexi, our guide tossed all the kayaks in the water, gave us each paddles and made us wade through 6 inches of smelly mud to get on our kayaks. Then he jumped on one himself and told us to follow him. The moon was so bright, I was not optimistic that we would see anything. But as we paddled deeper into the bay, you could start to see little explosions of blue light with every paddle stroke. When we got out to the middle of the bay we all tied up to a buoy and jumped into the water for a swim. That's when the fun started. Every movement of your body was trailed by blue bioluminescence. Even with the full moon, it was clearly visible and really cool. We swam around for an hour in the water playing with the light. To see what it really looked like, go here:

I didn't have high expectations of the biobay tour, but it was totally awesome. We are going to try to go again sometime when there is no moon.

After the biobay tour we were able to rinse off at the kayak shop and went back to a restaurant called Duffy's for dinner. This place had amazing food, so if you're ever in Esperanza, check it out.

I think we're gonna get boarded

[Kevin's Post]We left Culebrita Tuesday morning to head to the southeast coast of Vieques. We had light winds on the beam the whole way and small seas, so it was a very pleasant sail. Margaret even took the helm for a while. As we approached the eastern end of Vieques I see a Coast Guard cutter about 2 miles to our east steaming right at us. "Uh, I think we're gonna get boarded", I say to Amanda. The Coast Guard routinely boards and inspects vessels in this area and pretty much everyone we know has been boarded at least once, except us. So we watch them get closer and closer and then the inevitable, they hail us on the VHF. They asked us the typical questions, registration number, persons on board, nationalities, last and next ports of call, purpose of journey, etc. Then just a "Thanks, and have a nice day". Sigh of relief. It wouldn't have been a big deal to be boarded, but nerve-wracking anyway. We had just bought new un-expired flares 3 days earlier for just such an event, and I doubt they would have found any other issues, but given the choice I'd rather not find out.

Our intended destination was Bahia Fanduca, a small cove on the southeast coast which looked cool on google earth. As we approached we saw a large white buoy at the entrance with small writing on it we could read from more than 100 feet away. Amanda suggested we go a little closer to see what it said. It said, "No anchoring zone, unexploded ordinance". Hmmm, you'd think something like that would warrant a larger font. It wasn't really a surprise though, the whole eastern half of the island was bombed by the navy for 50 years and they are still in the process of cleaning it up. So we pushed onward another few miles to Isla Chiva which we knew was safe. They had 3 free park moorings there so we tied up to one and spent the afternoon snorkeling. This spot had a nice reef and a large seagrass bed. We saw rays, turtles, barracuda in addition to the typical reef fish. Once again, we had the whole place to ourselves.

Isla Culebrita

Amanda took the ferry from Culebra to mainland Puerto Rico to fetch Margaret who flew into San Juan on Friday afternoon. They spent Friday night in San Juan, took surfing lessons Saturday morning and took the $2 ferry back to Culebra Saturday afternoon. They seemed to have a great time surfing despite the bruises. While they were sightseeing in San Juan, I was continuing with the boat chores. I installed a 40 amp alternator on the genset which promptly broke off after about an hour running. And I reinstalled the reef lines, only to find that I had installed the shorter of the two reef lines as the second reef line so it was too short. We had bought new lines for the reef lines, the red reef line was previously the second reef, the green reef line was the first reef. I guess the previous owner had damaged the second reef line and moved it to the first reef line (which is shorter). Anyway the bottom line is that the colors are reversed which will take some getting used to. I had to fish the lines through the boom twice which was a major pain in the butt.

I was waiting for the girls at Mamacita's after the 3pm ferry but got tired of waiting by 4:30 and went looking for them. The ferry had just arrived and we met just as they had gotten off the ferry. We had a few drinks at Mamacita's before going back to the boat. One of Mamacita's signature drinks is the bushwacker which they charge $8 for. I was watching the bartender make them and realized we had all the ingredients on the boat. Equal parts vodka, rum, baileys, amaretto, kahlua, and coco lopez. Delicious. After a pitcher of bushwackers we dinghyed back to Mamacita's for dinner which was also delicous.

Sunday morning we took the publico to Flamenco beach and lounged around for a few hours enjoying the wonderful water and beach. We don't often make the effort to make a special trip to the beach living on the boat, but had a great time. The water was warm and calm and we had pina coladas and empanadas.

After returning to the boat we had our Thanksgiving dinner. Amanda made turkey, stuffing, mashed potatos, gravy, cranberry, pumpkin pie (from scratch!) and we had picked up some bread at the local Culebra bakery, Pandeli. It was a delicious dinner and we are still enjoyin the leftovers. We tried to run the air conditioning to counteract the heat generated by the oven, but the boat gods had other plans. After about an hour, the main drive belt on the genset broke.

Monday we wanted to show Margaret some more of the local environs and so headed over to Isla Culebrita. The typical anchorage is on the north side, but since there were 5 ft northerly swells it was a bit too rough on the north side. We saw a bunch of empty moorings on the south side so picked one up. We literally have the whole island to ourselves. There is no one else here. The south side has a lot of coral and we enjoyed snorkeling for a while. Margaret spotted a 6 ft nurse shark which was exciting. After snorkeling for a while, the girls read their books and I fixed the generator (sucessfully). Amazingly we are miles from mainland Culebra, but I am still managing to pick up a wi-fi signal. We brought a great wi-fi antenna back to the boat, and it has already paid for itself in the first week. I can see a couple houses on the hill a few miles from here, so we must be picking up one of them.

Tomorrow (Tuesday) we are planning to sail down to the south coast of Vieques and explore some of the anchorages down there before delivering Margaret back to San Juan to fly home on Saturday.

Happy Thanksgiving!

The past couple of days have been a final push to get the boat ready before my sister Margaret comes for a visit on the 27th. We managed to put the sails back on, reinstall the main lazy jacks, flag halyards, and jib topping lift, maintained the winches, and a bunch of other things. Kevin went up the mast twice to reinstall various lines which we had taken down in preparation for hurricane season. We try to be as productive as possible from 7am until it gets too hot to do anything. It's been soul-suckingingly hot and humid here. We have a weatherstation/clock that tells you the temp (88-plus degrees inside the boat) and the humidity (50 to 60 percent). It also has an indicator that is either a happy face or sad face depending on conditions (temperature, humidity, barometric pressure, etc.). We have yet to see the happy face displayed. :(

We are anchored in a harbor lined with mangroves so the mosquitoes are unrelenting as well. One of the bartenders at Mamacita's calls Off! the "eau de Culebra" because everyone has to wear it to keep the bugs at bay. This morning we had Thanksgiving brunch at Mamacita's; they had awesome food and the drinks (bushwhackers) were just what we needed. Tonight we are grilling steaks on Solstice. Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Carlos Rosario Marine Preserve, Culebra

We left the Puerto del Rey Marina at first light on Sunday, making the three-hour passage to Culebra under power. Both engines seemed to be working fine and neither one was belching black smoke so that's always good.

The past few days have been spent fixing the genset (Kevin) and cleaning up the interior of the boat (me). Kevin spent a backbreaking day hunched over in the genset locker, cleaning parts, fixing connectors, and sweating like crazy. His hard work paid off, as he was able to get the engine to turn over after seven straight hours of labor. We now can recharge our batteries when they get low, which means that we can run the watermaker (which also works -- hooray) to keep our tanks topped off. Kevin definitely has the magic touch when it comes to anything mechanical. He is ecstatic to be back on the boat and in his element.

For me it has been more of a struggle. First off, every cabinet, closet, locker and interior storage space was filled with what looks like light yellow dust but is actually mold. Every time I opened a new cupboard I was thoroughly appalled and disgusted by what I saw (and smelled). I had a few minor psychological breakdowns. I didn't want to touch anything, let alone cook and sleep here! Eventually I just threw on a respirator and started cleaning. All the dishes and galley cupboards are now spotless and I've worked my way through about 80% of the rest of the boat. It's slow going but I am getting there.

Yesterday afternoon we were able to do some snorkeling. We are on a mooring in a marine preserve and the reef is just a few hundred feet from the boat. The coral heads are teeming with sea life. We've pretty much had the place to ourselves except for a couple of daycharter snorkeling excursions. Today after lunch we will head into Dewey (the only town on the island of Culebra). Hopefully there will be a package waiting for us containing the parts Kevin needs to fix both toilets.

Leaving the Marina

[Kevin's Post]After five hectic days in the marina we are ready to get going. Everything is put away and all the critical systems appear to be working. I fixed the instruments this morning, there was a corroded connector on the autopilot preventing any of the instruments from getting power. I got one of the toilets working, after tearing it apart four times. Ironically, afterwards I found a big box of spare parts for the toilets that would have solved all my problems. I had already ordered spare parts which will be waiting for us in Culebra. Between the newly found parts and the new parts I ordered I should be able to get the other one working. Aren't you glad your toilets work on gravity alone? Ok, I know, enough about the toilets.

Some ex-boater friends of ours, Mike and Renee, previously of Jacumba, are now living in St. Kitts and stopped by Solstice while they were in Puerto Rico doing some shopping. It is difficult or even impossible to find decent clothing, housewares, etc., at reasonable prices on many islands in the Caribbean. Many locals will travel to Puerto Rico just to go shopping, or have family bring things while they are visiting. It was fun catching up with them and hearing about life on St. Kitts. We had some drinks on the boat, then went to a local pizza place.

Tomorrow if all goes as planned, we are motoring about 20 miles to the west coast of Culebra. We haven't had time to put the sails on yet, but since our destination is straight upwind it doesn't make much difference. Trying to sail straight upwind on windpower alone is way too much work for anyone but the purist. Besides, it will be a good shakedown for the engines after their lengthy storage.

In the Water

[Kevin's Post]We couldn't have asked for better weather for our launch than what we had yesterday. There was hardly a cloud in the sky and very light winds. We were both pretty nervous about maneuvering the boat for the first time in 18 months and discovering exactly what equipment did and did not work. Our objectives for the day were to back the boat out of the travelift bay, head over to the fuel dock to top off the diesel, and tie up in our slip. Hopefully without hitting anything. I had run both the diesel engines for a while in the yard, so I knew the engines would at least start, but we weren't sure what other problems might appear. Before we were even in the water we discovered that all the navigation instruments were dead. No depth sounder, no wind speed, no wind direction. Wind speed and wind direction are useful tidbits of information when trying to dock a 10 ton boat. Fortunately the wind was light so the lack of instrumentation wouldn't complicate things too much. We backed out of the bay and were pleased to discover that the transmissions on both engines seemed to be working just fine. We were also pleased to discover that the starboard engine was no longer belching black smoke like it was before we put the boat in storage. I had spent a day in the yard replacing the exhaust elbow on this engine thinking that it might be the problem and apparently it was. We docked at the fuel dock like old pros and after fueling radioed ahead for some dockhands to help us tie up in the slip. The whole thing was fairly anticlimactic really.

After we were secure in the slip, we began to test the equipment we couldn't check out in the yard. We were relieved to find that the air conditioning worked just fine and also the water pump (for the faucets, showers, etc.) The outboard doesn't look or sound pretty (it never did), but at least it started up and runs in forward and reverse. Neither of the toilets are working and the port shower sump is DOA also. So, it looks like we will be using the marina facilities for a while until I can fix these problems.

It would have been nice to relax after 5 days toiling in the boat yard, but we only had the car for another 24 hours so had to hurry and provision the boat. We were up very late last night and early again this morning trying to organize in the hours we couldn't be out shopping. Today it was go, go, go as we tried to hit Sam's Club, Grande (local grocery store), K-mart, West Marine, Pep-Boys, and also get the propane refilled. Miraculously, we managed to get all our errands done and return the car on time. We'll spend the next few days getting things organized and making repairs and hopefully leave the marina after the weekend.

The marina is very large and has a golf cart service that picks you up and drops you off at your boat. Today we shared a cart with a couple on another boat a few slips down and they invited us over for drinks this evening. We took some rum we had bought in St. Vincent a couple years ago and spent the evening chit-chatting about boating life and sipping rum & cokes. Not a bad end to our first day back in the water.

Go for launch!

[Kevin's Post] Solstice is officially ready to splash tomorrow. If they can get the travelift to the boat without getting stuck in the mud. That's a big "if". We awoke this morning to the sound of thunder and pouring rain and knew it wasn't going to be a pleasant day in the yard. Driving to the boatyard the roads were so bad I was wondering if we were going to end up as one of those half submerged disabled vehicles we always see on the local news in AZ during monsoon season. With every puddle I'm thinking, "I wonder how deep that is?" The water pressure in the storm drains was enough that we saw at least one manhole cover that had come off and others had geysers coming through them shooting several feet in the air. There were plenty of Puerto Ricans out driving though so I figured it was safe enough, and we did make it to the yard just fine. We are very motivated to get this boat in the water. If it rains much more, the water will come to the boat and we won't need the lift.

We spent the rainy day finishing a few odd chores and organizing the interior of the boat. There has hardly been room to walk around for the past several days as every square inch of floor space was covered with stuff we hauled in from Phoenix. So we made the best of the rainy weather by focusing on interior chores. We also needed to make room for provisions. Before we head out for any length of time, we try to stock up on as much non-perishable and frozen food as we can fit on the boat. Every place we go generally has small markets, but the choices are limited and prices are high. In Puerto Rico, the grocery stores are excellent, other islands not so much. They even have Sam's Club here. It's not quite like your Sam's club, they sell stuff like whole pigs and septic tanks in addition to the regular fare. We made one trip to Sam's Club today to get the unrefrigerated items and spent almost $700. We'll go again for cold/frozen items either tomorrow or Wednesday. I'm still looking for someplace I can store a pig on the boat.

If all goes as planned, tomorrow we will be sleeping on the boat in a slip at the marina. Keep your fingers crossed.

We're Gonna Need a Bigger Bolt

It's Sunday afternoon and I am sitting in the air-conditioned hotel room typing this, while Kevin is toiling away at the boatyard in the hot Puerto Rican sun. He won't allow me to help work on the boat today, but more on that later.

Yesterday morning started off so smoothly. We had found exactly the type of oil Kevin needed for the two saildrives. We had also discovered a leftover can of bottom paint from our last haulout that was three-quarters full. It will be just barely enough to cover the bows and transoms and a few other areas that are bare to the gelcoat. Kevin got to work on changing the saildrive oil while I started masking for painting the bottom. I was just finishing that task when I heard some quiet cursing coming from under the saildrive. Moments later, Kevin walked up and said "We are screwed. I stripped the threads on the port saildrive plug." He was holding a tiny bolt in his hand and I said, "That's no problem, I'm sure you can take that bolt over to the chandlery and find another one that's a similar size and shape." He shook his head, "No, you don't understand. I didn't strip the threads on the bolt, I stripped the threads INSIDE the saildrive itself." Oh. This was a major problem. The saildrives are the parts that attach the propellers to the diesel engines. They are underwater all the time so the bolt has to fit perfectly to prevent water getting in, but it also has to be removable so that you can change the saildrive oil every year or so. Our saildrives are old models that aren't sold anymore, and even if they were it would be very expensive to replace the whole drive. So Kevin was right. We were indeed screwed.

Of course these types of things always happen on a weekend so the Volvo mechanic Kevin tried calling did not pick up. After quite a bit of thought, Kevin went to Sears with the idea of picking up a tapping set to make a bigger hole in the saildrive. Risky, but what else could we do? He also went into the office to postpone our launch two more days, to Tuesday instead of Sunday. While he did that I took an inventory of all the canned food we had left aboard the boat. Note to self: next time don't leave ANYTHING edible aboard. Most of the cans were fine but very rusty on the outside (yuck). But there were a few where the tops and bottoms were puffing out. Mmm...botulism, anyone? So quite a few cans went into the garbage bin. I'm still not sure we want to eat the stuff that's in the rusty cans, but we'll clean them off and see if they're okay, I guess.

Kevin returned with a tapping set and a slightly bigger bolt and started work on drilling out the hole in the saildrive. Meanwhile I kept going with the prep work for painting. I began wet sanding the areas where the new coats of paint would go and by the time I'd finished, Kevin was also done with the new threads for the new bolt. After shortening the new bolt with a hacksaw, it fit perfectly. Way to go, Kevin! We had an hour left until the yard closed so we wanted to get at least one coat of paint on. We were both painting, but I was wearing a bunny suit which was very hot. Stupidly, neither one of us were wearing masks. After forty-five minutes I started feeling headachy and nauseated from the fumes and went to sit in the shade. Kevin finished up the first coat himself and we cleaned up and went back to the hotel, which is where the fun started.

We both showered and were planning to celebrate our saildrive victory at a local sit-down restaurant, rather than yet another night of fast food. But what's that saying? "If you want to make God laugh, make plans". Before we could leave for dinner my headache went from mild to severe and I was soon puking my guts out. Kevin did a quick internet search on my symptoms and suspected I had heat exhaustion and dehydration, so he ran out to get some gatorade and pedialyte. But I couldn't even keep two sips of any liquid down without making another mad dash to the bathroom. It felt like the mother of all hangovers. After four hours of misery, Kevin finally convinced me that we had to go to the hospital.

We drove to the hospital around 10pm, past an odd gathering of fifty or so men on horseback weaving in and out of traffic (???! At first I thought I was hallucinating, but Kevin saw it too so I guess that's just the typical party scene on Saturday night in Fajardo). We managed to find the ER and there were a few staffers who spoke English, thankfully. The doctor advised that I was definitely dehydrated from not drinking enough water, but that the paint fumes were what probably did me in. I was given a bag of IV fluids laced with pepcid and reglan to quell the nausea. (Which, ironically, were the exact same medications we gave to our cat Boris every day for the last few months of his life...it was weird to be on the other end of the needles this time). It didn't take long for me to start feeling much better and by 2am the fluids had finished. I was discharged and we headed back to the hotel and fell into bed, exhausted.

So today poor Kevin is slaving away at the boat, while I lounge at the hotel. He plans to put a couple more coats of paint on (while wearing a MASK this time!) and run both engines. So it's not a total disaster and we are making some progress. In fact I *think* we might even still launch on Tuesday as planned, but I can faintly hear God laughing (and I can CLEARLY hear loud peals of thunder) so we'll just have to wait and see what old Solstice throws at us next.

"Life of Leisure": Day Two

I won't bore you all with the long litany of tasks we had set for ourselves this morning. Instead let me summarize: if it moves and it's not supposed to, use duct tape; if it doesn't move and it should, break out the WD-40. That last part came in very handy today. Seized bolts were the theme of the day: three bolts on the starboard engine, every bolt on the "Beast" (our dinghy outboard), the zippers on the dodger were stuck, the windlass would not budge an inch, and even the lock to the front door needed a jolt of dubya-dee.

Did I mention that it was 91 degrees (a record) with 69 percent humidity? Recently living through two dry Arizona summers did not prepare us for the amount of perspiration a single person can generate in those conditions. Kevin was soaked through by 9:30 am. He valiantly replaced the starboard exhaust elbow while standing in an ever-expanding puddle of his own sweat (the ambient temp inside the boat was considerably hotter and more humid than the daily forecast). I was ankle-deep in squishy mud while cleaning the waterline and I kept smelling this awful smell...by midday I realized with horror that it was me -- not the mud -- that reeked. Ah, this glamorous life!

Back to Work

This morning we arrived at the boatyard with a mix of anticipation and dread. Funny thing about boats: parts break, rust, seize, and/or disintegrate whether you are using it constantly or not. So we weren't sure what to expect after eighteen months of Solstice sitting idle.

The day started off with a light drizzle. It's been raining all week so when we pulled up to the boat we saw that it was perched above a shallow sea of mud and muck. We climbed up the ladder and removed our flip-flops immediately so as not to track gunk everywhere. We needn't have bothered. The cockpit was covered in sludgy slime and small pebbles. There was even a small garden of weeds sprouting on the underside of the bimini ceiling. With a sigh we went to the door. There on the doormat was a soggy dead tree frog. No joke. I think I actually said to Kevin, "You know, we don't have to go inside. We could just turn around and go back home. No one has to know." But Kevin could not be tempted.

Our spirits were lifted the minute we opened the door. First off, and most importantly, the boat did NOT smell like bilge and mildew (much). So that was a great start. Other pleasant surprises were that our new wi-fi antenna and flat-panel TV had both arrived without incident and were waiting for us in the salon. Priorities, right? So we got straight to work unloading the van with all our luggage (three fifty-pound duffle bags). Then it was time for the moment of truth: removing the new table from the crate. Kevin had packed it so well it was practically encased in carbonite. We had to rip the spray foam off in chunks before we finally got to the saran-wrapped table itself. Not a scratch...success!!!

Elated from that small victory we got to work re-installing the trampolines. The entire front of the boat is made up of two big sheets of mesh instead of hard fiberglass. We had removed both of them for hurricane season, which made walking around on deck kind of risky since neither of us wanted to start off cruising season with a nasty fall. While we were working on that, our boat caretaker Betsy rolled up and apologized for not having the boat decks clean and ready for us before we got here. She then proceeded to thoroughly clean every surface of the boat exterior. So overall we are pretty pleased with the shape the boat is in. Don't get me wrong, there are a million things to do in the next few days before we can get the boat back in the water: change about five differnt kinds of oil, run the engines, re-install the outboard, un-seize the windlass, load the anchor chain, and wax the fiberglass to name a few. Oh, and touch up the bottom paint. Which is going to be difficult since we just found out that our brand of bottom paint was discontinued at some point in the last eighteen months. Oh well. The yard closed at five and we had hot showers and cable TV waiting for us back at the hotel. There's only so much you can do in a day.

Puerto Rico!

[Kevin's Post] Our day began today at 4:30 AM Phoenix time, and now sixteen hours later I'm laying in bed in Fajardo listening to the tree frogs which are so loud even the blasting air conditioning can't drown them out. Back in Phoenix we spent the last several days packing up the nearly 300 pounds of junk we wanted to bring to the boat. Our bags must have been a TSA nightmare with a wide variety of unusual metal and electronic items scattered among dive gear, books, clothes, and other sundries. I think we have about half a diesel engine in there. Each of our three duffels were carefully weighed and arranged to come in just under the 50 lb limit. Adding to the fun was the 85lb crate containing the new boat table. I've been worrying about how we were going to get this to the boat for months now, turns out the cheapest way was to just check it as baggage and pay the oversize/overweight fees. I had to custom design the crate specifically to come in under the max weight and dimensions allowed by American Airlines. The whole table is encased in spray-in polyurethane foam and sandwiched between two pieces of plywood. At check-in we explained that it was a table. The woman checking us in said she always travels with her table too. Everyone's a comedian. I haven't opened the crate yet, but judging from the outside it appears to be in pretty good shape.

We didn't arrive in San Juan until 8:30PM local time and by the time we got to Fajardo it was nearly 11, so we haven't been to see the boat yet. That will be first on the agenda tomorrow. We are spending a few nights in a hotel until we can get the boat in the water. We were tentatively planning to launch on Saturday, but the forecast is for unusually rainy weather due to the remnants of Hurricane Ida, so that will probably slow down our preparations. Driving to Fajardo, everything seemed pretty dry so we're hoping the forecast is wrong. Tomorrow will be an interesting day, as we discover what kind of condition the boat is in after sitting unused for 18 months. More to come. . .

Packing our bags. . .

[Kevin's Post] Wow, you're still checking our blog? Well, your persistence has paid off because things are starting to get interesting again. Hurricane season 2009 is coming to a close and after an 18 month hiatus we are preparing to head back to the boat in November, a year later than we originally planned. Our cat & crewmate, Boris, was diagnosed with chronic kidney failure shortly after our return to Phoenix. So, we decided to take a season off to let him live out his remaining days in comfort and also to work and replenish the coffers a bit.

New Boat Table

We've enjoyed our time back on land, there's a lot to be said for air conditioning, electricity, and American grocery stores. I apparently couldn't handle not having boat projects to consume my time, so I managed to find a boat project I could work on in Phoenix. I built a new salon table for the boat. I've always hated the table on the boat which is just plain gray formica. I wanted a nice wood tabletop that would match the rest of the interior woodwork on the boat. So, I designed and built a new table made of cherry with a maple inlay. In the process I managed to cut my thumb with a chisel requiring hand surgery. Yep, three years on a boat with no problems, I come home and suffer a major injury on a boat project. Anyway, the table turned out pretty good, you can hardly see the blood stains.

The front room of our house has a growing mound of engine parts, watermaker filters, boat electronics, and assorted other boating paraphernalia. The UPS guy is well familiar with our address since he is making pretty much daily deliveries. All of this is going to get packed up and carted to PR in November. Between the two of us, we can bring four 50 pound bags, and I plan to use every last pound of our checked baggage allowance. The table is too big to check as baggage, so I am going to have to build a crate for it and ship it to PR by freight (hopefully keeping all 10 fingers in the process).

You may have noticed that our blog format has changed a bit. The banner at the top now shows Solstice's current location along with the local weather conditions. We can report our location by texting twitter and it will automatically update the blog, so our location reports should be more frequent now. On the left, you see a random slideshow of photos taken by other people within 5 miles of Solstice's location. This will give you some idea of what the vicinity of the boat looks like. Remember, we didn't take these and have no idea what might pop up here, so if you see a fat guy in a thong, don't blame us. Also on the left is a marine weather forecast. On the right is the same old filmstrip of recent photos, but now if you mouseover them you'll see a larger version with a description. I hope you've got broadband. I've tested all this in IE 7/8, Firefox and Chrome so hopefully the new content works for everybody.

We're planning to spend the entire cruising season (Nov-June) in the area of Puerto Rico and the US/British Virgin Islands. After seeing pretty much the entire Eastern Caribbean, this area is one of our favorites. There are lots of great anchorages, awesome diving, restaurants and bars, boat facilities, and grocery stores. Also, having US mail service nearby makes shipping parts and getting mail easy. Flying in and out of San Juan is cheap and convenient ($450 from Phoenix) so we are hoping to have plenty of visitors. Now accepting reservations . . .