Well it's been about a week and the weather has been pretty unsettled, so we've chosen to stay put at Ocean World Marina. It's been nice having air conditioning, reliable internet, and unlimited freshwater (well, it's 25 cents a gallon so we are still conserving!). The ocean park next door has all kinds of exhibits and shows -- dolphins, sea lions, even tigers -- but we probably won't be buying tickets. We did go over to the lunch restaurant in the park, where for free you can sit outside and eat while watching the sea lion interaction show. Pretty entertaining, but still not enough to tempt us to spend 55 bucks each to get into the park to see the rest of it. Besides, we can see the nightly fireworks pretty clearly just sitting in our cockpit.
Kevin has been working on several boat projects this week, fixing the liner under our anchor chain, repairing the icemaker, repairing some nicks in the bottom paint above the waterline. There are quite a few things still left to do on our list before we consider the boat "ready" for sale. But most of those will have to wait until we get to FL and near a proper chandlery/hardware store.
We've been watching the weather pretty closely and are hoping to make the 200 mile hop to Mayaguana starting Thursday night April 1st. The forecast predicts winds under 20 knots and moderate seas. Hopefully it is correct and not mother nature playing an april fool's joke on us! As an added incentive for us to get home quickly, our mail service has informed me that I am supposed to report to court in Phoenix for jury duty May 3rd.
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Thursday, March 25, 2010
Ocean World
We left Isleta Marina in Fajardo early Tuesday to begin our trip to the Dominican Republic. Everything was great the first morning, we were enjoying a leisurely downwind sail congratulating ourselves for having picked such a great weather window. We even saw several humpback whales frolicking in the water. But after lunch we found out why nobody ever sails the north coast of Puerto Rico. By midafternoon, the sun has heated up the land mass of PR enough to cause a "sea breeze" which accelerates the tradewinds to ferocious speeds. We had a forecast for 9-13 knot winds, but got 25-30. Fortunately we were sailing downwind so it was manageable. Unfortunately there is no place to hide on the north coast so we had to stick it out for a good 10 hours until the sun set and the winds calmed down.
After the first night things settled down and went pretty much as expected. We saw more whales on day 2, and had to dodge a bit of big ship traffic. The weather was great, not too windy, no rain at all. The whole trip took 51 hours to go 307 miles. This was our longest passage yet, and we shouldn't have to do any more this long for the rest of the trip home.
We decided to stay at the opulent Ocean World marina instead of the harbor of Luperon (the only other option in the area and where we stayed on the southbound trip). Luperon is not such a nice place, and it's hard to imagine we are even in the same country. Ocean World is like a little piece of Vegas dropped into the DR. They have a casino, spa, broadway-style dinner shows, upscale restaurants, and a massive aquatic theme park along the lines of Sea World. You can even swim with the dolphins if you're willing to spend $165. We plan to enjoy the amenities here for a few days before continuing on to the Bahamas.
Location=Ocean World Marina, Dominican Republic
Lat=19 49.671
Lon=70 43.804
After the first night things settled down and went pretty much as expected. We saw more whales on day 2, and had to dodge a bit of big ship traffic. The weather was great, not too windy, no rain at all. The whole trip took 51 hours to go 307 miles. This was our longest passage yet, and we shouldn't have to do any more this long for the rest of the trip home.
Location=Ocean World Marina, Dominican Republic
Lat=19 49.671
Lon=70 43.804
Monday, March 22, 2010
Homeward Bound
For those of you who are still actually checking this blog, an apology for how lax we have been in keeping up the posts. It's not that we've been particularly busy, just that we've been particularly lazy. So...where did we leave off?
Actually we have some fairly big news. We have decided that our Caribbean adventures are coming to an end and are planning to put the boat up for sale in May. We've had a wonderful time, made some fantastic lifelong friends (we hope our cruising friends will keep in touch), made very few enemies (but they know who they are...we're talking to you, St. John Postal Workers!) but we feel it's time to move on to other adventures. So for several weeks we hung out in Culebra, watching the weather and slowly working through our list of boat fixes to get Solstice ready for sale. We also spent quite a bit of time just surfing the internet, ha-ha!
While we were in Culebra, our friend Teresa got in touch to see if we had some availability for a visit. We got back to her with the response "yes but only if you come quick". And she was on a plane within days, talk about flexible travel plans! She took a small eight-seater flight to meet us in Culebra where we did some snorkeling for a few days and then had a lovely sail over to Fajardo on the Puerto Rican mainland. The three of us took the ferry over to Vieques island where Starwood is opening up a new W hotel this coming Friday, so we had a nice pre-opening tour of the place. It is amazing, with two beaches, three infinity pools and rooms with fantastic views. For Teresa's last day with us, we rented a car and did a quick tour of El Yunque (the rainforest) before dropping her off at the Sheraton in San Juan. The Sheraton there is another beautiful property and we enjoyed a delicious lunch with Teresa's friend Julio who is the controller at the hotel. After lunch it was time for us to say goodbye to Teresa, but it was a nice visit and great to see a familiar face from work!
After dropping Teresa off this afternoon, we have been going nonstop (groceries, marine store, last-minute boat fixes, updating blog...sigh!) as we are planning a dawn departure tomorrow (Tuesday) for Ocean World Marina in Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic. It will take us 2-3 days to get there but we hope to go fast enough to arrive in daylight Thursday. We don't plan on staying long, taking the first available weather window from there to the Bahamas, and then hopefully making our way to Fort Lauderdale as fast as we possibly can. If any of you are interested in having your own adventures, we've got the boat for you!
Location=Fajardo, Puerto Rico
Lat=18 20.324
Lon=65 37.285
Actually we have some fairly big news. We have decided that our Caribbean adventures are coming to an end and are planning to put the boat up for sale in May. We've had a wonderful time, made some fantastic lifelong friends (we hope our cruising friends will keep in touch), made very few enemies (but they know who they are...we're talking to you, St. John Postal Workers!) but we feel it's time to move on to other adventures. So for several weeks we hung out in Culebra, watching the weather and slowly working through our list of boat fixes to get Solstice ready for sale. We also spent quite a bit of time just surfing the internet, ha-ha!
While we were in Culebra, our friend Teresa got in touch to see if we had some availability for a visit. We got back to her with the response "yes but only if you come quick". And she was on a plane within days, talk about flexible travel plans! She took a small eight-seater flight to meet us in Culebra where we did some snorkeling for a few days and then had a lovely sail over to Fajardo on the Puerto Rican mainland. The three of us took the ferry over to Vieques island where Starwood is opening up a new W hotel this coming Friday, so we had a nice pre-opening tour of the place. It is amazing, with two beaches, three infinity pools and rooms with fantastic views. For Teresa's last day with us, we rented a car and did a quick tour of El Yunque (the rainforest) before dropping her off at the Sheraton in San Juan. The Sheraton there is another beautiful property and we enjoyed a delicious lunch with Teresa's friend Julio who is the controller at the hotel. After lunch it was time for us to say goodbye to Teresa, but it was a nice visit and great to see a familiar face from work!
After dropping Teresa off this afternoon, we have been going nonstop (groceries, marine store, last-minute boat fixes, updating blog...sigh!) as we are planning a dawn departure tomorrow (Tuesday) for Ocean World Marina in Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic. It will take us 2-3 days to get there but we hope to go fast enough to arrive in daylight Thursday. We don't plan on staying long, taking the first available weather window from there to the Bahamas, and then hopefully making our way to Fort Lauderdale as fast as we possibly can. If any of you are interested in having your own adventures, we've got the boat for you!
Location=Fajardo, Puerto Rico
Lat=18 20.324
Lon=65 37.285
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