Temporary Interruption

Due to lack of computer battery charger, we are unable to post blogs until we get new one. We hope that will happen within 7-10 days from now. In the meanwhile, our adventures continue and will be reported.

300 Miles @ 7 Knots

We raised anchor at 12:45 on Saturday and dropped it again at 8:45 Monday morning so elapsed time for the 300 miles was 43 hours which averages 6.97 knots. But we could have gone quite faster and had to slow ourselves down to be assured to arrive in daylight.  When have I ever before tried to go slow!!! We left 2.75 hours after the other boats in our little flotilla and that was my mistake—we should have left five hours later in the day on Saturday. Then we could have let ILENE loose to do what she likes to do best; she is a fast girl.

At departure, the winds which had howled from the east each day, were mild and from the northwest, in our face, so though the mainsail was up, it was not working and we motored out of the channel and though some twelve foot deep shoals off shore. By three pm the wind had shifted north so we could sail on a starboard beat and then on a close reach and we unfurled the small jib. At 4 pm we shut off the engine. Our course put us too far north of Mona Island (after which the Mona passage is named) to see it; but we did see Isla Descheo, an ex volcano about a mile square,  that I had never heard of, ten miles to starboard. At 6 pm, anticipating nightfall, 

we reefed the main but we were still making 7.5 knots.  These rollers are coming at our starboard side.

Lene stood the early watch from 8 to midnight, alone, while I tried to sleep, but we were crashing through some big seas so sleep was difficult to obtain. We both listened to music on Lene’s iPod, which made the watches fly by. “Standing” is perhaps the wrong word to use for our watches because as the automatic pilot steered, we lay down on comfortable cushions, rising at the ends of “cuts” of music to get up and carefully scan the horizon searching for the light of other boats in the neighborhood and being ready to change sails or their trim if conditions warranted. We were also wearing foulies because of the cool weather and spray and were tethered from the harness to a line that was secured around the cockpit, with jacklines to tether too if we had to go forward of the cockpit.

Before nightfall, one freighter crossed our bow, at a distance of about five miles and during Lene’s watch, another passed us, going the other way, port to port, several miles southwest of us. We overtook the other boats in our little flotilla, but at distances too far to see them, except for one sail that we saw on Sunday, far behind us and whose lights we watched Sunday night, who turned our to be Viau. Otherwise: no other boats. Calling in at 4 pm and 8 am gave us the assurance that the others were OK and available should we need help.

We saw the northeast coast of The Dominican Republic starting during the first night when we saw lights on shore, and then the rugged mountainous coast until mid afternoon, but at a distance of 12 to 20 miles.  On Sunday morning we were still going too fast so we furled the jib, making the rest of the passage under reefed main alone.

Three bad but not terrible things occurred. First, a little round bodied, bright yellow bird with grey wings landed on the dinghy behind me during the afternoon, about 30 miles off shore, seeking a respite from the winds which were about 25 knots. Lene saw it and alerted me to look behind me. The bird next flew into the dodger, where there was less wind. Alphie saw it too. Her eyes widened as big as I have ever seen -- the eye of the tiger. You cannot take the hunting instinct out of cats. Alphie sprang and caught the bird in her mouth. Lene sprang too and freed the bird which flew away, probably thinking “Some refuge that was!” But in saving the bird, Lene banged her left rib cage against the back of the port coach roof. Ouch! Arnica gel prevented the visible black and blue mark but not the pain of her bruised ribs. All this too quick for the camera.

Second, our new US flag, that Jerry and Louise had brought to us in the Virgins, had a burial at sea. I had affixed it to our new and improved flagpole, but not securely enough for the sustained 25 knots of Sunday. It blew off.

Third, our boom vang broke.

 This is an adjustable length aluminum tube that forms a triangle between the mast and the boom. It is attached at the back of the very lowest point on the mast with about eight large rivets. It’s aft end is attached further aft to the bottom of the boom. Its primary purpose is to hold the boom down; the boom would lift above horizontal due to the wind pushing against the sail, if not held down. Well the rivets gave way and its forward lower end was rubbing against the deck and the boom was high. I called to Lene to come out to operate the line that controls the length of the vang while I went to the mast with a length of green line and lashed the vang to the boom so it was out of the way. The next step was to tie another line around the boom, lead it to the midship cleat and then aft to the winch so we could pull the boom back down to horizontal.

We also ran into a torrential rainstorm for about an hour Sunday afternoon. I saw a big cloud and diverted from NNE to E to try to outrun it and we did outrun that cloud, but it was merely the vanguard of the bigger cloud behind it. The good news was that there was no thunder or lightning or the high winds usually associated with the passage of a cold front. The winds clocked around and we used the motor for that hour. After the storm the air was colder; the boat had a good freshwater rinsing, to wash off some of the caked on salt that had accumulated from the spray.

Sunday night we were still going too fast with just the reefed main, so I depowered that sail – trimmed it to NOT optimize the wind for speed. As a result, Viau was much closer to us, though still several miles behind, when I came on watch at about 1 am Monday morning. I calculated that we no longer had to worry about being too early, trimmed the sail and sped away from Viau.

Our diet of hot cereal for breakfasts, salad for lunches and hot food for dinner was excellent; my compliments to Chef Ilene. One night we had a dish she invented that I have suggested she send in to the sailing magazines which publish recipes for “one pot” meals for underway sailors. She fried up rounds of chorizo sausage with cubanel peppers, onions and a few mushrooms and stirred in precooked brown rice with chick peas. And topped it all off with grated parmesan cheese. Filling, warm and delicious!

Lene is really getting the hang of this. She can tell from the color of the light, which side of the other boat we are seeing, and by looking at the light against a fixed point on our boat such as a stanchion, from a fixed point on our boat of her head, she can tell whether it is going to pass in front or behind us or hit us. She now uses the computer’s “cross track error” reading to keep us on our path. I am very proud of both ILENEs.

Here is Big Sand key looking south and then looking west. We did not go ashore.

Posted from Providentiales, Turks and Caicos.

Boqueron, and Farewell to Puerto Rico

Since our entry into Puerto Rico at Culebra on Valentine’s Day, we have put into eight of its ports, the last being Boqueron, for seven nights, leaving Saturday, March 10 after 26 days in this “nation”. Boqueron is a big “V” shaped bay, with a wide rounded bottom. It is two miles wide at its mouth and perhaps two and half miles deep, indented into the west coast of  P.R., toward its southern end.  It is protected by a big reef across its mouth, with two channels through it, one toward the south, with a big green buoy in the middle, is about .2 miles wide. The other is at its north side and well charted but not marked. We came in through the southern channel and left through the northern one.

The southwest tip of Puerto Rico is Cabo Rojo which means Red Cape, because there are some reddish rocks in its cliffs (sort of like Gay Head on Martha’s Vinyard). It has a large beautiful lighthouse on it and although you may not be able to experience its majesty from the picture, passing Cabo Rojo in our boat, right to left, was indeed a majestic sight!

Our passage to Boqueron from La Parguera was rather fast and we used only the small jib, with no main. It got more exciting after we had rounded Cabo Rojo and headed north, bringing the wind abeam, and very exciting shooting the passage and heading into the bay on a beat in 28 to 30 knots apparent wind. The town is in the northeast corner of the bay, with a big marina for power boats easily seen. To the marina's right is the main yachtie restaurant/bar, Galloways, though when we went there the yachties had taken the night off. Further right is the dinghy dock plaza, focal point of the tourist town.

Then comes a private canal cut into the beach for the big boats of the condo owners whose apartments on both sides, provide pretty good hurricane protection.

They had to build a draw bridge for pedestrians, which connects the town to the right with the beach to the left.

 Finally comes the beach, about a mile long, with palms planted in rows behind it.

The waterfront area is filled with restaurants and bars, many of which are closed during the week. The town fills up on weekends, especially with kids from the colleges nearby who love to strut through the town in their bikinis. The residential areas are set further back from the beachfront with a school, a Catholic and Seventh Day Adventist Church, a fire house, post office, a small market which refills propane tanks, etc. One of the town’s specialties is clams and oysters, small, dug from the nearby mangroves, arrayed in piles on counter tops of  the stands that line the streets, such as this one at dinghy dock plaza.

 I must confess that we did not partake, partly because ice was nowhere evident. Several restaurants offer patrons free wifi but no coverage is available out in the anchorage.

We anchored in 16 feet of water with 80 feet of chain out, and there was plenty of room for more boats. The wind as all along the south coast of Puerto Rico, blew pretty hard every day but died down to dead calm at night. The next three photos show dawn—before the wind stirred the waters-- followed by sunrise and sunset. The first and third are views to the west and the middle one looks east.

 

 

Two of our days here were cloudy and one had a steady light rain while the other had a light shower. These cloudy days were less windy.

You would think that the town of Cabo Rojo would be near the cape itself, but you would be wrong. The Cape itself is south of Boqueron and the town of the same name is north of it. Go figure. Further north, in a different bay, is Mayagues, P.R.’s third largest city and an entry and exit point.
Like San Juan and Ponce, it is a port city.

                                                    During a rental car shopping trip, we looked for the US Customs and Immigration Office in Mayagues so we could know where to go to check out. But like the US Virgins, no checkout is needed we were told. And just to make sure we called the 800 number in San Juan where the information was confirmed.

Highlights of our stay  in Boqueron were the aforesaid shopping trip for which we shared the costs with Jim and Lindy, a lovely retired couple aboard “Snowbird” a  38‘  C&C. They are from a small town about an hour north from Toronto, educated, informed, good sailors and fun.  They have spent the last eleven winters down here, staying in a different island group for the three months they allot themselves and then hauling the boat at a marina for the long nine month summer. They emigrated to Canada from Northern Ireland in the ‘70s. We enjoyed discussions of family, religion, history, politics, good books and other subjects. We hope they will visit us when they pass through New York and we have a standing invitation if we ever get up to the Toronto area.

During our shopping excursion we had lunch at the White Pelican, a Cuban style restaurant on the second floor 10 yards from the bay, in the beachfront town of Joyuda. 

We later had a shared dinner aboard after which Lene taught them some new card games. Still another time, we shared a mess of mango pancakes. Jim is a retired engineer and was very essential and generous with help for two of our mechanical problems. 

The first was the oil change which was overdue. ILENE came with a built in electric “X.change.R” pump which makes the oil change easy. But by pressing switch B before switch A, I had caused it to stop so I dinked over to Snowbird to borrow the old fashioned hand pump, which pulls the stuff out through the dip stick hole, which always takes a long hard time, makes a mess and gets out most but not all of the black waste oil. But Jim came with his pump and helped me disassemble the electric pump, guessing, correctly, that it was the impeller I had burned up. Then it turns out that the oil filter is supposed to be only hand tight and I have a plastic wrench marked “Yanmar Oil Filter” but it did not fit the filter so another trip to Snowbird and Jim let me borrow his wrench with a rubber strap with which I was able to get the old filter off.

The second distress call came when we were about to leave. Lene had run the engine in the morning to make the refrigerator cold and everything worked fine. When she turned on the ignition switch at about noon, nothing happened except the beep that occurs when the switch is on but the engine is not. My guess was that the problem was the wiring behind the switch and we started disassembling its cover plates to gain access while Jim dinked over with a jumper cable His idea was to bypass the switch and go directly from the battery to the starter, with his fear that the starter motor was defective. We carry a spare starter motor but I had hoped that that big disassembly and reassembly job would not be required. Once everything that had just been carefully packed away in the aft compartment for the passage was removed, giving access to the battery and the starter, Jim looked in and saw a red wire. Where did this come from? he asked.  He stuck it back in place, Lene turned the key, and Yanmar purred back to life.

Other things we did here were to hire a diver, Macho, to scrape the barnacles from ILENE’s bottom. I can do this down to a depth of about two feet deep, but he did the lower bottom, after directing us to move from the northeast corner of the bay to the southwest corner, where the water was much cleaner so he could better see what he was doing.  We also bought a new pump to replace the one that pumps water overboard that flows from the refrigerator, and the aft shower and sink into a plastic sump. The marine store assured me that Atwood, the manufacturer of the sump unit, had said that the new pump was a replacement for the existing model which no longer works. But the new unit’s discharge hose would not connect to the discharge hole in the side of the plastic sump box. One was an inch higher than the other. The Chandler graciously gave me a refund.

We toured down to Cabo Rojo lighthouse which gave great views of the sea and land from its height on the cliff. Lucky to catch the lightin this shot, which blinks only once every 20 seconds.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   


                                                     The  people on the cliffs give a sense of their size.

And the surf crashes at their foot.

We had watched the sailboat below trying to sail west against the wind; here she is after giving up and heading back to Boqueron. Wait til nightfall!

Happy campers:

We also finally tried and succeeded in getting weather reports from the single sideband radio. A fellow named Chris Parker broadcasts his intelligently analysed reports about the wind and wave speeds and directions for various parts of the Caribbean, and then answers questions from paying subscribers who are planning passages, always asking the same question: When is the best day to go?" Based on his advice to others we decided to leave Puerto Rico on Saturday for the 300 miles to Big Sand Key in the Turks and Caicos, because the strong winds were expected to moderate for a few days starting then. We met up with Jens and Hanne, of Copenhagen, sailing their 37 foot “Viau.” Jens organized a meeting with us and Jenny and Albert of “Magus”, Tammy and Joe of “Tamara Sue” and Chip of "Balmacara" who single handed the 400 miles he went to Great Inagua at Galloways. We all shared information about our boats and agreed to try to speak on set channels at 8 am and 4 pm, on VHF if we were close, or on SSB if we were too separated for the 20 mile range of VHF.

Here is Miguel, at his post at dinghy dock plaza. He is a graduate of InterAmerican University in art, and has one of our boat cards and a magnifying glass in his left hand and a T shirt with a now familiar image stretched on his easel.

Curious Alphie looking down through a hatch with the boom overhead. 

Posted from Providentiales, Turks and Caicos

La Parguera

La Parguera, where we stayed four days and four nights, is named after a type of local fish. The town is at the back of a wide reef-strewn bay. With GPS, navigating between the reefs is easy, especially the buoyed ones. Greens on the left and red on the right.

Most of the reefs not bouyed are visible by the waves crashing over them. Some are even easier to see because mangroves have grown up on them.








A few, which appear as sand bars, have stakes driven into them as a warning.
The next to last set of reefs have less waves because the big waves have been broken by the outer reefs. The final set of reefs are mangroved, and provide enough protection from the remaining seas to permit people to build waterfront houses on pilings.

 We were not sure of the depths in the passages between the last row of cayos  to the right or the depth and anchoring room within, so we anchored outside of them and dinked the short distance into town.

and here is ILENE from town.

 The only dingy dock is behind the boats at the left center of this photo.

The sign says that mooring of dinks is prohibited without permission, but the permission is absolutely granted so our dink is shown tied up in a very secure spot.

We went on several walks. One toward the east (in search of a chandlery which we found, but it did not have what we needed) was through a nice neighborhood of small single family suburban style homes, with dogs, kids and a very well maintained but lived-in look. Once again, we were impressed by how friendly everyone was.  On the way back, we met this critter on a divider in a parking lot. Ilene wanted to bring him back to the boat so the kitties could play with him.  Roger said "NO WAY".

The next day we walked west, into an area with several large Condo projects that looked all boarded up.

We learned that these are the properties of wealthy families from elsewhere who come here on weekends. This town wakes up and becomes crowded on weekends we were told. We stayed until Saturday morning and it was filling in during Friday afternoon and we heard more music that night, but we did not go ashore again, having lifted the dinghy in anticipation of an early departure for Boqueron, our last port in Puerto Rico.

But the town has suffered from the world wide recession. The mall, up the hill, with restaurants, supermarket, a US Post office and a book exchange is boarded up.

 We don’t know if this Gun Club, up the hill, is still open.

 

Perhaps the highlight of our stay was a two mile dinghy ride to look for and find a little creek behind Isla Cueva. We had to shut down our outboard and use our oars to paddle through the mangrove trees. Their branches combined over our heads and shut out the sun.

Their yellow lower shoots try to grow out, curve down into the water, and root, and green shoots stick up everywhere. We believe this back alley is maintained by careful pruning—otherwise the mangroves would grow into the middle and block it.

There was no one here, no boats, no houses, no electric wires, just us. Cool.

While we were playing there,  the daily winds came up. Each night was calm, but you can set your clock by the wind. Promptly each day, from about 9 am to 6 pm it blows hard from the east, 20 knots. So the trip back from Isla Cueva was a wet one from the spray into the dink though we headed north to enter the channel behind the last row of cayos which broke the wind somewhat.

Ilene did a lot of research about where to eat and most folks recommended the Palacio de Mofungo. It didn’t look like much from the outside but many of the best meals come from unprepossessing places. But this food was not great. We met a couple and one of their adult twin sons, visiting Puerto Rico to attend the 100^th anniversary of InterAmerican University which the twin’s great grandfather founded as a Presbyterian missionary who saw the need to teach the people to read so that they could read their bibles. The parents have given up their land base and live in their truck-pulled trailer, four months in the winter in Houston, near family and the other eight in various spots in all of the 48 contiguous states of the USA. They travel only 200 miles per day and stay for a month where they land. Trailer park rentals are more expensive than anchoring but how else can one see the interior of the nation.

A better meal was at La Balcones, paella, $15.95 for two and tasty.

The best meals however were eaten aboard, however. We met Larry (left) and Jean Pierre (right), 

 of “Dove”, a 38 foot Island Packet from Detroit (via the Erie Canal). Larry has been sailing south for several years but not this far south until this year. JP is from Montreal, retired from the Army and met Larry in the Bahamas. Dove was anchored a good distance from us but they accepted Lene’s invitation for mango pancakes.

The only other boat near us was "SeaHab", anchored 50 yards off our port quarter,
 whose dinghy is named "SeaTox".  Here are its owner, left, a fellow New Yorker, and his friend, nice guys and neighbors both here and at home.

I made a mistake a few blogs ago in characterizing Playa Salinas as a "sleepy town". La Parguera makes Salinas look like a bee hive.

Posted from Boqueron.