Puerto Rico

Josh and Connor - the surfer dudes

We had another nice sail from St Thomas to the Spanish Virgin Islands, except for the fact that where the main sheet block is attached to the deck snapped in two so we had a bit of excitement for a few minutes.  The good news about steel boats is that it seems like there are a million eye holes welded everywhere so we just shackled the block to another eye and we were good to go.  

Maria at bat

Culebra is a great place and we enjoyed visiting it again.  We made our way out to Flamingo Beach where we did some surfing and body surfing in decent size waves.  We revisited the cute town and watched the Super Bowl at one of the bars.  We ran into a guy we knew on his 60+ foot boat who needed a little bit of welding done.  It turns out that his friend who had the exact same kind of boat also needed some welding done, so we took Joana into the protected area they were in, rafted up to first one boat and then the other and did a full day's job of welding on the two boats.  Now that is what we call portable welding service!  

Sports day at the baseball field

We decided we had been doing too much eating and drinking, so we decided to have a sports day.  We played softball and kickball and had a great day.  And then we went to the closest bar for a cold beer afterward....you can lead a horse to water...

The Fort in Old San Juan

After a few days in Culebra, we made the day sail over to Farjardo to stock up on supplies at West Marine and Wal-Mart before we went around the north coast to San Juan.  

A little close for comfort

We had heard that San Juan was not safe and it was a poor anchorage and we found neither to be true.  Yes, there is not a ton of room to anchor in San Juan, but not a whole lot of boats go there, so we didn't have a problem.  The bottom is sand/mud and had good holding.  You do, however, need to watch out for the cruise ship docks, however, as our friends on Solmate can testify too.  While the chart says you can anchor where ever you want, cruise ships will sneak in on you, as one did in the middle of the night.  When they went to bed they were in a wide open spot, but when the woke up, they were about 50 feet from the cruise ship.  The ship had a great captain - he snuck in there without waking up anyone!  

Old San Juan's roads

We never worried about safety issues in San Juan and I would recommend making this a stopping point, if you are doing the North Coast.  The main reason why we went there was to see Old San Juan, and it did not disappoint.  Rich in history and beautiful architecture, Old San Juan is a beautiful place to visit.  We were told that the blue cobblestone streets were actually made out of the ballast of the old ships that visited there.  They would off load their ballast to make room for all the gold they were carting back to Europe!

The Puerto Ricans love their music and love to dance.  We continuingly stumbled upon impromptu concerts and people dancing in the streets.  One concert had a full band including drums, horns, keyboard, bongos, saxophones and more!  Women, men and children were all dancing and singing - It was more fun than you can imagine.  

Jamming in the square

We spent a few nights out exploring the nightlife and filling our stomachs with great food.  We managed to meet up with our friends Ronnie and Bobbi who were with us in Grenada for hurricane season and who live in Puerto Rico. 

We rented a car for two days and did an insane amount of provisioning, trying to get ready for Cuba.  Oh, did I mention that we decided to go to Cuba?  Well, more on that in later posts...but first, we have to make it across the dreaded Mona Passage to the Dominican Republic...

Rafting up to do some welding work on another 60 footer

Maria hard at work

Our second raft up of the day!

Cruising the bay in our Laser

The fort

Impromtu concert

What a show!

The British Virgin Islands

That's one way not to get your shirt wet

We had a nice sail through the Anagada Passage.  Winds were on the beam about 18-20 knots, seas running 5-7, also on the beam.  Not too bad for that particular passage.  We went straight to Jost Van Dyke to clear in and then of course had to head to famous Foxy's for a painkiller and a swing in the hammocks on the beach.  The next day we headed to Trellis Bay to meet up with our friends Sabbaticus and go to the Last Resort Bar.  Wouldn't you know that as we were finding an anchoring spot in this crowded anchorage we came a little to close to a shoal and ran soft aground.  A heavy hand on the throttle to our 210 hp Cummins and a push from Solmate and Sabbaticus' dingies and we were floating free within 3 minutes.  Embarrassing, yes, but hey, it happens to everyone and of course we love to give a show to the cruisers having sundowners.  It could have been worse - we could have been French and been naked!

The Baths

Anyway, had a great time at the Last Resort and danced the night away to a great band there.  The next day we all sailed over to the Baths.  The Baths are huge rock formations that you can climb up, around and over in crystal clear water.  This was my first time seeing them and it was awesome!  No moorings were available there, so we had to anchor a little bit away, right next to 2 super yachts, one with an inflatable slide going down to the water!  

Our next stop in the BVIs led us to Peter Island where we hung out for a few days, paddle boarded, snorkeled and generally relaxed.  We had a nice picnic on the beach with our friends that ended in a great bonfire.  

Spider woman

We sailed around the backside of Jost Van Dyke to check out Foxys' daughter's place called Taboo.  The anchorage there is tight and a charter catamaran got in Maria's way and she had a few choice words for them, including yelling "bozos" "how many numbnuts does it take on the bow to pick up a mooring ball" and my favorite "what do you think I'm driving, a frigging Porche""!  When they asked her if she wanted them to move and get out of her way she replied "it's up to you,...you have the gel coat, not me!"  We enrolled her in Foxy's anger management course!  

The final stop was back to Jost to have another great night at Foxy's followed by a very relaxing day around the corner at Ivan's Stress Free Bar where we swam, played frisbee and boccee ball in turquoise blue water and pure white sand.  

Cath and Maria at the Baths

We left the BVIs and made the short hop over to the US side - first to St John and then over to St Thomas.  We spent two great nights in Christmas Cove - a very pretty and protected spot with free moorings and great snorkerling.  We went over to St Thomas and anchored off of Water Island.  We ran into a bunch of our friends from Grenada.  We also got a chance to see our very very funny friends, Hannah and Paddy on Rita T whom we had met in Cape Canaveral and also hung out with in the Bahamas on our way down.  We did lots of dinners and sundowners with them.  We had great days on the beach playing volleyball intersperced with provisioning trips in town.  We were able to fill up our new Dometic freezer with tons of frozen meats and goodies at the Cost-U-Less (think Costco but no membership fee).  

Joana at Sunset

Beach picnic

Maria made some beer money welding up a guy's exhaust.  We have a TIG welder on board complete with a bottle of Argon gas so she has been welding up and down the Caribbean for other cruisers to supplement our cruising kitty.  We don't advertise but get a decent amount of business just by word of mouth.  She is able to weld steel, stainless steel and aluminum.  Our biggest problem actually has been keeping our bottle of Argon full and finding places to refill it.  

Love bonfires on the beach

It was time to go so we kidnapped Connor (a 14 year old on Sabbaticus - we actually did ask first if we could kidnap him) and made our way to Cuelbra.  

Welding job for another cruiser

Beer money for Maria!

Queen of the hill!

From the Bottom to the Top of Saba

Cath's birthday sail to Saba

Having sundowners hanging over the ocean at Shearwater

We had a great sail from St Martin to Saba - and even better it was Cath's birthday (notice, we did not specify which birthday it was!)     This was our second trip to Saba, and it is one of our favorite islands.  We tied up to the free mooring balls in the late afternoon, had a quick cocktail and them went into town to clear in and in search of our friends, Kathy and Picky that live on the island.   Our friends on s/v Ultra and s/v Solmate made the trip from St Martin to Saba with us, so we dragged them into town too.  After clearing in, we found Kathy and Picky, picked up some goodies from the  store and had an impromptu birthday party at their house.  The next day, we hired a local guy with a van and did a full day's island tour, with the highlight being the stop at Shearwater Resort where Kathy works for some sundowners.  The balcony at Shearwater hangs off a cliff and all you can see is blue blue ocean with a few islands speckled in for good measure.  It is truly one of the best places in the Caribbean for a cocktail!

Beautiful diving

Worse than a Stairmaster

We set up a dive trip with a local dive shop.  In Saba, you can only dive with a local guide, so we picked our guide up in our 11 foot Boston Whaler and brought her out to our boat.  Solmate and Ultra then dingied over and we had the dingy train going out to the dive site.  Now, those of you who know Saba know that this in not an easy feat, as there is no such thing as a "calm day" on Saba!  But, our guide was a good sport about it as water was coming in over the gunwales on our low free board skiff!  Our first dive was at the famous Pinnacles and they lived up to their reputation.  The top of the Pinnacles lie in about 80 feet of water and we followed them down to about 110 feet.  The visibility was awesome and there was tons of fish and bright coral.  It was a beautiful dive.  We went back to Joana for lunch and then headed to another dive site.  It had just as much life on it, the visibility was also great and we got a good workout as there was a current ripping through the site!  We made it back to our boats around 1pm and decided that we need more exercise, so we went for a hike up to the top of Saba!  We are nuts!  We hiked through the rain forest and up pseudo stairs for 3 hours!  Finally, Brandon, Maria and I made it to the top (Bill, Joanne and Carryn declined to go up the last 10 minutes in favor of a bench we found!)  The view was unbelievable and we even saw an airplane flying below us!!  It was getting late so we hiked down as fast as our wobbly legs would let us, but even then we had to hike the last bit in the dark.  No worries though - as soon as we got down, we ordered some pizza and beer!

We relaxed for the next day or so, visited with Kathy and Picky some more, and then we had to say goodbye to this magical island and head off to the BVIs.

100 ft down on the Pinnacles dive site

And then we thought it was a good idea to go hiking

The top of Saba

No really, that's the whole runway

A view from the top

We are higher than the airplane!

Even Niko made the hike

Another view of Paradise

Niko at the helm

Picturesque Saba 

St Martin

Christmas morning

We were weathered in for about 3 weeks in St Martin, but we found lots to do!  We spent a great Christmas with our cruising friends.  We kept up with the Schuneman tradition of having mimosas in the morning with some fun gift exchanges.  Later in the afternoon, we had a potluck with friends on 6 other boats and had a great dinner, complete with ham, turkey and too many side dishes to mention!

Christmas morning with friends and mimosas

For a Christmas present to ourselves, we bought a new washing machine!  It is an LG model, completely plastic so we are able to stow it outside under a tarp and has a big bin that washes your clothes and a smaller bin that spins the water out of them so they will dry faster once you hang them up.  The water doesn't automatically drain out of the washing bin, so you can get about 2 loads done with the same water before it gets really gross!  Then you spin them to get the soapy water off, refill the bin with clean water to do a rinse.  All in all, about 4- 5 loads of laundry takes about 15 gallons of water - not too bad considering we have a water maker or use rain water.  It saves a ton of money and time doing it ourselves rather than bringing into to town to get it done.

Christmas morning on Joana

Christmas dinner

Beach by the airport

The next few days we spent exploring St Martin.  We went out to the beach by the airport where the planes come right overhead and you can stand right next to the runway when planes take off and literally get blown away by the thrust of the engines!  Maria was brave and managed to stand firm against the pelting sand but I wimped out and ran down the beach after a few seconds!

We spent New Years Eve in St Martin dancing the night away and a late night run to McDonalds!

Transporting our new washing machine

Maria hugging the new washing machine

Our first load

Dancing in the street St Martin style

Late night Mickey D run