Leaving Luperon for Cuba

We are going to be heading out of Luperon at 0'dark thirty and book it to Cuba.  Our plan is to clear into Santiago de Cuba and work our way West along the southern coast.  Assuming we can find internet, I will be updating this blog as we go...wish us luck!

Dominican Republic

Well the DR a hard place to only have a short blog on - onne could write a 100 page essay!  Here it is in a semi-short version:

Getting ready to hit the road in our jeeps

The crossing from San Juan went well, sea state and sailing wise.  We had a bit of a mishap with one of our engine mounts while underway.  We heard a few not so usual sounds from the shaft area, so I asked Cath to take the wheel while I went to take a look.  We found out one of our engine mount bolts had come lose and allowed the back end of the engine to shift some.  We weren't about to realign the engine in the center of the Mona Passage, so while our friends on Solemate hovered, we went about getting the tools out to tighten the bolts down.  By this time Josh had taken over the deck duties, setting the sails to allow a bit of way. 

Walking mangroves in Los Haitises National Park

I asked Cath to grab me a rag and  all would have been oh so much better if we never had opened the paint locker!  Just like one of those ads where they are trying to jam shut the closet door, we had the whole contents of the paint locker spill all over the aft cabin when we opened it.  Don't you know, one of the gallons of white paint busted open and spilled all over the floor!   And of course, it spilled all over me and where i had to sit to fix the engine.  I am sure you are getting the point now that we are not the happiest people with a gallon off paint on the floor and five foot seas spreading it for us.  Surprisingly, we were able to clean most of it up and fix the engine mount.  

As we were making our way in to the beautiful Samana passage, we were blessed by a whale pod that were breeching and swimming and it reminded me that no mater how good something is, it can awlays get better. 

Ride em cowboy

The group decided that for $1 a foot (and our registered length is 55 feet), we would spoil ourselves and go to a marina for a night or two.  Now, we had no clue what kind of marina were were headed for, and if we had known, I might have gotten the grease and paint out from under my nail!  They call it a small luxury resort and wow mama was it every luxury! We were definitly the hillbillies coming in for the night.  It was a treat for us we hadn't been in a marina in at least a year. They had five pools which we made good use of and unlimited water for our laundry.  We thought it best to rent some Jeeps and and go on a land tour.  The people in the DR are very nice and always willing to help and some of the hardest working people you will find.  Our drive gave us some beautiful overlook shots and small town energy. We found ourselves down a back road where some local kids were playing baseball.  We pulled up and played baseball and basketball with the kids.  

On the way to the waterfalls

We also found a great waterfall that you had to take horses to so we went horseback riding for $9, which was well spent as the hike would have been really tough and muddy!  

We relaxed for another day or so at the marina and then did a quick hop to Los Haitises National Park across the bay.  It was beautiful - almost looked like it should have been in Asia with the big rock islands scattered along the bay covered in ferns and moss.  We hiked up to a cave with ancient petroglyphs (similar to the Egyptian's hieroglyphics).  We spent the next week exploring this beautiful park - paddle boarding among the mangroves, hiking to the Eco Lodge and swimming in their waterfall pools and making new friends.  

Cath at the waterall

We sadly left there and did an overnight to Luperon in fairly decent conditions.  Once in Luperon, we spent the night on the town and the next day rented motor bikes for the next three days.  There were 4 motor bikes in our group, each with 2 people on them.  We pretended to be a biker gang as we rode all over the island discovering the beautiful countryside, small side towns and gorgeous beach towns.  At one point, we had to cross a river and although there was not a bridge, a fellow had set up a board on a few 50 gallon drums and pulled us and the motor bike across the river by hand -over-handing it on a rope!  

Our guides to the waterfall

We spent the rest of our time here just hanging out in Luperon, provisioning in Puerto Plata and getting the boat ready for our 280 mile run to Cuba.  

Life imitates art

A local meal

Playing baseball with the local kids

Spoiled in the marina

Petroglyph

Maria in the upper level of the caves

Eco Lodge

Maria vine dancing

Maria, Cath and Niko in the caves

Cool trees

Man or rock?

The DR's version of a bridge

Traditional meets modern

One way to cross a river

Great way to transport beer

Maria on the motor bike

Tobacco farm

Beautiful coutryside

One of many caves 

Crusing

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!