While we were in Luperon, D.R., one day we rented a 125 cc motor bike and drove up the coast to Cabo Isabella for the afternoon. These little motor bikes (and smaller!) are all over the D.R. People use them for all their trans- portation; we have seen as many as four people on a bike this size. They reminded Larry of a bike he had in high school.
At Cabo Isabela, where it is claimed that Christopher Columbus landed in 1493 and left some Spanish settlers, there is a National Park that we went through. It has a small museum and an anthropological area where the first settlement was.
We also stopped at the beach there and found these donkeys in the shade.

Still in Luperon, D.R.
We have been delayed and are still in Luperon, D.R. We were all set to go, with a great weather report to make it all the way to Puerto Rico in very light winds on Monday. But our depth sounder chose that moment to go out, after many years of service. We reanchored, Larry dove down on the transducer to see if it was fouled, we did as much trouble shooting as we could, but still no go. We really can't go anywhere without knowing the depth - at least not into unknown harbors. So we put out a call on the VHF, and a neighbor offered an older but working Humminbird to us, and we've been working to jury-rig it so we can get going again. Unfortunately, the weather is now less than favorable, so we will be waiting at least a few more days for better weather. Maybe we'll take the time to explore the countryside a bit. We can always find things to fix on the boat as well. This is a pretty nice place to be "stuck" in.

We have been in Luperon, Dominican Republic for a week now. We can tell that we are in a different country and have left most American- type things behind; people speak Spanish here, the music is all Latin- based (merengue, salsa, etc.), everywhere is an explosion of color, signs, and life. This is a relatively poor country, and it shows in the houses, roads, all of the infra- structure, where the electricity could go out at any time, and the toilets may flush or not. The public bus is a twenty- year- old van that holds about twice its intended capacity. We have made two trips, one on public bus into Puerta Plata, and one in a rented van with seven other cruisers into Santiago for provisioning. Right now we are waiting for the winds to settle down so we can go eastward along the north coast of the D.R. towards Puerto Rico.

From Rum Cay in the Bahamas, we sailed to Mayaguana, and then on to Providen- ciales in the Turks and Caicos Islands. Here I am with all the tools for navigation in the cockpit: chart, GPS, binoculars, autopilot, Sudoku, snacks....

Here's a fish Larry caught on the way to the T&C; it was a barracuda and we let him go.
We didn't spend much time in the Turks and Caicos; we had really good settled weather, and so we kept moving south, and went from French Cay directly to Luperon, Dominican Republic.

From George Town, we sailed over to Long Island, where we spent one night in a lovely anchorage all by ourselves in settled weather. From there we sailed over to Conception Island, where we met up with our friends Tony and Kat on Cheyenne and went snorkeling on the reefs there. Beautiful reef fish, but the reefs were silted over and a bit bleached-looking. Next we sailed down to Rum Cay to stay through some strong south easterly winds and squalls, getting ready for a big hop down to Mayaguana or maybe even to our next country, the Turks and Caicos, if the weather window holds.
Here is a picture of the lovely restored Anglican church on Rum Cay. This is a sleepy little island, with only 100 residents. We were told that the church draws 40 people every Sunday. This island has big plans, however - a huge marina, resort, and hotel complex is under construction, which will no doubt change the nature of the island and area dramatically, not necessarily for the better.
I'll post after we get to the Turks and Caicos, which is about a 48 hour passage from here. It looks like we will be waiting for weather while there too, for about a week, before we sail down to the Dominican Republic.

We have been in George Town, Exuma, for a week now, with strong easterlies blowing to make sailing on the east too uncom- fortable. It's been a good stay, with a big regatta in town, but a bit too much hoopla for our tastes. We've been able to provision at the markets here, water up at the town dock, and are ready to go to Long Island. Stocking Island was a beautiful place to hike up and see the other side in Exuma Sound.


Here is a photo of one of the sailboat races in the regatta that sailed very close to us at anchor; impressive Bahamian sailboats with large sail areas. The crew would hike out on long boards to balance the boats.

We spent three nights at a marina at the northern tip of Exuma Island called Emerald Bay. It's under construction right now, and they have dirt-cheap rates until will be done. Right next door is the plush Four Seasons; you can see how they are marketing all of this at http://www.emeraldbayresort.com/ . It worked out to be a day and a half of working on our anchor locker (we've got a new and distressing leak when we bash into head winds), tearing apart everything in the bow of the boat, and a day of lolling about under an umbrella at a beautiful bay, swimming, and then dipping in the hot tub and steam room. All for 75 cents a foot for dockage.

From there, we sailed down Exuma Sound to George Town, which is the destination for many cruisers in the Bahamas. Up to 400 boats anchor here for the entire winter. Now, at the tail end of the season, there are only 140 boats. It's a good place to hole up and wait for weather for the next crossing over to Long Island. There's a fairly well-stocked grocery store, where we'll load up on fresh food, free water, a cruiser-run library and book swap, and many interesting people to talk to. It looks like we will be leaving here on Friday or Saturday if the strong east winds we've been experiencing for a few days will abate by then. We've also run into a few other late arriving boats who are going south and east also, so we know we'll keep seeing them as we work our way south and east. We hope to be in the Turks and Caicos and the Dominican Republic after that in a couple of weeks.

We have been sailing across the Grand Bahamas Bank, to the tip of the Berry Islands, past Nassau, and down the Exumas chain of islands. It has been a mix of absolutely beautiful weather and windy cold fronts; we saw this sunset anchored between Whale Cay and Little Whale Cay, where the next day we weathered a cold front and winds of 30-35 knots.
You can see our new American flag which is now flying on our stern rail, as we were sailing down the Exumas. We have had some great sailing, with a broad reach down to Great Exuma, as well as days of motoring the whole way, or bashing our way into head winds.

Here is Allan's Cay group of islands, where the iguanas are the only inhabitants on the tiny Leaf Cay in the group. We swam ashore to look at the iguanas and spent a lovely night in this anchorage.

We weathered another, stronger cold front anchored behind Bell Island in the Exumas. Next to us was a boat from Minnesota (a couple from Apple Valley, now living in Punta Gorda, FL), and another boat from Calgary, Canada. Winds of 40 knots blew over the hill and boats in other anchorages dragged, but ours held all night.

Here you see Larry keeping a watch out for shallow water from the mast - our mast steps have come in handy for this. Navigation is a challenge; no handy markers like the Intracoastal Waterway in the U.S. exist here. It's all up to studying your charts carefully, knowing your position, and a careful watch. You can also see our Bahamas courtesy flag flying on our starboard flag halyard in this photo.

We finally made it to the Bahamas! We are now in Bimini, one of the western- most islands in the Bahamas. We had to motor the whole trip over from Miami, as the wind was 10 knots on the nose. It was a long trip, almost 12 hours with our trusty little Yanmar engine, but we made it and anchored close to Bimini. We came in here on Thursday morning and have now been waiting for a good weather window to cross the Bahama Banks to the Berry Islands. We expect to leave Sunday morning at dawn, since the voyage will take two full days.

Bimini has a quaint little town, Alice Town, that has been fun to explore in the meantime. We cleared customs and immigration and are now flying a Bahamas flag on our starboard flag halyard, and our new US flag on the stern rail. It really dresses up the boat to be flying flags. We looking forward to dropping our anchor in this crystal clear turquoise water and being able to jump in and swim around.

Usually I love living as close to nature and its rhythms as we do on the boat. Knowing when the tides are coming in and going out, when sunrise and sunset are, what the phase of the moon is, and what the weather is going to be are all part of our daily life. But sometimes the weather just does not cooperate. It has now been blowing steadily out of the east and north-east for over a week, making it unwise to try a crossing to the Bahamas and making the Gulf Stream into an angry 10-foot sea mess. So we are waiting for the weather to moderate, still in Miami Beach. We're still recovering from illnesses; I have developed what we think is a sinus infection, and Larry still has some tail end of flu symptoms. Hopefully by the time the weather moderates later in the week, we will be well enough to leave.

Both Larry and I now have the flu and are recovering. We have done a bit of exploring in Miami Beach; here is a view of Miami Beach from the neighboring island, close to sunset.


We have found Miami to be an interesting place to visit, but we wouldn't want to live here. There is more emphasis on "looking good" and all sorts of superficial stuff that is hard to get away from. In our typical "cruiser-wear", even dressed up, I feel out of place. We're ready for the islands, as soon as we are healthy enough to work the boat, maybe even by this weekend, March 17. We hope so!

In Miami Beach, we have been fixing a number of necessary things on the boat. Here you see our old fuel pump; Larry replaced the fuel pump with a new one on our diesel engine, which (so far) has finally fixed the last of our fuel drip problems.

We've also found a leak in one of our new polyethylene water tanks. It's been a problem that has been nagging us for a while - just a bit of water in the bilge we haven't been able to locate. We decided to examine the water tanks and found a leak in the tank, and have been dealing with the manufacturer (Seafab in Rhode Island) about a fix. So far it still leaks and we're waiting for some new adhesive to try out next week on it.

We arrived in Miami on Feb. 10, 2007, after a short hop from Vero Beach to Fort Pierce, and then a pleasant overnight motor-sail in good weather from Ft. Pierce to Miami offshore. Unfor- tunately the diesel drip from the fuel line area was still evident on our offshore passage; Larry had to take it apart twice to try to slow it down while we were underway. It's not much but is enough to concern us, and we want to fix it before we leave the US. We have a new fuel pump on order and will install it here in Miami. Also, Debby is sick again, so we're doing maintenance on the boat and resting to recover before we hop over to the Bahamas.

We sailed past some huge cruise ships; Miami is a big port for cruises. We're anchored over by the Venetian Causeway in Miami Beach and are exploring the city with a great bus and rail system. We know we wouldn't want to settle here, but Miami is a pretty nice place to hole up for a week or two.

We have had to slow down to recover from illness. We've been holed up in Vero Beach, Florida, for three weeks now, as Debby recovers from a bout with the flu. It's been pretty warm here, in the 70s and 80s mostly, so it's been a good place to stay put for a while. We hope to go south a bit, and position ourselves in Lake Worth at Palm Beach, FL, to wait for an opportunity to cross over the Gulf Stream to the Bahamas. We may get favorable weather to do a crossing as early as Wednesday, Feb. 7. We'll just have to see what the weather does for us!

For the first two weeks of January, we made our way down Florida's Intracoastal Waterway to Vero Beach. We saw the juxta- position of nuclear power plants in the distance with palm trees and the river in northern Florida. We also went through a great deal of "thin water", with a narrow channel dredged out for passage in a two to four foot sound, where this flock of different types of birds were hanging out in central Florida. We're going to stay in Vero for a few days to a week, fixing things and reprovisioning, and then go down to Lake Worth to wait for a good weather window to hop over the Gulf Stream to the Bahamas.

We left Southport on the afternoon of December 27, and headed out the Cape Fear River inlet into the north Atlantic. We wanted to get south into some warm weather quickly. On a 60 hour passage, we had good weather for the first 24 hours, motor-sailing, and short, punchy waves for the last part of the time. We made landfall in Fernandina Beach, Florida, at 04:30 a.m. on December 30.

We spent Christmas at the town dock in Southport, NC, along with several of our close friends the pelicans, as you can see here. Southport was a friendly little town, and we met a number of people there. We went to church downtown on Christmas Eve, and saw many decorated boats and houses.

We also weathered a storm the day after Christmas, where we had to tie down the boat with extra lines and help other neighboring boats. We found out later that some gusts of wind were 60 mph!

In Southport, NC, a cormorant dried his wings right next to our spot at the town dock. It has been two warm and beautiful days, almost seventy degrees. We're busy doing a number of things to prepare ourselves and the boat for another offshore adventure. We'll either go down the coast from here, to Charleston, Fernandina Beach, or Ft. Pierce, or if the weather permits, we'll cross the Gulf Stream and make it to the Bahamas. We can almost feel the warm sand, but it will take a while to get there. Merry Christmas to all!

On December 12, we left Oriental, bound for Swansboro. Close to Beaufort, NC, we broke a fan belt and didn't have a spare. We got a tow into Beaufort and lots of help from the local TowBoat / US operator there in locating a new belt. Now we have a spare. It was a new and interesting problem to install the belt, involving taking the alternator mostly off, but finally we were on our way. We stayed two nights at Swansboro, waiting out some chilly, drizzly, foggy days. We also had had a new fuel hose shipped to Swansboro and installed that there. Then we made our way to Southport, NC, close to the Cape Fear inlet, on December 17.

We finally made it to Oriental, NC on December 5. We spent some time with our friends, fellow Baba- owners, Joe and Priscilla Brant. While we were there, another cold front with strong winds was predicted to come through, and Joe found a slip for us to hole up in and wait it out. It turned out to be the coldest weather yet this year, with two days of lows in the 20s, breaking records around the area. We were very grateful to have heat and stay put in this wonderful spot, with a lounge area that looked like a mountain lodge.

On December 3, we left Belhaven bound for Oriental, NC. After a bouncy ride across Pamlico Sound, we entered the canal. By the time we crossed the canal into the Neuse River, the skies were looking gray and the wind had come up. We turned around and spent two nights at the R E Mayo shrimp boat dock, alongside commercial shrimp boats. We waited out the cold front in this protected spot and had a delightful dose of local color from the off-season fish company. Accomodations were a bit dilapidated, and I avoided the ladies' room pictured below.

We left Elizabeth City on November 29, and crossed the Albemarle Sound on a beautiful calm day. We anchored in a peaceful bend on the Alligator River. There we noticed diesel fuel in our engine pan (again!). We had to limp back to the Alligator River Marina and contact AYB again. After some prodding, and calling Yanmar directly, they did send down a mechanic to look at the engine. A pin hole leak in a high-pressure fuel line was found, and he could jury-rig it up to work. We left the marina after a cold front went through the area on December 2.

On November 26 and 27, we motored through the Dismal Swamp Canal in Virginia and North Carolina. There wasn't anything dismal at all about it, on sunny, calm days, after a bit of fog in the morning. We tied up at the Visitor Center for the night, and made it to Elizabeth City, NC on November 27, where we stayed for two days.

At Atlantic Yacht Basin in Ches- apeake, we had a new bow roller installed, our engine checked over once again for any leaks, and a new stainless plate through- bolted for strength. A small yard worker had to get into our anchor locker through the V-berth (our bedroom!) all the way forward, and work had to be done on the bow of the boat. We ended up with a much better system that we think will withstand much greater stresses.

We also got strong three-fourths inch nylon three-strand line, and learned how to splice a steel thimble eye into it. We added a stainless shackle and chain hook for a heavy-duty snubbing line, to be used with the chain at anchor.

We left Chesapeake on November 26, headed for the Dismal Swamp Canal.