People who don't live aboard boats have often asked us what we do all day long. Maintaining the boat is usually a full-time job. Here's some of our more interesting jobs lately pictured here. Larry climbed the mast recently after we got carpet bombed by frigate birds at night. They were landing on the mast or spreaders and letting loose. It took most of the morning to clean up bird poop. So Larry went aloft and strung fishing line to prevent birds from having a perch to land on. So far it has worked.
Deb is getting ready to varnish (actually we use Cetol Marine Light) the exterior brightwork on the boat. Between the salt water and air, and the UV from the harsh tropical sunlight, wood work always needs a touch up to protect it.
We also have a sewing machine on board. Ours is a new Singer Scholastic machine; it can plow through 13 layers of denim, or several layers of sailcloth. Deb uses it to make curtains, patch canvas and sails, and mend clothes. Here she's making a mosquito door for the companion- way hatch, using stainless bolts for weighting the cloth.

While in Salinas, Deb joins a group of women three times a week to go swimming and snorkeling in a mangrove bay. This area, a short dinghy ride away, has clear water and a small coral reef, with schools of colorful reef fish and other marine life. Here are two squid just above the ocean floor.

It looks like we will be moving over to the hurricane hole about 5 miles away, in Bahia de Jobos, as the first tropical depression is heading our way. So far, every three or four days, a tropical wave goes over our location. This only amounts to a few showers, maybe a bit more wind, or even just more humid air. This depression will be growing into a tropical storm and probably a hurricane in the next few days. We hope it won't go over us directly, but we have a very protected bay to anchor in.

We rented a car on Thursday, July 26 to run errands and also to take another trip up to old San Juan and tour the fort (El Morro). The fort was built by the Spanish to secure their holdings in the Caribbean, starting from the late 1500s. It is a masterpiece in Spanish architecture - with walls fifteen feet thick, on a vantage point protecting all of San Juan's harbor. We thoroughly enjoyed our tour and walked around old San Juan some more. We had lunch at La Bombonera, a popular local spot in old San Juan with great food and service.

The old fort has one of the world's notorious slums right next to it, on the other side of this fifteen foot thick wall. The slum, which we viewed from the other side of the wall, is called La Perla (the pearl), and visitors are warned to stay away from it.
Here is Larry walking down a stairway in old San Juan - some of the streets are built on hillsides that rival San Francisco.

We have now sailed east to Salinas, Puerto Rico, but here are a few of our favorite spots in Ponce. Larry is walking along the beach from La Guancha to the Hilton Hotel; we walked or ran on this beach several times, and treated ourselves to a wonderful buffet lunch one day.
Debby in front of Santiago's Cash and Carry, an amazing warehouse full of inexpensive food, some in large case lots but also smaller quantities. It was our main grocery store, only about a half-mile away from the dinghy dock.
Here's Larry in the courtyard by the cafeteria of the University of Puerto Rico, Ponce, which was about a two mile walk for us. They were very welcoming there, with staff and faculty eager to help us use the computers and printers, and Wi-Fi available on campus. We would take the computer over on the long walk there and back to be able to use Skype for telephone calls, do email, browse the web, and make a day of intensive Internet work.
Here's Deb at La Guancha, the public waterfront right by our anchorage; our boat is in the background. On weekends and holidays, even Monday and Thursday nights, the music was quite loud until the wee hours of the morning. We got a lot of use out of our ear plugs to allow us to get to sleep. The good news of being there is we never knew what kind of entertainment La Guancha was going to bring - a live band; an antique car show of old Chevrolets, Mustangs, pickups, all kinds of fully restored cars; and one night, a wrestling ring with live Lucha Libre (Mexican-style wrestling), which Larry thoroughly enjoyed.

Everyone reading this who doesn't live on a boat probably thinks we have a lot of free time. What most people don't realize is that living on a small sailboat is really a labor - intensive way to live. For example, we do almost all of our own laundry by hand in a bucket. We use sudsy ammonia for the water, as this does not have to be rinsed, so we save on our water. Each small load takes about 2 to 3 gallons of fresh water - most of which we lug by 6 gallon jerry jugs. Here's some pix of Larry doing laundry. We have no problems getting it dry, with the brisk trade winds here in the tropics and mostly sunny days.

On Thursday, July 12, we went to the Museum of Art in Ponce, Puerto Rico. It is advertised as the best art museum in the Caribbean. We spent a very pleasant day there. It has a good variety of old masters, from the Spanish, Flemish, Dutch, Italian, and even a Hudson School (Frank Church). We also enjoyed the bonsai garden in an interior courtyard.

We are still waiting for the printed copy of our marine survey, but hope it will be delivered tomorrow. Saturday is a good weather window to sail east and we are all set to make use of it if we can get our survey.

On Monday, July 9, we finally got all the necessary people together and details taken care of to get our marine survey. This involved what is known as a "short haul", taking the boat out of the water for an hour or two, while the surveyor takes measurements of the hull. We used a great surveyor in Puerto Rico, named Ciro Malatresi. We can recommend his services to anyone needing a surveyor on the island. He was thorough, really knew boats, and efficient. The boat got a good report card, with only cosmetic recommendations. The hull is sound, and now we can take the survey to other insurers and try to get insurance "in the box" (in the hurricane zone). Every insurance agency wants a current survey, and our current insurers are waiting to see one also. Some insurance companies want boat owners to have a hurricane plan; ours will probably involve staying on one island for the hurricane season, with a contract to haul the boat out of the water, block it, strap it down to cement screws, take the mast and all canvas off, and then head inland. If you look carefully at the hurricane data from the last 150 years, South Carolina actually gets hit more often than any of the individual islands, yet we could find insurance for South Carolina and are having trouble for the islands. Go figure.

On July 5, we rented a car for the day with our new friends Yvonne and Carl. We had met them here in Ponce; they are from the Netherlands and making their way over to Guadeloupe, and waiting for engine work to be completed on their boat. In the meantime, while we were waiting to have a marine survey, we decided to do some traveling inland. We drove across the mountains of Puerto Rico on some twisty roads and breath-taking views.


We went to visit the radio telescope at Arecibo, Puerto Rico. This is the largest radio telescope in the world; it weighs 300 tons and is built into a natural karst bowl. Astronomers from all over the world visit Arecibo to perform experi- ments. The size of the telescope itself is hard to describe. The visitor center there has interesting displays and a "day at Arecibo" film for visitors. The only thing missing, we thought, was a scientist or astronomer to answer our questions about the telescope and its use.
Here's Debby getting a permanent and a cut in Ponce. It was quite a test of my Spanish, as the friendly young hair stylist did not speak any English. I did have a phrase book which included conversations for a salon visit, and a dictionary. The results turned out quite nice.

On Sunday, June 24, we drove up to San Juan with another couple on a boat we've met here in Ponce in a rental car. The trip over the mountains is very pretty to the northern coast of Puerto Rico, and the old city (Viejo San Juan) is one of the most picturesque cities I've ever seen. The old cobble- stoned streets, hemmed in by 16th century stone walls and two Spanish forts; old San Juan is a city well worth an extended visit. We may try to stay longer on Puerto Rico so we can visit it again, taking in some of the museums and the forts, which we had to bypass on a short day trip.

We have been in Ponce, Puerto Rico now for about two weeks. Here we are enjoying the wonderful Puerto Rican coffee and sweets in downtown Ponce. We finally figured out the trans- portation here and took the Publico into town to be tourists for the day. There is a large central park with a big cathedral downtown, and museums. While here, we are getting a waterproof cover made for the bow to try to minimize the water that has been coming into the anchor locker when we are underway. Once that is completed we'll be sailing on to Salinas.

We have another gear failure which is distressing - our new hand-held VHF radio, a West Marine VHF-150, purchased new in November, has failed. The latch holding the battery pack in place has disintegrated, rendering it useless without power. West Marine says we either need to bring it to the store to exchange it, or to deal with Uniden (who manufactures it) for repair. Both options are difficult at best for us, with no car. West Marine does have two stores in P.R., in Fajardo and San Juan, but rental cars are expensive and buses are scarce. We are trying to figure out how to do this; it's so aggravating when essential equipment fails, especially *new* essential equipment.

UPDATE: For those of you interested in the outcome, we did rent a car and drive up to West Marine in San Juan to exchange the VHF. After looking at every model in the store, we went with an ICOM M-34. Since the West Marine models are made by Uniden, they all had this flimsy plastic latch for battery holding. So far the ICOM has been more rugged than the WM model. The only thing we don't like about the ICOM is that we do not have the option of loading it with AA or other batteries; we must use the Li-ION battery that comes with the unit. ICOM has a tray which will accept AA batteries but West Marine does not sell it.

We stopped to anchor in Boqueron, Puerto Rico, and had several short hops into the wind, stopping at Cabo Rojo, La Parguera, Playa Santa, and finally Ponce, where we cleared customs and stayed for a couple of weeks. It's a mixed bag in Ponce - not very many cruisers, but you can reprovision if you are willing to walk a few miles. We took a taxi back from WalMart for about $5. The other drawback to Ponce is the noise and music on the weekends - thank goodness we have ear plugs! They play music until 4 a.m. at the bars right across from the anchorage.
We are looking into prices, as there is a well known boat yard here and we need to haul out and paint the bottom (as well as replace the depth sounder).

Towards the end of May, we got a good weather window to sail east towards Puerto Rico. The best we could hope for is light winds, as we are in the trade wind belt blowing steadily out of the east. We didn't have any storms, and mostly motored for 48 hours into light easterlies. The seas were like a washing machine however. The coastline of the Dominican Republic reminded us of California, with wide sweeping cliffs.
Once we got to the east coast of the D.R., after checking in with our weather forecaster Chris Parker, we found that there were squalls all around Puerto Rico and decided to wait a day to cross the Mona Passage to P.R. Our cruising guide (Passages South by Bruce van Sant) mentioned a nice inexpensive marina at Punta Cana. Unfortunately, the Punta Cana Marina was full, there were no anchoring options, and the only other choice was to go into a big Trump construction called CapCana. What a mistake! We don't recommend this place to anyone. It's overpriced at $1.50 a foot, with noisy construction well into the night, the worst showers we have ever seen (not even any hot water!), no other facilities. We paid $54 for a place to tie up for the night, period, with not even enough peace and quiet to rest. After complaining in the morning, we still were forced to pay and we unhappily sailed out and crossed the Mona Passage in about 24 hours.

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.