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.

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.