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Happy Easter!

Greetings from El Salvador – where the run-up to Easter (Semana Santa) has been quite the event!

Easter (and Holy Week in general) is the biggest holiday in Central / South America. The beach and waterways have been packed – turning ‘our’ sleepy anchorage into quite the hotspot. Yesterday, there were litterally hundreds of pangas (local fishing / general purpose boats), sport fishers, dugout canoes, and jet skis buzzing by all day and a good chunk of the night. While it has made for more noise and bumpier seas, it is always fun to be around folks having a great time on vacation.

Pangas by the shore

This morning, after discovering the candy that the Easter Bunny left us, we went on land for a great breakfast of pupusas – the national dish of El Salvador. Pupusas are rice-flour flatbreads stuffed with cheese, refried beans and pulled pork cooked on a sheet of metal on top of an open fire. They are absolutely fantastic – and at least one of us gets them everyday. Today was special – one of the few times we all went together. All in all, a good way to start the day.

Pupusas on the fire
Pupusas!
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Saba

A post by Mark

Hi all,
When I ended last time, we were heading out of the BVI for Saba.

Before we planned this adventure, I had never heard of Saba (maybe I had heard of it, but would have struggled to find it on a map). When we were doing the actual planning, Saba wasn’t a likely stop – as for many months out of the year, its shoreline is virtually unreachable by boat. You see… Saba is a volcanic island that looks like it just pops out of the sea – the shoreline is more or less a cliff all around the island. There is one ‘port’ (using the term somewhat loosely) – and if the wind or waves are coming from the wrong direction, you are not getting a small boat in or out of there. Luckily for us, the wind and waves – while somewhat ‘big’ – were in the right direction so we were able to visit. Before I get to Saba, however, I can’t gloss over our adventure getting there…

It all started off beautifully…. As planned, I headed into Customs and Immigration first thing in the morning to check us out of the BVI. After generating a ream of paperwork and paying $0.75 for something or another, I was back on the boat and we were preparing to head into the gas dock for fuel and water. Just as we are planning to leave, we hear another boat call into the gas dock – giving them the head’s up to help them pull the boat in. That’s when the day started to go sideways…. The gas dock is out of diesel. Ugh…. They had it the day before – must have just run out. Normally, this wouldn’t be such a bad thing – except that after the hurricane, there are only a few gas docks that still operate. Now, our choices are to sail about 10 or 15 miles the ‘wrong’ way to a harbor on Tortola or to head north towards our intended day anchorage and fill our tanks 5 gallons at a time via jerry cans filled at a ‘regular’ gas station. Neither sounded great – but we opted for the sail to Tortola – as it was a beautiful day out. We had a nice sail – which is something I haven’t been able to say very often – as for the majority of this trip, we have had to motor into the wind to get from one destination to the next. When we got to the harbor with the gas dock, things got less nice. First of all, this harbor (whose name I can’t remember) looked like a boat graveyard. Quite depressing to see all the sunken (and still sinking) boats. The next challenge was finding the marina with the working fuel dock. After a tour of the harbor, we found the dock – and weren’t real happy about it. The dock was very short, surrounded by a bunch of boats, and pointed directly downwind. To make things more exciting,  the wind had picked up to about 20-25 kts aandthere wasn’t a person anywhere in sight to help us…. So, I had to do some fancy maneuvering to get the boat near the dock and then throw it into reverse to keep us from plowing through the end of the short dock.

I almost got it right the first try.

When I reversed us to stop us against the blowing wind, we got a bit crooked and one of our fenders on the bow got stuck on the dock and popped into the water. Realizing that I wasn’t going to be able to get the middle of the boat close enough to the dock for Julie to hop off and secure us, I had to jam it in reverse and back out of there…. As our fender is floating away and all the boats around us seem to all get a lot closer, we get away from the dock with only a minor scratch and regroup. Against the wishes of most on board, I decide to were  going to try one more time. In this case, second time was a charm, and all was good (we even picked up our fender). Except that this fuel dock didn’t have water. Ugh…. Luckily, the marina north of us that didn’t have fuel did have water – so we were able to fill our tanks there. There is also a nice beach nearby, so we were able to get Willie off the boat for a run and swim.

So, all is good now – except that it is now ~5:00 pm and its time to leave for our passage. So much for our planned day of rest before heading out.

Sunset leaving the BVI

We knew that this was going to be a ‘sporty’ passage – as the winds were forecasted to be 15-20kts, gusts to 25 or so with seas 6-8’. We decided to leave then, however, because it didn’t look like it was going to be any calmer anytime soon. For the prior few days, the forecast had been predicting slightly calmer conditions – but as the days passed, the calmer conditions kept getting pushed farther and farther out. We ultimately decided to leave knowing that even if the conditions got a bit worse than forecasted, we would still be safe – just uncomfortable. Well… suffice it to say – it was uncomfortable. We motorsailed into nasty wind and waves for 17 unrelenting hours. Nothing remarkable – just a long trudge with the occasional (and sometimes more than occasional) wave crashing across the deck. When we got to Saba, we found a mooring and were very happy to be ‘done’. All of the water directly surrounding Saba is a National Marine Park, so you pretty much have to use a mooring. The interesting thing about the Saba anchorage is that it is situated such that the wind wraps and accelerates around the island so it was blowing a steady 30 kts all day. After a few hours rest, it was time to head to customs and get checked in. As with everything in Saba, the dinghy ride in from the anchorage to the port was a challenge. To get to the port, we had to dinghy 1/4 of the way around the island. As we traveled there, we went through a few minutes of strong wind and no waves, strong wind and big waves coming right at us, low wind and very big waves from the back, a set of 3 huge standing waves, and probably a few other combinations of wind and water that left us absolutely soaked. Like – we could have gone swimming and wouldn’t have gotten much wetter. Good thing we’re in the tropics and its pretty warm out. The check-in process with customs was pretty smooth – but we were going to have to come back a bit later to clear in with immigration (as they were not there at the time). An hour or two later, Sally, Heidi, Willie and I headed back to the port for a walk and to finish checking in.

As I mentioned in the start of this post – this island just jumps straight up out of the water – so its quite a steep walk

Walking Willie up a 23 degree hill!

We didn’t make it far – but we all got a good workout.

The next day, we took a taxi tour of the island. It was a lot of fun. The roads on Saba are memorable – with names like “The Road that Couldn’t be Built” and “The Road that Shouldn’t Have Been Built”. Our driver took us around for about an hour or two and then dropped us off at the trailhead to Mt. Scenery – the path that leads to the top of Saba. It is a very well maintained path with a little over 1,000 steps that goes through the rain forrest, cloud forrest, and several other ecological climates. At the top, there is apparently a great view of the surrounding islands – but it is almost always hidden in the clouds (as it was on our hike). No worries though, the hike was still very pretty.

Scenes from Mt Scenery

We then hiked down, walked around the town of Windward, and had dinner at the spot our driver suggested. After dinner, he picked us up and brought us to the dock. A good day on all accounts!

Until next time…

Mark

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Puerto Rico to the BVI

Last I left off – we had just had a great few days in Ponce and were heading further East.  Since I am so far behind in my writing, I’m just going to hit on the high-points for the next few stops…
After a few days going down the Puerto Rican coast, we headed to Vieques – one of the Spanish Virgin Islands (which is part of Puerto Rico – i.e. US – not Spain.  Maybe common knowledge – but it wasn’t to me before we started looking at this trip).  Overall, Vieques was a bit depressing – it got hit hard by the hurricane and was more or less deserted – both because of actual hurricane damage and from the lack of Puerto Rican (and other) tourists which would typically keep the island busy.  The main reason we went there was to visit the best bioluminescence bay around – so we did…. We anchored our boat in a nice harbor next to the bio-bay and hiked to it – carrying our kayak.  It was about a 1/2 mile hike – so not too bad.  We got to the bay just at sundown and waited a bit for ‘real’ darkness.  Julie went first – paddling into the bay, swirling the paddle to energize the bioluminescent stuff.  Nothing…. Now, its worth noting that it has been 2 weeks since we missed the bioluminescent bay near La Paguera – where the conditions were perfect (no moon).  So, 2 weeks later… full moon – and thus, too much light to see any bioluminescence.  Argh… foiled again.
Sunset in the bio-bay – waiting for dark
A nice swim to shore in Vieques
We had originally planned to go to Culebra – the other of the Spanish Virgin Islands.  After our less than great experience we had in Vieques, we decided to take our weather window straight to St. Thomas – figured we could us a change of scenery.  After talking to folks who went to Culebra, it looks like we might have made a mistake – as many folks told us that Culebra was great.  All that being said – we enjoyed St. Thomas – so all was good.
Highlight of St. Thomas – Oma and Opa came to visit for a few days.  It was great to see them!  We motor-sailed to St. John where we stayed in Maho Bay – known for its sea turtles!  It was a really pretty harbor and we had a good time there.
Opa and Willie
Sea Turtle!

Ruins outside Charlotte Amalie
We decided to give Oma and Opa a little excitement on their last day in the USVI – so instead of doing the  smart thing and bringing the boat to a marina to get them and their bags off the boat, we brought our boat to an anchorage right outside of the airport and brought them to the beach. We had been to this anchorage and beach before, and that day, it was very pretty and calm.  The day Oma and Opa had to leave, it was still very pretty – but not exactly calm.  After doing a few very wet trial runs, I finally found a calm(ish) part of the beach to bring them, and we were able to get onshore and to the airport without any real issues (just a little damp).
After Oma and Opa’s visit, we stayed in the USVI for a few more days and then headed to the BVI.
I had somewhat mixed feelings about going to the BVI.  On one hand, I love sailing the BVI – its absolutely beautiful, its fun and easy, and its really set-up for cruisers.  The mixed feelings came from two main reasons… 1) the BVI is where we have had 2 great vacations – but we’re not on vacation now… this is our life – so I knew it would feel different.  (NOTE – I know that ’now’ will feel like a vacation once I have to get a job and re-join the ‘real world’ – but now, its different.  All good, just not vacation).  The second factor is that the last time we sailed the BVI (about 2 1/2 yrs ago), we were with our great friends the Ericsons – and we knew that it be different (and not better!).
That all being said – we did have a good time in the BVI (just different).  We had a nice hike through the Baths – a very cool spot on Virgin Gorda that has huge boulders, caves, and other surreal features that have been carved in to the rock by eons of erosion.  We spent a few days in Cane Garden Bay – a beautiful bay on the coast of Tortola.  We had a painkiller or two at the Soggy Dollar Bar  (my favorite bar ever). We stayed in a beautiful anchorage in Virgin Gorda.  Etc..
Our favorite mural on Virgin Gorda
Relaxing on Jost Van Dyke
Hiking in the Baths
It was clear during our visit that the BVI are “open for business” – which is good – as the folks in the BVI need tourists and tourist dollars to rebuild.  While all of the tourist spots have been rebuilt, reletively few homes or other non-revenue generating have been rebuilt.  The kids on Virgin Gorda still don’t have a school to go to and most people are still living in tents or other temporary arrangements.  While the folks are trying to stay positive, it was pretty evidient that many folks were run-down.  Many months of living in difficult, stressful conditions was taking a toll. We asked around if we could help with any rebuilding – but what we found was that folks don’t necessarily need help rebuilding – they need the ‘stuff’ to rebuild – lumber, nails, concrete, etc – as well as insurance settlements.  Unfortunately, not much we could do to help with that.
The Irma Shack – a sign of BVI resilience
While we had some great times in the BVI this trip, we only stayed about a week or so – as we were all ready to explore new places.
Next stop (and next post) – Saba.
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Ponce

A post by Mark

After a great week by Gilligan’s Island, we headed East to Ponce – Puerto Rico’s ‘second city’ (after San Juan).  In Puerto Rican history, San Juan was the military and industrial center while Ponce became the home of artists, poets, musicians, and other ‘free thinkers’.
To get to Ponce, we left Gilligan’s in the middle of the night so we could arrive in Ponce first thing in the morning – taking advantage of the light winds at night while we motored right into the wind.  After a quick stop at the fuel dock, we anchored in the harbor, rested a bit, and headed out for town mid-morning.  It was a long(ish), hot walk from the port to the main shopping area.  For the first time in I can’t remember how long, we went to the mall, as we needed to look for some new shoes for the girls. I hate malls – and this was a full-on mall – Sears, Macy’s, Forever 21, tons of kiosks selling iPhone covers and cheap jewelry, etc…  My dislike of malls notwithstanding, the air conditioning was really, really nice.  After the mall, we headed to the bank, a few hardware stores, and the grocery store.  Not the most exciting day ever – but not every day is…. We did, however, get a few jobs done (minus new shoes) – so it was a success.
The next day, we decided to explore the ‘old town’ via a trolly tour.  Once we got to the center of the old town, we learned that the trolly wasn’t running – the driver didn’t show up for work that day….  While that would have probably bothered me a few months ago – I pretty quickly chalked that up to being on ‘island time’ and was OK with it.  So, we headed to the tourist office, a few hotels, and a souvenir-type shop looking for guide maps, do-it-yourself walking tours, or any other way to learn about the city.  Armed with a little more information, we walked through a pedestrian arcade and got some kids shoes and other stuff at one of the many stores there. We then made our way to the Ponce history museum which provided a pretty good overview of the history of the city.  The only issue was that all of the exhibits were entirely in Spanish – so, while we learned something, we surely didn’t get the full picture. After lunch at a neat little outside eatery, went to the best ice cream ever.  Not kidding – best ever (ok, the Ferris Acres Creamery in Newtown CT is the best – but this is a very strong #2).  It was described to us a ‘Chinese ice cream’ by the guy at the tourist office – which I think just meant that the owners of the shop were Chinese (not the most progressive way to describe it, but I digress…).  Anyway, the ice cream was like a combination of the best Italian gelato and really tasty sorbet.  We all ended up getting double scoops so we could each have two different flavors.  I can’t overstate this – if you ever find yourself near Ponce PR – go to King’s Ice Cream – you will not regret it!
King’s Ice Cream
Struggling with what to do for the rest of the day, we found some information on a guided walking tour of the city.  We hemmed and hawed for a while on whether to do it (it seemed relatively expensive) – but decided to go for it.  We met our tour guide Melina outside the Parque de Bombas – the ‘must-see’ attraction in the city.  It is a shrine to the city’s firefighting history and to the heros of the great fire of January 25, 1899.
Le Parque de Bombas
Right away, we knew that we had made the right decision with the tour.  Melania was super friendly, very knowledgeable, highly energetic, and incredibly passionate about Ponce.  She had recently returned to Puerto Rico after many years abroad, and was on a mission to revive the entrepreneurial spirit of Ponce with the folks of her generation (25 to 30 ish).  Melania showed us around the city for about 2 hours – explaining its great architecture, artistic past and current renaissance, its role as the birthplace of Salsa music, and more.  It was a great tour – worth every penny.
The Murals of Ponce
Along with the great ice cream and the great tour, my favorite part of Ponce was the people.  Ponce is not a typical tourist spot – especially for non Puerto Ricans – so we stuck out like a sore thumb.  I can’t count the number of times people came up to us to welcome us to Ponce and wishing us a great time in their city.  It was amazing.  Old folks, young folks, folks somewhere in the middle – everybody was genuinely friendly and truly happy that we decided to visit their city.  It was very cool to see.
A friendly Ponce man and his dog
Well – that’s all for Ponce, as we headed out the next morning for Salinas and parts further east.
Until next time,
Mark
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Windsurfing!

Hi again –

So, we left off last outside of Gilligan’s Island – a really pretty harbor near the town of Guanica PR.  The shoreline here is all part of a protected National Forrest.  Interestingly, it is a ‘dry forrest’ – receiving an average of less than 14” of rain per year.  Because of the protected status, there are only 50 or so houses in the area – houses that were there before the formation of the Nat’l Forrest.  This all makes for a beautiful spot.
After our time dragging around the harbor, we were visited by a guy buzzing by on a windsurfer.  I talked to him a bit and learned that his name is Mike and he is visiting friends who had the windsurfers and that he’d ask his friend if we could come by and borrow one.  Later that afternoon, we swung by again and said that his friends would be happy for us to come on by and that they would give the girls lessons.
In the late afternoon / early evening, we stopped by, and sure enough, were welcomed in with open arms.  Mike and his family have been coming to his friends place for the past 20 years to visit and go windsurfing.  The friends are Gerd and Toni – a German couple who have been living in the US for the past 20 or so years.  They currently live in the Seattle area in the summers and spend the winters at their beautiful house on the water in the National Forrest here in Guanica.  Their place is amazing with a front yard that looks like a windsurfing / aquatics school.  It has a shed full of 10 to 15 windsurfing sails, 5 sea kayaks, a Sunfish sailboat, and other assorted water toys.  On the bottom level of their house are two apartments that Toni and Gerd use to house the many, many visitors they have throughout the winter (like Mike and his family).  Toni and Gerd are amazing.  They are two of the nicest, most full of life, most generous, and generally ‘good’ people I have ever met. They were busy that afternoon, and invited us to stay another day or so to take windsurfing lessons. In Gerd’s words – ‘the lessons are cheap – costs you only 60 minutes per hour’.
The next day, we did schoolwork in the morning, and went to Gerd and Toni’s in the afternoon.  There, Gerd set-up a few windsurfers and started teaching the girls how to windsurf (undoing the bad habits I had taught them).  Aside from Mike and his family (wife Denyse and 18 YO daughter Izzy), there was another couple – Petra and Torsten visiting from Germany.  Torsten helped Gerd teach – he spent time with Sally, while Gerd helped Lucy (Heidi took a day or two off – as she had a sore back from tubing and from the little bit of windsurfing we tried the day before).  I even got a chance to go out – but was limited to a pretty small area until I showed Gerd that I was competent enough to safely get myself and his windsurfer back safely (which was totally cool).  A bit of background – when I was Heidi or Lucy’s age, I got my first windsurfer and taught myself how to use it.  So, I’m somewhat competent on a board, but nobody is confusing me for an expert – as my self-taught ways are less than precise.  That being said, I ‘passed’ the initial test and was able to go out a bit further and had a great time.  The bay in Guanica is perfect for windsurfing – good wind (20 + kts) and very small waves – a great combo.  After our day of lessons, Gerd invited us to come back – as he was pretty sure that with a few days, he could turn the girls into windsurfers.  He also wanted me to come back so he could show me the right way to windsurf so I could continue to teach the girls the right way (instead of my flawed, self-taught way). We were planning to head out to the next harbor the following day – but this offer was too good to pass-up.  We ended up staying a week! Here are some good pics of us having fun.
Gerd, Toni, and the Girls
 Mark (after some lessons)
Sally and Gerd
Lucy sailing along
Heidi with Torsten and Gerd
This week was great.  It will stand out as one of the best weeks of our journey.  Not only did we learn the right way to windsurf, we made some great friends and had some great times.  One morning, Toni took us on a fantastic hike around the National Forrest.  She is a great guide – showing us interesting things we would have never noticed on our own – such as some cool blow-holes, interesting plants and flowers, and a really pretty cliff walk. Another afternoon, Gerd showed us his woodworking shop and some of the really fantastic things he has designed and built – like a really intricate, working clock, some beautiful guitars, a ukulele – and more.  We also got to know Petra and Torsten and the girls had fun making jewelry with Izzy.  It was really tough to leave – but after a week, we felt it was time to move on.  Next stop (and next post) – Ponce.
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Puerto Rico

A post by Mark

Its happened again… I’m more than a month behind on posting. Sorry again for the delay – wifi is getting harder to come by – which, is not necessarily a bad thing. We’ve also been pretty busy – all good stuff. And then our site went down… Anyway – here goes…

After our great time in the Dominican Republic – it was time to move on to Puerto Rico. As Julie explained in her post, we left the DR a bit earlier than we would have liked to take advantage of a great weather window to cross the Mona Passage. We sailed (mainly motored) for 47 hours from Luperon in the DR to Boqueron PR. Unfortunately for us, we  misread our guide book (OK – it was me) – as we thought that we could clear customs in Boqueron. Turns out, Boqueron is not a port of entry – so we had to take a 20-30 min cab ride north to Mayaquez the next day. Boqureon in a small tourist town – filled from Thursday afternoon to Sunday evening with Puerto Ricans having a great time. Monday through Thursday mid-day, however, the place is a ghost town. Of the 15 or 20 restaurants in town, maybe 4 are open during the week. Other than those 4 restaurants, the post office and a pretty poorly stocked mini-mart, there is nothing else open during the week. We arrived in Boqueron on Sunday evening – so getting a cab to go to customs on Monday morning was a challenge (no Uber here…). We eventually made our way to the marina in town – and around 9:30, the guy who runs the office arrived and called us a cab. About 20 minutes later Sammy showed up in a late-model Cadillac land ark. This thing was huge – I sat up front and Julie and the girls all fit in the back (with what looked like a bit of room to spare)! Sammy is quite the character. He’s from the Bronx and Puerto Rico – spent about half of his life in both. We had some interesting conversations and price negotiations – both filled with good chunks of misinterpretation. This would have made sense if there was a significant language barrier – but this guy spent half of his life in NYC and spoke pretty good English…. Oh well – I’ll just chalk this up to ‘he was an interesting character’. Sammy ended up driving us around for most of the day – bringing us to customs, and then to the USDA Tropical Research Center – which is like a botanical garden, as it has samples of just about every tropical plant from around the world. The mission of the center is to keep a living library of these plants and to research a handful of tropical species that could potentially be used as crops or for other beneficial ways (medicine, etc). Best of all, the place is open to the public and free to tour. It was a pretty neat place. Unforttuantely for us, it absolutely poured while we were there. Not a typical rainstorm, but a tropical one – full downpour, probably the most rain we’ve seen this entire trip. Luckily for us, we were able to find an open greenhouse and duck into it for the worst of it. It was about that time that we remembered that we had left all of the hatches and windows open on the boat – oops (more to come on that later). After the Research Center, we headed back towards the boat, stopping by the local Walgreens where we picked up the fixings for banana splits to celebrate Lucy’s birthday the next day. One problem…. No bananas – and we had just finished the last of our huge stalk from the DR a few days prior. We now had a mission for the next day – find bananas. After Walgreens, it was back to the boat. Preparing for the soggiest, we hopped on the boat to see how wet it was. Not a drop of water in it. As we later learned, the storms soak Mayaguez every day – but almost never make it to Boqueron. Good news for us.

The next day, we planned a relatively quiet day – a day at the beach. We had a lot of fun just sitting, swimming, and relaxing at the beach. That night, we went out for Lucy’s birthday dinner with friends of ours on Boreas – a couple from Quebec with a 1 yr old boy. They are super nice folks and we had a great time with them. Before we went to the restaurant, however, we swung by the minimart hoping for bananas. No luck… oh well, we’d just have to make due with ‘regular’ sundaes along with some chocolate cake that Boreas brought by for us.

The next day, we decided to rent a car and visit the world’s largest radio telescope in Arecebo – a little town about an hour and a half from Mayaguez. Another cab ride with Sammy to the car rental place, and we were off. We took the scenic route to Arecebo – and it was really neat – it had an ‘over the river and through the woods’ feel to it. We passed through some really small villages perched on beautiful mountain vistas, past some pretty waterfalls, and by a handful of fruit stands (where we got some great fresh produce). Also along the way was a park famous for its extensive caves and for containing the world’s third largest underground river. We planned to spend a few hours there – and after a few wrong turns, finally arrived. Unfortunately for us (and everybody else), the park was closed – still cleaning up from hurricane damage. The parking lot was filled with trees and other debris still needing to be cleaned up.
As as side note, we spoke to a bunch of folks about Maria. It was rough, and was it was the ‘everyday’ folks who cleared the streets, helped their neighbors, etc – no different than what happens in any storm everywhere. Another reminder that people are more similar than they are different (a common theme that has arisen on this journey).To a person, however, they all said that it wasn’t nearly as bad as the media made it out to be.   OK – back to the story…

After finding and leaving the park, we made our way to the Observatory. It was a fun ride through a series of karst hills. What are karst hills you ask? They are small mountains that look exactly like haystacks – right out of Monet painting (just green instead of hay-color). The road to Arecebo goes over and around a bunch of these hills. At the observatory, we parked near the bottom of one of these hills and started walking up to the visitors center. Along the way, there is a scale model of the Solar system – starting with a model of the sun about the size of a basketball. After a 10 or 15 minute walk up the hill, we get to the Earth – about the size of a pin head (maybe a bit larger- but not much). We later learn that the models for the outer planets (Neptune and Uranus) would be over 10 miles away – really crazy to think about the huge scale of the solar system. That was a good preview of what we were about to learn about the size and scale of what the scientists at Arecebo study. Without going totally nerdy on you all, I’ll leave it at ‘its a big universe out there’ – and there are some pretty smart folks doing a lot of interesting research about it.

After the observatory, we stopped by Taco Maker for lunch (local version of Taco Bell), and headed back to the Walmart Supercenter to re-provision – including bananas and more ice-cream. Walking into the Walmart was like walking into the middle of America. Other than the signs having the Spanish writing on top and the English below – vs the reverse on the mainland – the place looked and felt like any other mid-sized Supercenter I’ve ever visited. After Walmart, we headed back towards the rental car place and got stuck in a bunch of traffic – so much traffic that we were too late to return the car. Turned out not to be an issue – and actually worked out in our favor – as early the next morning, Julie, Heidi, and I took the car to a nearby lighthouse before I had to return it. It was a really pretty morning – very quiet and peaceful.

One thing I didn’t mention…. The prior afternoon / evening (Thursday), the beach and the park next to it got really crowded – literally hundreds of tents were popping up everywhere. Turns out, the Puerto Rico scouting jamboree was about to kick-off in Boqueron. Friday afternoon, we went into the beach and walked around. We talked to a bunch of really friendly folks – and were invited to come back that evening for a concert and other general merriment. Heidi is a Venture Scout – which is an co-ed scouting group geared towards adventure activities run by the BSA for 14-21 year olds. This is the group that she and Julie went paddling in the Boundary Waters in MN and Canada last summer (Julie is a Venture Scout leader). Anyway – the reason any of this is relevant is that we hooked up with one of the Venture Scout groups that evening and had a great time with them. I was so impressed with how mature and generous with their time these ‘kids’ were. We didn’t stay too late though – as Julie, Heidi and I had gotten up very early to go to the lighthouse and were losing steam just about the time the party was getting going.

The next morning, we went back to the beach to watch a parade to kick-off the closing ceremonies. The theme of the jamboree and the parade was ‘pirates’ – as Boqureron was a key spot in the Golden Age of Piracy. Here are some fun pics of the parade.

We stayed a few more days in Boqueron – waiting for decent weather to head East. Turns out, the trip around the southwest corner of the island – by the lighthouse we visited – can get pretty squirrelly. We left on a relatively calm morning, but still had a bumpy ride around the point. It was a short ride, and by mid-day, we were anchored by La Parquera – a small town in a peaceful anchorage. In the anchorage is a small island that houses the oceanography department of the University of Puerto Rico. Also on this island are hundreds (and probably thousands) of iguanas. Willie had fun looking at them on our walks. One highlight we tried to see was a bioluminescent bay near this anchorage. It was a dark night – great for seeing the bioluminescence, but not great for navigating our way to the bay via dinghy. It was about a mile away – and rough ride. Since one of our later stops was to a ‘better’ bioluminescent bay a week or so later, we decided to turn around when the wind and waves really started to pick up and we were having a hard time seeing the coastline in the dark. We reackon that we got at least 3/4 of the way there before we turned around. A few days later, we caught up again with Boreas who went there the night after us and said it was the greatest thing ever (more or less). Ugh – we missed out on that one.

Oh well – after a night in La Parquera, we headed to Gilligan’s Island – a tropical oasis near the town of Guanica. It is a beautiful harbor with a really pretty mangrove island in the middle. The island is a nature park – and is pretty cool. It got the name Gilligan’s island because it looks a lot the island from the show, and, apparently, one of the former rangers looked a lot like either Gilligan or the Skipper (can’t remember which).

Once we got settled into our anchor, we decided it was time to ‘dragging’ – pulling a big tube behind our dinghy. It was a lot of fun for the girls – here are some pictures.

The best, however, was yet to come! As this post has gotten to long, I’m going to stop here and will pick-up in my next one. Promise it won’t be a month.

Until then,

Mark

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DR – Some of our Experiences

Hi again –
In this post, I’ll share a few of our more unique experiences in the DR.  Here we go…
The Dirt Bike
Over this journey, we’ve made friends with a lot of boats.  Actually, we have made friends with the people on boats – but we know everybody by their boat name – i.e. we’re simply known as Love and Luck.  One of our friends is Seas Life – aka – Ryan and Sheena.  In Luperon, they rented a dirt bike for a few days to tour the area.  One of those days Ryan came by and asked me if I wanted to take a ride.  Now – I’ve been on the back of a motorcycle once in my life – and it was pretty-much terrifying.  However, the opportunity to see more of the countryside was too tempting – so I hopped on the back, and off we went.  The first 5 minutes were pretty scary, but once we got out of town, it became fun.  We went on a handful of dirt roads, through a small river, down the beach, and over a really pretty mountain pass.  We also passed a lot of modest country homes, some guys playing dominos by the side of the road, and a few herds of cows coming home from pasture for their afternoon milking.   It got a little exciting when one of the cowboys (probably 15 years old) thought it would be funny to steer his herd towards us as we passed by.  Anywhere else, I might have gotten a little upset that this kid was messing with us – but the mischevous smile that he flashed us instantaneously changed my mood and  made me smile too.  I wish I had taken a camera to share some of the great sceenery, but I’m not sure I would have been able (or willing) to release my grip on the seat handles long enough to take picutures…  All in all, it was a really fun afternoon – thanks again Ryan!
The Waterfalls
One of the ‘must do’ things around Luperon is the waterfalls. There is a series of 27 waterfalls where you climb upon side of a mountain and either jump or slide down the falls.  It was a ton of fun – here are some pics / videos of our experience.  Please excuse the watermark on the videos…  I’m using a trial version of the software to edit and convert them.
Happy folks at the waterfalls
 
 
The Dentist
As Lucy described in one of her posts, we all went to the dentist.  Here’s my take on the experience…
One of the things that draws cruisers into the DR is healthcare.  It is generally very good – and very affordable.  Doctor visits, lab work, and basic preventative and emergency care are free.  Other care – including dentist visits – are very inexpensive.  Given that, we decided that we would get our 6-month teeth cleaning while in Lupreron.  We got pretty good directions from the folks at the Puerto Blanco marina – and found the modern-looking building with a large ramp, Dominican flag and ‘tooth’ signs in the front
The Dentist Office
When we walked into the office, it looked like any other small dentist office I’ve ever been in – except that, instead of outdated magazines to help pass the time, there was a big TV showing action/adventure movies dubbed into Spanish.  While we were told that they took walk-ins, since we are a party of 5, we planned (and expected) to just make an appointment for later.  To our surprise, we were told to hold tight – as we were next.  Julie went first, and before she came back – it was my turn.  I was ledto the room – and again – it looked ‘normal’ – more or less the same as my dentist growing up in Longmeadow, MA and my most recent dentist in Wilmette, IL.  I sit down in the chair, and before I lean back into the chair, the hygienist puts the ‘dentist bib’ on me.  She then hands me a folded-up paper towel and walks out the door.  OK – this throws me a bit off – as now, I don’t know what to do with this towel.  Given that I was a bit grungy looking (it had been a while since my last good shower), I figured I should put the towel on the headrest and lean back.  I sit there for a minute or two, and the hygienist comes back to get started.  Starts off like any other cleaning – and then, she gives me another towel and has me rinse out my mouth – and I realize that the towel was for me to clean my face (oops… my family had a great laugh about this – as they all figured it out the first time).  Anyway, after a quick rinse, the hygienist puts some gel on my gums.  Oh no…. I really hope this isn’t numbing gel – as numbing gel means discomfort is on the way.  While the hygienist leaves my mouth for a minute to get a tool, I sneak a quick ‘taste’ with my tongue – and my fears were confirmed as the tip of tongue started tingling and goes numb.  Turns out the tool she was grabbing was some sort of electric scraper – and it was definitely uncomfortable – for only about 2 minutes.  The rest of the cleaning was quick and painless – until the hygienist tells me that I have 4 small cavities.  Yikes – I haven’t had a cavity inyears…. Ugh.  Looks like I’m coming back for some fillings.  Note – the uncomfortable part of the cleaning is the same procedure my first dentist in Ridgefield CT used – so I’m not implying at all that the dentist wasn’t good / modern / etc…. Also note, that uncomfortable part was why I changed dentists – turns out I’m a wimp at the dentist…
Two days later, I go back to get my fillings.  After getting a bit lost and taking a self guided tour of downtown Luperon, a guy selling fruit from a small storefront pointed me in the right direction.  I get to the office – now with a pineapple in my bag – and still a bit early, as I feared this may happen.  After a short wait in the lobby, I get into the room and confidently hold on to my paper towel as I lay back onto the chair.  The dentist starts talking to me in Spanish – to which I reply back with a blank stare.  He gets somebody from the office to translate.  ‘Raise your hand if you feel any discomfort’.  ‘No problemo’ I reply – good to know that the raised hand is the international symbol for ‘ouch’ at the dentist.  Just then, two things happen at once.  First, he fires up the drill – with the unmistakable, and universally ‘bad’ high pitched whirl.  At the same time, a rooster crows right outside the window of the room I am in.  Now – notice that I didn’t mention anything about novocaine or any other tooth numbing procedure.  That wasn’t an omission –  there wasn’t any…. So, now, I’m sitting in a chair with a dentist who I can’t understand who is about to drill into my teeth without any novocaine as a rooster crows a few feet away from me.  All that flashes thorough my mind is ‘what series of bad decisions got me to this place?’  I also reflexively raise my hand – well before he gets anywhere near my mouth.  Oh well, here goes nothing I think and drop my hand and sit tight.  Turns out to be the least painful set of fillings I have ever had.  About 5 or 6 times, the drill hit a sensitive spot – I raised my hand, the dentist reacted and pain stopped immediately.  After what seemed like only a few minutes (maybe 10 or 15), I was completely done and walking out of the office – no pain, no numbness – just feeling great.  Turned out to be the easiest set of fillings I’ve ever had.  Guess the decisions that got me to that point maybe weren’t that bad.
Bruce
As Julie mentioned in one of her posts, we’ve been following the advice of Bruce Van Sant on our trip so far.  Bruce is the author of A Gentleman’s Guide to Passages South – the ‘bible’ of traveling from Florida to the British Virgin Islands.  His advice / guidance is based on his 80,000 + miles of traveling this part of the world over many, many years.  Two interesting things about the book.  1) It works!  By following his advice, we’ve had a relatively painless trip through the “Thorny Path” – as the trip from FL to the BVI is known.  2) Bruce’s writing style is blunt.  In the book, there are two ways to do things – his way and the wrong way.  Based on point #1 – I tend to believe that he is right – but the way parts of the book are written and an unflattering picture of him on the cover of his book have garnered him the title of ‘grumpy guy’ on our boat.
Grumpy Book Cover
When we heard on the twice-weekly cruisers net that Bruce was going to be giving a talk at the local marina – we couldn’t wait to meet ‘grumpy guy’!  We got there early and saw him surrounded by a handful of other ‘fans’.  When the crowd thinned, we walked over to say hi.  He was nothing but friendly, gracious, and cordial – not a hint of grumpiness.  We had a nice conversation and got this nice photo.
Happy (and not Grumpy) Bruce and our family
He then gave a good talk – mostly a Q&A session.  While he wasn’t at all grumpy, he does has a bit of edge – and isn’t afraid to share his philosophies and opinions. After 7 months and a whole bunch of miles since casting our lines from Racine WI, I find that I have become especially aligned with his philosophy of what makes a good sailor.
Bruce spent decades sailing up and down the Caribbean – and, I think it’s safe to say, he has probably ’seen it all’ when it comes to sailing these waters.  From this experience, he has learned what works and what doesn’t.  A lot of his ‘what doesn’t’ experience came from listening to self-proclaimed ‘heroes of the open seas’ telling tales of how they overcame completely unexpected foul weather and used their tremendous sailing skills to weather the storm (both literally and figuratively).  These guys (always guys) didn’t know that 9 times out of 10, their ‘completely unexpected’ weather was actually rather likely given the current and longer-range forecasts.  They just never bothered to check, because, in their minds, they were great sailors who can handle any conditions.  So, while these guys would call themselves great sailors, Bruce doesn’t agree.  In his talk,  he proclaimed this several times that these guys were ‘losers’ – partially for pretty good comic effect, and partially because I think he believes it.  His philosophy (and one I’ve adopted) is that the true test of seamanship isn’t how well you can get yourself out of trouble, but rather, how well you can put yourself in the right position to avoid trouble. (Note, this doesn’t apply to professional delivery captains, Coast Guard and Navy sailors, etc – just ’normal folks’ like us).
In theory, this is easy to do – you just wait until you get a good weather window before you move to the next port (which is pretty much what we’ve been doing).  In practice, however, for us this means that we can’t stay in some places as long as we’d prefer – like how we had to leave the DR early and missed seeing some friends.  It also means that we have to bypass other spots we’d like to see (i.e. Samana – also in the DR).  And sometimes it means that we have to stay some places longer than we’d like.  While these inconveniences seem difficult at the time, they are a lot better than getting stuck in ‘avoidable’ nasty weather.  Now, unpredictable things can and do happen, and with the right attitude, those situations become adventures. It’s another thing, however, to find yourself in an uncomfortable spot that you could have easily avoided.  Those situations aren’t adventures – those make you feel like a loser.  Luckily – we’ve kept those to a minimum…
These were just a few of our fun and interesting experiences in Luperon.  I could keep going and going – but I’m already a few weeks and a bunch more experiences behind… so time to move on.
Until next time,
Mark
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We’re back!

Hi all… For the past few weeks, our site has been down due to a malware attack on it. After many frustrating hours with various helpdesks, we’re back up and running – thank goodness!
We’re currently in Dominica – will be updating old posts as we can and have decent wifi.

Thanks – more to come!

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The Dominican Republic – the Food!

A post by Mark
I love the food in the DR!  The island is a cornucopia of tropical fruits and vegetables.  What makes the food seem even better is the fact that we haven’t had good, fresh food for a few months. For all of the great things about the Bahamas (crystal clear water, great snorkeling, supposedly great fishing (for everybody but us), etc, etc, etc… the one thing you will never hear anybody rave about is the quality and quantity of fresh food.  With the exception of seafood, fresh food just doesn’t exist – everything is shipped in from somewhere else.  That makes everything in the Bahamas very expensive, and not always tasty.  The DR is the polar opposite. Before coming here, I didn’t think I really liked papaya.  I was wrong – I had just never had good, fresh, papaya.  I’ve now had more papaya in the past few weeks than I had in the first 40+ years of my life.  Same for coconut water…. Can’t stand the stuff in a can/bottle.  Can’t get enough of it when it comes straight out of a chilled coconut.  Bananas in the US – good.  Bananas in the DR right off the stalk – fantastic.  You get the picture….
On top of all of the great fresh fruit (and vegetables), the local cuisine is fantastic – and very affordable.  We became great fans of the ‘plato del did’ (plate of the day) served for lunch at the topics (Dominican family restaurants).  For less than 15 dollars, all 5 of us could have a great lunch of salad, rice and beans and meat (usually really tasty fried chicken or stewed pork, chicken or beef), sodas or beer – and have enough left-overs for an entire other meal. We had the greatest fried chicken at the ‘chicken shack’, a wonderful meal with pork and chicken at a ‘restaurant’ that was really the living room of someone’s home, another great lunch at an outdoor place down the street from the hardware store, etc, etc, etc…. And then there was the heladoria – the ice cream shop!  When we went out for lunch, we rarely had room for ice cream.  But when we did, or were in town but did not have lunch out that day, – the ice cream shop was quite the treat.  It may not have been the fanciest gourmet ice cream out there – but it sure tased like it!
Near the end of our time in Luperon, we discovered the empanada stands.  Oh my gosh – they were the best things ever!  On our last morning, I made it to the ‘best’ one in town (according to our tour guide Jose – judging by the long line of school children queued up every morning and after school.  This ‘restaurant’ is an outdoor kitchen set-up on the corner of the owner’s lot (outside her house).  To get empanadas, you talk to the very nice woman through an opening in the fence around her yard to place your order.  I arrived at her place around 7:45 am – just about the time she was opening up for the day.  There were already 3 or 4 folks hanging out on the folding chairs and a bench outside the fence.  After muddling through my order in broken Spanish and a lot of pointing, she got to work.  Out comes a scoop of flour, some oil and a few other ingredients, and voila – a ball of dough.  Then, she pulls out the ‘old school’ hand pasta / dough roller – and 2 or 3 minutes later – the dough for the lightest, most tasty empanadas ever.  A few scoops of chopped vegetables and some cheese, a quick assembly job, and the empanadas were headed for the frier.  A minute or two later – pure goodness – as my empanadas were passed to me through the fence opening!  For less than $3 – I had 5 empanadas and a fantastic Cuban-style coffee and I was on my way back to the boat.  I could keep going – but I think you get the point… the food in the DR is fantastic – not fancy – but oh so good.  This, by the way, is probably how I’d describe our entire experience in the DR – not fancy – but oh so good.
Mark
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The Dominican Republic – Part 1

A post from Mark

Hi all,

Greetings from sunny Puerto Rico. As the girls and Julie have written, we had a great time in the Dominican Republic. Over the next few posts, I’ll do my best to give my impression of this great place, its people, the culture, the cuisine, and our adventures.
In this post, I’ll focus on the people…
We’ve met some really friendly people on this trip – many, many more genuinely nice people than not so friendly ones. That being said, I can say without a doubt that the Dominicans are the nicest, most genuine, and truly friendly people I have ever met. Every storekeeper, restaurant owner, and person walking down the street was smiling, greeted us with a ‘hola, hola’, helped us with our broken Spanish, and seemed to be in a good mood. Now, I’m aware that some of the ‘niceness’ may be attributed to the fact that the cruising community is a major contributor to the Luperon economy – but this is different. The folks we met weren’t just nice to us and other gringos – they were nice to everybody. It was great – and really put a smile on my face when I walked around town. It’s easy to understand why many people come to Luperon planning to spend a few weeks and end up staying for years (seriously… we met several people who did just that).
One example was Jose – our tour guide for our ventures around the island. Again – being a tour-guide and local politician, I’d expect Jose to be a ‘nice guy’ – but he is more than just a ‘nice guy’. Wherever we went, everybody loved Jose – and it was because that he wasn’t just a nice guy, but because we would take the time listen to everybody, and (as we later found out), speds a lot of time and money helping out the less fortunate folks in and around town.

Jose and the girls out toothbrushes that the girls collected before leaving the US (thank you to all who donated)
We also made friends with Isaac – the owner of the marina where we did some work on our boat- and his family.

We ended up having dinner with him one night and went to his house the following day so that Sally and his daughter Elena could make brownies.

Sally and Elena
I enjoyed getting to know Pedro – the guy with the best English at the hardware store who helped me find a a screw extractor and a few other things not in my Spanish / English dictionary. I even felt a bit of a connection with the owner / chef of the chicken shack where we had 2 fantastic lunches (more on that in my ‘food’ post). In Luperon, even the most transactional relationships like buying tools or a plate of fried chicken became personal – and that was great.
Other than locals, we ran in to a lot of cruisers. Unlike the Dominicans – who were universally awesome – the cruisers are a mixed bunch…. Most are great – lots of interesting folks who have chosen for one reason or another to leave the comfort of ‘normal’ life and take to the seas. Too many stories to tell – but many are pretty similar to ours– especially the ‘younger folks (and in this crowd, we’re still young)’.  There is a definatetheme of ‘life’s too short to not follow your dreams NOW’.  We’ve made lots of great friends along the way – and Luperon was no exception.
While most of the cruisers were great – a handful were downright grumpy – and while they didn’t ‘ruin’ the place, they sure did take a bit of the ’shine’ off it. Just about all of the grumpy folks were people who had stayed there for too long – and were all Americans (read into that whatever you want…). Seems as if they brought a sense of entitlement south with them – its not very attractive…. Oh well – it made leaving a bit easier (but still difficult – as I really enjoyed Luperon).
I really hope that some of the genuine niceness of the Dominican people has rubbed off on me.
Until next time,
Mark