Week 18 April 13 – 20 2014

Week 18 started off in the Ocean World Marina and finished in the Ocean World Marina.

Sunday we worked on a few things that needed to be done on the yacht and then spent the rest of

the day at the pool.

Mel was keen to start heading east but I wasn’t ready - I wasn’t keen to have another two days of sailing and beating into the wind as we knew we would have to AND I am still lacking in confidence in my ability to help Mel when the seas are rough and we are sailing in seas with 2 – 3 metre swells. We looked at the weather forecast for the next week and saw that Monday to Wednesday would be okay but by Thursday afternoon  through to Saturday, the winds would be up to 15 – 20 knots along with the swells of 2 -3 metres. We could see that the following week looked pretty calm which I was happy about, although Salty Sailor Mel would prefer slightly stronger winds. We thought we would wait and monitor when the next good sailing window would be so in the meantime we would do a bit of exploring.

Monday morning, Mel organised a car for us for the next three days. Thank goodness Mel is used to driving in organised chaos. As mentioned previously (Week 17), there are a mixture of modes of transport from donkey carts, to horseback riders, to big modern 4wheel drive vehicles, to motor bikes everywhere!!

The motor bikes appear from just about anywhere at any time and many times they don’t actually look - they just drive!!!

We decided to drive east, to Sosua, to a place we thought we may anchor off at for a while, while making our way eastwards.

The DR is slowly becoming yacht friendly although the “authorities” do not like boats just anchoring off anywhere as in the Bahamas and other Caribbean countries. “They” like to know where you are at all times and there is quite a bit of red tape and bribery. This puts off LOTS of boat people from coming here although the DR depends on tourism like most places/countries now a days. They are slowly making inroads into the tourist market as there are many hotel developments on the SE coast and north coast- where we are. About 3kms from the marina, a HUGE ocean cruise ship terminal is being built and should be finished by the end of next year.

Back to Sosua – it is only about 10nm from Puerto Plata, is situated on a cliff top, has coral reefs close to the main beach which makes it easy to swim to from the beach. It is divided into two areas – Los Charmaicos to the west and El Batey to the west, where German and Austrian Jewish refugees settled during the 1940’s.

Mel and I noticed when we were driving through that there was a synagogue and lots of German and Jewish flags flying and it was only when we stopped to walk around did we find out why.

The main beach is lined with an avenue of trees and under the trees are all market stalls.

We drove further east to Cabarete – this is known as one of the best windsurfing and kiteboarding

areas in the Caribbean. WOW does the wind blow there!!

We stopped off at Kite Beach – aptly named as we have never seen so many kiteboards. From beginners to the more experienced – it was fascinating to watch.

After watching the kite boarders for quite a while, we made our way back to the marina, had a swim and then settled down for the night.

Tuesday was a clear day so we decided to go up the Monte Isabel De Torre (781m) which soars over Puerto Plata.

As predicted there are always people trying to get you to part with your money because as we arrived in the parking lot for the cable cay to take us up the Monte Isabel De Torre, we were “hounded” by tour guides and parking lot attendants. I suppose we all have to make a living somehow.

It was fascinating going up the cable car as it reminded Mel and me of the old cable cars that took you up Table Mountain.

On the top of Monte Isabel De Torre, is a statue of Jesus similar to the one in Rio de Janeiro but it is MUCH smaller.

There were paths leading off in all different directions so we just walked and walked. We walked to the other side of the mountain and saw the hinterland and country side. It is so lush and green!

We stayed on Monte Isabel De Torre for about 2 hours then made our way back down to our car.

Afterwards we went into town to the big supermarket Le Serai to get some never ending fresh fruit and veggies.

For lunch we went down town to a local restaurant and tried some of the local DR food. It is always fascinating to people watch!!

My Darling husband can never go passed somebody selling DVD’s! We have so many DVD’s at home in Perth, I had visions of us collecting a whole lot more for the yacht!

When we arrived back on the boat and were preparing dinner, the people ( Joaquin, Marie and their two children, Ava and Adrian, On Mirador) in the yacht on our starboard (right) side came over to ask if we wanted to join them and the couple on our port (left) side – John and Lyn on Blue Moon, for dinner. They were planning on walking up the road from the marina to one of the many restaurants along the side of the road.

We joined them and had a great evening as always discussing the weather and what and when is the best time to head east – as we were all planning on doing the same thing although our time frames where slightly different.

Wednesday morning, we decided to head to Luperon.

*Bruce van Sant who wrote the “The Gentleman’s Guide to Passages South”  about sailing along  the thornless path to the Windward islands – the route we were taking, suggests going to Luperon and anchoring there until the next good weather wind. Luperon has the best hurricane hole in the Caribbean and judging from google earth, it looked a great anchorage.

Mel wasn’t keen on going to Luperon as mentioned in week 17 because of the Customs and Immigrations here in the DR.

*Bruce in his book raves about Luperon, so we thought let’s go and have a look.

Well, all I can say is THANK GOODNESS Mel decided for us to sail to Puerto Plata and the marina!

What a dive!! It is smelly and the water looks dirty! Yes it is an extremely good hurricane hole and if one had no choice but to go there, fine but thank goodness we didn’t go there as I know I would have taken the next taxi back to the airport and already be back in Perth!

We drove around Luperon for a while and tried to contact some people we “met” along the way to the DR – Bill and Alysha on Destiny who we knew were heading for Luperon.

Back in Week 17 when we were crossing the Caicos Banks, we noticed another yacht was “descending” onto the same waypoint as us. We made contact with each other over the radio, introduced ourselves and exchange info about where we had been and where we were heading – the usual stuff. Destiny was also heading to the DR but on a slight different route and time frame as us.

Later that same day while we were in Fish Cay and the following day – Thursday, when we were sailing across to Big Sand Cay.

Bill and Alysha were only going to cross to the DR the following Monday and they were heading to Luperon.

Unfortunately we didn’t make contact with them but we will keep a look out for them as we make our way east.

We drove back to Puerto Plata and went to the Fortaleza San Felipe which is the oldest colonial fortress of the New World. From the fort, there were lovely/interesting views of Puerto Plata’s

harbour and the Monte Isabel De Torre.

Afterwards we thought we would just park the car and walk the streets, which we did.

As we were walking up one of the streets, one of the security guides at the marina recognised us and we started chatting to him – he used is limited English and we tried our limited Spanish. It was his day off and he was out doing chores with his wife Christina. His name was Salvadore.

He told us about the local market so off we went….. we prefer going where the locals go and seeing the “real” parts of a city/place.

The veggies and fruit were so fresh and cheap!! The DR is very cheap. Breakfast in Perth would cost Mel and I at least $50 (bacon, eggs, toast, sausage etc.) Here the equivalent costs us $12!!!! We also bought some mangoes x12 for 40c and they taste like the mangoes we grew up with.

After the markets, we told Salvadore and Christina for a drink at a restaurant where his sister works. It was in an old colony (Spanish) building. Everything though is so sweet!!! After our drink we said our “Goodbyes” and headed back to the boat.

Thursday saw us working and cleaning the boat.

I actually did some quilting!!! It is the first bit of quilting I have done in over 6 months!! Mel worked on the radio and organised all the channels and their frequencies.

Friday morning – Good Friday – we went to breakfast at the marina Terrace with John and Lyn. We stayed there for most of the morning only returning to the boat after 1.30pm I found a T.V. that had the Monte Carlo ATP tennis tournament on and Roger Federer was playing against Tsong, so I was EXTREMELY happy and sat and watched that.

Friday afternoon, Mel worked on a few things on the boat, while I made the courtesy flag for the Netherlands Antilles.(Bonaire, Curacao, Saba, St Eustatius and St Maarten)

All the time we download the weather forecasts and adjust our plans accordingly. The internet at the marina is awful! It is so inconsistent and it is worse when the wind starts blowing which it has been since Thursday afternoon.

The people at the marina are extremely friendly and helpful. It is quite a distance to where our boat is and where the main marina offices, laundry, bathrooms and entrance are. The workers use golf carts and they will stop and give you a ride if they see you walking along the walk way.

As far as our plans are for the next part of our journey well…… next week the winds look mild, almost nothing – 5knots which will be good for us heading east against the easterlies which are the prevailing winds.

The best times to sail in this area if you are heading east is at night time when the Katabatic winds off the mountains blow and they are SE winds. ( Katabatic – a wind that flows down a slope usually at night time, due to the cooling of the upper level air which becomes heavier and flows downhill – definition taken from Bruce van Sant’s book). The winds pick up during the course of the day and afternoon and die down between 7/8.00pm and 9.00am so that is when most of our sailing will take place over the next week – Week 19.

Week 19 is going to be an interesting week as we will be heading east to Samana and then the next BIG “obstacle” is the Mona passage which if according to *Bruce can be a breeze or turn into your worst nightmare if you do not time things right. He believes and is known to have the correct idea/formula so we are taking note of what he has to say.

So until next time when I am sure I will have LOTS to report on…. Take care.

Sending lots of love

Captain Salty Sailor Mel – the Sailing Nut and his Admiral Caryn/xx

 

 

Week 17 April 6 – 12 2014

If it is week 17, then it must be…….the Dominican Republic.

We stayed in the Caicos marina for another two nights – the whole area was experiencing very strong SE winds, which meant that if we were out in Sapodilla Bay, we would have been bouncing like a bouncy castle all day and night. Not very nice when you have other options like a very small marina with great Wi-Fi.

Wednesday morning looked a good day to cross the Caicos Banks. The wind was down to 10 knots so the swell on the banks would be small. The Banks are very shallow in some areas with lots of coral heads so although we have waypoints and a line on the chartplotterr to follow, you have to be vigilant.

Early Wednesday morning (7.30am) we said our farewells to all at the Caicos Marina and started heading S/SE across the banks. As predicted, the wind wasn’t playing ball – it is always so unpredictable! It is so predictable in its unpredictability. We listened to broadcasts, downloaded grib files from 4 different sources and still it is never quite what is predicted.

The wind was meant to shift from SE – S – SW – great as the SW would push us along the Caicos Banks – but no way, we only saw a SW for about an hour and half and that was all the comfortable sailing we could do, otherwise it was motor sailing, which we are so sick of!!!

Our plan as mentioned last week, was to get to Fish Cay, anchor off there for the night (Wednesday night) before heading across the Turks Ocean passage to Salt Cay or maybe even Big Sand Cay and then overnight (Thursday) to Puerto Plata in the Dominican Republic.

We reached Fish Cay at about 3.30pm and meandered our way through the coral heads to a lovely anchoring place. Far enough away from the island in case the wind should change to the W as we would then be on a Lee shore (i.o.w – we would not be blown onto the shallow area of the island ) – we put our anchor watch on as Mel was concerned about the holding – where the anchor had “dug in” looked sandy enough but unless you dive down and check it for yourself which Mel normally does any  way, there can be only a very thin layer of sand, on top of rock which obviously the anchor doesn’t dig into.

Mel dived the anchor and we both had a quick swim close to the boat which was lovely and refreshing.

While we were organising the boat for the night ahead and for the following day/nights sail, in the distance I spotted some whales jumping up into the air. It was quite far way so watched through the binoculars. It was amazing!!

Well that night……. Talk about rocking and rolling!!! We rocked and we rolled all night, hardly sleeping at all!! The swell from the Fish Cay cut was awful!! If we could have left earlier (in the middle of the night) we would have but because knew about the coral heads, we couldn’t move until the sun was up and the visibility was good – of course!

As soon as we could get going on Thursday morning we were out of there. I helmed, while Mel directed us clear of the coral heads. After a bad experience, Mel and I always try to learn from it and analyses “What did we do wrong??”

We had listened to Chris Parkers broadcast (the weather guru for this area who transmits his forecast Monday – Saturday over the HF radio at 6.30am) and he had said that the cold front, which we knew about, was closing in on Provo earlier than expected. Yey too right, we could see it coming. We knew it would help to push us across the Turks Passage to Big Sand Cay and hopefully to Puerto Plata – it was meant to be only 10 – 12knots but it was actually gusting 15 – 20 knots!!!

I was trying not to get too worked up and to panic as I always say to Mel “If the boat is fine and he is happy, then I can cope” – my Salty Sailor Husband!!!

I tried to stay in the cockpit for as long as possible but when it started raining and the squalls came (25+ knots), I had to go down and sit in my safe little corner.

See photo – FYI – we have our towels hanging there as I can’t always reach the hand rails. I find if the towels are there it is easier to grab them when we are healing and are underway and I can at least move around the saloon area without falling all over the show!

We made very slow progress to Big Sand Cay – we eventually arrived there at 2.30pm, put the anchor down, assessed the situation as the winds were much stronger than forecast and the sea swell was also unpleasant.

We looked at the weather forecast and the grib files and assessed our options. It was either we press on to the DR or we stay at Big Sand Cay for the next three days, rocking and rolling. We obviously decided to press on to the DR although we knew it would not be as pleasant as we first predicted or anticipated.

Anchor was up by 6.00pm and we headed for the DR.

There was a ¾ moon so it looked lovely on the sea but I didn’t stay up in the cockpit for long. Salty Sailor Mel was all locked on and happy to spend the night up in the cockpit.

As predicted by us – the wind clocked to the SE quicker than the weather forecast said. This meant that we were being pushed west more than what we wanted to and it looked more like we were heading to Luperon in the west instead of Puerto Plata.

We have noticed that when the weather forecast predicts 10 knots of wind, it is at least plus 5 – 8/10 knots more and the timing is at least 5 – 6 hours earlier than anticipated.

Mel was not keen on us going to Luperon, as he had booked us into the Ocean World Marina in Puerto Plata as they would help us with customs and immigration, which we knew from reading and other people can be a very trying, difficult and time consuming process.

Dawn broke on Friday morning and we were about 30nm from the DR – we could see the high mountains – it was a change from being in the Bahamas where the land is just above sea level.

Mel calculated that we should be at the marina by 4.00pm but that meant we would have to put the engine on and motor sail with the wind on our nose. Not very comfortable at all – something we have to expect for the next few weeks until we are past the Virgin Islands.

When we were about 5nm from the entrance to the marina, a whole school of porpoises swam in the wake of our bow for about 10 minutes. It was magical! I tried capturing some of the swimming and jumping next to our boat.

We entered the marina at – 4.00pm, tied up at the customs and immigration dock, flew our yellow quarantine flag and waited for the Customs Officials to arrive. We waited for about 15 minutes, when four “Official” looking men arrived to board our boat.

One was a representative of the marina, who could speak fluent English – he acted as an interpreter for us, a Naval Officer in his camouflage uniform, an Immigrations Officer and another from M2 – Intelligence. We had heard of M2 and told to expect to see a few of these individuals around.

After filling out two forms, they were happy and Mel was escorted to the Customs building which was just above the main Marina Offices. Mel was away for about 10 minutes, when we were given the all clear to  put up the DR flag and could move to where we would be for the next 2 -3 days.

We were all secure by 5.00pm and Mel, as he usually does, gave the boat a good clean as it was caked in salt in some areas.

Having that first cup of hot tea is always the best as is the first really hot and long shower that we had soon after the boat was clean. We had a light supper and off to bed – exhausted!!

We slept like babies and work up on Saturday morning feeling refreshed and ready to explore.

As it was our Anniversary (17 years – where have they gone!!!), we decided not to spend the day doing boat chores as there is always something!! (At the moment, we have to look at the strappings that secure the two Gerry cans on the port side of the boat – they have worn away. Also, our second head/toilet, is still playing up)

We were told that one of the grocery shops in the city centre offers transport to their shop and back to the marina so we thought we would do a bit of shopping and sight-seeing at the same time. After a lovely breakfast at the Ocean World Terrace at the marina, we went into Puerto Plata.

Puerto Plata was founded in 1502 and has a mixture of Victorian gingerbread type houses in the heart of the centre city along with the modern more urban sprawl. Soaring over Puerto Plata is Monte Isabel De Torre (781m) which offers lovely views over the area – there is cable car access to the summit, which Mel and I MAY do, depending on how long we stay here. It all depends on the correct weather/winds for heading east!

We did a bit of shopping, left our shopping at the shop, walked along part of the waterfront and down some of the side streets, back to the grocery shop and then were taken back to the marina.

The driving is organised chaos – most people ride motor bikes and a whole family of five can be piled onto one bike – NO helmets to be seen. It felt a bit like being in a time warp – as one minute you would see a donkey drawn cart, a very run down truck with smoke bellowing from it and the next you would see modern cars sweep past you.

It seems as if there is quite a bit of free enterprise as there are many little shops/home businesses. The appearance of the outside of a building is quite deceiving from what you may find once you step inside.

We would like to go back into the city centre but as I mentioned earlier, it all depends on the correct weather window.

Saturday evening, since it was our anniversary, we went to the lovely restaurant at the marina. It felt good to dress up a bit and to put some make up on!!

So that is the week that was – Week 17. We are slowly making our way further east and south as we are now at 19 degrees north – we started off at 27 degrees north in Fort Pierce, Florida.

Sending lots of love

Captain Salty Sailor Mel – the Sailing Nut and Admiral Caryn

Week 16 March 31 – April 5 2014

 

 

What a difference a week makes! This week has been full with so many different emotions, from pure fear to contentment.

The last time I wrote, we were in George Town, Exumas preparing mentally and physically for our journey south to the Turks and Caicos Islands. It was reassuring to see a family of dolphins (two adults with two babies) swimming around our yacht while we were checking the yacht for our journey.

I had mixed feelings of excitement AND feelings of pure fear. We were going to a new place/country and seeing different and amazing things and I knew once we arrived at the top of Long Island, heading east to Rum Cay, we would start hitting the Atlantic swells.

On Sunday morning we left George Town, Exumas – our last stop in the Bahamas. The sail out of George Town and to Long Island via Cape Santa Maria, was lovely! I could see why Mel enjoys sailing as it was so peaceful and there is definitely the sense of pure freedom and closeness to nature. You are just using the wind to move forward.

Long Island is aptly named “Long Island” as it is narrow and is rarely more than 4nm wide but it is 80nm from north to south.

 We sailed NE from George Town to the northern point of Long Island, Cape Santa Maria (see photo), then took advantage of the clocking of the wind from S to W, to Rum Cay going east. We sailed passed Rum Cay on schedule, between 5.30 – 6.30pm.

This is when the swells started and I started getting sea sick.

We had discussed what we would do, once you set a course on auto pilot, set the sails and you take turns to watch.

 The AIS is also pretty good as it shows us where all the commercial ships are and any small boats that have AIS (most are starting to install AIS). It is compulsory for commercial boats to have it and since we have it, they can see us and we, of course can see them.

I tried to “watch” while Mel slept but he could not sleep for long as I was so sick! We were both in the cockpit, with our life jackets on.

While I was on watch, the heavens opened and we had a down pour. We have side flaps for the cockpit so if we choose to, we can enclose the whole of the cockpit. We have only put up the front side flaps as that is where you sit mostly and you need protection from the wind or the spray.

I eventually had to go down to the saloon so Mel put on his safety harness and “clipped on”. It is a safety precaution, if you are in the cockpit on your own and the other person is “down below”, then you MUST wear your safety harness and clip on.

At about 3.00am (Monday morning) Mel woke me to say he had to go on deck as the genoa had twisted and he was concerned that with the unexpected winds we were having, it may rip! My worst nightmare!!! I have had quite a few nightmares in the last 12 months of Mel going overboard.

When we are doing an ocean passage, along with the harnesses and life jackets, we put the “jack lines” out along the boat. These are for when you have to go on deck and you clip your safety harness to the jack lines so you are attached to the boat and can “walk” along the deck of the boat.

We put our head phones on so Mel and I were in constant communications, the deck light was put on and off Mel went to the bow of the boat to sort out the genoa.

I had to control the lines of the genoa as Mel was trying to sort it out. Like always, in a situation like this, it seems to take forever but in actual fact it took less than 3 mins to sort out. Thank goodness!!!

Day broke and we were now east enough to start heading south towards the Turks and Caicos Islands – we were about half way now.

I was feeling a bit better although I still wasn’t eating – I managed to eat a few ginger biscuits and an orange in the two days we were sailing – apparently Vit. C is very good for sea sickness. I stayed in the cockpit for about an hour when I started feeling worse so went back down stairs and that is where I stayed for most of the journey until we reached to protection of the Turks and Caicos on Tuesday morning.

To make matters worse, the winds were great for sailing but they were 5 – 10knots stronger and the swell was about 2metres more than forecast. Mel reduced sailing to make it a little more comfortable and so we wouldn’t heal so much. I know he was trying to make me feel better by doing this but I was no use to man or beast. I was just lying in the salon feeling sorry for myself.

Mel was happy as the boat performed beautifully - EVERYTHING that he expected from her. She was cruising down the swells, at times at 8 -9knots (he told me this when we were in the safety of the marina). He was so tired but an extremely happy salty sailor on his yacht.

During the night, about every hour, I would check on Mel, poke my head up to see what was going on and check the AIS. We saw one cruise liner, heading for the BVI about 6nm on our port side during the night.  On the AIS, you can change the plotting range from 1/2nm right up to 24nm.

Before the sun came up, we saw the northern point Lighthouse of the Turks and Caicos. It took us another 3 hours to reach the waypoint for the start of the Sandbore Channel.

We had to request permission to enter and of course we had already taken down the Bahamian flag and put up our yellow quarantine flag.

We had already made arrangements to go to the Caicos Marina where our generator was waiting for us since Mel had shipped it across from Fort Lauderdale, two weeks ago.

Cross the Caicos Banks is tricky as there are many coral heads and it is very shallow in some parts.

We passed South Dock and Sapodilla Bay, heading east to the Marina.

We eventually arrived at the marina at 12.00 (high tide) after having to do quite a bit of VPR (visual piloting rules).

Most marinas in the TCI are classified as hurricane holes and this marina was sure one as once we had entered the channel, it was dead calm.  BLISS!!!

 

The marina contacted Customs and Immigration for us, so we had to wait ON the boat until we had been given the all clear. We were both dying to have a long shower!!!

An hour after arriving, Customs and Immigration came on board and gave us the all clear, so we put the TCI flag up (the one I had made about 2- 3 weeks ago while in George Town).

The Caicos Marine is also a ship yard and is where the headquarters are for the Marine Police.

The TCI have a few issues with Haitians trying to enter illegally. Provo radio (not sure how they got their name) have a sophisticated radar set up, that picks up any boats about 12nm off the coast line. They then contact the Marine Police, who go and investigate.

The TCI is a British Overseas Territory and the island group has a governor who is appointed by the Queen.

The TCI consists of two groups of islands. The Caicos Group – North, Middle and South Caicos, Providenciales (known as Provo) and Pine and Parrot Cay (privately owned). The Turks Group – the Grand Turks and Salt Cay. Prov, South Caicos and Grand Turks are the main areas where everything happens.

In the middle of the Caicos Group are the Caicos Banks which are 60nm long and full of coral heads. We have to sail across the Caicos Banks on our way south to the Dominican Republic.

Tuesday afternoon, after clearing customs and having a shower, Mel washed the boat down as he always does and I put one load of laundry in so at least we had some clean clothes. I tend to only do laundry every second week now.

That night, it was early to bed and did we sleep well!

Wednesday, we potted around the yacht. There were a few things that needed repairing as is always the case on a yacht. One of the biggest problems is always chaffing of things as you sail as it is a constant movement and the binghy straps took a beating.

There was another yacht in the marina – “Three Sheets” – Reg and Phoebe – they were from Canada, had sailed down the west coast of the States, through the Panama Canal, up to Mexico, Cuba and were heading for Bermuda and hopefully to the Mediterranean. They had hired a car for the day so asked us if we would like to join them for a meal out at a local Italian restaurant. We accepted so off we went at 6.30pm.

Thursday – we decided to hire a car for two days, so we off we went heading for the most western part of the island – we had actually sailed passed this point.

The driving in TCI is the British system but in American built cars –i.o.w. you drive on the left hand side of the road and the cars are all left hand drive.

We stopped for lunch near Sapodilla Bay – this is where we will be anchoring off once we leave the

marina. As is always in most of the restaurants in this part of the world where conch is the staple ingredient, there is always a place where the fisherman will have his catch of conch and be taking the flesh out of the shells.

 

Here are photos of Mel and myself enjoying our lunch of fish fingers. We spent the day driving from one end of the island (West) to the other end of the island (East). As always there are the big exclusive holiday resorts and shops catering just for the tourists.

We found a HUGE hardware store and one of the marine stores Mel enjoyed going into when we were in the States so of course we had to spend some time there.

 

Friday, Mel wanted to go back to the marine store, I didn’t feel like going so I stayed behind and did some sewing – for the yacht. I made some covers for our Gerry cans.

That afternoon we went to the main shopping area to do some grocery shopping – we always like to stock up on fresh fruit and veggies when we can get them at a responsible price of course. We love our grapefruit but are not prepared to pay $2US for one!

Saturday saw Mel return the hired car but NOT before going back to the marine warehouse for something or other. There is always something for the boat!

We were planning on leaving the marina and anchor off at Sapodilla Bay but not today….

We are starting to prepare for the next stage of our journey and that is to the Dominican Republic (DR). It will mean crossing the Caicos Bank, which we should only do in calm weather as there is always a risk of hitting the bottom if it is too much windy and choppy – there are some really very shallow parts. We hope to stay overnight at Fish Cay before heading SE to Big Sand Cay in the Turks Group. From there we will leave for DR in the late afternoon as the passage across will be an over nighter as the winds are always more favourable for this area then. It is approximately 90nm to Puerto Plata in the DR and a whole new ball game sailing in this area. More info later when we are actually there.

So that is the week that was. Next week we should be in the DR so until then – take care.

Sending lots of love

Captain Salty Mel and Admiral Caryn/xx

 

Track our journey: http://www.pangolin.co.nz/xtras/yotreps/tracker.php?ident=VJN4467

 

  

 

Week 4 January 5 to 12 2014

 

What a contrast in weather. From sunny humid weather, to freezing weather one day, then very heavy down pouring of rain.
Our main focus for us this week was organising and ordering all of our safety equipment. Well...

The week started sunny, a perfect day to go sailing! If Mel could he would be out on the ocean sailing into the sunset.
We listened to and monitor the weather channels both on the radio and over the Internet. We knew that up north in New York it was freezing and we saw from the reports that by Monday evening the cold weather will be closing in on Fort Pierce. We went off to Homebase (Bunnings equivalent) and bought a small heater. Thank goodness we did as it was absolutely freezing! Apparently a polar forex passed over the east coast. It was COLD!

This cold weather continued until Thursday morning. During the week, I had placed an order on Amazon, for a new sewing machine. According to the tracking information, I would be receiving my new sewing machine - a Janome HD 1000, on Friday. I had been told by my dear friend Margaret that the Joanne (Spotlight equivalent) in Jensen’s Beach was 10 times better than the one in Vero Beach that I had only been to, so off we went.



Well on the way home along the US1, we had an almighty down pour. Apparently a tropical storm passed over us - we found this out later. What extremes of weather we had experienced in such a short time.
Here is a photo of us driving along the main street in Fort Pierce. We were only able to travel at 30miles an hour (speed limit is usually 45 miles per hour/ +/- 70km per hour).
The down pour caused the roads to flood causing a HUGE traffic jam. The one lane was so flooded, it was not safe to drive through.
On Friday, Mel was keen on going to the Stuart Boat Show in Stuart, which is about 25 miles south of Fort Pierce and a place we would be passing on our way down to Fort Lauder dale and Miami.

We went to the boat show which was rather disappointing as it was mainly for "stink" boats and hardly anything for yachts. Talk about free enterprise - finding a place to park was an issue as residents around the Stuart sailing club where the show was being held, "allowed" people to park on their property or drive ways for $10 a car.

Saturday was Mel's birthday so we went off to have breakfast at the local bakery in downtown Fort Pierce. On our way home we went to the local Saturday morning market to buy some fresh fruit and vegetables. Mel was quite content to spend the rest of the day pottering around on the yacht, redoing something or other. That evening he wanted to try this Mexican restaurant we pass almost every time we go to Walmart(Woolworths equivalent) so off we went. Well that particular restaurant wasn't open so we tried another one close by. It was very good. It was good to recognise some Spanish words and phrases. Below is a photo of the Birthday Boy.

The count down to leaving Fort Pierce begins. We intend leaving next Sunday 19th January 2014, heading south to Lake Worth along the ICW. Mel would like to go out to sea as there are so many bridges to sail under. Some we will need permission to have opened and the times are all erratic - some on the hour, others on the half hour, while others at 1/4 past or 1/4 to the hour. Mel would also like to get the feel of just how the yacht handles so I suppose I must bite the bullet and head out to sea! But before then we will be off to Orlando to Magic Kingdom via Cape Canaveral and the Kennedy Space Centre.
Until next time.
Bye.
Love Caryn