Sunday, December 10, 2017
Aboard, but Not Bored
Since we are back on board our 42' Manta Catamaran, Allergic to Cities, we figured it's time to fire up the ol' Allergic to Cities sailing blog once again.
We are currently on the dock in Puerto Rico. We arrived 10 days ago and have been busy getting the boat provisioned and fixed up for the upcoming winter sailaway. The boat handled the hurricanes (Irma and Maria) without issue but due to her advancing age (14 now!) she needs bit more TLC than before. We have been replacing some simple systems and parts so that we, hopefully, will have a fairly uneventful few months of sailing before heading off to our upcoming house sit in Panama in April and May.
As for our sailing plans, we are still unsure of our direction and final destination for next summer's hurricane season. Since the Virgins and St Martin were so badly wrecked from hurricane Maria, we're not too keen on traveling there amid sunken boats and closed venues. But below St Martin the islands are still intact and are beckoning forth. Our other primary option is to head due south for 3 days/nights to arrive at the ABC islands Aruba, Bonaire, Curicao) off of Venezuela. We have heard of their legendary beauty and think they might afford us the kind of "newness" we presently seek. From there, we'd like to head west to Cartagena, Columbia for a visit as we've understood it to be a lovely colonial Spanish port city. Supposedly, very safe and not the Columbia of Pablo's days. We must decide soon as we hope to set sail this coming week, barring any new mechanical needs prior to cast off.
That being said, the betting man should lay money on us heading on down through the Virgins, past St. Martin, St. Barths, and on down the Leeward and Windward islands until we decide to veer west with prevailing trade winds directly to the ABC's where we may lay up the boat for the summer, hopefully out of any upcoming hurricane's way.
We are presently awaiting a few parts which need to be installed on our water maker and a new navigation tool called an AIS which allows us to see and be seen at a distance by other ships underway. It provides critical speed, distance, and directional info, which helps avoid "guessing" as to whether we would be likely to be too close to a huge vessel during night travel. We've relied on prudent navigation skill to date, but this navigational instrument simply takes a lot of the guesswork out of potentially dangerous navigation times. In the meanwhile, we've been undertaking maintenance issues like diesel engine oil changes, new anchor roller, new anchor chain rub rail, getting our new dinghy set up (just like the captain, the old one wouldn't keep air in it for long), new main halyard, new mufflers, and miscellaneous parts, pieces and whatdoyacallits..
We will be posting on our travel blog (www.allergictocities.blogspot.com) while underway so those with latent (or blatant) voyeuristic tendencies can live a bit vicariously through our upcoming adventures, if interested.
We will post again, once we know when we're heading out.
Until then, stay tuned...
Wednesday, May 10, 2017
Heading to Summer Harbor
We've been moving along the southern coast of Puerto Rico the past couple of weeks and enjoying some fabulous downwind sails. The anyone not familiar with points of sailing, I submit that downwind in moderate air is one of my favorites. The following seas seem to push you along while the wide spread of your sails keep you moving at a nice clip. We've seen upwards of 9 kts of speed on this leg and generally average around 6-7. SO we've been making good distance in short times. Very pleasant, to be sure.
We left Culebra on the extreme east end end of PR and headed across to Fajardo, a rather lively marina port town. We needed to have an electrical mechanic come aboard to diagnose our charging system as we were not getting to a full battery charge every day. Usually, our solar array (450 watts) alone will top the house batteries off to 100% each day f the sun is out. But we had been experiencing some cloudy days and several on the hook without running the engine which also provide charging power from the alternators. SO our batteries were in need of a good charge so we went to a marina for the first time in many months. We hate marinas as they are usually crowded and noisy and smell of diesel fumes. But we had to get our charge situation figured out or our battery bank would suffer serious damage.
After arriving at Sunbay Marina, we found the place to be quite pleasant although a bit "rolly" from the ocean surge. We plugged the boat into the marina to start charging and found nothing coming into our system. After trying several of my short list of fixes, we knew we needed an expert. The management was very accommodating and helped recommend a mechanic who could help us with the diagnosis. We arranged for his visit and awaited the appointed time. When he arrived 2 hours late, we were less than excited and not very optimistic. However, he was thorough and seemed to know his stuff. The bad news was his diagnosis that we needed a new battery charge system to replace the original one. Not an inexpensive answer. He did some other things which seemed to help for the moment and we paid him and he left. We stayed the night on the dock and anxiously left the next morning, hoping that running our engines for several hours would recharge our system in no time. Unfortunately, it did not do the trick. They slowly began to refill with energy, but never seemed to get back to where they should be. The sun was now shining brightly and our solar power was doing its thing so we motored on for the day letting mother nature fill our batteries.
We rounded the south eastern corner of PR and headed west to our anticipated nightly port, Puerto Patillas. It looked like a nice place to anchor for the night, but when we approached around 3pm, our electronic charts did not afford us a good look at the anchorage. After much discussion, we decided to move further on to a big bay called Jobos. Usually, we like to be settled into an anchorage around 3pm so this was pushing our comfort zone as the next stop would take up to three more hours. Along the way, we motor sailed to make up some time as the wind had died a bit. Motoring along and making good time, I suddenly noticed an anomaly in the ocean ahead. It looked like a reef quite a ways from shore and about a half mile straight ahead. Looking through our binoculars, it certainly appeared to be frothing water, indicating a reef. However, I consulted the chartplotter and nothing showed up as a concern until I zoomed in to a closer range (6nm) from the 12nm range we had been using. There on the zoomed chart, in front of us, was a huge reef, which certainly would have ruined our day, not to mention the bottom of the boat. I made some quick course changes and fortunately avoided the disaster. We learned a good lesson that day about what range to use with our chartplotter as certain magnifications do not show everything one needs to be aware of ahead. We now sail at 6nm (or less) magnification on the plotter to be sure to see everything needed to avoid obstructions ahead.
Jobos--
We arrived at Jobos after the completion of a 50 mile day, in better than we expected time as the wind had stiffened along the way affording us some better speed over water times. We found the bay to be a wonderful experience. It was a huge bay, throughly protected by reefs and mangroves. We dropped our sails and motored around until we found a suitable spot and dropped the hook for the night. That night we enjoyed a very quiet, calm and breezy anchorage and a good nights sleep was had by both of us.
The next morning we "yanked the anck" and headed off to Ponce, our next stop on the bottom of this big island. We had stayed in Ponce in 2008 when we sailed south from Maine on our inaugural trip on A2C. During that trip we got "stuck" there for nearly a month as our boat needed to await a new throttle cable from Volvo to be shipped to us. We were buddy boating with three other boats at the time and each of us had something needed to be done while there so we had lots of time to get acquainted with the place. During that first visit, we found Ponce to be loud, dirty and generally not very likable. It may have been the circumstances of the time or our impatience in being delayed on our trip, but all felt that this place was surely the armpit of PR. This stop, we found Ponce to be much more to our liking. We wound up staying for three days, renting a car one day, and enjoying it much more. I still don't think we'd want to spend another month there, like before, but this visit helped change our overall impressions of PR in general.
While at Ponce, a beautiful 65' Privilege catamaran arrived and was having trouble catching their anchor. I had noticed earlier that the area they were trying caused other similar difficulties and suggested the move over further to the side of the channel which proved successful for them. They stopped by the boat later to thanks us for the assistance. We chatted and found them to be a very nice British couple who own several restaurants all over England. Their boat's name was English Sally and was named after his great-great-great grandmother who evidently was quite a character. We found out they were heading the same direction we were so guessed we'd see them again somewhere down the line, which we did.
English Sally--
We finally left Ponce after filling with fuel and water at their fuel dock and headed off on another fine downwind sail towards our net stop at La Parguera. It turned out to be another big bay/lake anchorage situation which gave us a pleasant night on the hook. We went into the village, seeking a few grocery items, and found the place was celebrating their annual Pineapple Festival. Evidently La Parguera was once the pineapple producing place of Puerto Rico. Not so anymore but the tradition was a good excuse for a festival. Good live salsa band, interesting food booths, lots of happy, celebrating folks but the grocery store was very inadequate. Oh well, nothing was really needed badly so we just joined into the celebration for a couple of hours, even bumping into our new friends from English Sally.
The next morning we pulled anchor and headed out the pass toward our next stop, Boqueron Bay. Again, we had been here the first time around and found the bay to feel much different to us both. ON the sail down, we saw English Sally coming up from behind us flying their beautiful asymetrical sail out front. They came blowing by us at a pretty good clip but not before each boat could capture a couple of shots of the other boat under sail. We then anchored within a couple hundred yards of each other in Boqueron Bay. The bay is a lovely large body of well protected water which serves as a popular resort area for local Puerto Ricans. Evidently it is very busy on the weekends but being here on a Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday morning, it is very quiet and nice. Tuesday morning I dinghied over to English Sally to provide them with my photos and get theirs and got a quick tour of their yacht. WOW! This is how one should travel. Quite a boat to say the least. Turns out they have a hired crew aboard (A French Captain and English Mate/Chef) to do the "heavy lifting" and to allow the owners to enjoy the luxury of their labors. They are eventually on their way to Newport, RI for the summer and then they may head back south next winter but may return to the Med. Not sure of their travel plans. Anyway, it was nice to make their acquaintances. They pulled out on Tuesday morning, as they need to be back in San Juan by Friday as they fly out leaving the crew to take the boat on to the Turks and Caicos ahead of their arrival there later in the month.
Sunrise over Boqueron Bay --
Soon we will pull out of Boqueron as well. But this has been lovely stop and we agreed we should return when we head back west next fall. On to Marina Pescadaria where we will prepare to leave the boat for summer's hurricane season. More to come... stay tuned.
We left Culebra on the extreme east end end of PR and headed across to Fajardo, a rather lively marina port town. We needed to have an electrical mechanic come aboard to diagnose our charging system as we were not getting to a full battery charge every day. Usually, our solar array (450 watts) alone will top the house batteries off to 100% each day f the sun is out. But we had been experiencing some cloudy days and several on the hook without running the engine which also provide charging power from the alternators. SO our batteries were in need of a good charge so we went to a marina for the first time in many months. We hate marinas as they are usually crowded and noisy and smell of diesel fumes. But we had to get our charge situation figured out or our battery bank would suffer serious damage.
After arriving at Sunbay Marina, we found the place to be quite pleasant although a bit "rolly" from the ocean surge. We plugged the boat into the marina to start charging and found nothing coming into our system. After trying several of my short list of fixes, we knew we needed an expert. The management was very accommodating and helped recommend a mechanic who could help us with the diagnosis. We arranged for his visit and awaited the appointed time. When he arrived 2 hours late, we were less than excited and not very optimistic. However, he was thorough and seemed to know his stuff. The bad news was his diagnosis that we needed a new battery charge system to replace the original one. Not an inexpensive answer. He did some other things which seemed to help for the moment and we paid him and he left. We stayed the night on the dock and anxiously left the next morning, hoping that running our engines for several hours would recharge our system in no time. Unfortunately, it did not do the trick. They slowly began to refill with energy, but never seemed to get back to where they should be. The sun was now shining brightly and our solar power was doing its thing so we motored on for the day letting mother nature fill our batteries.
We rounded the south eastern corner of PR and headed west to our anticipated nightly port, Puerto Patillas. It looked like a nice place to anchor for the night, but when we approached around 3pm, our electronic charts did not afford us a good look at the anchorage. After much discussion, we decided to move further on to a big bay called Jobos. Usually, we like to be settled into an anchorage around 3pm so this was pushing our comfort zone as the next stop would take up to three more hours. Along the way, we motor sailed to make up some time as the wind had died a bit. Motoring along and making good time, I suddenly noticed an anomaly in the ocean ahead. It looked like a reef quite a ways from shore and about a half mile straight ahead. Looking through our binoculars, it certainly appeared to be frothing water, indicating a reef. However, I consulted the chartplotter and nothing showed up as a concern until I zoomed in to a closer range (6nm) from the 12nm range we had been using. There on the zoomed chart, in front of us, was a huge reef, which certainly would have ruined our day, not to mention the bottom of the boat. I made some quick course changes and fortunately avoided the disaster. We learned a good lesson that day about what range to use with our chartplotter as certain magnifications do not show everything one needs to be aware of ahead. We now sail at 6nm (or less) magnification on the plotter to be sure to see everything needed to avoid obstructions ahead.
Jobos--
We arrived at Jobos after the completion of a 50 mile day, in better than we expected time as the wind had stiffened along the way affording us some better speed over water times. We found the bay to be a wonderful experience. It was a huge bay, throughly protected by reefs and mangroves. We dropped our sails and motored around until we found a suitable spot and dropped the hook for the night. That night we enjoyed a very quiet, calm and breezy anchorage and a good nights sleep was had by both of us.
The next morning we "yanked the anck" and headed off to Ponce, our next stop on the bottom of this big island. We had stayed in Ponce in 2008 when we sailed south from Maine on our inaugural trip on A2C. During that trip we got "stuck" there for nearly a month as our boat needed to await a new throttle cable from Volvo to be shipped to us. We were buddy boating with three other boats at the time and each of us had something needed to be done while there so we had lots of time to get acquainted with the place. During that first visit, we found Ponce to be loud, dirty and generally not very likable. It may have been the circumstances of the time or our impatience in being delayed on our trip, but all felt that this place was surely the armpit of PR. This stop, we found Ponce to be much more to our liking. We wound up staying for three days, renting a car one day, and enjoying it much more. I still don't think we'd want to spend another month there, like before, but this visit helped change our overall impressions of PR in general.
While at Ponce, a beautiful 65' Privilege catamaran arrived and was having trouble catching their anchor. I had noticed earlier that the area they were trying caused other similar difficulties and suggested the move over further to the side of the channel which proved successful for them. They stopped by the boat later to thanks us for the assistance. We chatted and found them to be a very nice British couple who own several restaurants all over England. Their boat's name was English Sally and was named after his great-great-great grandmother who evidently was quite a character. We found out they were heading the same direction we were so guessed we'd see them again somewhere down the line, which we did.
English Sally--
We finally left Ponce after filling with fuel and water at their fuel dock and headed off on another fine downwind sail towards our net stop at La Parguera. It turned out to be another big bay/lake anchorage situation which gave us a pleasant night on the hook. We went into the village, seeking a few grocery items, and found the place was celebrating their annual Pineapple Festival. Evidently La Parguera was once the pineapple producing place of Puerto Rico. Not so anymore but the tradition was a good excuse for a festival. Good live salsa band, interesting food booths, lots of happy, celebrating folks but the grocery store was very inadequate. Oh well, nothing was really needed badly so we just joined into the celebration for a couple of hours, even bumping into our new friends from English Sally.
The next morning we pulled anchor and headed out the pass toward our next stop, Boqueron Bay. Again, we had been here the first time around and found the bay to feel much different to us both. ON the sail down, we saw English Sally coming up from behind us flying their beautiful asymetrical sail out front. They came blowing by us at a pretty good clip but not before each boat could capture a couple of shots of the other boat under sail. We then anchored within a couple hundred yards of each other in Boqueron Bay. The bay is a lovely large body of well protected water which serves as a popular resort area for local Puerto Ricans. Evidently it is very busy on the weekends but being here on a Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday morning, it is very quiet and nice. Tuesday morning I dinghied over to English Sally to provide them with my photos and get theirs and got a quick tour of their yacht. WOW! This is how one should travel. Quite a boat to say the least. Turns out they have a hired crew aboard (A French Captain and English Mate/Chef) to do the "heavy lifting" and to allow the owners to enjoy the luxury of their labors. They are eventually on their way to Newport, RI for the summer and then they may head back south next winter but may return to the Med. Not sure of their travel plans. Anyway, it was nice to make their acquaintances. They pulled out on Tuesday morning, as they need to be back in San Juan by Friday as they fly out leaving the crew to take the boat on to the Turks and Caicos ahead of their arrival there later in the month.
Sunrise over Boqueron Bay --
Soon we will pull out of Boqueron as well. But this has been lovely stop and we agreed we should return when we head back west next fall. On to Marina Pescadaria where we will prepare to leave the boat for summer's hurricane season. More to come... stay tuned.
Tuesday, April 18, 2017
US Virgin ISlands
Greetings from St. John, USVI!
We arrived in St. John on Friday and enjoyed one of our favorite anchorages, Leinster Bay. It was so pleasant just sitting on the ball that we actually stayed for 2 days. We spent time cleaning the boat bottom of barnicles and slime from it sitting at our dock space for the last several months. The bottom really needed some scraping as the buildup from algae and marine growth can really make a mess of it. It also will impede the boat speed so, as sailors, always seeking a bit more speed, we did a pretty thorough job of cleaning. We will still need to do it again next fall when we return for an extended cruise schedule, but, like any baby, it seems happier with clean bottom.
We are slowly making our way through the USVIs as we'll head over to Christmas Cove later today. This is one of our favorite places. Then it's a short hop across the way to St. Thomas. St. Thomas is the most populated of the USVIs and has lots of good shopping and boat fix folks. Our watermaker is still on the fritz and we need to get that fixed soon. We may not be able to get it done prior to putting the boat away for the summer (hurricane season) and may have to wait until we return next fall. So far we've just bought water at $.15/gal. We go through about 100 gallons a week so it isn't too bad, cost-wise. That allows us a nightly shower and plenty of fresh drinking water each day. With our watermaker working, we seem to use more since its so easy to make fresh water. So we're conserving a bit more this trip.
The generator is a continuing saga. It hasn't worked since we returned in March. The dang thing is always a problem. Fortunately, we have a pretty impressive solar array on the top of our boat that keeps us in good supply of power for our battery bank. We're actually considering adding some additional solar panels so we can have an even less reliance on generators.
ONce we tire of St. Thomas, we'll head across the 40 or so miles to Culebra in the Spanish Virgin Islands for a few days. We've enjoyed the little island many times before and its sister island Culabrita. We hope to be able to also check out Vieques, another Puerto Rican off-coast island. This island was once used by the US Air Force as a bombing practice target. There are areas which are off limits as there is potential live bombs still in the area. We'll stay out of those areas for certain. Another cool thing about Vieques is that certain areas around the island waters shine from marine bioluminescence. We're anxious to experience that, for sure. Maybe I can get a picture of it.
After Vieques, we'll start working our way west around the south side of the island to our summer marina on the very west coast of the island. We will leave our boat there through the hurricane season, until we return in the fall to take up cruising on a full-time basis.
I'll try to keep posting on this blog until we depart for our summer so stay tuned...
Tuesday, April 11, 2017
OK... we're back out on the water again. Suz and I are trying really hard t be "retired" (whatever that means). Since we left Steamboat Springs April 2, we've been back in the Virgin Islands on our boat, the good ship Allergic to Cities, attending to boat fixes, dinghy fixes, and all that it entails all the while trying to stay off of mooring balls (expensive) and on the anchor (free). So far we've been successful avoiding the mooring fees and enjoying some beautiful anchor spots. Yesterday, we went back to harbor to have our boat guy, David, help us do some sail work which I couldn't do alone or even with Suz helping. Too heavy. We got it done and headed back out late yesterday to Peter Island, one of our favorite anchorages. Today, we found a really fast internet server in Great Harbor (on Peter Island) and have been getting some much needed internet connectivity completed.
Since I still do the design work for my old partners company, Portfolio Publications, I needed to upload some pages I designed that needed to be sent to Korea for preparing for the printing of his 2018 calendars. The calendars look to be one of his best to date. Look for Jim Steinberg's "A Year in Colorado" wall calendar. Jim and I have been friends and business acquaintances for over 40 years. His photography is second to none and I am so proud to be a continuing part of his publications. This is my 26th year doing his calendars! Now, think about this: I'm sitting on a catamaran in the Virgin Islands, sending electronic computer files to Korea, for the production of calendars which will be sold all over the world. What a modern world we enjoy.
So where do we go from here? We'll be staying in the BVIs for another week, then head over the USVIs after that. Then we'll make the passage to the Spanish Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico for the last few weeks of our sailing season. We will be leaving our boat on the western shore of Puerto Rico this summer when we head back to Cape Cod to do our summer housesitting gig again. Since we enjoyed that so much last summer, we just had to return for another summer of "lobstas" and "oystas".
Puerto Rico is a new place for us to put the boat but our chosen spot appears to be a really nice marina and facility seemingly very secure from the ravages of hurricane season. Best part is, it is about half the price of keeping it in the Virgin Islands. Then, late next fall, when we return to the boat for extended cruising through the winter months. We'll then be able to decide which way to head. We're considering sailing on over to Cuba from PR if the political conditions continue to open up. From there we'd like to see what Jamaica looks like from the water. Then maybe we'll head counterclockwise around the western Caribbean for a bit. It really is up in the air but we'll know where we're heading when we decide. That's the one of the pleasures of the cruising life. Decisions come in good time, not to be forced. Weather can help to make a good "decider", as can life and health's demands.
I will try to continue to add info to the blog as we travel. I'm currently having trouble getting photos off my camera/phone but will figure that out eventually so please be patient. Check back when you get time and hopefully, there'll be some pictures and more gobbaldy-gook to read from two wayward sailors.
'Til then, fair winds...
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