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...