Haters be Hating the Trades, Sailors be Loving Them!

"Exhilarating," Paul said. He had a good point, I could hardly deny that. It was around midnight and we were somewhere between the Turks and Caicos and Hispaniola, rapidly approaching Luperón, our destination in the Dominican Republic. We were screaming through the water at 8+ knots on a not-very-comfortable beam reach. Paul was in heaven. I was seasick and tired, but could nonetheless appreciate the excellent sailing opportunity we had been dealt.

As we approached Luperón, we realised we were going to get there in the dark. The entrance to the harbour is straightforward and well charted, but we had never done it or seen it before. We had sailed so fast that we were getting there 6 to 10 hours before expected. It was the fastest 150 miles we had ever sailed. But, refusing to enter the harbour in the dark, we decided to heave-to and wait for daylight. Even hove-to for about 4 hours, we averaged 5.9 knots that passage. Exhilarating indeed.

The harbour in Luperón. Great protection, but beware those moorings! (we dragged ours)

Paul, a salty dog if I ever met one, landed in George Town, Bahamas, with the sole purpose of helping us get Taia safely from the Bahamas to the Virgin Islands. His plane landed at 2 pm and we were sailing away from George Town by 5 pm.

The passage from George Town to Providenciales, Turks and Caicos, took 44 hours. It was good sailing, although the wind died and we had to motor for 17 of the 44 hours. We took a cursory look at the Turks and Caicos, meaning that we didn't even check in or get off the boat. A one-night break and we weighed anchor early the next day to take advantage of the favourable winds that would help us get to the Luperón, Dominican Republic. And get there we did.

The north shore of the Dominican Republic

From Luperón, cruising boats typically wait for a good weather window to go east and cross the Mona Passage, which is notorious for kicking up very uncomfortable seas. We chose a short window that promised to be bumpy the first few hours but quite easy after that. Bumpy is an understatement, as we motored against 15 to 20 knots of wind and 4 to 5 foot seas that seemed to be about a millisecond apart. The whole boat shook while the crew held on and took the beating stoically. A few hours later the wind died and the seas flattened out, giving us an easy power ride through the Mona Passage to Boquerón, Puerto Rico. That passage was 46 hours long, with 40 of them under power.

Cabo Samaná, eastern Dominican Republic, from the Mona Passage

After a one-night break in Boquerón, we continued on to Ponce, only 40 miles to the east. Fancying ourselves old salts, we decided to beat into the wind through the night. That is how you tack through 80 miles when in reality you just want to cover 40. But the wind was good and the sailing fun. After fueling in Ponce we motored into the Trades (and its waves) to Puerto Patillas, in the south east corner of Puerto Rico.

Good morning Puerto Rico!

In Puerto Patillas we got some fitful sleep, everyone annoyed at the swell that made it into the bay and gave us a rolly night. The Trades were making us pre-pay for the great sailing we were to have the next day. We weighed anchor early in the morning and enjoyed a nice beam reach and run to Fajardo, in the north east corner of Puerto Rico.

Sometimes Paul relaxed. Sometimes...

While Paul stayed aboard in Fajardo, the rest of the crew took a couple of days off in San Juan, visiting friends and touring around the city. From Fajardo we expected an easy upwind power ride to Culebra, only 20 miles east. It started off well, but the Trades again decided to slap us around a little bit. The closer we got to the end of the Thornless Path, the better we understood how unforgiving the Trade Winds can be. We made it to Culebra unscathed, though tired.

There are another 20 miles between Culebra and Saint Thomas, the western-most of the US Virgin Islands, where Paul needs to catch his plane back home. After a single night in Culebra, we decided to take advantage of a rare opportunity: the Trades were mollified by a trough, so we motored the last 20 miles against 5-knot winds. An easy power ride into our final destination.

Overall, we covered 850 miles in 1 day short of 3 weeks. Our average speed was 5.6 knots and we ran the engine almost 50% of the time (76 hours); the sails and wind kept us moving the rest of the time (82 hours).

This post is just about the sailing, but we did plenty more when we weren't sailing. Throughout the last 3 weeks, Paul was the impetus behind endless boat projects that he executed flawlessly (with my help most of the time); too many improvements to the boat to mention. We also did some sight seeing and enjoyed Natalia's excellent cooking.

Paul is a salty dog, no doubt about that. We are very thankful to him, for the hard work, the great company, and the friendship. The decision to invite him to transit the Thornless Path with us was the right one.

Going to Puerto Rico

Our time in the Dominican Republic is pretty much over. We had a lot of fun in Luperón and now it's time to move on to the state that's not a state not a territory nor a protectorate (I'm hoping to learn what it is while I'm there). Anchor up in a couple of hours and we should be in Boquerón, PR, on Saturday night.
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At 05/02/2015 20:12 (utc) our position was 19°54.03'N 070°56.84'W

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Provo, Turks and Caicos

We just dropped the hook in front of a beautiful beach in Provo. The day is icky and we plan to continue on to the DR tomorrow at the crack of dawn. The passage here was excellent.
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At 29/01/2015 17:12 (utc) our position was 21°44.35'N 072°17.20'W

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And we're off!

We're sailing away from George Town, hoping to get to the Turks and Caicos on Thursday. Our friend Paul is sailing with us!

George Town 2015

Before heading out to the Caribbean, we wanted to go the Exumas again. We wanted to check a few places where we've been last year and a few other Cays where we haven't been.

Our first stop was Pasture Cay, one of our favorite places in the Exumas. We snorkeled around a wrecked plane and swam in the natural sea aquarium with lots of fish.

Then we moved to Big Majors, as the kids wanted to see the pigs on the beach again. We swam in the Thunderbolt grotto where the 007 movie with Sean Connery was filmed in the 70s. We also got reunited with the crew of Hold Fast and Julianna II.

The following morning we picked up anchor and sailed, with Julianna II, to Rudder Cut Cay. This island is owned by David Copperfield and he commissioned a mermaid and piano underwater sculpture that is now quite famous among the cruising community. After a few minutes of dhinghing around the area where we new the sculpture was, we dropped the anchor and jumped to the water. The sculpture is about 10-12 feet at low tide, so it's not easy for the kids to dive and touch it. However, Matias and Camila tried a lot of times, until they managed to finally touch it. Way to go guys!

He did it! Way to go Matias

The next morning we sailed to Lee stocking, a place that seems out of a Stephen Spielberg film. Apparently the island was home to a Research Institute but a few years ago it got shut down and it looks like the people living there took whatever they could and left everything else: the houses are not locked, there's furniture, movies and books, a diving compression tank and even a truck sitting on the street.

Here we also saw April, Cain and Quinn, a lovely couple and their dog whom we met back in the summer in Jacksonville aboard Spirit of Argo. The kids immediately fell in love with Quinn and used to accompany April in her afternoon dog walk. This time, April and Cain, show us the art of getting coconut from the tree and then drinking the coconut milk. We had it first out of the coconut, with nothing else and it was quite tasty. Later, on their boat, we had it with Rum and it was even better.

Picking up coconuts to drink and eat

Drinking coconut milk for the first time.

After that we got to GeorgeTown. There's about 200 boats in the Elizabeth Harbour, and because of that, it's not one of our favorite anchorages. The good thing about GT is that there's lots of families with kids. We met Paisley and got re-united with Hold Fast, Skylark and Almost there. So there's been lots of play dates, sleepover and even a birthday party. It's been fun!

The funny thing about GT is that half the boats here are Canadian and most of those are French Canadian.

The young crew of Taia and Skylark on VolleyBall beach

The kids spent hours playing here

The adult crew of Skylark, Julianna II and Taia

The kids waiting to play a game for a birthday party.

Tomorrow, our friend Paul is coming to stay with us for 3 weeks. Paul is going to help us get to the Virgin Islands.  

The Good with the Bad

The year 2014 closed its coffin loudly for Taia, setting up its successor, 2015, for an even louder and rather uncomfortable start. On the last evening of the year, Taia was anchored in front of Lynyard Cay, a common staging anchorage for boats aiming to cross south to Royal Harbour, Spanish Wells, or Nassau. Unbeknownst to Taia's crew, the outgoing year had arranged for wind speeds considerably higher than had been forecast. The crew dropped the hook on the last afternoon of the year and, as they prepared the boat for the 55-mile crossing, wondered why the wind was picking up to 15 knots and then to 20 knots, when it should have stayed at 10 to 15. “Oh well,” they said naively, “it'll quiet down through the night.” Not!

January 1^st, 2015, was a rough day at sea. As Taia plowed through confused seas that seemed to come from everywhere, including the sky and the bottom of the sea, her crew fell in a less-than-festive mood. While Taia romped happily in 20 to 25 knots of wind, the crew held on, white knuckled, and failed miserably at keeping down their New Year's Eve dinner. Chucking into a bucket quickly deteriorated into a feeble poking of the head out of the cockpit and barfing all over the side deck. No matter, though, as there was enough spray to wipe it all off within seconds.

In reality, the picture wasn't one of complete and utter lack of control. On the contrary, although the crew were uncomfortable, they made sure the boat kept moving safely and quickly towards their destination. There was quite a bit of wave surfing and lurching and suddenly stopping. Taia moved fast and arrived in Royal Harbour without incident.

Bad days are a necessity. How would we appreciate the good ones without the contrast that the bad ones provide? Fortunately, though, it's easy to coerce life into giving us more of the good ones than the bad. And so it is that, after a quick day of recovery in Royal Harbour, Taia and her crew kept moving and enjoying a string of good days.

There was the afternoon at the beach on Meeks Patch, which included a quick spear-fishing outing that produced a tasty lionfish. There was a beautiful night at anchor in front of Current Settlement and the subsequent crossing of Current Cut to get to the west side of Eleuthera. It was then that we started learning that the landscape of the island of Eleuthera is different than everything else we've seen of the Bahamas.

Cleaning lionfish while at anchor in Meeks Patch. The spines can be lethal, so I cut them off wearing thick gloves

Eleuthera has cliffs on both the bank and the ocean side. This island is long and narrow. At Glass Window, the narrowest spot, it is possible to see the Atlantic Ocean from the banks and vice versa. Without the highway bridge that was built there, Eleuthera would be close to becoming 2 different islands.

The Glass Window, Eleuthera, viewed from the bank side. The Atlantic Ocean lives on the other side of the bridge 

Ocean side cliffs at Glass Window

The Queen's Baths, on the ocean side, are a collection of natural pools on the rock formation that have water coming in from the ocean. We were there at low tide and waded in a couple of the pools, which were receiving a gentle stream of sea water from the waves breaking against the rocks. I'm told that at high tide, and especially when the easterly wind is blowing hard, the pools are swamped by the waves and wading in them is not a safe option.

The day we visited Glass Window and the Queen's Baths, we dinghied over to what we thought was a hotel or restaurant on the beach. We thought we'd go in, have a couple of drinks and use their infinity pool overlooking the bank. As we approached, a couple got in the water and came to say hi. It turns out the place is a private house and they were renting it for a week. Chris and Angel, along with 12 other members of the Munson (Mundson?) family, invited us for an evening of drinks and conversation by the pool. What a treat! These guys are extremely nice and we had a lot of fun with them. It was a great ending to a great day.

The next day we had planned on sailing to Hatchet Bay and join Hold Fast. But there was a blow coming a couple of days later and Hold Fast was sailing to Governors' Harbour and then on to Rock Sound for good protection. We decided to sail directly to Rock Sound, a 45-mile run from Glass Window. The wind was perfect that day and we flew the spinnaker most of the time. A pod of 6 dolphins swam in our bow wave and gave us a wonderful nature show. All 4 of us spent a few minutes on deck watching the dolphins while the auto pilot and the sails kept Taia moving at over 5 knots. Another good day.

Dolphins spent some time with us while we sailed from Glass Window to Rock Sound

Camila had her birthday in Rock Sound. That day we met Juliana II and Almost There, two kid-boats that had been sailing together for a few days. We all gathered in the gazebo by the ocean hole and had some cake. The kids took advantage of the school playground when the conversation turned to fixing boats, weather, and cruising in general. Good for them!

Camila's birthday with the kid crews of Juliana II and Almost There

A good weather window presented itself to cross Exuma Sound and most of the boats in Rock Sound took advantage of it. It was another excellent sailing day, calm in the morning and more challenging in the afternoon. My laziness that morning payed off. I was feeling guilty for not hoisting our spinnaker in the mellow conditions, but I knew the wind was going to be too much for that sail later in the day, and I didn't want to get caught in over 12 or 13 knots of wind with the chute up. As I procrastinated, I found the perfect excuse to not use the spinnaker: I was going to troll a fishing line for the first time. Out came my spanking new fishing pole and lure.

Just to make a good day even better, a mahi mahi decided to eat the lure at the end of the line. Ten minutes after I deployed it! Camila started jumping and pointing at the pole in the stern, which was obviously under load. I jumped on deck and started reeling in. And so I caught my first mahi mahi. Everything worked out in our favour: the seas were calm, the fish was relatively small and easy to land, and it wasn't a shark or a barracuda or any other type of fish I wouldn't want to bring on deck. I cleaned the mahi underway and we ate half of it that night. Delicious bounty from the sea! By the time I was done cleaning the fish (and the deck!), the wind had picked up and it was too much for the spinnaker. Procrastination for the win!

First time using my new rod and reel. Smug smile after catching my first mahi mahi

There you have it. One bad day with a silver lining that landed us a good string of good days.

We're now anchored in the southern edge of the Exuma Land and Sea Park. Our plan is to take a cursory look at the rest of the Exumas as we make a bee line to George Town. Auto Paul is flying there in a fortnight and he'll spend a few weeks with us as we sail south to the Caribbean. Hopefully there'll be few bad days and many good ones on our longest passage to date.

The plane wreck used as dinghy mooring between O'Brien's Cay and Little Halls Pond Cay

(Note: I wrote this about a week ago and only just posted it. We're now in George Town)

First Mahi!

We just caught our first mahi-mahi!! Photos and story to come soon...
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At 10/01/2015 13:18 (utc) our position was 24°52.23'N 076°15.02'W

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Back in Royal Harbour

We just dropped the hook in Royal Harbour. The Atlantic Ocean slapped us around today with 6-to-8-foot seas and 15-to-25 knots of wind. It was a romp that Taia enjoyed much more than her crew. The forecast was 5-to-10 knots of wind a couple of days ago. Yesterday afternoon it was 10-to-15, and an unexpected 15-to-20 picked up in the evening right after we staged in Lynyard Cay.

Of course, we considered staying in the Abacos, but it didn't look like there'd be a weather window to come south any time soon. Also, we could use the experience. And an experience we got! The first one of 2015.

Here we all are, happy to be back in Royal and looking forward to moving on to Eleuthera as soon as the weather allows.
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At 01/01/2015 21:52 (utc) our position was 25°30.95'N 076°50.49'W

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New Blog Feature

I've added a new link to the blog's navigation bar called Position Reports. When you click there you will be taken to a new blog that I started. The new blog's purpose is solely to show our super-cool-awesome-incredibly-hip-and-fabulous map of automatic position reports (they're not fully automatic, but you may go ahead and assume that I'm awesome enough to automate the whole process).

The truth is we now have a subscription to SailMail, a service that enables us to send email through our SSB radio. My parents are the sponsors of this subscription (by the way, if you're feeling inclined to sponsor any aspect of our cruising, feel free to inquire within). It takes a couple of clicks for me to generate an email with our position data and send it directly for publishing on the Position Reports blog. Furthermore, I'm able to post on this blog as well. So no more scrambling for an internet connection to let everyone know Taia has safely arrived at her desination. I promise to publish a "we're safely anchored" message after every passage. Even during passage, I'll make every effort to publish Taia's position at least once every 24 hours.

Credit where credit is due: I stole the idea of this semi-automated map from Hold Fast. I totally raped some JavaScript off their blog and modified it to suit my fancy.

Happy 2015!

Our first day heading south

The time has come for us to start moving again. As usual, it has taken us longer than we thought to get ready.

Ever since we got back from Argentina we've been working on the boat. There were a few changes that we had planned on making to the boat and some others that we had no option because things stopped working. Also, as we prepare to leave the USA, we usually get in a sad money-spending mindset. Not because we want to spend our precious money but because we want to be prepared for everything. And so, on top of filling up our boat with water, fuel and lots of food, we also buy lots of spares: things that we know we'll have to change along the way (like oil and oil filters) and things that we think we might need if something breaks and we're in the middle of nowhere.

Paul and Ernie, heads down in the engine room, working.

It wasn't all just work... Matias celebrated his 6th birthday!

Farewell dinner with friends.

Monday was the chosen day for us to leave. We were anxious yet sad. For all intents and purposes, Jacksonville has become our home in the United States. It's not the city itself, but the great people we met there. It was great to spend all this time with you guys and we will miss you terribly.

Our first day on the ICW was uneventful. We lucked out with all the bridges coming out of Jacksonville and didn't have to wait for them to open for us. Yay! We even made it to The Three Sisters Anchorage we had planned on anchoring just barely after sunset.

Just before getting to the anchorage, I said to Ernesto, “Well, at least, anchoring is going to be easy, it's all mud here so the anchor will set on the first try. We won't have to worry about finding those sandy patches like in the Bahamas.” I like it easy!

Well, for those of you that believe that anything that can go wrong will go wrong, we're proof of that. There was a lot of current in that spot and, surprisingly for the ICW, lots of water. So we had to let out a lot of chain and try twice until the anchor was set properly. Not too bad, right?

The surprise came the next morning when we tried to lift the anchor up and it wouldn't come off. We tried a lot of times but it was well stuck in there and the windlass just gave up. How I wished I was back in the Bahamas and could see the anchor from Taia! All we could see here was brown water, but we suspected the chain was stuck on something. In the end we decided to call our friend Paul, who dives for a living, so he could come and have a look at what was going on down there. (He didn't actually have a look, since the water is so muddy, he had a "feel"). It turns out the anchor chain was hockled with a big metal piece and lots of other people's rope (from other anchors maybe?).

Paul and the Captain getting ready to work on getting the anchor untangled.

Paul suited up and ready to go get our chain unhockled

It was pretty bad luck for us to anchor just there but we got lucky because we were still pretty close to Jacksonville and already knew someone that could help us. As usual, there's always a bright side!

For those of you who know Paul and call him Diver Paul or Auto Paul, we've come up with a new nickname for him: Super Paul! He saved our bacon today and we can't thank him enough.