Log #41 Mayeguana, Bahamas to Turks and Caicos to Dominican Republic to Puerto Rico; February 20 – March 12, 2008

In my last log I said that I thought Jim may have a case of shingles and sure enough that was proven to be true. It was awful and something I hope I never have to go through. Fortunately I had some Percocet left from some dental surgery I had a few years ago and was able to keep him out of pain for almost 2 days. By that time, though it was not over he could at least function. We have now learned that the next time we are in contact with our doctors we will ask for prescriptions for both antibiotics and pain killers to keep on hand. That would have just been a nightmare if not for the Percocet!

By Sunday, February 17 Jim was feeling a little better and we had Ann and Steve/Fine Line and Kathy and Fred/Makai over to our boat for cocktails – and also so Ann and Kathy, the nurses, could check up on Jim (they had me monitoring him closely and were in contact via radio the whole time he we taking the Percocet). He was pronounced recovering but still needing a lot of rest.

Jim was not allowed in the sun so we stayed aboard while everyone else went snorkeling on Tuesday, February 19. Turned out to be a good thing as Ann and Steve caught lobsters! They were on the reefs less than 50 yards from the boats in water so shallow Ann (who is shorter than me) could stand up in it. They brought them to us and Jim cleaned and cooked them and everyone – Ann & Steve/Fine Line, Kathy & Fred/Makai and Ann & Joe/Reflections came to our boat for dinner that night. There are pictures of the just caught and cooked lobsters in the picture log.

At 0415 on February 20 we pulled up the anchor for the last time in the Bahamas and headed southeast to the Turks and Caicos. As the sun was coming up over the horizon, Steve got on the radio and sang the first line from Cat Steven’s Morning Has Broken. A couple of minutes later the first verse from the CD was played over the radio. We thought it was Steve and found out 2 days later it was Joe from Reflections. It was quite a trip watching the sunrise and hearing that song!

We had the main up and one engine running and made the 70 mile trip in 10 hours and 45 minutes. As Jim wasn’t allowed in the sun, we rigged up his own personal shade. There is a picture of him in the log.

After all this time in the boonies in the Bahamas it was really nice to get back to civilization. Fine Line, Makai and we anchored in Sapodilla Bay while Ann and Joe on Reflections went around the island of West Caicos to Turtle Cove Marina as they planned on staying for more than a month and leaving the boat to go back to the US. On Thursday, February 21 the six of us rented a car and explored the island. We found a place on the Atlantic side called “West Indies Resort” and had lunch at the Mango Reef Restaurant. It was like we had died and gone to heaven! Wonderful food, posh surroundings, gentle breezes… Ahh, civilization, gotta love it!

As we drove around West Caicos I kept wondering why the economy here was so strong. We know the US is having economic troubles and all over the Bahamas we saw unfinished buildings just abandoned and a distinct difference between the “haves” and “have nots” with no apparent middle class. It was so different here and we were all putting forth theories, the most popular that the Turks and Caicos has a stronger European influence while the Bahamas influence is US and right now Europe has a stronger economy than the US. Okay, but it just didn’t seem to totally fit. Everywhere you looked there was building going on – and people working on the buildings. There were stores everywhere and not the third world type we had seen in the Bahamas. Also real restaurants! At the car rental place we picked up some local magazines (note they were big glossy magazines on the order of Architectural Digest) and finally after in-depth reading I found that the Turks and Caicos are like the Cayman Islands – no taxes and no agreements with other governments so earnings/money doesn’t have to be reported back to you own country. They also make it very easy to create your own company in which you can invest your money. Now it all made sense. If only I had some money! What a great place! Beautiful, civilized, growing, infrastructure in place, and only a couple of hours from the States by plane! The Caymans 20 years, or more, ago!

On Friday, February 22 we all drove around the island to Turtle Cove and had cocktails on Reflections then went to dinner at an upscale Italian restaurant called Baci. Again a wonderful meal! It is so good to go out to eat, and to have the food be good and served properly!

By Sunday, February 24 we had had all we could take of civilization and pulled up the anchor and headed over to Caicos Marina and Shipyard where we took a slip for one night and bought fuel. The next morning we got off the dock at 0945 and headed over to Six Hills Cay, South Caicos arriving late afternoon where we stayed until Wednesday, 2/27 when we headed over to Cockburn Harbor, South Caicos where we checked out of the Turks and Caicos in preparation for the trip to the Dominican Republic. When we and Steve and Ann/Fine Line went ashore to check out, we found we were truly back in a third world country. It was poverty stricken and garbage was everywhere as were horse droppings and horse prints, though we never saw the horses! Then we were picked up (by that I mean we were walking and she walked with us – we couldn’t shake her) by the local “crazy woman” who, I do have to give her credit on this, pointed us to Customs and Immigration (not in the same place) but also kept trying to convert us to her religion and the church for which she thinks she’s going to be the pastor. Picture Jim discussing religion with her. We all know he considers himself “retired” from religion. She was very tenacious and just wouldn’t give it up. Jim tried being polite with her and finally told her she could only walk with us if she stopped talking about religion. He then had to remind her every other sentence of the agreement.

On the way over to Cockburn Harbor, I had decided to pump the bilges (I don’t know why, the thought just popped into my head) and when I came up on deck I noticed we were trailing a smelly red streak. When I checked the fuel level we were down ¼ tank when we should have only used about 10 gal. (That’s about 25 gallons gone.) Jim started sleuthing and we found we had a fuel leak but could not find where it was leaking. The 15 gallons I pumped overboard had made its way down from the fuel locker which is between the two forward cabins, under the bunk in the guest cabin, into the cabinets in the guest cabin where it proceeded to soak everything in there in diesel, then into the galley locker where, fortunately, we only keep cleaning supplies, then down into the bilge. On the other side of the boat, the diesel found its way to Jim’s cabinets where he keeps his clothes though it didn’t get any of the clothes, down to my dressing room soaking the carpet and my clothes bag and all the clothes in it, and, in the main cabin, ran along under the floor popping through in several places. A month later we are still cleaning up and still have not found the leak. We did determine that if we only put in ½ tank of fuel it doesn’t leak and that gives us 50 hours of engine time so that’s what we’ll do until such time as we can have the guest cabin walls taken down and the tank replaced. Jim has tried everything to find the leak. A diesel mechanic we talked to suggested we spray the tank with spray starch that will turn white then we can see the leak. By that time we were in Puerto Rico and had put in the fuel from Luperon which did not have the red dye in it and the starch we bought didn’t turn white! Not much help there!

Back to the trip to the Dominican Republic. On Thursday, February 28 the three boats (us, Fine Line, Makai) pulled up the anchor at 1040 and started out of the harbor. Then we got a call form Susie on Pharos, a single hander, who said she was going to run into town and check out and she would catch up with us. Also got another call from Free Spirit, Bo, another single hander what wanted to join the caravan. By 1530 we passed Big Sand Key where Fine Line and Makai had pulled in for a short stop, the last of the Turks and Caicos and were officially back in the Atlantic. We thought we saw a whale spout, but it was too far away to be sure. Then the fishing rod began to sing and I pulled in 2 ½ -3 foot barracuda which, of course, we released. By 1700 we put one reef in the main, had the full genoa out and were maintaining 6 knots with one engine to conserve fuel. Fine Line and Makai left Big Sand Key and were running on two engines and Free Spirit and Pharos (both monohulls) were behind us. Fine Line and Makai decided to go to Ocean World Marina while we headed further west to Luperon. We traded off watches throughout the night and kept each other awake on the radio. During Jim’s watch he tried to call a cable laying ship that looked as though it might be dragging a cable across our bow. The boat didn’t answer until a boat named Lelize from the UK with Adrian and Vicki on board called and gave Jim the name of the ship as he had AIS on his radar. That shows the name, course, and speed of ships. At some point we want to see if we can get that for our boat. As soon as Jim called him using his name, the ship answered and he wasn’t dragging cable so we continued on. We arrived before sunup so hung outside the harbor until the sun came up dodging squalls (Jim, of course was off watch and sleeping though I did get him up between squalls to drop the main). Bo/Free Spirit was the first to lose patience and headed in and since he drew more water than us, we followed him in. We dropped the anchor at 0820 AST (Atlantic Standard Time) and were immediately visited by the Commandant and his entourage – “Handy Andy” and “Poppo”. Coffee and sodas were passed around while we tried to ignore the mud that was being tracked aboard and the footprints on my white carpet in the cockpit. After taking all the boat information (for a $20 tip to the Commandant – who didn’t speak English) they left telling us we both had to report to Customs and Immigration as soon as possible. Quick showers and we charged ashore to take care of business only to find they were all on siesta. We made an appointment for 2 pm and walked into town to find lunch. We located the local cruiser’s hangout – “Steve’s” got some lunch and meandered back to customs only to find we were an hour late. We were still operating on EST while the DR is on AST time so we were an hour behind. Many apologies later we finally got checked into the DR and headed back to our boat. The winds had kicked up to about 28 knots in the harbor (a daily event we learned) and as soon as we got back we were told that we had dragged anchor while we were gone. We had left the engine keys in place and other cruisers got on board, started our engines and reset our anchor. I wasn’t believing it as when I checked the chart plotter we were exactly in the same place, but when Jim went up front he found they had put out all our chain – 240 feet, which we definitely hadn’t done. It turns out that dragging in Luperon is the sport of the day and apparently everyone does it at some time or another. There is a picture in the log of the rescue of Susie and her boat, Pharos, when it dragged on March 4 and she couldn’t get her engine started. (Turned out she had shut off the fuel lines to service the engine, got distracted, found she had dragged, started the engine to re-anchor then the anchor chain jumped the track on the windless and she went out to a clear part of the harbor to drift while she fixed that, then on the way back the engine ran out of the fuel left in the lines and wouldn’t restart and she went into panic mode. (I would have too.)) The entire anchorage came out in their dinghies to help. Jim had already got on board to help. There were just too many chiefs and not enough Indians. Jim finally told her, “It’s your boat. You’re the Captain. You tell them what you want to do. Don’t let them tell you.” Dave from Kerry Okee, (do you love the play on words? Yes, he does do karaoke at the Puerto Blanco Marina on Friday nights!) one of the long-timers in the anchorage, came on board and she appointed him her spokesman and told him what she wanted and since everyone would listen to him, the boat finally got securely re-anchored. The picture says it all.

On Saturday, March 1 we went into town after having everyone (Susie/Pharos, Adrian & Vicki/Lalize) over for cocktails on our boat and had dinner at a local restaurant. The main dinner fare is chicken with rice and beans and that’s what we had. That and a couple of the local beers, Presidente, and the bill was just over $5 US per person. So now we know why cruisers put up with the lousy harbor! On Sunday at Puerto Blanco Marina (again I use the term marina loosely) there was a “swap” where everyone took all their junk in to sell (and buy everyone else’s) and some of the local vendors set up their wares. I talked to Rosa, the wife of Bruce Van Sant who wrote the bible of cruising guides for the Bahamas, DR and Puerto Rico, and set us up for a tour to the waterfalls on my birthday, March 3 and a tour to Santa Domingo, the capitol on March 6. I also signed us up for “Dinner and a Movie” on March 5 and a barbeque and karaoke on Friday, March 7.

The tour to the waterfalls was great. We took a taxi/van to a town nearby and picked up the flatbed truck with benches in the back for the tour. We visited a stone carving place, sharing the road with Brahma Bulls on the way and watching the local kids ride a donkey in the stream, then went to a coffee plantation where Jim tamed the snake and I ground coffee. I did take pictures at the falls but they are on an underwater camera and I haven’t found a place to have them developed. We climbed, okay, the guide pulled us, up 7 of the 24 levels of the falls then slid and jumped our way back down. I got to go first on the jumping/sliding parts and loved it.

I wish I could say the same for the Santa Domingo tour. We sat cramped in the back of a mini-bus for 4 hours to get to the other side of the island. When we got to Santa Domingo, many of the places we thought we were going to see were “drive-bys” where you were supposed to take pictures out the window. The places they did actually stop at were filled with hawkers with their hands out harassing you. Then another 4 hours crammed in the mini-bus back to Luperon. All in all, not a good trip. I’m afraid I may never get Jim on another tour!

We had bought a new genoa sail while we were in Charleston and it never did roll up properly. The white sail comes with blue sunbrella on the edge that is supposed to protect the sail from the sun when it is not in use. The biggest killer of sails, aside from us having them up in too strong of a wind, is the sun. In Luperon, the trade winds die at about 10 pm and then kick in again – at 20 to 30 knots – at about 10 am. So Tuesday, the day after my birthday and the wonderful tour to the falls, we got up early and set up the sewing machine on the foredeck and took down the genoa to try to see if we could fix it and get it to roll up properly. There is a picture in the log of the sail spread across the deck with the sewing machine – no, Jim is not sewing, he’s fixing the roller-reefing gear. Unfortunately, the sewing didn’t help as when we put the genoa back up and rolled it up it still has blue and white stripes - ick. There is a Quantum sail maker in Tortola and we’ll see if he can do anything. I checked out a sail making reference book and it says the “sacrificial” for that size of a sail should be 24” wide. Ours is about 12”. We shall try to get them to put a new “sacrificial” on the sail in Tortola. The next day we took down the main and removed the stack pack. I spent 10 hours patching it and re-sewing in the zipper. By then, of course, the trades were back up so we had to wait until Friday, the day after the horrible tour to Santa Domingo, to put up the stack pack and the main sail. I am glad to say that project was completed successfully and the next time we used the sail the stack pack worked perfectly.

Friday night we were up to Puerto Blanco Marina (yea, right) to a karaoke dinner and dance. We had a great time and even got Jim to sing. He first told Dave he couldn’t sing as he didn’t have his guitar. Dave found him a broom to use as a prop. (Jim declined.) There’s a picture in the log.

On Monday, March 10 at 0630 we pulled up the anchor (what a filthy mess!) in Luperon and headed out into the Atlantic. A few miles out we turned east and pointed the boat to Puerto Rico. I had spent 14 hours on Sunday pre-cooking meals for the trip as: a) I had heard it is usually kind of rough, and b) the boat smells like diesel and I knew I couldn’t be in the galley without getting sick. Well, somehow we managed to not only eat all of that in the 54 ½ hours it took to get to Boquerón, Puerto Rico, but I still had to cook more. Also, people from 4 different boats stopped by our boat on Sunday to get pearls of wisdom from Jim on the passage. Sometimes I think these people really over-think the whole thing! It turned out that 8 boats pulled out of Luperon that morning: us, Lalize, Pharos, Miguel, Powder Cat, Topaz, Sophia and one other. The passage was a little bumpy, but really nothing to be upset about. Our friends on Fine Line and Makai left Ocean World after talking to us on the VHF and finding it really wasn’t that bad. With them was another catamaran, Leap of Faith. That made 11 boats heading to Puerto Rico that day. I keep mentioning all these other boats and showing pictures of the anchorages as I’m trying to convince everyone that we really aren’t crazy and lots of people do this! And a real lot of them have no clue as to what they are doing! It did turn out that the day after we left another group, catamaran Allergic to Cities along with monohulls Off Line and Nebula set out. They had eerily calm seas. So flat, in fact, that an entire pod of whales accompanied them. They were mating so they were sounding and jumping clear out of the water and they got fabulous pictures. I’m so jealous!

Some of the folks decided to tuck into the DR one last time before doing the Mona Passage so only Pharos and Lalize arrived in Boquerón, Puerto Rico with us. We all got a taxi and headed up to Mayaguez to check in. That night we treated ourselves to a steak dinner to welcome ourselves back to the US. While Puerto Rico does have their own flag, customs and immigration are US.

Our next log will detail our time in Puerto Rico and the Spanish Virgin Islands.

Roxanne, Jim, Shadow

s/v Dawn Dancer

roxanne@farrell.fm (No pictures please.)