Sailing on Lucky Duck: Steve and Lynn on the High Seas

Ponce, Puerto Rico

Sunday night in Ponce, Puerto Rico. I can hear salsa music playing outdoors at the Malecon (the boardwalk running along the ocean). It’s 79 degrees—perfect.

It was very hot during the day. We ran all three air conditioners so it was very comfortable inside the boat all day as we did cleaning and boat chores.

My final impressions of Dominican Republic: It looks and feels a lot like Costa Rica but the people reach our more and exhibit a non-commercial appreciation of foreigners. Very honest people. We bought diesel and water from "Boppo" who comes alongside your boat with his old rickety wood boat, with his two helpers, and pumps diesel and water from large containers that take up almost his whole boat. I didn't have the right change so I ended up giving him 250 pesos too much (that's about $8 which is a lot of money to these people). I thought I heard him say that he would come back with change but I wasn't quite sure I understood his broken English. I wouldn't have minded if he didn't return. Sure enough, though, three hours later he and his mates returned with my change, from way across the bay. I gave them each a (very cold--our refrigeration on the boat works amazingly well) Heineken and they seemed very appreciative of this small demonstration of gratitude.

The only thing I didn't like about Dominican Republic was their driving. We took a taxi to Puerto Plata. It was an hour and a half drive. We passed through small towns much of the way. They were towns you should go through at 30 mph. because there are always a lot of people milling around the narrow streets. We tore through at 55 mph. As we neared Puerto Plata there was a lot of traffic and it became quickly apparent that the only driving rule in the DR is that there ain't no stinkin' rule.

Anyway, we left Luperon, DR, on Friday night. We got out in the ocean and should have realized right away that it was a mistake. The wind and seas were supposed to go down with the sun. No such luck. We got beat up pretty badly for 8 or 9 hours until we finally decided to backtrack and put in in Puerto Plata. As we got closer to the coast though, we realized that we were getting some shelter from the island so we slogged on. It got better from there. We sailed for 44 hours straight to Ponce, Puerto Rico. We saw five whales (the first I have seen) en route. Two were breaching way out of the water like on National Geographic. Unfortunately, they were fairly far away. Then I saw another two, on the other side of the boat, much closer, but they didn't breach. I did see the little clouds of mist they make when they surface to blow out their blow holes. Cool!

Ponce is Puerto Rico's second largest city. Things appear to be pretty prosperous around here. We are at a huge marina. I am convinced that I like the little places of the world much better than big places like this mega-port.

Tomorrow I need to screw around with the officialdom again. It turns out that we don't have a customs decal we are supposed to have. Actually, I ordered it (like you are supposed to do) before I left, but it never came. Send in some lawyers if I'm not out of the U.S. Customs House by noon!

It looks like we have a weather window to leave about 10 p.m. tomorrow night for Culebra (a beautiful little island off the eastern coast of PR). Jerry, our delivery skipper, is a pilot. His wife, Lois, has been good enough to get us the aviation weather almost every day. This must take her a fair amount of time each day. We're very appreciative of her keeping us safe and sound. Like I said in an earlier entry, weather is God when you're out in the open ocean.

We should get to Culebra mid-morning on Tuesday. Hope to be in the British Virgin Islands in about a week. Everything depends on weather and the inevitable breakdowns, of course.

I talked to Lynn. She is getting excited to come to St. Thomas. I miss her a lot. It will be a great reunion after five weeks.

In any event, this remains an exciting adventure and I am very appreciative of all the people that have helped me avail myself of this opportunity.

If any of you have questions about what this whole passage-making experience is all about, ask away and I'll string together some responses in a subsequent entry.

P.S. Miss you Pat! I heard you had some adventures of your own getting out of the Dominican Republic.

P.P. S.  Here are some pictures of Gustie that Terry from the Ocean Cabin in Little Farmer Cay took for us.  He was kind enough to e-mail the pictures to Lynn at home.  Thanks a lot, Terry! 

Dominican Republic

We left Rum Cay Saturday morning and arrived in the beautiful Dominican Republic at noon today. That's about 50 hours straight sailing, our longest passage to date. It was a mostly good passage, but there were several fairly rough parts where the boat jumped around a lot.

This passage included a lot of night sailing, of course, so let me tell you what its like out there. First of all, you're on deck alone. We take turns at 3-hour watches. During the day there is almost always
someone else on deck while you stand watch. At night, though, the other two crew want to sleep where they are off watch. So when you are on deck you are really alone. There are no headlights on a boat, of course, so you can never see where you are going. You spend your time trying to keep the boat on the GPS course. This isn't as easy as it sounds since the wind, waves and current all conspire to throw you off course. On most points of sail, you can't just over correct to get back on course because you spill the wind out of your sails and then they begin to luff and it sounds like they are going to tear themselves apart. You also keep an eye out for other ships. It sounds like there is a lot of open ocean out there, and I can tell you that there sure is, but the downside to everyone navigating by GPS waypoints is that almost all ships are using the same highways upon the seas.

By the way, Lynn, we always use our inflatable vests, with tethers, when we are on deck at night, and when the boat is showing any signs of appreciable motion, which is most of the time. All and all, we wear them a vast majority of time. The tethers are the most important part of this safety precaution. They are expandable straps with study hooks at the end. We clip them to something very sturdy (like the backstay) as we move around deck of the boat. It becomes second nature after a while. The object is to keep us in the boat. If we go overboard, the chances of a mid-sea rescue are fairly slim. Besides, no one will know if you go overboard at night.

Back to nite sailing. Its really weird and I'm just getting used to it. You sit there in the dark hurtling along on wind and waves. You really can't see much so you have to completely trust your boat and your equipment from having you hit a reef or island. This must be how astronauts feel when they are hurtling through space.

Near the Turks and Caicos we were boarded by the U.S. Coast Guard. It was clear right away that they "picked" on us because we were an American-flagged vessel and they were doing training for they newest crew members. That was clear from the fact that they boarded us with 5 people (plus 3 more stood off about 50 feet off our stern on their chase boat so they could blow us out of the water in case we tried to do anything untoward to their people on our boat). The boarding party was dressed all in black, like a SWAT team, and all carried prominent side arms. Actually the Coasties were young, polite and sharp young Americans that any parent would be proud of.  (I don't think any of them were more than 25. The leader of the boarding party was a woman, by the way.) Actually, I think that the boarding was a God-inspired thing because the Coasties warned us that one of our batteries was gassing, which is not a good thing.

Anyway, we made it to the Dominican Republic safe and sound. This is an gorgeous country. Whereas the Bahamas are low and fairly barren (they are just basically sand bars), the DR is high and mountainous (formed by volcanoes). We were tired when we arrived, but before we could nap, the parade of officialdom began. First two representatives of the DR navy appeared. Then we had to dingy to the town to submit paperwork to customs, immigration, and some other office I can't remember right now. Then, later, two representatives of the Agriculture Department arrived. All of these people (except the Navy) collected small fees (I think I paid out a total of about $40). Now here's the punch line. I hate officialdom, so I should have gotten pissed off at this parade. Instead, all of the people we interacted with in this process were the nicest and most polite people you could imagine. (Example, the Navy guy asked us if we had any weapons aboard. We said no. He said that he was supposed to search the boat anyway but that he "liked Americans and felt that 99% of Americans were good people". So he didn't and instead took a couple of minutes to tell us about his country.) I could tell that these people were honest and kind. This is just part of the way a lot of poorer countries are structured so you either get with the program or stay home. I prefer to get with the program so I was happy to interact with these people and make a small contribution to the local economy.

Well, this is probably too long, but what the heck. I find that I'm more enthusiastic than I thought I would be about telling you the story of this exciting adventure.

Quick Update from Lynn

I talked to the big guy yesterday.  They had been on the water for 30 hours and had another 20 to go.  He said you get in a rather meditative state during that time.  He was on a three-hour watch, so I hope he wasn’t meditative at that time!  Pat was next to him reading a book and Jerry, the skipper, was in a rack catching some zzzs.  The sailing was great as they had some fine wind but not gale conditions.  They were wearing life preservers and were tethered to the boat.  I told him I wanted to make sure they were eating the $600 worth on canned goods before I came aboard.  They had just had Dinty Moore stew for lunch.  To me that sounds like chowing on dog food.  Pat should be returning soon.  We will trade places.  Steve will give you the lowdown soon.

I am at work so I have to keep this short.  I have six working days left before I retire.  It’s hard to believe and hard to think I might lose some contact with my work buddies.  I love Clare Housing and what it stands for. 

Dave Byron’s funeral was lovely.  His son Danny did a moving job eulogizing his dad.  I give family such credit when they get rise to the occasion like that.  Our friend John Flaten did a fine job speaking about David as well.  It was a sad occasion and again, I send my love to the family.

I am glued to the Olympics.  This week has lots of figure skating.  I have social events every night this week so I have to juggle the TV versus my friends. 

Take care and when I get aboard again, you must e-mail us. 

Rum Cay

It's Thurday and we're in Rum Cay. One good thing, or bad thing, depending on how you look at it, is that when you are out here you have absolutely no concept of what day it is, and most of the time not much idea of the actual clock time (I haven't worn a watch since I left Minnesota). Another thing is that I miss Lynn and the kids a lot, but I really haven't missed Minnesota at all. I talked to Lynn briefly on the satellite phone a couple of hours ago and she said the temperature was going to get down to zero. I did a brief disconnect since I spend 95% of my time wearing Patagonia baggies, swim trunks, and t-shirts. Pat and I swam today for the first time. Although the air temperature is great, the water is still a little cold, but we had to do it. After all, if I was traveling with Tim he'd have me jumping in the water through a hole in the ice. 

The Bahamaian people on these small islands are just great. At first glance there is nothing apparent to do on a little island like this. If you look around its pretty interesting. Last night the marina people told us about a buffet dinner at a little place in "town." Town is about a mile away and all there is, is a postage stamp-sized police station and a grocery store with a meager supply of stuff (we bought the last 11, that's 11 and not 12, eggs the other day). Anyway we started hiking to town, in the dark, for the buffet. We only walked for 10 or 15 minutes when some people from the marina came by in an extended golf cart with 6 people in it. The driver said he had a full complement but that he would drop his people off at the buffet and come back for us, which he did. No charge, of course. He wouldn't even let me buy him a beer. 

Anyway, we got to the buffet which was at a little local house called Ocean View. There must have been 50 people there, which is remarkable since there are only about 100 people on the island right now. Ocean View was really small and about as plain as you can get, but spotless. It’s run by a great Bahamian woman by the name of Rosie who is a great and welcoming woman. I was worried about the ability to serve what looked like a ravenous mob, but then she brought out all these steaming cauldrons of wonderful food. Turtle, chicken done several ways, pork chops, ribs, salads, and about 6 different kinds of dessert. (Why no fish? Maybe because it’s not such a treat around here?) The food was wonderful.Thank you, Rosie! After dinner, the locals danced and there were dogs and cats and children all around. All in all, it was a great night in an exotic locale. 

On a more serious note, I note the death of my partner, Dave Byron. The funeral is tomorrow. I worked for Dave for 10 or 12 years. Although he labeled himself a corporate lawyer, he had a keen legal mind that was able to spot the key issues no matter what the subject matter. He always made me hit the books and look at the actual rule or statue before I stated my position. I did that, because of him, to the very last day I was in the office. My condolences to Nancy, Danny and Terry. Your loss must be so painful. 

I have just learned that we need to stay here another day to wait for weather. A couple of boats have come in today and they were talking about getting beat up pretty bad out there. Weather is supposed to turn to exceptionally good starting Saturday. We are now talking about possibly going straight to the Dominican Republic. That should be a 50- to 70-hour voyage, our longest yet. I think we, and good old Gustie, are ready for it, though. 

I checked out our blog and I noted Lynn's shameless plug for her birthday. That gives me license for a shameless plug of my own so here goes. It is really fun to receive e-mail from any and all of you. So send, send, send. The address is wdc8408 at sailmail dot com (I write it out this way because it results in less spam). That should be easy for you to send. Unfortunately, transmission is more difficult so these entires will have to suffice in terms of my submissions. 

Miss you and love you much.

 

Little Farmer Cay and George Town

Friday we left Staniel Cay and went to Little Farmer Cay. It was beautiful sailing. Little Farmer Cay ("LFC") is way off the beaten path and after going through the shoal water to get there, I now know why. We touched bottom several times but no big deal. When we turned around the corner of the island to get to the anchoring area, my heart sank. There was only one other boat in there. It was like everyone else knew not to be there. I had no idea how we would ever get out the next day since the water was so shallow all around us. In any event, this tuned out to be an absolutely great spot because of the people. We anchored on a private mooring ball so we had to pay the owner for the right to do so. It turned out that the mooring was owned by a little restaurant/bar by the name of

Ocean Cabin. It is the only sign of civilization around there except for a small store with about 12 dozen cans of various foods but that was about all. It turns out that Ocean Cabin is owned by a great Bahamanian gentleman by the name of Terry. Terry has worked all over the world. He was about as welcoming as anyone I have ever experienced. We had a beer with him when we checked in. We were all complaining about our backs so he showed us a great exercise to do that he learned from a Chinese healing master. He liked the look of our boat so he took some pictures and promised to send them to Lynn. 

We went back Terry's place for dinner. We were the only people there but he and his wife and his daughter made us feel like family. He let us connect to his satellite internet. I saw our blog for the first time since we left. I was amazed and impressed about how good it looked (thanks to Danielle!) and how amusing Lynn's stories were and how well she reported on stuff that I had only mentioned to her on the satellite phone. Unfortunately, I couldn't spend too much time on his internet hookup so I didn't have the chance to read everything posted. I'm certainly looking forward to doing so first chance I get. 

Maybe Terry's pictures can get posted here. Terry will be checking to see it they get there so I want to thank Terry so much for making our brief stay on LFC one of those wow moments that we are blessed to experience during this trip. 

Saturday we left LFK for George Town, Exumas. Getting out of the anchorage was a challenge but we did just fine. We took a sharp left and were on the Eastern side of the Exumas for the first time. That side is exposed to more wind and waves so we rocked and rolled pretty well for 3 or 4 hours and then the wind gradually lessened. One interesting thing I saw was flying fish that really knew how to fly. I have seen flying fish from cruise ships before but hey only went 6 or 8 feet at time. I swear to God that a couple that I saw on Saturday went more than 100 yards. Just when you would think they are going to hit the water they would skip off the top of the water and keep on going! It was a pretty cool sight. 

I interrupt this entry with an important object lesson. Weather is God out here. Jerry was predicting a storm when we got to George Town so we put into a broken down marina (the only marina as it turns out). I thought it was an over abundance of caution but, once more he was absolutely correct. Here's the deal: We did boat chores this morning (Sunday) and then we headed across the bay to the--get this name--Chat and Chill beach front bar for a beer and burger. The wind was up a bit when we left but no big deal. On the way back it was very wavy and we got really wet. We took showers on the transom of the boat when we got back, washed our salted clothes from the trip across the bay and hung our clothes out to dry. I just started working on this entry when I saw people running around on the dock. I went to the cockpit and looked behind the boat to see this ominous black/blue line of clouds moving quickly towards us. In any event, it’s blowing what's referred to around here as a "blue stink." I'm glad that we're not out there and not anchored. In any event, we take the weather quite seriously and worry about it a lot. 

Well, I'm running out of megabytes so I'll skip telling you about George Town except to say that it's not memorable. We hope that we will have a weather window so that we can leave on Tuesday for Rum Cay. Right now things are going very well and we're sitting safe and sound in the pilothouse drinking gin and tonics. This is a great life, except I miss Lynn and the kids (especially Gumbo) a whole lot. 

I have gotten some nice email messages from many of you. We have this great sailmail way to transmit messages, but it takes a bit of time to get it all hooked up through the single side band radio so it’s just not practical to send individual replies. I wish I could, but it can't be, at least for now.

A Day in the Life

We left Highbourn Cay today because the weather turned out to be great despite yesterday's prediction of bad weather. Now that things have settled down a bit, I thought that some of you would like to know something of the typical day for a cruiser.

Actually, I don't know yet what is typical but I will tell you a little of what we did today. I woke up. We talked about the weather and whether we should go or stay. We couldn't decide whether to go or stay so we went and fed the sharks. It turns out they don't like our old bread but the anglefish sure did. In any event, we got to see about a dozen sharks and a couple of rays. It was a great sight. Went back to the boat and ran into Hutch who captains the 54' Hylas (which is the same boat as my friend Burt's) parked next to us. He had a fancy weather fax and he said everything looks good to go down island. So I cooked "hole in the walls" for breakfast and then we got ready to go. Checked the engine, plugged in waypoints to the GPS, made sure things that will move around on the boat were lashed down and remove dock lines. Then we needed to carefully leave the harbor because they are dredged out of shallow water and we didn't want to hit anything. In about an hour we are usually out to sea so we set course per the GPS and proceeded in earnest.

It got really relaxed and we swapped stories and updated our course (we are following a string of islands--we don't want to get too close nor too far). The water has been fairly calm lately so we could have a nice lunch--turkey and cheese sandwiches with beer for beverage. Later in the afternoon I called (satellite phone) my friends Tim and Burt to thank them for all their encouragement for this adventure. Burt answered from his boat in Tortola so it was fun to have ship-to-ship communication. Later we tuned in the SSB radio and got our e-mails. I got a cute message from Lynn and that was really nice.

We got to our anchorage about 4:30 p.m. Had gin and tonics and toasted another successful day at sea. Unfortunately, although the air temperature is just great, the water temperature is a bit too cold to swim. I hope to have warmer water temperature in the next 2 or 3 days.

We just finished dinner: ham patties with pineapple and brown sugar sauce, pasta with garlic, butter and parmesan cheese, and green beans. Pat is doing dishes right now (I cooked), and Jerry is entering waypoints on the GPS for tomorrow. I'm relaxing by thinking about you guys as I type this out while listening to Lynn's iPod playing throughout the pilothouse on the Bose system.

I will probable take a shower on the boat before I hit the rack. We make our own fresh water from seawater and that just great since water sells around here for 50 cents a gallon and we have to pull into fuel dock to get it. A lot of islands don't have enough to sell.

Well, I hope this is of some interest to you. I miss all of you and have you in my thoughts and prayers.

Nesting in Nassau

Lynn is at the keyboard right now.  That’s me!  That title is probably misleading because our sailors aren’t staying in Nassau for long.  In fact, they may have moved on to Izuma today.  Their trip to Nassau was smooth; a nice wind that kept Gustie on an even keel.  I notice that I use phrases that are nautical-flavored to describe everyday events.  How life changes.  The only problem they encountered going to Nassau was that the built-in charting device gave up the ship.  They had a hand-held device that did the trick and as you can see, it actually got them there.  They were going to find parts for the charting device in Nassau.  When I talked to Steve on the satellite phone, his laundry was tumbling around in the laundromat.  As a frequent washer, it made me feel reassured that my man is staying clean. 

Here in St. Paul, I am going to work in the mornings and usually have a social thing in the evening.  I feel this week I’m getting the hang of living alone.  The first week, I missed Steve a lot.  Now I barely know his name!  Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha.  I’ve so enjoyed spending time with our kids and of course our darling granddaughter, Adeline.  How I will miss that funny girl!   On March 2nd I’m going to be honored at a retirement party hosted by my employer, Clare Housing.  I’m not used to being the guest of honor and will have to call on long-honed poise.  I’m very pleased that my pals are doing this for me.  Possibly I’ll be leaving for Puerto Rico the next day or the day after.  I’ll have to make sure my fridge is cleaned out and I’m packed and ready to go if that’s the case.  It will be nice to say last minute goodbyes to everyone.  I’ll be back in town the middle of June and will find volunteer activities to keep me busy.  I think one of them will be a weekly stint at the humane society.  I guess I just didn’t get enough of litter boxes when I had the cats!

The guys are doing well and pushing-on so they can get to Tortola before Pat has to return to his normal life.  Thanks so much for paying attention to our blog.  We are so blessed to know such wonderful friends as you!

Highbourn Cay Report

We walked a lot on Sunday in Bimini. We walked by a lot of dirt poor churches that were holding services. One caught our particular attention. It had the greatest signing! We listened from outside (the door was open). A man saw us and invited us to come in. We told him that we would like to visit a while but that we weren't dressed appropriately (we could see that the parishioners where dressed to the nines, even the small children). He said that God likely didn't care how we were dressed so we should come in so we did. It was a Pentacostal service and there we about 9 people on stage singing their hearts out. The whole congregation was standing and singing and waving their hands.  The music was wonderful and moving. This was one of those wow moments and I felt privileged to see these wonderful people expressing thanks to God for their lives on this poor island.

We left Bimini for Nassau monday morning. The first thing we saw was what we thought was plastic water bottles thrown off a ship. When we got closer, we saw that they were wonderful sea anenomes that get the wind to get them where they want to go, when the wind's right. They blow themselves up like baloons and then they raise a fin kind of thing to act as a sail. What a unique sight! The sail to Nassau was great beacause, for the first time, we were on the Bahamas bank and there were no big waves to knock us around like in the Gulf Stream. We made such good time we arrived at Nassau harbor in the middle of the night (2 a.m.). That wouldn't have been so bad except that Nassau Harbor Control wouldn't let us enter until a Disney ship left and cleared the channel. So we had to motor out there in the dark when all I wanted to do was to hit the rack. No big deal, though. We finally anchored at 4 a.m.

The next morning we went to a marina to buy diesel. This boat is a Nauticat 42. It was made in Finland. The boat is very popular in Europe but there are only 3 or 4 of them on this side of the Atlantic. Well, guess what we saw when we were pulling up to the gas dock but another Nauticat 42! Probably not a big deal to you, but we were flabbergasted.

We left Nassau and are now at Highbourne Cay in the Exumas. Many people say that the Exumas are the most beautiful cruising grounds in the world. So far at least, I have to agree. This island is privately owned. The marina has only 16 slips. There are only 14 people that live on the island, and they all work at this marina. The marina, but especilly the grounds, are absolultely beautiful. There are mega-yachts here (we are the smallest boat; there is only one other sailboat), and pet sharks. We will stay here tomorrow to let a cold front roll through. That's okay though as far as I'm concerned.

Thanks to those of you that have sent me emails--Lynn, Nathan B., John Flaten and Gayle. I'd like to hear from more of you when you get time. The only address that works for me is wdc8408 at sailmail dot com. I special thanks is due to Danielle for creating and editing the blog, and for Lynn for encouraging me to go on this exciting adventure.

The Captain Finally Speaks

We arrived safely in Bimini Friday morning after a 24 hour passage from Key West. The sea was more boisterous than I would have liked but okay. The trip had a humorous start when Pat misunderstood a command while we were leaving the dock in Key West and was left behind holding a line that was no longer attached to the boat. It took a little maneuvering to return to the dock, but it was well worth it since he has been a real godsend on this trip. Good attitude and always willing to fix things that always seem to be running less than satisfactorily when subjected to the stresses and strains of ocean passages.

During one of my night watches I had a close encounter with another sailboat. Here I am out in the middle of the bloody Gulf Stream and this dude and I almost have a mid-water collusion. I have convinced myself that I had right of way and that he should have altered course long before he finally did, but that would have given me only small consolation if I had to be figuring out how to deploy the life raft.

Bimini has become a rather sad place. When I was here 8 or 9 years ago it was loaded with sport fishermen and tourists. It got clobbered by Hurricane Wilma and there are hardly any tourists here now to pump money into the economy. The people are great, though, and speak very openly about their faith in God that they turn to sustain them. I was telling my shipmates about the Compleat Angler. It was this great bar, restaurant, live music place, full of Hemmingway lore, and the real focal point of the island. Well, it burned down last month. So sad!

The weather has been bad for the last 3 days but is supposed to change tomorrow. If the prediction holds, we will leave for Nassau at first light.

So far, this has been a great adventure. I get frustrated by some of the breakdown problems we have had, but I'm learning that this is part of the deal. I miss you guys, but it sure helps me to know that I have your love and support for this exciting adventure. I especially had a smile in my heart when I called Lynn at home one day recently and got her voicemail message identifying herself, with some evident pride, as the First Mate on a cruising sailboat. That certainly made my day.

Send me emails. The address is wdc8408 at sailmail dot com.  Please don't send attachments or large files like pictures--the system won't handle that much data.