CURRENT LOCATION: Tied to a mooring ball near Cayo Pirata, in Ensenada Honda, Culebra, Puerto Rico

18 18.400' N, 065 17.842' W


Our boat has two fresh water tanks and two fresh water systems. One system is pressurized by an electric pump and delivered through faucets, much like you would have in a home. The other system is pumped manually, with foot pumps, and delivered through a small tube to either the galley sink or the sink in the head. We generally use a mixture of the two systems for our water needs aboard Prudence, but our dependency on each has varied over time. Initially, we used the manual system for most everything. Now we have found many instances where the pressure system actually allows us to use water in a more conservative manner.

Early this week, we ran our port side water tank dry. That tank was feeding our pressure system, so we switched the pressure water to draw from the starboard tank. Although we do not have a way to monitor the volume in the tanks, we could tell that the starboard tank was also close to empty, simply because the boat was still sitting level (if one tank holds substantially more than the other, the boat will tilt ever so slightly). It looks like our usage of water from the two systems is now about equal. It also looks like it is time to get more water.

Here in Culebra, there is no option to pull the big boat into a marina and simply stick a hose in the deck fill. Of course, that is not an issue for us since we haven't been into a marina since we departed New Bern, NC. Filling jerry jugs has become a way of life for us. What was new this week was the amount of water we moved. In the past we had let our supplies drop only a little lower than half our capacity before we refilled. This time, we were nearly empty. Sheryl did the dinghy driving and filling, while I assisted by lifting the jugs from the dinghy to the deck of the big boat. Five trips were required to get us topped off, totaling a little over 100 gallons of fresh water. With each gallon of water weighing in at over 8 pounds, well, you do the math. The boat sits just a little lower in the water when the freshwater tanks are full, and we are both a little winded when the task is complete.

Another chore which must be done with alarming frequency is a scraping of the bottom. Here in Ensenada Honda, the conditions are right for the growth of what can best be titled a "boat beard." And this week it was time to give Prudence a shave. I suppose that the good news about the process is that the bottom does not accumulate hard barnacles. Instead, the accumulation of growth is a softer collection of substances (pictured in a previous posting), which are relatively easy to remove. Therefore, armed with only my diving skin, snorkel, and a plastic scraper, I went to work below the waterline. Two hours of taking deep breaths found the job complete. My only complaint was the density of tiny jellyfish in the water, each about the size of a golf ball. On one occasion, I came up with one wedged between my mask and snorkel, giving the little guy contact with one of my few areas of exposed skin, my upper lip. I spent the better part of the evening talking like I had just returned from a trip to the dentist and received a shot of Novocain.

The only other irritation of the bottom cleaning task is the millions and millions of shrimp collected on the bottom of the boat. Once dislodged from their home along our hull, they collect all over me. Just to give you an idea of what that is like, here is a close-up photo of my diving skin when I came up out of the water (hopefully the zipper gives you some perspective on their size)...



...Sheryl said that I smelled rather fishy. Plenty of that fresh water we brought aboard was used to remove said fishy residue.

On a final note for this entry, a topic which has nothing to do with boat chores. The harbor here repeatedly fills and empties with boats heading either north or south. This week we encountered another familiar southbound vessel, Belladonna. We met Mike in the Turks & Caicos, but lost track of him when we departed the Dominican Republic. It was good to see him again and catch up on his slow transit from the DR through Puerto Rico. He is now off for a comparatively rapid journey down to Trinidad where he will store the boat while he takes more conventional forms of transportation to Mexico and the United States. We wish him fair winds and following seas.