01/06/2009, Luperon
My favorite day in Luperon was a hike to the blowhole. We went with friends from another boat that new the way. We saw magnificent caves with wonderful rock formations and bee hives. Then when we got to the water you could hear the power of the water under the rocks and all of a sudden....whoosh, the water comes up through the rocks and shoots in the air. The power of nature is amazing!!!
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12/11/2008, Luperon
Luperon Dominican Republic
As I write we are crossing the channel between the Turks and Cacos Islands. We have 150 miles to go to reach Luperon in the Dominican Republic. We left George Town in the Exumas about a week ago and headed to Rum Cay to wait for a weather window in hopes to head direct to the BVI. Unfortunately between the cold fronts and the trade winds we could wait for a month for that weather window. So, traveling with 3 other boats we headed out for the Turks and Cacos. That trip took us about 36 hours in very light winds but nice calm seas. We never checked into the Turks and Cacos but decided to just anchor off the islands for the night to get ready for today's trip.
It looks like we will arrive tomorrow morning sometime around 8 or nine am. We are looking forward to seeing the sights and working on the boat for a couple of weeks. I hope to learn some Spanish, but if you know me you know that is impossible.
The weather is warm and the water is getting warmer as we go. Right now it's about 80 degrees. Yesterday Linda pulled in our first Mahi-Mahi and about an hour later I got one. We some up for dinner and it was fresh and fantastic. Our Freezer is packed full now that we added the Mahi.
Before we left the US, we got a blackberry and an AT&T international plan. That has worked out for us very well. Every place we have gone except two over the past month we have had internet and email on our phone. It makes it real easy to check in on the kids and family. If you have a blackberry and would like to contact us, it is set up on email address: landhooo@hotmail.com or sailiato@gmail.com.
Check out our picture galleries and don't be afraid to leave a comment. We would love to hear from you.
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11/24/2008, In the Exumas Bahamas
I'm writing from George Town Exumas in the Bahamas. We have been here for about 4 days now and plan on staying about a month. We have come a long way since the last blog entry. After arriving in West Palm Beach we spent a week in the yard painting the bottom of the boat and cleaning and waxing the rest of the boat. Ken and Pat McConahay arrived on the 7th of November and we headed out that night for the Bahamas. It went as smooth as you can hope for and we arrived in Freeport the next morning. That was the easiest leg of our trip. The whole time we were watching Hurricane Puloma over Cuba. Luckily we were right and the hurricane fell apart.
The rest of the trip to George Town was as rough as I've seen. It wasn't the Hurricane that got us, it was a high pressure system over the South Eastern US and the following 3 cold fronts that came through. While the US was freezing from the cold fronts our weather was nice and warm but very, very windy. As a cruiser when this happens you find a nice spot to hide and enjoy life. But we had travelers with us with a date to be back to work and they were to fly out of George Town. So with that in mind we kept going. We left Freeport and sailed to the Berry Islands, through the islands and on to Nassau. We rested a day and then sailed to the northern end of the Exuma islands and then on to George Town about 90 miles south.
At one time leaving the Berry Islands we had to go through a passage between two islands. The seas were the roughest I've ever sailed in with short steep 10 foot waves. The action for about 5 minutes was so rough that our 1 ¼ inch tubing that holds up our hard top broke in 4 different places. We just got that fixed today. We have learned our lesson about having to get to someplace on a certain date. Future travelers with us will have to be more flexible. Come be with us when we are going to be in one area for a while and all that will be a non issue. But, with that said we enjoyed having Ken and Pat with us. Ken/McGiver is a lot of help in bad situations.
George Town is like a cruisers trailer park. Right now there are only 12 boats with us in the anchorage. They say within about a month there will be about 300. The water is unbelievable gorgeous and the beaches are nice. The gang here spends lots of time hanging around the beach playing games and just visiting. They say there are a lot of pot luck dinners that we look forward to.
That's all for now. Hope everyone stateside can stay warm this winter. I think I'll go for a swim.
Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!
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