The following text is from the emails we sent back home during our trip from Florida to Martinique in 2007
Jan 30, 2007
After a false start on January 4th, we have finally made our way down the coast of Florida , across the Florida Straights and the Gulf Stream and have been enjoying the weather and great company at a Marina in Varadero Cuba . Our false start involved an anchor mechanism that allowed the anchor to go down but not up, so since we have 200 feet of chain with a heavy anchor on the other end that we will be relying on thru our journey, we returned to Punta Gorda a few days after we started out. The boat sails beautifully. We crossed the Gulf Stream in very calm weather on an overnight sail, so I was not sea sick and was able to thoroughly enjoy the night sky and stars in the middle of the sea. We had our radar operating and on 2 occasions had to divert our course to make sure the huge ships coming over the horizon did not run into us. We arrived at the Cuban 12 mile limit at dark, so we circled around until light when we could start to hail them on our VHF radio for permission to enter their waters. Well we never did hear back from them and when we arrived at the Marina 2 officials were at the dock awaiting us. At first glance we thought they were fishermen, but then it unfolded that they were the immigration officials we had heard so much about. After that it took a few hours to clear thru customs, About 5 different officials came on our boat among them, the agricultural personnel, the doctor, the drug squad along with their dog who took a great interest in sniffing thru all our things. We were glad that apparently the previous owners were not into drugs, as the dog found nothing. There sure is a lot of paperwork here, somewhat like the career I left with Health services. Here they have a better excuse since they are not as automated as we are in Canada .
Along the way we have met with so many wonderful people and are grateful to them for being our friends. We have learned how to find the market here as well as the black market for buying our food. In a few days we will be leaving Varadero to start our 400 mile journey down the North coast of Cuba and then on the Far Bahamas Island of Great Inagua. Since we will be sailing the north coast of Cuba, we will have to wait at anchorages when North winds blow ..as we have experienced over the last week...they can be furious.

Wed, 7 Feb 2007

Left Varadero Feb 11th with the usual officials guarding our departure including drug dogs, this time a Spaniel. After we have permission to leave port we cannot step off the boat again 'til we arrive in the next port. Farewells to new friends were made before the officials arrived. Our weather was good for sailing so instead of going short hops along the north coast which is full of beautiful beaches and cays (too shallow in many places for our boat) we decided to sail 24/7 for 4 days and 3 nights to reach the far end of Cuba, Bahia Vita from where we will exit Cuba tomorrow en route to Great Inagua, onward to Puerto Rico, hopefully bypass Dominican Republic and give Haiti a wide berth. Although short, our time in Cuba has been very nice. Very kind, helpful and friendly people. Our sailboat dances on the water and seems to love winds that are between 15 and 20 knots and even higher at times. Now we know what Captain Tom from our sailing course meant by a sleigh ride. We saw many big ships pass us by in the adjacent shipping lanes but did not meet any other boats along the coast except a few fishing boats in the daytime that our radar did not pick up (all plastic). Once a huge ship loomed up behind us about 6 miles away, so we decided to move further over from the shipping lanes. We took turns keeping watch. We had a brilliant full moon for 3 nights to guide our way. We ran into quite strong winds and a current in the Old Bahamas Channel and progress was very slow at about 3-4 knots. Cuba has some magnificent lighthouses along the coast, some of them like huge monuments that are seen form many miles off shore. The North East end of Cuba is very mountainous and beautiful. The only marine life we saw were flying fish, one of them ended up on our deck as I discovered when we arrived at the Marina. We have been at the Marina here for 3 days cleaning the boat, checking weather and planning our next route and generally enjoying the peaceful surroundings.

Feb 14, 2007
We are now in a wonderful newly opened marina/resort in Cofresi Dominican Republic (near Puerto Plata). This is pretty well half way to our destination in Martinique. In all we have covered about 800 nautical miles and have another 800 to go. Our intent was to bypass DR but we decided that we would need fuel and a rest after our trip from Cuba. Our fear was that we had to check into the country in Luperon, which is a port that is sometimes dangerous for navigation because of reefs and shoals, and once there, as it is a poor area, there are some dangers/discomforts when at anchorage. Along the way from Cuba as we studied one of our guide books to DR we came upon mention of a new Marina/resort called Ocean World that was to open Dec 2006. They mentioned customs and immigration facilities as well as a fuel dock. So we sailed on past Luperon in the dark hours of the early morning and arrived at Cofresi in daylight. We easily located the entry buoys as described in the guide book, radioed the marina on VHF hoping they were open. We got an answer and were at the fuel dock in minutes greeted by the most welcoming Marina staff. Customs and immigration here was very easy (they came right to our boat) as compared to having to dingy in to the town in Luperon to clear customs. The marina is beautiful with all great amenities including pool, casino, restaurants & Marine Park. We have been here for 3 days and will be leaving tonight to sail the North coast of DR towards the Mona Passage that will take us across to Puerto Rico. We are very glad we stopped here. The people in the town and the resort have been most friendly and welcoming. Dominican Republic is a beautiful mountainous country and as we head along the coast we look forward to seeing the mountains from sea.
After we left Bahia Vita in Cuba we sailed overnight to Great Inagua in the far Bahamas. That night on our alternating 2 hour watches we were each tracking at least 3-4 ships in the Bahamas Channel on radar. It's also amazing the distance you can see the lights shining from land. We had to cross the shipping lanes, so we had to be very careful to cross when there were no ships in sight on our radar (within 24 miles). These ships move very fast and once we changed direction just to be sure to be out of the way of a huge ship. We arrived at Great Inagua in daylight and anchored just outside of the town. The water was brilliantly clear aquamarine. We were boarded by Bahamian coast guard and received permission to take on fuel and depart without having to clear customs and pay a $300.00 cruising permit fee. This Island is known for the Morton Salt Company. It is very flat and has no protection from prevailing winds so we were happy that it was comparatively calm while we were anchored. We had to inflate the dinghy and launch it with all our Jerry cans for diesel fuel, since there was no fuel dock facility we could access. So Rick took off across the swells into the lagoon where we were told we could get fuel. After about 4 hours of waiting and various town folk trying to rustle up the fuel station owner, Rick obtained fuel from some locals who siphoned it from some of their stash. It was going to get dark soon and I was glad that Rick was back with the dinghy of full fuel cans. We raised anchor just as the sun was setting and headed out to sea for our 2 night crossing to Dominican Republic. We had great sailing wind and the boat was just cutting thru the water most of the way. Along this leg of the journey we were somewhat apprehensive about drug runners from Haiti. This fear was reinforced by the Bahamian coast guard who had asked us if we had seen anything suspicious along our way from Cuba and they told us of the problem. They said that we likely would not be bothered by any of them. So we were a little tense whenever we saw lights that did not show up on our radar. At daybreak we saw a Haitian sloop very nearby heading towards Haiti (the coastline of Haiti visible in the distance), so we turned away for a distance in the other direction, and they continued on their way.
Nearing Dominican Republic we saw a whale that looked to us like an Orca and the marina manager said that they have had Orcas in these waters. We hope to see more whales along our way--they apparently have Humpbacks in these waters.

Feb 17, 2007
We are now in Puerto Rico on the South West coast in a town called Boqueron. Our passage from Dominican Republic took 3 days. We were happy to have good weather to cross the Mona Passage. That is a passage between Puerto Rico and Dominican Republic, known to be rough sailing if the weather is not just right. It contains one of the world's deepest ocean trenches called the Puerto Rico trench. Massive volumes of water pass thru it from the Caribbean to the Atlantic and when the water hits the more shallow areas there are high waves and unpredictable currents. We have been anchored in the bay at Boqueron and have had an opportunity to stock up on supplies and food. Our adventure has taken on another dimension after a boat we were sailing with across the Mona Passage caught a Wahoo while trolling. They shared the fish dinner with us and when they caught another beautiful eating fish the next day (Rainbow Sea Perch) that we once again shared for dinner, we were off to buy our own fishing gear. After Rick got the rod and lures all rigged up he went for what he thought would be a peaceful nap and Beni settled down for some peaceful fishing (think Canada where you wait for a long time for a bite). Well, in 15 minutes we had dinner caught on the hook--a Rainbow Sea Perch. We will only be fishing for eating and not sport, so since we don't want to eat fish every day, Beni will have to wait to fish again until the next dinner menu calls for fish.
We are leaving Puerto Rico tomorrow morning for a 30 hour sail to St Croix in the US Virgin Islands. From there, we will be sailing directly to Martinique (about 300 miles that will take us approximately 72 hours). Martinique will be the home base for the sailboat.

March 9, 2007
We have arrived at our destination-Martinique. In our last email we were departing Puerto Rico to St Croix following which we were going to take a direct run to Martinique. Well, we decided to do some more island hopping via St Kitts and Guadeloupe mostly to take advantage of better weather windows. Besides, we are in the Caribbean and as they say here "What's the rush Mon"! Although trolling for fish with our new fishing gear would have been ideal, we were a little worried about doing a lot of fishing before having good fish identification resources, since there are some fish which carry a disease called ciguatera that could be poisonous to humans. We spent 4 days in St Croix. There we purchased fish books and learned that the disease is mainly found in reef fish and especially prevalent in Barracuda. Fish such as Dorado, tuna and Wahoo would be good for eating. We will leave our trolling for the leisure sailing we are planning when we return to the islands year after year and hopefully can share these large fish with our friends aboard. In the meantime we've had many tasks to attend to. In the last 2 weeks I've hauled Rick up the mast in the bosons chair for numerous repairs and adjustments such as fastening loose halyards, replacement of a stray radar reflector, replacement of burnt out navigation bulbs. Once in the darkness of night, as we have been under way, the navigation lights flickered and went out. Rick had to creep up to the front of the boat pulling along his tether attached to the safety vest to try to fix the problem. That night the best he could do was tie his red light from his head lamp onto the front of the boat because he could not get the navigation lights to work. So we at least had a red light and kept a good watch to make sure we were out of the way of other boats. After a few days in St Kitts we heard what we thought would be the best weather report for the 2 days sail we were to make to Martinique. We passed by Montserrat in the night just as the full moon was rising over the island. We reflected that this was the third full moon that we had sailed with at night. It would have been fascinating to see Montserrat during the day to see the still smoking volcano that erupted in 1995 and destroyed the southern half of the island. Yet, passing the island at night had eeriness because all of the lights of the island's population were on the north half with the south half in complete darkness. The smoke from the volcano was visible against the full moon sky. All of the islands we passed on our way from St Kitts to Martinique (Montserrat, Guadeloupe, Les Saintes and Dominica) are strikingly beautiful as they rise up from the sea with stunning green mountains and valleys. Clouds seem to usually hang over the mountain tops and trips to their rain forests would be magnificent. These islands will be within easy reach for us to return to from Martinique. Sailing past these islands was a pleasure because we could be closer to the shore than we were on the other part of our journey. The water is quite deep to within about � mile off shore of most of these islands as compared to the reefs on the other islands that extended further from the shore in Puerto Rico and Cuba.
Throughout our journey we attended carefully to weather reports to ensure safe and comfortable passages. Every morning we communicated with a popular weather router on the Single side band radio, as well as checking NOAA marine reports. Just as we were congratulating ourselves about our safe and comfortable journey, we ran into quite a difficult passage. It was the very last passage from Dominica to Martinique. The weather report was not glowing, but also not what we thought was too bad. There were going to be rain showers and possible some short squalls that could be accompanied by very high winds reaching 25 knots. Our commitment was to sail only within winds of 15 to 20 knots for our journey. So how bad could it be??"these short squalls! We then found out when at about 1:00 am in a passage that is wide open to the Atlantic Ocean we ran into about 3 hours of winds reaching 32 knots and seas reaching 15 to 20 feet. There was no rain with this disturbance. Once more we were grateful for the full moon because as the boat tossed up and down the waves we could spot other boats that showed up on radar as well as see the mountainous waves coming at us that helped us anticipate the actions required. If our visibility had been obscured by heavy rain, we feel it may have been worse for us. We knew that if we could reach the lee of Martinique we would be out of the open water of the passage and the seas would be calmer. At night you can see the lights of islands from a distance of about 20 miles. As we were dealing with the heavy seas we could see Martinique and it felt like it was right there, yet with our sailboat traveling at only 7 knots, it took 3 hours to reach the lee shore of the island. Someone had once said to me that at one time or another we'll get caught out in bad weather. We are planning this to be our one and last time. We'll heed similar weather reports very closely in the future.
We are happy to be in Martinique, a French island much influenced by the European ways. Our sailboat is on a mooring in a marina called the Marin Yacht Harbour in a bay called Plaisance. Two years ago we spent a few weeks here and are looking forward to exploring more of the island and taking off from here to visit islands north and south.
We have completely enjoyed our journey even when we were alternating our 2 hour watches and could hardly wait to wake the other up because our eyes were falling shut or we began to think we could see lights that were not really out there in the darkness. We discovered that even though we were alone on the vast sea with no land in sight, we never felt alone. The night sky is awesome. The sea is mesmerizing. During our passages it was a surprising pleasure to do nothing but look out at the sea, it's ever changing state from glassy calm to undulating waves and white caps and beautiful marine colours.
For those who don't know about the boat name, Benita's heritage is Latvian and LAIMA was in Latvian culture the goddess of destiny. She was mostly associated with luck. She also has a symbol called Laima's broom. She uses the broom to save people from drowning That symbol we have applied to the bow of our boat.
And so ends our journey to Martinique.