Adventures with David & Gail

What Cruising is all about! – Vivorillo Cays. In our travels throughout the last 15 months, we have learned a lot about the joys of cruising. Meeting and making new friends and seeing many foreign countries from both the water and on land. But Vivorillo Cays exemplifies the best part about cruising.

Cruisers dream of finding a small island all to themselves. And here we are 35 miles from the Honduras coast and 150 miles from the Bay Islands (Guanaja, Roatan, Utila) at a very small group of islands. (So small that only one of them actually has a name on the chart - Boga’s Cay.) The water is gorgeous. All shades of turquoise blending into a deep blue where the water deepens. Sandy beaches reaching out into the aquamarine water and a small reef between the islands. We have explored the islands, snorkeled the waters and generally relaxed!

But I should step back and explain a little bit about how we got here. We left Providencia at 11:00 PM in the dark with two other boats (Casa del Mar and Indian Summer) for the 195 miles leg to Vivorillo Cays. The timing of our departure was based on getting here on the second day around 10:00 AM if the trip went as planned and we averaged 5 to 5.5 knots. The bad news was that it meant two nights out, but at least the first one was short!
The trip started out with relatively low seas (around 4 ft.) and NE winds 10-15 knots. We motor sailed until sunup (charging our refrigerator) and then turned the motor off for most of the next day. Gail did much better on this crossing than the last and took all of her watches.

The second evening, we had a little excitement when out engine died suddenly and David had to change fuel filters while we were underway. Well – not much underway since there was not much wind which is why the motor was back on! But we got it restarted about an hour later. Our friends nicely throttled back and waited for us.

Of course, that was the only time we saw another boat all night. And, yes we were probably the closest we would be to Nicaragua. But it turned out to be a large tanker or freighter of some sort and never really was a problem. AIS (Automated Identification System) is a great thing and since we do not have it, it is nice to travel with someone who does. It identifies big ships like that. We did not end up hailing it, but once you have their name, they will respond to you quite nicely if you call. If you do not have their name, they often ignore smaller vessels unless they want to talk to you!

Other than a little frustration at having to change the filter in the middle of the night we had a quiet evening. In the morning things changed as we ran into some heavy squalls and stronger winds. We have our cockpit enclosure, so we were dry and happy. Our friends were a little less happy and much wetter! Once it calmed down from the first squall, we hoisted our little staysail and furled in the rest of the big headsail (it was already only partially out) and motor sailed with it. The seas were the biggest we had seen on this trip (around 6 to 8 ft.), but still not too bad. But the current that was supposed to be with us was against us, so the last 25 miles were slow going.

We pulled into Vivorillo Cays ahead of our friends (breaking trail as Indian Summer said) around 11:45 AM. Just about 37 hours as planned. As we pulled in the winds were northerly about 20+ and the seas were choppy making the anchorage pretty rough. But we anchored, cleaned up the boat from the crossing and took naps and generally relaxed.

The next morning we all discussed the weather. There was a front coming that would hit the Bay islands by Tuesday, so we either needed to leave right away or stay here for a few more days. Indian Summer decided to go on while Casa del Mar stayed with us. As Linda on Casa said this is a good place to stop and smell the water.

We explored the sandy cay closest to the boats first. It has a nice beach and it was an easy stroll around it. One ends has a small stand of Palm trees and the other end runs into the water at the reef. With turquoise water all around. We picked up some shells and enjoyed being on land! Even if it was only 100 yards long and 50 ft. wide!

The next day we went exploring the other two islands. Boga’s Cay is the largest with an old structure on it that looks like someone may have tried to process some type of seafood here at one time. Remnants of the building and dock are now roosts for the pelicans and frigates.

The other island is farther away, about 1 mile to the north. This island turned out to be very interesting. It is a rookery of sorts with hundreds of birds. Frigates and boobies (we think) nesting on the ground, in trees and on remnants of some sort of structure. One of the interesting things was we did not see any pelicans or seagulls or other smaller birds on this particular island.

We also did some snorkeling. We found some squid, sting rays and other reef fish. The next day we even found a spotted sea hare. Look that one up. Looks nothing like a rabbit! More like a big snail that lost its shell. But also very rare according to the books.

We have also spent some leisure time with our friends on Casa del Mar. It is nice to have someone else here and we have enjoyed getting to know them better. They are heading back the States as well so we will be traveling with them for some time.

So we spent four days here at this small group of islands virtually in the middle of nowhere that only a few boats will ever see! What a joy to be one of them! Now we are heading out for another overnighter to Guanaja and civilization! Ah, to the cruising life.