Hey there everyone, It sure has been a while. We have been in Key West Florida for the last three weeks. During this time we have replaced our transmission with the newest latest. We did all the work while at anchor and it was kinda shaky at times! Now we can take-on the florida power boaters! We spent our boiling hot afternoons in the public library, homeschooling and harassing the librarians! Key West has been a fun experience, we can really feel that we are back in the states again. "Wow what happened to those gas prices?!" It was $2.00 a gallon back in Mexico! The kids and I took our dog Henna to a small deserted island near the anchorage, right when we arrived here. She really needed to relive herself after being at sea for three days. I spotted a post to tie up our dinghy, and there it was....A sign that read NO TRESPASSING! We haven't seen a sign like that in four years! Welcome to the land of the free!! Oh ,Yeah then we see alot of people wearing t-shirts that read "freedom isn"t free" oh boy, I guess we gotta get used to this big island again!
Enough politics! We are happy to be mobile again and are planning to take the gulf stream to Miami on Tuesday. Then we will slowly head North to the Chesapeake bay area, and find a nice little spot to tuck-in for the hurricane season. This season has been most exciting one, cause so many different things happened to us! From seeing whales to meeting my parents on their boat in Panama. Being chased by monkey's cause we ran out of bananas! we also met some wonderful families living their lives on the blue. The kids were able to share their experiences with others, and get in plenty of play-time. When we were in Portobello, Panama, they would play soccer with the local children, the soccer field was situated in the courtyard of an old fortress! Lisa and Jana have been working hard with Nadine to stay in tune with their home-schooling duties as well. Henna (our dog) has sniffed more exotic bushes and is probably ready to move on to land for a while!
Well just wanted to check-in and say that we are safe and sound. Thank you for your replies, it's always nice to hear from you.
cheers
kurt and the gang

Hello all, finally an update from us. We find ourselves in Puerto Aventuras Mexico. This is a small resort/marina on the Mayan Riviera, right across from the island of Cozumel. We are happy to be tied-up for for a change!, and the kids are pool hopping around as if private property is a welcome sign! When we took a walk around the marina we found out that this is also a dolphin discovery place, so we sat back under a palm tree and watched our favorite mammals throw tourists through the air while savoring our long awaited ice cream cone!
To briefly back-track, we left Panama sailing along with my parents on "Maverick" end of March and sailed North to the island of San Andres, we really liked it there and couldn't believe that this small little Colombian spec in the Western Caribbean had so much to offer. We went horseback riding in the lush forest and ate more mangoes than our horses did! We hopped on a chicken bus and visited Capt. Morgans cave, drank noni wine and swam on the beautiful lee shore. With the winds in our favor we continued our journey North-North-West over the shallow banks of Nicaragua, were we anchored a few times to rest and walk our hairy friend "Henna". We then headed West with the trade winds to Roatan Honduras. This was an exhilarating ride! We had the biggest following seas we've seen, and do not want to see again! We got wet and yes, so did our laptop...fried!!! Again, Second one!! We locked Lisa, Jana , and Henna inside the cabin while Nadine and I were waiting for the next roller to break into our humble back yard! To top it off, upon our nightly arrival we turned into the wind to drop sail and the depth went from 100ft to 4ft in seconds! Welcome to Honduras! We made it off the next morning with minor damage to Crystals mighty hull! Roatan was great, especially the marine park on the West end of the island. There is a nice community there with plenty of eco-tourism and the water is crystal clear.
We will come back here again one day, we fell in love....again! When our weather window arrived it was time for us to do the opposite. We departed for Ambergris, Belize.
On the way we tucked behind the Turneffe reef for a rest and to walk our hairy friend on a cayo the size of a basket ball court! She was so happy to relieve herself and husk yet another coconut. (Henna can out husk any local islander when it comes to coconuts). We sailed through the cut into San Pedro and anchored behind (not on) the breaking waves of Belize's great barrier reef. We enjoyed the town and walked along the white sanded, hotel infested beach, and of course found the ice cream shop! We finally realized what a touristy place it was, there were Americans everywhere! And it occurred to us that we were getting closer to our destination...USA. But first... Mexico. We pulled up anchor @ 3 AM and made the daring cut transit at night out into the choppy seas in front of San Pedro. Then the fun started again.... The main halyard (the one to pull up the main sail) slipped out of my hand and ended up, were else? In the wind generator! Here we are, jerking around in the breaking waves @ 3 in the morning with no sail to stabilize us, what a great start!! My wife can work wonders! She balanced-wedged herself and using the boat hook untangled the spaghetti from the wind-gen. Now, as I am writing I can hear her moan from the pain of this daring task! Two days later and we are here! Now plan to rent a car and visit some of the wonderful Mayan lost cities and lisa, and Jana will try to figure out were they all went?! And of course we will have ice cream! Well folks, that about wraps it up for now. We are safe and happy and plan to go to Isla Mujeres next to wait for weather to make the trip to Florida's keys. But before we go, we all want to see those dolphins throw around those tourists again! Cheers!

Hey there folks! So we had a good sail from Cartegena to San Blas Panama. The first night the seas were pretty confused and it was a wet night! but then neptune put the seas on"simmer" and we arrived @ Dawn. We hooked up with my parents here and are now planning to sail together for a while. So far we like Panama, jungles, clean water and lots of things to see. We are anchored in the old town of Portobello, this is the place where all the gold from South America got put on boats bound for Spain. I sometimes wonder if there's any pickings under our boat! We are going to be here for a while because my parents are waiting for some parts to arrive. Then we plan to head North to Provodencia and then to Roatan Honduras.
We are going to Panama city tomorrow and there we will visit the Canal museum with the kids (another home schooling outing!)
alright, it looks like the pizza is ready!!
see you soon