CURRENT LOCATION: On a mooring ball near the reef in Ensenada Dakity
18 17.591' N, 065 16.791' W

Our new dinghy engine has made our work-week at Dakity a possibility. On Tuesday, I made the 2-mile run into town in about 10 minutes. While I did my teaching gig and ran a few errands, Sheryl went hunting for sea glass. Her new favorite sea glass site is just around the corner from where we are moored. It is a relatively short kayak paddle, but does involve exiting the protection of the reef to face what can be some pretty major waves when the wind is south of east.



While in town, I picked up my replacement laptop. With the new PC secure in a water-proof backpack, I blasted through the chop on the harbor to return to Dakity. I booted up the new laptop to be sure that all was working well, then shut down the new machine and swapped the hard drive from my old laptop to this new one. Instantly back in business with no need to reinstall all of my applications and adjust those settings that make a computer personsal, how nice.

On Wednesday, Sheryl decided to devote a full day to Villa Margarita (the rental property where she has been hired to do some odd jobs). The property is most easily accessed from the beach on Mosquito Bay, so I took Sheryl out through the cut in the reef and dropped her off on the beach. Then I took the dinghy to town to teach my class. After class, I turned around and went back to the boat to change into my swimsuit, then took the Porta-bote back to the beach at Mosquito Bay. It was time to do my weekly pool cleaning job. With Villa Margarita right next door to the pool I clean, Sheryl and I met up and motored off the beach before the sun had set.

On Thursday, there were two of us in the dinghy on the trip to town. It was Sheryl's day at the library and I teach in the afternoon. As we tried to get the boat up onto a plane (where it rides on top of the water), the bow flexed back toward us and the final rivets holding the middle seat in place gave way. I had been expecting this to happen, as the six rivets holding this seat to the sides of the dinghy had been decreased to two over the last few months. The seats in a Porta-bote add a significant amount of structural integrity to the flexible 'skin' of the boat. For the remainder of the trip to town, Sheryl sat on the front seat and I sat on the rear seat. We motored slowly to keep the boat from folding in half.

While Sheryl was at the library, I went to the hardware and found bolts, nuts, and washers to repair the seat. It took a while to get the bolts in place (with the dinghy rocking in the chop at the municipal dock), but I finally got it back together. It should be stronger now than when it was new. I arrived to teach my class a little more sweaty than usual, but my work-week was done by early afternoon.

Sheryl and I met and headed back to Dakity with a slightly stronger boat, capable of getting up onto a plane without buckling under the pressure of the water. After dinner, we headed back towards town. A reader of the blog had invited us over for a drink. Dan and his wife, Jackie, own a catamaran which they charter out of the Virgin Islands. As owners, they come down here from Utah several times a year to sail their boat. Dan had never been to Culebra, but was encouraged to sail this direction by the stuff we have shared in this blog.

We tied off our Porta-bote behind their lovely catamaran, Son Spirit, and enjoyed a nice evening chatting with them and their guests, Jerry and Pam. We shared some of our experiences as full-time cruisers and they shared some thoughts about the places they have sailed in the Virgin Islands and their crossing of the Sombrero Passage (a.k.a. the Anegada Passage). We also talked about their numerous diving experiences, something which certainly interests fish enthusiasts like us. A good time was had by all, and it was later than usual and quite dark by the time we took the 2-mile trip back to Prudence.



By Friday, I was happy to stay on the boat while Sheryl made a solo run to town to do her gig at Abbie's School. It had been a long week, but a good one. I think that this weekend we will both be quite happy staying on the boat. Our new dinghy engine could use two days of rest.