December 15, 2013

Well, we’ve been busy…as usual, but I’ll try to catch you all up now.
Tuesday was a busy, busy day with any number of contractors aboard the boat getting the various projects done. In between, we took a quick drive up into El Yunque, the rainforest to see the fabulous views, waterfalls and have a quick lunch up near the top. A very cool drive, both in sight and temperature, and someplace we will plan to come back to and spend a little more time. Then it was back to the boat to wrap up the work.

Wednesday we were up and off the docks early. The wind was blowing us hard on the dock, but with Frank at the helm we were soon free and making our way southeast to Vieques. Our plan is to go to the bioluminescent bay tonight, and head back into St Thomas tomorrow. We make Esperanza early, and so relax until later when it is time to go meet the van for our trip. It’s a bit of a crazy experience. Frist, we all jump in the van for a short trip over to the Sun Bay Beach parking lot (maybe 4 minutes) then we pile out and pay, sign paperwork, get some instructions and get our life jackets issued. This takes about 25 minutes where we are all milling around in a parking lot while wild horses are grazing beside us. Then it is back in the van for a hair-raising ride down a road (I think it was a road) in the pitch dark with more water filled dips and ruts, and with the trees so close they were brushing the sides of the van. 15 or so minutes later we stop along the side of the water, don our life jackets, get a paddle and our Kayak and into the bay we go. Unfortunately the moon is waxing full so we couldn’t see quite as well as we would have liked, but it was pretty neat to kayak around the bay, watch the paddles kick up a flame of bio-organism’s, and scoop water into our hands and pour them into the boat to see what looks like pieces of glitter pour out. I can only imagine what it might look like on a night with no moon.

Early, early on Thursday we headed out, into the wind and seas for the 6 hour pound back into St Thomas. The seas were 6-8, with several 10’s thrown in, and within minutes the boat, and us were completely salted over. There are also lots and lots of crab pots on the south side, so we were dodging pots as well as waves all along the coast with the winds at 25 on the nose. We eventually made it back to YHG, then piled half our stuff in the dingy and headed back to CBM to see how Regenero fared without us. She was fine, and after a celebratory lunch at Tickles, Frank and Denise headed back to do their work, and we began ours…first to laundry, then Jim watered the boat, checked engines, etc, before coming back to help me finish the laundry and get ice. Then off to Pueblo for a provisioning run, and finally, after the boat was tidy and we were showered a quick trip to Gourmet Gallery for celebratory ice cream for dinner…yup, just ice cream…we had a big lunch!

On Friday, we left Crown Bay early and headed over to Francis Bay to hang for a few days. Charles and Leslie are here, and Frank and Denise came in to join us later, and we all enjoyed Pina Colada’s for sundowners. The weather is gorgeous today, bright and sunny and clear and we are thinking that the winter weather is now here for good…which made it all the more surprising when the wind piped up to 30+ in the gusts overnight and wave after wave of rain came thru. Guess it’s not quite settled yet! And no luck replacing the hatch today, …tomorrow, Saturday doesn’t look too good either. So we get other small tasks done, but we are in a beautiful place, with fish jumping, birds diving. We enjoyed a snorkel and even saw several deer frolicking on the beach near sunset. It’s a good place to be tucked up.