I spent the last week just hanging out in St Thomas with a little boat work and watching the basketball games. We had a fair amount of rain this week. The storm shown here is right at the nd of Lindberg Bay where I was going. Luckily, the rain had moved on by the time I got there but there was plenty more over night.

Today I decided to go to St Croix and check out Christiansted. I had been there several years ago on a charter and liked the town. It was about 39 miles from St Thomas to Christiansted and I ended up motorsailing most of the way to get the batteries charged. The wind was forcast to be from the north-east but ended up closer to south-east putting me on a beat all the way. It was about 9 hours for the trip but it was a beautiful day for sailing. The seas were calm with about a 2-3 swell from the SE and 10-15 knot winds. Temperature was about 80 making for a great day.

I decided to try some fishing on the way down. I bought fishing gear in PR but hadn't used it yet. I trolled most of the way and had no hits until I got close to St Croix. A fish hit it and snapped the line. It was twenty pound test line and snapped as soon as it was hit. I saw the fish jumping behind the boat. It apparantly had the lure in its mouth and was trying to shake it. It looked like a pretty good size fish, probably about 3 ft, but I couldn't tell what kind it was. I guess I need some stronger line.

Christiansted was the capital of the Danish West Indies and the downtown still has the original buildings. Most of these, the fort, the scale house, the old church, the customs house and the West Indies warehouse are all painted bright yellow and are administered b the park service. They date from the mid 1700's. The other down town buildings are painted in various pastel colors giving it a bright cheerful ambiance.

Apr 5, 2006

I went ashore to Christiansted this morning. It has changed since I was there last, about 7 years ago. Then we anchored just off the boardwalk. Now that area is so full of private moorings that it is almost impossible to anchor there. It's a cheap place to live for those who work in town. The boardwalk itself has been extended westward to the seaplane terminal and is really nice. It is such a contrast to Charlotte Amalie. There the "boardwalk" is concrete and is covered with swarms of people who have to share it with the taxis and other vehicles servicing the boats tied upthere. Christiansted's is a pleasant quite relaxing spot for a liesurely stroll. There are also a couple of large condo complexes that I don't remember from the last trip. If I was to choose a spot to live in the USVI, it would probably be on St Croix. The downtown hasn't changed too much. They have covered arched arcades along most of the streets so you can get out of the sun or rain. There were several severely deteriorated on the edges of town but some are being restored and others demolished.

This is the furthest south I've made it this trip. I got down to 17 degrees, 45 minutes. Probably as far south as I'll go with hurricane season approaching.

Apr 6, 2006

I sailed back from St Croix to St Thomas today. It was another beautiful day with calm seas, 2-4 foot swells, but with light winds, 5 to 10 knots most of the way. The sailing was a little slow and it took a little over 10 hours to make the 40 miles. There was nearly no traffic for the whole trip, just the St Croix to St Thomas ferry that I saw go by a few times. Wheather was mid 80's and sunny as normal.

I had time to finish the book I was reading, Jimmy Buffett's A Pirate Looks at Fifty. It's about his 4,000 mile trip through central and South America and the Caribbean islands with his family to celebrate his making it through half a century. It was a little different than my trip through the Caribbean. He went in two planes, a Grumman Albatross flying boat and a Cessna Citation jet, both of which he owns. His wife and girls think the Albatross is too noisy and too slow but he needed it to carry toys so they took both. It was an interesting book and a little different look at some of the islands I've been to although we did seem to like the same ones.

I expect to stay here for a few days and then probably go to Spanish Virgins for a while. Then it will time to leave for the season.

April 13, 2005

I finally decided to go north for hurricane season. I was thinking about going to Tobago or Trinidad but there seem to a few problems down with which I didn't want to get involved. So yesterday morning I left St Thomas o start the trip back. I was planning on stopping in Culebra again but it was so nice that I decided to go to Puerto Rico instead. It was about 89 miles from Brewers Bay to Salinas. I left late yesterday morning and got into Salinas about 8:00 this morning. There was a full moon last night, or very cose to it, so I had a great sail. There were several storms around but I missed a but one of them. I only saw one ship all night. A cruise ship left St Thomas and passed me about 8 miles away. The only close call I had was three fishing boats. They had lights but when I saw them I thought they were the lights on the east end of PR although they did seem too bright. By the time I realized they were small fishing boats, I was within a few hundred feet of them and headed really close to them. I turned away and missed them with lots of room. They were fishing with green underwater lights. I had never seen this done before. The water glows all around the boats.

I filled up with diesel and water today, called customs and cleared in, went to the grocery store and loafed most of the rest of the day. I didn't really sleep last night and it hit me about 5:00 this afternoon. I will probably leave here tomorrow and head west, maybe back to Gilligan's Island. It is a nice point to break up the trip to Boqueron. I will wait in Boqerron for a good weather window and then leave for the Bahamas. If the weather holds long enough I won't stop in the Bahamas and wil go directly to Norfolk and the Chesapeake Bay. I need to redo the bottom paint and a couple of other tasks and plan on doing them there. After that, I am thinking about going to Maine for a month or two. I have never been there and would love to see it.

Not sure when I'll have internet access after I leave here so updates may be far between.

I sailed about 89 miles yesterday and today.

April 14, 2006

I got up early this morning to go into town to the Cruiser's Galley for breakfast and internet. They open at 6:00, or used to. I got there at about 6:30 and they were not open yet. I wanted to get an early start today if I was going to leave Salinas so I went back to the boat and left. I was actually under way by 7:00. It was dead calm when I left but the winds were supposed to pick up later from the south so I left. Well, the wind did pickup but from the west so I had it on the nose. After a while it shifted slightly to the south so I put up the sails and motor sailed the rest of the way. It was a slow trip.

I decided to go to Gilligan's Island again. I stopped there on the way east and was the only boat in the anchorage. Today there were 15 boats already anchored when I got there! There were 5 sailboats all lined up in the deeper part and the rest of the power boats rafted up in the shallows at the end of the harbor. This is also a popular place for the locals to run their jet skis and other power boats. The left when it got dark so they weren't really a problem. I did have a little problem with the depth. My charts showed about 9 feet where I andhored but I ended up dragging on the bottom. It wasn't a problem and I was albe to pull my self off with the anchor. You can't always trust the charts, electronc or paper, and need to pay attention to what you are doing.

As I was coming in the narrow opening in the reef, you could see very clerly how the reef smooths the water. In the picture, the island is to the left and the outside reef is to the right. The waves break on the reef and inside it is calm. The water inside the reef is from 1 to 2 feet deep. I tried to take the dinghy through it but it was too shallow. The anchorage is to the left of the island so it is calm in there also.

I sailed 39.4 nautical miles today.

Apil 15,2006

Today I decided to go to Boqueron and wait for a good weather window before heading further north. It was only 28 miles from Gilligan's Island to Boqueron so I figured it would be a nice short day sail. I left in a dead calm as I had yesterday. I got almost to the SW corner of PR, Cabo Rojo, before the winds picked up to the point where I couldn't keep up a good speed. I put up the main and motorsailed the rest of the way. The wind pretty much seemed to know where I was going and would shift so it was on the nose. These were the first westerlies I've seen since I've been down here. As I turned the corner to go north to Boqueron, the wind shifted to the north also. At least it was strong enough that I could beat into it. A couple of tacks and I was at the entrance to Boqueron harbor. It sure was a lot easier to enter in the daytime! The last time I came in here it was very dark and I was a little tense coming in. No problems and I was anchored by about 5:30. At least tonight I would have had a full moon if I got in late.

I have a few things to take care of here, such as laundry, and then will stay until I get a good weather window that will take me well into the Bahamas. I don't plan on stopping in the Dominican Republic or the Turks and Caicos and would like to get at least to Cat Island before stopping. If the weather holds out long enough, I will go all the way to the Chesapeak offshore but that's unlikely.

I sailed 30.8 nautical miles today.

April 17, 2006

Still in Boqueron. Yesterday, Easter, was absolutely carzy here. It must be the big holiday and Boqueron attracts the young crowd and it was a crowd. Saturday night there was a big street party with LOUD music that went until about 1:00 am. Yesterday the PR jet ski fleet seemed to meet here with the objective of making as much noise as possible. I can certainly see why they are banned so many places. Hopefully they are all back to school or work or wherever they go now that it is Monday.

The weather forecast indicates that I will be here for a couple of days. There are only light and variable winds today and not much more tomorrow. I will see what it looks like tomorrow and may go ahead and leave in the afternoon. I will need to charge batteries some so might as well motorsail. The sea state looks good tomorrow with some NE swell, ~ 4 ft, so it may be OK for some sailing. I'll check tomorrow and decide then.

Once I leave here, I may be out of touch from a few days up to about 3 weeks, depending on the weather and how far I decied to go on this next leg.

April 18, 2006

Just listened to the Caribbean Weather Net and it sounds like I will be here for another day or two. The winds are really light and from the NW which of course is where I want to go. I might as well stay here in the calm harbor rather than bob around in the swells. It sounds like Thurs will be the first chance to leave here. I will go ashore shortly and try and find Internet access so at least I can upload the last few days worth of "news.".

It has calmed down here after the weekend blast. There are still a few tourists in town but pretty quite. The jet ski crowd has left so the harbor is peaceful again. I did my laundry yesterday. The last time I did it was in St Thomas where it was $4.50 a load to wash. Here it was $4.75 to wash and dry three loads. I also found that groceries are considerably cheaper here than in St Thomas. The selection in the small local stores is not too good and the large stores are a taxi ride away. I don't need enough to justify a taxi although if I stay here much longer I may want to take a trip just to get off the boat for a while. I still have a few things to do and I seem to keep busy.

April 20, 2006

under way again. I got up early this morning to catch the weather net and it sounded pretty good. Winds will be light this morning anfd building this afternoon from the north and then swinging around to the NE and continuing to build through Sat. My batteries are getting a bit low so I need to motor for a while so it shoudl work well. I decided to change my route somewhat from going east of the Bahamas to going west of the eastern islands. THis will give me some protection from the swells without adding much distance to the trip. The forcast is for 6 to 8 foot swells this weekend. THis isn't too bad but it should be more comfortable on the new route. The biggst disadvantage of going this way is that I will miss about a 0.6 knot NW flowing current.

I have been working on a few thing on the boat. One thing I have been meaning to do for some time is to get out the boook on the autopilot and see if I couldn't improve it's performance some. It sort of steer like a drunken sailor swinging either side of the course by about 15 degrees. It all averages out but it gets pretty anoying. It was time well spent. I read about "Track" mode. This takes data from a GPS route and keeps the boat on the course instead of trying to sail a fixed aangle. I tried it and it will keep me within about 15 feet of the track. Pretty amazing. This was a great improvement but still didn't really fix the sobrity problem. I finally decided that I had the gain set too high. Setting it down a bit helped tremendously. I can now sail on course and generally not hunt more than about 5 degrees. Once I get into rougher seas it may not work quite as well but should be better.

THe other big item is my engine. It has never been able to reach max operating speed and a medium strong headwind, about 15 knots, wouldhave me motoring at about 2 knots. I initially thought I had it over propped and had the prop repitched in PR. It helped very little. It was not a big enough problem that I wanted to take a chance on a local unknown mechanic and I was resigned to waiting until I got back to Maryland to have it looked at. Studying the shop manual I bought for the engine, I concluded that it was either the injection timing or the fuel flow limit. If the timing was off far enough to cause so much power loss I thought there would be a lot of smoke from the unburned diesel fuel and I had none. The fuel limit is controlled b anadjustable stop screw on the back of the pump. It was safety wired and looked very important and I really didn't want to creat a new problem by screwing up the injection pump. I finally got up the nerve to try adjusting it. Half a turn out and I picked up about 600 RPM so that was pretty encouraging. Another half a turn and I was motoring, actually motorsailing in a very light wind, at 7 knots. I think I may have fixed the problem. I won't know for sure until I get into some more severe conditions but it is much better.

April 24, 2006

Well the engine seems much better. Today I was motoring into a 15-20 knot headwind and was easily able to do over 5 knots. It still had a little throttle left so I think it is pretty close to where it should be.

I am in Sapodilla Bay on Providenciales, or Provo, in the Turks and Caicos. As I was rounding the NE corner of the Dominican Republic at about 10:pm, I got hit with a squall with somewhat higher winds, probably 25 knots, and rain. The autopilot could not hold course under those conditions so I dropped the big Genoa and the mizzen. reefed the main and put up the # 1 Jib on the inner forestay. This calmed things down and the AP seemed OK. Shortly after midnight, I had a couple ofther problems. The mizzen topping lift shackle opened and the topping lift started flopping around. I didn't see it at first and by the time I saw it, it had wrapped itself around the wind generator blades, which had been running pretty fast, and the radar unit. I was able to ge it unwrapped without going up the mast and got it reconnected to the end of the mizzen boom. While trying to get things under control again, I was stepping across the cockpit and slipped on the seat. There was antiskip paint on the cockpit surface and despite some people saying that your feet are the best nonskip surface available, I went down. I grabbed one of the mizzen shrouds and I think this may have slowed me some but I hit the edge of the coakpit combing, or maybe a cleat, with my butt. It just missed the tailbone and got the soft tissue. It really hurt but it could have been so much worse if I had landed on a winch or scraped my backbone on something.

About this time I noticed that the GPS, depth and autopilot were off and the boat was basically drifting about. I checked the breaker panel and the breaker had popped. I reset it blindly hoping that it would be OK. It wasn't. The autopilot drive motor had shorted out and tripped the breaker again. This was certainly not good news. Without the AP, I would have to sit at the helm and steer all the time, especially bad with my very sore butt. Not having any imediately obvious solutions, I started steering west on the course I had entered. I did not want to go any further that absolutely necessary. The only options were the Dominican Republic or the Turks and Caicos. Having spent some time in Luperon and knowing how difficult it is too get parts in there I headed for the T&C. I had never been there but had heard good things about them and headed for Provo. Obviously I made it OK or you wouldn't be reading this. It was not fun. The winds picked up to over twenty knots and the 6 foot swells from the north were joined by 6 foot wind driven waves from the east. Yep, that adds up to occasional 12 foot waves. Even the smaller 6 foot waves create a problem since as they go under the boat, they cause the boat to turn quickly so I was constantly trying to get the boat back on course and with the higher winds, Bella Vita developed a pretty severe weather helm. For you non sailors, this means that the boat a tendency to turn up into the wind which must be compesated for at the helm. It is especially tough to steer at night since there are no external references to steer by although there isn't much while at sea and away from land. The GPS display is no good for steering because it is only updated about every 4 seconds. This means that you will be well past the course you want when you see it on the GPS display. The compass is much better since it doesn't have this built in delay athough the damping built in to the compass causes the same problem but to a lesser degree. Needless to say, it didn't take too much of this to exhaust me. So, I was thirty miles from the DR, probably 50 from a decent anchorage, about 3 miles south of a nastly little piece of ocean called the Silver Banks and about 180 miles from Provo. I don't carry enough anchor rode to anchor here since the water was a little over 13,000 feet deep. I was in a pretty lightly travelled portion of the ocean since I was so close to the Silver and Navidad banks. They can get so rough that the commercial shipps stay away from them. So I decided to heave to and get some rest.

Heaving to is sort of like a virtual anchor. You back the head sail, sheet in the main sail tightly and lock the tiller to leeward. This will cause the boat to move very slowly forward but mostly sideways. In the 20 knot winds I had, I moved at about 1.7 knots. Not only do you move slowly, but it also smooths out the motion of the boat. There is a calmed area just to leeward of a boat and when hove to you are basically sailing in your own lee. It will not really effect the swells but will definetly calm the waves somewhat. A very useful procedure for such times. I was able to get a couple of hours sleep, in my 15 minute chunks, and the boat only moved about 4 miles.

One oher thing I noticed that was a bit of a concern was that the depth finder started showing readings in the 8 to 12 range. Normally, when in water over the max range of the unit it will show the last reading and flash "LAST." It soon went back to the over range display but I did notice this several times. It was somewhat disconcerting to see this when I thought I was in two mile deep water. I swung around and hove to and went in and checked the depth on the chart plotter to make sure I hadn't made an error while doing the route. All was well and I got back on course again. I think what was happening was that there were some fish swimming along under the boat and the depth finder was finding them.

I continued sailing toward Provo heaving to ocasionally to eat and rest. It worked OK but I really did suffer from sleep deprivation. It got very difficult to keep my eyes open at times. One time I remember looking a the compass and wondering what all those numbers are for. Its really tough to keep the brain working when it gets so tired.

But I made it to Provo OK and got cleared in through customs. A woman I met in the customs office gave me a ride into town to the marine store, waited while I was in there and took me back to the beach just as the rising tide was getting to my dinghy. I haven't found the autopilot actuator yet but will go back into town in the morning to search the internet. I should be able be on my way by Thursday.

April 27, 2006

Well, it's Thursday and I'm still here in Sapadilla Bay. I checked e-mail this morning and had a note from the marine store saying they hadn't shipped it yesterday and wanting to know if I still wanted it shipped. I told them to go ahead and ship but it won't be here until Mon. My entry permit expires Mon so it shouldn't be any problem as long as it makes it then. The UPS agent was located within 1/4 mile of Sapadilla Bay and very close to Customs so I could have picked up the autopilot, cleared out at Customs and left Monday afternoon. UPS now has a new agent and they are located downtown. Downtown is a walk! I took my handheld GPS today and covered 10.2 nautical miles or about 11.7 miles. I did get a ride into town again this morning but for the second time had to walk all the way back. I've made that trip 4 times so far and 6 of the 8 times someone has given me a ride. The local people here are very friendly and helpful. I had asked at Customs how far it was to town and they said you couldn't walk it. One man said it was a 2.5 hour walk. It really isn't too bad except that part of it is basically a dirt road and very dusty.

Yesterday morning I was waken by something pounding on the side of the boat. I think it was about 2:00 but really can't be sure but I do know that I wasn't expecting visitors. Anyhow, I got up and checked and didn't see anyone out there and went back inside to get a flashlight. When I checked with the light, there was what I think is the mast from one of the old time island work boats. It is about 30 feet long with some added structure at the big end. A line attached to it had gotten tangled in my anchor rode and the waves were pounding it against the side of the boat. I tied it off to the back of the boat and went back to sleep. In the morning I towed it to the beach and drug it up above the high tide line. It's still there so if anyone needs a new mast I can get you a deal.

Today I decided to check the wind generator. One of the blades was loose and flopping around. It was certainly the roughest seas yet for me going up the mast. This is not a well protected harbor and this morning there was a strong wind and a wind driven chop coming in on the bow. That is not as bad as hitting the boat on the beam because the boat rocks much faster side to side. I got my ascenders ready and started up with my safety harness for a backup. Going up wasn't too bad and most of the time the boat was relatively stable. Every now and then a few waves would really start the boat pitching and up the mast is not a nice place then. One nut was gone from the two bolts that hold each blade on two of the blades.. The bolt and the lockwasher were still there on both. I removed the blade assembly and lowered it down before lowering me down. The instructions for assembling the unit don't give any torque values to tighten the nuts too and I apparently lef them too loose. They also said to use some stuff called Tuf-Gel on the screw threads to prevent corrosion. That stuff works well to prevent corrosion but is basically a grease and does nothing to keep the nuts on the bolts. I decided to clean it all off the bolts and use Loktite to make sure they didn't come loose again. I was doing this when I noticed that one of the blades was about 5 inches shorter than the other two. Definetly not a good thing. Somehow, one had gotten broken. I assume it happened when the mizzen topping lift got tangled up in the blades. I had the two old blades and decided to use one of them. They're not exactly the same and I may have a balance problem but I'm going to try. They are ready to go back on and I will probably do it early tommorow.

When I left Puerto Rico, I didn't have the wind vane self steerer setup. They typically don't work too well going downwind so I hadn't bothered with it. Bad idea as it turned out. It probably would have steered well enough that I could have taken a break now and then. I thought about setting it up at sea but it requires hanging off the back of the boat to install the servo oar. This didn't really sound like a good thing to do in 6 to 12 foot seas. Today I got it cleaned up and oiled and ready to go. I just need to install the vane and hookup the control lines and it should be ready to steer.

Once I get the wind generator and the autopilot going I should be ready to leave. I am really getting tired of sitting here in the bay although I have kept busy. I also had three slides on the main sail break on the way over here. I replaced those yesterday and got the main back on. They are held on with 1/2 inch webbing that you just sew on. It only takes me about 10 minutes to do one now.

I walked around Provo some yesterday. It is growing incedibly and there is new construction everywhere. The north side of the island is mostly resorts. Club Med built one here several years ago and it has boomed since then. Some of the other islands are also being developed. West Caicos looked almost completely deserted when I sailed by coming in here. I saw one house. There is now a large Ritz Carlton being built there. I guess tourism is the biggest industry on the island and the economy seems good.

April 29,2006

Still here in Sapadilla Bay. I need to go into town today to track my autopilot with UPS and will try to update the web site at that time. If it looks like a problem, I will have to go to immigration and try to extend my stay for a few days. If you stay without the proper paperwork and are caught it is a $10,000/day fine. I don't generally carry that much so I'll try to extend before it becomes a problem.

We had a bit of a squall here this morning as a front moved through with 20 knot winds from the north. The wind generator started and has a definite balance problem. The blades can't be mixed. It looks like the only option I have now is to take it back down and shorten the other two blades to match the broken one. I should be able to get them pretty close and might even be able to do it up the mast so I'll only need one trip up. I'll loose some energy with the smaller blades but it will better than nothing. I'll have to wait and see what the weather is like. I may have to wait for a smoother anchorage. I had to run the engine to charge the batteries yesterday and I really hate doing that. I need to do some research and try to find something a little more robust for the future.