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Diane's DiaryMay 13 Tuesday Well, we went to bed so early last night we were up by 6:30 am today. Larry put the solar panels up. It's really blowing out pretty hard so we really didn't want to get the dinghy down. It's difficult to get it down when it's blowing out. Since we are next to 2 beautiful reefs to snorkel at, there was no reason to hurry putting the dinghy into the water. Anyway, it was blowing out so much we didn't even go into the water. We just took it easy and relaxed- we have no plans to leave here so soon! We ran the watermaker for 2 hours so we could try to keep the tanks as full as possible. I tried to take a nap for around 2 hours but just couldn't sleep. I made some chocolate truffles. We are very happy to be back here! May 14 Wednesday It's still blowing out. One cruising boat left so there's only 1 other sailboat boat besides us. There are tons of fishermen though. When we were here last time, there were only a few fishermen. Guess this is the season right now! Anyway, I helped Larry sort out the fishing reel. It took us over 2 hours to untangle it! We ran the watermaker for 2 hours. I also made some biscuit recipe up. Finally, in the later afternoon, we went snorkeling at the reef right next to our boat. We are finally getting to use the side-boarding ladder we bought from Lady J and it works great. It's nice to be able to get on and off the boat without having to use the dinghy. I'm reading a good book- Murder in the FBI. It's nice to just be able to sit and read again. We enjoy the peace and quiet here- though it is pretty noisy with all these fisherman coming and going! May 15 Thursday I had to defrost the freezer again as we were getting too much ice built up. So I decided to do it this morning. It's still way to windy for us to get the dinghy down so we are just snorkeling and swimming off the boat. We ran the watermaker again for a few hours. If we can run it for at least 2-3 hours per day we can just about keep up with our water needs. But this means we need the sun and wind to cooperate or we have to run the engine, which we try hard not to do. I updated the Excel spreadsheet with all our expenses. We went snorkeling again - fantastic! It's some of the best snorkeling we have ever done. I like it much better than the Tobago Cays! Tonight was a lunar eclipse so we stayed up to see it. Unfortunately it started about 10pm and the moon wasn't completely covered until about 11:30. We were both falling asleep by this time! Cruisers definitely go to bed early! It was a clear night so we could see it all perfectly. What a wonderful sight! May 16 Friday Well, the other cruising boat left so we decided to move back to where we were last year- near the 2 big palm trees in Playa Yacque. There were too many fishermen where we were and it's much prettier at the other anchorage. We had to take the canvas down so I could see where we were driving too! It took us about an hour to move over. We could have gotten very close to the beach but there were 3 moorings there so we knew they belonged to the fisherman and they would be using them when they returned that evening so we just anchored out a little bit farther. It's extremely beautiful here and very quiet when the fisherman are gone during the day. It's nice being the only cruising boat here - last year there were 15 other boats in this very same spot! We were really glad we moved back over here. May 17 Saturday The wind has finally lightened a bit so we were able to get the dinghy down. We decided to go for a hike this morning to get some exercise and see the island. We walked toward the village for about 45 minutes in the hot broiling sun and didn't see anything. We decided not to walk any farther as there wasn't anything to see and it was hot out with no shade at all. We wore our sneakers due to the large number of cactus. Last year we only walked with Teva's on and this was not good as the cactus pricked our feet a number of times. Anyway, we went for a swim after we got back from the hike. The water is a little chilly here and certainly colder than the Eastern Caribbean! Boy, if we think this is cold, imagine what we will think if we swim back in NY! We went snorkeling in the afternoon. So much activity all in one day! I started reading another good book about the NYPD- Wall of Brass by Robert Daley that's pretty good. We seem to go in spurts reading- we read lots at anchor and hardly at all in a marina! May 18 Sunday I decided to catch up on emails so write about 20 of them this morning. I also made eggplant Parmesan. I made it the easy way- without frying it first but we both didn't care for it this way and won't make it this way again! The wind has really lightened up a bit but is still enough that we are able to run the watermaker without running the engine. We went snorkeling again the afternoon and loved it. We could do this every day and not get tired of it! It's really nice to have some nice relaxing days after the craziness of being in a marina. May 19 Monday The winds have lightened up enough for us to take the long dinghy ride to Americano Bay. It's about a 15-minute dinghy ride but you have to veer outside the lee of the island so it's in open waters and can be quiet rough. The ride was definitely rough but was a little calmer than last year. We left around 9:30am. The surge was definitely a lot less here than last year and the water was much calmer. Looks like we picked a good day for it! This is a beautiful small bay surrounded by reefs- really only enough room for 1 boat but last year we knew 3 boats that fit in here! We decided to take a walk around first so Larry could get some good pictures since the sun was out. It was a good thing we did hike first as it started to cloud up as the morning progressed. We enjoyed walking around especially since we had the entire Bay to ourselves. Then we went snorkeling. It was pretty calm compared to last year as we were able to swim through the cave and it was too rough to do that last year. We even saw a small barracuda in the cave! He was just watching us but it was still unnerving just having him watch and follow us. We understand it's actually safer when you do see them as this means they are generally just curious and will not attack. At least that's what we have been told from all our previous years snorkeling experience. We have seen barracuda before over the years and not one had tried to attack us. Anyway, we definitely enjoyed the snorkeling. We went back to the beach and swam around some more. Then we decided to head back home to Destiny- we would have loved to stay longer but what happens if something happens to the dinghy engine? No one else even knows we are out here! Also, the wind tends to pick up in the afternoon so we wanted to be back before that. So, we got back around 12. We were going to go snorkeling near "our" reef in the PM but it was cloudy out and we know from experience that it's not good to snorkel than. So, we just sat around and read and of course enjoyed happy our! I am reading an excellent book Mima gave me by David Poyer called the passage. It's really good and I can't put it down. If you like books about the military, try it, you'll definitely like it. Anyway, we are both quite content to just sit and read. I guess if other cruisers were around we would definitely be doing more socializing, so it's good to just be by ourselves for a while. May 20 Tuesday This morning we traded a can of our Brinkman Farms beef and noodles plus 2 small cokes for a huge lobster. He must have been at least 3-4 lbs. We cooked him up for lunch! Remember this is Caribbean lobster not Maine lobster- it's not as sweet and has lots of small spines so you have to be very careful with it. Anyway, it was very good and we really enjoyed it. I started to do the finances and work on my logs until the computer battery needed to be charged and we had the watermaker on. Since they both use up amps and bring the voltage down, Larry doesn't like them both to be running at the same time. So, I had to turn off the computer. Having fresh water is definitely more important than using the computer! We try to run the watermaker only about 3 hours per day. This keeps the voltage still high and we don't need to run the engine. However, the watermaker has only been getting about 4 gallons per hour so we are only getting about 12 gallons per day. This barely keeps up with our fresh water needs between taking showers, doing the dishes and fresh drinking water. Larry unfortunately lost the key to open our water supply and gas overboard. Fortunately, we have another key but it's not as good as the original. The water is about 20 feet here so I can't dive for it. I've been having problems with water in my ears and it's better if I wear earplugs in the water. Since I went to Martinique about 25 years ago and had a diving accident, I have been having trouble clearing my ears. That is one of the major reasons I don't dive anymore. Anyway, it was overcast and cloudy out so we didn't even snorkel. We did go to the beach to burn the garbage- and garbage only. We save the cans and bottle and dispose of them well shore. We throw all food scraps right over the side of the boat so they don't smell the garbage up. That is our waste management plan! Anyway, we are going to leave probably tomorrow so don't want to take the garbage with us as we are not sure if there's a place to burn it on Tortuga. We really hate to leave this place but we want to get into PLC around 6/1 and want to see Tortuga before we do. May 21 Wednesday It was finally sunny out again today. We took the dinghy to the beach at 10 am and went snorkeling from the shore in a spot we had not been in before. We got back to the boat around 12noon. We are going to leave tonight as we are not sure how long it will take us and we want to arrive in daylight. We spent the afternoon getting the boat ready to leave- putting the dinghy up on deck, taking down all the canvas, and stowing everything away. We didn't want to leave till around 6pm as the trip is around 60 miles and we do NOT want to arrive in dark. I did take the Suregon starting this morning and it really makes me very sleepy. We had a light minestrone soup dinner and got underway with the sail up around 6:30pm. We noticed immediately, we were going to fast and would arrive at 4am. Arriving at dark on an island surrounded by reefs is definitely a no-no! So, Larry pulled in the main some but we had the new boom preventer on so we couldn't pull it in too much. We wish we had just put up the jib and left the main down but hindsight is always great right? The wind was around 10-12 from East- SE with 3-5 foot swells but we were rolling around a lot. Fortunately, I had very minor seasickness but that was due to the boat rolling from side to side so much. I was still able to stand my watches. We saw a beautiful arrangement of stars, as it was a clear night until the moon rose around midnight. Afterwards, the brightness of the moon really dimmed all those beautiful stars. Destiny rocked and rolled all night. I did see a freighter traveling towards us at one point- I tried calling him but received no response. About 20 minutes later, I heard a call for "sailboat, sailboat, this is the oil tanker X". I immediately called him back and told him I tried to call earlier. He replied in his British accent that he had just taken over watch and the other watch never mentioned he heard us. Anyway, he said he had us in sight and not to worry about him. When I asked how we showed up on radar he said not good. So, we learned several valuable lessons. First, keep your VHF to channel 16 on any kind of passage so another boater can contact you if needed. We have always done this in the past. Next, have the volume turned up high enough to be able to hear it over the sound of the engine or wind. Third, call big ships whenever possible - just to alert them you are out there. It was apparent the previous watch was asleep and didn't hear my call. NEVER depend that a big ship sees you. Always act as if they don't and stay as far away as possible. They move a lot faster than a sailboat does! Third, just because you have a radar reflector up don't assume you show up on radar. We knew this already but the ship just confirmed it. Anyway, we saw 1 other tanker in the distance and several far off fishing boats. The wind decreased to around 5 knots about 2 hours before Tortuga and we were only doing about 3 knots through the water so we decided to turn the engine on as we weren't far from land and it was starting to get light out. We had used the autopilot all night and the battery was down to 86% and since the boat was rolling so much we were using a lot of electric so we really did need to charge the battery. We arrived at Playa Caldera around 6:30 am. There are only 2 other cruising boats and lots of fishing boats. We got settled in and did our usual routine for setting the boat up. May 22 Thursday I was tired after the night passage though I did get about 1.5 hours of sleep when I went down below to lie down. So, I took a nap from 8-12 although Larry just stayed up. We were both very tired so we just decided to relax and take it easy. We can take the dinghy down tomorrow. Larry wiped the entire deck down as we had lots of sea spray on it. We did put up all the canvas so we can stay out of the heat of the sun. We did go overboard to take a quick swim and check the anchor. The anchorage was calm until the wind started coming in late in the afternoon and then it blew about 20-25 knots with about 1-2 feet swells coming into the harbor and making the boat roll from side to side. It was very uncomfortable to say the least! It was almost as bad as Marigot, St. Martin during the northerly swells over 2 years ago! Anyway, I was glad I checked the anchor and that we are safe- don't think we'll drag here! May 23 Friday We got the dinghy launched this morning. The wind and rolling seems to have stopped this morning but it's still uncomfortable as the wind is coming from the NE and this anchorage is exposed to the NE wind. We went to shore and walked around but we didn't have shoes on and there were a lot of rocks. Tomorrow we will bring our beach shoes! There is a small dirt airstrip here with lots of small planes and helicopters bringing people for the day. Anyway, we went back to the boat around 1pm and just relaxed reading the rest of the day. The wind and rolling picked up again so it's not very calm here. I would rather just go to another anchorage but Larry isn't bothered as much by the rocking and rolling, as I am so he wanted to stay. We really didn't get a chance to explore this part yet anyway. |