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Diane's DiaryAugust 19 Friday I finished the book Dirty Work that I just started yesterday- that was book 5. I really liked this author a lot and enjoyed reading the book. I'll have to ask if Heidi has any more from this author when we go home. I did some financials into the computer this morning and also updated my logs by doing a few days. I made some homemade bread too. This was the first loaf I had made since the last time we were cruising so it had been a while. I proofed the yeast, as I wasn't sure if it was still good. The bread came out OK but was too dense - I'll have to work on it! A Tropical Wave passed through today bringing us an increase in the winds - SE around 20 knots. Unfortunately, a big local sailboat pulled in just forward of us and is running his generator 24/7 so it's very noisy for us since he's forward of us and his generator is on his starboard side facing us. The locals don't seem to worry about unconvincing other boaters with all their noise but we cruisers really do mind all the noise. Anyway, with all that wind Destiny was rocking and rolling a little all night - at least the sound of the wind drowned out his generator noise! We went snorkeling as usual and later took showers on "our beach" away from all the crowds. August 20 Saturday The wind is still up - SE 18-20 knots so we started running the water maker this morning for around an hour before we went out snorkeling. We went back out to our usual spot on the reef but it wasn't as good as the wind was up and the waves were crashing over my head while we were in the blue hole. Sangria didn't come with us as they didn't want to snorkel with all that wind and they were right- it was a tough snorkel. We came back around 12:30pm, had lunch and since we had so much electric we ran the watermaker some more - 3.5 hours, so the tanks are now full again. Since we had so much electric, I decided to do some hand laundry while we continued running the water maker. These were mainly clothes we used in PLC but they smelled and had to be washed. I couldn't wait 3 months until we got back to PLC to wash them! I'll try to do a little laundry at least once a week so it doesn't all build up. I also defrosted the freezer. Our noisy neighbor hasn't turned his generator off since he got here - we think he's running his AC! We don't want to move as the charterers usually only stay a day or two and we are in a good spot. Anyway, the wind died in the pm to around 10-12 - still getting in amps though not as many as before. I started another book Heidi had given me- Retribution- a hardcover book. It's pretty good and very engrossing. August 21 Sunday- Cinnamon's Anniversary Today is the second anniversary of our cat Cinnamons' death. I was thinking about him all day today and really miss him. I would love to get a new cat but I know it's not practical right now as we are thinking of going home for a while. Today is also my niece Danielle's 13th birthday. Happy birthday. I sent her an email but rarely hear from her. I have also never heard from my sister the entire time we have been out here cruising. We decided to leave for Cayo de Agua today. Sangria wasn't at their boat to say goodbye. We brought the garbage to shore and left our boat card in their boat. The noisy boat with the generator left today as well as most other boats so there was only 2 sailboats and 2 powerboats left in the anchorage when we left. Too bad as we enjoyed the peace and quiet now but decided it was time to move on. We waited a while to see if Sangria was going to come back from snorkeling as we wanted to say goodbye but when it got to be 11am and they still weren't back, we decided it was getting late and we had to leave. Our next anchorage, Cayo de Agua is a little tricky to enter and you need good light so we wanted to give ourselves time to get there. Anyway, as we left the harbor, Sangria was coming back in their dinghy so we got to say goodbye. We enjoyed their company a lot and hope to see them again. We put the jib up only and had a wonderful sail even though we were only going 3 knots. We knew it would only take us a few hours to get there so we were really in no hurry. The wind was SE around 12-15 knots so we were able to run the watermaker for 2 hours to fill the tanks. You reading this probably think we are obsessed out here with filling the water tanks - we are! The nearest place to buy water is over 20 miles away - against the wind and current and then we would have to jerry jug it. Since our jerry jugs only hold 11 gallons of water, we would have to make a lot of dinghy trips to fill the tanks! So, when we have the wind, we try to keep the tanks as full as possible. We also know on some days we just don't get enough wind to run the water maker so we try to keep the tanks as full as possible to make up for the days when we don't have enough wind. Anyway, we arrived with the anchor down around 1:30pm. There is only one other boat here so far - a local. However, during the day it filled up and by the end of the day, 5 more boats had arrived. They all entered via the East entrance but we don't know that way so have never taken it. The problem with the water here is there's lots of sea grass mixed with the reefs so it's hard to tell which you are going over. We don't want to take the chance and run into the reef with Destiny so play it cautious. We have been the way we usually entered a number of times so we feel safe going that way- if we could distinguish between the sea grass and reefs maybe we would take the other entrance. Luckily, we didn't anchor to close to shore, which is where most of the charters go. Anyway, we had lunch and went snorkeling out to our favorite reef nearby. It was great - we saw 2 huge French angelfish and a large school of parrotfish- 9 Rainbow and 6 Blue- awesome! August 22 Monday We have almost no wind so it's hot- it's blowing less than 10 knots. I made some biscuits but they didn't come out as good as usual - the mix is old so I think it needs to be discarded and another batch made. It's hot on the boat without any breeze. Since the wind is so low, we've decided to snorkel the outside point of Cayo de Agua- we've done this before but today we were lucky and got to snorkel out pretty far since the wind is low. Larry had to fix the right front burner of the stove this morning- it had actually rusted through! The stove is original to the boat we are pretty sure - 21 years old. We ran the water maker for only 1.5 hours this morning as we are only getting in about 7 amps and that's mainly from the solar panels. I worked on my logs some but since we don't have much electric due to the lack of wind, I couldn't turn on the inverter to charge the batteries. We even had to run the engine for 1.5 hours just to charge the batteries. In the pm, we cleaned the starboard waterline - it's amazing how fast the algae grow around the water line! We ran the water maker in the pm for another hour for a total of about 2.5 hours today but it still wasn't full. For dinner I made a wonderful 'bistec' with onions and green peppers and bacon and we also had the leftover green bean casserole. Our fresh vegetables have to be used up as they are starting to go bad. It was so hot on the boat Larry had to put the wind scoop up - that's something we haven't used in a long time! Usually we have enough wind coming through the hatches so we don't need it. August 23 Tuesday We had almost no wind last night so we will have to run the engine again today to charge the batteries. We don't have any sun either so the batteries went down about 10% last night. We had a slight amount of rain at nearly 5am this morning, which woke us both up. Should we take down the wind scoop and close the hatches? Thankfully, it wasn't too much rain although the boat could use a good fresh water rinse. I figured out our fuel usage from coming up here from PLC according to our tank tender gauge- don't know if it's extremely accurate but it's probably close enough. Anyway, I think we used about 10 gallons of fuel so we probably have about 84 gallons left- this includes the 28.8 gallons of fuel in the jerry jugs. There were some heavy storm clouds so we decided to spend the morning on the boat and see if they would pass by. With so little wind, the boat is very warm and uncomfortable. I worked on my logs this morning and Larry worked on fixing the burner again- he fixed the other leak but now found another small one. At 2pm, we went snorkeling to the outside reef by taking our dinghy out over the sand bar and anchoring on the outside. It was OK snorkeling there but I think we see just as many fish at our little reef inside. We did get to see a stingray that Larry managed to get to move by directing his flipper towards it. It took off very quickly and was neat to watch. We also saw another large lobster in the reefs but of course S/V Sangria wasn't with us so we had no way of getting it. There were lots of day-trippers on the beach when we got there but by the time we finished, they were all gone. So, we took showers on the beach all to ourselves - just wonderful! We hate when there's lots of people around. We got back to the boat around 4:45pm and Larry hoisted up the dinghy and we settled in for the night. By this time, the wind had managed to come up slightly so at least we had some breeze. Unfortunately, the wind was from the NE and that's the direction this anchorage is not protected from so we were starting to bounce around some. At 5:30pm, we saw a sailboat coming in - far too late to read the water at that hour - they were heading straight for the reef! We called them on the VHF, they answered and we gave them directions. Unfortunately, German was their primary language and I don't think they understood English too well as they didn't understand our directions and ran right into the reef. There was only Destiny and another American boat in the entire harbor. We watched them for a while and it became apparent they weren't going to get free. The wind was up some by now and probably pushing them onto the reef also. We decided to go help them just as the other sailboat in the harbor launched his dinghy also. Larry had to lower the dinghy, which he had just finished raising for the night. Anyway, the 2 dinghies with a combined HP of 30HP managed to get him off. He was a charter boat out of Martinique and only had a 2HP dinghy motor - with that small of an engine he would have gotten off eventually but it would have taken him awhile. Anyway, they seemed grateful for the help and kept saying thank you. Since it was a charter boat, I don't think they actually realized how bad a spot they were in. They were just lucky we helped them. Anyway, they came and anchored between our 2 boats for the night. By this time, the wind had increased and was blowing. During the night, we had winds up to 25 knots from the NE (not good) rather than SE and E. Since we were a little far out in the anchorage, Destiny was rocking and rolling and we really didn't have a comfortable night. August 24 Wednesday The wind was gusting all night up to 25 knots so we were really rocking and rolling. This anchorage is very exposed and not very protected when there's a lot of wind. Anyway, I didn't get a good night's sleep with all that rocking and rolling. Larry had to take the wind scoop down in the middle of the night as we just had too much wind for it. It was apparent we weren't going to leave Destiny this morning since it was blowing so much so I decided to do some cooking. I made bread using S/V Dolphin Street's recipe again and the bread came out perfect! I couldn't believe it. After 5 years down here I finally learned how to make good bread! I also made corn muffins from a homemade cookbook recipe I had borrowed from someone. Anyway, the corn muffins came out pretty good - the best I have made down here. The recipe was very good although the muffins didn't rise as much as they should have - either the baking powder is old or the recipe just needs more. Anyway, I will continue making them. I also made some homemade spaghetti sauce and cooked up some ziti so I could make a baked ziti later today. I also made a crust less quiche from a recipe I got from S/V The Road. So, as you can see, I was cooking and cleaning up all morning. Larry worked on making some new rope mats - his "doily" as one cruiser put it, for the dinghy. The charter boat left this am with all that wind - don't know where they were headed but it wasn't back to Gran Roque. With all that wind and just a 2HP dinghy motor, there is no way they would have been able to get to shore via dinghy and it was way too far to swim. Anyway, I did a bunch of emails in the pm. We had so much electric we ran the water maker until it was full and this took 4 hours. We filled up all our water jugs and 2 five liter jugs we had also. I had loads of dishes so we used up lots of water. The boat is rolling so much we are not very comfortable but that's the way it goes sometimes. We didn't leave the boat the entire day. August 25 Thursday The wind finally quieted down some last night but we were still rocking and rolling some so didn't get a great night's sleep and we're both tired, as we haven't slept well in 2 nights. So, we just took it easy this morning reading. I finished reading Jonathan Kellerman's book Private Eyes. It was an old book of his but I don't remember reading it. Anyway, I did enjoy reading it although I don't think it was his best book. The other American boat left so there is only Destiny and another small sailboat. Christine and Kirk from S/V Whitecap stopped by with some fish they caught and wanted us to have some. Larry said no but we spoke for a while. They are finishing up a circumnavigation and have been gone for 13 years- they stopped for 5 years to work in Guam- a US territory. Anyway, we invited them to go snorkeling with us later as they wanted to know where to catch fish. So, at 2pm, we went snorkeling with them. They caught a bunch of fish and invited us for dinner. They have a small 27-foot boat so we all just sat in the cockpit for dinner. I would have found it very difficult to live on their boat since it's so small but I guess they are used to it. They also don't have a lot of complicated systems found on larger boats so things are simpler for them. Anyway, that small a boat is definitely not for me. We enjoyed their company and had a nice time. We got back to Destiny around 9pm. We had not left any lights on the boat so it was a little hard to find with all that darkness but not too bad. Larry ran the water maker and engine for one hour today but that wasn't near enough to fill the water tanks, as we need to run it a minimum of 2-3 hours to keep the tanks full. The high voltage alarm went off at 2:30am and woke me from a sound sleep. I think Larry's hearing is definitely going as he can't hear the alarm at all and it's always me who hears it.
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