Hi everyone,
After my last blog post, we continued to stay at Georgetown for several weeks. There was so much to do and so many new people to meet. After my last blog entry, we became friends with a boat called Bendecida. They had two kids, John and Catherine, who were about our ages. We quickly became friends and we spent many afternoons with them over at Volleyball beach. We also had dinner with them and Misty, who we were also becoming excellent friends with. On any sunny afternoon, the five of us could be seen at the beach. We played volleyball, swam, pet wild stingrays, hiked over to the ocean side of the island, and generally grew very close. When we started having to plan to leave, there were a lot of goodbyes but no regrets.
We set off with Misty and Virage one day after the winds promised to be light for a few days. They stopped at Conception Island, and we continued on to destination unknown. During the ensuing trip, we had several rain storms and we even saw a small funnel cloud. We ended up stopping at Mayaguana, a very sparsely populated island that is the most eastern Bahamian island before Turks and Caicos. We stopped there for a day to rest and get more fuel. If you think gas prices are high at home, you may just cry when you hear what we paid for diesel there. When all was said and done, the final cost was around $7.50 per gallon. We also went snorkeling and came back with ten conch and two lobster. The island is not visited very often by boaters and tourists, so marine life abounded. We even saw a flock of flamingoes flying low over the water near shore. We set off the next day for what became a 500 mile journey upwind. Along the way, we passed Turks and Caicos, the Dominican Republic, and most of Puerto Rico before stopping in San Juan. Our depth sounder is good to around 2,500 feet deep, and during the entire voyage I never once saw it work. According to our chart plotter, the deepest water that we passed over was around 21,000 feet deep. That’s four miles straight down. As we were sailing down the coast of the Dominican Republic one evening, the port engine suddenly spluttered and died. Dad hopped down in the engine room with a flashlight, as the sun had just set, and started checking things. After replacing all the fuel filters, we tried starting the engine but it still wasn’t working. We finally found the next day that a piece of rubber from inside the fuel tank had detached and blocked the fuel line. We started it up, and it was good as new. We continued our journey south, with very little traffic or extreme weather. Finally, after 96 hours or so, we arrived at San Juan, Puerto Rico. As we are now technically in the United States of America, we are now surrounded by high-end hotels and stores, as opposed to endless ocean waves and spectacular sunsets, like the one in the background picture for the blog (We didn’t actually take that photo, but many of the sunsets that we have seen are like this or better). We have explored San Juan and experienced a lot of native Puerto Rican culture, but that is a story for my next blog entry.
Until next time,
Paul
Virginie, John, and me at Volleyball beach.
Mom and Dad relaxing on Island Cat.
Dad blowing our conch horn at sunset.
A sunset over Georgetown harbor.
Making homemade pizza! This one was a clam casino with bacon, pepper, and pesto.
Julia and Catherine on a windsurfing board.
The beach on the ocean side, with the dunes in the foreground.
Catherine, Julia, and Virginie at Volleyball beach.
The view off the deck of St. Francis hotel and resort, where we went for happy hour with Misty before we left Georgetown.
Waving goodbye to Bendecida as we leave Georgetown.
We hooked a large Barracuda at sea. Check out the teeth!
A funnel cloud near Mayaguana.
Julia at Mayaguana with a rainbow in the background.
The tranquil waters of Mayaguana.
Sailing with the coast of the Dominican Republic in view.
Sunset at sea.
