23 - Same thing every day!!!!!

Those of you who know the rest of Pedro’s really bad story, will appreciate our title.  But in reality this past month or so has been anything but!!!  We’ve dropped anchor in a new harbor, city or country every couple of days.

Since, our last post, we left the USVI and headed over the Spanish Virgin Islands of Puerto Rico.  We headed first to Culebra to meet up with family and friends of Dan and Alison.  Alison’s mother, sister and a couple of friends came for a weekend visit.  As all of their bunks were filled with her sister and mother, Nicki and Lena joined our boat as extra crew. We took advantage of the extra crew and had a great sail from the town of Culebra over to Playa Tamarindo for snorkelling and  to hike across the hill to Playa Flamenco. 

No sooner had we tied up to the mooring ball than Pedro saw two hawks fighting overhead.  Both landed in the water and while one was able to take off right away, the other could not.  Pedro jumped into the water and offered the bird a ride to shore.  It was not immediately receptive of  his assistance but quickly realized it was the best option.  He swam the hawk to shore and it was able to walk up the beach to rest, dry off and eventually fly away.   

The snorkeling in Tamarindo was the best we’d see so far this year.  The vibrant coral seemed healthy and the various fish species plentiful.  Definitely worth seeing if you’re in the area.

After a marvelous lunch on the beach thanks to Alison, we all decided to hike across the mountain – yes, probably just a hill but felt like a mountain – to see the world famous Playa Flamenco touted to be the second most beautiful beach in the world.  I’m not sure where the first most beautiful one is but this one was beautiful.  Fluffy white sand for miles, gorgeous water in multiple shades of turquoise and the abandoned military tanks that have been painted with various graffiti made the whole experience one of a kind. 

Back on the boat, we headed back into the town of Culebra to dropped off our weekend crew.  We were turning the boat around for Pedro's uncle and aunt – Fred and Beth – so we went to town in search of lunch and a laundromat.  We had lunch at a food truck selling roast pork and various Puerto Rican side dishes (we asked what they were but have already forgotten – all were good or at least interesting). We found a very small laundromat (only one working washing machine) in the back of the local gas station near the ferry terminal.  We laughed as we were able to get our laundry done for only $1.50 but we spent $8 on the beer and cookies to entertain ourselves while we waited!
 

The next morning we awoke to gorgeous rainbows.  Alison took our picture before we took off for Vieques.  The 20 mile journey was a perfect 4 hour sail and we found an anchorage very near the ferry dock where we’d arranged to meet up with Fred and Beth.  

Turned out that the dingy dock we used was right next to the local fish market.  In addition to our newest crew, we were able to pick up lobsters for dinner that had been caught just hours before!    We explored the town and picked up a few more groceries and went back for our grilled lobster dinner.

The next morning we picked up anchor and headed back to Culebra to show Fred and Beth around the areas we’d discovered, walked the beaches and through the town.  

We all got a great night’s sleep in the calm anchorage - Vieques the night before was a little rocky- and the next morning we sailed over to St. Croix.

The sail over to St. Croix was more into the wind than we like so it took about 10 hours.  We arrived after dark and dropped anchor near Fredricksted for the night.  As we’d previously seen Fredricksted we opted to instead to continue sailing over to visit Christiansted the next morning.   A friend described the St. Croix cities and Fredricksted is more local and Christiansted more tourist oriented.  I would agree but Christiansted is also more quaint, has great grocery and boat supply stores and we met some amazingly friendly people.

We needed to continue heading east.  As winds this time of year – commonly referred to as the Christmas winds – are predominately from the east, this meant a pretty rough trip with a lot of tacking back and forth.   It took us about 36 hours but we safely dropped anchor in Marigot Bay, St. Martin.  We checked into customs and found a rental car.  We explored the French side of St. Martin the first day – found an amazing restaurant on the beach for lunch – and the Dutch side of St. Maarten the second day – found the best grocery  store we'd seen in the Caribbean and got our propane tank refilled. 

Now that we’d managed to get east into the Windward Islands, continuing south meant mostly easy day sailing.  

Fred and Beth’s neighbor’s son (keep up), owns a resort on Antigua called Hodges Bay and we were informed that he was on island. He invited us to use the mooring ball located right off of this beach but the east winds would have made that pretty rough.  So we dropped anchor in Jolly Harbour, Antigua and again were able to get a rental car – the taxi’s all charge per person so a car was a much better deal.  The resort is gorgeous!! We grabbed a drink at the beach bar, were given the full tour, enjoyed a great lunch – the head chef is Edward Lee who owns a couple of high end restaurants in Louisville, KY and has been seen several times on the Food Network – and got to lounge around to our hearts content!  If you’re looking for an amazing resort in Antigua, this place is it. 

Beth has been wanting to try her hand at paddle boarding and we just happened to have Pedro’s blown up and ready so the girls took advantage of the relatively calm area at the beach near our anchorage to try it out.  She picked it up very quickly and the boys enjoyed a couple hours of drinking beer without any women around! 

Next we headed to Guadalupe.  We dropped anchor near the town of Deshaies. We checked into customs, walked the town and to a park with a nice overlook with a view of the anchorage, then found a  great French bakery for lunch!  As it was Sunday and most places were closed, we decided to head a little further south and dropped anchor near Pigeon Island.  Again, the boys chose beer and no women so Beth and MaryAnn went in to check out the beach town.  It’s exactly that.  Various shops, restaurants and bars.  The sand was very black which we found interesting but it was still fun to walk around. 

Continuing south down the islands, we next pulled into Portsmouth, Dominica.  We arrived too late to check into customs so we couldn’t explore town.   We decided to continue on further south the next morning and found a mooring ball – it’s a marine sanctuary and still over 100 feet deep very close to shore – in Roseau the capital city of Dominica.  This town was much larger than the last few we’d been in so we walked around for a few hours, found a farmer’s market and a grocery store and stopped to have lunch and a couple of drinks.  We didn’t get a chance to fully explore Guadalupe or Dominica as the waterfalls and other natural wonders would have entailed another day or two each and we really needed to get Fred and Beth to Martinique in plenty of time to catch their flight back home.  We’ll definitely head back, though.

For the entire trip they'd been with us, Beth had been giving Gary a hard time because we'd not caught any fish - we didn't troll the entire time but we did try several days.  Well, we'd no sooner pulled up the anchor, got our sails set and were settling in for our last day of sailing and "fish on"!!!!!  Gary pulled in a really nice Mahi Mahi for our last meal aboard.  

Last stop is Martinique. We’re currently anchored in Fort de France the capital city of Martinique.  Fred and Beth arranged a hotel for a couple of nights to allow for extra time in case we got here early –that didn’t happen – and we think to get their land legs back.  Their hotel was a ferry ride away in Anse Mitan a lovely little beach town.  The hotel has a great pool so we too spent a day relaxing and exploring the beach town.  Great dinner at a local French restaurant too.

Well, our crew has left us and we’re staying in Martinique awaiting the start of Carnaval.  From the looks of the costumes for sale around town, we’re pretty sure it’s going to wild.  Dan and Alison on Equus are meeting up with us here too in a couple of day so we won’t be alone for long. This island is VERY French.  We’ve met a couple of people who speak English but for the most part have been trying to communicate as best we can.  This has been our biggest challenge yet as most other islands readily spoken English.  We'll keep you posted!  

Until next post!