Down the Island Chain

It was a whirlwind 3 months stateside. Between enjoying friends, family and a NOLA life, getting our house on 7th St painted and helping John Edward, the time went way too fast.

In the travel lift ready to splash down!

On October 28th, we arrived back in Puerto Rico. Wahoo had already been moved to the work yard of Puerto Del Ray Marina in Fajardo, PR. Her bottom had been cleaned and repainted (something necessary at least every two years).

As is normal, on arrival, there was work to be done:
We brought a new depth transducer, something that goes in the hull and connects at the helm to the depth sounder. We've been without a working depth sounder since mid-2013.

A new stove was delivered from West Marine (yay!!!!!)

yucky old stove

beautiful new stove

In all we had six 50 lb boxes of parts and boat supplies to either get installed or stored. (We only had to pay for 2 thanks to Southwest for allowing us 2 pieces of checked luggage each). On top of that we weren't prepared for what would happen to Wahoo while she was stored ashore with no electricity and no one to keep her clean. Whew - a coat of mildew everywhere and boatyard dirt all over the decks, yuck.

Needless to say first order of business for me was to get some white vinegar and do a general cleaning. Roy was busy with the depth transducer, the stove and getting the chart plotter and helm back together. Splash day was Oct 30. Afterwards we spent two days in a slip at the marina as we provisioned and got Wahoo ready to, at least, be able to motor to Culebra.  Each time we're amazed at how everything we bring eventually gets stored away.

A tornado in the cabin!

 The Puerto Rican island of Culebra is easy to like. It has a deep bay with plenty of room to anchor, a wonderful little restaurant and bar that's right on the water and plenty of friendly people. The weather wasn't perfect as a Tropical Wave was moving through but it worked fine for us to continue getting everything re-installed as Wahoo got recommissioned. On Saturday we moved on to St. Thomas and the harbour at Charlotte Amalie.

Monday morning we'll start making our way to the North Sound of Virgin Gorda ready to make the 78 mile jump across the Anagada Passage to Simpson Bay in St. Martin.

Here's a chart of theIslands of the  Eastern Caribbean. We intend to visit the rest of the islands of the Lessor Antilles. With a minimum of 9 months to go the 600 NM from here to Trinidad, we should be able to spend lots of time enjoying all the local flavours.

Now's the time friends and family - check out the new itinerary(see "Itinerary" tab at the top of the blog, choose your island and "come on down!"

Good to be on the move again.

Post Script: I've enhanced the look of the blog. Hope you like it.
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