03.01.13
Yesterday was a day of adventure filled with joy,
excitement, frustration, anxiety and accomplishment, all within 35 nautical
miles. But first, let’s get up to date
from our last post. On Sunday,
Darrell, Ann, Roxy, the Wonder Dog, Dave and I set out on a walk for Flamenco Beach, touted as one of the best five beaches
in the world by a travel magazine. (Dave
and I had seen it before…nice but a bit too crowded for us.)
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| Ann, Darrel, Linda and Jamie |
First we walked past the Culebra airport where, in order to
land, planes must fly through a pass between two hills, make a slight turn to
the left then quickly line up with the runway.
It’s always impressive to watch.
We
then hitched a ride on a golf cart type vehicle with a young guy named Jamie
from Utah. He said that on his last trip to Culebra, he
was offered a ride to the beach, so that is why he stopped to offer us a ride. ‘Twas quite a sight with five adults and a
dog crammed on.
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| Carlos Rosario Beach |
Alas, when we arrived at
Flamenco Beach,
Roxy was not allowed, so the only reasonable thing to do was to walk to nearby
Rosario Beach where none of us were allowed.
Apparently there was unexploded ordnance in the hills, so we were sure
to stay on the path.
Slipping through a
locked but obviously well used chain link gate and onto a well worn path, we
walked about 20 minutes over rustic terrain to a lovely beach on the north side
of Culebra.
Just one other couple and a
couple of kayakers were there.
This was
our kind of beach.
We sat in the shade
of small trees at the water’s edge and enjoyed the view.
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| Dave with old fan coral adornment |
On our way back, we stopped by a snack kiosk where Dave
picked up a couple of frozen pina colada (sans alcohol). Delicious and refreshing! We then started the trek back and who should
pass by but Jamie and his girlfriend. So
we topped our previous golf cart record with six adults, a dog plus two folding
beach chairs as we wound our way over the three miles back to the town of Dewey.
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| Anchored behind the reef at Dakity |
The next day, after lunch, we motored over a mile to the
mooring field called Dakity located behind the large reef at the entrance to
Ensenada Honda. Alibi was already there. The
water was clear and clean. Dave cleaned
the barnacles off of the bottom of the boat and prop. It had gotten pretty bad in the warm Caribbean waters.
I took a little swim and also did a little cleaning. Dakity is a beautiful and peaceful place to
moor with only the sound of waves breaking over the reefs. And that night the orange full moon rising
over the reefs was spectacular.
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| Roxy taking Darrell for a swim in Ensenada Honda, Vieques |
Early the next morning, Alibi
and Wayward Wind hoisted sails,
weighed anchors and left Culebra for another Ensenada Honda (deep cove) in Vieques. It was a bouncy and blustery but beautiful
sail due south and around the eastern tip of Vieques. For many years the US military used the waters off of
eastern Vieques for artillery practice.
And for the last several of those years, the locals protested. Finally the practice ended and now our tax
dollars are going towards cleaning up the thousands and thousands of unexploded
ordnance. The talons of developers have
yet to clutch the uninhabited eastern half of the island, so for now it
provides lovely and quiet anchorages.
Ensenada Honda is a huge, mangrove-lined cove. Aside from a small local catamaran bringing
snorklers for about an hour, we were the only two boats there for the night. So peaceful.
That evening, Ann and Darrell invited us over to share our
photos of the past year. Many memories
of good times and maintenance. “Ah,
yes. Remember the line splicing
lesson?” And so on.
It was so peaceful, we both thought we’d stay another day and night.
The next morning, after listening to Chris Parker’s weather
report, Ann and Darrell decided that they’d better take advantage of the
weather as they were going upwind and against the current to St. Thomas and the following day the wind
would be too light for them. So another
hard good-bye – this time short and sweet – and off sailed our good friends on Alibi.
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| Fair winds, Alibi! |
After a short discussion, Dave and I decided that we’d go to
the next spot, Ferro
Bay, about five nautical
miles west. After we left the cove we
spotted Alibi tacking to the
northeast. They also spotted us and
radioed another farewell.
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| Ferro Bay dolphin swim-by |
Ferro Bay is about halfway down the south coast of Vieques. We could
now see signs of civilization with houses and roads towards the west. We entered the bay through the narrow opening
and anchored – one of five boats.
Several paddle boarders paddled by then were whisked away in a van. We soon could tell that the other four boats
were not occupied. Again we were alone
in this beautiful bay. That evening,
after dark and before the waning fullish moon arose, I passed the boat hook
through the water to see illuminated turquoise twinkles of bioluminescence
trailing like sparks on a Fourth of July sparkler. That’s why we’d stopped here.
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| Ferro Bay entrance |
On Thursday, after listening to Chris’ weather report, we
left around 7:30 for mainland Puerto Rico
about 35 nautical miles to the west.
Chris had said that the winds would be light, so we knew it would be a
slow sail and were glad for the early start.
Thus began our day of adventure sailing.
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| Fishing off of the southern PR coast |
The seas were between three and five feet and on our starboard
aft so mostly worked to our advantage.
The winds were indeed light, so it took a bit of adjustment to get the
wing-on-wing sails to take advantage of the downwind air and not flop in the
rolly seas. Once set, we slowly sailed along. As the morning
passed, we were a bit concerned with time and knew that later we might have to
turn on the engine to speed us up but thought we’d wait until the passage
between the two islands where hopefully the wind might pick up. It was almost boring and lunch broke up the
monotony.
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| Hello, Dolphin! |
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| Dolphin Trio |
Right after that I spotted a dolphin off to starboard and
looked to port and saw three more, all converging on our bow. I shouted to Dave, “Dolphins!” We looked and saw many more coming in – a
virtual dolphin play convention. Dave
went to the bow and shouted, “Fifteen!”
The dolphins jumped and dove and surfed the bow wake in seemingly utter
joy. Dave, alias Whistles with Dolphins,
was hanging off of the bow pulpit communicating with his aquatic mammalian
brethren. With a big grin, he then came
back to the helm and said, “Your turn.”
I sat and hung my feet over the side and watched the show in awe. What is amazing is how they swim in
undulating tandem. Baby swims directly
under Mother in unison movement. A
side-by-side trio, the same. A couple of
times, one big guy (or gal) turned to look at me just below my dangling
feet. I looked into its glossy gray
eye. After a good fifteen minutes of
cavorting, their energy waned – like children, were they getting bored with
this game? – and slowly they peeled off and went on their way. We never tire of dolphins.
Dave had his line out and was hoping for a fish.
Just off the east coast of PR, we turned on
the motor to make a better time as we did not want to arrive past 4:00.
Figuring that the passage between islands
would probably be the most likely place to catch a fish, Dave was beginning to
feel disappointed.
He said, “Here fishy,
fishy.
Let’s get a nice Mahi Mahi.”
Not long after, ZING went the line and Dave
landed a 44-inch Mahi Mahi.
This was
turning into a great day!
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| Ziing! Pole is bending! |
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It's a Mahi Mahi!
|
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| Thank you, Mahi Mahi, for giving your life up for us |
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| This photo almost captures the unbelievable fluorescent display |
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| Gaffing the fish |
Just five miles from Puerto Patillas, our destination, Dave
and I were talking and unfortunately Dave missed seeing the floats to a fishing
trap. I happened to look up as the trap
was hitting the bow. “Neutral!” I
shouted and hit the lever to neutral.
Too late. We were trailing a line
beneath the stern. We decided to sail
farther offshore, drop sails, then Dave would snorkel to hopefully remove the
lines. Because the wind was so light, it
was hard to gain enough speed to turn into the wind without the help of the
motor. We sloppily dropped the main and
loosened the sheet on the jib.
Fortunately the sees though rolly were not too high. Dave held onto a line from the boat and
snorkeled under and found that the line had tightly wrapped itself around the
prop. He tried to cut it with a sharp
knife but was unsuccessful. At this
point it was nearly 4:00, so on to Plan B.
We would have to sail in and drop the anchor hopefully before dark. The trick was to avoid the reefs. We called our friends, Janis and Don, on the
cell phone and alerted them to our situation – not a panic situation, but
certainly a new one for us. Don’s dinghy
wasn’t working, so he asked a local fisherman to stand by in his small motor
boat in case it was after dark before we arrived to help guide us in. We had the route programmed in our
chartplotter, but you never know when it might fail you. And, yes, we did have our paper chartlet of
the bay as well. Still it was a bit
anxiety-producing.
Dave and I went over our plan several times and luckily sailed
in just before sunset. I got the anchor
ready. Fortunately it is a wide open bay
with only three other boats anchored far ahead of us. When we got to our spot,
we dropped the main, dropped the anchor then dropped the jib. All went
smoothly. Another first! Sailors who are reading this are probably
thinking, what’s the big deal, but having never done it, it was a bit
thrilling!
Even though we weren’t far enough in to the bay to benefit
form the protection of the reef, we didn’t mind the rolly seas and slept
soundly that night.
On Friday morning, we dinghied in to visit Don and Janis in
their sweet new home. It’s a
fixer-upper, but they have the vision and the chops to get the job done. Don and Dave went back to Wayward Wind to try to unfoul the
prop. It was so nice to “let” the guys
take care of this, while Janis and I sat in beanbag chairs on the patio and visit before the gorgeous view of the bay. The guys were out there a long time, so we
were worried that things weren’t going well.
A couple of hours later they came back with a thumbs up. Don said that Dave dove about thirty times to
finally get the line cut and free the prop.
Whew! Good work, Dave!
