2025-02-23 Derek Visit, El Yunque

We went for a nice snorkel off of Punta Tamarindo Grande in Culebra.   Nice reef structures, lots of soft corals, sponges and structures.  Not a ton of fish.  Unfortunately, forgot the camera again.

Back to boat where we had anchored at the north side of Cayo de Luis Pena and jumped in for another small snorkel and enjoy the beach.   Derek grabbed the camera for this snorkel, and got some great close up photos, as he is good at going down around 12' deep for extended periods.

Derek is still a great snorkeler

After snorkeling decided that the reef was too close for overnight comfort, and a small swell had come in so we went back to Culebra and anchored in Ensenada Dakity.   In the morning, we worked on our water maker - replacing the pressure gauge and regulator.

Working on the water maker

Water maker seems to be working well now, although at a higher pressure than before, but don't know how accurate the gauge or water flow meter actually are.  After Derek was done with work for the day, we explored the bay via dingy, and walked the barrier reef a bit at low tide.     

Derek wishes we had the new dingy and engine when he was on the boat

Walking the small exposed reef area at low tide

Weird red balls on dead coral.  Any idea what it is?

Some wading involved.  Charm is anchored to the left of Derek 

Tuesday had a nice but lumpy sail over to mainland Puerto Rico, where we had a reservation at the Safe Harbor Puerto Del Rey marina.   Huge marina, but well-kept up and friendly people.   The marina is so large, they offer free golf cart rides to all tenants and guests of the marina to get from the parking and office to the docks.  We were reasonably close to the office, so we walked, until we had groceries to bring back, then we took the cart.   They don't let you drive the carts, so you are chauffeured, as the finger docks are barely wide enough for the cart, lined by power stands.  Too much risk to let anyone drive.

Golf cart pick up area, small carts for luggage and stuff they attach to the carts

View of marina.  

Dean and Derek gave the boat a nice scrub down with the $5 a day water.  Had a nice dinner from the local restaurant, which we ate back on the boat.

Enjoying another good meal.

Wednesday morning we headed up to the El Yunque Rain forest.   The only tropical rain forest in the United States.  Luckily we had a nice sunny day, with no rain, and clear of clouds.   Stopped at the visitor center first

Checking out the park map

Nice large visitor center

Short trails around the visitor center

Puerto Rico parrot - native to Puerto Rico but almost extinct

Then went up to the end of the road to hike the Mt. Britton Trail to the tower.  Good hike, went slow due to Kris's toe, but it was good to go slow on the way up.  Nice trail, but narrow, so always had to step to the side when passing or meeting people coming down.

Single file walkway

View from top of tower looking North-ish

View looking south-ish

Narrow stairs in the tower

Tower is not that tall, but on top of the peak

Did a couple more stops in El Yunque, seeing the tourist spots. But lots of people around.

El Bano Grande dam

Working on better selfies

Very pretty small creeks throughout the rain forest

Coco Falls

Very mossy tree trunks

Late lunch at McDonald's on the way back to the boat, where we indulged in long showers at the marina.

Derek flew out Thursday afternoon, so we went out for a nice lunch at Board riders Surf bar and grill just off of the beach at San Miguel.   

Beautiful tiled wall and walkway down to beach

Beach is very orange, but soft sand

Had some time before Derek needed to be at the airport, so went to Home Depot and got some stuff for boat projects, then took him to the airport.     

Had a great visit with Derek, really enjoyed the time with him.  After dropping him at the airport, we went to the Walmart Supercenter to do a big grocery stocking up, followed by a stop at a large Ralph's grocery.  We were tired, and it was late, so grabbed Subway on the way back for a late dinner.  Kris started a load of laundry, which we hung up before bed.

Friday we did not have to leave until 11, so took advantage of the water and power to do a couple more loads of laundry.  With the wind blowing from the stern, we hung them up in the cockpit, and they only took a couple of hours to dry.

We left the marina just before 11, and stopped and filled the diesel tanks at the fuel dock on the way out, then motored the 3 miles to Isla Pineros anchorage.  Saturday morning we explored the mangrove river - unexciting then decided to move, as lots of powerboats use the passage between Isla Pineros and the mainland, and we were getting quite a few large wakes, plus a slight swell was coming in.

Pretty mangrove river, but murky water and not many birds

Moved to Roosevelt Roads harbor and anchored near the entrance.  It was a mistake as the ferries come in and out, and every hour and a half or so, we get a rather large wake.  We will up anchor and move further in today to get out of the wake zone.

2025-02-16 Week with Derek

Monday we moved the boat to Lindbergh Bay, which is close to the airport terminal.  Usually the bay can be quite rolly, but it was not bad at all, so we were lucky.  

Took the dingy and Dean dropped Kris off at the beach.  Since the package arriving from Echo Tec (Water maker parts) was in Kris's name, she was the one needing to go in to pick it up.  The walk was not far, only about a mile round trip.  There is not a good place to land and leave the dinghy, or we both would have gone.

Once Kris returned, Dean got busy replacing our membrane, and then we turned on the water maker hoping for a magical cure. Our ppm was much lower, but still the issue of low production.   We will wait until Derek leaves until we do more work, as there is a slim chance of failure, and we do not want to be without the water maker while he is visiting.

Water maker membrane change over 

Later in the day the anchorage got rolly - must have been with the tide change, so we moved to a different spot in the bay, which made it tolerable for the night.

Tuesday Derek arrived in the morning, no issues, and after he was on the boat we hoisted anchor and headed back to the St. Thomas cruise ship anchorage.  Lumpy anchorage, so after anchoring, we got off the boat, and headed for lunch as Derek was quite hungry after his overnight flight.  Nice lunch out at Smoking Rooster, then on the bus to the grocery store to get fresh stuff and anything Derek needed.   We also dumped out trash and got dinghy gas.   

Saw this guy hanging off the side of a mega yacht cleaning on the way back in the boat.  I guess if he falls, he just gets wet. 

Got to keep it clean

Back to the boat, where we hoisted anchor and moved back over to Brewer's Bay where the water was flat and clear.   Poor Derek was exhausted at this point and fell asleep on the way over, and did not even wake up for anchor dropping.  

Wednesday Derek had to work, so it was a boat day.   It was also baking day.  Dean made cinnamon rolls, and Kris made her oat walnut breakfast bread.       

Thursday Derek also worked, but we took a break and went for a nice snorkel, and saw 4 sea turtles, and 4 rays, but that was about it.  The bottom is mostly sand, grass, weed with few small coral areas.  But we did get within 5 to 10 feet of the sea turtles who had no fear, so that was cool.  - Forgot to take the camera - so no photo.   

Thursday evening, Kris went to wash up dishes, and had no water.   The water tank was half full, but the pump was not turning on.   Checked the electrical quickly, and all was good.  Luckily we had a spare fresh water pump on board, so Dean did a quick swap over, and we were back in business.   Why do things like this always happen when you have guests?

Friday morning, Kris did a deep investigation on the broken water pump, as it was only two years old.  Did not really see any issues, but learned a bit about the pump construction.  Think it is just a bad pressure switch.  Dean made some fresh bread as well.

Dean worked on installing a part Derek had 3D printed for us.   We hope it will fix the boom vang banging a bit.

Dean installing the custom-made parts 

Dean's bread is getting pretty perfect looking.

In the afternoon we upped anchor and had a fast but lumpy downwind sail over to Culebra, Bahia de Almodover.   Seas were 4 to 6 feet and winds 15 to 20 with gust to 30.   We just used our jib, and averaged over 7 knots for the 2.5 hour trip.     

Bahia de Almodover was flat calm, and beautiful as always.

View from boat, anchored in Bahia de Almodover

Saturday afternoon, we headed into Culebra proper, as we wanted Zaco's Tacos for Dinner.   Got a good anchorage spot, but the bay here does have some chop from the winds.   Dean and Derek went in and fetched dinner and brought it back to the boat, as Zaco's Tacos usually has some biting bugs around, and if you don't want to dose your legs in bug spray, it's better not to eat there.

Derek remembered Zaco's Tacos from when he was on the boat with us in 2013-2014

While the guys got dinner, Kris worked on putting a quick cover on the table, as we have worn through the layers of varathane down to the paper chart in some areas, and the table is getting sticky from the decoupage material we used.   We will have to redo the table soon.   Kris found an extra large Bahamas flag we bought by accident off Amazon, and rigged up some sticky Velcro to hold it to the table.

Dinner on the boat - watched an old Indiana Jones movie with dinner.

Today we plan to snorkel, so will be sure to take the camera.  Beautiful sunrise this morning.

2025-02-08 Somewhat dull week topped off with a Tsunami scare.

It has been a fairly uneventful week for us.  With Kris's broken toe, we are avoiding walks and snorkeling.  Our son Derek is flying in for a visit on the 11th, so we are staying put until he arrives.

Just spending time on the boat.  We did move anchorages, the main anchorage in St. Thomas by the cruise ship docks is very convenient, with close bus stops, grocery stores, restaurants and such.  It can also be quite lumpy, as a small swell does come in the anchorage at times, and the constant boat traffic can create a lumpy anchorage.   So we moved around to Brewer's Bay, on the west side, and very happy we did.   Lovely clear water, and many sea turtles to watch, but we are next to the airport, so occasional loud jet engine noise, but very quiet at night.

Anchorage at night.  One boat had pretty neat lights on their mast

Watching planes take off and land.  Most are smaller planes

About 8 or 10 large planes a day

Anchorage view to the east

Tuesday Kris took a brief kayak trip.  Just as she was setting off, our neighbor on a small monohull yelled, as his wetsuit had come off his line from drying and was floating away. He only had a paddleboard for transportation, and it was on his deck lashed down.   Kris paddled over and rescued it, so it was good timing for her kayak trip.

View of Charm from Kris's paddle trip near the airport runway

Winds have been 15 to 20 all week, with higher gusts, and off and on rain showers, some heavy, and some light.  We have had our rain catch out most the week.  We have gotten our exercise by opening hatches, then jumping up to close them, then open, then close and repeat. 

We did go into town on Wednesday.  Needed a few groceries, and needed to get off the boat.   No dinghy dock here, but decent beach to land the dink, and locked it to a tree.  There is a bus service on the island, and it came close to the anchorage, with a stop at the University of the Virgin Islands, which was only about 1500' from where the dinghy was beached.   We headed up there, and after about 20 minutes with no bus, decided to walk a bit further to the next bus stop.   A bus came by shortly, and whizzed right by us.   So we walked to the next stop.  Two buses passed us by there.   So we walked to the next bus stop.  Again passed by.   We gave up, and finished the walk into town, which was 1.8 miles.   Took a bit longer, as Kris limps along pretty slow to protect the broken toe.  Passed another bus stop with several people waiting, but by the time we made it to the store, we saw more buses go by, and they still had not been picked up. Eastbound buses seemed to not stop.  

After groceries, we went to the nearest stop, and waited, as we had seen several buses taking people west.   Another person came to wait with us, and we asked him about why the buses were not picking folks up.  He said that 5 cruise ships were in that day, so most of the buses made more money shuttling cruise ship passengers.  The westbound ones we saw were most likely abandoning their normal routes to go work the cruise ships instead.  Keep in mind, that the buses here are just converted pickups with bench seats in the converted back bed, with a roof and railings. 

Typical bus - but this one has advertising on the side.

Dean, waiting at the bus stop with groceries

Luckily, about a 20-minute wait, and a bus came by, and we got a nice ride back.  This was good because Kris was pretty tired after limping that far.

Had a bit of a scare on Saturday.  We were just relaxing in the evening, Kris was on the computer, had just finished doing her Spanish lessons and went to check out the Puerto Rico Cruisers group on Facebook that she had just joined since we are heading that way next week.  The first post was about a Tsunami warning for Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands.    - WHAT - That is where we are!!!!.  We did not have the VHF radio on, so had not heard any alerts, but the alert only came out 8 minutes before Kris saw it, so we still had time to act.  

Kris made Dean aware, and a quick google search, and it was confirmed.   VHF came on, and Kris started looking for the best place to go in the shortest time, as we only had about 40 minutes to get to safety.  We had water over 100' deep, about 5.5 miles away, so 40 minutes would be pushing it - we had to move NOW.

Luckily for us, just about when we were ready to start engines and get going the Coast guard announced that the warning was cancelled.    WHEW.    One other boat in our anchorage had already upped anchor, and they shortly turned around and came back in.

Started us thinking - how would we know of a Tsunami alert if we did not have the VHF radio on.  Our phones did not alert us, and what if we were asleep?   Kind of scary to think of.

We stayed up, and watched the depth sounder to see if anything did pass under us.  Funny, we were in 28.2 feet of water, and suddenly, without the boat shifting in the wind, the depth did a quick but steady drop to 24.3'.   We know it was not a fish, because it was not a quick jump down, but a steady progression.   We expected a steady rise back up - but it did not happen.  It hovered around the low, then slowly, and sporadically, made it back up to 28.2 feet.    Excitement over - we went to bed.

We have been having an issue with our water maker, not making the normal 13 gal/min, but down to 9 gal/min, so have some parts being sent in.  We need to pick our parts up at the airport on Monday, and Derek arrives on Tuesday, so tomorrow will move to an anchorage close to the airport access road.

2025-02-02 Bus ride and snorkeling St. Croix, up to St. Thomas

We decided to take the bus in St. Croix, from Frederiksted where we were anchored, over to Christiansted, and stop for groceries on the way back.  The bus in St. Croix only runs every hour and half to two hours so we caught it around 9:00 in the morning, and did not make it back to the boat until 4:00 p.m.

We enjoy taking the local buses, you get a different perspective on the island than you would with a tour, or driving yourself.

The buses on St. Croix are older, and it was quite the noisy ride as well.

Had a nice walk around Christiansted, and a lunch out as well, followed by ice cream at Tropical Ice Goddess - some of the best we have had.  Then it was time to catch the bus to get groceries.

Harbor at Christiansted

Open area and old Customs house

Always chickens

Tarpon down by docks waiting for food - they are well-trained

Downtown street by Government building

Stopped at the Cost U Less, and got some Tillamook Sharp Cheddar cheese, then onto the normal store for more groceries.  Had to wait about an hour for the next bus back, so relaxed in the shade on the side of the street and watch the traffic go by.

The next day we took our Tides marine sail track off, cut it, reversed it and put it back up.  Kris called Tides marine, and had a long discussion, as our sail track was only 3 years old, and the sail was pulling out at the top every time we sailed with a reef.  Tides Marine was excellent, and had a long discussion, and agreed that flipping the track would help for a bit, but more slides for the track were needed.  They are sending us the additional slides for no cost, and these will be added to our new sail.

Dean had a nice view from the top of the mast, he had to go up because we forgot to tie a line to the slide we used to haul the track up the mast, so could not get it back down.  Oh well, water was flat, so up he went.

Snorkelers near our boat while Dean up the mast.  Gorgeous water

Cruise ship at the dock in Frederiksted

Wednesday we decided we had to snorkel the Frederiksted pier again before we headed north, as this could be the last chance to do so.   Kris ended up using only one flipper to protect the broken toe, but no current and small area so all worked out well.  The pier is well known for excellent snorkeling.

One reason it is so good, is water clarity is generally good, and you can get so close to the coral very close to the surface

This coral on the pier is only about 2' below the surface

The piers are coral encrusted

Sergeant Major kept tabs on us

Healthy coral everywhere

Dean snorkeling along with his entourage of Sergeant Majors - used to being fed

Watched this Hawks bill turtle cruise around the pier munching on ??

We saw a green turtle cruise by

More nice coral formations

When we were done snorkeling, Dean went in to check the bottom of the boat, and found our large sail drive zinc was loose.   Don't know why this happened, had never happened before.  So out came the air compressor and hoses, and we took the old ones off, and put new on.  Will have to monitor them closely to see if they loosen as well.

While he was working, a barracuda kept a close watch on him.

Deans barracuda buddy

Thursday we headed to St. Thomas, had a nice sail and didn't need to reef, so unsure if our track flipping did anything or not yet.  Had a nice but short visit by a few dolphins.

Always a great sail when dolphins come to play

Our friends on Cotinga were also in St. Thomas, and invited us to join them for lunch.  Had a very nice lunch out at The Smoking Rooster.  

Dean, Mike and Gloria

Gloria and I got a laugh out of the sign on the bathroom for the restaurant.   We thought the sign was neat, but considering the bathroom was up a steep flight of stairs and a narrow door, we wondered how the person in a wheelchair would ever use it.

Saturday, we took the "bus" (really just a pickup with some modifications to the bed for a cover and bench seats) up to the Home Depot.   Wanted to get some new toilet seats, as ours were looking shabby, and a couple other items.  Also stopped for some fresh items at the Cost U Less for a few groceries as well. 

 

You could forget you are still in the Caribbean, feels like every other Home Depot in the mainland U.S.A.

Derek will arrive on the 11th, so we will hang out here and wait for him.