THE BEAUTIFUL BVIs.................................

There are times when we have sailed through the night and the morning sun and the waning moon can be captured in the one shot ................. notwithstanding that by morning we feel zapped..................Still, the shoreline and the mountains are worth it as we approach the US Virgin Islands and the island of ST. THOMAS.............And in the morning we get the shock of our lives as we look out of the porthole and are suddenly alongside a giant block of flats, and we or it is moving................Turns out the block of flats is the World's largest cruise ship, the "OASIS OF THE SEAS".............A ship as long as a sleepness night.................Something like that gets you up in a hurry............. Time to put more diesel in the tanks and head on south to the BVIs............



We anchored in the harbour at Charlotte Amalia to await the arrival of Capt. Glenn who is going to skipper the charter catamaran and as soon as he arrives we put him on the wheel.............. he has been very occupied with the surgery of his son Spenser, who is now in good hands............ Our satellite phone keeps
them connected...............Next to us is a yacht with its own Caribbean bimini, a new form of cockpit cooling..............




A magical place to anchor and all the more so with the sun out, something we have not seen for quite a while.............



And then we moved to Virgin Gorda and the "BATHS", that beautiful granite formation of giant marbles and cleavaged rocks.................... A SPECIAL ZEN PLACE.........and a place to see GERMANY beat URUGUAY 3:2 in the World Cup on two TVs, one for each eye..........................

PUERTO RICO.......................................

We moved rapidly along the coast of PUERTO RICO, leaving very early each morning in darkness to go against the trade winds before they barrel in above twenty knots during the afternoon................ Spectacular mountain ranges on the port side.............with deep seas on the starboard side.............. The shore line at BOQUERON on the right. This is the land in which cactuses are on the hillsides............... Aand in particular this "Turk's Head cactus"............. By the 4th of July we have made it to the Spanish Virgins, a group of islands half-way between Puerto Rico and US Virgin Islands........... Volcanic outcrops surrounded by shallow blue water..................... And on this day the island of CULEBRITA was invaded by a powerboat armada..............Hundreds of them, all out for a day in the sun. We chose to go to the top of the hillside and take in the view.............And there were twice as many boats after lunch............




In amogst the rocks we found the 'jacuzzi' pool and took full advantage of it.............And on the hillside you can see that the windward side of the cactuses get a real beating and look like cancerous growths..........Fantastic to finally have a sunny day with normal winds..............And then a second sailboat entered the bay, ..............No longer were we the sole sailboat amongst the multitude of powerboats and jet-skis........Wonderful people from San Juan who invited us over for a most delicious "Paella", filled with fish, king crab, clams, scollops and seasoning to die for.......... Then again Dwight Rodrigues is a master chef with a number of restaurants and 160 employees, who still managed to do the cooking on his one day off and entertained us royally.................That's the 'Super Chef' and his wife Marjorie below.......... Smell that PAELLA.........



Summer is here and flowers are in full bloom and we have sweat running down..................... Never mind...............



This is what the 'Queen of Florida' has to resort to in order to get her frehly washed hair to dry......................... Don't you feel sorry for her to be out her in the tropics, leading this life of hardship...............

Tomorrow we set sail early for the U.S. virgin Islands and St. Thomas to meet up with a beautiful family for whom I did a charter ten years ago............. Must have done a reasonable job because they wanted me to do it again............This time we have orgainsed Captain Glenn Miller of "TREEHOUSE" fame, to actually do the charter on a 44ft catamaran while we assist............... Best of both worlds and two dinghies for snorkelling.............. More later............... Meantime just sympathizse with Laurie.....................

THE MOANING PASSAGE.........................

HERE IS WHERE WE LEFT FROM................

We left in what looked like reasonable weather for the MONA PASSAGE which very quickly became a trip from hell..................... not in thirty-five years of sailing have I ever experienced anything like it............. A cross between a giant roller coaster ride and being thrown inside one of those concrete-mixer trucks.............. The miracle is that ARITA stayed in one piece while we slowly went to pieces................We braced ourselves with both hands in the cockpit and hung on as best we could......... Going below, even to use the head, was out of the question................For eighteen hours we motored into the pounding waves, tossed back and forth and running in four distinct directions................ The first part was the worst, as the bottom fell away first to sixty feet, then six hundred and then to six thousand, causing unbelievable turbulence and currents...........Now, have we moaned enough?.................. We heard later from other cruisers for whom the passage took sixty hours...........



AND HERE IS OUR ARRIVAL IN BOQUERON, PUERTO RICO..............

We managed to collapse totally exhausted for a few hours sleep, and then onto PONCE another forty miles further on, in order to clear Customs and Immigration.

It is a good thing that we had finished all our fresh food in SAONA while waiting for the weather to clear................... For after arriving in PONCE a very strange thing happened............. We contacted Customs & Immigration by phone as requested, and sat and waited for twenty four hours till they showed............... Their inspection was thorough and despite the fact that we no longer had fresh vegetables, fruit, eggs or meat they managed to find some UHT milk in the fridge in a sterilised carton.............You know the type........ The "Queen of Florida" said that it was UHt-sterilised, but it was declared 'contaminated' because it came from the DR........And so into a sterile bio-hazard bag went two empty Florida Publix brand vegetable cans, an empty wine bottle and paper towels and a UHT milk carton suitably interlaced with coffee grinds.........All of it taped tightly shut with US Bio-Hazard tape. They offered to dispose of it but we agreed to carry it out of the country upon our departure.................



AND THIS IS GREG on the YACHT "WHISPER".........

Greg was our next-door neighbour in the harbour at PONCE, who was not as fortunate as us............... When Customs and Immigration arrived he had on board six eggs and a pineapple from the DR......... This was duly removed and placed in a bio-hazard bag............. Despite his protests that he intended to eat them on board.....Nevertheless, an hour later a 4-tonne Bio-Hazmat truck arrived, having driven more than 60 mile from Mayaquez, complete with a white-clad 'Darth-Vader' outfitted driver, in the full regalia, who with gloved hands and mask, took the plastic bag containing six eggs and a pineapple and then took $150.00 from him before he could get clearance, at which point the budget-conscious Greg went completely BALLISTIC.....claiming the 'something' bureaucracy is the new form of terrorism......................



After getting our clearance, we shot off to WALMART in a taxi, for fresh fruit and vegetables and as we walked in the door I swear I heard the 'Queen of Florida' saying......."Oh, How I love WALMART"................ But would you believe it........... Right there in front of us, were these two trays of coconuts, clearly marked as having come from......................You guessed it.... THE DOMINICAN REPUBLIC..........So how do we explain that one?........................ I wonder if somebody in C & I knows?............



Once in Puerto Rico's waters, we caught this nice 'horse-eyed' jack for the fridge.



Once we were allowed off the boat we could finally assess the damage done to the yacht crossing the MONA passage................ stainless steel rub rail bent back on the port side................. Letters torn off the bow on the starboard side and most of the paint coat missing from the front of the boat......... The paint coat we so laboriously applied back in Ft. Pierce a year ago.................... And on the good side we now know that ARITA is way stronger than we could have imagined..............about ourselves we are not so sure...................

AND HURRICANE SEASON IS NOW UPON US..............

BEACH THERAPY.................................

Yes, it has taken almost a month to find internet again..............Hard to believe but true.............Despite the fact that we have installed one of the best WIFI antennas to be had.................Useless of course, if there is no WIFI signal.

We left Boca Chica in the DR and sailed south to the corner and waited three more days for the weather to change before crossing the notorious "MONA PASSAGE"........ There were palm trees on the shore, and blue water again............. Time for some Serious BEACH THERAPY notwithstanding the wind and constant showers of the passing tropical waves............. We made do............. Fishermen brought lobsters and on shore there were more than just coconuts............ There were mosquitos that would carry you away........... and butterflies by the thousands............. we anchored far enough off-shore but you could see the black cloud of mosquitos near the beach and a black slick of dead ones at the water's edge.




The soutwestern tip of Dominican Republic with the island of SAONA is visible in the Google Earth photo above and MONA PASSAGE leading to Puerto Rico................. Note how the depth drops away dramatically from the coastline to more than 6000 feet deep...............But first there were palm trees..............Lots and lots of palm trees........



And butterflies and hermit crabs and shells......................



This is also a huge tourist destination for visitors from the hotels in the DR........... and on the morning the sun came out, more than thirty speed boats arrived with at least 25 passengers each, all wearing orange lifejackets and we counted another thirteen super sailing catamarans, with at least 80 tourists on each one, throughout the day................... Everybody swimming in blue water, all drinking the free rum drinks and all screaming in many languages............... We left one late afternoon to do the MONA PASSAGE crossing with the wind finally down to 12 knots from the ESE..........

The speedboat on the right is really quite fast with twin 125HP YAMAHA engines on the back.....................Faster than its name suggests.............