Sailing Baby Blue

In honor of the anniversary of our escape from real life, here are the top ten thirteen of our favorite places we've visited so far (in reverse chronological order): 1.        Culebra, Puerto Rico – Once we discovered the little secret beach, I was sold. But aside from that, the few shops and restaurants were unique, the snorkeling was the best so far, the anchorage was well-protected and it was easy to get to shore, and anywhere that allows golf carts on all the main roads is a winner to us. 2.        Rincon, Puerto Rico – This little village had just the right mix of cultures: locals, surfers, aging hippies and young hipsters. It was definitely the best surfing we’ve found, though it probably isn’t fair to compare since having a car here made everything exponentially more convenient and accessible for us than usual. 3.        Old San Juan, Puerto Rico – The beautiful 16 th century archit...

  It’s been exactly a year since we drove our little overloaded Subaru to the closing on our house. After signing the place over to its new owners and gleefully depositing our check we immediately skipped town. So, what difference does a year make? We now have a boat that we refer to as our home. Though we often feel, look, and smell a little homeless. We’ve never been through anything worse than the weather we encountered on our maiden voyage across the Gulf of Maine (knock on wood). Looking back on it we’re glad it happened that way because every trip thereafter has been put in perspective.   I am no longer irrationally afraid of the boat. If the wind is blowing hard, we’re heeled way over and the sails are reefed, I don’t panic when it’s my turn to take the helm and then obsessively watch the wind indicator waiting for it to reach an arbitrary level at which I feel crying would be justifiable. I don’t know when I stopped feeling so nervous exactly, but was quit...

Our sail from Culebra to St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands was quite pleasant for a change - as was the one from St. Thomas to St. John - no seasickness, no motorsailing, no cursing the short choppy waves. We still had to make a number of tacks, but the sailing was actually enjoyable for the first time in a long time. In St. Thomas our main objective was to visit the Yanmar dealer for engine replacement parts and the marine supply store. We accomplished both tasks on our first full day there and enjoyed riding the safari (a truck rigged with covered benches in the bed) to the other side of the island. Though we missed a lot of the Carnival events (the rowing dinghy can take most of the blame for that) each island in the Caribbean has Carnival at different times throughout the year, so by the end of the trip I think we'll have seen it all.   In St. John we headed straight for one of the few bays where boats are allowed to anchor and made it our home base for the week....

As promised, footage of us jumping from the waterfalls at 27 Charcos in the Dominican Republic. On the last one, I'm not just hesitating because I'm nervous, it's mostly because there are a bunch of people below that I really don't want to land on. Do it! Do it! Do it!

Following our week-long road trip, we decided we should do some work on the boat. My sewing machine completely died, so Jon and I spent an entire day hand-stitching the canvas sail cover back onto our jib. After two days without leaving the boat, we were ready to move on to the Spanish Virgin Islands: Vieques and Culebra. Some of the wild horses on Vieques, weeding someone's garden. The very cute town of Esperanza on Vieques More wild horses on our way to the black sand beach. Apparently they eat mangoes, so we decided to help them find some. It only looks like the horse is eating my arm off. On the southeast coast of the island we found a beautiful anchorage with little day-use gazebos all down the beach. Perfect for some fiberglass repair work on the dinghy. While we waited for it to dry we went snorkeling. The turtles always hid whenever we went underwater to find them. The navy left their explosives all over the island we're anch...