[Most recent entry is at end.]
[Previous log file is http://www.geocities.com/bill_dietrich/Magnolia/MagnoliaLog2006Early.txt ]



6/17/2006 (Saturday)
At anchor at Esperanza on Vieques.

Anchor up at 6:40.

Stuffing box running hot, but I've loosened it just
about all the way, and there's plenty of water dripping
out.

No wind at all until 7:30 or so.

Dolphins darting around the boat from 8:15 to 8:30, as
I started across from Vieques to Puerto Rico.

Repainted one side of my Puerto Rico courtesy flag
(I had it backwards, originally), and hoisted it.

Long, boring day.  Wind light and fluky, from 4 to 8
knots, making the sail fill and then flutter.  Swells
from stern port quarter, often shoving the stern
around and pushing me off course.  Auto-pilot hasn't
worked in a while, so I have to keep hand-steering
every minute or so.  Current is favorable, giving me
an extra 1/2 knot or so.

My NPR station got drowned out by another station on
the same frequency as I left Esperanza this morning,
so no Car Talk today.

Slowly overtaken and passed by two big tugboats, one
towing the other.

Developed a headache in the afternoon.

Wind a bit stronger and steadier around 2:30.

Approached the first possible anchorage, inside Boca
del Infierno, at about 3:30.  But last time I went out
this pass, I said to myself that I never want to come
IN this pass; it's too dangerous.  You see a wide
expanse of open water, but only a notch about 100 feet
wide is the pass; the rest is reef.  And today I'd be
coming in downwind, down-swell, and with the afternoon
sun in my eyes.  I keep going.

I go in just west of Cayo Morrillo, quite close to
Salinas, at about 4:05.  Lots of boats and jet-ski's
and a couple of windsurfers and kayaks.  Up and into
the Playa Salinas anchorage.  My head is pounding now,
and I just get the sail furled and find a spot and
put the anchor down as quickly as possible.  Done at
4:40 at lat 17.57.382 long 66.17.541
Don't see any ex-Luperon boats I recognize.
Down into my berth to close my eyes and nap.

Peanut-butter crackers for dinner, and back to bed.
Headache is pounding.

Very still in the anchorage all night; nice after
the rolly anchorages of the USVI's.


6/18/2006 (Sunday)
At anchor at Playa Salinas, Puerto Rico.

Still have a bit of a headache.
Did a bucket of laundry.

Felt headachey all day.

Heard a bit of BBC on shortwave at 5; no other
English-language radio available here.

Salad and spaghetti for dinner.


6/19/2006 (Monday)
At anchor at Playa Salinas, Puerto Rico.

Still headachey.

Feeling better by lunchtime.  Time to go ashore
and see about a ride to the airport on Thursday.

Dinghied ashore.  Got 5 gallons of water, and
disposed of garbage.  Walked to Cruiser's Cafe,
and started asking people about a ride to the
airport.  Did 1/2 hour of internet for $2.
Used the book-exchange.

Back to the marina, exchanged some more books
there.  Their payphone has been removed, so walked
1/2 mile up to another.  It ate my money and didn't
acknowledge the coins.  Finally made a call using
a phone card, and found that Norman (who does rides)
has left for the DR.  Back to the marina, asked
around a little more, and back into the dinghy.

Stopped at boat "D and D" to ask about a ride, then
at "Sunshine", and there was my friend Lee from
"Santana".  He said he probably could give me a ride
on Thursday, although he's planning to leave here
Thursday afternoon in his boat.  He left, and I stayed
and chatted for a couple of hours with Don on "Sunshine",
a guy I met when I was here before Christmas.  Nice
conversation.  He thinks the strange fish I saw at
Culebrita is a Boxfish.  He's been to all kinds of
interesting places.  I mentioned a wreck nearby, and
he said he thought the guy who owned it got sent to
prison, and while he was inside, his boat sank.  He
thinks that explains a lot of sunken boats in Florida
and elsewhere: owner sent off to prison for a while.
Interesting theory.

Salad and peanutbutter-crackers for dinner.


6/20/2006 (Tuesday)
At anchor at Playa Salinas, Puerto Rico.

Headache just about completely gone.

Lots of wind and rain from 3 AM to 7 AM, and then a
completely grey and rainy morning.  I think it's
another tropical wave that's come through.  Caught
several gallons of water.  Fair amount of lightning,
which I haven't seen in quite a while.

Lots of rain at 10.

Talked to a couple of boats on the radio to see about
ride to airport, but no luck.

Added 5 gallons of water to the tanks.
Added water to the batteries.  Genset battery (which
hasn't been used in ages) was about half-empty; I'm
sure it's toast.

After lunch, moved boat to other side of harbor and
got it anchored for a hurricane.  One line into
mangroves (to a 5-inch-diameter tree that probably
could hold the Queen Mary), and 3 anchors out in the
other three directions.  Nice shallow water, about
5 feet deep with a soft, gooey bottom.  Put a couple
of floats on the line to the mangroves, in the hope
that they will keep anyone from running over the
line in a dinghy or skiff.  Done in 2 hours of
sweaty work, with boat ending up at
lat 17.57.331 long 66.17.430

Dinghied ashore at 3:30.  To payphone, and several
failed calls to a taxi service put quite a dent in
my phonecard before I finally got through.  $80 to $100
to the airport, and not confidence-inspiring.  To the
marine store, where they don't have any of the rigging
parts I need to make a pennant for the jib.  To
Cruiser's Cafe, to do 1/2 hour of internet for $2.

Was going to get water, but there's a sign I think wasn't
there yesterday: 25 cents/gallon for water !  Outrageous.
Glad I caught rainwater.  (Don said the water's probably
free when you buy fuel.)

Back in the dinghy, went out and chatted with Don a
little while.  He has a bunch of old rigging wire that's
TOO big for what I want; 5/16" wire that is huge and
hard to bend.  As I went over the talk to Lee about
a ride to the airport, it started to rain.  Lee confirmed
he definitely will drive me to the airport; that's a
big relief.  I'll pay for the rental and an extra $25 or
so for him, but that's fine.

As I started to head to my boat, was surprised to see
"Thaleia" anchored near Lee; they were next to me in
the boatyard, and had said they were heading up to
Annapolis.  Guess they changed their minds.

Started raining at 5:30, and rained steadily for 4 hours
or so.  Caught another 5+ gallons of water.  Some
lightning.

Salad and chicken-onion-mushroomsoup and rum-and-coke
for dinner.


6/21/2006 (Wednesday)
At anchor at Playa Salinas, Puerto Rico.

Still and grey and damp morning.  Rain at 7.

Dumped 10 gallons of water into the tanks.
Took down the sails and stowed them in the main cabin.

I notice that the people from "Meridian Chaser", who
flew out (of Ponce) last night, left their boat in the
middle of the harbor, on one anchor, with roller-furled
jib still up.  I guess the chance of a hurricane hitting
this place at this time of year during the 2.5 weeks I'll
be gone is 1/1000 or less, but I'm still willing to put
in a day or two of work to make sure my boat doesn't
come loose or get damaged if it happens.  Maybe they'll
be gone for only a short time, or friends will take care
of their boat.  [Later found out that the guy didn't fly
out; only the wife left.]

Tested the bilge pumps; I've been having a problem with
the primary pump sucking air and not shutting off.
Still failing, so I pulled it up out of the bilge, and
found that the plate I had used to mount switch to pump
had shattered; can't even find the remnants of it at
the bottom of the bilge.  Finding a way to mount the
switch to pump has been a continuing problem.  Switch
is square, pump is round, and want bottom of switch
and bottom of pump exactly even and as low as possible
in the bilge.  Whole thing goes down out of sight and
reach into a wet, oily, gunky environment.

In the afternoon, launched the dinghy and headed over
to "Thaleia".  Had a nice long chat with John and Judy,
spending a couple of hours aboard.  Turns out they left
St Thomas to head for the USA east coast, but got
becalmed somewhere north of the Mona Passage.  They
started motoring a lot, which they didn't want to do,
and started thinking of diverting into Luperon to wait
for weather.  About then, their engine developed a
couple of oil leaks around the turbocharger.  And
somewhere in there, they also totally changed their
minds and decided to spend another season cruising
the Carib, and decided to head back to Venezuela for
hurricane season (they've been there a couple of seasons
and really liked it).  So I guess they re-entered PR
at Mayaguez, mostly-fixed their oil leaks, and started
working around the W and S coasts of PR.  They've
ordered some part, to be delivered in Tortola.  About
then, tropical waves started coming every 3 to 5 days,
and making it hard to make progress eastward.  So
they're sitting here with a couple of other boats,
all waiting for weather that will let them go east to
Vieques or Culebra or St Thomas.

Turns out they're renting a car tomorrow afternoon and
driving up towards San Juan !  Wish I'd hooked up with
them a couple of days ago.  But the timing still might
not have worked out.

We chatted about lots of other things, having a very
nice time.  That's one of my biggest pleasures in
cruising, just sitting down for a long conversation
with interesting people doing interesting things.

Dinghied ashore, looking for Lee to confirm our plans
for tomorrow, and happily ran into him driving down
the street in the rental car he'd just picked up;
everything is good to go.  We chatted a bit, mainly
about his plans to maybe fly out in a month or so,
and where to leave his boat.  He'll be leaving nearer
the peak of hurricane season than I am, so he's a bit
more nervous about leaving the boat somewhere.  He
mentioned that the authorities here don't want people
to tie to the mangroves until a storm is approaching.
Well, I just tied one line to the mangroves, and I
think I'm going to leave it that way.  I doubt I'll
get any grief about it.

Back to the boat.  Salad and chili for dinner, then
turned off and emptied and defrosted the fridge,
getting a lot of built-up ice out of it.


6/22/2006 (Thursday)
At anchor at Playa Salinas, Puerto Rico.

Another grey and almost-raining morning.

Leaving the boat with only one bilge pump working,
which should be okay.

Lee was supposed to pick me up at 8, but overslept.
At 8:30, I unlocked and lowered the dinghy and
headed over to his boat, and he appeared as I neared
his boat.  Back to my boat, to hoist and lock the
dinghy, and then into his dinghy to go ashore.
Into the rental car, then had to stop for gas,
so not really moving until 9:20.  Still plenty of
time.  Up to airport and to the gate by 10:45;
flight isn't until 12:40.  Gave Lee $65 to cover the
rental and his time and effort.

Had trouble finding a free WiFi signal in the airport,
but eventually got one.

Flew from San Juan to Philadelphia.

Ahhh; back in the land of air-conditioning, traffic,
cable TV (nothing good on), toilets you don't have to
pump, indoor showers, 100% clean and dry clothing.


6/23/2006 - 7/9/2006
Boat at anchor at Playa Salinas, Puerto Rico;
I'm in Trenton, New Jersey.

Brought the grey, rainy weather up with me.

Did some chores for Mom: clipping tree branches,
replacing doorbell push-button, painting ceiling
in a bathroom, checking attic fan, checking
heater humidifier, pulling a few weeds.

Bought a few clothes, a WiFi antenna ($50), a WiFi
card and cable ($90), a Sirius satellite radio ($30),
stuffing-box packing ($44).  Teeth cleaned ($115).
Haircutting kit ($15).  Floppy disks.  Fuses for
laptop.

Saw my 5-week-old nephew George.  He's still in
the eat-poop-sleep stage, which I think will last
about 18 years.

Had to evacuate Mom's townhouse when the massive
rain made the Delaware river flood, making water
rise up through the storm sewers.  The water won't
reach her place, but it cuts the roads, and sometimes
the power will go off for several days.  So we
went to stay at my brother's place a few miles away.
[Around the crest of the flood, I hiked in to her
development from the back, and the water didn't reach
into her street.  No damage at her place.]

Had email 6/28 from "Fidelis" telling me my boat looks
fine.

We spent three nights at my brother's place before
getting back into Mom's place.

Got my dose of TV:  watched "Monk" marathon,
"Deadliest Catch" marathon (commercial fishing boats
in the Bering Sea; chopping ice off the deck, etc),
West Wing DVDs, lots of Law and Order episodes,
Futurama, some Simpsons, some World Cup soccer.

Discovered the writing of Salman Rushdie.  I had the
impression he wrote obscure religious stuff, but he's
a witty and very modern writer about politics and the
world and India and Britain and America and many other
things.  Very good.

A couple of months ago, the Puerto Rico government
shut down for a week or two over a budget crisis.
While I was in NJ, the NJ state government did the
same thing !  Closed down for less than a week.

Met a couple of sailors in Philadelphia for lunch.
Had a nice time talking about boats and cruising.

Attempt to have a jib pennant made fell through.
Told the guy to use 1/4" 1x19 wire because it has to
take a lot of torque, but he decided 1x19 was too hard
to work and substituted 7x19, which won't work.

Had email from "Exuma Grouper": they've fixed their
engine and are in La Parguera, and might stay there
for a while.


7/10/2006 (Monday)
Boat at anchor at Playa Salinas, Puerto Rico;
I'm in Trenton, New Jersey.

To Philly airport.  Couldn't find any free WiFi there.

Picked up at San Juan airport by Dave and Annie from
"Fidelis".  After a brief wrong turn into San Juan's
old town, we went to a West Marine.  They didn't have
any 1x19 rigging wire of any size, but I got all of the
fittings I need to make the jib pennant.  Annie bought
them using their Port Supply card, which gave a huge
discount ($4.30 on the shelf turned into $1.60 at the
register); would have bought more if I'd known how big
the discount was going to be.  Then to a Walmart
Supercenter, where I bought $50 of groceries that are
expensive in the normal supermarkets (snacks, crackers,
cereal).

We chatted about the latest cruiser news about people
we know.  "Quest" is in Salinas; I thought she was
staying in St Thomas.  But her work there was brief,
and then she had to fly back to USA for family issues,
so left the boat in Salinas.  Bruce on "Molasses" is
in Salinas; he sold his second boat in Luperon and left,
and is mostly recovered from his serious injuries from
his motorcycle accident when he hit a cow.  It's been
raining hard here; the rivers in San Juan are swollen
and muddy, and it rained so hard in Salinas this
morning that Dave and Annie wore swimsuits when they
dinghied in this morning.  Dave said it was another
tropical wave coming through; apparently they're still
coming every 5 or 6 days.  Gave them $60 to cover car
and gas and $7 worth of West Marine parts.

Got back to the boat a little after 6 PM, and everything
is fine.  Have to get used to boat life again; a bit
smelly and damp and insecty compared to "normal" life.

"Thaleia" and the trawler who were planning to head
south and east are gone; "Santana" is still here.
"Quest" is anchored in my area, with very long rope
rodes off bow and stern.

Peanut-butter crackers for dinner.  I need to lose some
weight; did a lot of eating in New Jersey.

Warm and completely still night.


7/11/2006 (Tuesday)
At anchor at Playa Salinas, Puerto Rico.

Brief rainshower at 8 AM, and plenty of clouds in the
morning, but a nice day.

Turned on the refrigerator early and loaded it up with
soda and juice and tea and so on.  Always takes a while
to get it all cooled down, so I need to start early in
the day to get the maximum out of batteries and solar
panels.  Don't want to put perishable food in until the
refrigerator temperature is down to proper level.  Good
that there's plenty of sunshine today.

Launched the dinghy, and got the outboard started with
a generous squirt of carb-cleaner into the air intake.
Took up the third anchor, which is on a rope rode, and
took in the line into the mangroves.  Coiled them on
deck, washed them a bit with seawater, and then hoped
for a good rain to wash them some more before stowing
them.  Had to clean some growth off the line into the
mangroves, but otherwise not too bad.

Lubricated the bike and inflated the tires a little
more, then put it in the dinghy and went ashore.  Biked
to the supermarket and bought groceries.  Good exercise,
and far better than walking the 1.5 miles or so each
way.  Back to the boat by noon.

"Fidelis" has gone to Jobos for a day or two.  Heard
them telling "Molasses" that conditions out in the ocean
are bad: E 18-20 wind and 6-foot swells hitting the reef.
"Molasses" is waiting for a water-pump part, then
wants to head east.

Saw something surfacing between my boat and "Quest",
and I think it may be a crocodile (not sure if they
have them here).  A round snout with two big nostrils
right on top, and after the snout went down, some
kind of knob surfaced a few feet behind.

Around 3, went over to "Molasses" to see if I could
help Bruce with a dead keyboard on a 4-month-old
laptop computer.  Chatted with Bruce and Grant as I
worked.  Eventually got the laptop open, but no
obvious cable problems with the keyboard, so he'll
just have to buy a new one.  He says electronics
always die on him: across several years and two
different boats, he's had the following die:  a
couple of GPS's, several laptops, a Sirius satellite
radio (got water on it), the antenna tuner (my guess)
on his HF radio, a ham radio, several car stereos.

We saw several manatees, and I mentioned the "crocodile"
I saw earlier.  They think it must have been a manatee,
but I've seen plenty of manatees, and I'm pretty sure
this wasn't one.  Not a turtle either.  [I was wrong;
it was a manatee.  Saw two big manatees and a 3-foot-long
baby right alongside my boat the next day, and the
nostrils exactly match what I saw.  The "knob" I saw
must have been a flipper sideways or something.]

Chatted with Bruce for a while, and I'd forgotten that
he's a conspiracy-believer.  Any major world issue you
mention, he knows the real, secret truth about it.
He showed me an autopsy picture of JFK on his laptop,
apparently showing an entry wound on the forehead and
an exit wound on the side/back; he says 10 shots were
fired at JFK.  Bush beat Kerry because the Democrats
and Republicans are really one party, and "they"
decided that Bush should win.  And more of the same.
But he does make some good points about various
things such as the legal system and corporations and
such.  When he was running a leasing operation, he had
to read much of the tax code, so he knows a lot about
that.

Bruce is waiting for a raw-water pump to come in, and
then is going to head east to St Martin to haul out
and have through-hulls replaced and bottom painted.
This is his first trip in this boat, a Pearson 34 he
got very cheaply in Luperon, and he says it doesn't
sail well, so he's looking to sell it.  He has charts
but not a guidebook, so I gave him some info about
various anchorages and boatyards in the VI's.

He left Luperon about 3 weeks ago, and says there are
far fewer boats there for this hurricane season than
for the last season.  The people in town are complaining
that business is suffering.

Told him I was about to try a self-haircut using an
electric clipper I just bought, and right away he said
"takes two weeks for a bad haircut to grow out". 
Guess he has the voice of experience.

Back to the boat by 7.  Too late to cook dinner,
so cheese-and-crackers for dinner.

Warm and completely still night again.  Hard to sleep,
and developed a headache.


7/12/2006 (Wednesday)
At anchor at Playa Salinas, Puerto Rico.

Headachey.  Loafed all morning.

Stowed some of the extra ground tackle.

Opened up my new haircutting kit and gave myself a
massive haircut.  Despite my Mom's predictions, it
came out pretty well: I don't look any worse than
usual.

Replaced water filter on galley cold water line.

A couple of huge manatees with a 3-foot baby manatee
swimming next to and under the boat, occasionally
bumping the hull.  I seem to be in prime manatee
habitat here; I guess they like very shallow water
with a goopy bottom.

Salad and chicken-onion-rice for dinner.


7/13/2006 (Thursday)
At anchor at Playa Salinas, Puerto Rico.

Still headachey.

Added water to batteries.  Started engine and ran
it for 10 minutes to exercise it.

Water on floor of engine compartment and across top
of fuel tank; I get that when there's a very hard
rain.  Still some serious deck leak somewhere.

Set up my Sirius satellite radio, and it doesn't
seem to lock onto the satellite signal for more
than 10-20 seconds at a time; spends most of the
time saying "Acquiring Signal".  It did connect
long enough to "download channels" a couple of
times.  Will have to fiddle with it and cure this
before I think about starting a subscription.

Lots of boat work to do; the top of the list looks
like: jib, auto-pilot, stuffing box, engine zinc,
oil change, make boarding ladder, fix cross-piece
on davits, clean outboard carburetor, propane refill,
fix screens, fix outboard fuel line, bilge pump.

Launched the dinghy.  To "Molasses" and chatted
with Bruce.  Then to "Santana" and chatted with Lee.
Then ashore.  Did half an hour of internet for $2.
Chatted with Paul from "Bare Necessities".  Back to
boat, with headache pounding.

Repacked stuffing box, with GFO Goretex packing.
Went in pretty easily and didn't require much
tightening; looks good.

Got some life out my Sirius satellite radio !  Found
the magic position for the antenna: has to point NNW
at a fairly shallow angle to the horizon.  Signal is
lost if the boat swings very much; get it about 80%
of the time in today's conditions.  Since I'm not
subscribed, all I get is a vague national Weather
channel.

Dinghied over to "Molasses", taking my Sirius radio
with me so we could try to debug Bruce's semi-broken
one.  But we didn't make much progress.  His radio
is stuck on a religious channel.  For some reason,
his works with the antenna pointing straight up;
mine doesn't.  Chatted for a while, and he told me
more Luperon-gossip.  There's been some nasty
infighting since I left, with a couple of cruisers
getting turned in for working without permits.
Work on a third marina halted.

Salad and tuna-salad sandwiches for dinner.

Plenty of rain at 9 PM, then more rain and some wind
at 11 PM as a weak tropical wave came through.
Caught a couple of gallons of water.


7/14/2006 (Friday)
At anchor at Playa Salinas, Puerto Rico.

Headache gone !

Very grey, still, and damp morning.

Replaced engine zinc, cleaned intake strainer, and
mopped up water from engine compartment floor.

Checked my records: somehow I've gone 14 months on
one 17-pound tank of propane.  I just cook one meal
every other evening, so I don't use much fuel.

Dinghied ashore, stopping at "Molasses" to see if
we could get further on the Sirius business.  Turns
out the water-pump he's waiting for is back-ordered,
so Bruce is going to be here a while.  His crew,
Grant, wants to get back to the DR, so is looking
for a way to do that.

Dropped off the propane tank at a filling place.
To the hardware store, and bought a cheap metal
strap (35 cents) to use to fix the bilge pump.  Had
trouble getting the concept of "anti-seize" across
into Spanish, but a customer helped communicate the
idea, and they didn't have any.  Stopped at the
sailmaker's shop, and they had the rigging wire I
need to make a jib pennant.  They weren't thrilled
about cutting a 3-foot length, but I gave them an
extra couple of dollars to make up for it ($7).
Back to the boat.

Called "Molasses" to give Bruce a couple of phone
numbers of marine stores and name of a pump company
so he can try some other ways to get his pump.

Made the jib pennant; hard work to swage sleeves
onto 1/4" 1x19 wire.  Looks good; will wait for a
calm, clear day before installing it and hoisting
the jib.

Drilled holes in the metal strap for mounting
bilge pump and switch.

Dinghied ashore and trundled my luggage-carrier-type
cart to the propane place, and picked up the filled
tank.  $20 for 17 pounds.  Back to the boat.

Had some salad early, then loafed until time to go
ashore to the snack bar for barbecue and happy hour.
The place was crowded and noisy, but fun.  Mostly
locals and tourists, but probably 10 cruisers.  Sat
with Grant and Bruce and Don, and Paul from "Adios",
and John from "Buddy".  Nice conversation.  $10
for a generous plate of barbecued chicken, french
fries, two Cuba Libres and a tip.  Food took a long
time to come and bartenders were very busy, but
a nice time.

Bruce told me another of his conspiracy theories:
the Vietnam war was fought so the CIA could take
over the Golden Triangle's heroin trade and use the
money to finance destabilization of countries such
as Cuba, Honduras, Brazil, etc.  He didn't think much
of my counter that the money to destabilize them is
peanuts compared to the huge money of the drug trade;
where has the extra money gone ?  He was in the 1st
Cav in Vietnam, in the air-evac part I think, saw
lots of action and lots of wounded, and is mad that
all of that was done so the CIA could get the drug
money.

Bruce and Grant bought hammocks at a Farmacia nearby.
I want to do that too, but looking around my boat,
I'm not sure where I would hang it from.  From forestay
to mainmast ?  But how to attach it to the forestay ?
Want to avoid a sideways point-load on the forestay
that might deform it a little.  Maybe hang the hammock
under the mizzen-boom ?  Would have to close the aft
hatch to get clearance.

Paul from "Adios" was pretty interesting: he's been
living aboard since 1980, cruising since mid-90's,
and has circled the Caribbean twice in the last 7 years.


7/15/2006 (Saturday)
At anchor at Playa Salinas, Puerto Rico.

Rained at 3:45, then a long steady rain starting at
5:30.  Caught a couple of gallons of water.

Totally grey, still, and damp morning.

Blew two fuses on the laptop power connector before I
found some loose wire strands that were shorting in
certain positions.

Paul from "Adios" stopped by to give me some books.
Funny: when I tried to give him some recent New York
Times magazine sections in return, he immediately
said "oh, I don't read those".  I offered again, and
right away "no, I don't read those".  Wonder if it's
because they're from a "liberal" publication ?  He
was happy to take a National Geographic magazine.
[Heard later: he's sort of aggressively apolitical;
doesn't want to read any news of any kind.]

His loss; some of the NYT articles are fantastic.
Just read an article about digitizing all the books
in the world to make a cross-linked electronic
universal library.  One thing I found interesting:
It said about 15% of all "catalogued" books are
public-domain (copyright expired), 10% are in print,
and the remaining 75% are "orphaned" (copyright and
ownership status unclear and very hard to determine,
because Congress unexpectedly extended copyright
protection to 70 years after death of author, and
many old contracts were lost or unclear and authors
and old publishing companies have vanished).

"Fidelis" came in at 11.

Had to drill one hole bigger, then assembled bilge
pump and switch and put them down in the bilge.
Didn't work; pump doesn't seem to be moving water;
wonder if pump impeller is hitting the screws.  Will
have to mess with it some more.

Cleaned outboard motor spark plugs.  Then messed with
fuel connector a bit, and found that the slot that
the other connector latches into was caked full of
waxy gunk.  Cleaned that out and hoped that may fix
the problem.

Dinghied ashore, and I think maybe the motor is
running a little better.  Onto the bike, and found
some kind of small festival starting in the tiny
waterfront "park" right here in Playa Salinas,
making for lots of car-traffic piling up.  Kept
going, because there's supposed to be a big
festival in the main town.  Soon found it's actually
in a huge park pretty close by, so I stopped and
looked for a while.  Not much happening, just a lot
of people and loud music and some gift-shop booths.
Probably will be in full swing at 9 PM, but it's
only 3 PM now.  Some pretty women.

Took a little spin around the main town, to see a
few parts I haven't seen and get a little exercise,
but it's hot and humid and windy and there's lots
of car-traffic, so not much fun.  Got groceries at
the supermarket and headed back.  Stopped again to
watch the festival for a few minutes.  Met Annie
from Fidelis back near the marina, and she said
it's not a seafood festival, it's more of a
fish-sauce festival.  Apparently, Salinas has two
claims to fame: an international speedway, and some
lady here years ago invented a spicy fish-sauce.

Back to the boat.  Managed to get good reception for
two hours of BBC radio, which was very nice.  I've
been starved for news ever since I got back; no
radio or newspaper.

Watched a rowboat full of locals (actually, two
couples) fishing all afternoon near the mangroves.
They had a long net (maybe 100 yards long) hanging
under floats, all along the mangroves about 50 feet
out, and were slowly rowing along inside it and
thumping a plunger into the water to scare up fish
so they'd get caught in the net.  A long slow
process, and there didn't seem to be much in the net
when they gathered it up, although I didn't see the
last 50 feet or so of net come up; maybe all the
fish ended up there.

Salad and cheese-and-crackers and a beer for dinner.


7/16/2006 (Sunday)
At anchor at Playa Salinas, Puerto Rico.

Finally a clear, sunny day !  Very still early on:
I dropped a stray piece of saltine into the water,
and could see the tiny ripples spread out in a
perfect circle more than 10 feet in radius before
they started to fade out.

Did a small bucket of laundry.  Threw away the
bottom sheet from my bed: bucket-washing just
wasn't enough to get it clean any more.

Put up the new/used jib and the new jib pennant,
unfurled and furled the sail, and it looks good !
Got the length of the pennant just right: sail
clears the bow rail by a few inches.

Took the shelf out of the anchor chain locker.
This item wasn't on the top of the priority list,
but I need to cut the shelf down so it sits lower
and chain doesn't "pyramid" so badly.  Since all
the rope rode is still on deck, this is a
convenient time to do it.  A tough job, since I
made the shelf out of that heavy 1" outdoor-deck
wood, the stuff that's arsenic-impregnated, I think.
Needs heavy wood because it has 150 pounds of chain
sitting on it in a bow that heaves up and down.

After lunch, dinghied over to "Fidelis" and gave
them about $40 worth of stuffing-box packing that
is the wrong size for my boat but right for theirs.

Went ashore and caught up with Bruce and Grant from
"Molasses" at the Cruisers Galley cafe; gave Bruce
a couple of maps of the USVI's and BVI's, since he
has no guidebooks.  He's still trying to figure out
the right part number for a raw water pump and its
rebuild kit for his engine.  Since he has a very
common engine, a Yanmar 3GM-30, I can't believe
he's having so much trouble getting this straight.
A semi-local dealer has it on back-order for him,
but I guess they didn't give him the part number,
and he's trying to find another way to get a pump
faster.  His engine parts manual doesn't give the
number, and they were having trouble finding clear
info on the internet.

Totally grey and trying to rain by 4 PM, but it
never did rain.

Salad and chicken-onion-rice and a rum-and-coke
for dinner.


7/17/2006 (Monday)
At anchor at Playa Salinas, Puerto Rico.

Another sunny day, with a fair amount of cloud.
Supposed to be lots of squalls coming tomorrow.

Listened to Chris Parker's weather (every day
except Sunday, a little after 0700 on 8137 SSB).
They had emergency traffic: boat "Sureno" off the
north coast of the DR between Samana and Puerto
Plata has lost its rudder and wants to know
where to go for repairs.  The consensus seems to
be: nowhere in the DR; head for Providenciales
in the Turks and Caicos.  They're in a boat
facilities "dead zone".

Got out the sabre-saw, turned on the inverter, and
started sawing on the anchor chain shelf, sitting in
the cockpit.  Slow, hard work, since the wood is
dense and the cuts have to be made with the blade
angled 45 degrees over, so the side of the shelf
sort of fits the curve of the hull.  Took about
90 minutes to cut two slat edges at 45 degrees and
the third edge straight up and down, with plenty of
rests to try to let me and the saw and the inverter
cool down a bit.  Lots of dirt from the shelf and
sawdust from the wood.

"Fidelis" left around 10, to go back out into the
mangroves east of here.  They like it there: quieter
and water is cleaner.  They'll be back for the
Friday barbecue at the snack bar.

Fitted the shelf into the bow and realized the third
slat edge needs to be at 45 degrees too.  Chiseled
out the top half of a shelf-support 2x4 glued against
the hull in the bow, since the shelf will sit lower
on top of it.  Started sawing again, and pretty
soon I pressed too hard and the saw bogged down and
the fuse on the inverter blew.  Took a rest, then
went to get the fuse out of the inverter, and found
that the inverter is pretty toasty-hot.  The saw is
very warm too.  Decided to quit for today.

After lunch, dinghied ashore and went to Cruiser's
Galley.  Gave Grant about $3 worth of Dominican pesoes
I had left over; he's flying back there tomorrow.
Loaned my PR and VI guidebooks to Bruce so he can
take notes from them, since he doesn't have any
guidebooks.  He's still working on his pump thing,
and hasn't had time to look up his Sirius info (I
want to buy the remainder of his Sirius subscription
from him, since his equipment died).

Did half an hour of internet ($2).  My WiFi antenna
cable has arrived in NJ; took 3 weeks for the Post
Office to carry an envelope containing a 6-inch cable
across the country.  Exuma Grouper in La Parguera has
just signed up for a PO Box there, so I guess they're
going to stay there for a while !

A little embarrassing: as I started to leave the
cafe, saw a couple who looked familiar.  Did I know
them from Bahamas ?  St Thomas ?  The BVI's ?  Asked
them, and it turned out to be the couple from
"Meridian Chaser", anchored 200 feet behind me for
the last 4 weeks !  Okay, I haven't seen them in
person for several weeks, and we've never really met
much, but I still felt stupid.

Back to the dinghy, and the outboard still stumbles
and chokes when throttled up.  So the fuel connector
cleaning didn't fix it.

Took a handsaw to the anchor chain shelf, and the
cutting went faster than with the sabre saw !

Salad and cheese-and-crackers for dinner.

To bed early; for some reason, I can't keep my eyes
open.


7/18/2006 (Tuesday)
At anchor at Playa Salinas, Puerto Rico.

Spent all morning carving and fitting and carving and
fitting the anchor chain shelf.  Finally got it into
acceptable shape, although I wish it would sit another
couple of inches lower.  But that would mean more
major cutting, and I just don't have the energy for
it now.  Painted the cut edges and set it to dry.
It will sit about 2 inches lower than it did before.

Around 10, it was "Wild Kingdom" out here !  Two pairs
of manatees thrashing around and churning up lots of
mud, mating, I guess.  And several large dolphin
chasing some 9-inch-long fish around, coming very
close alongside my boat.  I'm told they try to trap
fish up again the sides of boats.

Pulled the primary bilge pump up, and it's spinning
okay, but the switch doesn't shut it off as I'd expect.
Grabbed some debris up out of the bilge with a long
grabber-thing, but that's hard work: the bottom of
the bilge is pretty far down there.  Put the pump back
down and tested it, and it doesn't seem to suck water
properly.

Tried to get the fuse out of the inverter, but it's
in a very awkward position.  Tried to get pliers on
its cap, and got a nice spark.  The idiot who designed
this thing put huge metal knurled knobs on the DC
terminals, just begging to be shorted by anything that
comes near them.

At 1, Bruce stopped by with lots of news.  He dropped
Grant off at the airport this morning as planned, but
his water pump came in yesterday and was the right
part !  Ouch: $350.  He installed it and his engine is
running fine.  So he's planning to leave for Culebra
tomorrow morning.  Gave him my Sirius number to try to
put into his subscription; hope it works.  Will have
to get my guidebooks back from him this evening.

Dinghied ashore around 1:45, and caught up with Bruce
in the cafe.  He managed to log on to his Sirius
account, but it looks like they don't let you delete
one radio from the subscription and then add another
in it's place.  I had him send a question in to customer
support, but who knows how long that will take ?  Worse,
I did a Google search and found lots of customer
complaints about these radios running hot and dying
prematurely, with little or no satisfaction from the
manufacturer.  Actually, most complaints were about
the XACT XTR1, not the XACT XTR3 that we have.  But
Bruce's XTR3 dies after 4 months or so, and mine
definitely runs hot.

So now it looks like he's stuck with a useless
subscription with 6 months left, and I'm wondering if
I should just write off the $30 it cost to buy my unit.
I certainly don't want to sign up for a 1-year contract.

Biked into town, and looked for anti-seize in an
auto-parts store and a small hardware store.  Lots of
confusion about what I was asking for in both places,
and no luck.  To supermarket for groceries (I was almost
out of rum; I think they revoke your cruiser status if
your boat is found without rum on it).  Back to the boat.

Bruce stopped by to return the two tourist-brochure
maps to me, but he can keep those.  I need my $70 worth
of guidebooks back, and I'm a little anxious because
he'll be leaving early tomorrow for Culebra.

Salad and spaghetti and rum-and-coke for dinner.

Lots of heat-lightning up in the clouds in various
directions.  We never did have the squalls that were
forecast for today.  Bruce said a tropical wave came
through over land in the afternoon, but I don't
believe it.  [I guess he was right; next morning,
weather radio said wave was over Hispaniola at 71W.]

Got my guidebooks back from Bruce at about 9 PM, and
then he said he probably isn't leaving first thing
tomorrow anyway.  He spent the evening doing some
kind of buying and selling of stuff with some guys
at the cafe, and needs to get some money tomorrow
from one of them.

Lightning and thunder over us at 3:15, and light rain
starting at 3:30, but hardly any wind.


7/19/2006 (Wednesday)
At anchor at Playa Salinas, Puerto Rico.

Grey and still and wet morning.  Sun peeking through.

Looked up at 10:15, and Bruce was gone.  Must have
left after 9:30 or so.  I guess he doesn't mind
arriving after dark.

Put the shelf into the anchor chain locker and wound
some of the rope rode onto the spool.

Heard from Bruce around 10:45, and he's coming back
in.  Had failures in "several systems".

Put the mizzensail back up.  Hot and very muggy;
sapping the energy right out of me.

Bruce got back in before 11:15.  He says the auto-
pilot failed, then the engine blew black smoke and
then white smoke, then he couldn't roll the jib out
all the way.  So he came back.  The engine problem
sounds really bad, but he said something about maybe
being able to try to leave again tomorrow morning !
I'm not quite sure why he's so motivated to get to
St Martin; he's told the boatyard there is good,
he needs to replace throughhulls and so on, and I
think he wants to sell the boat afterward, or maybe
dash down to Trinidad.

Pulled the primary bilge pump up, cleaned it off,
and took the bottom plate off.  Not clogged, but
when I use the "test" function of the switch, the
pump whines a little and doesn't spin.  Cut the
wires and jumped it straight from the batteries,
and it spins fine.  Put the leads into the connector
in the wire, and it spins fine, so the wiring to
that point is okay.  Could be the other half of the
connector, but more likely the switch has failed.
It's a solid-state switch, and has worked fine for
21 months.  I was told this kind of switch either
dies quickly or works forever.

Dinghied ashore after lunch, and did half an hour
of internet ($2) at the cafe.  Sat reading a book
on a bench in the marina, and chatted with John
from "Buddy".  It's a big trimaran, and he designed
and built it himself; he's built about a dozen boats.
Turns out he just came up from La Parguera, where he
met my friends on "Exuma Grouper".  He's going to
Culebra for hurricane season, and will dash back here
if a hurricane threatens.  We didn't have too much
time to chat; lots of low dark rainclouds started
coming over.

But I did see Bruce just before I went back out to
the boat.  Not sure if he's fixed his jib, and his
auto-pilot still is failing, but his engine looks
good.  He can't find anything wrong with any of
the fluids, so that rules out the horrible scenarios
of cracked block or blown head gasket.  Now he says
the engine surged up a couple of hundred RPM, then
he saw just a puff of black smoke followed by a puff
of white smoke.  So I suggested maybe a pulse of air
and water went through his fuel system.  He's going
to leave again tomorrow morning.

Back to the boat, and at 4 PM it started raining
fairly hard every half hour or so.  At least that
cooled things down a little.

Fixed main hatch screen a bit.

Salad and tuna-salad sandwiches for dinner.


7/20/2006 (Thursday)
At anchor at Playa Salinas, Puerto Rico.

Sunny and still morning.

Loafed most of the day.

"Molasses" didn't leave today; haven't talked
to Bruce to find out why.

Investigated the bilge pump some more.  Bypassed
the switch, and it still doesn't work.  No voltage
downstream of the connector.  Cut the connector
out, fastened the wires, and it works.  Need to
buy a new connector.

Turned on the auto-pilot, put it in manual-steer
mode, and the electric motor doesn't spin when I
press buttons for turns, I just hear the relays
clicking.  So the motor must be choked with
carbon-dust again, or dying.  Will have to fix
the bilge pump first; it's in the way.

Put the mainsail back up, partly to clear out some
space in the main cabin so I can get to materials
for projects.  Nice to have some space to walk
around in again.  I had stored the sails in the
cabin while I was gone.

Started designing a boarding ladder, a task I've
been noodling about and putting off for a year or
two.  There is a stern ladder, but it's covered
when the dinghy is hoisted.  This discourages me
from swimming, and makes it harder for people to
visit me, and would make it hard to get back
aboard if I fell off the boat while at anchor.
I've been carrying some long 2x4's and short 2x6's
around for a couple of years, partly for this job.

Salad and chicken-onion-rice and a rum-and-coke
for dinner.

Thought about the boarding ladder design during
the night, slowly refining it to use less wood
and simpler parts.  I'm homing in on a two-triangle
design.  The face of the ladder will be a wood
triangle with the widest step at top and a narrow
step at the bottom, underwater.  It will hang by
two ropes from two of the stanchion bases.  From
the bottom, a horizontal triangle will hinge out to
stand against the hull of the boat and keep the
ladder from swinging underneath when a person is
using it.  This second triangle will have two
wood legs from bottom of ladder to hull, and a
rope third leg running fore-aft along the hull.
Two more ropes will run from the hull-based
corners of this triangle up to the ends of the
widest step at the top of the ladder triangle.

The whole thing might be a bit loose against the
hull until a person's weight is put on it.  And
I'll want the bottom step out further than the
top step, so a swimmer can lean forward slightly
while climbing.


7/21/2006 (Friday)
At anchor at Playa Salinas, Puerto Rico.

Let out rode on primary anchor and raised secondary
anchor.  Took more than 45 minutes, because I had
to scrape barnacles and wash sticky mud off the
chain before letting it down into the chain locker.
Took a rest, then started engine and raised primary
anchor.  Ran aground in the mud about 15 feet before
I got up to the anchor, but was able to pull it out
and then back away.

Decided to try anchoring over near the marina, an
area I haven't anchored before.  I know several
people anchored over there; it will be nice to be
near them, and nice to have a shorter dinghy ride
in.  But mainly I want to stay further away from
the mangroves; it was getting a bit buggy in the
old place.  Finished anchoring by 9:45, at
lat 17.57.568 long 66.17.558   Daily wind started
blowing just after I got done.  Nice to be back
on one anchor, able to pick up and move fairly
easily.

"Fidelis" and "Nonesuch" came in about 10:15.  I
think "Nonesuch" said his old mooring is under the
transom of some anchored sailboat.  A lot of these
old-time cruisers have moorings in several harbors,
some of which they haven't been to in years.  A
mooring here has "Smidgeon" written on it; I met
Kenny on "Smidgeon" in Luperon a year ago, he's
still there, and I don't think he's been here in
several years.  Unused moorings aren't a problem
here because there's plenty of space, but in some
tight harbors they're really irritating.

Took inverter out, replaced fuse, and put inverter
back in.  A real pain of a job, since the thing
weighs a ton (although it's only 500-watt), and is
wedged up under a counter inside a cabinet.
Replaced the big metal DC knobs with small nuts,
and covered them with liquid insulation so they're
not such an invitation to a short.

Dinghied ashore after lunch.  Exchanged books in
the marina.  To marine store, bought anti-seize ($8),
and found their electrical connectors and hardware
for ladder were too expensive.  To cafe, and did
half an hour of internet ($2).  Got a couple of
English-language newspapers from the book exchange
shelf; first I've read in a couple of weeks.  Sat
on a bench in the marina and read one of them.

Back to boat, and within 5 minutes the guy from
"Nancy Ann" nearby was over to ask how much anchor
rode I had out, he had 120 feet, he hoped we didn't
have a problem when the breeze changed.  He's out
of his mind; we're miles apart.  I think he's the
guy I heard jawing at a trawler before I left for
NJ, concerned that they were anchored upwind of him.

Five minutes later, he's back to say that he heard
me on the radio with Bruce on "Molasses" a few days
ago, and he's really upset with Bruce about how he
drives his dinghy too fast, ignoring the 5 MPH and
no-wake and manatee-zone restrictions.  He's had
harsh words with Bruce about it, and maybe as
Bruce's friend I could warn him that this guy will
"take positive action" next time he sees Bruce
doing it.  I tell him I agree with him, but don't
get me in the middle of it !

Salad and cheese-and-crackers for dinner.

At 7, dinghied ashore to snack bar in the marina.
I didn't do the barbeque this time, but had a
couple of $1 happy-hour drinks while chatting with
Bruce and Paul and Dave and Annie.  Fun.  Pumped
Paul for information about Honduras, Jamaica,
Venezuela, hurricanes, etc.  After each of these
conversations with well-traveled people, I update
my web pages with information I've gleaned.

Bruce and Paul went for a sail today on John's big
trimaran "Buddy".  It's the 12th or 14th boat he's
designed and built.  They said he apologized when
the max speed they could get was 16.5 knots !  He
said the fastest he'd sailed it was 22 or so, I
think.

While looking through my English/Spanish phrasebook
the other day for "anti-seize", I found a whole
section on "sex".  I brought it to the snack bar
and showed it to them, and they had a good laugh
over some of the phrases.  The section has the
phrase "It helps to have a sense of humour"
(Ayuda tener un sentido de humor) !  Also
"Easy, tiger!" (Con calma!).


7/22/2006 (Saturday)
At anchor at Playa Salinas, Puerto Rico.

Catamaran "D+D" behind me raised anchor and moved
a couple of hundred feet down the harbor.  There's
another tropical wave coming through today; maybe
they were afraid I was going to drag down on them.
I wasn't too close, and I'm not going to drag.
And most of these waves don't give us more than
25 knots of wind anyway.

Loafed, finishing off a John Grisham novel that I
can't put down.

Crimped connectors onto bilge pump wiring.  Switch
doesn't work, but pump runs when I bypass the
switch.  Time to get a new switch.

Dinghied ashore.  Biked to marine store and bought
a bilge pump switch ($36).  They didn't have any
solid-state ones, so I bought one that moves but
is enclosed.

Biked to supermarket and bought groceries.

Salad and chicken-onion-rice and a beer for dinner.


7/23/2006 (Sunday)
At anchor at Playa Salinas, Puerto Rico.

Blew fairly hard all day.

Installed new bilge pump switch, and it works okay.
Might re-mount it later to see if I can get it 1/4"
lower, so the remaining water in the bilge is lower,
but I don't feel like messing it with it right now.
It works.

Took the electric motor out of the auto-pilot box
in the engine compartment.  A struggle as usual; had
to loosen the bolts mounting the box to the wall to
get enough clearance to wiggle the motor out.
Before that, struggled to get the pulley off the
shaft.

Connected the motor to batteries, and it spun just
fine.  Took it apart anyway, and it's not choked
with dust or anything.  The front bearing definitely
needs replacing, since it feels rough when it spins,
but that's not keeping it from working.  So now I
don't know why the auto-pilot is not working.

Lots of local boat traffic today; in fact, lots
of traffic every weekend.  For some reason, summer
is the prime season here, busy with boats and
people in the hotels and busy at the rental-car
place.  I thought winter would be the big season,
with tourists fleeing cold weather elsewhere.

Salad and peanut-butter-crackers for dinner.


7/24/2006 (Monday)
At anchor at Playa Salinas, Puerto Rico.

Tapped the other end of the shaft out of the
auto-pilot motor housing, managing to damage that
bearing in the process.  So now I definitely need
to replace the bearings.

Climbed on top of the pilothouse to look at cracks
that may be letting rainwater in.  Several cracks
that need fixing, but I'm not sure they would be
letting water through.  Will have to sand and epoxy
and paint up there.

Dinghied ashore and took rotor of auto-pilot motor
to get new bearings.  No luck at marine store or
local hardware store.  Biked into town and went to
an auto-parts store.  Nothing in stock, but they'll
order the bearings.  Should be in by Thursday morning.

Biked to a supermarket and shopping plaza I've never
been to, and bought some groceries.  Back to Playa
Salinas, to the cafe, and did half an hour of
internet ($2).

Saw Bruce, and he found out Sirius will switch his
subscription from one radio to another for a $60 fee !
A rip-off, but he seems willing to do it.  I offered
to sell him my radio for $20, and he agreed.  Cost
me $30, but I think the Sirius mess is something I
don't want to get into.

Bruce is thinking of staying here, giving up on
going to St Martin.  A long slog to windward and then
an exposed position during hurricane season.  But
he needs to get into a boatyard to paint the bottom
and have lots of through-hull work done.  I suggested
the yard at Ponce.

My WiFi cable came in from NJ !  Back to the boat,
hot and sweaty.  Blowing hard again this afternoon.

Put together my new WiFi card, just-arrived cable,
and Cantenna antenna, and ... got one fleeting
WiFi signal that was encrypted, and soon gone.
Didn't think there was any WiFi here.  Will have
to try somewhere else to see if the $140 or so
I've invested in this actually yields any
improvement over the 3Com card I had already.

Thought some more about Sirius, then went over to
Bruce's boat and sold my equipment to him for $20.
The fickle signal, and the likelihood of my radio
dying halfway through the subscription, and the
fees charged by Sirius, just made it not worth the
hassle.  I'm getting a little BBC radio most days,
and some news from internet, and an occasional
leftover newspaper, and that'll have to do.  Too
bad; would have been nice if Sirius worked.

Lots of local boat traffic this afternoon and
evening.  Bruce says there are a couple of local
holidays this week, and also he heard that Miss
Puerto Rico is a local Salinas woman, and she
just won the Miss Universe contest, so people
have been celebrating that.

Salad and spaghetti and rum-and-coke for dinner.


7/25/2006 (Tuesday)
At anchor at Playa Salinas, Puerto Rico.

Up on top of the pilothouse around 8 AM, and sanded
cracks.  Then mixed epoxy and tried to seal them
with it.

Loafed most of the day.

Wind blowing very hard all afternoon.

Got out tape measure and wood and thought a bit
more about how to make a boarding ladder.

Tested the auto-pilot circuitry, and sure enough, I
had a switch set wrong when I was testing it before;
there probably was nothing wrong with the motor.
The relays I heard clicking were the "compass motor
box" relays in the aft cabin, not the direct motor
relays in the engine compartment.  Don't get voltage
from the relays in the engine compartment until I
set that switch correctly.

Salad and cheese-and-crackers for dinner.


7/26/2006 (Wednesday)
At anchor at Playa Salinas, Puerto Rico.

Added water to batteries.  Ran engine for 10 minutes
to warm the oil, then did an oil change.  The
smoothest, cleanest, quickest oil change I've ever
done.  Took about 1 hour, used the electric pump.
Didn't get quite as much oil as I'd like, a little
less than 7 quarts of the 10 quarts total.  And I
cut one corner: left the old O-ring in the oil
filter housing.  Ran the engine, and no leaks from
the housing !  No oil in the bilge.  Nice.

Exactly one year since my previous oil change, and
I've put 240 hours on the engine in that year.
Very low hours, mainly due to sitting in Luperon for
the hurricane season, living on solar power.

Cut several pieces of wood for a boarding ladder.
Sawdust makes a tremendous mess in the cockpit.

Wind blowing hard again this afternoon.

Dinghied ashore.  Did half an hour of internet ($2).
A faithful reader offered me a free 1-year subscription
to Sirius !  Bad timing; just sold my equipment.  But
told him if it's going to go to waste, please activate
the radio so Bruce can use it.  A little later, found
that Bruce has already talked to Sirius four times,
trying to get his subscription switched over to use
the new radio.  Hope the two efforts don't conflict.

Bruce says his anchor dragged in the high wind
yesterday afternoon, when he wasn't aboard.  It
dragged quite a distance, and a couple of neighbors
came aboard to stabilize it (I guess by letting out
more anchor rode).

Sat on a bench in the marina reading newspapers for
a while.  Bruce was right: the new Miss Universe is
a local girl.

Salad and chili and rum-and-coke for dinner.

Wind shifting to N, making me swing close to
"Honey Bee".  But it's going to shift back to E and
blow hard for the next several days.


7/27/2006 (Thursday)
At anchor at Playa Salinas, Puerto Rico.

Totally grey, with lots of low rainclouds.  A strong
tropical wave is coming through, I think.  Rain and
wind gusting to 30+ knots around 8 AM.  Totally grey
and often rainy the rest of the morning.  Took a
sponge and washed the inside of the pilothouse a bit.
Was supposed to bike into town to get my auto-pilot
motor bearings this morning, but I'm not going in
this weather.

Added 1/2 quart of oil to the engine.

By noon, the wind eased and the rain stopped,
although the low solid grey clouds persisted.

After lunch, dinghied ashore and biked into town.
To the auto-parts store.  At first, they said they
were unable to get the bearings I needed.  But they
meant their distributor hadn't had them in stock;
shipment should come in tomorrow.  So I'll check
back on Saturday.

Got groceries, and biked back to the playa and
dinghied out to the boat.  Glad the rain held off.

Salad and cheese-sandwich for dinner.


7/28/2006 (Friday)
At anchor at Playa Salinas, Puerto Rico.

Batteries a little low this morning, down to 12.25
because of little sun yesterday.  Lots of sun this
morning, although lots of haze too.

Wind blowing pretty hard by 9 AM.

Cut and sanded wood and tacked it together with
nails to form the main outline of the boarding
ladder.  A messy job.  Used a handsaw; it seems to
work a lot better than the power sabre-saw.  I'm
working with 2x4's, and picked the lightest ones
out of my stockpile so the ladder would be lighter
and the sawing would be easier.

Stowed anchor rode.

Dinghied ashore and did half an hour of internet ($2),
then sat reading for a while on a bench in the marina.

Salad for dinner on the boat, then ashore for
barbecue and drinks at the snack bar.  Nice time
talking with Paul, John, Dave, Annie, Steve.  Terrific
food this time: I had the beef ribs, which were big
and greasy and delicious.  $9 for ribs and two drinks
and a tip.

Don told us he has a mongoose on his boat; he got
it from another cruiser so he could get rid of a rat.
The mongoose found and killed the rat in 20 seconds
flat, but now the problem is that Don has a mongoose
on his boat !  It's pretty nasty: it slashed Don on
the leg as he was getting it back into its cage.

Lots of talk about hurricanes and hurricane strategies;
we can't seem to get off this topic.


7/29/2006 (Saturday)
At anchor at Playa Salinas, Puerto Rico.

Raining from 4:30 to 8, then occasionally after that.
Totally grey and socked-in and dim morning.  Caught
a couple of gallons of water.

Put a new power cord on my shortwave radio receiver,
a task I've been meaning to do for months.  I bought
the piece of cable I needed for this job in St Thomas
on March 5 !

In the afternoon, weather still solidly clouded and
threatening, but no rain.  So I dinghied ashore and
biked into town, to the auto-parts store.  There,
they said "no, we can't get the bearings for you",
and handed my motor-rotor back to me !  So much for
"the distributor has a shipment coming on Friday".
There's supposed to be a bearing and gasket place
in Ponce, but probably the best option is to order
them through the internet.  Guess I should have
done that in the first place.

To the supermarket for a few groceries, then back to
the boat.  Very sweaty bike-riding in this very
humid weather.

Started researching auto-pilots.  I need a backup,
and I'm looking at simple wheel-pilots that would
attach right to the steering wheel; they're in the
$1000 range.  Then for the main auto-pilot, I could:
1- fix existing 30-year-old Benmar belowdecks pilot,
2- buy a second wheel-pilot as a spare ($1000), or
3- keep Benmar electric motor and hydraulics, but
replace smarts with new stuff (probably $1500+).

I could buy the backup wheel-pilot now and start using
it while trying to fix the Benmar.  If the wheel-pilot
works really well, go with option 2 instead of 3.

Salad and cheese-and-crackers for dinner.

Started reading an interesting book by David Brinkley.
He grew up in Wilmington NC; I've cruised there.  One
incident in his life struck me: he went into the Army
in 1940, got discharged because of a non-existent
kidney ailment, and later his company of all hometown
boys went into France after D-day.  A month later,
a flight of US bombers couldn't find their target,
dropped their bombs anyway, and killed 245 out of 250
men in the company, plus the commanding general of
all Army ground forces.

Tropical wave came through at midnight, with lots of
strong wind and tons of rain.  Wind eased after half
an hour or so, but steady solid rain kept going until
4:30.  Around 2 AM, I was investigating deck leaks
with a flashlight.  I think the starboard-front joint
where the pilothouse meets the cockpit is leaking
(again).


7/30/2006 (Sunday)
At anchor at Playa Salinas, Puerto Rico.

Grey and still and humid again, but a little brighter
than yesterday morning.  I was getting almost NO solar
power yesterday morning.

Nick from "Nancy Ann" came by again, worried again
about how we'll swing in various winds.  Again I
offered to move.  I'm thinking of moving out of the
harbor for a couple of days to scrape the hull anyway.
We chatted for a long time.  He's nervous about the
anchoring because his transmission has been out being
repaired for a month or so; he just got it back
yesterday, and is working to put it in.  He told me
some stories about sailing misadventures on the
Mississippi River near St Louis.  Once, he and a
bunch of drunk buddies almost got killed when their
trimaran got nailed under the bow of a tow moving
upstream.  They scrambled off the boat and onto the
barges, then watched as one ama of the trimaran kept
getting pushed under the front of the barges and then
popping back up.  The captain of the tugboat was
yelling at them through loudspeakers, the deckhands
were trying to copy down their registration numbers.
Eventually the tow halted, the boat popped up again,
and they scrambled back on and took off.  It was
listing and damaged, and it took a while to get the
outboard started again, but they got to the boat-ramp
and trailered it out.

Dinghied ashore and did half an hour of internet ($2).
Frustrating: couldn't find exactly the bearings I need
on a couple of bearing web sites, so had to send email
to the companies.  You'd think you'd be able to type
in the dimensions and have a part number and price
come up.

Salad and chicken-onion-beans and rum-and-coke for dinner.


7/31/2006 (Monday)
At anchor at Playa Salinas, Puerto Rico.

Nice, sunny, breezy morning.  Out early and took the
trim off the starboard-forward corner of the pilothouse.
Scraped and pried and wiped out caulk, then rebedded it
with new caulk.  Also caulked some splits in the wood
upright on the port-aft corner, and then caulked the
bottom back onto a looking-glass-bucket I made a long
time ago and used briefly before it broke.

Weather report says something about a storm in the
east Caribbean; have to keep an eye on it.  It's
supposed to track right over us, but maybe with only
35-knot winds.

At noon, got a radio call from "Exuma Grouper"; they've
driven up here from La Parguera and are at the marina.
So I go ashore to see them.  We go to the Cruiser's
Galley and meet some other people and have lunch;
very nice.  I find out Dave on "Fidelis" has already
bolted into the mangrove creeks in Jobos; he wants
to be there first in case this storm develops into
a hurricane.

The crew from "Exuma Grouper" like La Parguera except
that no other cruisers are there.  So they're a bit
starved for conversation.  We have a good time catching
up on news and gossip and such, and they treat me to
lunch (a delicious BBQ pork sandwich, yum).  They're
not sure what their longer-term plans are: Paula wants
to go to Trinidad, Amanda wants to go back to Canada,
Doug maybe to Bahamas.  I tell them again that they
shouldn't miss the Virgin Islands, now that they're
so close.

I didn't realize they had stopped at Mona Island on
the way over from the DR; they loved it, and spent a
week there.  Unfortunately, a couple of bunches of
Cuban and DR refugees landed on the island and more
were stopped nearby, so they didn't do a lot of
exploring.  But they said the snorkeling was great,
and all of the law-enforcement activity was entertaining.

Did some internet (free with the meal).  That storm
isn't being tracked as anything by the web sites.
No response from one bearing company, and another said
they "can't place these bearings", whatever that means.
Sent email to three more stores.

Peanut-butter crackers for dinner.


8/1/2006 (Tuesday)
At anchor at Playa Salinas, Puerto Rico.

Listening to weather forecasts, trying to find out
what is happening with that storm in the east
Caribbean.  But can't get the BBC, and the local
VHF WX is still giving the forecast from yesterday
afternoon.  Very faint reception on Chris Parker,
but it seems Tropical Storm Chris will go north of
Puerto Rico, missing us here on the south coast.
There will be some 40-knot squalls behind it, with
wind from several unusual directions such as SW,
which we may get.  TS Chris may strengthen north of
us and hit Bahamas as a hurricane.

I decided to move the boat anyway.  If the storm
changes direction a little, or those 40-knot squalls
are a little stronger than expected, I don't want to
be in tight quarters and deepish water.  And Nick on
"Nancy Ann" next door is already nervous.

So I started the engine and raised anchor at 7:30.  The
anchor was well set; took a few minutes of winching
to get it loose.  Motored over to the far side of the
harbor and anchored in 5 feet of water with plenty of
space to swing, at lat 17.57.322 long 66.17.452
A manatee there to greet me right away.

Ten minutes later, heard Dave on "Fidelis" saying
he's coming back into harbor, the storm's going to
miss us.  Later, heard him change his mind and decide
to stay out in the Jobos mangroves.  "Nonsuch" is out
there too, and around 10 I saw someone else heading
out there.  Around noon, "Santana" was going there,
and someone said "Flashback" is there.  Later found
that "Buddy" is there too.

After lunch, dinghied ashore.  Disposed of used
engine oil.  Tried to buy gasoline, but no attendant
ever showed up in response to the buzzer ringing.
Then another cruiser came in with jugs, and offered
to drive me to the gas station too.  So off we went.
He's Jack from "Don Quixote", and he has a house and
wife ashore.  He's been cruising for one year.  Seemed
to be really eager to talk; he talked nonstop.

The gas station took a while; pretty busy, and we
got gas and diesel.

Back to the marina, and then I took the screens up
to the sailmaker.  All I needed her to do was sew
eight three-foot edges; I'd supplied the new material
and cut it to size already, I'd trim the extra
afterward, very simple.  But she said it would cost
$20, and I couldn't talk her down.  A bit of a
rip-off, but I want to get this job over with, so
I went ahead with it.

To the cruiser's cafe to do half an hour of internet
($2).  Still no luck on the bearings, but in
questioning one of the suppliers, he said 90% of
motor bearings have been metric since Day One.  So
maybe these are metric, and everyone's drawing a
blank because I'm giving them Imperial measurements.
Sent email to the auto-pilot manufacturer and the
motor manufacturer asking about this.

To the sailmaker, and picked up the screens.  They
look fine.

Biked to the supermarket and got groceries.  Back to
the marina, got 5 gallons of water, and out to the
boat.

Heard an unusual weather forecast for tomorrow for
ocean beyond 100-fathom line north of Virgin Islands:
"Wind E 5-8 knots with gusts up to 50 knots".

Salad and spaghetti and rum-and-coke for dinner.


8/2/2006 (Wednesday)
At anchor at Playa Salinas, Puerto Rico.

Overslept and missed the NOAA weather, local VHF WX
unclear but sounds like TS Chris will pass north of
Puerto Rico (good for us), couldn't hear the start of
Chris Parker but heard some of him later.  He was
talking to a boat "Maverick" which is right in the
headlights of the storm, probably in the south part
of the Turks and Caicos, and trying to decide whether
to go north to Provo or south to Luperon.  Wonder
what the heck they're doing out there in hurricane
season ?  Heard a little more info on the local AM
radio.

So the bits and scraps sound like: TS Chris is still
pretty far to the east, near Anguilla, and still has
a lot of variability.  But it's blowing only 60 MPH,
is a little north of us already and moving generally
WNW, and is predicted to go north of PR.  So I'm
comfortable staying where I am, on one anchor, and
I doubt we'll get more than some strong squalls.

Heard some of the boats out in the mangroves.  A
couple of them have internet access, and they don't
have any clearer picture of things than I do.  But
they're planning to come back into the harbor today;
they think nothing's going to happen.

Did a bucket of laundry.

Did a filesystem check on my laptop, and then the
stupid thing wouldn't boot successfully for a couple
of hours.  Tried and tried different things, and
finally got it working again.

Saw Bruce working up on the foredeck of "Molasses",
so went over to say hi and give him a book.  He was
sawing through some anchor chain with a hacksaw,
putting down more anchors in case we get something
from TS Chris.  He tried to go out into the Jobos
mangroves, and his depth-sounder died !  He's really
getting pissed about all the stuff that's breaking
on his boat.

He lent me a caliper to measure my motor bearings,
so I went back and did that.  They're definitely
Imperial sizes, not metric.  And I hadn't realized
that the shaft was different sizes at the two ends.
And one of the bearings has a part number on it;
should have noticed that right away.

Took the caliper back to Bruce, and tried to help
him get an anchor rode unwrapped from around his
keel, but there's a strong current running and we
couldn't snake it free.  Everything's fighting him.
I've been in that situation.

Dinghied ashore under threatening skies, with evil
dark rainclouds over the center of the island and
some thunder coming from there.  Did half an hour
of internet ($2), sending more email to bearing
companies.

Back to boat, and stowed everything for imminent
rain and wind, but it never came.  Just lots of
low threatening clouds and a lighter breeze than
usual for an afternoon here.

Heard Nick yelling on the radio about some boat,
probably a local, passing by him too close for
comfort (that's happened to me a few times; some
of the local boaters don't seem to have much common
sense).  Kind of comical to hear how mad he was.
And I'm sure the other boat didn't even have the
radio on.

Salad and cheese-and-crackers for dinner.

Heard Chris Parker's weather at 7 PM, and TS Chris
is a little further north than I expected (good),
but wandering a little WSW instead of WNW (bad),
but weakening a bit (good).  Still no real threat
to us, I think.


8/3/2006 (Thursday)
At anchor at Playa Salinas, Puerto Rico.

TS Chris is weaker, fairly far to the north, and
not a threat to us any more.  It might go to Luperon.

Totally socked-in, grey and humid with motionless
low dark rainclouds.  Started raining at 9.
"Fidelis" came in at 9:45.

Sewed another layer of screen onto main hatch
screen.

So, looking back at my to-do list of 7/13, I've
accomplished quite a bit.  Now the list looks
like: auto-pilot, make boarding ladder,
strengthen cross-piece on davits, outboard.

"Nonsuch" and "Adios" came back into the harbor.

Rained all day until about 4 PM, with hardly any
wind at all.  Caught lots of water.

Salad and spicy chili and rum-and-coke for dinner.

No rain at all during the night.


8/4/2006 (Friday)
At anchor at Playa Salinas, Puerto Rico.

Socked-in, grey and humid with low dark rainclouds
again.  Rain and some wind from 6 to 7.  But later
a bit brighter than yesterday; getting a little
solar power through the clouds.

"Buddy" came back into the harbor.

Lots of sunshine through the clouds; putting 8-10
amps into the batteries most of the morning and
midday.

Dinghied over to chat with Bruce a little; he just
hauled a 40-lb marine SSB radio to town and back,
to get it diagnosed and parts ordered.  Then to
"Fidelis", where I chatted with Dave for 45 minutes
or so.  Annie is gone for a month or so, and I
think Dave is a little lonely.  Nice chat, and
borrowed a couple of guidebooks from him.  He said
"Wandering Albatross", the boat with a broken
electric motor I last saw in St Thomas, made it
down to Trinidad by sail only.  And they've decided
to bite the bullet and shell out the $3K or so for
a new circuit-board in the motor-controller.
Apparently the motor had a 3-year warranty but the
electronics had only a 1-year warranty.

Looked at Dave's suto-pilot.  He has a wheel-pilot
similar to what I'm thinking of getting as a backup
auto-pilot.  Those wheel-pilots are rated for max
boat displacement of about 19K pounds, and my boat
is about 24K pounds.  But it's been driving his
28K-pound boat for many years with no problem.  The
usual cautions about not working well, and working
very hard, in quartering seas.

Went ashore and did half an hour of internet ($2).
Got some more bearing info, from a guy at a store
who looked up the one part number I found.  He
says both are metric bearings, although he didn't
give me the dimensions, and I don't know how he
determined the part number for the second bearing.
About $6 each, plus $12 for shipping.  I need to
double-check part numbers and dimensions somehow
before I'm willing to order.  And Bruce says I
should buy a bearing-puller so I don't mangle the
bearings.

Heard from "Maranatha".  The boat's moored in
Grenada, Desmond is vacationing in Vancouver, Hiro
is working in Japan.  They're going to cruise the
western Caribbean next winter, and I suspect they
might be going through the Panama Canal at some
point.

"Santana" came back into the harbor at 5.

Salad early, then dinghied ashore later and went
to the marina snack bar for the BBQ and happy hour.
Said hi to Nick and Nancy and Lee, and Nick started
bending our ears again about the shipping problems
he had getting his transmission; it seems to be his
only story these days.  The transmission is in and
works fine.  Lee showed me an LED readling-light
bulb he just got; I want one for my berth, because
the halogen I have puts out so much heat, the last
thing I need on these hot, still nights.

Sat with Paul and John and Bruce and Bob and Dave
and Steve, and had some nice conversation.  Had the
ribs and a couple of drinks, total of $8.  Several
of them are from Michigan, and they talked about
sailing on the Great Lakes, and how many ex-Michigan
people and boats there are cruising down here.  I
met a fair number of ex-Michigan guys in the Keys.

Bruce's Sirius radio is working fine.  He seems to
get better reception than I did when I tried it;
maybe I was doing something wrong.  He has the
antenna on his bimini; I had it on fiberglass of
hull or pilothouse roof.  Maybe it doesn't like
being on fiberglass ?


8/5/2006 (Saturday)
At anchor at Playa Salinas, Puerto Rico.

Beautiful clear, sunny day.

Some radio traffic complaining that Bruce is
violating the low-speed, no-wake, manatee zone
rules again in his dinghy.  Guess I should talk
to him.

Felt headachey; took some pills and loafed all
morning.

Put new spark-plugs in the outboard.

Went over to "Molasses" and chatted with Bruce for
a couple of hours.  Pretty good rain-squall came
through at about 2 PM.  We talked about lots of
things, but he's hard to budge about the
dinghy-speed business; he's got an anti-authority
streak a mile wide.  I tried to emphasize that we
all lose if the police get involved, as some people
are threatening.  But he's stubborn, and sees it as
a power-struggle thing.

Tried to talk to Larry (I think) on "Cueva", but
got no answer to my hail.  Nick on "Nancy Ann" is
not on the boat.  So back to my boat.

Salad and cheese-and-crackers for dinner.

Rained off and on all night.


8/6/2006 (Sunday)
At anchor at Playa Salinas, Puerto Rico.

At 10:45, dinghied over to "Cueva" to talk to Larry
about the dinghy-speed problem with Bruce.  Geez,
this guy is almost as bad as Bruce (except Larry's
not violating the rules).  Right away, he's in my
face about everything, making vague threats about
getting police and DRNA and locals and fisherman
and drug people involved if it comes to retaliation.
What a mess !  I tried to tell him that Bruce
probably isn't going to behave, and at that point
we might just have to accept his bad behavior, with
acceptance being better for all of us than having
the police etc get involved.  But it was a real
uphill struggle; Larry is as much a pain as Bruce
or Nick.

A little after 11, got ashore and met Dave and Steve.
Woman from rental-car company showed up, we picked
up Bruce, and off to Santa Isabel to get a rental
car.  Some delay there; they're always slow with the
paperwork, first car had a bad headlight, then they
always give you a car with almost no gas in it, so
off to the gas station.  Paid $10 for my share of
the car and gas.

Then to the nearby Walmart.
Bought snacks, pillow, mattress pad, distilled water,
toothpaste.  Tried to buy work-gloves, but they rang
up wrong at the register, and then I had to go back
and it took them 5 minutes to take the gloves back
and give me a credit.  (Can't imagine why Dave bought
some refrigerated stuff; it's going to sit all day
in the hot car-trunk.)  (Bruce brought along
water-jugs, of all things, hoping to get them filled
with RO water at Walmart; he doesn't trust local
water anywhere.  But he took them home empty at the
end of the day; no luck.)  Car trunk is mostly-full
already !

Up into the center of the island, to a Home Depot
in Caguas.  Bought work-gloves and two 5-gallon
buckets.  Looked at stainless-steel hardware for the
boarding ladder, but couldn't bring myself to shell
out $80 or so for the 50 sets of bolt-nut-washers
I'd need.  To multiple salespeople to find ones who
spoke a little English, and eventually established
they didn't sell any kind of bearing-puller tool.

To a nearby huge shopping complex with Costco, Sam's
Club, and a big mall.  Fierce traffic near and in
the complex.  By the time we got to the snack bar
inside Costco to grab some lunch, it was almost 2:30
and I had a headache from lack of food.  Gulped down
a hotdog and soda, then off to an auto-parts store.
They had several gear-pullers, but all of the type
I already have: two fingers with right-angle bends
at the ends to grab the gear or bearing.  But Bruce
says a better tool is shaped like a tuning-fork;
the kind I have will damage a bearing.  But I can't
find that kind of puller.

Out of the auto-parts store, to find the guys have
decided to blow off Costco and go straight to West
Marine.  So into the car, fought traffic to get out
of the shopping complex, and 30 minutes or so up to
WM, near the south edge of San Juan.  Into West
Marine, and I couldn't find anything I needed or
wanted.  I'd hoped to see some auto-pilots, but I
guess all of that stuff is special-order only.
Dave and Steve bought some stuff, but they
didn't have the kind of depth-sounder-transducer
that Bruce had come for.  He bought another version
of it, but may end up having to return it tomorrow.
They didn't even have any charts or guides of
interest to me, such as charts of the Leeward Islands.
They had lots of charts of west coast of Florida, for
some reason !

Out of West Marine, and now the guys want a McDonalds
stop.  So I had an ice-cream there.  Then we tried to
get into the huge Plaza Las Americas mall to get to
GNC for Bruce, but traffic was fierce and we suddenly
decided the mall was closing.  So onto the highway
and heading home.

I was feeling headachey and a little nauseous by the
time we got home.  Loaded everything into the dinghy,
out to the boat by 6:30, stowed everything, choked
down some salad for dinner and some headache pills,
and went to bed.


8/7/2006 (Monday)
At anchor at Playa Salinas, Puerto Rico.

Tons of rain and some pretty good wind at 6 AM; it's
a tropical wave coming through.  Caught a fair amount
of water.

Tried to repair one of my old 5-gallon buckets.

Looks like Judy is back on "Quest".  The main reason
for the rental-car yesterday was so Dave could pick
her up from the airport last night.

More rain at 9, and grey and rainy all morning.

Felt headachey much of the morning.

One of my faithful readers asked why I was scrambling
to get weather info about TS Chris from multiple
vague sources; why not just go ashore and use the
internet to go to the NOAA site ?  The main reasons
are that the internet costs money and I have lots
of other stuff to do on it, and also because I need
to be able to get weather info when I'm somewhere
that the internet is NOT available.

Another reader asked for a hit-counter on my log
file, to see how much traffic there is.
Unfortunately, my site-provider doesn't keep
statistics on files other than HTML files, and I
can't add a counter myself.  All of my web pages
together have had about 700K hits (I guess
cumulative since I created the site about 7 years
ago ?).  The most-hit page is the BoatModels page,
with about 70K hits.

Dinghied ashore after lunch, stopping to say hi to
Judy.  Did half an hour of internet ($2), and found
bearing place in Ponce; sent email asking if they
have the bearings I need.  Back to boat, then took
my scanner over to "Buddy"; he had some pictures
he wanted me to scan.  But found Paul from "Bare
Necessities" there first, with his scanner (fine
with me).  So we sat and talked as Paul installed
software and then did the scanning.  Heard all
about each of their divorces, talked a bit of
politics, etc.

Then over to "Adios" for drinks with Paul and
John.  They spouted all this information about
various islands down the chain to Venezuela; no
way I'll be able to remember it all, especially
through two rum-and-cokes.  Paul was a barber in
his former life, has lived on and around St Thomas
for quite a while, has a tiny little dog Maggie
that he just loves.  He and his wife were in
Red Hook on the boat when hurricane Luis or Marilyn
(I forget which) hit with category-5 force.  They
had 5 anchors out and lines to 3 moorings, and
had torn-loose boats bouncing off them and scraping
down the sides all through the storm.  One of the
last boats to come loose slammed them and tore them
loose, so they ended up in the mangroves along with
everyone else.  They were stuck there for 11 days,
kind of high and dry and at a 10-degree list, until
they got pulled out.

Back to the boat after dark, and peanut-butter
crackers for dinner.


8/8/2006 (Tuesday)
At anchor at Playa Salinas, Puerto Rico.

Sunny and breezy day.  Loafed all morning.  Read
guidebooks about Leeward Islands and took notes.

Dinghied ashore in the afternoon.  Chatted with
Nick for a while about the dinghy-speed issue, and
fortunately he's very reasonable about it.  Boy,
he loves to talk; we could have sat there all
afternoon.

To the cafe to do half an hour of internet ($2).
Hoped I could order the bearings from the place
in Ponce, but they haven't gotten back to me
with prices.

Biked to the supermarket and got groceries.

Salad and chicken-onion-noodle-mushroomsoup for
dinner.

Nice, clear evening with a bit of a breeze and
a brilliant full moon.

Used the bathroom at 1:15 AM and immediately had
kidney-stone pain on my right side.  I'm familiar
with the symptoms; I had several stones 20+ years
ago.  The pain eased when I laid on my back in bed,
but I still can feel a bit of ache in there.  Hope
it passes naturally; I don't have medical insurance
any more.


8/9/2006 (Wednesday)
At anchor at Playa Salinas, Puerto Rico.

Did a small bucket of laundry.

Finally got my butt in gear after lunch and did
some boat-work.  Added water to the batteries.
Sponged water off top of fuel tank.  Took apart
inline filter on the outboard fuel line, replaced
the element, and cleaned the housing.  Could use
new O-rings, but I don't have the right size
replacements.  Took the carburetor off the outboard,
disassembled it, and cleaned a bunch of gunk out of
the fuel-pump part of it; the rest looked okay.
Could use a new fuel-pump-diaphragm, but that one
piece is $18.  Took apart the fuel filter inside
the outboard cowl and cleaned some gunk out of the
bottom of it.  Looked at replacing a washer in the
propane grill, but I don't have the right size
replacement.

Salad and peanut-butter crackers for dinner.


8/10/2006 (Thursday)
At anchor at Playa Salinas, Puerto Rico.

Started out clear and sunny, but then lots of
slow-moving grey clouds by 8 AM.  Very still.

Loafed all morning, then dinghied ashore after
lunch.  To the hardware store, and bought a washer
for the propane stove.  To the cafe, and it's
crowded, with all computers busy and lots of other
people.  To the marine store, and bought a couple
of O-rings that might fit the inline fuel filter
on the outboard.

Chatted with Judy from "Quest" and a Puerto Rican
guy for a while, in front of the marina laundromat.
He's an interesting guy, born in Haiti, later lived
for quite a while in USA and Canada, was in college
with Baby Doc, worked for Long Island electric or
phone company for 18 years until he was injured and
pensioned out.  We talked about today's news,
the terrorism arrests and airline shutdown in Britain.
I heard half a sentence about it on the radio this
morning, but he's been watching all the TV channels
about it all day.  So we had an interesting chat
about politics and terrorism and such, although he
tended to talk very loudly and nonstop, so it was
hard for Judy and me to get any words in.  He told
us all about his troubles with his mother-in-law,
too.

Back to the cafe, and did half an hour of internet
($2).  Still no response from the bearing distributor
in Ponce.

Salad and chili and rum-and-coke for dinner.

Decide to head out to the hurricane hole tomorrow,
to check it out, shake down the engine a bit,
scrape the hull, maybe do some snorkeling, get
a change of scenery.


8/11/2006 (Friday)
At anchor at Playa Salinas, Puerto Rico.

Started raising anchor, scraping some mud and
barnacles off; not too bad.  A section of the
chain has links that are getting a bit thin, down
from the original 3/8" to 1/4" or so.  Probably
should replace it.

Anchor up by 7:15 and motored out of the harbor.
Quickly started blowing hard from the east, and
even inside the barrier cays, it's choppy.  Head
east straight into it.

Stuffing box running hot; stopped and drifted for
a minute as I loosened it a bit.  Engine running
a smidge hot too; maybe I've lost a blade from the
raw water impeller.

Police boat circled around behind me and then
called me on the radio.  They asked if I had
cleared through Customs.  Now, they've seen my
boat fifty times inside Salinas harbor; they
come past me every day or two.  Told them I've
been in Salinas for a month and a half, and I
checked in at Culebra in June.  They hovered
behind for 20 seconds more, then left without
another word.

Into the hurricane hole area and anchored in the
middle of the open area just inside, in 14 feet
of water, by 8:40, at lat 17.55.926 long 66.14.369
Wind blowing pretty hard from the east.

It's just a mangrove area here, nice and quiet and
lots of room, nothing but water and mangroves.  Can
see south out the entrance and across to the barrier
islands, which have more mangroves and a reef.

"Cueva" is here; talked briefly with Larry on the
radio.  Expected to find "Fidelis" here, but I don't
see him.

Heard from "Fidelis" around 9:30; he's another mile
or two east of here, out in pretty open water to get
good wind for his wind-generator.  I told him there's
PLENTY of wind here !

Tried to put the new washer into the propane stove
pipe, but it didn't fit.  Carved a new washer out
of gasket-material, and that worked great.

In the afternoon, snorkeled under the boat.  The
hull is very clean, just a couple hundred small
barnacles or other growths sprinkled around,
except for a couple of places on the bottom of the
keel where I couldn't paint because the keel was
resting on blocks.  Those places have LOTS of growth.
The propeller was covered with lots of barnacles,
and some of the through-hulls had a lot of gunk on
them.  Shaft zinc looks fine.  Managed to let a
barnacle slice a chunk out of one thumbnail, and cut
some of the flesh beneath it too.  I wear dive-gloves,
but barnacles have chewed through some of the
fingertips, and patching them with duct-tape hasn't
worked too well.

The water is like green tea, and cloudy with lots
of particles suspended in it, with about 6 feet of
visibility.

Salad and tuna-salad sandwich for dinner.


8/12/2006 (Saturday)
At anchor between Salinas and Bahia Jobos.

Finished reading an interesting book, volume 1 of
a history of USA's wars, starting back in Pilgrim
days and going through the Civil War.  Surprising
how many atrocities were committed in each of the
wars, scalping and torture, massacre of prisoners,
throwing people into burning buildings, etc,
both of civilians and soldiers, and by every side,
not just Indians or something.  A few weeks ago
Bruce was saying it was impossible to have a war
without atrocities (as we were talking about the
Iraq and Afghanistan wars), and I was disagreeing
with him.  Maybe he's right.

And I didn't realize how much of the Union army
in the Civil War was made up of immigrants,
sometimes fresh off the boats and right into the
army.  Mainly because of the bounty system, where
the govt paid people to enlist, or draftees hired
substitutes to go in for them.

Cleaned engine intake strainer; a few big pieces of
seaweed in there.  Took plate off raw water pump,
and started to pull the impeller out, then stopped.
It's in VERY firmly, and now I remember that it's
a huge struggle to put it back in, and I have a hurt
thumb on top of that.  So I wimped out and just
examined it in place: all vanes are there, and I
felt down along as many as I could and didn't
detect any tears or chunks.  So I decided to just
put it back together again.  Had a good hunt for
a new gasket, finally finding it in the box marked
"engine water pump" on the shelf in the back of
the engine compartment.  Logical place for it !
Put everything back together and called it done.

Knocked apart the boarding ladder I'd tacked
together, and cut pieces for a new, much simpler
design.  Tricky to figure out how to make something
that can brace against a curved hull, won't swing
sideways, isn't too heavy, won't damage the boat
or need too much modification to the boat, won't
cost too much.

Salad and chicken-onion-rice and rum-and-coke for
dinner.


8/13/2006 (Sunday)
At anchor between Salinas and Bahia Jobos.

Fuel level 5.25 inches at engine hour 4019.
Added 5 gallons of diesel to the tank, mainly to
tamp down some BioBor I added first.
Ran engine for 5 minutes, mainly to make sure the
water pump wasn't leaking.

Two tugs and a barge went past, out between the
anchorage and the barrier islands.  Hadn't
realized commercial traffic went through there.

Painted pieces of boarding ladder in the morning,
and painted them some more in the afternoon.

"Salad" and cheese-and-crackers for dinner.


8/14/2006 (Monday)
At anchor between Salinas and Bahia Jobos.

Anchor up at 7:40.  Nosed deeper into the hurricane
holes for 15 minutes, then raised the jib and motor-
sailed out of the anchorage.  Not much wind this
morning; it's been howling by this time some
mornings.  Turned off the engine and sailed with
just the jib up; made 1.5 knots, but it's nice and
peaceful, and it's the first time I've used the
new/used jib.

Stuffing box still runs a bit hot.  That new Gore-Tex
packing is in as lightly as I can make it, and it
runs dripless as advertised, but it runs hot.

Oil filter housing is dripping a little.  Just a
little too much to tolerate, and tightening didn't
fix it; I'll have to loosen it and adjust it, which
is a messy operation.  I think I'll procrastinate.

Put up with making 1 to 1.5 knots for half an hour
or so, then the wind started picking up.  Half an
hour later, I was making 3.5 to 4 knots; very nice.
Turned the corner toward the harbor, sailed up to
the entrance, then started the engine, furled the
jib, and motored in.  Anchored by 9:40, at
lat 17.57.304 long 66.17.516

"Buddy" isn't here, and "Adios" is anchored pretty
far out.  Wonder if John and Paul went out on "Buddy"
to Coffin Island ?  I saw a sail heading out in that
direction, but they were too far away to see who it
was.  With the speed of "Buddy", they could make a
day-trip of it.  But later I find out no, "Buddy"
left by himself.  Wasn't sure whether he was going
E to Culebra or W to Coffin Island.

I'm planning to head out for Coffin Island myself
tomorrow; decided to stop waiting for the bearing
situation to get resolved.  Want to get some
groceries today, and load the bike aboard, and then
I'll be ready to go.

Dinghied over to "Quest".  Gave Judy the guidebooks
that "Fidelis" lent to me, and gave her some
electronics-cleaner-spray to try on her camera.

Went ashore and biked to the farthest supermarket,
keeping company with Steve from "Nonesuch" for a
while.  On the spur of the moment, stopped in the
library in town and found they've finished their
renovations and now have 6 internet computers.
So I did 45 minutes or so of internet.
Got groceries.  Long bike ride back through
town-traffic and then into stiff headwind.
Got 5 gallons of water.  Back to boat.

After lunch, painted boarding-ladder wood pieces
some more, then dinghied ashore again.  Biked to
nearer supermarket and bought more groceries.
Back to dinghy-dock, loaded groceries and bike
into dinghy, and out to boat.  Hoisted and stowed
everything, and collapsed for a while.

Salad and chicken-onion-noodle-mushroomsoup and
rum-and-coke for dinner.


8/15/2006 (Tuesday)
At anchor at Playa Salinas, Puerto Rico.

Tropical wave started coming through at about
4:30, with lots of low dark clouds, a teeny
sprinkle of rain, and some thunder and lightning.
But almost no wind.

Listen to local weather forecast, look at the
clouds a few more times.  Warnings about
thunderstorms and squalls, but I think that's
more on the north side of Puerto Rico.  Weather
today sounds about the same as every day: E 10-18
knots of wind.  I decide to go.  It's about 14
miles WSW to Coffin Island.

Anchor up at 7:30.  Raised jib and motored out of
the harbor.  Just outside, turned off the engine.
Not much wind; doing about 1.2 knots.

Did 1.5 knots until 8 AM, then wind gradually
picked up, until I was doing 2+ knots.  By 8:30,
doing 3.4 knots, and out of the shelter of the
barrier cays, there's a beam swell and it's very
rolly.  Put up the main mostly to try to reduce
the roll.

By 9, the weather is looking nicer; the low dark
clouds are giving way to higher white clouds.

By 9:30, I've popped out into open water and the
wind is up, and I've turned WSW and put the jib
and main out on opposite sides: "wing and wing".
Yee-haw !  Doing 5 to 5.5 knots.  Swell is from
ESE, wind from dead astern, so it's constant
hand-steering with the boat slewing around a lot.

At 10, doing 5.5 to 6 knots, with higher bursts
when a swell lifts the stern and we surf a little.
Saw 6.5+ knots a few times.  What a blast !  But
the constant hand-steering is wearing on me; I
wonder if this is what the 500 miles to Jamaica
would be like ?  I was hoping to do that trip in
a couple of years.

Saw a sailboat motoring upwind, heading for Salinas.
They're crazy to do it this time of day; all the
guidebooks say leave at 3 AM to get into Salinas
before the wind starts up.

At 10:30, still doing sustained 5.5 to 6 knots.

Keep the "wing and wing" going until I turn around
the north end of Coffin Island (Isla Caja de Muertos).
Then I beam-reach up the W side of the island, still
doing 5.5 to 6 knots.  Finally it's time to start
the engine and take down the sails; bummer.

One other boat here, "Winging It".  Saw them in
Salinas a week ago.

Motor down near SW corner of island, near a pier.
Anchor down at 11:15, at lat 17.53.413 long 66.31.710

Well, that feels nice, to do an entire passage under
sail only !  Rare, at least with my boat.

A bit of a roll here, but not bad, and seas are
supposed to be less tomorrow or the next day.

Loafed all afternoon.

Salad and PBJ sandwiches for dinner.


8/16/2006 (Wednesday)
At anchor at Coffin Island, Puerto Rico.

Dinghied to the big concrete dock at about 9, and
walked around a bit.  More facilities than I
expected here, mostly picnic tables and shelters
for them.  Also a small museum with a few posters
about fish and such.

Walked down a warm, buggy, overgrown trail and
then a few hundred feet up to the lighthouse.
Overgrown up here, too; the only good views
are from a platform on the south side, and all
you can see is lots of ocean.  But it's nice.

Back to the dock and then out to the boat,
feeling hot and sticky and bug-bitten.  So into
the water for a little swim, and some scraping of
the hull and checking the anchor.  Nothing
interesting in the anchorage; the bottom is sand
and a little grass or weed.

In mid-afternoon, into the dinghy again and headed
off to the SW end of the island for some snorkeling.
But the wind is howling across the low part of the
island, and it's rough even on the "sheltered" side.
Snorkeled for 15 or 20 minutes, and saw some nice
fish, including a lot of small sergeant-major's,
which I don't recall seeing anywhere else.  Out
at the tip of the island, there's a sandy/pebbly
shoal, and breakers churning a ton of sand into the
water; very low visibility.  So back to the boat.

Salad and spaghetti and rum-and-coke for dinner.

A bit rolly at times during the night.  Don't feel
like staying here any longer.


8/17/2006 (Thursday)
At anchor at Coffin Island, Puerto Rico.

Heading 9 miles or so NW to Ponce this morning.

Anchor up a little before 8.  Had the mainsail up,
and unfurled the jib as soon as the anchor was up,
and immediately had a few minutes of Keystone-Kops
time.  I wanted the bow to fall off to the N and NW,
since I'm going to head NW to Ponce.  So of course
the wind faded and shifted and blew the bow the
other way.  Tried to get the sails catching wind,
and the mainsail had some but the jib got backed.
Rudder full over in the direction I want to go.
Now I'm slowly plowing E, straight for the rocky
shore of the island !  Much swearing.

Try to start the engine, and between refrigerator
running, some laptop use a few minutes ago, and
usual morning low-battery state, I crank it twice
and only manage to exhaust the batteries further.
More swearing.  Think of loosing the sails and
dropping anchor again.  Instead I throw the rudder
the other way, loosen the mainsheet, and let the
bow go south.  Manage to jibe the boat around
without running aground, then get going in the
right direction, with main and jib working.

Sail close-hauled for a while, making 2+ knots in
the light air.  Not much solar getting into the
batteries, partly because the mainsail and boom
are shading them slightly.

Around 8:45, wind picks up a little and comes
around a little more to the E, and I ease the
sheets and we're up to 3.5 to 4 knots, and the
solar panels are putting more into the batteries.

After 9, I try the engine, and it starts !  Run it
for 15 minutes to charge batteries and run
refrigerator, then turn it off.  Was making 5+
knots when motor-sailing with the engine throttled
down pretty low.  Dolphin swam alongside briefly.

Wind is dead on the stern, and I furl the main to
give the jib cleaner air.  A minute later, realized
I could have done the "wing on wing" thing again.
Making 3+ knots with jib alone.

Sail to the harbor mouth and around the shoal at
the entrance.  Engine starts up right away, furl
the main, and then wonder what motoryacht
"Happy Heart" is doing in front of me.  They just
came off the fuel dock, and they're hovering,
either to anchor or take a slip.  They start
heading for a slip, and I head up and anchor.
Place is just as I remember; the inner part
is crowded with permanently-moored smaller boats,
forcing transients out into the deeper WNW end.

Anchor down by 10:30, in 29 feet of water, at
lat 17.57.953 long 66.37.040   Just about exactly
where I anchored when I was here back in December.

Wind blowing fairly hard, as usual.  But water
much calmer than at Coffin Island; nice.

Evil dark clouds raining hard on town in
midafternoon.  Dinghied ashore to marina.  Bought
5.8 gallons of diesel for $16.70 ($2.88/gallon).
Got 5 gallons of water, disposed of garbage, and
used the book-exchange.  Back to boat.

Grey clouds overhead and threatning rain, but it
never did rain.  But the moderate wind screwed up
my anchoring situation; I planned for the hard E
and SE wind we get here every afternoon, but now
the wind has shaifted to the N !  So I'm swinging
within 75 feet of a concrete dock at the edge of
the marina, with the anchor chain not even stretched
out straight yet.  Not a comfortable position.  And
the grey afternoon has my batteries a little low;
don't want to get in a situation in the middle of
the night where the N wind picks up and my engine
won't start.  Sit and read and keep an eye on the
situation.

Salad and cheese-and-crackers for dinner.

Run engine for 15 minutes to charge batteries, and
now that the wind has eased a bit, I power the boat
upwind to drag the chain in that direction, so I'm
much further from the marina.  But a moderate N
wind during the night would send me right back over
there.

As soon as I go to bed, the shops on the boardwalk
start playing some loud, crappy music.  But it
doesn't last too long.  Haven't seen many people
on the boardwalk all day; if there had been a
decent crowd, I would have gone ashore and wandered.

Up several times in the night to check on the
position; no problems.


8/18/2006 (Friday)
At anchor at Ponce, Puerto Rico.

Dinghied ashore at 8 and walked to warehouse grocery
store.  Not a very good store; prices aren't anything
special.  But it's the only store within miles of
the harbor.  Mainly needed to get rum; almost out.
Also wanted a little exercise.

Back to the boat by 9.

Got everything hoisted and stowed and lashed and
ready to go.  Started the engine, and there are the
Customs officers on the fuel dock whistling at me
to come over and talk to them !  Guess it's better
now than if I had the anchor half-hoisted, but it's
still a pain.  Turn off the engine, put the dinghy
down, take documents to them.  The officer on the
dock recognizes me from December, doesn't even want
to look at my docs, just asks where I came from.
Waste of time.

Back to boat, hoist and lash the dinghy again,
start engine, get anchor up by 9:45.  Raise main
and jib, shut off the engine, and have a nice
little beam-reach sail, doing 4 knots, out of the
harbor.  Outside, it's not so nice; lots of swells
from SE and even SSE, and the wind is from almost
dead astern, so it doesn't help to stop the rolling
much.

Had intended to pull into Guaynilla, about 10 miles
away.  But as I read the guidebook again, it sounds
more and more like a nothing stop.  So I head for
Gilligan's Island (Cayos de Cana Gorda), 16-17
miles away.

Decent trip, boat sailing at 4.5 to 5 knots the whole
way, but rolly and conditions are so tricky that
if I take my attention from the helm for 10 seconds,
the boat's turning 45 degrees off course.  A struggle
to keep the jib full, deal with the rolling, keep
steering.  Every minute or two, a big set of swells
come along and knock the boat well to one side.
Had to go out on the stern deck and lash down some
jugs; should have done that before I started.

Doesn't feel like there's much wind today, maybe 10-12
knots, although it gets a little stronger as I go
along.  But then I near the entrance to the anchorage,
and when I turn upwind to furl the sails, all of a
sudden it's gale-conditions.  Wind 20+ knots, big
swells pitching the boat, huge rolling if I get
sideways to the swell.  The cockpit becomes a
shambles as buckets and a crate of odds and ends
start crashing around.  A real struggle to furl the
sails, and the jib sticks halfway for a while.
Finally get both sails in after pulling so hard that
I've torn some skin on the inside of my left middle
finger.  And the main has flogged so much, and still
has a bit sticking out and flogging, that a seam
near the leech has come open.

Into the anchorage, through a dicey entrance between
two reefs and the avoiding a third small one.  It's
all charted well in my guidebook, and I use eyes and
GPS, but a downwind and down-swell transit in these
conditions could end in disaster.  But I get in okay
and head upwind, the mainsail still flogging a bit.

More houses here than I expected.

Anchor down at 1:45.  Unfurled and refurled the
mainsail; it'll need some stitching.  Finished and
engine off by 1:50, at lat 17.56.893 long 66.52.319

I guess I'm tired; I'm stumbling around in the
cockpit and banging into things.  Better take it
easy.

The guidebook doesn't say, but I don't think the
name Gilligan's Island here has anything to do with
the TV show; I don't think they filmed here or
anything.  Probably someone just said "hey, that
looks a lot like Gilligan's Island".  [Found out later,
from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilligan's_Island
that most filming was done in studio, and a little
done in Hawaii.]

A tiny sailboat and a couple of jet-skis and a
day-sailing sailboat moving around.

Salad and chili and rum-and-coke for dinner.

Very peaceful night; quiet and calm and lots of
room.  Nice place.


8/19/2006 (Saturday)
At anchor at Gilligan's Island, Puerto Rico.

Refurled the sails in the light early-morning wind,
and adjusted the furling line on the mainsail.

I can see the Coast Guard surveillance blimp flying
over La Parguera; it's about 10 miles away, I guess.

After lunch, dinghied over to Gilligan's Island
(Cayo Aurora).  It's a State Park, and a little
ferry boat shuttles between it and the mainland.
A couple hundred people here, picnicking and
swimming in a lagoon between the mangrove islands.
You really have to stretch your imagination to
see any resemblance to the Gilligan's Island TV
show.  No palm trees, for one thing.  And not
many trails on the island; I wanted to walk to the
ocean side, but you can't.

Back into the dinghy, and I start to head for the
other swimming area, Punta Ballena.  But there's
a DRNA (police) boat hanging out around the
entrance, maybe checking registrations, so I head
back to my boat instead.  They go into the swimming
area.

Eventually I get tired of waiting for them to come
out and leave, and start heading in.  Should have
waited 2 more minutes; they come out as I head in
behind another boat.  But I keep my head down and
they don't seem interested in me, and they leave.

The channel into Punta Ballena is very narrow and
shallow.  Only a couple of dozen people here.  I
have a nice walk on the ocean-side beach, which is
pretty wind-blown.  Still haven't seen anywhere to
snorkel.  Back to the dinghy, stopping to watch
a small crab swim along the bottom for a while.
Back out to the boat.  The afternoon sun is hot.

A lot of wakes this afternoon; people are roaring
around in boats.

Salad and tuna-salad sandwich for dinner.


8/20/2006 (Sunday)
At anchor at Gilligan's Island, Puerto Rico.

Anchor up at 6:50.  Motored west, going slowly
past the houses so I could look for a WiFi signal;
no luck.  Another mile west, and then north into
Bahia de Guanica.  Looked so industrial that I was
tempted to turn around, but then a nice little
town and harbor appeared.  Anchored by 7:40 at
lat 17.57.789 long 66.54.436   Not far from a
big fertilizer-loading facility, loading up a barge.

A scenic place: hills in all directions, with
a valley behind the town and more hills behind
that.  A big hill to the SE has a colorful large
cliff on one side.

Dinghied ashore after 9, and walked around for
more than an hour.  Pretty dead on a Sunday
morning, as I expected.  But I couldn't find a
food store of any kind, which was surprising.
Lots of colorful little houses.  Lots of street
construction going on.  Back to the boat by 10:30.

Anchor up a little before 11, motored to SW end of
the bay, and anchor down again by 11:20, at
lat 17.57.772 long 66.55.672   The little town
of Ensenada.

Loafed all afternoon.  Hot.

Salad and spaghetti and rum-and-coke for dinner.

Finished a great book: "The Places In Between" by
Rory Stewart.  He walked across Iran, Afghanistan,
Pakistan, India and Nepal.  This book is about
his walk across Afghanistan in 2002, a few months
after the fall of the Taliban.  His experiences
make my "cruising adventures" pale by comparison.

He's British (Scottish, actually), and, among many
other interesting observations, has a few
interesting things to say about what Tony Blair and
Bush and others say about the Koran.  For example,
apparently most Muslims believe the Koran must be
written in the original from-God Arabic; any
translation is no longer the Koran; anyone who can't
read Arabic can't claim to have read the Koran.  And
ordinary people can not just quote from the Koran and
understand it literally; it is full of metaphor and
poetry and allusion, and must be interpreted along
with sayings of the Prophet and through legal and
theological traditions.  And the casual way
Westerners handle copies of the Koran is appalling
to Muslims; its physical handling has specific
rituals.  So the Koran can't just be picked up and
read and understood and quoted in the way the Bible
can.

And Islam is much more than a "religion", in the
sense that Christianity is a religion.  It's more
like Orthodox Judaism (my comparison), in that it's
a religion and a legal system and a cultural system
all in one.


8/21/2006 (Monday)
At anchor at Ensenada, Bahia de Guanica, Puerto Rico.

Anchor up at 6:45.  Handle came off my seawater-dipping
bucket and I lost it; a bad omen.  Motored east up the
bay, and unfurled the jib.  Should have waited; it just
flogged a bit as I went straight upwind.

Out into the harbor entrance, heading S, and there's
a pretty good swell coming in.  Then I get out into
more open water, and the SE swell is on my beam as I
want to go SSW, and it's really rolling the boat,
especially because the mainsail is not up.  Really
nasty; I headed more SSE to counter it a bit.

A long, rolly slog to get even with the SE corner of
Punta Brea and then past it.  One big, steep swell
caught me right on the beam and rolled the boat
wildly; stuff went flying in the cockpit and below
in the main cabin.

Finally got around the corner and turned W, getting the
swells on my port stern quarter and the wind astern.
Better, but still slewing the boat around and
requiring constant hand-steering.  Making 6 knots.

It's half an hour before I realize I still have the
engine on and I don't need to.  I turn it off at
8 AM and sail 4 to 4.5 knots, later increasing to 5.

Around 9 AM, jibe to make the turn to NNW and into
La Parguera, and I screw up the jibe.  Forgot how
much load was on the jib, the sheets got out of
control, and suddenly the jib's flying out in front
of the forestay and I can't get it back.  Then the
boat's out of control.  I start the engine and
eventually get the jib back under control, then
shut off the engine and sail again.

"Exuma Grouper" called me on the VHF; I'm past them
already, they're way out in the east end of the area
for a day or two, to scrub the bottom.  They thought
of going to Ensenada today, of all places, and they're
glad they didn't try.  It's blowing pretty hard today.
You go east on this coast at night, not during the day.

Sailed up to the tight entrance, between two reefs,
and started the engine and motor-sailed through.
Inside, rounded up into the wind and struggled to
furl the jib.  Got it done, motored downwind to the
anchorage, and anchored.  Done by 9:30, at
lat 17.58.201 long 67.02.946

Wind is howling, and I'm not really sheltered
from the chop, but it's hitting me straight on the
bow, so it's comfortable.

Three other cruising boats here.  "Exuma Grouper"
has been getting starved for company, so they're
glad to see me arrive.

Saw a couple of wind-sailers way out by the outer
reefs, in this howling wind.  Way too cool for me !

Heard a weather forecast that referred to a tropical
wave over Hispaniola.  So I guess the dark clouds
yesterday evening were the wave coming through,
and these are the usual "fresh trade winds" after
the wave.

Launched the dinghy and went ashore through
boisterous conditions, taking the laptop with me.
To small shopping center, where a $1 soda let me
sit in the cafe for two hours doing internet over
WiFi; very nice.  Quick stop in the small supermarket,
and was reminded of a quirk of this supermarket:
they hardly ever have bananas.  I asked the clerk,
and she says they get some every now and then,
and they all sell in less than a day, and that's it.
Strange.

Back out to the boat.

Shortly after I got the dinghy hoisted and lashed,
a powerboat roared by in maximum-wake mode.  Five
minutes later, he came back the other direction,
again making a huge wake close to the anchored
boats.  People here tend to do that.

Salad and cheese sandwich for dinner.


8/22/2006 (Tuesday)
At anchor at La Parguera, Puerto Rico.

Out on deck before 6 AM to unfurl and refurl the
jib.  When furled in high wind, as it was yesterday,
it doesn't end up furled well.  So I have to re-do
it in the next calm period.

Around 10, put bike into dinghy and go ashore.
Have a nice 90-minute ride around town, getting out
to edges I didn't see last time I was here.  A lot
more houses than I thought, and some nice trailer-parks
(they call them camping areas).  I love the colors they
paint the houses; very tropical.  Sure enough, as
Doug told me, there's a tiny hardware store on one
end and a decent-looking marine store on the other end
that I didn't know about.  Found a bakery, too.
Back to the boat for lunch.  Blowing fairly hard,
and weather forecast says it's going to blow harder
on Thursday or so.

Added water to the batteries.
Pumped out the bilge.

Dinghied ashore, taking the laptop.

At the dinghy-dock, saw the strangest thing: the guy
from "Neptune's Lady" was strapping a full-size
household refrigerator onto his dinghy to take it out
to his boat.  By itself, that wasn't too strange, but
he was strapping it on standing straight up, and on
top of the permanently-mounted seats, so it wasn't
even standing on the floor of the dinghy.  The
refrigerator was a full-sized model, at least 5 feet
tall.  He had a sizable inflatable dinghy, bigger
than my (substantial) dinghy, but still.  And it's
blowing like heck out there, and he says his trawler
is way down by the boatyard, a mile or two down and
then half a mile out into the somewhat-open water.

I chatted with him for a little while, and suggested
he lay ithe fridge down on its side instead of having
it stand straight up, but he says it has a low center
of gravity (true) and didn't seem to see any possible
problem.  I bit my tongue to stop from asking why
he didn't bring his boat up to anchor 50 feet from
the dinghy-dock for an hour to make the dinghy-trip
much shorter and in more sheltered water.  He was using
two pieces of plywood as a gangplank and a platform
under the fridge; he'd nailed one end of the plywood
to the dinghy-dock so he'd been able to slide the
fridge onto his dinghy.  Quite an operation.  I told
him I thought we'd been ambitious carrying two
full-size mattresses on our dinghy in Biscayne Bay,
but he put us to shame.

His boat was here when I passed through in early
December.  He says he came here 5 years ago, intending
to stay for a few weeks, and liked it so much he's
still here.  I just can't see doing that; I'm tired
of just about ANY place after a month or so, and
the wonderful Virgin Islands are just 100 miles or so
east of here; why stay here for years ?

To the Post Office, to ask about mail delivery.  It's
just a branch office, inside the supermarket, and
they don't really do general-delivery.  So I'll have
to see if I can use "Exuma Grouper's" PO box.

Used the book-exchange, then did a couple of hours
of internet while nursing a $1 soda.  Doug and Paula
from "Exuma Grouper" showed up; they've just moved
the boat back to town.  They're expecting a sewing
machine to arrive any day now; maybe I'll pay Doug
to stitch the seam on my mainsail.

Salad and cornedbeef-onion-potato and rum-and-coke
for dinner.

One thing I really like here: far fewer bugs than in
Salinas.  Mainly because there I was in an enclosed
mangrove harbor, and here I'm in more open water with
only a few mangrove islands nearby.  More wakes here.


8/23/2006 (Wednesday)
At anchor at La Parguera, Puerto Rico.

Blowing hard by 10 or so.

At about 12:30, dinghied over to "Exuma Grouper" to
chat with them before going ashore, and we ended
up chatting for 5 solid hours !  Lots of fun.
Never did make it ashore.

Found out they never did fix their hull-crack problem
they were having in Luperon.  They're still running
the bilge pump every 2 days to keep up with the leak.

Salad and cheese sandwich for dinner.


8/24/2006 (Thursday)
At anchor at La Parguera, Puerto Rico.

Dinghied over to "Exuma Grouper" at 6:45, picked
up Doug, and we headed out to the reef to do
some snorkeling.  The coral was very poor, but
the fish were decent, visibility was okay,
and the water was warm.  Doug pointed out a big
pufferfish, and it looked very similar to the
boxy fish I saw at Culebrita, so that must have
been a pufferfish too.  We snorkeled for an hour
or so, and later Doug said this was the high
point of his stay in La Parguera !  Their outboard
motor has quit, so I guess he hasn't gotten to
do much on the water.

We did a big loop down to the west end of the
harbor, looking for another likely place to
snorkel, but didn't find any.  A nice trip back,
winding through lots of channels through the
mangroves.  Looks like a good place to tie up
during a hurricane, but then Doug said a boater
who was ashore here during a direct hit (maybe
from hurricane Georges ?) said he saw waves
breaking over the TOPS of the mangroves here !
Doesn't sound too likely to me, but who knows ?
Back to the boat by 8:45 or so.

Did a small bucket of laundry.

After noon, dinghied ashore, stopping by "Exuma
Grouper" to lend my Puerto Rico cruising guide to
them.  Ashore, bought a $1 soda and did two hours
of internet.  Bought a few groceries.  Chatted
with cruising couple Jim and Debbie on the dinghy
dock; they started a two-year Maine-to-California
transit about 10 years ago, and here they are.
Got 10 gallons of water, and out to the boat.

Salad and chicken-onion-rice and rum-and-coke
for dinner.


8/25/2006 (Friday)
At anchor at La Parguera, Puerto Rico.

Woke up just POSITIVE today was Saturday, but it's
not.  Woo-hoo, my life is one day longer than I
expected !

Dinghied ashore after 9 and went to the bike.
Front tire was flat, but after walking it to the
gas station and pumping it up, seems okay.
Wonder if someone deliberately let the air out;
it held its air just fine in Salinas.  Got on and
set out to bike to Lajas, a town in the interior.

Lots of good exercise, but I'm out of shape and
the gears don't work, so walked the bike up any
serious hills (really more like long slopes).
Out into a valley between the coastal range and
the next one in, and it's pretty country.  Lots of
fields and meadows.  Would be more enjoyable if
the roads weren't so narrow and traffic was lighter.
And it's a bit windy.

Got to the edge of Lajas (about 6-mile ride from
La P ?), didn't see anything immediately interesting,
and turned around.  I think the center of town is
another mile or two, up another slope, which I don't
want to do.  Back to La P.

Out to the boat a little after 11, and the wind
is HOWLING.  Tropical storm a couple hundred miles
S of us is bringing this, I think.  Supposed to
be bad today and tonight.

Into town again, chatted with Doug and Paula and
guys at the canvas shop, then to the cafe.  Had
a hamburger and soda and did a couple of hours
of internet.  Power went off a couple of times,
probably because of all the wind.

Out to the boat, and wind is still howling, blowing
the tops off chop in the anchorage.  By 4:30, it
eased a bit, blowing maybe 15-20 in the evening.
But every now and then going back up to 20-25+
or so.

Tired and headachey; I think the bike ride,
especially with the hot sun, took a lot out of me.

Salad and peanut-butter crackers for dinner.

Listened to the 6 PM NOAA weather, and couldn't hear
it all, but was surprised to hear that storm-force
winds will reach almost up to our latitude.  From
Chris Parker this morning, I thought Tropical Storm
Ernesto was 200-300 miles south of us, and would
have no effect on us.

Stupidly, I did nothing in reaction to this news;
should have listened to VHF weather, or put out a
second anchor, or moved to more sheltered spot.

Around 10 PM, started to get rain, and then
stronger and stronger wind.  Several squalls
around 30 knots or more.  Kept raining and blowing.
I got up constantly to make sure the anchor wasn't
dragging, and to watch conditions.

Around 1:45, started getting stronger squalls,
probably in the 35 to 40-knot range, with more
rain.  From some angles, a nearby shoal protects
me a little, but from other angles, the swells
have a pretty good fetch before they hit me.
Worried about the thin areas on the anchor chain;
why didn't I put out a second anchor in the
afternoon ?

Wind started to ease around 2:30 or 3 AM, but the
rain kept going until 6 AM.


8/26/2006 (Saturday)
At anchor at La Parguera, Puerto Rico.

Totally grey and rainy.  Wind down into the 15-knot
range, but picking up every now and then.

At 11:30, another huge squall came blasting through,
with 40+ knot wind and visibility down to a couple
hundred yards.  Small motorboats and jetskis running
for cover; why were they out in this weather to begin
with ?  Saw a couple of guys swimming nearby a little
later, after the squall passed.

At 12:15, ran engine for 45 minutes to charge
batteries.

Rain stopped around 1:30.

Wind eased and eased, becoming quite light in the
afternoon.

Salad and chili and rum-and-coke for dinner.

Quiet, calm evening.


8/27/2006 (Sunday)
At anchor at La Parguera, Puerto Rico.

Weather seems to be right back to the normal pattern:
calm in the early morning, wind picking up by 9 or so,
probably will rain over land in the afternoon.

Chatted with Doug on "Exuma Grouper", and he says the
squalls showed them a lot more deck leaks they didn't
know about; they had 2 inches of water on the cabin
sole in one place.  He invited me to go to a KMart
shopping center with them today.

Dinghied ashore at 9:45 and went to the canvas shop
to meet the crew from "Exuma Grouper".  They help run
the shop, and in return the guy is teaching them a
little about sewing, and lending them a car now and
then.  Sat in the shopping center to do a little WiFi
while we were waiting to get started.

Into the car around 9:30, to ATM and gas station, then
on the road to Yauco, an inland town NE of Guanica.
To a big KMart, where a problem became apparent:
they're very slow shoppers, and I'm a very fast shopper.
So I had to cool my heels as we spent almost 2 hours
in the store.  All I bought was a bucket; couldn't
find several other things I wanted, such as a
permanent thick black marker pen, or some kind of
green vinyl to make fishing lures.  They were making
a big purchase, an inflatable kayak for Amanda's
birthday, but still they dawdled away an extra hour
just looking at everything.

Had lunch in a Subway, then Doug and I went to an
auto-parts store.  Bought some spray electronics-cleaner,
then joined Paula and Amanda in the supermarket.  It's
a huge, very nice store.  I bought a lot of stuff,
mainly cereal and crackers and things that always seem
to be expensive in the smaller local supermarkets.

We were yakking so much on the way back that we missed
our exit and took a detour through San German and
along the edge of Lajas.  Got to clock the mileage on
the bike trip I did the other day, and it was only
4.5 miles each way, not 6 as I had estimated at the
time.

La Parguera is humming today; motorcycles and car-
traffic and tourist stands in the square.  A couple
of little kids playing around on my locked bike.
Back to the boat by 3:45; what I'd expected to be a
3-hour trip had turned into a 6-hour trip.

Not blowing too hard this afternoon; nice day.

Salad and PBJ sandwich for dinner.

Listened to Chris Parker's weather at 6, and TS Ernesto
has turned N much further E than originally predicted,
which is why we got much more of an effect here than I
had expected.  It's over the SW tip of Haiti right now
and heading NW; originally they had predicted it would
go up the Yucatan Channel at the W end of Cuba.


8/28/2006 (Monday)
At anchor at La Parguera, Puerto Rico.

Pretty cloudy this morning.

Took down the mainsail, then loafed all day.

Forward water tank ran empty; switched to aft tank.

Tried my long-distance WiFi card and antenna from
the boat, and they DO pull in a couple of faint
signals, when the other card gets nothing.  But no
signal strong enough to use, here.

Salad and chicken-onion-rice and rum-and-coke for
dinner.

Sprayed two cockroaches in the galley; that's not
good.  Renewed boric acid powder I've sprinkled in
several places to kill them.

A brief twinge of kidney-stone pain during the night.


8/29/2006 (Tuesday)
At anchor at La Parguera, Puerto Rico.

Loaded 10 gallons of water from jugs into forward
water tank.

Dinghied ashore after 9.  Tightened bike seat with
a wrench.  Both tires flat, and the cap is off the
valve on the front tire; I think someone let the air
out.  Walked it to the gas station, also carrying a
gas can.  Bought $10 of gas at 68 cents/liter.
Pumped up the bike tires.  Rode back to the dinghy
and dropped off the gas can.  Then biked to the
marine store.  Very well-stocked; I think I'll come
back in a few days and buy some stuff.

Bike's rear tire was low by the time I got out of
the store, so maybe it has a puncture.  Loaded bike
into dinghy, got 10 gallons of water, and out to boat.

Hauled bike and gas and water up onto deck.
Loaded 10 gallons of water from jugs into forward
water tank.

In the afternoon, dinghied ashore again.  As I walked
through the plaza, I said hello to a guy who's usually
sitting there.  He waved me over and managed to
communicate that someone's been letting the air out
of my bike tires; he pantomimed someone pressing down
on the valve, and made a hissing noise.  He speaks
no English, and has about 3 teeth, but we managed
to communicate a little.

To the restaurant, and did a couple of hours of
internet as I nursed a $1 soda.  Tried to order the
bearings from one place I've been talking to, and
they suddenly told me the minimum order is $35, so
that is out.  Contacted the manufacturer again to ask
about email for their PR distributor, and the mfr
suddenly said "heck, we'll send you the two bearings
for free and call them samples".  Extremely nice of
them.  So I had them send to Doug's PO box here.

Bought a loaf of bread, got 10 gallons of water,
and back out to the boat.

Salad and cheese-and-crackers for dinner.


8/30/2006 (Wednesday)
At anchor at La Parguera, Puerto Rico.

Bike tires have held their air overnight, so maybe
they're both fine.  Wonder why the rear tire didn't
hold air yesterday morning.

At 8:15, dinghied over to "Exuma Grouper", picked
up Doug and Paula, and we went snorkeling.  Out to
an area near the entrance channel, where there were
4 or 5 govt moorings, but no good snorkeling, just
a lot of sand and grass.  So moved to the place
where Doug and I snorkeled a few days ago, and it
was even nicer today; more fish.  And the weather
is absolutely gorgeous this morning.  Paula is a
novice, fearful snorkeler, so she had a lot of trouble
and didn't stay in long, but after getting her back
into the dinghy, Doug and I went for a very nice
snorkel.  Saw a sea-turtle swimming along; probably
about 18 inches long.  A lot of fish, actually, and
a lot of variety too.  Back to the boat about 10:15.
Good timing: wind started blowing harder around 10:30.
Still nice weather.

After lunch, dinghied ashore.  Read a book for a
little while in the plaza.  Went to the library and
did internet.  Started researching the charts and
guides I'll need to go through the Leeward and
Windward Islands and down to Trinidad; looks like
$250 or so of stuff I'll need to buy.  Back to dinghy,
got 10 gallons of water, and back to the boat.

Bike tires still holding air; must be okay.

Salad and spaghetti and a beer for dinner.

Saw fish schooling wildly a hundred yards away.
They were whipping up such a froth that at first I
thought it was a small breaking wave.  Saw them
a couple of times in various places.


8/31/2006 (Thursday)
At anchor at La Parguera, Puerto Rico.

Did a bucket of laundry.

Reseated oil filter housing and ran engine.
Looks good (no oil spurting all over the place).
Will have to watch for a while to see if the
slow drip has stopped.

Rain at 12:30, then nice.

Dinghied ashore.  Chatted briefly with Doug,
and he introduced me to Don and Olga.  I think
it's Don Casey, a semi-famous boating author.
But they had their hands full of groceries,
so we didn't have time to chat.

Used book-exchange, then did a couple of hours
of internet.  Looked into guidebooks and charts
for Leewards and Windwards and Trinidad.  Surprised
to find the chartkits are about 3 times as expensive
per page as the ones for Bahamas, Puerto Rico,
etc.  They're about $10/page instead of usual
$3/page.  And half a dozen of the pages are for
islands I don't intend to go to.  And they split
the islands into THREE chartkits; I had assumed
there were two.  So maybe I'll buy two guidebooks
for each area, instead of a guidebook and a chartkit
and a half.  Each guidebook has pretty decent
charts in it.  And there's no chartkit for Trinidad.
Buying six guidebooks for $140 or so would be a lot
cheaper than three guidebooks and three chartkits and
a couple of charts (probably $320).  But it's still
tricky: often Amazon doesn't tell you exactly what
edition of guidebook they're selling, so you can
buy an older one accidentally.

Took advantage of a browser feature I really like:
saving complete web pages to hard disk.  Today,
I'm trying to educate myself a bit on two topics:
Israel, and NASA's manned space program.  Did some
searches and saved 10-15 pages on each topic; I'll
read them on the boat over the next several days.
Saved pages on other topics, too.

Got some groceries, got 10 gallons of water,
and back to boat.

Salad and tuna-salad sandwich for dinner.


9/1/2006 (Friday)
At anchor at La Parguera, Puerto Rico.

Anchor up at 7:25.  Want to get away from town for
Labor Day weekend; I hear it's a zoo here, with
everyone charging around on boats, taking advantage
of the last of summer, making huge wakes and lots
of noise.

Motored east along the shoreline.  Looked for WiFi
signals, got a couple of brief but faint ones, and
soon stopped looking.

Kept going along the shore, but there are several
unmarked shoals, and I ran aground on one of them.
Backed off and found a way around.  Eventually got
to the entrance to the phosphorescent bay, but it's
unmarked, very narrow, and shallower than my guidebook
shows.  I had thought of popping inside just to scope
it out, but not staying overnight.  But I didn't go
in, fearing I'd run aground again.

Headed farther east, and rain aground again off Isla
Matei.  Instead of creeping into Bahia Montalva around
shoals and reefs, went more east to Punta Montalva.
Now I had trouble finding water shallow enough to
anchor in !  Seeing 30 feet where I expected 10 feet.
Anchor down by 9 AM, at lat 17.57.574 long 66.59.078
Nice here; sheltered from all sides, plenty of space
to swing, not too close to the bugs ashore.

A little drop of oil on the bottom of the engine
oil filter housing, but much better than before.

Blowing pretty hard by 10:15.

Loafed and read books all day.  Some boat-traffic.
Realized that I'm fairly close to a boat-ramp, so
it won't be as quiet here as I assumed.
Small ketch (Don and Olga on "Richard Cory",
I think) anchored far to the SE of me some time
after lunch.

Salad and cornedbeef-onion-potato and rum-and-coke
for dinner.  Deliberately trying to work through
some of my old canned goods, and I'm glad I did: one
of the cans of potatoes has sprung a leak and
rusted a couple more cans.  Dumped the rotten
potatoes overboard.

A bit headachey at night, and hot and still air.
Saw a cockroach in my berth and two more in the
galley, but failed to kill any of them.


9/2/2006 (Saturday)
At anchor at Punta Montalva.

Lots of gunfire, of all things, a mile or two to the
north, from 6 AM to about 8 AM.  Opening of hunting
season or something ?  Seemed too sustained for that;
maybe a target-shooting range ?  But why start at 6 ?

Very calm morning; no wind.

"Mahjonng" came in and anchored far to the S of me.

More boat-traffic here than I expected, but only a
couple of obnoxious wakes.

After lunch, launched the dinghy and went 3/4 mile
south to some mangrove islands and breakers, to see
if I could find some decent snorkeling, but there is
absolutely none.  It's all just shallow sand and
grass, with the breakers on the ocean side and
inaccessible from this side.  Struck by the beauty
of the place as I dinghied back to the N; wide flat
water surrounded by green hills in the distance on
several sides, with huge black rainclouds gathering
over land as they do each afternoon.  Nice breeze
and plenty of sun.  Couldn't ask for a nicer place.

Back to the boat, and snorkeled under it to scrape
the hull a bit.  Removed scattered small barnacles,
but then started getting besieged by chunks of
transparent jellyfish.  Took a quick swipe at the
prop, which just had some slime on it, and got out.

Salad and PBJ sandwich for dinner.

At dusk, various boats and jet-skis coming through
at extremely high speed, dashing to get back to the
boat-ramp before total dark.

At 3:30 AM, suddenly changed from the usual nightly
zero wind to 5-10 knots of wind for a little while.
Might be the tropical wave, an extremely weak one.


9/3/2006 (Sunday)
At anchor at Punta Montalva.

Some gunfire in the distance starting at 6 AM or
so, but not nearly as much as yesterday.

Tired and slightly headachey this morning.

Wind started about 9:15, and is very fluky today,
suddenly gusting from 5 to 20 knots and back,
again and again.

Blowing 20-25 by noon.

Salad and chili and rum-and-coke for dinner.

Lots of boats and wakes before sunset.  One boat
made a tight circle around my boat, to give
everyone a look at thr sailboat, making a big
wake of course.  Had to laugh: at one point, a
speeding boat and two jet-skis crossed paths
nearby, one of the jet-skis slammed across a
wake, and one of the guys on it landed on his
groin and was groaning painfully for a while.


9/4/2006 (Monday)
At anchor at Punta Montalva.

Heard a snatch of Chris Parker's weather this
morning, and sounds like I'll have to keep an eye
on Tropical Depression #6.  Still 1800 miles away.

Gunfire in the distance to the N again this
morning, from 6:30 to 8 or so.

Calm, sunny, morning.

Blowing hard by 11.

At noon, warning of dangerous thunderstorms with
lightning heading our way from St Croix area.

Around 2, nasty lightning inland over the middle
of Puerto Rico, and as usual the dark afternoon
cloud extended just its edge over us, but no
rain for us.

Salad and cheese-and-crackers for dinner.


9/5/2006 (Tuesday)
At anchor at Punta Montalva.

Added water to the batteries.

From Chris Parker's weather forecast, sounds like
TD6 won't be "organized" (nice term for a tropical
cyclone) until Thursday or so, and will pass north
of us, so nothing to worry about.

Anchor up at 7:25, jib out, and the slight wind
went away almost completely.  Doing less than
1 knot (my GPS won't show speeds that low). 
Started the engine and furled the jib and
motored west and into La Parguera.  Anchor down
after 8:35 at lat 17.58.274 long 67.03.045

Surprised to find that "Exuma Grouper" isn't here,
at least not in their normal spot.  Maybe they
went to the phosphorescent bay.  Thought they were
staying to help in the canvas shop over the
holiday weekend.

My position ended up a little close between two
other boats, and a couple of times I made up my
mind to move, then changed my mind again.

Finally decided to move, and got the anchor up
around 1 PM.  Moved a hundred yards or so to the
SW, to lat 17.58.256 long 67.03.118

Emptied 10 gallons from water jugs into water tanks.
Wanted to go ashore and do internet, but the
usual afternoon dark cloud is appearing early and
looking really nasty, and looking like it's going
to come over us.  Wind is from the N; usually is
from E or SE.  Then nasty lightning started crashing
over land, and I closed all the hatches and ports
and got ready for a storm.

Wow, it was nasty !  Tons of rain and wind from
1:30 to 2:15 or so, and a few bursts of VERY strong
wind, probably in the 60-knot range or more.  Looked
almost as bad as when hurricane Charley went by me
in Ft Myers Beach a couple of years ago.  Barbecue
grill on the stern rail got blown open and its
support rod (which already was weak) got bent by
the wind-pressure.  But the anchor held.  I'm very
glad I moved from between those two boats; this
wind would have pointed me right at "Neptune's Lady".

During the later part of the storm, saw a smallish
sailboat come dragging out of the inner harbor,
slowly heading south.  About a 26- or 28-foot sloop.
Slowly moved further and further.  Then, after the
strong wind eased, and the rain mostly stopped, it
kept on going in the 15-20 N wind, slowly heading
toward the outer shoals and reefs and the open sea.

Around 3, weather was mostly sunny and wind was N 15
or so, and I decided to launch the dinghy and see if
I could stabilize that boat.  As I headed out, I
started getting a bad feeling, thinking that my
outboard isn't reliable, and I could be stuck downwind
from my boat and the harbor.  Should have turned
around and called the police or somebody on the
radio, but I didn't.  Stupid.

Got to the boat, and it's bumped up against a shoal.
Anchor doesn't seem to be holding it at all.  All I
could do was let out a lot more line on the anchor,
hoping that would help it grab the next time it
moved.  The anchor rode has a couple of years of
growth on it.  Then just as I was ready to head back
to my boat, my outboard died.  And another storm
started coming in.

I had brought a little bag of outboard tools and
carb-cleaner fluid with me, as I usually do.  With
some fluid, I was able to get the outboard started.
But it sounds like crap, sounds like only one plug
is firing.  And the Swiss Army knife I brought seems
to be frozen shut; I kept breaking fingernails trying
to open blades.  I brought a spark plug wrench, but
it's starting to rain, and I don't feel like taking
out the plugs here.

Motor quit several times on the way back, and I got
good and wet from rain and chop.  Each time the motor
quit, had to put out the anchor and then use fluid to
start the motor.  It was very balky; once or twice I
thought I'd never get it to start.  Sometimes I could
use the internal throttle to rev it up, but then it
would almost quit when I let go of that to go untie
the anchor rode from the bow and pull up the anchor.
And of course no one else is out here; usually the
place is full of dive boats and small fishing skiffs,
but the storms have made everyone go home early.
At least this new storm isn't nearly as bad as the
earlier one, only blowing 20 or so with some rain and
chop, and is from the E, so it can't blow me out to
sea.

Finally managed to limp back to the boat by 4 or so.
Hoisted the dinghy and dried off.  Tried to call the
police on the radio and got no answer.

Salad and chicken-onion-rice and rum-and-coke for
dinner.


9/6/2006 (Wednesday)
At anchor at La Parguera, Puerto Rico.

Thunderstorm SE of me at 5:30 AM.

That sailboat is still in the SW corner of the
harbor, up against a mangrove island.

Killed a cockroach in the aft head.

Rainstorms S of me at 8 AM.

Caught Chris Parker's weather at 8:30, and TD6 is now
Tropical Storm Florence, and is expected to strengthen
into a category 3 or 4 hurricane !  Fortunately it's
going to pass 400 or so miles to the NE of me (and not
strengthen until it does pass by), but it's
also several hundred miles wide, so we'll probably
get some NW and W wind from it.  But this place is
protected from those directions.

A little rain and lots of clouds at 9 AM.

"Exuma Grouper" back in the town anchorage.  They
spent the weekend in the phosphorescent bay, working
on the boat.  Their inverter/charger has died.

Sunny for a couple of hours in late morning, but
then totally grey the rest of the day.

Cleaned the outboard spark plugs; top one completely
fouled with oily carbon, bottom one completely
fouled with dry carbon.  Since I've been putting
less oil than I should in the gasoline, I'm thinking
the crankcase must be completely full of old oily
carbony gunk.  Thought once of trying to get to it,
but that means a complete disassembly of the whole
powerhead.

Dinghied ashore.  Mentioned the drifted sailboat
to Don and Olga, and he suggested I tell a local
guy at a specific dive shop.  Went there, but it
was closed.

Chatted with the crew from "Exuma Grouper", and my
motor bearings have arrived !  They sent two of each
bearing, which is great, in case I damage one while
installing them.  Used the book-exchange.  To the
restaurant, and had a hamburger and soda ($7) and
did a couple of hours of internet.  Back to dinghy,
got 10 gallons of water, then back to boat.

Salad and PBJ sandwich for dinner.


9/7/2006 (Thursday)
At anchor at La Parguera, Puerto Rico.

That sailboat is still in the SW corner of the
harbor, up against a mangrove island.

No change in forecast for TS Florence; it's going
well NE of here, and TS-force winds will cover
an area almost 500 miles across.  It's going to
counteract the normal ESE tradewinds for us,
giving us W and SW wind.

Blowing fairly hard from ESE by noon.

Got one bearing off the auto-pilot motor and a new
one on in its place, but the second bearing will
not come off.  My cheap bearing-puller is bending;
it's not up to the task.  And there's not a lot of
clearance to slide something behind the bearing
and hammer it off.  Put another dose of penetrating
oil on it and let it sit until tomorrow.

Thought of going ashore, but dark clouds and wind
are very threatening, so stayed aboard.  By 3 PM or
so, the clouds had eased out into a uniform grey
layer; still and grey and humid.  Stayed that way
the rest of the afternoon and evening.  Batteries
getting a bit low.

Salad and spaghetti and rum-and-coke for dinner.

Saw a cockroach in the galley but he got away.


9/8/2006 (Friday)
At anchor at La Parguera, Puerto Rico.

Did a bucket of laundry.

Wind from south by noon.

Used the Dremel to cut the second bearing off
the auto-pilot motor shaft.  Went well.  But the
new bearing slides on TOO easily; will have to
see if that is a problem.  May have to thicken the
shaft a little with JB-Weld or something ?
The new bearing is supposed to be the same part
number as the old, from the same manufacturer, and
the part number on the outside of the box is the
same, but the two numbers stamped on the actual
bearing are not quite the same, and some unimportant
parts of it are a different shape.

Dinghied ashore.  Told some local guys about that
drifted sailboat.  Stopped to chat with the crew
from "Exuma Grouper" at the canvas shop; they've
decided they're probably heading back to the
Exumas / Bahamas at the end of hurricane season.
Found a local guy (Gordo) I'd been directed to,
and told him about that drifted sailboat.  He knew
about it, and had been out to look at it, but
doesn't know who owns it; it's been anchored here
for a couple of years.  He says it's a nice
Pearson 34 (bigger than I thought) with a diesel
engine.

To the restaurant, and for $2 had a soda and a
couple of hours of internet.  Rained while I was
there.  Got groceries, and back out to the boat.

Salad and cheese-and-crackers for dinner.


9/9/2006 (Saturday)
At anchor at La Parguera, Puerto Rico.

Absolutely gorgeous day, clear and sunny and just
a little breeze.

Washed out the dinghy, added gas to the tank,
checked the spark plugs, then went over to "Exuma
Grouper" at 8.  Picked up Doug and Paula and Amanda
and we went out to the reef to do some snorkeling.
Not quite as nice as last time, water not as clear
and fish not as abundant, but still quite nice.
Paula stayed in the dinghy.  I think it was Amanda's
first snorkeling in a while, and she really enjoyed
it.  A good time was had by all, and the outboard
behaved itself.  We looked at that drifted sailboat
from a distance, and it looks like it's up on a
shoal or something (maybe it's low tide now).

Back to "Exuma Grouper" by 9:30, and we stood for
a while and watched some 10- to 12-inch fish
attacking a couple of big schools of 1/2-inch and
2-inch fish right up against the side of their boat.

Dinghied ashore about 1:30 and took the mainsail
to the canvas shop to be patched.  What an ordeal !
Doug bought a used sewing machine a few weeks ago,
has no manual for it, and is learning how to use
it.  He did a good job on the patch, a simple
thing about 3 inches wide and 3 feet long, but
it took ALL afternoon.  Four hours to do something
that should have taken half an hour.  After the
first couple of feet of stitching went well, the
bobbin ran out of thread, they reloaded the bobbin,
and the machine just refused to work after that.
Thread kept jamming in various places and snapping,
and Doug and Paula got short-tempered with each
other, and everything they tried didn't fix it.
We were all hot and sweaty and tired; it's a hot
afternoon and not much air moves through the shop.
Eventually we moved to one of the shop machines,
and that had its own idiosyncracies, but within
45 minutes or so we'd finished the job on that.
We'd agreed on $40 for the job.  Back to the boat.

Lots of yahoos in powerboats creating big wakes.

Salad and chili and rum-and-coke for dinner.
Tried to switch the propane stove from a small
can of propane to the main tank, and the gasket
I made a while ago leaks like a sieve when used
with the fitting from the big tank.

Tried to turn on the anchor light for the first
time in a week, and it doesn't work.  Another item
onto the list.


9/10/2006 (Sunday)
At anchor at La Parguera, Puerto Rico.

Heard "Mahjongg" and "Richard Cory" on the radio.
Apparently a big hard dinghy left overnight at
the dinghy-dock was stolen and found abandoned
not far away.  Probably some local used it to get
out to a boat, or some kids took it for a joy-ride ?

Got the second bearing onto the auto-pilot motor.

Went ashore.  To the canvas shop, and chatted with
the crew from "Exuma Grouper".  Tried to pay the
$40 for the sail-repair, and they said they decided
it should be free, I guess because of all the
hassle we had, but I pressed $20 on them.  They
said they figured out the problem with the machine,
or someone showed them what they were doing wrong;
it was just operator error.

To the book-exchange, then the restaurant.  $2 for
a soda and a couple of hours of internet.

I had sent a "how's it going?" email to Bruce on
Molasses in Salinas.  Got this back:
 "Left Salinas about a week ago, and sailed to
 Green Beach, Culebra, and St. Thomas. Got here,
 and the outboard mtr either was stolen, or fell
 off (?), I don't know which. But sitting in
 Charlotte A, I'm paddling in with 1 oar. A day's
 exercise by itself.
 The Yanmar also blew the front seal, lost the
 rings, and I have to get repowered. A $10k
 hit, but now my engine problems are over.
 It should go in next Mon or Tues.
 [My friend Dave] will be in St. T on Mon. After
 I'm done here, we'll sail to St. Martin (I picked
 up a girl crew, my autopilot is still out).
 So things are looking up, just expensive."

Holy cow !  I thought he was still sitting in
Salinas, working on auto-pilot and Ham radio and
SSB radio and other stuff.  He just paid $350 or
so for a new raw-water pump for that engine, and he
knows he needs to replace a lot of through-hulls on
the boat.  This is a Pearson 34 he bought for a
good price in Luperon a few months ago; it had been
sitting there for a couple of years, and I guess it
hasn't turned out to be such a bargain; he's had a
lot of bad luck.

And I wouldn't want to be in St Thomas if a
hurricane comes; little shelter.  St Martin would
be a bit better, inside the lagoon, but I wouldn't
want to be there, either.  And now is the very
heart of hurricane season.  But he's been really hot
to get to St Martin; I think he has some work lined
up there, and also wants to make money
buying-fixing-selling boats.

Forgot to mention: a few days ago, I had email
from my friend Bonnie in Culebra, saying that her
charter-fishing boat had the port transmission
fail on the first day of an important 5-day charter.
She's snakebitten !  This is the boat that had
major steering, engine, and crew problems (leading
to prop damage, among other things) on the way from
Florida to Culebra.  She was stuck in Luperon for a
couple of weeks getting the engines and steering
fixed, when I was there.

So I guess I should feel lucky, just having minor
problems such as anchor light, propane stove,
auto-pilot, mainsail rip.

Back to dinghy, and a big pontoon-boat has forced
its way into shore next to the dinghy-dock, down a
narrow space between two docks.  Fortunately, they're
leaving just as I get there.  They're a bit aground,
so they struggle to get moving, then they thump right
into one of the docked diving boats, with a clonk of
fiberglass pontoon hitting fiberglass hull.  Finally
they're out.  I guess they don't have a dock in town,
and were pretty desperate to force their way ashore
somewhere.

Got 10 gallons of water, then out to the boat.

Salad and cheese-and-crackers for dinner.

Saw a cockroach in the galley and tried to kill him,
but he was an incredibly fast little sucker.


9/11/2006 (Monday)
At anchor at La Parguera, Puerto Rico.

Did a bucket of laundry.

Put the auto-pilot motor back together, and it runs,
but it still has a problem: often, depending on the
position of the shaft when it stops spinning, it
won't start up the next time.  Have to rotate the
shaft by hand to find a position where it will start
up.  Not sure what that means; problem with the
brushes ?  They're not worn badly; maybe they need
to be reshaped or something ?  First noticed this
problem developing a year or so ago, I think.

Later, got out my copy of Nigel Calder's book and
looked at a section on electric motors.  Started
testing the armature of my motor, and found problems
right away.  I think there's a short in one segment,
and soon I noticed three broken wires in other
segments.  Feel stupid for not having checked this
before; spent two months chasing around after
bearings.  Not sure if this can be repaired; would
require some soldering of thick copper wire in
tight places to fix the broken wires, and I think
a short would require rewinding the whole armature.
And there's no alternator/motor shop here in La P.
Will have to check into buying a new
motor, but I don't know the ratings of this one;
there's nothing but a mfg name and serial number on
the side, and I think the mfg already told me they
can't tell me the ratings from the serial number.
It's a 30-year-old motor.

Made a new washer for the propane stove.  Looks like
the one I did previously was the wrong material and I
put it in wrong (other than that, I did a fine job!).
New one works fine.

Very hot afternoon; can't stop sweating.

Salad and chicken-onion-rice and rum-and-coke for
dinner.  Took my dinner out onto the foredeck to
eat it; there's a bit of breeze out there.


9/12/2006 (Tuesday)
At anchor at La Parguera, Puerto Rico.

Launched the dinghy, cleaned the spark plugs, and
over to "Exuma Grouper" a little before 9.  The
four of went out to the reefs for snorkeling, and
we went one reef farther than we did before.  It
was very nice, lots of interesting fish, and I
saw a good-sized squid, which is rare.  We all
had a very nice time, and we marveled at how
gorgeous a morning it was and how nice to be
floating out here in the middle of all this
niceness.  Back to the boat around 11.

Dinghied ashore a little after noon and went to
the restaurant.  For $8, had the lunch buffet
(two pork chops, rice and beans, soda) and
several hours of internet; very nice.  Looked
at getting a new motor for the auto-pilot;
they're in the $150 range, but a huge number of
configurations are available, so making sure I
order the right one will be tricky; sent email
to the auto-pilot company to see if they can
give me some direction.  Got groceries, got 10
gallons of water, and back to the boat.

Fairly hot late afternoon on the boat, but not
as bad as yesterday.  Salad for dinner.

Killed a cockroach in my berth.


9/13/2006 (Wednesday)
At anchor at La Parguera, Puerto Rico.

Getting the normal tradewind pattern back; wind
picking up from ESE by 10 this morning.  Last
4 or 5 days have seen very light wind, usually
from S or N due to land-heating effect.

Turned off the refrigerator so I could listen to
weather on the shortwave, and forgot to turn it
back on for 4 hours.  But it was good and full of
food, so it kept pretty cool anyway.

Sewed 4 or 5 small patches onto the mainsail.

Salad and tuna-salad sandwiches for dinner.


9/14/2006 (Thursday)
At anchor at La Parguera, Puerto Rico.

Weather forecast is predicting some 40-knot squalls
over the next couple of days.  So started raising
anchor at 7, and moved about 100 yards NW, into a
gap between a couple of mangrove islands, closer
in to town.  Put down two anchors, and had some
trouble getting the bow around and getting the
second anchor exactly where I wanted it.  Ended up
about 10 feet closer than I wanted to some nasty
remnants of a dock on one of the islands, but will
be okay unless it blows hard from NW.  Finished
anchoring by 7:35, at lat 17.58.363 long 67.03.207

Emptied 10 gallons from water jugs into water tanks.

Dinghied ashore after lunch and went to restaurant.
My life is ruined: their internet hardware has died,
maybe zapped by lightning, and who knows if and when
it will get replaced ?  Had paid for my soda before
I learned this, so drank my soda and read the
newspaper.  Then sat elsewhere in the shopping
center and found a free WiFi signal and did half
an hour of internet.  But it's hot and uncomfortable
there; wish the restaurant would get their stuff
fixed.

Got 10 gallons of water and headed for the boat, but
"Exuma Grouper" waved me over.  We chatted for a lot
longer than I expected, and Paula and I were out in
the sun, so it got uncomfortable.  Then we got a bit
heated, disagreeing about some politics-type stuff.
But it ended on a friendly note.

Salad and chicken-onion-rice and rum-and-coke for
dinner.

Sprayed a cockroach on the companionway steps; I
think he just flew into the boat.

No-see-ums infesting the aft cabin in the evening.
Spraying killed most of them, but I was still
scratching all night.  Not staying here another
night.


9/15/2006 (Friday)
At anchor at La Parguera, Puerto Rico.

At 6:15, raised secondary anchor and pulled forward
onto chain of primary anchor.  Then the batteries
were too low to start the engine.  Sat and waited
until 7, started the engine, and raised the primary
anchor.  Motored out into open water and put down
both anchors.  Didn't do a very good job of it; one
is taking all the load, and think rodes are crossed.
Done by 7:30 at lat 17.58.224 long 67.03.122

Launched the dinghy, checked the spark plugs, and
over to "Exuma Grouper" a little after 8.  The
four of went out to the reefs for snorkeling, but
it was a bit rough and visibility wasn't so great.
Amanda and Paula got back into the dinghy fairly
early, but Doug and I snorkeled for a while, and
Doug found a big lobster hiding under a coral head.
But he had no gloves or spear to capture it.  We
headed back in, getting a bit wet in somewhat
rough conditions.  Back to the boat around 10.

We looked at that stranded sailboat from a distance
it's listing 15 degrees or so.  Doug said some
locals told him that the owner has been contacted,
it's some doctor, and he's not interested in
rescuing the boat !  A crime.

Blowing 20 or so, with a lot of chop.

Dinghied ashore around noon.  Walked to library
and did some internet.  Nice place, but absolutely
no English-language materials, no even a newspaper.
To the shopping center, chatted with the crew from
"Exuma Grouper", got a couple of books from the
book-exchange, got some groceries, and back to the
boat.

Many of my cruising friends have stopped updating
their internet log files.  "Maranatha" stopped at
end of May, "Tyche" stopped last year, "Serendipity"
stopped first of June.  All of them had much fancier
logs than I did; I guess the effort just got to be
too much.  Slackers.

Salad and peanutbutter-and-banana sandwich for
dinner.


9/16/2006 (Saturday)
At anchor at La Parguera, Puerto Rico.

Blowing 20-25 or so, with a lot of chop, by 9 AM.
Blew hard all day.

"Richard Cory" is gone, to Boqueron.

Added water to the batteries, but only one cell
really needed any.

Salad and cornedbeef-onion-noodle for dinner.

Killed a cockroach in the cockpit, right at the
companionway.


9/17/2006 (Sunday)
At anchor at La Parguera, Puerto Rico.

Weather much more settled; never did blow hard.

Dinghied ashore in the afternoon.  Lots of people
wandering around the square.  Went to shopping
center and got a WiFi connection near the
book-exchange, and did a couple of hours of internet.
Chatted with Doug for a while.  Got a few groceries
and back to the boat.

"Richard Cory" is back; guess they spent only one
night in Boqueron, or didn't go at all.

Salad and cheese sandwich for dinner.


9/18/2006 (Monday)
At anchor at La Parguera, Puerto Rico.

Put the mainsail up.
Emptied 10 gallons from water jugs into water tanks.

Dammit, did it again: turned off the refrigerator
so I could listen to the shortwave, and forgot to
turn it back on for 3 hours.

Dinghied ashore around 1 and walked to the library
to do internet.  Just as I got inside, they said
"we're closing; back open at 4".  So no internet
today; I left the laptop on the boat, and it's too
hot to do much extra walking and lugging.  Got the
gas jug out of the dinghy and went to the gas station,
stopping to chat with Doug, Paula and Amanda in the
shopping center.

Saw Olga from "Richard Cory"; she said it was even
hotter in Boqueron: no breeze there.  And there's a
really crappy lounge-type singer here sometimes on
weekends, blaring out loudly in the public square;
he was there in Boqueron too the night they were
there !  They felt like he must be following them.

Got $10 of gas and back to dinghy.  Got 10 gallons
of water and back to boat.  Hot.

Salad and spaghetti and rum-and-coke for dinner.

At 6:30, dinghied over to "Exuma Grouper" and we
played Mexican Train dominoes for three hours.
Lots of fun !


9/19/2006 (Tuesday)
At anchor at La Parguera, Puerto Rico.

I've been reading back-issues of "Southwinds" from
the internet, and they've convinced me I never want
to go back to Florida.  Nothing but bad news: Key
West is outlawing anchoring, Marathon is finishing
their mooring field, South Beach's anchoring
ordinance, random boat-stops in the Keys to check
for no-discharge, etc.

At 9, launched the dinghy and followed "Exuma Grouper"
out to the reef; they planned to stay there all day
and snorkel and scrape the hull.  The water was very
calm and seemed clear when we got there, but once in
the water, it was a bit cloudy with particles, and
there were a few very large (15-inch-diameter)
transparent jellyfish.  Hard to have a nice, relaxing
snorkel when you're always watching out for jellyfish.
We snorkeled for almost 2 hours, and saw plenty of
nice fish.  But the lobster we saw last time was gone.

Around 11, I headed back to my boat, and they decided
it was too rough to stay on the mooring and scrape
the hull (not really, in my opinion), and went looking
for somewhere to anchor back in the mangroves
(I thought).  I went back to my boat and scraped the
hull for half an hour.  Scattered barnacles on the
hull, and a lot of grass growing on the prop.  Little
silver fish hovering right around my hands as I scraped.

Saw "Exuma Grouper" anchoring back in their old spot at
12:30.  Later, found out they just did some exploring
back in the mangroves; they never intended to anchor
out there.

In the afternoon, dinghied ashore.  Went to the
restaurant, but their WiFi isn't working and they
don't seem to care.  Went to book-exchange area and
did a couple hours of internet there, joined by the
crew from "Exuma Grouper" after a while.  Another hot
afternoon.

Ordered 5 guidebooks for the Leeward Islands, Windward
Islands, and Trinidad, for a total of $101.  Also made
Christmas airline ticket reservations; I guess it's
ridiculously early to do it, but wanted to get it out
of the way.  Not making much progress on the auto-pilot
motor; apparently it was a custom model created 30
years ago, so I'm not going to find an exact match for
it.  Not much luck finding motor-repair places in
Puerto Rico through the internet, either.  Could ship
the armature off to somewhere in the USA and have it
rewound for $60 or so, plus probably another $40 or
so for shipping.

Back to boat, and it's hot on the boat.

This morning, Doug was pointing to haze over the
interior of the island, and saying he'd heard there
was Sahara sand in the air, and also the volcano on
Montserrat had emitted some stuff.  I had been
skeptical, but now I saw that my solar panels were
lightly covered with yellow dust, so I guess he's
right.  Wiped some of it off.  Later wiped the same
kind of dust off the outside of some of the ports.

Rain at 5, which is unusual.  Usually the tradewind
keeps the inland thunderstorms from reaching out to
the boat.  But it's been blowing mostly from the N
this afternoon.  Sprinkled through the early evening
and more rain at 7.  Cooled things off nicely.

Salad and PBJ sandwiches for dinner.


9/20/2006 (Wednesday)
At anchor at La Parguera, Puerto Rico.

Got up on top of pilothouse and cleaned off the solar
panels.

Added some oil to the dinghy gasoline.  I've been
running it without oil for a couple of weeks (which
is a bad thing to do), to try to stop the oily fouling
of the spark plugs.  Now the plugs are getting dry
carbon fouling, not oily, so it's time to use some oil
again.

Really should climb the mast and fix the anchor light,
but I'm too lazy this morning.

Gave myself a haircut, using the electric clippers.

Dinghied ashore and went to library to do internet,
but again they're closed and there's a sign saying
they'll re-open at 4.

Dinghied out, and stopped at "Exuma Grouper" to chat.
They're rebedding a hatch, and it's a real struggle.
Ended up chatting for almost 3 hours; finally chased
home by looming thunderclouds.

Rain at 5:30.

Salad and chicken-onion-rice and rum-and-coke for
dinner.

At 11, a school of fish circling the boat noisily,
thrashing around, going under the hull and bumping
into it.  Heard a dolphin breathing, so it must have
been chasing that school.


9/21/2006 (Thursday)
At anchor at La Parguera, Puerto Rico.

Still a school of thousands of small fish hanging
around near my boat.  Sometimes something alarms
them, and they all start jumping out of the water.
Sounds like the patter of rainfall.

There's been a small bird trying to nest on top of
the RADAR mount on my mizzenmast, and crapping on
the aft hatch and aft deck.

Someone has rescued that drifted sailboat; it's not
there any more.

Dinghied ashore and went to do internet near the
book-exchange.  Trying to find an LED bulb to replace
a halogen reading-lamp bulb, and it's an unbelievably
complex chore; I've been nibbling away at it for a
month now.  Also: out of curiosity, looked up the
inflation-adjusted number for the original price of
my boat.  Cost about $39K in 1973, which is about
$160K in 2001, when I bought it for $70K-plus.
So I guess you could say it depreciated about 50%
in 30 years.

Doug bent my ear for about an hour about the
relationship problems he's having with Paula.  That's
a big factor in their choice of next destination;
looks like they might head back to Exumas, then
maybe split up, probably sell the boat, maybe Doug
and Amanda will go back to Canada.

Bought some groceries and back to the boat.

Salad and tuna-salad sandwiches for dinner.


9/22/2006 (Friday)
At anchor at La Parguera, Puerto Rico.

Headachey; took some pills.

Doug from "Exuma Gouper" called at 8:30 and said they
were doing a car-trip today; I should come over at 9.
So I went over at 9, we went ashore and to the canvas
shop to get the car, and found that someone else had
taken it, even though they knew it had been promised
to us.  Ismail is not very reliable about his promises.
He called the woman who had the car, and he said she'd
be back with it soon, which turned out to mean noon.
So we sat around all morning waiting.

Into the car, got gas, and took the scenic route
up past Boqueron and to Cabo Rojo.  Stopped at a
jewelry-craft shop for Amanda.  To a cafeteria in a
supermarket for a lunch of BBQ chicken, rice, beans,
plantains and soda for $5; pretty good food and big
portions.

Up the road to stop at a marine-electronics store.  I
went in with my auto-pilot motor, and they said they
don't fix motors (contrary to what several people had
told me).  They gave me name and number of a place
somewhere in Mayaguez.

On to a fabric store, where Doug spent about 2 hours
picking out a couple of yards of fabric to replace
some headliner or something in "Exuma Grouper".
The daily afternoon thunderstorm came and went while
we were in there.  Then after buying, he stood there
chatting with the guy about politics or something; he
never stops talking.  The rest of us just walked out
and waited in the car, and eventually he came out.

This area is just store after store, shopping center
after shopping center along a highway running
north-south along the west edge of Puerto Rico. 
Exactly like any built-up part of the US mainland,
except there's some nice green hilly scenery here,
and the water (Mona Passage) is only a couple of
miles to the west.  Lots of traffic, and the people
LOVE to shop.

Heading back home, we stopped at a Walmart.  A bit
of a zoo in there, but we managed to make a fairly
quick stop of it.  Doug bought a CD player, and I
bought distilled water, soda, cereal, paper towels.
Lots of pretty women in the store.

Back to La Parguera, and out to the boat by 5:45.
Had some peanut-butter crackers for dinner; still
stuffed from lunch.


9/23/2006 (Saturday)
At anchor at La Parguera, Puerto Rico.

Gassed up the dinghy and cleaned the spark plugs.
Called "Exuma Grouper" at 8 to see if they wanted to
go snorkeling, but they're tired from yesterday and
Doug needs to get some boat work done.  So I went
by myself.  Very calm morning, but lots of particles
in the water, so visibility about 25 feet or so.
Saw plenty of decent fish, but there's a lot of grass
and muck floating on the surface, and had to avoid
10 or 12 of those whitish translucent jellyfish,
about 8 to 10 inches in diameter.  Saw a stingray
about 3 feet across gliding along, about 2 feet
above the bottom.  A 2-inch silver fish decided to
hover around me, using me as protection, sometimes
coming around to swim just a few inches in front of
my mask.  Saw a 2-foot barracuda.  Had a pleasant
time. Back to the boat by 9:15 or so.

Wind blowing hard from ESE by 11, but then it slowly
eased, until light N wind in midafternoon.

Dinghied ashore after lunch.  To book-exchange and
did internet for a couple of hours.  Got groceries.

Looked like a thunderstorm approaching from land,
but it smelled like smoke.  Must be a fire ashore.

Salad and chicken-onion-rice-mushroomsoup and
rum-and-coke for dinner.


9/24/2006 (Sunday)
At anchor at La Parguera, Puerto Rico.

Wind blowing hard from ESE by 9 AM, with lots of chop.

Read an electronic copy of the Simrad WP32 Wheelpilot
manual that I got online yesterday, and started figuring
out how it would fit on my helm.  A few problems: I'd
have to make a custom mount (since my pedestal is far
bigger than they handle, and square instead of round),
I'd have to relocate the controls for the Benmar
auto-pilot, and the wheelpilot would seriously block
the view of the instruments (mainly the tach and the
oil pressure gauge).  Bummer.

Wind blew very hard all afternoon; lots of big chop.
Hot in the late afternoon.

Salad and cheese-and-crackers for dinner.


9/25/2006 (Monday)
At anchor at La Parguera, Puerto Rico.

Sprinkle of rain at 6:15.

Finished reading "The Da Vinci Code".  Not bad, but
I've read a dozen thrillers as good or better in the
last couple of years.  And there were several small
mistakes in it.

Wind blowing hard from ESE by 9 AM, with lots of chop.
Blew hard all day.

After lunch, dinghied ashore.  At the restaurant,
they said they are getting someone to come look at
their internet, to fix it, so that's good.  Went to
book-exchange and did a couple of hours of internet
there.  Chatted briefly with Jim from "Mahjongg".
Chatted briefly with Doug; Ismail is in a snit about
something.  Gathered some more info off the internet
about LED bulbs and electric motors.  Heard that
Bruce on "Molasses" had a new engine put in, and made
it to St Martin.  Also heard this about a boat I'm
not familiar with:  "Bob on Spree lost his boat at
False entrance by Independent Boat yard in St Thomas!!
It sat on the reef for a couple days before breaking up. 
The engine failed and he didn't have any sails up, the
swell put it on the reef."

Salad and spaghetti and rum-and-coke for dinner.


9/26/2006 (Tuesday)
At anchor at La Parguera, Puerto Rico.

A little rain at 6:15.

Reading stuff I got from the internet yesterday.
Looks like Raymarine S1 wheelpilot might fit better
than the Simrad one, but still not easy, and there
are more parts to install.  Starting to look like
adding a spare low-end auto-pilot is not as easy as
I'd hoped.

Blowing hard by 10.  Doug said a tropical wave went
through a couple of evenings ago; news to me.

After lunch, dinghied ashore through very rough
conditions, stopping at "Exuma Grouper" to chat a
bit.  Found them in a major crisis.  Yesterday
afternoon Ismail of the canvas shop blew up at them,
and made all kinds of alarming threats.  He's always
been a bit unstable, but he really lost it this time.
He tried to get them to make incriminating statements,
with his girlfriend as a witness, so he could get
them thrown out of the country (they're Canadian).
He threatened to damage their dinghy or their boat,
and threatened all of us cruisers in general.  He
really ranted and raved, and almost got violent.
So of course they're totally freaked out, got no
sleep last night, wanted to warn the rest of us
cruisers, and are planning to leave, at least for
a few weeks.  I tried to calm them down a little,
but they're scared.  They don't even want to go
ashore today.

I went ashore and to the book-exchange to do internet.
No sign of Ismail, and the canvas shop is closed
today.  A few hours later, Doug and Amanda showed up.
They're going to leave town for a while.  A big
complication is that my guidebooks will be arriving
in their PO box in a few weeks, but we'll figure
some way to deal with that.

Did a couple of hours of internet, but didn't make
much progress on motors and LEDs.  Back to the boat.

Salad and cheese-and-crackers for dinner.


9/27/2006 (Wednesday)
At anchor at La Parguera, Puerto Rico.

Blowing hard by 9:30.

Loafed all day, reading books and web pages I saved
from the internet, and listening to the radio.

Salad and chili and rum-and-coke for dinner.


9/28/2006 (Thursday)
At anchor at La Parguera, Puerto Rico.

Did a bucket of laundry.

"Exuma Grouper" is still here; maybe things have
calmed down.

After lunch, dinghied ashore through rough
conditions, stopping at "Exuma Grouper" to chat a
bit.  They're going to stay here; maybe take a
side-trip to the bio-bay for fun.

I went on to do internet at the book-exchange.
Decided to go ahead and order the $29 LED
reading-lamp bulb I've been looking at.  $29 is
a lot, but I use that lamp every night in my
berth, and it would be nice to have something
that runs much cooler and takes less current.
You can get cool-white 12v for $8, but I'm told
warm-white is better for reading, and I need
something that can tolerate 14v or so.  That
kind of bulb is $29.

So I tried to order it, from the only two web
sites that sell it.  The first only takes PayPal,
which I don't have, and the second wanted to add
$5 for order less than $30, plus $10 shipping, and
as I cancelled, I think it said it doesn't ship to
PO boxes, which is another deal-breaker.  So I'll
give up on that for now.

Did a couple of hours of internet.  The crew from
"Exuma Grouper" showed up for a while.  Got
groceries, got 10 gallons of water, and back to the
boat just ahead of low dark clouds.

Salad and cheese-and-crackers for dinner.

Rain at 7 PM, and rained off and on most of the
evening.  Hot and humid and stuffy down below.


9/29/2006 (Friday)
At anchor at La Parguera, Puerto Rico.

Did a bucket of laundry.

As I've been doing lately, spent much of the
morning on the computer, reading web pages I
downloaded yesterday.  I've been reading some
interesting blogs from Baghdad, Beirut, Moscow,
etc, as well as news articles, and info about
LEDs and motors.

After lunch, dinghied ashore.  Got 10 gallons of
water.  To the library, to see if they have WiFi.
They don't, but they dragged out an Ethernet cable
and connected my laptop that way.  Nice to sit in
air-conditioning to do internet instead of standing
in the hot corner near the book-exchange.

But uploading to my web site didn't work from the
library, so I ended up going to the book-exchange
area for a while anyway.  Then groceries, and back
to the boat.

"Exuma Grouper" is gone, probably to the bio-bay.

Salad and chicken-onion-rice and rum-and-coke for
dinner.


9/30/2006 (Saturday)
At anchor at La Parguera, Puerto Rico.

Doug on "Exuma Grouper" called me on the VHF from
the bio-bay and we chatted for a while.  He just
installed a new VHF, and it's DSC-capable, and
cost only $68 (plus a lot for shipping).  I had no
idea they'd gotten that cheap; last time I looked
they were $300.  Maybe I should replace my old
backup VHF with a new DSC one.

Salad and cheese sandwich for dinner.

[Sorry my life has been so boring lately.  I really
should do some boat-work and such, but I've been
very lazy.]


10/1/2006 (Sunday)
At anchor at La Parguera, Puerto Rico.

Blowing very hard by 9:30 or so.  It's been blowing
hard just about every day for the last 10 days or so,
but harder than usual this morning.

Dinghied ashore after lunch and went to book-exchange
area.  No WiFi signal; they must have turned it off
for the weekend.  Exchanged books.  Supermarket had
a sale on spaghetti and spaghetti accessories; loaded
up.  Back to the boat.

For dinner, tried using some mystery-meat I bought
the other day.  Thought it was cheap, fatty ham
chunks, but in the pan the chunks all unfolded to
reveal that they were compressed pig skin.  Dumped
all of it over the side and had chicken instead.
Guess I shouldn't buy unknown meat with Spanish
labels I can't translate.  Salad and chicken-onion
beans and rum-and-coke for dinner.

Didn't sleep well; very still and a bit warm and
stuffy in the boat.


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