Since we left St Marteen, we sailed past the windward and leeward islands. Volcanoes, black sandy beaches, hikes and lots of rivers. These islands are the "greenest" and "wildest" we ve seen so far. Very different fromthe touristy and developed BVI. There are lots of rivers, and waterfalls to explore. Like the one in Dominica, 40 meters high filling you up with an amazing energy.
The roads are covered with trees, rich in mangos, banana, avocado, passion fruit....Mary has been having a great time, and the "fruit picking" and fishing helped us a bit to stay out of the expensive local supermarkets.
Wade and Audrey will be leving back to Masachussets and Texas in St Lucia next week. We are planning to continue south to Grenada and probably to Trinidad. The hurricanes have stayed away so far, so fingers crossed...
Check our last pics HERE
June 30th
Still in the lagoon, we spent 4 days onboard patching the dinghy up, and what was supposed to be our first "dry foot" ride in months, turned out to be the loudest mouthful swearing ride in our history...still leaks a bit, GGRRRRR!!! Where is the freaking water coming from???
Anyways...today Audrey is joining us from Washington and Nicholas is flying from Costa Rica, we ll wait for one last crew (Wade) and head south for the leeward islands some time next week. I think we ll stop in St Barths for a dive and continue towards St Kitts and so on. But hey ,you never know....we might get stuck in some island in between. The first storm of the season (Arlene) is on near Mexico, and though too far west, we ll keep an eye on the weather to be safe. Chauuuu!!
iJune 22th.
We sailed back to the good old lagoon in St Maarten. We visited Anguila (which was so expensive we could only stayed for 3 days) and the very chic St Barths. Good diving and snorkeling, beautiful beaches and cheap rum. I love the caribbean.
Summer, Forbes and Mono left us, there are 2 new crew joining us at the end of the month and one more open spot for the trip south to Venezuela.
In the meantime we are about to go back to the boat and get the dinghy out of the water to stop the leaks (for the 3rd time...i think...). This means we won t get off for about three days, got to take care of lots of little jobs for the month long trip south.
June 4th. Pinel island St Marteen
After sailing to so many places over the past few months it feels great to just stay put in one spot for some time. St Marteen is a a great island for that. A mix of nationalities, very european and developed for a Caribbean island.
Ang left us yesterday after 2 months onboard. It s been great to sail with him, we ll miss him. Gonzalo "mono" flew in from Patagonia, he is full of energy and getting to know the boat and routine. Summer and Forbes already know their way around...
We had a few days of luxury when my parents came to visit, margaritas on the beach and dinners with red wine....not any more though, back to beer and Mariana s great cooking!! Life is still good.
We plan to hang out in St Marteen for a few more days, snorkelling and diving when we can, and we ll probably go to St barths and south to Nevis and St kitts.
The hurricane season "officially" started this month. We have to watch the weather as we make our way south to Granada through the windward and leeward islands. We ll need 2 more crew in July for this trip before we get the boat out of the water for a few months maintenance. Got to go now! Cheers.
May 20th. Virgin Gorda, BVI
We are hanging out in the British Virgin Islands. The weather has been shit for the last week or so, raining every day, so the boat has been very very wet!
These islands are very expensive, we are managing to live off the groceries we got in Puerto Rico, and a couple of small fish Forbes got with a "fancy" hand made fishing pole (a piece of wood and a line with a hook). It s been fun.
We spent a few days in the little island of Jost Van Dyke, where we went diving a few times and out drinking with the guys from the dive shop (thanks Penney for all of the inside info!!)
We left for Tortola and did a 2 tank dive in the Rhone, a 19th century British wreck, and rated top ten in the world. Really cool diving, huge schools of fish, turtles and stingrays. Best we have dove in a while.
We are planning to cross southeast to St Marteen next week, and stay there for a few weeks for some boat repairs, and hopefully kiting in Orient Beach.
Crew changes are next month since Ang is leaving and flying to North Carolina in the beginning of June, Forbes is heading for Turks and Caicos and Summer is still figuring out her flights and dates. 3 new crew are on their way from South America, Puerto Rico and Miami, so IMAGINA will be sailing with a full crew for the next couple of months. Got to go now! Cheers!
April 21st, Culebra Island, Puerto Rico
It s been 3 days of just diving, snorkelling and dinghying into town. Culebra is small and relaxed. There are canals to go with the dinghy to the store and bars. We had a night partying when we first got here and spent the last 2 days in Culebrita, about 4 miles east. There are mooring balls to tied up to so as not to hurt the corals when anchoring. We dove Culebrita reef and snorkel in 30 feet of water with 50 foot visibility. Turtles, spotted eagle rays, and nice corals. I got to use my spear gun and (finally) scored a goat fish. Not so big, but tasty enough for a first catch. Now we are back in Culebra to get the scuba tanks refilled. Jordan and Ang went ashore to party. We stayed onboard just chilling and hanging out. Jordan will leave beginning of May back to North Carolina, and Forbes is flying from the UK and meeting us in St Thomas. There are 2 more crew who are still confirming their spot. I ll write to everybody in between tomorrow and the day after since i found a good internet connection near the boat. Bear with us... be patient!
April, 2nd. Salinas, Puerto Rico
After 2 days of waking up at 4:00am to beat the morning easterlys, we made it to Salinas. It is a small noisy town, which was supposed to have the best Marine Store in the country. Well , the store has moved 4 miles away, it is saturday and there are no taxis to get us there. No spares or glue i guess.
 |
| Kelly and the Catch of the day |
We got about 80 miles to get to the Spanish Virgin Islands (Vieques being our first stop).
 |
| New (very) used Genoa= Speed! |
March 31st, Ponce, Puerto Rico
So!! We made it through the MONA PASSAGE. It took us about two nights and one day (with resting stops in between) to get here. In the end the most difficult thing was not the passage itself but to get through the Puerto Rican Inmigration. It took us 6 hours! I was interviewed by 2 inmigration officers, playing the old good cop and bad cop, trying to find out what is it that we do, how do we support ourselfs, etc....After a while they notice we just like the hippie travelling kind and let us go with our passports and a cruising permit!
There are only 4 of us onboard, Jordan, Kelly, Ang and me. Mariana took a trip to Buenos Aires for some family time and a big wedding. We ve been resting in Ponce, getting groceries and a bit of MAMAJUANA ( a Dominican drink known as the Liquid Viagra) party to relax. Tomorrow we ll head east to Isla Caja De Muerto, among some reefs and try to get some diving, going for Salinas and eventually Vieques and Culebra.
The crew is happy and we are having a great time, so we ll probably will not need any crew till beginning of May.
That is for now....i got to do a lot of catching up on my mail!
March 24th.
We are still in Boca Chica getting ready to go back to La Caleta for a day trip and maybe a dive.
Jordan and Kelly are already onboard and settling in nicely. Today we reprovisioned and are almost ready to go. One more crew will join on Friday and we ll head east to Saona Island where we ll wait for the weather window to cross over to PR.
March 21st. (Again) Southern Coast, Boca Chica
After three weeks of really nice sailing we are back in the mooring ball of the Nautico. Tomorrow 2 crew are arriving. We ll wait for one more by the end of the week and leave for Puerto Rico, about 150 miles away. That is 40 hours for us approximately. The trip itself should be fairly easy till we get to the MONA PASSAGE, which is the strip of water that streches in between Hispaniola and Mona Island, west of PR, and famous for it big waves and rough weather. So the idea is to sail a few days in order to get the new crew used to the boat chores, while waiting for the right weather window to cross. That is NE winds of less than 15 knots blowing for at least 2 days.
In the meantime we are trying to get the dinghy back to float (we have given up on it being dry...) I think we are succeding so far, though not by much.
March 6. Southern Coast, Boca Chica
We slowly sailed around the east coast, and got to see some really cool places. Bayahibe, a small village past the crowed and touristy Saona, was a real treat to us. We went diving in St George Wreck and in a small wall. Really cool. Now we got to Boca Chica, different and not so crowded is a good spot to rest and get our hands on some maintenance projects. The dinghy is holding up, it doesn t leak air any more but we need to get it out of the water and glue it completly to keep it dry. Dario is helping a lot with the little projects we got going on. Good for him (and for the boat!). I think we ll stay here for a week before heading west to explore Pedernales and some natural pools we heard are awesome.
March, 1st. Off we go!
After a few days of rest, we are about to head to the dock to get some diesel and start sailing towards Boca de Yuma, on the eastern tip of DR.
 |
| Laundry in the saloon |
No more rest, time to go...
February 25th. Punta Cana
It s been a very busy couple of weeks. Sailing, sailing, sailing.... We arrived this morning to Punta Cana, a touristy district in the east coast of Dominican Republic.
After 4 days waiting to cross from southern Caicos to Luperon in the north of DR, we had a great night sail. Wind on the beam (NE very rare this time of the year), 20 knots, and no waves. It doesn t get any better than that. The atmosphere is way different than Turks. The country is full of mountains, and lush green landscapes. It even smells different. Upon arrival, it was funny listening to the dominican inmmigration officials speaking english while inventing "taxes" to charge us and other "non Spanish speaking" boats. U$S20 for a "despacho" to a different port is apparently a good way of financing the comandante´s pockets. Welll....welcome back to Latin America...
At least they got Rhum and salsa right?
We got to Punta Cana this morning after a 120 mile passage. Strong SE blew on us all night. The casualties were: Broken dinghy davits and a couple (more like 4) of water leaks in the saloon. So it s going to be a bit of work the next days before we move on.
Februry 2nd. North of Provo
We made it around the north coast and are tied up to a Marina. Its nice and all, but for what the charge you they should give you more than a place to secure your boat. Bathroom? 300 yds from the boat. Internet? "...is down mon..." (and it s probably been for weeks). Water? It tastes like shit (salty shit). At least we get to sleep without sticking our neck out through the hatch to check our spot.
 |
| OUR DEFLATED DINGHY STILL AFLOAT |
We washed the boat today, and still got to organized it back to normal, It is a bit of a mess. Tomorrow is also dinghy day, since it is deflating and looking a bit sad. The outboard is fixed and ready to go. So we ll rest after that and head south.
There are 2 crew joining us next week, and we plan to sail around South Caicos, Grand turk and check Great Sand Cay. There are supposed to be Humpback whales passing on their way to winter breeding grounds near the banks. We really hope to spot one despite being a little and small boat. We ll see.
January 28th. Providenciales
We are (finally) starting our log, where we ll (try to) keep all of our friends, family and potential crew informed of IMAGINA s whereabouts.
Let s start saying we are in Turk N Caicos. We arrived 3 days ago and had already became popular in the anchorage when our boat was dragging and the rest were dodging us...They all know us now.
We ll write more in a few days. Too many things to do to be hanging out in the internet cafe...chauuuuu!!
