We have a couple of books on board on "How to Sail" ...... When we slowed our dinghy down to watch these kids sail by, we realised we may have to pull the book out and learn how to do all that stuff again ..... It seems like forever since we last went sailing ..... It's pretty sad when you get jealous of 'Kids in prams' .... But just look at the stern of our new yacht with its new 'faux-finish' wood grain ..... Just a bigger "ARITA" really ..... Now to get rid of the blue canvas and make it all teal green ...... It is all part of the master plan .....
Laurie has already started on that with making the new stack-pack for the mizzen ..... That mizzen 'sail-holder' has pockets on each side that hold the rolled up shade cloths for the after deck .......... She's done an awesome sewing job and at the end of each day with a swig of rum or a G&T it is beautiful to survey our World and watch other sailors go by ...... One day, we too will be sailing again .....
And that shade canopy comes in handy too, for cutting the templates for Paul and Lynn's windows on their new dodger ....... Seperate templates are needed for both the tempered safety glass and the stainless steel surrounds ..... All of which need to be manufactured on the main island of PUERTO RICO ..... And our friends Harry and Linda on the catamaran "KUHELA" are off to safer anchorages in SALINAS ...... Safer meaning bigger mangroves .....
"KIANA" will finally have a sleek dodger coated in epoxy white with large windows, but until then the little forward looking hole will have to suffice ...... Speaking of little holes .... Those were the holes left by the defunct gauges for two of our four water tanks .... Each tank holds 125 gallons, but since we now have the water maker we are taking these two and converting them to diesel tanks...... But first we need to clean them with the vacuum cleanerhose on a long flexi stick ...... There's thirty years of calcified crud down there .......
Now if we could get this hermit crab out of his shell and send him down there he could get all the crud out of the corners ..... Apart from the tank cleaning there was a whole rebuild required for the hoses ...... Convert half of the water fill hose lines to diesel..... New deck filler plug for water that now has to be on starboard ..... Identify the breather lines and separate them ..... But at the end of the day we will have a fuel capacity for 450 gallons, which is great for crossing the Pacific .... But we need a good old Texas oil well to fill them first .... But it solves the biggest problem of all, because our main fuel tank under the floor of the two front cabins has corrosion holes in it that have been consistently leaking and it has to come out ..... Now there's a drama yet to happen ...... On the sister ship "LIAHONA" Mark resorted to cutting a hole in the deck to take it out ........ We're hoping to avoid that ......
Friends of ours, Gabriel and Wanda from the PR yacht "GOOD TIMING" arrived from the mainland and we went kayaking into the mangroves to work out some sort of a 'hurricane plan' ..... Somewhere in there was the wrecked ferro-cement yacht "CARLOTTA" that once belonged to the now famous Capt. Fatty Goodlander, a really funny guy and great storyteller well published in Caribbean yachting magazines ..... He didn't own it when it was wrecked here ... But here's the thing ..... This is right in the thick of the mangrove channels, supposedly full protection from hurricanes, and yet look at it ....... We definitely need another plan ....
Despite the looming weather front, we took a boat ride with "KIANA's" crew on a local skiff to visit the sister island of CULEBRITA ..... A chance to get away from our anchorage ..... A day of play ..... Sit in the shade of the umbrella and in the water to keep cool, which is all relative, and probably somewhat insane ..... The water being warmer than the air ..... But at least it is wet ......
There were clear imprints of a turtle having come ashore the night before to lay her eggs ...... Beneath the trees was the disturbed sandy soil ........ Clearly the turtle had read the sign in both English and Spanish, that said this was a Government approved, Department of Nature Conservation controlled turtle-egg-laying beach ....
We fenced it off with a broken-up pallet and hoped it would stay safe and headed for the thorny trail to the top of the hill ........ There at the very top are the remains of an old Spanish light-house ....... Somewhere around 1889 or later .....
Thick wall of composite clay brick and basalt rock and on the inside the walls were given a cement rendered plaster finish ...... Really historic and totally deserted .... A lonely outpost but huge in structure .... We heard the story that donkeys were used to cart all the stone up the hill ....... No mean feat even for a donkey ....
The mortar was obviously much weaker than the bricks ....... Take a close look at the photo on the left ....... The ravages of wind and time .....
But the view from the top of the islands and the reefs is nothing short of spectacular ...........Spectacular and windy .... You had best hang on to the rusty rails and the spiral stairway ........
CULEBRITA is one of the favorite destinations for Puerto Rican powerboats and on a good holiday weekend you can count at least four hundred of them rafted up ...... No explanation is needed why they would come here .......
The original kerosene lamp and its optics are long gone and replaced with solar panels and batteries that power a light of sorts ..... With modern day GPS most people kind of know where they are and the rest get picked up off the reefs in the morning ......
And in among the thorn trees and the Turk's head cacti is the original copper and bronze dome of the light-house with its open flue for the kerosene lamp gases ....... Probably blown off in some long forgotten hurricane ...... Going downhill is so much easier than going uphill ......
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