After three great months of cozy marina life, we sailed out of our little home in Puerto Real, Cabo Rojo and waved goodbye to Marina Pescaderia last week.
Slip #13 was so good to us.
We spent our last day at the marina checking off a few final to-do’s, like a final load of laundry, a final water tank top-off, a final shower in a real facility, and a final guava donut from our favorite Puerto Rican bakery in town. …Okay, that last one wasn’t totally necessary I suppose, but definitely still made my day. ;))
We got to enjoy one gorgeous sunset that same evening after playing on the dock with Oliver, who, let me just tell ya, has become quite the fan of evening dock playtime.
There’s this one particular dock line (not being used for anything) that Oliver adopted as his favorite toy. It became this hilarious game of tug-o-war every time we walked past that silly rope. And, of course, we indulged our favorite poodle pants.
^^one crazy poodle on the loose.^^
^^we literally have to pry him away from that thing every evening.^^
Our last and final day at Marina Pescaderia was simple, laid back, and pretty darn perfect. Just the way we like it.
^^top left, clockwise…you’ve got a vanilla frosted, nutella, guava + cheese (frosted), and guava (powdered). you’re welcome.^^
^^#marinalife. PS – that is so not our dinghy parked in front of our boat and basically chafing its way under the concrete dock. We still have zero clue why another cruiser randomly parked their dinghy in our slip (while our boat was there). So random.^^
^^carrying some cheap + easy laundry back from the marina. I will definitely miss the $1 loads of laundry at Marina Pescaderia.^^
^^a gorgeous night to end our stent in Puerto Real.^^
>>Thanks for visiting LAHOWIND sailing blog! We’d love for you to get to know us and follow our story as we attempt to navigate a whole new world of sailing, as we cruise the Caribbean. …Learn more about us and our sailing + cruising adventures.
Posted in Boat Life, Puerto Rico, Sailing BlogTags: Boat Dog, Boat Life, Caribbean, Cruising, LahoWind, Marina Pescaderia, Puerto Real, Puerto Rico, Sailing Blog
Look out! We’ve got one seriously cute LAHO lobster on the loose!
That’s right, we celebrate Halloween in style on this here boat. Lobster style that is. And why the heck not?! Especially since we found this cute little lobster costume at the Homegoods in Mayaguez, Puerto Rico. The perfect costume for a boat dog, if I do say so myself.
^^Oliver the Lobster wishes you a delicious treat-filled Halloween!^^
Some of you might recall our little pirate poodle last halloween (with a much nicer grooming I might add). Well, I wasn’t planning on outfitting Oliver this year, but as luck would have it the stars aligned and we found ourselves with one cute lobstah!
And this ain’t just any old lobster. We’ve got ourselves a birthday lobster right here. Oliver celebrated #5 this week! Happy Birthday to our favorite poodle pants.
Happy Happy Halloween!!!
A few more pics just cause Oliver makes one cute lobster…
>>Thanks for visiting LAHOWIND sailing blog! We’d love for you to get to know us and follow our story as we attempt to navigate a whole new world of sailing, as we cruise the Caribbean. …Learn more about us and our sailing + cruising adventures.
Nineteen eighty-two was a pretty darn spectacular year if I do say so myself! Besides both Jereme and I being ’82 babes, our lovely little boat, LAHO is a 1982 herself! What are the odds?
And now that we are all comfortably into our thirties (Oliver included — he’s 35 in dog years), you know what starts happening then??? You go GRAY! Ugh. No bueno. ;((
I am happy to report that the two main graysters around here are really only Oliver (clearly) and, now, the boat!!!
We decided early on to let our boat’s teak go au naturale (aka gray) while on this cruise. I mean, really, who wants to varnish a boatload of teak? While basically on vacation? Not me! And luckily, both Jereme and I prefer the grayish-silver natural teak look for our boat’s exterior. :)))
^^Action shot of Oliver showing off our new gray teak!^^
Over time, as natural teak is exposed to the elements, it gradually changes color from the honey color of new teak to a silver-gray patina which distinguishes finely aged, outdoor teak. That is, unless it is treated or varnished on the regular.
Our sailboat had a really nice varnish job when we purchased her…almost two years ago now. Varnishing is definitely a labor of love, and one that we have purposefully let go. Since the beautiful varnish that was keeping our teak shiny and golden in color had started to deteriorate (peeling off) by itself, we decided to help it along while we’ve been hunkered down in Puerto Rico for hurricane season.
Jereme carefully removed the existing varnish that had definitely taken a beating over the past few months. Using a heat gun and a putty knife, he removed the bulk of exterior varnish on the teak toe rail among other places.
It was one of those boat projects that he could pick up and put down just as easily. The perfect “filler” project for three months sitting idle in Puerto Rico, if you will. We are loving our new distinguished “gray” look! :)) Whaddya think???
>>Thanks for visiting LAHOWIND sailing blog! We’d love for you to get to know us and follow our story as we attempt to navigate a whole new world of sailing, as we cruise the Caribbean. …Learn more about us and our sailing + cruising adventures.
Posted in Boat Life, Boat Projects, Sailing BlogTags: Boat Projects, Cruising, Endeavour, Gray Teak, Heat Gun, LahoWind, Natural Teak, Removing Teak Varnish, Sailboat, Sailing Blog
Guess what ya’ll??? We are finally hitting the road again this week. Ahhhh! Super exciting!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
We are leaving Puerto Real, Cabo Rojo and will be leisurely making our way around the southern coast of the island, most likely hitting up spots like Boqueron or La Parguera, Ponce, Salinas, and the Spanish Virgin Islands, before hopping over to the U.S. and British Virgin Islands. :)))
^^definitely not a precise route, lol, but you get the picture.^^
But unfortunately, as we sail away from our quaint marina home in Puerto Real and eventually leave Puerto Rico altogether as we head towards the Virgin Islands, that means we will (immediately) loose our free marina wifi and (eventually) our lovely American cell service. Pooey. It’s a tradeoff, I suppose. We are headed for what are sure to be some of the most gorgeous sailing grounds in the world! And we can hardly wait!
At this point, we have zero clue whether we will head further south after the Virgin Islands, or if we’ll love it so much we’ll just hang tight until we get bored. Only time will tell.
But for now, I’ll simply apologize for what I’m sure will be a lag in upcoming posts over the next few weeks as we get our bearings and figure out the best spots to grab some free (and hopefully fast) wifi.
>>Thanks for visiting LAHOWIND sailing blog! We’d love for you to get to know us and follow our story as we attempt to navigate a whole new world of sailing, as we cruise the Caribbean. …Learn more about us and our sailing + cruising adventures.
Posted in Boat Life, Sailing Blog, Sailing Love, TravelTags: BVI's, Caribbean, Cruising, LahoWind, Puerto Rico, Sailboat, Sailing Blog, Spanish Virgin Islands, US Virgin Islands, Virgin Islands
And boat chores. Lots of em!
It feels like we have spent the past few days unleashing on our list of boat chores.
We’ve replaced our bathroom faucet, replaced the coolant lines to our hot water tank, replaced the sending unit for our engine temperature gauge, restocked our pantry, cleaned the boat, filled up our gas tanks, cleaned our cockpit cushions and solar panels, worked on organizing and stowing crap inside the boat, checked our battery bank, cranked out several loads of laundry, filled up all the water tanks, greased up the manual head pump, and raised our new American flag.
Phew! We need a vacation! Oh wait… ;))
I am happy to report we have a much cleaner and more properly functioning boat as a result.
We majorly scrubbed the boat from top to bottom, and let me just tell ya, after sitting for 3+ months at a marina that bottom was a mess! I’m quite certain we were growing a full-blown baby shrimp sanctuary complete with sheets of lettuce and chunks of other nastiness along our entire hull. Disgusting. Thankfully, we were smart enough to hire someone to help with this chore.
We drove the boat over to Playa Buye the other day so our marina buddy Cha could work on cleaning the boat bottom in a somewhat clearer and shallower area. He worked for about an hour or so, as we watched chunks of sea gunk get scraped off the boat…much to the delight of tons small fish in the area.
Jereme also jumped in the water to check out a few miscellaneous items around the boat (zinc, propellor, etc.) and to make sure we were in ship-shape to start cruising again! Which we are! Woot woot!
That bottom cleaning task, however, is one crappy job! Poor Cha was covered from head to toe with thousands, and I literally mean thousands, of teeny tiny super smelly baby shrimp when he was done. :((( Poor guy. I think I was so disgusted I couldn’t even bring myself to snap a quick photo of the mess. The boat (cockpit mostly) was also totally covered in shrimp following said bottom cleaning. Not a fun post cleaning cleanup. :((
As usual, Oliver kept an eye on everything and made sure we all stayed on task. ;))
>>Thanks for visiting LAHOWIND sailing blog! We’d love for you to get to know us and follow our story as we attempt to navigate a whole new world of sailing, as we cruise the Caribbean. …Learn more about us and our sailing + cruising adventures.
Posted in Boat Life, Boat Projects, Puerto Rico, Sailing Blog, Sailing LoveTags: Boat Dog, Boat Life, Boat Projects, Bottom Cleaning, Caribbean, Cruising, LahoWind, Liveaboards, Sailboat, Sailing Blog
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Safe travels. Hope to catch up with you one day soon. We are doing our final chores to get ready for our trip to the Bahama Islands later this year. We are a little slooooow getting going. But then again, we’re in no hurry.
Mark and Cindy
s/v Cream Puff