A certain cute gray poodlepants is definitely excited to be back living the good ol’ “marina life” here in Puerto Real! Almost as excited as Jer and I were to take “real” showers and do a couple loads of cheap laundry. Lol.
Although Oliver’s thrilled to be back in Puerto Real at his favorite marina, he’s not totally pleased with the fact that we’ve restricted his land access here. We definitely do NOT want a repeat performance of what happened last time so we are taking all necessary precautions. We’re still a little too freaked out to allow him past the dock gate and into the tick-filled jungle that lies beyond and, as such, Oliver’s been having a bit of a hard time adjusting to “going” within the confines of this concrete marina. A day or two longer, and he will be right back in the swing of things!
Anyhoo, Happy St. Patty’s Day guys! How’s everyone celebrating today??? We’ve got nothing crazy planned, and something tells me St. Patrick’s Day isn’t huge in Puerto Rico. Maybe I’m wrong…we shall see!
So we thought we’d be taking off for the Bahamas today, but the weather is kinda funky. We’re getting waves from the north which is a little unusual for this area. They should be coming more from the east so we are going to go ahead and wait a few days longer for something a little more ideal.
Oh oh oh!!! Can I please tell you that everyone’s sweet comments here on the blog and over on Facebook when we posted our little “turnaround” notice made us feel so so great! Seriously. You guys are the best. xxoo
Um, okay so this is weird. Last Friday, buzzfeed published this article about the movie Troop Beverly Hills. You know, just two days after my own Troop Beverly Hills blog rant? Coincidence or not? I wonder. Lol. ;))
Anyways, Happy St. Patty’s Day!
>>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 Dog, Boat Life, Caribbean, Puerto Rico, Sailing BlogTags: 2015, Boat Dog, Boat Life, Cabo Rojo, Cruising, LahoWind, Liveaboard, Marina Pescaderia, Puerto Real, Puerto Rico, Sailing Blog, Tuesday Tell-Tales
Another day, another awesome down wind sail, and an equally as amazing dolphin sighting!
Let’s get this out there right now. Downwind sailing is really where it’s at. Following seas and gusty 20ish or more knots of wind filling our head sail is definitely a-okay by me. Seriously, I’m loving this sailboat surfy thing we’ve got going on as of late.
Now that we’ve turned around and are sailing back west, it’s back to making miles and sailing on the regular. And it’s a helluva lot easier to have the wind and waves behind us, instead of beating into them like we did for the past twelve months! So far, we’ve speed raced our way from St. Thomas to Culebra, on to Vieques, and then over Salinas.
And all of ^^that^^ took no crazy passages or special weather considerations really at all.
After leaving Salinas last week, we made the 48-mile trek west to Parguera with 25-knot winds and six-foot waves. Thankfully, it was yet another perfect day for downwind sailing! The icing on the cake was the fun little pod of dolphin who came to say hi just off the coast of Parguera!
These playful dolphin surfed the waves all around us, rolled in our wake, and even showed off a little by leaping several feet into the air on a handful of occasions! Seeing them never gets old, I tell ya!
And isn’t it funny that our only dolphin sightings in the Caribbean have occurred coming into or leaving Cayo Enriquee (Parguera)? I mean, there’s gotta be dolphin hanging out in other places, don’t ya think? Our first Caribbean dolphin encounter (way back in November) was in this exact same pretty little spot! …We had such an amazing time that first trip here, so we picked it once again for a quick overnight pitstop on our route back west towards Puerto Real, Cabo Rojo.
Unfortunately, the extra breezy forecast this time around made for not quite as ideal of an anchorage as it was the first time.
Now, windy conditions at anchor are one thing, but having to launch your dinghy with 30-knot gusts in your face is another ballgame altogether. With a few colorful choice words exchanged, Jer and I very tensely launched our dink (which was stowed on deck for the passage), and were second guessing our choice of anchorage like no other.
It gets a little crazy around here when a 150lb. dinghy (that’s a guesstimate btw) is dangling by a halyard and you are desperately trying to lower it into the water without damaging anything or hurting yourself. You cruisers know what I’m talking about. ;))
As usual, the dinghy was successfully launched and we were off motoring Oliver to the tiny coral island nearby just before sunset.
Turns out, the howling winds kept Jer and I on edge all night and I’m pretty certain neither of us enjoyed a good night’s sleep. We each kept a device within arms reach (me taking the iPad and Jer the cell phone) so we could quickly and easily monitor our position during the night.
We had taken one of the Department of Natural Resources mooring balls and had arrived a little too late to dive or check the mooring lines. In this particular anchorage, the conditions are not really ideal for anchoring with respect to water depths and proximity to extremely shallow areas/land. It basically goes from 60 feet deep to 10 feet deep (where the balls are) so your choice is to either anchor in 60 feet of water or pick up a mooring. We chose the latter.
^^A super up close screenshot of our recorded track throughout the night. I must’ve turned on the iPad a minimum of 25 times that night just to make sure that little sailboat icon wasn’t shooting off towards the side. PS – I think we must’ve had a satellite switch and hence the weird random line jutting out.^^
^^And zoomed out on our Garmin app. Clearly, our mooring held firm.^^
^^Even though it was breezy, this spot gave us one heck of a sunset!^^
After an uneventful, yet semi-sleepless night, we set sail early the next morning for Puerto Real, Cabo Rojo our home away from home! You might remember, we spent a good three months waiting out hurricane season here. :))
>>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, Caribbean, Puerto Rico, Sailing Blog, Sailing LoveTags: 2015, Caribbean, Cayo Enriquee, Cruising, Dolphin, Downwind Sailing, LahoWind, Marina Pescaderia, Parguera, Puerto Real, Puerto Rico, Sailing Blog
Remember our insane swimming with sea turtles experience in the Spanish Virgin Islands back in December? It was so magical, so unbelievable, so perfect that we couldn’t possibly sail to Culebra again without visiting our turtle besties!
And, of course, make another video ya’ll!!! I know I know, I already made a turtle video here. But that first one was rejected from Vimeo, so I had to stash the file over on dropbox, making it much more difficult to watch and enjoy (for some reason, Vimeo allowed the turtles on their site this second time around). Plus, we just couldn’t leave Jer’s folks out of the video fun, and we had so many fab clips from our most recent turtle encounter.
I’ll tell ya, the cutest, friendliest family of green sea turts lives just off Tamarindo Beach in Culebra, PR.
Most turtles we’ve encountered throughout the Caribbean have been just as breathtaking, but certainly not nearly as tame as those here in Culebra. There’s really something special about these guys. Our frenzied snorkeling and GoPro toting antics didn’t seem to phase them at all. These turtles just continued munching on tasty seagrass without a care in the world as we (mostly just me) swam (over-) excitedly towards them trying to soak in as much turtle time as humanly possible.
Luckily, this time around we got to bring Jer’s parents along to share in the joy as we swam with the turtles!
Jer’s folks were equally as delighted to take part in the turtle viewing festivities and even attempted some up close and personal turtle diving right alongside with us.
These friendly Culebra turtles will definitely go down in our memory banks as one of the best experiences we’ve had on this sailing adventure of ours!
>>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 Caribbean, Puerto Rico, Sailing Blog, Spanish Virgin Islands, TravelTags: 2015, Caribbean, Cruising, GoPro, Green Turtles, LahoWind, Sailing Blog, Spanish Virgin Islands, Swimming with Sea Turtles, Tamarindo Beach, Underwater Photographer
It was bound to happen sooner or later. The bittersweet time in which we would need to turn our cute little sailboat around and start making the sail back to Florida.
And that time has come for the three of us.
Oliver is probably the most excited to return to his awesome backyard with countless lizards to hunt, along with endless unplanned potty breaks that definitely do NOT require the use of a dinghy.
Jer and I, however, are a bundle of mixed emotions.
All along, we knew we would be back in Florida by Hurricane Season 2015. That was the plan. This life afloat was never a forever for us.
Luckily, home is beautiful Naples, Florida. We can’t complain much, can we? I mean, lots of folks travel from far and wide to vacation in our very hometown. It really is paradise, and we would be fools not to think the same. We own a cute home near the beach. I have a beloved photography business. And, honestly, we enjoy land life just as much as this simple boat life we’ve been living for the past year.
We have lots of grand plans for our future and a family. What’s great about this sailing journey is that it’s really just one small notch in our grand adventure at life. And what a wonderful thought it is that some of the best days of our lives haven’t happened yet.
^^a big thanks to Jer’s dad for snapping these photos last month!^^
Of course, we are a little sad that our time floating around from island to island is winding down, yet totally excited to get back to our family and friends (and, let’s not lie, lots of life’s little luxuries like long hot showers, flush toilets, etcetera etcetera).
We’ve got a big haul ahead of us to get ourselves and this sailboat all the way back to Florida, and we still plan to spend some quality time in the Bahamas, where we will hopefully get to visit a few of our all-time favorite spots and maybe even some new ones too!
Wanna know the best news of all about having to turn around? After all this time, we finally get to sail DOWN WIND!! Halle-freaking-lujah! :)))
>>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 LoveTags: 2013, 2014, 2015, Adventure, Adventure of a lifetime, Bahamas, Caribbean, Cruising, Dog, Journey, LahoWind, Quit Your Job to Live on a Boat, Sailboat, Sailing Blog, Young Couple
It’s video time!!! My favorite!
Real quick, before I get into the fun new video we made, I just have to mention that every time I say “It’s Video Time!” in my head, I am instantly transported back to 1990-something and, for some strange reason, really feel the need to sing the Troop Beverly Hills movie song “It’s Cookie Time.” Jereme, of course, is absolutely no help when I am desperate to reminisce scenes from this classic childhood movie. Come on, the Nefler house? “Beverly Hills, what a thrill!” Please tell me someone reading this blog loves this movie and watched it as many times as my sisters and I did growing up? Side note, if you want a little update on all the characters and locations from the movie, I stumbled upon this fun Glamour.com article. Just saying.
Back to the point of my post, our newest VIDEO!!! Yippee!!!
A montage of clips, if you will, from our three awesome sets of guests who graced us with their presence and hopped aboard lovely LAHO in February for some fun in the sun and a sailing vacay through the Virgin Islands!
I know I say this with every vid, but this might just be one of my most favorite ones yet. Hope you enjoy! PS – There’s some bonus footage at the end. ;))
>>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, British Virgin Islands, Caribbean, Puerto Rico, Sailing Blog, Sailing Love, Spanish Virgin Islands, Travel, U.S. Virgin Islands, VideoTags: 2015, Boat Life, BVI, Caribbean, Cruising, GoPro, LahoWind, Sailboat, Sailing Blog, USVI, Video, Virgin Islands, Young Couple
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The pictures are amazing!!!!!!!!!!!
Love your blog! I’ve been following it since last year when I read about you in the Fort Myers News Press!
Wow, thanks so much Janet!!! 🙂 -Kim
Love reading along, and your pics are excellent. I was just kind of reading your “tone” during this passage and you guys are starting to sound like old salts! Listen to you, 25 knot winds and 6 foot seas and “it’s a-ok by me” I love it, this is a bit of a different tune than you were singing on your first few voyages. You guys are getting good at this! Awesome.
Thanks Scott and Sheri! We only sound more legit because we are sailing DOWNWIND! And it’s way easier. Don’t let my tone fool you. Lol. 🙂 -Kim
[…] pulled into the marina after our easy trip from Parguera, which was a wee bit different than our 300-mile slog all the way from the Dominican Republic that […]