Our bright yellow dinghy is now a plug-in hybrid!  While it lacks the sophisticated control system of a modern hybrid automobile (switching from electric to fossil fuel motors involves physically swapping the engines from the back of the dinghy), we feel it is a giant step forward.  The new electric motor starts with simple twist of the throttle instead of repeated pulls of a recoil starter cord.  Our new electric motor, a Torqeedo 401L Travel, is super quiet and can move the dinghy as fast as our 2 horse power gas outboard.  At slightly slower speeds (3.5 knots instead of 4 knots), the electric motor will run for a couple of hours.  Since most of our dinghy trips are short trips from the boat to a nearby beach or dinghy dock, we will use the small electric motor quite often.  We will keep the gas motor on hand for longer trips or rougher conditions.

In addition, we replaced the pieces of the dinghy’s sailing rig that Gray dropped overboard last year.  Between the sailing rig and the electric motor, our dinghy should be quite green!

Cindy and Gray

Up close with a curious manatee

There are people who wonder what’s so great about manatees.

Here’s the answer: everything!

Living on Cindy’s Island, we have had a few manatee encounters.  Typically, we hear a “whoosh” as a manatee surfaces and exhales nearby.  We might be able to follow it in the water for a while as a dull gray hump that stays close to the surface.  Once we found one munching on the slime growing around the boat’s waterline.  But they go on their way quickly and don’t take notice of the observers on the surface world.  Even though we might only see one for a few seconds, it’s usually the highlight of our day (especially for Cindy).

So, when we found out that it was possible to swim with manatees every winter in Crystal River, Florida, we jumped at the chance.  We scheduled a tour with Fun 2 Dive Scuba, who only take small groups of 4 or less snorkelers for all-day excursions.  Crystal River is on the other side of the state from Titusville, and since the tour started early in the morning, we drove over the day before and spent the night in a motel.  Our host at Fun 2 Dive got in a fender bender on the way to meet us the next day, but quickly set us up to go on a private tour with Captain Wayne White.  Fun 2 Dive was great about the situation and we had a great day with our substitute tour guide.

Manatee playing with the anchor rode. Is that a smile?

Unless you are very close, a manatee seen from the surface generally looks like a mossy hump-shaped rock just breaking the water’s surface.  But seen from underwater, they transform into delightful characters.  Since they prefer warm, shallow water, the best way to see them is to snorkel.  Scuba diving creates bubbles that actually scare them away.

The first thing we noticed when we got to the snorkeling spot was the sheer number of manatees.  They love it there.  There are areas marked off as sanctuary where you are not allowed to swim, but there are almost too many animals to fit in the sanctuary area.  There were probably a hundred of them huddled together snoozing in the warm spring.   The water was quite shallow, probably only 3-4 feet deep.  We found that the manatees avoid interacting with people standing in the water.  But if you snorkel, they lose their inhibitions entirely.  As they wake up and wander out of the sanctuary, they will come up to you and investigate.  They like to be petted and scratched (that moss must get itchy).  We could observe them “walking” on the sandy bottom with their flippers.  Up close, you could look directly at their faces and notice all kinds of little details.  Their eyes do not have lids, but close in from all sides to a single center point.  They make little high-pitched squeaks once in a while, but mostly are quiet.  They only have molars, with no front teeth.  Their snouts are flexible sort of like short elephant trunks.  While we had planned on taking lots of great underwater pictures, we actually found it difficult to get far enough away from them to get them in the frame!

Manatee "walking" with his fins on the sandy bottom.

Sadly, most of the manatees were not just mossy, but had visible scars and deformities.  They are just too innocent and curious to coexist with modern man.  A curious manatee will sometimes surface when it hears the whir of an outboard motor, with predictable results.  Happily, we saw many mother and child pairs.  We also saw several animals with tracking tags that indicated that they had been previously rescued.

Since we took the trip to Crystal River, we have had a few local manatee encounters.  Gray had the best one, when he was working at the dock by himself.  He was hosing out the dinghy, which was suspended over the water on its davits.  As the water drained out the open drainhole, he noticed a manatee rolled onto its back positioned exactly so the fresh water onto its mouth.  The manatee slurped up each drop as it landed on its face.  Good at slurping – another awesome manatee feature.

Happy travels,

Cindy and Gray

In the midst of the bigger, ongoing projects (and the copious distractions of land based living), Gray got a couple of the small tasks completed.

The first is wiring in the pedestal of the salon dining table.  We often watch movies on a laptop in the salon, but the laptop speakers are not loud enough to hear over the drone of the fans.  We had been running a line to the input on the stereo, but stringing cords around an already crowded space was pretty annoying.  Gray ran some wires to the dining table pedestal to clear up some of the strung cords.  He also ordered a custom made face plate to hold the following jacks:  a pair of composite audio connections that run to the stereo, a coaxial cable jack that runs to the TV antenna/cable and a USB jack that goes to a NMEA concentrator.

The NMEA concentrator takes data streams from our navigation instruments and combines (concentrates) them into a single stream with a USB connection.  This allows us to use a laptop for navigation and as an instrument repeater.  The concentrator also sends data and instructions from the laptop (via USB) to the NMEA network.

The next wiring project was a faceplate in the V-berth that contains stereo audio inputs and a coaxial TV antenna/cable jack.  Also in the V-berth are a couple of switches, one to switch between the TV antenna and dock side cable and another to switch between the two sets of stereo inputs.  This will allow us to watch TV in either the salon or the V-berth and place a laptop or iPod in the salon or V-berth to play music/movie audio through the stereo.

The final small completed small wiring project is the TriMetric Battery Monitor.  This unit is installed in the side of the galley facing the electrical panel.  It monitors the battery voltage and tracks the amperage flowing in and out of the battery bank.  The unit is not yet fully programmed – that will require a new battery charger capable of equalizing our new batteries (another project on the list).  For now, it is useful for monitoring the battery state and current usage.  Attaching the leads to the shunt on the battery box was an exercise in aggravation with many small parts disappearing into the black hole under the battery box.  Theoretically, the box could be moved to retrieve them, but that would involve moving hundreds of pounds of batteries, disconnecting many wires and removing several bolts.  In practice, we think of it as a black hole.

Gray and Cindy

Cindy and Big Mama

Ok, we can’t stay away from the Caribbean.  We just got back from a Southern Caribbean cruise on Celebrity Cruise Lines with Cindy’s parents.  We flew down to San Juan and spent 11 days on the Celebrity Galaxy with stops in Aruba, Curaçao, Grenada, St. Lucia, Barbados, Dominica, St. Kitts and Tortola.

It really whet our appetite for getting back out there in our own boat.  The islands in the southern Caribbean are very beautiful with friendly people.  One of the particular highlights was the Brimstone Hill Fort on St. Kitts.  This UNESCO World Heritage site is an amazing hilltop fortification with great views of St. Kitts and the surrounding islands.  They call it the Gibraltar of the Caribbean.

On Curaçao, we were really impressed with the Kura Hulanda Museum, which has moving and surpisingly thorough exhibits on the Caribbean slave trade as well as anthropological exhibits on Africa and the Caribbean.  It is situated in a collection of beautifully restored local buildings, some of which comprise a high end hotel.  We loved the sculptures displayed around the gardens here as well.

David the Goliath, Roseau, Dominica

This being a cruise vacation, we ate tons of food.  Celebrity has made some changes to their dining since the last time we cruised with them (2005, around Cape Horn).  The buffet has added an Asia section with foods from India, Thailand, Vietnam and of course, China.  There is also a custom stir fry station with a large selection of vegetables and noodles as well as three choices of meat.  The salad bar is open all afternoon, a healthy alternative to the usual pizza and burgers for afternoon snacks.  The menu was more varied also.  On our previous long Celebrity cruises, they start to repeat appetizers and entrees in the main dining room after a few days.  The portions in the main dining room seem smaller than we remember.  We appreciate that, particularly since you can always order more food if you want it. The highlight of Gray’s day, the sushi buffet, is still served in the early evening.

Brimstone Hill Fortress, St. Kitts

Early in the cruise, Cindy took advantage of the on-board salon to get a new hairdo.  She went from having hair that was almost long enough to sit on to a new cut that comes down just below her ears.  She saved her old ponytail to send to Locks of Love when we got back.  Unfortunately, the hair was still wet when it was cut, so we had to hang the ponytail from a hanger in our stateroom for a few days.  We hope that the stateroom attendant didn’t think we were in a cult or something, but we have to admit that the service was great and we almost never saw him!

Although the ship was full, there was some evidence of the economic downturn affecting the cruise line.  Specifically, they seemed short of entertainers.  There were a couple of nights where there was no show at all in the main theatre.  Also, there was no comedian, juggler or magic act (some of our favorites).  One entertainer we really enjoyed was Nadeen, the Queen of Hypnosis.  Nadeen is a certified hypnotherapist that does stage shows to raise awareness of the benefits of hypnotherapy.  In addition to her show, she did a couple of seminars that we found fascinating.  We learned a lot about hypnotherapy and how it can help a variety of conditions.

Windward Barbados

The ship we were on, the Celebrity Galaxy, is going to be leaving the Celebrity fleet next month.  After some refitting, it will go to work in Europe for another cruise line.  Galaxy has a special place in our hearts since it was our first cruise ship (2003, Eastern Caribbean out of Baltimore, MD).  We are looking forward to trying out the newer ships that have just recently launched including the Celebrity Solstice and the HUGE Royal Caribbean Oasis of the Seas.  Of course, when it is time for another cruise-ship cruise, there will probably be something even larger!

Happy sails,

Cindy and Gray

Sorry we haven’t posted anything for so long!  It’s been pretty hectic over the last few months.

In the beginning of November, we moved back on to the boat from housesitting and began to wait for a weather window for sailing east to Puerto Rico.  The right weather is important, since the prevailing wind in the Caribbean blows from the east at 15 to 20 knots.  Our little 20 horsepower engine (Yanmar 3ym20) would have a difficult time pushing us against it and the ride would be really wet and bumpy!

As the wait for weather wore on, we began to make a list of boat projects to work on in Puerto Rico.  Although we were in the Dominican Republic for a long time, we didn’t get that much done.  A big part of the problem is the availability of parts.  In Puerto Rico, parts are easier to get but are still marked up significantly over mainland US prices.  The good boatyards are on the far side of Puerto Rico, over 400 miles away.  Florida is only a little further and has many other advantages, chiefly among them cheaper marinas, cheaper boat yards, as well as cheaper and more plentiful parts.

We decided to return to the US for refitting.  Since the weather was not going to cooperate for a while, we flew back to the US to look for places to live while we work on the boat (and also to visit Florida theme parks).  We decided on Titusville, FL.  It is on the same latitude as Orlando for easy access to the theme parks (we do love theme parks), cheap airport and plentiful (non-boat) shopping.  It also has the best marina deal we could find.  Cindy’s Island will be berthed at Westland Marina while we work on interior projects and then in their boatyard for painting and hurricane season lay up.  We rented an apartment nearby since living on a boat while doing major work is kind of a bummer.

Gray went back to the DR alone to get the boat ready for the trip and to recruit some crew for the journey.  Cindy stayed in Florida to get the apartment ready.  Gray found some reliable crew, got the boat ready and began to look for a weather window.  It is difficult to get a safe weather window in the winter due to the cold fronts that sweep down from the north.  They stir up the seas and make the winds unpredictable.  The weather looked like it was going to be nasty for quite a while, so he flew back to the US.  Gray flew to the DC area, rented a U-Haul, and began collecting furniture from our various storage locations (the basements, spare rooms and attics of generous family and friends).  Once the truck was full, he drove down to Florida to meet Cindy and we moved into our new apartment.

Near the end of December, the weather began to cooperate.  Gray flew back to the DR and on New Year’s Eve he and his crew (a husband and wife team with lots of experience) left the DR in the mid afternoon.  The trip was almost cut short when the engine stopped exhausting cooling water.  Marine diesel engines use ocean water (raw water) for cooling rather than a radiator like a car.  Gray shut down the engine and tried to open the raw water filter assembly to clean it.  After inflicting some minor damage and failing to get the assembly open, Gray decided to try starting the engine again to see what would happen.  Just like a computer, all it took to fix it was to turn it off and on again.  The problem was most likely a piece of plastic bag or jellyfish got pulled over the raw water intake and it fell off once the engine was shut down.

The weather window was so good that the seas were flat and the wind was calm.  That’s great for a powerboat, but for a sailboat that only carries about 30 gallons of diesel it is less than ideal.  We motor-sailed (sails up, motor running at low RPM) for two days until we got to Rum Cay in the Bahamas.  We planned to pull into Rum Cay to refuel.  As we approached, we radioed the fuel dock for instructions.  They informed us that there was no fuel on the entire island.  Our tank was close to empty, so we decided to motor a little longer until we had rounded the tip of Long Island and then to sail as best we could to George Town where there had to be fuel.  As we rounded the tip of long island, we shut down the motor and began to sail at a stately 2 knots.  At that rate, we would reach Georgetown by the time the fuel dock opened the next morning.  The winds picked up a little overnight and we were able to sail at over 4 knots.  We made it to the entrance of Georgetown harbor (actually called Elizabeth Harbor) at about midnight and dropped the sails.  We motored tensely through the narrow, twisty, poorly marked channel.  Gray was on the bow with a spot light to illuminate the few markers and many obstacles and the crew was manning the helm and charting software (with realtime GPS!).  We made it in, dropped the anchor and enjoyed snifters of fine Haitian rum.

In the morning, we motored over to the Georgetown Fuel Dock (actually called Exuma Docking Services) and were informed that they had no fuel.  Since we were running on fumes at this point, this was bad news indeed.  Luckily, the automotive service station nearby had some diesel (but no gasoline).  We were able to refill the tank using jerry cans and be on our way.  Once out of Elizabeth Harbor, we were able to sail again and made for Highbourne Cay.  The next morning, we transited Highbourne Cut and started across the Banks for the Tongue of the Ocean.  We made the Tongue by early afternoon and headed north-northwest for Mackey Shoals.  Gray was on watch alone as we entered the Banks on the western side of the Tongue.  The entrance was narrow (although wider than Elizabeth Harbor and straight), but he had his trusty spotlight and several powerboats to follow (although they move at about 5 times the speed of a sailboat and disappear quickly).  The next morning, we were able to get a weather report from the US.  The forecast called for a strong front to pass over the area during the evening of the next day.  We decided we should try to make Florida by the next morning to give us plenty of extra time.  Rather than head for Titusville, we headed for West Palm Beach.  We motorsailed through the pre-frontal calm into the Gulfstream.  Around midnight, the edge of the front caught us (quite a bit earlier than predicted) and the winds picked up to 25 knots (out of the south, fortunately).  The seas got choppy, but everything was fine (just more exciting).  As we left the Gulfstream and approached Florida, both the winds and the seas calmed down.  We entered the Lake Worth Inlet about 4am.  We almost collided with a poorly marked jetty (there really ought to be a big flashing light on it), but made it inside safely.  By this time, all hands were on deck since entering an inlet (particularly one you have only entered once before) in the dark is always dangerous and more eyes to spot hazards are always better.

We set the anchor and called Cindy (at 5am) to come pick us up.  By 9am, we had cleared customs, docked in Riviera Beach Marina and Cindy arrived to pick us up.  We dropped our crew off with some of their relatives and headed back to Titusville.  After a few days, Gray and Cindy went to move the boat to Titusville from Riviera Beach.  The weather was less than ideal (20 knots of wind from the north), so we motored up the Intercoastal Waterway.  It took us 4 days to motor to Titusville with stops every night.  We stopped early in the day a couple of times due to the availability of anchorage space.  Cindy’s Island draws more than 6 feet of water, so sometimes it is difficult to find an achorage deep enough in the shallow waters of the ICW.  We made it to Westland Marina, so the major work can begin.

What major work?  Well, the list is (of course) still growing.  Our battery system still needs work since we don’t have a start battery and the house battery bank is big enough to melt the 60 amp alternator in a couple of years.  We don’t have a good interior shower set up (important for crowded harbors).  The autopilot needs to be replaced, the windlass quit working again, and two of our winches have locked up.  We are also going to explore some add ons like SSB radio, a bigger inverter, a portable generator and maybe even air conditioning.  Cindy has a long list of canvas work too.

Fair winds,

Cindy and Gray

Over the course of the Spring, we noticed that our batteries were holding less and less of a charge.  On a few nights, the refrigerator’s repeated attempts to start would wake Gray up.  Firing up the engine for a few minutes or briefly paralleling in the start battery would provide enough power to start the compressor and then it would run under the house battery alone.  The volt meter would read very low voltage while the compressor ran, but but go back up above 12 volts when the compressor stopped.  By 10AM, the solar panels would have the house back up to 14 volts (suspiciously quickly considering they were reading below 12 volts before sunup).  Of course, when we had wind all night this was never an issue.

Once we got to Luperón, the winds died at night and batteries really became a problem.  In the 10 days between our arrival in the Dominican Republic and our summer trip back to the US, we had to rely on the start battery to keep the refrigerator running through the night.  We decided to rent an apartment for a couple of months to work on some boat projects including the battery bank.  After some looking around, we discovered that the batteries installed by Hanse were not only an odd size (a couple of inches shorter than a Group 31 standard battery) but that they had been discontinued.  We would need to replace the batteries with something else.  It turns out the only batteries readily available in the Dominican Republic are wet cell golf cart batteries.  They are used in many homes as the basis for a backup power system.  These batteries are a very different shape from the batteries provided by Hanse.  We would have to remove the battery box and build a new one.

Once we returned from the US and got settled into the apartment, Gray got to work on the battery system.  First, he pulled out the old batteries and attempted to unravel the the wire spaghetti in the battery box.  Even though we bought the boat new, the wiring was still kind of a mess.  The wires installed by the boatyard during commissioning were labelled, but the Hanse installed wires were not.  Wires were connected directly to one battery or the other.  There were no central buses to organize the wires.  Some of the Hanse battery connections were made with screwed on terminals instead of being properly crimped.

After clipping many wire ties and feeding the wires out of the battery box, Gray got to work on removing the battery box.  The box was very nice, made of fiberglass and shaped specifically for the space and the batteries.  Luckily, it was held in place by caulking so it was easy to remove.  The old box ended up in the flea market where a Dominican family bought it to use as a sink.  We sold the old batteries to the guy who sold us the new batteries.  Even though they won’t hold enough of a charge for our needs, they would power a lamp or other small electrical load while the power was out in town.

Gray built the new box out of pieces of marine plywood we had on board.  The sides of the box were glued and screwed together and then the seams were covered with fiberglass.  A battery box is a great first fiberglass project since nobody can see it.  That is fortunate since Gray’s work came out a little messy.  He’ll practice with more fiberglass projects later.  Before the box could be installed on the boat, Gray had to trace the curve of the hull and cut some plywood to build supports for the box.  He glued down these supports with epoxy putty, then filleted the edges of the joint with thickened epoxy.  Finally, he used strips of fiberglass cloth wetted with epoxy resin to “tab” the supports to the inside of the hull.  Once the supports had cured for a couple of days they felt very solid.

It was a while before the box went on to the supports.  Gray had to unravel and label all the wires running to the batteries, design the layout of the bus bars, fuses, shunts and other pieces of electrical equipment that he was going to add.  Of course, he also had to track down DR versions of all the parts he was missing.  Since the new battery box would stand 3 inches above the sole (floor) of the aft cabin berth, Gray also had to design a framework to raise the sole enough to cover the new box.  Finally, the new batteries vent potentially explosive hydrogen when they charge, so Gray had to install a vent system.

Gray added a 300 amp fuse on the positive wire coming from the battery box.  He used Power Post Pluses as bus bars.  A Power Post Plus is a 3/8″ stud with a round bus around the base.  The round bus has #10 screws for terminal connections.  Big wires like from the batteries and the engine go on the stud and smaller wires go on the bus ring.  On the negative side of the batteries, Gray added a large shunt for the eventual connection of the Trimetric battery monitor we bought years ago.  One day soon it will be connected!  All of this hardware was mounted on the side of the battery box with large wires running into the box.  Gray also added an engine room vent fan connected to the batteries with a voltage sensing relay.  When the voltage reaches 14 volts, the fan will run to vent any hydrogen emitted by the batteries.  The vent runs to a grille in the transom of the boat.  A new MPPT solar controller (a magic box that makes solar panels more efficient by modifying the voltage based on the state of the batteries) rounded out the new installation.

Since the new cabin sole under the berth was 4 inches higher, we decided to discard the cushion.  We sold the foam in the flea market and put the cover away.  We figured it would be easy to cut new foam to insert in the cover if we decided to replace the cushion later.  Initially, we tried splitting the cushion in two to make access to the batteries easier, but that was still too cumbersome.  Since we never sleep back there, we decided to do away with the cushion.

During the course of the wiring investigation, we discovered that our alternator had failed.  A local mechanic took it apart and reported that the stator was melted from overuse.  He told us (in Spanish) that a 60 amp alternator was not enough for the size of our old battery bank (our new battery bank is about twice as large).  Whenever the engine was running, the alternator was spinning at full load.  The small alternator that came with the engine is designed to keep a starting battery topped off, not run continuously at full load for hours (sometimes days) at a time.  We installed our spare 60 amp alternator and hope it will carry us to Puerto Rico.  Our final plan is to connect the small alternator only to the start battery (which we don’t have yet, we start off the house bank for now).  We will rely on the sun and wind to charge our house bank (with occasional help from a marina or worst case a small generator).  We will need to get a new battery charger with an “equalize” function to help maintain our new wet cell batteries.

Gray and Cindy

The town of Luperón, as seen from Gringo Hill

Halloween this year fell on a Friday, one of the last days we were house sitting.  We had been having problems with power for days, getting only anywhere from 2 to 6 hours in a 24 hour period.  This was not really enough to keep the house battery bank charged, so we had been rationing our TV, internet and washing machine usage.  Fortunately, throughout the day we managed to have enough to keep the water pump running, which kept the housekeeper happy.

One of the last things she does before leaving for the day is to sweep the “ranchito,” a deck with a corrugated metal roof next to the house.  We saw her hurry from the ranchito to the house, very perturbed.  She grabbed Gray and insisted that he come with her.  He couldn’t make out much of her rapid-fire Dominican spanish, but the word “gato” (cat) was repeated several times.  We hadn’t seen him since early in the morning, but that wasn’t unusual.  The big 18 pound tabby typically only came around when he was hungry or wanted to come in from the rain.  He was normally a bit shabby looking, having lost all of the fur off his hind end due to some sort of allergy.  But what Gray found when he looked where the housekeeper was pointing was beyond shabby.  The poor cat was laying under a chair, clearly in pain, with flies circling around him.  A closer look revealed maggots digging into his inflamed bald legs.  It is no exaggeration to say that we were almost as distressed as the cat!

We bundled the cat in towels and placed him in the old empty battery box.  We quickly lined up a an appointment with Dr. Bob, the english-speaking veterinarian and Nino, the taxi driver.  Since Nino has a hard time getting his taxi up the hill to the house, Gray drove to town and met him for the 90 minute long trip to the vet.  The housekeeper left and Cindy settled in to man the phone, trying to reach the cat’s owner and fill her in on the situation.

One of the nice things about living on top of a hill is that you can see the weather approaching well in advance.  While big black storm clouds gathered, Cindy took care of the chickens and brought the dogs in to the house.  By this time, the power had failed completely – no TV, no lights, no water, no oven.  Cindy gathered all of the candles and flashlights she could find and got ready for a dark and stormy night.

Goats lounge on the sidewalks of Luperón on a much drier day

Meanwhile, Gray and Nino had reached the vet.  The vet said that even though the maggots were disgusting, they were not a big deal to fix.  The vet technician went to work on the cat.  First, he used a razor to shave the hair from around the wounds.  Next, he picked the maggots out of the wounds with tweezers.  Finally, he packed the wounds with gauze.  The vet was more concerned about how the cat got the maggots than the maggots themselves.  Usually cats groom themselves thoroughly enough that flies never get a chance to lay eggs in their wounds.  Other animals, particularly cows and sheep, get maggots in almost every wound.  Ick.  The vet recommended that the cat stay in his clinic for some additional tests and to keep an eye on the wounds.  Gray wholeheartedly agreed and left with Nino to get some groceries before making the trip back to Luperón.

The clouds were so heavy with rain, it got dark early.  And then it rained.  Hard.  Cindy picked up her flashlight and read a book while the dogs shivered in a pathetic heap nearby.  Around 7 the phone rang.  It was Gray calling with his report.

The hard rain was not limited to Luperón.  It hit Gray and Nino as they started back from Sosua.  In Puerto Plata, the largish city between Sosua and Luperón, traffic was bad but not unexpectedly so for such a rainy day.   Once they left Puerto Plata, the road conditions deteriorated rapidly.  They passed fields that were under several feet of water and several flooded homes.  Every bridge along the road was awash since the streams were all swollen above the level of the road.  Several times, water leaked in around the door sills on Nino’s taxi.  When they finally reached Luperón, Gray transferred his groceries and the cat carrier to the Burro Pass car and tried to make it up the hill.  A large group of Dominicans told him to turn back since the bridge to the hill (not the hill itself) was impassable due to a flooding stream.  Gray went to visit friends that lived on high ground and waited for the rain to subside.  About 3 hours later, the stream was only about 2 feet above the level of the road.  Gray watched tensely as another vehicle crossed the bridge without incident and then followed.  Once he was over the bridge and climbing the hill, things were much smoother except for a few deep ruts carved by the water flowing down the hill.  Gray and his groceries sloshed in around 10:30PM.

The bad weather really brought out the community to assist each other.  Large groups of people were out in the streets to help with stuck cars, assist elderly people and children on their way to high ground, etc.  Since government services are often very limited, the residents of the outlying communities really look out for each other.

Some time in the night the rain stopped.  When we went to check the rain gauge, we found that it had overflowed.  So there had been at least 5.5 inches of precipitation that night.  If the water in Cindy’s rainboots that she left sitting outside is any guide, it was probably more like 8!

The power was still off, but there was nothing wrong with the car, so Gray drove down to the dock to bail out the dinghy and start another day of boat projects.  The dinghy was full to the gunwales with rainwater.  Unfortunately, this made it much less stable, as Gray found out when he reached his bucket down to start bailing.  The dinghy flipped over, motor and all.  Submerging the motor did nothing good for it, and Gray’s subsequent attempts at repairing it did even less.  To make a long story short, we will be rowing the dinghy until we can get parts in Puerto Rico.

The story has a happy ending though – if you like cats.  Kitty will be fine.  The vet found that the infected wounds had been the result of a dog bite (probably not one of the house dogs – who knows where the cat goes on his evening rounds?) and were easily treated.  The cat is now being coddled by his owner, safe at home on his hill.

–Cindy and Gray

The view from the front porch.

One of our many new friends from the Luperón gringo community asked us if we could house sit for her during the month of October.  We jumped at the chance since the boat projects weren’t done and the house offered such fabulous amenities as satellite television and dial-up internet.  The views from the hilltop location were also spectacular.  The house itself is pretty small:  one bedroom, one bathroom and about 750 square feet of total space.

The house also came with four dogs, a cat and 19 chickens.  There were also extensive gardens with lots of herbs and tropical fruit including papaya, passion fruit (actually a local variant called chinola), bananas (another local variant called rulo) and limes.  Maintaining the house and garden were pretty easy since there was both a housekeeper and a gardener that came twice a week.

Maintaining the animals was a bit more challenging.  The dogs are trained as watch dogs so they bark at any person, donkey, cow, bird, butterfly, etc. that passes by.  Although the house is out of town, up a dirt road on a hill, there is a lot of traffic since local farmers drive their herds (usually a dozen or so cattle) by the house a couple of times a day.  Some locals also commute (on foot) to town on the same road.  It could get quite noisy at peak commuting/cattle driving times!  Fortunately, there is a pen out back to put the dogs in.  The pen is away from the road, so they can’t see as much traffic and away from the house so we don’t hear them as much.  The dogs are also ridiculous scaredy cats.  When it thunders (for example, during the daily summertime afternoon thunderstorms), we had to let them in the house so they could pile into a shivering heap under whatever piece of furniture could accommodate them.  On another occasion, a rat got into the house.  Gray saw it take refuge in one of the lower cabinets and tried to recruit one of the dogs to deal with it.  The dog that saw the rat go in the cabinet cowered in a corner away from it.  Another dog that is usually game for anything, approached the cabinet with great enthusiasm but retreated with her tail between her legs after the first sniff at the cabinet door.

Bananas growing in the backyard.

The cat did not warm up to us.  He would occasionally come in and demand tribute in the form of dry cat food, but spent most of his time outside.  We tried to get him to take care of the rat, but all he did was stare intently at the cabinet for a few minutes and then wander off for a nap.

The chickens stay in their coop and are pretty easy to take care of as chickens go.  Cindy was in charge of their care.  Twice a day, she would feed them vegetable scraps, dry corn and food pellets as well as give them new water.  She would also gather eggs (which were ours to use or sell, CHA-CHING!).  One hen was not sure Cindy was authorized to collect eggs and would try to defend the ones in her nest.  After getting pecked a couple of times, Cindy started bringing a large pot lid to use as a shield when she did battle with the hen.  Eventually they reached an understanding and the pot lid stayed in the cupboard.  If we had a lot of rain (during hurricane Omar, for example, 8 inches fell in the space of a couple of days), the chicken coop was pretty nasty.  Cindy had to walk through a slurry of chicken droppings, old food and mud to feed them and collect the eggs.  Gray fetched her sea boots from the boat and that helped immensely.

The domestic animals and the rat were not the only animals we got to deal with.  We have already posted an entry about the world’s largest spider (or at least the largest we had ever seen).  In addition to the big spiders, there were big toads (like dinner plate size) and lots of bugs at night (mostly moths, some HUGE beetles, a praying mantis and some kind of jurassic grasshopper).  Eventually, we learned some tricks to help with the bugs (turn on outside lights, leave off inside lights) and it got cool enough for us to tuck ourselves under the covers at night.

Cindy collects eggs.

Taking care of the house gave us some insight into the lives of the gringos that live in houses here.  Houses need to have back up water and power systems since the municipal systems are unreliable.  It is difficult to have climate control more sophisticated than fans without a hefty back up generator.  Most houses use a large bank of golf cart batteries for back up.  With the high price of fuel, generators are not a very affordable option.  All the houses have cisterns for water.  The house we took care of had 16000 gallons of cistern space with a roof top rain catchment system and 16 golf cart batteries for back up power.  In addition to the normal house maintenance, the batteries need to be monitored to make sure they are taking a charge (when there is city power available) and that they have plenty of electrolyte in them.  The cisterns need to be kept fairly full so if the water service goes offline for a few days there is plenty of water.  Filling the cisterns from the city water was surprisingly complicated.  The process involved three valves, a big pump and lots of walking all over the yard to make sure the water was flowing evenly.

One day, near the end of our tenure as house sitters, the power was out for so long that the battery backup ran out.  In addition to the normal electrical appliances, the water pressure was also out of order.  The pump that pulls water from the cisterns (under the house) is electric.  We had to haul buckets of water up to the bathroom for washing and flushing the toilet.  Fortunately, the recent rains had filled the cisterns all the way up, so dipping the buckets into the water was easy.  The locals were so annoyed by the extended outages that they showed their feeling in true Dominican style:  with a heap of burning rubble piled on the street in front of the electric company office.  The power service continued to be sporadic for the next few weeks, but we were able to cope with it by carefully monitoring the state of the back up batteries and rationing our TV and internet usage.  We could use the water heater and washing machine during the random intervals where the electrical service was working.

The Land Cruiser parked in front of Burro Pass.

One of the features of Burro Pass was the owner’s awesome red 1986 Toyota Land Cruiser.  Don’t be confused into thinking this is anything like the modern Land Cruisers sold in the US.  This diesel workhorse bears a stronger resemblance to an old fashioned army jeep.  We were allowed to drive it around town, which was great since the unpaved road up the hill from town was a challenge in dry weather and a menace in rain.  Alas, two weeks before the owners were due to return, a short in the ignition switch caused the starter motor to burn out.  (We had to stop the engine by disconnecting the battery!)  On inspection, the interior of the motor housing was filled with a foul smelling black dust and many of the motor’s internal components were either missing or much smaller than they should have been.  In the US, this situation would have been resolved by replacing the part, or replacing the car.  We took the starter to a Dominican mechanic hoping that he would know a source for a replacement.  To our surprise, he looked at it and said he could fix it!  Sure enough, a couple of mañanas later, he had it going again.  He said the parts were very hard to find and required many trips to the big city to locate them all.  He therefore had to charge us the extraordinary sum of 3500 pesos for the whole job.  (That’s $105).  In our opinion, this is the perfect kind of car for the Dominican Republic, where people take a lot of pride in keeping their equipment running.

The view from the back porch.

In addition to managing the house, we had to manage the staff (i.e. the gardener and the housekeeper).  We knew the gardener since he was also the gardener at the apartment we rented for August and September.  He kept the yard in nice shape and brought us any mature produce he came across.  The housekeeper was a bit of a character.  Imagine a five foot tall, sixty year old Tasmanian devil with bright red dyed hair.  It seemed that she thought of us as employees of the owner, just like her.  Since she had worked there longer than we had, she considered herself the senior employee.  She was often sharply critical (judging by her tone of voice anyway, she never slowed down her Spanish enough for us to understand more than a few words) of us on issues we never quite understood.  We got along well enough given the language gap.

Although it has been fun to have television, freely available (although slow) internet and a big oven for a while; we don’t think we are going to settle down in Luperón.  We really missed living on the boat all summer (between the trip to the US, the apartment rental and the house sitting) and hope we can live aboard for a while before anything else major breaks down.  We had plenty of fun and enjoyed the distractions in Luperón (as is evident by the incredibly long time it took Gray to repair the electrical system on the boat), but are anxious to move on.

Onward,
Cindy and Gray

The Citadelle

A few weeks ago, we got together with two other cruising couples to take a quick one day tour into Haiti.  Our tourguide and driver, Tim, had come to Haiti years ago to do reaseach, and now lives in the Dominican Republic.  We met at 5AM at the marina parking lot and got ourselves settled.  There wasn’t room in his pickup’s cab for everyone, so Gray and one of the other guys rode in the bed on cushions Tim had pulled out of his boat.  The drive to the border took about 2 1/2 hours, taking us on the familiar road to Imbert and Santiago, then through new country east to Monte Cristi and north to the border at Dajabon. We arrived at Dajabon before the border opened so we stopped at a local hotel for a sit down breakfast.  Dajabon is famous for its market days, which can be crowded and hectic.  We chose to go on a day that the market was closed, so everything seemed a little sleepy.  The town is a bit more substantial than Luperón, with wide streets and a big square.  It is the northern of the two land crossings from the Dominican Republic to Haiti.  We parked the truck near the crossing and walked to the immigration office, where Tim handled our paperwork and fees as a group.  While he was doing that, we checked out the scene before us. The border is defined by the shallow, muddy Massacre River.  About 20 or 30 feet above the river, a bridge wide enough for two cars or so passes from bank to bank.  There are gates at either end for immigration to check people through.  We saw a lot of Haitians going back and forth with wheelbarrows or other improvised handcarts carrying everything from blocks of ice to engine blocks.  Looking across the bridge, Haiti does not look too promising.  Everything you can see from the border area is bare packed dirt.  There is one large tree in front of the immigration office and a water truck goes by from time to time sprinkling the earth to keep the dust down.  There are lots of vehicles in various states of repair and people standing around waiting to be booked as transport.  There is a line of small cooking stands off to one side.  These are basically corrugated metal awnings on poles over the dirt.  The cooking is done on charcoal fires in one big pot.  There were also people doing laundry in the river and laying their clothes out on the river banks to dry.  At the border, there were a few armed UN peacekeeping forces from Uruguay milling around.  We are not sure what their function was, since they did not talk to us or anyone else we could see.

Tap Tap or Haitian limousine. This is the one that took us on our day trip around northeastern Haiti.

We walked across the bridge and waited in the Haitian immigration office to get our passports stamped.  While we were there, we met a few Canadian tourists who were crossing to the Dominican Republic.  They had had to stay overnight in Haiti because they arrived at the border crossing after it closed the afternoon before.  There had been some confusion about the border closing early that day because it was a holiday.  We learned that there is a time difference between the DR and Haiti, with Haiti being an hour earlier. Once our second round of fees were paid and we had our passports back, we set off to get a car for the day.  The first option was an SUV.  It took a while to get the driver to commit to a price for the day, then he finally said:  $600.  He would not be talked down so we went on to option number two:  a typical Haitian tap-tap.  This is a medium duty commercial truck with the back half of a small school bus welded on to the frame for passengers.  They are generally brightly painted and form the basis for public transportation all over Haiti.  We booked the truck and driver for $160 for the day and got on our way. To get into the bus, we hoisted ourselves up on the bumper and through a hole cut in the back.  The inside had a bench running the length of the cabin against each wall (not attached to the floor or anything fancy like that).  They had removed the third bench which usually runs along the center.  Fully loaded, one of these vehicles carries between 60 and 70 people.  That is, four rows of people (two rows sitting back to back on the center bench) on the inside and as many as will fit on the roof.  Ours merely held the 6 cruisers and a teenage Haitian boy who Tim knew who came along for the ride. It was once we got on the road that we started to see some of the appealing and unique parts of Haiti.  At first, we drove east on Rue 121, the best road in the country. A nice, paved road is a luxury even in the Dominican Republic, and although we enjoyed this part of the drive, it was hard not to notice that we were almost the only ones using it.  Once out of Ouanaminthe (the border town), the landscape changed dramatically.  We were treated to scenes of beautiful green mountains, lush fields, and occasional views of the pretty northern shoreline.  We had expected to see signs of environmental destruction, but although we did not see forests, there were lots of trees and everything was covered with green vegetation.  We certainly don’t want to deny Haiti’s environmental problems, just register surprise that it was not universally visible on the surface.

A typical home in the Haitian countryside. Some homes are left like this, others are covered with stucco and painted.

One thing that really struck us as odd was the quality of the clothing people wore.  Even men digging ditches had nicer work clothes than we do (ours are stained with chemicals, paint and riddled with little holes).  Apparently, there is a surplus of donated clothes in Haiti.  On market days, Haitians carry clothing to the Dominican side of the border to sell.  They use the cash to buy food and other necessities. Along the road, we could see lots of small settlements.  In this area, most of the Haitians make their living from small farms.  Some of the things that we noticed were the small houses, the communal well-pumps, large bags of charcoal wrapped in white plastic, and cooking outside.  The farm animals all looked healthy and happy.  We often saw cows, goats, chickens, and pigs – but never in large numbers.  Around the houses you could see lots of fruit trees: banana, papaya, guava, and mango. Several times, we passed through medium-sized towns.  Just as in the Dominican Republic, we saw lots of small snack stands, restaurants, bars, and betting venues.  Also the same as in the DR, we saw men gathered around tables outdoors playing dominoes.  What was different, though, was when we saw men walking around with clothespins pinned to their faces – sometimes forming an entire beard of pins.  We learned later that the clothespins are a punishment for the dominoes losers.  We guess if you don’t have money to gamble with, humiliation is almost as good. When we drove over bridges, we were treated to the sight of Haitians taking full advantage of the rivers below.  There were kids swimming, and women doing the laundry, often carrying their loads in tubs balanced on their heads.  Bus drivers parked their vehicles in the middle of the river and washed them in place. Eventually, we had to leave the nice road, which leads to Cap-Haïtien, to turn toward the small town of Milot.  We bumped and banged along and eventually got out of the truck at the plaza in front of the imposing crumbling palace of Sans Souci.  Sans Souci is located just above the town of Milot, but well below the height of the mountain above which looms the fortress of La Citadelle.  We viewed Sans Souci from the outside.  In its day, it was intended to rival Versailles, and while it never quite got to that point, it is a vast pile.  Built in 3 years from 1810-1813, it served as the palace for the Haitian king (and tyrant) Henri Christophe.  When he fell, it was ransacked.  Twenty years later, it was ruined for good by an earthquake.

One of the batteries flanking the Citadelle as seen from the height of the fort. Note the stacks of cannonballs in place behind the cannons.

We had to purchase admission to the Citadelle, which requires hiring a guide.  While the admission itself was not much, the excursion could get expensive if you gave in to all of the people who followed you around asking for money.  Given the general poverty in Haiti, it is not surprising that people would swarm around asking for a handout or trying to sell handicrafts.  Even though the Citadelle is a UNESCO World Heritage site and well worth a visit, we were the only visitors that day.  In fact, there was only one other visitor that week, and he was a Haitian.  So naturally, our visit caused a stir. From Sans Souci, we drove up a steep and winding mountain road.  We were surprised to see that there were settlements all the way up the road.  From Milot, the hills had seemed isolated and unpopulated.  Eventually, the road stopped and we had to take a trail the rest of the way up Pic la Ferrière, a height of 3000 feet.  We were told that the trail was a 45 minute hike or a 20 minute horse ride.  Horses and their guides were lined up waiting for us.  We chose to walk, although it may well have been more pleasant if we had taken the horses, since their guides followed us the entire way up the hill pestering us to reconsider.  All of the way up, our self appointed guides told us facts about the fortress. The Citadelle is gigantic.  From the side facing the sea and Cap-Haïtien, it projects up 130 feet and out from the mountaintop like the prow of a ship.  The Citadelle was and still is the largest fortress in the Western Hemisphere.   Completed in 1820, it took only 15 years to build – it helps that Henri Christophe used slave labor and encouraged efficiency through brutal treatment.  Some say that over half of the 20,000 workers died in the construction and that the mortar holding the stones together is mixed with their blood.  The fortress is remarkably intact.  There are still stacks of cannonballs seemingly ready to be fired from the hundreds and hundreds of cannons.  The fortress was intended to house 5000 troops at a time, and you can see how they would easily fit in. Of course, from the top of the mountain, the view is fantastic.  You can see all of the way to the city of Cap-Haitien and the ocean beyond.  It was a little hazy when we were there, so we had to squint, but we could just make it out.  Supposedly, shots from the fortress’s cannons could reach the city, over 30 km away. You can walk through the entire fort, which takes a while.  The king’s private apartments are just empty rooms, but are pretty spooky.  The chapel, for instance, is built on top of the dungeon, which was apparently used quite frequently.  We were struck by the fact that there were hardly any alterations to the original structure – few signs and no safety railings or gift shops.  It was very unlike the typical modern tourist attraction and made it easy to imagine how the fort must have been in the past.

Haitians take carpooling seriously! This truck is approved for the HOV-20 lane!

It took quite a while to tour the Citadelle.  Aware that we were cutting it close to get to the border crossing on time, we skipped touring Sans Souci.  Tim felt that we did have time for a quick visit to a local backyard rum distillery.  Individual Haitians have been distilling rum in sheds behind their houses for generations.  The methods have changed very little over time.  The only “recent” piece of equipment we saw was a diesel motor to run the cane press.  The motor looked to be at least 50 years old.  The still itself look ancient. After we left the distillery, the Haitian boy that had been riding along with us, came in from his perch on the roof and sat with the rest of us.  Cindy struck up a conversation with him in French.  He was able to understand Cindy’s French well, but she had problems understanding him – mostly due to the road noise inside the truck.  Still, he managed to convey that we were going to need a hotel, because the border was definitely going to be closed by the time we got there. Note for our readers:  this is where it starts to get a little weird. Local knowledge is usually right, and it was this time.  Apparently, Tim mistook the time given for the border closure for an hour later than it was due to confusion about the Haiti/Dominican Republic time difference.  When we got to the border, we could see that the gates on the bridge were closed and locked.  We piled out of the truck, and Tim asked us to stand by while he talked to a few people.  When he came back, he told us not to worry – we’ll just cross the river.  We walked toward the riverbank and before we knew it, tons of Haitian men were swarming around us, prompting us to take a lift on their back.  Since that seemed to be what Tim had in mind, we followed his lead and each hopped on the back of the nearest Haitian guy.  Cindy happened to have camera in hand and was able to snap a picture of Gray in the middle of his clandestine journey.  There didn’t seem to be any correlation between the size of the guy and the size of his burden.  Gray and Tim easily eclipsed their mounts.  Nevertheless, we got to the other side mostly dry and scrambled up the Dominican bank.  Once there, not surprisingly, we were greeted by Dominican officials.  The passports came out, some money changed hands, and we quickly made our way to Tim’s truck and out of town before anyone changed their mind. In the end, even with the “fees” charged by the border guards and the tips paid to our erstwhile mounts, we spent about what we had expected to spend for the day.  We think it was well worth it, since we don’t know if we will ever pass by Haiti again.

Gray crosses the border into the Dominican Republic in style.

Our time in Haiti shattered our preconceptions.  We expected a wasteland packed with desperately poor, starving people wallowing in misery (like on those Save the Children TV commercials).  The reality was a lush green land (although without many large trees) and people living their lives.  At least, that was the country we saw.  Our guide told us the slums and shanty towns around the large cities are much poorer than the countryside and very dangerous.  The people outside the cities are still very poor, but there are businesses operating, people working and other signs of civilization.  We felt safe during our entire visit, although there were some shady characters lurking around the border (no more so than Tijuana or any other border town between countries with different levels of economic development). We highly recommend traveling in Haiti with an experienced guide.  It is the second oldest democracy in the Western Hemisphere (founded just after the US) and has a rich history and culture.  Royal Caribbean cruise lines stops at La Badie, Haiti.  Although the area (at least on the Travel Channel) looks like a tourist reservation, there are still sites to see.  (Here is an interesting article on Haitian tourism).  Getting to see the Citadelle or other sites inside Haiti will require a special trip.  If you stay in one of the many luxurious all-inclusive resorts in the Dominican Republic, consider a short side trip to Haiti.  It might be difficult to find a travel agency to arrange the tour, but it will be worth your while.  Many of the hotel operators on the DR side of the border have contacts in Haiti and can help make arrangements. Cindy and Gray

Front of windscoop (with Gray)

This hurricane season, our highest priority canvas project was a windscoop for the V berth hatch.  Our design is a modified version of Terry Sargent’s squall proof windscoop as depicted in Jim Grant’s The Complete Canvasworker’s Guide Second Edition.   The idea behind this windscoop is to keep wind flowing into the cabin and water out even during rainstorms.  This is accomplished by means of an interior flap that covers the upper half of the scoop opening when the flap is in the “down” position.  The lower edge of the scoop is angled upwards from the opening to the hatch, thus keeping out any possible airborne wetness.

Our version differs from Terry’s in two major ways.  Terry’s design is basically a tube that rises from the hatch, then turns forward and down towards the opening.  Since our hatch is on an area of deck that is raised above the main deck level, we did not have to make the turn segment to keep the rain out – it simply extends straight from the hatch to the opening.  The other difference is the addition of a bug screen at the hatch opening.

While some of the projects in Grant’s book are described with plans and step by step instructions, the windscoop project is basically a line drawing and a short description of the principles involved.  Cindy spent about a week taking measurements and scratching her head before deciding to draw an exact pattern using Visio.  Using Visio helped a lot, making it possible to figure out measurements for some of the trickier pieces before making embarrassing cutting mistakes.  After making to-scale shapes of all necessary pattern pieces, she typed a checklist of instructions for the whole project.

We decided to use the same yellow Surlast fabric we used for the awning to make the windscoop.  We had a lot of it on the boat already, and we thought it would look nice when both the awning and windscoop were set up together.  Since Surlast is not a particularly stiff material, Cindy stiffened the opening edges and all areas to which fasteners would be attached with 2 inch widths of dacron sail tape (used successfully on the awning).

Windscoop side and rear view

Terry Sargent’s plan did not address how to attach the scoop to the deck.  We decided to use snaps.  The port and starboard sides of the hatch opening have flaps with rows of snaps which correspond to snap bases anchored in the deck.  The forward edge has snaps on its front edge, since it rests against the deck anyway.  The back should not have any strain on it, so it does not have a snap flap.  We can always add one later, if we need to.

Another thing that puzzled Cindy was how to make waterproof seams.  On the awning, it was easy to make flat felled seams wherever two pieces met.  On this project, the outside corner angles where the top met the sides were the critical seams, but she couldn’t use the flat-felled technique on them.  She solved the problem by sewing the sides to the top wrong sides together, and wrapping a strip of Surlast around the raw edges.  Sewing the wrapped seam flat, she hopes she has made a fairly waterproof seal on the areas most likely to leak.

We made a handle on the top of the windscoop out of a length of nylon webbing, box-stitched in place.  The purpose of the handle is to be a halyard attachment point.  The halyard keeps the top of the scoop up, but also raises the center to keep any rainwater from pooling.  The shape of the back is formed by the raised window.  The front holds its shape by lines led forward from grommets at the top and bottom edges.  Battens would give it a more upright, square shape, but would make it more difficult to store.  An easy way to do this would be to cut lengths of PVC tubing and install them on the exterior of the windscoop opening by running line through the tubing and the forward grommets.  We will keep battens in mind for a possible future enhancement.

The rain flap is held in place with snaps.  It may be set in an up or down position by reaching inside the hatch from the V-berth.

Like the awning, all of the seams were sewn with UV resistant gore-tex profilen thread, so we hope the windscoop will give us years and years of use.

Cindy and Gray