Isla de Providencia, Colombia

Hello Everyone!
I’m not even sure where to start on this one. It seems like it has been a month since we last posted a blog. We are here on Isla De Providencia & have been far longer than we expected. We were supposed to sail from Grand Cayman to Providencia, have a quick (one day or so) layover to catch up on sleep before continuing on down to the San Blas Islands in Panama, but the weather had different plans for us & we have been unable to escape for 10 days now!!! We are still unable to post on the internet here, so I will probably just add to this in the San Blas and you will end up with a lot of reading material. There will be no internet in the San Blas, because it is very remote & the Kuna Indians inhabit them. They try to live the way they always have, but they do have a few more modern conveniences now. We will tell you more about that when we get there though… Back to the trip so far…
So, I think we already talked about Grand Cayman, that was really fun & the water was absolutely amazing! We left there on Thursday the 16th of April & arrived at Low Cay (which is a little piece of coral above water with lots of coral surrounding it barely under the water’s surface just outside of Providencia) there is nothing there but a little light beacon on the “land” and we anchored in the protection of the reef. The plan when we arrived was that to avoid the fees in Colombia and shave off some time on our travels we would only stay in Low Cay for a night, then leave again for Panama, but the weather started to act up & was supposed to be getting better in two or three days, so to avoid an uncomfortable passage we pulled into Providencia the next day after a great snorkel in the morning.
Providencia turned out to be a great place & we are really happy that we stayed here. The people are nice & it’s a safe place. They all speak English too! Very convenient.
We met some new cruising friends including Jim & Laura on Nilaya another Bayfield 36 the same size & color as ours. Although I have to say they have a way better dodger & the floor in theirs is beautiful.(ours is very dinged & scuffed) Their Bayfield is a year older than ours & the layout is also a little different. They do not have a table that folds up against the wall like ours, instead the table is mounted to the floor in the middle of the salon area & the leaves on both sides fold up so you can eat at both couches & it can be used as a convenient lee cloth to make a double sea berth. It takes up more room than ours & although you can feed more people more comfortably I like that we can get rid of ours completely when it is not in use. The galley cabinets are different as well & where we have a chain locker door in the vee berth they have a plain wall….among some other small differences. We had a good time getting to know them & a few of the other cruisers here as well. We didn’t get as social as we would have liked, or explore the island a bunch either, because we were downstairs the whole time sewing up the new spinnaker.
The Spinnaker is a huge light weight 1000 square foot sail that you attach to the front of the boat in light winds so that you are still moving at a decent pace when the normal sails would not be doing much at all. We bought the kit online and have been planning on sewing it in Panama when we get there, but then we realized that we aren’t going to have much time there at all, so we needed to start here. We have done three huge panels out of four & have lots of work to go after we get all those together. We have a few pictures of the process so far.
Anyway, back to Providencia… We checked in with Mr. Bush. He is the guy that checks all the cruisers in & he is very kind & loves to see boaters coming in! He will do anything to help you that he can. You can call him on channel 16 & ask for a mechanic & he will go find one for you & have them meet you at the dock. Very cool. We went to the horse races on the beach on Saturday & it was crazy! We rented a scooter at the grocery store & drove over to the beach it was at. We arrived early & decided to get lunch first at a little outdoor restaurant on the beach. Turns out our table was the finish line! We stayed there & waited for the race to begin. Men kept piling up down on the sand in front of us & as the race got closer & closer the conversations they were having (in some foreign language) got more & more heated. They take their betting seriously here & they were apparently arguing over who would win. The horses were running up & down the beach before the race to try & show off & get bets. Children were all over the beach & the riders had to swerve around them. Finally they got down to it & the race was on. Two horses erupted through the crowd at the far end of the beach & as they got closer the yelling intensified and it was over. One horse won by a nose & the losing horse tossed his owner into the water. We though there was more coming, but nope. Only two horses today! The betters inspected the horses for a long time to make sure noting funny was going on & everyone went on with their business.
We had rented our scooter for the entire day & wanted to get our money’s worth so we scooted around the entire island three & a half times. We took turns driving & took lots of pictures along the way. There were lots of horses loose in the road. One was taking a nap in the road & seemed completely unfazed by our presence. Then there were the herds of cows crossing the roads & being herded up them by their owners on scooters & bicycles. Usually one person per herd. One man was on his bike & he had the last cow by the tail & was directing it by pulling on it’s tail in the direction he wanted it to go & smacking it with it to go faster. It seemed to be working….I for one would not want to be that close to a cows hind end. We also saw a big Blue lizard & some other cool huge lizards & took lots of pictures of the island as we passed.
On our last lap around the island we got a flat tire!! We ran over a nail & had to stop. We were way up on a hill in the middle of nowhere & Ben was pushing the scooter down the road towards town while we were trying to figure out what to do since we were so far from anywhere. We passed some guys on their front porch& they yelled out to us that they knew someone who worked on scooters. The guys flagged him down for us & he took us to his house just down the road where we sat in his lawn as he fixed the flat. He ended up having to put a new tube in, because we punctured ours in too many places to patch, so he gave us one of his. The funny thing was that every time one of his family members would come out of the house to do something they would spot us there in their yard & do a quick double take before running to another building quickly & telling someone else that there were strange white people in their yard. then another family member would pop out from somewhere & do a double take & run to the house or wherever & so on & so on… I think we freaked out like 4 family members by the time the tire was fixed. We thought it was hilarious. It was like if you came out in your yard at home in Washington & saw a rhinoceros in the yard. They just froze for a minute took another look….tried to focus their eyes…then ran for shelter…They were nice though. Just confused. The tire change took about twenty minutes & cost two dollars! Ben tipped him & gave him three. Big spender! We were very pleased!
The island is pretty. I found it funny that almost all the houses looked uninhabitable to me. No doors or windows in the ones in the country & if I were to pass them anywhere else I would have expected them to be abandoned, but all of the locals are really clean & well dressed in new clothes & their hair & make up is always done nicely....odd combo. They also have three grocery stores on the same block all with the same stuff & two bakeries & anything else they could need. Very nice little town. We ate out at a restaurant in town & after a dinner for two with 5 (very small) Colombian beers the tab came to 8 dollars! Awesome!
The mayor of Providencia threw a big celebration for the cruisers in the town square on Friday & that was really fun. The children danced traditional dances for us & a local band played music & they explained their culture to us & welcomed everyone to their island. Ben got picked out to dance with the local girls in the dancing show twice. I have it on video & when I figure out how to put it online I will show it to you. Very fun!
I guess we are going to town now & we are going to try & put this on a thumb drive & take it in to put on a local computer & try to get it online,,,, so I hope it works. Sorry, no pictures for now. We will have tons to show you when we get to mainland Panama. We are only going to be spending about a week weather permitting in the San Blas, because of our delay here. I think it will be ok, because fishing season is closed there & you are not allowed to dive. I am still looking forward to seeing it though. I will try to get a picture of a Kuna Indian for you, but I know they shun pictures. I have heard that if you pay them a dollar they will gladly let you take a picture though, so we will see.
Ok, well, gotta go top town & get some stuff done. We are off in the morning hopefully!! We tried to leave Monday, but decided not to on the morning of, because of the high seas & squalls coming in. It will not be too much better tomorrow, but lower seas. Keep up on the spots & we will check back in when we can!
We miss you all so much. We really really miss Skip Dog too!! We talk about him all the time & just want to get home to see him (& you guys of course) as soon as possible. The boat is not the same without him though. We are pretty sad. Doug & Janet, give him a hug & tell him hello for us!

Kristen


Ben here! We have been so busy working on sewing up our new beautiful Spinnaker, we have hardly had time to see this island… We did go and snorkel some rocks and a cave where the notorious Captain Morgan stashed his loot. We also saw a stump of a fish that looked like a fat lizard. I expected him to have little feet up front and shook my flipper in front of him to see if he would move. We bolted away super fast and scared Kristen and I. Weird fish though, he had markings like a rattlesnake.
On another note, observing our anchorage in a more distant port… We are tied for the smallest boat. We are actually exactly tied as the other boat is a Bayfield 36 with a very nice couple, Jim and Laura on board. Other observations… There are no Beneteaus… Almost half of the boats have a furling main sail. There are about 24 boats now… Everyone is patiently waiting for the moderate winds to subside. Most people here are full time cruisers and spending the hurricane season either in Panama, Colombia (Cartegena) or heading up the Rio Dulce in Guatemala. Some are on their way back to Florida, but not many… We haven´t gotten to know many people though, as most of the fleet seems a bit leery of our young crew. Or maybe we do not take enough showers… Not sure which. We have met some really nice folks though, and in truth, we have mostly been sweating away belowdecks slaving over our new Spinnaker. I sure hope we like our new sail! We should be heading out tomorrow and have a solid two day passage to the San Blas Islands where the Kuna Indians make their youngest son into a girl (transvestite) if they haven’t had a girl yet…Can’t wait! Beautiful Islands and hopefully surf-too lucky! We will not have internet, but will spot while there. We only have about a week or ten days there though before we need to get through the canal… Doug-thanks again for watching Skip-Dog! Hope he is being a well behaved gentleman. I am also hoping Spring has sprung back home after a fairly nasty winter as I hear it. Miss you all!
Ben (el capitan)

Cayman Islands are awesome!!

Hey everyone & Skippy Doo!!
It's Monday & we hope everyone had a great Easter Sunday! We are still on Grand Cayman Island & we love it here! There are an insane amount of reefs to dive & it's a really clean friendly place to be! We are in town getting our dive tanks filled as we can go out & see some more! We went snorkeling a few times & had two really good dives. We saw plenty of tropical fish, a stingray, some turtles (Kristen's favorite)a mermaid (statue)a wreck with coral growing on it, and believe it or not a 4 foot long puffer fish that was like 2 feet across in it's belly. Crazy! We have never seen water this clear & pretty before! Where we are moored it's like 50 feet deep & we can see the little ripples in the sand on the bottom clearly. They are pretty serious about protecting their reef here & it shows! I've never seen so many fish!
Ben made a rope swing off the boat using the whisker pole which is pretty cool! He was doing back flips off it yesterday! Like I said..no complaints in the Caymans! We really love it here. We are leaving on Thursday though I think. It seems like there will be a good window in the weather to get us to Isla De Providencia off Nicaragua. The trip should take three days or less from here.
We are both excited to get to the San Blas islands in Panama, but Ben just informed me the other day that you are not allowed to dive there, so... we will have to get all the diving in that we can while we are here. The San Blas look amazing though!! Little islands of Palm tree forests surrounded by big white sand beaches & blue water.
We also wanted to say hi to ma & pa Davidson & say thanks for letting Skippy vacation on Blakely with you this week! We know he loves it there! We loved seeing him today on the skype camera too!!! He looks great! It was also good to talk to you. Hope you have good luck with your new chickens!
Ok, the Internet cafe closes in 10 minutes, so I have to go, but we will keep you updated & put some Cayman Pics up when we get online again!
Miss you all!!
Love, Kristen & Ben!

OK Here are the Pictures!!!
This is our current anchorage!


The water is so clear and blue with coral reefs about 200 feet from the boat! Grand Cayman seems pretty cool so far!

This is our boat... off to the right, yeah that little guy.

The sunset crossing the Florida Straits before the front came through.

Cabo San Antonio. The Western Point of Cuba. This is the Closest we came to Cuba. Legal or not, we tried to avoid some currents around this point.

Another Sunset from the Cockpit. Florida Straits?

Kristen obviously overwhelmed by the freighter traffic. Oh, we installed a new AIS that transmits the data to and from the big ships. Lets them know were here and lets us avoid them and know where they are going. My new favorite toy!

This Fillet...

From this Mahi-mahi! Our big excitement on the passage. Not the biggest fish we hooked though. We hooked on to something that took the line without slowing down at all for 200 yards didn't seem to notice us. When we got the line back the stainless leader was mangled like 16 inches past the lure... Big mouth! We didn't get to see him though...

This is Key West City Harbor. A place well worth visiting. About the only place in Florida well worth visiting.

Here is my model of the Dinghy. Cutey!......(ok, so I still can't figure out why Ben put this picture on here, but it's the worst picture we have taken of me so far on the trip. I can't figuire out how to delete it...if anyone knows how to delete pics please tell me quick!!!)

This is supposed to be the best beach in the Keys. You can see it all. The view:

Is bridges on both sides... We thought it was kinda funny...

This is Boot Key Harbor in Marathon, FL. Sooo many boats spend the winter here. We had our alternator tinkered with here. We requested that he replace some parts so it would all blow up about ten hours later. He succeded.

I am thinking this is back in Miami. We had some beautiful sunsets and sunrises here.

There are two Dolphins (porpoises) off to the left here that Kristen got a pic of. I think there were waterspouts reported this day as we left Miami for Key Largo.

Another anchorage in Miami area.

Skippy with his second favorite chin rest. We miss him sooo much, but keep thinking he is sooo glad to not be here...

This was cool! We saw the Space shuttle launch from Miami.

Sorry for the quick commentary, the Mosquitos are eating me up. Miss you all!

Crew of Wind-Borne

Four and one Half days later...

Well, we have suvived our first multi-day ocean passage. We are all cleared in and ready to explore the sights. We set out from Key West Saturday about 9:30 in the morning and motored for two days against currents to reach the west point of Cuba... Pretty uneventful except a Cuban Guard boat(unmarked) with a spotlight at night yelling at us, a blown alternator, and a Mahi-mahi! We got arount Cabo San antonio before a front was supposed to arrive and headed SE towards the Caymans. The front came through a little after midnight and started to blow pretty good from the SW. Seas were 4 to 6 foot with a small window of 8 footers and Kristen swears 10 on her night shift(I don't doubt it) Wind-Borne sailed like the champ she is and the Monitor self-steering vane we have named Hank was our best friend. He steered and corrected as we surfed down swells and we just basically read a book and tried to stay awake... So when you are sailing 24 hours a day, you need someone up at all times, so it pretty much broken into shifts. We had two 6 hour shifts from 06:00 to 12:00 and 12:00 to 18:00 and three four hour shifts through the night. 18:00 to 22:00, 22:00 to 02:00 and 02:00 to 06:00. We both thought the 02:00 to 06:00 was the worst. So as soon as you get off shift, you basically crash and hope to actually fall asleep before your next shift. Kristen made lee cloths for us which is like a hammock that comes up on the side of the couch in the main salon that keeps you in bed. It worked great! No one fell out of bed.
So we made it in to the Caymans and it is a beautiful place! The water is full of coral and really really blue water! Can't wait to go diving! Lots of cruise ships though. Three yesterday and two today. Sunburns everywhere!
We made it down here in four days and 6 hours and it was 550 Nautical miles. that is 129 miles a day on average. We were fighting a 1.5 to 2 knot current for most of the first two days, so I think that we made up for it on the last two... I know we were moving right along! I know we made a good decision with Skippy because I kept thinking I was so glad he wasn't having to go through this... Kristen did a great job as admiral and held all of her watches and did a wonderful job keeping us safe. We are planning our next move, but think we should be here for a few days anyways!
Love you all and miss you! Especially Skippy-Doo!

!!!Pictures & Changes!!!

PICTURES:
Key West photos & pics of other stuff too:

Mallory Square: people line up all the way down the boardwalk every single night waiting for the tall ships to sail by & to watch the street performers do their thing at the nightly sunset festival. Pretty cool.

Big wooden schooners that sail by every evening at sunset. Very pretty.

Kristen with a big banyon tree in the old town district where all the huge houses & cool trees are.

Ben's most recent catch!! He realized that his tiny little 50 inch mahi mahi wasn't impressing anyone, so he went out & caught this bad boy! What do you think now!?

Jack of Free @last having a run on the beach with Skippy

Free @ last on our Starboard side. We were ahead...for a minute...then they beat our pants off. ..

Relaxing underway while Ben mans the helm.

Brian & Alicia on Sarabande! Where are you guys? Are you still near Georgetown?

us with Jack & the crew of Nauti Girl out of New Jersey. Ben had just gotten out of the water after a diving expedition looking for dinner. He didn't know it, but he was swimming with a large white tip on the reef! Like his cool new dive knife?

Big foot Ben

The view from the top of Chub Cay. We went down this little river all the way accross the island in our dinghy.

Traveling down the river.

Mr. Doo & his adorable sandy face.

Ben working in the locker again. Looks comfy huh! You should have seen us trying to get him out of here upside down & backwords.

Hello!!

Everyone is asking for more pictures, so I'm going to put some on, but they are not all super recent. I hope you enjoy them.

Also, plans are changing as usual on Wind-Borne & a MAJOR decision has been made by the crew to send the big guy (Skippy) home to his aunt & uncle Doug & Janet while we cross the big blue. We have thought about it for months now & have come to the conclusion that although we will miss him every minute it isn't in Skippy's best interest to be crossing big oceans & going long periods without letting him go to shore. He just does so much better when he gets walks & has little creatures to chase.

Doug, Janet, & Rex have graciously offered to take him in & watch over him while we are away. They are a perfect home for him & We are sure that Skip will be thrilled to have some good front porch sitting time with his cousin Rex. We have already sent his things back to Washington & he will be boarding his flight with Delta on Friday morning at 7:20 AM. He is excited to see some cold weather.(and his extended family) He's been far too hot here despite being shaved.

As for the rest of the crew, we will continue on with the plan to travel from Key west & make our way south to Panama. If weather permits we will be on our way Saturday. Please keep in touch via e-mail, comments, and keeping an eye on our SPOT. You will always know where we are even when we can't talk to you. We will be able to get internet access again after leaving the Keys, but we aren't sure exactly when, so please be patient. It may take a week... or it may take a month... we just can't tell right now. Just check in occasionally.

We really miss you all & wish we could catch a flight home with Skippy to see everyone. He's a lucky dog! We will see you soon enough though! December is not that far away! Thanks again Doug, Janet, & Rex!!!

Enjoy the pictures everyone!