We're still in Dakity, Culebra, Spanish Virgin Islands E of Puerto Rico. This anchorage is nearly perfect with its barrier reef, clear blue waters, and hilly, green backdrop. We'll be here probably another week even though we have (or will as it got sent Thursday) get our mail from the Caltriders in Florida. We've been doing maintenance and projects when we're not reading, socializing, or playing Spider solitaire on the computer: yah, loads of fun. The winter weather (winds) have started. They're off and on 25+ knots mostly from the E and NE. Makes for great sleeping (mid-70's). The sun still shines and there is little rain which makes it more than bearable given the North American alternative. We heard the groundhog came out and thumbed his nosed at Al Gore. Given our nightly display with Jupiter at our stern, Venus at our bow, the Milky Way, and thousands of stars to include around dawn the Southern Cross, we truly don't have it so bad.
Our friends on Arita, Aussie Rob and Jacksonville Lauren Dehaan, are having a ball according to their blog, aritacruising.blogspot.com, which you shouldn't miss. You'll see why when you get there. They are headed down Islands ahead of us and we hope to catch up before we get to Granada or Tobago. I don't think we'll sail all the way to Trinidad for the Carnival in March, rather take a ferry. We hear that the oil rigs around the Gulf of Paria near Port of Spain are rife with fishermen/pirates waiting to pounce of us cruisers. It's just too close to Venezuela and senior chavez (yes, lowercase, ze leet'l plik) to take any chances, especially after talking with a couple who were boarded, terrorized and burgled a month or so ago. A terrible, terrible experience which they thankfully lived through is spite of the pirates' plan to torch the boat. Poverty sure is a bitch.
We're off to COSTCO, West Marine, Wally World, Homo Depot (yah, we saw tee shirt in Key West at Fantasy Fest), etc. on Monday with Zoya, Albanian Jim and Chicago Debbie Alimi, to provision. This entails taking the 6:30 ferry to Fajardo, renting a $25 car (with $25 for insurance from our AmEx card), driving 75 miles, and taking the 5:00 p.m. ferry back to Culebra. It is mitigated by being able to BUY, BUY, BUY!! all of our favorite things, plus the essentials.
Behold and lo, Thursday's Priority Mail arrived before noon, and fortunately West Marine dropped one of the orders, the in-line fuel (gas) filter for the outboard. Oh, well, Monday for that is probably better as there are two necessary fittings not included in the package. I did install the new Hellamarine port light (red). Unfortunately, it was just ever so slightly smaller than the original. Otherwise, I could have just put the new lens cover on and been done with it. The dingy navigation lights (bow: red and green; stern: white) did arrive and now work perfectly. I even put dielectric grease on the AAA battery ends hoping that it will protect the circuits/workings from the leaking batteries that destroyed the previous light set we had.
