January 31st – February 4th: Road Bay, Anguilla
On Monday morning, we went ashore to check in. There is some confusion about the cruising permit in Anguilla. When we first read the guide, it sounded to us like we had to have a cruising permit, which for Tropical Blend would cost $150 per day – yikes! But upon re-reading, we figured out that if you kept the boat at Road Bay, no cruising permit was necessary. Our ch...
December 2nd: Leverick Bay – Cooper Island
We left the North Sound for Cooper Island, with a stop at Spanish Town on the way. Spanish Town is the main settlement on Virgin Gorda, with a marina, a bank, several restaurants and several grocery stores. Since we were only staying for lunch and a little shopping, we took a mooring outside of the yacht harbor. On our first charter trip, we had taken one ...
November 4th: Marina Puerto del Rey – Ensenada Honda, Vieques
With the boat fully provisioned and sparkling clean, we were finally ready to start cruising again. We decided to top up the tanks, as fuel was just $2.50 per gallon. We added two-hundred gallons and set east to Vieques. The weather forecast was pretty good, with winds out of the east at fifteen knots, and seas ESE at three feet. Longer term, there was supposed to b...
August 30th: Puerto del Rey – Ensenada Honda, Isla Culebra
We waited for Lasata in the morning, but they were taking care of some issues and planned to stop at the fuel dock, so we left before them for Isla Culebra. It’s only twenty-three miles to Culebra, which we heard gets very busy on weekends. Leaving Sunday morning, we expected to arrive after the crowds left. It was a fairly easy passage, with two to three foot...
July 2nd, 2015: Las Terrenas
We decided to join Ralph and Stacie for an afternoon visit to Las Terrenas, a beach resort on the north side of the island, about 45 minutes from Samana. There are apparently a lot of expats liv...
June 1st, 2015: Spanish Wells – Harbor Island (Devil’s Backbone Passage)
On Monday morning, I called the pilot Bandit to see if we could go through the Devil’s Backbone, and he said he would be out within twenty minutes. There were no other cruising boats in the area. Bandit is an older guy, with kind of a Dutch accent. He brought his boat to tow, so we had to stow Little Blend, but it was easy as there was no win...
