Ahoy from the crew of the BlueJacket!
While at Lighthouse Reef we met a boat named Seal who is from Portsmouth, NH. They're on a shakedown cruise of their boat which they explicitly designed for Antarctic sailing. Hamish, the captain, has been doing charters in the Antarctic for 10 years and has now built his own boat. It had lots of different gear on it compared to the typical cruising yacht. They have 6 spools of 600 feet of 3/8" floating line that they use to tie themselves to the shore due to the intense winds that could push them ashore. They have a retractable keel which is 9' down and 4' up. They use this in case icebergs chase them ashore and this way they can lift the keel and the icebergs will grind to a halt before reaching them. Yeah...I worry about that too...The rudder flips up for the same reason and will also flip up if they hit something (very nice). Since the boat is designed for cold weather cruising, it's well insulated but has no powered refrigeration system...a definite minus in the tropics. They have 2 young children who cruise with them, who I'm sure will have many wonderful experiences. We really enjoyed getting to know them. Oh, their web site is www.ExpeditionSail.com.
Between my last post on diving at Lighthouse Reef we've been on the move. Every 30 days you need to check in with Customs and Immigration. It's a royal pain when it's a two day trip each way from the atolls. Seal needed to head the same way, so we both sailed (yes, sailed!) to Turneffe Island in light following winds and the next day we had a great sail with 15-20 kts on the beam in flat water in the lee of Turneffe. I sailed along the reef edge looking for places to dive and anchor. It was beautiful!
We headed through Long Cay pass and sailed to Cay Caulker where we had lots to do. We had 3 weeks of laundry to do, we needed fresh produce, fuel, etc, etc. We even found a new hair salon (Body & Soul) where the owner, Aurora, does a great job of cutting both men's and women's hair. Sue even had her's tinted, and it turned out great, and at a fraction of US prices. Honestly, I wouldn't even care if it was US pricing as simply finding someone down here who does a good job is an absolute find!
We decided to take the water taxi to San Pedro to renew our papers. Otherwise it's a 3 hour trip each way in the sailboat and the anchorage at San Pedro is awful with poor holding and lots of boats flying by. We were able to extend our passports for $25 US/pp, update our ships papers, get some great produce at the Greenhouse, and had a good lunch in less than 4 hours including the water taxi! We had a cold front go through and I got to run around in the dinghy and help get people re-anchored. I got wet, but they were very grateful. Unfortunately the wind was out of the NW, and we had good sized waves in the anchorage, so we weren't able to make in for dinner at our favorite restaurant, Don Corleon's...sigh...
Some good friends from last year, Kim and Carl on Querencia, finally got themselves out of the marina, but weren't able to find any fresh produce, so we stocked up for them too. We met them yesterday in the Drowned Cays and had a great time catching up and eating Carl's Mexican cooking. Yum!
Today we're headed out to Turneffe along with Querencia to explore an area that I thought looked interesting. I'll report on that later. We hope that all is well with you.
-- Geoff & Sue
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