Culebra

The last 2 weeks have been great, New Years was awesome and we have loved the people and culture here since. There's a lot to do on a boat depending on the weather there are all sorts of options for anchorages and other islands close by. We went over to Isla Culebrita and the beach is a stunner and very popular place for the local boaters on the weekends with loads of music and beer drinking going on, great fun. Then on the west side of Culebra we went to a couple of different anchorages including Luis Pena island but the weather has to be good, and we finally managed to paint the deck (had paint since Brazil). Then just 10 miles away is Isla De Vieques, we anchored for a couple of nights in Ensanada Honda in the mangroves completely shelterd spot but near the entrance close to the reef for snorkelling. The snorkelling was the best I have seen in Caribbean so far, we saw a decent size shark, turtles, manta ray, sting rays lots of different reef fish and got a couple of Crays.
Puerto Rico is a little different than I expected, it's very American in a lot of ways but still very Latino. Lots of music going on and a very happy friendly bunch of people. They speak Spanish as their main language but most also speak English so it's very handy for me and great to be able to communicate properly unlike the French islands were it's near impossible if you don't speak French. Culebra is quiet with mainly tourists from the main island coming over on the ferry which is just $2.50 and also MANY have their own boats, this was a real shock there is some serious money. Lots of 40+ foot flash flybridge sports fishing new luxury boats and surprisingly a lot of Rivieras imported from Australia as well as there Bertram's with all the bling, bit like going to Rottnest island in west Australia. When they see the Aussie flag it's all smiles and waves and they love having a chat which is really nice.
Julie's going to have a great time there while I'm back at work, no worries about that!
Meanwhile I'm at the airport now after a slight fuck up. Had a 4 am flight from San Juan and after being there all night, checking in but then fell asleep at the gate! Catastrophe!! So instead of going to Boston I ended up in Orlando for 28 hours and now waiting for a flight to Dubai were I will spend another 22 hours!! So basically leave Sunflower Wednesday afternoon and get to perth early Monday morning, think I'm not kicking myself?!

Puerto Rico!

What a spot this place is, we arrived in the afternoon and after checking in with a very friendly customs fella we were good to go, well after a siesta anyway. Great little town here and they put on full on party all for free with a big stage at the waterfront with bands playing salsa and other Latino music to the early hours, everyone dancing and having a ball, it was full on good fun and managed to keep going until 5am which I haven't done for a while;) think I slept till 5pm yesterday though!

BVI's what were we thinking??!

After a fast downwind sail having to hand steer for the 185 miles we  arrived after 31 hours and knackered. It's chaos, charter boats absolutely everywhere so we find a spot drop anchor and decide to clear customs in the morning. We get in there and say we arrived the evening before and he starts, why didn't you announce your arrival on the radio? Ok sorry sir it won't happen again, he keeps on and saying he will fine us $10000 and can confiscate our boat... Ok mate we are sorry won't happen again!!! He keeps on and takes us aside to read aloud the regulations from his big book, an absolute arsehole...keeps on and finally brings us out a declaration to sign basically saying we were idiots and didn't know. Then immigration, well she wasn't much friendlier but all good lets have a couple of beers and forget about it. After a couple it didn't seem to get much better so Julie says lets go....cool lets get outa here! Back to customs less than an hour later and they are like what's wrong???? Not for us this place!! We didn't really meet any friendly locals, I think they are just sick of the thousands of tourists but hey it's there job and what brings them their money right??? I don't know maybe the other islands are different, I hope so anyway. The Brits can keep these islands and the biggest Caribbean New Years party anyway!!

 Back at the boat an Aussie fella came over and said g'day and we went for dinner with him and his Canadian partner and had a really fun night anyway. They had chartered a boat  and were having a ball. They also introduced us to a drink at the help yourself bar called a "Painkiller" yea I need a couple of painkillers thank you this morning I can tell you. So now we are sailing for Puerto Rico to an island  called Culebra to celebrate New Years tonight and hopefully customs will be a bit more friendly and and more our scene:)

Happy New Years to all our family and friends!

Antigua

We have had the best sailing yet on Sunflower for most of the Caribbean with the wind on the beam and plenty of it but now we are at the top of the chain and it's all downhill sailing for a while heading west once again. Antigua would be one of my favourite islands. I had always wanted to come and see the mega yachts but thought a day or 2 would be enough of the glitz and glamour but it was nothing like. Yea a lot of seriously bloody serious yachts in Falmouth and English harbours with lots of Perini Navi's 50+m, Old Americas cup J boats and everything  in between plus the disgusting white boats but then where we have been mostly anchored in Deep Bay on the other side of the island there's hardly a one yet a beautiful anchorage. Antigua is blessed with beautiful anchorages all over with protected bays everywhere but then there are also the "Christmas Winds", it's like Fremantle in the summer with a non stop screaming easterly that stirs up the water with a bit of groundswell so snorkelling is out of the question but it's all good;) the people are all very friendly and it's the most English islands we have been to they even have a rasta style English accent and play reggae Xmas tunes such as my favourite "does santa come to the getto", no joke heaps of reggae Xmas songs! 

A couple of days before Xmas our Finnish friends on "Everafter" and "KasteHelmi" and also Luis our Argentinian friend arrived here in Deep Bay and it has been great fun, bit of a rum overdose but great fun! Xmas on the beach with loads of great Finnish food, Ham ect and a Seafood BBQ was a serious feast for sure, good times! Really happy we got to meet up with them to share the day. 

Now that the hangover has almost passed it's time to get Sunflower ready for the 180 mile sail to the BVI's. There is a small island called Jast Van Dyke with normally 200 people on it but they put on a massive 3 day party for New Years that brings a few thousand people, will be crazy for sure. So tomorrow we leave and should arrive on the 29th and then it's just a 30 mile sail to Culebra where I fly back to Australia mid Jan for work. 

Guadaloupe

Our original plan was to miss the French islands but I'm glad we stopped here that's for sure. Completely different vibe, nothing like any of the other islands we have visited. Obviously French, very French and they have made a very good influence. It's the first island we have seen with good organisation with the farming, great crops everywhere of all sorts including massive banana plantations. And the food.... While in the rest of the Caribbean we see massive obesity problems with loads of fried take away places here in Guadaloupe the people are actually skinny! Well maybe not skinny but not massive either :) is a shame though we can't speak French which does make it seriously hard but they are very chilled out bunch.

We stayed up the top of the island on the west in Dashaies, a beautiful little sheltered bay with loads of free really good moorings. We hired a car and took a trip around the island and it's absolutely beautiful and lush, rainforest everywhere and a hikers paridise although we only did a couple of short walks in the national park.

Some tips for cruisers- there's drinking water available from a tap near the showers in harbour for free, supermarkets are really good and although it's in euros seemed no more expensive and our search for cheap beer we found cases for €18,great steaks and awesome cheeses and of course French wine from €3. Check in super easy on a computer at a little shop you can do every day of the week for €4.

The year of the goat

Marie-Galante is a nice little island belonging to France and just off the main island Guadaloupe. We met Sonia and Luis our Argentinian friends there and hired a car for the day tolook around the island. Since Tobago Sonia and Luis have been talking about finding a baby goat to cook Argentinian style on the fire and seeing the many farms here and Julie's birthday coming up we chanced it and pulled into one of the farmers driveways. As luck would have it we couldn't have chosen a better fella to have come to and luckily Luis speaks French otherwise it would have been impossible for sure. This fella only has a couple of acres but has absolutely everything besides the dozen or so goats, chickens, pigeons, fouls, corn avocados, potatoes, every tropical fruit and veg around actually I reckon an absolute little paradise. So after a bit of bargaining, (well trying to the price actually went up) we came to a deal that he would slaughter it and we could pick it up the next day. Very cute little goat we chose I must say. Anyway a long story short we found a near deserted beach in the following days to anchor and it was bloody delicious! Luis cooked it to perfection over the fire and with a bit of Argentinian spice Chimi-churi it couldn't have been better, we had a great day celebrating Julie's birthday..it is a 4 hour process so there is plenty of time to hang out, swim and have a few drinks and the afternoon was a hoot, very good day:)

Dominica

We arrived in Domnica after reading and hearing stories about the boat boys hassling hard for tours and whatever else they can steal and had in our heads it wasn't going to be one of the safer places. As usual all those stories were way over exaggerated. 2 mile from the anchorage though a boat boy did come and meet us for the usual mooring ball?? Tour?? But then smiled and said welcome to Dominica and then another after we dropped anchor. The problem was we actually did want to do tours and thinking this was part of the bargaining we said no to try to get a better deal and then never saw them again for days! So long story short the tour we did want to do to the boiling lake never happened although the 8 hour hike made our bodies ache just thinking about it. So we did a couple of small local tours closer to the town including the Indian River boat trip and seeing were Pirates of the Caribbean 3 was filmed and I tell you what the locals here are for sure the friendliest we have met in the Caribbean so far, very happy bunch.  Even the Saturday morning vege market had a full 5 piece reggae band playing old Jimmy Cliff classics was awesome. Our search though for cheap beer still continues though having to pay $40Aus a case:). But the veges were a lot better than the rest of the islands so far.

Also very easy to get good water with a hose on a mooring in the anchorage you can tie off. We then had a great sail in just 10 knots of wind to Marie-Galante  Guadaloupe, Julie even managed to do the washing!