SailingKnitter

Why did Jonesy wear an LED headlight to bed? Why did he hide the banana in one of the kitchen drawers?

I awoke the other night to Jonesy doing a flapping dance in the salon. He was chasing a bat, a little brown fruit bat who had ventured inside our boat. This little guy flew down the hatch right over our stateroom berth - past Jonesy's face and was heading towards the galley to find the banana.

Yep, it worked. The headlight that is. Jonesy was once again awoken by the fluttering of the fruit bat and turned on his light. Ah -ha! Busted! The bat left (probably in sheer terror). Yes, I'm sure it wasn't a vampire bat, Jonesy. Even though they do exist down here in the tropics, you would have had blood dripping from your face from the anti-coagulant. We've had problems with fruit bats before when we had bananas on board down in Panama, remember? Now just go back to sleep.

Niki Wiki on a mooring and dinghy in Port Royal, Roatan

Demo socks for class and Akkol

Hello! We have internet! It's expensive and is pay-by-the-hour so we won't be trolling FB or posting emails, but we just had to blog!

We caught the short pause in the trade winds and were able to motor up-island to the eastern end of Roatan. Whoo hooo - new territory for us! The seas were smooth and it was a pleasant little 2 hour trip up to Port Royal. Well, that is after we turned around and captured our dinghy which had decided to go on it's own sea cruise. Just as we passed the reef at the exit of French Key Harbor, the painter (rope) that was towing our dinghy broke. Luckily we noticed it right away and were able to turn around. Masterful steering by Jonesy and quick reactions by Terry to grab the long boat hook resulted in a successful dinghy rescue operation. We are always nervous when towing the dink behind us rather than lifting it up out of the water and onto the davits (pulley and bracket system) on the back of the boat. The polypropylene rope had simply shattered at a splice. The splice held, but at the point where the end of the splice met the rest of the rope it gave way.

We picked up a free mooring which is generously provided to cruisers by the Mango Creek Lodge. The owners of this beautiful eco-resort, Patrice and Terry, invited us to spend some time at the resort and we had some great discussions about world-wide cruising and the politics of the island. One evening we purchased a lovely lobster and fish dinner then stayed for a rousing game of Mexican Train Dominoes with Patrice and another cruiser who was passing through. It was like a mini vacation! We enjoyed the peace and quiet of the eastern end of the island where there are no roads and no noisy tourist facilities. The snorkeling was fantastic as expected and the breezes enabled the sock knitting marathon to continue.

The socks above are another pair of demo socks for my upcoming July sock knitting class in Philomath, Oregon (more details to come). The white parts are the "in-class" working areas and the self-patterning yarn is the homework. These, as almost all of my finished warm projects will be sent to the kids in Kazakhstan at the orphanages through the Motherless Child Foundation.

Check out these wood carvings which are on the doors of the rooms in the Mango Creek Lodge - aren't they beautiful? The original artist has now passed away so these are real treasures. I have shared just a couple of these with you here, but there are many, many more carvings on doors, bed headboards, mirror frames, and furniture throughout the resort. I love how the wood changes colors too.


And here's another pair of socks knit during this time. As I was sitting in the cockpit I looked towards shore and suddenly realized that the yarn colors that I was using in these socks were the same Caribbean pastels that were also used to paint each of the over-the-water cabins of Mango Creek Lodge! Great minds think alike. So I just had to get a photo of one of the socks in the gardens behind the pink cabin (the one that we insist on calling "salmon" because the guys don't like to even think that it's pink.)

Yep, still have to darn in those loose ends on the second sock. But fortunately there are a lot less than a knowledgeable knitter would expect because I cheated and used some self-striping yarns for some of the color changes. The tiny scallops on the cuff is a little experiment of mine. I've been looking at crochet edgings and thinking about how to replicate them in knitting because I do like the look of them. Another pair of monstersocks (artistically(?) knit from leftover assorted sock yarns) for the kids of Kazakhstan

These are the over-the-water cabins at Mango Creek - and that's Jonesy in our dinghy zooming to shore. So after a few days up-island in Port Royal, we decided to drift back west again. The safe cruising season is coming to a close in early June so we need to get moving towards our summer camp at Mario's Marina in the Rio Dulce of Guatemala.

This short 1 hour trip was a little rougher than the last one. The seas were about 4 feet, lumpy and bumpy, but at least they were coming from behind us so it wasn't uncomfortable. We made it to within 50 yards of the narrow opening in the barrier reef to Calabash Bight when our naughty dinghy went walkabout again! Unfortunately this time we were in very shallow water with the wind and seas pushing the Niki Wiki and the quickly moving dinghy right into the reef! Much as we tried, we couldn't safely maneuver the big boat and hook the dinghy so I leaped from out and down from the deck and landed in the dinghy. No injuries!

Calabash Bight channel opening looking out to sea

Shamefully, it's now time for me to admit that I've never mastered the outboard motor. Nope. Jonesy handles all the transportation. If I'm always with him why do I need to learn? Well, because someday I may be in a situation where I'm sitting in a dinghy, in high seas, being quickly driven towards a reef. Much shouting (swearing) and frustrated arm gestures were exchanged between the two skippers of the Niki Wiki.  Jonesy had to throttle up the big boat engine to avoid going aground and he headed through the channel into the safety of the bay. I finally got my act together and zoomed ahead of him. Yes, the water was a beautiful teal blue but who cared at the time?

After about a full minute I began to actually enjoy myself! What freedom and fun! I dinghy'd (get that? I dinghy'd) over to the mooring ball and thread my dinghy painter (rope) through the ring on top of the ball to wait for Jonesy. When he caught up with me, he tossed me the bow lines and I thread them through the ring on the ball. All safe.

After radioing the nice folks at the Turtlegrass Marina (where the cool people hang out) to let them know we had grabbed one of their free moorings, Jonesy got to work on the dinghy line. Yep. It had broken again but this time at the other end at the old splice. Lesson learned: Line breaks once - throw it out. Jonesy had another opportunity to make a boat repair in an exotic location. This time he used a new piece of line and carefully melted only the loose ends and not the main line when he sealed the splice.

I got to work making tacos with all the fixings for lunch, ate, then fell fast asleep for a long afternoon nap. Why? Because I could.

Socks, socks and mittens. That's been the excitement in these waters this past week. I've been merrily churning out warm goodies for the kids at the orphanages in Kazakhstan from the yarns that my guests brought down to me in March.

Notice the sailboat sock blockers? Those are my new treasures. I bought a set in Adult Medium and another set for the Adult Large socks that I make. The lace patterned socks especially need a good stretch to show detail, and I also like the crispness of a sock fresh off the blockers.  They are made from wood and have lovely finishing and can be purchased from Chappy's Fiber Arts and Crafts EBAY store.

This first pair is a simple knit with a self-patterning yarn. The next photo is a pair where I knit the leg and foot in black with the cuff, heel, and toe in a self-patterning yarn. These are a pair of socks to demonstrate parts of a sock for my upcoming sock knitting class in Oregon this July. Of course after the class these socks will be bundled up with whatever has been finished up to that point and sent off to the Motherless Child Foundation.

The obligatory foot over water shot taken from the boat

After anchoring out here in French Key Harbor for a few weeks we are ready to set sail and wander up-island a bit. The plan is to leave tomorrow (Sunday) or wait to Monday if the winds haven't settled down. Our plan is to anchor a spell in Calabash Bight and Port Royal - still on this island of Roatan. Hurricane season is approaching and we want to go-see-do in more natural places. Internet access will be spotty if at all.

A large part of my yarn goodie bag from my guests was some worsted weight alpaca, silk, and merino wool blend in assorted yummy colors! This yarn is incredibly soft - so I decided to match up the multi-plied "twists" with some solid colors and make mittens for the kids in Kaz. I actually got going on these because we had some very humid days and I couldn't knit on my wood needles which I use for socks. They were just so tacky/sticky and the stitches wouldn't slide. But the knitting must go on! So I whipped out my big sized metal needles and made these 2 pairs of adult sized mittens.
On a recent (hot) walk, we spotted these orchids blooming. The actual orchid plant is rather ugly, but the flowers are so lovely! I left my fingers in the photo so get an idea for the scale of these little blooms. When we get to see something special like this it makes getting our exercise worthwhile (other than the health benefits).

So off we go!

Terry and BK

It's been a long time since we've checked in here on the blog. Why? Because my HP mini notebook computer fried it's motherboard at age 18 months and refused to play anymore. Sure, it behaved nicely for the 7 days that we had our first guests, but as soon as they waved good-bye it never booted up again. Bad boy.

Guests! Yes - we've been entertained by our lovely guests; a knitter-friend and her darling daughter for a full week aboard, a single-day cruise ship stop by a fellow knitter and her family and another full week of our own sweet sons. As you can see, our hammock was given a work-out by our guest "KK" She liked it so much that she bought one to take home with her - go girl!

There has been some drama here on the island of Roatan concerning us sailboat cruisers. The mayor of the local municipality mandated that the Roatan Marine Park had to remove the moorings and that we were no longer welcome to moor or anchor at the West End. Of course we voiced our displeasure, and the local businesses fought the mayor because we do spend a lot of money in the village of West End. But, after we were threatened by the mayor with police action (which did actually occur yesterday), we dropped our mooring and left.  Of course, we find out today that the Port Captain says that the mayor doesn't have the authority to tell us to leave. Latin American politics - we don't want to get in the middle of that!

Niki Wiki anchored in Gibson Bight

Our guests got a little unexpected motor-passage over to anchor in Gibson Bight. This little bay on the northwest side of the island is just big enough for 3 boats to anchor. We received permission to use the dock at a small marina to tie up our dinghy and go ashore to walk out to the main road. Not bad. Except for the crocodiles hanging about - no, we didn't see any but the security man warned us about them. So no swimming here (we found this out after I went snorkeling to make sure our anchor was hooked.)
We stayed in Gibson Bight for about 10 days while Jonesy repaired the water-maker, the generator, and the steering. Oh yes, he was busy. The steering system had leaked out all of the hydraulic oil thru an abraded spot in a copper tube. I knit.

Finally we were whole again so we took off on a good wind and sea day and motored over to French Key Harbor on the South side of the island. We spent the next week or so cussing at the fate of my computer and waiting for our boys to arrive. My younger son, Brett, had hand-picked out a new computer for me and brought it down to me - hence I blog.

We had a full and fabulous week with them. Here's a family photo of us on top of the ridge overlooking the (old) mooring field of the West End. On one day, our boys took their first scuba dives! First in shallow water to learn the skills with their instructor and then out in a boat to the reef.

KNITTING
April 1st was the launch of my new sock pattern for the Six Sox Knitalong Yahoo group. POTLUCK SOCKS was designed for you to be able to use up all those leftover little balls of sock yarn and still end up with some great socks. The pattern is sized from a Child's Large up to Men's Large and includes some easy to work little touches of Fair Isle stranded knitting. My lovely foot model, Sharon from the s/v Sunbow was rewarded for her efforts by receiving the lavender socks. Wear them well Sharon! The other pair is going off to the orphanage in Kazakhstan with my mountain of other knitted warm  goodies.

My knitting guild back in Sacramento are participating in a "yarn-bombing" in a couple of months so I got busy and worked up a 43" x 7" strip for them. This is my first time to be able to play along with a yarn-bombing! Then, I whipped up some chemo caps for the guild's charity program after finding a couple of balls of Fun Fur yarn when straightening up the boat before the guests arrived.

There's been a whole lotta knitting completed lately, but the photos have been lost along with my computer. Seems that when I was backing up my hard-drive I wasn't doing it right. Who knew? So when we tried to put my files back on this new computer, I have nothing since November 2011. No new photos, no Excel working file for new sock designs ;o(, and no new patterns. Thankfully, I can retrieve some of the patterns in pdf format and photos from Ravelry.com. THANK YOU Ravelry!

It's been 6 hours since my boys flew off for home. We're already counting the days and waiting for their return someday. Perhaps they'll visit us in Guatemala or even up in Belize or Cancun next season which is where we're going. We'll be waiting....

What's wrong with this picture? It's a large, soft hammock swinging gently in the Caribbean breeze on the bow of our sailboat Niki Wiki. We're still tied up to a mooring ball here in the West End of the island of Roatan, Honduras.

The problem? Well the hammock is EMPTY! Where are our guests? Soon...very soon we'll have 2 additional honorary cruisers here on the boat. Let the fun begin!

After idling our way through two weeks of glorious sunshine and soft Caribbean breezes we got slapped with a ferocious "Norther" storm. This was the same storm that beat up the mid-western United states - it just kept going and hit us down here in the Bay Islands of Honduras.

Our little fleet of about 25 boats got slammed by winds howling in from off the ocean of up to 35knots. The seas were huge and the waves were crashing against the reef and rolling into where we all were either anchored or moored. Weather forecasters had missed the call on the wind direction, intensity, and duration of this storm. But it is over. The photo of our homeship Niki Wiki above was taken yesterday from fellow cruisers Mike and Neila on the catamaran At Last which is moored directly behind us. If you look closely you will see that there is actually two rainbows with one very faint one above the lower rainbow.


Of the 6 boats at anchor, 5 of them drug their hooks, but thankfully nobody went all the way up onto the beach. The wind forced the rain to squeeze into every tiny crack on the boat. For two days and nights we lurched about on the boat. It was even too rough to knit! So we both got a lot of reading done.

So all that I've accomplished lately are just these two little pairs of toddler socks for the baby orphanage in Kazakhstan.

Today is sunny again and the tradewinds have dried out the cockpit. Jonesy and I enjoyed getting off the boat to go grocery shopping and wade through the muddy puddles of the sand road in the village of West End. And yes, I got in the water today, but just for a little bit to go check out how our mooring is looking after that big storm. There is some fraying of one of the splices on a line and the big 6-foot sand screw is leaning in a new direction, but it looks like we're OK. Several other boats weren't so lucky and two boats actually went adrift. The water was murky so I just did my survey of the mooring and got out. Tomorrow is another day.

Life in the trailer park  mooring field here at the West End of Roatan island, Honduras has seen many changes in the last couple of weeks. The weather has finally cleared and we have the expected Caribbean trade winds from the east and clear, sunny days. Cruising yachts have been coming into the marine park and staying for a while before heading out to other destinations. Some folks, like us, just stay. The Roatan Marine Park made us a new "Host Vessel" sign for the boat as they know that we'll do this job for a few months.

We will miss our dear friends Michelle and Vern of the sailing vessel Enchantment who are sailing south to Panama for new adventures. Every crew leaves us with a memory - some more than others. Vern left us with a piece of his shorts attached firmly to the dinghy dock! One night when we were all returning from a group feast at the local rotisserie chicken open-air restaurant, Vern had a "wardrobe malfuntion" when a nail on the edge of the dock snagged his rear end as he (tried to) slide into his dinghy. He ended up in the water instead and with one less pair of shorts. Cruising is detrimental to our clothing. But we think of Vern and Michelle each time we see his rag strips from his shorts waving in the breeze (yes, they are still there.)

Some "cruisers" arrive in much larger vessels than ours...as in Cruise Ships! Now that Roatan has become a port-of-call for cruise ships, I had the fun opportunity to to meet up with Joan - a fellow knitter and pattern-tester from our Holiday Mystery Gifts Yahoo group and her husband! Not only did we have a lovely time chatting in the breezes, but Joan also brought me a ball of yarn supplied by Knit Picks for one of my designs (Gems Fair Isle Hat in KP yarn) for their Independent Designer Program.
Knit Picks sent it to Joan who hand-carried it on her cruise to me and that ball of yarn got to visit other exotic ports-of-call before it landed in Roatan (lucky little ball of a pretty blue marine colored Palette fingering yarn). THANK YOU JOAN!

There's been a whole lotta knitting going on these past weeks. I got the urge to make some little toddler vests for the Mittens For Akkol Yahoo group. The blue vests (size 2T) are knit with a sport weight wool donagal tweed. One has a touch of green alpaca yarn and butterflies in a hand-dyed wool, and the other has a heart design done in Jagger Spun 3/8s.

This wild colored vest (size 3T) is knit with some of my leftovers and odd balls of Koigu wools. This yarn is so soft!! Perhaps the little orange heart will remind the kids and their caretakers that we "mamas" who knit for them are also sending our love in every stitch of these warm pieces of clothing.

We "mamas" are currently putting together an eBook of our patterns, adoption stories, and more as a fundraiser for the parent organization the Motherless Child Foundation. That's what I should be working on a lot more, but there are limitations as to how much time I can spend on my computer due to power and internet issues. During the cloudy, stormy days we don't collect as much solar energy so we have to conserve or else run the diesel generator ($).

My HP mini laptop has been acting up a lot lately. It wouldn't start up and we had to mess with the BIOS. Looks like I lost my most recent updates to some documents in all that chaos too. The screen decided to be almost solid and flashing magenta for a few days too. Crud.

See that "stick" in my USB port? That's the modem to receive an internet signal out here on the boat. The signal is provided by the telephone company (TIGO) and we pay in advance by the time period. We usually buy a month for $US 27.

So Jonesy has had another opportunity to make a boat repair in an exotic location - the reverse osmosis watermaker blew a large crack in one of the caps to the membrane unit. How lucky are we that a fellow cruiser had a used replacement part onboard? Sure it was slightly cracked and leaks a little, but Jonesy managed to get the system back up and running. A simple phone call to the manufacturer (Spectra) in the states got us all the technical help we needed and our supply of replacement parts is already on it's way to us here in Roatan.

And along the "friends helping friends" theme, our good friend Cheryl of the sailing vessel Interlude allowed herself to be hoisted up our mast again to retrieve the end of our flag halyard line. So once again we can fly our courtesy country flag on the correct (starboard) side of the boat.

Me? Well, I sewed new shade curtains on bungee cording with clips for the cockpit. This was a chore left undone from my summer boat chore list. Didn't need these in the marina while we had the big canvas covers over the boat and it was too hot to sit in the cockpit. But we need them now, so that chore got completed.
Next, I hand stitched up several places where the zipper thread had rotted out in our plastic rain shields. I am still thankful for the cruiser on s/v Saucy Lady who we met years ago on the Pacific side of Mexico  and suggested I buy and use a "Speedy Stitcher Sewing Awl". This is a must-have tool a sailboat for all sorts of heavy-duty repairs. While I was at it, I knotted several zipper pull lanyards to make pulling the zippers up and down easier. You know I'll always jump at the chance to play with string.

SAILBOAT RESCUED
On a windy, squally day this past week, Jonesy spotted a sailboat drifting quickly towards the reef dragging the mooring ball with it. It had broken free and there was nobody aboard! Jonesy put a shout out on the radio for help and quickly jumped in the dinghy. Several other cruisers followed suit and gathered at the wandering boat to try and push it away from the reef but the wind was too strong. A couple of folks climbed aboard and within just a few tense minutes managed to start the engine. It was a close call - the sailboat was within 15 feet of running aground on the reef. They took the boat over to a safe sandy patch and dropped the anchor (there are no mooring balls available as the marine park has been full to capacity).

The owners were shocked when they returned and very thankful to have had their sailboat rescued. They actually dinghy'd around to every boat involved in the rescue and personally thanked them. This particular mooring that broke was unusual in that it was a concrete encased engine block wrapped in chain and much older and of different design than the rest of the moorings out here. All the others are set with 6 foot sand screws deep in the seabed. Anyway, this beautiful boat has lived to sail away on more adventures.

I went night snorkeling too! What a hoot!! I went out with a group of friends who loaned me an underwater flashlight and we snorkeled the reef right behind our boats. We saw many lobsters, swarms of tiny shrimp (?) and many Tiger Tail eels out feeding. We even spotted a Parrot fish sleeping - he never budged. The biggest treat was that a very large (4 feet body plus a 6 foot stinger) Spotted Eagle Ray swam slowly within a few feet of us. This was exciting but a little scary at the same time.

OK - the battery on my computer is running low and Jonesy wants to head over to "town" now so I'll end this rambling post. All's well that ends well...

At last! I'm released from my vows of secrecy and can reveal this new design. SEA CRUISE SOCKS are the February/March 2012 featured sock pattern for the Six Sox Knitalong Yahoo group.

Inspired by the fishermen Gansey sweater patterning these socks have anchors and rope cables running down the leg and tiny sailboats on the foot. No, you can't have the photo sample pair as it has already been promised to a fellow sailing cruiser.

I've now started writing my sock patterns up in 4 sizes:
1) Child Large/Women's Small
2) Women's Medium
3) Women's Large/Men's Medium
4) Men's Large

For these Sea Cruise Socks, that meant that I had to chart and write out the line-by-line instructions for EACH of these four sizes - whew! Thank goodness for the team of eagle-eyed test knitters.

REEF REPORT
Naturally, I've been out snorkeling the reef a lot lately. The first day in the water I thought it would be wise to simply do a couple of laps swimming around the boat as I checked the screws in the sand for our mooring ball. Good idea. I got 3 leg cramps in just 2 laps! My muscles were screaming from lack of use over the long  summer of no real swimming.

But now these legs have remembered what they are supposed to do and I've been out bobbing along the beautiful reef. My goal this year is to see a seahorse. So I've been just hovering over the coral heads and studying what is going on a foot or 2 below me. The weather is still a little unsettled and one time a big squall came through when I was snorkeling. The rain crashed into the sea and winds were clocked up to 35 knots! On the surface, I couldn't see more than 5 feet in any direction. That meant that Jonesy (who always watches me from the boat) couldn't see me. For about 2 seconds it was terrifying, but when I put my face mask back down in the water - well, life was calm and normal down there. No currents, no lack of visibility and the reef creatures were going about their normal business. So I just did the same.

Here are some of the fish I've seen:

Hogfish and Groupers (yummy! but protected in this Marine Park)
Many kinds of funny looking Trunkfish interacting with each other
Queen and Spotlight Parrotfish
Long, upside down Pipefish
Foureye Butterflyfish
Banded Butterflyfish
Houndfish up near the surface
Barracuda
Caribbean Squid (so cute!)
Southern Stingray with a Shark Sucker
I swam with a school of Doctorfish and Blue Tangs, and watched while bigger fish were cleaned by smaller fish at "cleaning stations". But still not a single seahorse...yet. No worries, there are many more opportunities in the coming months and like knitting, I simply enjoy the process.

We've been really busy (not), working hard (not) and contributing to the advancement of mankind (not).

But we DO have our old job back. We are again officially the Host Vessel here in the Roatan Marine Park Mooring field at the West End of the island. Our job is to ensure that arriving boats maneuver safely through the channel in the reef, get attached to a mooring, and are given information about protecting the reef and paying for the right to stay here. Thankfully we are not responsible for the social entertainment or moral values of said cruising vessels.

These photos were taken by friends on s.v. Pavo Real  which is moored near us. Obviously, the sunsets have been beautiful. You can also see in the photos how we lift our dinghy with the halyard each evening to hang on the starboard side of our boat up out of the water. We do this for 2 reasons, first to prevent theft of the dinghy and engine (it is locked at all times) and secondly to prevent a buildup of barnacles and slime on the bottom of the dinghy.

Much as we love to watch the sun set, it does mean that we have to put on our LED headlamps to be able to continue knitting (me) and reading (Jonesy). Anybody feel sorry for us?

Now finished...another little pair of socks for soon-to-arrive baby Ella Grace. The self-striping yarn really did all the work on these. I just twiddled some toothpick sized needles around the yarn and this is the result.

My stupid computer would simply not connect to the internet using the TIGO dial-up USB port modem. Using this telephone company is how we get internet out here in the anchorage - and also in Guatemala (but that takes a different SIM chip). We load money onto these "sticks" using a telephone number and then buy chunks of computer time (day week, month). Anyway, it's all very confusing and was a no go.

Hibiscus

So Jonesy and I dinghy'd into the village of West End and rode the packed public transportation "collectivo" van into Coxen Hole. The first place we went was out of business. I was hungry so I forced Jonesy to take me to what looked to be a very popular local food joint. The menu was limited and verbal in Spanish - fried chicken, fried pork or pork patis. Well, I can't eat wheat which is probably what is coating anything fried so I opted for the last choice given whatever it was. The plates came. Lovely red beans and rice and a nice green salad. But what in the world was the mass of bones and connective tissue in the yellow sauce? No meat to be found! Jonesy guessed it was pig's feet. Yep, we looked it up later - pig's feet.

We walked about a mile to the next computer/phone business to see if they could get my internet working. The lady there tried for about an hour but no luck but we did enjoy watching and listening to the stream of people coming in to buy phone time. Next, we walked to where a different public transportation company had vans to take us out to French Harbor - another half hour of travel (the van only travels at about 20mph!). There we went into the main TIGO customer service office and a talented young man diagnosed the problem, uploaded a different driver, so voila! it works. No charge? You've got to be kidding. A generous gratuity was accepted.

We got back to our boat just in time to dinghy over to the sailing catamaran Sunbow for dinner and drinks with a gang of other cruisers. I celebrated having access to the cyber-world again and being able to watch the sun set over the sea. It just doesn't get much better than this.

Free at last! Bright and early (9am) we tossed off the mildew covered lines, waved good-bye to the staff and friends at Mario's Marina and pointed the bow down-river towards the sea. All systems (chart plotter, engine, engine exhaust fan, running lights, auto-pilot, manual helm, sail roller furlers etc.) checked out perfectly in the first half hour so we were confident that this was really going to be the start of our 2012 open sea cruising season.

I managed to stay awake a couple of hours to knit on a new sock project (secret) but then fell asleep. During my recent work re-organizing storage lockers on the boat I found some great sock  and fingering weight yarns that I forgot I had sneaked brought aboard! Check out this old skein of "Red Heart Super Fingering" 100% WOOL - yes real wool from Red Heart brand. This went right into my current project.

We passed through the beautiful river jungle gorge – I, of course slept through it all because we had to get up at the crack ‘o dawn to get ready to leave and I had barely gone to bed by then. So, no new pictures, sorry.

Jonesy woke me up in time to drop the anchor in the port town of Livingston, Guatemala where the river meets the sea. As I stood guard on both the anchor's ability to stick in the mud and the boat in general (theft issues here) Jonesy scooted into the town to visit our agent Raul who handles all of our paperwork cha-cha dance for both our passport visas and our marine travel documents. Check out this fishing boat with the pelicans loitering on the back. We could actually smell the pelicans before we could see them – eeeew. About an hour and a half later Jonesy returned to the Niki Wiki after successfully checking out of the country of Guatemala (and buying bread and bananas which were not available locally before we left). Already the air was different - much dryer than up in the jungles where we have spent the last 7 months.
Now came the scary part – crossing the very shallow areas of the sandbar which tries to block our path to the sea. We had timed this trip for a high tide exit (1.6 feet) during the daylight hours. We draw 5 ½ feet (our boat measure 5 ½ feet from the waterline to the bottom of the boat) so we needed at least that plus a margin of error for safety so we wouldn’t hit bottom. We need the extra depth from the peak of a rising high tide to float us higher. Plus we needed the seas to be calm with no wind waves so we wouldn’t bounce up and down – it’s the “down” part that may cause us to hit bottom. Our date for this departure was carefully planned to optimize our chances of a safe crossing. Piece ‘o cake…we never saw less than 6 ½ feet of water so that means that we had a full foot of sea beneath us! Obviously, you can see why we needed the high tide and didn’t want to bounce!

The winds and seas were calm that afternoon so we motored for about 3 hours over to our planned stop to anchor overnight at Tres Puntas Guatemala. Jonesy had checked with our agent to ensure that there hadn’t been any violence there lately and we glad to hear that there hadn’t been. Last year we made the trip out to the islands straight from Livingston due to a murder of a cruiser on a sailboat along the same coast a little farther southeast in Honduras. But apparently the violence hasn’t spread north up to Guatemala so we could have a restful night before the 24-hour trip out to the island of Roatan. And peaceful it was indeed. The sea was flat and glassy and there were no clouds. After sunset we sat out on deck under a sky full of stars. The stars were reflected across the flat water so it looked like an endless sky. . Jonesy tucked himself into the berth and I stayed up knitting with my LED headlight.

Early the next morning we took off for some Caribbean sea cruising. I went back to sleep so that I could be awake and alert to knit all knit take my watch at the helm. The seas were still calm and the wind was only 3 knots out of the north – right on the nose again. Jonesy spotted some dolphins which were our only sighting of the trip. If you look closely at this photo you will see the mountains of Honduras on the horizon. Our route takes us far enough way from this dangerous coast, but we can still see it!

At 7pm Jonesy went below to sleep and I knit (and glanced at the gauges and looked about for other ships). Still, it was lovely calm conditions until around 1am. Monsters appeared on the radar screen. At first small dots as if another sailboat had suddenly appeared, but then it grew to the size of an island and was joined by other “islands” all lined up in a row. Dang, I knew what it was then – a line of tropical squalls. For an hour I watched as we approached the squalls. I secured the cockpit by rolling down the plastic rain shields and zipping them closed – and waited. Soon we were in the squalls, but all I got was some higher winds and choppy wind waves which woke Jonesy up. We luckily had passed through the line and not a drop of rain!

Now Jonesy took the helm and I went below. No sleep though because the winds had picked up (on the nose still) and the seas were like a washing machine. I couldn’t stay in one position in bed but was rocked back and forth no matter which way I positioned myself. Finally exhaustion set in and I was out. While I slept Jonesy battled another set of squalls that had the most rain he’d ever seen at one time! The wind blew the rain sideways so that it was forced under the plastic cockpit rain panels and drenched every seat in the place. Meanwhile it squirted under the forward hatch and soaked my newly covered V-berth cushions. But in our rear berth I was safe, dry, and dreaming about new color combinations and stitch patterns for socks.

Roatan Island Immigration Office

Finally, the sun came up as we approached the island of Roatan – right on schedule. Not too early as to arrive in the dark, and early enough that we had time to head to shore to check in with the authorities. We headed to our GPS waypoints for the cut in the reef, motored in and picked up a Roatan Marine Park mooring ball (a good one too because the sailing vessel Pavo Real had just given it up and sailed out as came in).

Within minutes we had dropped the dinghy in the water and scooted to shore to the little village of West End. Picking up a “collective” which is a (12) passenger van for public transportation, we joined 22 other people crammed like sardines for the half hour ride to the main town of Coxen Hole. First stop has to be the Immigration office. Whoops, nobody was there. So we meandered around town and stopped for lunch. We checked again and the immigration officer had returned so we got our passports stamped and bought our 90-day tourist visas (US$3).

Roatan Port Captain and Customs Offices

Next stop was the Port Captain’s office which is right next behind the Immigration building and next door to the Customs (Aduana) office. I know, you can't really read the sign because some of it has fallen down. No worries - it was like that last year too. Everybody knows what it is so why fix the sign?

There was nothing to do but sit and wait. because now it was lunch hour for the Port office. Here's Jonesy waiting in the little park next to the Port Captain's office. See that "briefcase" the older gentleman has open on his lap? Well, it was made of wood! Soon the Port Captain returned and we did the paperwork cha-cha dance to officially bring the boat into Honduras.

So now we are in one of the most beautiful spots on earth. I snapped my hammock into place under the boom of the main sail – ah, back in the hammock again. Already we have social plans; today is Football on TV and domino games at Foster's Grill, tomorrow we meet a friend in West End to deliver dinghy repair epoxy that we carried with us from Guatemala then a potluck supper on sailing vessel Sunbow, and Tuesday is a gathering of cruisers at the Creole Chicken restaurant where we can enjoy island style food in the open air on the beach.

By the currently accepted definition of "cruising", Jonesy got to immediately make a boat repair in an exotic location. Our rear electric head had broken another impeller so he got to take the toilet apart in a small cramped space and replace the part. Yep, we had the replacement part. What was my job? Well I stayed out of his way and knit.

Then I prepared a late lunch/early dinner of chicken fried pork loin, country gravy, baked real russet potatoes, a green salad with fresh tomatoes, and a hefty slice of garlic bread.

Last night I realized that I had not once said the words or phrases "hot" "clammy" "sweating like a pig" "let me cool off before I do that" nor had I used a sweat rag at any time! The bright sunny skies and cool Caribbean trade winds have made life so very comfortable for me. Here's a photo taken yesterday of the good ship Niki Wiki safely on a mooring in the Roatan Marine Park in West End.

Oh! Another green sea turtle just swam by…life is good.