Crown Bay Marina, St. Thomas, USVI

We pulled into St.Thomas, into Crown Bay Marina.

http://www.crownbay.com/

Crown Bay Marina, St.Thomas USVI

This is a nice place, with a great supermarket, ship store and laundry.

Christine, the marina manager was very nice and extremely helpful… more great staff reminiscent of Palmas del Mar Yacht Club Marina.

We rented a car from Cowpet Auto, and drove over to the other side of St.Thomas to check out Coki Beach. Beautiful place!

Coki Beach, St.Thomas

We need to wait a few more days for Capt. Jeff’s Brazilian visa… going to “Extreme Gym” now, by the Home Depot and “Cost U Less” up on the hill above the cruise ships.

Off to St.Thomas, USVI from Palmas del Mar, PR

We decided to heck with the 7-10 foot sea predictions, we are leaving for St.Thomas!

Palmas del Mar in Humacao, PR was beautiful and the staff at the Marina were some of the best we’ve seen so far on this delivery. A PDF is available on this marina by clicking here. For more information call: 787-379-7383 or visit  www.palmasdelmaryachtclub.com.

Ask for Gerry, Ata, or Tim when you arrive, they are very accommodating and helpful!

Ponce to Palmas del Mar, Puerto Rico

We had an easy crossing from Punta Cana, Dominican Republic over the Mona Passage to Mayaguez, Puerto Rico.

The Mona passage is famous for it’s rough seas and many a Dominican Immigrant has died trying to cross to PR. For us, the crossing was rough, but bearable.

We anchored in Mayaguez around 9pm, 6 hours to cross the Mona. The next day we went to Ponce Yacht and Fishing Club, a private marina that entertains transients when there is space available. Nice people, we enoyed our time in Ponce (pictures to come!).

Punta Tuna, between Ponce and Humacao

Now we are at Palmas Del Mar, near Fajardo, Puerto Rico, waiting for the weather to clear so we can continue on to Tortola, BVI.

Then onwards and south to Trinidad with the 46′ Tolleycraft!

Pictures to come…

CapCana Marina, Punta Cana, Dominican Republic

We made it to Punta Cana, Dominican Republic on one engine.

The twin 240 perkins run perfectly, except one transmission failed on us around Samana. We made a sprightly 6 knots from Samana to Punta Cana in 8 foot seas. The 1970 46′ Tolleycraft we are on handled the swells just fine, and we made it here safely.

The CapCana Marina (www.CapCana.com) is a beautiful property. It was recently opened and features condos, hotels, golf courses, and some beautiful beaches. Andrew is the dockmaster, a bilingual Sarasotian from Florida. He has helped us quite a bit since our arrival.

We are awaiting a transmission mechanic to investigate the repairs to the boat, before we are off to Mayaguez, Puerto Rico (about 90 miles from here).

Meanwhile, Capt Jeff and I are renting a car to go to the grocery store and shopping to replenish the boat.

More pictures and stories to come!

CapCana Marina with the 46' Tolleycraft "Donna Ann"

Samana, Dominican Republic

What an interesting experience we had in Samana, Dominican Republic.

I have worked in the Dominican Republic off-and-on for 10 years, but I’ve never been to Samana on the North East coast of the island.

Samana is famous for the whale-watching tours during the winter months, and it caters to a lot of tourists from Europe and the Americas.

Samana Bay Anchorage, Dominican Republic

Thanks to a friend, “Camilo Grande”, we were able to navigate the local politics (port authority, customs, immigration), but it was a nightmare with hand-outs and
“tips” for everyone involved. A pretty bad experience, even considering dealings in Latin America all these years!

The seas have been extremely rough, 6-8 feet with the occasional 15 foot roller.

We did make it safely to Cap Cana Marina here in Punta Cana, just 80 miles from Mayaguez, Puerto Rico.

Pictures and more stories to come!

Leaving for the Dominican Republic

I am going to fly down to Puerto Plata, to Ocean World Marina where Capt Jeff is waiting for me on a 46′ Tolleycraft sportfisherman.

I will be updating the blog with the stories and pictures of our adventure in delivering this vessel through the Caribbean, onto Montevideo, Uruguay (although I won’t be there for the whole trip).

Miami Boat Show in town

There are a few new boats here at Dinner Key Marina in Coconut Grove, since the boat show has been pushing out other boats from Bayside and the Biscayne Marriott Marina.

The boat show should be interesting this year, considering the state of the economy.

We called to see about getting a booth, and it was $1500 for the smallest booth, plus another $800 or so to be in the magazine.

Capt Jeff is on the boat delivery to Uruguay, so we didnt’ get the booth for The Offshore Solution (Yacht Services) theoffshoresolution.com and MarineOilChange.com.

Jet Ski/PWC Boating in Hawaii: “Thrill Craft” License Needed!

I’m in Hawaii visiting family, currently on the island of Oahu, at a hotel in Waikiki Beach.

The weather is beautiful as always, but I still maintain the waters do not compare to the Bahamas or even the Keys.

It is a nice departure from my normal view, that to have mountains and volcanoes as opposed to the vary flat Florida peninsula.

I noticed that they don’t have any jet ski or PWC rentals here. A little research shows that they have a strict law regarding the use of “Thrill Craft” as the Hawaiian government so colorfully refers to them:

“Special Note Regarding Thrill Craft:
Effective January 2005, all recreational thrill craft operators (including PWC operators) shall be required to possess and make available upon demand of enforcement personnel, a certificate of completion from an accredited institution of higher education on the safe use and operation of a thrill craft. The BoatU.S. Online safety course does not meet this requirement.”

Probably for the best, as this certainly reduces accidents, noise, and pollution on these Pacific waters.

Garmin GPSMap 76 USB Interface

I’ve owned the Garmin GPSMap 76 for a couple of years now, and it has proved to be a good, capable unit.

This was purchased as a “Plan B” in case we lose the 2010c Garmin that is installed at the helm.

I purchased the USB cord from a supplier on eBay, Kawa, and I received it promptly after paying.

The cord doubles as a power cord, and when connected can provide data to Garmin Map Laptop program or to Maptech Offshore Navigator.

In order to get it to work with Maptech Offshore Navigator, make sure you configure the Garmin GPSMap 76 first.

Hit the menu button twice, highlight “Setup”, hit enter, then highlight the “Interface” tab. Here you can change the setting to NMEA, thus allowing the unit to talk to any NMEA capable software.

It worked great; I had it up and running on my laptop within minutes. Before you plug it into your USB port, be sure to install the drivers FIRST from the mini-CDROM that comes with the cable.

Boat Delivery to Uruguay; Laptop Marine Charting

Capt. Jeff, my neighbor here in Coconut Grove, was recently hired to deliver a boat from Miami, FL to Montevideo, Uruguay. What an adventure…Considering it is a 46 trawler, his general float plan is as follows: Miami – Bahamas – Turks – Dominican Republic -Puerto Rico – Caribbean Islands – Guyana – Suriname – French Guyana – Brazil -Uruguay.

This is the reason I was assisting with the installation on Jeff’s laptops. He purchased the Brazil chart package and :

“BA300: Caribbean Super Region
Maptech’s best digital charts covering the Caribbean. Charts from UKHO, Nautical Publications and NOAA. These are in the Maptech/BSB 4.0 format – make sure your navigation software is compatible.”

Offshore Navigator is an easy to use program (install then hook up your laptop to a USB GPS receiver sold separately) and you can track your boat’s position. Pretty simple (the install gave us some issues, but it was resolved after getting the correct technical support number).

What was a nice surprise is that there are various aerial photos of ports and channels:

The green camera icon allows you to right click and view the photo in the direction indicatd. Great feature!

This shows the split screen, so that you can compare the chart to the actual photo. This is especially useful when entering a strange port or channel.
More to come as we use this new software in real-world situations.

(pictures and descriptions courtesey of Maptech/KPM Marine)