However, we will not be cruising again in the easily foreseeable future.  As much as we love the boat, it just doesn’t make sense to hang on to it for several years until we are ready to cruise again. With three kids to school and a job to do and cars and gasoline and all the other trappings of life back in the “real” world, we need to transition our energy and resources to other things. We are praying for a buyer to come along who will take her back out cruising. That is where she belongs and that is what she does best. We have had some great experiences while aboard and it is our wish that another family will be able to have great experiences with Cannibal too.

If you know anyone who is looking for a boat, send them our way. The details of the boat are on the s/v Cannibal page of this blog and of course, there are lots of pictures in the gallery. We are asking $180,000 which we believe is quite a bargain based on our experience and the other boats that are available on the market.

We’ll update the blog when we can. Ciao for now.

Issue #1

First off, as you may know, Cannibal is very unusual in that she has two centerboards…or rather should have two centerboards. On Cannibal, the main board is located just aft of the mast and is used primarily for upwind work. The mizzen board or trimmer board is located further aft toward the after end of the keel. The mizzen board is used primarily for reaching and off the wind work to reduce weather helm. This arrangement is one of the things that makes Cannibal so special. She sails very well balanced at any point of sail if you have the boards adjusted right. While we were sailing from Mona Island to Ponce, the wire pendant that controls the mizzen board broke. “No big deal,” I thought, “When we get to Ponce, I’ll dive under the boat and refasten it.” Well, when we got to Ponce I dove under the boat and lo and behold, the whole centerboard was gone! We are talking about a 500# chunk of molded fiberglass. Yikes! So after making some phone calls, I finally got in touch with the designer’s son, Nord Embroden. He has the molds for the centerboard and can have one made up. Yippee! But the cost of this little construction project he estimated at $3500. Yikes! So the question was now, “How bad do we need it?” I knew we could sail without it but didn’t know for sure if the autopilot would be able to handle the extra weather helm. After doing a little sailing, we determined that although the boat sails better with it and we are taking a little performance hit, we can live without it for now. So the plan is to get the measurements from Nord and fab one up when we get back to the states.

Issue #2

As we continued to forge eastward toward the Virgin Islands we finally got to Culebra. As you know from one of Shirley’s earlier posts, Culebra is one of the Spanish Virgin Islands and is part of Puerto Rico. While in Culebra, we were moored in Almodovar, a little bay around the corner from Ensenada de Honda and the town of Dewey. One day we decided to go to town and so loaded up our friends from Kalida and Toucan and took Cannibal around the corner. After a successful shopping trip, we sailed back to our mooring in about 12 to 15 knots of wind. As we turned into Almodovar we had to gybe the mainsail. After it came across, it blew out. Ripped from leach to luff. Yikes! So now the question was what to do. This sail has been sewed on so many times that to repair it this time, we’d be putting patches on patches…literally. So I began searching for a new mainsail. I could have a brand new one made…for about $4000. Yikes! But there are also places that sell used sails. So I began looking for a used sail. Our sail is pretty big, 48 ft on the luff by 18 ft on the foot so there aren’t just a whole lot of that size lying around. But being in Puerto Rico, my cell phone had a great data connection and so I could search the internet over Sprint’s awesome EVDO network. Yippee! I finally found a sail that supposedly has about half of it’s life left (thats about 4 times better than ours was when we bought the boat). All for the amazingly low price of $425. Yippee! So I placed my order with the Sail Warehouse and expected to receive my sail in a few days. That was on Friday the 16th. We found out the following Monday that the sail wasn’t scheduled for delivery until the 23rd. For some reason Fedex thinks Puerto Rico is an international shipment so everything takes longer. No big deal we figured we could find something to do around Culebra for a few more days. However the next morning Fedex adjusted their schedule now showed delivery on the 28th. Yikes! So we decided to bail out of Culebra and head on over to the Virgin Islands under our big 150% genoa only. The neat thing is that when sailing with only the big genny, the lack of our mizzen centerboard is a non-issue. And the boat still makes pretty good speed. We were making 7 knots today going to windward. Yippee! Anyway Fedex has continued to adjust their delivery schedule and now are showing the 30th. Oh well, we are cruising the Virgin Islands so were in no hurry.

It would be nice to have it though. If we did, we’d be entering a race tomorrow on Jost Van Dyke and Cannibal would be “eating up” the competition. More on that regatta later.

Ciao for now!

We departed Provo on Tuesday, April 8th and headed across the Caicos bank to “Six Hills Cay”. As you might imagine, there are six hills that distinguish this small island. We motored pretty much dead into the wind due to the shallow water and limited room to tack. We arrived in the afternoon and spent a great afternoon and night there. Very clear water, great snorkeling, nice and calm for a good nights sleep. On the way from Provo, we came across a fishing boat that sold us 5 lobsters for $10! What a deal! (We found out later from our friends on “Toucan” that lobster season had closed on April 1st, so that might explain the great deal.) Anyway, we dined on fresh lobster for supper that evening. Unfortunately, the kids weren’t big fans. So we allowed Travis to use some leftover pieces for bait. He proceeded to trade in about 1 oz. of lobster for about a 5 lb. grouper. Not a bad exchange I guess.

The next morning the wind was light and out of the SE (dead ahead, naturally) so we decided to sail for a while since we only had 28 miles to go to Big Sand Cay. When we finally got to the edge of the bank, we fired up the engine to get our speed up to a good trolling speed and put out a fishing line. Within about literally 60 seconds of getting it out … BAM! Trav hooked into a pretty good sized fish. We couldn’t tell what it was but it fought really hard for a while. Then it leaped out of the water and we could see that it was some sort of mackerel type fish. Shortly after it leaped it started fighting really strange and skimming on top of the water like it was dead, but then pulling quite hard again a moment later. Well, when we got it to the boat it was nothing but the head of a large wahoo with two barracudas chowing down on its remains. It had been a fairly large fish maybe 3 feet or so, probably the same size as one of the barracudas and only slightly smaller than the other. Those barracudas are really aggressive. Travis caught it and they cleaned it.

When we got to Big Sand, we swam ashore and played for a while. The boys skim boarded in the surf. The water was amazingly clear and a beautiful sapphire color.

There was a long low swell running and the sandy bottom continued about 15 feet deep all the way up to a steep sandy beach. It was neck deep about 10′ offshore. We didn’t explore much because we had on swimsuits and no shoes, but it looked like an interesting island. Several of the other boats a the anchorage saw huge humpback whales jumping and frolicking around (can a huge whale frolic?) Unfortunately, we were never in the right place at the right time to see them.

Thursday afternoon we left Big Sand for Luperon. The wind was out of the east and supposed to maybe go a little north of east. We didn’t really need that much time but the wind was predicted to go more south of east later on. So we took off at about 1pm on the 80 mile crossing, knowing we would arrive well before daylight and have to heave to till sunrise.

We sailed in company more or less with our friends and their boat “Toucan.” They have three kids also but theirs are much younger. Anyway, they got some great pictures of Cannibal underway. We got some of Toucan also and we swapped in Luperon.

Be sure and check out page two of our gallery for new albums and pics.

When we crossed the Gulf of Mexico in January, we sailed 800 miles in 8 days; 5 days of that time in very rough and adverse conditions. Of course, if we had waited for a week-long weather window we might still be in Texas. Since then we’ve come an additional 700 miles in about 80 days. We were “sailing” across the Gulf. Now we are cruising. Sure we’ve stayed a bit longer than the weather dictated in some places due to repairs or the desire to have additional time to enjoy the area. But even so, we have also spent lots of time waiting for weather windows

A weather window is a forecast that indicates that the wind and seas will be favorable to moving in the direction you want to go. The thing about the Bahamas and tropics in general is that the prevailing winds are from the East. When I say prevailing I’m talking in 58% of the time in Turks and Caicos, in the month of April, the winds blow from due east. If you factor in the NE and SE winds you have now accounted for over 95% of the winds in this area. That means that less one day in twenty does it blow from some other direction. If you are headed east in a sailboat it does tend to slow you down. So you are always on the lookout for a weather window calling for winds from another direction or at least of diminished strength.

We have been waiting here in Provo for 12 days for a weather window to allow us to head east. For the last 12 days the winds have been 20 to 25 knots out of the east or southeast. Thats 23 to 29 mph for all you landsmen and women. Pretty windy, especially if you are “beating to windward” which means sailing as close into the wind as you can.

But the weather does change, even here. Tomorrow the wind is forecast to drop to around 15 knots and then continue to diminish to around 10 knots through the rest of the week. It will still be mostly from the east, but there will be some northerly component later on in the week. So we have a big wonderful weather window that will allow us to take fairly short daily runs and still have good weather to get all the way to Luperon, D.R.

As you might imagine, weather forecasting is an inexact science. In fact, Shirley wouldn’t classify it as a science at all but more like voodoo or some sort of myth or superstition. Sometimes the weather is good but the forecast didn’t see it coming. Other times the weather is bad when the forecast said it would be good. We have been misled by a few weather forecasts in the course of our voyage, beginning with our Gulf crossing and recurring a few times since then. So we are always in search of good, reliable, forecasts. If all forecasts agree, then you can pretty much count on them being pretty decent. It is when there are some outliers that you have tough choices to make. I have seen the NOAA weatherfax disagree with the NOAA text forecast. What are you supposed to do with that? Anyway, here is our normal weather forecast buffet.

• Weatherfax charts from NOAA. These can be downloaded from the web or received using the computer and SSB radio if the internet isn’t available.
• Text “Offshore Waters” forecasts from NOAA. These can be downloaded from the web or received over SSB radio if the internet isn’t available.
• Radio weather guru. Chris Parker of caribwx.com broadcasts his expert opinion every morning on SSB. He is widely regarded in the cruising community in the Caribbean as the final authority. You always hear people saying,” Did you listen to Chris?” or “What did Chris say this morning?”
• GRIB files from NOAA. These are new to me. A Dutch cruiser named Hugo from the beautiful Van De Stadt sloop “Zeestar” (Starfish) turned me on to this. They are available over the internet  on the web or via email. I have just begun using a program called Ugrib. It is available FREE from www.grib.us. You have to register (free) before you can download the program. It is the bomb, totally. If you have any interest in weather or weather forecasting at all, I highly recommend it. You can customize what info you get and how far in the future you want the forecast. The program then provides a graphical representation of the forecast on a zoomable chart of the world. VERY cool. Did I say FREE and VERY cool?
• Local weather. This is available from various sources via VHF radio. Marinas and local authorities provide this service.

So there is your primer on weather windows and the reason we have been in Turks and Caicos for 12 days.
We’ll be leaving tomorrow for better or worse. We’ll be back online when we get to the DR.

Later.

They are having a music festival in town starting tonight and tonight is gospel night. We are anchored right offshore from downtown so we can hear the music very well. They just finished a rocked-up island beat version of “Victory in Jesus”. It was awesome.

We had a great sail down from Musha Cay today. We were gonna wait another day and do some snorkleing up there but we had a nice west-southwest wind so we figured it was a gift from God to make our trip to Georgetown easy. So far it’s worked out great…what with the gospel music and all. Now they are doing Kirk Franklin’s “Stomp.” Very cool!

Internet is a little dodgy on board right now so I’ll go ahead and end this post before I lose it. We’ll post more later.

Tomorrow we are heading south again toward Georgetown. We will spend the night somewhere along the way and then arrive on the 13th. So until then, here is a picture of a Bananaquit eating sugar out of Garrett’s hand. Check out the gallery for more.

Today the whole family turned to and worked from 9am till noon. Travis and Garrett got to try there hand at being “wreckers.” They cleaned up the remains of a wrecked Haitian boat that was up on one of the beaches. Shirley and Kimi got to dig in the sand. They dug up some long round timbers that were buried near the park headquarters. I’m not sure what they are going to use them for. Kimi also got to search the garden fence for a hole in the chickenwire (which she quickly found). A hutia got in last night and was eating all the veggies. He got caught in a live trap and was a really cute little guy. Looks kind of like a prairie dog. I got to work on the watermaker again. It seems that there was a problem with one of the pump relays that prevented the saltwater feed pump from shutting off. This led to the pump overheating which caused lots of problems with the PVC piping adjacent to the pump. I was able to troubleshoot that problem and get it fixed. Now Warderick Wells is making water again.

Everyone was worn out by noon since we have been pretty sedentary lately. So we adjourned back to Cannibal and chilled out the rest of the afternoon.

Since I don’t have any new pictures posted, I thought I’d share a special treat. Here is a little video from our trip so far. Just click the picture!