November 2010 Domincan Republic

Kim and Jason on Thanksgiving 2010. She promptly invited us to Thanksgiving dinner the day she met us!

A feed to Lake Enriquillo from the pools.

Jason ignores the heated discussions with the armed guards at the roadblock. He's busy chatting up the local women while the others try to persuade the guards to let Freddie through with us. Freddie is the Haitian girlfriend of our driver but the guards don't want to let her proceed .

Chief Enriquillo, for whom the lake is named.

The motley crew who went to see Lake Enriquillo.
The big beers come in their own mini wrappers to keep the sweat from dripping on us. A couple of rounds and then back into the car to try to make it past another checkpoint.

Lake Enriquillo, Dom Rep as seen from afar. We stopped for a rest and had our snack of chicken feet prepared traditional Haiti style. Mine was too slippery to hold on to and ended up on the ground. Shucks. You basically just slurp the skin off the toes.

"She's the one who caused all this trouble" Curtis is saying as he points to his Haitian girlfriend, Freddie. We had quite the ordeal getting through the armed roadblocks set up to keep Haitians from entereing the country. We had to leave Freddie at one to continue, then couldn't get back through them with her in the vehicle, either. It took us all afternoon to get back!

Pools at the head of Lake Enriquillo.

A few beer bottles behind the Club Nautico near where we anchored in Barahona, DR<.

They just drive these heavy treads along the road and traffic must swerve around them.

Curtis liked the pumpkin dip I made for Thanksgiving.

Jason and Karen Thanksgiving in Barahona, DR

Our Thanksgiving feast at the yacht club

New friends and their families enjoy the feast

The harbor at Barahona, Dom Republic

A coal pile to power a huge sugar factory in the distance. The ship's bow is out of the water but later that week, it was laden with sugar and left.

The yachts at Club Nautico in Barahona. The big trimaran is Kinky G, a project our fellow Americans are working on to rebuild into a tourist cat.

The local boats at the yacht club in Barahona

YOLO in Barahona, Dominican Republic

Cliffs as we approached Barahona. A definite line in red and white in the cliffside.

Dec 2010 Cayman Brac

Jagged coral all over the bluff and shores.

Jason in the Bat Cave. Several holes in the ceiling where rock has collapsed let the light in.

Looking straight up into a chimney like hole in the ceiling of a cave.

One of our guides, Greg, in the 'nose' of Skull Cave.

A chunk of stalactites that has fallen to the floor of the cave.

Inside Skull Cave. We were free to wander around in these caves, but tried not to touch the formations. Still, they were awesome and it was so cool to get up so close to them.

Flowstone formation in one of the caves. These formations are beautiful and amazing and so pretty up close.

Stalactites

Karen standing between a couple of floor-to-ceiling stalactites in Nana's Cave.

Karen next to some big stalactite formations in Peter's Cave.

Keno, our knowledgeable guide in the entrance to Nana's Cave. We had to climb down some jagged rocks to get into this one, but it opened up into an awesome spectacle of a cave!

The entrance to Nana's Cave.

One of the biggest displays of blow-up Christmas 'ornaments' I've ever seen! They lined the side of the road for at least a block. All from one individual's collection.

More Christmas blow-up decorations.

Looking out of a hole in Peter's Cave.

Karen near a cave formation in Peter's Cave.

The Bubble House. Guess why??

A stalactite formation outside the Bat Cave. Doesn't it look like a big tree?

Bat Cave formations.

Greg and Jason in Rebecca's Cave, named for an infant that died from pneumonia after the family used the cave for shelter in a hurricane back in 1936.

Big waves crashing against the dock on the north side of Creek, Cayman Brac. The day before this shot, we were moored at a mooring ball just beyond the foaming waves to clear into the country and it was quite pleasant. A cold front moved thru and whipped up the wind and waves so this dock was unusable.

Cayman Brac Reef Resort on the SW corner of the island.

Looking down into the Cayman Blue waters off the boat.

A Cuban refugee boat now on display at an intersection. There used to be lots of Cubans that fled here, got food and water and went on to Central America and then crossed the border to the US via Mexico. Now folks get into trouble if they give them food or water; they must move on or Immigration cracks down on them.

View of the bluff on Cayman Brac as we sailed around on arrival.

Cayman Brac is one of the friendliest, cleanest and most interesting islands we've visited in a while!

Atlantic cruising and crossing 2009

The 'slave yard' on James Island.

A typical African village along the Gambia river. Except, note the radio/cell tower in the background. Someone, somewhere is getting communication from these towers.

Jason with the throng of kids that attached themselves to him on one of our walks through Kuntaur, The Gambia. Everyone wanted to hold our hands.

Jim navigating us up the Bintang Bolong (Creek) to the Lamin Lodge. It was a narrow and shallow river that is navigable, but many boats run aground trying to get up the river to the lodge.

My water delivery from Lamin Lodge, The Gambia. We were up the creek and the water came from a village 2kilometers from the lodge. We thought it was to be delivered by donkey cart. But the man and his 2 sons delivered 240 liters of water to Vision Quest by dugout canoe in these big yellow jugs. I then had to pour the water into our tanks and water jugs.

Jim and I checking out the Lamin Lodge while enjoying a local beer, JulBrew. We later had a buffet lunch here that filled us all up.

The view of the yachts from Lamin Lodge. Vision Quest is the last one the farthest out.

The Lamin Lodge, a grass,stick and board structure that has been described as every man's dream treehouse.

A typical river village along The Gambia. The women and children still come to the river to pound clothes as their way of doing laundry.

A dugout canoe on The Gambia--the only way the locals travel.

Another local village on The Gambia.

On James Island in the middle of The River Gambia, not far upriver from the capital, Banjul. This island was supposedly used as a staging place for slaves before they were picked up and shipped to other parts of the world. It is famous because of Kunta Kinte of Roots fame; this is where he was picked up in the novel.

More of James Island ruins.

This is dirty Dakar, Senegal. You can see the mast of a sunken yacht sticking out at an angle right in the middle of the pic.

Karen swimming in the middle of the ocean.

Jason and Jim swimming in the ocean on a calm day on our crossing to Africa.

Jason in the Sailor's Club bar on Senegal. This was the only 'nice' place we saw in Dakar. It was clean and they had great beer.

These are pilot whales that we saw between Cape Verdes and Senegal.

Karen with a Gazelle lager beer at the Sailor's Club bar in Dakar, Senegal.

Jim at the fruit stand just outside the Sailor's Club. Once we ventured beyond here, it turned into dirty, dilapidated Dakar.

Vision Quest in Las Palmas, Canary Islands before we left to pick up Jim in Cape Verdes. Some folks thought the name of the boat was "York Me" and wondered what that meant! You can see how our buoy "3920" came in handy to keep the wind vane off the dock.

dolphins next to the boat in Cape Verdes

More dolphins in Cape Verdes. We also saw whales here! But no pics, sorry.

This is Mindelo, the port on Sao Vincent in Cape Verdes. It was MUCH nicer and more modern than the guide books led us to believe. It was a great port to use as a jumping off point and we came back here after doing The Gambia to get water and fresh veges/fruit before crossing back across the Atlantic to Grenada.

A valley on La Gomera, Canaries. There are cave hippies living along the beach in caves on either side of this shot. They remind me of the '70's.

A valley on La Gomera, The Canary Islands

Rows and rows of big tuna anchors in Conil, Spain

These are big anchors! That's Jason, Karen and James from Moleoba perched on them.

Near the end of the levada walk on Madeira.

Jason and Patty on the levada walk. You can see the path isn't always too wide. This was about average. The dropoff was hundreds of feet if we misstepped!

Sometimes the path went through cracks and tunnels. The stepping stones over the running water are slabs of rock.

Karen on the levada walk in Madeira. One of the places where folks have laid slabs as stepping stones across the water channel.

Jason and Karen near the end of their basket sledge ride from Monte to Funchal, Madeira.

Beautiful hydrangeas like these lined many roads on the island of Madeira.

Port of Funchal. The big boat to the right of center is now on land and is a restaurant. It is the Vagrant and once belonged to the Beatles! If you look closely (blow up the photo) just to the right of the back mast of the boat (between the mast and the lightpost) you can see the twin white towers of Monte, where the basket sledge ride began. The ride brought us to the outskirts of this port city.

Here is the bowl, made from the root of the thuya tree that I bought for my brother's wedding gift in Essouira, Morocco. The burls are gorgeous!

Me with an Atlantic bonito we caught and ate.