Best of the USA

Posted by the whole crew

Our route, corner to corner from the Atlantic to the Pacific

Based on extensive media research, we here at moving mountains have come to the conclusion that people like lists.  Top 10 celebrity nose jobs, favourite bar-b-cue ribs recipes, greatest kitten videos.  Lists rule the internet.  So, after travelling corner to corner and back again, in honour of the 4th of July, we sat down and put together a list of random things we liked  (and a few things we didn’t like so much) about our great neighbour to the south.

To start with, for posterity, here is a list of all 27 states we have travelled through on this trip: Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, South Dakota, Minnesota, Illinois, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Washington D.C., Maryland, Delaware, New York, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, Utah, Oregon, Washington State.

Best City

We’ve seen a lot of major cities on our trip.  Some (like New York, New Orleans, and Las Vegas) were pretty much what we expected, without too many big surprises.  They were victims of their prominent public images.  Still, it was fun to see all the famous sites in person.

Christopher, helping out with the refurbishment going on at the Washington Monument

Our favourite city overall was Washington, D.C.  While it gets a lot of bad press for both politics and crime, the downtown area where we stayed was clean and welcoming.  The history displayed in the  monuments and the Smithsonian museums could have kept us busy for a lot more time than we had.  Generally speaking, as a family, we don’t tend to have as much fun in cities as we do in smaller towns and rural places.  But D.C. is a city that would be worth going back to and exploring some more.

Taking a bike tour of the D.C. Monuments was a great way to get an appreciation for the city, and some American history.

Best Museum

This was a tricky one for us.  The museums at the Smithsonian are incredible, and impressive.  And Christopher loved the Kennedy Space center in Florida.

But the overall winner was the World War II museum in New Orleans.  This was an unexpected surprise, and is really well done.  If you ever go, shell out the extra bucks to see the Tom Hanks movie.  The submarine adventure is also pretty good, but if you want to save a few dollars you could do without it.

The World War II museum was really well done.  They even had some exhibits showing the Canadian contribution at D-day.

Best Restaurant

Finding good places to feed a family when you are living out of hotels is a real challenge.  Fast food is   ubiquitous, and cheap, but it is hard to find a place where you can feel that what you are giving your kids is nutritious in any way.  More formal, sit-down restaurants tend to get pretty expensive when you tally up meals for five.  And we found the portions in the U.S. were usually too huge to contemplate (we often tried to beat both these problems by sharing meals, but then we could never know for sure if we would have enough).

Despite the “huge meal syndrome”, the Olive Garden gets an honourable mention in this category.  A few times, when we were really starving, the all you can eat salad and bread helped to quell a real-life hunger games from breaking out.  One of the proudest moments of our trip was navigating from New York’s Central Park directly to the subway station adjacent to the Olive Garden in Times Square, without poking our heads above ground once.  Pretty good for a family from a town of 3,000 people.

The clear winner for best restaurant, though, goes to The Whole Enchilada, in Ft. Lauderdale.  This place perfectly hits the middle ground for food which is relatively inexpensive and prepared quickly, but is still fresh and healthy.  The help-yourself salsa bar has 6 different types of home made salsa which you can add at will to your burrito or chips.  The mango salsa was a particular favourite.

The whole enchilada, winner of our favourite restaurant award.  The cheque and trophy are in the mail.

Having said all that, the family vote for our favourite meal goes to the Hot Pot and Sushi restaurant where we had Sara’s birthday dinner, in Portland.  This was one of those pleasant surprises that are the best part of travelling. 

Our guilty secret is this.  Sometimes, in an effort to get a cheap, but decent meal, we have resorted to eating at the nearest Ikea, where we know we won’t break the bank (heck, some of them feed kids free on Tuesday), but will still get an actual meal involving vegetables and everything.  So, on the night of Sara’s birthday, we found ourselves in Portland, not too far from Ikea.  We were headed there for dinner (I know, big birthday celebration, right?) when we spotted the Hot Pot and Sushi restaurant nearby.

Watching the sushi train, at Hot Pot and Sushi in Portland.

On the west coast, we are used to having cheap, high quality sushi.  In the rest of the States, sushi still seems to be a pretty high end specialty food, so we haven’t eaten much recently.  Since we are all fans, we decided to forego Ikea, and indulge in sushi instead.  It turns out that it was one of those sushi restaurants where you all sit next to this little conveyor belt, and just pick out the plates that interest you.  At the end of the meal, they count the plates, and that is how they charge you.  The kids loved the conveyor belt idea, and it was great fun to watch the dinner options go by, and just grab what looked interesting.  30 plates later, we were as full as could be.  Sara says it was her favourite birthday dinner ever.

Best birthday dinner ever!

Best Hotel

Our favourite hotel chain was the Marriott Residence Inn, since we could generally get an extra bedroom and a kitchenette for a reasonable price.  For a single overnight on a road trip, they provide a pretty comfortable stay for a family.  But they are fairly standard, with nothing too exciting about them, so when we are talking about the best hotel overall, none of the Residence Inns make the list.

The runner up award for the single best hotel we stayed at goes to the Hilton Vacation Club hotel in Orlando, Florida.  Because we hit it in off-season (October), we got a huge, fancy, two bedroom suite with a full kitchen and living room for less than the cost of a lot of the basic hotel rooms we stayed in during the summer.  The massive pool, where they projected a movie in the evening helped to launch this place into our top two.  In a way, it was almost a shame that our hotel in Orlando was so great, since most of our time there was spent at Universal and Disneyworld, so we didn’t really get a chance to enjoy it.

Taking time out from our awesome hotel to enjoy Hogwarts at Universal Studio.

The winner in this category actually suffered a bit from our off season timing.  We arrived at the Glacier Canyon Lodge in the Wisconsin Dells exactly 5 minutes before they shut down most of the fun stuff for the winter.  From the registration desk, we watched out the window as the last go-karts of the year made their way around the track.  As we carried our luggage into our room, we could see them turn off the fountains at the outdoor water park for the last time that summer.

Still lots of fun at the indoor portion of the water park at in the Wisonsin Dells.

Ropes course at the Glacier Canyon Lodge.

Even without those things, though, the indoor water slides, arcades, and rope course made this place a legendary family stop.  The kids are still talking about the Hurricane, and the giant bucket of water that dumped on their heads.  And being there in the fall meant no people, and no line ups.  Add in a good sized room for a reasonable off-season price, and this place gets the award for our best hotel stay of the trip.

Best National Park

The rocks and views at Zion were incredible.

The vote here was split between Zion and Carlsbad Caverns.  In then end, though the Caverns get the nod, due to their unique environment.  And the fact that it wasn’t 40 degrees C out while we were enjoying them.  Where else can you spend the day hiking underground, looking at incredibly huge caves and crazy formations.  Definitely a must see if you are in New Mexico.

Descending into the depths at Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico.

Best Public Restroom

This is a pretty critical category when you are travelling with kids.  Without a doubt, Ceasar’s Palace, Las Vegas is the winner.

The losers in this category are too numerous to mention.  Suffice it to say, our bladder control has improved significantly along the highways of America.

Ummm, Mom, all this water.... can we go find a bathroom?

Best Pastry

We’d like to sound all classy, and say the Beignets in New Orleans were the winners here.  These light and flaky deep fried pastries covered in powdered sugar were definitely a highlight of our trip to the Big Easy.

However, the real winner here was the Cinnabon Cinnabites that we had at a Taco Bell in Biloxi, Mississippi.  These were like warm, crunchy sugar donut Timbits with a sweet creamy custard filling.  Mmmmmm!

Mmmmm, Cinnabon.

Best Town Name

Bunkie, Louisiana.  Made us think of the McJ’s place at Gambier.

This one is a test to see if Shakey has read this far. 

Bryce Canyon

Posted by Sara

After Zion our minds turned to thoughts of home.  We stopped at Bryce Canyon National Park, an hour and a half from Zion, for a short 1 hour hike around the famous Queen’s Garden’s/\Navajo Loop and Wall Street.  The famous Hoodoos were truly amazing.  Then we started to put in some miles.

Hanging out above the hoodoos.

Hoodoo gurus.

The hike we did in Bryce has been called the "best 3 mile loop in the world."  I'm not sure about that, but it was pretty spectacular.

When you're a teenage boy, hiking alone is not enough exercise.  So you add in a little gymnastics.

Exiting the canyon along a trail called "Wall Street", where the walls close in tight.

We bid the Canyon lands good-bye and started to make time toward the Pacific Northwest.  Through Salt Lake City, Boise Idaho and on to Portland, Oregon through the picturesque Columbia Gorge.

The famous Columbia River Gorge.  A bit further along we came to the town of Hood River, the windsurfing and kite boarding mecca.  Too bad we were trying to make time, or we could have continued our kite boarding lessons.

There is a fair bit of freighter traffic up and down the Columbia River.  They have to navigate the bridges, which raise like this one.  They also have several sets of locks they need to go through at various dams.

Freighter traffic on the Columbia.

Mount Hood, one of the several volcanic mountains to be found in Washington state.

Hood River, windsurfing mecca.

We stopped for a day in Portland.  Feeling the need for a bit more exercise, we took the kids to a trampoline warehouse.  Well, the kids and Scot.  In this picture, Scot is actually landing from a jump.  He is not that heavy when he is just standing there.

From Portland, we headed up the Olympic Peninsula to catch the Coho Ferry to Victoria.  As we went the gray clouds rolled in, the rain started drizzling and we all pulled out our Hoodies for the probably the first time in 8 months.

Waiting for our next ocean voyage, on the Coho Ferry to Victoria.  This point in our journey marks our arrival at the Pacific, having crossed the entire continent from the Atlantic!

Can't wait to be back in Canada!

Real Life on the Road

Posted by Sara

Enjoying life on the road.

We have seen some amazing things on this trip, but it’s easy to fill the blog with all the sights and skip the day to day experience of driving 7000 km, staying in hotels and eating on the road.

These are definitely ‘first world problems’ but after 17 days on the road, we are all getting tired of squishing 5 of us into one room hotels and struggling to eat healthy meals for a reasonable cost. 

We use a combination of old technology and new technology to get us where we're going.  We haven't gotten lost ... so far.

Our favourite family hotel is Residence Inn by Marriott.  They are the only hotel we have encountered with a 2 bedroom suite which costs only a bit more than a standard hotel room.  We get 2 bedrooms, each with a queen bed and en-suite, a living room with a pull-out couch for the third kid (don’t have to lug in the blow-up mattress & pump) and a real kitchen.  We also get 3 TVs, one in each bedroom and one in the living room, so we can all watch our own show instead of trying to find one show that all 5 of us like.  In addition, they serve a fantastic complimentary breakfast with the traditional continental selections as well as hot food, oatmeal, muesli, fresh fruit and make-your-own waffles.   We always grab a banana each for the road.  With breakfast for all five of us, we pretty much make up the difference in the cost of this hotel and one that doesn’t have breakfast.

A man enjoying the freedom and independence of the road.  And Scot.

Many of the National Parks we have visited haven’t had a suite hotel nearby so we have had to make do with a traditional 2 queen bed room with one kid on the floor.  Not that we can really complain while having a good roof over our head but it does get tiring after a few nights of us all sleeping in one room what with a  few snorers and a few restless sleepers (you know who you are).   We all need to go to bed at the same time and there is only one bathroom for all 5 of us to share.

The mornings get a bit crazy.  For some reason the kids have vetoed sharing the bathroom to expedite our getting on the road.  “No, I will not brush my teeth while you are going to the bathroom.”   Picky, picky.  Why not?  For the nights we stay in standard one room hotels, our favourites are Holiday inn Express and Hampton Inn & Suites.  Mainly because the rooms are all neat and clean and the breakfasts are good.

Eating on the road is a challenge.  It’s hard to avoid the pop and the deep fried food choices unless we are willing to pay a lot more.  Often better choices aren't available, even if we want them.   It’s also hard not to get lured into eating more just because they offer us big portions.   Psychologically, it’s hard to walk away from 1/2 a plate of leftover food that we have just paid for.  We made a couple of family rules to help us out.  Only water or milk or lemonade while on the road and we push the plate away as soon as we are feeling full – no eating more just because it is there.  Of course we break the rules occasionally but at least they help us to stay a bit on track.

Taking a break from the road to hike in Bryce Canyon.

Breakfast is easy as we always pick a hotel with complimentary breakfast.   The breakfasts are really great.  We usually do some form of fast food for lunch.  Our favourites are Subway and Mexican food as they offer the healthiest choices but we are often limited by what is nearby at noon every day.  We try to do a sit down dinner most nights but have to be careful of our menu choices.  Luckily most restaurants in the States have a kids menu so that helps with the costs but they mainly offer the same 4 items.  Katie has been eating mac and cheese at least 3 times a week.  Christopher vacillates between the kids’ menu and the adult menu.  Luckily he has really expanded his food choices this year so he can usually find something besides his standard chicken fingers & fries.  Pizza is an easy, cost-effective choice that everyone likes so we end up eating pizza a few times a week.  We usually average about $100/day on food - $35/lunch and $65/dinner. 

Hiking Bryce Canyon.

Our driving days vary greatly depending on what there is to see on the way.   We find anything more than 5 hours/day of driving is definitely pushing it.  The kids spend a lot of car time on their DSs and i-pods.  Scot and I call out every time there is something interesting to see and they all pop up their heads for a quick view.  We also listen to pod casts (mainly CBC Laugh out Loud, and three NPR shows – Car Talk, Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me, and Freakenomics.)   We all enjoy them.

DS's make the miles go by.

At any rate,  the trip has been amazing but we are certainly looking forward to getting home to our own beds, being able to cook our own food, and having a bit of space from each other.

Dry Tortugas to Key West

Posted by Sara

Well, never a dull moment on a boat.  We arrived at Key West on Friday.  It was midnight, pitch black with winds gusting up to 30 knots.  Don't we have a rule never to arrive somewhere in the dark you ask?  Yes!  So something went wrong.   As you can imagine we are delighted to now be all in one piece and comfortably tied up to a dock in a nice marina in 'the land of plenty.’



First impressions of being back in the states……hopefully this doesn’t sound too provincial, but… aaaahhhh - clean docks, clean washrooms, actual toilet paper in the washrooms & nice toilet paper at that!

They speak English here, all the water is potable, we can eat anything from anywhere and not worry about a stomach bug and all the people are nice and act like they appreciate our business.  You can’t miss the super sonic fighter jets that fly over in pairs at regular intervals.  We got buzzed in the boat at about 4 pm as we were sailing toward Key West – it’s a uniquely American experience.  Oh and the food portions.  We went to grab some dinner the day we got here.  We all ordered something and when the food came, our eyes bulged –  it was enough food to feed a football team.  Oh yeah, we are definitely back in the States.  Yum.

 

Here is a quick rundown of some of our first thoughts on returning to the states:

• Alexander came back to the boat after his first trip to the nice clean washrooms with soft TP and announced that he was back in heaven.
• Christopher has been Googling for a mall with big stores (mainly electronic) since he hopped onto the WiFi.  He likes his internet and his toys.  He is also looking forward to a Subway.
• Katie is looking forward to going to an Olive Garden.  It’s Alexander’s birthday in a few days so hopefully we can accommodate.
• I am just looking forward to replacing my $3 Guatemalan flip flops.  My lovely Sanuks, which had held up impressively from 24/7 wear for over 8 months, finally gave up the ghost in the Rio Dulce.
• I asked Scot what he liked about being back in the U.S.  He said he just wanted to turn around and sail south to Panama.  But I think secretly he is happy to be back where things all work a little more efficiently.

So how did we end up coming into Key West at Midnight?

It all started in the Dry Tortugas.

We had finished our crossing from Isla Mujeres mid-afternoon on Thursday, motoring in little to no wind.  This fit in with the weather forecast we had when we left Mexico.   From this point, the winds were supposed to come up to 15 knots from the north during the night on Thursday and slowly clock around to come more from the east by Saturday in the day.  We really wanted to get to Key West before they clocked around to the east as that would mean sailing directly into the wind.

The distance from the Dry Tortugas to the marina we had booked in Key West was about 75nm, so we guessed it would take between 10 – 17 hours depending on our speed.  We weren’t exactly sure how the current would effect us for this section.  So our plan was to leave the Dry Tortugas on Friday night after a day of rest and arrive into Key West on Saturday morning (in full daylight) before the wind switched to come from the east.   We had considered the option of leaving early in the morning on Friday but it wasn’t ideal, since if our boat speed was slow, we’d be arriving at the marina after dark.

As it began to get dark on Thursday night, the wind really started to pick up from the north.  Lots of boats were repositioning themselves in the anchorage at the Dry Tortugas.  It felt like more than the 15 knots we had expected.  Several boats limped in after dark, having aborted their trips north, looking for safe harbour.  They obviously hadn’t planned to stop but were probably getting bashed around too much.

By morning, it was really howling from the north, 25+ knots.  Hmmmmm.  We were feeling a bit uncomfortable with our plans so Scot dingyed over to the ranger station to look at their updated weather forecast.  Their prediction was for 25-30 knots winds from the north/northwest during the day, and then dropping to 25 knots from the east/northeast on Saturday.  We really didn’t like the speeds of the winds but particularly didn’t like the switch to the east/northeast.  We certainly couldn’t sail directly into 25 knot winds.  Well technically we could beat up there, but it is really bashy and uncomfortable sailing right into the waves.  Scot, being brilliant, pulled out the sat phone to call Chris Parker to see what his thoughts were.

Chris Parker basically said – go now or you will need to wait a week at the Dry Tortugas as the winds will be strong (25+ knots) from the east starting Saturday morning.  It was 10 am Friday morning.

Are you serious?  We, of our own volition, sail out into 25-30 knot winds at 10 am with a 15 hour sail ahead of us?  This will guarantee not only a CRAZY passage but that we arrive in a busy unknown port in the dark in strong wind?  Did you not see all those boats limping into this anchorage looking bedraggled and exhausted searching for a safe escape from the wind and seas?  Never mind whatever is going to be running through all the other cruisers heads as we leave a secure anchorage in this.  But, on the other hand, waiting a week in the Dry Tortugas?  As interesting as they are, we are on a bit of a timeline, and don’t really want to sit here for a week waiting for our opportunity to make it to Key West.

OK – Let’s go now!  Scot called the marina to see what advice they could offer for arriving in the dark.  The reassuring answer came back that they had boats arrive in the dark fairly frequently and that it was an easy marina to get into.  We just needed to come straight up their channel and tie up to their lighted fuel dock, without even making a turn.

We programmed some back-up waypoints into the GPS so if we chickened out of arriving in the dark we could just sail further up the Keys.  We weren’t sure how we would clear customs if that happened, but our main focus was making an otherwise sketchy trip as safe as possible.  Within 10 minutes, our crack team had the anchor up and we were motoring out the narrow shallow channel into the huge winds and waves.

The radio crackled…”Monahsee, Monahsee…this is Manana…ummmm… what’s it like out there?”  Translation “Where the *&^%$ are you going in this slop?”
 
Scot looked at me…”Are we sure we should be doing this?”…..“Keep sailing!``, I said.

To be honest, I wasn’t nervous of the 25 knot winds especially as the crossing was only 10 or so hours.  My background is dingy racing so sailing in a lot of wind is really just a lot of fun if you aren’t doing it for an extended period of time.  We just reef our sails right down and fly along.  Hey, if you have to sail, you might as well  be sailing fast!  Our boat sails really well and, at this point, our team is pretty much a well oiled sailing machine.  It’s only the big waves pounding the boat which make it uncomfortable and cause the exhaustion.  My main concern was arriving in the dark.
 
So we reefed everything in and headed off.  The waves were definitely big for the first few hours but with the high winds we were flying along at 8 knots.  Yeah!  As we went, the wind stayed high but the waves became smaller, and as soon as we were tucked in on the south side of the Marqueses Keys we were well blocked from the waves and had euphoric sailing all the way to Key West – consistent 8 knots of speed with almost no waves. It reminded me of sailing behind the reef in Belize.
 
The only concerning thing as we came closer to Key West and dusk fell, was passing crab pot after crab pot in the water (truthfully I don’t know what kind of seafood trap they were, but they were just plastic buoys in the water  every few hundred yards and we weren’t sure if they were just attached to a single line or some kind of net).  I prayed we didn’t end up coiled in some fishermen’s net in the dark.  The depths had been about 35’ or less since we came behind the Marquesas Keys so there were hours of sailing in prime fish net waters.

Everything went as planned and with the extra speed, we were already threading through channel markers south of Key West by the time it got dark.  Luckily most of the markers near Key West have flashing lights on them and they are precisely pin pointed on our navigation software so we could essentially just sail on the GPS and pray there weren’t any surprises out there.  We made it to the entrance of our channel without running into anything or getting caught in a fish trap.  We roused both of the boys from bed to help dump the sails in the dark.  It was shallow all around so we didn’t have a lot of ‘wiggle room.’  In a testament to the skills we have all developed during the year, it was a full team effort but the sails came down without a glitch and we switched to motors as we puttered down the channel.
 
Now, where to go?  Fortunately, the marina fuel dock was a lighted 500’ stretch of dock without a single boat on it – resembled a long landing strip.  Love those Americans who ‘go big or go home.’  Even we could get onto that dock.  It was still blowing 20 knots, even in the sheltered channel, but it was blowing right on our nose so we weren’t too worried about getting blown onto the dock or off the dock.

Scot, as usual, managed a perfect landing.  With no one to grab our lines, we came in gently enough for me to jump off the side of the boat mid-ships and the boys threw me the lines.  We all breathed a huge sigh of relief.  In retrospect it was a fantastic sail and a great day. It was just unfortunate that we spent the whole day worried about the last few hours in the dark.  I guess we weren’t going to be allowed to finish our year without a good story to tell.

Semana Insana in Guatemala!

posted by Sara

This week is Semana Santa in Guatemala.  The celebration of the Easter week.  Semana Santa is a HUGE celebration here and most people take off the entire 10 days.  In addition to those people who come to vacation on the Rio Dulce in their boats for the week, Antigua fills up with people celebrating the more religious side of the holiday.  Here are some images of Semana Santa.

The end of a Semana Santa Procession in the street in Antigua.  Many men in purple robes.

The picture above is the gate to our vacation condo in Antigua.  This is what we saw on Sunday morning at 9:30 as we came out to the gate with all our luggage.  We were supposed to meet our shuttle to take us to Guatemala City so we could catch the bus back to the Rio Dulce.  Uh Oh.  I don’t think our shuttle is going to make it!  Apparently they had shut down the entire city for these walking processions, allowing no cars in.  Our shuttle was sitting in a long line of cars outside the entrance to Antigua.  Luckily we had left lots of time, and it all worked out in the end.

The kids enjoying the pool at the neigbouring marina in Rio Dulce, while I supervise boat work.

The kids have been enjoying the pool at a nearby resort while we have been "on the hard.” Yesterday they swam with 3 vacationing US families who live in Guatemala City and have rented vacation houses here for Semana Santa.  One of the families was here with an NGO, and two were with the US embassy, one being an FBI Agent.  I didn’t know they really existed!

Rio Dulce is a resort area.  The river drains big lake Izabal at one end, and the ocean end provides access to El Caribe and the Cays of Belize.  This area fills up during Semana Santa with all the wealthy people from Guatemala City who keep their boats here.  The river fills up with crazy young Guatemalans on jet skis blasting up and down, churning the entire river into a froth.  Every marina and restaurant is blasting music through speakers out over the river, presumably to attract customers (although it is keeping us away).  It makes a summer weekend in Fort Lauderdale look calm.  I don't think this is really most people's mental image of Guatemala.  It certainly wasn't ours!

Helicopters bringing the wealthy to Rio Dulce for Semana Santa.  And also blowing dirt all over the boats in the yard.

Our Marina has 5 heli pads for the wealthy boaters who chopper in from Guatemala City to get on their boats for the week.  Many of them head up to Belize.  Most of them have their own helicopters so they just park them here while they are on their boats.  The marina has recently added two new heli pads.  You can see how close they are behind the boats in the yard.  When the helicopters land they send gravel, leaves, sticks and other debris onto all the boats.  Luckily we are parked on the other side of the yard but there were a few unhappy boat owners after the first few landings.  Someone mentioned that there will be less debris once a few helicopters have landed and blown it all away.  Hopefully!

Some of the big boats docked at our marina, all tucked away in their boat sheds.

On Good Friday, we were treated to a nautical Stations of the Cross procession in front of the marina.  The jet skis took a break for a few moments as several boats filled with people in purple shirts paraded along in front of the marinas.

Jesus leading the procession of boats.

Purple is the color of Semana Santa.  I'm not sure of the historical reason for this, but everyone involved in the procession was wearing a purple t-shirt.

One of the boats had prominent pictures of the Pope on it's stern.

The Virgin Mary's boat stopped for fuel right in the middle of the procession.  I'm no expert, but I'm pretty sure "Gas Station" isn't one of the traditional Stations of the Cross.

The lead boat with Jesus on the front, and this picture over the stern.

Off to Grand Cayman

posted by Sara

After a bouncy couple of days in the Sister Islands, we were excited to be going to Grand Cayman.  Katie and I tucked into bed about 7:30pm.  I heard Scot and the boys start the engines and pull our lines off the mooring ball in the dark sometime around 8 o’clock.  As I fell asleep I could hear the two boys chirping away at the helm as they took the first watch.  Scot took stood by as second watch for them, then when they went to bed he took over until 1am.  I woke up and did the shift until 6am.

Taking the first watch.

Some people have asked us why we sail at night.  The main goal is to arrive somewhere new in the daylight.  Coming into an unknown port in the pitch black is not a smart move even with all our high tech navigational tools.  At our average speed we can only safely do about a 50nm mile passage within daylight hours (leaving at 7am and arriving at 5:30pm.)  And this leaves little room for error.  Anything longer than 50nm and it’s smarter to leave in the evening and arrive at our destination the following morning with full light.  That also gives us lots of time to check in with customs & immigration, which can often be a long process.
Our passage to Grand Cayman was uneventful with super light winds and small waves.  Really more of a motor than a sail, but a peaceful night.  We arrived at the entrance to North Sound at about 9am.  With a visual inspection we realized that the waypoint our cruising guide had given us for the tricky entrance channel through the reef was clearly wrong.  There was no line of entrance buoys anywhere near the coordinates we had punched into our nav software.  Good thing it wasn’t dark! 

We radioed Port Security to inform them that we were there, only to find out that they required us to sail around to Georgetown, on the west side of the island, to check in with customs (yet again).  This was a 2 1/2 hour sail past where we wanted to be.  We had read that Customs would come to the boat in North Sound, but arguing with Port Security on the radio didn’t seem like a battle we were going to win.  So we continued west around the point and headed south dodging dive boats, fishing boats, snorkel boats, parasailors, and underwater viewing submarines.  We got a beautiful view of 7 mile beach with it’s line of resort hotels. 

The Disney Wonder was in at Georgetown.

We were aimed at the main Georgetown dock off which a huge Disney cruise ship was anchored.  We radioed in as we approached.  There was so much action we didn’t have a clue where we were to go.  The Port Authority kindly sent out a pilot boat to lead us in.  We docked and only took 10 minutes to complete all the paper work (identical to the forms we had completed twice in the last two days in Cayman Brac).  The customs guys were very friendly.  They recommended we grab one of their mooring balls in the harbour and invited us to stay as long as we wanted.  We were exhausted after sailing overnight, so we decided to grab the ball, take a nap and then do a little exploring in the town. 

A pilot boat took us into the concrete customs dock.

Glad to be ashore again!  Sting ray fountain in Georgetown.

The West Bay harbour area is where all the cruise ships come in.  All the stores within a 6 block radius cater to the cruise ship clientele – duty free diamonds, jewellery, watches, t-shirts, and souvenirs.  It was eye-candy for us as we haven’t seen 1st world shopping in 4 months.  The main attractions were real coffee shops (Chai tea latte – yum!)  and a Dairy Queen!  Yes,  I admit, it’s all about the food for me!  There was also a Digicel store so Scot and I picked up Cayman sim cards for our unlocked phones.

This is the spot for tourists to get their money out and buy some Rolexes...

...or Swarovski jewellery.

We were pretty happy just to buy some DQ treats!

Before heading back to the boat, while we still had WiFi, we skyped our great friends who were enjoying the – 20 degree weather at Sun Peaks on our annual family ski trip.  So great to talk to you guys and see all your smiling faces!  I could tell that all the personalities were the same by who wanted to be front and centre in the camera (you know who I’m talking about).  Selfishly, I confess I’m a bit glad that you weren’t out tearing up a foot of new powder snow.

Vancouver did killer whale street art, Calgary did cows, Toronto did moose, and Georgetown did iguanas.  These statues are everywhere.  Some are really great.

By the way, unlocked phones are definitely the way to go if you are planning to travel in the Caribbean.  They have allowed us to have pretty reasonable communication in the Bahamas, Jamaica, and now the Caymans.  Everywhere except Cuba.  Jamaica was super cheap – $10 card for 600 minutes of international calls.  Calls from Grand Cayman are as low as 25cents/minute on evenings and weekends.  Of course skype is the cheapest way to call but we don’t always have good internet.

The following morning we headed back to North Sound.  North Sound is a huge bay.  It is 7 nautical miles from the entrance channel down to the south end.  The bay is very shallow – mostly 7 to 10 feet deep with several pockets of 4 feet, so navigation is tricky.  We finally found the proper entrance channel and snuck in through the reef with 9 feet under our boat.  (If you are going, you can find great instructions for the deepest approach into North Sound here.  This is what we used, and the waypoints are all perfect). 

On the morning we left the west side of the island, 4 cruise ships came in, and apparently a fifth was on the way.  We were glad to get our of their way.

We passed Sting Ray City, a shallow area where the sting rays congregate and all the tourists go to feed them.   We had reserved a spot at a marina, Barcadere, as we are hoping to get some work done on the boat.  The marina is very nice.  Only a year old, with a swimming pool for the kids and a great restaurant.  And most importantly, they have a huge marine store and boatyard attached to the marina.  Ironically, the marina is actually located on the east side of Georgetown just across a narrow part of the island from the West Bay  Harbour where we checked in.  From the marina it’s about a 1/2 hour walk back across the island to the Harbour.  Too bad it took us 3 hours to get the boat all the way around.  At least we know where to find the DQ!