First Cruising Season In The Books

Despite all the mishaps and mess-ups, we have successfully completed our first cruising season and made it where we are supposed to be: Grenada!

Grenada or the ABCs were our options to end this season because insurance requires us to be below a certain latitude for hurricane season. This meant we needed to be below 12.4 latitude by July 1st.

After meeting so many other cruisers who raved about Grenada, we decided to go there a few months ago.

Considering we left Florida on February 2nd, that’s why we’ve been racing down the islands! 5 months is not enough time to explore the entire Caribbean!

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Cruising The Spanish Virgin Islands

The Spanish Virgin Islands are located off the east coast of Puerto Rico, on the way to the Virgin Islands. We spent a few days cruising the Spanish Virgin Islands, and wish we’d had more time! This stopover en route to the US Virgin Islands got us back in the “island time” groove of slow relaxed living.

Spanish Virign Islands map
Spanish VIrgin Islands – east of Puerto Rico, Vieques to the South, Culebra North and Culebrita east of Culebra

Vieques

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A Guest On Board Sava

Recently our friend Traci joined us as a guest on board Sava for her first time on a sailboat. We broke her in with a tough trip! Her sovereign sail was one of the region’s most notorious crossings: The Mona Passage.

In addition to sailing from Dominican Republic to Puerto Rico, Traci continued with us between ports and over land.

For someone who had never been on a boat, to go through what she did, Traci was a trooper. She got sick and didn’t complain, and helped any way she could, even bringing up the anchor on her own by the end of the week.

We have new guests joining us today, and hope more of you spend time on Sava. Find out what Traci thought of her new experience and her recommendations to those planning to be a guest on board Sava, or any boat!

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What’s Broken On Sava

You may be under the illusion that everything works fine onboard Sava. Not true. While our autopilot is still going strong, a lot of other boat parts don’t work. Below, a comprehensive accounting of what’s broken on Sava, and some things that broke and got fixed.

Also, I am not a handy person so my explanations are very basic because that’s my level of understanding. Thankfully Brian is at a much higher level than me. If he wasn’t so handy, we wouldn’t have made it out of Florida. Brian also recommends a good resource for these jobs, the Boatowners Mechanical and Electrical Manual.

Freezer

We thought we got this fixed after the engine debacle, but this freezer is finicky. A couple of times we noticed it was off and we are now very vigilant about ensuring the freezer is plugged in. We also keep the vents clean – got to get rid of the cat hair.

Yet still the temperature regularly creeps above freezing. This is understandable when we haven’t been under power or it’s cloudy, but we don’t know why the freezer doesn’t work when the solar charge is full and we run the engine.

This freezer is driving me crazy. I obsessively check the temperature, which is not easy to do. Because the freezer is strapped into our salon sofa, we have to peek under the table to see the power and temperature indicators.

freezer
A view under the salon table of our freezer indicators
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What You Should Eat in Puerto Rico

The Puerto Ricans know how to eat! We have been exploring this island and enjoying the wide variety of food and drink on offer here. Another in my series of travel food guides, here are some of our favorites so you know what you should eat in Puerto Rico.

Mofongo

If this isn’t the national dish of Puerto Rico, it should be. Mofongo is on almost every menu and there are so many varieties of it, it’s like the Puerto Rican version of poutine.

mofongo is a must eat in Puerto Rico
Mofongo
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