OK everybody is giving me a hard time because I left ya'll hanging as of the the last posting. As I said we are in Puerto Rico and leaving the D.R. was a great sail over except until 0700 hrs. That's when I went down below for bacon & eggs. Good breakfast. Just as I was finishing Karen yelled at me that the water was getting shallow, I ran up top and before I could slow the boat down we were on a hard rock reef. Now I draw 6' 6" of water and the depth sounder said I was in 3'. Guess what that ain't enough. I called May Day and the San Juan Coast Guard came on and ask what the problem was I explained and ask for a commercial towing co. to assist. After about 6 hours wait and a whole bunch of pounding they showed up and started appraising the crime scene.I say crime scene because of the reef damage, so far nothing has been said but who knows. Anyway about 2 hours later we are off the reef and on our way to the shipyard. Oh I forgot and $ 6000.00 latter. Well a day later they pulled us out of water to see what damage we had. When the boat cleared the water everybody that had anything to do with the salvage was there and the all made the sign of the cross and said gracious Dios. No one could believe that a boat could that kind of a pounding and that kind of a procedure getting it off of a reef and it still had a keel under it. Well I going to show y'all the photos and you can judge yourself. We are having a new rudder made and a new bottom job preformed and that it. I know I forgot to mention that the reason we went on the reef was because the chain broke on the steering and when that happened the Auto Pilot also bent sideways and caused all this but that's another story for later,MAYBE. So as you can see there is no damage to the bottom and we will be back in the water Monday,but I will be in Brazil. That's right no more on the blog until I get back.See y'all down the road.
Mike & Karen,
Oh yeah Puerto Rico is great.

Well we didn't stay in the D.R. long but we did enjoy. This is a new marina on the north side about 10 miles from Luperon and a couple of mikes from Porto Plata called Ocean World. I guess if you are looking for a easy place to check in this would be the easiest place we have found.The navy comes to the boat and checks you in and you walk up to the main marina and there is customs and immigrations right there. It was 23.00 and 20.00 to leave NO Bribes.

They have a Casino water park restaurants liquor stores and Vegas still shows. Just damn near anything you can want. Just down the road with in walking distance are plenty of places to eat & drink on the cheap, if you are like me. The little guy is Cris and his food is good. He's from Canada and very friendly. We made it to Samana and waited for 1 day for weather and left. I really hated to leave because I found a little open air cantina with 50 Peso Bohemia beer in the 32 oz. bottle. There is not a finer beer made and that is the only place you can get it.

We had a good crossing of the Mona Passage it was almost slick calm. Everything went fine until 0700 hrs. the next morning but I'll save that for the next posting in a few days. Having fun in Puerto Rico in Little fishing village called Cobo Rojo.

See ya'll down the road Mike & Karen

Alright for the last 3 days we have been at Southside Marina in Provo. The view is from the top of the drive coming into the marina. In the first photo thats John and his mate and I can't remember her name but John is from Holand and she is from somewhere else.For you who know me you know I can't remeber s@#$ and especially names. The second photo is Bill and Bob, Bill is on a sail boat and Bob is on a trawler. Bill heading home and Bob is staying in Provo for a while. Next you come to 2 of the nicest people you will ever run into running a marina. I was looking for fuel when we got here and Simon anwsered my radio call for a marina and fuel. When he ask how much water I draw he said wait until tomorrow for high tide. When I arrived at his waypoint he was waiting for us in his RIB and led me in. After we signed in and got settled Simon told us if we needed to go anywhere just let him know and he would carry us anywhere. It is so refreshing to find to people who will more or less bend over backwards for someone and not expect anything in return except that you enjoy your stay with them. Well our stay ends in the morning at about 0800 hrs. and we are off to P.R. One of these days we hope to run into Simon & Charlyn again. See ya'll down road.
Mike & Karen

Hello everyone, we just landed in Provo. Provo is one of the Turks and Caicos Islands and the end of the Bahamas. Thank someone! We have 2 more open ocean crossings left and hope like hell they are not as rough as the last 3. We have had nothing but 8 to 10 ft. seas in the Atlantic with 20 to 25 knot wind on the nose all the time.I should not be surprised because the Windex on the top of my mast always points forward.This is the first time we have touched dry land in 10 days except for a 15 min. break to feed the lizards on Allen'Cay. The iguana you see in the photo was the largest one that showed up and he took a chunk out of my finger along with the damn lettuce. This fellow jumped about 2 ft. to get to my finger and surprised me. The other 2 photos are of Fantasy Island in Nassau, we spent 3 hrs. on anchor before we continued on the way. I would not recommend this way to get down south. If I had more than 25 days to travel we would take our time and see all the islands that we missed the first time through in 02.
We pulled in to Southside Marina yesterday morning to get some grocery's and do a couple of minor repairs. I lost our freezer to some errant saltwater that seemed to find it's way to all the electronic parts that make it run so, overboard all our frozen food and now nothing but fresh, but isn't fresh better for you. Well I'll post again in about 5 or 6 days when we get to Puerto Rico.
See ya'll down the road.
Mike & Karen