June 2011
4 posts
The last trip and arriving home
We are now all back in England!!!
We had an amazing trip home from the Azores - about a 9 and a half day trip. It was great fun having the boys on board and I think they enjoyed it too. Well I know Andy definitely did as he is possibly the most consistently cheery person that exists. Who else would reply to “Andy it’s 2am, time to get up” with “fantastic!” - and not...
Jilli
Well its Jills here, I haven’t been the most regular contributor to the Triple D blog but this will be my last updateL
I fly home today, and its very sad. Up until a couple of days ago I was all excited to be headed home but now… now I don’t even want to go! It’s just the idea that this year is over, and i have to go home to the cold and work and grey etc.
Right now I’ve been remembering the...
Exploring Faial
A lot of the sailors here might not know it, but Horta marina is actually on an island called Faial. So yesterday we rented a car and set out to explore the island. Turns out Faial is actually a tiny island, and we drove from one end to the other, with detours (to get beautiful views of the ocean, as if we hadn’t seen enough of it) in less than 45 minutes. Slightly different from the 8 hour...
May 2011
10 posts
The Azores!!
Well we made it across the Atlantic for a second time. Europe greeted us with grey skies, rain, freezing cold temperatures, and (strangely) mosquitos. Having put anchor down at 00.30 and crawled into bed for my first night of unbroken, still sleep, I heard that familiar whining, but was too exhausted to do anything about it so comforted myself with the thought that I was wearing so many thermals...
Another Ocean Trip!!
Well we are off tomorrow for the Azores. The forecast is not great as it is for very light winds most of the way across so we are buying more canisters so we can carry 100 litres more of fuel (550 overall) - but it is not due to change for over a week and at least there is nothing nasty coming.
There was a chance that Jilli could jump ship in Bermuda but the crew in question only arrived...
Triple D + 1 extra does Bermuda!
Hello! I thought i’d give the Darling girls a break and do a little Bermuda blog for them. I have been staying aboard Triple D for 1 week on the beautiful island of Bermuda. There is SO much I could write about but today is my last day here so I want to get out to enjoy the sunshine!!
Upon my arrival Triple D was out of the water at the naval dockyards having some maintenance work...
Bermuda!
Well we have been in Bermuda for over a week now, and at first were so shocked by how COLD it was! I wore jeans and a hoody, and a coat the first day. Although I looked at the weather forecast and it was for 20 degrees so I think I was overreacting slightly.
The day after we arrived we sailed from St. George’s to Naval Dockyard, at the other end of the island. As we left the anchorage,...
WEIGHT LOSS PROGRAM
I am posting this from lovely Bermuda Monday 2nd May.
We left Provo last Monday and arrived here just before midnight on Saturday. The wind was forecast to be 15-20knots east then swinging round to the south. Well it was more 20 knots all the way except for the last day and mainly out of the east. There were really big seas and the wind was in front of beam all the way. This made for a very rough...
April 2011
18 posts
Bermuda!
We are leaving for Bermuda this morning! We will be uploading daily logs and position reports to http://blog.mailasail.com/tripled and you can email us at tripled@mailasail.com
It should take us about six days but be quite a windy crossing - so don’t worry Shelly, we will definitely be there waiting for you!
North and Middle Caicos
On Tuesday 19th, we woke up very early in the morning to catch a ferry over to North Caicos. We weren’t able to take our boat over as it is extremely shallow and there are no safe anchorages, sadly. The ferry journey takes you past several small cays to end up at North, where we had rented a car. The car hire men weren’t the sharpest tools in the box - after we’d waited around...
Provo
We were anchored just off Turtle Cove Marina so after a rather rolly night we decided to dinghy ashore to check out the marina and go to the supermarket.
The marina was certainly very protected, but also very expensive. Although it had a cheap base rate, they charged a minimum of $15 for electricity and $5 for water PER NIGHT!!! We never use water due to our watermaker, and wouldn’t use $15...
Sapodillo Bay, Provo
So we arrived in Sapodillo Bay and Jilli started cooking us a chilli. The sun was just setting over Caicos bank, and the mince had just been browned when our gas ran out. We had only filled up less than two weeks ago, but it had leaked… So here we were in a new place, no restaurants nearby, with a half-cooked dinner. No salad left, no bread, nothing to eat that didn’t need cooked. We...
Arriving in the Turks & Caicos
Sorry about the lack of updates but we have had limited internet access for the past few days!!
The day after Jilli and Mum got back from their epic drive you might think they would want a rest…. not this family!! We were all up early and off to the supermarket to do our stocking up on non-perishable foods as the D.R. was much cheaper than the Turks and Caicos, or Bahamas would be. It...
Road trip!
JILLS here!
And so, after having Michael out for a lovely two weeks it was time to send him home, the only trouble being that we’d done a far distance in the boat and now had to back track this to get back to Punta Cana airport. We we given mixed ideas, only two to three hours, impossible by car, stay overnight, ten hours etc etc. After researching ourselves we decided it would be 5 to 6...
TWENTY SEVEN WATERFALLS
Our big trip in the DR was the 27 waterfalls. We were picked up with 2 other couples first thing in the morning and driven into the mountains. Once there we were given life jackets and helmets. we had 3 guides for the 8 of us. we then climbed up a river valley or gorge with the help of the guides pulling us and pushing us. After about 1 hour we had reached the top and now we had to jump down...
Oceanworld
Well after a very pleasant night sail motor we arrived at this huge EMPTY marina which has a huge Vegas style casino overlooking it. The wind was blowing at 20 knots by this time and the entrance to the marina was very narrow with waves breaking over it,but we managed to get in safley and were directed to go alongside at the fuel berth. Once again the boat was met by customs immigration,drugs...
Samana
As mum said, Samana was another story…. a mixture of good impressions and bad!!
We had a lovely sail from Punta Cana to Samana. As the bay is famous for being a breeding ground for humpback whales from January to the beginning of March we kept our eyes peeled and kept having calls of “there’s a whale!!” only for it to be a boat, a big wave, anything other than a whale..
...
HOW TO STAY IN A 5 STAR HOTEL FOR $7 A NIGHT
Having had a great time in Puerto Rico we were hoping the DR would turn out as good. First impressions were excellent. We arrived at a small marina part of a resort complex. The staff were all very friendly and a man on a fishing boat next to us actually dived into the water to help us tie up. You can probably guess the answer to the above Stay on a boat. We had to pay $28 a night marina fees and...
March 2011
17 posts
Our last few days in Puerto Rico
La Parguera:
The calmest (and shallowest, at 0.9m) anchorage we’ve had yet. We reached it through a maze of tiny mangrove islands and reefs, until we reached a tiny bay right up by the town. There were numerous houses built out over the water from the mangrove islands and it was extremely beautiful. Here we had another example of Puerto Rican hospitality - a couple motored over to us to...
THE PEOPLE OF PUERTO RICO
Hi its your captain speaking. Its Sunday 27th march and we sailed over to Dominican Rebuplic yesterday. But before we get away from Puerto Rico we felt we had to comment on the generosity of the people.Lots of little things happened there not worth mentioning but when you put them together they paint a picture of a really friendly and helpful population.
1 The customs man in Culebra was so nice...
Spanish Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico
Well its been a while since we’ve done a blog - lack of good internet connections and we have just been too busy! Since the last blog we have travelled about 100 miles west and are now in Ponce, Puerto Rico (pronounced Poncey!)
Our skipper, Vince, sailed the boat over from the BVIs to St. Johns. An American, he loved that we offered him a cup of tea, and decided he would much rather drink...
the BVIs!
I flew back from grey, drizzly London into paradise - although to be honest it was a miracle I made it to England and back again in the first place! On my way home, LIAT (Caribbean airline) messed up my flight to Barbados, so I ended up having a ten hour wait in Guadeloupe airport and missing my original flight. Thank god, BA sorted everything out and ended up getting me on a different flight home...
February 2011
6 posts
Adventured of Double D.
On Saturday, Triple D left St Barts, they put me on a long rope and i was towed along behind at quite some pace as they had the engine on.
On arrival at the Dutch side of Sint Maarten I was boarded by the 2 sailors and taken to customs, i did a good job starting about 4th time, after that i was taken under a bridge which was exciting as I hadnt done that before, luckily being only a tender i dont...
