Sail on Sail Pending

“Bioluminescence is the production and emission of light by a living organism. It is a form of chemiluminescence. Bioluminescence occurs widely in marine vertebrates and invertebrates, as well as in some fungi, microorganisms including some bioluminescent bacteria and terrestrial invertebrates such as fireflies.”-http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bioluminescence

One of the main reasons we sailed to Vieques was to experience the Bioluminescence Bay on the South side of the Island. The bay is unique because the Bioluminescence Plankton get trapped in the bay and can not get out. There are 750,000 of these bright Plankton per gallon of water. Imagine several thousand fireflies in a gallon container….. NOW, imagine that glow in water!!! 

We used Abe’s BioBay tours and couldn’t recommend a better tour.

The Bio Bay in Vieques is the brightest Bio Bay in the world because of the Red Mangroves that grow along the outside of the bay. The Mangroves drop their leaves which decompose in the water and this creates a very high concentrate of Vitamin B-12 which allows the plankton to reproduce and thrive.

Disclosure: I did not take the following pictures. We do not have a waterproof camera that has a special shutter feature. SO, I found pictures on the internet that best portrayed what we saw.

The Bay glows every night, but several things will make the bay brighter;

1.) A full day of sunlight

2.) No Wind

3.) No moon at night

4.) No Recent Rain.

We had all 4 of these and they guides told us that they were expecting the Bay to be spectacular!  Just as we were riding in the van to the Bay it stated to drizzle and more than half of the tour group left because they didn’t want to get wet.

As we got into our kayaks and headed out across the Bay the sky let loose and it was a downright downpour with some of the biggest raindrops that we have ever seen.

Every raindrop that hit the water made the water glow!! Even the tour guides that do this tour every night were hooting and hollering. They were even amazed with what they saw. The entire Bay glowed with sparkles and it was one of the most amazing experiences that any of us ever witnessed!!! Every single one of us on the tour were soaking wet, but we didn’t feel a thing with the amazing phenomena happening around us. We all just floated there clapping and cheering and then the rain stopped and the bay was dark again except for what we were disturbing in the water around us….. A few minutes later it happened again, but this time we could see the line of glowing rain drops moving towards us from one side of the Bay to the other; not only did we witness this rear occurrence once, but twice!!!

We paddled and floated around the Bay for about an hour watching the fish disturb the plankton as they glowed underneath of us. As we took a handful of water and poured it back into the bay every drop glowed. Anything that touched or disturbed the water underneath us glowed.

If you ever get to visit Vieques, DO NOT miss taking a tour of the Bio Bay. I have witnessed a lot of really unique experiences in my life, but this ranks up as one of the coolest things I have ever seen.

After a long day of traveling and provisioning on Tuesday, we woke up before sunrise on Wednesday morning to get an early start for our sail to Vieques.

We were only a few miles from St. Thomas for the sunrise.

Even though 3 of the 6 crew members got a little seasick and lost their breakfast overboard after our first tack; it was a pretty uneventful and relaxing sail to Vieques.

Tyler and Rich plotting our location every hour on the chart.

Tyler likes to sail the waves

He also fell asleep looking over the edge. He was not one of the crew members that got sick.

After a 6 hour sail……Land Ho!!!!

Sail Pending moored in Puerto Real

The main town is Esperenza and it has a beautiful beach front walkway with little bars and restaurants.

After lunch we explored with the dingy and towed the kids in the kayak.

Looks Like this sailboat entered the wrong way… Whoops!!

We dingied over to beautiful cove that we spotted as we were heading into Puerto Real.

Kids had fun finding coconuts and trying to get them opened to drink the coconut juice.

                Dining Room Before                                     Dining Room After

We have been thinking about selling our home for the past few months and we have been painting, cleaning, packing and purging. Purging is actually one of my favorite things to do. I hate having items around the house that aren’t being used for some thing. I don’t like knick knacks that I have to dust around.

Here are the before and after pictures of our dining room. We painted the room a more neutral color and added a chair rail and crown molding.

Since we are going to be in the islands for 10 days, we are also going to get the our hardwood floors refinished while we are away. We had to remove all of our furniture from the first floor before we left. The House looks so empty.

Since we have decided that there is “no better time than the present” to follow our dreams, we now have to shrink our lives from a 4000+ square foot home on over 2 1/2 acres, onto a boat with less than 400 square feet. Luckily, I am a purger and I don’t like having things around that are not being used and it really stresses me out to have 2 of something, if I only need one….. SO, how the heck did we accumulate all this stuff?

Currently, I am sorting items into 2 piles:

Donation Pile                                                                  Throw away pile

We are going to store some items for when we return, so we do not return to a completely empty house and have to buy everything new. We are going to store a couple couches, 2 beds, a couple of TV’s and our dining room furniture. Rich also wants to keep his truck, his Cobra kit car and Kaycie’s VW, so we have a couple vehicles when we get back.

The hardest part is figuring out what to do with my shot glass collection. Yes, I am a purger, but I have collected shot glasses from everyplace I have traveled to since I was 18. Do I break my shot glass collection addiction now…..OR, Do I store them and keep collecting shot glasses while we are on our journey?

Late yesterday afternoon the electric went out in our neighborhood and several surrounding neighborhoods.

We went into “boat mode” …. As the sun went down, we lit a few candles (BTW, we never have candles on the boat only flashlights) and played board games until we were tired enough to go to sleep. No TV, NO Wifi, No iPads…. We sat at our dining room table and talked to each other, played games and laughed.

The dishes from dinner stayed unwashed in the sink and we treated the toilet as we would in the islands we love to visit.

When we loose Electricity, which is a First World problem to most people; reminds us of the Third World Countries we love!!!

Our plan is to take about 14-18 months and travel along the Leeward and Windward Island Chain from Puerto Rico to S. America. We are planning on leaving soon after this Hurricane Season 2015 and get South of 5 degrees Latitude before June 15th, 2016.

Early November 2016, we will work our way back North and get back to St. Thomas sometime in January 2017.

These islands are relatively easy to Navigate and the weather patterns are pretty predictable. These islands were formed from Volcanos along the Caribbean Plate. There is still an active Volcano on the island of Montserrat and an active underwater Volcano near Granada.

Since these Islands are along an active fault line so there are small Earthquakes almost everyday, but most aren’t even felt.

Each Island is very different and has its own personality. Some islands are independant countries, such as Trinidad and Tobago. Others, like the British Virgin Islands, Montserrat and Anguilla are British. Saint Martin is one island, but spelled 2 different ways depending upon which side you are on. St.Martin is for the French side; St.Maartin is the Dutch side. St. Barts (Barthelemy) is known as the Mediterranean of the Caribbean because of the large yachts that are constantly parked in its harbor. St. Kitts is known as the island of Monkeys.

Every island is a picture perfect paradise just waiting to be hiked, snorkeled and explored!!!